Difficult things to Role Play

[GodBeastX]

No offense Jhickey, but I was thinking evil or neutral at best Doesn't mean the choice isn't logical!

[Jhickey]

No offense Jhickey, but I was thinking evil or neutral at best Doesn't mean the choice isn't logical!

I took it as a chance to use my philosophy degree. I could break down each of the alignments if you would like me too! It is something I enjoy.

[GodBeastX]

Alright, everybody is pointing out thing they have problems with, I'll point out my own problems. I tend to be a DM not a player but I'll point out my stuff.

My RP online history pretty much started in NWN1 with a server called Dragoncoast. Yeah, they were in NWN2 as well, but I didn't get into the NWN2 settings they had too much and plus, I love Sundren, what can I say?

Anyway, I joined the world as a complete noob. I played a little D&D but I wasn't experienced like everybody else around me. There was a lot of drama going on in the server with DMs policing everything, getting pissed if people didn't RP up to snuff, and players getting shit on. And me? I was just a clown.

One day I logged in with a Black wizard, dark skinned, dreadlocks or something, and that was my guy. I literally had a player tell me "There are no black people here, you are breaking the immersion!"

I went O_O.

A DM later sorted it out, but people were SOOOOOOOOOO hardcore on the setting that it just made it feel like real world drama-shit people deal with. At some point people just stopped looking at it as a game and it had to be perfect.

This brings me to my problems with DMing and RP. I am NOT qualified to make a Sim reality. I don't know enough about social impacts, economic struggles, philosophies, evolutions, psychologies and more. That means at some point during anything I create someone is just going to see "That's not plausible." and they are right. I do try to work in a believably sound environment, but at some point I'm like "Fuck it, what would be fun?" That's pretty much how me and Saulus interact on Teamspeak when we're discussing plans for things, "Yo, what would be really cool here?" and then we try to fill in the gaps of why it's that way. It's amazing to me how far some ideas went from just initial randomness.

"Yo, what if Sundren could fly?" <-- I love that.

I'm also impulsive and I hate rail-roading people into something. I start situations, and it's up to players to decide where to go with them. I don't plan massive chains of things, I tend to look back and go "Huh, this could probably fit here and the players are right here so maybe this happens" and run with it. Some people probably hate that methodology and maybe some people like it, I don't know. I tend to think players wouldn't tell me if I was fucking up anyway even though I appreciate feedback on things.

Ironically I get tons of players going "What did you want me to do here?" and apologies for their actions. I always tell them "That's RP, you decide how things go, not me. Nothing to apologize for!"

I'm also a clown. I have to be honest, I don't take a lot of things serious. I saw what happens when a setting is taken too seriously and the drama that comes from that. Here's some examples of my hand in making things retarded in the setting that some people might have noticed.

1) Inject Black People

As sundren was built up I noticed tons of white people everywhere. I have no problem with white people, I love white people, you guys made Pine Sol and lemon fresh. However, it just seems like people are afraid to put D&D + Black together.

Lord Gen'Deimos was black. The original Banite mofo who used to stomp around the server causing trouble in the early days. I had fun letting players build a giant scheme to get him killed by the armies after a PC got arrested as a banite.

Sebastian is black. He walks around wearing a mask all the time, and sometimes I just take it off so people go "Lol! I didn't know he was black!"

Jamahrri is black. He was actually named after my Nephew who I always thought had a pimpish name.

I started doing that because of Dragoncoast admittedly when people pointed to me "BLACK PEOPLE AREN'T HERE!" And I thought, why not?

2) Why does everything have to take itself serious?

The Caretaker is literally insane when he is not in the temple. He just does random stuff because he's basically on autopilot at that point with no direction from his source.

This has made for random retardedness on my behalf.

I once, for example, ran a plot pointing out how much people will believe anything an NPC said, so I had a dragon fly overhead and take a giant crap on Viridale. I had a random NPC run up and go "GLORIOUS DUNG!" and start picking up dragon crap, saying it was priceless. Player factions literally started fighting over the crap until PCs went to get Rodwick who said "Shit is worthless!"

I'll never forget the dwarf who screamed at the PVPers "You're fighting over dung you idiots!"

Some of you probably met Jeshana at some point. My inspiration for that character was:



Drunken angel somehow appealed to me as an oddity.

I could go on and on with my retarded antics, but I think you guys have seen enough of them. I just like people to step back sometimes and say "Why so serious?"

This is probably a fault of mine more than a feature, considering I can be endlessly silly.

3) Play a PC

It's a struggle for me to actually be on the player client XD I have to admit. I never understood how DMs can go from the DM client and login to a character. You can turn any situation into a plot from the DM client, and you can still interact and RP at any time. I really do just have NPCs that are there for simply interacting.

I guess that's why I can sit on DM client for so long, because the server is my PC in my eyes.


Anyway, hope that gives some insight into me

[Lotus]

Of the three black NPCs you mentioned, one of them was killed by a huge posse of angry white people, a huge posse of white people claiming religious and moral high ground wants to kill the second one, and the third one was considered the greatest swordsman in Sundren until a white guy gathered up a bunch of other white people and jumped him in a rich, white town.

