Sure Is Quiet!

[*Ariella]

Should I return then? :lol:

Yes you should, There is never enough aussies :P.

[*edmaster44]

We're going to be alright.

[*coyotesage]

Almost all fantasy settings muck up the concept of death by confirming that there is some kind of after life. I don't know about you, but the primary reason that death concerns me in real life is because I don't know if this is the end or if something comes afterward. In all official D&D settings and most high fantasy settings, the afterlife is just a given - no mystery really. The emphasis is generally on "do you go to the good place or the bad place?" to give death it's uncertainty. Even though I love high fantasy in general, I do wish that more settings would take a more realistic approach on death, as in, people have their beliefs, but no one actually knows.

This isn't a push for permadeath, as I don't think that's a very good idea, unless the player is seeking it to end their character's story. I'm fine with the somewhat above board concept that most characters don't die when they reach 0 hit points and even fairly weak explanations for why they are seen running around later get a pass. Even better, unless it's a big story deal, if people didn't bring it up at all that would be ideal. I'm sure that breaks immersion for a lot of people, but in a game where the vast majority of the play takes place without game master supervision, you need to just let some things slide.

[*Lucadia]

I been holding off posting in this thread and really I feel like I should continue to do so as mostively it be an explosive perception how certain things are driving players away and no moves toward keeping them--

---

For the one bit of constructive, as a player, currently events run on the server leave absolutely no passive impact. Stories you participate in just become a flavor of monster of the month, soon forgotten with no evidence it happened.

Battle of Salt. Whats that? Why did it happen? Why is there no petrified remains in the Plane of Salt with some overview to the story that took so long to happen? Wel a few pcs remember it but when you go explain to somebody why its important it matters very little to some other player, as it continues to not have anything do with the current setting now or affect anyone.

Hand full of players that got on tail end of that basicly got some custom plot weapons to deal with the threat and continue to keep them to use for rp use afterwards. Anyone in a faction got rewarded a automatic bump up in promotions. --((personaly it done quite a bit to promote my own characters story in the role of factioneer but!)) that dont apply for anyone else that particpated nor any players or characters that come in afterwards. They look at this server and go "why should I particpate in plots if its not represented as changing a part of the server?

--

I just finished a year long campagin for the fey plot Arelia run. Props for the work. it was fun.
That said, its also another thing that took that long that tried to involve the entire server, but basicly very few cared it was going on and the impact its left afterwards feels watered down.

Hardly anyone knows why it happened, for what purpose or what end result was other then the bazaar getting squashed (as a reason to get the updated area in).
Im nit pick for a moment here that all the rp and donations that went into "rebuilding" the bazaar got far as I know, none of the promised events to make players feel like they was actualy particpating, happened.

Humans are creatures that like satisfiy needs, and recogniztion for doing something rp or oocly goes a long ways toward retention. Either by providing the requesting events or offering a reward.

You no idea how happy I was as a player to get a "rock" from an event that had a small minor custom thing to represent something had happened.

--Anyhow this is just a minor thought bubble of some the things Iv wanted to say to this thread. Perhaps there should be in the suggestions" How can we improve events for you to make them engaging and memorable."

[*Graglarthedumb]

Ah coyotesage I agree with you completely! If by dying I just go to live on Bytopia, if nothing else it seems like an improvement. I have to deal with a few fleeting moments of excessive pain but then everything gets better. Part of life's significance is it's uncertainty.

I don't know how it would be changed but I don't think it has to be. (Thanks entirely to the Planescape setting -or outer planes being expanded upon in the creative way that they were-.) Spreading information to the sort may give the players RP gravity to something that should be considered grave, death.

In Planescape the concepts presented in all the other settings beforehand are questioned (Noticeably by the factions). A Clueless might think for instance that they die and go to their god, that's it. Most gods'll have you believe that life is because of they. The world and all things are but at their whims.

Planescape presents perspective: Gods are not the end all be all; Powerful, yes; Immortal, Questionable. So even if you're a faithful follower, turn petitioner remaining faithful, and then join with your god, is that the end? Why are the gods there? -Belief. Join with a god who loses it's faith from mortals, and you'll cease to be, what happens to you then?

