Thoughts about non-monster/non-slave/non-outcasts casually wandering Andunor

[The GrumpyCat]

A few notes
By 'Surfacer' I mean - A Character Who's Starting Point Was Andunor
Reguarding Property

Whilst of course player imput is always very welcome when it comes to property violations, it is not entirely on your shoulders, it's also on ours. So don't worry too much about that. You won't be 'breaking rules' by not reporting a A Character Who's Beginning Point and Development Began In Andunor pc owning UD property. The person who'd be breaking the rules is the PC owning the property, who should be fully awear of their situation.

Grumpycat specifically stated above to treat surfacers like surfacers, whether they have an outcast background or not. The reason why the outcast tag isn't visible is to facilitate just that, because as cynical as it sounds the kind of people who ask humans to touch the hub portal would otherwise gank those without the tag.

You're correct Nitro, but to be clear - we don't want people going around murdering any and all humans because they might not be outcsts. Use your common sense here guys. If someone is running around in starter gear, doing writs they probably arn't surface character starters, so don't harass them on principle.
If it's a pc you arn't sure of - do some rp, do some investigating, have fun with it.

That being said, we will be discussing the issue of tags for outcasts going forward.

[AstralUniverse]

I'm still kind of confused as to why surface citizens can recognize outcasts but outcasts can't recognize each other.

The outcasts are confused as well. It takes a scared peasant to point them out and then they go "oh you too Chad?"

[Zan]

I'd like to add a different slant on the outcast tag, and that is from the surfacer perspective.

The number of times I've seen guards pick out a person because of the tag and immediately run them from Cordor when there is no history / knowledge of their nefarious background is rather silly to watch. If the tag had an accompanying descriptive I.e. OUTCAST (serial killer) or heck a section for the player to write their background that would be far more interactive. Having Blythe the outcast run out of town and then ask the guards what the issue is and them shrug is a rather meh thing to watch.

Conversely, there have been characters exiled from multiple surface settlements at once, have terrible reputation and known as trouble everywhere they go, yet not considered outcasts, because they have no tag.

To me, and this is only my opinion, the outcast tag should be earned, either through genuinely ill deserved slander that then fuels a bitter vengeance arc, or from your penchant for the aforementioned orphan heart consumption (only fresh will do!). This would make the arelith outcasts self contained and give a level of gravitas to that status.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

This is all really confusing, and Andunor/Surface has been really confusing, and so I never take anything said on the forums with any merit (even if from the DMs) because a lot of it is super confusing and doesn't make any sense to me.

Based in the actual canon of Arelithian players playing Arelithian characters, I have witnessed a whole spectrum of nuance and understanding (and even some grudging "tolerance") that has extended between the two spheres. So I just go forward realizing that killing monsters, historically, has not always occurred - and narratively, doesn't make for a great Arelithian roleplay.

Working with some Andunorians over others; tolerating some surfacers over others; cross-surface/Andunor plots are a thing; outcasts are whatever and I can't even keep it straight; what is the nature of "evil"; what the frik is Skullport anymore; what should I be doing to create an immersive and enjoyable fantastical setting -

I think about these things and away I go.

(the whole property situation is absurd and the emphasis on quarters has become a really really bad server direction in a lot of ways, partly because crafting is sometimes needlessly complex, and partly because quarters are impregnable which is bad. there should be a ton of more restrictions on quarters than there are currently, and how non-outcasts could ever buy property in Andunor indicates some lack of oversight somewhere)

[Borin Drakkmurl]

This is all really confusing, and Andunor/Surface has been really confusing, and so I never take anything said on the forums with any merit (even if from the DMs) because a lot of it is super confusing and doesn't make any sense to me.

Based in the actual canon of Arelithian players playing Arelithian characters, I have witnessed a whole spectrum of nuance and understanding (and even some grudging "tolerance") that has extended between the two spheres. So I just go forward realizing that killing monsters, historically, has not always occurred - and narratively, doesn't make for a great Arelithian roleplay.

Working with some Andunorians over others; tolerating some surfacers over others; cross-surface/Andunor plots are a thing; outcasts are whatever and I can't even keep it straight; what is the nature of "evil"; what the frik is Skullport anymore; what should I be doing to create an immersive and enjoyable fantastical setting -

I think about these things and away I go.

(the whole property situation is absurd and the emphasis on quarters has become a really really bad server direction in a lot of ways, partly because crafting is sometimes needlessly complex, and partly because quarters are impregnable which is bad. there should be a ton of more restrictions on quarters than there are currently, and how non-outcasts could ever buy property in Andunor indicates some lack of oversight somewhere)

Over-reliance on coded systems to (vaguely and confusingly) enforce rather than facilitate roleplay has been an issue for a long time, as far as I am concerned. From settlement management systems, to "slavery", to Outcasts, to the writ systems, it has all slowly but surely gamefied and mmofied a server that used to be 100% about story and roleplay first. Above all else. Period.

Sure, back in the day there were a few hundred, not thousands of players to manage, but even without the tools and systems and complex mechanics and overlapping rules, amazing stories were still being told, with all manner of layers and depth and epic legacy.

