>>Is it really ok to out these people solely on the basis of how they collect their piles AND NOTHING ELSE? Otherwise quiet and peaceful?

Think of it as a rorschach test that the person taking the test is in charge of making.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

I agree entirely, re: piles. It seems like it was a really cute little idea someone had, which has had horrifically damaging side-effects, and should probably be revisited. Alternately, it'd be neat if we could set a shape for what we'd like our piles to look like, sort of like setting a personal fragrance, and different shapes are attainable with increasing levels of Outdoorsmanship/Engineering. However that seems like a project that would take a few weeks at least, not to mention the approval process and simply having the time and drive to work on it, so in the interim I'd really like it if all piles just looked the same.

I

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"[A]ll PC necromancers are now redeemed good guys..." ~ GM Raesh

Necromancers are not intended to remain incognito indefinitely. If they do anything to make it happen sooner rather than later, without research as to what that could entail, that's on them.

- Starlear, Warrior Mage and Lieutenant of Ilithi's Crystal Vanguard -

>>Yes, Necromancers should hide their perverted, defiant works from the public. But are we really saying that they need to hide when they're collecting piles of grass?

The point is that they can't help but show them. It looks like a pile of corpses because, subconsciously, they can't stop thinking of corpses. It's similar to how every other guild shows something that relates to their guild. They're so ingrained in what makes up the guild that they build stuff that intentionally resembles what that guild stands for.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>> I believe Armifer said it was intentional at every step that Necromancers have these tells. That collect is a subliminal 'tell' and necromancers cannot control it.

My point is that if a Necromancer knows that their piles tend to look like dead bodies, that they should be able to intentionally make them look like not dead bodies.

I

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"[A]ll PC necromancers are now redeemed good guys..." ~ GM Raesh

>>My point is that if a Necromancer knows that their piles tend to look like dead bodies, that they should be able to intentionally make them look like not dead bodies.

Except they can't help themselves. That's the fun part.

Imagine it like some kind of word association game.

Psychologist:	"What's your favorite color?"
Necro:	(Don't say corpse white. Don't say corpse white. Don't say corpse white. Don't say corpse white. Don't say corpse white.)
Necro:	"Corpse white!"
Necro:	(That's it I'm out of here.)

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

I hate collect piles.

It's some truly metagamey stuff that doesn't stand up to a bit of reasonable scrutiny and I think extremely poorly of anybody who tries to defend using it to out a Necromancer. It's up there with counting arrange messages.

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Thayet
Follow @thayelf on Twitter for absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever!

If you think you've read the above 15 posts before, you probably have.

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Annwyl
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If you've questions or comments, take it to e-mail by writing me at DR-Annwyl@play.net.

>>I have a hard time viewing looking at things in the room and noticing that they're corpse shaped as metagaming. Piles are intentionally setup as an out once you've reached a certain point.

>>Counting arranges I could see the complaint a little more but even there it seems like pretty straight forward rp to me; 'hey that guy there is spending twice as long over dead things as the rest of us'. It's not really metagaming to notice things that're happening around you.

Yes, there's a lore justification for the tells, but I would disagree about the nature of these two.

The collect messages, from what I remember, were originally a fun Out-of-Character thing that was designed prior to the release of the Necromancer guild by an unrelated GM at a time when the Necro messaging would only out GMNPCs. The only reason that we don't start at circle 1 with the collect message is that a GM looked at that and said, "You know, that's not really going to be pleasant for circle 1 Necromancers -- but we don't want any protection to be lasting very long, by design."

Similarly, having one extra arrange message isn't "taking twice as long" -- it's taking an extra three seconds on top of the already rather long arranging process (what, six for everyone else? So, an extra 16.6%). Both of these are being used as tells by savvy players that have, in an Out-of-Character manner, read all of the posts about the time that the guild came out, and saw a GM post that the Preserve ritual was changed to give an arrange message because people were highlighting the Preserve messaging and using it to gank the noobs.

Knowledge of especially the latter tell was entirely based on out-of-game knowledge from the forums with no in-character tell, so I'd say it's super metagamey. Also, it's pretty tacky, because you're literally going around and staring at people while they hunting, which is normally not really something most players are cool with. The fact that it's also been the basis for harassment and supposed exile from a province is really not okay, and the fact that people have at least historically done "patrols" of hunting grounds that they have long outgrown just to pick on lower circle characters is even worse.

But, the issue I take isn't with the tells themselves, or the development direction. It's an issue with the player community. Quite a few people think it's fun to be a jerk to another player who they literally otherwise would never have interacted with in any way, shape, or form.

