Would the server be improved with a RP rule?

[emphazima]

So I spent a few days on the server, so far so good. I have a fair bit of praise. All of the areas are beautiful. Unlike many servers, you do not find odd half finished corners, all of the areas are very, very well polished. Scripting and scripted entities galore. Nice and varied areas. Lots of DMs who seem pretty active, they are very approachable and happy to answer questions. All of these are great things.

Yet….

I preface this by saying I wanted to discuss this friendly, please do not flame me alive! I will mention no names or even hints as to anyone I use in an example.

The server rule on role playing says role playing is encouraged and though most people RP, you do not have to. I run into lots of people every single time I log on who just do not seem to RP. They send me lots of OOC messages about where we can go to get the most XP, or what we should do to best grind.

I was talking to someone in the woods yesterday and talking about magic. Someone who came by pointed out one of our companions was a warlock. The party member countered that we did not need to worry, they were an aasimar and rebelling against their evil nature or something like that…..

Okay, that was pretty bad, toss the woman a scimitar and you have something out of an R.A. Salvator novel. That did not really irk me too much, I can handle someone with a sort of cliché class/race combo, that is not really my business, to each their own, etc.

…the person then said in front of all of us ((Don’t worry! Warlocks do not have to be evil!))

That was pretty bad. The person who pointed out she was a warlock countered oocly, in local chat ((But aren’t they usually chaotic?))

I mentally facepalmed and I took that chance to flee the scene.

The fact there is no rule which says “This is a roleplaying server. Please stay in character and keep any OOC chat to tells” seems to have resulted in an atmosphere with minimal roleplaying. I feel that the overwhelming majority of the time, other characters I encounter are not really role playing, they just sort of put the thinnest “role playing polish” over their quest to get XP.

I do not play an aasimar, tiefling or gensai. Nor do I have a last name which is “Puppyeater” or “Demonsoul” or “Deathrake” etc. I think I am well in the minority for playing a standard race and not having a last name which indicates I am spawn of evil’s misbegotten seed. I find it hard to keep immersion when the “normal” people are the minority.

The server is beautifully built, tech wise it is very well put together and the DM team is great. I am not saying things are bad, I am asking, could things be better?

Would the server be better off with a rule essentially saying: “This is a roleplaying server. Please keep out of character chatter to tells.”

Would restricting new aasimar, tiefling and gensai be a good idea?

[residentbalkor]

I think I'll go as far as saying roleplaying should be a stamp rule rather than just "if you want".

I agree on aasimar, tiefling, gensai and any other "none-standard" race should be restricted to having written a good biography for your character.

Why? I've played my fair share of servers on NWN1 before coming here and I can say for a fact that every single server that enforced "strict" RP rules ended up having a large quality playerbase and a LOT more to do as a player than a powerhouse server.

Like you mentioned one of the things that attracts people to this server is the way it's built - it looks good, not only it looks good but for many of us it brings back those solid visuals of Faerun we got from playing the BG saga... I'd hate to see it spoiled by Drizzt clones, the offspring of Ao or some other lame demigod-vampire-angel-paladin-that-fell-from-grace-but-then-had-a-plastic-surgery-to-become-drizzt-and-stuff kind of characters.

This server will benefit =)

[emphazima]

One criticism I think we might have for this idea is that it will "scare away players" or the general idea of "Do not tell others how to RP!"

Really, I do not think we will lose any players for having a "this is an rp server" rule.
I think we will gain players, people who are a bit more hesitant then I am will stay around. Very few people will leave a server because "you must RP!" the few that do we do not really want, do we? We came here to have fun on a roleplaying server, leveling up is fun but that is not the only reason we are here, I think the general atmosphere of the server would be vastly improved with that little rule change.

Oh just mentioning this again. The server really is gorgeous, I think this may be the best looking server visually i've tried on for NWN2.

[earthsong]

While it is each players choice to participate in RP or not, I do think the suggestion to limit OOC chat is highly needed to help those who ARE roleplaying to be able to consistently. When someone says an OOC comment that is not even referenced as OOC, my pc WILL react as if it is IC, but it is sometimes difficult to do so, and often the line of thought in the conversation gets skewed or lost. Keeping local chat for IC more often would certainly help.
My two suggestions:
1. Suggest players limit speaking in local chat to IC as much as possible
2. When speaking OOC, use // or (( as a courtesy to other players so we can tell that is what you are doing.

