UD PvP Question

This goes out to all the UD players and perhaps Mindflayer as well.

Many time we say if character X wants to attack/kill high ranking Character Y better not get caught. What happens if character X is caught? What would the IC effect of this be?

1. Example: Male Sargtlin attacks noble Female NOT Yathrin in tunnels but fails to kill or female escapes to camp. What is IC effect to this Male?

2. Example: Male Sargtlin attacks noble Female who IS a Yathrin in tunnels but fails to kill or female escapes to camp. What is IC effect to this Male?

3. Example: Noble Female attacks other Noble female but fails...what is IC effect?

4. Example: Noble Female Attacks Yath and fails...what is IC effect?

5. Example: General question...Low ranked attacks higher ranked but fails...what is IC effect?

So my point is this. We always say DO NOT GET CAUGHT...but what if I do get caught? What if Nanga attacks Yathrin or Ilharess Dabel'kith in tunnels but fails or a witness sees this? What is the IC result? What is now the OOC result?

We saw in past some Males were banned from camp for this...but this happened inside the camp. Will someone be banned from camp for attacking a higher ranked character in the tunnels? It seems like we all hide behind rank and status, we do not have ANY conflict. All out conflict is words...it is like we are not even Drow...we only say bad words behind each others backs. When can we start PvP and not have so much OOC drama? When can Nanga start to attack all these other characters who are rude and disrespectful to her? When can we start to be Drow and perhaps be able to press the reset button if RP goes too far?

Why do we not have more PvP in the UD? We are evil, we are drow, when can we start to actually RP this?

Evil doesn't equal PvP, and from what I've read about most drow settlements, open conflict is uncommon. Drow are suposed to be sneaky, slippery schemers who would rather manipulate things than work openly. I've always imagined them more like snooty nobles, albeit with a deep sadistic streak, than thugs or gangsters. Hiding behind rank and status is exactly what drow do, aided along by a few judicious daggers from the darkness.

I would assume that most open fighting would be punished by the camp illharess or the Yathrin, unless they were directly to benefit from it (and maybe even then, as a public display of authority). Any attack that threatens the concept of an oligarchical matriarchy would probably be punished severely. A shred of proof might be required when making an accusation about about unwittnessed attacks, but then again, perhaps not; depending on the relative social status of the two "involved". Lorewise, I would picture an attack on a Yathrin by a shebali male to probably end in sacrafice, but there has to be a certain amount of consideration for players.

While female drow are meant to be nasty, I've seen them occasionally played with what seems to be an effort to make another character simply unplayable. In cases like this, where a high status female has a problem with a low status male (or very low status female), there's very little recourse to the player, and it's not fair to ask for something that by all rights should be a perma-kill; ie. public death of some sort, whether it be sacrafice or torture victim or whatever. That being said, I would suggest most of these hypothetical situations should result in public shaming type exercises, where someone is tortured within an inch of their life, humilliated, and dumped in the wilds. Perhaps even the possibility of a DM enforced fine to the camp Illharess or to the aggrieved party. This represents a serious punishment without straying to a realm where people feel obligated to perma-kill their characters.

Considering the camp is in essence the Quellar of Ilharess Elina then unless she bans you from camp (DM) then it matters little what one of the PC Quellars say.. since unless Elina decrees something with in her Quellar the other Ilharess words hold no weight as it pertains to how things are done in Elina's quellar. They may hiss and spit fury but they are there at the kindness (uses that word loosely in describing any Drow) of Elina.

What happens outside of the camp has always been fair game the tunnels of the Underdark are a dangerous place and accidents happen.

To be banned from the UD is near impossible but IC actions have consequences... if using your examples and our Little Spider Nanga attacks and fails.. well you are a Drow and failure is weakness so expect dire consequences as in possibly being KoS by Dabel'kith. This could in turn start a war with the Quellars with open war fair in the tunnels.

To set exact consequences to actions would be hard since every case may be different and warrant a different IC consequence so to apply a blanket punishment to the scenerio's describes would not be right.

I do agree there are some that will speak in the safety of the camp and such and if they do so then Rule 8 does apply to them ... I do feel it does not mean that we have to attack right away but that they have opened themselves up to PvP and if it means an hour later when they leave the camp and a boulder some how squashes them well that is just bad luck on their part.

Quote :

8. Initiation
Initiating PvP can be considered any of the following:Bullying, using slander/offensive language, provoking, pick-pocketing, intentional sneaking, buffing or any other action that is similar enough to provide as giving consent for a PvP interaction. If someone might be tempted to take a swing at you for something you did in real life, the same action IC is going to have the same response.

