Arelith: Shaking Up The In Game Landscape.

[The GrumpyCat]

We do deal with more... agrevious cannon situations when we spot them.
(e.g. A necromancer walking around with undead in Cordor, A Paladin who's taking slaves and torturing people, Drow sunbathing, Kobolds/monster races walking around settlments like it's nothing, Ect)

[Emotionaloverload]

I think there are two things that are important to remember when considering characters and lore. The first is stats and skills. Not every characters has the stats or skills to navigate all situations in the way that your character can or that you might like.

The second is that not every character that is on Arelith is a perfect representation of the lore to start. Each region has their own quirks that can go against racial lore and some divine characters might be using a different reading of their dogmas and duties (to an extend, of course). Also, some character are native Arelithians which is an entirely different bag of worms.

Off the top of my head the examples of this IG can be seen in characters (old ones) like: Lenore, Aramentia, Sasha Silverscales, Siriril Holie, Aristotles, Giogi Silveroak, and Filtel Nou’ate.

I am a stickler for the lore (both IG lore and canon) on -my- characters but I use it as a platform to jump off of. Then I can use obscure lore or stay fast in tradition or go in another direction entirely/know exactly how much to deviant. If I notice that someone is strangely off on what I know to be the lore on what appears~ to be the concept then I try to find out why it is like that. Sometimes you will be disappointed but most of the time you will get to see the great story behind it (this usually takes some effort though. Not just berating them on the road or something similar).

When I started playing, I had the great pleasure of starting in Old Bendir Kingdom where I literally knew nothing. I had never played nwn or dnd before but no one ever chased me down on the lore. Arelith is great like that. You can roll onto the sever knowing nothing and learn everything IG on your character. Does it make sense that an adult character would be clueless? Maybe not entirely but it doesn't matter. What matters is the story you can make with it. You won't always win and you won't always get it right but you by no means need to do anything outside of the game. You can learn it all there and you can try to solve it all there.

-S

[Aodh Lazuli]

I joined Arelith with my opinions premade

That is quite evident.

However, a good character is not one that merely moves their environment by being 'lawful neutral: the character' for example, their influence remaking the world in their own image... But instead one that is connected, responsive, who is moved, shifted, changed by what happens. These are the characters that feel alive.

Lore, drama, conflict and plot play very little part in generating plausible psychology... and that, I'd argue, is far more important than having a pinpoint lore accurate representation of an infernalist or whatever.

[Cerk Evermoore]

Sometimes it is just a matter of necessity, people unite to fight greater threats and Cordor is a big city with a lot of people, can't really compete with a temple that has maybe 3 active members. Sometimes enemies have to stop fighting for awhile so they can deal with a more pressing dire threat.

[OverTheSeaToSkye]

I joined Arelith with my opinions premade

That is quite evident.

However, a good character is not one that merely moves their environment by being 'lawful neutral: the character' for example, their influence remaking the world in their own image... But instead one that is connected, responsive, who is moved shifted, changed by what happens. These are the characters that feel alive.

Lore, drama, conflict and plot play very little part in generating plausible psychology... and that, I'd argue, is far more important than having a pinpoint lore accurate representation of an infernalist or whatever.

<3

[Mr_Rieper]

The lore is a tool for understanding the world that your character inhabits. It's not a holy text that you must adhere to, constantly, but rather something you must explore and understand. I applaud the people who do their best to RP within the confines of lore, because at the end of the day, we are not playing Second Life. This is Forgotten Realms, we already have a culture and history to appreciate. We play this game because we enjoy the setting, there are plenty other roleplaying simulators out there for people who don't.

But it's very important to understand WHY the lore points in a certain direction. Can you dig deep and truly understand why there is an enmity between elves and drow? Is it so difficult to understand why good folk should not tolerate the worship of evil gods in their societies? Is it wise to tolerate the warlock who is almost guaranteed to be a threat to you one day, not because of who they are but whom they serve?

I've had to do this on my Nobanionite recently. There's very little lore on Nobanion, and I'm okay with that. It's fun to explore the deeper meanings and themes of the dogma, and come up with my own interpretation. Is there anything in the lore that says that Nobanionites hate lycans? Not really, there's more to suggest that Chaunteans hate them more. However, would a god like Nobanion tolerate something that comes from his archenemy?

Nobanion's dogma is all about practicing discipline while still respecting feral power. Lycanthropy is a complete abandonment of discipline and embracing the beast in order to get the job done. As the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Lycanthropy is swapping all your tools for hammers.

In short, this isn't supported by official lore and is rather an extension to it. Other Nobanionite characters have adopted a similar stance. I consider this to be good roleplay, because we've explored a lore concept and made sense of it. That's the lore's role on this server.

