Lizuca and Horatiu.

[dark_majico]

Actually when it comes to the temple you have a free heal, and the ability to rest up and dash outside, retreat and repeat. Those potions are weak but they are very light weight and stack able. It doesn't take long to chain chug them down and while it might deplete a higher levels stash the next day a waltz through the crypts or two replenishes your supply. Couple that with three + powerful NPC's for body guards and you have probably the most fortified area in the game, all this offering protection for new and veteran characters alike. It's like being in the center rooms of the MI5 building in london during a terrorist attack. All that to protect a handful of level 5's or 6's? It's just so overkill, well meaning overkill but deffinatly overkill.

[Tyras]

Actually when it comes to the temple you have a free heal, and the ability to rest up and dash outside, retreat and repeat. Those potions are weak but they are very light weight and stack able. It doesn't take long to chain chug them down and while it might deplete a higher levels stash the next day a waltz through the crypts or two replenishes your supply. Couple that with three + powerful NPC's for body guards and you have probably the most fortified area in the game, all this offering protection for new and veteran characters alike. It's like being in the center rooms of the MI5 building in london during a terrorist attack. All that to protect a handful of level 5's or 6's? It's just so overkill, well meaning overkill but deffinatly overkill.

I agree there is a problem with higher level players using the church as a base of operations, but I'm not going to call for the protection there to be nerfed because MPC's can't be satisfied with playing their role and dealing with the people that don't give the setting the respect it deserves and just have to get into that sanctuary to attack the players that have been herded in there by the setting itse;f.  It's greedy on the part of the MPC.  They have plenty of opportunity to glut themselves on the fear of players and their tasty hitpoints on most nights, those who are in the sanctuary should be safe in that sanctuary, at least in the lower level areas, even if it means MPC's get curbstomped for doing something stupid like PCs get all the time for doing just as stupid things.

[Ophie Kitty]

Actually when it comes to the temple you have a free heal, and the ability to rest up and dash outside, retreat and repeat. Those potions are weak but they are very light weight and stack able. It doesn't take long to chain chug them down and while it might deplete a higher levels stash the next day a waltz through the crypts or two replenishes your supply. Couple that with three + powerful NPC's for body guards and you have probably the most fortified area in the game, all this offering protection for new and veteran characters alike. It's like being in the center rooms of the MI5 building in london during a terrorist attack. All that to protect a handful of level 5's or 6's? It's just so overkill, well meaning overkill but deffinatly overkill.

I agree there is a problem with higher level players using the church as a base of operations, but I'm not going to call for the protection there to be nerfed because MPC's can't be satisfied with playing their role and dealing with the people that don't give the setting the respect it deserves and just have to get into that sanctuary to attack the players that have been herded in there by the setting itse;f.  It's greedy on the part of the MPC.  They have plenty of opportunity to glut themselves on the fear of players and their tasty hitpoints on most nights, those who are in the sanctuary should be safe in that sanctuary, at least in the lower level areas, even if it means MPC's get curbstomped for doing something stupid like PCs get all the time for doing just as stupid things.

The issue isn't so much that the NPCs need to be removed, nerfed, or anything along those lines; the main issue is the ridiculousness of transition hopping back and forth back and forth and back and forth. It just happens with the temple all the time because there happens to be free healing in there and NPCs who can curbstomp any monster who tries to walk in there. MPCs do -not- have the free roam and open opportunity anymore to find roleplay and handle scenes like they have had in the past. With the changes to the server's XP and hub locations you can find over 50% of the player base at Mist Camps or the NPC-filled Dementlieu Ramparts, and the fact, at least from my experience, a majority of the people who roam around at night want nothing to do with you and often express their annoyed opinion and often just try to walk away without a word or just immediately take off running, the only scenes that happen nowadays are with the MPCs who try to pressure things with presence such as what most of the were-creatures do, or having to arrange scenes with specifiic players who enjoy the encounters.

[Tyras]

It sounds like, as an authorized MPC and active participant in the Ravenloft Setting, you should not let those that disrespect you so, by expressing their annoyed opinons or simply running away.  Maybe the blood of offending chracters needs to be spilled more readily.  It does stink that people metagame, and I wish there was a way that MPC's didn't show up with red name tags and identifyable names that would alert metagamers to the nature of the MPCs they might cross, and a way for OCR to be masked so that evey NPC doesn't recognize an MPC on sight  (Imagine Dracula trying to travel around London if every person knew his OCR, or if Jonathan Harker knew He was a bad guy from first sight... The story would have been much different from the classic we all know.).  I do think that certain abilities like hold or charm person should be altered for MPCs to make them more powerful, and there should be a mature story minded community of MPCs that could work together rather than a few here or there trying to drive their own stories and being thwarted, not by heroics, but by people simply ignoring them.  I'd imagine it would be harder for people to run away when confronted by Mother, if she had some of her children moving in secret to get behind the foolish people who dare feel themselves safe in the old night, to prevent them from escaping very easily.

That is not to say that there should not be safe havens, at least for lower level characters (maybe less safe places for more capable characters), or that MPCs should be given free reign to step into places they should not tread.  If a PC or group of PCs venture where they should not due to inexperience, lack of proper prepartations or just plain foolishness (Hey guys let's go check out Strahd's castle for lolzors) they die, or at least they should.  The same should be for MPCs.  Sorry, but the temple is supposed to be off limits.  The mist camp and Dementileu are a whole other thing, at least for me.  I love both, but I do think there should be more danger involved for those places.  The Outskirts is a place where people get their foothold on the server, and i'd hate for it to be some sort of MPC feeding ground that leaves players frustrated all the time.  I appreciate MPCs, and all they do for the server.  Mother has been a big part of one of my character's absolute panic about all things vampiric, and after months and months of turning down trips to the terg ruins and avoiding his good friends calls for assistance there he was finally dragged kicking and screaming into the place to face his fears, and by an amazing coincidence (because I've not seen Mother on any of my characters in months) his greatest fear presents her self.  It was awesome.  It generated a bunch of RP fuel for my character, allowed me to show some depth and frailty in a character that is for the most part sure of himself and explore the relationships between his friends that brought him there and did not wish to leave even after his terrified insistance and pleading, both very uncommon to his normal nature, should have clued them in and given them cause to accomodate their friend's wishes... Alot of good came from it, and will continue to come from it in follow on RP.  So, this is not an argument I'm making in an us versus them capacity.  I just don't think it would be good for anybody to have newer players unable to find a safe haven for the night, especially when being indoors is drilled into every newly misted person from every NPC and RPer near the outskirts.