Arelith

You could just rp that your character feels the pain whenever they're near their bondmate and they get hurt, or if their bondmate is upset then have your character feel the emotion as their own but not understand why they feel it, and rp your character feeling a sort of high when they are in their bondmate's presence. Your character could also feel extremely protective and become angry and violent when they're otherwise a peaceful character when they see their bondmate is being threatened. That's how I've handled it, have my character be effected by what they can witness, and have a shift in their emotions based on what I as a player can see without tells and rp that it's the bond effecting them.

I am personally against the idea of bonding.

It leads into high risk areas of metagaming. Telepathy is a definite no. And, the feeling of pain and emotion can cause a lot of issues. If you really want to know what someone is feeling, ask them. Because if your bonded partner feels pain, and you roll up warded or rush to where they are, what are you adding to the game?

Characters bleed emotion on their own through roleplay. You do not require a bond to know when someone is upset, facial and behavioural reactions are easy enough to roleplay.

The best route is the safest route. And, that means not putting yourself into the situation of using emotion / telepathy which crosses the line of high level metagaming.

Why not restrict it to line of sight? You still get the Elfy feeling of sharing their pain in a spiritual bond, but realistically....yeah, that bleeding open wound is telling everyone else in line of sight that your bondmate is in pain too.

Restrict telepathy to line of sight?

how about we just don't be telepaths

seems to have worked fine so far

Same question came up with Ghostwise halfling in the past. Dont do it.

When I played my elf, and she bonded with someone, I kept it strictly to general feelings. Sometimes she would share past memories of things from the mainland to keep it a little bit interesting but never anything shared that happened on Arelith or at least nothing that happened recently that would make the information relevant.

When it came to feelings, I would share how they felt about things at random times. Having a feels moment with someone? Send them a tell of general sadness or bittersweet feelings. Having a drink with a friend? Maybe I'd send them a tell about sharing a feeling of happiness.

As long as you didn't reveal a location of where you are or what you're doing or talking to, then it isn't considered metagaming.

Also no telepathic talking. That's just a no-no.

Seven Sons of Sin wrote:friendly metagaming is totally OK. You and ur bud are both in Cordor, but don't want to spend 15-20 mins sending speedies and meeting up, so instead you go *elven bonding to the Nomad*, that's cool.

To exercise any kind of advantage, as aforementioned, is heinous and you should kill it with fire. Even employing some sort of invisible sense or perception infront of other players I'd argue is wholly distasteful.

As much as I wish this was okay.. I am not so sure it is. I know the team has said in the past that it's a-okay to oocly meet up with your buds and go for a grind, but like telepathically going 'lets meet up' ic through tells through a bond? Eeeeehhhh I don't think that's okay. Sure it doesn't affect any other players oocly in a negative way, but there is a fine line you're walking if you're doing that.

Thoughts, Spyre?

The Salt Elemental wrote:When it came to feelings, I would share how they felt about things at random times. [...] As long as you didn't reveal a location of where you are or what you're doing or talking to, then it isn't considered metagaming.

By you, perhaps, but we've already had a DM statement in this very thread to the opposite effect. Please don't confuse the issue by stating your opinions as if they are server rules, because that can cause problems.

DM Atropos wrote:You can call yourself bonded all you like but using that to mystically know where someone is, or their health/feelings/death at any time is metagaming and will be treated as such.

Lorkas wrote:

The Salt Elemental wrote:When it came to feelings, I would share how they felt about things at random times. [...] As long as you didn't reveal a location of where you are or what you're doing or talking to, then it isn't considered metagaming.

By you, perhaps, but we've already had a DM statement in this very thread to the opposite effect. Please don't confuse the issue by stating your opinions as if they are server rules, because that can cause problems.

DM Atropos wrote:You can call yourself bonded all you like but using that to mystically know where someone is, or their health/feelings/death at any time is metagaming and will be treated as such.

I didn't mean to state it as a server rule? I just posted what I know and how I've done it in the past.

I believe I also stated that:

As long as you didn't reveal a location of where you are or what you're doing or talking to, then it isn't considered metagaming.[

Which is exactly what DM Atropos just said. The exact same thing. As long as you didn't share pertinent information to your character's health, current status, or location then alright.

I feel like you've misunderstood what I meant. I absolutely agree, you shouldn't do anything 'telepathic' that leads to you gaining an advantage over other people in game. That includes revealing your characters location, health, or current situation they are in.

Edit:
It feels as though I've stepped into a forum where tensions are apparently high. Perhaps it's best to lock it.

Look back at the two quotes again (especially since I included the bit you thought I had missed when I originally quoted you).

The important bit is that you were saying you share feelings by tell and that it isn't considered metagaming to do so, while DM Atropos included feelings in his list of things that it is metagaming to share telepathically. This is the contradiction that I'm speaking of.

Lorkas wrote:Look back at the two quotes again (especially since I included the bit you thought I had missed when I originally quoted you).

The important bit is that you were saying you share feelings by tell and that it isn't considered metagaming to do so, while DM Atropos included feelings in his list of things that it is metagaming to share telepathically. This is the contradiction that I'm speaking of.

