Equality.

[Norael]

I've had a problem for the longest time, since I've joined.

Equality.

When used to describe what the RP here is all about, it feels restricting, even suffocating. Everyone is equal, no one is better.

As much as people may love the idea of everything being fair, it feels a bit silly when put into practice for RP. Life isn't fair. It's not always out to get you, but it's definitely not going to treat you to a cup of tea every day.

Someone is ultimately stronger, and someone else is ultimately weaker.

This is what leads to the books, stories, movies, and so on that have been made. There's someone stronger, usually the villain, and someone else who is nearly as strong protecting the weak. Or even a group of weaker characters challenging the 'big evil'.

In a world where everything is equal, it's a lot harder to get the villain and the heroes.

No one is stronger than you. You have no reason to actually fear that 'villain' who's challenging you.

No one is stronger than you. You don't have a reason to look up to that person inclined to do heroic things.

As much as we don't want to admit it, a fair amount of our RP is affected by OOC feelings towards certain things. (Or just mine. I could just be the odd one out.) When you know that, that person is equal to your character, no matter whom they may be, you don't really have a reason to fear them, or look up to them. Hero and Villain loses its meaning when there is no powerful villain for the weaker hero to challenge. You can say that the good RPer will know when their character will lose, but how do you know when everyone is equal? It all ends up becoming a matter of who has superior numbers, or gets the lucky high roll in a fight that is entirely random, with absolutely nothing related to the characters affecting the outcome.

Equality is a wonderful ideal in theory. Everyone is treated equally, everyone gets the same things.

In a story-making world, it's not what you want. It limits what you and others are capable of. It smothers out possibilities.


As such, I am likely bowing out once Cataclysm comes.


Rant of the day. Thought I'd share it where others can comment.

[Clovis]

Throughout the course of all the events I've seen, been a part of, and led on CotH, I can say this has never been as big of an issue as you make it out to be.

DMs are always making their big baddies as powerful as the story needs them to be. They're punishing players who try to one man army things. They're giving players MacGuffins and using other story telling techniques to make the big bad powerful, but not so powerful that it becomes impossible for the players to fight them - because if you can't fight the big bad, there isn't a story.

As far as 'equality between players', it's always been a sort of case by case thing. By default, we want players to assume that all Player Characters are on equal footing. But we've never stopped a player from saying their character is weaker than most. We've never stopped a player from accepting negative additions to their stats during DM'd events or combat. And if a player wants to be stronger than someone else, they can - if all other players involved are ok with it.

I just don't see the issue with equality here. Regardless, I'm sorry to hear you're leaving, and I'm sorry that this one small thing is a deal breaker for you and others.

[Xigo]

If you want a powerful villain, make a NPC villain. We won't be enforcing certain PCs being stronger than other PCs again, seeing as that just tends to bring about drama.

And if you want a villain to be stronger than your character, then... don't make such a powerful character. Mr. Warlock's a lot scarier to a peasant girl who's just decided to pick up adventuring, than a seasoned all-three war veteran who's wrestled bears into submission. Be willing to say

"Oh. Well if we're going to have 5 health for this, since my character's inexperienced, I'd like her to only have three health, and take -20s to her rolls"

Or, you know, trust fight that weakness.

Bottom line is that we GMs won't enforce one player character being stronger than another.

[Norael]

And if a player wants to be stronger than someone else, they can - if all other players involved are ok with it.

I have to disagree based on just this little bit here.

You can't just tell someone who is, in fact, stronger than you/has an advantage that you aren't okay with it-- Well, you can. But is that going to stop them in reality?

I understand this is a world of fantasy and magic, but when did the grim reality of someone, somewhere being stronger than you get thrown into the garbage bin?

[Grakor456]

Characters are as equal as you want them to be.

When I first played Thragash, he was some untrained orc that liked to punch things. At best, he was a brute that had a lot of muscle behind him, but it simply came down to the fact that he sucked and he couldn't hold his own against more trained combatants. As a result, he lost a lot of fights. He ended up earning a level of skill through his long character arc, but I still enjoyed that moment enough that I made Surthak with a similar starting point: an apprentice warlock who knows how to immolate things, but little else.

