Hardcore or Softcore - you guys need to pick

[Castano]

Recently I have encountered a number of complaints about policies that restrict what players/DMs can do in game. I have received virtually the same number of complaints, along with threats to quit, by players/DMs who feel there is too much permissiveness.

If we were playing PnP at my house life would be far far more restrictive (think F/T/C/W). However we are not playing that game nor is it my desire to force anyone to play that game.

The areas that I have heard on in the past 6 months are as follows:

(1) Can both my PCs have PrCs? (Current rule: no, because DMs have deemed ALFA is already overpopulated with PrCs*)
(2) Can both my PCs be exceptional? (Current rule: no, because DMs have deemed ALFA already overpopulated (in terms of with exceptional PCs*)
(3) Can I rez a PC repeatedly? (No you should not (no hard cap here))
(4) Can I rebuild a PC to something new? (No)
(5) Can I offer to rebuild a warlock to a rogue to get it out of game? (no I prefer they become sorcerers, which has always been the go to rebuild option for grandfathered warlocks, see DMA for other options)
(6) Can we start at lvl 3 or lvl X if our PC dies in the middle of a campaign? (no, this is only allowed on the forthcoming NWN1 servers HEEGZ may implement)
(7) Can all ALFA PCs have the option to start at lvl 3? (no.)

If you want a hardcore game be willing to live it with your own toon too, is basically my point.

*Anyone wishing to use stats to debate populations should bear in mind the DMs are referencing active PCs, not all live PCs, there is a big difference here. Please keep that in mind when posting but only X % of PCs have PrCs/exceptionals. DMs and players do not see the database when they log in, they see what's online. Our community is small enough that anecdotal evidence counts.

[FoamBats4All]

(1) Can both my PCs have PrCs? (Current rule: no, because DMs have deemed ALFA is already overpopulated with PrCs*)

Is that a new one? Because you totally approved my 2nd PC for a PrC.

*Anyone wishing to use stats to debate populations should bear in mind the DMs are referencing active PCs, not all live PCs, there is a big difference here. Please keep that in mind when posting but only X % of PCs have PrCs/exceptionals. DMs and players do not see the database when they log in, they see what's online. Our community is small enough that anecdotal evidence counts.

Active PCs*: 148
Active PCs* with a PrC: 8 (5%) [Hulurin Tosscobble, Alyra Ashedown, Sylvaine de Rochelle, Keren Horn, Drake Veneshuel, Merrin Allister, Aglaril Shaelara, Saltine]

* An active PC is defined as having logged in at least once since 2013-10-23 (one month prior to data collection).

[Castano]

yes that's new Foam (as of 10/24/2013), we were unaware people were applying for double PrCs prior and also regular exceptionals too.

Edit: The prior rule on exceptionals was "not to allow ALFA to have too many in game at one time", and that was deemed too nebulous/open to favoritism so it was replaced with some population control rules that would apply to everyone.

[Rumple C]

I see your Hardcore and raise.

All the way.

Oh. And component cost for stoneskin.

Rolled hit points not max.

Movement penalties for heavy armor. (No more mail in your finest full plate)

Remove -6 safety net.

Sacred purification to apply positive energy (healing) to all within burst, not just allies. And require a third feat to obtain as per PNP.

Kick people who lie to dm's. Mandatory rebuilds for warlocks.

That's all.

[Regas]

I actually think overall we're about right Cast, in terms of hard core soft core. Dropping CvC or at least making it much less common was probably the biggest of the soft ball moves by far- it was imo a necessary evil to reduce the stress on the community that was really taking a high toll on certain members and admin. I will say that this is a no win situation- there is no right answer when it comes to how we frame the tone of our game as we have strong opinions on both sides. You're doing as good a job as anyone, best I think we can hope to do is work toward the middle. This stuff drove me nuts as an admin. Please don't take any objections I have over specific issues as personal. I think you're doing a great job in the worst of all jobs in alfa.

I never thought our rules about rebuilds, rezs or even the process we use for exceptional pcs was especially harsh or soft. I'm neutral on a third level start, if it helps gets more folks ig then great, i'd probably prefer to stick to level one so just don't force anyone to start at level three would be my thought.

I was a bit surprised to see that you can't play more than one PrC toon at a time though. I didn't, and don't think this is a big issue and I did not recall there being a discussion on it beyond a mention that died on the vine for lack of interest. Character development is one of the most interesting aspects of the game and I wonder if the policy really accomplishes much? We are not setting-up extra work for DMs to facilitate PrCs as we've dropped the requirements for lots of special questing ect. The whole idea of limiting the amount of fantastic stuff in a fantasy setting puzzles me? I get the idea of vetting players in terms of their ability to rp a special race (e.g drow) or class or PrC (Favored soul, harper Agent)- but does it really harm anyone else if a player wants to use all the colors in the crayon box? We eliminated the issue of CvC; we have throttled advancement on many fronts; do we really want to limit the options players have for their charter builds arbitrarily?

