Hello everyone. I'm having this mounting, built up curiosity and maybe even a craving to get back RP as it is probably the best medium (Or at least the most familiar) that I know to be a creative writer. No, really. We're an eclectic community of interesting people who work together to conjure up some endless epic story that is Amia, with each character we play a thread of the whole article, weaving together with the other threads to create.. something! Some amorphous, ever-shifting aggregate of all the different directions our individual creative energies take when given a setting and a lot of personal freedom. A quill and your imagination.

I got a LITTLE discouraged though when I wasn't seeing anything new, innovative, interesting.. People seemed too close to their characters, too concerned for their success. Every character, no matter their alignment, seems to shift towards CN in actual play, like CN is some singularity that sucks in every alignment from every corner of the grid. It's really hard to play Evil well, or even a character with controversial beliefs or anti-social behavior or a weird development pattern, because it doesn't feel rewarding when in the end RP is less accessible to you because your character doesn't mesh well with the gaggle of extroverted characters who's varying, perhaps originally distinct character traits all got melted and dulled down so they could fit in more. Remember when 3-4 people started playing Elves classically and more lore-based and suddenly a lot of Elven characters that were developed and had been there for a while suddenly shifted to be that way? I mean, it was great that they became more lore-based, but I did not understand why established characters suddenly had this retcon development.

So I stopped playing my Elf and rolled a Drow, and bear with me as I want to get into a little anecdote here that highlights some of the trouble I've had with our RP on Amia, and why I have been discouraged from playing. I made a role-play destroying mistake when designing this character. It wasn't my first Drow so I had understood them well, and decided since I had played many typical Drow, I would brew up something different.. The problem was my Drow wanted to change the Drow sub-culture on Amia and when she wormed her way to something of a power-hold with her associates, and actually begin trying to implement this change, the Drow RP was internally demolished. Players came online with their Drow to immerse into the classical Drow culture, this other, alien world. Pure escape. And I was inadvertently taking that away. Worse, I was actually pushing along the Drow society on Amia towards that all-consuming CN maelstrom of banality. But I was really discouraged when people lost interest and seemed to "quit" and stop caring. It felt like months of build up reached it's climax and then.. immediately came crashing down to nothing because people wanted to drop their threads to the story and get away from the knot that was weaving, instead moving story-lines that were more normal.

But I had the thought that maybe this was all just my fault, really. I tried to make my thread special, interesting, new.. And not only did it become too extreme for the Drow society and perhaps distort the setting, but it was actually dismantling that distinct, flavored, structured alternative to surface RP, pushing it towards the "melting pot" of Amian RP, where it would be lost among the soupy mixture of so many other once distinct flavors.

Anyways, I'm just floating through life at the moment. Small job, minimalist living, and would love a good escape activity again. So I was curious how things were going in Amia? I'm looking forward to maybe working on a new character concept.

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Main: Riz'rae Faerfyn
Others: Aelron Rilynrae, Aeronor Tel'vyr

Good things come and go. Doesn't serve to dwell on matters, nor to focus too much on the destination.

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Zeskija Inalka - Catkin Meadowleaf - Xyme Thanas'ka

Your characters may succeed or fail in their agenda and plan but either way its always a successful situation as you've managed to create a good amount of RP and interesting situations for more than just your self.

Make a furry character. Or a fantasy brony.

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This quote is very true and served as a big wake-up call for myself. I will strive to RP more accordingly from now on. *Sigh.*

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Sion of Nimlith
Shadow Disciple

I don't see a gaggle of CN at all as a DM.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

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~Draco Bloodcloak~ In the mind of a tielfing
~Xanhorn Dragonsbane~

Why do you feel insulted? It's his opinion - We are all entitled to one...

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Amia Minecraft Server Ip: vps1602.directvps.nl
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There's a lot of fun stuff brewing behind the scenes at the moment, and some really creative development from a number of players. It's not exactly something that I'm willing to spell out all over the public forums, you know- being evil and all. If you're interested, I can give you a little teaser, and you can see if you'd like to draft up some kind of character concept to join our fun.

I know how troubling it can be to enter the world of Amia from a new angle. Push forward, amusement awaits!

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~Draco Bloodcloak~ In the mind of a tielfing
~Xanhorn Dragonsbane~

I'm confused as to the point of this thread. Are you lamenting the current state of affairs or lamenting the mistakes of youthful exhuberance? Or are the two points completely unrelated? You make it sound like the RP here is bad but then you seem to say you screwed up a system which worked (or maybe to you it didn't work? I'm not sure?). I don't totally disagree or anything I'm just confused.

