Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

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Anomandaris
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Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Anomandaris » Wed Jan 15, 2020 10:08 am

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=21795#p212300
"Hello. The DM would like to remind people that they should please avoid having two characters in the same faction, especially at the same time. This is to prevent meta gaming, and muling of gold, information and favours, as well as other 'Big Brothering' Activities.

'What? Is this a new rule?'
Not particularly, but it's one we're going to be more vigourous about policing going forward.

'So if I have one character in a faction, I can't ever have another?'
'No, you can have another character involved later on. Just not two characters at the same time. And ideally I'd suggest also waiting a while before slipping right back into the same faction too. Try something else out first! It's healthy for your server experience if nothing else.'"
A couple questions and also a little feedback. I apologize if this has come up, I tried a few searches but couldn't find a meaningful discourse on it to answer my questions.

Firstly, do we need a catch all rule to prevent the breaking the actual rules of import? Muling is against the rules as is metagaming, (I'm not sure what the big brother thing means). I can see the potential issues this is trying to prevent, however his seems to restrict our freedom as players unnecessarily. If I find people I like to play with or a niche in the server that keeps me COMING BACK to make new characters and play more, isn't that a good thing? I have a gnome PC who leads a faction. I have another gnome PC who I rarely play, but is "in the faction." He's not tapping into the bank account, I'm just enjoying a totally dif build, class, character concept etc, with the community I enjoy. Do I have to roll this char or just never play him unless I roll the other?

Secondly, "Faction" probably needs more clarification (at least to me but also I've had others ask). Reason being, if it's just the "Mechanical" definition then it's not meaningful in solving this problem. One could stay out of the "faction" and rp with the same people. You may have mechanical limitations like no bank or store access etc, but for all intents and purposes, you're involved via that RP. Or is this against the rules too? If it is, then it gets REALLY problematic. Can I not RP with the same PCs on dif chars or is there just a "type" of RP that I am limited to with those PCs? Do I turn around and run when I see them? What kind of RP can I engage in or not engage in? Are we allowed to be friends with the same PCs on another PC? If this is an issue I'd guess 75% of the server wouldn't be in compliance with this right now. It sounds like a seriously slippery slope and impossible to enforce if it were the case.

What about a faction that isn't really a faction? Take the Grotto for example. We have a "faction" set up for some minor convenience things as a small racial settlement but we're not ideologically aligned, involved in all the same RP, or the same alignment. It's just a mechanical tool for some simple QoL as a racial group. There are people in there that don't even like my PC, but they should have access to shared "psuedo settlement" functionality as gnomes. Can we only play one gnome then? Or is a second gnome ok as long as it's not "in the faction" technically? Then can that second gnome just not use the same facilities the other gnomes can?

What about playing in an opposing faction? And if so, what does"opposing" mean? At war, alignment opposed? Two dif districts in Andunor? Another political settlement that could be at odds if the leadership changes (Cordor & Brog)? This could be very problematic potentially (metagaming spying etc). But if we say you can't play in opposing factions (however we define that) and we can't play in the same faction, then we're limited to 1 character in 1 faction (by pretty simple logic).

If people want to metagame and cheat there will always be ways. This server is delicately preserved by a mix of (mostly very reasonable and sound) rules and a player base that seeks to maintain the integrity of the experience by acting in a commensurate manner. Not allowing someone to spin up another character in the same faction isn't going to prevent this, it's just going to frustrate people.

Thanks for your time and any clarification you can offer. I myself am not exactly sure how to tell people to proceed when asked as a faction leader, or myself in several circumstances. Looking forward to any further context here.

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by AstralUniverse » Wed Jan 15, 2020 10:51 am

My take is that we're supposed to direct our RP away from people we already are involved in politically/religiously. So no, I'm not personally going to turn my back and walk away from PCs I know on my other character, but I will do my absolute best to not be involved with them in the same plot/storyline. In other words, I might run into them and have a conversation about whatever, but if I feel like this is bordering with topics/plots/details that involve another character of mine (or the faction of another character of mine) then I will change the subject or walk away at that point.

I was once in a faction that had two character by the same player. But while one of the characters was involved politically and was a central figure in the faction, the other character was just a side character that was never really involved in political stuff, never passed information/items/gold for anyone and mostly RPed with different people within the faction/settlement. In that particular case I feel like no harm was done but I can see how such things can be frowned at. So if putting it into the rules that its just not allowed at all, then so be it. Its really best to not play in the same faction at all, even if you're doing nothing wrong, in many cases you might not even be aware of meta-gamings happening because this loophole.
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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by The GrumpyCat » Wed Jan 15, 2020 6:28 pm

I'll try and be clearer.

Firstly 'Big Brothering' generally refers to using one of your characters to help another of your characters. One example would be - you have a low level character in the Cordor guard. Another pc pvps him and kills him. You respawn and write a report on it. Then you log on your senior, high level member of the Cordor guard, read the report and go after said thief to pvp him in return.
Or maybe your junior Cordor Guard member needs a set of Adamantine fullplate. So you use your senior member to go on an expedition to get said adamantine, and ask another member to make your other character some fullplate out of it.

