Maybe it should be changed to where Mother Night takes the baby, fills her full of shadow essence, and takes her away to become a Shadow Priestess in training.
I'd be curious to hear the opinions of posters in this thread about a hypothetical questline requiring committing sexual violence against minors. Everything is like everything else and afterall, if a character would do it..
The simple fact is that a depiction of a violent (or any) sex act towards a minor would, at best, cause immediate, visceral, and very public outcry. It may also fall under the legal definition of obscenity, and very well may be illegal in some countries. There is precedence in the US, for example, in which individuals writing about sex acts with minors have received prison sentences. I believe Lusternia's servers are based in the US, which means the game falls under US legal jurisdiction. This hypothetical questline would almost certainly cause Lusternia to be shut down, and likely would cause our admins to face legal ramifications.
There are arguments to be made for preserving the RP - allowing over the top cackling evil PCs is fine, after all that stupid "literal fetuses dangling from it" viola/violin exists (existed?). It's gauche, but whatever. It's the difference between saying "Having seduced the barman, my character takes him upstairs for the night" and going into a detailed description of the entire encounter.
One of those arguments isn't, "well, if we allow people to get around this RP, might as well just through all RP out the window, it's all the same!" Clearly there are lines and things that, even though you can assume some NPC probably does it, you would not require a player to buy in on or commit. At least, I hope.
It wouldn't even be difficult to implement an "alternative" to sacrificing a baby that is the same from the character's point of view but softens the buy in from the player. As I remember it, the baby dies after it takes any damage. Hint in an optional SACRIFICE command that instead takes it into a cutscene, pretty easy. Perhaps Brennan/Rowena is the one to actually murder the child, whatever.
Again, this is a legal issue. Under United States law, the exposure of a minor to obscene imagery (which includes, but is not limited to, sex acts) is illegal. This is why pornographic websites have the often-ignored splash page stating "you must be 18 to access this site."
Mandating that individuals 'follow through' with graphically depicted sex acts would require Lusternia to have all our players and staff agree upon entry that they are at least 18 years of age, which could be potentially damaging to the business. Some MUDs, aimed at sexuality, do require this. Lusternia is not, and does not.
Any personal values regarding the above are therefore irrelevant. It's not a moral matter, it's a legal one. There's no legal prohibition against graphically depicting baby sacrifice. Equating sexuality to baby sacrifice is a false equivalence logical fallacy.
Edit: Looks like Lerad took a bite out of this too as I was writing the post. Ah well.
I am not a lawyer, and possess no legal background. My posted opinions about the law here are not to be construed as legal counsel of any kind.
Against my better judgment I'm gonna wade in here with my tuppence.
1) The 'if you're too squeamish for dead kids gtfo' undercurrent in this thread isn't just antagonistic. It's seriously lazy. If it's the logical or moral basis of your argument I'm just flat out disappointed. 2) The orgbix is entirely optional, as is being on CT during the discussions leading up to it, as is responding to tells about it. One can indeed easily 'opt out' of all the deadbabies in Glomdoring with a few timely keystrokes. Nobody is presently being 'forced' to engage the subject material. So let's not paint this as people being forced to endure their squicks. It isn't. It's a question about whether, in a game with a playerbase as diverse as Lusty's, somebody who finds A objectionable, no, intolerable, should have the option of B, or whether they should just carry on doing something different. Honestly, as a person who is 10/10 squicked by the present nai'dorin, I could fall on either side of that debate for the reason somebody posted earlier (i.e., "where do you draw the line?"). 3) Third, the idea that you, the player, should be willing to roleplay anything your character is willing to do is silly. I don't believe that, and neither do you. There's fourth wall. There's good grace and player etiquette. There's roleplay - not only does your character have different morals than you much of the time, but they live within an entirely different moral framework within an entirely separate psychosocial setting. Versalean would do things I wouldn't even put to pen (interestingly, that includes killing kids - particularly human ones). I don't understand why anybody doesn't understand that. 4) Would I love to see the dead baby removed? Sure. Am I demanding or expecting it? Nope. Do I think that adding an alternative would be a reasonable compromise. Sure. Am I demanding or expecting it? Nope. 5) If you're arguing that people shouldn't be triggered by deadtextbabies because they are a) not real or b) morally equivalent to something else the person isn't triggered by, then, respectfully, I just don't know what to say to you.
We are concerned by the attitude that has been taken in this thread towards people who feel that this aspect of Glomdoring's epic quest is unacceptable. Whilst there have been no direct personal attacks, We would like to remind you that a conversation such as this can only be productive when all sides respect the others' opinions.
If you believe very strongly one way or the other, that is absolutely fine. But please take care with how you choose to articulate this. For example, just because you have no problem with the quest does not mean others do not; your belief does not invalidate their personal experience and point of view.
It is very possible to express your disagreement in a way that is respectful, as many people have already done.
We will be watching this thread closely as it continues and should there be any breach of the forum rules it will be immediately closed, as with the original thread of this nature posted last year.
Please rest assured that, either way, all of the Havens team do read the forums and are aware of your concerns - even though We will rarely respond to them directly.
