2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

The "Year of the Crown" Campaign

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DM Theophanies
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2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by DM Theophanies »

It was about a year ago that I made a similar thread asking for input for the 1351 campaign. I took as much of that as I was able to and wove it into the campaign for 1351. As we wrap up the last of our outstanding requests for 1351, I want to give the community a chance to give feedback to this past year's 1351 campaign as well as to give some input into what they would like to see for the upcoming year's 1352 campaign.

This will be a reminder of course that we are looking for constructive feedback and input for this year so please keep the thread on point.

NOTE: Per HDM Golem, DMs will not be responding to the feedback in this thread until a later time, as we want to know from our players how the metaplot was received/perceived without DM explanation or clarification, as this is very important and helpful information for us to know.
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Lockonnow
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Re: 2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by Lockonnow »

well there many focus on the vampire and how about some Gem monster anything that has something to do with the gem and stones it was a fine campaign
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Re: 2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by Tsidkenu »

Last year's metaplot was great in that each character could choose how much or how little they wanted to be involved. There were a few times during the year when Aeili's involvement waxed and waned, and I didn't feel any compulsion to put in any more effort in participating than I did. And reading through DM Bloodlust's post-event wrap up it seemed that there was far more that happened in the plot than I was aware of, both IC and OOC!

This year I would like to see the reverberations of last year's two major plots. Two disasters hit Baldur's Gate last year, the first decimated the population of the harbour district, the second ruined the infrastructure/population of the Palace. The loss of crops, the loss of people and the loan brokered by the SCCE ought to be putting the squeeze on the city's funding of essential services and thus increasing taxation and its resultant petty crime, homelessness, and perhaps pay disputes amongst the Flaming Fist mercenaries. The weakened political and military state of the city should give plentiful opportunities for PC and NPC guilds to start making plots of their own, some to exploit and profit from the new-found weakness of the city-state, others to help renew and rebuild it.

Perhaps it is time for the slow rise of that ever so quiet (and neglected?) NPC guild, the Iron Throne? Have gangs of thugs been seen plundering the dead and the ruined mansions of the Palace District? Have pirates heard rumours and begun commencing raids along the Chionthar, targeting BG's breached walls, reviving the activity of the Roaringshores? Given that there are 3 ship RP guilds atm, this gives them plenty to do and opportunity for others to get their sea legs!

Will the Order of the Radiant Heart be able to rebuild their chapter house, find a new base of operations or have their efforts thwarted by the crafty subterfuge of the local, and heretofore secluded, thieves guild? (PS the eastern farmlands map should be edited a little to reflect that destruction ;) ) What will the Red Wizards do with their new notoriety as providers of magic which helped defeat the undead?

There are plenty of paths for this year to take. I look forward to what's coming. :D
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Re: 2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by AlwaysSummer Day »

In 2014 I did not even know there was a plot. It was very weird hearing about it after the fact and thinking "who? Where? Huh?". It was almost a secret that a select group had been privvy to since the beginning and no one else was granted access.

The plot in 2015 was easy to get into. There was a large variety of angles so good, evil, and neutral all had a reason to partake. I spent maybe 1/10th as much time on the server in 2015 compared to 2014 so this speaks volumes about its accessibility.

The biggest issue with these plots are they resemble massive 1000 piece puzzles. The average player may uncover 10 pieces across 3 characters. These pieces more often than not don't even fit together. A small group of players, who either have a lot of time and or their free time coincides with dm activity, seemingly uncover 50 pieces and actually catch a glimpse of the story. This should be the goal for all those who try to be part of these plots however finding a balance between all or nothing is likely impossible since we arnt 4 people around a table eating funyuns and drinking mountain dew.

Thanks for the fun campaign and I look forward to this year's. - Citizenpyre
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Re: 2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by thids »

First and foremost I have been present for ~6-7 out of 12 months of the last year's "metaplot". At the start, and at the end. I have not been involved much in it, if at all, so before people start throwing rocks at me for criticism keep in mind that these are my views from the outside.

