Update on Open question to team evil/morally questionable

[Aspect of Sorrow]

Yes, evil has "victories" but they're generally self-contained and via a personal/guild DM plot. That said, I can't think of one example where an evil player's initiative prevailed over its good player's counterpart during my time here.

Wren DiCorvi and Selengil Harkonis' multi-year Zhentarim influence inside Duchal politics is a pretty big example, only being overturned in the past year.

Selengil (Wolfshear) was the OP of the original thread under this topic two years ago and this was his conclusion:

Playing evil is entirely pointless and utterly unfulfilling on this server.

None of which invalidates his accomplishments when they were made. He invested a lot of his time, and while not all of it to success, some of those things did prevail. Were I in his shoes with the optics I have I would have handled some of it differently but Darkhold was never a personal ambition. Other long standing effects of evil RP that prevailed can be attributed throughout history to include Triel's story, the ORH betrayer, Mae Yr, the Nashkel Sigil, the list can go on and on wherein acts of evil has contributed to either a drastic change or the origin point that snowballed into what we have today consequentially.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

Easy there, cowboy. Those very paladins you mentioned did take on a god and walked without a scratch. Clearly, you could take the Darkhold on and go drink in a bar next morning.

No one were given permadeaths from that event, but some were given permastrikes. Any actual permadeaths were decided entirely by the individual player at the time and I spent my time asking several times if they're sure about it.

Please, let us be civil here.

It even kicked off an evil vs good player initiative with evil having a considerable leverage.

[Louvaine]

I don't mean to present the choice to take permastrike as a slight to player that chose it, however during my almost three years on the server I never saw a PC die due to accrued permastrikes. Did you? When was the last time? I stand by my answer. Permastrike is no consequence. It reflects nothing in character. As far as I see it, some knights faced off a god, or an avatar, or whatever. Something powerful and divine. They walked the very next day. I stand by what I said. Emmanuel could assault Darkhold and go drinking next day. Evidence is above.

Now, this is heavily off topic in my opinion, we were supposed to be sharing our experiences, documenting them for reflection and feedback to each other. And yet we choose to bicker. We chose to lessen each other's thoughts and get into some arguments. I seem to recall this is exactly what happened last time. Some things never change.

I invite you all, friends, to read through the last four pages. Take a step back. Breathe in. Learn from your fellow player and think if there's a value to be had from listening, or from arguing. Think about how you can make this place better for when this subject comes up next, rather than circling back to the same answer. Feedback is valuable. Arguments are not.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

I don't mean to present the choice to take permastrike as a slight to player that chose it, however during my almost three years on the server I never saw a PC die due to accrued permastrikes. Did you? When was the last time? I stand by my answer. Permastrike is no consequence. It reflects nothing in character. As far as I see it, some knights faced off a god, or an avatar, or whatever. Something powerful and divine. They walked the very next day. I stand by what I said. Emmanuel could assault Darkhold and go drinking next day. Evidence is above.

Witnessed two, but the PW isn't a permanent death simulator, nor is permanent death the go-to for consequence; you should know this. There's an overemphasis on your part for this surrounding the timing of your own personal character consequence chosen that you didn't have to take but did. The PW has a history of deific stand-offs, and rarely did the outcome come in favor of the persons taking a stab at its resolution in their favor. This is hardly a good-only plot armor piece.

[Grimwald]

Hey, i've been playing my necromancer since late 2019/early 2020. I read alot of the previous thread/this thread and instead of parroting what alot of people have said already I just wanted to offer my personal experiences and how they might be improved. I've actually been thinking of making a similar thread appealing to team good due to some interactions some newer players I know have had with people recently. I'm gonna do my best to keep my ranting down and make some clear points.

First and foremost the vast majority of interaction with anyone has only begun with what i would describe as "unwarranted pvp"

To set a standard, let me describe a "warranted pvp" situation in its most basic form.

