Surface evil PvP Observations

[Dalenger]

As has been mentioned before, be secretive. Don't flaunt your powers openly. On many occasions have I joined a party under a pretence of being a healer or a commoner just to avoid having to use my eldritch blast or even a summon. Warlocks being as powerful as they are, I think the risk of being spotted by a third party while soloing a difficult area is the most thrill they can get.

Yep! Lets not forget that warlocks get the bluff skill. I think it's completely reasonable to expect them to use it.

[Airport Proximity Jesus]

In my experience, """"team good"""" (not a term I necessarily want to use but so be it) is way more likely to be hyper aggro and rush to pvp as soon as possible in situations like this and this won't change until people play evil PCs and experience it from the other side, which a lot of people seem entirely unwilling to do.

[Skibbles]

There's a lot of great ideas in here for the general improvement of role play situations, but this is futile in mitigating the OPs stated issue. I know this sounds cynical but hopefully you'll read the rest first.

After many years of this scenario (fiend bad = warlock bad = must kill) being the case, made notable by the lack of surprise from virtually every comment, we can assume that the circumstances of public or high-profile murders, the engineering of mega-plagues, or indeed summoning Lord Cheddar of the Nine Melty Layers of Delicious Dairy, being followed by a completely expected and likely unfair outcome is simply going to be: What Happens.

Interesting. I have been playing a surface warlock for almost two years now and I have always considered the hostility towards my character to be normal, even reasonable.

As has been mentioned before, be secretive. Don't flaunt your powers openly. On many occasions have I joined a party under a pretence of being a healer or a commoner just to avoid having to use my eldritch blast or even a summon. Warlocks being as powerful as they are, I think the risk of being spotted by a third party while soloing a difficult area is the most thrill they can get.

I want to highlight this for extreme emphasis to make my point. Everyone knows this is going to happen. Even the OP knows, and engaged in it prior. Nobody here is surprised, but many seem to be getting frustrated that the whole doesn't conform to the one.

The small irony here is that savagely punishing the universe's worst criminal is excellent in character roleplay, but also generally poor form in most if not all circumstances. However there are unequivocally going to be people that will never break character under any circumstance. This can't be controlled, and thus will it continue and also be very likely within Arelith's rules.

However the enormous irony here in that there's nearly identical threads, in their polar opposite, about how this doesn't happen enough. Namely the monthly elves/humans/surfacers are in Andunor threads that pop up, which just like this thread, do have merit in being raised politely.

There's probably a fun philosophical discussion to be had here, but maybe now is not the time (PM me I guess?).

Most critical: What you put in is going to have the most influence on what you get out. It's almost a universal law.

While not a blanket law that's going to be the winning ticket every time, I thoroughly believe this is the only way you can 'control', for lack of a better word, the RP surrounding your character.

We can shout all the RP pointers we want into the void, in the hopes that everyone else change their playstyle to better facilitate extreme scenarios or just PVP in general, but only the player controls the output stimuli that other characters will react to. News of Mega-Warlock is going to spread like wildfire through dozens of characters and you can bet your brimstone that one or two of those characters will never break character under any circumstance - and here we are.

Don't escalate into the extreme, and you'll find that other characters are more likely to match the output. Again it won't work every time, but it's better than just avoiding one's own agency entirely to an understandably frustrating but expected conclusion.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

This thread is a great read- it's remained remarkably civil and honestly done a productive job of getting a lot of ideas and viewpoints out there.

I've been playing NWN since Christmas of 2002. I've played a lot of characters over the years, but only a couple of evils ever stuck, and none of them were on Arelith - the truth is I applaud someone willing to play an Evil antagonist because in terms of the world setting, in 99% of cases the deck is going to be stacked against them- active evil often draws the ire of both neutral and good (because even the description of neutral admits its logical to prefer good neighbors to bad ones).

It takes a lot of effort and I've seen it be remarkably thankless.

I haven't played a robber or a villain here. All of my characters have ended up in the Good camp, because in a world with endless hordes of monsters and ne'er-do-wells trying to ruin your day, gathering behind the banner that opposes that kind of thing is (theoretically) exponentially easier than mustering up the will to write a villain's part, knowing you're going to have to overcome the perception of negative OOC intentions from the word go.

Rather than having to do mental gymnastics to justify why you do the Bad Things, it's much easier to explain why you do the Good thing, which is often logical on a macro scale that benefits you in the long run. To play a convincing Good person, you just have to not be criminally insane or psychotic and add a dash of altruism. To play a convincing Evil person, you have to make everyone else around you in the scene sympathize with your character, on some level that makes them say, "yeah, I could see how someone might make that choice."

Anything less will be met with mockery and scorn, labelled a moustache twirler, and promptly kill-bashed at the first signs of hostility - I've seen it happen, and I'm sure at some point I myself have rolled my eyes at something I saw as cliched and overdone.