I don't tend to like being too specific in rulings, because often a) it just means people feel able to rules lawyer out of it and b) we can't come up with every single scenario.

But I'll try and be clearer none the less.

You should definatly not have two characters at the same time as part of the same -faction. (as in mechanical factions). You can consider this a hard rule.

You should really try and avoid having two members Snuggybear part of the same close knit 'groups' in general.

The closer your characters are related to each other, the more they could share, the more susspicious it looks, the more likely you are to get in trouble, and the more work you make for us.

I'm going to use an analogy to explain the situation.

I'm saying 'To prevent people from stealing cookies, we ask people to stay away from the cookie jar.'

'WAIT! What if I need a glass of water from the Kitchen? What if I want to watch TV in the same house? What if I want to walk down the street? OMG MUST I DIE BECAUSE I EXIST IN THE SAME REALITY AS THE COOKIES!!!!??????!!!!!'

No. what we're saying is that if we walk into the kitchen and find you there, with your hand in the cookie jar, we will likely presume you're going to steal the cookies, even if you were just testing the 'texture' of them.

Likewise if we walk in and find you in the kitchen, alone with the cookie jar, we're probably going to be a little bit susspicious.

So to save you discomfort, us from hard work, and also to encourage you to get out and about and enjoy the fresh air - we're asking you just stay away from it.

Your different alts should, ideally, have absolutly no knowledge - or at least little interest, in each other. They should not have any opportunity to share items, information, ect. The closer the groups your two seperate characters are in, the harder it is to keep that distinction. As I said, going forward we'll be cracking down harder on situations where people do seem to be using -factions (and factions) to big brother/muel/ect. The announcement exists partly so that when (and sadly it is likely to be a 'when') we do catch people with their metaphorical hand in the cookie jar, they can't look at us and say, 'Oh I didn't know it was wrong!'
This too shall pass.

(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Wed Jan 15, 2020 9:00 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Jan 15, 2020 6:28 pm
The announcement exists partly so that when (and sadly it is likely to be a 'when') we do catch people with their metaphorical hand in the cookie jar, they can't look at us and say, 'Oh I didn't know it was wrong!'
Have zero problems with any of the logic or reasons preceding this, but if this quoted section is truly a major part of the reason for the announcement, I strongly suggest that announcement make a feature in either the Journal or the character creation/starting area, specifically so you can close the loophole of "I don't look at the forums."


I do actually have a question -

Say you have two characters. One is in a faction. The other isn't. Things happen in RP, and your second character winds up with an invitation to the same faction as the first character, or to work alongside it, and you weren't expecting it or planning for it but it makes sense.

In this case, you're in the kitchen looking at the cookie jar. You put one hand in the cookie jar (original character) and grab a cookie for yourself. Is it okay to put the other hand in the cookie jar if you're giving the cookie to someone other than yourself?

As an example- I play a character that's an on-again off-again guard, and I play a different character that we'll call a "mercenary" (because he's not a notorious pirate with a tattoo that brands him as scum for the world to see, but he definitely crews up on ships with the intentions of capturing other ships and their goods at times. Perhaps "Privateer" might be a better word than mercenary).

If the guard is doing investigation into sencliff, and one day I log onto my Privateer and the guard start offering my privateer gold for information, am I obligated to decline, even if the people they're asking for information on are people the character genuinely dislikes and might consider obstacles to be removed?

What if this alternate character is also on an undisclosed alternate player login so that people don't come running to them knowing who they are?

I'm not trying to make you get so specific that it can be rules lawyered - far from it. My actual concern is that depending on just where this line is drawn, it has the power to force someone to play one character or potentially be punished for completely IC circumstances. I guess I'm looking for a clearer SPIRIT of the rule than the definition of the rule.

Is the idea that a second character can never be helpful to a faction your first character is in even if it would be character-breaking for them not to, or is this more about curtailing people intentionally running parallel characters specifically to metagame, case by case like?
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Anomandaris
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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Anomandaris » Wed Jan 15, 2020 10:56 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Wed Jan 15, 2020 6:28 pm
I'll try and be clearer....
Thanks for taking the time to articulate this. I very much enjoyed the cookie jar analogy. :lol: As a faction owner I'll do my best to ensure no players have multiple PCs in the faction. However it sounds like there is no hard rule on RPing or coexisting in the environment or community, it is simply opening the door to "being seen in the kitchen in proximity to the cookie jar," or being tempted by said jar.

I'm reading this as "we don't want to rule against who you RP with, the rule is specifically about "faction" abuse (muling, big brother & metgaing), but be careful and don't do something stupid because we'll be watching." That fair, I have no intention of muling, metagaming or big brothering between PCs; I find it pretty easy to compartmentalize. Having two Svirfs that are different ideologically and simply both happen to be connected to the Grotto doesn't seem to be in violation of the spirit of this faction rule and the associated muling, metagaming & big brothering rules. If this isn't the case please let me know.

