Event RP systems.

[Thrash'Nak]

I'll write a brief describtion of each of the systems below.

The bloodied blade system, all of you likely know by now. It is where you're set up against NPCS, with stats. to which you roll to determined whether you're successful or not.

D&D Mode, in short. Exactly like dungeons and dragons. The GM will provide with a scene through text, possible moves. Actions are then emoted and judged by the GM whether they are successful or not, either by his or her judgement or by the roll of a dice. In this case only 1-12 will be rolled.

Story telling, is much like D&D, however without any dice or GM decieding the outcome. You will be given a choice, each with their pros and cons. The rest is roleplayed out.

The out come of this poll, -may- affect future events. So be honest, and if you have a better idea. Please write it here below. Any opionions or views are very much appreciated, as we officers, just want to make the best events possible for you.

Thanks from all the very "Seriouse" officers.

[Nograx]

Though I like the randomness of BB and D&D, it gives little room to portrait your character, the way you want him to be, if he sits about all the time, caused by bad rolls.

On the other hand, BB and D&D would have very clear feedback on the outcome of an action, due to the result of a dice roll.

Cant pick a favourie, since it boils down to the Nature of the event.

[Therak]

I picked story telling, but it doesn't tell the whole truth.
I'll be blunt. I hate full BB events, they take ages and there's simply too much downtime for just a few enemies.
Being a pen and paper roleplayer, I prefer systems that are smooth. With as few rolls as possible because it takes too much away from the things that matter, the roleplaying.
To me, BB does have its uses. I'd prefer for that to be something rarely brought out, when it's an enemy where it really matters. Like a boss or something.

In another guild on another server I had plenty of fun with their system. The fighting itself was emote based, but with a much more simplified rolling system. If you rolled at all. There was a storyteller who'd say what happened, and tell us to do a /roll. Above a certain number we won the fight, below we'd be injured and unable to win on our own. Higher rolls allowed fancier and more showoff kills, lower was either a much more skilled opponent, or plain bad luck. It also worked excellent for things like artillery bombardment from ships off shore, or things generally going wrong. A single roll, more time for emoting and being able to have longer events storywise, for the same and even less time then the average BB event takes.
Not only does that work much faster, it's also easier to moderate. BB is fairly simple and easy to get in to. But I imagine the preparations are much more work. It's also hard to balance the numbers. Your general goon #4,5 is perhaps perfectly balanced for five people. But suddently you're just four. Or seven. At least for someone inexperienced with it, it's hard to balance like that on the fly. Also alot of work to keep track of the HP and stats of the mobs. Especially when there's multiple, or even waves of them.

I'm not suggesting taking that system straight off, I'd just really prefer something more streamlined, something where it's less common to sit for sometimes as much as 20 minutes waiting in between doing a /roll and an emote and another round.

Here's a quickly madeup example.
Storyteller:
As you make your way over the beach in the night, you suddently hear the roaring of cannons in the distance. Flashes of light accompanying the loud bangs light up the castle walls showing you that they are fully manned, sillouhettes  on the ramparts are waving weapons and cheering.
Perhaps they noticed the glint of metal as you moved, perhaps it was the bards singing of his freshly made up song "Sneak, sneak sneak up on the castle".
Perhaps the Kor'kron was misinformed about their state of readiness, or worse. Knew all along...
Roll above 30, or you're hit by shrapnel or even a cannonball.

Orcinator rolls 99
Orxxor rolls 01
Orcigami rolls 32

Orcinator:
Orcinator, being the awesome he is, throws himself to the ground. Hearing a cannonball whistle above his head. He continues to roll with it and starts running for proper cover.

Oxxor:
Orxxor screams in pain as a cannonball lands just in front of him, spraying shrapnel and stones up across his whole body. He falls to the ground bleeding from multiple gashes, at least he's still moving a little. And crying in pain.

