Current DM Plots and Threads

[athornforyourheart]

Hello all,

I often don't create threads outside my parameter of Media and Content but after a conversation I overheard and eventually got involved in with some players in the nexus I decided I'd just create a thread here to hopefully give myself and other's more insight and query into what's actually happening in the server atm.

In the recent weeks I've noticed a few players have been taking hiatus' (to include myself) from the server. Some for health issues and RL pressing matters which is routine and understandable. Though from various conversations I've had with some players both active and inactive I found some repeating occurrences or questions or issues (for lack of a better word). I'll just try and list them without creating pages of reading.

DM Event Plot player posts and updates


When I log in, sometimes I just stand idle in the nexus as some may have noticed. Usually, I get tells and inquiries relating to media and updating content and suggestions. But now and again, some friends and players send a tell asking what's going on with certain plot lines. For some reason or another, I think some players believe me to have more insight on things in the server than I actually do. But the issues is not them asking me... the issue is I really have no idea.

Some players are newish so I try and go online and direct them to a particular place in the forums to get an update but I find it difficult to establish where exactly DM plots are being hosted. Granted, I know some DM's have recently updated their plots but I cant help but notice a majority of DM updates to plots are usually posted in the rumors section with the context of "something took place in (name of town) and bad things are afoot". As for how a rumor goes, this is completely valid as rumors will not be 100% to the facts as if someone was watching and was taking minutes.

Currently, from my own limited knowledge and as a semi active player, the current blg plots are?: (and in my own wording)

Vampires on the Coast: Recently updated with DM status. Might need a thread (explained below) but DM is constant and active
Werewolves on the Coast: Recently updated with DM status and written vague and as a rumor?
King Hewbert and the troll armies: Updated two months ago. Is he dead? Did we win/lose? Are we having toll babies now?
Dendar, event related to nightmares: Unsure of this has a thread. Some rumors I think are related. Players speak of it. Perhaps a closed event to certain players?

These are just the ones that come to mind. If there are other's that I missed, my apologies as I am not active as much.

In a conversation I recently had, I had stated a DM that I remember who used to create a thread dedicated to his current plot where he/she/theDM would update players with information related to their plot. The DM would then use this as follow up as players posted what they were doing in regards to the plot while they were offline. The Dm would also (on the 1st thread) update what's known knowledge and information publicly unlocked by players so no new player coming into the plot is sitting there wondering what the entire history of this plot is based off of. Much <3 DM Santana.

I feel having a proper thread created for players and DM's to update would cause less issues and prevent the following from occurring:

• **1 New players caught in a DM event plot have zero knowledge of whats going on and spend over half the event time just playing catch up with the common FAQ's of what is actually going on. This hinders the event and players are often having to reverse explain the entire plot down from the beginning. And this is only if the player is not busy interacting with the DM during the time of the actual event. Most just sideline and hope they can get involved.

• **2 Players who were in event 2/10 of the 10/10 series plot (as an example) were not involved in event 3/10 of the plot. Well 3/10 happened to reveal a lot of information and new players were involved which is great but now players where were in 2/10 are now joining the upcoming 4/10 plot. Well because 3/10 players have obtained your information and possibly more - what they had initially planned to do from the aftermath of 2/10 is now irrelevant. This is a common issue that I feel has happened to players in the past.

• **3 Players have been needing to set up updates to certain public plots via a private message with groups involved. While this isn't particularly a bad idea, it sort of shuns out those not involved or who at least may want to be. If there was a public thread Player X could then make a post that "Players X,Y,Z and Guild A and B had set up a secret meeting to plan their next course of action." with a ooc note at the bottom explaining ///DM XX - a private message has been sent. Else, the plot almost comes off as closed off to anyone but the initially involved.

Now the downside of this is Meta-gaming and meta knowledge for sure. Can players be responsible enough to be able to read the thread and take whats written as ooc knowledge UNLESS otherwise specified? The DM would need to state what's now known rumor and what is not. This, is an issue on its own and pretty much boils down to how players rp. Im saying this because I know it's not as simple as just create a thread and all is fixed.