Aelryn's question seems to seek clarification in this regard (whether or not RP and cooperation within similar circles is permitted as long as one doesn't do something stupid like metagame, mule or big brother). I'm similarly curious to avoid any potential issues.

I'm imagining that this problem may have been exacerbated by the implementation of commoners and the outsized impact they can have economically?

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by miesny_jez » Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:00 am

This is.. an exceptionally bad and harmful rule GrumpyCat and should be either very specifically clarified or taken out completely.

The end result of this will be the following:
1. Small factions will die off
2. Creating new factions and surviving the first burnout of members will be extremely hard
3. People (RL) will be forced to diverge their characters RP due to mechanical limitation
4. Non-combat RP builds will be even more punished driving people again into minmaxing
5. Increased action metagaming between factions
6. Loosing the "fun" aspect of surprise and uncertainty when dealing with other factions.

I understand what the DM team is trying to achieve here.. but I believe You went overboard now and this ruleset will be more harmful to actual stories on the server then helpful. You already have nicely working anti-muling scripts and automatic checkups for gold and if You think that this approach will remove OOC gold muling between same player characters You are deeply mistaken.

The example with adamantite You have provided is a very poor one actually as "adamantite trips" are rarely done alone due to the lengthy time it takes to do it alone (certain builds can solo yes but those are minimal cases).
In this example you penalize not only a player who wants to try some new approach and stick with his/hers friends but also penalize the faction itself as You are preventing the high level char in this case to spin out a trip and possible RP to the rest of the faction.
In the case when the high lvl char could execute such trip the benefits were: involving other members together, creating adventure and purpose, creating need of interaction for crafting... now its gone.

Posters above have already raised their very legitimate concerns with examples of how does this change directly affect them. Let me add to this my own concerns:

1. Example 1:
Player A has is a leader in Faction_A. The Faction_A consists of 10 members of which 4 are actually active and interested in spinning of RP, whereas the remaining 6 is there for the ride (yes its very common). Faction lvl ranges are 4x epics + 6x lvl 4- 20.
Player A has now no way to integrate those 6 players into faction RP as he cannot have "drive" characters at different level ranges who will be used as stepping stones to interest rising and faction loyalty building. The final result will be that the 6 members will feel being left out as they wont have the ability to band up together with the "elders" and loose interest. Faction recruitment and involvement training will be severely hampered = faction deteriorates to the core 4 and dies off boredom.

2. Example 2:
Player A has a non-combat RP-proper build of his character and enjoys greatly working with players from Faction_A. Player_A wants to try some character that is more battle capable.... Player_A is now locked out from interacting with characters from Faction_A, either forcing the other players of Faction_A to roll new characters (if they want to play together still) or have to go look for something else on his character despite its a try out only.

3. Example 3:
Worst case scenario..
Faction_A is at war with Faction_B. Player A has multiple characters and his friends are in Faction_A. Player_A is now forced to participate in the conflict RP only on one character.. or he will have to join Faction_B with another of his character if he likes to play both and want to participate in the conflict RP. Joining Faction_B fully removes the feeling of uncertainty and leads to IC-breaking as the Player A can see both sides as they are, not as they are presented to him from character PoV.... awful.

I consider this rule to be harmful to the server story building and trying to treat arelith players as immature exploit seeking kids.

I have 4 characters in one faction, all of them are involved deeply within it and I will not be rolling my characters whom I spent a lot of RP time on. I will also certainly not remove them from this faction on which I spent extreme amount of time and effort together with other people which I consider good friends at this point.

Reconsider this rule it is "NOT NICE" from the DM team.

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Emotionaloverload » Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:12 am

miesny_jez wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:00 am

3. Example 3:
Worst case scenario..
Faction_A is at war with Faction_B. Player A has multiple characters and his friends are in Faction_A. Player_A is now forced to participate in the conflict RP only on one character.. or he will have to join Faction_B with another of his character if he likes to play both and want to participate in the conflict RP. Joining Faction_B fully removes the feeling of uncertainty and leads to IC-breaking as the Player A can see both sides as they are, not as they are presented to him from character PoV.... awful.
There is a lot to unpack in this post but I will leave that for others. In regard to Example 3, I believe it is generally discouraged to play active characters on two sides of the same conflict. And that is not news, as far as I recall. I don't believe that this is an illogical expectation since playing both sides of a conflict can result in inadvertent metagaming.


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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by The GrumpyCat » Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:43 am

"we don't want to rule against who you RP with, the rule is specifically about "faction" abuse (muling, big brother & metgaing), but be careful and don't do something stupid because we'll be watching."
Got it in one.
Aelryn's question seems to seek clarification in this regard (whether or not RP and cooperation within similar circles is permitted as long as one doesn't do something stupid like metagame, mule or big brother). I'm similarly curious to avoid any potential issues.
Again, it's -ADVISED- against, but you can do so.

