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Author Topic: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?  (Read 2268 times)

Agony

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #75 on: March 01, 2024, 03:53:13 PM »

Making up a background that presupposes things that players would have interacted with but have not is a pretty blatant case of cheesing.

Except is isn't, or you couldn't be native. People can move in the same areas and know the same people and never meet. It's absolutely within the rules to have existed in an area and just happen to have never met others that also did so.


Maiyannah

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #76 on: March 01, 2024, 03:54:16 PM »
We're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
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Day Old Bread

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #77 on: March 01, 2024, 03:55:03 PM »
That may be your view, but it isn't what is. If they have the shield, they are a warden. They might be a wandering warden, or they could have a back story that they were part of the Refuge for a while and your PC just didn't know them. Both are valid, as is much between.

Making up a background that presupposes things that players would have interacted with but have not is a pretty blatant case of cheesing.

So then any character claiming Vallaki, Berez, Krofburg, Port-a-Lucine, Edrigan, Nordenval, Romulai, etc, is blatantly cheesing?

FinalHeaven

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #78 on: March 01, 2024, 03:56:04 PM »
That may be your view, but it isn't what is. If they have the shield, they are a warden. They might be a wandering warden, or they could have a back story that they were part of the Refuge for a while and your PC just didn't know them. Both are valid, as is much between.

Making up a background that presupposes things that players would have interacted with but have not is a pretty blatant case of cheesing.
Sometimes I do agree with this sentiment, it tends to depend on the context though.  I don't know if I'd say it's that bothersome in this case since it's a fairly straightforward thing.  It's not much different than people creating characters that have fought in any of the server's big wars when in reality the character didn't exist when the wars actually occurred in-game.  As long as they're not making themselves stand out as exceptional I don't think it's cheesing.



Cassius

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #79 on: March 01, 2024, 04:03:38 PM »
Starting off as a warden is fine, they don't even have authority anyways. Even those in the main faction don't (they all answer to a Toret or Sentire who call the shots). If the faction feels this warden violates against their local principles they can try to deny them support until NPCs intervene.

I personally recommend new clerics who are unfamiliar with the role of an anchorite to start off as an acolyte, and those who know to start off as a warden.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2024, 04:38:35 PM by Cassius »

Agony

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #80 on: March 01, 2024, 04:05:16 PM »
We're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

The devs make the rules (I am one), the DMs enforce them (I have been one). You can believe what you wish to, but for the benefit of others reading this thread, the reality is that it is not against the rules, and that is now how the faction operates. You can have a history in a place without already knowing all the PCs in the place. (Up to three months as a non-native, or your while life as a native.) And a trial does not have to take place as an official rite, as it *can* be part of your background or part of your story outside of the church.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2024, 04:18:16 PM by Agony »


Naiad

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #81 on: March 01, 2024, 04:32:35 PM »

I think the concern about the entire 'cheesy background' is more about who can start with an advantage, and what advantage a player's background can give?

Starting from a certain city gives a PC advantage with NPCs or DM events. Advantages that have given a great amount of flavor to a character without disrupting other PCs. However, starting with immediate authority in a faction that is primarily handled and organized by PCs might cause some friction. I think the concern is more about finding the balance between what is given and what is earned.
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Day Old Bread

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #82 on: March 01, 2024, 05:03:48 PM »

I think the concern about the entire 'cheesy background' is more about who can start with an advantage, and what advantage a player's background can give?

Starting from a certain city gives a PC advantage with NPCs or DM events. Advantages that have given a great amount of flavor to a character without disrupting other PCs. However, starting with immediate authority in a faction that is primarily handled and organized by PCs might cause some friction. I think the concern is more about finding the balance between what is given and what is earned.

As mentioned previously, a wandering Warden has no authority. They are simply already an anchorite. Similarly, Wardens have very little authority over the church and it's goings on, that role lies with the Toret and the Sentire. The only authority they might claim is the ability to give confession or offer blessings or perform marriages and the like.

Destinysdesire

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #83 on: March 01, 2024, 05:12:57 PM »
Except they do have authority, a Warden has say over Initiates and over Templars who are expected to obey without too much question unless it is against the code of Ezra, it would be like a Guard starting as a Private, rather then having to start as a Recruit, ordering around recruits that have been there for over two weeks, and they just joined, but auto as a Private. I see the concern speaking as an Initiate. They may be "wandering" but they do come in to the temples and we are still expected to obey, thus influencing the Faction as members.

