There seems to be a lack of DM attention/plots/quests which are good-oriented. Most of them seem to be oriented towards those with a penchant for molesting corpses and bending over for various infernal elements about Sanctuary.

Granted, the Underdark is an area saturated with evil folk, but the almost complete lack of NPCs, good-oriented factions or plots seems to be discouraging.

Can the DMs offer any suggestions in this area? Or is playing a good PC to be considered a "reward in itself"?

Here's the thing, in my opinion, and it's a really hard concept to grasp even for me (I failed miserably at a lot of PC's in my time because I didn't realise it myself) - your imagination is your limit as far as "DM plots, quest, and good orientated factions" go.

We can't lead people by the hand, because it is very, very tiring to do so. We're not just going to jump in and lead a player to a story or a plotline.

The key is to actually plonk yourself into your characters thoughts and think "Hey, I want to do (This)" and then ask the DM if they can run it. I made a thread ages ago along these lines. Sometimes it takes OOC planning tor timing and organising.

The thing is, 'evil' characters seem to do this a lot more than good ones. But a Good character can do just as much as an evil one. They have differences of opinion all the time - Tyr's clergy are always trying to outdo the Helmites.

There's just not enough energy in me sometimes, and I won't deny it. DMing is tougher than people give us credit for, I swear. I'd quite like the players to lead my DMing sometimes, than for me to have to force players to railroad themselves somewhere, even though that can be fabulously entertaining for the players themselves, it can burn a man out.

- NC

I'm going to address a slight misconception here.

First: No good factions

Looking down our list of factions, we have 9 good factions, 7 evil factions, and 9 neutral factions. I would be very, very surprised if we did not have similar ratios of NPCs.

Second: Lack of Good-oriented DM attention.

99% of DM plots are neither good-oriented nor evil oriented. Most DM plots, we lay the framework, and what players do with it is up to them. Every plot I have written has ways that both good and evil players can "solve" it. And if players come up with ways I haven't thought of, we usually let that work too, 'cause we approve of creativity. DM plots are neither good nor evil - how they turn out is entirely dependent upon PCs. Like Nuke said, it sometimes seems like evil folks try to chase down these outcomes more often than good folks, and that may result in more evil outcomes.

That last quest is very important to understand. Most of the time, we do NOT have predetermined outcomes for DM quests. We build the quest, then throw you in it and see what you do. We, the DMs, have limited capacity to produce awesome stuff (It takes a lot of work, and we are few)...but giving players the opportunity to do awesome stuff is very easy. So that's what we try to do on DM quests. Give people a chance to be creative and solve problems in ways that don't necessarily involve game mechanics. Evil and good really don't have crap to do about it.

-Cross

I appreciate the post because this is a good opportunity to state my opinion and experience in a public manner. We as DMs are very careful with how we support players. The majority of the time we prefer to not interfere, but simply let players work things out for themselves.

The argument, occasionally advanced, that DMs just support evil players all the time is something to be honest I find pretty tiresome and not at all true. I also find it equally tiresome when players who after getting beat up in the Watch or chased down by a NPC private after trying to beat up someone in the streets try to claim OOC that the DMs don't help evil pcs. I don't think DMs favor a particular alignment, I do know that we favor really interesting and superbly role-played characters. Even that form of "favor" though usually comes in the form of additional challenges and opportunities, not so much just extra loot/experience.

I guess I have to say that I vehemently disagree with every line in your post. In fact, your own argument contradicts yourself. If we develop a plot where certain evil NPC is trying to do a certain evil thing, doesn't it follow that that would therefore be a great opportunity for a proactive good character to stop them from doing this? That is, you may not want to RP a character that likes animating the dead -- but maybe it's fun to play a character who prevents characters from raising the dead, and kills them/converts them/spies on them/slanders them/sells them air freshener?

Probably the one EfU Demographic Group that I -do- support in a big way is new players. I admit that I do try to shower people new to the server with super easy quests where there's lots of loot and experience.

Otherwise, I'm sorry if you're discouraged but my suggestion would be to perhaps we can have a separate discussion where we talk about how to really play effective good, or I can point you towards some players who have played very effective good so you can ask about their experience.

Understood - I stand humbly corrected.

Since giving it more thought and seeing the DMs response, I believe it is a matter of perception - certain things stick in the mind more than others. For example, getting killed on a DM quest or targeted by a mob of critters you think the DM is controlling.

I think people are naturally jealous of attention and tend to place greater importance on DM involvement, where their deaths may have come about as a result of bad luck or plain stupidity.

I'm one of those people.

My apologies to the DMs for raising the issue. I was wrong - please leave the trout where it is.

I'm just glad you asked the question in the first place rather than having an assumption in the back of your mind that I don't think is accurate. Major bonus points to you for both asking and then having the maturity to think it over and change your mind.