I had some uncomfy consequences on Arx once! Not from mouthing off to an NPC kind of deal, but from delving into a PC secret and tripping over some nasty business type of thing. I didn’t expect for it to squick in the particular way it ended up doing. I worked with it for a while, RPing around the fallout, but I found that there was something about the specific type of thing – a body horror that I was surprised to be bothered by – that made it really hard to RP. I even made a post on MSB at one point just talking about struggling a bit figuring out how to handle something.
What happened is that I talked to staff and we figured out how to move forward. Because I wasn’t trying to say “hey I don’t like consequences,” it was a conversation of “hey this specific thing is twinging some OOC stuff for me that make it really hard to RP through, even while I know it’s probably temporary.” And we figured it out! And it was okay!
Removing a character’s voice (as referenced in that ban post) is a deep IC violation, yeah. But you don’t have to take it as an OOC violation.
Frankly, I think that a lot of Arx players really enjoy the fact that the setting is full of mysterious powers and all these different figures. Access to NPCs is generally pursued by a lot of the playerbase. But in order to have that, in order for it to also feel real and consequential, it means that NPCs are going to respond in a way that makes sense for the character and for the setting. If an NPC is a powerful evil type of character, why in the world would they just take it lying down if you’re being an ass to them? Like. Idek. It doesn’t make your character ICly weak to have a survival instinct. The whole game setting is built on structures of respect for those in higher power or position to you. It doesn’t mean that your character has to actually respect someone, but it does mean that your character absolutely has experience in at least performing respect to keep safe.
There is honestly little more tedious or boring to watch for me than someone opting for “I’m gonna no-sell that this person with huge amounts of power and demonstrably little to no morals should be at all intimidating or make me cognizant of keeping myself alive.” That doesn’t have to look like your character kissing someone’s feet. Play the TENSION, which is so much more interesting.