Sword/Axe/Staff hunting - Realism

[Bones]

So I just made another realism/good form RP threat, and this one popped into my head:

Note, I have been guilty of this once or twice and have since stopped. If you are out in the forest, and a Doe/Buck/Rabbit comes through the room.. It isn't attacking you. It can feasibly move so much faster than you. Running after it with an axe, staff or sword and spamming kill (creature) is sort of bad form in my opinion. Wolves, Bears, Sows? Fine. They'll stand, fight, and mess you up. But the -really- fast animals that tend to avoid confrontation?

Thoughts?

[BoogtehWoog]

I would agree.

[RiderOnTheStorm]

I love discussions like this, because they only pop up for things that bother /you/ and everybody is guilty of things that aren't particularly realistic.

If we want to harp on 'realism', there are so many deer/rabbits/etc in the woods, that I figure the actual /mobiles/ that walk up to you, are close enough for you to whack over the head with an axe, if you want.

[tehkory]

I love discussions like this, because they only pop up for things that bother /you/ and everybody is guilty of things that aren't particularly realistic.

If we want to harp on 'realism', there are so many deer/rabbits/etc in the woods, that I figure the actual /mobiles/ that walk up to you, are close enough for you to whack over the head with an axe, if you want.

The problem is people are playing hunters as a concept/job. If I play a healer, take a #%$1 on your wound, then piss in your face, people will get upset. Especially if I then start treating it like it was viable medicine.

Seeing people take a literal $%@ all over the hunting profession kind of has the same effect.

[WorkerDrone]

For the record I think using -soldier's- weapons like the sword, or a tool/crude weapon like an axe in hunting is kind of weird and goes against the nature of not trying to damage the pelt, whereas use of spears is widely documented in hunting even deer/rabbits and other wildlife, not just in throwing it but with hunter gatherers taking time to slowly and carefully sneak up on them and put the stab on them.

Ambushes aside, is it a little unrealistic that you CAN swing your 2d10 + 5 battlesword at deer and drag it home with a whole pelt practically undamaged and make it into masterwork leather armor? Sure, but so is the Fire-and-Forget mobs we have right now, lacking any AI. It's an Alpha and it's not going to ruin your immersion compared to the fifty other things that might possibly ruin your immersion.

[Matt]

Roleplaying ambushing an animal like that is fine I think. Not so much to just be like 'oh a deer walked in! hit deer'!

[soiacc]

Everyone knows that a spear and bow are the ideal hunting weapons, that's what they're made for. In real life an axe, sword, or whatever would damage the hide too much to be of use, but in the game that's not the case. Now with the soldiers patrolling, it shouldn't matter, since they're not actually hunting, they're killing hostile creatures that they come across. I don't know if it's even possibly, codewise, to inflict damage to a hide based on the type of damage done to it. So this may just have to fall under, we know it's not exactly ic, but not everyone wants to run around with spears and there's no way to differentiate the difference in types of damage when skinning.

Also, in real life snares -kill/trap- the small animals, so I think it's a trade off.

[RiderOnTheStorm]

I love discussions like this, because they only pop up for things that bother /you/ and everybody is guilty of things that aren't particularly realistic.

If we want to harp on 'realism', there are so many deer/rabbits/etc in the woods, that I figure the actual /mobiles/ that walk up to you, are close enough for you to whack over the head with an axe, if you want.

The problem is people are playing hunters as a concept/job. If I play a healer, take a #$^% on your wound, then piss in your face, people will get upset. Especially if I then start treating it like it was viable medicine.

Seeing people take a literal @#$@ all over the hunting profession kind of has the same effect.

A hunter can bring in 10x the pelt of a fighter type.

Just like the NPC healer isn't as good at her job as PC healers are.

I'm less worried about fighters doing gimp hunting, and more worried about 10 people going out to kill 27 wolves. THAT destroys the hunting profession.

[Throttle]

For the record I think using -soldier's- weapons like the sword, or a tool/crude weapon like an axe in hunting is kind of weird and goes against the nature of not trying to damage the pelt, whereas use of spears is widely documented in hunting even deer/rabbits and other wildlife, not just in throwing it but with hunter gatherers taking time to slowly and carefully sneak up on them and put the stab on them.

Ambushes aside, is it a little unrealistic that you CAN swing your 2d10 + 5 battlesword at deer and drag it home with a whole pelt practically undamaged and make it into masterwork leather armor? Sure, but so is the Fire-and-Forget mobs we have right now, lacking any AI. It's an Alpha and it's not going to ruin your immersion compared to the fifty other things that might possibly ruin your immersion.

That's pretty much a consequence of the fact that, unlike in real life, RPI characters are generally limited to one weapon skill. It's very nearly impossible to raise two of them to meaningful levels, and nobody is going to volunteer to be the one stuck at familiar polearm and familiar long-blade forever thanks to realistic roleplay when nobody else does it. In reality, people were often good at a variety of weapons and didn't really rely on hunting for half of their training as warriors the way we do here. It's simply a byproduct of the code's very simplified way of handling combat skills.

[RiderOnTheStorm]

I wonder how hard it'd be to code that something that takes more than 5 wounds has its hide ruined.

