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Pale Mastery, Necromancy, Ect

Started by TheWrathOfInnos, Feb 10, 2016, 02:59 PM

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Garage Trashcan

You're probably thinking of Kimbell, (Punky/Nok's char) who publicly handles undead eradication. Technically, that's necromancy.

The reason the evil people, provided they're hiding their motives well, are allowed to let their plans come to fruition (typically with large amounts of DM assistance, and if goodies are being led on they should have no clue another PC is behind it) is because it's zero fun for the evil person to be shut down before they get started every single time. That's why there needs to be DM facilitation, so it's not a metagaming clusterfuck that we've seen in the past.
Torsten Solberg - Jovial Jotunkind
Halonya Gabranth - Paladin of Hoar
Alethra Duskmantle - Spoiled Socialite
Retired PCs: Felix Greentrack, Nikolai Mikhailovich

destinysdesire

Garage Trashcan Avatar
You're probably thinking of Kimbell, (Punky/Nok's char) who publicly handles undead eradication. Technically, that's necromancy.

The reason the evil people, provided they're hiding their motives well, are allowed to let their plans come to fruition (typically with large amounts of DM assistance, and if goodies are being led on they should have no clue another PC is behind it) is because it's zero fun for the evil person to be shut down before they get started every single time. That's why there needs to be DM facilitation, so it's not a metagaming clusterfuck that we've seen in the past.



If this was for me then no. It wasn't punky. It was someone else.
Loss of empathy might well be the most enduring and deep-cutting scar of all, the silent blade of an unseen emey, tearing at our hearts and stealing more than our strength- Drizzt Do'Urden

Edge

kothoses Avatar
dont be all muhahaha I r Kefka in the square

Yes, don't do this. That's my job.
Kestal | Bernadette | Eden | Tonya | Vaszayne | Koravia | Alastriona | Natascha | Emari | Urilias-Zhjaeve | Hiltrude | Tatya | Dioufn | Aida | Cyrillia | Megan | etc.
DM Tiamat | Szuriel | Maedhbh | Cassilda


kothoses

silverghost Avatar
Feb 11, 2016 11:25:27 GMT -5  @silverghost said:
That really, and unfairly, facilitates the evils though, as they can rub shoulders with all the people they want to do evil against, with no chance of discovery. Don't get me wrong here either, I'm all about the 'live and let live thing', but we're talking about an equality that favors one side more than the other ,which is then not equal at all. 'Live and let live', until the evil guy has all the information s/he needs and turns their evil plans loose on the good guys....who've had /all/ this time to figure it out,and protect themselves, and others.

Again, don't get me wrong here. I want everyone to be able to have fun and play together, so don't read /too/ much into my post. I just think there is more room for 'fair for all' in this scenario.

Its a NWN server.

Evil talks about doing evil things to other players, and then tortures an NPC for their jollies.

Good players talk about fighting evil, but dont immediatly drop everything everytime some one in the square mentions cleaning out a dungeon (A dungeon which if they acted ICly they would know had been cleared out 10000000 times)

NWN is about allowing everyone the illusion of being the special snowflake, for your illusion to remain intact you have to believe that there are still ogres in the mountains and orcs in the forest, despite the amount of them being killed being enough to represent the genocide of the race.   

"Well in terms of the plot, only the ones killed in the time line count" is as much a RP shield as "If some one makes effort to disguise them dont take it upon your self to ruin their character" is.   They are both sheilds against having special snowflake status revoked and the smoke and mirrors of a game not actually being a world laid bear for everyone to see.


If Milicent McEvilpants is open about what she is, is that shield gone, yes of course it is.  But, and heres the ugly truth of it, the reason most people will say "Oh well that needs to be investigated" is they dont want to deal with the ooc drama and whines that come when some ones special snowflake status is revoked.   Likewise its why there are Paladins who take daytrips out to the Ogre lords with evil characters and pretend their detect evil skill doesnt notice them or that those characters have some kind of magical protection.   Its why people in the square can call out players playing religious characters on their beliefs without any consequence, consequence which would be there in a lot of the lore, its why you can walk around with enough crap in your bags to fill a house but still be able to jump up and "hug your friend" and its why ANYONE and I mean anyone can sit, run or move faster than a sloth with a hangover, while they are in full plate.

