Availability of Special Appearances

[Definately Not A Mimic]

I am not a fan of having a character forcibly taken away .. But.. if you had to read the info on your race on creation before you can press go and have been coached say three times and still are not either sticking to lore/race or showing how your particular character has had influence to make them even more 'unique' than setting would typically lend to? Yes. I'm for having them rolled.
It is as said before, if every single person plays their special snowflake than no one is and it just looks like a menagerie in town and not a 3.5 D&D setting.

As a side note, I have always been against perma death but the longer I play here the more I start to lean toward maybe 5 RL years and a character is done and gone. I know people don't always finish their story and many if not all can come up with a reason why they live a million years but.. just the way I've started leaning in my old age. I hate change, yes this would get rid of a few of my own characters out of my vault too, but I think it would be healthier for the server.

[Amateur Hour]

One sentiment I see coming up a few times, is the idea that people arn't roleplaying these races correctly, and a lot of the suggestions spinning around (understandably) call for some more stringent measures to enforce that.

And this isn't a bad idea. I see where it comes from. I even agree with it to an extent. I do have a thought experiment though, which I'm kinda curious to see peoples response to.

If we want to be more stringent about roleplay (roleplay in general, this includes class, as well as race, but is more potent for race) then that polcing doesn't stop at character creation. After all it's possible to fill out an app with lies, and then play the concept entirely differently.

What that means, is punative measures post creation including - perhaps- deletion.

With most character classes and the like*, forced relevels or even remakes can be done (though nowadays we could probably just force an early setclass and the like). But with races... that becomes a lot murkier. Someone who's deemed not to be roleplaying a persons race correctly... well the only 'cure' for that is forced deltion - at a certain point anyway.

Forced deletion of characters is extremely rare, but if we want to more firmly enforcing roleplay standards for certain races - then I... think it's likely to happen more often.

How do we feel about that?

*The exception being Harpers/Zhents.

I'll throw in my controversial opinion: I am for this.

There are certainly aspects of Arelith that make it lore-wise make sense why unusual people would be drawn to it in large numbers; an isolated island in the middle of nowhere is probably comparatively safe if society at large shuns you. I don't mind the large numbers of, say, Eilistraeean drow because fleeing from the mainland drow cities makes a lot of sense! But this said, we do have a duty to preserve the setting in terms of how our characters interact with the world, including their backstories being reasonable. A Rakshasa that has a history of allying with demons should not exist. A Deep Imaskari talking about the regular visits they make back to Imaskar should not exist. A gloaming who's perfectly comfortable chatting by the Cordor fire in broad daylight without any kind of sun protection should not exist.

Obviously I wouldn't be for people being snatched up and deleted out of the blue because, say, their avariel can't provide the exact route they took to leave the Aerie. There is room for nuance within characters, minor irregularities aren't a big deal, and probably most glaring issues could be fixed with a combination lore check/app and warnings when they pop up.

[Royal Blood]

One sentiment I see coming up a few times, is the idea that people arn't roleplaying these races correctly, and a lot of the suggestions spinning around (understandably) call for some more stringent measures to enforce that.

And this isn't a bad idea. I see where it comes from. I even agree with it to an extent. I do have a thought experiment though, which I'm kinda curious to see peoples response to.

If we want to be more stringent about roleplay (roleplay in general, this includes class, as well as race, but is more potent for race) then that polcing doesn't stop at character creation. After all it's possible to fill out an app with lies, and then play the concept entirely differently.

What that means, is punative measures post creation including - perhaps- deletion.

With most character classes and the like*, forced relevels or even remakes can be done (though nowadays we could probably just force an early setclass and the like). But with races... that becomes a lot murkier. Someone who's deemed not to be roleplaying a persons race correctly... well the only 'cure' for that is forced deltion - at a certain point anyway.

Forced deletion of characters is extremely rare, but if we want to more firmly enforcing roleplay standards for certain races - then I... think it's likely to happen more often.

How do we feel about that?

*The exception being Harpers/Zhents.

I think maybe Instead of forced character deletion it would be wiser to find a way to encourage rolling of major award characters. Maybe a major award character that gets rolled gets a non racial bonus like levels, gold or idk some kinda of alternative award option?

