[NEWS] Guild Titles In Roleplay

[Bryelle Vaughn]

Guild titles in Roleplay​

We’ve all done it. You see a character come across the screen and you mouse over them to see what guild they are and what title. While you can’t rp’ly act on what you see it helps to know what and who you are dealing with going into any possible confrontations or discussions. You can’t immediately shun them if you’ve never met in game and you can’t run up and spread the love with hugs galore either unless the same has occurred. The guild signature and titles simply allow for a group association. An example of where this is necessary is in an rp/pvp situation where a res kill and/or looting takes place. (For those who aren’t aware, which means you live under a rock in Ultima: Res kill is just that. It’s where you are revived long enough for your opponent to kill you once more. This is a no no in an rp/pvp confrontation. And looting, is obvious but again it is also a no no in an rp/pvp situation.)

So you are at the spot where you mouse over an oncoming pixel person and you see the guild signature [+A+]. This, on the Atlantic Circuit, is the symbol for Ashencrosse. What follows ranges from logical to hysterically funny and gives each guild the chance to express themselves. This is a great way to let outsiders know just a little bit about the characters they are dealing with in an rp environment. For example: Cezanne Abella, (A friend) who is a member of Ashencrosse has the title of Spirit of the Wild. This sums up quite a bit about this particular character in a few minor words. She’s breezy, sweet and leaves a feather touch you tend to remember. Rowan ab’Arawn of Stonegate has the title of Chaotic Princess. That in a nutshell sums up exactly what you’re going to get out of her attitude. Privledged, random and haughty.

Guild titles can demonstrate rank, sphere of influence or even racial qualities. House of Draven for example denotes their inner stations in their guild titles. Members of Baja Roleplaying Alliance cover the gambit from titles of what station to what race. One of the best things, in my opinion, about BRPA is the freedom of title choice. It is both inviting and unique.

The point being that this is a small tool with endless possibilities in the role playing community. Tiny details like this can enhance the interaction. Even EM’s and the wonderful Mesanna are subject to titles we use. They just may not know about them.

 

[Bianca_CoD]

Very well put and applies even today! We've had difficulties with non-rp'ers utilizing this information against our core principles. See since we have four different afflictions in the characters in our guild: Vampires, Half-Breeds (Half-Vamp/Half-Human), Lycans (werewolves), and Wiccans, we used to denote them in our guild titles alongisde our guild rank: Govenor, Guardians, Elder, Disciple, Initiate, Artisan, Servant. Soooo for me for example, my title would say "Vampire Guardian" (as I am a senior officer). Well when non-rp'ers see that they tend to "out" us even if staying hidden is key to our interactions and lore. So recently my GM changed our titles to only reflect our guild ranks. I feel it was a necessary change, but its been a hot topic of debate within our guild. Some of our guildies did not want the change because internally we use the affliction part as part of our role play (we can't always remember who is what! ) to help us remember stuff. We're old, what can I say?

~ Sue.

 

[sablestorm]

One of the things we've done with guild tags and titles is tie it in with story explanations. For instance, with the Twilight Fellowship, members are given a medallion bearing the guild crest. So roleplaying wise, when you have your guild tag visible, it signifies your medallion is worn and can be seen and recognized. If, however, they removed their medallion or hid it, they could turn off the guild tag. The Rangers of Skara Brae are known for wearing pine green cloaks. It brings to mind the movie Kingdom of Heaven. Have any of you seen it? The Knights Templar were always dressed in white adorned with the red cross. The Knights Hospitaler were dressed in black adorned with the white cross. You could tell who was who based on the heraldry which was the primary purpose of heraldry.

 

[WarderDragon]

If you're hoping to hide your characters identity, or affliction, you're better off never advertising it in the first place. There will always be someone who claims to have some special power to detect your curse, someone who is new or inexperienced who is going to accidentally out you, or some mistake made that will ultimately leave your character unplayable.

I used to play a Vampire on Baja known as Nicholas Tarrant. He was a Vampire almost from conception, but I did not tell anyone, only dropping the most subtle hints in roleplay, and revealing it only to those people he chose to reveal his affliction to in character. It usually surprised those who were roleplaying with me to see his fangs come out for the first time. (He was also borderline evil - in the Conan the Barbarian / Dark Hero sense of the word - but I had most people convinced he was good and trustworthy, and never associating him with some of the misdeeds his associates and underlings were committing.) For four years I maintained this ruse, very occasionally feeding and turning others into his personal pets while always maintaining the aura of respectability, until at last I decided I wanted to reveal it to the world out of character.

