Here's a serious question for the DM's mostly and the playerbase:


- It's compatible in 2015 - (see half of the world)
- It's compatible in medieval times, and was prevalent to be everywhere especially during the time period this FR lore takes place in.
- Open evil is not only compatible with FR but it's a staple in how all of the lore works.


So... why is open evil not entitled to the same plot protection other neutral entities (Tarkuul, Wiltun, Cordor) and good establishments (Kohlingen, Cordor) have? (even Wharftown has it now too, as well as Guldurand)

Why must good magnet to destroy evil, when in reality, sometimes actions should have consequences that mean involvement is not always beneficial or worthwhile?

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

You play the matron of a drow house in a city that's blatantly evil. I don't get your question if you can't see the answer yourself.

Evil can prevail on Amia. Me, AC and Kenneth proved that less than two years back with West Cordor. Ask anyone who played in Cordor at the time, we were not neutral by any means.

Your question of "why", I answer with "laziness". No one wants to go through the effort of making this entity you speak of. They just want it. You are already a leader of a once influential drow group, myself being a part of. I'd still play it if you ever wanted to do anything with it. I don't understand what your problem is, since there are evil groups on the server, merely because you aren't a part of them, doesn't mean they're not there. You as a player do have influence. That's a part of being a RP server.

Sure, evil does get shut down kinda quickly recently on Amia. If you mindlessly run around PvPing. Evil is the minority, deal with it. If you want to make evil a threat, make an evil character, get a plan down, and do as I like to say, fuck shit up. Personally, I'm tired of all the secret evil. But any one that's being hunted by paladins is going to know to lay low. It's a part of breaking laws and rules.

_________________
MAURICE "THE JUGGERNAUT" GRAFF

So wrong. On so many levels.

@My drow house -- Meh, the house is only evil in name. In truth, the drow are too scared to do anything evil on amia, because of this flawed paradigm where doing something will just automatically result in their city blowing up. And no, it wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

Also another thing that Amians have been defeatist in accepting that this is how it's meant to be, when lore dictates it's more complicated that that. Most paladins are supposed to be helping people, not be aiming to just kill them whenever something bad happens anywhere.

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

If it's only evil by name, then my dearest matron, crack that whip!

And my statement isn't wrong, at all. There's no evil because the people that want evil just aren't getting together and doing it. They're just ranting and whining how there's no evil. xD I've watched it for ages now and it still makes me snicker and shake my head.

I don't really argue with the attitude comment, they do, but I'm saying it's not impossible to do everything you said in your original post. If anyone would pull their finger out and just do it. People wait around too much for DMs to do stuff. Forgetting the beauty of screenies and just treating dms as a perk rather than a need.

_________________
MAURICE "THE JUGGERNAUT" GRAFF

Maybe you're right about some people? But others have spent years of their lives building things that have been cheaply exploded predictably while they were not even online, by people who have beautiful bases in an invincible city that spans over 31 areas?

I'd like to see the RP that warranted all of that? Is it just evil who's accountable for 100% of their work, then? Is there some kind of big secret I don't know about that warranted littering silver knight godly NPC's into small tiny towns?

If good is so powerful, why are there even these dungeons, areas with bandits (next to Wharftown), if not just for irony?

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

I would say look at what you said and compare.

Everything you listed was a settlement it was a large town/city with real defences so it has real protection, it also produces goods so it has income for imports and exports reasons for people to want to live/move there and need be defend it.

A person eats around what three to five pounds of food per day, and 4 liters of liquid if not more in the cases of high burning guards/training.....ect your not buying snacks from the corner store in cordor your talking trade agreement with farmers.

I think in every case of evil they have not made a settlement they have made bases with defences yes... but in reality no way to sustain its upkeep of food,water,supplies,payment for people.....ect on top of getting a location that would even trade with a open evil on mass. I know in the case of Caraigh I was told along time ago I can not just throw my unlimited gold and counter everything I just listed because I can hunt monsters and make millions of gold, gold only has value when the DMs deem it to have value and even less so in the case semi limited resources like food, water, lumber, stone...ect


If I was open evil I would focus on a location like Frozenfar, I would grab some of that uncontested land that most don't even go to and set up there and use gold to pay NPCs to do farming...ect because as the DMs wont let you throw gold to buy a towns worth of food they might let you pay a handful of workers to produce you a truck load of food on your land.

_________________
================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

What makes you think we haven't all done our Frozenfar over and over, and had the fields ruined by the angry pitchforks in due time, while they remain invincible?

Even whilst the Banites existed, every single interaction we had with Zhentil Keep was 100% negative, and basically for little real reason.

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

Just... no

You say that as if no one has attempted such. Considering the crap I've personally dealt with over the last two months, I find that rather offensive. Maybe it's just because I'm pissy. Kudos that things worked out for West Cordor. If anything that is a fluke IMO, and possibly because all of the server was more occupied with the Arcanum war.

When a group of (presumably good) people can just come in and completely wipe out months of work in a matter of hours, and render involved PCs completely ICly unplayable as a result, there is something wrong with that.

When the same good group performs acts as (or far more) heinous than any lolthite drow I've ever played or played with, without receiving any consequences, there is something wrong with that.

When the same group of players see fit to occupy said cleansed territory for less than 10 days, then go back to having zero interest in it, there is something wrong with that.

When 6+ months of RP and work is completely wiped out because of a cluster fuck of mistakes on both the DM and player side, and players using OOC knowledge to justify their actions, there is something wrong with that.

_________________

Iim'mur'ss - Grandmaster Shadowdancer / Aaralyn - Diplomat / Oleander - Toxic Desert Flower

But yes.
And it's not a fluke, at all. We put a lot of effort into that and people tried repeatedly to stop us, we worked with the arcanums external forces to give us opportunities to make advances in Cordor West. See, that took a lot of thought and planning from all three of us. Ask Kobra yourself, he barely helped because we didn't want our hand held. Threw us a bone now and then, sure.

