We Need A Serious Discussion: Drow RP

I don't know about anyone else, but I am getting tired of seeing Drow being role-played as elves with a preference for S&M. I'm not here to name names or call anyone out, I want us to have a real discussion about Drow RP. Here are a couple points I have been noticing more and more:

• Lots of surface rothe in camp, who seem to be there just for looks, but no UD rothe really.
  
• Lots of surfacers being allowed to be in the camp. Drow are supposed to be narcissistic, xenophobic and totally obsessed with their own superiority. I guess my main problem with this one not even so much that they are there as the fact everyone wants to be nice to them. Where is the racial hate?
  
• How many of you have "Chaotic" on your sheet? I have never seen better examples of a Lawful RP, as everyone seems obsessed with rules following. Not, I would not, for the purpose of avoiding death. No, there seems to be a desire to follow the rules because they are the rules.
  
• A lack of personal rp storylines (and I definitely have failed here alot). I see a lot of people (and again i include myself here) participating in the big camp storylines, and then sitting around the fire or grinding. There don't seem to be a lot of personal storyline threads running. Many of the ones who had them, used those storylines to move over to the surface drow it seems.
  

I am looking for real suggestions to these issues, or any others anyone wants to raise, about Drow RP.

I had always been intrigued by the underdark drow in lore, based on the political intrigue, the plays for power, the conniving, subtlety, and sly dealings. I've heard otherwise on this server too, though I've not experienced it so I've just chalked up to some players not liking current RP and grousing.

S&M though? Are you sure? I have it on good authority that there is vastly more adult and lewd RP on the surface. Surely that first part is an exaggeration... ((sarcasm is so hard to convey in text))

It's hard to betray people when they won't stay dead.

Hahaha, I second Raven's aside! Betrayal really only works if the person you betrayed stays dead... same with Assassination...

And I have also seen more lewd'ness on the surface... and feel that the drow do the 'intreague' aspect far better than on the surface,

We should at very least make it true that in drow society, those who are betrayed/assasinated are humiliated to death in drow society, and lose societal respect/rank/etc... or something similar... if we really want to keep the harshness of the drow aspect,

Of course I agree with most of what Kanada says and look forward to any future discussion,

The issues are is we do not have the number of people to achieve what we would want to. The backstabbing and stuff would be fun if it didnt directly effect your unkillable neighbor and if we already had a large , well defended, society started.

Lets be honest, our great houses are small handfuls of people, we dont have a city, let alone standing armies. There are some irreplaceable people in camp because no one will do the job..

This may all be more reasonable if we where already one established voice, instead of a million different small people all aiming towards advancing in a single unit .

I have the option of backstabbing everyone around me, at the end of the day, it just makes me a hunted outcast as dead men do tell tales, or at the very least are just once more placed back where they where. So instead, we cling to law. Law allows us to advance without the environment we have, with rules come power and prestige.


To quote from magus

"I had always been intrigued by the underdark drow in lore, based on the political intrigue, the plays for power, the conniving, subtlety, and sly dealings"

This cannot exist, without established Law. When our numbers are bigger, when we have a city and we can afford to cross a few paths this will all become a potential reality.

Once we can rally together, and be a credible threat to everyone around us then we can start to be a creditable threat to ourselves. Otherwise will will just splinter, go our ways, and we wont even have what little intrigue at court we have as is

UD's kinkier, surface just has more of it...

That aside.. Short of making it a permadeath server, I don't know what people expect to be done about making consequences stick. Killing someone does no good, there's no finality to any interpersonal conflict. The best you can hope for is to ruin everything they have going for them, and there's too many meddlers for that to work...

I don't say drow don't obey rules, but it should be because they are afraid of the consequences, not because they loe Law and Order ((not the tv series ^^)).

HelloCthulhu wrote:

UD's kinkier, surface just has more of it...

That aside.. Short of making it a permadeath server, I don't know what people expect to be done about making consequences stick. Killing someone does no good, there's no finality to any interpersonal conflict. The best you can hope for is to ruin everything they have going for them, and there's too many meddlers for that to work...

I dont think we are looking quite THIS helpless. When our houses get bigger, there is position and favor to consider. We can undermine, get people demoted, raise in their place.. become favorites. Yes, if you are looking to kill someone, your not gonna get it.

