Optimize the scheduling system

Hello everybody... we found that there are still some issues with the scheduling system and we have different ideas about what we would like a system to include. For this it is also important to understand the intentions that Stephen has for this campaign: If the characters reach a certain level a different stage of the campaign will be triggered, therefore he has stated that he actively encourages people to have more than one character. He does not want to have new people discouraged because they will feel like they are left behind or a burdon to everybody else or that people have to chose "boring" missions because they don't want to risk the lives of the new PCs. Everybody should have the possibility to have a spotlight RP moment in the game. That can mean that certain characters are not in the same mission because their natural interaction does not allow for these moments)&nbsp; So I propose that we players try to find a common ground solution and then maybe stephen can see if he likes it or not and has not to waste his time on it... :) First a warp up of the current rules: Stephen announces game spot + the time when the game will happen + the time when the signing up process starts. Everyone races for the singing up time and we have 10 postings in 1 seconds. Then this kicks in:&nbsp; <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/3200606/" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/3200606/</a> (pass system: 2 passes new players , 1 pass for 2ndary active character , &nbsp;1 adventure pass for established characters, but if you have 2 mins, read please the full posting by stephen. Also someone ask Stephen what "established means" is there a lvl or mission bar that needs to be passed?) Advantages: New players always get a spot for at least the first two games Characters can go on missions that are essential to their story (e.g. Mission is launched to Baels Isle, since Sharleen's sword is there, Sharleen's pass was played to grant her a guaranteed spot) New characters won't be staying to far behind because they get one guaranteed mission. You can veto out one(?) character that you do not want with you on a mission (e.g. you have planned something you would make sure to not include your main adversary in your travel companions...)&nbsp; (Potential) Problems: There is still a race for spots and the fastest (i.e. people with more free time at the sign up point of time) will almost always get a spot. There is no possibility to say: I want to go with this person to this mission because I trust that character, unless both decide to play their passes at the same session. It does not prevent the careening away of some PCs experience wise and might disencourage some players because they feel left behind.&nbsp; It does not encourage overly the creation of new group dynamics/a more vivid mixing of different characters on different missions. It is right now unclear if multiple people can use their character adventure pass in the same session and when they get refreshed There were the following proposals: All characters that played in the last (x) session(s) will automatically be put at the end of the list. All characters that did not play in the last (x) session(s) will automatically be promoted (inverse option 1) Characters can only play x out of y games. If x = 1 option 1 and 2 are identical.&nbsp; These rules should IMO be applied after the passes have been accounted for. I will try to update this and once we players feel we have an agreement we can ask stephen :)

How about for a first suggestion if we schedule one session a week that the players can decide the day, the time and the objective and this is when one character can play their adventure pass. That way, even those who have strange schedules can play (allowing for the fact that I am NOT playing past 12 midnight my time, UTC+1). The rest of the sessions could then be either first come first served. Thoughts?

I think that very much depends on you Stephen, if you can make that happen with your schedule I think it would be a nice asset. People who have similar interests could play their passes together. E.g. if there is a session involving something that has to do with Issildra probably Syvil and Erolith would like to involved. It does however not solve some of the other issue IMO (stressing the my in there, other's might disagree) e.g. it does not prevent the race issue, so I think the idea of putting people that were not in the last session forward is still a good addition.&nbsp;

Agreed PK; I was trying to address the scheduling issues for some people and the fact that people can't adventure together etc. That is important to me as it was one of the main ingredients of the original West Marches game. I could probably do this; if I have enough warning. As for dealing with the 'session sign-up race' on one hand I like it, because some competitiveness drives the game forward, on the other hand, it is biased towards those who have more time etc and is a negative for those on very different time zones. So; maybe we tweak things by just having a rule that you cannot be in two consequtive sessions unless there are not enough players for the game to run?

I personally like the idea of the passes but I think the sign up race should be tweaked slightly I think we should have different combinations of parties instead of the usuals who are always ready for an adventure. Though for those who don't have much time and whenever there is a session they should get first dibs regardless of who signs up first though I can also see how that could be abused too.

