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Guess I should have mentioned this a few days ago when I stopped logging on, BUT

Taking the week to kind of kick back and relax in Sasebo; like a vacation, since I've been spending too much time indoors.

Be back soonish.

-M.

This thread has convinced me to read more about the Order (ORDER LOL) of the Shining Hammer.  It's something to do while I wait for this darn hunk of iron to find its way slowly home.

Racism is good.  Racism is great.  Hell, racism is half the reason I play the game.

Am I racist IRL?  Nope.  I just enjoy the challenge.  If people just shrug off the obvious it's more than disappointing for me.

+1.  Moar racism!

Associate!

Or play Bob the Incompetent Guard, friend of thieves, robbers and doughnut/ale salesmen everywhere. It can be refreshing.

This, plus your username, makes me suddenly want to create a Mistlocke Night Muster.

+1 if you feel like co-concepting.

How dare that bastard RP with them, instead of letting them run quest circuits.

Those rat bastards!

Thoughts upon finishing four pages of this topic;

It seems to me that if the NPC who hired you to go into X to kill Y, so to speak, did not tell you there would be Q, J, and Z there as well, and thereby nearly caused your death (or indeed, caused the deaths of your companions), it would probably be wise to further the RP and appraise him of your displeasure.

And then beat him senseless.  

If you're looking for reward on quests ICly - and most people are - it makes sense that, well, that's what you'd be looking for on quests.  If the risks are outweighing the possible gains, there's no reason to continue on unless there's a prospect of gain.  I'm not saying you should purposely avoid DM spice; I'm saying that if you're in it for the gold, act like it.

If, however, your character is going on a quest to save the Merpeople of Little Mermaid Land from the Evil Beast of Killgorn, the reward is the satisfaction of having done something good and right, and possibly the love of the Merpeople.  This is not palpable, and it will not carry you into the next epic battle with any chance of survival, but hell; that's the risk you take as an adventure.

Risk vs. Reward?

Was back for a day - Hi people who I RP'd with briefly! - but then stepped out again for real-world ops.  We might be delayed pulling back into port.  Please bear with me.

For shits and giggles, my ship is actually lost in the mist!  

(Real world mist!  You can't see more than five feet in any direction!)

It's also very cold here.  >:

Should still be back in port around the seventh or eighth.

If the information can be garnered in-game by other means than harassing NPC's, by all means; however, to mirror the motto of another server, ADVENTURE AND INTRIGUE!  (I make no apologies; it's a good idea and I like quoting it).  Thinking in terms of player involvement, it's much more fun to hatch some plan or daring endeavor, or at least to track the DM down in-game for some sort of face to face interaction.

Harassing the DMs with NPC mail, in my opinion, should only be used to kind of flag folks down; ex. "Hey, look at me, I am trying to get in touch with this person and set up a meeting." as opposed to "Please answer this question."

Just my ten cents.

Paladin: *Detect evil* Aha! You're evil!
Evil guy: "Prove it."
Paladin: :(

Paladin's are still LG. It's not like even if they did detect evil on evil people that they could murder that evil person in cold blood. They'd still have to go through the annoying process of proving that guy was evil IG.

It is important here to note for referential purposes that the affect of a Paladin - people who are usually respected in the community, even if it is the sort of respect you give a senile old codger talking about the 'good old days'when men were men and women were chaste and virginal, and how the setting should conform to this unrealistic and frankly absurd vision of how the world *should* be - pointing at you and saying "This is Evil!" goes beyond the possibility of being immediate lynched and seeps into politically integral situations, such as fostering trust with a group of people.

Somebody needs to make a fake-paladin Cyricist who runs around and accuses good people of being 'evil'.  

Concept go.

Markets spring up in places where people frequently congregate; location is important for business.

If people are not hanging around in the market, one must then ask one's self; 'Where are the people?'  

This is usually followed by merchants moving.

If PC merchants see people congregating, and want to set up shop in the area, I don't see the trouble with dropping a couple of makeshift stalls somewhere.  It makes sense.  Or, alternatively, NPC's - or PC's if they feel inclined - should be doing things to bring adventurers into the market.  Perhaps sales, or new stock, or a gladiatorial arena with naked elven women, or something.  

+1?

Returning on 06-09 JULY.

Yes, I've been gone for quite a while.  Got deployed, and Japan's quake happened, and so on and so on.  Point is, as a lover of fiction, I'm starting up Ashalley's journal thread again and going on a writing binge for the next quarter of a month.

It should also be noted that I'm looking for co-conspirators, and if anyone wants in on the scheming, I'm a PM away.

Let's just keep it simple.

Make the militia the "police". Make the Stygian elite. Done, done, done & done.

The way I have always understood it (not that it matters much now anyway);

The Stygian Armada are the Duke's personal retinue.  They are like Knights, to a Lord; they are his retainers.  Since he is/was granted dominion over the Ziggurat and Ymph to a certain extent by the Baron, they acted/act in his stead under his orders using his authority.

The Militia, however, are organized from the people and do not have to be part of the Armada.  They are the servants of the law directly as opposed to the retainers of Duke Trenada.