I put metaplot under quotation marks because honestly what occurred last year was not a true metaplot from my perspective. It's better than the 2014, but there still seems to be room for a lot of improvement. The year started off well enough, with three separate campaigns, however by the end of this whole thing it was obvious that forcing everything under an overarching plot was a bad idea. DDoS attacks or not, the ending of the year was badly thought through despite the (from what I hear at least) excellent execution. A metaplot that is aimed to serve a large majority of the server's population and aims to connect several plotlines under one overarching plot needs to first and foremost involve the majority of population in a natural way. This did not seem to be the case at the end, despite the illusion that the city of Baldur's Gate should tie most characters in. There were factions and characters which seemed naturally tied to it, regardless if the city came under siege or not, but there was also plenty of them that seemed shoehorned in, bending their concepts just so they wouldn't be excluded. The main mistake that was made at the end was assuming that this server is still heavily centered around the city of Baldur's Gate and throwing everything in that basket, which is simply not the case anymore as much as we would all want it to be. While I understand the frustrations of constant DDoS attacks, and the desire to wrap everything up, I'm of the opinion that it could have been handled in a better way. For this type of metaplot to work, you should have first laid out the groundwork towards making Baldur's Gate the center of the server again. But then again, that's a lot of groundwork. I have played two characters for the last 3 months, a drow and a zhent. Just the basic things around those two characters (a race in one and a faction membership in the other) meant that i had absolutely nothing to do but sit on my hands during that time in regards to the metaplot. It's an example of what I said above.


Secondly a metaplot needs to be a lot more branched out and complex than some of these campaigns were. That is how the majority of characters and factions get tied in naturally. This did not seem to be the case by the end.


What I suggest for this year is making separate campaigns, focusing on geographical areas of the server (or categorizing the campaigns in some other way if you feel it would approach more players) and giving the factions with interest in each area hooks. Something like the case was earlier in the year. There was the Warlock's Crypt campaign, which seemed Baldur's Gate centric even though the majority of it took place in the north, there was the Beregost campaign which occupied those invested in the town and Amn and there was Reaching Woods which involved plenty of factions separately from what I understand. If coming up with an overarching plot that ties all of the campaigns in somehow at the end is difficult or feels forced, there is absolutely no need to do that in my opinion. Keep the campaigns separate and have one of them be similar to this one in the way it approaches the players. That way players aren't forced to bend their characters or make characters that are designed for the campaign in order to be able to stand under the same banner as the "rest of the server" while still having the option to do so.
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Re: 2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by DM Bloodlust »

I can definitely see how the metaplot ending doesn't fit for all character types, but going from that to how to constructively change that, is still missing. How many arcs does it need to be? While the siege was going on, I was already doing one full separate storyline for a group, and some minor ones.

Making another out of for example the Zhentarim (which given their activity, I've given far too many events this year), produces a form of bias. Like, Zhent players get their own storylines, then just jump onto another character to get the main one as well. Or even just the same character doing both, as my ruling that characters can't be everywhere at once hasn't exactly been met with any praise despite its logic and necessity. It's just impossible to cover everyone's basis at the same time (consider DM activity), which is why the full separate storyline I did was for a group that I had not given any attention to previously in 2015.

If there is something one could do, it's to spread it out a bit more. For example, I do believe that many guilds have gotten far more events than usual this year from me alone, at various times, but I can't deny that some guilds got this attention and also fit very well with a "saving the world scenario" so they ended up being in everything. In part, it's because rallying people together for a common cause is typically an anti-evil endevour and easier to do. The only suggestions I get as a DM from evil people is suggestions like "Can we attack and kill the Order of the Radiant heart? What about burning down the dock's district?", and I think Carski and others had a notoriously difficult time getting any non-good characters to get together for anything earlier in the year as well. Foiling plans as it were, is easier and better than sowing destruction. It's not exclusive to "good" story-wise, but for some reason non-good characters don't typically engage in such plots.

Tsidkenu and Thids, you will be pleased to know that this is exactly the "metaplot" for 2016. A theme of recovery and opportunity, divided up into many storylines at different locations.


A question I have is more on the War Council and how to get people engaged. The war council seemed necessary in making players feel like they were having an impact on the grand scale of things. At the same time, it became a bit exclusive and the war council spent an inordinate amount of time on deciding who was in and who was out. It was also heavy-handed.

What I mean by that is that I as a DM felt that having so much go through the war council was hampering the story, and it also seemed to overly burden the players. I repeatedly was told by other DMs that many players wished for nothing more than the end of the metaplot. That we should wrap this up very quickly with a single event in like november, because apparently no plots were better than what we had. I don't know how much truth there is to that, which is what I would want to know. Part of the reason so much was put on the players was in some sense to shield DMs from accusations on railroading and situations where its mostly NPC vs NPC that sparks a feeling of helplessness or at least not being in the center of it all.

