Non-Roleplay Servers?

[Jirodyne]

Are there any Multiplayer servers, at all, with a solid 20+ constant player count, that is NOT heavy roleplay based?

I'm namely looking for any server, that plays like the Single Player, or better yet, like an MMO like NWN2 has. But so far, using in the game server listing, there aren't many servers with a lot of people, and those that do that, are heavy RP based only, restricting how I play, what I can play as, and requiring heavy research into the server's world, lore, history, characters, races, stories, and so much other meaningless stuff.

I thought NWN was a Dungeons and Dragons game, where we can make any character we want, and go do adventure that is created for us. Not a very restrictive game, with rules about what you can and can't play, restricting classes, advance classes, races, forcing you to Roleplay in character, not have any fun, unable to do content, or play the game itself.

How the hell did a 3D D&D action game based on players having the freedom to do anything and play any way they want; Get turned into a Text based roleplay game with heavy restrictions and controlling what the player can and can't do?

So yeah, any actual active servers that are actually in the spirit of DnD and NWNs? Or did I waste my money buying this junk? I thought people said this game was good and fun, but other than the single player which is kinda boring at times, I don't see any fun in the multiplayer.

[Fire Wraith]

The answer to your question is largely that the only people interested in doing the amount of work to build a large and interesting world, and create adventures, tend to also be those who are interested in some degree of roleplay or other multiplayer interaction. And by and large, multiplayers servers like this are the primary reason people were still playing this game some 15 years after its release.

You should also consider that just because you don't like a particular style of play doesn't make it wrong, or "not a Dungeons and Dragons game" - especially when roleplay and rules have ALWAYS been a core aspect of D&D since the very beginning of the game. It's called a "Role Playing Game" for a reason.

I could probably suggest some lower populated servers, but given your criteria of 20+ players, the answer is basically "No, there aren't."

[Selphea]

I think the people who want an action game went to DDO or Neverwinter.

Ironically they're actually more restrictive than RP servers.

On NWN classic you can find Higher Ground. Somewhat decent 10-ish player counts but it's not recognizably D&D anymore.

On EE I think there's a Legends of Chance revival but again Chance isn't recognizably D&D either.

[shadooow]

Arkhalia is an epic hardcore PvE server. It is said the server is close to WoW or other MMORPGs in term of design. It is also not hack&slash like the other action server Dungeon Eternal X (DEX). DEX is more about PvP.

[Jirodyne]

Originally posted by Fire Tower:

The answer to your question is largely that the only people interested in doing the amount of work to build a large and interesting world, and create adventures, tend to also be those who are interested in some degree of roleplay or other multiplayer interaction. And by and large, multiplayers servers like this are the primary reason people were still playing this game some 15 years after its release.

I don't mind Roleplaying a character, nor multiplayer interactions. What I mind, are the restrictions, which I'll go into below.

Originally posted by Fire Tower:

You should also consider that just because you don't like a particular style of play doesn't make it wrong, or "not a Dungeons and Dragons game" - especially when roleplay and rules have ALWAYS been a core aspect of D&D since the very beginning of the game. It's called a "Role Playing Game" for a reason.

The reason I claim it to not be Dungeons and Dragons like, is because the biggest main core difference. Namely how in Dungeons and Dragons, the world and DM has to adapt to the player. The Players are in full control, they go where they want, do what content they want, make any character with any history they want, with any class, race, skills, or build they want, and the DM has to adapt and build his world around them and their actions as they go on an adventure through his world, building their characters and interactions.

From the servers I've seen on nwn1, it's the opposite. The DM/Devs built their worlds, then force the players to make specific characters designed specifically for that world, without the ability to choose certain classes, races, or abilities based on what they decide. You have to play a certain way, there are things you aren't allowed to do, and you have no control over anything.

I tried to read up on some of the servers, but it was always too much information, too much restrictions, I had to basically build an entire character from scratch, building their entire history, background, race, class, and so on, within a very limited selection that the server chooses for me.

