Year of 1353 Player Feedback Thread 2017

[DM Boo]

A little of column A, a little of column B. Players are able (and encouraged) to add threads as they are needed. CC's (and other DM's) will add them too, from time to time, depending on current metaplot needs.

It's basically exactly like last year.

[Heimdallr]

As to general feedback, not only mine but few people I talked with, we do generally miss possibility to interact more with everthing, and shape it our own way.

An example:
W can do a quest standard way - you know, we need to do our quest because, someone is missing some important tartifact, and then dm rolls a die and...dang he rolled 1 for our luck, Cult of Dragon starts to search for it also, and it was so important that they sent some uber dudes for it. Officially we got beaten up and failed with this(lesser quest reward, like only exp, halved for example) and this could lead us to a different solution that we would have to think, search for knowlege how to do a workaround without that artifact...ask wise npcs for example...then it would be great to have again possibility to fail, or find better stronger allies...or just carry with this. But in both way 1. Win 2. Lose - I would like to have consequences like - a city lost, region captured, character killed(pc or NPC) fraction boosted in etc.
A good last example would be to be victorious with this thing - lets say it's a powerful demon demise, we come back victoriously and then we find out that cult of the dragon, with that artifact captured or destroyed a town, their power grows...etc

Basically would be great to fill that world reacts and it actually exist - either that we would bend it to our will or crush under it's burden, not only be the winners.
Example 2
Great thing would be to literally do a quest, but then dunno, drows asked other dm for a raid, accidentaly found player group and killed them on quest, then they take the artifact, do their stuff, join the quest, or give a option to sell the artifact to their master, on black market for tons of gold...or just the group would kill npc giver, capture him, do the quest but keep the thing for themselves.
(and of course see ALL of these abovementioned actions to have consequences)
Summary:
I would like to see quests/events/small quests/server plot to be shapeable, but also to have consequences and to know that World(dms that play as world ofc) would interact and to their stuff also, instead of saying simply - yes, or no.

[Darker_Thought]

Hm...

For the comming year:

* A thorough statistics system(Simple enough using the current voting system here) to get more feedback from players on BG. Not just one question but something more detailed and the possibility to take up environment/plotlines(DM/Player run)/Item restrictions/NPC Shops(And its content). In other words a large forum survey with votes taking up al issues and ideas that the administration can create, then view for us players on the forum so we al can vote and then use it as a basis for how the servers future should look like.

* Been taken up so many times but i'll still say it. Events with DMs focusing on events where the evil aligned are the protagonists. Where the NPCs does not follow the "Justice" of good and law but praise the acts of evil as long as it serves their needs. Where necromancy, blood magic and mischeif is the standard to expect officially.

* Get EMs? Seen it on a few other servers. Certain trusted players becomming semi/lesser DMs having the DM interface available but are only allowed for creating smaler events or aiding player events with some extra flavour with spawns/effects.

* The UD lacked a fully Lolthian city. Sshamath is drow and there are Lolthian factions within but its run by males and not Ilharess/Ula'thallar/Yath'allars. We are missing that still down there!

Thats my input. Hope some of it comes to use.

/Darker

[PaulImposteur]

Haven't played in awhile. But one of my favorite moments was when a DM had me and my small party of 4 get ambushed in Cloakwood.

We investigated where they came from and it lead to vital information to the main plot. Think this was a year or two ago?

We happened to be a group of rather A-moral as a group and sold information to the wrong (or right?) people.

It was a one shot adventure, came out of no where, but it was a freaking great one. DM Events don't have to be gigantic prolonged events with large groups of people.

Sprinkling tid bits to smaller groups in the wild is going to lead to more interesting events, and likely lead to players trading information and forming relationships. It was really neat to log on the next few days and hear other players I never met before speak about the rumors of the ambush.

As a low level players, it made me feel part of the world as a whole. Which I think all of us want to be.

Anyway, dragging random players in by giving them a clue or item involved in the meta-plot can get them really invested. These smaller interactions can really show the true colors of these characters DMs don't see often.

