Ordinarily I don't do this...

Sometimes I think we are being a bit on the harsh/hard side. But the subs have become more complicated.

We do try. In general, the more "stereotypical" the character submission, the less detail is required -- while the converse is true. On the other hand, the most interesting characters break stereotypes -- and PCs should be more unusual than the average population.

"Complicating factors" can include particular classes (Druid probably being most complex, followed by Clerics and Paladins), special subraces (Wemics being the most complex, followed by other level-adjusted races, and then the variations on the base races), unusual race/alignment combinations, unusual race/class combinations, unusual language ear requests, odd upbringings, etc.

A CG half-elf Wizard with no deity doesn't require an extensive writeup -- just give us some basic personality, a reasonable hometown, an assurance that there's no "hidden nobility", and a reason for being an adventurer, and we'll probably approve it without comment.

On the other hand, a NE Wemic Druid who grew up in Prantz, follows Prunilla, wants the Common and Dwarven ears, and worships Beryl... well, that's going to require a small novella to cover the reasons behind all of the odd choices.

If you think you are on a bit on the hard side I personally think that is much better than being on the other side on the spectrum. When you are on the harsh side....one comes out is a well rounded character that is welll defined.

I remember my first character being approved. I had to add on bits to it 3-4 times. It took me a few days. I was slightly frustrated...but guess what? Now that my character has been here for a while, I think I have him just the way I like him and I have a story that is viable.

It's not too difficult to simply list in the Terms of Service that failure to comply with the rules of a given server can and will result in being banned from that server, with or without notice. While they have their rights, you can (and often do, if you read the ToSes on some programs) sign away those rights with the click of a mouse.

i pretty much agree with everyone else... it may seem harsh but the bio's come out alot better for it i mean honestly... take Hotaru's for instance... had you just said "ah screw it approved" it would be basically 4 lines of text instead of a nice background story i say keep up the work ;)

I really dont mean this to sound harsh at all. But if someone cant be bothered to pay much attention to a reasonable bio to justify their characters existance in the world then we are better off without them.

If you accepted anything through the character submission process just imagine what the world would become.

I tip my hat to you guys and to the work you are doing in character approvals.

Firm, Fair, and Fast, the 3 F's!

Wonderful. I think you guys are really doing a bang up job then :)

First of all let me say that I just submitted my first character and I was fine with the process. It was quick and efficient and the only issues that had to be resolved I had already come up with responses to I just left them out since I typed it up quickly before I went to class. All in all I think its a fine process. I can also point out that I did read most of the hand book and other material before creating my character and I think its important to do so when immersing yourself in a new setting that is so similar but has some stark differences to FR.

As for the PrC issue that people are bringing up I can say that it certainly discouraged me from even considering multi-classing as a fighter/mage because eventually I would have wanted to be a spellsword and I am not going through that huge process just to have a prestige class that has its own issues. But that is an issue with the system not the character approvers.

Finally about this:

I like the current submission method, I actually know some guys that are buildings a server on NWN 2, who are going to be using similar character approvals, to let people play.

It's a test as such - Do you have the ability to RP a character in this world? Have you thought about your background etc, which has effected the attitudes and ideas your character will bring?

It ensures a standard level of RP - If this was not the process, and the server not passworded, we would have been flooded by goons to put it simply.

Thanks again to the Character Approval team.

I'll just highlight this older post with some good comments and and say....

" Yes....they do a good job...yes....they're "just about right"

http://www.layonara.com/general-discussion/115924-character-approvers.html

alright Ill try that thanks.

The approvers are doing a fine job. Sometimes it might seem a bit rough but well, sometimes it has to be, just to ensure the chars are within the rules and will stay there.

Besides a well written submission adds depht to the RP around.

After all it is their time they spend for us, the community. So keep it up, you're doing a fine job, and it is indeed not an easy one.

Thanks for all of the kind comments, everybody. I can only speak for myself, but I'm pretty sure the rest of the approvers would agree -- I want to approve characters, not deny them. It's more fun for me, and more fun for the player.

At the same time, Layonara is a roleplaying server, and there is a roleplaying standard that needs to be met, along with the server policies/rules. These standards, policies, and rules are there to ensure the enjoyment of the player community, and as such, I take them very seriously.

The practical benefit to each player, other than the general benefits, is that characters that get approved have sufficient detail about their history and personality so that they essentially are playable on first login, rather than having to feel their way around for a bit. Naturally, characters will change and grow beyond the initial submission -- what would be the point of adventuring if not?

So... cutting off the rambling, I see part of my role as a character approver as one of helping people design a character that fits the world and is fun to play. Above and beyond the approvals process, I'd be more than happy to help folks flesh out backstories, come up with leveling/advancement plans, etc., as my time allows. Just send me a PM.

