When attempting to convince a couple friends to give DR a try I kept running into an obstacle. Specifically, I have no idea where to point them to get a general, broad overview of the setting, i.e. what are the things someone born and raised in the setting would know? These are pretty important things when it comes to building a character concept as well as not just appearing extremely ignorant during day to day roleplay when things a character should know (like the fact that there's a Prince ruling Zoluren, or there was a zombie apocalypse not too long ago) pop up in conversation.

Awhile back I posted about this in the Event folder for ideas and now I'm finally getting off my butt to actually do the project, which is here for now: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/User:THAYET/Sandbox

So why am I posting this...well, it's big and I need help. There's also big gaps in information that upon consideration I'm not sure of. So I'd like both player and GM input if possible.

Example: Tech level and culture have been touched on in the past and I've thrown up my impressions of it into the document for now. I'm specifically curious about things like legal rights, how the social classes shake out, how justice works for a peasant vs a noble both in general and in specific places. For example, right now you can march into the slums of Zoluren and murder poor people enmasse and steal their stuff and nobody bats an eye at that, which implies a lot about general social inequality, human(-equivalent) rights, and how the law is applied unevenly. How do the guilded fit into this? Are they like a quasi-merchant class was circa Renaissance, with some social and legal powers/privileges but notably less than the nobility?

I can write all day about what I think is going on based on what I've pieced together, but it would be great to get some canon down on paper about stuff like this. So any help is appreciated for this or any other part of the document anyone would care to pop in and write about.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

Oh like the secret of...

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things

>For example, right now you can march into the slums of Zoluren and murder poor people enmasse and steal their stuff and nobody bats an eye at that

To be honest, our characters kill hundreds of thousands of everything, so I just completely handwave hunting.

If it was possible to lock 1 weapon per kill (even if it still took 5+ minutes per), as well as everything else, and loot value per minute was the same, I'd love to only kill a few things a day. Makes a bit more sense than going hunting for an hour and killing off the entire population of the Falkland Islands.

I only bring it up to say that I don't read a lot into the social (in)justice in Zoluren because of it. The nature of DR forces us to be genociders who clear-cut and strip-mine.

>That they exist to kill (numbers aside) with no apparent social or legal repercussions isn't something you can simply handwave away.

The problem (literally) with this stance is that you, the player-character, will kill things at volumes and rates which are simply so insane, you have to handwave them. You're selectively focusing, and it's just as silly as complaining about my handwaving.

In defense of players... the louts will do the same to players given the chance. They just lack the skill.

-Raesh

"It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to BE itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true." ― The Slow Regard of Silent Things

IMO, worrying about killing louts and other sentient creatures is a level of 'realism' akin to having to eat or die. It's just one of those things that gets hand waved in games because otherwise it would be silly. I'm not going to worry about it, and I've always rolled my eyes OOCly at anyone who has tried to make a deal about it in game.

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>I personally disagree with where you're drawing that line. Sapient creatures are there on purpose, and if we didn't want the option we could've made them box-carrying oozes instead.

Is this a valid topic to agree to disagree about? I personally wave off most of it because of the reasons I've already explained. Slaughtering a goblin, or other sentient/sapient monster, isn't hugely different to me than a player-race NPC.

>>I'm not saying people who want to RP that killing a lout makes them evil are doing it wrong. Go ahead and do that. Just don't bring me into it.

Curious. If we ever decided to bring NPC vigilantes out to protect the poor, would that be good or bad RP? On one hand I feel compelled to respect that if a scene is too intense/disturbing/whatever it's okay to disengage from it, but on the other it's a bit like hitting a giant "ABORT" button on participation too. Which may be necessary sometimes, granted.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

>Nothing forces anyone to hunt louts.

