Upcoming time of troubles

[artemitavik]

Ok, so, if everyone wasn't annoyed with me enough for various things, I'm about to get myself likely shot.

So next year is the Time of Troubles. Good times that. I do not know how the server Admin intend to handle it. I've heard some rumors, but eh, rumors are rumors.

This is my thoughts on it, and of course, others are allowed to weigh in. I mean, please do.

1) Do the Time of Troubles.
The server I know is super magic heavy because of all the Epic Level stuff that goes around. However, the time of troubles is a massive, key point in FR history and I think it would be fun to play through. We don't even really have to deal too much with a Metaplot, as "solving" it was handled in the novels quite nicely. Even D'rizzt's team just holed up in the Mythral Halls and just chilled until all the shenanigans passed.

Now, everyone knows I play a fighter based as a main, and yes, I would look forward to a year of non-magic users being a bit more dominant in the system as magic goes wonky. However, I am not suggesting the FULL wonkieness of the Novels where everything just blows up all the time and Holy magic (paladins, clerics, fs, blackguards, etc) just doesn't work unless the Avatar of the god/patron is within 2 miles of where you are.

Instead of that, because eh, do something like make ALL magic everywhere have a 20% chance of wild magic-ing when cast everywhere. This would of course also be for NPCs and Mobs. Then, add like 5% per level of the spell or something like that so by the time you get to epic spells and major movements of the Weave, you've got a 60-75% chance of something REALLY bad going down. That way Clerics can still play too, because reasons. This is of course not permanent but only for the year or so the TOT has.

2) Use the TOT for a springboard.
The second option I would suggest would come in tandem with the Server split stuff getting all the bugs worked out: (and where people REALLY start to hate me)

Character server whip, advance the server time line like 10-15 years, and go. Make it so no, you cannot just play your child's offspring and claim your lands and titles and gear, get a fresh start with everyone else.

This gives everyone a fresh slate, allows for implementations of any of the Server Split changes that need to be made without any real changes to characters, put all our cool characters into Neato Lore And Legend Status, resets the economy a bit, allows for things like Crafting and Enchanting to be thrown in without completely borking what is already around, etc.

You could even (I know I know, but what about my cool numbers of killing all the world!) set the max level for level 20 instead of 30 to solve all the issues that creep up every so often about "well, I'm able to do x, so how is it that lore-wise, a bunch of level 10 fighters are going to stop me?" and such, and allow both more lore-appropriate monsters and NPCs to be placed. You don't even have to change the availability of all the "epic" gear of the epic stores, because the vast majority of it is appropriate for level 20!

And of course for "if my character got whiped, I'd be not inclined to start over" (which I understand) but if you go to another server... you'd... have to start over there too.

Please do NOT:

Just skip it through ignoring that it happens, and just going through the next year as if nothing happens anywhere, or advancing the time line 1 year past to not deal with it.

Ignoring it is massively lore-breaking, beyond any lore bending or changing the server has ever had in its legit "homebrewness".

Skipping it and just saying "oh, everyone just sat around for a year" is equally not viable IMO. You have a bunch of Level 30s and you think that they're just going to sit around and not cause problems with each other? Unlikely. Yes, I know that I said D'rizzt's team did exactly that, but they spanned levels 8-18, not level 30. That just opens the doors for things like:

"Well, we declare this year that the Zhents just move out and take over all the nearby land because we have non-magical troops and no one can stop us"
"No! The Harpers wouldn't allow that, we would use our sneaky-sneakiness to ruin those plans!"
*Pissing match ensues as to what happened off camera and everyone gets angry*

Or declarations of guilds trying to monopolize one thing or the other, and other people saying "no, that's ours, we were going to do that!" not to mention independent declarations of character saying how much of Big Damn Heros they were during this time, etc.

Basically, it opens the door for a whole lot of crap that the DMs will very possibly have to mediate, even if a list of "approved things" is posted at the beginning of it all, and is going to lead to a lot of hurt feelings.

Disclaimer: No actual Guilds, Zhentarim, Harpers, or Big Damn Heros were harmed during this possible hypothetical example. Any resemblance to actual organizations or individuals, real or imaginary, is purely coincidentally exampled in a hypothetical manner.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

*braces for the backlash*

[Rhifox]

Suggestion 1 is fine, though I'd probably say only a few months of the spell failure thing rather than a whole year. 2 is a hard no. It wouldn't be fun, it'd be terrible for players, and it would kill the server.

