Unwelcome races in waterdeep

[Lukon]

Fascinating, rousing, and entirely an appeal to emotion. The fact stands that concepts of 'passing' non-humans are difficult to manage and are cumbersome. In a large room or a time-sensitive RP, reading every description entirely for context can be a pain. While I agree that it's good to a create or read a developed description, it's also not always practical.

My opinion, if you want to play a 'secret tiefling' or any 'not-what-I-seem-to-be' racial concept, simply apply and adjective appropriately. Working with what we're given is a courtesy to other players. Becoming offended when they don't accomodate your RP is a waste of energy.

[Moloch]

I feel inclined to state that, as you may believe what you want, Waterdeep is NOT exclusively for goodies . While you may think that you are correct, saying that evils have nothing better to do than to sit around Waterdeep, you are obviously incorrect, as Evils have just as much business there as anyone else.

Enjoy .

[Horace]

And tieflings aren't exclusively evil - but they /look/ evil...and alignment profiling isn't such a taboo in struggle of good vs evil land.

The appeal of a tiefling is looking unusually badass - but the downside with looking like "satan + night crawler + hellboy" is that everyone thinks you're going to eat their soul...and in most cases, the profiling is spot on. I'm susceptible to the appeal of coolness factor as anyone, but the downsides to tieflings out weigh the cool by a metric ton. This is something i don't think any of the admins or immortals are trying to hide - but as long as they get horns, fangs, cowboy explosion, touchdown robots, they'll be played.

[Moloch]

I was not talking about tieflings, persay, just stating a general fact since everyone seems to be pointing out how evils should seemingly be excluded from all roleplay that takes place in Waterdeep. If you would like a place free of evil, visit Disney World .

[Horace]

yes sir!

I was really focused on using the phrase "cowboy explosion, touchdown robots"...I have a drinking problem

I agree, Waterdeep is the hub for all humans and humanoids who aren't monsters...not unlike disneyland

[Nysan]

Cannot keep evils out of Waterdeep (anymore, fun old rules). There are reasons for the 'dark side' folks to visit there just as much, sometimes more, as the goodies. School of Wonders alone draws many young evil wizards to the area not to mention the quick buck from running deliveries for the package service. Granted, the need to spend hours around the Square tend to be drastically less for evils...the place is still popular.

[Lukon]

Evil in Waterdeep is fine.

Tieflings, however, are easy pariahs. And such cultures are suckers for the easy pariah. A powerful and vested priest of an evil god will not be touched (because he brings cash and an angry, evil god). The game goes for lesser priests to a lesser extent, and some evils are just profitable or...well...not obviously evil. I mean, your average human's nice, right...? Especially if they're hot.

Now, with tieflings, drow, half-drow, half-orc, orcs, and goblins, it is easy for your average washerwife to go "Aargh! Alas! A demon/monster/bad thingie is threatening the children! won't anyone think of the children?!" And then pitchforks.

I'm fully in favor of evil RP in Waterdeep. I just think the example of 'passing as human' is one the game's not coded to properly support.

[Mariela]

Thanks for the cookie, Raona, I'm pretty sure Mariela and I are well aware we type in special blunt tone. ;)_

Yes the, "Step right up, taking your mallet.. wack the mole' sort of tone. I don't really sensor what I say when I type. I just type. So I sound as if I am speaking.. which does not translate well to text, I will grant you that. Nor do I feel the need to clean up the sharpness of my point. Cause when I do, the point gets lost in political correctness of our age. Thus, I don't do it.

But, I do love debate.


My original point was that if you are evil, why are you hanging out in Waterdeep crying that someone has noticed your a half bred lepracaun? It is supremely obvious by PC cannon that Waterdeep is where all the adevnturers go to hang out. So why are all the evil characters perpetually sitting around... most of the time not even RPing to....... what? Twiddle their thumbs? And then they complain they have nothing to do cause.. the only place people RP is Waterdeep..... and thus.. see this vicious cycle?

My point was to promote that if you are evil.. start your own hang out spot. That way, good people can try to crack into your things. Rather than vice versa.

And I am sorry. I do like reading people's descriptions, but often we don't have time... or like right now in my case, I don't have the line view to be able to give them the attention they deserve. So I rely heavily on the adjective to give me a rough guess of who you are.. andthen I see how you RP... and then go off from there. See how your character is live before I spend some time "Staring' or "looking" them over.

If I have to ignore the adjective.... then why the heck do we have them anyways? Why are they custom made-to-order? We could just have your name, and then make people look when they see you. But no.. we have these handy first glance things... adjectives.

