Interrogating Arelith: How questioning can our characters be

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I don't really know how else to word this, so bear with me. This is inspired by some recent interactions I've had, as well as the Waypoint article about Arelith. Specifically, Arelith has over "a hundred years" of server-created history. This an interesting point.

There's a couple broad themes in Arelith's conflicted past:

a) Banites vs. Good Guys
b) People keep getting kicked out (Fall of Tollidor, Fall of pre-Brogendenstein, Fall of Benwick, Fall of Wharftown, Fall of Mount Valtheran, Fall of Stonehold, Collapse of Soulhaven [this happened twice], etc.)
c) Planar entities screw everything up
d) Amn has been around for a long time and gotten greedier
e) The UD really does keep kidnapping surfacers

We have a lot of characters IG that have now been around for over a 100 IG years. We also have a a real feasibility that Arelith can "self-produce" adventurers because the settlements around the island have also been around for generations.

I guess I'm wondering is how self-reflective can Arelithians be? How dismissive can they be? How much self-awareness can we have?

There are very large cyclical occurrences, and I suppose that, to some extent, is a little tongue-in-cheek of the real world. Alternatively, that's just one interpretation of history.

Are age-old conflicts good? Maybe I'm thinking too much about this, I'm just wondering if the fact the same conflicts of 137 AR are very similar to 37 AR, and if that's a good thing. Should the server be shaken up to spark new conflict? And I know I've always argued for the consolidation/folding in of settlements, but now I'm wondering if that's enough to create a shift.

And this isn't meant to come from the angle of "tired of Banites" or "tired of extraplanar nonsense", but more so if we've witnessed so much of any of the above, is there a time where we should make a "clean break" with the past? Or should Arelith always be stuck in this loop?

How do you reconcile character perspectives who've witnessed the Arelithian saga and see a lot of repetitious conflict?

Because the alternative...
... is maintaining the "veil" of a shared game experience where having consistency provides for a fun backdrop. It could be destabilizing, immersion-breaking, or something else, if you suddenly have characters realize "man, paladins and Banites keep fighting each other and no one's really winning here" or "man, settlements keep falling down let's just go to Cordor because it's impervious" or "man, Underdarkers keep snatching people, just avoid it, don't fight it." And so forth.

[Xanos950]

Arelith indeed feels a bit stuck in the past which is kind of getting old after a while of playing the same character (pun intended).

WoC keeps updating the time frame of Forgotten Realms and advances it through the D&D editions as time progresses and stuff happens. Why can't we also go with the time? What's the reason we're stuck in this obnoxious "time-bubble"? And why can't my 40 intelligence wizard admit to being an immortal demi-god who always comes back to live after dying (but only while on Arelith), without facing repercussions from the Voices Of Above Whom Govern All?

[Queen Titania]

Because the lack of true death is really a limitation of the video game medium, to contribute to fun. This is why you can re-load a game after you die, or re-spawn, or restart. We want death though, to have serious stakes, else your semi-immortal has no fear, no stakes, no tension. You've killed conflict.

Arelith's personal history progresses, even if it remains in 3rd edition for mechanical reasons. What happens outside of Arelith, beyond Amn's growing influence, and perhaps other factions like the recent Jinghue, is simply irrelevant to Arelith's story. Even if it was updated, it would not really have much of an impact. Perhaps concepts would shift, but you could largely almost ignore the backdrop of 3rd edition, and rely solely on Arelith's rich history as a background, save deity history perhaps.

Arelith's stories also are not, contrary to the OP, always repetitive, or if they are, it is not so different from it's DnD counterpart. Torm and Bane are -still- enemies, still at it. Mystra returned after dying for the third time, this time, it is the same Mystra. In regards to story lines are the same, it is perhaps a reflection of the enjoyment of player consumption, those types are stories.

