Discussion: Deity Changes

[threeguesses]

I would bring up a few points, with the first being that there are examples of people switching almost often. Fzoul is the best example, of someone literally deity shopping. I think in a case like this, the other consideration, which isn't often discussed, is "how useful is the convert?"

The other point I'd look at, is "the nature of the faith in question". By this I mean, the size of the following, the nature of the deity. Shaundakul, as an example, sends his avatar to walk through the ruins of Myth Drannor, to aid those who get in over their heads, and personally approaches those he seeks to turn to his faith.

While I understand the one size fits all fair approach, I think that there's a lot of room for flexibility. The major thing I would say we want to avoid, is long durations, of months, of waiting for the change to be done. Does it make sense? Maybe. Is it fun? No. No I can't imagine it is.

[Edge]

Putting myself in that situation, I don't see it as interesting or entertaining RP. I see it as "this is what the character should have been all along, I'm just fixing a mistake". No different than saying "Oh I can't get into the class I wanted because I didn't realize I needed a higher (insert stat here) score than I started with" and requesting a relevel or LETO to fix. It's an OOC error that lead to the character not working the way the player envisioned, or discovering after playing a bit that the character works differently than originally thought.

Having to RP out a change from something the character never should have been to something they were supposed to be from day one - even if it took a little time for the player to notice the error - is not my idea of fun. It's annoying, frustrating, and troublesome.

I've played a character who's had to switch deities due to in-game actions, spent almost nine months as a "fallen" character without their deity-related abilities. It was frustrating, but in a completely different way, and it was enjoyable because the character was going through a struggle that was a result of her actual actions and choices in-game. (Though I still think the time scale was ridiculous, and doubly so for people who have ended up having to wait a year or even longer in some cases.)

THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING.

This is not the character choosing to change. This is not the character having an in-character revelation, discovery, or change of heart. This is not a reaction to an RP scenario.

This is a player discovering, via the way they've played the character, that things do not match up to their original idea for the concept. This is an ERROR. And frankly, being told that I should stick with an error and just play it out with it, potentially for a long-term situation, is more likely to have me just shelve the character or request a deletion and restart from level 3. Especially in the situation we're discussing - a relatively-new character who on paper looked to work and act one way, but when the player brought them in-game and played them for a few levels realized they didn't match up quite like they thought they did.

[ladybug]

I just worry it would make for stagnant rehashings of characterization in the scenarios I've advised. If it's a player error that isn't hinged on something in-game but on interpretation of lore, then there's nothing to gain from forcing them to RP out the change of heart that isn't really a factor in the rebuild - the rebuild is mechanical only and meant to better suit the characterization. If anything, it might restrict people from letting that character move forward on their own initiative because they'd be stuck with a build that doesn't suit their concept until some arbitrary measure had been met.

Now, a story-driven rebuild, on the other hand, RP all the way, quest it up.

[suddenperihelion]

Mar 30, 2015 9:30:17 GMT -5 Edge said:

Mar 30, 2015 8:27:59 GMT -5 suddenperihelion said:

There are plenty of canonical examples of characters (including divine spellcasters) changing their nature as a result of the story. Character development is a good thing, and it's definitely not always a "mistake"!

While true, that's also completely not what I was talking about. I thought I went well out of my way to make that clear.

Yep! Check the very next sentence, I agree that the issue you are bringing up is distinct! Those first two sentences were just to help make explicit what that distinction was.

Sorry if I was confusing.

[Edge]

Mar 30, 2015 10:25:40 GMT -5 suddenperihelion said:

Mar 30, 2015 9:30:17 GMT -5 Edge said:

While true, that's also completely not what I was talking about. I thought I went well out of my way to make that clear.

Yep! Check the very next sentence, I agree that the issue you are bringing up is distinct! Those first two sentences were just to help make explicit what that distinction was.

Sorry if I was confusing.

It's more that they were kind of unnecessary. I'm more than aware that people change religions and such. It was rather irrelevant to my point, and distracting, and came off as a kind of patronizing "well you know it's not ALWAYS a mistake".

I don't think ANYONE here really thinks that characters who go through an actual character-changing shift of morality, ethics, and/or religion need to have that RPed out over a period of time - it's just the amount of that period that's really in question. On the fact that the change needs to be displayed in-game, I think we're all agreed.

The disagreement, here, seems to hinge on whether lower-level characters who the player feels belong better associated with a different faction over the one they created the character with need to have that change, also, displayed over time in-game, or if they should be allowed to just retcon their character so that they have always belonged to the new faction/religion/whatever.

[suddenperihelion]

Mar 30, 2015 10:20:31 GMT -5 Edge said:

Putting myself in that situation, I don't see it as interesting or entertaining RP. I see it as "this is what the character should have been all along, I'm just fixing a mistake". No different than saying "Oh I can't get into the class I wanted because I didn't realize I needed a higher (insert stat here) score than I started with" and requesting a relevel or LETO to fix. It's an OOC error that lead to the character not working the way the player envisioned, or discovering after playing a bit that the character works differently than originally thought.

