Arelith

Hello everyone. I know this is perhaps beating a dead horse by now, but I would like to start a feedback thread about the statue of the city Andunor, and more specifically, the massive influx of humans in the city since the launch of EE.

Whenever I am online, it feels like a large majority of the playerbase there is human, with a handful of drow and even less than a few monster characters. This makes me feel like the setting of the Underdark has been somewhat compromised. I know that I used to defend the presence of outcasts in Andunor, but lately it seems like that everywhere you look, there are humans.

I think the main problem that comes with this, is that there is not any real drawbacks to playing an outcast at this very moment. They can run between the surface, and Underdark without having much of an issue, except that Laurick will not let them use his boat-service, alongside with not being able to become a citizen in the surface settlements not holding any quarters in cities.

There are not many drawbacks, really. I think this is part of the problem that feeds into playing an outcast in the Underdark, rather than the drow or another one of the races down there. This also feeds into problems for the surfacer humans when they venture down there, as the people they meet are very likely to be other humans, which means hostile RP outside of alignment fights are few and far between.
The Underdark is supposed to feel like an alien, threatening place to the inhabitants of the surface. It’s meant to be a Skullport sort of environment that ISN’T ruled by drow, sure. But lately it feels more like a ghetto for humans that prefer living underground, with a few drow or monsters in it.
I honestly don't know how we would solve this problem though, as humans are the easiest option to play. You get the bonus feat, and skill points. It’s a lot easier to identify with a human than any of the other races that inhabit the Underdark. But I feel like something has to be done, as we are slipping away from what made Andunor fun to inhabit originally. You can't force people to play something they don't want to, after all. But, I feel that -something- needs to be done, or some action to be taken before things are too far gone.

While RP can create a lot of change and maybe even fix things, it can be difficult if there is nothing in place to support that RP and encourage it to happen. Monsters need to form communities so that they don’t feel inclined to try to have tea & crumpets with surfacers. The drow community is still going strong, but is less appealing than playing as a human outcast. Some form of mechanical structure that allows fitting RP to flourish would be a good plan, I think.


Secondly, the Devil's Table. Its using a very old system that needs three councilors to reach an agreement. Perhaps some people think this is great, but it only furthers the idea that the district is run by drow. And as the creators of Andunor has said in the past. "It's meant to be a more high class district, not a drow district." So, I would like to suggest that we make it so that its like all the other cities on the surface, where there is one de facto leader as its not sustainable as it is at the moment, due to the possibility that the leaders might be from different time zones, as well as it can be near impossible to get something done for the district if all three leaders are in shouting matches with each other.

Those are just my thoughts though, And I hope that we can all come with some suggestions or insight how to make Andunor feel more like an Underdark settlement, and not a segregated settlement between drow, humans and a few others.

TL:DR - I personally feel like we are losing the spirit of the underdark here, and we should be abit concerned about the direction we are heading in.

In terms of human outcasts, I can think of a few ways to dissuade people from making what seems to be the obvious optimal option.

1. Make Outcast some fashion of reward upon creation. I wouldn't know what tier is appropriate, but it'd help decrease the influx of new outcast humans in the UD.

2. Give Outcasts an identifying marker. They are supposed to be the baddest of the bad. But the problem with that is that those who start in the UD are completely unknown by Surfacers, and so can freely mingle with them while reaping the benefits of UD portals and desirable grind spots. Make it so they can't. A brand, maybe, to show they've been deemed a menace to society similar to pirates.

Personally, my primary gripe is that the monster races don't act like monsters, and I believe this to primarily stem from the fact that races like kobolds and gnolls are openly selectable by anyone upon creation. I can see the value in making said races accessible, since it would encourage variety, but the quality just isn't there. Cute-bolds were rampant during my playtime as a drow, and "furry" gnolls in my time playing an outcast before that.

It seems that people pick these races in particular for the "wrong" (subjective) reason - primarily to be a moldbreaking unique character that they don't realize there are multiple of or to live out a fantasy/life they wish they had (which is inherently unhealthy when taken to extremes). The detrimental stereotype puts me off from attempting one of my own to lead by example, so other than putting these behind one of the lower tier rewards or a 20 RPR requirement (and occasional DM watching/check-ins), I don't really have a suggestion as far as fixing it.

I've always felt that 'Outcast' should be something that's earned in game. Rather than some horrific deed that occurs entirely in your character sheet and will probably never come up in conversation.

