Planetouched DM vote result

fluffmonster · Post by **fluffmonster** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:40 pm

As of this posting, it looks like a slight majority of DMs (1) do not favor the availability of planetouched races as PCs.

To me, this seems a good basis on which to not allow them. Even if the slight majority went the other way by one vote, I would argue its still not good enough to include planetouched. It seems to me that we potentially lose more DMs due to alienation by allowing planetouched than we lose by not having them available.

This has to be considered against the background that having DMs is a hell of a lot more important than having planetouched. In essence, I'm saying that a simple majority of DMs in favor is not necessarily good enough. Jayde's rubric would now have this go to a player vote, but I think that unnecessary. Its not that player sentiments don't matter, but again its more important to have active DMs. It has ever been the case that lack of DMs kills a server.

Perhaps in time, when its clearer exactly who is DMing on the NWN2 servers a vote can be conducted again with just them. For now however, it seems this matter is settled.

JaydeMoon · Post by **JaydeMoon** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:59 pm

I agree with you 100% Fluff. While I might have mentioned or implied that separate DM and player votes should be held without regard for the outcome of one or the other, I see the wisdom in putting the vote before the DMs first and then only polling the playerbase if the DMs seemed alright with it.

I would go so far as to table this topic as a dead horse. Of course, if the PA wants to fight for the inclusion for the playerbase, I'm sure she is welcome to run a poll, regardless, and then call for an Admin vote.

Wow, I haz a 'rubric'!

witch · Post by **witch** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 7:27 pm

hilarious.. the exact one vote..

so a slight more no is good Fluff but a slight more Yes would not have been enough to live by the results fluff? odd..

But cool it seems we shall have 31 dms active on the first live servers.

on a serious note:

if the main arugment for a no is the fact that it takes up dm time because they are so special. i say we dissallow any strange background/toon..race on servers where they dont fit for they are likely going to take up a lot of dm time as well..

(and no i am not interestedin playing one)

Inaubryn · Post by **Inaubryn** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 7:59 pm

First of all... I should be able to vote and wasn't able to, so no the matter isn't settled. I'm sure there's people who voted who shouldn't have been able to and those that should be able to who haven't.

Second, if any DM is really gonna leave over the allowance of planetouched, then I'll make the argument that they shouldn't DM here. ALFA is supposed to be this persistent world and no single DM has control as they would in PnP. You sign up to DM, you either DM what's here or you don't.

I don't understand why we make every single, little thing so hard. As a DM, I can simply tell players, hey I'm not DMin this that and the other and be done with it. How much easier can that be? Now, it doesn't matter to me what a PC concept is as long as it fits relatively in the world. Planetouched do that. Because drow are definitely more off-beat than a blue-haired person walking around. Hell, drow evoke fear and hatred in damn near every race, monsters included, in the Realms. But, you'll DM them, just not planetouched? That's the most screwed up line of logic.

I dare say, a commoner would react a helluva lot more different upon seein' a dark elf traipsin' around town than they would an earth genasi. Again, I am and will be a DM for NWN2. Actually, that depends on how much more ridiculous ALFA gets between now and then. Some times ALFA makes it hard to get up the motivation to do anything more than play and even that can be a bitch. But I digress.

My point is, planetouched won't be any harder for me to DM than elves, or dwarves, or drow or duergar, etc. But, I guess I'm just too accomodating and open with who and what I'll DM. Woe is me. I could understand the panic, and that's what it is, if the option was whether or not to allow dragon PCs. Those PCs wouldn't fit in with normal PC races, relatively speaking.

So... I'm sorry if I don't see the difference between drow and duergtar PCs who evoke more fear and hatred from inahbitants of Faerun than planetouched PCs ever have and ever will.

So.. all you DMs out there best get ready for the Atlas-like burden that are the drow and duergar, and svirfneblin. You're gonna have to do a massive amount of work just to make those PCs fit into ALFA and the ALFA servers. I can't tell you how much hell you're in for. If it were me, I'd quit now. No way in hell I'm gonna deal with the reactions of NPCs to underdark races that they don't see everyday, have never seen, and have only heard horrible things about. Not me. No way. I vote no on proposition underdark.

Wait... a vote would take several polls over the course of 3 and a half years, the involvement of the Infra Admin, DMA, PA, Lead Admin, Tech Admin, Jesse Jackson, the Texas Supreme court, Cindy Sheehan, Congress, Parliament(s), and Simon Cowell. OMG! Think of the appeals process.

witch · Post by **witch** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:12 pm

you typed it up more elaboratly inny hehehe

my point exactly though..

JaydeMoon · Post by **JaydeMoon** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:20 pm

Don't be dumB.

If a majority of DMs don't want to deal with it, then it makes little sense to institute it.

