Maybe its time for an UD server again?

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Cerk Evermoore
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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by Cerk Evermoore » Sat Apr 14, 2018 1:19 pm

Lol, back when drow ruled Andunor they were the most mechanically powerful so all the best players would go for drow. Now they are inferior and people pick them without PvP in mind. That's why we don't have super powerful First Houses destroying the surface anymore... That's why I made a post about returning a major gift to drow. Because as it stands right now, drow are not really the best at anything except resisting spells.

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Cortex
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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by Cortex » Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:00 pm

im the best player and i didnt play drow when it was op or other ud races now....................
:)

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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by Rebel4ever » Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:06 pm

If you can enforce Lolth's will? Cool! If not... she is a goddess of trickery, intrigue, and deceit. And that's what many of us have been engaged in after publicly getting our asses kicked a few times trying to go: "Rawr, Lolth tlu malla!"
#

So basically if your high level you can do what you want. Best RP EVER. Its basically meta gaming, you aren't rping the character but rather the levels you have. You meet a person and your level 30 and you know they aren't doesn't matter what they RP because you know your character will win. I mean that is cool on a pvp server where your just going to power build and murder everyone you come across.
Last edited by Rebel4ever on Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Cerk Evermoore
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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by Cerk Evermoore » Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:10 pm

Even if a person who is new hits max level, they'll still not be able to beat someone who is experienced in building characters. High AC/Save builds especially.

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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by Rebel4ever » Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:19 pm

Cerk Evermoore wrote:
Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:10 pm
Even if a person who is new hits max level, they'll still not be able to beat someone who is experienced in building characters. High AC/Save builds especially.
Only in level 30 vs 30 but your hardly new to the server if your level 30 at least i don't level that fast. I expect it will take months and that aside is power building what its all about? I mean i like pvp but i didn't expect the server to be about how to build the most powerful character rather than an RP character. If that is the case i made a big mistake taking charisma stats.

It might just be me but a server that allows no OOC talk being all about power builds is strange.

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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by Cerk Evermoore » Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:44 pm

Not everyone is a power build, but plenty are and you'll know it when you engage them in pvp.

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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by Durvayas » Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:54 pm

You know what... I think I'm going to repeat myself, especially after Mithreas' post, because I'd like people to weigh in on this idea. Under that I'll address the government and vassalage system.

The humans+monster mix have the numbers and the power to compete with the drow; We can see that right now with current goings on, which was never a thing during the Udos-Grond era. I fully believe that we can all have our cake and eat it too. I do not think that traditional lolthite culture in RP must nescessarily be sacrificed.
It would be a pretty good idea for a drow settlement to be built somewhere to give them somewhere to completely immerse themselves in drow culture as it is typically portrayed, and in truth, it may even be healthier for the UD to have a second settlement that competes with Andunor as it opens up a great deal of conflict RP.

The traditional drow(Lolthites, Kiarans, and post-reformation la'laskrans) would flock to this new settlement, while the drow that typically do not fit in well in the UD without constant PvP(Vhaerunites, Sharrans, Ghaunadaurites, Eilistreans, and Zinzerinaan) would be able to build themselves a niche in Andunor with the monsters and the outcasts, along with the less conservative lolthite drow taking advantage of it being a trade city.

Avenues of conflict opened:
-Territorial disputes
-Religious skirmishing
-Hegemonic dominion(Reminiscent of the Grond-Udos wars, but in this case the monster city actually stands a good chance)
-Factions Exiled from either settlement have somewhere they can go rather than mass rolling/deleting/hiding in the port away from all the RP.

The UD has been booming with numbers. I'm very confident that the server has the players, and will sustain the numbers, to be able to have both a Menzo-lite drow city, and skullport.