A paladin spots a necromancer in a field

Paladin:EVIL!
Necromancer: MWAHAHAHAHA!

then they kill each other, and continue to do so long into the future because they developed the reputation with one another.

Instead what I get is attacked without being set to hostile or ambushed and witch hunted by 6-12 people. Frequently after downing me, people would continue to attack my 1 hp body in an attempt to send me to the fugue plane and cause me to take an xp hit for rezing (this was before the recent changes). If I do get any kind of verbal communication it's dismissive and if they think they have an advantage it's supremely arrogant. All too often people with extremely little to say will return 10-15 minutes later with friends (that "in game" came from 100s of miles away) just to tell me about how they changed their mind and they actually DO have a problem with my undead.

Non hostile interactions do happen as well but they tend to be very minimal. It's usually just recoiling at the sight of the skeleton and cowering in fear or trying to make a hasty exit, which given my personal experience on the server is i can hardly blame what their expectations of me must be.

I can probably count the number of "good" interactions with people in the single digits (pvp or non pvp). People rarely make any kind of effort outside of a few hostile words or general apathy.

Just want to give a big shout out to the guy patrolling frost giants my group ran into a few weeks ago. Not only did he just ask that we put the undead away but he also took the time to answer my monks stupid derailing questions about summoning alternatives "if you can't use undead then what are you supposed to use?"
If you're reading this I regret not telling you at the time but I really appreciate you putting in the effort.

On the polar opposite side I can tell a quick story about how I was helping my buddy level in Duergar mines outside nashkel after he just rcrd.
(Before I continue this bit I just want to clarify that I am fully aware of the legality of undead in nashkel)

So a few months ago we are leveling with a very powerful undead (for the duergar outside nashkel at any rate) that my buddy had turned to stone, transported, and then destoned and controlled. We weren't there for very long until two level 30s come in and go straight for the undead my friend controlled and then came straight for us on the upper level. This isn't my friends first rodeo though and he had already cast ethereal on us before they made it up the steps.
So they run over to demand to know if we raised that undead to which my friend wisely responds that he did not animate the undead he merely controlled one that was already existing.
Instead of debating the nuance of animating/controlling the players instead start throwing firebombs at us because they penetrate ethereal. They then lined us up against a wall and bluntly demand we decry necromancy and then apparently killed us for "real" when my friend said no.
While my friend was on his main character and is fairly notorious, I was personally on an alt at the time and for all these characters knew, completely innocent. In fact I think my character only said three words which was "what's going on?"

Two very different ways of interacting. The first is very open ended and could result in pvp or something else entirely. The second feels like a sociopathic checklist someone is trying to satisfy in order to validate their ability to attack other people without repercussion. Unfortunately stories like that second one happens alot, assuming people bother to say anything at all.

So if you see me out in the wild i'm probably going to be defensive because that's what previous interaction with people and personal experiences has taught me to be. Like an animal in the forest (or more accurately) the survivor in an abusive relationship I DON'T TRUST YOU. I'm not going to stand there and let you kill all my undead putting me at a further disadvantage for when you decide to attack me. I'm not going to engage in your long winded obvious stall tactics while your friends are making their way over to dunk on me.

If you don't want me to be defensive then you should put in some effort and make it personal. Maintain your distance because I am extremely aware of what charge is and what your two handed crit build is going to do to my soft squishy spellcaster bits. If you run right into my face and demand I drop the undead then you shouldn't be surprised if I decide to pull the trigger. I'm fully aware of what the rules are but I'm also aware when players are using using the rules to attempt to prevent me from reacting when they are currently actively making actions in order to gain a tactical advantage over me. I consider that hostile so I'm going to act. Then I get angry tells and reports because things didn't go the way they wanted it to go.

Honestly it feels like some peoples perception of me is I'm just supposed to be their punching bag and retaliation is unheard of. They see a skeleton and that triggers some kind of cave man brain switch that incentivizes them to smash that which they don't like. Then rumors spread that we are only pvp mongers that just seeks justification to kill people. It's a "if you treat someone like a monster then that's what they become" type of thing.

