Clans membership

[zicada]

what ogr said

[rorax]

I don't like the idea of scripted faction support. Not at all actually. A faction "token" does not let the computer decide if your RP is in accord with the tenets of that faction or not. It just reads the token and the AI kicks in. For example, if a PC is not acting in accord with his oath to the Legion would other members fight for him anyway? A computer script cannot discern this RP wise, or if it can I think it would be really complicated. This sort of thing should just be left to DMs IMO. Membership in a faction can have other benefits that are scripted however, like P-Storage, access to special stores, items, prices, lodging etc, all of which we already have in game. IMO scripted AI faction support is rife for abuse and should be avoided.

Yeah, i agree too.

That's why i suggested to make other clan NPC members always neutral to your PC(and not actively support), to give DMs a maneuvering space as well. There are tons of other ways AL scripts can be abused , specially in CvC, but i don't think that should prevent from the right thing to be done.

If someone wants to abuse , he would find the workaround to do it.


In terms of RP, what happens today if my character decides to join group of brigands that are aggressive to everyone? he can't, unless they are made neutral and kind of lose their concept as brigands.

Why druid should be attacked by wild animals?

Drow elf being attacked in a drow city?


Why would the temple guards assist a Tormite paladin when he enters banite temple and being attacked by the banite PC priest?


In RP terms, the fact that the guards / clans members always automatically attack the attacker make little sense in most cases.

But the way , always attacking the attacker is script AI as well, and of course it can be abused too.

Here is a real example:

My character who is(was) legion member, is being provoked by another PC in Rivermoot. Why? because that other PC knows that my character can't do anything to him besides talk, it may come to the point to that he actually try to seduce me attack him to win the other guards NPC support.

I think that abuse of AI script.


To summarize , in the ideal RP PC clan members should be free to make the same choices that their NPC clan members can, anything else would be a compromise. It's stupid that rivermoot npc guard can arrest or attack you, but pc guard can't.

If DMs are afraid of abusing, make tougher standards to enter some clans and filter the people who enter there. But then, once they are there, they should be trusted to make the right choices, and any abuse of power should be IC maybe.

If it was done in ALFA NWN1 , i guess there is some history of how it worked? and if it was abused so much?

[Vintenar]

The simple fact that some people can interact with wild animals, while others cause a "fight or flight" response explains the significance of charisma there, I think (though arguably this could more appropriately be a function of Wisdom [hence DM or HDM moderation of this if implemented]).

To suggest that charisma, intelligence, and wisdom don't come into play within the military is...well...having trouble finding a suitable term for response, heh

Soldiers are people, just like you and me. If someone is has exceptionally low people skills he/she will have a hard time of it anywhere when interacting with other people IMO. And, in fact, this could be even more of an issue in military situations than among civilians.

I believe in ALFA we aspire to submersive RP...and this includes playing our stats and accepting responses to them IG from others. If we disregard stats, it is a slippery slope that leads inevitably to PG builds and WoW gameplay IMO.

See, you said "people skills". We are not talking about a mere test of strength or memory here. If a player were trying to move a boulder, they would make a strength check, but if a player were trying to convince another person of something, they would make a diplomacy check, not charisma. Even if someone has a poor charisma score, they can learn the skills to be better speakers, presenters and diplomats. Which was the point I was trying to make. NPC-PC interaction should be skill based, not ability based.

Heck, arn't rp skills like diplomacy, intimidate and bluff what -really- makes our game different from that like WoW?

You could stick any guy in a leadership position like in the military and he may have good abilities, but if he hasn't learned the skills to use them, then those abilities are useless.

(and if anyone ever wondered about my own build, my charisma score mirrors my apearent inability to get along with anyone in a normal conversation, isn't that right OGR )

[johnlewismcleod]

Here is a real example:

My character who is(was) legion member, is being provoked by another PC in Rivermoot. Why? because that other PC knows that my character can't do anything to him besides talk, it may come to the point to that he actually try to seduce me attack him to win the other guards NPC support.

I think that abuse of AI script.

Not having been present to see this, I can't speak to it in anything but general terms Rorax, but it sounds like your talking about Grull. One thing I know about Grull (and it is something all who interact with him should know as well) is that he has [meta removed by your favourite Player Admin].

With stats like that additional to being a Half-Orc, I should think you would be pleased to even be allowed into town.

To play a Half-Orc with those stats and then complain that other PC's (and NPC's for that matter) are antagonistic is strange indeed.

If you choose to roll up extreme stats and couple them with a despised race, anyone would naturally assume that conflict, hatred, fear, manipulation by the more intelligent, etc. were what you intended to encounter and RP through in game.

