Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

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Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by FrozenSolid » Mon May 15, 2017 8:19 am

I've read a few posts over the month(s) many about Cordor and other places, asking why things aren't this way? Or wouldn't this be a better way to promote RP? Etc... And everyone posts an opinion, some guys say resolve it in game etc...

But I would argue (politely), that at the moment, it is very hard, if not impossible to "Really" change the In Game Landscape of Arelith due to a few a factors.

So here's my thoughts on some stuff that I think hinder more expansive RP and inhibit Arelith's IG landscape from changing.

1. Not following Lore.

I know. This again. But the lore is super important because its a universal guiding line of principals that allow us to cut through a lot of complications and interact with each other. You do not have to be a lore junky, but the general ideas need to be understood to a degree or at least researched so that everyone is somewhat on the same page.

Lore is the foundation of DnD RP. If you do not have, or follow lore, then you can't build RP structures on top of it.

This is an example of something I have witnessed. I've changed the gods, names etc...


If your character chooses to pursue a certain path, whether it be a good or evil path, for a god, or against a god, your character should be able to pre-determine what the other players responses to you will be, because of lore.

So if a character is opposing Sharrans as a selunite, he should be able to reach out to the selunite church and other followers and be able to attract them to his cause NOT discover, that the selunite head of the church is actually good pals Icly with the Sharran leaders and the two sides never have conflict. And regularly work around each other in a respectful fashion. That is crazy crazy. As those two gods are literally opposites.

Lore should drive your character to act/react. Not OOC feelings.

I feel that, because there is not a stricter adherence to the lore, and a more loose attitude of letting people do as they please, even if it stretches Lore, it makes it almost impossible to build organizations, and change the IG landscape because OOC thought and feeling is motivating characters not IC elements.

A tip I pulled off of a few guides I was reading or opinions on how to excel a character in a Dnd setting and make them more fulfilling/fun for you and everyone else.

Know the Difference Between You and Your Character

Hopefully this has become obvious by now, but it bears repeating: You are not yourself when role playing. You are playing a role. Surprisingly, this can be quite difficult for many new players to grasp at first.You have to start thinking about how your character would do things, rather than how you would do things. For this to work, it’s key that you understand exactly how you and your character differ. Think about your character’s moral alignment, age, gender, upbringing, beliefs, and personality. If at least two or three of these aren’t completely different from your real self, then it’s back to the drawing board.


I think I know what some arguments against this are going to be so i'd like to try to pre-emptively answer them.


A. You can't tell me how to play
No, I can't. And I won't. This is just a suggestion or an idea. I have really found that adhering to Lore faithfully often leads to great interactions and interesting RP so much deeper and more fulfilling then other stuff.

B. Everyone always complains about lore. You'll never hear the end of it
Yes, you're probably right. But this, in my opinion, is what I really want to stay away from. The Server I came from, almost everyone was a half dragon, dragon, Good aligned drow, friendly goblin or kobold blablabla. The only RP that ever happened was tavern RP, or people standing around outside a city throwing small talk.

There were really limited plots. No factions because everyone was neutral. No one adhered to gods beliefs and challenged people. It was like lukewarm water. Not good, not bad, just... Blergh.

And I think unless we talk about Lore, and why it's a good idea to read up and make sure you have a general idea about it then we're going to turn into that.


C. You're opinion is offensive to me.
I'm sorry you feel that way.

Solution to problem 1?

Read up on lore, and make a conscious effort to put aside OOC thoughts/feels and play your character as they would react based on DnD lore. This sorta swings back to my "Looking at Arelith through DnD lense" post.

I also think Dms could enforce lore a lot more. And give us a more stable foundation to work with. An example might be setting "Descriptions" of the settlements to give a guiding path to how its people react and the city landscape etc. One server I used to play on did this. You could read an OOC "What to expect in X city" sort of description that really set you up to flow in with other characters. And guess what! When you were in this city People ACTED in line with the cities general dogma. And if you didn't like that, there was more neutral settlements or others to go to.

