Leaderboard

We are looking for some feedback on our current idea for how we'll organise staff on the server, we will have three positions to begin with where two focus on moderation and helping with OOC issues and one focused on creating more roleplay. These are Helpers, Moderators and Dungeon Masters, what they will do is detailed below. One of the issues we are trying to address with these positions is how easily storytellers burn out and/or disappear. While holding a title like Storyteller (Or DM in our case) there is often a pressure to perform which can be taxing, people often feel like they need to provide events or people will be bored and complain. I think we've all seen it. Players and storylines suffer from this when the storyteller in charge suddenly leave, often without having shared their plans, if they had any, for how to continue the storyline(s) they were hosting. So instead of sitting with the title and having a demand to create events we will give the title to people who have an event or storyline they wish to host. After you are done with your event you are no longer a DM, unless you're inspired and decide to host another event, perhaps a follow-up or something entirely new. Helper Your job as a Helper should be obvious from the name, you're there to help people. Specifically you are there when someone needs help in-game, if they encounter a bug, need help navigating the RPG or get in a OOC conflict with another player. You are the support and moderator of the server, as such you will also be there to ensure people do not abuse systems or their peers. Perhaps the most important task is to keep the atmosphere on the server welcoming. Moderator Communication within the community is vital to the server, both on the forums and on Discord. Your job is to keep it civil and to help newcomers get oriented. In terms of moderation you use the community rules as a guide to keep the server a place people want to spend their free time. A lot of the work is to simply direct discussions to the right forum and remind people to keep a civil tone. You are also there to greet newcomers and show them the ropes, point them to guides, guilds, Discord and so on. Dungeon Master Being a Dungeon Master is not a full-time job, instead you become one for the duration of a planned event or storyline. Anyone is welcome to try their hand and we encourage you to give it a shot at least once. Nothing is too small of an event and there are plenty of experienced people ready to help you out. As a DM you will have all the in-game permissions necessary to host both big and small RP sessions, be it a dungeon crawl or a religious rite. Your 'tenure' as a DM will last as long as you need it to, if you need a week or two to prepare for an event, by creating NPCs, decorating the event locale(s), etc you will have that time and enough to clean up afterwards. If you wish to host an event or storyline you will need to make an outline of what it is you wish to do, if you like you can even do it with a friend or two and share the workload. Think of this as the preparation a DM does before a Pen&Paper session. When you have your outline you post it to the Scriptorium forum, don't worry only you and the Council can see your post, and unless there is any clashes with other events or lore you will be given access to a Dungeon Master account. If there are any issues with the outline we'll help you sort it out. A few examples of outlines can be found in the post below but do not be afraid to innovate and make your own template, they absolutely do not need to be elaborate, it is only there to give us an idea of what you are doing and if you were to unexpectedly disappear (accidents happen. . .) we can carry on based on that information. Outline Examples: Big Storyline: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tAbyxfaNEnJd-YIE8oYQBoe-EmMWpJMsfaT8D24lWOg/edit?usp=drivesdk Dungeon Crawl: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jNrq2DZFM95aHPXxumWqMkQY1S2WSVDKk_IWkVnFYzw/edit?usp=drivesdk One-off Event: To Come