I can't play a Pale Master Necromancer, I can't play a Sorceror Kobold, I can't play tiefling thief, I can't play a dragon disciple, and so on. A lot of the servers force you to play very boring, bland, uninteresting NPC like characters, but still expected entire backstories built into their world.

All of that, is strictly against what DnD represents, as DnD always encourged players to play anything they wanted. From a noble goody toe shoe knight, all about good deeds, to black hearted thieves that assassinate and steal from anyone and everyone they meet. And then having the two team up and having to deal with each other, without being able to kill each other, and leading to some very funny interactions of the Knight saving someone, only for the thief to later on murder them and take their stuff for himself.

But all these heavy RP only Servers won't allow that. It's Ironic in that they put so much effort into the game, only to smack the players and tell them they aren't allowed to play the game, and instead forced to only use the chat system. Honestly, i'm surprised they don't just make the servers a bunch of private rooms and only use the text to talk to each other. Or you know, use Roll 20 or Table Top Simulator.

I was expecting a bunch of DnD like Action Adventure with some story, maybe even some choices or multiple ways to complete quests, meeting people to leveling up and fighting enemies with, playing more of a Semi MMO style gameplay.

I was not expecting to be sitting around texting entire paragraphs back and forth while moving around to match the background to the topic of the RP. Where are the adventure? The quests? The fighting enemies? Where is the actually 'Gameplay' in this 'Game'?

[builder_anthony]

I basicly try to please everyone and have fun.Maybe you should give this server a shot.Unfornately i dont know why people dont play much on this server.The link below self installs everything if you hit the subscribe button.Maybe give it a review.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1319391248&searchtext=

[Fire Wraith]

Originally posted by RainbowC22:

I don't mind Roleplaying a character, nor multiplayer interactions. What I mind, are the restrictions, which I'll go into below.

I tried to read up on some of the servers, but it was always too much information, too much restrictions, I had to basically build an entire character from scratch, building their entire history, background, race, class, and so on, within a very limited selection that the server chooses for me.

I can't play a Pale Master Necromancer, I can't play a Sorceror Kobold, I can't play tiefling thief, I can't play a dragon disciple, and so on. A lot of the servers force you to play very boring, bland, uninteresting NPC like characters, but still expected entire backstories built into their world.

That's certainly fair. I think it's partly due to the difference in scope from a standard D&D group, to a large multiplayer server.

For instance, if I'm running a tabletop game, and one of my five players wants to play something really odd for the setting, it's easier to adapt to that since I know they'll be the only one. At the very least, even with a party of oddballs, that itself can become a story hook. If the game starts in somewhere unfriendly to them, they can decide to head somewhere else, and I can adapt. Tossing my prepared ideas and notes may be tricky, but I can do it.

Multiplayer servers function a little differently, since now we're not just talking about a single party, we're talking about choices that every one of however many tens or hundreds of players can make. The net result may mean that 'standard' races like humans and elves are the rare exceptions amidst a sea of tails, wings, and horns, and that's very off-putting to a number of players (from what I've seen), particularly if the setting of the world isn't somewhere designed to inherently allow that. Forgotten Realms is probably the most common setting I've seen on NWN servers, and although there's lots of unusual races that can show up there, most people in my experience tend to think of it as a world largely populated by humans, elves, dwarves etc. Contrast that with someplace like Planescape/Sigil, where you expect to see all sorts of random variety - but which also only appeals to a much narrower subset of players.

You're also much more locked to the setting, since not only does it take a significant amount of time to build all those areas, you're going to have other existing players invested in them. It's not really possible to go "Okay, since we're not welcome in Silverymoon, we're going to the Moonsea region" in a multiplayer server (short of basically building a new server).