That would cut down hugely on the number of humans hanging around the Underdark, and leave it largely drow/monster central.

@Bhaal: I think you see it right. Over the years i have witnessed good and bad times of the Underdark since ~2008. Right now i could say this current version of Andunor reminds me of the times of Pit town and its enforced "be friendly force field". Where are very akward total anti-underdark situations could happen. Right now with my goblin character i feel as outsider in the underdark. The athmosphere is completly changed and the racial balance is no more.

What Bhaal wrote about "why not play a human over any other race" is very true and it can be feel over the server's population. What is the goal? If this trend continues, and i can speak many monster's player whom i spoken to, they will leave the server sooner or later because the monster rp they are looking for is not possible anymore in this UD, including myself. The city became a human majority with mostly drow allies and some fragments of other races server. Which also reminds me of the pre-andunor status of UD server, when only drows were around in great numbers and 2-3 player from other races. Numbers are bigger now however, but i think the ratio will became the same.

There is no place for monsters to be monster rp race. They need to adapt and civilise themselves, which torn out the core of their rp on the server. But for exchange they are still the MONSTER race on the server in every other aspect, disliked, despised. However there is an also dispised race as outcast which flourish in every aspect in every area.

When someone wants to play in the Underdark, we should ask from ourselves, what kind of server they wants to play on?
The terrain and natural enviroment, the summons and beasts are enought for this?
What will change if you replace the main race of original underdark one for a standard surfacer race?
What do we expect if this trend continues, what kind of UD server it will be?
(It would be nice to see some race ratio which made by Dunshine before of all outcast and underdark races, i would love to see such, statistics.. yammm )

At the moment this is an Undercordor server, with some monster illustration in the background. Like a reservation centre for the underdark races and their curious outcast keepers. I would like to end this post with a relevant in-game message:


Be Well.

Please note: this is not an anti outcast post. it based on IG experience but does not contain or relate any IG specific player/scenario/event.

The presence of outcasts seems to ebb and flow with whatever is fashionable at the time.

When Vance was around, there were a lot of outcasts. After he left, their presence dwindled.
When House Mel'nozz was kicking around, there were more drow.
Now, Vance is back and there are other up and coming Outcast factions, so there are more Outcasts again.

It just happens. If you build it they will come.

I do agree that Outcasts need to be a reward, or carry with them some kind of identifier (or both), and that the Devil's Table should ditch the council system. No one wants to deal with it, so it's always less populated than the Sharps.

I recently played in the UD and thought it was fun. I had a good time. The 'flavor' of Andunor just really depends on whoever has a strong presence at the time.

Andunor has no racial features to promote goblin, kobold or gnoll role play. Goblins live In houses, same kobolds, there is not a single thin mechanically supporting and promoting tribal and pack role play. These monsters are then sentenced to play second rate helpers of major powers depending on sharp/devils leadership.

Add specific parts of city dedicated to these races. Restrict access there so these monsters can find solitude in dire need. Who sane would enter den of goblins when these are there in thousands by background?

Allow them to pick up tribal henchmen, so they can multiple optical numbers and also have easier levelling process. Lower their ecl a bit. These changes would allow their own tribal play, allowed them to take part in inter faction conflicts without being subjects to humans and drow.

It's been entirely forgotten what the Underdark is, it's become a happy-go-lucky payground. Everyone is everyone else's buddy. Everyone RPs like a hardline middle of the road Human with some accents of 'Evil' behavior. This 'Evil' behavior could be summed up with 'I eat babies' regardless if they've ever eaten a baby or not. You say you're evil so you must be evil, and then mechanically they choose Neutral anyway. Never mind you cast nothing but necromancy spells or call Demons, there's nothing enforcing alignment.

Additionally there's nothing to enforce Racial and Alignment RP. You can play anything you want, however you want and if you try to bring this up as a negative you're told, "People can do whatever they want". Well then it's not an RP server, is it? It's social and the RP is just masks we wear at the masquerade and we might as well toss in naked models and call ourselves Sinfar.

If you come to play in the underdark, there needs to be an accepted unwritten contract that you may not like some of the things you must do. We are evil, vile, dark, self loathing, self destructive, blood letting on sundays, monsters. If that isn't going to be maintained then you may as well put a ladder in connecting the Hub directly to Cordor's Market area and call us basement discount monstery.

