AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

I’ll preface this suggestion by acknowledging that it’s never, never going to happen. This is just me being a loopy pie-eyed dreamer.

The game would be better off if the alignment system were completely removed.

Remove the alignment restrictions from all classes, including and especially prestige classes. Remove the alignment requirement from the domain system. Remove the alignment considerations from all types of smite abilities, turning abilities, and spells.

Imagine a game world in which a player couldn’t simply glance at her character sheet to discover whether her cleric’s actions have been justified in the sight of her gods, and she shockingly actually had to contemplate the ethics and consequences of everything she did. One in which a paladin couldn’t ever again take smiting for granted, secure in the knowledge that “well, if the smite goes off, then the target must have been evil, and therefore my smite must have been justified.”

Imagine a world in which people couldn’t flock together or shun each other simply because of their guesses about which words must be written on each others’ character sheet; a world in which a character actually had to think about whether someone is really worthy of being an ally or enemy, instead of just whether “my NG and your TN can be friends,” or “I have to hate you because my LG hates your NE.” Never again a “good settlement” or an “evil faction” but simply you and me and her and him and “do our interests coincide?”

Imagine never again having to roll your eyes at yet another OOC pissing contest about “you can’t play your character that way because it’s against your alignment.” Never again the lame cop-out of “I’m only playing my character this way because I wanted to fit into X prestige class and I had to take X alignment.”

We could be playing in this beautiful hypothetical world, fellow Amians! It’s within our grasp, it’s right around the corner waiting for us! Down with the stupid, nonsensical, creativity-stifling alignment grid! Condemn it to the 1st Edition dustbin where it belongs, alongside THAC0 charts and prime requisite ability scores!

FREE YOUR MINDS, AMIA!!! SCRAP THE ALIGNMENT GRID TODAY!!!

I kinda like liz argument there ..

P Three wrote:

Alaria- wrote:

I just wanted to chime in and say that I agree with this part. There's also another aspect in that and it's that characters who do try to interact with these characters are equally punished. That, in combination with the 'rumour mill', is enough to create permanent problems for characters of which they have no way of getting out of.

A server shouldn't punish players for interacting with other players. If anything it should be encouraged.

Without coming off like a dick (hopefully) there is something you're blaming on OOC that is actually IC.

If you hang out with openly bad, murderous people, you are going to be shunned by good people. This isn't anyone trying to "starve you of RP", and we don't hate you OOCly or want to kill your good time. This is the actual consequence, IC, to the actions you've chosen, IC. It just happens to suck ass OOCly as well. Trust me, I've been there, and had to spend -years- working on the public image of my chars (See: Katsumi)

On the slight flipside to this, P Three, I have often wished more people did what I do: manufacture their own reasons for needing to trust/forgive/be naive about that for the sake of interaction and roleplay. Some people do so, but do so on the level of being some kind of "double agent", which I often interpret as the player being unwilling to sacrifice some kind of nebulous win tied closely to their sense of self-esteem.

For example, I may know that PC over there is a slaver. A horrible person who captures women and children and sells them to pirates who sell them to orcs who sell them to Jabba the Hut. My PC is a good person...let's say a religious person. I could just write them off as evil and never talk to them again. Or I could invent a dogmatic need within my faith that compels me to try to interact with that PC as often as I can to get them to see the error of their ways. That people are not livestock.

Or I am not a religious, I am a businessman. And the slaver has a fuckton of capital. And I need that capital for an investment to do good...so I make the hard decision to try to get his money in on an investment, fully willingly OOC'ly taking the risk of having my venture be declared "funded by slaver money".

I can't ask anyone to do that all the time. Just wish it happened more often.

Naivatkal wrote:

Ah, hasn't the Voice lost it's power in Tarkuul with the rise of the old Netherese Archmage? I'm pretty sure that's what has been said via the Tarkuulian plots and correspondence on the boards (public knowledge stuff from the plots threads and all). I thought the Archmage is usurping the Voice.

Find out IC

Liz wrote:

Remove the alignment restrictions from all classes, including and especially prestige classes.

This system exists - it's the Warhammer FRP and Dark Heresy d100 system, and it's fabulous. You actually get to play the character you want. I won't play d20 any more, and this is one of the big reasons why. Try it.

There's a number of systems out there that don't have alignment. GURPS and World of Darkness to name a few more. D&D is the oddity really.

WoD has Humanity and such, doesn't it? It's a similar moral system (and everyone in WoD is a jackass anyway). But yeah most systems lack one completely, I think Eclipse Phase for one doesn't even have anything remotely similar.