[DM mithari]

I just want to point out one flaw with the reasoning here, which ties in with Carnifex' point in the Courtesy thread; just because we can't see all the NPCs doesn't mean they're not there. Baldur's Gate is a bustling city with thousands and thousands of inhabitants. Even at a high activity point, the players will be a numerically almost insignificant minority.

What does this mean to us? Well, even if every single player decided to be aasimar, tiefling or genasi they'd still be very few in the grand scheme of things. Sure, they'd be percentually more numerous than is normal in the Realms (maybe), but they would still be far from many. As such, I don't really see a problem with people who want to play the exotic races.

Of course, I won't dispute that there are some who play them for the wrong reasons.

[DeathlessFigure]

Jan 26, 2009 14:59:17 GMT -5 emphazima said:

So I spent a few days on the server, so far so good. I have a fair bit of praise. All of the areas are beautiful. Unlike many servers, you do not find odd half finished corners, all of the areas are very, very well polished. Scripting and scripted entities galore. Nice and varied areas. Lots of DMs who seem pretty active, they are very approachable and happy to answer questions. All of these are great things.

Yet….

I preface this by saying I wanted to discuss this friendly, please do not flame me alive! I will mention no names or even hints as to anyone I use in an example.

The server rule on role playing says role playing is encouraged and though most people RP, you do not have to. I run into lots of people every single time I log on who just do not seem to RP. They send me lots of OOC messages about where we can go to get the most XP, or what we should do to best grind.

I was talking to someone in the woods yesterday and talking about magic. Someone who came by pointed out one of our companions was a warlock. The party member countered that we did not need to worry, they were an aasimar and rebelling against their evil nature or something like that…..

Okay, that was pretty bad, toss the woman a scimitar and you have something out of an R.A. Salvator novel. That did not really irk me too much, I can handle someone with a sort of cliché class/race combo, that is not really my business, to each their own, etc.

…the person then said in front of all of us ((Don’t worry! Warlocks do not have to be evil!))

That was pretty bad. The person who pointed out she was a warlock countered oocly, in local chat ((But aren’t they usually chaotic?))

I mentally facepalmed and I took that chance to flee the scene.

The fact there is no rule which says “This is a roleplaying server. Please stay in character and keep any OOC chat to tells” seems to have resulted in an atmosphere with minimal roleplaying. I feel that the overwhelming majority of the time, other characters I encounter are not really role playing, they just sort of put the thinnest “role playing polish” over their quest to get XP.

I do not play an aasimar, tiefling or gensai. Nor do I have a last name which is “Puppyeater” or “Demonsoul” or “Deathrake” etc. I think I am well in the minority for playing a standard race and not having a last name which indicates I am spawn of evil’s misbegotten seed. I find it hard to keep immersion when the “normal” people are the minority.

The server is beautifully built, tech wise it is very well put together and the DM team is great. I am not saying things are bad, I am asking, could things be better?

Would the server be better off with a rule essentially saying: “This is a roleplaying server. Please keep out of character chatter to tells.”

Would restricting new aasimar, tiefling and gensai be a good idea?

I must say I complitely agree with you on this... I'm not even going to start about my opinion on "good" warlocks... I can only say that I don't love them

[emphazima]

To be honest I was afraid to bring up the gensia etc issue, fearing the bigger point might be lost. I am not worried as much about special races, as general OOC chatter.

Mithari, you said you do not want to comment about people who take them for the wrong reasons.

Is it not odd that it almost seems a majority of people play special races, or at least a very large portion of people and seemingly all of them are classes which benifit from the race?

Odd how we have so many aasimar paladins, warlocks and sorcs etc. Where are the tiefling sorcs? Where are the aasimar barbarians? Where are the fire gensai clerics?

[adzling]

nice thread and one i wholeheartedly agree with.

on my last PW which was completely unrestricted the amount of genasi, aasimar & tieflings vastly outnumbered the regular elves, humans and dwarves.

on the UD side the svirf's were getting the cheese-love.

the end result was a ridiculously large number of these races that made people playing humans the rarity.
the vast majority of people who played these supposedly rare races had no clue how to RP them or even what they were.

to them it was just another option for laying on the cheese.

[thegnomeherder]

I just hate all the Deepgnome Rogues that have happy little personalities and have to run around on the surface with their bubbly little names.

