48 hour rule.

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Ithalan
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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Ithalan » Sun Aug 14, 2022 8:08 pm

Just repeatedly killing someone again as soon as the 24 or 48 hour rule allows you to sounds like the very definition of Not Being Nice. It seems like it would be fair to expect that if Party A purposefully kills Party B in a conflict, they consider that victory an end to their interest in Party B going forwards, until Party B knowingly does something again that is an obvious provocation to party A?

Maybe that is something that can be codified in the rules? If you've killed someone before, you can't use anything said or done by that character before the last killing as reason for killing them again?

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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Ebonstar » Sun Aug 14, 2022 8:33 pm

people are forgetting one thing, those raiders who lost even while they wait for the spawn sickness to pass, which is ig hours not real hours as someone posted, the losing raiders are under the same 48 hour rule of zero confrontation as the winning side.

it doesnt matter if your ready to go in 24 hours, you still have another 24 before you can go to another raid. not to mention there are only a couple of places the raiders will go, so the odds of breaking the 48 hours is basically 99%.

on the spirit of the same thing, as I once fell into reading the rule wrong. if you lose PvP according to the DMs you have to avoid the area that the PvP was performed for the amount of time now which would be 48 real hours.

So if you raid Bendir or Greyhammer, you die to the defenders and respawn, then you have to avoid the area you died for the 48 hours.
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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by The GrumpyCat » Sun Aug 14, 2022 9:06 pm

on the spirit of the same thing, as I once fell into reading the rule wrong. if you lose PvP according to the DMs you have to avoid the area that the PvP was performed for the amount of time now which would be 48 real hours.
This is the part that gets a bit fuzzy.

After PvP, unless the rules have been wavered, the combatants should avoid EACH OTHER for 48 (or then 24) hours.

If there is an area you have good reason to believe your combatent would be in, or an area of contention, then it's on you to try and avoid that too - to make it easy for all parties involved.

But this bit will always get a bit fluffy dependent on who/how/why/where you died.

If you died to say, a pack of Orogs whilst wandering in the Arelith Forest - then unless you are LITERALLY charging right back there - you don't need to avoid that area. You can pop back there in a few hours time, under the knowledge that those pcs will almost certainly not be there.

If you were say, A Banite who wanted to go to the Radient Heart to post messages on the quarter doors saying 'RADIENT HEART SUX' or something - and you were killed by RH members doing that - then you probably shouldn't return there. Not unless you're damn sure those members are offline (and honestly, I'd say it's pretty bad form to do it even then... but at least not against the letter of the law)

If you're a surfacer who went down to teh Hub, to yell 'LOLTH IS AWFUL!' and you get murdered by half the populace - again, probably best to avoid it for the next 48 hours.

If you're a underdarker new pc goblin, who was killed by a drow for not bowing quickly enough in the Hub - then you're probably fine to go back to the hub, but really try and avoid the person who killed you, and don't make trouble.

There's a few random examples. Basically
a) Try and avoid the person that killed you
b) Don't do stuff that would reasonably make the person who wanted to kill you, seek you out and kill you again easily

In grey areas we DMs will intervene.

Honestgly I think most players are pretty reasonable about this. They know how to rp a loss, to avoid their attackers, to try and be reasonable. There's a small minority that arn't, and we'll deal with those as they come up.
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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Yvesza » Sun Aug 14, 2022 9:44 pm

Honestly seeing it move from 24 to 48 hours is nice, my only concern is the all too common theme of recently murdered people reporting their murder to authorities or penning very detailed reports on just how they died and the names of their murderers.
I really do feel like a rule regarding characters forgetting the circumstances of their death, should it happen to another PC could do a lot towards giving surface evil a bit of wiggle room while also cutting down on the somewhat hard to take seriously claims that a very visibly living person has been murdered.

Other than that I feel like it's a step in the right direction, conflict isn't a bad thing but like any concept in roleplay too much of it can really make things stale.

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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Sytic » Mon Aug 15, 2022 1:02 am

Killing people as soon as the timer lapses is exactly the behavior I believe the DM team is trying to curb. If you can kill someone daily, technically not violating the rules, that's already a bit of a rotten move.

It's the same reason scryganking got brought up: I believe from complaints over toxicity in PVP, DMs are cracking down on it. If you think this won't work to fix it, give it a shot. If it doesn't, bring your reports to them, because I am sure they would love direct references to whoever is being problematic.

