About GM event to save husband by building a bridge to island in BD abyss

[Damola]

Hello!

Just as an announcement for anyone who took part in the event but didn´t notice what I wrote to gossip – and also as an more in-depth explaination on why I handle it this way:

ICly Damola did not take part in the event and thus wasn´t blown off by a GM from the bridge and thus also didn´t die.

Why?

Cause for Damola´s character it would be totally inconsistent to go onto such a bridge and let a strong way blow her into death. She is very cautious and she actually still fears DR ICly quite much. There is no way that she would risk her life so easily without any apparent need to hasten that much.

What happened?

I read the warning about the wind, but as player didn´t recognize that the wind would be that strong that it would threaten Damola´s life. I was about to play Damola as cautious, watching whether the defensive wind spell may have worked, stepped back a bit, but before I could finish writing that a GM already blew Damola off into DR. Actually she fell down with me having written half of the reaction.

I didn´t feel like having had enough time to RP my reaction to the wind thing. I´d expected some kind escalation of the warning like "A strong wind comes up and the bridge staggers dangeriously" or something like that together with some realistic time to RP any response to it before Damola being blown of with no chance to react it. For me it as a digital "You are dead". Thats not much fun to RP. And unlike that last time that happened to a char of mine in a pen and paper RP Damola didn´t accuse a God where something like this actually can be realistic.

I tried playing as if Damola really died there this way the GM have blown her off, but it just didn´t work for me, so I am doing what worked before, I am taking Damola out of this RP completely. ICly she wasn´t there, she didn´t die in a way that would be totally inconsistent to her cautious character. Sure she is much into helping others, but without need she wouldn´t risk her life that easily.

This is not up for discussion for me. I will play her this way, whether you respect it or not.

What would probably have worked for me would be:

1) The wind blow would have been totally unexpectable and Damola wouldn´t have had any chance to react to it. Which it was for me OOCly as a player, cause I didn´t notice that the wind was that strong before Damola was blown off without any chance to react anymore, but not ICly as there has been some warning at least even when on short notice. In real life I would have felt the strongness of the wind and sure I would have respected that, but here we just read text, I didn´t grasp the severity of it as a player. What would have helped me to do would have been some escalation of the warnings like "A strong wind arises and the bridges staggers dangeriously" together with enough time to RP my response to it. Sure Damola would have stepped back then.

2) Damola didn´t die on having been blown off. Actually I got the impression on being blown off Damola fell down from quite a distance from the side of the abyss. I had the impression Damola wasn´t that much into thin air already. And that she may would have fallen down but not all of the distance and would have survived it. But as thats just my perception, she may have been off that far already.

So what would have worked for me would be to carefully being able to choose the amount of risk Damola would take. I didn´t feel that I had this option like in other RP events where Damola stayed in the background instead of attacking a strong NPC. I considered to discuss solution 1 with GMs, but I didn´t feel like there would have been a enough time to reach an outcome that would have worked. Solution 2 only came into my mind after I quitted playing PS already.

Again, I am not willing to discuss this. For me as player this experience has been very frustrating and it feels like a punishment for playing out courage with Damola. Yet, while Damola can be courageful, especially when helping others, she also is not that naive to let wind blow her off that easily. So the way I didn´t notice, I didn´t receive the severity of this wind thing as a player while still having a chance to react to it put her in a place where I didn´t know how to play her anymore, even after I tried one idea. So I am doing what recovers her consistency, I take her out of this.

I did take Damola out of RP ICly before, but rarely – in a situation where I thought I wasn´t give a chance to react in a way that would be consistent to her (although back then I might have had such a chance). And there I even still RP´d it in a way, but in a way that didn´t leave the other party a way to react either – it was before I learned that this is important for RP as a player.

If you think me taking Damola out of this event like this is lame or something like that, feel free not to RP with Damola. Its how I play her. I may stay away from events for a while, as taking out Damola out of RP I initially enjoyed like this is quite frustrating for me as a player. But having to play Damola inconsistently with the core of her character for a longer time would be even more so.


That all said: I liked the general idea of the event and I am grateful for GM´s organizing events like that. So do not let my reaction spoil your fun with the event. Just please respect that Damola wasn´t there. (If you don´t respect it I will still play her that way.)

[Sarko]

Noted...

