Poll: rate your game master.

[Pender Lumkiss]

Rate Your Game Master

So, we've given out XP and EP for our adventure. It's also time to rate your GM for the same time period.

Rate your GM. You have 1 week to vote. Re-voting is enabled, so you can change your vote once cast. Please reply with a comment below to indicate voting is complete and give any constructive feedback.

Duties:
☞ Maintain a GM post rate at a minimum of one adventure post per week.
☞ Have the IM contact info of each player in their group.
☞ Notify all players in the group via IM or PM of new GM posts, and other important updates.
☞ Maintain your adventure notes in the GM's Cabal. (Gist: If a random GM can't pick up and run the adventure from your notes, the notes are unsatisfactory.)
☞ Be available for IM chat at least one day a week.
☞ Award XP and calculate post rate rewards for each quarter.

Rewards:
☞ GMs will be rated according to merit by their players every quarter.
☞ Players are responsible for rating the GMs within a week of the poll being posted, and posting notice that they have voted (in the same thread.)
☞ Ratings will be conducted via poll and averaged to the nearest whole number.
☞ Players who do not vote will be removed from the average.

GM Rating Reward Table
10: You have earned 5 EP.
9: You have earned 4 EP.
8: You have earned 3 EP.
7: You have earned 2 EP.
4-6: You have earned only 1 EP, also, you're on probation.
1-3: Your position is now vacant; the site Admin will post your GM position to the OOC Recruiting Thread.

[Bane]

Voted

[Lucretia]

Voted

[Kesslan]

Voted.

[Libertas Magicum]

Voted

[Cantrell]

Voted.

[High Command]

Since you're not all rating him 9s and 10s, how about providing some feedback. At least one thing that you think needs improving. Two things would be better. Remember, the beatings will continue until morale improves, so improve morale by giving feedback!

[Bane]

Since you're not all rating him 9s and 10s, how about providing some feedback. At least one thing that you think needs improving. Two things would be better. Remember, the beatings will continue until morale improves, so improve morale by giving feedback!

I think someone changed their vote from an 8 to a 9 because of that...

[Lucretia]

A review of Pender's GMing. I'm aiming for thoroughness, because I'm a teacher. ;)

Duties: All met or better, with the possible exception of adventure notes (can't evaluate that one).

Content: Good, based on limited information. So far combat and non-combat encounters are nicely balanced (one each, plus interludes), giving a variety of character types an opportunity to shine. Not 100% yet, but in only two encounters that's to be expected.

Character integration: Good, somewhat inconsistent. RPing of hindrances & explorations of histories encouraged (and sometimes rewarded). Some integration of non-mechanical character features into the NCs reactions; well done when present, but inconsistently present. That there is any present is more than many GMs in my experience, so this is a positive, not a negative.

Mechanics: Pender seems to have a fairly good grasp of the mechanics, better then mine, that's for sure. Some awkwardness with the social conflict setup, mostly I suspect because the players didn't really know what was expected of them (myself included, and in fact this may be just me projecting my own confusion), plus the pacing issue (see below). A little more guidance on how things like interludes and social conflict work would have been good.

Story: Hmm. Some good, some bad. Several story tropes used at once: the tough opponent that escapes/leaves with a presage of future conflict (twice!), the apparent macguffin item (Soldad's ring), the hidden secret enemy base (Soldad's place). That's a lot at once. It could be a product of trying to put something together very quickly though - there was a GM switch involved.
Additionally, the arrival of the CS team seemed a bit sudden and out of the blue, almost awkwardly tacked on after the interludes. There was apparently a major fight going on on the other side of town, but we never heard or saw any of it? I guess the Glitterboy never fired their boom gun? Also the townsfolk never mentioned the other fight or the CS presence while their wounds were being treated?
All that being said, there were some plot twists that were well done. The magic babies (still no clue where that is going, which is awesome), the turning woman being pregnant (ok, I couldn't help but think of Blade, but it was still a good enough twist of the knife that Lucretia jumped off a bridge because of it).

---

Regarding the GM rating system generally: I found the lack of context for what the rating numbers mean a bit frustrating. All we have here is the EP reward, where an 8 is the same reward as the max a player can earn. That signals to me that an 8 is a good score - not 'no room for improvement' (10) or even 'far exceeds expectations' (9), but better than 'meets expectations' (7).

