Atlantic Roleplay Community Boards

Leshok Majere · Certifiable Joined: 05 Jan 2004 Posts: 1790 Location: Ohio

so, from what I've been hearing and reading I'm kind of curious...

Is anyone out there really roleplaying a Paladin anymore? I don't mean being a good warrior with Chivalry either. But a true hardcore follower of the virtue guidelines, quest driven paladin?

I remember when AOS came out and there was an influx of them, more than ever, I'm guess lots got burnt out? last big paladin activity I saw was when OES took a hiatus, and James M'real called a paladin council together to perform a ritual that sealed out entropy for a while using the gauntlets of light, sword of heaven, the m'real family hammer, and the book.

Does anyone do virtue quests, visit shrines, preach the virtues as guidelines, not some odd thing you pray to or worship?
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After all these years, I'm still putting up with Kuja and Vaen? whats wrong with me?

"Fri Jan 14 20:07:01 2005 [08:45:38] Kuja: ghaahahahahahha...ha..h.a..... NOTHING TO FREAKING DO IN GAME GAH"

Some things never change even after 4 years...

Rags · Journeyman Joined: 11 Feb 2008 Posts: 143

Yeah the Templar division in Sanctus does. Arahim has been doing alot of quests lately (and always has since I've known him) and is taking any new members interested on pilgrimages this weekend to the different shrines I believe. He does alot of that stuff (and was tasked with alot of different virtue type quests before his knighthood) and I believe Winzo does as well since he came from the Templar division before his promotion.

Leshok Majere · Certifiable Joined: 05 Jan 2004 Posts: 1790 Location: Ohio

Arahim?? he could virtue roleplay his way out of a hat! (he knows i'm kidding and love him! hehe)

Thanks for the update Rags!
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After all these years, I'm still putting up with Kuja and Vaen? whats wrong with me?

"Fri Jan 14 20:07:01 2005 [08:45:38] Kuja: ghaahahahahahha...ha..h.a..... NOTHING TO FREAKING DO IN GAME GAH"

Some things never change even after 4 years...

Reeve · Visitor Joined: 12 Oct 2005 Posts: 9 Location: RI, USA

I try to. Apart from just taking Chivalry when it was made available I was a student under James M'real when he was in Sanctus a few years ago. I now play solo but strictly as a paladin of the Virtues.

-S
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-Reeve

Teh Glouris Lrod Kujabis · Transcendent Spammer Joined: 29 Dec 2003 Posts: 5740

Nice to hear people are doing real virtue roleplay. People that are 'warriors with chiv' are even worse than paladins that pick the virtue most convenient to them 'winning'. I hope the influence of real paladin roleplay spreads again.

Darrien Church · Honored Member Joined: 06 Jun 2004 Posts: 1810

http://www.atlanticcommunityboard.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17011

Something I always wanted to see come to be...it's very long...is a mix of monotheistic belief and the Virtues, but you may find it an interesting read! (should only take you three to four days!)

Arahim · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 9:13 am Post subject:

I can Virtue RP out of ANY hat provided it is made of no material thicker than felt. As you well know, I perfected RPing a "pladin" under none other than sir robby. All you have to do is emote, "prays" alot, fight "lick lords" and brag to anyone who will listen.
Nice to see you on these boards Leshok...see you IG soon...?

Cal Hurst · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 10:32 am Post subject:

TEH LICK LRODZ!

I remember trying to read those posts aloud in ventrilo, according to the grammar they were written in. That means a full MS Word's page worth of writing, with NO stopping.

:/
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Darrien Church · Honored Member Joined: 06 Jun 2004 Posts: 1810

Tai Kwan Leap · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 11:52 am Post subject:

Tai still attempts to embody the essences of Honor, Compassion and Truth.
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"He's been fired from the Shrimp Boat?" -- Charlaine Harris "Living Dead In Dallas."

Cal Hurst · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:35 pm Post subject:

Jonathan Strathmore · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 6:46 pm Post subject:

I role play a priest.

Of the Xornite.

Wolfe · Lore Keeper Joined: 02 Aug 2004 Posts: 898

There's lots of virtue followers in Moonglow, though none are hardcore paladins. Raedyn, former High Cleric of the Paladins of the Virtues (The guild Tallin began with Gohan, Lady LaBelle, Mia, and myself later on), is still very virtuous though he does not preach as often as he used to.

The virtues are a GREAT premise to base a character on, they give you fairly clear-cut guidelines by which to play your character, which can be helpful for those struggling with character appropriateness of actions and reactions.

Teh Glouris Lrod Kujabis · Transcendent Spammer Joined: 29 Dec 2003 Posts: 5740

I hope this sparks nothing, or debate at the worst, and especially not hard feelings... But while I liked organized virtue studies, even if they were called churches, the majority of 'virtue as a faith' never floated my boat. I really can't put my finger on how to explain why, but the first thing that comes to mind is that, you can interpret the virtues uniquely your own way if it is a code; whereas, if it is played as a religion, everyone kind of ends up doing the same roleplay.

