A bit of context. Generally speaking, I don't like playing traditional adventurers in a PW setting. I feel there are games that allow me to indulge in that far better, and it's overall a waste of the potential of the PW system. Having DM's (terrible name) capable of administering the game world directly, and a toolset that allows for modifications to the server with relative ease and speed allows for a world that dynamically evolves. Moreover, it potentially supports characters who aren't adventurers.

The most rewarding moments I had on Amia were not being part of world-changing events, they were part of personal triumph or failure. Elorathall performing the Cordor Concerto, and Elor's paranoia making him persona non grata in Triumvir. Marcus doing his guard patrols and handling fairly mundane crimes, challenging and growing as a priest, and facing down Kohlingen's army at Cordor's gates - and choosing to flee. Aernoud selling beer and brokering agreements with other taverns, rioting against the Mulhorandi and struggling with his identity as noble. These experiences have nothing to do with their race, class or power. They are all about the PC's interaction with the world and it's history. And while interaction with PC's is a major part of this, (adventuring) PC's tend to slide into the uncanny valley and become unrelatable simply because of their activities. How relatable is a PC who invades the Abyss for fun and profit to a guy who is trying to grow his family's brewery? For such PC's, dealing with NPC's and the "mundane" game world becomes considerably more important.

However, I have long found there is a severe lack of support for players wanting to play non-adventurers - to the point where it's even forced on you simply to build your network of PC relations. This isn't simply due to the utterly broken and nonsensical job system (kicking the dead horse there), but more due to the architecture of Amia as a whole.

DM's focus on running adventure-focused plots, and make a token effort (if any) to support "civilian" activities - let alone go out of their way to create opportunities, challenges, risks and consequences associated with such. Even major NPC's are generic, static and interchangeable. DM's don't have a grasp of the settlements they administer, no interest in managing them as they should (if you didn't want to play Amia SimCity, you shouldn't have taken up Cordor SorryNotSorry), and apparently no common knowledgebase to fall back on - leading to contradictory information or outright retconning. Paradoxically, there is a stranglehold on the status quo. Non of this matters if your character spends his/her time between looking bored in Bendir and murderstabbing/wtfbooming The Next Big Thing, but as soon as you push even the slightest bit deeper into the game world it leads to hair-pulling, head-desking levels of frustration. And these questions are (condescendingly) dismissed with "it's there, you just have to find it" if not an altogether more honest "I dunno lol". Without better support and possibility, this completely hamstrings merchants, politicians and other "civics". More pertinent, it drives players willing to delve into these roles away.

Secondly, and tied to the above, I don't have the time or interest to hunt monsters. I don't have the time or interest to maybe 3% of my playtime having meaningful consequences for my character. Interest aside, I simply can't be IG as I could before so rely much more heavily on the forums. Yet these are treated as a sidenote rather than a means for players without much time to keep things going. If my character isn't going to go off fighting orcs, much of what my character does could be handled trough forum RP - while particularly "challenging" interactions can still call me IG (as I know it will actually be time well spent.).

Before I go into suggestions, I'd like to see if there are any who mirror these opinions, who have their own thoughts to add perhaps.

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Aernoud Van Brabant: Heir of the House. Proprietor of the Beer Wagon.
"Go to the Mayfields, have a pint, and wait for this to blow over."
Aurelius: Sunmaster of Amaunator. Contemplative. Aspirant to Transcendance.
"Sol Invictus"

I fully agree. I can't build very well for PvP or PvM (Xaviera at 30th can solo minotaurs at best, and Xina at 12th can only handle Bendir orcs after spending 50 K on weapons, armour and items), nor do I much care to. My greatest and most transformative RP moments have also been in the social/interpersonal sphere. In fact, these two factors have turned Xaviera into an anti-adventurer, which I'm now using as a conflict for her daughter Xina, who is too weak to adventure, is afraid of death/injury and disappointing her mother, but who needs the money because being a cook just doesn't cut it and shooting arrows at targets won't improve her skills.

The problem is that there is nothing apart from social RP as a means of self-improvement that is supported by the NWN engine. Even the job system is contingent on levelling. About the only ways I can think of to become inflential without levelling are to be a canny merchant/trader or to leverage one's OOC contacts.

Without rebuilding the entire NWN engine into something like the Runequest RPG (which gives you a chance of improving a skill when you use it) the only thing I can think of is to either do something similar associated with the PC's CD key for skill ranks (apart from levelling) or to rebuild the job system in such a way that using it results in gradual (rather than stepwise) improvement and the products thereof are actually useful. The problem with the latter, as the job system has previously shown, is that it gets hijacked as a means of levelling. Even awarding xp or DCs for simply spending time in game are flawed.

Unfortunately, I don't have any better ideas.

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~Sharess on AmiaWiki~
Priestess, politician, prostitute
"[They] were moving in on me like Sharessans on a new broad in the bath house" - Tracer Bolt
AmiaWiki mod (mostly inactive)

Can't do better then minos at 30 and bendir orcs at 12?

Whats your build? Post on the build forum and we can get you squared away (flavor identical but mechanically far superior) asap.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

I don't think you should be surprised that a Dungeons and Dragons themed world caters to adventurers in terms of the overarching plots and stuff we run. If you want to do more mundane things, i.e. cook, clean, research, brew, that means the onus is on you as a player to approach us, and we will work with you. Like I am working with you, regarding Aernoud's looking for a spouse through the church if Siamorphe, and more. I think this is a disingenuous attempt to lambast the DMs for doing what DMS generally do, which is run adventures, affect the world, and work with PCs on their personal goals.