I see what you did there.

[Intrepid42]

I've always assumed that in Faerun black and white live together in perfect harmony. And gang up on green.

[Grand Unified Theory]

I love white people, you guys made Pine Sol and lemon fresh.

White people? Honey, YOU CRAZY.



I've noticed that too about the lack of dark-skinned characters, though. You've certainly got a point.

[sonuvalich]

As sundren was built up I noticed tons of white people everywhere. I have no problem with white people, I love white people, you guys made Pine Sol and lemon fresh. However, it just seems like people are afraid to put D&D + Black together.

We also made polka and water biscuits. Truly, our's is a rich and vibrant culture.

I sympathize with the clown/fun stuff though. Sometimes, especially lately, I find myself dicking around with Sandro getting into all sorts of silly antics. Making a group of dwarves invisible so we can try and sneak into Drake's room and embarrass him in front of his lady. Random drunken spell duels with dwarves. Singing bawdy songs with dwarves...come to think of it, dwarves bring out the best in me.

It is very not in character for the stoic, stick-up-the ass High Arcanist, but I crack up doing it. I hope it causes me RP troubles later, having to explain my actions to superiors or gloss over it in future conversations with other hoity-toities. That trouble aside, if I can't keep the game fun for me, what is the point? I appreciate when things get silly, so long as it is not all the time.

[cmosier]

GBX: I'm not fully understanding this. A lot of the races have dark skin. If somebody says "there are no black people here," he's not role playing, he's being a racist dick.

Alignment
I agree. I never really liked alignment. I think that classes that require strict alignments (monks, paladins, clerics) should have codes to guide them. I've pictured Alignment as more intent than action.

Example. Why is Byrun helping Abby at the Port? Is he Neutral Good and it's the right thing to do? Is he True Neutral and he feels he owes Abby for her help in the past? Is he Neutral Evil and he an Abby are secretly planning to take over the Port?

Side note: You're welcome for Pine Sol... it's the shit. I'll trade you any day for Rock and Roll, though. I know damn well where Elvis got his music from.

[Jhickey]

Of the three black NPCs you mentioned, one of them was killed by a huge posse of angry white people, a huge posse of white people claiming religious and moral high ground wants to kill the second one, and the third one was considered the greatest swordsman in Sundren until a white guy gathered up a bunch of other white people and jumped him in a rich, white town.

I see what you did there.

I am literally laughing so hard!

[GodBeastX]

Of the three black NPCs you mentioned, one of them was killed by a huge posse of angry white people, a huge posse of white people claiming religious and moral high ground wants to kill the second one, and the third one was considered the greatest swordsman in Sundren until a white guy gathered up a bunch of other white people and jumped him in a rich, white town.

I see what you did there.

LOOOL

Lotus you're my homie.

But no, people on Sundren aren't racist at all. This was in another D&D world where it happened, and I think sometimes people are uncomfortable being the race they aren't in real world, nothing wrong with that. I just like to make certain everything is represented like we're on the bridge of Star Trek

I think people remember the Drow trial where I kept saying "The black elf this" and "The Black elf that" like it was racism. I don't take that stuff serious, I just add a bit of humor to the otherwise stressful situation. I mean, let's be real, a lot of people came away from that trial with OOC stress, and I just like people to be able to say "It's a game, guys, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, just cue up for a new match and see if the tide changes."

I still think they're deciding behind the scenes what to do with the Drow XD

@Cmosier:

None of what you feel in that is good/evil. If you will betray someone later, you're not evil until that betrayal. If you help them do good along the way, then you're racking up good points that might be overshadowed by the evil in the end.

Blackguards and Paladins are literally the ONLY classes that can't do good/evil acts and keep their power. Even some Banites do good acts as clerics, or they don't do evil acts, which is why some of them are L/N. Keep in mind, somewhere out there in the Realms, there's a C/G worshipper of Bane, they just might not be a cleric.

[Laurk]

I don't think good and evil are dependant on circumstances. My cleric views life as a difficult test filled with darkness, evil and temptation that you are not supposed to "win" at. Because of that, if you do evil in order to accomplish good, you may prevail in life, but fail in the afterlife. Each act of "good" or "evil" strengthens elemental good & evil in the world. Each damned soul increases the powers of the fiends, or elemental evil, each ascended soul increases the powers of the celestials and elemental good. So you can accomplish a good deed with an evil act, but ultimatly it is the evil act that draws evil energy to your soul. The more evil energy gets into you, the less compassion and more sadism you'll start to feel. If you manage to damn yourself, you add to elemental evil.

Abby is fond of saying how a demon hunter who slaughters demons out of hatred will only make demons stronger, because every act of violence born of pure hate is an evil act that increases elemental evil, thus for every demon he might kill, two more are spawned. Whereas he would slay more demons (or rather keep them from ever spawning) by a simple act of kindness, like donating a day at the soup kitchen.

But to me alignment is "very" simple:

Good vs. evil is: Compassion vs. sadism w/ neutrality somewhere in between.

