On Arelith and "the setting"

[Beary Nice]

There is a gaping chasm between what "the setting" is described to us as, and what "the setting" looks like in practice. This is a many faceted problem, and I'm going to try to explain it as best as I can.

This, in my opinion, is not fixable, by virtue of what has already been established; it is too late to 'walk this back'.

By and large, characters are dismissive of any and all threats on this server - and why shouldn't they be? They're out every sixteen hours slaying "ancient red dragons", mind flayers, eldritch horrors beyond our comprehension, and wandering into the depths of the Lowerdark casually like it's nothing special. That is because they can be. The very systems and content put in place by the module designers tell us that we can be.

To make this clearer; we are regularly told by "The Team" that we ought to consider ourselves roughly level 12-15, and not epic characters as the sheet tells us. (I am not a fan of "levels" as a way to measure power, as an aside, but other than CR, it is the only metric we have.) If that is so, there is a tremendous discrepancy here. Here's an example of an NPC from the place my current character is from, Maeruhal, in Halruaa.

Authority Figures: Mayor Rinlin Pulgro (NG male human evoker 14/Halruaan elder 2).

If the Mayor of a small village is around level 16, and if 12-15 is the ballpark power level we're being told we are, then one might assume our characters would approach even that sort of a situation with mild trepidation; given that we are regularly throwing ourselves at an entire Illithid hive and not just one man, I struggle to see how we are meant to reconcile this?

(So you know this isn't cherrypicking, there are also:

Important Characters: Kelvrim Errowd (LN male human diviner 11/Halruaan elder 1), Dobyo Flurrig (NG male human abjurer 12/Halruaan elder 2), Inyda Lauz (LG female human diviner 12/Halruaan elder 4), and Drindos Bez-Mont (N male human evoker 13/Halruaan elder 2), members of the Halruaan Council of Elders; Branwig Forkbeard (LN male gold dwarf fighter 13), leader of the Righteous Hammers mercenary company; Holper Stoutshield (LN male gold dwarf fighter 9/giant-killer 6), leader of the Golden Shield mercenaries; Dreela Fallstatter (NG female half-elf expert 14), proprietor of the Winsome Wyvern festhall and gambling parlor.

We're all rich, too - and we're, for some reason, expected to be, unless we go out of our way to throw money into the latrine. Here's a few varied examples of this from the module itself:

Travelling on a ship costs 50gp
Travelling to Dis costs 7000gp
Paying to free yourself from slavery costs 2,000,000gp
Renting a temporary shop costs 100gp up-front

Again, to use that same village as an example, its entire assets are 6,340gp. One ingot of adamantine costs five times that on the server. How are we supposed to roleplay that, given that our characters (some of whom are supposedly showing up poor as dirt) know the value of a gold piece, and had lives before the isle?

I would like to point out, too, that these are gold pieces. Not copper; not silver. Those are by far what are generally more likely to be used by the commonfolk, and even the average adventurer. This is not something that is set in stone; other servers do not use gold because it is, frankly, ridiculous.

The fact of the matter is that the world outside of Arelith conveniently ceases to exist whenever the gargantuan strain of the suspension of disbelief is about to break the camel's back, and we're told to simply handwave it away, despite that being "the setting". What is asked of us is to respect something that has minimal thought put into it other than the mechanics of it.

Another major issue is, in fact, the way players talk about these resources. That's absolutely 'off', too; it feels like trade chat in World of Warcraft. For example, I regularly see people just casually talking about adamantine like it's some plentiful resource, like sand. Colloquially, it's "addy". People place notes on the floor saying "WTB addy helm 30k." People talk about crafted items like pointing at it on the wiki, with no effort to make it sound like the impressive feat it is.

Where RP is concerned, the team is "hands-off". This is not an issue that can be reported; it is a culture issue. It is the majority of the playerbase, because there is no guiding hand to explain why these things are wrong. These issues are neither addressed in any meaningful way, nor enforced. The most that is offered is a gentle nudge to "please respect the setting." The team is seemingly wary of telling people that what they are doing is "wrong", unless it is a direct rulebreak.

Another point: there is no cohesion between what we do and what we're supposed to roleplay as, and the blame for this lies squarely with the module. Kobolds and Goblins are as powerful as the rest of us as PC races, but we slay them in droves in any other area. Rakshasa and Vampires are talked about as if they are just minor nuisances, despite there being a module-vampire that is seemingly marked as a low level writ having an entire lair full of thralls and magical creatures. Kobolds roleplay as worthy of respect, and not the crafty, cowardly, cruel vermin that the sourcebooks describe them as. Nobody is fearful of anything. Nobody has any reason to be. If a goblin can bash in the Ullitharid's head, why should he roleplay as he ought to? Is he supposed to pretend he did not go out and do those things, so that he can stick to the source material, or is he supposed to roleplay that he is an exception to the sourcebooks, and thus deserves the status of "exempt from those requirements"?

