[Debate] [CRP Rules] Melee starts and witnessing roleplay

[BonesOfTheEarth 2252]

I've personally found the lack of rules surrounding witnessing scenarios as well as how to properly enter CRP to be a nightmare to deal with as an evil monster player, and I'm curious where people might stand on the main two things that really grind my gears about it. Notably, I'm not crazy up in arms about this - and in a world where currently most debates or issues are on rather major do or die situations(admin inactivity, etc), this might feel small. And that's because it is. Change does not always have to be sweeping or systemic, little steps are just as important.

 

I've had these thoughts for a while, but the situations are so common that I've long since felt that should I make a post referencing them, someone would feel as though its a specific callout to them. That is not my intention, and so I've waited until its been decently long(At least 2 weeks) since I've last seen a scenario like any of those that come below(it's been 6 months).

 

If you're from koyo-kuni please read below:

Spoiler

This isnt because of our crp a few days ago that was great yall are great, 1 person mentioned a QUESTION within it that reminded me I needed to post this. Keep doing beautiful things gang o7

 

Scenario One: Melee CRP Starting

The most common scenario I come across, is where one enters CRP or before any emotes have occured they will mechanically move to damn near directly next to someone. In truth, I most commonly see this from darkspawn players, but is isn't entirely just them. This feels quite unfair to be on the receiving end of, and I like to say I've done a pretty decent job at policing my own squad against doing this, even though server rules allow it. It just doesn't feel like any good faith CRP can initiate with this and its purely a "I must win" mentality move. A few examples:

 

Example 1:

Take Maria. She's a human knight and she's casually strolling in her city. She pauses to get up and go get a drink in real life, and is back within 2 minutes. Only her chat is completely full by the time she's back! She squints and reads the chat, and realizes that there are three darkspawn players. One of them is located around 10 blocks away from her, already connecting to their magic. Two of them are located directly adjacent to her, weapons already having been swung as they began the conflict directly adjacent to her!

 

Now, most of these initial emotes are pre-prepped. They have to be or people run away from you instantly. You have to be "in someones path" - and so though this is bad faith, the server rules not only allow this sort of interaction but inadvertently push people towards it. Even should Maria not have been AFK in this example(If anyone says 'just dont afk in public' or something, you ARE missing the point!), that likely would make no difference unless she mechanically bolted the second she saw people walking in town. Likely not something that would happen as she might use "/card" on them when she originally sees them, and in that time its too late. Regardless, my personal take is that starting from a bit further away is the "correct" course and more intuitive to logical roleplay. This knight would see the darkspawn approaching and have some time to react and prepare herself.

 

Example 2:

Take Richard. He's an elven wizard who does his utmost best to avoid conflict. Someone approaches him in roleplay and suddenly greets him, asking "Hello! Can I ask you a question!" After having run up within 1 block of him. Richard feels a bit invaded in personal space and moves back on his emote, only for this guy to suddenly draw a weapon and attack him. He can't connect to the void or use any of his magic here.

 

This one is a less common case but I have seen it happen before. This one is a little more arguable as "fair" given there was like, a 1 emote space of reaction for Richard, but the assistance that would grant is negligible. In a case like this I believe the stranger here should have begun his roleplay from a distance a little further away for his initial emote, and then perhaps on his second emoted drawing closer.

 

So the root source here, and if you took away nothing from above take away this:

Problem: Players are using their mechanical positions without accompanying such with an emote to instantly be directly on top of their targets in crp, simply because they did not emote prior to that to 'lock in' crp movement rules.

 

Solution

I would say a simple rule addition stating: "If you approach a scenario with aggressive intent, you must begin at least 8 blocks away from the nearest person to you" should work. Maybe not exactly 8, but something to that affect. This isnt even about a fairness situation to any 1 group, Im sure everyone on this server has at one point had to deal with this frustration.

 

Scenario Two: Witnessing Conflict

Okay, this one is a bit weighted. Nine out of ten times this is damning to darkspawn and has personally stopped me from patrolling roads. This scenario refers to when a conflict has begun, usually but not always on the roads, and someone passes by and "sees" the encounter without ever having actually interacted with it, and a few moments later brings a rally of people to stomp it out.

