AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Im unsure if this is in the correct section, sorry if it is...

Ive recently tried to resume playing a couple chars that are now apparently using a banned Deity and or faction in the city of cordor but ive not seen anywhere in cordor that displays this..not on the tablets of law or by any other means, my questions are therefore...which ones are currently banned and where can i view future changes to the status of banned factions in cordor if and when it happens so as not to spoil the RP of things.

Thanks for your time.

word of mouth says that anyone in the HOA, Banites and old Red wizards /Crimson Arcanists >.< don't know any more than that, but its been so long i don't know if any of this still holds. I really think there should be a "cordor" sub-forum with a place for this kind of information among other things like citizenship etc A big list saying who specificly is banned, for instance "HOA" is banned and a list of the known HOA members banned, so that covert members dont just instantly get banned form a city due to their involvement in a faction. Also what if you leave the faction ? what if nobody knew you were part of it lol

Most of it you can find out IG by sending a note to a guard, or asking for an interview.

We'll usually be around to meet with you and can tell you if you're banned. There are certainly ways to do it with anonymity too.

All questions easily resolved by getting a DM to enter a city from which you may or may not be banned, as well. No excuses.

I think Cordor used to have a rule where if you were a member of a banned faction, you were banned regardless if you are known member if the church or not, though I am not sure if that is still in effect because it was only placed up since people continuously abused it.

Such a rule cannot exist because you never know whether or not you are known for certain.

Easy solution to your problem Nidemus... walk up to a Cordor guardsmen, either one controlled by a DM, or a PC guard... say "Hi I'm (char name) and I'm an adventurer of the (deity) faith, am I banned?"

Then when they are dragging you out as soon as you start the word adventurer, you will know

Yossarin wrote:

Such a rule cannot exist because you never know whether or not you are known for certain.

And would really put a dent in the RP of followers Shar and Cyric plus any of the other baddies whos point for following is to not be known as a follower so you can do the most damage

Correct.

Cordor also bans Eternal Order, but not Kelemvorites...

So, in re: the original question, is there someplace a player can go to learn whether their characters are banned due to the entry typed into their deity field? If not, should there be?

Well like which was said in a previous post here, some groups are meant to never say who they are with due to being secretive and such, hence you would never ask if your banned even if you thought you might be so as not to be tossed out of a city...

I believe ill just stick to dressing casual for those chars im not sure on and blend in until questioned otherwise, because thats what id do IRL...though i know drows and undeadies are banned in all but tarkuul and underdark pretty much.

I would suggest that maybe someone should look into creating some kind of Cordor notice board object IG that is left beside or nearby the laws of cordor that clearly displays whichever current factions are Banned, though i think someone just said a similar thing above this post....

This topic was raised after a few similar actions that occured with one particular char of mine several months ago, I logged in with my Velsharoon Cleric who was in cordor (as usual) and i went to setup an altar near the main temple in Cordor east and after several mins a follower of Try i think it was came upto me and said OOCly "Are you a Vaunted follower guy" I said "Yes" and he said.."Your factions banned here dude" I thought well thats a suprise and went straight to the law tablets and saw nothing had changed and felt confused...Was he lying to me? Messing with my for a laugh or what...i know now he was telling the truth but the point is i couldn't verify it because there were no PC guards on and no DM's..i had this very same problem with Wilten fortress or whatever its called awhile back and made a post about it which got some people angry...but a few days later they put signs all over the fortress and that got fixed...im simply seeking a similar thing for cordor.

Ill not be replying to this post any longer btw as i have nothing left to say on the matter but ill read whatever you guys reply with.

Thanks again for reading.

Scimiter wrote:

Yossarin wrote:

Such a rule cannot exist because you never know whether or not you are known for certain.

And would really put a dent in the RP of followers Shar and Cyric plus any of the other baddies whos point for following is to not be known as a follower so you can do the most damage

I sincerely would like to request that this rule be reviewed by the DM team and the player populace. It' is a serious problem and stiffles the potential for a lot of 'intelligent' evil RP. While there have been numerous complaints of pvp stupid evil griefer rp, The case is not helped by a blanket rule for something that makes no sense at all to prevail to the whole player base, especially if it's not being abused.

My suggestion:

Create reputation points for characters who have evil deities or are evil in general as well as those members of factions that are banned. The more outwardly evil they are, the more evil reputation points they get by the DM team and this then dictates wether they are allowed within certain cities or not. If the player character manages to ICly do things that 'reduce' his evil reputation then these reputation points can be reduced. I believe there would be significant opportunity for intelligent evil rp to enhance the server experience in this manner. This would also avoid the blanket rule that is seriously stifling the cause of covert or intelligence mastermind type evil rp that is supposed to fester within cities like cordor.

