DM involvement in mass PvP?

[Gracklstugh]

I wish to start by saying this is not a thread about pointing fingers, I am genuinely trying to understand the role of a DM and the extent of his authority in this type of encounters. Simple scenario: One group moves around with the intent of initiating PvP. A DM should oversee the situation as these encounters often get chaotic to some extent. In this scenario, is it normal for a DM to get involved directly in the outcome of the battle by supporting one group with various "divine intervention (not sure how to call them otherwise) spells?

If so, what would be the OOC justification, because clearly this can be seen as biased behavior towards one group (again, this is why I am asking for clarification, so I am not jumping to wrong conclusions). Also, from an IC perspective, it's a bit odd to see hellballs randomly dropping from the sky as if all the gods are angry at your insolence.

[Morgy]

If you're invading the 'opposing' lands for a long period, or near a settlement, then you ought to anticipate a DM bringing out some NPCs or toys if you're in a big group.

[Gracklstugh]

Understandable if you are near a settlement, but what would be the justification out in the open?

[Morgy]

Understandable if you are near a settlement, but what would be the justification out in the open?

Mostly because people in large groups on a 'raid', are generally going to be stomping individuals or small groups, which when it becomes a regular occurence loses its novelty. Short, quick raids aren't what I mean here, but protracted camping of areas or scouring many popular areas repeatedly looking for anyone to /thwack/.

Much like the players might rally to defend the Surface or Underdark, NPCs might be motivated for the same reasons, if you want a IC justification.

[Drethian]

Understandable if you are near a settlement, but what would be the justification out in the open?

Mostly because people in large groups on a 'raid', are generally going to be stomping individuals or small groups, which when it becomes a regular occurence loses its novelty. Short, quick raids aren't what I mean here, but protracted camping of areas or scouring many popular areas repeatedly looking for anyone to /thwack/.

Much like the players might rally to defend the Surface or Underdark, NPCs might be motivated for the same reasons, if you want a IC justification.

I'd like to stress, politely, that not a single element you mentioned was at play in the raid that occurred today, which is certainly the one that inspired this post.

The raiders:

• Did not linger for a long period of time.
• Were not on a map with NPCs.
• Ignored every writworker it passed and didn't "thwack" them at all.

But we were hit with some scripted storm of hellballs and some people had 100% of their wards inexplicably stripped (not by other players) mid-combat.

(These things began happening about 20 seconds into the only bout of combat, right when it began.)

Unfortunately nothing you described really explains that sort of intervention because none of the circumstances you outlined were at play here at all.

It was the epitome of a quick raid, honestly. It began and ended extremely fast and was not a raid on a settlement itself or anywhere near NPCs. Just wanted to shed light on the context.

[Morgy]

If you want comments from a specific incident, you may be better off directly PM'ing the DM team? I'm not sure how much specific incidents will be commented upon openly.

That said, I can only think it might have something to do with the pretty much daily mass-PvP raids going on at the moment, which might be trying to be deterred. Can only theory-craft myself though. I hope you get some light shed!

[Gracklstugh]

Correct, I do not wish to turn this into a specific incident breakdown, but more it is for me to understand what's the extent in which a DM can influence the outcome during mass PvP (not involving the obvious scenario where this happens inside a settlement). If we are talking about DM intervention outside settlement to "balance out" the forces, it's a dangerous territory.

[Marsi]

Correct, I do not wish to turn this into a specific incident breakdown, but more it is for me to understand what's the extent in which a DM can influence the outcome during mass PvP (not involving the obvious scenario where this happens inside a settlement). If we are talking about DM intervention outside settlement to "balance out" the forces, it's a dangerous territory.

They can influence mass PvP in any way they please. Arelith isn't Albion Online, and has never promised anyone a closed-system war sandbox.

[magistrasa]

They can influence mass PvP in any way they please. Arelith isn't Albion Online, and has never promised anyone a closed-system war sandbox.