The RP is very much a two-way street; but to those out there trying to give the Good Guys something to do, you have my respect. FWIW, when I was playing actively I did my best to engage with these types (within the limitations of what the character was willing to endure) and generally not be the aggressor that started the bloodshed, and I don't think I'm unique in that- so don't lose hope. There are people out there who appreciate what you do- sometimes it will be the people back at town that hear about what you're doing after the fact, and now have something to look into, and occasionally you may even find a game victim for your troubles.

[LIAR LIAR]

It would, however, be in good faith for these people to offer a way out for the warlock, independent of the statement that allowing fiends to exist is evil. A player should be given the option to walk away from PvP, always. And if you're given that out, you better abandon your grind if you don't want PvP.

This isn't a rule and isn't true. Sometimes you have no "out." RP should be given, but if you come across a paladin with a fiend and don't pull off some incredible trickery to make them think it isn't your summon somehow, that paladin is probably going to bash you in the face, or at the very least arrest you or something. PvP is RP. "Outs" are not required. Roleplaying prior to pvp is required, but an "out" is not.

The drunk guy's correct here.

At no point is an "out" ever something that a player is owed. There are some circumstances where giving someone an option to walk away from pvp strains character integrity past the point where it becomes a jarringly OOC breach of character; a character can (and should!) only flex so much. I've seen enough characters embrace flexibility to the point of narrative contortionism to know that, after a certain point, too much flexibility harms roleplay far more than it ever helps. An acquaintance of mine recently used a term I think applies here: "seems like a machine learning algorithm designed a character with the objective of getting a 40 RPR".

I would also add that large swathes of Arelith's playerbase are dismal at taking the outs offered to them, from personal experience.

I find this set of responses expresses a sincere problem with the Arelith playerbase. Your mindsets are a problem. No one expects to really be given a proper out when it's a common tactic to demand someone unsummon their fiend then kill the warlock. And I did not neglect to say that the player on the receiving end of this needs to take what they're offered and go. If you want out, you give up, you disarm, you denounce your god, and you don't come again unless you really do want something to go down.

Did I even suggest it was a rule? Is it so bad to do things in good faith, instead of being self-centered and fixated on getting the kill for "your rp?" There are situations where there cannot be an out, but you're going out of your way to apply them to a scenario that can go any number of ways.

It's as simple as standing around while they lense away, and going "Damn, they got away." Not realistic enough for you? Better not comment on eating, resting, drinking, and standing in one spot as hours upon hours pass IRL while you chat. Or the fact characters silently stare at each other, until the other drops several sentences and an emote all at once, then reply to things said two lines ago and work your way down a list of text. Just stand there and stare if they start fleeing. It's what Ive always done in PvP because I don't care to literally trash on someone's day who is probably panicked at their keyboard like most players get in response to the threat of PvP.

Treat people well, and encourage a better mindset for the community. People are bad at taking outs because they've been constantly screwed over when they tried. It very well should be a rule.


Another aspect of the base situation that sourced this discussion is there have been level 30s from Sencliff and the Underdark moving in kill parties around the Orclands and trying to lure people out of Sibayad. It's really not the best place to be as a warlock not seeking PvP due to the nature of this situation.

It really is best you especially do not repeat grinding in the same area as a suspect individual, and the moment someone leaves you after acting shady, you need to start fleeing for your life. These are some basic rules that if you don't operate on as a surface evil, you will get into scenarios like these. There is no logical reason to remain after someone departs you like that, being a warlock, necromancer, or just a wizard with a fiend. The writ doesn't matter, you can finish it later or drop it entirely. They're not that important. You are pretty much asking for the encounter with all the higher level players by not leaving immediately.

Drop the summon, bow your head in the sand, eat some grass, get disrespected, and then you can think about living through the encounter without dying. Also expect the possibility of being apprehended.


I'm going to take this time here at the end of my post to refocus on a singular line.

At no point is an "out" ever something that a player is owed.

Actually, if you have a lick of common courtesy in you, they are. It's the simplest kindness you could do for another human being relaxing on a video game.

[Godsgopher]

Actually, if you have a lick of common courtesy in you, they are. It's the simplest kindness you could do for another human being relaxing on a video game.

I really liked this closing statement. I think on the whole most people here are pretty serious roleplayers. I've seen a few better in NWNs over the years, but as a group, especially such a LARGE group. You guys do a great job at this.

But the problem with we roleplayers is that we take all this very seriously. Its why the RP is so good. But it also means we REALLY take all this very seriously. And we do forget its a game, with people who are all trying to indulge in some healthy escapism for a few hours.

Yea, evil deserves to be ground into the dirt. And ultimately we all need evil to be ground into the dirt. Just remember behind that evil character is a player who needs a few good experiences tonight just like you do. So if you can reasonably give them one, go for it!

