Toleration

[Saulus]

I can't say how many times DMing that people have refused to back down with overwhelming odds. I don't like killing them but sometimes they just don't give much of a choice... I can remember a certain character insulting an Alhoon openly right in his face. This character ICly has to be suicidal/insane.... Because there just isn't any other reason someone could be that stupid in the face of death.

The consequences for not understanding the value of a calculated retreat will become a lot more painful if resurrection scrolls suddenly go up in price and the raise dead and resurrection spells suddenly have a crafting component.

[Stratigo]

Personally I see a loy of these problems myself, and have contributed to them at times.

Jaggath was faced by Alhoon at one time. Jaggath has fought mindflayers before, he didn't know that Alhoon was undead at the time. Jaggath knows that a mindflayer will kill him easily(Not only that but make it so that ressurection would be useless due to consuming his brain) no matter what he does due to their psionic powers. He figured he go out fighting. To his surprise it casts a spell intstead. So he runs.

In fact Jaggath has backed down from a fight from Syran all but one time(the one time of course resulting in his death.) When faced with unbeatable odds he will happily run.

As for Tolerance. If anyone has been around Jaggath and a half orc you'll see he despises half orcs. Unfotuantly most half orcs are dead, and he can't do anything much more then give dirty looks because evryone leaps to the defence of the half orc.

[Akuma_Reiten]

Ah yes, the good old "Attack!" mentality of players...

Anyone who has been a Dm must of seen this at least once if not so... so many times...

Sorry for keeping this off topic but I have to say this...

They need a cold hard slap in the face... I recall one time I got so sick of players doing this I went to the Dm team and told them I'm permanently killing the next group who does this...

Other times I just let villain get away with it....

"Uh ho, looks Valgor's charging up his deadly doom weapon, lets smash it!" *Half the country dies... horribly!*

The only way to solve stupidty is the same way mother nature solves it... through pain and exitinction.

[Fizzer]

Sounds interesting!
I've been away for a few weeks - seems a lot has happened.
Here's some thoughts of mine on this stuff:

On the subject of tolerance and alignment - Ethics and Morals are relative in the alignment system. Some goods are not as GOOD as others...just as some lawfuls...you get the drift.

So I play a Neutral Good character - but he is NEUTRAL good, someone who thinks folk are pretty good inherently and will help just about anyone if asked but doesn't really 'crusade' unless part of what he sees as his duties.

A Paladin is usually LAWFUL GOOD - laws must be honoured and seeking to help others must be actively and vigorously engaged in.

In my opinion, some good aligned characters could be tolerant of evil - I suppose I'm saying alignment was put in for when folk didn't really know what a roleplaying character was, to give some direction to pretty sketchily conceived characters. I like it but don't let it get in the way of the character I'm playing. No one is good all the time...or lawful for that matter...

On the main tolerance bit , I agree - playing intolerances is always a good laugh - misogyny and misandry being two prime ones not mentioned in this thread which we could see more of - as this is a roleplay server, out of character moaning about another players in character demeanor makes no sense.

On the CvC bit, overcoming adversity (and the threats of dangerous enemies) is the stuff of D&D - we need conflict - lets get to it - it's only a game. Nothing better than enemies/rivals to make a character bloom - and most high level characters have little interest in defeating those far beneath them (they should leave that to lackeys or the watch) as they're just too too busy!
If they are a party and organised - well, I'd give them what they want I guess!


I digress!

"Stop leavin' all these earthwrought weapons in me lovely forest! Clear up after yerselves yer half blood scum!"
*Zeb limps off*

[TheFarsight]

As for tolerance.. Kegan is a Lawful good priest of Ilmater. He offers aide to all those in need. Helping hands to lift their suffering. Even if this means killing a evil player to end their suffering. Because, that in a way. Helps them. He is edgy around Tieflings, and warlocks. Believing all they do is bring suffering.

As for undead, vampires.. the such. Pretty much, KoS for him.

Drashan on the other hand, is neutral evil. He is a jack-ass and a bastard. Cunning. If he does'nt like you... You'l find out sooner or later that he does'nt.

But yes.. I have seen lawful good paladins.. Chum with warlocks and people that summon undead... to this.. wtf mate?

[Valkyrie]

Might be some of the newbs who chum with those. My Paladin insisted a quest party member unsummon the skeleton, and fought the thing when the character refused. Warlocks are drawing from the font of Hell itself, so no argument there.