But it does promise an immersive roleplay experience, if the front page of our website is supposed to be taken at its word. DMs shouldn't arbitrarily rain hellfire and death upon one side of a conflict with no apparent justification or precedent. In a persistent world, the world's behavior should be predictable and understandable on some level. There needs to be a consistent internal logic. This question doesn't strike me as coming from a place of entitlement, but instead confusion.

If a DM is involving themselves in player-driven conflict and purposefully arranging for the victory of one side over another, that can rightfully be understood as a punishment for the losing side. That side should be given the opportunity to know why they were punished. Likewise, if it is indeed intended as a punishment, the community should have a sense of what behaviors to avoid so that they are not punished in the same manner. As far as it pertains to similar future situations, I am interested in how the DMs respond to this question.

[chocolatelover]

Now I know why my character died! Wandered into the woods to gather herbs and apparently got hellballed. Then freaked after resurrecting to see Drow in the Arcane Tower because I assumed they did it. And got captured by them. Definitely was not a boring day!

[Marsi]

But it does promise an immersive roleplay experience, if the front page of our website is supposed to be taken at its word. DMs shouldn't arbitrarily rain hellfire and death upon one side of a conflict with no apparent justification or precedent. In a persistent world, the world's behavior should be predictable and understandable on some level. There needs to be a consistent internal logic. This question doesn't strike me as coming from a place of entitlement, but instead confusion.

If a DM is involving themselves in player-driven conflict and purposefully arranging for the victory of one side over another, that can rightfully be understood as a punishment for the losing side. That side should be given the opportunity to know why they were punished. Likewise, if it is indeed intended as a punishment, the community should have a sense of what behaviors to avoid so that they are not punished in the same manner. As far as it pertains to similar future situations, I am interested in how the DMs respond to this question.

I was responding to the claim that DMs favouring one side is "dangerous territory". They can put their thumb on the scale for seemingly arbitrary narrative or setting-based reasons. They've always been able to do that, so I find the line of thinking I responded to, that this is some kind of important encroachment on player rights, a misapprehension. They aren't neutral referrees, I don't believe they have to obey consistent internal logic, and there isn't an "if you follow all these rules and stay within XYZ areas, you can kill as many people as you like" handbook. The "be nice" rule is a catch-all rule that covers play that is technically within the rules but motivated by the wrong reasons, is happening too often, or simply has bad vibes.

[DM MoonMoon]

I will put my hand up here and state, it was not the best choice to attempt to break up a very bad start to a pvp encounter.
I was hoping that bombard would make both parties retreat, after seeing the battle start with NO RP. There was a shout of "They are here" and after summons came out it descended into all out fight.

This was not acceptable level of RP before a PVP encounter. I attempted to Dispel the summoners to clear summons before they ran in but apologies to those who aren’t the ones rushing in blindly without rp before (it was chaos).

I will state that this was on both sides, and the Bombard is not targeted.
Again, it was to get both parties to fall back, my hope was that the thing can be stopped or even better reapproached with better RP.

My ask though, is that those organising groups attacking an area, and those defending an area, please take responsibility of who you take. If you are finding people who are trigger happy, don’t bring them, as it may fall on the organiser when things go wrong.

Thank you for listening.

(Edit for spell correcting, because I am terrible that word thing humans do)

[Alyxnia]

I will put my hand up here and state, it was not the best choice to attempt to break up a very bad start to a pvp encounter.
I was hoping that bombard would make both parties retreat, after seeing the battle start with NO RP.

I think that is an absolutely unacceptable thing for a DM to do, personally. If you thought that the situation wasn't being roleplayed properly, why not speak to the players you deemed at fault? This was an incredibly ill thought out and heavy handed thing to do that did absolutely nothing to achieve your stated goals. Interventions like this one only serve to fuel the allegations of DM favoritism that are bandied about.

