Suggestion to DMs - Harder Events?

[undeadsteak]

Im not too sure, but im pretty sure everyone loves achallenging event where monsters are acutally hard to defeat. Now, most of the DM events i see seem a bit too easy, that might be because of so many players, but all the challenge is taken out of it, and sure, going to something like the ogre caverns with monsters with impossible CR is fun once in a while, but i'd love to see DM events that are acutally hard and have an impact when players die and the such, instead of DM's rezzing them. Just my thoughts.

[Raksha]

Even from the player's side, I'll say that it's a difficult rope to walk.

If the monsters are too easy: "Ohhh! The event was too easy! I just walked through it! It wasn't intense enough! I need more XP!"

If the monsters are too hard: "Ohhh! The DM totally screwed me over with an impossibly hard monster! That's so not fair! Now I have to respawn and lose XP! This sucks."

In almost every DM event I've participated in, at least one character has died. Often, lag has created near-TPKs. I'd say that such a level of risk is about right.

[Dragoncleric]

Unfortunetly the nature of D&D and 'levels' put some groups at a disadvantage with this thinking.

What's 'tough' for your level 8 or 9 character would be suicide for the level 4 character trailing along. How's it going to encourage grouping when people start becoming level elitists? (Oh you can't come you're too low)

Mostly I fear that being an ECL+3.
And then that brings up 'why are most DM events combat'? As soon as anyone sees a DM NPC, or 'shout' they flock like flies to a corpse, decked out in spells, armours and ready to fight. Not that heaps of combat is bad, but it seems to favour high level attackers so far.

[undeadsteak]

Its not really the XP rakasha, with that huge of a group you dont get much anyways. I don't support having to loose XP, but ppl can always drag your corpse and ressurct you at the temple for a price.. And i'd love to see some mentally challenging questsa s well Dragoncleric. As for levels, thats a bit of a problem.

[Satoshi]

It's hard to tailor any event to specific groups without making them up on the spot, which is - in part - not something a lot of DMs would care to do. Everything needs to have a logical reason for occuring (...usually), and events of any length will have an impact on continuity, meaning something that seems un-important from a player standpoint may lead somewhere down the road.

[GodBeastX]

This is exactly why I like to run events with only a couple of people (Like 3) in front of me.

1) Raksha hit it on the head. While you say "Harder!" others go "Why is DM ganking me?!" Need we go back in history to the posts about our DM staff "Ganking" players?

2) I don't think some people know how to handle a DM event past fighting. I'm always looking for people that can go past "Kill Kill Kill". I was laughing last night because I spawned a Dire Bunny, and some guy just runs to try to kill it. It wasn't even set hostile so he couldn't attack it, but I let it sit there awhile while he tried. It's like that in anything I run.

3) Players never tell me their plans. I don't run many events anymore because this is the case. They never use much for skills, they don't ask for information, they don't try to use divination magics or anything useful. They just see something and do all sorts of things. I had to put out a shout yesterday "Hey players, you can still search bodies, don't think the treasure system is all you'll find on something." I don't think many people have actually played pen & paper to know what they can do in events

But yeah, the bloodthirstiness and lack of choosing makes every event I'll probably ever run for most people something revolving around killing. I don't like it to have to be that way, but that's what players seem to want.

[Satoshi]

In a seriousness, players need to look past themselves, and begin thinking like a working community. I say this loosely, of course, because alignment does play a large role in this, and I'm not asking anyone to play contrary to character alignment. However, let me put it into perspective how I see this right now.

A lot of players play some form of Good alignment. However, in character, they represent themselves as being what I like to call 'situational good'... which is really, at best, neutral. A 'Good' alignment is not someone who thinks of what rewards are possible, or even of the thank you that may be involved (even though it's always appreciated); rather, good is the altruistic and somewhat selfless call to help others in need, big or small as it may seem. This is not to be confused with 'naive', which is an altogether different beast, nor 'exalted', which takes 'good' to an entirely different level.

As a player community, you have a few rights: to learn about each other, to form continuitous adventuring groups (like the Vigilent Eye, except it's not really an organization, as much as a group; and Red Shova's crew, whom I loved. The only real adventuring group on the old server), and anything else you guys can imagine and put together. If you guys work amongst each other as much as you try to work with DMs, and really collaborate to make this great, you all become MORE than the sum of your parts.

