Feedback on experiences. Leveling. Turnover. Consistency.

[Watchful Glare]

Valid stuff

My experiences have been the following (Regarding PvP centric groups):

— "You are a monster race, cease to exist." (Unachievable win condition: I don't want to shelf/roll my character. No peace can be made. Conflict continues indefinitely.)

— "Andunor is a city of slavers, we will end slavery by killing you." (Unachievable win condition: My character can do nothing about slavery in the city. That fight should be taken to Claddath/Freth, if so. Conflict continues indefinitely.)

— "Dissasemble your faction, and cease any and all activities." (No previous contact from Surface PvP group, with no RP between the groups aside from it the PvP and the demands. Highly unsatisfactory, rulebreaks aside.)

— Conflict breaks out with PvP centric group. They start targeting anyone 'loosely' affiliated in any way.

—Money is offered in reparation (500k), as well as the opportunity to work together rather than keep fighting. It is refused. The money is taken, peace is brokered. (Acceptable win condition: Money comes and goes and it's a gesture that can be accepted. Many ask for money as reparation, so long as it's not exorbitant)

—The next day the PvP centric group re-ignites the fight with false claims. (It's perfectly okay with lying in-character, but I'm relating this so you can get a grasp on how that whole 'accepting defeat' or trying to make peace goes.)

— With others being harassed, and terms being refused my own character meets with them. After a good five minutes of insults and PvP bait (played this game for a good couple of years now, I've never seen such vitriol), they agree to cease harassing others if my haracter does a public apology. He does. He asks them if they are satisfied with it and we've an agreement.

After some mockery (obviously) they say it is.

(Acceptable win condition: To write a public apology is a good way to acknowledge a 'defeat' and that a conflict will be ended and to let stories move on, specially if one or the other are concerned about reputation.)

— I go back to IRL. Log back in in a couple of days, find out they are still harassing and killing others. They claim (again with an IC lie) that it is because my character has killed another. (With the help of a character that had rolled a week prior, somehow.) They refuse to believe that it isn't true. With that, conflict continues immediately, once again, concession after concession.

— Log back in. Vitriol from PvP centric group has reached unprecedented levels and it reaches OOC level on this group, there is no separation. My character will be insulted and attacked on sight from them, even if we've never previously interacted or they haven't seen my character before. Regardless of my character winning, and killing their assailants, ICly this is deemed "Oh, he got lucky. We'll get him next time!" (PvP wins only count on one side.)

— Character asks to faction leader what do they even want. His previous faction has been disbanded, the unaffiliated one has as well, players leaving simply not enjoying their time. There's nothing else. The response is "I will not negotiate in a neutral place" (Where I can't kill you. Given the previous M.O of coming to sorround people with 8 warded characters and insult them until PvP breaks out or make demands of them, which won't matter in the end, it gives some food for thought.)

— After some comments on it, the response is "Well give up your name and submit yourself, same treatment X character got" (Who had an Infernal contract/spell making them into a manchurian candidate.). After conceding and accepting terms of surrender two times, only to have it voided by them the very next day, there really isn't much incentive to believe this time will be different with such extreme a demand.

I do not tell this for you do anything about it, or because I want to go for a 'yes but-'. Or to bait you into taking the other side or the sake of the argument.

This is in the past, it is through and done. What I do is want to provide some information to make you understand that this does, indeed, happen. Not a "Well I heard from the friend of a friend that maybe this happened". Without second hand accounts of this, that it absolutely does happen. It certainly happened to one of my characters.

It does not mean that there are players who won't just turtle meta. I have seen factions who are exiled from every settlement "go under" until others have forgotten about their actions, or a player in their group is in power somewhere at which point they pop back up like they were never gone, and have a second go at it. Of every example that you can think of it happening one way, there is one example of it happening the other way.

Having more tools to measure this and more middle ground would be the best possible outcome because years of history have proven that leaving things well alone as they are tends to make things go to extremes.

Do you play evil characters often? Have you spent the weeks, potentially months, plotting and scheming, networking yourself with other evil PCs, building up your legend.... Only to have Joe Paladin and his pillarmen roll up on you while you're circlegrinding the goblin camp and then have them install a new air conditioning system in your chest cavity while a bard plays "X doth giveth to thee" on his lute?

