More shit no one cares about

Lately I've been receiving complaints that, simply put, our events are too exclusive. The argument is that powerful characters (I think you can figure out which) are the only ones that get to shape the course of events, because our draconian character approval system prevents anyone from even having a character powerful enough to succeed.

First of all, there is far too much focus on combat in both our events and in character creation. Every new character page (and, admittedly, each of my own) has a section devoted to skills. Now, this is part of the approval process, to weed out powergamers and correct any lore inaccuracies. I don't have a problem with brief descriptions of your character's skills, but when the skills and items start to become more important than the rest of the character, that is a problem. RP is not something that can be "won" or "lost." You don't get "points" for accumulating power and equipment, and killing bad guys. RP is about storytelling, from the large plots all the way down to the minute character interactions.

Following that reasoning, powerful characters should not be instantly denied just because they are powerful. The quality of the character itself is what ought to determine whether or not they should be allowed in. Should Taric be considered a bad character because he was a werebear? I don't think so, and I'm sure many others share my view. If you can wield in-character power responsibly and intelligently, without trying to squash everyone else like a bug, then there shouldn't be anything to stop you from having it.

So, what I am trying to say is this: Powerful characters should not be the only ones allowed to influence events, because power should not be the focus of this RP. And to anyone complaining that it isn't fair that some characters are more powerful than others, I would say also that power should not be the focus of this RP. Finally, and most importantly, events don't always have to be about fighting and defeating things.

Speaking of events, ours are too few and far-between. People are complaining that there's nothing for them to participate in, and these people are right. Our main plotline with the goblins has moved at a glacial pace, with maybe one or two major events occurring every month. Vorn Tyrr has gone insane and off the grid, and no one is able to contact him or interact with him in any way without making special arrangements. Meanwhile, nothing is happening. The state of affairs isn't changing, the goblins and humans are silent, and no one is doing much worth noting. This brings me to my next point.

Players have a responsibility to make the most of their RPing experience. There's a reason anyone can make news posts. There's a reason we allow for new lore to be written by players. While you may not know it, there is a large degree of freedom within this community to influence things in and out of the RP. A player like Kain can come in and create an organization that hunts monsters, and become hugely successful in doing so (and he wasn't admin at the time). Players like PhoenixRhapsody and Cakebread can become event coordinators with the authority to create and manage their own in-server events. And any character can have his or her own storyline play out on the server. So with all of this freedom, why do people choose to sit in the bar and do nothing? Is it entirely the admin team's fault that we can't supply endless entertainment and events for everyone?

Our lore is extensive, which seems to be a problem for a lot of people. Lore inaccuracies and contradictions are among the main problems this community is facing, and the main source of rage from admins and fellow players alike. The fear of doing something wrong and being shot down may also be the reason people are too timid to try and make their own events. The only advice I can offer is this: don't try to absorb everything, just focus on what you want to know, open up that lore page, and go from there. In the meantime, there is an effort being made to summarize each lore page, reducing the amount of "fluff" and complexity. It's not because we think you're stupid, but because we are aware that you might have greater priorities than reading a lengthy essay on some fictional topic. Our lore should read quickly and easily for those that need it right away, but it should also be deep and rich for those willing to devote more time to it. We don't intend to sacrifice quality for simplicity.

This thread is open for discussion. What do you think should be done about events or lore? What do you think of character approval, and do you think it's working? Do you have any questions or concerns for or regarding the admin team?

Time for a little non sensical rant of my own.

I'd just like to say that even after all my years at Olden as both a player and admin there's a fuckton of the lore I don't know and don't try terribly hard to know beyond discussing it with fellow admins if I have something relating.

As far as events and shit to do I've always been a great supporter of intercharacter conflict where idealogies, religions and all that come into play. One thing I do notice is it seems like everyone just tries to get along and be the good, nice guy for the most part. There's nothing wrong with this really but just bear in mind if everybody is all friends and happy then you're not leaving yourself much to do besides idle away the hours in the bar with friends.

Now in relation to character strengths and shit I don't see it as much of a big deal. I'd like to point out none of my character pages have skill bars or a skill section and I make a firm point of refusing to include them in any character pages I write. I could see how monster hunter events might be seen as exclusive to certain characters I feel most fight events can be for everyone, even if that means taking more of a support role and less of a "I'm gonna stand up in your face so we can wail away on eachother' sort of approach.

I may come back to all this later and elaborate on it more after I've had more than three hours sleep in the past two days but for now I'd like to think I more or less conveyed my thoughts in a semi-understandable way.