I know a big part of this is just me looking at it with rose tinted glasses, stained with "old timey" bias, but still, one has to wonder about what gets lost in the way, as things change (and I am usally all for evolution and forward momentum).
Which brings me to the actual original topic of this thread:

I am maybe being over simplistic but, there is something to be said about just...working it out through roleplay. Without too much thought put into what tag means what and where, but with more focus put on engaging story telling and rp for everyone involved. I garantee that would churn out better results, wether it'd mean a more agressive attitude towards surfacers or a more agreeable demeanor. Either way it turns out, story and rp, player driven, should be at the heart of it, not ooc tags and dm intervention other than in blatant stupid behavior.

And that leads me to my parting words.

This is not a new statement from me, and I know it is not what is being directly discussed here, but it kind of permeates a lot of these doubts and conflicting opinions about surface/underdark, Andunor / Skullport arguments, and it has been so for a long time:

Until the day the Underdark becomes a whole server of its own, not just Arelith-Underdark, but completly detached from management and direction from Arelith completely, there is no such thing as Surface Players / Underdark Players. There're arelith players. So whatever characters we're playing in these often at odds places, the rules that apply in one place still apply in the other, for everyone, and the two chief ones that have always ensured things turned out well, haven't changed in nearly two decades:

1- Be nice.
2- Roleplay.

[Security_Blanket]

As a strict player of Surface characters, I don't have much input to offer on how tolerated Surfacers currently are in the Underdark. My approach is to never go down there casually, to keep it as alien and hostile to me as it should be to my character. If you have to do something down there be quick about it, but be cautious. Expect any drow to try and make a slave out of you, expect every creature to be dangerous no matter how unsuspecting, and every plant to be poisonous. The Underdark is an endless maze filled with even more terrifying things than the drow. This is an entirely alien place to your character, the only Surfacers that should be making it their home are the extremely ambitious or desperate.

[deserk]

The fact that Andunor is a much more tolerant place than Cordor is quite frankly bonkers. And there isn't a good argument for outlawing UD races in Cordor while allowing surfacers in Andunor. If said Gnoll trader follows the laws of the Cordor, then what argument do you have to stop him, other than "Yeah... but he looks like an ugly monster"?

I don't mind the in-character xenophobia between the various races, that's part of the setting. What I dislike are the double standards of this PW. You care about lore in a urban surface setting like Cordor, and while you dismiss it in an Underdark city like Andunor. I don't want to see drow, gnolls, duergar, etc in Cordor. Nor do I want to see free surfacers in the Underdark. The Underdark is not a place where surfacers should feel comfortable whatsoever, and it doesn't matter if you are some mean pirate, necromancer or Thayan, you are walking on a very thin thread by every minute you choose to be here.

I can't pretend to speak for anyone but myself, but I personally can't bring myself to play in the Underdark because of this, even though it is the prospect of playing in the Underdark that originally interested me the most about playing on this PW.

Natives of the UD should not feel forced to have to consort with surfacers as equals - in the Underdark, their hometurf, and an environment where surfacers are severely ill-suited. But, invariably many UD players will here elect to be tolerant and nice with surfacer players because it is in the nature of real-world people to pick the path of least resistance, and not every UDer who cares about the lore is going to bother to put surfacers in their place if that means PvP after PVP, and most likely OOC bickering as a result of it.

Someone mentioned that you can use use light spells or get Darkvision by magic means to survive in the Underdark or that you can teleport into it. The point is, UNLIKE as represented in this PW you are only supposed to be able to replenish your spell after a full rest (of 8 hours for most races) in the world of FR/D&D, unlike being able to rest here after a couple of minutes and regain all your spells. You are going to run out of your spells and you are going to run out supplies because there are scarce few safe havens to rest in the Underdark, especially for someone utterly unfamiliar with it's environment, ecology and geography. And like the deserts above, this realm is a virtual graveyard for foreigners who are unfamiliar with it's geography. Also, teleportation in the Underdark is notoriously dangerous and unreliable due to presence of Faerzress, and most sane Underdarkers would rather pick more natural means of transportation than risk ending teleported inside the rock walls of a cavern.

[Nitro]

The fact that Andunor is a much more tolerant place than Cordor is quite frankly bonkers. And there isn't a good argument for outlawing UD races in Cordor while allowing surfacers in Andunor. If said Gnoll trader follows the laws of the Cordor, then what argument do you have to stop him, other than "Yeah... but he looks like an ugly monster"?

I don't mind the in-character xenophobia between the various races, that's part of the setting. What I dislike are the double standards of this PW. You care about lore in a urban surface setting like Cordor, and while you dismiss it in an Underdark city like Andunor. I don't want to see drow, gnolls, duergar, etc in Cordor. Nor do I want to see free surfacers in the Underdark. The Underdark is not a place where surfacers should feel comfortable whatsoever, and it doesn't matter if you are some mean pirate, necromancer or Thayan, you are walking on a very thin thread by every minute you choose to be here.

What? Most of our current "underdark" monster races are in fact surface monster races. If that was your argument then the city would be drow, orogs, duergar and kobolds.