[loudent2]

I think this particular server has it's own special allure. And, while I'm not a player here, I have a vested interest in seeing this server succeed (indeed all of NWN2 PWs succeed).

To that end, I think the answer to the OPs basic question: would switching this from a role-play encouraged to a role-play enforced world (and all that it entails) make it better?, is No, it would not make it better.

There are hardcore servers aplenty in the NWN2 pwverse. In fact, they are the most common, but they create a sort of 0-point entry for role-playing. To go and play on them you must be up to speed with role-playing. Your other option is to go to action worlds where you will almost never encounter role-playing and a potential player will be lost to level-lust.

This world creates a soft landing of sorts. It introduces players with no ability or desire to Role-playing. I can't help but wonder how many started out here as action players and are now RPers?

Keep in mind, the transformation doesn't happen because someone informs them how they should play, or tells them what they must do but demonstrates it by RPing themselves. The more you stay in character, the more others will stay in character around you.

The areas are indeed lovely (won a contest I believe) although I think you have it wrong on the scripting (IIRC, Jlf2n said there is actually very little scripting). and I totally understand your desire to alter the game-play of the world to make it more inviting to yourself, However I think those alterations will ultimately harm the dynamic the world enjoys.

-Loudent2

[adzling]

deep gnomes on the surface should be banned imho.

otherwise they would be shallow gnomes, which come to think of it may be more fitting with their RP ;-)

i thought the devs had banned them from being on the surface though..

[broham2]

Yes, I would love an RP rule, but I wouldn’t stop there. I think a good share of races and Prestige Classes should be available only via RP and an application process, as well as Warlocks and Favored Souls. There are several other Hardcore RP Rules that I would like to see implemented.

But I am fairly certain it’s been stated here a few times in the time since I’ve been here – hardcore RP rules will not be implemented.

I don’t have too many issues.. of course there are some players that I’ve come to know pretty well from playing here a while and we will discuss OOC stuff during slow times.. but not around others, and not very often. I haven’t had my immersion broken too many times by others, but when I do I haven’t been afraid to tell em either.

[meldor]

I think the server already went from Lite-RP to Medium-RP now.

I wasn't much of a RPer when I got here and now I'm learning and hopefully get better at it.

I know at least 6-7 players on this server who don't speak in English as their natal language like me and it's really hard to have the same level of role playing some players have.

I think as long as peoples respect others, I don't see why we should enforce role playing more.

I know a lot of server where there are custom races and classes and you will not see exotic races. If you don't like them maybe you should look into a server that fit more your standard but if the possibilities are there peoples will play them and I'm all for having a lot of diversity.

I think if you are a good role player you will help others to get better and make them have some fun and stimulate them to RP as well. If you bitch and slap them with words you will just start flames and I doubt they will feel to RP with you and make them like it.

[kingcrab]

I'm wondering if the OOC clarification was done in local chat because more than 2 players were involved? As far as I know, you can't target multiple players for tells.

My two cents on the other comments:

1. The current rules already ask players to refrain from names such as "Razoraxe". Although, this is tricky as I can see character concepts that -could- reasonably use such names.

2. I don't think there should be race restrictions. It gets uncomfortably close to imposing a particular style of RP on others. An exploit that abuses bugs or flaws in game mechanics is one thing. It's quite another to disallow someone from developing his/her own character concept.... Moreover, non-standard races typically have ECL penalties that balance things out (especially given how XP scales on this server).

3. Along the same lines as (2), I am a liberal when it comes to RP. In my experience with NWN2, many new players have a misconception about what role-playing entails (because not everyone plays pnp). However, once they do understand, they make an honest effort to truly role-play. I believe that being a more inclusive server will make these players feel more welcomed and ultimately enrich the server when they mature into stronger role players.

Ok, back to work.

[thegnomeherder]

I don't really see the point of Role Play (Playing a Role) if you don't stick to a roll.

Role playing is a fairly flexible thing and yes, everyone does it their own way blah blah.

But whats the point in playing a roll your not going to stick to a specific roll?

Too many people try to make Elf Versions of themselves like "Hmm if I was a Drow I'd be a good guy with two scimitars, yeah that will be my next char!"

I assumed you were supposed to act like an elf not have the elf act like you. Its almost like reverse roleplay- instead of what life would be like as a DnD character its more like what would a DnD characters life be like if it was controlled by me? Ooo.


Although a lot of people on this server do an amazing job with their rolls and keep it up! =D