Don't accept the lore at face value. Question it, play with it, RP it out. You will find it often makes sense, and appreciate the setting more.

[FrozenSolid]

"Mr_Rieper"]The lore is a tool for understanding the world that your character inhabits. It's not a holy text that you must adhere to, constantly, but rather something you must explore and understand. I applaud the people who do their best to RP within the confines of lore, because at the end of the day, we are not playing Second Life. This is Forgotten Realms, we already have a culture and history to appreciate. We play this game because we enjoy the setting, there are plenty other roleplaying simulators out there for people who don't.

But it's very important to understand WHY the lore points in a certain direction. Can you dig deep and truly understand why there is an enmity between elves and drow? Is it so difficult to understand why good folk should not tolerate the worship of evil gods in their societies? Is it wise to tolerate the warlock who is almost guaranteed to be a threat to you one day, not because of who they are but whom they serve?

I liked your first two statements. So i'll respond to that, and the other comments recently made.

Yes, lore is flexible. Absolutely, it is vague so that it can be turned in ways to create different stories but I think this is maybe the root of it~

Majority of players play on the edge of lore or skew a representation of it meaning everyone is special. There are so many super special characters it's no longer interesting it's just a hard trying to figure out why the good aligned paladin is throwing themselves in front of an evil aligned character desperately trying to defend them.

But I don't care about any of that I guess. Just as long as you do not let OOC values, feelings or whatever, influence your characters actions.

So if Lore is not guiding your character what guidelines are you basing their response off? OOC influences?

And you could say "In game interactions" But if the In game interactions aren't based off of a story of Lore, you're just doing things because it feels right, then it creates a lapse

It's like the start of the quote says, that Lore is used to understand the world around you. But if nothing is lore based then how do you understand anything?

[cptcuddlepants]

So if Lore is not guiding your character what guidelines are you basing their response off? OOC influences?

Their personality and mood.

[Miaou]

So if Lore is not guiding your character what guidelines are you basing their response off? OOC influences?

Their personality and mood.

My characters are people. Not stereotypes or a class, like fighters or monks. They are people. They have personalities, desires, wishes. Fears, hopes, dreams. They are living beings who have more character than a rock or NPC.

Most people play them as such. Want to play a straight laced paladin who smites people? You do you. People want to play their own characters as they want, and everyone has different personalities. We are playing a role of a character, not a marker labled fighter_3.

[gilescorey]

Miaou is right. I'm playing a marker labelled fighter_2, myself.

[Aodh Lazuli]

Majority of players play on the edge of lore or skew a representation of it meaning everyone is special.

Ah... I see what you're getting at now.

This has nothing to do with players having good knowledge of lore. People like big drama and impressive or special things.

Got wings? Impressive.
Complicated and super-dramatic backstory? Impressive.

Except they're actually kinda not that impressive at all - And frankly, they wouldn't be that impressive even if they were perfectly dovetailed into canon lore.

If "but everyone wants to be special" is the thing that irritates you, maybe you'd be better off writing a thread about the value of subtlety in storytelling, rather than talking about lore.

So if Lore is not guiding your character what guidelines are you basing their response off? OOC influences?

As for this bit... Well. lets talk about the process of creating a character.

When I make a character - first comes the personality. How the character speaks, their voice, how they treat people, their mundane likes and dislikes, their walk, posture, attitude, how their ethics function.

Once I know that... Once their moral behaviour is already established - That's when I comb through lore to see what faith/alignment/geographical location/whatever might fit that... I make a few modifications, decide on a class that fits the characters attitude, and away I go.

I start with the person. Lore/build/whatever comes second.

It is not: "I am playing a helmite, and helmites are built along this personality template."
Instead, it is: "I am playing a person with x and y personality traits. Hey, fits pretty well with Helm's dogma. I guess I'll make him a helmite!"

[Seven Sons of Sin]

What is lore, anyhow? And a lot of what we seem to be discussing is lore of religion, and race, but there's a lot to lore that goes beyond that (i.e. history and culture). I certainly think culture is important to a character, and yes that is lore, so yes it does shape their actions and their outlook.

But much of your examples, FrozenSolid, have been more fundamentally discussing race and religion, and I think that distills all great characterization into boring building blocks.

[FrozenSolid]

Yes but here's the thing

Your characters, all characters have personality, feelings you know whatever you want to put in there.

But your characters are in the world of Faerun. That means your personality, feelings, thoughts, anything and everything is influenced by Lore

For an example character for like a fighter as is mentioned. A brief character description etc.

