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Post by Alexander Kincaid on Sept 9, 2020 7:50:02 GMT -5
Heyo! I'd like to suggest that DTAs get changed from 6/month to 2/week. Pros: - It would make things space out more naturally, even if there's a busy week.
- STs wouldn't have to process so many DTAs all at one time.
- Players would have a little extra that they could accomplish each month.
- It means that players who have already used their DTAs on something they considered important in the first couple of weeks of the month won't be left twiddling their thumbs and making excuses if some emergency comes up later in the month.
Cons: - Though it would mean less build-up at any one time, STs would have to process more DTAs overall.
- More likelihood that DTAs could be left unused if a player has a busy week or two with RL.
- DTAs won't line up perfectly with the Session/Story time-frames of 1 and 3 months respectively.
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Post by kemian on Sept 9, 2020 8:28:25 GMT -5
The DTA's as they are currently are designed to not overwhelm the ST's. Regardless of it they come in 1 at a time or if they come in all 6 in one fell swoop the bottom line is once you hit 6 for the month you are done. (Personally I am trying to do 3 in the first half of the month and 3 at the end.)
I would HATE trying to shoe horn in 2 DTA's a week and have it all make sense to me an remain organized. I would feel rushed and I seriously doubt I would use them all.
As it stands now in theory, you can submit 6 on the 1st of the month and the ST's basically have all month to process them. (I know they try to knock it out faster but this would give them time)
Under the proposed systems the ST's would feel under the gun to get DTA's processsed EVERY week it would become problematic and might cause ST burn out.
I am okay with the system as it currently is.
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Post by Da Boss on Sept 9, 2020 10:15:37 GMT -5
There is another consideration that is going into DTAs that hasn't been brought up...
Originally, the plan was 4 DTAs a month. Effectively, one per week. It was decided that, because regaining Gnosis was going to require a DTA, we should give a few more. The reason for this is because it is meant to feel like a finite resource. Much like the Septs don't have the manpower to cover all of the things that they want to get accomplished, you, the players, do not have enough DTAs to get everything you want to accomplished. It creates a tension of prioritization on character development versus accomplishing actual, needed, tasks in the area.
This is intentional on the part of the staff. While, at first, it may seem like you have a lot of DTAs to throw at things, we promise you that there are plenty of things happening behind the scenes that it requires DTAs or Scene Requests to uncover. Additionally, there are the "in your face" plots like the pack of Silver Fangs being attacked during the moot. Something is going to fall through the cracks. The question is, do you know what it is, and will it doom the character/pack/Sept/Tribe/Protectorate?
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Post by Alexander Kincaid on Sept 9, 2020 18:48:02 GMT -5
Maybe my experience of this is different because I'm playing a Theurge.
For example, if I want to make a talen that means one DTA to make a bargain with a spirit, one DTA to perform chiminage based on that bargain, and one DTA to actually make the talen. And just like that, literally half of my working time in the month is gone. And that assumes that I even pass all of the related rolls and don't need to repeat it, spending another DT action for each time I fail or botch a DT roll. And that's just if the vessels are trivial to get (like gourds or jars and ashes.) If the vessels require crafting (like arrows, or clay carvings) then that's one or two downtime actions there, depending on the materials and whether that requires gathering. So say Chiropteran Spies, for example, may involve going out to find and dig up clay (one DTA) and then shaping the clay into the little bats (another DTA), for a total of five DTAs just to make one talen. Again, assuming that every roll is passed!
That makes it really sting when I also have to spend a full DTA making a report to an NPC that probably would take about 10 minutes of real time.
Maybe NPC interaction shouldn't be a full DTA if it isn't time-intensive or interactive? Or connected actions could be bundled together if they're a part of the same task (like making a deal with a spirit and performing the chiminage)?
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Post by Da Boss on Sept 9, 2020 22:05:18 GMT -5
I think you're missing 2 key points of the DTA system:
1) The better you are at accomplishing something, the fewer DTAs it takes because you tend to make all of the necessary rolls rather quickly. This goes for making talens, too. A garou that knows the chiminage before hand, can do it easily, has the Rite of Summoning so he doesn't need to hunt the spirit, and can get enough successes on a crafting roll to end up with multiple arrows, can make Bane Arrows in 2 DTAs. Fewer if he gets the arrows from someone else.
2) No conversation with an NPC is just a conversation with an NPC. There is almost always something else going on in that DTA post. Now, what that other something is may very. Sometimes it is additional actions that are put into the post, sometimes it is a character growth moment, sometimes it is improving or worsening relationships with an NPC, sometimes it is feeding you information on what an NPC is doing with their downtimes, and sometimes it is additional tasks that the NPC is sending you on that are wrapped into the DTA.
You, specifically, have had 2 DTAs where additional actions got wrapped into the DTAs, and one of them earned you renown while the other paid a price to an NPC for something. If you would like to fully discuss the OOC reasons your other actions didn't earn you the same benefit, I am happy to do so, but it is not a reason to change the DTA system.
What I will say is that using a DTA to accomplish something that is best dealt with IC at a Moot will not always earn you much of a response from the DTA. But, even then, there will be some information that is handed out so that it isn't a wasted DTA.