 

The 15 Minute Timer is a decent ruling that helps to handle such things within settlements most of the time, but it seems to fail in these situations. There are rules for entering and exiting crp, and I feel these should be followed in the following examples where currently they dont need to be:

 

Example 1:

You're a darkspawn! You and your buddy GORLATH, DESTROYER OF CHILDREN are looking for a soul to snack on. You move across a road, one that isnt to a major key settlement. One you've checked every day for the last 2 weeks and havent seen any one person on. Today, you get lucky. You find someone on a mining trip. You approach them with your pal Gorlath and initiate CRP. Two minutes go by when suddenly, about 50 blocks away from you, a dude on a horse rides past. Far out of rp range, you figure youre good. And then, by only the THIRD emote, wherein your target has ran a collective 24 blocks due to movement rules, you suddenly look up as 20 dudes on horseback just traveled literal kilometers to get to you, bending space and time.

 

Little did you know, that man that rode by well out of any sort of emote range did /card on both of you, realized what he passed by, and he swerved to a larger settlement. He rides in, and goes "DARKSPAWN, FOLLOW ME!" and boom, you are cooked. Honestly, fair on him - to a degree. We must always bear some suspension of disbelief with roleplay times and travel distances due to minecraft constraints(our map is only a few kilometers wide for instance but in rp is hundreds or thousands of miles potentially), but in this case it doesnt feel fair. You sit there and think about all the time this road has never seen a soul and suddenly theres TWO back to back, and you didnt even get a chance to interact with the dude who brought an army on you? Now you're mad!

 

Example 2: This example is one where the person passing by fails, and is a true story that I've partaken in several times

I am on a road, and find a target. I approach them and tell them my usual line - kneel and they will survive, without permanent harm and with all of their belongings. I dont want any of that, nor do I want their life. I want their blood. This person nods, as they realize they have little choice and they kneel. I approach and... Whats that out of the corner of my eye? I just watched someone pass by on a horse. They were so far away they only even loaded in for a second. I know in my heart of hearts that this guy I have beneath me mentioned something to his friend, because there simply is no way that after days of checking this one spot this happens. And I know, in 3 minutes there will be many here. Theres simply no way to prove anything and no cause for a modreq. I sigh, I look to my buddies and go "Mount up, we're leaving." And the second they get mounted up, we leave. We cant emote taking this guy with us, because in the 2 minutes of responding, we'd all be dead. We just have to abruptly get up and leave the scenario randomly, with 0 interaction with the guy who would be spelling our doom. There was one time in a case like this where I let us linger for a moment and I believe I was the only one to survive.

 

Problem: Players can witness RP without ever having done an entry-emote on it. Seeing something is an act, and you should have to emote it.

 

Solution:

I would propose that someone emoting just to see a scenario happening, must only do [1] emote as opposed to 2 emotes of entering and 2 emotes of exiting; as they never intend on fully entering a scene to begin with. They must wait for a reply, and if they are not stopped they can continue past. And if whoever they are witnessing just happens to have something ready to fire on that emote, they could potentially attack the person moving past - and forcing them to have to do a proper 2 emote exit. This still gives ample rallying time while also bearing the potential for the people you're tagging to react accordingly.

 

Final Thoughts

Ive never been big on rules for CRP. Rule of cool and honor crp always wins and carries much of the conflict Im in. I've pushed and pushed to always let things slide or let people do wacky stuff like cracking a stone wall with their punch or whatever, and people seem to enjoy that. But I dont think many people enjoy the above, and the scenarios are widespread enough that most people should understand the annoyance of them. I have also probably overcomplicated this issue, I'm sure someone out there could make this WAY more concise than I have. Oops.

 

Let me know what yall think. I'm hoping for a friendly and civil debate on the topic just to see where the playerbase at large stands on this. Am I some old man shouting at the clouds? Do a lot of people secretly feel the same? etc

[PrimnyaQuorum 3998]

I've been sitting on for a while this issue. These would be good rules to have, but writing them up would require moderation + manager + admin approval. Furthermore, it would bring itself a few issues;

 

For the first case, what is "too close" and "too far"? If your inside a city, does the range change? What if you entered an encounter without any real intention of CRP, and during a conversation something comes up that prompts you to begin combat at a naturally close range? What about intentionally laid out ambushes on paths that don't match the given range? The more I really thought about it some months back, the harder this becomes to be a simple rule. Conversely, however, we can all agree running into someones face, spamming your copypasted emote and then carefully ensuring [in VC] your rally is perfectly positioned to stop a flee sucks, on both ends. There is no integrity and no give/take, and this wouldn't probably be easier to write a rule against this behavior; it is far easier to tell people to not mech-flee upon seeing people come, and likewise tell people stopping on someones space and dropping a copy-pasted emote is bad too.