It is not being stifled. It is occurring regularly on my watch. If it is being stifled on your end, the cause is not the fair ruling, but your own unwillingness to acknowledge the possibility that a PC or NPC you know nothing about might know a lot about you.

EDIT: Not intended to sound terse or flippant. I just post from mobile while travelling and thus am terse to the poibt of being pointed at times.

Vinasius wrote:

Scimiter wrote:

Yossarin wrote:

Such a rule cannot exist because you never know whether or not you are known for certain.

And would really put a dent in the RP of followers Shar and Cyric plus any of the other baddies whos point for following is to not be known as a follower so you can do the most damage

I sincerely would like to request that this rule be reviewed by the DM team and the player populace. It' is a serious problem and stiffles the potential for a lot of 'intelligent' evil RP. While there have been numerous complaints of pvp stupid evil griefer rp, The case is not helped by a blanket rule for something that makes no sense at all to prevail to the whole player base, especially if it's not being abused.

My suggestion:

Create reputation points for characters who have evil deities or are evil in general as well as those members of factions that are banned. The more outwardly evil they are, the more evil reputation points they get by the DM team and this then dictates wether they are allowed within certain cities or not. If the player character manages to ICly do things that 'reduce' his evil reputation then these reputation points can be reduced. I believe there would be significant opportunity for intelligent evil rp to enhance the server experience in this manner. This would also avoid the blanket rule that is seriously stifling the cause of covert or intelligence mastermind type evil rp that is supposed to fester within cities like cordor.

It's not a bad idea but I have to agree with Yoss. The onus is on you, as the Evil Intelligent PCs and players to make sure you keep your exposure and profile low.

Adding to Yossi, you have to consider: For every intelligent villainous PC out there, chances are there are also intelligent Goodly PCs who know do track evil masterminds when intelligence and information comes to their attention.

I would say have faith in the DMs, and their ability to interpret when intelligence is validly gathered.

Quote:

It is not being stifled. It is occurring regularly on my watch. If it is being stifled on your end, the cause is not the fair ruling, but your own unwillingness to acknowledge the possibility that a PC or NPC you know nothing about might know a lot about you.

EDIT: Not intended to sound terse or flippant. I just post from mobile while travelling and thus am terse to the poibt of being pointed at times.

Quote:

ntelligence and information comes to their attention.

I would say have faith in the DMs, and their ability to interpret when intelligence is validly gathered.

Ok maybe I understood the context wrong.
Can a player make a cyricist toon, a secret one , rp in cordor without repercussions if it did nothing extorvertly evil and played behind the scenes type?

My contention is I thought there was a pure blanket rule that any pc toon with a banned deity in it's character field cannot go into cordor ie. bane?

irrepsective of IC knowlege of others of that characters deity choice. Do correct me if i'm wrong.

Note that there is no such thing as a secret toon. Or rather, that you neither have nor should have any grounds to know absolutely whether or not your toon is truly "secret". The rule that you have suggested actually attempts to qualify the "secret" or "not secret" with a mechanic, and such a mechanic does not take the actions of all PCs into account.

To the confused people, there was a "rule" that WonWon came up with during his tenure as the Cordor DM before Yossarin, where people who were of a certain banned "faction" (such as faiths) were banned from Cordor.

It still had the basic premise of what Yossarin was getting at, that it's impossible to be certain of how "known" your infiltrating PC is. So this is the origin of the "rule" myth (?) about banned factions, because WonWon actually made it one a while back.

Yossarin wrote:

It is not being stifled. It is occurring regularly on my watch. If it is being stifled on your end, the cause is not the fair ruling, but your own unwillingness to acknowledge the possibility that a PC or NPC you know nothing about might know a lot about you.

And Yossarin sort of sums up my feelings. I don't think I really have to explain how that works, but I'll throw in my chips and say that every now and then, if a player asks me about making a new character that they have heard ICly would have a banned faction (usually a faith, since making a character specifically for a faction has died down a little, I think?) would be exiled from the city, I'll think about it, and usually they'll explain their rationale to me, and usually I'll go "Nah, go ahead." Simply because I want to see what they'll do with it.

Most of them don't stick around too long, but I think there is still one floating around that has been moderately successful (that I know of, anyway). They put the time into it, and it makes me happy. They went in with the understanding that if they were found as an infiltrator there would be dire consequences, and it's made them have to be very patient and very creative to deal with that burden. Hell, I'm proud that they took it on and are still around from time to time, between their alts. Quite a few people can't handle that constant burden on their character, just to play in a city that hates them without knowing who they are (i.e. Down with Adventurers!!!) and may prosecute them harshly if they ever find out who they really are.