Perhaps I didn't explain it well enough, but sending a feeling of pain or whatever to another player to tell them that your character is in distress falls under the 'telling another player your characters health or situation' part. I don't personally feel that sending another person a tell about a character feeling happy or sad or whatever is metagamey because you can't take any info from that and use it as metagame stuff. There is no information to use as an extra advantage. It's just a thing. You can't discern anything from that other than for personal rp between the two characters.

When I was playing an elf, and asked these same questions to the team, I was told it was okay as long as no information that could be used as an advantage over other players or as long as no information about the characters health, situation, or location then it was fine. Those exact words. All I did was share what I was told by the team. And that was early last year towards 2016. If that's changed, then okay. Aight, I'm out.

"I must take my leave! My bonded elf bae is feeling panic and great despair! I'm not metagaming I'm just bonded! I'll bet she's on RDI!!!"

edit;

DM Atropos wrote: I suspect Lorkas' take, if you MUST have a "telepathic" bonding, is the best way. There is no way it can be used to your advantage, or to the disadvantage of other players, which is what we aim for. Having things that are not mechanically supported that could allow you that edge, is an unfair advantage in and of itself.

Information not available to anyone else about the status, physical or emotional, of any other PC on the server is an advantage, unless that information is available to everyone, and with an elf-bond it's not as it's done psychically through tells.

It's actually cheating, imo. There isn't a single thing you can say to another person and not cause a ripple of consequences.

Again, with emphasis.

DM Atropos wrote:You can call yourself bonded all you like but using that to mystically know where someone is, or their health/feelings/death at any time is metagaming and will be treated as such.

Yeah I was mostly replying to this bolded bit a few posts up

As long as you didn't reveal a location of where you are or what you're doing or talking to, then it isn't considered metagaming.

Sending a tell to your bonded partner about your feelings? I do not see it as necessary at all - if you are emoting your feelings in tells, it should be emoted publicly for everyone to see. If it requires a tell, that means the player is no where in Line of Sight of your character and is likely in another area - it is then metagaming of them to know your feelings.

This shouldn’t be occurring. It creates an unfair advantage of someone outside of your immediate roleplay to have knowledge of what is going on without being present. A moment of despair or desperation “felt” through a tell could lead to them showing up fully warded in the area to protect you or what have you. It just opens up too much possibility to metagsme.

A tell is meant as an OOC form of communication. It is not meant to share IG information or to provide private emotes between one person and another. Emoting what your character does, feels or says should be done openly for everyone to see.

As for Seven’s mention of using tells to state where your character is likely to be so you can meet up? Everyone does it as some people are pressed for time - the occasional mention of: I’ll be around the Cordor area is a frequent thing. However, to preserve in game at all times, it’s encouraged to use the IG method of communicating via messengers to arrange meetings. But an once occasional message saying: I’ll be around this area, if you want to roleplay briefly? is normal with players, it’s just strictly OOC that does not create an unfair advantage in game. But, there is no convention of feelings, direct location and it minimizes the metagaming aspect to enable opportunity to briefly meet up.

However, please do roleplay all aspects and use what’s provided in game. I rather see the messengers used and not witness two players silently walk up to each other and then head out to a hunt.

Lorkas' interpretations of my words are the correct interpretations. As Spyre has also said, using a "bond" via ooc tells to communicate -anything- regarding your character's feelings/physical placement/emotional state/physical state/history/witticisms or any form of telepathy, I will, as a DM, consider metagaming until and unless a blanket rule to the contrary is dictated by the Head DM and Admin team (or our team as a unit)

The meet-up ooc communication also doesn't reveal any information. "Everyone meet at the Crows nest, I want to bang out my daily quests," has no real info to glean outside of the very loose indication of where someone might be, and leaves no hit to discern their status outside of perhaps them being bored. OOC comms like this are also basically needed because nobody wants to wait over an hour for one of your squad to just not show up, despite being online, only because they can't get to a speedy to respond and tell everyone that they're busy. If I get a speedy summons, and I won't be going for whatever reason, I usually respond in a tell just so they don't wait real life hours for me to not show, and this isn't a problem either as long as the reaction to such a tell is, "Ok we waited long enough he's not going to show!"

These frequently used OOC tell examples are quite different then using an elf-bond as the ooc but actually ic "elf emotional emergency broadcast system" by sending whispers about how you're terrified because you saw a drow raiding party and everyone knows you never leave the Myon area so lets just IC head there.

I appreciate the feedback I've gotten. I feel a great deal of it specifically ignored the premise and the circumstances offered as examples - that being that rather than transmitting distress when in PvP, that specifically would not be done, but we might instead broadcast say, anger/pain from our own quarter, and then when the bondmate shows up there's no rescuing to be done, but instead they stubbed their toe while ruminating on something that had made them mad.

But that fact is in its own way a form of feedback for me to take under consideration. Clearly there is not a lot of trust towards the concept no matter how benignly undertaken, and that will cause discomfort in some (apparently many!) people.

I also appreciate the DM Team weighing in.

This was amazingly constructive given the topic I chose to broach, so Kudos to everyone in the thread.

Lock, please?