One ability we have as DM's is to insert something new. DM Grumpycat's really marvelous Queen storyline is an example, or the player-suggested Jinghue trade visits. So if we see things getting stale, or old, or too status quo, we can shake things up. It doesn't have to be world-threatening (Neither has such high stakes), but they do offer a possible shift, if only temporary.

I don't think 137 is the same as 37 at all, at least in conflicts, but there are age old ones that are still ongoing.

I'm a big supporter of consolidation, because it can bring more internal tension when there is a larger base (I.E. Earthkin settlements merging), but agree this is not the only way to do it, nor necessarily a way everyone would want either.

But typing and thinking about it is not the same as actually doing it, and creating new conflict or great changes takes great work, great risk, and the ability to be okay with failing your goal, and trying again. My personal characters who have done great change were never made from the start with any intention of doing the great change they did, the process instead more organic and natural.

[Iceborn]

I've played a few pretty self-aware characters before.

Kiravias could have even figured out he was a character stuck in a video game at some point. Kek.
But he didn't. He was a wild mage obsessed with reality, with how we perceive reality. With patters and numbers. He kept count of everything that happened around him. Everything could be simplified to math.

This made him true neutral, because he found that some conflict in the island was meant to happen time and time again. But that didn't mean that there are nothing worth fighting and striving for. Kiravias was obsessed with magic, in a dangerous way. And where there is a craving, there is always opposition and conflict. Where there is conflict, there is meaning to the game.

This is no different than reality. When you take a step back and you look around, and realize that everything in our lives is so insignificant, so pointless, many people can be struck by existential dread and fall into the spiraling descent of nihilism. Pushing it back with things that are of meaning with us is what keeps sense in our lives, and looking back to the game, it's something we share with our characters.

You can look at the bigger picture all you want and see all the patterns. It won't bring you fulfillment. You can ask Kiravias. He is still keeping count of the patterns and the numbers.

Thousands may try to be the ones to break from the loop and get anything done. One may eventually succeed. Strive to be the one.

That's how I see it at least.

[Black Wendigo]

I find Arelith to be more cyclic than outright repetitive. I've been in many banite vs triad conflicts for the past 11 years and each time thre is a major one it's had a different wrinkle. ONe of the wrinkles is the fact that I have a banite char who knows the history of Stonehold v 2.0 to the present via his father's legacy and what he has learned from those who lived through it. It is interesting because his take on that history is kinda revisionist, because of where he's heard it from. And as he talks to people he gets very different perspectives on what really happened.

In a lesser extent I have a gnoll who has knowledge of soe of the things that have gone on in Andunar since the Cult of TIamet ruled the Sharps. He recognizes the pattern (the repeating nature) and gets frustrated because the city keeps falling for the same thing from different people. SO he works to try to break the cycle and remind people when something wicked comes their way, that it has happened before.

It is not a conscious attemt at my part to right an OOC "wrong", it just works out that way because it is natural for my chars to feel the way they do. I have notice that other people are doing a similar thing, especiallywith thier older chars who also know the same lore as mine do. Comparing notes makes for fun RP and soetimes even leads to change. Well sort of

[Baron Saturday]

I had a character once who got so tired of the war that would spring up every 5 IG years or so between Cordor and Wharftown that she just started ignoring it on the assumption that it would amount to nothing. Then Wharftown blew up.

Lesson learned.

[FrozenSolid]

In regards to religions, I think this goes back to what I said in the other thread, making sure you screen everything through an IC filter to weed out OOC concepts contaminating too heavily a characters mindset.

Like some lore I was reading about Lolth, her clergy tried to mix the entire dark pantheon of elven gods. Then Lolth and said pantheon killed anyone who supported such a merge. That wasn't what the gods wanted.

The religions aren't open to be dramatically changed by philosophical characters, or they can try, but a god has principles that are core to it's belief and if one deviated to far from that and threatened their agenda the god would presumably act.

But if a character is tired of the conflicts of Bane for example maybe he thinks like "What are we doing?" And either changes their strategy to spread banite faith or abandons the faith. But changing the principals of the faith aren't for mortals to decide.