I've stolen an older servers description of their server's Cordor

"The primary settlement on the Isle of [redacted] Cordor has learned to tend to its own affairs, respect its neighbours, and care for its land. Until recently, Cordor was openly accepting of most all races, acting as a refugee city focused around the trade of wares and communications between the various groupings, as well as acting as a safe haven for those who didn't "fit the mould". This was recently abolished and Cordor has become less accepting through allowing those of unique blood to reside. "


In this description of Cordor, I quickly discovered in the "Wealthy" Cordorian districts, people were racists against half orcs, elves, and other none human races. While the more "Slum" districts were more accepting of those races, and in turned hated the richer Cordorians, and even the guard force.

This created so much RP. Real Rp. Not sitting in the tavern RP. Like my character was a guard that got mugged by Anti guard fanatics that were Hin/elves/half orcs and lived in the slum districts and hated Aristocratic Cordorians.

For a fun, engaging atmosphere to exist like this. The DMs have to set the stage. Players can try to do it. But I don't think it will get far and it 'll be ended quickly.


If a DM does not validate lore. Then it will not be followed and OOC values will over ride IC values which can make things a lot less interesting

2. What defines a successful settlement leader.

It is my opinion that the idea of a successful settlement leader is one who is friends with everyone. Keeps the city in peace. Accepts everyone. And makes the city gold.

Hnnngh

I think this idea needs to change. A successful settlement leader might achieve those things, but what really makes them great is Involving characters in a variety of plots, mundane to exotic, but making stuff happen!

Like: Shake IT UP! Are you a Lovitaran that just won chancellorship of Cordor? Then Start using your political hammer to accuse Ilmater priests of the Triad of crimes and begin toruring them secretly! Muhahaha. Be evil!
Or: Screw those Myon elves. We don't need your gold. And by the way, your people are unwelcome on our soil! Don't like it? Fight me Myon hasn't been anything but rude to Cordor and disrespectful of its people! I've instructed my guards to overlook crimes to elves. [unleash the drama bomb]

So I think as a server, if we adjust our expectations of good leaders to something more dramatic there could be a lot more fun!

3. Player support / Opposition

I'm getting a bit tired- so I hope this comes out in a way that makes sense and I'm going to jump right to an example.

Chancellor of Cordor re-instates the lightbringer act. Good aligned characters and paladins go "Boohoo, you're not merciful and now people who are evil will be singled out and abused. I voted for you. But now I hate you." X_X

Realize from an OOC stand point if everyone is going to roll paladins and good characters but just RP neutral there is rarely going to be exciting Rp. Everyone is going to be happy happy at the nomad having a chuckle with the local palemaster as you wave to the goblin traders rolling into the city to sell you the gear they actually stole from adventurers in the underdark.

If you are good, embrace Good aligned judgements.


OR OPPOSE IT!

Fight them because you think Cordor should be an open trade hub! Make signs, call people names, make angry posts, start up mobs, confront them! Do not please please please do not just roll over and say "Well. Guess that didn't go the way I wanted to. Guess i'll just ignore everything until the next chancellor."


4. Pvp.
[sigh] I AM a supporter of Pvp. Even though I suck at builds. And I have lost every pvp encounter I've had, save for one, where I was dramatically higher level then the other players but they chose to try to mug me anyways.

I bring Pvp up, because I am discovering that most conflicts will be ended with pvp. If I say i'm right, you're wrong, and I turn out to be right? I get killed. "Might makes right" it was a phrase Lynn was told when I lost a duel to a superior WM build that changed my characters RP for the continuation of her existence. I couldn't back away from that because of how I rp'd my character. OOCLY I knew I was going to lose. But ICly? My character would not have backed down.