Well, if we're tossing opinions about the place, then I'm going to go ahead and add mine. I play a very fun Glomdoring character (when I have time to play, and then alt, which is very rare) who intends to eventually complete the Nai'Dorin. However, he has some moral lines and I don't think he's really had to consider the fact that he *will* have to sacrifice a baby yet, and he'll have to have a personal coming-to-Fire-Wyrd-Night-Jesus meeting when he does.
I personally like the idea of adding an alternative, just because I understand that this is a touchy subject. There's an orphanage that has orphan mobs. Mobs, by definition, can be slain, which leads a small sect of Magnagorans to regularly kill unfortunate children who have no parents because...orphan killing. For soup and the like. There's a lot of really messed up things that can, and do, happen in this game.
I do not believe that the Nai'dorin can be considered as optional as the Nifilhema-torturing-an-angel questline that is 100% optional. After all, the former gives (approximately) one metric fuck tonne of power and access to the orgbix, which is the best free artefact you can get. The latter requires you to invade enemy territory and get a mob that will then be brought back for the express purpose of torturing, thumbtacks, wing hooks, flesh pulls, the whole nine yards.
I'd much rather see a thread like this trying to figure out what a good alternative for an innocent soul (like the stewartsville baby) could be, or figuring out the optimal ways to use your blood-baby (which I didn't know was a thing, and would 100% jump behind supporting for the parents and other ick peoples).
I do not believe that the Nai'dorin can be considered as optional as the Nifilhema-torturing-an-angel questline that is 100% optional. After all, the former gives (approximately) one metric fuck tonne of power and access to the orgbix, which is the best free artefact you can get. The latter requires you to invade enemy territory and get a mob that will then be brought back for the express purpose of torturing, thumbtacks, wing hooks, flesh pulls, the whole nine yards.
I didn't know that this quest existed, but if it did it would have been my example in my prior post. Both quests ask that you go into enemy territory in order to find a victim that you can hurt as visceral proof that you are incredibly hardcorecallously willing to sacrifice others for power dedicated, loyal and willing to do the Cause's dirty work. And yet nobody would ever suggest making the angel sacrifice quest be part of Magnagora's epic chain. It's strictly opt-in and doesn't offer anything beyond the experience of having done it. Which is exactly how that sort of content should be handled - there for the people who want to explore that aspect of the game, but not something that you might accidentally walk in on, or get pressured to do for a mechanical benefit.
It's just a text baby. Honestly, if their real life convictions are against fictional baby killing and it interferes with their character's convictions, that's just bad choices on the player's part to join the "evil forest" org. When I think about it, I'm surprised things are fairly innocent in the "evil" orgs of Lusternia. It could be much, much darker than it is.
I'm going to object here. There is absolutely nothing wrong with not wanting to personally act out the darker parts of the game, and there should be no mechanical consequences for declining to do so.
When your character is a Nihilist devoted to Nifilhema, nobody demands that you to go around talking about cutting people's skin off. Your character can have children without a single emote about the conception or the pregnancy. If you were offline during a raid, nobody yells at your character for 'abandoning their post' after the fact. A character who heartstops does not have to roleplay out being traumatized by their own suicide. A character who is loyal to Glomdoring and willing to do anything for the forest, but who's player isn't willing to roleplay out multiple child sacrifices 'on screen' falls into that same category. People don't play out the darkest things that are implied by Lusternia's lore because doing so would be depressing and honestly kinda creepy when you get into all of the implied torture and incest.
In character, Nothing Matters but Glomdoring. But in real life, lots of things matter more than text games.
While I like the relaxed roleplay that this line of thinking offers, it does make the fabric of the game world weaker at the same time. It seems like some Magnagorans/nihilists treat Nifilhema like some kind of psychopathic aunt that we dote on when we "need to" and completely ignore when she's not present... or worse. A little bit of leeway on RP is good, but too much could make Magnagora seem like a cuddly forest org. I think for now, we are doing well with this problem. When it comes to Glomdoring though I'm not sure if it's a good idea to have some characters, having sacrificed the baby before the proposed changes, be baby killers while the new members are not. Which kind of goes against the "tribal" aspects a bit.
In game, I'd be willing to RP whatever my character would do in the game, because I can separate reality from fiction... with the exception of things that break the rules of the game. Murdering that text baby in game does not make you a baby killer in real life, nor does it make you more likely to do so in real life. Therefore, since no one IRL is actually harmed by it I'm willing to do so because of the fabric of the game. Daedroth is an absolutely abhorrent character, I'd never be friends with him in real life. Terrible to look at, too. At the end of the day, it's not a reflection on me as an IRL person though.
Changing the quest changes Glomdoring's fabric at the end of the day, which will change Daedroth's opinion of Glom and potentially other character's perceptions as well.
I know it sounds like a personal attack, but I really think that the issue has to be fixed on the end of the players who chose Glom but have a problem with how their epic quest plays out. I know it's great to make things accessible for people's issues when possible, but this sort of thing is pretty inherent to an "evil org". Especially tribal cults.
