A few musings about the old RP days on Origin shards

[Ogier]

Hi all.

I’d like to add my own reminiscences to the other discussions about .. ehm .. equipment size and how RP events unfold. Perhaps some discussion or ideas will follow?
I played some years on the Origin UO shards, up until they more or less ruined the game with the Tram/Fel split.

My RP community consisted of virtuous knights and Lords, as well as a good number of civilians. The civilians would be anything from crafting profession characters, to wise old crones and even some children.

Our enemies were pirate town, close by, and sometimes the orcs (who lived quite aways off).
I do recall there being self-imposed, unwritten rules for the various groups:


The knights typically used plate mail (which worked well, at the time). Some ‘civilians’ were mages or tamers, and used their specialties in battle. Our side never used poison or explosive potions.

The pirates used lighter armor, never anything heavier than a chain vest. Most pirates used poison and greater explosive potions, as their advantage in battle. Additionally, most were good at hiding and sneaking.

As for the orcs, I never saw them in anything better than ring mail and orc helmets. They were tough fighters, and in battle they were backed up by some orc mages, archers and, occasionally, a tamer.

The nice thing is that I recall that having a GM character was in no way a requirement for having FUN. Most of us had several characters with rubbish skills, that were valuable community members and enjoyed by both the owning player and others they interacted with.

If I recall correctly, every event participant was required to carry some gold, according to their means, but an established character would typically carry 500-1000GP. This gold was freely lootable, nothing else.

A knight vs pirate conflict might play out something like this:
The pirate leaders would announce that the coffers were empty, and needed filling. It was time the soft landlubbers contributed. As the pirates gathered, they would prepare by getting horribly drunk at their tavern.

This usually caused so much ruckus that scouts or worried travelers would bring news to the lords about trouble brewing. The lords would then summon whatever knights and combatants were available.
Eventually the pirates would appear, staggering about, brandishing weapons, and demanding gold, ale, access to wenches, and whatever was on their tiny brains at the moment.

Naturally, the knights would have none of this, and mayhem would ensue. Typically drunken pirates would fling explosive potions, hitting anything in sight (including other pirates).
In the confusion, craftier pirates would sometimes capture civilians and abduct them for ransom.
When this happened, negotiations for ransom would be arranged, as well as a few one on one duels if a maidens honour had been slighted, or some such.

The pirates would announce a great victory if they returned to their tavern richer than they started out, and then spend most of it getting even more drunk.

The pious lords and knights would offer thanks that society was safe, once again.
But no matter how things played out, everyone had a great time and some good romping fun.

I really don’t recall there ever being any “pissing contests” afterwards, as is being discussed elsewhere on the forums. Mind you, I’m not trying to tell anyone else how they should play the game. Just describing something that worked well, once upon a time.


That was my bit, for now.
Cheers.

[Uzriel Raven]

Hm, that sounds kind of fun, though I doubt it would ever work here. The bulk of our player population is less than trustworthy(And a lot of them only have fun when others are screwed over). Not pointing fingers, we all know it's true.

[Aerius]

Granted there are some people known to cause problems, but this shouldn't mean we have less events or RP. I would like to see more events take place similar to the Centaur attacks and the Jousting (which I did not take part of).

Could also have something scripted that would cause an attack on a random town by a random group - i.e. Pirates. Would have to figure out how to tell who participated and who is rewarded if its not GM observed/hosted tho.

[Ogier]

There will always be a few bad eggs, I suppose.

What was special about what existed back then, was that people participated to have, and give, fun.
Not for 'material' gain or bragging rights (not much, anyway).

Many people I talked to ooc, said they had the best time when they were giving others a good time. The recipients would respond in kind and you gave you a fun time back.

Of course, people being people, sometimes ooc player feuds broke out, but most of the time things worked themselves out.

It's also important, I feel, to note that all of this was accomplished without GM intervention of any kind. Except for character, i.e. in game, weddings.
Sometimes the OSI staff would step up and create something special for those events. At least before UO became 'main stream' and the standard reply to any request became "Sorry, I can't help you with that".


Cheers.

[Monad]

Nice post and nice ideas. As Ogier said I'd also like to remind that when I was a player I tend to organise events without GM help. So you don't always have to wait and sit bored for the GM's to do stuff, you can organise events just aswell, been there done that. ;)