Is it Too Easy to be a Non-Evil Monster?

[Skibbles]

TL;DR - It may be too easy to make non-evil monsters.

I alluded to this earlier in another thread, never intending to make a fresh OP about it, but just now I was browsing the races on the wiki to ponder a few concepts and I realized something.

Almost all monsters require no reward to be non-evil. Rewards are only required to be good.

Here's the quick list:

Monsters free to be Non-Evil: Drow, Orog, Kobold, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Gnoll, Minotaur, Troglodyte, Derro (Yes, even Derro), and Duergar (though they are not categorized as monsters on the wiki).

Monsters that must be Evil: Yuan-ti, Vampire, Rakshasha (I think. It's hard to tell), and that's it. None of them even specifically Underdark.

This seems odd to me especially as many of the race's descriptions almost immediately and explicitly note their evil natures, evil societies, and evil gods.

It is impossible from my perspective, without the numbers, to objectively state the true ratio of alignments in the Underdark (or what I'm about to say) - but roleplay over the last two years or so seems to continue gravitating towards more friendly, tolerant, and even cheerfulness in a place where brain eating horrors lurk, a vast cavern stuffed with slaves and suffering is basically Andunor's basement, and an endless grinding war for survival is supposed to loom over many of its residents.

This post has nothing to do about about quality of any individual roleplay, but the quantity of it as directed by alignments that are not gated from a numerical advantage and potential hold on the setting.

What does the collective think?

[Morgy]

I think it’s hard for people to consistently play a wicked, evil creature login after login, because we are mostly all friendly and inclusive people. We easily slip our nature into our RP sometimes, which can look odd when you see what is supposed to be a savage/wicked creature, suddenly being tolerant or even peaceful to outsiders.

I’ve noticed the same trend, perhaps more so with drow, but I don’t have a solution unfortunately. Funnily enough, my experience of the most unpleasant and evil individual PCs, has usual been the humans in the Underdark!

[xf1313]

If evil is defined by human concepts, many race can get swooped into the evil busket. However we are playing in a fantasy world, in my opinion evil is associated with the lack of empathy of friends and kin, willingness to cause harm on irrelevant individuals, and if the character feel delightful when others suffer.

Hence I think, a tribe of monsters hunting surfaces for food (or just honoring tradition, attacking enemy race) is neutral act. Stand up against it or feel sorry for innocents are undoubtedly good. Voicing that they did not ‘have enough fun’ implies evilness...

The neutral monsters just get along with the environment, blend in and survive. They appear more evil when everyone else are evil.

The current culture in UD feels..rather peaceful, it can use some spices. Well, mild evil can be fun, serious evil would be taxing for us good humans to rp. In constant fear of hurting others’ feelings...Arelith UD is nice and friendly compared to the UD in dark elf trilogy. Thou I would be equally interested in trying that environment, constant dm supervision has to be in place to make sure things do not go too far.

It was hilarious when I rp with others and we try to help and try to be evil at the same time

[magistrasa]

I think it's unfortunately impossible to have this conversation without defining the alignments themselves because every other post is going to inevitably cast the unassailable defense incantation that is, "In my opinion..."

No one wants to tell each other that their roleplay is bad and they're doing it wrong, almost as much as no one wants to hear it. I'm sure plenty of people think they ARE playing to their evil alignment, when you might look at them and say they're veering towards neutral. And it's going to be hard to convince them to play any different because ultimately people are going to play what they want to play, what brings them satisfaction, what feels right according to their nature.

Some of that perception, I'm sure, also comes from the sense I get that evil characters reserve their evil nature for special occasions. Everyone is a self-insert on some level, and most people aren't really evil. I think it would be hard for a lot of people to play long term in the underdark if they had to occupy a strictly evil mindset so often for so long. Thus, during more mild moments, there's a sense of relaxed neutrality as everyone socializes and forms bonds and connections to others. That then slowly becomes the default behavior, until something comes along that warrants a bout of wickedness. I don't think forcing the evil alignment is going to change that tendency. It's been the way of the UD for as long as I've existed in it, at least.