[Rigwyn]

We have a tradition of letting the victim/recipient of an action determine if it was successful or not, and if so, to what extent. In doing this, we trust that the recipient will show good judgement and make a fair call. This practice provides the recipient with a chance for a saving throw and helps to reduce the effects of godmodding. The same could be done with a dice /roll if that is deemed a more favorable method of determining the outcome - though players should know in advance if you are likely to ask for a /roll or not.

While this practice is not flawless and players do not always make calls that look reasonable, it does help to reduce the need for pulling out.

[bilbous]

If you were registered for the event, I hope you arranged for a GM to remove it from your Event Completed log and had any reward for participation taken back. It sounds like this is part of the point of this thread although not explicitly stated. I suppose there is a good chance there was no GM reward for this event, although it has been some months since I attended one so I do not know how these things go.

If your character is that timid, what on earth were you doing on what I can only imagine is a temporary, likely rickety, bridge? Were there several others that had already crossed safely or were you in the vanguard? Did others get blown off the bridge or were you targeted?

Things happen, and they are not always pleasant. You should now realize that sudden death is always a possibility in an event and should choose carefully before joining in. If Damola is unwilling to pay the price create an alt that is more blase about dying. Nobody forces any particular character to participate.

All that said, it is really none of my business as I am not one of the players that would even notice this happened to you or how you chose to respond to it if you had not put it up for public discussion. Take my words as they are meant, good faith advice with no prejudice intended.

[Eonwind]

Hello!

Just as an announcement for anyone who took part in the event but didn´t notice what I wrote to gossip – and also as an more in-depth explaination on why I handle it this way:

ICly Damola did not take part in the event and thus wasn´t blown off by a GM from the bridge and thus also didn´t die.

Just a small clarification for everyone to read: whenever a GM event happens all that happens in that event has to be considered IC, included any consequences.
It is not tolerated in any way for a player to decide what happened or not during a GM event, any consequences of a GM or a Dev event (which include quests) are for the GMs to decide whether this happened or not. This rule will not be subject of discussions.

This means that in case a character negate what happened during an event is lying (willingly or not - e.g. IC memory loss are acceptable), however IC investigations able to detect the lie will reveal it and it may lead to further IC consequences (e.g. in case character lied to a Guard or a city Officer may experience an IC punishment like a short imprisonment, a fine to pay, etc.). No need to say all these consequences are to be considered IC consequences and are in no way a player's punishment.

The player's way to affect the event's outcome is to RP (and I assure you every GM event outcome is scripted to account for the player's actions and interactions, and more than once the player's RP affected how an event ended up for good and for bad).

The GM have the power to rectify any IC event happened during their events and if a player feel like something should be rectified (this include other player's abuse if they happened during an event) they can talk to the GM team and ask for an amend.

We have a tradition of letting the victim/recipient of an action determine if it was successful or not, and if so, to what extent.

Just to be clear enough: this tradition is good and must be used for player to player interactions and RPs, however it apply in no way to any In Character interaction with a GM (or Dev).

[Siteya]

Not that I have seen the logs or attended the event, but I do know this policy alarms me. For one reason, I think that GMs and Devs could always learn something from the RP community, and are not perfect. Yet capable of pushing the boundaries, as we all do from time to time, into godmodding, and players help remind each other constantly where the godmod edge is. If we have role play standards it is likely we would assume they would be consistent in all events, that we have the ability to make some choices in the story line. If we have a different standard for GM events, take heed, you may be shooting yourself in the foot for such a policy, as role players will be leery that they are walking into traps that don' t make any sense to their characters. As Planeshift role players, in a continuous community, we cultivate, grow, shape, transform, mutate and live with our characters every day.  It is a shame to allow no room for even a discussion, where not only the player, but the staff and the future players and staff, all have an opportunity to learn and grow as a community. Placing a gag order on players needing aftercare or resolve from a storyline that felt godmodded or abusive is worrisome. We want to trust the GM's and Devs and work together. I urge you to reconsider this policy and allow for bend and sway. Like a bridge, what doesn't bend, brakes. We all want a fortified bridge, so we can all get to the other side of the story feeling good about telling the story together.

