Arelith

We have seen an increasing number of instances lately of players using Arelith to engage in cybersex.

In the past we encouraged players to 'fade to black' in such moments, and unfortunately this has evolved into players being asked to continue the roleplay on private chats. This is NOT acceptable - I will not permit potentially underage or vulnerable players to be approached in this way.

Our policy on this has always been clear; we will not tolerate this in any form. If you are caught soliciting players for off-site cybersex you will be banned - without warnings, without appeal, and with you character vault deleted.

I urge all players who wish to do this not to play on Arelith, and to find another server.

We are not judging people on their desires, merely reiterating this not an appropriate venue.

For those players who wish sex to play a key role in their gameplay we recommend Sinfar, while for those who merely wish to play on a quality 'traditional' server where there are no such restrictions there are some excellent choices - Sigil, Cormyr, Age of Magic all do not have our PG13 policies.

I understand players wish to play somewhere with a stable population, so I would advise finding a common server to which to migrate, and will leave this topic open for a time so that those options can be discussed by players with more experience of those servers.

I do not wish to see another phoney discussion about what is or isn't pg13 on regards to this topic. We all know what is being talked about - using NwN RP for sexual gratification, and it will not ever fly on Arelith.

Pleased to see this hardline stance. Ban away, I say.

I, too, have noticed the increase, and I am very happy to see this post. It was/is starting to drastically decrease the (roleplay) quality of the server. I hope these players get the message now, finally.

Maybe put a sign in the entry that puts it in big bold letters. I'm not sure if there is one atm with all the rules but a sign, or maybe even a dialog box that is like "by playing in this server you agree to our rules etc. *BOLDED NO CYBERING LINE*" that you have to agree to, if it's becoming such a widespread problem.

Or just, you know, ban the offenders. Arelith has very few rules, they're listed both on the website, wiki and in the journal. If someone chooses to not look them up before engaging on the server they don't deserve clemency when breaking them. 100% support for Irongron taking a hard stance against these people.

Anime Sword Fighter wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:40 pm

Maybe put a sign in the entry that puts it in big bold letters. I'm not sure if there is one atm with all the rules but a sign, or maybe even a dialog box that is like "by playing in this server you agree to our rules etc. *BOLDED NO CYBERING LINE*" that you have to agree to, if it's becoming such a widespread problem.

The rules are available for reading any time you please, in your Journal. I don't know if it explicitly states that you're not allowed to lure people into private chat, but given Arelith once nearly shut down because of such a predator, maybe it should. I believe in the Arelith entry dialog, you do have to agree to abide by the rules in order to enter the module proper.

Oh I'm not saying give them any leniency lol. I'm just saying maybe a big heavy handed in your face thing can help curb it -- part of the same function as this thread, except not everyone reads the forums.

I want to chime in here because I sort of have a strong opinion on this particular subject and I'd like to address a sort of misconception that I sometimes see roaming around.

While I don't play characters specifically FOR romance, I find that it enhances the RP sometimes, and can provide sufficient spice to conflicts to make them additionally entertaining. The number of times I've seen peoples' husbands, wives, or lovers, slaved or kidnapped or threatened, alone, is testament to the effectiveness of this. Certainly, human interaction

Romance is PG-13, and can be fun, and can be enhancing, and can make you care what happens to your character and to others' characters. Writing detailed sexual acts is NOT NECESSARY. Let me repeat that. Sex is not necessary to a well written romance. Do you want your characters to get it on? Great. Fade to black. Do you want to write smut? Create an author page on Amazon and go nuts. (Notation: Don't write smut about Arelith. But apparently there's money in smut, and everyone likes money.)

But please, please, please, learn to write better romance. Focus on the ties between people. Focus on the shared experiences. Focus on the drama, the conflict, the clash of personalities that lead to betrayals, sacrifices, or acts of blind loving loyalty. Put against that, whatever your characters are doing off-screen where nobody's looking seems like a trivial affair by comparison, so don't think it's required, and if someone's pressuring you, tell them to quit and don't give into it. You don't need those sort of people in your life, or in your gaming experience.

TheFox wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 21, 2019 9:28 pm

Beautifully worded reply.

Hear hear. Relationships are so much more interesting to write.

TheFox wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 21, 2019 9:28 pm

100% this
....and if someone's pressuring you, tell them to quit and don't give into it. You don't need those sort of people in your life, or in your gaming experience.

One thing I'd add, if someone tries to get you to cross the PG13 line, even if they respect you declining it, I'd recommend reporting them anyways.

If they've asked you to partake in that roleplay, and/or push towards it through in game actions or overly descriptive emotes, odds are they've done the same to others. Even if the line was never crossed in your case, it's quite possible it was in other cases.
If the player never crossed any lines with anyone at any point, the DMs can still talk to them stressing the importance and strictness of the PG13 rule, which would be necessary if they asked for/suggesting that type of roleplay to begin with (or banning if appropriate, ie repeat offenders, players who try to argue they should be allowed to, players who directly asked/tried to convince the player to partake in that sort of roleplay, etc).

Mithreas wrote:My worst moment as an Arelith administrator, was dealing with a situation where an underage player had been exposed to some clearly inappropriate RP. Second worse was a similar situation.

Irongron wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 21, 2019 6:34 pm

Snip

I suppose I'll address the elephant in the room and ask the questions that matter. The answers will matter to several people I know who would never dare to ask.


