The Balance of Power

[Uranus]

Something, that i think could help, is if guild leaders were able to work together and trust each other more. I dont know if that is just wishful thinking though

[Steve]

Something, that i think could help, is if guild leaders were able to work together and trust each other more. I dont know if that is just wishful thinking though

Sounds like a peace-nik Harper talking, to me! j/k

[Blackman D]

well i know waaaay back when, the baddies were actually trying that and it was goin pretty good till they locked all the drow underground and razed the temples of bhaal and bane, after that and some other stuff that was happening most of the baddies that were getting along pushing alliances and stuff left and well yea nobody trusted anyone after that it seemed

apparently its still an issue but yea that definitely doesnt help

[DM Dialectic]

Why would anyone try to do anything evil in the Amn part of the server? Think long and hard over the last 2 years about things that occured there, specifically in Beregost. Beregost has a Temple of Lathander, which was empowered last year by having an entire campaign revolving around its goals, and Nashkel is the seat of the Everwatch Knights.

//I strongly emphasize with this opinion, but i would point out three issues with it as a proposition that I hope will raise RP morale in the opposite direction:

1. If no evil PCs take initiative to do something, but good PCs do, in a dynamic RP world, then the initiative is more likely to go in the good PC direction and vice versa. As a result, if it is true that enough evil PCs assumed they could not make a difference in Amnian RP and so never tried (or even asked) the past year, this sort of becomes self-defeating in terms of eliminating a potential space for open evil PC RP. The point: don't give up before even trying IC!

2. The reason that the Lathanderites had a campaign that seemed to focus on them was because they made the necessary player requests IC making clear their intentions and plans, collaborated with many different PCs and NPCs politically towards their IC aims, and followed through IC over the course of more than a year in a sustained fashion IC. There was an evil group of PCs that attempted to thwart this IC attempt by the Lathanderites and nearly did, and possibly would have had more evil PCs outside of this group taken a proactive and sustained interest in the campaign and helped the more "evil" perspectives in the campaign. Perhaps why they did not was part the self-fulfilling proposition you proposed above and maybe part just not having interest in Amnian RP versus other RP interests, I do not want to assume for these players, I only speculate. That the evil PC group that did get involved did so makes me believe that it is possible that others could have as well though! The point: evil PCs can take initiative and organize towards a plan same as good PCs, it just has not happened in Amn recently.

3. You correctly point out that Beregost (which is of course not Amnian in canon lore) and Nashkel are distinct from the rest of Amn culturally, so it is not exactly the same to interact with these two polities locally as it would be to say interact with the Council of Six or the Council Army high command. Still, they are both absolutely in Amn in our server lore at this time, and both do interact with Council Army and Council of Six controlled officials on a regular RP basis. Further, the Amnian fortress citadels (each with a garrison roughly as large as Darkhold) are not that far from Nashkel in the Cloud Peaks and are a seat of local Amnian military power that very much could be interacted with given a player request albeit being off map as could Crimmor and Athkatla as well. I say all this to make clear that while there are non-evil factions that have some sway locally with the local Amnian rulers, these local Amnian rulers are still Amnian and are not controlled by these non-evil factions and their superiors, whom could also be contacted in a player request, certainly are even less so. The point: Northern Amn is not controlled by the Song of the Morning or the Everwatch Knights (or the temple of Helm they are under), though the temples of Lathander and Helm, respectively in Beregost and Nashkel, are significant local stakeholders, so there is really no impediment to reaching out to the local Amnian governments here or if that fails their central government Amnian superiors with a well thought out evil scheme. You only need to think up something (please ask for our help with brainstorming) and write the DM team a player request PM and we can review it!

