Grimwald wrote: ↑Fri Sep 29, 2023 7:45 pm
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