Server Proposition: New Staff Groups

[DM Boo]

Hello everyone!

I'd like to present for discussion three new ideas for possible new staff groups and or positions. These were discussed over on Discord late last year, and since then both the HDMs and DM's have discussed all of them, eventually coming to the conclusion that there may be some merit in implementing them. What they provide is essentially a way for people who want to contribute, but may not have the time or energy to join the staff as a DM, Developer, Moderator, ect, to do so in a way that helps the momentum of the server, by helping to alleviate some of the demand placed on the DM's and other staff groups by providing immersion for the server, increasing the flow of information and the speed in which it is processed, ect.

What we need, however, is to see if there is any community interest in them, as none of them would work long-term without people wanting to join and contribute to them. We may decide not to implement all of them, or indeed any, ultimately, but since they are good ideas, they deserve being brought forward for discussion.

Without further ado, here are the new staff groups. Please discuss them and tell us what you think!



The 'Forum Helpers' Staff Group:

Helpers are the lowest rank of administration, effectively working with two tasks:

• Answering people's questions related to the server, custom changes, or server rules.

• In a private subforum, they can post issues or complaints which players send to them, which they will then help to resolve in a timely manner. Once a post is made, the helper discusses the issue with both parties, collects evidence and makes a conclusion, which they post on said topic. If they then need to, they escalate the problem to the DM's and/or HDM's.

• This will be an opt-in system. You may choose to send your request/questions to the DM team instead, so nothing will change for you. The point of this is to help share the load.

The 'Speaker' Staff Position:

• The speaker is in charge of healthy, transparent communication between the staff and the playerbase. They ensure that the staff hears and understands players, as well as that players know what is going on inside the staff. The speaker addresses issues the community members have, maintains public discussions, announces important changes, sends recommendations to the staff members about the server direction based on the player feedback.

The 'Story Teller's' Staff Group (AKA HDM Dialectic's 'New DM-PC RP Initiative': viewtopic.php?f=10&t=74280)

• People playing an NPC like character. Their characters do not have to follow naming conventions, but would perhaps need to be greenlit by the DMs. They could hand out XP/Gold rewards.

• People roll a level 1 commoner toon of various basic "commoner" type backgrounds and facilitate various minor NPC type missions and backgrounds for other PCs to facilitate RP.

[Winterborne]

I like these ideas. Some more targeted feedback from me:

- Forum Helper seems maybe a bit vague. Regarding answering questions and such is this basically a badge that's like "You can trust this person to know what they are talking about" or something? The rest of it sounds like collecting concerns and organizing them to be more easily disseminated in one place to staff in general which is good but I think the complexity of the forum system, its array of PM's, and delayed feedback inherent in a forum's design are part of the issue making this necessary. I would love it if we had a way to get faster turnaround in general on questions and requests and while this is a good start I don't really know how it would pan out long term.

- "Speaker" position is absolutely necessary. I feel like there's a lot that goes on behind "closed doors" - both on the player front, and on the staff front, and to put it best, one hand cannot always see what the other hand is doing. It leads to a lot of worry for players who worry they are not being heard and probably leads to a lot of stress for staff. I think this position is a great idea, even just for the more minor updates it could provide - for example, when players see that things are quiet, the DM team may know that some DM's are inactive due to RL at the moment, or that there's something big in the works, etc. Players have no idea, and often will send a PM and have it disappear into the PM void. Having at least regular updates like "X person will be away for a bit because RL happened, hold tight folks involved in their stuff" is great. Some DM's already post like this for example and that's great, but sometimes that just isn't possible, so having a go between would be a huge help with the playerbase that often feels plots just. . . stop, for seemingly no reason, sometimes.

- Story Teller group is great, but there are already a lot of players that do this on not-level-1 characters. Would this be something people sign up for, with specific guidelines to what they can and can't do, to take say, small one-shot event pressure off of DM's so they can be free to do larger things? I am not sure I fully understand the position beyond it being a quasi-NPC questgiver, which is a great position but I also don't see the need to have it be doled out only by new characters. Some of the most fun I've had is giving small odd-jobs to new characters around town as a business owner, for example.