I am pretty sure this is actually due to Dungeons and Dragons being a game about adventuring. Nothing stops you from playing whatever character you like, but at the end of the day, no matter what concept you play, you as a player, a real flesh and blood person, need to understand that we are all playing a videogame designed around letting us play fantastical adventurers in fantastical situations, weilding magic, arms, and armor, and taking up sides in battles between good and evil, order and mayhem. If, in the midst of all that, you choose to want to play the waitress in a tavern, you need to be prepared for maybe needing to do a lot more on your own and be a bit more of a go getter, because we as DMs have a lot to do with the world, and unfortunately the great professions of Arwen's 7th Tailor, who adds the cufflinks to shirts, isn't something we stop to often think about and support mechanically. But we will, if you come to us, and mention it, and we have before, and we continue to do so. See: Honourable Guilde of Drainage Services, which ended up canonizing itself into Cordor and how it works.



This simply isn't true. In Cordor's case it had become an unmanageable mishmosh of bullshit. Sure, Kobra may have run it fine, but do you know how many notes Kobra left us as a DM team when he left? Nothing. And yeah, I know he can read this. Cordor was an un-navigable mire of bullshit, with a constitution that didn't make sense (specific peoples are mentioned to be subject to the law - but then those mentions are absent everywhere else? That's not how you write a binding constitution. No offense to the people who had a lot of fun writing that, but it is full of a lot of holes. This isn't an insult, it's just what happens when non-lawyers try to write all encompassing contracts. A more general common sense thing works way better.), an election system that didn't make sense, and about a dozen ancilliary and tertiary positions that would never be filled by PCs even in the high population days of the server, and so having to track 20+ NPCs just to run one city on the server made absolutely no sense, let alone when none of those NPCs were given any notes, bios, agendas, or anything like that, meaning that after the fact we were scrambling to pick up the pieces and try to make things work with what we had. That is very different from not having a grasp of the settlements on the server or having an interest in manage them. Cordor can be run without making it "Amia SimCity", (and was in fact done so for YEARS by Yossarin and every other DM - "Amia SimCity" is a term that could only be used to describe Kobra's reign, and the Republic) to use a term you cribbed from an ex DM in an attempt to insult her and her efforts to work with Cordor before her departure, including holding a meeting with the entirety of Cordor + more to try to work things out. You absolutely do not need to know the exact fraction of the city budget that goes into maintaining the road infrastructure. But if your PC WANTS to know it, wants to look into it, then we will help you find out to the best of our ability. And some of this stuff is indeed stuff we don't have written down. For example we don't have written down how many people attent the Ilmateri sermons every tenday in Kohlingen, but if your character puts in the legwork and wants to find that out, we're happy to assist you. Keep in mind that may take a little bit as we as DMs hammer that out and figure that information out with you, but under nearly no circumstances are you going to be simply told "no, don't bother", and even then, not without some redirection elsewhere to help you on your way.

So yes, when election season came around, you saw a consolidation of a great number of positions and a regression of many of those positions into the background when it became evident that there was no PC desire to followup or look into those positions (and of those that did, some simply left or quit. We can't have non-active players in important positions.). Unless something is specifically going on in South Cordor, for example, Parulg does not need to be a constant day to day factor outside of his work in South Cordor. That does not mean we do not take things into account, simply that he slides back into relative quietness compared to the Ministers. At the time, running Cordor per the original notes required the following:

4 ministers
4 secretaries to ministers
4 governors (5 now with central)
4 secretaries to governors (5 now with central)

This isn't even counting the random personalities like guard NPCs like Law Knight Ajai or Lawson, Griff, Arwen, Hil'rash, the crew at the Gentlemen's Club, and various other personalities that were used in running the various facets of the city. When you compare it to Kohlingen, Wiltun, or any other city on the server, there is absolutely no need for the DMS to track that many NPCs for the day to day operation of one city on the server, especially when many of the details of that operation are largely not relevant until there is PC interest in them. This has actually itself created some interesting RP in the server, as there are a few PCs that have quietly and not so quietly noted, for example, that there is still no currently chosen Speaker, and that most all of the Ministers have not publically appointed a Secretary (Tristana has, for example - it's an acolyte from her church - but no one has ever wanted to approach the NPC or speak to them or interact with them, and the NPC themselves does mundane tasks, so they fade off to the background until needed so that the place doesn't become filled with useless white noise.)



We do focus on adventuring plots, yes.
It only looks token to you because mundane efforts are by their very nature not massive impact, and are not played except by a tiny fraction of the server.
No, major NPCS are not static and interchangeable. You can make blanket statements like this, but in my case, I can actually back them up with experience and context. To do so would make this post far too long - but simply ask about Tristana, basically anyone in Wharftown, anyone in Endir's Point, literally all of Tarkuul, and much much more for examples of NPCs that are fleshed out to the degree most PCs are. To his credit, much of Kobra's Cordor stuff was also very fleshed out and detailed, it just unfortunately never hit paper or forum for anyone else to do anything with after his interest in DMing waned, leaving us again to pick up the pieces.



This only happens when DMs don't do their jobs. Either by not using what's written, or by not writing what they do.



Defend your thesis. This is untrue. State examples.



Those aren't condescending answers. Being told that the information is in game, and to go dig for it, how do you do such a thing, etc, is not condescending. I have helped you quite a bit with Aernoud's stuff, so I am not sure where this comment comes from. The support is there, and the possibility is there, and on top of that you have even been utilizing the system, so I am really not sure where your complaints come from here. If you are mad because I cannot tell you there are 3,284 people in South Cordor, and that 35% of their income comes from exports (fish, oils, luxuries sent from East and West), 25% from exporting lumber from guldorand, 15% from internal sales of goods and services and the rest subsidied by the city as thanks for hosting the vast number of guards there, I don't know what to tell you. Those sort of exact numbers are, in my opinion, really not important to running the server. General abstracts are, such as: There's about 3000 people in South Cordor. Major exports are fish, oils, and the various luxuries like arwen's clothes exported out. Lumber from Guldorand is also primarily shipped out from here. The district receives subsidies from the city as thanks for being host to the large guard presence which takes away from warehouse room typically needed on a docks district. This is information a player can use, and then drill down to the more specific as needed. There are PCs who have done this and have gotten more of the specifics. Not every PCs does, or wants to, or is interested in it, and that's fine.