If Sloth is updating the number of sessions each character has been in, that could be used to generate a system whereby we open booking at time x and close at time y and everyone asking to be that session is then ranked based upon the number of previous sessions they have been in. People with more sessions go to the bottom, those with less, higher up. Problem is; the regulars, like Syvil, Erolith, Sloth, PK and Sharleen would find it hard to get a game under that system; unless all the other players have gone inactive (and then we have a different problem).

Yeah I am not sure if that is the way to go, if you say they get deprioritized or those that were not in the last session get prioritized you have a similar effect without e.g. established PCs having to wait for the next 10 sessions to pass for the new people to catch up ;) I would also in this case say that the co gm sessions count for that for Syvil, even though he literally can't play in those sessions, it is still a session where other characters catch up.

Well; I guess that the reason I am hesitant to introduce a system whereby we look within a week for who has played and then mark them down in the sign up system because of that, is because it's yet another thing I would have to monitor and sort out before each session; and the session prep is time consuming enough as it is...............

But that's ok, we could track and take care of that... it is just one post we have to check, ideally, the session log shows who was in the last session :) We could add that whoever writes the log says so in the last posting of the session posting and posts everyone that was on the trip. I think it is the same amount of effort that a counting how many sessions a character played in total. And since there is competition it would be a self enforcing rule because people would make sure that they do not lose a session because someone falsely puts their name down even though they should not be on it ;) Personally the proposal with checking the total sessions played is good in making sure everyone is at the same level but in reality that heavily punishes the more active players at least in the beginning. There will be borderline no differentiation between who is more active and who is not except one person having 20 PCs and another 2...&nbsp; Also not all sessions are equal, but neither of the systems accounts for that. However, it is easier in the "priority every other session" to wave someone through because the last session was not very successful (although it is most likely also their fault ;))&nbsp; and they got almost no XP and start trailing behind...

What do other people think? If players manage this system then I am fine with this. But, as usual, the devil is in the detail. How would you implement such a system? I would suggest it has to be a fairly heavy penalty; something like -3 roster postions for every game you have played that week (weeks would start on Sundays I think). So if you signed up first, by time, you would end up 4th if you had played in one game and 7th if you had played in two. Or did you have something else in mind?

ya i like that idea&nbsp;

Keeping track of the week and sessions played and variable rank modifiers might be more work than it's worth? It would be easier to just look at who was in the previous session and then, once all the normal sign-up rules have been done, simply move those who were present for that below those who weren't. So if we had a session A, with Simon, Sloth, Niko, Taleek, PK and Ernie Then for session B got signups like: Simon, Sloth, Derek, Zil, Josh, Mikey, Thai, Seraphina Derek and Mikey would go to the first and second place since they have new chracters and such and say no one plays an adventure pass. Normally it would then follow on with Simon, but since Simon and Sloth played in the previous one we'd move them down the list until they were behind anyone who hadn't- giving us a final order Derek, Mikey, Zil, Josh, Thai, Seraphina, Simon, Sloth

Zilarrezko said: Keeping track of the week and sessions played and variable rank modifiers might be more work than it's worth? It would be easier to just look at who was in the previous session and then, once all the normal sign-up rules have been done, simply move those who were present for that below those who weren't. So if we had a session A, with Simon, Sloth, Niko, Taleek, PK and Ernie Then for session B got signups like: Simon, Sloth, Derek, Zil, Josh, Mikey, Thai, Seraphina Derek and Mikey would go to the first and second place since they have new chracters and such and say no one plays an adventure pass. Normally it would then follow on with Simon, but since Simon and Sloth played in the previous one we'd move them down the list until they were behind anyone who hadn't- giving us a final order Derek, Mikey, Zil, Josh, Thai, Seraphina, Simon, Sloth ya i think that could work give a nice rotation and would let people who have not played more play&nbsp;

I can see that working too; I certainly don't want to be tracking this sort of stuff.

