Most of the following is pretty self-evident, but I thought I'd stick it up in case anyone has any questions or is curious about what sort of qualities I look for in a player. Obviously none of these are demands or conditions for playing here, but for those of you who are interested in getting lots of positive attention from me, I thought I'd share what sort of things I really enjoy seeing from players.
(1) Creativity in concept and strength in role-playing -- I really like to see an inventive, well role-played, memorable character. This can be of any alignment or any race or class. If your character interests me, I am going want to spend my recreational time observing the PC and trying to do cool stuff for them. Developing an interesting character is of course challenging, and probably too big of a topic to tackle here. It is, however, an extremely important part of what motivates me to spend DM time with someone.
(2) Another thing I like to see is players fairly role-playing the stats of their character, and generally embracing the weaknesses of their character. No character should be perfect or have no flaws. A player who deliberately has their character make the wrong choice, just because it's what their character would do, gets credit from me. Part of this is having a mentality of not, "I want to win," but rather, "it is my responsibility as a player to have this character behave as the character would behave."
(4) I like players who embrace risk, adversity, challenge, and excitement. This extends to a lot of things, but it does include things like pushing the envelope a little and going on the more dangerous quests, doing heroic/gutsy things, and so on. Please note: for risk to have meaning, it means that a lot of times when you do a brave thing it will turn out poorly. If you don't have the maturity as a player to be relaxed when, on occasion, it will inevitably go wrong, please don't bother in the first place. Some players prefer to snooze their way through the same simple scripted quests and react to DM attention with OOC horror, others actually -want- tough, fair, rewarding spice on their quests. Life is too short for me to bother too much with people in the first category, so I generally prefer to focus on the second.
(5) The fifth point I guess is what I would call attitude, and it is - by FAR - the most important factor in helping me decide whether I'd like to spend my limited time DM'ing for a player, or whether I'd prefer to just ignore a player. We get all kinds of players on EfU, many people have had all kinds of psychiatric disorders (seriously), others have had self-esteem issues or social problems or whatever. Although I wish everyone who tries out EfU well, the simple truth is that I only DM because it's fun, and until I receive a salary for this it is much easier for me to remain excited and energized about DM'ing when I deal with players who are positive about the server vs. those who want to drown themselves and others in a sea of angsty negativity.
Players who are motivated by ego, by jealousy of other players and the accomplishments of their characters, players who see conspiracies or who search for excuses to say that the DMs are out to get them, players convinced that the server is designed to reward evil/good/'dm pets'/humans/whatever at the expense of whatever they personally play, players who harp on and on about how the server is unfair or tilted against them, players who descend into crushing despair or anger because of a death, and so on all contribute to Howland-Burn-Out and I am not going to be as enthusiastic about doing things for them as for other players.
Now, let me clarify that. If someone as a player has a complaint or question, I fully, 100% welcome them to come talk to me. I have never thought worse of a player for talking with me about their concerns. And the truth is, the server is far from perfect, the DMs are far from perfect, and we'll never improve unless people come and talk to us about things we could improve on. In fact, if you're a player who's relaxed but tells me when you think something is wrong I'll really appreciate it and do my best to help you out in turn with my DM'ing time.
The other thing I'd say, and this is important, is that players should not interpret a lack of DM attention from me to necessarily mean that I'd prefer to ignore you. I have limited time as a DM, limited attention and energy, and often find myself very quickly being wrapped up in things IG when I am actively Dm'ing. I often miss DM tells IG, and my IRC client has a tendency to lose PMs from people if it's sent when I've been away for a while (speaking of which, if anyone knows how to fix that, telling me would be great). I do my best to respond to everything (even if it's just, 'I can't help you now'), but I do have limitations.
So there you have it. If anyone has any general questions, feel free to ask. Remarks about a specific character should be reserved for IRC or forum PM.
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