Should player nations be offered the ability to become the antagonist (e.g. turned undead)?

[Aesopian 1125]

Should player nations be offered the ability to become the antagonist (e.g. turned undead)?

[Laeonathan 3970]

its called lore, you can turn undead already... :P

[Markisstreaming 521]

won't ever happen because all NLs are lame and don't want to be known as 'the one NL that turned us evil.' even tho that's not how it goes and I believe people would appreciate the RP that came with it

[lemonke 1873]

In a better world, yes. As I stated already, LOTC lacks a system that lets someone progress their character through earning feats and stuff(Like doing x for a god and then receiving y blessing without needing to kneel over people OOC or similar things). We need more open-minded way of development that would spread outward magic without needing to always rely on someone and what they hold. My opinion at least. It's not something open to most people rlly.

[Epicethan4 271]

If it's done organically, I don't see why not. I like the idea of the Nation Elites possessing the option of tapping into darker powers to increase their influence and authority, gradually creating something of a conspiracy in the nation, allowing those within the nation to try to uncover the plots and overthrow those who dabble with evil, or even join them. I recall in Vailor, the Rex of Krugmar summoned a Spirit of Disease which resulted in Vailor collapsing under the blight of rot. It felt quite cool that there was active player involvement in the progression of the map end, rather than a simple big-bad just showing up and fighting all the players.

[marimbamonk 1498]

2 hours ago, Aesopian said:

Should player nations be offered the ability to become the antagonist (e.g. turned undead)?

 

Yes, sounds fun. Way to spice up RP

[Benleft 887]

What is stopping this right now, other than the communities themselves? Orcs had the opportunity to be full-evil last map and chose not to be, and I think it's fine for community leaders to choose to not do that sort of thing. That's their own and their community's choice. 

 

I imagine if the King of Haense seriously engaged with necromancers and wanted to hatch a plot to turn their nation into skelebros Story management would happily help them out. 

[Turbo_Dog 1432]

7 minutes ago, Benleft said:

What is stopping this right now, other than the communities themselves? Orcs had the opportunity to be full-evil last map and chose not to be, and I think it's fine for community leaders to choose to not do that sort of thing. That's their own and their community's choice. 

 

I imagine if the King of Haense seriously engaged with necromancers and wanted to hatch a plot to turn their nation into skelbros Story management would happily help them out. 

The perfect world

[Javert 5573]

I'd do this

[NotEvilAtAll 9944]

4 hours ago, Aesopian said:

Should player nations be offered the ability to become the antagonist (e.g. turned undead)?

Most nations don't want to go full evil mode because...

A: Often the baddies don't win aka their nation gets destroyed in the process of turning evil.
B: If the baddies do win it's a map-ending eventline and your nation probably won't enter the new map except as sparse non-evil remnants or scattered refugees. The Undead didn't move onto Asulon after all.
 

Besides you can be plenty evil just by declaring regular ol' wars of expansion and it's less likely to get your nation capital scripted to blow up. LOTC does not have the mentality to sacrifice the long-term survival of your community for narrative development so it's a hard sell.

 

[Crevel 4727]

Nations are fully capable of becoming an antagonist on their own. The problem is that RP antagonism is often misconstrued with OOC malicious intention, especially by playerbases led by a jaded paranoid leadership. These issues arise due to a lack of communication because it's easier to vilify someone on the internet than it is to get into a voice chat with them to smooth things over. This is an issue regardless of if ST decide to inject a nation with PX-41 Serum. If an effort is made by NLs to actually speak to each other, we would be able to have more enjoyable roleplay narratives for both sides in general instead of having to hear a leader from the opposing side say something along the lines of "We genuinely thought you were trying to kill the community that we've built up".

 

Players, even without Story Team, are fully capable of organising their own player-run eventlines around a plague, blight, or even foreign invaders like the Skanarri in Norland to shape their local region. We usually only see these affecting one settlement or a nation. However, with enough organisation and a good concept, I don't see why these sorts of eventlines can't include numerous other groups. Chances are that they would probably be able to get a Story Team member at some point to give more flavour to their eventline using creatures and tools that a normal player would not ordinarily have access to.

 

Addressing the question itself, I don't believe that nations should be offered to become antagonists by Story Team. You don't have to be a scientist to be able to see the pattern that a lot of Story Team members will favour their own in-group with events, ST items, and other ways of preferential treatment. Artificially transforming the majority of a nation to become undead or something else like that so that they immediately have a unique affliction that becomes incredibly important to the server's narrative and a part of the server's history as a whole just seems to hinder the idea of organic roleplay and beginning it through OOC means is a bad apple that spoils the bunch. It would be more effective and more organic for some sort of magic, affliction, CA, etc. to spread within a nation over time until it eventually builds up to encapsulate a whole nation and if relevant, can push the leadership to adopt RP measures that can be viewed as antagonistic to the rest of Aevos. This process can be done with or without Story Team intervention, but it's a more story-driven narrative that is ultimately shaped by the nation themselves rather than an immediate antagonistic transformation put onto them by Story Team.