I wish our DMs did more of _____

[Leaving Hope]

This discussion has gotten way off track people. DMs need to come to this thread to find suggestions on improvements right?

Right.

[Dark presence]

Well I wouldn't use the term 'perceived alignment' at all. Its largely meaningless and irrelevant. And I'm sure we can construct examples all day long to illustrate that. However, I think you touch on the issue is that alignment isn't really important or relevant for day to day life. And that I would agree with. Alignment should have no real appreciable effect on how people perceive someone. "So what if they are evil? They do a lot for this town!" "I don't care if they are good and true, they are ruining this town with their enforced morals and giving away all our trade goods for free to 'needy' towns!"

If you create undead to fight fires and catch criminals, you're probably well liked. If a paladin then comes along and smites you for your evil deeds, they probably will be reviled.

But alignment isn't supposed to be about perception at all. Its supposed to be an absolute, a very real truth. And thats just the point I'm trying to make, that if there isn't something very fundamentally evil/good about a spell, it shouldn't have that alignment flag, and while the DMs are going to rule on it, I would hope such questionable areas are taken into consideration when they do rule on it and/or make something IC happen because of it.

[nickbeat]

Ahem.

We need new food items. I grow weary of raw meat.

How about CUPCAKES! Look, I made an icon for them already...

[sharringtonm]

LOL, try cooking the raw meat at the campfire Nick.

As for alignment restrictions, folks, its a digital game, we have to draw the line somewhere.

If we don't I'll have Joe Blow fighter Spamming the DM channel for a divine wrath just cause he prayed for it like a cleric does.

Each Race, SubRace, Class, and Alignment gain certain powers and priveledges. LG get to be Paladins, evil can be assassins. Dwarves get to see in the dark, humans get an extra feat. Clerics get divine spells, fighters get bonus feats.
Following this logic:
Non Good Players get to cast evil spells unopposed. Non Evil players get to cast Good spells unopposed. Its a benefit.

If enough players don't like the way it is, we can always just pull the spells alltogether.

But until that day comes, user beware is the name of the game.

[nickbeat]

Yeah, done the cooking thing, but it just changes the color of the meat. I want candy!

[Machiavelli]

Only just noticed this thread and Id just like to reply to a few things!

(1) Epicness of plots
I'm all into this, and I'd like to think the one I've been running these last two weeks has been at least somewhere in this direction. There have been 20+ events (I'm not even exactly sure how many now) of varying levels of length/intensity related to this plotline and many players involved. Paganking mentioned having a core group of players... I haven't been doing this, as I feel the level of people's involvement should be determined by how much initiative they show, which leads to the next point! Oh, and don't worry, more epicness is in the works!

(2) Responsiveness to player requests
Honestly, I just don't get that many and I wish there were more. Two points on this. Please note that I can only speak for myself with regard to the details and not the other DM staff (though I'm sure they've posted to this thread).

(a) You've got the ball, now run with it!
Sometimes I'll throw a small random event related to a plotline at people, and they'll kinda just sit there waiting for things to happen. Sometimes I have pre-planned set-piece type events ready to go, and stuff will indeed happen. Other times (often) this is just to say "Hey, I'm here, if you want to get involved with this then use your initiative and I'll run with it!". If people go "hey, X just happened so we want to go talk to Y about it." or "We'd like to investigate place Z and try to find out more" then that is absolutely ideal! DMing on a PW works alot better if players show initiative. Maybe people are afraid to do this in case they're disrupting some carefully laid plan... Don't be, this is what we (or at least I) want, and if I do have a plan it can always be modified or abandoned! Go speak to an NPC who you think might know more, or sneak around and check things out, or pursue whatever crazy plan you can come up with! Plenty is going on 'behind the scenes' and whether you get involved may well depend on the decisions you make at these points (not neccesarily on anything I've decided in advance about giving to you). As long as I know what people plan to do, I can and will react accordingly.

(b) Don't be shy to ask!
But first things first, send a tell going "Are you busy?". If I say no, proceed to step two. If I say "yes", that doesn't mean I won't help it just means I can't be in two places at once. If I don't respond then that means I'm either really busy or afk, not because I'm an unfeeling bastard or anything like that. There's no harm in checking again later.

Even if I don't turn up and start doing stuff, feel free to ask. If you've read things in the rumors forum, and your character wants to find out more (preferably with a couple of buddies), then tap me and ask. But, don't just say "We want to get in on this plotline, can you please involve us now."... this will probably get you nowhere. Make a plan, it doesn't have to be complicated, and send that to me. It can be as simple as going to speak to an NPC, and events can evolve out of this sort of thing (eg; I had some people just go speak to an NPC the other day and it evolved into a fairly big event from there, and they learnt a bunch of stuff).

It doesn't even have to relate to a plotline. If your character has objectives they'd like to pursue, or people they'd like to speak to then ask away, there's no harm and I like it when people do this. You might want to speak to someone in a faction that interests your character (eg; "My paladin Bob the Gormless of Helm, and his mate Karl the Cleric want to speak to the Helmite abbot"), or just have something to further character development (eg; "My character Norbert the Necromancer has hired a couple of PC mercenaries and want to go the Necropolis and capture a zombie to experiment on"). Who knows what might come of a simple beginnings!

(3) Killing players
Not generally my thing. People die in fights... it happens. I usually just count them as wounded and bring them back at low hp once the dust settles (as quick as I can) unless there's a good reason not to. Players... please keep this in mind and don't just respawn if there's an event underway. If I'm planning on leaving you dead for any reason, I'll be sure to let you know!

(4) Alignment shifts
I do these when I see things that warrant it, I promise.

(5) Shout channel
I don't use it much, but sometimes I like to. If everyone's using party chat, my dialogue window scrolls up at amazing speed as I drown in spam and it's crippling, so I do like to use it then (no matter which area we're in, we see all party chat). I also like to use it to let people know I'm on, like "Hi, I'm here!" and that I'm leaving if no other DMs are around "I'm going now, if you want something then speak up quick!". If people object to the greetings I can cut those out, but I reserve the right to remind people about party chat when I'm getting spammed .

Hmm, I'm sure other things were said that I wanted to respond to but I forgot...

[wangxiuming]

I think you've been doing a fantastic job, Mach. As for the DM shouts, personally I like your greetings and farewells - it lets me know how long i have left to harass you