Adanu's DMA Q&A

[Adanu]

My ideas are fairly simple.

Castano has done a decent enough job that I know of, and I don't see any reason to rock the boat. I do think we should cut the time down to two weeks for playing on a server, but no less than that to allow for potential meta issues. I also do not think we should allow players to DM where they play. It would make sense for a one server community, but here we have multiple servers, and I don't see any need to risk human nature on this.

Fire away with everything else you can think up.

[Swift]

As a DM of a server, you are likely able to have access to the entire module in the toolset for building purposes. Why do you not have an issue with former DMs returning to their old servers to play, but you do not have faith in current DMs, the people you are asking to vote for you, to not be able to play where they DM?

Why is more trust given to a former DM to do the right thing and not use their knowledge to meta, but not to current ones with regards to the server they are/were a DM on?

[Adanu]

Anyone can look at the creator and see stuff and remember it. Once that door is open it isn't closing and no amount of wishful thinking removes that. What you don't keep access to is DM forum access for current meta and the like. This is where human nature comes in. There are always exceptions to meta abuse honor, but by and large it comes down to he/she said they said which just leads to drama all around.

While I think it would be a decent idea if there were a way to stop this (I'm all ears if there is a way I haven't thought up), I just don't feel this door should be opened for the drama it would cause.

[boombrakh]

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[Adanu]

It's not a lack of trust, it''s simply human nature.

You're in a dungeon, the way out behind you was blocked by orcs... You have a party of four. There are two corridors, both of them have light coming from them. The party is deciding which way to go.

One of those players also DMs on the server, and has not only seen the creator, but also taken a look at the description of this dungeon in the forum as well as taken a look for him/herself, and knows the left corridor is trapped with DC25 spikes. It'd be nearly impossible for the party to get out that way. The right way leads out, safe and clear.

Who among us in that moment, would trust the player to do the fair thing and flip a coin to make the IC decision?

Personally, I think there are other places we can improve, especially regarding DMs, and I'm willing to take chances in that respect to try and help people with that. The only way I could potentially see playing on your DMed server would work is an enforced dice roll on the player for the IC decision.

[Swift]

Who among us in that moment, would trust the player to do the fair thing and flip a coin to make the IC decision?

No more than you could trust someone who stepped down from DMing that server one or two weeks before with the exact same knowledge, yet we do not seem to have even the slightest concern about them.

Regardless, this is a Q&A thread, so I will not argue the point any further here. I asked, you answered honestly and I thank you for that.

[Adanu]

I have concerns about that, but you cannot realistically make people not DM based on metagaming of that magnitude without removing every single DM.

As I said, the dice rolling enforcement is one way to potentially handle it... but making it fair without making the DM workload unfeasible will take discussion.

[boombrakh]

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[Adanu]

'Judge others as you would judge yourself' is about as much horse dung if you want to go that route boom. We are not all cut from the same cloth, but the job of admin is to prepare for the inevitable he said she said cases as best as possible while maximizing the good aspects.

I've seen cases where people have outright cheated, and no amount of idealism changes the fact that people do. That being said, I'm all for discussing this in the open to better our community, and implementing possible solutions. The absolute worst that can happen is it doesn't work and we need to flip back to the original policy.

[boombrakh]

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[Zelknolf]

As a response to the traps example--
Do you have any opinion about builders and tech playing? To pick on your particular example (obviously this is not exhaustive, but it's an odd alignment of circumstance), I probably know ALFA's traps better than any DM here and either placed or helped place all of the static ones. How do we handle that?

[Ithildur]

I'm an idealist when it comes to a lot of things, but come on, people, seriously...

The human nature argument doesn't mean we can't trust everyone, every single time, to make choices and act in ways that are less than ideal for our game and community.

It's acknowledging that at least some of the time, some people will be make such choices, and in fact have done so. This is neither demonizing such people or putting others up as more virtuous in general, etc. It's simply acknowledging reality that we're all human and what that means, what that has meant in real time/history, that we're capable of bad choices (as well as good ones). I'm sorry, but especially with an online + gamer context, I think it's naivety of an extreme sort that doesn't understand this.

In a game of football/soccer/whathaveyou, you don't draw out of bounds lines and make rules because you believe everyone's a jerk and everyone will cheat every chance they get; you do so because it's good sense to realize that a few, maybe even just one or two or three, at some time or other will do things that push the envelope to the point where it creates problems for the enjoyment and fairness of the game for everyone (running out of bounds and then back in, being too physical/kicking someone's shins, pushing the receiver they're covering while running downfiled in football, holding, clipping, or more subtle things like deflating the balls, etc etc).

It's putting one's head in the sand to not understand this. If this were a game of 5 players and a DM then yeah, a lot of things can be done via self policing, just as in a street game of 1 on 1 pickup basketball you don't need referees, it's just not that serious and you have a couple of people who can police themselves.

But that's simply not the case with ALFA. Heck, you can have even pickup games with a handful of players (both dnd and hoops) degenerate into a debacle due to someone trying to (whether intentionally or not) take unfair advantage.

This doesn't mean we have to have rules for EVERYTHING, obviously, but it does mean 1. you still need rules for certain things and 2. 'trust everyone and it'll work out' shouldn't be the default until we become a community of 4 people +DM. I think it's easier at this point, less headache, less work, etc and it sounds good on paper to say 'we should just trust everyone', but it doesn't quite work with reality.

(btw I'm on the fence on the particulars of some the issues relevant to this; just pointing out that there are valid reasons to have rules prohibiting xyz to discourage/reduce metagaming etc)

[Adanu]

As a response to the traps example--
Do you have any opinion about builders and tech playing? To pick on your particular example (obviously this is not exhaustive, but it's an odd alignment of circumstance), I probably know ALFA's traps better than any DM here and either placed or helped place all of the static ones. How do we handle that?

YOu built them, but that doesn't mean you know where all the DM placed traps are, and we simply cannot account for every single angle without going into totalitarianism territory. What we can do is mitigate the most grievous scenarios,\, and take the rest on a case by case basis.

[Ithildur]

I seldom post in these threads but I feel the need to ask all three candidates a few questions:

What are your reasons for being interested in the position?

Can you present 3 specific goals you would like to accomplish as DMA that you feel strongly about?

Do you believe that ALFA should remain a project that stays heavily dependent on the activity of DMs in order to function well?

If you answered yes to #3, do you have any thoughts on the eternal question, that of recruiting/training/facilitating/perpetuating DM activity in ALFA?

[Adanu]

I'm all for people making tasteful statics and putting them on the servers. That being said, I've never seen ALFA as a social world. It is for some, and I recognize that reality, but DnD has always been mainly about DM and players.

As it is, I think we'd get a lot more interest in DMing if we could teach newbie DMs how to handle the GUI, and not stifle those genuinely interested with tons of strutiny with how their rewards are handled. We have ways to monitor wealth and I say we use them instead of punishing DMs for being a bit generous this session or that.

The only real book keeping I'd say we should do is for unique plot items, and the only time we should get on DM cases is when a player gets beyond cutoff.

My main goal as DMA is to get DMs interested in actually playing, and to make it easier for those who already DM. That means asking the community what they'd like in their tools and requesting the feasible ideas be put in by tech, then teaching newbies or refreshing returners on how to properly use what they have.

DMing here is an all volunteer proposition, and we need to get people interested in actually volunteering... and I'd love suggestions on how to make thatr happen without compromising our pillars or our players.

Without DMs, our community dies, and I'd like to prevent that from happening.