AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Bit of an open question: which elements of which plots do you feel could/should have been expanded or given more attention, and in what way? And why?

For example, for me the Amnish Armada during the Arcanum plot was an underused element. With a setting that naturally leads itself to naval adventures and plots, a naval sub-plot about an outnumbered and outgunned rag-tag flotilla of local ships trying to defeat the Amnish Armada would have been very interesting to see and could have created incredibly interesting moments too.

One harsh reality I've come to understand in PWs is thatplots will get neglected either due logistics, burnout, staff changing hands, or just plain old lack of interest. Sometimes you can push but sometimes it's best to let out die and not talk about it.

That said, there was actually stuff involving naval conflict with Amn, that definitely happened. But due to the way that plot wrapped up the plans for the big naval battle naval that was panned out and strategized over by a d between pretty much every faction on the server never took place. But in total honesty a battle like that woops be mostly dm emotes and that's hard to make enjoyable.

I want illithids on A again.

That was supposed to happen but the developer working on the new areas just... never finished them. :cry:

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

That said, there was actually stuff involving naval conflict with Amn, that definitely happened. But due to the way that plot wrapped up the plans for the big naval battle naval that was panned out and strategized over by a d between pretty much every faction on the server never took place. But in total honesty a battle like that woops be mostly dm emotes and that's hard to make enjoyable.

Actually, it did take place, and was a lot of fun too, as well as a different change of pace for my character, and a learning experience for him.

im hoping xorvintal picks up again. there's like 3 'known antagonists' in the pack or draggos that seem to be just loafing about. pc's don't seem to want to fuck with a great wyrm that isn't fuckin with us, partic after what happened to the last one, but they are still out there just... hanging out or whatever.

Kudark wrote:

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

That said, there was actually stuff involving naval conflict with Amn, that definitely happened. But due to the way that plot wrapped up the plans for the big naval battle naval that was panned out and strategized over by a d between pretty much every faction on the server never took place. But in total honesty a battle like that woops be mostly dm emotes and that's hard to make enjoyable.

Actually, it did take place, and was a lot of fun too, as well as a different change of pace for my character, and a learning experience for him.

There was one before the final battle with Reyes but I'm taking about the other one that was planed for by the PCs. Richard Johnson wrote a pretty cool strategy for it and the Kohkingen/Wiltun fleet were going to join up with the Lord's Alliance while the PCs fought Colllin Reyes.

Tarkuul was even going to take part and do cool/shocking things but the Blockade fleet ended up surrendering when Reyes died instead.

Would have been cool but I don't know if it would have been feasible to run during the reyes fight tbh.

I know which naval event you're talking about though and it was pretty cool sounding! The wiltun-kohlingen fight. Gerald may have profited off of that fight on the down low actually. And it may have helped keep the West from falling but I don't wanna give that all away oocly.

Commie wrote:

im hoping xorvintal picks up again. there's like 3 'known antagonists' in the pack or draggos that seem to be just loafing about. pc's don't seem to want to fuck with a great wyrm that isn't fuckin with us, partic after what happened to the last one, but they are still out there just... hanging out or whatever.

It never stopped.

Welcome to the proxy war of dragons where you may not even know you're in it.

TormakSaber wrote:

Commie wrote:

im hoping xorvintal picks up again. there's like 3 'known antagonists' in the pack or draggos that seem to be just loafing about. pc's don't seem to want to fuck with a great wyrm that isn't fuckin with us, partic after what happened to the last one, but they are still out there just... hanging out or whatever.

It never stopped.

Welcome to the proxy war of dragons where you may not even know you're in it.

Sick

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

There was one before the final battle with Reyes but I'm taking about the other one that was planed for by the PCs. Richard Johnson wrote a pretty cool strategy for it and the Kohkingen/Wiltun fleet were going to join up with the Lord's Alliance while the PCs fought Colllin Reyes.

Yeah that never happened...although it is probably due to other reasons as well that had nothing to do with the DMs at the time.

I've seen quite a few stories, plots that remained unfinished over the years. But that is how it is.

Honestly there were 30+ people and two dms required for the reyes fight alone. The fleet battle wouldn't have been able to work because there'd have been no one to play there.