So in short, if you want something meaningful from us then you have to try. When the only response you give is open hostility then how are we supposed to respond?

HAVING SAID ALL THAT......
I just want to quickly touch on my only experience with Good V Bad events which was the undercity temple of bhaal stuff. I read someone from team goods interpretation of the events on the other thread and after having shared this story with a few people recently I'd like to present a team evil perspective since the few people I spoke to never got to hear it from the evil side.

The past is the past and despite my attempts to suppress any bitterness the best description I can come up for it was "poorly structured"

My personal memory of events are thus:

Teleported into Temple of Bhaal slightly late I believe. Stood around for about an hour and a half to two hours with respawning negative energy elementals while being drip fed information about team goods progress. Many of us were pre buffed and the temple didn't allow resting so we were pretty much stuck with whatever spells we still had left when team good came in through the door nearly 2 hours later. My memory is fuzzy and I can't say for certain if the DM's rested us before team good came in through the door. I want to say no because of my memory of what happened next.

Team goodie captain runs into melee range of the team baddie captain with a two hander and starts having a one sided chin waggle that in my cynicism seemed intentionally designed to deplete our remaining wards through stalling. After nearly 20 minutes the team goodie captain just nukes the guy he was talking to (seemingly out of no where but who am I to say i think i was falling asleep at that point and I don't remember the conversation)

I don't know why the other person thought the fight was close because from my perspective it was a one sided slaughter. Captain two hander just casually walked from person to person nuking people as he went. I remember trying to cast something but was immediately concentration failed by a rogue stabbing me in the side then captain two hander nuked me too. The entire engagement lasted probably about 20 seconds, if that.

Yeah, one guy did immediately try to start claiming heads but it was quickly dismissed once the avatar of Myrkul (i think it was myrkul, maybe it was bhaal that would make more sense) showed up to call them all losers and then whisked his faithful away for milk and cookies. (I <3 you Frank)

So if you were to ask me what my opinion on GvB events are based on personal experience then I would say it feels like standing around waiting to be someones trophy.

Just to clarify I just want to say that not every interaction has been bad and ironically "evil" characters i run into tend to be way more friendly, whether thats in town or out in the wilderness.

sorry for the long text dump
rant over

[FearBeforeTheFlames]

As the player of one of those aforementioned paladins; I genuinely find your assessment to minimize the impact of a divine intervention of their own faith as well. This was moment that has intrinsic value to each of the characters involved, and the players that came out to engage with you on the bridge did so with full knowledge that we'd likely be handing you all a win. It was done in the spirit of recognizing all of your roleplay and effort - and with a genuine want to engage with you all in the capacity to which we are roleplaying.

I am sorry you don't like the results, but I don't think it's fair to cheapen anyone else's experience for a one-sided view of the situation. A god killed those paladins, and another divine intervention saved them; and there's an entire nuance of details as to why this occurred and was meaningful to the characters that actively chose to come out and engage in some, what we thought would be fun, adversarial RP with you all.

Team "Evil" and Team "Good" are not OOC monikors meant to isolate or make difficult any of your lives. None of us are out there playing in hopes of ruining your day; most of us, myself included, take a great deal of care and consideration in collaborating with you all.

And for the record; we all full well know, on our side of the fence, if we randomly assaulted Darkhold, we'd lose our characters just as easily; I am sorry you feel otherwise. Using one instance of divine intervention and a highlight moment to build suspense against factions is such a petty argument, and I hope we can find better ways to collaborate in the future.

I'm quite pro-team evil. Most of my friends are there. Always happy to work with any of you.

[Louvaine]

I don't mean to present the choice to take permastrike as a slight to player that chose it, however during my almost three years on the server I never saw a PC die due to accrued permastrikes. Did you? When was the last time? I stand by my answer. Permastrike is no consequence. It reflects nothing in character. As far as I see it, some knights faced off a god, or an avatar, or whatever. Something powerful and divine. They walked the very next day. I stand by what I said. Emmanuel could assault Darkhold and go drinking next day. Evidence is above.

