Arelith

I, for one, welcome our exotic overlords.

You do not need an award to play a race badly.

edit:
Also we're not allowed to make getting special snowflake characters any more difficult until I get a fricken pixie.

Zanithar wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 5:28 am I have seen a lot of "Your welcome here" or "Your banned from this city"
But I hardly see players doing the side glances, untrusted views, or being uneasy around odd or sometimes infamous creatures.

Because there are so many it's honestly not feasible. You wander Cordor and your character would think they took the wrong door and are now in Sigil. You can only do it so many times, after the 4th 'dodgy' race in one hour.

I don't blame people for just mostly ignoring it, I vaguely remember reading something in the old gamespy chat that fits like a glove: "Bob has wings, Mary has horns, let's all go kill some goblins!"

Shadowy Reality wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 2:06 pm

Zanithar wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 5:28 am I have seen a lot of "Your welcome here" or "Your banned from this city"
But I hardly see players doing the side glances, untrusted views, or being uneasy around odd or sometimes infamous creatures.

Because there are so many it's honestly not feasible. You wander Cordor and your character would think they took the wrong door and are now in Sigil. You can only do it so many times, after the 4th 'dodgy' race in one hour.

I don't blame people for just mostly ignoring it, I vaguely remember reading something in the old gamespy chat that fits like a glove: "Bob has wings, Mary has horns, let's all go kill some goblins!"

This is funny, I was griping too many humans in Andunor and you're griping too many non-humans in Cordor.

I don’t think the problem is that there are too many. Races flourish when there is a small community around to support each other’s RP. The problem is they’re in Cordor. We could use a home base for exotics whether that’s Sigil or something else.

I believe it is easier to find a home for those who are so bothered by seeing exotic races, as I doubt they are a significant number.

It's more like-- most of these new races ought to be on the edge of civilization not in the middle of a big city, but there's not really support for that kind of character. You can't get writs and bank and all of that in the wild. It's doable at high levels but otherwise Skal is the most "uncivilized" place you're going to be able to base yourself out of when leveling.

Second I really think you need a few of any race to make them interesting. Imagine if drow were a locked off major race and there was no underdark server. The few you'd see would almost always either be a Drizzt, a drow who has no remaining ties to his culture and who's basically played like a human because he's trying to fit in, or an evil infiltrator who's in disguise 99% of the time and likewise never plays as a real drow. For drow to shine as drow you need more than a couple around to bounce RP off each other and back each other up.

That's where we are with exotic races and why there's so much complaint they don't act like what they are, they're funneled into either fitting in among standard races where their exoticness is just an interesting feature to mention some times or they're hiding what they are most of the time. I really don't know what kind of settlement we need but it does seem like something that isn't Anundor and isn't necessarily evil (but would support outcast races) ought to exist and ought to be a place you can level out of. It could even be something that exists now and just has some amenities added. A rough wilderness outpost could even be cool and would support less exotic but still unusual; characters like wild elves and dwarves.

I'm not as deep into the weeds of immersion breaking as you are about this, there are bigger fish to fry in my mind first and those will likely never change either, but I do like the idea of writ givers in the wild if it's not too taxing on server resources just to give players the option to completely avoid cities/settlements all together. Would need to add a "market" too though, some place they could go sell their things or it sort of defeats the purpose of the whole thing.

Eyeliner wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 7:31 pm It's more like-- most of these new races ought to be on the edge of civilization not in the middle of a big city, but there's not really support for that kind of character. You can't get writs and bank and all of that in the wild. It's doable at high levels but otherwise Skal is the most "uncivilized" place you're going to be able to base yourself out of when leveling.

Second I really think you need a few of any race to make them interesting. Imagine if drow were a locked off major race and there was no underdark server. The few you'd see would almost always either be a Drizzt, a drow who has no remaining ties to his culture and who's basically played like a human because he's trying to fit in, or an evil infiltrator who's in disguise 99% of the time and likewise never plays as a real drow. For drow to shine as drow you need more than a couple around to bounce RP off each other and back each other up.