I suspect we just have a growing population of majors. I probably would never roll mine too if.o had ever got.one. And I don't think we should force people to roll but make it more appealing to do so.

I also have begun to wonder if 'RP seasons' wouldn't like be helpful. Like every 6months or so the writing team published some Arelith story advancements and maybe a small time jump. Let's the devs refresh some areas of the server for a new season and its just like a soft reset. Everyone can still own their quarters etc. No one is forced to do anything but narratively it acts as a breathing point.

But most importantly: While no one is forced to roll maybe at the end of the season there's added incentives to roll And the end of a season would be a naturally good story end point made by the server instead of making players have to find their own end point.

[Shadowy Reality]

I believe in the past if you lost your RPR you could not play that character until you fulfilled the RPR requirements once more. So one wouldn't need to force delete characters, just forcibly shelf them until the player proves they are up for the task.

[Marsi]

In theory overabundant specials bother me, but in practice I find I don’t really care.

Annoying, tacky players will always find a way to be annoying and tacky, wings or no. And a strong roleplayer can make even the most socially bankrupted concept/race feel new and exciting.

[Aradin]

Someone who's deemed not to be roleplaying a persons race correctly... well the only 'cure' for that is forced deletion - at a certain point anyway.

Forced deletion of characters is extremely rare, but if we want to more firmly enforcing roleplay standards for certain races - then I... think it's likely to happen more often.

How do we feel about that?

Short answer - yes, I'd be for it. But I don't think it's sustainable. DMs can monitor logs and eye-in-the-sky all you want, but it's a small group of volunteers against a player base of thousands (I'm aware special races/classes make up a smaller number of characters, but there are still a lot, and with more continually getting made).

I feel like the solution isn't to punish people after they've made the character, but put in more stringent restrictions on making the character in the first place. And with Arelith's size, I think those restrictions need to be automated like the award system currently is in order for the change to be sustainable. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say.

[Kythana]

If someone is just being really blatant, like say- A fey'ri with wings out, strolling around in broad daylight with a demon in tow, then yes. Please delete their character.

I agree with Aradin as well. A manual solution isn't going to work.

There are some players who know how to disguise a debunk concept real well, and you'd have to spend hours pouring through logs to really understand what is wrong with their character.

And even then, if you did police every single character and purged the bad ones, the ultimate problem is just having too many of them.

I suspect we just have a growing population of majors. I probably would never roll mine too if.o had ever got.one. And I don't think we should force people to roll but make it more appealing to do so.

What exactly do you imagine would incentivize someone to roll a major? Just to spitball some probability here.

Award cooldowns are currently 2 months for normals and greaters. Let's say you start the year with your cooldown up. Assuming you roll on cooldown throughout the year, with 1 million gold and a level 26 character at minimum, you have 6 attempts at 10% each.

This is roughly a 50/50 shot to see if you'll get at least one major for the year. But that doesn't really account for outliers. I'm sure a lot of us know that one person who spent 3 years rolling and has never received a single major.

And then you have to account for something like vampires which has a waiting list.

These are characters that some people have spent literal years acquiring. And that's where the FOMO comes in. Why would you roll your giant, even if you got some kind of extra bonus from it? There's a non negligible chance you wouldn't be able to play another one until year(s) later.

Even if you gave me one million gold and a free level 30s for rolling a major, I wouldn't do it. Because the time required to get that is much less than the time to grind the major.

[Starbridge]

More awards that let standard races feel special without looking special, instead of playing special races or adding tails and wings, could go a long way towards mitigating this.

I wouldn't mind seeing awards that add interesting innate abilities, honestly. Or even awards that help facilitate more bizarre origins. This isn't a bad idea.

A larger array of awards/rewards for only the base races would incentivize them to be played more.

[JustMonika]

The ECL rewards certainly seem poor when you can easily get to 30 in less than a month with +2 ECL.
Likewise the early start bonuses are pretty unappealing they're such temporary things when compared to being a different race they actively feel like a waste, driving people towards the racial awards.

[Spriggan Bride]

The level 16 start is a blessing for casual or limited time players like me. I know people are getting to 30 in a month but it takes me at least month to get to level 16 with my play time and it's very nice to be able to just enter the game with a character who is strong enough to join in existing activities.

