Planetouched for ALFA-NWN2

[Thangorn]

I will be a NWN2 DM and I am currently the acting HDM of a NWN2 module in development..

Even though I think some of the plane-touched are a little juvenile in some ways. I support the out-of-the-box plane-touched races provided there is a guideline (not a hard cap) to inhibit the number being rolled to a level that supports immersion. As with every PC there should be a compelling back story behind every character submitted to the DMs, this includes Human Fighters and it includes Pirate/Ninja/Mage Air Genasi.

I look at this like I look at my PnP campaigns. I set a guideline of what types of characters would work best for my players but they are allowed to play whatever they want as long as they come up with a compelling back story. If something doesnt fit or messes up play balance, I work with them to get to a mutually agreeable point.

Properly implemented ECL is important also I think and I dont think it is too much of a tall order to implement it provided plenty of players are happy to get involved in the testing. If we can also ensure that plane-touched get their pnp abilities rather than their nwn2 abilities, that would be better.

I also believe the community can discuss the ins and outs of this once we have some servers at least to Beta 3 when the realities of the project kick in. Do people really need to know whether they can play an air genasi in beta?

Broadly speaking, I believe in trusting my fellow community members but also working to implement as much as is practical from FR pnp in these matters to maintain balance and fairness. Largely though I believe the majority of ALFA players can maintain balance and fairness all on their own without too much necessity to code it.

[psycho_leo]

I support the out-of-the-box plane-touched races provided there is a guideline (not a hard cap) to inhibit the number being rolled to a level that supports immersion.

The way ECL has been implemented already presents a hurdle to those willing to play ECL races. Having to get 3000 XP to get to lvl 2 , in the case of tieflings and aasimars, while humans and elfs need only 1k is already discouraging enough that few will try and fewer will actually thrive.

If we can also ensure that plane-touched get their pnp abilities rather than their nwn2 abilities, that would be better.

That would be ideal, but folks are already using the amount of work needed fot the stuff that comes with the program as an argument against having them at all, so I don't see this happening.

I also believe the community can discuss the ins and outs of this once we have some servers at least to Beta 3 when the realities of the project kick in. Do people really need to know whether they can play an air genasi in beta?

It's not so much about the importance of this particular issue. I just think that this stuff has been known for such a long time and it's so basic, that there's no real reason it hasn't been decided yet. That's also one of the reasons some people like it when Rusty simply makes a call.

[Thangorn]

That would be ideal, but folks are already using the amount of work needed fot the stuff that comes with the program as an argument against having them at all, so I don't see this happening.

I'd like to see some investigation into this "work" before we dismiss it out of hand on that basis. I'd probably be involved there at some point but not until I have a live server.

[Nyarlathotep]

I support planetouched myself mainly because they are canon and because from my own perspective I find them less silly than the other nonhuman races. Is this because one or the other is inherently silier than the other? No. its a refelction of how I came to DnD and fantasy in general. I didn't come the Tolkien route, I migrated instead from interests mythology, history, folklore and religion. DnD and fantasy in many ways allows me to read about the same interesting sorts of things but with the benefit of the amount of material not being finite. Now that being said while there are elves, gnomes, and dwarves in mythology(no hin thankfully) they bear almost no relation to what you see in DnD, however planestouched type characters are almost the norm. From Hercules (Zeus) to Odysseus (grandson of Hermes) to Merlin (demon spawn) and even to historical figuires (Alexander/Thetis, Octavious/Apollo, Pharoahs, Emperors of japan etc.) mythology is rotten with supernatural bloodlines.

Personally I've played human characters almost exclusively. I tried an elf once and while the character was fun it was to difficult to make him feel really different, if you play an elf too close to type by rights you should be withdrawing a great deal from non-elves and embrace an entirely alien perspective as you are an ageless and practically deathless being (FR is ambiguoous with this though sometimes has been said elves choose when to pass on). That being said such an outlook is nearly impossible to achieve so I found myself more or less a victim of human-in-funny suit syndrome. From an RP perspective planetouched are far less alien than the other races. They are essentially human characters with just something a little bit different, with just the touch of the alien about them. They aren't humans-in-funny suits because they are human, blessed or tainted perhaps but born of human culture and possessed of normal human biology save for a few powers and physical abnormalities. The theme of a human struggling with a tainted(or blessed) bloodline is a staple of fantastic literature ranging from the myths of ancient Greece to Shakespeare (Caliban), Lovecraft and Machen to even the X-Men (forget the power level here but just the idea of being born as something other than what your parents are).

