Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Hullo!

On the recent threads, I've noticed a frequent complaint that there exists a common reasoning of using permanent death to curb OOC behaviour. Here I would like to argue that OOC behaviour is born not from lack of OOC consequence, but rather due to difficulty requiring one to act OOC if they wish to compete.

A common counter argument I see to this line of thinking follows along the line of "If you only care for IC, levels and numbers should mean nothing to you!" While true, this also requires one to break the rule of "Play Your Character Sheet." Most tangible this issue is for players of scholarly types, for artistic types and for diplomatic types.
For to properly play a skilled scholar you need high ranks in your Knowledge skills and also a large amount of Intelligence and/or wisdom. To properly play an artist that is taken seriously, you need high charisma and perform. To play a diplomat properly you need to max diplomacy. Even if you don't participate in DM events, you still need to describe your abilities truthfully using your Character Sheet with minimal leaps of logic. If such was not the case, then Joe McBarbarian with 8 int could act as if he was the ultimate authority on lore and do nothing wrong.

As such, even those who only care for character interaction need to accumulate levels and progress at a reasonable pace.

One could say "Well, RP XP more than provides!" While also true, it ignores the operation costs of projects our PCs participate in. To justify your RP, in my opinion at least, you shouldn't just treat money spent on expensive projects such as research or whatnot as inconsequential. Should you do that, what forces a guild leader to shell out hundreds of thousands of gold for a guild hall when you can just pay that gold "off-screen" for whatever project you want?

As such, participation in PvE is mandatory for all if they seek to justify their RP. One caveat might be for a leader-styled character to collect taxes for RP services provided. However, this is unlikely and I wouldn't count on it ever selling.

With the above cleared, let's look at the requirements to participate in PvE:

1. You MUST pre-plan a build before you even play the character, and carefully optimize it even if an "RP build" to ensure it hits certain numbers.
2. Even if you roll a new character with absolutely no adventuring experience, or a character that loathes magic,
   you are forced into using consumables en-masse during early game to kickstart yourself.
3. You are encouraged to research on forums for "How to play.", and complaints of difficulties are met with "Learn to play" (the game). You are encouraged to possess OOC knowledge and employ tactics born from said OOC knowledge to succeed.
4. When playing a blaster, you are encouraged to metagame the NPC spawn rates, locations, the fact that you won't get overwhelmed by mobs even if you run into unknown sections of the dungeon (for your PC, not for your as a player). You are literally told, if complaining about the inefficiency of blasters on this server, to round up a ton of mobs at your feet and cast AoEs at them. If this is not a purely OOCly motivated tactic executed purely in an OOC manner, I don't know what is.
5. You are encouraged to take UMD on every character you play, even if it makes no sense at all. To not do so is to cripple yourself and prevent participation in high end content.
6. You are encouraged to OOCly discriminate your party members due to XP penalties from too wide level ranges.
7. You are encouraged to reach the next level before checking out new areas to mitigate XP loss.

Think about A for a moment. Before any RP even happening at level 5, level 10, 15, 20, 25 or 30, you already decide what your character learns during that level up, what class they take, what direction they will advance in. You are PRESCRIBING the RP that will happen to your character, and not simply describing its results in your skill and feat and build picks. Everyone does this. I do it. It makes me feel uneasy doing this, as it feels wholly an OOC action. The only way to mitigate this is to RCR whenever your current build plan and recent RP conflicts, and pick a new build whose future aligns with the current RP's direction. If you don't do either, then you WILL suffer. And people will tell you It's your fault for not optimizing, despite, if you think about it, the amount of OOC decisions get made and override IC events.

The OOC requirements B to E mandate you as a player to take actions your character never would if you wish to do PvE, which, as we previously agreed upon, is mandatory if you wish to avoid breaking the rules.

F and G require you to act more OOC than IC as well if you seek relevance.