You and one other person tried to over take the Eilistraeen shrine, as two known evil characters, acting incredibly publicly. That was not a faction. You got forced out by the islands super powers, because word got out of the toons actions. Sure, it may not have gone well for you in that case, but just because that chapter ended does not mean you can't turn your gaze to something else.

_________________
MAURICE "THE JUGGERNAUT" GRAFF

If you are referring to the situation that I believe you are referring to, you are incorrect. It took months to counter the months of RP that you are speaking of. Not hours, months.

I just wanted to clarify that.

_________________
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

Nothing I have seen IC appeared to have been evil attempting to produce a real settlement all ways a fort/base, I could be have just not seen it I don't interact much with evil folks or even in the angry pitchfork mobs you speak of as I like to focus on fighting DM based threats because I find it has less problems.

As per the banites and Zhentil Keep, not a banite so I don't know but I think the idea of getting off the island(locations not part of the amia servers) aid kind of lame be it for good or evil because its some factor no one can really alter.

_________________
================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

I'm a little mixed upon the subject.


Amia has nearly 11 years of operational history now and reflects the decisions made by the player base over time. Evil had its chance to influence the direction of the server many times in the past, but has consistently made a poor name of itself for as many reasons as there are types of evil.


But, I've had moments of success with evil characters both as a player and as a previous DM. It just requires realistic goals and a shitload of patience: two things that most evil on this server lacks.

_________________
Plays:

"I'll think of something once Amia:EE drops."

Ah good, my area of expertise. Long post incoming.

Faded talks about the realism of evil in the first post. To address that - the morality of Amia is not realistic and largely is not meant to be. The numerous escapists among us want to play and be around heroes, possibly because of how depressing the real world and its history can be (subconsciously if not overtly). This puts a heavy playerbase-generated lean on Good and feel-good, rather than evil even though it's the latter that's proactive, generates conflict that keeps it interesting and gives us things to do. So often I hear the attitude among players, "Those rascally evil players and their PvP and shit" and sure in some cases it may be deserved (not everyone has a great attitude on Amia), but mostly it just seems that the playerbase at large would rather adapt to making fun in a boring, peaceful world than dealing with conflict set at someone else's pace. They're quite happy to dogpile anyone who looks like an acceptable target, but they get mad when their own pace is changed. And I sympathise, I mean sometimes after a long day of work I just want to bum around with some light chatter RP, don't necessarily want to fight off slavers... but I can sacrifice my own comfort for the broader cause of RP.

West prevailed - past tense. Seems like it's been pretty quiet right now. Same with drow-town. I'll get to why it worked at the end of this post. I think it's just plain disingenuous to suggest that players of evil PCs are just being lazy, and it ignores the zeitgeist of the playerbase at large.

Cory makes a good point about the economics, though I agree with him laterally: Yes, sustaining a settlement requires trade, or access to sufficient natural resources. But there are evil-ish entities who can supply that to an evil settlement (I should know, I worked on Nec'perya's trade deals). Resources in general are a bit buggered on Amia, I pointed this out before and how to fix it and while people seemed to agree, I didn't observe any changes. I don't know if it is being addressed. But it's not the problem here - the problem is that indeed because so many PCs are good and the neutrals up-shift to accomodate them, the cities they populate (key word, populate) lean in that direction too. Out of boredom, for preservation of the status quo or sheer duty the first evil settlement to stick its neck out gets its head chopped off. It doesn't help that good/neutral settlements can easily forge alliances, whereas attempts to establish relations between Tarkuul and the drow have been wholly disasterous (from what I saw, when I was there).

The problem is what we have always known it to be - good has been supported to such an extent that it no longer needs support to prevail over evil, but receives it anyway. Evil desperately needs support, because they are up against such stiff and aggressive resistance, but for whatever reason it just hasn't panned out. To solve this, I want to look into what worked for West. Contrary to Broldi's claims, it does have a lot to do with Kobra's DMing, even though I accept the statement that he didn't help much... directly.

1. They weren't the baddest boys on the block.
The Arcanum was. Many times we've seen badguy groups get curbstomped by half the server's worth of good PCs. Even though death is cheap, it's extremely demoralising to a group when this happens. When one person who is annoyed by it leaves, the friend who is only there for them leaves too. And it snowballs from there. Didn't really happen for West because in their heyday, the goodies had a bigger threat to deal with. Yes, there was a DM presenting a large, credible threat, which was not only well-hidden but entrenched, and quite tough in combat too. But then, why didn't West get stomped after the Arcanum was gone?

2. The weight of NPCs
Invading West would mean riots and wholesale slaughter on a massive level that many thoughtful, powerful good-aligned PCs in Cordor agreed was a bad idea. So a DM would step in to run said NPCs (there's more DM support right there). To complicate matters, good factions operating outside of Cordor would face resistance from all of Cordor if they stepped in to deal with West. So the same thing on a larger scale - innocent, or at least decent people would die in unacceptable numbers. What happened was inevitable - said outside factions distanced themselves, determining that the whole of Cordor was "guilty by association" of being an Evil faction, because of their acceptance of West, who had their own allies...

3. Allies
Tarkuul at this time was quite powerful, having been run by a dedicated DM and drawing players who in turn were able to engage even more players, and they were supporting the West movement. Now Tarkuul's involvement was enough to draw people's ire, but combining points 1 and 2 - there were bigger fish to fry (a common enemy no less) and attacking meant heavy loss of innocent life. Of course, after the war they ended up distancing themselves from Tarkuul... Which had the odd consequence of reducing outside motivation to get involved. Point 2 was still in effect, and frankly due to point 1 everyone was tired of fighting and needed a bit of a break. Well... Now that break time is over and the playerbase is getting restless again, West has been fairly quiet it seems.

