Availability of Special Appearances

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I'm simply saying that more and more those that play this game because of how closely in times past it resembled the dungeons and dragons experience will start to realize that this game is no different than any of the newer mmorpgs as it is now, and will eventually move on to them if arelith doesn't recapture what makes nwn unique. That will exacerbate the current issues for those D&D fans that do remain, because now there are less people like them to play with, until eventually that number is something just above zero. It won't be personal toward anyone; it will just be the realization that any free time one has is better spent doing something fun over hoping to recapture what once was in a game that doesn't seem to be heading in the right direction from their perspective.

This actually describes something I've been feeling.
Not because of 'special appearances', but it's all sort of related depending on what parts people care about most.
What you said is strill true, imo.

100% this is an issue much bigger than this conversation, and really doesn't tie into the number of special things floating about at all. Sure, that's always fodder for ooc humor, but as long as people are actively trying to play the role they took on I'm good. But therein lies the rub, because no matter how flowery your emotes are and how much you stir stuff up, there's no such thing as "good roleplay" if you aren't playing the role.

And that is at least a small part of what that last paragraph was about.

[Kythana]

The only real solution, and I mentioned this in the other similar thread going on at the moment too, is to reestablish a standard for the game. At this point, it's not going to be an easy process, but it isn't impossible. And a good start to the path that the admins could do that on their end is by strengthening the setting to be more than just a backdrop to player whims. I've mentioned this before in other contexts over the years, but the sanctity of the setting is by far the most important part to the long-term survival of this game*, because it's the one thing that a player run nwn server can offer that many of the newer, prettier and more fun to play games can't offer.

What do you even define the setting as at this point?

And secondly, how do you envision admins strengthening it?

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

The only real solution, and I mentioned this in the other similar thread going on at the moment too, is to reestablish a standard for the game. At this point, it's not going to be an easy process, but it isn't impossible. And a good start to the path that the admins could do that on their end is by strengthening the setting to be more than just a backdrop to player whims. I've mentioned this before in other contexts over the years, but the sanctity of the setting is by far the most important part to the long-term survival of this game*, because it's the one thing that a player run nwn server can offer that many of the newer, prettier and more fun to play games can't offer.

What do you even define the setting as at this point?

And secondly, how do you envision admins strengthening it?

So, I'm going to pretend that you asked me "what do you mean by the setting in the context of your post" rather than how you chose to pose the question and try and answer the best I can in 10 minutes or less.

The setting is everything beyond what the players can bring to the table, from unique cities with npcs that have agendas that help make the city unique (tiles can only do so much), to back drop stories like wars between npc superpowers, to mysteries and the like for players to solve. Essentially, anything that makes the setting feel alive in a forgotten realms context around the players, as this was not by any stretch and all-encompassing list.

As to what I would envision, well, I could probably write a ten-page essay on how I personally would go about doing it. And if I thought anyone would read it past the first half of a page, I would have done so already. But the truth is what I envision is irrelevant since I'm not the one doing it.

But since that reads like a cop out, I will give you a glimpse into what I would do if someone said "alright bruno, git her done".

FIrst step would be to examine the current npcs in areas like the radiant heart, the mage tower, sencliff, ect. Essentially places that aren't cities and therefore are out of player control, and figure out how to work with what exists and tweak and add as necessary. These NPCS would mostly be used for brief interactions that touch on what makes that place unique for folks that are hanging around, but I would also have a apprentice/assistant/whatever fits position that players can app for so they too can push said npcs position/agenda.

Second I would immediately come up with 5 slow burn stories that are always present yet also always in the background until it eventually picks up steam toward its end game. And when that end game approaches, I would have a replacement on hand so there is always something for players in all corners of the server to pursue.

Third, I would redo the first step but for the cities, which would be a bit more complex. I would keep the pc government, but I would also have government elements like a city watch that are run by a npc and more of a fixture. The hope with these is that they would create a sense of stability while also offering a pc underling to do most of the heavy lifting and decision making if someone has currently earned that rank. In a perfect world the bigger cities would have two or three of these elements, making the chancellor game more than winning the election and then nothing really until its election time again.

So, yeah, thats about a half a page, maybe less. I'll stop there for the sanity of everyone involved  

[Kythana]

The only real solution, and I mentioned this in the other similar thread going on at the moment too, is to reestablish a standard for the game. At this point, it's not going to be an easy process, but it isn't impossible. And a good start to the path that the admins could do that on their end is by strengthening the setting to be more than just a backdrop to player whims. I've mentioned this before in other contexts over the years, but the sanctity of the setting is by far the most important part to the long-term survival of this game*, because it's the one thing that a player run nwn server can offer that many of the newer, prettier and more fun to play games can't offer.