Some of the other GMs put in descriptors, but those are not consistent either - if a 9 is "met expectations", you're going to see a lot of 9s and 10s. If 10 is "Best GM Ever", you're probably not going to see a lot of 10s if people are taking that descriptor seriously.

It's like when I was learning to grade assignments (harder than you'd think, if you've never done it). There used to be this notion that C meant "met expectations" and was an average grade. Nowadays, a C is seen as under-performing. You've got to make sure you are using the right scale if you want to do it right.

[Pender Lumkiss]

Hey Lucretia thanks for the feedback. This is just a great starting off point for me to get better. I do apologize to everyone for how the social conflict and the CS just showed up. Definately not enough forshadowing(to hardly any, I think I had just one line in the very beginning of a battle in the town center). Yeah that was a mistep for sure. You have a good point about taking time to explain rules and set ups beyond basic combat. A good example is Jude has been doing test of wills so I should probably explain how they are opposed rolls and such. Anyways thank you very much.
Here is the context VV gave for the poll ratings. Ill see if the gms can put together something more official next time arround.
10 - Oh damn get out the raise calculator
9 - Success with a raise
8 - Success
7 - Maybe you want to spend a bennie on that
6 - Shaken
5 - Wounded
4 - Roll on the incapacitaion table
3 - Does anyone have Greater Healing?
2 - So, what type of character are you thinking of making next?
1 - Sigh

[Kesslan]

Well feedback on my part then I guess:

1: One could say there's 'always room for improvement' but here I think it does apply for most of us. That said GM specifically yes, there's the lack of foreshadowing in some instances (Such as the CS) and some confusion surrounding the way we are supposed to resolve certain situations mechanically speaking. I may be wrong but I'm not sure if our GM is really that familiar with the setting either? Or maybe it's just me not being familiar with the system. Throwing stuff like a dragon of just about any sort at a new group in Palladium isn't something done lightly but maybe they aren't so powerful under this system. Not sure which. Also seemed an odd addition that there wasn't a chance to pick up on with the dogboy's psychic sense. Also unsure of just how far Bane, Max and I went if we just now see a leyline (These things are usually visible a really long way off. Though granted not always the case as some are even underground.)

2: The setup of rolls and narative makes following what's going on, at least for me, a little hard to do at times. I'd suggest in the future if we keep the current mechanic we perhaps move the rolls to a separate thread so it's easier to follow what everyone is doing/posing without a ton of rolls breaking everything up.

3: Personally speaking, have a hard time justifying a 10 on a GM that came in part way through, no matter how good they are. Especially when other Gms make it start to finish on a quad.

4: I just don't get how an 8 is considered a 'bad' score much less below average. To me a 9 and 10 would be reserved for GMs who do extremely well compared to the 'average' GM. I think ours is very good but not quite yet in the realm of 'great' or 'amazing' if you want to consider a 9 and 10 in that sort of zone. I suspect with a little work all around that view will most certainly change once a few growing pains are passed so to speak.

[Lucretia]

Your welcome, and just to be clear: I appreciate your efforts as a GM. It's not easy and you are definitely doing better than most GMs I've had. :D

[Pender Lumkiss]

Thanks Kesslan, great feedback. I would love to try and have two action threads, 1 for rolls and 1 for the narrative influenced by the rolls. I am probably interpreting the dog boys psychic sense incorrectly, I just assumed that it requires an action to detect arcana, if I missed that I am sorry. Again sorry for the CS... In my head and notes I had them battling it out in the center of town. I should have totally had a townsmember say something about them during the interlude, like maybe have done a gm interlude or something like that. Thanks man for the great feedback.