This might be my next signature, made me laugh out loud.

I am inclined to agree with you about sore losers, though. We have the complete collapse of Xun'viir in recent days to point to as example in that regard, people calling out the turtle for what it is and leading the population of the UD to spite them for it. So, I won't disagree, but I don't exactly call stirring up OOC spite, hatred, and drama among the community winning either. So I'll leave the scales neutral.

However and since you mentioned the Xun'viir I'll tell you the following. This character was/is a Xun'viir. That character is still around. Saslae stuck around, she did not have bluff and got consequently thrown into a washing machine, and accepted her L to the extremes, and was only afforded it due to foig interventions. Lavok left the server a long time ago. Jhaamdath did as well. They're not 'shelved and waiting'. So I'm not sure who is 'turtling'; even the quarter has gone up for sale months ago so you can't say that "They're logging in to refresh it and not using it!"

I'm not sure realistically what would someone do about that, dox players that don't play NwN anymore, go into their houses put a gun to their heads and go "You're going to install this game again and keep playing, do you understand me? I need to have this roleplay, I need it."

The amount of vitriol comes from players who did not like the faction OOCly, before their current roster of characters, and before that one, and before that one. And it's easy to see when it immediately bleeds OOC. Or when they didn't know you belonged to the faction at one point, and reached out to you OOCly on your alt to slander them to get you in their camp without knowing you knew the truth.

Everyone else just plays the game.

Engaging in such things only diminishes one's own enjoyment of the game because effectively it kills In-Character immersion when you see the player, instead of the character, and act in consequence of it (and affected by it).

Also did anyone stop to consider the implications of player OOC griefing or OOC dislike being a factor in a player's future impact on that server? If someone screws up in the UD and that player gets into it with a faction, and loses, or worse yet, gets into OOC grief with another player, it could impact any future characters that player creates.

OOC grudges will kill off characters, and cancel the players.

Yep, that's what's happening... players are getting cancelled.

Leading into this.

It's hardly surprising that players can be reluctant to accept the terms of unconditional surrender in a world where respawns exist. That's why it's probably good to manage one's expectations when offering outs. Demanding from the adversaries to just roll over, give up all their stuff and cease to exist likely won't draw the conflict any closer toward its conclusion.

As has been already mentioned, the turtle defense beats every other strategy, so cliques that go around twisting arms and forcing others to accept terms that they probably wouldn't be willing to accept themselves are doing it only to their own detriment (and to the detriment of the conflict storyline).

Finally, the turtle defense doesn't necessarily need to be a way of intentionally avoiding confrontation. It can simply be a case of playtime misalignment.
I doubt that there are many players around here who'd be willing to stay awake to 2am in the morning only to get their regular dose of cheesy PvP and OOC vitriol.

This is also a very underrated post, and a true one at that.

Right, so Skibbles/OP, I'm drawing you back into this, because this is also sort of my point - how can you create a system that actually incentivizes a Cordorian official to making a pretty pragmatic (but incredibly fun) agreement between the Cordor Guard and a young cabal of aspiring necromancers?

This sort of bespoke roleplay conflict-resolution is what the server needs. I don't know how you design for this without rely on incentives for good roleplay (RPR), or otherwise pointing the fingers at players who have influence over server culture.

Because AskRyze's point is also genuinely true too - I've seen it happen countless times. Good Person X makes a pretty cool (from an OOC perspective) relationship with Shady Person Y. This fosters roleplay, solves conflict, creates a new paradigm.

Good Person ScrewYou doesn't give a flying bollywog's Snuggybear what Good Person X agreed to. They'll smite Shady Person Y into the ground. But if Good Person X retaliates against this, it genuinely is a breach of proper "alignment" (because really, ICly, Good Person X does indeed want to 'win' over Shady Person Y).

So, what do you do? What's to blame?

We might blame the server for not making somehow the original agreement a transparent system that fosters good roleplay.

I'd personally blame Good Person ScrewYou for failing to see the hugely positive potential from an OOC perspective, and bend their respectable RP. But I also can't - because culture, cliques, and mechanics actually reward 'winning' all the time. They don't actually punish winning, or making people rationalize winning in the broader sense of server and community narrative.

