(Discussion) General Part IV

[Jack Haggerty]

Jack haggerty, I'll Judge your Tidy profit game.Go ahead an edit 'Uriel' in as Judge whenever you like.

happy holidays all, btw...

Thanks... And Merry Christmas everyone!

 

[dpdx]

I'm posting to plead with the Judges to consider game balance a little more when approving or voting down proposals.

For example, not that I'm trying to pick on GnomeWorks, but there's the most egregious example, proposing firearms and two new Core classes for a medieval fantasy world that we were told would be based on DnD, and it's making me sit here with a grimace on my face, and consider dialing back my PbP rounds by exactly one world if it gets approved. WTF?

With the approval system we've got going, we could either flesh this LEW out and make a full and vibrant campaign world with content where we need it, or we could mod it to death with eight hundred variants and unnecessary supplemental rules, so that no one wants to play.

(That is, except the people who made the rules. Then we've got a multi-thread PbP for certain special people. Not what I signed up for, I can tell you.)

I'm hoping we end up with a campaign world for the game system we have, and not a brand new game system, know'm mean?

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I have to say, I'm with dpdx.

Wasn't Living ENWorld supposed to be Core rules only...? I mean, yes WotC have designed a lot of off-balance and powerful things, but I have to say(no offense to anyone, either), that I trust them a lot more than I do us.

I've not really liked much that I've seen proposed, and I think the worst part of it all...is I've never liked the idea of players designing thier OWN stuff. We'll end up with lots of Feats and PrCs that were for ONE person that we'll probably never see used again, and could very easily give that character a good deal more power than those just using the Core stuff...

 

[Creamsteak]

I'm not sure I know where dpdx is coming from. What all has been approved? I can recall approving one prestige class and that was it. Can someone catch me up on what all has happened besides this? I've been pretty much gone since Thanksgiving, and when I scanned the forums (I'm back on my old 56k so not nearly as fast as I wish I could), and it looked like things slowed down significantly without me.

 

[WizWrm]

Wasn't Living ENWorld supposed to be Core rules only...?

It was supposed to be Core Rules plus player creations. The idea was to allow only things that were universally accessible, so we didn't have 1) an unfair advantage for players with more books, or 2) DMs running adventures with characters who had stuff they didn't have the rules for, thus requiring much violation of OGC regulations to be posting closed-content material so the adventure could be run.

We'll end up with lots of Feats and PrCs that were for ONE person that we'll probably never see used again, and could very easily give that character a good deal more power than those just using the Core stuff...

I think you might possibly be referring to me here, since I am one of the most "egregious examples" in regards to game balance. However, 1) the proposal system was designed for player input, so in regards to me, this means that my two rules contributions (the goblin race's stats and the mercurial initiate) have been toned down to what appears to be general acceptance, since I've received little feedback on the newest versions, and 2) I currently have no intention of making a character that uses either of my contributions.

Since, of course, this may not be for everyone, I definitely agree that changes need to be made. I think that I see a couple alternative options to what we have now, in order of severity.

• Ban "rules-material" player submissions.
• Allow "rules-material" player submissions, but only allow them to be written by players who do not intend to use them. This would suggest a system where players would "request" write-ups from each other. For example, I would detail the Guild Mercurius, and then request someone to make a prestige class suitable for the organization. However, to me this implies that we can't trust each other to adjust to the suggestions of our fellow players, and also may be difficult for things like feats - though I could certainly see "mini-adventures" to acquire a feat or spell.
• Require "rules-material" submissions to be accompanied by a suitable amount of flavor material, since the entire point is to flesh out the world. However, this would also mean a decrease in the number of submissions, since flavor material is notoriously time consuming to write up, as opposed to maybe twenty minutes to write a feat or an hour for a prestige class.
• Change the approval system to a broad voting system, rather than just the judges giving approval - personally, I think this should have been done in the first place, for a couple reasons. First, right now it's dependent on the personal taste and personal judgement of just the judges (who are by no means representative of the player population as a whole) to determine what gets put in Enworld and what doesn't.* Second, it also depends on the personal time of those judges - right now all of the proposals are sitting in limbo and have been for several weeks at least with no judge input, for various reasons.

*We already have a problem with that for firearms, and this also means the judges are reluctant to make broad-reaching changes to the flavor of Enworld - they don't want to offend anyone, which was the original objection to my write-up of the goblin mythology. dpdx, I agree with you on the new Core classes.

