Event Flag: Let us know that you want to be involved

[Jirato]

A new events command has been added. When used, you may (permanently) set an "event flag" on your character. This basically just makes you show up differently on the GM version of the WHO list, so that we know you're fine with stuff happening to/around you.

Please note the following:

• Just because you have an event flag set, doesn't necessarily mean that the amount or frequency of events involving you will increase.
• All IC actions still have consequences regardless of flag setting.
• Even if you don't set an event flag, you may occasionally find yourself in the middle of an event. Not setting it isn't a "Leave me alone, I'm grinding" setting. We will, however, take into consideration that you probably wouldn't want us to do something like have you turned into a tainted symbiant canim.

[Dorn]

Any chance of making this an "opt-out" flag? I feel like it would be more in keeping with the chaos that is Clok, and if anything, one of the highlights of the game.

[Jirato]

There's a couple reasons why the way it is. By no means is not opting-in for the event flag a sign that you're opting out of events. Stuff is still going to happen around you, and you could find yourself involved, even if you don't set the flag. The flag is more of a way saying, "I want to be even MORE involved. I'm not going to cry and complain if my involvement in an event has a permanent impact on my character."

If we were to instead add a command that says, "Use this command to opt-out of event involvement...", I think that'd leave a very negative impression and be a step away from what we're trying to accomplish in CLOK. It would have a pretty negative impact on the GMs seeing it, and as much as I'd like to avoid it, just by human nature we might start to form a bias against such players. I'd rather not have that.

CLOK is a roleplaying game driven by events. If you're only playing for the numbers game and want absolutely zero involvement in the roleplay and the story going on around you, then rather than having a flag to opt-out of it, you should instead just not play CLOK.

[Dorn]

Fair enough.

[jilliana]

Interesting add to the game.

I'd love to turn this flag on for a few of my alts, including Jilliana. The thing that has me hesitating is that I don't want (especially Jilliana) to become just another taint, canim, infested or whatever else. I feel like those things are turning out to be commonplace. Not sure if it's fair to ask of the GMs, but would it be okay to send an e-mail or whatnot to request to be involved a bit more without something so invasive happening to a character?
A player might want to have something positive happen instead of something that'll get them kicked out of towns and whatnot.

Again, thank you for the new addition. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of it.

[Kunren]

Honestly, I feel like the mechanical changes to a character are just shorthand for saying "character changing events", which could be incredibly diverse, from being as random as waking up in a jail cell and informed you committed a crime you were framed for (and all the rp that would come from it), to discovering that your heritage was a lie and you arent a Viali nobleman, to being directly approached by your guild for a special mission. It can be anything, its just so variable for each circumstance, that the "general" well known things like taint and infestation (which, while currently held by a suprising number of the playerbase, are certainly not easy things to obtain and definitely won't just happen because of the event flag) are the best way to give examples.

[Jirato]

Regarding being just another taint, canim, symbiant, etc... Kunren pretty much has the gist of it. Those were just the easiest examples to use.

Nothings really changing in how we approach these types of major character-changing events. We always give people an out. It's not like one day you'll just wake up and BOOM, your entire world is flipped upside down. Well continue handling that kinda stuff the same way we always do.

To give some past experiences as example... You may find yourself knocked out during an infested invasion, waking up some minutes later in another location. The next day, you may start to hear voices in your head. These voices might urge you to certain actions or reactions to others. You might sense a feeling of paranoia, you may hear ,'Don't trust her, she lies!' when talking with one of your close friends...

It's up to you how to act. You could resist the voices and urges. Confess to your friend something isn't right. They may have you try out some random home remedies, maybe take you to an "expert" who has you drink a strange tincture, whatever, and then everything's back to normal.

Or you could subtlety start to act towards your urges. You listen to the voices and seclude yourself from others. You might be drawn to some random nest area. Eventually you form a relationship with the presence in your mind, and over time you come to realize you're a symbiant.

Or (and I think this is what happened in this specific example), you could completely ignore every single message we send you, not reacting one way or another, and we sigh to ourselves, grumble a little bit, and move on to our next thing since you're clearly not interested.

This was a real scenario that was offered to a player before. This is how we normally handle stuff like this, and the event flag isn't really changing that. It's always going to be a forked road and there will always be an out. It's not like just because you have the flag set we are going to start making the decisions for you. It's more like, we're not likely to invest the time setting up something like that if you don't have the flag set.

Lastly, I know I don't really run many events myself personally, but I think most of the team here knows that I am ADAMANTLY against OOC coordination between players and GMs about future events. Just saying "Hey, somethings going down, you might want to get online" is one thing, but I believe it a major taboo to actually have a two-way discussion with a player planning an event around them. You're free to give us your story and your oppinions and ideas, and we'll listen to them and take them into consideration, but we as GMs should not be giving a back and forth planning and sharing all the details of an event.

Sorry for any weird typos/auto correct failures, this was typed on my cell phone.

[jilliana]

Thank you for the clarification.

[Akila]

I quite like these little things the GMs do. I've certainly had plenty on Akila - some started by myself with many many think commands which ultimately has led to where she is now.

Really, the best one I have had was a simple "What am I feeling?" in Corvus, similar to when you're feeling ambient nether. This led to a lot of RP with other Corvites and Rooks, as well as really starting her off on her research project. Whilst this was very small compared to other stuff I've been thrown into, literally lasting maybe 30 minutes or less, I feel it was very character changing for Akila.

I'm also very bad at noticing things... it took another player to point out a change in my character when it happened, so if any GMs have poked Akila or Tirya and I've glanced over it, I'm sorry!