Setting immersion and...things

[Hoihe]

You are using "we" a lot.The fact that you revel in the fantastical does not mean others do as evidenced by this thread and several others.

The world of Faerun is strife, war, disease and dark magic. It is also one of gods and heroes and mighty works. It is objectively darker than our real world due to the nature of balance between the gulfs of good and evil.

An adventurer does not fear disease, injury, insanity or even death in the same way as a commoner does. The fact that everyone who you interact with on the server is some version of an adventurer is not emblematic of the world itself.

And again, when magic solves everything there are no stakes.

As well as, adventurers can't do everything. (play your sheet)

Additionally, try not to make such extremely reductive arguments about toe cuts when people are asking for a way to not have their play style and immersion ruined. It is very demeaning to those with these concerns.

A single, level 3 cleric outperforms the best doctors we have in real life. Faerun is basically utopia compared to our world where if you go to work, an irresponsible person coughs at you and suddenly you get lung-scarring that nobody can fix. While a level 3 cleric will fix with a spell that has no material or XP component. Maybe level 5 if the disease lingers - and the level 5 spell also has no material component.

The only thing limiting ilmatari from healing everyone is numbers. Even 100 level 3 clerics won't be able to keep up with a metropolis. And Ilmatari will heal the poor for free, while asking for donations from the rich.

And Tymorans, one of the richest churches in Faerun, will fix anything for anyone, provided they pay up handily.

[Snarfy]

How about we all just take a breath, and...



I would very much like to hear the OP and others respond before this thread gets shut down. Thanks.

[Shadowspinner70]

I'd say the poor adventurer can and will fear these diseases. Mummy Rot, for example, and its plenty of nasty strains. There's magic, both for good and evil, but they also counteract the myriad things trying to kill the typical adventurer or commoner.

Commoners also can't always afford these things and gods don't always answer prayers. Even poor adventurers probably can't pay for these things or attract the attention of a god unless they do one of the aforementioned fantastical things.

I personally don't like the reductionist argument Diamore pointed out, or the assertion that everything's going to be okay because of magic. The typical drow or orc, especially the drow, would use the magic to heighten hope, then crush said hope of the unawares. It's used for evil as much as for good. Evil churches exist as well. I can see a Gargauthian priest asking for a hefty price.

I understand the want to boast about knowing about things a normal person wouldn't (I do it sometimes), or killing a Balor singlehandedly. I'm also guilty of casually agreeing to help kill the pit fiend below or taking a trip to the UD with a single companion. If someone's immersion is diminished because of it, their concerns need to be addressed in some form or another; if the other person isn't having fun, then adapt or one person may need to leave for the moment.

[Diamore]

All of my prior points remain

• As to the utopia I forward the Netherese, Mindflayers (and aberrants in general), the existence of literal evil, eternal torment, necromancy, drow raids, and cults of murderers hidden under the cities.
• The dnd world is in balance between two extremes. Anyone caught on the bad side has a vastly worse experience equal to only the most desperate of circumstances in the real world, and even then the extremes of darkness in DnD are far worse than the real world.
• I also forward the Book of Vile Darkness and Ravenloft which accesses multiple realms and planes.
• Souls can be stolen, destroyed, reforged or simply forgotten and lost.

The world of Faerun might encompass utopias of different types, but it also has the darkest of depths imaginable. You cannot claim otherwise.

The easiest way to secure your immersion is to party with those with similar RP goals or ideas and avoid those that force you to RP around things that make you uncomfortable. I have left two groups in the last week because one player was adamant about something that was ridiculous and immersion breaking, and I have done the same with individual characters RP that push the limits of believe-ability.

[Thaelis]

The other day I saw someone kill a Black Dragon 1-on-1, without even getting seriously injured. And they sneak-attacked the dragon multiple times (Gods know how...HiPS? Feint?).

Anyway, my point is I don't think there's much chance of maintaining immersion in the NWN2 engine. A real dragon would have just cast Greater Dispel and started pummeling you with magic after it's 50th physical attack missed. But their isn't any "I" in the NWN2 AI.

[Snarfy]

Anyway, my point is I don't think there's much chance of maintaining immersion in the NWN2 engine.

+1 ... I would also add that, ultimately, everyone is responsible for maintaining their own level of immersion. If it isn't your bag, just walk away. While it potentially sucks immersion-wise to bail from any RP for ooc reasons, it's less shitty than sticking around and getting black eyes from face-palming.

[Blackbird]

Well, this thread really, uh...developed while I was away. There are a couple things I want to touch on regarding some of the discussion points.

One thing I want to mention that I think has been prodded a bit is contextual awareness of our characters vs. the rest of the setting. I think it can be easy to fall into a particular mode of thought that extends the bubble of your character out over the rest of the world they inhabit, such that you flip the whole thing around and it's the world inhabiting your character instead of the character inhabiting the world. For me, personally, this is counter to the immersion of the PW and I think it is a damper on the RP of others' characters. Just because you are a 30th level character who has faced down powerful entities and studied incredible magic doesn't mean the rest of the world has. That goes for both good and evil (and everyone in between). Imagine if Elminster sat down at a campfire outside Baldur's Gate and told every passerby that he had just come back from the sixth layer of the Hells where he had slain 10 balors and then asks if anyone wants to join him next time; he does this because to him this is normal and thus it must extend to everyone else. Except it doesn't. This is a case where the character of Elminster has subsumed the setting in which he exists.

The second thing I want to note is that a certain argument developed about the existence of easily available healing magics (The Book of Exalted Deeds), which was countered by source material with opposing functionality (The Book of Vile Darkness). The magic solves everything argument is one that comes up in a lot of fantasy settings (not just D&D) and what I think most people forget is that the opposing forces mentioned exist. In opposition. To use the PTSD argument presented earlier, this means that yes, you can magically remove someone's mental trauma. It also means that you can magically inflict mental trauma. You might even find yourself in a situation where you have a being who has been magically inflicted with mental trauma and magically cured of mental trauma so many times that they develop an unusual magic-resistant trauma associated with this continuous cycle of trauma and trauma-removal.