AND, relevent to the topic at hand, The drow-centric city could be located on the surface server, which would take some of the strain of the C&P server.
And on to Winkin...
In fact, a lot of the governmental powers are quite obscure. Someone told me recently that you cannot evict people from the Temple or the largest drow house. I have no clue if this is true, and I think it is a bad idea that some things are poorly documented and you only get to know about it if you have had previous experience of the system. I've been told that appointees of the previous administration, but not previous electees, can sometimes hold on to their powers for the period of the next administration. I've seen leaders in the Sharps unable to exile people, and deselected employees evict people, but I don't know if this is true or not or how it actually works or whether it was simply a glitch. I think the whole system could do with being a lot less opaque.
The table governement does have the ability to evict the temple and the mansions, but usually it is political suicide, as those are consistently held by the two strongest drow factions(the first house, and the temple itself). As well, there is never any good reason to evict the temple, unless its been lost by an OOC slipup by the priestess holding it, and a player hostile to the temple takes it over. I say player, because anyone taking over the temple knows that it will be siezed back almost immediately, and the only purpose there could be to sniping it would be so they can grind the entire temple faction to a halt for a short time and destroy all of its fixtures, which I daresay is the definition of griefing.

As for the vassalage system...

Its broken. Outright broken. No sense trying to justify it for how it is right now, it is objectively broken.

The vassalage system is an odd holdover from when the war system was in place. Settlements could declare war, and on victory, vassalize the losing settlement. Said settlement could then later declare war and lift the vassalage if they managed to win. Later, the war system was removed, but vassalage was overlooked(probably because it wasn't being used at the time). The system remains in place, but there is no mechanical method of removing it from one's own settlement anymore.

There is only one method of removing it at all mechanically, and it is an OOC tactic that makes no IC sense. A vassalized settlement would be forced to voterush the settlement that holds vassalage over it, to take over their government in order to lift the vassalage manually.

The problem with the system as it sits right now is that revolt is mechanically impossible, and, as Winkinblinkin mentioned, entirely at the mercy of a single player in this instance. I'll point out that even slavery RP has a mechanical means of breaking it; Several in fact.

Vassalage is actively detrimental to the settlement that is vassalized, and if the majority of a settlement wants to revolt, they should have a means to do so. This isn't even only about the table either. Guld is currently vassalized to Brog, and I don't imagine they intend for it to be permanent. The system needs to be either fixed, or just entirely removed. It can be roleplayed fine, but right now even if the table could roflstomp the sharps in a civil war, they'd be unable to lift their own vassalage, which makes no sense at all.
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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by BegoneThoth » Sat Apr 14, 2018 3:07 pm

Rebel4ever wrote:
Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:06 pm
So basically if your high level you can do what you want. Best RP EVER. Its basically meta gaming, you aren't rping the character but rather the levels you have. You meet a person and your level 30 and you know they aren't doesn't matter what they RP because you know your character will win.
That's why it's so important to build well and level up efficiently.
\

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Maladus
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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by Maladus » Sat Apr 14, 2018 3:37 pm

BegoneThoth wrote:
Sat Apr 14, 2018 3:07 pm
Rebel4ever wrote:
Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:06 pm
So basically if your high level you can do what you want. Best RP EVER. Its basically meta gaming, you aren't rping the character but rather the levels you have. You meet a person and your level 30 and you know they aren't doesn't matter what they RP because you know your character will win.
That's why it's so important to build well and level up efficiently.
While I agree that you should build well to counter those others who build well, I don't like that it has to be that way. My first every Drowess was a character that I didn't really have a plan for when starting her build. I knew that I wanted Cleric and that was about it. I took stats that I thought would be useful in an RP sense (basically Charisma because I wanted her to be smoking hot and use that to her advantage), I took Rogue levels at level 9-11 because Lolth is all about trickery and deceit, and I probably had some skillpoints invested into RP skills.

Not only is this bad for when you get to level 30 and start engaging in conflict with other players, but outside of possible DM events, there isn't really a whole lot that mechanically supports RP builds. Now I'm not saying it would be easy to find ways to mehcanically support it, and powerbuilders are going to powerbuild...but I like to dream of a world where RP > power.

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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by nobs3 » Sat Apr 14, 2018 4:13 pm

Mithreas wrote:
Sat Apr 14, 2018 7:03 am
.... There are real design challenges with trying to have a Llothite society and a monster society co-existing; there will always be a level of conflict because at heart, Llothites see other races as inferior. Either the setting backs that up or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, it makes it very hard to maintain.
Times back good leaders of Grond always found ways to have a good standing because Grond was the big winning card in the inner drow power struggle (between drow houses).

Now I would just give non-drow races an extrem and respectful mititary power (NPCs: armored ogres, explosive goblins, heavy balistas... maybe the mechanical options to summon) and/ or the power over some needed ressources.

