GM vs. DM

[Draklar]

Originally posted by Zan
why make things complicated by needing two people working together to succesfully create events?

The problem would arise when such RM would deal with someone who wasn\'t actually doing anything that bad... Just was annoying to the RM who obviously had other things to do than watch the player for a longer while to find out if he\'s really trolling or not.

I still find it to be a complete lack of organisation. Or at least a very basic one (trying to get the most from resources).
But if a GM would try to keep order on an event, then both jobs would be done much better. First, two people would have it easier to do something than a single person; Second, a mechanic would do a better job in repairing something, than someone who was learning multiple professions at once. The latter would have biggest chance of just screwing things up.
Making things not complicated in this case would mean adding a risk of event becoming a failure and someone becoming upset (when a RM encounters stressful situation and judges someone wrongly), which means more complains. Thus the said proverb doesn\'t in any way apply here, as the discussed problem isn\'t how people will behave because of other having more power (which wouldn\'t even matter if RMs were more secret...). The reason of complains would come out of RMs having to do too much work... Another proverb states, \"The tree breaks that takes all the force of the wind.\"

[Cha0s]

First of, all, for big events, it usually will be several RMs, not just one. Second of all, in the event that something goes horribly wrong, RMs could call a GM (I said this, I think) who would resolve the problem. RMs simply need the powers to deal with minor disturbances that don\'t warrant a GM\'s attention.
e.g. A power-leveler trying to force his way into a quest without RPing, for instance. A little teleport away (RPed, of course) and the solution is solved.
Or a bunch of newbs shouting nearby and refusing to shut up. A little RPed mute...

I am not advocating for the addition of banning powers, name changing, and everything else the GMs have. I want only teleport (which can be necessary for RP anyway) and mute, in addition to the rest of the RP commands. I also stress that a RMs job would not be to solve problems with dissenters, but to keep the event-environment fun for the RPers. Basically, RMs would move the problem away or deal with it temporarily and inform a GM to address the issue in full.

[stfrn]

Well, Cha0s asked me to post, but I only have time for a few points so here goes.

This is the wish list for discusing the futureof planeshift- if you have a simple request, you can make a feature request. In that case there is not much to talk about- everyone wants bows for example. But the things people really debate about are the thngs that aren\'t just hard to do, they are hard to do right. Like PvP, we coudl slap down any rules and blame, PvP. But instead there is a whole sub-forum on it, and not much has changed

That in mind, I would like to see changes to how Gms work, what groups we have, and more encourgement of roleplaying. But there are many factors I am unsure of still. It will all take time.

[Draklar]

Originally posted by Cha0s
A power-leveler trying to force his way into a quest without RPing, for instance. A little teleport away (RPed, of course) and the solution is solved.

This is exactly what I\'mtalking about, actually... I don\'t think anyone has such super powers that will allow him/her to automatically know whether someone role-playes or not... All I see here is moving away someone who potentially might want to join role-play. Aka future complains.

[Cha0s]

Anyone who acts out of character will be judged not to be role-playing. An RM would have to give the player a chance and plenty of warning before removing them. But requiring a GM to do this could severely hinder the RM\'s job. If all the GMs are busy, the RMs should be able to deal with it themselves.

The dilemma is this: if a GM can\'t come to help and an RM can\'t directly deal with the disruptive player, the event is ruined for everyone. If the RM is too hasty in his decision and removes an earnest role-player, the event is ruined for that one person. The only real solution is to make sure RMs are well-trained and patient with people new to the game to role-playing. However, if it comes down to making one person unhappy or making a whole bunch unhappy, the former is clearly the better option.

[Draklar]

I\'d rather have a bunch of people have their event ruined, than a good role-player becoming discouraged and what follows pushed to leave the community :/
Being treated like that when you\'re new can really hurt I guess...

[Cha0s]

Like, I said, I am not advocating for anyone who like he\'s not a role-player to be teleported away on sight. Everyone deserves a chance and RMs need to be trained to understand this and to be patient. However, truly disruptive players do exist and RMs need to be able to deal with them when simple tells just don\'t work.

[Zan]

I think you \'re looking at this from a personal point of view Draklar. Now that\'s not really a wrong thing to do but sometimes we need to let go of that personal and individual judgement to create general rules.

Of course in any situation people have to make decisions depending on the circumstances and since we are all people mistakes will be made inevitably. If you are going to \'great lengths\' in order to avoid making mistakes, like you seem to want to do, you might end up worse off than when you use a system where some mistakes are allowed.

To put it crudely .. we sometimes punish people who never commited a crime. If we never punished anyone that would be avoided but criminals have free reign. So instead we chose to arrest and punish criminals, with a minor chance of being wrong. It still beats letting the bad guys get away because we\'re afraid of punishing a good guy though.
This is very exagerated of course.

I do admire your idealistic attitude but I just don\'t think it is very realistic in this case.

[Draklar]

Not afraid of punishing people... But sending people who have time and experience in it to do it. That\'s minimalizing the possibility of making a mistake. It\'s not idealistic attitude, but simple organisation where team is split into several functions to make things work as fluently as possible.

Originally posted by Zan
I do admire your idealistic attitude but I just don\'t think it is very realistic in this case.

I find expecting a single person to be able to judge fairly and run amazing events at once to be idealistic (and not realistic) attitude, actually... Even our current GMs make mistakes...

Also, personal point of view?

Edit: My personal view is that role-playing events shouldn\'t have so much fuss around them. They shouldn\'t differ from normal role-playing situation much, with the only difference being that it\'s supported by the system.

[Cha0s]

Draklar: again, I stress that RMs would need some GM training. Yes, mistakes would be made, but events would run much more smoothly in the face of a disruptive player if the RM could take care of the issue themself.

[Kiva]

No, no and no.