As far as other things I mean you just have to consider it's a game and it has limitations. Personally I get annoyed when players elude to respawn mechanics IC. Or suggesting Arelith is in some ultra magical bubble that prevents death and you're slaying the same bosses 10000 times.

Some of it just has to be imagination for Immersions sake.

[Cybernet21]

Some conflicts are bound to go on while both sides still exist,this is not Arelith specific,for example religious conflicts between Triadists and Banites,as long as worshippers of Bane and of the Triad still exist this type of conflict will never end,on Arelith or anywhere else on FR.And from what i heard,each conflict that happened between Triadists and Banites had many different elements and i am sure it is so with many other similar conflicts (Like UD X Surface,as long as UD monsters exist they will keep wanting to raid the surface and kidnap those who live there as slaves,but it seems the raids each time have different details like the monster race that is commanding it for example,even if they have the same idea behind it)

[JediZero]

As far as other things I mean you just have to consider it's a game and it has limitations. Personally I get annoyed when players elude to respawn mechanics IC. Or suggesting Arelith is in some ultra magical bubble that prevents death and you're slaying the same bosses 10000 times.

At the same time, when you're being cussed out by people IC for not murdering someone, when you've seen them die and come back again, potentially having even struck the final blow, eventually it gets to the point where the character is either willfully ignoring reality, or breaking their RP to admit 'okay, no, when I shoved my hand through his chest and tore his heart out, it turned out to be his twin brother. Same with the last five times this happened. His poor mother.'

Imagination is one thing but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting things to change.

One could even argue it's ignoring others RP, considering someone could have set the perfect trap to murder the character, but they escape. Somehow. Even though you literally hold their head/skull in your inventory.

How many times have the wharftown boys been put down? For a gang of ruffians they sure seem to have more recruitment than the Cordor Guard. Especially considering their source of recruits (Wharftown) is now a smoldering crater.

One could argue certain IC elements are supplying them with men and resources, but considering how many times people have casually walked into the area and slaughtered them all, at what point do you say 'Yeah this is a waste of time and resources'? Otherwise you risk the IC bad guy doing that looking like a complete and utter idiot. Unless that's the intent?

[Baron Saturday]

As far as other things I mean you just have to consider it's a game and it has limitations. Personally I get annoyed when players elude to respawn mechanics IC. Or suggesting Arelith is in some ultra magical bubble that prevents death and you're slaying the same bosses 10000 times.

Also there is literally a big ominous portal from the fugue in Cordor's temple and a priest that goes "Oh yeah sometimes folks stumble back through there."

I've actually been tempted a few times to make a character who comes to Arelith specifically to study why dead people often don't stay dead there.

[JediZero]

As far as other things I mean you just have to consider it's a game and it has limitations. Personally I get annoyed when players elude to respawn mechanics IC. Or suggesting Arelith is in some ultra magical bubble that prevents death and you're slaying the same bosses 10000 times.

Also there is literally a big ominous portal from the fugue in Cordor's temple and a priest that goes "Oh yeah sometimes folks stumble back through there."

I've actually been tempted a few times to make a character who comes to Arelith specifically to study why dead people often don't stay dead there.

Message me, We'll talk.

[-XXX-]

Admittedly, wrapping my head around a reasonable way to translate the death mechanic IC can be hard sometimes.

TBH, one of my pet peeves is when people say IC that "I will keep killing X over and over repeatedly until...". Let's be honest here - firstly it means announcing a clear intent to breach the rule no.1 >>IN CHARACTER<< Secondly, a solid argument could be made about how can a character assuming that someone is going to "just respawn after they kill them" be immersion breaking.


