This is a little bit of a gripe, but I'm also looking for contructive replies also so I though I'd put it here rather than idiots:

How in character do you consider terms like tells, score, honours, messages, etc? Personally, I cringe when people speak about things like that. I know there is a level of disbelief we must overlook, but I would just love it if people could be a bit more creative with their terms. They sound so obtuse to me.For example, someone just said over Seren ct "You wish you knew what I was talking about over clantells".


It's not a huge issue, but it doesn't sit right with me so I wanted to see what others think.

Tells are definitely IC...aetherwaves. Don't know what the problem is there. It's a tuned aetherwave, as far as clantells go.

Score and honours and messages I'm less sure of.

I know they are in character, but the words themselves just sound so out of character to me.

Tells are, generaly, an IC thing. That we call them 'tells' can be considered slang and acceptable. There are people who use tells in both an IC and OOC manner (myself included. Having NO way for a novice to speak to another OOCly easily scares them away: I know I left a few muds like that). Messages work the same way. As it is the whole 'aetherwave' thing is how we explain GT/CT/Market/ext and, because of it, it makes sense that you can send something to one person (tell) or send a strand of aether that can be listened to at leisure (message).

Sidequestion: Are Messages, audible or written? I always assumed it was audible.

Honors are score as is cannot be IC, but the information can be explained in an IC sense. Honors refers to the gossip and knowledge learned through denizens, word-of-mouth, emphatic powers (notice how you always can tell what someone's name is?) and so on while score is similar to you doing looking into your 'innerself'. That's not to say that the commands are IC (no saying "Hey! I checked honors and found out you did the Estelbar quest") but the knowledge you learn from it can be considered IC (so your character can, out of the blue, learn about your engagement, but can't say "I saw it on honors").

It's a touchy issue though. Sometimes, it works and sometimes it feels like my character is breaking the 4th wall .

It seems to me like messages themselves are written, but they have a little *ping!* that informs you one's arrived. Hence why you can read them when deaf, but don't get informed that they've arrived.

Personally, I wish tells were OOC. I'm very used to tells being OOC, but I can deal with them being IC. There are a few strict IC-tellers out there. I remember a few months ago, some stuff fell from my shelf onto my keyboard It sent about a half a line of gibberish to someone. I promptly sent them an OOC apology and briefly told them what happened. Then they went on and on about insanity. I just wanted to reply, "Dude, chill the heck out it was an accident"

Tells, Clantells, guildtells, etc: To me are IC. IC, I just think we are able to talk to each other that way because there's aether stands that connect us all in some magical way. I think that's what's going on when we teleport to each other and to the nexus, anyway. So it makes sense.

Honors, I see then as OOC in a way. I think the honors line are basically there to show off a players accomplishments.

Messages: I lump them together with tells.

Tells: They can be both IC and OOC for me. Usually I reply according to how I initially received the tell.

Clans, GTs, Cts, etc are all IC for me.

Sometimes I do have to go OOC in 'say' because I deal with a lot of novices and they more often than not have OOC questions. Usually at the end of their orientation, though, I point them to our 'ghelp roleplaying' file.

Scores/Stats: They can be both IC and OOC, I think. It's IC to know you are a member of a commune, though I'm not sure it's IC to know a certain percentage you have until you gain a level/circle.

Honors: These are more IC for me, and I think the information in them can be assumed from rumours, gossip, actually meeting the person, news posts, history records/books, etc etc.

Messages: I always just thought they were little written notes, and they are IC for me.

Tells: If you want, you can say they're short for "telepathic message" or something. Tells should be IC, and I hate when people do the little ((omg ooc message)) thing. However, since no one can hear you... Well, sometimes tells are good for sending hyperlinks to people.

Clans: All IC for me.

Score: It's a personal thing. You should know it, no one else should. So and so tells you, "Omg, check your score." Bah.

Honors: Public information written by the scribes that anyone may access. Works for me.

Messages: Half the time, my returnmessage has ooc stuff in it (like links), but we had this discussion before, and they can be ooc. I use messages to contact people while they're gone, and to send ooc information sometimes. I just think of it that messages can be either way. Similar to when I've talked to Roark in the past: If I'm talking about weapon stats and adjustments, it's obviously ooc, and if I'm talking about the ubermenche, that's ic. Same goes for messages, since they can be both, the person just deals with it in the most appropriate way.

I try to avoid "tells" but I useally don't. I try to say aetherwaves, and as for what it is, I see it like telepathic messaging sort of thingy.

Hmm, I've been known to used 'telling' instead of 'tell'.. i.e., "I just received a telling from Joe, he is in distress."

Why do we care about the word tells when people constantly use the word spam in game?

I consider all long-distance communication a necessary evil, like character immortality.

One the first MUD I played, long-distance communiques were limited only to characters who'd been given an IC reason for having a mental link (telepathic race or skill set), and that was okay.

Never seen another game that even tries to explain the phenomenon, though, or take a definitive stand as to whether these communiques are an in-game phenomenon or purely a meta-game convenience.