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"Nobody cares about the feasibility of Sidhlot's portrayal of evil. That's not the point. He's older than dragons and so metal he poops viking helmets." - Armifer

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu-proxy R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

>My own vote is that collecting piles should not out anybody, least of all Necromancers. It just sounds utterly insane to accuse someone of being something as terrible as a Necromancer based on the way they pile up some rocks.

Eh, this conversation was had a lot years ago when it was set this way. Ultimately, the smart Necromancer has only a single uncontrollable/unavoidable out (Ranger hand shakes), and Necromancers shouldn't be collecting piles and braiding vines and listening to classes in justice zones anyway, so, meh. Consider it extra encouragement to not be a stupid Necromancer.

>Also, in general, I want to see more ways for Thieves and Necromancers to fool everybody else.

Agreed. I'd more than anything like to see a mechanism for storing items and/or our Bondsmen dragging our corpses off.

>> And if you're insistent on metagaming by looking at a pile? Maybe role play it as...

If someone is metagaming by looking at piles, I don't really expect them to role play much at all.

I

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"[A]ll PC necromancers are now redeemed good guys..." ~ GM Raesh

I won't share all my thoughts on that Theren Guard list and the fact that it's still floating around, because frankly, they'd get my post pulled. I won't share how I know or how to access it for obvious reason, but it is actually still accessible and floating around even now.

Sure, there's a way that someone can construe an IC lore justification for treating people that, but there's no IC justification for the dissemination of that list (it was shared on the forums, and in other locations Out of Character, with a really shoddy "This list was shared on every door of every town, because I want an In-Character way of doing this"). And, at the end of the day, it was disseminated OOC not to "protect the realms," but as a systematic attempt to shame, ridicule players, and ultimately make it extremely difficult to play a Necromancer by promoting harassment -- which is also why I remember it was pulled from the boards and deemed not to be OK, because it was promoting a hostile play environment and violations of policy.

That's the big line I keep trying to draw, and maybe the dead horse I'm beating, because it doesn't really seem to be gaining any traction at times, because people prioritize feeling authentic to their idea of their character narrative over making sure the game is accessible for everyone. Keep it in-character, but don't take actions that make the game unplayable, and don't be a jerk to the player.

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"Nobody cares about the feasibility of Sidhlot's portrayal of evil. That's not the point. He's older than dragons and so metal he poops viking helmets." - Armifer

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu-proxy R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

I dunno. Since the GM who coded it has specifically said several times that Necro tells (via collect) are deliberate, I think it's grasping at straws (and very thin ones) to say it's metagaming.

You'd have a better case for claiming that someone 'knowing' you cast HP or similar spells outing you as a necromancer is metagaming.

Same thing with the Theren Guard list. I think it's stupid, and I think it punishes players and is intended to be a deliberately jerk move, but I also (unfortunately) think it's perfectly IC for the 'anti necromancer' brigade to maintain a list of known/suspected necromancers. What they do with it, and how, is often unacceptable, and how they generate the list itself is questionable. But the list itself, meh.

Badgopher:
>>I dunno. Since the GM who coded it has specifically said several times that Necro tells (via collect) are deliberate, I think it's grasping at straws (and very thin ones) to say it's metagaming.

>>You'd have a better case for claiming that someone 'knowing' you cast HP or similar spells outing you as a necromancer is metagaming.

>>Same thing with the Theren Guard list. I think it's stupid, and I think it punishes players and is intended to be a deliberately jerk move, but I also (unfortunately) think it's perfectly IC for the 'anti necromancer' brigade to maintain a list of known/suspected necromancers. What they do with it, and how, is often unacceptable, and how they generate the list itself is questionable. But the list itself, meh.

Nowhere did I say that Necromancers shouldn't be outed by deliberate casting of Necromantic spells. HP is very different than arranging a kill. The arrange-counting is the egregious metagaming in my eyes. I do additionally see the collect bit as metagaming, but I freely admit that Abasha posted stated she didn't see a lore problem with it -- per her post on 12/16/2009, "The piles, although they're a very, very silly way of showing it (and wouldn't be my first choice of how, they just needed fixing), are a reflection of this madness."

But, the collect messaging is "silly," per her words, and not the ideal way to show a tell. It also effectively denies closeted Necromancers the best method of training Outdoorsmanship and Perception skills that I am aware of, which is my main objection to it mechanically. I'm not saying that it needs to be changed in-game, but I certainly wouldn't object. My main objection is how players have chosen to "police" the realms for Necromancers.