The only thing I'd say is that under your system, it's VERY unlikely someone would play two sessions in a row whereas my system is not quite as punitive. Also, for either of these systems to work fairly, we'd have to extend the time the booking system was open to 24 hours.

For as long as I continue playing here I am volunteering for keeping track of that... that is: people who played the last 2 sessions. More is imo excessive and we won't gain anything from it :)

OK; we will trial my -3 places system for the next week and see how it goes, if that's OK with you PK? It might be some work because I'm off to the Lakes this evening and so the game shall indeed begin!

d'accord

The sunday session schedule has raised questons Stephen Dove said: Hmm; interesting PK: your examples raise some interesting questions; 1) Do the negative mods apply before or after the passes have been played? In the example you have played the -3 mod then the passes............ 2) Do the negative mods stick to a characters or a players? 3) Should the face to face game (on Thursday evening) count for sessions played during the week in terms of acquiring negative modifiers? Please discuss and then I'll make some rulings....... The list looks like this <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/3250716/" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/3250716/</a> 1. Derek B (Rurik 1; dead PC pass) 2. Sloth (Cain; lvl 4) 3. Ithiloneth (Syvil 4) 4. Simon H (Beldak 3) 5. PK (Marokin 3) 6. Seraphina (Jon Heron 3) 7. Josh S (Erolith 3) 8. Taleek (Sharleen 3) 9. Niko S (Meren 3 <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/3250808/" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/3250808/</a> With the new system and&nbsp; If josh and derek play their pass: Josh (adventure pass) Derek (level 1 pass?) Beldak Syvil (-3 penality) Cain (-3 penalit) ... &nbsp;&nbsp; Marokin (-3 penality) Jon Heron (-3 penalty) Sharleen (-3 penalty) Meren (-3 penalty)

i think it should be players not characters has the whole point i feel is to get different people playing together not just pc

@josh could you also mention the other 2 points? 1) I think after feels more consistent and there will be rarely sessions in which it actually makes a difference I think. There have to be 3 ppl that either play pass or are at the top part of the queue and not in the last session. (the example session e.g. would remein the same) The more interesting question is where do we start with the moving back? I favour starting in the back because otherwise you will just have a permutation of 3 people if you have 4 with a consecutive -3) and it creates the bigger shuffle of players/player groups e.g. moving the -3 from top to button aY being players that have not been in the last session, bX being players that have been. a &nbsp; -&gt; a &nbsp;&nbsp;-&gt;&nbsp;a &nbsp; -&gt; a &nbsp; -&gt; a &nbsp; -&gt; a b1&nbsp;-&gt; b2&nbsp;-&gt;&nbsp;b3 -&gt; b4 -&gt;&nbsp;b1 -&gt; b1 b2&nbsp;-&gt; b3&nbsp;-&gt;&nbsp;b4 -&gt; b1 -&gt;&nbsp;b2 -&gt; b2 b3&nbsp;-&gt; b4&nbsp;-&gt;&nbsp;b1 -&gt; b2 -&gt;&nbsp;b3 -&gt; b3 b4 -&gt; b1&nbsp;-&gt;&nbsp;b2 -&gt; b3 -&gt;&nbsp;b4 -&gt; a2 a2&nbsp;-&gt; a2&nbsp;-&gt;&nbsp;a2 -&gt; a2 -&gt;&nbsp;a2 -&gt; b4 moving the -3 from button to top: &nbsp; a -&gt; a -&gt; a -&gt; a -&gt; a -&gt; a b1 -&gt; b1 -&gt; b1 -&gt; b1 -&gt; a2&nbsp; b2 -&gt; b2 -&gt; b2 -&gt; a2 -&gt; b1&nbsp; b3 -&gt; b3 -&gt; a2 -&gt; b2 -&gt; b2&nbsp; b4 -&gt; a2 -&gt; b3 -&gt; b3 -&gt; b3&nbsp; a2 -&gt; b4 -&gt; b4 -&gt; b4 -&gt; b4&nbsp; 2) I am not so sure about the players vs characters, would be great if sb else would also say what they think about it and then there are the other&nbsp; A mod to the characters is an incentive to play different characters and might just be that the same people play together but with different characters, as josh basically stated. 3) I don't know how it is for the face2face people. I think it would be fairer for the non face2face people though :) we don't get a session where we are automatically in and get to see the geminoid in person...&nbsp; PS: Updated the discussion thread to have the example from the session linked & copied...

