OOC Thread V4

[Brother Dun]

Pfft, murder is such a strong word!

[Shen Feng]

"And unlike you, Lord Shen, I bore witness to the attack on Chenliu. Property was damaged. Lives were not. Zhefu wishes no harm upon the people, but when forced, always minimizes the damage done.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you raid and sack a city, you can't say "well, I'm sacking it but I'm not hurting anybody", can you? The action of sacking a city means that you're raping and pillaging the populace and looting their belongings. That's how I'd read it at least. Am I reading it right?

[Phailak]

He can say whatever he wants, but yes bringing down a city so that it in effect becomes but a town involves killing the population. People don't idly stand by while you break their homes and businesses, there would be fighting back and thus killing. Even had he RP'ed doing so in that way (which I'm not sure he did or not), that would be what was reported to him by his commanders. The truth must be an easy thing to ignore for a man in a mask

[King Tao]

Who needs the truth when you can have a mask?!

[Mikal]

"And unlike you, Lord Shen, I bore witness to the attack on Chenliu. Property was damaged. Lives were not. Zhefu wishes no harm upon the people, but when forced, always minimizes the damage done.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you raid and sack a city, you can't say "well, I'm sacking it but I'm not hurting anybody", can you? The action of sacking a city means that you're raping and pillaging the populace and looting their belongings. That's how I'd read it at least. Am I reading it right?

Propaganda is a lovely thing! I mean of course some lives were lost. But only those who stayed behind. Silly people! Just remember the ol' mantra: just because I say it in character doesn't make it empirical truth

He can say whatever he wants, but yes bringing down a city so that it in effect becomes but a town involves killing the population. People don't idly stand by while you break their homes and businesses, there would be fighting back and thus killing. Even had he RP'ed doing so in that way (which I'm not sure he did or not), that would be what was reported to him by his commanders. The truth must be an easy thing to ignore for a man in a mask

Indeed it is!

Who needs the truth when you can have a mask?!

Heh.

[Shen Feng]

Propaganda is great, yeah, I just wanted to make sure that that wasn't actually the case, because it would be pretty stupid if it was. Stranger things have happened!

[Krimzon]

Well... Lu Chen dropped a bit of a shocker

[Shen Feng]

I was going to post this in my planning hall, but then no one except administrators would've really been able to see it. If I put it here instead, then I should get at least five or ten people to read it!

What's happening in my audience hall right now is exactly why I don't like people being able to generate statless NPC envoys and use them however they see fit. I didn't like it when Deng Yue did it (though he at least had his show fear), and I still don't like it when Mikal does it.

When there's nothing at stake in a conversation or a roleplay, when you're using an expendable, throwaway character that you don't even care to name, you can act in manners that simply wouldn't happen. We're expected to believe that, in the current case, a commoner with no position in Zhefu's forces has been following him around, personally witnessing things like Qing Bu's execution and the sacking of Chenliu, and now being sent to negotiate with a King despite no prior diplomatic experience, while conveniently suffering from a fatal yet non-contagious disease. My suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

Some of the most fun and interesting incidents in the game have been because of PC interaction. We can go back to me being in Dingtao negotiating with Ma Su, but beyond that there's Dreamer's fateful and fatal visit to Brother Dun's audience hall, Yi Guang's current meeting with Lu Chen, me and Li Jiacheng swapping visits, Ma Su's conflict with the Axe Gang, and so on. Having access to an endless pool of random envoys who cease to exist as soon as their current roleplay is done devalues everything else. Dreamer winds up looking stupid for putting his character into harm's way when he could have instead sent an expendable clone. Players wind up being encouraged, ironically, to not roleplay during their roleplays, to avoid risks, because there's no downside to them. I think it winds up stifling the game, and I say this as someone who hasn't killed any PCs yet and doesn't intend to.

When Deng Yue sent me a statless envoy earlier in the game to visit my army, I tried submitting a plot to take advantage of it. I wanted to show him around my encampment and display my army's power, so that his statless NPC would be impressed by the scale and power of Chu's army and go back recommending surrender. The plot wound up being denied because none of the staff had time to run it, and were maybe confused by what I'd intended. If the staff are attentive enough to pay attention to statless NPCs and override their actions occasionally, then suddenly there's risk attached to using them, the fact that you don't have complete control over them, you don't have the ability to make them act like death-defying paragons or bravery simply because you don't care if they live or die. Unfortunately, that requires more attention and effort than I think the staff wants to expend on such a minor thing when there's more pressing matters about. So my suggestion would simply be to prevent people from using such envoys. Force people to roleplay as their PCs. Give rulers who may be fearful the option of sending an NPC out. Yes, I'm sure most rulers will game the system and send their most pathetic NPC as their diplomat, as nonsensical as that is, but even that is better than randomly generating peasants to carry out the most important negotiations with kings. At least something is at stake.

Does anyone agree with me, or am I getting worked up over a non-issue?

[Brother Dun]

In actuality, the staff -can- override statless NPC enovys, especially if they see a gross misuse of them. I know when I was staff back in v3, we had to do that a couple of times. As you said, a peasant of no consequence is less likely to go and throw their life away for a lord than say... An actual officer. If a situation becomes too unbelievable, ask a staffer to see if it's not a misuse! But yeah, I've been sending actual officers on most of my visits to other places, if only for the added danger it could pose. I just think it's more fun!

[Mikal]

In actuality, the staff -can- override statless NPC enovys, especially if they see a gross misuse of them. I know when I was staff back in v3, we had to do that a couple of times. As you said, a peasant of no consequence is less likely to go and throw their life away for a lord than say... An actual officer. If a situation becomes too unbelievable, ask a staffer to see if it's not a misuse! But yeah, I've been sending actual officers on most of my visits to other places, if only for the added danger it could pose. I just think it's more fun!

...Who said my envoy was a commoner? Or for that matter, he's anything like he seems.
For all you know he is a statted npc. Or even Zhefu, sans mask.
I've actually done that a few times this game, for the fun of it.

If anything, I'd say the assumption that this is a statless npc is worse than the actual fact of this envoy, whether he is npc, zhefu, or the son of heaven, risen from the dead.

So I'd say getting worked up over a non-issue here.