These are your stats and race: own and enjoy them

..................

Valid points Vintenar...skill points are used for specific interactions. Stat points are used as global gauge of reactions that aren't specific (like the disposition of an animal, NPC, PC etc. before any specific action is taken). I love skill points, and tended to play skill based PC's almost exclusively.

Let me give any example of how I personally interpret the use and we'll see how close I come to cannon:

PC X approaches NPC/MOB Y---> NPC/MOB Y gets a reaction check to PC X's Charisma for disposition ----> PC X and NPC/MOB Y begin interaction based on the result ----> PC X attempts to use a skill during the interaction ----> PC X gets a skill check with modifiers based on dispositon.

Is ED Greenwood rolling over in his grave, or am I close on this?

[Vintenar]

I see what you mean there with the disposition, as I take it you mean, friendly, hostile etc.

This is where we get into the difficult area of stats such as, how does charisma effect appearance vs ability to speak well. I think this muddy road is one best avoided all together to be honest, which is why I prefer my checks based purely on skill, which is pretty easy to have a concrete grip on. I mean, lets face it, guards might have a very high disposition to a beautiful woman at first, but once she opens her mouth and you realize her voice sounds like Wilford Brimley, that may change... does her charisma score reflect those traits regardless of the skills she actually possesses?

To me, Charisma is like putting Hide and Move Silently together into one skill. You can roll a 20 but if you are standing in broad daylight, it doesn't really matter.

[Brokenbone]

NPC factions can be built around onperception type systems which either notice a token on a PC and stay neutral, or don't see a token, and immediately delcare the non-token-bearer as an enemy.

This is an ugly binary system which doesn't have any room for finesse, like coming into a room full of this sort of NPC saying "I Surrender!!!!!!!!!!!", being barehanded, or even being escorted by a token-bearer who says "This guy's with me, I'm taking him to see the boss."

It might work as a shortcut for certain "extreme" types of factions. Secret societies of an evil bent where members are prepared to shoot first, cast speak with dead later. Less appropriate for the more due-process oriented factions, like maybe the constabulary of a civilized region, except in extreme circumstances. Example might be the Fortress of Good Guys, everyone on the first floor is neutral / defender-ish... but if you trespass in their dungeon full of criminals, the Prison Guard types may attack anyone who isn't carrying "Dungeon Pass" tokens of some sort.

ALFA's NWN1 definitely had decent token-based systems available, I know I had one in Daggerdale that Twiggy and I used for certain purposes, but again, it was for "shoot first, ask questions later" type groups. Sembia had one associated with the thieves' guild, which would occasionally misfire when a DM possessed an NPC who didn't have a token in inventory (my best guess as to why it would happen). I believe there were similar systems in place supporting a Cyric faction on the server as well. Both of those cases you can imagine "shoot first" type mentality, if you were to penetrate the basement of Cyric's temple or encounter thieves in their proving grounds etc. Maybe the Iron Throne had it as well, but again, they're kind of skeevy traders as well, right?

...

In none of those cases though would you have had "attack dog" type functionality, under control of the player. I.e., use a unique power to sic NPC buddies on an enemy, whether PC or NPC. Yes, it would be possible to lure someone into faction HQ to hope that the NPCs could help you in some kind of CvC by proxy, but I would imagine being able to cry foul and get appropriate DM review, unless the plan had been discussed and figured out long in advance with the DM team, presumably with a great amount of discouragement for that kind of tainted encounter, even if it would be perfectly IC to have your rogue 6 PC and ten rogue 2 / ftr 1 NPCs jump a paladin 10 PC, sneak attacking him to little bits and sharing the spoils.

[rorax]

Not having been present to see this, I can't speak to it in anything but general terms Rorax, but it sounds like your talking about Grull. One thing I know about Grull (and it is something all who interact with him should know as well) is that he has[meta info]

With stats like that additional to being a Half-Orc, I should think you would be pleased to even be allowed into town.

To play a Half-Orc with those stats and then complain that other PC's (and NPC's for that matter) are antagonistic is strange indeed.

If you choose to roll up extreme stats and couple them with a despised race, anyone would naturally assume that conflict, hatred, fear, manipulation by the more intelligent, etc. were what you intended to encounter and RP through in game.

These are your stats and race: own and enjoy them

This is one of the worst example you actually can come with, here is why:

1. My character and the other character met the the first time, my character head was all covered. If he had any idea that idea i played half orc, it's bad RP first place. For him it should have been nothing more than large human.

2. All the interaction between us before he became a wise guy was "lower yer weapon..." . Now assuming that most players don't have DM powers and don't also don't read about stats of other characters in the forums. I would really like to know how would someone figure someone else charisma and intelligence just from a sentence like "Lower yer weapon..."

