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Author Topic: Am I wasting my time?  (Read 14546 times)

Bluebomber4evr

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #25 on: August 12, 2013, 03:00:04 PM »
Greetings.                                   

I have made this topic (don't normally use forums so sorry if this is the wrong section) because of some rather troubling OOC information I was given after my character's story started to take a dramatic turn. Having been in Barovia a while now, my character Ti'rala Varen-having once thought her kind extinct and now finds many Elves around her in Barovia-has caught word of Sithicus and of a Tyrant who rules over the Elves there. A slightly chaotic 'good character' her first instinct is to strike out at this Tyrant. She has been convinced to sit back and prepare in various ways and so on but OOC I now have massive concerns that by simply following where the roleplay takes me I may be walking into a one-sided fight.

I've been told that-on the larger scale-things don't really change much. Now I'm not much concerned if the Elves win or not, or if they win and then there are consequences like-for example-Degannwy having to be evacuated because the Elven uprising hightens Barovian paranoia and dislike of Elves, but what I do care about is a world that seemingly can evolve around player actions suddenly turning static because a story lead to an IC attempt to change something big.

What I really want to know is this: Will I be going into a deep, long lasting story? or will I simply get trampled on without any hope?
Ravenloft as a setting is set up in a way that drastic changes are rare and the world is generally stable. This is true of "pencil and paper"/tabletop versions of the game.

That is not to say that they do not happen, however: The Grand Conjunction made huge, lasting changes to the world, and were the direct result of PCs, although these PCs and the event predate the time depicted on this server. The same with the Requiem which reshaped Darkon, albeit temporarily.

The "tyrant" you mention only came to power as the result of a drastic, setting-changing event (this time from a novel), so again, these things do happen in the world, but are much less common than other D&D worlds due to the metaphysical nature of the setting. Each nation is a sort of planar prison (a "domain"), with its ruler a cursed individual (called a "darklord") who brought about their curse through their own evil actions, and they remain cursed due to their own shortcomings and inability to change. At the same time, they also wield a considerable amount of supernatural power/control over their prison-nations despite being unable to leave or lift their curse. Because of this, wars of conquest are completely ineffective and armed conflicts between nations are short and national borders are considerably more stable than other D&D settings. Change usually occurs when one of these darklords is destroyed or somehow manages to lift part or all of their curse. When this happens, the domain either disappears into the Mists or a new darklord takes control and the domain goes through subtle changes to reflect its new master. The latter is what happened in Sithicus

As far as the server goes, we have also made changes to our presentation of the world since we first opened the server: Vallaki's burgomaster lost his eldest son, the Lady's Rest has changed ownership twice, a major NPC was re-introduced to the setting after being written out in one of the novels, the captain of Vallaki's guard that we had when we started the server has since been murdered, drow went from an unknown race to a hated one purely based on the actions of players, and so on.

So yes, change can happen. It is not constant, and is often small-scale, but it can happen.

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #26 on: August 12, 2013, 03:07:11 PM »
The Rectory of the Ezrites was built based on Player actions. And other changes to various parts of the server aswell

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #27 on: August 12, 2013, 03:20:27 PM »


There might not be much to add, since a lot of good advice and perspectives have already been shared.  But I will say that a character's motivation should in no way be determined by what is likely possible or impossible for the outcome.  

The Gundarakite rebels overall goal is to attain independence and liberty.  The fact that Strahd will always remain in power, does not impede in the slightest on the Gundarakite Rebellion role play.  As others have stated, it is the journey.

My tanarukk's goals are also highly ambitious, as she dreams that any day now Gruumsh will deliver an army of orcs and tanarukk, and she assumes her purpose in Ravenloft is to scout and prepare the way for the impending war.  That, or her destiny is to give birth to a tribe and army of tanarukk who will carve our a kingdom of their own in a world that has so-far denied orcs or tanarukk any place.  

Your character's overall motives or purpose can be large-scale, but within that there is potential for more mundane motives and unforeseen adventures.


I also want to challenge a notion I've seen crop up now and then, that evil wins and good loses.  Anyone who thinks that any of the darklords in Ravenloft are "winners," isn't really thinking it through. All of them are cursed, and serve as examples of how evil loses.  Traditionally, gothic theater was a morality tale, in which evil acts may for a while earn someone political or material power, but always at the expense of their souls and true happiness. In Ravenloft, in terms of morality as being the benchmark for "winning or losing," any character who manages to avoid becoming jaded, selling out, losing their soul, losing their way, falling from grace, etc. etc., is a character that wins. Even a character that dies, may be a "winner" in the sense of morality.    


