Culling RPTs

It should never be a deliberate effort on staff's part to kill PCs. They should have the freedom to design RPTs that are very dangerous and have a high likelihood of people dying, but actively attempting to kill people is wrong.

The only time I've ever personally witnessed what looked like a deliberate attempt to kill so many PCs that it qualifies as "culling the playerbase" was that HRPT a few years back when fire elementals rained into Allanak and hit for 50+ damage, completely destroying the entire initial force of players in literally a few seconds. My annoyance with that was less about the number of deaths and more with the stupidity of a fight designed to be over so quickly that you could barely react to the code in time. It kind of defeats the purpose of an HRPT, and Arm's primitive code makes it difficult to design an encounter to be both dangerous and long enough to do the event justice. It can be done, though.

If people aren't dying enough and staff is consequently compelled to run an RPT just to create some deaths, the problem is in the game's design. Armageddon is not only fairly safe once your character is just moderately skilled, it's also so stale and well-known that veteran players can simply avoid danger by knowing precisely where it is and how to avoid it. This is where SoI and ARPI weere vastly superior to Arm: they had relatively dynamic wilderness areas with varying threats that were not completely predictable. On Arm, an experienced player can walk from Red Storm to Tuluk without real risk. Change this fact and staff should never even be in a situation to consider the necessity of a culling RPT.

If everyone is playing in the same clan or area, maybe your other clans or areas suck. If too many people survive to the point where the default game world becomes trivial, maybe the game's difficulty curve is designed badly.

And it definitely is. In terms of gameplay and balance, Zalanthas sucks. It completely lacks areas that are both very dangerous and worth visiting. It has areas that are very dangerous but there's no reason to go there. Aside from niche things like silt-horror shells and kryl poison, you can get basically everything you need from the game's easiest areas. Leather, obsidian, wood, gems, herbs, all that shit is obtained in the most trivial areas of the game and often in ways that present no danger whatsoever to the characters engaged in obtaining them. You have no reason to go into the Grey Forest or the Salt Flats or whatever.

Hell, entire major areas of the world sit dormant with nothing in them at all: the Red Desert, the Canyons of Waste, the upper Tablelands, the scrublands south of Tuluk, the weird mountains east of the southlands. The Salt Flats also serve their purpose (getting salt) in the first few rooms and then contain nothing but nigh-unfightable dinosaurs that, when skinned, yield one piece of leather and enough meat to feed two picky eaters. So people just ride around the dunes surrounding Allanak, or the grasslands, or the lower Tablelands. They raise their skills on easy shit and spar in safety all day until nothing in the game can challenge them and the only way to get a new generation of People Who Matter into place is for staff to murder you with magical mekillots.

Culling RPTs are a crutch employed to try to fix the problems caused by an incredibly outdated and poorly designed game world that does not sufficiently threaten PCs by itself and therefore creates a glut of overskilled rangers and warriors with nothing to do. The other problem (and different topic) is the lack of relevant conflict between groups which keeps PvP between clans to an absolute minimum, a shortcoming which only further necessitates a game world that can pose a persistent threat by itself.

I'm not about to pretend I'm 'that' open minded but I chose the third option, simply because the question requires a more subtle answer than a simple 'yes or no'.
I firmly believe that there are cases when the staff is perfectly justified in making an RPT they 'know' will result in player deaths - and that there are cases when they aren't. The reasoning behind the RPT should matter in deciding, as should the actual intentions of staff as opposed to the way it played out.
There is such thing as collateral damage and there is such thing as a narrative need for a character or group of characters to get their asses kicked.
Then again, using an RPT to solve a "problem" staff has with roleplay in a given area or group is just lazy and uselessly brutal.

Case-by-case. *shrugs* Like most things like this in a community as multi-layered as this one.
 

I'll keep my first post on this brief.

1) The question is meant to be specific when I asked it. I am not sneakily trying to imply staff have done this (though I believe that to be the case) instead I am trying to identify where people stand on that specific issue. So in the event that an RPT is 100% created with the intent of killing a portion of a clan due to OOC considerations such as wanting to disperse the players or not liking how those combination of players are acting in the world. Is that scenario if it is 100% the case, okay with you? Yes or no?

example - It's like saying do you believe cold-blooded murder is wrong. You don't go well I think justified murder is right. That's not the question, the question is if someone you have never met walked up and executed someone in front of you for no reason except to murder them is that right or wrong.

2) I believe there are alternatives to the current staff methodology of running RPTs and combat encounters in general that are viable within the limits of the engine as it sits today. It might take a little more setup time but it would prevent the majority of issues with the code causing difficulty to be to low or to high. I'll elaborate on my theories later.

Thus why I stated, the question is meant to be specific. Likely because I am hoping the goalpost will be moved and the OP will adjust the framing of the debate. Since it was my original question that sparked this thread.

EDIT - Basically the whole point of the question isn't to be debated on a case by case basis. It's to determine where a player stands on the issue for the purpose of framing the discussion when responding to them or when reading something they write on the issue or potential cases of the issue.

EDIT - Although to be honest the specific question for the poll Is it appropriate/acceptable for the staff to cull the player base with RPTs? is pretty close. I guess you just need to add the 'with ooc consideration' or 'with ooc intent' in there and it'd be spot on... Also I need coffee if I'm having to do multi-edits on posts.

I'm not the one getting nitpicky. I'm the guy trying to say the original question I posed was purely a litmus test for someone to say, yes I believe staff can/should create RPTs to kill characters for OOC considerations (such as wanting to disperse a clan). I don't get why that makes me the bad guy? Is it impossible to edit the op or change the tone of the discussion on the first page?

*sigh*

Okay people when I say the question is just a question. I mean it is just a question. Whether the staff did it or not has nothing to do with the question. The whole point of the question is to separate from specific instances!

You either agree or disagree, there is no wrong answer. It's like saying you support the 2nd amendment or you don't.

You can agree that staff should -not- ever run RPTs to kill characters based on OOC considerations and also believe that they have never done that. Equally you can disagree that staff should -not- ever do it and believe that they haven't ever done it!

EDIT - For example I believe that killing in RPTs for OOC considerations is wrong. I also believe that staff have done it before (whether in the Byn RPT or another RPT at some other time)