(Discussion) General Part VII

Creamsteak · 14th June 2004, 06:52 AM

Wow... the 7th thread. We've been at this for a while now then.

I've heard rumor that we might get those sub-forums soon, and there is going to be a new Play by Post moderator to replace GaryH. I'll let him do the announcement when it becomes official.

Havn't heard from Scorpio in a long while. I'm considering emailing him, but I'm also reluctant, perhaps because I don't want to be disappointed if he hasn't had time for the map.

We've started to really put a dent in the proposal threads. I'm very happy with that. We might have a clean slate soon, and maybe we can get started on our own SRD. It would be nice to have all the information available on one website for users.

How many active adventures do we have? I count 15 on the front page. That makes it sound like we have between 50 and 75 active characters. Pretty good I think. We might be shuffling all the current characters into a new thread (with the official formatting becoming an enforced requirement). That would allow us to archive innactive characters while at the same time make sure the active ones are those that we keep attentive with.

We just had our first encounter with the rough road of two PCs fighting. Things seem to have toned down with that. It's something to think on, though.

Psionics is ready to be introduced to a certain degree. I still don't have the time to run my planned adventure just yet...

Any other business I missed? Any new business?

WizWrm · 14th June 2004, 07:49 AM

What's to be done with the proposals that received neither approval nor veto?

I feel that once we've gotten through the list, they should be put on the table for a firm 'yes' or 'no,' since it's unfair to just put them back in limbo where they were hanging before you got this process started. Plus, personally, I want to see something done with the mountain goblins, even if it's just a 'no, this is not suitable for LEW.' I could split them into flavor and mechanics for separate approval - the deities, descriptions, and mythology for one vote, and the race, plane, and weapon stats for a second approval. That does seem to be one sticking point for getting them approved; the other being that people probably don't want to read that huge thread

.

I'm strongly in favor of a new character thread, if only so we can get a clear fix on the number of players and the types of characters in our population.

Also, I don't know if it was ever satisfactorily resolved as to whether characters get XP just for existing (either 100 per month or 100 per level per month), and/or just adventuring. Velbrik would be quite a bit farther into level 3 if either is the case.

If we just put a simple limit, such as saying you must be active enough to update your character to any new requirements (for example, new formats) and keep him or her posted to the latest character thread (which at most might be every 6 months to a year), I don't think it would be an issue, since even if such a person isn't (or is unable to be) actively playing, they're still showing an interest in LEW.

You mentioned you were considering creating an underground arena? What kinds of things were you thinking of, especially in terms of XP and GP rewards?

Creamsteak · 14th June 2004, 08:07 AM

I wasn't thinking of a place characters could just "go" to fight for experience and gold, though the thought crossed my mind. I'd rather not go in that direction at all.

I was thinking of adding one of the border-cities (since LEW seems to be city based and not country based, which I sorta like) to the region between the broken plains of the wind elemental region and the desecrated realms of the negative region. It would be a small lawful-evil society of Duergar that have a strong history of slavery that live in a huge fortress city.

I'll probably write it up as a proposal when we've cleared the threads from the list (and indeed gone back and affirmed all the unnapproved stuff one way or the other).

The coliseum would not be a place anyone would ever want to be, it's a slavers pin for the entertainment and amusement of the cruel duergar that live in the city. Summoned demons, captured and contorted monsters, slaves that fell in battle with the Duergar, and worst of all creatures living under the ring that are only appeased by devouring the dead from the arena; would all comprise the sorts brought to the arena. I would make this the central focus for any trip to this city, and I would flesh together a religion and governing body for the city for the duergar. They would likely include the psuedo-psionics that the xph gave duergar, and would be somewhere awefully hard to get to.

If I do a full-out write up for the duergar, I'll also do one for the ancient dwarven ruins north of Orussus, and they would have a certain degree of relationship and similar design.

Kahuna Burger · 14th June 2004, 01:42 PM

If a judge can spare a moment...

The Hunt for the Ciryo di peitro (or however its spelled) it stalled out. The DM, Gnomeworks, is still around, but is willing to accept a player written "medium success" ending to the adventure. I'm waiting for feedback from the other players, but if a judge could check out the final page and coordinate with gnomeworks on acceptable XP (the whole per level or flat issue) and treasure, that would move things along if the other player agree to the 'ending'.

Kahuna Burger

orsal · 14th June 2004, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Creamsteak

Any other business I missed? Any new business?

The "keep track of where characters are now" thread: several DMs don't post in it, and also some outdated posts -- adventures that have long since ended that still seem to be current judging by the thread. Such a thread is useless if the info in it is unreliable. Either we should collectively resolve to do a better job with it, or we should officially give up trying.

Sparky · 14th June 2004, 05:45 PM

I wouldn't mind adding the player location to the function of the tavern. Though it's not just keeping track of where players are, but, if I recall correctly, keeping track of xp and gp awards.

Did y'all end up voting for or against judge tracked XP?

