Responsible plot mischief

Since there's a lot of players that are assholes IC and OOC'ly this should be an interesting discussion. 
*goes to make popcorn*

Do you pk? If so, how many on one pc?
I try not to limit myself to numbers but it's worth noting the more PKing you do, the more apt people are going to form a club somewhere whose sole purpose is to make an arranged corpse of you. So try to exercise some level of judgement and don't expect to get away with playing "Griswald Meathammer the Fleshsuited"

Do you disrupt the social or hunting activities of other players?
I do that when I'm not a villian. It can be a simple as, I'm drunk and I don't like your face. Honest to God sometimes it's the greatest thing when someone just goes into some legit greasy ball bone-and-shell armour fucktard merc rage about some small slight their character holds dear, like, "Those are the same boots the man who killed my pa wore! IT'S YOU ISN'T IT!?" *break bottle*
.. Ah. Good times.

Are you willing to depopulate or reset a clan?
Hell yeah. If I have a legit chance to throw a major curveball at a clan, that's awesome. If my PC hates Lord Floofy mcFale pants and I hatch a plot to blow up his house and somehow can /do/ it? You're goddamn right I will.
I'm going to chain together sixteen krathis and instruct them to scream Jihad Jihad and get a half-giant to throw them over the gate or plant some cursed metal rings in the Fale jewellery boxes that they will feel compelled to wear, and that whisper, "Kill them all", "Human meat is good" and watch them eat each other while eating raptor nuggets.

Is nonlethal pvp activity inherently better?
Sometimes that's pretty awesome. Stab a guy. Knock them out and rob them just to say, fuck you, I could kill you but you're a piece of shit and I want you to remember it. I own you. I don't fear you. Classic stuff. Builds rivalries. But sometimes, you just have to kick a motherfucker in the kidneys and send him to drov. I play it by ear.

Are social conflicts inherently better?
Depends on the players in the conflict. If they are going to be legit Game of Thrones snakes and backstabbery, then sometimes that's pretty fucking cool. I like a man who can kiss me on the mouth and lie to my face after returning home after murdering my brother on a contract killing. That's ice-gold shit. Someday, somewhere, someone hopefully has stolen someones stable ticket, just to kill it, behead it, and leave the head in their apartment on their bed. Just to fuck with them. Hoping deep down they got the reference.

Should mages be restricted from hammering mundanes with spells?
No. Mages are dicks. Crazy, powerful, spooky and probably insane from being hoodoo-magick-cursed-blood dicks.
ICly we know they are dicks. OOCly we know they have spells which they can use to be huge pains in the ass.
Mages are OP. So are the 50 day rangers spam hammering a quiver full of perained arrows at them. I say, it's all fair.

Are other players plots as important than yours, or possibly more?
Depends largely on the plot and what you feel is important. Play what makes you enjoy playing. Plot to play that way.


SIDE NOTE:

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS
> Arrange body

Lol Anaiah. I feel vicious in comparison to you. Dear God am I a monster and no one has told me yet?? D:

That really depends on why I am playing one. i didn't generally create characters to be antagonistic it was just something that happened. Based on what you've said in both posts it seems like your concern is the impact on other peopkle's RP so I'm gonna go with this...

Ask yourself two questions:

1. What kind of activity/reaction do I want to create by my actions?
2. What kind of duration am I shooting for?

The answer to your questions will differ based on how you answer mine. With the following exceptins:



So now I'll answer what Id do in three scenarios if I were you...

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If you want 1) people to rally together to kill you and 2) to have it happen ASAP then...

Do you pk? If so, how many on one pc?
Probably and frequently. there's more than one way to piss people off to the point they join forces to kill you, but they're not going to do it if they're unafraid of letting you live. A non-lethal raider is ignorable. A non-lethal sorc is still a sorc.

Do you disrupt the social or hunting activities of other players?
Whenever possible.

Are you willing to depopulate or reset a clan?
You probably shouldn't concern yourself with this.

Is nonlethal pvp activity inherently better?
Not unless people will still be afraid to let you wander around even if you spare your victims.

Should mages be restricted from hammering mundanes with spells?
Definitely not.

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If you want 1) to be unknown so people have to discern your identity 2) over a long period of time then...

Do you pk? If so, how many on one pc?
This depends entirely on your guild/subguild.