Gangs of murderous louts relentlessly ambushing me on my way to work? Until we had the gate installed they tried to murder every student at the front door of the Moon Mage guild. It's likely the louts prey upon anyone living in the Middens as well. I've never understood the contrarian nature of those trying to defend them. Louts aren't the victims here. They aren't just innocent peace loving poor people. There's plenty of poor people in Elanthia and the majority of them don't stalk and try to kill everyone they come across on sight.

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>>I don't think killing louts is really worse than most of the other sapient creatures we kill.

Decent point, it's just thrown in stark relief because there's no fantasy racism involved ("Oh, they're goblins, they don't count as people."). I would totally throw the critique open to all sapients, not just louts.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

I'm someone who definitely handwaves all the hunting and killing, no matter if what I am hunting is a lout or an ooze. For me, psychologically, a MOB is a MOB. A lout behaves exactly the same as a goblin (minus little things like using stealth). They spawn the same and pile onto me the same without any provocation on my part. They fight to the death like a MOB; they keep showing up in droves no matter how many I have killed, and it has no actual repercussions in game either legally, socially, or whatever; they don't speak or respond to speech, like any other MOB.

I understand that there are a lot of mechanical limitations involved, but the bottom line is that just describing something as a person and making them non-skin-able, isn't enough for me, personally as a player, to feel differently about them than any other "critter" in the game, when in every other aspect they behave the same.

<<Curious. If we ever decided to bring NPC vigilantes out to protect the poor, would that be good or bad RP? On one hand I feel compelled to respect that if a scene is too intense/disturbing/whatever it's okay to disengage from it, but on the other it's a bit like hitting a giant "ABORT" button on participation too. Which may be necessary sometimes, granted.

You mean like an invasion? It would kind of suck that it's in a hunting area, and would provide incentive to not hunt there even if people didn't entirely stop hunting there. See the effect the NTR invasions have on the incentive to not afk outside the gates, for an example with precedent. Curbing afk behaviour is reasonable, but curbing interest in a hunting area is murky.

If you mean like a one-on-one interaction with a generic NPC type character then I would probably assume it was a script check. And if you mean a named GMNPC interaction, then unfortunately you've just summoned the entire GM-chasing player-base to my hunting spot.

To be honest, if I'm in a hunting area then it means I'm hunting and probably don't want to be bothered. At the very least not be forced to leave the hunting area. I'd probably be more annoyed bit it than anything else. If it was decently RP'd then it might still be welcomed by some who are so inclined, especially if they didn't have to leave when it was done. I.e. not Theren-style RP where they show up in the middle of your hunt and point-blank try to kick you out of your hunting area.

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Goblins are people too, ICly, by any sane metric, just to throw that out there. But again: this all says something about the setting that people do this and make excuses for it ICly. Which is something a setting document should cover.

On the RP front, you can say whatever you want to justify it, but a) if you do it, you did it, ICly "mobs" are not a thing, it's a person and b) killing a human being then going through his pockets and taking his stuff is still not an excellent value-neutral thing to do that isn't quite covered by "well he started it, it was self-defense." That there is no social or legal repercussion for walking into someone else's neighborhood kitted up for a fight then later saying "it was self-defense, heh heh" also says something about the setting, which is the meat of what I was trying to get at.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

>>Primeq: I acknowledge that it is poor RP to refer to going to the Middens to "hunt". People who do that, as far as I can tell, simply aren't reacting to the fact that their mob is a humanoid, and/or they don't care that much about RP. Mob = there to hunt = hunted. Not much thought put to it. However, I think it is a little bit disingenuous to try to paint the adventurer class as casual murderers of the poor when this behavior is really just poor RP. . . . I would suggest hand-waving the people who, in any sane world, would be rounded up by the law. We can't do it because they are paying players, not because there's a culture of casual violence toward commoners.

Well stated.

Although commoners have few rights in this setting, I don't think we are intended to believe that Elanthian society (and its justice systems) are indifferent to psychopaths "hunting" people for training and loot.