Real Story, I'm hanging out in the hub getting ready with some blokes when a human walks through, followed by a few more humans all speaking Common. I listen in, and the lead is GIVING A TOUR OF ANDUNOR as if all the monsters were animals at a SAFARI. I am not exaggerating this. One line was almost word for word, "And here we have Ogres, Goblins and Gnolls in their natural habitat. Have you ever seen such creatures in such state of co-inhabitation?" My first instinct was, rip this bitch's throat out and give them a show. Then I remembered if you're mean to people in Andunor they'll strip you down and give you a harsh talking to, that's staff included.

Staff Absolutely has a right, and a responsibility to maintain the feel of a server, and sometimes that means telling people they need to change their RP to better suit a race or background, sometimes that means being the badguy and loosing a couple friends because the world is more important than the individual and if every Drow is Drizzt then what is the point of Drizzt. If the Underdark is entirely inhabited by Humans Whereby then do we still call it the Underdark?

1. Good and Evil needs to be mechanically enforced. PnP has the answers.
3. Good and Evil needs to be RP enforced, that means shifting someone's alignment for habitual behaviors.
7. Racial RP needs to be enforced, you can't trust us to be responsible with the right.
2. Underdark =/= Caves under the surface. Separate all instances of the two. We are supposed to be different worlds.



I've heard all the excuses, and they're just excuses. Fix the issues or people are lined up out the door to leave, that's not a threat, it's foresight. Like the foresight I offered up about outcasts one day becoming a problem when they were introduced. If you don't care, then you don't care, but mark my words Arelith will be able to break down to a single server before long if trends continue.

My problem is the answer is just to make Andunor bigger and bigger. The city is huge! I thought we had the right idea with that ogre trade post but it really is lacking a lot of meat. Like if the Port District was located in another place that wasn't called Andunor I am sure it'd be a flood of RP activity.

Personally, I think drow are a really cool race. But ever since the gift change, many of the builds drow used to play became mechanically somewhat worse.

I think it is important for a scary race like the drow to be atleast mechanically at the same level as humans. You've got to be able to back up your talk, and talking (down) is one of the most enjoyable and thematic things as a drow.

Aftond wrote: Tue Oct 23, 2018 5:27 pm Personally, I think drow are a really cool race. But ever since the gift change, many of the builds drow used to play became mechanically somewhat worse.

I think it is important for a scary race like the drow to be atleast mechanically at the same level as humans. You've got to be able to back up your talk, and talking (down) is one of the most enjoyable and thematic things as a drow.

The gift changes are what really upset the balance in Andunor also imo. Folk's just want to pump their primary stat as high as possible and the lack of the gift system for a lot of monster races make that really hard.

I really don't like sounding like one of the 'Make Udos Great' again crowd, but even I have to admit - there are a lot of humans down there.

I actually love Andunor more or less as it is. I think mostly it's fine. I like the fact that there are humans down there! I think that it should be embraced and enjoyed!

But it feels to me like Andunor should be something like 30% humans max, and then 70% everything else.

Right now, it feels like it's 60% humans, 40% everything else. And that... doesn't seem right to me.

Firstly I want to disclaime that I think we may be just looking as a syclical thing. It may be that within a few months things will levvy out and we'll have less outcasts about. Also it might just be us! We may be entirely wrong and that the Outcasts are in fact in the minority, but it's just a few very 'obvious' ones that show it up. This is all possible.

But presuming that's not the case (and I have a horrid susspicion it isn't) then I think it might be worth relooking out Outcasts again.

Like some of the above, I think a good way to go would actually to give them a distinguishiing 'mark' or 'brand' so that they can be identified on the surface. A lot of people seem to forget Outcast is well... 'outcast'. A symbol that your character has been uh... cast out. Is a horrific villain so vile they had to be in the underdark!

I think a further issue is that there's not many places for people to be 'evil' on the surface right now. There's an interesting reason Sibiyad, Sencliff, and Andunor are where most of the 'shady' people hang out. I think some people mull over the idea that if you want to play an openly evil character, you more or less have to do it in one of those three places.

If you come to play in the underdark, there needs to be an accepted unwritten contract that you may not like some of the things you must do. We are evil, vile, dark, self loathing, self destructive, blood letting on sundays, monsters. If that isn't going to be maintained then you may as well put a ladder in connecting the Hub directly to Cordor's Market area and call us basement discount monstery.

