In the thread about good, the points cropped up about stereotypes.

The problem as i see it with the FR setting sometimes is that players get 'forced' into a role by the class that they play.

For instance, an average cleric of Torm. Does he really have a personality of his own? In a lot of cases - no! Players can feel forced to play him according to dogma as a frontline fighter in the battle against evil, and as such, one guys cleric of Torm ends up EXACTLY the same as the last because they end up feeling restricted by the dogma, and denied any freedom of expression due to their choice... the necessity of the alignment. They just end up one-dimensional and dull.

This is a problem. How can you entertain people when your cleric is the same as every other one they've ever met? How can you maintain your own personal interest (without reverting to numbers and relying on being stupendously combat effective to get over the stumbling block of banality)

In my personal opinion the best thing you can do is, think of a major character flaw. Your Cleric has a weakness for gambling. Your cleric dislikes Elves for no obvious reason. Your Cleric despise the knowledge that he is going to die one day. Something like that. You can have an incredibly heroic and brave character that is essentially a good man, but is so blinded entirely by their need for everyone around them to work for everything they get that they are quite willing to slaughter their own party in the heat of battle because they ran away from combat, leaving you on your own, or they looted a comrade.

Then, think weaponry. So many weapons in nwn, but everyone seems to end up with the bastard sword, the greataxe, the shortsword or the longbow. Why doesn't he specialise in dart throwing (due to say, being brought up in a circus)? Little things like this can make all the difference, and change you from being "hooded elf rogue 101" to "This amazing elf rogue guy that duel wields kamas and spits every time he sees a gnome for reasons he never shares".

You know, people that stay within the lines get hammered far to often for being stereotypical. 90% of the time though, it's not the player, it's the enviroment. It is natural to want to advance and in a PW enviroment, especially if you come out of the MMO crowd, you do that by hacking things to pieces. Otherwise you can hope for DM attention.

In computer gaming a well played by the book character, is often over shadowed by the "Dwarf, raised by Orcs, that thinks he is an Elf, with Multiple personality Disorder that manifests as a CE halfling Paladin, Cleric Barbarian Rogue merchant Master leader of millions with his 6 charisma 8 intelligence showing off his mastery of the Death and evil Domains in the name of his Good Sun god"

Granted there have been more then a few sterotypical two dimensional PC's, but there have been many More Good, True to Form, by the book characters as well. Unfortunently instead of getting support, they are often sidelined in the name of "Crap, there goes another Cleric of Torm that hates evil. *grumble*"

There is far to much Idiocy in the name of Originality online, and not enough support for people actually trying to play by the rules.

It takes very little input to help a person flesh out their two dimensional cleric of torm example; making it one of the enjoyable characters to be around. With the reams of material available for the Realms to add depth, there is no reason not to dip into that coffer of information to put some meat on those bones of an idea.

As for the Call to Arms of the weapon flavor of the day, look at the enviroment. No one wants to make the Mace Master, because the Bastard Sword Master will kick his ass. In the Land of no Magic weapons, (often done in the name of getting people to make balanced parties) You get a pile of bastard sword/great axe using multiclass clerics who never do much more then memorize a pile of Magic Weapon Spells. Let's not forget the ever popular Axe Murderer Rogue Great Axe/Sneak Attack combo.

Nuclear Catastrophe makes a great point of adding flaws and quirks to your character. Many of the characters allready have these flaws built into their stats, yet they are allmost never called on it. You sit there and constantly play your flaws and quirks, and just shudder at the vast numbers of folks that went from 2nd to 7th in a day by spamming all the statics with their min maxed barbarian fighter rogue. Of course there is allmost no way in EFU to spot a PC's low stats and their effect on the physical world, because so many people NEVER FILL OUT A DESCRIPTION. A Description could Note SEVERAL of your flaws and quirks. Many good players will note things in your description and react accordingly. Certain things have an advantage, bluntly, and folks will gravitate towards them in the name of staying alive, often ignoring the negative aspects of low stats etc.....because they are being original and the DM's will never call them on being a douche.

