Adventure Summary Incentives

Rystil Arden · Sep 25, 2007

Wik said:
I like option A, although, as it's been said, I think there should be something of a "cap" on it. Maybe "per 500 posts, but with a limit of 4" or something like that. But I like the idea of posting it all on the wiki being mandatory for the points, since the reason we have the points being awarded is to allow GMs to access the information - and if the info isn't put in a central place, it just makes things harder for every other GM.

Who suggested the cap? I think that a cap is a poor idea. It won't matter much anyway because even the longest of adventures is not far beyond 4, but capping is especially unfair when you compare one long adventure that keeps the same thread and name to two or three 'series' adventures that might as well be the same adventure because they have the same plot, but they separate threads and get a new name each time (the M series, etc). Assuming identical length and content between one long adventure and one series (let's say 6000 posts, either in one game or in 3 2000 post game series), you've rewarded the GM of the series for an arbitrary distinction.

Wik · Sep 26, 2007

I suppose so. But it does seem a bit crazy that that 6,000 post game is going to reward something like 13 GM Credits (1 for each 500, and another for posting on the wiki). Add that to the amount of GM credits you'll get for actually RUNNING the thing, and you should have enough credits to level your character quite a bit (two levels, maybe?). Besides, a 6,000 post game shouldn't really have a HUGE list of what happened - we don't want people to write novels.

I think if someone were to make a write-up of my Tomas Quinn adventure (which is on it's 8th page - it's fairly small), it would be only slightly longer than my Blacklily Adventure (which finished at less than 8 pages, if memory serves). I really wouldn't want the write-up of "Tomas" to say much more than "The PCs were hired by Marissa to find her son. They found out that Tomas was involved in some sort of theft, and a faction of goblins, as well as a faction of thieves, were looking for the item that Tomas stole. The PCs went to an underground lair that Tomas used as a hideout for himself and his gang of child thieves."

I mean, there'd be a bit more detail than that, but I really don't want the descriptions to go on for PAGES about details that are so minor that only the people that were in the adventure would notice. So, yeah, that 6,000 post adventure probably has a lot of encounters that might not even get written up, or barely alluded to (do we really need to talk for a while about that locked door that they eventually bashed down, for example?).

I guess what I'm getting at is, if you give 1 DM credit for each 500 posts, with no limit, those mega-adventures are REALLY going to have a lot of detail attached to them that doesn't necessarily have to be there, which will prevent other GMs from using that information readily.

But you do make a point that adventures that are really just multiple threads would spawn more credits than those one-long threads.

I think a good halfway solution would be to say something like "1 credit per 500 posts" and then, after a certain number of posts, up the requirement.

"1 credit per 500 posts, until 2,000 posts have been made. And then, 1 credit per 1,000 posts." Or something like that.

Rystil Arden · Sep 26, 2007

Wik said:
I suppose so. But it does seem a bit crazy that that 6,000 post game is going to reward something like 13 GM Credits (1 for each 500, and another for posting on the wiki). Add that to the amount of GM credits you'll get for actually RUNNING the thing, and you should have enough credits to level your character quite a bit (two levels, maybe?). Besides, a 6,000 post game shouldn't really have a HUGE list of what happened - we don't want people to write novels.

I think if someone were to make a write-up of my Tomas Quinn adventure (which is on it's 8th page - it's fairly small), it would be only slightly longer than my Blacklily Adventure (which finished at less than 8 pages, if memory serves). I really wouldn't want the write-up of "Tomas" to say much more than "The PCs were hired by Marissa to find her son. They found out that Tomas was involved in some sort of theft, and a faction of goblins, as well as a faction of thieves, were looking for the item that Tomas stole. The PCs went to an underground lair that Tomas used as a hideout for himself and his gang of child thieves."

I mean, there'd be a bit more detail than that, but I really don't want the descriptions to go on for PAGES about details that are so minor that only the people that were in the adventure would notice. So, yeah, that 6,000 post adventure probably has a lot of encounters that might not even get written up, or barely alluded to (do we really need to talk for a while about that locked door that they eventually bashed down, for example?).

I guess what I'm getting at is, if you give 1 DM credit for each 500 posts, with no limit, those mega-adventures are REALLY going to have a lot of detail attached to them that doesn't necessarily have to be there, which will prevent other GMs from using that information readily.

But you do make a point that adventures that are really just multiple threads would spawn more credits than those one-long threads.

I think a good halfway solution would be to say something like "1 credit per 500 posts" and then, after a certain number of posts, up the requirement.

"1 credit per 500 posts, until 2,000 posts have been made. And then, 1 credit per 1,000 posts." Or something like that.

Well, one thing is that we don't actually have a 6,000 post adventure. But believe me, I every >>2000 post adventure I've seen definitely did have material to make the summary significantly more complicated, longer, and more substantial to summarise than the shorties (I've said it before, but a good summary (including NPCs and background material) for ATfL would beat an equally good summary of, in some cases if you pick the smaller adventures, five other adventures combined)

Wik · Sep 26, 2007

True. Longer adventures DO have more to contribute than, say, "Blacklily Violence" or "Edwyd's Pie Brigade".

However, there is a tendency in people to feel they have to "earn" every GM credit they get when summarizing. And what I don't want to see is "then we opened the door, and then we fought 3 skeletons, and then we..."