Nothing, and I mean this sincerely, nothing, in the sense of "the setting" is enforced unless it is obviously disruptive; someone running about talking in OOC, or swearing, or they happen to be called Spider-Man. So many things should be gated behind either application or RPB rating; as it so happens, the RPB system would be great for enforcing this - if the team were actually committed to its use. This is not to say that I and those that I enjoy roleplaying with are the pinnacles of roleplay that we all ought to aspire to, but it is a commentary on just how many players and characters perpetuate these immersion- and setting-breaking habits.

I am certain that people are still having fun on the server, and I am glad to hear that - but the server's core foundations that it is supposedly built on seem to have crumbled into dust by now, and all I can see when I look is an MMO with a thin veneer of "encouraged, but not necessary" roleplay.

These are not the only issues; but these are the ones that ought to be addressed and brought into the light first and foremost, and do not delve into the dark pit of "player culture" too much.

[Hazard]

MOD EDIT - if you don't have anything nice to say...

[The GrumpyCat]

There's a lot here, so I'm just going to touch on the three things that stand out.

1) Yeah - the economic system is... wierd. I think there's constant efforts to fix it. We'll see how things go. I know there are Plans(tm).

2) I am MASSIVE proponent of the RPB system. I love it, I adore it, it is and will always be a favortie thing on Arelith, no joke. BUT it is not perfect. For one we have (and always will have) issues covering all 24 hours of the day. It's been mentioned before if you can only log on during the 'quiet' time zones, you'll struggle to find another player in some places, let alone a DM. I'm sure we've got a few fantastic rpers who've slipped beneath the cracks for years, just because of this.
Indeed a chunk of this comes down to just having enough Dms to enforce the sort of standards you are setting and frankly - I'm not sure that's possible. Firstly - we're a team of volunteers with our own lives and, frankly, far more important responsiblities. Secondly - Ther'es at any point around 200 players online. I believe we have approx 20ish Dms. Even if all those Dms could be on 24 hours a day, that gives them an average of 20 players to observe, all day. Not do anything else mark you. Just observe. Imagine a gaming table where you have to Dm for 20 players? I'd say 5 is a good gaming table average, so that'd mean having about 80 DMs on, 24 hours a day.
I don't think we could get that amount of good, trustworthy DMs, who would abide by the very strict rules we have for Dms.
Also - there is some truth in the idea that RP is subjective. That's not to say I'm against the reward for good roleplay, but it is to say I'm leery about punishing 'bad' roleplay unless it is, very transparently, very, very bad.
(Final note on this point - I'm not actually against gating one or two things behind rpb? But I do think it needs to be done very, very carefully.)

3) One of the balences we constantly also must strive to work for is the difference between bascially - what makes a good roleplay setting and what makes a good Game, as well as what's realistic and so forth.
For example - it's not very realistic that we have a respawn ability, but we do. It's not very realistic that a pc can't 'enforce' the permadeath of another character. But that's the way we run. Transport is cheep sure, (and there are arguments for restricting it more than we do) but at the other extreme- make it too restrictive and it makes it very difficult for people to play in quiet areas, or during quiet times, or if they have ooc commitments. I remember finding -teleport an absolute godsent when my son was smaller. It meant that I could quickly vanish mid dungeon and drop everything to tend to my kid.
The point is that there are lots of places where 'gameification' vs 'roleplay' become an issue. Especially add to that the setting we're running in was meant for groups of 5ish people with 1 Dm, able to change things at will. Not for a constantly online system with hundreds of players and scant Dms.

Oh and one other thing.
4) I started off, many years ago, on City of Arabel, a low magic, high death penalty, much smaller system and I stood out at the time because I RPed a character who (gasp!) roleplayed fear and terror. A lot of people just don't want their characters to roleplay fear. It's not unsual. Sure, I'd lke it if more did... but it's honestly not something you can easily force. You can force a player to take more actions to avoid things - but that's different. I can roleplay a fearful character just fine on Arelith, have done many times. Likewise you can put me on a permadeath, low level server and /not/ roleplay much in the way of fear, just avoidance.
E.g. - In Arelith now if my pc meets a PC goblin they could be 'On no! P-please! Don't kill me! Don't kill me!'
If Arelith was a permadeath pvp system - my response would be far more tempted to be activates portal lense

My own position on this sort of thing is it's better to give more encouragements for good roleplay (and there are some plans for that) than punish bad roleplay.

