Counter Collaring

[LurkingShadow]

Things don't need to be perfectly balanced. Just because one location/group/etc has something doesn't mean all other places need to have them. One sided things are good.

I always think it's dangerous to look at any group and call it "us" whether it be races, classes, or, in this case, surfacers. People shouldn't really only be playing "elves" or "paladins" or "surfacers". It really gives you a biased view of the people who aren't that. You'll get much more empathy for what are challenges others are going through and then have less of a need to post passive aggressive suggestions.

Seeing how Arelith does try to balance things, I would say there is a goal to balance things.

1. Prisoner Collars exist, at least as an option given by the slave clampers. Never tried, but I assume it works as a temporary form of slavery.
2. Nothing is stopping Cordor from making an UDer a slave if they wanted to. Head to Sibiyad and clamp anyone you like
3. If my kobold got caught by a surfacer and told "become a slave", I'd totally consider it, just for the interesting RP it could develop.
4. Painting "The UD" as some kind of homogenous unit that is working together against "the Surface" is hilarious and short sighted. Most of the UD characters are just trying to live their life as little UD monsters, and couldn't give two hoots about the surface and its occupants. Same is true of most surface characters just trying to live their lives and not caring about the UD and its occupants. The raids and attacks from each side against the other results in disruption and conflict, so please don't paint it as a one sided aggression. PvP is a significant part of Arelith, and those who enjoy it or like to use it to drive a narrative will do so, and we all engage or not with that as we choose.

It is a simplified way of painting it as "Us vs them". But its for simplicity to make the post. PVP might be significant but PVP for PVPs sake is not a tie breaker to make good plots. I seen several times that the "villians" never lose much. They can just retreat back to the UD which on Arelith seems to be the common place for outcasts. I play in a settlement that does not seek out conflict but it seeks out us. You cannot opt out of this even if you state it as if we can. You cannot. And people get enslaved. There need to be in my opinion mechanics to punish the attacker that enslaves people from the surface.

And clamping people in Sibayad is a bit silly. It is not about slavery, as I said it is a counter option to punish the "bad guy" for the "non slave" Holding.

[Rei_Jin]

1. Prisoner Collars exist, at least as an option given by the slave clampers. Never tried, but I assume it works as a temporary form of slavery.
2. Nothing is stopping Cordor from making an UDer a slave if they wanted to. Head to Sibiyad and clamp anyone you like
3. If my kobold got caught by a surfacer and told "become a slave", I'd totally consider it, just for the interesting RP it could develop.
4. Painting "The UD" as some kind of homogenous unit that is working together against "the Surface" is hilarious and short sighted. Most of the UD characters are just trying to live their life as little UD monsters, and couldn't give two hoots about the surface and its occupants. Same is true of most surface characters just trying to live their lives and not caring about the UD and its occupants. The raids and attacks from each side against the other results in disruption and conflict, so please don't paint it as a one sided aggression. PvP is a significant part of Arelith, and those who enjoy it or like to use it to drive a narrative will do so, and we all engage or not with that as we choose.

It is a simplified way of painting it as "Us vs them". But its for simplicity to make the post. PVP might be significant but PVP for PVPs sake is not a tie breaker to make good plots. I seen several times that the "villians" never lose much. They can just retreat back to the UD which on Arelith seems to be the common place for outcasts. I play in a settlement that does not seek out conflict but it seeks out us. You cannot opt out of this even if you state it as if we can. You cannot. And people get enslaved. There need to be in my opinion mechanics to punish the attacker that enslaves people from the surface.

And clamping people in Sibayad is a bit silly. It is not about slavery, as I said it is a counter option to punish the "bad guy" for the "non slave" Holding.

If you have an issue with how some people are conducting themselves, report it to a DM.

If the DMs see no issue with it, then what you are finding yourself frustrated with is the setting and rules for Arelith, which you opt into when you log in to play. I do not personally enjoy PvP or the attitude that some who pursue it use, but that doesn't make said players wrong or problematic.

