Plane Touched Proposal Discussion

[paazin]

Thanks, Thangs. I wasn't aware of the whole backstory to the issue - clears it up a bit.

[Thangorn]

Ah, sorry Thangorn. I thought Rusty's was merely expanding on your 'Bio approval process'.

Correct me if I am wrong Wynna, but I believe these were put up for community discussion on their own merits.

Rusty and I have had some discussions about the proposals but I leave the DM handling side to him. I've put forth my 2 coppers on it and I dont have a strong opinion yet about the way this is handled except as it relates to the initial test.

I am focussed specifically on getting admin and community support to run a test on the technical and roleplay elements of running plane-touched. I do hope that some data to assist with making judgements on DM involvement and how many plane-touched are too many come from it and I'd love some input on how we can get that sort of info out of it..

[Thangorn]

Thanks, Thangs. I wasn't aware of the whole backstory to the issue - clears it up a bit.

Thanks Paaz..

I was assuming in my post that if you have quite valid concerns about timing, others will aswell.

[paazin]

Thanks, Thangs. I wasn't aware of the whole backstory to the issue - clears it up a bit.

Thanks Paaz..

I was assuming in my post that if you have quite valid concerns about timing, others will aswell.

Well it's more along the lines of... being concerned about everything being ready for the April 15 deadline. I was under the mistaken impression we wanted this, along with the drow nursery, along with all the other required systems for normal PCs in place before then. I misunderstood and didn't realize this was something on the side itself, so I apologize.

[Wynna]

That's is correct, Thangs. Both parts of this are submitted by different people but were put up together to keep the discussion in one thread. All points in both parts are up for discussion separately or together. And, no, there's no way all of Thangs' proposed work could be done before Live. He does, however, need to know if he can get started and what he should get started on.

This thread is meant as a public discussion. When the public has had their say, I will take that input and formulate a proposal for Admin to vote on. If that passes Admin, then Thangs can get started.

[Rusty]

The idea of having a centralised approval, instead of by server, was to make sure we have some consistency: in an extreme case, to avoid the HDM A says "no way" to PC B; HDM C says "Sure"; PC B is made on server C, moves to server A straight away. Also, I had the advantage of having seen an outline of Thangs' proposal, which I think is broadly excellent, and it seemed important - if we went down the WF route - to have consistency across servers there. Of course, there's a consequent overhead cost; a question of finding balance.

The text there is a little context free, which probably accounts for a few queries. One side-issue was including Favoured Souls in the approval mix: they are canonically pretty rare and require direct divine intervention. The sources seem to indicate that deities typically have none, one, or one in any given region of Faerun. The issue there is probably how accurate a representation of Faerun we're going for. A dozen Favoured Souls of Helm in an Inn in Silverymoon certanily doesn't represent anything canonical, but is that a price worth paying for choice? (Of course, that's all wholly seperate to any discussion on the merits of Favoured Souls, per se.)

[Wynna]

All right. Plenty of time has passed to discuss this. What I'm seeing and hearing elsewhere is a reticence to have bio approval for Underdark race PCs. I can understand that. It's never been done that way and I really don't see the need for it. I do like the thought of bio approval for PT races and PCs of any race with extraordinary backgrounds.

Final thoughts before I draft something for Admin approval?

[Veilan]

Hard to ponder that really - PT races are only LA+1 and more conducive to the overall campaign than UD races, yet that also means they may be more common and it may be more necessary to assure they are well thought-out since they are going to have more interaction with "regular" DMs and players (UD races in ALFA 1 mostly had contact with specific UD players / DMs, therefore mitigating problems of playing consistency and offering education on the races on the go, something which your average normal DM may not have the time or inclination to do).

By and large, I think we should tie the treatment to LA or non-LA, and not further differentiate between PT and UD races - bio for all, or bio for non.

Centralised approval certainly beats local approval in terms of consistency and fairness, but the certain touch of jumping hoops and possible favouritism is always present, though quite mitigated with a central body consisting of multiple people.

Then again, by and large, I think the easiest way out is still the "Rotku compromise", combined with a boost to starting ECL 2 .

[Rotku]

Hard to ponder that really - PT races are only LA+1 and more conducive to the overall campaign than UD races, yet that also means they may be more common and it may be more necessary to assure they are well thought-out since they are going to have more interaction with "regular" DMs and players (UD races in ALFA 1 mostly had contact with specific UD players / DMs, therefore mitigating problems of playing consistency and offering education on the races on the go, something which your average normal DM may not have the time or inclination to do).

By and large, I think we should tie the treatment to LA or non-LA, and not further differentiate between PT and UD races - bio for all, or bio for non.

Centralised approval certainly beats local approval in terms of consistency and fairness, but the certain touch of jumping hoops and possible favouritism is always present, though quite mitigated with a central body consisting of multiple people.

Then again, by and large, I think the easiest way out is still the "Rotku compromise", combined with a boost to starting ECL 2 .

For the little it counts, I agree with Alara. Mostly

[Veilan]

Hah!

Considering you and I drafted the first survey together, I'm somehow not surprised .

Let's hug while noone's looking!

[Brokenbone]

<snip>. What I'm seeing and hearing elsewhere is a reticence to have bio approval for Underdark race PCs. <snip>

Where's the elsewhere?

Couple members wrote up different proposals, discussion invited, discussion ongoing (or stalled) above.

Having the details of the reticence debut in a proposal for a vote is skipping the discussion phase of the process, isn't it?

[Mikayla]

The "Rotku" compromise is not really a compromise - having everyone start at an effective character level of 2 eliminates Drow and Svirfs, two of the big underdark races, leaving only Duergar. In short, we would swap out Planetouched (which would fit in) and drop the Underdark races. Not much of a compromise.

[Rotku]

Start everyone at a character level of 2?! I've never suggested THAT.

Have I?

Given that I was strongly against the idea of starting at anything other than 1, just a few months ago, I hope I haven't suddenly changed my mind (or posted something and compeltely forgot about it).

[AcadiusLost]

I, certainly, have expressed strong objections to adding a requirement for Central Approval for each underdark-race PC- this was never needed or called for in the past, and the possibility of adding one or more planetouched races seems a quite absurd reason to make players of long-supported underdark races now have to go through a special approval process per PC. While I can understand the "symmetry" argument of approval for all LA-PCs, in the context of ALFA's history, it really does seem like another attempt to get rid of / remove / discourage / marginalize the underdark races from our community. The so-called ECL2 "compromise" fails the same test in my eyes.

I'd much rather see players being allowed to choose their PCs freely among the options provided- IMHO, the long path to a second class level is disincentive enough to discourage population explosions among these races.

I don't believe I am alone in this sentiment.

[Mikayla]

Rotku:

Start everyone at a character level of 2?! I've never suggested THAT.

Have I? Confused

Given that I was strongly against the idea of starting at anything other than 1, just a few months ago, I hope I haven't suddenly changed my mind (or posted something and compeltely forgot about it).

My recolllection is that you (Rotku) were against starting above Level 1; but Veilan called it the "Rotku Compromise" (apparently misnamed) and I thought it would be easiest to just use what he was calling it.