And setting integrity is the name of the game here. In a civilized generally decent society you don't want to have literal baby-eating kobolds, megalomaniacal drow sacrificing your neighbors to their literal murder-goddess or man-eating gnolls worshiping a demon god of slaughter as your neighbor.

Conversely, why should any of these horrible creatures care one iota if their monthly supply of adamantine ingots comes from a duergar or a human? They don't have any moral reason to dislike one more than the other, they all already hate each other anyway. They are just as likely to kill anyone regardless of race or creed (with some exceptions, everyone hating drow, drow hating elves, kobolds and gnolls having a mutual hateboner and such) and are far more likely not to do so on a basis of strength, avoiding shanking the well armed human trader with 20 mercs over the lonesome goblin peddling gems foolishly on his own.

So, in essence. There are double standards because the setting has double standards. You can't treat these wildly separate societies as the same and expect them to get the same treatment, if we did that we might as well disable monster races entirely because we've stopped even trying to comply to the standards of the setting.

[The GrumpyCat]

The fact that Andunor is a much more tolerant place than Cordor is quite frankly bonkers. And there isn't a good argument for outlawing UD races in Cordor while allowing surfacers in Andunor. If said Gnoll trader follows the laws of the Cordor, then what argument do you have to stop him, other than "Yeah... but he looks like an ugly monster"?

It's not a case of 'looks like.'

Would you jump into a tank of hungry white sharks, entirely unprotected with your arm bleeding?

You wouldn't ?

YOU RACIST!

It's the same deal. Gnolles, Drow, ect arn't just 'oh well, they look a bit wierd but I bet they're all sweeties really.' In Forgotten realms they are, by in large, all pretty evil, or at least ridiculously savage.

You're an adventurer, your character kills gnolls all the time. But the average forgotten realms individual is not. Sure, you're sure you can tolerate that gnoll ambling in to the city because in a fight you can take him - and you have the meta knowledge you can respawn.

A commoner npc? They can't respawn. They can't fight a gnoll. And 90% of gnolls would murder/enslave/worse them if they got the chance.

It's not a matter of 'They look funny' it's a matter of 'They are actual monsters that will likely be happy to kill dozens of dozens of innocent people'

Calling it 'Character xenophobia' is innacurate. Calling it 'Common sernse survival skils' is better.

That said, the average adventurer might be so bold/stupid/desperate as to visit the underdark. That's on them.

Natives of the UD should not feel forced to have to consort with surfacers as equals - in the Underdark, their hometurf, and an environment where surfacers are severely ill-suited.

We have NEVER said that. In fact most of my posts have said the opposite.
If you see an elf, dwarf, halfling ect down there and you really want your first reaction to be 'Oye you, you shouldn't be down here!' - PVP

Then you can do that. We won't stop you. I think it's a rather dull tactic to take myself and I don't at all recommend it but if that's really the way you want to go, fine.

We ask allowences are made for humans, in that we don't want new characters off the boat to be automaticaly enslaved/murdered. That'd be really awful for them, and I think most people can understand why. Some wriggle room should be made for allow such players to at least start off their concepts. I think that is reasonable.

That doesn't mean you have to always be /nice/ to surfacers (or even outcasts.) It doesn't mean you have to not be susspicious of them. You can be all those things. But this is a roleplay surver and we ask that you... well... roleplay first, rather than considering the 'murder with pvp' your first and last option.

[IanPatron]

So I came back after a LONG hiatus and I'll just put in my two cents.

A great while back the UD cities were isolated with drow living in one city, orogs and goblins living in another and deep gnomes living in another. The result was a divided server full of every race being xenophobic. There were constant wars and OOC bickering about how they wanted to be left alone to do their own thing. I should know because I was one of those players that was thoroughly against an integrated town.

But it happened anyways, and actually, it's better. RP is better, there's more of it, and fully integrated, characters can't just up and leave to their respective towns and thus box their RP in their confined towns. At this time, there wasn't humans running around.

Now there is humans running around and you know what? It's actually better. Now we can house evil necromancers, Thayans, Zhentarim, and other ne'er do wells.

And it actually makes perfect sense.

A surfacer town will likely have rules and regulations. No one wants to live next to what equates to a werewolf/hyena hybrid that is a gnoll.

But in the UD there are few rules, anything goes, and that includes getting some humans in the mix.

Now on the flip side, elves, halflings, and dwarves should not be very welcome in the UD. But as far as I know they aren't buying property... and even then it shouldn't be a problem if RP'd well.

PS I played a drow male that lived on the surface, at Mayfields. He pretended he was a sick elf who avoided people at all costs as to prevent from getting sicker. At best he was a sickly elf, and at worst he was just a nutty recluse. Thankfully I had a fairy familiar that helped me talk to surfacers without ever meeting them.

The point is it can be done, if done well.

[Diegovog]

Conversely, there have been characters exiled from multiple surface settlements at once, have terrible reputation and known as trouble everywhere they go, yet not considered outcasts, because they have no tag.

To me, and this is only my opinion, the outcast tag should be earned, either through genuinely ill deserved slander that then fuels a bitter vengeance arc, or from your penchant for the aforementioned orphan heart consumption (only fresh will do!). This would make the arelith outcasts self contained and give a level of gravitas to that status.