That's because, and I'm going to be super realtalk honest with you: The day to day of running a brewery, the day to day of running the Temple of Love, the minor stuff that's handled by the people below you, or being a tailor at your job, or waitressing a shift at the Nomad... That is a sidenote. Nothing stops you from handling it in game if you want to, but there is a reason the forum is there and why it serves the function it does. It allows you to play the characters while coming in game to do the important things and the impactful things rather than needing to spend half of every day talking to Bill Jordan about which brews sold well today, so you know what to plant for next year. And even more to the point: Where these things are sidenotes and minor, that generally means we give you guys, as players, more control over them. This rings true for me, anyways. I don't particularly mind if you say something sold well at Mayfields. I'd appreciate a note or a letter or something to keep me up to date but if you want to say Brabant Blonde is having a fantastic year, let's roll out a commemorative bottle, sure, that's great, I'll help with that. If you want to go talk to Cordor merchants about the rising, spiking food prices, sure, let's go do that, we'll hammer out a time.

If you choose to play a sheep herder in a DnD game, well, I just don't think you should be able to retain the privilege of being surprised when you realize that there is nothing set up into the game for being a sheep herder. The same goes, I think, for being a nobleman brewer with no interest in adventure, plots, or networking with PCs, and would rather work quietly with NPCs and other merchants. While there is a place for you in the server, just like there is for most any character concept, I think you need to necessarily understand that it is a very different (not better, not worse, not more, not less) place than what other swashbucklingly styled professions are going to have.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

I think there is room for the non-standard characters to get their voices and interests heard.

Tuomas has actually managed to find a niche for himself, in spite of the fact that until things went sideways in the Monolith or just before that, he really didn't want to adventure much. Admittedly, he did find opporitunities for Roleplay which still worked, and in a lot of those cases I understood what I was doing with him, just providing a background character. His own efforts regarding Guldorand when the Banites held it minor though they were would be I think his first adventurer style act.

The study of the Ley lines was a good example of non-standard adventurer RP which still regardless added something to the module. There still was some aspects of adventure to it, but it was in large research.

I see what you're trying to say (and I agree with some of your arguments) but my experience does not support it.

While we might have a fantasy themed world, Amia isn't D&D. The principles of a tabletop game should not be applied to a PW environment. Many things that work in tabletop (say, a campaign around time travel) don't work at all in a PW environment, and vice versa. Your argument also underlines my argument that the focus is on traditional adventuring and plots, rather than creating a living, breathing world that moves along regardless of what PC's do or don't do. And I'm a supporter of the less-is-more approach to design.

Perhaps Kobra did leave a black hole in terms of lore, but how was it even allowed to come to that? This just underlines the need for a good knowledge-base, and DM's policing their own to maintain it. It's key to consistency, and that's why I'm very supportive of Nivo (?)'s initiative to keep a summary of PC's notable actions and interactions with NPC's, and how this affects relations with NPC's. That kind of consistency is crucial. In that same line, the white noise you describe is exactly the kind of atmosphere that makes a world come to life. It shows these NPC's as active and present. Even just mentioning their name in relevant posts would help. It's the difference between "the room has a table and 2 chairs" and "the room is sparsely decorated, an old table and two mismatched chairs long abandoned by their original owner."

On the background of NPC's. I've spoken to you about this before, in the context of plots. If only a small fraction of the server knows more than their floaty names, they aren't major NPC's. I play a Kohlingen PC and know nothing more about the Justicar than Lucius of Tarkuul would - probably less. If, for example, she lost two fingers fighting a beastmen chieftain (something I figure would be relatively common knowledge), this not only gives her depth as a character - it also illustrates that she is a proactive soldier, which is far from evident at present. You could say that players should actively request this information, but with knowledge dissemination controlled by closed forums I think you're shooting yourself in the foot.

Now, within the context of this discussion, you say that knowing the exact population of Cordor and the exact economics isn't relevant. To many PC's it won't be. But to non-adventurers (and even many adventurers) this information is. True, we don't need to know exact numbers - there's plenty of reasons why such data wouldn't be available - but if you tell me "the population of Cordor South is around 3000 people", expect me to ask "how many women? Which races? Which ethnic groups? Which languages?". When you tell me "the major exports are fish, lumber and wooden toys", expect me to ask "which are the main guilds? Who leads them? What are their competitors? Is it trout or tuna? Does Kohlingen have tuna? How long can Cordor tuna be preserved? How long does it take to ship tuna to Kohlingen?" .. You see where this is going. I understand that this kind of fidelity of information might seem ludicrous to D&D-focused DM's, but to a merchant character (for example) it's not only desirable - it's necessary. To a law-focused character, gaining an oversight of precedents of particular cases related to X might be crucial. Sure, you might not have this information available this time - but you better do next time, when someone else asks. Hence.. the SimCity level of management. Too complex to manage? Then make the necessary changes to SimTradeOutpost or SimMercenaryCamp. Less is more.

On the status quo: tell me honestly, would the DM team allow a PC to become Justicar, Archmage of Tarkuul or Jarl of Wiltun? If so, can you point to a historical precedent?

Lastly, saying "this beer sold well this year!" feels too much like playing NPC's to be truly comfortable to me. But I see your point.