[Naghast]

That was an interesting read.

Some curious things were focused at and pointed out.

[Hazard]

My own position on this sort of thing is it's better to give more encouragements for good roleplay (and there are some plans for that) than punish bad roleplay.

Rewards can be just as bad as punishments. Rewards are more subjective because you think something stands out as good, rather than something being objectively not in character/setting, a punishment can be more objective.

100 people do an event and 1 gets a reward and that 1 happens to be a part of a group that gets a lot of DM rewards, causes damage in the trust players have for staff to be objective. Carrot on stick method is nice, but not when the server has a very well known reputation for corruption/favortism. You can all deny and ignore this fact as much as you want, but that IS Arelith's reputation at this point in time.

However if someone says something like LFG 2 do writ/WTB level 10 scroll of whatever, a minor punishment isn't so 'subjective' in anyones eyes. It doesn't need to be severe or fear inducing. Something as simple as docking 250 xp (one can easily get 20k in a session these days) just to send a message, or open up questions on how to improve/what not do to.

edit:
You've tried the carrot and stick method. It's not working.
The low quality RP isn't going to dissuade itself, and it's not going to be cured by giving someone else a reward.

[The GrumpyCat]

My own position on this sort of thing is it's better to give more encouragements for good roleplay (and there are some plans for that) than punish bad roleplay.

Rewards can be just as bad as punishments. Rewards are more subjective because you think something stands out as good, rather than something being objectively not in character/setting, a punishment can be more objective.

100 people do an event and 1 gets a reward and that 1 happens to be a part of a group that gets a lot of DM rewards, causes damage in the trust players have for staff to be objective. Carrot on stick method is nice, but not when the server has a very well known reputation for corruption/favortism. You can all deny and ignore this fact as much as you want, but that IS Arelith's reputation at this point in time.

However if someone says something like LFG 2 do writ/WTB level 10 scroll of whatever, a minor punishment isn't so 'subjective' in anyones eyes. It doesn't need to be severe or fear inducing. Something as simple as docking 250 xp (one can easily get 20k in a session these days) just to send a message, or open up questions on how to improve/what not do to.

edit:
You've tried the carrot and stick method. It's not working.
The low quality RP isn't going to dissuade itself, and it's not going to be cured by giving someone else a reward.

I've honestly never really understood this line of reasoning. If we presume there's a 'base line' which everyone gets (the ability to play, for example) and anything extra is just a 'nice' thing - then why are we getting upset because someone got something nice?

IRL - if someone gets something nice, I don't go 'HOW VERY DARE THEY! I want The Thing! I want it! Not fair! NOT FAIR!' I just rejoice in their happyness, and move on. Maybe try and emulate what they did, if I think I can/if I think it's worth 'The Thing.' At worst, if I do feel it's unfair, I'll roll my eyes and carry on with my life.

I don't think playing a game or... going through existance constnatly envious and angry at the good things others get is a very healthy way to play, honestly.

Edit: I agree that said punishments can be smaller, sure. But 1) that again opens up the issue of just not having enough Dms to constnatly monitor rp. 2) Most players get to 30 so quickly now, docking 200 xp has literally no effect. I can see perhaps an argument that Dms could try and enter conversations with players who's rp they see as problematic. Though I'll say that's not an idea I personally relish and I think would perhaps open the way to more bitterness against the team.

[Hazard]

My own position on this sort of thing is it's better to give more encouragements for good roleplay (and there are some plans for that) than punish bad roleplay.

Rewards can be just as bad as punishments. Rewards are more subjective because you think something stands out as good, rather than something being objectively not in character/setting, a punishment can be more objective.

100 people do an event and 1 gets a reward and that 1 happens to be a part of a group that gets a lot of DM rewards, causes damage in the trust players have for staff to be objective. Carrot on stick method is nice, but not when the server has a very well known reputation for corruption/favortism. You can all deny and ignore this fact as much as you want, but that IS Arelith's reputation at this point in time.

However if someone says something like LFG 2 do writ/WTB level 10 scroll of whatever, a minor punishment isn't so 'subjective' in anyones eyes. It doesn't need to be severe or fear inducing. Something as simple as docking 250 xp (one can easily get 20k in a session these days) just to send a message, or open up questions on how to improve/what not do to.

edit:
You've tried the carrot and stick method. It's not working.
The low quality RP isn't going to dissuade itself, and it's not going to be cured by giving someone else a reward.

