Congratulations, and confusion

[Egon the Monkey]

Firstly, a big thanks to whatever DM spiced the Trogs run yesterday, as it really livened up a quest we were steamrollering until then. That boss was badass (HOW many high level Magic Missiles did that thing have?), and it was great when we finally got it by pinning it in a corner with about half the party spamming KD.

Also to Nuclear Catastrophe for the awesome Ogre Pirate miniquest. Even though negotiation and trade was a dead loss to my PC, it was cool RP, even just sneaking around covering the negotiator in case a fight went off.

However, I have to say I am utterly puzzled that all but two of the party who encountered the ogres bailed out mostly to do a scripted quest (And yes, I got no reward off the quest, but I got good XP and a lot of entertainment. :D), and to the lack of response to my sending that was pretty blatantly saying "Hey, DM quest here people", as well as being an IC warning of a direct threat to the Ziggurat. On the other hand, a Shout from a DM would be fairly sure to get half the server over, which is why I Nuclear said "nope, not doing that, it'll cause a lag fest" . Is it acceptable to tack "//DM quest" onto sendings like that?

[Joe Desu]

I would rather people choose whether or not to join a group/mission based upon IC decisions and not an OOC decision to catch some DM spice time.

[SpareChange]

A lot of people, myself included, made a decision based on IC factors.

Killing random ogres on the beach isn't as exciting from an IC perspective as looting a forgotten Netherese observatory, which possesses characteristics of mystery, intrigue, and (most importantly) adventure in the traditional sense, which is what appeals most to Chance. He might love a good fight, but delving into the unknown where ancient civilization and potentially ancient artifacts are involved is much more tempting than a sending that says, "HEY COME KILL OGRES."

As much as it might be tempting to take part in a DM event for me as a player, I respect the decisions of players to do what's best for them IC.

[JackOfSwords]

I was wondering what those Ogre Pirates were doing standing around on the beach...  thought they were new NPC merchants or something.

[prestonhunt]

I was there, and am personally not a big fan of this sort of "event", as they typically attract the entire server, and it all becomes super chaotic, and laggy, and when it's all said and done one player and his friends scoop up all of any reward that's given.

All said and done, I'll leave the server invasion type things to others, thanks.

[Mort]

Just to say that scripted quest will always be there. But DM events wont. If you dont want to take part, it's fine -- but it will usually be more interesting than a static quest due to the unpredictability!

That being said, I do agree that you should do what your character would do. And I dont think people should participate to DM events for the sake of being led by a dm, sometimes, it -really- doesnt make sense for your evil character to go help Lolly the peasant's daughter who fell down the well (even if you want to get good rep.) .

And to answer Egon's question, no, you shouldn't advertise dm quests. You shouldn't even tell other peeps in tell that you are going on a dm quest. Kills the surprise and sometimes bring some sketchy sketchy metagaming.

It will also help people who are organizing player events, expeditions, etc. in getting people interested as people do not know if a DM will be spicing things up or has plans for the expedition.

If everything is clearly labelled, predictability will make everything boring.

[Garem]

I'm going to have to disagree about getting a good reputation not being a good reason to participate in certain DM events. Here's the story...

Little Timmy fell into a well. His father ran to the Town Hall and recruited wayward adventurers and a man who wanted to ensure his position was maintained by getting a strong reputation as a leader, defender of his city, and powerful warrior. This man's name was Illario Dentra.

Well, lo and behold, they saved little Timmy. But, being the strict Banite disciplinarian he was, Illario took little Timmy aside and told him that he must be strong, disciplined, and listen to his father above all but the great and mighty Bane. It was his duty to do so. He then ensured that his father would punish the boy and make him stronger.

This established an awesome relationship that utterly changed the mentality of an ex-slave, family-less PC (he now has a son-like figure). It eventually led to an even more spectacular story many months later that I'll save time and not elaborate on here (or if someone really wants to know, catch me on IRC) that, for the first time, the reasons why the character kept his faith somewhat secret and why he finally divulged the truth to a Neutral Good priestess (and why she didn't tell the whole city!)

My point is that evil (and good, for evil-leaning DM quests!) are too dynamic for such blanket statements to apply. The player must be honest and have a fair reason why he wants to do this or that.

More on the subject at hand, I more than welcome DMs questioning me as to why a character acts the way they do. Asking players "what are you doing here? I would have thought your level 3 rogue who cowardly hides behind the warriors even when fighting rats would have no interest in the defense of the city" or "why is your goodly druid fighting against these pirate/slaver-hunters? why is he on this ship at all?".

Definately a good point about not advertising DM quests. Please, there are a dozen reasons not to do that, and few to no good reasons.

[Jayde Moon]

To answer the question of why I did not heed the call, nor the group I was with:

I was playing with a group of people that I am showing EfU:A off too.  We only come together on Monday nights.  All of them are roleplayers who are pretty adamant about IC.  They are leery of such things as near unlimited respawns and repeatable static content.

Most of them will probably not put any more time into EfU than our Monday night session.  But if one or two of them do, I will consider it a success.

The point?  That I have worked to come up with detailed IC reasons to go on the static quests that will make sense to the group as a whole, and abandoning those IC reasons to go dashing off to something that, outside of the OOC fact it was a DMed thing, held no interest for the group would have really hurt the immersion for all of us.

I am sad that I missed a DMed event, I look forward to more of them and hope that I can take part.

My missing out this time was not meant to disrespect any DMs or the work they put into the server.

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

I was on the other side of the Isle, xD

[TooCuteForComfort]

As if that ever stopped you before.. :cool:

[Egon the Monkey]

Oh, it wasn't a server invasion (that was the Riser attack that came 2 minutes after this thing ended. I got to do 3 DM events in a row, it was brilliant :D), it was three ogres, one imp and a total lack of violence, as it got solved by another PC (in our party of 4) who had persuade points and Charisma :P. I just kept an eye on the imp, talked some basic info out of it, and stealthed around as backup while the other guy talked.

In fact, as I recall I put out a sending for a negotiator and possible backup, not a hit team. I was standing on the top of the Ziggurat with another PC yelling "There are OGRES. In the Docks. They are threatening the place. The ruin will be there later". I was surprised all that effort got nobody, but maybe there was just a shortage of either dutiful or avaricious PCs looking to defend or try and make gold out of it.

Caused me IC confusion to why PCs who would cheerfully run to defend the city against an invasion force of Nightrisers would duck a crew of ogres, and OOC wondering whether it was:
-An expectation it would be a tough DM quest
-Lack of IC motivation from PCs who rushed to stop Nightrisers but were unwilling to do anything about a threat that was easier to handle.
-Wanting to powerquest.

So, yeah, thanks for the responses. I really was thrown by how it was harder to get a party for an unusual DM quest, than a scripted one.

[Metro_Pack]

Do whatever your PCs would do, at all times (provided its not breaking any rules).

[VauntedSpirit]

My PC wants to exploit chests to give unlimited gold pieces.

[Denko]

I frankly doubt there is any good ic reason for someone midly good at fighting and with a minimum of courage to do anything else than face a threat if it's really confirmed to be serious (and even if it's not, then at least checking it would be the logical thing to do). Evil pcs have their home on Ymph too.

[Equinox]

yeah i was there (the other pc yelling "ogres on the docks" ^^)

the only thing i have to say is that nine time out of ten, a cooldm quest will end up giving you more exp than running a scripted quest. -especially- if you use good rp and impress the DM's.

It was kind of a shame that no-one came though. but i agree that advertising DM quest would be kind of lame and very meta. people would just turn up in the hopes that they got soem cool dm loot out of it.