The list itself isn't an issue, as much as the intent of the players identifying, distributed, and using the list, and it's why it got pulled from both the 'pedia and the forums. And, hey, if they'd distributed it to the audience that they could get in-game, I would not object nearly as strongly to it, because at least it wouldn't have been out-of-character. The fact is, though, the list was added to, and used by, a minority of players who 1) metagame, 2) are interested in griefing other players, and 3) targeted the players of Necromancers because it was an excuse considered socially acceptable and supported by Lore.

Apatheticsmile:
>>I think good RP is more about reacting to what's happening around you than it is trying to argue with others about which parts of their rp (or the game itself in the case of tells like piles) you think shouldn't be happening.

>>I agree with the sentiment of wishing that the other side would come up with something more clever than 0-100 aggression as a response to running across one of us but at the end of the day I can only control how I respond to what's going on around me so that's where I try to focus on finding fun.

Before you attempt to turn this into a judgment on my RP, here's a more concrete example of the predatory use of this metagaming that I take umbrage with, for context. Tell me if you'd agree with my objection or not.

Necrobob is fresh out of Sand Sprites, looking for a new creature. Tries out a creature that happens to be in Therengia. Is hunting alone, no Necro buffs visible, not casting anything but AP spells, percs non-Arcane, no zombie or mudman. No piles collected. 30+ favors, with a favor-related title up. Self-Appointed Guardsman Bill comes to inspect the hunting ground, but sneaks in so there's a moment he's not even visible for a moment, clearly outclassing Necrobob in skills, whose Perception was more than 100 more than his combats, and didn't even have the chance at seeing Guardsman Bill when he spoke.

Bill had stayed in hiding long enough that he'd watched as Necrobob killed the beast with his bare hands, and then proceeded to arrange that one extra time, which had been posted on the forums. Out of nowhere, Bill states his accusation that Bob is a Necromancer. Bob, who can't speak to or directly address Bill because Bill is in hiding, states that Bill must be mistaken. Bob tries to RP. Bill only gives Bob three options: Set his profession visible to prove he's not a Necromancer, Perma-exile from a province, or chain-killing and harassment. This was to a PvP Guarded Bob who had kept his head down and hadn't really interacted with anyone publicly.

Bob politely excused himself, stating that he didn't particularly want to hang around any place where people treated potential immigrants like that, and left the province. Could Bob have gone to the GMs about it? Sure. But, Bob's not that type of person. Bob just moves on. Bill, clearly upset that he didn't get to chain-kill, logs onto the forums, and posts to the list thread that Bob is a Necromancer, so he should be killed any time he's in the province.

Here's what I take umbrage with, in order of priority:
* Bill had no business bothering hunters in that area, based on his skills. Yet he very cautiously and deliberately went about it in every way to not give away his purpose until he'd counted arranges. He so greatly outskilled the Perception of a Survival Prime that he would likely have insta-gibbed Bob, yet the intent is clear to ruin Bob's day, not only denying Bob access to a hunting ground, but an entire province, or to have people that greatly outclass Bob chain-kill and harass.
* Bill demanded self-imposed exile from a fifth of the provinces of the game, thus limiting the player's access to appropriate hunting grounds and training.
* Bill then went and posted to the forums with the intent to have a player continually harassed should he decide not to follow that arbitrary limit.
* The information that Necromancers can have one extra arrange message was strictly out-of-game information that Bill gleaned from the boards.
* Bill also made no attempt to talk before he gave his ultimatum. He deliberately did not want to be interacted with until he made his statement.

My priority is firmly to address and resolve the griefing issue, and metagaming has only enabled the griefing issue. My reason for bringing all of these things up is that we, as a community, need to move past all of that, and get rid of the oppositional mentality that players have, especially when it comes to griefing. Bill could have easily found a Necromancer in his skill range to combat -- there were numerous visibly hunting in his province with zombies at that time -- but he didn't, because he wanted to brutalize someone who couldn't fight back. Bill's intent isn't to roleplay, or act in accordance with lore. Those only give him an excuse. Bill's intent is to impede the gameplay experience of another player, who clearly can't prove even a hint of a threat to him.

Had Bill 1) not been predatory, 2) not threatened chain-killing and harassment, 3) Bill not directly taken out-of-game information in-game and vice-versa, or 4) bothered to actually have a conversation, Bob wouldn't have had such a bad taste his mouth about the experience. But, in terms of being a jerk to Bob's player, Bill's kind of batting 1.000. And Bill's behavior is considered acceptable by a not-insignificant percentage of players.

Make a bit more sense now?

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"Nobody cares about the feasibility of Sidhlot's portrayal of evil. That's not the point. He's older than dragons and so metal he poops viking helmets." - Armifer

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu-proxy R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

>> Tell me if you'd agree with my objection or not.