Do people with 18 int and cha , 12 int and char or 6 int and cha says those three words differently?

More than that, maybe in your world you rather being told what to do by professors and doctors or diplomats with high INT or CHA before you choose if to do it, each one with his own views.

In my view - in a medieval / fantasy world , if a 7 feet , dumb as stone half ogre guardsman come and tell me "Drop your weapon"...

I drop my weapon. I don't care if his INT or CHA are 2, i can only hope he's smart and pleased enough to understand i did what he wants.


Infact , much more likely i would argue with someone 'normal' , intellectual and charismatic if he asks me to do something, even if he's a guardsman. Those people tend to be more tolerating than people with low INT and CHA.

I am not sure this discussion is about clans anymore. But it was worth mentioning what i said.

The power from law enforcement clans should come from your position as law enforcer in that clan, not from your INT or CHA.

Law enforcement is NOT open discussion between the enforcer and the offender. For example i can give you another case when a guardsman was played by certain DM, and attacked(to kill) another character after the other character did not comply in 2 seconds with the guardsman orders.


If those clans exists, then players should have the same rights that any other NPCs have.

[gunslinger55]

i think stats are bunk.....you can be dumb and thick..and still be liked ...and have charsima....haa look at Shrek.....hhehee....

surley its how you play the character that matters not a number in a box.....

[hollyfant]

Aside from any drama or specific character situations, having animals be neutral towards druids of equal or higher HD would be a nice touch.

[Brokenbone]

Aside from any drama or specific character situations, having animals be neutral towards druids of equal or higher HD would be a nice touch.

Sounds like...

***
Wild Empathy

A druid can improve the attitude of an animal. This ability functions just like a Diplomacy check made to improve the attitude of a person. The druid rolls 1d20 and adds her druid level and her Charisma modifier to determine the wild empathy check result.

The typical domestic animal has a starting attitude of indifferent, while wild animals are usually unfriendly.

To use wild empathy, the druid and the animal must be able to study each other, which means that they must be within 30 feet of one another under normal conditions. Generally, influencing an animal in this way takes 1 minute but, as with influencing people, it might take more or less time.

A druid can also use this ability to influence a magical beast with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2, but she takes a -4 penalty on the check.

***

That said, in the NWN game, you do not have a five point scale of Hostile/Unfriendly/Indifferent/Friendly/Helpful... more like Hostile/Neutral/Defender, that is, the middle three categories get squished into one.

Much like HF suggested, if you have higher HD, you have an improved chance of shifting an animal's attitude towards you. Look up Diplomacy charts to see that a shift from Hostile to Unfriendly is DC 20 (indifferent 25, friendly 35, helpful 50), but you still need to spend a minute trying to do it, which might be well represented by targeting a critter with some unique power thingy, and hoping to "get a 20 or better" on the aforesaid ANGRY critter, as in a raw d20 roll + CHA + druid level (not HD across a multiclasser). This could still be a rough go of things if there's a whole wolf pack all wanting your blood, you have to "negotiate" with every pack member, takes time!

...

Back on topic though, same would go for non-animal factions. Diplomacy checks are made to see if people will risk their necks for you, "Helpful" is the most coveted category, so even if you started at "Friendly" with NPC army buddies, you'd still be looking at a DC 20 Diplomacy check to convince them your particular way of trying to handle a situation is worth their potentially dying over.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/diplomacy.htm

[gribo]

I have seen, on NWN1 a bit more powerful faction system, that was at the time implemented without a database.
The factions were generic, ie fey, guards of city X, merchant of village Y, nobles, orcs, elves, nature beasts, etc.

Each had a value from 1 to 100, and it was usually easier to loose grace with a faction than to earn it.

There were many factors contributing to a faction score change, for example, if you killed 1000 orcs, you got 1 point with the elves and so on.

[Wynna]

Scripting a Reputation System is a huge investment of time by a very skilled database scripter, one well beyond my skills for certain. A Reputation System could keep track of who belongs to what clan and what standing each clan has with every other clan. We had one incredibly skilled coder who made significant progress towards a system in NWN1, but afaik it was never completed. His coding of it, however, appeared to be fill pretty much every hour of his life outside of family and work. In addition to the barrier of resources needed to create such coolness, it also has the potential to add to lag because of the necessary transactions between game and database at so many perception events. While it would indeed be a nice addition, I do not believe the return on investment of time required to create it is equal to the potential for lag inherent in the project.

