http://www.goodvevil.com/nuke/ Good v. Evil (GvE) Information Portal en-us http://www.goodvevil.com/nuke//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=45 Hi all,

Those of you who are monitoring the forums are already aware of this, but I will be relaunching GvE as a "tournament game" starting with character builds or rebuilds during the week of July 15, 2007, play to resume shortly thereafter.  :-)

I have set up a discussion area in the forum to express interest in rejoining the game.  You'll find it here:
http://www.goodvevil.com/nuke/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1766

Good v. Evil will be refashioned as a "tournament style" game in which there will be a single team with ten players.  All ten players will have the same number of points, and those points will increase at an equal rate week-to-week.  As a result, there will no longer be stronger characters and weaker characters; all the characters will be of relatively equal strengths, though presumably in different areas.  The tournament game will take place once a week on IRC just as the previous GvE games did, and will continue the story-line that I began with the Good and Evil teams.

I'm also going to do my best to have periodic "open world" games.  These games will be open to whomever can show up when I announce them, and will likely be longer and primarily combat-oriented, a four-hour crash through a dungeon, say, or a murder mystery with a time limit, things like that.  The open world games will be played with characters that might or might not be persistent (I might have a game for 300-point characters one week, and a game for 500-point characters the next), and there will be no story-line attached to those games.  I'm hoping that other GvE players will occasionally run their own open world games, including the long-promised dueling league.

The tournament game will be the regular one, though.  I've been a little hesitant about announcing the reboot mostly because I've got (conservatively) 17 players who are going to be vying for (at most) 10 slots. That means at least 7 people are going to be disappointed.  I don't know who those 7 are, but straight probability implies that at least three or four of them will be people who've been RPing with me continuously for five or more years.  Will those people get offended?  Will friendships end because of that?  Don't know.  I hope not.

I do know that the criteria for the tournament game will be people who:
* can make the day/time;
* are willing to commit to the game (no missed sessions, or at least very few, and willing to do frequent logs);
* are willing to live within the restrictions of the tournament game (everyone gets the same number of points);
* will have fun with the game, get into it, and try to solve the puzzles rather than showing up out of obligation and/or just letting everyone else do the work.

If you can meet those criteria, then I recommend you head to the link above and express interest!  Once I've got a solid block of people, then we'll vote on a weekly day and time that the tournament game will take place.  Because of this, the ten player team will most likely be a mix of Good Team and Evil Team players, and the team balance might be thoroughly screwed up by this.  As a result, some players will want to play their previous characters, and others will want to start new characters.  Either will be acceptable to me.

If you cannot meet those criteria, then I certainly invite you to participate in open world games instead, leaving the tournament game available to those who can commit to it.  I will also be looking to launch the long-promised "neutral team": people who can periodically help me by running important NPCs during the tournament game.

If you don't make the tournament game, let me apologize to you right now.  The one thing I can't do is go back to the two-team format.  There was too much competition and animosity between the two teams for me to risk that again.  I'm also sorry I can't run a larger game.  Experience has taught me that ten is the limit for a GvE team.  Any more, and some characters get lost in the shuffle during role-playing sessions, and combats become torture-tests with horrendously long waits between actions.

So, if you haven't already, and if you're interested in being part of the Good v. Evil tournament game, please sign in at the link above and let me know you're interested.  Thanks, and as always, I'll see you around.  :-)

-Jester http://www.goodvevil.com/nuke//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=44 Hi everyone,

Let me start with the big finish: effective immediately, I am taking a long break from running role-playing games. GvE is, as of now, on hiatus.

Now I'll talk a bit about why.

There are three major reasons:
* The two teams have become overly competitive, to the point where IC competition has become OOC competition. People who should be friends are going out of their way to be mean and nasty to each other.

* I feel like running GvE has become my job. I've stopped being the guy who runs a friendly role-playing game and started being a boss, an ambassador between the teams, a referee, and someone who spends most of his time being argued with. It's stopped being fun.

