An issue with the rules or a leap of faith?

Community Larp discussion
#21

Adam,

Not just today, not just yesterday, but over a long period of using the forum you have continued to insult people with personal attacks. Time and time again, people have asked privately and publicly for you to lift your game. You haven’t.

You have reduced people to tears. Good, friendly, hard working people.

After a number of people were upset (not just by you) I volunteered to the nzlarps committee to discourage the more insulting types of posts. Other people had better things to do. They accepted my offer. I’m officially The Bad Cop.

I am not going to waste my evening copying and pasting examples of where you’ve insulted people and analyzing them. You’re an intelligent grown adult, you should be able to figure this out for yourself.

I have banned the account Xerces for a month. I hope this is the only time I ever have to do this.

Yes you can create a new account, because we have nice friendly permissions on diatribe to encourage new members to join and post. Yes I could block your IP address, but I didn’t want to in case Zara wanted to use your computer and I didn’t think it was fair to her to do that. And, yes, I’m sure you can get around the IP block, because that’s not hard. But I’d encourage you not to.

Sincerely,

Derek

#22

OK, I’m not sure that this is worth going into, but I’ll have a go.

You are a tall and solidly built man.

You can be entertaining to roleplay with.

You came from England.

You have been roleplaying for some years.

You like arguing about rules systems.

You often make adversarial posts in these forums.

When people use words like troll and rules lawyer, I’m pretty sure they’re referring to those last two aspects. And the thing is, that stuff isn’t about what you are, it’s about what you choose to do. I know II don’t make personal judgements about you based on those first four aspects - the things that you are, and I don’t think anybody else does. And yeah, it’s frustrating having a bad reputation, but if it’s based on things that you choose to do, then that’s something you can control. You can choose not to do that stuff, and over a bunch of small encounters you’ll find that people’s opinions will change. It’ll take some time and probably be frustrating as well - but your reputation wasn’t an overnight thing, that was formed from a bunch of small encounters, too.

Talk to you in a month,

Stephanie

#23

I’m sorry for indirectly calling people rules lawyers. It has been my experience as a player and a GM which has led to me having formed these opinions. And I add emphasis to opinions because they are my personal thoughts.

I had used the term indirectly in a tactic to discourage those who do this and show my dislike of this kind of gameplay without actually naming and shaming, which I see as less constructive.

In hindsight, I should have said nothing at all. So sorry, to everyone for exposing you to this less than helpful discussion.

Just so we’re clear, heres my personal definition of terms:

Rules lawyer - one who interprets rules in a game to best suit their characters and to better their advantage and position within a game system. This is seen as contrary to the spirit of the game. Sometimes also referred to as Muchkins.

Troll - someone who makes inflammatory comments on a forum. Nothing to do with the physical person at all.

Lastly, personal and sincere apolgies to Dylan and Adam. I should have been more open and honest in my posts. I also apologise for any insult felt and hurt inflicted.

#24

actually what you define as a Troll is a ‘Flamer’

A troll posts deliberately provoking (often negative) comments to elict an expected response from the intended reader.

#25

[quote=“Zara”]actually what you define as a Troll is a ‘Flamer’

A troll posts deliberately provoking (often negative) comments to elict an expected response from the intended reader.[/quote]

I’m happy to be corrected on that, its a much better definition than mine, though one could argue the difference between them is not huge. The point is, a Troll is a troll because of their actions (on a forum for instance) and not for any physical attribute.

#26

Hi Adam,
I apologise if what I said was insulting. That was not my intent, I had spent a bit of time composing my post to state my personal opinion - if I wanted to insult you it would have been couched in much more direct terms :wink:

In my 25 years experience of roleplaying I have come across a wide range players, whose attitudes towards rules (and not roleplaying) runs the gamut from the Lawyer type end, through Best Dramatic Effect - where rules are sometimes fudged, through to anarchist, where the rules don’t apply to them. In my group of roleplayers the term rules lawyers is merely a descriptive term, and not meant to be derogatory. It would seem in different groups/roleplaying cultures, this may not always be the case, which I will remember in future.

On Friday evening, I had written a further reply, but in the time it took me to compose it, the discussion had moved on, and so I thought it no longer appropriate, so I did not post it. In hindsight, this may not have been for the best. As we have only met at larping events, I do not presume to know you as a person, and similarly, you cannot know me as a person.

I also apologise for posting in this specific topic, when the impressions had been building up over quite a few days in various Teonn topics. I was concerned by the overall impression that newcomers could be taking from all the discussion about rules, and thinking about how things posted on the internet never go away. I guess that backfired. :blush:

Regards,
Hannah

#27

At the request of the Teonn GMs, I have moved this topic out of the Teonn forum.

The concern discussed is a general one that is relevant to any larp where characters can start with some wealth, and where wealth accumulated at one event can be taken to another.

