Animals and the act of killing them...

[Trollfiend]

Jul 14, 2013 12:36:53 GMT -5 Fenix said:

These arguments against it are literally predictions of "oh hey they MIGHT do this." So what if they do? Then the law takes over. If I went into greatgaunt tonight and started systematically killing everybody with the use of my panther, then I would be jailed or executed for it, as mandated. Because I am killing people. Not because my panther is a panther. Because I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT ACTION. ACTION. I DID SOMETHING. You know what that panther did? Sit there. and be a panther. nothing else. He was my companion, and acted in a civilized manner, until which point I gave him the command to help me in the bloodbath.

Exactly... in a town of non-hostile NPC's, it is 100% impossible for an animal companion to suddenly lose control with no warning. It just can't happen. Animal companions don't attack non-hostile creatures. The player has to do several things before the companion would even begin to engage. It's actually more trouble than it's worth, really.

[Fenix]

thats besides game mechanic wise too. IC the only reason an animal companion WOULD attack is

A) The master told it to.
B) It is defending its master.

[Pedantry INC]

If people are freaking out about hawks, what do they do when someone runs into town on a horse? You know, horses can and have killed people. Dangerous stuff dudes. I mean, they not only can kick you, but also, bite you! They know how to aim - they rear up to pummel the head. They knock things down so they can trample them, and hooves are amazingly sharp when there's a ton of animal pushing them down into the flesh of their victims. Nasty!

(lol)

People might need to relax a little. There's definitely some huge inconsistency in how domesticated (trained) animals are treated on frc. Of course, I'm terrified of birds irl, my friend had a budgie and it bit my face one time when i was sleeping on her couch. A bird within 2 feet of me makes me uncomfortable, but I still like birds from a distance, and would move away from it rather than freak out and seek violent ends against it or any potential owner if it wasn't wild.

[Savoie Faire]

Okay, I think I may have not properly explained myself. I'll try again.

The OP argues that players shouldn't try to kill his hawk on sight because it's a harmless animal.

I pointed out that the hawk is not harmless, and is indeed a trained killer in FRC. I see the equivalency here with any summon/pet that is combat capable, and if players want to react IC to this they are perfectly justified to do so.

I supported my point that such fears may be irrational, but they do exist anyway.

I never said or implied druids were untrustworthy, (but then who can trust those wishy-washy neutrals anyway?) I never said or implied it was inappropriate to roleplay however you want, so long as you are ready to handle the consequences.

When a PC or NPC sees a combat trained animal he is justified in overreacting to it. Whether such an overreaction is necessary, logical, or even rational is entirely another issue.

A point on OOC: if you are telling a player what the guards would conceivably be doing in a courteous and helpful way, ("Hey, bro! I see you have a bear, but don't you think that might annoy the town guard?") that is legitimate. However, if you are telling a player what he can or can't do or assuming the role of the NPC's, (Hey, Bro! You can't bring that bear in here because the guards kill it before it comes in the gate!) that is out of bounds. Additionally, if the PC in question has broken no laws and you attack his companion/familiar that is the same as attacking the PC, and you are subject to whatever penalties the crime deserves.

[Rane]

Also this is a forumn and noone in any post ever said, the towns people absolutely react this way. Nope they made guesses.

[StabbingNirvana]

On technicality, the AI do have, you know, Artificial Intelligence. Therefore if my pather was a threat to them, would they not therefore react by immediately killing it remorselessley? Well last I checked they did not. Therefore the people of cormyr realize even that a druids familiar is of no threat to them. so this point is fairly null.

Fenix, the problem here is perception is everything. While guards may know that you're a druid and your panther is a nice friendly panther, the presence of a panther creates unease for the inhabitants of the town which will harm business and the everyday life of the people therein. On technicality, the NPCs have AI and will let your panther walk freely in town. But we being humans with real intelligence should know that there's limits to the AI and keep to an understandable norm. What you said is exploitation of the system.

I could see some animals being accepted into town but I don't really know what animals could be made into animal companions. I imagine the majority of them are large and carnivorous. I've yet to have someone attack my character's paladin mount because it's illegal to have animals in town. I've also never seen anyone attack the shape-shifted house cat druid. I've also never seen anyone attack someone's raven companion while he was walking through town.