This is so true. And the funniest part is that these sufercers who are worse than 90% of the outcasts are the best spy detectors because they can see tags.

However, earning the outcast tag requires a degree of DM oversight which complicates things and reduces greatly the number of humans in UD, which is bad.

Either removing the tags or double-standard seems to be the way to do it.

[Irongron]

Exclusion is not reciprocal. Monster races are entirely unwelcome in civilised surface settlements, for reasons I should not need to explain here, while the Upperdark city of Andunor is criminal melting pot where a disparate and often nefarious range of races and creatures meet to trade and scheme. Any surfacer (especially the racial enemies of the natives - elves, dwarves and gnomes) are taking a terrible risk by braving the location, and should expect no rights, whatsoever, afforded by its laws. Nevertheless the locals are not fearful of them as monsters are viewed on the surface, rather something they are something to be exploited.

The best analogy would be visiting gang territory, or a non pirate in Totuga, unless you are prepared to make every effort to appear equally menacing you should expect the worst.

Owning property in Andunor should be restricted to UD start characters, and to break down other visitors by race...

Humans are relatively ubiquitous, and while subject to discrimination and oppression are likely to judged on their individual appearance and conduct.

Dwarves and elves should expect immediate hostility, be it deep suspicion or violent encounter. A long history of formal war with the UD powers coupled with racial enmity leaves very little room for any kind of tolerance.

Half orcs should expect to be largely overlooked, a lower class race, they are treated as such both on the surface and in the Underdark. Orogs are likely to expect deference and servitude from this race.

Gnomes are a curiosity, to most native races, who might seek to subjugate them based upon their outward weakness and small stature. The exception is the kobolds who will react to gnomes in a similar way as drow to the surface elves, though this conflict will be given scant attention by the other races.

Halflings, in the eyes of many Underdark races are obvious victims, and are likely to be treated as innocents who have unwittingly stumbled into a den of iniquity. Any halfling visiting Andunor will need to either be especially discreet, or to subvert the expectations that come alongside their race.

Exotic races, such as firbolgs, will likely be viewed as a valuable commodity, especially among slave traders keenly aware of how that rarity will translate to their price on the open market. They should expect to be subject to a great deal of unwanted attention in Andunor.

I would advise any surfacer intent on visiting Andunor to remember also that this is a starter city, and visiting in order to provoke PvP conflict through confrontational roleplay will likely be dealt with by our DM team. If any UD player bears witness to such behaviour I advise that they report it.

[andthenthatwasthat]

...

Having played in UD since I have returned to Arelith, I'd say this describes mostly what I have witnessed from UD characters. So it probably more or less matches the team's vision.

[The GrumpyCat]

I will say this is kinda what baffles me about this thread. Because from my experiences player side and DM side, you guys are doing an AMAZING job!
Surfacers Do tend to fear the underdark - and when they go down there they're disguised, stealthed, invised, paranoid et cetera.
Underdarkers DO tend to be wary and hostile to surfacers they find. Sometimes they're killed, sometimes their captured, sometimes they're driven away - all groovy.
Maybe I've just gotten supremely lucky in what I've seen,- it is possible. But from a historical basis I've always been very impressed with how you guys are doing it already.

[Preytoria]

I've been playing UD for a while now. Surfacers are tolerated provided they do any amount of ground work. Using disguises, stealth, or other tactics hurts your case more than helps. Characters that are upfront about it are almost always permitted from what I've seen. Admittedly most of what I am talking about is for humans. Elves have a much, much harder time. But even they get waved in if they are associated with another faction who is permitted. If you're going to take up a strict 'Kill anyone who is a surfacer' approach, you're gonna be doing A LOT OF KILLING. Because there are a ton of them in Andunor at the moment.

Am I upset about all of this? Not really. Pretty much every 'surfacer' who does come down and play it straight is still EVIL to some degree. Or at least neutral. At the end of the day, UD server can hover at 15 people during odd hours, so I am more inclined to have more RP and less pvp-just-because. And personally speaking, the experience I have had on my character has been better because of it.

It's gotten to the point that maintaining a 'Kill Surfacers no matter what' viewpoint is actually hard to RP. A lot of it is just...pvp for one. And secondly, almost all of these 'surfacers' have ties to another organization in the Underdark. It does not matter how insignificant your character thinks another is, there will be retribution for killing them. And when my character sees that story play out time and time again, it becomes more trouble than it is worth.

If you want me to be more aggressive towards non-outcasts, I need to be able to see WHO is and isn't an outcast. But relegating how people should RP to a tag seems detrimental to me. I don't even know why the Outcast tag exists, honestly. I partly feel like it's there to split up who can vote where.

If people want to see a more hardline approach to surfacers in the Dark, I'd rather it be done in character rather than making an appeal on the forums. I'm not saying this to be taunting or dismissive. I think it could genuinely make for a good tale in the Dark!

[Petrifictus]

I tried to drive off surfacers off from the Andunor and all I got being called/treated as jerk IC and OOC.

