Extraordinary PCs Bio Approval (Split from PT Proposals)

[Burt]

Keep it simple.

Admission to ALFA comes with the privilege of playing here. The opening message on the website stresses the point that playing here is a privilege, and not suitable for all players.

Yes there have been, and always will be problem players. But punishing the whole player body, and I would even venture to add DM body, for these few seems excessive. Requiring an extra layer of approval for a certain idea, contingent on all or a majority of DMs to agree upon, even if they have no plans to interact with a particular concept, seems punishment.

A centralized, all-DM accessible list for 'special' PCs, like we have for 10+ and PrC quests should be enough. That way all DMs can comment on Joe Blow the tiefling- whether he stinks, needs mentorship, special accolades for playing the difficulty of getting by with flaming hair, whathaveyou.

Trust players? Shut up!

[Misty]

No, ease the burden on the DMs, while giving all a chance to voice their opinions/experiences.

Cannot possibly be called 'trusting players' when there are surveillance threads on 90% of PCs minted.

[Brokenbone]

I'm coming at this much less from the angle of "surveillance" and much more a "how many high maintenance concepts do teams want at a time?" This question has to consider both what kind of coverage you've got in terms of a team, and what's built or needs to be built to accommodate extraordinary concepts... as well as overall immersion for all.

TSM'll start with 100% of NWN2 capable ALFAns playing, and something like 7ish DMs. Each DM will have different hours, different interests, and different ratios of "live DM" to "fix/expand/customize" toolset time.

Standard fortuneseeking adventurers are low maintenance, and non-damaging to anyone's immersion. Once you've played a few though, maybe you want to branch out.

Having collections of special concept characters can be okay, depends how the topic's managed.

If there's several PCs with similar backgrounds, and with a DM who enjoys that concept and can DM all at once, great. Picture a group of five players who want to start as agents of the Zhentarim. Means an instant party / faction, means probably building one hideout, one DM likely able to care & feed that faction, and the door open for more of the same.

If there's several PCs with dissimilar backgrounds, but a shortage of DMs able to invest 1:1 time DMing or building, less great. Five players where one is a Zhent, one a novice of the Cult of the Dragon, one the son of the Mayor of some township on the servant they plan to play on, one a monk of some canon order whose stronghold belongs on the server's turf (but isn't built), and one is the child of two Harpers. Possibly then need a Zhent boss NPC, Cult boss NPC, Mayor & household NPCs, Abbot NPC, some Harper NPCs... and associated meeting places for all (possibly public, but often secret to fit the vibe of the canon group).

The "groups of similar" can also be more reasonable for non-affiliated PCs to encounter than bizarre individuals popping up everywhere you turn. Again, knowing (or suspecting) that going to a particular slum bar is a bad idea unless you want to meet a small gang of Zhent PCs, you can work with that, have some IC reasonable trepidation about it, cool. Bumping into individual members of four or five different secret societies a day though, that might be a bit much. Maybe as ALFA grows, more wide open spaces to travel, type of thing, it becomes less likely to be in social freak shows (same bar with a noble, a cultist, a one legged man, a man who is cursed to speak only in rhyme, an off-duty Purple Dragon, a savage who refuses to wear more than a loincloth... what ever happened to your standard drunken adventurer?)

[Mord]

Trusting the players? Preposterous!

[psycho_leo]

I'd think that a player that intends for their PC to get affiliated with a canon organization, being that zhents, harpers or even local nobility (especially if it's from the get go), would seek a DM team that says it will support said group. That way most of of the workload (in terms of building at least) would be at least already in the plans and we'd be looking expecting at least one DM to be looking after those groups.

As for canon organization not expressely supported, I don't think it's too much to expect some measure of common sense and ask a player in such case to submit a bio (a draft at least) for the DM team to appraise. Same would likely work for other "special concepts", even including PT and underdark races in surface servers.

There's no need for centralized comitees and lenghty discussions among all DMs (or HDMs) in ALFA just to approve one PC bio.

[Mikayla]

The heart of Misty's answer is really the best answer - keep it simple. Trust the players to role-play well, and trust the DMs to DM well.

[Burt]

I demand a poll on whether or not we should trust those trecherous, scheming, conspiring players.

[JaydeMoon]

What we're basically saying here is that Players who want to have a PC with exceptional, wacky stuff that could give them an actual, tangible advantage over other PCs without that wacky stuff should submit themselves for approval.

e.g. My wizard is one of Elminster's apprentices

and the question is whether we should leave approval for such PCs at the HDM level or at the DMA level? (by HDM I mean simply the DMs on the server decide, vs DMA where it's some sort of centralized system under the purview of DMA, somehow)

Each has it's own strengths and attractiveness to different people.

