MrGrendel

Occasional acts one way or the other don't really determine alignment. If you do villainous acts on a regular basis, you're most likely one of the evil flavors. If you're doing it because of a twisted or narrow code of your own, you're Lawful Evil. If you do them out of selfish desires, you're (Neutral) Evil. If you do them because you have no concept of laws nor any regard for the "greater good" then you're Chaotic Evil. (And everyone hates you, or should. These are the a-holes of the alignment system.) Characters that also do acts of kindness and love may do rare evil acts and get away with a non-evil, neutral alignment, but it's more common that neutral types are "live and let live" and don't really pursue good or evil actions that much at all. The most likely non-evil type to do villainous acts now and then is Chaotic Neutral simply due to their more, well, chaotic nature. Lawful Neutral on the other hand tends to follow some sort of code, and most codes by their very nature of consistency don't encourage you jump around from evil to good acts...

Whichever of ye moved my locked double chest from my old room, ye mixed em up an' all my things are missin, far as I can tell. Cannae get into the chests which I assume are mine. Gonna be mighty grumpy if I cannae get me belongings back and soon.

This poster is put up in two places, Sanctuary and Kal'Alras. Gents, I have discovered what seems a cloud o poison gas about an icy isle. Ye enter in the area and immediately yer vision is blurred by a pinkish haze, and breathing gets most painful. Enough ta kill a traveler easily I'm guessing. My hunch if ye care, is that it's to do with this plague o recent times, and any lore master worth their salt ought to take yeself a look. It has been a day since I informed my current liege, thus now: Dwarven lore masters or monks I will bring to this place at no cost for m'self, all else I will ask a small fee for guide services. Seek out Gorm Stonebeard ((MC name: MrGrendel)) if ye have interest in this.

This poster is put up in two places, Sanctuary and Kal'Alras. Gents, I have discovered what seems a cloud o poison gas about an icy isle. Ye enter in the area and immediately yer vision is blurred by a pinkish haze, and breathin gets most painful. Enough ta kill a traveler easily I'm guessing. My hunch if ye care, is that it's to do with this plague o recent times, and any lore master worth their salt ought to take yeself a look. It has been a day since I informed my current liege, thus now: Dwarven lore masters or monks I will bring to this place at no cost for m'self, all else I will ask a small fee for guide services. Seek out Gorm Stonebeard ((MC name: MrGrendel)) if ye have interest in this.

Given name(RP name): Gorm Stonebeard True name(MC name): MrGrendel Authentic magic user?(accepted magic user?): No. Do ye seek adventure, knowledge, and companionship?: Aye. Mageshield,Delver or other(if other detail)?: Mageshield. Do ye swear solemnly to put your life upon the line to preserve that of your arcane brethren? I do swear to uphold the agreement between liege and guard. What combat skills have ye? I wield an axe with the skill of a berserker.

Eh, being new or not having time to learn a whole vocabulary might not have much at all to do with being a good RPer. Telling an interesting story or involving others are marks of a good RPer, for instance. Making communication difficult does not help in involving others nor telling stories. Keep that in mind as you use this. Add spice, don't confuse other dwarves. ;)

Woops, posted in wrong place, my bad.

Oh, and then use those track stations as portals? Right, I like that. Heck, every city should have dwarven subway tunnel stations. ;)

Maybe I don't get it, but I don't see any tracks in the image you linked...

Another possibility is that fast travel stations are crafted with rail tracks that lead into the underground. This way it looks like a rail travel system underground RPwise, instead of dime a dozen magic portals all over the place, but you still have the simplicity of the faster system.

In the original post you mean? It's the same as just "Neutral."

