Hey there guys! This is an initiative I've been advocating for since before I joined the team, so I'm very excited to finally announce its coming to fruition. We're going to be opening up 3 slots for Guest Storytellers, the details of which are explained below. The Mentor DMs in this current round are going to be:
BurningOutBright Manarethan Amarice-Elaraliel
Deadline: Midnight EST (4am GMT) Sunday, June 14
If you have any questions or comments about the concept, feel free to post and I'll try to answer your question as clearly as I can.
_________________
Alanna of Wharftown, Captain of the Hands of Ieriyn
"A soft woman is simply a wolf caught in meditation."
_________________ Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play: Salema Nefahri::A penny for your thots Zrae'a'stra'fryn::That which nightmares are made of Khasir::From the East a storm is coming
So a DM babysits another demi-DM to create new plots, while there are hundreds of open plot hooks and player efforts to stir stuff up? Sounds legit.
I think of it more of a chance for people to try DMing, running plots...ect and in turn DMs might say "Hey they good a very good job, maybe we should ask them if they want to be a full time DM"
_________________ ================-<Cory ShadowFlame>-================ Risenlord-Shifter(OMG a Non-Dragon Shifter that can hold his own in PvE)
I imagine it's possible for the guest storytellers to take up older plots if they so wish it.
_________________ Player of: Asya Goodmonsdottir - Knight of Lesser Gods. -Winner of 2014's "Razored Tongue" Award, and Emcee's pick "Authoritarian of the year". Jannah Vindle - Mistress of Coin.
Because they want to. And because they can do it well. And because the DM's will be able to see that.
_________________ Player of: Asya Goodmonsdottir - Knight of Lesser Gods. -Winner of 2014's "Razored Tongue" Award, and Emcee's pick "Authoritarian of the year". Jannah Vindle - Mistress of Coin.
Fresh sets of eyes can work wonders for a plot hook that the DM behind it may have considered stale, or forgotten. Remember a "demi-DM" is not lacking the creative tools of any member of the DM team - they lack authority and their information is more limited, but their ability to build on what they do know can still go a long way. Especially when /everyone/ has the opportunity to submit something, and the DMs will be taking the best for final consideration.
We don't really know what's going to come of this. It might pleasantly surprise you
Fresh sets of eyes can work wonders for a plot hook that the DM behind it may have considered stale, or forgotten. Remember a "demi-DM" is not lacking the creative tools of any member of the DM team - they lack authority and their information is more limited, but their ability to build on what they do know can still go a long way. Especially when /everyone/ has the opportunity to submit something, and the DMs will be taking the best for final consideration.
We don't really know what's going to come of this. It might pleasantly surprise you
We have had a lot of fresh DM. All of them came up with new plots, instead of wrapping up the old ones.
Joined: 17 May 2015 Location: Zionyn - 663rd layer of the Abyss
Not a lot of people get overly excited about finishing someone else's project. And even if they did, the continuity of it is already broken. It's one of the inevitable pitfalls of running a game (or anything really) with volunteers. It's unfortunately just a fact we have to work with.
But guest storytellers *could* look at all those leftover plot hooks. You could even volunteer. Obviously that wouldn't help your own characters, but still. Giving people the option to step up, temporarily, is giving people the option to work on issues they see.
Though I think the greater benefit would be letting people try out, and hopefully become interested in, the DM client and stepping up officially.
It's a pitfall of someone's time, when invested in a plot that gets interrupted by a lack of someone's responsibility. This is a RP server, not a game of odds. Action - reaction, not action - inaction. The DM team locked down the IE forum to wrap up the old suggestions. Why not do it with RP plots as well?
Dm's has stepped in the past to take up old plots and offering a conclusion on them. Currently, the DM's are picking up one plot to give it a conclusion. However, when there is a massive amount of lore and stuff to know, you can't expect them to do everything in a day. This is a great opportunity to someone step up and offer to entertain others with her/his own time, instead of bringing it down with negativity, perhaps praise that some are ready to give their time for others entertainment.
Joined: 17 May 2015 Location: Zionyn - 663rd layer of the Abyss
This is an RP server, yes, but it is a game run entirely by volunteers. That sorta makes it a game of odds. Working with volunteers is frustrating business all around (I do it a lot in the real world, and have had to learn a bit of zen to handle it). But expecting people to volunteer their free time to work on a project they weren't involved and and may have less interest in is a losing prospect, unless you spark their interest in it at least.