I think it's also just a consequence of the fact that roleplay opportunity is so constrained with the UD, and it's sort of got an asymmetrical relationship with the surface. See, narratively speaking, no one on the surface needs the UD, yet the UD cannot exist without the surface. The scope of interactions between UD and Surface is largely limited to PvP and OOC-coordinated kidnappings, which makes it hard for UDers to find a place where they can robustly explore their evil nature. Sure they can antagonize each other in Andunor, but simple logic tells you that's asinine and self-destructive, and history tells you that's unfulfilling and not the least bit fun by the time DMs step in to guide everyone to a conclusion.

Skibbles, I know you've been in the UD longer than I've even been playing, so I'm sure I don't need to mention the fact that there's a certain ebb and flow to UD roleplay where stories filled with conflict and intensity are then followed by a sense of calm that verges on boring. That said, I haven't played in the UD for a couple years now, but I am vaguely aware of the fact that a lot of the old mainstay roleplayers that used to drive much of the narrative down there have switched to playing surface characters. Losing a good chunk of your creative minds all in relatively short order might lend to a sense of stagnancy. I imagine some new stars have come in since the space opened up, or that others left behind are in the process of honing their storytelling skills to fulfill the natural craving for conflict.

In short, I don't think there's a problem with the way the admins have set up the alignment gating. I think the state of the UD would be as it is whether or not you required awards for neutrals, because that's just the pattern of behavior roleplayers tend to follow.

[Ithalan]

Aside from the fact being an evil character does not equal being a villainous character that insults and betrays everyone around them constantly, I doubt Andunor is ever going to become the hive of scum and villainy that some expect it to be with things as they are. There are simply too many factors that pressure Andunor natives toward working together, including:

• Numerical superiority of surfacer players
• Lack of alternate RP hubs to switch to if your character makes enemies of the wrong people in Andunor
• Forced dependence on the same pool of players for doing writs at low levels. Everyone comes up doing writs out of Andunor, and there are only so many people doing it that, unless you have an OOC group of friends you play with, a character that does not make fast friends will be stuck unable to progress.
• Lack of anything worthwhile to fight over. On most days there's no scarcity of anything, and most of the racial groupings don't really have any conflicting ambitions to make them butt heads. Aside from Drow most of them aren't numerous enough to sustain multiple competing groups within the racial group either.

[Shadowy Reality]

You can be inclusive and still be Evil. Evil doesn't mean you screw all other people, it doesn't mean you have no friends, no community, no allies.

Take Kobolds, usually Lawful Evil. They have very strong community bonds, they are there for each other, but they will discriminate against non-kobolds, maybe deny them a fair share of some loot, maybe outright chasing them out of an area just because they have the numbers for that.

Take a chaotic evil Goblin. Maybe it will lick the boots of that Drow Matron, or that Merchant Lord, and then will outright bully and steal from that lonely and weak kobold.

Being evil doesn't mean you are despicable 100% of the time.

[The GrumpyCat]

This is a tricky one. It's come up in conversation between staff recently to, and we backed-and-forthed on it a few times.

It is impossible from my perspective, without the numbers, to objectively state the true ratio of alignments in the Underdark (or what I'm about to say) - but roleplay over the last two years or so seems to continue gravitating towards more friendly, tolerant, and even cheerfulness in a place where brain eating horrors lurk, a vast cavern stuffed with slaves and suffering is basically Andunor's basement, and an endless grinding war for survival is supposed to loom over many of its residents.

What I will say, is that we've allowed neutral monsters for a long, long, long time. Ever since I can remember. But this seems to be an issue that you say has appeared in the last two years? To me, that doesn't really suggest that it's a mechanical alignment related issue.

As a DM team, I know we've been pushing over the last period for a more T rated, somewhat more inclusive and also slightly less violent (or less killhappy) underdark. And whilst I maintain that such a push is over all good... I do wonder if it has made it more difficult to maintain the 'Evil' feel of the place?

it's an interesting challenge and honestly not one I have any quick answer to.

But I will say I don't think that changing what's on an aligment sheet will do much to help with it, and I think it'd probably cause more issues than it solves.

[Morgy]

But I will say I don't think that changing what's on an aligment sheet will do much to help with it, and I think it'd probably cause more issues than it solves.

