Cormyr and the Dalelands

So rather than continue on the previous discussion, I felt I should take a different track and discuss something else - namely, the Hardest Part about CD.

First, to reiterate, the general concept is that CD is a Persistent Story server. This means the world changes and adapts with what happens, and that the greater story is made up by the combination of all the smaller/individual stories. It's OOCly Cooperative, but can be ICly Competitive.

What, then, is the Hardest Part about this?

Conflict Resolution.

That is, 'What do we do when two characters or groups of characters are at odds in the sandbox'? Every player has the same equal right to be here, to take part, to design and play out their character, and make their contribution to the story. How do we handle the fact that some characters won't agree, and worse, may be in direct opposition?


1) The easiest way would simply be to outlaw it entirely. If everyone is on the same side, then the worst of it is gone. At the same time, we feel this kills off both a large swathe of potential characters, as well as the fact that eliminating conflict eliminates a driver of roleplay/story along with it, putting far more onus on the DMs to do the heavy lifting there. So as far as CD is concerned, this is out.

2) The second easiest way would be to use engine mechanics entirely. The problem with this notion is that it turns the server into a de facto warzone, and that's something we don't want to do. I've played games like that, and it's not what I wanted to see from CD, because I find that ultimately the game becomes more about putting an RP skin over your PVP, than PVP facilitating RP. It's also just not fun for me to have to watch my back 24/7.

3) So where does that leave us? With two options - Adjudication by Authority, and Mutual Agreement. To some extent, we implement both; primarily however we want the game to run by Mutual Agreement. More importantly, we prefer to have it operate via the latter, because the Admins really only have so much time, energy, and patience, that we'd rather spend on fun stuff, rather than solving disagreements.

So how should Mutual Agreement work? Roughly, it works in the same way you might approach a game where the point isn't to win, but to continue playing the game as long as possible. You aim not for the kill, but for the outmaneuver - your goal isn't the elimination of your opponent, merely the blocking of their schemes. Furthermore, you both come to a tacit or even an open understanding that sometimes you'll let them succeed with some of their schemes, because none of those will be a 'fatal' blow, and in return they do the same. It helps in a way if you think of yourself not just as your character, but as the co-writers of a script for a long-running TV series involving all of your characters... ...and it would be really, really sucky TV if the plot was spoiled in the first episode or two, or a major plot arc, hero, or villain, suddenly died/got exposed/etc early on.

If anything, I find that last one seems to be the hardest part for players on CD. Everyone always seems so cutthroat, out to expose and destroy the "enemy" by any means possible, whether it was blasting away with Detect Evil all the time, sneaking around in stealth in common areas and spying on other players' roleplay, or even somehow doing their utmost to short circuit and cut right to the end without letting any drama or tension or interest build over time. We've tried to encourage people to play the way we intended, and to block short circuiting of that, though we can't completely eliminate everything.

Ultimately it's up to all of us, the players. We're the ones who make this story interesting or not. The Admins are here to try and keep it all on track, and to not let anything completely go off the rails. We're not going to let the evil players "win" outright anymore than we're going to let the good aligned ones do so - we're going to constantly try and steer things back to equilibrium.

I like rp combat with only rolls for damage. it needs to have an experienced moderator though.

And thanks for bringing up storytelling through not ending a plot as soon as possible. Or not wanting to get to the bottom of something in one night. Let the story, conflict air out. Give time to come up with smart or unexpected twists and turns from both sides.

If the story, however is just two people wanting to pvp, then it's onto the players and not the staff to make that more meaningful than he said/she said so I kill. No high school pls(even though it can seem like it somedays).

Super awesome (obligatory: sauce) post.  I'd rather just RP the fight entirely and decide before hand who is going to win.  Honestly, mechanically PvP? Yawn.  Wake me up when you kill me.

Anyone can feel free to contact me and say "I want to do this with my character but I don't know how!" and I'll see if I can put my character(s) in a situation to help that out.  It really is most rewarding form of RP in my opinion.  You will then owe me a favour!  A gnomish favour*!

P.S. I will be needing someone who would be willing to do something mean (and messy) to one of my characters. Inquire within. (seriously)


* in no event will said gnomish favours be liable to said gnome; this shall include (but not limited to) hair loss, memory loss, body part loss, taste bud loss, profit loss, pie loss.

I'm pretty good at both mean and messy.