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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by WanderingPoet » Mon Aug 15, 2022 5:05 am

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Sun Aug 14, 2022 9:06 pm
on the spirit of the same thing, as I once fell into reading the rule wrong. if you lose PvP according to the DMs you have to avoid the area that the PvP was performed for the amount of time now which would be 48 real hours.
This is the part that gets a bit fuzzy.

After PvP, unless the rules have been wavered, the combatants should avoid EACH OTHER for 48 (or then 24) hours.

If there is an area you have good reason to believe your combatent would be in, or an area of contention, then it's on you to try and avoid that too - to make it easy for all parties involved.

But this bit will always get a bit fluffy dependent on who/how/why/where you died.

If you died to say, a pack of Orogs whilst wandering in the Arelith Forest - then unless you are LITERALLY charging right back there - you don't need to avoid that area. You can pop back there in a few hours time, under the knowledge that those pcs will almost certainly not be there.

If you were say, A Banite who wanted to go to the Radient Heart to post messages on the quarter doors saying 'RADIENT HEART SUX' or something - and you were killed by RH members doing that - then you probably shouldn't return there. Not unless you're damn sure those members are offline (and honestly, I'd say it's pretty bad form to do it even then... but at least not against the letter of the law)

If you're a surfacer who went down to teh Hub, to yell 'LOLTH IS AWFUL!' and you get murdered by half the populace - again, probably best to avoid it for the next 48 hours.

If you're a underdarker new pc goblin, who was killed by a drow for not bowing quickly enough in the Hub - then you're probably fine to go back to the hub, but really try and avoid the person who killed you, and don't make trouble.

There's a few random examples. Basically
a) Try and avoid the person that killed you
b) Don't do stuff that would reasonably make the person who wanted to kill you, seek you out and kill you again easily

In grey areas we DMs will intervene.

Honestgly I think most players are pretty reasonable about this. They know how to rp a loss, to avoid their attackers, to try and be reasonable. There's a small minority that arn't, and we'll deal with those as they come up.
This also means, as I recall, that contrary to the opinion of OP and some of the followers - that if a raiding force was to attack a settlement and defeat the defenders, the onus is on the -raiders- to avoid attacking that settlement again for 48 hours.

Of course, fuzzy again - if you attack Brogendenstein and defeat the Kuldarn then you shouldn't attack Brog again. But if you then went and attacked Cordor then the Kuldarn should stay home.

It is avoid EACH OTHER, you can't go and camp in the person's home/main RP hub if to lock them out of RPing there; though the onus is on the defeated when you share a hub. Imagine if an Guldorandi band went to Cordor, killed the guards and chancellor and none of them could go back to Cordor for 48 hours because that Guldorandi band was loitering; that'd be silly. But those Cordorians should avoid Guldorand.

(Of course, GrumpyCat please do correct me if I'm wrong, but that's been the DM ruling in the past)
Path_of_Play wrote:Fear, intimidation, anger - All these, the tyrant's tools.
Laughter, encouragement, play - not simply just for fools.
These tools reveal,
More is learned,
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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Party in the forest at midnight » Mon Aug 15, 2022 6:24 am

A bit off topic but the last post made me think of it. Something I would love to see would be a way to occupy places, so there's something more at stake. So it's not just a raid where people go and pvp and go home. It'd be large event-tier though and would require a lot of DM help to play NPCs, on both sides. People organizing a counter-attack could prepare siege weaponry and whatnot. And people on the defending side would have to be ok with it happening OOC, that it won't uproot any current plots or big things going on. The issue with forewarning though is there'll be a huge defender force. But if a date isn't set and people are just ok with it happening at some point in the future, it might work.

When I first started on the server the first raid I encountered was of the Arcane Tower. My character asked what was going to be done to help defend the place, what if they come back, how do we know they won't just occupy it? And he was dismissed and told to pretend it didn't happen. It was really disappointing, because it felt like it could have led to a lot of RP.

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Eters
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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Eters » Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:47 am

From what I can tell the change to the time rule isn't there to "fix the PvP thingy." In fact, no amount of rules will fix the PvP thingy because it's a behavior issue rather than a ruling issue. People will find ways to circumvent the rules or flat out break them and even if we all open our respective Oxford dictionaries and rewrite the rules in the most polished way possible. Someone is still going to try and circumvent or break them.