I disagree with the first assumption that Bill has no business there. Bill has busines wherever Bill happens to decide he's got business. Necrobob has to deal with the idea that they're not running all of the characters in the story that's unfolding.

Most of what happened past the chain killing part goes into harassment territory imo.

>>Make a bit more sense now?

Your position has made sense to me from the beginning and I'm not trying to disparage your RP skills at all. I've gone through most of the same thoughts and feelings your expressing here and I'm suggesting to you what's worked for me to stop feeling frustrated about it.

Yes, that makes sense, and I agree to a certain extent. But, it needs to be discussed, because for some reasons, there's been some pretty fervent defense of the actions Bill took periodically.

It happened, it was against policy, and yes, Bob could've reported or otherwise utilized policy to defend himself. I'm glad that a growing consensus appears to be that all of Bill's actions, all taken together, aren't okay. But more telling to me has been that each of those pieces, by themselves, have over the course of this conversation and others over the past month or so have been vehemently defended by players OOC by Lore, when those actions would, to my understanding, all been considered inappropriate if, say, Bill was a Necromancer, and Bob were a Cleric, and Bill had been, say, Cleric-hunting. Furthermore, that these concerns have been dismissed as Necromancers looking for hugs.

I suppose my main question is, and the dialogue I'm curious for, is even after GMs have weighed in on many of those issues as not-okay, why's it considered okay to varying extent by a vocal not-insignificant portion of the player community to engage in these acts, even to a lesser extent, if the victim is a Necromancer, when it'd be taken pretty horribly Out-of-Character if it were done in reverse?

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"Nobody cares about the feasibility of Sidhlot's portrayal of evil. That's not the point. He's older than dragons and so metal he poops viking helmets." - Armifer

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu-proxy R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

>Being a necro is not consent by itself, even in Theren,

Is this true, really? The last time I saw anything come up about Theren RP, people were complaining that a GM//GMNPC was basically going all holy war on the Necros. Which, while incredibly IC, was also pretty worrisome. But it was only one side of the story (i.e. the necro).

Again, people (Necros) seem to be under the impression that having someone scrutinize you and figure out you're a Necromancer through your own actions (be they collecting piles in public, arranging numerous times, not having RoC up, etc) constitute harassment or violations of consent. They don't.

The flip side of this is that people (Therengians) seem to be under the impression that stalking someone and harassing them ("Cast a guild signature spell, now, or I'll put an arrow in your face!") constitutes RP. It doesn't.

In all this I somewhat side against Necromancers who aren't smart in how they comport themselves, but there's plenty of childish play on both sides of the fence.

>> While I disagree with the idea that the pile thing is metagaming, I still totally get why people would see it as stupid.

My argument (I wasn't the first one to pose this, but I have an opinion) on why the pile thing is metagaming is because it's stupid, and while I have no difficulty pretending that there's a world in which people can throw magic fire and roar so loudly that people flee in terror, I can't accept that this is also a world in which no living person is capable of collecting a pile of rocks without subconsciously shaping them in a way that reveals their profession. My necromancer is on a long-deactivated account, but as a Bard in game today, every pile I collect is artful, and even if someone were to point out to me that my piles looked artful, I could not choose to make a pile that didn't look artful afterwards. Even if I really, really wanted to make a pile that looked like a crescent moon (the MM look) or an altar (the Cleric look), or just a pile that looked like nothing at all, it would be impossible. I totally get the argument that the shape of a pile is a subconscious, ink-blot kinda thing, but any person of even moderate intelligence is capable of overcoming that with conscious thought. What the pile-look system says, in my opinion, is that all Elanthians are idiots who have little control over their supposedly conscious actions. (I'm being hyperbolic of course, but it's to make a point.) I said it early on and I'll say it once more: the pile-look thing is cute, and I'm sure it was well-intentioned, but it's also very, very dumb and should be toggle-able for those of us who don't want to play mindless fools, but do still want to train outdoorsmanship via collecting piles. Has nothing to do with me being a Necro, because I'm not; it has everything to do with it being a silly, unrealistic feature.

I

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"[A]ll PC necromancers are now redeemed good guys..." ~ GM Raesh

>> Suspension of disbelief mixed with it's a game so you sort of have to let the weird parts go.

People use this argument all the time to legitimize bad ideas in fiction. It doesn't hold water, sorry. I prefer it if my fiction has logical consistency, and it's severely lacking here.

I

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"[A]ll PC necromancers are now redeemed good guys..." ~ GM Raesh