Most -if not all- death pathways follow through to the Planescape setting, all of them become questionable the moment those people enter the setting. Petitioners generally assume said god or way is the way. However there are many things in the Multiverse that suggest otherwise. (Notably -following the god example- Dead gods.)

You should also note Celestials (Maybe all, certainly some) were once mortals turned petitioners, yet in their life they still strive, For what? Have they merely become good itself? Seeing as they can fall that's doubtful. If they've reached their end then how could they possibly have goals?





So what I'm trying to direct your thoughts to is this: How much will the choices your character makes now make a difference on the final end?

Godsmen think ALL the difference, don't learn the proper lesson and you can't advance.

Athar think if you only conceive of the gods as the way and truth you waste any opportunity for the actual truth.

Bleakers think there's nothing anywhere, it just is, presumably at the very end oblivion waits, or it comes around again, or who knows? 'Don't matter anyway so why consider it? There's no goal your life and anything that happens there after is pointless.

So your choices now (even though it's commonly known you go on to live others) have great impact on what becomes of you at the end (at least if the evidence presented and/or the factions beliefs are true).




Almost all factions on one level or another believe in things that bring clueless impression to question. Namely their largest belief (The gods are everything, created everything, know everything, and cannot end, or things similar to that extreme.)

Of course Clueless don't consider these things, that's part of what makes them clueless, there's a big world out there and answers to their questions... They don't ask. When about they do they generally join a faction, thus ceasing to be "Clueless". Even Free Leaguers think somethings going on, they just don't know what or think anyone can/has found out yet.




Coyote has presented a fantastic point here, if nothing else at least for an RP angle. To add to his I say make it more apparent that life's end isn't answered, it's questionable in the Planescape setting.

As well, I think, as this one "in a game where the vast majority of the play takes place without game master supervision, you need to just let some things slide."

[*Mr_Otyugh]

To that extent, I'd say people would likely be afraid of change, or what people think of them. Heck people can be afraid from moving one place to another distant place, or having a surgery, or presentation. None of these are lethal ^{(depending on surgery of course)} and they're still things that can invoke physical reactions of fear and anxiety. And some of them might even view death as less frightening option since they don't need to deal with the aftermath anymore.

The thing is, your soul will live on, but is your soul exactly the same as you? You'll lack an entire physical manifestation which honestly is a pretty big part of you. You'll abandon all that you know, friends and your possession, place you live in, and flutter around into some distant plane and start over to spend an eternity in there, dealing with it? Raise Dead, Resurrection and heck, even Reincarnation spells only work if the subjects soul is willing. If the afterlife was such a nice place, why'd they accept? Despite the certainty of afterlife, I think it'd be one of the worst days of your existence.

[*Trigonometry]

I just finished a year long campagin for the fey plot Arelia run. Props for the work. it was fun.
That said, its also another thing that took that long that tried to involve the entire server, but basicly very few cared it was going on and the impact its left afterwards feels watered down.

I can explain why this happened from the perspective of someone who was one of those players that did not get involved. Besides the Bazaar getting blown up one day, nobody knew this was going on, at least of the people that I play with. When the Bazaar did get blown up, the official story was that there was an aspect of the Raven Queen that got flayed by the Lady and the invading army that got brought in turned tail. And besides hearing of a group that went after the retreating army (and some sort of fey prince), I did not hear anything else of any particular significance.

Now ask yourself this question, why would someone who was not invested in this plot from the start get involved at that point? It seems like almost everything has met some sort of resolution, and there isn't any actual incentive for most characters to join. I can see a lot of Indeps actually wanting to strike back at whoever decided to blow up their Bazaar, assuming they know that they're still kicking, but for me it was one of those instances where there was an event going on that I didn't want to join just because there was an event. For my characters there was no motivation to join because if there was anything going on that would actually affect them they were not informed of it, by either chant, players or NPCs. I also didn't interact very often with the main group that was pursuing this plotline. Barbatos may have not joined regardless since he's a Sinker Accelerationist, but Kars is one of those characters that can very easily be dragged into almost any event if there's the promise of pay by virtue of being a Taker. However, it appeared as if the main group had it under control if they didn't have to recruit more people.