Both of those locations are certainly not fertile grounds for evil roleplay, regardless of which government runs both of those places. You are sitting back and wondering how this happened probably. Well, it's very easy, DM's sat back and allowed "natural" course of things to happen, and when that is allowed to occur it will almost always turn into happyville. The one time in my three years here when it was supposed to go in the opposite direction, the DM in charge forcefully turned it into an "everyone loses" situation instead I do not think that the rest of the settlements are even that important, not without active and continuous DM presence to draw people there. But why would you even want to do that when Baldur's Gate is the center of the server and it needs more attention as well? To be clear, Beregost shouldn't even be a part of Amn, and Nashkel isn't your typical Amnian town. As far as I'm (and probably a lot of other players) concerned, there is no proper Amn presence on the server.

On the "natural course". This is supposed to be a dynamic roleplaying server, so the dynamic course is in many respects what the players show the DM team it is to be. If the natural course is undesired as you define it to be, then I highly recommend getting IC and trying to change it! This goes for any settlement or map area. If you think even a random rock on a map should be more important for RP, send in a request IC regarding the rock! The DM team will never have enough coverage to RP out in DM events every nook and cranny of the server, so we largely have to react to where players seem to want to RP, so please be our guides! And look, if this means the FAI and BG remain the focal points of RP because that is what players want IC/OOC, then that is fine too, but if it is not where you as a player want to orient RP geographically or alignment wise, then player requests (sorry to repeat this so many times), etc.

It is true of course that Beregost would in canon lore essentially be a Neutral
Good oriented settlement (controlled by Kelddath and his Song of the Morning militia) versus the Lawful Neutral orientation in our Amn regime over Beregost currently in server lore, but this is in favor of open evil RP there, not disfavor. Nashkel also used to have years ago quite a bit of organized evil PC RP, but this petered out over time (with no reason it cannot be brought back IC for reasons given earlier).

"There is no proper Amn presence." I am not sure how you are defining "proper Amnian presence", but I will assume it is a more Athkatla or Crimmor or Amnian Citadels type setting. Really, I would say if you want one, ask for one! With enough RP traction, there can be events in such places in DM events and if player demand really seems high enough, maybe we can even petition the developers to help us on a more permanent basis with this (no promises on that of course). The interest just has never seemed to be there enough. Maybe someday it will be? (for the Glory of Amn) =D.//

[DM Golem]

Maybe someday it will be? (for the Glory of Amn) =D.//

Kobold! WHO SET HIM OFF!

[Steve]

... then player requests ...

Dialectic,
I think something needs to be added to the many counts of suggesting Player Requests solve most issues: not all Player Requests are going to be granted/upheld, and, many Player Requests should really be referred to as Players Requests, plural, because in my experience, unless an undefined amount of Players are part of the request, it very likely won't get granted/fulfilled.

I don't disagree with this—with DM time at the level it is, or every has been, only so many Requests can be debated, and then possibly granted/supported, by the Team. So it a natural reaction to require as many Players involved, as possible, in order to see movement, or support, or realization. That is just the reality, and not a negative in an of itself.

However, as Thids rightfully points out, the Evil Guilds—whether known or secretive—are the minority on BGTSCC. The Player population of these Guilds, and the Factions, is minimal. Mostly 1 or 2 Players, actively keeping the body alive, but on serious life support. I know, because I've been in contact with most of them recently, and as far as I've seen IC, the most an Evil Guild can manifest is 3 Players (and likely, 2 are the only real Active members). That, in general, is probably not enough Players per Guild to satisfy the X amount needed for requests.

Unless I am wrong? A single Player request often gets replied to with a form reply of "generate more RP, bring in more Players, and it will happen." But that is honestly HIGHLY unlikely from an evil-aligned PC standpoint. So if there is a Guild or Faction with 2 Players, is that enough?

I don't want to speak for the few Guilds I have been in regular contact with the Guild Leaders, but they all lament that recruiting and keeping Players is incredibly hard. But I don't want to go off too far on a tangent.

Let me just reiterate that the lack of Player Requests for Evil-minded RP—as Theophanies pointed out in his opinion is the norm—is probably, mostly, because Players do not feel confident that they a) can see those requests realize with support from the DM team, and b) that there exists a Role for Evil-aligned to have a "greater" effect on the Sword Coast environment of this Server.