Scheduling

I understand scheduling is hard for a lot of players especially now (insert uncertain times paraphrase from every commercial here). DM's are players as well so nothing is really different. They too have real lives, families, and beating hearts and therefore are not immune to illnesses, stress, and burnout. Scheduling is extremely hard with an world based online presence than pnp which is an obvious given. I feel there is no definitive fix for this but if any DM is able to post ahead of time a definite time they will be online to continue their plot, players involved will more likely arrange their schedule to meet it (if able). This is something I've also heard mentioned a time of two between other players.

If a DM decides to randomly log in and move his plot line forward that's totally understandable too because sometimes we get a few hours to squeeze in some gaming. Having a thread created where then this event happened can be posted on can help let others know rumor of what occurred so other players aren't picking up the pieces trying to figure out what spontaneously happened. See **1 and **2 above.

All in all, public DM announcements would be extremely helpful for those who don't have time to guess when the popular time to be online is so they can play with their DMs.

Roleplay acknowledgement and reward

The last issue I wanted to cover was some players going out of their way to RP dungeon crawls and player group meetings to research and establish ways to move forward on some DM plots. Taking multiple screenshots of their activity in groups and researching in Candlekeep or libraries only to have a DM say "Nope, you learned nothing." Nothing makes a players worth, motivation, and player to server moral more degraded than this. Yes, this has happened on some occasions. Understandably, the DM might have a certain vision to his/her story or plot but just noping players without some incentive, acknowledgement, or reward for their work until they do what YOU want them to do is just railroading. It doesn't have to be an item or gold... could be sideline knowledge that the DM, as a creative, can find a way to put into the story. Doesn't hurt to give players a little bit of the power.

I am not attacking any one DM or another. I am simply stating it how players have mentioned it in chats and other forums. I am simple choosing to voice what I have asked them to voice if they feel strongly about it. For some, they admittedly feared backlash for being the ungrateful child.

I know this was more of a rant... and unsure if it should go to suggestions and threads, but its also a discussion as most things are. Understand that these are suggestions for improving the plot lines by DM from a player perspective. I had written down notes to formatting this post but I just got home and am swamped so I just decided to open the screen and type but for the most part, I think I got it down.

For players: DMing is a hard job to do. It's taxing on time, patience, brain-power, and did I say time? It's a lot of give and very little take. In saying this, I know some players who have never DM'd cannot fathom how hard it is until they are actually doing it... then when you do and retire, you never forget it. Its like a video game PTSD. This is not a thread to attack DM's. This is not a thread to harbor your stories of what you felt was mistreatment. This is a concern and suggestion thread I am writing in lieu of what I have been hearing from the channels and am attempting to address it. (Administrator, if you feel this is not a general discussion and more of a suggestion, please feel free to move the conversation thread there. I was just unsure).

Please refrain from putting on the white wig and going parliamentary in this thread. In other words, no arguments focused on one thing and vaguely off the topic. Please.

And for final... I am posting a video here that explains some things that might help some DM's. Some of it may be stuff they already know or practice. This is not meant to insult. I watch many online videos for bettering myself in pnp and not ashamed to admit it. This video touches on some topics for DMing. If you find it useful, all the better, if not, thank you for at least watching.



tl;dr: Creating threads for plots can help players track what's going on in the sword coast with possible plot hooks noted - other than vague rumors. Creating posts with updates to plot lines (if able) can help consolidate your active plot player-base and help decimate confusions. Lastly, acknowledging player activity to a DM plot could use a little more reward than just "thanks for trying". The last sentence sounds more harshly written, not my intend... but I hardly post rants and my brain is fried. Thank you all for taking the time to read and hopefully, discuss.

[DM SummerBreeze]

I already have an ongoing thread of my events, players/groups currently involved, all the rumours/common knowledge, and it is updated after every "major" event in the story. I post it openly in the public DM section of the forums for transparency purposes. I feel that this makes it as easy as possible to get involved with anything I am doing, I list my event rules, my common play times, and whats going on. I think a bit of "meta" knowledge is usable in order to squeek by and perhaps approach some of the people involved. I try to be as transparent as possible.

That being said, from DM side, when an event is consistent and gains popularity you end up with A LOT of PM's about it and it is difficult to always keep track of what plans it is people are making at any given time. If anyone has any ideas that make it easier to keep track of plans players are trying to get going, I am all ears. This is also the reason I created a DM centered Discord account for myself, it actually makes it easier for me personally when a person can just fire me discord messages about what they want to do, real time, and when they are available. Sometimes I can make it happen quickly if I am reached out to in this way, though that may not work for all DM's of course.