By performing one of these actions towards another player, you have consented yourself as OK with an in-game PvP engagement. What this means is that, if the other person/party decides to engage in PvP, they do not need to give you a way to RP-out of the situation, since you have consented to PvP by initiating it.If PvP is not your thing, then you should not place yourself in these situations that constitute as grounds for PvP.

Oh one last thing... attacking and killing anyone is not exactly frowned upon... it is the failure to succeed that is the problem. The yath must be strong... in the end dos could be just carrying out Malla Lolths will in testing her Chosen to ensure they are strong enough to hold her favor.

I'd like to see a DB tool that tracked your dieties favor. It might be too involved but canonically success or failure in these things is what gains or loses you favor with lolth. It would be neat to see a tracker tool that a dim could add or subtract points from depending on your actions. So, if you are in one of these situations, succeeding or failing would essentially move your favor with lolth positively or negatively.

As far as the failure in these things go, what is success if no one knows about it? Witnesses are important in drow society. If someone watches a yath kill another yath, that individual now has the power in the situation. If no one sees it, the victor has the power, but remarkably less so. So I picture it as a give and take. Some things you will want a witness, some you might want nobody to see. In either situation, I think its important to remember that in being an evil race of drow, your word on a situation should never be good enough to another drow. Even the word of a yath would be questioned, maybe not openly, but making claims you can't back is a good way to loose favor in drow society.

I prefer that subtle success...

Jalil speaks badly towards a high ranking Jaluk but feeling that she is Jalil does not think about consequences in demeaning this higher ranking Jaluk.

The Jaluk leaves submissively and waits in the dark tunnels knowing that the Jalil must travel this way back to her Quellar... she comes he comes out and kills her.

He drags her beaten body back to the camp and puts it at the feet of some of her fellow Quellar members and says he found this failure in the tunnels... it would seem she did not have the favor of Malla Lolth in her test.

Now I do not need anyone to have seen me kill her for them to understand what I have done but no witness to prove it was me.



Sometimes subtly is lost in the UD and we are to be master of it.

Shadow

But that's how its supposed to be done. That's a situation where witnesses would have had power over you if they saw. I like to think of drow society as a giant messed up public relations campaign. Every single action you take as a drow is watched and analyzed. Bad press can get someone killed pretty quickly in the tunnels.

I personally agree with some of what Vilesinger is saying... we do need some way to better RP conflict between the Drow with good IC reason. IE: The Tests of Lolth.

Vilesinger wrote:

This goes out to all the UD players and perhaps Mindflayer as well.

Many time we say if character X wants to attack/kill high ranking Character Y better not get caught. What happens if character X is caught? What would the IC effect of this be?

1. Example: Male Sargtlin attacks noble Female NOT Yathrin in tunnels but fails to kill or female escapes to camp. What is IC effect to this Male?

2. Example: Male Sargtlin attacks noble Female who IS a Yathrin in tunnels but fails to kill or female escapes to camp. What is IC effect to this Male?

3. Example: Noble Female attacks other Noble female but fails...what is IC effect?

On page 18 of The Drow of the Underdark it talks about some of the tests. Like The test of Loyalty: A relative or ally of the drow to be tested is granted a vision by Lolth, claiming that the subject of the test has turned against her and must be slain in an ambush. As the attack begins, the subject hears Lolth voice telling her that she is being tested; she must prove willing to slay and ally at Lolth's command. Dragon issue 298 speaks more on these tests.

Vilesinger wrote:

4. Example: Noble Female Attacks Yath and fails...what is IC effect?

5. Example: General question...Low ranked attacks higher ranked but fails...what is IC effect?

So my point is this. We always say DO NOT GET CAUGHT...but what if I do get caught? What if Nanga attacks Yathrin or Ilharess Dabel'kith in tunnels but fails or a witness sees this? What is the IC result? What is now the OOC result?

We saw in past some Males were banned from camp for this...but this happened inside the camp. Will someone be banned from camp for attacking a higher ranked character in the tunnels? It seems like we all hide behind rank and status, we do not have ANY conflict. All out conflict is words...it is like we are not even Drow...we only say bad words behind each others backs. When can we start PvP and not have so much OOC drama? When can Nanga start to attack all these other characters who are rude and disrespectful to her? When can we start to be Drow and perhaps be able to press the reset button if RP goes too far?

Why do we not have more PvP in the UD? We are evil, we are drow, when can we start to actually RP this?

Now am I saying that we need full on PvP all the time...no. But with good reason either in RP or DM approved area.. say a small fighting pit map. Then that would be one of the ways of RPing the Drow a bit more in line with the books (both Lore and novels.)