It's hard on Arelith because it's so easy to be a better player then someone else. And if you're not sharp on your pvp build, and your pvp IRL skill you're going to get crushed in confrontations and whether you like it or not, when you lose pvp your character is changed. You can't just ignore it because it wasn't fair.

It's also hard because some players go: "Lol, Screw this guy, I know what build he is and I know I can beat it. That means I don't have to deal with their RP Bs and I can kill them."

Pvp can make it hard for characters to be dynamic and make interesting plots because as soon as things get hot it turns into

"Disagree with me again and you're dead'


However, if there is not pvp and no death, then things become whimsical and creates no actual sense of accomplishment or danger. So PVP is absolutely Vital

The only thing I would say is:

Use pvp as responsibly as possible. I'd point towards my experience with drow players, because of the interactions I've had, they have always rp'd with me in some regard either before killing me or even after via a raise. It's never been a dull experience. And despite the death and having to wait out timers I really enjoyed it and it added to my characters story.


Conclusion: I don't think Arelith is going to see any radical changes that break away from how things currently are. It's been my experience seeing elections play out that it seems like settlement leaders fall into the same line of thinking and actions as the previous ones did with maybe some /minor/ changes. Also, I think a loose loose loose adherence to lore leads to a lot of awkward IC situations, and a lot of situations where characters do not come into conflict or real RP because they are not aware of or choose not to agree with the lore. This leads to more happy happy Tavern time, and less ambitious characters trying to pursue their gods dogma or further some agenda that in turns leads to deeper more fun Rp then tavern stuff.

My true opinion is that if you follow lore and your character adheres to lore. But that lore creates conflict. Your character is going to get shut down and shut out and find themselves closed off to reside only with a few players that agree with them. They won't make any progress in changing minds or changing Arelith's landscape because the majority of Arelith wants neutrality even if their god isn't neutral or it breaks lore. And until that mentality changes, nothing else will change.

Purpose for writing this: I want to present some new ideas that I think that could bring more fun and challenge the status quo of RP on Arelith drawing from really great experiences I've had all over in my RPing in the past. NWN / DnD format is in my opinion one of the last bastions were you can actually RP and really get memorable stories out of it.

Since I've decided to share this as a forum post publicly. I'd really like to hear evaluations of my thoughts or your own opinions to be discussed? I like to call thing as I see it. Key word being /I/ And there's always different ideas / Opinions. Sometimes I can be rude and phrasing of my ideas can be offensive (This isn't always intentional.) but three things~

1. If you want to insult me or call my argument dumb and my ideas unintelligent I'd prefer you'd pm that to me. Or if you want everyone to agree that I'm dumb post it publicly I guess. But I'm not shying away from saying what I think because i'm afraid of negative responses. Just talk to me I can be rude sometimes, i'm a human being, but I genuinely just want to offer different suggestions of things I have seen work from other servers.

2. If you think what I had to say was offensive PM me so we can discuss it privately and not clog up the thread.

3. Please keep arguments constructive. Topics that say one way of doing something is better than the other can get personal fast. Please realize this is a discussion not Forum blogging Mortal Combat. Arelith is one of the last NWN RP servers and I'd really like to share ideas that I think can improve the server.
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by DarkDreamer » Mon May 15, 2017 8:49 am

1. I don't entirely agree with it, but there are some I do...because if we strictly adhere to lore, Lolthites need to start raping, torturing and brutalizing every player they see that isn't them. Its in Lolthite lore that the favor such tactics to keep everyone under their heels.

2. This one I kinda agree with whole heartedly, too often settlements like Myon and even Brog turn their backs on Cordor, tell them to piss off and refuse trade with them....yet own the biggest mansion in Cordor as their personal Embassy....why? Sorry, if they want to sit there and tell us so go sc*** the pooch, they can get the hell out of Cordor all together. Let the Embassy fall back to Cordorian hands.