Edit: Oh, and by the way, I'm abstaining from voting. :D

I'm glad of character approvers, I didn't mind at all going through the process, it made me think more about Taric when I was submitting him. They should be there to make the world cohere, not suddenly have an angel of death running about with huge wings on his back after being born to an Orc family, just because it's cool. ;) It makes Layonara more individual and I can't expect how people react to things Taric lies about (Mainly about money! :rolleyes:) which is great! I'm not going to have that angel of death run Taric into the ground after lying that he needs 10 coins for some-sort-of-tax-in-some-sort-of-city-otherwise-the-tax-man-will-get-you. ;)

I choose "Just about right".

Xblade/Taric.

lonnarin took the words out of my mouth and said them in a more cohesive and presentable way than I would have - I'm in the "what lon said" boat with Stephen, it seems. While I know the approval team does great work because I like to follow along on new submissions and alignment/PrC changes, and I do marvel at their patience, there are some issues that do grate on me.

These are the highlights of my concerns. Now, I never had any difficulty in approval of my characters, however, I've read and written a lot. And I enjoy it vastly. So coming up with a couple of characters for some online mayhem isn't going to be a frustrating or arduous process for those types - however, not everyone is that type, and hence my highlight in lon's post. There is always much discussion about the family nature of this server, however, I have lately been asking myself how much chance an average kid stands of having a character approved - unless s/he chose the most generic of staples available. I've seen approvers asking for dogmatic clarification in a manner that I am certain no 12 year old could respond to in a satisfactory way. Now, please don't misunderstand, I'm not saying things should be "dumbed down." But if we're aiming for people of all age groups, that's one of my concerns.

At the heart of the matter, people want to have fun, and when excessive technicalities start getting in the way of that, things take on a chore-like feel.

I like best what lon said about creativity and stagnation. Character change seems to be heavily clamped in these ways - especially the extensive time requisites possibly do more to stifle creativity than promote a sort of role-play elitism. I understand we desire a high quality of character and roleplay, but I think these high restrictions force players towards the same "style" of character progression (slow and meticulous) - and isn't that self-defeating?

So to summarize, I applaud the character approvers' work and effort and especially patience - but my vote's in the "You're being a little harsh" category. :) Cheers

Could maybe tone down on the PrC submissions.

Product lifecycle... O.o

Do you mean the approvers should be less strict and allow PrC submissions to pass through with more ease?

I disagree with that. Overall, I think all PrCs should be rather difficult to gain to keep them special. A PrC submission should be more rigorously examined and considered than the initial character submission.

See, I understand you reasoning, but I feel just the opposite. I think that if anything approvers should be harder on new players, so that they aren't overwhelmed when someone asks "So, what brought you to Hempstead?" or don't know the dogma of their diety, or things like that... That doesn't mean that approvers should expect new players to know everything about the world ahead of time (especially since the new handbook hasn't come out yet), but there has to be some evidence that thought has been put in to characters' stories and backgrounds, and that they have created a viable character.

More experienced players, who have proved themselves should be given a bit of leeway, and allowed to bring slightly more outlandish character concepts into game with a little less scrutiny. This, of course, would not excuse half-baked submissions from experienced players, since they should be able to bring more game knowledge into a submission, and be able to anticipate and explain any issues an approver might have, thus they should have more thought out submissions regardless. Just, I think approvers should reward good role-players with a little trust when they are looking at their submissions.

I think that in general the character approvers do as good a job as is realistically possible. For all the reasons listed in the first post I think that having a certain amount of rigor is a positive thing, but the approvers aren't harsh about it, and try and work with players to build acceptable character, rather than rejecting things outright that won't fit in the game as initially presented.

It is actually easier on the approvers and more consistent overall to have each submission considered on its own merits rather than allowing leeway in order to "reward good roleplayers," since just exactly what constitutes good roleplay is very subjective and allowing leeway opens a crack for cries of favoritism.

you're right there Gulnyr if they used such things to judge "good roleplayers" it could limit to only those the character approver has had dealings with... and personally though a bit strict i've had nothing but helpful tips from Rowana, Tanman, and Darkstorme those are the only three that have judged mine (mainly darkstorme but rowana and tanman chimed in every now and then) ^-^;

You know me... a full-length essay for everything. Here it goes.