Rutabega wrote:

As far as events and shit to do I've always been a great supporter of intercharacter conflict where idealogies, religions and all that come into play. One thing I do notice is it seems like everyone just tries to get along and be the good, nice guy for the most part. There's nothing wrong with this really but just bear in mind if everybody is all friends and happy then you're not leaving yourself much to do besides idle away the hours in the bar with friends.

Not only does everyone get along, they are hostile to people who don't. I have a character that I like to bring out now and then, who's a racist, ignorant commoner. He's almost been assaulted, and even came close to being killed, just for expressing his views. It's disturbing that characters have such skewed morals. They're willing to tolerate pretty much any race and religion, even illegal ones, yet they utterly refuse to tolerate anyone that doesn't share that same "open-mindedness."

I've also seen a generous portion of "good evil" characters. It's just as paradoxical as it sounds. You have a character who is introduced as evil, follows some evil religion like Sharism, or is a vampire, and yet they don't act evil at all. That's when you get other characters jumping to their defense, because "they're a good person." Someone who is truly devoted to Shar is not a good person. A bandit or mercenary is not a good person. Vampires, for the most part, are also not good people. Why do you think there are laws against these things?

speaking of people who play like that, my favorite kind of metagame is when people look at your page and see "something EVIL" as alignment, and they don't even wait for you to RP as that person to treat your character like mega hitler.

I haven't been on the server much, but I understand where you are coming from. If you're evil, then you should be evil. I remember back when I use to roleplay on NWN... people there were so very true to their alignment and the sort. I also use to play DnD, and the people I played with went deep into character development. They were actually playing their character as an evil character. I like to stick true to alignments and I have thus far within Olden, considering I have like one character.

Blitz wrote:

speaking of people who play like that, my favorite kind of metagame is when people look at your page and see "something EVIL" as alignment, and they don't even wait for you to RP as that person to treat your character like mega hitler.

This is part of the reason I don't even bother putting alignment on my character pages any more. That, and the fact that alignment is often more complex than "lawful good" or "neutral evil." You might come across someone who is good in some ways and evil in others. Or an evil character who has a moral code and doesn't act evil to everyone.

I am really happy to see something like this, because it means that what I have been feeling is at least reciprocated by one person.

I agree that might should not make right entirely in this roleplay, each character should be able to twist and turn and progress in their own ways, and doing so more than just with muscle, weave strength, and Your-Eternal-Rewards is perhaps some of the most fulfilling ways to progress your character through our nice world.

I do not have a problem with the powerful characters in the roleplay as they stand now, of course there are those that are more blatantly powerful than others, and all sorts of ranges on that scale; HOWEVER, I find that most of these characters have done this properly: amassed their power through roleplaying and were not birthed with great abilities from the start of roleplay. Or, perhaps, that they were revealed and played in a way that managed to allude to that effect. My character Aedelric is guilty of being a survivable DPSer, which is something of a powerful idea; however, I would like to think that I play him fairly, and no one has a problem with his combat (I've also been meaning to add combat specifics to my biography formats, but DAMZ CHU SKOOLZ). The reason I bring this point up is because Aedelric was intended to start on the strong side; but I always try to play him fair, and play him legitimately in terms of his applications in situations. Will I attempt to advance his power perhaps through genuine roleplay, sure; will it be the sole focus of his roleplaying, absolutely not.

As well, I feel that Munroe is right once again, in that we haven't taken the initiative to produce our own events, and as such, I don't feel we can really complain to them about the goings-on of tavernRP. I was originally guided by a friend of mine who is no longer on the server (yes, a mister BradBurns) against making events, but I think I shrugged that yolk some time ago. However, I did attempt to run a small scale event, but all that ended up happening was a collision with another event, which lead to confusion, mislead and brought in characters who weren't originally intended, and ended up being a massive pile of trash that I thoroughly voided. Will I try to create/add to the eventing scene when I can, sure, at some point.

Another valid point is the vast amount of lore we can use, and I love this about the server; so much good material ripe for the picking!

But this leaves me to another issue...

Some of this material is NOT usable, and I feel that the teasing can be slightly off-putting; nothing that a good roleplayer can't look around, but in all honesty, perhaps unusable material shouldn't be so thoroughly mentioned and or pointed out, if it wouldn't be practical to use within roleplay, or perhaps stick a special prefix in the title? I have had this happen to me twice with characters, one never even getting past the conception stage, that I have been unable to use a lore simply because, well, it's not viable for play in the RP. I can understand this of course that perhaps not EVERYTHING will run through Surna, and it's water long under the bridge in terms for those examples, but great lore like that makes people want to give it use and purpose.

As well, I'm making progress with my metallurgy addition to the server, school's been rough, but I should have time at least tomorrow and over the weekend to do it.