What do you even define the setting as at this point?

And secondly, how do you envision admins strengthening it?

So, I'm going to pretend that you asked me "what do you mean by the setting in the context of your post" rather than how you chose to pose the question and try and answer the best I can in 10 minutes or less.

The setting is everything beyond what the players can bring to the table, from unique cities with npcs that have agendas that help make the city unique (tiles can only do so much), to back drop stories like wars between npc superpowers, to mysteries and the like for players to solve. Essentially, anything that makes the setting feel alive in a forgotten realms context around the players, as this was not by any stretch and all-encompassing list.

That's not what I mean. I'm aware of what a setting is, as per the definition.

What I'm asking you as well as the general you; what is Arelith's setting today? Putting aside the way players interpretations can shift and vary across individuals, what exactly is Arelith trying to portray?

Is this supposed to be a high fantasy adventure about vanquishing epic threats from all sorts of wild and weird places? Where seeing a warlock and a demon is a normal day occurrence.

Or is it supposed to be grounded, with a layer of applicability. Where the main focus becomes the day to day mundane lifestyle of settlement life, including tax management, wealth distribution, employee hiring, resource upkeep, ect.

I ask, because. As you outline.

Second I would immediately come up with 5 slow burn stories that are always present yet also always in the background until it eventually picks up steam toward its end game. And when that end game approaches, I would have a replacement on hand so there is always something for players in all corners of the server to pursue.

In this example, how exactly would these relate back to the context of the setting? After all, these stories could range between, 'Bandits are stealing the food, and causing the peasants to starve.' and 'A ten thousand strong demonic army is intending to invade in 100 days.'

While this is obviously hyperbole, I've witnessed events with very similar framing like that back to back in the same settlement. And it represents a tonal disconnect.

So, sure. You can add more npcs to push players along a certain path. But the first thing is going to be defining what that path is. The entire reason that the initial thread was created, and why this question gets asked so often is literally because there are many players, including myself, who see a stark contrast of what the setting says it is, and what it actually is.

I'm being told by lore that planar travel is hard, and planar beings are uncommon. I'm being shown as a character that everyone and their mother can summon planar beings, or they are a planar being and all it takes is a question asked in the middle of the street to learn to go anywhere in the planes.

I'm being told by theming that this is a medieval fantasy world, which has certain restrictions compared to a modern one. Yet I'm being shown as a character that none of these restrictions really mean anything. Disease and illness is a non factor, hunger and survival is a nonissue, traveling has never been easier, and even communication has no limits, because a stack of wisp bottles functions as a smart phone.

I'm told that death is supposed to be meaningful and have significant consequences, yet death is more of an inconvenience for most players.

I go and read the definite drow policy which says, "Drow should not be kind, gentle, forgiving, or sympathetic". Well, shockingly, you know what I have seen much lately?

So looping this all back to the original point, we have to ask. What is the framing of the server and setting we play in telling us, and in what ways is it behaving differently?

And the high amount of special race characters that we see is in direct conflict to what many of us think the setting should be, often based behind the lore of those races, and the supposed scarcity of awards.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Second I would immediately come up with 5 slow burn stories that are always present yet also always in the background until it eventually picks up steam toward its end game. And when that end game approaches, I would have a replacement on hand so there is always something for players in all corners of the server to pursue.

In this example, how exactly would these relate back to the context of the setting? After all, these stories could range between, 'Bandits are stealing the food, and causing the peasants to starve.' and 'A ten thousand strong demonic army is intending to invade in 100 days.'

This is the only real relevant question for me, since everything else you wrote sort of sounds like you used me as a jump off point and didn't need me to write that second post at all. So, I will answer it, because it's a real question.

Slow burning story lines are traditionally the backbone of nwn servers, because it gives folks something to investigate/rp about/compete over that doesn't involve pcs bashing into each other every chance they get and allows the server to feel like its progressing forward without having to upheave everything because all players have to work toward is blowing each other and their home bases up.

Now there are people that will say that here on arelith the players are the driving force of the story lines, but it doesn't have to be an either/or situation. The two can 100% exist at the same time. More story telling means less conversations about writs, and how many times you killed the famous drow teddy riley, and whether or not you can make me that one piece of non-basin gear I need. And I think that's a good thing for everyone. Not that I am going to stop asking if you can make me that one piece of non-basin gear, I still most certainly am, we just might have more to talk about when that bit is over.

[Turtleduck]

I think any discussion about the server's direction, setting, and treatment of these special characters deserves its own thread. When I wrote my initial post, it was more about the number of special appearances I see in any given afternoon.