D&D's alignment system is cute but primitive. I don't think it's hugely problematic in and of itself - the problem comes with the way it gets misinterpreted or over-valued, and particularly when it comes to Paladins. It actively encourages players to start policing other PCs' alignments, which just gets messy.

Liz wrote:

Imagine never again having to roll your eyes at yet another OOC pissing contest about “you can’t play your character that way because it’s against your alignment.” Never again the lame cop-out of “I’m only playing my character this way because I wanted to fit into X prestige class and I had to take X alignment.”

The sad fact of the matter is, that in many of these games were there is no alignment, you will STILL have OOC pissing contests about "you can't play your character that way because blah blah blah blah." In Shadowrun, you'll have people saying you can't do something cause your Totem is Whatever. In MechWariior yo'll have people saying that someone of Blah Blah Nation or Clan Whatever would never do xxxxxx.

It really should not be so much that you can't do X because of Y, but that if you do X there will be Z consequences because of Y. There's nothing really inherently wrong about the alignment grid, it's just way too many people try to blame it for their own gross misunderstanding of the system. Good vs Evil and Order vs Chaos are fundamental parts of the D&D universes. Remove them, and you're no longer playing D&D, as far as I'm concerned. And if you don't want to play D&D, there's nothing wrong with that, just stop trying to mutilate D&D. They already did that bad enough with 4e.

Zedrik wrote:

It really should not be so much that you can't do X because of Y, but that if you do X there will be Z consequences because of Y. There's nothing really inherently wrong about the alignment grid, it's just way too many people try to blame it for their own gross misunderstanding of the system. Good vs Evil and Order vs Chaos are fundamental parts of the D&D universes. Remove them, and you're no longer playing D&D, as far as I'm concerned. And if you don't want to play D&D, there's nothing wrong with that, just stop trying to mutilate D&D. They already did that bad enough with 4e.

I was going to post essentially this, haha. I'll add that people tend to forget that alignments are Cosmic. If you murder someone it's Evil, as defined by the Universe (hence because you did x [murder] the consequences are z [Evil shift] because y [Stone Coldthe Cosmos said so]). That's just how it works, and it's up to the players to be responsible.

Remember, most of the time it's Good (players and NPCs) vs. Evil (NPCs) so there is not OOC squabbles. However in a multiplayer game we are able to have it be Good (players and NPCs) vs Evil (NPCs and players). Goes back to people being responsible OOC.

I have already scrapped the alignment grid, Liz. In my mind.

I've had evil characters that got along fine with good ones, and chaotic ones with lawful. I mean they were clearly evil but to me the alignments were always more about the methods and means a character is willing to take to accomplish their goals.

A lawful good character and a chaotic evil one for instance can have a lot in common and get along and even have the same goals, its just that when in comes down to it what each of them is willing to compromise or sacrifice are very different.

Nothing wrong with the D&D alignment system in my mind, unless you get caught up on the odd notion that because two options are on the opposite side of the grid from each other that means that people of those alignments are always opposed.

Chaotic conflicts with other chaotic and lawful against lawful just as often as they do vs each other.

I like conflict and co-operation, and ideally on Amia we would have evil groups banding together and others opposing each other and good groups doing that same. Hell groups of all alignments cooperating and opposing each other not because of their alignments but because of their goals.

Quote:

It's been slow going, and a year or two ago when I first started in with Tarkuul, it didn't have either the numbers or the structural integrity (literally and metaphorically) to be a "big bad"; it would have gotten crushed just like the Banite temple everyone keeps talking about if it had stuck its neck out and done "active evil".

And yet again, we've come full circle, to my original post on this topic

Quote:

Honestly, until the whole "throwing bodies at the wall of evil" problem gets addressed, owning any quantity of land that's not protected by some godlike creature is just lining yourself up for future disappointment.

This problem won't really change until the server mentality changes with it.

The whole "evil will blow up if it's seen" idea is toxic to the server, especially since in 4 years of playing and countless attempts at denting "good establishments" I've ended up taking out a small town that nobody really gave a shit about, but still whined OOC that they couldn't figure out who did it by typing 1 poorly phrased sentence in the forum. Good expects to win. People on this server expect that dynamic to continue. This is why nobody plays evil. Your post sums it up perfectly Glim, and it also explains why Tarkuul will never fix that problem. Now this being said, certainly I'm not going to say the RP is bad, because it's certainly not, but it doesn't add anything to the server plot, in terms of being evil. The whole .. "ohhh you will see just what we have in store" is the same rhetoric that I hear years and years going forward (and not even just Tarkuul saying it.) if you want to really make evil happen, you need to break this stupid mentality.

