NPC Combat Pages

M

Masticon

Newbie
Let me preface what I'm going to say here by saying something else first. I love pages. I love having kids at game. I love the certain level of "keeping it clean" that their presence invokes. I've always been on the side of allowing packet pages in the game and I tried all I could to change things to allow it back when Oregon didn't allow them. A number of people have suggested making NERO 18+ only and I couldn't disagree with them more. Often times I enjoy the presence of those under 18 more than those above it.

That being said and clarified I feel it prudent to make this point. I hate fighting against NPC pages.
I'm curious if other people have the same experiences I do. I feel that the page rules are an exception for younger people to be allowed to participate but still be heavily discouraged from engaging in combat. While NPCing combat pages are specifically designed for combat but engage in packet only combat. My specific problems are as follows:
1) When an NPC attacks you, you attack back. This creates a danger for combat pages as you are often not paying attention to their headband while they're chucking spells at you.
2) Hitting someone who's throwing packets at me makes me more difficult to hit. A page who is standing there while I call damage at them has no impediment to hitting me with packets. As an NPC they generally aren't concerned with their own life so rather than fleeing they will stand and cast and lose body as I hit them.
3) Pages are instructed to shy away from combat. For NPC pages this is impossible.
4) I come to NERO partially because I enjoy the combat. When a significant number of the opponents I encounter are not people I can engage physically against, I feel gyped.

Thoughts, feelings?
 
I think you make a very good point. And to preface my statement, I agree with the rather unique fun-factor that pages can and do bring to the game. We have some very cool Pages that are a lot of fun to game with. <3

That said...

When an NPC engages in combat, I find myself reacting in an automatic sort of way: they attack me, I attack them--and in the only manner my character is really capable of attacking back.

This lead to me (very) accidentally landing three or four weapon swings on a Page who was in the middle of combat he had engaged in. This was further compounded by the fact that, while he was wearing a headband that had orange in it, it was wrapped up around itself to make a sort of true headband (instead of head cover), was under his relatively long hair, and did not have the word "Page" written on it.

I obviously didn't attack him on purpose, and I quit IMMEDIATELY upon hearing "PAGE" yelled a couple of times, and got out of combat. Heck, I even got a stern talking-to by the head of rules, as I should have been. But there was absolutely no way for me to readily and easily tell that he was a page, and given the fact that he initiated combat, I kinda went into attack mode. :/

I do my best to avoid combat with Pages--better safe than sorry. But to avoid this sort of thing happening, I definitely agree that they should NOT be sent out as combat NPC's (or looking for combat, or whatever). To me, that's a blatant safety violation and I hope is watched a LOT more closely in the future (especially that headband thing :p).
 
If you are in range to hit a page and they are standing there, they are breaking the page rules. In order for a page to be struck, the weapon must be within 5 feet of them, and they have to be 10 feet out of combat. Thus, any time they are in range to be hit, they *must* move away.
 
That may be true, but the root of the problem is that they are being sent in as combat NPC's in the first place, which in turn encourages them to break the rules. By having them sent out as hostile monsters of characters, its pretty much guaranteed that the page (or the people they encounter) will be in violation of the rules at some point during their NPC's life time.

The safest approach would be to not force the situation by having pages go out as non-combative NPC's. Without the pages thrusted into that sort of position in-game, the possibility of them (and others) being found in violation of page rules would decrease dramatically.
 
The only time I've honestly seen a page *safely* sent out as a "combat" NPC was one of Phil's magic storming rocks. With the description (it's a rock) and the non-mobility of the NPC, it makes it pretty easy to sit the page down, tell him to toss packets at anything that moves, and not get up him/herself. And, well, those rocks were kinda fun to play. :p

And, really, I think cases like that are the only way to send a page out as a combat NPC in a safe manner: obviously stationary packet chuckers... turrets, if you will.

Pages who are walking up into a combat situation and engage in that situation pose a danger to themselves and others. People with sticks who have adrenaline pumping through them seem to like hitting moving targets. Some responsibility is to be laid at the feet of those of us with sticks. We should really be more aware of our surroundings. But I feel this would be less of a problem if roles available to page NPCs wishing to engage in combat were more well defined.

I would love to see more roles like the above rock figured out for pages who want to NPC and engage in combat. The time it takes to spout off the answer to "what do I see" is not only a great time to point out that "and the PAGE is 'xyz stationary NPC'," but also a great opportunity for the players to realize this as well.