[Deleted]

Falconry was an actual medieval practice. I don't see any reason a person couldn't RP bringing their hawk along on their arm with a hood over their head. If a person RP'ed their hawk as being in that state, I think it would be a pretty gross overreaction to take issue with it, to the point no one would really do it. And at least the "owner" would have the chance to RP the part of a character who has that association. A similar suggestion could be made for things like panthers, bears, and dire wolves with muzzles and some sort of restraint.

[Sadistic Hobo]

I've seen people show up in town with summons or companions plenty of times, or in large predatory shapeshifted forms themselves. In my arbitrary non-binding anecdotal experience, I don't really see people irrationally spazzing out about it. Sometimes they are very hostile, and sometimes they do attack outright. But those cases usually seem to be when the nature class does something obnoxious and threatening, like walking up to a complete stranger in the form of an apex predator. Let's ask the judges what happens next. Beatdown? Yeah, beatdown. It's severe, but a perfectly in-character response to a bear walking up to you for huggles.

Even then, usually my own characters say, or I see the recipient saying stuff like "Get your beast the %#&#$& away from me right now, buddy", because the context is often someone dragging a theoretically dangerous pet right up to someone for absolutely no reason, as if waving their arms about for attention. Sure, I guess the pet is only as dangerous as the druid themselves, but the point is that nobody is obligated to care in-character, because they might not know the guy "it's only as dangerous as" anyway.

Sure, casters have hostile spells that they could use in town. But that is simply potential. You know a strong mage can surround himself with a fire shield which burns anything that touches him, just like you know a druid can command powerful beasts at will. A druid being in town with their bear actively with them is not equivalent to a mage simply having the potential to cast elemental shield, but rather equivalent to him actually casting it and standing in front of you. Adventurers are all potentially dangerous. It's the display that people take as a threat. A mage certainly can't actively cast elemental shield, then walk up to you and get defensive when you don't automatically trust them not to give you a hug.

Call me nuts, but I just have a feeling that if you walked into Greatgaunt with a normal bird companion in tow and tossed out a cool emote about the proud, hooded falcon perched on your shoulder, you probably wouldn't get blasted by PC empowered firebrands immediately. Maybe this has happened to you, maybe it hasn't. We can't really know. It just seems a little more believable to say some might look, some might not care at all, and the dude that threatens to murder you would more likely than not be treated as the crazy one in the equation.

As for the IC rules, banning all animals makes no sense for the setting of a frontier rural community, I agree. BUT when you look at the list of familiars or companions PCs can actually have, they are pretty much all entirely banned from civilized society (Eyeballs?), strange mystical beasts (Dragonkin), large predators (bears, panthers, wolves), dire creatures (rat), or vermin (spider). If we composed an explicit list of nature and arcane companions that might feasibly be allowed in town, it would probably end up being like... two.

Edit-

The hawk, raven, and maybe bat are the only ones that would seem rationally allowed in a town. Maybe the boar could be? Maybe? But I think boars ruthlessly murder people like... all the time. If I'm wrong, I guess that makes four.

[kalbaern]

Before folk question the IC reasons for no familiars or companions in towns, lets discuss the biggest reasons they shouldn't be allowed which are purely OOC and due to game mechanics/scripting. Familiars, companions and summoned creatures in general cause unneccessary lag. Its as simple as that.

- Their AIs are tied into the Bioware Horse System which never helps perfomance.

- They are tied into the DMFI System and again do little to help perfomance.

- The have a very high overhead when following their master/friend/summoner as when "you" move they have to constantly recalculate pathfinding and pathfinding routines are amongst the most CPU heavy things occuring in NWN.

- As a general rule, towns on FRC (and most any PW), with their twisting alleys, narrow streets, lots of tileset and placeable obstructions like fences, trees, buildings and walls are rife with things needing calculated for "pathfinding" and adding familiars/compaions/summons to the mix just isn't very efficient.

So merely to accomodate server performance ... and keep in mind that NWN will only utilize the first 2gig of memory regardless of how much memory the server actually packs ... we've a solid reason, OOC as it is to not allow familiars/companions/summons within towns.