Reason 1: If you have anything to do with the PS settings, then you\'re a settings dev in the PlaneShift team, which means you gain access to GM9 / God commands, and can do whatever you want.

Reason 2: If you DON\'T have anything to do with the PS settings team, you have NOTHING to do with the ingame settings, and therefor you are NOT supposed to do events, simply because settings are none of your business.

You people have to get it into your heads that settings devs do events, \"GMs\" don\'t. GMs are tech support; They are NOT event organizers. They simply lack the skills and the ability and imagination to do settings-related events. It\'s not bashing, it\'s fact, and I don\'t care how many raids you\'ve done on insert-ridiculous-private-server-for-random-korean-game-here. You\'re no event organizer, and you have no clue what kind of planning and how strict you have to do, to create an imaginative and successful gameplay-related event.

Raids... Bleh. Someone should kill the person who invented that stupid thing.

P.S. If you argue with this, you don\'t know what you\'re talking about!

Edit: No GM or dev should ever have the ability to spawn items. The server administrators (Vengeance, Acraig and Talad) yes, but not any of the GMs or regular devs.

Edit2: None of the players either.

[Cha0s]

Kiva, you seem more worried with keeping power in the hands of a select few than in making Planeshift a good role-playing game. If no one but devs can spawn items, I will tell you this now, PS events will not be fun and role-players will look elsewhere (NWN, for example) for a good place to role-play. Items are not just rewards for players, but important quest tools, useful in maintaining role-play over multiple sessions and in inspiring players to role-play in the absence of facilitation.

While inter-player RP is a very important piece of role-playing (what you suggest seems to point to this being the primary form of RP), without people to facilitate and unite players with common purposes, role-play will not be as frequent, nor as rich as it could be. Therefore, there has to be a group of people that are in charge of running events. \"The settings team,\" you say. And explain to me why they\'re qualified? I\'m not saying they\'re not, but simply having an imagination does not qualify you to coordinate events. Being able to write a good story, organize an environment... these are parts, yes, but there is a lot more to running good events, such as good intuitive thinking, being able to move quickly and be creative on the spot; being able to type well and get into a character\'s head, multiple characters at once, in fact. You make gross generalizations with your assertion that all settings team members are qualified as event-runners.

And yet you generalize even more with the GMs. I will not accept that all GMs, in your words, \"lack the skills and the ability and imagination to do settings-related events.\" Many of them are quite good role-players, in my opinion, and the fact that you make such a deprecating statement--and then go so far as to call it \"fact\"--drops my estimation of you quite a bit.

Furthermore, you bring up \"Raids.\" Did anyone mention raids? Did I ever say anything about the so-called \"raids\" being even related to events? This complete non-sequitor is not an argument against what I propose. If the people recruited for the role I suggest are recruited for their raid experience, I swear I will leave Planeshift and will not come back. I do not want people who will organize raids.

I want people who will organize events. Clearly, the settings team does not feel any inclination to do this (from what I\'ve seen) and, personally, I doubt they are organized enough. That is why I advocate for the creation of a new team who is better able to handle the task. Creating settings for the game and running events in-game are different (albeit, related) tasks, both of which require a lot of work. If both jobs are to be accomplished with maximum efficiency, there need to be separate groups for each of them.

I\'m very disappointed that you take such a negative attitude and hope that you see why I am suggesting what I am suggesting. My goal is to bring role-play to Planeshift so that all role-players may come and say, \"This is the best RPG I\'ve ever played,\" and mean it. Without an organized system for running events and a good team of people to run them, this will never happen.

[Suno_Regin]

Originally posted by Cha0s
First, before I get started, I\'m going to assume you\'ve at least read the first post of this thread. If you haven\'t, you may miss some of my points. Now, moving on...

I\'ve just recently learned that the majority of GMs are completely unable to do important RP-tasks such as spawning items and NPCs. From what I\'ve heard, in fact, only two GMs can do this (plus the devs). This means that truly in-depth and advanced GM-events don\'t occur often and little events that would ideally (imho; see above link) be a part of every day life (chats with GM-controlled NPCs, miniquests, etc) don\'t occur frequently at all. Therefore, I propose the creation of a new GM (roughly equivalent to the current \"GM7\"), called the DM, or dungeon master. Dungeon masters would be recruited similarly to GMs, except that they would have to show greater responsibility and, in addition, the ability to role-play well. In my opinion, this would increase role-playing in-game tremendously.

This would be a good idea, but at the same time, most DM\'s would go corrupt like some GM\'s (not going to mention names...but I think you know who you are) by abusing powers and all that.... A DM would only control events, but also imagine what they can do to annoy people by lower FPS, or something stupid...Spawning items everywhere, in the sky, all those places...Choose wisely

[steuben]

i agree with Cha0s. we do need more rp-able events. the rm\'s should be able to provide it. even if they have to be a subset of developers rather then gm. the actual reporting line (you know those nice lines on the org charts) perhaps can be finalized at a bit of a later date.

but, i think that just about everybody agrees that we need something. regardless of what they are called or what department they are part of.

rms _are_ needed. especially if ps is to grow to be more then just a rather pretty chat room.

i don\'t know if this will provide a bit more light for some people. but, the way the cc corp runs \"the world\" without the apparent evil, more like the elder characters in .hack/twilight or .hack/ai buster.

[Cha0s]

Well, with GMs, part of the problem is the sheer boredom/annoyance of the job. I\'ve heard several complain of annoying, menial petitions that they are supposed to take care of and the constant controversy over GM decisions can hardly be fun for the GMs.

With RMs, there would be a set purpose and things to do, something to occupy them and a place to channel their powers. Yes, candidates would have to be chosen very carefully, but as long as the selection process keeps this in mind, I don\'t think power-abuse will be much of a problem.