Knight Otu · 14th June 2004, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Creamsteak

I've heard rumor that we might get those sub-forums soon, and there is going to be a new Play by Post moderator to replace GaryH. I'll let him do the announcement when it becomes official.

That's good to hear.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Creamsteak

Havn't heard from Scorpio in a long while. I'm considering emailing him, but I'm also reluctant, perhaps because I don't want to be disappointed if he hasn't had time for the map.

While we're at it, do the Towers of Positive and Negative Energy form a North-South or an East-West line?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Creamsteak

We've started to really put a dent in the proposal threads. I'm very happy with that. We might have a clean slate soon, and maybe we can get started on our own SRD. It would be nice to have all the information available on one website for users.

Would be nice indeed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Creamsteak

Any other business I missed? Any new business?

I agree with orsal on the Tracking thread.

Sparky, A quick look through the Archivomatic seems to indacate that two judges are in favor of tracking XP, and three are neutral about it.

The Goblin King · 14th June 2004, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knight Otu

While we're at it, do the Towers of Positive and Negative Energy form a North-South or an East-West line?

In the orginal write up by CS it was north-south. I thought it might be cool to change it to east-west to match the rising and setting sun.

Knight Otu · 15th June 2004, 10:54 AM

We'll see what Creamsteak thinks about this.

Also, I've been thinking (dangerous habit, I know

) about the deities. Currently, we use the following format:

Name
Pronounciation
Nicknames

Deity Status
Symbol:
Home Plane:
Alignment:
Portfolio:
Worshippers:
Cleric Alignments:
Domains:
Favored Weapon:

Does anyone think we should switch to the XPH/CD format, which is:

Name
Deity Status (Alignment)
Description, with paragraphs on worshipers, symbol, (potentially home plane) and favored weapon.

Portfolio:
Domains:
Cleric Training: (Potentially Cleric Alignments)
Quests:
Prayers:
Temples:
Rites:
Herald and Allies: The herald is the kind of creature a deity sends to the material plane when it needs to intervene in mortal affairs, usually a CR 13-15; Allies are those creatures usually sent as planar allies, as per the spell chain.

Creamsteak · 15th June 2004, 11:09 AM

I always had the towers on the north-south axis. If Scorpio is still following this game, then I'd like to keep it that way. Otherwise, I'm up for the discussion on that. My arbitrations for the towers were made on some rather roughly done based on my ideas for the concept... and it worked arlight having fire and wind adjacent since I thought they made the best examples of desolite and inhospitable (whereas earth and water would be close to life).

Now, the thing is that if everything is at 6ths (which is what it is, and I think that's the way to go), you can have a North/South axis or a East/West axis, but the other four towers are going to be at NW NE SW and SE either way I think.

Kahuna: GW appears to be on the boards. I'll go check it out. GW, when you read this, try and give us a rough estimate of xp and rewards.

Orsal: I'm not too worried about that thread at the moment. It's already a pretty big project cleaning up all the proposed content. Once I've got the new sub-forums or I've cleared the archivomatic and updated it with all the correct info (and deleted all posts but the first, so it's fresh), I'm going to start going around enforcing things that have been lax (and in the case of new rules enforcement, going about starting enforcement of that). This includes both DMs and Players. I'll probably have to handle the emailings since the Server isn't up.

Either way the first thing will be to update the Archivomatic with all games, and go through all the adventures that have happened before and tack up records based on them. It's a chore, I'm sure, but I think I could handle it with the other Judges help after we finish the Archivomatic. If you want to volunteer to help when we get around to that phase, I could probably use it.

Sparky Well, if they voted against it... I'm just going to be forced to do it anyway. I'm not a huge rules stickler, but I want to ensure that everything is properly recorded. As my vague (and probably incoherent as it's 4 AM and I just finished my game session but have caffeinated veins) mentions to Orsal hint to, I want to use that thread to track experience, character locations, some degree of treasure rewards, and interface information. Each DM will probably have one post, and there will be about 4 judge posts at the front to sort different information for people...

Knight Otu I'm all for that change. I've always thought that the format we used for deities was a bit different from the norm and should be standardized with it instead.

Goldhawk · 15th June 2004, 02:47 PM

Guys, I think you need to arrange things a little bit. I heard great things of LEW. And by looking and reading some of the gameworld's info, it got a great pontential.

However, I want to suggest one thing.
How about putting up a thread dedicated to links to information about LEW?
For instance,

[Thread Title(yadda yadda)]

LEW information
History of so and so
[link]
Places information
[link]
Map
[link]
House rules
[link]

LEW FAQ
[link]

LEW Ongoing Adventures
The Search for so and so...
[link]

LEW Recruiting Adventures
Big Daddy Revenge(eg.)
[link]

LEW Gods and Pantheons
[link]

LEW Accepted Proposals
The Pimp Class(eg.)
[link]
Evil Grandma PrC(eg.)

