First pvp experience

[Verideth]

Ok I just had my first pvp experience on this server.

It was against a very powerful evil PC at the second wind inn and he wiped the floor with me. After it happened I sent a pm to the player that killed me asking if I remember what happened or not. The player said I could remember what happened if I wanted.

I then ressed in the city and walked back to the second wind inn. I buffed before entering the second wind area, expecting my adversary to be there and have to fight again. I was then pm by a DM saying I was in bad form for doing this.

I am a bit confused. I am definitely not complaining and do not want DM's to think I am out to break the server rules. Can I please get some clarification?

Thank you for any help.

[Rhifox]

-Death from PvP will result in a memory loss unless the victim is raised or resurrected by another character at the location of their death immediately following the PvP event. Players may not contact other players OOCly for a resurrection, especially to retain memory of the conflict. Players who use a signus or respawn from the [Fugue] lose all memory of the conflict and events leading up to it that might "finger" the villain. The purpose of this is so assassins and murders don't have their dead targets coming back and ratting them out. Respawning is a courtesy that should not cost our characters in-character consequences.

There's also the fact that realistically there would be quite a bit of recovery time, not to mention the travel distance involved (both ways, since some NPC has to take your body to the temple first). Just because you can resurrect and run back all in 15 minutes OOCly doesn't mean that that would be realistic IC.

[Verideth]

I didn't see that rule and now I know I was in the bad.

The time thing is a bit difficult to understand. If 2 RL hours is day, 15 minutes should be like 3 hours... I understand why DM's dont want to script out time for this very reason.

In the future I will simple log off or sit around to give it some time before going back. I will also RP this as I do not remember what happened.

Thank you for the comment.

[Snowmane]

Yeah, a lot of the rules are kind of murky. It's best to work things out with the other player so that if you need to pass back through an area where they might be, you can arrange to "not see" each other IC due to time lapse or whatever reason you may decide is appropriate. The Second Wind area is especially problematic because you have to pass through it to get to the rest of the module.

It is wise to wait a bit after a resurrection though. Low vitality can really mess with your survivability. It can be a good time to run errands or if you manage to find someone to RP with, then get a drink at the tavern and have at it.

[Catastrophe]

The wiki states our rules on the matter of PVP.

http://www.sundren.org/wiki/index.ph...ules#PvP.2FCvC

Unless you are raised at the very spot where you were slain, you would have no recollection of what happened.

[Saulus]

Yeah, a lot of the rules are kind of murky.

I find that extremely hard to believe.

There shouldn't be any confusion over the rules, after all people read them before playing right? Wait.. no.

If people are uncertain about a rule, then we are more than happy to clarify, but a lot of the times (this being an exception as it is a minor transgression) people feign ignorance which is not a good reason to break a rule.

[Verideth]

Thank you Saulus,

I am indeed guilty of not reading everything in detail. I have now done so.

I apologize to the DM involved and if I have offended anyone else.

Verideth

[Gamling]

It's alright man. We all make mistakes. Though you should take a moment to read over the rules quick like saulus mentioned.

As for the PVP you don't need to log out for a day if you die. It's just in bad sport to PVP with the same person that you had PVPd with already that day is all.

No hard feelings.

[Doubtful]

Yeah, a lot of the rules are kind of murky.

Let us know which rules you think are murky and we'll see if we can clear them up for you!

As for diving straight back into PvP with the person who just kicked your butt - It's pretty bad form. There's no need to log off or take a break after getting rofl stomped, but instead keep the IC ramifications in mind! Your character has just been beaten to within a hairsbreadth of death, dragged 20-30km or so across country by a passerby and nursed back to something approaching health by the rugged ministrations of burly Helmites. You really shouldn't be shrugging it off as a petty distraction and sprinting back to where it happened!

Head to an inn, get a drink, go lick your wounds in your faction HQ or visit the Triumvirate for some extra checks.

[Farmboy2003]

I've always wondered about that rule and the IC consequences of it. (not that I question the rule itself.)

Thing is, you get killed by another player. He remembers everything vividly and you cannot even remember being there. To me, this seems to break immersion as the winner walks around potentially bragging: "I just killed me a paladin of Tyr, I did. That Dain Tornbrook fights like a one-armed little girl". Meanwhile the poor paladin may not even have a clue about who the hell this baddie is, or have ever seen him.

