hardcore/softcore RP in alfa

[puny]

for me, this is the most important, pressing, possibly only issue (of mine) with alfa. taking away or adding new stuff doesnt at all feel as important as mending this impression/experience apparently atleast one other then me experiences

Re: #1
The level of RP in ALFA has drastically decreased over the past few years. Aside from a small handful of people who enjoy being online and -not- bothered by a DM, practically no one is online outside a game session. And the general idea during a DM session is to cut RP to a minimum and get on with the session. This is enforced by DM and Player alike, and on more than one occasion have I been told to drop my RP and let people continue on their quest. ALFAs reflected core values are therefor (pun intended) "softcore RP".

quoted from: http://www.alandfaraway.org/phpBB3/view ... 65#p612065

[Veilan]

Are we certain we are not confusing two issues here: Conduciveness of one's RP to the campaign / enjoyment of others, and the level of quality of RP?

You can have high quality RP yet still ask 7+ players to stop emoting *scratches nose* *looks around* and *other inane and irrelevant filler that I think substitutes for meaningful rp* while you're trying to run the game, and you can still foster an environment of high quality, meaningful RP yet prefer your players to not have their huge ethics debate on session evening, but a day before and send you the log.

Of course, if we really do have folks who streamline down all RP and go into "computer game" mode during session time, that'd be a different matter, but I cannot say I've experienced such. I've never been asked to "drop RP" either, for that matter; but I'd like to think I create characters that are mostly conducive to the overall game without jeopardising their personalities.

[StephenUmpf]

As a DM, I am guilty as charged regarding wanting to move things along at times. The reasons are this:

1) We have few players. I want to include as many as I can in my sessions. Because of this, we have evil toons and good toons mixed together in my sessions. Also, I open the doors to toons not involved in the story/plot because, again, I want to include as many players as I can. Because of this, there is a need for them to catch up with the plot.

2) I have time constraints. I dedicate 6-8 hours to DMing a week. That's my number. So, when a session starts rolling, I like to see it move forward beyond the back story of the last 6 months and beyond why a toon doesn't like another toon.

** That said I can't remember asking a toon IG to stop RPing - I do prompt my groups that I want the mature RP and not the immature drama RP. If anyone who attends my sessions has suggestions for me on how to get better at keeping it Hardcore RP, I am interested. I would rather be told and learn, then just suck ***

Personally, I believe the solution is in getting the current base of players and DMs in the game. Toons need to RP without a DM. If more toons logged on and talked to each other, they could figure each other out. They could make agreements/packs about dealing with each other.... something along the line of, "We will help each other on this, but don't do this and I won't do that." Also, there wouldn't need to be 30 mins of revisiting the plot before each scheduled session.

To sum it up, GET IN THE GAME. People usually go to a crowded restaurant over an empty one.

Sincerely,

Me

[Zelknolf]

There is certainly some pressure to stop yer lollygaggin' an get on with it when things are happening-- though in my experience that has been in character. This quarter's devil/lolorc/lolgnoll/undead invasion isn't going to stop itself and such.

Though the fact that our big events all seem to boil down to "There's lots of things that turn red on mouse over! This is super serious guys!" might speak grimly of the expectations of narrative and characterization here.

[Ronan]

This is enforced by DM and Player alike, and on more than one occasion have I been told to drop my RP and let people continue on their quest.

Boom, this is because your RP is teh suck.

IMO it is the DM's job to guide the PCs to activities everyone enjoys. This sometimes means working out ways to get two PCs to stop bickering in a party of ten, even if its with "oh look at all those red things". That said, players should not hold up six others and a DM for RP which could have been done any other day of the week. PC leaders need to be played by people who can be active off-session.

[Ithildur]

+1 to both guys saying people need to actually log in and RP the conflicts and whatnot without a DM on ... at least SOME of the time. Nothing extra hardcore about logging in and stirring up conflict only when there's a DM on.