This is a Quick & Easy guide for new players. For more in-depth information, please visit Server Information and read the guides listed there. My Character Look at your character sheet. Open up the RPG Handbook and there you have it. You can also type: .rpg csheet to get a more detailed character sheet. The book will not show you buffs or debuffs you currently have. .rpg csheet will. This is the moment were you should make a ".rpg csheet"-Macro. It will come in very handy and you will use it a lot. Trust me. Let's look at your stats first: Strength: Your Hit-Chance vs. dodge in melee combat will be determined by either your strength or your dexterity, which ever is higher. Strength is a requirement for some gear, like plate armor. Strength increases the damage of some weapons and skills. Dexterity: Your Hit-Chance vs. dodge in melee combat will be determined by either your strength or your dexterity, which ever is higher. Dexterity increases the damage of some weapons and skills. Dexterity determines how much damage you avoid when you successfully dodge. Dexterity does not increase your chance to dodge! Dexterity increases the amount of energy you start with on your first turn in combat. Constitution: It increases your maximum HP by 100 per point. It reduces the amount of Fatigue you suffer from all actions, and increases your HP regeneration out of combat. Perception: It increases your chance to dodge. It determines who goes first in combat. It increases your chance to flee from combat. The amount of detailed information you receive when you .rpg csheet on another player or creature is determined by your perception. Willpower: It increases your Hit-Chance vs. dodge when using magic attacks. It increases the damage and healing of magic skills. The amount of skills your character can learn increases by one for every two points in Willpower. Willpower also decreases the magic damage you take. Ingenuity: It increases energy regeneration by one for every two points in Ingenuity. It increases the critical hit chance of physical damage skills by 0.5% per point, and magical damage skills by 1% per point. Critical Hits do 175% damage/healing. Some abilities scale with Ingenuity. What about the other stuff? Productivity is explained in the next paragraph. Fatigue rises with certain actions, like crafting, swimming, doing combat etc. and it decreases over time. A high fatigue decreases your healing/damage output, and increases your damage taken during combat. Story Stat is a special stat that is given out by GMs during events and can be used only during that event as a resource for special things. Energy is needed during combat to use abilities. Essence is a resource for some powerful abilities. It recharges slowly over time. IMPORTANT: More on Fatigue and Injuries Fatigue can rise from many actions taken in game, but mainly traveling with the boat, swimming and combat. The percentage number displayed under Fatigue in your RPG Handbook reduces your outgoing damage and increases your incoming damage during each turn of combat. Every time you get damaged in combat, you have a chance to receive an injury. There are several different kinds of minor injuries, and they can stack up. Too many injuries can become Major or Severe. There are several ways in the game to deal with injuries and fatigue. For example, using a campfire will reduce fatigue more quickly over time. Using a bedroll will greatly reduce the time that some wounds need to heal. There are also some abilities in your RPG Handbook under "Non-Combat Abilities" that can help with wound treatment. Click here for more details about injuries. How do I learn abilities? Open the RPG Handbook, go to "Abilities". This shows all abilities you currently have. The energy cost of each ability is shown in blue in the brackets. The essence cost of an ability is shown in purple. Click on "Ability Dictionary" to get a list of all abilities in the RPG. To learn an ability, click on it and then click on "Learn Ability". You can "unlearn" an ability once every 24 hours. Green abilities can be learned by any class. Blue abilities are class-specific. You can only ever have two class abilities. How do I equip myself? Every item is just "cosmetic". To give your item actual stats that work with the RPG, you have to apply a Token to it. You can get tokens from the vendor. Players can also craft tokens when they have the skill. To apply a token, simply right-click it and then left-click on the item. There is two types of tokens. Weapon Token and Armor Token. The weapon token only works on a fitting weapon. For example, the token for a Short Bow will only work on an item that classifies as Short Bow. The armor token only works on your chest armor. That means, whatever you wear as chest armor will determine the overall type of armor your character wears in the RPG, regardless of what you have equiped on head, shoulders, feet, hands, etc. Important: To equip your weapon/armor in the RPG, you have to equip it normally like you would any other item in WoW, and then type: ".rpg equip". Otherwise it will not show up on your character sheet. How do I get better? The two main factors in getting better are: XP and Productivity. XP: You increase your XP by Training. Open the RPG Handbook, go to "More Actions" and click "Start Training". This will spend 4 productivity every 5 minutes training until you stop or run out. Based on your experience level, this will result in various amounts of XP gained. You can kill NPCs to make training faster, spending 12 productivity immediately after killing an NPC! Productivity: Productivity is used to buy XP. It is also used for gathering and crafting, explained later on. You regenerate 3 Productivity per hour, even when offline. Productivity is shared among all characters on your account! How do I craft stuff? Gathering: Fist you need to find a spot that has materials. For example, if you want to find wood, go to an area with trees. Then, open up your RPG Handbook, go to "More Actions" and click "Examine Local Resources." If there is any, it will show up in the chat window. To start gathering, open up your RPG Handbook, go to "More Actions" and click on "Start Woodcutting". Now you just have to wait. To stop gathering, click on "End Gathering". Each "tick" of gathering costs 3 Productivity. Crafting: Get a Manual from one of the vendors. As weaponsmith, you want to get the "Weaponsmithing Manual". You can buy crafting recipes from the vendor. Right-click a recipe and left-click on your Manual to add it. Then, open up your Manual to see all the recipes you know. Click on one of them and it shows you the materials you need. Then click "Craft" to create the item. You need to stand next to the crafting station that is shown in the recipe! Crafting an item costs various amounts of Productivity, depending on the item! How do I fight? Start or join a fight: Find an enemy or an already ongoing fight, open your RPG Handbook and click on "Start/Join a Fight". Your turn: You will be notified when it is your turn. The time on your turn is limited, so don't take too long. You will regenerate energy at every start of your turn. Your turn will end automatically when you run out of energy, or you end it manually by typing ".rpg act end". You should definately make a macro for that! You will use it a lot. Abilities: You can use as many abilities in your turn as you like, as long as you have the energy for it. To use an ability, open your RPG Handbook, go to "Abilities" and choose. Alternatively, you can macro it by doing ".rpg act <abilityname>". Example for Heroic Strike: ".rpg act heroicstrike". Making a macro for abilities you use very often is a great idea! Engaging: To use melee abilities, you need to be engaged to your target. There are several skills that can engage you to someone, but the most common one is the "Move" ability. Losing all your HP: When a player loses all of their HP, they get stunned until the fight is over. While in this state, they can get injured or executed. Ending a fight: To end a fight, type ".rpg fight end". The fight ends when every participant votes for it to end. Players that are stunned due to loss of all their HP will always automatically vote "yes".