-------

So, what can we take away from that? Well, I have nothing against the players involved in West but I reject the assertion that they were necessarily smarter or better than many other smart, charismatic players of evil PCs who I have known over the years. You're probably about even. It's very easy to look at the past failures and say "Players did a dumb-dumb here" but everyone makes mistakes - politics and war is hard. And the stakes are only higher if you're the underdog fighting uphill. What I took from this is that you need DM support, first and foremost. Ideally work with a DM already running a plot, though it really depends on circumstance - Cordor had a lot of shades of grey next to the absolute black of the Arcanum, and it created a situation that hasn't been seen on Amia since. But we already knew that - Faded says it in the first post.

To answer that original question (I realise that all I've been doing up until now is arguing in support of OP's perspective vs detractors), why is it so? A natural consequence of decline is downward momentum, or the status quo. The megaplot fatigued a large portion of the playerbase, and it's easier to keep things as they are than to try and change the server's "alignment" so to speak. It's very hard work. It's very easy for someone to cock-up, and for that error to reinforce the status quo. I put a lot of the onus on the DMs but it's hard for them to accomodate players who have basically given up. Though it doesn't help that DMs have in the past strenuously discouraged me from generating conflict RP.

_________________
@Thanatopsis#6293

Not at all trying to belittle anything you've accomplished, Galenson, as I am not fully aware of all of it, but from my vantage point playing amia, and having seen it so often, and partaken it in as well, evil killing evil is always an easy sell for any DM (past and present).

While admittedly another issue, the success of an evil PC in general is not really what the thesis of what I'm going for here. I'm asking about the successes that they've already had, that get taken away time and time again, while the same possibility is just not there, if you're a goodly PC. I will just say that while the secretive types can be successful at what they're doing, often times their RP escapes the purview of anyone but their small circle.

Some examples of issues:
We've RP'd for what..2.5 years in the drow city of Nec'perya? Admittedly I took a break, but looking at this objectively we have a population that has like 300 people in it total, and it continues to get wiped out. Kohlingen has a population of over 30,000 and over 5,000 knights, apparently. With leylines being so easy to use, and Eillistraens being able to infiltrate our base with no fear of permadeath. If the drow do anything to even remind the surface they exist, they can just be portal deathed by countless good PC's and potentially thousands of NPC's. Despite everything, the achievements we've done, objectively, it's a joke compared to the ratio of cost/benefit good has, and some which I know they have never even worked for.

The banites. You mentioned this:


Why would it be bad exactly, when places like Wiltun are basically on it's own map apart from amia anyways? Warring with people not even on our map?... how is this different? We're all still part of Faerun, which is why these places really exist in the first place in any of our plots.

I do think your resources thing was spot on. That's why we were meeting with Zhentil Keep, actually.

========

Lastly, I don't really want to go through my five experiences of losing my factions bases in unceremonious fashion, costing me over 100,000,000 gold, countless hours of my time both leading the faction, facilitating its growth, and finally watching it inevitably die to unimpressive efforts, leaving me only with the scenarios that are almost exactly identical to what Anatida described. In my case, that meant at least fifty players I know leaving Amia over the stretch, some of which contributed to the most successful evil plot amia will ever probably have. For the sake of reasonable argument, this kind of thing only ever can happen one way in the alignment spectrum, because of how this paradigm is set up, and that's what I'm trying to address.

The problem here, is that evil in general is basically confined to "no mans land", which, unfortunately all non-city factions fall under, (see: War Knights,Banites) thus ensuring they blow up over and over in their due course. (Yes, you heard it. The war knights have had similar problems as this, and I empathize, but to a much lesser extent.)

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

A settlement has to start somewhere. I can't speak for what has been done by other groups or not, but it would make sense that you have to start with a fort or base and build a settlement around it as you can draw allies, resources etc. I will counter with; you can't know what they were or were not trying to build if you were not a part of it.

Broldi, your broad sweeping generalizations are what make me pissy. Your comments that "no one wants to go through the effort" and "people that want evil just aren't getting together and doing it" is beyond rude and insulting, as is your use of the one or two nuggets of information you have as if they are all that are relevant. That is not aimed at you personally, but at your presentation of things.

You wanted to throw examples so let's use the fact that you said "all three of us". How is that any more of a faction than the two you mention in a disparaging tone? How did you work with the arcanum's external forces without DM attention?

There were not only two of us when we began our efforts, but real-life interventions beside the point; there were also arrangements, agreements, and efforts that could have made a difference - turn the tables, I don't know... that isn't really the point either.

The point is, PC driven evil has to start somewhere. Intelligent evil has to start somewhere. There are settlements full of NPCs and established governments for good/neutral, but if you are even suspected of being evil (even evil that is trying to redeem itself) you can forget getting anywhere.

I don't know what was done in the history of the server to justify the invincible state of places like Kohlingen and Cordor, but it is clear we will never be allowed to reach something like that through player initiative.

This is not to disparage Dusty and the efforts that have been done in the UD, because drow actually do have that there, but that is bringing us back to the isolationist discussion - which again is not the point.

In answer to the OQ, no. Amia can't and won't ever be a place to see it.

_________________

Iim'mur'ss - Grandmaster Shadowdancer / Aaralyn - Diplomat / Oleander - Toxic Desert Flower

Several times now I've invited people to join the current evil group. They shrug and continue to huff and puff. I offer some solutions but they get pushed aside in favor about huffing about past events. Opportunity is knocking and no ones answering.

Paladins that help people instead of kill. Well we saw how well Matthew and Rithtar turned out. Matthew is still helping him. Why is it whenever I try to go have a convo with evil peeps they only want pvp?
Meanwhile I get dm threats of falling for associating with evil characters when in actuality I'm starting the long slow draw out proses of helping them.