[Mulu]

Well, I pretty much only play humans as a matter of personal taste, but it seems to me that if you are going to choose to play in the Forgotten Realms setting, then you are married to FR canon to the extent it can be practically implemented, and planetouched races are FR canon that are already implemented for you in NWN2. Let's face it, the Forgotten Realms is a freaking zoo. If you don't like that fact, you are playing in the wrong campaign world.

[Veilan]

I think you're rather blowing things out of proportion and shifting the goal here.

Noone's arguing to eliminate plane-touched from the Forgotten Realms.

What's beeing considered is whether they may be suitable as a player race in our custom community of ALFA.

[witch]

dont really understand all the hassle about this.

Alfa wants to be as much canon as possible which means in Forgotten realms allowing core rules plane touched/ subraces.

deal done.

All the fear and doom scenarios. thinking ahead is one thing, doomplotting is something else.

why are we worried. In NWN1 80% of the population is human characters.
Why? because it simply is the best race to play.

Will planetouched tip the balance to 20% humans .i seriously doubt it. To be honest i think if you would see 10% freaky races divided over planetouched genasi, tiefling, aasimar , drow and other subterranean races etc etc. its going to be a lot.

And what if we at a time have 20% freaky races, so be it. 80% of that will likely die or retire in a year and the balance is there again.
If thats what 20% of the players wishes to play it seems like a large group of alfans wants it. the community is for all in it no? Or is it the nay sayers that control the community??

for the record, chances of me playing a freaky race are zero i prefer humans. So i personally dont care if they get in. I jsut get iffy about the FEAR and doom thinking..

its a game, enjoy it, play it, talk less about rules..

sometimes i wonder how people in alfa manage in reallife where you cant influence or control each and every variable or event.......

[BlakOrkz]

It's funny that most servers have the same argument/discussion about drow elves. Most end up banning them (except for the 1337 ph4rmers).

Drow are allowed in ALFA - I'm sure to open up RP options and a neat facet to FR canon. Planetouched could be a similar neat touch.

How many min/max'd Half Orc barbarians or Sun Elf wizards are there in ALFA? Use that as a gauge to how much abuse planetouched would receive.

If the community can be trusted (only been here a few days poking around, I don't know.), adding it would be a new RP option for some. If they can't be trusted to RP responsibly, leave them out.

2 cents and 14 calories added.

[Brokenbone]

Witch is probably right about an 80-20 ratio of "normal" to "freaky" PCs.

What, though, if those 20% of the odd concepts take up 80% of builder / DM time?

Sometimes too gimmicky a character demands that all NPCs around have to drop everything and start reacting to the freak. This doesn't necessarily have to be a racial thing, it'd also happen if someone's concept was "Cyricist Priest wearing Necklace of Baby Heads walks into Silverymoon, and moons the Knights in Silver." No matter what else is going on, this is a cry for DM attention. "I AM CRAZY, LOOK AT ME!"

I would think that this might be a recipe for high maintenance characters, in certain settings. Again, a tiefling walking into a Triad Temple or an aasimar looking for statics in Zhentil Keep, might find the DMs needing to to kind of "drop everything" and have the horror / terror / persecution / whatever scene go on. Alternately, builders doing some kind of "get racial type" onperception script and having NPCs flee in terror or change default dialogues to "Eek Eek you are a <insert monster>", blah.

Dunno, it feels like it might be the 80-20 rule all around. Again though, certain settings might be PERFECT for it. Waterdeep = free pass for anyone, Underdark server (Eryndlyn, whether I've spelled right or wrong) = free pass for various Underdark races, maybe tieflings too, but never Aasimar, and humans are likely to be clapped in chains too, and surface elves KOS'd... I'm sure each server will have its ins and outs.

Each server might even want to do its own (insert server) 101 course... just like NU had its "Drow 101" to get people used to the politics. I can imagine a Zhentil Keep 101 (i.e., for goodness sakes, don't ever use the term Zhentilar!, plus 20 lessons about the Cyric / Bane / Xvim history), maybe there'd even be interest in Tief / Aasimar / Genasi 101s, or at worst, links to useful materials, like from Planescape.