That said, a practical idea/suggestion I think would really help "civic"-focused PC's fill their own niche:
1) Trash the job system. It's clumsy, leads to ridiculous situations (people growing a granary's worth of food on their own in a single afternoon), supports RP-less grinding and doesn't produce useful items for PC's anyway.
2) Make "jobs" requestable with DC's. Not only does this reflect the PC/player invests in learning the craft, and getting access to the necessary equipment (and potentially losing it) it also can lead to far more creative uses. Case in point: Aernoud's Beer Wagon and Beer Spawner. His family owns the Mayfields Brewery, so he has access to the necessary facilities, and the beer wagon followed from RP. Your PC invested in creating a kick-ass sword. My PC invested in a tool to help expand his family's business. And because my PC is (or has access to) a master brewer with generations of experience, his high-quality beer even bestows some benefits that common inn beer does not (represented by low level buffs). Totally fantastic thing for a trader PC.
3) Rethink the Lore skill. It's too much of a catch-all term, too easy to abuse and can be used so much more interestingly.

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Aernoud Van Brabant: Heir of the House. Proprietor of the Beer Wagon.
"Go to the Mayfields, have a pint, and wait for this to blow over."
Aurelius: Sunmaster of Amaunator. Contemplative. Aspirant to Transcendance.
"Sol Invictus"

I realize that this is absolutely true, and this is exactly why it's difficult to be a non-adventurer in an adventuring game.


In the 'Why did you leave Amia' topic (which now seems to have disappeared) I wrote something to the effect that when I played the Speaker of Cordor, I would sometimes write notes to the DM to say "This is what I want to do, tell me if I can or if there's something else I need to know/do first." Typically the response (when there was one) was "Sure, you can do that" and that was the end of it. Nothing would actually happen. Perhaps the DM was overwhelmed, or maybe I was asking for too much detail, but I felt that I wasn't making any meaningful or impactful decisions, and so it was a largely pointless role. Xaviera now considers her term as Speaker to be one of the worst and most ineffectual times of her life, has sworn off Cordorian politics, and is largely content to sit back and watch the city implode (as she warned it would). Letting Kohlingen's army into Cordor was one of the few things she actually did that had any lasting effect (and wasn't dependent on her level or gear).

Now, running a brewery or a temple has a lot less impact on the game world, so stating that services are at such and such an hour, or that families eat for half price at this or that hour, is relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But if it's all right to just write a DM and say "this is how I see the Temple working and this is what I want to do and this is what I need to know" and get some answers, that suits me fine.

It doesn't solve the problem of trying to play (much less level up) a non-adventuring character in a game that is specifically geared to adventurers, but that's not something I reasonably expect will be catered to beyond the job system.

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~Sharess on AmiaWiki~
Priestess, politician, prostitute
"[They] were moving in on me like Sharessans on a new broad in the bath house" - Tracer Bolt
AmiaWiki mod (mostly inactive)

Until your city goes to war and its soldiers need your brewery to supply beer, without which they need to rely on local water supplies. Enjoy the typhoid fever.

In all seriousness, civic characters should have just as much (potential) influence on the game world as adventurers IF they put in the relatively same amount of effort. Everybody likes to have their moment to shine.

4) Allow for descriptive cybering to support seduction-focused political hussies.

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Aernoud Van Brabant: Heir of the House. Proprietor of the Beer Wagon.
"Go to the Mayfields, have a pint, and wait for this to blow over."
Aurelius: Sunmaster of Amaunator. Contemplative. Aspirant to Transcendance.
"Sol Invictus"

I've been getting the impression (somebody correct me if I'm mistaken) that the prelude to sex can be RP'd so long as there's no explicit mention of certain body parts and/or what's being done to them. Once you get more specific or detailed than "his hands roamed over her body, caressing and teasing her here and there" you're probably getting into dangerous territory.


LOL

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~Sharess on AmiaWiki~
Priestess, politician, prostitute
"[They] were moving in on me like Sharessans on a new broad in the bath house" - Tracer Bolt
AmiaWiki mod (mostly inactive)

Let's not.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

Pls no, just use skype like the rest of us

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Gerald Edmund
Discord: Metal Viking Guy #5433

DC taxation is theft!

I'm just going to take an entire post to address this.

They already do and did. I played backdoor politician all throughout the whole civil war arc before even touching the front door. You played civil discourse a lot too, but your character's platform didn't gain traction. I even thought Marcus had a lot of interesting potential to gain a following but it never got very far.

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Gerald Edmund
Discord: Metal Viking Guy #5433

DC taxation is theft!

Note to self: stop trolling own threads.

Too anecdotal for me, really.

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Aernoud Van Brabant: Heir of the House. Proprietor of the Beer Wagon.
"Go to the Mayfields, have a pint, and wait for this to blow over."
Aurelius: Sunmaster of Amaunator. Contemplative. Aspirant to Transcendance.
"Sol Invictus"

Having been the Cordor DM, I think I have to agree with Tormak in that the system just isn't designed for it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, we are playing NWN after all, a D&D based adventure game, and that's what the mechanics of the system we play with deal in primarily. Unless there's a /lot/ of custom stuff added to make city administration mechanically viable, things like a dynamic system of leadership, maintenance, treasuries, resources, population, etc, then leaving it all to a DM, especially a behemoth like Cordor, would take a lot of effort on a DM's shoulders. I have seen that some servers do have some of this, though such takes a massive amount of scripting resources, and still does have it's problems, (like NPCs not being given personality). Truth be told, I think it's too much to bear for anyone. Leadership politician PCs are very much tied to their DM, and in turn that DM is spending that effort into handling itty bitty politics rather than running adventures, intrigue, plots, etc.