There's plenty of people who are going to join an event because it's an event, but there's also a lot of people who won't join an event if it doesn't make sense for their character to join. It's why from my experience in other servers, usually if one wants to create an event that involves the entire server, it has to be something that in some way threatens the status quo of most people on that server, some in good and some in bad ways. It actually makes it so not everyone has to work together too because some characters might actually want whatever bad thing is looming over the server to happen. (Even if it's likely that it won't happen since enforcing whatever changes world threatening events usually bring about could sometimes mean huge changes in server lore or entire devastated landscapes. Or both.) However, just the fact that there's these opposing factions generates RP, with usually the only problem being that people focus more on -winning- rather than -storytelling- which generates Drama. I'd like to point out that in every story there is some sort of conflict, because a story without conflict is boring.

[*Artifice]

That said, its also another thing that took that long that tried to involve the entire server, but basicly very few cared it was going on and the impact its left afterwards feels watered down.

To be fair, from my perspective, I wasn't told anything was happening until it was all over and the Bazaar was rubble. I guess it's easy to say that it tried to involve the entire server. But when you don't make Unseelie Fey aware of plots involving Unseelie Fey...

[*Tomekk]

That said, its also another thing that took that long that tried to involve the entire server, but basicly very few cared it was going on and the impact its left afterwards feels watered down.

Yeah, feel much the same as the people above. There were very few publicly announced events last summer, and the rest were sporadic and rarely tried to involve anyone new... so don't expect major interest if people don't even know when most of the lead up happened.

[*Ariella]

I been holding off posting in this thread and really I feel like I should continue to do so as mostively it be an explosive perception how certain things are driving players away and no moves toward keeping them--

---

For the one bit of constructive, as a player, currently events run on the server leave absolutely no passive impact. Stories you participate in just become a flavor of monster of the month, soon forgotten with no evidence it happened.

Battle of Salt. Whats that? Why did it happen? Why is there no petrified remains in the Plane of Salt with some overview to the story that took so long to happen? Wel a few pcs remember it but when you go explain to somebody why its important it matters very little to some other player, as it continues to not have anything do with the current setting now or affect anyone.

Hand full of players that got on tail end of that basicly got some custom plot weapons to deal with the threat and continue to keep them to use for rp use afterwards. Anyone in a faction got rewarded a automatic bump up in promotions. --((personaly it done quite a bit to promote my own characters story in the role of factioneer but!)) that dont apply for anyone else that particpated nor any players or characters that come in afterwards. They look at this server and go "why should I particpate in plots if its not represented as changing a part of the server?

--

I just finished a year long campagin for the fey plot Arelia run. Props for the work. it was fun.
That said, its also another thing that took that long that tried to involve the entire server, but basicly very few cared it was going on and the impact its left afterwards feels watered down.

Hardly anyone knows why it happened, for what purpose or what end result was other then the bazaar getting squashed (as a reason to get the updated area in).
Im nit pick for a moment here that all the rp and donations that went into "rebuilding" the bazaar got far as I know, none of the promised events to make players feel like they was actualy particpating, happened.

Humans are creatures that like satisfiy needs, and recogniztion for doing something rp or oocly goes a long ways toward retention. Either by providing the requesting events or offering a reward.

You no idea how happy I was as a player to get a "rock" from an event that had a small minor custom thing to represent something had happened.

--Anyhow this is just a minor thought bubble of some the things Iv wanted to say to this thread. Perhaps there should be in the suggestions" How can we improve events for you to make them engaging and memorable."

This is something i feel strongly about and something the team is working on doing more of in the future. The fey plot was a testing of the waters if you will, that will lead to some improvements in the 2017 Mega plot. Some other events such as "Expansion Of The Triumvirate" have received builder interest and will end up altering the game world. However we are limited by builder time and interest in this so unfortunately not every big plot or player run event will have a chance to change the game world.

That said if you want to make a change IC and can find someone willing to do the builder work, It is something the staff will consider. There is no promises as there are a lot of aspects we have to consider but it would be considered and voted upon.

Also we are working (slowly) on integrating some new DM tools in 2017 that will not only make running events easier but will allow EM/DMs to create more flavored rewards and props IG.