* The current structure of the game is too focused on mechanics and secrecy, and that is not only creating a lot of unnecessary work but has caused some players to forget this is a role-playing game first and foremost.


To the first point:
When I started making plans for an IRC role-playing game in the fantasy genre, I decided I wanted a smaller game: no more than 10 or 12 players. But I also didn't want to leave anyone who had been on Coronado out. Then I got the bright idea to have two smaller games. I'd run two large games in the past and it turned out to be too much work. But this time, if I made them competitive and secret, from time to time, I could use the same maps, the same NPCs, a few of the same situations in both games. That would reduce the work and I thought it would be do-able. And for the most part, it was very do-able. The competitive angle was mostly fun and created some good role-playing aspects.

What I didn't count on was the human need to debase the competition. And as a result, making two competitive games was the worst mistake I could have made.

Over the last two years, and particularly in the last few months, I have watched people who are supposed to be friends do horrible things to each other, say horrible things to each other, say horrible things about each other. Betrayals, insults, friendships torn apart. GvE has become personal: if you're on the other team in-character, then you're on the other team out-of-character also. Nastiness ensues, people's feelings are hurt, and more and more people are retreating to their private team channels to nurse their hatreds.


To the second point:
More and more, I found myself in the middle: the lone ambassador welcome on both teams. And in both private channels, I had to endure all sorts of snide commentary about the other team. Every time I see it, I try to damp it down. Only it won't stay down.

Worse yet, I made a very poor decision: I put control over who could play this game into the hands of other players. What were cliques became armed camps. If you didn't measure up immediately, you were thrown out or hounded out. If the other team deigned to accept you instead, you immediately became the enemy.

This put me even further in the middle to the point where I spend a lot of time negotiating disputes between people on rival teams... even people who have been friends for years! People have forgotten that you're all on one team: the GvE team. We have way more in common with each other than we do people not in the game and I can't stand being in the middle any more. I'm not the only one catching it, either. I want to apologize to Savant right now: he's definitely been catching a good portion of it. People who for whatever reason don't feel comfortable talking to me seem to want to talk to him, instead.

Running Coro, before I was the GM, I was a guy that people liked to chat with. These days, if I get a message window, it's because someone wants to complain about game mechanics, complain about another player, or both, or sometimes even complain about me or how I implement game mechanics.


To the third point:
I have to accept a lot of blame for this one, but players have forgotten that this is a role-playing game, not a competition for points and high skill numbers. The competition and the secrecy is tearing the game apart. I thought it'd be fun to do GvE awards every year... another mistake. People are frank that they're not having any fun, and people are frank that they're showing up just so that they can get their points.

This stuff is supposed to be fun, and somewhere along the line, it stopped being fun.


Summary:
It's time for me to take a step back and let someone else be the GM for a while if they want to be. It doesn't mean that I'm going to stop role-playing, but it does mean that I'm going to stop GM'ing role-playing for a while.

Will I come back to it? Almost certainly. I've been a GM on and off for more than 25 years now, and I've been doing it on-line for almost ten years. There's still a story in GvE that I'd like to tell. But I'm going to take a break, and hopefully people will use this break to abolish the team channels and remind themselves that most of these people are still your friends. When and if the game does come back, competitive teams are history, and team leaders are history. There's going to be one team.

* First, I'm going to take a break from running role-playing games for a while. GvE will effectively be on hiatus. For how long? More than two months, probably less than 20. I might or I might not run unofficial stuff during this period: referee dueling matches, run a combat-oriented one-off or two, that sort of thing. More likely, I won't do any role-playing-related stuff at all and instead run tactical wargames and the like using MapTool. I won't do this to any sort of weekly schedule, but only so far as I feel like doing it.