I.E. no offense Yoss, don't make posts like "OH IF YOU DO SOMETHING IN CORDOR, OR KOHLINGEN, THE CONSEQUENCES WILL BE SEVERE, IE PERMADEATH" but then never even think about the antithesis. Start at your own mind, and take away the preconceptions, because those are amia's major limitations, and it's quite sad that nobody sees it.

No offense taken. For the sake of clarity, what exactly do you mean by the antithesis?

Muspelkvist wrote:

Biased opinion based upon personal problem with said city/Faction?

No. The RP that I did have in Tarkuul was actually fun. I left Tarkuul alone for different reasons though, which are not important here. I am not disputing that in it's own little bubble the RP is bad, or the people within are bad, but my point is that it hasn't impacted the server. If your plot is taking several years to come to realisation, is that really a realistic plot? Some people don't have the patience of waiting years.

Glim actually made a lot of activity in Tarkuul, and it was fun for the most part, and I never got screwed over by a DM for once. The only problem is I don't see how it related to Amia as a whole. It could have happened on a completely separate server and still had the same impact on Amia, so as far as I am concerned, it is useless to the server until it actually does something.

Last edited by RaveN on Sat, Sep 28 2013, 19:50 PM, edited 4 times in total.

I feel like I'm often just the Ron Paul of this forum, and I'm sure someone's going to tell me I'm like a broken clock that's always showing the wrong time but here goes.

When I played Audrey actively, I got initiated PvP on by knights, and everyone who was in the coalition hundreds of times prior to the temple assault. Yaston specifically hostiled me 11 times, and ignored all my RP each time of me trying to evade the PvP. I guess I shouldn't complain since he never even came close to killing me at all, and in fact just ended up getting decapitated, burned, tortured, over and over and over and over. But guess what. Even after all this shit, they still come marching in, and Oh no, it's okay, it's IC. They weren't permadeathed or anything. They're supposed to kill evil. But we're not supposed to kill good, because that has serious consequences (i.e. getting banned or permadeathed, or stripped of loot.). I wish it was a thing of the past, but just recently, I was involved in a PvP that started completely illegally, in which I was killed and then forced to sit through people ignoring my body for 6 hours. Then after I got moved to the Kohlingen prison, I got a bunch of tells saying I needed to take my death seriously, since I was a "big target" or something. Actually ironically, I sat there 6 more hours with zero RP, and it was the first time my character was killed and it was illegitmate. This was after BoB and Amarice made a ridiculous call about how I was actually at fault the PvP rules. This isn't about me though, I wasn't the only one involved. Just like I wasn't the only one involved when the temple blew up and 15 banites quit. Just like I wasn't involved when your plot locked up my faction and nobody was given RP for 3 days and then 5 more quit. I also wasn't even involved in Caraigh, but I sympathize the same way that Jimbono expresses how ridiculous that all played out. Now, as a new Banite, I get illegally PvP'd and a DM tells our group to back off and gives us OOC penalties for dying in the middle of Kampo's. It's easy to dress up a post, but I just don't really have the patience to do it right now, I'd rather just say it how it is, in the hopes it might actually help the people who are aspiring to play.

TLDR:
1) People die 11+ times to PvP they initiated, are not permadeathed, then are allowed to partake in burning your structure down. Consequently, you cannot go to their place, without suffering real consequences, i.e. permadeath. Because it's "serious business" when you attack good.
2) If you can look past the thicket of past anger in experience in this post, you will find evidence of a server mentality that is predisposed against evil, and a lot of the server (Dm's included) feels it right to treat them just shy of you would a criminal, OOC.
3) Once again, having zero death penalties (especially for good players) is the Achilles heel to adding meaningful RP to this server.

The moral relativism inherent in scrapping the alignment system does bring to mind an incident that occurred in a friends Star Wars tabletop game once, though. A jedi PC used the Force to cause a person's intestines to rip out of his own abdomen and strangle him. When the DM began to apply Darkside points, the player said, "My PC should not gain any Darkside points for that action because he does not know it is wrong. No one has ever told him it is an evil act to asphyxiate a person with their own internal organs, so I don't think I should have any darkside points."

Please try to take this in the least bitchy or accusatory way, possible, Jimbono1...

You're not qualified to assess whether Tarkuul is "impacting the server." No single player is, because no single player can see what's going on in every private conversation among every faction's membership at all times. I can tell you with infallible certainty that Tarkuul has influenced decisions in Winya Ravana, for example. The previous Justicar's intended crusade against Tarkuul was a significant portion of the motivation for forming the Treaty of Light that's currently dominant in Amian politics. Saying Tarkuul hasn't affected anything is simply factually false. It's not even a matter of opinion, really. It's emprically provable that Tarkuul has shaped things. It's just done so quietly.

