Open Question to ALFA about DMing

[Inaubryn]

Just FYI for all you people that are referring to the time before standards. What you're referring to is the time before standards and after ALFA decided to loosen its, then, very heavy restrictions. With the exception of Mandosworld, ALFA was very, very, very, very low wealth, and magic. DMs gave out items sparingly, and no single PC was greater off than any other, unless you had a good stealth score and simply waited in TVS for throngs of MotoX PCs to be massacred there and then looted the thousands of corpses.

But, after the Quake, the brilliant admin and their advisors thought that we should loosen wealth restrictions, free things up a bit. That's like giving a drivers license to Ray Charles, and yes, I know he's dead. DMs lost their mind, and before you know it, shops sprang up with bins full of legendary artifacts at their Blue Continual Flame Sales.

And, once the proverbial dead horse had exited the barn, it was being chased about and beaten unmercifully in a futile effort to coax it back into its hay-laden dwelling. Ultimately, it was pummeled into submission by the intense shelling of artillery from Standards gunships ten miles off the shore of ALFA. But, nobody wanted to play with the mutilated, no longer recognizable, corpse of our beloved deceased equinian friend. So, other people decided to grab some red tape and wrap the poor horsey in that. As a matter of fact, they grabbed rolls and rolls of the stuff, waited to nightfall, snuck out and RT'd (red taped) the entire barn. After doing this, they grabbed water hoses and wet the whole thing down.

The end.

...Or is it?

[Sintaqx]

Standards are good, especially pricing and recommended wealth by level... but it should be considered that some items may be more or less expensive in different areas so these prices should be recommended as averages. Likewise with character classes and races. Anything that will potentially travel between servers should be created according to basic standards. Standards and enforcement goes overboard, though, when it tries to clearly define that a character will never have any more than 6 polished golden turds per level.

The enforcement of the standards should rest with the DMs, with the HDMs in particular, and players should trust their DMs to not be draconian in adjusting the character to within the approved levels. The DMs and players should trust their admins to be fair in their dealings and to give the players and dms who may be at fault for something the benefit of a doubt. It all boils down to trust as I see it.

[ayergo]

Just FYI for all you people that are referring to the time before standards. What you're referring to is the time before standards and after ALFA decided to loosen its, then, very heavy restrictions. With the exception of Mandosworld, ALFA was very, very, very, very low wealth, and magic. DMs gave out items sparingly, and no single PC was greater off than any other, unless you had a good stealth score and simply waited in TVS for throngs of MotoX PCs to be massacred there and then looted the thousands of corpses.

+1

Few here are left to remember those days. Anyone who even saw a magic item on TVS started wondering if they were about to get hit by lightning. Loudwater had some decent +1 items... if you were willing to attack a zhent army for them. You had to have a group of 4+ near level 5 to even hope to survive a chance to get them. There was a chance that you could get a +1 item in the Constables tower of Daggerdale, unless of course one of the wandering succubi got a hold of you.

Everything was fairly even back then, it wasn't until after the quake that things went awry in terms of loot.

[paazin]

Well, ideally we'll have easy-to-use in-game tools to deal with loot in NWN2, much akin to the handy XP gui, which really makes giving it out a breeze. If you're not familiar with it, it's a little window that pops up that calculates all the formulas for you so there's relatively little work for you to do.

I feel your pain, folks - it's been bad. But we'll do what we can - it'll get better.

[Valdimir]

While I sympathize with people that think we have too many convoluted rules... and we do, I hardly think (or rather I hope) that anyone wants to go back to the time before we had standards where PCs from server A were dirt poor while PCs from server B shat gold bricks.

PLs point is very valid. Standards could use some simplification, but there still must be standards. In a PW with CvC and permadeath, a stingy DM makes your PC vulnerable to the PC on the next server over who has the generous DM. For awhile, ALFA was at this extreme with servers earning reputations at "high wealth" and "low wealth". DMs claimed sovereignty over their servers and refused to accept imposed parameters for XP and loot rewards. If PCs never crossed servers and all DMs were consistent on their given servers, it would never matter. Problem was that they did and it caused friction. I concur that we could simplify the standards a bit, but I don't think we want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Edit: LOL...I guess Inny and a few others beat me to the punch here...

[MShady]

Rick - Huh? When TSM was reviewed, people were going in and deleting static content on you instead of noting that it should be fixed?

Wow, okay. That's heavy handed. Was that Rusty?

I would point out that pre-Quake standards were a page or two long. Today we have 16 pages of standards, or whatever. Still low wealth though. In terms of net result, we're not all that far ahead.

That said, I would not lionize pre-Quake standards. We had PCs running around who were nearly millionaires at less than 10th level (Jarlen, Mashan, etc). It didn't break everything, either...