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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #28 on: August 12, 2013, 03:20:39 PM »
The Rectory of the Ezrites was built based on Player actions. And other changes to various parts of the server aswell


Yeah,

The village of Krofburg was constructed, the destruction of Zeklos Keep (you can visit the ruins), and not to mention we have had players who have become darklord's of their own domain (a pretty epic closure/story achievement.)

Endlessorrow

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #29 on: August 12, 2013, 03:44:50 PM »
  Fact of the matter is that A elf wishing to aid the elves living under the curse in Sithicus by ending the curse and defeating the darkllord there would likely in the end, either die nobly leaving a great example and a hope for the future, Or Defeat the Darklord and in the process perhaps be overcome with their own form of darkness, maybe even becoming the darklord of Sithicuss themselves. Leading to a realm where the elves must follow the new elven lords ideal of of the elven culture.  It is doubtfull that all the work on the development and trouble shooting of a new domain would be set aside, and the realm removed from the module, due to a player or group of players very in character outrage at the state of affairs in sithicus and their efforts against the realm.. but changes to,rather than elimination of the realms seem possible! Often in raven loft when a darklord is slain the dark powers bestow the land on the most evil being left in the realm or on the most deserving evil being at any rate.

    So if we as characters got together and killed say Bluebeard on his island because we all learned of his horrible  sadistic serial killer nature and were sickened by the fact that such a psychopath should be allowed to draw air. We might succeed, and the dark powers would respond in unpredictable ways depending on the story.  They may just resurrect the murderer rapist lord or they may reincarnate him as a woman or have a man hating evil p.c. who was intimately involved in the plot become the new dark lord and the island become a bad place for men to visit. Who knows? The dark powers purpose in the realm seems to be to explore the nature of evil practiced in gender issues. and the exercise of power.

  The key would be working closely with a d.m. or d.m.s though so that they are aware of the story and have a chance to respond adequately to events.
« Last Edit: August 12, 2013, 03:59:53 PM by Endlessorrow »
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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #30 on: August 12, 2013, 04:09:25 PM »
I would say yes, you are wasting your time. The server is essentially structured in such a way as to prevent permanent change. I suggest finding joy in pursuing small, achievable goals like eliminating a local villain or MPC, rather than focusing on taking down the big bads. If you reach for the stars, you're just about guaranteed to fall on your ass. Instead, I recommend taking the time to sit down and enjoy a moonlight picnic instead.
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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #31 on: August 12, 2013, 04:11:38 PM »
you must see it as a story, you are instantly thinking of the end while not even walked the road.

why we do this sort of play style is the road to it, you meet characters along the way story arcs sub plots etc etc, yes the end is 80% sure but the enjoyment of telling your story/ playing it out is a differant side of it, it is simply how you view things, if you want to win then no you will not enjoy yourself, harsh i know but rather harsh and honest then you having a illusion or false sense of hope ooc and being angry at the end of it.

go for the road the story that LEADS to it not the conclusio/ending of the story.

take the count for an example people on this server has tried screwiing him over more then i can count, yes he always wins, but the degree of winning varies allot.
one guy which plenty of us still remember is valio the red he was a mad wizard and brilliant as well, he managed to get rid of the count for a period of time while he sat on the throne, of course in the end the count is an old vampire who has a trick or 2 up his undead sleeve and returned and took back controle, so valio did get the goal but he also lost in the end, just a matter of perception, the road to it was long full of plots and plot twists and characters.


to simplefy it, we play in a book that has 1 red line which is consistant, all our stories revolve around that red line, the names change but the red line doesnt.
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Troukk

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #32 on: August 12, 2013, 04:16:09 PM »
you must see it as a story, you are instantly thinking of the end while not even walked the road.

why we do this sort of play style is the road to it, you meet characters along the way story arcs sub plots etc etc, yes the end is 80% sure but the enjoyment of telling your story/ playing it out is a differant side of it, it is simply how you view things, if you want to win then no you will not enjoy yourself, harsh i know but rather harsh and honest then you having a illusion or false sense of hope ooc and being angry at the end of it.