 

The second case is shrimpler, honestly - if you do not emote, you are not in RP and you do not get to take information from that RP [give/take!]. I would argue it should be the same amount of emotes - 2 to join, 3 to flee. It might be worth a case where some sort of combat lock is offered, but converserly there should be a reasonable amount of people that can be rallied from some place. Ringing a bell shouldn't extend that timer and you certainly should not be allowed to ping discords or 'warn' people. 

 

Honestly most of these would be solved by moderation just actually adhere to the idea of "no loopholes" instead of going "sorry, you didnt provide forensic proof this happened, we cant do anything :3". If you volunteer to anything, isn't it kinda part of the thing you volunteered for to use the tools you have that players don't to help resolve situations?

[BonesOfTheEarth 2252]

@PrimnyaQuorum

For the first case, I think your concern about things like ambushes is more or less nulled by the fact that in the case of an ambush, you aren't approaching anyone but someone is approaching where you already were. Its not a perfect solution but I would consider that a completely separate ordeal and just let people move to wherever is within 4-8 emotes of where they were(following movement) when they were performing an ambush.

 

The second is pretty cut and dry to me, however its one of those cases thats "Simple" to the people who suffer from the receiving end of the damnation of those scenarios, but those who benefit from it and utilize it will always simply say "i was there mechanically I was there in rp" and thats it.

[King_Kunuk 3022]

What if I just find out you exist through casting discord messaging (2 emotes).

[_AzureLexi 765]

My hot take (as in the actual meaning of "literal first opinion", I haven't done enough CRP to have a particularly well-informed one! So big grain of salt), is to be quite honest, you should only be allowed to start RP from at least 20 blocks away or the edge of line of sight. That way you're encouraged to ACTUALLY ambush, and not just run up from the woods faster than any good-faith RPer can emote.

 

It this was added tho I think you should also be able to halt with ranged weapons. There's probably some reason I'm unaware of this ISN'T allowed. And maybe it's just me, but I'd love to see ambushing favoring what actually makes sense to be ambushing with. Because let's be real, being run up on with heavy armor and a horse before hitting Ctrl+V makes zero sense. Hearing a bowstring drawing from the cliffs nearby means you can actually take action to find cover, or try and fight back

[BakedPotato 1018]

1 hour ago, _AzureLexi said:

from at least 20 blocks away or the edg

 you see someone. You go up to halt them from 20 blocks away. They run, sprint 8 blocks away. If ur lucky ur on a horse and run 12. They run another 8. They are now 24 blocks away so u run another 12. They spend a third emote sprinting away and now get to mechanically ss. And when your trying to halt someone they are usually running as fast as they can away from you to avoid the halt emote.

[_AzureLexi 765]

14 minutes ago, BakedPotato said:

 you see someone. You go up to halt them from 20 blocks away. They run, sprint 8 blocks away. If ur lucky ur on a horse and run 12. They run another 8. They are now 24 blocks away so u run another 12. They spend a third emote sprinting away and now get to mechanically ss. And when your trying to halt someone they are usually running as fast as they can away from you to avoid the halt emote.

Hide behind a tree and jump out to halt, that's why I specified edge of LOS, or carry a ranged weapon. Ambushing in broad open roads is dumb anyway.

[Luxury 1080]

You’re not alone in that sentiment, Bones. These kinds of scenarios aren’t new, and they’ve persisted for years. I think a large part of that comes down to how difficult this issue is to rule cleanly. The moment we try to draw hard lines, we risk creating a system that becomes unwieldy and actively obstructive to roleplay rather than supportive of it.

 

At some point, the core problem isn’t the absence of rules, but a loss of trust in the integrity of fellow roleplayers. As abstract and uncomfortable as it is, reinforcing expectations of good faith may be the only real way forward. Though I question the value of simply stating something airy in the CRP rules section... the real work is shifting the server culture, which starts with all of us.

[The Tough Guy 4319]

4 hours ago, BonesOfTheEarth said:

This still gives ample rallying time while also bearing the potential for the people you're tagging to react accordingly.