I have mixed feelings on this, being a former approver. One, I think the approvers and staff are being to hard on *themselves*, crosschecking and revoking approvals over subjective disagreements. I'd often read through the entire submission of 4-5 paragraphs, crosscheck every detail in the handbook, approve the character, then have it revoked because senior approvers and GMs pointed out how it was inconsistant with the upcoming unpublished handbook that only a handful of people have access to, or with rules not expressly stated in the submission forum. I myself got into a pickle because I allowed somebody age 16 be a player, when the only rules listed were that one couldn't be a child and that the starting ages for characters was the "average" age. This would imply that some started older and some started younger, but no, I found out that while it wasn't stated, 18 was *supposed to be* the minimum. (looking this up right now in the FAQ for new players, I still see that adulthood is still described as "AROUND 18", not specifically "at least 18" LORE: Races of Layonara )

This is VERY frustrating to the players submitting, since they get told yes for several days, then later on after they already gained a few levels, they have their playable status revoked over something like "well, we need a few more paragraphs about your father's history" or "Does this REALLY fit alignment X?" So if anybody up the chain has a different view on an entirely subjective and philosophical snippet of the whole story, the player gets inconvenienced and fed up with the process, as does the original approver.

The next thing that I had difficulty with is how PrC approvals are much more difficult than they were just a year or two ago. I of course grew up in the generation where PrCs could be granted in the original bio, and truthfully, I don't see much difference in the RP of PrC players back then and today; It was great then, and it's great now. While making a CDT for approval is not so bad a request, a very annoying thing is how approvers seem obsessed with the time-space between CDT entries rather than the content and context of them. In many cases I would see a player write the equivalent of an 8 page essay detailing their path to a PrC, the entries accounting for months and years of gameplay; just that they did it all in about 2-3 posts in a week or so catching up on lost time. Since these entries were all made in just a few sittings however, the approver typically responds "hey, what you have here is GREAT, but I see that you've only been keeping a CDT for a week. Please come back in X amount of months and X amount more entries." Conversely, many times a player who makes a weekly journal entry of about 3-4 sentances for a period spanning several months gets the go-ahead for a PrC. I think the approval team should focus on the total effort of the player's writing and how it relates to how they'd RP being in that class, and not the X amount of posts they make over X amount of time. Context and Content are key, not some equation.

I would also point out that heightened CDQ requirements for PrCs also take up a large part of GM time and effort to fulfill. When I was briefly GMing, I was only able to run 2-3 real open quests, the rest were all CDQ requests. Even when you expressly state in your thread "please don't sign up for more when the slots are full" people still do. I had to run CDQs for Mith, Klugger, Ayreon and I think 2 other people each at least 2 episodes each, most of them 3, just so these players could continue leveling on the path they wanted for their characters. Now those were fun, but the rest of the community suffers because of this, not enough time is left for the GM to do their own quests, and the quests available are closed to all but the close friends of the CDQing player. Typically there are more closed quests than there are open due to the frequency of CDQs for this very reason. We even had to change the rules so that players didn't get XP during CDQs to free up the GMs a bit. Still, with such a large playerbase hungry for PrC approval, we still haven't seen the number of CDQs reduce; the open-quest availability is still somewhat bottlenecked by excessive CDQs required for PrCs.

Another aspect of the process that concerns me is the teeth-pulling process of alignment shifting. In my opinion, alignments should be shifting far more often than they are now. It seems far easier now to get a PrC approved than it is for just 1-3 good/evil/chaos/law points. There's a Catch 22 in the whole process as well; Players who are attempting to shift their alignment through CDTs and RP are often being given conflicting lines. On the one hand, those attempting to shift are often told "You are not playing the alignment that you submitted for" when the approvers read their CDTs are see them in game, chastising their RP ability because they're attempting a shift. On the other, those that take that to heart and make only minor changes in their alignment in their RP and CDTs who make a request are often told "this doesn't seem Alignment X to me, it seems like you're playing the alignment you were submitted for... request denied". So it naturally gets frustrating being told A) you're a bad RPer who's not playing their alignment and B) You're playing your alignment too well and your attempt at shifting is denied for it. Very confusing, and as a behavioral scientist I view it as somewhat unrealistic.

Sometimes people DO just snap and reach epiphonies... if we were to apply the same alignment-shifting standards we have here to great literary characters, Vader would have had to write a diary for 2 months in order to play his alignment correctly instead of tossing Palpatine into a pit; Ebeneezer Scrooge would still be a miserly comudgeon on Xmas morning and that mild mannered postal worker who went on a rampage that you read about in the news would have just stayed home that day watching Price is Right. People change, it's a fact of life. Rather than enforcing consistancy and stagnation, we should encourage people who want to shift to do so and be clearer in our guidelines on what is expected to be shifted.