In theory, using the traditional medieval heirarchy, if an Armada member broke the law, a Militia member - acting under the authority of the codified laws of the Dominion - could place them under arrest.  They should be seperate since their authority comes from two different places, but in the Dominion this is not the case, since Antone prefers his justice to be meted out by the Armada, which makes the Militia their BITCHES.

Or did.  Or whatever.

It seems to me that this is a healthy discussion, so here I am to add my ten cents.

I am greatly in favor of the 'RP Perks' mentioned here; I am doubly in favor of seeing NPC reactions to long-term PC's attempted, in the form of additional dialogue options, or as Chez just put it, 'the bartender talking about you'.  I don't know how difficult this would be to update on the mechanical end, but if it could be implimented it would give a sense of the setting reacting to the characters as opposed to the characters simply reacting to the setting.

It reminds me of a writeup I once saw somewhere that was suggesting the more powerful a character gets, the more widely renowned they are, the more powerful NPC's tend to see them as potential allies or threats.  It's perfectly feasible in my mind that a well-known thug in the docks would receive positive reactions and special favor from the shops and tavern in the area, but would be viewed with fear or suspicion in the Dominion.  Or for a well-known patrician to be sought or offered an alliance by another NPC patrician or patroned by a lord, who hopes to latch onto the name and thereby advance his or her own goals.  Little touches like this, done by the DMs, don't need to have mechanical implications; they have setting implications, and they're a really good way to say 'You're doing something right'.  I strongly support more active attention to this aspect of long-term characters.

Also as I read over the thread and notice all the talk about older PC's having more staying power, or inherint benefit, I can't help but be reminded of all the discussions I've seen regarding loot.  I've seen, and been on the receiving end, of DM loot that, while not signifigantly giving me an incredible edge over other PC's in terms of mechancial power, has been a nice little reminder of character uniqueness.  Running around in full Shadovar leather with a couple of modifications that can only be accomplished by a toolset is like being bearhugged by a DM.  Even if you die, you are usually given the option of retaining loot, so in a sense this has given a sort of 'divider' between the flash-in-the-pan PC's, and the long-term PC's.  Long-term PC's accumulate enough loot that they are mechanically superior already, unless they are unlucky.  Having the ability to potentially bounce back despite being kicked in the face by a level 11 bandit warrior is part of the benefit, to say nothing of their staying power in PVP, which is something to be considered.

There's a certain amount of permadeath on quests and things, but that seems to be just people becomming disillusioned with the character, or dying to the point where they can't suffer looking at the screen anymore.  Considering the assumption (correct or incorrect) that in order to be a big mover and shaker, a PC has to be at least level 5 to contend with the powerquested flash-in-the-pan PC's, after having looked at that huge mountain of questing that it would have taken to restore what was essentially irreplacable equipment, I have opted to retire characters altogether instead.  That's just the nature of the beast.  

The truth is that once you've worked hard enough for something, to see it taken away cheaply is very painful.  People spend thousands of dollars on things like rings and suits and stuff they just hang in their closets or tuck away in jewelery boxes after wearing once; if I put months into a PC, and all the effort, so that I can have a +2 Sword of Goblin slaying and the respect of the NPC population, the way I figure it, losing that is pretty much the same.  Except, I could kill goblins with that sword!  

Having said that, sometimes it's also time for the character to die.  When that happens, if they were integral to one plot or another plot, then it's also satisfying to see that their death had an affect on the server - that they weren't just another flash-in-the-pan character who could be replaced easily.  So while it might break plots, and derail a few things, sometimes it's best simply to let it lie.  Or perhaps start another quest; how many times, even in real life, have there been journeys to recover the ashes of some saint or the sword of some hero?  We, in D&D, have the benefit of magic to help us bring back these things, so it seems strange to me that I have never seen it tried.

Basically,

+ I think having NPC's recognize long-lived PC's is awesome.
+ I think DM quests tailored to hook certain PC's or groups, in specific, is a very strong indication of the character's value in-setting.
- I don't like the idea of mechanical bonuses being awarded simply based on time; I like Howland's third idea better than his first two.
- I think the ratio of 'long term' characters to 'flash-bang' characters is fine, as it is; though, I do think in-character rewards for 'renown' is an awesome idea.

Throwing this in here, since I see it's mildly related;

I had a lot of fun when I was fighting for citizenship.  When you're restructuring the way the Armada works, consider that most people who come to the Ziggurat are NOT naturalized.  They're just random riff-raff dragged in by a magical beam of light.  Why would you trust them with citizenship right off the bat?  Why aren't they forced to do some sort of service, before being granted their citizenship?  Instead, there's an NPC that just HANDS OUT citizenship papers.

It makes the entire process rather... bland.  Perhaps it is a necessary blandness, but if it required a Patrician's endorsement to become a citizen, or an Armada endorsement, it would promote a lot of RP and conflict and perhaps even politics.  

Just my ten cents.

From what I've seen (and keep in mind I'm just making a return and am not up on recent politics), if a faction is wealthy and influential enough to be owning and operating a guildhall, it's probably got the weight of RP behind it to the extent that it's already received some DM Favors.

What I've seen happen on other servers is, after a faction or a character - with property in game - shows that they've got a good amount of staying power, the DMs will take a couple of minutes to kind of customize their rooms/guildhalls to give them more storytime goodness.

Of course, I've only seen this done once.