Who are the role players here now?

[Galadh]

A lot of good discussion going on here - I'm happy to see it.

I heard a lot about the old glory days of the Aquilonia server (I was on the US server Cimmeria - and we had our own glory days, in different ways). I'm sorry I missed the big glorious interguild wars full of RP.

But I don't think wars should be the only RP on an RP-PvP server. Personally, I dislike being "nameless guild soldier 1" all the time. But my characters can be their own individual selves, and still support their guild when it comes to wartime, to a large extent. But it does get complicated sometimes, and the only solution I found during some situations was to avoid RPing certain characters (except OOC for raids) during certain RP conflicts.

My attitude toward PvP and its role in RP is very different from a lot of the more aggressive PvP crowd. I think PvP is a terrible way of "settling" RP. The only thing settled with a PvP duel is that one player won the fight, or even that one player is better at PvP than another player. There is nothing about the RP settled by such a duel. Same with inter-guild battles.

I think of PvP more as one of the several tools we have for instigating or escalating RP conflict. If an RPer attacks another RPer out in the world, we have the beginning of a story to be played out. It can cause alliances to shift, relationships to form and break, lots of stuff. If it is used in that way, good things can happen. If it is instead used to simply grief one character (and a single attack is not griefing) whenever he/she appears in the world, then its purpose is to ruin their fun and try to stop them from playing, and definitely not to develop RP.

Of course, another reason to play on a PvP server and participate in PvP, unrelated to RP - is that, for many of us, battles - sieges, big guild vs. guild open world battles, smaller group vs. group battles - are FUN!. For that reason, preventing PvP, or condemning open-world PvP as harassment, harms the fun of many people who chose their server and game play quite deliberately and knowledgeably.

I like your post. I could almost marry you.

Old glory days in Aquilonia RP-PvP server was great, but RP included PvP been always a rare thing. RP and PvP are quite hard to combine as those works so differently. If I would be fulltime Fat-RPer then PvP or PvE server ruleset would not make really any difference, I could live perfectly fine without PvP when RPing. For my RP the PvP is just a handy tool and actually rather rare one, but it has it uses. Also a bit limiting factor for RP-PvP is Magic. If you want even remotely follow Conan lore it means that all sort of Harry Potters are very rare thing and whole Conan world is rather Low-fantasy themed. RPers often also has character backgrounds built so that they are suited more low-fantasy setting and so melee is only way to fight... RP-PvP is not then possible anymore as Necromancer vs Barbarian (OOC class) has no really way to do convincing melee-PvP.

In Aquilonia (RP-PvP Server) there was couple very nice RP-PvP events and even a war between guilds back in time. This Clan war from outsider point of view worked pretty nice between two Cimmerian themed guilds where was only melee classes. Politics, lots of random PvP, RP drama and well also OOC drama included what I remember. Also for Arena/Pit fight themed RP events worked really well. Example Caravanserai and Sailors Den are very well fitted places for this... again both for Melee classes only. Oh and one of my favorite was Cimmerian themed joust event where was goal to knock opponent off from horse. Not a real PvP fight there, but PvP ruleset made it possible.

In Tombstone RP we never used PvP as tool in RP conflicts, but I could think many interesting Fat-RP guild concepts which would be based and built around heavy amount of PvP in daily RP.

[Sendra]

Ah - Open World RP-PvP.

On Cimmeria, in the early days, my guild came across an "RP Opponent" who we had weekly battles with. They were fun, and we tried to approximately match numbers, but level disparity (this was the first wave of characters, just after launch) made the fights too uneven. Computer performance was difficult for some (my own computer died during that period and I couldn't even participate in some of the fights I helped set up). Then the fights became popular, and got bigger and bigger, my guild gave up the RP responsibility for them - we were a small guerilla force, not an official army of Conan - others took over (and I and a few of us still participated), and they were big and loads of fun, but severely stressed the servers in those early days.

Another guild (which I later joined, during my "end days" of my previous time in AoC) had weekly "RP Patrols". Sometimes they would have a scenario and a pre-arranged opponent (often as NPCs). Sometimes we all just stepped somewhat out of character, into a generic NPC guards and infiltrator/assassins and protected the VIP. Those were fun, but not strictly RP (for me anyway).

Sometimes we went out on patrol, challenging and RPing with whoever we met. This was in the early days of Khitai, and since the guild leader at the time, and I, were both in Khitai IC and were Last Legion faction at the time, we often did patrols of (heck - what's the town in NG? Pin-Pin? Peng-Peng? there was always a lot of dueling there, and also a lot of ganking). Those were sometimes a lot of fun.

There were some spontaneous fights out in the world that turned into RP group vs. group things. Small scale, and fun RP.

I remember tagging along for one rescue operation after a kidnapping. I was not directly involved, but I had heard about it (IC) and was interested (IC) and wanted to join in (OOC). It had a nice "oh sh*t" moment at the end when the kidnappers decided the head of my companion who I had dragged along with me - and who I didn't realize they OOC and IC hated - would do as ransom. But we fought anyway, and the rescuer side I tagged along with succeeded in freeing the captive. It was great fun.

Toward the end of my previous time in AoC, we arranged an RP battle in Aquilonian End. It's a beautiful place to fight, with the villages and terrain. We had RP build-up to it over a couple of weeks, growing out of the RP some of us were doing anyway. My character was Cimmerian but had taken refuge with an Aquilonian-based city. Our OOC friends/IC opponents RP'd as Nemedians (but not the original Nemedian Legion that Cimmeria server veterans will remember from the earliest days). The situation was somewhat tame - we were running out of wine, and were stealing some from a vintner who provided wine to the Nemedians. This scenario was an outgrowth of some RP I had done in a much earlier open-world RP event (I had been expecting opposition and PvP, even invited it - but it didn't happen) and some spontaneous RP riffing in the vicinity of the Nemedian Camps in the Wild Lands.

Anyway, staged battles are not completely satisfying, but they do fulfill some needs. It promised a certain amount of PvP, and it promised a certain amount of talky-RP. And it offered the possibility of story and character development for any who chose.

We controlled numbers on each side. This was late-game so all were 80's. We had arranged the fight in three stages, an initial confrontation at the vineyard - winner gets access to the vintner NPC. Regroup and after some talky-RP with the winning side and the vintner, then escort the vintner NPC along the road, through the village to the northern village (the crafting village in regular Poitain) where the wine was stored, ready to be transported in the morning. The other side (losing side of the first battle) would ambush the escort group. Winner of that battle finish the escort to the village. I tried and tried to find a way to "hide" the shipment in the village and for both sides to search for it. But for that I felt I needed another person out of the fight, unguilded, to hide somewhere and represent "the shipment". But that just didn't seem feasible - or fair to the person stuck hiding in silence and not joining in - so we gave that up and just fought again in the village.

I realized I could not RP as my main character and coordinate everything in Vent, so I played the Vintner NPC. An RPer friend who was not in either guild wanted to join us, so he RP'd as her doddering old father and was wonderfully entertaining as I was on Ventrilo coordinating the sides, finding out when the losing side of a battle had regrouped and was ready, and so on.

Over all, I think it was fun and successful. Some thought there was too much talking. But I had extended the amount talking after the complaints from another event that there was not enough time to talk. It's hard to find the right level, but I think over all it worked. For me, and a couple of my guild mates, it served as some nice story development. I hoped the other side would do the same, but they just wanted to fight in their RP clothes. So they got what they wanted too.