From my end, I don't mind a bit of that. The scale of things were as such that I think if the Dukes would have rallied an army, and taken a lead, the burden of choice wouldn't have been that keenly felt. In fact more NPC vs NPC, in some way, adds to the game in making it come alive. Players are a factor in the outcome between sides in such stories, rather than being a side themselves. After all, NPCs are where pretty much all the political power and resources reside. This is all just a small part of a big debate we've had within the DM team, on finding the right balance. I'm clearly biased in not placing too much in the hands of the players, but we're as a team divided on this.
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Re: 2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by mrm3ntalist »

My feedback for the 2015 metaplot.

- Even though I agree with Thids on trying too hard in the end to have a "finale" in Baldurs Gate, I think that it was one of the campaigns that was open for everyone and every guild.
Even my drow was involved in a couple events - having said that, the UD should have a campaign of its own . From what I read many guilds had the chance to be involved, try to solve riddles , acquire artifacts etc.

- The campaign was very nicely planned and set up with many "enemy" NPCs with very nice backstories and builds. The "real time" movement on the map was very nice to follow as well.

- Even though it was a server wide plot, most events had a player limit that helped. I think in the next campaign(s) more work should be put in planning the events so that there is a limit on the players but also for everyone to have a chance to be involved somehow

- A negative input from me. For such big campaigns there has to be more DM involvement. There were times that it felt that 2-3dms run the whole show and in a way with everything that has been going on ( mainly the DDoS attacks ) I am suprised the campaign was completed that well

Edit:About the war council. I think it was a good thing and can get much better. I read from Bloodlust's post that it felt exclusive? I am sorry to hear that but how is that since even pirates, mercs etc were allowed in the council. Now if by exclusive the DMs mean to "forget" any conficts between guilds or not take into account character's actions that might not look good to the council, then yes, hte war Council is not ideal.
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Re: 2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by DM Bloodlust »

I mean exclusive in how players acted on it. The War Council was guild-centered, which meant that virtually no choice or action went to those not guild-affiliated, or not deemed to be "in" (it's logical, but still). It even seemed to affect the guilds themselves. In this grand scale of a story, the War Council should have remained a guide for the dukes only. In effect though, it stifled independent action as everytime we tried to prod people into doing something, it was met with "Hrm, let's wait 2 weeks and vote on it with the council first". To me, it didn't feel that realistic, and it became a bottleneck that worked against providing as much content and events that we could within the span of 2015 because of the constant waiting time. People just didn't want to take any independent action. Here is one example to highlight what I meant:

The Talonite army was on its way to cross the Chionthar. The Wanderess crew had been roleplaying and dying to get out there, scouting, guerilla tactics and whatever they had planned, as this was their last chance to move on water in a way that could hamper the undead's approach. As the coordinator behind the scenes, I saw multiple options ahead of them. If they went in there, they could have ended up with the army of the new dawn, finding that NPC army that the War council had forgotten about and lead them into a decisive rear attack on the undead army. As such, they could have gotten a pivotal role with a separate storyline just for them. I would also have been open to some guerilla tactics, or indeed scouting as noone knew of the Plague siege transports at this point and they could have learned a lot of valuable information. There would be some risk involved of course, but instead the crew went through the War council for support, got no feedback, and by the end when they finally seemed to be able to reach a consensus within the guild itself, the undead had already crossed. All the opportunities for storytelling just ran out in the sand. I ended up doing another event with them at that point, a simple cargo run, and throwing them a new bone (the Seven plot) but that too went the same way and I ended up finishing both plotpoints with groups not included in the war council.

mrm3ntalist wrote:the UD should have a campaign of its own
They did, sort of. It was put together later than the main metaplot, so it was only "active" for maybe 8 months of the year. The theme for the plot was Ghaundaur, and oozes and cults encroaching on Sshamath. It was a metaplot that was pretty much exclusively done by DM Silverfox and DM Theophanies. When Silverfox had to leave the team, I did one event to help the plot along on the 14th of november, but I think it died after that? It goes well in hand with your feedback on relying on too few DMs. There just weren't enough of us, given that Dialectic, Golem and I were burdened by the surface metaplot and had no time to spare for it.

