What is DMing worth (AKA how do we award DM credits)

Velmont · Oct 9, 2008

What I don't want to see, it is DMing become a MUST. It's that or you stay behind the others. I find that just too dull for people who don't have the time or the skill to DM. You want to play a character in the Paragon Tier? Well, why don't we allow to start a character at level 10 instead?

Let's imagine you have a Rystil Arden that DM 4 games at once. He will finish, after in one year, level 10. Honestly, that's suck to me. I've always favored roleplay over powergaming, and that credit award sound so much powergaming. It can be so easily abused. And if you think you won't see that, well, RA is pretty motivated, but I still have more credits then him. I have gained 53 credits in one year, enough to give 8 level with that system.

Also, raising level to hastly will kill all the roleplaying and you will end with a character with bunch of stats and no background because he will have done three or four adventure even if he is level 15th.

My favorite character of all time I have played is Rinaldo. After 5 years, he is level 10, and he has a well flesh personality, and extended story and relation that have interracted with many other characters. That's what I like part of a high level character. That he is not only a buch of stats, but a part of the world.

What I wish with this system, is to reward DM without having a chance of abuse and show some kind of fairness toward the people who can't or don't want to DM.

Phoenix8008 · Oct 9, 2008

I don't think that there will ever be more DM's than players. I don't think that has happened in LEW and I don't see a threat of it here. DMing will never be a must. There will always be more company in the group of players that don't DM than in the group of players who do DM. So being left behind with no one else of your level doesn't seem very realistic to me at this point.

As for losing roleplaying time, I don't buy it. You get as much roleplaying in as you put effort into doing it. Some do more and deeper roleplaying, but some just want to play with new toys. Again, the choice is there to do things either way. You wanna advance slower? Don't spend your DM credits on leveling up that character. Problem solved. Plenty of time for more roleplaying.

I'm sorry, but I don't see it as 'fairness' to those who don't want to DM to limit others that do wish to do it. That's like saying nobody should be allowed to work hard and get rich because thats unfair to those who didn't work hard. DMing games here involves hard work and a lot of commitment to stick to it long enough to reap the kind of rewards we are talking about. I think it would be more unfair to make it impossible for anybody to even reach 15th or 20th level by the time 5E comes out by slowing the system down as much as you would like.

As for abusing the system, well it is possible to exploit any system I suppose. But if you have one or two people going out of their way to have a level 25 character while everyone else is at level 10, well...those one or two people are gonna be bored as heck waiting for others to catch up so they have enough characters to make a viable party with and actually play those hyper leveled characters in some adventures.

PBP already crawls by at a glacial pace. Why not let those that have the desire and the drive to go a little faster do so if its not hurting anybody else and they put in the work to earn it?

covaithe · Oct 9, 2008

As I've posted (much) earlier in the thread, I, too, would prefer to see it take longer than 6 months to advance by DMing, but I'm willing to let it go and see. I don't think it will be much of a problem. It's true that as you play your character for months and years, you start to care more about the story and your companions and your place in the world than about min/maxing. Thus, I think avid DMs will get more points than they can spend, and many of them will just sit there unused. Which is fine.

Halford · Oct 9, 2008

I am a strong supporter of the 6 months for a level policy for DMs - which I believe is official now, right? It has both the most votes, and is the median. I certainly don't want to disparage LEW, love it, but its pace does border on the torturous sometimes, for me at least. LEW does encourage some great roleplay, but I don't think thats because of its slow pace, I think thats part of the nature of PBP, and I have no complaints on RP for the L4W games which are all hugely enjoyable so far.

I know what I will likely do as a DM. I am probably going to use my points to keep Brudd as one of the highest level characters, and I will likely artificially engineer with them for big adventures. Any power boosts will be explained as blessings of Hadeys, which for Brudd works fairl well. And I certainly do't feel that these will cause the character to lack in the roleplaying department.

I understand that this differs rom LEW policy, but I consider that a good thing in this case. Its a larger inducement for DMing - great! It could create a class of super characters - I don't see this as a problem, they will either remain very close in level to their party members or strike out on their own.

