Update on Open question to team evil/morally questionable

[DM SummerBreeze]

There's no way DMs will catch your IG role-play. Even if they devoted their entire DMing time to this, and only this, they would still miss a lot of it. The need for documentation is always going to be there, there's no going around that.

More like document then wait around for approval of said actions.

How do you propose NPCs and the world in general react in any way with depth and meaning without a DM puppeteering them?

I don't think it is really as important as you think it is, I'm sorry but PC>NPC's. NPC's and the world in general don't react in any way or depth for most RP that takes place on the server. Which is why I say there are two things you can do without DM supervision, which is grind, or interact with other players. That is like 90% of the RP that takes place, the other 10% is a combination of forum RP and waiting around for said forum RP to get the DM stamp of approval.

But ill get down to my proposal, how about this instead of implicit denial of actions until approved by a DM we have implicit approval by a DM unless otherwise stated. This would greatly reduce the amount of work that a DM has to do. So instead of sitting around waiting for a DM, I could just do my thing, record it, post it. If its egregious DM can say no. Or hold on, I need to control an NPC for this.

I mean, we opened up the City Watch for players to play in, to make the world and city feel more "alive" instead of just NPC's. But we never got much interest in it from players.

Also, what actions exactly is it that are explicitly denied by DM's until approved that you are needing to do? As far as I am aware, anything is really permitted outside of metagaming the guards ect as long as its within the power and character sheet of your character and isnt actively disruptive to other players in an OOC sort of way.


To be frank, this thread just seems like a circle-jerk of complaining without any real suggestions or solutions to anything. The tools we have with NWN2 being so old, and this forum and other tools being old, limits what we can realistically do as DM's. We can't be online all the time watching everything players do, if nobody posts, nobody makes a note of it anywhere, we dont know what happened.

As an aside suggestion from my end, would perhaps me taking the time to revamp the DM Screen Discord, to allow for perhaps new ways of communication there in real time help? Thats technically on me, that discord, and I'd be willing to use that to further this cause, but not every DM uses it.

[Steve]

To be frank, this thread just seems like a circle-jerk of complaining without any real suggestions or solutions to anything.

This part of your post makes me think you actually didn't take the time to read the thread.

[DaloLorn]

In SB's defense, the good bits are buried under a fair amount of complaints, mine included. (My complaints, I mean, not good bits. I do think they're good complaints, but they're still complaints. )

[BloodRiot]

And that to me says the thread is mostly being glossed over if that is the case, even if it is understandably so.

This conversation is in fact happening server wide and across many channels and threads.
A recent conversation in Underdark discord, which is currently and after Winter's retirement, lacking DM presence in an official capacity.
Tekill's thread viewtopic.php?f=10&t=80134 "Restructure or Status Quo"
This thread itself being the latest of a recurring theme.
And Ghost announcement of DM burnout and new call to DM applications

Like it or not these are all connected.
I am taking a guess here that the ticket system has far more messages coming in than the DMs can currently adequately provide a response to. I gave my opinion on this in Tekills thread and while very different (and perhaps more exhaustive than Ghola's) they both, at the very core, touch on the same principle that the system is highly inefficient to the point of being unfit for purpose. I am also taking a wild guess this process contributes at least in part to the DM burnout.

I would again take a guess that most players, regardless of which "team alignment" they are closer to, prefer to have a nice adventure from a DM than see DMs as sort of government border control officials from Papers Please, just looking at requests and stamping them Yay or Nay.

So in conclusion, there is much more than just complaining, rightly or not. There aare in fact common themes suggested and all of them are "more player self governing" "less DM bottlenecking solutions" and overall wanting DMs to actually be running active adventures are you are supposed to in D&D. NPCs are important to the world sure, but never forget the PCs should be your stars of your stories and shouldn't be playing second fiddle or worse even, audience.

[DM SummerBreeze]

To be frank, this thread just seems like a circle-jerk of complaining without any real suggestions or solutions to anything.

This part of your post makes me think you actually didn't take the time to read the thread.