One idea that may spark inspiration or ideas from others; move away from the race rotation approach. It seems to result in a flood of characters of similar race that then end up in similar locations. Instead, adopt an approach that will result in more of a trickle.

Possible Implementations:

• Allow races to be created throughout the year but use a benchmark (e.g. number of special appearances or specific race online for X hours per week or month) to determine if a new one can be created.
• Utilize a cooldown or limit on the number that can be created per X timeframe. For example, if X number of gloamings have been created within X timeframe, one can't be created for X amount of time.

These are just ideas that I'm tossing into space. Not a specific suggestion, but something I hope may trigger thoughts from the team and other players.

The hard truth is that every approach will have a downside. There won't be a perfect one, and certainly not one that will satisfy every player. Whatever implementation we have for special races, it has to be carefully crafted.

[MissEvelyn]

To expand on what TurtleDuck was saying, I'm a big fan of the trickle down of exotic races rather than a flood of them all at once.

One way to go about this could be to use your Major or Greater Award to join a wait-list. So you make the character as normal, but when trying to enter Arelith, you're told that you are number # in the wait-list, please try again later.

A pop-up notification when your exotic character is ready to be played could show up, whenever you log into any of your characters. And if someone doesn't join within a reasonable amount of time, back in the line of the list they go.

This approach would require devs to somehow exclude the exotic race from being counted by the player count, until they're inside the world and out of the wait-list.

[Amateur Hour]

To expand on what TurtleDuck was saying, I'm a big fan of the trickle down of exotic races rather than a flood of them all at once.

One way to go about this could be to use your Major or Greater Award to join a wait-list. So you make the character as normal, but when trying to enter Arelith, you're told that you are number # in the wait-list, please try again later.

A pop-up notification when your exotic character is ready to be played could show up, whenever you log into any of your characters. And if someone doesn't join within a reasonable amount of time, back in the line of the list they go.

This approach would require devs to somehow exclude the exotic race from being counted by the player count, until they're inside the world and out of the wait-list.

That would be absolutely awful for anyone who has highly-limited playtime.

[Hazard]

More special appearances.

Gelatinous Cube as a major award.

[L I C E]

I've yet to meet an award race character with a compelling story. Usually the people who play them are very bad. Anything beyond a normal award except fey and kenku are so weird that I struggle to take them seriously. Definitely needs cracking down on. I've seen 3 fey ri wandering around with their wings out in the past 3 months now for example.

[Waldo52]

I've yet to meet an award race character with a compelling story. Usually the people who play them are very bad. Anything beyond a normal award except fey and kenku are so weird that I struggle to take them seriously. Definitely needs cracking down on. I've seen 3 fey ri wandering around with their wings out in the past 3 months now for example.

More or less agreed.

Spruce was a cool pixie, and I may or may not have met a yuan-ti who I won't call out by name. But my list of cool award characters is literally two people in a server populated by thousands, and I would say that their RP was good in spite of their racial decisions and not because of them.

[Hazard]

I've yet to meet an award race character with a compelling story. Usually the people who play them are very bad. Anything beyond a normal award except fey and kenku are so weird that I struggle to take them seriously. Definitely needs cracking down on. I've seen 3 fey ri wandering around with their wings out in the past 3 months now for example.

More or less agreed.

Spruce was a cool pixie, and I may or may not have met a yuan-ti who I won't call out by name. But my list of cool award characters is literally two people in a server populated by thousands, and I would say that their RP was good in spite of their racial decisions and not because of them.

Have you tried roleplaying with them instead of being judgemental from a distance?

[Paint]

Have you tried roleplaying with them instead of being judgemental from a distance?

I worry about stuff like this. It's easy to take someone's roleplay at face value because you see their odd-looking character in Cordor or something like, idk, doing their shopping, or talking to their friends and think, "Ah, they're not really playing the part." But like, idk, do you know?

My personal experience with genasis for example, is that there are some people who wear the whole gimmick like a skin for stats and that's a little disappointing, but I do know characters whose genasi heritage was a part of their character development. Not some heavy-handed background story, but the way they actually interacted with the world around them. It informed their decisions sometimes in subtle and sometimes in overt ways, and I always think that's interesting, but you wouldn't really notice from a quick picture of them.