Some statics that include puzzles and lore would sprout a bunch of characters that suddenly had intelligence and skills other then discipline and healing.

There is hardly any support, for the guy trying to be realistic. Then again there doesn't seem to be much Reward for the Risk of trying to stay within the lines anyway. I personally would like to see more of what Nuclear Catastrophe pointed out, characters with depth. Unfortunently, the Enviroment decrees otherwise for the vast majority. There is a way to get around that though, just don't see it happening here.

~Rex :evil:

[applauds Rex]

Rex has come up with some truely unique characters, many of which were less than optimum builds. He suceeded at (to my knowledge) every one of them because of uniqueness. They were fresh and different in concept, played in an excellent and often humorous way. No, not the "everyone's a comedian type" humorous, the god damn that was a funny description kind of humorous. He is a blast to play with and players like that often raise the bar of RP for those that are around him.

I played with him around the time of my elven dual wielding cleric of Shevarash. Yep, a dual wielding cleric. That character was a blast to play. Screw the 3 AC I lost, it was far more interesting to wade into combat dual wielding and watch the "0.o a dual wielding cleric???" tells. On top of it he was an quick tempered one with a love of inflict (insert: light, serious or crit as need dictates) who was prone to fits of rage. Why play that you ask? It will never live/ work/ survive you say??? Wrong, he did quite well. Ever see a dual wielding elven cleric gut an umberhulk behemoth alone? I had a blast playing him, right up to his death. And his death led me to even more fun as a new charcter.

Take your interesting build and run with it. Figure out where you excell and go there. "This amazing elf rogue guy that duel wields kamas and spits every time he sees a gnome for reasons he never shares" guy that NC mentioned? That could work if you play to his strengths and avoid going overboard. My elven cleric rugularly avoided using a bow because he sucked with one, especially shooting into combat. He passed it off as disdainful, prefering divine guidance at the point of a rapier :wink:

Try an oddball, you might be suprised how much fun they are.

*shrugs* the way to get around it is from people to enjoy playing characters that have depth rather than simply running the treadmill of quests and worrying more about experience than roleplaying. I'm not sure how you can get around that in the system. Frankly it is better here than at ANY other PW that I have been on.

The dichotomy is between computer game players and pencil and paper players. Though 45% of the pencil and paper D&D players I have seen are more interested in hack and slash and loot than plot (which is why I moved over to white wolf and the depth of information that I found to exist when I started investigating NWN amazed me) there are really only 10% of "RPG" computer game players that are interested in plot. Witness the fact that planescape torment sold miserably while it had one of the best plots in any computer roleplaying game. While diablo, which had no plot to speak of, sold millions and spawned an entire new sub genere of games.

EfU is far from perfect, but I'm not sure some of your criticism is fair. The best weapons in the game are non-optimal weapons -- I know this for a fact. The best weapons available in the standard ambient loot chests are definitely unusual picks, and it is also true that most of the really good custom weapons I and the other DMs have made have not been mechanically the best base type. That said, I don't want players to tilt too far in the direction of thinking an unusual weapon choice is necessary, really important, or the key to positive DM attention. It's actually a fairly trivial matter in comparison to the importance of just having an interesting character that is well played, involves others, is entertaining, has interesting goals, etc.

Characters that don't fairly play their social stats get spoken to by the DMs, or face major disadvantages in their dealings with NPCs. Clerics that don't do a good job of promoting their deity's dogma get warned, and many times face spell-failure.

The nature of any public, non-passworded server (I think) is that the quality will vary considerably in terms of players. I acknowledge we have had some very min-maxed characters. But, I suspect it's less than most people assume. I also think players that stay on the server long realize that playing a totally min-maxed PC is actually not a very good idea.

Some more scripted puzzles on scripted quests might be nice, but there is that lingering issue that once it's solved it doesn't stay very interesting. The other issue is that I personally have made about 80% of the quests on the server, and I wouldn't know how to script good puzzles. I do know, however, that many (not all, but many) DMs quests incorporate things of this nature.

