Award cycling races: Giants

[AskRyze]

I feel the need to point out that kobolds in the underdark have been not using pronouns for nearly a decade but they aren't getting a talking to over that sort of behavior or being considered 'noninclusive'. It's a peculiar arelithism, sure, but frankly this sort of thing comes from one person doing it as part of their character, other people going "Wow that sounds so cool, I want to do that!" and then they do it. Nothing more or less. Nothing is forcing you to move in lockstep, and no one will judge you if you find it difficult to portray.

[FurtiveBas]

Actively playing as a half-giant myself, I have few curiosities about untapped possibilities of one glaring fact :
Old english spoken by half-giants, being very hard to grasp for most players?

From this trouble alone, I was expecting many characters voicing their complains about it IC to us half-giants. Something along the lines of "Can you tallfolk speak simple common, for the sake of many that are present??" Isn't it part of the RP to just voice your opinion IC? Add your flavors while you are at it. Factor our characters' alignment and upbringing into it. It could lead to interesting interactions or snarks. You might succeed in making said HG to finally speak simple common, or it can turn into bickering. Whatever happens, it will be part of RP.

Or, from this trouble alone, I was hoping for those who can speak both old and simple english to play as interpreters. If no one acts upon this, I will see what I can do IC through my own character.

[Sincra]

Actively playing as a half-giant myself, I have few curiosities about untapped possibilities of one glaring fact :
Old english spoken by half-giants, being very hard to grasp for most players?

From this trouble alone, I was expecting many characters voicing their complains about it IC to us half-giants. Something along the lines of "Can you tallfolk speak simple common, for the sake of many that are present??" Isn't it part of the RP to just voice your opinion IC? Add your flavors while you are at it. Factor our characters' alignment and upbringing into it. It could lead to interesting interactions or snarks. You might succeed in making said HG to finally speak simple common, or it can turn into bickering. Whatever happens, it will be part of RP.

Or, from this trouble alone, I was hoping for those who can speak both old and simple english to play as interpreters. If no one acts upon this, I will see what I can do IC through my own character.

The server is English speaking.
You are not allowed to predominantly use an alternate language.
The old english I have seen used which is a mishmash of several hundred years of terms is another language by definition of how hard it can be read, or understand, even for someone that -Is- English.

This is why Xanelress was first added, as historical proof to the point.
People used to memorise the language and key words and use it as a test for those that are in and those that are out.
And No, Old English won't be becoming a cipher!

[Subtext]

Actively playing as a half-giant myself, I have few curiosities about untapped possibilities of one glaring fact :
Old english spoken by half-giants, being very hard to grasp for most players?

From this trouble alone, I was expecting many characters voicing their complains about it IC to us half-giants. Something along the lines of "Can you tallfolk speak simple common, for the sake of many that are present??" Isn't it part of the RP to just voice your opinion IC? Add your flavors while you are at it. Factor our characters' alignment and upbringing into it. It could lead to interesting interactions or snarks. You might succeed in making said HG to finally speak simple common, or it can turn into bickering. Whatever happens, it will be part of RP.

Or, from this trouble alone, I was hoping for those who can speak both old and simple english to play as interpreters. If no one acts upon this, I will see what I can do IC through my own character.

Also something to keep in mind, maybe....consider that there are many people around that don't speak English as their first language.

In my case I can say that I had more than one situation where I had trouble following the conversation (or outright didn't understand a good chunk of it at all) despite actually speaking relatively decent English myself. Sure, I could have asked folks to speak in a way they could be understood, but frankly, in the moment? I mostly felt self-conscious, a little stupid and eventually checked out of the RP.

I'm probably not the only one who feels that way.

[The GrumpyCat]

IMO, dropping the odd none-english word to suggest a characters heritage/background/nationality isn't an entirely bad thing. E.g. Words for yes, no, hello, goodbye, ect -esp where they're generally fairly well known anyway, just one or two is no huge sweat. But if you're using such parlence heavily, to the point where people are having trouble understanding the majority of what your pc is saying? Then there's a problem. A few words for flavour is fine, but what matters over all is base communication.

[Windows95 CD-ROM]

I can see why this race was removed from the current cycle of award races, it is not a race that exists within the lore, and from what I could observe, I saw a lot of half-giants who would be made and levelled only to disappear a few weeks later outside of the few that were involved in Jotunhold rp, and the one or two that I saw present in other server supported settlements. I also found Jotunhold to be a very isolated area on the handful of IC visits I made, location-wise and socially, with few RP opportunities if there weren't characters around to roleplay with.