What causes all of these OOC behaviors? Difficulty. Every argument I saw in favor "Server is easy", be it from staff or common veteran, relies on the above points. Every argument that supports "server is easy" bases that on playing the server with OOC knowledge that your character shouldn't possess, with OOC tactics that make no sense ICly (especially if you fear death ICly - see D for direct example. Who in their right minds would run around to find even more things to stab at them just to maximise something they cannot even know exists?)

This isn't calling anyone out. I do these very same things, and it makes me feel ill. When I start a new character - I literally go to Sorcerous Sundries and grab a ton of consumables as they're more valuable than +1 gear. I pre-plan my build. I inserted UMD into my build purely for "PvE equalizer purposes". On my UD blaster, I literally went around and did the "amass mobs and cast fireburst" to clear dungeons.

And again. Think about the absurdity of using NWN2 build or otherwise planning your character's build. You are literally telling everyone and yourself "no matter what happens, I will stick to the same concept I had 6 months ago at the drawing board, despite all the RP I experienced has been different from what I had planned."

it is much easier to read things that have ZERO anchorage in reality when it is broken into much smaller pieces.

everything fell apart for my attention span at, "think about A for a moment."

aaron22 wrote:it is much easier to read things that have ZERO anchorage in reality when it is broken into much smaller pieces.

everything fell apart for my attention span at, "think about A for a moment."

Does it not seem absurd to you that when making a character, you already decide who they will be 6 months down the road?

Not really. People make plans in life all the time. What is absurd to me is not letting role play influence one's plans, a character that is pigeon holed by the player and refuses to grow outside of that prearranged plan.

Preplanning a Build, having a RP trajectory for your Character, is fun. At least it is super fun for me, Hoihe. I think others find it the same way.

In your OP, it makes me think of how I'd personally like the Server limited to Lvl 13 (or so), definitely Lvl 20. Epic just greatly skews balance.

But what I like is from wanting there to be simple, direct and "closer together" power mechanics, so that I can "worry" less about the variance in mechanical power, and how that does effect role-play.

But I'll also mention there is a big difference between difficulty and challenge. I'm all for the latter being integral to the BGTSCC Experience. And challenge can come both from the mechanics and the RP side...actually, for me, it's truly best when both are intertwined!

You are by no means required to plan your build and I have seen posts in the past from those that don't and are perfectly happy with the results.

Simply put, difficulty is not easy to balance. This is an online adaptation of a pen and paper game, there are going to be things lost in translation. You can have an unplanned mish-mash RP build and be perfectly fine in all content if you are in a party, because that is what D&D is designed for. Now, if you are a party of weak (sorry, RP) builds and you are expecting to take on the White Dragon, maybe even the Balor you MAY not be able to (at least for the white, depending on player skill). However, for the vast majority of content, you could have a Fighter, a Rogue, a Cleric and a Wizard, perfectly unoptimized as may be played in a campaign that does not allow PRCs or multi-classing and your party would be fine.

All of the issues you bring up are for people that are trying to solo content at or above their CR, which absolutely requires power building. Because it is not intended that a CR10 dungeon can be solo'd by a level 10 average random character...

In PnP, well, I don't think many people would run a campaign being a DM for one player...it'd get kinda boring. This ain't PnP and the complaint is often stated that there is no one to party with, or you have stated yourself Hoihe that your PC is very skittish about forming a party and thus IC often have to solo.... That is your choice as a player to have a character with that RP limitation. D&D is a party based game.... Every adventure out there says something like "For 4-6 adventurers level 1-2!" Yet the server difficulty level is too high... It really isn't. Some just expect to be able to accomplish things that would be ABSURD in PnP with any build imaginable... Why can't my R8/F6/W8/C8 solo the white dragon?...because that is not really how D&D was designed to work. If you want to take on CR24 content, get a group of 3-5 level 24 PC's and go adventure! We have lots of areas for every CR, even high epics thanks to Dedude! However, if you want to solo and have things be easy well...You will likely need to take your level 24 PC to about a CR 18 area so that you are facing CR20 mobs at most, because you are making a choice to take a perfectly fine RP build out on their own...and when you RP and no one else can see or experience it, is it really RP? Or is it just loot/xp grinding? Not judging, just saying I see a bit of faulty logic, poorly considered expectations in wanting an easier server.