The argument for or against Drow and Duergar is a flimsy one as well. A lot of people don't want to deal with Drow and Duergar PCs. They were then forced to drastic IC circumstances that said, in effect: Don't play a drow on our server or you'll die. I imagine they don't want to ADD to the variety of potential PCs they have to apply this to.

We have a drow player on Shadowdale. Ask him much DM time he gets. A few drow are now in Sembia. How much attention do they need in order to accomodate them on that server? You get around it by wearing a disguise the whole time. What's the DC on that disguise? How often do NPCs pierce it? What is the DM supposed to do when that happens?

Most DMs just don't want to deal with it and as a result, few DMs want to DM for it. And in a persistant world, how one DM or set of DMs behave DOES influence events for other DMs.

As a matter of persistence, it is easier on someone to remove something you might desire than it is to force in something that others don't.

At this point, all the pros and cons of planetouched become irrelevant in the face of the fact that at least half the DMs involved in DMing currently just don't want to deal with it.

The argument that their inclusion is analogous with the inclusion of drow and duergar is irrelevant in that the question is not about whatever logic you want to apply to the situation but the simple fact that more DMs are willing to work with Drow than are willing to deal with planetouched.

Maybe that's dumB, but hey, if the simple majority of community (I refer to the DM community in this case) doesn't want it, then they just don't want it, plain and simple.

If you want to continue on, start a campaign to discover who voted no and change their minds individually until you have a majority consensus. THEN we can start to weigh the actual benefit to cost of it all.

Rotku · Post by **Rotku** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:20 pm

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

"WE WANT A POLL! Let the majority decide!"
"OMG! Why is there a poll?! What bureaucratic nonsense is this?!"

"Polls here are never binding, why have them?"
"What?! You mean this is a binding poll?! But people didn't vote the way I wanted! No fair!"

"Planetouched are EVIL! We should BAN them!"
"No Planetouched in ALFA? I QUIT!"

JaydeMoon · Post by **JaydeMoon** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:24 pm

Heh, to be fair, Rotku, I don't think Inny was a vocal proponent of the poll idea.

But I do agree, if we decide that decisions should not be made unilaterally... and we don't like how decisions are made as a result of democratic process...

Maybe we should go to the hat method.

I put the options on a piece of paper and dropped them in this hat. Now close your eyes and pull one and THAT'S how we're gonna do it!

witch · Post by **witch** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:25 pm

the discussion to allow them or not wasnt relevant to begin with Rotku but
thats another matter.

WE WANT A POLL! Let the majority decide!"
"OMG! Why is there a poll?! What bureaucratic nonsense is this?!

i seriously dont hope 31 dms it the majority of alfa Rotku

*shrugs* carry on.

although inny's point is valid if the reason is "too much hassle for dms" and i second that [/quote]

JaydeMoon · Post by **JaydeMoon** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:34 pm

I know how Jhaele Silvermane is going to react to humans, elves, dwarves, hin, and gnomes. I know how she is going to react to drow. I don't know how she is going to react to a tiefling.

I know how the Shadowdale Guards are going to react to humans, elves, dwarves, hin, and gnomes. I know how they are going to react to drow. I don't know how they are going to react to an earth genasi.

I know how your average farmer on the city's outskirts will react to humans, elves, dwarves, hin, and gnomes. I know how they are going to react to drow. I don't know how they are going to react to an aasimar.

It WILL take more thought in determining how NPCs in a place I am DMing will feel about the various plane-touched races. Reactions for standard races and drow and duergar, etc, are pretty much spelled out for me by region in most cases. Plane-touched are not.

Just one example of how I might believe that dealing with plane-touched is more bothersome than dealing with drow and duergar.

Thankfully the argument against plane-touched is no longer focused on immersion breaking or extra work but by the fact that the simple majority of DMs just don't want them.

Rotku · Post by **Rotku** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:58 pm

Heh, to be fair, Rotku, I don't think Inny was a vocal proponent of the poll idea.

i seriously dont hope 31 dms it the majority of alfa Rotku

Yeah, I know. My post was more a generalization of ALFA, than aiming at any one person/issue

Anyway, to address some of the above concerns:

Inaubyrn
First of all... No, you shouldn't have had a vote. If you are claiming that due to you been a member of a NWN2 project, it's not completely accurate grounds. One had to be an ACTIVE builder, if you go and read the user group description.

You make the argument that if you DM in ALFA you should DM in ALFA even with Planescape DMs - and that no single DM has control over the world, as in PnP. This is completely correct - it's the reason that I've stayed despite there been PrCs - but unfortunately it does apply equally to both sides. You take the good with the bad.

Once again, with the underdark races you are correct again. I would honestly prefer to DM planetouched over underdark races any day of the week. But then, if it was up to me, planetouched would be allowed and underdark races disallowed. So be careful what you wish for

Witch
31 people isn't a majority of ALFA. However, I don't think any of the Admin raised any concern about polling the DMs first. And obviously 31 is a majority of DMs (who visit the forums and care enough to vote). If you wanted it differently, the Tech elections are coming up next month, the Lead the following, with the Player and DM early next year.

