NWN2 Planetouched - opinions

[Demson]

Make em approval needed by hdm or dm so a flood does not occur.

We've had one round of this where the idea was put down, and a proposal was started by a player/ a group of players. My understanding was it was on them to make the arguement of implementation. Are you intending to backtrack and circumvent former Admin decisions? If so, what's the use of having an Admin at all if 6-8 months down the line their decisions are void? Not that I disagree with revisiting this issue, but I think it would be better to revisit it in the vein of former Admin than to keep on having polls every six months until the issue passes. Just something to consider.

Daniel

I agree. However I do like to ask the community personally on their views, instead of merely following the existing line. I'm not trying to void any deciison here, merely asking on what people are thinking.

[psycho_leo]

I'm not trying to void any deciison here, merely asking on what people are thinking.

Not that I agree with the decision made, but if you're not trying to revert it, what's the point of this thread? There have been loads of love/hate planetouched threads already.

[Thangorn]

I say allow them as is..

With the corollary that we look at tweaking their racial abilities to match canon down the track.. theres no other major issues from a game balance perspective..

add other less freakish head/colouration options down the track aswell.. this one is minor.

DMs are pretty effective at reducing populations of certain races on their server by running appropriately scaled quests that end up actually killing people occassionally.

The only problem is.. if alfans start banging about how there's too many tieflings and then a few die, people might start thinking the DMs are oppressing their toons and a new shyte fight ensues..

Community of roleplayers = drama. hence I say we shouldnt avoid including something because it might cause drama later, of course it will cause drama later, this is ALFA ..

[indio]

What Dezza said.

[Mulu]

Are you intending to backtrack and circumvent former Admin decisions?

Well, the first admin decision was "they're in" and the second admin decision was "they're out" so that should put it at a push right now....

[kiyoti]

Love them or hate them, planetouched exist in the Foregotten Realms Campaign books as playable races. As far as them being rare, isn’t it supposed to be rare to ever see a HIGHLY reclusive Wild Elf outside of anything except the oldest forests?

As far as how they look, this is a fantasy RP setting! Heck Forgotten Realms is supposed to be one of the highest fantasy settings of the D&D worlds with high amounts of magic and lots of strange stuff going on all the time! Part of the appeal of playing in this type of setting is that you get to see or play things you don’t normally have an option to play in a setting like Greyhawk for example.

I also have to disagree with further approval of any race. We (ALFA) have a strict application process in place that already weeds out most of the power-gamers. And if a DM see’s this kind power-gamer activity we have procedures in place to deal with them. If we make people apply for more and more things than the result will likely be a loss of players. Seeing as we used to hundreds of active players we need to do what we can to encourage new playes to join ALFA, and allowing new players more options is a good way to start.

[danielmn]

Mulu, I believe the second Admin decision was "Hey, those who want Planetouched, put together a proposal of implementation and we'll reconsider the decision. Until then, no." Which was begun, but never finished...I suppose because we can go back and erase former decisions, thereby the work is not necessary. I agree, in this case, two wrongs do make a right, since I myself am not against planetouched as long as I don't have 20 teiflings around me, but I would hate to keep setting the precedent of admin after admin working on the same damn thing over and over again, hampering overall progress.

[Kest]

1. Allow them - the fears of tiefling mobs are unwarranted. Simply because something is available doesn't mean it will be popular or even used. There are other rarities already available for character creation, why discriminate against these?

3. While it'd be nice to have more subtle options available, they should be fine out of the box.

2. All of them have disadvantages to balance out the advantages. Even Aasimar, since they are especially ugly.




PS.

ALFA has a strict application process in place that already weeds out most of the power-gamers. And if a DM see’s this kind power-gamer activity we have procedures in place to deal with them. If we make people apply for more and more things than the result will likely be a loss of players. Seeing as we used to hundreds of active players we need to do what we can to encourage new playes to join ALFA, and allowing new players more options is a good way to start.

[Thangorn]

Mulu, I believe the second Admin decision was "Hey, those who want Planetouched, put together a proposal of implementation and we'll reconsider the decision. Until then, no." Which was begun, but never finished...

Not true actually. I submitted my own implementation proposal for beta testing of planetouched, specifically tieflings on the Moonsea Beta.. This is because I saw noone else working on it and I believe we should support them. This implementation was approved by a majority vote by the admin of the day.

I still intend to follow through with this if the community doesn't do with out-of-the-box implementation sooner. I would rather just have them implemented and I'll support them with the same infrastructure I have planned for them but whatevs..

Here's the link if you havent already seen it Dan.

[oldgrayrogue]

The main reason I think there should be HDM approval is mostly for the benefit of the players of planetouched, especially tiefers. I played a tiefling for quite a while on another server. IMO it is important for those who would play this race, just as those who would play a surface drow, to realize what they are in for and accept up front the fact that their character will likely be IC mistrusted, hated, abused or even killed simply for waht they are in most settings. Playing such a race, at least openly, is an invitation to confrontation with others and CvC -- at least in my experience, and too much of that, whether for one player or an entire server, can cause damage to the player base IMHO as well. The reason I would at least like to see options for no wings and tails is to give the player of the race the option to hide what they are to avoid persecution, if that is what they want to do. Unlike wild elves, or other "exotic" races, I think Tieflings, and perhaps Genasi, may warrant special attention simply because of the reaction they get.

That said I say let people play what they want to play.

[danielmn]

Thangs, thanks for the clarification. That being the case, Why hasn't the implementation been made if all Admin agreed on it? An announcement or some such would have been nice. In light of it being approved, I don't see the need to even poll the community. Go forward with what Thangs has suggested and Admin agreed upon!

[Runestaff]

The main reason I think there should be HDM approval is mostly for the benefit of the players of planetouched, especially tiefers. I played a tiefling for quite a while on another server. IMO it is important for those who would play this race, just as those who would play a surface drow, to realize what they are in for and accept up front the fact that their character will likely be IC mistrusted, hated, abused or even killed simply for waht they are in most settings.

Then you can simply put a paragraph in the players manual warning of this fact. If you accept that planetouched require DM approval for the reasons stated, then you cannot logically allow drow, duergar, or any other ECL race without the same restrictions. Having twenty wild elves running around is pretty "unrealistic" too, but I don't see anyone arguing for that race being subjected to the approval process.

It seems that whenever something "new" is available to add to the game (PrCs, planetouched, etc.) there naturally follows months of debate and layers of bureaucracy that must be navigated to get it in the game. As most of the community consists of responsible RPers, put the new races in and trust people to play them properly.

[JaydeMoon]

Thangs, thanks for the clarification. That being the case, Why hasn't the implementation been made if all Admin agreed on it?

[psycho_leo]

Thangs, thanks for the clarification. That being the case, Why hasn't the implementation been made if all Admin agreed on it?

[Vendrin]

Thangs, thanks for the clarification. That being the case, Why hasn't the implementation been made if all Admin agreed on it?

Because Thangs proposal required a lot of code and infrastructure to support, and as such(no offense to thangs) will be a long time coming before it sees the light of day and allows anyone to play a tiefling, which is the only planetouched Thangs proposal allowed, as tieflings were to be a testing ground for his scripts and such.

Lot of work, for when trusting players would just work as well.