Just keep in mind that we will be watching and the best way to avoid even the susspicion of the above, is not to do it. Because metagaming, muling and big brothering can happen even by accident. But that 'it was an accident' won't always fly.(1)
miesny_jez wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:00 am
This is.. an exceptionally bad and harmful rule GrumpyCat and should be either very specifically clarified or taken out completely.

The end result of this will be the following:
1. Small factions will die off
2. Creating new factions and surviving the first burnout of members will be extremely hard
3. People (RL) will be forced to diverge their characters RP due to mechanical limitation
4. Non-combat RP builds will be even more punished driving people again into minmaxing
5. Increased action metagaming between factions
6. Loosing the "fun" aspect of surprise and uncertainty when dealing with other factions.

I understand what the DM team is trying to achieve here.. but I believe You went overboard now and this ruleset will be more harmful to actual stories on the server then helpful. You already have nicely working anti-muling scripts and automatic checkups for gold and if You think that this approach will remove OOC gold muling between same player characters You are deeply mistaken.

The example with adamantite You have provided is a very poor one actually as "adamantite trips" are rarely done alone due to the lengthy time it takes to do it alone (certain builds can solo yes but those are minimal cases).
In this example you penalize not only a player who wants to try some new approach and stick with his/hers friends but also penalize the faction itself as You are preventing the high level char in this case to spin out a trip and possible RP to the rest of the faction.
In the case when the high lvl char could execute such trip the benefits were: involving other members together, creating adventure and purpose, creating need of interaction for crafting... now its gone.

Posters above have already raised their very legitimate concerns with examples of how does this change directly affect them. Let me add to this my own concerns:

1. Example 1:
Player A has is a leader in Faction_A. The Faction_A consists of 10 members of which 4 are actually active and interested in spinning of RP, whereas the remaining 6 is there for the ride (yes its very common). Faction lvl ranges are 4x epics + 6x lvl 4- 20.
Player A has now no way to integrate those 6 players into faction RP as he cannot have "drive" characters at different level ranges who will be used as stepping stones to interest rising and faction loyalty building. The final result will be that the 6 members will feel being left out as they wont have the ability to band up together with the "elders" and loose interest. Faction recruitment and involvement training will be severely hampered = faction deteriorates to the core 4 and dies off boredom.

2. Example 2:
Player A has a non-combat RP-proper build of his character and enjoys greatly working with players from Faction_A. Player_A wants to try some character that is more battle capable.... Player_A is now locked out from interacting with characters from Faction_A, either forcing the other players of Faction_A to roll new characters (if they want to play together still) or have to go look for something else on his character despite its a try out only.

3. Example 3:
Worst case scenario..
Faction_A is at war with Faction_B. Player A has multiple characters and his friends are in Faction_A. Player_A is now forced to participate in the conflict RP only on one character.. or he will have to join Faction_B with another of his character if he likes to play both and want to participate in the conflict RP. Joining Faction_B fully removes the feeling of uncertainty and leads to IC-breaking as the Player A can see both sides as they are, not as they are presented to him from character PoV.... awful.

I consider this rule to be harmful to the server story building and trying to treat arelith players as immature exploit seeking kids.

I have 4 characters in one faction, all of them are involved deeply within it and I will not be rolling my characters whom I spent a lot of RP time on. I will also certainly not remove them from this faction on which I spent extreme amount of time and effort together with other people which I consider good friends at this point.

Reconsider this rule it is "NOT NICE" from the DM team.
With all due respect, miesny_jez, if what you're saying is that certain factions can only exist by being able to mule, big brother, metagame, and basically cheat, then such factions don't deserve to exist.


(1) Example - Your junior guard character dies in pvp to a criminal. You're a good player and log off for a few hours to calm down, keeping your character dead a while. Later you log on as your other mid level Guard character, and suddenly get dragged into a chase for a group of thugs. Your group catch up with the thugs and, in the pvp, you realize that one of the thugs was the guy that killed your previous character. He recognises your log in, and reports you. This starts a whole bunch of unpleasent work for us as DMs, puts you under susspicion and, in the worst case scenario, might get you falsly accused of breaking the 24 hour rule ect.
This too shall pass.

(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by three wolf moon » Thu Jan 16, 2020 3:40 am

Regarding RP, it's pretty easy to recognize when something is going to be a conflict of interest. If you're RPing on Character A (henceforth known as A) and you encounter a situation where your other character, Character B (henceforth known as B) is involved, just step away. You should not ever try to influence the plotlines of your other characters, disengage. It's all right to roleplay with similar people on A and B, it would be weird from an IC standpoint to shun them for seemingly no reason, but do not get involved in things on A you're already involved with on B.