Suddenly, everyone had it figured out. I had characters roleplaying Lawgivers and Paladins of the shard telling him they knew what he was and that he best be on his guard. I had the characters personal friends, many of whom never had his affliction revealed to outside several hints, approaching him with their fears and wishing to find him a cure, knowing that he must truly be good, deep down in that deep dark soul of his. It's not to say this will always happen, you can certainly guard against it and warn people that your characters affliction should remain a secret. But in it's heyday, Baja's roleplayers were of the highest caliber, and this still happened.

So let this be a cautionary tale if you're considering the use of "Vampire," "Demon," "Lycan," or some other personal character attribute you don't want completely obvious to any random passerby.

 

[Pandora_CoD]

Yes, now our guild titles reflect our status in the guild and not our afflictions. However, we make very good use if our website for character journals and other writings and OOC information such as our lore, what it takes to apply to join us, etc. And that's been used against us as well. It's just inevitable.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Yes, now our guild titles reflect our status in the guild and not our afflictions. However, we make very good use if our website for character journals and other writings and OOC information such as our lore, what it takes to apply to join us, etc. And that's been used against us as well. It's just inevitable.

Historically I've had more issues with people telling me I couldn't possibly know stuff even after I'd taken pains to describe how I had put things together in a totally in-character fashion.

"How'd you know that."

"I inferred it from X, Y, Z, all of which I either saw or was told about in-game, and in-character."

"You don't know that."

"I just told you how I did."

"You don't know that."

*sighs*

-Galen's player

 

[Dag Nabbit]

I have rp'd a couple of vampires when I first entered the RP realm on Catskills a few years ago. My main experience was that a couple of players with elf main characters supposedly enchanted their houses to automatically detect and block any undead that attempted to enter. Both of their houses were main hubs of activity for roleplayers at that time. So,my only option for my vamp was to stay away,and be excluded from rp,on "tavern nights". Or I could just stand outside the tavern and watch everyone else go in and suddenly everyone "knew" my character was some sort of undead creature. On my return to the game,I just play a resource gatherer/craftsman that has a "redneck" theme.

 

[Pandora_CoD]

That has been a constant issue for our entire guild since returning to Catskills. When we played here originally, vampires and other "fantastical" creatures kept themselves well hidden in role play. After a while people started "coming out" and being known this or known that... I feel our submersion into the game was ruined when a few folks started to do that. I have been fighting that tooth and nail since coming back... so much so that I will laugh in someone's face if they attempt to call me a vampire through RP interaction and they publically state anything to the effect. As far as anyone is concerned, we're absolutely 100% humans --- we're also from planet Earth (which originally Lord British was from as well) --- so that explains our "eccentricities".

 

[Dag Nabbit]

I am in the process of making a sampire that will also have chivalry skill. Even in vampiric embrace form,if someone says "You're a vampire because of your very pale skin." I'll just say "Can vampires cast holy magic? Watch this." then I'd cast consecrate weapon or EoO.

But more to the point of what you said about dealing with a lot of players 'coming out'. I think it was probably needed as everyone knew who was and wasn't a vampire or other undead character anyway. And a lot of times that OOC knowledge would spill over to IC knowledge. I think this happened because many players didn't want to 'submit' their favorite character to being a victim to a vampire's seduction and subsequent bite,so they would set up things like a warded house and giving their characters amazing abilities that include being able to visibly see a vampires 'aura',or lack of an aura,what ever the case may be.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Allowing vampires into good-aligned "tavern nights" and other events subjects good-aligned characters, and even their players, to a certain amount of ridicule and sanction. So I understand why someone would seek to prevent it. (The "open" taverns on LS used to be ridiculed constantly by the bad guys who frequented there.) "Warded" houses strike me as a perfectly acceptable means to control access that is in effect Role-Playing UO's housing rules. (Role-Playing game mechanics. There's a shock.)

Someone cannot conclude reasonably that someone else is a vampire solely because that person never enters a warded house. If a character concludes that and is right by coincidence? Well, being right by coincidence happens all the time in real life and here on Stratics. It doesn't mean the conclusion is reasonable, it just means that every once in a great while a coin will land on its edge.

However, Role-Played vampires, typically but not always, are much less subtle than they think. And "good" does not mean "overly-trusting" or "stupid." Though I appreciate that assuming such is of great convenience to those who play evil characters.