It's sad, but it's how it is. Much of the feedback on this thread reads like "This is good, but it would be better if there was more of it", which is tied to DM activity. In order to make it a reality, we would need more of it. Maybe the upcoming ADMs could be that improvement.
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Re: 2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by Asmodea »

mrm3ntalist wrote: Edit:About the war council. I think it was a good thing and can get much better. I read from Bloodlust's post that it felt exclusive? I am sorry to hear that but how is that since even pirates, mercs etc were allowed in the council. Now if by exclusive the DMs mean to "forget" any conficts between guilds or not take into account character's actions that might not look good to the council, then yes, hte war Council is not ideal.
One big thing I noticed from the PC side of things was that there was no real publicly available means to contact or gain knowledge about the War Council. A few occasionally updated public posts about it would have helped a lot. I was a pretty active PC and nearing the end of the plot (November and on) I could not even list to newer RPers who the members were exactly or give them advice on how to contact the War Council other than the two or three PCs I -knew- were on it.

For example to this day I do not know if one had to be a leader of a guild? To be involved? Or not? If Joe the level 5 adventurer ran up to Isabella and asked her about the war and how he could get involved... I did not know what to tell him. Pretty much right up until the siege itself.

My own character attempted to join near the end as the leader of my guild left the War Council and I do not mind -at all- that she was denied. What was frustrating was that I never got a reply or cohesive response to my attempts to contact the War Council even after trying to track it down ICly for a half month or so. I have a feeling a lot of the reasons for this was stress and burn out on the part of those in the War Council by this point? But to this day I do not know.

With that said, I never felt like The War Council was strictly necessary to interact with the plot from the PC side of things, merely the war effort, and thus was not a bad thing.

-------------------------------------------------

As for the Meta-plot in general! I think I agree a lot with:

"The biggest issue with these plots are they resemble massive 1000 piece puzzles. The average player may uncover 10 pieces across 3 characters. These pieces more often than not don't even fit together."

Information is often the only real 'currency' or 'power' PCs get in large overarching plots. Having more pieces to the puzzle than the people they are working against. This leads to a hoarding of information... and those with more information have more ability to get more information and interact more with the DM team... and we get a kind of vicious cycle.

My main concern with large plots like this is the ability for unimportant people to break into them. I would love to see more critical pieces handed out not to big named PCs (My own included) but given to perhaps multiple random PCs.

I would love to see the power dynamic shifted some, for this last plot I felt often like the important PCs and Factions (My own included) were ring giving queens passing out involvement, influence and information to people as we can and want to. I'd rather have the 'power' and 'influence' in the plot resting in the hands of PCs who are -not- important and watch the Factions or movers and shakers on the server scrambling to keep up with and or entice said people to help them.

TL;DR: I think I'd like to see more of the puzzle pieces of the Meta-plot in the hands of the unimportant active characters. This year I ran into a lot of people who wanted to be involved but couldn't really break in much other than riding on my own coat tails. Some of those people were much more active than me IG, I fear it might be frustrating for them. They would play 8 hours a day and get nowhere. I log in for two hours on a friday and hand them every bit of information they had sunk 40 hours into that week because I just happened to be a part of the right group. Perhaps even just a means for people to OOCly apply for some means of small involvement from the DM team (Maybe as a group to keep the request count down)? I think people know they can contact the DMs but often they don't even know enough to think up how their character might be able to.

PS: I think the PC side of things is as important if not more important than the DM side of things when it comes to how these large overarching plots play out.
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Re: 2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by DM Golem »

Hey guys

Keep the free and frank feedback coming.

Although there are always things that can be outright improved, there is no perfect metaplot and often aspects of a plot that please one person will displease another, and improving something one way will weaken another.

Part of the reason for feedback threads like this is for when plots get narrow (like the Baldur's Gate siege did, in its focus) its good to know what needs we missed, so we can deliver differently (not neccessarily better or worse) in future years.

With that in mind I am going to ask DMs not to post in this thread as the purpose isn't to explain why decisions were made this year at a stage it might change feedback given. This is a place for you guys to speak - openly - not us. There may be reasons why we did what we did, but how the plot actually is received is important feedback for us.

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Re: 2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by MopKnight »

If I may be blunt, and I would say this as someone whose character was partially built by the War Council and has been changed as a result. I am going to be complaining and critiquing a lot, but I don't want people to take it personally.