On top of that my efforts to build the place where good guys and baddies meet up to get and give such help is a target for such baddies. A place that will accept them no matter what in essence. It could pose far better for corruption then a shinny target to destroy.


Idk what else to tell you guys. I'm playing evil right now and having a blast. We have done some pretty sick and openly vile things and gotten away with it too.

_________________

Like already stated as I huffed and puffed, you said alot of your evil was taking place in good-based cities (for the sake of not exposing potential spoilers). Both places of which the majority of most open evil PC's are permabanned.

This isn't about secretive evil. There's a such thing as non-secretive evil, too, and it existed before



became the apparent status quo.

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

I wouldn't call what we are doing as secret; and we're just starting out.

The type of 'evil' you discuss seems to just boil down to who has the bigger stick. You can't expect to do something big and flashy right away and get away with it.

Set realistic goals and go with it. Take screenies, and find others interested in it. Create your own fun work with others who are interested in story writing, look for others who can serve the roles you are looking for. See if you can a dm to help you or see if you can get another avid active player to help you and you might get some where. It takes an extreme amount of effort and patience if you want to change something around here.

Playing an invincible terrorist probably isn't going to be much fun for any one else. From what I've seen a lot of players are very uncomfortable with really bad stuff happening IC and just can't handle it.


Let's say you have this evil invincible city with active players and an active DM... now what?

_________________

I call it Kohlingen.

_________________
Melsa

There are horrors beyond life's edge that we do not suspect,
and once in a while, man's evil prying calls them just within our range.

....

Oookee.

So, out of curiousity: What prompts this perception that Kohlingen is evil?

Last night? j/k

_________________

Good and evil is a matter of perspective. The "goodies" can be zealots just like any other rancid alignment, including cultists or terrorists. Everyone has skeletons in their closet too.

_________________
Melsa

There are horrors beyond life's edge that we do not suspect,
and once in a while, man's evil prying calls them just within our range.

In modern real life, yes. Faerun, Good and Evil are actual manifest forces and concepts which are a bit more straightforward, just like Order and Chaos.

I feel like I've said it before, but I think Evil would have more(perceived) success on Amia if they got more creative. No, not necessarily inventive, but productive.

It goes back to my idea of a Third Alignment Axis: Creative vs Destructive. A LG schoolteacher who focuses on aiding the poor and building new orphanages would be LG Creative. A LG crusader whose main goal is to execute criminals and destroy evil organizations would of course be LG Destructive. It might be hard to see at first, but you can be Evil and Creative as well. Teach young PCs to steal. Try to subvert the goodhearted through bribery and temptation. Build an organization that helps the citizens but the bulk of its profits go towards your own pockets. Make yourself an asset to people so that when the goodies come to stamp you out, other people have your back because, evil or not, you benefit them.

By and large the majority of Evil I've seen, at least when people complain that Evil doesn't get a fair shake, is Destructive. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just... well, after a decade, it's a bit tired. Cartoonish. And sometimes I feel like I should make an Evil character just to showcase what I mean(perhaps only to find out that still doesn't work). Usually, people think being Evil means going around defecating on doorsteps and exposing yourself to the elderly. Being a dick for dick-ness sake, in other words. While that is a good catalyst for RP, seldom is that alone enough to sustain a movement, a faction, hell, even a plot. There has to be a redeeming goal there. Not necessarily a good goal, but a reason to it all. That's why I think people so often say Tarkuul isn't "really evil." Because they don't recognize minding your own business, advancing your own causes, and taking care of your people as Evil. Think of successful evil organizations from fiction: the Empire, the Fire Nation, the Templars, Umbrella Corp, A.I.M., Foxhound. You can stick around for a long time if you're actually seeking to build something, rather than constantly tear something down.

Again, that's not all the Evil I've found on Amia. There are a few efforts now that I say are actually doing a pretty good job at Creative Evil. But usually, yeah, from what I see it's people upset that constantly picking fights for no other reason than "ebil means being a douche" doesn't pan out. If there was a Good faction that made it their business to constantly go to Zhent's gate and piss on the door, eventually they'd have enough people band against them to see them put down for good, too. It just so happens Good on Amia usually has the luxury to react rather than act versus evil, because there will always be someone trying to burn or pillage something.

So to answer the original question of the topic, I think open evil has always been compatible with Amia, so long as you're willing to accept that there are more ways to be Evil than tying ladies to railroad tracks and twirling a moustache. Is there a bias towards Good? Possibly. Probably. People would rather have nice neighbors. That's life. Niceness usually coincides with Good in fiction. But if you can keep in mind that Evil can be nice for the sake of covering its own ass, then that bias is likely manageable.

_________________

IMHO it's fairly simple actually.

Nobody likes bullies or jerks, and nobody wants to live near or with one. So when they are outnumbered, they get removed from civilization.
You gotta focus on what sort of people are in power in any given region, and the sort of people they want around or not.

Take a look at what society deemed acceptable during different time periods and see what sort of morals whoever was in power at the time had. Therein lies the key to Overt evil's lack of lasting success.

Any region the evil people in power can hold on to, will change and adapt and come to accept evil rule eventually. Just like townships etc in medieval times when they got taken and retaken multiple times per generation. But as long as they stay so outnumbered and always get hunted, I just don't see it happening on Amia.

_________________
Adair - Druid and part time treant cosplayer

Fair enough... I think this basically summarizes that open evil is unplayable anymore.

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

One example of 'creative evil', even though the villian wasn't 'evil', was in the back story for the first Dragonlance novels. The Kingpriest of Ishtar was a LG character, and was written as a villain type and the catalyst for the Cataclysm, the event that destroyed a vast area of the topography, and ruined his seat of power that was the City of Ishtar.