I was also considering creating a plot Discord channel as well, and then closing the channel and creating a new one for each large event I do, so that people can put in and discuss plans relating solely to said server-wide event or plot, in order to keep things a bit more contained. This also allows players to communicate openly with each other on what they are doing in an IC or OOC manner, and has immediate visibility from the DM or DM's that are running it.

This is a great thread and I look forward to seeing the ideas people come up with.

[DM VileThings]

My current events have mostly been picked up by one guild so their discussions, investigations and events tend to be detailed in their own threads. Although a few others are slowly being drawn in.

Beyond that I try to only have the rumours and tangential information of the events reach the forums through me unless something specific and impactful occurs. I am not fond of too much of a story being written by the DM though as we should more or less be guides to the story-making process.

I can see a thread specifically for an event chain being useful though, especially for people to see what is going on or available in their time zones. I don't know much about forum moderation though, so maybe if these threads could be curated by the DM running the sequence and shelved once the events are complete, you could avoid getting a muddled mess and ensure only the most relevant posts were easily accessible.

[Steve]

As once a DM and HDM on BGTSCC, and in general related to DMing, events and campaigns can easily gat out of hand. It is, imho, far more rewarding for both DM and Players to keep participant population to no more than 10, and when possible, group/faction(s)/guild(s) related.

This is far from promoting hidden or cliquey events/campaigns. It is about practicality and honestly, wisdom on what works and what doesn’t in this very limited mechanics CRPG version of D&D.

Obviously, we all win via better and more consistent communication. So any means in which to facilitate that, the better.

That said, however, Discord is not officially supported for RP and in-game, IC stuff. So perhaps what is suggested to happen on Discord should be created on these Forums (like has been in the past), like creating temporary Private Forums related to campaigns.

[Hoihe]

As once a DM and HDM on BGTSCC, and in general related to DMing, events and campaigns can easily gat out of hand. It is, imho, far more rewarding for both DM and Players to keep participant population to no more than 10, and when possible, group/faction(s)/guild(s) related.

This is far from promoting hidden or cliquey events/campaigns. It is about practicality and honestly, wisdom on what works and what doesn’t in this very limited mechanics CRPG version of D&D.

Obviously, we all win via better and more consistent communication. So any means in which to facilitate that, the better.

That said, however, Discord is not officially supported for RP and in-game, IC stuff. So perhaps what is suggested to happen on Discord should be created on these Forums (like has been in the past), like creating temporary Private Forums related to campaigns.

There was a time server updates were described on pretty much discord only. That was annoying for those who got discord banned for speaking out against grimderp.

[Ithilan]

There has been one prevailing issue with plots on BG for the 10 years I have been here. And that is how they are designed to exclude parties.

Rather than promote inclusion and setting a stage where random occurrences impact various players, it becomes a hunt about acquiring said plot for X group of players and holding on to it with dear life.

Which makes them unimmersive and unrealistic to me, how the Lich always waits for X player to be around before it strikes and his deadly and looming army, conveniently waits til 21 PM saturday to attack, when the majority of X guild is online.

It becomes less about story telling and adventure and more about writing a fiction for a few select people to flaunt their achievements and boast to others how important their characters are.

While privately assaulting people for playing concepts they do not approve of and claiming monopoly on their concepts, plots and having any kind of relevance or significance for the servers narrative.

This has been the case since and still is today.

[Snarfy]

There has been one prevailing issue with plots on BG for the 10 years I have been here. And that is how they are designed to exclude parties.

Rather than promote inclusion and setting a stage where random occurrences impact various players, it becomes a hunt about acquiring said plot for X group of players and holding on to it with dear life.

Which makes them unimmersive and unrealistic to me, how the Lich always waits for X player to be around before it strikes and his deadly and looming army, conveniently waits til 21 PM saturday to attack, when the majority of X guild is online.

It becomes less about story telling and adventure and more about writing a fiction for a few select people to flaunt their achievements and boast to others how important their characters are.

While privately assaulting people for playing concepts they do not approve of and claiming monopoly on their concepts, plots and having any kind of relevance or significance for the servers narrative.

This has been the case since and still is today.

The werewolf events has included characters from nearly every walk of in-game life, one event alone had well over 20 players in it.

The vampire events have been scattered and appearing around all manner of maps and zones, and all kinds of characters have been jumping in on them.

