A comment and suggestion for roleplay opportunities

I come from a long line of MMORPG's, i play eq2, swg(though prob not after this nightmare chapter they just released) and many other throughout my career. But the only game i have ever truly rp'd in was a game called ultima online and thats where i remembered something.

I have noticed that rp is good in aenea...but sadly it consists only as a passerby kind of thing, theres no true in depth(sub-plot) style of rp(that ive seen). On ultima online myself and many others lived in the town of trinsic. It was a seaside village with alot of players based in it...it was the prettiest one in the game so many lived there and around it.

Eventually we hit upon the idea of creating our own town council for the city...since it had none scripted the position was open. We had a council of 10 people..we elected them thru votes on a forum and so on and each one had a position to tend to, city defense, magi council,city resources...and so on. Once each week we held a town meeting and all were invited, and we crammed into a small building(largest in the city lol) and all listened to the council bring up concerns with city details. Each in turn would take the podium and bring up his areas city concerns and then changes would be suggested..actions planned and then voted on and then the next would take the podium.

After all that was tended to the podium would be opened up for mutual discussion..which each person asking to take the podium and discuss his concerns with matters of the city and/or guilds. During all this one person would be taking notes...scribing down the days events for transfer to the forums. That would be his job to tend to and make sure it was clear and readable and easy to understand. In turn he would get paid for his work..either with items he needed or in game coin.

We had even set up a city coffer...one person made up a neutral character called *City Treasurer* and we would put money on him for city use for resources to make city defenses and such.(mind you this required trusting the person, which we could have a dm's player character for.) We had a blast doing all this...the intrigues of running a city...the roleplay involved...heck we even had a gm listening in and actually did an ogre attack 3 days later after he over heard someone commenting on the ogre attacks along the road t hat needed dealing with.

Now what im proposing is since kerril is bout the only governing official in the vale...we could thru roleplay set up a town council thru voting and so on. Set up a town aggenda...when meetings are held..so on and so forth. It could do nothing save make huge opportunities for the Dm's to pattern events after...and would give even the newbies a chance to be on even footing with the high levels cause thier voice is being heard.

It would also give the dm's the opportunity to reward xp for good roleplay...since it seems rather lacking(i know most dms have real world lives too lol ) not to mention allow people to meet..get to know one another..exchange advice...wisdom to the newbies and so on. For those who couldnt make the meeting there is the forum where they could read the prior nights town meeting and know the outcome and whats planned ahead.

The nice thing bout this..is it wouldnt require much dm intervention. The voting could be done on the forum and dms can read it...once postitions are placed its just a matter of weekly meetings from which dms can get thier ideas and comment on if they have any issues with current events. Most of it will be player run and the vale could then evolve and expand and in his spare time(if he has any lol) could add new buildings..change the environment to reflect if anything would change it. It would give the vale a truly living breathing feel to it.

Anyway..these are my thoughts on improving rp in our little town. Comments welcome from all

Interesting that you would put this up, since the other night I was in the town hall thinking of using the place for mission briefings for the Beuttlerian Militia (anyone from my dorm who plays, which is four guys now with one waiting for his key from Bioware and another planning on buying the game eventually.)

The Mayor's Chair and the surrounding benches are just cool, and sadly unused.

If town meetings are done, I call making random, generically named commoners to whine about the sad state of the town.

DerusTal wrote:If town meetings are done, I call making random, generically named commoners to whine about the sad state of the town.

*coughs* I believe that might be the purview of the DM staff

J/K hehe

Nice idea.

I think it's a really good idea. It would be neat to see the town grow from player involvement and add new buildings and that sort of thing. Glad you brought this up!

Don't think Sevenar would be interested, but my other guy may be

I think its a fantastic Idea.

And for taking the "minutes" at the meetings, I can think of just the PERFECT scribe.... an old goat who just recently jumped on the Sober wagon, and probably needs something to keep his mind off the booze

Aszhad would be willing to offer his services for defense of the Vale, and caravan escort.

Crideas would be willing to advise the town leadership in matters Arcane.

Heh if you need an infiltration expert...spyder would fit the tab...shes got a 35 or something hide and ms with hips and is willing to do anything to achieve the goal and iggy would help with the magic aspect.

Sorry infiltration?.. Spyder?.. she's good but at not as good as The Wandering Shadow.. (Jay's up in the 50's on both Hide and MS and HiPS and 20% permanent Concealment and Darkvision and sees more of the night-life of Aenea then many others.. )... lol... but Vale isn't his hometown so the position is yours... He's happy to keep the Mistborne swamps in order.. lol...

Good Idea though... also if the town hall isn't your place.. those truely executive meetings can take place in the Green Dragon Hall.. top-floor of the Inn .... .....

Well i suggested the vale in as its where everyone loads in when the server resets. Most people use it as a hub to other places.

I offer the Beuttlerian Militia as an organized standing defense force.

