Posted by The Thinker on July 4, 2000 at 22:28:27:
You might be a great roleplayer, but a not-so-good killer. Or you might be a great killer, but you can't roleplay at all. One of these is an acceptable way to run a character, another isn't. Roleplaying is mandatory on Carrion Fields, and it often ruins the atmosphere when someone breaks character to kill you strictly for your gear then starts insulting you with profanities and modern language. When someone kills me, if they don't need my gear, and they're uncaballed, I often ask myself why they've looted me. If it's simply because they can, and they're neutral, and I'm playing a goodly character, often I'll ask them. When they start flaming me with useless profanities and stupidity, I ask myself why I play this game for a supposed roleplaying atmosphere. Often really high-profile characters will completely break character and kill blatantly "to rack up their PK ratio". This, in my eyes, is stupid and useless. So what if you can kill? A lot of people play this game for the roleplaying, and kill within their character's parameters. A lot of people ignore their alignment and start hunting with anyone they can find, regardless of their cabal restrictions. I'm not going to name names, but a whole lot of people have dragged themselves through the mud character-wise to rack up a good PK ratio. Does that mean they're good killers? Sure, it does. But are they overall good characters? Not necessarily. A guy I had a whole lot of respect for in-game was a guy who played a character called Moindardt. He was dangerous, he was feared, and best of all, he played a chaotic evil like a chaotic evil should be played: with a total disregard for the law and neither a who nor there as to who he killed. He was feared because he stayed in character and didn't multikill mindlessly: if he needed something from your corpse, he'd take it, sometimes I'd get full looted or one of the other Knights (at the time) would get full looted, sometimes we'd beat him up. A lot of mindless characters are on the mud right now - a rather nameless svirfnebli thief who hasn't ranked in about a year, yet kills everything moving, a whole rash of duergar warriors who levelsit in their mid-twenties and run around killing everything moving, and a few assassins who sit at 35 or so (and are neutral to boot) and kill everything moving. In my mind you should have a roleplaying reason for doing things, and no, that doesn't mean running around killing everybody in your range just because you can with your friends. Flame on, if you wish, though they'll be ignored; constructive comments would be welcomed.