And it's a very small cost for the big gain of quashing the practice of muling roll money with -factions and trying to influence plots on multiple characters, one which will make you a better player in the long run. Just be conscientious of your own actions. It's always better for the server and yourself to disadvantage yourself by saying "I don't know" or stepping back in the name of avoiding even unintentional metagaming concerning your multiple characters.

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Dreams » Thu Jan 16, 2020 4:00 am

miesny_jez wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:00 am
I have 4 characters in one faction, all of them are involved deeply within it and I will not be rolling my characters whom I spent a lot of RP time on. I will also certainly not remove them from this faction on which I spent extreme amount of time and effort together with other people which I consider good friends at this point.
One decent compromise you could consider is to shelve 3 of the 4 characters that you have deeply invested into one faction. Just keep them out of the picture for a while as you explore the remaining one character's story. When the time comes that the story ends, you can roll that one and use the next.

Then again, even this is a little problematic because you'd be playing 4 characters in a row in the same faction with the same people dealing with the same things amassing the same gold and items over and over. Maybe it is time for a change? Start something fresh!!

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Zavandar » Thu Jan 16, 2020 4:12 am

very much in favor of this ruling
Intelligence is too important

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by AstralUniverse » Thu Jan 16, 2020 4:42 am

Dreams wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 4:00 am
miesny_jez wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:00 am
I have 4 characters in one faction, all of them are involved deeply within it and I will not be rolling my characters whom I spent a lot of RP time on. I will also certainly not remove them from this faction on which I spent extreme amount of time and effort together with other people which I consider good friends at this point.
One decent compromise you could consider is to shelve 3 of the 4 characters that you have deeply invested into one faction. Just keep them out of the picture for a while as you explore the remaining one character's story. When the time comes that the story ends, you can roll that one and use the next.

Then again, even this is a little problematic because you'd be playing 4 characters in a row in the same faction with the same people dealing with the same things amassing the same gold and items over and over. Maybe it is time for a change? Start something fresh!!
Something to point out. Arelith's mentality has always been to encourage people to RP with their friends. No one wants to take that away, I hope. Characters come and go. Stories start and end. But it's the players we remember and the players we want or dont want to play with again that do the magic. And if someone wants to make 4 characters on a row in the same faction - there's nothing wrong with that and it shouldnt be frowned at. There's no rule break in that alone.

However if they are all in the same faction in the same time, avoiding meta-gaming must be very difficult. If we all open several characters in the same faction I can only imagine the amount of monitoring and checks the Team would need to do... way above what they can handle, I'm sure. This rule is a necessity for this reason.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Nitro » Thu Jan 16, 2020 5:38 am

AstralUniverse wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 4:42 am
And if someone wants to make 4 characters on a row in the same faction - there's nothing wrong with that and it shouldnt be frowned at. There's no rule break in that alone.

However if they are all in the same faction in the same time, avoiding meta-gaming must be very difficult. If we all open several characters in the same faction I can only imagine the amount of monitoring and checks the Team would need to do... way above what they can handle, I'm sure. This rule is a necessity for this reason.
Yeah this exactly. One character after another isn't a big deal, but I sincerely doubt someone can play 4 characters in the same characters and be "deeply involved" without some unintentional metagame crossover between them at best.
The end result of this will be the following:
1. Small factions will die off
2. Creating new factions and surviving the first burnout of members will be extremely hard
3. People (RL) will be forced to diverge their characters RP due to mechanical limitation
4. Non-combat RP builds will be even more punished driving people again into minmaxing
5. Increased action metagaming between factions
6. Loosing the "fun" aspect of surprise and uncertainty when dealing with other factions.
1: Small factions don't need multiple characters from the same players to thrive, they need active leadership that interacts with the rest of the server outside the group.
2: No? You just recruit new members instead of keeping the group closed to the same people.
3: Yes, this is a good thing. It's not healthy for the player or the server to limit themselves to only one faction, let alone with several active characters at the same time.
4: I don't see how combat or non-combat builds are targeted by this, commoners have just as wide a choice of factions as adventurers.
5: Unless you're actively playing in all of the factions your own is interacting in this is a non issue. And if you are, you certainly won't have the time to be deeply involved in any one of them.
6: That's entirely on your own shoulders. If you decide to play 4+ characters at the same time you're not going to get deeply involved with any of them, my advice would be to separate them as far as possible, or better yet cut down on the amount of active characters you're playing.

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Thu Jan 16, 2020 5:52 am

AstralUniverse wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 4:42 am
Dreams wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 4:00 am
miesny_jez wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:00 am
I have 4 characters in one faction, all of them are involved deeply within it and I will not be rolling my characters whom I spent a lot of RP time on. I will also certainly not remove them from this faction on which I spent extreme amount of time and effort together with other people which I consider good friends at this point.
One decent compromise you could consider is to shelve 3 of the 4 characters that you have deeply invested into one faction. Just keep them out of the picture for a while as you explore the remaining one character's story. When the time comes that the story ends, you can roll that one and use the next.

