RPing a drow house

[Artenides]

Hello fellow Arelithians,

Recently my character became the matron of a drow house that has several members. In my opinion drow rp can be very rewarding and fun, but it has its pitfalls. I put together a document that I shared with the house members to provide some guildelines on how I imagine running the house and now I would like to share my thoughts with the wider community. I am curious what you guys think.

On our first meeting Chess’yrranna said that she wants her house to be powerful and cause chaos. Power and Chaos. These are the things that are dear to the drows and the Spider Queen herself. In this document I wanted to further elaborate on our goals and provide some guidelines on how to achieve it. Consider it a collection of OOC thoughts.

She wants to lead a powerful house:
This doesn’t mean I want us to become the most powerful house, nor the only house with power. I certainly don’t want us to PvP ourselves to the top. That is not fun. There have been previous attempts to have a big house and become the first house. But that inevitably leads to this one house trying to dominate others, taking away their shops/houses, using other game mechanics to oppress them. The result is always the same: they either get what they want or the other parties give up and ragequit. A PvPfest with no real winner. Not fun at all. I don’t want the Maiverts, Xun’viirs and other houses to disappear.
What I want instead is a house that has enough power to be considered a factor. This encourages rp and collaborative storytelling.
I never really understood those drows initiating PvP in the hub to punish someone or to take revenge. That’s silly, but what’s more important, its poor RP. Drows don’t initiate a fight in the middle of the street when everyone watches them. They start a secret plot that leads to their opponent’s demise. Or they wait till that opponent is in a dark alley to take revenge without having witnesses around. The one rule drows have: Don’t get caught.

She wants to cause Chaos:
We are playing evil characters and these players have an extra responsibility. Nobody complains about a good hearted character that gives free cookies to strangers. Players tend to complain about evil characters that take away those free cookies and kill the stranger in the process. I want us to be considerate when it comes to other characters. A good rule of thumb is to always try to include others in the story in the way they are OK with.
Lolth herself promotes chaos because she doesn’t want a drow family to dominate the rest. Chaos is good since it provides opportunities.
And this leads to my second point: we don’t need to be perfect. It is okay to make mistakes and let others win. It is okay for others to find out our secret plans because this will add to the story. It is okay to lose in a pvp. Remember, we want everyone to have fun. I don’t want us to be this exclusive group that does writs together and doesn’t allow drows from other houses or other races to join. Instead, try to include other players. From the RP point of view we need to walk amongst the rest of the Andunorians in order to learn about their secrets, weaknesses and desires. Focus on writing our epic story with the rest of the players on the server!


Thoughts on those poor inferior males:
Include them. Do not have meetings where the males are excluded. Use them as guards, give them smaller tasks and let them shine.
I am sure players that start a male drow know that they are considered inferior in our society. It is our responsibility to include them so they would have fun, too. Otherwise we end up being this female only family without a single servant.


Again, these are just my views and I am not saying this is perfect. What is it about drow roleplay you find fascinating?

[Lord_Droke]

I'm new here, so I can only really speak in general terms, as I have not quite learned the political structure of the city (how many player houses there ever are, for example, and how much control they have in the city).

I've played a drow priestess in NWN and NWN2 PWs and I agree with you, Drow can be among the funnest of races to play, though the RP can sometimes be prickly. People who play drow in PW drow communities need to have some thick skin, and not get upset when there character looses, or is punished/shamed by another. This is how the society and thus the Rp works.

The best way to keep combat between houses out of the streets is to simply rp that Loth frowns upon open combat amongst drow with in the city and is often punished, this enforced by all the pillars of the community. The houses, the church, sorcere and Melee.

When you talk about Drow Noble Houses, you are really talking about a community's political structure. Your typical Loth Drow political structure is usually a balance of Church and state. In some communities the church rules supreme, with the Ulathtallar giving marching orders directly to the Matrons. Others the Matrons run the church and the strongest, usually the first house's Matron IS the Ulathtallar in some shape or form.

I have found that some of the best drow RP comes from a combination of houses (families) and the church/Arach Tinilith academy structure. The Ulathtallar runs the Church and the academies along with the archmage and the Weapon Master of Melee. Through the church and the academies, control is maintained. . This makes it in the interest of the houses to not fight in the streets and keep things in the shadows. The Matrons form a counsel, which basically controls the military with Arach Tinilith and the academies keeping them from breaking out into bloodshed by creating a ranking system for Melee, Sorcere and Arach Tinlith.
The academies also give the males a bit of status. To a drow society, everything is about status and increasing it (I'm guessing this is what you mean by power). Simply having Males play guard kind of discourages people from playing male Loth Drow and doesn't make it worth the crap those of us who play female characters give them. To engage people playing male characters the academy and house rank system is really all they have to give them status.

So the academies have a rank system which gives the Males some status amongst the community. Theses status ranks are important to the drow community rp, for example a non house drow (not noble or member of a house/guild) would have to be subservient to the house nobles. A commoner female still has to respect the male Weapon Master of Qu'ellar Mori'hyanda (interesting name I played a priestess in House Mori'hyanda on TFR for NWN2 years ago) for example, and should probably greet them with a slight bow. The weapon master would have to show a bit of respect as well since it is a female but does not have grovel or even obey her. But if it's priestess, he would have much bow much lower and be much more subservient. This proceeds all the way up the totem pole. It's why a house ranking is actually kind of important and useful. It adds further layers to the competitive chaos.

In the past I have found that house ranks can cause a lot of rumpled players when a house drops a rank. So while I think the house rank structure is important for the status it adds, I feel that the church should control the Matrons to the extent that it locks the house ranks and freezes them indefinitely with no rank, since it is a relatively small drow community in any pw with only a handful of houses. Though I think if you are going to have noble houses, an academy set up is important so that status hierarchies in the clergy, casters and fighters can be maintained in some way.

[Lord_Droke]

Here are a few links to a forum I used to run for TFR NWN2. It's been years since I have used it so it's a bit spammed up, but the info is still good.

http://szithcity.aforumfree.com/f7-drow-lore
http://szithcity.aforumfree.com/t280-do ... t-and-rule
http://szithcity.aforumfree.com/t286-dr ... s-in-szith

And of course there is Durvayas' post which is more geared toward this server:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5274&sid=e9bb5f833 ... 8c01aedd1e