[Scurvy Cur]

Actually, if you have a lick of common courtesy in you, they are. It's the simplest kindness you could do for another human being relaxing on a video game.

Incorrect once more.

The simplest kindness you can do for another human being trying to relax on a videogame is to be an emotionally-developed adult, refrain from demanding that they mentally and emotionally subsidize your fun and relaxation by bending their own to accommodate your idiosyncratic preferences, and stop behaving as though other people "owe" you the sort of treatment you would like. When you tell other people that they owe you outs, favors, and accommodations, you're being incredibly selfish, and probably conspiring to make yourself unhappy on top of it.

I would even go so far as to say that, if you find yourself in an emotional state in which you are incapable of finding good experiences no matter what happens IC, or in which you need those "few good experiences" to happen only in ways that do not inconvenience, upset, or harm your character, then you are not in an emotionally good place, and should probably not log in. Goodness knows I've had days (and sometimes many sequential days) when I've not been able to muster the zen to find enjoyment/growth even in character setbacks, and I think logging in at those times is generally a mistake.

This isn't to say we shouldn't be nice to each other, we absolutely should be, but we should also probably not put other people in charge of ensuring that we have the kind of fun we would prefer, or get mad at them when they do something we don't like.

[Skibbles]

Edit: It appears Scurvy Cur did speak for himself, but here is my conjecture anyway.

Scurvy Cur wrote: ↑
February 10th, 2021, 2:46 pm
At no point is an "out" ever something that a player is owed.

Actually, if you have a lick of common courtesy in you, they are. It's the simplest kindness you could do for another human being relaxing on a video game

While I 200% agree with the spirit of common courtesy, this is worded a bit aggressively. Scurvy Cur can speak for himself, but I suspect what he means by that statement is the very correct technicality that a player is actually not owed an out.

I imagine if a PVP, however distasteful it might be for one or both sides as it usually is, was appropriated started and ended within the current rules and one of the players made a report stating: "I was not given a way out!!!" then the DMs are probably going to say, "You aren't owed a way out, sorry."

Therefore I believe what Scurvy is really saying here is: If you're going to expect to be given every available opportunity to escape consequences, then you are going to be disappointed.

[thimblegiant]

My favorite type of character to play, and favorite style of rp, has always been the wandering around, bumping into people kind. Where you set out with only vague goals, and the main idea is to save/harass/interact with people you run into.

This was very easy to do 10 years ago, when playing my wild elf stealther.

It was still cool to do with Borin some four years ago, but it was already shifting, with too much ooc noise creeping in.

It was near impossible with my last attempt at a main character, a knight errant type of guy.


And it's been proving the same with my current UD character. The amount of people running past at full tilt, with summons and henchmen, to try and complete writs, just drains the joy of exploration all together most of the time, and crushes all hope of meaningful, spontaneous rp, which used to be a given on Arelith.

I think the above points are interesting. I also like to wander about, visiting tucked away corners of the map just because. Presumably you're inferring to a time before the writ system was in place?

If I run into a people on a writ I try to let them drive the engagement as I'm aware they have wards that will expire or their mindset might be in mechanics mode - gearing for battle or coming out of it, with a clear goal to complete the writ that evening.

[-XXX-]

IMO this all boils down to the ancient argument between Killers and Achievers from the Bartle's Taxonomy.
Killers mess with the Achievers, so the Achievers want to see Killers gone - simple as that.
Both player groups want something different from the game, have diametrally different ideas of what constitutes as fun and as such they will always have a hard time reaching an agreement. An objective arbitration in this case is mandatory (Server rules)

Arelith employs very simplified rules for the sake of clarity. As a result, simple rules of engagement seem to benefit the Killer playstyle unproportionally.
I'm not stating this because I would think that the rules might need to be revised.
I'm stating this because acknowledging this state might serve as some sort of context behind this call for players to act more graciously in PvP situations, rather than aiming for the "there's a finite amount of fun and I want to have it all so I'm going to use every edge allowed by the rules to get it" argument.

Maybe should the talking points of the players who find themselves at the receiving end of PvP encounters be paraphrased and perceived more as a form of request rather than entitled demands, some sort of detente might be reached. This, of course can be only appraised on a case by case basis. Very few sweeping claims regarding this subject that would actually apply can be made I think.

[Skibbles]

I've never heard of Bartle's Taxonomy but it certainly made for an interesting read! It seems a bit simplistic (though the 8 sector model at the bottom of the wiki I read seemed much more on point) but I think your overall point still stands as indicative of a clear and uncommunicable divide.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that players are being paraphrased purely into entitlement solely on the grounds of the following:

1) Arelith's fundamental PVP rules have never changed in forever, as far as I know. I think the 24 hour thing got added at some point, many years ago but even that was so long ago I can't be certain.
2) This isn't the first thread of this kind and probably won't succeed in great and fundamental server-wide change, so a detente isn't relevent.

