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Post by Andy D on Mar 13, 2022 0:18:17 GMT
I really like how Kantas is run to be as fair and awesome as it can be given understandable limitations e.g. DMs are not an inexhaustible resource. In addition, no one is getting paid here for their generosity in taking the time to be DMs and organising a fair way for game sign-ups.
I really think nothing demonstrates the fairness of the current method quite as much as older members of the group also competing for sign-up at midday on a Saturday just like anyone else. Seeing older members of the community miss out and get stuck on the waitlist - not great - but demonstrates that we have a system and everybody is treated equally under it.
I do wonder though if there is one aspect that isn’t quite as fair. I think it is perfectly fair under the current rulings, and I’m quite aware that changing anything is likely going to result in more work for the schedulers, but I did notice something in today’s sign up, that maybe on balance isn’t as fair as we might prefer?
Perhaps it’s just one of those days where you happen to roll a 1 on a d20, and everyone else rolled a high roll (referring to self here). Nothing unfair, just unfortunate. In the case of sign-ups, some people have multiple PCs, and are, in essence, rolling more d20s with a greater chance of getting into at least one game, if not all the games they signed up for. I do wonder though if we might want to change our view on if it is fair for one player with multiple PCs to end up in multiple games for the same week, when another player with one PC failed to get into a game and ended up on the waiting list?
I know we have a rule of one game per PC per week, and in addition a person who has multiple PCs is allowed to sign up to more than one game in the same week. The fact that some people manage to pull off the multi PC sign up is fair according to the rules - everyone was told what time to sign up. But, is this where we want to leave it?
As organisers, would you be happier with more people signed up for a game, or more PCs from the same players with multiple PCs signed up for a game? I’m obviously wearing my bias on my sleeve since I rolled the metaphorical ‘1’ on the d20 this week, when I’m used to getting into a game every week. But, where there are several players who have more than one PC signed up to a game and other players with one active PC on waitlists - is this what we would consider okay?
Now funnily enough, if you agree with me, I’m afraid I have no real idea how to manage it. Sounds like a pain to tell one player with multiple PC sign ups that they have to pick one PC to play with, because that way another player could get into a game. What do you do if two players have two PCs signed-up and only one of them needs to un RSVP?
There is of course the potential solution of only one of your PCs in a game per week - but I’m aware you might get some weeks where not all games are fully RSVPed, so do you want a rule that excluded a player with multiple PCs from benefiting when they wouldn't have taken a spot from someone else? This is a tough one as well.
I’ve only put a bit of thought into this, whilst clearly the organisers here have probably been over this matter several times. But whatever barriers there are to perfect distribution of games per players, I don’t think it includes some players being in multiple games in a week with different characters when other players signed up at the same time with one PC and just got unlucky. It’s as if, not only are some people merely unlucky to get into a game, but some players are very lucky to get into multiple games.
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Lykksie
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Post by Lykksie on Mar 13, 2022 2:08:55 GMT
Hi Andy! Thanks for the thoughts, and especially thank you for the open mindset you brought with you - it’s very much appreciated.
Full disclaimer - I’m typing this without explicitly conferring with my fellow WBs and KDMs so if I make any wild statements here that turn out to be incorrect, please forgive me. I just wanted to reply to you as soon as possible so you didn’t think we were ignoring you.
Right now we’re at a fantastic surplus of games, as pointed out in K-Gen by Jamie recently, and while we’re incredibly happy to have such a roster of regular DMs, we honestly cannot say that it will stay that way. The very nature of Kantas is a constantly shifting and evolving operation - both DMs and players come and go. We sometimes implement things to find that they don’t work 6 months later. What I’m trying to get at with this is that we’re continually evaluating our structure and procedures to see if there’s something we can do away with or if there’s something that needs to be tightened up.
We have indeed considered (at more than one point) limiting Kantas games to 1/player/week. We especially considered this at a time when 4 rumors/week was considered a busy week. We found quickly though that it’s not something any of the (at the time anyway) KDMs were very keen on.