CN is often the "Rebel without a cause" alignment. As writers a lot of us are seeking recognition and uniqueness (and in fact this is encouraged), and the best way to do this is to break away from established norms. So we spurn simple good vs evil stuff and try to rebel into our own special unique niche... but the problem is that a lot of people do the same thing (it's a path-of-least-resistance type thing). This is kind of how the Mary Sue stereotype arose. Due to the fact that we're all people, we often adopt the same behaviour as many of our fellows. And the paradox of seeking uniqueness but only entering another norm bothers us. The reaction tends to be a bit more unpredictable though. I mean, some people stick at it, other people quit, other people try to rebel elsewhere, sometimes by going back to the previous well-established norms...

Whether or not you see a lot of this/not much at all probably depends on where you're situated. Seeing as you're a self-confessed CNer you've probably just found yourself in the crowd who thinks/works the same way and that's why you get the sense that there's a lot of them. I kinda see where you're coming from. I know someone else who does too (and as a result they quit their character). But there are quite a lot of "Good-hearted" types and "Not good-hearted but able to integrate" types and "Evil for the sake of evil!" types so variety *does* exist. But I guess by some perspectives it's hard to see where the alignments come into the character. Especially since the more fleshy characters don't exactly wear their alignments on their sleeves.

As for the anecdote thing. I dunno if I'm thinking about the right thing (it would probably be a faux pas for me to try and get specifics so I won't), but I don't believe it was your fault. Your character's actions may have triggered stuff but the situation is always a product of numerous diverse factors. Especially drow society because it tends to become tense and high-strung more easily than non-drow RP.

For the record I have no trouble playing evil. It's Good that I can never get a handle on. I would if I could >:

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@Thanatopsis#6293

I don't know a lot of CN charas... But I guess it's the easiest alignment to play if you're new and unfamiliar, though I wouldn't write off CN as "banal". It has its charms beyond being self-centered and indecisive.

I'm not really sure what it is you were discouraged by but... That's the nature of RP. Sometimes you work for months and things fall flat. It sucks, given our investment, but that's not something that's specific to Amia. That's just how RP is. Players come and go. I wouldn't go as far as to blame your chara entirely for that, even if it may have seemed that way to you.

Hopefully you'll find what you're looking for! Won't really know until you give it a shot. The three factions I think that are super active right now are elves, UD drow, and Mulan in Djedet. The shady people doing their thing right now also are fairly active at the moment. So I'll suggest jumping in the boat in one of those. Of course, being an active player in an inactive place/faction also has its benefits... So... Yup... I'm full of awesome advice right now at 5 in the morning.

I have to admit the purpose of this thread is lost on me as well and I don't really agree on that whole CN thing. But, that said, nice to see you're still around, Rosen. Oh! And RPing that change in drow-land that you mentioned was great fun. Too bad the end result was lamentable. Oh well!

Oh. Truth. I don't even play with the Mulhorandi peeps-- but from everything I've been reading and hearing, they love it down there. That's a really solid recommendation.

Isn't this one of the thread where players just hide behind "opinion sharing" just to vent?

In my opinion, if you don't like the RP on Amia and want to play here yourself and have a good time... take it up on yourself to change it.

If not then learn to appreciate other's effort to provide a fun (or unfun) characters. Whether it'swell-RP'ed CN or not as long as you stay in character and withing the polite boundaries OOC, which some seasoned players don't, then I have no problem.

Don't forget not all of the players have 5-year-long experience with D&D lore, the more understanding you have for the beginners the easier it gets for you to overlook their partial mistakes... not assuming they're the only ones to make mistakse of course.

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These trees are made for humpin'!

lolz

+1 to you Sir and/or Madam for making me laugh

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Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play:
Salema Nefahri :: A penny for your thots
Zrae'a'stra'fryn :: That which nightmares are made of
Khasir :: From the East a storm is coming

Same here. I see all the alignments represented, not equally mind you, but they're there.

Bit of advice though, don't call a thread "I was discouraged by the RP here." and then say that you're thinking about coming back. It's like going to a restaurant and telling them that you don't like the food, but you'll be back tomorrow for more or punching someone in the nose and then telling them that you care about their welfare.