Having to RP out a change from something the character never should have been to something they were supposed to be from day one - even if it took a little time for the player to notice the error - is not my idea of fun. It's annoying, frustrating, and troublesome.

I've played a character who's had to switch deities due to in-game actions, spent almost nine months as a "fallen" character without their deity-related abilities. It was frustrating, but in a completely different way, and it was enjoyable because the character was going through a struggle that was a result of her actual actions and choices in-game. (Though I still think the time scale was ridiculous, and doubly so for people who have ended up having to wait a year or even longer in some cases.)

THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING.

This is not the character choosing to change. This is not the character having an in-character revelation, discovery, or change of heart. This is not a reaction to an RP scenario.

This is a player discovering, via the way they've played the character, that things do not match up to their original idea for the concept. This is an ERROR. And frankly, being told that I should stick with an error and just play it out with it, potentially for a long-term situation, is more likely to have me just shelve the character or request a deletion and restart from level 3. Especially in the situation we're discussing - a relatively-new character who on paper looked to work and act one way, but when the player brought them in-game and played them for a few levels realized they didn't match up quite like they thought they did.

Ah, ok. I thought we were just speaking in general terms. Admin specifically went out of their way to solicit the opinions of the players, so I gave my opinion (though I can totally see how people might see things differently than I do; I don't imagine that my opinions are anything more than just opinions!)

It sounds like you are really more talking about one particular instance or situation now though, so the players can't really offer you very meaningful opinions in response to the admins' solicitation for opinions, because we don't know the actual details of that situation.

[ladybug]

Really, the best way to do this is going to be to categorize it as a build error versus a development conversion.

If it's an error, hell, make it a LETO request. Everything else is allowed. Imagine if you made someone RP out learning their shiny new Power Attack before they were allowed to take it. I don't think it's feasible or sensible.

If it's a conversion based on development - say someone fell in with a bad crowd and slowly started converting to, I dunno, Cyric. That needs to be done via RP and should probably be put in as a request as soon as the player has a feeling that the conversion may be happening so they can log what they do for proof of concept.

Two different setups, two different solutions. Level cutoff should definitely be taken into account so someone doesn't try to cheese it by skating into mid-epics and then realizing they can admit an error for better domain spells. By that point, given it takes months to accrue enough faery xp to level, the error should have been realized long ago and is now in the realm of a conversion rather than an oopsie.

[Edge]

It sounds like you are really more talking about one particular instance or situation now though, so the players can't really offer you very meaningful opinions in response to the admins' solicitation for opinions, because we don't know the actual details of that situation.

See my reply to your other comment, I explained it a bit there. It's not just one situation, it's happened a few times, but yeah it's a fairly specific set of scenarios.

[suddenperihelion]

Mar 30, 2015 10:31:18 GMT -5 Edge said:

Mar 30, 2015 10:25:40 GMT -5 suddenperihelion said:

Yep! Check the very next sentence, I agree that the issue you are bringing up is distinct! Those first two sentences were just to help make explicit what that distinction was.

Sorry if I was confusing.

It's more that they were kind of unnecessary. I'm more than aware that people change religions and such. It was rather irrelevant to my point, and distracting, and came off as a kind of patronizing "well you know it's not ALWAYS a mistake".

I don't think ANYONE here really thinks that characters who go through an actual character-changing shift of morality, ethics, and/or religion need to have that RPed out over a period of time - it's just the amount of that period that's really in question. On the fact that the change needs to be displayed in-game, I think we're all agreed.

The disagreement, here, seems to hinge on whether lower-level characters who the player feels belong better associated with a different faction over the one they created the character with need to have that change, also, displayed over time in-game, or if they should be allowed to just retcon their character so that they have always belonged to the new faction/religion/whatever.

Sorry about that! I didn't mean to offend anyone! I'll try to copy edit my posts more carefully in the future to cut down excess verbiage.

[ladybug]

I'm just weighing in in general. I've a few divine concepts, and I'm worried I might make a stupid error somewhere along the line. I know I'm not the only one struggling with lore, what with the various editions and changes.

[Edge]

Mar 30, 2015 10:37:14 GMT -5 suddenperihelion said:

Mar 30, 2015 10:31:18 GMT -5 Edge said:

It's more that they were kind of unnecessary. I'm more than aware that people change religions and such. It was rather irrelevant to my point, and distracting, and came off as a kind of patronizing "well you know it's not ALWAYS a mistake".

I don't think ANYONE here really thinks that characters who go through an actual character-changing shift of morality, ethics, and/or religion need to have that RPed out over a period of time - it's just the amount of that period that's really in question. On the fact that the change needs to be displayed in-game, I think we're all agreed.