Some players play more infrequently and some are hardcore players who want to get as many games in as possible. We want to be able to cater to both of those styles of play. And while admittedly some weeks there’s a pileup of games on a certain day or fewer games for a certain level bracket, we line all games up each week and try to spread out as well as we can. Most of the time it works pretty well! Some weeks it won’t. We hope that this can be overlooked by our player base as - like you said - this is all in our spare time for funzies because we love this campaign.
At this time we aren’t looking at limiting signups to 1 game/player/week, nor are we looking at allowing several games/PC/week because it would cause a massive headache with PCs being in two places at once, not to mention that it would probably break downtime somehow.
My personal recommendation would be to roll up another PC to increase your chances at getting in a game, and to bear with us during the weeks when you might have to play less or not at all.
If you have any other thoughts about the rumor and signup system, please feel free to shoot them directly at The First Andy (the archfey worldbuilder one), or by all means post them here for a public discussion. There’s also the feedback form pinned in k-Gen should you wish to use that.
Increase the peace ✌🏼 💜
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Post by Andy D on Mar 13, 2022 11:30:13 GMT
Hi Lykksie! Appreciate the desire to respond with something as soon as possible for the sake of the thread starter not feeling ignored. Very thoughtful! Not necessary mind you, but it’s a mindset that comes from a good place, so very appreciated. I agree about the influx state of a couple of the main variables here - number of DMs and their availability, and number of players. I agree; changes made when these two variables are different six months later may mean rules that were optimal before aren’t necessarily as good a fit later. There is unfortunately no ‘one size fits all solution’ for an ever changing status quo. There’s even problems with, what I might refer to as the ‘idea solution’ i.e Crank up the DM quantity dial. First obvious problem comes back to; no one is getting paid, everyone’s doing what they do out of love for the game. What you get is very generous enough. But, let’s imagine there was a dial and you could just double the amount of DMs by turning the dial up. Should be a perfect solution, since more DMs means more games per week and hence more spaces for more players, meaning more players should get into a game that week, and everyone could have multiple PCs and have them all signed up in the same week. However… you can ironically have a problem with too many DMs, because of the breadth of game availability, not all games get fully signed up.  Even the perfect solution isn’t actually perfect, and it must suck a little for the DM that didn’t get many RSVPs, or any at all because the player numbers were spread thinnly over multiple available games. Addressing the suggestion about having more PCs - I do have a level 5 PC who probably could have gotten into the level 2-6 game this sign-up week. But, if I had got into a game with both my PCs and saw someone on a waitlist who got into zero games this week; I think I'd feel a little guilty. I would have done nothing wrong. Everything would be fair under the rules, but I wouldn't feel right. What do you feel about the main question though, or what is the general feeling amongst the organisers? I might have buried the main question a little in rambling. I think it's highlighted in the previous paragraph, but here it is more plainly: As organisers would you prefer that more people got into at least one game a week, than several people got into multiple games a week with their multiple PCs, leaving some people on the waitlist? To illustrate this a bit imagine one week you had: - 4 x games, 5 player spaces in each game. 20 available spots total. - All games level 2-20. - And for the sake of simplicity, there are only 20 players that want to play a game In the above set up, what would the organisers prefer?Outcome 1 for the 20 players: 20 different players get the 20 available spots Outcome 2 for the 20 players: 12 players with 1 PC only got into a game - so 12 spots taken by 12 players. 4 players with 2 PCs got into 2 games each - between them taking 8 spots. 4 players with 1 PC only are on the waitlist - so 4 players miss out on a game. I can appreciate that some players have a stronger desire to play more than one game per week than other players. Additionally - no one has a right to a game, we all compete at midday on a Saturday under the same rules. But, the problem I’m trying to highlight is, is it better for some PCs to satisfy the desire to play more than one game a week, if it arguably comes at the expense of other players not playing a single game that week? How would they like it if someone with 3 PCs got into three games and they didn't get into a single game with their 2 PCs? |
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Lykksie
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Post by Lykksie on Mar 13, 2022 12:17:51 GMT
I'll start off by stressing that us organizers aren't a hive mind so we might disagree when it comes to 'how we would feel' about certain topics - we discuss, dissect and agree on solutions as needed, and if we can't agree outright we take a vote, always trying to balance things like player enjoyment and organizer workload. (Certain things are decided amongst the wider KDM group and certain matters fall to the WB's to decide.)