Again, I think we should keep Andunor clean for the UD races because because otherwise why you should make one if your halfling can get there anyway. Never get it why we need to give surface races so much room to go anywhere they want without an issue.

[deserk]

All this situation does is encourage unnatural behaviour from drow, duergar and orogs towards surfacer races, and that is exactly what I dislike about it. The environment should reflect the norms of the Forgotten Realms. That is why I have a much better time playing on the surface, because these norms are for the large part respected when it comes to how surfacers treat UDers on the surface.

It is exactly as if duergar, drow and orogs were allowed to be openly in Cordor and the admins shrug their shoulders over the situation and say "Yeah but you can kill them if they go out of line provided you follow the rules". Most people quite frankly won't be bothered to deal with that situation when it means you have to deal with it every day. If it means constant risk of PvP and most assuredly OOC drama because you are the only one in the PW acting the way 90 % of the population should react in this world.

This means that UD players eventually lower their guard and start befriending these surfacers, and then these surfacers become part of UD factions and become a protected class. Another reason why you would be much less inclined to act in accordance to lore.

Additionally, there are few things that are more ridiculous from a lore point of view than elves even existing in a city populated by Lolthites. Devout believers of Lolth virtually never take elves as slaves, as they are regarded as the arch enemy of the Ilythiiri. Elves would either be killed on sight or captured to be sacrificed to Lolth. If elven captives would ever be taken to a city like Andunor, their captors would have the good sense of not displaying them openly. Orogs just like orcs would regard elves with equal hostility and would be eager sacrifice them in the name of Gruumsh. Duergars might be the only evil race with indifferent views towards them, but they would see elves as brittle, weak and useless, since the only slaves they value are strong races that function efficiently as slave labour for working in the mines. Being a non-slave elf in Andunor quite frankly shouldn't even be possible.

[Ninjimmy]

Would be kinda weird for a trade city to absolutely refuse any trade coming from an enormous segment of the planet's landmass. Who are you selling/buying from if not the Surface?
How are we going to have contraband if nobody can go to the one place the Surface guys aren't allowed to get it from?

I've heard it said a few times that Andunor is more "Skullport than Menzoberranzan" which I personally think makes for a more fun RP environment, but maybe there's a player demand for a more Menzo style settlement where anyone who's seen a cloud before gets killed/enslaved on sight?

[The GrumpyCat]

If you want me to be more aggressive towards non-outcasts, I need to be able to see WHO is and isn't an outcast. But relegating how people should RP to a tag seems detrimental to me. I don't even know why the Outcast tag exists, honestly. I partly feel like it's there to split up who can vote where.

I think perhaps I've explained this a little poorly...

There was a time when underdarkers were literally enslaving/killing human outcasts as soon as they got off the boat.
This was lame and we don't want to see it.
Likewise we don't want to see Drow, Orogs, Gnolls, Goblins ect - treated in such a manner.
It is a bad thing to do.
Don't do this.

Humans are relatively ubiquitous, and while subject to discrimination and oppression are likely to judged on their individual appearance and conduct.

This pretty much covers it. If you think a human has more alliences to the surface than the underdark - REGUARDLESS of whether they are outcast or not - by all means be as mean and cruel to them as you like.

If you think a Human is definatly helping the underdark a lot - again reguardless of whether or not they are an outcast, it makes sense for you to treat them better perhaps.

You can treat it as case by case as you like. But just hold some ooc consideration that some people are starting off characters in the underdark, so repeatedly murdering them to grief them out of there is a really bad thing to do.

[mirvv]

Am I upset about all of this? Not really. Pretty much every 'surfacer' who does come down and play it straight is still EVIL to some degree. Or at least neutral. At the end of the day, UD server can hover at 15 people during odd hours, so I am more inclined to have more RP and less pvp-just-because. And personally speaking, the experience I have had on my character has been better because of it.

It's gotten to the point that maintaining a 'Kill Surfacers no matter what' viewpoint is actually hard to RP. A lot of it is just...pvp for one. And secondly, almost all of these 'surfacers' have ties to another organization in the Underdark. It does not matter how insignificant your character thinks another is, there will be retribution for killing them. And when my character sees that story play out time and time again, it becomes more trouble than it is worth.

In one way there are more player with outcasts in the Underdark, but i think there is a chance for discussion if our playerbase can handle - with gifted award of outcasts or freely created ones, with / without tags...etc - lesser player numbers (?) or would those players who wants to play in the underdark can create other races (and i know there was lots of slaves around). But originally this topic was not about outcasts only.

In my experience (seen Grond-Udos times, early Andunor and what it is now) the City became less hostile, more friendly, tea party, language lessons, darts games with various races (even mutual enemies), giggling and smiling, more gentle, less violent, due no one really seek trouble with another, especially not racial (UD defined by Grumpy vs surfacers) based due the almost collective uproar if such things happen, and united Andunor's wrath upon the player who tries such rp, openly disliking another race. UD became a soft city where only trade matter, which kinda removes the part of the athmosphere, the feeling. Its like you cant even rob another player in the UD without being public hanged, in City or outside.
( Why would bother to chase humans outside of the city, whom i cant tell is outcast or not (so tags no matter really here), and if i try to enforce some rp upon these situations, eventually a bigger friendly faction will jump upon you. Lots of cost in blood and very few benefit.)