Anyways, getting back on more thoroughly valuable points to the nature of this discussion, I will move on to the admin team, due to their mention by Munroe in a direct question. I think that the admin team is a friendly, and helpful bunch; I try to look at them with the respect I feel is appropriate, as I'm sure that maintaining a roleplaying community is NOT easy. I would like to say that some of them come off as proud, perhaps insular, but I feel that this might be partially a result of the characters that they play.

The admins I've seen on mostly don't have many passive characters, the closest thing I've seen is Shelob Razel, perhaps Commander Ogoni could count as while he can actively participate in combat, a lot of his abilities are taken up in passive. However, no matter the case, these characters seem to convey weight, and the pride with which a player might handle them might seem unpleasant to those who think that they are being lorded over. I stated above my feelings on the balance of characters, and that I don't have a problem with administration having their characters, but I would like to suggest that perhaps taking a step away from this may help how they appear to the community. Now, I could be ENTIRELY wrong here, and administration could each have fifty scrawny orphan children for passive characters, I am just saying, that this is what I have seen.

I continue to enjoy my time on the server, and hope to be able to contribute in my own ways as best as possible.




EDIT!!!!!!!!!:

One last question, and this is a legit question, because I actually have something of a concern I never brought up:
Can anyone make an evil character?

This may be a rediculous question, but I found out some time after his denial, some people pulled genuine accepts from Seth Hasold solely because he was of an evil alignment (As well, I mean pulled, as in, they refrained from acting on their feelings for him as a character, which were positive and left ungiven; at least, so I was lead to believe). Of course in the end it was lore conflict, which I can understand; but I have been told by at least one person, Krug, who was honest enough to tell me directly that he wasn't going to give me an accept because my character was evil.

And, while this was just a solitary incident, but I noticed two or three days ago how some evil characters, even if it seemed like they never met before, were very very chummy. It just made me think that there might be some sort of intergalactic evil imperium that I'm not aware of.

Anyways, this was a legitimate concern in my head, and I wanted to know the stance on creating Evil alignment characters.

I don't really have anything to add, but have similar thoughts and concerns regarding all of the above. Specifically, if there's a way I can help make less combat focused RP message me.

Would certainly enjoy seeing more events that don't involve the bar, getting drunk, or fighting. That's the reason Itur never worked, because there was never characters that weren't shallow, and designed just for fighting and beer. I think I might come back, be a bit more active, I've ran through my ideas for making Bep work again.

Venom OPS wrote:

Would certainly enjoy seeing more events that don't involve the bar, getting drunk, or fighting. That's the reason Itur never worked, because there was never characters that weren't shallow, and designed just for fighting and beer. I think I might come back, be a bit more active, I've ran through my ideas for making Bep work again.

I'd love to see you come back, but on to my opinion about this topic.

---

I think that this is summed up almost perfectly as to how I feel about the matter. A lot of threads get bashed and degraded simply because the intended character is a bit stronger than normal. My opinion on the matter is that I think that some people are basically saying 'If you're stronger than me, you don't get my accept' solely because they don't want to be killed, or they want to be the generic 'internet badass' which really upsets me to see good players with really good characters just go down the drain. I'll cut this short with a 'ditto' to pretty much everything that was said, and leave it at that.

Dominator046 wrote:

One last question, and this is a legit question, because I actually have something of a concern I never brought up: Can anyone make an evil character?

This may be a rediculous question, but I found out some time after his denial, some people pulled genuine accepts from Seth Hasold solely because he was of an evil alignment (As well, I mean pulled, as in, they refrained from acting on their feelings for him as a character, which were positive and left ungiven; at least, so I was lead to believe). Of course in the end it was lore conflict, which I can understand; but I have been told by at least one person, Krug, who was honest enough to tell me directly that he wasn't going to give me an accept because my character was evil.

And, while this was just a solitary incident, but I noticed two or three days ago how some evil characters, even if it seemed like they never met before, were very very chummy. It just made me think that there might be some sort of intergalactic evil imperium that I'm not aware of.

Anyways, this was a legitimate concern in my head, and I wanted to know the stance on creating Evil alignment characters.

An issue with character approval is that people are too afraid to be honest. I'm guilty of this too. Approval is there to help people, it's not a place where you should insult noobs, nor is it a place where you should just let your buddies through without even glancing at their work. Not saying anything doesn't help anyone.