I think NC's advice of having a character with flaws and interesting goals is very sound. One of these days I'll make my own thread about RP'ing and characterization, but I don't really have time now and it's something I'd want to do in a thorough way.

I'm fond of archetypes, but I could take or leave stereotypes. :( Take a powerful human evoker, seeking ultimate power...then give him a Woody Allen voice. :D

Lots of good points here. Please endure a few points from my perspective. There is no way around diversity when it comes to those that want to RP and those that want to hack and slash. There is no way to make the server perfect. We can write all we want in game or on the forums. That doesnt mean anyone will read them. We can help each other as a whole though. Slowly we can build a better place. Many characters will be killed or accused of things due to people not playing by what their character sees, but by what they see. Dont get too attached to your character. Like Sedarine said, the death of one character allowed oppurtunity with another. It gives you a chance to explore another avenue.

Each character is like a story. We all have a story in a bigger world than our own. In this, not all of our story is seen by everyone. Only you see the whole story. This is one of the pleasures of the character, but not all stories see their end. Adding quirks is great. Think about how you can make your character different. Not just different for difference sake. How often do you see a straight rogue half orc? With the special races, do something interesting. Think about how you can use the race to an advantage beyond the norm. The DMs have said before, how many apps they get for Asimar Paladins. Boring! How about an Asimar rogue. Think about it. They get bonuses againts acid, cold, and electricity. If you botch a trap, you might be alright anyway. Asimar are groomed to be good by their protectors. They are not pious ideals of good by nature. They can become say neutral. Not all rogues need to be bastard, back stabbing assassins. They can be scouts or trapspringers.

Try something different. If you die, so what you can try something else. Have fun. Being high level and rich with a min/max isnt as fun as an odd build that beat the odds. My character didnt quest for a long time. I RPed for weeks without gaining much more experience. That is as much fun as anything else.

I apologize for my randomness and scatter brainedness. I hope I got something across. I know some of my rambling was off topic a little but....

dont worry you did and i do...

I would like to throw my own two cents in here. One piece of advice I can give is come up with a character that you truly care about. Forget about stats or powerbuilds as far that goes. I know when I have created characters to fufill an ideal I have ended up droping them out of boredom in a few weeks. My characters that have lasted have been ones that I enjoyed the personality. -dholt5

dholt5 I would like to throw my own two cents in here. One piece of advice I can give is come up with a character that you truly care about. Forget about stats or powerbuilds as far that goes. I know when I have created characters to fufill an ideal I have ended up droping them out of boredom in a few weeks. My characters that have lasted have been ones that I enjoyed the personality. -dholt5

Yeah I'll agree with this one big time. Any character I've ever made for anything other than neat personality I've tossed away.

New guy on the block here, but such considerations have never kept me from dropping my 2 cents in on an interesting conversation. :D

The thing that must be kept in mind about archetypes/sterotypes is that they are there for a reason. Priests of Torm seem 2 dimensional to outsiders because its a highly regimented and dogmatic society -- conform or leave.

Think of Marines for example. I am sure there are Marines who enjoy poetry and gardening in their off time. However, when you think of a "Marine" you think of a shaved head and a starched uniform. If you could not/would not uphold that "sterotype" of being a Marine, you wouldn't be a Marine for long. Other aspects of the Marine's personality only come forward when you get to know them much better personally.

Also, it seems that a distinction needs to be made in this conversation between conformist and conventional. A character conforms when they meet the traditional societal behavoiral norms (i.e. Dwarves that are greedy and like to drink beer; Mages that are mysterious and seek after knowledge; Bards that are outgoing entertainers, etc.) A character is conventional when they make 'min-max' type decisions according to the rules (i.e. Scimitar wielding Weapon Masters; taking monk levels purely for the benefits when it makes no RP sense, etc.)