To this second point: Remember that magic solves problems, but it also creates them.

Thirdly, yes, walking away is a valid option. It is also a way to instantly segregate and cut yourself off from a portion of the server population. Sometimes this happens anyway because it fits the character, but sometimes it just isolates a social character.

I am very interested in hearing what everyone else has to say and I hope that everyone who wants to gets to have the chance to present their thoughts.

[athornforyourheart]

**was typed before the previous post was submitted

Thing is... some people are actually doing this with little care of how others feel

I’ve had to log out because someone felt the need to boast how they travel the plains and pretty much know all the lore the “actual” player knows. Basically using the loopholes and exploits of a faulted game engine to boast his reasoning. It’s unfair that I have to walk away and log out because at my hours of play half the server is asleep and there’s no other active hub to find role play at. This is also constant for other players.

I don’t expect things will change. Things never really do when it comes to RP and people so determined to snowflake themselves. But having a better awareness for players who read these forums to go off of could help.

[c2k]

So my question to everyone here is: How do you deal with this?

Avoid "campfire RP". If people are sitting around the campfire, they are bored and usually killing time. Its not really worth it considering anyone can come up and say "I am the Duke of Beregost!!" and it means absolutely nothing.

If for some reason someone is talking about something that would trigger your character but you have no evidence to back it up without saying "OOC: check the forum", just dismiss them as a drunkard getting their swerve on or some crazy old person telling tall tales. Most of the characters running around would probably be locked up in a looney bin anyway.

[c2k]

A single, level 3 cleric outperforms the best doctors we have in real life.

You just need to find the right doctors.

[V'rass]

Um saying magic solves all problems is like saying technology solves all problems... it does not and often creates more problems then it solves.

[Rhifox]

To this second point: Remember that magic solves problems, but it also creates them.

^^^^
I wish magic was treated this way more often. One of the reasons I play a character that does uncommon/forbidden magic is for this reason.

As for how to deal with this problem... it's difficult. A large server of many different players has many different RP styles. Some people prefer high fantasy, magic everywhere. Some people prefer low fantasy, with magic rare and difficult (personally, that's what I prefer). Unfortunately for those of us that prefer low fantasy, DnD, and FR, are quite high. Now, this is supposed to be partially balanced with level ranges. Magic, power, and tremendous events aren't really supposed to happen for low level characters. But BG suffers the same problem that most PWs suffer from: An infatuation with 'max level cap'. We have level 1 characters mixing with level 30 ones. Even when you take the typical idea of us being lorewise half what our actual level is (so 15th level rather than 30 for the purpose of lore and adventures), that is still quite high level, and so you will be surrounded by "high level events." And for the most part, you as a player character are dealing with other player characters, most of them adventurers, not commoners.

How do you get around it? You don't really, sorry to say. At least, I haven't figured out a good way. There's too much high fantasy stuff going on that you can't just avoid it. Even removing yourself from the most immersion breaking conversations, plenty of characters, dungeons, and plots involve tremendous things. It is mundane on BG. Hoihe gave a good accounting for the kind of stuff that's happened already.

And the Time of Troubles, when gods literally physically walk the earth, is in two years. Hooray?

You might not be the 30th level character regaling stories of plots that are happening/have happened to you right now... but you will be, eventually. Because those plots will happen, or you'll be in those dungeon groups, and you will end up talking about them. You will be involved in battles with balors, dragons, portals opening in the middle of the farmlands, and so on. They are fodder for plots and dungeons partly because of such a high level cap seeming to demand higher level monsters (it would be nice if we could have more human threats, for once). And even if you try not to mention these things in public, someone else will, and then you'll be dragged into it by virtue of having been involved with it.

It is just very, very hard to avoid.

As far as Elminster sitting down at campfires... doesn't he though? He always seems to turn up in random places to casually tell stories. Elminster is the kind of character who plays up the fantastical nature of the setting, I thought?

Overall though, DnD and FR are just high fantasy in general, and BG in particular is thanks to high level cap/adventurers being adventurers/the plots and dungeons we are often faced with. Just kind of have to endure it. :/ But hey, at least the daily trips to Hell were removed.

[gedweyignasia]

Please, let's:

• Avoid complaining about individual players' RP, even without naming them
• Talk about how limited or poorly-designed systems influence everyone's RP
• Try to provide realistic solutions or improvements to these limitations for devs and for players

[c2k]

• Talk about how limited or poorly-designed systems influence everyone's RP
• Try to provide realistic solutions or improvements to these limitations for devs and for players

No one wants to hear it, but the only way to improve the RP is to have a pre-epic level cap, but have the spawns be uncapped to an extent. It is a very realistic solution, but it would likely be very unfavorable and it would cause a period of chaos. There is a silent majority on this server that would be disgusted with it I believe.

Now, there could be ways to mitigate this, but then again, that would require a herculean effort from custom content and design. There would have to be a re-calibration of the areas. You could rework feats to fit into such a medium level setup. You would have to re-evaluate all the nerfs and buffs granted on this server to match the current power level. It would be massive endeavor, and I'm not sure CC/design would have the heart to not get burnt out by it (I know I would).

TL;DR There is a realistic solution, but its not something I see everyone on-board with.



While not related to a system in the game, there is one way I do think everyone could improve their RP and it is to utilize this section of the forums right here: viewforum.php?f=13

I do believe its underused and it will help people assimilate better into the server environment.

[Rhifox]

E6 rules let's go!

... it'll never happen, but I can dream.