I think Ork made a very eloquent statement on the lack of archetype and lore that is built around them as well and I fully agree with the statement.

I think there are some fantastic half-giant characters and the players behind them are excellent writers. That said, half-giants were the most problematic add in terms of race solely because at their core they're decoupled from the setting and players have to navigate their existence bereft of any established foundation. Every other race can find examples of the archetypal paragon of their species. Half-giants had to navigate constructing that on their own which often and frequently conflicted with setting lore.

If you were someone with no established knowledge prior of getting involved with the Jotunhold group who could give examples for the archetype of half-giants on the server, being able to find the RP that abides with the setting and it's established lore would probably be a difficult task outside of reading that the Wiki or some 2e source-books could offer.

[solar separation]

i don't personally have any sort of issue with how a lot of half-giant player characters have portrayed themselves with the beowulf-esque manner of speaking. there should be characters that have a certain way of speaking, even if it takes a few moments to understand them.
exhibit a: treebeard.

if people were having genuine issues communicating as a result of it, tells should've been sent regarding. i'd also hope that these character traits had no bearing on the cycling out of the race, as is the point of the thread in question.

[Economics For Hexblades]

stuuuuff

I think while a lot of this was very well-said, it faces a lot of logic fallacies and arguments that can be proven wrong through facts and not emotional appeal.

The main reason I came to post in this thread was to express the sheer confusion and disappointment I feel in creating a whole entire area for the race, making it apart of the server's lore, and then hitting them with the hard remove as opposed to changing their reward tier. So I chose to respond to this post to kinda clarify I respectfully disagree with a lot of what you had to say, though I don't really plan to (or necessarily have the mental energy) to tackle all of the points I don't believe to be true.

I will quickly address the HARD removal: No, this isn't a trend with proven evidence. In my experience, the "rotation" has for literal years now been a shifting between the greater and major positions for higher tier award races. Dragons and liches (because there was one, and I have been on this server long enough to have once wished for a 5% to play a lich) have faced complete and total removal. Being removed from the rotation, as far as I have any real information to base this upon, means that half giants have just been removed entirely. With little fanfare, or justification actually given. Of late, this idea of the "server's direction" is honestly being used to back a lot of genuinely abusive attitudes towards players seeking answers.

In history of Arelith, we have seen the removal of areas, yes, but certainly not the one you listed. The Banites didn't lose the temple as you suggested, it was merely moved and upgraded. What we have lost is every place in the Underdark to hang out besides the Hub. But honestly, even if the big summer surge hit, we would never have enough Underdark consistency at the moment to justify multiple Underdark settings.

However, the Surface has clearly, and for a long time, not abided by these rules. Sure. we've lost a few. First, we lost Benwick to the machinations of Vippin. Second, the destruction of Wharftown was a result of in character hostilities that drew upon the wrath of a nation. Third, Guldorand was turned into Westcliff which is more like a town or demi-settlement under the rule of the city-state of Guldorand, but that was the one time Surface history a settlement literally lost its settlement system to try and force players to a city that remains largely dead to this day. What was the solution to this? There wasn't, we just added literally more places on the Surface to spread ourselves thin. Edit: I'm neglecting Myon. Moved, but still a settlement with special portals. It's realistically done nothing to change their isolationist nature.

Too little too late, we already have Jotunhold which hosts a great deal of history on the server. The idea that they don't fit into the server's lore just sounds like a poorly backed justification for what is beginning to feel like just the latest decision in a series of sudden and aggressive changes that no one has any actual say in. Even our opinions are being suggested to not be read. In-fact, if the person who recently said not to read the feedback forums for two months or so after changes is sticking to their own advice, they will never see this thread. Thus making people's thoughts and feelings completely irrelevant to them. In that, I suppose I could just ramble forever because whatever I have to say now means literally nothing.

But I digress.

Jotunhold is not gone. Completely removing a race from selection is historically a death warrant. This argument and idea of "the server's lore" becomes completely ridiculous when firbolgs are justified for some reason that is truly beyond me.

If the "server's lore" is something seperate from "normal lore," then we should stop making sudden and drastic decisions based upon normal lore and instead reflect upon what the devs and the players together have made the server into.

Sadly, and especially with recent harsh comments from a certain staff member, it just seems like these decisions are being made based upon desires now and are coming across to me as often almost spiteful. The half-giants are even oocly one of the best parts of the community. Any suggestion that putting them in the same hole as dragons is only temporary lacks any reliability or feelings of relief, putting aside the fact they should have just been made a major.