I'm a little worn out on evil characters, because a lot of them act like I described earlier, and most of them don't help progress the storyline or contribute to the RP. Frankly, most of the evil characters we have right now just get in the way. They're out robbing and killing and generally making life hell for everyone in Surna, and there's little anyone can do about it. I've made several announcements regarding the Watch and have tried to rejuvenate it, but it gets ignored in the RP. Furthermore, players go to extreme lengths to protect their character from the consequences of their actions. If that's you, then please take a step back and stop treating your character like it's your child or something. If Volten or Kara died, I would be sad, but I wouldn't invent some convoluted reason for them to have lived. Shit happens, characters die.

Challenging the Watch is a bad idea. You will lose. I'm not saying this to sound like some internet tough guy, I'm saying this because the Watch is an organization comprised of dozens of men and women with better equipment and better training than most people, and it's backed by the Black Watch and the Knights Concordic, two larger, more powerful organizations that are tasked with enforcing Sanctimonian Law. The best any criminal can hope for is to avoid them. Skip town if your name appears on the bounty board, and keep your nose down. Do not stay and try to fight them.

Munroe wrote:

Our main plotline with the goblins has moved at a glacial pace

Hold up, hold up. WE HAVE A STORYLINE?

Seriously, I remember when I first joined, we had two events that involved Crystal dudes. What the hell happened to them? We had like, two and then they dropped off the face of the Earth. People have been driven to the tavern because, well there was nothing to do, so let's get fuckin' drunk and talk. I was on a SST server that used events in real time, liked operations were planned at a certain time on a certain day at the end of the week, they had a long waiting period. Do you know what happened to them? They went to the mess hall and talked the entire time. The server later DIED.

I understand that events aren't "PEW PEW KILL DA MUNSTERS," but without something interesting to do other than be buddy buddies with each other, players leave. I really don't mean to offend, but we need to get the admin team together in like a steam chat, and start talking, planning events together, try to create something interesting that will create fun for all.

This has been: Jordan's Two Cents.

I couldn't agree more, Jordan. We must get the ball rolling on something, anything, to happen on the server and get people out of the "mess hall."

Hey, I may not be an admin, or even a super lore expert, but I'd be glad to help any time. I'm sure that the playerbase is eager to get us out of this little rut.

J. Jordan wrote:

Hey, I may not be an admin, or even a super lore expert, but I'd be glad to help any time. I'm sure that the playerbase is eager to get us out of this little rut.

This rut runs longer and deeper than you seem to understand.

J. Jordan wrote:

Hey, I may not be an admin, or even a super lore expert, but I'd be glad to help any time. I'm sure that the playerbase is eager to get us out of this little rut.

The playerbase disgusts me. Characters have wasted so much time sitting around the tavern that it's turned passive roleplay into this hideously awkward super-casual sitcom where any passive roleplay that involves the outside world is discouraged, except for the occasional "event". The majority of characters act like everyone in the world is their drinking buddy, too.

Events themselves have become a problem unto themselves. No one knows what an "event" means, anymore, people think it means to crowd around some monsters where everyone gets their chance to shine. That's not annoying, that's flat-out retarded. If it were just the monster hunting trips where anyone could join in, that would make more sense, but now it's become where people believe that whenever anything threatens the town, either everyone should swarm up and wail on the threat or it's not interesting. No. In an Olden that isn't stagnant to shit, sometimes there's a threat that only a few people are qualified to handle, or maybe there's an event that doesn't involve rushing in and showing off your characters' years of sword-and-bow training; this doesn't mean the events are unfair or boring, it's common-fucking-sense.

Let me stop myself there before I rant about every tiny thing that's kept me so distant from the forums and server.

Spoiler:

You see this?
You see this shit?

This is why we can't have nice things or nice rp.
This is exclusive, this isn't real passive. This "rp" has killed one of my characters, and prevents half of the players from roleplaying correctly either. Further demonstrates that modern Aeria is just getting drunk, and fighting.

I think the worst part about it is that it makes characters two-dimensional, the exact opposite of what Krug was going for when he revived passive roleplay with the tavern years ago.

The majority of characters have/always have been incredibly vapid, with this super-casual attitude they have towards EVERYONE they speak with and see. They talk to everyone like they're a drinking buddy, no matter who the subject is; a guardsman, a convicted murderer, a six-foot-two blood golem, everyone.

People fight when it makes no sense, yet only show the slightest signs of aggressive towards people that it make sense to beat on, because god forbid anyone show any hint of bias or fail to keep a level head. God fucking forbid any character ever act petty. No, a character getting fussy and buttflustered when someone talks shit about their waifu does not count.

Though Psyche is blunt, I have to agree with him here. Aeria RP is not an elaborate combat simulator, nor is it a fantasy chat room. When you're RPing, really try and think how a character would, and should, act in the setting. Oh wait, that's the definition of RP, isn't it.