Its so many pages long its impossible to keep up with at this point

Theres -a lot- of complaining in here, and a few bits of useful stuff in between it all.

[DM SummerBreeze]

And that to me says the thread is mostly being glossed over if that is the case, even if it is understandably so.

This conversation is in fact happening server wide and across many channels and threads.
A recent conversation in Underdark discord, which is currently and after Winter's retirement, lacking DM presence in an official capacity.
Tekill's thread viewtopic.php?f=10&t=80134 "Restructure or Status Quo"
This thread itself being the latest of a recurring theme.
And Ghost announcement of DM burnout and new call to DM applications

Like it or not these are all connected.
I am taking a guess here that the ticket system has far more messages coming in than the DMs can currently adequately provide a response to. I gave my opinion on this in Tekills thread and while very different (and perhaps more exhaustive than Ghola's) they both, at the very core, touch on the same principle that the system is highly inefficient to the point of being unfit for purpose. I am also taking a wild guess this process contributes at least in part to the DM burnout.

I would again take a guess that most players, regardless of which "team alignment" they are closer to, prefer to have a nice adventure from a DM than see DMs as sort of government border control officials from Papers Please, just looking at requests and stamping them Yay or Nay.

So in conclusion, there is much more than just complaining, rightly or not. There aare in fact common themes suggested and all of them are "more player self governing" "less DM bottlenecking solutions" and overall wanting DMs to actually be running active adventures are you are supposed to in D&D. NPCs are important to the world sure, but never forget the PCs should be your stars of your stories and shouldn't be playing second fiddle or worse even, audience.

I still want to know exactly what it is DM's are bottle necking that you actually cant just go ahead and do? Aside from god modding NPC's, "blowing up baldurs gate" or what have you.

To be honest, we have very few requests DM side that I would say are requests to be impactful to the world. If we dont see it/cant see it, how do we, as DM's, even know if its happening?

I cant think of a recent instance where we were sent an impactful request that we didn't action on and allow the players to fulfill the outcome on. The war with Auril being a recent example of this.

[AsuraKing]

I mean, we opened up the City Watch for players to play in, to make the world and city feel more "alive" instead of just NPC's. But we never got much interest in it from players.

The opening of the City Watch was a nice first step, though to be honest it doesnt exactly accomplish anything. What I mean by that is City Watch PCs are not allowed to really do anything a City Watchman should, instead they're only allowed to report activities as they cant enforce the laws at all (this is stated in the City Watch post) so it makes playing a City Watchman feel quite awkward. Rather than feeling like you're playing as a proper Watchman, you end up feeling like you're playing.. for lack of a better word.. a snitch in a uniform. I had a watchmen for a brief time, and honestly it felt quite awkward to play.

[GholaMan]

Alright Summerbreeze, I'll try and rephrase this. Don't read this as me being combative, I genuinely believe the way BG has their DM's do everything is inefficient. So I'll use myself as an example, maybe then my suggestion will make more sense. Because my proposal was not made out of jest, or to be a jerk or something like that.

One of my oldest characters, and the one I have spent the most time on the server with Qualn'riia Sshamath. House Sshamath has an NPC matron who is on the conclave, but my character is essentially the right hand of a member of the conclave. Which in the power structure of Sshmath gives my PC quite a lot of power on paper. For example say I wanted to organize the forces of house Sshamath to just raid nearby settlements for slaves or just to assert dominance just because. But in reality it works more like this: "Well I want to make a plot happen for the house, I want to go have the house go raid the nearby settlement of X group. That group being a grind zone." How the system currently works is that I need to put in a DM request in order to do that. How I think would be better for the server is that I gather the lads and say we went and enslaved some goblins/troglodytes/ogres whatever. Now the story is moving, of course DM's are free to interact with the story if they want, but we are also free to do whatever we want. This is just a summary, and I am basing this off of things that I attempted to do with the help of DM Winter when he was a DM.