Here comes a second OOC reason, lack of control by "owners". Two or more PCs can have an IC reason to set each other to dislike, but all too often, the owners of a familiar/companion/summons fail to give their creture a stay command and it auto attacks. It also happens when someone sets the entire server to dislike as a means to slip through unnoticed under a sanctuary or greater sanctuary spell. "Followers", especially if its laggy (whether you notice it or not) and often when on the same map as a high number of NPCs and PCs, (i.e., towns) can flat out fail to recognise a target as being under those spells and attack anyhow. More often than not, this proves to be an undue RP burden that is not easilly remedied.

So, there you have it. Two sound, though mechanics/scripting based reasons that should be taken into consideration even above any IC arguements for a change in policy.

As for IC reasons why PCs should be allowed to have "followers" in towns, I've not seen any sound arguements yet.

One arguement was that at a "show" a falconer showed off his bird(s) and "no one" was scared, even when they flew into the audience. Duh. There's a matter of trust involved. You payed money to attend the show most likely. The Falconer was advertised as the master bird handler he/she was. You were in a staged venue and knew what to expect. Take any falconer, lion tamer, bear wrestler, etc... into an urban area with their "pet" walking beside them and there will be a panic.

Keep in mind, that even if the vast majority of familiars/companions/summons seen by PCs and NPCs (even the "unseen" NPCs) are docile, well mannered, etc... it only takes one incident to ruin the reputations for all of them.

Using real world examples, anyone ever seen an actual circus parade through a town? They were common in my youth (I'm old though), but rarer than rare nowadays. You could blame trucks taking the place of trains and the need to have the elphants pull wagons from a train station to the circus/fair grounds as the reason, but its not. Even after trucks were the norm, circuses large and small still held parades because they built a level of excitement unmatched by any other advertising source available. The real reason most stopped is due to liability issues, both real and percieved. It only takes a single elephant going rogue or a tiger escaping its cage and suddenly most towns made it illegal to have the parades or so heavilly restricted them that the main attractions, the animals, were no longer seen upclose, if at all. Wild animals, even under the control of trained professionals (druids and rangers?), are still mistrusted by the general populace, especially when not penned, caged, in a "ring" or otherwise contained.

Let's review some of the choices as well. There are no "normal" pets to be found. Your wolf is just that, a wolf, not a dog. You panther is not a cute lap kitten but a vicious predator only restrained by your presence. What happens or better yet, what is the perception of what could happen if someone argues with the "owner" of a normally wild beast? Most "commoners" would see such creatures as at least a source of intimidation if not an outright threat. Even the raven would be mistrusted. Ravens and crows are notorious, even in FR sources, as harbingers of doom and ill luck. A rat? Most despise them. A spider? Come on, really? Even a pixie would be mistrusted as by nature, most know them as magical little tricksters and more often a nuisance than not.

What suprises me is that no one here has yet cited any FR sources wherein familiars/companions/summons are commonly seen in the open in towns or other social settings. Then again, out of the hundred plus Forgotten Realms Novels I've read myself, the characters don't do it. The infamous Drizzt purposely sends his great cat into hiding or unsummons her when he enters a civilized area. Why? Well, he already has two strikes against himself. #1 - He's a drow and #2 - He's still a drow. He knows that bringing forth his cat into a civilized area will just push folk even further over the edge. Outside of adventuring in the wilds or during a combat scene, familiars/companions/summons are rarely if ever cited in FR sources.

Now to address some specifics ...

Now, in a fantasy world like Faerun, diseases aren't a problem and druids are certainly capable of magically removing any trace of a disease at the first sign of the animal's illness. And, unlike the trainers in real life, the druid is capable of innately bonding with the bird, which goes far beyond any training, and the druid can increase the animal's wisdom to human levels which means it won't be prone to aggressiveness; for the more exotic druid companions like bears, wolves, and panthers.

This is not entirely true. Wisdom is not the lone determinator of temperment. If it were, please explain all the high wisdom PC and NPC clerics that run amuck wreaking destruction? While companions have above average intelligences and wisdoms and can be further magically supplimented, they are like PCs themselves, free-willed creatures and can even leave the service of a druid or ranger that goes against their own morals too often.

Then, a DM brings in a wild animal for an event, or lands a magical beast that really CAN be viewed as a threat, and, because it's a DM event, no one draws weapons at all. They view it as a benign creature; dragons included. Or, the very same group that ran the druid and his "rabid and dangerous" wolf out of town, would then confront the warrior who slew a random wolf spawn claiming he slew innocent and harmless animals. Yes, I've seen this. It happens quite often.

