" We need more Imm interaction with players, again."

[Mask]

Additional idea: We need more Imm interaction with players, again. I know we used to have the RP Council who could create special characters to interact with players and make up quests, but it seemed many of those required an Imm to help along/provide restrings/etc. One of the major things that drew me to this MUD was my positive interaction with the Immortals such as the ex-player of Sune who went out of her way to make sure she interacted with players (and helped my stupid butt out of a hole I couldn't climb out of and was starving to death).

I don't think the problem really is 'imm interaction', it is making the world come alive with some form of continuity and ad-hoc quests that can actually affect real change in the game's world. We've had some successes with this in the past. I'll briefly describe some of them here:

1) Make a bunch of people deities and leave them to it This technique had limited success. A number of people we made deities very quickly 'saw behind the curtain', realised that just because they liked playing and had high level characters didn't mean they liked running RPs for other people. The usual end-game was that we lost them both as players and as deities.

2) RPA (Role Play Assistants): these were low level imm characters given to promising role-players to run plots and make things work. Some things that meant this didn't really work included people starting ill thought-out plots and then not following through on them, people getting side tracked with trying to catch people cheating (ie, game administration rather than role-playing) and some people just never played their RPA.

3) The Roleplay Council - did anyone ever hear of it? If not, I'm not surprised, it was a bit of a flop. People again started huge plots and then got bogged down in creating many new areas to support them etc.

4) The Story Council, which had a couple of amazingly successful months and then it died - I think I may have killed it by trying to mandate that people run more RPs then they had ideas for. The basic idea was that we'd give people some low level imm-like powers to start with, and they would use those to advance a number of plots that could be run with only those powers. People seemed to be frustrated by both having to get their plots 'okayed' before hand which reduced the scope for spontaneity, and also by the limited powers that they were given.

5) Junior imms, this was a 'refresh' on the RPA idea which attempted to balance some of the issues seen in both the RPA and SC programs by giving more powers and more scope and structure. It was pretty successful, I think, with two members going on to become full imms, one to become a pseudo-imm and the other have stopped playing completely.

6) Large scale plots The next attempt was still bearing the name 'Story Council', but was an attempt by me to fully outline a large scale plot with a beginning, middle and an end. This has also gotten bogged down, possibly again due to my reluctance to give people too many privileges too soon - the main reason for this is typically what I've found is that when people get too many privileges, they kind of 'see behind the curtain', and we lose them both as a member of staff and also as a player, which is extremely unfortunate. Trying to balance the two is exceedingly difficult.

Anyway, these are the ideas that I have had - I think you might see some kind of progression from one idea to the next, hopefully at least.

What I would like to do is try and get the Story Council working again, and have members of that work to fulfil some larger story arcs. Excellent members could then move on to become Junior imms and staff members.

The question is: how do we get the Story Council working? How do we decide how it works etc? I would greatly favour some fairly light weight way of making it run, where the process worked FOR innovation and imagination instead of against it, so I'm open to all ideas and suggestions.

[Brar]

I think there would be something else that can be done to make things alive.

Of course it takes willing people and such but here it is:

Imm that simply plays mobs, not for fighting of course, but only take control of the existing npcs and reacts.

Have the shopkeeper speaks to you, have a real conversation with a guard / innkeeper, pcitizen of Waterdeep....

Nothing large scale or big plot or anything, just day to day activities.

I think it could had a continuous flavor to the world without taking "that" much time, it's only playing as another thing than your PC.

I loved to do that in faerun.com, it prevents a lot of the headache from big scale things and is usually fun for everyone.

Brar

[Briek]

Imm that simply plays mobs, not for fighting of course, but only take control of the existing npcs and reacts.

Have the shopkeeper speaks to you, have a real conversation with a guard / innkeeper, pcitizen of Waterdeep....

I think the story council used to do that too, as long as there is someone around it's generally quite entertaining.

There was a recent post asking people to submit ideas for a tournament of their choice and the best would be chosen, I like this idea it gets everyone thinking and offers reward for creativity so why not expand it to other quest ideas aswell.

What makes a good plot? plenty of action? a mystery? etc personally what I think people want to see from plots is a lasting affect on our game world (so in short, I agree with what Mask has already said.)
large scale plots can start small and then evolve over time but they need a person dedicated to them.

Manpower is another issue, mask mentioned the RPAs and that didn't sound like such a bad idea. Why not have:

A suggestion forum for plot ideas
plots which meet roleplaying requirements get chosen
the "man with the plan" is teamed up with an RPA and a builder to progress said plot

I may be overestimating our numbers for such an operation though

[Selveem]

Admittedly, I don't know too much of the ongoings behind the scenes.

As far as what works best, I defer to your judgment..