You know, once there's more than 2 1/2 players consistently.

It's a great idea. One slight thought I've had since the initial brainstorming session... While there's many of us on at regular hours, not everyone is on a the same time. While the meat of this idea will be enacted in-game of course, some forum usage can help keep the players on at odd hours 'in the loop' in terms of what's going on, what's needed, what happened at the last big pow-wow, ect.

What we should do to really get the ball rolling is set up a time and date for the first meeting in-game here on the forums, so everyone knows ahead of time and can try to make it to the meeting. The greatest part of Kef's idea is that it's an in-game/in-character movement, and it's just a matter of having as many people as possible there at the same time to really make this the great success it can be. Once we got everyone together in-game, we can see exactly what unfolds from there in terms of every character's ideas and expectations and relegate the forum-side of this to postings of the meeting minutes and whatever OOC matters may come up.

Maybe an event of some sort? I've been noticing that the graveyard's been unusually foggy lately... Maybe some threat to inspire the residents of the Vale to enact some sort of plan? Like...

Everyone:"Unholy crap! Look at all those zombies! Times like these call for clear thinking and decisive action... Crideas Bane for President of the Vale!"

President-Elect Crideas:"My fellow Valorians, or, you know, whatevers... Let's go kill some zombies! Beuttlerians, attack!"

Derik: "More stuff to kill!"

Derfel: "But... I can't hit their organs.... and... oh, what's the use."

Angelica: "Why did you even send them in first?"

PEC: "I needed a distraction. And you know how Derik is... He was going to attack anyways."

LOL

Regent Arcanum perhaps... President Elect, no.

Crideas is definitively NOT a politician.

And Derik is indeed an excellent "point and shoot" distraction

I'm thinking a weekend may be best to kick this off. But who knows. What time is good for everyone else?

I will be very interested to see how this will play out, but alas! I will probably not partake of it - my playing time is really limited as is ...

But I think you guys are onto something good here ... immersiveness and all that!

Perhaps Claudius will feel inclined to sit in and listen. Just leave him be...he is not a very social little guy

Just a bump to see if there is still interest in this here idea! I like the sound of this.

I will be attempting to get th is started in game in a day or two...i planned on doing it sooner...but mechanical difficulties(namely hard drive failure) prevented me from doing so.

Most likely i will start to inquire in character using sykee, as he is the most likely to want some kind of council(being a 5 person council himself )

Since he can read minds(being a psion) he would pick up from kerrik the absence of the town mayor was/is causing him stress as he has to cover up the fact the mayor is missing.

So just strike up a convo with sykee if you pass by him...from there the dm/dm's can help me further develope it (if they want to that is)

i'm still in if i can play that night, been pretty busy recently

OH MY F-ING GOD!!!! ANOTHER UO ALUMNI!!!!

Wasn't UO amazing Kefrem? I think so, and I only played it for 3 years or so in its waning years.

Entire towns built and run by players with their own organized standing armies, crafting sub-guilds, and ruling bodies (who imposed dues or taxes on the people living in their sphere of influence.). :-) These towns frequently had their own self-sustaining economy. (Personally I made a fortune selling bows, crossbows, arrows, and bolts.)

Player alliances built and wars fought without staff intervention. (I use "staff" because there were actually 3 distinct levels of the behind-the-curtain people.) The staff would notice if a player group became large and powerful and act accordingly. Usually it involved epic quests and plots, which permanently altered the world. (Logging in one day to find a new clearing in the forest near your town with an ominous tower, for instance.)

Epic villains, "damsels in distress", and several key NPCs played by staff.

Epic battles fought between an army of hundreds of (semi-)organized players (frequently culled from the armies of several different player guilds) and (tens of) thousands of undead or orcs or whatever, usually directed by several staff members behind the scenes. One veteran player retold a story of pushing back a massive army of undead and finding a man behind it screaming the undead on and how soon his army would cover the world. When the player army breached the line of undead the man vowed revenge and made a narrow escape.

It's been almost 9 years now, and I still remember how truly amazing and exciting it was. (Kefrem, did the undead invade Trinsic on your shard? I remember going there totally unaware the invasion had started. I met a walking corpse, I think it was called, and I attacked it. It took like 300 arrows to kill the damn thing, I know because I had to run get more arrows to kill it, LOL, and I was throwing some mid-level magic at it as well trying to save some of my precious arrows.)

I made many friends, two of which I still speak to on a regular basis, one of which I co-GMed our own UO server for a while. Sadly, he has gotten too busy with real life to properly GM it...

Ok, enough with the reminiscing...

