Update on Open question to team evil/morally questionable

[Ghost]

2) when it comes to organizations, we often feel we have to request support. it is very clear in the rules we cannot dictate NPC actions, even the actions of our own guild NPCs. So anything we do, like community drives, etc, has to be vetted through the DM team.

This is a misunderstanding that was recently expressed in this very thread. The rule is as follows:

It is also safe to assume obedience of reasonable orders given to subordinate NPCs (for instance, NPC assets controlled by your guild), but not the success of those orders. If you would like to speak directly in these subordinate NPCs' voices, please seek permission from the DM team first and this will be reviewed on a per-case basis. An exception to this is roleplaying your summoned creatures, and this may be done at will with the expectation that the actions roleplayed are appropriate for that type of creature.

[selhan]

Idk about you people but I is doing plenty of ebil!

[artemitavik]

2) when it comes to organizations, we often feel we have to request support. it is very clear in the rules we cannot dictate NPC actions, even the actions of our own guild NPCs. So anything we do, like community drives, etc, has to be vetted through the DM team.

This is a misunderstanding that was recently expressed in this very thread. The rule is as follows:

It is also safe to assume obedience of reasonable orders given to subordinate NPCs (for instance, NPC assets controlled by your guild), but not the success of those orders. If you would like to speak directly in these subordinate NPCs' voices, please seek permission from the DM team first and this will be reviewed on a per-case basis. An exception to this is roleplaying your summoned creatures, and this may be done at will with the expectation that the actions roleplayed are appropriate for that type of creature.

Right, that's my point. We can give orders. "go patrol here." "protect this area" "Watch for <stuff>" but we cannot have a Player Event where we say, declare that we go out, buy a bunch of materials at low prices because we say so, go to another place, sell it for exuberant prices, and declare our guilds fully and completely trillionaires for life RP resource-wise. We can't dictate how well our guards protect that shipment, or how much we buy/sell for, etc. We can assume for instance, that Derik who has the folk hero title "Crimson Bulwark" in many villages around where he operates would be welcome, but not necessarily just flat out "well, I'm a hero so the people will just give me whatever I want." This is where the requests for DM plot points and intervention are needed to vet details of what happens.

A further example is, there's currently a player doing some investigation stuff at the Rest. He requested that he be monitored by guards in case something wonky happens. Ok, I can totally declare orders that two guards are hanging out nearby to help him out should stuff go sideways. This isn't a problem. But it's the DM that decides what (if anything) goes sideways and how successful the guards would be at aiding him. I can't just declare "oh, well, they overpower him" necessarily just straight off.

So yes, pardon my original language, I did mean the success of NPC actions, rather than NPC actions at all, because clearly if you have employees and ask them to do their job, they just... are likely to do it. But the the point remains that we still need DM vetting if not direct involvement via requests with anything much more complex than daily normal activities.

[burbles]

I'd like to add my 2cents on the subject, and maybe it was said before (I read some of the threads, but not all of it). First, I believe that the root of the problem is quite simple: the players believe they have to compete for the resources of the server. But IF good and evil were like two sides of the same coin (the server) and had only competed when they wanted to, most players would be tolerant of each other. After a while, anyway. As soon as both parties could have a life, then it's a matter of "Here we have our goodies RPing, there we have our baddies RPing", both exist in the same world, which is EXPANDING by their efforts in different directions. And conflicts between prominent characters and organisations fall into DM supervised grey area to be resolved. This is not at all like separating surface and underdark, for example, so to make two sandboxes for good and evil groups, but simply support both.

I don't believe RP of Good to be much easier. Sure, it's less awkward to share goodly themed conversations, rather than admit your Evil heart, but honestly. Being actual good, aside from fighting monsters, is also a great way to annoy great many people, who are neither good, nor evil, as those two in DnD are cosmic forces first and moral areas second. And then there could be Team Balance with something to do, minding both extremes.

It seems from what I read that at the start of the original thread it was like it was a decade ago, same old fringe existence for Evil characters. That's tragic. Evil characters can be interesting to try, and often times Evil characters will be charming in their own way, not to mention antiheroes. What was happening, though, is disempowering of Evil party. But if we consider Evil PCs also as cut above the norm of general evil populace, we could sympathise with their struggles and ambition. But that's only possible if neither side is going to dominate the server. It's a horrible feeling to be an oppressed minority OOC side and condemned by other players when they uncover your evil chars. That I believe comes from mixing RL survival issues with IG actions. Any player should feel safe first, not having to deal with PCs of different alignment if they don't want to. We also don't always aggree on how to interpret an alignment. But underneath all disaggreements are limitations, like if one feels threatened OOCly, if their consciousness in general is far from being clear, and they don't have much energy or life to be genuinely creative in their RP and accepting of others, or things happen just to darn fast in this game when you have to type things in real time, which I always struggled with. It would be nice if we could be openly Evil as well as Good and socialize, party withouth being "an impostor among us", when your evil toon wants to join a grinding fest alongside some crusaders. I'm exagerrating a bit, but it was common in my time