 

 

this scenario would also incentivise the bandits/bad guys/darkspawn players to emote very slowly so even if the witness has 2 emotes to join and gtfo they get incentivized to stall their own emotes to get a combat lock going.

 

 

which is why i am not a fan of combat lock being an irl time 

[BonesOfTheEarth 2252]

Just now, The Tough Guy said:

this scenario would also incentivise the bandits/bad guys/darkspawn players to emote very slowly so even if the witness has 2 emotes to join and gtfo they get incentivized to stall their own emotes to get a combat lock going.

One could also argue the defenders could also stall to keep combat lock going instead in that case. Sort of a lose-lose and you have to pick whichever group is more disadvantaged to back in this regard. Its part of why I've gone for a healthy suggestion of needing only [1] emote and hearing a reply as opposed to suggesting one does 2 emote entry and 3 exit. Yes, one can try and stall if theyre scummy with it, but its incredibly hard to make that on 1 single emote without it being a little obvious

[monkeypoacher 8052]

this thread is why this server DESPERATELY needs an actual combat ruleset, with dice rolls and initiative and action economy, and not whatever "good faith" combat roleplay is. At the minimum, starting combat (by drawing a weapon, connecting to the Void, or whatever) should give the player you're starting combat on a turn to react and reset the turn order via roll. For instance:

 

*ser brigandus coinstealer sidles up to the elf and draws his sword.*

"hark traveler!" *prinkles the elf does a backflip away.*

*ser brigandus coinstealer has rolled an 8 out of 20.*

*prinkles the elf has rolled a 9 out of 20.*

turn 1: prinkles to emote, then brigandus coinstealer. prinkles wisely uses the initiative to run away, rather than immediately get stabbed by a sword.

[Hiccup392 724]

I don't feel like reading all of these comments but anybody saying we should default to rolling for combat has either never participated in crp, or keeps getting curbstomped and won't work on their game sense

[BonesOfTheEarth 2252]

9 hours ago, monkeypoacher said:

At the minimum, starting combat (by drawing a weapon, connecting to the Void, or whatever) should give the player you're starting combat on a turn to react and reset the turn order via roll. For instance:

lowk i like this a lot. Actual dice combat rules with modifiers n such will obviously never happen, but specifically the notion of 1 reaction emote and then a single roll for initiative? Thats easily implementable, easy to follow, is not roll combat which people overwhelmingly seem to dislike, and is more or less fair all around

 

 

[_AzureLexi 765]

5 hours ago, Hiccup392 said:

I don't feel like reading all of these comments but anybody saying we should default to rolling for combat has either never participated in crp, or keeps getting curbstomped and won't work on their game sense

My most magepilled take (I agree w you): LotC does have a combat system, but only some characters have to play by it. I'd way prefer for LotC to expand the "diceless" combat system it already has to be more encompassing, than see rolls introduced. Dice rolls necessarily break LotC's action economy that's so unique and integral for magic and ranged combat.

[monkeypoacher 8052]

10 hours ago, Hiccup392 said:

I don't feel like reading all of these comments but anybody saying we should default to rolling for combat has either never participated in crp, or keeps getting curbstomped and won't work on their game sense

 

Once upon a time a long time ago, I got stuck responding to combat roleplay all night; I would be banned for "combat logging" if I logged off. It took my opponent like 10 minutes per emote because they were busy googling how medieval armor works, looking in a thesaurus for synonyms to "dodge" and "block," etc. I won that battle, so my game sense is fine. But at what cost?

 

If you and your pals are having an enjoyable duel of the fates with no dice involved, that's fine. Between two players who don't know each other well, the winner of a combat RP is the one who is the least willing to compromise.

 

Not everyone is interested in arguing the fine details of magic lore or medieval infantry combat. The people who aren't interested don't deserve to have their time wasted, nor do they deserve to be railroaded into roleplay they don't enjoy. Combat RP should default to a system with dice to expedite it for people who don't enjoy it that much, and place a 'skill cap' on the amount of Sword Trivia you are allowed to bring to bear against an unsuspecting elven child.

 

 As an aside, when combat sucks for everyone but the highest-aptitude players it makes the server boring. It forces those players to avoid encounters with strangers, reduces the overall number of interesting conflicts, and generally encourages people to put up fugly walls and fortifications everywhere.