The surface RPing I have seen on Aenea has made be pine for the good ol' days of UO, so yeah, I would love it if there was a little more depth to it. It's been about a year since I RPed on my UO shard (and it was mostly from the GM's perspective which is quite different from just an ordinary player) so I ask that you forgive my rusty RPing skills. (The first time I met Auroa (sp?) floating about, I actually freaked a little, I didn't realize immediately that she was just playing her unhappy part. ) In fact I was wondering around the Vale yesterday idly wondering what was in some of the buildings I couldn't go in. If we could RP in some interiors, that'd be fun, especially if I get to design it.

I'll check after the server comes back up to see when/if you go through with this.

I think there is a lot of support for this initiative, and would love to see more come of it

Not there there is anything to actually be concerned about, but just make sure its been said, as far as this RP idea goes, lets also try to keep things welcoming and fun for folks who might be less Rp and more action oriented. I doubt that would be an issue, but something to keep in mind

*pokes Derik*

I'm home for Christmas Break, and a little busy at the moment, but I'll try to get updated and online sometime soon.

This should be fun to put together.

EDIT: Just kidding... Read the other threads, guess we're inactive for now. And then I remembered my missing item problem.

Geh. So much to sort out...

BUMP!

When is this happening Kefrem? Don't chicken out on us now.

I'd do it myself, but I've not been here long enough to feel comfortable heading a huge and possibly world changing initiative as this. Maybe if I had a DM hiding in my back pocket...?

Only if there are cheese sandwiches in said back pocket! Mmm, tasty!

Well, the Beuttlerians should be back in force soon; we go back to school tomorrow.

Of course, I'm going to be devoting more time to RL hobbies, like Dagorhir, but I will get Derfel epic.

Maeglin Dubh wrote:Well, the Beuttlerians should be back in force soon; we go back to school tomorrow.

Of course, I'm going to be devoting more time to RL hobbies, like Dagorhir, but I will get Derfel epic.

Real Life is sooooo overrated... In real life I can't cast spells, or swing a sword, or kick orcish ass all over the place... there's not even any orcish ass to kick IRL... Pfffttt... See? Waaaay overrated.

you need to get in on some LARPs then, that covers all of that depending on where you go

sevenar wrote:you need to get in on some LARPs then, that covers all of that depending on where you go

LARP? If that stands for what I think it stands for, Live Action Role-Playing, that's just scary...

yes it does... i've never dared to venture into them (don't even know if there are any in Portland), but i don't think i have the courage to step into something like that... it's a little beyond my comfortable level of nerd - although I have nothing against people who do that. Anyone seen Role Models btw? The battles look kind of fun but i couldn't handle being in character like that i think

sevenar wrote:yes it does... i've never dared to venture into them (don't even know if there are any in Portland), but i don't think i have the courage to step into something like that... it's a little beyond my comfortable level of nerd - although I have nothing against people who do that. Anyone seen Role Models btw? The battles look kind of fun but i couldn't handle being in character like that i think

Same here... Extreme nerd overload...

Okay, for your approval ... LARP linkage!

first one, Stone Golem - kinda cool, but i wonder what it smells liek inside ...

Next one, Larping Documentary (Character Creation) - I don't know about y'all, but 3 minutes or so into this one, I swear I saw Jay Braysin make a guest appearance ...

Last one, Thor the Barbarian & Blackwolf the Dragonmaster at LARP - does anyone else see a resemblance between Blackwolf the Dragonmaster and our very own Crideas Bane?

Enjoy these tender treats, I know I sure did, and thank you for bearing with me as I took this thread off the beaten path (as in beaten with a PVC pipe-sword) ...

(Oh, yeah, just as a warning, there is some rough language in the Thor one ... dunno about the rest ...)

i watched that stone golem video 6 times and laughed every time, that is absolutely incredible.

and I feel this is far beyond me even more so now... i would have to be seeing someone i REALLY* liked who did it to even consider it...

*read: she cast Dominate Person on me and I have no will of my own

In my early 20's, I LARP'd for about 3 years through the PNW. I normally don't mention it because of the (largely deserved) stereotype of a LARPer.

But I had a good time...:-)

Hey, if you enjoy(ed) it, then that's all that matters! (Just keep telling yourself this, over and over and over ... !)

I do Dagorhir.

The only resemblance to LARPing is that we have characters, and sometimes wear armor.
No stats, no numbers to call out, and we really hit people. It's all bladeskill (or, in my case, bowskill.)
I stopped watching the last clip when the girl attacked yelling "4 silver! 4 silver! 4 silver!" that would drive me crazy on the battlefield.

Maeglin Dubh wrote:I do Dagorhir.

The only resemblance to LARPing is that we have characters, and sometimes wear armor.
No stats, no numbers to call out, and we really hit people. It's all bladeskill (or, in my case, bowskill.)
I stopped watching the last clip when the girl attacked yelling "4 silver! 4 silver! 4 silver!" that would drive me crazy on the battlefield.

now that's how i would have to do it, the number thing bugged me too when i watched those. the guys that flailed their sword and shield at each other made me laugh quite a bit too, i think it was in the second video - the documentary one.