How do we feel about playing and DMing in ALFA?

[MShady]

How do we feel about DMing and playing in ALFA these days?

It seems like we have ever evolving rules in ALFA. I think the original intent was to help people DM and play, but is that the result we actually have?

To me, it does not seem like the rules are serving the people and ALFA has become less and less friendly. It has also become considerbly more vacant. I often wonder how many people who DM now would not DM in NWN2? Or play? Or build? There seem to be so many rules for DMing, specific ones on rules and wealth and standards, its mind numbing and unneccesarily difficult to do.

Personally, getting to know a server well enough to DM it is a daunting task. Calculating encounters and wealth and managing every players weath and fending off criticisms of my judgment as a DM in giving this or that was not worth it to me. I gave up my DMing, not that I did a great deal. I am certainly reluctant to take up the wand again.

Moreover, it seems we have become overly legalistic. There seems to be very little flexability in the rules. It seems to both kill creativity on a DM & player level, hamstrings organizational agility and makes any interactions really difficult. Unless there's a specific rule that says you can do something, you can't. Thats a really bad philosophy on a broad level, as we have rules for everything.

Rules for everything seems to be the modern ALFA.

How does this dovetail with our primary rule, "Have fun!" Are we still having fun? Could we be having more?

ALFA does not seem to be in a healthy state. Simplifying things and being alot more friendly would go along way towards retention and activity.

It seems like we have more people, and certainly more energy put towards enforcing rules and creating new ones than creativity and playing.

Is that the ALFA we want?

[Rick7475]

I think having the rules and standards defined while servers are in development, instead of after they are live (as in NWN1) is a much better approach. We went through growing pains in NWN1. Now we know what we want and what to do for the most part.

As for DM'ing and getting to know an area, that is up to the team to mentor the new DM. On Daggerford angel_caller mentored new DM's and did a bang-up job. But the DM's also have to know the canon, and the builders need to follow close to the canon.

Are the rules getting us down? I think in the long run they will be more benficial than we realize. We have precedents and a solid foundation to fall back on.

DM/Players, well, I'd like to DM and play. I prefer a weekly DM session with a few players: as a DM for one session on one server, and as a player in another DM run session on another server. That would be ideal.

[FanaticusIncendi]

I DM a lot. I build quite a bit. I play only a little. I like to have the option to both play and DM.

As for rules... *shrugs* I have learned that in the realm of Geekdom there is a great love of rules and their somewhat arbitrary enforcement. Mostly I don't let it bother me and try to ignore the seemingly endless debates over them. Many of the rules are useful, some are not. I'll leave it to someone interested in admin to sort it all out and concentrate on DMing.

Almost all of the drama I have experienced in ALFA has had little or nothing to do with in-game stuff. Maybe IG stuff was the catalyst, but the response is the real issue. It all comes down to the way people choose to treat each other, and those who may already be inclined to be neanderthals in RL become even more so when they get the perceived anonymity of a computer screen between them and the other person. Just be kind to each other, you'll reap more joy in the long run.

As for wealth standards rules, I think so long as they are equally enforced they're just fine. The new charts actually make it very simple to calculate item cost and PC wealth (and I am not a math person!) and has taken much of the guesswork and worry out of it, for me at least. I have found that I am actually awarding my PCs more than I used to now that we have the charts, because before I was always so worried about it and daunted by the task of figuring it all out that I overcompensated by just not giving anything out. I think that equal enforcement of the wealth standards will bring everyone closer to center rather than far to the left or right.

As for NWN2, so far i'm not a fan. Yeah the graphics are neat and all that but that's not why I play. The camera is a bitch and for some odd reason some of the tilesets give me a headache. I hate the toons, they look like claymation. And no portraits wtf? The toolset gives me convulsions. Sorry all you guys who keep saying its not that bad, it took me long enough to learn the NWN1 toolset and the thought of learning a whole new one is simply too daunting at this time.

I suppose eventually when everyone else switches over and I have no players left to DM I will switch over too, but frankly I intend to keep my NWN1 campaigns and players going for as long as they will play.

Could ALFA be better? More user-friendly? More fun and inviting? Absolutely. There's always room for improvement. Structure and rules can be a good thing. Just decide what the structure looks like, make the rules accessible and easy to understand, and enforce them equally. Other than that, how inviting and friendly a gaming community we create is up to each one of us individually, not admin.

[Veilan]

How do we feel about [...] playing in ALFA these days?

Good actually, things gathered speed again IG a couple of months back for me. I've been able to enjoy dedicated and skilled DMs as well as entertaining playing partners. Sure, things aren't as brashly active as they used to be, but there's game to be had with a little patience, scheduling and hanging around.

The only real gripe I could voice is that most of this included having to stay up awfully late or getting up in the middle of the night, which is something that may be okay for vacation time, but sadly I won't be able to maintain much longer.

There's never enough euro coverage .