I will admit, I have no real good basis in table top Forgotten Realms. Most of what I know comes from reading through books and sort of hot wiring it with other fantasy elements. (To be honest, I know more about Dragonlance than I do the Forgotten Realms.) The idea of being breeded to something that isn't human.. in fact isn't even of this world/plane just screams you'd have something about you that is off. A vibe, an eye color.. something. Something that would make people feel the need to either come closer to you.. in terms of those twisted with the divine, or further away if you are twisted with the demonic. People want to get closer to heaven, and further away from hell... ect.

[Selveem]

And I am sorry. I do like reading people's descriptions, but often we don't have time... or like right now in my case, I don't have the line view to be able to give them the attention they deserve. So I rely heavily on the adjective to give me a rough guess of who you are.. andthen I see how you RP... and then go off from there. See how your character is live before I spend some time "Staring' or "looking" them over.

I would actually consider this a form of cheating, really. To me, this is also like saying 'Well I stunned the guard to walk in and train this skill because I'm limited on time. Normally I'd RP a long time and convince him to finally let me pass.'

As much as I do value the limited time you have here and enjoy spending time with you, I don't think it's fair to just point out someone is a Aasimar/Tiefling without reading their description. I think that is actually cheating the person who took the time to write out something detailed and particular so you COULD make your own judgement.

[Horace]

Seriously? Cheating? Come on...you have a couple adjectives, gender, and race - what more can you really expect from a passing RP? It's not like you go about making up qualities about them, you just don't bring up specific looks.

An elf with a helmet on can look like a half elf or skinny short human, and most of the descriptions are void because of helmets, armor, terrible horrible physical wounds...but that just gets a little goofy if you go around asking everyone to take off their visors so they can remember faces. If the race descriptor says sun elf, i'm going to treat him like a sun elf even if their description says they're ugly and their ears are cut off - same goes for any other race. And if you're going to use the "earless and ugly" qualities as to why you don't look like a sun elf, spend the kismet to change your adjectives from "blonde hair blue eyes".

You're race is your race, no reason to play up another one or play down your own...it just causes confusion and ultimately inconsistencies.

[Selveem]

So, what you're saying is that instead of 'Human, Tiefling, Aasimar, Elf, etc.' we should simply have 'humanoid?'

[Alvirin]

If you want to be treated like a human, make a human character with its advantages and disadvantages, the same should be applied to any race (Because look like a human in a place populated mostly by humans IS an advantage)

[Raona]

Viewpoint 1: Tieflings should look like outsiders because the code gives their race away, and you can't expect every PC to read your description in detail before reacting. Besides, tieflings should have some sort of down side that goes with the racial bonuses they get.

Viewpoint 2: Tieflings should be able to be created at whatever point in the ICly realistic spectrum that the person playing them wants, including a PC who looks nearly human, provided that they do a good job of manifesting their fiendish heritage somehow.

Alas, both viewpoints have merit, and both are, to some extent, true. They are also incompatible. So, what to do? Adjectives that clue in the rushed?

Code: Select all

A silken-haired, violet-eyed tiefling [appears human]
A tall, prim-looking halfdrow [appears cloaked]

An avenue for human-looking tieflings to be created as humans? (Does that already exist, via application?)

In the meantime, I can only control my RP. If someone yells "Tiefling!" and I race there only to see what looks to be a bunch of humans, I'll ask their accuser how they know. If it's solely by reputation, it'll be the accuser's word against the accused. If they point me to a sign of the taint that I can discern, I'll react to that. If it's out of line for people to write descriptions outside a certain range of allowed values, I don't consider it my place as a player to police that. Which is not to say that it shouldn't be policed. I concur wholeheartedly with the premise that choosing a race for its advantages and trying to weasel out of the disadvantages is lame. But that's not the only potential reason for someone creating a human-looking tiefling.

[Mariela]

s much as I do value the limited time you have here and enjoy spending time with you, I don't think it's fair to just point out someone is a Aasimar/Tiefling without reading their description. I think that is actually cheating the person who took the time to write out something detailed and particular so you COULD make your own judgement.

I do not see how it is -cheating- for me to not want to clutter up the screen with a 12 page description that I am not going to remember anyways. Especially when eventually I will look... for one...

And two, that means I put more stock in your ability to ROLEPLAY your character, including it's description for me. Bring life to what you are doing and perhaps sparking RP about why your character is flouncing around in a mask and cloak in Swealtering heat.

It doesn't take a lot of effort or time to do this as you enter a place with other people...

smote walks into the square, the shadow of the cloak concealing most of the features.

You know what would happen? If I saw that? I would probably ignore you until you did something further... such as...

smote turns to $mariela and knifes her!

or.. does this..

look $Mariela

Cause if someone looks at me, I tend to look back. Or glance back. Kinda make you realize I did see what you were doing.

