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Rules Thread Can be found here: http://www.amiaworld.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=110&t=82257

So first off, let me say that I am completely and utterly thrilled about this. I'm really quite at a loss for words, as this is not only awesome and poses huge Rp potential, but is rather surprising! I'm not sure what stage of the discussion/implementation this change is in for the staff, but I would encourage all staff members to read over some of the questions, concerns, and ideas with appropriate consideration! This is so cool, and completely out of left-field that I'm just so pleasantly taken aback.

Looking through the post, I have a few questions already:

1.) What is Arena PvP mode? Is that subdual, basically (Or is it just mechanical PvP, opposed to RP/roll-pvp)? And as per this statement: "If Arena PVP mode is not agreed to, the Vampire PC shall be forced to take a flee from scene. No PVP shall take place."-- Does this mean that if mechanical, subdual PvP isn't agreed to that the character has to flee? Just asking for clarification sake. It's certainly different from our normal PvP rules, but I understand the caution.

2.) Can we get a little bit more on the thrall aspect of vampires? I understand that there might be a will to keep the OOC/IC details somewhat nebulous and mysterious, but I feel like given the nature of mind control and influencing, that it could do more good to know rather than simply find out.

For instance, what can the enthrallment make a character do? And what kind of remedies are there? Amia is a particularly high magic server, where Remove Curse and Mind protection are extremely available. I personally recommend a more "involved" cure and process, because this kind of mind-enslavement RP (Both sides willing, of course), could be reaaaallly neat if played out, and I fear that it could be over too quickly by a nonchalant greater restoration.

And a few other general questions not pertaining to the thread specifically:

- Is this change still well within the discussion phase? Or has that passed, and that rule change is already in motion?

- Is there a single DM who is interested in undertaking lite supervision for Vampire PC's? Not something where they're necessarily needed all of the time, but I can see it being extremely helpful for players of vampire characters to have a persistent contact on the staff, and someone who's interested in overseeing their roleplay to help provide atmosphere and a safety net for conflict.

- And lastly, how difficult are you expecting the requests to be for Vampiric PC's? Would you be expecting the player to already have a character and to be turned into a Vampire, or are you also accepting cases where the character is a Vampire right out of the box? What about group concepts (Vampire families)?

~~~~

Hackums' Opinion:

All in all, I think this is spectacular. I'm personally hopeful that the team would consider a well-requested group concept, or a kind of alternate beginnings where they kickstart a family. Vampire families and covens can provide absolutely stellar conflict RP-- which I know is something that people have been itching for. Furthermore, this highlights Tarkuul as a haven for such creatures-- which I know will have a positive impact on that area, and with those players. This is incredible stimuli for future conflict: for good, evil, neutral, and potentially monstrous PC's.

It was drafted in order for the possible approval of a current request. I'm nowhere near as enthusiastic as you are, but we will see what happens.

I think players want to experience good conflict, and I think other players want to be able to give that to them. For me, I personally think that vampires are a dynamic and particular monster that offers a perfect combination of monstrous evil and humanoid design-- while also having a certain 'connection' to each other that could bond them as a more cohesive antagonist.

I dunno. I feel like Amia could use a good kickstart for conflict again, but it's been hard to think up new designs. This is kind of fresh, and could be neat with the right cooperation between staff and player. All 'bout giving players the right tools.

If it's just made for a single request, it may just be that the DM's want to have the rules and will continue to hold a very strictly high expectation for requests (And a limited vision for the potential number of Vampires). And I know that Audrey Zinata's player might be remiss if it was suddenly easier, or if the DM team considered a kind of evil alternate beginnings for them. But my eyes are at least aglow with inspiration?

Arena PVP mode is a setting for you to choose when you use the PVP tool on yourself. This allows people to self raise afterwards. This is useful for the Vampire since if they are killed in a manner that is not Sun, submerged in running water, Staked, etc. They can escape death by turning to mist and escaping. This PvP mode will allow them this freedom as neatly as our current system allows. If it is not agreed upon, then yes, the Vampire PC is forced to flee the scene in whatever manner needed.