Now, of course, Mikayla (or anyone, for that matter) is more than welcome to go and poll the player base and bring up the debate again, but for me the matter is closed.

No, it didn't go the way I had wanted. But I am going to accept these results anyway. Like Fluff stated, maybe when we are more certain on who is and isn't going to DM, we can raise the issue again.

psycho_leo · Post by **psycho_leo** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 9:21 pm

Rotku wrote: Now, of course, Mikayla (or anyone, for that matter) is more than welcome to go and poll the player base and bring up the debate again, but for me the matter is closed.

The way I understood is that if a simple majority of current DMs and builders didn't want planetouched to be in, that would be it. And as much as I never agreed with the arguments presented and, much like you, feel underdark races are a bigger hassle (unless on an UD server), I feel that this is a reasonable compromise. If now we decide to poll the playerbase anyway and get a sound yay for planetouched, what happens then? Is this discussion ever gonna end? I'd much rather see this decided once and for all, than keep running polls for the next two years.

Mikayla · Post by **Mikayla** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 9:23 pm

I am not going to be polling the Player Base on the subject of Planetouched races as Player Character races. Rotku, as Lead Admin, set forth a process and under that process the first gate toward the inclusion of Planetouched races for Player Characters was to get a majority of NWN1 and NWN2 DMs to vote for inclusion. There were slightly more no votes than yes votes (the polls says 16 to 15, but there were some discrepcencies and so the final offical tally may be something more akin to 16 no, 14 yes). In accord with the process set out by Rotku, the matter did not pass the first gate and thus Planetouched will not be available for player characters in ALFA-NWN2.

Personally, I think the decision not to include Planetouched races for players is a bad one - I think it is a short-sighted and ultimately self-destructive decision based on as-yet unproven fears about how much work would be involved. In the grand scheme of NWN2 Persistant World projects, ALFA has to compete for players against projects that offer more than ALFA does. Now, I do not think that the availability of Planetouched races alone will make or break ALFA by a long shot - it is just one brick in the wall that makes up ALFA. But that brick is evidence that ALFA may be becomming a community that is no longer on the leading edge of NWN persistent worlds, but is instead, offering less and less. Some people would say we have not been there for a long time - lack of new races, lack of new PrCs, etc. But, that is what ALFA has decided - and what ALFA decides is what ALFA gets, and like all ALFAns, I either have to live with it or leave. Such is life.

So, though I think it was a poor decision, we decided it was a decision for the DMs to make, not the Admin. And lets note that I agreed to that process, primarily because it was the process that Lead Admin put forward and I wanted to support Lead's attempt to, well, lead. The DMA tentatively agreed to the process also, though with some reservations, and now that the poll has come out to his liking, he is fine with the results as one might expect.

While I am not happy with the results of the Planetouched poll, for the aforementioned reasons, I can and will live with them. But for me, the issue was not really about Planetouched races - it was about the process of the decision making. Though I do not like the decision that was made, I am happy it was made through a legitimate process, and reflects the opinions of various stakeholders rather than of a single person. To that extent, I think this issue has turned out quite well, even if we will not have Planetouched races available for player characters in ALFA-NWN2.

Rick7475 · Post by **Rick7475** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 9:49 pm

Bottom line:

We have too few DM's to players at any given time on average in ALFA.

DM logs on, want to give a fair shake to the players that are on, that means hopefully (though it rarely happens) even DM loving to each player.

The PC that requires 50 - 100% more attention than the average player (and that means planetouched and other anomoly players) means player 2 isn't going to get the same amount of attention.

So I think it is grossly unfair to the majority of players.

It creates two classes of players, the ones that need twice as much DM attention, thereby taking away DM time for the average players, and the second class, the average player who just wants to play.

Now, given that, I still voted for Planetouched because I still think players ought to have the choice, but I am hoping on implemenation (this was only a vote to have them in in the first place) will allow fairness for all players so that DM's don't spend a lot of time trying to run extremely specialized campaigns for exteremly specialized players.

If I logged on and saw 10 players and just little ole me, I would try and give a playing experience to as many as I could in the two - four hours I would have, and that most likely means ignoring the specialized PC because I could probably give a good playing experience to two players at the cost of one specialized player.

Mikayla · Post by **Mikayla** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 10:19 pm

Just a last note on players and time: In my experience DMing the three campaigns I ran in ALFA (which was admittedly some years ago) the time "neediness" of a player had much less to do with the race of that player's character, and far more to do with the personality of that player. The "neediest" people I ran into, the ones who spammed the DM channel or who routinely sent DMs tells asking for this or that, were generally playing elves or humans, not drow or svirfs or anything 'exotic.' Naturally, YMMV.