I just don't understand how you can systematize evilkittenofdoom's suggestion in a meaningful way. Maybe I'm not a visionary on that - I think it requires some pretty entrenched systems changes to how Arelith fundamentally handles PvP (both the mechanics, and the theme of player-vs-player conflict).

Because, my god, making a pact of pragmatism whereby guards don't prosecute necromancers (but secretly are spying on them and working against them) while necromancers say they're animating dead outside of Cordor (but are actually plotting some Velsharoonite mass ritual in the city limits) sounds like a way cooler, more generative way of drawing out "killbash PvP" scenario. And even cooler than shackling some poor level 5 necromancer and forcing the player through limiting process when all they want to be doing is gothic horror roleplay.

You know?

You bring up very interesting points, Seven, and it is actually true. I have seen this happen many times and what I can say is that it is due to a lack of legitimacy. The extent of authority and legitimacy is only in so far as the hand of the players can reach, and the amount of it they can enforce. And sadly what they can enforce or not will always come down to the only means of non-consensual conflict solving available: PvP.

The do this, or else. Or else is always that, because there's currently no other tool for it.

I believe having that legitimacy by allowing the laws to have more consequence (without hyperbolizing it) it can help point out who is in the right side of the law and who is not. I'm not going to discuss which one is on the side of good and which one is in the side o evil because that debate never ends so let's focus on something more objective.

Group A makes a deal with Necromancer for him to till the fields. Nothing prevents group B from going "You heretic, there can be no deals with an animator, get him boys!". There's currently nothing preventing this as Zavandar has pointed out. The proposed solution would frankly not stop it either, because I think flat out stopping it would be wrong. You can't limit (I oppose it at least) what a player character can or can't do. But it should always have consequences.

So suppose Necromancer is accepted and Cordor administration reaches a deal with him. This is announced officially through the Queen's Herald. Necromancer is lawfully working for Cordor and will till the fields. The fact that this is announced through an NPC (Or Official Cordor announcements, what have you not) gives it legitimacy in the eyes of the characters and it also is accepted more easily into the eyes of the players. You may like it, you may not like it, but it is not up for argument. This is how it is.

Now if group of Paladin B wants to go and bash Necromancer for his evil way, they absolutely can. And for instance in this case, they would get a bounty from Cordor because as far as the law is concerned they are criminals. If Necromancer was not happy with rolling out of that, they can respawn and RP their recovery. And more roleplay is to be had since now the Paladin Group B has to roleplay being an outlaw for doing what he considers "the good thing". And that's perfectly fine, he's only a criminal in Cordor.

It also provides a crutch for the Necromancer player in case he gets attacked by them again, that something is happening. That bounty is rising. They become criminals to Cordor.

And let's go into another branch of that scenario. Paladin B gets captured by a group of Cordorian bounty hunters (Or Bounty hunters). It doesn't matter if they are peace loving good-aligned characters out there to diminish suffering by bringing down a hostile element, doing it so regretfully because they hold the Paladin in high regard. Or a group of gung-ho loincloth wearing beefed up giants that speak in grunts and dubstep.

They subdual him and put the Shackles (tm) on him to flag him (OOCly) as marked. This is done so the player cannot -giveup indefinitely and die to avoid any sort of consequences. Not where official matters are concerned. It puts rules to the cops and robbers game. Shackles (tm) make it so from that point onward the character can be summoned (once) to face judgement in Cordor. (So it doesn't have to be that everyone is online at the same moment because realistically that is not going to happen. This way they can just continue their RP, but knowing that their meeting with the Cordor officials is now unavoidable. It's capture RP with better tools.)

Details of the capture are submitted. There's a history log of the actions of Paladin B and how they have attacked Necromancer, and other evil-doers in the Sewers of Cordor, multiple breaches of the no-warding rule, several accounts of murder, and assault. Refusal to willingly submit to the authorities. Offering no apology other than calling people animator-loving-freaks. A course of action is proposed by the current Justiciar in the Cordor-for-DMs forums: Exile.

It is considered. It is greenlighted. The Queen gives her approval on this.

