Creating A strong RP Player base

[Diamondedge]

1. What would make the world a better RP (roleplaying) place to be?
2. What experiences have you had in Layonara that have made you want to stay in layo forever?
3. What was your favorite Roleplaying Moment in Layo? (if different from question 2)


1. There isn't a lot that could really make Layonara any better than it is, without getting into specific nitty gritty stuff.

- Despite his age (and the wisdom gained through it), people do not take my character seriously, nor his opinions into account, because he appears as 'effortless' to people. I think the community of Layonara can expand it's greatness further by taking into account those of lesser level, and RPing with them, as well as taking them seriously. I like to think that my character has a great deal to offer the people of Mistone and Layonara over all because he has wracked up a great deal of experience just by being at places, and doing things. He isn't the most powerful figure in the world, but he has 'been there' and 'done that', and very generally does know what he is talking about. Many other lower level characters also have the same amount of wisdom through experience and are simply overlooked by those of higher and indeed epic levels.

This is not to say that it is the case with everyone, mind you. There are several noteables whom I have RP'd with over the past year as Turor who do not overlook him, and indeed do recognize his opinion, wisdom and exhistance. Ozymandias, for instance, is a very constant RPer that doesn't overlook the little guy really at all. Brisbane has had a run-in with Turor and it ended up in a delightful bit of roleplay. I think that the epic levels should stop for a day or so a week and just RP with the 'locals', get to know the new players, and enjoy everybody's commitment to the world and all the fun and talent that they do bring to Layonara.

- The drow that I have seen running around Hlint would be lynched and their heads would be stuck on poles outside any gate if the DMs had the time to be around more often. Visual paragons of evil shouldn't be running around without hoods, and I believe this was the feature of much debate about a year ago. I don't know how to put it, exactly, but I find their very insistance on showing themselves off to the common citizenry very unnervingly bold. The thing that people need to remember, I guess, is that there are commoners that we cannot graphically see walking about taking care of their daily business. Isn't Hlint like a village of 500 people or something? Rural communities such as Hlint have a tendency to be a bit more conservative when seeing something strange, fearsome, or in many cases what could be considered distasteful. Layonara is not a tolerant world, and racism is rampant, as would be the norm if there was a group of people with very distinct features that habitually commited heinous evils. Sure, judging by one's actions is a good defense, but the commoners, the farmers, etc etc would not be so inclined. I guess the populous needs to take that all into account.

You want to play some goodly Drizzt clone, that's fine, but you have to understand that in those novels, Drizzt is the victim of a great deal of discrimination, too, and actually has to work and do good deeds for the communities in order to be at least tolerated by people, and that the honest word of a friend really doesn't weigh in very much. And now I feel almost like I'm flaming, so I'm going to back off away from that topic.

2. I have had many experiences in Layonara that have made me come back time and time again, RL permitting.

The people are great, the DMs do their jobs affectively, and the lead designer takes a very active role in the transpirings of the world, without being as restrictive as a Commi might. (And believe me, I've seen absolute freedom in servers, and I've seen absolute control. Layo is a very healthy middle-ground)

I will admit, most of my favorite experiences involved Aleister (Synpox) and the world really just isn't the same without him here. It's a shame he got the short end of a rather short-to-begin-with stick.

3. My very favorite roleplaying moment in Layo... That is difficult to say for certain, considering I've had so many of them.

Perhaps chasing after Aleister with a greataxe, or playing cards against him those few times I won, or maybe when Turor set the outside of Al's house ablaze, much to the chagrin of the old mage, or perhaps it was when Turor dressed Acacea up like a dwarf and took her ogre mashing, sword, shield and armor style, 'the way eht ought ter be dun'. Of course, many of the quests I've been on have been wonderful, too, one in particular that I remember being the one where we all sat outside of that tower near Haven and yelled and screamed at the hostage taker. That was plenty of fun.

[darkstorme]

@Diamondedge - I would argue that Hlint is the one place where the only people who would be intolerant of Drow, Tieflings, etc would be new arrivals or those with established grudges against the race in question.  As you said, it's been said before, and the verdict was the same.  Hlint being the magnet for adventurers that it is, even the commonfolk are likely to take teleportation, vast displays of magic, and representatives of nominally evil races behaving well in stride.  Kell wears a hood because of the reaction his features provoked in childhood - sooner or later, he'll choose to doff it, when he has the confidence and the pride to display his face openly.

