2020 Campaign Announcement and Player Input

[krighaur]

I agree mostly with what Winterborne said.

I have a concern about characters forced in a direction.

I have the feeling that if you don't play an optimized character and don't play one of the most played type of character you are often out of the action : On the one hand you don't have the technical abilities to survive, and on the other hand you don't have the good informations. I understand why this happen (and recognize that the "closeness" of events is less strong than in other servers), but I think that the focus should not be only on the "main" players, there should be some room for new ones without forcing them to stick to a well known organization or guild.

[Rain]

I agree mostly with what Winterborne said.

I have a concern about characters forced in a direction.

I have the feeling that if you don't play an optimized character and don't play one of the most played type of character you are often out of the action : On the one hand you don't have the technical abilities to survive, and on the other hand you don't have the good informations. I understand why this happen (and recognize that the "closeness" of events is less strong than in other servers), but I think that the focus should not be only on the "main" players, there should be some room for new ones without forcing them to stick to a well known organization or guild.

... we will be ending our focus on year-long mega-plots.

And related to the above suggestion, I believe there is a common occurrence of Players putting everything into PC creation, and background, and Role-play...only to find that this Character is a square peg going into a round hole, in regard of how to "fit in" with Community, both IC and OOC.

In my opinion, the name of this game is role-playing, NOT digital reflection of Real Life Self in fantasy avatar form. Translation: the challenge and fun is RPing something you are not, for a set-out reason. And so, with a DM offering a storyline, a Player can pick out a specific Role and attempt to take on that Play, with others, for a specific experience. This also means that effort comes form both Players AND the DM(s), to create a worthwhile experience, not just a situation were the DM has to perform or setup "situations" that satisfy the Player, or, just answer Player Requests with interest (or worse, just ignore Player Requests!). Essentially, emulate as best one can the table-top D&D model and experience.

There is likely a tendency to think that big changes need to be made or had in order to create memorable experiences on BGTSCC. But really, what creates a more memorable experience is when consequential gaming and Role-play are given place to have—or not—an affect on the Environment. If small-form scenarios and storylines are offered, and different levels of complexity and consequence are offered, I think it really wouldn't matter if it happened in East District of the Gate, or Beregost, or Greenest, or Sshamath, or the Moonshaes or the Moon for that matter, it would honestly give a greater depth of experience of The Game.

Cheers.

These is some of the big points I can agree with.

I think the main plots of the server should revolve around the cause and effect of player actions honestly. And by that I mean all the players especially the players and their characters who put in the time, work and effort day in and day out to try and have their own place in the stories that occur. (Which also would be a great boon towards helping further player character's own stories and sub-plots themselves). All this of course while side plots continue DM driven stories that happen passively over time as new narratives and hooks for players to look into.

I agree that meta-plots are good but I don't think the DM's should dictate meta-plots based of a 6-12 month program because then they become too railroaded to try and keep the meta-plot on track for the 6-12 month program they set up. Meta-plots should be based off the server defining choices done by players that are achievable choices (Maybe even some minor things that seems out of reach from a normal high CR leveled player based purely off the luck of the dice and their skill rolls) and have things come up as players take their own actions both good or bad.

This is just my two cents because ive had friends who decided to give the server a try, they get invested in the server, the community and their characters just to either realized they themselves can't change or alter the story in any way or are just completely thrown under the bus in terms of character progression because DM's won't assist them due to trying to play something un-orthadox or not following a specific preset understanding to how a class, deity, race, or alignment is -normally- played even though they have the lore and links to back it up.

[Legofsalmon]

I loved the way things were done this year as Wade said and I am super stoked the DM team is looking for feedback on what people want to play and look for inspiration!

Things to keep the same

The focus on inclusivity BUT with the ability for PCs to be in positions of responsibility/involvement with the DM plot so they can help organize other players and fill them in on events, I think this helps everyone feel valued and involved when well done as long as those players aren't too insular or too selective with their roleplay.

Having a central hub or area for the plot. This really helps to build belief and attachment to the plot

Lovely people doing lovely roleplay things

Things to possibly change

Instead of one super plot, perhaps splitting it into two? I feel like too many plots would make it feel less meaningful, but two would be a good medium. Running a super long plot means that people that don't enjoy it / can't be involved feel like they miss out and there is a sort of "dead time" between plots where people and DMS feel they just need to recuperate, splitting it into two might help with this.

The stakes and the source of the intrigue. The war plot was pretty great narratively, allowing us to explore what a long drawn out war that's difficult to resolve would be like (apparently lots of frantic stressed adventurers). Also, I feel like conflict and powerful enemies are a staple of DnD but is it possible to have the feeling of consequences without such large threats? Perhaps a different way of doing things would be presented more of an "opportunity" to be capitalized on by factions and players? New land, a new resource perhaps, a new dimension or plane to explore? Something lighter might be a nice palate cleanser for the DMs and Players alike where nobody feels overly responsible for anything catastrophic.

[Omega07]

Ill have been wait for years for Iron Throne.

Bring the Iron Throne boys in. Oh man, Get it heated. Even if its just a precursor. Seriously DM's that would be so FUN.

[Lockonnow]

Omega07 you all most fun

[K'yon Oblodra]

I gotta say a lot of good things were already said.

My personal preference is usually rather smaller events over large scale stuff.

I wanted to add that I believe the UD would love to see some more attention.

I don't want anyone to take this as a UD vs Surface thing it is really not meant as that.

I think the UD has struggled hard with player counts for the longest time so I understand there might have been not the most DM coverage.

Honestly I can not even complain myself cause so far I've been relatively lucky. During the recruitment phase and after the dropping out of several DMs it was a little more quiet but that is just to be expected.

The main thing I wanted to say, excuse my blabbering XD, was actually that the UD is currently more active than I have ever seen.

A couple months ago I had wanted to start an event to kill a demon and had chosen the target to be the balor on the surface.

It took me 2 months back then to kill it with a rag tag band of barely 5 people with a couple of quite low levels mixed in in desperation.

Now if I wanted to do this right now I could get more people together basically everyday.

This weekend we actually had a player based event with 11-12 UDlers so yea things really changed for the better. We have a bunch of people that are really active and play on a nearly basis.

I just wanted to encourage the DM team to take a peak and spend some time with us, players actually as well.
I think we have a great bunch of quite dedicated people and I am sure anyone who will try will enjoy their stay.

Now I probably sound like a broken record but... For the cause XD.

Cheers K'yon