I've honestly never really understood this line of reasoning. If we presume there's a 'base line' which everyone gets (the ability to play, for example) and anything extra is just a 'nice' thing - then why are we getting upset because someone got something nice?

IRL - if someone gets something nice, I don't go 'HOW VERY DARE THEY! I want The Thing! I want it! Not fair! NOT FAIR!' I just rejoice in their happyness, and move on. Maybe try and emulate what they did, if I think I can/if I think it's worth 'The Thing.' At worst, if I do feel it's unfair, I'll roll my eyes and carry on with my life.

I don't think playing a game or... going through existance constnatly envious and angry at the good things others get is a very healthy way to play, honestly.

It's a nice strawman, but the topic isn't "I'm upset that someone got something nice." the topic is "How effective are rewards vs punishments in cultivating good roleplay."

From my perspective, rewarding "good" roleplay has resulted in rumors (whether true or not is not the topic, they do however exist). Punishing 'bad' roleplay (for this argument, stuff blatantly bad/out of character/not setting friendly) isn't done, and so it continues to happen.

I am suggesting that even a totally mechnically ignorable (insignificant XP dock) as an emotional slap on the wrist when seeing something of Goldshire Quality might help more in encouraging improvement to RP, than just continuing to reward players who are already doing the "right thing". Especially as the "right thing" is more open to interpretation than the "wrong thing" in this context.

[Coolguy McMagic]

I think the kind of player that gets upset at the staff if a DM gives another player 1000 XP is the same kind of player that gets upset at the staff if they get docked 1000 XP after bad RP, so I would agree with Grumpy in that this would cause the same amount of bitterness, if not more.

If you see someone say "LFG" or "addy" in-game (which I have personally never seen once, so I'm kinda wondering how widespread this actually is) maybe just shoot them a private message and politely remind them that they should stay IC while playing?

[Hazard]

I think the kind of player that gets upset at the staff if a DM gives another player 1000 XP is the same kind of player that gets upset at the staff if they get docked 1000 XP after bad RP, so I would agree with Grumpy in that this would cause the same amount of bitterness, if not more.

If you see someone say "LFG" or "addy" in-game (which I have personally never seen once, so I'm kinda wondering how widespread this actually is) maybe just shoot them a private message and politely remind them that they should stay IC while playing?

One time my character met someone who was a "Shadow Elf" and worshipped the 'Raven Queen'. I sent them a PM to politely just say, hey... Welcome to the server and stuff (I already knew they were new, I did not assume), and just to let them know that we're in 3.5 and there are no Shadow Elves or Raven Queen in this setting. Their reply was a prompt "i dont care. Snuggle a Bugbear off.'

This is just one anecdote, but my point is that...

Something coming from a player isn't the same as something coming from 'The Team'.
Infact we've been told NOT to do what I did and to leave it to the DMs, but the DMs have been told that they are not to "police roleplay" in that way. So we're left with what exactly?

As for you not seeing anything like this ever, I'm glad for you. I would see it often. Nearly every play session. Could be a time-zone/timed played here thing.

[Kalthariam]

I've never personally seen anyone posting "LFG"

I have seen people short hand Adamantine to Adam, but I don't think I've personally seen "Addy" used in game.

Is this a Skal thing? I"ve never been on Skal. I've heard horror stories of the stupidity that happens on Skal and I purposely avoid it for that reason.

[Security_Blanket]

Is this a Skal thing? I"ve never been on Skal. I've heard horror stories of the stupidity that happens on Skal and I purposely avoid it for that reason.

Skal is like the "wild west" version of Arelith, between the occasional strange character concepts and the wacky joke names people come up with, I wouldn't focus too much there for setting continuity.

Now if I were to have my "bad RP" (and whatever that means to the DM saying it's "bad") penalized by docking XP from me that certainly wouldn't go over well with me. It would more likely discourage me from playing than encourage me to be better.

[Diegovog]

Although I agree there are a lot of issues with the current setting, inconsistencies and difficulty knowing what we can actually RP, I'll have to heavily criticize your view on gold pieces.

It's just plainly wrong to criticize a server and how gold is run. That's because gold and resources are infinite and there's no way to introduce inflation without ruining FUN for most people.
Imagine how unfair it would be if we took seriously how rare and valuable gold should be? New characters would feel so bad to play, most people would stick to their old characters, or find ways to abuse muling to transfer gold. Likely also encouraging hoarding and controlling spots of value. We don't want to encourage stale, old, rich characters. We want to encourage people rolling and making new ones.