I think this is very true. Players will RP their chars how they feel they have developed, regardless of a few words on the character sheet.

I’m not currently playing in the UD directly, though my PC has ongoing interactions with Andunor, and I feel it’s just.. a lot less dangerous than I remember. Less menacing. I don’t think that’s related to ‘T’ rating pushes per say, though I guess it’s possible players feel less confident in being an openly violent or malicious presence if they aren’t sure where the line is.

As someone else pointed out, the surface is perhaps also housing a higher proportion of players and powerhouses than the UD than ever.. but that’s just a suspicion on my part!

[In Sorrow We Trust]

It's not always productive to ICly be a jerk to people. You can end up making enemies that are not forgiving of you.

[Skibbles]

This thread is not going how I anticipated it would, so maybe Magistrasa was right that it would fall down to definitions and so on and so forth.

When I'm raising the issue of alignment I'm not simultanously saying we need more 0-100 ganking and wars of total annihilation between factions and generally being awful to one another. I'm surprised this has to be said.

It is very possible to be evil through mere allusion to things your character does when you're not logged in, social commentary, academic interests that are obviously evil, and so on. You can be unrepentantly evil, vile and wicked, and pvp once a year on average.

I'm trying to talk about themes: Contributing to the collective feel of just living in a Bad Place which is Bad because maybe the people that live there are Bad.

We already control the flow of aspects of the server by gently adjusting the rewards of race choices, and it has profound and sudden impacts similar to when award was slapped onto Outcast, so I have a hard time believing that a similar adjustment to alignments would just do nothing.

People do try and roleplay their alignment. If someone is evil, but wants to be nice in their overall handling of other players, they may just be evil and nice. These aren't mutually exclusive.

[Aradin]

As a DM team, I know we've been pushing over the last period for a more T rated, somewhat more inclusive and also slightly less violent (or less killhappy) underdark. And whilst I maintain that such a push is over all good... I do wonder if it has made it more difficult to maintain the 'Evil' feel of the place?

Yes. The friendlier and safer you make Andunor (aka the Underdark), the friendlier and safer (aka less evil) player characters will become. Players will either make characters that fit the setting, or feel like the server isn't for them and go somewhere more hardcore to get their evil fix.

I agree with you when you say this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's a server vision thing, which is subjective and will attract or repel certain players. Hearing you wonder that there aren't enough evil PCs though, or that Andunor isn't evil enough, is a little perplexing. I thought the DMs had made it clear that the team wanted Andunor to be a decidedly neutral trade city.
I remember several (?) months ago when there was a rash of surfacer killings in Andunor, and the Peacekeepers got up in arms about Andunorian PCs being xenophobic about surfacers coming and shopping. They made it clear that they would enforce the safety of visiting shoppers regardless of where they came from, how "Good" they were, whatever. Andunor was, first and foremost, a trade city - and that was just how things were. That, for me at least, was a big turning point in the setting telling players that Andunor wasn't an evil place. As things have slowly shifted towards a safer and friendlier Underdark, is it any wonder that you have more and more characters who are safer and friendlier, and fewer and fewer characters who truly feel evil?

[Ork]

One of Andunor's greatest sins and a theme constantly pushed out by our players is a "united" Andunor. You can't escape the motif for even a second and you're immediately propositioned by characters to join their faction which all are working towards a "strong Andunor" - whatever that means.

This theme isn't new, but it certain has reached its apex with players collectively punitizing characters that aren't interested in a "united Andunor".

I don't know a solution, but it is very tiring to play in Andunor. A good portion of this issue is the playerbase's rationalization that if they start a fight with someone, they're going to be fighting that same someone for as long as either continue playing. And, they're more likely to encounter that adversary routinely because there's really no where else for them to go.

[Drowboy]

1. characters aren't aware of respawn mechanics. constantly being a rude jerk (not what the evil alignment even is) in a city full of devils, drow, ogres, etc, is a really cool way to meet Kelemvor and I think most characters equipped with a survival instinct would know that

2. And, maybe your mileage may vary, but having paid attention in the UD for a while: Characters who are assholes aaaall the time eventually get either literally run out or just sort of avoided enough that they may as well be. By all means play a jerk, do jerk stuff, but a lot of it just gets tiring over time for the observers, and probably for the person doing it? I've seen this 'work' quote unquote for people who ran with a premade ooc-attached faction, but I've also seen factions where one prominent jerk character sunk or near-sunk everyone else being able to enjoy it.

