AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - Evil changes, Good stagnation, and Balance

762 wrote:

We have, as of this moment, 32 active players by my last count. I'm not counting the ones we haven't heard from in a while. Since I returned to Amia in January that number has fluctuated somewhere between 25 and 40. Note I said players, not PC's. We don't allow players to have multiple PC's in the faction.

We grow, and stay big, for a few reasons. One, we ICly recruit people all the time. Some of us are actually amazingly good at it (and I don't include myself in that, at all).

Two, we find ways to keep people involved once they are in. It's an ongoing challenge, and very difficult to do consistently, as Delarwyn says. Running a faction this size takes a lot of organization on both an IC and OOC level. Delegation is an absolute necessity. This hands down is the hardest part to do, because as soon as you let up on it, people stop playing and membership slacks off.

Three, we make ourselves known by doing things. If we sat around in our lovely faction area all day (which is very tempting at times) we wouldn't have half the membership we do. People would get bored, and no one would ever hear about us.

Four, we try to conduct ourselves on a high level, both with our RP and our OOC courtesy.

We've had two to three dozen members consistently for quite a while now, for all of those reasons. Most of the credit for that goes to Mago.

So calling it an OOC fad is not even close to being the truth, Selvec. Individual people join for their own reasons, but faction membership in my long experience has always been a barometer of IC success.

Gah, I didn't call the Banites an OOC fad, I said it's a possible reason for any growth of any faction and thus shouldn't be rewarded as it can be a contributing factor. I didn't say anywhere in my post that the Banites growth is a fad. Nope not once.

@Mago: Nor did I actually claim to know, which is why my explanations were some what incomplete and why I even said I didn't know what happened.

Quote:

The temple in Wharftown wasn't destroyed as much as abandoned. The Church left Wharftown voluntarily, and deconsecrated the temple themselves, which resulted in its being razed to the ground by Bane's divine power. After we'd moved the idol to a new location.

That is not what happened, and I am speaking as a DM and thus a person with the authority to dictate measures and expensions of Divine Power. This did not happen. At all.

I see. So Cyric blew it up after a cleric of Bane deconsecrated it at Gurth's order? Or was it a timely meteorite?

Or are you retconning again, Tormak? I was there, and you were not the supervising DM for the event. So let's all hear your version of it.

Go ahead, I have my wading boots on.

Not again.

Try to stay on topic folks, if there is something to keep it on topic, anyway. Otherwise, even knowing I cannot dictate or decide anything, perhaps this thread should be locked?

I agree. If we're going to stop and correct details about something which happened years ago, I have to go watch some paint drying.

Yeah, anyway. Back on topic.

Selvec, I wasn't offended at your post or anything. I just strongly disagree that faction growth is based mainly on OOC factors.

Phearnun is right in some degree that being a canon faction helps, but that is still a small piece of the pie. When I first took over the Banites we had five active players, and that was including the Zhentarim who are no longer part of the same faction. What turned it around was Wharftown, the plot that put the Banites on the map. At the end of that plot we had seventeen. Today it is much more, thanks mainly to Mago's in-game work.

What you as a faction do in game has more effect than anything else by far. And that's all IC, and what the game is about.

Wyjyn: Loving all of you (and above all Disco) since 11 Jan 2007.

While I agree somewhat 762, you must admit that some factions are just innately bound to be more popular than others for whatever OOC reasons there are. I don't mean to be a bastard in saying this, but Bane does appeal to the adolescent male power fantasy population as a deity lol and is sort of bound to have a lot of people innately interested. I find it very interesting that certain races/deities appeal to certain types of players. There are a lot of humanities/arts/psychology students who play elves, for whatever reason. It is actually really uncanny, when I get talking to people who enjoy elven roleplay they very often end up having similiar OOC studying interests as myself. Seriously, in five years time or so Amia could probably open a humanties department with the elven roleplayers. It isnt always the case, but my point is that the elves collectively probably have a smaller pool of potentially interested players due to who they appeal to.

Hmm, I think Bane is a popular God for players of evil characters on Amia, but it has more to with the faction than the God's dogma. I disagree with Wyjyn that the average male player is "innately interested" in Bane, we have a lot of female players too. The banites are a large and active group of RPers and our doors are always open to evil characters.

The average evil Amian PC doesnt have many other options if they want to join a faction, IMO. What is there? The horsemen? Pretty quiet over there. Red Wizards? Very specific niche of character concept and also quiet since Turner2008 left the server. Sharrans, Black Flag and cyricists? Average new player won't find any of them (secretive + small factions from what I know). So then you can either be a lone wolf bad guy, play a monster race or a drow, or try and make your own faction, which are all very difficult and often lonely tasks.