Evil doesn't need to be 'evil' on the page, nor does it have abide by certain rules or definition.

Good post, D.I. I like that.

Edit: yes, I realize the Kingpriest falls under your 'destructive good', but I see him as a good villian. That is what I think 'evil' should focus on. Not being evil... girls and railroad tracks as you put it *hilarious btw :p*, but being villians. One need not have the word 'evil' on their character sheet in order to be a villian.

_________________
I Am:
Derrin: 'Nothing to see here'
Beck: Hard working dwarf paladin.
Naela 'Widow': Wandering priestess.
Celinor Triellian: Paladin of Corellon.

Basically, Everyingthing DI said. All of my yes.



I can't disagree more. Open evil can very easily exist. But. There can be a fine line between open evil, and rash evil. Rash evil is something I define as basically what we've seen in the recent past, groups that have a lot of PvP in mind, no assets, and nothing to lose. They fizzle out pretty quickly because they end up getting roflstomped by everyone who they've wronged. Which is usually almost everyone at that point in their timeline. And they players get bored because they're not really able to do anything anymore.

That said, Rash evil can exist easily too. But they need resources. Like a settlement. Which means that you can't start out chopping off heads because lolimevil. You'll get hunted down. And when you don't have a place to go back to and recuperate.. Well, you're SoL. I know I've offered on several occasions to work with a couple DMs on establishing a strictly evil settlement -- Which I still want to do.

To say it can't exist is honestly lazy and unimaginative, in my opinion. But think of it logically. When you have an isolated group of evil just being dicks, people will want to kill them. If they don't have a place to escape to or a reason they can't be wiped out, then they'll be wiped out. The goody-goodies have that advantage- Settlements with defenses that make sense and political power-- Killing them will have more of an impact on the server than killing the low-life bandit who would be a public service to kill. I'm more than happy as a dev to help facilitate something like a settlement for evil players for the sake of more conflict that has the potential to be long-lasting and enjoyable for both sides. Immortal Terrorists aren't usually fun for anyone other than the people who play those PCs, likewise Immortal goody-goodies don't let certain types of evil exist. But we need to realize that when your PC has "importance," They're less likely to be killed without batting an eyelash. When you're just some thug.. Yeah. People won't think twice about killing you. Who are you but an asshole?

Just my two cents

Edit: Derp, Spelling

_________________
Occasionally seen as [DM] Raua, or playerside as...

People keep saying immortal terrorist, and "destruction" when really, this topic is actually about creation, ironically. The evil groups I've been a part of have destroyed far less than they've been destroyed. I have no idea what situations people here are even thinking about. The side-baring of the original issue is what tells me more than anything else. From my vantage point, the immortal terrorists (pun intended), are the people in Kohlingen.

Those people always destroy evil without provocation, and without any risk. And as long as that's a one way street there's simply no point.

http://www.amiaworld.net/phpBB3/viewtop ... 1#p1123441 Blast from the past, heh.

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

We had a very good example of the creative evil DI describes, from Hackums' PC Haan. He built a network of shady sorts, avoided drawing too much attention and making any big splashes before they could get fully established. And they almost did... and then unfortunately my PC had reason to turn and knife him. While his own motivations were personal, others who became involved were concerned with his professionalism, that his meteoric rise would precipitate such a dangerous change to the status quo that the only safe course was his elimination.

Another example would be Nec'perya. They're building a city for crying out loud, how much more creative can you get? The thing is, progress is entirely DM dependent and while Dusty is busy with life, the city is at a standstill. Much "creative RP" is like that, you need DM support to get things nailed into the ground. You can't build a base or a settlement with a handful of go-getter bad guy PCs, no matter what ideals you have. Tarkuul was always most active when DMs were holding the reins. So what about building in other ways? Well, espionage networks are remarkably fragile when you're starting small - all it takes is one person's careless mistake, one slighted PC with nothing to lose, one turncoat, and you're done. The more people you involve, the more likely that is to happen, but if you don't involve enough people, you hardly get anything done. Trust me, I've tried everything there is to sustain it and it's just not feasible. Call me lazy, and I'll tell you to try what I did for years.

Sure, there's other options, like Corruption RP. It's like panning for gold there... Sometimes you get the perfect mix of corruptor and mark, and it takes off in a whirlwind partnership. Fantastic RP, when it works. Of course, they're almost invariably outed as evil, and the secrecy that you need to work is impossible to recover. It's also highly time-consuming and all you've really created is one more bad guy. And that's if it works... In the vast majority of cases, most people are either unable or unwilling to let their PC change, whether because of their preconceived notions of how their character should be, or keeping to the goals they set out for when they made the character, or simply because the corruptor didn't push the right buttons. It's not only hard work, but any number of things can go wrong outside of your control. Not a lot of pay-off there.

When you build, you create opportunities for someone with an itchy trigger finger to destroy. And there are a lot of itchy trigger fingers. Without a dedicated DM managing the process, there are limitations on what can be achieved. So yeah, it could be done... But, I don't think it will be.

_________________
@Thanatopsis#6293

This is not a wrong assessment of the nature of Tarkuul. Dead's, KP's and my character mesh well in terms of how we work within the city. To us, the politics are a cold war scenario. The procrastination or general oversight on how we work and what is planned is a major factor to our success. We have spies everywhere and PCs who do an amazing job staying behind the scenes. I dare say IC I doubt even a handful saw the annexation of the remains of Uhm coming.
We are fine being the looming darkness on the server and will continue to work on picking away at what we want.

But more to the point of the topic. I can agree that it is hard finding a place to play the sort of evil who are out for quick gratification. Should it be? I am not so sure, as someone pointed out above me the balance is favoured to the good side and I understand playing a hero has it's appeal
Though while these things transpire on the server Tarkuul will continue to make plans inside their onyx adorned towers in pursuit of the ultimate knowledge.

