Narrative and Expectations
Clarifications on how to interact with the DM Team and what we expect from players
Server Direction1.1 ExpectationsIt may or may have not been noticed, but in the last few years the DM Team has slowly tried to shift the direction of the server towards lore accuracy and immersion. Many changes have been made, from more accurate and detailed maps, to mechanical changes that feel closer to a pen and paper experience and more adherent to the manuals.
Our goal is to foster an immersive environment, allowing players to develop their stories in respect to the setting we have chosen to play in. Allow players to leave their mark in the world and affect it with their decisions, and be affected back by the world's reaction. In order to do that it is at times necessary for players to interact with the DM Team.
While there have been many good and positive interactions and storytelling in the past, it is also true that the DM Team and part of the playerbase have also had difficult if not painful exchanges and interactions. This statement also wants to be a step towards a better understanding of what DMs do and improve the way we communicate with players.
This post is not meant to create rules, it is meant to bring clarity about how to engage properly with the Dungeon Masters Team in terms of practice and behavior. This is also meant to give several guidlines to better support player requests.1.2 DM Requests
- Lore Knowledge: it is important for us to state that we do not expect players to be knowleadgeable about lore. Lore is however an important part of the setting for everyone, so being ready to adapt and learn can always be helpful. This goes both sides. A lot of information may be easily found in manuals, wikis (being careful with the sources being used), and on this section of our forum. In all matters of lore, Dungeon Masters are tasked to work for consistency. This means that they can solve confusion, issue, or bring a final word to a discussion related to lore. We however welcome discussions, provided they remain respectful.
- Respect: this goes both ways, we will do our best to be respectful and for our community, we need the players to try and do the same, to engage in healthier conversations.
- Characters: It is important for characters to remain compliant and believable within the setting we play in. While there is room for creativity, and rare traits, and unusual concepts among player characters, there are boundaries induced by the setting. Making such a character might not always be achievable straight out of character creation due to multiple reasons, we are willing to help players find a way to adapt their characters so they can fit appropriately. When there is a doubt about the setting or a character concept, it is in general safer and smoother to reach the team. Using the biography system can be an alternative.
- Character Affecting Decisions: These include alignment changes, bans from cities and settlements, all sorts of choices that the DMs can make that will be affecting your characters in one way or another. We try to make these choices carefully and when possible, asking the opinion of others in the team. If the player is not in agreement with such choices we are more than willing to discuss them in a civil manner. We also ask you to be open to such choices as the conquences of your character's decisions can be a compelling and thrilling narrative mechanism leading to perhaps unexpected and enjoyable situations, if not memorable. It is important to stress that those character affecting decisions are not meant to discipline a player. If you wish to affect the world, please consider that the world will affect your character back.
- Biographies: Officially approved biographies are the safest way to ensure that your character's backstory is recognised by the team. We do not expect these biographies to be lengthy and incredibly full of information, we do like to notice an effort placing the history of a character well within the setting. Placing your character in an appropriate place in the world, showing their culture of origin, explaining how and why they learned their skills are all examples of what we look for when approving a biography. A guide can be found here.
Likewise, we do try to engage you in a friendly and respectful manner about the concept you sent. We do encourage discussions as we understand that communication can be complicated, especially on such matters.1.3 ManualsA big part of interacting with the DM Team is sending DM requests. To give you a better understanding of how they work, here is how they're organised:Every DM is allowed to chime in and give their input until we have enough to formulate a response that is coherent with the information available.
- Player Requests: this folder contains all the requests sent through the DM Requests button, a thread is automatically opened in this folder when you send a request through that form. It is a preferable method for sending requests as there is no way it may get lost into PMs as the system will automatically open a thread for us. Requests in this section may be of many different types and nature, from technical issues and RCRs to actions for ongoing plots. A brief guide on how to use this function can be found here.
- Miscellaneous PMs: all threads in this section are manually created by the DMs picking up forum private messages, it is less preferable to use this method for the reasons mentioned above but we do still pick up requests this way.
- Character Biographies: this is where we post the biographies for examination and discussion, pretty straightforward.
Some DM requests may be easier to answer to than others for several reasons:
- Clarity: try your best to keep your request's goal clear and easily understandable. Do not hesitate to spell it out clearly : "The goal of my character here is to...", separating your goal from the rest of the request into its own paragraph is also helpful.
- Formatting: try your best, especially with long requests, to make your request easily legible. A brief paragraph on the top to summarise your request, for example, may be useful to help understand at a glance what we're dealing with. Good formatting also makes reading easier for those among us that have difficulty sitting through long texts.
- Completeness: we have, sometimes, the need to send back questions because a request may lack a full picture of the matter at hand. While you can't ever be too sure of sending everything we might need, please try to keep this in mind, so we can make the process faster and avoid a potential back and forth. When you receive questions about your request, it doesn't mean that there is a problem, it means that we are taking interest and trying to cover every aspect possible.
- Length: this is mainly about finding a balance, making an effort to recognise what is necessary and what isn't, long requests may be complicated to approach and can sometimes spread confusion because of the length or amount of details provided. Before submitting a request, perhaps take a moment to double check if there's any way to condense your text in a clearer and more efficient manner. Organising your ideas can also be very efficient : What is the major goal? What are the subsidiary goals? What are the additional information, details, and other secondary elements?