Law vs. Chaos is: principal vs. ends justify the means w/ neutrality somewhere in between.

Good people are compassionate and care. Evil people are sadistic and enjoy suffering with a mirade of other debaitable pathways to either. Lawful people stick to their principals/honor/code. Sometimes this involves mortal laws in a given region, but most likley they are the laws of their gods or personal philosophical principal. A 100% lawful person will not violate their particular ethics in order to accomplish a goal, even if refusal means death. A Chaotic person has no use for such restraints and does whatever he feels best to accomplish his goal. The neutral person has his own limit to what he'll do to win, depending on how close he is to one axis or the other.

Most do-gooders are probably N. Good and try to keep within their personal code of ethics, but don't mind doing a little "grey-area" to accomplish a greater good. For example, they might smite an unarmed enemy because he's just too dangerous to risk letting him get the upper hand. The L. Good person would have to give that villian time to draw steel, even if it ment making himself vulnerable to a suprise attack and loosing, because to do less, would lower him to the level of the villian.

A choatic good person might feel sacrificing his own sense of what is right & wrong for the greater good is justified.. so he might not only not wait until the villian draws steel, but he might actually clobber him from behind, or gang up on him with buddies even though most people would consider that pretty shitty to gang up on one unarmed guy.

RPing with these in mind has always made me fitting into my PC's alighnment a bit easier. Abby is lawful good and does not bend in her principals which are based on the Ilmateri dogma. For her, dying for her principal is the greatest form of martyrdom which can be achieved, and the desire to go outside of those principals for good is a tempation every LG person has to wrestle with. In Abby's case, holding to pacifism when clobbering a dangerous goblin might accomplish saving someone is one of those moral choices.

This was unlike my former weapon master vigil-anti I played years ago who was chaotic good and literally used the sneaky, underhanded tactics of the enemy to fight him with. Manshin was not very religeously minded and saw things from an earthly perspective.. wanting to help improve the material world and protect people, wheras Abby sees mortal life as a transiant test that prepares you for heaven, or hell. For her being good is more important than saving the world, as each person can only truly be saved by their own choices which she hopes to inspire and guide.

[[DM] Grinning Death]

Good people are compassionate and care. Evil people are sadistic and enjoy suffering with a mirade of other debaitable pathways to either

I'd disagree, actually. I try and view the good/evil comparison to a 'circle of giving a shit'. Good people give a shit about other people who have less in common with themselves, and their circle is wide. It catches a lot of folks.

Evil people don't give a shit. They'll care about a small circle of people or none, and their 'circle of giving a shit' is small.

[Laurk]

I think thats a good fit for neutral people. However in the realms, there are many examples of villians who actually get pleasure from causing suffering, and so your definition of a small circle of "giving a shit" isn't quite enough. Evil people actually enjoy sadism. Watching people suffer. The circle would make make more sense if it was a line with "compassion and caring for people" on one side, in the middle it was "Im out for me and mine, you worry about you and yours" and at the bottom it was "hating and wanting to torture" people.

Extreme real world examples might be Mother Theresa who cared for other people to the point of giving her own life to see their suffering lessened. Average Joe who may care for his own small circle, but is largley apathetic to the suffering/happiness of others & Ted Bundy who delighted in watching people suffer.

Its safe to assume that a zealot Loviatar isn't content with "not giving a shit" about many people. These people actually take intense pleasure from torturing others to death. Thats quite a bit more sadistic than the average joe who might be utterly self centered and spare no thought to anyone outside his own tiny circle.

Because only fiends and Celstials can be "absolute" good or evil, mortals always have a little of each. So even the most depraved of villians will still be capable of having love (or attachment) for one or two individuals that they almost use as a "comfort zone" to anchor their lives while they commit atrocities in the rest of their world. general Mao Tse Tung is a great example of this. He clung to his mother as a sort of "ideal" while he was out ordering the torture and death of millions upon millions of people.

[Jhickey]

I think thats a good fit for neutral people. However in the realms, there are many examples of villians who actually get pleasure from causing suffering, and so your definition of a small circle of "giving a shit" isn't quite enough. Evil people actually enjoy sadism. Watching people suffer. The circle would make make more sense if it was a line with "compassion and caring for people" on one side, in the middle it was "Im out for me and mine, you worry about you and yours" and at the bottom it was "hating and wanting to torture" people.

I disagree with this statement, just because you are evil does not make you sadistic; Just this example alone would rule out functioning societies such as Zhentil Keep. An evil person can care just as anyone else can, provided they can further their goals or the goals of their organization (church or guild). Using real world people is not even a point to make an argument on (See my previous post, on environment and view). If you use the real world then how would you define the United States? Are we a good society? A noble society? Because for every argument (philosophical or sociological) you make I can easily counter the perception. Putting the concept of good/evil in a black and white context is naïve.

What makes your point of view great is that it may drive your RP and give your character an amazing dimension. Sadly I have not RP with you, to my knowledge, and I look forward to an opportunity for you to meet Datton.

[cmosier]

*coughs* Avoid real world examples. *cough*