As for the "Attack!" mentality, some of it can vary by character. My Paladin, Theo, will hold the line and heal his party members, calling a withdrawl rather than lose the party. But my more immature CN warrior woman is young and reckless, so she'll push the envelope. She'll still retreat from, say, the aforementioned Alhoon, but in a more even fight she may chance it. Just wanted to put out there that tactics may vary by character disposition rather than player attitude.

[Zoberraz]

Not all warlocks channel the power of devils or demons (or anyplace in the lower planes). Some of them draw their power from fey and elementals too.

Sadly, D&D underrepresented that (sorcerers are assumed to draw their magic from their dragon ancestry, warlocks are assumed to draw their power from evil roots... with no possible variation ingame).

If warlock invocations could change with alignment or feat selection (Fey heritage), and produce sparkly butterflies and twinkles instead of red evil looking stuff... I'd play a warlock. ^_^

[Janus]

I'd actually like to put a players perspective on this one if you don't mind. Just because I think it might help in some way. The two parts of the post (that I have mercilessly cut and pasted... sorry about that) are very much related and I'll explain why below.

How does that relate to toleration? We have alot of good people that are actually neutral on the server. There's very few good people. They are Apathetic. <snip>

It seems everyone wants "Instant Success" in event lines. If they can't resolve a problem THAT DAY then they feel they lost. Whenever I ran events that didn't get "Won" in a day, I'd get tells as soon as I login with everybody asking me "Did something happen? Can you make something happen? I'm ready ton win today instead!" Guess what, if I was going to make something happen, it would be happening, and you'd be pulled in. I am trying to run plots for newcommers, and the "Veterans" are sending me tells the whoooole time trying to get me to run plots for them.

I have actually found myself disliking GM run events basically because I like to finish what I start.

When I play in a GM event I get a snippet of story of something that is going on which is great. Only the next time I come on I find out that X group went and finished off the villain I was looking forward to battling again and they have now moved onto the next big thing.

I tried this a couple of times and it's like getting thirty minutes into a film then turning it off to watch the rest tomorrow only to find that someone has come in and watched the rest of the film and all I can do is ask them how it turned out.

Why should I bother risking my characters life fighting or even talking to X villain over there when I know that Y group of players is just going to come along and deal with him in a while?

Its ok once or twice but if it happens every time you start loosing interest in watching the films. You get apathetic, people want to be able to see the stories through to the end which is probably why you get pestered so much about fighting the same villain.

At least with PVP I know that the bad guys I scrap it out with today have got a fair chance of actually being around the next time I turn up. Even that it would seem is being knocked on the head as they don't have anywhere to run to to be safe. It's why I said Drow were the only realistic PC bad guys.

[Squat45]

Janus... can't say that I agree... but don't disagree either. Why? I was pulled into an adventure, really meant for higher level characters, but I was encouraged (with my 3rd level PC) to join up. I stayed out of the way and did what little I could... and then had to leave... it was late in RL and I had to go... I let others know and logged. Sent a PM to the DM to let him know why I left (just in case).

This has happened to me MANY times, on various servers and the like... I used to get frustrated... especially when I knew I would have 15 minutes left to play and a DM comes in and preps this big event... and then I have to leave. I don't get frustrated... I work it into my character instead.

For example, read the Tale of James the Lesser (/shameless plug). I had to work it out how I got out of the tunnels and what I did... and next time that I see some of the characters, I'll ask them about it... I could only wish that I'd read about the quest on the boards... On an old server I ran on, there were a decent number of us who'd write something up after an adventure... and to see 3, 4 or even 5 different variations on the same story was just awesome!!!

/ok, back to topic

That does not mean that the only good protagonists are evil PCs... there are a lot of different things that you can use to motivate. Obviously, since I've been on I've seen a lot of vs. Undead. Why? Probably because that's the main place for the higher level characters to go to get xp. Me, I have a puny little 3rd level character, so I won't be making any trips to the Necropolis any time soon... and my main opponents are bandits or goblins... perhaps a skeleton or two.

James' motivation is pretty simple... and while he'd not buddy up to a necromancer any time soon... undead are not his main thing. He's got other motivations and feelings... sometimes, this may even cause conflict with other good characters, even other priests of Ilmater. I just haven't ran into any of those conflicts...

I try to keep in mind that characters can be VERY complex... tons of examples in this thread over different people's characters and how they react and feel about others... I've seen some really awesome conflict role-playing... and never once did blows fall. I've also seen horrible conflict role-playing that essentially was a few insults and drawing of weapons... no reasonings, no drama...

I definitely prefer the former rather than the latter.

[boreas]

My NPC says to the PC "This is a war and your only fortress is this temple!"

