Changes

Ideas and suggestions for game mechanics and rules.
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oldgrayrogue
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Changes

Post by oldgrayrogue »

Well its been a while since we removed the password off of a few servers and moved to a 2 PC policy. The sky did not fall. ALFA as we know it did not cease to exist.

How about we take the password off all servers.

How about we adopt a rule for multiple PCs as long as they never play on the same server.
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Galadorn
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Re: Changes

Post by Galadorn »

Eek!

:(

*cries*

Now we want 4 PCs? please no. :(
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Xanthea
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Re: Changes

Post by Xanthea »

I'd rather see changes in the direction of allowing higher level/campaign starts for PCs, as I said a few months back.
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oldgrayrogue
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Re: Changes

Post by oldgrayrogue »

Galadorn wrote:Eek!

:(

*cries*

Now we want 4 PCs? please no. :(
Hear me out. Our community is dwindling. I am one of the few people who logs in just to play anymore without a DM or campaign. There are others on at these times, scattered across 4 servers. I would log in with another PC and play with them when they are on. Time restrictions on travel prevent that with a single PC. I suppose removing the time restrictions on server travel would accomplish the same thing. DMs routinely will validate you to server hop, so why not make it official.

That said, yeah, I don't see the issue with multiple PCs at all. Most of our membership has either been a DM builder or Admin at some point. Almost everyone has had access to all kinds of meta info. Things like muling between PCs is easily caught. I don't think multiple PCs is an issue frankly.
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Darkmystic
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Re: Changes

Post by Darkmystic »

Quests for high level characters? You mean those that hide in their own lockable houses and rps to themselves? Its sad. True alfa is about chararacters below level 10.
FoamBats4All
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Re: Changes

Post by FoamBats4All »

We need more DMs, not more PCs.

2 PCs is more than enough. Want to play with someone who is online? Jump on and DM them.
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Brokenbone
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Re: Changes

Post by Brokenbone »

The thirty days between multiple PCs being on whichever server turf?

How about cut that out, and just have a "no two on same turf at once" rule? Just ask that your PC1 has actually "left" server A, before PC 2 portals to it. This has a built in restriction that PC1 definitely won't be back for at least 24 hours... and PC1 should not come back until PC 2 has left server A. Continue to require that no inter-PC gains take place, perhaps even require a report of the player to ensure that no one bartered around any hand-me-down or custom crafted items through a third party if they make a fast visit of that nature. I.e., a player responsibility, not a DM team responsibility to comb logs and look for oddities like PC 1 gives a surplus piece of magic armor to PC 3, then PC 2 buys it or is gifted it by PC 3.

The population is not super large, but those folks who are on DM side, PA and logging side, we are suspicious as hell if there's even a minor aroma of impropriety. There's also lots of people who hate each others' guts I suspect, and where people will be delighted to spend hours on logs finding one crappy item out of place... "ah ha, PC 2 visited BG to bring ten beaver fur top hats from MS to a broker PC 3, PC 3 was able to sell 9 of those legitimately to uninvolved PCs, but he also sold the 10th one to PC 1, call the PA!"

Note in the example I doubt you could even find ten PCs who'd buy the hats without a month or more of effort and advertising. Density is low, die hards who are still around have probably already gone to MS themselves to buy such an item.

So yeah, cut the cool down on multiple PC movement so people can go enjoy the content elsewhere and get a chance to congregate with whoever the heck happens to be on.

Further to that, it might be worth exploring whether the quarantine system is worth adjusting so that anyone can portal anywhere after maybe say an offline rest of a day or two. The only negative to that would be cases where someone last logged out in a dangerous spot, like deep in a dungeon someplace. Maybe just associate a cost with leaving Q, to simulate maybe you needed to use up some supplies getting out of a jam somewhere... an invis potion, throwing a couple choking powders at a pursuer, hiring henchmen / caravans, a healing potion or two, several nights at inns, whatever. Something higher than the often free or nominal "pay for a ticket on a ship" type system. Again this is with a view to congregating, if you have 2 people a server apart, meeting up would be nicer if it wasn't "hold on I'm about 6 screens from a portal (5 of which are civilized filler with no chance of an encounter), maybe you move to your inbound portal area at same time..."

I suppose there'd be some way to have Quarantine be an "unfrozen" PC spot, where maybe you could await a DM, or go just pull a lever that says "10d20 gp of travel expenses" which ports you to a starter town.
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Ronan
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Re: Changes

Post by Ronan »

I don't actually think we gain anything by having more than one open server.

Changes I'd like to see:
  • Start PCs at level 2. Put an asymptotic "soft" cap in around level 9 or so.
  • Allow new PCs to be rolled up with 50% half a retired or killed PC's experience. Raises would incur a 50% XP penalty too.*
  • Remove the -6 floor.
  • Trim the RP spell list of spells which are hard to DM.
  • Allow any number of PCs on any number of servers. Allow DMs may veto faction membership based on potential metagaming.
For me this would eliminate many of the frustrations of DMing (high-level PCs, mismatched PC levels, dealing with the -6 floor in deadly combat, PC deaths causing players to quit). You'd still have the overhead of a multi-DM environment**, but even that could be lessened if multiple PCs allowed DM to specialize more in individual factions.

ALFA's niche is its DMing, yet ALFA is an extremely difficult environment to DM in. We cannot compete with mainstream games for their static content, especially now as many are going multiplayer-coop.

My ideal NWN2 environment would not have any wealth or pricing standards. It also would not have magic items powerful enough to need wealth standards.

* I think this is a good compromise between permadeath and EfU's system. I don't think we should do away with permadeath as it is needed for RP.