The way it was just sort of the only sensible way to end it. Or at least that's how it looked outside

There's no way Amia and Ruathym could have hoped to defeat Amn + MAztican support in an actual naval battle anyways. The DM gymnastics required to make such a thing feasible are so off the wall it destroys suspension of disbelief. As a reminder: There are ENTIRE VIDEOGAMES about how powerful Amn is and how big a deal it is along the Sword Coast.

Especially when the bulk of their forces were allowed to arrive in the region relatively unharassed.

Let's just not bring up the whole war. It's safer that way. It was a huge suspension of disbelief in itself heh.

The Cordor Anti-Adventurer movement. Was originally set up by Nivo and then faded from sight. Quite a pity.

Oooh yes. Remember when Cordor used to despise adventurers? Pepperidge Farm remembers!

I felt that aspects of the anti-adventurer sentiment were a bit overplayed, but the whole thing seemed to largely die out when Sgt. (later Capt.?) Yance left the Guard, and good riddance to it. I'm sure there's still some low-level hostility amongst certain segments of the populace, though.

It added some spice to things, though, and definitely added something to political machinations. Plus it was interesting having a city almost be anti-adventurer when everyone else was 'lol flock to us'. I had plans to make it even worse, but I didn't play my baddie enough.

the anti adventurer thing is still going. right now the non adventuring government is having to deal with an adventuring governor that's gone and got himself offed in a typically adventuring manner. read up on da cordor forumz

It started way before that. Almost after the second day of the revolution in 2008 by WonWon, Leggomi and Yoss...and some of it might linger depending on the amount of hellballs flying around and the general behavior of the adventurer population.

I've completely lost track of half the plots, subplots, spinoffs, and background lore on Caraigh. It was getting to a point where it was hard to figure out how to make progress on ANY problem because we were being presented with so many things to deal with at once as a faction, so while I will say a lot of them have petered out, I will also say I'm not at all upset about that.

Also, and I understand fully why, but Ostland stuff seems to have petered out. If you want more specifics about what I mean ask me IG cause I don't want to give out stuff that may not necessarily be general knowledge.

Elorathall wrote:

The Cordor Anti-Adventurer movement. Was originally set up by Nivo and then faded from sight. Quite a pity.

Quote:

It started way before that. Almost after the second day of the revolution in 2008 by WonWon, Leggomi and Yoss...and some of it might linger depending on the amount of hellballs flying around and the general behavior of the adventurer population.

Bingo. If you think it faded from sight, um, I guess you didn't pay attention to Cordor from 2008 to the current day....

Quote:

I felt that aspects of the anti-adventurer sentiment were a bit overplayed, but the whole thing seemed to largely die out when Sgt. (later Capt.?) Yance left the Guard, and good riddance to it. I'm sure there's still some low-level hostility amongst certain segments of the populace, though.

There was a reason for what appeared to be overplaying of various elements.

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

I felt that aspects of the anti-adventurer sentiment were a bit overplayed, but the whole thing seemed to largely die out when Sgt. (later Capt.?) Yance left the Guard, and good riddance to it. I'm sure there's still some low-level hostility amongst certain segments of the populace, though.

There was a reason for what appeared to be overplaying of various elements.

Kind of like how governments like to blow up petty social issues to cover up the important ones? Lol

That is actually a big part of it, yep. The disassociation of the adventurer class to create hostility towards the people that could help prevent the issues that later arose. There were other factors at work as well, across varying ares and organizations.

I actually really liked that about it, yeah. I mean I saw the names oh ask the old cordorian officials (and let's not forget Hurst) and sighed in pain but they were a lot of fun.

Though kobra's lieutenant Adam Hole (the a.hole) was a bit to funny for me.

Heh..

I admit I had to ask Yossi at points what he was shooting for with some of the names and he was generally good with explaining them to me.

Althugh I can't find a clip example anymore of it, there was a clip he showed to give a good idea of one inspiration for Maximillion (was from a BBC run of Shakespeare's Coriolaunus, and not the most recent one but a past that for love or money I can't find)

Playing Warrick during that, I half expected him dead at either Yance's hands or the Harpers. That he was killed in an unrelated action was in it's own way awesome and tragic at the same time. I also remember it not long after the South Cordor stuff had ended up released by the government with actually very few changes, compared to his original drafts.