Arelith has, for a long time, had an issue with a lack of IC consequences for IC actions taken. The staff have set things up so that you only really ever lose if you (a) have an MoD and die often enough, or (b) quit, or (c) get banned from the server. This means that team "good" can always survive for the next episode to try to triumph over team "bad", and team "bad" can come back from a loss to strike against team "good". Of course, a side can choose to take a loss and even roll their characters, but that is entirely their choice.

I get that PvP, raids, and conflict, can be frustrating when you're not a PvP built character, or a player who is skilled at PvP (incidentally, my character is terrible at PvP and so am I as a player). I remember my own frustration previously as a citizen of Guldorand when it felt like we were being every villain's favourite whipping boy.

But there are healthy and appropriate ways to respond to it, and unhealthy and inappropriate ways.

If it's all getting a bit too much, I honestly suggest stepping back and going outside for a bit. This is just a game, and we're all here to enjoy ourselves, and if you're not enjoying what is happening and would rather NOT deal with the conflict, to try to push through the storm to get to the sun on the other side? Take a break.

Heavens knows I've done that myself several times over the last few years.

[LurkingShadow]

1. Prisoner Collars exist, at least as an option given by the slave clampers. Never tried, but I assume it works as a temporary form of slavery.
2. Nothing is stopping Cordor from making an UDer a slave if they wanted to. Head to Sibiyad and clamp anyone you like
3. If my kobold got caught by a surfacer and told "become a slave", I'd totally consider it, just for the interesting RP it could develop.
4. Painting "The UD" as some kind of homogenous unit that is working together against "the Surface" is hilarious and short sighted. Most of the UD characters are just trying to live their life as little UD monsters, and couldn't give two hoots about the surface and its occupants. Same is true of most surface characters just trying to live their lives and not caring about the UD and its occupants. The raids and attacks from each side against the other results in disruption and conflict, so please don't paint it as a one sided aggression. PvP is a significant part of Arelith, and those who enjoy it or like to use it to drive a narrative will do so, and we all engage or not with that as we choose.

It is a simplified way of painting it as "Us vs them". But its for simplicity to make the post. PVP might be significant but PVP for PVPs sake is not a tie breaker to make good plots. I seen several times that the "villians" never lose much. They can just retreat back to the UD which on Arelith seems to be the common place for outcasts. I play in a settlement that does not seek out conflict but it seeks out us. You cannot opt out of this even if you state it as if we can. You cannot. And people get enslaved. There need to be in my opinion mechanics to punish the attacker that enslaves people from the surface.

And clamping people in Sibayad is a bit silly. It is not about slavery, as I said it is a counter option to punish the "bad guy" for the "non slave" Holding.

If you have an issue with how some people are conducting themselves, report it to a DM.

If the DMs see no issue with it, then what you are finding yourself frustrated with is the setting and rules for Arelith, which you opt into when you log in to play. I do not personally enjoy PvP or the attitude that some who pursue it use, but that doesn't make said players wrong or problematic.

Arelith has, for a long time, had an issue with a lack of IC consequences for IC actions taken. The staff have set things up so that you only really ever lose if you (a) have an MoD and die often enough, or (b) quit, or (c) get banned from the server. This means that team "good" can always survive for the next episode to try to triumph over team "bad", and team "bad" can come back from a loss to strike against team "good". Of course, a side can choose to take a loss and even roll their characters, but that is entirely their choice.

I get that PvP, raids, and conflict, can be frustrating when you're not a PvP built character, or a player who is skilled at PvP (incidentally, my character is terrible at PvP and so am I as a player). I remember my own frustration previously as a citizen of Guldorand when it felt like we were being every villain's favourite whipping boy.

But there are healthy and appropriate ways to respond to it, and unhealthy and inappropriate ways.