Witnessed two, but the PW isn't a permanent death simulator, nor is permanent death the go-to for consequence; you should know this. There's an overemphasis on your part for this surrounding the timing of your own personal character consequence chosen that you didn't have to take but did. The PW has a history of deific stand-offs, and rarely did the outcome come in favor of the persons taking a stab at its resolution in their favor. This is hardly a good-only plot armor piece.

You won the argument. Everyone, AoS won this argument! My feelings and thoughts were disregarded and I bow to you. I now fully enjoy playing on the server and I have no feedback to give. Everything is too perfect and AoS won this entire conversation.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

Just want to give a big shout out to the guy patrolling frost giants my group ran into a few weeks ago. Not only did he just ask that we put the undead away but he also took the time to answer my monks stupid derailing questions about summoning alternatives "if you can't use undead then what are you supposed to use?"
If you're reading this I regret not telling you at the time but I really appreciate you putting in the effort.

Valerie Jean's Gaven Arkalis if I recall correctly.

Honestly it feels like some peoples perception of me is I'm just supposed to be their punching bag and retaliation is unheard of. They see a skeleton and that triggers some kind of cave man brain switch that incentivizes them to smash that which they don't like. Then rumors spread that we are only pvp mongers that just seeks justification to kill people. It's a "if you treat someone like a monster then that's what they become" type of thing. So in short, if you want something meaningful from us then you have to try. When the only response you give is open hostility then how are we supposed to respond?

Part of this I feel can be remedied by the rules, and part of it remedied by mechanical options, the merging of the two worlds happens mostly on the favor of team good, wherein places that could be part of a loot / run cycle for team evil who want to explore their character themes just aren't in excess on the server. DM events help, but that holds a lot of reliance on them than just map implementation for team evil.

There could be more space made for control movement between team good and evil. Political options exist and Nashkel seems increasingly a prime opportunity to reshape from the inside out, I know Galliard had started on this but had taken time away from the server. Places where PvE in a sense can occur with DM oversight and storytelling, while there are outlier locations that the two can opt-in for PvP engagement (RP purposed and sustained first).

You won the argument. Everyone, AoS won this argument! My feelings and thoughts were disregarded and I bow to you. I now fully enjoy playing on the server and I have no feedback to give. Everything is too perfect and AoS won this entire conversation.

I'm not trying to win an argument, but I'm not going to let misrepresentation created for narrative slide either.

[JustAnotherGuy]

Hidden: show

Hey, i've been playing my necromancer since late 2019/early 2020. I read alot of the previous thread/this thread and instead of parroting what alot of people have said already I just wanted to offer my personal experiences and how they might be improved. I've actually been thinking of making a similar thread appealing to team good due to some interactions some newer players I know have had with people recently. I'm gonna do my best to keep my ranting down and make some clear points.

First and foremost the vast majority of interaction with anyone has only begun with what i would describe as "unwarranted pvp"

To set a standard, let me describe a "warranted pvp" situation in its most basic form.

A paladin spots a necromancer in a field

Paladin:EVIL!
Necromancer: MWAHAHAHAHA!

then they kill each other, and continue to do so long into the future because they developed the reputation with one another.

Instead what I get is attacked without being set to hostile or ambushed and witch hunted by 6-12 people. Frequently after downing me, people would continue to attack my 1 hp body in an attempt to send me to the fugue plane and cause me to take an xp hit for rezing (this was before the recent changes). If I do get any kind of verbal communication it's dismissive and if they think they have an advantage it's supremely arrogant. All too often people with extremely little to say will return 10-15 minutes later with friends (that "in game" came from 100s of miles away) just to tell me about how they changed their mind and they actually DO have a problem with my undead.

Non hostile interactions do happen as well but they tend to be very minimal. It's usually just recoiling at the sight of the skeleton and cowering in fear or trying to make a hasty exit, which given my personal experience on the server is i can hardly blame what their expectations of me must be.