The disagreement, here, seems to hinge on whether lower-level characters who the player feels belong better associated with a different faction over the one they created the character with need to have that change, also, displayed over time in-game, or if they should be allowed to just retcon their character so that they have always belonged to the new faction/religion/whatever.

Sorry about that! I didn't mean to offend anyone! I'll try to copy edit my posts more carefully in the future to cut down excess verbiage.

No worries. Text-based medium and all that.

[Edge]

Mar 30, 2015 10:37:30 GMT -5 ladybug said:

I'm just weighing in in general. I've a few divine concepts, and I'm worried I might make a stupid error somewhere along the line. I know I'm not the only one struggling with lore, what with the various editions and changes.

This is also a major point, ESPECIALLY when it comes to in-game factions and religions.

Not everyone who plays here is super-familiar with FR, or even that big of an FR fan; I personally have a few things I really like about the setting, but the grand majority of it I do not much care for, for various reasons. I'm here more for the community, the fun toys the game has for us thanks to the hak community and Vincent's code work, the player interactions, and the ability to tell stories as a DM.

At the time CD started, my PnP group was pretty exclusively in Greyhawk or in homebrew settings. We played one FR game and abandoned the setting after that. Nowadays we play pretty exclusively in our homebrew setting, having little to no interest in various published worlds except as sources of things to steal and incorporate. If I'd had more say in the beginning of the server, I probably would have pushed for a different setting to put it in, or encouraged coming up with a custom homebrew one of our own. FW and Vincent have expressed similar regrets in hindsight. But at the time we made CD, we had enough FR fans in the original founding group, as well as an understanding that FR attracted more players than other settings, that those options were never really offered or explored.

Players who don't know the setting, the organizations, the locations, the pantheon, etc. etc. etc. backwards and forwards like really dedicated fans or long-term players do are going to make mistakes like this. They're going to read a short summary of one of the above, think it suits the character, then at a later point when they do more research it's going to reveal things don't quite match up, either because the (insert thing here) wasn't what they thought it was, or because actually playing the character revealed they don't fit together with their faction or religion the way the player thought they would. That's not an exclusively new-player problem either, but admittedly long-term fans are probably going to have it happen less often.

In my mind, it doesn't seem right to penalize players who make this sort of mistake by forcing them to stick with it when it's clearly not what the player wants, especially when they haven't been playing the character for an extended period of time.

[The Red Mage]

Mar 30, 2015 10:34:20 GMT -5 ladybug said:

Really, the best way to do this is going to be to categorize it as a build error versus a development conversion.

If it's an error, hell, make it a LETO request. Everything else is allowed. Imagine if you made someone RP out learning their shiny new Power Attack before they were allowed to take it. I don't think it's feasible or sensible.

If it's a conversion based on development - say someone fell in with a bad crowd and slowly started converting to, I dunno, Cyric. That needs to be done via RP and should probably be put in as a request as soon as the player has a feeling that the conversion may be happening so they can log what they do for proof of concept.

Two different setups, two different solutions. Level cutoff should definitely be taken into account so someone doesn't try to cheese it by skating into mid-epics and then realizing they can admit an error for better domain spells. By that point, given it takes months to accrue enough faery xp to level, the error should have been realized long ago and is now in the realm of a conversion rather than an oopsie.

I think that makes sense after speaking with the player and being transparent with time frames. Let them know out of the gate how long certain things may take in terms of scheduling and effort to avoid frustration. There are two different circumstances for sure. I wouldn't penalize a level three person who is unfamiliar if they weren't comfortable with a decision, but I think rp should be offered, even if it's a one time event introducing the character to pcs, npcs, the dogma or whatever.

[Deleted]

Here, allow me to put it into a specific scenario:

Waaaaaaaaay back on MD, there was an early decision to make the Tentaziones Cyricists.  Prior to this, they had always just been "Chaosites."  (Long story, but basically I was more used to the way Greyhawk handled deities/divine spellcasting and didn't know at the time that just serving an ideal wasn't a thing in FR.)

Problem was, Edge and I knew zilch about Cyric other than "god of murder and lies."  We shrugged, said okay, and proceeded to RP our characters as Chaos-followers that happened to worship Cyric.

Fast forward two months, and Lia has lost divine spells because we weren't "RPing Cyric's dogma."  We didn't -know- Cyric's dogma, and had only gone off of what some staff members at the time had told us.  We go look up the dogma and ended up realizing that his dogma not only didn't suit the characters, it never had.  Due to misinformation, and a lack of setting knowledge, Lia was deemed "fallen" for not being MORE EVIL or MORE EXCLUSIVE (insisting that Cyric is the one true god or some such).  There was no RP change, no reflection or change of heart, the character was still the same (at the time) CE Chaos-serving character she was since the start.

We were level 12.

[Edge]

Hence, among other things, why Lia has been a Talassan ever since we came to CD, rather than a Cyricist like she was on MD.