What RP or Story servers do you play?Are they becoming obsolete?

[Legacy_Azador]

               

SuperFly_2000 wrote...

They are not obsolete. Just stale, pretended and boring.

In my personal opinion, I find that roleplay servers only become stale and boring when dynamic player interaction with the world is either ignored or impossible. Oftentimes it can be quite immersion breaking when a character's choices are neatly sidestepped or ignored in favor of a DM's arbitrary decision or opinion on something.

On servers where major NPCs or player characters characters never die, cities never fall (or are founded for that matter), and monsters and villains never truly change or go away, just to name a few examples... this can lead to an exceedingly stale and repetitive experience. In time a server becomes to feel less like an interactive world and more like a gallery, where you are looking in on a world run by DMs, but one that you cannot truly interact with - and all dynamic change is carefully quarantined to the playerbase rather than spreading to living NPCs and locations as well. This 'stale and boring' feeling can be amplified by crushing mechanics that punish players because of a distrust for the playerbase or a prejudice against the rare, but oft-insulted 'power-gamer,' causing 'statistical' character development to come to a screeching halt.

This is one of my primary motivations for developing the Border Kingdoms, which is a server that will have a strong focus on small and large world changes based on in-game decisions made by player-characters. Rather than the archetypical DM campaign that involves players, players will create their own story arcs that DMs will strongly support, on top of featuring the traditional roleplaying fun of setting out into the wilderness and slaughtering the various indigenous species of the world.
/end shameless plug

As far as 'elitism' goes - it is definitely a hugely negative factor that is very real. However, it should be said that the absolutely best experiences come from roleplayers who create real, believable, living characters. When said players put lots of effort into crafting a strong, highly-immersive character, it can feel off-putting when the guy next to them is playing a caricatured story trope. This is where you get the negative aspects of elitism, where said 'good' roleplayers turn their noses up at those they feel are inferior to them. This can be devastating to a community. A truly 'elite' roleplayer, in my opinion, not only can play a variety of interesting, lifelike characters, but also can recognize their own flaws AND offer constructive criticism to those that they feel are in need of improvement. In this way, everyone benefits: the 'lesser' roleplayer gains useful tips and improves their skills, the 'elitist' doesn't come off like a ******, and instead becomes a community pillar.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Azador, 09 mai 2011 - 10:21 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_SuperFly_2000]

               

Azador wrote...
In my personal opinion, I find that roleplay servers only become stale and boring when dynamic player interaction with the world is either ignored or impossible..

I am not talking about the players interaction with the world. I am talking about the players interaction with themselves.

Azador wrote...
A truly 'elite' roleplayer, in my opinion, not only can play a variety of interesting, lifelike characters, but also can recognize their own flaws AND offer constructive criticism to those that they feel are in need of improvement. In this way, everyone benefits: the 'lesser' roleplayer gains useful tips and improves their skills, the 'elitist' doesn't come off like a ******, and instead becomes a community pillar.

A truly elite roleplayer would even refrain from making comments about other people roleplaying. Especially in a game world which constitutes players that have played on similar servers for like 6 years on and off.

Instead they would be concetrating on being IC and not going OOC for trivial matters and especially not bickering about what is RP or not...generally.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par SuperFly_2000, 09 mai 2011 - 10:51 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Azador]

               

SuperFly_2000 wrote...
I am not talking about the players interaction with the world. I am talking about the players interaction with themselves.

I think this is the heart of the matter, though. If dynamic change does not exist, stale, formulaic interaction will follow. It's symptomatic of a larger issue.

A truly elite roleplayer would even refrain from making comments about other people roleplaying. Especially in a game world which constitutes players that have played on similar servers for like 6 years on and off.

Instead they would be concetrating on being IC and not going OOC for trivial matters and especially not bickering about what is RP or not...generally.

I can understand what you mean. Too often, constructive criticism is misinterpreted as personal attack, which can be slated as elitism, even if the intentions are noble. Really, this discussion boils down to the type of server being played on - a hardcore roleplay server would expect roleplaying quality to be one of the most important matters in order to keep immersion alive. In this sense it is not a trivial matter at all. Going 'ooc' about it would realistically only happen in between sessions as a friendly communal discussion in the interest of improving everyone's fun.

The other option which is unfortunately a common one is to essentially ignore players who aren't up to one's 'standards.' This is how elitist cliques are formed and how communities begin to split apart. When you are playing on a server with people who's roleplaying skill levels are all over the place, both 'sides' (the quality roleplay camp and the relaxed roleplay camp) have to make compromises for a community to stay together.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SuperFly_2000]

               It's good we understand each other :-P

I might just be frustrated cause I can't find a good server that fits me at the moment :-P
....with that relaxed roleplaying you where talking about (but still not an uber ultra gear PvP server).
               
               

               

                     Modifié par SuperFly_2000, 09 mai 2011 - 11:54 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_NWN DM]

               

TSMDude wrote...

Aelis Eine wrote...


In the case of TSM, the impression I got was that the rules are long and the tone of the entry quiz gave a sense of elitism. I may be missing out, but there are many similarities between PWs with such an entry design, and I found them not to my taste.

LOL...that is or was Legends of Luruar not TSM in its present condtion. You are more than welcome to check out the new TSM but I warn you we are slow leveling and very intense role playing...but no entry quiz I assure, lol.