If this sort of thing does end up being frowned upon and it's changed or removed, there are a few other things that could be pushed to be changed as well based on OOC player morality. Yes, I'm bringing out the slippery slope.
Or we could just respect the art that is Glomdoring's Lore and leave it as is, to be enjoyed by those who can and ignored by those who can't.
Daedroth said: It seems like some Magnagorans/nihilists treat Nifilhema like some kind of psychopathic aunt that we dote on when we "need to" and completely ignore when she's not present... or worse.
So, brief aside before getting to the main point: I actually think this is healthy in moderation. Back when I played as a Nihilist years and years ago, there were several different kinds of Nihilists. Some were just in it for the power and were only playing lip service. Some were genuinely religious and saw the Demon Lords as paragons of moral improvement. Some were very much anti-Fates but only lukewarm about the Demon Lords. Some of them were mentally ill and driven to serve by unwholesome compulsions beyond their control. Some really hated the Light and would ally with anyone who wanted to hurt Celest, regardless of who that someone was. Some found the ethical freedom and will to power ethos to be liberating. There was a diversity of motives and it made the guild richer as result.
Daedroth said: In game, I'd be willing to RP whatever my character would do in the game, because I can separate reality from fiction... with the exception of things that break the rules of the game. Murdering that text baby in game does not make you a baby killer in real life, nor does it make you more likely to do so in real life. Therefore, since no one IRL is actually harmed by it I'm willing to do so because of the fabric of the game.
I feel like this might be a situation where people are talking past each other or not quite understanding the nature of the disagreement. Everyone involved with this thread (hopefully?) agrees that murdering people in a game is nothing like murdering people in real life, from an ethical standpoint. Nobody looks at Glomdoring and concludes that everyone who's done the epic in Glomdoring murders babies IRL. Nobody looks at Magnagora and assumes that everyone who's done the Magnagoran epic tortures dogs in their basement. Nobody looks at Gaudiguch and says that everyone who's done the Gaudiguch epic is some kind of a drug addict. That's not the problem anyone has with the nai'dorin.
The problem people do have is that there are some topics which come up in game (torture, infanticide, suicidal depression, sex) which either aren't appropriate or aren't enjoyable for some players. I'm not going to put words in people's mouth by talking about the nai'dorin when I personally don't have an issue with it, so let's talk about a related issue that is hopefully illustrative of the situation: the Unity infection.
I, the player of Moi, have a history of hallucinating a mental voice telling me that I'm worthless, that my life has no meaning and that I should just kill myself. It's an awful, insidious mental state to be in, and one where you have to constantly make an effort of will to distinguish what's an intrusive thought and what's a real thought that you actually wanted to act on. Eventually, you just get so tired that you give up and just do what the voice says in hopes that dying will shut it up. I know this because I've given up and gone along with what the death urge told me to do on twelve separate occasions, the most recent of which culminated in me hanging from a belt in my backyard shed until it (thankfully) snapped.
Playing Lusternia lets me get away from that. I can pretend to be someone else for a while. It's liberating. Sure, Moi has her own problems, but they're problems like 'Serenwilde stole our hyfae, Moi! Could you sneak into Ptoma and steal them back for us?' or 'I'm writing a book about the involvement of the House of Paavik in the First Blood War, but I need to convince this Magnagoran to give me access to an important historical reference.' or 'Andraste demands candy coated aphids! Devise a recipe at once!' Different enough from my real life problems that taking them on doesn't leave me feeling drained and worthless and miserable.
Along comes the Unity Plague, where one of the late stage disease symptoms is a voice in your character's head telling them that they are worthless, that their life has no meaning and that they should just kill themselves.
You can probably imagine exactly how little I appreciated that event.
It's not that I think people with depression are icky and that we shouldn't discuss them. It's not that I think discussing suicide is beyond the pale and that there's something wrong IRL with the people who decided to explore the darker implications of their character suddenly becoming suicidally depressed. It's definitely not that I am incapable of getting into the headspace of a character who's dealing with that sort of invasive and self-destructive compulsion.
It's that I don't want to roleplay it, because it makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry instead.
Some of this is management of people's expectations when they become involved with the game, and what the overarching expectations of the community vs the administrators are when putting together events or quests. I'm always interested in having more people to RP with, so it does make me a bit sad that people have or are thinking about leaving Glom for this reason. But let's sort of forget the Glom lore for a second and go a bit meta.
In a fantasy-type game with PvP, PvE, various classes that heavily involve manipulation of death/dying (necromancy, most sterotypically), it is an expectation that one can expect to see and/or participate in violent acts against humanoids. Completely expected from basically 100% of people who are in the game or even have just read about the game. We as players (and I think I speak for everyone here) don't condone murder in real life, obviously, but this is an expectation in game.
What's not expected when reading about/participating in the game is a requirement to participate sex, sexual assault, rape, etc. even though there are examples of sexual assault in the lore (most prominently, how Glom's own native race, the faelings, were created). We're not a sex-themed game! We're a PvP-RP fantasy-steampunk game! Accordingly, it would be absolutely beyond the pale for admin to expect players to participate an sexual act as a requirement in game and the community at large would not accept it. So bringing up that I feel is a strawman.