This is why I suggested to the Team that an NPC Faction of easily accessible Evil guidance is created and maintained by the DMs—much like the Dukes and the Flaming Fist exist—in order to provide a stable and clear avenue for Players to grow and develop Characters under. These known evil Guild/Factions exist in Canon Lore, so it would not be difficult at all to "balance the power" in this regard.

I also think it would flip the script on the "send in your Player Requsts," to "Receive these DM requests," and Players could step up to complete the tasks/quests/missions/etc laid out by the DMs.

Cheers.

[DM Dialectic]

... then player requests ...

Dialectic,
I think something needs to be added to the many counts of suggesting Player Requests solve most issues: not all Player Requests are going to be granted/upheld, and, many Player Requests should really be referred to as Players Requests, plural, because in my experience, unless an undefined amount of Players are part of the request, it very likely won't get granted/fulfilled.

I don't disagree with this—with DM time at the level it is, or every has been, only so many Requests can be debated, and then possibly granted/supported, by the Team. So it a natural reaction to require as many Players involved, as possible, in order to see movement, or support, or realization. That is just the reality, and not a negative in an of itself.

However, as Thids rightfully points out, the Evil Guilds—whether known or secretive—are the minority on BGTSCC. The Player population of these Guilds, and the Factions, is minimal. Mostly 1 or 2 Players, actively keeping the body alive, but on serious life support. I know, because I've been in contact with most of them recently, and as far as I've seen IC, the most an Evil Guild can manifest is 3 Players (and likely, 2 are the only real Active members). That, in general, is probably not enough Players per Guild to satisfy the X amount needed for requests.

Unless I am wrong? A single Player request often gets replied to with a form reply of "generate more RP, bring in more Players, and it will happen." But that is honestly HIGHLY unlikely from an evil-aligned PC standpoint. So if there is a Guild or Faction with 2 Players, is that enough?

I don't want to speak for the few Guilds I have been in regular contact with the Guild Leaders, but they all lament that recruiting and keeping Players is incredibly hard. But I don't want to go off too far on a tangent.

Let me just reiterate that the lack of Player Requests for Evil-minded RP—as Theophanies pointed out in his opinion is the norm—is probably, mostly, because Players do not feel confident that they a) can see those requests realize with support from the DM team, and b) that there exists a Role for Evil-aligned to have a "greater" effect on the Sword Coast environment of this Server.

This is why I suggested to the Team that an NPC Faction of easily accessible Evil guidance is created and maintained by the DMs—much like the Dukes and the Flaming Fist exist—in order to provide a stable and clear avenue for Players to grow and develop Characters under. These known evil Guild/Factions exist in Canon Lore, so it would not be difficult at all to "balance the power" in this regard.

I also think it would flip the script on the "send in your Player Requsts," to "Receive these DM requests," and Players could step up to complete the tasks/quests/missions/etc laid out by the DMs.

Cheers.

We currently have some things in the works to try to address the issue of evil PC collaboration (some RP measures of which have already happened at least initially) and we hope that it helps address the concerns you and others are raising -- as a matter of statistics, I am not sure the point is true or not, but as a matter of perception, which is more important, it is true, so we need to do better. At the end of the day though, it will still be up to players to build off such an approach with player initiative in many respects after initial DMing lights the social fire so to speak. As far as player requests go in terms of the amount of players involved IC, it is true that for requests looking to permanently alter the world we do generally look for higher IC PC participation. If this is a struggle for the reasons you raised though, I recommend telling us and explaining that in the request and we can see what we can do. If that is the reason for lack of IC traction in numbers, I think that we can probably figure out a fair and reasonable solution that doesn't break with lore, assuming we have DMs avaialble to do that. We want all players here to have fun (we are a small and very niche community that shares a unique and special joy for RPing and Forgotten Realms fantasy adventure and we want to try to spread that joy as wide as we reasonably can) and if this concern is road blocking that, we want to work on trying to have this roadblock eliminated.

