Done.

After seven years and a hundred and twenty five characters, I'm tired of banging my head against the wall.

Of that set, I've had fifteen pcs on which I had something that felt like success. Some of the rest were exercises in learning mechanics. Some were pk'd before they got to a day of playtime. Some of them were me being clumsy or unlucky, or learning why I really dont like clans with less than 6 active members.

I've had three pcs who lived more than forty days. I've had at least six more around 20 days.

Tukil was a 52d played northerner warrior in 2009. He joined the Byn, made sergeant, had a lover and children, was made a southern citizen, joined House Tor, and got pk'd by Lash, after a long running rivalry. Big, detailed, high playtime fun, when I was playing fourteen hours a day, five or six days a week.


Brot was my masterpiece. He was a 71d northern HG warrior who at one point solo killed an ankheg.

The Legion filled up over time, and no less than fifteen pcs in various organizations steadily made war on the kryl. There was one rpt early on where Raleris lost his eye.   Then there was a few months of nothing. There was a few Lyksae npcs, and the fortification of Morin's village. The pcs scoured the grey, mapped it, hauled plant life out, and killed a truly mind-boggling number of kryl. We had a second rpt maybe 4 months in, where we tried to take a swipe at the breeding grounds in the grey, but we were unsuccessful. Then, it was a longer time yet before any of the pcs involved could get another rpt date with staff. I think the final count was 4 rpts in 11 months.

Player created plot with up to 20 pcs involved at a time? Yeah.  It seemed like Rathustra, the Legion imm at the time, was logging in as a storyteller once a week.   Reports and replies always came the same day, and any rpts we had also occurred on that day.

At one point Brot was out hunting kryl, cleaning out the eight or so room strip between the Tuluk wall and Morins. He did this patrol often. In mid circuit, he got rage poisoned, and ran around mulching any kryl he could find. After most of a game day of not feeling any additional symptoms, he stumbled back to Morin's to rest up. I walked him in the front gate and before I could react the rage poison procced, and half of the gate guards were dead. He managed to get away. We then had some fun rp about the Legion, Lyksae and Kadius being mad at Brot's clumsiness.

After my reports on the topic, Nessalin came unglued. He demanded to know why I'd intentionally killed guards in Morins. I explained myself, he didnt believe me, and demanded logs. After I sent in detailed logs, he dropped the point.  It seemed that he didnt know that rage poison had been introduced to the game several months earlier. There was no apology for the insult, but I recognize that would have been out of character.

I mapped eastward, over the mountain, and found the original kryl hive. I took Brot up there three or four times, then tried to lead a pc expedition. Only problem was, not enough pcs had climbing to reach the goal. I asked Rathustra for permission to scout it, RECEIVED permission, and raided an empty kryl hive. Found a queen and her guards at the bottom, killed them, hauled the head out, and got back to Tuluk to find the incident ret-conned.

We got a scheduled time to do an rpt down the chasm to the lakebed. We rolled out with a group of 50d warriors, rangers, and assassins, Brot, and 2 jihaens. Most of the way down the trench a staff member got a little trigger happy, and dropped twenty four of the tall chasm gith on us. A "total party kill" occurred in short order.

Arj, Beldin, both Jihaens and other serious fighters died in the first or second room of the retreat.   Brot ended up the last one standing, fighting one on twenty two gith, and gradually getting whittled down. He killed a couple, but just before he would have lost, the staff member teleported him out and full healed him. With no explanation to any of the pcs involved, the entire event was ret-conned on the spot.

This broke the clan. Playtime dropped across the board. A couple of the pcs decided to rp their fatal wounds from the fight, their health worsening. They began to wrap up their affairs. Brot was one of these.

I had been building rp over over a few weeks about one of the two Jihaens being incompetent. Brot was always called on to remove threats to his unit, especially ones others couldnt handle. Several conversations occurred in character about Taelos being a liability. Other pcs agreed, IC. I documented this in reports.

Finally, about to succumb to his wounds, Brot took the Jihaen off alone to give him a report, tearfully explained himself, and bash/one shot Ko'd the jihaen with his fist. A deathblow then followed. He then dropped his weapons and let the guards who just happened to come running, to kill him.

That was seven days after I had submitted a report (and not the first one) that I was going to do it.  Rathustra hadnt responded, so I was yelled at by Nyr and docked the 4th point of karma they had just given me a few weeks previously for "great hg roleplay and communication skills".

The rumor I got later that was, of course, unconfirmable, was that the player of Taelos was a friend of one of the current imms. They had selected his app for that Jihaen role out of a number of applicants despite a little to no clan or rpt leadership experience, no familiarity with the combat system, and
only average rp skills.


Nikin was a few characters later. He was a 40d+ merchant/aggressor who sailed and mapped the whole silt sea. He joined the Byn, reached Trooper, and seemed on the way to sergeant when he was assassinated. I'd guess it was Samar or Su who ordered it. He had a long term rivalry with Samar Kurac, collecting, buying and stealing Kurac clan equipment. He was starting to arm other Bynners with their good riding gear when a npc Byn Lieutenant got involved and ordered him to give it back.

Six real months of fun play, rivalries, cross clan politics, and struggling to survive as a merchant in a warriors world... No account notes other than Wug saying, merchants have no place in the Byn.


Since then I've had any number of compliments from storytellers, and just about unilateral negativity from Nyr and Adhira. All of my special role applications were turned down due to my “poor understanding of Hg roleplay” or their desire to see me play less powerful roles.   Then again, many of the Hgs I've played have received compliment after compliment from storytellers, and a pile of kudos from other players.

My others included Merric, Bull, Fel, Snicker, Margrete, Urk, and more recently Pike.

In a nutshell, I think I got docked karma in early 2011 and blacklisted from future roles or advancement because I embarrassed an imm or two with their peers.


At one point I lost my calm and asked Nyr what I needed to do to get off the blacklist. He said I needed a long playtime Hg who didnt “abuse his coded power”, or a long played 4 karma mage.   Next month will be four years since the karma dock, with no change. I haven't managed either goal, it seems. Mea culpa.

I'm clearly not the player Nyr wants in Arm. Fine. I think its an extremely poor choice to try to limit the playerbase as he has.   Populations in text games need more reason to stick around, than leave for more graphical pastures.

I do not appreciate the way Nyr and other senior staffers seem to default to an adversarial posture in communications. In addition to being unnecessarily irritating, it invites retaliation as one of the few alternatives to surrender.

I have enjoyed Arm, and some of its staffers. Calavera was a treat to play with and communicate with in reports. However, with Rathustra, Adhira, Nyr, and Nessalin in place, I clearly need to find something else to spend way too much time on.