Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

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Re: On outcasts

Post by Might-N-Magic » Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:01 am

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Sun Mar 15, 2020 10:31 pm
Everyone is right, in the perfect world we wouldn't need tags. Sadly, prior to the tag, outcast basicaly meant 'Universily Adored PC Who Is Welcomed Everywhere. ' It sucks, but the tag was needed so that people could treat them as they're meant to be treated.
Now if only we could actually SEE the tags, so this actually worked, because guess what? They still just come down here with impunity and act universally adored because underdarkers can't tell...

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Algol » Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:04 am

A middle way solution could be making the outcast tag visible only in civilized places like towns and maybe even arcane tower. This would discourage outcast character from hanging out in the cities and what not while reducing the metagamey aspects of the tag in the wilderness.

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Petrifictus » Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:31 am

If we removed tag, it would return the "Age of Outcasts who are adored by everybody and friends with all the races without any disadvantages expect jerk captain Laurick refusing to give them a lift with his boat and not allowed to become citizens in surface!"

Tags are here because past has shown that some have not roleplayed things as they were intented.
Outcast-background is like a cake, you eat it all and not just lick creams from it. If you dont like it, dont buy it.
Again, Outcast's infamous reputation dont need to be something the character did.
Maybe your family name got involved with something that caused the downfall.
Maybe your half-orc is bastard heir of past orog warlord, being more orc than human that it was seen as bad omen.

And I agree that "normal" people in the surface should get more attention how they treat and react those who have Pirate Ink, Beast Belt, Outcast-tag or races such as Tieflings that should shunned until proven otherwise.
I've experienced it a lot how most seem to ignore these and if you dare to point it out IC, suddenly its your character who is the close minded villain who should mind his own business and not threaten happiness of others by shunning free paladin who killed slaves in the Pit!

I've always felt we should put Outcasts behind the reward and make a push to encourage people to play more drows, monsters, duergars or deep gnomes in the Underdark.

But I also agree that we should come up with other solutions than "Hello. Get Out. Too Late. PvP. Corpsebash."
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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Aniel » Mon Mar 16, 2020 10:08 am

I love Andunor's setting in large part because of the outcast system. I love Andunor's setting as a trade city because of how open it is and how many narratives it allows inside of it. One of the greatest allures to it is easily the acceptance of anything that doesn't hamstring trade flow to be able to carve its own place within the city. Whether it be the old Cyricist movements of old or other interesting contemporary factions.

More specifically on outcasts - they offer a ton of variety and help remind that Andunor is primarily about trading wares. As for the tag, I played before it existed and I remember very well how silly it was. Prior to its existence, there were practically no drawbacks. You didn't have the drawbacks of the underground faezress, you had all of the UD-specific portals, you could do pretty much anything you wanted besides voting in elections. The outcast tag helped immensely with signifying character's backgrounds.

Is it good though is a hard thing to tackle. As others have mentioned before, in an ideal world, outcasts would go through a sort of application process where a DM helps you work out your character's backstory. But that's highly impractical. The next best thing is the tag and trusting players to handle it properly themselves. Instances, where it isn't, should be reported.

As for the idea of putting outcast status behind an award, I have to write that I'm vehemently against that because it would so drastically skew narrative balance within Andunor and push roleplay arcs that are against the setting. Outcasts, as I see them, are a very firm part of Andunor and what it is.

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Aren » Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:58 am

How about implementing the same kind of tag-recognition mechanics for Outcasts as is currently the case for Pirates?

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by good man of god » Mon Mar 16, 2020 1:45 pm

Algol wrote:
Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:04 am
A middle way solution could be making the outcast tag visible only in civilized places like towns and maybe even arcane tower. This would discourage outcast character from hanging out in the cities and what not while reducing the metagamey aspects of the tag in the wilderness.
This is already the case iirc

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Void » Mon Mar 16, 2020 1:57 pm

Exordius wrote:
Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:30 am
I never take tags into consideration when im doing rp... i choose how i interact with someone not a tag placed by rp nazis trying to force a certain style of rp on everyone. Also why should my character care if pirates, monsters, or outcasts are hanging around as long as they not harming anyone? He is neutral, he cares nothing for good or evil or societal norms. Not his job to punish evil that's what the paladins are for. If that makes him apathetic then so be it.
Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything. The tags represent information. What you do with it is your choice.
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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Irongron » Mon Mar 16, 2020 2:52 pm

This is an interesting topic, with a lot to break down. I probably should be in the toolset working on Soulhaven, but given I am responsible for the whole outcast inspiration/debacle in the first place, I should probably weigh in.