Given a not insignifigant number of people who play on arelith also play on sinfar( and other explicit servers) or have played on sinfar in the past, is the mere act of playing on sinfar now grounds for being permabanned on arelith?

Does this rules new, harder line apply retroactively? That is to say, are people who have invited friends to various servers(or simply recommended them) with explicit content now in danger of being banned without appeal? Or is this just a stance and notice of harder enforcement moving forward?

Being as we literally mentioned those servers in the post, what do you think?

You're free to play wherever you like. While you're here, you must adhere to our rules here. This should not need micro-spelling-out. Use your brains.

@Durvayas - The rules haven't changed, and the stance is no harder than it was in the past.
It's simply requiring repetition due to players who aren't listening.

Mithreas - 02 Feb 2015 wrote:We are very, very strict about enforcing our PG-13 rule. If you break it, you are risking an immediate and permanent ban.

Obviously I don't speak for the server administration but I feel like the OP was pretty cut and dry: If you proposition people to continue (E)RP from the Arelith server on a different platform, be it Sinfar, Discord, Skype or whatever else, you will be banned. Direct quote...

If you are caught soliciting players for off-site cybersex you will be banned - without warnings, without appeal, and with you character vault deleted.

The rule hasn't changed. Time and time again we have said this isn't tolerated here.

As for where else you play? It's not our concern. I think my post was totally clear; what isn't okay is using Arelith to explicitly invite other players to engage in mutual sexual gratification, here or elsewhere. If you're found doing that, now or at any time in the past we will remove you permanently from our community.

And once again, If that's what floats your boat, then go wild elsewhere, it's not our place to judge - just not here, not ever. This really should not be hard to understand.

It really isn't that hard to fade to black and move on.

I'm not one to judge people on what they do for kicks unless it involves the endangerment of others, but Moradin's beard, I'm surprised people even find the energy to sexy elven fun times on Neverwinter Nights; it's not like it's an audio visual treat or anything. Just use text chat, you'll probably be more immersed by your imagination instead of the 64MB looking Snuggybear models this retired engine uses.

DM Atropos wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 21, 2019 10:47 pm

Being as we literally mentioned those servers in the post, what do you think?

Irongron wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 21, 2019 10:54 pm

As for where else you play? It's not our concern. I think my post was totally clear; what isn't okay is using Arelith to explicitly invite other players to engage in mutual sexual gratification, here or elsewhere. If you're found doing that, now or at any time in the past we will remove you permanently from our community.

I seem to have misunderstood Irongron's post.

The bit about no sexy elven fun times on arelith is cut and dry, yes.

Its this part right here:

I understand players wish to play somewhere with a stable population, so I would advise finding a common server to which to migrate, and will leave this topic open for a time so that those options can be discussed by players with more experience of those servers.

That threw me for a loop. I read it to imply that the policy was changing moving forward, and that people were being told to choose to commit(to arelith) or leave, and were thus being given a time limit to discuss alternative servers to play on.

I don't mind romance RP when it fits narratively. I don't mind other people enjoying it as well. The problem comes in when characters seem to exist to borderline indulge a particular fetish, and they regularly abandon more serious RP in order to hone in on more titillating encounters.

Where there is smoke, there is often fire.

Having a particular sexuality is not a character trait or a substitute for personality. You aren't as unusual as you might think when you use certain playable races in inventive ways, though people probably wish you were. Like Irongron said, there are servers where you are risking a lot less by playing these sorts of characters.

I'm not sure what "fade to black" is (lol right), but damn them PG13 pixies and their obnoxiously large glitter dust clouds blocking everyones view of my bedroom parties.

Mr_Rieper wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 22, 2019 9:35 am

The problem [...] is [...] e[...]RP

i honestly don't think attacking the varied motives of players that commit a certain deed is necessary when we have a rule attacking that deed.

They break it, they buy it (a timeshare on Sinfar, that is).

Regardless of whether or not it's legal, crazy people can sue, and lawyers take money to defend against that.

Nevrus wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 22, 2019 9:40 pm

Regardless of whether or not it's legal, crazy people can sue, and lawyers take money to defend against that.

The decision to keep Arelith free of this type of RP is not based on anticipated legal battles, or anything of that nature. It is, very simply, because we do not want to include that type of RP on this server/community. There are a lot of reasons for that, but none of them need much discussion; the roleplay outlined in the original post has no place here, and never will.

consider:

sexy elven fun times and recognizing your personal sexual fantasies is not engaging, or interesting RP. I'd hazard a guess that the people who are doing this IG so often that it's getting clocked on DM radars probably have sexy elven fun times as the main course of their story narrative. And, if all you're doing here is getting your rocks off by yourself in a closed quarter (or darkspires hot springs), are you even really participating in the game/community anyway?

anyway arguing for the right to cyber people in a D&D game is pretty awkward. maybe just don't?

*not sure if what you're doing is cybering? Think about typing your emotes into a shout channel in an open place crowded with PCs. Feel embarassed? time to back space.

thanks

The point is known and delivered. There will be no quarter for those who violate this standard.

The expectation is common sense for what we have as the intention for the server. No other threads will be allowed to debate the merits of this rule going forward.

To those who discover any sort of activity suggesting, alluding, or acting out against the PG 13 rule are encouraged to report to the Active DM Team group via forum PM or with the In Game DM Channel. Our work is anonymous and the logs are thorough.

Enjoy yourselves, but remember the rules. Thank you!