well my point was that this game will end soon at the rate people are leveling and my point was if we cut leveling down in a big way only give normal or max xp for when a player finishes a goal so like cain getting his gem or me getting the veiled one otherwise cut the xp gain in half and only give extra for exploring maladon not for doing something in the same area like if people want to go to the vale but get side tracked and never make it they only get a little xp for being in the same area but if they do make it then they get the normal explorer xp but that xp is not normal level xp its half i think you should only get full xp for completing pc goals and only that character gets the full xp the others get half this would cut down leveling alot make people want to see new areas and have more in game golas&nbsp;

The -3 stacks. Meaning someone who has been in two games is at a minus six, three games and a minus nine will be your fine.

and i think we should look at players not just characters because playing with the same people is boring even if they do have different characters its still the same person and if they are not great at rp or cant do a new play style your just seeing the same thing again take myself i would like to play more with resking and merein or even taleek seeing how i have not played with them much and the point of this seeing how we have such a big community is that people get to play with each other otherwise information and story hooks will just be missed and having a new experience is just not going to happen we will just be flooding the game with different characters controlled by the same people you keep playing with &nbsp;&nbsp;

First of all: this partly dips into the "how can we slow character advancement down" issue. If we would not have to than there is no reason to try to heavily promote people playing more than one character (which some don't want to do and we imo have to respect, even though I love to have more than one character :) and know that I will have to choose which character is going to fall far behind because of that) @Simon good point I think there was no ruling yet how often it stacks and whether not being in one game erases all the stacks or not.&nbsp; Also the co GMing sessions are something that should be decided. IMO they should count as games played because they are canon. So imo we should count them for the PCs but not for Simon since he is not playing but GMing.&nbsp; @josh I agree that getting sidetracked should not be awarded, but I don't think it is being awarded right now (see some of the sessions where nothing got done. However sometimes the sidetracking yields information like the piece of paper regarding Marcus)&nbsp; Personally I would not have a problem if we say e.g. at lvl 5 you can't gain xp until other players caught up a bit or you only gain half as much xp as everyone else... just so that I potentially get things in the story done that I want to do before the endgame starts. Regarding the getting something done like your achievement or story it is very difficult because you are in a group and it's a community... the player pass system will give each player in a certain period the possibility to focus the advancement of one of their characters story (that is, if it is as simple as going to a place ;) e.g. cain did not know in advance that this guy is a gem... Marokin's advancement focuses right now on the interaction with other people... Sharleen's and boone are cases for which it was a bit more straightforward. Also for Reskin/meren the avatar thingy, whole different story/issue anyway. And I am pretty sure most people, esp some characters, would be annoyed if I play a players pass for going to the different libraries and persuading people to do this and that ;p) But: there is no guarantee that the party does not get sidetracked and the players pass was played without the character getting done what they wanted to get done :)&nbsp; The information exchange is imo a completely different topic and has IMO nothing to do with the scheduling: The characters we have here are just a bunch of paranoid information hoarding ... wankers(?) who think they cannot trust the other players with nothing and that people have to earn their trust although we have been on this island together for a year or so... I realized that my character for sure falls into this category (although Marokin is _much_ more open than some of the others, hello Erolith!!!) and perhaps I will change that a bit, or have on of my new characters be much more open about what they find and share.&nbsp; You could say it is our characters making their own lives harder :)&nbsp;