I dont think the old problem "bowing to drow is robbing my fun" is important anymore.

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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by nobs3 » Sat Apr 14, 2018 4:19 pm

The possibilities for cultural UD race rp are just very narrow atm.

But as far as I know the reason for this is an other experience: We had sometimes very closed "race based faction rp" (IMO that wasn't too much a problem but...). So racial "guilds" (old topic "save heavens") were frowned uppon and at least for non-drow UD races destroyed [EDIT: or mechanical support was canceled] . Andonur favors individual rp. Your character is a single outsider (most likely mercenary) who arrived at Andunor to forge his/her own future. - No natives.

I don't know if that would change...
Last edited by nobs3 on Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by WinkinBlinkin » Sat Apr 14, 2018 4:44 pm

I like Ebonstar's idea of three districts. Three is the magic number for political rp. It would be nice to see each having unremovable power over its own district, but additionally the three together having access to majority writs over some larger, citywide options. Get rid of vassalage, get rid of three seats in the Table (I like it for drow, but it would over complicate matters). Keep a neutral Hub and Wheel zone in the middle. I don't think you would need to make each zone specific to a particular race mechanically, I think that would happen fairly naturally.

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Maladus
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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by Maladus » Sat Apr 14, 2018 9:35 pm

I agree that another District in Andunor night he really nice, and I favor the idea of them being set apart for the various races/collection of races. I would also like to see other settlements in the Underdark as a whole. There used to be Jhared’s way back when and it was a nice sort of neutral ground between Udos and Urblexis even though it didn’t have any political system of its own. It would be really cool to see a ‘Castle of the Deep’ like the castles on the surface.

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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by Cerk Evermoore » Sun Apr 15, 2018 5:36 am

I would really like to just get the hell out of Andunor. Most conflict never happens because, "I see this guy every day in The Hub. A prolonged conflict with him would probably result in me dying, something my character would want to avoid."

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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by nobs3 » Sun Apr 15, 2018 8:08 am

Three districts with restricted voting in each district (drow/non-drow-UD-races/outcasts – slaves should not be able to vote!) was suggested before but now things change(d) a bit.

Again: If it is wanted that the UD gets more inhabited by non-UD-races that bring life and rp to the UD, then it gets more and more clear that this process needs to be organized/ channeled.

Topics for an (mainly) Outcast district could be slave and black market trade with surface and necromancy.
An NPC would be good telling about role and standing of Outcasts in Andunur and giving some rp tips.
(Also there was a suggestion about an Outcast ranking system…)

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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by Rebel4ever » Sun Apr 15, 2018 9:42 am

The only reason Drow would be able to treat other free races like trash is if there are no other competing houses...lets say your a Duergar and House A treats you like crap...

House B on the other hand treats you more respectfully (like a mercenary rather than a slave) you would probably be inclined to throw your lot in with house B.

However house C starts treating others like equals...the Arch Priestess should have a stern word with the matron telling her she is walking dangerous ground.

I have seen many people quote Lloth as god of trickery and intrigue but this is only really true among drow society. How often do you see drow at a human/Dwarf/Duergar court? not often seeing everyone is well aware they cannot be trusted. Its the competition between the houses that keeps them from turning everyone into enemies...as they are more worried about the rival house than outside threats most of the time.


I usually play a quite fanatical Llothite so i find myself running into problems with the current city...which is why I am going to put that character on hold for now. She simply doesn't fit in properly....shes too angry about well everything, while usually a Lloth fanatic is quite at home in drow society. I made her with Llothite society in mind seeing she was my first drow on this server..i have played a fair bit of drow so thought i knew enough to be able to fit in with a cleric right off the bat.

The other thing is that the way drow society is simply not fair by any means...you find people playing "might makes right" aren't properly playing a drow. An example is any male is expendable on his own...the reason some are not touchable is that they are protected by a female. Even a house drow male is expendable...however you would risk the wrath of a matron..something few are willing to do, seeing its very likely she would be extremely displeased! While a wizard is highly valued and almost untouchable to most Yathrin due to his importance to his house...a common drow warrior would never be so sure of his footing in society.