In regards to storytelling, I had this idea of Zone DMs once. For example, if you look at zones in WoW (retail), each zone has a distinct story that starts and finishes inside that zone. Each zone has a "theme" to it, as well. If I was in charge of managing the whole storytelling side of things here, I'd make staff-only subforums for each island and assign one dedicated DM to each island. That DM has two major jobs. First, he needs to represent the NPC presence on that island. This means, when he is online and has the time, he should just be present on the island and look at what players on there are doing, and have the NPCs react to it in a way he sees fit. His second job is to keep a basic "log" of this in his dedicated island-subforum, where he just briefly describes what is going on story-wise on the island, keep a short log of recent events and, most importantly, what is going to happen in the near future. As an example, let's say there is an island that has a small, local pygmy tribe on it. Players have not discovered the tribe yet, but they have been harvesting in their hunting grounds. The DM writes on in his subforum, that the Pygmy tribe is currently aware of the newcomers and weary towards them and their current course of action is to observe. This information is then useful, when in case of the absence of the Island-DM, any other DM can just quickly take a look at the subforum and know exactly what is going on there and how he should let the NPCs react if anything happens. So let's say players run across a Pygmy hunting party and the island DM isn't present, so a replacement DM takes over. The replacement DM knows roughly how the Pygmys would react, so he DMs this random event for the players. The outcome is that the players react very hostile and kill the pygmys. The replacement-DM can then go back to the forum and add what's happened to the "log", so that the main island DM can make a decision later on what happens next and what changes this small event will provoke on the island. This way, you have one DM basically being the overarching storyteller of that one island. He is the one that, in large parts, decides how this whole island will react to what the players do. While at the same time having every other DM being able to "jump in and be hs substitute in case of absense". The benefit is obviously that storytelling for each individual island is more organized, that there won't be much conflicting scenarios since there is just one guy per island making the big decisions, and that it'll overall be easier to keep track of things. Even if you do not pick up on the idea of zone-dms, I would still recommend making a staff-only subforum for every island were you guys keep a simple log of what is going on on that island, what events recently occured, what the "locals" on that island are currently up to and which stance they have towards players etc. etc.

I actually agree with Foogleman, so just seconding his opinion here. In addition: I believe that next to the DM's there has to be people who are looking at the large scale of things, the big events shifting the story of the server, as well as incorporating the smaller events into the big picture. If there is such a team already, disregard this. In addition, I think it would be helpful to let us know exactly which people are on "The Council" as well as what their assignments are, so we know who to turn to for what.

Generally speaking, I like it. Especially the idea of temporary DM rights is good. SHould make people feel a lot more comfortable with doing events when they don't have to apply for a full-time job in order to do it. I feel like the "Helper" and "Moderator" position could be put together. Both positions require a person to be empathetic, patient, social and ACTIVE (a helper isn't helping anyone when he's only there one hour a week). So a person that is a good Helper would also be a good Moderator, in my eyes.

Hello. I am not concerned with the leadership as I think that the Staff should operate around the server owners and they can pick and choose who they want based on merit, but I really want to emphasise how important Dungeon Masters are to making a RP server feel alive. Whether small events or just flavor commentary from guards and civilian NPCs, DMs/STs/Weavers ( whatever you wanna call em ) make the world feel alive. While it's a great initiative to base the RP around players, we've seen before that RPers sometimes need a little push in order to get things going. So I really want to encourage getting as big a DMing team as possible and if the option for weavers ( flavor commentary for NPCs, summoning spell effects and small .gobs to enhance RP, small events resulting in minor rewards like some silver and mats ) is available, I would be interested in that.