The War Council is my key contention in this mess. It grew far too large and was monolithic in its approach, which resulted in characters who were invested in it as a method of engaging in military roleplay becoming marginalized in their own roleplay. It became frozen. The sheer amount of politicking in it meant that characters who were forwardly driven and who did want to engage in guerilla warfare or make moves perhaps once every day were unable to.

I know I had at least several different initiatives for small scale, small party, heavy RP battles scuppered by the general desire for EVERYONE to want to be onboard with EVERYTHING. I want to give an example, so I will.

Countering the Teleports

When I planned it, I envisaged it as a strike raid - Reine takes no more than 8 people she trusts into the camp, splits off the Lathanderites and the Fist to do some heavy damage, does damage, holds until everyone evacuates and get out. Nice, tense, fun event for a small number of heavily invested people.

At the same time, for the bulk of people involved, there was to be a siege event, where an interested number of parties would hold out a location with an 'artifact' involved. The enemy would rain hell down upon this location, having been properly taunted out of position, by another series of player manuevers.

Why did I want to do this? Well, as anyone who has RPed and adventured with Reine know, I -love- deeply invested, tactical roleplay where every door is treated as if a lethal threat lies beyond it. It also slows the pace down, so it allows DMs to build encounters organically and on the fly.

The intent was to give everyone something to do. I get my roleplay heavy strike event. The bulk of the playerbase gets a nice, big siege event that they can enjoy and roleplay as part of their character development. The War Council's whisperer types get to be information bearers and horders. The magic types got to find the artifact. We even got the Lathanderites involved through finding an artifact able to kill liches - something Eldarian and Alesea brought up within a few days of planning.

So that's a lot of events. I can see at least a few support events and then two actual attack events, one which is a siege. The other which is a story driven RP event for those who were deep into it. Bear in mind, the camp is supposed to be virtually 'empty' at this point.

Instead, because of War Council paralysis, it took several weeks to plan (instead of the few days it was supposed to take) and somehow we ended up with an army there. I mean, a genuine army. I acknowledge I made a mistake in and of myself which was gathering at the crossroads, but still. The participation list should have been tied up long before that event.

Which meant that it became yet another in a long line of events where the 'commander' shouts at people who aren't interested to do something which requires them to click on the next wave of enemies and spam Force Storm.

Which, brutally, was about as enjoyable as sticking my face in a photocopier and closing the lid. I died at least five times, which made my characters grand moment of strategic planning look like it could do without the very person that planned it, because in order to challenge the people who had somehow appeared out of nowhere, the DM had to balance the encounter to actually challenge THEM.

So how would I improve this? Well, the Dukes have complete control of the War Council and act more like Dukes rather than just people who kind of appear to keep the children from running around. Duke Eltan didn't get to his position by being nice, presumably. Have him act that way.

Secondly, as Asmo mentioned, I wouldn't make the War Council central to the plot. There were a lot of adventurey type things to do, but there were a few of us who genuinely wanted to do the military response to things. Let those of us who wanted to do that, do it, deal with the politics, deal with the money, deal with that side of the RP, but the rest? Let them do adventurey things. That way, the battles don't become so central to the plot.
I would love to see the power dynamic shifted some, for this last plot I felt often like the important PCs and Factions (My own included) were ring giving queens passing out involvement, influence and information to people as we can and want to. I'd rather have the 'power' and 'influence' in the plot resting in the hands of PCs who are -not- important and watch the Factions or movers and shakers on the server scrambling to keep up with and or entice said people to help them.
I also entirely agree with this statement. Further? Deception should be achievable. At the moment, it doesn't seem to be. At the moment, many of these plots appear monolithic and sadly railroaded to the first analysis. Allowing sociopaths and the generally Ferengish of the PC base to mess things up is ideal for preventing evil characters from becoming bored.


Characters Were Everywhere

DMs need to enforce this new characters can't be everywhere rule a lot heavier than they have been. More importantly, they need to be nastier to player decisions that go wrong, give themselves leeway to lose important events by not building them up to apocalyptic levels before hand and they need to be far harsher about who they allow to actually do things.

Take for example the War Council itself. The War Council should have been a minor aspect to the war and in a way it was. As Reine herself mentioned in a journal post, there was a whole other game being played here, to which she honestly knew nothing.

