NameMC'd Wanted Posters: Why Nobody wants to Roleplay with You

[Unwillingly 11110]

credit to slug for the title

Forum banishments, wanted posters, bounty posts, and other law-related roleplay missives are by no means unheard of on our server. For as long as I can remember, various groups and factions have used the forums as a means of RP communication to practically every player on the server, even some of the inactive ones who’ve been on hiatus for who knows how long. The forums have become a staple point for practically all widespread RP gossip, politics, and communication. Of course, there’s nothing terrible about that alone. At least, that’s not the focal point of this forum post. I’d like to talk about something else.

Imagine this: Your character is a criminal, dark mage, dark creature, you name it. You’re in a city, hoping to rob someone of their minas or some sort of RP items. As you’re prowling around, looking for your target, you spot a player by themself in the depths of the city, far away from the main square — no one is around. This is perfect.

You approach the player, managing to corner them. They’re thrown off, but you draw your blade, cast your magic, reveal your claws, transform into something hideous, and then— they scream for help in one emote.

You’ve been through this before, you know the routine. Ten ISA men will be at your heels before you can even finish your emote. So you quickly make haste, fleeing the scene before anyone inevitably MCly arrives.

After you leave, the following dialogue takes place between the participants:

Guard 204 approaches the victim.
Victim 89 cries out, “I was almost attacked!”
Guard 204 asks, “What did he look like?”
Victim 89 replies, “Blonde hair, blue eyes, dark clothes.”
[LOOC] Player204: what was the person’s MC name?
[LOOC] Player89: john_doe

It’s a shame, but that’s alright. At least you didn’t get caught. You log off, a few hours pass, you check the forums, and there’s a new wanted poster up. You click on it.

Your most recent entire HD minecraft skin is plastered at the very top, and below it, one line of text entailing:

[!] A sketch is drawn of the criminal.

Congratulations, most of the server has full access to the exact appearance of your character down to the pixel without even having to log on, and the people who posted your wanted poster barely had to lift a finger— literally (It’s two clicks to do this). 

It’s an age-old problem that, go figure, isn’t moderated, even if the player doesn’t bother to do the bare minimum like adding alterations such as a grayscale filter to the screenshot. However, in my opinion, adding a filter of any kind doesn’t negate the case I’m trying to make. Most of these skins are pulled from NameMC, which already has its own filter tools that allows the skin to be edited in less than five seconds. Even if your method of editing isn’t done through NameMC, anyone with more than a couple of brain cells can figure out how to do it relatively easily. It’s not a solution, so let’s not pretend it is one.

I’m not saying the mods should add another rule— that’s the last thing we need. Instead, I’d like to ask: why does this common process of copy-pasting skins not constitute as metagaming, or even subpar RP, especially for something that usually targets one singular player while simultaneously being available to most LOTC players? How can we as a community, or even staff, advocate for quality RP, but then hardly bat an eye at things like this?
 

Spoiler

Sure, alright, it would make more sense to be able to do this if LOTC possessed the technology or even lore to instantly capture a picture in-RP, but it doesn’t (sorry Hanrahan). We know that any and all methods of identification must either be done through witnesses, artist rendition, or physical description. Simple screenshots completely overlook a character’s ability to recall details or even match a description. Although being less reliable, they undoubtedly hold more substance, value, potential, and sometimes humor, than any simple screenshot could.

This is by no means impossible, or even detrimental to the continuity of these types of posts. In fact, player @Caelriadoes a great job at showcasing how wanted posters can be made using purely description and imagery. He's made a variety of wanted posters as of late, and not a single one of them had a screenshot of a player's skin.

To the players who go through the effort of actually writing your target’s description as opposed to taking the effortless and easy route, keep up the good work. To the players who would rather post screenshots, do better. It only takes a modicum of creativity and effort to make a bounty post or wanted poster without the usage of NameMC screenshots. 

There's loads of arguments, points, and criticisms I could address, but I believe I got the general idea down. I haven't seen this exactly "talked about" before, aside from brief comments during a conversation or maybe status updates. 
 