If anyone here has read war of the spider queen, Greyanna is a GREAT example of this in action. She becomes nothing from being a high priestess and first daughter. I would like to see things take more of an example like this, then everything being about killing others..

The slave part from what i see is looking very very odd to me. they come and go as they want where if it was normal no slave should leave the camp/city without guards or the master/mistress. Cant have slave run off, can we ?. I be fair some slave look faintly more realistic then other. Some more act like the title 'rothe' is a free VIP pass to skid to the surface and back when they want to. On the same side i also seen a tendency to main and torture slaves for fun sakes, something i often feel a bit odd in this setting. It a camp and not a city filled with slaves to buy and toss out the lesser one. Slaves are the workforce for the thing the Drow just cant bother to do or is too hard labored. Kinda of why we got washing machines, to help ease thing.

As for the more surfacers then UD races rothe i guess not enough people like to RP the other UD races.Though again to be fair , slave RP is tricky. It need alot of attention and the Slave very much depend on the master/mistress to fuction. It would also help if the slaves had a work to do other then sit around or follow along to fight stuff. Quickly example, a slave could work as a waitress for a tavern. Something to center the rp around a bit.

If we talk about Chaotic and rules there is a reason. First off as a player thing should not be total random and chaotic all time or it end confusing us quickly along the road. There is the ranking and house system which is good and provide some stability as a player. Now i cant say how much back stabing happens here in order to remove someone from a position and take their place, which would be within lines of Drow RP. Even then this is a touchy topic i think again since we are not Drow in RL and things need a certain order to prevent it turn into a ooc mess of accusation and bad feelings. I am not fully sure what to say as advice or sugguestion to this one.

On personal RP storylines. I think that bit tricky. Often our character try to avoid the ire of the Yath and speak out of turn and often thing is more tense then how 'friends' would be. The entire no trust idea make it even more difficult to make up personal plot and make them work since it has to be done with a extreme care. Lastly and i cant say too much here but i suspect DMs dont often run personal one character only ideas and then there also how creative each of us can be and still fit with the character and lore lol.

There still room to make storylines, with the Vhaeruanites slowly appearing, the UD trade city. Someone could maybe plot to make academy to varies things, less strict merchent houses. Try to a exotic trader of surface goods. There is room to make up something but once again it can be tricky and i guess most just end keeping smaller goal and storylines.

star23_16 wrote:

The slave part from what i see is looking very very odd to me. they come and go as they want where if it was normal no slave should leave the camp/city without guards or the master/mistress. Cant have slave run off, can we ?. I be fair some slave look faintly more realistic then other. Some more act like the title 'rothe' is a free VIP pass to skid to the surface and back when they want to. On the same side i also seen a tendency to main and torture slaves for fun sakes, something i often feel a bit odd in this setting. It a camp and not a city filled with slaves to buy and toss out the lesser one. Slaves are the workforce for the thing the Drow just cant bother to do or is too hard labored. Kinda of why we got washing machines, to help ease thing.

As for the more surfacers then UD races rothe i guess not enough people like to RP the other UD races.Though again to be fair , slave RP is tricky. It need alot of attention and the Slave very much depend on the master/mistress to fuction. It would also help if the slaves had a work to do other then sit around or follow along to fight stuff. Quickly example, a slave could work as a waitress for a tavern. Something to center the rp around a bit.

Reasonably, several races, orcs, tieflings, earth/fire genasi, would be seen in the UD. The only way to be in the UD at all, it seems currently, on this server is to be a drow, or rothe, and regardless of how the drow like it, that's just not the case. Even among the other UD races, not every single one would be rothe to the drow. I say that the Yath is too powerful, especially for a ragtag bunch holed up in a refugee camp. They should be something to be wary of, but not the sole definitive force in the UD.

I haven't once had to deal with someone trying to "cyber" with any of my characters in the UD which is a big reason why I started playing down here and left the surface for good.


I understand your frustration with trying to RP the back stabbing drow society.
As multiple other people mentioned that is really tough within the game mechanics unless we start perma death which would just be no fun.

How do you as Lord B suggested make a character loose their rank and reputation because another character beat them. That may not be perma death but it might as well be as it will make it very difficult for that player to continue.
We had this happen in Dabel'kith several months ago. At first the power play was intriguing and fun RP but is caused so much occ drama end the end that it was no fun. The player in question ended up perma killing the character anyway.