[Tashalar]

If you feel that something done by a DM was done inappropriately or should not have taken place at all, feel free to send a message to the Active Admin team via PMs on the forum here. They're human, just like us, and thus fallible.

Let's keep things nice and civil, thanks!

[magistrasa]

I think "unacceptable" is too strong an admonishment. A failure to adhere to the server's standards of roleplay could reasonably be approached with roleplay as the primary corrective tool, to remind players of their obligations without strictly forcing the encounter to freeze and reset, or dole out punishment in the aftermath. In theory, it might cause the players to change course and perform better both in the moment and in the future, as both the player and character have learned a lesson they can pass on to others. It sounds like in practice, though, it didn't quite pan out due to the chaos of the moment.

To extrapolate a broader expectation from DM MoonMoon's response, players who don't adhere to the server guidelines on raid conduct can expect DM intervention in more ways than post-combat counseling. They may also intervene in the heat of battle, in whatever ways they judge necessary to rectify the ongoing misconduct. This lines up with other stories I've heard regarding DM intervention in raids, where zones have been frozen in the midst of engagement as a DM announces that everyone present must disengage and depart the area.

Poor roleplay, if left uninterrupted, can lead to even more poor roleplay in the future. It makes complete sense to me that a DM might not want to wait for the dust to settle before cleaning up the mess left behind. The specific situation here might not have been the best example of that principle, but it's not an unfounded or unreasonable approach. There just needs to be clear communication of expectations from the team to the players, so that message can still be understood at the end of the day.

[DM MoonMoon]

Unfortunately, that is not easy to do once things have started. As mentioned once the first rule breach had started, it delved into chaos.
Players have been spoken to, and will be spoken to about their conduct here.

I would like to ask you to not jump so fast to send hatred at me, as it was a call made at the time once things started going downhill fast. I accept your disagreement, but when looking at the holistic view in a volatile situation, it is not "absolutely unacceptable".
Accusations of DM Favouritism don't really help in this situation, as players only see really what happened to them/their side. Bundle that with the echo chambers it leads to some rather biased view points.

I thank you for your viewpoint.

[Alyxnia]

There just needs to be clear communication of expectations from the team to the players, so that message can still be understood at the end of the day.

Yes, and wordlessly stripping wards and throwing hellballs into PVP is not a clear communication of anything.

[Gracklstugh]

Thank you all for your responses but I do not wish this thread to evolve into pointing fingers. I would just like to get some clarification to my question - DM involvement in mass PvP in wilderness areas. Are there any rules in regards to this or is it purely arbitrary (when/ where/ how the DM sees fit to intervene). Thank you and please let us keep it civilized, I don't want this locked before I get my answer

[DM MoonMoon]

In answer to your question:

Generally speaking keeping to the Spirit of the Rules,
When venturing to areas that would be considered hostile to your party (Such as UD going Surface, Surface going UD, Cordor going Sencliff, Bendir going anywhere) -> Large groups (i tend to think more that 6.. so 20+ is definitely large!) should really send out a message to the DM team, explaining what they are doing, and why. The more info the better (ie. route, time frame, expectations if possible)

Hard raids involving NPCs must always be requested in advance. (And get approval!)

So things in the wilderness, still need to adhere to the PVP rules:
There must be ample roleplay before PVP happens, including clear threat, and reasonable time to respond!
Other items such as trap overlaying, transition camping, portal camping, are also subject to the rules so please dont break these either!

So DMs involvement in Mass PvP, yes. Mostly the break up the situation of failure to RP constructively or situations that are getting out of hand.
If you are after a Mass Combat, it is always best to let the team know in advance to prepare and have enough eyes on the situation.

Hope that helps Gracklstugh
-Doggo

(Edit to include approval needed for Hard Raids)

[Arigard]

To offer a suggestion, regarding these large scale events, especially if DM's wish to oversee - and it is something I have been thinking about for some time - since I watched some bigger PvP events go fairly sour in the past.

