Thinking out loud to UD and surface relations

[Cthuletta]

Since the topic of Zurkhwood popped up, thought I'd lend my own experience with trying to play a drow druid in the past.
I saw Zurkhwood as an empty zone, figured I'd try to help make it more active when I found barbarians and rangers. Ran into two issues. The first being, my grey druid was not a Llothite. The ones who 'ran' the Grove were, and kicked out the nature walkers who weren't drow. Sure, that makes sense, but then the Grove was quiet again.
Second, the UD is full of outsider summons, pacted, undead, palemasters, animators- it was extremely challenging to navigate playing someone who hated those things but had nowhere else to go. In the end, I just rolled her due to being unable to properly play an Underdark druid. They do exist! And in written lore, they're very isolationist because of the things I just wrote above.
While I don't think it SHOULD hinge on surface relations, since both sides would be understandably wary of each other from a druid stand point, the thought process of a UD druid versus a Surfacer druid probably wouldn't be all that different. Preserve the balance, respect nature, et. cetera. The reason it does with Zurkhwood is because it's attached to Andunor and it's hard to find a neutral ground in the UD that's not tied to it in some way.
Heartwood, on the other hand, is not usually tied to another settlement. Sometimes it's tied to Myon, but not always, it kinda changes and has more opportunities. While it's more active than Zurkhwood, they definitely have their times of inactivity too. That, however, is due to druid and other naturewalker characters simply aren't that common!

If we had bigger communities of those types of toons, it'd be non-issue, but we simply don't. I only really have one idea in regards to helping UD druids seem more appealing, but from what I've seen, it's not something that the team wants to implement for valid reasons. Which is, another neutral settlement that's not Dis or Shadowvar. Drow aren't allowed in Sibayad, either. But a neutral settlement on the surface or maybe even the upper dark, with a non-alignment-locked or heavily neutral type of setting, and a Zurkhwood-replacement put there, would probably relieve that strain of druids needing to be forced to be around undead/outsiders. Though the lack of numbers would still be an issue. I can't imagine people would see a new neutral settlement and immediately get inspired to play a druid/shaman/ranger/barbarian.

Lacking that, Zurkhwood is a beautiful zone with a lot of potential. I'd hate to see it straight up deleted, but anyone able to do something special with it will be facing a major uphill battle.

[Ork]

To steer this away from druid-centrism (neutrality is evil!), I'd be curious what sort of stories players are interested in that involve that surface-UD dynamic.

The underdark is very self-sufficient in creating its own roleplay, and the surface vice versa so it takes intentional action for there to be a compelling reason to create stories with each other.

What's something, as a surface-centric player, you'd like to see from the underdark and vice versa for underdark players?

[magistrasa]

Very normal opinion.

[Crookedblossom]

What's something, as a surface-centric player, you'd like to see from the underdark and vice versa for underdark players?

I really love the Erudite Arcanum and the conflict between it and the Arcane Tower, for example. When I played a librarian briefly for the Arcane Tower, it was explained to my character that the Erudite Arcanum was the place where ethics in study was sort of thrown out the window - but at the same time, it was where the "real" discoveries were being made. Likewise, there were people from the UD (human characters) coming up to try and establish or join schools in the Arcane Tower as a means of sort of academic infiltration (maybe vice versa too?). You know, see what the other's working on and either thwart or nab their research. And sometimes, some of the "higher ups" would go down below on very clearly stated dangerous meetings to discuss matters like plagiarism and other ethical issues. And it was scary and tense on both ends!

I think RP that revolves around subterfuge and espionage is very fun to see and to be a part of. This is where UDers utilizing people like humans/gnomes/etc as a means of bypassing surface suspicion comes in great handy. Where cooperation is done not necessarily for a greater cause, but toward the narrative of one side trying to one-up the other. That's my personal favorite to see.

[Kalthariam]

And this is what I'm talking about.

