DM Bloodvine's Events

[DM Bloodvine]

My Goals as An ADM

Sparking creativity
If you have a creative idea that you think may work within and outside of a specified event you can try it. If you are unsure if it is possible within your skillset then you may ask me first. I believe it is everyone's job to encourage the imagination of one another, DM and player's alike

Enhance feelings that players roleplayed efforts have an impact on others and the server
I know just how much thought and care much of our player base and our DM team put into their characters and stories, as such I want to encourage you to take roleplay that I bring to you and run with it as far as you can. Likewise, I will do my best to do the same with your endeavors.

Increase Immersion
I will strive for realism and a sense of consequence both good and positive. I will absolutely offer you long-lasting repercussions for your character if the situation dictates, I will always make these optional and you are well within your rights to decline these opportunities and will in no way be punished for it if you choose not to partake. Also please keep OOC banter to a minimum, anything OOC that can be handled in tells should be handled in tells

Make the world feel more alive
If you feel something of significance has occurred because of player actions free to message me and I can adjudicate such actions. Similarly, the vines are always watching so do not be surprised if the world responds to your actions.

Caveats

Participation and opportunity
I hope to engage player's of all backgrounds, goals, skillsets and timezones.I hope you will do your absolute best to include and not exclude others from enjoying the content that we share and create together. I hope to increase the levels of collaborative storytelling. Not everyone is able to attend DM events, and often people feel they are unable to get involved, this can lead to frustration and decline in the health of our server. I am all for being able to help shape and be involved with your PC's backstories or to let them be the hero of a plot, but I will respond far more favorably if you go out of your way to include other players in a seamless and character appropriate way. Whether you are evil and just hire some muscle to come along, or if your character has met another character that would be a perfect fit for the content we are exploring please do involve them.

Respect
I do not tolerate passive-aggressive or OOC hostilities, bullying or diverting the attention away from the story and fun we are creating together. It is my goal for everyone to enjoy the roleplay that I am apart of, if there are issues they can be dealt with after the scenes have finished. I am very open-minded and understanding to any concerns you may have but keeping things seamless and positive is of upmost important to everyone involved


Other notes: I am completely new to DMing outside and inside of NWN2, please feel free to share your criticisms but be gentle with me. I try not to judge others too harshly, and maintain an open mind - I would ask that you do the same with me.

As I gain more experience I will update this post with more specific guidelines on what to expect from my events. For now, I just wanted to share with you all some of my thoughts and goals.

[Trinket]

Congratulations on becoming a DM! I hope to be a part of some of your future events going forward. Your goals resonate a lot with what I look for in RP, and as part of this server I'm very excited to see what you come up with!

[Sirityl]

Thank you for the Roleplaying experience in the Hilltop Ruins, I will be writing up a Forum RP here shortly!

Thanks again!

Sirityl (AKA Tali)

[DM Bloodvine]

Trust and Communication.

There have been a couple of instances (not necessarily within my events or to me personally, you are all wonderful) where there has been a distrust of a DM or a DM's direction. Please remember that often there are things that you, as a player and indeed as a character are not aware of and I would encourage you to take the golden rule of collaborative storytelling and improv to say "yes, and" and not "no, but". I'll provide some hyperbolic examples, these are all fictional and not at all based on anything that's happened, so don't worry.

Example 1 is to do with the storytelling element and assumptions made OOC.
A group of eight players stumble upon a group of Angels and Balors fighting together.

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Player a's thoughts: "Wow this DM Is a moron, balors and good-aligned planetars don't work together, they clearly don't know what they're doing, my immersion is ruined. I'm removing myself from the situation because I'm angry and disagree with this. I will also make sure to make my frustration known to everyone!!!!"

Player b's thoughts: "How would my character to react to this, how can I try and make sense of what's going on. Maybe I could roll a Lore: Planes check to see if I know anything about this. Is my character intelligent enough to think this through.. Hmm maybe they're just bloodthirsty and would enjoy watching this brutal battle as a follower of Tempus."

Even if the DM had made a mistake it is more fun to follow through and at the end of the event give them some constructive feedback, whilst reminding them what parts they enjoyed. Please treat each other the same as if you were playing a game at a table with friends. Likely though, there are often things you might be making assumptions on. I guarantee you will have more fun rolling with the plot as well.

Example 2 is to do with OOC concerns about the DM's sense of judgment or their character
During a DM event, only one of the characters experiences some kind of loss, loss of reputation, loss of influence, loss of mutually agreed upon power, skill, health, abilities, or a general feeling of failure.