It's up to the players to be responsible and look at the characters involved to make fair judgments on who should win or lose a fight. "Everyone is equal" isn't an absolute chant that we ram down people's throats, it is a compromise to settle disputes when you run into two players who have the opinion that their characters should be on equal footing or both believe that their character should win over the other. When agreement cannot happen, the only fair way to handle the problem is to put the characters on equal footing.

What, then, would be a possible alternative? RP-PvP fights can easily end in e-peen waving and drama when you have two egos and neither want to bend to the other. How would we "rank" players in any way that wouldn't be subjective or prone to claims of favoritism? I have heard this argument before, but I have never heard a viable alternative.

[Xigo]

I think we should have a bit of history here. Prestiges being more powerful than normal characters was never the idea. It was just to give people the opportunity to play different archetypes. Players, however, agreed that prestiges should get bonuses in roll combat. And then that sort of became the norm until we wiped the prestige system in favor of what we currently have.

So if you really want your character to be more powerful than others, you should have them agree with you that you should get bonuses. It's just that there's nothing stopping them from saying 'No, our characters are equal' or 'no, my character should beat yours', which would mean things default back to the equal standing.

[Rigley]

So, here’s my rebuttal.

Not everyone is equal. There is simply an upper limit, and people wish to typically place themselves there.

Not many people play the trainee, or the initiate. Not many people prefer to play the average soldier. To say that everyone is equal is a bit silly to me, as its really a matter of how you roleplay and how the others you roleplay with act out their roles.

If someone makes a farmer? Odds are they –won’t- try and fight a death knight and foresee themselves as being on-level. If someone makes a novice mage, they’d likely be whipped down by a proficient mage. The problem with this to me is that this is less a problem with equality and more one with people preferring to hit that higher tier and remain there. To me allowing radical shifts is worse, because you effectively end up in a character arms race of those who wish to have the biggest and baddest characters. You have people effectively competing to be on top, instead of just staying at (effectively) the top rank.

Not every character is equal; your character is as powerful or less as you desire. The only limitation is on how high that limit of power can be, and if there’s trouble with the cap then its simply a matter of many people wishing to play the great hero. Which, as people have voiced in the past, is what some people play settings like WoW for.


Regarding rolls? Yes, luck is a part of it. Another part of RP though is being able to reason and interact with other players, and whenever I see examples of where roll combat fails it comes with ludicrous examples of gnomes beating tauren in fisticuffs or a farmer slaying a veteran. In the end, rolls aren’t to blame. It’s the people who look at the pairing here and go “Yes, we should leave this to random chance”. It’s the people who don’t wish to actually discuss how a fight should go down, and really I think that’s half the problem at times. In reality most characters entering combat do so thinking they’ll win, OOC and IC. You –don’t- see farmers facing down adept warlocks, you see two characters with a backstory worth of experience going toe to toe.


In the end, I don’t feel that rolls nor the power scale are to blame for anything, just a lack of proper use. If you don’t want to be equal you don’t have to be; but as we believe a limit to power is needed, many people do want to play hero and many people do want to sit on that cap.

[c0rzilla]

...Why is it up to others to make things like this, bring the "interest" you describe in media? To differentiate power? I've chosen to make my characters afraid and "weak". I take advantage of bad rolls to develop and define my characters' skills.

You should try it.

[Clovis]

when did the grim reality of someone being stronger than you get thrown into the garbage bin?

When we stepped into a fantasy setting, silly.

This isn't reality. We're all players here, trying to have fun and tell stories. We don't need to step on each others characters without their consent to do that.

I'm not saying the silly peasant should be able to beat a DK in a fair fight - I am saying freak accidents and deus ex machina's should occur if it's appropriate.

[ChampionMouse]

The whole wanting to be stronger than someone bit got thrown into the garbage when people started making powerful characters just to have powerful characters and make other people miserable.

Rp is about cooperative story telling, not going around and asserting yourself in every situation ever even if you aren't wanted.

[Norael]

I have heard this argument before, but I have never heard a viable alternative.

From what I know, this equal-footing was based upon the actions of players abusing the Prestige system purely for combat bonuses. Instead of having some sort of rule that ends up being misconstrued and stifling out the possibilities of players, why not actually punish those who abused it as such? It feels like, that, in the wake of a few players doing dumb things, you let them affect the whole community.

E-peen waving ends up in being rule breaking on its own. Respect. If someone can't handle a powerful character without rubbing it in the faces of others, they're breaking the golden rule of the server.