Just to comment, even in the system this alignment method is taken from, you can't simply see which alignment a creature is, especially a player character, even OOCly. That would often be spoilerish. There are spells that can reveal it to your character if you can cast them, and so on, however. On the whole it's a good thing for players to consider for their character. Most likely Chaotic Good. ;)

It's like they say: Skill systems are like fish, everyone has one, and... wait that's not right. :lol: For the most part, I find the LotC system is pretty brilliant, however if I had a magical Vaqwand and could wave it at anything, well, here are my opinions. I understand that coding is a huge time sink, and appreciate the work that has gone into the server, I had a fun time here when I still played more regularly. 1. Grinding is not a good thing. But I agree, neither is leveling up too quickly and having nothing to do. You can have the best of both worlds, however! For example: Skill point gain is initially practically immediate. (Bear with me-)Anything that grants xp (at your level) basically gives you a skill point off the bat. However, every point you reach in any skill puts a "learning block" for that skill on your character. The duration should be enough time to reasonably take a break for a RPing session. Skills under 25 maybe an hour block, skills 26-50 2 hours, skills 51-75 4 hours and skills 76-100 6 hours. Or perhaps it would be simpler to alternate the timer in minecraft-day/night increments as a counter. (Though this is an example, it means you would reach 25 in about two 12 hour days of playing, 50 in about six 12 hour days, 75 in fifteen such days and 100 in twenty-seven such days. Another nice thing is you can tweak the numbers to precisely how long you want it to take, no matter how users go about things, so long as you have the learning blocks working properly.) Result for players? You can go do some skilling up and get your next point fairly quickly, and then you have time to roleplay as you please while your mind "clears" before you can take on some more learning. As a bonus it may reduce environmental strain, since it reduces the amount of raw material needed by massive amounts. It can still take just as long to skill up, but instead of chopping down 100,000 trees, you might only have to chop down 100. 2. Combat and support roles. There's been a bit of controversy about certain skills lately, it seems, and there's an elegant (partial) solution to the issue of "X beats Y 1 on 1," etc: Declare some of them support skills, decrease the point at which they have all of their useful bonuses, and make them less effective choices, which is balanced out instead by convenience (already implemented as they stand) and lower cost. For instance, archery is a support role, it has built in advantages in the form of allowing range, making expensive armor less needed, attacks less dangerous, and bows are far cheaper than good melee weapons. I don't think people appreciate how ginormous an advantage it is to be able to do damage from range at all - not getting hit in the first place beats free diamond armor! Wrestling similarly is a convenient skill, since you can do without an expensive weapon. What I am getting at is two things. First of all, both of these should not be superior or even equal combat choices in the first place, since they already offer convenience advantages simply by how they work right out of the box. On the other hand, they should also not be as difficult to learn, leaving them the skills of choice for characters who want to invest their points more heavily elsewhere, ie crafters or sneaks, and so on. It's not completely fair in terms of the game system to expect an archer to invest 100 points into something and be told he can't be as good as someone who put 100 points in something else, when both are "combat" skills. So, while I won't get into the gritty details of balance (it's always a complex topic), I would suggest that wrestling and archery are 1 on 1 made poorer choices than a melee weapon skill, but all of their best bonuses are packed in by skill level 50 or 75. If they have any bonuses beyond that, it should be purely convenience, such as not using arrows for archery, less fall damage for wrestlers, etc. This allows archers or wrestlers to more easily focus on stealth, crafting, or another combat skill as well, and vice versa for crafters, sneaks etc. Or you could essentially max out both archery and wrestling and have both long and melee range for a large discount. It also makes them more viable backup skill sets for dedicated warriors who just really want to be masters of arms. And again, it eliminates the controversy of "X is better than Y 1 on 1," because the answer is that they are not intended to be on equal footing any more in the first place, and in exchange you get more skill points to put elsewhere as well as the convenience of saving on gear, being at range, etc. (Skill reset for people with high skills in either might be desirable of course.) 3. Armor. (Snip.) High level melee weapon skills, axe and sword, should overcome armor movement penalty. That also helps with not having armored archer tanks kiting people around. You already take a huge wallet penalty in buying and maintaining armor, there should be a way around the other penalties for the skill-sets that really rely on combat and armor, ie can't damage at range or have high block chances. If diamond armor is too common, that just means diamonds are too common, good armor should be good. (Maybe some more outright equipment breaking factors need to be introduced...)