There's a problem with this.
Firstly: Players can only really effect players. Evil actions are mostly shown by how they act to other PCs. It's sometimes difficult to be 'evil' ICly, without being a big old jerk OOCly. It's entirely understandable of course, and good roleplayers tend to find ways around it, and there's a lot of people who are understanding and such. But there's also a lot of people who are scared of upsetting others, as is understandable!

Add to that the rules and the rating of the server make it hard for Andunor to be the sort of horrific place it actually is. Now please, don't mistake this as a complaint. It isn't. The PG13 rating is fine. The rules are fine. I wouldn't change either for the world. But I think as a player we need to susspend our disbelief somewhat when working in the environs. Because the sort of torture, mutilation, rape, and death that should exist there- can't be properly shown. Because a) The vast majority of players don't like the idea of either seeing, or being party to such. and b) Because it's not rating appropriate.

So yeah, the vast majority of what you see in Andunor won't be 'evil' constantly. It can't be.

But at the same time, an expecation and onus has to be on the players, both surface and Andunor, to act as if such things are happening, and to think of Andunor as, basicaly, a horrible, tortuous place.

Whole the gifts negate purpose of subrace abilities And make humans superior to races with fixed gifts (option to Pick which gift you select plus feat and skills) it is just one of many things making monsters less attractive.

Andunor has great inter faction potential but I noticed many people try to unite all into one and make it a simple boring thing UD vs surface, like I would be some modern styled mmorpg where all belong to white and black factions fighting each other.

I think the gift change hurt drow especially pretty bad. 32 SR is really good but old pre-switch drow were pretty much as strong as humans were and now they're weaker. Ogres are pretty useless. Goblins and kobolds are basically halflings that suck. Orogs are okay. Duergar are actually really good. Gnolls are decent because of free feats, but not great. Their howl ability keys off of CHA, for some reason... and playing a race with a -2 penalty that can't even gift back to neutral with any sort of Charisma score higher than 6 is just a terrible idea.

Anyways I'll have to agree with Lunargent. Andunor has these sorts of life cycles. It's not a bad thing. These threads crop up every time there's Outcasts in any kind of position of power. I don't know what the city's like after I stopped playing Lesrak, but I don't imagine it's any different than Ezra's time or Vance's time or whatever.

If the RP and racial popularity in the Underdark truly is cyclic, then we should consider a "training wheels" approach on the UD as a sort of cycle as well.

By that, I mean have a short period of time where the theme of the Underdark is strictly enforced by both players and staff. Then ease up on it and see how it goes.

Sometimes all it takes is somebody setting a precedent or example. And it definitely helps if that precedent or example is encouraged or exemplified by staff, even for a short period of time. I wouldn't want people to complain that their RP is being pushed out because it doesn't fit the mould, but I get the distinct impression that if the themes are not pushed, then the RP is just going to stray further and further.

Of course, I am not saying Andunor should be like Udos or Menzo. This is something that is irritating to have to clarify, every single time we try to debate or give constructive criticism on the Underdark. If Andunor is meant to be like Skullport, then even Skullport has themes that need to be pushed. Having the themes evolve into something greater is fine. But what we have currently are people who are unaware of what Andunor is meant to be, and disregarding it.

Some of these are things I've said before.
Council System.
Drow Racial Traits. (Exotic Weapon pro! )
Outcasts as a reward.
Outcast visual tag to encourage people knowing who Outcasts are...
Beast killing: The murder of captured slaves for personal gain makes you mechanically an Outcast, to prevent surface abuse of something that requires players to be physically limited to a single town in case things go sideways.

While my character -tends- to be pretty inclusive, even to the frustration of some drow players like Lesrak ... I do this because I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the moment I start hacking the heads off non-Underdarkers in Andunor, this is going to come back and bite me in the behind within half a generation (about 1 month). One simply has to play to the numbers and likely odds if they want to survive in Andunor.

Sure enough, in a short period: Lesrak walked, Valaryne walked, The Heralds walked, House Mel'nozz walked, Vithrel walked, House Xun'viir largely walked, half the Arcanum walked (and now mostly all play surface characters) and had Saslae NOT been doing the pragmatic and prideless thing and cultivating relationships with key humans (including some surfacers who hang around Andunor!) she'd of been left there alone, surrounded by enemies... with a mechanically inferior build for solo PvP while Xvil'kor as a House was still leveling up.