If you can harass players silently in a way that makes them feel threatened or preyed upon, you should keep PKs to a minimum. Illiteracy isa huge impediment to this kind of antagonist because you can't leave notes for your victims. If youre literate you can leave notes intended to be read by a very small audience... though if youre playing a literate antagonist it'd probably leave a short list of suspects. Magick and mindbending give you alot of remote-torment abilities that won't reveal you. Magick, mindbending, and mundane stealth give you a lot of information-gathering abilities; selling people's secrets is a good non-lethal way to endanger or piss them off enough to try to find you.

I left blackmail out of the information list on purpose. It strikes me as fairly difficult to do for anyone but mindbenders/sorcs/whirans because of the nature of communication in Zalanthas. (Those three can give people messages silently or with the Messenger spell) The lack of literacy means you either have to constantly risk exposing yourself or use a go-between who can expose you. even invisibility isn't a safe bet given that guilds with scan max out above the point they can see you. You have the added problem that most of your targets won't do anything extortionworthy outside of killing a valuable PC, unless theyre secretly not mundane and can most likely kill/discover you easily. And even if you get something on a noble/templar the only people you can threaten to expose them to are other people above your station which is its own can of worms.

You can also accomplist a LOT with a high steal skill by planting things. But outside of getting someone arrested by gate guards this requires a highly ranked cohort. And your post left me with the impression you wanted to be the leader if you had a group. Of course if you have templar karma or a noble having a lackey who can plant things is ideal. i guess the problem is when youre that high up you don't really need to blackmail people in order to threaten them.

moving on.

If you don't have silent methods at your disposal (or you do but theres no opportunities to get a reaction with them), you're probably going to be stuck with PK or the threat of PK. Since you want to be mysterious youre going to want to target someone really well known but not hated. The docs are useless for this. The bards are supposed to be well-liked in Tuluk but when I last played there the only people who'd miss a bard are the staff. No. youll have to do some recon.

Secretly killing (or nearly killing) a clan leader (or unclanned-group leader) who isnt a douchebag is probably your best bet. Someone with subordinates that he or she is actually keeping active. someone who is gonna be missed. Thats what youre looking for. The threat of death means little to players compared to the threat of inactivity. Pulling that off on a VIPs or threatening ones you spared will keep things moving. But threats kind of fall into the problems with blackmail I mentioned above. I don't know if paralyzing someone prevents them from looking at you; if so it's a possible angle.

Playing a serial killer will probably get you "caught" by NPCs. there will also be other players who roll their eyes about the idea of a horrible world like Zalanthas producing a serial killer because they're pretentious dicks. So it's probably not going to have the impact you were hoping for.


Do you disrupt the social or hunting activities of other players?
Whenever practical and in keeping with your goals. You dont want people thinking that mystery bastard has been killed in the background. You need to leave reminders you're [secretly] alive and kicking.

Are you willing to depopulate or reset a clan?
No. Then all you'd have are staffers after you instead of the clan. taht leads to a totally different result.

Is nonlethal pvp activity inherently better?
refer to the original question about PKing.

Should mages be restricted from hammering mundanes with spells?
Absiolutely. If you have an antagonist group instead of just going solo, youre going to want to make the magick attacks few because they are very prone to drawing attention.

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If you want 1) people to view you as competition and 2) have it last a while...

Do you pk? If so, how many on one pc?
Probably not, and if so infrequently. Youll probably want to be able to gloat about it in public without immediately seeming guilty to third parties of having done it.

Do you disrupt the social or hunting activities of other players?
When you can get away with it and steal victory/goods from them.

Are you willing to depopulate or reset a clan?
This should be your long-term goal if pitted against a clan

Is nonlethal pvp activity inherently better?
Most of the time, yes. you dont want to be seen as someone just out to murder everyone in a group you're trying to destroy.

Should mages be restricted from hammering mundanes with spells?
Highly restricted, yes. You're dangerous competition rather than purely dangerous. Blasting your competition to kingdom come with magick wouldn't even fly in Cenyr as "competing". If you do need to knock off someone in your competiton with magick, it should be done secretly and instantly, not publicly or drawn out.

I helped bring about the death of only 1 PC and he was very high profile, family member and suspected Psion.

That's why I prefer not to pk unless it adds more to the story as well. It's just more opportunity to roleplay and tell the story you're trying to tell, when the people involved in it die off without it being necessary or poignant for the plotline in question. It's much more entertaining and adds much more when you make the person's character into an onrunning source of roleplay/storytelling by making a nemesis of them or an ally of them, etc.