I can probably count the number of "good" interactions with people in the single digits (pvp or non pvp). People rarely make any kind of effort outside of a few hostile words or general apathy.

Just want to give a big shout out to the guy patrolling frost giants my group ran into a few weeks ago. Not only did he just ask that we put the undead away but he also took the time to answer my monks stupid derailing questions about summoning alternatives "if you can't use undead then what are you supposed to use?"
If you're reading this I regret not telling you at the time but I really appreciate you putting in the effort.

On the polar opposite side I can tell a quick story about how I was helping my buddy level in Duergar mines outside nashkel after he just rcrd.
(Before I continue this bit I just want to clarify that I am fully aware of the legality of undead in nashkel)

So a few months ago we are leveling with a very powerful undead (for the duergar outside nashkel at any rate) that my buddy had turned to stone, transported, and then destoned and controlled. We weren't there for very long until two level 30s come in and go straight for the undead my friend controlled and then came straight for us on the upper level. This isn't my friends first rodeo though and he had already cast ethereal on us before they made it up the steps.
So they run over to demand to know if we raised that undead to which my friend wisely responds that he did not animate the undead he merely controlled one that was already existing.
Instead of debating the nuance of animating/controlling the players instead start throwing firebombs at us because they penetrate ethereal. They then lined us up against a wall and bluntly demand we decry necromancy and then apparently killed us for "real" when my friend said no.
While my friend was on his main character and is fairly notorious, I was personally on an alt at the time and for all these characters knew, completely innocent. In fact I think my character only said three words which was "what's going on?"

Two very different ways of interacting. The first is very open ended and could result in pvp or something else entirely. The second feels like a sociopathic checklist someone is trying to satisfy in order to validate their ability to attack other people without repercussion. Unfortunately stories like that second one happens alot, assuming people bother to say anything at all.

So if you see me out in the wild i'm probably going to be defensive because that's what previous interaction with people and personal experiences has taught me to be. Like an animal in the forest (or more accurately) the survivor in an abusive relationship I DON'T TRUST YOU. I'm not going to stand there and let you kill all my undead putting me at a further disadvantage for when you decide to attack me. I'm not going to engage in your long winded obvious stall tactics while your friends are making their way over to dunk on me.

If you don't want me to be defensive then you should put in some effort and make it personal. Maintain your distance because I am extremely aware of what charge is and what your two handed crit build is going to do to my soft squishy spellcaster bits. If you run right into my face and demand I drop the undead then you shouldn't be surprised if I decide to pull the trigger. I'm fully aware of what the rules are but I'm also aware when players are using using the rules to attempt to prevent me from reacting when they are currently actively making actions in order to gain a tactical advantage over me. I consider that hostile so I'm going to act. Then I get angry tells and reports because things didn't go the way they wanted it to go.

Honestly it feels like some peoples perception of me is I'm just supposed to be their punching bag and retaliation is unheard of. They see a skeleton and that triggers some kind of cave man brain switch that incentivizes them to smash that which they don't like. Then rumors spread that we are only pvp mongers that just seeks justification to kill people. It's a "if you treat someone like a monster then that's what they become" type of thing.

So in short, if you want something meaningful from us then you have to try. When the only response you give is open hostility then how are we supposed to respond?

HAVING SAID ALL THAT......
I just want to quickly touch on my only experience with Good V Bad events which was the undercity temple of bhaal stuff. I read someone from team goods interpretation of the events on the other thread and after having shared this story with a few people recently I'd like to present a team evil perspective since the few people I spoke to never got to hear it from the evil side.

The past is the past and despite my attempts to suppress any bitterness the best description I can come up for it was "poorly structured"

My personal memory of events are thus:

Teleported into Temple of Bhaal slightly late I believe. Stood around for about an hour and a half to two hours with respawning negative energy elementals while being drip fed information about team goods progress. Many of us were pre buffed and the temple didn't allow resting so we were pretty much stuck with whatever spells we still had left when team good came in through the door nearly 2 hours later. My memory is fuzzy and I can't say for certain if the DM's rested us before team good came in through the door. I want to say no because of my memory of what happened next.