Her goals remain unchanged, but the people she's forced "into bed with" change -because- people are dissatisfied with their characters. Sometimes, this is because they are mechanically inferior. Sometimes this is because there's no alternative to war, without running someone out of the only town they have access to ... (Drow, Vampires, Orogs, etc. do not generally have the ability to go to Guldorand or Sibayad if things go sideways in Andunor)

I feel that these are -very- important things to keep in mind about Andunorian politics.. and I feel most of the people here have said things more eloquently than I can; so I'm going to watch this thread with great interest, but largely stay quiet past this point..

So I'm guilty of playing a human in the underdark and I strive to make my character as evil as possible without being a cliche, but I also play as a butler right now who serves Drow in their every need. I try and play a character with some depth of why he's evil and a reason behind it.

One of the things I think is the issue the UD is that you can't really be monstrous without breaking the rules (or at least skirting them closely) . . .

So you want to be a gnoll who eats people (as they do in PnP), you can't it makes people uncomfortable, breaks the pg-13 rule
Torture RP requires consent and can't go too far without the risk of being banned (or at leasted reprimanded)
Capture RP requires consent. The easiest option to show that you're monstrous is to kill someone. . .

Which is almost never a good narrative tool.
So you want to be feared as a monster race? How do you do that without PVP? (I honestly don't know, someone help me out here)
Without the other side taking you seriously, how do you play a monster race trying to drive a single person narrative without the consent of the other parties involved. The answer is you can't

The rules make it much easier to be cuddly and friendly to everyone. Noone is going to report you for being nice IC.

On another note, being "evil" is sooooo subjective and I find it much harder (but more interesting) to be evil than it is to be good.

Outcast human = same award as Good monster?
They'd just be as rare. Most outcast humans would rather scamper from surface place to surface place, trying to hide their outcast status (burnmark?), than try and live down in that monster-infested deathplace that is the UD.
But if that would be implented, just figure, people will switch to playing human slaves...
Then again unslaving could be made so it barrs them from Andunor. Once a slave - always a slave, sort of. And once they get unslaved > up to the human-infested surface they go. Never to return. Unless they are collared again.

Rooshi49 wrote: Tue Oct 23, 2018 6:24 pm
So you want to be feared as a monster race? How do you do that without PVP? (I honestly don't know, someone help me out here)
Without the other side taking you seriously, how do you play a monster race trying to drive a single person narrative without the consent of the other parties involved. The answer is you can't

You almost certainly can.

Tyrion & Varys Discuss Power [HD]

RPing a certain atmosphere of ruthlessness, cunning and power is far more potent than simply relying on PvP. The threat of PvP is important, of course. You need to be able to put your money where your mouth is, at least some of the time.

But the THREAT of consequences is far, far more tangible than you might give it credit for. You don't need to be edgy, cruel and quick tempered for people to be afraid of you. Sometimes people are more afraid of what's to come.

And it's very important that the atmosphere in Andunor is conducive to this sort of RP, rather than diminishing it. I have no issue with Outcasts. I have an issue with Outcasts that do not behave as though they are Andunorian.

I love the idea of a tribal area. Maybe the Ogre trading post could be expanded to be something much more of a lawless frontier town adding quests and cave quarters and the like. I don't see why a very remote uncivilized surface area couldn't exist for monsters, but that's probably asking too much.

I think the gifts system is really lopsided. Drow at least have options with the gift of clergy/melee. Look at poor svirfs on the other hand, forcing a +2 dex and +2 wis and losing the gnomish constitution bonus makes them really undesirable for all but a few builds-- maybe a wisdom based druid, maybe a monk/rogue, maaaaybe a healer cleric. It certainly dissuades people from making the illusionists they're supposed to be or battle-clerics who'd use the special hammer. Similar with Orogs, they can be nasty blackguards (and a cha-based monster race is certainly welcome!) but their forced stats really limit their options too.

I suggest looking at the gift system and making it so every single race can boost at least one and ideally two abilities to allow better customization. I know it's easier said than done, but at least start with the races that can only take one minor gift. Make other races more enticing (and more powerful) than humans can hope to be in the ways they're supposed to be special.

Sea Shanties wrote: Tue Oct 23, 2018 6:32 pm I love the idea of a tribal area.

Something similar to The Horde camp, in the Underdark?

I agree with OP in every point.