Enthrallment will be a similar agreement to enslaving or prisoner. This is done with the Vampires Charm or Domination and requires consent of all involved and shall be held to the agreements of normal prisoners. As in nothing more than 24 hours against the Players will, unless they wish for it.

Silkelock and I are currently the DMs running Vampires

BoB has plans for a Vampire Alternate Beginnings Hosted somewhere in Rauthym

Vampires will be held to very stellar requests, researched and agreeing to the terms of how the Server shall handle them. Perhaps things will become similar to Lycans and such if and only when the current Vampire or future Vampires can show how well they function in our setting.

This is all in hopes to stir up new untouched RP. In the form of Vampires, their followers, darker themed RP that can lead to much more beyond PvP or fear of powerbuilds, and just the enjoyment of the fact there are Vampires.
As well as bringing in Vampire Hunters. There is even methods of "Curing" the Vampire for those who are not Paladins or others sworn to slaying undead. Though why they would wish to be cured after being approved is a mystery.

I hope I have covered all you needed. If not I am still here.

Mahtan Tasadur wrote:

They can escape death by turning to mist and escaping. This PvP mode will allow them this freedom as neatly as our current system allows. If it is not agreed upon, then yes, the Vampire PC is forced to flee the scene in whatever manner needed.

The obvious class choice for a vampire is shadowdancer, since they are the best at escaping things.... but what if a player's character can't escape because they are pure fighter, and a wizard got em with bigby's? If Arena PvP mode is not agreed upon, and the vampire fails to escape, is that goodbye vampire forever because of an OOC decision?

If they fail to escape when PvP rules force an out, then the PvP rules were broken. In your example, the Wizard broke the rules and they shall be punished. The Wizard should not have taken the hostile action before an out was given, and the correct PvP modes were agreed upon. The Pure Fighter Vampire will need to pick its fights wisely and learn how to properly escape on its own.

If they do die under correct turns and fail to escape, then yes. They are dead. Unless they are brought back in a manner discussed in the Lore. That being Clones, or True Resurrection. Both which involve the PC no longer being a Vampire upon being returned to life. If they are killed in a manner that is not correct however, the Vampire can escape in its mist form. If they are staked and abandoned, they can return in 72 hours of the stake being removed as per Libris Mortis.

Players are also not allowed to god game stakes, and must have them made via the Job System, leaving them on the Vampire PC. This is also in hopes to spark the Job system in creating more items.

Does this mean Clone spell is finally being allowed for use by player characters for specifi, dm overseen circumstances? I had an entire concept for a request denied because players are not allowed any use of the clone spell, at all.

You really need to use the job system to RP whittling a chunk of wood to a point?

Mahtan Tasadur wrote:

Vampires will be held to very stellar requests, researched and agreeing to the terms of how the Server shall handle them. Perhaps things will become similar to Lycans and such if and only when the current Vampire or future Vampires can show how well they function in our setting.

This is all in hopes to stir up new untouched RP. In the form of Vampires, their followers, darker themed RP that can lead to much more beyond PvP or fear of powerbuilds, and just the enjoyment of the fact there are Vampires.
As well as bringing in Vampire Hunters. There is even methods of "Curing" the Vampire for those who are not Paladins or others sworn to slaying undead. Though why they would wish to be cured after being approved is a mystery.

Double thumbs up. This is refreshing and surprising, really. When I was away, I was kind of worried that this was merely the result of a single request (And that the vision stopped there). But I'm really pleased to hear I'm wrong. I mean, thank you to Faded Wings for being as persistent as she was, of course-- but also big props to the DM team for taking a fresh angle and being willing to experiment.

I see this as being a huge potential for really rewarding Rp. I was worried for a bit that I was just really excited and also really out of touch, haha. Glad to see this change has some real vision accompanying it!

NinjaClarinet wrote:

You really need to use the job system to RP whittling a chunk of wood to a point?

