Balance between players

[JaydeMoon]

And ... we do. But you can't fix wealth gaps overnight.

Weellllllll...

From Wealth Guidelines:

The primary goal is to establish the connection between experience and wealth will best maintain folks near the average wealth target. These tables are not meant to defy common sense – a session spent hunting rabid wolves is not likely to produce significant monetary gain, for example. As an alternative, XP can be “banked” towards larger rewards, typically middle- or end-of-plot rewards.

Italics are mine.

Veilan will probably sharp shoot me on this (cause he's a MAD GERMAN SNIPER!) but:

If a PC is significantly low on wealth, one might assume then that he hasn't been awarded wealth rewards based on XP gains (as our standards direct). Therefore, we can take the step of saying, "Well, all of that XP is being "banked" towards a larger reward."

That larger reward may be a nice piece of jayde13wt™ or it could be a cache of potions or a big chest full of gold...

Simply run an appropriate encounter (like, not wolves) and then drop down a large reward.

"Oh, check it out, these bandits were doing really well for themselves, they have all these gems, coins, and magic potions that they have been stealing from caravans."

I mean, yes, we're not going to take a 10th level character at the extreme low end and bump him up to average in a single session, but if you've a mind to do so, you can get them into the ballpark rather quickly (relative to the pace of their prior reward gains).

I assure you that no one is gonna bitch that it didn't happen 'overnight'. They're going to be stoked that they are making progress at all.

EDIT: The other assumption is that all of their awards have been in the form of consumables and they used them all. I don't feel that there is an appropriate response to that in our wealth standards other than the 'adjustment' factor. I think we can still assume "Banked XP". So long as we are bringing PCs up to 'average' without bringing them over, it all comes out in the wash.

[danielmn]

Weellllllll...

Incorrect sir.

the correct spelling for that is Weelllllllls...

[Ithildur]

Exactly, Jayde. I mean, use good sense, no need to dump heaps of diamonds on someone in one session to bring them instantly to exactly the wealth guideline, but good DMs would recognize their campaign or a specific player has been severely under-wealthed relative to the challenge level of the campaign/other players and occasionally drop a boon for them in a way that makes sense IC.

The issue/focus seems to return to the vital roles that DMs have on ALFA. If the DM shortage is at least partly responsible for the discrepancies/severe poverty, encourage DMs to, when they do finally bump into a player who's been languishing for a while, be a little more generous.

My experience from a year+ ago when there were plenty of DMs was that that wasn't even the issue though; rather DMs were simply not giving out anything while laying down encounters that required using consumables time and time again; apparently I was so poor that a HDM plunked down a 5000gp+ suit of armor on my lvl 4/5 PC after one session and I was still within average wealth range (I ended up asking the armor to be downgraded to something around 1100-2100 range actually because that did seem like too much in one shot for his level in ALFA)!

Obviously no DM should feel like it's mandatory that wolves they spawn vs PCs should be carrying sacks of gold attached to their necks, etc. (I've seen animal spawns give gold via script when defeated on other servers, which seems rather silly), but at least consider when spawning say orcs on poverty striken PCs, the possibility of giving a nice reward to help bump them back closer to average, maybe drop some clues that the orcs might have a stash nearby, and have them track it down.

I think my current pc is about average wealth, so this isn't for the sake of padding my own virtual wallet.

[Veilan]

Veilan will probably sharp shoot me on this (cause he's a MAD GERMAN SNIPER!)

So schnell schießen die Preußen nicht.

In any case, the fact of the matter remains: People who (regularly) see DMs are doing well or better. People who farm on top of that are doing even better. People who do not often see a DM are usually pretty badly off.

The solution, as always, is to get more DMs, no? Wealth cannot fall out of the skies, and beefing up static awards just means people in jayde13wt™ get something more to easily farm while those struggling can hardly afford the healing to go there.

I have not seen anyone in my lifetime arguing against DMs giving fair awards. "Banking up" from assumed prior awards is of course nothing but provocation, but the award guidelines specifically mention how awards can be eased upwards if people are doing badly.

We just need folks to do it, and provide access for everyone to those opportunities.

Cheers,

[oldgrayrogue]

See, I disagree. More static content is the answer. DMs can adjust downward if people are over standards just like they can adjust upward. Its probably easier to identify the few who are over standards actually because they farm or have seen a disproportionate amount of DM time or whatever. Give people stuff to do and stop worrying over virtual gold pieces.

[paazin]

See, I disagree. More static content is the answer. DMs can adjust downward if people are over standards just like they can adjust upward. Its probably easier to identify the few who are over standards actually because they farm or have seen a disproportionate amount of DM time or whatever. Give people stuff to do and stop worrying over virtual gold pieces.