Steppin down from service as officer, uncertain when I may return if at all, wish ye all the best. Stay ever vigilant! The Crafter bless yer hands, --Gorm Stonebeard--

Well, I've seen this sort of system not work before. Do players like it? Sure. Could it work? To an extent, maybe. However, a simple small system for a big lottery and announcement for one person makes far better encouragement than a complex monitored system of hundreds of friends sticking dollar bills in each others pockets, and it's much easier to oversee and keep straight. I don't disagree it would be nice, though I feel I should point out you can get 15 points in two skills like in half an hour or something, probably. What I'd like to see is the racial bonuses, even if small.

These systems in my experience are desirable but hard to implement fairly. By human nature they are prone to be influenced by popularity, favoritism etc even when intended to be used fairly. Generally they are good ideas to have, though I would not recommend giving players the command in the slightest. I'd suggest something along these lines, to help ensure fair use and capitalize on the encouraging effect they have: - A command /rpbonus [player] [skill] is added for GMs only. - What for: To be used on players engaging others in good RP - Effects: 1. Grants a set amount of xp in the specified skill. This should not be a trivial amount. (It is a RP server, there's nothing wrong with rewarding RPers over powergamers. GMs pick the skill they find most appropriate or rewarding.) 2. Script automatically announces in the OOC channel, "[Name] has received a skill bonus for his/her outstanding role-play with others from [GM]." (Transparency does a lot to keep things proper, the OOC channel keeps the message out of sight of people RPing anyway, and lastly adds encouragement to everyone else to get into RP.) - Restrictions: 1. Not to be used on players in the GMs own faction or race etc. (GMs should seek out players outside of their usual circles to observe. This gives all players a fairer chance of being "discovered" and helps counter claims or feelings of favoritism.) 2. Only to be used while observing invis, especially not on players interacting with the GM. (Players should not switch RP on/off depending on if they know a GM is around.) - Additional command to supplement this: /rpwatch chooses a random player, automatically sets the GM to invis, and teleports them to the location of the player. Basically the fairest way to pick someone to watch and see if they are engaging in RP with others.

((What people do not realize is that obvious names from other settings are out-of-character references in Aegis. I find it hard to keep a feeling of immersion around these characters. I hope your group does well, but I would prefer seeing it stand on its own with a unique name, and develop associations and reputations of its own and unique to this setting. Either way, best of luck!))

Oughtta be a mushroom farm along with the cave wheat.

I just hope axes are buffed up nicely, the -2 damage compare to swords is pretty hefty. I heard they will have crits (again), they will need a lot of them to make up the difference, though... plus axes cost more to make, which seems a bit odd. Oh well. Can't wait to see skills out, either way. :)

This sounds great.

This seems like a solid idea, completely aside from the GM issue. It can only result in less landscape griefery.

Regarding reagents, there may be a slightly older generation of DnD gamers who would disagree with you. ;) The WoW crowd is definitely not used to the idea of magic being costly or requiring extra work. Keep in mind that what you typically get in return is magic that's nothing special, just common and cheap.

Would like to compete if there's still time to join. --Gorm Stonebeard.

I'd post this up seperately if ye haven't already, most o' those guards won't think ta check this here since they b'lieve they're still guards.

((MC Name: MrGrendel)) Name: Gorm Stonebeard. Why you wish to be in the guard: To help keep the streets safe and clear of scum, aye, and protect innocent dwarves from attacks. Guard's also a wee bit better than day-labor, I'd be guessing. How long you've been a dwarf: ((How long youve played on this server)) Been a dwarf all my life, of course! ((3 weeks.)) That you will do EVERYTHING your leaders say: I will follow every lawful order of a superior to the best of my ability so long's I remain a guard, so I swear before the Crafter. I've read the rules and pledge to be loyal in the king's service.