Now, all that isn't to say that there's any right or wrong answer. I help run a server where we've wrestled with that balance, because one of our stated goals is to let players play what they want (because it's their character and their story to tell). We also have a goal of trying to maintain a semi-believable setting though, because it's difficult to roleplay without some sort of reliable baseline (and I'll expand on what happens when you don't, below). What this ends up meaning is that some options aren't playable simply because of the current setting (guards would shoot certain monster races on sight, etc, meaning you can't access the main cities for shops), but we've tried to allow whatever else we can at least from most major sourcebooks, and are open to discussion on anything beyond that. We also put in full support for all the abilities and penalties of those characters (so a half dragon gets all their ability modifiers, breath weapon, immunities, but also suffers a 3 level penalty).

I've also seen servers where there is absolutely no limit on what you can make. These are usually social servers where the DMs don't do anything at all except enforce the core rules (not anything to do with roleplay). There's a tremendous amount of freedom, but it can be all but impossible to establish any sort of paradigm save for one that deals with rampant weird characters running around.

[Jirodyne]

Originally posted by Fire Tower:

Originally posted by RainbowC22:

I don't mind Roleplaying a character, nor multiplayer interactions. What I mind, are the restrictions, which I'll go into below.

I tried to read up on some of the servers, but it was always too much information, too much restrictions, I had to basically build an entire character from scratch, building their entire history, background, race, class, and so on, within a very limited selection that the server chooses for me.

I can't play a Pale Master Necromancer, I can't play a Sorceror Kobold, I can't play tiefling thief, I can't play a dragon disciple, and so on. A lot of the servers force you to play very boring, bland, uninteresting NPC like characters, but still expected entire backstories built into their world.

That's certainly fair. I think it's partly due to the difference in scope from a standard D&D group, to a large multiplayer server.

For instance, if I'm running a tabletop game, and one of my five players wants to play something really odd for the setting, it's easier to adapt to that since I know they'll be the only one. At the very least, even with a party of oddballs, that itself can become a story hook. If the game starts in somewhere unfriendly to them, they can decide to head somewhere else, and I can adapt. Tossing my prepared ideas and notes may be tricky, but I can do it.

Multiplayer servers function a little differently, since now we're not just talking about a single party, we're talking about choices that every one of however many tens or hundreds of players can make. The net result may mean that 'standard' races like humans and elves are the rare exceptions amidst a sea of tails, wings, and horns, and that's very off-putting to a number of players (from what I've seen), particularly if the setting of the world isn't somewhere designed to inherently allow that. Forgotten Realms is probably the most common setting I've seen on NWN servers, and although there's lots of unusual races that can show up there, most people in my experience tend to think of it as a world largely populated by humans, elves, dwarves etc. Contrast that with someplace like Planescape/Sigil, where you expect to see all sorts of random variety - but which also only appeals to a much narrower subset of players.

You're also much more locked to the setting, since not only does it take a significant amount of time to build all those areas, you're going to have other existing players invested in them. It's not really possible to go "Okay, since we're not welcome in Silverymoon, we're going to the Moonsea region" in a multiplayer server (short of basically building a new server).

Now, all that isn't to say that there's any right or wrong answer. I help run a server where we've wrestled with that balance, because one of our stated goals is to let players play what they want (because it's their character and their story to tell). We also have a goal of trying to maintain a semi-believable setting though, because it's difficult to roleplay without some sort of reliable baseline (and I'll expand on what happens when you don't, below). What this ends up meaning is that some options aren't playable simply because of the current setting (guards would shoot certain monster races on sight, etc, meaning you can't access the main cities for shops), but we've tried to allow whatever else we can at least from most major sourcebooks, and are open to discussion on anything beyond that. We also put in full support for all the abilities and penalties of those characters (so a half dragon gets all their ability modifiers, breath weapon, immunities, but also suffers a 3 level penalty).

I've also seen servers where there is absolutely no limit on what you can make. These are usually social servers where the DMs don't do anything at all except enforce the core rules (not anything to do with roleplay). There's a tremendous amount of freedom, but it can be all but impossible to establish any sort of paradigm save for one that deals with rampant weird characters running around.

I believe all these 'Limits' your talking about, is because you want the game to be Roleplaying Only, or not you specifically, but all these Server Owners.