The character is summoned, RP is had and they are declared an exile. This however would be more official and long-lasting. Meaning the Exile doesn't go away in two IRL weeks when everyone has forgotten about it, and then poor Necromancer is put through the gauntlet again because a new chancellor was elected, they get sick of it and roll or something. No, this stays until Paladin B makes an appeal for justice and to see it removed, and wants to reach some sort of penance or wants to change it. And then there is RP to be had about that. There is no "Turtle defense" to save him. He can't shrug, to take a smoke break and then come back.

So, counterpoint:

What if Justiciar/Chancellor does not like Paladin B for personal reasons. Paladin B shot their pet dog when they were kids before being a Paladin. What if he is evil and wants to slander Paladin B and get him exiled. Why should his character not be allowed to lie or have his evil ways to get it done?

Answer: He absolutely can. It's in-character. And there should be more acceptance of being able to say (OOCly) "Yes, my character is lying through his teeth to get this done." And still have it be alright, and get it done because you're playing a character. Having a DM read Chancellor's post about why he wants to Exile Paladin B is there to make sure it doesn't happen because he dropped a lollypop and that it remains consistent with the setting. Because as much as it is cool to have 'complete freedom' on that regard, once consistency is gone and you feel anything goes, immersion and setting verisimilitude take a hit, things do get OOC. And it's one of the things that contribute to the slow decay of it.

Furthermore, this also works because it's completely possible for Paladin B to lose, and still go to roleplay in another place like Guldorand, or Brogedestein, or the Dale and have that be a part of his own personal story which is now entwined with the setting in a way.

[-XXX-]

I wouldn't say that there are any mechanical elements missing for these scenarios to play out.

Paladins getting into trouble with authorities for acts of vigilantism aimed against locally legitimized evil-doers is something that absolutely happens.
I've seen it play out in a very similar way as described above many times before.

The only thing that strikes me as different in the above example is this:

The character is summoned, RP is had and they are declared an exile. This however would be more official and long-lasting. Meaning the Exile doesn't go away in two IRL weeks when everyone has forgotten about it, and then poor Necromancer is put through the gauntlet again because a new chancellor was elected, they get sick of it and roll or something. No, this stays until Paladin B makes an appeal for justice and to see it removed, and wants to reach some sort of penance or wants to change it. And then there is RP to be had about that. There is no "Turtle defense" to save him. He can't shrug, to take a smoke break and then come back.

...which would assume persistent exiles (IDK, do exiles persist or reset after elections?). It seems like a technicality in either case, because even if the exile persisted, nothing's preventing the new administration from simply lifting it.

[Watchful Glare]

I don't think that there are any mechanical elements missing for these scenarios to play out.

Paladins getting into trouble with authorities for acts of vigilantism aimed against locally legitimized evil-doers is something that absolutely happens.
I've seen it play out that way many times before and in a very similar way as described above.

The only thing that strikes me as different in the above example is this:

The character is summoned, RP is had and they are declared an exile. This however would be more official and long-lasting. Meaning the Exile doesn't go away in two IRL weeks when everyone has forgotten about it, and then poor Necromancer is put through the gauntlet again because a new chancellor was elected, they get sick of it and roll or something. No, this stays until Paladin B makes an appeal for justice and to see it removed, and wants to reach some sort of penance or wants to change it. And then there is RP to be had about that. There is no "Turtle defense" to save him. He can't shrug, to take a smoke break and then come back.

...which would assume persistent exiles (IDK, do exiles persist or reset after elections?). It seems like a technicality to me, because even if the exile persisted, nothing's preventing the new administration from simply lifting it.

It is thought of a persistent-world kind of thing. This would make it so the new administration cannot immediately lift the exile just because they like Paladin. He is a criminal. That is just how things are. The way to lift his exile is for him to submit to appeal And/or be offered to make up for it in any way that makes sense over time. No sudden snapping of fingers, as if nothing had ever happened. Until it is approved through his actions, greenlighted and the Queen declares him no longer an exile, in this scenario.

[-XXX-]

It is thought of a persistant-world kind of thing.

IMO, it's precisely this urge of players to have their characters solidify their victories, build monuments to their glory and impact the server with long-lasting consequences that's behind a great deal of all the OOC discord.

A wins - B loses isn't really a big deal.
A wins forever - B loses forever is inevitably going to be met with objections.