How would we "rank" players in any way that wouldn't be subjective or prone to claims of favoritism?

Profiles are a powerful thing. GMs and forum helpers can discuss upon a players request for a character to have a bonus/strength somewhere. Players are capable of reading and commenting too, unless obviously stated against otherwise.

As rude as it may sound for me to say it, it feels like the 'easier' path of dealing with things was taken, instead of striving to offer the best RP for everyone.

I could just be the odd one out again.

[Harmonic]

The idea of there being a cap on power stemmed from many things, most notable the penis waving that'd go on when it came to the idea of "who was stronger". Even with that rule in place, there's a fair bit of machismo with characters on CoTh and how much of a badass factor they have. I've had many discussions about this before, and my opinion has never wavered--- the reason this system works is because it protects people from the random discussions of DBZ power levels when trying to figure out fights, and tosses in the random of luck and the ability to be an underdog.

USUALLY it's not an issue between players who are regularly here, because we've all got that group we are comfortable with. Discussing with someone about possible outcomes of scenarios as well as doing a collaborative effort is what makes RP fun for -everyone-, it's very unfair to dictate something to someone without them having a chance to even compete. This isn't PvP, it's RP, so we aren't playing to win.

It boggles my mind that people put these limitations on themselves and make it seem worse than it actually is. Yes, you can be a strong McManbuff. I don't see why it is that everyone has to get into extreme conflicts all the time when -playing- a strong character. Perhaps, for me, I just don't care? I've had good and strong characters die before to utter wimps, and every time it's been an interesting and funny turn of events.



In the arena, Rensin was killed by a simpleton of an Orc, who bragged to his mother that he killed someone that was somewhat renowned in respectable battle. You may not think it because usually people are so concerned with making themselves cooler, but there's more ways to contribute to RP than just being the best.


Play to be fair, not to win. We are a community, not... adversaries looking to prove something.

[Sol]

Eh. I have weak characters, I have strong characters. I have weak characters who are becoming strong and strong characters who are becoming weak, and I also have a lot of people stood in an average middle ground. (Upon reflection, I would probably define most of my regularly played characters as 'strong', although whether they will remain that way for long is a curious question.)

The only thing this 'equality' guideline means to me is that I am willing to let go of arbitrary measures of strength for the sake of preserving and continuing the story if any kind of dispute arises, and that I expect people to extend me the same courtesy likewise.

If someone OOCly thinks their character should be able to evenly match my character in IC combat, I take this in good faith and work from there. If they think they should be able to surpass my character, I'd talk it through with them, but I have this guideline to fall back on if I disagree -- just like they can fall back on it, if they think I'm being unfair in my assessment of their dude's abilities in relation to my own's.

There's nothing more to it.

[Grakor456]

From what I know, this equal-footing was based upon the actions of players abusing the Prestige system purely for combat bonuses.

The "everyone is equal" concept was born before prestiges, prestiges have little to do with it except that at some point in the server's history, prestiges were the exception to the "rule."

The problem isn't people "abusing" things so much as arguments break out over this subject very easily. I'll point out two scenarios, both of which I have seen multiple times on the server:

1. Two characters get into a fight. Players try to hash it out, but neither wants to be the loser. A shouting match begins. How do they determine who wins?

2. Two characters get into a fight, and no discussion happens ahead of time. The fight gets trusted, and the fight goes on. And on. And on. Next thing you know, the fight has lasted for hours because neither side is willing to be the one to say "I'll just lose this."

Who do you punish?

Profiles are a powerful thing. GMs and forum helpers can discuss upon a players request for a character to have a bonus/strength somewhere. Players are capable of reading and commenting too, unless obviously stated against otherwise.

And we could have players immediately saying "Why did his bonus get approved and not mine? FAVORITISM!"

[Norael]

2. Two characters get into a fight, and no discussion happens ahead of time. The fight gets trusted, and the fight goes on. And on. And on. Next thing you know, the fight has lasted for hours because neither side is willing to be the one to say "I'll just lose this."

I posted in part because this has happened to me on numerous occasions already, and I felt this may have been because of the whole equality phrase. Perhaps this isn't the case now.

And we could have players immediately saying "Why did his bonus get approved and not mine? FAVORITISM!"

In kind, you respond by telling them the reasoning behind their character not getting their bonus. There's a rule that a GMs word is final, is there not?