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"I once took the high road and it took me straight to hell and I stood there all by myself." -Hank III

Ralten's Band was a glorious gaggle of chaotic neutralness. Maybe he's referencing that band of merry men!

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I cant help but feel slightly insulted from generalizations in posts like this.

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The Peacock wrote:

[GreatPigeon] is better than me.

Well, I can tell you my main and my wizard are CN...officially.

Krugan is CN but, has a personal sense of honor, won't lie if he can help it and despite many seeing him as evil, he really isn't at all. I hope and feel most that know him well see him as one described him.

"A professional killer who has a heart."

That truly is how I see Krugan...he is very much an opinionated person that has his own personal goals and beliefs and simple won't "go with the flow". I hope that, despite many IC trials and drama, OOC anyone I have interacted with understands this.

The wizard I have not played much, he's getting alot of time now and, again, people are enjoying him. At least from what comments I am told.

I am working a second character up as an evil faction leader and that has been a very refreshing change of pace. I have quite a few players that are coming along that are new to me, more or less, and its been a refreshing change of pace and, again, I'm getting good feedback and I personally am enjoying the RP.

As I have been developing that plot/faction line, I have gotten to interact with quite a few of the DMs here to various degrees and, I can tell you this, I am NOT DISAPPOINTED at all. I have found that they are ALL, to a PERSON, supportive of it. Just need to understand their personal style and accept constructive criticism. heh..which is good.

I can also tell you this...the MULAN faction is great...sadly I was not able to really get into that despite being part of it and then invited back...it just didn't work out for RP reasons (conflicts with Krugan and such) but, I still am trying to support them and even give them a foil to play off of though, right now, they don't need a foil because Mosh is going gangbusters. I think they are having a blast and I know quite a few other NOT Mulan players are interacting with them like the Copper Industries folks and the Knigths.

Then there is the developing plot of Guld....I know at least 2 or 3 DMs are eyeballing or interacting with that...there are quite a few factions mulling it and there is a HORDE of possible rabbit trails there from the portal close to Khem to the old Banite keep to whatever...

So..ah...all I can tell you is this....

There is a TON of RP possibilities already on the table and you can always go out and create your own like I did with Krugan and his wedding. I had a host of other players involved from Kurchin and his catering to the Dale folks and the Grove folks (to a limited degree) to Explorers and other Job System people....

To end this long post....RP here is quite frankly what you make of it. Don't wait for it to happen to you, go out and engage in it and you will find players and DMs alike will rise to the occasion to RP with you...just don't get overly discouraged if your personal ideas and timetables get blown out of the water.

After all, the best laid plans of mice and men will almost always go astray...

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Ya see, long time ago, me father taught me somethin that be right true.
An amateur practices until they get it right. A professional practices till they can't get it wrong.
Dwarves are professionals at what we do.

You are using so many ... and ... and ... ... ... that I get distracted from what you are trying to tell us with your post!

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Amia Minecraft Server Ip: vps1602.directvps.nl
NWN Damage Calculator: http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/dnd/
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Simeron is CN irl, and so is his ability to make posts

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These trees are made for humpin'!

It's good that you took the initiative to make a change and from your post is sounds like a lot of RP spawned from it which is a good thing. Even if it collapsed in the end, you should be at least a little comforted by the entertainment it created for yourself and others.

I understand what you mean about the 'CN black hole' but it can take a while for clearly defined personalities to emerge from characters you interact with, especially if the player has taken time to make a proper story for them. You wouldn't expect to meet a guy in a bar and then know his motives, history and trust him enough to begin scheming the downfall of the PM or something, would you? Maybe your character would, but still. People won't walk around with 'Hi, I'm Bill. I'd love to get together and rob/steal/murder some innocents. Call me!' Usually.

I don't know you or how you play, but organising things OOCly and finding the major activity hubs like factions is a great way to get stuck into good, solid RP. Put a note up on the forums or send a few tells to RPers you like the style of, no matter how briefly you've interacted with them, to see if they'd like to start a new character with you or something. You never know, they could be feeling the exact same and jump at the chance to try something new, no matter the scale. And if they decline, you haven't really lost anything.

People talk a lot about 'you get out what you put in' and blah de blah. I don't tend to be a very proactive person most of the time, but you can't expect proper RP gems to just land in your lap every time you play, and I can say that the most fun I've had here comes with a little bit of preparation. Though that just makes the random encounters all the sweeter!

