Paazin's platform / Q&A thread

[dergon darkhelm]

On “House Rules” and Home Rule:

I wanted to get a notion as to the candidates’ feelings on centralized vs. decentralized control of servers. From my perspective, the standards committee was formed primarily as a response to the problem of widely disparate pricing, item availability, and rewards across AFLA servers. Some have argued that the response to this problem was inappropriate, others that it was appropriate but too heavy handed, and still others that the “problem” was not an ALFA problem at all but instead a player/DM problem and one that should only have been dealt with on a case by case basis.

Beyond standards are also the rules of day-to-day play on server. I think it was Cipher that said “ALFA is the House” with regards to “house rules”. Other respected ALFAns felt that HDMs (or even individual DMs) should have broad discretion over how they want game play to run on their server.


So here are two hypothetical situations I would like to put to the candidates for their responses.

1) Server A institutes a static quest that with its completion gives a PC access to a special merchant store. PCs that complete the static are able to purchase magical items for a reduced price (a +2 weapon at 2000gp or +5 skill item at 2000gp for example).

Is this a problem? If it is problem how is it addressed?

2) ADM X, an ADM on Server B decides that any PC wishing to cast an Arcane spell greater than level 4 should have the appropriate material focus on hand to do so. ADM X goes through a great deal of work to create the various items for every spell and they are incorporated into the module.

Is this appropriate? Is it a problem? Is a visiting PC from Server A obliged to play by under this system when on Server B? Only when DMd by ADM X? Neither?


Thank you in advance for your thoughtful replies,

Dergon

[paazin]

LA's current charter role:

A. Lead Administrator—Oversight of Administration, Veto & Referral Authority, and Public Relations. Also responsible for resolving disputes over domain classification of any particular issue.

Arguably, the LA hasn't got a lot to do with the NWN1 / NWN2 game, except for promotion (PR). Guess there's a significant, but indirect game-changing power if they pick an Admin whose views they feel more sympathy for, in categorizing a cross-domain dispute (i.e., policy making by proxy, pick someone whose views match yours and claim it was due to "blurry domain lines").

Other than domain classification, LA does have a chance to stop or at least delay game-changing policies which originate with other Admin. Could be based on their own views, could be because some group has lobbied them to exercise power due to reasons they argue well enough to move the LA to action. Veto though is not final, other Admin & HDMs can always override that.

Anyhow, if you support giving LA an actual "game-changing" item in the portfolio, would you also support one or more admin also gaining veto powers? I.e., today, Standards policies out of the DMA can be vetoed (not that past LAs have done much of that), in the future, could Standards policies out of the LA be vetoed? You do not need to describe in any detail that "yes, each will have a veto", or "yes, any alliance of two can veto" or any other formula, just seeing if this tradeoff has been considered. Note I do not see the lack of any other Admin authority to veto "PR policy" as actually important ("hey, I veto using a blue background for that logo?")... it's the game-changing stuff I am interested in.

Basically, making a "checks and balances" Admin into a "policy making admin" might mean someone or everyone else needs to borrow some of the "checks and balances" power. As a candidate for Lead Admin, are you supportive of this idea?

I've a big backlog of questions, so I'll try to be brief.

Yes, giving other admin the power to veto decisions taken by the lead is only fair, in turn. I don't have the specifics written out yet of what I'd like to see in terms of actual rules, but definitely as stated in this campaign, a system in place that doesn't disillusion the average member when there are policy/procedure changes.

[paazin]

I'm constantly amazed at the number of people who are so deeply involved in ALFA that I just don't know at all.

Honestly, I'm impressed with your responses so far, paazin. Before I'm totally comfortable electing you as my boss, I'd like to just know a little more about your ALFA experiences, rather than just a list. You know, the stuff that matters, like what your favorite server is that you played on, how long you've been playing DnD, your favorite PC or quest you played or something.

As for PR, I'd like to have a concise vision statement from you. You said in your initial post that the LA's vision is what's important, and you couldn't be more right. LA should provide overall direction for ALFA, period. That's what a leader does. But, what precisely is your vision? That's especially important where PR/marketing is concerned. I think I have a general idea of what it is, but I don't recall seeing it specifically laid out in this thread yet, apologies if I'm wrong.

Thanks,
T

I'm probably a relative newbie here - my D&D experience started with the BG series and then here, then finally doing some PnP on the side. All told, probably about 4 or so years.

To be honest, probably my favorite server that I had ever played on was North Underdark, especially when I first began. Great DMing, great players, every moment I spend there I was enthralled. As players left and I couldn't make DM times, it waned, but I still remember those times fondly. I still play the same character, now a surface drow (... yeah, I know) - but I just love the guy and can't bear to throw him away.

Before that I only had one other PC, an ilmater monk who I had for quite a while. With him I saw most of the servers, many PCs - and I was impressed by the scope and depth I saw within this world.