One other suggestion is try and space your DMing out more between level brackets. So maybe one week is levels 1-6, next is 7-12, 13-18, 18.
Something along those lines, that bracket system is kind of sloppy.
But, that'd give the DMs a schedule and a time frame they can balance mobs to.

Because if week 1 you're doing levels 5-10, a DM will know what mobs he's bringing in. He also will have less problems with killing the party because a level 30 is there, and he has to raise the difficulty.

It'd also let players interact with those higher to them.

-----------------------------


A Youthful Cleric, fresh to adventuring finds a letter of imminent doom? Time to communicate with that level 30 Paladin outside of FAI. Oh look, now the DM already has a foundation for the event the level 30 will investigate.

It would allow DMs to 'pass the buck' more organically, which allows for some improv. Those small improv sessions can help give DMs a rest, since the story is going to help move itself along.

What I do in my table top a lot is introduce things that are going to lead to heavy discussion in the party. Because the more players argue/speak, the less I'm typing, the more I get to think/improv.

I try to make sure each player gets 1 or 2 skill checks. Guy leading the party forward? Survival check. Guy in back? Perception. Got a Wizard? Arcana.

Your Wizard passes his check? Make up something crazy on the spot. He finds a magical rune carved into the cavern wall! Players are likely to make comments about it. Listen to them, they might say something that sounds cool- either do it or the opposite.

That Magical rune that the low level Wizard can't identify might turn into a miraculous message in your next DMing session by a high level Wizard whom can properly translate it. (Once you had some more down time to think)

There's a lot of really easy ways as a DM to make your session move along organically without having a planned narrative. You as the DM knows that narrative isn't that deep- but your players will be enthralled, as they'll be helping create it.

It's a very effective way to help build ideas into your large campaign, while giving your brain a rest. DM burnout is really god-dang harsh, improving smaller sessions where you just use 'the rule of cool' is really going to help with that.

My favorite DM'd event I mentioned before basically went like this.

1* Group in Cloak-Wood
2* DM spawns a few creatures,
3* Skill Check! Point the direction they came from after harsh battle
4* Party walks slowly, talking to one another about what these creatures are.
5* Party Enters Cavern, walking slowly, speaking. Kills normal trash mobs.
6* Skill Check! Group sees a creature across chasm, it's one of the creatures that ambushed.
7* Skill Check! To cross Chasm
8* Combat with boss NPC DM spawned and normal trash mobs already in area
9* Players find plot item
10* DM hands out rewards.

3/4ths of that story was players walking, speaking, and killing trash mobs.
The DM was able to give out an occasional skill check, or spawn a creature.
This allowed them to not constantly be arms deep in plotting some info, and allowed player freedom since we wandered on our own for the most part.
We found a plot item, and now venture out into the world without any DM assistance and choose to move that story forward by contacting other PCs.

As PCs we passed this info onto a big bad guild one of the players was interested in joining despite being a low level. This got his personal character into a guild, and allowed us to build a roster of high level NPCs to interact with. It lead to a TON of RP, because of one small session. That RP carried us from level 10 to 25, because of one very small event.
We grew as players and characters together, because a DM showed us some love.

That's the kind of thing I want everyone to experience on this server.

[Heimdallr]

Btw, when I mentioned more "world" going on, not only players, strong builded fighting players that usually do their job, I believe it is also worth of mention to use initiative.
Whenever there is an event, there is a giant chaos, wouldn't it be easier to just roll for initiative and this would determine people turns? someone rolled 7 from player team, but a balista shooter had 8, he strikes someone before that poor 7 roll guy would try to do anything. It would also determine characters actions. You can see what teammate did, you can do your thing, or act to his action instead of chaotically slashing. It would be cool to see that.

Also..please more evil oriented, doing anything events...it is pretty boring to be evil if 90% of actions are player initiative;p "god" acting could gather players, get us some plan or idea and see how we could deal with it.