[Bryce_Hego]

Bryce_Hego

There's almost nothing about SL2 ganks that contribute to really anything good

I think most of your points stem from this, and honestly that's fine. I understand that not everyone will respond well to ganking. I try to be understanding and make sure it's fun for the other side as well, but in the end this might happen. Being an antagonist means knowing your audience, and that's why you need to be cautious when interacting with others to try gleaning whether they are enjoying it or forcing themselves. Still, there's a fun and spontaneous element to ganking that I enjoy, and I know many others do, as well. I don't plan on stopping ganking entirely, but I'll take your post into consideration.

As a note, no, we don't gank people with optimized comps. I like to just play whatever build I feel like making.

Even with unoptimized builds ganks are still genuinly oppressive because 2 is twice as much as 1. Momentum economy has always gone crazy and a whole extra player is almost always way more effective than a summon or engineer bot. You'll usually be able to turn any fight into a recreation of any jujutsu kaisen gank. Again, Antagonists can get an eventmin boost to deal with the staggering odds of a gank, but anyone else is ineligable for that kind of treatment.

Consent only does so much for mitigating the salt or complete drops in motivation. New players tend to go in with a mentality of don't knock it till you try it, and can feel pressured even when the choice to omit is given directly to them. Once the Danger Level 2+ Kicks in post battle they might be feeling bullied and unwelcome. Anyone that holds themselves accountable OOC will also consent, regardless if they think they have some chance of winning or not, leading to bitterness and salt with consequences they didn't want but got to deal with uncontested.

Hell I hate the thought of 2+ characters I don't know ganking me on a low end character, but I would still let it happen unless I thought it was metagamed, and I'd still probably get salty unless I somehow clutch (I won't)
Sawrock is a cool antag to most people but I have not interacted with their characters much especially since Korvara came out. I just firmly stand by the idea that randomly ganking someone is a completely un-necessary way to establish yourself. If you're in a rush to get your name out there as a baddy that's the easiest way to end up with "heros" breathing down your neck ready for the chance to murder you, and I don't think that's a great narrative for either party, the gank victims or the soon to be deceased antagonists the moment a party looking for them appears.

Of course my argument isn't that killing a player is a taboo, but half the time it's handled poorly on RP games and I heavily believe a ganking mindset will only fuel more oceans of salt and hate than anything else on the long run. I'd honestly go so far as to say that you shouldn't be ganking a character you have not already met on your own and established a prior reason leading into it. Planned ganks especially when the victim is kino with it are of no issue of course.

I also will say that I don't mind sporadic conflict of any kind. It is exciting, like you say. I just don't like "hey you walked into the wrong spot and have a 100% chance of getting fucked up unless you take the offer to omit and leave." What even is the angle of that? I guess there's some powerful muggers out here, never know if that resource cave you like visiting is infested with the buggers.

Edit: I will note that Sawrock offering ways to creatively escape post gank is actually extremely commendable and does solve a lot of issues. Though usually once a danger level is called the victim has no right to deny it. It is important to take note that the people reading your flowchart are not you and sawrock, and can take completely different meanings and approaches to what is given. In my case, I could very easily take a good chunk of it and find that it is in favor of ganking of any variety with being a good sport with your victim optional.

[Neus]

Frankly, I'm disappointed with some of the responses in the thread which are just low effort insults towards someone who obviously put a lot of time into their post. Whether or not you agree with the style of antagonism or the content of the guide, or you have middling opinions of the OP's characters and style, or even if you support him and think everyone else is stuck in a hugbox; there's absolutely no excuse to present those opinions in a toxic way.

If you can't disagree and still remain respectful, like Imotep and Bryce have, then it'd probably be best not to reply at all.

[Nehemoth]

Chief's player here. I enjoyed the interactions with Nizzik (Polk's necromancer who disputed with Duyuei), so I think he's a good example.

What bothers me about antagonists is when they require an immediate answer and continuous follow-up to their nefarious actions, so I'd recommend having them start interacting with sparse, non-authority characters before necessitating a response from the nation officially.

I also don't really like mechanical PvP. I much prefer heated conversation, especially since it doesn't deserve immediate death compared to attempting murder.

I'd suggest trying to aim for permanent, neutral effects somewhere or in someone rather than causing maximum mayhem to anyone aiming to be antagonistic. Also, seeing people give up their characters to death easily is a bit saddening, and comes off as not respecting the risk they put on the others that they attack, at least to me. Especially if they're unaffiliated, since they have nobody to answer to and almost become a mob.