Except that it wasn't. There were people in that Council who had their fingers in other pies. They were doing things, running around hunting down enemies, spawning demons and angels, hunting down prophecies and who knew what else. Which is fine, but they wanted to be and were in everything. They had become hyper competent and were then hyper present. They then came into the one aspect of the game the War Council could have been dealing with (the nitty gritty of battle, strategic concerns, tactical movements) and then started throwing around gems and grand spells and floods and everything else to make everything as big and apocalyptic as possible.

Now this is a design choice and it sort of worked, but the result was that armies then became effectively meaningless. There was no time to plot those armies, no time to build them as entities and so on. Key to this was the Reaching Woods 'campaign' which started off billed as a tightly scripted, six player affair. I spent a week trying to build a force able to do this, roleplaying with as many people as I could. Instead, a lot of characters were taken and the so called 'Tenth' were formed out of the rag tag crowd. It was already a mess by that point, but then, inexplicably, the renamed Phoenix Company appeared and got involved.

No one knows how this happened. I remember reacting with genuine surprise, OOC, to Sveta at the time.

It honestly got to the point I hated those events because there was no room for roleplay at all. It was just people shouting at each other, followed by a wave of enemies.

How to improve this? Be much nastier about playing character sheets and previous roleplay. Be nastier about losses. Keep NPCs in character and make sure they stand for no BS that they don't need to. Work with PC planners so they actually get the event they have roleplayed and planned for.


Loss Felt Meaningless Due To The Size Of The Threat

The plot got too big. It was one apocalyptic battle after another. Which meant that the strategies used were increasingly apocalyptic. The Blight was walking through Baldurs Gate and inexplicably vanished at the last moment. That should have been the mother of all failure states right there. Instead, it just felt like the natural progression.

This is not a critique of the DMs. I know how well from my own experience how screwed up player politics can get and how far it can warp a plots progression. However, at no point did the War Council in particular ever feel like it was losing due to its own particular brand of internal politics or crap decision making. I felt like the DMs had written themselves into a corner - things had to work because the sheer scale of the threat had grown beyond the point where a loss state actually felt meaningful. Every time we 'won', we lost. Every time we lost, the situation etched inevitably towards a confrontation we would 'win'.

The loss state was genuinely the destruction of Baldurs Gate and the end of the server. While that's a good failure state for a tabletop game, it's not a good one for a permanent world server.

My theory is that the DMs had heard the critique about the metaplot through other channels (probably through a number of my complaints to BL, who has been incredibly patient with my brand of complaining) and that they just wanted to end the metaplot with a memorable event. That's perfectly fine and rational - you cut your losses and finish strong, which I think it did.

Given the circumstances, I don't -have- a fix for this because this was also a weakness of my DMing.


An Aside

Much of my frustration with the metaplot came from feeling as if characters simply would not give each other space. Instead of being a place where I could foster an expansion of roleplay and a 'scene', the War Council became a place with intense politics where everyone's OOC 'solutions' to the problem were clashing. As a result, more interesting, more roleplay dense, time buying methods of dealing with minor threats were eschewed in favour of vast battles which made no sense even in the scheme of things during which Characters X Y and Z did their thing A B and C and everyone else was there to make up the numbers.

That situation needs to be avoided in the future. I make it clear that my own frustrations with the metaplot are mine alone and that others might have a different view. I am also someone who was involved in it until the end, but I felt like a lot of my characters effort was effectively meaningless.
Last edited by MopKnight on Sat Jan 16, 2016 9:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Character Profile and The Battles of Sir Amalric of Germont aka Sir Arkaine Halforken Link:
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Caelin
Posts: 268
Joined: Sat Jun 29, 2013 10:41 am

Re: 2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by Caelin »

My biggest feedback is just event size. I know it's easy to get into the "bigger is better" mindset, but the reality is the server just can't handle it. Maybe others would disagree, but I'd much prefer being a part of something a little smaller in scale in terms of an event than the huge events.

I was a part of a few of the events, especially towards the end of things. The larger ones the lag was horrid, making real RP and really feeling immersed very difficult. In addition when I was on during one of the larger events but no taking part te game became almost unplayable. I was a part of one of the smaller ones, involving a defense inside the city. It was *much* better - minimal lag, yet we still felt like we were a part of something big.