Just something to think about.

[undeadsteak]

Uhm GBX, the bunny went hostile. We weren't planning on killing it, atleast i dont think we were. It just attacked him and yeah I try to let DM's know what i want to do in DM Chat, but i dont usually get a reply. And yeah, Red Shova's group was fun with all the plotting . Didn't continue too much however.

[Satoshi]

Also, if you fail to get ahold of a DM through DM Chat, you can also try a personal tell - just remember, we get lots of messages from people (except me, because I'm not loved like GBX or Nyssis.... *emo tear*), and may be delayed in response, or accidentally miss it. If a minute or five goes by without a response, give a little "Did you get my last message?" nudge.

[GodBeastX]

Undeadsteak, I set it hostile after that guy just sat trying to kill it XD

Satoshi is totally right though. I've been shifting alignment points for good people I feel behaving very neutral or evil. I've been seeing it alot so if you get a shift you might realize why.

And yeah, Satoshi is right. DM chat can get flooded sometimes. We also have thigns like the cleanup script loggin to DM chat (Which I need to remove) so we sometimes miss alot. That's why 1.07 will be great because it helps DMs manage player groups easier. We get party chat just for that group and stuff.

AND DM CONSOLE COMMANDS! God I've waited forever for those.

[undeadsteak]

Ah, i didnt know he was trying to kill it, my bad! Shoulda just spawned Celestial Dire bears on him . And i don't really see people playing neutral or evil when they're good, but i can't see their normal alignment anyways, >_>. And lastly.. Ha ha! Satoshi isnt loved.

[Dragoncleric]

Well this is why I made Valen CN. Nothing really phases him and he'll associate with anyone who's not totatlly nutter, power hungry, or has a stick up thier arse.
Unfortunetly I find that evil can hide thier intentions (plausible) and good, merely goes and kills trying to justify it as 'rightous' or whatever. it somewhat defeats the purpose of allignments in general. May as well have a more open system of 'personality' types.

I reckon it's showing the failures of the allignment system itself, at least trying to translate from a small constant group of players (arund a table or on the game) to dozens trying to interact on-line with new people almost every day or different groups.
Situational seems to be correct.

But now the question is: What can we the players do, other then wait for astute DM's to change someone's allignment?

[Vichtor]

Also, if you fail to get ahold of a DM through DM Chat, you can also try a personal tell - just remember, we get lots of messages from people (except me, because I'm not loved like GBX or Nyssis.... *emo tear*), and may be delayed in response, or accidentally miss it. If a minute or five goes by without a response, give a little "Did you get my last message?" nudge.

I <3 you, Satoshi.


And most of my characters (since I prefer rogue classes), tend to try to find a way to outsmart or outmaneuver an encounter to reach the end goal. This is why I put up the "Thieves" post a few days ago. The "out think" method can work very well in DM events, but there's nothing in the "common" NPC world that promotes that kind of thinking or action.

[ThePaganKing]

I think it really depends on your alignment, race, and the adversary. Last night, some drow showed up and my first reaction, which I said out loud was, the only dead drow is a good drow (I am an elf). This would be a typical response from most elves and I am chaotic good. Now, most of the people just stood there or tried to talk to them, maybe because they didn't know what to do and partly because the drow were not hostile, so you couldn't attack them.

But, I played my character as I thought he would be, the only good drow is a dead drow.

But yes, most people will just run in and kill and not really try anything else. I did notice though last night, a lot of people were using their skill rolls, such as listen, spot, search, and lore, and intimidate.

[Raksha]

I'd like to point out here also that although things-other-than-fighting are the staples of DM events, since one can fight mobs all day and all night, it also seems that there's nearly a metagame-ish expectation for players not to attack on sight things that are completely indistinguishable from things that they are trained to attack. If your average fighter who has been to the Mossclaw a few times sees a gnoll, that fighter is probably going to want to kill it and not ask too many questions. Ditto with goblin shamans, or undead, or suchlike.

At the same time, though, there's also a tendency of players to attack things based on the little name-labels. ("Oh, look, a warlock! Kill it!" "...How do you know it's a warlock? Are all things with glowy tattoos warlocks?") I think that there has to be a balance between the characters acting naturally and giving the DM time to react, plan, adapt and present challenges that can't be solved by hitting it with a pointy object.