Orcigami:
Orcigami is caught by surprise as the cannonaballs strike, fortunately his shield, and thick armor protects him from the Shrapnell, he lets out a battlecry and continues marching on the castle.

Storyteller:
Right, the cannons are silent for now. They'll take a little while to reload. You can make it as far as the yellow mark *puts down a yellow mark on the ground* before they're done. Orcinator, you can get as far as the red due to your roll *puts red mark a little further ahead*


It's easy to improvise effects for critical failures and great successes in this. Sometimes there's no need for them, sometimes there's a perfect chance to do something cool. A fight would have been much the same, just instead Orcinator would have maybe easily beheaded his opponent, while Orcigami would have had a fairly even fight. Orxxor the poor sod. Would have been down in a single blow.

For me, fluidity, simplicity and speed are very important to have a really fun event if a system is used like that. I'm not sure anyone is having fun with too long waits, at least not the waits. The rest can be fun.

Just my two copper

[Thrash'Nak]

Hm, sounds alot like events we have done in the past, thosse were using the BB system as well. But mostly this. I approve. Could i perhaps convience you to make an event using this one day? See how it treats the members. But basicly it seems like the story telling mode, though with a obviouse chance of failure, due to the use of rolls.

[Kozgugore]

My views are probably as distorted as a little raccoon's mind as far as this subject goes, due to having to do seven years of events and a bit of D&D past, but I sort of agree with Therak to an extend. Though I might just be thinking from an organiser's point of view, I personally have a bit of a preference for storytelling-like events that allow both me and the participants the necessary amount of freedom that they'd desire. The ones that I usually enjoyed organising the most were the ones that allowed relatively little planning from my side (in fact, I very rarely had a thought-out plan that described my events to the letter) that allowed for improvising along the way.

I've endured some strictly D&D-like events on Alliance side, and I personally never really found them too interesting myself. The outcome has already been set and when you, as a participant, try to stray from the pre-made path, you have to be violently kicked back on to the main road. It's why I prefer to leave it a bit open-ended, or perhaps simply to allow the participants to do whatever they want to solve the problem (think for example Wyvern Challenges that allowed multiple answers, or sending out different groups on assignments and giving them hints on what they might be seeing here and there, but leaving it to them what they actually do with those).

Don't get me wrong though, I hold nothing against DMed or BB events. They have their own charm for certain situations, or could even be mixed up within the same event. I think perhaps that's the key to begin with: Don't organise too many of the same kind of event in a row. People are likely to complain one way or another. If you really want to organise certain adventure-y kind of events, you could always alternate a bit between the one or the other according to which method serves whichever kind of event best. So long as it leaves enough room to play around a bit, I'd say. Then again, I'm not saying my own events were great or perfectly thought through all the time (especially not the latter, since I usually improvised most of it along the way myself).

[Thrash'Nak]

Aright, sounds good. Keep it coming guys, even the slightest really help!

[Grubok Grimeye]

I personally haven't RPd many combat events; but I'll throw in my thoughts anyway!

I tried BB recently when a few of us went Ogre-hunting and I did enjoy it, though I can see how it could be complicated in larger events.

Previously, when I was on the Alliance side, we used a simple <emote attack>, /roll, <emote effect> where it was up to the GM to decide when the enemy was killed. Personally I think BB is more entertaining as you can see the killing blow and have some fun emoting it since it's stat based, too, though as I said my experience with it is pretty limited.

[Gridish]

Today we had the "A Forest of Ash "event, and  it was the story telling type. It was fun and interesting at the same time. The event itself went rather smoothe, it seemed a lot smoother then the BloodiedBlades system, however I do see this event type backfiring in large groups, since the DM has to emote for - every - single action, which will put a lot of pressure on the DM and it could slow the process down a lot.

In the end, I really liked the event tonight. It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed myself a lot.. and I believe the rest of the group did as well, but it does need some tweaking, when we are looking at bigger event groups.

* thumbsup*