Team goodie captain runs into melee range of the team baddie captain with a two hander and starts having a one sided chin waggle that in my cynicism seemed intentionally designed to deplete our remaining wards through stalling. After nearly 20 minutes the team goodie captain just nukes the guy he was talking to (seemingly out of no where but who am I to say i think i was falling asleep at that point and I don't remember the conversation)

I don't know why the other person thought the fight was close because from my perspective it was a one sided slaughter. Captain two hander just casually walked from person to person nuking people as he went. I remember trying to cast something but was immediately concentration failed by a rogue stabbing me in the side then captain two hander nuked me too. The entire engagement lasted probably about 20 seconds, if that.

Yeah, one guy did immediately try to start claiming heads but it was quickly dismissed once the avatar of Myrkul (i think it was myrkul, maybe it was bhaal that would make more sense) showed up to call them all losers and then whisked his faithful away for milk and cookies. (I <3 you Frank)

So if you were to ask me what my opinion on GvB events are based on personal experience then I would say it feels like standing around waiting to be someones trophy.

Just to clarify I just want to say that not every interaction has been bad and ironically "evil" characters i run into tend to be way more friendly, whether thats in town or out in the wilderness.

sorry for the long text dump
rant over

I don't want to derail the thread, but feel that parts of this need answering. Undead summons are KoS. This means that if a player has an undead summon out, they should expect others to immediately hostile the summon and attempt to kill it. If you have an undead out and a druid sees it, he has a duty to destroy it ICly. It would be bad RP if they didn't try to kill it.

With that being said, the toon controlling the summon is NOT KoS. Normal PvP rules still apply, such as granting an RP out. A great example of this was my druid was in the forest, and saw someone with a skeleton out. My druid immediately killed the skeleton. The toon then looked to my druid and said, "Oh, thank goodness! You've saved me!" and left. That was a valid, and clever RP out he took.

While I hear what you're saying about new players, new players are expected to read and understand the rules. They should know, "Hey, I have an undead summon out, it's free to kill, and will likely set off a potential PvP encounter." Older players should play their character, too. If they would immediately kill an undead summons, then they should. We do not alter established RP simply because someone is new. However, that doesn't mean that the OOC interaction needs to be hostile; in fact, it shouldn't be. If there's a chance that the "offending" player is new, after the encounter, the older player should reach out and talk to them. Explain why they took what actions they took, and make sure that the newer player has this expectation of the IC consequences of their choices.

Edited to fix some spelling.

[ValerieJean]

Just want to give a big shout out to the guy patrolling frost giants my group ran into a few weeks ago. Not only did he just ask that we put the undead away but he also took the time to answer my monks stupid derailing questions about summoning alternatives "if you can't use undead then what are you supposed to use?"
If you're reading this I regret not telling you at the time but I really appreciate you putting in the effort.

Not intending to derail but yes that was me as Gaven Arkalis, and I thank you for that! I hope some continued RP can come of it and I appreciate you guys for the interaction as well!

[Grendunor]

I don't mean to present the choice to take permastrike as a slight to player that chose it, however during my almost three years on the server I never saw a PC die due to accrued permastrikes. Did you? When was the last time? I stand by my answer. Permastrike is no consequence. It reflects nothing in character. As far as I see it, some knights faced off a god, or an avatar, or whatever. Something powerful and divine. They walked the very next day. I stand by what I said. Emmanuel could assault Darkhold and go drinking next day. Evidence is above.

Witnessed two, but the PW isn't a permanent death simulator, nor is permanent death the go-to for consequence; you should know this. There's an overemphasis on your part for this surrounding the timing of your own personal character consequence chosen that you didn't have to take but did. The PW has a history of deific stand-offs, and rarely did the outcome come in favor of the persons taking a stab at its resolution in their favor. This is hardly a good-only plot armor piece.