_________________

Life should be prolonged only when it serves the greater cause of the death of the world.

When I put Theadric into Tarkuul during his emotional explosion and loss of any sense. (He was being a teenager, you know.) He realized very quickly Tarkuul was evil.

Evil can be built on Amia. Example after example has been provided, yet you're just ignoring them now. It's never going to be easy to make a large evil faction, it's not easy to make a faction as it is. You can't expect to get any of that by saying that it just can't happen on Amia.

_________________
MAURICE "THE JUGGERNAUT" GRAFF

Rookie question:
If you don't consider Tarkuul evil, how about Zanshibon, or just hiding behind neutrality of Shadowscape?

_________________
Zendaer Amattis
Torgon Crimsonshade
Khalid Athanalo
CET time zone

This misconception is actually an insulting sweeping generalization of evil that cannot be more incorrect in most cases. I've been verbose, and even addressed what I've done personally, to lead factions (I.E. The Banites), and build bases, totally years of RP, enough to write a book, spending countless hours and spending over 100 million gold on bases that just blow up, that I would imagine a hundred players combined haven't achieved. The result is always the same. The "quick gratification" we get is, is our base inevitably blowing up, and then a bunch of people going "oh, you guys are just lazy."

@ Uhm - The place was basically handed from evil faction to evil faction. Tarkuul absorbed a ruin of a place where evil can base themselves and somehow that is supposed to emanate some kind of evil reaction? It's actually just kind of amusing to me, really. Why doesn't it try some place like Wharftown, if it's actually going for something evil? Nobody cares about Uhm, and it's obvious based on how little anyone even responded to that event.

@ Zanshibon - The place is in the abyss. By any measure, that's not even remotely close to amia and it's a terrible place for any mortal to be in, regardless of their alignment.

Also:



Shadowscape has the same problem as it's in the shadowplane. Not only is it too far from anywhere meaningful, it's not actually evil inclined. Most of the leadership is more of a shady-leaning-good character and there isn't much room to deviate the status quo there, and why should we? The place is where people learn how to shadowdance, and I'm not about to advocate destroying a neutral source of interesting RP for what this was going for.

Yeah, I guess I'm lazy now. But don't say I didn't spend time. Because I certainly have. Thousands of hours, books of RP. Always thrown out by a cheap plot. Sometimes when I'm not even online. To me, that's what's lazy. The DM's letting this happen.

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

I think a better term I would like to replace from my original statement, would instead of lazy, be just burnt out.

_________________
MAURICE "THE JUGGERNAUT" GRAFF

Lazy is a term that doesn't describe the situation for us, no. It's factually incorrect. Burnt out is more proper, yes. Further, since it continues to happen, and we lose more and more players, it's obvious that this is not just dwelling on the past.

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

Originally I wasn't going to share my piece, but as I see that the DMs thus far haven't left a piece of their minds here, I guess I'll do it, but more as a personal opinion and not reflective of the team as a whole.

A month or two ago I tried my hand at DMing for a small evil faction. By the time I came in, they were already planning to quit. I offered to take them up in an attempt to revitalize their idea and give them goals, quests to maintain outside of their time with player vs. player interaction. It was going very well...for maybe a week. After that, everything exploded into chaos pretty much. They were the type that was exploring blatant evil. They didn't want to do another sleuthy, quiet, slow corruption evil. They wanted something different, and I truly did respect that. I am not at all adverse against evil. In fact I play a lot of evil characters, I've been through dozens of small fledgling groups and through a lot less of bigger criminal organizations on Amia. I really enjoy that facet of things.

But, what really put them off was the abuse coming to them OOCly and well as their DM, me. I got so many complaints in that one small period of DMing for them, accusations of favoritism, bias, rule breaking, etc. Every little thing I did, a few certain people were watching me. It seemed almost as if they were waiting for a reason to play us up. Simultaneously, the group was being ignored ICly, sent messages via Skype about how certain people wanted no further interaction time and time again, getting accusations flung at their person for purely IC events. This was perfectly off-putting for all parties involved. I nearly took a break from Amia for this exact reason. And this is unfortunately what happens, time and time again, to us DMs who support and have supported evil in the past (and present). I hope you can see how we would be further hesitant to lend a hand unless we know the benefits will outweigh the costs for gaining so much attention and flack.

At least, that's my side of the story. I would love to DM for an evil faction and help them grow, but the last time I tried, it took so much out of me that I would have to ponder really hard on whether or not it would be worth it this time around.

_________________

Thats the way it crumbles ... cookie-wise!

So what's a common denominator between them? Why have the groups you've been a part of met with destruction while others have not? To be honest, it feels like when people pose the question "can Evil work on Amia" as they have in topics many times before, that they only do it to reaffirm to themselves that it cannot, perhaps to allay their own feelings about past experiences. That may not be the case for you, but I'm simply saying I've seen Evil groups prosper, at least temporarily, and a lot of their success came from minding their own.

Evil can build itself up. It can carve out a place for itself on the Amian Isle proper, even in spite of the majority of its settlements being Neutral and Good Aligned. It's happening right now. It just takes delaying some of that hostility and aggression(two things that are not innately Evil, but are time and time again exaggerated in Evil groups). Hell, from my own experiences, PCs can say they follow an Evil god and while they'll get a fist shaken at them that's about it, provided they aren't in a settlement that has laws against their entrance. The lynch mobs usually only form after they create a toll road, or claim the crags for their own, or some other intrusive act. Again, it's the destructive impulse that starts the ball rolling for RP, but that's the downfall of it too. If you only present yourself as an obstacle to every person outside of your own group, then you're doing nothing but inviting them to destroy you in turn. If the only outcome of RPing with a group is to be subjugated or attacked by them, then yes, most people are going want to destroy you, whether you're Good or Evil. And since you're not bothering to try to make friends or show your worth to others, there are eventually going to be more people standing against you than with you.