[Zunna]

This is a small summarise of the facts :
(23:51:13) Aletche shouts: Take care darling there is a strong wind coming from the cayon
(23:51:47) Noberenoe shouts: Please be careful! Be careful of the wind!
(23:51:58) Oele looks to the direction Arane pointed to and grimaces. "Can't see... Strong winds can be dangerous."
(23:52:46) Noberenoe shouts: Try to get the winds to part away from the bridge!
(23:53:18) Noberenoe watches Damola and and Gova go out on the bridge, worried as it rocks to and fro.
(23:53:33) Damola gets blown into the canyon by a strong breeze

To me Damola, you beeing blowed away doesn't look like something which happened all of a sudden. There were warnings all over.
Once two players were blown off, everyone started to cast AW, BrW and BlW spells to stabilize the whole bridge and it worked.
I understand your concern but you have to realise that you guys were building a bridge over a giant abyss. And that the only way to give the feeling of danger to everyone was to make the wind do what it did. You could fall and die for real. And it happened.

I am sorry that it didn't fitted exactly with what you imagine of your char but we can't go case by case. I hope you will find a way to use this event into your char story line, maybe as something that happened in Damola's life and eventually marked it somehow.

We do are open to feedbacks thought, of course. That's why you have this option to "review the gm event" too. Thank you for posting your thoughts about it

[Eonwind]

Not that I have seen the logs or attended the event, but I do know this policy alarms me. For one reason, I think that GMs and Devs could always learn something from the RP community, and are not perfect. Yet capable of pushing the boundaries, as we all do from time to time, into godmodding, and players help remind each other constantly where the godmod edge is. If we have role play standards it is likely we would assume they would be consistent in all events, that we have the ability to make some choices in the story line. If we have a different standard for GM events, take heed, you may be shooting yourself in the foot for such a policy, as role players will be leery that they are walking into traps that don' t make any sense to their characters. As Planeshift role players, in a continuous community, we cultivate, grow, shape, transform, mutate and live with our characters every day.  It is a shame to allow no room for even a discussion, where not only the player, but the staff and the future players and staff, all have an opportunity to learn and grow as a community. Placing a gag order on players needing aftercare or resolve from a storyline that felt godmodded or abusive is worrisome. We want to trust the GM's and Devs and work together. I urge you to reconsider this policy and allow for bend and sway. Like a bridge, what doesn't bend, brakes. We all want a fortified bridge, so we can all get to the other side of the story feeling good about telling the story together.

First off: godmodding for a GM when he's narrating an event has no meaning; why? because the GMs cannot godmode by definition: if they say something happens it happens, full stop. They take decision based on many factors you may or may not know and they also play the rest of the world except for the players character.

Second: when the GMs are on duty (and this include playing events) they are not on equal terms with players. They are the arbiters and the narrators and this authority has been officially given them by the devs and the project leader.

That said I'm not saying the GMs (or the Devs) are never wrong, they can't have faults or they don't need to learn anything but rather the opposite: we actively encourage the players to communicate with us speaking about problems, bugs new ideas and features.
We believe we can all (players, devs, gms) learn something from each other and if any problem arise we invite you to speak with us through the official channels (e.g. #planeshift-gmtalk).

[Siteya]

Upon reviewing the last 2 posts in this thread here are my thoughts:

I do understand and appreciate what GM's and Devs do. I also believe that they can godmod and that as you said Eonwind, "they play the rest of the world except for the players character." Precisely my point when reviewing Zunnas log (Thank you for posting that Zunna and also for your openness to discuss this here) In this particular situation, the GM could be the bridge or be the wind, but cannot be Damola.

(23:53:33) Damola gets blown into the canyon by a strong breeze

Lets examine this one line, served by the GM in the story. There are two points I would like to make. First, that it is not giving Damola a chance to react to the wind and so it does feel very much like the GM is playing the character and it thwarts any opportunity for Damola to add her part to the story, as to how her character would react, This could have been worded more carefully to be inclusive of giving Damolas character an opportunity to react before being blown away, making for a much richer story line and an exciting end, once she was whisked away into DR, (if that is what happened) then she is no longer with the current activity and feels like she was dissed an opportunity to role play. Had the GM spoke of the instability of the bridge, e.g. the bridges begins to sway and creak uncontrollably, a loud crack is heard just below Damola's feet, a strong gust of wind shifts the bridge to tilt...etc. This builds the anticipation of the story as well as gives Damola a chance to flip out and try and save herself and her character, so that if inevitably she dies she still gets that chance to try.