Setting Enforced Hostility is the only thing allowed, which inevitably means PVP is the only outcome. Anything remotely non-hostile is "Cringe" RP and "Setting breaking" or some other buzz word they've come up with because god forbid you have to actually put thought into your interactions with another player's character instead of just neatly immediately sequestering them into a box the moment you see them.

That's not even how actual D&D works, but it's how it's enforced here because everything has to be Black and White. There is no Morally Grey, there is no inversions. You must be at odds with each other, you cannot find common ground to work on, you're not allowed to be anything but a literal exact cookie cutter version of whatever race your playing, except maybe one step to the left or right. If you want to be something different? Suffer.

And hostility always boils down to PVP, because that's Server Culture right now. Because PvPers just get to run the show, because people whom build for PvP get to control narratives, because there is nothing stopping them from just completely overrunning anything and anyone in their path if everyone else isn't PvP built.

Which means everyone to RP have to build like PvPers, and that's become such a culture, if you try to do something that isn't "PvP ready" your mocked ridiculed and considered an idiot and not worth giving the time of day for.

The Admins have nurtured this behavior through upholding weird as heck stances on stupid subjects, and players are more than happy to ruthlessly enforce such because it gets their PvP kicks going and they get an excuse to just killbash murder hobo someone because that's all they really care about.

Interesting RP plotlines simply, in my opinion, cannot functionally exist as long as this harsh black or white only mindset is mandated and enforced by admin and the pvp hounds more than happy to have an excuse to get their next murder going.

And in my opinion, unless there's direct DM intervention, this PvP dominant culture will not change, because the entire community has been changed into people that abide by it or actively want it.

So many people will do just the absolute bare minimum so it's not a "Rulebreak" to just gank someone just because they crossed paths, interactions are always immediately hostile and 6 seconds away from PvP just based on if the person -thinks- they can take you or not. I've lost count of the number of times Interactions have been purely for the purpose of killing another character and the "One line of dialogue" is all that's ever given.

You might think I'm just being pessimistic, but that's simply how the server appears, and appears to be functioning from my years of being here. It's not getting better, it's getting worse as time goes on too.

[Inordinate]

Interesting RP plotlines simply, in my opinion, cannot functionally exist as long as this harsh black or white only mindset is mandated and enforced by admin and the pvp hounds more than happy to have an excuse to get their next murder going.

The irony of seeing things this way while also being incapable of seeing RP outside of a PvP context. Are you sure you're actually playing Arelith?

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I just kind of scanned through what people wrote over the last day, so sorry if someone brought this up already.

But I think the biggest issue with Anundor and how it relates to the surface is that there are too many drow to be considered like a skullport, and not enough drow to be considered like a true drow city. That really puts a kink into a lot of back and forth that could potentially happen from surface to anundor, because, well, drow are the bad guys to everyone on the surface and that's not even considering elves. So, when drow raiding parties launch from anundor, the result is everyone associating anundor as an aggressive drow city.

I personally think that a drow specific city as well as anundor might switch perceptions up a little. I also can see why some would think it's a bad idea. It really depends on how much the dark playerbases numbers fluctuates at this point.

[Ork]

You might think I'm just being pessimistic, but that's simply how the server appears, and appears to be functioning from my years of being here. It's not getting better, it's getting worse as time goes on too.

You’ve made this point already. Let’s move on to how we can foster and create nuance.

[Kalthariam]

Interesting RP plotlines simply, in my opinion, cannot functionally exist as long as this harsh black or white only mindset is mandated and enforced by admin and the pvp hounds more than happy to have an excuse to get their next murder going.

The irony of seeing things this way while also being incapable of seeing RP outside of a PvP context. Are you sure you're actually playing Arelith?

There's plenty of RP outside of PvP. Unfortunately a large amount of it is driven off by PvPers, and conflict-based RP always devolves into PvP, and plenty of people's RP's can easily be run over by people whom only care about player killing. (And there is a large amount of people on this server that only care about player killing)

I never once said that there was no RP outside of PVP, only that PVP dominates the setting, and is given far too much power to the point most Conflict will inevitably turn into PvP, and people only see in black and white, which is then promoted because it's propped up as "Setting Accurate".