So a question I pose to those who think open Evil cannot function on Amia: does your idea of Evil necessitate and/or center around hostility towards other players, NPCs, and settlements? Because if so, I think the issue is more the parameters you're setting for yourself than anything else. You want your Evil to have stability, but it has to focus around being the aggressor; you want to have a settlement, but it can't be too far out of the way and has to be in the midst of decidedly neutral/good cities; you want your efforts against other settlements to have meaning and long-lasting effect, but would rather neglect the efforts of the larger, more established settlements to prevent you from becoming a problem in the first place. Again, there's nothing wrong with that, but you have to realize that is the bulk of what we've seen in the server's lifespan, and groups, PC and NPC, have gotten fairly good at responding to it.

_________________

@Sammy - Thanks for speaking up, and thanks for trying to give evil a chance. I know all too well what you're talking about. Often times, when I log on, I hear friends of mine tell me about the nasty things some of the immature players we have say about me in party chat with 10+ good players all chiming in, only because of the fact that my PC is undeniably evil. It's sad that some people can't differentiate that, between real life, but I for one, choose to ignore that, because that's where roleplaying is no longer what we're even doing. I too, tried to get involved with that group, since a lot of them are excellent roleplayers, but when they saw how people reacted to just about anything they did -- then remembered they had no place at all on amia that was remotely "homelike" to them.. they all left the server, probably to go back to Ravenloft.

@Dark Immolation -


Not many people are interested in pouring hundreds of hours into something only to inevitably be someone's punching bag later on, who spends 2 hours blowing up your work. This is why this topic keeps coming up, and why people keep giving up on the idea in general. If you build something in no-mans-land, it has to be inconsequentially secret that nobody notices it. As soon as they do, boom. Back to the original point. Open evil, not the secretive "tree fell in the woods did it really fall" kind of evil.

The server used to thrive off RP that wasn't dictated by the DM's. Now everyone like Sam says, sometimes ICly ignores people and only RP's with DM's. Why are we supporting this single player story mode?

In most settings the "lynch mob" as you say, are often times there because there is absolutely zero backing of evil factions by the DM's past and even today, because of what Sam said. The lynch mob never fails; even when they die, and where they always have a marble floor, we just have a carpet that gets yanked from us constantly with nothing we can do about it.

The only choice, then is to focus on going the "secretive" route, which in many instances, I never actually get to see anything evil happen. Often times it's just a bunch of shady characters exchanging unpleasant debauchery and silly remarks that is barely enough to get them on a 5 mile radar from a paladin.

It's possible to get an evil base that's not mine. It's possible to get an evil base that's nobody's. It's possible that some players are more interested in building, than destroying, but that kind of thing goes both ways, if you'd just see it.



My characters who've played evil in general has usually centered around claiming territory, trying to convert towns to become affluenced by evil, performing scientific experiments usually involving necromancy to try and change the flow of things, and creating buildings where I can facilitate the every day-to-day RP. Further back, you might remember me being involved in a lot of PvP. Certainly, my PC was notorious and feared by most of the island, and everyone wanted to take their crack at it. In the end though, the decision to PvP is always on you as a player. I had nothing to prove, and you'll note that I started less than 5% of the PvP's.

Some of the things I'm trying to do were basically hard-blocked out of the game. Look at any place where Cordor or Kohlingen just implanted invincible NPC's and you'll know what I'm talking about. The situation is not only dire, but it's getting worse and worse, and people continue to blindly say it's okay and that we're lazy.

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

This is going in circles. .. you criticise Tarkuul for not being evil enough to attract attention or going for obvious high risk targets then follow up with saying everything done gets blown up. Maybe we found something that works and you just can't see it?

_________________

Life should be prolonged only when it serves the greater cause of the death of the world.

Is it working? I haven't seen anyone there for about 4 months.

The last time I did something there, it was for a group that had nothing to do with Tarkuul, and had it's own goals.

Ironically, while there, I was clearly given the impression that Tarkuul could care less if the undead it had just died, by a high ranking player there. Yet another sign of the times.

Tarkuul has oppressed evil so many times in the past, and continues to do so with the presence of the voice, which for many of us, is a terrible plot device, and makes Tarkuul inoperable. That's if you turn a blind eye to the silly things it's done in the past, like banning undead for being undead, banning factions for being evil. The list goes on and on, and only continues to get bigger with time.

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

I haven't seen you since we talked about how to handle hungry undead. But our timezones are different.

For me, it feels as if our biggest critics have not made the effort to see what we are up to.

_________________

Life should be prolonged only when it serves the greater cause of the death of the world.

I know exactly what Tarkuul is up to, OOCly, and honestly, I don't think it draws any conclusion other than "a tree falling in the woods, someone might not even see it." Regardless of how evil some of you guys think that plot is, it's really not going to turn anyone's heads likely no matter how far along it gets.

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

The irony there is that this is the exact same reasoning players don't give a lot of weight to evil, flavor of the week, "Imma blow up your settlement" initiatives. Settlements are often under a lot of DM control, but let's not act as if there aren't equally many PCs who have poured hundreds of hours as you say into them, and would not want them blown up by 2 hours of work by a group that started last week. If anything, there is an overall tendency towards the status quo. Unfortunately for evil, that status is there aren't many places that sympathize with them, at least when they're aggressive.