Note: Being 'evil' does not necessitate being a dick conversationally at all times, and the word we have for "people who are constantly aggressive and rude" is "Grating."

3. What faction in their right mind is going to want a member who is always one intentionally misinterpreted sentence away from going ape on their own people? If you're traveling with a barbarian and they tend to go into rage and start swinging on allies, realistically, you are simply not going to travel with them again.

4. And, honestly, this is the big one. If I could mmagically make this flash on screen any time someone made yet another "People are acting in a way I don't agree with" post, I would: You aren't omniscient. You can't see other people's character sheets. You can't see what other people are doing even, probably, 50% of the time, let alone 100%.

A character that is polite, cordial, even to your interpretations nice, isn't automatically good. They aren't automatically being ooc, either. Is it possible they're good? Sure. But I know of several of "nice" characters, some accused relatively often of being good (for the crime of 'not being hyperaggressive in casual conversation) whose sheets I did see, whose behind-the-scenes meetings I did sit in on- and the amount of sacrificing people, plotting/encouraging/paying for murders, and just generally making the world Worse, would, I guess, surprise you.

5. Probably stuff'll swing around more aggressive as player groups move, change, grow, etc. Shrug. It's genuinely, probably, not a big deal.

Idunno. Seems like a worry about yourself type moment.

[Skibbles]

I think I've done a decidedly poor job of trying to convey what I'm getting at here, with themes and trends, which may be why I had initially intended to say nothing at all, so I think I'll just recant. It's not that big of a deal, nor is it some great urgency.

[Xerah]

One of Andunor's greatest sins and a theme constantly pushed out by our players is a "united" Andunor. You can't escape the motif for even a second and you're immediately propositioned by characters to join their faction which all are working towards a "strong Andunor" - whatever that means.

This theme isn't new, but it certain has reached its apex with players collectively punitizing characters that aren't interested in a "united Andunor".

I don't know a solution, but it is very tiring to play in Andunor. A good portion of this issue is the playerbase's rationalization that if they start a fight with someone, they're going to be fighting that same someone for as long as either continue playing. And, they're more likely to encounter that adversary routinely because there's really no where else for them to go.

There really needs to be something to force them to compete against each other; like some kind of ranking that can't be easily gamed and doesn't result in PVP cycles.

Yeah, you could be a strong united Andunor to fight against the surface (why are you fighting against the surface? why is the surface trying to attack Andunor? Neither of those really make sense and are generally very uninteresting role play) but instead, you could just do better than the district next door and rake in the [profit].

[Drowboy]

More reasons for settlements to be adversarial and in competition without necessarily going into the 'we'll just fight every 24 hours' cycle would really help Andunor (and the server as a whole, honestly?)

[Itikar]

Some random thoughts:

- The matter of neutrality is not a very loaded one, in my opinion. In 2020 when I properly gave a shot to the server Andunor felt much more evil, simply because guilds and institutions that were very evil had a certain amount of power, such as the Scourge or the Temple of Lolth. IC events brought these organizations to reduce their power and influence considerably, and thus you have had fewer sacrifices of surfacers, because those who replaced them had less interest in doing, and more importantly displaying, such acts and deeds.
- There is still a big amount of evil, it just does not take the normal racial expressions of Lolth clergy or the equivalent goblin/orcish/gnollish versions. We have for instance quite a good amount of warlocks up to no good.
- Crass evil is not really deep from a narrative perspective. I don't mean that cartoon villains do not have a place, but to me they are hardly interesting compared to more urbane and insidious evils. So, unlike the lore-based roleplay I mentioned above, I do not particularly miss these characters.
- The topic of the united Andunor is another recurrent one. If people are forced to stay in the same settlement (the Districts are not really roleplay hubs) it goes without saying that any conflict will either be very long and vexing, and likely unsustainable. In my humble opinion the only way to solve the issue of the united Andunor, if it is an issue to begin with, is to make another Andunor. I.e. another Underdark settlement. I don't see any other credible solution to this, and the admins made clear their position on the topic too, so I doubt it will happen anytime soon. I have no personal preference, but unless such position changes, I do not see the Underdark being anything but overall united.
- The reality is that the setup of Andunor, as a trade city modeled after Skullport, is not so tremendously evil. It simply makes sense that in a city like that people are more concerned about trading and brokering some kind of truce, rather than laying out plans to unleash the end of times. It is not some kind of Mordor or a post-apocalyptic ruin in a state of perennial civil war. There are also strong powers that have numerous times stepped in when hostilities between factions had become too heated.
- Pvp started in the Hub for silly or shallow reasons, as it used to be the case till about a year ago, did not contribute to make the setting feel evil or immersive. The Hub regulations that were enforced also decreased the chance of hostility there further.
- Neutral monsters are not particularly problematic when played with some sense, intelligence and knowledge of the lore. They do not stand out particularly from their evil counterparts. If roleplayed correctly they are still monsters after all! Good monsters are now gated behind apps or high rpr, so I don't see a big issue there either. What I noticed was bad was when somebody plays a neutral monster as a way to actually play a good monster, or a borderline good monster. Those cases were however rather rare, from what I could witness from the Underdark. And in general also rather difficult to judge, because here we are judging the roleplay of other people, and it is rarely a good thing to do in my experience. In general, problematic non-evil monsters tend also to be short-lived from what I could see. On the other hand I get that somebody may feel uncomfortable to play an evil character, and while still interested in the monster culture, they want to go for neutral. I do not think this is a bad thing, since these same players may, thanks to this experience, then go on to play a legit evil monster.
- Last but not least, every single time I saw on the forums people complaining about Andunor being too friendly and too peaceful my experience could not be more different from theirs, at that very same moment. This moment is no different. Having been close to several factions through the life of my drow characters, I can say with absolute certainty that at almost every single moment there were some plots, intrigues and backstabbings being planned. Only a minority of these then erupted into pvp in the Hub, or became known to other factions, but the plots and tension were always there somewhere. I suspect that the people who complain do so simply because they are not privy to such events, so my suggestion to them is to try interacting with more groups and characters in Andunor.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I don't necessarily think it's too easy to be a non-evil monster, nor do I necessarily think that there's too many of them. One of the first things worth noting about the generic drow (to focus on one example, but IMO a premier one for the underdark) stat block is that they are usually Neutral Evil. There are plenty of CN and TN and NE and CE and even LE and LN drow deviations.

What absolutely is rare, because of the atmosphere in the underdark described by OP, is Good drow- because Good is proactive, and can't choose to sit and do nothing. They don't have to commit suicide, but they will desperately want to help in some way, and it frequently lends them a disposition that ensures they don't survive long.

In a city in the Underdark in a custom setting, where the designers have specifically stated that they intend for the city to be more like Skullport, enforced by the Peacekeepers and where Llolth doesn't have an absolute iron grip on all religious and governmental influence, it seems natural to me that these "Unusual" exceptions would congregate in the one such undercity known about. I feel like this sentiment can easily translate to plenty more things than drow, like duergar, orogs, and even gnolls.

Many monstrous races that don't have the preeminent "Always" in their alignment stat-block have numerous deviations from their "Usually" and these things can lend depth to the race and their history as a whole. IMO, things that are "Usually" Evil or Good should be allowed to play Neutrals with no reward, but require an award to go to the opposite.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

This is gonna be a long one, sorry! Transitioning to another relevant thought about player perspective, I feel like people hear "Evil" and they automatically picture Bluto, Dr. Claw, and Rita Repulsar, megalomaniac moustache twirlers with no redeeming humanistic qualities. Evil can absolutely make friends, fall in love, have fondness for people, animals, and things. Being evil often means embracing a darker path, but mortals still cling to their humanity when they do so- villains often still have living families that they love and cherish, do everything in their power to keep them separate from the disgusting things they do - and sink to depravity yet unconsidered when their path inevitably brings harm to those people.