It sounds like a novel-worthy conflict to me, really. I'd read that book.

Edit: We need more characters that are born from a climate, and adapt to it, imo.

Does the "Followers of evil Gods" blanket ban mean anyone who worships any evil god, or only people who have an evil god as their Patron deity?

I always thought it was rather stupid how someone could be banned without any IC RP.

It's as if anyone in the city wants to be shielded from any possible conflict or villain that ever would've existed. It's also assuming that the population of evil amian players are not capable of conducting themselves lawfully just like everyone else, in a setting of Cordor, to the degree that they don't even have any trial before judgement. It's also assuming that the evil players, if thwarted within the city, are not capable of roleplaying getting kicked out and banned when that happens. What do the guard PC's do if there's nothing to guard?

Getting a DM to enter every time is tedious; especially when the only thing that requires you to do this is text on your character file that noone can read, especially when you don't know what you're going to find, and you don't have serious RP in mind. This is a major reason as to why Cordor is empty most of the time. Alot of PC's are simply banned before they ever went in. It is rather discouraging to even attempt, considering your character could be/and most likely is inconsequential to Cordor's plot altogether anyways.

Use common sense. If you walk through Cordor wearing a cloak with Bane/Cyrics symbol on it you're an idiot and you're going to be thrown out, imprisoned, or killed (if you're in Kohligen.) If you're a cyricist walking through Cordor with the symbol of Lathander on your cloak you're probably okay (so long as you don't do so with an aura of despair active.)

If you're a "secret PC" and your secret gets discovered through legitimate means then you should suck it up, adapt, and move on.

I'm not going to spend my entire time in the DM client watching evil PCs walk in and out of Cordor and I doubt any other members of the team are either.

So now I'm confused, Silent. If I have a character who's (for example) a Sharran, and I genuinely believe that nobody other then herself and Shar has any reason to suspect her of being a Sharran, is that character flat-out, no-exceptions banned from unsupervised entry into Cordor? Or am I free to "use common sense"?

When the Adventuring Guard drop their blanket bans of that nature, I will not resist, with a couple of exceptions: the Church of Bane declared formal war and the Eternal Order starved the citizens and have not made reparations.

Anyone else (including Sharrans) the DM is indifferent to but relies on the players in the Adventuring Division to ibform the NPC rulers. I would prefer that they dump anything against lesser evils like Velsharans and whatever others I don't know about, but until they do, this anti-metagaming rule will stand.

And I reiterate it, you do not necessarily need a DM every time. Some players can attest that they asked a DM one time and then the DM told them that they could come and go as they please and were excepted.

What evil players are trying to crush by removing this standard we have held is the possibility that has happened: a PC or NPC spies on someone, finds incriminaring evidence, and then sketches a portrait of that person for the NPC city guard. Without the current "check with a DM" rule, we could never enforce that valid RP on an evil (or good) character.

Quote:

the Church of Bane declared formal war

My memory is probably crappy, or something but I do not ever remember this. Maybe it was a PM or something?

It was before your time I think.

The declararation was posted on a pike outside the northern gates, along with the head of a Cordorian merchant.

Needled247 wrote:

I always thought it was rather stupid how someone could be banned without any IC RP.

It's as if anyone in the city wants to be shielded from any possible conflict or villain that ever would've existed. It's also assuming that the population of evil amian players are not capable of conducting themselves lawfully just like everyone else, in a setting of Cordor, to the degree that they don't even have any trial before judgement. It's also assuming that the evil players, if thwarted within the city, are not capable of roleplaying getting kicked out and banned when that happens. What do the guard PC's do if there's nothing to guard?

Getting a DM to enter every time is tedious; especially when the only thing that requires you to do this is text on your character file that noone can read, especially when you don't know what you're going to find, and you don't have serious RP in mind. This is a major reason as to why Cordor is empty most of the time. Alot of PC's are simply banned before they ever went in. It is rather discouraging to even attempt, considering your character could be/and most likely is inconsequential to Cordor's plot altogether anyways.

You're so dead on.

As far as needing the rule to prevent metagaming, a simple IC or even OOC forum post clarifying who exactly is banned seems like such a simple solution to me. Name (or description) not on the list? Then no one has reported you. Name on the list? - you need a DM.
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It does seem to me that some places - with good reason - seem rather intent on stifling the potential for conflict-based RP (no "derogatory remarks" in Bendir, for example). I find this kind of amusing, though, because it seems like so many of the players are screaming for it.

NaturallyCaffeinated wrote:

As far as needing the rule to prevent metagaming, a simple IC or even OOC forum post clarifying who exactly is banned seems like such a simple solution to me. Name (or description) not on the list? Then no one has reported you. Name on the list? - you need a DM.