So lots of people are happy to compromise their original concept a little and jump on Bane's bandwagon, so they actually get to RP with other evils.

On the matter of Wharftown

Quote:

Nex_addo wrote:
Now I have heard two different stories and for some reason people are getting a little OOC annoyed at me.
Now to the best of my knowledge you were the DM in control when the Tempurian's lead by Vashen Dirge sacked the Temple and killed everyone inside. As far as I was aware thats what happened to the Temple. According from other sources it was taken down by the banites.

Now I would like to know what actually went on. Did the Tempurian attack have any lasting effect on the temple? Was that the same day the Banites took the temple down?

Cheers man can you help shed some light on the situation.

Yossarin wrote

Sure did.

Sure Did? To what question?

Gah, now thats gonna cause even more questions. Yos, definitive answer please.

His PM is saying is that the War Knights are the reason the temple was hosed.

And he is correct.

Last edited by 762 on Sun, May 09 2010, 15:39 PM, edited 3 times in total.

That is...NOT what happened in game. At all. If you guys are saying it is now, it's a complete retcon.

Gurth was in Tarkuul when the War Knights attacked, talking to Valorian. He was tracked down and informed of the attack by an Iron Gauntlet NPC from Wharftown.

The two of them buffed up and ran to Wharftown, and found four or five WK's standing around. The NPC's had all been killed. The temple was still standing. Breakable things had been smashed but yes, everything was fine the next day.

Battle ensued. The War Knights were mostly unbuffed, and lost.

The temple Imperceptor, an NPC named Baz Grishart, was raised. I can't recall if the other NPC's were raised or replaced. Grishart was admonished by Gurth for his failure to defend the temple. This eventually led to his being replaced by Darthion as Imperceptor.

So, maybe that's what Yoss is referring to. It's the only lasting effect of the attack I can think of.

The temple was bombed one other time prior to that, but repaired.

I was there for the attack, and I was there when the temple was abandoned. I know the causes and effects of both, despite whatever retconning Tormak is claiming here.

Edit: I also still have the PC story I wrote up for the temple's being abandonded, if any one cares to read that (which I doubt at this point). War Knights had zero to do with that event.

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=17010

You know I hate repeating myself and I've already explained this once already.

There's no point in bringing up specifics regarding what happened at Wharftown.

There is if a DM is calling me a liar publicly.

I am quite thrilled to watch this dirty laundry in public, but really, is this something one should see as new player on top of general discussion?

It's better to silence things than sort them out?

Not at all. But communicate this out by other means: PMs, MSN or something. All this thread does after page 2 is shed a bad light on all involved.

EDIT: @Gurth
The way I see it, you left the server for reasons we all are obviously not going to debate, nor do I want to know.

Now that you are back, could you please leave behind what happened? There are a lot of things that happened in the past for everyone that everyone thinks that was/might have seem unfair, but they just leave it behind and moves on even if it was important back then and definetaly is important to the character.

Make a new story, stop clinging to that glorious past that many of the players on the server do not know about because they were not there when it happened.

Just make something new, rewrite your PC's story with new deeds.

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

The temple in Wharftown wasn't destroyed as much as abandoned. The Church left Wharftown voluntarily, and deconsecrated the temple themselves, which resulted in its being razed to the ground by Bane's divine power. After we'd moved the idol to a new location.

That is not what happened, and I am speaking as a DM and thus a person with the authority to dictate measures and expensions of Divine Power. This did not happen. At all.

BD, I wouldn't have even bothered if my credibility wasn't publicly called into question by this post. It was needless, distracting, and inaccurate. Not to mention easily disproved by a link to the thread in the DM stories forum.

It does however correlate directly with the main topic of the thread, and what I alluded to earlier with regards to the OOC bullcrap that went on with the plot in question. The same bullcrap that shied many of us away from ever wanting to run major plots again.

I don't know why Tormak needs to keep publicly throwing shit my way. I'm sorry that he does. But I'm not just going to stand there and take one in the face.

I'm sorry for the distraction here. If there's anything more to be said on this I'll be taking it to PM's.

hendrack wrote:

I am quite thrilled to watch this dirty laundry in public, but really, is this something one should see as new player on top of general discussion?

Pardon my intrusion, but this thread has been highly enlightening, the 'dirty laundry' bits included. I've bounced in and out of the server for a month at a time every couple of years, and I'm personally predisposed to being naaaaaaaaaaaaaaughty. Seeing a discussion on it upon deciding to revisit has been fun.

Most of what I've seen in this thread has correlated with how I see/do things - chances for success run along the lines of a poker tournament. They go up with how well you hide your hand behind a poker face, you take a risk in raising a bet and sometimes your bluff gets called or you fold.