For the record, I have never successfully solo'd the Yuan-Ti Queen, the Balor, the Fire Giant King, the White Dragon and I'm sure I'm forgetting several others. I have solo'd the Frost Giant King exactly twice... While I offer build advice the majority of my characters I play aren't really built to be able to solo most content, I've never really seen much profit in boss farming, so I don't worry about it. However, I will always against reducing server difficulty because if it is easy then it is no fun. It needs to provide a challenge to overcome, that is one of the cornerstones of why D&D is great! The DM challenges the players, takes them to the brink and those parties that are successful will live on forever in the players minds! However, if you don't have a few party wipes now and again there are no really outstanding moments to stand out...it becomes bland and forgettable.

Sorry for the long post, but I really feel we are starting to move in to 'gone too far' territory with power creep and reducing server difficulty really feels like it would make the server seem boring as hell when not in a DM Event.

point is hoihe, you have all these "need to's" on your lists and i can plainly tell you that you do not need any of those things to succeed on this server. not even close. i know because i have done it. i do not put UMD on toons that should not have it. 90% of the gear i have i picked up or looted or bought. I did not take EW on any toon (before the fix) except for my SF build. and that one followed all the rules to use it. only made a hips archer so i could run some personal tests. it never partied or anything. just made it for a day when there was a 100% rcr then Rcred it back after the tests were completed.

the server is pretty easy sir. if you think it is too hard, then i have no idea what you are doing. i do not have power built toons... i nerf myself right off by rolling surface orcs. i would totally offer you an OOC lesson on playing the server if you like. im not trying to be mean with that. i wonder if you are missing something or doing something incorrectly. winning and losing fights may be just a little technique away for you. something totally fixable where this idea that the server is too hard may be remedied.

aaron22 wrote:point is hoihe, you have all these "need to's" on your lists and i can plainly tell you that you do not need any of those things to succeed on this server. not even close. i know because i have done it. i do not put UMD on toons that should not have it. 90% of the gear i have i picked up or looted or bought. I did not take EW on any toon (before the fix) except for my SF build. and that one followed all the rules to use it. only made a hips archer so i could run some personal tests. it never partied or anything. just made it for a day when there was a 100% rcr then Rcred it back after the tests were completed.

the server is pretty easy sir. if you think it is too hard, then i have no idea what you are doing. i do not have power built toons... i nerf myself right off by rolling surface orcs. i would totally offer you an OOC lesson on playing the server if you like. im not trying to be mean with that. i wonder if you are missing something or doing something incorrectly. winning and losing fights may be just a little technique away for you. something totally fixable where this idea that the server is too hard may be remedied.

You are once again talking about OOC techniques! If I think about PvE from purely in an OOC perspective and react accordingly then yeah, it's easy. Problem is that thing exactly.

Especially when I complain about the nonviability of blasters. The instant one does that, they get "Well, if you round up all the mobs in the map and then cast your spells, you'll outdo fighters!" In new player wizard guides, you get recommended that too.

aaron22 wrote:it is much easier to read things that have ZERO anchorage in reality when it is broken into much smaller pieces.

everything fell apart for my attention span at, "think about A for a moment."

I didn't even make it that far until I found myself scrolling away. And honestly, I had to go back to force myself to read the rest.

Hoihe, with total respect, you're using some overly drawn out explanations to make some relatively simple points and I think you're over analyzing the entirety of...well, all of this.

It's like you're ascribing some sort of existential philosophical thought process and applying it as some sort of dramatic impact on....I don't even know what.

I'm not trying to pick you apart, I know that I give some lengthy responses too and go off topic. But the mathematical analyses and break down of "If X then Y" stuff goes way above and beyond what is necessary to suggest what is otherwise a simple rundown:

We are human players, and yes we are OOC FIRST AND ALWAYS before we 'represent' an 'IC' avatar in a highly subjective and non-static 'in game fantasy world'.