No, probably not. It's just to ensure that the same people who want to enforce consequences on another character have gone through the actual effort to do so.

There is a huge amount of Vampire Hunter lore, superstitious practices, and equipment collection; and it really should be played out as being a fun process. I think this is just a kind of representation of the work done, and helps against unfortunate cases of meta/god-gaming. If someone's gonna put in so much work to get a working Vampire PC, it would be nice for even a sliver of similar work to go into eradicating them.

I personally don't think the arena pvp rules part is a good idea. It feels kinda metagamey to me. Part of a vampire's allure is the fact that they're one of the few monstrous races you can't easily recognize. Telling players oocly before a fight what they're up against kinda kills the immersion of it for me. I think it would be cooler for them to not know, and just have that PC suddenly pop up as mist and escape if they are killed. I think the surprise of it would be neat.

However, I do see that there's really no other option given the game's mechanics to implement this part of vampirism. At least, off the top of my head, I can't think of a better way to do it that's mechanically possible.

I loved Faded's request the moment it came out. And I can't wait to see where this goes. I know Audrey's just about the perfect PC to start this off. Hopefully it creates a major plot process for the server.

Quote:

If approved to go through, Vampires of Amia will be mechanically forced to be effected by vs Undead spells, such a Smites, Sun Burst, Searing Light, Undeath to Death, Undeaths Eternal Foe, Turn Undead, Heal/Mass Heal, Lay on Hands, etc. While gaining the ability to be healed by Harms, and immunity to various death magics such as Pale Master touch attacks, Finger of death, Wail of the Banshee. They still shall be effected by Mindspells.

This is applied to the other undead PC as well? Do I have to request it IG? And is there anything that can balance Greater Ruin instabutton? Because basically everyone with Greater Ruin can oneshot an undead PC, without any possibility for that PC to defend.

maybe I was wrong about shadowdancers.... maybe vampire barbarians are op. Greater ruin? Half my hp are gone, but I'm ok.

joe15552 wrote:

maybe I was wrong about shadowdancers.... maybe vampire barbarians are op. Greater ruin? Half my hp are gone, but I'm ok.

As long as the enemy can't spot you in HiPS, moving in to HiPS will stop the catching of GR.

Dead wrote:

And is there anything that can balance Greater Ruin instabutton?

Isn't being suspect-able to GR the price you pay for being undead? Unless you want to rebalance GR as a whole, maybe focusing around CON is a good idea for a Vampire.

Hey Dead, PM me and I can tell you how to mitigate GR as a mage.

Should give the vampires their proper undead immunities, balance be damned

That will never happen and it should never happen. It'd be all the more reason for PCs to never be undead (which they shouldn't ever be anyways, but hey).

How is it unbalanced if they've earned it through RP? This is, after all, a RP server. An Undead PC (Such as a Necropolitan, Lich or Vampire) are supposed to be extremely powerful creatures.

I think the better question is whether or not imbalance that favors villain characters is a bad thing at all!

That being said, this is all very fresh to Amia. And it's probably in our best interest as a community to roll with the current setup for the time being. There are some DM's and players alike who remain skeptical about the worth of undead (And specifically vampiric) PC's. So a period of trial and error, and a demonstration of potential value is a better move than trying to barter for a controversial, more ideal state.

A good trial period would be this idea of an alternate beginnings for a vampire coven/family because it will be regularly supervised by a DM. After that Rp period would be a good time to return to evaluating the mechanics of vampire PC's.

Because they shouldn't be earning it through RP anyways. Same reason why PCs should not be constructs, or half-demons/devils, or celestials. Those are all very potentially powerful races to be, and tend to be best left to the random DM encounter (aside from mobs, though we need to fix the frequency of those anyways).

Just because you dont have the capacity or trust most of your colleagues to play something doesnt mystically make all of us incompetent without the dm tag. Herp

Also don't forget that race requests are never given mechanical benefits of the race, so why would an undead request be treated different?

Option for the good guys would be becoming Deathless.

They are pretty awesome.

