Post by Admin on Jul 29, 2011 10:05:08 GMT -5
aka... How we can make your event run as smoothly as possible.
We've had a lot of discussions after the last event, and would like to pass along the following thoughts and plans for how we will be running the next event. We're growing back into this whole event-running things, and would love to hear your feedback on the following ideas.
1. In-Event Plot coordinator: During events, Jay Vasseur will be the person to talk to directly about any plot questions or personal plots that you want to do. While Jay will not always personally have the answer to your question, all questions will filter through him. Jay is going to have a radio on him that will allow him quick contact to Jay and Bill, where a lot of the answers will come through. We hope that doing this will allow us to give consistent information at all times. With the spiderweb of plots we're running, we believe that this will eliminate any conflicting information coming out, as it has despite our best efforts at prep.
2. Saturday day structure: We run our NPC's hard on Friday night. Generally, we're up until 4 or 5 in the morning and the NPC's are in tough shape during the day on Saturday. This makes it harder to keep the pressure on during the day on Saturday and the NPC's are even more tired for Saturday night. In an effort to correct this, we are thinking of the following possibility:
a. Modules: Saturday will be more module intensive and less in-town intensive. We will provide leads, in-game, for tasks for players to complete through modules.
b. Scope: There will be many options available simultaneously, and we will do our best to have opportunities that should interest all of the wonderfully diverse characters that come visit our lands.
c. Double-hooking: We will ask, but not require, that groups come to us in pairs to accomplish these tasks (go on these modules). In effect, the spokesman for two different groups would approach Jay and let him know what they want to do. Each group will then NPC for the other group. This will allow our NPC's some recovery time and allow us to run a lot of modules with only one marshall necessary from monster camp for each.
3. Ritual Marshalls: I had offers from a few people to become ritual marshalls at the last event. Taking advantage of this opportunity will free up a lot of my time, which will help me to focus more on the big picture of the event and spend less time working the charts in circles. If you are interested in joining the group of ritual marshalls, let me know and I will send training materials to you. The only requirement is that your character is a ritual caster. I put this requirement in because there's a lot behind the scenes in our ritual system that I would rather only share with those casting them.
4. Rules Marshalls: With the changeover to 9th edition, we hope that Jay, Jordan and I will all be fully up to speed and ready to be marshalls at the next event. We will make an announcement about this. If you would like to become a rules marshall, let me know. This is open to everyone. A rules marshall will have the authority to make binding rules calls during encounters. There will be a heirarchy involved in this process, whereby one person will be designated as rules marshall for all encounters so that we can avoid problems of conflicting rules calls.
5. Rules calls during encounters: We will also be announcing the following policy at opening ceremonies from now on to avoid confusion. In a nutshell, here's how it works.
If you see something happening during an encounter that you believe violates the rules of the game, it is your responsibility to ask for a rules call on the spot. We strongly suggest that you call a hold before asking for the rules call so that we can all be certain that the question is answered promptly and correctly.
6. Adjudications: I hate adjudicating deaths. I always have. Unfortunately, it's a natural part of the game because no one is perfect and it's guaranteed that mistakes will happen. If you believe that an error occurred during an encounter that led to an improper death, bring it to a plot member's attention as soon after the encounter as possible. One of the key questions that we will be asking you, however, is whether you brought up the mistake in question during the fight. If you did not bring up the infraction during the encounter, it will make it that much less likely that the adjudication will occur. I refer to this as a presumption that adjudication will not occur if the issue was not raised during the encounter.
The reason for this policy is that we want to avoid players seeing a mistake, not bringing it up, and believing that they have a "get out of death free" card for the remainder of that encounter. Our calls regarding adjudication will be consistent with this goal.
For example: During a fight, a spellcaster is raining down spells on the PC group. A fighter rushes forward and attacks, swinging viciously at the NPC. The NPC continues to cast spells while the PC believes that he should be unable to because the NPC is taking body damage while casting. The PC Fighter dies and resurrects.
If the PC does not call the NPC out on this rules violation, then it is very unlikely that the death would be adjudicated in this instance.
If the PC does call the NPC out and a marshall (or other person if a marshall is not present) makes the wrong call, saying that the casting was legit, it is likely this death would be adjudicated.
Exception: If the PC Fighter does not know the rule that a caster cannot cast while taking body damage and later learns of it, there would be no inherent presumption against him for purposes of adjudication.