This is why I brought up NWN2 in my original post. I've never played NWN1 till now, tho I did own the original NWN1 for free through GOG years ago. However, I did play a lot of NWN2, and while there were some Roleplay only servers on there, they were very minor and not many. Most servers were built like the Single Player. In that they had a story, they had quests, they sent you from point A to Point B.

But they were also like a MMO, you could see other players, you can farm respawning enemies, there were dungeons to explore and farm for loot and gear, Side Quests in Side areas that needed you to be X level to be able to survive.

And while you COULD do Roleplay if you do wish, A it was never required, and B you could roleplay your character to be anything at all. The setting didn't matter, your roleplay wasn't about you fitting into the world, it was about your character itself, and his/her adventure with the other players.

---

Now I'll be honestly, I've never actually got onto one of these NWN1 servers long enough to actually experience anything, cause just making a character, and building a background, while reading up on the lore, and trying to remember thousands of names for people, cities, villages, reagons, races and so on, I just get into the server with a character, read the rules, and go "This is too much" and just quit.

But my impression of the Rules, of the Forums, of all the focus on Roleplay, is that there is no actually content in the game. That there aren't quests, that there aren't mobs spawned in, that there is no game play. From my understanding, we're all just going to sit around someone playing the DM, and basically just play Tabletop DnD just through the chat. Which is why I brought up that they can just go to Roll20 and Tabletop Simulator.

That right now, is my biggest gripe with these Roleplay servers, and wondering why there aren't any populated servers not focused on Heavy RP. Because NWN1 is NOT made for Roleplay, it's not designed to be like that. Discord is designed for that, Roll20 is designed for that. NWN1 and 2 are meant to be action games, with quests, RPG elements, and based on DnD setting but in a 3D world and not PnP and Text Roleplay.

NWN2's players got it right with their PWs, which are basically MMO Lites. But here in NWN1, it's so backwords, so alienating, it's as if people made 90% of the custom servers for Overwatch, Counter-Strike, or TF2 be about roleplaying the different classes, and not actually shooting each other or playing the game how it's meant to be played.

They are literally restricting content, that they physically can't even code into the game anyways, and will punish you if you don't follow their restrictions. (Such as some servers restricting most of the PRC classes, Dragon Disciple comes up alot, but they can't actually STOP you from picking it up, they just delevel you if you do or ban you. But it's in the core of the game, they can't change it.) These RP Servers, are literally going against the game itself, and want to force people to play that way. And sadly, there isn't anyone willing to make actual good content based on how it should be, like with NWN2.

*Sigh* Guess I'll just have to play through the single player only, then maybe go dust off the old CD Box and reinstall NWN2 to play.

Really sucks, cause I spent so long trying to get Haks and Mods to work through the Workshop, that I got over 2 hours of gameplay time in game, so I can't even refund the game anymore. Really sad.

[Selphea]

Don't bother with NWN2. If you check http://www.nwnlist.com/ the Action servers have completely died out there too. Once upon a time both games had a strong Action community but various issues like the slow gameplay, dated graphics and death of the original master server have caught up with the series.

[Jirodyne]

Originally posted by Selphea:

Don't bother with NWN2. If you check http://www.nwnlist.com/ the Action servers have completely died out there too. Once upon a time both games had a strong Action community but various issues like the slow gameplay, dated graphics and death of the original master server have caught up with the series.

It's really sad to see that. Realms of Trinity, was the server I played on the most, as tho it's labled as an RP server, RP was optional, not required, and wasn't even the focus most of the time. The focus was more playing the content, especially with other people, and not roleplaying it out. Tho if you wanted to, the option was very much there. Sad to see it only have 3 people online, as back when I played of it, it was usually 10 at night, and around 30+ during the day. Sad to see it shrink so much.

[Teirdalin]

"So yeah, any actual active servers that are actually in the spirit of DnD and NWNs"

Sounds like you literally never played D&D, and the single player campaign all dialogues are in-character, so I'm unsure if you even played that as well. lol