By all means, people should feel free to make 'non-conventional' characters. To the extent that these decisions are denegrated, the characters doing so are acting OOC/Metagaming. This practice should be discouraged. By the same token, 'non-conformist' characters must expect that the remaineder of society (i.e. the other players) will react appropriately (usually negatively) to their societal non-conformity. The craven Priest of Torm should rightly expect to get constant grief from his superiors and scorn from the population. The hyper-intelligent Half-Orc should expect to be patronized and mistrusted all of his days. And so on.

Gralloch

Like i say, it's an inherent flaw in playing DnD in that they DO force you to play a certain way, because of the deity system, the alignment system, and the class system.

That shouldn't stop you coming up with a new slant on it, however slight.

Why can't the LG priest of Torm be an envious, bitter man who always plays down the accomplishments of his fellow peers? Why can't the CE necromancer have a penchant for poetry and verse (and thus hire a bard as often as he can) Why can't the normally homicidal CE half-orc barbarian nutcase have a soft spot for gnomes?

It just becomes boring to play with the same character, different name over and over, especially after two years of NwN.

After reading some of the posts I confess to being far too exasperated to respond with a case for why I think a lot of what people are saying is utter tripe.

So just please someone rescue me by making a good, solid, bog standard cleric of a commonly worshipped West Faerunian deity that wishes to pursue his dogma and nothing more. Be a bastion of your faith, rather than a cleric with a load of hangups and a really rather absurd arsenal of obscure reasons why you should act in a bizarre manner that entirely overshadows the purpose of the character as a devout of <Deity>.

Ladocicea After reading some of the posts I confess to being far too exasperated to respond with a case for why I think a lot of what people are saying is utter tripe.

So just please someone rescue me by making a good, solid, bog standard cleric of a commonly worshipped West Faerunian deity that wishes to pursue his dogma and nothing more. Be a bastion of your faith, rather than a cleric with a load of hangups and a really rather absurd arsenal of obscure reasons why you should act in a bizarre manner that entirely overshadows the purpose of the character as a devout of <Deity>.

I'm sure you have a dozen on the server. You likely never notice them.

I know when I DM'ed in the past, I never noticed these guys.

Not because there is no room for them per se. Its because they'll never stand out. They're just background noise to the story.

Think of any book you read, even set in DnD. Is the hero the standard solid, cleric of a common diety? Or is there something about his personality that makes him unique and interesting?

He may adhere to the stereotypes fairly well--as I've said many times in the past. Yet without something special, without some effort, all you've done is put one more brick in a brick house that is all over looked. Not every character is the cornerstone, but you're going to get a better story overall if you try to be once in awhile.

No offense Lad, I like you! However, I think we've played together on servers for two or three years and I honestly can't think of a single character you've played. Nothing wrong with that if you're enjoying yourself of course. I think that the comments here are being directed at the people who want more than to just enjoy some scripted adventurers and ad hoc DM interactions. These comments are applying to people going "Why don't I get noticed more?" "Why are my characters so easily forgotten or overlooked?" "Why is it so hard to keep my character's motivations at the fore?" Etc etc.

Just like with acting. If you play a second bit part, its often integral to the story. No show is complete without the second bit part. Imagine Star Wars without Storm Troopers on Tatoinne or Star Trek with no Red Shirts or any western with out the random Mexican Black Hat. If you want to try out to be second fiddle and still will enjoy it, by all means make a cookie cutter elven cleric of Corellon.

If you want to be the star, try adding cinnamon to that sugar cookie recipe. Something subtle, you don't need too much. I know I've tried to play the background characters, I'm bored to tears within a few days.

I wanna be a star!

I'm sure you have a dozen on the server. You likely never notice them.

I know when I DM'ed in the past, I never noticed these guys.

Untrue. The only bog standard clerics of x Deity I've noticed were quit quickly because they were too hard to play in a staying the hell alive and afloat (economically) context. It kind of suggests people are stuffing weird background/motivation into the areas of their faith where it suits them to allow them to bypass the unwanted dogma.

Bite the damned bullet.