That a RP world is so obsessed with item standards always seemed like a disconnect to me. We are so worried about them, its become a serious obstacle to DMs. When an Admin, even the Infra one, says he gave up DMing because he was afraid of running afoul of Standards, we have a serious problem. I would think the imperative in managing combat ability would be more for play balancing in a traditional MMO.

The post Quake wealth boom seems to get worse with every telling too. It was not THAT bad. I didn't really see anything past +2 in a shop and you could make enough gold to cover expenses and get a little ahead from DM events or a spawn. There were CERTAINLY bad examples that impacted things greatly. Alot of the existing Standards are not terribly different from post-Quake ones when we tried to go by the DMG. By and large, so do our existing Standards.

The difference is in how things are handled, going back to what Rick and Hialmar said. Its put us in a bad place due to fear and mistrust or the complexity has gotten so overboard, its a significant barrier to DMing.

Call me crazy, but a little more focus on fun and less on micromanaging item/wealth standards or fear of being violated during an investigation might go a long way.

Mike

[Zelknolf]

So... am I the only one noticing that ALFA's pricing standards really aren't that far from the 3.5 PnP pricing? I'm not going to defend the other stuff standards has been poking around in, 'course, but just on the wealth stuff, there're only really a few changes from what the DMG wants you to do -> what ALFA wants you to do, and I only really define the one pricing standard as dumb (I think +mind affecting saves aught to be bonus squared * 250, personally... minor, though, when a DM who agrees with me can just drop +will save items [for less chink!])

Obviously others have more trouble with the stuff. Still, the word file and ctrl+F are your friends (and most of those 17 pages are fluff. Fewer charts in there than in the DMG, and we all know the charts are where the meat is.)

[mishmash]

I would like to DM and I think I could do a good job, in fact I have spent quite a long time on the forums trying to read up on what would be involved; the various rules and regulations etc. But to be honest it just seems too complicated for me to get my head around it all, and there seem to be quite a few disguntled DMs, which is offputting...

ALFA is the only PW that I would play on, and I think it has the potential to be the best RP persistent world in NWN2. But the amount of time devoted to forum "debates" and bureaucracy over a game is mystifying. Surely when ALFA2 is limited to a single server with a peak of about 20 players online at once, such a bureaucratic machine is over the top, unwieldy and self defeating. If it can't be done away with, can it not at least be relaxed somewhat?

[Misty]

eh, it's really not that hard. Get in good with a team that communicates well, and the rules aren't overpowering.


I just need players.

As for DMing NWN2 - still lack the hardware.

[paazin]

I would like to DM and I think I could do a good job, in fact I have spent quite a long time on the forums trying to read up on what would be involved; the various rules and regulations etc. But to be honest it just seems too complicated for me to get my head around it all, and there seem to be quite a few disguntled DMs, which is offputting...

ALFA is the only PW that I would play on, and I think it has the potential to be the best RP persistent world in NWN2. But the amount of time devoted to forum "debates" and bureaucracy over a game is mystifying. Surely when ALFA2 is limited to a single server with a peak of about 20 players online at once, such a bureaucratic machine is over the top, unwieldy and self defeating. If it can't be done away with, can it not at least be relaxed somewhat?

Really it's not difficult, as some would like to make it out to be - most of the 'rules and regulations' just require using your common sense and rarely come up (Don't give a level 1 a +1 weapon, etc)

[mishmash]

Okay, if someone is willing to show me the ropes then I'm sure I can dm at least once a week on TSM. But I reserve the right to back out if it seems like too much work.

Also, what do you think is the best way of attracting new players, Misty?

[paazin]

Okay, if someone is willing to show me the ropes then I'm sure I can dm at least once a week on TSM. But I reserve the right to back out if it seems like too much work.

I'm sure any of the current TSM DMs would gladly help you out. As far as the commitment, it's understandable - you can resign at any time, or take a leave if you need to

[Misty]

hmm. I'm still working on that. Being confined to NWN1 makes it difficult.

The last time Sembia was struggling, I dedicated set timeslots and showed up. Say, twice a week for one hour at a time. Posted in advance in the forums. By the end of the month on the 'no set plot'-sort of DMing, there were enough players to start an actual plotline.

This time it didn't work. I got all of one player, as all the other regulars were tied up in a specific plotline or generally unavailable Tuesday nights. Not exactly able to attract new players with a one day-per week committment on the old platform.

Now, I doubt TSM has trouble attracting players, as many feel a desire to play, and a lack of DM loving. All you need is to set a time, and you'll get people interested in sending you bios and plans for their PCs.

Good luck

[Hialmar]

If they really want to be DM's .... they'll go to Exodus instead.

+1

I know that if I get time to DM I'll do it in Exodus...
Unless of course the next DMA simplify the standards.

I didn't DM before the Quake and only briefly played but if it was simpler and more efficient then it could be a good solution.

[NickD]

That's a great sentiment coming from one of the administrators...