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Player a's thoughts: Well I guess that's it now, I have to just go with this because the DM said so, I don't like it because secretly I want to win at everything, also that player b in the event I don't like got a positive outcome, that's not fair.

Player b's thoughts: Well, there was no real challenge or risk involved in this event. I might as well go and help Tommy Shackles with his missing key for the eighteenth time, to make it worse, player a got an actual RP hook off this. That's not fair

Player c's thoughts: Huh, what an interesting turn of events. My character didn't get to be the focus today, I think also the DM might have misunderstood my intent for this character but it's cool I will just message them and let them know. They're not gonna shout at me or anything.

Player a and player b are both frustrated, different people respond to RP in completely different ways, and have different goals and stories they want to tell with their characters, either way they both would leave the situation feeling unhappy and likely not reach out to communicate with the DM afterward.

In player a's case, perhaps "losing" or being "bested" is a great opportunity for you to go away and have motivation towards something. To come up with some great plans, some great roleplay and plot your rise back to where you want to be.

In player b's case, perhaps the DM read that they would be uncomfortable with any kind of consequence, or they just thought player b handled the situations perfectly and success is the -reward- for their appropriate creative response, and that placing consequences after that would feel like they were railroaded and their decisions don't matter. Again, communication would solve these concerns.

I want you all to have a good time, and the easiest way to have a good time is to be exceptionally understanding and trusting towards each other players and your DMs. Also, it means having good communication with each other, making assumptions about things can be very damaging to this collaboration. If you think something was overlooked, question them but don't assume. If you have a query or a concern please reach out to me. You are not going to be penalized in any way. As long as you express it constructively and present yourself clearly there is no harm. For those that continue to hold this standard, I applaud you all, it can be difficult when we are all frustrated or feel misunderstood.

[Almarea90]

I'm not sure if I should put this here but if it's not the right place, please move my post somewhere else or delete it.

I don't often take part in those type of discussion but this time I wanted to express my opinion, if anything because it is important to express satisfaction when someone is putting effort and passion in DMing.
I've never been a DM myself but I can easily imagine this is a very hard task as the community is quite big, we are all different and it's nearly impossible to make every single person happy. Regardless, a DM setting up a plot is making an effort in building something and this, as such, I appreciate.

Now, in regards to point one it is true that the more a scenario is hard to believe, the higher the effort in storytelling is to create something believable when the story unravels, however deeming it as a nonsense right from the start, in my opinion isn't going to do any good. I would personally create my own headcanon IC, as farfetched as it could be, and try to rationally explain what is happening.

In regards to the second point about an event outcome or a possible misinterpretation of an intent, we all can make mistakes especially because nobody can possibly know a character better than the person who created it. However, in my opinion, if a DM goes the extra mile to read a character's background and to study their personality this should be commended even if some details might not be exactly as expected.
About the consequences, this is very personal as some players might be comfortable with long term consequences and others might be not so I would rather not discuss this point.
All I can say is that I have been more than happy with the consequences my character had and in the whole year I've been playing here no event has shaken my character's foundations, choices and behavior as much as this one. It is causing an important evolution in her personality and rapports with other characters and the best part is that I have no idea where this is going to, so at this moment in time anything can happen.

Sorry for the wall of text, but just to summarize my thoughts: a large well done and keep up with the good work.

[balthus]

I not sure either if i should post here, you can move the post also.

I have been playing on the server for a little more than a month now and has been great, i did played with other group 6 years ago and was great there also, so the server kept his goal, i have to thanks all the DMs for the hard work and for the time they spend helping the players, specialilly DM Bloovine, that has been said.

DM Bloovine took the time to help a small group, the weary wanderers to accomplish they first event and was great, took speacially the time to read all theirs backgrounds and come up with a great idea, what we thought would be a simple event, had a great twist and i must say did changed the IC of many characters there and that is good that shape the world and make things interesting.

Do a event it is hard and players are unpredictable and the DM should know how to adapt to the situation as in a pen and paper rpg, and DM Bloodvine did a wonderfull work on this line, sure mistakes are made but we as players should look for the effort and even if the plot dont make sense at the time we must trust and wait to the end.

In my opnion if you dislike something you should talk for sure, give a constructive critism if you must and let it go, and be honest RPG is a open book even in DnD nothing is set on stone and everything can happen let the DM do their job as a DM and create a great storyline, adapt and have fun.

[Sirityl]

I am linking this here:

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=72953

it is the write up of the event that I had with bloodvine.