Again it feels like the knowledge base is "relatively high" on all the races ALFA is accustomed to, including drow... but maybe not necessarily the new ones. Considering controlled introduction, server by server choices (such server teams being the decision makers for what they can support), might be one approach.

Maybe figuring out ECL before all that is required too, heh. Might be stuck with non ECL races for the first 6 months of Live, if there's no consensus of which of several systems gets used. That's a decision prior to "where" planetouched start, if anyplace.

[psycho_leo]

The unwelcomed race thing already happens in our NWN1 servers. Perhaps it's seen as less troublesome because there's no such thing as ZOMG HORNS! But still happens. Drow are not welcomed with open arms anywhere now that NU has gone under. Half-orcs are/were treated with suspicion if not outright harassed in DD. Elves get the shit stick in sembia and so on. It will always be up to the DMs to accomodate or not a particular PC, either due to odd race choice or wacko concept.

If we decide to allow planetouched and HDM Bob thinks his server is not suitable for tieflings he can just say so. Make a sticky on his server forums and say that tielfings are not welcome, that they might be chased off, KOS, whatever, so they ought not be walking around the city making friends with the locals (not without a disguise at least). If a player decides he still wants to give it a shot and manages to get a DM working with him, so be it. But I doubt this server will see a hearty influx of tieflings.

We could allow all the shipped ECL races as a general rule and let each DM team decide how it will work for their own servers. If we can't allow ourselves to trust the playerbase with at least RP their characters properly then we ought to review our acceptance process.

[Veilan]

Noone's changing canon by saying "it's okay that they exist... but don't play them here, the burdens are a lil too big". Besides, canon is a very risky argument, considering that canon clearly states that no LA races, be they drow, aasimar, genasi or solonars, are allowed in a campaign with a starting level of... 1.

What we need to do is consider what burdens, effort and ressources used these races mean for us (and yes, some outlandish "normal" character concepts also fall under that category, but they are the exception rather than the rule). We can all disagree on to what extent this is given, but it seems a more worthwhile criterion to consider than what may be written in a book that assumes a one DM - four player situation, who can play in their own world to their own rules.

I also may have one or the other char idea I'd enjoy to be able to play as a plane-touched (well, fey-touched, actually), but I think it was best presented as this... it adds a minor increase in enjoyment for those wanting to play them, while possibly causing a major decrease of enjoyment for a lot of other people.

Or to put it in a short and aggressive oversimplification: Just because we build within a wildlife refuge doesn't mean we have to let the animals in the house. Unless of course those who clean our carpets want to, duh .

That said, I agree with Brokenbone's reasoning for different servers having different stances and different needs for training. Might be possible to work from there, but then difficulties could arise from Joe Tiefling travelling from his humble abode in Waterdeep to push his good going brimstone parfume in Daggerford.

Proper procedure should be fully establishing our criteria by which to judge implementation and its repercussions, and then discuss along those lines. I think that'd be more constructive than this, though all the different opinions and standpoints uttered here are definetely valuable.

[JaydeMoon]

But the world needs Brimstone Perfume.

Again, see if the majority of players even want it.

See if the DMs are willing to accomodate it.

If both are yes, then put em in.

If both are no, leave em out.

If players are a no, leave em out. No need for DMs to have to accomodate something players aren't going to use, anyway.

If players say yes but DMs say no, THEN we have a debate. But until then, this thread is still the vocal minority talkin out their asses.

Hand me the perfume.

[fluffmonster]

But the world needs Brimstone Perfume.

Again, see if the majority of players even want it.

See if the DMs are willing to accomodate it.

If both are yes, then put em in.

If both are no, leave em out.

If players are a no, leave em out. No need for DMs to have to accomodate something players aren't going to use, anyway.

If players say yes but DMs say no, THEN we have a debate. But until then, this thread is still the vocal minority talkin out their asses.

Hand me the perfume.

+1

[Veilan]

That is at least something closer to resembling the clear criteria and procedure I demanded .

That said... perfume for horse back.

[JaydeMoon]

Pffft! I'll just send my ninja hin to TAKE et!