[rorax]

Scripting a Reputation System is a huge investment of time by a very skilled database scripter, one well beyond my skills for certain. A Reputation System could keep track of who belongs to what clan and what standing each clan has with every other clan. We had one incredibly skilled coder who made significant progress towards a system in NWN1, but afaik it was never completed. His coding of it, however, appeared to be fill pretty much every hour of his life outside of family and work. In addition to the barrier of resources needed to create such coolness, it also has the potential to add to lag because of the necessary transactions between game and database at so many perception events. While it would indeed be a nice addition, I do not believe the return on investment of time required to create it is equal to the potential for lag inherent in the project.

What about simple clans model that would only allow clan members to go near hostile mobs of their clans(like druids and wild animals) , or not being attacked by their own clan members if they choose to attack non clan person(like law enforcement clans)?

[Wynna]

Anything smaller and more specific is possible by scripting, but from my comfortable position on the sidelines of policy, I would be against implementing smaller, more specific patches to PC/NPC relations. By their specific nature, such smaller efforts become a patchwork of reputation effects that open themselves up to cries of favoritism and "why can't {elves} and {drow} belong to automatically hostile clans" or "why can't {LG aasimar female paladins} automatically {tame unicorns}." To be fair to the entire populace of ALFAn PCs, such a system needs to be ubiquitous and balanced. The balance discussions alone for PC/NPC relations would take longer than the coding, which I've already said would be a huge undertaking.

My stance on this is that unless it's an entire balanced system it would cause more problems than it solves...but that an entire system would be a dubious return on a huge investment.

[Brother Humphrey]

Not having been present to see this, I can't speak to it in anything but general terms Rorax, but it sounds like your talking about Grull. One thing I know about Grull (and it is something all who interact with him should know as well) is that he has Charisma: X, Intelligence: X.

With stats like that additional to being a Half-Orc, I should think you would be pleased to even be allowed into town.

Do people with 18 int and cha , 12 int and char or 6 int and cha says those three words differently?

Though I too was not present for the above mentioned incident, I must agree with rorax in his claim that a simple phrase of "Lower yer weapon" coupled with the fact that the person was faced with an extremely large, armored, well-armed person wearing a full-face helm such as those worn by Helmites would have a real tough time determining the following:

Race - could have been either an extremely humongous human or an average sized half-orc, I've seen both that size both on ALFA and other servers. Fact is, there is even a half-dwarf/half-orc running around somewhere on TSM that's even bigger than Grull. Is he indicted for it by those around him? (I'll leave that one hanging, as I'd rather not answer it and risk getting bitchslapped for meta )

Intelligence - Granted, the word "yer" would tend to drop a highly educated person's estimate of the speaker's IQ a good 20 points or so, but that (the speaker's use of the word) could simply be the result of where he was brought up, rather than an indication of his brain-power, and therefor is not in and of itself a clear sign of how smart the speaker is. Let's face it, I've known geniuses from New Jersey (I know, they're hard to find, like chicken lips...) who say such things as "I sawr a dog". Accent and/or dialect means nothing when it comes to INT. I'm sure Garlus would agree.

CHA - Consider Hagrid. OK, he's gigantic, uncouth and maybe not the brightest, but he's a lovable sumbitch, ain't he? More to the point, a 3 word order for one to drop his weapon should not indicate in any way what that person's persuasive abilities or comeliness equates to.

If I'm not mistaken, the one ordering the other to lower his weapon was in Helmite full plate armor (clearly showing the symbol of Helm on the breast, if I recall the description correctly), bearing a Tower Shield with the same Helmite symbol so large as to be identifiable at distances up to 50-100 yards, depending on visibility, and wielding a very distinctive Ever Watchful bastardsword, also bearing the symbol of Helm on the cross-hilt guard.... Now, what seems to give the other guy an indication that he's being faced with a half-wit who may not have the authority to demand such an action as lowering his weapon? I should think that between sheer size, extremely identifiable garb and intimidating behaviour, that said other guy would have to be nuts to argue the point and try to pick a fight.

On a side note, I must say I'm a little disappointed that a player's stats were enumerated in open forum as they were, even to illustrate an arguable point. Yes, we pretty much all know that grull's as dumb as a stump and as good looking, but I would think that such comments should have remained at that level, rather than precise numbers.

**edit**
It turns out I was mistaken in some particulars of the incident mentioned above. Please disregard my comments about Helmite equipment, as the toon in question was actually wearing Tempite gear (if memory serves), however, I believe he was issued an Argent Legion militia badge that would have been worn visibly on Grull's armor or around his neck, or what have you, announcing his authority to maintain the peace. As for the headgear, it may not have been Helmite (was in fact Tempite), but it still concealed the face of whoever was inside it, so that still remains valid.