Consent is one of those things that works on paper, but when you don't make the rules of consent clear enough you get people who wish to either abuse the way consent works, or have to constantly ask consent for every little thing. It is clunky, it slows down rp, and sometimes it stops rp altogether, and it needs to stop. There are some instances where consent is not needed. Example, some douche character decides to head into a bar and begins 'starting stuff' with the bar patrons. The authorities that be ask him to kindly take his business elsewhere, if he refuses he more or less consents to being physically removed, if he continues to refuse to comply he consents to getting his crap smacked around, and so on an so forth until he is either knocked out, disabled in some way, or killed. This whole consent thing tends to make everything overly complicated, feel free to add your own opinions and arguments down below. tl:dr consent to death only.
Heeey. Look at that. I don't have to make a Community Opinion thread. Ya beat me to it. I agree. In its' current state, consent is black and white. When a situation starts turning toward death, you should get CLEAR consent from the person who's life is on the line. I've been guilty of not getting clear consent, and I regret it. (See: Witherbane died.) The issue is a lot of people are dragging consent into a gray area, where it's forced on someone if they're put in a situation. That's not the rules, though. There's the 'if you do this, you consent to death' stance. And the over-polite 'ask for consent for everything' stance. Personally I'm a fan of the 'deadly force is consent' stance. If you're willing to kill you should be willing to die. However in their current state things are black-and-white. You either consent to DEATH or you don't. It would be nice to have clearer, more malleable rules, though.
The thing about consent is that abusing it is actually godmodding in a way. If you refuse to let your character be damaged it's like "oh hey I have this magical shield that will block all damage yay!" and frankly that isn't okay. I'm usually a big stickler for consent, but recently I've begun to be of the opinion that your character should take realistic amounts of damage given the circumstances. If you're the aggressor, you should go into that situation knowing you're allowing yourself to be harmed in response to your actions. If you don't want your character to die, that's fine, but refusing to even let them take a scratch halts roleplay and frankly just leaves a bad taste in the mouth, especially if you're the one who started the conflict in the first place! So I also agree that it needs to be reworked a bit. Consent for death should definitely stay, but I think there needs to be more talk regarding how it's used.
I've already typed up a shitload of text about this exact subject, so I'll keep it short. As bad as people using consent to avoid realistic damage is, people being able to say 'bam I kill you' without anything stopping them would be infinitely worse and hurt the server much more.
I agree consent needs to be reworked. We're a large community, I'm sure we can figure something out. Maybe implied consent. You shoot someone. You've consented to be shot back.
Addendum: Consent is a tricky thing. But in a world like this, where most everyone is a soldier, mercenary, vigilante or some other live-by-the-sword individual, things are trickier still. I understand people getting attached to their characters, and while I don't want to see marauders massacring people for kicks, at the same time taking a gunshot to the heart and shrugging it off with the expectation of some magic medicine is also an undesirable outcome. What it comes down to is if you live-by-the-sword, you should be ready to die-by-the-sword. If you don't want to die, don't put your characters into situations they could easily be killed in. If you play a farmer (ha!) then you shouldn't expect a bullet in the face. But if you play a ruthless mercenary who's only motivation to kill is money? Man... You can't expect to live forever.
This is why consent sadly needs to be there. Because people could rp walking into the Den or Taranis communal area and go full *insert shooting tragedy here* causing everyone to lose their characters. This is why I have a lot of respect for those like Sen or TD who have tried, and succeeded well in RPing hostile characters without retreating to a godmoddy aspect.
Lets use this as an example actually. Edgey Mckillface walks into the den with an automatic weapon and begins firing. Why? Who cares, its happening. There is nothing to stop him from doing this, so hes doing it. Your character getting wounded should not have to be consented to. If this were to happen in real life the gunman isn't going to wait until you consent for him to shoot you. You can and should be able to decide HOW your character gets hurt, or if they dodge it or whatever, but as long as you don't consent to death he can't kill you. The gunman however, should understand that by going into a mercs den, and firing a weapon, he consents to any and all actions taken against him. I call this the "Expect increased reaction" rule. If you look at someone funny, expect to get badmouthed. If you badmouth someone, expect to get shoved If you shove someone, expect to get hit. You hit, expect to get shot You shoot? Expect death.