The issue is not related to builds either, I've seen posts which seem to tie the rampant violence between PCs in the server to their builds. Even if we made everyone commoners people are still going to bash each other... And that's fine.

What I believe to be the heart of the problem is not PvP itself, but the pacing of conflict. Arelith is a fast paced server and conflict is definitely quick paced too. Usually retaliations against an attack happens within the day and revenges happen in a day or two. That quick pace is why we don't feel like death is respected, that people don't take the L seriously enough. Because it's not that they don't do it, It just happens too fast.

The 48 hours rule probably exists with a desire to slow down the pacing of conflict. To leave room for folk to take a step back and build their characters (would it be a defeat or a victory) before the next clash occurs. And I feel like that is definitely a step in the right direction to do so.

I would argue that having amnesia post death for the first 24 hours after PvP would also be a plus for normal PvP to avoid that quick "hey I was killed by X." causing an army of friends to go seek vengeance for you.

A specific ruling for raids would also probably be a healthy addition to the list to avoid confusion. As not all new rules apply to a raid scenario easily.

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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by WanderingPoet » Mon Aug 15, 2022 10:43 pm

Party in the forest at midnight wrote:
Mon Aug 15, 2022 6:24 am
A bit off topic but the last post made me think of it. Something I would love to see would be a way to occupy places, so there's something more at stake. So it's not just a raid where people go and pvp and go home. It'd be large event-tier though and would require a lot of DM help to play NPCs, on both sides. People organizing a counter-attack could prepare siege weaponry and whatnot. And people on the defending side would have to be ok with it happening OOC, that it won't uproot any current plots or big things going on. The issue with forewarning though is there'll be a huge defender force. But if a date isn't set and people are just ok with it happening at some point in the future, it might work.

When I first started on the server the first raid I encountered was of the Arcane Tower. My character asked what was going to be done to help defend the place, what if they come back, how do we know they won't just occupy it? And he was dismissed and told to pretend it didn't happen. It was really disappointing, because it felt like it could have led to a lot of RP.
This I agree would be amazing, and I hope someone makes it happen.
Path_of_Play wrote:Fear, intimidation, anger - All these, the tyrant's tools.
Laughter, encouragement, play - not simply just for fools.
These tools reveal,
More is learned,
From another in an hour of play,
Than in a year of contention.

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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Babylon System is the Vampire » Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:59 pm

Eters wrote:
Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:47 am
... In fact, no amount of rules will fix the PvP thingy because it's a behavior issue rather than a ruling issue. People will find ways to circumvent the rules or flat out break them and even if we all open our respective Oxford dictionaries and rewrite the rules in the most polished way possible. Someone is still going to try and circumvent or break them.

Yeah, really disagree here. I think the rules drive the behavior you are calling the issue, and as a result are the issue. I'm not going to force a giant post down everyone's throat for once, but if anyone is actually interested in how I came to that conclusion I can go into great detail about it in a pm :)

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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Ork » Tue Aug 16, 2022 7:21 pm

The rules have been the same they've been, by and large, since 2005. The rules aren't encouraging these behaviors. This hasn't been a widespread issue until EE.

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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by HeyLadyOfDecay » Wed Aug 17, 2022 6:17 am

Ork wrote:
Tue Aug 16, 2022 7:21 pm
The rules have been the same they've been, by and large, since 2005. The rules aren't encouraging these behaviors. This hasn't been a widespread issue until EE.
EE opened up Arelith to new wave of players, Some of them come from the gotta win culture.
So, they build to PvP.

I observe that most of these seem to come out of nowhere and often disappear within a month/few months.
I'd say the heavily ride on the fast lvling pace of Arelith.

What I also find is that when you're good at PvP there are so few consequences while when you're bad at it, There are so much more.

You can RP for months, creating wonderfull stories but they can end because somebody with a 2 week old character wants to see if they can beat you.

Here is my solution: Fear.

You kill another character you get a token, these tokens go away by time 24 cause 1 token loss, if these tokens pass 5, NPCs are to scared to talk to you.