Also, server split is going to be happening in a couple of weeks, not next year.

And of course for "if my character got whiped, I'd be not inclined to start over" (which I understand) but if you go to another server... you'd... have to start over there too.

"Where else would you go lol" is hardly an incentive to support it.


Personally, my thoughts on ToT:

1) Just don't do it. As artemit has mentioned, we've already had a super heavy magic setting. Do we really need to have the gods walking around in mortal form? Does this add anything to our RP? Or does it further eliminate any feeling of grandeur and mystery from the setting? When you make the awesome mundane and normal, as we keep doing, you remove a lot of the fun of having a magical setting in the first place.

2) Have A Time of Troubles, but not THE Time of Troubles. Leave the gods in their heaven, fighting their wars up there, rather than on earth. DMs can play off those battles in events as their servants and minions come into conflict with each other, and players can thus impact those conflicts, but without the insanity of mortal gods. The chaos caused by the gods' wars can then open the way for shaking up the status quo of BGTSCC. Perhaps Baldur's Gate gets conquered or destroyed, for example.

3) Skip a year. I'm not a big fan of this option, I think it hurts RP, but if we absolutely cannot do anything for ToT but also don't want to have it not happen at all, then a skip can work.

4) Run ToT as normal, but don't have magic fail in general. Instead, introduce or alter certain areas so they are wild or dead magic area. You can, for example, implement new dungeons that are balanced entirely around having no magic, even consumables. Of course, this would depend on if area builders would be on board for that kind of thing.

5) Run ToT as normal, but don't have magic fail. Gods walk around, DMs can milk the event potential from that, but no worries about pissing people off by preventing magic from working.

[Tanlaus]

I think the #1 rule is don’t chase players off. Making their characters useless for a yeah and/or wiping them would very possibly kill the server population. So while the RP potential of both things is kind of cool in the abstract I think, at the end of the day, they are not very workable.

[Korchas]

I think the #1 rule is don’t chase players off. Making their characters useless for a yeah and/or wiping them would very possibly kill the server population. So while the RP potential of both things is kind of cool in the abstract I think, at the end of the day, they are not very workable.

Because the current plan of "Let everything stay as it is and never change anything major" is not bleeding players too? I do not know the exact number, but a grand many people I used to play with are not playing beyond, at most, a login a week to maintain a guild that can't do anything because there is no change happening.

I also do not, at all, remotely, recommend skipping the ToT without at least offering some other major upheaval in their stead that is doable, because that'd most definitely also drive off a good number that have been hoping for change on this stale, ever-repeating drudgery.

I am probably a bit extreme in that, especially as someone no longer playing, but I wholeheartedly would support a Max level 20 server restart. The work involved would be arduous and exhausting, but so is maintaining the current status of "What the heck am I supposed to throw at 3 minmaxed level 30s to actually challenge them?" versus "Oh, my Level 80 DMNPC was a bit too tough, what now."

DnD was originally conceptualized for level 20, and I think it'd be of benefit to return to that.

[Rhifox]

I wouldn't mind taking the opportunity to adjusting the level cap downwards (I'd even say 10, rather than 20. Or E6 rules). Just not with a 15 year timeskip and expectation to wipe everything and roll new characters.

[Almarea90]

I agree we shouldn't ignore ToT as if never happened as it is a huge thing for Faerun and imho ignoring it would be losing a great occasion to shake things up.

I would be all for wild magic or even certain areas with dead magic or wild magic, in fact I am a huge fan of the wild mage in Baldur's Gate games (just saying ). I'm not a fan of the skipping a year idea but I would roll with it if it's too much hassle to do otherwise.

Server wipe to me is a huge nope. Although I would like a general re-balancing of the setting, like level 20 cap, economy system and the like, that can be done without cancelling 12+ years of history built by characters as if they never existed.

[artemitavik]

Well, the point isn't that the 12 years of the character would "never have happened" sort of thing, these characters would stay part of the lore of the server, clearly.

But this is a great opportunity to address a goodly portion of the balance, power creep, and lore/level issues that pop up on the server now and again. I don't think we should waste the clean slate potential.

And the year time skip was just an example, not a hard "WE MUST DO THIS" declaration or anything.