The problem falls when a roleplayer male warrior who is say 10 levels higher than a female cleric have an arguement in public and it results in violence and he kills her..that would get him killed..regardless if he was correct in the arguement..he broke Lloths law. So what wins gameplay or lore/law/Llothism? The sever rules would say it was fine, however that is OOC and not roleplay. So assuming its in the HUB with many witnesses... Lloth society could not let that side.

TLDR - Lloth society is setup for an unfair system and to play in it you must accept that is the case. If you don't of course you will feel the deck is stacked against you, because it is. Lloth society is simply only good if everyone is prepared to accept their role if not you really can't roleplay it properly.

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Baron Saturday
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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by Baron Saturday » Sun Apr 15, 2018 11:26 am

... Does anyone else feel like this thread is rehashing really familiar arguments?
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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by Rebel4ever » Sun Apr 15, 2018 12:14 pm

Baron Saturday wrote:
Sun Apr 15, 2018 11:26 am
... Does anyone else feel like this thread is rehashing really familiar arguments?
Well there is pretty good reason for it. The reason being that how the underdark is right now...it really doesn't make sense.
Drow culture is distinguished by a curious mixture of monotheism and polytheism uncharacteristic of most human and demihuman cultures of the Realms. Most drow cities--such as Guallidurth, Menzoberranzan, and Ched Nasad--are ruled in the name of Lolth by priests of the Spider Queen and even the mention, let alone the worship, of other gods is forbidden. A few drow cities--such as Llurth Dreier (Ghaunadaur) and V'elddrinnsshar (Kiaransalee)--are ruled by the clergy of other drow powers in similar fashion, but they too forbid the worship or mention of all other gods.

Lloth Dogma
Fear is as strong as steel, while love and respect are soft and useless. Convert or destroy nonbeliever drow. Weed out the weak and the rebellious. Destroy impugners of the faith. Sacrifice males, slaves, and those of other races who ignore the commands of Lolth or her clerics. Raise children to praise and fear Lolth, each family should produce at least one cleric to serve her. Questioning Lolth’s motives or wisdom is a sin, as is aiding nondrow against the drow, or ignoring Lolth’s commands for the sake of a lover. Revere arachnids of all kinds; those who kill or mistreat a spider must die.
So the drow players are in limbo trying to play Llothite society. Given those examples would you say Lloth was the sharing type? It simply doesn't work. I think it makes sense either to have it or not...but a half way house will never work. Nobody follows Lloth out of love...if Lloth has no power then she will have no faithful. I actually got killed ic by a epic level character because my character said the drow had failed. The quoted above is what i would expect a Lloth Yathrin to expect...and when she finds the city in the state that it in...its not hard to figure out why she see's failure. "Weed out the weak and the rebellious."

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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by reighbo » Sun Apr 15, 2018 12:56 pm

I like Ebonstar's idea of three districts. Three is the magic number for political rp.
I'm with this ... and yes, 3 or the odd #'s (playerbase considered).

Semi-normally 3 Noble drow houses, 3 elected within Devil's Table, could be 3 settlements.
helps to curb ... Us vs. THEM.

Tho often its more about, faction vs. faction (even race vs. race).
Is more than 3 races .... and just as well to assume more than 3 factions.
Yet with playerbase increase, id hope to think its time near to actually consider a 3rd settlement.
Be it the Port District, or even one out actually outside the city proper ...

Its citizen's list could get filled rather fast (its resources too).
So racial "guilds" (old topic "save heavens") were frowned upon and at least for non-drow UD races destroyed
Yet each time a few drows band together in forming a House ... a few gnolls will band together to to form a pack.
etc etc.
i guess i never could fully see, only totally mixed raced factions (a few yes ok, yet not always) within the UD, often RP is race driven anyhow.
Perhaps the Devil's Table ... with its 3 elected winners ...... Sharps with its 1 ...... and Port (or wherever) with 1.
As might not be 3 yet 5 is still an odd number.
And Drow House/faction building is never really frowned upon to begin with, as perhaps faction building within the other races feels to or seems to be. (yet still occurs).

:mrgreen:

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Re: Maybe its time for an UD server again?

Post by MalKalz » Sun Apr 15, 2018 1:33 pm

Well, this derailed. The answer to this thread was awhile ago by Irongron. So locking.

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