Fact number 2, its much easier to exist in a co-operative world as a good character than an evil one, players who play evil characters in my opinion should expect that character to be killed off if not redeemed at some point, after all, DnD is high fantasy not George R R Martins boner led world of rocks fall everyone dies.     Players who play evil characters are taking on a different role, within the wheel of the world, some of them can handle it and some cant, tell you what a lot of people cant handle on either side of this debate though "LOSING".  

Its why there is always drama going on behind the RP on a NWN server, Person A bitching about Person B, or Person C whining that Person A is restricting their RP.   Its why DMs have to moderate player lead plots because otherwise it turns into an emoting Arms race or the laughable state of being decided by NWNs combat engine (dont even get me started on that cluster of brown stuff).

Basically the whole reason the rules are there, is because at some point in the past they were not, and then some one was a dick caused aggro for multiple people and generally ruined perfectly good storytelling with their own self interest.

Mainly its because NWN is not the real world, it is an act of co-operative storytelling, where pretty much everyone is the star, and no one is in the "Also appearing in" section.


TL:DR

People are dicks, give them a way to ruin some one elses day and there are those who will take it just because they can.



Darvins

silverghost Avatar
Feb 11, 2016 11:25:27 GMT -5  @silverghost said:
That really, and unfairly, facilitates the evils though, as they can rub shoulders with all the people they want to do evil against, with no chance of discovery. Don't get me wrong here either, I'm all about the 'live and let live thing', but we're talking about an equality that favors one side more than the other ,which is then not equal at all. 'Live and let live', until the evil guy has all the information s/he needs and turns their evil plans loose on the good guys....who've had /all/ this time to figure it out,and protect themselves, and others.

Again, don't get me wrong here. I want everyone to be able to have fun and play together, so don't read /too/ much into my post. I just think there is more room for 'fair for all' in this scenario.
Trust me, it doesn't facilitate playing evil, playing an active evil on CD is hard, I tried and failed at it, and some small concessions to try and help them out a little, is needed. The thing is, D+D was never written with what happens on NWN in mind. Sometimes the rules have to be fudged a little to let everyone have fun. This isn't 'You have to ignore the evil as they plot and plan' just more 'Actually let them get some plotting and planning in before you rip the veil away' 

Fire Wraith

silverghost Avatar
Feb 11, 2016 11:25:27 GMT -5  @silverghost said:
That really, and unfairly, facilitates the evils though, as they can rub shoulders with all the people they want to do evil against, with no chance of discovery. Don't get me wrong here either, I'm all about the 'live and let live thing', but we're talking about an equality that favors one side more than the other ,which is then not equal at all. 'Live and let live', until the evil guy has all the information s/he needs and turns their evil plans loose on the good guys....who've had /all/ this time to figure it out,and protect themselves, and others.

Again, don't get me wrong here. I want everyone to be able to have fun and play together, so don't read /too/ much into my post. I just think there is more room for 'fair for all' in this scenario.
The setting is such that concessions need to be made, otherwise those characters would be completely unplayable.

Do note, though, that there's something of a spectrum, and we block anything we think is outright too much (like minotaurs or goblins or the like). These characters might be playable if we had a strong underdark contingent that regularly spends time there, sufficient to parallel the Arabel stuff, but at present we don't.

We aren't looking to have an atmosphere where you create a character, and other players are actively hunting for you and your kind the moment you step out of the creation area. That's not cool, and furthermore, it denies the possibility of greater stories. The unmasking and defeat of a villain, or the betrayal and fall of a hero, should be grand tales, not a skill check or spell cast followed by a massive PVP beatdown.