At its core, I find Doctor B's argument compelling; outcasts, for lack of proper RP or explanation is a somewhat heavy-handed way to handle the Andunor start for humans and half-orcs, and does, as others have also pointed out, railroad associated roleplay along extremely narrow lines. Feeling that should simply be removed to simplify matters, and accompany it by smattering the surface with duergar traders (as another poster suggested) I do actually find somewhat compelling.

The disadvantages are, however, severe. Starting in Andunor as an outcast, with access to the hub portal and writs is a large mechanical advantage, and if once again removed from having any discernable trade-off, would lead to Andunor being entirely overrun by humans; freely switching between the two settings while leaving monster races extremely sidelined in the very setting designed for them to thrive. It would open the door to all evil aligned characters claiming that city as their own, and very likely reduce the potency surrounding what I can broadly refer to as 'monster-race RP', and very much establish the whole Team Good vs Team Evil position on server-wide conflict I have tried very hard to move away from.

Interestingly this thread has also attracted a very different group of people, namely those who since day 1 have resented humans being in Andunor at all (I don't actually think anyone has an issue with half-orc outcasts). These players, I think, would prefer to return to the wholly 'monster' city we once saw in Pit Town.

There were two main motivations behind my adding the human/half-orc start when making Andunor, indeed it was crucial to the very concept.

The first, most cited of the two, was simply that the UD was in terminal decline in population. There were less than 10 players on most of the day, and to make matters worse they had entirely fractured into different racial groupings. there were between 5 and 7 racially specific 'settlements' and absolutely all were deadspaces. As a contributor of areas to Arelith, outside of even the core staff, I had been pressing for permission to build a 'Cordor' of the Underdark for some years by this point, as I strongly felt it was only by getting players together in a single location, free from racially specific areas and guildhouses that the UD could ever prosper. I got that green-light only when the Underdark was slated for...removal.

While that may be hard to process now, it was the case; The Arelith Underdark setting was to be removed due to declining numbers, both on the server as a whole, and specifically in the Underdark.

Whatever one may feel about humans in the setting, the outcasts are absolutely a key reason why Andunor exists at all, and that Underdark isn't just a bunch of empty caverns populated by Oboogoogoo territory markers.

It was noted above in this thread that 'this is clearly no longer the case - Underdark doesn't need humans anymore'. Frankly, this may well be correct, but driving out the very community that gave you Andunor in the first place could prove be a very short-sighted move. I also feel that in their absence from the mix we would possibly soon see strict racial groupings once again become the norm. Still, I actually have some sympathy with this too. I personally like monster races, and by encouraging the evil 'human' population to take the Andunor start we possibly reduce the diversity, and hence the vibrancy in Cordor and Skal, and fracture players that might otherwise favour the Sencliff start. All of those 3 areas would benefit from either an end to human outcasts starting in Andunor, or having them gated behind a reward.

So we basically have 3 positions here, 2 of which are fundamentally oppossed (Allow evil humans and half-orcs to just start in Andunor without outcast status & remove humans entirely from Andunor) with the third being the status quo (albeit with the debate as to whether monster races should see who is and isn't an outcast).

I have got other things on my mind with development of the new city (Which is NOT a regular starter location), but I did want to at least reply here to say that while I'll unlikely 'pick a side' on this debate, I am keenly aware of the issues at hand. I just really wanted to provide some background and perspective from my own side before making a decision.

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Dr. B » Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:28 pm

Thank you for reading and giving serious consideration to the merits of my views. I appreciate that.
The disadvantages are, however, severe. Starting in Andunor as an outcast, with access to the hub portal and writs is a large mechanical advantage, and if once again removed from having any discernable trade-off, would lead to Andunor being entirely overrun by humans; freely switching between the two settings while leaving monster races extremely sidelined in the very setting designed for them to thrive.
I wonder if there are other solutions to this issue besides the Outcast tag system.