If it's all getting a bit too much, I honestly suggest stepping back and going outside for a bit. This is just a game, and we're all here to enjoy ourselves, and if you're not enjoying what is happening and would rather NOT deal with the conflict, to try to push through the storm to get to the sun on the other side? Take a break.

Heavens knows I've done that myself several times over the last few years.

Got absolutely nothing to do with how I personally feel about thing. I might quit tomorrow, I still will think there need to be an option to "community service" with prisoners like the UD can take slaves.

[Skibbles]

I'm starting to sense an underlying current here that undermines the merit of this suggestion.

Slavery is opt-in. It isn't a tool to punish players, though it can be for characters (which hopefully we understand are not the same).

Players accept slavery on their characters because they are opting-into a roleplay opportunity to expand their character's story, not because they are coerced or forced into it by UD players trying to stop them from attacking or something.

As far as Arelith history goes, slavery in fact is a great way to get a whole lot more attacks from the surface, most particularly if a high profile character is enslaved and all his friends and allies start gunning hard to get him back.

So if this mechanic is explicity introducted to stop UD players from being too 'aggressive' then it fails before it begins, because that was never its purpose in the first place and could infact serve to provide the very opposite.

[LurkingShadow]

I'm starting to sense an underlying current here that undermines the merit of this suggestion.

Slavery is opt-in. It isn't a tool to punish players, though it can be for characters (which hopefully we understand are not the same).

Players accept slavery on their characters because they are opting-into a roleplay opportunity to expand their character's story, not because they are coerced or forced into it by UD players trying to stop them from attacking or something.

As far as Arelith history goes, slavery in fact is a great way to get a whole lot more attacks from the surface, most particularly if a high profile character is enslaved and all his friends and allies start gunning hard to get him back.

So if this mechanic is explicity introducted to stop UD players from being too 'aggressive' then it fails before it begins, because that was never its purpose in the first place and could infact serve to provide the very opposite.

Im merely thinking there need to be an element of equal measure punishment. I do not think I seen or heard about a single player saying no to slavery yet. Especially when there is incitaments icly to make someone an slave. There should be a similar one for attacking a surface settlement, the fear of being captured. We will wait and see what happens when the staff get their concept going.

[Richrd]

good to see there's discussion about going equal opportunities in giving players who like humiliating other players more options
i look forward to the work camps and pressganged drow slaves working in the fields of cordor, all in the name of the triad

I am surprised this comment did not straight up get deleted.
Extremely poor taste and on equal levels with the crapshoot topic from a couple years ago with the whole video saying "portraying orcs as evil is racist against black people".

[gryggrstrkssontreelover]

good to see there's discussion about going equal opportunities in giving players who like humiliating other players more options
i look forward to the work camps and pressganged drow slaves working in the fields of cordor, all in the name of the triad

I am surprised this comment did not straight up get deleted.
Extremely poor taste and on equal levels with the crapshoot topic from a couple years ago with the whole video saying "portraying orcs as evil is racist against black people".

it's in extremely poor taste to suggest that the entirety of the surface should be free to enslave underdarker races for 'community service'. the only settlement you'll see with people is cordor, so the main player hub would have monstrous races walking around with collars on like they're larping saruman's workcamps with the wildmen played by cordorian residents. there's nothing mechanically available for the slaves to do IC besides go farm resources on someone else's behalf or to act as extra muscle for their friends who enslave them and any roleplay benefit you could claim sucks tbqh. you'll either have people letting out their inner gestapo agent as they beat up and spit on the lesser creature and rant about how much they hate them or as mr. mimic said you'll eventually just end up with underdark races being played as regular surfacerers with a little bit more flavour because everyone finds it funny that scrung boogereater is gibbering by the fire pit or they pretend a kobold is like a build-a-bear for cuddling mangy fur. i think im just being realistic for the end outcome of potentially implementing this. slavery is equal opportunity for everyone with an evil or chaotic neutral alignment lol, is it racist to suggest the average arelith player irl leans towards those alignments?