If DM's are around and overseeing this sort of thing, would it be an idea to have DM lead NPCs leading both sides of the conflict and setting the tone - i.e some form of figurehead that can ensure that talks and narrative can develop adequately?

I think on the whole everyone goes into these situations trying to do their very best to ensure that there is RP and it isn't just an instant slugfest - but at the same time, as I have experienced (and as someone being a leader in these things in the past) it is incredibly difficult to herd so many people and it often isn't fair to lay the blame of the outcome at the feet of the organisers. All it takes is one person losing control of their summons, or jumping the gun for things to go down hill and as the groups get larger, it becomes more common place for this to happen and once that line is crossed, it's almost impossible to come back from - and there is very little you can do about that as an organiser, even if you've spent time lecturing people beforehand on the etiquette you expect. You're not physically sitting behind their computer clicking buttons for them.

My suggestion would be that for these events that are planned in advace, there is some form of forward group, fronted by a DM, or if not - something akin to this is established as a precurser that happens in good faith on both sides by the leaders of these things, where they ride out together, meet and discuss the coming battle - similar to what you often see in historical films etc. This would ensure that there is a level of RP that happens and negotiations can take place. If something like this was at least standardized, I think it would go a good distance to stopping some of "he who twitches last suffers" mentality that we often see in large scale PvP.

[Cthuletta]

DMs are indeed people, and sometimes they make the 'not best' move and that should be okay. We ask DMs to give us as players the benefit of the doubt, and that should be returned in my opinion.

As far as raids and RP beforehand, using the one yesterday as the most recent example, one thing to keep in mind is that the sheer lag also lends to the chaos. I personally had gone to examine one of the bios of the opposition, and before I knew it, I was in the MIDDLE of their group attacking one of them from a misclick. Had just teleported my happy butt over there on accident. I was able to move BACK, mostly because I realized people on both sides were trying to RP, and some were not, likely due to not being aware roleplay was to be had beforehand, or that talking was expected of their character, and the whole thing just got kerfuffled.

By the time people on either side attacked, the lag kinda prevents an immediate drawback to a 'WAIT, WE'RE GONNA TALK FIRST' scenerio, which is a shame and not really something I imagine can be helped very much when we have such big groups like that, especially when buffed to the nine. I imagine DMs overseeing these raids are also being effected by this lag, making it a lot harder on their end to figure out what all is going on.

When it comes to hard versus soft raids, perhaps a rule change is in order? RP is to be held beforehand, across the board, to prevent any confusion what-so-ever. I thought the one yesterday was a hard raid, but it seems it was not, though that could just be misunderstanding the difference on my end. But if RP was required no matter the raid type, that might help prevent some of the confusion in the future.

[Drethian]

I will put my hand up here and state, it was not the best choice to attempt to break up a very bad start to a pvp encounter.
I was hoping that bombard would make both parties retreat, after seeing the battle start with NO RP. There was a shout of "They are here" and after summons came out it descended into all out fight.

This was not acceptable level of RP before a PVP encounter. I attempted to Dispel the summoners to clear summons before they ran in but apologies to those who aren’t the ones rushing in blindly without rp before (it was chaos).

I will state that this was on both sides, and the Bombard is not targeted.
Again, it was to get both parties to fall back, my hope was that the thing can be stopped or even better reapproached with better RP.

My ask though, is that those organising groups attacking an area, and those defending an area, please take responsibility of who you take. If you are finding people who are trigger happy, don’t bring them, as it may fall on the organiser when things go wrong.

Thank you for listening.

(Edit for spell correcting, because I am terrible that word thing humans do)

Summon AI:

Unfortunately, I do think summons have a lot to do with PvP starting prematurely. In my brief time here, I've witnessed combat begin earlier than desired many a time due to one side (or both) failing to control their summons. The AI attacks before the player intends (resulting in accidental breach of the rules of engagement) and the opposing side reacts accordingly. After this, it is nearly impossible to de-escalate the impending domino effect, at least as a player.