I promise you, if there's a standard, solid cleric of a deity that is played well, I'll notice them and reward them. I can think of one currently that is being pulled off to varying degrees of success in different areas, though the difficulties have prompted the player to seriously contemplate quitting the character already.

What difficulties exactly? My characters are generally gimped from the start and manage to do pretty well at leveling and accumulating gear. Not as great as some, but they manage. Even when they take 20% xp hits for multiclassing, wield a club, wear plate mail while taking wizard levels, or take more levels of cleric than they have wisdom to support themselves (all some serious build issues with my last character).

I still think it just comes down to, "I'm bored with this guy, and he's not doing that well anyway." If the character concept was at all interesting on a personal level, a player would be more inclined to stick with it.

I mean, just like a book or movie. If you already know how the plot will evolve, you aren't likely to finish it if its getting a little tedious. However, if the characters are exciting and you aren't entirely sure what will come next, you stick through even a few boring scenes.

Is it really so hard for you to imagine a cleric of a faith that might make surviving or accumulating wealth difficult?

Tempus? Garagos? Ilmater?

Sure, you could even stretch it to deities like Helm where the expectation is simply to protect people in your party in situations where other lesser men would run, often resulting in your death.

Anyway, I'm being lured into an argument in which I've no interest. I just want to make it clear what I feel there is a distinct lack of on the server and what I believe would be best for Sanctuary's community. If you disagree with me, there won't be consequences.

Having re-read the thread, i now see what people are getting at, having been completely lost earlier on somehow.

There is a place for stereotypes, but it'll never be 'incredibly' fun to play, because it is not 'yours'.

To quote George R. R. Martin, you should never write a book based on another persons world and rules, simply because you need to flex your own literary muscles. To tie this in loosely, i see every PC as a story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. You are an actor/actress, and your PC is your vassal. It's why you play, because you want to create a novel within a world, or play a role in it. If you wanted meaningless numbers, you would be playing world of warcraft or everquest. If you make a stereotypical character, that's fine, but it's almost like playing someone elses mold - specifically, you are playing characters made by J.R.R. Tolkien about 60 years ago. Drunken dwarf? Thieving tricky halfling? Dextrous Elf? All his, and they're not your character, truly, they're his, and you're not flexing your own literary craft to its fullest.

Back wholly in Neverwinter Nights now, Clerics need to follow the dogma. Druids need to adhere to natures law. Paladins must seek out evil and the undead. Fine, that is the world we play in. Obey the rules of character generation, and you will plow ahead happily. However, one day, you will ask yourself the question, sooner or later : why?

Ridiculous lisps, facial ticks, and headbands don't cut it. You have to enjoy playing your character. The only way to do this is to make them more real, more believable. If they are more believable to you, they will be righteous in the eyes of other people.

I'm not suggesting everyone should play frilly-dress wearing dwarves, or try to break the mold entirely by making evil Tormites. I'm suggesting you at least try to think of a way to make your character stand out, without looking ridiculous.

This can be considered a mite hypocritical. When i started playing Neverwinter Nights, i never thought about any of this. These are only words, and not all particularly wise - don't let ANYONE stop you enjoying what you play. If you disagree with anything i've said, i completely understand - an RPG is just that, playing something else, a role you're not. If you're fresh to dnd, or nwn, the role of playing an elven wizard can be extremely appealing, and a world of dwarves, goblins and a multitude of Priests is a brilliant place to explore. It's only for the long time diehards that things become a little bit stale, i think, when we've seen and played every stereotype going, and we're now looking for ways to adjust things to make everything fresh again - which may be unfair on those that want to see the stereotypes at work because they haven't seen the world before.

P.S. I think everyones put in some amazing feedback, i normally despise these sorts of threads myself because telling people how to play is a silly thing to do, and counter-productive sometimes, but your thoughts are much appreciated.

A stereotypical cleric of Tempus fights and enjoys battle.

