Looks like the results so far are divided between "not interested in chat RP" and "interested but now time". Another idea bites the dust.

I can always run sessions with lots of RP and very little in-depth plot if time is short- the Dying Earth is very good for that.

Well, to have a society where the sexes are treated as equal, you'd have to alter a few of the basics of how a society functions. Let's look at the reasons why male-dominated societies have dominated the real world. The differences between men and women are, at the most basic level, that men are physiaclly stronger and women bear the children. This leads to men dominating society because:-

Brute Force. A lot of interaction, both on a personal and a political level, can be settled by resorting to violence or threatening to do so, especially in a less complex society. Men, being stronger, have the advantage when this happens. Forget Xena fantasies about sword-swinging warrior women, which are as likely as real world magic. Men have more weight, reach and upper body strength and anyone who doesn't think that's a deciding factor has never been in a real fight.

High Mortality. Until good medicine is developed, the majority of women have to stay preggnant most of their lives just to keep the population growth in posistive figures. Plus, until the development of effective contraception, women have to completely abstain from sex or start planning for a family.

Division of labour. Men go out to work and women stay at home- this has been the norm across the whole world up until the last few decades, and it didn't happen by accident. Men, being stronger, are more effective at heavy labour. By the time a society gets to the point where some types of work don't involve brute strength, the pattern has already been set. And housekeeping is a full time job prior to the invention of domestic appliances- somebody has to spend all day cooking, cleaning and looking after the kids, and for the previously mentioned reason, the men are employed elsewhere.

In order for a society to have both equality of the sexes and long-term social stability, it must have access to two things. A way of rendering the difference in physical strength meaningless, and reliable medicine which includes contraception. In the real world, science provided these things. In this alternative world, some other method must be found- possibly magic, though several have said they'd prefer this to be rarer than in the default D&D settings.

And on the Matriarchy point Norah seems to be arguing for... Firstly, this thread assumes the Alternate History setting that many have expressed an interest in, which rules out matriarchy- this has, as far as we can tell, never existed in the real world. There are some who argue otherwise, but in every case their arguments seem to me to be a collection of circumstantial evidence strung together with a passionately argued case based more on their personal convictions than any facts. Secondly, as you may gather from this post, I like to have solid reasons why societies are the way they are. Come up with a solid reason why a society would become a matriarchy, and I'll consider that background. But any matriarchal settings I've come across in books fail to achieve this.

I've always thought that, from a sociological point of view, the method used in the Empire of the Petal Throne setting was the best for emancipated female PCs. The women in Tsolyanu can, after they reach adulthood, declare themselves "Aridani" and become, legally, the equals of men. The drawback is that they have to BE the equals of men- they receive no consideration based on gender, and give up any ideas of settling down and having a family like good little clan-women. Aridani women are common, but not the norm by any means.

Whilst at first glance this represents a degree of emancipation that is out of character for a low-tech society which puts men in the superior role, it actually serves to ensure the long-term social stability of the society. Most women (90%+) live out their lives as second class citizens, and the exceptions- the brighter, motivated women who would be the leaders of any push to gain equality between sexes- can simply join the other side without any effort and gain all the respect and independence they want just for asking. By giving the potential rebels and nonconformists a clearly defined and socially acceptable role in society, their potential to cause trouble is much reduced.

Female characters will be a problem for any setting based on history. We will inevitably be sacrificing some degree of accuracy in order to make female PCs playable. I can live with this, and anyone who is enough of a historical purist for this to be a problem is never going to be happy with using the D&D set that is NWN2's default material anyway.

Another method of limiting magic that I'd thought of- an RP based one- was to require apprenticeship. We have one or more GM-played high level alt characters as the established archmages of the setting. In order to become a magician, a player has to be accepted as an apprentice by one of these characters. Only an apprentice can advance in spellcasting levels. We could also have a High Priest and Acolyte parallel for Clerics. With the masters all being GM-run, this means that a spellcaster can be awarded a chunk of XP for RPing their lessons well.

So then we just have to decide what sort of Medieval we're going to do. You're talking about a 500 year stretch of history that covers the whole of Europe. We're going to have a lot to choose from, even if this is voted the way to go.

As far as that choice goes, I suppose that Medieval would be the easiest of the Alternate History options- simply because even the default toolset should allow a reasonable facsimile. D&D is based primariliy on Medieval stuff, after all.

I'd been pondering whether to invest in NWN2 or not, based on what everyone has been saying. But my doubts, as always, are based on the NWN2 default setting- the Forgotten Realms. I've never liked the setting, and personally would never play anything set there. If the persistent world is going to be FR, it looks like I'm saved the purchase.

The fact that the Forgotten Realms are the default setting for the game isn't a problem for anyone who is determined enough. I always end up creating my own settings for my pen-and-paper D&D games, whilst still using the default 3rd edition rules. If there is a model set with so much variation as is advertised, then there really sould be no problem creating something with a bit more originality that the cardboard stereotypes of Forgotten Realms. But then, I'm probably not going to be the one making the persistent world, so it's not really up to me.

"Seed of the Great Tree" as a Neighbourhood name?

My Mozilla vote wasn't a mistake. I really must get around to updating to Firefox sometime soon... Last time I tried that it must still have had a few bugs, as some of the sites I went to with Mozilla couldn't be accessed with Firefox, but I imagine that's no longer the case- it was quite a while ago... As in maybe two years.

I've been playing the demo a lot these last few days, and I'm planning to upgrade to the full version as soon as I have spare money. It really gets the feel of a nuclear war right, as if two people stood ten feet away with fully-automatic weapons and held the triggers down to see who dies first. And yet, it's so compelling... There's a definate strategic element to it, and you can't help but feel that there must be a way to wipe out your enemy whilst not getting hit yourself, if only you could get everything arranged right. But no matter how well it goes, the nukes get through- and you try again, but with a modified plan.

I actually got most of the way through a game against an AI opponent once without taking a single hit. I'd taken out the silos, smashed their radars and airbases, and weathered their ICBM barrage without a single nuke getting through my defences. So I ordered the full strike, and as the nukes went up, the submarine fleet which had been hiding off my coast fired its MRBMs... I still won, but so much for the victory at no cost to myself. It seems that the nuclear war could be won in the same way that you could win a game of Russian roulette with five chambers loaded... Theoretically possible, but you'd never want to try it for real.

PM me if anyone wants to try a game. It'll be interesting to see how play goes against a human opponent.

1 year in game  = 2 months real time... Good to know what the conversion is. Assuming that characters start around 18 years old, this means that people who started playing when the game came out have only just reached their thirties with their oldest characters, and we'd have to play for several real-time years before aging became a real problem. No mechanics to represent it in-game, of course, but then, no characters are old enough for that to be needed.

The Cliches and stereotypes were purely a product of the era- Howard wrote the original Conan stories in the 1930s, after all, when such attitudes were the norm. There was a note on the site that the setting has been "updated" to remove the blatant racism and sexism, since neither was integral to the setting- simply a reflexion of the author and the times he lived in.

And yes, the stories were first published in "Weird Tales", alongside such authors as HP Lovecraft. Reading the stories, it's easy to see that the supernatural side of the Hyborean Age, the spells and the demons, was heavily influenced by Lovecraft. That's one of the big attractions of the setting to me. There are no whilte magicians, everyone who studies sorcery is automatically dealing with dark forces that Man Was Not Meant To Know Of.

The game will be the greatest action-oriented online game ever, as long as it delivers what it promises. But we all know better than to simply trust the game blurb by now, don't we?