Reviewing game organisations: The Night Masks

[Kelemvor]

The Night Masks
For many decades the city of Westgate has been secretly ruled by a band
of professional assassins, extortionists, coercers, enforcers, and thieves
that control most of the illegal doings in town.
Operating largely at night, the Night Masks' members are for hire by all and are believed to be independant of the various noble houses, switching alliances as their purse leads them.
On many mornings, blood and bodies are found in the streets or floating in the harbor, as the Night Masks clash with desperate merchants, armed travellers, or with the well-armed private bodyguards of the noble families.

Again, the best place to get detailed information on the Night Masks is the Lords of Darkness source book which can be downloaded from
http://theisleofkev.com/dnd/books/

[Kelemvor]

Well supported within a city built at about the same time, the Night Masks are probably the most well-catered for of all the Thieves Guilds. They are, though, quite limited in scope for roleplay/inter-organisational rivalry etc.

My thoughts here would be for the organisation to become merely another NPC thieves guild which players can join and train with. (That is; like the Moonclaws, Larrikins etc) There is already a rogue to thief quest which is triggered by a recruitment token.

The Night Mask specific portions of the guild could then be made accessible by application - treating the Night Masks proper in a similar fashion to the way that faiths have members of religious orders.

[Selveem]

I'm in favor of keeping at least two evil or neutral thieves guilds in place. I do very much believe there should be turf wars.. Witchhunts are a great thing. To accuse someone of being a member of said guild might very much be slander, but effective slander it would be.

For this reason, I suggest voting to keep it.

[Nedylene]

The night masks and shadow thieves sort of run together. I do not support the Night Masks being an evil thief guild for one reason .... The Night Mask is NOT exclusively thieves. They are the underhand 'rulers' of Westgate (in a loose term). The Nigh Masks were brought into the game when Westgate came into the game except, Westgate is not a start town and mostly people just go there for shopping. I have never seen people 'hanging around' for RP.

Personally I love the Night Masks. I think they are great, but, at this time do we need an organization based out of a town that noone goes to RP in? In my opinion I think this organization falls under the same catagory as the Nights of Myth Drannor. Very good organization but not needed at this time. Close it for the time being with the option of being reopened when there is a good base of players who are willing to put the effort into it.

[Aegir]

I'm inclined to agree with Nedylene, with one small caveat: the Night Masks would make an excellent #2 criminal org to bring in once the Zhentarim is established and has a strong pbase, as it would work well as a rival org.

At least to start, all its niches are filled better by either the Shadow Thieves, or the Zhentarim. When the starting orgs get big enough to warrant some rivals springing up, I'd say this should be at the top of the list.

[Orplar]

much agreed

[Tavik]

I'd vote for keeping it. The more opposing evil orgs we have, the more potential for RP we get. Not only in that good now have more to worry about, as far as good vs. evil, but now the evils have more opportunity for RP in evil vs. evil. As Selveem pointed out, turf wars would be AWESOME.

[Nedylene]

I'd vote for keeping it. The more opposing evil orgs we have, the more potential for RP we get. Not only in that good now have more to worry about, as far as good vs. evil, but now the evils have more opportunity for RP in evil vs. evil. As Selveem pointed out, turf wars would be AWESOME.

Yes it would be awesome, but do we have the playerbase currently to support this organization. Remember "at this current time" And as such is it better to close it with the opportunity to reopen it when the pbase demands it or is it better to leave it open and spread the current pbase out?

[Zynarc]

I'd think Shadow thieves and Zhents can duel it out enough for this turf wars to happen.

[Aegir]

I don't think we have the evil pbase to support more than two to start, and the first priority shouldn't be inter-evil conflict, it should be good/evil conflict, and you can branch out from there. Right now there simply aren't enough evils to support alot of in-fighting outside a few personal rivalries. You promote squabbling within the evil community and all its going to do is separate the pbase even more; the evils will be too spread out squabbling amongst each other to do anything else.

[Lathander]

Ned

Yes it would be awesome, but do we have the playerbase currently to support this organization.

There is the question for EVERY organization in my opinion. Frankly speaking, until we have consistent who-list numbers in the upper 40s or more I think having two thieves guild orgs is too much. I think we take either the Shadow Thieves or the Night Masks, not both. Later, if the player base supports it, we could add the other.

[Orplar]

I agree entirely with Lathander. One or the other.

[Kregor]

Westgate is not a start town and mostly people just go there for shopping. I have never seen people 'hanging around' for RP.

Actually, yes, Westgate is a neutral to evil aligned hometown for many races, including tieflings... not all of them came from the underdark And there is a pretty good number of evils and neutrals coming from Westgate now.

There is possibility and opportunity for more RP in Westgate than there is, and likely should be more... arguably even more so than the Keep. ICly, the Keep is the City of Cyric, and there is much religious persecution there. There is NOT in Westgate, people are free to be open with their faith and ethos and race upon the streets of Westgate, almost without regard, because everyone's money is shiny in Westgate.