P K. said: The information exchange is imo a completely different topic and has IMO nothing to do with the scheduling: The characters we have here are just a bunch of paranoid information hoarding ... wankers(?) who think they cannot trust the other players with nothing and that people have to earn their trust although we have been on this island together for a year or so... I realized that my character for sure falls into this category (although Marokin is _much_ more open than some of the others, hello Erolith!!!) and perhaps I will change that a bit, or have on of my new characters be much more open about what they find and share.&nbsp; You could say it is our characters making their own lives harder :)&nbsp; Hey, I/Boone publically published info on how people could protect themselves from Dromen with Rowanwood, and wuld be happy to do more of that if I come across such lore. It's only the power of god-like beings capable of reshaping reality that im being cautious with given im surrounded by questionable characters who often think ends justify the means etc. :P Also, from me as a player perspective I would be lying if said I wasnt a little bit peeved off by how some people more or less weren't bothered to try and involve me in some of these plotline thingies, not until I just so happened to find myself in possesion of an interesting and powerful trinket they might also like to play with...

Zil I made a post having to deal with you called Wheat and Potatoes. Also most RP posts happen when x and y are in the discord and think something up and post it. Otherwise you have to put your character into the situation to get RP.

I did see the wheat thing, I wasnt ignoring it - just putting it off until I had more time. I would try and hang out on discord more but I cant do voice chat most of the time, and I can't really put my character into situations if I dont know even OOC about those situations. Also I'm not saying that I expect to be involved in everyone's stories, just that its a bit offputting to have people expect to get involved in mine or for me to help them advance their own when their interest is or atleast feels overtly self-serving

ah yeah, well I still need to write to aurelia on that matter btw... edit: Well I don't know, I think you just got unlucky with the characters that are involved in similar parts of the story... can't speak for Erolith, but&nbsp;Marokin is indeed somewhat self serving unless he gets to know you properly ;p And as Boone might remember when we were at the Inn he was asking politely and even taking the proposal to not move the book out of your sight, that offer btw still stands... just recent happenings have made him a bit less patient :) But that is perhaps a different thread and should not be in the scheduling thingy...

Zilarrezko said: P K. said: The information exchange is imo a completely different topic and has IMO nothing to do with the scheduling: The characters we have here are just a bunch of paranoid information hoarding ... wankers(?) who think they cannot trust the other players with nothing and that people have to earn their trust although we have been on this island together for a year or so... I realized that my character for sure falls into this category (although Marokin is _much_ more open than some of the others, hello Erolith!!!) and perhaps I will change that a bit, or have on of my new characters be much more open about what they find and share.&nbsp; You could say it is our characters making their own lives harder :)&nbsp; Hey, I/Boone publically published info on how people could protect themselves from Dromen with Rowanwood, and wuld be happy to do more of that if I come across such lore. It's only the power of god-like beings capable of reshaping reality that im being cautious with given im surrounded by questionable characters who often think ends justify the means etc. :P Also, from me as a player perspective I would be lying if said I wasnt a little bit peeved off by how some people more or less weren't bothered to try and involve me in some of these plotline thingies, not until I just so happened to find myself in possesion of an interesting and powerful trinket they might also like to play with... your saying that your being kept out but i came to you to give you information and you told Erolith to f off and for being kept out of rp i left you and open invite to join Erolith in runic street for rp and you never got back to me i even asked ooc plus you have been off sick&nbsp;