What we have is the result of several factors:
• Players who are flatly uninterested in role-playing.
• A lack of ability and/or desire among players to examine the ethical implications of their characters' actions.
• An unwillingness to impose harsh IC consequences on paying customers for playing the game.
• The difficulty many players have in taking the setting seriously in the absence of mechanical incentives and punishments. (See, for example, indifference toward necromancy despite the lore's unambiguous and unqualified view that necromancy is inherently dangerous.)

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For a cleric there is a nice niche area in fighting undead and leaving the living alone as much as possible. We can ignore most of the stuff and just be about the work of the god's fighting undead/evil and necromancy. No need to go hunt wolves, kill living thugs and misguided marauders that are human gypsies.... Leave the live folk to argue about what it is ok to put down or kill, and just focus on the stuff that is already dead or at least part way there.

The issue of the louts is also one of poor mechanics, and I too think we should handwave it away.  Because not doing so means we have to consider the consequences other related things, forcing us to consider in game events in ways that are almost certainly not intended.

I want to make it perfectly clear – I am not bashing the Events Team. I've been really happy with a number of the events lately. But, mechanically it's difficult to deal with this situation and I think failing to handwave this is a nasty rabbit hole to go down.

For example, the main unintended consequence of failing to handwave this is that we must conclude that Zoluren is on the verge of being a failed state, if it isn't already. That the government is completely unable to exert any kind of authority, policing, or defense of its citizens.

* The louts attacked anyone moving back and forth between the keep and the Crossing for decades, with no action taken.
* The louts engaged in treason by aiding the attacks of the Elpalzi, both during the events leading up to the explosion of the keep and otherwise. Again, with no action taken, even years later.
* No defense of any type is mounted against any sort of invading forces by provincial authorities.
* No coronation or official appearance of the Prince has occurred, despite his reaching he age of majority.
* Only a token effort was made to reassert that the government was still functioning after the Keep was destroyed. No mass gatherings, no criers, and a reliance on players to spread the word after a few meetings.

Now, I can guess at the real reasons for all of this. Turning off the louts for invasion, an RP event dealing with the louts, crowds and criers and broadsheets present a low return on investment of time. NPC soldiers fighting the Elpalzi would be a lot of work for little effort, if it didn't introduce more problems. The GM staff is volunteer and shorthanded besides, and they've had lots of events they've been putting on without staging a Coronation besides. Put simply, it's not worth the time to worry about that stuff.

I get all that, and I'm not upset by that. It makes perfect sense. I was annoyed by the fact that despite my efforts to avoid hunting sapients (crocs-> vipers-> leucros-> guardians-> gryphons-> germish'din/dolomars-> warklins-> celpeze) I can't stop the louts from literally running face first into my rimefang when I'm defending against an invasion, but it's no big deal, so long as we handwave it.

However, if we're going to stop handwaving this (and as consequence, calling out characters that fought in the invasions that occurred out the east gate), then what rationale I'm supposed to use to determine what I'm supposed to ignore and what I'm not supposed to? I don't know how we can escape these natural consequences absent giving the window dressing of invasion mechanics a massive overhaul. And is that really worth it?

>For example, the main unintended consequence of failing to handwave this is that we must conclude that Zoluren is on the verge of being a failed state, if it isn't already. That the government is completely unable to exert any kind of authority, policing, or defense of its citizens.

Last I checked the province's main keep was a pile of rubble and the royal family is basically couch surfing so...probably.

role playing game. notice the third word, GAME.

-Munch-

The question isn't who's going to let me kill sapient creatures in DragonRealms;it's who's going to stop me.



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I think the lack of feel that there is a government in action is just due to a shortage of game staff. Love them or hate them, but there is a significant feel of government in action in Therengia. The orders there are very involved, the Baron makes somewhat regular appearances and does stuff. I wouldn't want to see those players lose anything, because they're really into it, but we can't deny that Zoluren is the most player populated province, and could do with more staff putting an effort into make the government and such there feel more an active part of Elanthian life.