This is why I think a pragmatic approach to this problem, via the tempering of expectation, is necessary to merely reduce what would otherwise be inevitable self-inflicted frustration.

If the rules aren't going to change, then changing them in one's own head and holding other people to new and imaginary rules is going to be very frustrating and potentially toxic through social means as players or characters who broke the un-rules are spoken about in various discords and the like.

Similar to how someone sprinting headlong at a brick wall because they don't believe physics will also be very frustrated. I don't recommend it, but I also acknowledge that it would be very cool if you could.

[Ninjimmy]

However the enormous irony here in that there's nearly identical threads, in their polar opposite, about how this doesn't happen enough. Namely the monthly elves/humans/surfacers are in Andunor threads that pop up, which just like this thread, do have merit in being raised politely.

This didn't really occur to me until just now but you're 100% right, I'd be really curious to know what the split of player input is across these two viewpoints (i.e. "Is it the same people arguing the Surface is too strict and kill-happy saying the Underdark isn't enough or are they two separate lots of players") because that could be informative as to how the community is viewing it.

[JoeKickAss]

IMO this all boils down to the ancient argument between Killers and Achievers from the Bartle's Taxonomy.
Killers mess with the Achievers, so the Achievers want to see Killers gone - simple as that.
Both player groups want something different from the game, have diametrally different ideas of what constitutes as fun and as such they will always have a hard time reaching an agreement. An objective arbitration in this case is mandatory (Server rules)

Arelith employs very simplified rules for the sake of clarity. As a result, simple rules of engagement seem to benefit the Killer playstyle unproportionally.
I'm not stating this because I would think that the rules might need to be revised.
I'm stating this because acknowledging this state might serve as some sort of context behind this call for players to act more graciously in PvP situations, rather than aiming for the "there's a finite amount of fun and I want to have it all so I'm going to use every edge allowed by the rules to get it" argument.

Maybe should the talking points of the players who find themselves at the receiving end of PvP encounters be paraphrased and perceived more as a form of request rather than entitled demands, some sort of detente might be reached. This, of course can be only appraised on a case by case basis. Very few sweeping claims regarding this subject that would actually apply can be made I think.

I think that's something of a false dichotomy.

Anundor is full of "killers", one of the problem with a "killer" playstyle is that it often leads to just forcing people off the server. If several drow houses decided that gnolls were an enemy, and just attacked any gnoll they saw or mugged them. Gnolls would just not log in and noone would create one.

My faction has a strong distrust of pretty much every race that's not basically a warrior culture, and humans specifically. Do I attack humans on sight when I see them? Absolutely not. Do I still personally get involved in a motherload of PvP? Yes.

My faction will not gank in the Hub, we won't gank in Cordor. If we see an actual Cordor guard wandering about, we will be aggressive and make it clear the player could die. But 9/10 we wont kill. Why? Because what is the point of killing one guy in the middle of nowhere? We beat down by default.

We go to lowbie writ areas often, interact with people. I'd say 50% of people will actually send OOC messages to one of us saying "thanks for the great encounter". One or two created goblins after it. We've have also lost some players who disagree with our policy.

[Aradin]

...player groups want something different from the game, have diametrally different ideas of what constitutes as fun and as such they will always have a hard time reaching an agreement.

This is a great observation. I think something to consider is that in my experience when we - the players - look at PVP/conflict situations that have gone sour, we tend to try to find what either side did wrong in an effort to fix the problem. But there are some where we might need to consider that no one did anything "wrong" - the two sides simply have incompatible RP styles.

I think at the end of the day, you're not going to jive with every single person's RP. And that's okay! Chalk a bad situation up to an incompatibility, don't RP with that person in the future if you found their playstyle unfun, and move on without a federal court case (unless the other player did actually break the rules, in which case a report to the DMs is the best course of action).

We can have opposing ideas of what we consider fun and still happily coexist.

[Arigard]

The simplest kindness you can do for another human being trying to relax on a videogame is to be an emotionally-developed adult, refrain from demanding that they mentally and emotionally subsidize your fun and relaxation by bending their own to accommodate your idiosyncratic preferences, and stop behaving as though other people "owe" you the sort of treatment you would like. When you tell other people that they owe you outs, favors, and accommodations, you're being incredibly selfish, and probably conspiring to make yourself unhappy on top of it.

+10000

If someone is having a bad day, or is going to take any RP path personally, they should take a step back and a break from the game. We are all playing this to escape, noone has any more right than anyone else to impose their RL issues onto other players.

Characters are not players, that's why we can get away with doing evil things and some of the 'nastiest' characters I meet are often played by the nicest people OOC. To substantiate the two, that if you're 'nasty' IG, or because you're not willing to bend your RP 24/7 over backwards to accommodate someone else OOC then you're a bad person etc, is ridiculous. In that situation it just becomes one person putting their OOC enjoyment of the game over anothers and expecting them to bend over backwards for it. At the end of the day, you need to take responsibility for your characters actions, especially if you're taking very obvious and clearly defined risks.