My point is, it isn't out of character for Evil people to make friends and have or find loved ones - although it's most definitely harder for them to do so based on the atmosphere and their disposition. I'm not saying you can't have a villain that isn't committed to getting close to no one and using everything and anyone in any way to achieve their goals, I'm saying that it's usually a journey to get there, because none of the mortal races we can play spontaneously spawn into being fully developed and ready to take over the world <except for illithids>. The fact that these relationships can exist only gives the evil surrounding them more avenues to take advantage of and use to break them, and I feel like that kind of conflict should be encouraged.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Finally, one more transition from the last thought and I'm done, I promise. I don't think there are necessarily too many, but I admit I don't play in the underdark and my perspective is limited. But this transition is also about perspective. Normally, when you play an RP heavy style of RPG like this, it's with a smaller group. Even larger games at shops and conventions where multiple concurrent and connected adventures are being run by simultaneous DM's don't usually break 20 or so players outside the largest of the large, and unless the campaign is specific to that setting (which to be fair, a large portion of Arelith specifically is, since it has its own server), you usually won't have more than one such character per party, if that.

We have thousands of players here. While this means you will naturally see a higher amount of these "Unusual" alignments, it also means you will proportionately have a higher number of "Usual" alignments to pull from to try to enforce more dogmatic ways - which can apply on the Good or Evil side, just "usually" with different methods.

If I were, for example, playing a drow priestess of Llolth, who was disgusted and fed up with the lack of deference and misery of all those who opposed me, I would actively begin recruiting for the glory of Llolth, and start trying to remind people that their little metropolis is allowed to exist as such because it amuses her- it would be no skin off of her back to raze the entire city to the ground and extinguish this little bastion of interactivity in the underdark, giving drow (and all the other lesser races) one less place to seek refuge from her temple's penultimate reach there.

TL;DR

IMO, What we have is not a problem, but an opportunity for a villain to truly Villain. I'm also about 99.9% sure that if said villain approaches it in this light they'll find it surprisingly easy to get support from Above now that the team has enough people to commit to such things.

[The GrumpyCat]

This thread is not going how I anticipated it would, so maybe Magistrasa was right that it would fall down to definitions and so on and so forth.

When I'm raising the issue of alignment I'm not simultanously saying we need more 0-100 ganking and wars of total annihilation between factions and generally being awful to one another. I'm surprised this has to be said.

It is very possible to be evil through mere allusion to things your character does when you're not logged in, social commentary, academic interests that are obviously evil, and so on. You can be unrepentantly evil, vile and wicked, and pvp once a year on average.

I'm trying to talk about themes: Contributing to the collective feel of just living in a Bad Place which is Bad because maybe the people that live there are Bad.

We already control the flow of aspects of the server by gently adjusting the rewards of race choices, and it has profound and sudden impacts similar to when award was slapped onto Outcast, so I have a hard time believing that a similar adjustment to alignments would just do nothing.

People do try and roleplay their alignment. If someone is evil, but wants to be nice in their overall handling of other players, they may just be evil and nice. These aren't mutually exclusive.

I've highlighted one of the points here because of how completely and utterly correct it is! Preach it! You're very right here!

But I also think that hostility/intolerance and such also tend to work to give an oppressive and evil atmosphere to Andunor, and whilst in some ways leaving a bit of that aside is an over all good, in some ways it makes things a little harder maybe?

That said! I may be talking entirely out of my bum here! I've not played in Andunor for a bit, so I honestly can't quite tell how 'bad' it is.

But going back to your point...

We already control the flow of aspects of the server by gently adjusting the rewards of race choices, and it has profound and sudden impacts similar to when award was slapped onto Outcast, so I have a hard time believing that a similar adjustment to alignments would just do nothing.

To be clear, I do think that it will have an effect yes. The question is will the effect be as much as you want? Wil it even be what you want? And also what will the cost be?

For example - lets say we make all neutral aligned monster races require a minor award.
Pretty small right?
Well, as is, this automatically means that any neutral aligned UDer cannot take the extra language or noble or ecl reward. Or any other none race awards going forward, because we don't stack awards.
Also due to that, it means that ALL Gnolls, Derro, Troglodytes, Ogres, Outcast Gnesai, and Minotaurs (and any other race I'm forgetting) MUST be Evil. The can never be neutral.
This isn't a huge deal, but I do feel constricts character concepts some. And also I expect has tag ons to character builds/items on offer.