I would just like to say, I support all this.  Not only does the desire to 'win' tend to motivate actions OOCly after a while but it also creates an environment of paranoia where even people who are doing something totally innocent can be viewed with suspicion simply because they're 'on the other team.'  I know a bit about this first-hand and I'm probably one of the more guilty people when it comes to doing it.  I've also seen many an interesting plot get shorted out in the past because of grievances leading to things like unnecessary IC violence, OOC tell-wars, or straight-up metagaming, and it really sucks for everyone else involved to see a good quest die because some people can't get along.

I've been avoiding this topic for a bit because I really, really hate dice-roll fights.  I played on a dice-fight server for awhile, which was bleach based and I'll just say this.  You get into one fight with one other person?  Enjoy signing your next 2 - 3 hours of your life away.  And that's going on a UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED SET OF RULES.  You get into a "My reflex lets me dodge your magic missile" debate and you have a whole new can of worms.

I prefer the fastest, most efficient manner of conflict resolution nwn has given us.  That said, I rarely roll above a 5.  Usually it's 1's and 2's ... ask anyone that hangs out with me in Stonehaven.  We celebrate when I roll higher than a 5.  Or at least I do.  It's not about winning or losing, ... I simply refuse to have my half-balor priest of tempus get face rolled by people simply because RNGesus hates me.

I'm not particularly fond of them either, so at least that makes two of us. Given the entire combat system of NWN is essentially using a die-roller, one that's really no more or less random than the dicebag codes, I really can't see much reason to not use the conveniently-provided automated system. Especially since not using it makes far, far too much opportunity for a DM or player to forget or over-add a bonus or penalty.

Roleplaying conflict allows for cool flourish and characterization

My belief has always been if it comes down to PvP combat in a frequent fashion then that equals a collective failure. The setting is much more dynamic and interesting to conflict against than our avatars.

Besides full on PvP is almost meaningless and immersion rendering without permadeath. Maybe a good bar-fight/fist-fight in the right context can be meaningful but if too frequent it removes its own special-ness.

One theme here I can agree on is dice-roll PvP isn't very interesting to me. In the rare instance my characters engage in PvP it would be engine driven. Even in the fist fight example, drop weapons and go at it via the engine. Dice-roll PvP even with clear rules devolves into a crapshow.

I always feel that PvP should be a last-resort sort of resolution to conflict.  It had been needed at times here (sometimes, not happening soon enough), but for the most part, I think it is more interesting to create different ways to have IC conflict before it leads to that point.  Daeatria and Vyilea had a sort of tense 'civility' in the arena not too long ago, and that sort of conflict is much preferable to flatout PvP or feeling strongarmed to PvP or leave.  I even checked in at times to figure out what was going on, so I did not jump the gun, as it were. Seeing it was reasonable conflict levels, I rolled with it.

Funny enough, after some of the conflict, the two reached a point where there was agreeable wary neutrality.

Sincerely,
Arya

I prefer text based combat with no attribute rolls at all, really, unless absolutely necessary. It's how I was RP raised for years before I even touched DnD. It allows for the smarter player to have an upper hand and less rngesus or +million in free stats to inflate or win rolls no matter what. It's more of a mental and balanced competition to me that way, because we all know how balanced this server is for any mechanical pvp.

But you'll only come across this from me and some of my events, most likely.

An example I've used before is if I want to bring over a character I've had before, a fifteen year, undefeated chultan pit master, to cormyr, he would need to start at level three. That shouldn't mean the local level twenty bard should be able to knock him dead in two punches. I view it as earning reputation within the country instead of some weird mind and muscle amnesia. He should be able to match up again anyone fairly and give them a run for their money if played properly but nwn mechanics don't offer that possibility.

I used to be all for mechanical PvP.  I played a Talosian cleric.  She did not have many friends.

I later found out that some of the people were older and not very quick when it came to reaction time.  Others have anxiety issues when it comes to PvP.

Both of these thing has led me to believe that text based combat (I don't like the dice rolls style) are far superior to mechanical PvP.  (basically, I don't want physical  or mental limitations to limit someone's RP)

Did I completely stop mechanical PvP?  Nope, but it was never my decision; I always let the other person(s) decide.  

One of my most memorable PvP situations was when we discussed it ahead of time that we would have a magic duel.  One spell after another.  First spell: Flesh to Stone.  Result?  Stone.  My character was then taken to the council chambers of the central elven community.  As I said, she didn't have many friends and stayed there for one or two years in real life time.   The spell did wear off, but it seemed cooler to pretend that it didn't.

We're all here to tell stories, so in my opinion, lets find out who can tell the best story as a result of a win or loss and go with it.