Started to play UD month or two after release of EE with friend we used to play UD ten years ago on another server. He gave up after two weeks, saying this isn't UD and left for surface. I went on (confused how to play my drow even with UD experiences) , but only because I liked my character. Still gave up eventually also. I hoped for different play style, but it is really only surface in gray.

In my opinion (and I want to underline it is just my opinion and I am not saying, if things are different, are wrong), humans and another surface races should exist only as slaves and prisoners. And act accordingly. There is zero reason for outcast to live in UD, there is whole settlement for this kind of roleplay, with the name of Sencliff. In this situation Sencliff is mostly empty and Andunor is full of humans.
Second point I have is also accepted style, which I feel doesn't fit the setting of UD at all, like fluffy naive girls with coffe shops or discussions about if which clothes make me more beautiful or free heals as help to a monsters.

UD should be place you go when you cannot go anywhere else, not second bendir with closer exphunting grounds.

P.S.: If you are mentioning mechanics: I see lot of humans in UD being wizards, maybe because there is no good equivalent to human for wizards among the UD races. I would even prefer UD to be swamped by Deep Imaskari more than humans. I am for rewarding human outcasts with all ten fingers. If someone really wants to play human in UD, still can do it as a slave, not as a citizen, who can even threaten drow cleric without consequences.

Solution:
By RP ways transport outcast to sencliff (save few established characters), or put reward on new ones.

ForgottenBhaal wrote: Tue Oct 23, 2018 3:33 pm Hello everyone. I know this is perhaps beating a dead horse by now, but I would like to start a feedback thread about the statue of the city Andunor, and more specifically, the massive influx of humans in the city since the launch of EE.

I know from talking to a lot of new players that they had some confusion when making their new characters on Arelith for the first time and they didn't understand that they were going to be in the UD. As an experienced player, I have no idea how they ended up in that position, but I did help several of them OOC and a few of them remade their characters on the surface after I explained where they were and what it meant to be in the UD.

I also know a good handful of players with human characters in the UD because of the immense lag they experienced in Cordor to the point where it was unplayable for them.

ForgottenBhaal wrote: Tue Oct 23, 2018 3:33 pmI think the main problem that comes with this, is that there is not any real drawbacks to playing an outcast at this very moment. They can run between the surface, and Underdark without having much of an issue, except that Laurick will not let them use his boat-service, alongside with not being able to become a citizen in the surface settlements not holding any quarters in cities.

I can tell you from experience, that once anyone on the surface knows your character is an outcast, visits to the surface become very difficult. Especially if you've encountered a very vocal surfacer. My outcast character was chased out of the Tower and Cordor, and every time she made an appearance on the surface she was threatened or attacked.

ForgottenBhaal wrote: Tue Oct 23, 2018 3:33 pm The Underdark is supposed to feel like an alien, threatening place to the inhabitants of the surface. It’s meant to be a Skullport sort of environment that ISN’T ruled by drow, sure. But lately it feels more like a ghetto for humans that prefer living underground, with a few drow or monsters in it.

This is the fault of the players. I remember being in the UD when the drow were more aggressive and frightening. I don't see that in any of the current drow players. The other monster races aren't frightening or intimidating either. Everyone is friendly with everyone else. Nearly everyone is in the same faction or working for that faction in some capacity.

The mechanics of the game don't help with the situation any either. When you are low level and trying to do writs, it can be hard to find a party to do them with, so people often overlook the details that would separate them in normal situations to accommodate getting their writs done.

Another issue I have noticed is that the presence of surfacers in the UD is often overlooked because they are generally undiscovered until they reach the Hub. You don't find a lot of high level characters standing around the Hub. Low level characters are usually there looking for people to do writs with, and there's the usual AFK crowd. Therefore, surfacers walk through and there's really no one to oppose them. What I want to know, is where is the fear? The surface characters come down and strut around like it's just another city. Just as UD characters should be somewhat frightening and intimidating, we need for the surface players to show some fear and discomfort.

Rooshi49 wrote: Tue Oct 23, 2018 6:24 pm
One of the things I think is the issue the UD is that you can't really be monstrous without breaking the rules (or at least skirting them closely) . . .

So you want to be a gnoll who eats people (as they do in PnP), you can't it makes people uncomfortable, breaks the pg-13 rule
Torture RP requires consent and can't go too far without the risk of being banned (or at leasted reprimanded)
Capture RP requires consent. The easiest option to show that you're monstrous is to kill someone. . .