[Scraps]

Im merely thinking there need to be an element of equal measure punishment. I do not think I seen or heard about a single player saying no to slavery yet.

Probably because they want to explore that story. Again, slavery is not and should not be punitive or humiliating to the player. It is NOT a punishment.

Especially when there is incitaments icly to make someone an slave.

Could you expand on what you mean by this?

There should be a similar one for attacking a surface settlement, the fear of being captured.

Could you expand on exactly who should fear capture? Players very literally can't fear capture, because it's entirely a consent based system. You can always opt out of being held against your will as a player, and not only the rules, but the mechanics support this.

[BurntGnome]

I would totally enslave kobolds and goblins, or other threats, if the mechanics supported it. Im not going to go into the UD to do it, but if Sencliff and Sibiyad had the clampers back, I could see making the trip there to clamp baddies for hard labor in Bendir. It'd be about the only real punishment I could enforce in Bendir, since we cant really jail anyone, outside of just killing them or exiling them, neither of which are really interesting for RP.

Break the law repeatedly? You're off to the Goldenbeard Ranch for a while.

[AsteraceaeOculus]

I think this is a horrible idea. The Slavery Mechanic is already a messed up, archaic system with a difficult opaque questline to get free, for the people who aren't constantly trying to justify why their slave is willing to the people who try to have some interesting chainbreaking rp. I don't know why it's even kept around, let alone why it would be expanded.
IC wise, the fact that the Underdark is full of slavers is also the best moral reason for paladins and the like to fight them. Why get rid of the moral high ground by having the surface do the same thing? It just gives more ammunition to the "GOBLINS AND KOBOLDS AND GNOLLS ARE FRIENDS" people.

[LurkingShadow]

good to see there's discussion about going equal opportunities in giving players who like humiliating other players more options
i look forward to the work camps and pressganged drow slaves working in the fields of cordor, all in the name of the triad

I am surprised this comment did not straight up get deleted.
Extremely poor taste and on equal levels with the crapshoot topic from a couple years ago with the whole video saying "portraying orcs as evil is racist against black people".

it's in extremely poor taste to suggest that the entirety of the surface should be free to enslave underdarker races for 'community service'. the only settlement you'll see with people is cordor, so the main player hub would have monstrous races walking around with collars on like they're larping saruman's workcamps with the wildmen played by cordorian residents. there's nothing mechanically available for the slaves to do IC besides go farm resources on someone else's behalf or to act as extra muscle for their friends who enslave them and any roleplay benefit you could claim sucks tbqh. you'll either have people letting out their inner gestapo agent as they beat up and spit on the lesser creature and rant about how much they hate them or as mr. mimic said you'll eventually just end up with underdark races being played as regular surfacerers with a little bit more flavour because everyone finds it funny that scrung boogereater is gibbering by the fire pit or they pretend a kobold is like a build-a-bear for cuddling mangy fur. i think im just being realistic for the end outcome of potentially implementing this. slavery is equal opportunity for everyone with an evil or chaotic neutral alignment lol, is it racist to suggest the average arelith player irl leans towards those alignments?

There is still plenty surface races doing criminal deeds that are outcasts.

Im merely thinking there need to be an element of equal measure punishment. I do not think I seen or heard about a single player saying no to slavery yet.

Probably because they want to explore that story. Again, slavery is not and should not be punitive or humiliating to the player. It is NOT a punishment.

Especially when there is incitaments icly to make someone an slave.

Could you expand on what you mean by this?

There should be a similar one for attacking a surface settlement, the fear of being captured.

Could you expand on exactly who should fear capture? Players very literally can't fear capture, because it's entirely a consent based system. You can always opt out of being held against your will as a player, and not only the rules, but the mechanics support this.

1: Explore that story? Have you seen it from the surface angle with slavery? It is a odd mechanic. Slavery.