Yossarin wrote:

The moral relativism inherent in scrapping the alignment system does bring to mind an incident that occurred in a friends Star Wars tabletop game once, though. A jedi PC used the Force to cause a person's intestines to rip out of his own abdomen and strangle him. When the DM began to apply Darkside points, the player said, "My PC should not gain any Darkside points for that action because he does not know it is wrong. No one has ever told him it is an evil act to asphyxiate a person with their own internal organs, so I don't think I should have any darkside points."

Heh, my friends and I used to have superficial arguments about alignment and such with Star Wars. I think we mentioned something like your scenario even, haha. The Force in SW is like the Cosmos in DnD. Something's evil even if you don't know it's evil. It's kind of shitty at times, like it's the old 'ignorance of the law is not an excuse' but that's how a cold, uncaring Cosmos is, in the end.

Yossarin wrote:

The moral relativism inherent in scrapping the alignment system does bring to mind an incident that occurred in a friends Star Wars tabletop game once, though. A jedi PC used the Force to cause a person's intestines to rip out of his own abdomen and strangle him. When the DM began to apply Darkside points, the player said, "My PC should not gain any Darkside points for that action because he does not know it is wrong. No one has ever told him it is an evil act to asphyxiate a person with their own internal organs, so I don't think I should have any darkside points."

I'm not advocating scrapping morality. I'm advocating scrapping the mechanic. Characters would still be answerable to their gods, their consciences, their commanders, and even to the cosmic forces of Good and Evil and Law and Chaos. But all those factors would be in the control of completely IC entities, where they belong, guided by the DMs and by fellow players, instead of controlled by a code on an OOC character sheet.

Remove the ECL of drow and make elistraee drow request only would, definitely, make evil more numerous... And finally you would have a challenge dear winyans

Yeah. I'm looking at you, Liz! <3

Muspelkvist wrote:

Remove the ECL of drow and make elistraee drow request only would, definitely, make evil more numerous... And finally you would have a challenge dear winyans

Yeah. I'm looking at you, Liz! <3

Somehow I knew that would come from you :p

Muspelkvist wrote:

Remove the ECL of drow and make elistraee drow request only would, definitely, make evil more numerous... And finally you would have a challenge dear winyans

Yeah. I'm looking at you, Liz! <3

I usually hate most of your ideas, but this one isn't half bad. Too bad it won't happen since some people actually think drow are good, mechanically. One day they might learn mathematics. That, and we have some kind of deep obsession with "good drow" which pretty much flies hard against canon.

Thanks for the clarification, Needled. There were a few interpretations I could take. To be fair, I made that post against a core of players, both good and evil, who liked to pretend consequences didn't exist, but you are right about it being one-sided, as in the only consequences that appeared to exist were when the player went up against the DM-controlled universe. In practice, it worked a bit different from that as others can attest, since players themselves represented the DM-controlled universe better, but you are right, it did not address the antithesis you call to attention.

Too late for me to do anything about that at this point, though! I'm just your average schmuck now.

P Three wrote:

Alaria- wrote:

I just wanted to chime in and say that I agree with this part. There's also another aspect in that and it's that characters who do try to interact with these characters are equally punished. That, in combination with the 'rumour mill', is enough to create permanent problems for characters of which they have no way of getting out of.

A server shouldn't punish players for interacting with other players. If anything it should be encouraged.

Without coming off like a dick (hopefully) there is something you're blaming on OOC that is actually IC.

If you hang out with openly bad, murderous people, you are going to be shunned by good people. This isn't anyone trying to "starve you of RP", and we don't hate you OOCly or want to kill your good time. This is the actual consequence, IC, to the actions you've chosen, IC. It just happens to suck ass OOCly as well. Trust me, I've been there, and had to spend -years- working on the public image of my chars (See: Katsumi)

While I understand your point of view, I believe that the IC 'hate', if you will, is only justified up until a certain point. The problem of evil characters in particular being starved of RP and then finding zero reason to log in is a big OOC problem. I think Yossarin's post was a good example of how I think things should be.

Even though my character isn't evil, I have had her interact with freaking Lolthites of all PC's. Sure, she hates them IC, but what is the point to play if we don't RP? I think that the whole *Ignore player entirely because my character hates them* deal is over the top.

Yossarin wrote:

Thanks for the clarification, Needled. There were a few interpretations I could take. To be fair, I made that post against a core of players, both good and evil, who liked to pretend consequences didn't exist, but you are right about it being one-sided, as in the only consequences that appeared to exist were when the player went up against the DM-controlled universe. In practice, it worked a bit different from that as others can attest, since players themselves represented the DM-controlled universe better, but you are right, it did not address the antithesis you call to attention.