Also I do realize that GM's have a job to play, as arbiters, mediators...but when you say narrators, I would prefer navigators. We are all narrators in PS and that is what I mean by working together, we all tell the stories together, that is why we play, to narrate stories.

Albeit I agree that Damola should have talked directly with the GM for resolve before posting publicly, but now that the cat is out of the bag or blown off the bridge, we can look to this as opportunity to figure out ways to resolve how we work together to tell stories. By posting that the GM's word is final, is a harsh response that could turn RP'ers away from working with GM's and Dev's and personally I don't want to go backwards into the past but move forward, that is why I chose to speak here. See, in the another thread you spoke about guilds getting help from GM's to plant epic RP bombs to keep things lively, I would be more leery to do so if a)The GM would not work along side me with my guild b) If guildies did not get a chance to respond in an epic event before being sent to the DR because a GM is above me and there word is final. I think of when me and my brothers would be role playing in our room, caught up in some adventure and my mother would come in to check on us and we would all shut up and wait for her to leave, "Mom go away we are playing.", because she was above us and not with us, on our level, digging into the story.

I really don't mean to be argumentative, this is meant in good faith. I look forward to the future of working collectively with the team, I hope to be considered a part of it somehow. I care very much about PS, and all of the community, let my actions speak louder then my words here. Lets keep communicating and lets keep telling stories together. Peace.

[Rigwyn]

Rule #1, the DM is always right.

Rule #2, players freely choose who they will play with.

With regards to Rule #1, the post that Zunna posted and Eonwind's comment confirms my suspicions about how the gm team views role play. Using gm powers without even offering a saving throw or forcing the event to happen a certain way is to be expected of the current gm team. Fine.

I will humbly invoke Rule #2  and exclude myself from any gm events. I'm sorry, but this sort of behaviour is below my level of role play. You can use Rule #1 to claim that this is not god modding if you like, but players should think about whether or not they find this acceptable and decide for themselves.

[bilbous]

wise words

[Pierre]

First, very happy to see this post so we can all discuss.

Seems to me that these issues can be dealt with, with a bit of flexibility.

130 seconds for the breeze to turn into a wind strong enough to kill characters is apparently not enough.  The suggestion for building anticipation by having the bridge sway dangerously, the wind to begin to roar or whistle ominously, all of this is great.  Had this been done, it would have made the event that much better.  And then, with that kind of build up, with the bridge creaking and swaying, any fool who puts their foot on the first meter of that bridge can...expect the unexpected.

I think that's all.  I love that Zunna posted the logs, much appreciated Zunna.  I do think it is too much for GMs to be able to address or interact with every player by rolling dice, metaphorically speaking.  It still is possible to set the stage more immersively than was done this time, with a bit more time.  2 minutes may seem a while to some people, but it's really short if you are formulating your response.

I think I understand the player feeling quite bad about this, and it also makes sense to point out that there is inherent danger building a bridge over an abyss, and cautious ones shouldn't be putting feet on the bridge at all, much less with that wild card Gova

Last thing - please if the team has time, even a few minutes before the event, please post a one liner in the forums saying that an event is starting and the title of it - I would love to know when these things happen (people tell me there is a calendar or something like this, but I've never seen it and it's not linked to from the IG Roleplay Events forum thread, and it would be nice if it was).

Totally off-topic - can we link back to the Download PS site from the forums, in an obvious place?

Ciao people.  Gossip was great tonight, by the way, cheers gossips (so was the pub, never seen so many beers on one table before)

[LigH]

Game Masters are not always able to force all participants to behave as planned.

I remember a specific event where a couple offered a banquet with very exotic meals which were possibly meant to be disgusting (imagine a "TV jungle camp"...). But everyone (beginning with Lolitra) tried their best to emphasize the great taste, despite the shocking looks of the meals. In this case, I believe, it would have been wrong if GMs tried to make players complain about the banquet as planned...

Well, it was an exceptional experience, and it was entertaining in a completely different way. Most probably hard to compare with the situation in the event this thread is about.

[Eonwind]

Upon reviewing the last 2 posts in this thread here are my thoughts:

I do understand and appreciate what GM's and Devs do. I also believe that they can godmod and that as you said Eonwind, "they play the rest of the world except for the players character." Precisely my point when reviewing Zunnas log (Thank you for posting that Zunna and also for your openness to discuss this here) In this particular situation, the GM could be the bridge or be the wind, but cannot be Damola.