Also, I've been playing on and off since the mid 00s and much of the low level content hasn't changed much, even "newer" (still 5? years old) areas like Skal get old on the third or fourth time leveling up there so if I can skip it I definitely will, I've just made too many characters now to enjoy revisiting early writs ever again.

So just consider that, I know I see people complaining all the time about how it's a waste of an award to use Guildorand start but for some of us it's the best possible use of a normal. We're all looking for something different here so options are nice.

[Xerah]

The ECL rewards certainly seem poor when you can easily get to 30 in less than a month with +2 ECL.
Likewise the early start bonuses are pretty unappealing they're such temporary things when compared to being a different race they actively feel like a waste, driving people towards the racial awards.

Maybe for you. I don't start characters without a lvl 16 or 8 (underdark) unless I really want some kind of special race. An extra language, noble award, etc. doesn't mean a whole lot to me (especially if it's not integral to the character anyway).

This is the same view as me:

In theory overabundant specials bother me, but in practice I find I don’t really care.

Annoying, tacky players will always find a way to be annoying and tacky, wings or no. And a strong roleplayer can make even the most socially bankrupted concept/race feel new and exciting.

[RedGiant]

This is borderline another "why we can't have nice things" thread.

But I will take it in the good faith that I believe it was intended.

Arelith, and the FR setting in general, has a diversity of races with wildly varying appearances. Entire non-award races have tails (e.g. see kobold). You don't seem to be complaining about this.

So, what I /think/ you are complaining about is seeing too many modified characters in (heavy quote/unquote) "normal" areas and having them be accepted as a matter of course.

That is, when your default town is populated by dragon-disciples, genasi, and outsiders, it seems a little less like Daggerdale and a little more like Sigil.

If this is your concern, I think many share it.

Just spittballing here, but I have solutions that most aren't going to like.

1) Let settlements work this out for themselves without some of the DM pushes we've had to normalize the abnormal.
2) Take away our toys. (My least favorite option.)
3) Make these characters outcasts. (Probably my favorite option!)
Heavily restrict the places they can openly do business.
Maybe normalize places lke Sibayad and Sencliff for Genasi, Shadowvar and Dis for planars (Radiant Heart for goods), and all of the above for Dragon Disciples.
I would really love to see the same done with half-giants and Jotun-hold.

[Eyeliner]

I think part of the problem (not excusing all bad RP, just saying part of the problem) is you still have to level a special race up from 3 and there are just things you have to do on Arelith like writs, craft, etc that require all races to act pretty similarly and require them to visit settlements even if their lore would normally make that unlikely. I mean for example a Gloaming or Shadovar should probably be shadow plane based but you can't really base a character there until epics. Or if you see a level 10 Firlborg in Cordor and say "why are they allowing a giant...", well, he has to do do writs somewhere, and Arelith really isn't a land of unlimited opportunities.

Maybe outwardly weird special races need to only start on Skal and Anundor where there's more tolerance, I dunno. I still think the real answer is to encourage more gifts, toys, boosts, bloodlines or whatever for standard races as awards that don't appear visually so players can feel they got something for their reward but cities don't look like zoos.

[Waldo52]

Arelith, and the FR setting in general, has a diversity of races with wildly varying appearances. Entire non-award races have tails (e.g. see kobold). You don't seem to be complaining about this.

I do think playing something like a kobold or a goblin is a little weird, but you're right. I don't notice award race haters complaining about this.

When you play a race like a winged elf or a tiefling or a half-man half-fireball you're doing something sort of ostentatious. It reeks of unique snowflake power fantasies.

On top of being extremely prominent and common in Forgotten Realms lore to the point of infestation, kobolds are pathetic sniveling little things. You can kind of laugh at yourself for playing one. And there will always be a few kobold players around so they can clique up together which IMHO enriches the social aspect of the game.

I would rather interact with three suspicious reptilian weirdos speaking a strange language with each other and emoting fear/suspicion than have to deal with that one winged elf or glowy eyed elemental guy on my boat. I try not to exclude people or police other people's role playing but I swear I die a little each time.

As I say all the time with my friends, there's no right or wrong when it comes to a pretend elf game. But this is how I feel in terms of lore and setting and I feel like a lot of people agree.