Ryan

#28

Ignoring all the personal attacks, and getting back to what this discussion started as, it seems Adam has pointed out an interesting issue. Indeed, it applies in any case where a player dies and others want to take his/her gear. Usually this wont be the intention, but Adam pointed out a case where that may be the aim, and that it may unbalance things significantly. There seems to be a few approaches that could deal with situations like these that might arise:

  1. Change the rules to prohibit this. However, sometimes this runs the risk of making the rules more complicated than they need to be, and affecting others who are not trying to min-max their income etc

  2. Don’t allow characters who are obviously intended to last only a few hours and be replaced quickly at the benefit of other characters stats and at the detriment to role playing. However, this is likely to happen anyway, and there may be some that are hard to spot.

  3. Respond appropriately in game to remove this bonus. Perhaps the elven noble owed massive debts, and the debt collector comes and harasses the friends. Or better yet, his/her family come and try and hold people accountable for the death of the person. However, this approach could risk creating negative feelings from any players involved, which is not ideal.

  4. Provide an appropriate challenge in which said resources become useful but ultimately get used up. Maybe one of those who benefit from the deceased nobles wealth get arrested for his/her death, and have to pay bail to get out.

These are just ideas off the top of my head, but they are of two kinds: resolved OOC, and resolved IC. Both can be done well, and both can be done poorly. My personal opinion on the case at hand is that this is something one can simply not allow into the game. However, it may happen on a lesser scale, where new characters with wealth or noble or elf give others their starting money and then die early on (intentional or not). Rather than making rules against this, a response in game seems more appropriate. However, money will often find ways of getting spent or stolen, and in the grand scheme of things I doubt it will alter the game drastically. It may, however, provide for some nice ongoing plot as NPC’s come to find out what happened to their dead relative/friend etc.

#29

Or

  1. Make it clear that creating characters just to give their wealth away is against the spirit of the game.
#30

Sure (that falls under 2). But what if someone wants to have a wealthy elven noble, with a stash of cash. And then they die. Now there is a stash of cash in game, which other players can loot and be merry with. Now, it seems we want to allow wealthy elven nobles, so creating a rule against that (option 1) is undesirable. There is little difference on appearances between wealthy elven noble and Adams theoretical example. So 2) (and thus 5), is not going to guarantee that this wont happen. Hence I suggest IC responses to this might be more appropriate than OOC ones (on a case by case basis).

With they way you have worded 5), this would then also prohibit a charitable type wealthy elf noble (same build as Adam’s). It seems entirely reasonable to me to have a character to is extensively rich who has decided to come to Cormere and give his/her wealth away to worthy causes. This is the same as someone coming to Cormere as a charitable healer and potions maker who heals the sick for free and provides potions for free. In a sense it also promotes the chance to role play, as the build is inherently based on character interactions.

The build of Adam’s character is not something I have a problem with at all. What I have a problem with is someone making a character with the explicit intention of having said character killed as quickly as possible. For a start, if you want to play that sort of game, you might as well crew. This also results in other players having made acquaintances with the first character, and then have to remake new acquaintances with the same persons second character. If this can be kept to a minimum (unintended character deaths notwithstanding), that is good. But my main reason is that creating character that you intend to kill is somewhat unrealistic (for a heroic campaign - real life may have a slightly higher rate of suicides).

#31

I think the difference is reasonably obvious. One is gaming the system, and the other is using the system to create a reasonable character with unusual aims. We can distinguish these things without having to do so much analysis, one just feels wrong.

#32

I used to care a lot more about this type of thing. But, I don’t as much.

Everybody goes to a larp to enjoy themselves. People enjoy different things. Does it really matter if people enjoy different things? Like gaming the system?

If someone actually enjoys creating characters so their mates can kill them and horde piles of loot and armour, does it really matter?

#33

I guess it messes up the ecosystem and economy of a larp when that kind of thing happens. I know that people do care a lot about balance, justice, equality in games, so I can see how I’d be miffed. Oh, and people get competitive… sucks to go up against someone who is cheating.

#34

The other thing is if 1 or more people do this, and others don’t it can set up situations for the first game or 2 that have an impact, after that they will have used up their resources and as has been said earlier a wealthy noble elf with oooodles of money will probably be noticed if s/he dies.

Then again it’s also up to the GM’s as to what happens. I know that the PC I am thinking of taking to Teon (if I can get a bodyguard retainer) is going to be a rich elf, however if my character dies I will just be joining the NPC’s.

Then again if I can’t find a bodyguard the point is moot and I will be an NPC which means I get to play.

As Derek has said, different people enjoy different things. Personally I prefer LARPS with light combat, I still play in ones that are combat heavy - Wolfgangs for example - and try to have a good time (which usually happens).

One thing I have noticed over all the years I have been Role-playing and GMing (tabletop) is that the players make the game, not just 1 player all of them, the social dynamics that occur between PC’s and sometimes NPC’s is the thing that I think sets role-playing apart from other types of game.

Also for the record I LARP, GM ‘tabletop’ games, do PC gaming, CCG gaming over a number of different games, and participate in a board gaming group, and used to war-game as well. So I have a bit of experience of various gaming cultures, so I would like to say thank you to Derek for handling this tactfully. And hope that when Adam gets back to these forums if he returns that his contributions with be less inflammatory, as the points he tends to make or highlight are normally very good just not expressed in the most user friendly manner.