[Maximilian]

I'm the one who changed his vote. I thought 8 out of 10 was pretty good. If I wasn't married and saw an 8 out of 10 on the chick hotness scale, I'd be pretty excited. I changed it to a 9 because I think Pender's doing a fine job of trying to coordinate the chaos of a play-by-post game with 8 players and multiple threads, calculating results, etc., and I don't see how an 8 is a bad mark. However, if I'm offering constructive criticism, it's probably very similar to what everyone else has voiced. The social conflict deal had me at a loss. I've unfortunately shorted those skills, (not Pender's fault), so I just posted a "let's go along with what Bane's doing" blurb and thought that would pass, particularly considering his excellent strategy and execution. Then I realized I was holding up the show. Again, the chaos of 8 people posting at different times has to be confusing. Kudos to him for keeping up.
I can't sling too many stones, because I'm new to Rifts entirely and so I'm having difficulty grasping the scale and appearance of some of these things. (Great shadow dragon graphic, by the way!) I get why Pender put me where he did on the initial battle map, because if I'm playing the long-range support, I won't ever actually be in the battle. However, with a robot armor's sensor suite, I should have had plenty of warning of CS troops doing battle within probably a good mile range, and I can accurately drop artillery on them at almost that range. I also probably wouldn't have had Max exit the Titan with that kind of activity going on. I'm quite naked out here, so to speak.
Pender gave some great background for my heroic knowledge roll on the shadow dragon. Excellent flavor.
I was expecting a fight with the shadow dragon considering its location and sudden appearance. I unloaded a couple blasts on it, and it didn't retaliate (for which I'm sure I'm grateful). A less forgiving GM would have had the dragon attack right then and there. Then again, I'm having trouble remembering the timing of Soldad's control on the creature and when it was released, so maybe it was appropriate.
Considering Pender's taking over a different GM's adventure mid-stream, I think he's done a fine job. There's always room for improvement, but he's handling all this better than I could. And I certainly don't want to see him take a hit for getting an 8.

[Kesslan]

I am probably interpreting the dog boys psychic sense incorrectly, I just assumed that it requires an action to detect arcana, if I missed that I am sorry.

Well, I mean it's possible it's me that's wrong in this particular case as I'm not sure exactly how this system handles it. Under palladium it's an 'always on' sense that many CS Mutants have, with Dog Boys usually having the higher skill level for picking things up. Tracking meanwhile is something they have to be actively doing. However, that doesn't mean that's how Savage Rifts handles it. So for example if you have some magic/psionic/entity hanging around the GM can just secretly roll the mutant's ability to detect it and let the player know if the player isn't actively searching.

If you look over the ability under Savage rules, it doesn't say anything about it one way or another. Just that they can as an inherent ability. What that means exactly in Savage I honestly don't really know. The tracking component is obviously something that has to still be done deliberately but I'm less certain about the former. This is part of what I mean though too when I say it's some growing pains in that regard. Players familiar with Rifts expect certain things, and players familiar with Savage expect certain things but the reality is somewhere in the middle of those interpretations. For example under Palladium there isn't exactly a setup for Dogboys to be able to be any particular psionic class. They have innate psionic abilities but that's generally about it. Under Savage however just about any template can be applied to them or any other race and so far at least I haven't seen any of the racial restrictions for classes under Savage the way you see under Palladium.

Then there's also the way Dogboys interpret the sense. Under savage it's specifically stated they sense it as a 'scent' where as under Rifts it's more of a pure mental cue that isn't really described mechanism wise at all. I think it's all based in the superstition about dogs being able to see ghosts while people cant etc.

[Pender Lumkiss]

-psychic sense Is the detect arcana power but instead of a spell casting skill the dog boys use notice. To me it is not a free action to activate a power unless specifiied like the mystic's ability to use detect arcana at will as a free action. That is how I read the rules. Also keep in mind it does not work in robot armor or sealed vehicles.
-Yeah range is one of those tricky thing savage rifts brings in. I'll try to keep in mind that from the titans huge vantage point that line of sight is going to be extended, plus the senor suite gives a plus 2 to notice. Also I take a page from SPF, if you are not on the map you cannot attack, the same goes for the bad guys. But if I dont offer further info about something that is going on, just pm me and be like hey man I got a 12 on my notice roll what going on over here.
- thanks for the feedback Max!

[Maximilian]

I have a slightly different thought on Dog Boys detect arcana sense. I realize there's no specification, but since the power is interpreted as a scent, it seems like it might be an always on, passive ability, assuming a Dog Boy breathes in through the nose. I don't have to be searching for the scent of fresh baked cookies in the house. I can smell them when I walk through the door. Of course, with something that isn't clearly defined as written, it's open to interpretation, and I can certainly see your point, Pender. It definitely isn't the end of the world if it's something that has to be done actively. I might differ a little more firmly on notice being an action taken to incur a MAP if, say, I'm noticing for arcane scent AND firing a rifle at a skelebot. But it is what it is. It's not the end of the world.