joshua s. said: your saying that your being kept out but i came to you to give you information and you told Erolith to f off and for being kept out of rp i left you and open invite to join Erolith in runic street for rp and you never got back to me i even asked ooc plus you have been off sick&nbsp; Yes, well 1) Erolith is a bit of an edgelord who's attitude and often his actions are at odds with the philosophy I'm playing Boone with, so it's not likely he's going to just leap too and salute when Erolith comes a callin'. Also while conflict can be good drama and good drama is fun, too much and you just get sick of it, I don't want to have to RP that conflict more often than I have to because I quickly find it draining. What else do you think would happen if a shady, underground quasi-mafia don and an honest-to-a-fault Quaker preacher worked together? 2) You only did that because you learned OOC about Boone's book. That's what peeves me, you literally spelt it out in the thread, you weren't even subtle about it. You thought you already had it and then when you found out that you didn't, all of a sudden right out of the blue Erolith is wandering into Chanters Hall for a chat! Despite never having shown the absolute slightest hint of interest before in all the weeks and months of actual real time you've had before then, during most of which neither of us were ill. If it had turned out that I had given it to Marokin earlier on and that he had actually given you a copy then I am 100% sure that little jaunt would never have happened. That's what I mean about not being involved in things, or 'kept out' until it just so happens to be convenient. You didn't want to get me involved because you're my friend, you didn't want me to get involved because Erolith has a high opinion of Boone, or you enjoy interacting with the character, you only did it because you saw there was something cool that you didn't have and you wanted to get in on it. It could hardly have been more obvious and I really didn't appreciate how you went about it. Now, before this gets any further and poor Stephen thinks the social monster is going to erupt again(if it hasn't already...) I'm going to say this is the end of the matter for me, I don't think you're a nasty person or that you intended any actual malice so I'm happy to put it behind and move on. I'll not join the runic borough or whatever it is you're doing and you won't come after and get involved with me, atleast not for a while. Then if we end up in the same sessions we can play nice, and if later on in the campaign these things come up again I'll do my best not to let this colour anything and we'll take things from there.

Zilarrezko said: joshua s. said: your saying that your being kept out but i came to you to give you information and you told Erolith to f off and for being kept out of rp i left you and open invite to join Erolith in runic street for rp and you never got back to me i even asked ooc plus you have been off sick&nbsp; Yes, well 1) Erolith is a bit of an edgelord who's attitude and often his actions are at odds with the philosophy I'm playing Boone with, so it's not likely he's going to just leap too and salute when Erolith comes a callin'. Also while conflict can be good drama and good drama is fun, too much and you just get sick of it, I don't want to have to RP that conflict more often than I have to because I quickly find it draining. What else do you think would happen if a shady, underground quasi-mafia don and an honest-to-a-fault Quaker preacher worked together? 2) You only did that because you learned OOC about Boone's book. That's what peeves me, you literally spelt it out in the thread, you weren't even subtle about it. You thought you already had it and then when you found out that you didn't, all of a sudden right out of the blue Erolith is wandering into Chanters Hall for a chat! Despite never having shown the absolute slightest hint of interest before in all the weeks and months of actual real time you've had before then, during most of which neither of us were ill. If it had turned out that I had given it to Marokin earlier on and that he had actually given you a copy then I am 100% sure that little jaunt would never have happened. That's what I mean about not being involved in things, or 'kept out' until it just so happens to be convenient. You didn't want to get me involved because you're my friend, you didn't want me to get involved because Erolith has a high opinion of Boone, or you enjoy interacting with the character, you only did it because you saw there was something cool that you didn't have and you wanted to get in on it. It could hardly have been more obvious and I really didn't appreciate how you went about it. Now, before this gets any further and poor Stephen thinks the social monster is going to erupt again(if it hasn't already...) I'm going to say this is the end of the matter for me, I don't think you're a nasty person or that you intended any actual malice so I'm happy to put it behind and move on. I'll not join the runic borough or whatever it is you're doing and you won't come after and get involved with me, atleast not for a while. Then if we end up in the same sessions we can play nice, and if later on in the campaign these things come up again I'll do my best not to let this colour anything and we'll take things from there. i think you need to rethink things you have only just spelt out you had a book that could help us in game and my character has only just learned you have something that could help he is not going to come to you at the start when he dont know you and you have not started any rp threads apart from so if you want information or rp nothing stopping you and if you were in game or in the rp threads your know my character talks like that with everyone not just you so dont take it so personal not everyone is going to be all nice nice when talking&nbsp;

also i didnt learn ooc about your book i learn about it in character i asked people to look into windsingers for me so thats how i know i didnt just jump a thread&nbsp;

maybe we should talk about this in discord, personally IMO I have no quarrel with either of you even though Marokin is quite annoyed with boone and to some extend with Aurelia... &nbsp;:) But just to confirm: Marokin heard Boone singing on the way to the vale, he then would have told Erolith about that happening, but he ended up being sealed in a can of holy water... so only afterwards he ran into Erolith again...

