And Avendar is no different.

"He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat."
- Napoleon Bonaparte

Not quite, but maybe something like that. One of the earliest psych principles to float through our Avendar world happens to deal with most of our favorite past time: Playerkilling. Back in the day, a lot of players used to humbly ask other, then very well-played playerkillers, about what they're doing wrong? Of course it's a combination of talent, tactics, luck and all that, but often most people overlook the psychological aspect of it.

Simply put, if you think you're going to lose, you're then likely going to lose. If you're initially predisposed to losing, you'll subconsciously push yourself to intentionally lose. Most of the more prevalent or infamous playerkillers can typically be described as arrogant or stubborn. These people like to win, and they like to win so much, they practically visualize themselves winning every battle, within reason. They almost WILL their victories.

"Focus Confidence Self"

The principles behind this revolve around a little tidbit that most modern social psychologists call a self-fufilling prophecy. There's also a number of smaller ones that probably have a factor, but the prophecy is more or less the superordinate theory in this case. If you want, go ahead and do the research yourself.

So how about more mundane things? Such as ... groups. Yes, as you probably already know, there's always a ton of psychology going on through groups. Case in point: Dolgrael Quest, the Lightwalker & Co group:

A group size of somewhere above 10 (probably higher) where everyone was trying to assert some form of control. The total communication break down was staggering, and the overall effectiveness of the group dropped to nothing and things just ground to a halt. All was solved with the arrival of Aehaeser, a legend in his own character right who was widely respected by nearly everyone in the group. Leadership was surrendered, people listened, a superordinate goal was established, facilitating our joint venture with the Guardians (albeit temporary), and everything in our path was summarily crushed. (Trivia: Bodisous' earliest claim to fame occurred here, when he actually lifted the quest artifact in the middle of the final battle, resulting in our speedy retreat and one highly embarrassed shuddeni.)

So what's to take from this? The next time you assemble a group for a major goal, set aside some time to really organize what's going on. Are you playerkilling (ganging) some lonely guy? Do you REALLY need more than four people for such a task? A group of more than four is when the detrimental effects of massive grouping starts to occur, the most noticeable effect being the sheer drop of mobility. Are you mobkilling? Organize who's doing what to the letter, to ensure that no surprises come your way (Ialaenel casting a shroud in the middle of a monumental battle against the Patrician, anyone?).

Although most of this brings up one final point: Do our characters actually have any idea what psychology is? Most likely: no. Don't feed me psionicists either, because you shouldn't confuse psionics with psychology, two different things. So what's the point? Just intellectual stimulation. Sit back sometime, and look at what's happening around and start drawing parallels to real life. You'll see a lot of similarities. You'll even see it on the forums, in IRC, everywhere. It's just life. I leave it to the reader to use any mentioned concepts to their own discretion, although I don't think anyone is going to crucify you for something as trivial as planning how to kill a mob.

- Rascyc

It should be noted that the opinions of the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Avendar staff. The author hopes that the reader has gleamed some form of lesson from this article, or at the very least has found some brief entertainment.