Perhaps, to put this in perspective, I could say what it's like. I'm on at around 8:00 PM (around when I get home from work.) Usually players start piling up around 9:00 PM. So I get involved in something, say a government meeting, by the time it's done it's around 12:00 Midnight to 1 PM, usually too tired to write all the IC reports, DM records (accounting definitely gets difficult), and I need to get up for work in 6 hours or so. I also have to juggle player requests, sometimes ducking in and out to handle multiple things at once, because the government PCs aren't the only ones wanting to do stuff (someone wants to rob the temple?, I'd hate to put them on hold), and I say I'll get to them later, but tomorrow I'm busy with another request that takes hours, people get left through the cracks,...

It's a pretty messy thing overall.

Personally, I think PCs in government was a failed experiment. It's what players said they wanted at the time, and well, I tried to be a good DM and give it to them. I don't think it worked out though. Handling governmental stuff is a lot of boring accounting, word nitpicking over every little thing, factoring NPCs in every given situation, going along with PCs they like, even if it's OOC untenable, and giving PCs power to do a lot with settlements. It's entirely different playing a plot with a lot of deadly intrigue than over bickering over numbers and the finer points of governance. Governmental things like that need constant DM supervision, even if the PCs order NPCs to do something, then I still have to be there to handle those NPCs doing stuff. It's a massive load on the DM to keep track of all those things. It's definitely different when you have PCs working as guards, merchants, or other intermediaries for a cause, or have purely PC related initiatives, since those only require a minimal amount of DM oversight, and when DMs do get involved, it's to offer fun times, not to get caught up in how many million the Cordor government has in coin. I much more fondly remember the intrigue of the East vs West part of Cordor than I do the government meetings.

I think it's the same for many non-combattant PC roles. Not all of them, there are certainly successful ones I can point to. Merchant companies are a good non combat PC role, since that directly interfaces with other PCs as well. Someone putting on performances and art shows is another such example. Magic research can be good too, requiring only a few sessions. I know the Singing Sun tavern for a while had a PC run operation with several opening nights, which was awesome tavern RP. You do need to make sure such are well scheduled in that case but it can be done. A lot of it depends on how it's approached as well.

I think that's the ultimate crux of the issue, you want your non-adventurer PCs to be able to consistently interact with other PCs. They can't just solely focus on NPC interactions and ignore the PCs. It takes too much DM time and doesn't generate enough RP to justify the DM investment when their activity is high in demand for other things as well. While the PCs aren't the center of the world for the setting, they are the center of the world when you consider the focus that we want to in an online server maintain.

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I play:

My character, Crow, doesn't consider himself an 'adventurer'; or really a commoner, because he's never had an (official) paying job. He gets dragged goes on hunts with people, but almost never initiates it. lol This is aside from his relentless hunting of undead, of course, heh. So, non-adventurer type people can exist, it's how you view it, or role-play your character.

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It's really hard to take you seriously when you make suggestions like this. Remove the thing that allows nonstandard characters to shine, then force them to request it with DCs widening the gap between who has and doesn't? The Job system is also used to expand the Lore skill and determine what a character knows, so your third suggestion is already implemented on the server. Your other suggestions boil down to "slash content. This makes things better". That's absolutely asinine, I'm sorry. Removing the job system doesn't make things better. Jobs shouldn't need to be requested.



This is a fault of yours as a Kohl PC and not a fault of the DMs, tbh. Just because you don't know it doesn't make them not important, and that's what a lot of your complaints, both public and private, have tended to boil down to. Your views tend to be extremely self centralized and focused on you and what you know and what you experience, with little ability to see the wider picture. Moreover, I don't see how, in your example, knowing the Justicar lost 2 fingers in a random fight helps you know the character any better than the fact that she....

1: Orchestrated and organized the defense against the Dark Flight of Tiamat
2: Fought on the battlefield alongside the alliance, and personally led the counterattack
3: Was hand selected by the current Justicar to be his protege despite...
4: .... not being a Paladin, not being of the Triadic faith, and (less spectacularly for Kohl, but still relevant to a small degree) being a woman.
5: Became the Justicar after all of that and has continued to lead the city in her forward, no nonsense fashion.

I cannot speak for what happened while I was gone, by the Cys'tana I played would have been on the front lines with Kohlingen's troops fighting. She led from the front and has been an active participant in every large combat Kohlingen has ever been in, and is generally also in charge of any high end security or military decision, and has a stellar record of doing so, including de-facto running the city's larger needs in the latter end of Marinsbane's life when he fell ill. This is obvious from the way she speaks, presents herself, and acts in ever situation she's in. These aren't things that should just be tossed in a forum. Not every NPC needs books written about them on the forums to be important.



They can and should.



Not in the least. There comes a time when it's simply not possible or desireable to have the absolute quantity of material on the forums it would take to create these, or the time it would take to get there. As I said in the original post - content creation is best handled on a PC interest basis, both for consistency in the world, and for the time management of the DMs who take care of the world. If PCs become interested in the history of the Justicar then they can look into it and be rewarded.



These are answers that can be given to you if the character asks for them, with some of them being "give us a few days to get you the information" level stuff, like who might own specific local level guilds and fisheries. Ergo this is a nonissue. This is also the exact opposite of "less is more", btw. You are using that statement entirely wrong. Expecting quantity of information to equal quality of information is just asking for more, period.