On new player submissions of the mundane variety, we certainly have raised the bar for them drastically, which in turn scares away many new players. If somebody's making a straight elf ranger TN, please don't require them to write a detailed family history, proof of alignment, and detailed journal report akin to a PrC approval; same goes for the CG halfling rogue, LN Dwarven fighter and the like. Many times new players NEED to make a generic character to learn how to fit in, learn the geography and the kingdoms. Of course, we should be using this fine-toothed comb for Paladin, Druid and Cleric submissions as well as strange sub-race characters because naturally they have a longer approval process to reflect the rarity and prestige of their cause/race. Of more stereotypical and ordinary approvals however, I feel a good amount of slack could be granted, especially on the very first character ever. It breaks my heart to see some poor kid interested in the server get fed up and leave because 3 approvers each ask him 20 questions over why his elf ranger lives in the woods and why he's TN. He's an elf ranger raised in the woods and typical of his kind; that's why.

Overall though, the approvers and the staff are doing an incredible job. I'm just worried that they're overworking themselves and spending too much time in it.

@ Silverblade:

I mean the depth of your character. Logistics are one thing, and so long as you can look at a map of Mistone you've got yourself all you need. I've never looked at Lore for anything other than a town name and I prefer to keep my characters unaffected by previous quests so I don't get bogged down in the detail discussion where the doors swung open northward, when in fact I wrote they opened south.

Character Approvals remind me of the RMV quite a bit, but if you go in with a mission you can get out in little time.

I could write my own essay, but... I'll leave it at "What Lonnarin said." (Naturally, excepting my own points... Which may turn out to be just as long anyway.)

The PrC requests are already segregated into three types: Mundane (only REQUIRING an appropriate CDT), Complex (which only REQUIRE an appropriate CDT and MAYBE a CDQ), and Special (which REQUIRE an appropriate CDT and ABOLUTELY a CDQ).

Now, I think they're separated well enough, alright. The problem is that with the Complex PrC requests, it seems that every single submission is requiring a CDQ these days. I don't read all the submissions like I used to, but... Checking the calendar, there are quite a few PrC CDQs scheduled.

I can't say that I know for certain of anyone since the revisal of the submission process who has been approved for a Complex PrC without a CDQ. And... That might be a problem.

Our GMs are here to run quests for the community. While, sometimes, a character will need such a quest to realize some major change in their walk of life, I don't think that, for example, a Fighter/Wizard who's been fighting and casting in armor for ages should need a quest run to finally figure out how to cast without messing up the somatic components. Likewise, Arcane Archers, Battleragers, and even most Shadowdancers, Skalds, or Shifters. For many, it's just... Natural to make that shift - the obvious course in their training and development.

I remember a big discussion over AeonBlues wanting to go Shifter without a CDQ. I don't recall the outcome, but I was fully on the side of "no CDQ needed" - it was natural for the character to take that path, and was clearly laid out in-game and in the CDT.

The thing I'm getting at is... For the "complex" PrCs, a CDQ really should be needed only in the event that it's a very major shift for the character, or involves some major events... Which is, at least partly, up to the player.

As it is, though, it seems that most "complex" PrCs are ONLY being approved with CDQs, and that saps GMs' time needlessly.

---

On the other side of the fence, I do see how we need for some to require CDQs - for some, it's a complex change, or requires some specific training/achievement... Et cetera.

But still. I don't think (to throw a moderately wild guess out there) that perhaps half of the PrC submissions really require a CDQ. Why not just have them flesh out the CDT a little more? Better than sapping valuable GM time needlessly - as it is in some cases.

Could just be me Gulnyr, I honestly can't say for certain. I do know that the reason I'm not playing a spellsword right now is because I don't like the process and would prefer to just play and be my character. Same for dwarven defender. Two characters I had in mind long ago, and I just couldn't stomach the combination of eyes over my shoulder, paperwork for a character, and my general opinion that anything you do out of game is for the most part one of two things 1) character ramblings that only a GM should ever see and something I'd prefer only a CDQ'ing GM would ever be looking at or 2) contrived documentation of proof of this that or the other thing. And hey, that definitely isn't the opinion of the server otherwise CDT's wouldn't exist. So I'm definitely off on my own there. I just feel it's more fun keeping things natural and having general faith in myself and others that they can do their thing. I'd contend that there's a large population of people on this server that I'd have the utmost faith in playing every single class and alignment in the book, right off the bat. Should that be tenure based? I dunno. Should it be based on a star system like some other notable servers use whereby you basically accrue faith points? I dunno. Ups and downs to everything really.

But I wouldn't be surprised if this is a contributing issue, and on the whole I feel that given the stage of the game we're in, it may be a negative factor on the whole for Layonara.

But hey! I'm pretty happy with my main character, and I don't see him having fun roleplaying any of the PrCs out there... so no worries here.

:)

By the way, that was a good read Lonn. Little pointed here and there, but a good read.;)

The approval team is about as fair as fair can be. In my opinion, some of the team members might be too quick to approve of some of the characters, but then again, the character's class, race/subrace, and alignment have the most influence on approval speed.