Dungeon Masters. A staple of the roleplay genre for as long as roleplay has been a thing. And something we don't have on Chaos, which I kind of understand. However, I feel like dungeon masters could be incredibly useful on the forums and definitely help expand roleplay and make things a bit more eventful. Let me explain.
The problem I've always had with Roleplay entirely dictated by the participants is that you kind of know what's going to happen, especially on Chaos when everything must be subbed publicly, meaning that any sort of exploration thread is mostly meaningless as you already know what you're exploring. I feel like the addition of a Dungeon Master role somewhere between staff and average participants could drastically improve roleplay, not only providing roleplay situations previously unavailable (true exploration with the participants not knowing much going in, evolving quest-lines where actions have unforeseen consequences, and goold ole' dungeon diving with a bit of risk involved), but also open up Chaos to a host of Roleplayers who wouldn't be attracted to the forums with the way the system is set up now. Like me, I've always been more of a DM than I am a participant, I love weaving intricate worlds and questlines for participants to explore, discover, and interact with, but the opportunities to do that with the current system are few and far between, pushing me to RP in a certain way. And I know there are tons of people out there who feel more comfortable in the traditional D&D set up of episodic questing guided by a single DM. Inviting these people in with DMs, I feel will only enrich the forums. Big ole factions duking it out like now, with small bands of adventurers navigating them and the questlines laid out by the DMs.
So. Here's the system I propose:
The creation of a "DM" role, they wouldn't be staff, wouldn't be average players, somewhere in between. There is no application process, staff can approach individuals who they feel are 1. Unproblematic, 2. Creative, 3. Responsible. People staff know can be given a bit of power and use it to better the forums and not go crazy and give all their friends best loot.
Allow these DMs a private section of the forums available to only them and staff, where they can coordinate with each other and submit Codex/Factory subs away from the prying eyes of the public. Then, have a new process where a DM proposes a questline, dungeon, or general adventure they'd like to put out there to be approved by staff. These quests can even have some above average loot, stuff slightly more powerful than what would regularly be accepted by the current rules, or they have no loot at all. Then the DMs can post a general summary of what they plan on doing in the LFG tab of the forums and seek adventurers looking to participate.
Quests would fall into one of 5 categories
Blue: Safe, no combat expected.
Green: Combat expected, but still generally safe.
Orange: Slightly dangerous, possible for character injury
Red: Dangerous, possible character maiming or serious injury
Purple: Extremely dangerous, character death is a possibility, but rare.
Loot, if there is any loot, would be as powerful as the quest is dangerous. If you want to try to brave a purple quest maybe you could get ahold of some long lost Celestial tech? But these colors would help the staff tweak the quests to make them more enjoyable encase the DM is going a bit overboard, and let the players know what they're in for.
Now I know this is kind of drastic, especially for Chaos where 99% of everything is run entirely by the participants, for the participants. For all I know I'm the only one who feels this way. And I'm also having a bit of trouble putting my thoughts on digital paper. So feel free to leave your support below, your hatred of the idea, or ask questions about things I may not have been very clear about above.
The problem I've always had with Roleplay entirely dictated by the participants is that you kind of know what's going to happen, especially on Chaos when everything must be subbed publicly, meaning that any sort of exploration thread is mostly meaningless as you already know what you're exploring. I feel like the addition of a Dungeon Master role somewhere between staff and average participants could drastically improve roleplay, not only providing roleplay situations previously unavailable (true exploration with the participants not knowing much going in, evolving quest-lines where actions have unforeseen consequences, and goold ole' dungeon diving with a bit of risk involved), but also open up Chaos to a host of Roleplayers who wouldn't be attracted to the forums with the way the system is set up now. Like me, I've always been more of a DM than I am a participant, I love weaving intricate worlds and questlines for participants to explore, discover, and interact with, but the opportunities to do that with the current system are few and far between, pushing me to RP in a certain way. And I know there are tons of people out there who feel more comfortable in the traditional D&D set up of episodic questing guided by a single DM. Inviting these people in with DMs, I feel will only enrich the forums. Big ole factions duking it out like now, with small bands of adventurers navigating them and the questlines laid out by the DMs.
So. Here's the system I propose:
The creation of a "DM" role, they wouldn't be staff, wouldn't be average players, somewhere in between. There is no application process, staff can approach individuals who they feel are 1. Unproblematic, 2. Creative, 3. Responsible. People staff know can be given a bit of power and use it to better the forums and not go crazy and give all their friends best loot.
Allow these DMs a private section of the forums available to only them and staff, where they can coordinate with each other and submit Codex/Factory subs away from the prying eyes of the public. Then, have a new process where a DM proposes a questline, dungeon, or general adventure they'd like to put out there to be approved by staff. These quests can even have some above average loot, stuff slightly more powerful than what would regularly be accepted by the current rules, or they have no loot at all. Then the DMs can post a general summary of what they plan on doing in the LFG tab of the forums and seek adventurers looking to participate.
Quests would fall into one of 5 categories
Blue: Safe, no combat expected.
Green: Combat expected, but still generally safe.
Orange: Slightly dangerous, possible for character injury
Red: Dangerous, possible character maiming or serious injury
Purple: Extremely dangerous, character death is a possibility, but rare.
Loot, if there is any loot, would be as powerful as the quest is dangerous. If you want to try to brave a purple quest maybe you could get ahold of some long lost Celestial tech? But these colors would help the staff tweak the quests to make them more enjoyable encase the DM is going a bit overboard, and let the players know what they're in for.
Now I know this is kind of drastic, especially for Chaos where 99% of everything is run entirely by the participants, for the participants. For all I know I'm the only one who feels this way. And I'm also having a bit of trouble putting my thoughts on digital paper. So feel free to leave your support below, your hatred of the idea, or ask questions about things I may not have been very clear about above.
