SPLIT: To GM or Not to GM... That is the question.

[Sai'nu]

Alright... even though a lot of people haven't posted on this... maybe we do need a few designated... Game Masters in the community? A Person(s) capable of making fair judgement calls and to bounce Story Arc ideas off of to put in game?

[Jabe Adaks]

Alright... even though a lot of people haven't posted on this... maybe we do need a few designated... Game Masters in the community? A Person(s) capable of making fair judgement calls and to bounce Story Arc ideas off of to put in game?

LOL

We tried that once at the beginning. It turned out to be a whole bunch of people huddled in a room... and you could hear a pin drop.

Jabe

[Dwilah]

There are already "designated game masters." These are people who have taken the initiative to try and set up plots and events for other people to follow and made attempts to get other people involved. They don't ask for or need titles or a special forums. Nor do they necessarily have to have experience. A lot of our active community has been a leader, or could be.

If you want actual suggestions of names, here's some off the top of my head: Zannon, Ekade, Whar, Sai'nu, Alonzo, E-bo, Hojo, Hashum, Oeree, Jabe, Iago.... All of these people, and lots more, have ran events, plots, story archs and tried to get other people involved. And that's just me pulling names off the top of my head, virtually everybody in this community has tried to get other people involved with their own plot at some point or another. But it makes them a leader for that time.

Try asking anyone what they think of your idea or if they have suggetions. Maybe ask the person you are least likely to talk to on a regular basis--it'll give you a more different perspective.

All it takes is someone to look at a scenario and say, "I will set this up so other people can have fun."

[Ekade]

Alright... even though a lot of people haven't posted on this... maybe we do need a few designated... Game Masters in the community? A Person(s) capable of making fair judgement calls and to bounce Story Arc ideas off of to put in game?

What I was thinking is that *anyone* can GM a RPvP event. Instead of referring to a governing body, these mini-events can be officiated by the GM(s) that put it together. These are probably best kept lightweight and fun, though they CAN be a part of a larger story.

Do I think we could benefit from neutral GM's to make calls for certain in-game disputes? In theory yes, but in practice we can not guarantee the presence of such individuals at any given time. In the end, players need to be able to resolve their own RP/PvP disputes in a common sense manner.


When you talk about bouncing around story-arc ideas.. that makes me think of something else entirely, above and beyond a GM. To me that sounds more like a group of people, "storytellers", who get together and dream up story arc ideas for people to particiapte in, and possbily weave together various arcs. A particular arc could be but once facet of some sinister plan.

I have seen other communities implement a group that oversees the stories. I don't know how well that works as I have not seen it firsthand. I can see good and bad.

The bad comes from people not wanting their creativity governed by someone else.

The good comes from having more consistent (and elaborate) stories and a central awareness of what is "going on". If a new player comes along and describes their character to a "storyteller", they should be able to find a good fit for that character. The other advantage is brainstorming.. when more people are involved in the creative process, often the results far exceed that which may come from just one person.

Back to the bad, it would be another "committee", a job. There is a lot of hassle in that.

[Nyase]

Yeah, mini-plots and battles are a huge source of fun that we have yet to tap into. We've done it once or twice and it was really cool. I recall Nyase did a nice job of running these in the past.

Someone remembers! I'm shocked. And here I thought eveyrone forgot.

The brainstorming/story tellers ideas is an intersting one. However, if you've got a group just making the story up and trying to implement it, you could run into problems of things in the event not going the way the story was supposed to go.

One of the problems is often enough you can't always find the numbers for said events, so you wind up with some rather heavy sided fights for one side or the other. Then there's the ocasionally called in 'leet pwnage' players who get thrown into the mix. Basically the bums who don't play nice or by the rules, but are almost a must for some events if you want the right numbers.

Best practice I can think of is to just lay out your rules and guidelines to everyone BEFORE the event takes place. Sure, there's no way of enforcing the rules, but the majority of folks usually will abide by them. If they don't, plan ahead for such problems. Open ended events tend to work the best, and always leave yourself a way out.

I know when I did my prison thing with my main, I had plans already in motion to where he would get his freedom back no matter which side won the fight. No one else knew of it, so each side fought to ensure they were the winning side. After all, who wouldn't want to see me locked away permanatly?


And that's enough of my non-coherant typo filled babling.

[KirtViza]

How about Non-Pre written Story arcs, ya know ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN! OMG!

[KirtViza]

How about Non-Pre written Story arcs, ya know ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN! OMG!

Thought that's what the cantinas and S&V and casino night were for?

I mean All rp in the game should be considered this way, I mean I understand some people on here want things to go a certin way but you also need to leave it open ended, I mean it brings more to the SL then you think.
Anytime you start somthing, dont write the ending or say well its gonna end this way so play it out like that, Hell I did it in the whole Replicant thingy and I probally pissed some people off, but i didnt care I did exactly what my character would have done.

[Nyase]

I mean All rp in the game should be considered this way, I mean I understand some people on here want things to go a certin way but you also need to leave it open ended, I mean it brings more to the SL then you think.
Anytime you start somthing, dont write the ending or say well its gonna end this way so play it out like that, Hell I did it in the whole Replicant thingy and I probally pissed some people off, but i didnt care I did exactly what my character would have done.

By all means, leave events open ended. I'm just saying if you're going to have a set story, have alternative means to get where you're wanting to go based on events that unfolded.

[Sai'nu]

An Open-ended guiding of players. I find this 'does' work well in MMO story arcs. Now, does this mean pre-written endings? No, not necessarilly.

I'll use the only example I can draw upon. During a portion of The Grieve's arc (and only a few people got deeply envolved in it) I needed a RL ($$$ issues) out for the character of Grieves; However, I also wanted to keep the option of him comming back in play.