Even if it's going towards cvc that requires a DM, at least you've been RPing out the conflict for a while and might have some buildup to lethal stuff that makes things interesting/justifiable.

The OP isn't just about cvc though I think... and zelk brings up some valid points. A lot of our current weekly/regular scheduled sessions are heavily task/goal/combat oriented, without a lot of room for more leisurely stuff, or PC's initiating vs reacting to what the DM has prepared. This is definitely a shift from times when DMs too would simply log in just to RP, drop some hints, 'spice' up everyday interactions, add some ambiance, etc. much more often than they would log in to 'run the planned session for the week'.

In a way I suspect it's a downside to saying we've been shifting to a 'campaign' world dynamic, which is more efficient, often more bang for the buck/time investment in terms of accomplishments/progress made with certain kinds of plots (especially if they have a sense of urgency/time deadline etc) or more bluntly, 'traditional DnD character progress' (i.e. levels and loot). In a way this is what people have been shifting to for some time, and in some sense this is the default momentum that ALFA consistently seems to drift towards when we hit cycles of hours logged in being low.

I believe this is going to be self-reinforcing if people don't log in more than just the weekly sessions to accomplish xyz; and as much as I'm sure there is terrific RP that goes on during these sessions, I think an imbalance here has a detrimental effect on the impact of overall RP quality. i.e. I think it's fine if some or say even half of ALFA only logs in for the weekly stuff, and the other half log in more regularly; but when that figure is more like 80/20, with the 20% finding themselves constantly alone, and very little to do, then you're going to have this self perpetuating dilemma, and people will shift more and more towards a 'cram my RP into the 4 hour session' or even 'drop the RP, let's just get the session going, stay alive and get things done' kinds of habits, which do not lend themselves to hardcore storytelling in the long haul.

Part of this might be attributed to the efforts Rumple took this past year to set up 'DM and player matching' initiatives; a lot of that resulted I think in some good success as far as the goal of 'let's get some regularly scheduled DM sessions going with groups of players and DMs consistently playing with each other' (though I hold no illusion that everyone got to enjoy things to equal degree).

So in a way this success now needs to be counter balanced with some initiative/efforts to encourage 'ok now let's get people interested in logging in again even in between/when there is no DMed sessions'. I also think it may be a good idea to consider 'loosening up' the scheduled stuff once in a while, i.e. DM doesn't always bring a tightly packed box of prepared stuff, he simply logs in and watches the PCs RP, maybe drops some hints or whatever, lets the session/characters/gameworld 'breathe' a little, maybe has a little something prepared just in case X, whatever.

And yeah, this means ideally, DMs also log in 'in between' the 'main sessions' as well from time to time, just like we're saying about players.

So! Tying all this perhaps to the other thread about exploring other platforms/future of ALFA or whatnot, perhaps similar to what Rumple did with the other effort our current LA can help facilitate some ways to help foster this kind of rebalancing? We've done some work on the right biceps, now time for the left.

[Castano]

you guys who wish for different DM events could start DMing.... The door is open people.

[Ithildur]

Most of us that have posted here are currently (at least semi-) active DMs...

[Veilan]

I think Castano hit the nail on the head though - if DM time and DMs are less scarce of a commodity, all these problems will evaporate.

Of course, more DMs being the solution to a lot of things isn't new - it's just hard to produce them.

[Ithildur]

You gotta deal with realities though. We're not going to have constant DM presence every night on all 4 servers. Players should be getting coaxed to log in again even sans DM. And it's a hell of a lot more fun for a DM to log in and run stuff if players are already on doing stuff as a group. In recent weeks there's been many days where one or even two DMs were on a server ready to go with few or no players.