And this leads to people who would otherwise not be aware that their character is known, saying to themselves, "Oh shit, I'd get caught if I went in... I'm never going there again!" which is entirely OOC. Whereas normally that character would walk into town, and get caught (entirely IC) and roleplay ensues.

Posting a list like you suggest would only lead to metagaming and a degradation of IC actions = IC consequences.

Note that I'm not saying the current system we have is perfect, I'm just saying what you've suggested doesn't work.

Speaking only for myself, I'm not advocating that a list of banned individuals be made known, rather just a list of banned organizations / factions / affiliations / whatever. The current system puts players in the situation of potentially being rulebreakers without even knowing it. That's not tenable, IMHO.

Yossarin wrote:

And I reiterate it, you do not necessarily need a DM every time. Some players can attest that they asked a DM one time and then the DM told them that they could come and go as they please and were excepted.

Oh, I didn't know this was a standing policy. I feel much better about (potentially frivolously) bothering a DM once than bothering them every time I just want to poke my nose into a city to see if anyone is doing anything interesting. The rule as written appeared to say "You need a DM every time".

Not that it's ever really come up for me, though it has always been a potential concern.

Glim wrote:

And this leads to people who would otherwise not be aware that their character is known, saying to themselves, "Oh shit, I'd get caught if I went in... I'm never going there again!" which is entirely OOC. Whereas normally that character would walk into town, and get caught (entirely IC) and roleplay ensues.

Posting a list like you suggest would only lead to metagaming and a degradation of IC actions = IC consequences.

Note that I'm not saying the current system we have is perfect, I'm just saying what you've suggested doesn't work.

You make a good point - I was under the impression that, when they asked a DM, they were essentially asking the same thing ("am I banned or not?").

Well, I'm not sure how other DMs treat it, but when I'm asked, I don't give them any information, I just basically say, "Yes, I'll keep an eye on goings on and have NPCs react accordingly, if applicable."

Lizzie wrote:

Speaking only for myself, I'm not advocating that a list of banned individuals be made known, rather just a list of banned organizations / factions / affiliations / whatever.

This would be handy as it appears not everybody is aware of exactly how this works or which groups are banned - myself included.

serbiris wrote:

Yossarin wrote:

And I reiterate it, you do not necessarily need a DM every time. Some players can attest that they asked a DM one time and then the DM told them that they could come and go as they please and were excepted.

Oh, I didn't know this was a standing policy. I feel much better about (potentially frivolously) bothering a DM once than bothering them every time I just want to poke my nose into a city to see if anyone is doing anything interesting. The rule as written appeared to say "You need a DM every time".

It was my understanding as well that a DM was needed every time for members of banned groups.

An IC sign outside the 3 main entrances of the city (and possibly the docks) would be useful. It's not like the list of banned groups changes frequently.

Methinks this looks like a good way for some PC efforts to champion transparency in government.

NaturallyCaffeinated wrote:

It does seem to me that some places - with good reason - seem rather intent on stifling the potential for conflict-based RP (no "derogatory remarks" in Bendir, for example). I find this kind of amusing, though, because it seems like so many of the players are screaming for it.

In my experience, the derogatory remarks thing in Bendir actually generates some one-on-one conflict, because most pc's never bother to read the laws and make derogatory comments anyway, thus setting up conflict with the resident pc's. Now, it's not designed to generate conflict AFAIK, but I've seen it happen. Actually, I don't recall why it's there in the first place and I've been in Bendir on a regular basis since I joined the server. I know it's been written into the law boards for quite some time.

Bendir itself hasn't promoted faction conflict, and the town has generally tried to keep a low profile from an open warfare standpoint for most of the time I've been there despite being functionally and traditionally good aligned.

Nivo wrote:

Methinks this looks like a good way for some PC efforts to champion transparency in government.

This would be a way better answer, I think, if the rule in question only existed IC. If that were the case, then I'd totally agree, IC actions should have IC consequences, and someone who presses forward with an IC action which they're not sure is legal IC should suffer IC for it.

But we're not talking about that. The rule exists both IC and OOC, as a restriction both on what a *character* can do and what a *player* can do. Therefore the IC actions in question can have OOC consequences, affecting peoples' standing in the eyes of the DM team, potentially in a very negative way. OOC rules should be unambiguous and declared proactively, so people who don't want to cheat can be sure they're not cheating.

Honestly the biggies are bandits, eternal order, nonsignet drow, bucktooth clan that are heavily harassed. As my pc guard has even defended tarkull members as long as they behave.

Charles1810 wrote:

As my pc guard has even defended tarkull members as long as they behave.

*Points eyes to his trade post, where Bels does in fact stick up for Tarkuul.*

Cordor Banned Faction / Deities Query

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