Perhaps it's also time to re-evaluate the testing that pages are supposed to go through to get from a stage 1 to a stage 2 page.

It may seem like fun to be including the kids, but we'll all be crying if the insurance gets yanked for it.
 
Actually. the insuarance can't be yanked for including children. Every person under the age of 14 and not out of 8th grade has to provide their own insurance anyway.
 
Again, since the page policy is a local decision, the chances of getting the chapter yanked are fairly infinitesimal.
 
To a certain degree I totally agree with what is being said. Pages should not be sent in for the purpose of starting combat or playing a strictly combat oriented role. It is literally impossible for them to do while following the page rules. As they would be acting as the center of combat, which they are not allowed to be doing. In that regard I think that will be easy to monitor, and make sure does not occur in the future. That being said I believe that page npc's, like page pc's can be sent out as people or monsters that primarily have an rp role, but can get into combat. Examples would be things like merchants, bandits, pixies, goblins. These roles can be pulled off easily within the rules, the pages can still get in some combat here and there, but there primarily goal is not to go in and start something. Now of course this requires two things to work. The first is that the page know, follow and properly physrep their page requirements. Second it requires that people be a little more careful, and watch what they are swinging at. (Me included, as I also hit a page this last event, but mine was a pc) Sometimes I wonder if it would help to announce that there are pages attending an event, and whether they are npcing or pcing. Does anybody think this type of reminder would help the situation at all?
 
Just so everyone is aware, I am very sensitive to this issue from several angles. I do agree with a lot of what is being said here,. and do understand there are many posiitons to this issue and a lot of strong feelings involved for some people. It is my goal to:

1. Ensure a good game flow
2. Ensure fun can be had in the game by everyone desiring to participate at whatever level.
3. Ensure the safety of the people choosing to play at whatever level.

If the pages participating as NPC's in combat are not being safe, then I do realize it is time to review whether or not NPC pages can be in combat. I do prefer Holly's solution of making sure they go out as RP roles, not as crunchies.

Also, if the current headband system is insufficient for people to recognize a page in combat, then we need to review this policy and see if there is another way they can be marked as being a non-weapon area. I ahve seen several times in the past couple of events where a page has been struck in combat.

Lastly - I am willing to entertain arguments of safety, immersion, game flow, etc. As noted before, arguments on insurance are not really valid, as our insurance policy through the scouts does already demand anyone under age provide their own.
 
What about orange tabards with a big "P" on the front and back? Very visible and if you miss THAT, then yes you are the one not being safe.
 
I think this is something that can be worked on step at a time. Starting with not sending pages out as combat initiating npcs/pcs, as well as more strictly enforcing the page rules on the side of the pages. Possibly announcing that there are going to be pages at a game, and whether they are npcs or pcs (If people think this would be helpful). From there if this is still an issue, working toward extending the requirement from a headband to a full orange/yellow bandana or even going to a further extreme as suggested by Jeff.

I do agree though that right now pages are getting hit alot, and I think that is do to slacking on the parts of the pages, the players and the staff. And I think that slack is pretty easy to pick up on each end.
 
The idea of announcing the fact that you are a page before combat starts is a good one, because it gives you an extra heads up not to hit the orange headed person. On the other hand when your in pitch black waiting to ambush some one who's walking along a path you don't exactly have the option to ask. "What do i see?"

We also can't make pages shout "Page" every fourth step to announce that they are in fact a page.

Maybe for nightime Pages should carry an orange glowstick tied to their wrist so they can conceal it in their sleave if they need to but everyone else can also see that they are in fact a page.
 
Alrighty...
Pages should not ever be sent out as combat encounters. If they can be in combat, then they're not pages. This line got blurred some time ago with the introduction of 'packet pages'. I don't feel that the occasional 'turret page' is a problem, but I think this has been pushed recently. While I'm not quite ready to advocate removing packet pages all together, the guidelines do need to be tightened up and made more available.

I think that marshals should be made aware of who is a page, of which sort, and make sure the pages know who the marshals are. This could help provide a lot of support on both sides, and could easily be done during opening. This last event there was a page who very clearly had no business being a packet page, and I was asked on three separate occasions "Who is this person, and why are they a packet page?" and every time I had to reply "I don't know," which is not a position I want to be in as a marshal.