One option, which I really like, is to make it so that all characters who start in the Underdark get rather significant penalties when walking around in sunlight as a result of living underground--perhaps (and I like this) total blindness. Something like this is already supposed to happen to drow in FR lore, and in fact, the server used to have a mechanic like this back in the day (although it was somewhat trivial). While gnolls, kobolds, and Ogres aren't naturally averse to sunlight, the fact that these characters have been spending most of their lives underground could explain why. This would place considerable limits on what Outcasts would do--they can only consort with surfacers in the dark or indoors, and they can't just casually hop to the surface whenever they want. It might also give a telling clue as to their nature when they start to get antsy around sunrise and suddenly have to leave, or ask to go indoors.

At the very least, I think the above option would make for a worthy experiment. It could be added or removed pretty easily.

Conversely, or additionally, it could involve giving more perks to monster races. Drow (this may shock some people) are in some respects rather weak, aside from the nifty spell resistance. At the very least, there could be a drow-specific gift that grants +2 strength, and I think the addition of the latter could very well generate a modest increase in their numbers. Another option would be to allow 1 major gift for the +2 ecl races.

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by CNS » Mon Mar 16, 2020 5:14 pm

Humans being mechanically stronger than a lot of monster races certainly plays into I feel, its always another nudge towards playing a human over another race, especially as our resources for those not comfortable making their own builds are nearly always designed around humans too. The free feat, skill points, full gift access and lack of real downsides makes them ultra flexible.

I'd strongly recommend looking at traditional under-dark races and thinking about lifting their gift restrictions a little to make them more viable from a pure power way of looking at the world.

The rest of the debate is interesting, we seem to oscillate between two extremes. One where 'team good' and 'team evil' kill bash each other all day and abuse mechanics to spy on each other and the other where its a hug-box (Very likely different groups of players - but how do you deal with both sets of complaints at once?).

Ultimately I think it can only come down to a level of respect for the setting and not something you can mechanically fix. There are a few things you can do, if you want to limit the amount of humans in Andunor without banning them you do the same as every other race you want to limit numbers on, you put it behind a reward, outcast tag or not.

Post-creation I think I'd appreciate some clear direction from staff about what Andunor is and its place in the setting. How should the NPC's be reacting to goodly characters very obviously and publicly opposed to the city and its factions popping in to look around? How should the surface react to those that do deal with drow. I know our own characters are our own but the general theme of the setting should come from above.

On a personal aside, I have a surface character that has been slowly working up to visiting the hub, drawn by greed and coin, building contacts in the underdark and testing waters, learning what they can and making shaky alliances based on trade and coin. They expect it to sour relations with some on the surface and it has. The fear and warnings from friends, the lack of trust and uncertainty of it all from those contacted from the dark all have been amazing, as has the egging on spurred by the greed of others. It's been RL weeks and months (IG years) to get this far and they haven't even stepped into the hub yet. To me at least this feels right, its tense, every conversation is fraught with cultural differences, mistrust and the ever present threat of death should things go wrong, even between the 'closest' or longest held allies.

I really hope when they finally do enter the heart of the city its not going to be full of people they know popping down to read the message board and do a little shopping.

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by magistrasa » Mon Mar 16, 2020 6:06 pm

Again, I feel compelled to emphasize the fact that plenty of people who spend a significant amount of time in the Underdark are already working around the system by simply starting on the surface and learning undercommon before moseying on down. I imagine you're only going to see more of this as time goes on because people are realizing how restrictive your roleplay opportunities are when you have a big ol' "KICK ME" sign taped to your back whenever you walk outside. Villains who want to play a corrupting role in surface politics and involve themselves in its machinations to any degree face what seems like an insurmountable hurdle due to the fact that they have a label that tells people they are essentially Kill-On-Sight.

