Where'd the good guys go?

[Janus]

I've just been taking stock of the various factions that I know about in Sundren and noticed a very severe deficiency in Good Guys that actually do anything.

Let me summarise

Sundren Government - Sells slaves to the Thayans, commisions Thayans to write policy for them (eg on the Drow) something no other government on Faerun would do, Arrests the people (yea ok drow) who have proven themselves friends to Sundren by ridding Sundren of a major menace (Hadavi) and have submitted themselves willingly to the Temple of the Triumvirate to be judged.

Conclusion: Bad guys

Thayans - Do I really need to say this. OK Sells drugs, engages in slavery blah blah blah - Bad guys

Banites - Not even gonna go there - Bad guys

Vampires - Basically Banites with bigger teeth - Bad guys

Cyricists - Torture, murder,... - Bad guys

Exigo Merchants - Trading partners with the Thayans (despite the fact that Mulhorandh is at war with Thay ). Willing to sell anything including Lich dust, to anyone, including Cyricists. - Bad guys

Helmites - Yes good guys but apparently unwilling to actually do anything about any of the above except the vampires.

Triumvirate - See Helmites.

So in conclusion we have a SERIOUS lack of any effective good factions. We can't even class the players as factions as they are not able to organise themselves into formal factions there by providing some sort of resistance to the upsurge of evil.

Where are the Good guys and what in the nine hundred and ninety nine hells are they actually doing out there?? Where are the Harpers? Sundren is placed right at the top of the Sword Coast. If any evil faction managed to get an upper hand in Sundren it would be extremely bad for Neverwinter, Waterdeep, heck most of the Sword Coast and thats not even looking at places like Evermeet or the Moonshae Isles.

I realise that it is policy not to allow player controlled factions but could we at least have some good factions given some attention because right now it seems to be that the evil factions are on course for an over all victory and as players we cannot do anything about it because the evil factions are the ones getting DM support thus can do basically anything they like, and have all the powerful NPC's that we don't stand a chance against.

Playing good guys is becoming very depressing because you can't win.

[Kaldaris]

You should just run like I do.

[Saulus]

I'm not going to go through the 100 points of why the OP is flawed. There's a lot you simply don't know about these factions (like for instance the Exigo are a neutral faction). Then we have this drow bullshit which I'm seriously so sick of that the players are pushing me to the point where I just want to disable the race.

Hating drow = good. I don't care who they worship or are judged by. The race is evil.

The biggest thing is that we don't have a huge DM staff right now and pushing the forces of good constantly can leave everyone in a state of safety that we don't want to exercise.

[GodBeastX]

I agree 100% with Saulus.

[undeadsteak]

Drow should get owned, good or not. Race = Evil, as Saulus said.

Not enough DMs, obviously, and second off, what are you talking about? Lots of evil chars have been getting Perma killed alot recently. They an't protect everyone from every single person (Like Thayans), and the Thayans are quite powerful. If they decide to suddenly you make you a slave, sorry. Thats why the outdoors are called "Dangerous" for a reason. If you want protection, stay in town/city. Try making some player group and fight against evil. Meh, macalypse did it for a while, but he got caught. He atleast took down a few red wizards.

[Scourn]

/ Agree Saulus

[Rhifox]

Sundren Government - Sells slaves to the Thayans, commisions Thayans to write policy for them (eg on the Drow) something no other government on Faerun would do

Actually no. Read up on Thay lore. Red Wizards are utilized quite regularly, it's part of the agreement with the Enclaves. Slaves have been sold to Thay even before the trade Enclaves existed, and nations tend to reserve that kind of punishment for lifetime or dangerous prisoners. Isn't just a Sundren thing. It's a rational part of governments to deal with other nations on a neutral basis, not a 'we need to save the world and go to war against all 'evil' countries!' basis. Governments are, in general, lawful neutral organizations at best, built around ensuring order, stability, and progress for their country. Working with the Thayans does that.

Thayans - Do I really need to say this. OK Sells drugs, engages in slavery blah blah blah - Bad guys

As an organization, it is neutral at worst. A few of the people in it are disreputable, but on the basis of the organization itself it is not bad. Selling drugs is definitely not bad (sorry, but I believe drugs should be legal, there is nothing morally wrong here at all), and slavery is A) not exactly practiced much in the Enclaves anyway, and B) slavery itself, while morally wrong, isn't necessarily evil, it depends on how the master treats the slave, and can go from well-off house servant to the tortured experiment, and more often than not, it's the former, not the latter.

Banites - Not even gonna go there - Bad guys

Yes, but, I guess you haven't come to understand just how much the organization has crumbled just over the last week? It's in tatters now atm, as most of the members have been discovered and killed (Sylloven was released from vampirism. Hadavi (and thus all vampire-spawn she had), Rook, and Tamara were killed, and the Sundren government can surely spill more of the Banites' information if they so choose.).

Vampires - Basically Banites with bigger teeth - Bad guys

Aside from Colibrus and his personal spawn, there's very little of them left.