Can we take a moment to talk about fear RP, as well? I've found that some people are so secure with their anti-consent that they end up thinking they're invincible both IC and OOC, which can lead to some destructive inconsistencies.
I mentioned a part of this problem here. It's not only a problem of shooting or not, but also the possible motives, like pressing a guard, calling a floran weed, and so on. I agree with M-bot it should be left to death, but at the same time, if you are attacking someone, let him the choice of dodging/avoiding some attack if it's done reasonably, or change where an attack/shot impacts (attacker aims to neck, but victim changes it to arm/forearm as he/she went to protect the neck). You goof even only by talking, expect proportional consequences on you. Different PC's react their own way to situations. I also have notices some characters getting pretty maimed, but they let it happen because recovery is going to be incredibly fast for the wounds taken. That's also an issue. If you mean people that are contantly insulting or making other PC's scared, I can think of some, and I agree that, which is included in 'expect consequences', either immediately or later on. Doing that in a basis should make whoever does so ending with a number of people ready to jail/beat someone.
It feels to me that the consent rule, or rather the new version of it (since I agree it needs changing), will have to be somewhat flexible. It'll need to encompass several "what if" situations, which has me thinking that perhaps "consent" is the wrong way to go about it. Instead, perhaps the rule should directly prohibit meta gaming and describe what that is, and make it explicitly clear that actions should be taken in such a way as to leave room for the affected party to decide how they would like to respond -realistically-. I'd expect this level of choice to be abused by some to never die, never take significant damage, and basically continue with the current issues that are already experienced by the consent rule. However, a few things to mention. We should change the rules on how healing works. If you lose a finger, a hand, an arm, or get shot in the gut - it should provide unique opportunities to roleplay these wounds, not get fixed overnight. Sure, it's the future, and limb replacement isn't unrealistic but it should take some time. Take a few IRL days to RP your wounds healing. Limbs take time to re-grow, and even after the re-attachment it'd surely take some time to get used to (except for Glitch). In addition, if you shoot someone and you get shot back, you -must- take damage. No more of this "I'm a ninja" or "Impervium" armor nonsense, because that's just another form of meta gaming at the end of the day. Both parties in a PvP situation should emerge with wounds and scars, to help further character development and add a small sense of realism. A character should never be forced to die, however that same character should never have the ability to go on a rampage or get into outnumbered situations and not die. It's simply highly implausible to think otherwise. I highly advise that if you love your character, be sensible with that character. You may escape a deadly encounter, but you will die from blood loss or organ trauma (or oil loss and motor trauma). No amount of super scifi medicine (or repair) is going to save you from that (particularly if you're on your own to address the circumstances). This is assuming you got shot to bits, even with armor. Armor doesn't cover everything and isn't impenetrable to repeated shots. I think the meat of the issue are players who want to get into rough situations or stir up RP but at the same time don't want to lose their characters. It's become increasingly evident that people are frustrated with these types of players. For the rest of us, we use common sense. Perhaps then, another solution is to notify Staff, so we can force these characters to die if appropriate. I know you might not want to "tattle", but it should be looked at as doing your duty as a responsible player. EDIT: In parts where I mention "metagaming", I think the word I was actually looking for was "godmoding". Whoops!
If your character propagates violence and you hide them behind OOC rules when retaliation occurs, you are a plucking moron and should not be interacting with other human beings. The 'consent' system is patent bullshit. If you don't want some random asshole coming up and killing your character for no reason, you say "no, sorry, I don't want to RP this" and leave the scene. That being said, expect others to do unto you as you do unto them.
