Thanks Helios for the part 2.
Veilan, your post was appreciated, but it had so many parts in there that I’m forced to dissect it a bit to avoid writing a confusing blob (which i can be great at).
Veilan wrote: Souv, I would like to note that you offer one positive argument (more variety, which I think was positively acknowledged as pro-argument in the debate), while the rest are actually attempts at mitigating counter-arguments.
Well, It was a reply to another post, which said i should addresse arguments and counter arguments from the ones in page 3 of thread 1 (lol). I think they were decent, at least from my point of view. If not, I did try.
Veilan wrote: I do believe the majority of DMs considered it to be more work and burden though (and I can understand why, simply ignoring does not work and causes all other sorts of problems of immersion breaking and weird interaction).
You say they don't, on what basis of experience do you make this assumption? I'm actually really curious - if you have a well-founded explanation here, that would be great. But, please understand my skepticism as to my knowledge, you haven't DMed nor built for "controversial" races and locales in ALFA and kind of ruled out my suggestion of trying to convince people through means of DMing plots featuring the races you pine for.
I’ve not dm’ed in alfa and probably never will, as for building I did build daggerdale (old crew)’s brothel to accommodate for the less savory elements of the society. I usually design the content i need. I have much experience in playing non standard characters, both in nwn permanent worlds and LARP. PnP wise I am a dm, exclusively. I have also built a part of the FR (dragon coast) for another project which didn’t see the light of the day, but the landscape was done and the basics for every controversial race to have their home. That was my decision to include them, not a single race was responsible for the work involved. As for alfa, I am a freelancer for cipher when he needs. So can do build, i can dm and i do play, but i don't script. Now you know.
Most importantly in my eyes, the basis I use for my affirmation is the experience I have with the dms of alfa. It’s not spectacular either, but I’ve been alone (that means a lot of time to discuss the issue) with a plethora of dms so many times as an evil drow on the surface that I can evaluate what kind of “work” I required from them.
Most of the time, it went like this:
I usually message the HDM or a DM on a server. He’d reply if there is any dm wanting to play with my concepts (which are always very detailed) and their schedule (so important). So I messaged that particular dm and tried to see if it was possible to make it happen. Once that was set up, we could play just like everyone else. Usually there was a dm interested so whatever work he did for me ( I am sure they did things behind the scene I’ve never noticed), he did so willingly. Never did I see a dm not interested in my characters work for them. I’ve had plenty of cases were only 1 dm per server was playing with me because my pc was a drow and that’s perfectly fine. No dm ever ignored me as a member of alfa when I talked to them in private chat, but some were not interested in my pc.
To be more precise, here are examples of work I've got from dms who liked me around in around 3 years of play:a brothel (my design) a cave clear of npc spawns (save a few spiders!), an inn room, and the importation of custom clothes that are my trademark (I design them for every character I do).
The question is how much “extra” work would need to be done
precisely for tieflings. No one ever gave me an answer on this. The reason is that it’s not particularily tieflings, but all evil or non-standard concepts, which requires additional structures when brought in groups. A lone pc, such as I was, required practically nothing. A group of non standard characters is different, and it couldn’t work everywhere. But we used whatever structure that was in place for the “non-standard” characters.
Some servers had camps and merchants for such characters to lurk in, others invited us to just move along. It’s not an argument against planetouched, but against any non-standard characters on servers. No servers can be built for every race. You can find if a server is for you by sending pms to those who dm there. Forum communication is really where it’s at when you want to make a non-standard character, and as I stated in the previous thread, this is also valid for server travel as well.
I believe this is why there is not as much angst going on about aasimars, they are typically seen and welcome as "mostly good" folks, which is more that can be said of a human. If planetouched would really be responsible for "work" in particular, then aasimar would also require it.
Veilan wrote: Also, you are wrong in assuming that players were not considered in this; in fact, I believe that is a fiercely polemical and non-constructive exaggeration.
If players had been considered in the final decision, then the player poll would have taken place after the dm result, in order to weight in each part of the community. It would have been constructive and not exaggerated to run both polls and compare the results. Interesting conclusions may have been brought to light.
Veilan wrote: First of all, most DMs are also players. Secondly, there clearly was a plan in place to poll players should DMs chose to support them as player races. Both constituencies would have had to approve for this to be implemented - are you suggesting player wishes should overrule DM wishes on this? That's certainly a valid opinion to hold, but "players cannot force DMs to allow stuff they want" is a far, far cry from claiming they were not considered.
I am aware that there was plan to poll the players and I was so happy to read that…but why did it not take place? Why stop the process after such a close result from the dm community. That is precisely where I question the decision. The point is not to overrule anyone’s wish, but to know the wish of everyone in the first place.
Mikayla also brings a very interesting point: would most races find themselves having a minority of dms interested in them if faced with a poll?
P.S. Helios, i played a gnome! And he did achieve a sort of infamous notoriety