If you want to for example have your character beat out the current Ilharess and take her place as matron. What do you do with the old Ilharess? You can’t tell that player, sorry your character you’ve been working on for a year all of the sudden has no rank or reputation. That would just suck.

HelloCthulhu wrote:

Reasonably, several races, orcs, tieflings, earth/fire genasi, would be seen in the UD. The only way to be in the UD at all, it seems currently, on this server is to be a drow, or rothe, and regardless of how the drow like it, that's just not the case. Even among the other UD races, not every single one would be rothe to the drow. I say that the Yath is too powerful, especially for a ragtag bunch holed up in a refugee camp. They should be something to be wary of, but not the sole definitive force in the UD.

Yeah, not all of them are. I play a drow, a grey orc and a deep gnome. The orc is a mercenary working for a Yathrin, and the deep gnome owns and runs his own business out of Sschindylryn. There was a clan of duergar that had a contract with a Qu'ellar for a while too. Not all of them are being forced to be rothe.

My point was out of all the rothe we have down her,e how many are UD races? Not many.

A couple things, let's relax the OP poster's active voice a tad bit in this. You have 3 DMs in the UD. Posting on here and having people either adding or subtracting from the discussion I am not sure what the full intent is. You might be better off if you try and contact staff first.


"# How many of you have "Chaotic" on your sheet? I have never seen better examples of a Lawful RP, as everyone seems obsessed with rules following. Not, I would not, for the purpose of avoiding death. No, there seems to be a desire to follow the rules because they are the rules.
# A lack of personal rp storylines (and I definitely have failed here alot). I see a lot of people (and again i include myself here) participating in the big camp storylines, and then sitting around the fire or grinding. There don't seem to be a lot of personal storyline threads running. Many of the ones who had them, used those storylines to move over to the surface drow it seems. "

I would say you are probably judging many people's RP here and we do not promote that kinda stuff. If you are having a problem, be tactful and present it to staff. Because most threads like these get locked.

Honestly I have some view on playing a rothe and it isn't that fun. I personally don't understand why someone would want to play one, unless they truly wanted to play it to the extreme degree. Some examples:

1. Only gets to wear cloth. We don't want to be giving slaves +5 armor of spikey badness.

2. No weapons besides mundane non magical weapons at best. Do we really need slaves using weapons on their captives.

3. Maybe RPing some type of slave collar that has some domination magic to it per the master it is attuned too. Again all RP.

4. Slave isn't allowed to retain wealth, if you find it, it is for your master.

5. Slaves don't get to dress up, they get to dress down. Hence rule 1.

6. Slaves are used to taste for poison. I mean, so what if they die, you can get another one.

7. When a slaves screws up, their master is responsible. Pending the infraction, their master might face dangerous punishments.

8. Once a slave gets used up of all worth, they kill it.

Now me personally I wouldn't want to play this, but I think if someone really wanted to play a slave then play one. But the UD shouldn't be used as another source to grind.

Those are good points DM Axe. I tried to point out where I have failed there as well. I didn't use any names, or even suggest situations that might imply a specific person, except where I called out myself.

This thread really was about trying to get drow to rp more as drow. I am sorry if you think it's judging people's rp, I guess I can see that point of view. I prefer to look at it as trying to bring this view into the public eye without saying anyone's name or telling people their RP isn't right.

I'm sorry if I offended.

Quote :

The slave part from what i see is looking very very odd to me. they come and go as they want where if it was normal no slave should leave the camp/city without guards or the master/mistress.

I would like to repost a part of Star's post and point out that the lack of maintaining a leash along with allowing slaves to practice divine or arcane magic of any sort detracts from the proper feel one should get when encountering drow and their pets

Drow RP is not usually in your face type stuff.

My PC usually just slinks about going about his business while seething for revenge upon the spider bitches who he cannot yet kill due to his many weaknesses.

If anyone has a chance to sit and speak with Izz'orgoll they will find him to be very much a Drow. Actually he is kind of a dick, and is very quick to lash with his tongue despite usually having a distinct disadvantage in character strength.

::shrugs:: Playin a Drow ain't easy, but it sure can be fun.