Years later, I still wish the Gradientes Angelus Amicita hadn't been wiped from the server. It had such great potential and a DM leaving shouldn't have been the end of it. Theoretically, their monks are still out there, even if their chapel blipped from existence, so there's always a way to bring them back.

The non-necro side of Tarkuul is historically under emphasized(at least until recently).

Shadowscape being a planar trade hub is pretty downplayed too.

Tarkuul has a non-necro side?

Dark Immolation wrote:

Years later, I still wish the Gradientes Angelus Amicita hadn't been wiped from the server. It had such great potential and a DM leaving shouldn't have been the end of it. Theoretically, their monks are still out there, even if their chapel blipped from existence, so there's always a way to bring them back.

Hah, I was actually thinking about that plot a few weeks ago!

Tarnus wrote:

Tarkuul has a non-necro side?

They do, but it is underplayed in my opinion. Theres room for rxpansions into other fields even those outside conventional magic.

TormakSaber wrote:

There's no way Amia and Ruathym could have hoped to defeat Amn + MAztican support in an actual naval battle anyways. The DM gymnastics required to make such a thing feasible are so off the wall it destroys suspension of disbelief. As a reminder: There are ENTIRE VIDEOGAMES about how powerful Amn is and how big a deal it is along the Sword Coast.

This.

When the Amnish fleet was coming in my character was advocating for rather than one massive naval battle we couldn't hope to win... but repeated hit and run attacks, picking off Amnish supply vessels or ships which got seperated from the main fleet to either sink them, or bring them back to port to be refitted/rearmed and stuffed full with Amians. Whilst a little of this happened.... I would have liked to have seen a massive amount more of this before we took them on in a Naval battle.

The Numbers were just so massive... that I thought the whole prospect was hopeless. From Whurak's point of view it was a case of selling himself as dear as he could before he died. At which point, I was planning to give the server a rest and then come back, playing an Amnish Mercenary in the brave new world of Amnish/Reyes Ruled Amia.

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As for any underused plot elements, I think most of them are simply in remission, or the back burner simmering along in the background. I think the only time that such plot elements truely become forgotten is when the DM who was overseeing them leaves and leaves with such unfinished due to RL commitments or burnout.

In the aftermath of the Reye's plot.... I would have liked to have seen a few more of the problems linger on. If they did, I didn't see them and I was paying pretty close attention. I mean stuff like Amia suddenly having a load of out of work Mercenaries who fled the battle... Maztican Tribesmen now free of their masters, Rogue Amnish Warships who hung around for a bit and caused trouble. But it really just seemed as though everything went back to "Normal" too easily soon after.

Aurora wrote:

But it really just seemed as though everything went back to "Normal" too easily soon after.

Preach!

Reyes did not interest me as much as the war with Amn did. It really did feel like it went back to normal a bit too easily.

I had kind of hoped for some sort of situation where Cordor ended up Amn controlled after the war, Reyes dead obviously to avoid ending time and what not. Amn could have done good things for the Cordorian people, their trade network and wealth and influence might have seen the city prosper. Their strength might have helped the folk feel safe. Some adventurers might have welcomed the new establishment, while others might have acted as freedom fighters. Cordor for Cordorians! Mages might have been required to register, with much harsher punishments to rogue mages. Their influence on Amia would extend north to about the Amian Forest id say, Dale maybe being neutral if they were lucky. Then it could have turned into some kind of reluctant stalemate between Northern Amian Alliance (Winya and Kohlingen with Barak support) holding out against Amn.

"But Amn is so powerful, it could just run the Northern Alliance over easily!"

Maybe, but considering the value of Amia, it would be a question of worth. Likely it would not be worth it to send a considerable force to take the whole island, but rather perhaps in time the Cordorians could be trained and used to secure the island, if bothering to do it at all. It is a rather out of the way location, not useful as a stop over point, not closer to anywhere then.. just about anything else. Frankly, that they would want Cordor at all requires a bit of suspended disbelief for me, or i'm missing something. Ignoring why Reyes wanted it, mind.

Anyway, just sort of my fantasy of how the island of Amia could have been, and the knife's edge conflict between North and South.

I agree

Lost / Underdeveloped Plot Elements

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