Too late for me to do anything about that at this point, though! I'm just your average schmuck now.

If you can at least see what I'm saying, then that's all I posted it for anyways. I currently don't play (haven't for a while honestly so I'm not going to be hurt

) Sad to see you're not a DM anymore, seeing as how you're one of the few who are open minded. That being said, I'm not entirely sure there's much that you or any DM could do, it's more of a mentality that needs to shift. The only thing a DM can do is add death penalties, and that topic is even more cyclical than this one.

There needs to be an Evil Paladin class. There I said it.

And don't go saying BG, that's laughable. I mean an actual anti Paladin that can achieve the same power a Paladin can get mechanically. I've considered things like evil raiding villages and stuff and then I realized that as soon as the Paladins show up the evil people are screwed once Smites start hitting. And there's not equivalent to it on Evil's side.

Unless I'm severely missing something.

Last edited by RaveN on Sat, Sep 28 2013, 20:17 PM, edited 1 time in total.

You're not missing anything. Conversely, the paladin class can be balanced, and not just continue to be massively overpowered.

There's that, but I severely doubt that would ever happen, to be honest.

Naivatkal wrote:

There's that, but I severely doubt that would ever happen, to be honest.

So do I. It's unfortunate.

Alaria- wrote:

While I understand your point of view, I believe that the IC 'hate', if you will, is only justified up until a certain point. The problem of evil characters in particular being starved of RP and then finding zero reason to log in is a big OOC problem. I think Yossarin's post was a good example of how I think things should be.

Even though my character isn't evil, I have had her interact with freaking Lolthites of all PC's. Sure, she hates them IC, but what is the point to play if we don't RP? I think that the whole *Ignore player entirely because my character hates them* deal is over the top.

If there's ignoring -players-, then there might be problems. But then, no one has to like you as a player. No one has to pay attention to -you- as a player. However, if they're legitimately ignoring RP, then screenie and report, because that's not cool.

If you're lacking a reason to log on, look at why you're logging on and what you want to accomplish. That might be part of the reason. (Might. Might not. Every situation is different)

Muspelkvist wrote:

Remove the ECL of drow and make elistraee drow request only would, definitely, make evil more numerous... And finally you would have a challenge dear winyans

Yeah. I'm looking at you, Liz! <3

This has been brought up a few times, but the thread is always locked without any real discussion.

Naivatkal wrote:

There needs to be an Evil Paladin class. There I said it.

And don't go saying BG, that's laughable. I mean an actual anti Paladin that can achieve the same power a Paladin can get mechanically. I've considered things like evil raiding villages and stuff and then I realized that as soon as the Paladins show up the evil people are screwed once Smites start hitting. And there's not equivalent to it on Evil's side.

Unless I'm severely missing something.

This has been brought up before too and got locked before it even took off. I'm personally in complete agreement, nerfing paladin would be the easier route but you would piss off too many players and likely get flooded with rebuild requests. But just adding a new class Anti-Paladin? Not only would it serve to level the playing field but you know that soooo many people would start to make them if only because it's a new class. Just like when the Knight Commander was added, anyone that's made a character made to smite good knows just how shitty it is to one based on smite evil. I like the changes to Blackguard myself but there's no question it is severely out gunned.

If we're talking mechanics, I've spent 7 years in NWN before I came to Amia, it was pure PVP. I've made every build imaginable including the funny ones. IMHO the only thing less powerful than a Paladin is a Bard. Cmon, give us evil paladins :cry:

Of course it's been suggested, discussed and brought up before. But Voicing disagreement is still critically important to running a legitimate, player-centered server.

Liz wrote:

Please try to take this in the least bitchy or accusatory way, possible, Jimbono1...

You're not qualified to assess whether Tarkuul is "impacting the server." No single player is, because no single player can see what's going on in every private conversation among every faction's membership at all times. I can tell you with infallible certainty that Tarkuul has influenced decisions in Winya Ravana, for example. The previous Justicar's intended crusade against Tarkuul was a significant portion of the motivation for forming the Treaty of Light that's currently dominant in Amian politics. Saying Tarkuul hasn't affected anything is simply factually false. It's not even a matter of opinion, really. It's emprically provable that Tarkuul has shaped things. It's just done so quietly.

So what you are saying is Tarkuul is responsible for uniting the forces of good and making evil practical unplayable on Amia?

I don't see how that impacts the server in aid of evil, which is my entire point.