Then again, even this is a little problematic because you'd be playing 4 characters in a row in the same faction with the same people dealing with the same things amassing the same gold and items over and over. Maybe it is time for a change? Start something fresh!!
Something to point out. Arelith's mentality has always been to encourage people to RP with their friends. No one wants to take that away, I hope. Characters come and go. Stories start and end. But it's the players we remember and the players we want or dont want to play with again that do the magic. And if someone wants to make 4 characters on a row in the same faction - there's nothing wrong with that and it shouldnt be frowned at. There's no rule break in that alone.

However if they are all in the same faction in the same time, avoiding meta-gaming must be very difficult. If we all open several characters in the same faction I can only imagine the amount of monitoring and checks the Team would need to do... way above what they can handle, I'm sure. This rule is a necessity for this reason.
I agree with most of this sentiment. I also appreciate the clarification on what kind of behavior they're looking to curtail (and challenges around supposed instances of this behavior even when it's innocent) from the staff as it puts things into a much more sympathetic light.

I don't expect to run afoul of this rule or cause any kerfuffles now, despite having two characters from the same family (I mean... they're elves, that sort of happens when their line doesn't die out :) ) which is great. Thanks. :)

@Miesney - In an effort to be helpful to your plight of having a high level "that doesn't fit with low levels," the best suggestion I have is to ignore their level ranges. Yes, this means if they accompany you somewhere their XP will get nuked down pretty low, but there's more to the situation to be gained than just XP (and in my experience as a level 7 with epics in my party going somewhere like Kholingen still produced noteworthy chunks of XP, because you're level 7 and it doesn't take that much yet).

Once upon a time it was not an uncommon practice for the Cordorian Guard to gather up, wildly disparate level ranges and all, from as low as 3 to as high as 30, and just go somewhere as a group, regardless of the challenge rating. It wasn't just about the XP, and given that these groups sometimes approached or even exceeded 10 people, it certainly wasn't just about the gold either (although it was sometimes about rubies, emeralds, adamantine, mithril, and sapphires.)

It helped players learn how to function together in combat as a total guard force, regardless of level range. It taught veteran level guards how to be mindful of their less experienced counterparts in a fight - to protect them and avoid friendly fire that would probably kill them- and taught the lower levels that they didn't have to be helpless just because their HP hadn't reached triple digits yet- invisibility and healing kits provided from a senior guard who also happens to be guarding you can be incredibly helpful if the tactic is practiced and well-executed, among other usable items that can swing things in your favor.

Organizing trips for the guard only between similar level guards can lead to a lack of synergy and general uncertainty of what to do during some crisis or event when the guards are looking around at people they've never fought beside because they aren't the same level- and also, a lot of tactics and skills unique to Arelith are learned over time- mixing the patrols and outings up rather than sorting them by level range allows those with a wider breadth of knowledge to share it IC.

I guess what I'm saying is, rather than creating multiple characters to accommodate everyone's level range, pay less attention to the level range, and see just how big of a group you can get together to RP - you may find it more rewarding than obsessing over getting a group of the same level together for maximum gains.
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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Ameliorate » Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:14 am

I do have to say some factions operate more like a Discord channel for communication than an organized group especially when they are based around a lesser played race or area. I know Archon mentioned gnomes above but there is a gnome faction that doesn't do much except let people from different time zones interact and coordinate dates for the odd event. That’s a lot different than some bustling and power-hungry faction that coordinates raids and maximized crafting and I don’t see why you couldn’t have a few characters on the member list. I’ll still make sure I don’t, of course- In fact I’ll plan to avoid joining factions unless absolutely necessary from now on just to make sure I don’t forget my old character joined the Arcane Tower and didn’t properly quit before deleting or something.

As far as “fresh experiences” go, we’re each different here and that’s good advice for some but moving from faction to faction shouldn’t be an obligation to those of us not interested. I know I’m winding down as a player not ramping up and my experimenting days are behind me. I have some ideas for characters I’d still like to play but I’ll likely favor my favorite few races from now on until I have no time or interest left at all. I look at this as a creative outlet more than anything and I want to play what I want to play so… Just let me. I’ll make sure my characters don’t trip over each other if you don’t hassle me for playing a few gnomes in a row.

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Dreams » Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:25 am

I guess my point about playing character after character in the same faction (even when one finishes before another begins), is that people tend to have this downloaded mindset. They can't effectively break away from the previous character's opinions and values, so they end up getting caught in this trap of 'Yes, my new character also hates this place, because my friends told me to hate it, and I trust them implicitly because <reason> and so that's why I hate this place just like <previous character> hated this place haha because <reasons of character before that one> and my friends said so.'

It sounds ridiculous but it is something that I run into so incredibly often.