Also, I'm a bit worried about inactivity. Even taking into account the holidays, it looks like there are less than four adventures "running" (updated in the last two weeks) right now, less than two dozen players participating, and current proposals from only three players (myself, GnomeWorks, and Sparky, plus one from Jack and one from Velmont that were approved). If you're concerned about "fleshing out" the world, please contribute.

I think that it might a bit intimidating for new players to join an actively running "game," similar to the reasons why I never venture into Fight Club. The LEW guide ought to be finished (including easy information on proposals), and maybe a recruiting post with step-by-step instructions (so it's easy to figure out what's going on) should be made in Talking the Talk (which will hopefully be moved back into the main forum). I also think we should lift the limitation on number of characters per player so we can have more adventures running - it seems to me that there are far more DMs than the player base can handle. Additionally, the trading post sees virtually no use, despite the efforts of a few, so it should either be taken down or changed - personally, for Velbrik I just buy and sell stuff between adventures "behind the scenes" because it's much less of a hassle to do, even though I may be losing a couple gold pieces here and there.

 

[WizWrm]

In response to Creamsteak:

The Trader and Little Sneak were both approved, as well as a chain of whip feats, correct? The main concern here seems to be firearms - dpdx, Ankh-Morpork, and possibly others, don't want to see them in a primarily fantasy world. Also the matter of Core classes - right now it looks like "tacit approval" for modifying the Core Rules. The two concerns as they stand as I see them: 1) Some feel like this is all opening the door for rushing away from "strict D&D fitted to a community-created world," which was the original idea, and 2) The creations seem to be mostly "for your own character" rather than building the world.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I guess I'm just too comfortable with the Core rules.

Actually, I think part of my problem may be I'm seeing all these PrCs and Feats developing...but it seems like(to me at least) the world is still very flat. It might work a bit better if we work the other way around...having a context first(and we have one now, just a more definite one) and then building mechanical stuff AROUND it.

And by the way...did we ever get a map made? If we didn't, I can still draw one out if I get some basic ideas of what's been decided on. To me, it seems like there's more of a clutter of stuff at the moment...

 

[WizWrm]

And by the way...did we ever get a map made? If we didn't, I can still draw one out if I get some basic ideas of what's been decided on. To me, it seems like there's more of a clutter of stuff at the moment...

A professional fantasy cartographer (Scorpio) is drawing one up, but since he's not charging, we certainly can't complain about speed.

The geography thread (with all the player submissions, not the "please help me organize...") badly needs to be updated, and include info on the basic layout (the elemental towers, etc.).

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

A professional fantasy cartographer (Scorpio) is drawing one up, but since he's not charging, we certainly can't complain about speed.

Good good good.

Truthfully, I don't mind lots of new PrCs and Feats and such...just they definatly need a context. Otherwise its too much of a mess and it IS a bunch of players just designing Feats for themselves. Once we have a map, and it can be visualized, history and more detail for countries, etc can be worked out a lot more easily.

One thing I saw you mention that really seemed to hit the nail on the head, is we've got too many people wanting to DM and not enough PCs going around. I think that we should definatly LIMIT the amount of games. Probably something like One Game Per Person and then maybe a some limit on total adventure based on the amount of Players sitting around the Tavern waiting. Adventures could still be submitted, but a waiting list could be worked out. Most of us here ARE DMs in general, and that may be the problem.

 

[Creamsteak]

A lot of cleanup needs to be done around here. I've always intended to do it, but it's extremely difficult now that I'm away from my good connection. Also, a lot of "sections" need to be written for LEW. And theres a ton of assumptions going on that I simply don't like. The Trader and Little Sneak seem well constructed to me. I had some concerns with the whip feats, always have. Theres a mass of material I havn't had any interest in approving so-far, and a few things I would love to approve with proper revisions. Theres also been some problems with DMs using unapproved creatures/equipment apparently. Even I've broken that rule in my game (using constructs from MMII). A lot of cleanup would be nice, and I want to work on it. Once this forum is cleaned up and organized (and a few problems dealt with), I think LEW will be in much better shape. For now though, things look awkward, cobbled together without control, and a ton of leaders but no direction to travel in. I have my ideas about what needs to be done, and I need to implement them as soon as I can obviously...

If people can just be patient, I think we can make it through these problems.