The entire system is arbitrarily restrictive. DMs need a mountain of evidence to turn someone into an outcast, even on the occasion that they themselves are asking to be one. Outcasts who seek redemption are slapped with an MoD, which is a punishment by the DMs in any other circumstance. Outcasts have to fit their character's story into a narrow little box to justify the notoriety they have at birth. Outcasts who want anything to do with the surface have to go all-in and full-gear on a disguise skill to even get the chance to interact with people like a normal nobody - which, even then, most of the people who would treat them as Kill-On-Sight are just as likely to mistrust them on sight once they see the disguise tag in their name.

It's just frustrating that everything about simply wanting to play a human in the Underdark is met with what seems like a punishment by admin policy. "You know the deal when you sign up" is such a nonsense, disingenuous argument, because plenty of people don't know the deal when they sign up. Largely because the deal has changed drastically over time, when the people who have to live with the consequences are just trying to play a character. You can play a human in the Underdark, just not the way you want to - and certainly not in a way that makes sense!

Leveling up is so trivial that people don't care about the supposed "benefits" of the Underdark start anymore. Outcast is already dying out and being replaced by an army of regular average humans who are simply "well-travelled."

With that said, a small part of me doesn't care, since the workaround is so easy and so cheaply afforded. But there's another part of me that feels betrayed. The outcast system by all measurements goes against many of the purported values of the server, the ideals that drew many of us here to begin with. It robs its players of agency in their roleplay, and devalues immersion for the simple sake of... what? DM convenience? Creativity with one's character is constricted, and unrewarded. Outcasts are stripped of a huge amount of potential for meaningful storytelling just so they can be hamfisted into whatever box the admins want to stuff them in. The server has always been treated as a roleplay wonderland for its ability to react to the player's presence and to change in accordance to the flow of roleplay. Well, in the case of outcasts, the reaction was negative. The change in response to the flow of roleplay was to simply dam it up.

Regardless of your feelings towards player population, conflict-adverse townsfolk, DM workload, or whatever other factors at play, it should be clear by this point that the system is flawed in both function and intent - and it should be clear that we can do better than what we have.

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Kuma » Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:05 pm

i've rewritten this post five times and i think it should just be gated behind a minor, along with a concrete definition of what the heck an outcast is, role-wise. it's inelegant but it'd work.

they are not evil humans. they are different. andunor isn't the wastepaper basket that folks can shove inconvenient evil surfacers into. they should be treated as such.

also, btw career UD players, as the player of the first human settlement leader in the underdark: you're welcome.

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by The GrumpyCat » Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:11 pm

Just one or two thoughts.

Personaly I like outcasts and I do not want to see them go.

I actually agree that the outcast tag system is clunky.

But some sort of identification for outcasts is unfortunatly needed.

I wouldn't be against a system that is a little more subtle. If the numbers of outcasts were lower, some sort of 'wanted' board in settlment that gave the names of currently known outcasts? NPC reactions were thrown around as an idea too - but that would get clunky and annoying quickly.
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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Hunter548 » Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:13 pm

I don't really feel like getting down in the weeds of this discussion (again, for like the 15th time in 5 years), but I do feel the need to point out:

There's plenty of underdark races as (mechanically) good or better than humans, especially at certain niches. Duergar and Orogs make really strong str-based melee builds, of pretty much all stripes between the two of them. Orogs make solid sorcerers too. Duergar make decent wizards. Drow are very hyperspecialized but aren't bad for anything that isn't str meleers or sorcerers (They're basically moon elves with int/cha gifts). Gnolls are okay at a lot of things.

The only UD races that are universally worse than humans are goblins, kobolds and svirfneblin. I think the idea that people choose to play outcasts over drow/whatever for pure mechanical power, when duergar/orogs are both superior to humans for a lot of things and comparable for a lot of things, and drow are superior to human for decent handful of things, is just nonsense.
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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by MissEvelyn » Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:15 pm

Dr. B wrote:
Mon Mar 16, 2020 1:28 am
Please don’t make generalizations about other players like this. It’s ungenerous and unfair. I’ve played several human outcasts, and not in one case was it because of this. It’s because I like Andunor’s setting and roleplay. I’ve also played several UD race characters there, too.
While it is a generalization that does not make it untrue. I have heard many statements based on it, and I will myself admit that it's appealing to be able to play a human with a free extra language, in addition to freely and openly playing an evil one. While the statement may or may not be fair, let's not pretend that choice to play a Human Outcast isn't a good deal in terms of mechanical power.
Wuthering wrote:
Sun Mar 15, 2020 10:21 pm
I don't think it's just mechanical. Drow RP is a foreign language to a lot of people including myself. It's very demanding to do it right and there's a high expectation of lore knowledge from other drow players.