The fact of the matter is that I think seeing high level characters within 3-5 years would be great. I will give the world more of a player shaped feel, when Clerics can choose to adopt Bruddian Hadeyanism, or when Gith speak in hushed voices of Kama'zer or Ts'iri possibly being the Liberator.

Though I will certainly lavish DM points on Brudd, I will likely wish to remain with the monsterous pirate crew for a long time, and as such I would avoid any significant level gap.

Velmont · Oct 9, 2008

Phoenix8008 said:
PBP already crawls by at a glacial pace. Why not let those that have the desire and the drive to go a little faster do so if its not hurting anybody else and they put in the work to earn it?

If that's the problem, let's try a solution for that. One that will allow anyone to have a chance to have a high level character and not simply a few who want and can master a game.

I think some want to solve a problem and will create another. It is not only creating an elite of player that will do, it will likely intimidate some players later because things are getting too big for them. I've seen some people doing that because they wanted to play in LEW but seeing a bunch of level 8 wandering around and having to start at 1st level...

Halford · Oct 9, 2008

There's simply no desirable way to avoid that though Velmont. Saying well you guys had to start at level one, but now this fella is coming in at 5th level is a slap in the face to those commited and reliable players who have put in the leg work.

There is a huge difference between allowing some characters to be higher level because there players earned it, and letting people level up so they won't feel bad. In my book the higher desirability of DMing helps with this, as it helps ensure that new players are tempted to DM, hopefully meaning that there are enough games around to cater for new players.

As someone who recently joined the Living worlds I was inspired by the fact that there were higher level characters. I long for Erf to be one of LEWs movers and shakers - its something to aspire to not to bemoan. The main problem for me was the lack of low level adventures, I have still only been able to get two of my three LEW characters out of the stable after five months, and LEB seems to be devoid of accesible games.

I would hope that most new players will be inspired by the flavor, rp, and fun of the games rather than be discouraged by the level of others characters. Frankly if they are put off by the simple fact that there are people with higher level characters then I am not ure they are particularily desirable recruits in the first place.

stonegod · Oct 12, 2008

Halford said:
I am a strong supporter of the 6 months for a level policy for DMs - which I believe is official now, right? It has both the most votes, and is the median.

Halford has a good point (though it isn't the one he thought he made): When is the vote "official" or complete. And where do these get posted. In LEB, I know when something is decided when the judges have all voted and the 48hr period has passed. In addition, when something passes, there is a sticky thread that notices what passed. For L4W, both seem unclear:
- I don't know when something has "passed" or "failed"
- I don't know where to go to (one place) to find all that has passed or failed. Couldn't find it on the wiki either.

As for this poll (assuming votes still matter):
- 6mo is too fast in my mind. 9 or 12?
- Award at the end (or upon request if the DM's PC is in a non-addy and wants to reap some bene right now).

Velmont · Oct 12, 2008

I think we should do a second turn for the number of month, but that time, with only two choice (6 or 12?), because the vote is too spread. If we accept any choice here, it is a minority who has voted for it. I think for most other point, the tendency is clear.

Because taking the choice of 4 person out of 15 voters, it is not even the third of the voters who made that choice.

Halford · Oct 12, 2008

11 People voted for the time frame and of those 11 4 voted for 6 months - for the record I am fairly sure I orginally voted for 12, which I would change. Not only did that position get the most votes it is also a happy medium between 12 and three which recieved equal numbers of votes.

In my view the vote has already been cast and we have a clear winner. What was the point of having a vote if we simply redo it because some don't like the results? I don't think and argument can reasonably be made that that part of the poll was confusing, seems simple enough to me and we have our answer.

I do agree with stonegod that we need to make it clear what has been accepted and what has not.

elecgraystone · Oct 12, 2008

Velmont said:
I think we should do a second turn for the number of month, but that time, with only two choice (6 or 12?), because the vote is too spread. If we accept any choice here, it is a minority who has voted for it. I think for most other point, the tendency is clear.

Because taking the choice of 4 person out of 15 voters, it is not even the third of the voters who made that choice.

I don't see the point of a re-vote to just having 6 or 12 months. If we look at the votes now 7 out of 11 picked 6 months or less months. I'd think people that picked the 3 months would just pick 6 months if 3 wasn't an option so 6 months would just win out again since only 4 people picked higher than 6 months.