[AstralUniverse]

I dont really know what I think about this.

Seeing less special characters would indeed be nice and make them more special, but are there really so many of them? I'm not sure.

I know that personally special look doesnt interest me and that I can get the same fun playing an ordinary human for the 999th time, because character's depth really has nothing to do with it's look imo, so for all I care we can make them way more rare. Looks is just cosmetic after all.

I'm not in favor of locking classes behind rpr, that's for sure.

[Hazard]

When you play a race like a winged elf or a tiefling or a half-man half-fireball you're doing something sort of ostentatious. It reeks of unique snowflake power fantasies.

That's just the setting. You're in the Forgotten Realms, you're going to have unique snowflakes. The typical adventurer is a unique snowflake. Normal people don't tend to risk their lives going on adventures.

Tieflings. Genasi. Those are uncommon, but not that much. Most people know what those are and have seen them around, especially if you live in a more populated/well traveled place, like a city, and if you're capable of planar travel those things wouldn't even catch your eye.

[Wrips]

The "if everyone is special no one is" is a terrible fallacy that is difficult to see it's still employed in these kind of discussions. Maybe, just maybe, the player doesn't want to be 'special' at all and is just playing a concept they are interested to do? There is a reason someone picks a tiefling and someone else picks an aasimar or avariel, or another picks an half orc earth weaponmaster, after all.

[Iceborn]

I think that at the end of the day we have two completely different opinions of what the game is supposed to be that we cannot renconcile.

Arelith is strange. It's a strange, strange island that calls weirdoes and exceptions.
Anybody that comes down that dock in Cordor can become an archmage within the span of a week - does that really make any sense by itself?
Can you ask your buddies "please don't level too fast, it's damaging the setting integrity?"
"Please go stand under the waterfall for 45 years before you achieve chim?"
"Please only learn a spell every 8 RL hours?"

(You can, by the way, take your time to properly develop your character. Slow stories of growth and learning are amongst my favorite in the setting and I love both type of character that is masterful and you can ask them literally anything about their craft, and those that have absolutely no idea what side of the sword they have to hold, but are willing to learn and make all the mistakes along the way)

Uncommon characters are a challenge.
You will have people that will blow your mind and play them superbly.
You will have people with the blandest take imaginable on what they are supposed to be.

And mind, I say uncommon character. A human mulhorandi priest is uncommon; a thayvian is uncommon, a kara-turian is uncommon. These characters on the glance promise a something unique, something different. Whether they deliver is always a matter of the narrative skill of the player.

Special races are no different. Monstruous races. Uncommon races. Doesn't matter, really.
Underdark is a bit of a zoo, most days in the hub you can spot simultaneously:
Humans, with their own 400 different regional and planar flavors, drow, duergar, goblin, kobolds (and winged kobolds), gloamings, one particular derro, shout out if you know who it is, minotaurs, half orc, orogs, along with whatever weird thing they have going. Undeads, infernalists, abyssalist, star pacted, whatever.
And I love it.

There's a richness of character in UD these days that is amazing.
Nobody is 'normal'.
Nobody is Joe Swordsman.
At worst there's always some Drow Whipsman or a kobold called Stabs which whole personality is knives. Those characters will always bore me to tears, but whatever, you know? A boring take is merely what it is, and as long as they have their fun, they may learn and try a more interesting, more developed concept later.

To me, it seems that some people want Cordor to go back to Tolkien fantasy. Human, elves, hin, dwarves, MAYBE gnomes, anything else get out. And you know what? It's not a bad idea to have a place in the server that is mega racist and hates literally anything that doesn't conform to a very limited racial group.

At the risk of cancelling myself:
Racism is good
in DnD.
In DnD obviously.
Don't send a pipebomb my way.

But you can't enforce that without both killscripts and the molding of player culture that takes years to develop.
It's always been responsibility of the players to check themselves for setting health - the DM can try to enforce it here and there (and when they do, it is generally seen with loathing; you know how some people have the weirdest beef with DMs) but that merely cures symptons, and not really the root of the issues.
That issue being that we have the utter freedom to make our own characters.
That issue being that - as it was astutely spotted by Red Giant, you old, old coot - sometimes we lash against the toys that we have at our disposal, that we can't have 'Nice Things' (TM).