Edit: while keeping the 48h.
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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by -XXX- » Wed Aug 17, 2022 6:56 am

I wouldn't blame EE and new players here. Arelith's undergone a number of changes since EE, most of which could be described as "more, bigger, better":
- better builds, PvE trivialized; players have no incentive to cooperate for any other reason than group PvP or elections.
- bigger OOC channels; player base more polarized thanks to discord echo chambers.
- more accessible open information; arelith wiki and PGCC = finding the best builds has never been easier.
- fast lvling, writs and ez gear; can get optimized character in weeks rather than months.

So yeah, in the spirit of "more, bigger, better" the 24hr rule is 48hr now :lol:

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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Babylon System is the Vampire » Wed Aug 17, 2022 7:10 am

Ork wrote:
Tue Aug 16, 2022 7:21 pm
The rules have been the same they've been, by and large, since 2005. The rules aren't encouraging these behaviors. This hasn't been a widespread issue until EE.
I totally get why you see it this way Ork. The pvp rules by enlarge favor the entrenched player. The roleplay before pvp rule, which really would be better named as the "ready set go" rule since its designed to ensure no one is taken by surprise, often led to a lot of questions on what constitutes roleplay. A player comfortable with the flow of Arelith knows that just means get a line in and wait for a line in response, which easily gives them an advantage because if the less comfortable player is in the middle of typing a response to your response hell ball to their face is totally legit. The rule has been better defined since I first started here, laying out an easy example of line wait for response then you can go, but even that is easily manipulated by folks who want to manipulate it.

Moving on to the next bit, let's say we had a player that had played arelith for a few months, got to level 30, and actually beat an entrenched player in pvp. 24 hours later (now 48) that entrenched player could round up a posse, scry and hunt down the player that beat them, and they likely didn't have the support system to counter that. They just had to deal with that as their reality. That all changed however when Arelith went through "The Great Migration" from other servers. You say it started at EE, I would say it started a few years before that, but either way the result is the same. Instead of new players, you now have new groups. Some of whom know the game as well if not better than the entrenched players and were more than capable of hitting back as hard as they got hit in retaliation from that initial pvp. Thus began the era of the circle pvp wars.

Laying all of that out I'll repeat that I totally get how you blame it on EE because that's around when it started to heavily effect the server, but I hope I at least gave you enough of an alternative perspective to make you think twice about that assessment. I feel confident saying there are a lot of common thoughts about what we as a community find distasteful in pvp, but as long as the rules allow it even people who find it distasteful are going to use it to their advantage before someone else does it to them. It may take it happening to them once or a few times before they shift to the dark side, but unless we are talking about the sort of person that is cool with always loosing (read no one), eventually they are going to get there too. And I think that this has an effect on everything, even people who rarely get into pvp, because they see things like circle wars and hear horror stories about cheesy pvp and think "I want no part of that". As a result, they do nothing that can cause any sort of conflict and now you have large swaths of pcs with the sole purpose of gathering as much gold and real estate as possible, ultimately making the server seem like nothing ever happens unless you are in one of the pvp aggressive groups.

So yeah, in my opinion the rules effect just about every facet of the game. And for those of you who are thinking I broke my promise of not forcing a giant post down people's throats two posts above, first let me say "sorry!", and then let me say this was the heavily abridged version at least. I could go on for hours about this.

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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by MissEvelyn » Wed Aug 17, 2022 7:17 am

I'm not sure how or if it even can be done, but PvP should use actual Initiative checks. That would prepare both parties properly.


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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Edens_Fall » Wed Aug 17, 2022 4:48 pm

Party in the forest at midnight wrote:
Mon Aug 15, 2022 6:24 am
A bit off topic but the last post made me think of it. Something I would love to see would be a way to occupy places, so there's something more at stake. So it's not just a raid where people go and pvp and go home. It'd be large event-tier though and would require a lot of DM help to play NPCs, on both sides. People organizing a counter-attack could prepare siege weaponry and whatnot. And people on the defending side would have to be ok with it happening OOC, that it won't uproot any current plots or big things going on. The issue with forewarning though is there'll be a huge defender force. But if a date isn't set and people are just ok with it happening at some point in the future, it might work.