Also remember, you can't alter NPCs and environment throwing gold around because it's simply unfeasible for the devs to constantly change everything just because "X character or faction threw Y millions into something". Poverty in Cordor is never going to be over although we could easily pool enough gold into removing poverty from all the planes. It would just be boring and remove venues of RP.

TLDR: We can't be consistent to Forgotten Realms' cities, lore and environment and also be consistent to Forgotten Realm's gold and be a functioning server.

[MissEvelyn]

Although I agree there are a lot of issues with the current setting, inconsistencies and difficulty knowing what we can actually RP, I'll have to heavily criticize your view on gold pieces.

It's just plainly wrong to criticize a server and how gold is run. That's because gold and resources are infinite and there's no way to introduce inflation without ruining FUN for most people.
Imagine how unfair it would be if we took seriously how rare and valuable gold should be? New characters would feel so bad to play, most people would stick to their old characters, or find ways to abuse muling to transfer gold. Likely also encouraging hoarding and controlling spots of value. We don't want to encourage stale, old, rich characters. We want to encourage people rolling and making new ones.

Also remember, you can't alter NPCs and environment throwing gold around because it's simply unfeasible for the devs to constantly change everything just because "X character or faction threw Y millions into something". Poverty in Cordor is never going to be over although we could easily pool enough gold into removing poverty from all the planes. It would just be boring and remove venues of RP.

TLDR: We can't be consistent to Forgotten Realms' cities, lore and environment and also be consistent to Forgotten Realm's gold and be a functioning server.

Actually, you very easily could. I and a handful of others I've seen have roleplayed Arelith minted coins as thin shavings, barely worth an actual gold piece, most likely diluted with other metals as well.

But simply change "Gold" to "Copper" pieces, and it's far more believable. Not a 1 to 1 exact match, but definitely closer to the source material.

[MissEvelyn]

I and a handful of others I've seen have roleplayed Arelith minted coins as thin shavings, barely worth an actual gold piece, most likely diluted with other metals as well.

And I'd also like to address the fact that we've seen pushback against this from other players, which seems so ironic, given that we are simply trying to adhere to the Forgotten Realms 3.5 setting, as we're supposed to do here.

[Diegovog]

Although I agree there are a lot of issues with the current setting, inconsistencies and difficulty knowing what we can actually RP, I'll have to heavily criticize your view on gold pieces.

It's just plainly wrong to criticize a server and how gold is run. That's because gold and resources are infinite and there's no way to introduce inflation without ruining FUN for most people.
Imagine how unfair it would be if we took seriously how rare and valuable gold should be? New characters would feel so bad to play, most people would stick to their old characters, or find ways to abuse muling to transfer gold. Likely also encouraging hoarding and controlling spots of value. We don't want to encourage stale, old, rich characters. We want to encourage people rolling and making new ones.

Also remember, you can't alter NPCs and environment throwing gold around because it's simply unfeasible for the devs to constantly change everything just because "X character or faction threw Y millions into something". Poverty in Cordor is never going to be over although we could easily pool enough gold into removing poverty from all the planes. It would just be boring and remove venues of RP.

TLDR: We can't be consistent to Forgotten Realms' cities, lore and environment and also be consistent to Forgotten Realm's gold and be a functioning server.

Actually, you very easily could. I and a handful of others I've seen have roleplayed Arelith minted coins as thin shavings, barely worth an actual gold piece, most likely diluted with other metals as well.

But simply change "Gold" to "Copper" pieces, and it's far more believable. Not a 1 to 1 exact match, but definitely closer to the source material.

10 million copper coins is still going to be 100k gold coins, which in the setting is able to buy whole towns and end poverty in entire regions.
There are people who have far more than 10million currently in Arelith. And often these are not even characters in politically relevant positions.

Changing the name from gold to copper won't change the discrepancy between lore FR and server FR.

IMO gold is a mechanic and should be balanced to improve trade experience between players, not to fit specific values in FR lore.

[Xerah]

You can either be caught up and allow apathy to grow in yourself or be someone who chooses to set an example (which is usually more effective than most people wish to give it credit).

That said, I think most of your complaints don't recognize that this is not a small scale D&D game, but an always on 24h persistent world with infinite treasure that has been around for nearly 20 years. High levels exist because people like playing high level characters and using epic abilities/feats/etc. (I'm sure it is one of the things that makes Arelith successful).

I don't think Arelith has ever been a server that has been a controlling roleplay server (for good and bad). It's a lot of work to moderate that and allowing all styles is another thing that helps its popularity.