There are instances when I've wanted something in Kantas either as a player or as a DM/WB (mechanically, narratively, structurally, what have you) but haven't gotten it for various reasons. I might not have been super happy about it but compromise has to be reached when you run an operation this big. If we could find solutions that would please literally everyone then that'd amazing - unfortunately those solutions are incredibly rare 😅
Your example above is an interesting one, but ultimately not something that would be applicable to Kantas.
It assumes all players and DMs are available to play on the same day and/or all three Kantas days of the week. As we all know, scheduling is the true BBEG in D&D. Some players can only do one day of the week, some can do all three. Some DMs can only run every third week on Tuesdays. I myself try to keep Thursdays free for personal commitments. As I'm sure you're aware, for the past few months I've had to take major time off from DMing for health reasons. DMs and players come and go, real life happens, and locking them in to a certain day and/or asking them to be always available for three days is unrealistic for this campaign.
It also assumes that all DMs and players would be ready and happy to always run and play in games for 2-20's. (This is actually something I can say personally how I feel about - I love combat. If all my games would be 2-20 from here on out, standard combat would go out the window. It would take at least twice the effort to write a session. I wouldn't like it. I love 2-20 games for RP and letting PCs meet others outside their level bracket! For combat, it's a nightmare for me personally.)
Asking for all games to be 2-20 might seem like it levels the playing field but in a way it can also be incredibly limiting in terms of mechanics.
We also have the component of themes and genres. Some players would be very keen to play a horror game while some might want something more light-hearted. Some players love RP but don't want combat. Several players might be interested in following up on specific storylines, maybe even more than the DM can fit in a single game. There is no one-size fits all for games in this campaign. In my opinion, your example would in the end still result in both waitlists and games with fewer players than a DM may have hoped for.
There is also the added component of admin. One of the reasons we do it this way is because we've found that this is as balanced as we can hope to make it (at this time) between DM admin and player initiative/responsibility. Posting the games on offer each week and letting players sign up makes is manageable for DMs. Your example would presumably still involve signups (leading to waitlists, as explained above) or it would mean an organizer would sit down each week and assign games. This would mean quite a large undertaking, and would inevitably lead to other forms of disappointment if players don't get assigned to the game they were hoping for.
I'm not trying to shred your argument, I'm just trying to explain why it wouldn't work for us. What I'm trying to get at is that it doesn't matter much how I personally would feel about a hypothetical scenario where all players got into a game, when the scenario simply isn't applicable to this campaign. Hope that makes sense!