As to the main issue of Role-Playing guild titles, my proposed solution is to not have your guild title showing if you don't wish it to be Role-Played. The game allows you that option. When a guild title shows I always assume it's a visible badge of some kind.

We have in UO a combination of freedom and restriction, and I refer both to game mechanics and to fictional backdrop, that appears to among MMOs be uniquely conducive to Role-Play. I'm not really sure we appreciate it. And sometimes I fear it wont' last whether we appreciate it or not, but that's a separate issue.

-Galen's player

 

[Pandora_CoD]

That would absolutely not work on Catskills. We're not HUGE sticklers on stuff, but definitely NOT USING our guild titles (which is a mechanic used primarily for our RPvP, thus must be shown so folks can see the full name of guilds) as "identifiers" of any kind is a huge one for us. The other on we're pretty HUGE on is NO PLOT BULLYING --- we cannot force someone else's character to die or to become a werewolf or a vampire when they do not wish it. Thus that pretty eliminates the idea that we have to have "warded" houses for that purpose.

The way our role play is set up for our guild is that we're basically vampires pretending to be humans... we're business people, worshiping the almighty COIN, really. To be able to do that, we must keep our natures very hidden. We're "GOOD" vampires... political giants, very wealthy, very tight knit, and we do good things for good people. The bad people --- they become dinner. Do things slip sometimes? Occasionally. Wouldn't be fun if they didn't! The fun for us is "playing dumb" when that happens.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Nothing I can say that won't get me in trouble, I guess. I've trued a few variants and I can predict the reactions to all of them.

It would be incorrect factually to interpret my walking away from this discussion as agreement, acquiescence, or submission. I recognize, of course, that in present context it cannot fail to be perceived as such.

*washes hands and walks away*

-Galen's player

 

[Assia Penryn]

I have rp'd a vampire in the past and while I would usually deny accusations... I would NOT wish step on other's ability to rp their character in the end. Some vampires rp that they can recognize one another, some non-humans can sense banality, the smell of death etc and some people rp their characters as super observant. No matter how awesome your vampire is at "faking" it, the fact remains you are not perfect and there are scenarios in which someone's character, even a human, might detect it... in order to fake life you have to breathe, simulate a heart beat, blink, swallow and that is just the basic ones... try to chew gum in a regular pattern, pat your head, blink your eyes all while running away from a grizzly bear because there are some situations where you stop doing it even as second nature... you don't increase your heart rate to go along with being startled, etc. If a dog can smell cancer, track criminals for miles or smell miniscule particles in the air... no amount of perfume is going to hide the fact that death clings to you from were-kin.

Point being. If someone says you are a vampire, it is within your right to laugh and deny... most vampires would be stupid to admit it. However, don't tread on the rp of others by forcing your rp onto them by saying they should not be able to detect you. You can hint that it might be difficult... *appears to be breathing steadily* or whatnot... but it is THEIR right to decide what their character would think, know and what gifts their character should reasonably have.

For me, one of my past vampire characters... she would fake life and redirect any accusations. She couldn't flat out lie. She simply could not under any circumstances. An' should she ever be put into a position where she was tied up, shackled, or "trapped" in any manner where she was no longer in control she'd eventually go nuts and lose all signs of "life" as she frenzied. She lacked physical strength, but had incredible amounts of composure and resilience. Did it make things difficult at times to keep her under cover? Abso-freaking-lutely. However, I STRONGLY believe in giving characters flaws. Because I balance my strengths with weaknesses, I expect the same out of others... if they can sense I'm a vampire, it isn't my place to say they can not.

 

[Dag Nabbit]

You make good points,Assia. The issue I dealt with when I attempted to play a vampire back then is that catskills rp community was quickly turning into a clique that I wasn't a member thereof. And if I remember right,the 'officially recognized' vampire lore of the Catskills RP Community was White Wolf. I didn't play my vampire in the WW style and rules. So I was playing with two strikes against me. Add to that a lot of OOC knowledge spilling into IC "super powers". I might as well have had a flashing neon sign above my characters head stating that he was a vampire.

 

[Norrar]

You make good points,Assia. The issue I dealt with when I attempted to play a vampire back then is that catskills rp community was quickly turning into a clique that I wasn't a member thereof. And if I remember right,the 'officially recognized' vampire lore of the Catskills RP Community was White Wolf. I didn't play my vampire in the WW style and rules. So I was playing with two strikes against me. Add to that a lot of OOC knowledge spilling into IC "super powers". I might as well have had a flashing neon sign above my characters head stating that he was a vampire.