How is that cheating to rely upon someone's ability to PLAY their character, rather than rely on a description? Yes, some people put a TON of effort into their descriptions. They are beautiful things... however, unless you are keeping a card catalogue of them.. be honest, how often do you look after you know someone's name and spend time with them RPing? You don't. Cause you know what they look like and you are busy RPing with them.. which is the point...

(Well that and to have fun.)

No. What's cheating about reading someones description... or not, is to figure out who is playing them so you can rush over to your IM and harrass them.. or ignore them cause you know it's the same player as one of the characters you despise.

And going along with my point still... your adjective says aasimar... drow, half bred lepraucan... walking bowl of soup... whatever it says.. it says that because something about you PINGS one of these races. Is it your hair? Is it your eyes? Well.. I will have to read your description to see you have horns.. but something about you is something!

How do I deal with this? Well.. watch Mariela sometimes in the square.
If you are elven, I do some staring or polite nodding.. depending on which type of elf you are. The sunnier the more likely you will get a nod.
If you are drow... probably watches you.
If you are Aasimar... you are part of the divine package. I almost always treat them unless I have another reason not to.. as if they are like... this massive attention draw. The eyes just seem to want to linger...and honestly that goes the same way if you are handsome, magnetic.. ect in your adjective. That adjective tells me what my first response is.
If you are tiefling, tends to inch away from you. Why? Cause she's had some down right bad experiances with them.. and thus.. doesn't trust the lot of them.

So if you are ugly... I tend to have to look to see how you are ugly right away. Cause ifyou have snot growing out of your nose.... ew. hanky right then and there.

It's called common sense.
Cheating my left eye.

[Xerarack]

Wow this kinda got off topic from what I was originally asking, but thats ok, cause I got some other insight from this descusion, enough to form my own opinion

1. Play the race you choose to be, if you want to play close to a human be a human, if you want to have slight tiefling quilitys, not enough to be tiefling apply to play your human as such, don't play a tiefling that is 75% human, it makes no sence

2. Your adjective should reflect your description, giving those who don't always read your description a general about what you look like, if you want them to read your description, or view what your wearing set a pose for example.....
a male tiefling is standing here, cloaked to conceal their identity
kinda obvious, but you get the point

3. I read somewhere about the "evils" having a "hangout" so that its not always the "evils" getting into the "goodies" way. Only reason WD square is popular is cause people hangout there, if more people hangout in ZK square it might attract more people, maybe even a certain merchant

4. If you do choose to try to bring an unwelcome race to WD, don't go to market square, there is a guard right there, if it was a PC it would throw you out once you were caught. I don't mind unwelcome races coming into WD it makes RP, just play like every mob is a PC that way your prepared when a real one comes along, or an imm decides to have some fun

thanks again, this has been insightful to somebody considering creating an exotic race

[Raona]

Hey, Xerarack, excellent summary. Thank you for taking the time to do that.

I know some people are waiting for the Imms to step in here and lay down the law. Don't hold your breath - in my experience, where possible, the Imms are letting the player base decide issues more and more. This might well be an exception to that, but in other cases, where the player base comes to a consensus...well, I go with that until I hear otherwise.

[Selveem]

I'll be honest, the wishing for WD to exclude Evil races and suggesting the 'Go to ZK' is humorous. If Goodies REALLY wanted so badly to exclude Evil races, why don't they go to Silverymoon? Not only is there no 'Evil only area' but there are far fewer Evils than Goodies in this game. I really just don't see the big deal. So an Evil race wanders into WD - so what? In the huge amount of people and exotic races and ridiculously powerful adventurers who traverse through it, to pick a single Aasimar or Tiefling (who is most likely concealing his or her lineage) is stretching the reality anyhow.

This game is about interaction. Why ostracize oneself like that?

[Moloch]

I should just remind you, Tieflings generally -are- 75% human, or more. *cough*.

[Horace]

Selveem - Monstrous races should be stopped at the gates just the same as if it was a zombie...they are monsters. If the game is expected to be a role playing game you can't ignore those things. If you want to play a character that you don't have to go way out of your way to have interaction, play a standard player race. Human, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, Gnome, Halfelf.

We all know most tieflings are indistinguishable from humans from across a room, but codewise it gives away you're a tiefling. The easy solution is to just play a type of tiefling with something that gives it away (skin color, horns, eye color, etc). Tieflings in forgotten realms are also much more common than planetouched in other settings, spare Planescape Torment, so it's not too unreasonable for anyone to see an abnormality and just assume they are planetouched.

[Selveem]

I'd like to remind you that a Tiefling is not classified as a monsterous race. A monsterous race, yes, I would agree should not be let in the gates - like when I was a Drider. I should not go in the gates - I knew it, so I didn't. That's completely different than a humanoid who can look EXACTLY like a human.