So in short, I think breaking things up into smaller events really helps both in terms of playability but also relatability. Smaller events people don't feel lost in the shuffle, the lag is better and they can be better tailored to different levels and RP groupings. Make city defenses of a small section of the city. More RP 'missions' to accomplish different tasks that affect the outcome of the siege and less actual siege fighting itself (as an example from recent events).
James Merlin - Traveling, Treasure Hunting Troubadour of Tymora
Garet Sunder - Monk of the Fallen Star
Duncan Thorne - Sellsword and follower of the Red Knight
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Bran Emberfist - Monk of the Order of the Four Ways
chad878262
QC Coordinator
Posts: 9334
Joined: Thu Sep 18, 2014 6:55 pm

Re: 2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by chad878262 »

As a player that some weeks can play a decent amount of time and get more involved in the overarching metaplot of the server and other times is only in game a couple of hours or not at all for a week or more I'd like to give my feedback:

- It was really cool to be able to get involved in the metaplot and assist in moving things forward even though I was rarely in any of the actual events. OOC SPOILER:
Hidden: show
Early in the year I found a book in the Yuan-Ti Temple through RP where I took screenshots and wrote a PM detailing where I searched and the IC reason I was searching (Tegeus had indicated something was up with the Yuan-Ti and had asked Cranston to do some recon). I was rewarded with a book detailing the blightstaff and through RP (and some unfortunate consequences :) ) Cranston was able to make copies which he shared with various factions he trusted. Later in the year I was happy to have found out that many factions I did not share my work with made it to the hands of certain other guilds Cranston has no affiliation with. Therefore, in his own small part I get to feel that my character had an impact in the overall plot, even though I can't be in game nearly as much as many of the "big players." This defines inclusive RP in my opinion since, when I was able to play and take the time to be involved, it was rewarded by receiving a puzzle piece, then, by spreading the information to a few larger groups it was spread so that those who could put the details to use were able to do so by connecting my puzzle piece to others they had acquired by various means.
- By communicating with DM's, I was able to take actions outside of the Hunter's of Vengeance and the War Council which allowed me to share information with certain factions that were not a part of the council. Again, I felt this included some folks who, based on some of the posts above would have been considered on the outside. So there was a way for 'excluded' groups to still get involved, simply using outside means. I've no idea if this had any impact on their involvement, but it at least gave them some extra information that they had no way to obtain themselves.

- Based on my experiences and those of individuals I talk to quite a bit in game and through PM's, I feel that there was an opportunity for anyone to be involved, should they put the effort in to doing so. The war council idea certainly needs some work, but at the end of the day, I saw players vying for leadership and there were 'winners' and 'losers' in this. Not everyone is going to be happy with such outcomes, but that seems pretty realistic to me. When in crisis someone has to be in charge and usually those who wished to be that person and were somehow overtaken by another won't be happy about it, but overall it is better if someone has a bit of authority.

- I would like to see this expanded upon in future events. To BL's point above, when prodded to move forward and players spend too much time debating it can be frustrating for other players and DM's alike. There should be consequences when we as players fail to act on information in a timely fashion (not saying there weren't such consequences, just that all decisions, even indecision should have impacts on the story). I can't imagine IRL that sitting on information for a couple weeks until a meeting can occur is a good idea when actionable intel exists. Sometimes immediate action is called for and there should be someone who has the 'final say'. Maybe at times that is leadership, such as the Dukes (i.e. DM says 'hey faction X, you are ordered by the Dukes to take out target Y') or maybe it is a player who, through RP has earned the mantle of the 'General' who commands the armies. In any case, not every decision should require a 'vote' by a large portion of the player base.

- As for a suggestion for this year, I would like to see some events focused on searching out the remnants of the armies, perhaps there are shadow factions/allies that didn't fight in the war still out there, scheming to hit BG while it is damaged and ill prepared for another fight... Or maybe some adventurers search or by happenstance run in to one or more of the villians.


Going back to my first point, I am happy because in my opinion ANYONE had an opportunity to add to the story, it was all based on what you did with your time when you played and on the forums!
Chord Silverstrings - Bard and OSR Squire / Tarent Nefzen - Arcane Wand Merchant and Master Alchemist / Irrace Arkentlar - Drow Adventurer / Finneaus Du'Veil - Gem Merchant and Executive Officer of SCCE

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MopKnight
Posts: 207
Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2015 7:00 pm

Re: 2015 & 2016 Metaplots - Feedback and Input

Unread post by MopKnight »

I should also note I was actually interested in hearing the DMs counterpoints on this :)
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