Keep in mind this was in no way the specific fault of any one DM or player, but the simple "Lets go get some NPC slaves for the house" a very drow thing to do btw, never came to fruition. The request was approved after 3 weeks of it being put in, and by that time shit happened in peoples lives that prevented us from ever doing the event sadly. And then Winter stopped DMing presumably because he got burned out and is overworked as a DM. I say presumably because I don't know the actual reason.

But keep in mind this is how the system is designed to function. I want to interact with NPC's in my own faction, well better put in a DM request for that. Hey wanna go pick on some goblins, DM request, want to have my faction trade within Sshamath, you guessed it, DM request. If I have to do all those things through a DM it is not rocket science as to why it takes so long for anything to get done DM side. The issues of DM burnout isn't as complicated as it may seem when you look at it from a perspective like mine. Giving players freedom is not a bad thing, even if two groups of people come into conflict, let them resolve it, if they can't then you as a DM can step in. I think DM's need as much time as possible making stories, not having to put the stamp of approval from every possible action that could possible involve NPC's. Which is by the way, anything outside of interacting with other players or grinding.

Again this there are not combative statements, just an example of one of my experiences with moving plots and ideas forward. I would describe it as bureaucratic, ponderous, slow, suite and tie, business like, paperwork, militaristic. And I get that the DM's here believe that the system of requests is a necessity, but I think doing the opposite of what we are doing now would free up everyone's time and effort to actually get things done instead of endlessly waiting.

[GholaMan]

I still want to know exactly what it is DM's are bottle necking that you actually cant just go ahead and do? Aside from god modding NPC's, "blowing up baldurs gate" or what have you.

To be honest, we have very few requests DM side that I would say are requests to be impactful to the world. If we dont see it/cant see it, how do we, as DM's, even know if its happening?

I cant think of a recent instance where we were sent an impactful request that we didn't action on and allow the players to fulfill the outcome on. The war with Auril being a recent example of this.

God modding NPC's includes characters dictating outcomes for NPC's in their own factions.

[Louvaine]

I was hoping that this thread would be more about sharing experiences, expectations and ambitions the players of particular niche (evil, morally grey) have. The initial post had questions. I'm not going to list them, we're all capable of reading back. It didn't ask for solutions.

While I can't speak for Wolfshear, creator of the first thread and the person I quoted when creating this thread, I started the conversation to generate conversation about experiences so far and both expectations and aspirations for future. To generate reflection. To provoke thought.

I'm not a DM, or even Staff, so it would be very arrogant of me to assume that DMs and Staff at large are actively looking for ideas listed on public forums. We, the players, were not asked for our ideas. We were not asked for tips and guides how to play each other's characters. We were not asked to bicker about who has it worse or if we should be using 'team' alongside alignment. We were asked to share our experience as it is and what we would potentially want it to be. Speaking of such things welcomes thought and reflection. It helps to realise that everyone has their own struggles. Even to a point where a leader of a community, JustAnotherGuy, felt it was appropriate to talk about experiences and challenges more aligned with what his community might deal with day to day.

I know that things tend to go off topic and we sometimes just want to clear up something said, for whatever reason. It's not a big deal. We all seen moderators were vigilant and helpful.

What I think is a big deal is conversations such as these being called circle-jerk of complaining. What it tells me is that perhaps there is no reflection born by hearing player experience. Seeing responses encouraging silence is not encouraging to put heart and elbow grease into making the gameplay fun for everyone going forward. I don't mean to single anyone out, I hate it when some of us take apart posts and comment on them sentence by sentence. I'm not going to claim to have answers to problems. I don't think players should be the ones starting such a conversation, or that it should be such a wild free for all.

I would like to see more of acknowledging each other's feelings and valuing that we might all have something to say. To see reflection before I see redirection.

As previously touched by Ghost's reassurance and guidance, I have decided to keep trying. You will see me around Soubar, Underdark and close to Sharrans. Thank you for listening to me and taking the time to consider my feelings on the matter, I will gladly listen to you too. I will gladly consider your feelings and your experiences on the matter, and I hope that each of you will feel valued in our community.

[mrm3ntalist]

Is this the thread where everyone checks in a couple of years or so? Checking in...

Yes!