I know you mentioned that the dms wanted this.. I'm a dm and I certainly don't. I don't think you should have to make every call based on a damned poll either- though I do wonder if this particular policy is really that popular among said dms?

[Ithildur]

I don't think you should have to make every call based on a damned poll

+1.

[Zelknolf]

I would argue that we average to about right-- but as with every average, there are contributions to the average which are significant outliers: times when we're too harsh and times when we're too lenient (I even see a pattern of doing the opposite after a particularly bad instance of something-- but then just the next time it comes up, and thus not to the same person. Person A gets ridiculous leniency and people sense that, so Person B gets brutal severity to re-assert that we're not made of marshmallows-- not that this is uncommon. See also: real life politics in every country through all of history). The outliers are often cause for severe responses, especially if they seem to be protected or sponsored, and I do note that a lot of the complaints are generalized versions of problems had with specific actions taken on specific players (with some exceptions, of course: the two-PC policy isn't about a specific player; people who oppose that seem to genuinely inherently oppose the policy).

And then of course there's some of it that's just a steady hailing of the glorious past-- but the glorious past is never actually as glorious as we remember it.

[Ithildur]

I would argue that we average to about right-- but as with every average, there are contributions to the average which are significant outliers: times when we're too harsh and times when we're too lenient (I even see a pattern of doing the opposite after a particularly bad instance of something-- but then just the next time it comes up, and thus not to the same person. Person A gets ridiculous leniency and people sense that, so Person B gets brutal severity to re-assert that we're not made of marshmallows-- not that this is uncommon. See also: real life politics in every country through all of history). The outliers are often cause for severe responses, especially if they seem to be protected or sponsored, and I do note that a lot of the complaints are generalized versions of problems had with specific actions taken on specific players (with some exceptions, of course: the two-PC policy isn't about a specific player; people who oppose that seem to genuinely inherently oppose the policy).

And then of course there's some of it that's just a steady hailing of the glorious past-- but the glorious past is never actually as glorious as we remember it.

I agree with most of this, but the last bit... Let's get real, the three or four people who seem to think ALFA in the past was so vastly overrated. Not that numbers in itself is the end all by any means, but for lack of easier quantifiable data available to most of us: SD at it's heyday would peak out until server capacity would be reached. Even BG a couple of years ago would hit high teens/20 occasionally. Whether the numbers themselves mean 'glorious' or not is of course entirely debatable, but let's not obscure the fact that alfa's heyday is clearly not the present, nor the fact that a ton of people who were heck of RPers and had tried many different projects/PWs consistently had amazing things to say about ALFA.

The point isn't to live in the past; however the converse, smearing poop on the past or portraying people as delusional really isn't a productive way to make the present shine brighter, oddly enough.

[Castano]

numbers are down due to lack of owners of operating platforms. When nwn1 was out it was the RP game. Let's not forget its user base was huge. GLorious is not about numbers it's about what the ruleset was then versus now. Then the rule set was largely server by server. Now the ruleset is an average of what the NWN1 servers implemented.

Out are the Waterdeep automated gold mints (PC owned businesses), In is the concept that PC business break even and are largely RP tools not gp mints, as an example. The most hardcore game world would state that no PC may ever own a business/hold because we are all barely surviving the apocalypse. You take your +1 sword at level 10 and like it.

[Ronan]

BG regularly hit 15ish a night when me and paazin were active, yeah. When JLM was DMing most every day, TSM would commonly hit 10 or so.

I find most players want more danger in their games*, and I've had far more requests to stay hardcore (or become more so) than otherwise. I have had a few players not want to get DMed by me because they're afraid I'll kill their PCs, but this number is about half the number (13) who showed up for my MS campaign, and far less than the number of players who enjoy my style. I have no problem with players who don't want to do things which might get their PCs killed - they can simply forgo dangerous activities (adventuring). The trouble comes when those players want to be DMed for non-adventuring, as every DM I can think of really dislikes that sort of DMing. I don't think I've ever seen DMs get excited over handling player crafting, for example.

* Note that wanting more danger in a game and not wanting your own PC to die from said danger are not mutually exclusive concepts. I believe people want ALFA as a whole to be more dangerous while usually wanting their own PCs to survive. This can't always be the case, and expecting individual players to accept PC death in order to make ALFA as a whole more dangerous is unrealistic. Its a standard public goods or collective action problem where the individual incentive to survive is chosen over the weaker incentive to make ALFA as a whole more dangerous.