3. I agree and disagree so I am gonna leave this one.

4. I am not a fan of PvP, especially with the new punishments put in for people that get pvp'd so yeah, not really gonna support that one. I wouldn't mind it so much without the 20 minute sit and then the RL HOURS of drain...I would mind it even less if it made sense for a greater story plot ongoing....

EXAMPLE!!

Paladin of Torm shows up to rescue a child kidnapped by the EVIL banite Imperceptor and they enter an epic fight to the death, the Paladin only barely managing at the last possible moment to stab the man and as he crumples to the floor, the paladin limps over to the poor child, rescuing him and bringing him home to his sobbing mother, thus the hero of his town, only to retreat to the Temple to collapse in a heap of pain before the clergy to tend to him, wounded for now, but he will live to fight another day...meanwhile in the Temple of Bane, Bane has returned his chosen Imperceptor who has lost his prisoner and swears vengence on the Paladin, one day, one day they will meet again, and next time it will be him upon the torture rack!!!

Now that....that would be an EPIC PvP I would LOVE to be in, and could even stand to lose in.

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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by Emotionaloverload » Mon May 15, 2017 12:22 pm

The example with the Selunite Church is really the only thing that stuck out for me so I will say that if I were playing the Selunite character I would read that situation IG as; the church has been taken over by Sharrans to the point where one is disguised as the Church leader and it is now my character's task to either take back that Church or make a new one with all the allies and 'real' Selunites that I can muster while at the same time doing everything possible to destroy the plots of the disguised Sharrans (and the real Sharrans).

This also happens to be right up a Sharran's alley in terms of lore and rp.

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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by Dr_Hazard89 » Mon May 15, 2017 2:29 pm

I strongly agree with a lot of this!
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by Queen Titania » Mon May 15, 2017 3:13 pm

Replying just to one.

1): From the DM Perspective we're not looking for everyone knowing the lore. The current Admin team has recognized that Arelith really is its own lore, largely based but not entirely fixated on DnD. For example, We are looking for paladins to RP as paladins but we are not going to expect the paladin to memorize every single aspect of their lore or the lore of DnD.

We're also not looking to enforce how a settlement should be seen. A lot of that is already flavored in nicely, particularly in Andunor, but the landscape still allows for variations and player creativity.
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by cptcuddlepants » Mon May 15, 2017 3:19 pm

Lore should drive your character to act/react.
What exactly do you mean by this?
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by Sab1 » Mon May 15, 2017 3:20 pm

Seems like another, I don't agree with way things are post so suggest people change. Just RP and have fun.

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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Mon May 15, 2017 4:40 pm

DM Titania wrote:Replying just to one.

1): From the DM Perspective we're not looking for everyone knowing the lore. The current Admin team has recognized that Arelith really is its own lore, largely based but not entirely fixated on DnD. For example, We are looking for paladins to RP as paladins but we are not going to expect the paladin to memorize every single aspect of their lore or the lore of DnD.
I'd really like some elaboration on what this means, because to be perfectly honesty, "Arelith has its own lore" is my least favorite response to outright flagrant violations of lore, and claiming that Arelith has its own lore is often used to completely ignore the fact that while Arelith has 140-some-odd years of its own history, that history starts with 1372 DR, which is a time period in Forgotten Realms with millennia of established history and lore.

As an example, just because we've had a blue dragon on Arelith that didn't go around and subjugate everything around it (hi, Alejandro!) doesn't mean your character should expect it to be reasonable to go out, find a blue dragon, and make buddy buddy with them (even though that's exactly what my mage did, most characters of goodly alignments correctly looked at my mage like he was out of his mind).

Likewise, when people say 'but on Arelith, god X will blah blah justifying Y reason for my complete heresy against their dogma, despite them being my patron" it does nothing other than induce eye-rolling and immediately break my immersion. This tiny island is not important enough (and if it is, our characters certainly don't know that) to completely up-end the lore of the world it is based in and the philosophies our characters' gods preach and live.