In my work I deal slightly with LARP, mostly for kids age 6-10, and in some of my observations of PVP in those settings I've come upon a realization: When you die in pvp you become an NPC, and works as a dramatic catalyst for the other party, and gives the winner the opportunity not only to RP the victor of an epic combat, but also to RP increase in reputation, faction etc. It is possible to have the victory recorded by a GM, to drive the plot in a certain direction (depending on the type of scenario), fx. Basically you put your own characters ambitions, goals and drives in the background(and your own involvement in them) and the let other player shine for awhile. This is extremely hard to do, but rings true to one of Gary Gygax's statements that a good roleplayer is one that can make sure other players have fun too.

In a Larp setting it is harder to metagame with the names of other characters, since there's maybe 200 of them running around anyway. It is a bit more personal in a nwn2 PW. Some high-level baddies and goodies are universally known, maybe from rumor, maybe from earlier conflicts. The dimension of Tells are also completely impossible to apply to a LARP situation.

But what happens when Dain meets Adeodatus a few days after a scuffle(apart from an epic rap battle), and Adeodatus says "I totally smoked your holy ass last week". And all Dain can say is an uncertain "Nu-uh"?

Are the winners of a PVP supposed to act with the same grace in the post-post-battleplay, as the loser in a post-battleplay? So Dain will go from being a PC, then to a no-name NPC, and back to being a PC in the perspective of Adeodatus?

(I've used Dain and Adeodatus as examples because of an RP post I read, which seemed to infer that they had been pvping - And Dain had lost.)

[Doubtful]

Using your example Dain may not remember who left him a bloody mess on the floor, but he'd certainly remember coming to in a terrible state having had the holy-heck curb stomped out of his face.

Hitting the respawn button may dump you at the temple with full health and an empty recolection - But you should always try and put some perspective on what just happened to your character, he hasn't just popped up out of nowhere, rather his mostly dead ass has been gotten to a temple and dealt with.

Your character will know he just got a beat down, the loss of vitality is an implication of the semi-perminant bruises, scars and injuruies they've just sustained.

Dain may not remember who killed him, but having Adeodatus gloat at him about it or having witnesses come and tell him what happened would allow Dain to put 2+2 together. Rather than an uncertain "nu-uh?" It'd probably be "Well that explains having to pee through a tube for a few days."

This could also go another way, say Blackguard X stomps down Dain, but tells no-one while Wanabee Y sees the whole thing. Wanabee Y tells the world it was him that did the deed and kicked the heck out of Dain. Without any proof to the contrary it'd be more than reasonable for Dain to assign his recent brush with mortality to the Wanabee, rather than the actual ganker.

I don't see the point in assigning NPC status, it's really rather simple.

[GodBeastX]

I think in this case a player saying "Remember the whole ordeal" overrides the rule a bit. Not like the DM knew you had an agreement though, so you can't blame him for being cautious.

The point of the memory thing was for our assassins and other chars out there that can't really get away with anything if their enemies refuse to die!

"I STABBED THAT DUDE 8 TIMES! HOW'S HE STILL ALIVE?!"

[Thief Of Navarre]

I think in this case a player saying "Remember the whole ordeal" overrides the rule a bit. Not like the DM knew you had an agreement though, so you can't blame him for being cautious.

The point of the memory thing was for our assassins and other chars out there that can't really get away with anything if their enemies refuse to die!

"I STABBED THAT DUDE 8 TIMES! HOW'S HE STILL ALIVE?!"

"I stabbed him so many times his chest cavity was like ministrone soup!" ftfy

[Gamling]

Basically the battle happened in front of about three other witnesses. I had nothing to hide. Didn't care, etc.

So at my player discretion when he asked to remember I said go for it. I believe player discretion would supersede a ruling meant to protect the winner if I am, in fact the winner. I thought it might be better role play if he could remember.

[Snowmane]

*Summary for those who don't want a long read*

My statement that the rules are murky was vague ("Hey pot, you're black" said the kettle ) and I can understand the reaction it got. The point I was trying to make was simply that the IC results of a PvP encounter need to be worked out between the parties involved using the rules as guidelines for how that negotiation should occur. In the event of a disagreement in this negotiation, a DM should be brought in to arbitrate.

It is not my intention to derail this thread or start an argument. I will not post on this thread anymore, but if anyone wants to discuss this with me, I will respond to PMs.

************************************************** ****

OK, I don't want to get argumentative about the rules so I'll just try to post my observations and opinion without pointing fingers or laying blame, but just using examples.