Yes. Yes. Yes.
Historical Precedents:
1: Cordor. has been run by PCs no less than 4 times across its history in various councils and types.
2: Kohlingen. Was actually founded by a PC to begin with. High up PCs are allowed to weild a great deal of influence in upper level decisions.
3: Wharftown. Was run by the Banites when they took over and puppetted everyone. During the Arcanum War was effectively run by a few key PCs.
4: Bendir Dale has been run by PCs more than it has NPCs in its time, and was actually transformed from a Cordor military trade outpost into a town due to the efforts of several PCs.
5: Tarkuul. Run by the Voice? yes. But in all practicality, at least, during my day, the day to day and many of the large decisions were left to the Consulate. Because that was their job. Tarkuul was full of body references for a reason: The voice, Speaker, the Hands and Eyes, etc etc, because a voice that can take over undead can't really do things outside of a tiny island and so relied on its PCs to an EXTREME to get anything accomplished. And now that it no longer has an active playerbase with which to go out and accomplish things, what has happened to Tarkuul? It has largely begun to slumber... because it's a fortress hole of undead that can't exist a small radius of the island. It needs PCs, more than any other city in the module. Hell, Tarkuul is ripe for takeover in a billion and a half ways. I don't care who's in what position, PC or NPC. Tarkuul's a meritocracy. An evil meritocracy. Show your value, you climb the ladder. "Archmage" is only a title that existed as a single council member's title. There were eight of them, and Archmage wasn't the important one. Speaker was. And that role was always held by a PC, until it was abolished.
6: The Grove. run by PCs for like, for ever.
7: Benwick and Benwick Hollow. The Kelemvorites and Salandrans are pretty self governing, and although the Temple Mother nominally ran the place, the big decisions were made with an awful lot of input from PCs.
8: Shadowscape. To talk about this one is to reveal too much info so I won't.
9: Wiltun. Wiltun is "run by Arsant Wiltun", sure.... but anyone who looks around there knows PCs run the joint and have for a long time. For large IC reasons. In the past, Avadon, made even more so by his marriage to Olianna Wiltun. Now, with his absence...?
10: Caraigh. Run by a PC currently.
11: Brogendenstein. Amarice could field this one better, but I'm fairly sure the PCs have a very large say in what goes on there even today?
12: Forrstakkr is almost entirely run by the work of the PCs there including Torsten/Tom/That Paladin Dude up there.
13: Frozenfar. Literally designed to be taken over by PCs of any alignment to do with as they please. Seriously, that's the design doc. "A place for PCs to play tug of war over territory and resources and by design to be small take-over-able places for them to set up." So now you've got Endir's Point and Chillwyck and Fort Summer which have played hot potato over the years with factions like the Aurilites, the Band, the Coalition, and probably most famously, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
14: Underdark. Many of the Drow places have traditionally give large swathes of power to the PC houses, and indeed making the place NPC run at times in a few of the cities was often disastrous.

That's just off the top of my head.



This is something I can't speak to since it occured while I was gone, sorry.



This is a joke and I'm not going to dignify this with an answer, and I'm taking you much less seriously now.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

PS: I don't consider PCs in government a failed experiment, for what it's worth, Kobra. I think a lot of good came out of the situation.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

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I kind of agree that the pc government thing was to cumbersome, mostly because of its size, demand for record keeping, and more intense demand on the individual dm.

I think the only position that probably should have had pc representation the way it did in cordor was the west, but I also think that house has run it's course too. It allowed for intrigue and conflict but I think we honestly took it way further than we needed, and I think the constitution should have been handled off screen. I know my character went out of his way to limit the powers of government to interfere with his and create a generally weak infrastructure, but in herbal we as players aren't qualified to write am entire declaration pig government, no matter how fun it spunded at first.

I think it could be done again, but if so it needs to never dialed back a great deal. No monthly meetings, no constantly revisiting laws. Make some obvious ic laws that are easy to enforce and don't worry about tax stuff or the other trivial stuff in the middle. That can happen behind the scenes, and the involved players can communicate with the dm about how they run things while still having a functional government.

But that said I don't know if we're interested in that model again as a collective, let alone have staff who would enjoy it.

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Gerald Edmund
Discord: Metal Viking Guy #5433

DC taxation is theft!

There are. The fact that you engage in those things right now and get Pcs to show up and do things shows there is a place for it.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

As the PC running Caraigh more or less since....24/08/2011?

I can say that some aspects we cant do because we have nothing to base it off of as I have been asked about trade deals over the years for things like buy lumber, stone and food, how much we produce, how much are taxes.... countless things. The only option we have is to go and bug a DM trying to find out this information that in truth I don't think the DMs really know off the top of their head because it never comes up and we have no real way to calculate it and keep it in line and fair based off other locations with other DMs.


If the trade deals have to be in game items then the town/NPCs are pointless its all based off PCs meaning its not a real trade agreements with city's so much as players who happen too call the city home because if they leave, so does the source of produced goods ((also Job system farming is dull!)) so its hard to get a lot of people to do it, let alone of a constant amount.


I like "Non-Adventurer Roleplay" a number of DMs will say I enjoy research RP and that's fun, but Amia does not do the whole civilization game well that some people wish to try and play as much as I would love to be able too do that as the leader of Caraigh and better help players with that RP it just cant be done as a PC as its the roll of the DM we would be trying too take over as we are making statements about inner working of towns/nations...ect and as I said I don't think the DMs have the inner workings laid out.

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================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

There are plenty of things that the staff do cater too as well. But to be honest, I think fun has to go both ways client side for anything to work or the dm just gets bored and frustrated. And dming for puppet shows, beach parties, and beer house construction is kind of boring on a day to day, so I couldn't really imagine it getting in depth representation. Most of these things are stuff that doesn't have any impact on the server or even require dm involvement beyond the most cursory inspections or initial interactions with npcs. After that things like ale houses can be done with an area designer if approved, and marrying an npc through the church can be relegated to the pc story section.

I guess what I'm saying is time is money and time client side is time divided among the entire server, so things like that tend to be overlooked.

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Gerald Edmund
Discord: Metal Viking Guy #5433

DC taxation is theft!