I believe Arelith needs to be more comfortable saying that "Arelith is set in Forgotten Realms, and while you don't have to go out and buy the books to play the game with us, the lore you learn organically WILL be based on that world, not arbitrarily thrown out the window because it isn't known."


Gravity didn't stop working before Isaac Newton discovered it- people that jumped into the air still came back down to the ground. It should be the same way for lore in the world of Arelith, IMO.
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by One Two Three Five » Mon May 15, 2017 5:17 pm

Lore elitism is a gross, gross trap people fall into. I've never seen it improve the fun of people around the lore elitist, and have seen it detract. It's made up elf lore, the relevant bits of which stopped being written almost immediately after the server's inception. Pretending that WOTC's lore for 3rd is somehow inviolate and perfect, and good enough to invalidate, what, 15 years of people's roleplay?

Is just about the silliest thing I've seen suggested on RP servers. Pen and Paper rules and lore is always, always, a guideline. In my tabletop games, I'd rather have a mechanical rule pedant than a lore lawyer that thinks because they've spent thirty hours learning klingon that they're a 'better' roleplayer. A certain amount of mechanical whining I can tolerate, the people that interrupt everyone else's roleplay at the table/roll20 sesh to go 'Um, ACTUALLY,' and rattle off irrelevant godamn dates? Do not get invited back.

tl;dr: Worry about yourself. Falling into the 'other people need to x' trap only ever leads to elitism, and an elimination of enjoyment for those around you, and yourself. And then threads like these. forever.

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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by DarkDreamer » Mon May 15, 2017 5:20 pm

Lore does have a place, but so does personal creativity. Its all about balancing the two to make the server more enjoyable.

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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by Queen Titania » Mon May 15, 2017 5:22 pm

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote:
DM Titania wrote:Replying just to one.

1): From the DM Perspective we're not looking for everyone knowing the lore. The current Admin team has recognized that Arelith really is its own lore, largely based but not entirely fixated on DnD. For example, We are looking for paladins to RP as paladins but we are not going to expect the paladin to memorize every single aspect of their lore or the lore of DnD.
I'd really like some elaboration on what this means.
Its simple: Arelith is set in Forgotten Realms, but the Lore isn't 100% tied to it. You have player-created/inspired Dieties, Zaur(?) for example as well as Meles.

Obviously reading all the lore material will be very helpful, especially when creating a character and setting up a background tied into the world. But its not required to know all the lore, and never will be, to read on this lore, especially when a lot of it can be learned and immersed within the game.
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by OverTheSeaToSkye » Mon May 15, 2017 5:27 pm

Play. Be the change you want to see. Don't like how things are going? Work on it IC. It is absokutely possible.

And in my opinion we should not be basing anything of ours on a server we are not a part of, that in actuality, is failing.

It's super disheartening to see everyone running to the forums to try to change IG things because the way once tried IG didn't work for any number of completely viable reasons. Lore is malleable because while YOU may know everything from the time Ao was a pup on, you char not only doesn't but shouldn't. Let it be malleable. Let it create conflict and stories. That's why we're here. There is absolutely no time at which our characters should 100% agree on facets of lore. We don't even do that in the real world.
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Mon May 15, 2017 5:41 pm

DM Titania wrote:
Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote:
DM Titania wrote:Replying just to one.

1): From the DM Perspective we're not looking for everyone knowing the lore. The current Admin team has recognized that Arelith really is its own lore, largely based but not entirely fixated on DnD. For example, We are looking for paladins to RP as paladins but we are not going to expect the paladin to memorize every single aspect of their lore or the lore of DnD.
I'd really like some elaboration on what this means.
Its simple: Arelith is set in Forgotten Realms, but the Lore isn't 100% tied to it. You have player-created/inspired Dieties, Zaur(?) for example as well as Meles.

Obviously reading all the lore material will be very helpful, especially when creating a character and setting up a background tied into the world. But its not required to know all the lore, and never will be, to read on this lore, especially when a lot of it can be learned and immersed within the game.
This is fine, and makes sense. I'm totally for on-server events shaping the history of the world we play in.

