How EFU Plots Work and Where You Fit In

[Damien]

You're misunderstanding my point. I am totally for realism, you run into beholders and I'll expect what you get. What I was talking about it taking that realism and skewing it, ie if a dm decides there are beholders for some reason or another in the seers area, or having several randomly appear behind characters when they are traversing the dark, or having npc gangs kill entire groups when it they don't like what the grouping is doing, or spamming deadly traps.


Yes these are all realistic but they happen so often that realistic becomes a gimmick, and then you'll have people less wishing to involve themselves and less willingness to risk. I'll already started playing gimmick characters so I have no care when they die on these quests, having had two serious characters already die, and I know plenty of other players who won't take part in quests because it isn't a quest, it's torture porn wherein you watch you're character get brutalised over and over until you're permed.

As a side result of this as well you're seeing high level characters with a lot of supplies due to questing and racking up the gold and on the other side you have the medium to high level characters who have far less supplies who feel the brunt of the realism.

As for your query aefer I said it already, you are making an ooc judgement call about a ig situation. Something like becoming a thrall will make you kill able on sight which I don't think you factored in. On the other hand you could always speak to a dm about becoming a thrall with a new character, that would make far more sense.

[Big Orc Man]

The "torture porn" aspect often comes in when players decide to do the dumb heroic thing instead of the smart thing!  When it works, it's awesome.
 
But if there are multiple extra options available to you and you decide to just run slap-dash into the opposing force with no coordination, you may well get brutalized.
 
As far as having NPC gangs kill PC groups because we don't like what they're doing, that does not happen.
 
NPC gangs kill PC groups because the NPC gangs don't like what the PCs are doing.
 
That's a big difference.  And I suspect you'll find very little "spamming of deadly traps", when in reality there are randomly distributed moderate traps, and a few stronger ones on chests / doors where they can be easily predicted.  Deadly traps are almost always led by corpses, scorch marks, blood, or weaker traps.
 
If Drow jump your party, treat it as a Drow ambush, not a mean DM being a jerk.  If we have an OOC issue with you, we'll talk to you.  We don't use IC methods to punish characters we simply "don't like".  In fact, most characters we "don't like" end up just not getting DM interaction.

[Damien]

I never said it was dms personal hate towards people. I was saying the realism has gone too far.

What about the stupid, or the reckless? They'd die in all these instances and that would be their reward unless they were lucky/ well supplied enough to brunt all the blows.

And there is the drug dealing rogue  charisma and intelligent built rogue who may inadvertently encroach on some npcs gangs turf and thus confrontation must ensue.

What it seems to be is a level of realism that is by all means very real but it's  at that level for all characters, regardless of build class or level.

With regards to deadly traps I meant the active adjective, not the trap variety. One goblin bomber almost killed my level six fighter alone, add any kind of cliff falls and the fact dms control those bombers so they run towards you and tend to ignore what summons you provide for fodder and you have a realistic loading of the fugue.  I'm just saying tone it down so we can all have fun and hell you don't even need to tone it down that much!

[Big Orc Man]

The bottom line is that a lot of strong PCs can mostly sleepwalk through our scripted quests because they are made so that non-optimized PCs have a reasonable chance of winning.
 
The average level of that quest's PCs was 7, and they had a level 10 fighter and absurdly strong level 8 barbarian in tow.  The only solution to your concern is to make the quest so easy for them that they can breeze right through it.
 
That's why you see somewhat judicious use of puzzles, obelisks, etc.  It solves the problem of "what will challenge the super powerful but won't instantly splatter the weak?".
 
I hope you realize how extremely difficult it is to balance for a large party with a hugely diverse set of levels.  A lot of times that which seems "impossible" ends up being beaten because the characters are so kitted out and strong, and it also only takes one random AFK or error from a frontliner to wipe out the whole party (a situation in which everyone throws up their hands and blames the balance of the encounter).
 
If you do not want extreme danger, you can absolutely stick to scripted content.  Even if it gets spiced and you are repelled by that notion, you can always pack up and walk away if it gets too dangerous.
 
Problems with goblin bombers in a goblin warren?  Get people with bows or tanglefoot bags.  They're dangerous, but also very counterable.  Forming into an amorphous adventurer blob is a good way to eat a powerful blast, though.  Perhaps you should elect a leader and take his/her orders.

[Sternhund]

IC proclamation and self promotion trying to become a part of the plot or OOC contacting DM? (Or Both?) And if I should contact the DM, how? Should I only announce DM my interest or should I suggest a way how I want to get involved? Would I get any screenplay from DM what should I do to get involved or is everything on the free will of my character?

...

I got from Sternhund such feeling: If you do not write us, do not expect that we involve you. But I expect it. So what should I write? (Of course, I am very involved at the moment, but I didn't write DM anything. And my application was approved because it was earned in game.)