The core question is, despite the prominence and expectation of other extreme acts of violence within the game, is the active murder of children acceptable in the context of the game?
The admin, with the inclusion of the baby-killing, have said, yes, this should be expected. And taking it a step further, they feel it's so integral to the game world that literally the most powerful free artifact obtainable in-game for a member of Glomdoring is gated behind this one requirement.
And if everyone in the community felt that baby-killing was a bridge too far (like say, if summoning Night required on-screen graphically, anatomically detailed rape), we wouldn't be having this discussion, would demand point blank there be a change to the quest, and the admin would acquiesce.
I think Moi's example is illustrative on how the Unity Plague, while within the expectations of what Lusternia is, can be difficult for players to deal with. There will always need to be a balance of how many people the admin can afford to alienate to advance their vision of the orgs and their world at large because there will always be people who find certain aspects of the game unquestionably intolerable on an OOC level.
For me, I will also mention that there will always be a need to balance the lore world with the game mechanics. My take on this, not like it matters, is that extreme violence is an integral part of Glom (and Mag!) lore and should be preserved and disseminated. However, I'm not sure baby killing is so integral to the game world such that literally the most powerful free artifact obtainable in-game for a member of Glomdoring should be gated behind this one requirement. And I know I'm not addressing the point that Versalean and others are trying to make with bringing this up, but since I'm not particularly triggered by stabbing a baby with my e-knife, I don't feel like I can use their line of reasoning to justify my thoughts on it. One way or another, I'm basically meh. Baby killing for the orgbix isn't going to be the hill I die on to defend the integrity of Glom lore. Perhaps I have an overly rosy view of what others think represents Glom lore, but I think what we bring to the game is much richer than just, 'hey these dudes are willing to kill a baby damn that's cool'.
edit based on Xenthos's post below regarding accuracy of naming the quest in question and to emphasize my relative indifference
Start a thread of gag-script requests. Basically, Moi if I may use you as an example:
Moi would post in this thread "Can someone make a gag script for me for the Unity emotes? I have X client." Someone who does scripting for that client goes "Oh yeah, sure. I'll take that up." The community works to supply the scripter with those lines, the scripter whips something up, Moi receives a mudlet/nexus/whatever package, installs it, and everything works out. Moi will now either have the line(s) gagged entirely, or will receive an OOC message stating that the line has been gagged. Effectively this would create a player-moderated snub system for events.
I'm absolutely against the admins changing the RP around 'darker' questlines. Even as someone who has suffered from abuse and can be triggered by certain things. But I also understand the need for individuals to avoid their triggers. This is an issue that can be resolved in the community with minimal effort with a happy medium, rather than forcing the reworking of entire orgs.
The nai'Dorin is not the quest that requires sacrifice. It is its own separate subquest that can be done on its own whenever people want to do it. The reward of the quest is, however, the time-sensitive component of the actual quest we're discussing (Summoning Night for a prophecy). (doing the nai'Dorin involves no harm to any young folk, just the Crow-standin who gets impaled on thorns and caressed with a fingerblade while he/she bleeds).
I just want to clarify this because I think it's important that we be accurate, I don't think the nai'Dorin itself is the issue at all here.
And I do still think that fixing the bloodroot baby quest to work as intended, and possibly adding a chamber in which to store it, would solve a good chunk of the concern without having to compromise any RP for anyone (since it does already exist).
That's probably accurate re: Fixing the alternative baby. Some of the other ideas regarding other ways you could simulate the sacrifice to Night are also good, and are more interesting from a lore perspective than "Kill babieeessss muhahahaha", imo.
I don't particularly care or have a lot of stock in this matter either way, but I feel like devising alternatives within the framework of the Glomdoring is fine.
The one facet that matters is that it is a meaningful act.
And in that regard, if your character has over 150,000 mob kills in their achievement stats, it's safe to say that killing stuff isn't particularly meaningful to you. Gutting that baby to said character might as well be as meaningful as picking their nose.
It's not like Mother Night necessarily would have a "change of heart" on the subject, either. She's allowed to get bored of infanticide and declare that it is old-hat in favour of some new offering that likewise suits Her purposes.
Vivet said:I don't particularly care or have a lot of stock in this matter either way, but I feel like devising alternatives within the framework of the Glomdoring is fine.
The one facet that matters is that it is a meaningful act.
And in that regard, if your character has over 150,000 mob kills in their achievement stats, it's safe to say that killing stuff isn't particularly meaningful to you. Gutting that baby to said character might as well be as meaningful as picking their nose.
It's not like Mother Night necessarily would have a "change of heart" on the subject, either. She's allowed to get bored of infanticide and declare that it is old-hat in favour of some new offering that likewise suits Her purposes.
EDIT: I find it difficult to read this in a constructive manner. Text-based communication is a sonofabitch.