That's where we are with exotic races and why there's so much complaint they don't act like what they are, they're funneled into either fitting in among standard races where their exoticness is just an interesting feature to mention some times or they're hiding what they are most of the time. I really don't know what kind of settlement we need but it does seem like something that isn't Anundor and isn't necessarily evil (but would support outcast races) ought to exist and ought to be a place you can level out of. It could even be something that exists now and just has some amenities added. A rough wilderness outpost could even be cool and would support less exotic but still unusual; characters like wild elves and dwarves.

I believe that you are not considering the cities of 3.5 edition Forgotten Realms. Most of these races are not any more out of place in Cordor than forest gnomes, wild elves or wild dwarves. Yet nobody said anything when such races were rather commonplace, especially in the case of wild elves. Moreover, places like the one you describe tend to quickly depopulate once those characters grow out of the level range. Sibayad is a good example of this for instance.

Aranea waifu when?

But honestly, sort of see Arelith as a crucible in the Realms, toward what end who knows.

So not really finding more exotic races to be an issue when they are played as example of adventure seekers in that race.

Itikar wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 7:54 pm
I believe that you are not considering the cities of 3.5 edition Forgotten Realms. Most of these races are not any more out of place in Cordor than forest gnomes, wild elves or wild dwarves. Yet nobody said anything when such races were rather commonplace, especially in the case of wild elves. Moreover, places like the one you describe tend to quickly depopulate once those characters grow out of the level range. Sibayad is a good example of this for instance.

Plenty of people said that when wild elves were the most common of the elves and it is the major reason they are now a reward race.

I think you are vastly overstating how "out of place" non-traditional races are. Here are some of the large "Cordor equivalent" locations in the realms:

Waterdeep:
Humans 64%
Dwarves 10%
Elves 10%
Halflings 5%
Half-elves 5%
Gnomes 3%
Half-orcs 2%
Others 1%

Amn:
Humans 83%
Halflings 15%
Half-orcs 1%
Other 1%

Calimshan:
Humans 94%
Half-orcs 2%
Halflings 2%
Half-elves 1%
Others 1%

Cormyr:
Humans 85%
Half-elves 10%
Elves 4%
Other 1%

Dragon Coast (Westgate included):
Human 92%
Halfling 3%
Half-elf 2%
Gnome 2%
Other 1%

Badlur's Gate:
The population of Baldur's Gate was always dominated by humans, though other races such as elves, dwarves, and to a lesser extent some drow, settled within the city and were not looked upon differently.

Neverwinter:
Half-elves, humans, and a minority of dwarves (c. 1372 DR)

This is very different than what we see in Cordor.

5e has made a push to put in wacky races in more places around, but not to a huge extreme degree. Adventurers tend to be more wacky than standard demographics as well and on a PW we have vastly more adventurers than would be in a typical Forgotten realms city (and they're the one that we actually interact with).

It's still a totally legitimate complaint that seeing all these walking around is "immersion breaking" (though that term is way overly dramatic) but there isn't really a good way to get around it given how the reward system is set up (there was a really good recommendation to limit making a greater/major reward character if you have one already in your vault that would help).

When you spawn in Cordor and see a 11" tall fembolg wearing nothing but a loincloth, you have to take a reality check - Arelith is no longer, and maybe hasn't been in awhile, regulated to encourage players to adhere to the setting. Writs, races, level progression - all updates have has a cumulative effect to shift arelith from a low/middling fantasy server to a high fantasy server.

Not that this is wrong, only this is not what we're use to. I think we need to look briefly at Amia for some insight on what all these races wrought.

It's still a totally legitimate complaint that seeing all these walking around is "immersion breaking" (though that term is way overly dramatic) but there isn't really a good way to get around it given how the reward system is set up (there was a really good recommendation to limit making a greater/major reward character if you have one already in your vault that would help).

I need to disclaim I really mean this as a genuine question... I don't mean to disparage or dissagree or be dissagreeable but...

I'm not still entirely clear how this would help the problem stated?

The problem that is set before us is that there are too many 'wierd' things (for sake of argument lets say any 5% pc is a 'wierd' pc... kenku, avariel, whatever)

If we limit whats in peoples vault - so that someone can only play one 5% pc at a time (for example) - that one cannot make another 5% pc until another has rolled then you still have the person potentially playing 5% characters.