I wouldn't say that's true. It depends on the reason given to notice them. If the reason given to notice a group is that they're opposing you in some way, then yeah, why wouldn't you seek them out and solve a problem for yourself and settlement? Maybe if people were given reason to notice like money, title, and so on, people would be more understanding. It feels like Evil on Amia sometimes pokes people with a pointy stick and then cries foul when people don't just lie there and take it or come to see that the poking stops. There are other ways of getting people's attention. I get the feeling like our concepts of "open Evil" are different. Mine is simply Evil that makes no bones about what it is. Nothing secretive about it. They just go about being Evil in more constructive ways than generally aggravating or invading other places. The fact remains that there are at least openly Evil PCs I know of that aren't constantly being hunted because they understand how to get other people on board with them. They look at other PCs as opportunities for allies in their exploits or at the very least unwitting tools. It seems like for many it's impossible to extricate the idea of being Evil without being directly in opposition to everyone else. I would say Good has this problem as well to a lesser extent, but it usually goes unnoticed because, as I said, Evil is usually the one acting and everyone else has the luxury of reacting.



I can't really speak to this, having never personally experienced it. But my guess would be that, from what I've seen, Evil tries to run before it can walk. Okay, we got a tent? Time to attack Cordor. Okay, we made a clubhouse? Time to bomb the Kohlingen Navy. Alright, we actually got a faction base? Time to tell literally every other settlement to fellate our big spiky members and establish no working relationships with anyone outside our viewpoint. Being functional doesn't necessitate being secretive at all. It simply means you have to benefit others in a way that makes putting up with your Evilness worth it. The evil groups that can do that stick around. The ones who can't wash out.

_________________

Not a problem. And yes, they most certainly returned to Ravenloft. I consider it a personal failure that I couldn't rise above what was happening and help them through the mess. But the sad truth of my opinion is, the current atmosphere of Amia is no longer ready to cater to this facet. There is a lack of activity among the DMs, which we are steadily trying to fix, and thus a lack of friction. People jump at the chance to eradicate because there is nothing -to- eradicate. My solution was a server plot, which I'm still working on, though there has been a hitch because my fellow DM has been very busy and hasn't tossed me their notes to work with. But in the mean time, I would be ecstatic to see our players wean off of their need to have us DMs around for them to achieve personal goals. Conflict does not only come when we're running plots. Now, I'm not saying that means we have an excuse to never run plots (right now, we're doing pretty well among us, though we're reaching out to smaller and more fractured groups as opposed to big city/settlement things I find), of course not. But currently we're suffering a lack of 'fresh faces', a dry spell if you will.

I'm not going to lie and tell you that this role on the server is easy. Especially for the handful of the DMs who carry a majority of the server on our backs, it takes a lot out of us. Players corroborating together and making their own conflict with faction v. faction or settlement v. settlement is like a blessing to us. We just follow along for the ride and facilitate as needed.

The bottom line is: I don't think it's anyone's fault in particular. DMs are tired, players are restless, and evil groups are an easy target when they are based from fledgling ideas versus cities who have been here since the beginning of time. Unfortunately that's a paradigm we cannot shake. I disagree with you when you said it was all the DM's fault for letting this happen. It's a cycle, in my opinion. Players go awol, DMs get burnt out, rinse repeat until we just don't want to deal with it anymore. It will never be honestly broken until we, as a community, are ready to facilitate this. As a DM, I do what I do to help the players. These stories are to create a world for -you- to play in. For -you- to interact with. Not me. The direction the server goes is more player-driven than people like to think, or see. The change will not come unless we are ready for it ourselves. We need to let go of the past and the grudges we hold and move on with the idea of keeping this server alive. By letting this persistent cycle go on, we're effectively letting the server waste away as more and more people drop like flies and turn to other avenues.

_________________

Thats the way it crumbles ... cookie-wise!

Just a quick note-

I don't blame the DM's in the way you think I blame them. I blame the DM's for not coming out and overtly creating an evil plot with evil plot protected backing that would embrace the visions of evil you think the server should embrace. Every plot in the last few years that I've seen, is basically featuring evil that is basically a temporary plot device that's destined to lose, and give the players (neutral and above) a satisfying victory.

The DM's could just as easy introduce something like Kohlingen, for evil players, that they'd have to build, if only for the assurance it won't just be a clusterfuck like the last 100 million gold, thousands of hours of writing books was. But that's where everyone just admits "nope" can't just spawn something out of thin air. Do you think Kohlingen grew by a factor of two through player initiative? Keep dreaming or show me all of the RP.

Why can't we have black knights that come from overseas to accomplish an unknown goal? Why must we only have silver knights who were manufactured out of nowhere with zero fighting combat RP that I've found (yes, I've searched) that are invincible if you try to fight them (yes, I have tried.)

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

I think another problem is Amia island itself should not be viewed as the world of FR as its just some small island so its logical its not a place where super open evil can work because its a small island I'm no FR lore buff but I assume small island nations((or just some good heavy nations)) are good at keeping the riff raff from building up on their land.

I said Frozenfar would be a good location because its far out of the way from amia island ((sadly our auto fast travel kind of make not seem far)) and you could set up a settlement with limited resistance from the one town, the 2nd town that has less people then my family X-mas gathering and some trash mob monsters.

_________________
================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================
Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)

Generally speaking, groups of evil, or people who are up to no good after left untouched historically in FR, until they do something that warrants their eradication. There's opportunity cost that is involved in war, and that's enough to make even a lot of paladins swallow their tongues.

_________________
a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

Ah, my apologies. I see what you're saying then. I haven't been here as long as most of the players, so I can't really tell you from personal knowledge or experience how Kohlingen grew or came to be. But that's an interesting idea and plot hook. However, with it being on the main Amian island, you will have to expect that it has a real chance of being eradicated through settlements who have a natural advantage of having been here for..well, forever. For different reasons they are a real threat, and not just because of the NPCs you keep mentioning. They have old player and faction backings, treaties, and connections that a new settlement, overpowered or not, could not get without a bit more time and effort.

But you rose an interesting idea in my head that I may just run with, spurring from this topic.

_________________

Thats the way it crumbles ... cookie-wise!