Cyricists - Torture, murder,... - Bad guys

We have Cyricists in Sundren? I've only seen one, and it was just an alt.

Exigo Merchants - Trading partners with the Thayans (despite the fact that Mulhorandh is at war with Thay ). Willing to sell anything including Lich dust, to anyone, including Cyricists. - Bad guys

Everyone is trading partners with the Thayans, because the Thayans are a merchant organization just as Exigo is. Apparently that's a bad thing... evil by association, it seems. By your logic, 100% of the PCs on Sundren are bad because they trade with either/both the Thayans and Exigo.

Where are the Harpers?

They attempted to raid the Enclave and got themselves killed for it. They tried to be heroes, and found out the hard way that being a hero is not easy, it's more often than not a path to martyrism.

Playing good guys is becoming very depressing because you can't win.

Don't play a good character then. It's not supposed to be easy. You're not supposed to win. It's supposed to be a struggle. Good is supposed to be the difficult path. Standing up in the face of evil is supposed to be hard because that is what shows someone's quality and devotion to good. If it was easy, then everyone would be good... which most everyone already is, anyway, because it IS easy, even most of the 'neutral' PCs are more good than neutral.

Besides, if you think evil is easy then you don't know what you're talking about. Again, the Banites have suffered majorly over the past week, several characters and prominent NPCs being perma-killed. Us Red Wizard PCs (not that we're evil, but if you feel like lopping us in here then so be it) regularly face discrimination from the supposedly 'good' PCs, being spit on, attacked, at best only given a cold shoulder. Giving any kind of information at all about anything possibly bad that you might do instantly turns all the 'good' PCs against you.


I'd also like to link to this post that GBX made on the situation a few weeks back.

[Vekin]

Then we have this drow bullshit which I'm seriously so sick of that the players are pushing me to the point where I just want to disable the race.

Hating drow = good. I don't care who they worship or are judged by. The race is evil.

That must make Takhla drow hugger number one in your book then


I can see some of the points of the OP it can seem at times as if evil gets all the love. Not being on the right side of the pond can also see you miss out on a lot of stuff, not a complaint as you said more DMs would be welcome.

[Machiavelli]

The forces of good are indeed pathetically weak! Do not trust in Paladins and other righteous Morons... organise and strike out against the evildoers. It's like Nike yo... just do it!

[Rhifox]

The forces of good are indeed pathetically weak! Do not trust in Paladins and other righteous Morons... organise and strike out against the evildoers. It's like Nike yo... just do it!

Admit it, Malaclypse was Chaotic Good, not Chaotic Neutral. xP

[Machiavelli]

Admit it, Malaclypse was Chaotic Good, not Chaotic Neutral. xP

He was CN(good). Malaclypse was an Anarchist/Libertarian. He surely wasn't CG... consider the following; (1) Attempting to help the mossclaw alliance to break out of the forest because he wanted them to be free from the oppression of their confinement. (2) Murdering a bunch of traders who may or may not have been Zhentarim then planting Helmite gear at the scene to set off conflict between Banites and the church of Helm... just a couple of examples

[Rhifox]

He was CN(good). Malaclypse was an Anarchist/Libertarian. He surely wasn't CG... consider the following; (1) Attempting to help the mossclaw alliance to break out of the forest because he wanted them to be free from the oppression of their confinement. (2) Murdering a bunch of traders who may or may not have been Zhentarim then planting Helmite gear at the scene to set off conflict between Banites and the church of Helm... just a couple of examples

Both of those I consider to be good, not neutral, though. Both were done in the principle of good, just in a chaotic nature, in my PoV. *shrugs*

[undeadsteak]

2nd seems more Evil.. 1st, depends on your char, i guess.

[Machiavelli]

Both of those I consider to be good, not neutral, though. Both were done in the principle of good, just in a chaotic nature, in my PoV. *shrugs*

Hehe, we'll have to agree to disagree then

[Janus]

Then we have this drow ******** which I'm seriously so sick of that the players are pushing me to the point where I just want to disable the race.

Hating drow = good. I don't care who they worship or are judged by. The race is evil.

The biggest thing is that we don't have a huge DM staff right now and pushing the forces of good constantly can leave everyone in a state of safety that we don't want to exercise.

First of all I'm not asking for the forces of good to be constantly pushed, I'm asking for balance. From my perspective it is the forces of evil who are being constantly pushed. If this is not the case please show me because I can't see it.

Secondly I am basing my views on what I see. A drow gave up an evil goddess and accepted a good one, Eilistraee is a good goddess after all. She committed essentially good acts. I feel that the view that all drow are evil might be a little narrow (I can quote more than a few examples of good Drow from forgotten realms background and at least one from this web site. After all why would there be a good Drow goddess if there weren't god drow?) but if you want hating Drow to be good you can't have drow turning up, commiting good acts and being given the OK by several Paladinic orders. These were not things I put in place. They were things put in place by GMs. I am simply reacting to them in a reasonable fashion.

In short I think it might be a good idea to disable drow because it would stop the inconsistancy that seems to be coming up from getting to us the players.