[Thorsson]

For example:

Lawful evil characters value the allegiances that they have with their cause, government, religion, or other organization. They also value those individuals that they call allies. Betraying a friend is just as much a transgression for the lawful evil as it is for the lawful good.

I wanted to put this back in play again, but I'd like to make a different point arising. A LE character does not have to be part of a LE guild; he could certainly join a LN guild; or not be part of any guild at all - he can have personal goals rather than those of a grander nature. There should be nothing to stop LE getting on in any LN type area; in a Chaotic Neutral area he will have much more problem with the Chaos rather than that it is Neutral.

The difference between him, LN and LG could be subtle. For instance if the Law said a Thief should have his hand cut off, the LE character would gladly do it, a LN character might do it reluctantly, while a LG character would try to find some way to achieve redemption for the Thief.

And I read above than the areas are mostly Neutral (LN, CN or TN). Are they really? If you measure by the Temples and the Guild Houses it would not seem that way. Indeed this whole thread is talking about Good & Evil. Nary a mention of Neutral. Maybe that's the elephant in the room...

[NegInfinity]

For example:

Lawful evil characters value the allegiances that they have with their cause, government, religion, or other organization. They also value those individuals that they call allies. Betraying a friend is just as much a transgression for the lawful evil as it is for the lawful good.

I wanted to put this back in play again, but I'd like to make a different point arising. A LE character does not have to be part of a LE guild; he could certainly join a LN guild; or not be part of any guild at all - he can have personal goals rather than those of a grander nature. There should be nothing to stop LE getting on in any LN type area; in a Chaotic Neutral area he will have much more problem with the Chaos rather than that it is Neutral.

The difference between him, LN and LG could be subtle. For instance if the Law said a Thief should have his hand cut off, the LE character would gladly do it, a LN character might do it reluctantly, while a LG character would try to find some way to achieve redemption for the Thief.

Speaking of LE, one thing that really matters about LE is which law this particular LE follows.
If "protecting friends/allies" is not part of LE's code, then LE will gladly slay allies when ordered, because traditions are important and "friends" are actually disposable pawns.

The explanation of LE on easydamus is rather narrow and somewhat naive. It does fit some of the lawful evil characters, but not all of them.The alignment is very versatile and can encompass huge range of characters.

[DM Pun Pun]

The issue with most evil characters these days is they rely too much on PvP to show how evil they are and they can't take minor victories; they have to be major victories to mean anything.

PvP has its uses, but overusing it doesn't help a character. In fact it hinders character development. You'll either be grouped with all of the other wanton PvPers(some of which do it for blatant trolling) or you will never be able to develop any type of plot around your character because players will just avoid you. And please don't think I am saying stop it all together. But if you take a look at the best villains this server has had, they did have their fair share of PvP. But for the the most part, they had strong moments of good RP, that didn't have to involve seeing who can pwn who. People will remember characters for their RP, not for how 1337 their build is in a PvP.

On the DM side, I've noticed evil characters can't take minor victories. They want to push the envelope as far as they can, and most of the time it turns a dastardly deed into a humiliating loss. Case in point: I once was overseeing an inn with ambiance when an evil PC decided to take action to stop something that was occurring. It got out of hand, but through wit and ingenuity, the character succeeded in starting a chaotic brawl within the inn. As the player started to leave, I thought this is a really awesome way to leave a scene, especially considering the character's personality. Then I receive a tell: "I want to burn the inn down". ...

You can't have your expectations be on the level of "I'm just going to assassinate a Duke right now". That's not how it works. That's not even how it currently works for good aligned characters either. You need initiative and humble expectations.

There are some excellent evil characters running around this server currently. Some are even causing more chaos than they probably even realize now, and they are not characters that I have ever seen in a PvP conflict. But they are doing some damage that will eventually cause others adversity. But if you look abck at the samples of great villains on this server, this kind of stuff is why they are regarded as such.

[Thorsson]

The explanation of LE on easydamus is rather narrow and somewhat naive. It does fit some of the lawful evil characters, but not all of them.The alignment is very versatile and can encompass huge range of characters.