Persistent exiles would only stifle RP and offer potential abuse with regards to elections (preemptively exile your rivals so that even if they win, they'd be unable to lift their own exile and enter their city).

As things are now, new officials get elected and the necromancer both pleads their case while the officials are dealing with Radiant lobby and political pressure to review the paladin's exile. That alone immediately draws them into a whirlwind of political intrigue, which is a good thing!

[Watchful Glare]

It is thought of a persistant-world kind of thing.

IMO, it's precisely this urge of players to have their characters solidify their victories, build monuments to their glory and impact the server with long-lasting consequences that's behind a great deal of all the OOC discord.

A wins - B loses isn't really a big deal.
A wins forever - B loses forever is inevitably going to be met with objections.


Persistent exiles would only stifle RP and offer potential abuse with regards to elections (preemptively exile your rivals so that even if they win, they'd be unable to lift their own exile and enter their city).

As things are now, new officials get elected and the necromancer both pleads their case while the officials are dealing with Radiant lobby and political pressure to review the paladin's exile. That alone immediately draws them into a whirlwind of political intrigue, which is a good thing!

Which is why it would not be up to the current player-character in power solely, without overview, accountability or need or consistency over time (as it is now); but go through supervision and approval to see that it does fit the narrative and is not abused, as I mentioned in the larger post. Precisely so that does not happen, which it already does on the line of things that "These people do that" or "These other people do this" line of thought.

Similarily you speak of exploiting (Exiling someone so that they cannot enter the city, even if they win) which would be taken into consideration, under any reasonable light. Avoiding all of that is precisely the point, but for it to work you do have to imagine that DMs and Administration have the best interests of the community in mind, and that the setting and the cities themselves would remain consistent about what they are about, even with a much room as there is, not wanting those kind of exploits to happen, and that they would not let that happen. (Which resonably wouldn't likely wouldn't even be an issue then, because currently exiling is you speak a name press a button and it's done. Which allows that to happen in the first place.)

[In Sorrow We Trust]

It's tough out here, trying to make conflict that leads somewhere other than PvP. Usually no consequences are accepted no matter what you do, whether there's PvP or not, in my experience.

[-XXX-]

Which is why it would not be up to the current player-character in power solely, without overview, accountability or need or consistency over time (as it is now); but go through supervision and approval to see that it does fit the narrative and is not abused, as I mentioned in the larger post. Precisely so that does not happen, which it already does on the line of things that "These people do that" or "These other people do this" line of thought.

Even right now, when ALL parties involved in a conflict start breaking the rules and one side gets caught red-handed while the other one manages to slip under the radar, people screech about the problem being with DMs playing favourites, rather than... you know... players breaking the rules.

Can you imagine the uproar should the DMs step IC trying to play arbiters on a field where deception and ulterior motives are not only a thing, but are even encouraged for the sake of making the stories more interesting?

Just look at how the Founders' Council stepping in to prevent an all-out war between Myon and Guldorand had been received a while back.


Also... do you remember the time when players needed DMs to get a PrC tokens in order to actually continue playing their character?
I doubt that making everybody to put a pin into ongoing stories until a DM gets to review them would have been very helpful here.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Sometimes, too, the PvP itself is a natural consequence for those who refuse to lie down for those more powerful or dominant, to RP fear or caution, or simply to recognise the validity of antagonists. If your character get run through by a bloodthirsty pirate because he refused to hand over his gold and plead for his life? That's on you, and not because server is broken.

I think this statement is 100% dead on, and no reasonable person can debate it. But it also tells only half the story of Arelith. On Arelith I can march into Cordor during a slow time and demand the lone pc city guard on at that time runs their gold in the middle of the city. I can go over to Sencliff to curb stomp some pirates as a paladin during the same hours. These things are the opposite of what you described above, because your example makes sense. Mine do not.

Do things like this happen all the time? No, it's pretty rare, but it's not so rare that its unheard of. And as I said before on this topic, human nature is to prepare for the worst-case scenario. You just have to look at a thing like seatbelts, or more current since we all wear seat belts instinctively now the reaction to covid, to see it in a real-world example. The chances that you get into a potentially fatal car accident, or die from covid as an otherwise healthy adult, are also actually really, really low. But no one wants to be one of the guys/gals who do.

