Surfacefolk to Underdark Relations

[Max Hatchet]

If a group of four drow adventurers (players) saw say four surfacers in the tunnels would they necessarily attack them? Maybe, maybe not, but they also may be highly likely to avoid them. Why should they risk death by attacking these unknowns unless they are dedicated ambushers?

Keeping an eye on the tunnels is the responsibility of city patrols and since traders are welcome and the tunnels are ‘well travelled’ the patrols will not randomly attack people without questioning them?

[JIŘÍ]

Two months ago I came for a fresh and new experience. I even bought game for my close friend to cut short his excuses.

I set up donating of humble 5 dollars monthly to support server.

Then I join and first thing u hear I am cut off from 70% of game content.

That really made my eyebrow to be raised. But what I am used to live with little (my friend was and is much more agitated by it).

So when I went over I can't access most dungeons and spawns and truly adventure I in addition am punished even further by server rules.

By having server rules to encourage people to provide zero Interactikn and role play to me via kill on sight server rules. And with IG laws of cities encouraging ooc threats like telling above who meets my character to cause them troubles for providing me fun.

It makes impression like am treated as second rate player only cause I play a drow and that I am not generally welcome here.

I am not saying this is reality or that I have such experie ce myself (but I am once a week told by others they had such). I am saying what feelings and impression the server setting triggers.

And most hilarious are these pictures on loading speaking of epic adventure and then my drow on her level is sentenced to travel 2-3 areas over and over. These screens really made one playing in UD to laugh.

[Steve]

I don’t know about others, but I’d prefer that the Under/Upperdark would provide enough of a rich experience that any need to “go surface” would be super duper minimal, and, if done, would provide the rare experience and challenging experience, something I would equate to what it would be like if one lived their whole life on the equator but then was plopped down in northern Siberia, but only worse. EDIT: However, some actual or existential Big Time Rewards were gained in the Survival of such an “adventure.”

That said, Lore does dictate, and as Theophanies pointed out some posts back, their are a number of Surface organizations with enough power to keep trade with Sshamath—that of which we already established is a “special” Drow Town—so ideally, a Drow wanting personal relations or trade with The Top Siders, would start there (and generate some RP to boot).

Go for it! I think both Zhents and Thayans could use a shot in the arm!

[JIŘÍ]

I don’t know about others, but I’d prefer that the Under/Upperdark would provide enough of a rich experience that any need to “go surface” would be super duper minimal, and, if done, would provide the rare experience and challenging experience, something I would equate to what it would be like if one lived their whole life on the equator but then was plopped down in northern Siberia, but only worse.

That said, Lore does dictate, and as Theophanies pointed out some posts back, their are a number of Surface organizations with enough power to keep trade with Sshamath—that of which we already established is a “special” Drow Town—so ideally, a Drow wanting personal relations or trade with The Top Siders, would start there (and generate some RP to boot).

Go for it! I think both Zhents and Thayans could use a shot in the arm!

The only thing UD has is a drow city Rockrun and dwarven outpost. Kinda too few. Then there are hostile server rules and setting.

For you it is maybe a fun to spend lifetime of character on goblins up to 15th, then in mines up to 25th...for others it can be and is a point when they decide to go play other games.


Sshamat is also incredible boring. Magical warding, only handful spawns around, conclave that can crush you under heel regardless who your pc is. There is no feeling of player driven things. Pcs are like 10:1 llothites (nothing wrong with it) and City feels so much out of place.

[JIŘÍ]

Current state of things makes impression like UD is to become own server or be fully deleted.

[Max Hatchet]

The only thing UD has is a drow city Rockrun and dwarven outpost. Kinda too few. Then there are hostile server rules and setting.

For you it is maybe a fun to spend lifetime of character on goblins up to 15th, then in mines up to 25th...for others it can be and is a point when they decide to go play other games.


Sshamat is also incredible boring. Magical warding, only handful spawns around, conclave that can crush you under heel regardless who your pc is. There is no feeling of player driven things. Pcs are like 10:1 llothites (nothing wrong with it) and City feels so much out of place.

My Drow is currently my most played toon. I have surfacers too. BGTSCC is a server based around Baldurs Gate the city and the surrounding area. Its not an Underdark server. The Underdark is a sizable portion of the server. The Underdark populaion fluctuates quite a bit. Most players here who have a UD character also have one or more surfacer characters.

For me, Sshamath is a wondeful space and beautifully designed area. Its also the best possible FR Drow city for me as it does allow fairly free movement and egress for surfacers and DOES allow RP between the two player bases as well as plots and events - in theory.

There are actually loads of Lolthite players - they just haven't been so active last couple of weeks.

On PW servers having an Underdark is a nice counterpoint to the surface. A Yin versus the Yang. The Underdark could be better - there are too many samey dark tunnnels but its unlikely it would ever be granted more space than it already has and it probably shouldnt.

[Agog_Fr]

You know, the problem never melts is a problem of rules or background that would be inappropriate.

The problem is the lack of DM.

We can say what we want, we can not permanently have fun and RP on a vacuum, without DM.

Can you imagine a game of Pen & Papper without DM?

The players and the DM form a couple. When one is in celibacy, one ends up feeling lonely. ^^


The fundamental solution for the Underdark would be a DM passionate about the Underdark. And a good DM would establish, if the players want it, logical relations between a guild of the surface (the Zhentarim for example) and a drow house of the Underdark.

What is certain is that I can never be DM here because my level of English is too weak to be satisfactory. But I'm sure many other players could.

Solve the problem.

[JIŘÍ]

The only thing UD has is a drow city Rockrun and dwarven outpost. Kinda too few. Then there are hostile server rules and setting.

For you it is maybe a fun to spend lifetime of character on goblins up to 15th, then in mines up to 25th...for others it can be and is a point when they decide to go play other games.