Even though I might prefer most of the things you mentioned to be changed, you and I probably wouldn't be here if it was.

[Cthuletta]

The 'setting' and what that means is in an odd place given this isn't a table-top game.
This'll be lengthy, so bear with me here!

Setting/Lore with Classes/Races
To me the setting is maintaining the lore, first and foremost. I'm a big supporter of 'research your class before you play it' when it comes to the more lore-detailed classes, like wizards, sorcerers, druids, clerics and so on. Same could be said for races, but those are bit more wishy-washy given any race can feasibly come from any place and any community that would change their 'standard' behaviour. If someone is playing something that is just a bit outrageously out of the norm, it's discouraged from saying something to them yourself. Do I REALLY want to go and report them to the DMs? Not exactly. I find myself in the mindset of 'If this bothers people, someone else will report it, but I don't want to get this person in trouble with a report.' Purely a me thing, but the by-stander effect is a real issue at times. Some DMs also may not even be aware of the specific lore of the whatever-it-is being reported and may not feel comfortable policing it either. Not sure where that leaves us.
Locking such things behind RPR won't help since they're not often raised anyway without a request to my understanding. I don't have a particularly strong standing on making these classes 'request only' either, though I will note that makes the server seem much less friendly to brand new players. I didn't come to Arelith myself for a long time because my favourite subraces were locked behind deleting characters, which I still haven't played yet. I might have never come AT ALL if my favourite classes were gatekept, too. In my opinion, this isn't something that can be 'fixed' and simply is what it is.

Shorthand Communication
Saying things like 'LFG' is a bit too OOC for my liking, personally. I'd probably tell a DM privately in a Discord Message rather than a full report, but I don't feel comfortable telling that player myself since it's not my place to police others like that, though that player may genuinely not know why it's not really setting-friendly. This seems to happen more with people new to RP as a whole, it's a learning curve.
As for 'Addy' being used ICly... I'm not sure it's in the same realm. Things being shortened for ease of communication is something that happens both ICly and IRL. Lookin' at you, 'trine'. I wouldn't be bothered by the use of 'addy' or 'adam' since it gets the message across with a nickname for that thing, not an abbreviation of letters we use when typing. I think of it like using 'Dunno.' instead of 'I don't know'. Language evolves and shortens into slang, it's normal.

Coin and Currency
This one is difficult, though I think it really requires a bit of suspension of disbelief on our parts. Are some characters richer than the entirety of the planes' NPCs combined? Yes.
Is there anything we can do about it? No.
Gold is an infinite resource. The game just pops out more automatically from a variety of things. Change it from gold to copper, the issue remains the same. I'm not fussed over the name of the thing or what it represents IG, money is money. The money is constantly being spat out by NPCs, mobs, writs and so on. Take that away, the 'old money' is what's left, it won't circulate. Characters roll or shelf, that's a good chunk of it off the board. It'll just dwindle and nobody will be able to afford anything or won't want to. It'll be worse for server health in the long-run, so the best thing to do is just not really call attention to it or think about it when it comes to the fact we're all stupidly wealthy in the grand scheme of the setting. I've never known any game or RP community to be able to effectively police how much money is 'appropriate' for lore-setting without upsetting a grand majority of their players, aside from currency simply not existing at all since a game's conception.

Punishment vs Reward for RP
While we get XP rewards for being in events, this tends to apply to everyone in the area from my experience. I have followed along on events before that my character didn't know much about, so they didn't say or contribute anything. Just watched because I like seeing events unfold. I would still get the XP reward. There's also been times I've been part of very big plots, as one of the bigger contributors. Some of these weren't DM-run, some were, though no 'reward' from the team was given. Aside from having not gotten any major talking-tos that I've done a big bad, I have no idea what the team at large thinks of me or my roleplay through rewards. It's too vague for me to paint a picture on if I'm doing something 'right' or not.
For the idea of 'punishments'. 250XP suddenly poofs from me. The likelihood of me knowing what exactly it was that gave me a 'You're not RPing right' penalty is slim. It would be extremely demotivating, not because I lost a tiny bit of XP but because the idea of being 'punished' is anxiety inducing to me. There's also the matter of taste. What some people enjoy RPing that is within the realm of the believable is annoying or unacceptable to others even if it's not particularly wrong or against the setting, as there are some vague points where the setting is up to interpretation.
Put those two TOGETHER and you're in for a bad time. I'm fine with not being aware what the team thinks of me via the reward system since I don't think I'm supposed to. It keeps their anonymity and prevents direct bias. Add punishments on top of them, that changes from 'I don't know what the teams think of me' to 'The team does not like me.' since a punishment is much more direct and purposeful than an area-reward. I'd be very against a punishment system for roleplay that isn't rule-breaks.