I think humans are chosen more often because the RP is wide open even on an outcast, not to mention the potential to do everything and go everywhere especially if you invest in disguise. You could make "outcast" a major gift requiring giving up one of their +2 stats and you'd still see them heavily played.

That said I'd have nothing against making drow more fearsome and powerful. They and svirfs seem stuck in 2008. At least lower the ECL to 1 and allow for a stat gift (like Duergar get, who are way underplayed and much stronger mechanically than both human and drow if you aren't playing a charisma class.)
You make an extremely fair point, and I do agree. Drow RP is not for the faint of heart, nor for the those who prefer lite-style RP. At least that is my own experience.
Perhaps what my snippet suggestion should have stated instead was that all the UD races get a small boon and buff, including (and especially) the Svirfneblins as well.
Exordius wrote:
Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:30 am
I never take tags into consideration when im doing rp... i choose how i interact with someone not a tag placed by rp nazis trying to force a certain style of rp on everyone. Also why should my character care if pirates, monsters, or outcasts are hanging around as long as they not harming anyone? He is neutral, he cares nothing for good or evil or societal norms. Not his job to punish evil that's what the paladins are for. If that makes him apathetic then so be it.
This kind of attitude concerns me more than a little. Regardless whether a character cares for the motivations of others, there is a setting in place on our server (and in the Forgotten Realms in general) where Drow, undead, monsters, etc. are generally feared, reviled, loathed, distrusted, and/or despised. Completely disregarding and ignoring the setting and its norms and customs is not, in my humble opinion, healthy for the server.


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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Apokriphos » Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:34 pm

I believe that if the Outcast System were removed;
- there would be a massive flock of good and neutral aligned characters to Andunor. They would gain both double the trade opportunities, and the opportunity to attack drow and other monster pcs at the outskirts of the city while leaving with their goods.

Granted, I already see this occur fairly often, but imagine without a reason for the 'evil outcast' characters to maintain a facade of allegiance with the city, said characters would spend the majority of their RP time in the surface where it is less conflict & most players reside - so they can build their subtle evil credos, and only visit Andunor for trade and hunting monsters. When writing this, I was thinking specifically of a recent thread on great villainy complementing Banites such as Tyros for their complex and subtle villainy as opposed to the KOS the complementing players receive from monsters. Of course, it stands to note that being in such a thread is something monsters are restricted from based on surface RP, with their obvious appearance meaning KOS and quick pvp by said characters on visits.

Monster PCs, as many players have already pointed out, would get an even shorter end of the stick. There is a reason monster main characters such as Petrifictus believe as they do, even as Irongron disagrees with that perspective.
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I would keep Outcast-tag and let UD-races to see it too so we may finally be able to spot who is surfacer and not.

Currently there is no way for Monster pcs to know who is outcast, and removing the tag will mean little to monster PC main characters, whom are limited in number already due to the restricted roleplay they have access to on the surface, where the majority of Arelith resides. So regarding the initial post, monster PCs shouldn't care, since it changes nothing for them. Most Andunor citizens are humans, because in addition to the fast leveling for reward grinding the UD provides, they get a free feat, free skill point per level, and two gifts - even as the arguments are made for removing the Outcast Tag, also are not denied roleplay opportunity to the same extent a goblin or ogre might be - intentionally. Most reward races, even vampire, use human as base for this reason.

Regarding light sensitive races, there was a long discussion regarding it on the development section of the discord. My summary from it was that drow pcs should lose access to the melee-magthere and clerical minor gifts and get a major gift instead. Similarly with Svirfneblin. Also, both Svirfneblin and Drow player characters should receive their 3.5 edition pnp mechanical penalties when caught outside during daylight, unless within magical darkness or the Shadowshield spell.

