Make (canon) Guilds great again!!

[Storm Munin]

With all respect Deathgrowl, if you think back a few year I am confident you can see the lie in your statement above. If not the server lore section may educate you on what unfortunate series of events I was refering to.

I have no idea of what ill deeds, if any, are being performed currently. I hope none are.
What I did however was suggest a few policies in moving on.
Did those itch that much?

/M

[Deathgrowl]

I don't think it's fair for you to hold the current DM team responsible for what the team "a few years ago" did. I don't know how "few years" you mean, but the currently longest serving DM apart from Wagner is HDM Boo, and after that it is Dialectic and myself (although I had a long hiatus).

What guild was lost to favouritism a few years ago? Answer in PM, perhaps, if you feel it isn't for the public forums.

[Wolfrayne]

I have been part of both focal and non focal guilds and to be honest i don't think a DM presence really makes that much of a difference. Sure having DM events to a guild is great, but as someone who has always played on the quiet time (GMT +8..) i have found that i could not rely on any DM event to actually make RP happen. In the end i think what every guild really needs is a long term goal to work towards with lots of little "Plots" to achieve it.

Even if all you do is set a goal for example that "hey in 6 months the guild is going to do X and we need to do y & Z over a period to get there" Maybe throw in a DM event or even just DM help for the flashy stuff but all in all it should be on the leaders to further the goals of their faction.

[Storm Munin]

+1

Thats how the UD guilds usually ran before things got somewhat improved DMwise down there.
Players both above and below still do this, thankfully.


@Deathgrowl you have a PM, I've said my piece over the past in this thread.

/M

[Steve]

I sometimes wonder if there "should" be things that only a Guild/Faction can accomplish, and those things—fill in the blank—are actually pretty cool things, better than a +5 Longsword of Gnome Death. Hi Chambo!

Would that steer new/old players toward Guilds?

Everyone likes a bit of DM attention, but, we vets of the Server know that getting things done and creating RP without reliance on DMs, is the optimal way to go about it—players are just more reliable! lol. Just kidding DMs, but yeah...kinda true.

Anyway, just to through out an idea, would Players be more into joining Guilds, if they new the DMs, as a group, had a mandate to forward Guild RP and weave Guild RP into both individual DM events, as well but especially, Server Wide Campaigns?

I'm personally enjoying the smaller stories and events kinda role-play at the moment, but I also personally like the idea that putting into a Guild or Faction increases my chances of having that Guild/faction leave a lasting effect on the Environment. And I mean this literally. Though, I do feel it is a bit unlikely to happen.

[Cult of the Dragon]

I ran this guild concept by the DMs for their feedback prior to creating it and making the thread public. I think their support goes a long way to both the success and fun of the guild.

[Glowfire]

I ran this guild concept by the DMs for their feedback prior to creating it and making the thread public. I think their support goes a long way to both the success and fun of the guild.

...wait, so this is a new Cult of the Dragon? Cult of the Dragon has been on the server for years but been very discreet and quiet. I could maybe name 4-5 characters who I've known have been members.

[Cult of the Dragon]

I ran this guild concept by the DMs for their feedback prior to creating it and making the thread public. I think their support goes a long way to both the success and fun of the guild.

...wait, so this is a new Cult of the Dragon? Cult of the Dragon has been on the server for years but been very discreet and quiet. I could maybe name 4-5 characters who I've known have been members.

The Cult has existed for quite some time but has been quite dormant as of late. Consider this a resurrection of its plots and members - a guild that's achieved Lichdom!

[Glowfire]

Neat. Hope the resurrections works out well for you guys

[Jepop]

Well Steve, these guidelines might help?


Ban DMs and Admins who favor their player friends latest fancy over the lore and/or willfully harm existing guilds.
Ban DMs and Admins who willfully and intentionally act with disregard & discrimination against existing guilds/players.

Currently we do not, currently if a DM screws a guild or player over in favor of another guild/friends it is deemed official server lore.
At least one guild was partially lost that way, and we still have players on the server that no longer trust any DM.

/M

+100!

[Steve]

I hope that we can NOT turn this thread into a DM bashing outlet. I mean, sure, we all have had a share of "good" DMing and "bad" DMing—notice I do not say the DMs are good or bad!—but I'm with DG in that we the players can do better than focus on the past experiences and both ask and work towards ACTUALLY what we want...if that is something from the DMs, regarding Guilds/Factions.

Simply put: I think Players kinda have to do 80% of the investment in a Guild, where a DM can do the 20%. That 20% however is absolutely crucial for a Guild/Faction!!

In the past, Guilds and/or Factions have played a larger, more prevalent Role in the Server, and I think BGTSCC is better off if we all return to this. It also makes a boat load of sense, that instead of a thousand Characters that can solo everything, are 1-woman armies and are richer than Waukeen, Guild-based RP should become as powerful, in a sense, as any other canon organization. That would be great.