Generally if get caught attacking a higher rank than you bad things happen if it comes out.
Generally attacking a member of the yath when your not of the yath is seen as herecy but thats IF the yath survives the incident.
Its less of a punishment for a jaluk to attack a jalil but if the jalil survives and is of a quellar you can expect the quellar to come down hard on the jaluk.
Also just because an NPC controls that camp doesnt mean people can hide behind that, there has been decreed there is to be no fighting within camp, punishing is still allowed as was pointed out long ago.
As has been mentioned before drow usually plot and when they do kill do so in a way so it can not be traced back to them as yes if nanga were to try and kill a member of the yath or an illharess you can be as sure as hell the rest of the quellar isnt going to stand idly about such and we'd probably be in for another quellar war. and drow usually only resort to open warfare unless they know they can win quickly or there is a good reason, take the war in the first drizzt book, the illharess went to warfare against another quellar and killed off the entire quellar (except for one as you know) in a flash attack and no'one even knew the culprit behind the attack for a good 100 years. Open warfare is messy and leaves a lot of loose ends

yes this isnt a gladiator arena down here. death should come quick and silently. sacrifice and punishment are public.

if your acting as individual on a personal matter and your caught it could mean punishment or death depending.
If your killing for apparently no reason its pretty safe to assume its a house matter. If it is a house matter and those involved are powerful enough it could escalate into something big.
If two weak sarglithilins go at it in the slime cave I don't think it should matter. and hope that situation wouldn't be blown out of proportion by someone who shouldn't care about it personally.

Quote :

they know they can win quickly or there is a good reason, take the war in the first drizzt book, the illharess went to warfare against another quellar and killed off the entire quellar (except for one as you know) in a flash attack and no'one even knew the culprit behind the attack for a good 100 years.

I'd like to point out, that was actually due to a rule of Menzoberranzan. House wars are not actually sanctioned openly in Menzo. The way one house eliminates another is through swift annihilation. If any member of the destroyed Qu'ellar survives to tell who attacked them, the other houses of Menzoberranzan band together and wipe out the sloppy Qu'ellar that couldn't cover it's tracks properly.

I think it's important to point this out, because it illustrates the main thing people often misunderstand about drow. They are not orcs, they are not reckless dumb killing machines. They're elegant, self-serving, and meticulous. Ideally, you convince your enemy that they're actually your friend... before you stick a knife in their throat. I believe one of the drow Lorebooks(Drow of the Underdark probably) has a quote that says Drow are mostly Neutral Evil in society, and only really act Chaotic Evil when they're raiding.


But, anyhow, you're never going to have a perfectly true lolthite setting on a non-permadeath server. It simply doesn't work. Murder, assassinations culminating from a ton of intrigue, just doesn't make sense on a server where the person you're plotting to kill is going to just respawn about 5 minutes later... with a measly day of amnesia as your only reward. PvP is meaningless here.

Don't get me wrong though, you don't want a permadeath NWN2 Lolthite drow server. PvP balancing is so broken that it just doesn't work.

Jeremor wrote:

+1

PvP = drama

I don't really care for pvp in general. But it is needed in the UD. To many people in camp like to hide behind the no pvp rule to talk smack, then RP out in the tunnels. I avoid pvp unless the insults are to the point of crazy silly then I will send a tell. Either RP out and leave or take the pvp.

To many people want to RP what are generally unforgivable insults then cry foul when they get killed. My advice is not to RP with the players who do this. Just walk away from them and their rp. If you choose to continue then remember. SS everything! The RP that lead up to it and the RP after it.

gandruff wrote:

Generally if get caught attacking a higher rank than you bad things happen if it comes out.
Generally attacking a member of the yath when your not of the yath is seen as herecy but thats IF the yath survives the incident.

This is what I am trying to figure out. I think we need to establish what these bad things are to a small part. I am concerned this can lead to long term OOC drama and then ruin the fun for everyone. Our UD is a very violent place and very confusing OOC for many. I am certain i am not only player thinking what happens if I do this action X...Especially male characters who play juggle act between disrespect and respect to female characters...

I can't say how it would turn out as such is ALL dependent upon just how the illharess or the yath who hears of this handles it. It can go from one quellar demanding revenge from the other to a full scale war to a quellar diverting all their resources against you. I can't say for specifics what bad things would happen

I don't know if it's mechanically possible or not, but it seems to me that lore-wise there is an alternative to outright sacrificing of a drow who failed their assassination attempt. And that's for Lolth to transform them into a drider.