As an example, however, if someone playing a Sharran or a Loviatian (let's make them clerics just to remove what-ifs) is going around spreading hope and giving hugs to emotionally traumatized people to make them feel better, and your claim is "Arelith isn't D&D," this is a problem. This is immersion shattering to the point of me wanting to sign out when I see it.

For the record, I am using a hypothetical I have never personally seen above, for the sake of illustrating the kind of case where I despise hearing "Arelith isn't D&D." No, it's not, but we have a clear outline for the construction of the story.

Arelith is like a coloring book- there are outlines to fill in- we should usually try to color inside them, since everyone is coloring their own section.
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by The_Queen~s_Rebuke » Mon May 15, 2017 5:48 pm

The fact of the matter is, not everyone will have fun adhering 100% to established lore. There's only so much you can follow and build upon before you step into a range that, while perfectly reasonable to your established RP, will be unacceptably 'cheesy' to other people who look at it.

However, those people do not necessarily have to participate. Deal with it IC, or leave well enough alone and focus on finding your own fun.
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by One Two Three Five » Mon May 15, 2017 5:50 pm

If you see someone behaving in a way you don't 'like'- Ask yourself:
1. Is this something my character will know?
2. Is this something my character will deal with?
3. Is this something my character should get help with?
4. Is this something my character can use to further their story, or the story of this other character?

you'll notice there's no mention of the player. Deal with it IC. A player's job of ensuring roleplay quality or setting coherence begins and ends with their own character.
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by Gable Morninglord » Mon May 15, 2017 5:55 pm

OverTheSeaToSkye wrote:Be the change you want to see. Don't like how things are going? Work on it IC.

It's super disheartening to see everyone running to the forums to try to change IG things because the way once tried IG didn't work for any number of completely viable reasons.
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by Iceborn » Mon May 15, 2017 6:02 pm

You are required to know the lore in relatively of the complexity of the concepts you plan to play:
If you wanna play a generic human, what you have to know is minimal, and you can learn it as you go.
if you want to play a dragon, you have to understand the intrinsic nature of the dragon, the instinct, the goals, the mentality, the natural rivalries, the status. Everything that 'makes' a dragon.

If you do not want to take the time and effort to study the lore of the concepts you want to play, simply, you are better off not playing that concept. Nobody will really stop you, nobody but the DMs CAN stop you, but you will perceive it if you are going against what is 'expected'.
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by Seven Sons of Sin » Mon May 15, 2017 6:57 pm

You should've spent more time IG than posting on this on the forums.

You are not going to change anything by posting this here, beyond inciting (largely useless) arguments.
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by gilescorey » Mon May 15, 2017 7:36 pm

Totally unrelated to the subject of what you're posting about, but for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE fix your formatting.

Reading a thousand different arbitrarily bolded, italicised or coloured (or, God forbid, all three) words gives me an actual headache.

DaddysLE
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Reeeeeeeeee: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by DaddysLE » Mon May 15, 2017 8:03 pm

OverTheSeaToSkye wrote:It's super disheartening to see everyone running to the forums to try to change IG things because the way once tried IG didn't work for any number of completely viable reasons. Lore is malleable because while YOU may know everything from the time Ao was a pup on, you char not only doesn't but shouldn't. Let it be malleable. Let it create conflict and stories. That's why we're here. There is absolutely no time at which our characters should 100% agree on facets of lore. We don't even do that in the real world.
I'm going to be unpopular again and point out that really, it's just been a particular three people taking their IC conflicts to the forums.

Y'all need to settle down on the lore business. Remeber where your lore comes from in this case : the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. In general, campaign settings exist for two reasons: to make money selling books, and provide players and DMs with a good starting point to reduce the amount of effort in running a game that building your own world.