So I can roll Bob the Kenku and then make Suzie the Avariel - but both are 'special' characters. The amount of 'special' in play at any time, in theory, remains the same.

if you make it so that to even GET a 5% roll you need to delete 5% pcs... then I suppose that works better? You have a lul while people wanting to play new 5% concepts make and roll other charcters to get a new 5%. I'm still not entirely sure about it...

I'm sure I'm missing something here though? Can someone explain it to me?

EDIT: It does occur- if we bank on people rolling 5% pcs that they play activly and enjoyed... making new 5%pcs, and not enjoying them so not playing them then I suppose this method works. I will confess though, it's not really a method I like.

I feel like it would result in making them feel more rare and unique.

Knowing that I can only roll at certain times and being someone with like 5 greater/major award characters in my vault (even if they weren't at the time) makes me feel like I'd want to clear them out. I don't really need to now, but I'd rather have things more available incase a new character idea comes, be that a normal human or a half giant.

Also, seeing someone play 1 of those for an extended period of time vs that person playing 5 of those (who all have different account names) is very different. It's much easier to get used to that one character.

Xerah wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 8:12 pmI think you are vastly overstating how "out of place" non-traditional races are.

Did you mean understating? Regardless, the 1% of "Others" pretty much includes whatever amount of weirdness we see in Cordor right now, unless Cordor is a small village masquerading as a city.

In Waterdeep alone, with a population of 1,347,680 the non-standard are at least 13,476. If Cordor had, let's say at least, 5000 inhabitants, and it certainly looks like it has more, the weird races would be 50 with the same percentage. I saw much fewer than 50 in the past weeks. In fact I doubt the number of different characters playing some of the new races surpassed the dozen. And this is on their release.

All this ssuming some of these even live in Cordor, which is not the case for some of those passing through, as I heard several avariel talk as if they were Myon residents.

In conclusion, unless one is bothered by simply seeing more than a single one of these unusual characters, the numbers are far far from concerning or threatening the landscape. Thank you for providing the percentage to support this.

If you think I'm bothered by exotic races you're not getting what I was saying. If anything I think any exotic race needs multiple members around to really shine and get into their culture. I'd just like to see alternatives to base them away from Cordor and Anundor. Skal kind of works but an even less human-centric outpost in the wilds or a planar city with starting zone options could be even better.

I mean exactly what I said.

Unfortunately, it is far more difficult use the "hidden off the screen NPCs" when you don't see them and only compare to what you see in the game in terms of the feeling of the rarity.

Itikar wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 9:27 pm

Xerah wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 8:12 pmI think you are vastly overstating how "out of place" non-traditional races are.

Did you mean understating? Regardless, the 1% of "Others" pretty much includes whatever amount of weirdness we see in Cordor right now, unless Cordor is a small village masquerading as a city.

In Waterdeep alone, with a population of 1,347,680 the non-standard are at least 13,476. If Cordor had, let's say at least, 5000 inhabitants, and it certainly looks like it has more, the weird races would be 50 with the same percentage. I saw much fewer than 50 in the past weeks. In fact I doubt the number of different characters playing some of the new races surpassed the dozen. And this is on their release.

All this ssuming some of these even live in Cordor, which is not the case for some of those passing through, as I heard several avariel talk as if they were Myon residents.

In conclusion, unless one is bothered by simply seeing more than a single one of these unusual characters, the numbers are far far from concerning or threatening the landscape. Thank you for providing the percentage to support this.

It makes more sense to compare percentages because other players are who we really notice and interact with day in and day out. Comparing only against other PCs, how many are special? Based off Spyre's recent population census (viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5956&start=25), it looks between 5-10% of PCs, depending on the method you use to classify a PC as special. Personally I think that's too high and I would like the number to be closer to 1%. I love the earlier suggestion about adding a city, settlement, or location specifically for special races. I think it would help the Arelith equivalent of boomers like me - people who see a tiefling with their tail out in Cordor and start to gasp in horror about why nobody gives a damn, before they remember it's the third one they've seen today and sigh sadly - to cope with the higher percentage of special PCs. If there's a zoo next door home to all manner of exotic races then of course there would be some population bleed into your city of normies.