Okay, so I know that's a lot to process, and I would love to hear some thoughts on any of the above points.
We've had a lot of discussions after the last event, and would like to pass along the following thoughts and plans for how we will be running the next event. We're growing back into this whole event-running things, and would love to hear your feedback on the following ideas.
1. In-Event Plot coordinator: During events, Jay Vasseur will be the person to talk to directly about any plot questions or personal plots that you want to do. While Jay will not always personally have the answer to your question, all questions will filter through him. Jay is going to have a radio on him that will allow him quick contact to Jay and Bill, where a lot of the answers will come through. We hope that doing this will allow us to give consistent information at all times. With the spiderweb of plots we're running, we believe that this will eliminate any conflicting information coming out, as it has despite our best efforts at prep.
2. Saturday day structure: We run our NPC's hard on Friday night. Generally, we're up until 4 or 5 in the morning and the NPC's are in tough shape during the day on Saturday. This makes it harder to keep the pressure on during the day on Saturday and the NPC's are even more tired for Saturday night. In an effort to correct this, we are thinking of the following possibility:
a. Modules: Saturday will be more module intensive and less in-town intensive. We will provide leads, in-game, for tasks for players to complete through modules.
b. Scope: There will be many options available simultaneously, and we will do our best to have opportunities that should interest all of the wonderfully diverse characters that come visit our lands.
c. Double-hooking: We will ask, but not require, that groups come to us in pairs to accomplish these tasks (go on these modules). In effect, the spokesman for two different groups would approach Jay and let him know what they want to do. Each group will then NPC for the other group. This will allow our NPC's some recovery time and allow us to run a lot of modules with only one marshall necessary from monster camp for each.
3. Ritual Marshalls: I had offers from a few people to become ritual marshalls at the last event. Taking advantage of this opportunity will free up a lot of my time, which will help me to focus more on the big picture of the event and spend less time working the charts in circles. If you are interested in joining the group of ritual marshalls, let me know and I will send training materials to you. The only requirement is that your character is a ritual caster. I put this requirement in because there's a lot behind the scenes in our ritual system that I would rather only share with those casting them.
4. Rules Marshalls: With the changeover to 9th edition, we hope that Jay, Jordan and I will all be fully up to speed and ready to be marshalls at the next event. We will make an announcement about this. If you would like to become a rules marshall, let me know. This is open to everyone. A rules marshall will have the authority to make binding rules calls during encounters. There will be a heirarchy involved in this process, whereby one person will be designated as rules marshall for all encounters so that we can avoid problems of conflicting rules calls.
5. Rules calls during encounters: We will also be announcing the following policy at opening ceremonies from now on to avoid confusion. In a nutshell, here's how it works.
If you see something happening during an encounter that you believe violates the rules of the game, it is your responsibility to ask for a rules call on the spot. We strongly suggest that you call a hold before asking for the rules call so that we can all be certain that the question is answered promptly and correctly.
6. Adjudications: I hate adjudicating deaths. I always have. Unfortunately, it's a natural part of the game because no one is perfect and it's guaranteed that mistakes will happen. If you believe that an error occurred during an encounter that led to an improper death, bring it to a plot member's attention as soon after the encounter as possible. One of the key questions that we will be asking you, however, is whether you brought up the mistake in question during the fight. If you did not bring up the infraction during the encounter, it will make it that much less likely that the adjudication will occur. I refer to this as a presumption that adjudication will not occur if the issue was not raised during the encounter.
The reason for this policy is that we want to avoid players seeing a mistake, not bringing it up, and believing that they have a "get out of death free" card for the remainder of that encounter. Our calls regarding adjudication will be consistent with this goal.
For example: During a fight, a spellcaster is raining down spells on the PC group. A fighter rushes forward and attacks, swinging viciously at the NPC. The NPC continues to cast spells while the PC believes that he should be unable to because the NPC is taking body damage while casting. The PC Fighter dies and resurrects.
If the PC does not call the NPC out on this rules violation, then it is very unlikely that the death would be adjudicated in this instance.
If the PC does call the NPC out and a marshall (or other person if a marshall is not present) makes the wrong call, saying that the casting was legit, it is likely this death would be adjudicated.
Exception: If the PC Fighter does not know the rule that a caster cannot cast while taking body damage and later learns of it, there would be no inherent presumption against him for purposes of adjudication.
Okay, so I know that's a lot to process, and I would love to hear some thoughts on any of the above points.