** Not that we have that now, with what three or four active DMs?
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Re: Changes

Post by HEEGZ »

The 30 day timer between moving PCs about and switching from DM to playing a PC is overly prohibitive. I'd like to see it reduced to a week, or to be flavorful, a tenday. In my recent experience, waiting on the 30 day timer had the side effect of me filling in my gaming time with other games and activities. With my busy schedule its been hard to get back into my old gaming schedule in ALFA and I think it is directly tied to multiple the 30 day timer scenarios I had to deal with.

I agree with Ronan's thoughts. I'm not sure how much support can be found for starting at level 2 or 3. The fast track of XP awards for new PCs has worked fine for me. A few statics and one session with me is usually enough to hit level 2, or just two sessions. Level 3 takes a bit longer but not too much of a hurdle to reach, particularly on TSM. An interesting thing from the new 5ed of D&D is that you can optionally start at level 3 to avoid the highly lethal lowest 2 levels. I am okay with that for ALFA as well.

I don't mind the multiple PCs ideas that have been thrown around. Though as a player I tend to only enjoy 1 PC at a time. Eliminating the 24 hour portal delay would be nice. Ultimately, we should trust HDMs and their DMs to police the PCs, and only worry about people breaking the rules as we have need. Our active playerbase and DM roster seems to be getting smaller still. Would be nice to loosen restrictions as we shrink, and the issues become less frequent.
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Re: Changes

Post by Zelknolf »

We should probably move off the suggestions that require core rules changes to their own thread. If the topic drifts so broad as to "how to make this place better to the speaker by any means" we're likely to all walk away frustrated.

The original post was about multiple PCs; should gather up your arguments and present to the PA, as the last time multiple PCs was a domain dispute, it went there.
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Re: Changes

Post by oldgrayrogue »

Ronan wrote:I don't actually think we gain anything by having more than one open server.

Changes I'd like to see:
  • Start PCs at level 2. Put an asymptotic "soft" cap in around level 9 or so.
  • Allow new PCs to be rolled up with 50% half a retired or killed PC's experience. Raises would incur a 50% XP penalty too.*
  • Remove the -6 floor.
  • Trim the RP spell list of spells which are hard to DM.
  • Allow any number of PCs on any number of servers. Allow DMs may veto faction membership based on potential metagaming.
For me this would eliminate many of the frustrations of DMing (high-level PCs, mismatched PC levels, dealing with the -6 floor in deadly combat, PC deaths causing players to quit). You'd still have the overhead of a multi-DM environment**, but even that could be lessened if multiple PCs allowed DM to specialize more in individual factions.

ALFA's niche is its DMing, yet ALFA is an extremely difficult environment to DM in. We cannot compete with mainstream games for their static content, especially now as many are going multiplayer-coop.

My ideal NWN2 environment would not have any wealth or pricing standards. It also would not have magic items powerful enough to need wealth standards.

* I think this is a good compromise between permadeath and EfU's system. I don't think we should do away with permadeath as it is needed for RP.

** Not that we have that now, with what three or four active DMs?
I'm on board with all of these suggestions 100%. OP is "Changes" and intent was to brainstorm on how to loosen things up now that we are getting smaller and smaller as a community and to point out that the changes we have made have not destroyed our RP.
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Xanthea
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Re: Changes

Post by Xanthea »

Ronan wrote:I don't actually think we gain anything by having more than one open server.

Changes I'd like to see:
  • Start PCs at level 2. Put an asymptotic "soft" cap in around level 9 or so.
  • Allow new PCs to be rolled up with 50% half a retired or killed PC's experience. Raises would incur a 50% XP penalty too.*
  • Remove the -6 floor.
  • Trim the RP spell list of spells which are hard to DM.
  • Allow any number of PCs on any number of servers. Allow DMs may veto faction membership based on potential metagaming.
For me this would eliminate many of the frustrations of DMing (high-level PCs, mismatched PC levels, dealing with the -6 floor in deadly combat, PC deaths causing players to quit). You'd still have the overhead of a multi-DM environment**, but even that could be lessened if multiple PCs allowed DM to specialize more in individual factions.

ALFA's niche is its DMing, yet ALFA is an extremely difficult environment to DM in. We cannot compete with mainstream games for their static content, especially now as many are going multiplayer-coop.

My ideal NWN2 environment would not have any wealth or pricing standards. It also would not have magic items powerful enough to need wealth standards.

* I think this is a good compromise between permadeath and EfU's system. I don't think we should do away with permadeath as it is needed for RP.

** Not that we have that now, with what three or four active DMs?
Yup. This would go a long way to solving a lot of ALFA's problems. I'd also like to throw in something about tweaking advancement rates and rewarding risk, both in terms of xp and gp, much more heavily than it is currently.
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Re: Changes

Post by FoamBats4All »

Against the above changes, 100%.

We need to get people DMing, we don't need to stop playing D&D. ALFA is a D&D server, suck it up or play elsewhere.

How about we float some ideas on what would make people actually DM? More DMs, more players. More players, less "I'm not going to log in because no one is logged in" circular draining.
  • Get people to DM.
  • Increase advancement.
  • Shut down WHL to improve population density, and get active DMs like Adanu on an actually used server.
  • Log in as a DM or otherwise contribute or stop bitching.
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Heero
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Re: Changes

Post by Heero »

Ronan makes great points. How long do yall think ya have continuing on the current trajectory?
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Re: Changes

Post by FoamBats4All »

So do the work to make the above count.

Alas, this is Let Me Bitch But Do Nothing to Help the Community Thread 9000XL.

You want people playing? Play and DM. You want content? Make it. I'm not against some of the changes (level 2 start, possibly more PCs), but the reality of things is that none of this is going to happen. Why? Because the only people playing and contributing aren't going to make them happen.

Put up or shut up. Look at the problems and what we need, rather than joining the bitch train. Get your hands dirty, and make shit happen.
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