It's my understanding that some of the page policies/tests have been hard to come by from time to time, and that this is being remedied. I know that at least one is not being followed, that a page must wear a headband with the word "PAGE" written clearly on it. Bandana's aren't cutting it, and it's hard to fault players for not recognizing that a bandana is one color or another, when that is not the page requirement.

Personally, I'm going to make a point of issuing safety warnings and violations to players who violate the page rules. Both for players who strike pages, and pages who enter combat. I almost issued one for the violation I saw, but I was too busy being flabbergasted by the fact that the page initiated the combat.
 
obcidian;19585 said:
While I'm not quite ready to advocate removing packet pages all together, the guidelines do need to be tightened up and made more available.
Click to expand...
Having a print out of this available on site for anyone to read would probably be good. Anyone who is a page of any sort should know them, obviously.

It's my understanding that some of the page policies/tests have been hard to come by from time to time, and that this is being remedied.
Click to expand...
The page policy has been a public sticky in the Rules forum since 10/05/06. Prior to that, it was part of the NERO Seattle home page. I am not sure if it would be up to Rules (Bryan), Logistics (Brad), or the Owner (Dave) to provide printouts on site, but it probably should be someone's.

Tests, obviously, wouldn't be publicly available (though the Marshals should probably know what is on it). Ultimately, it would fall on Bryan or Dave to supply them in whatever form they felt was appropriate when needed.

Whoever sent out pages to attack players shouldn't have, and probably didn't read the packet. (Rule 6 is pretty explicit)

I don't know that one person making a poor decision requires a rewrite of the packet. Based on my obviously third-hand knowledge of the events that led to this discussion, it seems to me that if the packet had been followed as written, and the pages involved had known the page rules, the problem would not have occurred.
 
It seems to me that having someone trying to smack said page needing to be within 5 feet and having pages needing to stay 10 feet out of combat means someone is violating the rules, or forcing someone else to any time someone "swings" at a page. Does it seem that way to anyone else? Especially if it's an NPC page playing something like a Stone Burner troll, which the PC's are obviously going to chase down and beat it to death (or spell or gas or whatever), which means the combat zone the page is supposed to keep ten feet away from is going to be chasing them trying to get within five feet of them until they are dead (or until the old out of shape players who are trying to keep up with a 12 year old with young legs and who run alot get too winded to keep up the chase). So, I'd say even if people were following the policy it would violate the policy in some way, so maybe a rethink IS in order.
 
I believe what that passage is meant to imply/allow/facillitate is PvP and spontaneous combat.

Not always does every NPC or PC mean you well, but not always will they come towards you in a menacing manner. Am I going to beat down a page that stole stuff from me if I find out about it? You betchya. Am I going to tell him/her before doing it? No wai.

Summation: I don't believe that line is there to make combat possible for pages, just to clearly indicate that, should someone wish to engage in combat with a page (not the other way around) that these are the rules they are supposed to follow. Further, should a page be faced with a combat situation and have the ability to do so, they MUST retreat to a distance of 10 feet.
 
I understand, but if we give chase to maintain the five foot rule, we are not allowing them to follow their own rules of engagement, in essence Charging them, and potentially creating an unsafe situation.
 
No, you're not charging (based on the rule for charging), and they need to keep running. Basically, once you start "hitting" a page, it's a running fight: either they run faster than you, they get beat down, or someone else distracts you with a death spell or something.
 
Okay maybe not the wording for charging, I was meaning more along the lines of INTENT. Intent-wise, Charging is being too close to someone for safe Nero combat. Policy states ten feet is safe for pages, but five feet is required to "swing" at them. Seems like a clear contradiction to me. And I WAS at the event in question and WAS involved in several of the combats in doubt and I saw a couple of times where pages basically got flowed around and ended up in the middle of combatants, not necessarily through any fault of their own.

To my knowledge, advanced page rules were designed to help get pages involved more in the game, but only in specific circumstances, and it was up to all players involved to ensure that they didn't get into circumstances that went beyond that (more the pages responsibility than the other players, but this is a group game). I think we, as a chapter, have gotten lax in enforcing and instructing pages on how, when, and where to get involved in combat and how, when and where, they need to leave combat. So, I think we as a chapter, need to tighten things up a bit, the existing pages need some specific training by some staffers before they enter their next games, and we make sure to police ourselves along those lines.
 
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