So, while this is actually exactly what I ended up doing for myself (gagging the offending line and then logging out for a soothing cup of tea), I'm not really sure that this solution is applicable to the baby sacrifice. In my case, it was a single line of flavour text that was triggering. With the baby, you still have to go into Stewartsville, GET BABY FROM CRIB, walk back to Glomdoring, have the baby periodically escape (requiring that you chase it around the Ravenwood trying to catch it), start up the quest, DROP BABY, wait for the proper time in the ritual and then KICK BABY (or whatever command you use to kill it) and so on and so forth. Plus there's the CT discussion of who has the baby, the commune help files describing the process... It's not really practical to do a find and replace on all of that, particularly the player generated content surrounding it. Whereas getting rid of one line of ambience that squicks you out is easy.
I honestly can't tell if this is a troll post or if you are truly, truly completely missing the point of this entire debate. In either case I'm struggling to engage you, and I really want to
If the purpose of this thread is solely to propose alternatives, then you have many, many more posts to mark as off-topic.
If the purpose is to debate the necessity of any change at all, which seems to be indicated by the general path of discussion, then I fail to see how my post is off-topic.
That said, I think it would be pretty difficult to grasp at alternatives in a forum setting and that such discussion is best left to the Glomdoring, within itself. So I stuck to suggesting that some sort of change seems viable/reasonable to me and how it could be built into the framework of the questline and fit into the world itself.
Looks like I ninja'd you dude. I've been assured by people I trust that your post wasn't, in fact, a troll, so clearly I misread it and I've changed my post (and flag) accordingly. Still utterly confused as to what you were saying, but there we go.
Someone mentioned it earlier, but killing a baby animal or a baby <something else> may be a good alternative. The reason that there's such a shock factor involved in the sacrifice is because all of us are human behind the screen. Pretty sure, anyway. In Lusternia, where there are not that many human characters, their stigma could be different.
Maybe think of something any Glomdorian would hate, hate hate to sacrifice, then sacrifice it anyway for the glory of the wyrd.
Someone mentioned it earlier, but killing a baby animal or a baby <something else> may be a good alternative. The reason that there's such a shock factor involved in the sacrifice is because all of us are human behind the screen. Pretty sure, anyway. In Lusternia, where there are not that many human characters, their stigma could be different.
Maybe think of something any Glomdorian would hate, hate hate to sacrifice, then sacrifice it anyway for the glory of the wyrd.
EDIT: Like an eager dire wolf puppy.
The fact of it being a "human" baby seems to be the big issue for a lot of folks. It being human makes it harder for some to separate the fantasy elements from their real life experiences and troubles.
The solution I thought was to give more babies of different races to kill. Eg a little fuzzy furrikin or tae'dae cub to murder would be much more acceptable for people to kill than a human baby.
Someone mentioned it earlier, but killing a baby animal or a baby <something else> may be a good alternative. The reason that there's such a shock factor involved in the sacrifice is because all of us are human behind the screen. Pretty sure, anyway. In Lusternia, where there are not that many human characters, their stigma could be different.
Maybe think of something any Glomdorian would hate, hate hate to sacrifice, then sacrifice it anyway for the glory of the wyrd.
EDIT: Like an eager dire wolf puppy.
The fact of it being a "human" baby seems to be the big issue for a lot of folks. It being human makes it harder for some to separate the fantasy elements from their real life experiences and troubles.
The solution I thought was to give more babies of different races to kill. Eg a little fuzzy furrikin or tae'dae cub to murder would be much more acceptable for people to kill than a human baby.
Maybe chuck a baby of appropriate race in each of the villages around the basin so that one can pick what they are comfortable with
Never put passion before principle. Even if you win, you lose.
If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
I, personally, wouldn't sacrifice a baby of any sentient race. My personal concern with the sacrifice isn't that the baby is human but that it's a sentient* baby.
*Yes. I know. Please let's not argue about this; you know precisely where I'm coming from even if you disagree with it.
If there is already an alternative, that should suffice, shouldn't it? It sounds like the best solution right now is following @Xenthos' and @Enyalida's suggestion to get the bloodroot baby quest fixed. That way, you have an option of using the sentient Stewartsville baby or the mandrake root-esque plant creature.
I imagine the reason that the containment chamber wouldn't fly is that it would essentially involve re-working the quest to not be available until the bloodroot babe is gone (to prevent "stockpiling"), which seems against the design of Lusternian quests (that they can be repeatable after X amount of hours). I am not sure where exactly this quest is available, but I would also hazard to guess that, unless it is explicitly in Glomdoring or uses things only found in Glomdoring, the idea was to have it available for anyone in Lusternia to complete. So a containment chamber might further isolate it as solely something for Glomdoring? Idk. It sounds like it is just more work if you have another quest involved to get stuff for the epic.
The idea would be that while the quest itself is on cooldown, the fakebaby would be in a designated place instead of needing to be in someone's inventory or wandering around. So that you still can't stockpile it, but you can do it ahead of time somewhat.
The Stewartsville baby is always stockpiled and available 100%, so I don't see why you wouldn't be able to do the same with a bloodroot baby if you go through all the effort to make it (the end result is providing an alternate to something that requires 0 effort or time to nab).
