Tether polarization

Teani

After a discussion last night, I figured I'd write something up to see what more opinions and ideas float around out there. This concerns the way events in the game always seem to push people to conform to one of the two aspects of the game and what they are "supposed" to be about.

Shadow tether is considered to be the evil masterminds who want to take over the world, enslave everyone in it, open up portals to the chaos plane, let loose the horrors and watch the world burn, all the while laughing smugly as disaster follows.

The Spirit tether is the opposite, naturally, where people should free the world, kill the evil, win the girl... no, wait, that's not necessarily the right thing, but you get the point!

Well, not all players, after what they have experienced in the game, want to conform to those extreme ideals. I'm not saying there should be pure neutrality in the game, but there should at least be some gray area and events that don't necessarily push those specific aspects. Most players have had interactions with slavers (from the introduction) so it's quite natural for them not to like slavery. Adding that element into this recent conflict in the Three Widows area at least made me pause. My character's options (and probably that of many others) are:

1) Assist the Atav to enslave the people of Three Widows
2) Assist the rest against the new threat of the Atav.
3) Stay out of the conflict.

Now, my character has been running quests in Three Widows for a good while, helping the people there since the beginning. Why would she suddenly turn against them for new people she hasn't been introduced to? Why would she enslave the people she can earn gold from? No, the first option doesn't seem feasible.

If she helps the rest of the people against the Atav, she will find herself fighting against Bloodloch. Sure, perhaps nothing she will mind overly much, but it will cause some trouble with general relations as she lives in Spinesreach and they're supposed to be allies (sort of). Option 2, therefore, is not that feasible either.

So she should stay out of the conflict, right? But this means that Enorian or Duiran might have a stronghold ally close to Spinesreach, and they are not allies. So in order to protect her city from a potential threat, she has to do something, and in this case it means suddenly going against all reason and joining the slavers.

If this had instead been a border conflict it would have been more of a gray area. It wouldn't necessarily have meant that it's related to tether. Imagine for a moment the Atav saying, "You've pushed us up on this little mountain for far too long! We're tired of it and want more space!" and the rest responds with "You had your attempts to rule before. Now it's our turn to decide!" This would have pushed less for the extremes of Shadow vs Spirit.

There were other thoughts and ideas floating around during that discussion. I'm sure others have some too. Yes, I know that there -are- characters who play these extremes, but not everyone, and I doubt it's the majority. Maybe I'm wrong though.

As a sidenote, I love the Three Widows area in general. It's got flavor. Personally I would just have preferred if the enslavement aspect of the conflict hadn't been added.

Serrice

Hard decisions need to be made! I'm sure Enorian would like every event to not end in ARTIFICE either.

Riluo

Shadow is not evil we are trying to give you strength and immortality. It is the light who acts against us and rejects our kind gifts etc etc >:)

/forum rp concluded

Toz

Serrice said:

Hard decisions need to be made! I'm sure Enorian would like every event to not end in ARTIFICE either.

I'm still waiting on the Duinorian split!

Zsadist

Toz said:

I'm still waiting on the Duinorian split!

Thats never going to happen. They arent strong enough to survive on their own against 2 other cities. Then again, with the deterioration of the game the way it is, neither is BL or Spines. Plus they'd lose their RP partners and we cant have that! No sir, lifer side big on RP. LOL.

I dont mind the extremes, what I mind is how whoever wins (Lifer side obviously) is going to shape the way the lore and area works in the future. Seems a bit one sided, especially when the darkie side cant hold up to an army of 15 scrubs... and I think everyone knew that was going to happen.

All in all though, at least theres some actual activity outside the blanket rp lameness of cities/havens. So I'm somewhat content.

Satomi

I can see this event working out a few ways for the Carnifex, based on what I am hearing about it.
1. Assist the Atav because Shadow Power.
2. Assisting the rest against the Atav because being able to fight that sort of thing off would be quite the show of strength, no?
3. Assisting the Atav because, whether you win or lose, the Ultimate goal of strength is achieved.
4. Assisting the rest against the Atav because of the reasons in point 3
5. Blar blar fight fight fun fun? (Yay chaos)

The point of the matter is that black and white is an illusion... but god forbid I fight against Spinesreach/Bloodloch. I'll likely get pimp slapped by Shadow Forces despite justification and stripped of various levels of rank and status.. so for my own sanity's sake.. I am just going to either not participate, or do my own thing when everyone is asleep. (likely the former, as per the usual)... or I'll just really want to do something and I'll just join the Shadow side of stuff.
See? I've got options!

Fezzix

I've been playing the game for almost a year now, and I'm starting to see a problem with how polarizing these PVP events tend to be from an RP perspective. During the Vortex event, the Aztob wanted to merge the Chaos Plane with the Prime Material Plane, while the Demonsbane simply opposed the Aztob. Currently, the Skythrone event has the Atav, a group of religious zealots, using their Divine Right to enslave the local populace of innocent villagers. The villagers, meanwhile, simply don't want to be enslaved, and therefore oppose the Atav.

I'm seeing a trend here that shows how the Shadow Tether factions in these events tend to be one-dimensionally "evil," which is terrible for most of the characters in Spinesreach. With the Vortex event, half the Syssin and a majority of the Cabalists opposed the Aztob because the RP behind the faction was so decidedly crazy. Now with the Skythrone conflict, more than half of Spinesreach is abstaining for the same reasons.