[AlmightyTDawg]

Personally, getting to know a server well enough to DM it is a daunting task. Calculating encounters and wealth and managing every players weath and fending off criticisms of my judgment as a DM in giving this or that was not worth it to me. I gave up my DMing, not that I did a great deal. I am certainly reluctant to take up the wand again.

It's just one man's opinion, but it's this sort of generalized griping (note MShady's not alone, see Jayde's DMA thread) that put DM training about 24 months behind schedule. Everyone knew it was going to happen, and it was tough motivating people to do it even at the Admin level. Thankfully Rusty has more stones than sense (much love mate), and BB and Alara (among others) have been going above-and-beyond through the process.

I believe this commentary is just taking the short view of the plan - going up the learning curve is always somewhat obnoxious when it's a curve mandated by someone else and you don't really care. But the point of this is that these things eventually become background knowledge - once you've done enough calculations by hand, you get comfortable enough to not have to calculate them anymore. There's also the possibility that you can do your own thing and get "close enough." How many DMs did the actual old XP calculation scheme, and how many said "about 75 - 100 an hour, that sounds good to me?" The same thing can and will happen here - you get an intuitive sense of how much a sword +2 is worth, and an intuitive sense of how much XP (and therefore how long) it is to earn.

Numerically, the system is really pretty broad - it will admit a lot of handwaving calculations and the perturbations will eventually self-correct. So at some point it'll cross the tipping point to just being a "reference" the same way the DMG is for many DMs. But like any other grade-school homework, one's attitude in approaching it affects how quickly you hit that point. If one chooses to see them as this massive array of rules, stomp their feet, and throw in little gripes in threads - then sure it's going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Moreover, it seems we have become overly legalistic. There seems to be very little flexability in the rules. It seems to both kill creativity on a DM & player level, hamstrings organizational agility and makes any interactions really difficult. Unless there's a specific rule that says you can do something, you can't. Thats a really bad philosophy on a broad level, as we have rules for everything.

We have very broad rules for XP and wealth awards (both in terms of individual awarding and the overall scheme). Rules on pricing are necessarily more restrictive, specifically because of the clear need for consistency in something that's ultimately just a number. But even that - flexibility with respect to what? I think we do a sight better than the DMG for our format, and chose broad rules that sometimes leave out legitimate uses rather than the alternative of say a specific rule for every combination. Is it less flexible than the alternative of "do what you feel is right?" Sure, but I think that answers itself.

As for making interactions difficult... I guess they're difficult from the perspective of someone who doesn't like the rules as written and wants to rail against them. Personally, I think fixed rules (with the capacity to amend them through a forum process) makes for easier communication than two people making generalized "I think it should be this way" arguments past each other for hours.

[indio]

The 'it's meant to be fun' and 'it's only a game' cliches are generally wheeled out when someone is looking for an excuse for their performance, or lack thereof. I'm a firm believer in those that are part of the game determining how the game is played, so if you're still here playing, building or DMing (and if you are, you're most certainly a D&D tragic), then let's just keep ourselves occupied. The fun for me is keeping busy, not waiting for something to happen. If something doesn't seem to work, then get busy developing an alternative.

And on that note, where's Fionn.

[Mizbiz]

I've always had fun here. Any frustrations I had were usually my own fault. I've played to excess and DMd to excess.

In general, the rules have never hampered me. On the contrary, I like the ideas of guidelines. When they are clear and followed, there is less room for exploiting the system. Exploiting by a few always made for bad feeling among the many.

[AlmightyTDawg]

The 'it's meant to be fun' and 'it's only a game' cliches are generally wheeled out when someone is looking for an excuse for their performance, or lack thereof.

I see someone's been watching my bedroom webcam. I've been under a lot of stress dammit!

[Thangorn]

If you can tell a good story, the rules rarely get in the way..

How do I feel about DMing and playing?
Good but my pnp experiences are fulfilling enough as a roleplayer, if I didnt have that outlet (which I may not have if I move OS in a few months) I'd probably DM and play more. The only thing I am really interested in doing for ALFA atm is building the Moonsea to be 100% canon and 100% fun.

The only time I really felt like I was tripping over rules was when I ran PrC quests as a DM and that wasn't too bad.

[Brokenbone]

As a player I like to know there's some consistency at least attempted in good faith by DMs. Certain reward is possible for working through a certain challenge. If I were playing under a new DM and in rescuing a kitten, found that the tree it had climbed had a bandolier of ten +1 daggers hanging in the branches, I'd be pretty disgusted if that was IC and not an error, though holding my breath to find out either where the curse was, where the illusionist was, whether my PC is in another plane, or what. Again, my expectations are kind of "tuned" to a particular level, and anything outside that frame can give pause.

