Involving & being involved, breeding PvP and CoA
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Re: Being Inclusive and Arabel
Alright, I've linked up an old thread that discusses this. But since it's been 1 year since it was used last, I thought it'd be better to get a new one going, and talk about this from another perspective.
Lately, I've heard from players that problems have arisen with specific instances where people are refusing to work together with other players, especially in the hours where the player numbers are low. This perspective and mentality, where you outright refuse to involve or become involved with other players EVEN IF they are your enemies, will be TOXIC to the health and player numbers of the server, and needs to stop.
IMO, if your character wants to oppose or get involved with a character, he or she will need to show it. Can't work with an outright murderer loose in the city? IMO, set aside your quest-train, get together and try to catch the bugger by patrolling where he frequents the most. Is team good going on a quest train and leaving you the murderer in the city? Go and spy on them and attempt to lure one of the dudes away from the crew by throwing sacks of gold on the ground. Or something else!
If you are a racist bastard, don't take the worst approach there is and deny every half-orc or halfling out there from being involved with you. Instead, take them with you on your expeditions and SHOW you are the "perfect being" you claim to be. And if you are a half-orc that is utterly disgusted and wants NOTHING to do with the pathetic HOOMENS, go out there and spit on their faces and make a mockery of them in their expedition.
If you are growing bored and feel like there's nothing to do my advice is- Make sendings, invite people to your expeditions/quests, and involve them even if said characters might become your worst nightmare. And if somebody else makes a sending, you return the favor and go to show your face. The ONLY ONE that's responsible on the fun that's being had on this server, is us.
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This. I would also really like to do away with Paladin no go zones. They don't add anything.
Hit the Paladin for not opposing evil Blackguard, not for questing with morally questionable rogues
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"morally questionable rogues" - ahem.
Main point is courtesy in my opinion. I apply some rules when I pvp:
- Don't go for people when they are going questing, We know where the quest starts and ends so it becomes some stupid ambush where we will get PCs that may not even be interested in dealing with that ICly at the moment;
- When you win a PVP, don't loot/dry loot players. They will be disgruntled OOCly enough because they lost already; If you want to loot something, let them know when they are beaten down and check if they are okay with that.
- Don't FD unless extremely necessary, there's always more stories to be told. I remember I had at least 4, 5 PVPs with my nemesis before we would reach a final clash; Killing another PC defeats the point if you are doing it just for the "win". Its important to allow your enemies to come back for you, stronger, better prepared, with their own strategy to take you out.
Anyway, my 2 cents.
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It's just as bad from "team less morally questionable". I have pretty much been slotted to only quest with my own crew. I am less inclined to log in because my crew is only ever online when I'm sleeping.
I've tried fixing things outside of questing and I've been continually denied. What am I supposed to do?
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Humiliate, undermine, sabotage and beat your enemies using the law. Hurt them in front of their god. Your victory will resonate longer imo, and hurting someone's pride and dignity will be talked about longer than FD/loot.
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Yes CrystalRL, aslong as this issue exists it affects everyone in the community. We really need to get past the utterly revolting idea that getting involved with your opponent or a possible adversary is somehow considered "bad form" or "character-breaking". It's ignoring them and not finding reasons to be involved with the rest of the playerbase that's the issue here that's really DRAINS the fun out of the server.
We removed detect evil because we wanted players to take their time to FIND OUT if the dude IS evil, by following up on what they do- and by EXPOSING their true nature. And when the paladin discovers that dude IS evil, he should do everything in his power to stop him. Does it make sense for a paladin to leave a known murderer into the city while he goes off to save the damsel in distress out in Vaasa? Or is the best bet to making sure he doesn't pulverize people to take him with you?
I'd be inclined to even go as far as to punish people by giving them bad RP tokens, if they constantly lack the interest to involve/be involved with anyone else but a selected few of their best buddies. But I know punishing people rarely has the effect we want for it so I'm NOT suggesting that. It's just to prove a point, how TOXIC this behavior is for the community. If you see someone behaving in a toxic manner, see it addressed and take it up with the DMs if the issue doesn't solve otherwise.
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Isn't this all kind of addressed in our PvP rules?
1). Be courteous.
The part that isn't is the whole "hey, roleplay together".
If you're a Chaotic Evil Paladin traveling with a Lawful Good Paladin to kill goblins, I'm going to have NO PROBLEM with that happening provided you're roleplaying together the whole time, the PCs should argue, debate, try to force the other to see their superior reasoning during the quest--and its fine. You're not buddies, you're rivals trying to prove the other wrong during a quest. Roleplay your PC and you're fine!
Want to play a dwarven surpremacist who hates humans, that's fine, go quest with them and prove you're better. Easy peasy. Though, I'll say this again, racism in the Forgotten Realms to that extent is kind of ridiculous because even if elves are better than dwarves there are literally zombies out there eating gnomes-so work together and just be snobs.