As to the topic at hand:

1) As always, I'm going to push for Rogue benefits here - traps that fighters can't easily disarm in the "stick-disarms-bear-trap" method, doors that don't yield to force but have vulnerable locks, and the like.  The inherent vulnerability that comes with being a Rogue ought to come with some IC benefits other than being a damage enhancer - particularly if that's not your RP style.  And again, I'll plug for XP rewards for trap disarm, (this despite the fact that Kell has yet to disarm a trap) - my argument being that a trap, particularly a corridor-blocking one, is similar to an encounter.  You can't get by it without defeating it or evading it, and if you attempt to defeat it, you run the risk of taking significant damage.  Ergo - XP.

2) It's just the best-balanced of any of the game worlds I've played on.  When new (and brief) players appear complaining that it's unlike WOW or UO, and whining that it needs to be changed to be more like them, I can answer in confidence that it is better - and be joined by all the other veterans here (many with far more time on-server than I) in that assurance.  It's that simple.

3)  This one was quite lovely.  It was an RP-heavy session in the Lost and Found quest series.  The team was facing an enemy who had just increased in power exponentially, and we were uncertain how, or if, we were going to deal with him/her/it.  (You'd have to be there to understand the pronoun uncertainty.)  A foolishly optimistic and notoriously stubborn priest (LG, naturally) decided to go with what Kell considered a tremendously foolish plan - waving a holy symbol in front of the demon and entreating the host to cast out its posesser.  Kell was actually disappointed when the posessee staggered... his face changed... he reached for the symbol, put it on, started to cry....  and then as the priest moved to take the cursed items, the sobbing turned to laughter and the demon tore off the amulet and pocketed it.  I could not have asked for better, and I actually laughed aloud.  *grins*

[LynnJuniper]

YOU WERE LAUGHING TOO! HAR! Kell so was I, I was having a giggle fit. I actually did NOT want that to work OOC. I would've lost faith in life if it did...

Anyway Figured I’d take a crack at this:

1) What would make the world a better roleplaying place to be?

   The only thing I could think of , would be something mentioned in the forums already: Switching around the new player NPC quests to give it a bit of spice. I mean, its funny to think that Reg lost her necklace again, Erag is planning the death of us all, and the little girl in Krandor is a vampire stuck in child form leading us all to our death, but…it gets a bit old after a while. Also, I’ve heard some mention the whole: Follow the Epic thing, and say that until you hit a certain level your input doesn’t count. While I did get this feeling sometimes, for me it was just a matter of getting louder. Okay, so sometimes it leads to stupid things, but at least people will recognize the name Rhynn and have something to say about it, even if its not so nice!

2. What experiences have you had in Layonara that have made you want to stay in layo forever?

   All of the off quest , non GM ran rping. We come up with some pretty interesting stuff even without the Gms around. Hlint has more drama than a high school hallway, and for that I love it.

However, The moment I found myself addicted to the game was my first GM encounter. Ice/Kea , I love you for it I really do. Scared the life outta me, seeing as I just saw a movie where videogame characters come out of the computer and kill you, but it was an awesome experience and from that moment on I knew I was hooked.

3. What was your favorite Roleplaying Moment in Layo? (if different from question 2)

Last Friday on the Exploring The Past quest run by Nova. The pirates had killed off our ships Capitan and crew before we could kill them. The result was a voiceless Rhynn steering and navigating the ship with the help of an awesome crew, Thos the fairy screaming at everyone, Celgar hanging upside-down from a mast or sail or something, Lucius was somewhere and it was painful, Kyle had an “accident”, and a Halfling caught a falling flying half orc before reaching safety.

[Staccatto]

Having a background in performance management and behavior analysis, all I can say is you get what you reinforce (ie Reward).  If most rewards come via quests, you'll get alot of questers.  They'll do everything they can to prepare and be ready for, and be the best in the next quest, to maximize the amount of reward they might recieve. If you reward role playing, be it inside or outside of quests, you'll get roleplaying.  The issue here becomes is when do you want roleplay to occur.  If you want it to occur evenly within and outside of quests, then you need to make the rewards somewhat comprable to each other.   If you want it to occur more in one situation than the other, then you need to increase the rewards on that end.

Personally, I think if you really want to increase innovative roleplay, then the best option is to increase the frequency in which roleplay is rewarded outside of quests.  I think that you'll find more variation amongst character profiles and types as well as more focus on character development.  