The half-giant community doesn't deserve this to be done in silence, nor do they deserve the sheer disrespectful comments they've gotten of late. A simple one line post of their complete and total removal (as I see it) is like a gun shot to the back of the head.

[Shadowy Reality]

I don't see this lack of lore as a problem, it is in fact, part of what being a half-giant is. A great part of one's roleplay should probably be to try find more about themselves, their heritage, to try to find their place in the realms. Or not, some half-orcs delve deeper into their orcish heritage, others almost discard it entirely. In same fashion, you will find half-giants that delve deeply into their Giant roots, and others don't care and try to mingle with humans.

For those that want to find more about their Giant side, to find others like them, Jotunhold are these feelings made real. A place built by half-giants, (mostly) for half-giants. They made a place for themselves and they built their own culture, I think this is the epitome of roleplay for a race of racial outcasts.

I will say it again, there are not that many active half-giants around. They were not breaking immersion any more than the 3 Fey, 2 Tieflings and 1 Gloaming you can at times see just in Cordor's square. I have actively been playing a bit all over the surface for the past two months and I can count with a single hand the number of times I bumped into half-giants.

And I would like to add that all of this hate for Old English is pretty harsh. Most of half-giants do not use this style. And those who do are amazing roleplayers and will absolutely tone it down should you ask, or someone will translate for you ingame (which can make it interesting). It is really not that different from Dwarves written with accent, or kobolds with their third person and shortening certain things. Unlike the Drow of Udos memorizing words and sentences in Xanalress, the main different, which I believe is relevant, is that no one has been whipped to death (or excluded from anything) for not bowing to the Jarl while professing the magical words in Old English.

Were all half-giants moved to Major, I would understand it. But entirely removed? That is just strange and basically leaves current half-giants stranded and unable to have any influx of new blood.

[Paint]

I'm late to this thread but instead of engaging with it I'm just going to pick at the one thing that's bugging me.

I was going to write a longer post about my confusion concerning the old english tropes being used by some of the half-giants, but I'm a little confused, actually. A lot of the archaic words being used are still in the english lexicon. Treating them like another language is... strange.

But stranger yet is the notion that a character needs to be easily understood. Are characters not allowed to speak in riddles or rely on uncommon words or speak in an obtuse way? Should I report the roleplay of a character because the way they speak is difficult for me to understand? Why? I don't understand how it's much different from a character speaking in a vague, primitive way, or indulging in excessive metaphor. Or speaking in lofty, meandering sentences or trailing off constantly. All of which, of course, imply things about that character and give them a distinctive feature.

The difficulty of communication in all of these cases is likely the intent, and that provides roleplay opportunities.

So for me, it's just a weird line to draw in the sand.

I'm always disappointed when I see Arelith's staff tell people to be less creative with their roleplay on this, a roleplay server where people go to roleplay roleplayingly. Nothing's stopping you, the player, or your character from simply being dismissive of someone you or they can't understand. And there's gold to be mined in those hills.

[Biolab00]

Actively playing as a half-giant myself, I have few curiosities about untapped possibilities of one glaring fact :
Old english spoken by half-giants, being very hard to grasp for most players?

From this trouble alone, I was expecting many characters voicing their complains about it IC to us half-giants. Something along the lines of "Can you tallfolk speak simple common, for the sake of many that are present??" Isn't it part of the RP to just voice your opinion IC? Add your flavors while you are at it. Factor our characters' alignment and upbringing into it. It could lead to interesting interactions or snarks. You might succeed in making said HG to finally speak simple common, or it can turn into bickering. Whatever happens, it will be part of RP.

Or, from this trouble alone, I was hoping for those who can speak both old and simple english to play as interpreters. If no one acts upon this, I will see what I can do IC through my own character.

Also something to keep in mind, maybe....consider that there are many people around that don't speak English as their first language.

In my case I can say that I had more than one situation where I had trouble following the conversation (or outright didn't understand a good chunk of it at all) despite actually speaking relatively decent English myself. Sure, I could have asked folks to speak in a way they could be understood, but frankly, in the moment? I mostly felt self-conscious, a little stupid and eventually checked out of the RP.

I'm probably not the only one who feels that way.

+1 to this post.
That aside, it's a choice that we made based on our own comfort zone.
I'm a player that dislike /tell function and discord meddling and usually avoid them like a plague unless time has proven that we clicked and it's usually not a preferred channel because we'll cease responding if it's out of our comfort zone.
Although i doubt that the removal of Half giant race will matter regardless of what is written or discussed here in the short run.