There are plenty of IG solutions to the IG problems being mentioned here. Use them, or don't. If someone is legitimately breaking rules, that's one thing, but if someone is being lazy and not bothering to use the tools provided to them IG to offset some of the risk they are taking then it's not the fault of the player that catches them (whose role it is in the world to do this btw) if that situation goes badly.

The moment you start suggesting everyone should be able to take part in RP, or pick and choose which hostile situations they need to deal with when it suits them OOC, is the moment RP in Arelith will lose itself. I've been playing NWN since 2003 and been part of plenty of worlds that have gone down this route. All it leads to is player entitlement, control freaks and RP elitism/cliques and gate-keeping where those with the most power OOC end up having complete control over what happens not only to their characters but large RP pathways. It breeds staleness, a lack of options and a very boring experience, where risk/consequence ends up going out the window in favor of scripting, where usually force of OOC personality, or those that complain the most OOC usually end up winning. I've seen this happen in other worlds. It's a quick way to lose activity almost overnight.

The reason than opt out is bad, is because, for every 1 person that just wants to opt out because they had a bad day, or just feel off etc, there's 10 that want to do it because they simply don't want to lose face, or take their characters too seriously and can't handle a blow to their ego, but miraculously want to involve in conflict when it benefits them.

If I'm running around the surface on a Paladin and I run into a Warlock -openly- just chilling with his fiend out, I want to be given a good RP reason not to just engage in PvP. I'll literally be behind my screen saying "Please give me RP here and play along", you'll be surprised how often it doesn't happen though. I don't care what it is, it can be an excuse "HEY WTF IS THIS PIT FIEND DOING HERE? - KILL IT PALADIN", it can be something funny "Oh man this thing has just been following me around -forever- thank god you're here, I think I might be cursed...". It can be anything, as long as it shows effort on the part of the player that they are actively trying to play along. I'm happy and I'm sure so are a lot of players to RP being duped, or being outsmarted to allow for that encounter to end through RP rather than PvP, but if those things don't come and it just ends up being "Yeah I'm a Warlock, what of it". Then at what level do you think you're not going to get hostility and I'm going to allow you to opt out?

In Arelith, you get out of it what you put in and it's the responsibility of all players to build the world they want to see, not just expect it to happen. If you are legitimately left feeling hard done by after an encounter? Report it if the rules are broken, or perhaps reach out to the player and try to suggest ways they could change how it was approached. "Hey I was ready to RP with you more, perhaps next time you can give me a little more time to develop story, I think it would have ended up a lot more fun for both of us" etc.

But the crux of the issue here is. If an olive branch is clearly extended to role-play, don't take that as your chance to 'win' and then complain about not being given chances to RP after the fact just because it went badly for you. Trying to teleport to then return 5 minutes later with another group, sneaking in a ton of buffs just so you can suddenly attack on higher ground when you've been told to stop. Trying to stealth away with zero RP, or simply just flat out running off and refusing to allow any RP over and over again. Again we're talking about clear diametrically opposed RP here, not "I walk up to innocent bystander on my monster". In that instance if people want to run, I let them run. That is after all a perfectly acceptable response to a monster.

There's nothing wrong with any of those actions and they are 100% understandable IC, but what comes with them is the same unwritten 'be nice' understanding expected from the opposing side that mechanically you are actively trying to not play along. If your character is scared, RP it. If you're trying to talk your way out of something, RP it. If players actively offer opportunity and then get it thrown back in their face, of course they are going to simply go through the motions, because it just feels like a smack in the face to someone actively trying to create RP to constantly feel cheesed and shut down. If you set the tone of the encounter as hostile, don't complain when you receive hostility back. The majority of players when given a chance, in my experience are in fact very happy to role-play out hostility and often people who are upset OOC afterwards completely fail to look at an encounter objectively and see that they were in fact given an out, but refused to take it because they thought they could 'win'.

In my experience for every one line PvPer who is too trigger happy, there are just as many players who will instantly jump to OOC to complain over every single little thing, who refuse to accept the consequences to their actions, even if they were doing absolutely zero to offset the situation through RP. The one thing that keeps dynamic RP and choice in Arelith alive & meaningful, is that conflict can happen without consent, as long as adequate RP occurs.

In these situations it's as much on the defender to provide adequate RP to tilt the interaction away from hostility as it is the aggressors responsibility to give enough leeway for RP to happen. If this doesn't happen, then the base system is there to do what it was designed for, settle disputes with conflict RP in the world. That's how it should be and I'm glad this is how Arelith is. Please never change.

[Arienette]

This thread has gone rather far afield of why OP. That’s fine, and having read through the replies there’s been a lot of interesting discussion.

Wanted to touch on a couple things.

1. All large handful are basically saying “well if you are a warlock you should expect people to be hostile and hide it better.”