As the games continue and you make it further into the tournament, the better others get at identifying your methods. If not, superb job, but your risk of losing always increases. In the end, if you fold out early people might not suspect you as much at the next tournament. If you make it to the semi-finals, or win, people will be watching you.

Even if people get to see your character for who you are, again it beats being the guy who showed up at game 1 flashing his little no-do-gooder and subsequently finding himself out of the tournament and future events.

No comment on the 'dirty laundry', other than it simply holds true to the fact you can't take back what you've said/done.

Overall, I've had a delightful time speaking/interacting with the Lawful Good* members of the Church of Bane, the first of which some crazy shorty showed up, insulted them, then attacked them. This is opposed to the absolutely faaaaaaaabulous and/or giant blue scary monsters that make up the Cordorian Lawful Evil* guard that tell me my soul is being stolen or threaten PCs with bodily harm and sword-hilt sodomy because "I said I didn't like it and that makes it the law".

The Chaotic Evil* Helmite using his god as an excuse to simply go screw with the Banites was a nice touch too. "Because I can" is awesome on multiple levels.

Regardless of what has or hasn't been said I'd reckon that evil is flourishing quite well while good minds it's own business, and that it's just a matter of social mechanics bludgeoning personal flights of fancy or the fact they've already gotten themselves as the "odd man out" that's got people riled up.

I mean, for showing up once in a while at peak hours of 65/75 or more, I do have a hard time finding people to interact with...that haven't been eaten by spiders. C'est la vie, there's always tomorrow.

*Disclaimer - ok, maybe this isn't their alignment, but by Odin's scruffy beard that's what you're showing me when I walk by Hilrash and see you ranting like a lunatic or you're in the middle of Cordor flexing your "I'm too old for this shit" Danny Glover attitude. Again, nothing wrong with any of this, but it is an IC perspective.

I think it all boils down to roleplay and lanceboard(chess) actually as far as incharacter goes, like someone else said you have to be -smart- about it. You -do- have to use some ooc common sense though. Like Kohlingen was recently revised I think as far as a faction area, since it was -just- revised more than likely the Dev's don't want to change it, attacking it might not be anywhere in the works. So, before attacking an area IC'ly, if you worked -with- the DM team, Evil factions could help with rentavation.

Thier might be some areas they've been wanting to change and something faction leaders, factions are interested in. I -may- be totally off on this they might not mind at all, but it seems it would make it easier.

My rule of thumb for renovations (whatever that might mean for individuals....) is 12-18 months, unless there's a damn good reason to do big changes before that. Bigger building projects tend to take a month or few to complete, depending on the project and people involved, so that time frame feels reasonable to keep the areas in development evenly all over, without focusing on any single target too much.

My God, the EO is going to be all over this thread like white one rice. This is a necromancy joke.

Nekhy wrote:

My rule of thumb for renovations (whatever that might mean for individuals....) is 12-18 months, unless there's a damn good reason to do big changes before that. Bigger building projects tend to take a month or few to complete, depending on the project and people involved, so that time frame feels reasonable to keep the areas in development evenly all over, without focusing on any single target too much.

'Renovations'(sp?), was being used to refer to the area changes the devs might have already considered or are working on and roleplay could be involved to helping the area changes along IC'ly.

Greyweaver, I want to shoot you for bringing this thread back. I mean that in the nicest possible way of course.

uhhh hahahahaha, i had forgotten this live handgranade just waiting to explode

TormakSaber wrote:

Greyweaver, I want to shoot you for bringing this thread back. I mean that in the nicest possible way of course.

Liar.

posts that also raise from the dead >_> a paleposter if you will...

on a more on topic note, I believe the balance is...relatively returning, as always with this topic I recommend solve it IC, by joining the darkside >=D

I've also noticed startling similarities between negative energy, necromancy, and darth vader, but thats another story.

The only thing I see in reguard to this topic is that many evil factions have other evil factions as enemies, while most good factions don't have rival good factions to fight.

BTW: I'm not complaining at all.

TormakSaber wrote:

Greyweaver, I want to shoot you for bringing this thread back. I mean that in the nicest possible way of course.

lol sorry I didn't realize it. I didn't bring it up back up though, I was just commenting on what others had wrote and giving a suggestion.

Topic note: If you invite an invasion, prepared or not, your going to get one.

So, you really didn't notice that the last post on the topic you were commenting on was made almost a year ago?

In any case, this topic was enough of a shitstorm when it was fresh, let's please not dig up the septic tank by making more comments on it.

Evil changes, Good stagnation, and Balance

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