If you want an example, think about how elven characters react to the idea of Myon. You will often find new elven characters with downloaded mindsets of previous elven characters who operated either with or against Myon at whatever point in time, and therefore either love it or hate it. This is very strange, because the typical elven mindset is to be one with your People, which is driven into most elves with a religious fervor. It's strange to see people stand apart from that, stranger still when they do it just because their previous character did it, and stranger still when they suddenly know the history of a place and bring up the same ideas/values that previous characters have had verbatim in order to justify their new character's stance. This is one example, but it happens all of the time, all across Arelith. Pick any settlement and you'll find that it happens there.

So my overall suggestion is that by starting fresh, finding different people to interact with on an ongoing basis, and touching different parts of the server, you will ultimately have a wonderful time on Arelith and find yourself in ever new and engaging situations. Other people will also benefit from this! You might discover amazing roleplayers that you never knew were there, or great little hidden communities that you just didn't see before. Open your options up and roleplay with more people and with fresh approaches - everyone will benefit from this!

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Emotionaloverload » Thu Jan 16, 2020 2:17 pm

Ameliorate wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:14 am
In fact I’ll plan to avoid joining factions unless absolutely necessary from now on just to make sure I don’t forget my old character joined the Arcane Tower and didn’t properly quit before deleting or something.
I don't believe that this is a fair assessment. And I don't want to leave it here in case someone is reading this thread and believes that it is or that anyone implied that this is the crux of the ruling.

Many players play multiple characters at once (alting). That is fine. Its totally fine to do. It is totally fine to play across the server in various factions or drop characters when you're not feeling it and make something else (even in the same faction!).


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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by The GrumpyCat » Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:39 pm

I do have to say some factions operate more like a Discord channel for communication than an organized group especially when they are based around a lesser played race or area. I know Archon mentioned gnomes above but there is a gnome faction that doesn't do much except let people from different time zones interact and coordinate dates for the odd event. That’s a lot different than some bustling and power-hungry faction that coordinates raids and maximized crafting and I don’t see why you couldn’t have a few characters on the member list. I’ll still make sure I don’t, of course- In fact I’ll plan to avoid joining factions unless absolutely necessary from now on just to make sure I don’t forget my old character joined the Arcane Tower and didn’t properly quit before deleting or something.
Your primary reason why -factions are useful here, is ooc coordineation. Which is entirely true! But that's not a reason you'd need more than one character in said faction at the same time. Because the ooc information on that faction is to you, the player, not your characters.
If there's a Gnome Meeting at 10pm on Tuesday, you just need to read that on one of your characters, not all of them, surely?

Arelith's mentality has always been to encourage people to RP with their friends. No one wants to take that away, I hope. Characters come and go. Stories start and end. But it's the players we remember and the players we want or dont want to play with again that do the magic.
This is entirely correct. And so long as you avoid the muleing ect - you're probably fine.

That being said I do -encourage- (note that word. Not a ruling, just encouragement) that people move away from their friends groups occasionaly, for various reasons.

1) It's healthy for your roleplaying ability, challenging you to try new things.
2) It's healthy for the server. If you just have two friends you log on to hang out with in your faction, then if one or both of them say, get ill, you won't log on either. But if you have twenty friends, from various factions, you'll always spot someone on the player list who excites you to interact with!
3) This is a big one - It prevents tribalism. If all you do is play Brogendenstein Dwarves, then it's easy to get in the echo chamber mindset that, say, Myon Elf players are all poo-poo heads. Because all your mates say they're poo-poo heads, and obviously all they care about is pvp and ganking people. And they're all awful. But if you try playing a Myon elf, then you may see situations from the other side, get to know other players and see their side. Suddenly you have a wider world view, and I bet you'll find yourself less salty because of it.
4) It's fun to meet and interact with new characters!
5) You'll learn entirely new aspects and areas of the server, see corners you considered hidden, learn new tricks and nuances!
6) It avoids metagaming.
7) It makes you happier when the other aspects of the server rise and fall. Sure maybe Brogendenstein lost that battle to the underdarkers last week. But Myon is doing really well at the moment, and your other alt in Myon is also great fun!

Again I'm not saying you can't interact with people you've interacted with before. You most certainly can! We all end up going back to certain rpers who we love and adore. We're all here to have fun. But there's no harm in stepping outside your comfort zone sometimes and giving other people, or other factions a chance. You may really be suprised.
This too shall pass.

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Ameliorate » Thu Jan 16, 2020 7:28 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 6:39 pm
Your primary reason why -factions are useful here, is ooc coordineation. Which is entirely true! But that's not a reason you'd need more than one character in said faction at the same time. Because the ooc information on that faction is to you, the player, not your characters.
If there's a Gnome Meeting at 10pm on Tuesday, you just need to read that on one of your characters, not all of them, surely?
It’s not a reason going forward. In the past I had no idea this was a rule (where is it stated anywhere before the recent announcement?) so if someone asked if my character wanted to join a faction I’d say “sure” even if it was an alt and I already had a member on the list. My characters come and go quickly so I didn’t try to keep track and the -faction thing was never anything I gave much thought to.