Here's a thought then.

How about we stop bickering about what we need most and y'all volunteer to write up quick little statics on our various servers. I know BG would be thrilled to have s'more!

[JaydeMoon]

More static content is the answer.

No. Loooove is the answer!

Njub.

[Kemeras]

See, I disagree. More static content is the answer. DMs can adjust downward if people are over standards just like they can adjust upward. Its probably easier to identify the few who are over standards actually because they farm or have seen a disproportionate amount of DM time or whatever. Give people stuff to do and stop worrying over virtual gold pieces.

Here's a thought then.

How about we stop bickering about what we need most and y'all volunteer to write up quick little statics on our various servers. I know BG would be thrilled to have s'more!

Working on it and I agree more statics are always nice.

[Zelknolf]

And, Zelknolf, Re: using statics: TSM is pretty cool as it offers the players (relatively) high-reward statics. Unfortunately as it's the only server that does, the others are reliant on DM-spawned loot. Also, your character isn't exactly the norm; she wasn't dishing out crazy gold on consumable healing due to not needing it, thereby naturally saving more.

Nor do her friends!

One might suspect that D&D was somehow written presuming that different "characters" would have different "character classes," and that the synergy of the differing "abilities" granted by these "classes" would somehow be beneficial!

[Mick]

... D&D was somehow written presuming that different "characters" would have different "character classes," and that the synergy of the differing "abilities" granted by these "classes" would somehow be beneficial!

I insist you cease this crazy talk.

[rorax]

It was mentioned that more magical items should be available in public markets, and that perhaps DM wealth rewards should be increased. Personally, i think that it would be good change in general , but on the bad side, it would just make the gaps between non DMed players and non DMed players even bigger. There is a risk this entire situation might turn to the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.


Frustration might just increase when some players would see magical items available in shops, knowing that they'll never be able to buy them , when they will see other players who take regular parts in DM activities and also manage to get considerable wealth.


When i opened this thread, the idea was how to discuss balance between players who receive regular DM time to those who almost never get DM attention. I did not meant to dicuss the overall balance of the game in general.

[Brokenbone]

Economy sounds to lack good old gold.

Let me share a recent experience of playing Temple of Elemental Evil, from GOG.com, with a bunch of patching / fan content from the Circle of Eight team. Very linear, pure hack and slash, yes, faithful to a very old and very straightforward Greyhawk module.

You are constantly in encounters with mook critters (but your'e a bit of a mook party yourselves), and the loot is detailed, monotonous and terrible until more boss-like tough encounters start becoming the norm. Kill a bandit? Okay, you will end up with a pair of black leather gloves, black leather boots, tan leather armor, a hand weapon like a shortsword or morning star, maybe in lucky instances a light x-bow and ammo. A few coppers, maybe a silver or two, would be typical as well. Load up your party inventory and go back to town. The boots are probably worth 6 silver at a general merchant, maybe up to a gold at the clothier or leatherworker, I forget who really likes used boots. Morning star is a few gold at the blacksmith, or half that at the guy who likes wood items or leather items or the crooked traders who are actually spies for the Temple, etc.

It makes one think, Christ, why am I walking around with all kinds of old boots and soiled clothing, I'd rather the game just gave me a couple of gold coins as an OOC handwave of "anything valuable you convert to cash at a pawnshop sort of off camera" (yes, TOEE has detailed encumbrance rules, but if I had a choice of 10gp worth of heavy loot vs. a 5gp handwave, instant solution, I'd take the 5gp thanks).

It also makes one think somewhat OOC loot could work anywhere.

ALFA loses its collective mind though if mooks carry too much gold, because while those mooks are a serious risk to mook-like PCs which they're intended to challenge, the servers ain't that big, and someone who is not a mook, can easily find and slay mooks for no challenge, so it makes rewards kind of scary to give (farm, exploit, whatever you want to call it, get labelled a crappy builder, etc.) This wouldn't happen at a PnP, one party, one DM table. Yeah, the DM might roll a random encounter in the wild of 3d10 kobold warband plus a 1d4 dire weasels with them, vs, his level ten quartet... it will just be comedy with a cloudkill or something and it's unlikely the DM will shower the party with riches. Maybe that'd be an EL5 encounter, he could go to the treasure tables accordingly or just say "man these guys were poor, no wonder they were organizing a warband..."

Critters, other than mindless / non-acquisitive types (animals, vermin, mindless undead, constructs, oozes, many others) usually ought to be carrying around something of either monetary or utility value. If it's "TOO SCARY" that such may fall into the hands of farmers or people tackling inappropriate challenges, work around it already.