go for the road the story that LEADS to it not the conclusio/ending of the story.

take the count for an example people on this server has tried screwiing him over more then i can count, yes he always wins, but the degree of winning varies allot.
one guy which plenty of us still remember is valio the red he was a mad wizard and brilliant as well, he managed to get rid of the count for a period of time while he sat on the throne, of course in the end the count is an old vampire who has a trick or 2 up his undead sleeve and returned and took back controle, so valio did get the goal but he also lost in the end, just a matter of perception, the road to it was long full of plots and plot twists and characters.


to simplefy it, we play in a book that has 1 red line which is consistant, all our stories revolve around that red line, the names change but the red line doesnt.

OMG, did Dutchy just make an inspiring non-trollish post?

Nahhh... probably someone hijacked his account.  :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #33 on: August 12, 2013, 05:30:55 PM »
The deck is stacked against a long reaching story arc buts its far from impossible.
I think the largest hurdle is the attention span varies amongst players. Some are discouraged if a month passes without development, some will wait for years if its something that promises fun storytelling or playacting.

My own personal take is that I try to stoke the flames if the principal characters are active and doing their thing.  If its a low ebb, such as if 2-3 PCs your characters dynamics rely upon going inactive, then I try to use my pc as a conduit of information IC. If my PC witnesses, or hears of something relevant then they are a vehicle to spread the reverberation across the server's cast.


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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #34 on: August 12, 2013, 05:45:50 PM »
you must see it as a story, you are instantly thinking of the end while not even walked the road.

why we do this sort of play style is the road to it, you meet characters along the way story arcs sub plots etc etc, yes the end is 80% sure but the enjoyment of telling your story/ playing it out is a differant side of it, it is simply how you view things, if you want to win then no you will not enjoy yourself, harsh i know but rather harsh and honest then you having a illusion or false sense of hope ooc and being angry at the end of it.

go for the road the story that LEADS to it not the conclusio/ending of the story.

take the count for an example people on this server has tried screwiing him over more then i can count, yes he always wins, but the degree of winning varies allot.
one guy which plenty of us still remember is valio the red he was a mad wizard and brilliant as well, he managed to get rid of the count for a period of time while he sat on the throne, of course in the end the count is an old vampire who has a trick or 2 up his undead sleeve and returned and took back controle, so valio did get the goal but he also lost in the end, just a matter of perception, the road to it was long full of plots and plot twists and characters.


to simplefy it, we play in a book that has 1 red line which is consistant, all our stories revolve around that red line, the names change but the red line doesnt.

OMG, did Dutchy just make an inspiring non-trollish post?

Nahhh... probably someone hijacked his account.  :lol: :lol: :lol:

i lvld 12 days ago irl i suppose some wisdom points got added or something i dont know what happend there when i started typing....aah good there are plenty of typos, means i didn't go cold turkey
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HellsPanda

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #35 on: August 12, 2013, 05:50:19 PM »
No, its a form of trolling, where the known troll pretends to make sense, so that people will be confused.

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #36 on: August 12, 2013, 06:07:52 PM »
Try.

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #37 on: August 12, 2013, 06:14:04 PM »
I shall admit, I am surprised by the sudden influx of positive comments, especially from the DMs! However if theres one thing I can say bad here, its that people have mixed one thing up with what I said. I don't care about the winning or the losing, so long as the ending isn't written for me and does not ignore the RP itself, I used a victory instance as the most common example as the changes from that would be the ones causing the largest concerns.

Other than that, lots of surprising and helpfull input. I'll be keeping with this a while longer yet and seeing if I can get a fire going, as it were. Thank you everyone who posted!

(P.S, sorry for the late update to this one. I was very tired)
« Last Edit: August 13, 2013, 09:10:59 AM by Teladorian »
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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #38 on: August 13, 2013, 01:04:18 AM »
It's not about the destination but the journey.


This. 

That's all well and good.  But the journey is motivated by the hope of arriving at a destination one actually wants to get to.  If there is no hope of that, one probably won't start the journey.  There's nothing wrong with looking ahead and seeing it the destination you're shooting for is possible to reach.  A hopeful journey of, "Maybe I can get there," is fun and exciting.  A hopeless journey to a place you know you don't want to reach ...