First of all my sentence that people seem to have issue with:

Yeah, a lot of the rules are kind of murky.

This was not well stated. The mechanical parts of the PvP rules are pretty clear, the IC rules as written leave of lot of wiggle room, which is necessary to allow the freedom for good RP, but in a dispute they can really be twisted depending on a players point of view.

For example, just in this thread, we have seen two different schools of thought as to what the PvP memory loss is IC:

When you die in pvp you become an NPC, and works as a dramatic catalyst for the other party

Your character has just been beaten to within a hairsbreadth of death, dragged 20-30km or so across country by a passerby and nursed back to something approaching health by the rugged ministrations of burly Helmites.

In the first, you didn't die, someone else with the exact same stats and personality as your character died. I have met a few people who favor this style of PvP death. This is problematic though, because the person who killed you does not have amnesia (per the rules), so when they see you again, they now have to pretend you are a different character than the one they killed in order for the IC concept to work. Plus, since you weren't killed it was your doppleganger, there is no reason for you not to take off and go do stuff. This interpretation requires negotiation between the two parties to smooth out the IC wrinkles when they inevitably run across each other again.

In the second, it is implied that that the character never actually died, he was knocked out and awoke later in the temple. But the character who attacked you killed you. In their mind, you were killed. Again, with time being so fluid, an after action negotiation will have to occur to work out the wrinkles.

I have seen a few other death/respawn interpretations, but I can't recall them off the top of my head. Just be aware that different people have different views for what death/respawn really means IC. That alone sometimes causes problems.

In Verideth's case, technically this was breaking a rule

After it happened I sent a pm to the player that killed me asking if I remember what happened or not. The player said I could remember what happened if I wanted.

The amnesia rule does not give the killer authority to give the victim the choice to remember or not. Now the two agreed to handle it this way, so I don't have a problem with it, but technically that was against the rules.

However, if the victim did remember being slaughtered at the Second Wind, then it might stand to reason that they would not want to return there unprotected, regardless of whether or not the killer was still there. So there is an IC reason for the victim to buff himself up before passing by the Inn, fearing the area to be unsafe in general.

Mechanically, he may want to buff up just out of sight of the second wind (i.e. the next area over), since casting any spell can be interpreted as hostile and trigger a PvP action to begin under the rules:

"Buffing" or preparing for battle is considered a hostile action. Should a possible opponent begin buffing, you may immediately flag them hostile and begin PvP, bypassing any need for making them aware of impending attacks.

(As a side thought, this rule says "or preparing for battle". This could be interpreted to mean that if I see a fighter strapping on armor, I could take it as a hostile action and start pvp'ing him while his armor counter is going. Obviously this is not in keeping with the spirit of the rule, but it does follow the letter of the rule. GD and Cornuto, you guys are law-people right? You must see things like this all the time.)

Now in this case, the player admitted that he was doing it based on metagame knowledge, but since the killer allowed him to remember the conflict, it wasn't metagame knowledge, it was IC knowledge. The only IC wrinkle here then was the concept of time. Would that enemy still be there after the amount of time that passed IC for the victim from the point of death to returning to the scene of the crime? Probably not, but again that should be decided between the players in OOC fashion and then played out IC.

For the most part, the PvP I have been involved with has mostly resulted in my PC's ending up dead. I'd estimate my PvP win/loss ratio across all my characters to 1:5. That said, in most instances, the results were handled OOC through tells between myself and the other person. In the few times where my evil characters victories have resulted in the deaths of my victims, I have often logged in with one of my good characters and res them myself (because I as a player feel bad for them and it gives my good, non-faction character a chance to make friends). This may technically be metagaming, but I prefer to think of it as "good sportsmanship". In my opinion, communication is the best way to handle the aftermath of a pvp encounter and any successive interaction between the characters.

As for assassins assassinating other PCs, well that's just really not supported. Not even by memory loss. The memory loss just means that your victim doesn't remember you. In the end, you could achieve more or less the same thing IC by just wearing a disguise or mask. The lack of permadeath (unless you get lucky and catch your opponent low on vitality and without a signus) pretty much means that assassinating a PC enemy is meaningless without either a cooperative victim or DM intervention.

In the end, this is an RP server and we are all trying to tell our characters stories within the framework of the world that Saulus and crew have provided for us. Interactions with other players are a part of that story and, as with any collaborative effort, there will have to be give and take on both sides to achieve the most compelling result.