According to the Official 3.5 Edition rules - links below, "Abrupt exposure to bright light (such as sunlight or a daylight spell) blinds drow for 1 round. On subsequent rounds, they are dazzled (a dazzled creature takes a –1 penalty on attack rolls, Search checks, and Spot checks) as long as they remain in the affected area." Since this is Arelith and epic characters are common, perhaps the penalty can be -5 attack rolls, Search checks, and Spot checks.
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Elves ... row_(Race)
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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by The GrumpyCat » Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:58 pm

I'm sorry but I have to go back to respond to something that, I must confess, constantly baffles me.
"You know the deal when you sign up" is such a nonsense, disingenuous argument, because plenty of people don't know the deal when they sign up.
But it... its... it's in the name. Of the background. Right there. Big letters. First thing you see. The actual name.

Outcast.
a person who has been rejected or ostracized by their society or social group.
"she went from trusted pal to ostracized outcast overnight"
It's a bit like saying

'I played a slave, and people started expecting me to do what they told me to! I didn't play a slave to be -subservient- to anyone! Remove the slave tag so I don't have to do what people tell me to!'

You play an outcast and, one would hope, you would understand that, at least in certain places, you would not be welcomed.

And in fact the blurb gives you details of where you wouldn't be welcomed.

I'm not arguing that the background doesn't have issues, or that we shouldn't review it. But I still find the argument of:

'Just because I chose outcast didn't mean I expected to be cast out of anywhere!'

To be as silly as

'Just because I chose Slave as a background, doesn't mean I expected to be enslaved!'
This too shall pass.

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by magistrasa » Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:24 pm

Then we have the next sentence:
magistrasa wrote:
Mon Mar 16, 2020 6:06 pm
Largely because the deal has changed drastically over time
Plenty of Outcast players I've seen have played their backstory as having been raised in the Underdark - essentially native to it - either by coming from a line of outcasts or having a history of slavery. Some of them had little to no interaction with the surface, or some led lives of self-imposed exile. Lots of them come from places outside of Arelith, arriving fresh from the ferry just like any other Andunorian - y'know, like every other character in the server that isn't an Outcast - and so it doesn't make sense for Westin or whoever else to recognize them on sight. There's plenty of interesting ways to explore "Underdark human" that don't involve you committing some heinous crime to have your name and face burned into the memory of every living person on the isle. And there was a time where people were free to explore those stories. Many still do explore those stories, ignorant to the mechanical branding and the implication that comes with it, because the truth is "outcast" doesn't have as specific a connotation as you're making it out to be! It's a title that can be toyed with to create plenty of fun and versatile concepts!

But then the tag update hit, and suddenly those narratives aren't supported by the server. Whoops, your perfectly reasonable character story turns out to have been Wrong and Reprehensible all along. Haha, idiot.

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Wuthering
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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Wuthering » Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:36 pm

There is a light sensitivity mechanic already in the game but only Derro suffer from it. Maybe that should be extended to drow, deep gnomes and some other races.

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Exordius » Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:48 pm

Ne
This kind of attitude concerns me more than a little. Regardless whether a character cares for the motivations of others, there is a setting in place on our server (and in the Forgotten Realms in general) where Drow, undead, monsters, etc. are generally feared, reviled, loathed, distrusted, and/or despised. Completely disregarding and ignoring the setting and its norms and customs is not, in my humble opinion, healthy for the server.
Never said that means he trusts them or does not hate most of them, just that he treats people as individuals rather then as some monolithic group. There can be good in anyone, even in drow and or monsters and while he understands that's considered politically incorrect by society he considers most of society as no better anyway.

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Void » Mon Mar 16, 2020 10:20 pm

MissEvelyn wrote:
Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:15 pm
This kind of attitude concerns me more than a little. Regardless whether a character cares for the motivations of others, there is a setting in place on our server (and in the Forgotten Realms in general) where Drow, undead, monsters, etc. are generally feared, reviled, loathed, distrusted, and/or despised. Completely disregarding and ignoring the setting and its norms and customs is not, in my humble opinion, healthy for the server.
That's not disregarding the setting, it is character being unusual (they're an adventurer, so that's part of the trade), or perhaps more than a little chaotic. You can confront them over it.
magistrasa wrote:
Mon Mar 16, 2020 6:06 pm
It's just frustrating that everything about simply wanting to play a human in the Underdark is met with what seems like a punishment by admin policy. "You know the deal when you sign up" is such a nonsense, disingenuous argument, because plenty of people don't know the deal when they sign up.
But you do know the deal when you sign up.