KAZYYK HATH SPOKEN. But all joking aside I more or less agree with his post in its entirety. When you get right down to it, its common sense (although with what i've seen 'uncommon sense' is more appropriate)
I'll also make it a little note to mention that if you go into someone's home and start stirring shit up, you should be expected to be greeted with hostilities. It's been a problem where I've asked people if they're fine with me just shocking them to taze them in the Den and they've blatantly said no. Only action I've had from there was to just ignore them, but even then that's a pain. When it comes down to it, I feel as though the people in charge of the location have free authority to use whatever force is necessary to keep their rules enforced, meaning that the only thing they would have to ask for is consent for death if need be. As far as getting shot at goes, it all depends on bullet velocity and quantity being shot at you. Chances are with a fully automatic rifle you're going to get hit. A lot. Now, bullets can graze and miss due to recoil, but you're still going to get shot, even if you're wearing body armor it's gonna pack a punch and wind you. Shields could only take so many bullets until they can rip right through it. Knight armor can only take so much abuse. Swords/Melee weapons in general can be a tough substitute since they're made to cut through metal if need be. I can recall an instance where I had used one of Raoul's larger swords to swat at bullets being fired on from an automatic, but even then he only knocked away two and got his battery pretty much destroyed. The thing about PvP is you have to think realistically. If you're in a situation where you're going to get attacked by someone, chances are you've done that to yourself, whether with your words or your actions. You can't expect someone to go "No you can't taze me" and then not be tazed, when in reality, the person wouldn't have hesitated to do that. Consent on character bounties can be pretty iffy too. For mercenary groups like the Wolves, it's a big role. We've stuck by the rule of "If they do not consent to death, injuring them is good enough to complete the contract", because in the end the player is obviously attached to their and won't want them to die, unless they want to play it out realistically.
Kaz' makes a very good point. In fact, a lot of these posts do. Proud of you guys for that. I'll also keep this short and sweet. Edit: No I won't. On one hand, we do need a consent system. Badstar has it right on that note. If you removed it entirely, it causes more harm than it does good, in that the same shit-stirrers that don't like getting their shit-stirred will, rather than saying "my impervium armour can block all your bullets", will say "my impervium bullets kill you and you are dead". Consent is needed. I remember one situation where a friend of mine stepped foot into a restricted hallway (only for guild members or something), and then was immediately ordered to "void that or my character kills you". Consent saved his bacon, and I think it was needed for that. On the other hand, it is very abusable as it is right now. I don't even have to detail this, you've all probably seen it. People shoot at someone then go "I don't consent to death". I've actually seen a couple of my friends do that once or twice, and honestly, shame on people for doing that, it's lame and it's godmoding. We do need a way to avoid that as well. Personally, I really liked the rule that Liberty Mills put into play after seeing a lot of this issue. The "He Who Shoots First Can Get Shot" rule. You attempt a lethal action, and you consent to lethal action in return, automatically. (Rubber bullets count, for the jerks who brought it up last time. That's metagaming to abuse the system if you have no reason to use rubber bullets. Basically, if it's seemingly lethal, it counts.) However, I do want to make one very important point: No consent rule is or will ever be without abuse or fault. Ever. That's why we have moderators! Every single consent rule will have loopholes. If you're dealing with someone abusing the rule, get a moderator to be the neutral party and decide what you guys should do. That's what they are there for. The idea here is that we want to make a consent rule where we need as few moderator interventions as possible. Our current system does not do this. Let's figure out one that can. I recommend the above system, myself, but that's just me.
First) You don't need consent to HARM someone, just to kill. Second.) 'Colony rules' are exactly what's been dragging the consent rule from an established, server-wide rule into a base-by-base gray territory that's been the reason we need it rewritten.
On a somewhat related note to all that's been said so far, I really do think the arbiter role could have had some positive influence on consent and realistic damage to characters, especially if said arbiters were all on the same page regarding how consent should be perceived and what is acceptable in terms of damage taken/ received and whether or not your character realistically should be escaping the situation unscathed. But obviously that's my opinion.
The thing about that is, the Arbiter role was mostly just a title. You can do almost all the things an Arbiter could just by being an honest and responsible player. Sure, there is a lack of official authority, but the main point of the role was to increase Staff awareness of situations that otherwise slip through the cracks but are still upsetting players.
