(04-27-2024, 06:13 AM)Save Wrote: Not true!
I became "relevant" by losing.
I obtained a signature by losing, and obtaining a deadly perm.
I've survived, even when losing.
Its all linked to how good you can craft a story, and how good your RNG is.
My very first character was a pacifist, named Cherry.
I would literally /forfeit or whatever the command is at any verbs anyone would throw at me. (I always forget if its /concede /forfeit /abandon or whatever)
I still managed to talk down a lot of violence and arguably stop an entire war.
I'm sure many people who RP'd with her would +1 that my roleplay was very solid and I've changed the mind of necromancers, witches and a ton of psychopaths into being better people back when that really wasn't a popular stance (very start of E4)
Though how did my story end? People went to me, refused to listen to what I had to say no matter how hard I tried, they captured me and I was infinitely stuck in Aphros as a prisoner until I got bored after a month + of captivity and just retired.
Do you know when I've seen that not happen? When the character was strong enough to fight their way out, or when they had friends strong enough to bail them out.
I'm not saying you can't do ANYTHING if you're not strong, I'm saying its an incredible boon and in the cases of FACTIONS it is a requirement.
A faction/settlement absolutely requires a strong subset of people, at least a good core of them, in order to survive destruction raids. That leads to clique behavior, to meta chasing etc etc. Its because sometimes there are people that no matter what you tell them they simply decided the outcome already.
The reality is that playing a social character that is not focused on combat is possible only in two scenarios:
A: You have a cast of strong characters surrounding you/who are in your faction
B: you are a loner who doesn't care about the state of settlements.
Settlements in the way they are currently setup and in the way they are destroyed (Via raid which is entirely decided by win%) forces any character with any attachment to those settlement to be forced to value strong verbers.
That is simply how it is.
(Yes, I did not mention alliances. Because its the same issue: You rely on strong verbers of other factions to defend you. In the end it all circles back to might is right.)
Edit:
TL;DR : A good writer MAY become relevant. A strong verber ALWAYS is. People can say "no" to your words. They can close up and ignore them. They can't ignore the result of a verbing.