I wish there was more nuanced RP on the server, where things weren't just flat black and white.

[PowerWord Rage]

There seems to be a rather deep misunderstanding or perceived opinion within a circle of unknown amount of players that, anything or everything that has to do with PVP equals to bad.

Honestly, i feel that it's a troubling mindset, considering that we're playing in a swords & magic world whereby, combat is just everyday of our characters' life.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Things

I think you have made some solid points in your posts, points that I obviously agree with if you ever have read what I have written. But there comes a time where repeating it over and over again loses any impact the truth bombs may offer, and it becomes time to offer potential solutions in a positive fashion.

The game is what it is, but it is something different for each individual based on their own experiences in game. If they are acting like you have no idea what you are talking about from your experience, then sure, push back a little. But if they are just saying "hey I see it this way not that way" they have the same right to that perspective as you do yours.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

There seems to be a rather deep misunderstanding or perceived opinion within a circle of unknown amount of players that, anything or everything that has to do with PVP equals to bad.

Honestly, i feel that it's a troubling mindset, considering that we're playing in a swords & magic world whereby, combat is just everyday of our characters' life.

I think this is a misunderstanding of those players perceptions more often than not.

I think the vast majority of players don't mind pvp, and are totally cool with pvp when it becomes part of an ongoing story line or say a random encounter where drow meets elf in the wilds or whatever. But there's also a subset of players that get addicted to pvp once it starts rolling. And as exciting as a drow raid on any given sunday can be, when those raids also happen on tuesday and thursday and friday every week, it starts to become work to have to deal with, and the fatigue leads to posts that make it sound like they hate pvp.

It also leads to players who might otherwise cause rp driven conflict to just not bother because whatever the pvp superforce is at the time might object, which is probably the most tragic aspect of having groups that only want to pvp.

[Kalthariam]

Things

I think you have made some solid points in your posts, points that I obviously agree with if you ever have read what I have written. But there comes a time where repeating it over and over again loses any impact the truth bombs may offer, and it becomes time to offer potential solutions in a positive fashion.

The game is what it is, but it is something different for each individual based on their own experiences in game. If they are acting like you have no idea what you are talking about from your experience, then sure, push back a little. But if they are just saying "hey I see it this way not that way" they have the same right to that perspective as you do yours.

That's understandable, I did my 2nd large post, because some of the points I was making literally came up in the thread and reinforced my point, and I wanted to point that out. The 3rd post was just responding to someone, whom seemed to completely misunderstand my entire post, which I was simply clarifying.

[Ork]

What action are you hoping to accomplish in your claim?

Circularly repeating your same stance that relationships between UD & surface are binary because they're required to be hostile is first wrong and second reductive. And, since you're eager to post in this thread countless times to hammer your point home - what's next?

For me, I've witnessed great moments of roleplay that extend beyond any binary reaction. Encouraging those interactions while maintaining setting accuracy ought be our focus. Generating ideas of how UD can create conflict outside of the amorphous raid and vice versa for the surface.

I had someone write a PM to me who I agree with partially and that stance was to be open to loss. When players abandon their need for character clout and open themselves up to realities in which they don't have full, total control of the narrative - good stories are told there.

[Kalthariam]

I posted my opinion, then pointed out people were behaving exactly in the way I pointed out in the thread, yet you still pretend it doesn't happen.

Okay, whatever floats your boat man. My third post was clarifying someone wrongly stating I was saying something I wasn't, and the 4th post was an apology for the repeated posts and explaining what happened.

You can state all you want that you've seen all this fantastic RP, but I don't see it, we simply do not have the same experiences on this server, and in my opinion it's gotten worse over the years. I purposely try to avoid the nightmare that is the PvP meta crowd as best as I can but due to the underdark being the underdark, you're simply stuck with these one dimensional blood hounds all the time.