My own water genasi's heritage deeply affected the kind of person she was, and I used inspiration from the watery deities to determine just what kind of person she'd be. She ended up being flighty, forgetful, and somewhat unhealthily reserved to whatever fate she'd lead. She had a whole fun arc coming to grips with her failings as a person that involved bouts of amnesia, walking barefoot in the plane of fire, leaving strange, ranting messages all over the place, and getting hopelessly lost in the dark heart. And while I could've made the same character without that genasi heritage, it sure did give me a very convenient excuse for why the way she was that I didn't have to elaborate too much further on. It also meant that she couldn't be 'fixed' with a heroic handwave. It was simply her nature.

This is my experience, in general, with a lot of the award races. You get a lot of folks who don't do much with them, and then you get a ton of folks who do. Half-giants are usually a lot more pronounced, in my experience, though. I think that's because the half-giant culture on the server is pretty well laid-out and thriving, though. It's easy to get caught up in it! And that's a good thing, I think.

I do really enjoy it when people make what they are a part of their character in a way that feels less than skin deep. Aesthetics are one thing, but reflecting on what the character is at their core, and how they're fundamentally different to their peers is one of the most interesting parts of RP, and I do think that there are people on the server that knock it out of the park. It can just be hard to determine that at a glance sometimes.

On a final note, I've yet to meet a kenku on the server that didn't immediately jump out to me as a kenku, though my favorite so far'd have to be You.

[Xerah]

I don’t like special races but you also have to consider than you’re often only seeing less than 5% of their roleplay and who they are as a character. Especially when you’re already judging them for being whatever race they’ve picked.

Just go back to Marsi’s post and realize that it’s the best approach

[Cthuletta]

Have you tried roleplaying with them instead of being judgemental from a distance?

I'm also someone who worries about this, as someone who plays a tiefling.
The entire reason my tiefling is the class she is, is to try and balance out certain things that come with her blood. But you'd never know that just by watching her in public, unless something triggers it. You'd have to talk to her and actually get to know her.
Why would anyone just wear their struggle out on their sleeve in front of everyone else when it's something that society as a whole condemns? To me, trying to hide it is much more interesting than someone standing in a Square or the Hub going "Oh yes, I am an X, and I long for the blood of the innocents." (As an extreme example) ... That person would immediately not be treated very kindly, or taken very seriously.

And that's true for much more than tieflings. Genasi, aasimar, even gloamings or shadovar, any plane-touched person, most of them have much deeper stories based on their race than what you see when they're out and about. At least in my experience! Maybe they ARE proud of what they are. Find out why!
Are there outliers who use it for mechanical benefit or just 'Tee-hee, I'm an award character', sure there are. But I find more of those in non-award characters using their class, than I ever have someone spending an award to play something nifty, and they are few and far between.

Arelith might be a bit of a 'zoo', and I find this thread of how to navigate it or offering suggestions to lessen that effect very interesting, but this certain point that's been brought up isn't something that can be fixed with any kind of mechanical changes to the Award System.
You'll never get to know the inner facets of someone's character writing just by watching them in public. Doesn't matter if they're Joe the Human Commoner, Gujulaxa the Vampire-Goblin Warlock, or anyone in-between.

[Irongron]

D&D (and the Forgotten Realms) is a very different game/setting than it was 20 years ago.

What was once exotic is now absolutely normal, for better or worse. This is the setting a great many current D&D players are familiar with, and expecting.

The only advice I can give to those who want a more mundane setting is to play a more mundane character; Arelith is small enough that every player easily has the power to influence its setting.

[Waldo52]

I've yet to meet an award race character with a compelling story. Usually the people who play them are very bad. Anything beyond a normal award except fey and kenku are so weird that I struggle to take them seriously. Definitely needs cracking down on. I've seen 3 fey ri wandering around with their wings out in the past 3 months now for example.

More or less agreed.

Spruce was a cool pixie, and I may or may not have met a yuan-ti who I won't call out by name. But my list of cool award characters is literally two people in a server populated by thousands, and I would say that their RP was good in spite of their racial decisions and not because of them.

Have you tried roleplaying with them instead of being judgemental from a distance?

Yes. Literally all the time.

A person can have a strong feeling about the setting without throwing their hands up and pretending the characters right in front of them don't exist.

I don't want to be confused with that portion of the player base that runs into RP they dislike and suddenly pretend they're playing a single player game until things go their way.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

The problem has never been with special races, but their friends. Many moons ago (but certainly in the "modern" paradigm), a character of mine was called a bigot for being outwardly suspicious/hostile to a horned tiefling in Cordor.

Wild times!

But the wildest part was the crowd of normies nodding in agreement with the exchange.

I think the example given of the farmer and the shock-and-awe fatigue is a good example. One line of play is to 'accept it'; the other line of play is to get the heck out of Cordor as soon as possible and be disillusioned with it.

You used to see more of the latter back in the day.