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Post by Andy D on Mar 13, 2022 15:02:08 GMT
I used nothing but level 2-20 games in the example so that all the fictional 20 players could enter any of the available games. I wanted to get down to philosophical bedrock, no matter how unworkable a solution could be; is it less fair for players with multiple PCs to get into multiple games leaving players with one PC not in any game? Up to a point, I do agree with you on what I think is your main point - please correct me if I'm wrong - which is; there's only so much organisers and DMs can do, with the generous time and effort they have, and there are too many varied preferences of players to satisfy when scheduling games. Whether it is or isn't fair that some people manage double/triple sign-ups and others hit the waitlist with 1 PC is, unfortunately moot, since there isn't a workable solution? ... I do, however, think I have a workable solution, which doesn't add much additional upkeep, and nor does it limit people with more than one PC from signing up to multiple games! If you're wondering, "... why didn't he mention this before?" I only just thought of it a couple hours ago. ------------------------------
Proposed solution:Two Sign-Up Times Keep the Saturday midday sign-up, but limit it to 1 PC only. Don't actively police it - too much work for admin, and we should be able to rely on people's honesty. Introduce Sunday midday sign-up - people with multiple PCs can now go wild and scoop up any untaken spots with their other PCs. ------------------------------ Cons - - It does mean people who want to sign up with more than one of their PCs are less likely to achieve that, but it doesn't completely restrict them. - More admin. Also should it be on Sunday? Should it just be at 12:15 on Saturday? I don't know. I wouldn't mind being the person who has to unlock it. - Does my 'solution' require 'relocking' the rumours between a certain time? What if someone with 1 PC misses the deadline? Should they be restricted to having to wait for the next sign-up, along with the multi PC players? Pros - - More people get into at least one game. Of course - might not always be a problem week on week - Might not even need to 'relock' the rumour. People can see what time someone signed up to a rumour. People might just be able to police each other. |
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Post by andycd on Mar 13, 2022 15:23:14 GMT
Hey - just chiming in so you know more than 1 of us has seen your thoughts, Andy - I totally get where you're coming from. It's worth noting that this week, there were zero instances of a player not getting into any games this week - you got into Rage to the Challenge, for example, so I wonder how big of an issue this is.
I once tried to build a randomized sign up system, with weightings for how many PCs you were trying to get in with, how long since you'd been in a game, whether you were in the level bracket or not, etc. I can say with some certainty that trying to consider these different variables very rapidly becomes infeasible, at least for our little community. We've toyed with different ideas over time, and I don't think there can be a perfect system for this.
The other big factor is exactly as Lykksie said - the number of available DMs and players per week is completely variable (and they don't always match! A week with more DMs running might be a week fewer players are around). We've seen in the last few months weeks where we ran 9 games! Incredible - but they were lower on sign ups. This week we had 5, and all the games are full - and no one missed out on being in a game this week. Next week - who knows? The more people DM, the less those DMs are playing in the games too so it all becomes the most delightful problem.
Ah - I just refreshed the page and saw your proposal. I like the simplicity of concept - tiered signups is designed at ensuring the most *players* get into games. As someone who just spent an hour doing the scheduling work for the week, I balk at the idea of more admin. Kantas is *very* admin heavy, and we aren't all around on a weekend to manage this. From experience, not policing a system tends to mean people ignore it or don't learn the rules to follow them.
But that's all ok - the real problem there is that people who just aren't available at 12 on any given day lose out twice. The grace period of signing up on the forum between Sat noon and Sunday when the Meetups go up is very important. Also, this means that the Scheduling work of putting the Meetups up suddenly can't be done until either very late Sunday or Monday - which sometimes happens anyway, but pushing that into the work week would become a real drain on the Schedulers, especially as we run more games.
Really appreciate the concept though - it's not a variation I'd considered before. For now, I don't think the problem is sizable enough to warrant drastically changing our processes - no problems this week, and this week has had fewer games than any other week in the last month! We have a strong DM pool at the moment, and - life permitting - we should see sufficient games running for the forseeable. As you said, this can change week on week, so we'll keep an eye if it really becomes a problem.
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Post by Andy D on Mar 13, 2022 15:58:46 GMT
Hi Andy!
Thanks for your response - and to Lykksie too of course who has responded back to me several times now.
I think the most important thing to come from this discussion isn't actually whether my suggestion gets implimented, but simply that it was heard and I feel like it has been heard, and regardless of whether it's workable; I felt valued as my thoughts were listened to.
So on that front; thanks to the pair of you.
I think if a random sign-up generator existed and stripped away all the admin work - that would be ideal. Well done for giving it a go!
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Even the perfect solution isn’t actually perfect, and it must suck a little for the DM that didn’t get many RSVPs, or any at all because the player numbers were spread thinnly over multiple available games.