Sharauvyn

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #39 on: August 13, 2013, 01:13:57 AM »
One thing you definitely can affect, Teladorian, is other player characters.  You may not be able to overthrow the count, but if you role play right, you can definitely help people to insulate and innoculate themselves against the fact he's still there by inspiring goodnessh, faith, hope, and love in others, and by being a person who will stand by them through hard times.  "Who cares if Big Bad is still out there?  Character X who we love dearly and makes all the difference in the world to us is here with us tonight!"  It's powerful. :)

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #40 on: August 13, 2013, 05:04:03 AM »
The Rectory of the Ezrites was built based on Player actions. And other changes to various parts of the server aswell


Also:

Krofburg was destroyed. (and then rebuilt thanks to player actions)

The whole '5th sect' of Ezra and debacle of Zelkos keep / crypt was all player spurned

Stonebeard tried to get the dwarves in Barovia to revolt against the Count and he's now a 'living statue' as a punishment (that dwarf you pass on the way to Krofburg)

And if anyone bothers to notice Castle Ravenloft is missing a tower >_>

Plus many many other plots that came about due to PCs the latest being the Nerull cult

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Silverfox

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #41 on: August 13, 2013, 04:40:52 PM »
It's not about the destination but the journey.


This. 

That's all well and good.  But the journey is motivated by the hope of arriving at a destination one actually wants to get to.  If there is no hope of that, one probably won't start the journey.  There's nothing wrong with looking ahead and seeing it the destination you're shooting for is possible to reach.  A hopeful journey of, "Maybe I can get there," is fun and exciting.  A hopeless journey to a place you know you don't want to reach ...

^ Totally gets it.
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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #42 on: August 13, 2013, 04:58:47 PM »
It's not about the destination but the journey.


This. 

That's all well and good.  But the journey is motivated by the hope of arriving at a destination one actually wants to get to.  If there is no hope of that, one probably won't start the journey.  There's nothing wrong with looking ahead and seeing it the destination you're shooting for is possible to reach.  A hopeful journey of, "Maybe I can get there," is fun and exciting.  A hopeless journey to a place you know you don't want to reach ...

^ Totally gets it.

Not all journeys start with a destination in mind; not all journeys even reach a destination. I suppose it depends on the player's personal view.  :) 
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Kiess2606

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #43 on: August 13, 2013, 08:02:27 PM »
I shall admit, I am surprised by the sudden influx of positive comments, especially from the DMs! However if theres one thing I can say bad here, its that people have mixed one thing up with what I said. I don't care about the winning or the losing, so long as the ending isn't written for me and does not ignore the RP itself, I used a victory instance as the most common example as the changes from that would be the ones causing the largest concerns.

Other than that, lots of surprising and helpfull input. I'll be keeping with this a while longer yet and seeing if I can get a fire going, as it were. Thank you everyone who posted!

(P.S, sorry for the late update to this one. I was very tired)

There was one thing I did not notice mentioned by anyone, that I think is a very likely possibility. As you have said you do not want the ending written for you, and though yeah it is likely you would fail, it is also quite likely your character would never even make it that far. The time and trials and planning and things your character would go through to get to that end battle may be more than she can cope with. There may be characters who would work against you and make it harder for you to reach your goals. Maybe some night when your outside too late an MPC or another evil character could affect your character to the point of 'breaking' her. After playing here for a few years I have realized all the things my characters had strived for in the beginning ended up changing in the end due to events that had nothing to do with any of their original plans. Your character could watch people they care about die, sometimes in horrible ways that could scar your character, changing their perspective. There are just sooooo many things that could happen that no one could tell you how the ending will be. It is completely unwritten. My advice would be to try, because I think no matter what happens you will have fun as well as the people around you.

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #44 on: August 14, 2013, 06:25:24 AM »
I agree with Teladorian that no "deus ex machinae" should arise to stop characters from succeeding against Strahd and other Dark Lords. Railroading is a bad thing; in-game events should preferably be the consequence of in-game events rather than the DMs' artistic vision. And even the Dark Powers, which tend to keep Ravenloft static, could act with more subtlety and skill than just "we're buffing Strahd so he ends up insta-killing the PC".