The quest to summon Mother Night has the lengthy Nai'Dorin Rite gating it, time-wise, and also the fact that it can only be done on the New Moon (the strongest gate of all, 1 hour out of every 32).
Comments
The simple fact is that a depiction of a violent (or any) sex act towards a minor would, at best, cause immediate, visceral, and very public outcry. It may also fall under the legal definition of obscenity, and very well may be illegal in some countries. There is precedence in the US, for example, in which individuals writing about sex acts with minors have received prison sentences. I believe Lusternia's servers are based in the US, which means the game falls under US legal jurisdiction. This hypothetical questline would almost certainly cause Lusternia to be shut down, and likely would cause our admins to face legal ramifications.
Again, this is a legal issue. Under United States law, the exposure of a minor to obscene imagery (which includes, but is not limited to, sex acts) is illegal. This is why pornographic websites have the often-ignored splash page stating "you must be 18 to access this site."
(https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/citizens-guide-us-federal-law-obscenity - because hyperlinking isn't working for me right now).
Mandating that individuals 'follow through' with graphically depicted sex acts would require Lusternia to have all our players and staff agree upon entry that they are at least 18 years of age, which could be potentially damaging to the business. Some MUDs, aimed at sexuality, do require this. Lusternia is not, and does not.
Any personal values regarding the above are therefore irrelevant. It's not a moral matter, it's a legal one. There's no legal prohibition against graphically depicting baby sacrifice. Equating sexuality to baby sacrifice is a false equivalence logical fallacy.
Edit: Looks like Lerad took a bite out of this too as I was writing the post. Ah well.
I am not a lawyer, and possess no legal background. My posted opinions about the law here are not to be construed as legal counsel of any kind.
1) The 'if you're too squeamish for dead kids gtfo' undercurrent in this thread isn't just antagonistic. It's seriously lazy. If it's the logical or moral basis of your argument I'm just flat out disappointed.
2) The orgbix is entirely optional, as is being on CT during the discussions leading up to it, as is responding to tells about it. One can indeed easily 'opt out' of all the deadbabies in Glomdoring with a few timely keystrokes. Nobody is presently being 'forced' to engage the subject material. So let's not paint this as people being forced to endure their squicks. It isn't. It's a question about whether, in a game with a playerbase as diverse as Lusty's, somebody who finds A objectionable, no, intolerable, should have the option of B, or whether they should just carry on doing something different. Honestly, as a person who is 10/10 squicked by the present nai'dorin, I could fall on either side of that debate for the reason somebody posted earlier (i.e., "where do you draw the line?").
3) Third, the idea that you, the player, should be willing to roleplay anything your character is willing to do is silly. I don't believe that, and neither do you. There's fourth wall. There's good grace and player etiquette. There's roleplay - not only does your character have different morals than you much of the time, but they live within an entirely different moral framework within an entirely separate psychosocial setting. Versalean would do things I wouldn't even put to pen (interestingly, that includes killing kids - particularly human ones). I don't understand why anybody doesn't understand that.
4) Would I love to see the dead baby removed? Sure. Am I demanding or expecting it? Nope. Do I think that adding an alternative would be a reasonable compromise. Sure. Am I demanding or expecting it? Nope.
5) If you're arguing that people shouldn't be triggered by deadtextbabies because they are a) not real or b) morally equivalent to something else the person isn't triggered by, then, respectfully, I just don't know what to say to you.
Laterz
If you believe very strongly one way or the other, that is absolutely fine. But please take care with how you choose to articulate this. For example, just because you have no problem with the quest does not mean others do not; your belief does not invalidate their personal experience and point of view.
It is very possible to express your disagreement in a way that is respectful, as many people have already done.
We will be watching this thread closely as it continues and should there be any breach of the forum rules it will be immediately closed, as with the original thread of this nature posted last year.
Please rest assured that, either way, all of the Havens team do read the forums and are aware of your concerns - even though We will rarely respond to them directly.
I personally like the idea of adding an alternative, just because I understand that this is a touchy subject. There's an orphanage that has orphan mobs. Mobs, by definition, can be slain, which leads a small sect of Magnagorans to regularly kill unfortunate children who have no parents because...orphan killing. For soup and the like. There's a lot of really messed up things that can, and do, happen in this game.
I do not believe that the Nai'dorin can be considered as optional as the Nifilhema-torturing-an-angel questline that is 100% optional. After all, the former gives (approximately) one metric fuck tonne of power and access to the orgbix, which is the best free artefact you can get. The latter requires you to invade enemy territory and get a mob that will then be brought back for the express purpose of torturing, thumbtacks, wing hooks, flesh pulls, the whole nine yards.
I'd much rather see a thread like this trying to figure out what a good alternative for an innocent soul (like the stewartsville baby) could be, or figuring out the optimal ways to use your blood-baby (which I didn't know was a thing, and would 100% jump behind supporting for the parents and other ick peoples).
Ixion tells you, "// I don't think anyone else had a clue, amazing form."