To some degree that's the D&D system though. To another degree, you can think of it all you will, but we don't simply let people bring in outside characters in that sense. You can remake a character, and continue their story, but, everyone has to start at the same level of training, power, and ability. You can't simply decide you want to continue being an Archmage, or a Master Thief, or Blademaster, etc etc, and therefore you ought to be one. You're welcome to come up with an excuse as to why they've lost the powers/abilities/skills they once had, but you can't simply expect to start there.

In an ideal world, maybe it'd be different, but that's the setup we're dealing with.

I wasn't lobbying to start a wizard at level 14 =p. There just may be some backgrounds that make fresh characters more experienced at hand to hand combat, for instance, than a level 16 barbarian who has had a great axe in his/her hands since fifteen years old(assuming they aren't seventeen year old twinks now).

I wholeheartedly agree with this, but if the conflict has resorted to battle between participants, it's already failed. And at that point, the nwn engine should be leaned upon in my opinion.  Before this point however, is all that succulent, meaty RP that makes conflict in a Fantasy setting so mouth watering and delicious.

Well, I do remember an instance long ago between Aesa and Ife, where the former was on the receiving end of some spilled wine - so she struck Ife. Now, Aesa's... very strong, very very strong - so if it was handled in engine against my level 5 self, I don't think it would've been too interesting!

It wasn't handled that way. Instead, though I forget the details, Ife had just enough energy to survive and kick Aesa right in the face, puncturing her cheek with a heel. This is before she gets knocked cold by a punch.

I thought it was well done, and one of the more memorable experiences I've had with conflict. I'm glad it wasn't handled in the engine, even though it came to "a battle".

Therefore, I will respectfully disagree! I don't think the conflict has failed.

I'm with Bass. (And apparently ninja'd.)

The reason I'm with Bass is because if you're adding in everything that should be added in, then that failure to one-shot Ife should have happened regardless of the engine or not. If engine-combat would have one-shotted her but rolling didn't, something clearly got forgotten or deliberately omitted, which I consider either a mistake or a "cheat" (for lack of a better word).

RPed-out, roll-by-roll combat has too many opportunities to, intentionally or not, leave out information like that. Which as a GM bugs me immensely and I'm not incredibly fond of it from playerside either. I have to deal with that on a regular basis with some of my newer players in PnP games, forgetting to add bonuses from feats, spells, items, or otherwise. The convenience of NWN calculating and handling combat for you spares me at least one of those irritants. I love D&D as a game (well, more accurately, Pathfinder) but having to keep track of all the fiddly math and minor details like that is my least favorite part, especially in high-level play, and I'm immensely happy that NWN takes care of all that for me.

That and doing dice-roll combat in PnP takes an immense amount of time, increased exponentially the higher level you go, and NWN is - more often than not - slower. That may be slightly sped up now that we have the /roll commands rather than having to use the dicebag, but likely not by much.

I should say, there was no rolling! It was RPed. It's very clear Ife, as a normal civilian, was no match for amazon-Aesa... so at least to give it flavor, I believe we skipped rolling.

Otherwise yes, your logic is sound!

Sometimes it's just about trusting the people involved to play it out well.

Ah, see now that is a completely different situation, in which I have no opposition. I thought we were referring to where some GMs drop the in-game combat engine and have everyone break out the dicebags and the /roll commands and play through combat round-by-round, as if emulating a PnP combat session.

Carry on.

Yeah. I'm not a fan of dice roll combat. You may as well just use the engine. One of the best pvp excursions I've ever seen on the server though was tobias and aesa dice roll combating in the woods for Marziima's (expensive) amusement. It was truly epic and ending with both of them lazily punching each other in the face while exhausted on their backs, because each player played to their strengths and rolls were rather even between dex and strength. 10/10 there. I would've given them a big rp bonus if I were topside while I probably would've been salty betting if they used the engine.

The best I've had was an epic thumb-wrestling match between Calabask and Felix. I wish I had saved the screenshots.

Ultimately, dice rolls (or engine combat) are just tools to help us, but they're imperfect for various reasons stated above - and if everyone involved can agree roughly on what happens, then the dice aren't necessary at all. It's only when you can't agree, or aren't willing to be flexible, that dice are needed... and even then, so much comes down to "well, what do I roll, and vs what target/opposing skill?" A lot of the times when I roll, it's only to display the modifier, rather than to actually make the check (nevermind that it's patently silly that there's a static 5% chance of miserable failure even at basic tasks...)

Well technically not, since people tend to forget that a 1 on a skill check isn't an auto-fail. >_>

And the reason you don't constantly roll 1s (like me in real life) walking around the house is because you can "take 10" on everything while not in combat.