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OK, but that's not something that proves there's no place for the RP on Amia, especially when there's plenty in that same post that proves the opposite.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Doesn't that place the responsibility with the DM to decide what is relevant information? And that's assuming you have concrete questions - if I'm exploring Cordor's market for potential opportunities, this can lead to a lot of back-and-forth messaging over the course of a long time (even if you respond within 2 days, if you need 10-15 questions to find what you need it's going to take the better part of a month). Keeping this information so close to heart seems counterproductive, when it stifles players investigating things on their own initiative and draw their own (potentially wrong) conclusions. Moreover, it takes up valuable DM time that could be spent on other things.



I was joking. But don't worry, I don't take me very seriously either.

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Aernoud Van Brabant: Heir of the House. Proprietor of the Beer Wagon.
"Go to the Mayfields, have a pint, and wait for this to blow over."
Aurelius: Sunmaster of Amaunator. Contemplative. Aspirant to Transcendance.
"Sol Invictus"

I seriously question an initiative that's going to take 15 questions and a month just to get to the answers you need, assumnig concise and consistent answering periods, and no delays. I have more faith in the intelligence and ability of the playerbase to be totally honest with you.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Because of a combination of the above two, I have a very hard time spamming PMs and IG tells to DMs to fulfill requests that may ultimately only flesh out me and myself, or systems only my character would use or give a damn about. But why do I feel that way when all of Amia has no problem doing that with build/power related requests, via gear, classes etc.?

It's because I don't have many models to build off of. Am I allowed to request this social move? The possibilities are nervously endless and not as public or as outlined as much as say, requesting a special gear item. On the occasion I do get an idea, (and I have dozens of small bullshit ones) who do I PM? Literally any DM? Why should I expect them to devote time and effort on my social moves when there's only like 2-3 active DMs and they have juicier more dramatic things to DM?

It would help someone like me who isn't aware of the boundaries... or lack of boundaries for what can and can't be 'moved and shaked.' Could we maybe get a new request sub-forum for political/social moves with some gentle outlines or examples of what can/can't be done? I.E "Request an audience with X NPC to ask permission for Y in your church." It would make more work but also divide that work between approving DMs, and take a lot of guess work away. I'm already assuming that many of these requests will be submitted privately. The basic idea is to have things organized and neatly presented and keep DM PM boxes cleaner. I think it'd also give people something to do once they hit level 30 and have perfect gear and ultimately succumb to alt-itis.

I also have to say, to my fellow non-adventurer roleplayers: You're having problems building and keeping PC connections because 1) you and/or others still have horrible, crippling alt-itis. By the time you move on your plans, most of the PCs you were manipulating or befriending might've moved on to the next RP clique with a new alt. Strongest relations come from consistent key characters which brings me to

2)Building those relations takes far longer than the RP bonding people get leveling and beating stuff up together. A lot of the longest-lasting PCs I've observed are still combat based- guards, or members of guild that functions army-like, exerting powers/laws over others. Adventurers will always outnumber you, and you'll always be the black sheep when you can't go along with their illegal/legal stab-happiness. Like the vegan who never gets invited to the BBQs you will slowly have weaker friendships than the carnivores.



Because ultimately you can't exist without the adventurers. You can't endlessly sell beer to DM controlled factions and exist as PC like that... You can't make emote posts for eternity talking about what only you are doing for yourself...at least not dynamically! You can't even stand around and go "Here I am, offering my unique and special RP service, why are the people not flocking to me?!" bc you gotta shove your concept in their faces essentially and prove you're entertaining. You can try but you'll get bored and make another alt and go "Geez I just can't find a character that inspires me" BECAUSE BEING NEEDED INSPIRES YOU.

The solution is stronger PC to PC relationships and making yourself useful to others- not necessarily more DM oversite or uh, adding IG treasuries... (Why would you wanna RP in such an antisocial vacuum anyways.... your problem might be that you're a gigantic loner in which case this was never gonna work out) This can be done forum side and I've seen it, but you have to be really, really attractive, and a good writer and RPer- giving as much to others as you ask for yourself. The biggest players on here share the attention with others while being selectively exclusive. If your non-adventuring character concept doesn't heavily incorporate others while making you travel outside your clique/comfort zone, and is gonna be 75% personal requests to DMs for things only for you, you won't last long, or at least feel very lonely.

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Yeah. I've done a ton (strictly speaking, all of recent rp) of non adventuring player driven rp and its a blast.

Honestly I don't feel the need (or have the luxury) to have a dm just on call to do shit. So we are doing our own things that frankly don't involve "adventuring" and have minimal dm intervention.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

So don't! Just go for it, and message us. For what it's worth: I don't mind DMing for puppet shows and beach parties and beer houses at all. I am 100% for and and all of those player initiatives. I'm happy to help set up PLCs, make shouts, arrange NPC sit ins if you're asking around or want people... any of that. I can't speak for the other DMs but I hope they'd be OK with it too.



It can be pretty much any DM, but if you want an active answer, pick one of the red named ones - Sammy, Amarice, Maverick, Lutra, and me. We're all (or I hope..) happy to help with any ideas you have, and if it's unfeasible, we'll help you work towards something that is doable on the server. If you don't have many models to work off of, we'll elp you make one. While we do get busy - we're not often as busy as some people I think take us to be, and if you ask us, you'll at least be in line for when we're not busy. Better to get in the queue than to worry about it endlessly, right?

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Just throw the ball at DM's. Don't worry about it, they are people just like you. It is good to have an idea what you're wanting or needing and perhaps an idea if it is mechanically and/or lore-wise even possible to do. Even if you are not sure, the DM's will give you feedback if you're open to have it.

Honestly, they are just people and ready to help out. Contacting them is the first step to get stuff moving. They wont do it all for you, but will help where you need it.

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http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/spells.htm

You got it.