Yeah I can understand the ambiguity and the integrity of IC and OOC immersion, and can understand the confusion from a player's perspective. I like to see a balance. In a perfect world, you only do things in an IC arena, and things fall into place. The problem is that on the DM client we experience information overload, having to process and piece together information on NWN, the forums, and IRC and pull those puzzle pieces together. We miss a lot of details along the way.

While you might be doing all the right things ICly, my spotlight might not have noticed you. Mentioning to me or another DM in an OOC environment can open up a discussion that we might have missed, not because you don't deserve it, but because we are flawed and just didn't notice your awesome IC initiative.

The notion of "If you do not write us, do not expect that we involve you" is absolutely not true, and apologies for the ambiguity.

Hopefully all of that makes sense.


Anyway remember, the point of the original post is to hopefully give a perspective of how plots are driven from a standpoint that players may not have considered before. The actual advice part I might have extended myself a bit. There's no definite correct answer or demand for any person to change their behavior accordingly, but hopefully provide a set of thoughts that could be worthwhile. Maybe I failed horribly (probably!), but that was the intended goal.

[Damien]

I've no idea what quest you're talking about or what group tbh, all I know is while my characters are dying in droves long standing pcs getting rich from standing around upper waiting for the next dm quest or explorations.

I want to be able to risk it on  a character for some reward but as it stands that option doesn't exist, instead I've joined the masses and am waiting for the riches.

[LordOfBones]

I have found standing around waiting for the riches to not be worth it even if they do come around.

I would rather be out bashing in some dudes face for Cyric, it feels way more fulfilling than waiting to beat monster X and get reward Z.

Plotting is its own reward.

[Sankis]

I've no idea what quest you're talking about or what group tbh, all I know is while my characters are dying in droves long standing pcs getting rich from standing around upper waiting for the next dm quest or explorations.

I want to be able to risk it on  a character for some reward but as it stands that option doesn't exist, instead I've joined the masses and am waiting for the riches.

As a player of a PC that's gone on a fair bit of DM quests lately, trust me when I say I am not getting rich off of them. In fact it's easily the opposite.

[Damien]

There is something amusing about you saying that, having watched you carry me through a Dm quest which was combat heavy. My point still stands and we are getting away from it, lower the level of realism please?

[Jasede]

I guess it's a bit off-topic but I have been dying a ridiculous amount.

I guess this sounds really, really lame but I sort of blame the tiny quest pool which makes questing boring and predictable. It's super cool that the 2-5 segment has so much variety now but the 2-7 or higher pools are just tiny compared to EfU 1. I wanna do a little more than gnoll/kobolds/jubal/maze/shagga. There's some higher content there but good luck convincing a group IG or OOC to do it; the fear Seer (also Beholders/Sahuagin/Orogs) evokes now OOCly is much higher than it was in EfU 1 (probably due to the changes in reward).

I guess what I'm saying, and it's off-topic, but I do feel it strongly, is that we need more quests, yo. I had an amazing selection in EfU 1. I know, we just started EfU 4 so it will take a long time. That's cool! As long as it takes! But I hope it's a big priority to fix existing quests / add new ones / retool old ones.


Edit: Maybe it's nostalgia goggles? Here's from memory EfU 1 quests + ranges

Portal 3-6
Trogs 3-6
Oozes 3-6
Purst 2-5 (?)
Gnomes 3-6
Hobgoblins 2-5 (?)
Goblins A 4-8 (maybe?)
Goblins B 2-6
Jubal's (same)
Drow Caravan (5-10)
Gnolls 3-7
STAIRS STAIRS STAIRS
Seers 5-10
Orogs 5-10
Ogres 4-8
Clowns 4-8
Beholders 7-10 (??)
Driders 7-10 (??)
Stone Giants
Ice Kobolds
Pyrimo Q.
Chosen
Chosen Reloaded
Chosen: Return of the Chosen
Chosen: Back 2 da Hood
Thomas'
Egypt Land
Medusa Adventure Land of Stoning
Ettercaps  (This was a tough one, despite what "Ettercaps" might lead you to believe)
Sad Elf Quest You Needed to Bribe a DM For (7-12) ((you read that right))
.
.
.

This is a tiny list, I am really tired so me no think good. But even the tiny list shows there was a neat selection for any range, and you were excited about reaching level 3 (finally you could do the many 3-6!) or reaching level 5.

[Big Orc Man]

We actually have quite a variety of quests that people never or almost never do, but that could be for any number of reasons.
 
If it helps, I have a 6-12 quest in the works that's almost completed, but it's also going to fall into the trap of insane difficulty that ruffles feathers!
 
It might be a good idea for us to raise the reward for some of the out-of-the-way quests to encourage more variety.

[Talir]

Focusing on group quests I count at least nine 2-4(5) quests.
Ten 2(3)-6(7).
Six 4-(8-12).

Not to mention some stuff that never was in EFU 1 that may be at least as profitable.

Nothing to be done on the OOC scared part.