In the case of a DM using "wild" animals within a town setting, I have to agree. Kill 'em on site. Afterall, if you do not, you're more than likely reacting OOCly to the presence of a DM and not acting as you normally would.

There's a distinct difference between animals or beasts encountered in a town and those encountered in the wilds too. Just because you slay a creature within a town's limits doesn't mean or neccitate you slay every wild creature you meet while out adventuring. Circumstances and location do matter. When a wild animal enters a town, its out of its element and an intruder. For it to be chased off or killed by commoners, guards and adventurers should be the norm and not the exception. On the other hand, while a bear, wolf, panther or even a badger may be seen as a threat in town, in the wilds there are no little old ladies and children for them to prey upon. Now you're in their "cities". You're the intruder now. Unless they attack, there's less and less of a valid reason to now kill them. They are not a threat in their own homes or at least far less of a threat.

On technicality, the AI do have, you know, Artificial Intelligence. Therefore if my pather was a threat to them, would they not therefore react by immediately killing it remorselessley? Well last I checked they did not. Therefore the people of cormyr realize even that a druids familiar is of no threat to them. so this point is fairly null.

This is really an absurd conclusion. The reason why NPCs don't slay familiars/companions/summons on sight is mere mechanics and not attitudes. They cannot just slay these things outright as then they'd become combatants VS the owners for a start. There's a mater of factions as well. Unless your PC attacks commoners first, you and your party members (familiars/companions/summons count as party members and share their master's faction) are not seen as hostile. NPCs could be scripted to attack just a familiar/companion/summons, but that would just ruin events where it is actually a good idea to call on them, like in defense of a town.

The biggest reason most folks go to great lengths to have so called RP reasons not to unsummon creatures is actually due to mechanics. Sure, they can sell and shop then rest and exit the town and recall their critter du jour, but ... if they didn't have to unsummon the creatures, mainly familiars and companions, then after resting, they still have the creature with themselves, but can now resummon it once more that day if it dies. I.e., they are just gaining an extra use of the creature as fodder if needed.

It really doesn't matter how many "IC" arguements there are however. OOCly, having anything summoned within a town is bad for perfomance in the end and for that alone, all summons should be disallowed in towns and inns and shops. That there is an IC Law is moot and most likely was set forth to help give the ruling an IC reason is all. If DMs allow any controlled creatures, they should allow all IMO, but I'd still say, ban them in all towns just as a further step to help keep lag at a minimum.

For a minute, I was actually beginning to reconsider some of my stances, at least in how they could play out on my own PW. There, you do have the option to select creatures less likely to cause dissent (in addition to the normal ones), yet ... after doing a quick series of CPU checks, I have to just say that it's not worth the overhead still. Even though its only an extra 1% overhead on average, per creature, when multiplied by all that would stand in GG or other towns for hours on end, it adds up. FRC already sees spikes when heavilly laddened PCs log in (up to 50% CPU at times), when DMs log in, when encounters spawn in, when NPCs are hostile and combat begins, opening conversations and running AoEs and delayed scripts ranging from loot respawning to "buff" tracking. It all adds up quickly. Is it really worth more lag and other issues just so your druid can walk around town with his pet spider in tow?

[quelunia]

Jul 14, 2013 15:38:22 GMT -5 @sharauvyn said:

Falconry was an actual medieval practice. I don't see any reason a person couldn't RP bringing their hawk along on their arm with a hood over their head. If a person RP'ed their hawk as being in that state, I think it would be a pretty gross overreaction to take issue with it, to the point no one would really do it. And at least the "owner" would have the chance to RP the part of a character who has that association. A similar suggestion could be made for things like panthers, bears, and dire wolves with muzzles and some sort of restraint.

Actually Derek Wolfe, aka. Pew RPs his hawk as a trained hawk. Or prior to the cross country trek I RP'd it as such. Soon I will return ... But, I use my hawk to spy as well for me.