I think these pictures represent my opinion, tho i dont really have a working solution (which works for everyone - such thing does not exist at all), just i think what we have now its not really represent an underdark enviroment in Andunor. Many player i have spoken, especially newcomers said, they are leaving becuase its not really feels like underdark within the City, or they cant rp in the racial lore due the laws and status quo set in the city by players and the server rules.


For example, i have no idea how to rob anyone with ex. an orog outside of the City, when upon return i would be welcomed with bunch of *puts race here* friends to talk about the actions ive did. I think we should let allow some darker rp to flourish which contain some racial hatred to raise, or it is Underhug within Andunor, where almost everyone is a friend with some shadow wars or a complete pariah of the City, hunted by everyone.

Maybe Ud should be a bit more violent, and like in a gang, you would just laugh if smaller issues arise even with your faction member, because they were weak to handle alone that and thats a shame. You should just laugh when an orog robbed your friend than arm up and chase, exile, evict a fellow player from City just because trying something unorthodox (which strange to say in Ud for robbery) thing.

I am not against the outcasts, and its not a evaluation of any particular player's rp, just a view on the subject. no more, no less.

Underdark (or paste any other relevant imagination)



Andunor (in my view)

[Amateur Hour]

A few thoughts, from someone who's played a typical surfacer who occasionally goes to Andunor and a drow...

Going to Andunor as a not-evil-aligned race (particularly a non-human not-evil-aligned race who has a nemesis race) should be RPed as exceptionally risky/frightening until or unless you've established some connection to an underdarker who is willing and able to ensure your safety for whatever reason (whether for the nonce or on a long-term basis). There are valid reasons for some underdarkers to do that. Spies are useful, trade is useful, and diplomatic solutions to specific conflicts can offer fun RP opportunities. But even then, you have to keep in mind that someone might decide they want to harm/collar you more than they fear your protector, which can create some fun RP opportunity for underdarkers.

And this brings me to the core point: while murder and enslavement aren't illegal in Andunor, that doesn't mean murder and enslavement can't have negative IC consequences if the victim has powerful friends. For example, if drow-me killed or enslaved a human who happened to be an informant for House Xel'vraxa and is therefore under their protection, House Xel'vraxa could reasonably get really ticked off at drow-me for damaging their "property", so if drow-me is not in a position to take on the wrath of House Xel'vraxa, drow-me not going to outright attack one of their people in a highly-populated area. If I determine through RP that the person doesn't have a protector or their protector is weak compared to me, that makes them a target (though there's the OOC consideration that they could be lowbies who haven't had a chance to find a group yet, which can be RP hand-waved with "oh, you're a weakling, there's no fun in turning your stupid round ears into a necklace, run along before I change my mind").

Tribal-based peace-maintenance isn't something that requires a high INT or WIS score to figure out or understand. This is how real-world justice systems worked before the invention of (and continue to work in some regions due to the absence of) stable codified legal systems, and while they can lead to blood feuds (RP opportunity here!), these systems work. It's maybe more peaceful than the lore says a city with drow should be, but quite frankly, FR drow lore outright admits (from Drow of the Underdark, page 26):

How can a culture this sadistic, this prone to betrayal and infighting, this bereft of any legal or moral code, possibly last for more than a few generations without obliterating itself?

The truth is, it can’t. Drow society is absolutely and utterly nonviable. By all rights, it should have murdered itself into oblivion eons ago.

It is only the will of the goddess Lolth that prevents this circumstance from coming about.

...which is fine for a more typical tabletop campaign where the world only has to make sense insofaras it impacts a handful of characters and the DM can bend reality around it at will, but has some serious issues if you're trying to make it work as a persistent world for hundreds of characters that we're supposed to RP as if death is a meaningfully-bad thing even if it's mechanically merely inconvenient for most.

[Arigard]

I've recently been leveling a character in Sibayad and I've come across more antagonistic RP in a few weeks than i've seen in months in Andunor. Almost every day in the Orclands there is some kind of stand off where opposing RP meets and tension arises. Sibayad legit feels more dangerous a place to be in than Andunor as this moment in time in the server. I've probably leveled up 8-9 characters to 30 in Andunor and during their entire time, it's feltvcompletely safe to me as a player & aside from a tiny tiny chance of running into surfacers below into the epic levels in places like spirits etc, I can only describe Andunor as just feeling... nice. Even playing on my slave character there was very heavy hesitance from people to be 'nasty' to my character IG. I had to literally tell people "Hey guys I'm a slave it's ok to treat me like one, I'm not going to get upset if you punish me IG for doing stuff etc".

Maybe this is simply a testament to the players who play there, that they are very open, welcoming and try their best to give every RP a chance without resulting to hostility etc (which is amazing from a playerbase perspective), or maybe it's simply that there have been too many times when people have tried to play the nastier side of their races/alignment and been burnt (had people cry murder and lash out in OOC/complain) and so they've simply defaulted to not caring anymore to do that, but it just feels very odd to me that the second I step foot in other parts of the server that aren't the Underdark there is instantly more danger as a player.