Or am I missing something? Is there a problem the DMs are not aware of for some reason?
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I'm of the same mind. I feel like I'm missing some context with some of the recent going-ons, but I won't pry seeing as I probably shouldn't be privvy to such information as a player.
Anyway, I feel the same as I did with the 'metagaming alignment' post, I haven't really seen this happening, but I agree with the OP.
Honestly, I always try really hard to include some people who I have no in-game reason to because no one wants to be left out (my current character concept is basically because of this reason). If I can't find a reason, I may even make some entirely fake story just to include them in whatever we're doing. And yes, I will reiterate what has already been said, in a server population with so little players, people should not be excluding anyone in anything.
Let's be completely honest, no one wants to get killed off after doing one Evil thing on their Evil PC. And everyone wants to quest, yeah you might be levelling your enemy up, but isn't it more fun to fight someone who is stronger than you and overcoming impossible odds? I would also add, talk to people OOC and see how they're feeling. I've found, more often than naught, people will project how they're feeling OOC in-game.
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I've struggled with inclusiveness on the server sometimes.
Occasionally I play characters who I think would be judgmental of evil actions, and would not so easily excuse them, and I find it hard to justify working with them when they do things so blatantly, sometimes.
Generally I have not been with factions.
I've taken to trying to play character concepts that are more open to diverse kinds of characters and relationships, in order to adventure with people more.
But I've been in situations where other players seem to engineer my death based on the scenario, then loot me while I'm down (allies I'd been questing with, etc) or that really significantly conceal loot gains from quests, to the point of kind of being OOC about some of it.
As a less experienced, less skillful player, I think sometimes I'm concerned about creating OOC conflict/tension, ie player hate, rather than things that just work themselves out through RP etc in game.
That said, I don't think people who want to play in their own little cliques of people they enjoy playing with should be penalized.
I DO think incentives for including other players could be used to REWARD people/players/ characters who take the time to include other players on the server. That would probably be my preference for handling it. The less skillful players will take the lead of the skillful players, who learn how to be successful getting rewards through making the game fun for everyone.
I think 'dm attention time' towards player plots or their factions and quests and goals could be one way to reward players. Another might be, if players have todo or want lists of things for their character, special items, story hooks or npc support (which could include monetary funding of plots, which means less time quest grinding, more rp with players and characters, which I think is good if this is bringing the fun to everyone on the server, etc- and dropping a little gold is one of the easier dm attention times things that enables players quite a lot in supporting their factions, etc. But instead of gold, it could be items or things, as well. One caveat, however, is that is that people don't make the connection to in-game actions and rewards if things are done 'mysteriously', like random-seeming loot drops... it might be useful to drop a dm note or something to the effect of saying 'you did X, y number of players really enjoyed this, we are giving you z for your contribution' (or would you like z1, z2, z3 or something else as a reward for your contribution?, etc)
Sometimes I'm not really up for really intense roleplay, so hopefully people will forgive me if I drop the ball when people offer up the opportunity to really have some fun rp'ing, and I kind of curl up into a ball and say almost nothing, etc. And I hope other people can give other places that sort of leeway as well. The RP gold may not happen all the time, but if we learn to be attentive to the moment, I think the magic will happen more often.
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I've been hit by being excluded quite a few times as i'm playing in your face evil usually. (unless im Cyrist or Sharran :0 )
When i log and see that most of the people i know aren't going to like me go adventuring with them i usually just log off and wait for team ehbulzz to come online.People's reactions to me are usually "Omggss, Clar Bandan cleric, you're ehbil and u bring undead. I want to have nothing with you" and usually leave me behind
On the other hand, i have latetly been a doing the same exact thing i accuse people off doing to me but my hands are a bit tied sometimes?
Why? Well... if i want to use undead in a quest because i feel like it for fun's sake. Yeah i love undead and skellies and sometimes i just want to use them for the sake of using them even if it's for killing rats i can't include people that i know would likely report my character to the authories or worse.
If i'm playing some other evil person or don't feel like bringing undead or demons or w/e i would see no problem including anyone, and i promise to strive for inclusivity from now on more.
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The worst thing in the IG world, from an ooc perspective, is exclusiveness. When you do a quest, instead of wasting that 15 gold on letting others have a chance to join in, means that you will get more EXP, sure, but you rob yourself and others from interaction.
There is nothing worse than logging in, typing .history, and still having no clue why 20 people are online, but 0 people are to be found. -
I have had the question a few times "Will my paladin fall if I am in the same party as Evil McMuffin?"