[Ray2064]

Although I'm fairly new to SL2 overall, I've had a good fun with the little I've seen of Polk's characters, so I can somewhat trust the thread to a degree. There's not a lot I disagree with, if not for the fact that you HAVE to end the story in some way, or that developing a char up to that point through the long means is not the way to do it, though again, that's up to personal preference. In the end, this is only for the player and doesn't really affect anyone other than them, and offers the overall same experience to the ones interacting with the antag. But besides that, I can just respect the fact people dedicate their time to make the masses have fun while enjoying it themselves, somewhat.

I'm always sort of thrilled at the announcement of another antag, since that means potential development for my character's / others's in some way, and I never felt like the number was too much. Again, as long as everything is agreed upon OOC as Polk said, there's no real issue, imo.

[Bylamir]

I feel like ganking especially for people who are looking to get into antagonist characters with no real prior reputation for it is a bit more detrimental than beneficial.

Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike ganking. I think it gives moments for character growth for the person on the other side. But it is heavily dependent on WHO is getting ganked. Like has been mentioned, ganking a new player and making their first experience before 60 be getting ganked, is not a good first experience for them. Same with if someone's just in it for the RP, getting put into the mechanical side when they haven't built won't make them feel like: Oh! This antagonist is pretty cool!

They'll just be frustrated instead of it.

I won't pretend to be a god of antagonism or anything, since I'm not. I'm relatively inexperienced in this regard. But I don't feel like ganking is a good start to any one trying to get a foothold into being an antagonist.

But other than that, this does have some helpful advice for someone just starting out. But IMO, ganking just aint it.

[Ray2064]

I feel like ganking especially for people who are looking to get into antagonist characters with no real prior reputation for it is a bit more detrimental than beneficial.

Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike ganking. I think it gives moments for character growth for the person on the other side. But it is heavily dependent on WHO is getting ganked. Like has been mentioned, ganking a new player and making their first experience before 60 be getting ganked, is not a good first experience for them. Same with if someone's just in it for the RP, getting put into the mechanical side when they haven't built won't make them feel like: Oh! This antagonist is pretty cool!

They'll just be frustrated instead of it.

I won't pretend to be a god of antagonism or anything, since I'm not. I'm relatively inexperienced in this regard. But I don't feel like ganking is a good start to any one trying to get a foothold into being an antagonist.

But other than that, this does have some helpful advice for someone just starting out. But IMO, ganking just aint it.

Fair enough. I feel like there could be fighting RP done or ways to get around it, though, with OOC agreements

Such as fighting RP or such

[renowner]

I appreciate the effort you went to, putting all this forward! But I refuse to read any of the comments at this point, after the first few.
Just popped in to say. . . Thanks for taking the time to try and help people out! SL2 is full of new players these days.

[MegaBlues]

I'm pretty surprised to see that this thread got such a negative reaction. Regardless of if you agree or disagree, reading through the guide made and reflecting on why you agree or disagree, and what you would do with the advice presented, feels much more productive as a whole.

I'd also like to make a throwback to a guide I made myself a few years back. https://neus-projects.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=50. I'm noticing a lot of ad hominem and name-calling specifically, and I feel like this thread showcases the attitude which is making the game feel stale for so many.

It feels as if there's an emotional response to the term 'ganking', which isn't being recommended in DBRP style. Yes, PvP is highly divisive, but even in the original post, the importance of consenting to being attacked is mentioned. If you don't want to PvP, you can roll dice. If you don't want to engage in that kind of RP at all, you're free to say so; anyone interested in a good environment isn't going to force you to roleplay something you don't want, and that is touched upon.

[WaifuApple]

Looking at the thread linked by Mega, to be honest it almost seems like that thread was a bunch of humour around the topic - it read as quite funny, actually. So I'm not sure that really demonstrates all that much from me - so I kind of think it weird to bring up? Especially if one is trying to make a point with it. It also feels like talking down when you need to come in and tell people the different stages of disagreement.

Other than that I'm not really going to get too much into this thread itself, beyond saying that a villain story where the end is usually predetermined to be execution via the intense and dramatic hostility of the character's actions is hard to truly get into for the plot itself - it's usually better for the accolades and chance to shine for defeating the big bad then anything else, at least to me.