As much as I love being able to run around the Underdark feeling completely safe I wanted to go there because it's full of monsters. I don't want to run around seeing Gnolls purring and getting 'booped' in the corner, or Vampires having tea parties. I want to see rituals and sacrifices and mean Drow/monsters that put me on edge and these characters from the lore actually being more than re-skinned surface races.

As a player what attracted me to to go to the Underdark was the experience of playing in the meta of the races that thrive there. I wanted to be treated like garbage as a male drow by females, or watch alpha Gnolls square off in the middle of the city, or have to fit in as a lowly slave etc etc. But this RP is actually in my experience very few and far between. Some people try and champion it & there are some very scary and foreboding characters in the UD for sure, but on the whole it simply gets lost and muted out unless you are actively trying to go out of your way to seek it out.

Unless you are literally an obvious surfacer that is in someones face blatantly looking for a fight, or are going out of your way to press someones buttons there's very little way for anyone to actually enforce any kind of hostility without causing a ton of headache and drama OOC that ends up with you feeling guilt tripped like you're ruining someones fun because you haven't just allowed them to buy the item they wanted, or stand around the hub when they wanted etc. You can spend your entire life in the Underdark running around, hogging the dungeons and playing almost anything and be treated in a cordial way. At the most people will simply just overlook your character, rather than reacting with tension.

I feel like in the UD rather than it be the 'norm' it's become something that people wait to come to them because otherwise it just ends in a ton of drama nobody wants and that to me is sad. It should be the norm that people can express their characters properly and unfortunately the only ones that can are those that have the necessary OOC respect and clout to do so because if you don't have that, you largely just get ignored, or overlooked. Even punishing other slaves (who 100% deserved it) below has got people into trouble as monster races in the past simply because they didn't have the OOC clout to deal with it. There should never ever be a situation where a slave has a higher standing in the city than native monster races, but I've seen it happen time and time again simply because the player has a higher standing OOC, more friends etc.

An example is in the buying of slaves. This requires constant character RP change. I walk up to a slave on my monster character that has good standing in the city and start RPing about purchasing said slave to have them say they are claimed by someone else (with no current owner) that my character has never heard of IC. In reality, if I was RPing my monster correctly, he'd simply march them down to the slave owner, buy the slave and then deal with the consequences afterwards, but in actuality I have to change my RP, not be a monster and find a reason to not do this because of OOC reasons of upsetting the player, which is fine, but I have to ask, why does slavery even exist as a mechanic if it is so easy to simply pick and choose exactly what you want to do as a player? Should it not come with some kind of disclaimer that RP comes first? I understand wanting to make characters to play with friends etc, but it gets to the point sometimes where RP completely gets thrown out the window to accommodate OOC. As a monster player I don't even touch slave RP because of a string of bad situations I've encountered that have forced me to just crowbar my characters away from their natural responses. 9/10 slave buying interactions I've been part of either ends up being prefaced by what is essentially an OOC negotiation with the player rather than RP. "Hey, just to let you know I don't like this kind of RP or that kind of RP and I'm not interested in being dealt with in this way etc" (i've literally had this happen on multiple occasions when showing interest in a slave BTW which ends with "Here's my playtime's, here's my idea of what slavery for you would mean etc etc", or it's a flat out tell "Sorry this character is already spoken for and heading in another direction... so". Like I get it, I understand why it matters to the slave OOC, but it really kills all immersion and the fun of the spontaneity of the experience and in turn nullifies the agency of the person trying to interact and really gives them nowhere to go in RP. Like why does my character care if you've been promised to someone else IC? Why does it care what your slave likes/dislikes IG? As long as rules are not being broken, I simply don't understand why this kind of discussion even needs to happen OOC.

Especially if the person 'promised' has no stranding in the city? why would a chaotic evil monster take a step back and be like "Oh right sorry! I'm totally respectful of that person I've never heard of". They wouldn't, yet OOC dictates they have to because control is 100% on the side of one party. When I played my slave, I tried to let RP entirely dictate what happened to him. He was bought by whoever approached him first, he got dealt the hand he got dealt. He got treated how he got treated. Maybe I've just had bad experiences, but at times it feels like the potential slave owner is having to mould themselves to the RP of the slave, jump through hoops and what they want, rather than the other way around.

Another example: Claddeth and the Peacekeepers might not care about what goes on on the whole, but are you honestly telling me that they're going to stand around whilst for example a slave rebellion versus a drow house takes place right in front of their eyes? Yet I've seen these things happen a lot and it's usually a case of "I know my build/level is stronger than your build, so suck it" rather than, "I'm a slave and shouldn't be doing this because although there are no OOC consequences, there are setting and RP driven consequences I need to respect". If you're a slave, regardless of how high you eventually reach, you're still a slave and yes, if that slaves belongs to a powerful organisation then they have some clout, but that still doesn't mean they should be given free reign to run around murdering, or treating other citizens like trash, because I don't see why the NPCs in that setting would ever allow it to undermine their institutions. Likewise to characters who are allowed to be there by the graces of the city. Yes, you are allowed to live in Andunor, but you're still a guest/non native and so should respect that IC.