Which is almost never a good narrative tool.
So you want to be feared as a monster race? How do you do that without PVP? (I honestly don't know, someone help me out here)
Without the other side taking you seriously, how do you play a monster race trying to drive a single person narrative without the consent of the other parties involved. The answer is you can't

The rules make it much easier to be cuddly and friendly to everyone. Noone is going to report you for being nice IC.

On another note, being "evil" is sooooo subjective and I find it much harder (but more interesting) to be evil than it is to be good.

I agree with all of this.

Yma23 wrote: Tue Oct 23, 2018 5:44 pm
I think a further issue is that there's not many places for people to be 'evil' on the surface right now. There's an interesting reason Sibiyad, Sencliff, and Andunor are where most of the 'shady' people hang out. I think some people mull over the idea that if you want to play an openly evil character, you more or less have to do it in one of those three places.

There's a problem with this.
Firstly: Players can only really effect players. Evil actions are mostly shown by how they act to other PCs. It's sometimes difficult to be 'evil' ICly, without being a big old jerk OOCly. It's entirely understandable of course, and good roleplayers tend to find ways around it, and there's a lot of people who are understanding and such. But there's also a lot of people who are scared of upsetting others, as is understandable!

Add to that the rules and the rating of the server make it hard for Andunor to be the sort of horrific place it actually is. Now please, don't mistake this as a complaint. It isn't. The PG13 rating is fine. The rules are fine. I wouldn't change either for the world. But I think as a player we need to susspend our disbelief somewhat when working in the environs. Because the sort of torture, mutilation, rape, and death that should exist there- can't be properly shown. Because a) The vast majority of players don't like the idea of either seeing, or being party to such. and b) Because it's not rating appropriate.

So yeah, the vast majority of what you see in Andunor won't be 'evil' constantly. It can't be.

But at the same time, an expecation and onus has to be on the players, both surface and Andunor, to act as if such things are happening, and to think of Andunor as, basicaly, a horrible, tortuous place.

I agree with all the above.

In closing, I don't necessarily think we need more restrictions on who can take Outcast option, or brands on said characters, but we need the RP of he players present to be more in line with with what it should be. All characters, not just the Outcasts. The Drow. The Ogres. The Kobolds. The Orogs. And the surface characters.

Cerk Evermoore wrote: Tue Oct 23, 2018 5:25 pm My problem is the answer is just to make Andunor bigger and bigger. The city is huge! I thought we had the right idea with that ogre trade post but it really is lacking a lot of meat. Like if the Port District was located in another place that wasn't called Andunor I am sure it'd be a flood of RP activity.

There are many solutions that require devwork. Most of the ones that would work really well involve tweaking the races to make the monsters stronger, giving outcast a reward requirement, giving outcasts a brand (Pirates have tattoos but for whatever reason Reginald Babystabber didn't get marked as a villain while being cast out of society? Really?).

One that I suggested a while ago was a second city in the UD where the traditionalists could go, since Andunor was(and still is, apparently) utterly overrun by humans and does not support traditional UD monster roleplay very well. People could have their cake and eat it too, as there would be a semblance of choice, and it would deal with overcrowding.

Also, drow clerics (and most other varieties of clerics) suck. Which is kind of a bit of a thematic issue.

Let's not put visible tags on outcasts descriptions please. This recent tags epidemic really isn't something to be promoted. We already have tags for slaves, paladins of the radiant heart and pirates. If we add outcasts to that list, where do we stop? Being able to identify palemasters at a glance because they're icky and got undead bits instead of actually having to RP to reach conclusions like that?

As for the topic of outcasts in Andunor, it's a little shocking to me how many forumgoers seem outright hostile to the state of matters. If there's more outcasts than non-outcast-monsters as claimed, then doesn't that mean there's something that the majority of Andunor players find attractive about that over monsters? Instead of stamping down with a foot and saying "No, you can't enjoy this because I can't enjoy my thing if you enjoy your thing" wouldn't it be better to look for some compromise? An area dedicated to the more tribalistic or monstrous races in, near or around Andunor seems like an easy solution for those who want to play monsters without having to run into icky humans.

But what do I know, I like Andunor as is. More activity is more fun, and more outcasts definitely means more activity. I'll take busy skullport Andunor over empty monster den Andunor any day.

EDIT: Let's not go down the route of making race X stronger just to get more players playing them either shall we? I'm sure no one would like to re-live the days of dragons being an automatic 5% choice with vastly superior stats to other races.