Hmmm... yeah anyone who sets out to crap on someone else's efforts, should at least point their log in the right direction.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

NWN DM wrote...
Hmmm... yeah anyone who sets out to crap on someone else's efforts, should at least point their log in the right direction.

Nice one-liner troll as always

But

1) He did admit it was true, just that TSM had changed since then, and the subject of servers changing has been brought up earlier in the topic.

2) I wasn't even trying to "crap on" TSM lol?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_TSMDude]

               

Azador wrote...
The other option which is unfortunately a common one is to essentially ignore players who aren't up to one's 'standards.' This is how elitist cliques are formed and how communities begin to split apart. When you are playing on a server with people who's roleplaying skill levels are all over the place, both 'sides' (the quality roleplay camp and the relaxed roleplay camp) have to make compromises for a community to stay together.

Story time...we have 3 or 4 players join last year as a group. They were in a sense runners as we call them. They rped a bit but would never be the kind to sit in a tavern or go see their clergy or anything of the type. it was all about battle, loot and progression with only rp happening in dungeons.

Now the thing is two of them were rping on the forums and were writing brillant stories and interactions. Somehow though it was not translating that we also needed that IN GAME as well.

So instead of ignoring them we jumpe don them with our own PCs by including them in all the nonactiony stuff. We did a play, a costume contest, and even some fun silly things like the time they went out to save what they thought was a little girl who climbed into a tree and the tree walked away with her in its branches...

Slowly they started to come around...they stopped running they opened up...they became pretty darn good role players. Two became excellent rpers actually and one moved on to become a QL for us while the the last one went looking for a different type of more 'actiony diet rp" server as he called it.

The point is that everyone can become a role player when given a chance. Not everyone becomes a Stud QL or Stud Builder or Awesome Scripter but everyone can be a good rper when you think of all the comic books, movies, and fantasy books we have all devoured over the years.

The orginal OP said that he was wondering if RP Servers were on the decline? In a way but also I think it is a boon that they are becoming more refined and even a increase in cooperation between PWs is becoming apprent.

While NWN numberwise of new players is on the decline I see a huge rise in quality work and I think the rp itself is begining to climb as well as we need a escapism from reality like a alcholic needs a drink...speaking of which  am out of beer...toodles!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_muvs32]

               I have really enjoyed reading this thread and agree with some and disagree with others points of view without feeling offended in anyway. I rarely choose to be offended when talking about a game though.

I cannot really speak to any specific server in addressing this but RP servers have become, by and large, obsolete for me. The reasons being are due to all the gamey qualities obscuring my perspective of game worlds. They most always lack any XP expense or any other handicap for using magic: when I play a magic user I just become increasingly more powerful and there is usually no negative qualities associated with being a caster class, such as rest restrictions to bring them inline with any RPG system I am familiar with. When rest for spells is not any real issue then any magic user is therefore unbalanced IMO. Most all RPG's besides Munchkin (which is what PnP players refer to NwN'ers as:) have caster classes balanced due to XP/component cost and rest restrictions. Take these elementary rules out and It is no wonder that there is a prevailing rule that casters are more numerous then any other classes...or worse, most all PCs are multi-classed as to use magic as there is little benefit, actually none at all except RP wise not to.

Next, pure warrior classes all but castrated in relative term to casters.: It only makes RP sense to play a warrior class in NwN, the engine is just out of whack. Fighters were able to level a bit quicker and did not need to rest ext. so they were an almost if not totally necessary part of any party and could hold their own in a campaign/adventure. Due to the summons (usually being overpowered) and no rest restricts. there is little need to have a fighter along with your party of wizards. Why pay a fighter to split the loot if your just going to have to hea land buff him and other crap. It's an OOC notion to create a balanced party on most NwN pws and mods cause casters can do it all. Fighter being usually dogmeat if not using potions or being buffed before battle by a mage they don't know from a can of paint is IMO also too silly to promote good "real fantasy world" type RP.

Little diversification: Back when only a humans could dual-class more players played humans, how about that! Since there is very little to lose from mulit-classing (the XP hit being a non-issue for most part) or any upside to playing some pathetic old human there is a noticeable lack of interest in players wanting to play them. This is more easily measured on some worlds then others. Having too many elves and dwarves and other such sub-races running around has diluted most any feeling of wonderment or the unknown for me. My suspension of disbelief is reduced to near nil when I see a world populated with anime elves with big swords running around. I have also noticed a preference for the munchkin/powerbuild usage of the R.D.D. class, and mostly on RP servers sadly...and how does RDD even make sense as a class? Or are these PC's just insane and only believe they are scion of dragonblood? But then they do get abilities, feats and wings so I guess it's a class and not a race though a race would make more infinitely more sense to me. And RDD for more reasons then build would make sense too! I blame Salvatore for most of the elf and Drowification though and can completely understand players wanting to reflect their preference for it but it is not for me and so it is a bit more unlikely that I will be as engrossed in a like game world.

I DMed and prefer a world inspired more on Tolkien then FR. Truth is though that with their passion and dedication the FR servers are some of the best built worlds and ones with the best core of players. That's just too damned bad for me, ain't it.

I would not come along and suppose anything should change just because I prefer something different. That would be pompous and disrespectful on my part and I'd rather just take it for what it is. I have decided to join a PnP game and to find an outlet for my RP desires. It is said that birds of a a feather flock together and is probably the biggest reason that not just RP servers but NwN as a whole is quickly becoming more and more obsolete for me.