[Pender Lumkiss]

I dont nessesarily disagree with anything max or kesslan have said about their psychic sense flavor wise. Mechanically the dog boys have the ability to use detect arcana. It is trapped as a sense so it uses the notice skill instead of spellcasting. They can add bonuses to notice skill like alertness or their keen sense to this roll. It is an inherient ability which I think poses some of the confusion, but really all it means is that it cannot be dispelled as the dispel power has no effect on innate powers. I realize it is a bit weird to think of a power trapped as a sense being an action, but the setting is very specific when it comes to activating powers as a free action.

[Pender Lumkiss]

All that beimg said as long as no one else has an issue with it. Lets try it as a free action, but just like some of the cyber knights powers it must be declared and the notice roll rolled specifically for that.

[Maximilian]

All that beimg said as long as no one else has an issue with it. Lets try it as a free action, but just like some of the cyber knights powers it must be declared and the notice roll rolled specifically for that.

To make sure I understand, we have to declare the detect arcana with a notice roll specifically for that? Could we declare along with noticing other items around us and use one roll for everything, or is that multiple notice rolls?

[Pender Lumkiss]

All that beimg said as long as no one else has an issue with it. Lets try it as a free action, but just like some of the cyber knights powers it must be declared and the notice roll rolled specifically for that.

To make sure I understand, we have to declare the detect arcana with a notice roll specifically for that? Could we declare along with noticing other items around us and use one roll for everything, or is that multiple notice rolls?

you make a fair point. It probably would make sense just to keep it with one roll, but I want to know if you are trying to use your nose to detect aecana or not.

[Maximilian]

All that beimg said as long as no one else has an issue with it. Lets try it as a free action, but just like some of the cyber knights powers it must be declared and the notice roll rolled specifically for that.

To make sure I understand, we have to declare the detect arcana with a notice roll specifically for that? Could we declare along with noticing other items around us and use one roll for everything, or is that multiple notice rolls?

you make a fair point. It probably would make sense just to keep it with one roll, but I want to know if you are trying to use your nose to detect aecana or not.

That's certainly reasonable, I think. One notice roll with all bonuses factored, declared detect arcana and all other senses included. Groovy.

[Pender Lumkiss]

Just so I am not confused and can give appropriate notice info out. If a dog boy is using his sniffer to detect arcana would his other smelling faculties be impared while he is doing that. Like he rolls notice declares he is sniffing for arcana, if a smelly (+2 to notice because he does not wash) non magical vagabond is sneaking up on him would the dog boy get the +2 circumstance bonus to smell him given that he is smelling for something else?

[Kesslan]

Dogboy should still. The psychich sense isn't actually a smell, it's merely interpreted by the dog boy as such on a basic level.

[Pender Lumkiss]

Dogboy should still. The psychich sense isn't actually a smell, it's merely interpreted by the dog boy as such on a basic level.

Ok.

[Jude Maverick]

Voted.

I would prefer not having to follow a third thread for rolls (we have the strategy thread and the IC thread and the OOC thread already). Instead, just separate out in the IC thread like such:


Requisite Notice roll

***

In character text.

***

Mechanical descriptions/summary and rolls, eg.:

Move:
Actions:
Roll
Roll
Roll

[Lucretia]

I agree with Jude; When posting I already bounce between three tabs (character sheet and two copies of the current action thread, one for reading/seeing results of die rolls and the other editing in results/additional rolls). Having a separate rolls thread would up that to four (narrative post being written, two copies of die rolling thread, and character sheet).

I wish we had spoiler functionality. Then we could put all the OOC stuff in a spoiler block - it keeps the narrative clean, with the rolls and such easily accessible.

[Venatus Vinco]

Lucretia try using the "OOC" tag

Code: Select all

[OOC][/OOC]

OOC Comments

You can put comments in here and even roll dice.
[dice]0[/dice]

[Lucretia]

Oh sweet! That's perfect!

[Bane]

Lucretia try using the "OOC" tag

Code: Select all

[OOC][/OOC]

OOC Comments

You can put comments in here and even roll dice.
[dice]6348:0[/dice]

That's awesome!