Anyway. Just don't be shy! Find out where characters similar to yours congregate, what factions are active at the moment, what the big plotlines are like, or as I said before try to set something up yourself. Maybe just something a bit less risky than a Drow society overhaul, or whatever it was you were doing.

Seeing something incorrectly as Chaotic Neutral is easy enough to do.. unless you know the machinations of the character involved and every bit of extraneous information on the dealings it is impossible to know the most important W. Why?

It is important to understand that dedication and attachment to a character are two different things. Wanting one's character to succeed is no different than wanting one's book to succeed, or favorite team. - Its natural. There are a few of us rare breeds - I look at Yoss when I say this, who want them to fail though! And even sometimes, fail hard. Those are the truly most interesting moments and most testing to me as a writer.

And... as far as character's honing down their behavior to be more accepted; How does this seem wrong? - this happens all the time to real entities, it could be easily any of the following; character growth, peer pressure, deceptive acting, or psychopathy.

The thing to remember about Epic tales is that their content tends to gloss over the banality of a persistent existence of the heroes they portray. - Amia is persistent. Epic is distilled moments after scads of sacrifice and lots of banality. If you want epicness, read the DM story forum posts that go to 2 or more pages.

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Dwagin [Duh-wa-GIN] N. - 1a. Small and cute thingum, particularly fond of four legged scaled creatures of the metalic and chromatic varieties.

-Extraordinarily ordinary in the mostest of ways.

+1

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These trees are made for humpin'!

Sometimes efforts fail for other reasons than people OOCly disapproving of the direction. I'm not sure that's something you can appropriately measure, Rosen. Ainjyll is right that you portrayed yourself very silly here, but I do hope you come back. I enjoyed Riz'rae.

CG actually in RL.

I got a button long ago that was so good, so appropriate, I have kept it for better then 25 years.

It says two words.

Chaotic Obnoxious

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Ya see, long time ago, me father taught me somethin that be right true.
An amateur practices until they get it right. A professional practices till they can't get it wrong.
Dwarves are professionals at what we do.

So the distracting text is working?

KEWL

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Ya see, long time ago, me father taught me somethin that be right true.
An amateur practices until they get it right. A professional practices till they can't get it wrong.
Dwarves are professionals at what we do.

We all know the real power behind Raltens and it weren't CN! Gorthod was CS: Chaotic Sexy.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Which is obviously why you can't kill him off, Silent! Torin would cry at the lack chaotic sexiness

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"The world takes and takes, even things that aren't offered. Finally, it gave us something back; I wish he was here to share it with me."

And then we'd cheer him up with Cat-girls.

And all was right with world.

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I play: Gage le Gris
Socially and recently politically Inept Knight of Xymor

HAhahahahahaha I never saw that screenie. Go Silent. W00t! Gay pride!

Chaotic Ambiguous, more like.

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Remember that lawful guy that tried to join? Good old lawful guy.

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AHAHAHAH YES I REMEMBER THAT IT WAS FUNNY

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I LAUGHED ABOUT IT LATER THAT DAY.

But back on topic... CN is awesome.

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On topic is for lawfuls.

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Sam was a great member of Ralten's. And she was super lawful. *sagenods*

Sam was never a member of Ralten's...

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Yes. I have also noticed different kinds of role-players. Most on Amia don't care much about plots that 'physically change the world we play in', and instead like to have romantic relationships that produce drama, or the like to stand around and talk about the weather. To me, it seems that a lot of people who are on this server every time I log in have problems IRL and try to create a social environment within this game, even if it's fake. I spend too much time on this server to be honest, and I must admit that my favored role-play is the rarest kind- leaving me a little aggrivated sometimes, but I understand that we each get something different out of this experience. I don't substitute Amia for a social life, and I think a lot of people on this server do. I'm not passing judgement on anyone, I'm just coming to grips with the reality of this non-reality, and explaining my perspective on this matter as objectively as I can.

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I suppose some do, and while I have no interest in romantic roleplay and such, but talking about the weather (or GRUMBLING about it, more likely) is pretty much a part of playing a 'real life' even if some might see it as boring.

What would annoy me more is those that would actually COMPLAIN about not being able to get a fight, or about at least not getting chased around getting 'attention', because people were too busy 'having tea parties' and so on.