Naivatkal wrote:

Because they shouldn't be earning it through RP anyways. Same reason why PCs should not be constructs, or half-demons/devils, or celestials. Those are all very potentially powerful races to be, and tend to be best left to the random DM encounter (aside from mobs, though we need to fix the frequency of those anyways).

Sounds like SOMEBODY needs to make a powerbuild pally and clean house!

Well, OpenTheRift, I think Naivaktal's hesitancy isn't about trusting the players. I would say generally he's a pretty trusting guy. I think, if I'm allowed to assume a little, his frustration stems from the difference of NPC monster strength and PC monster strength.

There's a point to be made about monstrous PC's not actually being able to be mechanically monstrous. It's a valid concern, and something I held sympathy with for a long time. I'll never forget my discussion with Tormak on it, when I was considering making a Rakshasa request and asking him if it was feasible.

"Well, I really like Rakshasas and have this great concept in mind. Of course, telepathy would be off the table..."-- And I went on to consider all the mechanical bonuses of Rakshasas that would have to be unavailable to me as a player character. And in the end, I realized that after stripping away all of those abilities, that I really wasn't much of a Rakshasa at all.

So I understand some frustration. In the end, I think vampires can be still well-represented by PC's with the right effort and support. But I do understand the concern.

Last edited by Dead on Sat, May 30 2015, 16:38 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Kamina wrote:

Dead wrote:

And is there anything that can balance Greater Ruin instabutton?

Isn't being suspect-able to GR the price you pay for being undead? Unless you want to rebalance GR as a whole, maybe focusing around CON is a good idea for a Vampire.

For my character it's not even that much of an issue. Unless you're planning to invade Tarkuul, you ain't gonna get him. But still, GR is pretty much everyone's choice on a mage. But my PC became an undead for his own reasons. Some people will want to be a different kind of undead - the one that actively and openly combats life. And knowing in advance that you'll lose every duel with every mage is rather disheartening. No spell should be a saveless instawin.

Naiv's generally got concerns that are pretty valid. My thing is, I think the potential benefit of this sort of rp outweighs the potential negatives. This might even allow the staff and playerbase a fresh look at what monstrous races are capable of in rp, when handled correctly. That would lead to not only stellar rp stemming from this vampire business, but more down the line for other monstrous/evil races that could be brought in to the setting on PC's.

I see the potential problems with this, same as Naivaktal. But, I think it's worth a shot. Shake things up a bit, y'know? If it goes badly, it's shelved and forgotten and we all move on. If it goes well though...well there's just a wealth of opportunity for quite a few things if it goes well.

Dead wrote:

Kamina wrote:

Dead wrote:

And is there anything that can balance Greater Ruin instabutton?

Isn't being suspect-able to GR the price you pay for being undead? Unless you want to rebalance GR as a whole, maybe focusing around CON is a good idea for a Vampire.

For my character it's not even that much of an issue. Unless you're planning to invade Tarkuul, you ain't gonna get him. But still, GR is pretty much everyone's choice on a mage. But my PC became an undead for his own reasons. Some people will want to be a different kind of undead - the one that actively and openly combats life. And knowing in advance that you'll lose every duel with every mage is rather disheartening. No spell should be a saveless instawin.

Oh, I agree fully that GR shouldn't be saveless, I thought you were arguing that it wasn't fair that GR could perform full damage to undead

Yeah, GR needs some sort of saving throw, maybe something that can be thrown in to IA when it re-opens?

My personal feelings on monster PCs is that they're not good characters to find daily or consistent RP that lasts hours long. I feel they mostly have to bend to be less monstrous or are without RP or short lived; however I was in favor of monstrous PCs even if I foresee the outcome being undesirable after how difficult it is to ensure a quality monster.

But the player base disagrees so I figure we can give them the opportunity to make it what they will together.

Burningoutbright wrote:

I feel they mostly have to bend to be less monstrous or are without RP or short lived; however I was in favor of monstrous PCs even if I foresee the outcome being undesirable after how difficult it is to ensure a quality monster.