The easy answer is "No, as long as you RP the conflicting views, ideas and morals"
Honestly, I don't care as long as the LG paladin is trying to counter the LE paladin and vise versa. I have bundled good with evil during events, cause each alignment orientation have a different plan on how they are gonna win over the other. That makes it way more fun, than for example "I am gonna tell them to piss off and solo this cause reasons"
If our paladin guidelines are causing issues with involving people, please bring suggestions how we can reword it so that it can be fixed!
After all, you want your enemies to have as much fun as you are :) otherwise what is the point of having good/evil around at all if we can't create stories for both sides simultaneously out of it?
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Remember the tells you've sent me when i told you i am feeling left out and i almost quit the server at the time because i couldn't express my character or find people to quest.
And you even told me it's justified.
"I don't openly assosicate with a cleric of a goddess who condones undead" then left me behind.
I'm sorry to take this on a personal level, and a DM is free to delete this particular post, but it really saddened me.
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The thing is, questing with an evil cleric of a goddess who condones death as a druid would probably result in the druid losing spells, whereas your goddess would be cackling with glee at the hilarity of it.
So what should Crystal do? She's stuck in a hard place between associating with a cleric of undeath and possibly benefiting a future enemy or rejecting your presence and making you feel OOCly rejected and lonely.
It's a sticky situation, however- we're a roleplay server where IC matters come first. We deeply value the development of characters, their rivalries, and what would be somewhat realistic here. A druid simply wouldn't quest with your character, nor should a good-aligned paladin. It goes against their oaths that grant them their powers, on a mechanical level- and against a philosophy, the class itself adopts to fight against the unnatural menace of undeath which your goddess actively promotes as something that should be accepted and regularly practiced as a way to avoid the feelings of loss that comes from death.
I genuinely think @CrystalRL would have brought your character in literally most other situations @A-Red-Rose. This wasn't CrystalRL oocly wanting to exclude you, it was crystal playing a character who has restrictions forced upon them in exchange for their powers where they must uphold a cosmic balance that undeath disrupts.
Clar Banda is a Chaotic Evil Goddess who dwells in the Abyss. She is responsible for literally hundreds of deaths in the Arabel region. She is feared, loathed, but prayed to by people who fear the loss of love, the loss of beauty- and by those who wish to regain what they have lost. She is the antithesis of every good-aligned character who wishes to inspire hope and lasting beauty in all things. She is out to destroy love and beauty because she lost it herself. It is here we the conflict stems- and people who play evil clerics of evil gods must accept that their very faith is a source of conflict which is both a positive thing and negative thing that may determine who will interact with them. I have seen your character preach and pray and do all sorts of amazing and wonderful things a cleric should and I wish I had more time to watch your PC.
It's just one of those shitty rules in the forgotten realms where the conduct of one's peers can directly influence the mechanical abilities of the PC in question. If I saw Crystal questing with you, I'd ask if he was aware- and if he was, I'd give him spell failure- or at the very least, an alignment shift for failing to uphold his ethos as a druid dedicated to the balance of the world and the destruction of the otherworldly- which, you, as a cleric of a goddess of undeath has embraced wholeheartedly, offering your very soul and heart to the goddess to spread her message that he must oppose.
You two are engaged in a conflict of the cosmos, an eternal battle of those who wish to preserve the natural world, the cycle of life and death- and the conflict of those who wish to change how the rules are defined and flip the scoreboard, where undeath is the natural result of life instead of the peaceful passing of the living into the shroud of the fugue. There might be room for nuance- but the battle line is drawn in the sand.
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Red Rose. People should always encourage inclusiveness, or at least what I would consider "Embracing exclusiveness", where you take a halfling along while disliking them, and spend the entire quest telling them how being only half tall is the worst trait one could have, and that the halfling race are all thieves, so do not go anywhere near any treasure chest.
However, and I have tried telling JoeKickAss and others several times, if you go out of your way to remove any potential for OOC courtesy, you will end up alone a lot. This is especially true with what I consider "WTF Evil"(tm). In the game setting, there is evil, and then there is "WTF Evil"(tm). Evil is theft, tyranny, kidnapping, murder, selfishness. Concepts that practice these things, can often be included still, due to a mix of OOC courtesy, and "End justifies the means sometimes". Need to break into an evil necromancers keep, to save some children? Bring that evil thief, for while he may be an evil bastard, he can still be the occasional Anti hero.
However, infernalism, necromancy, human sacrifices, murdering babies, slavery, bloodstone use, are WTF evil, especially if you do not try and try and place in some human traits in the concept.
Clerics of Clar Banda are 99% necromancers, yes. But, if you are smart, you downplay those in public, and instead focus on "regaining lost love", eternal beauty, counselling the grieving, or at the very least, preach necromancy as a way to "protect the people." I went on a quest with you, and you could not stop speaking of how the bats we killed, could potentially be vampires, and spoke of it as if it was a good thing. To a non WTF evil, that is a trait that will cause alarm to most.One of the most successful necromancers we ever had on CoA, was a "well respected" evil wizard, and member of the Mage Guild. In public, he spoke of how to make Bone Golems to protect the people, and used negative energy as a weapon, like an evoker would fireballs. He downplayed the creepy, WTF evil, and he was RARELY excluded, because he gave team good, just enough doubt, and he remained a stout defender and protector of Arabel, in his own way.