For instance, suppose that the character does manage to depose Strahd XI and demolish part of the castle. That's fine. However, events beyond the character's control cause a council to form and manage Barovia in the absence of a ruler; they send the PCs to look for suitable heirs. Eventually, the council, to the applause of everyone, then choose to elect Strahd XII, the count's supposed nephew but actually the count himself, as the ruler of Barovia. There is no isnta-killing and no inevitable death for the PCs. Instead, the PCs gradually come to the realization that they have not effected genuine change, and will not be in a position to try effecting it again due to the popularity of Strahd XII.

I don't personally see a need for Strahd to be a dark lord, and find him to be one of the weak spots of Ravenloft. If some other character (an NPC, for instance) were to step up to be the dark lord due to the players' actions, that wouldn't really break the gothic horror setting. It may simply be, for instance, that whatever character fought Strahd was afflicted with vampirism in the process, and had to make do with Strahd's role. It may likewise be the case that whoever developed the deadly desire to kill Strahd would become a vampire, and in the process, find himself locked in an eternal conflict with Strahd.

These scenarios all involve less railroading than "Strahd insta-kills your PC", so they would seem far more enjoyable, to me at least.
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APorg

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #45 on: August 14, 2013, 06:54:55 AM »
I don't think anyone is saying that Strahd would insta-kill a PC who tried to kill him; indeed, many PCs have faced him. Some have even escaped Barovia after the fact. However it is extremely hard IC to harm Strahd -- he is a genius-level vampire with several centuries of time, and a great deal of material and intellectual resources, to devise traps and fail-safes should any would-be slayers enter his home. It's going to take a highly resourceful PC with a network of commited allies and a potent plan to even come close to challenging that; not just the latest Johnny-Come-Lately paladin who's run out of goals after hitting level 20 and decides taking on Strahd is the next logical step.

(And herein lies a paradox: any high-level Good character with that kind of experience and network will have two brain cells to rub together, and is going to ask themselves what happens if they succeed. One possible answer is, a power vacuum surrounded by many powerful and Evil actors. Nevermind the risks failure, it's the potential negative consequences of success that give my high level Goodie pause when considering taking on Strahd.)

The DM team do roll with some punches -- some permanent change can be affected when it doesn't disrupt the overall setting -- but their underlining desire is to preserve setting integrity, and Ravenloft without Strahd is like Batman without the Joker, or Star Wars without Darth Vader -- yes, Vader dies, but he dies at the conclusion of that particular story arc of Star Wars. This is kind of the point: if Strahd dies, it's no longer really the old Ravenloft story, but a new one; and while that may be an interesting story, that's not the one that this server seeks to tell...
« Last Edit: August 14, 2013, 07:19:45 AM by aprogressivist »
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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #46 on: August 14, 2013, 12:10:54 PM »
I don't think anyone is saying that Strahd would insta-kill a PC who tried to kill him; indeed, many PCs have faced him. Some have even escaped Barovia after the fact. However it is extremely hard IC to harm Strahd -- he is a genius-level vampire with several centuries of time, and a great deal of material and intellectual resources, to devise traps and fail-safes should any would-be slayers enter his home. It's going to take a highly resourceful PC with a network of commited allies and a potent plan to even come close to challenging that; not just the latest Johnny-Come-Lately paladin who's run out of goals after hitting level 20 and decides taking on Strahd is the next logical step.

(And herein lies a paradox: any high-level Good character with that kind of experience and network will have two brain cells to rub together, and is going to ask themselves what happens if they succeed. One possible answer is, a power vacuum surrounded by many powerful and Evil actors. Nevermind the risks failure, it's the potential negative consequences of success that give my high level Goodie pause when considering taking on Strahd.)

The DM team do roll with some punches -- some permanent change can be affected when it doesn't disrupt the overall setting -- but their underlining desire is to preserve setting integrity, and Ravenloft without Strahd is like Batman without the Joker, or Star Wars without Darth Vader -- yes, Vader dies, but he dies at the conclusion of that particular story arc of Star Wars. This is kind of the point: if Strahd dies, it's no longer really the old Ravenloft story, but a new one; and while that may be an interesting story, that's not the one that this server seeks to tell...

I thought it was pretty sick when Strahd punked Lord Soth in Knight of the Black Rose, but then Soth just comes back and pounds the crap out of the shield around Strahd's keep, trying to get at Caradoc.