I think it's weird saying too many special races are making Cordor feel out of place, when planeswalking is so casual on the server. If you wanna talk about immersion breaking high fantasy, that's a lot worse. Like oh yeah let's just go shopping in the shadow plane and Dis, wow Dis has the best prices on wisp bottles you know let's go.

I roll my eyes every time I see a special race where the specialness is used as a crutch (or worse yet as exotic waifu bait), but it has nothing to do with the race somehow making the world too fantastical. Arelith accomplishes that in far, far bigger ways than various races existing. I don't think it's a bad thing either, I just want to point out that wingy or tall races existing isn't more weird than people casually planeswalking like it's no big deal.

What about new awards which arent unique races?

Few ideas:
- Human/elf/helf from X place in Faerun where it's very hot/cold/dangerous/whatever and they gets some appropriated bonuses

- A weapon (you choose the base weapon) that scales with character level and eventually ends up +5 Keen or something like that.

- Merchant. All/most/some of the good shops in high traffic locations will be limited to characters with this award, basically increasing the chance to find a good shop with this award, because you're bidding with less people. (shops would need to be toggled Merchant-only on/off every once in a while by an admin, based on how many active merchants there are at a time, so there isnt wasted space).

- We could also reintroduce some of the old 'backgrounds' but with bigger and more significant bonuses, as awards.
Soldier - gets some discipline and blacksmith ranks and free blind fight or something like that.
Farmer - gift of the greenfingers built-in. also gets herbalism ranks, Will save, maybe constitution, maybe other things.

TL;DR if we want to look less like a Zoo, we should have less Zoo-ish things to spend awards on. I can only play a noble so many times.

Party in the forest at midnight wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 10:23 pm I think it's weird saying too many special races are making Cordor feel out of place, when planeswalking is so casual on the server. If you wanna talk about immersion breaking high fantasy, that's a lot worse. Like oh yeah let's just go shopping in the shadow plane and Dis, wow Dis has the best prices on wisp bottles you know let's go.

There's a difference here as well. It is not uncommon for mortals to travel to Dis (and a good job was done trying to replicate that in the small bit we have) and I think it's strange to talk about it so casually, but it's not exactly in your face as much as a super tall dude or a girl with wings.

Just because these things are not my preference doesn't mean I'm judging people for playing them (as I'll play them as long as there is an option to). I've always felt that restrictions breed creativity (it's why writing classes have those writing prompt exercises) and the more people get away from using their races as a crutch or completely ignored, the better.

Astral's suggestions are good too.

Liareth wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 10:07 pm It makes more sense to compare percentages because other players are who we really notice and interact with day in and day out. Comparing only against other PCs, how many are special? Based off Spyre's recent population census (viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5956&start=25), it looks between 5-10% of PCs, depending on the method you use to classify a PC as special.

Firstly, 5% of the PC is not really comparable to 1% of NPCs, because player characters are more special than non-player characters is practically a given. The percentage of player characters able to cast ninth level arcane or divine spells is undoubtedly higher than that of the npc population, for instance. It makes little sense that the same is not valid for special races.

Secondly, 5% or 10% for certain races, is rather small compared the non-urban npc population of them. Ogres and minotaurs, or firbolgs, for example, are treated as exotic and rare, and require high awards, but they are actually relatively common races. Ditto for gnolls or troglodytes, or sea elves and shadovar even. Many of these creatures are uncommon because they live separated, but not because they are necessarily rare. Otherwise we would also need to significantly curb some of the npc populations as others have pointed out. It's pretty difficult to accept the fact that somebody finds giants bothering to see in Cordor, when if you go through Minmir you see more giants in a single pass through it, than you see giant PCs in 3 years playing on the server. It really seems more sensible, actually, to see a few peaceful giants in fact, with such huge npc population. Some other races may be a more legitimate critic, avariel for instance are supposed to be objectively rare and semi-extinct, but even those rare races have some places in which are more concentrated. Moreover, quite a few of these already have reasons to hang out elsewhere, such as avariel hanging out in Myon, so if they are really a problem in Cordor maybe ask IC to pass laws against freaks, taxes on freaks, special permissions to be in Cordor as a freak, etc.