Please don't lock down new RP. Locking down new content is one thing, the pool of resources to handle that is even smaller. But locking down new RP would discourage new people from getting involved even more, both as DMs and players.
Dead, if you want to PM me a list of unresolved plots and as much information you have on them, I'll see if these guys will let me be a loose end slayer. Goes for anyone else too.
Joined: 20 Apr 2008 Location: The downeaster "Alexa"
I have very high hopes for this and am glad to see it develop. I can see what you might mean Yoss, but I'm going to hope that it's just the wording of the Disclaimer that might be a bit off. After all, the point of this I imagine is to get some some new RP blood flowing through our system, and micromanaging aspects of every plot wouldn't really do that, rather just create a middleman. I'm going to err on the side of hope that it's only invoked over things like "yo, this is like factually wrong, Azoun IV wasn't a Cleric" and not things like "I don't like that you created an Evil Elf NPC, because elfs are like neba-eba ebil in their society."
My only reservation so far is the necessity of having a Mentor DM on while the GST is. For a vetting process certainly it's necessary, but hopefully after a while they'd be trusted enough to go clientside on their own. Otherwise, wouldn't we be cutting ourselves short in terms of clientside help? If no DMs log on for the day(it happens), or a Mentor DM has to leave in the middle of a GST's plot, it's like we're cheating ourselves out of the extra help of in-game DM-work. Again, I totally agree that should be oversight, and client-side mentoring, but in the long run, maybe we could transition to things like GST's just have to keep and submit tabs on their interactions whenever they log in. This is all very new, I'm excited for it, I imagine we're all playing by ear here, but those are just my thoughts on what seems very promising for continuing the awesomeness of our server.
_________________
You think Magic is your ally... but you merely adopted the Art. He was born in it. Molded by it. Sometimes, an angel is simply a devil with better intentions.
This is something we've bever tried on the server so in weiting the guidelines I had a "hope for the best prep for the worst" kind of mindset. Think of this run as training wheels for the next one - It's not a vetted system so there are going to be lots of bumps, potentially useless things, and important things missing.
As for old plots - if players are interested in taking those up I highly encourage it. Folks are right that dropped plots are extremely frustrating and not fair to players, but the nature of volunteers is also a big factor. I'm currently working on a system to try and make plots more fluid, so that any DM or Storyteller could pick them up wothout needing to track down a player that's moved on.
_________________
Alanna of Wharftown, Captain of the Hands of Ieriyn
"A soft woman is simply a wolf caught in meditation."
What if, out of this, some DM's were added to the staff specifically to help run/mentor these GST's?
The complaint seems to be that we'll exhaust current DM's anyway, or that if we have our active DM's have to play a mentor role in exchange for doing what they were normally doing. Basically, the problem is something like this:
1 [Normal DM] + 0 [GST] = 1 DM's worth of storytelling. 1 [Normal DM] + 1 [GST] - (Opportunity Cost) = 1 DM/GST's worth of storytelling, because the normal DM now has to very actively supervise the GST-- so effectively still only one. 1 [Normal DM] + (1 [GST] + 1 [Dedicated Mentor DM]) = 2 DM's worth of storytelling. ~~~~
The way that the GST idea works to benefit the server, even if it's taking up our normal DM's in order to run it, is if our normal DM's have writer's block, or get more enjoyment out of running partnership-styled plots, to the point in which having a fresh person & idea would keep them active.
But I think the way to really maximize this is to take current inactive DM's or acquire new DM's specifically for the role of being a mentor to GST's.
We can't really add new DMs to mentor guest DMs, I feel like that basically defeats the point of the idea. The new DMs would need to be trained, get used to the module and all of its tools and custom utilities. They can't mentor anyone till they know the server already.
Well then, perhaps transition a DM who isn't doing all that much currently who's excited about the idea-- and then actively find others to 'fill' his previous spot?
And this recruiting for a specific purpose doesn't have to be immediately effective. I was thinking more long-term. You're right, it would be pointless at the time being-- but after a few months, you would have someone trained and capable of dedicating their complete focus to GST's.
Joined: 29 Aug 2006 Location: Victoria, BC, Canada
I like your idea Hackums with the one exception that the "dedicated" positions should cycle DMs in and out as needed, its a good way to make use of DMs who might have all the tools they need, but simply be lacking time or energy to run a full plot themselves, this means that you still retain the DM in a more active capacity as they can off load the story aspects more to the players.
If you are putting ACTIVE DMs into those sorts of roles you really aren't gaining much but rather trading off more DM run events for more player driven ones, and both have their benefits so it would be a shame to lose out on one.