I do expect people to be hostile, and I am able to hide it and blend in when I want to.

2. The dilemma in my OP was basically this: at what point do I just preemptively kill strangers who give off bad vibes to avoid them calling out the gank army? RP wise my character is already at that point. My doubt is as a player; I think that behavior would almost certainly come off as toxic and not-nice and I don’t want to be that guy. It’s happened at least 5 times. My solution has been to just play in the UD but at that point I’d have been better off as a monster or outcast.

I think it’s well established that if a Paladin comes across a Drow Necromancer in the desert or mountains, they are pretty much fair game. You don’t HAVE to PvP them, but nobody is going to find it odd if you do.

It’s starting to look like, as an evil warlock, it might be just as sensible for me to push PvP if I come across a “normal” character in the desert or the mountains. Oh, you have a problem with my infernal ways? You gonna run off and report me to the local guards? I don’t think so buddy. “!”

This is my first surface evil character. It’s not the situation I expected to find my character in. I guess I’m looking for advice on how other players have handled the same situation.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

As someone who plays villains, nothing but villains (just villains, just villains, just villains) my concern is more to the way that more good-aligned characters treat characters of evil regard, and how evil characters who are part of a "archetype" end up representing their archetype in an overly negative fashion. In some ways, it feels driven more by OOC stereotyping more than IC, and it's a cycle that has facilitated itself since the beginning of time. A bit unrealistic.

It's not likely to change, but I have noticed that if you play heavily in a non-confrontational fashion, you can get the other side ("the good guys") to give you reprieve, or even walk away from a conflict. It's happened several times for me. Still a little annoying for there to be a big glaring wall between "Good and Evil" and I really feel RP should be less about taking sides and more about how each individual character interacts with each other, but it is what it is.

[DM Rex]

So far this conversation has been going extremely well. Please remember that there can be abuses that should still be reported and can lead to an RPR investigation as well even if players do adhere to the expected behaviors prior to PVP. This is not a thread for venting about any and all unfair/unbalanced PVP situations, but specifically to the matters that are regarding overt evils in an everyday setting.

[Gouge Away]

Still a little annoying for there to be a big glaring wall between "Good and Evil" and I really feel RP should be less about taking sides and more about how each individual character interacts with each other, but it is what it is.

This kind of community storytelling without singular vision doesn’t do subtlety well at all I am afraid. In general we tend to lean into broad stereotypes and well-established lines of division like good/evil, surface/UD, my races hates yours etc.

When you find a place in smaller and more intimate groups you can pull off subtlety and nuance, assuming others give you the time and opportunity to develop a complicated character, but I’ll always expect random PC encounters to follow the most obvious script based on pre-conceived expectations and basic lore. Doesn't mean you have to play that way too of course!

[torugor]

This is a curious response.

Any rule if open to debate is not a good rule at all. I mean that if a rule exits it is supposed to be followed and we wont get trouble.

But this response says that even if i follow the rules of arelith i can still be investigated and punished? Can you explain it? Rules are rules. If the rules have exceptions it should be written somewhere so that players can behave properly.

So far this conversation has been going extremely well. Please remember that there can be abuses that should still be reported and can lead to an RPR investigation as well even if players do adhere to the expected behaviors prior to PVP. This is not a thread for venting about any and all unfair/unbalanced PVP situations, but specifically to the matters that are regarding overt evils in an everyday setting.

[DangerDolphin]

This is a curious response.

Any rule if open to debate is not a good rule at all. I mean that if a rule exits it is supposed to be followed and we wont get trouble.

But this response says that even if i follow the rules of arelith i can still be investigated and punished? Can you explain it? Rules are rules. If the rules have exceptions it should be written somewhere so that players can behave properly.

So far this conversation has been going extremely well. Please remember that there can be abuses that should still be reported and can lead to an RPR investigation as well even if players do adhere to the expected behaviors prior to PVP. This is not a thread for venting about any and all unfair/unbalanced PVP situations, but specifically to the matters that are regarding overt evils in an everyday setting.

I expect he's talking about behaviour such as ganking lowbies in writ areas with a level 30. There are no explicit rules against it provided you RP a few lines with them beforehand, but it's very obvious that it's crappy behaviour.

If you're confused over if something would be viewed as poor behaviour on the server then you can always ask in the Questions & Answers forum.

They can't really encapsulate all bad behaviour in a list of 100 rules, as nobody will read them. It basically falls under the 'be nice' rule though.

[Dovesong]

This is a curious response.

Any rule if open to debate is not a good rule at all. I mean that if a rule exits it is supposed to be followed and we wont get trouble.

But this response says that even if i follow the rules of arelith i can still be investigated and punished? Can you explain it? Rules are rules. If the rules have exceptions it should be written somewhere so that players can behave properly.