Outside of the arguments for what may or may not be 'necessary' (i.e. I just don't think it's something that weneed to be doing) or what may end up merely being extra paperwork or bureaucracy, what have you, can we hear the actual arguments AGAINST one or the other?

Issues like possible favoritism, 'blacklisted PCs', server shopping, etc. and how THOSE issues might/would rear their ugly heads if we went one way or the other and how the other method mitigates them?

[Misty]

The heart of Misty's answer is really the best answer - keep it simple. Trust the players to role-play well, and trust the DMs to DM well.

No. Simple trust does not work well, I believe all the threads in the PA forums speak to this.

I propose simple record keeping where all who give a damn can post, and all who don't, do not need pay attention to the issue.

for jayde - the downside to a committee is the extra work and time it requires on the part of said committee. All members have to be active enough to pay attention and give an answer in a timely manner.

Also, will all members of said committee be DMing said PC? If some of them are not going to directly interact with PC, why should they get a say in determining the viability of a concept?

Alternatively, committee members that may play alongside the special PC get a sneak peak into background that should be obtained IC.

[Mikayla]

Misty:

Mikayla wrote:
The heart of Misty's answer is really the best answer - keep it simple. Trust the players to role-play well, and trust the DMs to DM well.


No. Simple trust does not work well, I believe all the threads in the PA forums speak to this.

You have a point - but in two years as PA, I cannot remember a single PA case being brought based on someone playing an "exceptional character"; no one that I know of abused being a noble, being a zhent, being a whatever to the point that it was ever brought to the PAs attention. All those threads in the PA forums center around muling, dumping death-stones, playing two characters, etc. None that I remember were about misplayed "exceptional characters."

[JaydeMoon]

Misty, your first two points speak to 'increased bureaucracy' and 'necessity'.

Issues of bureaucracy can be addressed simply with people stepping up and saying that they are going to handle it, no problem.

Issues of necessity ultimately equate to, "Why are we doing this, if we don't need it?" Perhaps others think we do need it. If a major argument against is a failure to see the 'need' while those who argue for are producing reasons... well, one side of the debate is weak. A statement of 'why should they' is easily countered with, "the PC may travel to another server, and now DMs who didn't think they would be DMing the PC are indeed involved with him/her." That's just one viable response off the top of my head.

Your third point, however, speaks to a potential for meta-gaming in an environment where DMs may also have PCs. A valid concern that should be addressed, I think, regardless of what option we go with.

Your simple proposal, akin to a lvl10+ thread feels simple enough and I am interested in hearing what proponents of Central Bio approval have to say on that matter?

[Rick7475]

Mikayla, the reason you don't recall extra-ordinary players brought to your attention is because most HDMs just took on the players without complaint, nor was there reason to bring it to the PA's attention because they were dealt with at the DM level and there was really no precedent.

I had a number of extra-ordinary bios from players, but we told them yay or nay or treated them as best we could incorporate them into our canon.

I had one player claim to be the son of a king somewhere in Tethyr or Amn, can't remember which, and demand immediate recognition from the Duke of Daggerford about his status and such and be treated as a noble with all it's glory. I took the bio and treated him as such, since the Duke didn't give a damn about the place he was from, sent him packing on his ass out the Castle door. He later joined the Daggerford militia as a private and died on a patrol quest.



.

[Mikayla]

Rick:

Mikayla, the reason you don't recall extra-ordinary players brought to your attention is because most HDMs just took on the players without complaint, nor was there reason to bring it to the PA's attention because they were dealt with at the DM level and there was really no precedent.

I had a number of extra-ordinary bios from players, but we told them yay or nay or treated them as best we could incorporate them into our canon.

I had one player claim to be the son of a king somewhere in Tethyr or Amn, can't remember which, and demand immediate recognition from the Duke of Daggerford about his status and such and be treated as a noble with all it's glory. I took the bio and treated him as such, since the Duke didn't give a damn about the place he was from, sent him packing on his ass out the Castle door. He later joined the Daggerford militia as a private and died on a patrol quest.

I think you are making my point for me - these "extraordinary characters" have existed, or not, on a case by case basis for all of ALFA's 5 year Live history, and its been dealt with successfully by the DMs, without the need for additional rules, committees, hearings, etc. No one can see the future, but the best predicter of the future is the past - and over ALFA's 5 year history, this has not been a big problem. From time to time players may have asked for improbable or even ridiculous backgrounds or benefits, but its always been something the DMs could handle, one way or another.