My point of this post is, give other players a bone, even if a tiny one, that they can cling their OOC courtesy to. Become the expert necromancer, that counsels team good on how to kill liches and vampires, and you become less WTF evil, and more... controversial anti hero. Then, you commit all your vicious, WTF evil crimes in secret, and suddenly you give the people you quest with, a mystery to solve, crimes to investigate, and you cause conflict in an INCLUSIVE way.
The same point goes to all team goody paladins. Give people with an evil alignment a tiny bone, a tiny break, and if they give you an opening for ooc courtesy, grab on to it.
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Olouth is also correct. :)
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I understand what you two are saying, but sometimes you just want to go WTFevil(tm) or WTFgood(tm)
Like conjure up all your celestial summons, draw your holy weapon and shout "For righteous good!" 10x times a minute.WTFgood(tm) has no issue expressing itself but the opposite is not true.
Thankfully for the time being i've found my own circle of people i like to RP with and it seems it's just a good time for me at the moment. There's Cyrists, a cult of Tempus around and gangsters. All these concepts interest me.
However, i think the issue here is not me. But how we can bring together team evil and team good and inspire more RP out of it. Generally, how to bring together more people opposed to each other to get more RP going.
The reason i'm here at the forum and not online atm? Because there's nobody online that would accept my cleric to quest with so i just type in the forum.
I won't be bringing 100 undead with me if i go with your LG Paladin, but it's as Bhalir said. If you're a druid and make sure i am not out desecrating graveyards, why not take me with you once in a while? Especially when server is in the off hours like now?
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I was the self proclaimed King of low population time zones all summer and fall 2017, so I understand your pain. My best evil character to date, was a sharran cleric. Very open about it, and I LOVED being "in your face" evil. It can be fun, but it is a lonely ride.
My suggestion comes from 14 years of experience. WTF evil can be fun, but it has its drawbacks. My suggestion would be, find something in your character personality or concept (or invent, if you do not have it), that makes your character more human. Tell the story of how you lost your children, and the reason you serve Banda, is to reunite with them, but ALSO to help those who have lost loved ones survive. Or start making remedies, or create a small plot of your own, of how to help others stay beautiful forever.
Make quest sendings, or recruit players for a seemingly goodly plot, of you fighting that evil necromancer lich you just invented. Invite them on undead themed scripted quests, to help you destroy those nasty undead. You do not have to tell them, that the real reason you are doing it, is to teach the necromancers you hunt that you are their superior, and without worshiping Clar Banda, they will not be allowed to survive.
All that being said. You have chosen THE deity without any real goodly aspects.
- Malarites can provide food for the poor, and cull the weak so the strong survive.
- Talos priests protect others from storms
- Bane is very PRO establishment, PRO law, as long as people serve him.
- Shar is all about loss, and finding purpose in the void of having lost, by taking away the pain.
Clar Banda? If you only preach necromancy and eternal life through lichdom, then there is no redeeming aspect.
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Let me remind you that clerics of Clar Banda can be Chaotic Neutral. So even if a LG paladin opens up an FR rulebook they can't justify me being outright evil.
I'm more with Bhalir and possibly Mr Moloch on this. As long as RP is being done properly and two opposite forces don't group with each other for blatant or ridiculous reasons like.
I'm going to descecrate a druid grove then druid joins me.
Occasional straying from your usual party can be fun.
Real example follows:
One time i partied with a Pallid Mask to go to Vaasa for exploration. OOCly at first i was thoughtful. How am i going to justify working with that guy?It turns out once in a while it can be fun. Pallid kept making snark remarks of me being a necromancer etc, i kept nudging at him back. We were at daggers most of the time and didnt really work together to complete the quest but it was fun to do once in a while.
So long as proper RP is done i see no severe harm in banding opposing sides together once in a while.
If it's like. Your pally is op with my necro then let's go farm orcs man. Then yes. By all means that's not good.
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Within reason.
No one should feel obliged to take other people on for a quest or required to be friendly to them. But I don't see a problem with druids allying with celestial summoning mages (or even necromancers) to defeat a greater foe, e.g. a vampire coven.
That doesn't mean they're friends after the fact, it's just an alliance of convenience, no less than when Cormyr allied with the Shadovar to fight Phaerimm in the past. They are in there for their own reasons, maybe they will enforce that no celestials are summoned or undead animated.
It's really sad when there's a DM quest and people feel obliged to not participate because an evil/opposite character is involved at all. These should be some of the best times to have a melting pot in the party!