Warning: Discussion thread below! (That means a lot of reading.)
Earlier sometime today, I was speaking with StoPlains. We were talking about our feelings on the current state of RP on the server and it's setting in general as a whole, but for this topic I would like to narrow it down to some of the ideas we bounced between each other, centered around DM Events. We all, or the vast majority of us know what a DM event is. Some cool situation or scenario that our lovely Dungeon Master's have whisked up for us out of their hard work and imaginations for all of us to enjoy. We all usually go on a big adventure, maybe fight some monsters, maybe RP with some NPCs, and at the end of it hopefully are rewarded with that sweet exp and phat loot. But in order for everyone involved to have fun, there are definitely certain criteria that needs to be met. Now, every DM has their own style, ideas, and ways of doing things, so let's stick to the more vague, blanketing things.
Let's start off with one of the bigger things we criticized,
DM Event Party composition!I'm not talking about the parties mechanical powers, I'm talking about all of the other things. Things such as, the amount of people on the DM event, characters that do or do not make sense being there, and even the level range of the people involved. I don't know about you, but I don't have much experience being a DM for NWN. But DMing for more than say, 5 or 6 people at once for a PnP session becomes very hectic. Simply because, there's just too many dang people! The more people you add on to an event, a quest, a scenario, the more actions take place, the more ideas are spawned, and the more ideas that there are, the more personalities and clashing of said ideas occur. Let's use a DM event that happened a few weeks ago that StoPlains and I were a part of, where the Knight Commander of MoonGlow Keep requested aid from the adventuring populace to track down and discover what happened to a missing Knight Patrol. I don't know the exact numbers, though I do not think it would be too big of an exaggeration if I were to guess that between 20 and 30 PCs showed up. To me, it wasn't very efficient. So many people talking at once, so many alignments and personalities bickering, no one could agree on a face or leader to keep the party on track and moving as a single unit, it was chaotic. Now I know a lot of DMs like to involve as many players as they can, and at a glance this seems like a really good policy. BUT, after a certain point, involving more and more people actually starts to detract away from all the fun. Nobody likes to play favorites, and nobody likes to be left out, but sometimes that's just the way things are. And while some of the responsibility falls on DMs to regulate that sort of thing, we also share a responsibility as players to be the bigger person and say "You know what? You guys have enough people. I'll try to tag along on the next event that comes around." Less people makes balancing and pacing the event easier on the DM team also. That said, we believe a good example for next time might be something that looks like this.
Quest giver: Oh, that sure is a lot of you that showed up. You there, PC name who has some sort of correlation with this event(Or simply the first PC to show up if there isn't anything to correlate to), pick X number of these people to join you on this event.
This solves a lot of those issues. It passes away the pressure of picking favorites from the DM, it allows an easier to contain party, it identifies a team leader, and it allows a team composition to be created from IG characters for IC reasons.
Secondly, let's talk about
RP and IC reasoning. Some of you might do this, some of you might not, some of you might have different opinions. Leave your ideas below! When DMs make announcements for events, they usually do a good job at letting us know what kind of event it's going to be exactly, or what sort of atmosphere we can expect. Earlier today there was an event that basically came off as some shady person was looking for people to do some shady business in a shady part of the world.(Upperdark) Did it sound fun? Heck yeah it did, but I didn't go. Why? Because I believe that no good aligned character would have gone, let alone a paladin. Now, yes, this is just my opinion, and I can understand the kind of issues that might arise with a DM saying "No, you're not welcome along." but this is an opinion I believe others will agree with me based upon logical thinking and common sense. Basically, if your PC wouldn't do it IC, just don't show up to an event. Or if you do, do it with an expectation of being kicked out or bullied away through some snarky RP before the event kicks off. No one can force you to play a certain way, but do be mindful of the ways your play style effects the enjoyment of others.
And lastly we have
level ranges/power levels! So let's say your character is online when an event summon is made, awesome! You hurry over and you're one of the first there, great! You even have an IC reason for being on this specific event, fantastic! Buuuut you still shouldn't go. Why?! Simple, you're just too dang strong. Yes, we all like being strong, and some of us like being the hero or center of attention more than others, but being that guy can sometimes be a negative thing. In an easy example, you show up to a DM even with 6 other people. There's you, McBadass with your level 15 Barbarian and 250+ hp, and then there's 4 other halflings and a dwarf who's all level 7 and you could maybe take them all in a fight, probably. You yourself as a player haven't done anything wrong, but do be mindful that your presence there skews the balance by a lot. This problem is tricky, because it's a case to case basis, but since it's tricky it's also one of the biggest thing we as players need to be mindful of. Event seems to have a lot of diplomacy and talking in it? Okay sure, levels probably don't really matter. There's going to be a lot of fighting, and you're the only sensible melee combatant in the group with 4 other wizards? Okay, probably a good idea to stick around. There's already a party of 6 with a fairly good composition as far as you can tell and the event is to clean out the sewers from a bunch of goblins? Your level 15 archmage-turning into a lich wizard can probably sit this one out and let the lower level people have their spotlight. All a case by case basis, just use your better judgement.
Agree with my opinions? Don't? Thought of something else you noticed that could be addressed?
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