Food for thought; allow evil PC's and NPC's to create an invincible city of evil developed mostly by ambitions of PC IG RP, and make it have the same invincibility aura that Kohlingen and Cordor currently have. The thorn in the side that evil has dealt with the entire existence of Amia, but the opposite. Don't put it on Amia B. Don't create some random island for it, and pretend like it matters to the server plot. Lets not fight the germans in Madagascar during WWII and say that it matters. Lets bring evil close to the heart, and close to home. It's not like good will have anything to lose.

Just advocate for adding that stupid class Favoured Soul (which a lot of powerbuilds center around in nwn2) and watch the paladins crumble.

Silkelock wrote:

Just advocate for adding that stupid class Favoured Soul (which a lot of powerbuilds center around in nwn2) and watch the paladins crumble.

What's to stop good from making them? Then you have Favored Soul powerbuilds coupled with Paladins.

Needled247 wrote:

Food for thought; allow evil PC's and NPC's to create an invincible city of evil developed mostly by ambitions of PC IG RP, and make it have the same invincibility aura that Kohlingen and Cordor currently have. The thorn in the side that evil has dealt with the entire existence of Amia, but the opposite. Don't put it on Amia B. Don't create some random island for it, and pretend like it matters to the server plot. Lets not fight the germans in Madagascar during WWII and say that it matters. Lets bring evil close to the heart, and close to home. It's not like good will have anything to lose.

Kind of what I was suggesting at the beginning really. Underport is great for this, unless you consider it to be too remote in which case well I dunno. I'd find it a bit incongruous if a bastion of evil sprang up in the middle of the island overnight (even though this could literally happen in our high magic setting - yeah it really is high magic - but it would be an aspect of Forgotten Realms I could stand to see less of). And really if the evil playerbase managed to get their shit together (their shit is currently not together for entirely IC reasons very typical of evil - it's been said before, but the *general alignment is difficult to unite) it wouldn't really be that hard to wreck Kohlingen.

*The source of evil's difficulty of uniting is really that bad guys are just so much more diverse in terms of motivations. The basic premise is that they don't fit into normal society whereas good and neutral - even the wildest, anti-authoritarian unlawful sorts, can generally unite behind ideals such as justice, compassion, pragmatic benefits of fitting into civilised society and suchlike. It's a lot harder for evil, since not only do you get those rare few who are compassionate, noble, idealistic or justice-seeking, you also get every shade of depraved and crazy and ambitious and greedy and manipulative and untrustworthy from here to Timbuktu. Or is it better to say "Kara-tur". Not to say Good are boring, and I acknowledge that my position is rather subjective because I prefer not to play Good. But I've always found that you have a lot more freedom if you are willing to go the direction frequently deemed as "evil", and my position is supported by the prevailing belief that villains in fiction just tend to be more interesting than the heroes (and the more interesting heroes are typically the ones with villainous traits or firmly stuck in the moral grey goo.

Mechanically removing alignment doesn't really help much aside from making clerics a bit of a mess (several domains would literally have to vanish or make little to no sense). Paladins can suddenly smite everyone and a lot of the time it will be absolutely justifiable, even against good/neutral PCs. Powerful alignment-related effects (of which, admittedly, there aren't as many as there are in P&P) also get a bit screwy. If your problem is that the alignment system leads to people being idiots, well, no one can see your alignment anyway unless they cheat and exploit abilities that trigger off them, and even then if you're smiting a non-evil you did so while expecting it to work.

Ðraco wrote:

Silkelock wrote:

Just advocate for adding that stupid class Favoured Soul (which a lot of powerbuilds center around in nwn2) and watch the paladins crumble.

What's to stop good from making them? Then you have Favored Soul powerbuilds coupled with Paladins.

Besides, Favored Souls are clerics and are not equal to Paladins :p

I've played both good and evil characters and even been the leader of a faction of evil characters but from what I've seen and I accepted it, Evil is a -challenging- alignment to play. Not only are you against the heroes but heh face it Evil's is Evil so you are against one another as well, the leader always wondering who is plotting against them and becoming paranoid to who they can trust and have to set up safeguards to prevent such. This within itself takes -most- of the evil factions leaders time along with inner faction dispute and due to such causes very little outside of the faction to get done. I think that is pretty much -why- evil factions and alliances tend to fail, they use fear, and power to rally forces and there really is little loyalty. I understand that -may- not be the case for all factions or even individual characters but you can't blame a server rule for the lack of evil. Basically evil -can't- win if you look at the numbers. Evil alliances fall, someone always outs the most deceptive and scheming plots then it falls like a house of cards.