In relation to the Goblin event things I can't help but feel like it's mostly run it's course. Goblins got their lands and people are leaving them alone for the most part. I've racked my brain on how to continue it but what keeps coming up is "Why? They already have everything they want" and my train of thought usually can't progress past that.

At the end of the day I can agree with pretty much everything said above by everybody. I will say though that I personally think the biggest issue is the whole stigma of your character not being friends with everybody. I personally try to make sure my characters are bias and prejudice against people but at that point you almost can't even go into the bar because as Mun said, you're gonna get fucked up for harping against one of the bar buddies who happens to be a vampire, or happens to be a devout worshipper of Shar.

Edit: And in relation to the 'evil character' thing Mun brought up I gotta agree with that too. There's a difference between an evil character, and just some character who wants to be super badass by going around killing people and stuff. As much as I hate to sound like a dickhead any time I hear about a character going on some mass murder, or some murder spree or any other kind of crime wave that serves to do nothing I just cup my face with my hand and go "Ugh, god fucking damn it not this shit again".

Rutabega wrote:

In relation to the Goblin event things I can't help but feel like it's mostly run it's course. Goblins got their lands and people are leaving them alone for the most part. I've racked my brain on how to continue it but what keeps coming up is "Why? They already have everything they want" and my train of thought usually can't progress past that.

At the end of the day I can agree with pretty much everything said above by everybody. I will say though that I personally think the biggest issue is the whole stigma of your character not being friends with everybody. I personally try to make sure my characters are bias and prejudice against people but at that point you almost can't even go into the bar because as Mun said, you're gonna get fucked up for harping against one of the bar buddies who happens to be a vampire, or happens to be a devout worshipper of Shar.

When was the last time the "you're a good person even though you're a vampire and a Shar follower" thing happened? It used to happen all the time in Old Olden, but the only time I can think of nowadays was Persephone, which was a genuine repentance.

Also, I'm a little conflicted about what to do with Vorn. I have a few ideas but they all seem combat oriented.

Pat wrote:

Rutabega wrote:

In relation to the Goblin event things I can't help but feel like it's mostly run it's course. Goblins got their lands and people are leaving them alone for the most part. I've racked my brain on how to continue it but what keeps coming up is "Why? They already have everything they want" and my train of thought usually can't progress past that.

At the end of the day I can agree with pretty much everything said above by everybody. I will say though that I personally think the biggest issue is the whole stigma of your character not being friends with everybody. I personally try to make sure my characters are bias and prejudice against people but at that point you almost can't even go into the bar because as Mun said, you're gonna get fucked up for harping against one of the bar buddies who happens to be a vampire, or happens to be a devout worshipper of Shar.

When was the last time the "you're a good person even though you're a vampire and a Shar follower" thing happened? It used to happen all the time in Old Olden, but the only time I can think of nowadays was Persephone, which was a genuine repentance.

Also, I'm a little conflicted about what to do with Vorn. I have a few ideas but they all seem combat oriented.

There's some girl, Erika I think her name is that's a vampire; and this is known by the whole bar crew with Halaster going so far as to call in a favor to have her hide with the Goblins outside of Surna. Also Morigen is a Shar worshipper.

Rutabega wrote:

Also Morigen is a Shar worshipper.

Was.

Also, when I say "goblin plot" I should be saying "the Vorn Tyrr plot." I think the issue with the goblins has been resolved satisfactorily, although few people seem to have heard much about it. Maybe they were sitting in the tavern at the time.

Munroe wrote:

Rutabega wrote:

Also Morigen is a Shar worshipper.

Was.

Also, when I say "goblin plot" I should be saying "the Vorn Tyrr plot." I think the issue with the goblins has been resolved satisfactorily, although few people seem to have heard much about it. Maybe they were sitting in the tavern at the time.

There's also quite a lot of new people around. People so new they haven't even heard of Vorn yet, or even know that he used to be in a "good guy" position.

Anyway, I'd like to do more for Vorn Tyrr's stuff, but I'm worried it would be viewed as heavy handed or too dangerous. Vorn's plot encompasses a lot, and would get pretty crazy before the end. Is that a good thing? Would crazy help fix this issue, or is it the wrong path right now?

Quote :

There's some girl, Erika I think her name is that's a vampire; and this is known by the whole bar crew with Halaster going so far as to call in a favor to have her hide with the Goblins outside of Surna. Also Morigen is a Shar worshipper.

Everything just went horribly wrong for me, wasn't like I was running around biting people or baring my fangs. I had made one bad mistake that was going to be mended and then idk how it even unfolded to what it is. With other people from the bar finding out (Excluding Erik) That was not my fault in any way possible, except for trying to blend in socially.