* Second, in a couple of months, I'll re-evaluate my mood. If I feel like running GvE again (and right now, I feel like after a long break, I probably will), then I'm going to take some long period of time to rewrite a goodly portion of the rules. I'm going to eliminate a lot of duplicate skills and advantages, tighten up how points work and are spent, limit the magic system a bit more, and greatly simplify defaults (eliminating most of them) and related defaults (trimming the list and the various dependencies down considerably). Right now, too many people are stressing way too much over the mechanics of the game instead of remembering that this is a role-playing game. Think of it as the GvE Second Edition rules. ;)

* Third, if after that's done, I still feel like running GvE again, I'll invite people to reapply. There will be one GvE official game a week (a sort of tournament game) and a second night occasionally when I run Open World games. The tournament game will be limited to those players who will commit to actually playing the game and role-playing instead of just showing up for points. I get to say who's in or out of that game, and points won't be a factor: everyone will start with the same amount, and everyone will have the same amount week after week. If one of the tournament players stops role-playing and starts just showing up, I'll toss them out and give their slot to someone who will show up and role-play. You'll be welcome to relaunch your current characters under the new rules if you want, respending points under the system that I implement at that time.

* Fourth, the Open World games will be a lot more relaxed. Those will also be points-based, but any given one will have a points limit on who can participate: if your favorite Open World character has 350 points, and I decide I'm going to run a 250-point game, you'll need a 250-point character to play. That will allow new players to be on equal footing with established players. If you just want to show up and kill stuff, this will be your avenue to do it.

* Fifth and finally, no more secrecy. When and if I do relaunch, bios will be public, inventories will be public, logs will be public.


That's it. As I said, this is effective immediately. I am going to suggest that a lot of you get together, apologize to each other, and try to remember that you're friends. But I have no say in whether you do or don't, 'cause I ain't your GM any more, not for a long while, anyway.

And I'm ready for questions. ;)
http://www.goodvevil.com/nuke//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=43 Hi all,

Due to a situation beyond my control, the games scheduled for 4 February and 5 February are hereby canceled. The standard rules for unofficial games to replace a canceled game apply (to wit, run an unofficial game, and those in attendance get 2 points, plus 1 if they participate in an after-sim or write a log).

My apologies for canceling. As you know, it's not something I do lightly or when I don't absolutely need to.

-Jester http://www.goodvevil.com/nuke//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=42 Hi all, :-)

In a few hours, I'll be running the first game of 2007! Welcome back, and I hope that everyone had a wonderful and relaxing holiday season.

First things first: of the 6 points available to all members of both teams over the holidays, here's how things stand on claiming them:
6 points: Aggie, Brad, dakabn, Farrell, Itz, Lia, LrdVampyre, Savant, Scotty, Shade.
5 points: Fraser, kari, McC, Prescot
4 points: Loaf, Marcy
2 points: Cody

Prescot has a push which he can use to claim point #6. Nice job, everyone! Lots of good role-playing during the break. :-)

With the primary quests ending 2006 wrapped up, I expect to run a bit of a coda for both groups in January. The Good Team has the interrupted mission from the autumn to complete, and the Evil Team has a rather special little quest ahead of them. I don't expect either of these quests to take more than four or five weeks. Both will probably involve a little bit of combat, but not the weeks-spanning combats we had at the end of 2006.

Once these two quests are complete, I then intend run a little role-playing sim for both teams in the first or second week of February to introduce winter and give both teams the opportunity to connect with any guilds or organizations that they wish to join before winter settles onto Ildarys. Winter comes early to Ildarys and stays late! Anyone who asks will learn that the first snow flies in the month of Goldens, and by late Whispers, the roads are impassable.

So once THAT'S done, I then plan to jump the sim forward about seven Thistledown months, into early Spring 1437. That will give both teams about 28 weeks of in-character time that can be spent on training in existing skills or learning new ones. Save some money for this! As both teams have learned, some of the best guilds are also the most expensive to join. Paying guild dues just gives you access to the trainers for each; you still have to pay the trainers. ;-)

This will also give both teams time to either construct for themselves or commission to be constructed any basic magic items you'd like. More complex ones will likely have to wait until you can purchase the components that high-power items usually need.