As a DM (though hostless at the moment!) I also try to be fair with the different aspects of play. Encounters, rewards, hell, even rebuilding around fifty kinds of humanoids so that they were bang onto PnP statistics. None of this "kobold with 20 spot" or "gnoll with 6 barbarian levels" stuff, which presumably gets thrown in for a plot forever ago, but then gets filed in bad parts of the pallette or keeps coming up in spawncamps and things. Pathetic grunt critters are in D&D for a reason, as opposed to jacked up humanoids who help "farm proof" an area... just an example of trying to do things right from the beginning (build critters) as opposed to creating crazy mutants to restore balance (farm proofing).

Rules have been a work in progress over the course of NWN1, but considering people start playing (or start new characters) all the time, I do like the idea that there's an attempt at awareness & enforcement on what's fair... with reasonable variations, server by server, and even DM by DM. Some may like shops full of static magic, some may hate them. Some may lump their legitimately generated rewards into major important items, some may be happier with a big bag of low value gems and coins.

Hopefully on the big topics though, there's some general agreement at least within a team. Can't have one DM give 25xp for a 6 hour dungeon crawl, while another gives out 200xp for 30 minutes of flirting with an NPC bartender. Sure, players will be thankful for the RL time investment in both situations, and 99% of the time I'd prefer to see the epic dungeon over an NPC tart, even if it's 0xp (dungeon) vs. 1000xp (bar RP). Same time though it kind of makes you wonder if one or both of the DMs in those two different situations has rocks in their heads.

Anyhow, yeah, I like a basic agreement on the playing field, how we try to make it level, etc. Especially true when considering ALFA is a series of linked playing fields (and will be in the future), and there needs to be a basic agreement on the rules if that's going to work. To stretch the analogy further, can't have the home team agreeing that there's only four downs to advance the ball, and the visitors insist there's ten downs, since there were ten at home (though welcoming the home team to stick to four downs, while the visitors keep their ten).

[Souvarine]

As a player, well...there are a few restrictions, but nothing too stupid. In fact, if i was asked to mention a rule i am supposed to follow, i'd be at a loss. That tells me the "rules" are usually common sense. Obviously, if you are in alfa, you ain't here to farm stuff and loot G34R or PK people randomly...

dislikes:

- starting at lvl 1 in a permanent death setting...that is the only real stupid thing imho.
- lack of static content.
- general emptiness w/o dms
- inconsistency of the PrC approach vs regular classes

appreciates:

- immersion (due in large part to the DMs)
- the hope of fulfilling a character concept (never happened for me, never will, but i did say the "hope")
- the illusion that all is possible

I guess it's dms who have more burden...standard XP ratios, standard Gold gains...standard Item flow...standard PC deaths...farmer control...PrC judgement, custom content requests. Gees, i think i remember why i never considered being a dm.

[fluffmonster]

Can't say anything about DMing, but i've enjoyed playing. I only ever had one in-game experience that became an OOC problem and that was many years ago. Just play the game the DM is running and there's no worries. Its when folks want to do it their way irregardless of the DMs that there's most of the problems for players. I trust MShady knows more about that path than I do though.

Being admin was less satisfying, but that's just the nature of the beast. Once I take my head out of the governance part though it just doesn't bother me any more.

[Damart]

Played and DMed and would want to be able to do both again as one gave me impetus to do the other better.
Many a time as a player I saw things that as a DM I didnt know, or hadnt thought of, and that I wanted to use in my Building or scripting or NPC use that helped me interract with players.
Then as a DM/Builder I was able to see how a player could use their imagination as much as they chose and an on-the-ball DM could use the tools of the trade to enrich the players experience, and that encouraged me to be more imaginative, adventurous in my game play too. In spite of the games engine, I tried many more things as a player after I became a DM because I knew it was probably possible.

So, yea, I see no reason not to adopt the mature approach and allow a member to be both.

On the mater of excessive rules and wealth guidelines and tables and tools and training for DM's--brilliant! The more consistency and fairness the better in my opinion -- Dim

[Vendrin]

Can't be bothered to deal with all the rules and bs as a dm so I won't, and as a player. Meh. lv1 sucks

[AcadiusLost]

As for NWN2, so far i'm not a fan. Yeah the graphics are neat and all that but that's not why I play. The camera is a b*tch and for some odd reason some of the tilesets give me a headache. I hate the toons, they look like claymation. And no portraits wtf?

Though it's a bit of a detour, I wanted to give a quick update on the above: the 1.10 patch introduced new camera modes- which at first to me seemed even worse than the original NWN2 ones, but after some settings adjustment I've got them running almost just like the old familiar NWN1 camera, much to my relief. Once we're on 1.10 properly I'll try to post a brief "how to make it like NWN1" guide.

Also, portraits are back in with MotB/1.10 apparently- you can set a 2D portrait like in NWN1, or leave it as the (ugly) 3D head if you prefer. That'll be another thing for the "give me my NWN1 back" thread. Now we just need to get chatlogging to work properly (grumble grumble).

re: playing and DMing nowadays, I'd have too much to say to get into that properly, maybe later. In a nutshell though, I think we'll need to still allow player/DMs in NWN2, and I think the current rules/standards are reasonable and not nearly so onerous as they get portrayed at times.