[bharring]

Fairly newish, take my opinions with the relevant grain of salt.

"Forum Helper"
Sounds like it's mostly covered by helpful other forum members.
Unless you're giving them information the "general public doesn't have. If that's the case, either you could just publish that information publicly somewhere (and helpful other forum members can relay it), or it's information that can't be public - in which case this role means exposing secrets to more people. A tradeoff, I'm not "in the know enough" to comment further.

"Speaker"
Hopefully this doesn't infringe on each staff member's communication, as they see fit.

"Story Teller"
Sounds like "Lesser DM". In a good way. So an individual who can't commit to the whole DM role can still provide RP enhancement to the community. Love the idea.
The biggest bottleneck on greatness on this server, to me, seems to be DM involvement. There are only so many DMs, and it's a demanding role. This would enable more DM activity without requiring more fulltime DMs. So much of "DM involvement" in roleplaying is the small stuff, which wouldn't need a full DM. Great!

[Steve]

My question is why aren’t Admins, HDMs,DMs, Developers, Moderatos and QCers not more vocal on the Forum, more engaged, communicating and interacting?

Sometimes it just feels like staff is afraid to have an opinion. Or worse, don’t have any opinions. What has happened in the last years where less Forum interaction by Staff has become the new normal? Not to say we absolutely don’t have communication, because it actually seems to be on an upswing with, at least, devs and QCers.

I’m just going to say it: the DM Team just comes off as unengaged as of late. Not necessary when IG and doing great things, but with topics and forum RP in general.

Personally, I think having more communication from those in actual positions of power is what is needed, not new positions that facilitate communication, but themselves, are mostly just messengers.

Of whom, of course, will just get immediately shot. j/k

[Ariella]

My question is why aren’t Admins, HDMs,DMs, Developers, Moderatos and QCers not more vocal on the Forum, more engaged, communicating and interacting?

Sometimes it just feels like staff is afraid to have an opinion. Or worse, don’t have any opinions. What has happened in the last years where less Forum interaction by Staff has become the new normal? Not to say we absolutely don’t have communication, because it actually seems to be on an upswing with, at least, devs and QCers.

I’m just going to say it: the DM Team just comes off as unengaged as of late. Not necessary when IG and doing great things, but with topics and forum RP in general.

Personally, I think having more communication from those in actual positions of power is what is needed, not new positions that facilitate communication, but themselves, are mostly just messengers.

Of whom, of course, will just get immediately shot. j/k

For me personally after spending hours working on maps or what ever. The last thing I want to do is get into a forum debate with someone about what should or shouldn't be a thing. BG is not a fulltime job, it's something I do in my spare time and mostly for fun. That said we are working on being more vocal about large changes in the coming soon section.

[Steve]

For me personally after spending hours working on maps or what ever. The last thing I want to do is get into a forum debate with someone about what should or shouldn't be a thing. BG is not a fulltime job, it's something I do in my spare time and mostly for fun. That said we are working on being more vocal about large changes in the coming soon section.

I dig. Communication isn't debate, however. We are all responsible for ourselves getting into it, like a debate, or, just offering opinion or decision, and moving on.

More vocal is absolutely something with weight. That's exactly it. Sure, engaging may feel for some on staff that it requires energy, and on the whole, time spent doing what you like in any Staff position, for the Server, outweighs being present on the Forum.

I'm just saying that new staff roles/groups that just fill in a gap, aren't necessarily doing good, if all they could say is "we've talked with the upper echelon Staff, and now we're just waiting for an answer." That changes nothing from the past to the future, actually. We already wait on Staff at times. But maybe I'm missing something here?

What I'm really trying to point out is that what are the purpose of the Forums if they are not being used by the Staff from entry to top level, and, are not a place to go to for fun, engagement, return? But more importantly, to officially communicated the direction of the Server, create and forward Role-play, add to the stories running IG, and yes, give an opinion and show character about discussing the issues that ARE important to the playerbase (who are, as well, Staff!).