Kortana Svensphere

1. Born and raised on the sword coast Kortana learned from an early age what it took to survive alone. Her father was a retired Amnish soldier. He had fought many battles and had a uniquely brilliant skill with a rapier that he had passed onto his daughter.

Her mother, born and raised in Baldur had learned the ins and out of city life and back in her day, was stealthy and could weave her way unseen even past the most committed guardsmen.

Kortana was a unique mixture of both stoical guard. And sly resourceful rogue.

2. Because of Kortana's up bringing on the sword coast she lived a rough and tumble sort of life. Kortana could be loud, a bit rude, and demanding sometimes, but her heart always seemed to be in the right place.

3. Kortana's father had taught her to use the rapier. Seeing the same Wanderlust he and his wife once had, he knew she'd leave them eventually to seek her own adventures. Kortana's uncanny fighting ability came from her father.

4. Kortana had travelled all over the Sword coast and was eager for something more. She heard of the island of Arelith. She knew this was the place she could finally sate her adventuring cravings.

5. Kortana loosely prayed to the Red knight. A goddess of tactician and battle prowess she saw this as an agreeable deity. She wasn't overly religious but wasn't foolish enough to dismiss the gods entirely.

6. Kortana had seen evil. And she knew she didn't like it. She had witnessed necromancers raising a village after slaughtering it. She had seen followers of Cyric raving and insane driving them to evil actions. She'd seen Sharrans attempt to drag cities into utter darkness and bring the shadow plane onto their plane. As a result, Kortana had a natural tendancy to work against evil powers. She had seen the pain they could cause. And she wasn't an advocate of that

However, Kortana did recognize the need for efficiency. Her loose moral standards meant she could over look things that others might not. She had also seen necromancers raise undead to stop a tribe of orcs from butchering a settlement. She'd seen a Banite destroy a criminal who was trying to mug an old lady. She knew everything wasn't black and white.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay so that's a character a quick draw up on one.

My point with that is. Everything is based on lore. Her personality, her feelings, her emotions, her thoughts the way she reacts the way she conducts herself. They all take root in something that is Lore based. That doesn't mean she cannot change or be influenced by events through RP. But that is her Lore based foundation.

You cannot choose your characters moral behavior until you've decided what background, lore based background, they come from. -Why- is your character a Lovitaran? Where from the lore did they come from? What experience based on lore drove them to -be- that. you don't just pop into that?

So... I hope this makes sense. The main point is: If you are drawing from lore to decide why your character is what it is then you're basing it off of OOC chosen characteristics without an IC backing.

Like is your character aggressive? Okay why? Just because? Or Because they use to live in Luskan and if you weren't aggressive you'd get rolled over.

And pointing to Kortana, Lore based - she comes from the sword coast. Okay. What does lore say about the sword coast? Well lore says it's likely someone from this area would have X qualities. Okay so it's believable she came from the Swordcoast based on her actions.

I hope that makes sense?

[Seven Sons of Sin]

A good exercise in character building is removing your backstory from an actual setting in Faerun, and playing it out that way.

Just write a story about characters, about people. Dig deeper than what "Sword Coast says about X or Y" and try to get into the heads of what it means to live in a rugged, rural area that is littered with city-states, adventure, remnants of old kingdoms, and as a junction for many different races.

Build a character first, and then see how they fit into a region of choice.

I don't think there's disagreement here - I think the counterpoints raised are trying to establish that there is something superficial about building a character "from the Sword Coast" and building a character who has their own history, their own drama, their own personality, and the fact they come from Sword Coast is just icing on the cake.

And then there's disagreement about building/writing a character, because players have stated here they like actual FR "mechanics" to shape a character, and others who think that a character is a character is a character.

(A good exercise in character-building is transposing an Arelithian character into real world settings. Who would they be, what would they be like, how different would they talk, what would their job be, do their fears change, do their hopes change, does their personality shift? You start to dig into the fundamental being of a character, because you've peeled away ideas hinging on "derr i grew up in Baldur's Gate" - as if that's supposed to mean something)

edit: also, all backstories should hinge on the flaw of your character. Otherwise, everything you're telling me is filler exposition.

[FrozenSolid]

I disagree entirely Chop the real world off. I don't think the real world involved should be in the Rp at all.

The reason you choose a place of origin is because it is the foundation of a back story. That doesn't mean YOU HAVE to play by that. But it gives people an IDEA about how your character would react. "Oh you're Thayan? Gross" You know?

If you place a character in game but play him like he was raised in New York city IRL that would be so awkward. The values of Real life and Faerun are different. As are the experiences they would encounter.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

It is very difficult to convincingly argue that extreme hatred of other races/religions is not a cultural influence in many instances of Forgotten Realms.