I agree with this. My point is that LE characters are not CE, nor do they have to be involved in grand plots, nor do they have to be promoting Evil (with a capital E). And again I iterate, what about the Neutral? There ought to be stuff about people simply wanting personal riches and power. Hell, not even all the Goodies should be after destroying Evil; some might think it's enough to promote Good, others might see a more narrow definition of their role, e.g. a Hin might simply look to keep Gullykin safe.

[Evilar]

You mean events designed for good only characters? Which events are those?

All open events i seen are open to evil characters. I have seen Sharan/Cult of the dragon/Zhent/assassins/etc characters join those events.

If you talk about guild specific events, this happens for every guild. No guild will have weekly events if that is what you are hoping for.

Just because they are open doesn't mean they are conducisve to a evil-aligned character or in keeping with their goals.

For example, the near-sacking of Baldur's Gate, I'm sure there were MANY a evil character that would have like to see that come about but from reading nearly the whole 1351 campaign, it just wasn't going to happen (For Meta reasons I understand but...)

[Evilar]

I think it boils down to what we want to achieve, and what is possible to achieve, both from a mechanical perspective, and a roleplaying one.....

Yes, playing evil can be a lot of fun! but... you need to be careful where you play, and with what people, and unless you know how to do it, that can quickly exclude you from certain groups....

We are all here to roleplay to some extent, and if being too extreme in either direction prevents us from being included in roleplay... well, then it is not worth it in the end.

Now, I myself... ain't usually in this position. But having playing since 09, and on other servers, the pattern tends to repeat itself. Evil character who are in the spotlight, tends to get exiled, haunted and even badgered OOC-ly by certain more hardcore/extreme elements of the opposite community. And in the end, this colors the players perspective on the experience, and the community (sadly)....

And there are sadly people in the community whom will harass you ic'ly.. and ooc'ly for this. This is a shame, and sadly a reality.

Ps. It should be noted that ooc-haunting others aint cool...

I love all the points you make and my chief concern with online play is Meta-gaming, where you are basically cheating and taking that OOC into the game.

That's what I don't like and I am primarily on the look out for because if I catch a whiff that here (referring to the Server as a whole), then I'm out of here because it will make it too hard to play and not worth my time and effort to build a viable PC and you veterans KNOW how long it took you to establish your long-time PC's

[Evilar]

Leave items off the table or start another thread. It has 0 to do with alignment.

Well that's a flat lie..
What does all evil aspire to do? Have power.. how is power obtained? By skill, items, and determination. You know what doesn't help.. when the next whistling bard puts his Longsword +4 with +1d6 sonic damage through your chest while watching your head explode as he hums because hes stopped and orc raid and has the blinged out necklace of awesome to match his shiny ring of cool guy and slippers of DM events.
I beg to differ, items are alignment weighted.

Couldn't agree with you more Akroma666 that is is about items as well as you so succinctly illustrated. Plus from my observations of the server and topics that we are AWASHED with startlingly powerful, generic (unamed) magical items (I JUST checked out the auction house), which does trouble me be an old-school PnP player.
(But that observation is for another time)

My point is that; HERE gear is king, no ifs ands or buts, so it is definitely something has to be in the discussion and I do that it is getting hammered out because better to talk about it and ruffle a few feathers both ways than let it fester and there be no progress.

[Steve]

The explanation of LE on easydamus is rather narrow and somewhat naive. It does fit some of the lawful evil characters, but not all of them.The alignment is very versatile and can encompass huge range of characters.

I challenge you to find a better resource for giving detailed and various means to role-play the characteristics of the Alignments, in a system applied to D&D, specifically.

Simply denigrating and subjectively determining something without any contrasting evidence to present that supports your side of an argument, in a debate, does nothing to prove a point.

The Lawful Evil topic of easydamus' Alignment Section contains 4,040 words. To you, that is "narrow" and "somewhat naive." Can you yourself write something better, or even, provide a better source?