So, nah, not really.

[Hoihe]

There has been one prevailing issue with plots on BG for the 10 years I have been here. And that is how they are designed to exclude parties.

Rather than promote inclusion and setting a stage where random occurrences impact various players, it becomes a hunt about acquiring said plot for X group of players and holding on to it with dear life.

Which makes them unimmersive and unrealistic to me, how the Lich always waits for X player to be around before it strikes and his deadly and looming army, conveniently waits til 21 PM saturday to attack, when the majority of X guild is online.

It becomes less about story telling and adventure and more about writing a fiction for a few select people to flaunt their achievements and boast to others how important their characters are.

While privately assaulting people for playing concepts they do not approve of and claiming monopoly on their concepts, plots and having any kind of relevance or significance for the servers narrative.

This has been the case since and still is today.

And the flipside is forcing characters that would sooner stab each other than break their vows of (non)-association through DM fiat. Like in the case of a race of Lawful Good creatures in a mostly Lawful Good guild (with the occasional Chaotic Good creature) led by a Lawful Good NPC going and explicitly asking banites for help, despite input from the guild asking not to. After said lawful good race went to try and pressure the dukes to break their treaties with banites.

[Ithilan]

There has been one prevailing issue with plots on BG for the 10 years I have been here. And that is how they are designed to exclude parties.

Rather than promote inclusion and setting a stage where random occurrences impact various players, it becomes a hunt about acquiring said plot for X group of players and holding on to it with dear life.

Which makes them unimmersive and unrealistic to me, how the Lich always waits for X player to be around before it strikes and his deadly and looming army, conveniently waits til 21 PM saturday to attack, when the majority of X guild is online.

It becomes less about story telling and adventure and more about writing a fiction for a few select people to flaunt their achievements and boast to others how important their characters are.

While privately assaulting people for playing concepts they do not approve of and claiming monopoly on their concepts, plots and having any kind of relevance or significance for the servers narrative.

This has been the case since and still is today.

And the flipside is forcing characters that would sooner stab each other than break their vows of (non)-association through DM fiat. Like in the case of a race of Lawful Good creatures in a mostly Lawful Good guild (with the occasional Chaotic Good creature) led by a Lawful Good NPC going and explicitly asking banites for help, despite input from the guild asking not to. After said lawful good race went to try and pressure the dukes to break their treaties with banites.

Because injustice only happens when the six paladins have assembled to witness it? And evil forces always plan their deeds, so they can be interveened by a collaboration of good people that could prepare for it.

I stand by the statement it is immersion breaking at large. And though Snarfy may have an example of plots that seem quite inclusive, my impression and how ive been presented with them IC, is very different.

In all my time here, it has been a prevailing factor that people try and cling to plots and exclude others in the process and it has been a prevailing factor that many plots, or meta plots if you will, always cater to the same guilds and creeds of people. Who in turn gets to pick who within their group gets to attend the restricted events of roughly 5 people.

But I dont want to turn this in to a whine thread, maybe its just me that has experienced it and thus its not a server problem and more personal. Ill rest my case.

[Snarfy]

I honestly don't know how DM's manage to run events that involve server-wide player involvement, it's probably exhausting to try and navigate groups over 8 to 10 characters, especially events that are broadcasted over server chat.

I liken these events to (... analogy time!) hurling out a mass invitation to a piñata party with the promise of sweet, sweet candy, and then a horde of protagonists show up armed with machetes, and half of them hopped up on energy drinks. Then... that half proceeds to run around in an egotistical frenzy trying to decapitate as many piñatas as they can, except the piñatas are secretly lightsaber-toting ninjas. Meanwhile, the scant role-play thespians that do show up to the party are sitting in the back, trying to make sense of it all, and everyone involved is constantly talking over one another in between bouts of getting splattered with gore, and getting knocked senseless by ninja piñatas.

When the smoke finally clears, the DM has to contend with this...

That being said, from DM side, when an event is consistent and gains popularity you end up with A LOT of PM's about it and it is difficult to always keep track of what plans it is people are making at any given time.