Bending monstrous character to get RP should be a deal breaker. If you are getting a monster, you should be fully aware of all the consequences, and stick true to the nature of your toon.

It's one of the reasons I feel our player base isn't ready but we have some intrepid and devoted players who might be able to change it for the better, and change the culture of cuddly monsters. May as well support the endeavor and give them the tools, rather than battening down and making it even harder to get anything approved.

Flash in the pan monster/evil has been a recurrent suggestion, ravenloft showd us how to do it. I am really surprised at the moderate move, good job team.

The major issue I see is that this entire method seems to entirely do away with or give easy ways to avoid most of the down sides of actually being a vampire, it also causes the issue that because you are now dealing with pc vampires who if they are actually killed is supposed to be a lot more work to bring them back. To solve this it sounds like the clone spell is planned to be a way around that, but still causes issues with both the fact that it in effect gives pretty free use of a PNP spell which has its own host of issues but more importantly means that Vampire charactes would be mortal again and could for long periods or even for the most part not actually be vampires.

What it comes down to from what I can see is that this is being applied far too much like races are, personally I would far rather see this and similar future request be handled as "template" requests since by their nature they dont really define a character but rather effect and change them.

I'm actually curious as to the compensation and or consideration to be given to all of the players who have requested or thought about requesting anything to do with vampirism in the past?

I've been off and on the server since 2008. In all that time the nominal answer for anything related to vampires has been a very hostile 'NO'. Even when a player knows going in that there will be no happy sparkling vampire character in the end, any RP involved was flat out denied.

There have been some awesome ideas put forth by players over the years, and while it may be a step in the 'right' direction to move on and try some new and interesting ideas, a huge disservice is being done to those who may or may not have had a "stellar" vampire request in the past.

On top of any other considerations is the massive gap on play-ability and balance for a vampire PC. They would have virtually none of the classic vampire traits and would then be maybe vampire lite, almost palatable but less fulfilling.

Bravo21 wrote:

I'm actually curious as to the compensation and or consideration to be given to all of the players who have requested or thought about requesting anything to do with vampirism in the past?

Compensation to all the players that have THOUGHT about requesting ANYTHING TO DO with vampirism?

wow... I got nothing for ya, dude.

Maybe we should have an amian holiday in remembrance of their perceived oppression.

OpenTheRift wrote:

Maybe we should have an amian holiday in remembrance of their perceived oppression.

+1

Lol you all are so rude sometimes- and when I say that you know it's true. Back off- it's a fair question, aside from the dramatics implied- should someone be able to resubmit a previous vamp request?

And I think the answer is you can try it again, Bravo, or try your idea now if you're still interested. I've been granted recurring attempts at things. They can't do much more than that though. The past is the past and you'll have to learn to live with that part!

You may, of course, re-submit a previous vampire request that you have made, or use an old request as a basis for a new one. It won't be given any special treatment or consideration if we denied it in the past though. It'll be held to the same standards and requirements as all other requests of that nature. That's the best we can do, sorry! A change in a race restriction can't retroactively approve anything without a re-submission, nor should it.

Yeah, I thought about that myself, Bravo. For instance, I knew that Audrey Zinata's player has worked for what.. years to become this Vampire? She's faced difficult rejection on multiple occasions-- but now, after so long, not only does she have it, but her case was compelling enough to allow for the possibility of other players to achieve the same. And probably for less effort than she did, too-- if we're being realistic!!

Custom requests gradually get easier and easier the more people attempt similar things, I've found. I know a number of shadowdancer players did the same. The pioneers will undoubtedly put more effort and time into something than their students. But they'll also be known as the pioneers.

I thought about the idea of rewarding that effort with goodies and things-- but I don't think it's all that feasible or truly justified. Audrey's player worked hard and for her efforts she can be rewarded in a more subtle way, as she's got a clear shot at becoming the mother of Amian vampires.

And the same for folks who submit old, previously rejected requests. There are more intrinsic rewards, I think. Such as having a hand in the future of vampire roleplay the earlier you get involved yourself.

