> Can you turn this around.
>
> What would bring you back?
> [Answering for you] More fun and social games and players.
>
> What exactly do you mean by fun and social?
>
> What can be done to make the games you GM and play in more fun and social?

In the year before I left I saw GM's and players falling out over
occourances in games. GM's recieving verbal abuse over an EP award. Players
coming to games and saying they are not sure why they are bothering. It
dosn't take long to get depressed by it all.

Another problem is the guild became very cliquey. When one or two members in
a clique left the rest have tended to stop playing as well.

Other Issues are University got harder and more expensive. Thus we no longer
have an influx of lazy university students with time on their hands.

But enough of the causes onto the solutions.

I think we need more low level adventures to help encourage people to join
when new blood is around.

More adventures that allow for some time to hasve some fun. The levels of
seriousness in some games is depressing. While danger and tension have their
high points a session or two to just play is important.

After three rewrites and a couple of hours thought on this I still cannot
pin down an answer. But if enough of us think about it maybe we can do
something.

Mandos
(Who is considering a return to DQ)
/s


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Off-hand I'd suggest seven reasons for a shrinking player pool: In order of
importance they are:

1) Loss of connection to America - America traditionally feeds new players
in to DQ. DQ has always lost players but new ones have arrived. This is no
longer happening.

2) Loss of  the University as a meeting site - that's where DQ players and
America players can meet and interact. The America players know where the
venue is

3) Growing up - familes come first - and they should.

4) Cliques. If you fill your game before a meeting, why bother to announce
it? Some GM's deliberately fill games and leave no openings for new players.
They do this to cement what they see as their infulence in the game. So the
new players think stuff this and head off elsewhere. As a matter of policy I
always leave at least half my slots open to allow folks who want to play to
have a chance. Additionally, new players are interesting players and new
friendships are made. And social interaction is the lubrication that keeps
the Guild going.

These are the main reasons. I'd  suggest the following are contributing
factors:

5) Too many world shaking events (Dark Circle is an exception - quite well
done) by GM's who don't share information as a matter of deliberate policy.
These folk have their vision of Alusia and seek to impose it on everyone
else. Given how screwed over Alusia has been in the last four years its a
wonder anyone is still alive on the planet! That's why I run my games
off-plane - so as not to screw the world for other GM's.

6) Hidebound self-intersted players. Systems need amending as people mature
and our understanding of games grows. Change, even change we all think is
good, is often delierately screwed by people who have a character in a
particular College.  This frsutrates everyone who is genuinely trying to
contribute. Not all changes will be good and all must be discussed. But
often opposition just occurs for the sake of maintaing a particular
character's powerbase. I've even had one player/Gm admitting a change was
for the better but opposing it becuase her character would lose something!

7) A lack of heroisim and morals among players. An unfortuneately large
minority might as well be accountants. They never risk their characters and
seek to lawyer their way to safety. The result is they are bored. Why?
Becuase the heroic, the interesting or the engaging doesn't happen to their
PC's. In reality they deny themselves the fun they are seeking but can't
figure out why gaming has lost the zap it once held for them. The old saying
that you can't make an omelete without breaking eggs could be rewritten for
games "You maximise your fun when you risk engaging the story".

Cheers
Paul


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Below is the brought forward agenda for the Gods meeting.

DQ GODS MEETING AGENDA
May 2001
Place:  ???
Time:   Noon
Date:   Sunday 6th May 2001
Chair:  Clare West, deputy Errol

#Rules stuff#
1) Death Aspect

2) Illusionary Fog

3) Work in progress updates
          Ranger
          Mind
          Namer
          Astrologer
          Rune

4) Cold Iron and Casting
Amend the Cold Iron rules so that Cold Iron blocks casting as well as 
preparing (section 7.6 page 26).

5) Fire College Speak to Fire Creatures
Add the duration of 20 mins + 10/rank

6) Add effects of Elemental Aspects (page 11) to the Cast Check Modifiers 
(section 7.4 page 26). Also change wording of 7.4 to make it more explicit 
that it's only dealing with spells, not rituals or talents (see annotation).

7) Optional Initiative Variants.

#Adventure stuff#


#Stuff that comes up#

#Stuff off time#


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Out of curiosity, what briefly are the 'death aspect' and 'illusionary fog'
items about?

Slightly on a tangent - I'd like to see the 'ordinary' aspects have more game
effect - currently the death and life aspected characters get all the fun (or
the pain, depending on circumstances.) Something like:
+/- 1 or 2% to die rolls* in your season/opposite your season (perhaps +/- 5 or
10% and midday/midnight.)
+/- 2% to all cast (including talents and rituals) and resist chances for your
element/its opposite.

* or base chances if life/death get changed to be base chance modifiers instead
of die modifiers.

Pro: Increases differences between characters, makes something now almost
completely ignorable (aspect) meaningful.
Con: More rule changes, more die modifiers to remember, creates an in-game
pressure to play certain characters at certain times of year that may conflict
with the player's priorities.

Other than floating this idea, I'm not intending to push it any further.

Keith Smith wrote:

> Below is the brought forward agenda for the Gods meeting.
>
> DQ GODS MEETING AGENDA
> May 2001
> Place:  ???
> Time:   Noon
> Date:   Sunday 6th May 2001
> Chair:  Clare West, deputy Errol
>
> #Rules stuff#
> 1) Death Aspect
>
> 2) Illusionary Fog
>
> 3) Work in progress updates
>           Ranger
>           Mind
>           Namer
>           Astrologer
>           Rune
>
> 4) Cold Iron and Casting
> Amend the Cold Iron rules so that Cold Iron blocks casting as well as
> preparing (section 7.6 page 26).
>
> 5) Fire College Speak to Fire Creatures
> Add the duration of 20 mins + 10/rank
>
> 6) Add effects of Elemental Aspects (page 11) to the Cast Check Modifiers
> (section 7.4 page 26). Also change wording of 7.4 to make it more explicit
> that it's only dealing with spells, not rituals or talents (see annotation).
>
> 7) Optional Initiative Variants.
>
> #Adventure stuff#
>
> #Stuff that comes up#
>
> #Stuff off time#
>
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It would be nice if some effort was put into running 'character quests'.

I agree with comments on low adventures

cheers Ian


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well written, concur with all points

are solutions needed?

Ian

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Schmidt <p.schmidt@xtra.co.nz>
To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz <dq@dq.sf.org.nz>
Date: Tuesday, 1 May 2001 11:05
Subject: Re: [dq] Shrinking player pool


>Off-hand I'd suggest seven reasons for a shrinking player pool: In order of
>importance they are:
>


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