So, I took the character and basically gave the two tormented characters, Weyune and Isleh in this case, the last jab. I satisfied two needs with this...

1) It let my RPers feel a sense of completion and victory in 'killing' Grieves.

2) It let me close the account while wrapping up the beginning of the story.

Now, anyone that's read the Galaxy Chronicle can tell that it wasn't Grieves they 'thought' they killed. It was a paid Actor that Grieves set up so 'he' could get out because things were getting too hot for him.

I guess what I'm getting at is... a good GM can still bend enough to have a desired ending and still give the Players what they want as well. But, it does take practice. Lots, and lots, and lots... of practice.

[Hashum]

I think a better example of something like this is what Dwilah is currently running.

Now I know she's probably got a specific ending that she's going to come to, but as best I can tell in the few encounters I've been involved with to this point it's very open to free flowing RP.

As a part of this story, not only have I been free to RP Hashum as I saw fit in her story, but it has also allowed several stories to evolve from those scenes because they didn't have a completely predetermined outcome.

And frankly it's the most fun I've had RP'ing in a story arc. And it gives those characters a sense of purpose I hope, at least it has to me.

It's these types of stories that provide a reason or motivation for people to RP that we need and yet still give every character the chance to make a difference and feel important.

[Ekade]

How about Non-Pre written Story arcs, ya know ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN! OMG!

Yup, that is totally acceptable and desirable. A good tabletop GM will design a campaign around the idea that the players have an impact on the story and the world.

We should design our events in much the same way. Bring the story to certain "action points" and have the players decide the outcome. Then, based on that, the story changes.

I've often toyed with the idea of creating a mission "tree" or "flowchart".. depending on who won a sceneario, that would determine the next event.

Maybe once I am done with some of the work I am still doing in regards to my guild, I can run one of these for us. I think it would be a lot of fun. I envision the "conflicts" would be a weekly event and I can use the week for preparation, hype, and storytelling.

[Nyvveck]

Well, I think that a very easy way to do something along these lines would be to have a "story arc" like this:

Battle 1: Rebel assualt team moves towards Imperial base, and is intercepted by Imperial patrol. Fight.

Now, if the rebels win or lose that battle would move onto different battles. For example, if they lose, it could go to...

Battle 2 (a): The Rebel assualt team has been defeated by the Imperial patrol, and now must make a running retreat (Throw something of a mini-game into it. Give the Rebels a waypoint that is the "Extraction Point". All living rebels get into this extraction point to win this battle, but the Imperials know where the extraction point is as well, and are rushing to intercept them).

And then, if the rebels win or lose that, there are two outcomes. A major Imperial victory and a minor Imperial victory. But of course, they could always win that first battle, which leads us to...

Battle 2 (b): The Rebel team has defeated the patrol and are now in sight of their objective, an Imperial base. But the patrol alerted the base to the danger, and even now the Imperials prepare the defense. The Rebels must move into the base and capture their objective (The "objective" could be a person, an object, or simply the full scale destruction of the Imperials).

And then depending on the outcome of that battle, we come to either a major Rebel victory or a minor Rebel victory.

Now, there are specific endings here, however because there are four (major and minor Imperial victory, major and minor Rebel victory), many things are still possible.

Of course, for any group PvP to work, it require a great deal of organization. But personally, I'd love to participate in something like this. And using the basic outline above, you can easily create much more complicated "wars", adding in as many battles as you care for.

[Ekade]

Anytime you start somthing, dont write the ending or say well its gonna end this way so play it out like that, Hell I did it in the whole Replicant thingy and I probally pissed some people off, but i didnt care I did exactly what my character would have done.

I thought you were awesome in the Replicant War. You definately gave me the ability to "reach out" with my evil. I loved being able to log in and have someone already captured. When I finally unveil my ultimate plan to conquer the galaxy.. you are definately doing to be my top henchman.

The Replicant War had a set ending.. but there was certainly "wiggle room" in the middle.

The problem we face is that we cant have it where the bad guys win and everyone dies... GG RP'er, re-roll. So in come cases, it has to be a canned outcome. The more dire the consequence of failure, greater the need for a canned outcome.

I think we will get better at designing and running events. We all learn from running and participating in events. When I decide to run my next event, I will be asking people, like Dwilah, what worked and what did not in the events they are currently running.

[KirtViza]

Anytime you start somthing, dont write the ending or say well its gonna end this way so play it out like that, Hell I did it in the whole Replicant thingy and I probally pissed some people off, but i didnt care I did exactly what my character would have done.

I thought you were awesome in the Replicant War. You definately gave me the ability to "reach out" with my evil. I loved being able to log in and have someone already captured. When I finally unveil my ultimate plan to conquer the galaxy.. you are definately doing to be my top henchman.

The Replicant War had a set ending.. but there was certainly "wiggle room" in the middle.

The problem we face is that we cant have it where the bad guys win and everyone dies... GG RP'er, re-roll. So in come cases, it has to be a canned outcome. The more dire the consequence of failure, greater the need for a canned outcome.

I think we will get better at designing and running events. We all learn from running and participating in events. When I decide to run my next event, I will be asking people, like Dwilah, what worked and what did not in the events they are currently running.

Dont get me wrong I had fun in it too, but I just thought the entire time, nothing I did would change what would happen, I mean hell I escaped with the two girls off the ship, and for some reason I dont remember why cause I gave up at that point they went back I was just all blah w/e.

[Jabe Adaks]

Hell I did it in the whole Replicant thingy and I probally pissed some people off, but i didnt care I did exactly what my character would have done.

Every time you did something completely unexpected was fun. It made the story way more interesting and you and Novall busting Coiy's balls was some of the best parts of the whole thing.

Jabe