This is the same for moral villains with reasoning for their actions - it's hard to truly feel the impact when they turn up and bring these moral problems with them, ones that could use more build up, etc - it's hard to sympathise and see how they were driven to this if the problem starts existing with them.

It's hard not to see it in black and white when the problem seems to begin when they do, and end when they do.

[FaeLenx]

With the weirder bits that were more suspect removed, I'll elaborate and expand on what I said before because it's still very true. There are a couple of very important points before the general pros and cons of the whole article.

=-=-=
Mental Illness in Roleplay: Why not to

For people who don't need a lengthy explanation on why making disposable characters whose proposed defining trait is that they're looking excessively murderable and mentally ill, you can just not do it.

For everyone who does, it's below and spoilered because it's a rant.

Starting with the problem of the fact that this is a touchy enough subject to the point that I could find you a dozen articles of why it's not really right to call most disorders 'mental illness' and a dozen more refuting it, the fact of the matter is that your research isn't enough. And when I say you, I mean anyone who is reading this and thinks it might be a good idea to start assigning mental health issues to a character under these contexts. If you want to peruse WebMD for character inspiration, at the very least don't ever assign one of those labels to your character in any notable or public way. For you, it's a neat way to make a disposable villain who will do things we recognize from media depictions of crazy people but with a side of elitism because there was 'research' done. For other people, that's their actual life that is being generally made a mockery of. Yes, when you're making a guide on how to make a character who is transient to the point of being disposable and despised to the point of likely being murdered for it, marking or suggesting the core foundation of what brought them there to be some mental disorder is making a mockery of it.

I've worked close to a decade with or around mental health, and when it's not outright offensive to people I know it's just cringe and exhausting when someone starts playing armchair psychologist in a context like this.

At least when people treat 'crazy' as 'crazy' then it's just Yandere or some fantasy psychosis that doesn't lead to anything. I'd rather have fishmalks than some really uncomfortable 'diagnosis' being played off as if it's a tragedy or otherwise compelling. Do what authors have done from the beginning of time and make any sort of character trait or trope seem fantastical rather than some cruel parody of life to be mocked. Call it a sticky fingered thief rather than a kleptomaniac. Call it an anemic personality rather than chronic depression. The moment you start diagnosing your own character as if you're a doctor, the best result is that you come off as pretentious and uninformed.

=-=-=
Cringe and edgy tone

Onto the bit about lesbians that got removed, being casually toxic is the part of this community that I'd rather isn't immortalized and broadcast to anyone who's looking to enter. It's good to remove it in that case, but any coming late to the discussion should be aware that there were some things being referenced that are no longer in there. To at least one person, this was their first introduction to the sort of discussions held on the forums. The length makes it seem important. The fact that people are complaining about ad hominem as if this is some sort of debate means I need to elaborate more on this topic than I would if someone had just posted something much shorter. It's weird. I don't like it. I don't think it reflects well on the community and I'd rather not have to explain to someone why I'm a part of a community that can readily be defined by it.

=-=-=

Because I said there were good and bad and I've already addressed the awful, here are the cons and pros.[/size]

Pros:
Encouraging communication is never a bad thing.

The character writing tips are good. To the point where all characters should have these ideals, hooks, and compelling reasons to exist. Every character should have ideals that they would never bend on. People just generally do.

Cons:
This guide seeks to put some sort of divide between any usual character and a character with ideals who will come into or cause conflict. The truth of the matter is that every character should have ideals, conflict should be normalized, and the rules and general demeanor of the community need to come together to make this happen. The idea that any character who runs afoul of the law or general consensus of right and wrong needs to be executed the moment they're beat in a 4v4 was something I'd really hoped to avoid with Korvara. This guide doesn't just fail to help that, it actively encourages that trend to continue.

Advice regarding ganking is just rather poorly explained or just handled in a rather unhealthy way. You mention asking others to lower their numbers to match yours. There's no advice to always do the same for others without having to be asked. Lacking any advice on etiquette there, it advises asking for a lot while offering very little in every opportunity. In almost any other roleplay community, giving someone an out is standard practice. There's next to no mention of doing it here unless someone actively expresses discontent or annoyance.

Masturbatory is still the right word for the segment about character archetypes. Even recognizing half of them due to being around long enough, to anyone who hasn't the pictures are almost entirely nonsensical (as only roughly half of them at least look the part described) and therefore detract from the guide's value as informative.