Yeah, that comes with everything and anything that exists in the REAL WORLD because as players, this is the world we live in and have no choice. The analyses you are trying to apply should first come from a real world perspective on human behavior as this is what will always first and foremost dictate a role player's behavior in game. You're not going to be able to change it with an analytical approach as this would require a change of how our real world operates.

Example: I cannot possibly successfully implement the behaviors of a character who has 18 intelligence; according to in game descriptors, I would never be able to believe I myself as a human being to possess an intelligence score of 18 in the real world (if such a numeric system existed and was accurate). This means I am limited to only playing what I believe an individual possessing 18 intelligence would act like, lest I suffer from delusions of grandeur (which is a real world behavior that happens EVERY SINGLE DAY).

You have to keep in mind, people with a tenuous grasp of reality have access to money and video games and role playing games, and yes they will play on this server. Some people suffering from drastically underdeveloped social skills will also act this out on the server in character, not because they 'don't know how to RP', but because they seriously don't know how to act in general, and this will in effect bleed over into the RP behavior regardless of character sheet or build, or server rules or anything else.

Gotta know what to let go and what is worthy of a deeper thought invoking analyses.

A lot of people are trying to fix things that aren't broke and are making suggestions based upon biases that aren't really confirmed as a whole by the reality census of players on the server in it's current state.

I know it's wordy, but let the last statement sink in.

Reckeo wrote:

aaron22 wrote:it is much easier to read things that have ZERO anchorage in reality when it is broken into much smaller pieces.

everything fell apart for my attention span at, "think about A for a moment."

I didn't even make it that far until I found myself scrolling away. And honestly, I had to go back to force myself to read the rest.

Hoihe, with total respect, you're using some overly drawn out explanations to make some relatively simple points and I think you're over analyzing the entirety of...well, all of this.

It's like you're ascribing some sort of existential philosophical thought process and applying it as some sort of dramatic impact on....I don't even know what.

I'm not trying to pick you apart, I know that I give some lengthy responses too and go off topic. But the mathematical analyses and break down of "If X then Y" stuff goes way above and beyond what is necessary to suggest what is otherwise a simple rundown:

We are human players, and yes we are OOC FIRST AND ALWAYS before we 'represent' an 'IC' avatar in a highly subjective and non-static 'in game fantasy world'.

Yeah, that comes with everything and anything that exists in the REAL WORLD because as players, this is the world we live in and have no choice. The analyses you are trying to apply should first come from a real world perspective on human behavior as this is what will always first and foremost dictate a role player's behavior in game. You're not going to be able to change it with an analytical approach as this would require a change of how our real world operates.

Example: I cannot possibly successfully implement the behaviors of a character who has 18 intelligence; according to in game descriptors, I would never be able to believe I myself as a human being to possess an intelligence score of 18 in the real world (if such a numeric system existed and was accurate). This means I am limited to only playing what I believe an individual possessing 18 intelligence would act like, lest I suffer from delusions of grandeur (which is a real world behavior that happens EVERY SINGLE DAY).

You have to keep in mind, people with a tenuous grasp of reality have access to money and video games and role playing games, and yes they will play on this server. Some people suffering from drastically underdeveloped social skills will also act this out on the server in character, not because they 'don't know how to RP', but because they seriously don't know how to act in general, and this will in effect bleed over into the RP behavior regardless of character sheet or build, or server rules or anything else.

Gotta know what to let go and what is worthy of a deeper thought invoking analyses.

A lot of people are trying to fix things that aren't broke and are making suggestions based upon biases that aren't really confirmed as a whole by the reality census of players on the server in it's current state.

I know it's wordy, but let the last statement sink in.

Statement in the 2 permadeath threads before:

"If we had permanent death, then people would commit less OOC actions."

The purpose of this topic is to show that permanent death would, by increasing difficulty, actually lead to an increase in OOC actions as well.

Non-viability of blasters is a fault of the game design, further enhanced by this server, more than it is an issue with CR difficulty.