About PR, I'll post a response a little later, answering a few questions on the subject at the same time.

[paazin]

Do you believe that Rusty, and everything that he has brought with him, good and bad, has been more beneficial, or more detrimental to ALFA?

It's a broad question and verges a little on the personal - and, understandably, a difficult one to answer. Rusty has put in an pretty impressive amount of work doing what he feels is best for this community and I'd as a whole ALFA benefits from many of the things he has done.

The way he goes about his work, however, leaves something to be wanting. It says something if the other admin don't want a candidate to be re-elected; it becomes clear that someone needs to step in and try to get the impasse(s) resolved. It's no secret Rusty isn't liked by many people, but I hope if I'll be able to speak with him frankly we could settle any disagreements amicably

[paazin]

When I first joined ALFA, I didn't use the forums for probably the 1st year. A group of my friends had all gotten the game and we were eager to join a PW and be able to play D&D together without any of us having to DM. We set up a schedule and would play whenever we could...very soon though one of us died, and then another, soon the dream of playing PnP D&D vanished for some, I still wanted to try playing that way, so I went to the forums to see if there were any other people wanting to join a once a week game...

When I asked if there were any players that wanted to play exclusively once a week, meaning no soloing just playing like a PnP game...the thread I posted in was slammed. So I tried to start a new thread that wasn't clutter with "Your idea is dumb." comments. The second thread got flamed as well...

This was a bad first impression for me.


I wanted to get a group like this going so bad that I became a DM and went to NWNConnections to find a group of players that were interested in playing a PnP game in Forgotten Realms with me as the DM. I found a group and showed them how to join ALFA...only a few are still members, I was told by some they did not enjoy being treated like a "newb" when they had been playing D&D for as long as some ALFA members have been alive, they did not like the "elitest" attitude.

This was a bad first impression for them.

I can understand the frustration - it's a good idea and it does work. It's sometimes difficult to work out (sometimes people are absent, etc.) but such things have been done successfully (part of one now, in NWN1 actually). As far as the flaming, that's always been a problem - it's unfair and unjustified (even more so that it's plain a good many members do play in the manner which you mention and enjoy it)

I wanted my wife to play, she was new to D&D but had been playing on another server that had "light roleplay" and she liked it. She refused to go any further after spending 2 hours in an OAS class. She said, "are you serious? you want me to spend hours in a class to play a F-in video game?"

This was a bad first impression for her.

To sum up my little experiance I would say that recruiting was not a problem for ALFA, telling someone they can play PnP D&D in the entire FR campaign setting is a HUGE selling point, MANY MANY people have come to look at ALFA, Few have stayed.

I believe that the first impression is the most important. I am sure others have experiances that are similiar. I think the ones I have seen can be summed up here...

1. Being flamed as a "Njub" does not help the community, it hurts it.

2. Being treated as an "Inferior RPer" right from the start does not help the community, it hurts it.

3. Taking ourselves too seriously does not help the community, it hurts it.

What, as the PR chief, will you do to improve a potential members first impression with regards to these three things?

Those are three things that bug me as well; it's all too often we see people being turned off by OOC attitudes and the elitism. I'm guessing most who do use it as a shield for their own insecurity - as far as dealing with it, it's not a simple issue. A more liberal policy on giving out warnings for current members who engage flaming, but it's not a solution. To wit, it should be a topic of active discussion, as I'm sure others have ideas on how to deal with it. But it's easy to put sole blame in entirely one camp or another; a newbie should have the maturity to accept honest criticism or deal with things that don't go his or her way.

As far as our current programs; with the RP101, I attended and helped the class out a number of times. It can be painfully slow and didactic (after all, so are real classes) but on the whole I think it was a benefit. My own opinion though is that actual sessions organized by a DM and current ALFA players on the OAS are the best way to get a newbie familiarized with ALFA.

[Nalo Jade]

But it's easy to put sole blame in entirely one camp or another; a newbie should have the maturity to accept honest criticism or deal with things that don't go his or her way.

My own opinion though is that actual sessions organized by a DM and current ALFA players on the OAS are the best way to get a newbie familiarized with ALFA.

A 40 year old man that is a professional, has played D&D for 20 years and would be an awesome asset to ALFA... will not put up with being called a newb.

That kind of person would be an asset, but will not give us the time of day the first time someone acts like a kid and insults him for no reason. A new member should be treated with MUCH more respect. We only get one chance to make a first impression. The NWN community is too big, and there are other projects that just simply do not tolerate that kind of behavior.

I agree with the second statement except for the use of "newbie" its a condescending word that just adds to the "elitest" image you don't like.

What will you do as PR chief to make some progress in reducing the negative image given to new members?

[paazin]

A 40 year old man that is a professional, has played D&D for 20 years and would be an awesome asset to ALFA... will not put up with being called a newb.