Maybe if PCs would just escape in a puff of ninja smoke instead of dying and instead of Kelemvor's domain they'd enter some surreal dreamland (to represent that they're unconscious and need to lose xp to wake up = respawn) or something along those lines.
Finally, ditching the PC head looting after corpsebash might also be a good idea to remove any discrepancies between IC and OOC knowledge of the death mechanic (let's be honest here - PC heads are almost exclusively used for shameless trolling - be it by putting them into a shop on the display or just shoving them into their owner's face with the intent to create an awkward moment)

[Hunter548]

As far as other things I mean you just have to consider it's a game and it has limitations. Personally I get annoyed when players elude to respawn mechanics IC. Or suggesting Arelith is in some ultra magical bubble that prevents death and you're slaying the same bosses 10000 times.

At the same time, when you're being cussed out by people IC for not murdering someone, when you've seen them die and come back again, potentially having even struck the final blow, eventually it gets to the point where the character is either willfully ignoring reality, or breaking their RP to admit 'okay, no, when I shoved my hand through his chest and tore his heart out, it turned out to be his twin brother. Same with the last five times this happened. His poor mother.'

Imagination is one thing but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting things to change.

One could even argue it's ignoring others RP, considering someone could have set the perfect trap to murder the character, but they escape. Somehow. Even though you literally hold their head/skull in your inventory.

How many times have the wharftown boys been put down? For a gang of ruffians they sure seem to have more recruitment than the Cordor Guard. Especially considering their source of recruits (Wharftown) is now a smoldering crater.

One could argue certain IC elements are supplying them with men and resources, but considering how many times people have casually walked into the area and slaughtered them all, at what point do you say 'Yeah this is a waste of time and resources'? Otherwise you risk the IC bad guy doing that looking like a complete and utter idiot. Unless that's the intent?

Right, because there
totally
aren't a vast
number of
ways
to
avoid death without something as silly as "oh yeah no one can die here on this isle and all the gods are just inexplicably okay with that". Your character can certainly say "yeah I've defeated you before" but given all of those ways to survive after a corpse bashing, arguing that killing them in the future is pointless is just lazy roleplay. Moreover, this sort of line of thinking in an IC sense is directly contraindicatative to a healthy roleplay environment: If you can't permanently kill the local bandits, what's the point in adventuring? If you can't eventually get rid of evil, what's the point of having good aligned principles or morals? If you can't ever deal with those pesky rebels or solidify your power in a real way, what's the point of being an evil overlord?

This "No one can ever die, I've killed him 20 times and he always comes back" argument is lazy, and doesn't contribute anything to the server bar removing whatever sense of immersion everyone else might have had. If a character is, because of past experiences with this happening, incapable of not going "Yeah, this is a waste of time and resources at the thought of killing anything", it's probably a sign that the character is well past the point they should have been rolled.

[JediZero]

If a character is, because of past experiences with this happening, incapable of not going "Yeah, this is a waste of time and resources at the thought of killing anything", it's probably a sign that the character is well past the point they should have been rolled.

I guess I didn't write it out clear enough, The 'time and resources' bit was pertaining to the NPC bad guys we fight.

We know for instance that *spoiler* is funding the Wharftown Boys. Likely sending men, and supplies there.

But considering how the wharftown boys are regularly cleared out, does *spoiler* Just keep throwing men and resources at them? All it does is waste *spoiler*'s men, resources, and time.

[TimeAdept]

We accept that on some level we're playing a game and to eviscerate all wilderness content because PCs go there more than once a generation isn't something that will happen.

[Sab1]

Well if a player doesn't stay dead why should they be surprised NPC's won't stay dead? We take it for granted players respawn yet act shocked that those pesky bad guys never stay dead. My character simply goes with the island is simply a playground for the gods, and we are just toys for them.

Things can get repeative, but that's the down side to it being a game. There is only so many things one can do, so the 10th time you get a message of drow have captured so and so and made them a slave. You get sort of numb to it. But many times without a dm about, you can be limited on how to create a story/conflict etc so things tend to repeat themselves.

[Stath]

Time is a flat circle. Everything we have done or will do we will do over and over and over again- forever