xp for regular dm'ing

[oldgrayrogue]

When I was actively DMing the best "reward" I could receive was kudos from players stating that they enjoyed my sessions. Even better were IC stories about my DM sessions. Do this if you want to reward your DMs. Also, don't gripe and grouse if you dislike things that happen while being DMd. This is another way we can "reward" our DMs. I don't believe people choose to DM or do tech work for XP for their toon. Let the reward fit the effort. If you want DMs to DM more, be nice to them and try to be model players.

[t-ice]

I've not even been here this long, but can't recall how many times this particular suggestion has popped up.

By this logic:

Is it that much of a stretch that dms get rpxp for a toon?
Players currently get it for ho humming and walking down a road delivering mail, which adds nothing to the world aside from a few gp into the economy.
I would argue that providing life for a server through active dm ing or through dropping encounters and rumors (as Zelk has been doing) provides far more value.

I suppose there would be no harm in logging RPXP during DMing, and then when that DM next logs in with a PC, give a dialogue box saying "You've accrued X rpxp by DMing, do you wish to take it?". And then the person could decide whether to take the "free" xp or to null it. Some DMs who play rarely might like it, no-one has to take it. (I play once or twice a month and staying on lvl1 for half a year is a bit of a meh, to be honest)

On the other hand, I don't expect anyone to DM because of this xp. So if it causes bad blood among other contributors who are missing out on xp for their contributions, then just as well don't do it.

Trying to get a system up that rewards DMs with more DM time when they play is several worlds of awful. Let DMs DM who they want to, not whom some system forces them to. Let alone some "VIP status stamp" crap. In practice this probably happens implicitly to some degree. Let it stay there.

[kid]

As an off topic:
Kudos for the DMing OGR.
It was a lot of fun.

But aye, can't see the harm in small rewards for DMing.
Certainly better than rewarding regular RPXP for nothing.

The idea of RPXP is to give people insentive to log and play, i'd say giving people insentive to log and DM is even more important.

A DM online is a far better reason to log in than another player online.

[Veilan]

I've proposed this very thing when I was LA - to give DMs rp xp for the time they spend DMing.

Was shot down then because it was deemed unfair by tech for their contributions - though according to Ronan many people are logged in tapping the keys while coding already.

The argument that convinced me this was a good idea was opportunity cost. Even if I think rp xp are not really an encouragement to go DM (that has to come from elsewhere, like the desire to tell a story and the entertainment of a great party to unfold it with), I think it's somewhat illogical that we, after a fashion, punish people for being logged in as a DM rather than PC.

Cheers,

[Swift]

Can I get a monthly XP bonus just for being a member?

I mean, if we are going to hand out XP for contributions, just being a member is a contribution (and no smaller than writing up a few words in a bio).

(Il)logical conclusion etc.

but yes, it's a top priority to reward our dms and tech folks- just not sure how we could do it with xp. We can float it as a topic and see how much support we get for it. Do we draw the line at dms or include builders, tech and hosters too? Not asking to drive a wedge on the idea but because I'm sure there will be those who don't dm but do other things and will feel strongly about wanting fair treatment.

Remember what I said about XP for Bios being a Pandoras box? Congratulations! There is absolutely no grounds to not support XP for any other sort of contribution if you support it for bios. The only thing to stop it is whether or not it is technically feasible to do so. If you support XP for Bios, you cannot logically draw the line at some arbitrary limit of contribution. You include everyone who contributes, or no one.

Everyone who is here, even a player who plays twice a month for an hour that doesn't submit a bio is contributing to making this community what it is. If they are going above and beyond that by way of donating time to DMing, building, tech work, hosting, maintaining a mod etc then they deserve to be rewarded. You cannot cherry pick groups for rewards.

[Ronan]

The only reason I (and probably others) suggested it might not be such a bad idea for DMs to get RP XP is that we can actually track their time spent online. We can't track hours spent in the toolset, coding, or fiddling with problems on the hosts. I suppose we could query github for activity. Push a commit during a 24 hour period and bank X RP Increments, or whatever. As Swift says it seems like a slippery slope.

I'm not so sure it leads to somewhere so terrible though, instead just a lot of work for Tech. Sure the general utility of increasing PC levels is clearly negative, but it can result in a net gain if this increase comes from positive contributions (good RP, toolset work, DMing, whatever). Toolset grinding is preferable to orc-spawn grinding. A line of code is preferable to something you emoted to get that last RP Increment.

I'm sure the implementation is non-trivial and its not clear if this would really increase DMing. I know it wouldn't affect me on the tech or DM side (I've spent more hours doing tech stuff than DMing, though I've been DMing more lately), because the amount of XP is so small and a lot of the time I don't want any more XP anyway. When your PC ends up too powerful for available plots, what do you want more XP for?