In that regard, these times are no different than the old 5% dragon days.
The award system has always been a mechanical, automatic service. Hands off.
Some people are blessed by the RNG, and some people (hi) have rolled 8 normals in a row.
It doesn't mean that the people that is best fitted to play the most (racially) interesting characters will land where they need to be.
And you can't really enforce players to play better. You can only reward good roleplay, and punish the most offending trangressions.

Ultimately, I think Marsi put it the best:

In theory overabundant specials bother me, but in practice I find I don’t really care.

Annoying, tacky players will always find a way to be annoying and tacky, wings or no. And a strong roleplayer can make even the most socially bankrupted concept/race feel new and exciting.

[Kythana]

Either go full Planescape, and just let everyone play anything. Just accept that Arelith is a zoo now, and let that become the new normal.

Or try to return to the more grounded roots.

I just want the server to pick a direction, instead of being somewhere in the middle.

[AstralUniverse]

Just accept that Arelith is a zoo now

No.

[Hazard]

Just accept that Arelith is a zoo now.

Always has been.

[Waldo52]

Either go full Planescape, and just let everyone play anything. Just accept that Arelith is a zoo now, and let that become the new normal.

Or try to return to the more grounded roots.

I just want the server to pick a direction, instead of being somewhere in the middle.

+1

[The GrumpyCat]

I mean, I put up a pretty exhaustive list of options going forward. It's all very well to say 'I don't like this!' but - respectfully - that doesn't really present solutions?

The only option I perhaps didn't explore was shoving options up to major - Like Gloamings, half giants, all plane touched, ect.

I'm not a huge fan of this personally, but there it is.

Even if this were done however, I'm not convinced it'd fix the percieved problem stated here...

because
a) We'd still have the existing players of plane touched, gloamings, ect - unless we forcefully deleted them, which would be vastly unpopular.
b) Major awards, whilst harder to achieve than greater, are still perfectly possible. even with the cooldown we have. I recon that, if you work towards it, even with the cooldown, it's perfectly possible to achieve a major within three years at least, likely much sooner if you really try.
c) This is not counting all the people who have who knows what banked thanks to the period when there was no cooldown.

That's not to say we can't make Arelith more um... mundane for lack of a better option. It is of course possible. But I beg you to consider that all the possiblities for it do come with some unique drawbacks, the vast majority will take some time to actually work, and saying 'just make it less zooish!' isn't really going to happen, short of mass character deletions.

Finally for what it's worth, I personally absolutly agree with Marsi

In theory overabundant specials bother me, but in practice I find I don’t really care.

Annoying, tacky players will always find a way to be annoying and tacky, wings or no. And a strong roleplayer can make even the most socially bankrupted concept/race feel new and exciting.

[Peacelily]

1) - lower the percentiles. Which is well and good, but honestly people already hate the RNG aspect of the system, so it's not likely to be popular

2) - Make it take more time to level up. Another highly controversial idea, not least of all because this effects a lot of other things.

Both of these mostly penalize newer players, or those who didn't bank thousands of awards. Unless we're doing a full pull of every banked award - I wouldn't be comfortable with this one.

3) - Link what to take to RPB - Nice, but could lead to some people just never rolling characters, because why bother? Nothing they like is available. And whilst I am a big proponent of the RPB system, I can't deny it has it's failings and I feel we need to be wary how much we gate behind it. Not to say we should gate nothing behind it, or even gate 'more' things behind it, but that it's something to be wary of.

4) - Make more special races require apps. - Well, that's a possiblity but potentially adds a lot more work to the DM team. Also can make more accusations of favortism ect

As someone who's played on and off for years and never bothered applying for an RPR boost, because I never really knew how to go about it or felt the need - this would mostly make me send more to the DMs for the RPR boost, so with this being far more impactful, I can see this causing a lot more work as more casual players feel more forced to interact with the application system.

5) Limit amount of races able to be played at any one time - like Vampires at present. This would be very diffuclt to police, and might end up in some highly problematic sitautions, at least if the numbers were kept too low. I can't picture a way how this could be automated, and still be fair. Yet if done manually then I can't picture a way that this also wouldn't be extremly hard work for the DM team, and frustrating for the player base. Unless the numbers were set VERY high, I'd personally be very much against this idea.