There are far more, imo, who's problems in real life cause them to run around seeking fights, playing 'chase me, chase me' with people of the opposing ethos, or standing about looking broody and sinister, or 'powerful', than there are using it to fill in a gap in their social life. Not aiming this at anyone in particular, of course, just a broad generalisation of many (TOO many, in fact) that I have seen on this Server in the time I have been here.

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"Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence"
~ Napoleon Bonaparte.
- Clearly, Napoleon never envisioned the Internet......where I'd judge it about 50/50.

Cool, I want one of those to go on my KEYBOARD.

One that when I press it actually works in game and can blank them out.

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"Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence"
~ Napoleon Bonaparte.
- Clearly, Napoleon never envisioned the Internet......where I'd judge it about 50/50.

I've really enjoyed RPing with your drow characters, Rosen.
They might not have been successful, the RP has been for me though

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I never understood why people say these things when they never actually participate in what they presume to be the type of RP that they don't like. No, much to your surprise, most of us are working toward affecting the server in one way or another. Whether or not there's too much RP that you don't care about in the middle is another story. But don't think people aren't actually trying to affect the world.

Please don't discredit people just because you think their RP is something that it isn't. It's fine to enjoy whatever you think is a minority RP with your own little group of people, but to say most people don't care about plot or changes to the server is complete and utter BS. We are all working on making things happen on the server and you insult everyone by presuming otherwise.

+1

I find this rather utter crap aswell. Yes my two mains are in relationships. Yes, they sometimes speak about small things and have "normal" conversations too. That doesn't make up for RL but it simply belongs to a RP aswell as the epic plots. Both also have participated in many epic plots.

But if you just only log in to participate in an epic plot and consider all other RP nonsense, then IMHO your chara will never properly develop.

RP is not just to rush from one gigantic plot to the next. If you want that you might want to stick to Campains instead of RP servers. To simply speak to other characters, get to know them IC, by this forging alliances and discover enemies, getting a feeling of whom you chara can cope with and whom not, learning about other factions, learning about things in the server you possibly never noticed yourself, that is all just as important for the environment to even make an epic plot interesting and succeed.

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And I just want to say that none of my own characters has ever wanted to be those that stand out or are a head of any faction, hell my necromancer even gave that status to someone else just to avoid it himself. Not because he doesn't have goals, because he had other goals and status as a head of faction would only slower him. And he was not fit to be a head neither, lacking leadership skills or what you call it, the it.

Neither do I see a relationship rp an "attempt to create a my kind of social enviroment just because my real life doesnt work out", dont have problems there in my opinion. As relationship rp can be as political as you want. Lets say your character gets famous, or is a relative of a famous person who can influence matters, I would consider getting a marriage with this persons daughter just to get some power.

Also not all characters need to be big and stand out to affect. Sometimes it can be the smaller roleplaying things that influence the big plot.

Then again I see your point as well, because it can be annoying. The more experienced player you are the more you go "ah, this kind fo character again, sigh.." At least I have found myself doing it a couple of times as I have seen so plenty of them, not because of the player isn't creative, but because the player just happened to make a same kind of character that you have seen before. Yet again, the small things make them stand out of the masses, if you get to know the characters better.

But in this topic there is so many angles that we can depate the whole year in this.

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http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/spells.htm

There are many varieties of roleplay due to the preferences of players, and that goes for relationship roleplay as well. Some of it can be very political, for instance the marriage of Robert and Castiel is not only founded on affection, but marriage politics of nobility and the fact that Robert needed to produce some heirs. Now that he no longer is Baron of Caraigh the heirs a redundant, but oh well. I doubt anyone can say that is a huggle giggle rp, and even if it were, you are free to avoid it.

lolz Tyrus is LN and he was a semi member

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Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play:
Salema Nefahri :: A penny for your thots
Zrae'a'stra'fryn :: That which nightmares are made of
Khasir :: From the East a storm is coming

Relationship RP unfortunately only is really ever interesting to the two people in the relationship. That said, I don't give a crap if people go run off to have sex all by themselves. I'll just go RP with someone else. Besides, Murex, you played a supposed Sharran. Plot plot plot. The more people having sex, the easier it is to make stuff fall down on top of them. (figuratively)

I also don't see the correlation between RL and this video game, tbh. Perhaps you're the one with IRL problems if you think that you're expressing any of your RL at all in your character.

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

Right... only because a Character is in a relationship doesn't mean they run off to have sex all the time or don't rp with others.

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