I suppose the best way to answer the above would just be to ask DMs. Our members aren't shy about signing up to DM and then not actually DMing, so we have plenty of people who have the formal capacity to contribute more, but aren't.

Here is an interesting study suggesting informal rewards boost wikipedia contributor productivity:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi ... ne.0034358

A book on the subject (which is not entirely available online):
http://successfulonlinecommunities.com/node/4

Ideally I think we'd have ways to award contributors which don't result in OOC gains and thus don't erode the very game we're trying to play and build. I've no idea what those sorts of rewards would be though.

[Zelknolf]

Was shot down then because it was deemed unfair by tech for their contributions - though according to Ronan many people are logged in tapping the keys while coding already.

You've got some funny memory. TA AcadiusLost likened the act to one of self-twinking, claiming that such rewards are damaging to an ideal goal of completely-neutral contributors, argued that a DM logged in for PC XP accepted no risk (as opposed to being logged in with a PC, when DMs and other PCs represent some quantity of risk), and that DMs could easily pretend to every PC on the server that he or she was busy with one of the others (whereas an AFK player is easily spotted by trying to interact with them).

As TA, I did not add to the discussion.


You and Rotku brought up tech-- and then promptly compared the work we do to reading the forums.

[Khazar Stoneblood]

Do people really care that much about XP? Is it a big incentive?

I care about it until about 2nd or 3rd level... mainly because of survivablity. Haveing one hit from a goblin be enough to kill you is not my ideal play style. but once I reach that point, it really doesn't matter much.

Now GOLD on the other hand....

[Rumple C]

For some it is.

You know when the markets go all non-optimal, and the central banks and govts start to manipulate policy to get them back on track? Thats where im coming from.

More Dms needed. Throw some bones. Get the non dm ing dms dm ing. Something. Anything.

[FoamBats4All]

Yeah I don't know if GP or XP is the right thing to motivate.

But it'd be nice to find something to increase DM/builder/tech activity.

[oldgrayrogue]

Yeah I don't know if GP or XP is the right thing to motivate.

But it'd be nice to find something to increase DM/builder/tech activity.

Praise. All actors, artists and story tellers have immense egos.

[t-ice]

Here is an interesting study suggesting informal rewards boost wikipedia contributor productivity:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi ... ne.0034358

In light of that study, DMd hours (during the past year?) should probably show not as xp on the PC but read on the forums, say on that line under the avatar?

Khazar is right about xp only mattering until level 3 or 4. At least how I think about it. Gold, however, matters zero.

At the end of the day DMing is a hobby. A hobby needs to be fun in itself to be worthwhile. There's precious little "currency" we have available to give incentives here. The illusion that XP (or GP) is such a currency comes from the fact that it can provide incentive between doing A or doing B while in the game. XP or GP does not make playing fun.

[Veilan]

At the end of the day DMing is a hobby. A hobby needs to be fun in itself to be worthwhile. There's precious little "currency" we have available to give incentives here. The illusion that XP (or GP) is such a currency comes from the fact that it can provide incentive between doing A or doing B while in the game. XP or GP does not make playing fun.

I entirely agree (and so does Maslow), but imho, the main argument is not to "icentivise" DMing through small xp gains, but to stop penalising it when compared to just being logged in with a PC avatar and pushing a button once in a while.

This simple problem of opportunity cost, to me, elevated the matter from a hygiene factor ("monetary" reward) to a (de-) motivator - we're telling DMs their contribution in the game is "worth" less than dragging their heels with a PC in one of the only two currencies we have. That is the opposite of praise. And as Ronan pointed out, with DMs this is actually something we can measure and reward without the same amount of hassle and logistics that awarding other contributions would be. Even if I would still consider it nice to do so as well.

Cheers,

[kid]

When I have a few hours to log every now and then I rather log with my toon than DM.
And admitidly part of it is the possiblity to have it move (ever so slightly) towards the next level.

If I would have gotten RPXP for DMing i'd likely just the same rather log and actualy try to give people some fun while still giving my toon the same 20-30 xp.
If that makes me a horrible PGer so be it.

So you have at least one person who will DM now and then when he can (even if not regularly) if you would give him minimal xp reward for it.
I understand the resistance (hey swift) but even taking that into account it seems like the benefit would be greater then the potential damage.

We could give it a try and see how it works.
(possibly we'll need to establish some sort of cap, to make sure its not abused and make sure we dont get absurd results like a DM that DMs a lot having his toon level without playing at all.)

[t-ice]

(possibly we'll need to establish some sort of cap, to make sure its not abused and make sure we dont get absurd results like a DM that DMs a lot having his toon level without playing at all.)

Probably such a cap should simply be on RPXP in general. (I.e. no more rpxp if a PCs xp consist of more than X% rpxp)