I suppose the answer to the question about the meeting though is- one of the alts on the list may be shelved or deleted and I might miss an announcement? It's not a difficult problem to solve, I'd just make a point of checking in on the character who is a member going forward or shift who is a member to who is most active. It just never seemed like an issue in the past.

Now it suddenly seems like a very big deal so I certainly won’t do it in the future. I just think myself and many other players are taken by surprise a bit that this is even a rule. But if it is, it is. Honestly I’m not fighting this just trying to make sense of it as I will continue to play mostly characters that are of the same race but who are themselves extremely different and wouldn’t interact.

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Irongron » Thu Jan 16, 2020 7:57 pm

The simple reason is that players have been routinely using the faction system to exploit/get around the anti-muling scripts.

While there is certainly a debate to be had as to the negative impact of one person playing characters in close proximity, the above is the core reason why this is currently an issue.

Having more than one character in a -faction had been used for rule-breaking.

Thus

Having more than one character in a faction is now forbidden.

I hope that clears this up

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Shadowy Reality » Fri Jan 17, 2020 11:20 am

Very much in support of this.

This change only prevents people form have multiple PCs in the same faction, it does not prevent anyone from joining that same faction on their next character. However, it has been noted by several people that joining the exact same faction with every new character is also not something you should do. They are correct.

At some point in my Arelith career I sort of fell into this trap. A long long time ago I played Tamarie, her thing was hunting clerics, because she hated the Gods, yet in her hunt she came across Malar and his dogma and sort of took of its aspects for herself. Some time later I played Virgil, a true Malarite cleric, he hunted people for the fun of it, for the thrill. And some time later I played Labriales, some half-orc barbarian that also worshipped Malar and enjoyed battling people.

Do you see the pattern? These characters were all different, they weren't even part of a faction per sae, but part of their mentality was exactly the same to one another. I as a player really liked the Malarite dogma and how it can be great to spark RP, I felt comfortable in that kind of RP. The last character in particular, the half-orc shouldn't have been a Malarite at all, it didn't actually make much sense, and the character suffered because of it, I only clang to that because it felt familiar.

I have seen players create character after character in the same faction, or even in the same settlement, sometimes daughters and sons of the last character and it is usually really bad. It shows that you are the same player and it usually shows that you are basically playing the same character, even if you are a solid roleplayer.

My advice is: get out there, create a character of a faction, or a settlement you dislike, a cleric of a deity you never heard of before, discover the realms, discover new Roleplay styles and opportunities.

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by msterswrdsmn » Fri Jan 17, 2020 1:01 pm

Personally I don't have an issue with this, but does this also affect guilds that are affected on a mechanical basis? Example: assassins and the assassins guild, as a good number of the assassin class updates revolve around the guild.

Also to be clear, this is the active up and rping faction, and not the -faction command menu and everything it entails, or both? I feel like its probably both, as i've seen/heard/speculated ways both could be abused as described, but I just want to be clear on it.

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by JustMonika » Fri Jan 17, 2020 3:02 pm

The clarifications have said that this is strictly do to with -factions

Multiple characters in the same -faction is flat out not alllowed.

Muliple characters in the same "Faction" is discouraged, could lead to unintentional rulebreaks or poor roleplay, but is not flat out disallowed. [At present.]

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by malcolm_mountainslayer » Mon Jan 20, 2020 2:03 pm

As much as I am against multiple characters in same faction. I am glad new (after retire/shelv) was not completely ruled out.

The latter has pro with the cons as I believe it can add needed stability to certain RP niches from time to time.

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Re: Faction Rules Question & Recent Post

Post by Wuthering » Mon Jan 20, 2020 8:20 pm

malcolm_mountainslayer wrote:
Mon Jan 20, 2020 2:03 pm
As much as I am against multiple characters in same faction. I am glad new (after retire/shelv) was not completely ruled out.

The latter has pro with the cons as I believe it can add needed stability to certain RP niches from time to time.
I've had a few characters I wanted to play but didn't think the RP out there would support it. Like a cleric of an unpopular deity or a character who would be an outcast and wouldn't have much chance of making allies. So I'd make a character who could fit in wherever and somehow I'd end up in a faction and realize the character I really wanted to play would actually work so I'd phase out the compromise character and play the one I was really inspired by.

I know that's a convoluted thing to say but my point is- you don't know what is going to inspire people. Playing in a faction will often lead to great ideas for your next character. Being a happy wanderer going from group to group is great too and perhaps should be the recommended way to play if you don't know what you want to do next but it's not the only way.

I get why the rule exists but plenty of us will make a few characters of the same faction for the simple reason that we feel a strong draw and inspiration to do so, not because we're muling gold or metagaming info. With a lot of races, underdark in particular, there may be one major faction option that you'll have to either have to accept or go out of your way to reject. If you play a kobold and have a great idea for another kobold as your next character you're probably going to have no choice but to cross paths with the former's associates, that is just how it is if you're playing anything but a human.

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