I'm not speaking for or against evil since I like playing both alignments but it's not impossible to play evil characters just remember lol villians lose. If your playing a character like I did with Apocalypse(Rose) I was just setting her up to fail lol yes cruel I know but that's what evil does in the long run. There is -way- to many good alliances that are not going anywhere that will -not- allow evil to prevail. It's fun and challenging to play an evil character but in the long run you have to recognize the villian eventually loses.

All I can say is have fun with the plotting, scheming, precautions and distrust oh and that unquinchable lust for power we all know and love...heh because your time is short when a villian name is marked and they are known as such. In the meantime have fun with it and give those damn goodie goodie's something to worry about.

As far as evil cities goes all I can suggest is don't let -anyone- know they are evil until they are fortified and able to fend off an attack. Although placing them on the side of a cliff might look eerily cool remember other large cities have navies too. A lesson the Banites learned the hard way. -If- you have an evil -city- in mind you have to think -big-, armaments, defenses, alliances, false facades(dont look evil to start out), and yes a navy as well. Basically you have to think it through and be cautious. One option that worked for the Horsemen which some of you -may- remember and some havn't a clue is the base was hidden a secret base is a better way to go bar none, but even that will eventually be found.

Just keep in mind no matter how many resources, gold and time you put into the building of a city expect it all to be laid to waste, eventually. Another good thing which isn't necessary but helps is to find a DM that is willing to work -with- any given evil faction to help run a plot line that may last awhile, but even with this more than likely the evil faction or even the crafty individual will wind up losing. It's just the way of things. See Sauron for details.

I do want to add although I -do- have experience. This is simply my opinion and suggestions others -may- have different playstyles but I can only go by my experiences as to what to suggest.

Greyweaver wrote:

As far as evil cities goes all I can suggest is don't let -anyone- know they are evil until they are fortified and able to fend off an attack.

This is exactly it, though. Underport would be a decent place for evil to work out of because law and business are the orders of the day, although it's feasible that if any group was bringing unnecessary attention to the place they might be thrown out in the interests of not having the Fist of Justice rammed in their nethery places. Even so, the place is filled with all kinds of evil races and is blatantly involved in the slave trade, so the fact that it hasn't yet been annihilated could be seen as an encouraging sign.

The strength of the evil city (and evil in general, I suppose) needs to lie in other areas than sheer military might, though. Obviously that's important, but having serious connections on the mainland, or being a vital key in the Isle's economy, or even claiming to harbour a weapon that would ensure mutually assured destruction in the event of an attack would all take some of the wind out of the sails of the goodies. Perhaps the city is in a key location for combating some encroaching threat, and a city of reasonable but amoral people is preferable to a horde of swarming demons camping on your doorstep.

Again, the city would need to have the means to encompass everybody, which is why I mention Underport as an example. It seems to me that law and business is more important there than anything else, which is why surfacers can come to trade with Underdark beings. The same way I suppose law and knowledge are the main focusses of Tarkuul, not evil for the sake of evil.

This is why I agree with people's calls to abandon the black-and-white terminology. If evil did get a city like this, I don't doubt it'd be rife with corruption and underhand deals, but it would need to have a presentable face. It could offer cheap housing to attract workers from Cordor in the wake of recent events. Perhaps it could use established nobility as its rulership to appear more legitimate in the eyes of other settlements. It would definitely not be a black city with a constant storm above it filled with swooping gargoyles and random thunder rolls any time anybody says 'The Castle.' Law vs Chaos would be a good focus within it, as perhaps Lawful Evil, Neutral and Good characters could be seen grudgingly working together to stamp out the influence of criminal gangs and others who can manipulate and undermine the law which could give other evils the opportunity to thrive and prosper. Vigilante justice could see Good characters being condemned to death by other Good characters.

I doubt this will happen anyway, but it's an entertaining thought.

Muspelkvist wrote:

Of course it's been suggested, discussed and brought up before. But Voicing disagreement is still critically important to running a legitimate, player-centered server.

Just as important to voicing disagreement, then, is having those voices be heard. Every time someone brings up how they feel shut out of plots and RP by the 'allstars' the immediate response is, 'No, that's not a thing, there is no favoritism.' There isn't much point to sharing your experiences if the leadership of the server is going to tell you your experiences are wrong.

As dusty mentioned earlier, I will be having alot more interaction with the evil world in the upcoming weeks. Im taking my time between RL stuff to plan out my next plotline.

Team evil: use the next month or so to polish your boots, apply your war paint and get your kits squared away. Practice your evil laughs, unarchive those assassins aswell as those chromatic disciples in your vaults and shake the dust off.

Banites get your fear on.

Drowsies and Tarkuulies, start leveling if you need to now while you have a month.

And bring a sense of humour: its mandatory.

Galenson wrote:

And bring a sense of humour: its mandatory.