Using it to springboard a level 20 cap though, is in my mind totally legit "Well, magic don't work that way anymore... or godly powers.. huh... ok, new plan" sort of thing.

It would also encourage prestige classes to be more prestigious and such.

[yyj]

If you want my opinion, I will give it.

I don't want the Time of Troubles, this doesn't work on a PW.

Maybe it could be a weekend long non stop monster spawning DM monster brawl event.

Otherwise, I say no,

[Almarea90]

Well, the point isn't that the 12 years of the character would "never have happened" sort of thing, these characters would stay part of the lore of the server, clearly.

This though would require an explanation of what happened to the old characters and factions. If we need a clean slate where the old level 30 characters and factions are still part of the lore we also need to explain why they all died/disappeared. Unless you keep them around as NPC and that would arise a whole load of issues. A way to avoid this would be to skip several centuries, so that everyone or almost everyone is dead. But, again, I like all the ideas except the wipe.

[artemitavik]

Fair enough, though if we DO use the time to rebalance to level 20 cap (which would be great IMO and again, solve a bunch of the power creep and lore/level issues that seem to pop up from time to time) everyone would have to reroll, though I guess all the 30s would just be... well, 20 now.

Explanation of loss of power due to TOT magic shifts and stuff easy to explain though. I could easily roll with that myself, and no wipe would be needed. Wouldn't have to change the gear, stores, or anything else. Just rebalance the Adventure zone and highest end NPC mobs to fit.

[JustAnotherGuy]

I'll admit that I don't have a good answer for what I want to see during the ToT. But I do know some things I don't want to see.

A server wipe is high on that list. The "You'd be starting over on another server" argument doesn't hold water. If I had to start over here, I'd definitely go to a server where I didn't have to start over. I've got level 30s on three other servers. I play here because I like it the best. If I no longer like it the best, I'll move elsewhere.

I've been doing what digging I can on the ToT. The best I can find is that the ToT lasts somewhere from between a couple weeks, to 4 months at the most. If we even had it last a full month, and laid out new guidelines that didn't need to be mechanically enforced for the ToT, I think that would be ideal.

I've been doing personal research for how the ToT would affect my toon. Trying to come up with good ideas I do want to see, rather than just knowing what I don't want to see.

[Hoihe]

Make it last a week at most and don't kill any gods. Not even myrkul, even if I prefer Kelemvor to him.

No resets on player level, especially not character wipes.

I've already enough issues with people making a million alts and throwing them out the window. Rather not have what little draw the server has in the characters that persevered over the years (or have the potential to persevere) disappear for some misplaced "MUNDANES NEED LOVE" "TOO HIGH MAGIC" ideas.

We're high magic. And that's what makes BG better than many alternatives for both NWN1 and NWN2.

[Blame The Rogue]

ed greenwood himself said if it had been his choice, which it wasnt, he had already sold FR to TSR by then and was working for them as a freelancer at that point, he said he would not have done ToT, or any other world-shaking/breaking events, because that is not a good backdrop for DMs/PWs/Players to partake in group story-telling

he hated that every time there was an edition update, TSR or WoTC, would unleash some hell on earth on FR to coincide. he sees that not only as unnecessary, but also unwanted

his view is that it is up to the individual DM, and group of players, to choose what happens to the world, "their faerun"

my opinion is no on ToT, and no x 2 on level 20 cap

[Rinzler]

You could take portions of the ToT and implement them but not follow the events verbatim to accommodate the realistic needs of sustaining the community while still paying homage to the lore.

[Louvaine]

I've heard before that people didn't want to start over. I think that's not a good attitude for D&D, but it sure is for online PW game. I can totally respect that.

As someone who doesn't know Faerun lore I'd just want status quo to be shaken up. I've been on the server for about 4-5 months now. Since I joined nothing major has happened. The biggest changes were Blackrose's castle and Tax Collector. And one of them was unimportant and another considered visual change at best.

I would love for something gamechanging to happen, but the nature of such events is very limited, less they too become mundane occurances. ToT seems like a good time for something major to happen. I have no expectations as to what it would be. I sure would love to see some drama between PCs. Players vs. DMs bores me.

Just for sake of speaking it out loud - I don't mind going down to Lv. 20 cap. Maybe we could have slower XP gain then, to make getting to Lv. 20 feel earned.