What we have here, with the committees, and applications, and reviews, etc., is a solution in search of a problem - this problem has not interefered with ALFA in its 5 years of Live to this point, so why do we think it will be a problem in the future? ALFA's DMs have traditionally handled this issue with very little fuss - what makes us think that will not work in the future?

And note, before you say "the committee will alleviate the DMs' workload by making the committee responsible for doing this instead of the DMs" - well, who is ON that committee? DMs. Its just shifting the work from the DMs on the scene to DMs in a committee. And I, for one, would much prefer DMs on the scene to control their scene, rather than be controlled by a nebulous committee somewhere.

[Mayhem]

I see no issue with requiring folks to write a bio. When I initially applied to ALFA Ihad to write a character Bio, and when I started a new character, I wrote a Bio for them too, so that my DMs could use it against me

If I were creating a character beyond the norm, I'd want to write up a bio for my own use. Submitting it to the DMs is a pretty trivial extra step for the player.

The extra pressure is of course on the DM's to get the approval or rejection turned around in an orderly fashion.

[FanaticusIncendi]

Hmmm, where is the PA in this?

I think PA should have a committee of DM's or HDM's to approve an extra-ordinary PC, not just HDM's, other DM's as well, but must include the HDM of the server the Ext PC is applying to.

I am of the mind that PCs with obvious exceptional circumstances built into them should be subject to approval of the DMs.

Whether this approval is merely that of the HDM or of a Centralized Approval Committee, well, I see merits in both and it seems like the majority of Admin/DMs are in favor of the latter. In response to an earlier statement of DMs who feel that the relevant DM team should decide and those DMs not speaking up, the current split is 13 for Central Bio Approval and 1 against.

FYI, the voting is split between 'exceptional characters', plane-touched, and underdark races (that is to say they are not all lumped into one poll called 'exceptional characters'). The voting on the other two subsets is not so one-sided.

Now, one issue I see is setting the bar. It has been stated before that 'every' PC is made to be special (to the one who makes it) and that you can arguably point out exceptional circumstance that may affect game play in a positive (or negative way) on every PC created (or at least a great majority of them).

Where do we draw the line to say Bio X needs Central Approval and Bio Z does not? How do we communicate this to the players before they start RPing that PC.

For example: If I make a Sembian PC from a minor nameless merchant house, low on the merchant totem pole, perhaps I do not need to send in a bio for approval (or maybe I do!). However, if I want to say my PC is an Uskreven, a powerful Selgaunt family with major canon support, it should be obvious I need bio approval. But what if I want to make a PC from a nameless merchant house that is wealthy and is on the merchant council? Or not on the council but may be vying for a position on the council? Or backing another councilmember?

This is less an issue in the question of Central Approval for PT and UD (without an additional exceptional circumstance) because if we were to go this route, the fact of whether your PC is PT or UD is black and white. You are or you aren't.

Another part of this approval process I wonder about is what are we approving? Are we approving the bio or are we approving of the player's ability to handle the exceptional circumstance? Is their maturity, roleplay ability, etc, coming into question? Or are we grading and (dis)approving the concept based on its own merits? If it is the first, do we have an objective method of measuring that 'maturity' and 'roleplay ability', or is it going to be at the whim of the seated 'committee'? If it is the second and the bio is meant to be approved on its own merit, how can we be sure the bios are not being disapproved based on a prejudicial stance towards the player?

Those are the two main issues I see.

A lesser issue is timeliness. I would be concerned that players may languish a bit while a committee gets its members together to review and decide. On this matter, however, I would have to trust the committee to have its act together. Perhaps putting in place some sort of back up, such as shouldering approval responsibility on the office of the PA should the elapsed time pass

On the other issues, if the process is transparent to the player and there is fair application of approval processes, I am content to follow the DMA's lead on a Central Bio Approval process.

By transparent, I mean that a player needs to submit a bio anyhow, if it's the the HDM or to a committee, what have you, they have to write one up and submit it. If the turn-around time on an answer is the same, regardless of which method we use, then the process may be transparent to the player. They submit their bio and in x amount of time, they receive an answer, regardless of the exact method that answer is derived.

And so long as that answer is derived fairly, I cannot complain.

If my issues are considered and answered to my satisfaction, along with a majority of the questions and issues brought to the fore by the community, then this plan will have my support.

As this issue involves the players and as their advocate, I believe I have a legitimate claim that portions of this issue fall within my domain, and will work to ensure that the needs of the players are addressed before I throw in that support.