So far this conversation has been going extremely well. Please remember that there can be abuses that should still be reported and can lead to an RPR investigation as well even if players do adhere to the expected behaviors prior to PVP. This is not a thread for venting about any and all unfair/unbalanced PVP situations, but specifically to the matters that are regarding overt evils in an everyday setting.

The Overarching Rule is: Be Nice. Don't be a cheeseball. Following the *letter* of the rules without adhering to the *spirit* of the rules (i.e. don't be a jerk just because you CAN) will eventually earn you a swat. As it should.

Re: Having Fun: if your fun, as a player, is predicated on others giving up theirs, you're missing the point of a multiplayer server. Yes, we all bend a little for others. But it's not rational to expect, say, a Paladin of Torm to embrace an animating necromancer. It's asking too much ofnthe other player.

If you can't handle the fallout of your *IC* ACTIONS, not to be confused with OOC actions or stances, don't take those actions.

Not everyone is made to be an antagonist (note I don't say "evil" or "good". Either side can be an antagonist.) That's okay. It takes all kinds to make a living, breathing world. I, for example, am crap at surface evil. It's just not what I'm good at. I make a damn fine Drow though. So I stick to what I personally am good at. It's more fun for me, it's more fun for the people around me BECAUSE it's more fun for me.

Whether it's being a warlock, or a Banite inquisitor, or a hidden Eilistraeen in an Underdark city, play to YOUR strengths as a player. You will have, and create, more fun that way, and so much less grief on your, and everyone else's, end.

If you dislike Warlockry on the surface, but you really want that build and that story, come on down below, or try Sencliff or the Banites. If fighting The Good Fight below isn't working how you wanted, try the surface or Skal.

There's always a way to get what you want without unnecessary unhappiness, or expecting others to bend to unreasonable levels. (Unreasonable being the operative word)

[kinginyellow]

What I'm going to say probably isn't going to contribute to the thread too much, but here goes.

For the past year (on and off) I played a surface evil character. The biggest problem that I had, and the reason I eventually rolled the character, was difficulty carving out a niche for myself. What do I mean with this:

This character wasn't a Banite, or a Zhent, so he couldn't join the lads at the Church.
This character wasn't an Abyssalist, so he couldn't go join the Iron Citadel.
This character did have an infernal pact, but he definitely wasn't an Infernalist. (Archetype. Mortal that believes he an outsmart the creature that's older than his entire race. Conflicting between his beliefs and the beliefs of his faith vs his pact obligations as a Warlock).
What ended up happening, was that through a long-winded rabbit hole that ended up having him do some mercenary work for the Sharrans, said character was essentially an Underdarker without Hub Access, as going anywhere else could result in there being a gank squad called on him. Without naming names, or talking about specifics, this did happen in several locations one could call "neutral" so he had to learn the hard way that there were only two safe places for him. The Shadovar Trading post, and Dis, as anywhere else could result in there being a gank squad called.

Now you could say that these are the consequences of his actions, and I 100% agree. My characters should be hunted down for what they've done especially if its high profile. But this has made me embrace a playstyle that I don't think is necessarily the best for people in the situation I'm in. Where if I want to make an evil surfacer, I'll only keep them around until I do the big thing, and then I roll them. Because the following eternity of being hunted forever and being banished from everywhere with a consistent playerbase to actually interact with becomes old very quick.

I mean no offence to the people that do spend a lot of time in Dis or in the Shadovar, but I don't like idling in one place for too long. It gives me the same headache I get when I try to make a new character and remember I need to get to level 30.

I'd like to say the solution is to bring back Wharftown, but I like this thread and don't want it to get locked.

Edit: More to the point to what the OP was trying to discuss, you make friends. So that you can roam around with a big group instead of by yourself. I know people have already said this, but I can't stress this enough. And the situation you're in was what made my warlock team up with a player faction. Simply the fact that it gave him access to resources he otherwise wouldn't have, and he'd normally be around people instead of by himself if I ever went somewhere like Orclands. If I ran into -one- player that didn't like the fact I had a fiend out they normally shrugged it off as there were 4 other people there who were ok with it. And in the occasions where someone did call a group to deal with us, well, it was no longer a gank. It was emergent faction PVP.

[Marsi]

What I'm going to say probably isn't going to contribute to the thread too much, but here goes.

For the past year (on and off) I played a surface evil character. The biggest problem that I had, and the reason I eventually rolled the character, was difficulty carving out a niche for myself. What do I mean with this:

This character wasn't a Banite, or a Zhent, so he couldn't join the lads at the Church.
This character wasn't an Abyssalist, so he couldn't go join the Iron Citadel.
This character did have an infernal pact, but he definitely wasn't an Infernalist. (Archetype. Mortal that believes he an outsmart the creature that's older than his entire race. Conflicting between his beliefs and the beliefs of his faith vs his pact obligations as a Warlock).
What ended up happening, was that through a long-winded rabbit hole that ended up having him do some mercenary work for the Sharrans, said character was essentially an Underdarker without Hub Access, as going anywhere else could result in there being a gank squad called on him. Without naming names, or talking about specifics, this did happen in several locations one could call "neutral" so he had to learn the hard way that there were only two safe places for him. The Shadovar Trading post, and Dis, as anywhere else could result in there being a gank squad called.