1.4 RCRThe use of manuals have been recognised perhaps unofficially, this paragraphs serves to clarify about them and how we expect them to be used. We currently rely mainly on Advanced D&D and 3/3.5 manuals, anything that might be tied to the present time we play in is likely to be taken by Advanced D&D as it is closer to the date we play in, third edition is often used for more generic knowledge, or anything that comes in contact with mechanics (such as spells), due to NWN2 being a 3rd edition based game.
What can you use manuals for?We are open to more uses, as long as the DMs and the player have reached an agreement on them.
- Knowledge: the most obvious, researching information about lore (highly recommended to use manuals instead of the wiki when possible. The wiki can indicate sources that can still be useful to read. It is generally safe to double check any information found there).
- Spells: DMs often allow for spells to be used, from the manuals, if your character is able to cast them. By using a spell slot of the same level ingame the DM may give permission such spells to be used. Please do not assume that we will, ask first. Additionally, spell descriptions in the manuals are considered the most reliable source of information about them. Some information may be missing in the ingame description of spells (we are in the process of rectifying that), mainly descriptors and material components, those are considered to be used in character so please be mindful.
1.5 Requesting Custom ContentRCR stands for Retired Character Refund, it was originally conceived as a tool for players retiring their characters so they could play another, while keeping some or all of their experience points. In time, players began to use it differently, changing their existing characters to perhaps reflect their development and changes as their story progressed.
Following the spirit of all that has been mentioned above, RCR is expected to be used accordingly. Using this feature to alter your existing character should be a choice made with caution. Changing a character, especially a long standing one, may lead into contradictions with past events so we ask you all to be mindful when doing so.
A brief comment about changes on existing characters:Can you still make such changes?
- Race: race is to be changed with the approval of the DM Team as it is too radical of a change to be done lightly and without supervision. We are not against it, it has happened in the past with our approval. Although we expect such change to come with roleplayed and approved reasons.
- Class: Changing your character's class can also be a very radical decision, especially when dealing with classes like Sorcerer or Favoured Soul, having ties one's body and soul, innate so to speak. Some classes are also tied to specific cultures and parts of the world, deities and religions, so we do strongly advise to research the classes you plan to use before considering a change.
- Abilities: this also stands in the realm of potentially radical changes, believability and common sense to be applied. Both physical and mental abilities have narrative meaning and repercussions, changing them may create discontinuity and lack of sense especially when changed dramatically. For example, a character that has been known to be very strong and athletic, suddenly becoming weak and sickly. Or again, someone known to be perhaps a bit dull and naive suddenly becoming extremely smart and wise. This is not impossible, and best discussed with the DM Team. Try to be mindful.
- Skills: Skills are also an important metric of a character's past, as they tell us about what they've learned in their life. Reaching a very high score on a specific skill implies a long time (even years) spent learning and practicing, keep that in mind when moving your skills around during a RCR.
- Feats: Special mention to some feats such as Fey/Fiendish/Draconic Heritage feats, as they are tied to a character's bloodline (same point as classes following that logic). Adding or removing such feats might have rather deep impact on the character concept.
Absolutely, anything involving change with a character's blood/race and innate abilities will have to be supervised by the DM Team (please don't misunderstand this as an invitation for self service short plots, to accomodate your builds, these decisions have to be made with the necessary caution and relevant narrative reasons). For everything else, we do strongly recommend roleplaying these changes in game for a sensible amount of time, especially because they can serve as great RP hooks to seek other players as mentors, creating more interactions. Many players would be thrilled to be mentors and roleplay lessons and development with you.
A brief guide on the RCR function can be found here.This paragraph aims to address requests about creating custom spells, building outposts, establishments and guild halls. This kind of request tends to be relatively heavy in terms of work and time required, passing through the hands of multiple people in the staff in order to come to fruition.
This is not meant to discourage you from asking, it is more to underline that it is something that should be requested with the necessary amount of caution. Such creations will stay on the server and we want them to serve as narrative tools and even hooks for more RP interactions where possible.
Spells: When thinking about making a spell you should keep in mind that is considered to be a very demanding effort, in character. A character deciding to go through such an experience would perhaps give shape to a spell that feels close to who the character is and their goals, it would feel rather personal if not intimate. We greatly appreciate propositions that feel more like narrative choices, instead of mechanic, spells that might not be very competitive in their mechanical use but have intriguing roleplay potential.
Minimum requirements to submit a spell request:Buildings and Maps: When you are considering to ask for a map, be that an outpost, guild hall or anything else, you should consider how they will be used and if they have potential to create and be the scenery of in character interactions. Also, we would rather make these additions for players that are invested in their characters and wish to keep playing them in the long run, making a map for a group that may disappear soon would feel like a waste of time and effort. Another thing to consider is that we prefer making additions that can entertain more players rather than less, so if you plan to ask for something that will be for yourself alone to use, we may not see that as a good investment to work on. Of course, similarly to what has been said about spells, these requests should have valid narrative reasons and tie well within the setting.
- The character must have been played for at least one year (actively).
- You cannot submit more than one spell per year.
- You must provide a writeup of the roleplay you did or intend to do, to develop it.
- Your proposition must include all the necessary details to fill a whole spell description. You can use an existing spell as template.
Sidenote: player housing can still be requested for the sole purpose of being private to one character, we would be appreciative of any effort to share and invite other players in these maps so we can give more value to our work.