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Post by diemex on Jan 23, 2009 20:41:40 GMT
I have a few questions regarding roleplaying mechanics.
1. How do you handle ability scores and alignments ? For example if your human has 8 charisma and 18 Intelligence how do you let others know that you are 'ugly' as a festering kobold ? And for alignments... well thats personal choice and people really shouldnt "know" your alignment. They can guess by your mannerisms and deeds but is there any method for others to KNOW, ie: in PnP you could cast a spell "Know Alignment" or "Detect Good/Evil" Is there any spells like this on HG ? I dont play casters so I dont really know myself.
2. Logging out. So when the children are begging "Daddy please feed us..." and you absolutely have to log off right in the midst of chasing down grimy kobolds in the hills... how do you break it to the party and play it out ? Or do you just assume that this is one of those things that cannot be RP'ed and you send OOC tell to lead of party that you have to bail ?
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Post by the1kobra on Jan 23, 2009 20:53:00 GMT
1. How do you handle ability scores and alignments ? For example if your human has 8 charisma and 18 Intelligence how do you let others know that you are 'ugly' as a festering kobold ? Ehh ehh ehhmm..... Well, as far as this goes, I would guess that Paladins could just say *detect evil*, though it's up to the other player to respond in that sense. I don't think such a mechanic would really be beneficial even if detected. Plus, alignment isn't supposed to be an all encompassing description of a character's behavior, and I would think it would be more important to 'get to know' other characters rather than 'you're good, now you must behave in this fashion'.... etc. For the times that I've had this happen, RPing on an unstable wireless connection, I just type an OOC apology, explain the situation,... and then resume play. If you have to go, just say so, though if you can come up with some last moment excuse to bail... then go for it. I suppose the 'ooh, a shiny rock, lets see what happens if I rub it'... and it turns out to be a TP gem, but I guess that one can get old and would only work sensibly for characters with little common sense. But really, people should understand real life emergencies, it's a similar issue for those who would have to bail in the middle of a deep run, regrettable, but entirely understandable, and I'm sure that good RPers can improvise enough to come up with a semi-plausible explanation.
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Post by diemex on Jan 23, 2009 22:05:29 GMT
Well, as far as this goes, I would guess that Paladins could just say *detect evil*, though it's up to the other player to respond in that sense. I don't think such a mechanic would really be beneficial even if detected. Plus, alignment isn't supposed to be an all encompassing description of a character's behavior, and I would think it would be more important to 'get to know' other characters rather than 'you're good, now you must behave in this fashion'.... etc. I wasnt thinking of using alignment as a policing feature. "Hey you're good... you cant go killing *insert good mob here*" But more as an RP tool. ie: Evil detected, So you know someone in the party now has evil tendacies or has possibly commited crimes against humanity/nature in the past. So you would less likely to work with this individual and when you did... you would be cautious and not be completely trusting. I think it would be a great feature if detect good/evil were HAKed in so that when the ability is used the character in question would have an aura or "?" above their head with two distinct colors... one representing evil and the other good. The only use this would have would be to govern how you react and speak or work with individuals in your party.
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Post by redbeard on Jan 24, 2009 0:15:17 GMT
One of the earlier versions of D&D had a detect evil or know alignment spell. Use of it on an NPC was considered a semi-hostile act. He wouldn't necessarily attack, but you would get a big reputation hit and he wouldn't like you. I would expect much the same thing in an RP server. Use of that spell shows distrust and if I'm not trusted, I'm probably not going to trust you.
I would encourage not pushing that button too hard. With only a few people on the RP server at a time, if you refuse to party with someone of a different alignment, you'll often find yourself a party of one.
How do you indicate a bad Charisma? You can do emotes: *Scratches her head, pulls out a bug and eats it.* *Grabs you by the collar, lifts you up and gives you the full benefit of his bad breath while yelling* (Insert loud comment)
Part of charisma is also how you act. You can display a lousy charisma by being obnoxious. Loud mouthed, a bore, talking over everybody never talking out loud. Just tone it down when it starts annoying the other players (not characters) and they send you an OOC tell.
I'd have a real hard time displaying a 18 int because my int isn't that high.
Unfortunately RL trumps RP. If you've got time and are safe, have your character excuse himself IC and give the players an OOC good night/excuse. If you're in the middle of a run, give a short OOC explanation and log out. If you have time in the middle of a dangerous run, you may want to teleport back to town and let everybody else escape what would be death without you.
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Post by Test on Nov 20, 2009 0:45:01 GMT
Most RP servers have Detect Evil widgets for Pallis and Detect Good for BG after X class levels. These work really well and can allow for a lot of interesting RP.
One of the skills in RP is obviously making sure you only react to that which the PC knows, not what you know. Past the good evil stuff the usual gripe along those lines is people knowing names - which is why some folks such as Virusman spent a lot of time working on workarounds via NWNX to hide character names.
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