I don't mind a lack of realism. I do mind making a change to the fundamental laws of reality that would change the very fabric of society, and then just gloss over it like we're embarassed about it. and hope no one will ever ask us to make sense of it all.

Are all PCs telepaths? Do all PCs lug around magical cell phones? If the latter, why can't people in the same room overhear half of their conversations? If the former, is it a special ability granted by passage through the Portal of Fate, or do ALL humans and elves and faeling, etc., possess this talent naturally?

The Portal of Fate with its amnesia is a very good machine for explaining some of the quirks of MUD PCs, why don't we take it even farther, and use it to explain more?

Telepathy, no, but we seem to have an ingrained ability to use aether strands that connect us to certain things, such as guild aetherways and commune/city ones.

I like the fact that 'tells' aren't explained using some nonsense like "ingrained telepathy" or "inner magic" which makes no sense to people who are stupid warriors. In Lusternia, tells are abilities within the power of aether strands. It's stuff like wielding aether that lets us teleport, travel the planes, and lets the cities fling webs at each other and go into Timeslip.

I mean, if you can pull on the right strand and send your whole BODY over, throwing your voice using a smaller strand makes sense. I actualy feel comfortable using Tells here. Being able to read the message boards could work in a similar fashion

sidenote: someone needs to go research into the subject ICly and write a few books.

As a sidenote, Tells and whatnot are NOT a Portal of Fate thing: Denizens can send tells as well (in fact, that's why loyal creatures can send guild/citytells when they're under attack). To me, having little children pulling aether strings is similar to kids in RL who use the computer at age 5 (which is downright scary to me, even though I was playing Nintendo in that time).

Also, I'm starting to believe that the Immortality thing isn't JUST for Portal of Faters either, though it's not for everyone; The 'named denizens' of the villages are clearly not having their strands cut, but, from how I hear, generic orcs and gnomes simply die (the ones you see come back are just more in the population: note that we go through years pretty fast here and not all of the orcs you can kill in Shallach are the entire orc population there). Simpy put: Death in lusternia is a serious thing for the Fates and, thus, they don't just fling it out lightly (even though Atropus wishes otherwise).

Make it a skill. That will RP justify it.

Of course, when I say make it a skill, I mean a 0% inept Planar skill.

Whenever it has come up IC, I've passed honours off as being publically accessable data encrypted into aethernodes. Score is just your character evaluating him or herself and summing up all the tidbits about himself; when someone actually mentions 'score', I don't know, I guess they just mean 'examine yourself'.

Sounds good.

How exactly is that not "ingrained telepathy" or "inner magic" by some other name? I know I can't reach out and manipulate radio frequencies to send messages IRL.

Trying to make this distinction is so completely splitting hairs.

Lusternia != real life. You know, there's magic here! Things are connected by aether strands! There are Gods dealing with all of our day to day lives! Oh no, let's just remove all of that.

It's like how you step through the portal able to speak without having to learn from sombody. I suppose we should remove that, too.

What I mean is that while they can explain why mages can throw fireballs and teleport, many places just consider tells as "OH yah. it's magic" with no real explanation. If I play a warrior, who, in their design, has no capability for spells, how can I explain that I have use of Tells?

In Lusternia, Aether is much better explained and pieced together. It's not realy 'magic' as RL considers it (usualy by manipulation of the spirit realm or elemental forces) or telepathy (which is mental control. Note we have a class that actualy uses real Telepathy).

I don't think Aether realy has a RL equivlant, except for a rather close match with WOT weaves (and even then that's a stretch). In truth, I like this example:

"reach out and manipulate radio frequencies"

Imagine if you could manupulate radio frequencies, altering them into audible sound waves. Along with that, include the possiblity of altering light waves. You don't mentaly control it, or spiritualy link with it. It's not even altering of Ka. Just reach up, grab a strand, pull it, and something happens.

That's the best way to explain what Aether manipulation is, from Tells to Teleport to Conglut. As for why we all can do it without needing skill in Planar, well.. IRL you wouldn't put eating, sleeping, and walking as part of your resume. It's something that's considered a very basic thing for a person to learn, to the point where they consider you very freaky when you can't do it for any reason.

In Lusternia, I get the impression that it's the same for Aether. Parents holding paintings of their child going:

"Awww, and here's little Cwin sleeping. Oh, and here she is taking her first step. Oh, let me tell you, she fell on her face so many times we almost broke her nose, the poor thing. OH oh, and here she is pulling her first Aether strand. Did you know that she was able to Tell me 'moma' from across the room at age 2? She's a prodigy, I tell you. She'll be in Faethorn by 10 I sware to the Divine."

Of course, she forgot how to walk 3 days later.. then 5 days after the next teaching.. and so on until she was 8 before she could permantly remember to walk, nevermind Tell.

In any case, it's the fact that it makes more sense for this world to have such an effect, once you forget RL and focus on the Lusternian world, which makes me more credible than most other muds.