I was on some other mud the other day and via chatter through OOC channels, someone interested in PK/RP took a pop on here.

After about five seconds I heard:

"Drows have to stay evil to cast spells? What the ####? I'll kindly stay the hell away from this MUD."

I spent about five minutes trying to explain why 'Drizzt Syndrome' is gay, and why it would be unbalanced for a good non-rogue combo to have detect hidden, and other game balance and RP issues and then just finally gave up. They blanched at the idea of sending an e-mail to the imms, too.

This isn't the type of player we want, is it? I'm just checking. And if they are salvageable, how can I go about explaining this in a way that doesn't sound like it's impeding their freedom to have to spend literally 300 hours RPing to get by these restrictions? I understand it but they don't.

I'd try to explain to the person that dark-elves here (we explicitly don't call them drow.... we do need to find a better name for half-drow though) aren't necessarily what Salvatore or whoever wrote down. If they're really, really hooked on that and "drow" is the only thing they want to play, then we're probably going to drive them nuts. Some people are really into that series of books.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

If they feel restricted by pre-set alignment, is there anything I can do? I already tried pointing out the dire need for well-played typical stereotypes over the past few years.

1) I don't see us changing our stance on that. If anything, I'd like to see more cracking down on roleplay inconsistent with cultural expectations.

2) Far too many people try for those types of characters, relative to the number of people who can pull it off. The most popular excuse seems to be "I woke up one day, got helped by someone, and suddenly I saw the Light!".... except that a dark-elf's instincts would guide them towards "I woke up one day, got helped by someone.... sucker. I stole his lunch too." The root problem is that they try to enforce real-world guidelines onto fantasy creatures.

In the real world, people commit heinous crimes, (sometimes) go to jail, and (sometimes) come out with a better understanding of the nature of what they did wrong, and live a more moral life after that. However:

A) Dark-elves aren't humans. There's no reason to assume they'd be capable of the same kinds of changes. To use a real-world example, there are many animal species that have not been domesticated despite significant effort.... some animals can't learn to consider their owner as "not lunch". Dark-elves might have similar mental glitches regarding concepts of 'mercy' or 'forgiveness'.

B) The cultural differences between CF races would be expected to be much, much greater than between RL races. Not only do they clump in different communities, look different, have different histories.... but dark-elves evolved underground, were tainted by evil gods, are burned by a particular metal, can cause other being to glow, etc. Think of how strong cultural differences can be among RL humans who belong to the same ethnic group, grew up in similar socioeconomic strata, but grew up in different parts of the same country. Now multiply that by 1000. If I'm a dark-elf, am I ever going to want to sit and chat in Akan? Those scruffy bastards mine and forge freakin' mithril! Think of how much less agony would be in my life if someone swatted them dead!

C) Divine and/or magical influences are in play here, particularly with respect to dark-elves. In addition to the cultural and genetic issues, they're dealing with ancient curses and more.

D) Good and evil are more polarized in CF. Angels, demons, paladins, necromancers, and more all walk the lands. "Switching teams" is a much bigger step than going from "nice" to "not nice".

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

.

HAR!

Tell them that they can play neutral dark-elves on CF. They'll just have to go through all that crap Drizzt did on Salvatore's book to get to be neutral. Drizzts are not typical roles, they are challenging ones, and if you take a challenging role like that, you'll have to bear with all the crap that comes with it. It's realism, plain and simple.

Most of Salvatore's dark elves are evil too (thousands of evil drow there and one neutral Drizzt). Goodies will attack him, just like they attacked Drizzt, etc. Drizzt is a role that comes with taking crap and sucking it up. Let them know this and perhaps create together with them nice character ideas... They'll be rolling in no time.

Also, one of the many things I like about CF, and what he might be referring to, is that we don't have "everquest syndrome" where dark elf anti-paladins ask elf paladins to group, think nothing of it, and wonder why some people (serious or even occasional Roleplayers) do and get annoyed by it.

There's very little RP in most MMORPGs, it's all a numbers game where your class is chosen on its' powers with no thought given to what a paladin, thief, or warrior is supposed to *be*.

If you explain that we're serious about RP, some people will get it. If they don't, honestly, and can't get why dark elf anti-pallys and elf pallys should hate each other, then, honestly, they probably wouldn't want to be here.

Well i am pretty new but from what i read in help files alignment can change based on player rp, but such change comes with some painfull cost of abilities, not to mention being shunned by those you turned away from.
was it not the case of Drizzt? They want to be drizzt, let them do that, they will just have to deal with their old friends who will want to impale them more than any other, plus the gods who shun them plus the skills that are gone, plus the fact that elf players will still not take them in as one of them. . .

And as a pretty new player i can say that the rp in this game is the best i seen anywhere, including the most popular ones.
I tried to call in some players from two rpg muds i used to play before (only to not feel like the easiest kill around :/ ) They came, they tried, they screamed and ran away with lame excuses.. one of them had the specific same problem as this.. in other muds suposedly same races have different history, allowing dark elf to be grey or dark.

Not all games are for everyone, and you need an iron gut to start playing this one. So someone who can't read the history of each race and the history of this world before creating a good dark elf won't stay in this game unless it transforms to be the one he is used to...
And frankly, i think CF is great as it is.

If the cut-throat nature of cf doesn't turn you off, and dying doesn't depress you, you will probably improve pretty quickly.

Very true...
Even I managed to get a bit better recently ^^