Best Of

If I recall correctly, bio energy utilises finely focused shadow/ambient shadow to bring about changes in the body. Obviously, you can use it for positive changes (bio knitting) or for malicious purposes (mutagens). That might already put a big old question mark on its utilization for Dendara-related initiatives (though syssin itself as a neutral class already uses plenty of ambient shadow stuff), but I do understand the hopeful intent behind the suggestion.

I do dislike restrictions between cross-tether interactions and RP, though. It stymies a lot of growth to personal storylines or even larger city-related ones. I do hope that this thread does foster a bit more thinking and reflection though. Could we change mindsets to make the relations in the game more dynamic? It definitely is possible.

Hard disagree. I actually LOVE the idea of the "good guys" committing atrocities in the name of the light. That's actually really rad.

Aetolia is not meant to be "Good vs Evil", we are "Spirit vs Shadow."
Are there people who lean towards Good in the Spirit tether? Sure. But there are more than a few characters in Spinesreach who would, too.

Not all Spirit characters are intrinsically good, just as not all Shadow characters are intrinsically evil.

Example: Sibatti leans more towards evil than good, if you were to stack up her morals and compare them side by side. She hates undeath but thinks Sciomancers aren't fundamentally a bad idea. She hates slavery but probably wouldn't think twice about killing an innocent. To her, the "Good" parts are what benefit Duiran/Dendara, and a little bit herself.

Okay, I agree here too! I think you misread what I meant, which is that if 'good' characters are committing atrocities, then they don't deserve a clean protagonist win any more than Shadow does. Every character needs to face the consequences of what they do, and there is /no/ one in this game, org-wise, who is just free-and-clear morally correct from an objective standpoint. I love evil Spirit and good Shadow chars too!

What I'm talking about is the attitude I see from many others in which Spirit IS equated with 'Good'. And sometimes even with 'christian', which is a whole other bag of snakes.

As someone who I'm almost certain is being talked about when @Lenoriel mentions hearing Spirit friends complain about Spirit not getting a clean win, it's exactly as @Sryaen says. It's not at all that I don't want complex storytelling or that I don't want to play a character contemplating the weight of their choices. In fact, anyone who has ever rp'd with Rasani knows that's sort of my whole shtick, is rping that shit out.

The reality, though, is this isn't just a book where you can keep dragging along these characters to keep fighting because you and you alone control their destiny. This is a game. Like any game, video games, tabletop, any of it, sometimes a win should be a win and, in the time I've played, we have gotten very few true wins. Hell, part of the story right now, a major part that I'm enjoying roleplaying, is that Spirit has had the rug pulled out from under them and they are faced with literal atrocities they've committed because they believed Varian when he said All Albedi Are Bastards. If every win Spirit gets comes with this "hehe you won but also fuck you", then the players in turn will go "why bother" because they aren't just pieces to be moved around in a dollhouse, they're people.

All this to say: none of my complaints about this issue are with malice toward shadow players. Hell, I have quite a few people in shadow I consider very cool people, if not outright friends. It was frustration at, and I'll say it, lazy storytelling. Having a twist at the end of every event doesn't make it more interesting or complex. There's a reason the Shyamalan twist is an outright joke: when it's overused, it becomes cliche.

And since this is a tether conversation and I don't wanna be too off topic: A lot would have to change before tethers could go away. Yes, it would be awesome to allow more grey and complicated rp. And while I've been very open in the past, here and elsewhere, that my experience joining the game ages ago and trying shadow was less than welcoming, it's clear the community of aetolia and the culture has changed, which is fantastic! I'd LOVE to see a system where the players are less polarized, but an us vs them is a quick and easy story generator.

I don't have a solution, at least not one that I think would be adopted. But I DO think it's important, as always, to remember that people are behind the characters. If you're treating someone bad because they're playing someone your character might not like, that's shitty. This is supposed to be fun for all of us, and if you're having something that's frustrating you, just talk to the other player. Like, I know people might go "my immersion" but I promise you it really does make you a lot kinder to make sure the air is clear because, honestly, I feel like a lot of the animosity in our community is people assuming malicious intent from people who don't have it. Like, I promise that Carnifex doesn't hate you personally and I'm sure that Sentinel is just really in character.

I think some of the feelings from Spirit players (myself included), is that Spirit rarely (if ever) seems to get a clean win. It's always "Congratulations! You've won..! But at what cost?" And that's just a real slap in the face, especially when I've never been more thrilled to see Spirit players really show up in force and band together during the past two major conflicts.