Have a bad pun for the monsterously long text-read.
'The past, present and future all walk into a bar. It was tense.'

[Kythana]

On this topic, I'll add that recently I've seen, "Oh, we can't kill them, they'll just return! I've seen it before!" spoken unironically icly. Death has been treated like a complete nonissue and a total joke.

So many things should be gated behind either application or RPB rating;

I was with you until this. Sorry, but I cannot agree.

RPB is a completely subjective quantifier assigned based on arbitrary methods. I have seen many quality, high effort roleplayers across the server, many of which who are still 20 RPB. Conversely, I have seen many higher 40-50 RPB players that are by comparison, quite lacking. There's no real distinction one way or the other, and people like to pretend that if it was somehow used as a gatekeeping tool, that we would all be better off for it.

The same can be said of applications. I've consistently seen across the board that many applications races/classes/nobles have been played very poorly, and furthermore by blatant rulebreakers.

"Be the change you want to see" has to be one of the more useless pieces of advice people still cling to. It's been over sixteen years. When is this change supposed to start happening? Stop being so afraid of even the slightest bit of quality control. Stop cowering from criticism, silencing it, or trying to dispel is as 'conspiracy theories'.

Agreed. The response is a non-answer and is used because it completely frees responsibility. I have seen many people who try to be the change they want to see. And ultimately, the core problems ultimately still stand in their way, and they're completely blocked from making further progress. It's hard to make a change when the systematic problems are always there. You'll always be fighting an uphill battle.

[AlonelyBard]

I personally think a major aspect of the issue is a general malaise about Roleplaying in general, we can talk all we want about RP starting at 30, or how we can fix that, but I've seen a massive shift away from player-led roleplay, I've only been on the server for about 4-5 years now and I've seen a massive reduction in player created and led factions having any meaningful representation beyond owning property.
Where I once was able to get a good amount of RP from just running into people in dungeons, asking basic questions, or simply trying to get involved, it's often met with silence or the dreaded "Writ?" response. People seem more and more like they just want to treat this as an MMO where they race to epics and then join their discord faction for runics in between memeing around in city squares. A lot of the teeth of the setting is gone and I don't think it can be pinned down to any singular issue. Much like Hazard said, for our posturing of being a 3.5 server, we are as far away as can be at this point. As good of a buzzword it is to say, "Be the change you want to see" I have had massive issues of trying to do that very thing and being shut out by the player base.
The most enjoyable times I've had on this server were when I was able to just slow down in dungeons and RP with people about the absolutely wild situations these dungeons can put you in. The timescale changes were put in specifically to help players slow down a little, I'm no longer having to chug 5 zoo buffs to complete a single dungeon with buffs intact by the time I hit the boss.
I'm someone that comes from a tabletop only background, I pretty much never touched NWN prior to Arelith and I have a distinct distaste for CRPGs. Arelith is a wholly unique experience and often it feels like we're trading the unique aspects to be more and more like something the server could never truly be.
I'm not putting the blame on any of the DMs here, or Devs, I know and understand that they have their work cut out for them on every front imaginable, this isn't even going against any one player, but speaking in generality about what I've seen the server culture shift into past the covid era. I love Arelith as a place, and as a server, like I said it's a wholly unique experience compared to both tabletop and other Online RPGs, but I feel it's lost a lot the player drive that existed in the past, people don't seem to want to do more than just sail, do writs/runics and do city square RP.

[Xerah]

It's not a non-answer, it's legitimately the only you can do.

You are asking for massive sweeping changes to an entire server with 20 years of history and an entire player culture that has developed over that time. The staff here are never going to make these massive sweeping changes to change the things that some of us don't like. That is not at all as simple as turning a dial and say done. If someone has simple ways to fix these things then great, but I've not ever seen anything that suggests solutions other than starting an entirely new PW from scratch.

However, what you can do is set a good example. Will most people follow you? No, of course not. Will some people follow that example? Yes, 100% and I've seen it countless times.

[Security_Blanket]

Characters that are level 30 by PnP standards would be closer to level 15, is the fact that we're forced to do the same with gold really such a big difference? There are a lot of issues we run into simply because of the platform we're playing on. We're also suppose to imagine that cities are much bigger in-character than they appear to us, there are a lot more NPCs walking around but we use our imagination. Just imagine moving that decimal point over to where you feel more comfortable, that's about the best you can hope for.