[Planehopper]

My question is why aren’t Admins, HDMs,DMs, Developers, Moderatos and QCers not more vocal on the Forum....

Hey you threw me in, how can Moderators help?

I wouldn't mind 'speaking' and communicating staff positions, but in my experience they are actually expressed pretty well these days in the 'coming' forum, unless they result from fixing a potential exploit.

If there are other things that people want to know, what sort of things are they?

As far as IC engagement - hell yeah. Wish there was more of it on the forums. Rumors and recaps help this place feel alive and breathing for those of us that don't play dozens of hours a week, or play in key timezones.

Players could do more of this, too, however. As a former DM it was always easier to maintain energy and creativity when it was reciprocated by the players.

I do understand (and commiserate) with feeling like things are slow moving and slow responding. An open (and respectful) conversation about that would be encouraging.

[Leramak]

I think these are all great ideas! A medium between players and staff is of need though I don't envy who every takes on the role.
More people engaged in "Storytelling" would be great and make the world seem more alive and help with players solely relying on Dm's for event. I think it would help lighten the load so to speak ((Or maybe it won't, but that is yet to be see))
Looking forward to see this all go down and will like to help where I can

[EasternCheesE]

I would definitely love all the three groups to exist, especially things that spin around second and third option. I miss those one-shot events a lot and it's sad i get way less of those in 2020-2021 compared to 2019 and 2018. I know, corona messed many things, but BGTSCC is my favourite place to visit among the web, so seeing it like this is saddening.

Just one addition on "helpers" (since i participated in discussion about those forum helpers). Those guys can actually sort things for higher staff, so if someone sends them a screenshot where somebody is taking other one's head off at farmlands, they can check things out and give a conclusion to higher staff to put in action (and which can be easily checked by higher staff to make sure said helper doesn't abuse his power to judge). Thus, higher staff won't need to use their precious time to check every small complaint emerging so they can focus on stories and plots and many other things, like OOC drama and other complicated things that happen.
That's the way i think they can be more useful, since QC staff and many other kind people use to answer the questions relating the lore, mechanics and classes already.

[chad878262]

QC not vocal? Steve-o, c'mon man!

LOL, but seriously I have been quiet (at least for me) in recent weeks due to this being very busy at work for me alongside RL obligations. Busy in a good way, so to speak... That said, we have continued to expand the QC team and from what I have seen Tanlaus, EasternCheese, Rhifox have been quite active on discord and forums so it is not like the team as a whole is quiet.

the other thing is there is not much for QC to do currently as Endelyon and others work on dev side to continue trying to fix the issues with the server split so we can try again.

All this is to say that QC is still around and active as a group, and from what I have seen has been quite responsive for the most part to any requests thrown our way. If not, folks are always welcome to hit me up directly. While I am not able to log in as constantly running when not working, I can of course still make an effort to ensure concerns are heard and documented.

As to the OP, I would say that "Forum Helpers" could be a sub group of the Moderators, with the added bit of trying to help direct players asking questions or whatever. The "Speaker" would be fantastic, especially if the individual(s) could own the 'Coming Soon' thread and help us get to a better approach with announcing what a release will include before it goes live. "Story Teller" to me would honestly be a great way for players to dip their toe in the DM pond and may eventually lead to folks that otherwise were worried about applying to be DMs gaining more confidence and willingness to take that next step. All 3 have merits, but other than Story Teller I would say the other two could likely be absorbed within existing groups with maybe just a slight specialization to the role.

[Planehopper]

As to the OP, I would say that "Forum Helpers" could be a sub group of the Moderators, with the added bit of trying to help direct players asking questions or whatever.

Maybe, depends on the question I suppose. Lots of the tough questions are more mechanical or gameplay in nature.

What sorts of things are going unanswered? I feel like I see 99.99% of posts (yay me) as a moderator and most of them get answered I think?

((For anyone that caught it, this is why I didn't join the CIA))

[Steve]

QC not vocal? Steve-o, c'mon man!

For the record:

Not to say we absolutely don’t have communication, because it actually seems to be on an upswing with, at least, devs and QCers.