Also "simply wanting to play X" ... by playing here, you're supposed to abide with the direction/decisions made by the developers and admins. Because they're the ones who worked on the server and made it available for free. That means that not every idea will be supported mechanically.

I'd really love to play as Dullahan, for example. The chances of that happening is zero.

You need to seek compromise between your desires and reality of the server.
Another forum ban, here we go again.

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by Dr. B » Tue Mar 17, 2020 2:27 am

MissEvelyn wrote:
Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:15 pm
Exordius wrote:
Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:30 am
I never take tags into consideration when im doing rp... i choose how i interact with someone not a tag placed by rp nazis trying to force a certain style of rp on everyone. Also why should my character care if pirates, monsters, or outcasts are hanging around as long as they not harming anyone? He is neutral, he cares nothing for good or evil or societal norms. Not his job to punish evil that's what the paladins are for. If that makes him apathetic then so be it.
This kind of attitude concerns me more than a little. Regardless whether a character cares for the motivations of others, there is a setting in place on our server (and in the Forgotten Realms in general) where Drow, undead, monsters, etc. are generally feared, reviled, loathed, distrusted, and/or despised. Completely disregarding and ignoring the setting and its norms and customs is not, in my humble opinion, healthy for the server.
I need to devote some space to commenting on this, because to borrow your words the kind of philosophy that you and those who are on your side have been campaigning for on these forums is not, in my humble opinion, healthy for the server. Reading your various posts on these forums makes it clear to me that you have a very specific view on what Arelith, Forgotten Realms, and RPG campaign settings in general are for. I'll refer to that view as setting-worship, and I want to argue here that it is profoundly misguided.

Here is my view: the setting is a canvass, or a toolkit if you will, for storytelling. The canvass can be warped, or the tools tweaked, to improve the quality of the story. Recall the famous Gary Gygax quotation that is often thrown around on this server, and with good cause: “A master roleplayer is one who is willing and able to bend their character concept to make the game more enjoyable for all involved.” Gygax's logic can be analogized from the case of an individual character to the case of an in-universe setting. A master Dungeon Master (or Server Developer) should be willing to bend the setting to make the game more enjoyable for all involved. They can embellish it, contort it, or tweak it to make the roleplaying experience better. What would be the value of a game that adheres pedantically to FR campaign lore but where the players were not having fun? The setting is the means and the storytelling is the end.

Your view as I understand it casts things in quite the opposite direction: the setting is an an end unto itself, and the players and their stories exist for the purpose of paying homage to the setting. Perhaps you don’t realize that this is your view, but it’s a general theme that seems to emerge when I read your posts. So rigidly must the setting be preserved that you’re even willing to defend something as unrealistic and detrimental to good storytelling as the Outcast tag system.

That is not to deny that there are good reasons to prevent monster races like drow et al. from hobnobbing in Cordor. But it is important to be clear on what those reasons are and, importantly, what they aren't. It’s not because it goes against the general climate of the FR setting. Rather, it's because it makes for a lame and tepid atmosphere and fails to tap into the rich storytelling potential that evil drow have to offer.

The outcast tag system, on the other hand, brings Arelith closer to an MMORPG like WoW than an immersive in-character experience like D&D. It makes the world feel less real and tarnishes narrative quality, and it also sets a very bad precedent and direction for the future of the server. This is why I think forcing drow, by and large, to be evil is justified but the Outcast tag system is not.