But on-topic, I think it's all well and good to want to depose a Dark Lord, or kill them, but I also think that it should be done in a sufficiently long plot with dedicated PCs, and also that PCs should be willing to accept some level of sacrifice in order to achieve it, including maybe their original intentions.

The whole theme of 'how much are you willing to compromise to succeed in your goals' is probably my favourite part of Ravenloft.
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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #47 on: August 15, 2013, 09:51:00 PM »
Development of Sithicus is on hold for the foreseeable future.

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #48 on: August 29, 2013, 06:39:22 PM »
Hehe, nice!  Now I'll have to get some characters that will be able to survive there...
Wouldn't the world be better off if we took nonsense more seriously?

Soren / Zarathustra217

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Re: Am I wasting my time?
« Reply #49 on: August 30, 2013, 05:03:39 AM »
This is a post I made four years ago on the same topic:

Speaking of persistent changes to the world, I think it's a good way to put it as the dynamism mainly being supported in a constructive rather than destructive fashion, and there's a good reason for that too. While we do want to endorse many of the great initiatives done by the players, we have to prioritize our dedication. We discussed this at a developer meeting not long ago, so let me try to summarize some of it:

As example, consider all the player-run groups. What mainly determine whether it will be an officially supported faction and implemented persistently into the module isn't simply the quality of it, but that it have some meaningful role in the overall balance of dynamics. We want to have factions available for a wide range of characters, but we also face the challenge of assuring support, activity and populating each of these factions. Some factions that does not provide natural activity or interaction with other factions would be heavily dependent on DM involvement - yet these have a limited amount of available time that come and go, and a specific DM is further usually tied to a specific timezone. Factions that are too small in player count will in general disappear rather quickly too, as some members start new characters or leave the server. Since it does take a considerable amount of work fully implement a faction, and a good amount even to remove factions again, we need to prioritize not only what factions we want to keep, but also which ones we want to experiment with temporarily. Even if some player initiatives at some point amass a large group of characters, we have to evaluate their durability too.

Another example could be the actual world design. The roleplaying world is to a degree a reflection of our inspiration and ideas as designers. It's not just a matter of following canon - we are the authors of the scenery and stories that make the world that the characters journey through. We aspire to make it immersive, atmospheric and rich in detail to experience, but that also puts a further limit on how much change we can do. If we rushed to keep up with a loosely running, completely dynamic world changing at the whim of hundreds of different players without any limitations, the world would quickly turn bland, under-developed and unbalanced.

Try considering the Morninglord temple in the western outskirts. Characters have at times made initiative to raise massive amounts of gold to rebuild the place, and with the amount they've collected, they could turn it into a grand cathedral making the greatest of the Core pale in comparison. But the decrepit state of the place has an important meaning to the world we want to portray. The Morninglord temple is the first holy sanctuary new players will encounter upon entering Barovia - It's underlining the neglected state of religion in the domain, the state of good in general. We could principally pursue the restructuring and move the world entry point somewhere else, but even that is something that's been carefully chosen and developed - the entire server layout is in fact planned with it's location in mind, the details added, the polishing, all would have to be revised or remade. Perhaps you would consider this over-worrying, but the first impression for new players cannot be underestimated - it's to a large degree what will determine if they'll leave or stay to learn more - and moving it or changing it at random would jeopardizing the server itself.

This doesn't mean that we don't want to endorse some dynamism however, but is said to give some insight into why it's more complicated than it might appear. Many people have desires to pull the server into all sorts of directions - but which direction is the best for the server and it's visions is hard to determine. Sometimes you will disagree to the decisions we make, but we have to at some point trust our own judgement. Sometimes you might wish we spend our time building in a different directions, but at some point, we have to prioritize our own inspirations and ideas to keep ourselves motivated.

Thankfully however, sometimes, some of the player initiatives toward dynamism fits well into what we feel would bring the server in it's whole, with balance, atmosphere, detail, in a positive direction. We strive to be opportunistic and endorse these initiatives, work with the players, and as much as all these concerns make it possible, help them shape the world. It may not be what you consider ideal, but it's what the terms allow. It's the price of playing in a world with so many other players. The vast amount of different interest will to some extend limit the freedom - but on the other hand, if we can work together, contribute with a greater common in mind and get the most out of what we can do - work for constructive dynamism rather than destructive - I'm personally convinced it will still worthwhile, and I hope it still feels so to others too.