I do think it's important that SC have at least some minimal powers.. stuff like restringing to help move their plot lines along. The ability to force (only mobs) to do/say something, etc. I don't know, I haven't thought it all through.

As far as how to kickstart them, I'm sure there are plenty of player still willing to help out. Even if they can't do it as much as you'd like, I think we've still got devoted players who want to help.

[Mask]

I think there would be something else that can be done to make things alive.

Of course it takes willing people and such but here it is:

Imm that simply plays mobs, not for fighting of course, but only take control of the existing npcs and reacts.

Have the shopkeeper speaks to you, have a real conversation with a guard / innkeeper, pcitizen of Waterdeep....

Nothing large scale or big plot or anything, just day to day activities.

I think it could had a continuous flavor to the world without taking "that" much time, it's only playing as another thing than your PC.

I loved to do that in faerun.com, it prevents a lot of the headache from big scale things and is usually fun for everyone.

Brar

Let's think about how this might work? I'm trying to think of the minimum requirements to allow someone to do this? Could it be as simple as someone in the Story Council logging one of their SC characters and giving them the ability to do 'interact <player name>' which would 'switch' them into a mob near to that player? Would this accomplish this goal? What are the downsides?

[Brar]

The mnimum is "speak, smote, say, pose"
And an automatic reset when deswitching.
With that only, there is little harm anybody can do.
of course it is always abusable but everything is.

Brar

[Selveem]

I understand your reasoning behind wanting minimum access. If you're talking about just starting RP, I'd say they need no commands. Every character can start an RP with another.

But, that's not what made it special for me as a new player. It was the idea that someone of the actual Imm staff took the time to initiate roleplays with me. I was stuck in a whole without the climb skill. I'd started dying of thirst and hunger and an Imm began to roleplay with me, eventually transferring me out of the whole and leaving me with a really cool story to tell.

So, if it's like that, I'd say these:

Room Echo.
Personal Echo.
Area Echo. (does ZEcho command exist in SMAUG?)
Transfer.
Switch.
Mob loading. (don't know the command in SMAUG)
Restring. (should be limited to items of no value/use to a PC - not for PC items)
Glory reward. (I don't know the command name - grant 1 glory to players)
Access to NPCs with Resurrection. (it's supposed to be fun, not punish the participants)
----> Or, better yet, access to the Imm version of said command, so there's no res sickness.

There should be both scheduled and unscheduled events. Scheduled events should be prepared for a large showing, but I believe the unscheduled events should be more often. Though we want to encourage people to stay logged in and RP/adventure with each other, we must acknowledge they have lives outside of FK. The scheduled events might help them work around their personal schedule to try to make the event knowing it's something special to turn up and show their support and/or participate.

[Brar]

Room Echo.
Personal Echo.
Area Echo. (does ZEcho command exist in SMAUG?)
Transfer.
Switch.
Mob loading. (don't know the command in SMAUG)
Restring. (should be limited to items of no value/use to a PC - not for PC items)
Glory reward. (I don't know the command name - grant 1 glory to players)
Access to NPCs with Resurrection. (it's supposed to be fun, not punish the participants)
----> Or, better yet, access to the Imm version of said command, so there's no res sickness.

Wow, that's some kind of list... for me those should be let in the hands of Imms for events, not for "daily life making" people.

In day to day activities, you don't need that much. It is only playing npcs and giving a real life to the game instead of playing your PC.

You being trapped in a hole is not "normal activity, it is
Imms action to get you out of a problematic situation, we could say it's "specific problem solving", not enhancing the overall experience.

The only one I would add to my list would be "reward", did not thought about that one.

Brar

[Selveem]

That's kind of the whole point, Brar. I think that sort of interaction is what helps set this place apart from the thousands of other MUDs out there.

[Xryon]

Just a note, most of the commands proposed by Selveem are nothing more than first Imm-level commands, in Smaug. That could be different here ,but I thought it worth mentioning.

[Mask]

They are, but to be fair, I already have a pretty good idea of what commands imms would need so there isn't much point in discussing that. What is interesting is what commands we could give to non-imms that would provide some extra spice.

Additionally, how we might find people who would enjoy running plots and give them the space and privileges they need to try that out.

[Xryon]

Event-a-thon? Everyone who wishes to be a part of such an endeavor submits an event idea to whoever you decide to be in charge of this, outlining what event is, the audience, what would be needed, and what the planner's role would be if they had the commands necessary to run it themselves. IDea submissions are reviewed by current staff, X amount of entries are allowed to run their event, as well as being a part of the forming team of people who get the privileges we're discussing.

[Raona]

I know I always wished I could put words into the mouths of NPCs while playing my PC...let them respond rather than sit there mute. It made it possible to actually drive a story line without Imm help. Sometimes it would then come to a point where Immtervention would be needed, but it would free them up a bit to do so.