I think that if the admin want to encourage full out conflict between the tethers, they should put a little more effort into writing the lore behind the warring NPC factions. Put some moral grey area in there instead of making one side "evil" and the other side "opposing evil." Doing things this way is putting the "good guys" at a clear advantage, since their faction's RP is far easier for the Spirit Tether to rally behind, while the more neutral Shadow Tether players are (I'm assuming) meant to side with the opposition but don't thanks to their own RP reasons.

I appreciate all the work and lore that @Dristin has written for this game. That's a massive workload for one person, and I'm happy with all the rich lore we're getting. However, there are fewer and fewer people on the Shadow Tether who are outright "evil," and the way events are being written, the conflict will remain pretty one-sided unless things change. Please, please, please write stories that will appeal to what the playerbase -is- instead of what you want it to be.

Toz

That's already being handled wonderfully by the admin IG from what I hear, @Fezzix.

In the future, hopefully it'll start less black-and-white good v evil, but it's a great start!

Avishai

While I already did put alot of my thoughts in events to @Fezzix for his post privately with personal frustrations as well as agreements, I also wish to echo @Toz that hopefully its less black and white, I think we as players are really absolutely done with the Good v Evil and tethers, I think alot of the RP should be given back to the players to suss out rather than having it hard lined.

That being said Three Widows is a beautiful area and I love this event, im sorry to those who are stuck in a weird place, I see plenty of reason why a dark side person would dislike a slaver...

Faerah

Avishai said:

I see plenty of reason why a dark side person would dislike a slaver...

Zsadist

I think the problem is more this:

Hardly anyone wants to actually PLAY a bad guy... an evil guy. They just wanna PRETEND to be a bad guy. Yes, being a legit bad guy is rough because you have to go against the grain of what is morally acceptable... and most people have a hard time accepting/doing things that are actually evil. So instead, people walk a line between morally wrong and morally right.

So the darkie side has people who want to be bad, but want to be good too... while lifer side is more "I'm a straight good guy."

Then again, this is more my opinion based on personal observation.

Faerah

What about the people who don't "pretend" to be anything, but instead actively choose to be morally gray? I think I get what you're trying to say, but the way you phrased it sounded like all morally gray people are just pretenders which... I can say from playing a morally gray character by choice is an inaccurate observation.

Zsadist

In my mind, the morally gray are the ones who walk both sides of good/evil, but will bend easier in one direction or another. Lately though, it seems that everyone would rather bend to the easier side (Good) rather than the harder side (Evil) of things, simply because its easier and theres less demoralization against everyone else they play with.

Dont get me wrong, players will play the way they want to play and thats all well and good.... but when it comes to good v evil, I think a majority of the players will choose good, even if they play morally gray characters. Which doesnt help those who actually want to play evil, because we need to account for IG alliances and whatnot in order to succeed with our goals.

Now, my viewpoint might be biased, because I do my best to play an elitist evil vampire.... it just seems there's less people who want to be evil and more people who prefer the gray->good direction side of things.

Edit: Keep in mind, this is all just observation, speculation, and opinion on my part and in no way am I digging at anyone in how they play their character(s).

Fezzix

Zsadist said:

.... but when it comes to good v evil, I think a majority of the players will choose good, even if they play morally gray characters.

Therein lies the problem, as stated in my post. The "evil" factions are so far to that side of the spectrum that they're unappealing to anybody in the grey area. Now, if a "good" faction were to come around that were so far to that side of the spectrum, maybe the situation would be reversed.

So far, however, the "good" factions haven't been so much "good" as they've just been plain "normal." The Demonsbane say, "Uhh, we don't want Chaos to overrun the Prime Material." The Three Widows villagers say, "Uhh, we don't want to be slaves." That's why I said in my post that it's not "good versus evil;" it's "evil versus not evil."

Satomi

I can say right here that my character's motivations for this event would work whether she chose to side with the Atav or the villagers. It has nothing to do with fighting slavers or enslaving people. In the end, I guess it would be considered a 'gray' area, but it is 100% a Guild motivation. Has nothing to do with morals.

(Now that I actually kinda know wtf is going on in this event lol)

Jensen

I RP as evil/self serving/ and cruel most of the time, but the problem is this is a game. I don't want to make this game harder (unfun) for other players unless there is a very good reason to do so. I offer help to people even if there isn't an RP reason to do so, I avoid robbery even though I know I'm good at it, and like everyone else I'm bound to pk laws.

Alexina

My favourite vampire roleplaying game has the struggle of a declining humanity as one of its core thematics. After so many centuries, why would you still care if the one you fed on died? After so many schemes and ploys and enemies, why would you trust? With all the vultures circling your power holdings, how is it possible to show weakness?

Kill a man, and you are horrified of the depths you would sink to. Kill a thousand, and you are horrified that life no longer holds any value.

Just a tangent, but I enjoy themes with shades of gray. It's interesting to see in which direction a character develops if they possess a moral ambiguity from the start. Not good or evil, just a person that tries to come to terms with what they are and fit into a ruthless society; you can become the feral, raw apex predator, the manipulative spider at the center of the web, or even a pentient monster. In Aetolia, you pick a side. You're polarized from the moment you pick a city. It's not a bad thing necessarily, and there's still room for creative interpretation, but I thoroughly enjoy the sandbox feel of regular tabletop roleplaying games a lot more. There's enough room for the small things to matter, the quirks, the glaring personality flaws, the redeeming traits, etc.