---
I've gotten a lot more insight on this issue from reading the above - thanks everyone who posted so far. Perhaps the underlying issue might be the following:

1) The non-adventurer characters/players tend to find a niche outside of the more well-defined and understood systems and dig down into it to far greater detail than the architecture of the game was designed for. Your character may want to slay this dragon and gain its hoard. My character may want to monopolize Cordor's fisheries. Difficult in different ways, though the first has a system in place to support it directly, while the second carries a very different dynamic. And that brings up another point: playerwise you don't need to know a thing about swinging a sword to play a successful warrior, but (as was mentioned above) if your character wants to reform Cordor's legal system its player needs to have a decent understanding of law to be successful. No idea how to fix this though - unless DM's are going to enforce far more detailed emoting during combat events, or everyone is satisfied with a more skill-based "I roll Lore(Law) to find and improve articles, and Persuade to convince the local lawmakers to implement the change." Acceptable for routine occupation perhaps, but not for major moves IMO.

2) Non-adventurers want to gather and manage resources that aren't represented well in the current game - or for which there are ad-hoc systems in place at best. Things like political or peer influence, faction wealth and assets, etc. The combat side of NWN offers oversight and immediate feedback to actions (in terms of abilities, HP, spells, etc.) taken, but we are trying to get the same quantification of our resources as well. Again, the current game isn't designed for that, though I do think there are possibilities. There are (database or spreadsheet driven) ways to support these efforts better but they require an initial investment to implement and regular maintenance and oversight to manage. Alternatively, existing options for characters that are not build-optimal but meaningful for civic characters (such as Epic Reputation and certain Skill Focuses) are considered and given due emphasis in interaction. Would have been fantastic if an Epic Persuade Master Diplomat character would have been able to persuade Reyes to abort his plan and become a wine connoisseur instead. No doubt characters have been able to resolve plots in non-combat ways or magical IWIN, but this seems to remain very situational.


I'm not sure I see what you mean with this. Do DM's have a system in place to take synergies into account?
Also, advancement in the current job system correlates with level - which gives adventuring/hunting characters an advantage as they don't rely as much on DC's to advance. They can also become a Master [insert job] without any required effort, RP or even build-wise investment. At least using the default Craft skills would reflect this conscious choice and effort to improve those skills over others. Sure, there are many jobs that have enough overlap with classes (Drillmaster and Knight Commander for example) for this to be a moot point, but the way the current system is set up Avadon (for example) could suddenly reveal himself as a Master Herbalist without preamble. Especially if the player knows enough about herbs to play the part, it very quickly demolishes the motivation of a player whose character's main occupation is herbalism, and who has consistently played the part.

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Aernoud Van Brabant: Heir of the House. Proprietor of the Beer Wagon.
"Go to the Mayfields, have a pint, and wait for this to blow over."
Aurelius: Sunmaster of Amaunator. Contemplative. Aspirant to Transcendance.
"Sol Invictus"

Given how much was happening with the election last year, which was almost all adventurers, I'd argue that adventurers can learn the in's and out's as well as do political intrigue just fine. And also slay dragons apparently. Which honestly is such a cheap goal you might as well just call them 'murder hobos' instead of adventurers. Those of us who do dungeons when nothing is happening but bendir dale tea party/bake sale/"LOOK AT THE BABY" RP actually consider it the most minor part of our days. Just because you personally don't know what it is that goes on doesn't mean that nothing is. Frankly I find this statement;



A little insulting.

Also, you do need to know a thing about nwn swordplay irl to be a good warrior. The builds forum is evidence of this.



I will tell you flat out that when bosses have a 5% chance to drop 1/131 epic items there is literally 0 immediate feedback on actions for 'adventurers.' Ask how many people have seen a +5 fort cloak and see if they have any immediate feedback stories about that particular item. Also again it's a little insulting to hear that somehow, because some people do boss laps, it means they can't do civic duties just fine. There are about 10 hard-core players right now embroiled in a single plot that has literally nothing to do with pvp or adventuring or dungeons and mostly has us sitting around talking (or scheming). It involves murder, betrayal, and overreaching authority and is a blast; and it's all DM hands off.



This is a completely absurd statement. Being able to tell someone to do something asinine just because you took a feat that gives you a +number bonus is absurd. What if someone rolls a 1d20+115 bluff to make your 'non adventurer' come do boss hunting laps, and does it every day? Then they say "Sorry I took the epic feat as per your suggestion so you have to do it unless you can resist my 115 bluff check." That would be equally absurd. Thats why those feats are utterly useless and you should just get better at coming up with persuasive arguments.



We already do that. And, perhaps ironically given your whole 'adventuring is supported by nwn systems' vs 'non-adventuring isn't supported by nwn systems,' we do it without any nwn systems at all, mostly by talking.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

>People that can't build argue that adventure and PvP are cancer
>People who can argue that the rest of them are just lazy and making excuses for doing nothing.

Productive thread guys.


That said, I personally believe there's plenty of room for all parts of the player base; and I readily entertain all parts of it -- but that's just me.

There's certainly room for DMs to assist either end of it, and I've personally seen DMs oversee both social events and PvPs.

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Playing: Tanar'i Shit Disturbers

It's frustrating. People sit around and say there's nothing to do.

Then a DM runs a skeleton on hourseback through crowded areas screaming about death and undead and, I shit you not, some people say, literally in game purple-text, "i don't want to RP that right now," and just go back to talking about boyfriends.

And it's like, it must be really frustrating to DM sometimes. You literally bring spectacular events to peoples faces and they just say out loud they are going to ignore you, go back to talking about cupcakes, vanish for a week, then pop on the forums talking about how 'nothing happens' or 'dm's won't do events for me.'

I see it as a player a lot. I can't imagine how much it actually happens.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

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