I think the code format has a lot more flexibility, creativity, and makes for a more interesting and diverse population of virtue-followers. It also opens up for highly interesting broken virtue roleplay; either the extreme Lord Blackthorn example where the virtues have been interpreted strangely and have become twisted, down to the fact that some people will just roleplay only a few virtues out of the bunch, due to one reason or another.

Speaking on that, I think the most interesting thing is that most of the virtue followers (paladin and nonpaladin alike) sometimes just... Forgot some virtues. Not out of convenience, not out of 'this is how my character is', but simply the person behind the character kind've forgetting something. While I feel like I am describing a breakdown between IC and OOC (which is generally a bad thing), it still makes the diversity between virtue roleplayers really come alive and be interesting, as I described before. Some are prone to follow some virtues a bit more than others or not at all; it is very hard to pull off near perfect balance of all eight virtues even when you are trying your best to do so.

I'll use Roc as a good example (my old paladin for you noobers, my first roleplay character on Atlantic, was on the paladin council in Stormhaven); while I purposely tried to give him some inner conflicts, I now notice that I completely slipped up here and there in the virtue balance. I went out of my way to make him worry that his longer-than-average life (half-elf) was going to cause him to be arrogant and look down on those with shorter lifespans (humility) for example, but what I did unintentionally was avoid combat a few times when I should have fought (valor), never really made strong attempts to roleplay him understanding his enemies motives and feelings (compassion), and I think my biggest mistake was that I never touched Sacrifice at all; a situation never really arose where I could throw myself in harms way to save someone else, but what puts me at fault is that I waltzed around in full valorite magical armor with really powerful magical weapons, which would denote I am somewhat wealthy in the game (isn't everyone? but I digress...) and I never really tried to do any 'spread the wealth' kind of stuff.

On that same topic, I am sure we could go down the list and mention plenty of other major violations; virtue followers that are cowards and run from battles, that use unfair or underhanded or cowardly battle tactics, that show little understanding for others around them that aern't their friends, that have twisted and biased senses of justice, that lie, that are completely prideful or arrogant, that hoarde wealth and would prefer others to take a bullet¹ for them and would never do the same for anyone else (let alone a random stranger), and of course the most rampant, virtue followers that don't actually follow virtues; either they do so to look like goodie goods, or they just want chiv for much pwnsausageroflcakes.

Oops. 6AM rant. I guess I'll flee.

¹Yes, I know there are no damn guns in UO. Give it an expansion or three in about ten years and we'll have hand cannons with 1.25 swing speed and 15 tile range that do 50 damage a shot with Skull Ignore and Improved Ranged Lobotomy as specials. Meh.

Reeve · Visitor Joined: 12 Oct 2005 Posts: 9 Location: RI, USA

I agree with a lot of the points there. Interpreted philosophies of the Virtues definitely do allow for more people to link up to Virtue RP. Of course, an organized religion where the Virtues are set in stone is just another interpretation that happens to have many people behind it. And I think that it lends a lot of realism to the culture.

I'm also in favor of flawed Virtue paladins and factions or individuals who knowingly or inadvertently hold one Virtue above the others. Game-history-wise paladins were a part of the game long before UO's Age of Shadows. And they started out as knights of Honor. I think that even in UO prior to AoS you could only find NPCs titled as paladins in Trinisic. In each of the eight primary cities one Virtue was held higher than the rest. It took the emergence of the Avatar to embody them all and even he was lacking in some ways, in my opinion. Having even half of us nutters walking and talking perfect Virtue on Atlantic would make me turn to the dark side quicker than you can say Fellowship.

Going on my personal paladin faults I would rate Reeve like this:
Honor (fair to excellent) If I'm given a task I do it provided it's possible.
Sacrifice (fair) There aren't a lot of ops for this one but I have definitely whacked the greater dragon once or twice to draw it off someone fleeing.
Humility (fair) I typically put the needs of others before my own, preferring to serve in one fashion or another.
Honesty (poor to fair) I haven't been given a reason to lie or mislead nor do I have much inclination to do so.
Justice (poor to fair) Lack of op and a meticulous and inquisitive nature usually grind the wheels of justice to a slow crawl for me.
Valor (fair to excellent) I often will stand in one spot in battle and generally only run when discretion makes the better case.
Compassion (fair to excellent) Here I give a lot of benefit of the doubt to people I know are lost causes. Pretty much the line where compassion ceases is when I'm attacked.
Spirituality (fair) I spend a good deal of my time trying to rope all the Virtues in and make them mean something for everyone.

And those are pretty basic conceptualizations of course.

-S
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-Reeve