2: Someone kidnaps your brother, lover, father. "We will enslave this person unless you become the slave instead" I just seen happen on server. This leaves little room for saying "no".

3: The concept ICly should still be there. In my opinion death should also be feared. Even if people can just press respawn. The few times I headed into the UD on a surfacer it is fearsome.

[LurkingShadow]

I would totally enslave kobolds and goblins, or other threats, if the mechanics supported it. Im not going to go into the UD to do it, but if Sencliff and Sibiyad had the clampers back, I could see making the trip there to clamp baddies for hard labor in Bendir. It'd be about the only real punishment I could enforce in Bendir, since we cant really jail anyone, outside of just killing them or exiling them, neither of which are really interesting for RP.

Break the law repeatedly? You're off to the Goldenbeard Ranch for a while.

I think it would work if its the more surface aligned races. Plenty outcasts thats Human or similar.

I think this is a horrible idea. The Slavery Mechanic is already a messed up, archaic system with a difficult opaque questline to get free, for the people who aren't constantly trying to justify why their slave is willing to the people who try to have some interesting chainbreaking rp. I don't know why it's even kept around, let alone why it would be expanded.
IC wise, the fact that the Underdark is full of slavers is also the best moral reason for paladins and the like to fight them. Why get rid of the moral high ground by having the surface do the same thing? It just gives more ammunition to the "GOBLINS AND KOBOLDS AND GNOLLS ARE FRIENDS" people.

Paladins are lawful, lawful societies have punishments. It is not about permanent slavery but punishment for evil deeds. Paladins are able to execute people. It gets silly seeing the same people over and over attack the same settlement and all we can do is either lose or beat them up to see them back next irl month or week doing the same thing.

I for one? Would say slavery should not be on the server at all with the signal it sends but now it is so I just come with ideas to equalize it.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

The UD can collar us surfacers, but alloww us to capture them and "force" them into community service to even the playing field. It is getting a bit silly they can just put a collar upon people and force things to happen. Not everyone on the surface is good aligned and it should be reasonable to be able to force them into a similar situation ICly if beaten up.

There's some stuff in the works that will help for things like this.

[LurkingShadow]

The UD can collar us surfacers, but alloww us to capture them and "force" them into community service to even the playing field. It is getting a bit silly they can just put a collar upon people and force things to happen. Not everyone on the surface is good aligned and it should be reasonable to be able to force them into a similar situation ICly if beaten up.

There's some stuff in the works that will help for things like this.

That is interesting and will be fun to see in action. I guess I leave at that. Just rolling around in a circle here with us players going back and forth

[HeyLadyOfDecay]

I'm starting to sense an underlying current here that undermines the merit of this suggestion.

Slavery is opt-in. It isn't a tool to punish players, though it can be for characters (which hopefully we understand are not the same).

Players accept slavery on their characters because they are opting-into a roleplay opportunity to expand their character's story, not because they are coerced or forced into it by UD players trying to stop them from attacking or something.

As far as Arelith history goes, slavery in fact is a great way to get a whole lot more attacks from the surface, most particularly if a high profile character is enslaved and all his friends and allies start gunning hard to get him back.

So if this mechanic is explicity introducted to stop UD players from being too 'aggressive' then it fails before it begins, because that was never its purpose in the first place and could infact serve to provide the very opposite.

Im merely thinking there need to be an element of equal measure punishment. I do not think I seen or heard about a single player saying no to slavery yet. Especially when there is incitaments icly to make someone an slave. There should be a similar one for attacking a surface settlement, the fear of being captured. We will wait and see what happens when the staff get their concept going.

I want to point out, consent is an ooc matter between slaver and possible slave. If you haven't heard of this then 1. It's because it's not your business or 2. They broke the rule on slavery.

Also, your mindset is way off, slavery isn't a punish system, it's an rp system and the surface has all the tools needed to capture the bad guy, rp with them etc. Most settlements have a prison, cordor has a court house and so on.