The one surface alt I tried to make in Cordor literally died 3 times on their first day in Cordor, due to one person deciding to attack someone in the middle of the square with FIREBALLS, one underdarker showing up and attacking a peaceful play with a vampiric harvest spell and then running away and just lensing out scott free, and errant attacks on the road by people uninterested in engaging in RP.

So damned in the underdark to be stuck around these murderhobos that only care about PvP, or go to the surface and die multiple times to the point I've simply given up on the character. So much fun. /Sarcasm

But no, it's not a problem, this issues don't exist, you've supposedly seen good RP somewhere that didn't devolve into PvPers completely dominating the scenes, thus it clearly must not be an issue ever, anywhere.

[Marsi]

Who controls the narrative is a matter of soft power. You can kill someone 100 times, you can't make them care about your character or your ambitions.

I don't believe you can truly brute force your way into power through overwhelming force. I've seen it attempted many times and it almost always ends in the players being banned when they become impatient and frustrated and start to take the server rules as light suggestions.

In order to be in control you need to generate legitimacy. PvP is a tool to that end, but it isn't the whole story. You need to be able to create interest and engagement. You need to be fun creator.

There are players who are percieved (by the losers) as PvP wreckingballs, whose competency in roleplaying and general fun-making, equally if not more crucial to their success, is selectively ignored. A character gains power and legitimacy all while avoiding (or overturning) the credentialist couch-RP institutions which demand the fealty of newcomers (where "roleplayers" can then wage a different, more subtle kind of PvP: burying would-be challengers in meaningless bureaucracy, a hierarchy of boring sinecurists, or a childish social dynamic emanating from a private discord server), so they are labelled problematic and many outlandish tantrums are had. This I have seen happen, and never this simplistic depiction of rule by tyrannical PvP pit bosses that is frequently conjured up.

[Royal Blood]

I think Marsi's post is accurate.

In Andunor, you can just kill someone. Sure. But to make the pvp mean anything or be regarded? You have to get political backing.

I would disagree that you can't force your way into power with pvp. Good role players will allow the environment to impact them for better or worse ((With some limits)) . Pvp can be used to strong arm your way into a position of power, sure. But if the dynamic becomes so toxic that it's unbearable people will just stop engaging and a narrative box will form. You can have all the power in the game and no one to RP with.

I've been ganked before. Just flat out no-RP ganked. Do you know how much narrative impact I allow that to have? Zero. You do retain some agency as a player as to what you allow to impact your character. And like, most the time, like if there's not a narrative reason behind the pvp? I don't think anyone expects you to let it impact you much.

I think these posts are kind of interesting. Because this thread began with a complaint the consequences of pvp weren't being regarded as legitimate. Now on the tail end some are saying it holds too much power.

All in all I wouldn't stress about the 'big picture' of things like too much. Focus on yourself and being the example you want others to be. Sometimes things are going to suck, that's okay!

This is a shared narrative environment. Vent about it respectfully but understand there's going to be differences. Sometimes extreme differences. And try not to let those bother you too much.

[PowerWord Rage]

I do believe that you might just have been the Collateral damage by being at the wrong time with the wrong group.

There're plenty of reaction that a player could have done before a PVP occurs.

For the instance of bein killed by a fireball in the middle of the square, i highly doubt that it's a sudden situation because surely, the RP before PVP has been observed whereby, even a short three sentences of RP should have given anyone standing there, the idea that a fight is going to broke out.
Even by survival instinct, a weaker/lower leveled player should be self-conscious enough to edge backwards and not simply standing there boldly in sheer defiance that you won't be killed.

Although, i'm not there to understand what truly happens. I've not witnessed with what player, Kalthariam said, about all these negativity. Perhaps they do exist but, i can only say that i'm one of the few players that haven't truly witness them.
Especially when you're playing a nobody, most of the fights that broke out within Settlements are because you chose continue staying to be there and become collateral damage. I'll not be able to otherwise, speak for everybody and what happens on spontaneous occurance outdoor whereby you're the -part- of the conflict rather than, a collateral damage.