Last edited by The Great Equalizer on Mon, Jun 01 2015, 23:40 PM, edited 5 times in total.
That's valid. Primarily the reason I volunteered for this too, I'm not doing much currently, so me doing this won't lose any focus elsewhere. I think recruiting specifically with this in mind may have merit, but we'll need to see how this first test goes before doing anything like that.
Joined: 17 Mar 2007 Location: Where the She-Devils roam
I volunteered for this round because I typically teach and mentor our new DMs already. It's not a stretch for me to branch.
_________________ "The world takes and takes, even things that aren't offered. Finally, it gave us something back; I wish he was here to share it with me."
Definitely! And yeah, sometimes you have to play around a bit to find what inspires you. If this inspires you to be more active than you had been on your own-- then that's a win-win. It sounds like something I would have enjoyed as a DM myself, and probably would have experienced more success having this other GST to keep me feeling compelled to remain consistent.
I figure at the moment with the number of DMs selected, we're looking at something proportionate to the number of Guest's running. I think it works out pretty well since all three of them are currently actively in game. It will, of course, be a bumpy start but anything worth doing has to start somewhere.
_________________ Gerald Edmund Discord: Metal Viking Guy #5433
I volunteered because I know our mechanics and widgets rather well and have helped newer DM in the past too and I enjoy "co-piloting" with others.
Also because we do not yet know what timezone our GST will want to run stuff in and I wanted to add some European time aid.
All in all I am excited about it and do not have an ongoing plot running myself atm. My last plot was wrapped up 2 weeks ago. And I cannot personally see my faction supervision collide with this.
Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Location: Kohlingen, and a Basement in Canada
Although Dead's concern is valid about taking up a second DM's time to allow someone new a chance for DMing, it is a good counterbalance to the much slower process of the full consideration which goes into taking up a DM freshly to the team.
I'm curious to see where this goes in all honesty.
DI, the Disclaimer smells like trouble to me for two reasons. One I feel is objective, and the other wholly subjective for me.
The objective reason has to do with the Storyteller GM not having DM forum access. I understand why the DMs would discourage this, of course. And it would almost imply the Storyteller GM needed to have more to do with the DM job than just the storytelling aspect in the client. But between the history of difficulty where information is concerned, it looks more like a con than a pro to restrict the access that way. If it is lifted, that storyteller GM gets several benefits: they can report what they actually do in the server towards the story for tracking and posterity so that all DMs can reference it easily later in the DM Logs forum, they can forum search for information that might become necessary in what they need to do as a storyteller very easily and without having to wait for other DMs to provide the information (historically, this has taken far too much time in some instances), and probably best of all that player-turned-storyteller GM gets an honest peek at what the DM Team always tells the playerbase: how things really go on behind the scenes. Whether or not they get involved with it at all, since they are just a storyteller GM.
The subjective reason is that I would chafe at someone looking over my shoulder while I clientside DM, questioning my decisions to guide the story in the right direction and, most of all, towards a conclusion (yeah, I did learn something.)
This is a positive idea, and a good one. I didn't know we were quite old enough to get crotchety about new ideas and new storylines... but I guess some of us are.... Fresh new stories, in every other prolific creative story writing community I've seen, have always been welcomed and encouraged. I welcome and encourage this idea here, as well.
Not crotchety, joe. Just speaking from inside experience about the realities of meeting both player and DM expectations when running stories in the client. To me, it is a good step, but a step where the shoelaces are tied together. So I am pointing at the shoelaces and saying "watch out!"
I think this is a positive idea with a lot of merit. I don't see the point in bogging it down with the past. Lots has changed. We have many new DM's, we have from what I've experienced lately, a new DM team attitude (in a good way), and players who want a change. I say... why wouldn't we want this? Sure, if there's a plot that needs tying up.. do it! If it's something new? Bring it! There's room for a lot more than is happening right now. Bringing an idea down with old baggage is not moving forward.
What I refer to is not as in the past as you think, as I experienced the problem as recently as last month. But to make it clear I am not wanting anything bogged down. I am wanting it to go forward, but without that restriction. I am, in fact, clamoring to have it done in such a way that it is less likely to get bogged down later. I have a habit of thinking ahead and anticipating problems and trying to minimize their damage ahead of time without overly complicating things at the start. The happy medium.
But hey, sometimes I fall short. Like, uh, y'know...let's stop gold drops on monster kills...
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