One last thing. Once we're in 1437, I intend to become rather a Nazi about disadvantages. I've been going easy on you guys and only keying off disadvantages at particular times. Some of you are very good about role-playing your disadvantages. Some of you... not so much. ;-) It's obviously become a points dump for a lot of characters. So, I'm going to give you the winter to pay some of them off and once we're in the new year, I'm going to start nailing you with them. Any disadvantage not role-played or bought off will strike at a time of my choosing, when it is least advantageous to the character, with no die rolls needed. If you haven't engaged your lecherous streak in eight IC months, then you're going to engage it the first time you meet the contact of the opposite sex whose good opinion you desperately need. Get the picture? ;-) So, any disadvantage you don't want me reaming you with come the first of March or so, better buy off before then.

That's all for now. Again, welcome to Good v. Evil 2007!

-Jester http://www.goodvevil.com/nuke//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=41 Hi everyone,  :-)

First, I'd like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!  I hope you all are enjoying time off from the game with your families, friends, and loved ones.  As I mentioned at the end of both games last week, GvE resumes its games on January 7 (Evil Team) and January 8 (Good Team).  See you then!

In the meantime, as with last year, you are more than welcome to engage in some unofficial role-playing during the down time.  Unofficial games with five or more people participating are worth 2 points per week, and games with a smaller number of participants, logs, joint logs, or the like, are worth 1 point per week.  As with normal GvE weeks, a maximum of 3 points per week is available for each of the two weeks we're off.  Both teams will have windows of several days -- possibly even a week or more -- in which to fit this role-playing before their next missions start.

Also, keep an eye out for two to three logs from me in the next ten days or so.  The first will be an epilogue mostly wrapping up the most recent mission, the second will be sort of a transition bridge, and the third -- if we need a third -- will be an intro to the Evil Team's next job.  The Good Team still has a job that they have to go back in time and wrap up.  ;-)

There will also be loot lists coming, and of course the 2006 Good v. Evil Sim Awards which were so popular last year.  I might even find time to slip in the results of the latest GvE Morality Test in there somewhere.  In short, these two weeks of vacation are not going to be much of one, at least for me, heh.

That's all for right now.  Merry Christmas to all!

-Jester
http://www.goodvevil.com/nuke//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=40 Hi all,  :-)

Been a while since I sent out an announcement.  Problem is, there isn't all that much to announce.  ;-)

I'm going to be shifting gears on both teams, though.  Now that my move is over and I once again have two computers available to help me run sims, you're going to be getting back into combat in a big way.  2006 has been very combat-weak, so far as I'm concerned, and we'll be making up for lost time.  Both teams have very strong characters in them, so I'll be looking for some very good performances in the combat sims to come.  ::keeps his fingers crossed, though, just in case::

One change that has been made to the GvE combat model is in the area of damage.  All weapons and weapon-based spells (mostly ray spells and the like) have been or will be converted into what I'm calling a skill-based damage model.  The more skilled you are with a weapon, the more damage you will do with that weapon.  The advantage is that you shouldn't be seeing any more "great hit, bad damage" strikes of the type that both teams have become familiar with.  The disadvantage is that all charcters, mages and squishy characters included, will have to look more firmly to their defense.  The characters that don't have good defenses will either need to be protected or will have to work on those defenses.  That reflects real life: if you don't know how to defend yourself from a sword, you probably would be killed by someone wielding one against you.

In addition, keep an eye on the wiki!  Again, now that the move is over, I'll be catching up with all of the things I've been putting off adding to the wiki.  The big changes over the next few weeks will be the 7-mana through 12-mana spells (now that characters are becoming capable of realistically casting them) and the entry for creating magic items (now that both teams are seriously considering that).  So, keep an eye out for those entries.

That's all for now.  Guess I had a *few* things to announce.  ;-)  See you in the game!