When I first started on the server the first raid I encountered was of the Arcane Tower. My character asked what was going to be done to help defend the place, what if they come back, how do we know they won't just occupy it? And he was dismissed and told to pretend it didn't happen. It was really disappointing, because it felt like it could have led to a lot of RP.
How neat would it be if factions could take and hold castles rather then the locations being locked behind settlement bids? Pretty 😎 I think. Maybe have a timer on the castles so they can only be attacked and taken once a RL month etc and only held by factions not persons.

Definitely a fun thought.

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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Party in the forest at midnight » Wed Aug 17, 2022 4:55 pm

I like the idea but you'd need some rules to make sure people don't just raid while everyone else is sleeping. There's other games with mechanics like that where it ends up with sweaty guilds having people online all the time so they can warn people about raids and get everyone on asap to push them off.

People have been asking forever for castles to stop being settlement only, this would be a cool extension of it. If they could be siege-able. And let surface/underdark people siege each others' biddable properties.

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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Edens_Fall » Wed Aug 17, 2022 4:58 pm

Babylon System is the Vampire wrote:
Wed Aug 17, 2022 7:10 am
Ork wrote:
Tue Aug 16, 2022 7:21 pm
The rules have been the same they've been, by and large, since 2005. The rules aren't encouraging these behaviors. This hasn't been a widespread issue until EE.
I totally get why you see it this way Ork. The pvp rules by enlarge favor the entrenched player. The roleplay before pvp rule, which really would be better named as the "ready set go" rule since its designed to ensure no one is taken by surprise, often led to a lot of questions on what constitutes roleplay. A player comfortable with the flow of Arelith knows that just means get a line in and wait for a line in response, which easily gives them an advantage because if the less comfortable player is in the middle of typing a response to your response hell ball to their face is totally legit. The rule has been better defined since I first started here, laying out an easy example of line wait for response then you can go, but even that is easily manipulated by folks who want to manipulate it.

Moving on to the next bit, let's say we had a player that had played arelith for a few months, got to level 30, and actually beat an entrenched player in pvp. 24 hours later (now 48) that entrenched player could round up a posse, scry and hunt down the player that beat them, and they likely didn't have the support system to counter that. They just had to deal with that as their reality. That all changed however when Arelith went through "The Great Migration" from other servers. You say it started at EE, I would say it started a few years before that, but either way the result is the same. Instead of new players, you now have new groups. Some of whom know the game as well if not better than the entrenched players and were more than capable of hitting back as hard as they got hit in retaliation from that initial pvp. Thus began the era of the circle pvp wars.

Laying all of that out I'll repeat that I totally get how you blame it on EE because that's around when it started to heavily effect the server, but I hope I at least gave you enough of an alternative perspective to make you think twice about that assessment. I feel confident saying there are a lot of common thoughts about what we as a community find distasteful in pvp, but as long as the rules allow it even people who find it distasteful are going to use it to their advantage before someone else does it to them. It may take it happening to them once or a few times before they shift to the dark side, but unless we are talking about the sort of person that is cool with always loosing (read no one), eventually they are going to get there too. And I think that this has an effect on everything, even people who rarely get into pvp, because they see things like circle wars and hear horror stories about cheesy pvp and think "I want no part of that". As a result, they do nothing that can cause any sort of conflict and now you have large swaths of pcs with the sole purpose of gathering as much gold and real estate as possible, ultimately making the server seem like nothing ever happens unless you are in one of the pvp aggressive groups.

So yeah, in my opinion the rules effect just about every facet of the game. And for those of you who are thinking I broke my promise of not forcing a giant post down people's throats two posts above, first let me say "sorry!", and then let me say this was the heavily abridged version at least. I could go on for hours about this.
Wow . . . Very well written 👏. You pointed out several things I have totally seen or been apart of over the years to the point I now generally flee PvP and focus more on trade and social RP. Which is fun and all, but as you said less world changing.

The groups that master PvP still make the rules and claim the wheel of narrative generally. Luckily these groups pop up and fade away rather quickly once they run out of foes to fight. Well, minus those entrenched in settlements etc I suppose.