Spoiler

I’d also like to clarify that I’m not trying to ***** on ppl on behalf of the people who don’t care to have their skins screenshotted. Like, if you don’t care, that’s cool — let it happen, but there’s undoubtedly a good portion of players who also disdain this kind of forum behavior, whether or not they’re the ones actually being targeted.

 

[Bhased 3587]

12 minutes ago, ᴜɴᴡɪʟʟɪɴɢʟʏ said:

I’d also like to clarify that I’m not trying to ***** on behalf of the people who don’t care to have their skins screenshotted.

speak for yourself; I am

[Ryloth 4312]

yo post the good bounty threads as examples (mine) (i want rep) +1 tho

[Ibn Khaldun 7728]

 

Guard 357 approaches the victim.
Victim 981 cries out, “I was almost attacked!”
Guard 1024 asks, “What did he look like?”
Victim 981 replies, “Big donk, blue eyes, two big hornys, & a lot of fur!”
[LOOC] Player357: what was the person’s MC name?
[LOOC] Player981: gaiusmarius8

 

 

Banter aside, I support the discussion around this.

[Gamma 588]

good timing on this post, im wanting to see how fast i can get a bounty on one of my persona's head as of late

[squakhawk 7303]

genuine metagaming for **** like that 

 

 

it actually does nothing but contribute to protagonist and [redacted][redacted]14 mentality that conflict is inherently negative and always meant to be won, that you can straight up just brand metagaming as okay because "oh well i would describe it better in rp"

 

 

namemc screenshots, ingame screenshots, used in forum threads are blatant metagaming and are such a bland, negative experience for everyone involved but the person who's oocly bothered enough to try and pass it

 

you don't have to make some drawing, you dont have to commission someone, you dont have to do any of that to make a wanted poster or something similar, granted i give huge props to the one or two folks who have done that in recent history

 

a good description, maybe use indicators, mannerisms, tells, some descriptor that can make them stand out. villainy, bounty hunting, so on, shouldn't be a taboo- its a cancer that permeates in such a hyper-defensive nation, playergoup, or so on, mentality that is a leading factor as to why conflict is such a struggle on this server

 

 

 

funny meme, remember that scene in game of thrones when Tyrion is wanted and they put up a bounty, and people just keep bringing in beheaded blonde-haired dwarves that vaguely look like him?

i don't think we'll ever have a scenario like that since almost every character on the server has individualistic aspects that make them interesting, but, meh

 

recently when i was irply searching for a character, i was asked for the person's OOC name so they could /seen them, or look them up on logs

 

☹️

[chacmul 274]

describing a person that has some distinction or unique aspect in their skin isn't too hard ...right? except for orenian women, they all look the same.

[Xx_BloodStalk_xX 2120]

1 hour ago, SquakHawk said:

i don't think we'll ever have a scenario like that since almost every character on the server has individualistic aspects that make them interesting, but, meh

 

this is kinda the reason why namemc screenshots are not necessary
but unironically this did happen to me, where i got mistaken for another criminal so i, a random dude, got mixed up in this huge crime scheme for something i didnt do and it was p fun to get mixed up in all of it

Edited November 11, 2021 by Xx_BloodStalk_xX
NOT NECESSARY****

[monkeypoacher 6993]

yeah honestly this bugged me when I was doing MoJ roleplay. constables would just ask for a MC username instead of asking people for a description, which sounds like metagaming with extra steps. should actually have to sketch characters in MS paint, for the hilarity of it

[Guzr 2049]

The MoJ discord used to have a chat called #wanted or #bountyboard or something with just namemc screenshots and player names

[Zacho 1735]

Tbh I favor just getting rid of wanted posters on the forums and make people actually set out a bounty in character, I don't see anything useful with the namemc wanted posters 

 

[BonesOfTheEarth 1563]

Yo the funniest **** was when I got attacked on my dark elf for being a "wanted villain" and they were in fact after my wood elf character

[Fionn__TWG 2616]

15 hours ago, monkeypoacher said:

should actually have to sketch characters in MS paint, for the hilarity of it

Unironically, this should be the rule. It doesn't take that long to emote writing a sketch of the described person, doing a shitty drawing on ms paint and calling it a day. Makes it funnier too, as monkeypoacher said.