Discussion - LEW 4th Edition

[Halford]

Hmmm, well my poll answer can also be taken as core only to start with other WOTC books available later after a little vetting, etc. Though I would like the presumption to be that new material is allowed.

As for judges it seems reasonable that those of us who are taking the time to be involved here and who wish to be judges should be signed up. Ideally we also sign up any interested current Living EnWorld judges interested to. The main criteria at this point seems to be that prospective judges be prepared to offer up a little time to the project.

We do need to settle on what point buy will be used though frankly I believe we will none of us be surprised by the answer to that.

Still not getting the maps being limiting thing in all honesty. Its more like I consider the maps to be a simple border sketch with a few vaguely defined areas to act as inspirational spring boards. I also think the Allarian League is a veritable transitive Isles without the transitive element since if you want anything you just say theres a valley there seperated off by mountains, theres a Kingdom here, etc.

I would like to see a poll so we can see the community reaction to a transitative setting vs a static one - not my static one just a static one. Though we would need a bite sized definition of transative which I would think Graf's the ideal man to produce!

For my purposes btw I would consider a starting Isle the size of Great Britain to more than fufill my mainland hankerings and such a large Isle goes a long way to making me happier with the Island concept - ost of the way in fact.

As to my setting proposal honestly it was more designed to help start a dialogue than anything else. I'm really not married to it! Nor the maps, I just felt like a little Dundjinni doodling, lol. Though maps are the one thing I searched for when I signed up for living EnWorld and I was quite disappointed with the minmal ones available. I suppose I'd like at minimum a sketchy outline so I can say, okay this area really shouldn't be artic without an explaination, this area should be fairly warm, etc. I also like to use a few locations as springboard to my imagination - though this certainly is not necessary it just helps sometimes.

I think I need to reread the transitive Isle to. I suppose my question at this point is how do you feel about a starting Isle of Great Britai's size. If you are okay with that I'm certainly a lot happier about the proposal.

 

[covaithe]

I'm still reading the rest of Halford's post, but I just wanted to chime in and say that I'm in favor of a larger main island too. Britain-sized is fine with me. I think we're approaching consensus on this, at least?

 

[covaithe]

A little brainstorming on the subject of judges.

In LEW, judges do the following:

• Vote on new rules content, e.g. player-created prestige classes, feats, etc. The goal was to allow customization and flavor without either power creep or excessive rules bloat.
• Read and approve adventure proposals. This provides some fairly limited control over worldbuilding, though in practice I suspect it's rarely used.
• Each adventure must be watched by a judge who is neither a player or the DM for that adventure.
• Adjudicate rules disputes (rare)
• approve experience awards (common, but mostly rubber-stamp)
• (important) if an adventure's DM disappears, that adventure's judge fills in, either continuing the adventure or wrapping it up neatly so that the players aren't screwed.

Also, character judges, which is a separate but overlapping list of people, approve new characters and level-ups.

Have I missed anything? Should this list be different for L4W?

If that list is roughly accurate for L4W, then it seems that judges need to have at least most of the following characteristics:

• Experience DMing, at least enough to be willing to jump in and rescue a game if the DM disappears.
• Familiarity, if not expertise, with the rules. I imagine this can be pretty flexible at first; we're all still learning 4e.
• willing to volunteer some (possibly lots of) free time on a fairly regular basis
• reliable, i.e. not likely to disappear without warning
• regular email access outside of ENWorld.
• knows something about the history and purpose of the community, and buys into the idea.

I put that last one in with a bit of trepidation. I'm not trying to push anyone out here; notably, I don't think that participation or judgeship in LEW is necessary to be a judge of L4W. I think Graf would make an excellent judge. That said, I do feel that having some history with LEW or LEB or an off-site equivalent would be a good thing for a prospective L4W judge, if just to provide some perspective on the difference between normal PbP and a living world.

Disclaimer: I'm not a judge for LEW, so I don't have firsthand experience on this subject. I'd love for LEW and LEB judges to chime in here.

 

[covaithe]

Yet another post about practicalities. I've been thinking about a roadmap for getting this living world up and running. Something like this:

1. get a sub-forum made in the Living Worlds forum, next to LEB and LEW. This may require volunteers to be moderators.
2. Immediately create a tavern thread for roleplaying. We have to have some fun while we're doing this, right? The surroundings and even the name of the bartender will be intentionally vague, since we won't have decided a setting yet.
3. Open nominations for judges. Anybody can nominate anyone, including themselves, and explain why that person would be a good judge. Nominations can be declined, obviously. Hold nominations open for, say, two weeks. Link to that thread and bump it as often as possible. After that time period, create a secret, multi-select poll where you can vote for up to, say, 6 people. (Is that possible? If not, we could possibly do it by email, though that would be less than ideal...) After two weeks, the top 6 vote-getters are declared judges.
4. When judges are decided, we open the floor for character submission. Since the setting likely won't be done by then, character backgrounds will necessarily not be final, but the judges can get started on approving the crunch, at least.
5. Likewise, as soon as judges are assigned, open the floor for drafts of adventure proposals. Approval would necessarily be contingent on the setting that the adventure was designed for being accepted. Prospective DMs would probably be well advised to be familiar with all the popular setting proposals at that time, and able to slot their ideas into more than one setting.
6. Meanwhile (starting as soon as the subforum is live), draft and vote on a charter, i.e. a document describing how the game works. I suspect this will closely resemble LEW's at first, though I might be wrong.
7. Meanwhile (starting now), try to put together one or more proposals for a setting, including things like map (or not), city names, some history, etc. Transitive Isles is an example that's most of the way there. This proposal doesn't need to be detailed; people might prefer a less detailed, more blank-canvas world.
8. We discuss the setting proposals as they get more complete. At some point, the judges amongst themselves decide when there is at least one proposal that's complete enough to start playing in. They create a poll, with options like: "We should go with setting A and start playing immediately", "We should go with setting B and start playing immediately", "We should keep talking about it for a while first". Leave the poll open for a while, say two weeks, and if at the end of that time the judges determine that "Setting B and start right now" has won convincingly, we are ready to play.
9. Edit the tavern thread(s) to fill in details of the chosen setting. Everyone edits their character backgrounds as needed. DMs edit their adventure proposals to fit the setting, if needed.
10. We start playing!

Am I forgetting anything important? I'm sure the answer is yes, but I can't think what.

 

[Atanatotatos]

Mostly I agree with you, covaithe. Starting a thread might be a greatway to move interest to the project too.

 

[Halford]

Sound great to me Covaithe.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

More thoughts on this thread in general... (Full Disclosure: I still haven’t read from page 11 onward.)

[*]get a sub-forum made in the Living Worlds forum, next to LEB and LEW. (This may require volunteers to be moderators.)

I would do this sooner (as in now) than later with the notion that you will look at expanding this thread into the multiple threads that I think it would support. The benefit to this is you just might get more readers/interest than a single long thread would bring in.

(That said its just a suggestion… As for moderators they could/should just use the ones from the rest of PbP forums… Honestly, most moderation, in the PbP forums at least, is spam and that’s a real quick fix.)

BS

 

[covaithe]

I think I agree, Brother S. So, you seem like a knowledgeable person. How would we go about getting our sub-forum? Presumably I can't just create it. Do we ask someone? Such as, say, you?

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

I think I agree, Brother S. So, you seem like a knowledgeable person. How would we go about getting our sub-forum? Presumably I can't just create it. Do we ask someone? Such as, say, you?

Oh, I’m not that powerful (you’ll need an Admin for sub forum creation) nor am I enough in the loop that the request should come from me. (I‘m still very much an outsider in 4th edition LEW)

My first suggestion would be for a thread to be made in meta and see what sort of answer you get from one of the Admins… There has been at least a handful of LEW sub-forums so I don’t think it would meet with much resistance. (but be sure to make reference to this thread, and any other threads for 4th edition LEW, so they are not so blind sided by it)

BS

 

[stonegod]

• Vote on new rules content, e.g. player-created prestige classes, feats, etc. The goal was to allow customization and flavor without either power creep or excessive rules bloat.
• Read and approve adventure proposals. This provides some fairly limited control over worldbuilding, though in practice I suspect it's rarely used.
• Each adventure must be watched by a judge who is neither a player or the DM for that adventure.
• Adjudicate rules disputes (rare)
• approve experience awards (common, but mostly rubber-stamp)
• (important) if an adventure's DM disappears, that adventure's judge fills in, either continuing the adventure or wrapping it up neatly so that the players aren't screwed.

As an LEB judge, I can vet all of the above. We have rejected adventures that either (1) didn't fit thematically w/ Eberron or (2) were not appropriate for Living campaigns (1-20 APs come to mind). Generally, we try to have folks break adventures into smaller chunks with follow-ups proposed afterwards.

For LEB, we also use proposals to "accept" WotC (or third party) content beyond Core. That way, we can import neat things, but have control. Sometimes we tweak them as well (Swashbuckler for example).

However, the #1 reasons for judge is the last bullet. W/o it, Living worlds die.

• Experience DMing, at least enough to be willing to jump in and rescue a game if the DM disappears.
• Familiarity, if not expertise, with the rules. I imagine this can be pretty flexible at first; we're all still learning 4e.
• willing to volunteer some (possibly lots of) free time on a fairly regular basis
• reliable, i.e. not likely to disappear without warning
• regular email access outside of ENWorld.
• knows something about the history and purpose of the community, and buys into the idea.

Judging time varies. If you are not having to take over a game, its very low maintenance. If you have to, it can ratchet up a lot (I'm running 3 games I had to take over, mainly due to fewer active LEB judges). So, more judges better to spread out the potential responsibility.

As for starting up, covaithe's follow-up suggestions are good. I'd look at LEB's rules as they are more recent than LEWs, but they'll be a rough start regardless. At minimum, you need a:
- Sticky Character Thread
- Sticky Rules thread (Approved content goes here)
- Sticky World of 4NWorld thread (World details here)
- Tavern Thread
- Discussion Thread (to take over this one)
You'll also need a new Living 4NWorld account that only judges have access to (for officialness ) That's a fusion of the LEB and LEW approaches.