And I get it, you don't want to change the rules for fear of some annoying guy poking the bear and then running back to a safe space. At least that was the explanation of why it can't change when I brought this up a year + ago now. Your server, your rules. But I don't think you can be surprised that the instinct is to rush to 30 as a result. If you like conflict driven rp, which is probably 40-60% of your player base, you would be an idiot to stick your neck out before being maxed level maxed geared and ready to jump at the chance of pvp with the way the rules are laid out on Arelith.

And that in itself creates another problem, because if you are that ready for pvp once again I point toward human instinct, since more than likely it's going to drive you to see opportunity to get down with it in situations that could have otherwise been resolved through roleplay. To quote my favorite poet out of Flatbush NY, may he rest in peace:

"Whatcha think all the guns are for? All-purpose war got the Rottweilers by the door"

These are issues that admittedly will never be fully eradicated, but I firmly believe that with just a few minor rule tweaks they could be tempered greatly. And even if you see different paths to a solution then what I am saying, which is fine since while I am pretty great I'm just shy of perfect, go that route. But simply nodding along with things you agree are bad and doing nothing to try and curb them will just find us here having the same conversation again in a few months. And again a few months after that. And so on and so on.

[IanPatron]

Here's something for all those OOC factions and groups, cliques, etc to think about:

When you have run your enemy out of all cities, and they're finally gone, what will you be left with?


As it stands right now, we have enough players to sustain the game, because some players merely take their loss and move on. If we allow this OOC cancel nonsense to continue the numbers will eventually decrease.

So I feel like the metagaming rule pretty much no longer exists, because everyone's on discord chatting away.

Back in the days I had multiple player names to prevent metagaming, but alas, now we can only have one player name and so, whatever you do with your characters matters when it comes to all your other characters. This also means how you address other players and their characters.

With that I'd just say: Try to get along with each other, because if people whether friend or enemy leaves, it only serves to degrade the game overall, for everyone.

[Xerah]

Well, that's just not true at all.

[Hazard]

Here's something for all those OOC factions and groups, cliques, etc to think about:

When you have run your enemy out of all cities, and they're finally gone, what will you be left with?


As it stands right now, we have enough players to sustain the game, because some players merely take their loss and move on. If we allow this OOC cancel nonsense to continue the numbers will eventually decrease.

So I feel like the metagaming rule pretty much no longer exists, because everyone's on discord chatting away.

Back in the days I had multiple player names to prevent metagaming, but alas, now we can only have one player name and so, whatever you do with your characters matters when it comes to all your other characters. This also means how you address other players and their characters.

With that I'd just say: Try to get along with each other, because if people whether friend or enemy leaves, it only serves to degrade the game overall, for everyone.

Why can we only have one player name? People change theirs all the time.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Fun tip, "gold or die" or any close-ended question is a lesser form than providing more open-ended conflict-statements in RP.

"Give me your gold" linguistically hits a lot different than "Give me your gold or die."

I've found often the language and tone people use in conflict scenarios matters 100x more than in normal roleplay. How any sort of antagonizer approaches conflicts has a huge impact on the tone and expectation of any potential PvP.

One of my favourite, favourite, favourite one-liners in a good vs evil conflict that occured was the paladin asking,

"Will you repent?"

Asking questions of other characters, even in times of conflict, just creates so many massive opportunities for conflict to take a different shape.

Food for thought.

[LichBait]

Fun tip, "gold or die" or any close-ended question is a lesser form than providing more open-ended conflict-statements in RP.

"Give me your gold" linguistically hits a lot different than "Give me your gold or die."

I've found often the language and tone people use in conflict scenarios matters 100x more than in normal roleplay. How any sort of antagonizer approaches conflicts has a huge impact on the tone and expectation of any potential PvP.

One of my favourite, favourite, favourite one-liners in a good vs evil conflict that occured was the paladin asking,

"Will you repent?"

Asking questions of other characters, even in times of conflict, just creates so many massive opportunities for conflict to take a different shape.

Food for thought.

+1 Having done this my paladin paid dividends.