Now you could say that these are the consequences of his actions, and I 100% agree. My characters should be hunted down for what they've done especially if its high profile. But this has made me embrace a playstyle that I don't think is necessarily the best for people in the situation I'm in. Where if I want to make an evil surfacer, I'll only keep them around until I do the big thing, and then I roll them. Because the following eternity of being hunted forever and being banished from everywhere with a consistent playerbase to actually interact with becomes old very quick.

I mean no offence to the people that do spend a lot of time in Dis or in the Shadovar, but I don't like idling in one place for too long. It gives me the same headache I get when I try to make a new character and remember I need to get to level 30.

I'd like to say the solution is to bring back Wharftown, but I like this thread and don't want it to get locked.

Edit: More to the point to what the OP was trying to discuss, you make friends. So that you can roam around with a big group instead of by yourself. I know people have already said this, but I can't stress this enough. And the situation you're in was what made my warlock team up with a player faction. Simply the fact that it gave him access to resources he otherwise wouldn't have, and he'd normally be around people instead of by himself if I ever went somewhere like Orclands. If I ran into -one- player that didn't like the fact I had a fiend out they normally shrugged it off as there were 4 other people there who were ok with it. And in the occasions where someone did call a group to deal with us, well, it was no longer a gank. It was emergent faction PVP.

It's not that we need Wharftown back, it's that something needs to occupy its place.

Your experience - and that of the OP if you read between the lines - is what I consider the archetypal post-Wharftown, post-not-pirates-Sencliff surface evil trajectory.

Surface evil has nowhere to build persisting power structures. Everything is either too thematically-linked to one particular concept, or just doesn't have the capacity to support a thriving and varied population. The fortunes of an independent evil factions might rise and fall with spikes in population. Maybe they'll receive the attention of a sleepless 40 RPR organizer-type and enjoy a brief renaissance. It never seems to amount to anything but internecine PvP fests.

And what of those like yourself, whose character doesn't fit into any particular niche? You wander around, and then eventually get ganked by gormless team gooders who have enjoyed the freedom to play INTERPOL with impunity for the last three/four years. Or if you're unlucky, get drawn into some awful Gossip Girl-tier message-board drama, metagaming and organized Discord hate campaigns.

Wharftown was (sometimes) a stage for the evil and the morally ambiguous to live out their stories and invest in themselves with a necessary distance from the closest paladin/message board activist. It wasn't always, but it was a common paradigm, one that I think has ceased to exist, lost on a new population post-EE who aren't aware that it can be a possibility. It allowed a lot of interesting coalitions or independent evil character to prosper, the kind that you don't see so much anymore. What's more is that its efficacy as a shield from team good/neutral supremacy didn't just rely on immediate manpower and willingness to throw down - there was a continuity in power (that wasn't always healthy, mind) and very often a stalemate that meant both sides to suffer the other to live without needing to follow their character's beliefs to their logical conclusion ("I need to go back there with the boys and killbash that warlock").

There was a time when you would let a necromancer or warlock slide not because you're being a flexible roleplayer, but because you genuinely didn't want trouble.

But I don't know if we'll ever get that kind of place again. Its existence leads to settlement-to-settlement conflict, a system that was grossly under-invested in its time and now appears to be practically verboten.

[Curve]

There was a time preEE when I too believed that when encountering a warlock/super evil on a paladin/super good the right thing to do was to initiate hostile rp that lead to either the warlock dropping their summon or pvp. This was at a time when people were far less trigger happy, boardering on stagnant. I held this opinion because I felt that the server at the time needed to trend towards more pvp, less fear of conflict. I pushed that narrative pretty hard. Now the server has trended too far in the other direction. Too much random pvp with little story build up, too much team on team pvp so that every bad guy feels like they need to be part of a faction before they play their character, every player of evil feels they need to start in the UD.

It’s hard to reverse the trend. It’s no player bases fault more than the other. I see it from people I assume to have high/low rpr. It is a global issue of culture.

I think people should really start to ask themselves why they play on Arelith, and chill it with some of the more intense pride gaming, some of the worst aspects of isolated group chats. Players would do well to read up on group dynamics and specifically the step up/step back rule. If your alignment team/ic cultural team is too strong learn to step back, maybe not try to get that next guild house, take over that new city, smash the solo warlock. Learn to be cool on a meta level and stop taking things so seriously.

Don’t be convinced that just because you have been on the server for some years that you know better than everyone else. Question your own justifications. Try making a character without checking in with your discord pals. Actually try to be the change you want to see.