As an example, parents are known to tell their children if they misbehave, drow will take them in their sleep. A myth you tell your children that they also tell their children and so on strikes me as a deeply-rooted cultural thing. And that's a human thing, not an elven one.

Elves will give you a long list of history lessons as reasons why you shouldn't trust a drow.

The act of animating the dead draws outright revulsion and pitchforks from most of civilized faerun.

No less than twenty-seven nations declared national holidays of celebration when Bane died during the time of troubles. Twenty-seven. Is twenty-seven different national holidays enough to be considered a cultural thing?

My personal qualm is more to do with bits of lore like the above, that are readily available with very little digging beyond the amount of effort you'd put into googling directions to your distant relative's house.

I feel anyone who wishes to play an antagonist should avail themselves of a bit of research so that there isn't a constant clash of expectations with those they interact with, OOC. It's perfectly fine to have the occasional reaction that differs from the standard, but they should be playing the character because they expect the standard reaction, not because they're going to call that reaction cookie-cutter or any other derogatory message.

For whatever lengthy amount of anecdotal exposition someone may have to justify their character's special reasons for antithesis of concept X, someone who follows the basic lore has dozens if not hundreds of books worth of established history as to why their 'cookie-cutter' actions are also justified - and most of them won't be anecdotal.

That doesn't mean there can't be just as much (or more) depth.

[FrozenSolid]

As far as filler or character flaws~

I think one of the best ways to character create is to make your character like I did above based on lore. And then apply that Lore filter to everything she does.

So say someone steals something from her what's her response? Well apply the lore filter from her being raised in the Sword coast and her upbringing. Rather then going to the guard she is likely to resolve the matter on her own.

But the lore serves as glasses for how my character views the world. Then I let RP shape how she responds. Or goes. When I did Lynn Charfoot, she was neutral and I played her like that. She had been betrayed before and was an angry person

But insert a very very close friend who she loved dearly, suddenly she forges the path to being LG a complete shake up from where she started

The lore is the starting point. Starting with the lore helps you connect. But after you lay the foundation, whatever you build ontop of it is up you and the RP

[Sabines]

I think what you're getting at, FrozenSolid, is that characters should be a reflection of their environment, culture and upbringing and not perfectly unique anomalies created in a vacuum. I agree with that completely, only I find FR lore lacklustre and prefer to draw inspiration from real world history, paying the campaign setting mere lip service.

I hesitate to pigeon-hole everything we've been talking about here as "filler", but I do think excessive emphasis is put on developing a multi-layered psyche replete with endless quirks and habits. It doesn't really assist your character in becoming a meaningful inhabitant of the game world, nor does it really communicate anything valuable to those your character interacts with. "Deep" characters are not necessarily more intelligent or thought out than a straight-forward one.

[Cerk Evermoore]

I mean, in theory all the abyssal and infernal warlocks would just KoS each other all the time. (More than they already do.)

[If Valor Were Inches]

I mean, in theory all the abyssal and infernal warlocks would just KoS each other all the time. (More than they already do.)

Abyssal Warlocks and Infernal Warlocks aren't actually their representatives, so this isn't necessarily true. Else by the same extension, Fey Warlocks would just murder everyone because its fun and giggles, and dwarf warlocks would drink a lot of ale and sport beards.

[Miaou]

At this point, I think you need to stop using "lore" like a buzzword. Correct me if I am wrong, you are talking about the universe we play in, and how it is different than our "Real life" universe. Different culture, different races, different problems and such.

Forgotten realms is heavily based off RL culture, taking from many national cultures and twisting it to make it more fantasy like. There is also the issue of being human players. We aren't actually elves, dwarves, Thavians or necromancers. This is roleplaying. We take up a role we enjoy and play it. Are we always accurate? No. Are people always "sticking" to the "lore"? No. Not everyone has the time to find out how dwarves do handshakes, or their foot placement when at a ceremony. This is a game, and we should be able to look past some of those things for the sake of enjoyment.

If you terribly dislike this, and I'm not trying to be harsh, perhaps this isn't for you. This is a community of people telling a story together. Some people are better at story telling, others are better at making it enjoyable, others bring flavour to it all. No one is perfect. If you want to tell a story that is strictly to one background without any deviations, I suggest writing a novel or short story.

[Mr_Rieper]

I both agree and disagree with Miaou.

I agree in that you should, for your own sake, accept that people won't always pay attention to fine detail. It's not a requirement to play, and it should never be a requirement. You should always be able to create a basic concept, hop in and roleplay, learning as you go. And this means that the more meticulous players need to accept that not everybody will meet their standards, and to just let it go.