Again, DTAs are all about prioritization of time. Right now, you're trying to cover too many bases are are feeling the sting. That is intentional. Might I suggest a little more focus in what the character is trying to do, and then going after those goals? If you chase after every plot thread, you will do exactly as noted above, and end up letting something through.
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Post by Alexander Kincaid on Sept 10, 2020 6:32:55 GMT -5
FWIW, the main issue that my suggestion was meant to address is the oddity of being able to front-load a month with DTAs and then be completely unable to do things later in the month. I'm still trying to figure out how my character would justify that IC if an emergency came up. The rest of the post addreses different stuff than that! 1) The better you are at accomplishing something, the fewer DTAs it takes because you tend to make all of the necessary rolls rather quickly. This goes for making talens, too. A garou that knows the chiminage before hand, can do it easily, has the Rite of Summoning so he doesn't need to hunt the spirit, and can get enough successes on a crafting roll to end up with multiple arrows, can make Bane Arrows in 2 DTAs. Fewer if he gets the arrows from someone else. Okay, I think I might need to talk to you about this in more depth when you have the time. In my experience every ST sees Chiminage a little bit differently, and more often than not in the past STs I've played with have wanted it to be quite involved. So I'd like to pick your brain about this. But the above gives me a better sense of the expected way to approach things here. Thanks. You, specifically, have had 2 DTAs where additional actions got wrapped into the DTAs, and one of them earned you renown while the other paid a price to an NPC for something. If you would like to fully discuss the OOC reasons your other actions didn't earn you the same benefit, I am happy to do so, but it is not a reason to change the DTA system. I'd appreciate that. It seems that I've got a little way to go before I get a proper sense for how DTAs work here and what can/should be achieved with one. What I will say is that using a DTA to accomplish something that is best dealt with IC at a Moot will not always earn you much of a response from the DTA. But, even then, there will be some information that is handed out so that it isn't a wasted DTA. Yeah, that's on me. I'm used to playing games where Moots are pretty sparse, so it's a different gear I have to shift myself into mentally to do it the way that the setting describes (because that's actually a realistic possibility here). |
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Post by Da Boss on Sept 10, 2020 13:08:48 GMT -5
I think that chiminage can be very involved. But, to toss out a favorite that I've had in games before, promising a raccoon spirit that you will knock over every trash can you see for a lunar cycle (although it was our pack totem, so it was always) is the kind of thing I want to see played out, not hidden in a DTA. Go and do the thing when you play. It isn't some secret that you hide in a DTA.
As for Moots, the goal right now is to have each Sept call a Moot every six weeks. "Why six weeks," you may ask yourself. It is simple. There are 3 Septs in the protectorate. If we hold a Moot scene every two weeks, and we rotate who is having the Moot so that they are all having them, that means it takes 6 weeks to come back around to that Sept again.
That being said, there may be times when the Moot is handled soley on the forums or in an ST room on the chat. For example, if the next Moot were being held at Mammoth's Rage, there is currently only 1 PC at that Sept. There is no reason to have a massive scene, with 3 STs playing all of these NPCs, for that one PC. (No offense to that PC, but that is a lot of site resources dedicated to only 1 person.) So, instead they would likely end up with a single ST asking if they had any business to bring up, and then dropping in which NPCs are giving what hints towards specific plot lines going on for them to take advantage of.
Again, the goal of the DTAs is to represent the "prep work" and the "off camera" work that your PCs are doing. Even things as simple as going and talking to a specific NPC means that you are having to: 1) Find that NPC who isn't just sitting around waiting for the PCs to show up (they have their own lives and their own DTAs that they are doing and in some cases their own scene requests that the staff are boiling down into "this is what they're doing, this is the result we need to have happen, so this is how they accomplish that result and how long it takes them). 2) Making sure that the NPC has the time to talk to you (again, these NPCs are busy, bawn guardians have patrols to do, the Keeper is constantly working to keep the spiritual health of the caern in tact, the Master of Rites is teaching others rituals, etc. just because you go looking for them doesn't mean they've got the time to deal with you right then). 3) Getting your information to the NPC and getting something in return.
Lastly, you can drop all 6 of yours on the first of the month. I know many people that plan out their entire schedules weeks in advance, and if something comes up it throws their entire life into chaos because suddenly they have five things happening on the same day and have to keep commitments they've already made. That is a part of life. You are free to only spend 1 DTA a week, holding 2 in reserve for emergencies. You are free to drop all 6 at once. I'm not going to cater to any one player's preferred style of play on that issue. But, I'm also not going to alter the system that we have in place simply because it helps a few players keep some actions in reserve. That punishes players whose schedules don't allow them to log in every week. If they want to look at the forums once a month, and drop all of their actions then, I'm going to make sure the system allows for that. Especially when the only draw back is that it means other players who want to keep their actions open have to just show some restraint. As Kemian pointed out, nothing is making any player spend all of their DTAs at once. You could spend them as you need, and then blast out a bunch of actions on the last day of the month to make sure they're used.
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