... not an enviable sounding task to me, at all, SummerBreeze

At the risk of events becoming more inclusive(or appearing to become more inclusive?), I think taking on 4 to 6 characters per event(perhaps a different group each time even) would help a lot in terms of mitigating the blood-lust, and tell/PM frenzy. Maybe even see if there's a volunteer in any of those groups to take on the burden of posting something to forums about an event, so that non-participants can see an in-character perspective, as well as whatever they can glean from any DM rumor post. ... that's about all I have right now.

[Hoihe]

There has been one prevailing issue with plots on BG for the 10 years I have been here. And that is how they are designed to exclude parties.

Rather than promote inclusion and setting a stage where random occurrences impact various players, it becomes a hunt about acquiring said plot for X group of players and holding on to it with dear life.

Which makes them unimmersive and unrealistic to me, how the Lich always waits for X player to be around before it strikes and his deadly and looming army, conveniently waits til 21 PM saturday to attack, when the majority of X guild is online.

It becomes less about story telling and adventure and more about writing a fiction for a few select people to flaunt their achievements and boast to others how important their characters are.

While privately assaulting people for playing concepts they do not approve of and claiming monopoly on their concepts, plots and having any kind of relevance or significance for the servers narrative.

This has been the case since and still is today.

And the flipside is forcing characters that would sooner stab each other than break their vows of (non)-association through DM fiat. Like in the case of a race of Lawful Good creatures in a mostly Lawful Good guild (with the occasional Chaotic Good creature) led by a Lawful Good NPC going and explicitly asking banites for help, despite input from the guild asking not to. After said lawful good race went to try and pressure the dukes to break their treaties with banites.

Because injustice only happens when the six paladins have assembled to witness it? And evil forces always plan their deeds, so they can be interveened by a collaboration of good people that could prepare for it.

I stand by the statement it is immersion breaking at large. And though Snarfy may have an example of plots that seem quite inclusive, my impression and how ive been presented with them IC, is very different.

In all my time here, it has been a prevailing factor that people try and cling to plots and exclude others in the process and it has been a prevailing factor that many plots, or meta plots if you will, always cater to the same guilds and creeds of people. Who in turn gets to pick who within their group gets to attend the restricted events of roughly 5 people.

But I dont want to turn this in to a whine thread, maybe its just me that has experienced it and thus its not a server problem and more personal. Ill rest my case.

I find it more immersion breaking that a lawful good NPC that is well-known to be at cold-war with banites, and is trying to use economy to pressure the Dukes to break their relations with banites, to suddenly invite banites to his court and include those banites in confidental missions.

All for sake of inclusivity.

Imagine if we had Everska on server and the hill elders went to invite a group of chaotic evil grey orcs of Gruumsh to defend the elven city because we can't exclude guilds now, can we?

[chad878262]

It's simple math folks... There is what? Maybe 5 active DMs at any given time these days, usually less. Meanwhile there are anywhere from 30-95 players online at any given time when we are at our peak? Even now I would venture to guess that during peak hours more than 50 players are in game, spread across the server. An average PnP group includes 1 DM and maybe 3-8 players. That is vs. a ratio of 10:1, players to DMs at best, assuming 5 DMs are in game when there are 50 players, which is almost never going to be the case.

Those happy few times I am out exploring and one of our friendly DMs deigns to send a boss fight or mini-encounter the way of me and whoever I happen to be with, I thank them profusely, enjoy the outcome (good or bad) and then go about my day. If I happen to be lucky enough to have the bandwidth to login at a time when there is a scheduled event for some guild I belong to or am affiliated with, even better! The difference is I have zero expectation that this will happen, so when it does it's a great feeling, but when it doesn't, par for the course and no disappointment or frustration on my part.

From what I see on forums and in discord, players in general simply expect far more from the DMs than what they can realistically deliver and when they fail to meet those expectations the frustration comes out in calls that there is favoritism with given guild(s) or player(s) that "always" get the events. Meanwhile the players in those guilds will stay quiet as they fear having a huge negative argument on the forums or discord, but privately are complaining that they got one or two events after a year of nothing and instantly are being called out for getting 'all' the events.

The reality, my friends is that the DM Team does their best to support the player base as fairly as possible. However, a DM that joined in 2019 may have no idea what events DMs ran from 2009-2018, they certainly won't know all of them for every guild/group. Are there occasional issues where a DM makes the bad decision to just run events for his player side guild-mates or buddies and or otherwise shows them favoritism? Yep, but guess what, the majority actively AVOIDS interacting with their guild/friends when they are logged in as a DM unless a specific plotline is approved and they are asked to pick it up.