Also, this is Rumple:

[Zelknolf]

I agree with most of this, but the last bit... Let's get real, the three or four people who seem to think ALFA in the past was so vastly overrated. Not that numbers in itself is the end all by any means, but for lack of easier quantifiable data available to most of us: SD at it's heyday would peak out until server capacity would be reached. Even BG a couple of years ago would hit high teens/20 occasionally. Whether the numbers themselves mean 'glorious' or not is of course entirely debatable, but let's not obscure the fact that alfa's heyday is clearly not the present, nor the fact that a ton of people who were heck of RPers and had tried many different projects/PWs consistently had amazing things to say about ALFA.

The point isn't to live in the past; however the converse, smearing poop on the past or portraying people as delusional really isn't a productive way to make the present shine brighter, oddly enough.

It is very common for large quantities of people to believe things which are wrong (see also: the heliocentric solar system), and saying that a claim maker must successfully reject the null hypothesis is standard practice in the operation of anything rational. I like to make decisions based on evidence, falsifiable claims, and reproducible results, and you've not provided any. I tend to not think of that as "smearing poop" on anything so much as "demanding intellectual rigor in evaluating claims."

Your specific claim is much more simply explained as regression toward the mean, and ALFA's repeated pattern of returning to a state much like this one (with solid data demonstrating that it has continued to do so for the last five years-- though, yes, I cede that I don't have numbers for ALFA1, because we didn't measure) bears that out.

[Ithildur]

Sorry, I don't buy it; alluding to the ol' cliche heliocentric solar system comparison? Not one of your better ones Zelk. I expect and demand more intellectual rigor, integrity, plus rapier sharp wit in your posts; these are simply not up to your usual snuff. *hugs*

(You're probably RPing while posting. Hmph.)

[Zelknolf]

I think that the heliocentric solar system debate is a good one.

Most people looked at the sky and saw the sun being in different locations in the sky based on the time of day. They never felt the ground accelerate or decelerate, as they would expect with the perspective in which they observed. They thus called any explanation which called for Earth doing the moving insane-- everyone knew that the Earth was stationary, because just look at it. How could anyone think any differently?

But the problem was the frame of reference, which the opposition refused to update.

Spoiler:

And no, I was working, and took a brief break to check the forums after setting a new playlist to go.

c.PNG (2.91 KiB) Viewed 4550 times

Behold my glorious server window, and my typical play experience.

[Veilan]

(1) Can both my PCs have PrCs? (Current rule: no, because DMs have deemed ALFA is already overpopulated with PrCs*)
(2) Can both my PCs be exceptional? (Current rule: no, because DMs have deemed ALFA already overpopulated (in terms of with exceptional PCs*)
(3) Can I rez a PC repeatedly? (No you should not (no hard cap here))
(4) Can I rebuild a PC to something new? (No)
(6) Can we start at lvl 3 or lvl X if our PC dies in the middle of a campaign? (no, this is only allowed on the forthcoming NWN1 servers HEEGZ may implement)
(7) Can all ALFA PCs have the option to start at lvl 3? (no.)

Agree on all of those. Incidentally, my personal preference is for single PCs.

(5) Can I offer to rebuild a warlock to a rogue to get it out of game? (no I prefer they become sorcerers, which has always been the go to rebuild option for grandfathered warlocks, see DMA for other options)

Disagree. If it would entice people to get the warlock levels out of the game, why not let the responsible HDM decide which class-exchange would be the most fitting mechanics- and theme-wise.

If you want a hardcore game be willing to live it with your own toon too, is basically my point.

It his the nature of things - people enjoy hardcore, until it applies to themselves.

Oh. And component cost for stoneskin.

Yes, at the very least.

Rolled hit points not max.

No. Average, perhaps, but not random. By and large not a fight worth having though, effort not worth the pay-off and impact on the game.

Movement penalties for heavy armor. (No more mail in your finest full plate)

Sure. Let's add some roles and tactics to our game.

Remove -6 safety net.

Rework it, anyway. And while you're at it, make the AI finish downed solo'ers.

Kick people who lie to dm's.

Easier said than done, but I agree. DMs, bound to strict standards with ample support, training and oversight, ought to hold broad authority over the game.

Mandatory rebuilds for warlocks.

No. Punishing players for an Admin botch-up is unnecessarily vindictive and creates a terrible environment.

I raise:

- get rid of exaggerated xp for out-of-game narration
- multiply all static xp with some term that includes a division by level (e.g. * 3/(2+lvl))
- shift gear control back towards the DM corps

Cheers,

[kid]

And I will add, make up stuff that no-one will ever agree on or do.
or wait, we're already doing that.

For what it's worth im all for Hardcore play. However that Hardcore play is the fertile grounds for grumbling and arguing and calls of favoritism(which in my humble opinion and experience in ALFA are completely accurate).

Sense we're unwilling to deal with that due to lack of time and energy, then I can't really push towards a more Hardcore game in good conscience.

Either way, if there's a vote i'll vote for anything stricter than current application of the rules of ALFA and D&D in regards to everything.

That... assuming we want a PWy ALFA.
If it's a DM campaign-y ALFA? let everyone do whatever they want.