'The tattered corpse of an average, ebony wolf is here.'

[Matt]

That's actually a really good idea.

[Jeshin]

I'm unsure whether it's a good idea for playability... But it sure would make a good talking point in the economic discussion going on. Any staffers want to chime in on feasibility/desire of implementation?

[hobbitboots]

I agree with the OP's sentiment and think it would be cool to see this kind of realism coded, but I expect staff have bigger fish to fry for now.

Short of a coded solution, I think it's cool if people want to RP like this, but I don't think you should make a scene about it if somebody else decides to play otherwise.

[soiacc]

You can totally rp doing your business, but not everyone wants to get that realistic. Some choose to rp that their pcs do that stuff off camera.



emote squats behind a tall oak tree.

[toofast]

You can totally rp hunting with a bow, but not everyone wants to get that realistic. Some choose to rp hunting with swords.

emote slays bunny with greatsword

[EltanimRas]

If a rabbit walks into my sword and dies ... maybe it was diseased somehow and I shouldn't eat it?

Maybe it was possessed.

[MrDvAnt]

Need to bring back all the little minks and ermines...those little buggers had some sharp teef.

[Tiamat]

I wonder how hard it'd be to code that something that takes more than 5 wounds has its hide ruined.

'The tattered corpse of an average, ebony wolf is here.'

Hmmm. I'll see if it's a possibility.

[Hawkwind]

If a rabbit walks into my sword and dies ... maybe it was diseased somehow and I shouldn't eat it?

Maybe it was possessed.

Because it was a myxi rabbit, blindness, tiredness then death. Many people run them over if they are on the road as it is a horrible, painfull thing for a creature to suffer through.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxomatosis

[sosaria]

It was generally accepted in the previous incarnation of this game that running after a rabbit/squirrel or deer/doe with a sword/staff/melee weapon was -not- allowed.

I don't know if it was actively enforced but the code prevented such actions since the animal would run as soon as you tried melee against it.

And I'm sure an admin would have shot down lightning on you if they caught you doing it.

[tehkory]

It was generally accepted in the previous incarnation of this game that running after a rabbit/squirrel or deer/doe with a sword/staff/melee weapon was -not- allowed.

I don't know if it was actively enforced but the code prevented such actions since the animal would run as soon as you tried melee against it.

And I'm sure an admin would have shot down lightning on you if they caught you doing it.

There's a part of the code from Atonement where rats couldn't be attacked unless you ambushed them. It'd be nice to see this added to smallgame.

[Red]

I've deer stalked with my father multiple times here in New Zealand. I struggled to bring a stag down with a 30.06 and a 308- that's 400 meters away and I like to consider myself a pretty good shot.

Chasing down a deer with an axe is laughable. Throwing weapons almost come across laughable.

But then I remember that Gandalf is a wizard and axe hunting doesn't bother me as much.

[EltanimRas]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxomatosis

I first heard about this from a Peter Singer talk a few weeks back. The Wikipedia article's even more depressing.

[Rivean]

That's pretty much a consequence of the fact that, unlike in real life, RPI characters are generally limited to one weapon skill. It's very nearly impossible to raise two of them to meaningful levels, and nobody is going to volunteer to be the one stuck at familiar polearm and familiar long-blade forever thanks to realistic roleplay when nobody else does it. In reality, people were often good at a variety of weapons and didn't really rely on hunting for half of their training as warriors the way we do here. It's simply a byproduct of the code's very simplified way of handling combat skills.

a) Making allowances for OOC idiocy because it was caused by OTHER OOC idiocy is not, in my opinion, in any way a reasonable policy to enact in an RPI. But I recognize that I am now a minority in this opinion and the majority of the playerbase is more interested in the 'game' aspect and less in the 'internally consistent world' aspect of it, or at least the balance has shifted somewhat towards the former. I'm okay with that.

b) The argument isn't particularly persuasive. You're simply saying that it is very difficult for MOST people to master multiple skills or be proficient in them. Considering that IRL, most people don't master anything, I don't see why this ought to be in conflict with realistic portrayal. Also, if you're willing to sacrifice on the min-max aspect of it, you can still reasonably do both things.

c) The solution is a modification of the original problem (code imbalances - which, re: point (b), I'm not yet convinced that this particular point is in imbalance), rather than a normalizing of stupidly OOC behavior IG. If the code encourages undesirable behavior, then plainly the solution lies in modifying the code till it produces the desired results.

[Throttle]

I don't think using a sword to kill wolves and boars is idiocy. In any case, the issue isn't that people are abusing swords and axes for some unfair advantage, it's just the fact that picking up a hunting spear is not something the code sufficiently presents as a viable option unless you were already using the polearm skill as your main combat skill.

It feels like a few people here are expecting people to do something that, while perhaps more realistic, is not in any way supported by the code, and then insinuating that anyone who doesn't do this is a bad roleplayer. I put this in the same category as the absence of coded bowel movement and the fact that our PCs tend to wear the same clothes for months on end.

At the end of the day, though, I just really don't see why it's suddenly some huge problem when it has been this way for the freaking history of the RPI genre.