[xf1313]

100% with make conflict become something else than pvp. Or if it actually comes to pvp, give it enough time to play out! It ends in death in some cases but I would love that. There’s once I debated if a devil summoner was using his power to kill monsters it’s doing more good than evil. I dead but that was full filling. Even more so the opposite said if she was not evil she would have let me go. Perfect alignment rp and perfect pvp.


Alternatively, an rp of the opponent quickly snatched the weapon/precious item of Goodman X and say returned only if they are released. That also will be fun. Evil warlock charmed a pc who wanted to kill him into believe he is a perfect example of an innocent. Etc...

I reached out to someone who killed me before, on my side, I was annoyed because I was still talking. And on their side, an out is offered (do it or die) .... really, Feels like they were in rush to clear the dungeons but if that is the case why bother pvp?

[Hazard]

Just a quick idea I've had only just now.

What if had like, a badge similar to the ones we can toggle for needing DM attention or being available for questions.

.. But this badge lets whoever examines the player know this character is willing to be captured/imprisoned/whatever. Open to more RP than just being kill-bashed. Maybe this could help a little bit?

[TroubledWaters]

A lot of folks PvP aiming for anti-fun, anti-storytelling win conditions, like character rolling or deleting a faction. It's very easy to criticize these groups for being jerks, because they are clearly abusing their mechanical power to the detriment of others around them.

I think even more people PvP focusing on anti-fun, anti-storytelling refusal of loss conditions. It's a little more subtle, but these individuals are also abusing their mechanical power to ignore any RP or consequences they don't like, to the detriment of others around them.

If you've ever tried to mug someone on the road for something as simple as a jewelry box or even a few pieces of non-magical jewelry, you would know that most people are never going to give these items up. They will choose to die and respawn, because that is free and does not let the other side "win" anything, meaning they never lose. After respawning, they will also likely report the criminal on the road and complain OOC about what jerks the bandits must be. Not all are like this, but I would say that most players will respond to any situation where their character is threatened by another PC by just ignoring it and refusing to RP. It's just easier this way, as nothing on the server actually forces you to accept RP you don't like.

I think it's important to remember that there is more to PvP than a simple mechanical PvP fight, which could last all of 20 seconds. There are IC struggles for power, sternly worded message posts, IC taunts, and other bits of provoking and deception, all of which can contribute to interesting stories. This is also PvP, pitting two or more characters against each other in the pursuit of IC gains. I think some people and groups are very comfortable with this kind of PvP and less comfortable with mechanical PvP, so again they will choose to ignore the results of mechanical combat PvP and continue their out of combat aggressive actions, this out of combat PvP, like nothing ever happened after they die and respawn.

There is no way on this server to actually generate story from PvP, whether that PvP is in or out of combat, except to either get both sides to start telling an interesting story together or for one side to just repeatedly kill the other in the hopes they'll give up or roll. The latter requires less trust and is a simpler task for many of us players to process, so that is the route that will usually be selected.

I know that DMs are overloaded and would not like to moderate conflicts for a whole host of other reasons, but I just don't understand how this gets fixed without DM oversight. Without it, we'll just all opt to endlessly gank each other because the only way we can trust other players is by putting them in the fugue.

[Xarge VI]

It's true that building enjoyable conflict is hard in the current climate, but I think it's too much of an absolute to claim it impossible.

By my experience you'll just have to endure through the bad experiences as the good opponent when found is absolutely worth it. That synergy also easily doesn't only shape your story but many characters as the good vibes are seen by those around.

[Sandrow]

I remember there is a rule about pvp every 24 hours. It is already worldwidely broken? And no pvp engagement before RP and response. Why things people discussed here are like characters kept be killing over and over again? Although the member increases recently, the DMs did nothing the stop these horrible thing from happening is appalling.

[ClockworkRed]

In my eyes, most of this bad experience comes because the server setup offers a lot of power to the players. I think the greatest part players base uses the powers responsibly and in enjoyable ways for all involved players, which really speaks for the community on the server.

But combined with the - now to be accepted - large amount of OOC coordination, these powers makes story-driven conflict very difficult even between responsible players. I would say even with the mentioned 24h rule, if your PC or faction is PvPed every day you login in a coordinated way that often amounts up to some kind of "denial-of-play" style attack.