[21:40] <Heero> oh well. win some, lose some. we can just chalk this one up under the 'loss' coumn.
[21:40] <HEEGZ> i've been cobbling together a new group on BG
[21:40] <HEEGZ> ogr, mick, AK, and hopefully some others
[21:41] <HEEGZ> the PW style log in every day to DM lowbies is not really possible due to lack of players

In a way it's the chicken or egg thing; DMs logged in does contribute to increased chance of players logging in; and it's also true more players logged leads to more likelihood of DMs logging in, especially if players organize into a group. Which leads to increased chances of more players logging in. Which leads to... etc.

There's no reason why we can't hit both sides, work the left and right pedals both, and aim for an upward cycle. Right now the pedal to push a little extra hard seems to be as much 'get players to log in and RP' as much if not more so than 'get more DMs'.

Also back on topic, 'the solution to everything is simply more DMs' doesn't necessarily improve the 'we only log in and RP (lite) when a DM is on' trend seen as a concern by some... in fact I think it can end up reinforcing it.

[Castano]

I still don't understand. if a group of people want a different style of DMing the solution is to have one of them DM that group, or both DM it. That's why we made 2 PCs.

[Zelknolf]

It's either not enough players or not enough connections right now; the sum is that the play isn't happening because there is collectively little reason to log in now. Events aren't particularly inclusive and servers are basically static. The only things that people haven't seen are things that they're too low-level to see (and from the perspective of someone who is that level? I'd probably advise others that they're not missing enough for it to be worth the invested time in leveling and exploring. Too much time needed to get that good and too little to see once you get there).

[Ithildur]

I still don't understand. if a group of people want a different style of DMing the solution is to have one of them DM that group, or both DM it. That's why we made 2 PCs.

http://www.alandfaraway.org/phpBB3/view ... 77#p612177

That's what's been going on on your server Castano; hope that helps explain why folks are saying players need to log in for game to happen.

And I don't think a cranky 'damn those ingrate players' knee jerk response is what'll be productive.

I'm sure folks will log in for fridaynight's Stephumf session, and maybe the weekend will shift things; maybe this week was an aberration, etc. but the points of various posters in this thread still are valid: when players log in even without DMs around, our overall game/RP quality goes up.

We've been pushing hard for 'if we just get more DMs then we're good' but that's only partly true; to go back to the bicycle analogy again, perhaps we can start pushing the other pedal some. It's never a bad idea to look for ways to encourage more players to log in and stay logged in even without a DM around.

[Mikayla]

I dunno, I take part in a DM thing maybe once a week or once every two weeks, but in the meantime, I still log in to play with various folks on BG even if its to just sit around the Blade & Stars bitching about stuff. I may not be on for long, and I am not on as much as I used to be, but there are still folks dropping in for ad hoc gaming, which tends to be heavy on the RP and light on the combat (unless people decide to run after spawns, which I very, very rarely do anymore).

One thing I have noticed is that for DMs, there is seems (IMHO) to be more focus on the plot/quest than there is on characters - back in NWN1 we had DMs who were deep into our characters and made plots (in part) around our character's lives/backgrounds/desires/whatever. In my case, Vendrin and Muse stand out particularly. Now days, most quests are about the monster/goal/threat, and there do not seem to be too many involving the character - the one notable exception I've seen is Ronan's plot with Toc and Drin and the heist, which did involve Toc's background and character and such. But that seems to be more rare than it used to be. I don't think that makes ALFA more "rp-light" than it used to be or anything like that, I just miss the old character-driven stories and development.

As for ALFA's general level of role-play - I've tried other games, MMOs, etc. and still haven't found anything like ALFA with one exception, an online Vampire game, but that was more than 10 years ago and that group no longer exists. Other than that, ALFA is the bomb.

[Ronan]

Its harder to make plots around older characters. My vilquari campaign is pretty much all about the characters. This was easier as they were brand new.

In my DMing I have to say "please just play your PC, stay IC, and let me worry about everything else" a lot more often than I have to say "drop your RP so we can get on with this". I'm not sure I've ever said the latter, though I do do a lot of modifying the environment though IC means in order to push the RP in a direction the entire party can enjoy.