Xerah - Ahh Ok I see where you're coming from. I'm not sure I'm 100% sold still, but I 'get' it a bit more, for what it's worth.

TL;DR if we want to look less like a Zoo, we should have less Zoo-ish things to spend awards on. I can only play a noble so many times.

Yep, and in the long run I think we'll be looking at adding more rewards that are none-racial in style.

. I love the earlier suggestion about adding a city, settlement, or location specifically for special races. I think it would help the Arelith equivalent of boomers like me - people who see a tiefling with their tail out in Cordor and start to gasp in horror about why nobody gives a damn, before they remember it's the third one they've seen today and sigh sadly - to cope with the higher percentage of special PCs. If there's a zoo next door home to all manner of exotic races then of course there would be some population bleed into your city of normies.

I see where this idea is coming from, and I'm not saying it's without merit (heck we have a new Giant Guildhouse' for the giants.) but I think it also comes with some issues that mean it won't neccesarly solve the issues you're concerned with.

1) The 'special' races really are various sorts. So either we'd need to make several settlments for the special races, or one settlment and find some reason why kenku/gnesai/avariel/tieflings/firbolg/half giants would all be chilling together. I suppose we could do it for the giant races, but it's potentially a lot of work for a small amount of pcs.

2) The current 'wierd' characters according to the estimations given, make between 5-10% of avaiable. Presuming we made a settlment somehow fitting for ALL of them what... precisely... keeps them there?
I don't know about you, but I log onto arelith to roleplay. If it's a choice between standing around in a nearly empty settlment and going to the bustling city of Cordor, where it's easy to find folk to talk/adventure/whatever with I'll almost always choose the latter - most will. So your 5% wierdows will probably still end up in Cordor more often than not, for the most part.

3) So the only way to keep them 'out' of Cordor and into their 'own' settlment is to manufacture a reason. The problem is, once more, there really isn't any lore reason. I mean, when you look at the races there is lore predjudice against (Half orcs, tieflings) there is at least some tenuious lore reason - their ancestors are monsterious horrible evil beasts and some of that tends to pass down the blood. So it makes sense for people to be a bit leery. But even then that tends towards 'a bit susspicious' rather than 'ahhh no! get the pitchforks!' I suppose at a stretch one could do it for half giants? But even that seems a bit of a stretch.

4) Leading on from that, if the only reason we can give for ostrosizing these races is 'because they look funny' then I'm going to feel extremely uncomfortable on behalf of all the RL people who have to face this sort of thing. Because honestly, again unless we work to activly change lore, that is out and out racism.

5) 5%'s are supposed to be something people want, something that sounds fun, something that caters to people. I don't want people going 'Oh, well, I could roll my 4 year old pc but... why? There's nothing I want to play. Even if I got a 5% there's nothing there that interests me. I don't WANT to play a nasty murder/torture/backstab/poo eating monster. I want to play a hero/nice person, to be a bit special looking but still chill with my friends doing fun relaxing stuff.' And whilst I get that it can seem a bit zooish - ultimatly the amount of awards flying around is the same, the only difference now is theres a few more options people are excited about, that people want to try, and that these are a little more visable on the surface.

How about, we make Heartwood Grove a mini writ localtion, and let the merchant there take all items, and add a bank? This gives all wild lovers a place to be. A bit like nexus falls, and see how often nexus is used....I still hang around there even if I reached level cap, cos I can meet people and maybe help out.

The thing with people disappearing is related with the writ level range. But that did not stop people from going back to cordor or Bendir despite they are way beyond the writ level.

Honestly, I sort of am more inclined that the explosion of special races, with the rewards (i.e. in character gold) is a grand gold deflation scheme. Drop a lot of reward races, and watch a few million in leveling for rewards over RP gold go poof from the economy. And then, after a few weeks, the access to these races will be scaled back, and you will see drastically less of them like with Firblog. People will have tried them out and realized there is not a lot more longevity with these unless you put in a bit more work RP wise, and their novelties wear off fast as well.

Eyeliner wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 7:31 pm Some stuff, go read it

Big brain analysis right there