[Aspect of Sorrow]

[...]
I'm not going to list them, we're all capable of reading back. It didn't ask for solutions.
[...]
I started the conversation to generate conversation about experiences so far and both expectations and aspirations for future. To generate reflection. To provoke thought.

Despite the other contradictory statements of your last entry, how do you feel those expectations and aspirations, so troubled as they presently are, will be met without solutions being discussed? Reflection should include insight that was clearly missing in a number of previous submissions and rather than constructively understanding how the community has gotten to a point in time you took a more defensive stance - a problem not born from implication. There is numerous threads about community and server improvement from a high level approach but rarely does it drop the training wheels and start into actionable task, we need fewer scattershot efforts and more tangible ones; especially as players are regularly in communication with staff on most levels, especially the DM team. No one is here invalidating how you feel in your experience, but you should also strive to not wallow in it for self-victimization due to a difference in opinion.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

"less DM bottlenecking solutions"

The most egregious of this would be due to the server rules I imagine, for the Underdark, but I don't know of other bottlenecking instances. Do you have any examples?

[Ghost]

(...)

So then comes a DM and throws some kind of plot and you can just claim that your house has in the last 6 months gathered 3000 slaves that are useful for this plot? Shall we just accept that happening? You may consider this a facetious example, but what about 500? What about 200? Where do we draw the line here?

And what would this actually look like in-game? Like you say you want something to do ingame other than grinding and interacting with other players (I'm personallyu thoroughly confused by this latter one). So what would you actually be doing in this case? There's no mechanical systems in place for this kind of thing and either way the criticism that is being levied here is one about rules, not mechanical systems.

So exactly what would you instead be doing ingame that you cannot currently do due to rules?

We also hear a lot about people hating having to use the forums. Personally I think the forums are great: They invite a more long-form, thought out style of writing that is good for storytelling, than something like Discord. And they provide a good means for record-keeping and the tools needed to search through those records with some precision. So related to the above, then, should the onus be on the players to record these slave-gatherings when they are done and then the DMs just have to read through every post from every faction, every player in order to ensure things aren't exploding way out of proportion? Or, at least my greatest concern with it, cause extreme contradictions and mutually exclusive situations, as well as an assumption of auto-success in all mid-scale efforts.

All in all, I am just failing to visualise what you're actually suggesting this would look like in practice.

[Rain]

(...)

And what would this actually look like in-game? Like you say you want something to do ingame other than grinding and interacting with other players (I'm personallyu thoroughly confused by this latter one). So what would you actually be doing in this case? There's no mechanical systems in place for this kind of thing and either way the criticism that is being levied here is one about rules, not mechanical systems.

While technically true for BGTSCC, there have been 2 other server with less staff and less resources that have made functioning faction systems that also utilized a henchmen formula to indicate strength and number IG. A system that would also ping players of mobilized forces depending on distance. And a border system that pinged players if henchmen enter their factions borders.

Aside from this, not saying you need to have these systems here but they are systems that have been done before.

In terms of Gholaman’s post: Taking charge of NPC’s under your own command should not be classified as god-modding yet it is. It’s one of the reason Dreadlords of Darkhold were laughed at and not taken seriously by many.

What REALISTICALLY should happen is if the player F’s up and his forces suffer because of his mobilization order they should suffer massive leadership repercussions.
________

In terms of forum RP: I actually agree. Forum RP is great and is a very good system for people who enjoy showcasing their writing skills. I like it, and it’s one of the reasons playing an antagonist on the server was fun-ish consider IG RP was scarce.

What I don’t like about it is the fact that writing on the fourms does require a DM to react or stamp an approval on a post for that post to be considered -to have happened IG-. To of which currently DM’s pick abd choose the ones they like, leaving some to fall on deaf ears.

Sure you could say: DM’s don’t bottleneck RP on the fourms with approval stamps and everything is relevant unless explicitly denied by DM’s.

However there is a strong feedback element when a DM replies to your post vs getting no reply at all. It’s like a mentality booster that your writing the right thing vs the wrong thing.