I do think that as a DM, though, you've a lot more tools at your disposal for de-escalation of such incidents than us players have. Pausing the game either through a DM tool or some Timestop spell and sending your message to all players involved would de-escalate it immediately, I think!

Observations / Feedback:

Just to offer some hopefully gentle observations and feedback for the future...
(I don't mean these to sound incriminating, rather - they're intended to be an account of what I observed):

• Multiple people on our side (who did not summon anything), myself included, had 100% of their wards stripped by being DM 'rested' in the middle of combat.
• Even mundane weaponmasters (who had no summons out at all) had their wards stripped by DM powers during combat, which was confirmed after rewatching videos of the engagement.
• These appeared to be single-target clicks on specific characters to remove their wards.
• It seemingly only happened to people on the UD side, at least from what we observed, and from what was seen in any recorded footage.

Naturally, when one side of the engagement is having wards stripped mid-combat by a DM, they're going to have a pretty bad taste in their mouth and feel very strongly that the DM wanted one side in particular to come out on top.

I'm not saying this is the case, of course. The optics of it are just not the best, and stripping wards from one side is going to have a high probability of incurring such suspicions and opinions.

Recommendations:

As an alternative idea for breaking up engagements (that you feel started incorrectly), you could consider:

• Using Timestop (or some other DM mechanism to pause the game/combat)
• Appearing in between the two teams as DM.
• Using /shout to tell them to cease combat, disperse, restart the engagement properly, etc.
• Using a combination of the three.

That'd get the message through a lot more clearly and I think people on all sides would disengage if that were to happen.

Notification of Raids:

Admittedly, we pinged the DM channel about this raid later than we intended, though that is primarily my own fault, not anyone else's. We discussed it as a group and I took it upon myself to be the designated person to notify the DMs of the impending raid.

In the heat of organizing everything, I got quite distracted and it slipped my mind.

Thankfully, your shout about a reset served as a good reminder. So, I immediately pinged the DM channel to tell you guys we were mobilizing for a raid. I had intended to warn you all earlier, though.

I do want to note that my notification to the DM channel of the raid:

• Did not ask for the reset to be halted.
• Occured long before any combat began.
• Occurred before any opponents were on the same map as us.

Some final thoughts about the raid category itself, which sort of fell into a gray are that neither matched the description of a hard or a soft raid completely:

• It was not an attack on a settlement.
• It was not in an area with NPCs.
• At this point, it appeared to be more of a soft-raid, save for consisting over >6 players.
• A DM did recently ask us to, in the future, ping the DM channel as we're setting out for such raids. Which we did do this time! Even if it was later than initially intended. Which is really my own fault for trying to manage to much at once and forgetting to do so sooner.

All this said, I'll do my best to ensure that we give you more advance notice in the future!

[Cuchilla]

This is not about the present battle, only my experiences from previous events like this.

The best ones I been into, was when I had the feeling that both parties were under good control and guidance by a few leader players, and things only went forward when a DM was informed and in constant communication with the leader players. Any other player would then act according to what the leader players did. This means that any player involved, all the time, do know why things (like DM interventionm) happens. The event proceed slowly, and only when most players are aware of what is happening, and why

The worst were when everyone just played their own game, and there were several agendas going simultaneously, at the same time. Impossible to oversee by leaders, nor by DMs, because no DM, not even in a team, can coordinate such events. The event goes too fast for most of the players, things get out of control, and is really a bad experience for everyone involved. Because noone understands why, what and how.

As I wasn't involved in the actual PvP, I can't tell what happened. But from the previous comments, and the DMs explanation, I think that what happened, was more like the latter than the former.

[DM Raven]

Since input has already been provided regarding the opening question I'll be locking this thread. Any further concerns about DM behavior can be forwarded to DM Titania via a private message.