I can't comment on specifics as I have never been a DM, but I can give an analogy from QC / Dev side. There have, at times been complaints from the player base that QC Team only works to improve the game for the classes/races/what-have-you that they play. The reality is that when a discussion is had that in some way impacts a QC's player character(s) they tend to completely remove themselves from posting their opinions unless they are specifically asked to explain some mechanics that they will simply have knowledge others don't have. Even there we in general have at least one QC'er create a test character to verify and comment either in agreement or opposition to the potentially impacted QC'er.

Sorry for the rant, but in my 6 years on this server the amount of vitriol and disappointment in the DM Team far outweighs any praise or appreciation shown to them and it is really unfair. There are humans on the other side of every screen, not just player side and they have an impossible task with regard to meeting player expectations.

[Hoihe]

It's simple math folks... There is what? Maybe 5 active DMs at any given time these days, usually less. Meanwhile there are anywhere from 30-95 players online at any given time when we are at our peak? Even now I would venture to guess that during peak hours more than 50 players are in game, spread across the server. An average PnP group includes 1 DM and maybe 3-8 players. That is vs. a ratio of 10:1, players to DMs at best, assuming 5 DMs are in game when there are 50 players, which is almost never going to be the case.

Those happy few times I am out exploring and one of our friendly DMs deigns to send a boss fight or mini-encounter the way of me and whoever I happen to be with, I thank them profusely, enjoy the outcome (good or bad) and then go about my day. If I happen to be lucky enough to have the bandwidth to login at a time when there is a scheduled event for some guild I belong to or am affiliated with, even better! The difference is I have zero expectation that this will happen, so when it does it's a great feeling, but when it doesn't, par for the course and no disappointment or frustration on my part.

From what I see on forums and in discord, players in general simply expect far more from the DMs than what they can realistically deliver and when they fail to meet those expectations the frustration comes out in calls that there is favoritism with given guild(s) or player(s) that "always" get the events. Meanwhile the players in those guilds will stay quiet as they fear having a huge negative argument on the forums or discord, but privately are complaining that they got one or two events after a year of nothing and instantly are being called out for getting 'all' the events.

The reality, my friends is that the DM Team does their best to support the player base as fairly as possible. However, a DM that joined in 2019 may have no idea what events DMs ran from 2009-2018, they certainly won't know all of them for every guild/group. Are there occasional issues where a DM makes the bad decision to just run events for his player side guild-mates or buddies and or otherwise shows them favoritism? Yep, but guess what, the majority actively AVOIDS interacting with their guild/friends when they are logged in as a DM unless a specific plotline is approved and they are asked to pick it up.

I can't comment on specifics as I have never been a DM, but I can give an analogy from QC / Dev side. There have, at times been complaints from the player base that QC Team only works to improve the game for the classes/races/what-have-you that they play. The reality is that when a discussion is had that in some way impacts a QC's player character(s) they tend to completely remove themselves from posting their opinions unless they are specifically asked to explain some mechanics that they will simply have knowledge others don't have. Even there we in general have at least one QC'er create a test character to verify and comment either in agreement or opposition to the potentially impacted QC'er.

Sorry for the rant, but in my 6 years on this server the amount of vitriol and disappointment in the DM Team far outweighs any praise or appreciation shown to them and it is really unfair. There are humans on the other side of every screen, not just player side and they have an impossible task with regard to meeting player expectations.

For addition on the DMing for guilds and stuff.

When I DM'd a few years back, I explicitly tried to pick myself a group to run stuff for I OOCly didn't really interact with playerside, and even our PCs were neutral/opposed.

I drafted up a small plot - 3 events + 1 mini event. mini event: NPC talks with guild leader to hire them to do a job. then 3 events of capture a small hamlet, prepare to defend hamlet, and defend hamlet. It was once a week, and was only really split up like that because it'd have dragged on too long in a single go.

People ree'd that said guild was being given favoritism.

The literal reason I picked that guild was due to minimal interaction player-side, while being a concept that provided me as a DM a plot I might enjoy, and guaranteeing that every PC involved would (theoretically) enjoy that particular plot.

But nah. Favoritism. Favoritism towards players I didn't interact with beyond passing IC stuff.