Right?

[Touri]

Seriously.

I could go on, but I think you all know what I mean. How about it? What could be done to work this out for BGTSCC?

Go online and join one of the guilds or create a new one. Be very active. Spam the DMs with your rp, questions and ideas for events and don't be disappointed, if it takes some time or you get ignored. Better stay with one toon. (Most players unfortunatly quickly loose the fun and try out something else. Often it is just because they realize that the build they made isn't that great compared to the powerbuilds around. That doesn't help any guild.) If you don't get the initiative who else will do? Sometimes the guild leader does, but without the backup from the guild members there won't be much happening at all.
I lead a a guild for more then 3 years now. In my opinion most players await too much and then they are disappointed that they don't get events or guild entertainment on a silver plate. It is up to you as players to create your fun. Don't wait for the DM or another player to do it. Go and get it yourself.

I often send minutes to the DM Team to inform them of what we plan to do and what we care about in our regulary meetings. But for sure if I write, "Our rangers will scout the Cloakwood and look for anything strange", not much will happen. But if maybe three members back it up and send screensshots and detailed rp stories of them scouting the Cloakwood, maybe the DM will get back to the guild with some information or even an event.
Unfortunatly most players are pretty lazy or have only a few hours for this game and so often things get lost. All in all it is mostly only a hand full of players that activily push their guild and keep it alive. Also these players are often members of other guilds too. There are simply not enough players around in my opinion to keep all guilds active all the time. Often it is only one very active player and if he/she takes a break or quits the guilds are left back in inactivity as those who just hung around leave too. My first non canon guild died after the leader left the server. The left players didn't have the time and will to take it over.

[Zyx]

Seriously.

I could go on, but I think you all know what I mean. How about it? What could be done to work this out for BGTSCC?

*snip*

Unfortunatly most players are pretty lazy or have only a few hours for this game and so often things get lost.

I disagree with this statement. I believe most players are now adults and value their free time. Years ago before people started hitting their late twenties and thirties there was plenty of time to write short stories by yourself and send it out to the internet with the hope someone responded. If it failed you continued to do so time and time again.

Taking a note from the common courtesy thread it seems the goal is both staff and players treating someone with respect. Yes everyone's time is limited, however I believe it would go a long way for in your example of someone sending out a short message to hear a response back. I cannot speak for anyone else, but is quite annoying to be ignored.

So lets say I write a short message. Hi I noticed on the board you mentioned these are the ways to gain influence with NPCs. I would like to do that by doing X, Y, and Z. I would like for my character's actions to actually have an affect. Now to be fair a DM cannot drop everything to run a 1 on 1 scene for me (though a quick PM and doing some rolls and feeding some plot foo which can turn into me RPing on the grid spreading the information (or mis information for a larger plot would be fun) however if several players are sending in a message about doing X. Then there is interest in X and a member of staff might post a time and make a one shot plot so players can meet and do X with some hooks to do X with one another in the future.

Otherwise I am going to take all my small short stories of RPing with myself via journal entities and combine them and make a free kindle eBook. My reviews may be all you suck, however at least I will know someone read what I spent time working on. And that is the key point. Today I believe people value their time more. There is the desire to see time spent doing something rewarded. Simply acknowledging players with a quick response (even a hi I saw this, I cannot take action right now would go a long way.)

[chad878262]

The DMs don't fail to respond out of rudeness or lack of respect. How many PM's do you think get sent to the DM Team? And for any group it is difficult to remember if someone else responded or not. Simply put, if something is important to you, whether it is getting approval for a PRC requiring it from the DMs, setting up an event, or just getting a question answered then be patient and persistent. If you don't get a response after a week, go in to your sent folder and forward it back to them with a gentle nudge. Sometimes it may take 3 or even 4 PM's (3 or 4 weeks), but eventually you will get a response. Simply put there are likely ~100+ players actively trying to get DM attention for one reason or another at any given time and we don't have 100 DM's, nor does staff have a good way to track/monitor requests as they come in. The forums are not exactly best used as a Tickler system and tools are a major part of the ability to do any job.

As Steve said earlier I hope this is not turning in to a 'lay everything on the DMs' thread because that would be a damn shame. They work hard to help bring the server to life giving up the time they have that they could otherwise be playing in game. They absolutely should respond to every PM and I believe they try to, but there are likely a lot of PMs and some are bound to get lost in the shuffle of multiple DMs trying to figure out which PMs have responses and which don't.

Maybe we need a "Executive Assistant to the DM Team" role with the sole responsibility of tracking all of the requests that come through, assigning them to the appropriate DM or group of DMs and then tracking which are responded to and which are outstanding. I would not last in such a position for a full day, but maybe someone else would be able to handle it well enough.

[Asmodea]

Quick note while I work: I can say from personal experience the DM team almost always responded in timely fashion to a request from Candlekeep as a guild. I don't think it is fair to put blame on the DM team in that regard.