[Cat15]

I'll refrain from commenting on most topics in this thread, since I don't have much to add which hasn't already been stated. I do feel that I may be able to contribute a bit concerning the consent rule, and antagonists.

I think most of us can agree that, as it stands, a player attempting to play an antagonist has a vast disadvantage in this game. Most players readily jump on anyone who publicly labels themselves a 'villain', due to the usual lack of opportunities for 'exciting' or 'high stakes' roleplay. Thus, said villain is automatically at a disadvantage, but fair enough. However, any of the heroes who go after them may refuse to consent to any repercussions for doing so. The villain, on the other hand, has far less ability to simply 'get away safely'. Especially if players decide to bring them to the Guard, or the Guard gets involved for whatever reason. Regardless of consent, they stand to be 'soft banned', as I believe someone put it, on that character in the form of extensive jail time, and may even be executed.

Now, how much the Guard should get involved in things is a matter all on its own. I think most can agree that if one openly attacks someone in Cellsvich, Guard intervention should be expected.

I think that ultimately, the consent rules as they are prevent most antagonists from successfully creating 'risky' scenarios. Without actual risk, people react in fearless, unrealistic ways, which in turn further reduces the effectiveness of most antagonists. In the end, the involved roleplay fails to become 'serious' enough to really be satisfying to most people. On the other hand, if there simply was no consent rule whatsoever, we would expect to see most 'antagonists' simply trying to murder, etc. as many people as they can with little actual 'plot' involved. This would be an even worse situation.

I believe that one of the non-BYOND games I've roleplayed at in the past had an effective compromise between the two extremes. It had what it called a 'Risk' system, where each character had a 'risk level' between 0 and 3. In short, at 1 the character was open to violence in general and minor injury, at 2, to permanent injury and shorter detainment, and at 3 long-term detainment and death. The player was able to choose their character's default risk level. However, it could be temporarily raised in a few situations, which the player had to consent to enter. Some areas had a risk level, which all character were escalated to a minimum to while there. The homes/bases of your character's enemies counted as these too. To note, if your character was actually forcibly dragged there against their will, this wouldn't apply to them. Some events would likewise have a risk level that players were aware of before joining them. Finally, a character's risk level could be escalated for certain other characters as a result of actions they've taken. For example, murdering or attempting to murder another character would automatically make you consent to that character, as well as their close family and allies, being able to attempt such against you as well. Typically, most were 'take an action of this level, and they can do the same in retaliation against you'. Additionally, certain things like exposing dangerous secrets about another would often result in them gaining Risk 2 or 3 against your character.

Now, I don't think that such a system could be directly translated into SL2. Particularly, I don't think that actually encoding it into the system is something that we'd want to do, or likely could really effectively be done. The spirit of the system, I believe, could work quite well here. If the rules were changed from 'pure consent' to certain actions implying consent to harm to your character, I think the game would be in a far better spot. Someone playing a villain wouldn't simply be able to try to murder whoever they want, but they could harm the 'heroes' who attempt to hunt them down and fail. Certainly, that would make people more reluctant to actually hunt them down. That's the point. The villain would actually be a 'scary' thing once again, and the risk would be two-sided. I am of the opinion that the intensity and risk involved creates far more satisfying roleplay. Additionally, this solves an issue I've heard of on this game, where some people will decide to hunt down and kill a character. They get the victim to agree to die if they lose, but when they themselves lose, refuse to consent to anything.

Take note, that there's already a very specific, limited exception to the consent rule in the game. Characters can be detained for extended amounts of time and killed for 'breaking the law' as it is. Of course, it takes GM approval for someone to be executed, but there's no reason why they cannot also become the arbitrator in any disputes over what actions justify killing in retaliation under the rule.

While this is far from a cure for all the concerns stated in this topic, I do think it would remedy the stated issues concerning the 'atmosphere' of the roleplay here. People too afraid to die wouldn't have to sit in the middle of Cellsvich, and could still fully partake in roleplay all about without fear. I also think that many people would actually be more willing to take risks, given said actions would carry more weight.