Drop loot tokens, give them some simple label like CR1 TOKEN, CR6 TOKEN, etc., and put NPC pawnbrokers here and there who sniff for things with the right resref, and cash out gold for stripping them from inventory. They could also say something snarky to frequent cashers or folks with a level disparity as relates to the items cashed, also in the background creating a big ass log stamp of some sort to note any unusual transactions for DMs to check out. Same with noting any bartering of loot tokens (there'd be legit stuff like partymates distributing at the end of a battle if one guy was the looter and the other 3 kept watch, there'd be non legit stuff like a high level guy killing a bunch of mooks and distributing coupons/tokens to his lowbie caddies to go cash in for him).

Not suggesting outrageous PnP treasure tables but it's a supply side type control, bottlenecking loot distribution from static sources, in one convenient-to-track spot. A spotlight as well that the possibly rare "high level farmer" will not wish to stand in.

[Blindhamsterman]

Drop loot tokens, give them some simple label like CR1 TOKEN, CR6 TOKEN, etc., and put NPC pawnbrokers here and there who sniff for things with the right resref, and cash out gold for stripping them from inventory. They could also say something snarky to frequent cashers or folks with a level disparity as relates to the items cashed, also in the background creating a big ass log stamp of some sort to note any unusual transactions for DMs to check out. Same with noting any bartering of loot tokens (there'd be legit stuff like partymates distributing at the end of a battle if one guy was the looter and the other 3 kept watch, there'd be non legit stuff like a high level guy killing a bunch of mooks and distributing coupons/tokens to his lowbie caddies to go cash in for him).

this is a pretty good idea, the downside is obviously that it's quite a lot of building work, items need to be made, all creatures would need to be updated with the relevant token, npcs with a scripted conversation would also need to be made. Are there folk willing to do all that work though, that's the issue sadly.

[Adanu]

For the most part, there seem to be... but almighty standards (TM) usually sidetrack stuff that might be interesting because it might require modification. Maybe this is generic enough for Veilan to skip over his usual issues with such things?

[JaydeMoon]

When i opened this thread, the idea was how to discuss balance between players who receive regular DM time to those who almost never get DM attention. I did not meant to dicuss the overall balance of the game in general.

But there is just no way to 'balance' this (except with one point I'll outline at the end). People who get DMed regularly are simply going to outpace those who don't, UNLESS you mandate that DMed sessions result in 0 XP and 0 wealth gains.

And there's nothing you can do about it.

1. All characters get access to static content. As soon as one group gets something additional (DMed sessions) they pull away. Do you suggest we remove access to static content for people who get DMed sessions?

2. I DM CST evenings. Player Fred plays EST Mornings. Player Jane plays PST late evenings. Do you demand I tell my boss to F' off, I have to DM Fred... but also I'm gonna be real tired when I do cause I had to stay up late to DM Jane. Because I have to make sure everyone is balanced! Sorry, Rorax, that's not my responsibility. All I can do is try to be as inclusive in my DMing as I can when I am DMing... and I don't think ANY DM isn't doing the same thing I'm doing.

3. Plotlines often need to focus on the same characters for the sake of continuity. This may contribute to your sense of there being cliques, but the simple fact of the matter is that I know that there are certain players that I can count on to be present during a specific session. Continuity in my story is important to me. Therefore I place a character or two at the center and those are the ones who drive the story. Now those players must ICly decide who to include.

4. Hard Core RP... doesn't mean we're HARD CORE, LOOK AT OUR PERMA DEATH! It means we want to play our characters as IN CHARACTER as we can. And if they don't like someone's character, they aren't going to let them be around. And if they happen to be the characters from point 3... then the discluded characters are suddenly discluded from the DM plots. Now, as a DM I try to centralize characters that I think will be the MOST inclusive... but sometimes you're just gonna ICly be left out.

All of this ultimately means that sometimes, people arent going to be DMed. Whether it's because they aren't in the same playtimes as a DM, they make antisocial characters who don't take part, they play characters nobody likes, they are a player that no one wants to play with....

So ultimately, how do we 'balance' this?

More DMs. That is the answer to EVERYTHING. More DMs means more coverage over time zones. Fred and Jane get DMed. More DMs means more plotlines. Gary can't be in the middle of ALL of them (though DM whoring would become common enough).

So, Rorax, the ultimate answer to your OP:

More DMs. From that will come growth.

I think lately we've been seeing some good progress on the new DM front, lots of new folks with a wand and this is a good trend. In BG we are setting up training information and programs so new DMs can integrate with the team.

And if there's a server you just don't play on... DM there. Because guess where YOUR DMs play? Think they'll appreciate DMage for their characters? Some might bristle at the notion, "How incestuous!" but we have a strong platform of rules and logs to oversee everything... I don't think people having actual fun using ALFA for what it was meant for as a bad thing.