[Trollfiend]

Jul 14, 2013 20:29:15 GMT -5 kalbaern said:

One arguement was that at a "show" a falconer showed off his bird(s) and "no one" was scared, even when they flew into the audience. Duh. There's a matter of trust involved. You payed money to attend the show most likely. The Falconer was advertised as the master bird handler he/she was. You were in a staged venue and knew what to expect. Take any falconer, lion tamer, bear wrestler, etc... into an urban area with their "pet" walking beside them and there will be a panic.

Keep in mind, that even if the vast majority of familiars/companions/summons seen by PCs and NPCs (even the "unseen" NPCs) are docile, well mannered, etc... it only takes one incident to ruin the reputations for all of them.

Using real world examples, anyone ever seen an actual circus parade through a town? They were common in my youth (I'm old though), but rarer than rare nowadays. You could blame trucks taking the place of trains and the need to have the elphants pull wagons from a train station to the circus/fair grounds as the reason, but its not. Even after trucks were the norm, circuses large and small still held parades because they built a level of excitement unmatched by any other advertising source available. The real reason most stopped is due to liability issues, both real and percieved. It only takes a single elephant going rogue or a tiger escaping its cage and suddenly most towns made it illegal to have the parades or so heavilly restricted them that the main attractions, the animals, were no longer seen upclose, if at all. Wild animals, even under the control of trained professionals (druids and rangers?), are still mistrusted by the general populace, especially when not penned, caged, in a "ring" or otherwise contained.

Let's review some of the choices as well. There are no "normal" pets to be found. Your wolf is just that, a wolf, not a dog. You panther is not a cute lap kitten but a vicious predator only restrained by your presence. What happens or better yet, what is the perception of what could happen if someone argues with the "owner" of a normally wild beast? Most "commoners" would see such creatures as at least a source of intimidation if not an outright threat. Even the raven would be mistrusted. Ravens and crows are notorious, even in FR sources, as harbingers of doom and ill luck. A rat? Most despise them. A spider? Come on, really? Even a pixie would be mistrusted as by nature, most know them as magical little tricksters and more often a nuisance than not.

What suprises me is that no one here has yet cited any FR sources wherein familiars/companions/summons are commonly seen in the open in towns or other social settings. Then again, out of the hundred plus Forgotten Realms Novels I've read myself, the characters don't do it. The infamous Drizzt purposely sends his great cat into hiding or unsummons her when he enters a civilized area. Why? Well, he already has two strikes against himself. #1 - He's a drow and #2 - He's still a drow. He knows that bringing forth his cat into a civilized area will just push folk even further over the edge. Outside of adventuring in the wilds or during a combat scene, familiars/companions/summons are rarely if ever cited in FR sources.

In Source, animals weren't commonly stuffed into an onyx figurine. That was pretty friggin' rare. In source, druids and rangers had animals that didn't just go poof and reappear like a genie in a lamp. Quoting source? Player's handbook 2nd edition gives prices of animals for hunting and other utility. 1,000 gold for a falcon already trained. Or you could train your own. You were wrong about your hypothesis concerning the showing of the birds also. But that's of little importance. I was there, you weren't.

Also, let's forget about the fantasy world of Faerun and look at animals in the middle ages. Animals were common place. The art of falconry is still practiced today and people commonly had large dogs (commonly mastiffs) or wolf-breeds to work with them. I wonder how you've never heard of the Siberian dog teams up north. Animals are used. And in the communities in which they are used, they are so commonplace that they aren't the terrifying things you seem to think they are.



********************************************************************

The biggest real world example is coming right now..... Nearly every one here has seen, not one, but a great many hawks in their lifetime. All they have to do is.... hold on to your hats.... look UP! That's right.... hawks are common place. I've lost count of how many I've seen. I'm completely serious. And these are wild hawks, too. They're hunting mice and snakes and other small things we find to be undesirable nuisances. Up north, in Washington state, we found birds commonplace that were far larger and more powerful than hawks- bald eagles. I must have seen close to 20 of them during the 5 years I lived there. Hawks don't swoop down and kill babies and no one screams when they see one. And this is modern day civilians who didn't grow up around trained hunting animals.

********************************************************************

Elephants and birds are a lot different. Someone can be afraid of a rampaging elephant and still later on, look up and marvel over the beauty of a hawk.. or an owl.. or an eagle.