(23:53:33) Damola gets blown into the canyon by a strong breeze

Lets examine this one line, served by the GM in the story. There are two points [...] so that if inevitably she dies she still gets that chance to try.

Siteya the GMs were not playing Damola's character, they were enforcing the consequences of Damola's actions upon her by playing the environment, this sentence if reworded as such keep the same meaning but highlights what I'm saying:
A strong breeze blows Damola into the canyon
As you can see the GM was playing the wind, not Damola. As for your second point Damola had the chance, like every other player attending to foresee the risk of crossing the bridge. Were they too few, enough, the time was too short? Answers are all subjective, an it's right they are as we (as humans) have the right to think differently, but that's where the role of arbiters step in, to draw a line it's a necessity.

I think it's very important to highlight a fact that may have been overlooked due to the online nature of PS but they've always been the foundation or Roleplay Games; there always need to be at least 2 "side" for a role play game to exist:
1. one or more player taking up a role (obvious)
2. the world where the player’s character has his role.
Point 2 is a key element and can be taken up by different subjects: the server can take it up in case of quests, NPCs, settings elements etc. but when a human take up this role (e.g. for tabletop roleplay games) they can be called in a different way but are fundamentally GMs, their function is to take up every game element except the players characters themselves, this include NPCs, weather, monsters, the wind... in short whatever the PC face. If you think about the consequences it's clear the two roles cannot be on equal terms as the PC actions can affect the world around but their margin of success and failures has to be determined by someone else (so the GM) otherwise the player would only tell a story to himself (which is great but means being a writer more than a RPer). So no RP can exist if both point 1 and 2 are present, therefore both the GMs and the PCs are on equal term in telling a story together, however they cannot be when it comes to decide about the success of a character action.
Of course as persons we all are (players, GMs, Devs) on equal terms especially when it comes to the respect due to each others. We encourage you all to tell us if you think some GM or Dev IC action was wrong or why it was taken through the official channel and possibly after an event is over, the GMs can make mistakes but they have the responsibilities to take decisions and make calls to keep the thing going on.

Game Masters are not always able to force all participants to behave as planned.

The GM are not there to force the participant to behave as planned but to move on the plot based on the participants' actions. However it's sometimes difficult to account for every participant action and give them the needed relevance due to the number of peoples involved of the fact they come up with something completely unexpected (which is a good thing but sometimes may find the team unprepared or require them to come up with an idea on the spot).

[Rigwyn]

Siteya the GMs were not playing Damola's character, they were enforcing the consequences of Damola's actions upon her by playing the environment

Oh, BS. That's a fancy way of saying that they took away her chance to react to the situation and just decided for her what would happen to her character.

A strong breeze blows Damola into the canyon

- Poor form. You should blow and let the player know that its hard enough to knock her on her ass and between the ropes. Either let her react and evaluate her response, or give her a chance to /roll for a saving throw. If she does fail at her attempt to meet the challenge, then at least give her a chance to role play her death or scream on the way down or whatever. I assure you, the struggle and screaming and kicking would be a lot more entertaining than seeing some gm silently kill the character.

If the player feels it absolutely necessary that they survive, then cooperate with them and give them an out. What are you going to lose by doing so, a little pride? In the end, the player survives and is happy, you continue with your event - perhaps with the condition that they leave the RP or remain in some state that removes them from action.  Best of all, there are no complaints about how it handled the next day.

As you can see the GM was playing the wind, not Damola.

No, here the GM just took over the entire role play and made it happen the way they wanted it to happen. We are not stupid.

As for your second point Damola had the chance, like every other player attending to foresee the risk of crossing the bridge. Were they too few, enough, the time was too short?

The reverse of this would be much better. Let the player take the risk, let the bridge shake and flail in the wind, then give the player a chance to react and try to survive. Your way will condition the player into being risk adverse at such events. They will avoid challenges knowing that some gm will kill them.

One final word on this. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. Adding flashy effects, blingy rewards and doing tricks that players cannot do themselves is like the lipstick in this metaphor. If the underlying story and role play is bad, the lipstick won't help, rather it will make it look worse. Please, focus more on the story and on the quality of role play before resorting to gm tricks. Such tricks are nice on a good role play, but look silly on a bad one.