Agree on the frustrating, especially when you get to the concept of server times, etc. I recall a time I knew one group with three vampires in it, and I glanced at the rules for them and made a face at the sheer amount of 'special' in that one, non-vampire based group.

6) Allow people to have only a certain amount of 'special races' in their account. This isn't a /bad/ idea, but again not sure that fixes the problem. You'll still get people playing the one Winged Character they have in their vault, because it's special. If you make it so they can't get any more major awards whilst playing their current Major (for example) that'll likely mean they'll just stop rolling full stop. Or if you make it so that they can still roll for more awards - that's fine, but whos' to say they won't delete their Avarial for, say, a winged Fey'ri?

I do like the idea of 'You can't roll equal to, or higher, than any existing award in your pool' when you roll a special race. So if you roll a Vampire, you'll get at most a Greater when you roll them, and can't immediately apply for, say, a Rakshasa.. Again, this doesn't really stop those with thirty awards in their pool, but it does mean that the Majors would slowly decrease or people would have to intersperse basic characters with those with advances.

7) Offer more None Racial Options - Ok so to be clear I do like this idea, it's one of my fave out of all of those on this list and is probably going to happen. But the one issue with it - esp when it comes to the 5% options- is IDK about you, but if I'm spending a 5% on something 'special' that's none racial, I want it to be BLOODY special. So there is a chance (note only a chance) of powercreep here. To an extent I feel that this can also be argued with the 5% races too, but that can also be offset by the cosmetic stuff? Your Avariel may not be as mechanically powerful as a human, but it looks unique and pretty. But- Maybe I'm thinking too much into this. More unique none racial options over all? Great idea.

100% love it. Things like using a Minor to become a Noble, to access the Radiant Heart is wonderful if you're making someone who would want to be, but simply isn't suited to be a paladin, would be an example of this. There was also the talking weapon, which was cool. Other options would be

• letting an unusual character take Sencliff ink
• something to interact with sailing (my personal favorite would be something that let you raise sunken rentals, which I would have used so hard, but that's a secondary issue
• something akin to the old Riding award to summon a horse
• access to summon familiar or animal companion at character level
• one/day or on cooldown spells of particular types

In every case, look at opening up characters to do things others can, but this one would be unable to, for whatever reason. That opens up build diversity without it really being a huge power boost.

8) Re-hall the entire award system. Which honestly was something discussed and something I pushed for in my tenure, but sadly never came to pass. I really hope it will however, because I think it needs to be done.
One thing to keep in mind with this though is that there tend to be broadly two schools of thought when it comes to awards. (esp racial ones)

I think it's pretty easy to put a line between the two. Encourage reward and recognition (gag me now for using that in this concept) from player to player (and eye warily when the same group is constantly recognising the same players), and encourage actively applying (if, for example, D4wn tells me I should consider a paladin or aesimir, I might consider it even if I didn't normally go that route, simply because that player is strongly involved in that aspect of play and that would mean their opinion had more weight than Joe Blog)

9) Remove awards/special races entirely from the game. I dont' like this as an idea at all personally, but there it is, in all it's terrible glory.

I'd really prefer not.

All told, I'd really love letting more than 'races' be a thing. Part of that could be letting people blow an award on being 'Touched' races. This is already in game to a degree - tieflings are easier to get than fey'ri. A Hag-touched, with an affinity for curses (looks human, bonus DC on curses, detect curse on cooldown), would be a lot less intrusive and fascinating than an outright Hag. This is already in play with the Gift system (spells on cooldown), but expanding this to the Award system would let people have a reason to play around these things more and more.

[Svrtr]

Just here to play devil's advocate but

A non award race can be as peacocky in how overt and "special" they are in their RP as a major race

A major race character can be low fantasy and compelling and be interesting on its own merit

It's just that people seem to take extra notice when people play a special race but their RP is the same as everyone else who isn't that race, or when they act as omnipotent about high fantasy concepts that the average joe wouldn't know about as a human might. Lower fantasy but compelling characters is my preference, and award races have a higher onus to be both believable and unique for sure, but various arelithisms like casual planes walking and whatnot means lots of average joe races still act "special" it seems at times, even if this phrasing by me will seem crass or blunt