PC "A war?" <----- [ Daniel Gallendon ]

Hey Hey... Daniel Gallendon just arrived yesterday. He doesn't know anything that is going on in Sundren

[ThePaganKing]

DM run events

I think you are being to harsh on the DMs. I was a DM for a number of years on a server and what with the RPs and building, you barely have time for a real life (ask my wife about it, LOL!)

It takes a lot of time to come up with some original RPs that can fit a lot of different PCs into and you cannot please all the people all the time. You also have to make sure your RP doesn't last more than two or maybe three at the most hours, because you start losing PCs because of real life impinging, so the party that started that was 10 people ends up being 3 or maybe 2 people.

I give much, much credit to anybody that is willing to DM and run events, knowing full well what it takes!

One solution to long term RPs could possibly be using the Sundren Calendar to schedule events. I am not sure if it is used for that, I have checked the calendar and haven't seen any events posted?

We used a calendar and all events were scheduled, so if DM X is running a long term campaign or RP, he/she can schedule it on the calendar so that all the players that participated in the first part can make it to the other parts and the finale. You could even schedule the RP to take place every Tuesday at 8:00 PM or some such.

Of course, this is just a suggestion and it is up to the current DMs to decide how they want to run things, its their world and I am just a guest.

I do look forward to participating in any RP events that transpire. I was involved tangentally with one RP, I warped into the Shaharan hills and was instantly killed by a Demon, LOL! When I warped back, the demon was dead and people were standing around talking about it, I never did figure out what really happened. But sometimes, you are just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

[FlareCDE]

This seems like a bunch of threads in one ><.

I actually had a character given a lecture once about how she should be more tolerant on another server. It was quite amusing playing a complete racist as they repeatedly tried to spew real world / modern morals on me.

I always try to include a few intolerances and pet peeves into my characters. Liza dislikes arcane magic users and considers them a waste of time, for instance. While it doesn't lead to the point of spoiling for a fight, she will make rather barbed comments when appropriate.

One dislike in all my characters is always a given, all my characters hate Drow. I have yet to meet a player that can play one well, and the ones who play, for example, LG Drow Paladins of Helm make me want to smash my head into a wall.

I really don't like the whole solution by combat deal. For one, it solves nothing. Our characters are immortal, unless a DM forces the issue, or the players involved acceed to permadeath. So, uh, Billy Bob that I killed yesterday for summoning undead is back. What am I going to do, kill him again? I don't really know of a fail safe solution to situations where it would likely come down to him or me, but unless the opposing player agrees to permanant consequences, PVP is pretty futile.

As far as DM run things go, I agree with those who get disappointed when they start something but can't finish it. If I were a DM, I'd try to make sure that players who were involved from the start got involved with the ending, to a reasonable degree. But I'm also a firm proponent of very short events that can run an hour or two, so more can be run and more players can be involved. When you have hundreds of epic level heroes / villains compressed into a single city-region, things start to get a little... off.

[Elorien]

I don't see why everyone is buddy buddy with Kollotta. She's a vampire, shouldn't pretty much everyone be intolerant of her? I like when I see her standing by the fire in viridale border, while people around her discuss "how nice the wedding was" and such. How do you feel about the wedding, miss evil scary looking vampire lady with huge red wings?

[Felnak]

I don't see why everyone is buddy buddy with Kollotta. She's a vampire, shouldn't pretty much everyone be intolerant of her? I like when I see her standing by the fire in viridale border, while people around her discuss "how nice the wedding was" and such. How do you feel about the wedding, miss evil scary looking vampire lady with huge red wings?

Quite a few but not everyone is buddy buddy with Kollotta. Even if one is quite tolerant and even if Kollotta is a major part of a event, she is still a vampire or a devil or whatever the latest thing is. That kind of evil should scare the hell out of most anyone. I would hope that most would avoid her.

[psycho1976]

I don't see why everyone is buddy buddy with Kollotta. She's a vampire, shouldn't pretty much everyone be intolerant of her? I like when I see her standing by the fire in viridale border, while people around her discuss "how nice the wedding was" and such. How do you feel about the wedding, miss evil scary looking vampire lady with huge red wings?

Problem with this scenario is that whatever you do, IE killing her, will have no effect. She just turns to mist and can pop right back. My character Sakamoto has been a part of that scenario (was fun actually, having a vampire saying "now that was unpleasant" when coming back lol).

I think that some are biding their time. Evil characters aren't the only ones to be sneaky *grins* Basically you need to get information on HOW to kill the vampire