I take it being Australian will suffice here?

From what I can tell of Ausies, sheep jokes and ear boxing is a must, mate.

But more seriously, something that helps when playing Evil is to keep your humor. It helps keep everyone grounded OOCly.

Needled247 wrote:

Food for thought; allow evil PC's and NPC's to create an invincible city of evil developed mostly by ambitions of PC IG RP

This already exists, it's Tarkuul. I would love to see more evil people in Tarkuul, but most of you just don't come. And for those of you saying Tarkuul has no impact, let's just say you're not there behind the scenes... but we are.

But take whatever I say with a grain of salt, I don't mean any condescension by it. I'm doing what I can in character to promote Tarkuul further really, and welcome all of you to come along for the ride if you like. We'd love to have you.

Granted, Tarkuul is clearly not for everyone and I understand that. But that being said, you don't have to be in the faction to be in Tarkuul

Needled247 wrote:

Food for thought; allow evil PC's and NPC's to create an invincible city of evil developed mostly by ambitions of PC IG RP

This already exists, it's Tarkuul. I mean I won't say we're the unkillable monster or anything, but we're pretty formidable as a settlement. And think about how many locked doors you've never seen inside, there's a lot to learn and a lot of fun to be had doing so. I would love to see more evil people in Tarkuul, but most of you just don't come. And for those of you saying Tarkuul has no impact, let's just say you're not there behind the scenes... but we are.

But take whatever I say with a grain of salt, I don't mean any condescension by it. I'm doing what I can in character to promote Tarkuul further really, and welcome all of you to come along for the ride if you like. We'd love to have you.

Granted, Tarkuul is clearly not for everyone and I understand that. But that being said, you don't have to be in the faction to be in Tarkuul

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

Needled247 wrote:

Food for thought; allow evil PC's and NPC's to create an invincible city of evil developed mostly by ambitions of PC IG RP

This already exists, it's Tarkuul. I mean I won't say we're the unkillable monster or anything, but we're pretty formidable as a settlement. And think about how many locked doors you've never seen inside, there's a lot to learn and a lot of fun to be had doing so. I would love to see more evil people in Tarkuul, but most of you just don't come. And for those of you saying Tarkuul has no impact, let's just say you're not there behind the scenes... but we are.

But take whatever I say with a grain of salt, I don't mean any condescension by it. I'm doing what I can in character to promote Tarkuul further really, and welcome all of you to come along for the ride if you like. We'd love to have you.

Granted, Tarkuul is clearly not for everyone and I understand that. But that being said, you don't have to be in the faction to be in Tarkuul

Sorry but no. Tarkuul does not allow people to do evil things except for experimentation, and even that isn't allowed to be done on actual people. Plus it is ruled by DM's, not players. What Needled is stating is a player-ran city, over a DM pre-scripted event-based plot device. Take example Banites, what use would they be to that city? I don't even understand why they were unbanned. It seems like a completely OOC decision. Banites will never gain ultimate power in Tarkuul because the Voice is the supreme ruler there, and that is what makes it an unattractive destination, as it always has. Omnipresences are boring.

I'm sure there is an explainable IC reason for how it came to be, but I can't really take Tarkuul too seriously while there's a temple to Shar there. Temple to a goddess of forgetfulness, keeping secrets, insanity, and the Shadow Weave... in a city devoted to expanding knowledge, logic, and having a significant population of magic users.

Anyway, I've said it before, and I'll say it again when the subject of Evil re: Amia gets brought up. People would probably have more success playing "evil" characters reevaluate what "evil" means. I've always favored the altruism(good) vs selfishness(evil) paradigm. There are a lot more selfish actions a PC or group can get away with that won't immediately cause every paladin and his buddy to round up a posse and come after you.

TL;DR, Amian evil PC players should avoid punting the puppy and instead, adopt a more comprehensive idea of why their evil feels so good to their PC.

Dark Immolation wrote:

I've always favored the altruism(good) vs selfishness(evil) paradigm.

I'm with you on that issue. I'm also amused that, using this metric, most of the 'good' people I've met are incredibly evil. And, of course, when a paladin beats an unarmed man, or pursues political ends through force, or beats on people because they think it's right, well, come one. Selfish as it comes.

Jim, no offense, but you haven't been around Tarkuul actively in over a year. I've seen you three times since the event you participated. That being said you've been around for a long time and I respect you as a guy who did a lot of evil.

And Beldor, instead of just assuming that the temple is some lore breaking idiocy why not consider the implications of it? Personally? I'd say if you thought about it enough that it's the one thing that it would actually make sense to have a temple like that.

But hey, not for everyone.

Being Evil on Amia

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