And this only scratches the surface of the issues with your view on this matter. I can’t even begin to catalogue all of them here. For one thing, there are huge line-drawing issues with regard to how strictly the setting should be observed. For example, I note that the region of Arelith does not exist in FR lore, it does not appear on any map, and so its very existence violates the setting. Much like the city of Springfield in The Simpsons, which couldn’t possibly be a location in the United States, there’s no place in the Forgotten Realms that offers the geographic variability that Arelith does, with jungles, port cities, snowy mountains, planar gates, and an Underdark all within walking distance of each other. Those things exist because it's fun to experience a diversity of environments, and because they can make a backdrop for different kinds of characters and stories, not because their presence is in any way authentic to Faerunian geography. If the server is to be authentic to the setting, then by your own lights it should be systematically rebuilt to correspond to some actual location on Toril. Supposing that it exists within or near the Moonshae isles does nothing to change any of this. To claim that there is such a place within the Forgotten Realms as Arelith is one of many creative liberties taken with setting the setting lore in order to produce something enjoyable, because fidelity to the setting is a means, not the end that so many people erroneously make it out to be.

Then there is the fact that “Drow, undead, monsters, etc.” don’t have tags, and that Exordius was not referring to them in his post. He was referring to human and half-orc outcasts. Humans are by default welcome in most surface settlements, and I see nothing in FR lore mandating the tag system. If the human is notorious for doing something evil then, yes, plausibly they are unwelcome, provided there is a compelling in universe reason for why people are able to identify them. But whether Andunorian humans should be rationalized as Outcasts is exactly what is in dispute in this thread. Even if they are Outcasts, the idea that everyone on the island has a mental rollodex of who’s who is not consistent with nor necessitated by FR lore. I would probably not recognize America's most wanted criminals if I came across one, and neither, probably, would you. In-universe, it makes no bloody sense. To avail oneself of this mechanic is to break character, because there are few and poor explanations for why your character would have the information provided by the mechanic. That's one of many reasons why I find the tag system so poisonous. The mechanic is an OOC peg shoved into an IC hole, and the peg doesn't fit.

This is not even withstanding the fact that half-orcs are outrightly shunned in most places to begin with, another technicality of FR lore that I think it would be extremely wise not to implement for the sake of enjoyment. Imagine some thirteen year old newb Switch user rolling up a half-orc and getting chased out of every surface settlement. Do you think that's going to retain players or contribute to enjoyment? Because it seems to be an implication of your view that this is how things should be.

I could go on: there is the fact that attitudes and norms vary throughout Toril and that this allows some discretion over what the right attitudes and norms should be on Arelith. There are so many things wrong with the tag system and with the setting-worship that is used to justify it, and its use as a justification for it, that it is almost overwhelming to think about.

That being said:

As I made clear above, I understand that there is a relation between authenticity to the setting and the concerns about storytelling that I am forefronting here. And I understand that the worry about there being too many humans in the Underdark speaks to that concern. That’s pretty much the only argument in favor of the tag system that I sympathize with. However, I think it is strongly worth looking for alternatives to the tag system in order to address that issue.

In sum: “setting-worship” is a misguided approach to roleplay that treats authenticity to the setting as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end, where the end is enjoyable and high quality storytelling. Setting-worshipers get something right insofar as they understand that the setting is important (although I will again reiterate that the setting doesn't necessitate that we keep the Outcast system as is, nor does it necessitate or even allow that everyone knows who they are). They get it wrong when they take this rule to an extreme, because they fail to understand its purpose. If we adapt Gygax's logic, the rule is overridable and is justified to the extent that it serves the end of good storytelling. Setting-worship should not be the guiding principle of the server and I am fearful that it is becoming such.

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Re: Remove outcast background; give evil humans and half-orcs the option to start in Andunor

Post by DM Rex » Tue Mar 17, 2020 3:27 am

This thread has gone more than far enough in regards to the initial sentiment of the Outcast status and starting area options for human player characters.

The DM Team supports views that monsters/monstrous races/those associating with monsters openly should not be made welcome upon the surface areas in the present setting of Arelith. As it has been demonstrated in several past rulings. How each individual or group wishes to take this information is their own leaning on storytelling. However failure to comply with the expectations will at minimum see the DM Team meeting with you in the future.

At this time, and for the foreseeable future there are no changes planned for Outcast status, tags, starting location conditions, and all related material per Irongron.

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