Keep in mind though, this stuff goes both ways. We don't want people walking around flipping up hoods, or demanding submission to detect evil/know alignment checks, detect lie spells, etc, but at the same time, we don't want people playing hidden characters rubbing that in the faces of others. In short, we expect everyone to be mature, and respectful on an OOC level, and remember that the game is about fun and stories, not "winning".
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." -George Bernard Shaw

"So long as you harbor love for this world, ever shall there be a place for you in it. Your adventures will never end."

destinysdesire

kothoses Avatar

If Milicent McEvilpants is open about what she is, is that shield gone, yes of course it is.  But, and heres the ugly truth of it, the reason most people will say "Oh well that needs to be investigated" is they dont want to deal with the ooc drama and whines that come when some ones special snowflake status is revoked.  
Honestly....I think a lot of it boils down to this ^
Loss of empathy might well be the most enduring and deep-cutting scar of all, the silent blade of an unseen emey, tearing at our hearts and stealing more than our strength- Drizzt Do'Urden

Edge

after all, DnD is high fantasy not George R R Martins boner led world of rocks fall everyone dies.

Oh man that is hilarious, well played.
Kestal | Bernadette | Eden | Tonya | Vaszayne | Koravia | Alastriona | Natascha | Emari | Urilias-Zhjaeve | Hiltrude | Tatya | Dioufn | Aida | Cyrillia | Megan | etc.
DM Tiamat | Szuriel | Maedhbh | Cassilda


tarriel

As a player of hideously good characters in general I have little to add to this that's important.

Aside from: People can run, sit, jump ect. in full plate. It hurts, and I couldn't feel my balls for a week, but its possible. I don't recommend it.

TheWrathOfInnos

I do agree with all of the points above. Another reason that's probably a factor in the culture and stance here is the progression systems and general stance towards PvP, as well as server congregation culture. Being barred from Arabel is essentially being told 'you can't play your PC unless you like long long stretches of idle loneliness in a game whose entire redeeming quality is social interaction'. PvP is a mess on NWN in general and this server seems to largely have the stance of try and avoid it when possible. Which is good because the XP/progression system here is not tuned for a PvP experience that'd be enjoyable or even fair in the vague sense that NWN uses fair. A PC that's been played for a longer number of days will as an unavoidable rule be stronger than a PC that hasn't been played as long, there's no catchup or surpassing. So an evil character that's created can never expect to 'fight' out of a situation. I imagine, as a reasonable newcomer but someone that's had a lot of experience with PWs and enjoys mulling on game design thoughts on the side, that these things also contribute to a culture where 'evil' PCs are generally tolerated and not investigated if they make an effort at being hidden, blending in, acting normal, and basically not drawing excessive attention to themselves or their evil traits. Although the blunt take on snowflake preservation was also partially true and rather amusing.

Deleted

destinysdesire Avatar
Garage Trashcan Avatar
You're probably thinking of Kimbell, (Punky/Nok's char) who publicly handles undead eradication. Technically, that's necromancy.

The reason the evil people, provided they're hiding their motives well, are allowed to let their plans come to fruition (typically with large amounts of DM assistance, and if goodies are being led on they should have no clue another PC is behind it) is because it's zero fun for the evil person to be shut down before they get started every single time. That's why there needs to be DM facilitation, so it's not a metagaming clusterfuck that we've seen in the past.

If this was for me then no. It wasn't punky. It was someone else.

Bluntly put, Trent has a personal beef with the player in question.  Everyone knows it's a personal beef, so they're not automatically taking his word for it.

Also, I don't know of a single good or paladin character that jumps to smite someone at the first report of something necromancy or evil.  If that was the case, they are on a quick road to an alignment shift...

I do Bella, because of personal experience.  However, that's in the past and since I've had nothing but good experiences when I play my chars in regards to paladins, Sophia is naturally excluded for obvious reasons ((This is ironic for other reasons.))

kothoses

tarriel Avatar
As a player of hideously good characters in general I have little to add to this that's important.

Aside from: People can run, sit, jump ect. in full plate. It hurts, and I couldn't feel my balls for a week, but its possible. I don't recommend it.
Bet you were not carrying multiple changes of clothes and armor at the same time though!

If you were... remind me never to piss you off in person.

tarriel

No, mercifully I wasn't.

A harness of plate, full helmet, claymore, crossbow, twenty bolts, a shortsword and a pencil. No I don't recall why I had the pencil.

ladybug

To take names after kicking ass?
SDM Sto Helit

When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. - C. S. Lewis