Sshamat is also incredible boring. Magical warding, only handful spawns around, conclave that can crush you under heel regardless who your pc is. There is no feeling of player driven things. Pcs are like 10:1 llothites (nothing wrong with it) and City feels so much out of place.

My Drow is currently my most played toon. I have surfacers too. BGTSCC is a server based around Baldurs Gate the city and the surrounding area. Its not an Underdark server. The Underdark is a sizable portion of the server. The Underdark populaion fluctuates quite a bit. Most players here who have a UD character also have one or more surfacer characters.

For me, Sshamath is a wondeful space and beautifully designed area. Its also the best possible FR Drow city for me as it does allow fairly free movement and egress for surfacers and DOES allow RP between the two player bases as well as plots and events - in theory.

There are actually loads of Lolthite players - they just haven't been so active last couple of weeks.

On PW servers having an Underdark is a nice counterpoint to the surface. A Yin versus the Yang. The Underdark could be better - there are too many samey dark tunnnels but its unlikely it would ever be granted more space than it already has and it probably shouldnt.

You just missed all points I tried to make.

Sshamat is lacking content to support conflict role play. And with current setting conflict role play within UD is only possible main source of spin. It could have been awesome place if worked onto.

And that it has enough size is a joke from your side. It has enough if you could have full access to surface locations but with how it is set up it is very little for stand alone module.


But if you believe it is enough it is your opinion and I am not going to persuade you. I came to play drow not a surface character if I wanted to play a surface character I would pick a new nwn ee server because ee brought many new possible routes for development and more people buy it over nwn2.

If I was doing decision aware I would spend two months beating same single npc in same location (while on loading screens phrases of epic adventure lol) I wouldnt join at all most likely

[cosmic ray]

I don’t know about others, but I’d prefer that the Under/Upperdark would provide enough of a rich experience that any need to “go surface” would be super duper minimal

Not all drow players seek surface roleplay only to make up for the lack of interaction in the Underdark.

Some of us play Vhaueraunites and Eilistraeens, who are drow actively trying to take back the surface by force and to find peaceful acceptance there, respectively. These are perfectly valid lore-based concepts and the only reason why the OOC rules heavily discourage player engagement in them is the existence of players, some of whom make it onto the staff, who have a personal dislike for these bits of lore and try their hardest to keep them to a minimum, although I'm sure their dream would be to "cure that epidemic" entirely if only they could.

[Steve]

Do you really think there exists some Staff promoted anti-Drow-on-Surface agenda?

[JIŘÍ]

...

[Ghost]

I want to remind you all of what zanniej posted earlier. You're not helping any cause by making personal attacks in public on the forums.

[Ravial]

This thread only further continues to prove that majority of anyone wants to keep their preferred one-sided lore of the setting that suits their character concepts and mostly discards the other, also a major part, of the lore of the setting that goes against them

How about we all just... Stop arguing? Underdark to Surface connections and roleplay availability has been at their easiest since YEARS. Do you folks forget how -hard- was it for any freaking UD character go get to the surface when the only passage was through even -much worse- Durlag's Tower with Netherese Maze on top of it? Do you forget how, many many years ago, people with UD characters that managed to get to the surface would get literally hunted not so long after and had little to no possibility to get even DM events on the surface- barring some cases where the UD characters a target to be killed rather than not?

Yeah. Sorry, but things have changed a -metric crapton- since those times. UD life has it very easy these days. With my own priestess of Eilistraee, if I wanted, I could just stroll up to surface, find some roleplay rather easily and then just tell any DM that asks that I'm just furthering guild to guild relations with faith roleplay. My priestess wasn't like that- she preferred living in Underdark, but the point remains. There's literally no trouble at all. Furthermore, the DMs allow drow-to-surface interaction more than ever, providing that they have enough time and power to actually field such requests.

On the other hand, UD desperately needs DM attention if we want a healthy environment downstairs. UD is tiny? Yeah, sure. It is. But it's not tiny enough for people to keep going into the same area over and over again. There are -so many different places- you can go to. It's just that most of them are worthless for anything between level 15-30. Something that could be changed to give a better end-game content for UD characters.

Sshamath being a bad lore place? LOL, Sshamath is one of the -best- UD cities that we could have gotten, barring Eryndlyn. It literally allows for all kinds of drow faiths to exist there and try furthering their agendas- especially when the organisation has mages that are willing to support some factions within the Conclave (Since Conclave isn't a unified body of government. Folks- they are still drow that use cutthroat politics against one another to gain more influence).

There's a lot to do in the Underdark and with Sshamath. There's been a lot going on simply through House Dev'lin deciding they'll try attacking Sshamath and that generated ripples in the society of Sshamath. But nothing happens down in Underdark. Why? Maybe let's start with people sending requests to the DM Team to actually do something and achieve some roleplay that would give them a grounded standing, instead of choosing to grind all day and every day

[Steve]

I was just shown screenshot where former dm who really made life hell for people playing them boasting of getting rid of these characters by pvp.

Maybe instead of fanning the flames of implication without fact, you'd like to forward this screenshot to the Server Admins, so they can actually deal with such a situation. Since what you are stating would be breaking the rules, if just completely not tolerated by DM Code of Conduct.

[Wildsheep]

I'd like to point out that the DM Team was very supportive when I was playing my Eilistraee priestess some time ago as you can easily see here viewtopic.php?p=872523#p872523 they allowed us to go through with pretty much all our plots and ideas. While I do wish that characters like Eilistraeeans and Vhaeerunites were given a little more leash to perhaps be allowed on the north for example, I understand why the rules are in place.

Now I do wish that there were people interested in DMing for the UD. That's the biggest thing lacking downstairs.