Cassius

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #84 on: March 01, 2024, 05:23:46 PM »
Except they do have authority, a Warden has say over Initiates and over Templars who are expected to obey without too much question unless it is against the code of Ezra, it would be like a Guard starting as a Private, rather then having to start as a Recruit, ordering around recruits that have been there for over two weeks, and they just joined, but auto as a Private. I see the concern speaking as an Initiate. They may be "wandering" but they do come in to the temples and we are still expected to obey, thus influencing the Faction as members.
A Templar's duty is devoted to the leaders of the temple they are intended to protect. Their roles may extend elsewhere, but otherwise, they are what their title paints them as, temple guards. If a random warden tries to order someone around from a congregation they don't even belong in, they put themselves at the risk of scrutiny to responsible leadership. Same logic applies to other "apprentice" ranks that exist within the faction.

The day we start blocking wardens from being made without oversight, is the day we start making the Cleric class app locked lol

Also, I'm just going to say it. Comparing the Church of Ezra faction with the Vallaki Garda's ranking isn't really solid. It's like comparing the RVT with the Society of Erudites. It's not even comparable.

Lightweaver

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #85 on: March 01, 2024, 05:25:36 PM »
The guard keeps getting brought up here so chiming in with some details -

The recruit training time for new players is intended to be no more than three days of active play.
Players who have previously placed a guard can expedite through training in one day or bypass it entirely during NCE.

In comparison, the first time I played one training to be an anchorite it was several weeks of roleplay. That does establish that there is a lot to learn but if I ever returned, I'd be perfectly happy playing an anchorite that was already made who just got a quick review to meet the current faction standards before being officially invited to remain. If I had to go through another month and more of the same content I would be deterred significantly.

Have the faction assure all the roleplay standards are on the same page and then enjoy your roleplay. Church of Ezra is not the faction to play in if the rank climbing game is integral, in my experience. It's far better for collective and collaborative roleplay of like-minded individuals who are all essentially of the same rank (with perhaps one Toret leading them) whose experiences differ them.

Destinysdesire

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #86 on: March 01, 2024, 05:28:18 PM »
The guard keeps getting brought up here so chiming in with some details -

The recruit training time for new players is intended to be no more than three days of active play.
Players who have previously placed a guard can expedite through training in one day or bypass it entirely during NCE.

In comparison, the first time I played one training to be an anchorite it was several weeks of roleplay. That does establish that there is a lot to learn but if I ever returned, I'd be perfectly happy playing an anchorite that was already made who just got a quick review to meet the current faction standards before being officially invited to remain. If I had to go through another month and more of the same content I would be deterred significantly.

Have the faction assure all the roleplay standards are on the same page and then enjoy your roleplay. Church of Ezra is not the faction to play in if the rank climbing game is integral, in my experience. It's far better for collective and collaborative roleplay of like-minded individuals who are all essentially of the same rank (with perhaps one Toret leading them) whose experiences differ them.

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ardenchasemoradin

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #87 on: March 08, 2024, 03:54:38 PM »
As Lightweaver and Cassius said, the training in the Ezrite faction is really for new faction players who have never really played the faction. It is designed to give the person the tools and depth of knowledge to act in accordance with the tenets of an in-game faith with a deep history and incredibly fleshed out dogma (at least in POTM). I never think about it as a gate keeping mechanism at all. It is setting the new faction player up for success. It is, for all sakes and purposes, an OOC player need being met through deep and often wonderful RP sessions just as they would be if the character were really learning all of the material for the first time.

Experienced faction players have no need of participating in the lessons unless they choose to do so. The old versions of the trials were incredible and wonderful events, but since they are now player planned and implemented, they are largely perfunctory as well. I do appreciate when new characters of old players role play the transition to the congregation's ways of doing things or even when they clash with them as it generates some very good story telling.


Maiyannah

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #88 on: March 09, 2024, 08:58:52 AM »
Experienced faction players have no need of participating in the lessons unless they choose to do so. The old versions of the trials were incredible and wonderful events, but since they are now player planned and implemented, they are largely perfunctory as well.

I take some considerable exception to this.  The rite of orders I did for Grorin and Volusia was anything but perfunctory.  It was an almost day-long thing.

They hardly have to be short gestures.  That's entirely up to the people doing it.
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Emmanuelle de le Foret - Ezrite escapee from Hazlan

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Sabina Ennaies - Barovian road warden

ardenchasemoradin

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Re: Favored Souls and Healers - Where do they fit in?
« Reply #89 on: March 09, 2024, 04:16:42 PM »
There was certainly no desire to minimize your work on those trials. We, as players, just do not have the tools available to us to make those experiences what they were when they were planned for each person individually by DMs. If you have already done a trial planned by a player, it is not necessary to do another in much the same way as we always encouraged experienced faction players to make Wardens so DMs would not need to plan another trial for them.