[AddledPunster]

Although I agree there are a lot of issues with the current setting, inconsistencies and difficulty knowing what we can actually RP, I'll have to heavily criticize your view on gold pieces.

It's just plainly wrong to criticize a server and how gold is run. That's because gold and resources are infinite and there's no way to introduce inflation without ruining FUN for most people.
Imagine how unfair it would be if we took seriously how rare and valuable gold should be? New characters would feel so bad to play, most people would stick to their old characters, or find ways to abuse muling to transfer gold. Likely also encouraging hoarding and controlling spots of value. We don't want to encourage stale, old, rich characters. We want to encourage people rolling and making new ones.

Also remember, you can't alter NPCs and environment throwing gold around because it's simply unfeasible for the devs to constantly change everything just because "X character or faction threw Y millions into something". Poverty in Cordor is never going to be over although we could easily pool enough gold into removing poverty from all the planes. It would just be boring and remove venues of RP.

TLDR: We can't be consistent to Forgotten Realms' cities, lore and environment and also be consistent to Forgotten Realm's gold and be a functioning server.

Actually, you very easily could. I and a handful of others I've seen have roleplayed Arelith minted coins as thin shavings, barely worth an actual gold piece, most likely diluted with other metals as well.

But simply change "Gold" to "Copper" pieces, and it's far more believable. Not a 1 to 1 exact match, but definitely closer to the source material.

I want to echo the sentiments in both posts.

Firstly, that we have to simply accept that the economy on Arelith is gamified, and that getting a gamified economy to resemble either a realistic (or, on this case, fictitious) economy is a herculean task. I get it when people say that it rattles their immersion, as it rattles mine too at times, but this is a battle against raw human nature. With as many people as we have participating in this economy, even if everybody approached this with good intentions, we'd still get to where we are.

Everyone is here to have fun pretending to be elves and wizards, and I doubt very many people would happily sign up to be the losers in an economy that better reflects what is depicted in the campaign books. While I'm sure there could be improvements, I do firmly believe the Arelith Devs are doing their best with the toolset at hand.

That toolset being the Aurora Toolset.

Second, I REALLY do think that simply changing Gold to Copper would go a long way to help making this all more believable. Adding silver and platinum coins would be cool, too. It won't solve the inflation issues, but again, that's an uphill battle that won't be solved in a day. It would help to go to the fruit merchant and buy a fruit for a few copper instead of a few gold, though.

[Azensor]

Another point: there is no cohesion between what we do and what we're supposed to roleplay as, and the blame for this lies squarely with the module. Kobolds and Goblins are as powerful as the rest of us as PC races, but we slay them in droves in any other area.

I'll comment on this abit because i've been on the server long enough now to have seen the change happen.

It used to be very different, the kobolds had to be abit more quite on their movements and the goblins /where/ kept in check by repeated cullings that was what the ud side of things was like when i first joined this server, that was also the time were drow actively tried to style certain spells has 'mind control' or just simply tried to one-line kill you for a 'tone' of voice they didnt like.

Things ebb and flow, just how the old svirfs got the grotto built and made connections with the surface via rp the kobolds(and goblins) have built up their own place, for lack of a better word, on the server. Who knows give it a couple years we might see menzo-andunor make a return. That last bit was heavy sarcasm and i'd honestly rather not see it return but eh what happens happens.

[Peacewhisper]

Wanted to chime in on a couple of points.

Point 1. "level 30 characters are actually level 10/15/whatever"

Not all level 30 characters are the same in terms of power. A level 30 spellsword is going to beat a level 30 commoner every time. Some level 30's go around soloing epic dungeons. Some level 30's go to an epic dungeon in a group of 6 and somehow still die. Maybe those latter epic characters should actually be considered level 12 but I don't think the same applies to the guy who just solo'd Abazzur for the 50th time.

Point 2. Everybody is rich.

I flat out don't believe this one. Even a lot of the characters you see pretending to be rich IC for RP purposes aren't actually rich. Maybe they have the Gift of Wealth and 100-200k in the bank. They might pretend to be rich because they are RPing a noble and they are doing it well, but when it comes time for an auction for an item they want chances are I'll outbid them by a lot. There are definitely a few rich characters and you might hear their names a lot, but that's because they are anything but average, these are the people who have played the same character every day for 10 years or play 14 hours a day.

Groups that sail a lot are probably an exception to number 2. I actually think sailing is entirely broken in terms of how rewarding it is compared to grinding dungeons on land but that's a different topic entirely.

[AstralUniverse]

When it comes to suspension of belief or there lack of, it's really down to "be the change you want to see".