Not that I'm sure that some of this doesn't exist already, but you'll be increasing the occurance of this.

[silverdraco]

1. What would make the world a better RP (roleplaying) place to be?  
Make it even better? I wonder if there is a way to make it better. I guess there are options but I can't think of them right now. sorry.


 2. What experiences have you had in Layonara that have made you want to stay in layo forever?
To many to name. but all of them are based on the players I play with nowadays and the rp they and I are in I just love it. I actualy didn't think I would still be rp-ing becasue i'd love to get my character to the next lvl for lost of reasons. on of them being the cdq's I would finaly be able to do. and the second one is the new spells she would be able to get. the cdq would by the way be a way of getting her to follow her a certain path in life.


3. What was your favorite Roleplaying Moment in Layo? (if different from question 2)
It happened not to long ago. My character Sonya darsus. was going after her husband Rain who was doing something stupit. I'm not saying to much about the event it self but it was all a great moment of rp and made even better by the sudden xp i got while just sitting there and rp-ing or in my words doing what came up in my head and looked like the best way to act for my character. I'm not sure who gave it but I wanna thank him\\her. I found out by asking Rain darsus that it was because of the good rp. I'd never thought i'd get that award. never even knew it was there.



 

[Hellblazer]

Yep. I think it is first of all who you Rp with that makes you want more. I know for a fact that I love rping with what we call teh Family. (the angels guild: Dalan, Daniel, Dora, Elgon (RIP) Ferrit, Jako, Kyle, Me, Mercas and Sonya ), Barion sa'k Jil and a few others. We have grown a lot and have seen each others grow into our characters that When Elgon Merrick Permed it was truly a hard time for many of us IC and OOC. At a point you have to make a separation of what is game and RL but with some people you just cant and get attached alot. I know that for some my char may seemed a bit much, but I do it like this cause I know it is entertaining for those I rp with. To have the Dm say that he was on the edge of his seat from west to were we where was a treat ( i kinda felt he/she was sad that he had to leave and not be able to follow the rest of it).
 
 Next step i think would be to have more dm led quest. I have checked out this months quest and sadly I can only attend one.
 
 Eh! I even had a blast when I jumped a bunch of mercs near fort hope and got slaughtered, by the leader of the mercs, Ok the Griffons didnt help either, but his axe. ouch!!. The Leader half orc came to My player and started to loot him. But fortunatly some good samaritains and the person I was going to reach in Hampshire passed by and anihilated them. Twas only a few moments later that I was raised and started to Rp Losing my prescious bow. Made by Elgon Merrick. Then again the Dm must have liked it as we received a little gift.

[Polak76]

I agree that more High level characters should mingle with the lower levels.

As for the drow issue, well, you could read about 5 pages about that in the general discussion thread from last month.

As for improving it - in my case it would have to be more quests in the Aussie time zones.  Frequent and random GM interaction and miniquests.  Actually I would rather small spontaneous GM surpirses that can open the mind to great RP options.  Most of the larger quests are too hard for many to attend.

Best moments - well I've had so many.  Probably plotting with my fellow Corathites for hours on end.  Breaking the marriage of Lalaith and Veldrin plus all the follow-on from that.  Ahh, and most of all the Black Hand quest from Dezza which led to my CDQ.
Generally though I enjoyed making everyone hate my PC, and the many arguments he had with so many people out there.


Cheers,
Polak76

[Weeblie]

Polak76 - 10/4/2006  9:36 AM

As for improving it - in my case it would have to be more quests in the Aussie time zones.  Frequent and random GM interaction and miniquests.  Actually I would rather small spontaneous GM surpirses that can open the mind to great RP options.  Most of the larger quests are too hard for many to attend.

There are unfortunately different thoughts about this one. I for one love them and I'm fine with whatever happens on them. But...

Sometimes when people dies on spontaneous quests, the DM gets blamed. "Really" blamed. I can only guess that it's very, very dishearting for them when they in the first place only wanted the players to have fun.

That's what I think is the main reason you don't see all that many spontaneous DM quests being run.

[Eorendil]

I love small, spontaneous interactions. Unfortunately, sometimes PCs die when you're speaking of combat oriented spontaneity. I would suggest, however, that if you suspect a GM has a hand in whatever is going on and you do die... don't reflexively hit that respawn button. Give it some time and wait for help. There may be an RP way to bring the character back or he may not be completely dead. Because, as we all know.. sometimes you're only MOSTLY DEAD.