Epidemic In The Regalian Isles

[Parz1vol]

Epidemic: Character Study & Discussion

Part One
​

This will be part one of this thread. A way for me to see something I've been curious about. Two parts, part one being, would you let your character get sick if a RP event or plot was created by and encouraged by the Staff? I'd like total honesty here, because I know disease is hard to roll play and few people would want to in an epidemic situation due to character death. Part two, who or what would be affected by your own character falling ill.

Part Two
​

Alright. Discussion time. What could the RP world gain from an epidemic, and do you think people would actually participate if it wasn't a forced illness? Would there be outrage if it was forced (in the sense that you have to catch it under certain conditions), and player participation wasn't optional? Would you personally like an epidemic as an antagonist?

Discuss. I'll join the discussion later.​

 

[Karmesian]

In my case, I'd probably rp trying to avoid the sickness for a while, and then catch it at some later date further on, both so that catching it felt more natural, and so that I could experience both sides of the rp.

While I almost certainly wouldn't mind it having crippling effects while active, nor would I mind it leaving effects even after, with most of my characters I'd probably prefer not to have character death, mostly because it is, in general, a fairly anticlimactic end. Not to say it always is, but I'd expect it to be an exception rather than the rule if it were. That said, I wouldn't mind having one of my less played or shelved characters die in such a way.

As for the rp setting it would create, I think it would be quite interesting. As it got worse, there would be more and more desperation within the city, probably leading to paranoia, increased crime and even looting, more powerful gangs, possibly even cults, among other things. I image from an ooc perspective there would be the issue of most people opting not to catch the disease though, reducing how much it actually effected role play. In addition, if it was forced under certain circumstances, I'd expect there would be a lot of salt being thrown around. That is, if the enforced rule was followed at all, which I image would be difficult to properly enforce at all. Certainly there were many people who landed in the sewer water enough to catch sewer maggots without doing so before. Not to necessarily say that's bad. If anyone doesn't want to do a certain type of rp, then it's not really my place to push it on them, but from a server-wide perspective in the case of a epidemic, I can see ooc desire to avoid disease and harm to characters potentially being a substantial issue to the overall efficacy of the setting.

 

[TinySnowcloud]

Part 1
I would, and have, allowed my main character to be infected with a disease. Roughly a year ago, players attempted to organize an arc where characters were infected with one of the diseases in Lore (it causes paranoia, I think). I was all for it, and upon Cecil, my Shendar, becoming infected, I happily joined in. The only problem was, other roleplayers quickly identified that something was wrong and forced him to be cured. This problem precipitated from the fact that the disease had a very easy and simple cure and the fact that metagame could very easily solve the problem. However, I was and would be happy to join in.
Part 2
Disease roleplay is a very interesting idea to me. I've already expressed my interest, but I think any such roleplay would need staff intervention to ensure it wasn't instantly magically cured. Want an example? Dulofall. There is no cure for it, and staff are even experimenting with a campaign where Dulofall is an antagonist. I think this would be very fun. Really, I don't think there's much more to it. I think I communicated any potential problems well in Part 1, so I'll leave off at that.​

 

[Conflee]

Part 1 - I would allow Conf to become ill, unless by some logic it wouldn't make sense I suppose, though given the time he spends out and about he would most likely catch something. Conf runs a lot of stuff in his "off time", however he has properly appointed people he trusts to manage these in the event of his death or illness. So not much beyond him being bedridden.

Part 2 - I would enjoy it, it is really one of the few things Massive has not done yet. We have been invaded several times, had take overs and people overthrow the government, riots, curfew, WARS, almost had a METEOR hit us. A plague would be interesting- as long as the vast majority of deaths were NPCs. Players hate losing their characters, especially if it is not on their terms. I would also prefer if the illness did not make the character's useless and confined to their homes or beds.