[Kalthariam]

I literally was standing in the middle of the Cordor Square, talking to people, someone got grumpy at someone else, but wandered off, from offscreen about 30 seconds later a fireball came launching in and hit the person the person that wandered off was angry at, I happened to be just within the range of the fireball on my level 3 cleric, and was dead before I could even react.

I'm sure the person that threw the fireball thought they did enough justified RP for their ridiculous actions, but it was quite literally a cast that they just walked off screen around the side of the merchant building and from afar tossed a fireball at the person they were angry at, and I just happened to be within the blast radius, completely oblivious to the fact this person was a complete unhinged lunatic. (There was even guards present, they were cut down shortly afterwards)

Second instance was not long afterwards, I was little sitting in a play and some cult of orcus person just walked in and one lined, dropped a vampiric feast on the entire play, and ran away and teleported away, and guess what? Still level 3, and dead again.

This isn't an exaggeration, this isn't me sticking my nose where it shouldn't be, the play was literally in the basement of the inn just outside of Cordor gates.

Should level 3's just not attend Peaceful RP events inside of what should be a perfectly safe place for a level 3 character to interact with other people RP and talk? :\

[Xerah]

You don’t need to make these sound like they are any more than one of random occurrences. No one says these things don’t happen. You don’t need to spend all this time convincing people it happens. We all know it happens. But it’s not normal every day occurrences.

I’m pretty sure it’s been well over a year since I’ve been in PVP that ended in a death (aside from a random PP who wouldn’t stop attacking people).

I’ll leave this unlocked, but if you’re going to continue with aggressively repeating the thing over and over again, then it has run its course.

[Power Word, Haste]

Good post by Marsi, and I agree with it.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Marsi's post was a good one as far as being a well written piece on one side of the debate. Others have written similarly good posts on the other side of the debate.

But therein lies the issue. As long as every post is this is wrong or that is wrong, and assumptions are made about every post putting it in one of the two neat boxes instead of digging into the nuance, we are never going to find a proper balance. In my mind, that proper balance would be "Arelith is a story driven server that sometimes leads to pvp". I feel like if it goes away from pvp too much, it becomes boring. I feel like too much pvp becomes all-consuming if you want to be involved and not just someone who runs at the first site of potential pvp, unless you really like nwn pvp.

But therein lies issue number two. What's in my mind doesn't really matter, nor does it matter with anyone else as long as we are trapped in our own perception and not working toward a common balance. And personally, I think every conversation at this point should be geared toward that, rather than trying to convince the other side their perspective is wrong.

[HeyLadyOfDecay]

Lyann always had some connection with some surface factions, Most surface relations seem wonderful, Either I trade with them or they become products to be traded. I really see no issues that could be addressed.

[JingeKing]

Just skimming through and all that as one does when it's 4am and your IRL sleep button doesn't work.

I've not had the longest playtime on this server though I feel like I've experienced quite a bit from each avenue one can start and experience within from being peaceful surface druid to city dwellers then UD slave or whatever.
In my opinions from experiences of on this server and playing d&d stuff.

The mindset of a Surface v Underdark is logical in terms of the greater view of things when one looks at it from either side in terms of lore. It's not just an 'Arelith Server Forced thing on Players'. In the greater scheme of lore within the universe I believe that's the norm that was set (Mayhaps apart from the recent changes made by Wizards with 5e stuff, I've not kept up with the changes as our group's moved away from 5e now).

Also scenes and situations only devolve into PVP if a player makes it so.
You can have plenty of scenes where there's tension or mistrust, hostility etc without it turning into either PVP or running away. It just depends on each of the players within said scene.

[AstralUniverse]

The worst offenders of factionous and exclusive play I have encountered are rarely the player interested in engaging in PvP-centric stories, but the ones that don't want anything to do with PvP.