There are humans and other surface races that live below, but IMO it should never get to the point where native monster races are having to prove themselves to surface characters below to be able to RP their characters properly. Honestly from playing there almost exclusively since I started on Arelith, the Underdark feels like what the surface should be and many places on the surface feel more like the Underdark (Sibayad in particular as mentioned above). There's far more players willing to be hostile to each other above than below and there's a much harder line on the surface in regards to status regarding race/alignment and character path. I'm not sure whether this is because everyone is forced to live together below, or that they know the moment they do try to stick true to their RP they'll get witch-hunted out of the city by people who just don't want to have to deal with anything except stand around the hub and talk about your day RP, but Andunor is probably one of the safest places to live out of in the server currently and at times it's a little disappointing.

Is there some hostility below? Sure, but by and large it really only happens when it's pushed for clearly by all sides rather than on the surface where running into diametrically opposed RP in the wilds ends up in instant tension.

I feel like a lot of the issues with RP in Andunor could be aided with more lack of black and white guidance on roleplay from what is to be expected when playing certain character paths in Arelith. It's very clear that monsters shouldn't be allowed above and so people stick to that both OOC and IC because it's in their face. I think there needs to be more direction (and disclaimers - IG upon selection) about what to expect when playing a slave or an outcast/surfacer there both IC and OOC (i.e expect to not be able to completely control the direction of your character, unintended things may happen), the character choice consequences when being a non native race in the Underdark and guidance about how those characters should fit in and the liberties that are being given up to do so.

Like upon selecting a slave IG I would love to see dialogue that states something like "By picking this option you understand that you are signing up to take part in slave RP. This means the direction of your character and its agency may not 100% be something that you have control over and to be able to play a slave correctly you must have a level of RP flexibility". & similar with Outcast. You are choosing to play an Outcast. It's supposed to be something that is a 'challenge' IG, not an easy mechanical option to level up quickly in the UD, or simply get access to all the niceties without any of the hindrances.

This gives monster and native UD players more credibility to feel validated in expressing their RP similar to how surfacers understand 100% that showing hostility to monsters is not only backed by the server, but by the roleplay setting too. This isn't suggesting to give the green light to 24/7 PvP. Nobody wants that. All players I feel are looking for is the ability to be true to their characters without the constant nagging insinuation that they are in the wrong OOC (Because it's a trade city bro, i'm untouchable) and the second they do so get met with a ton of OOC drama and entitlement. Something like what Irongorn wrote above is amazing and what I think the Underdark should be, I just think it needs way more highlighting to players outside of this thread to direct people on all sides of what they should be accepting and signing up to.

Ultimately, when you sign up to play a monster character you understand 100% that you're not going to be able to hang in the middle of Bendir, or Cordor playing drinking games, or cuddling surfacers. This same understanding of the risk you are accepting by picking an Outcast/slave or surfacer to play below needs to be burnt into those pathways and I just feel like the weight of the decision & consequence of playing these paths currently really isn't as accepted IG or OOC as their monster counterparts for whatever reason.

At the end of the day it's not a huge deal. I still love the UD and have a lot of fun playing there & Arelith is a great and fun experience. I don't think anyone is trying to blow this out of all proportion, this is just some observations of how perhaps we could make things even better.

[DM Rex]

As much as we could write a sort of 'heads up' warning on playing a monster race. In truth there's a lot of ways to play them, an uncountable amount. Our monstrous races policy limits being 'too friendly', 'too cozy', and excessively nice and comfortable with the surface.

That in truth is and remains the only limitation. Even good aligned monsters have to adhere to this, which is explained in the wiki. And by the time someone's played, rolled a character, and decided they're using that type of the reward we would expect them to understand this concept. The wiki provides information on this sort of play style, which is a bit more work than the slavery warning. But like any D&D game that is really part of our handbook. You don't have to necessarily read more than what's relevant to the character that you want to make. And at worst we coach and work with players to get them back into expectation.

With slavery it's an in game mechanic that can come at a potentially volatile time as an on the spot RP decision.
With monster race/UD race PCs, rather than their hello and welcome to Arelith being a warning, we want to welcome them and all the crazy things they do.

[Diegovog]

Andunor isn't in a bad spot right now. But it's maybe too easy/soft on surfacers, which both enables RP but also decharacterize the city and the races within.

Conflict RP is great but it's exhausting being the one who investigating people in the hub.

And I agree with people who mentioned Andunor is by far the most accepting city of all in the server.

[Xarge VI]

I don't see a big problem here.
Say a human from the surface goes down to Andunor to spy/shop/whatever. They have no established reputation anywhere yet, they are not as likely to be attacked and captured. It is perfectly IC. That human is a nobody so the options are open, they may as well be an asset as a hazard.

Try to do that same with a character who has had time to build a reputation, the situation gets a lot more complicated a lot faster which is also perfectly IC and great.

Also acting like you belong is the best way to get away with being somewhere you're not supposed to be. A good RPer is able to portray the pretense of nonchalance and the fear beneath simultaneously. But that takes experience which comes from trial and error.