I've been there.

On Catskills, my main character is a vampire as well. He is also known to be one by the vast majority of other characters. Does this lead to unpleasant situations? Of course. Does it lead to some exceptionally fun RP? Oh yes.

When it comes to Lores...sadly...you will never find one Lore that fits all. You simply won't. Not counting my own blend (WW,D&D,Common Sense), I have counted at least 4 other lores on Catskills. I always (still do) have RP'd that like with many animals have various subtypes (timber wolves, white wolves, etc) , so to could vampires.

But, going back on topic...

Never put anything you dont want known ooc or ic anywhere that can be seen. *shrugs*

 

[Dag Nabbit]

I've been there.

On Catskills, my main character is a vampire as well. He is also known to be one by the vast majority of other characters. Does this lead to unpleasant situations? Of course. Does it lead to some exceptionally fun RP? Oh yes.

It's good to hear that you were able to flesh out some RP while playing your vampire. I am curious as to what presence vampires have in Catskills now.Are you and others active? I see that you are the governor of a city. Anything planned that I can keep an eye on?

When it comes to Lores...sadly...you will never find one Lore that fits all. You simply won't. Not counting my own blend (WW,D&D,Common Sense), I have counted at least 4 other lores on Catskills. I always (still do) have RP'd that like with many animals have various subtypes (timber wolves, white wolves, etc) , so to could vampires.

I have always favored lore that made vampires more a beast than a seducer. Kind of like what we have seen in "30 Days of Night". Maybe even more gruesome than that really. Which naturally would not be accepted in any RP group because the victim,the players' character,would surely not survive the encounter. My favorite type of vampire does not 'turn' anyone. He just feeds and kills,and not always in that order. So yeah...the banility of that beast would be off the charts.

But, going back on topic...

Never put anything you dont want known ooc or ic anywhere that can be seen. *shrugs*

I agree. This is why I never put anything,besides town loyalty,on my paper doll,above my head,or in my profile. Even then other RP'ers would walk up to me and say my name like they have meet me. "Hey Dag Nabbit! How's it going?" and I am like "Have we met?" I wish I could hide my name from above my head in certain cases.[/quote]

 

[Norrar]

It's good to hear that you were able to flesh out some RP while playing your vampire. I am curious as to what presence vampires have in Catskills now.Are you and others active? I see that you are the governor of a city. Anything planned that I can keep an eye on?


I have always favored lore that made vampires more a beast than a seducer. Kind of like what we have seen in "30 Days of Night". Maybe even more gruesome than that really. Which naturally would not be accepted in any RP group because the victim,the players' character,would surely not survive the encounter. My favorite type of vampire does not 'turn' anyone. He just feeds and kills,and not always in that order. So yeah...the banility of that beast would be off the charts.

I agree. This is why I never put anything,besides town loyalty,on my paper doll,above my head,or in my profile. Even then other RP'ers would walk up to me and say my name like they have meet me. "Hey Dag Nabbit! How's it going?" and I am like "Have we met?" I wish I could hide my name from above my head in certain cases.

[/quote]


There are actually quite a few vampires on Catskills still. And several groups that they call home. As far as "active" goes, well... I suppose it depends on how you define active. Many that I know IC and OOC to be vampires can be found going about their routines daily in the cities. From my side of things, my vampires are the characters I play most. Va'lis (My main and Gov. of Moonglow) I try to take out often. Be it wandering the cities or the wilderness. In fact, just yesterday when I was out with him someone stumbled upon him "feeding" (Brigand camps, gotta love em). Luckily he was hooded of course. That was some interesting RP.

Plans for Moonglow...Yes, I would say to keep an eye open. We'll be hosting several more taming events, trivia and scavenger hunts. As well as a shard wide Champ Spawn that will be coming up within 2 weeks.

Im sure you could find a way to play a vampire in that style! Strikes me as an Executioner Style character. I imagine that there would be no worse fate than to be thrown to the mercy of that character.

The name issue... Yes, sadly that is a problem from time to time. But I am seeing it less these days, so that is encouraging. Some characters however, I can see how a person might know their name without having met before.

Ex. Va'lis is the Governor of Moonglow. It's perfectly reasonable to say people would know who he is.