And yes, we could consider allowing people to spend more than one award sure, and indeed I'm actually in favour of that long term, but the mechanics of how to do that would need to be worked out as well.

It would force any new (10 rpr players) to HAVE to play evil characters in the underdark, and... frankly I'm not quite sure how I feel about that.

All slave characters would HAVE to be evil.

And ultimately the judging on if the UD is 'evil' enough comes down to the DM team, and we frankly don't tend to come down on alignments that much, because of how sticky (and frankly often dumb) the entire system often is.

In terms of evil especially because evil, well... lies! Sure you're seeing that Drow cosy up with that surface elf, offering her wine and sweets and snacks, but ask the player why they arn't rping their alignment and they can go. 'oh, I'm cosying up now. But only so that when she lets her guard down I can stab her in the back!' 'Oh yes, I'm being nice to this halfling at present, but I intend to use him to get into Bendir dale and murder all the kittens!' or... something.

I mean, I'm not saying that there isn't an issue... there may well be. I just have my doubts that forcing people to have 'evil' on their character sheet will make a significent enough difference as to be worth the cost?

That said I'll be honest and say I'm not 100% sure what the answer is.

[perseid]

I don't know a solution, but it is very tiring to play in Andunor. A good portion of this issue is the playerbase's rationalization that if they start a fight with someone, they're going to be fighting that same someone for as long as either continue playing. And, they're more likely to encounter that adversary routinely because there's really no where else for them to go.

Is it really just a rationalization though? Andunor by design is a very snug place. Being a more traditional dnd evil (not that you suggested it but to tie in with the OP) sounds great until your concept is at odds with the dominant group of the month and is a frequent target. Lots of people don't want to invest time bashing their head against a wall just to find a fit for the archetype they had in mind. I'd argue the lean towards inclusiveness is more of a practical compromise by the players to give each other space to actually play out their concepts, which doesn't seem wholly undesirable considering how much more limited the options are for monstrous characters to pick up their things and move to another settlement.

[DarkHollow]

Some days ago a sun elf (a drow in disguise but no one broke the disguise at the time) walked up the Hub board in front of other people, their description read "this is clearly a sun elf", which alerted nearby characters. This hostility toward the "sun elf" was met with a DM possessing a Peacekeeper saying that there will be no violence in the Hub, which struck me as odd. There are elves who managed to earn their place in there as well as other atypical races, a Peacekeeper standing up for a nameless elf however was certainly strange. This 'welcoming' atmosphere isn't only player sided.

[Ork]

I think curtailing conflict is across the board bad. Honestly, I'm sad it has gone to the lengths in which DMs feel they need to exert their influence to maintain setting integrity, but perhaps we're not as trustworthy with the freedom of player-driven conflict as we once were. Hard topic with no easy answers.

I mentioned this in another post, but I think elves are certainly the exception to the rule when it comes to who's gold is good in Andunor. They're a race that should have the most extreme barriers to access the underdark, but the team doesn't agree.

The pendulum has swung hard to extreme tolerance from a few years ago from an equally toxic total prejudice towards surface-dwellers. I hope there's a middle-ground where nuance and authentic conflict can thrive.

[Mattamue]

(a drow in disguise but no one broke the disguise at the time)

their description read "this is clearly a sun elf"

Misuse of disguise.

Back on topic, yes there should be room for nuance and all parties need to leave space to make that room.

[Ork]

No, I don't think that's true. Space should be competed for. Not everyone gets to use the erudite arcanum for any purpose they choose. Not everyone gets to use the sharps for all their roleplay. Ideally, space is competed for by engaging, interesting roleplay.

[Good Character]

It's not always productive to ICly be a jerk to people. You can end up making enemies that are not forgiving of you.

This right here, but I say it extends even further into our OOC productivity in the same fashion.

People want to roleplay, but they understand outwardly antagonistic roleplay is often (relative sense) met with OOC shunning along with the IC shunning.