In game, I'd be willing to RP whatever my character would do in the game, because I can separate reality from fiction... with the exception of things that break the rules of the game. Murdering that text baby in game does not make you a baby killer in real life, nor does it make you more likely to do so in real life. Therefore, since no one IRL is actually harmed by it I'm willing to do so because of the fabric of the game. Daedroth is an absolutely abhorrent character, I'd never be friends with him in real life. Terrible to look at, too. At the end of the day, it's not a reflection on me as an IRL person though.
Changing the quest changes Glomdoring's fabric at the end of the day, which will change Daedroth's opinion of Glom and potentially other character's perceptions as well.
I know it sounds like a personal attack, but I really think that the issue has to be fixed on the end of the players who chose Glom but have a problem with how their epic quest plays out. I know it's great to make things accessible for people's issues when possible, but this sort of thing is pretty inherent to an "evil org". Especially tribal cults.
If this sort of thing does end up being frowned upon and it's changed or removed, there are a few other things that could be pushed to be changed as well based on OOC player morality. Yes, I'm bringing out the slippery slope.
Or we could just respect the art that is Glomdoring's Lore and leave it as is, to be enjoyed by those who can and ignored by those who can't.
I feel like this might be a situation where people are talking past each other or not quite understanding the nature of the disagreement. Everyone involved with this thread (hopefully?) agrees that murdering people in a game is nothing like murdering people in real life, from an ethical standpoint. Nobody looks at Glomdoring and concludes that everyone who's done the epic in Glomdoring murders babies IRL. Nobody looks at Magnagora and assumes that everyone who's done the Magnagoran epic tortures dogs in their basement. Nobody looks at Gaudiguch and says that everyone who's done the Gaudiguch epic is some kind of a drug addict. That's not the problem anyone has with the nai'dorin.
The problem people do have is that there are some topics which come up in game (torture, infanticide, suicidal depression, sex) which either aren't appropriate or aren't enjoyable for some players. I'm not going to put words in people's mouth by talking about the nai'dorin when I personally don't have an issue with it, so let's talk about a related issue that is hopefully illustrative of the situation: the Unity infection.
I, the player of Moi, have a history of hallucinating a mental voice telling me that I'm worthless, that my life has no meaning and that I should just kill myself. It's an awful, insidious mental state to be in, and one where you have to constantly make an effort of will to distinguish what's an intrusive thought and what's a real thought that you actually wanted to act on. Eventually, you just get so tired that you give up and just do what the voice says in hopes that dying will shut it up. I know this because I've given up and gone along with what the death urge told me to do on twelve separate occasions, the most recent of which culminated in me hanging from a belt in my backyard shed until it (thankfully) snapped.
Playing Lusternia lets me get away from that. I can pretend to be someone else for a while. It's liberating. Sure, Moi has her own problems, but they're problems like 'Serenwilde stole our hyfae, Moi! Could you sneak into Ptoma and steal them back for us?' or 'I'm writing a book about the involvement of the House of Paavik in the First Blood War, but I need to convince this Magnagoran to give me access to an important historical reference.' or 'Andraste demands candy coated aphids! Devise a recipe at once!' Different enough from my real life problems that taking them on doesn't leave me feeling drained and worthless and miserable.
Along comes the Unity Plague, where one of the late stage disease symptoms is a voice in your character's head telling them that they are worthless, that their life has no meaning and that they should just kill themselves.
You can probably imagine exactly how little I appreciated that event.
It's not that I think people with depression are icky and that we shouldn't discuss them. It's not that I think discussing suicide is beyond the pale and that there's something wrong IRL with the people who decided to explore the darker implications of their character suddenly becoming suicidally depressed. It's definitely not that I am incapable of getting into the headspace of a character who's dealing with that sort of invasive and self-destructive compulsion.
It's that I don't want to roleplay it, because it makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry instead.
In a fantasy-type game with PvP, PvE, various classes that heavily involve manipulation of death/dying (necromancy, most sterotypically), it is an expectation that one can expect to see and/or participate in violent acts against humanoids. Completely expected from basically 100% of people who are in the game or even have just read about the game. We as players (and I think I speak for everyone here) don't condone murder in real life, obviously, but this is an expectation in game.
What's not expected when reading about/participating in the game is a requirement to participate sex, sexual assault, rape, etc. even though there are examples of sexual assault in the lore (most prominently, how Glom's own native race, the faelings, were created). We're not a sex-themed game! We're a PvP-RP fantasy-steampunk game! Accordingly, it would be absolutely beyond the pale for admin to expect players to participate an sexual act as a requirement in game and the community at large would not accept it. So bringing up that I feel is a strawman.
The core question is, despite the prominence and expectation of other extreme acts of violence within the game, is the active murder of children acceptable in the context of the game?
The admin, with the inclusion of the baby-killing, have said, yes, this should be expected. And taking it a step further, they feel it's so integral to the game world that literally the most powerful free artifact obtainable in-game for a member of Glomdoring is gated behind this one requirement.