All that is required is a -subdue and concent from both sides to be taken prisoner, a lot of mechanical stuff asked for is simply just a matter of both sides being a decent rper.

The UD can collar us surfacers, but alloww us to capture them and "force" them into community service to even the playing field. It is getting a bit silly they can just put a collar upon people and force things to happen. Not everyone on the surface is good aligned and it should be reasonable to be able to force them into a similar situation ICly if beaten up.

There's some stuff in the works that will help for things like this.

If there are things in work that will force people into stuff, then perhaps it shouldn't be worked on.

That said, evil surfacers can still collar other surfacers or even underdarkers, they just have to accept that it makes them a target.

Naming slavery community service or permanent prisoner, however, you still end up boss around folk, like a slaver would.

UD slaves have a work relation between slave and master, surface would have a jailor - prisoner sort relation, I don't think that would go well IC andveventually makes the surface look more evil than the UD.

[The GrumpyCat]

I actually agree that this is pretty much settled but for food for thought:

Im merely thinking there need to be an element of equal measure punishment. I do not think I seen or heard about a single player saying no to slavery yet.

The way to rephrase this is to think of it less as 'getting' even or such and more as this -

Slavery is a really fun, cool mechanic that a lot of people love playing with. Why? Because it' allows them to play in a new area, to play a storyline that's full of conflict, strife and challenge (the stuff epic stories are made of) can be character defining later on, ideally can involve meeting some awsome new players each willilng to give the pc a purpose, and can be just generally a really great time. Now a lot of this is dependent on who you're playing with of course - (I'd advise on an ooc level picking ones 'master' very carefully, making sure play times align and expectations are the same ect) but I can say that the last two pcs I really, really enjoyed on arelith, for a long period of time, were both Slaves. It's not perfect, but I can really see why people go for it. That's perhaps why a lot of people say 'Yes' rather than no (that and you don't hear about the people saying 'no' as much because... well it's not as much of a big deal.) because it's good fun!

Now there are some people who go 'I don't get it. It sounds awful to me!' - well... that's fair enough! Nothing wrong with that. There are some aspects of Arelith that other people absolutly adore, that I just don't understand myself. But that's fine, so long as it's not interfereing over much (it will always interfere a little, but you just have to smile, and try and find a way to make it fun for you) then that's fine.

Adding onto this , as again has already been insinuated - full on 'slavery on the surface to turn monster races into surface slaves' would likely not work out too well because we still (and would continue) to have the rule that monster races cannot wander openly about cities. That would include collared ones. So you'd end up playing a pc who couldn't enter settlments in the place they were principally enslaved, and I think that would just suck a bit. It certainly wouldn't appeal to a lot of people.

So lets reframe what you want.

What you want is a method of adding roleplay 'punishments' that surface PCs (and I think honestly this mostly means Good/Neutral PCs(1)) can use, which will be APPEALING AND INTERESTING to Underdark PCs

Now that's an interesting idea. And as mentioned, one we're working on... not so much for 'underdark pcs' I'll say, but PCs in general. That said what needs to happen, on your side, is you have to make people WANT to agree to your consequence. Give some sort of fun rp that makes the underdarker player go, 'Wow, Yeah, I'd like to do that because it sounds like a fun thing for my character to get involved in!'

Its not an easy thing to do, to be honest.. but it's something to work towards. And if you can make it happen, if you can make it so your mortal IC enemies, became your truest ooc friends -the people who love not only winning but also LOOSING to you, then my friend, you've truly won arelith.

(1 - this issue is a little compounded by the fact that good aligned pcs tend to be rather quick and morally judging and condemning any form of punishment at all, in my experience, which is rather frustrating.)

Anyway I kinda feel this chat has run its course, and youv'e got good answers from the devs (we are working on more law enforcement options) so I'm going to lock this now.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

If there are things in work that will force people into stuff, then perhaps it shouldn't be worked on.

Nowhere in what I said did I mention anything about forcing anything.