You won the argument. Everyone, AoS won this argument! My feelings and thoughts were disregarded and I bow to you. I now fully enjoy playing on the server and I have no feedback to give. Everything is too perfect and AoS won this entire conversation.

This seems relevant meditate upon its wisdom.

[renshouj]

Unless yall cool it with passive agressive bullcrap this thread will prob need to be moderated soon.

[renshouj]

Imo one of the biggest reasons sh*t like this post happens is because so many people for some reason just can't get along OOC. Its always favoritism this, favoritism that, dms hate me this, dms love person X, my timezone sucks, ppl don't like me, I heard X person sucks, echo chambers of hate (like most guild discords), blah blah. It's always that instead of focusing on your own fun. I play good characters and have fun, I play evil characters and have fun. I've had a half-drow ghaunadauran, I have my svirf, I have a shamanic drow, I have a red wizard. I've grown to HATE the "team evil" "team good" "team whatever" thing because it always devolves into "we are hated and everyone else gets everything". It's tiring, this post just reinforces that thought for me.

yall drive the good (as in quality) RP away with this sh*t

[Rain]

Is the desire then, or a main desire, by players of Evil-aligned PCs, to have a haven/area map/enclave/etc that is just by Evils, for Evils, and only Evils?

That whole Events and player-to-player and DM-to-player campaigns can be created, evolve and be resolved?

Without interest/influence/annoyance of any good-aligned PCs and/or factions/guilds?

It's been a desire for a long time. The Undercity plot was the biggest push to try and make that happen from my many years of playing on the server.

- It was backed by most the evil organizations (both on the surface and UD).
- It required a ridiculous among of mats to even get as far as we did. (For example the latest event by itself costed us 10 blue sapphire, 10 canary diamonds, and 10 rubies to even get a CHANCE to be successful and the success rate was low on the dice roll.) And this was for ONE of the many events we had to struggle through.
- It took 2 whole years of consecutive RP which most of that RP was forum based (because the DM's like that stuff for some reason.)
- The leader of the School of Necromancy in the Underdark had to approve something in it as well... which required a harsh contract.
- Not to mention it was all done in a place where we had 0 privacy, couldn't lock or alarm any doors, required us to teleport there just to enter the area safety and secretly AND had to constantly fight with a mob spawner that would ruin our meetings every 10 mins with CR 15 helmed horrors.

Even after passing all these checks we still lost everything.

predetermined outcome.

Could you clarify and qualify this, please?

Which is another reason why Team evil might believe in predetermined outcomes. There were many trials in those series of events where we had about a 5-10% chance of making it work and we beat the odds just to lose.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

Imo one of the biggest reasons sh*t like this post happens is because so many people for some reason just can't get along OOC. Its always favoritism this, favoritism that, dms hate me this, dms love person X, my timezone sucks, ppl don't like me, I heard X person sucks, echo chambers of hate (like most guild discords), blah blah. It's always that instead of focusing on your own fun.

The loot alt that I created mostly for... looting, was tilted in favoring things entirely antithesis to my mains; my hope was that in the millions of gold offered for very simple conversations that it'd help those fledgling operations make their way toward a better opportunity without feeling a huge need to kick chests all day long just to catch up from a cost perspective. I've been amicable, even supportive for a number of those on team evil presently with that alt, and not asking for anything in return. Some cross-aisle reaching is ideal I think, wherein even if interactions must start somewhat railroading in a way, the story can evolve for those intersecting groups given enough time and effort. Less expectation put upon things that appear out of reach, and let a slow burn of good RP take place over that time frame. OOCly people can come to terms with cohabitating the space a little easier without compromising their characters. RP was born onto an alt that I didn't have intended for it, and I've come to meet some really cool people as a result.

- It took 2 whole years of consecutive RP which most of that RP was forum based (because the DM's like that stuff for some reason.)

Were the two years of RP hitting milestones regularly?