[Trollfiend]

Jul 14, 2013 20:29:15 GMT -5 kalbaern said:

Now, in a fantasy world like Faerun, diseases aren't a problem and druids are certainly capable of magically removing any trace of a disease at the first sign of the animal's illness. And, unlike the trainers in real life, the druid is capable of innately bonding with the bird, which goes far beyond any training, and the druid can increase the animal's wisdom to human levels which means it won't be prone to aggressiveness; for the more exotic druid companions like bears, wolves, and panthers.

This is not entirely true. Wisdom is not the lone determinator of temperment. If it were, please explain all the high wisdom PC and NPC clerics that run amuck wreaking destruction? While companions have above average intelligences and wisdoms and can be further magically supplimented, they are like PCs themselves, free-willed creatures and can even leave the service of a druid or ranger that goes against their own morals too often.

Clerics aren't comparable to druids since clerics have to follow the madness or sanity of their gods. Religion's a bitch isn't it? Religion sucks, because it dictates your entire behavior regardless of what your wisdom tells you. Druid dogma, regardless of deity (to a point), is pretty straightforward. Source books (even 3.0) specifically state that druids DO work with city officials and populace in order to build trust between nature and civilization. When there's a grove near a city, that's what you get. There just happens to be a grove near Suzail. It's the druid guild called the Guardians. There are also Malarite cults, but that's only because of the fact that Cormyr is one of the very few nations that actually allows worship of Malar. Cormyr made it legal... There's a building built just for Malar within the walls of Suzail! Probably because of the feast of stags in which the malarites provide food all winter long to the entire city. I can't imagine a nation that welcomes the most shunned druid cult in existence getting all panicky at the sight of a VERY commonplace hunting bird. It's just not happening, dude.

Jul 14, 2013 20:29:15 GMT -5 kalbaern said:

There's a distinct difference between animals or beasts encountered in a town and those encountered in the wilds too. Just because you slay a creature within a town's limits doesn't mean or neccitate you slay every wild creature you meet while out adventuring. Circumstances and location do matter. When a wild animal enters a town, its out of its element and an intruder. For it to be chased off or killed by commoners, guards and adventurers should be the norm and not the exception. On the other hand, while a bear, wolf, panther or even a badger may be seen as a threat in town, in the wilds there are no little old ladies and children for them to prey upon. Now you're in their "cities". You're the intruder now. Unless they attack, there's less and less of a valid reason to now kill them. They are not a threat in their own homes or at least far less of a threat.

There's a bear spawn 20 feet from the entrance into Greatgaunt.

Jul 14, 2013 20:29:15 GMT -5 kalbaern said:

It really doesn't matter how many "IC" arguements there are however. OOCly, having anything summoned within a town is bad for perfomance in the end and for that alone, all summons should be disallowed in towns and inns and shops. That there is an IC Law is moot and most likely was set forth to help give the ruling an IC reason is all. If DMs allow any controlled creatures, they should allow all IMO, but I'd still say, ban them in all towns just as a further step to help keep lag at a minimum.

Then all the staff has to do is come forward and state that it's an OOC rule. Having an OOC rule disguised as an IC law spawns threads like this one. Of course, that sign would have to be removed as well.

Though, I'm compelled to point out that horses lag the server MUCH more than familiars and companions do and they're allowed in towns and used in towns. The summoning and unsummoning of a horse as well as mounting and dismounting cause huge lag spikes. This could be taken care of by removing horses and adding in more teleporting options in my opinion, but that's another issue.

[Savoie Faire]

You may be equating proximity and familiarity to tolerance. There are bears in the Bramblewood, but this does not mean the folk of Greatgaunt respect or like them. In fact, should that bear that spawns just outside the gate attempt to come in the gate the guard will without hesitation kill it.

There is also another issue: it looks like the transition dumps you immediately into the area patrolled by bandits, but who knows how long the road from Greatgaunt to that part of the Bramblewood is? Don't you think a bandit may wish to stay far enough away from the village that his victims' cries for help do not attract the notice of the guards? There should be some assumption that there are roads between these maps, and that like in a P&P campaign, the DM simply says, "You travel four miles before you see a bear meandering along the side of the road."

[Trollfiend]

Even so, there is no denying that Cormyr is very familiar with the ways of the druids... enough so to not only barely tolerate, but actually welcome the most mistrusted druid cult out there- the Malarites. The Suzail capital built a temple within their walls.