A developed cleric of Tempus fights and enjoys battle (stereotype) but perhaps he:

A) Daily questions the morality of conflicts he's witnessed.

B) Struggles continually against his own fear of death a. in battle b. not in battle C) Works to bring about a war of annihilation between local tribes. D) Enjoys writing haikus about weapons. He screams these in battle. E) Is afraid of rats.

You can always stick to a stereotype, and even should really when making a character that follows a dogma but put more effort into it if you want to stand out.

I can tell you, a priest of Tempus with some of the attributes above sticks out a lot more in my mind than playing a Tempestian priest named Beetle Baily who wears brown and green clothes around town or just playing another by the book Tempestian at all.

My entire point is that you can roleplay a stereotype. Its a lot like learning to juggle. You may even be good at it. You will be entertained. People around you will be entertained. Moving past the stereotype is like moving past juggling balls to flaming scimitars while balanced on one foot above a shark tank as your assistant pours chum over the high wire you're on and down into the shark pool.

In other words. A little more exciting but perhaps more effort than some people want/can put into a game like this.

I have to agree that fleshing out your character with various flaws or special character traits (from now on I will just say flaws, but it will include the latter) help your character be more realistic and enjoyable BUT you must be careful about what that flaw is. When you are creating your character's personnality and background, pay attention to this

IMHO the flaw should : -Be obvious : It doesn't have to be physically visible, and your character shouldn't be sticking his flaw in everyone's face (who likes to show their flaws anyway?) but you must let other players see it quite soon when they are playing with you (I would say that the near the end of your first meeting is the best time to show your flaw). Often, you will meet others while they are wanting to organise a party and do a quest, so having some flaw that has some relevancy with questing will allow you to subtly introduce the subject and expose your flaw. If you don't do this, the other players first impressions will become fixated and your character will be remembered as "another..." just because you hadn't taken/got the time to expose the flaw. If you do show your flaws early on however, whenever the player sees you, his mind will tick "Hey that's that particular dude who was rather fun to be with last time" and he might decide to stick with you to see some more.

To take back Oroborous's example of the cleric of Tempus, if he does question the morality of conflicts, but keeps those questions to himself, its just as if he didn't have that flaw. He will need to speak out that question to make others become involved

-Be Deep : what I mean by deep is this : even though you should expose the flaw early on, you shouldn't reveal absolutely everything. Otherwise the initial interest you suscitated just dissipates. Since NC is quoting stuff, I will quote Shrek : your character has layers. Each time you let someone reach another layer, it is like a reward for the other player for RPing with you. It will help you keep the other's interested in your character.

To take back Oroborous's example of the cleric of Tempus, if he does question the morality of conflicts, but keeps those questions to himself, its just as if he didn't have that flaw. He will need to speak out that question to make others become involved.

-Be relevant and consequential : the flaw you present must be interesting. Before saying that your character's main flaw is that his grand mother was someone evil, or he can't say the word zero for some reason, ask yourself if the flaw you chose is going to interest others. Will people be interested in knowing about this character's flaw? Often, flaws that don't have any impact ingame wether it be on the quests or in relationships, won't be interesting. Who cares about flaws that doesn't have any effect? If your flaw isn't relevant to the world you character is in, and if it doesn't actually have any effect in game, it won't be remembered, and you might as well not have them.

An irrelevant flaw would be this : Your character is afraid of roses: How many flowers did you last see on EfU? An unconsequential flaw would be this : Your character is allergic to something and he sneezes all the time.

-Be realistic : Before you decide what your flaw is, ask yourself if you think its realistic. Does anyone around you have that flaw? Have you ever seen anyone with that problem? If no, then maybe you've got something very original, or very ridiculous. Ridiculous includes larger than life and plain stupid. If your flaw is ridiculous, your character is ridiculous, and that will undermine him. Look around you, look at your family, see what flaws they have, look at people on the news and the like, see if what you've come up with exists. Don't invent new pathological mental disorders and the like, it will sound ridiculous.

There, i've run out of steam now, so feel free to add to this list.