At the same time, though, I think the previous decisions-- even for Audrey's player-- were still legitimate decisions. Just because they've okay'd vampires now doesn't mean that they were inherently wrong back then. It's a new team, an evolving server and community culture. Things change, and so do people's stances. The reward should be in playing the character and enjoying the Rp-- and now that reward is available.

OpenTheRift wrote:

Should give the vampires their proper undead immunities, balance be damned

Mr. Hackums wrote:

I think the better question is whether or not imbalance that favors villain characters is a bad thing at all!

Naivatkal wrote:

Because they shouldn't be earning it through RP anyways. Same reason why PCs should not be constructs, or half-demons/devils, or celestials. Those are all very potentially powerful races to be, and tend to be best left to the random DM encounter (aside from mobs, though we need to fix the frequency of those anyways).

Part of the problem with the statement above is that the sole responsibility for initiative is placed on the DM team. If all we do is wait for the DMs to get on them we're just turning the module into a once a week table top game. That's cool but I think I would rather keep my pnp to real life. And with how little activity they're actually is to get in on with where the dm team is concerned (2 or three at a time to 40 players at prime time) that means most of our role play has little to no effect on the sever. Not to mention the current lack of activity from the majority of the team.

Give the players the ability to draw the narrative without constant supervision. Give us villians, not neutered evil aligned citizens who occasionally do drugs and litter.

Sometimes it's okay to say "screw balance, let's make a story".

You can create villain PCs without needing a to go and give characters powerups, you do this in the form of giving tools and consistent support for evil character's to peruse their goals and cause issues that have as much of an effect as DM events do. Just tossing a bunch of power to a character does little that powerbuilding doesn't already do, without support for the RP itself it doesn't really matter.

The Great Equalizer wrote:

You can create villain PCs without needing a to go and give characters powerups, you do this in the form of giving tools and consistent support for evil character's to peruse their goals and cause issues that have as much of an effect as DM events do. Just tossing a bunch of power to a character does little that powerbuilding doesn't already do, without support for the RP itself it doesn't really matter.

That's.. hey, that's a really cool point. Well done, mate. It's a neat idea: What exactly has powerbuilding given our conflict, in comparison to DM support of Rp instead? I like it.

Edit: It might not be as eye-opening to others, haha! I've just never heard it so succinctly worded before.

And for those of us who can't powerbuild our PCs without utterly destroying their mechanical power?

Richard_Edmund wrote:

And for those of us who can't powerbuild our PCs without utterly destroying their mechanical power?

Whatcha mean? I'm not sure I understand.

All that the above was saying is that the answer isn't in improving the mechanics of vampires, but in improving the support to their RP and goals from DM's. And his argument, that I thought was fairly convincing, was that improving their mechanical bonuses will do the same to their ability to create conflict in the same way that powerbuilding helps villains currently-- which is only so-so, and not really the core solution.

It sounded to me like the argument that if you want to be mechanically powerful, you have no choice but to powerbuild.

Hrm. I think, and of course this is also just interpretation, that the way he emphasized tools and support as being more important than mechanical benefits suggests that he was ultimately arguing that these supportive tools have a greater impact overall.

Or rather-- that mechanical power isn't as critical to storytelling as these tools.

Indeed, Hackums is pretty dead on on what I was trying to say.

If you want to create PC villains that can really have an impact on Story then all the mechanical power in the world doesn't matter nearly as much as just supporting PC villains in their schemes and plots and letting (and helping) those become or spawn "events" in their own right.

*Although that's not to say that mechanical power boosts can't be useful as one of those "tools" if used properly.

Want to express that clone and resurrection were ruled in a manner to work with our rules on perma killing PCs. This does not perma kill them, but they lose being a vampire. So it was chosen as a decent middle ground to lose what you worked hard to request, but not dip into perma killing PCs unless it is 100% in agreement.

Vampires of Amia: Discussion & Questions

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