That kind of person would be an asset, but will not give us the time of day the first time someone acts like a kid and insults him for no reason. A new member should be treated with MUCH more respect. We only get one chance to make a first impression. The NWN community is too big, and there are other projects that just simply do not tolerate that kind of behavior.

I agree with the second statement except for the use of "newbie" its a condescending word that just adds to the "elitest" image you don't like.

What will you do as PR chief to make some progress in reducing the negative image given to new members?

Eh, it depends on who is receiving, I suppose. I consider 'newbie' to be just a non-judgmental descriptor, even slightly positive - it's common to see people refer to themselves as 'newbies' when dealing with communities devoted to open source software/linux/etc.

As much as I can respect someone who has played D&D for 20 years, it sometimes doesn't easily translate to the computing world either - the person is new to our world and the way we do things. Sorry if I'm pedantic here, but the NWN UI, various custom methods, procedures, and settings we use aren't exactly the easiest to get used to - an applicant can have a great deal of trouble, even if the character concepts and the RP are stellar.

Specific steps as PR chief? As far as I know we have the rules in place already - the only real thing is better enforcement of them.

[paazin]

If you had to pick one of the ALFA pillar's to destroy, which pillar would you choose as the least important pillar?

I'll bite, Nalo - but only because one strikes as an obvious easy answer:

ALFA's goal is to span Faerun.

That was often used as an excuse for people to branch off to work single server, covering some tiny area, by themselves; rather, if they worked together from the start, there wouldn't be so many half-finished projects sitting around.

ALFA will never scope all of Faerun and we needn't fool ourselves into thinking that it will. And all the better for it; we don't have the playerbase DMbase, infrastructure to sustain such a project (which would be on par with a project as large as any MMO)

[paazin]

Mike, Inaubryn, dergon, Nalo - anyone else who I forgot: I still plan to answer all questions you've given, time permitting.

[paazin]

Mike, I know some of these questions aren't valid as much anymore but I'll answer

WHEN there is another incident, what are you going to do about it?

Well, this time it resolved itself but there's always a chance something like this will pop up. The lead has to be able to step in and resolve the situation, amicably. If one party is clearly at fault, you have to be able to call it how you see it.

Outside of moving Standards to Lead, do you see any need for the committee to stand forever, constantly tinkering? Or can we settle on something, thank them and wait until something in NWN2 changes that requires it?

Well, I'm afraid adjustments will always need crop up (X can be easily exploited, Y is a new ALFA addition for which we need new rules in place, Z was mis-tweaked initially by us and we should fix it)

So we can't just say 'there will not be any changes' - obviously it'll be scaled back, but I see there to be a place for the committee

After restructuring Standards to a more broadly representative body, would you support a total review of the Standards?

It's a thought - I'd suggest it something to be discussed, for example, in the DMA election. Some candidates might have interesting thoughts on other changes to be done to the committee.

While you're identifying the flaw, you're hedging on what can be done about it. You're saying basically you want to negotiate it with the DMA who steadfastly does not want to negotiate the issue, which has caused some high profile issues. So outside of a general commitment to look into it, what exactly do you want to do? How do you want this issue to be handled? Nevermind how you implement it, lets start with what you want to do.

Ideally? I'd toss around the idea of having multiple types of DMs and allowing some form of playing on the same server to which you contribute, via building/story dming/mechanics DMing or what have you. Problem is that people want to play more than they want to DM and the fact that you DM sacrifices all playing you can do really only hurts our server DM population. I know it's not anything anyone likes to hear, but I don't see any other real alternatives for increasing the membership.

This is the old "density" position again, which isn't without merit. That said, calling our "live date" early when it was a year after the game's release and long after most major communities, confuses me a bit. How much more ready can we get? Frankly I think most people would just prefer to play and interact. If we want to limit the number of servers, fine, but how "perfect" do we have to get them? There seems to be a huge opportunity cost for few servers in terms of recruiting...

Well, it wouldn't bug me as much if the bulk of the work didn't rest on one or two people, getting the ACR working, the areas build, the scripts working. The crap that cipher, AcadiusLost, indio, Rick and others had to go through to get everything ready is unenviable. I firmly believe if we didn't 'spread out' early on we would have been ready sooner, and with less problems.

As far as a 'recruiting' I think it's overstated - ALFA never will span all of Faerun and simply because some areas are omitted doesn't mean that people won't be interested (I've never heard from prospective candidates 'Oh, I was interested in ALFA but they didn't have Thay/Amn/Calimshan/etc')

I think anyone would generally agree with the statement, but I can't figure out what you are saying you are going to do here. Communication? Get people more involved? Not sure where you are going here...

Well, it was mostly a push for people not to forget our poor tech guys and don't assume they'll 'fix' everything all themselves. AcadiusLost for instance has been dealing with heaps upon heaps of bugs, fixes, all for TSM - any lesser man (like I'm sure I would have) would have thrown his hands in the air and said 'deal with it yourselves'

[JaydeMoon]

Dude, you won. Give it a rest.