And if everyone in the community felt that baby-killing was a bridge too far (like say, if summoning Night required on-screen graphically, anatomically detailed rape), we wouldn't be having this discussion, would demand point blank there be a change to the quest, and the admin would acquiesce.
I think Moi's example is illustrative on how the Unity Plague, while within the expectations of what Lusternia is, can be difficult for players to deal with. There will always need to be a balance of how many people the admin can afford to alienate to advance their vision of the orgs and their world at large because there will always be people who find certain aspects of the game unquestionably intolerable on an OOC level.
For me, I will also mention that there will always be a need to balance the lore world with the game mechanics. My take on this, not like it matters, is that extreme violence is an integral part of Glom (and Mag!) lore and should be preserved and disseminated. However, I'm not sure baby killing is so integral to the game world such that literally the most powerful free artifact obtainable in-game for a member of Glomdoring should be gated behind this one requirement. And I know I'm not addressing the point that Versalean and others are trying to make with bringing this up, but since I'm not particularly triggered by stabbing a baby with my e-knife, I don't feel like I can use their line of reasoning to justify my thoughts on it. One way or another, I'm basically meh. Baby killing for the orgbix isn't going to be the hill I die on to defend the integrity of Glom lore. Perhaps I have an overly rosy view of what others think represents Glom lore, but I think what we bring to the game is much richer than just, 'hey these dudes are willing to kill a baby damn that's cool'.
edit based on Xenthos's post below regarding accuracy of naming the quest in question and to emphasize my relative indifference
Start a thread of gag-script requests. Basically, Moi if I may use you as an example:
Moi would post in this thread "Can someone make a gag script for me for the Unity emotes? I have X client." Someone who does scripting for that client goes "Oh yeah, sure. I'll take that up." The community works to supply the scripter with those lines, the scripter whips something up, Moi receives a mudlet/nexus/whatever package, installs it, and everything works out. Moi will now either have the line(s) gagged entirely, or will receive an OOC message stating that the line has been gagged. Effectively this would create a player-moderated snub system for events.
I'm absolutely against the admins changing the RP around 'darker' questlines. Even as someone who has suffered from abuse and can be triggered by certain things. But I also understand the need for individuals to avoid their triggers. This is an issue that can be resolved in the community with minimal effort with a happy medium, rather than forcing the reworking of entire orgs.
(doing the nai'Dorin involves no harm to any young folk, just the Crow-standin who gets impaled on thorns and caressed with a fingerblade while he/she bleeds).
I just want to clarify this because I think it's important that we be accurate, I don't think the nai'Dorin itself is the issue at all here.
And I do still think that fixing the bloodroot baby quest to work as intended, and possibly adding a chamber in which to store it, would solve a good chunk of the concern without having to compromise any RP for anyone (since it does already exist).
The one facet that matters is that it is a meaningful act.
And in that regard, if your character has over 150,000 mob kills in their achievement stats, it's safe to say that killing stuff isn't particularly meaningful to you. Gutting that baby to said character might as well be as meaningful as picking their nose.
It's not like Mother Night necessarily would have a "change of heart" on the subject, either. She's allowed to get bored of infanticide and declare that it is old-hat in favour of some new offering that likewise suits Her purposes.
If the purpose is to debate the necessity of any change at all, which seems to be indicated by the general path of discussion, then I fail to see how my post is off-topic.
That said, I think it would be pretty difficult to grasp at alternatives in a forum setting and that such discussion is best left to the Glomdoring, within itself. So I stuck to suggesting that some sort of change seems viable/reasonable to me and how it could be built into the framework of the questline and fit into the world itself.
ETA: and apologies for misconstruing your post.
Maybe think of something any Glomdorian would hate, hate hate to sacrifice, then sacrifice it anyway for the glory of the wyrd.
EDIT: Like an eager dire wolf puppy.
The solution I thought was to give more babies of different races to kill. Eg a little fuzzy furrikin or tae'dae cub to murder would be much more acceptable for people to kill than a human baby.
If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?
If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
[spoiler]Not saying they're wrong for doing so, just a funny thought that popped into my head.[/spoiler]
*Yes. I know. Please let's not argue about this; you know precisely where I'm coming from even if you disagree with it.
(I kid, I kid!)
I imagine the reason that the containment chamber wouldn't fly is that it would essentially involve re-working the quest to not be available until the bloodroot babe is gone (to prevent "stockpiling"), which seems against the design of Lusternian quests (that they can be repeatable after X amount of hours). I am not sure where exactly this quest is available, but I would also hazard to guess that, unless it is explicitly in Glomdoring or uses things only found in Glomdoring, the idea was to have it available for anyone in Lusternia to complete. So a containment chamber might further isolate it as solely something for Glomdoring? Idk. It sounds like it is just more work if you have another quest involved to get stuff for the epic.
The quest to summon Mother Night has the lengthy Nai'Dorin Rite gating it, time-wise, and also the fact that it can only be done on the New Moon (the strongest gate of all, 1 hour out of every 32).
E: Actually your idea would work as well. Glomdoring has a room like that too!