For me, the remedy would be to limit player powers (scry-locate, fast portal travel, sudden wake up of high level sleeper PCs, ...). In my experience, much more interesting stories come from conflict, if the encounters are more random and harder to setup and "sudden" reinforcements can't be called in easily and quickly.

As an example, the sailing system provides an excellent balance of player powers in the "sea PvP arena" in my eyes, especially now that you cannot camp ports.

- Edited for readability.

[Naghast]

Just chiming in to say

let's not throw random mechanical permadeath mechanic? Thanks.

[Apothys]

Its a fact and has been mentioned here that players will relog into other characters once the call has gone out on discord for pvp and appear without ceremony.

What if players who logged in where not permitted to engage actively in pvp for the first hour of gameplay unless it was impossible for them to walk away? Surely this would make these groups think twice about suddenly appearing to gank or smash other players then disappear into the void.

Just a thought, likely not a good one.

[-XXX-]

Its a fact and has been mentioned here that players will relog into other characters once the call has gone out on discord for pvp and appear without ceremony.

Report this.

[HeyLadyOfDecay]

Hm~, Let's start with leveling.

Still too fast in the slow lane,

But, I know why: I like to help people, So if x tells me "Hey, Can you help me with this and that, I hop aboard".

I mostly do the writs because they rake in a decent coin, And gods am I bad at making coin. (Iron, If you read this, Writ option: 0 XP GP x4 for me please)

There is a big difference between getting from 3 to 20, Because I can do this in a week, But to get from 20 to 30 takes me 2-3 weeks.

This would make me say, Perhaps we should decrease XP gain from 10-20.

PvP.

I honestly lost all interest in it many years ago, The builds got more complicated, People work numbers while I stand there going "Uh?"
and the culture around PvP became so toxic.

This doesn't stop me from PvP, Because no matter what, You still have to face it at times.

Also, I think if a character could carry a PvP counter and when reached a point a DM should check in.

OOC-stuff

The team really opened my eyes to this stuff a while back which caused me not to take everything at face value when something is said by "My side".

You don't know how the other player is or feels behind their PC, They play from their perspective. I normally always checked up to the other side in PvP, When it's about RP I check up, But when it comes to feeling attacked by another faction, I honestly never did that. basically and a lot of people do this, We just to "They are *******". I honestly try to fix that for myself, But so should others.

Eh, The end.

[MischeviousMeerkat]

stuff about surrender conditions

I think you pretty much summed up how PvP goes in this server. You don't really need a reason to PvP someone and there's so little oversight you can just make up a reason.

[Edens_Fall]

They will not build something up and care about something like presence, or reputation. There are no actual spontaneous made character relationships to be kept, to be restrained about. Story to be invested in. Though there is obviously some degree of RP, the fun is in playing and winning. They will not stay around playing that character for long enough for any defeat to matter, in any case. They will fight someone or a faction that has done a consistent presence, because they seek meaningful conflict and fighting a ghost has no consequence and winning is no victory. Fixture destruction. Quartertheft. Because defeating something or someone that matters, matters.

And in the end this is replaced with nothing, which is the problem. Once there is nothing to fight, they dissolve and disappear, absent of interest leaving a void in it's wake- That is not filled again because those consistent players that created content are now gone. Entering a slow but steady decline, into the same cycle again. Nothing is built with staying power to where it matters again.

I have seen this happen I would say four times in my entire time playing Arelith. It's certainly not Mad Max out there (Though at some point it was.) and it's not something that happens all the time, but the times I've seen it, it has been catastrophic for the community in every single instance.

This. This right here is my biggest concern. I have seen it happen 3 times since I started as a player (one of which I was involved in) where after a faction becomes successful and known, there is the sudden appearance of a counter faction that seems to appear overnight to start a conflict. While not a terrible thing, what upsets me most is that after the conflict ends and the attackers "carry the day for justice" they fade away.

I mean why? What's the point of dethroning a King just to walk away and not take the crown? Why push others out of their RP only to replace it with nothing of your own making? What could have been a grand new age ends up being a ghost town as the side that brought life to the area rolls out of frustration and the attackers roll or move on to the next big threat.

Its very frustrating and disheartening.