Text Based Games: The Five Best Ways to Piss Off Your Enemy

By Zhade Barnet

Few things in life are more satisfying than watching your enemies collapse into a quivering pile of defeat, frustration and rage. I say ‘few’ only because I’m sure that there are some things that are more satisfying, I just can’t think of any right now. Text based RPGs are no different, and trust me when I say that truly, madly, deeply pissing off your nemesis in the online text game will likely be the highlight of your character’s career.

Before I go any further, let’s be very clear on one thing: This article is about how your in-game character can piss off her in-game enemies in the text games. It is NOT about griefing (basically ways of YOU pissing off the person behind another computer somewhere). Griefing ain’t cool, despite the fact that there are enough idiots doing it that there are now websites dedicated to the practice (and joke articles on our very own website!), and an estimated 25% of customer service calls to online text game companies concern griefing.

Allow me to illustrate: if you were playing Monopoly on a wet Sunday afternoon it would be totally acceptable for you to piss your ‘enemies’ off by buying one property in each set, or paying all of your rent fees in the smallest possible denominations. It wouldn’t be acceptable for you to flick the houses off of their properties once every 90 seconds.

If you want to learn more about successful griefing then please stop reading right now and accept my heartfelt wish that we never, ever meet in an online text game. For those mature sadists and text adventure games lovers that are still reading, here are my personal favourites:

1 – Fall in love with him

Yep, you read it right. Love him to death. Write him poetry and post it to the in-game news boards. Send him ‘anonymous’ gifts via the in-game mail system. If your text games allows you to alter your character’s description, then why not treat yourself to an elaborate visible tattoo with your enemy’s name on it? Don’t be perturbed if your enemy is the same gender as your character – if he’s narrow-minded enough to let that bother him then he can change sex. If it needs to be said, do NOT cross the IC/OOC line with this because that’s utterly unacceptable, creepy and probably illegal where you live.

2 – Find out what he’s good at

And be better. Is your nemesis the Arena Champion? Then secretly train and train and train until you’re sure you can whoop his ass, then challenge him to a public duel. After you’ve won, thank him very much for the ‘practice’, then publically announce that you are retiring, undefeated, from the world of dueling. Is your arch-enemy a renowned poet? Then write an epic poem listing his shortcomings and ‘accidentally’ leave copies of it lying around everywhere. If you suck at poetry, then save up some gold and commission another bard to write it for you, but make them sign a non-disclosure agreement. Who cares if you ‘cheated’ in the online text game? You got to piss your text games enemy off!

3 – Find out what he’s bad at

And make sure everybody else in the text game knows about it too. You can do this through the news boards, through a satirical performance in which you show all of his failings through caricature, or indeed by giving him a public ass-whooping (be it socially, intellectually or through combat). Once everyone in the online text game knows exactly what your enemy sucks at, continue to offer him ‘lessons’ and keep sending him lots of encouragement, as well as pointing out the flaws in his strategy. One day he won’t suck so much. One day.

4 – The friend of my enemy is my friend

Get real chummy with all of his best buddies in the text adventure games. Nothing will piss your enemy off more thoroughly than hearing all of HIS friends singing your praises and talking about the great time y’all had together in the online text game. When you bump into your enemy at a gathering of all of his friends, look surprised and say ‘What are YOU doing here?’. This one works particularly well, because when your enemy starts getting visibly (and justifiably) pissed off that you’re essentially following him around, HIS friends will start telling him not to be so damned unreasonable.

5 – Be a good sport

Remember, it’s only an online text game. It’s all about give and take, and be- Oh, sorry, wrong article! What I mean is that the final (and most important) weapon in your arsenal is to never give your enemy the satisfaction of pissing YOU off. Believe me, by now he’ll be spending most of his time thinking about you and imagining various fitting punishments for the fact that he hasn’t slept properly in a month. It won’t be long before he starts to devise ways of trying to annoy you in return; heck, he may have even read this article! So be a good sport. Every time he gets the drop on you, thank him profusely for his participation and the enjoyable text games experience. You could even send him little ‘thank you’ notes, politely pointing out that you cannot wait for the next round in the text based rpg game.

There you have it, folks. These are just five ways of making your in-game enemy wish that he was never born, but please be creative! If you find any of this particularly useful for you online text game playing, or indeed have your own techniques for generating rage, then please, please let me know.

Find an arch-nemesis for your own enemy RP in some great online text RPGs.

Zhade Barnet is a text game enthusiast and currently plays games from http://www.IronRealms.com.