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Antioch

[Feedback] Unkown Shores Brainstorming Thread

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Hello Dolrumeers,

 

This thread is designed to allow players to brainstorm what they would like to see more of in the world. And I am not talking on a general basis but a concrete thing. Have a story or event idea that you think would be interesting but don't want to DM it yourself? Post ideas, and a keeper will talk to you about it. At the end of the day the people on the staff are only humans and are bound to run out of fresh ideas down the line. Which is why I think input like this could be beneficial to the server as a whole.

[Disclaimer] For the moment this is not a post endorsed by the entire staff team, just my own personal take on the matter. If you have ideas that you think could contribute to the server I'd be more than happy to hear them out and see what we can do. You can either submit a freeform in the thread or just PM me and we can discuss it if you don't wish for anything to be spoiled!

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Sotoras needs to be accessible again... it's not unknown shoreS if you can only RP on 2 isles, out of which you'll get kicked out of one by elves.

 

As for plots I want to see more stuff like Wolfram. There aren't really random, believable characters out in the world. Some wizard that's doing X thing, this explorer, that hunter, apart from I'kuylan it feels like no NPC is important.

Edited by AlexV
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17 minutes ago, AlexV said:

Sotoras needs to be accessible again... it's not unknown shoreS if you can only RP on 2 isles, out of which you'll get kicked out of one by elves.

 

As for plots I want to see more stuff like Wolfram. There aren't really random, believable characters out in the world. Some wizard that's doing X thing, this explorer, that hunter, apart from I'kuylan it feels like no NPC is important.

I support all of this. Something along those lines is in the works.

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I think having many more midway (not mundane but also not world eclipsing) events happening constantly that neutral players (this is very important) and guilds can see and join would help; just give a simple idea to a keeper and let him go with it. Have an announcement or a quest that anybody can join, or a guild can pledge their support towards. How about having more random npc groups arriving to Dondrums with their own goals and ideologies asking for help?

Say, a couple who got tarnished by the reefs and now the man is carrying the head of his wife and asking everyone to find the rest of her body so he could bury her properly but in reality he wishes to resurrect her. Or a group of tuskarr fishermen, now spirits, who once tried to capture a mythical fish-like beast and got cursed to follow it forever until they ended up in Dondrums – now seeking help of others to capture it and finally be able to rest. Or a sudden crashed ship that was transporting some sort of weed that suddenly begins overtaking the jungle.

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This is EXACTLY why I posted this thread. These are some amazing and creative ideas and I will see about making some, if not all of them happen. I advise everyone to keep stuff like this coming.

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Something I really liked about being a keeper, tagging onto what Alex said, is that you have the freedom to make a character as powerful or mundane as you want and play them freely without any fear of their death because they are a story element and not a personal possession. There needs to be more stuff like that, and done in a way where gaining favor with them or helping them reach a goal can give you some sort of rewards. It was a concept me and Rag toyed with before we departed the team with the goblin space program. Which I forgot to clean up. Oops. Players were tasked with the choice of supporting possibly shady, assuredly shoddy goblin escape attempts from the island. In the end players wouldn't get to get off the islands, but they would be given a generous reward for their hard work and cooperation. Unfortunately the goblins were met with understandable skepticism and in one case threats of third degree murder when they came around to seek cooperation... So nothing ever got off the ground. Pun intended, you're welcome.

I suggest doing things that people have to think about, not just "I'm a mage and I want to make a big spell"... Think a group of savages that need help finding or digging up a magma chamber so they can sacrifice naked hotties to their volcano god. That'd be fun.

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2 hours ago, Bob Ross said:

I suggest doing things that people have to think about, not just "I'm a mage and I want to make a big spell"... Think a group of savages that need help finding or digging up a magma chamber so they can sacrifice naked hotties to their volcano god. That'd be fun.

*Scribbles down notes frantically*

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Personally I've always enjoyed subverting long held morals as well. I explored it with Fzhuzhem, having him justify his actions to druids by playing off the personality of nature. For those unaware nature is an incredibly generous force, some good study material that can be consumed in a matter of minutes would be the children's book "The Giving Tree" in which the tree gives everything to this boy as he grows up simply because he asks. Nature will always sacrifice itself for druids simply because they call upon it. Every druid spell uses their own personal energy and/or the energy of life around them. It's why despite game mechanics druidic resurrection is incredibly immoral to them. You have to kill a lot of stuff that wasn't past it's time to save one person that was. Fzhuzhem justified himself to druids by telling them that nature was caring and kind but was taken advantage of by all the races of the world. Sprawling cities where forests were, factories belching toxic fumes and spilling waste water into the environment, and that the Nightmare, which is part of the dream (thanks old gods) was the way nature would finally fight back. I wanted to explore why a Nightmare Druid becomes a Nightmare Druid. When you're told that Nightmare is just another way life can take shale and that a Nightmare world would restore nature to it's rightful state, it can become appealing.

The other thing I wanted to work on afterwards, and still may if I return, was The Icon, who got some screen time before I made the call to resign before I burned out. The Icon was meant to be a powerful and mysterious living artifact of Holy power that case judgement on those it interacted with using a very black and white methodology. As the story would develop he would become a powerful ally to those he found righteous but become more and more difficult to work with given his refusal to aid those he did not see worthy of the light's grace. Even possibly becoming dangerous. The yin to Fzhuzhem's yang. Where Fzhu justified evil as good (I mean he didn't really need to justify it to himself, he was just fucking with druids) he would refuse to justify his actions at all despite them not being the most ethical means to conduct himself.

A good support NPC should blur the lines of what is good and bad if they're powerful because they have less reliance on others. They don't have to make sense to people that can't help them, instead they should have people deal with the difficult choices of altering themselves or keeping up appearances for that person. There should also be contingencies that the DM plans for in an OOC manner that can help aid the players against plot elements in existing stories but isn't necessarily broadcast to players, such as the goblin space program allocating assets to provide a mortar strike against Fzhuzhem in the final battle. I saw a lot of people think outside the box and that was good but I also saw a lot of people try to improve their own power and story relevance rather than work their character into the environment and attempt to find aid where it already existed. There needs to be a considerable amount of that.

Also lots of naked hotties.

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On 8/20/2018 at 6:53 PM, Bob Ross said:

 



The Icon sounded really interesting, and something I would've wanted to do ( or see ) myself, what will all those evil forces playing bodyguards to people.

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Yea, and that's something that never made a lot of sense to me. There should be a price to pay for gaining the favor of any powerful force. In the case of The Icon you have to act like some sort of puritan for him not judge you as "No, you are not an evil person, only a bad person."

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