Anyway, if the real issue here is DMs and Devs need a secretary, or ten, then I get it! It just doesn't seem very...rewarding. At least, not as much as actually being a DM (stories), Devs (projects going live), QCers (nerdgasms), Mods (*redacted to prevent getting banned*...Hi P-hopper!).

[Ariella]

I think the above is mostly for the DM team. And if it makes communication and administration easier for them then I say it's a good idea.

[yyj]

Aren't we all story tellers?

[DM Boo]

These roles definitely are more centered around taking off some of the load from the DM team and/or improving current the currently imperfect communication methods. That said, they could be of benefit to other staff groups, particularly in more busy times. Ultimately, it's about streamlining our processes. I'm definitely not (intentionally) accusing other staff groups of not being responsive enough. However within the DM team in particular, there exists a real imbalance between the workload and active manpower, which often leads to a few DM's stepping up and getting burned out. These roles would help to remove that imbalance and would hopefully result in a far more healthy, robust and active system.

What sorts of things are going unanswered? I feel like I see 99.99% of posts (yay me) as a moderator and most of them get answered I think?

It's less about things going unanswered (although that DEFINITELY does happen, especially when things are sent to the DM team and fall through the cracks due to the sheer volume of new PM's per day), and more about improving unnecessarily slow response times. For example, we commonly get issues that could be resolved essentially on the spot, but with our current system they're drawn out to a few days, or even a few weeks or more, before they are handled. With Helpers, the turnaround time would ideally be anything ranging from a few minutes to a day. They would also be able to help senior staff to handle more complex issues by taking the burden of investigation off of them, which would mean that senior staff would then be available to handle other things (90% of a HDM's work, for example, is investigating an issue and then attempting to resolve it. Having someone else to help with the investigation part, even if they're not resolving the issue themselves, would save a lot of time). The rest is just forum management. Making sure that things are seen by the appropriate parties, making sure deadlines are met, handling minor disciplinary infringements, ect.

In terms of questions, it would be things like questions about builds, bug reports, RCR requests, questions about mechanics and lore, and other random things that are sent to the DM's but could potentially be handled by non-DM's. Ideally, having at least a passable understanding of these issues would be desirable for a Forum Helper (but they don't need to know everything).

- Story Teller group is great, but there are already a lot of players that do this on not-level-1 characters. Would this be something people sign up for, with specific guidelines to what they can and can't do, to take say, small one-shot event pressure off of DM's so they can be free to do larger things? I am not sure I fully understand the position beyond it being a quasi-NPC questgiver, which is a great position but I also don't see the need to have it be doled out only by new characters. Some of the most fun I've had is giving small odd-jobs to new characters around town as a business owner, for example.

The difference between a player character and someone who is a Story Teller is essentially the tools that they will receive. Story Tellers will have the ability to hand out gold and XP as rewards, as well as potentially gain access to some (currently undecided) other capabilities and tools that would ultimately be less extensive than what DM's get, but nonetheless would expand the possibilities of what could be achieved by a regular player-driven event.
The other major difference is that Story Tellers would be allowed (with DM approval) to play character concepts that aren't otherwise available for everyday characters. For example: They could be nobles, come from exotic backgrounds, or do things that would in normal circumstances be considered metagaming if it was done by an everyday character. These concepts would be things that fit within h the gameworld, and create immersion for other players.

What I'm really trying to point out is that what are the purpose of the Forums if they are not being used by the Staff from entry to top level, and, are not a place to go to for fun, engagement, return? But more importantly, to officially communicated the direction of the Server, create and forward Role-play, add to the stories running IG, and yes, give an opinion and show character about discussing the issues that ARE important to the playerbase (who are, as well, Staff!).

Establishing these positions wouldn't eliminate the rest of the team's ability to communicate on the forums. Everyone is still encouraged to participate, just as they are now. They do, however, give an opportunity for more communication to happen, primarily through the forums, by creating an outlet for it, which is more efficient and targeted than our current method, where frankly the hands are never sure what the feet are doing.

Discord will remain a non-"official" channel for communication, and will still not be supported by our team. All server-critical events and announcements will take place right here.