[DaloLorn]

Adding my two cents:

Generally, it has been my experience that DM events are not something I can participate in, due to timing issues - almost anything happens on US afternoons and evenings, long after I can reliably put in a few hours (and let's face it, the DMs usually run stuff that drags on for hours, just like my typical non-DMed sessions). This is not an issue unique to BG; in fact, I've had more luck engaging with staff here than in the other RP environments I've played in before. But it does make one feel like an outsider, and this can spill over into their more perceptive characters.

Take Caili, for instance:

• When she joined the Spades, the vampire and Dendar arcs were starting up. There was actually a scene where a couple of people were talking about one of those arcs (I forget which it was), and despite her attempts to drag more information out of them - out of some of her closest friends on the Sword Coast - she was locked out of the loop, unable to understand what was going on. At some point, I got so bored with the conversation that Caili was forced to catch up on breakfast or something while I switched to a more immediately interesting character.
• Since nothing interesting was going on around her, I shifted my attention to other characters while she went home to Waterdeep for a while.
• When she got back, the Dendar arc had claimed Melissar's life and Tarina's mind... and in addition to being kept mostly out of the loop, she was explicitly told to stay out of it. How is she supposed to feel about it, when her only friends in the region are all involved in it, and when she's the sort to jump into the action and help out instead of staying on the sidelines? How do I reconcile her personality with even her IC instructions to stay away? Never mind that, how do I reconcile it with the OOC fact that I, the player, can't let her participate?
• In the end, she cut ties with the Spades and went home. Will she come back? Maybe. If nothing else, her characterization or playstyle might call out to me again. If she does, will she still gravitate towards her old friends? Who knows? But both player and character alike had good reason to be frustrated by the situation.

Realistically, the only PCs I can play under those circumstances are those with good reason to keep to the sidelines (like Ilhara), or those who don't understand/care about what's going on (like the ever-oblivious Pixanie, who still hasn't even learned about the concept of death... ). Those who would be driven to participate in the bigger things? Not a chance.

To be fair, part of the issue is that most of the DMs are available/free at times I can't ever manage. On that front, I'm actually part of the problem - considering my short and unremarkable history as an ADM, I'm hardly in a position to complain about DM inactivity. Still, if it's anyhow possible... some temporal variety would be greatly appreciated. (There's a whole guild in the UD now that might agree with that sentiment!)

And, of course, many of the issues raised in this thread would be more easily resolved by adding new blood to the team. If I'm not mistaken, applications are now constantly open, so go ahead and apply!

[athornforyourheart]

I'd like to take my point back as the main topic of this thread. This is, as I stated in the OP, not a thread to post sideline commentary about DM activity/inactivity. That should be a separate post by another person as that is it's own issue. The issue I am attempting to address is information dumping for players server wide via forums for DM plots. This was the suggestion in response to players feeling they have no idea what plots are ongoing or who to contact to get involved with certain plots without having to dig through vague rumors or DM specific threads.

An example of a Plot Thread could simply be titled as:

Banshees on the Coast: A DM Awesomesauce event thread

On this thread, updates and rumors more specific to this plot can be posted here. Players can post here what they are doing or researching to advance in this plot. Screenshots could be posted that DM's could move forward on if they so choose. Dm's can post NPC Information sheets if they have created NPC's for this specific plot. Plot hooks can be posted to assist players who want to get involved can look into. Rules to the Plot, scheduling, etc...

Overall, what you'd get from a Plot thread is a place for players to go directly without having to scroll through the rumors thread of whats going on. For players who are new to the forums, this could easily put them off. On few occasions, I would log in and someone would ask "Hey, whats going on with XX Plot." and my response could easily be "Look under Surface Roleplay thread. Check under Banshees on the Coast: A DM awesomesauce event thread." All in all, I feel this would give more structure and organization to DM plots.

Once again, respectively, this is NOT about DM activity. This is NOT about DM's choosing groups. This is NOT about your specific character's experience with a DM.

This is to address an issue with lack of information on certain plots available on the forums. Not an attack on DM's but more or less just information I've gathered through the radio waves so to speak and my suggestion to amend the issue.

Thank you to the DM's who have responded. I appreciate you and what you do and I mean that. Logging in daily to an inbox with 40+ messages to respond to can be taxing but you still continue to volunteer your time. Head DM's im also looking at you. The one's so drowned in the DM HQ office because your flooded with all the paperwork. Much appreciation.