[Deleted]

The Malarite cult has more to do, to my knowledge, with the corruption of nobles who participate in its activities than the sanity or perceived safety of the cult. Unless I'm mistaken.

[DM Maleficent's Kiss]

Kal brings up a really solid point in this entire discussion and its an ooc one - The performance hit to the server. While RP wise the points made here for or against are completely valid in terms of bringing certain companions into town the simple fact is we're essentially opening another door for lag to become an issue(and often times it already is). Of course animal companions causing lag in towns isn't absolute in the respect that its always going to be an issue but currently there are days where we regularly have crowded towns with many PC's standing about in RP; that alone is taxing enough.

Please just consider this when making your argument for druids/rangers/whoever bringing companions into town. Perhaps on less crowded days this lag worry is a moot point but with 20+ people on these creatures should probably be reserved for roadside/dungeon RP and kept out of towns heavily populated with PC's.

[828stingstingneo]

ICly I think the law makes sense close to the way it is if animals that are largely ignored in the wild are now allowed as summons. I disagree that people would necessarily welcome wolves into their towns even controlled by druids. I think animal companions are still wild even if they have a trust and friendship with their druid. They are not necessarily tame toward other people. People do not necessarily want them around, nor do the animals necessarily want to be around people, but towns more rural than Greatgaunt may be a little more flexible.

I would like a way to walk across the server with my summon without having to rest in every town on the way so I can resummon him on the other side, especially with the rest timer and the cost of an inn room as they are. As a low level I felt I had to have my summon with me for protection even on the roads.

Anyway, if the sign says birds are now allowed in Greatgaunt, I think players should respect that and RP accordingly. I agree it makes no sense for some people to RP that a bird in town is scary while others RP that a dragon in town is fun, but I think it's probably really two kinds of RPers rather than one big group that does both. (Just, please don't replace this RP with hokey pet my dire wolf RP.) In any case, both (all three?) kinds of RP are probably a symptom of too much time standing around bored in Greatgaunt.

OOCly I always thought preventing PvP accidents with targeting hostile vs. summon AI was the reason for the rule, and I guess that's fine even though I doubt it will ever be a common problem even if the rule is relaxed. I agree that it should be clarified if this is an OOC rule vs. an IC law.

In any case, everything causes lag. I've noticed DMs cause big lag, but no one wants to ban them because they are fun. Horses cause big lag, much more than other summons. Lagwise, summons are preferable in town to horses, though most of the time that wouldn't make much RP sense. The biggest lag I've ever seen, though, is when there is a crowd in Greatgaunt.

So, the IC problem is with people standing around bored in Greatgaunt and the OOC problem is with too many people in Greatgaunt. I propose we clear Greatgaunt. Could someone come up with a lovely little script that would give people -1 XP every so often if they are in Greatgaunt-Exterior and there are too many people in their perception range? People (including druids with their animal companions) would be encouraged to find somewhere else to RP as soon as enough of a group to talk to shows up instead of a third of the server all talking at once within hearing range of each other. Lag be gone! (unless the script causes even more lag than the crowds do, but maybe that would make people get out of Greatgaunt even faster)

[magocracy]

Jul 16, 2013 17:44:51 GMT -5 828stingstingneo said:

In any case, everything causes lag. I've noticed DMs cause big lag, but no one wants to ban them because they are fun. Horses cause big lag, much more than other summons. Lagwise, summons are preferable in town to horses, though most of the time that wouldn't make much RP sense. The biggest lag I've ever seen, though, is when there is a crowd in Greatgaunt.

The funny thing to me is that, if you play different servers, they each have their own house rules about what you're not allowed to do because of lag. Which, hey, could well be true, since every server is a homemade affair of cobbled-together code on top of a game that was never meant to support persistent worlds.

On another one I play on putting objects on the ground is a huge offense because it supposedly causes crippling lag. Something I've never heard mentioned here, I see people laying stuff on the ground all the time. But stuff like animals in town on that other server is no big deal, as well as leaving stuff in containers in dungeons or even on corpses.

[Deleted]

Jul 16, 2013 17:44:51 GMT -5 828stingstingneo said:

(Just, please don't replace this RP with hokey pet my dire wolf RP.)

My panther has a tendency to deal with that kind of behavior himself.