For that consideration, and the fact that I know of at least TWO night masks who have recently logged, while there are NO active Shadow Thieves, I would hate to see the Night Masks be the organization of the evil criminal organizations that gets the axe. I do think it would be acceptable to have the guild portion of it to be NPC run, as an auto-quest guild for rogues to thieves. Keep part of it as exclusive to full-blown Night Mask members. But let's see if we couldn't use the Night Masks and perhaps certain temple resources to stir up the Westgate RP. Rumor is, there is a young priest recently promoted to steward one of the more prominent temples, who might likely have some ideas and plans brewing for jolting the city life.

[Kregor]

I don't think we have the evil pbase to support more than two to start, and the first priority shouldn't be inter-evil conflict, it should be good/evil conflict, and you can branch out from there. Right now there simply aren't enough evils to support alot of in-fighting outside a few personal rivalries. You promote squabbling within the evil community and all its going to do is separate the pbase even more; the evils will be too spread out squabbling amongst each other to do anything else.

There's far more dynamic to Forgotten Realms roleplay than just a good vs. evil theme. This brings it too close to the simple, orcs vs. alliance mentality, and it's the lowest common denominator, in my opinion. Factions of faith play far more into the FR world than a question of ethos. Sorry, but some evils just wouldn't play nice together, or band together just to bully the goodies. If you overlook that for the sake of "strengthening" the evil player base, then you're not really keeping it in spirit of the realm we base the game on.

Evil vs. evil conflict is just as much a factor in the FR pantheon as good vs. evil, and IMO, far more challenging. It shouldn't be a matter of playerbase to determine whether a character properly RPs their ethos and allegiances.

[Glim]

I, for one, would hate to see the Shadow Thieves axed in favor of the Night Masks. To me, as I said in the other thread, the Night Masks have always seem more assassin-esk than the Shadow Thieves, who seem more thievery-esk.

Also, the Shadow Thieves are, imo, a bigger organisation with a larger outreach of influence. They have the power to actually be considered a threat to the Harpers, or Waterdeep, or even the Night Masks. Inversely, the Night Masks seem very self-centered around Westgate.

I don't know. I think if we have just one then we are limiting people too much. Some people might have an evil thief, but they don't think the Night Masks are a good fit. So where would they go? Spies guild? Nope. Harpers? Definetly not. Zhentarim? Maybe, but I doubt it.

Heh, id rather call myself a Shadow Thief than a Night Mask any day of the week anyways.

[Kelemvor]

Please try to keep each thread a discussion about the merits of that particular organisation rather than getting sidetracked with comparisons.

Again, bear in mind that there is nothing to say we won't leave an organisation as it is currently. Just not concentrate our efforts upon it.

[Rhytania]

I think we should nix the Shadow Thieves and the Night Masks. Reason being we start to split too many hairs were not gonna have enough left to brush it. If we have a Pbase that can comfortable support both then yes it would be nice, but we dont. I think shuffle the Night Masks and make it more of a Maskite run RP guild, since they wont play nicely with the Zhents anyway. More of a prestige class type title like the city watch rather than a full blown player run organization. Probably an unpopular suggestion but I think it would be pointless to have so many organizations where you may only have a handful of people rather than just a few organizations with a lot of people.

[Aegir]

I think shuffle the Night Masks and make it more of a Maskite run RP guild, since they wont play nicely with the Zhents anyway.

This is exactly why at least one should stay. there is a sizable chunk of the evil pbase that simply don't fit as Zhents; enough that a second org could catch on.

[Mariela]

Why not destroy both guilds as they are currently....
and remanifest something more PC driven and with a new name?

go ahead and rewrite the new organizations to lie more closely with things that alraedy have an established player base. For example, there are TONS of Maskarran thieves. Yes, they are probably evilish.. but there is no reason why they wouldn't have a guild with mixed alignements for the purposes of furthering intrigue. Make it a fluffy bunny secrets guild. Then take the super evil thieves.. and give them somethign that piggy backs off the Zhentarium where they gather the information and assasinate people for the good of evil. The guild for those that it's nto about the rush, it's about the WAY!

Something like that. Connect the thieves guilds with other exterior organizations so that way if they start to die out, the bigger organizations can sort of flog for a recruitment drive.

I suppose by that logic you could also make one based from the Harpers, but we would have to get the harpers up in a gail wind force. (I have no idea. Maybe they are that good at being harpers that no one knows them.... ) But my point is that if the organizations are more closely tied into a faith or another massive organization that has super IM hands int eh pie... we can say.. "Well crap.. all our thieves haven'tl ogged in months.. time for recruitement drive!"

[Yevel]

Im bringing this back up, because I think it would be a great idea to promote the starting back up of this organisation. This sort of group could bring back roleplay in Westgate over Zhentil Keep. I don't think also that all evils are this diabolical evil type. Some have ethics and such, just poor ones. I personally would like to see the Night Masks kept over the Shadow Thieves as the Shadow Thieves are stationed all around, this will give a central station for the rp to stem from.