In D&D 5e there are two options to handling Hit Points and damage. Either you roll, or you take the average rounded up (or is it down?) So a Fighter can either roll for hit points or else he gets 6 (or maybe 5) per level. However, if you are using averages, then an enemy will not do 1d6+3 damage...They will do 6 or 7.

NWN2 is designed were you and all monsters get max hit points every level / HD. Yet spells do not do max damage (without maximize spell). A level 5 Fighter rolling d10 with 14 CON will have ~37.5 hit points, but in NWN2 that fighter has 60 hit points. A level 5 Wizard casts a fireball and it will do ~17.5 damage. Now, to an enemy or group of enemies with ~37.5 HP you just took away nearly half their hit points! Yet the same enemy(s) with 60 HP you didn't even drop them by 1/3rd. This is further enhanced on this server by the decision to give mobs and bosses absurd hit point increases making that 60 HP into ~120, causing a blaster to have to cast about 5 times or more spells to take out enemies as what he would cast in PnP.

Finally, I'll say again D&D is based on having a party! The blaster in PnP would soften up the enemies with a fireball before they got in range of the party, but still wouldn't take any out. Once the enemy was in range of his allies he'd be slinging magic missiles or firing his crossbow anyway (or throwing darts in 1/2e). Blaster Wizards were never designed or expected to just sit there and rain down fiery death on millions hour after hour. Nothing is wrong with having a blaster IN A PARTY as your job becomes to soften up the masses for your group.

But honestly if the whole point is that permanent death would increase OOC behavior we are wasting our time.

As I said in the other thread, IMO that ship has sailed. It would be unfair to introduce a new system of perma-death at this point in time because we have so many existing characters... So the guy (totally not me) who has half a dozen epics from over the years gets to keep 'em, even though some have died multiple times in events or pvp or just plain ol' pve! Meanwhile Newbie Joe creates a level 1, dies in the graveyard, has to create a new level 1, dies in the bandit cave, creates a new level 1....you get the idea. Perma-Death ain't gonna happen in any form other than already exists, so not sure why you keep arguing against it. If the HDM's or Admins come out at some point and say they are considering it then I'll be your flag bearer or something, but until then what is the point in arguing against a thing that has no realistic implementation on the horizon?

Hoihe wrote:The purpose of this topic is to show that permanent death would, by increasing difficulty, actually lead to an increase in OOC actions as well.

How many of these threads covering this topic are you going to start?

Reckeo wrote:

Hoihe wrote:The purpose of this topic is to show that permanent death would, by increasing difficulty, actually lead to an increase in OOC actions as well.

How many of these threads covering this topic are you going to start?

If people wind up getting sick of it, then there may yet be a longer period of silence before the next time someone suggests it. Is my hope at least.

Reckeo wrote:

Hoihe wrote:The purpose of this topic is to show that permanent death would, by increasing difficulty, actually lead to an increase in OOC actions as well.

How many of these threads covering this topic are you going to start?

As a nobody who has played here since year one, but hasn't accomplished anything memorable or noteworthy, some of what Hoihe says has struck a cord with me. I too felt bgtscc was too hard for years and always felt jealous of the uber characters I saw running around, annihilating anything and everything in their paths without blinking an eye. My characters were always fragile and pathetic in comparison. It wasn't until Chad helped me out earlier last year that I finally have a build that is functional for soloing and doesn't feel like a complete poop-stain when grouped with power builds.

That being said, I'm almost 40, and I don't have the time anymore to play purely "ICly". I hate walking when I can run, I hate not knowing ooc things when they could help me ICly. I love this game and I love it more now that I can accomplish more. A lot of that has come from OOC knowledge. The game doesn't feel too hard anymore, it really feels just about right.

As for permadeath, cool. I come from a game where the longest a character could live IRL was about 1.5 years, and that was with divine intervention. But everyone died, eventually. And you didn't get to pass on your gear. It was rough.

NWN would have died off a long time ago if not for the RPers. Maybe the integrity has to be renewed in fresh blood every now and then.