Spoiler:

I don't know how much DM work would be involved in making a genuine transformation, so I'm going to suggest the use of polymorph to take on a spider shape coupled with a note in the examine box. It should require DM involvement though, like executions in Shadowdale, but as an option to avoid sacrifice and permadeath arguments it might be a good idea. I don't know if Lolth can or does revert driders to their true form, but anyone who does manage to revert has clearly earned the blessing of Lolth and would be in at least as strong a position as they were before. This all assumes that these things can be RPed to the satisfaction of all involved of course.

Well back in the day a dm offered to turn me into a drider, but that pretty much meant he was going to perma-kill me. Basically: "You can keep playing your char, but you instantly have to attack everything you see in pvp, and then they'll kill you over and over"

DarthOrgana wrote:

Well back in the day a dm offered to turn me into a drider, but that pretty much meant he was going to perma-kill me. Basically: "You can keep playing your char, but you instantly have to attack everything you see in pvp, and then they'll kill you over and over"

Not true.. a lot of the newer Drow have been building allies out of the Driders. Page 41 of the Drow of the Underdark book, if I remember correctly. Personally I would do the RP myself, if my drow got turned into a Drider. But that is just me... turn every weakness into a strength. Basic rule of business.

Driders are seriously powerful, although it's a punishment from Lolth. I don't see 3.5 Lolthites allying with one. Also, the dm 'told' me I was going to have to be completely feral. The lore didn't matter. They said I wouldn't even be allowed to speak common.

(Yes, I know driders are intelligent, but that's what the dm told me)

Driders are supposed to be like the Drow equivalent of scary bedtime stories; you fail Lolth badly enough and you get turned into a hideous beast, however powerful or intelligent you might have been, you're forever shunned because you failed SO badly a priestess decided that this was the only appropriate punishment for you.

Yes statwise they're really powerful, but they're viewed as monsters by a society of monsters. I'd think only the most insane outcast drow would probably consider working with one a good idea.

Remember that being turned into a Drider is a fate worse than death. It is only for the most terrible of failures and the most frustrated of priestesses that Driders come into reality. At most, priestesses would use Driders, but even that is a stretch. Driders are terrible monsters, and if a player becomes one it really is a "perma-death" for the PC.

Gotta say though, if my PC got turned into a drider and used by the house... pretty bad ass.

I have to sort of agree. While the drow characters are great, they're already occasionally pushing the envelope of what makes an appropriate PC, and a drider is a big step further in that direction. They're really most suitable to be NPCs, and it seems like a punishment only suited for a character that's ready for retirement.

Yeah, I guess that was kind of a silly idea. The role-playing would be hard and the power-playing would be easy, never a good mix.

Is it true they changed things in 4th ed, to turn the transformation into a blessing? I guess it makes sense for the transformation into a form more similar to your goddess being a blessing, but given drow pride I can also see how being changed from that would be considered a curse.

I am really curious how this thread turned to a Drider discussion...

Can we please get back on topic? I am looking for more information regarding the bad In Character effects of PvP against various higher ranking nobles and non noble drow. Also just pvp in general. We have a lot of new drow in camp lately and I am sure others are curious about PvP as well. We seem to not have hardly any physical arguments..I think it may be time to ask for a rule change regarding PvP in camp and the OOC guards attacking everything...


Kind regards

Vilesinger

Exactly what information are you still looking for, here?


If you attack a non-yath drow and fail, it is likely that they will try to kill you back later on. If you try to attack one of the Yath, you are likely to be labeled a heretic if you fail to kill her. Exile seems a likely punishment for attacking a Yath.

I'm not sure I feel like going through every single instance of possible PvP in the underdark and giving a likely outcome. That's the character's job to figure out, weighing the reward versus the risk at that moment in time. That is what it means to be drow, being able to determine these things. If you can't, as a player, then you shouldn't play high wisdom characters until you have a grasp of this way of thinking. I cannot teach you how to do it.

I've seen plenty of meaningless "duels" on the stone bridge just outside camp, where the guards do not care about. If that's what you're looking for, you can do it. I think it's silly unless you have a very specific reasoning to do it, though. Drow really aren't the type to go "Hey you! I challenge you to a gentleman's duel! Meet on the stone bridge at noon, good sir!" or something like that. If your character really wants somebody dead, they'd murder that person when they(the killer) have the advantage of surprise and no witnesses to complicate things. At least, that is how a normal drow would handle the situation. Not brawling in the middle of a camp.

Of course, the rules of the 'RP out' sort of complicate these things. You can't just kill people whenever you want, and assassinations are rather messy. You aren't going to have a perfect drow environment with these sorts of rules, and no permadeath. It's pointless to try.