See, this is the part I honestly just can't get behind. If the 'at what cost' is a sneaky hidden thing after you did everything right? Yeah that's not cool. But for things like this, where there are very real and very well-broadcasted potential negative side effects, it feels cheap to me when there are no consequences. The good guys should be always asking 'at what cost', otherwise they become equivalent to the Crusaders, committing atrocities in the name of the light. I really love the idea that no city is perfectly pure, no city is perfectly good, no city is perfectly right, and blindly following your God or city principles without considering that individual scenario's nuances should be responded to with plot consequences.

I really wish people could embrace the idea of complex storytelling, in which everything has a ripple effect, and you can do everything 'right' and it still not work out for you. People expect the misdeeds of Shadow to go badly for them or have long-reaching negative consequences... why not for Spirit, too?

Bad things happening is what makes fun RP possible.

I don't agree at all that the game is split into "good" and "evil". Every in-game culture, if viewed from the perspective of someone in that culture rather than the lens of IRL morality, is capable of being seen as 'good', and I think that that makes for compelling world building.

So there's an underlying issue here, and that's that we in real life have a set of morals that we hold dear, and those morals generally align with Spirit. That means that people on Spirit tend to get way more caught up in the attitude of 'we're the good guys, we should win things, any mixed results in an event other than a clearcut good guy win means that the rug's been pulled out from under us and we actually lost'. This is something I have witnessed, over and over and over, whereas I've never seen a Lochian hold on super tightly to the idea that their baby-killing Carnifex should have no rp consequences. In a very real sense, a large portion of Spirit sees Aetolia as a game that they *should* win because they are the protagonists, the good guys, the one saving the world. And that attitude might not be conscious, but it does take conscious effort to overcome.

I think Spinesreach has a well-defined cultural identity, but lacks a purpose for people to consistently rally around.

I agree! Science, nationalism and pride, shadow research, art, etc is a pretty strong culture, which is why it is thriving in numbers and RP. However, it lacks an external purpose. A reason to get involved in the battles of others. It's a blessing and a curse, because we've had some incredible events like the ice abominations, the Cogger, the Shadowsnake remnants, etc. that harness that intense nationalism and powerful research impetus... but they were internal events.

My issue with tethers really is once you join one, you are expected to behave a certain way. I will use this event again as example. When a couple of Spireans came to us about wanting to fight with us, most of us were shocked. It was unheard of for Spinesreach to do so. But it made sense. When there is a battle of life vs undeath, and the outcome of a fight could have a real effect on one way of existence, why would Spinesreach side with a city of primarily undead? It goes against their own self interests. Yet, because of fear of retaliation because Bloodloch is the stronger city (at least, that is the reason I was given) they had to step back.

Why would anyone in the City of Artifice help the two cities that destroyed almost all of Severn's shrines? For that matter, why would Duiran and Enorian ever accept Spinesreach's help after what happen with Bamathis, Severn, Haern, and Dendara?

In the same vein, if Bloodloch decides they need to recklessly draw more from the Shadow Plane to make manifest their dominion over Sapience, what would Spinesreach do?

I'd expect the Sciomancers to take it over, thinking they could handle it safely, and if they don't, the Archivists 100% would. But again, I have no real first-hand experience with what "recklessly draw more from the Shadow Plane" means, only some context.

Looking at this, and looking at the offer from Bloodloch for research into what was essentially a new field of magic, it made sense to be like "No, we should help them, not because they're our allies or because of the treaties or because ShAdOw-whatever, but because we stand to learn some new cool stuff from it, and that is, on paper, our schtick." Unfortunately, that's just really not what the city is. Spines doesn't have an identity right now strong enough to push us towards a singular goal. We're basically the Hufflepuff of Aetolian cities where "all the rest" go, and that makes it really difficult to involve ourselves in any sort of meaningful way in events.

I think Spinesreach has a well-defined cultural identity, but lacks a purpose for people to consistently rally around. It's the city that both studies and fights the Shadow, so if the Shadow isn't currently doing something, Spinesreach doesn't have much to do either. The other cities can actively pursue their purpose without constant admin support. That's one of the reasons why I think Spinesreach and Bloodloch's space within the Shadow tether needs to be defined more strongly. It would give Spinesreach a stronger sense for what it's supposed to be doing when there isn't a major event.