Read the source books with a critical mind sometime. Notice how all the wording is vague. Start counting how many times the statement, "the church of xyz operates like this, but there are rumors of a sect that does ABC." Notice how magic is ill defined, and how lore wise, the schools of magic are merely how wizard academia has organized information. Look at the difference between thr great wheel cosmology and world tree cosmology.

It's general. It's vague. It exists for pen and paper groups to pick and choose for the purpose of enabling play. That's not what you're doing when you adopt a rigid headcanon and frustrate yourself trying to force it on people who have a different interpretation.

So like Shy and OverTheSea saying: be the change. Start something up that opposes these heresies or whatever in character. Make some play about it rather than making salty forum topics about it.

Black Wendigo
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by Black Wendigo » Mon May 15, 2017 8:51 pm

The thing about lore, though is that Arelith and other long running PWs have been around so long they have their own lore. Some of Arwlith's lore flies in the face of d and d lore or is not technically "supported in d and d sources of any kind/

THer is a reason for this. It's called DM Fiat. For those who don't know, that means that the DM has the right to change ianything they want i the rules, mechanics etc of D and d in order to keep their story or campagin what they intend it to be. I think that this appies a lot to players as well (within reason.

Example: You are playing a banite. Yes Bane is clearly described in D and d and He should be approach within those stu[stipulation. (THat is Bane is evil, lawful has certain things applied to his pr[portfolio and so forth). But ther are many many ways you can be lawful evil and within what Bane is in d and d. (I've done this myself. It could be an alternate interpretation or you could play a banite that sincerely believes his heretical views are true (He might be stupid, deluded, being deceptive or not a banite at all :)).

It is ok for chars to have wrong or even heretical views. As long as it is clear that the player is doing this deliberately and knows this.

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Mountebank
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by Mountebank » Mon May 15, 2017 10:13 pm

One major issue with the whole Arelith lore vs FR lore thing is that there are a number of mechanics on Arelith that flat out contradict concrete pieces of FR lore. The best example of this is probably the existence of Trueflame sorcerers, warlocks and (until recently) weavemasters and favored souls, as well as the infinite spells granted by GSF. Spellcasters being restricted to a certain number of spells per day was one of the limitations imposed by Mystra after the folly, but on Arelith, infinite use of magic is highly prevalent.

This may seem like a small thing, but its implications are vast, as the Ban essentially set the stage for all modern use of magic. If one of the restrictions doesn't function on Arelith, does that mean we are free to assume the others function similarly poorly? Are characters free to RP workings of magic which exceed the 10th circle? Can a character simply attempt to usurp a God's power, as Karsus did?

I would say that, for the most part, differences in lore which result from difference in perception on the part of characters, such as dogmatic differences, are fine and relatively undamaging to immersion. Your character could easily interpret something far differently than others. The problem comes in when players RP that their character did or is something which directly contradicts lore, and has a negative impact on immersion for other players who have based their RP upon that lore. Male drow receiving clerical powers from Lolth, non elves performing workings of Elven High Magic, people claiming the ability to access magic without the Weave... these sorts of things. To me, and perhaps I'm a little too attached to FR lore, these things tend to open floodgates which can lead to fairly awkward IC situations.

FrozenSolid
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by FrozenSolid » Mon May 15, 2017 10:48 pm

To answer a few comments

1. A lot of comments say "Change it in game" My argument is that the server wide mindset is not conductive to changing things in game because there is not a following of Lore, pvp resolutions to snuff RP, and a general mindset on the server to avoid dramatic change.

2. Lore Elitism. Give me a break. Lore elitism is PMing someone to say "Your concept Is dumb and on page 432 line 37 it says you can't do X"

But if you do not have an attitude that wants to adhere at least to general concepts of lore like "Hey Lolhites are evil" then you turn into the server I described in my post, where all drow are good drow, kobolds are pets and goblins are serving you your drinks in Cordor while everyone has a good laugh at the undead the local necromancer summoned.