I think limiting the number of credits you get would encourage those making the write-ups to be concise, and to actually focus on the important details, and not on silly little things.

Rystil Arden · Sep 26, 2007

Wik said:
True. Longer adventures DO have more to contribute than, say, "Blacklily Violence" or "Edwyd's Pie Brigade".

However, there is a tendency in people to feel they have to "earn" every GM credit they get when summarizing. And what I don't want to see is "then we opened the door, and then we fought 3 skeletons, and then we..."

I think limiting the number of credits you get would encourage those making the write-ups to be concise, and to actually focus on the important details, and not on silly little things.

That's a pretty weird explanation. Hmm...Trust me, for the long adventures, it's going to be tons of writing anyway, and unless the writer is a Storyhour writer or a Masochist, they are not going to want to write even more

Telling them "We don't trust you to be concise, so here, we're taking away your credits to make sure you get so annoyed enough that you skimp on the writing to get back" seems really weird and petty.

Plus, it still gives more points to the person who splits up their adventures into A1, A2, A3 when it's one big adventure, rather than keeping it under one name. That's bogus to me.

Fortunately, I don't think either choice is currently proposing such a limit, so we probably don't need to worry about.

Wik · Sep 26, 2007

The last thing I want to see is a "story hour". That makes things very hard to make useful.

If you want to propose no limit on posts, than there should be a limit on the size of the write-up. There needs to be some sort of way to encourage a write-up to be as useful as possible.

When you purchase a game book, you expect that most of the information will be fairly useful, without having to actually read about someone else's adventure. If someone wants to read the adventure, they can - the thread's there.

But if someone wants to know exactly what HAPPENED in "Tomas Quinn", without having to pour through a bunch of material, well, that's what the write-up is for. And I'd be happy if that write-up only included useful information that could be used in further adventures - for example, the goblin tribe that's involved, Tomas' Boys, and an introduction to the Blacklilies.

And, really, another thing I don't want to see are the write-ups being responsible for huge boosts in GM power.

I think a limit on the points rewarded (what Boddynock proposed earlier) is probably the safest way to go, since it encourages concise, relatively short write-ups.

Rystil Arden · Sep 26, 2007

Wik said:
The last thing I want to see is a "story hour". That makes things very hard to make useful.

If you want to propose no limit on posts, than there should be a limit on the size of the write-up. There needs to be some sort of way to encourage a write-up to be as useful as possible.

When you purchase a game book, you expect that most of the information will be fairly useful, without having to actually read about someone else's adventure. If someone wants to read the adventure, they can - the thread's there.

But if someone wants to know exactly what HAPPENED in "Tomas Quinn", without having to pour through a bunch of material, well, that's what the write-up is for. And I'd be happy if that write-up only included useful information that could be used in further adventures - for example, the goblin tribe that's involved, Tomas' Boys, and an introduction to the Blacklilies.

And, really, another thing I don't want to see are the write-ups being responsible for huge boosts in GM power.

I think a limit on the points rewarded (what Boddynock proposed earlier) is probably the safest way to go, since it encourages concise, relatively short write-ups.

Well, I plan to write concisely no matter what--and remember, we're not looking at more than like 6 for any adventure anyway. As for a 'big boost in GM power', if you mean in a GM Credit fashion, don't worry--it's not that significant. GMs already don't get much (they receive the same for GMing as the time XP of a PC who is playing, assuming they use the credits for XP, which is almost always the best idea because of the way the gold scales poorly), but I'd be looking at maybe 5 or 6 (counting the stuff lost in the crash) if I summarised my only truly completed adventure (ATfL), and that's not that much compared to the number of GM credits I have from in the line of duty (which is, IIRC, like 40+)

Wik · Sep 26, 2007

Fair enough. If you say it'll work, I'll trust you.

But I will say this - if I want to set an adventure in, say, Sairundain, and the write-up for all the adventures in that area happen to be four, five pages long... I'll ignore them and set my adventure in Orussus.

Again.

And I know how much you hate that.

Rystil Arden · Sep 26, 2007

Wik said:
Fair enough. If you say it'll work, I'll trust you.

But I will say this - if I want to set an adventure in, say, Sairundain, and the write-up for all the adventures in that area happen to be four, five pages long... I'll ignore them and set my adventure in Orussus.

Again.

And I know how much you hate that.

Actually, I think we have a good ratio of Orussus adventures, and another could be cool. It's only LEB that is (imo) overly Sharn heavy. That said, I agree. However, I also want the summary to be encyclopaedic when it comes to relevant world info because missing something the GM needed to know is just as bad. That's why the ATfL write-up would be so long--it has a lot of relevant Academy and Medibaria info. I'd go long on that and very very short on adventure info (surely no "They opened the door and found three skeletons :lol:

)

Wik · Sep 26, 2007

Rystil Arden said:
Actually, I think we have a good ratio of Orussus adventures, and another could be cool. It's only LEB that is (imo) overly Sharn heavy. That said, I agree. However, I also want the summary to be encyclopaedic when it comes to relevant world info because missing something the GM needed to know is just as bad. That's why the ATfL write-up would be so long--it has a lot of relevant Academy and Medibaria info. I'd go long on that and very very short on adventure info (surely no "They opened the door and found three skeletons )

Sounds good.

Although, as everyone who is in Phoenix's game knows, Three Skeletons can be a lot more important than you'd think (I believe we're in round 12 of combat on that one!)