However, at the same time, those players who don't know much about the setting should learn. It should be okay to be a newbie who doesn't know much, it shouldn't be okay to be aggressively ignorant of the setting you're playing in. If you don't know something, admit it and be willing to learn. Show a degree of shame in your lack of knowledge - some humility even - because learning will only make you a better roleplayer and give you more tools to use. It's never okay to stop learning.

This is not a single player game.

This means we have to accept that not everybody will play as you would want them to. This also means we have a responsibility to other players to get our own shit together, and not be so stupidly defensive on being wrong. It's okay to be wrong. Learn from it, progress and move on. Gain some levels IRL.

**EDIT** Also please don't just assume that FR cultures are just RL cultures with some details changed. This is an acceptable oversimplification to make if you are a newbie, not if you want to consider yourself a seasoned roleplayer. It's a rather easy thing to fall into, like the whole "Cormyr = Medieval France, therefore Cormyrians (Cormyrean? Even lore can be inconsistent) speak French". It's a logical fallacy and one that many people make.

For the record, Cormyrians don't speak French. At all. Not even French-with-a-fantasy-name. It's not okay to harass players who roleplay that they do, and if you are one of those players, it's not okay to just disregard this piece of information and treat it it's not important or attack the people that don't respond in the way you want them to. You're responsible for yourself. That's the point I'm trying to make.

[Miaou]

Oh no, I was being overly general in my statements and that was my fault, as I didn't want to ramble on. Of course you should strive to learn more of the lore, the culture, and "norms" of the universe we play in. I didn't say to just ignore it all or anything, but it shouldn't be a requirement to read through twenty 3.5e handbooks just to play.

And again, I was speaking generally about Forgotten realms being based on real life. While it is based off real life to fill the FR universe with various cultures, they have grown into their own thing. I was simply mentioning such so newer players have a baseline to start off at. No one is going to be overly upset of a Cormyrean(?) character taking on french culture for a base. Rather, you shouldn't. Encourage them, they put through effort to come up with a character. Perhaps offer assistance or your own knowledge, links to pages of information on what they are playing as. If they don't want it? That's fine. So long as they got the jist of it, it'll work out.

I'm in agreement with Rieper, though. We are telling this story together, and we should try our best to learn of the story already being told by jumping in and adding to it. That's what this is all about. People are jumping into a play half-way though and picking up the story, adding to it, being the characters of the theatrical story. It's wonderful we can do it, but it's also respectful you know what the story the play is about.

Weird metaphorical stuff behind, yeah. We should strive to learn and be better story tellers with our roleplay, but it's not the end of the world if someone doesn't know everything.

[Dr_Hazard89]

**EDIT** Also please don't just assume that FR cultures are just RL cultures with some details changed. This is an acceptable oversimplification to make if you are a newbie, not if you want to consider yourself a seasoned roleplayer. It's a rather easy thing to fall into, like the whole "Cormyr = Medieval France, therefore Cormyrians (Cormyrean? Even lore can be inconsistent) speak French". It's a logical fallacy and one that many people make.

For the record, Cormyrians don't speak French. At all. Not even French-with-a-fantasy-name. It's not okay to harass players who roleplay that they do, and if you are one of those players, it's not okay to just disregard this piece of information and treat it it's not important or attack the people that don't respond in the way you want them to. You're responsible for yourself. That's the point I'm trying to make.

+1

[FrozenSolid]

Well. I do enjoy playing here and for players telling me this server isn't for me. I'm sorry a suggested a stronger adherence to lore based role play and the solution, instead of talking about it, is just to leave.

I think Sabine's post did get at what I was trying to say.

is that characters should be a reflection of their environment, culture and upbringing and not perfectly unique anomalies created in a vacuum. I agree with that completely, only I find FR lore lacklustre and prefer to draw inspiration from real world history, paying the campaign setting mere lip service.

Don't quite agree with the last part of the quote, but I would say you can use IRL history for inspiration for finding an IN game similar culture to base a character off.

I don't plan on leaving. I have a lot of fun, but the importance of playing your character in the FR world is that if you do not, you're going to have a disconnect with the characters that do and that might lead to conflict that is based on perception rather then actual IC conflict which makes it hard to bring things to a conclusion.

For example, FR is different then the real world, because you're not going to encounter dragons in the real world. Or undead hordes, or infernalist seeking to eat your soul and turn you into a devil. There's differences that have to be acknowledged to avoid a disconnect.

There's been a lot of discussion here that's been pretty great. I'm always going to maintain a desire to stay focused on lore and would encourage others to do the same. However I've learned to be more open OCCLY. Ultimately the way you play is up to you.