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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by WanderingPoet » Wed Aug 17, 2022 7:39 pm

Edens_Fall wrote:
Wed Aug 17, 2022 4:58 pm
Babylon System is the Vampire wrote:
Wed Aug 17, 2022 7:10 am
I feel confident saying there are a lot of common thoughts about what we as a community find distasteful in pvp, but as long as the rules allow it even people who find it distasteful are going to use it to their advantage before someone else does it to them. It may take it happening to them once or a few times before they shift to the dark side, but unless we are talking about the sort of person that is cool with always loosing (read no one), eventually they are going to get there too. And I think that this has an effect on everything, even people who rarely get into pvp, because they see things like circle wars and hear horror stories about cheesy pvp and think "I want no part of that". As a result, they do nothing that can cause any sort of conflict and now you have large swaths of pcs with the sole purpose of gathering as much gold and real estate as possible, ultimately making the server seem like nothing ever happens unless you are in one of the pvp aggressive groups.
Wow . . . Very well written 👏. You pointed out several things I have totally seen or been apart of over the years to the point I now generally flee PvP and focus more on trade and social RP. Which is fun and all, but as you said less world changing.

The groups that master PvP still make the rules and claim the wheel of narrative generally. Luckily these groups pop up and fade away rather quickly once they run out of foes to fight. Well, minus those entrenched in settlements etc I suppose.
I do agree it was well written and respectful and I agree with your overall points. I do have to disagree that groups that master PvP make the rules and claim the wheel of narrative generally, or that everyone falls to the 'dark side'. Most of my favourite RPers barely see any PVP and are certainly not masters of it, and for the most part I only see pvp once every few months at worst, outside of a few months where a new faction is a little more PVP heavy. Maybe some of us are fine losing every fight, but losing often makes for more interesting stories anyhow. I would always rather figure how to get the most high quality RP out of a situation, rather than just a meBashYou shutdown (though sometimes that is the only sensible option!).

Those PVP heavy factions often have little impact on the overall story unless they also focus on narratives. The recent raid groups are a great example - they have been making narratives with their PvP, and thus there is more claim to the wheel of narrative. But even those not PvPing are having as much input into the story. PvP is an aspect of the greater story being told, not the main portion.

Another example that looked pretty great was O.V.; though I didn't hit his story too much myself, he was a villain that was clearly skilled at PVP - but more importantly he knew when to let others win. I don't think the story would've been very interesting if the PVP just continued until they got bored and played something new.

Very few people will take a cheesy death very seriously, and are more likely to just report repeat gankers. So I don't see a group of PvPers that aren't telling an interesting story as one with any control of the wheel of narrative. At least not one that is rememberable past "Those guys were annoying and I'm glad they're gone".

Being a master of PvP adds an additional tool to the narrative toolbox; it's hard to play a legendary bladesinger and then lose every fight to a level 15 because they know how to PVP. A masterful story weaver with amazing characters that is ALSO a greater PvPers will have more tools than the same without mechanical knowhow, but at the same time the same is true if you know how mechanics and have a greater character but suck at making stories.
Path_of_Play wrote:Fear, intimidation, anger - All these, the tyrant's tools.
Laughter, encouragement, play - not simply just for fools.
These tools reveal,
More is learned,
From another in an hour of play,
Than in a year of contention.

Babylon System is the Vampire
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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Babylon System is the Vampire » Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:09 am

Just to clarify, when I said "turn to the dark side" I didn't mean they became evil people. If the rules allow you to do x, and x will help you win, I don't think you can blame a player for doing x. Especially when it's been done to them previously. If they are like me however, they probably feel bad about it, hence the term "turn to the dark side".

I'm not sure how to respond to the rest of your post save giving a giant thumbs up to the underdarkers you described, because it really has little to nothing to do with what my post was about :)

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Edens_Fall
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Re: 48 hour rule.

Post by Edens_Fall » Thu Aug 18, 2022 1:53 pm

I agree there have been some well done PvP groups over the years that have left their narrative mark on the world. What I was thinking more of, and sorry for not explaining better, was the general death fatigue that comes from the groups that are less skilled at such.

Perhaps being mostly from the Underdark my experience is skewed in that regard as from personal experience I have seen great plot lines and players shut down with PvP. Worse, once the group wins the RP vacuum isn't replaced with anything new as the attacking group moves on to new targets or fades away. This is of course not the rule nor a rare event but something in the middle. At least from my own view point.

I think the surface has a better setting (larger RP areas), support (DM involvement), and avenues to pull player conflict off more easily (one can avoid PvP and conflict by simply moving to another settlement and never visiting Cordor again as an example) then the UD, though I have found settlements to be a bit click-ish at times depending on which players are in power (or never left power).

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