[link]

LEW Proposals
The Craft Points(eg.)
[link]

LEW Discussion Boards
[link]

And you get the general idea

. Why not someone set up a link thread like this. It make LEW more newbie-friendly and it may be easier for folks here to search for things. It also help to clarifies some points about LEW (whenever or not some proposal is accepted or not). Moreover, this also make the sticky area less crowded as this kind of thread can help connect a lot of important information.To ensure this kind of thread don't get abused, let only the judges and moderators be the only ones that can post in the thread.
Comments?

Knight Otu · 15th June 2004, 03:09 PM

The archivomatic thread is pretty close to what you want, Goldhawk, and once we're done with it, it should be even closer.

CCamfield · 15th June 2004, 06:57 PM

Newbie question - can anyone, including (new) players, submit stuff?

When I created my character, which was recently, I looked at the available deities, and I've also been looking at the ones being proposed, and a lot of them seem very specific and I think I have yet see one that my character might be interested in worshipping.

Goldhawk · 15th June 2004, 07:04 PM

Thanks,

another suggestion.
How about make the archivomatic thread a sticky or a notice thread?
helps to let everyone(mostly newbie) to find it especially with a BIG attention sign.

Knight Otu · 15th June 2004, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CCamfield

Newbie question - can anyone, including (new) players, submit stuff?

Technically, yes. There could be a few things off limits at the moment that I am not aware of (in the early days, deity submission was limited, but I believe that it is not any longer).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goldhawk

How about make the archivomatic thread a sticky or a notice thread?

That would be up to Creamsteak, or the new mod announced, to do and decide. I'd be for it, however.

Creamsteak · 16th June 2004, 06:14 AM

Not sticking the Archivomatic until I've revised it, and made it editable by the judge account. At that time, it should be much more complete.

As for right now, I'd like to bring up what I typed up as part of the intro for the archivomatic once we've finished sweeping it up:

Quote:

The official naming conventions for LEW threads are:

(Adventure)
(Announcement)
(Archive)
(Discussion)
(Proposal)
(Tavern)

Adventure: Anything that happens outside of a tavern should have the Adventure descriptor. Completed Adventures (closed threads) are given the (Archive) descriptor to denote that the adventure has become fodder for anyone elses creative impulses to view or use in LEW. This is two-fold. It allows anyone to quickly identify active adventures, and it also allows anyone to determine if an adventure has been completed.

Announcement: Important threads used to inform everyone. Announcements are always sticky. The thread you are reading right now is a permanent announcement thread. Important day-to-day material is given the Announcement descriptor as well, to denote that it is not just a running archive of information.

Archive: Completed Adventures and approved Proposals are given the Archive descriptor. Other threads that need to be saved also share the Archive descriptor. Wait for a moderator to give any thread the Archive descriptor, as it must be closed and catalogued in this thread.

Discussion: Out of character discussion threads are given the Discussion descriptor. General Discussion is for talking about general issues. Short questions should still have the discussion descriptor, and after being resolved they will be deleted from the forum if they serve no further use. Lengthy discussions are locked and linked in this thread for future reference. There is a General Discussion thread for most questions at a given time.

Proposal: In addition to the System Reference document, LEW approves it's own homebrew material. In order to get approved, the thread needs to be put into a proposal thread, which will be reviewed. There is always one proposal thread at the top of the forum to show that it has precedence as the current proposal to be discussed by the approval council. As a general guideline, proposals with mechanical effects (prestige classes, regional feats, spells and powers) should not be too different from the core rules and what can be referenced in the SRD. This is because LEW is meant to be pick-up-and-play compatible.

Tavern: Tavern threads are used as meeting places for characters. A Tavern must be officially accepted, and the current Tavern threads are listed in the Tavern section of this thread. Note that a Tavern descriptor also denotes that a location is completely "Safe." This means that threats of violence cannot be carried out in a Tavern, and attempts to do so will result in the legitimate authority for the Tavern coming down on the dangerous party.

I've made some new claims in there, and eliminated the extraneous "Vignette" title and retired the "Record" title. Also, please make sure you follow the conventions exactly, including capitalizing the letters properly. This makes it easier on me when I comb the forum for new threads based on name.

Goldhawk · 16th June 2004, 11:31 AM

If I remember, I seen a LEW FAQ thread somewhere in the forums.
In the Archivomatic thread, how about posting its link in the top section, so us newbie who wasn't sure of something can reference there.

Knight Otu · 16th June 2004, 02:51 PM

Goldhawk, most information can be found in the Guide to ENWorld, and the Former Guide to ENWorld is written in FAQ format. The Guide to ENWorld is of course more up-to-date, and should be able to answer most questions.
That said, an added post in FAQ format could be worthwhile to include.

Kahuna Burger · 16th June 2004, 09:16 PM

I posted a partial proposal with this question, but haven't received any responses, so I'm going to ask the larger question here... Would it be acceptable in LEW to have a diety which had no clerics dedicated to it, but provided a PrC for those it favored. I am thinking of this in regards to the "Lady Luck" diety I'm considering.

Kahuna Burger

Knight Otu · 16th June 2004, 09:34 PM

No problem, as far as I'm concerned.

A quick question - which adventures do not have judges yet? I can't fill them out all, in all likelyhood, but maybe a few.