3. Be The Change you want to be And Lore

That only works if everyone is at least remotely on the same page. When you have players following a deity, but not adhering to that deities dogma, what are you supposed to do? When you get ignored because you challenge players to step out of the comfort zone.

If, for example you encounter a druid, there's a general idea on how a druid should act that you can ICLY rely on. But what if that character isn't doing anything druidly? That druid -only- has druid abilities because of stronk powerbuild? Then you put yourself out on the line, only to find out that the druid character doesn't adhere to any druid lore at all and you're left trying to figure out what went wrong.

What about elves working with drow? There are some of those, or elves who back and defend Andorians who have fought with drow? These are examples of what I think are major breaches in the lore that make interactions difficult. Because you go to the elves thinking "Elves and drow are blood enemies, I can make something happen" Only to find out the elf you spoke to actually supports the drow agents you're working against. And their reasoning for such is

"Well sure he's helped raid my home city. But he's always been nice to me"

That really makes me scratch my head.

4. Maybe you should spend more time in game.

Believe me I have been and I am. I took some time to make a post because I keep reading posts about asking why things aren't changing and why stuff keeps being the same old same old

5. Just worry about yourself

I don't like that attitude. I think the best Rpers are the ones who make an effort to draw people in and involve people. Not sticking to Cliques and not reaching beyond them to pull people in.

Offering a different opinion on why Lore is important, and why I think different concepts might lead to more fun isn't infringing on anyone. You can after all decide to simply not read the post.

This is stuff I've seen work really well on other servers. I'm not just talking on hypotheticals. They're things I've watched create really really awesome RP. The kind of RP that has you holding your breath wondering what will happen next?
*Didn't just do that* As an arrow flies hitting someone in the face.

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One Two Three Five
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by One Two Three Five » Mon May 15, 2017 11:09 pm

Seven Sons of Sin wrote:You should've spent more time IG than posting on this on the forums.

You are not going to change anything by posting this here, beyond inciting (largely useless) arguments.
And if you think 'lore elitism' isn't coming onto the forums to tell everyone the entire server is playing forgotten realms wrong, you are too far gone to have this conversation with.
The devil does not need any more advocates
Clerics are just socially acceptable warlocks.

FrozenSolid
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Re: Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

Post by FrozenSolid » Mon May 15, 2017 11:16 pm

cptcuddlepants wrote:
Lore should drive your character to act/react.
What exactly do you mean by this?

I'll sorta use my Selunite/Sharran scenario again

If a selunite (Likely Cleric/Paladin etc) is conscious of Sharran presence, and spreading of influence for Shar. Lore wise, A selunite cleric/priest would be obligated and morally bound to act IG. So that's an example of how Lore would drive your character to act.

A reaction might be, if you're a good aligned nature oriented character and a pack of Malarites known for following Malar's most evil creeds moves in it would make sense that your character would naturally work against these characters, not share a tea in the tavern when they both happen to be at the city.

And I think trouble happens when you look at Lore, and choose to walk a certain path, but only cherry pick the properties you desire, instead of taking on what the whole package was meant to be.

Like with selunites,

You are a selunite contesting Sharrans spreading their gods will and you reach out to fellow Selunites but they turn their back on you for the reason of "You're just a zealot. The Sharran's are actually nice people." And the other selunite group chooses to ignore you as a selunite and also ignore the Sharran group in conflict RP for whatever reasons they choose.

But if you are a selunite, specifically a cleric/priest/paladin you are obligated to oppose Sharrans You should be religiously biased. It's my opinion that it is wrong, to decide -not- to oppose Sharrans because you think it would lead to something you don't want to play as.

The solution then being, don't choose a character and path that would force you into conflict and choose something more neutral. But do not break the lore because you want to do something, but don't want to adhere to all the qualities that come with it.

So... These are ways characters can be motivated by Lore to act and react.
*Didn't just do that* As an arrow flies hitting someone in the face.

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