-Jester http://www.goodvevil.com/nuke//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=39 Hi all,  :-)

At some point today (not sure when), I'll be shutting down the Internet connection in my house in Colorado.  At that point, Balance will stop working (for the last 24 hours or so, he's been running from my laptop).

Unfortunately, I didn't make any arrangements to run it from Connecticut... stupid.  I could have done it easily enough.  I just didn't think that far ahead.  Something always gets missed in a move, and I'm kinda hoping that's the thing that got missed for this one.  ;-)  So, you're not going to see Balance again until I'm safely moved.  You can look for him if you like.  ;-)

In any case, as I've mentioned to both teams, the Good Team sim today, the 10th, will be an unofficial one.  Then the Evil Team sim this Sunday, the 16th, will also be unofficial.  Official sims resume with the Good Team sim on the 17th, and hopefully for the remainder of the year.

I apologize for all the sims I've missed this year... I feel like I've missed more sims this year than in all of the last four years combined, heh.  The good news is that I haven't had to put the sim on haitus or hand it off to someone else to run as I've had to do with past moves.

So, for now, wish me luck, and I'll hope to be back on-line from a new IP address and a new physical address this weekend!  :-)

-Jester
http://www.goodvevil.com/nuke//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=38 Hi all,  :-)

kari has written a new version of the Character Database (CharDB) software and I installed it today.

It seems to be working fine, and the big change is that character sheets now load MUCH faster!  Whereas with the old database, it could take upwards of 10 or 12 seconds to load a character sheet, the new version can do it in under three seconds!

I expect we'll be seeing other new features in the near future as well.  ;-)

That's the good news.  The bad news is that I had to clear out all the old login sessions when I installed the new version, so you're going to find that you've been forcibly logged out of the CharDB.  So, you'll have to log back in.  Since this is the first new version in a while, you might find that you've forgotten your CharDB password.  ;-)  If that's the case, please send me an e-mail or a private message on the nuke and I'll reset your password as soon as I can.

Thanks again, kari, and to everyone else, enjoy the new CharDB version!

-Jester
http://www.goodvevil.com/nuke//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=37 Hello everyone,  :-)

First, my profound apologies for being so scarce over the last couple of weeks.  As all of you probably know by now, the promotion I've been hoping for for months has finally arrived.  With a new job comes a lot of new responsibilities.  In this case, the new job also came with a change of location.  I've moved from Colorado to Connecticut, and at the moment, am living in long-term housing: one room with an attached bathroom.  And I had to drive 2000 miles to get it.  ;-)  The combination of the job, the move, and the location change has conspired to keep me off of IRC and unable to run this past week's sims.  My thanks to the team leaders for running unofficial sims for their teams, and again, my apologies for my absence.

But I'm back now.  ;-)

The sims will run as normal this coming weekend and into next week, and hopefully on a normal schedule for a while.  There will probably be a second disrupted week when it comes time to move my household to Connecticut, but hopefully only one week.  Moving is never any fun.

Anyway, that's all for now: just an apology and an explanation.  See everyone next week, and for those few who haven't noticed yet, there's a new survey on the nuke front page.  :-)

-Jester http://www.goodvevil.com/nuke//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=36 Hi all,  :-)

Just a quick note and announcement to wish all of you that want one a Happy Easter.  For the rest, happy Sunday.  ;-)  I know that several members of the Evil Team will be unavailable (something that strikes me as a bit ironic) today, and some members of the Good Team might be unavailable tomorrow.  Don't worry about it, as this week's sims are intended to be pure role-playing to recover from your character's recent... aheh... experiences.  ;-)

Not a lot of announcements lately, and with the good reason that everything is going smoothly and not a lot to announce.  I do want to welcome Beriadoc to the game, on the Good Team.  He was a little slow to decide that he was going to stick around long term (::grins at Beriadoc::) but now that that seems past, welcome Beri!

Other than that, happy simming!

-Jester