I will reply to the above in the Social Monster Thread; since that's essentially what this is about I suspect.

There still is no final ruling on this system Currently I do the moving from the buttom to lower, for the reasons that otherwise it has limited effect.

Am posting a simple suggestion for a tier system. The explanation is a bit long for clarity, but it is very simple in practice. The system has 2 core values in order of importance: 1. Making sure a wide variety of players have a chance to play in games. 2. Ensuring players who post early on in signups have a better chance of getting to play in games. The system is broken up into four tiers: Tier 1: The free pass/new character tier. Not sure what the decided rules are on this, but this is the tier for people who are guaranteed to get into the game. Tier 2: This is the tier for people who have played in 0 out of the last 2 games. Tier 3: This is the tier for people who have played in 1 out of the last 2 games Tier 4: This is the tier for people who have played in 2 out of the last 2 games. When organizing the list of players you do the following three things: 1.) Players signup. Players are required to include their current tier. 2.) Organize each tier by who posted first. Just like you would normally except you organize each tier individually. 3.) Combine the lists starting with tier 1, then 2, then 3, and finally 4. Example: Player A signs up as tier 3 Player B signs up as tier 4 Player C signs up as tier 2 Player D signs up as tier 3 Player E signs up as tier 2 Player F signs up as tier 4 Player G signs up as tier 1 Player H signs up as tier 2 Player I signs up as tier 2 Player J signs up as tier 3 Player K signs up as tier 1 Tier 1: Player G Player K Tier 2: Player C Player E Player H Player I Tier 3 Player A Player D Player J Tier 4 Player B Player F Final List: 1. Player G 2. Player K 3. Player C 4. Player E 5. Player H 6. Player I 7. Player A 8. Player D 9. Player J 10. Player B 11. Player F Keep in mind anyone who doesn't make it into the game would move up a tier. In this example for instance "Player A" would be tier 2 instead of tier 3 next time they signed up for a game. Assuming the normal 6 player limit was applied. First come first serve can also make a difference. If there was an 8 player limit for example "Player A" and "Player D" would make it in for posting early, but not "Player J." This method also doesn't punish a player who misses a chance to signup. You move up a tier regardless whenever you miss out on a game. So if you've been on vacation for two weeks and come back you would be able to signup as tier 2 right away. On a final note this system could easily be made into a 3 tier system by removing the current tier 1 (the guaranteed tier). I think new players would have an easy time getting into games considering it will always be their first game, but that is just my opinion. What benefit does this have over the current system? The current system rewards signing up extremely early over securing that everyone gets to play. This system would be more focused on allowing a wider variety of players to make it into games, while still offering some benefits for those who post quickly at signup. Under the current system for example someone who has played in both of the last two games gets a (-6) modifier. If they posted first on signup they would still be almost guaranteed a spot in a 6 person game as they would move from 1st place to 6th. Given that signups normally have 4+ people posting within seconds I think the current system likely leaves getting into games based more on luck than any real merit or need to play. Often times if you are say working or otherwise busy when signups start you simply will not have any chance to make it into the game as the thread is flooded in quite literally seconds. Overall I believe this system would strike a good balance between getting a wide variety of players into your games, but at the same time still rewarding heavily dedicated players for signing up quickly. Albeit signing up quickly would not be as beneficial as it currently is. Thanks for you consideration. Elee

worth considering! as the Jim F case shows there are situations in which it makes quite a difference with the tiers. Jim F would be tier 1 (I guess) and get a spot.

Actually; what Jim F's case shows is that I need to widen the time slot for signups. If his signup had been within the 6 pm to 9 am signup slot he would have been in tonight's game whatever system we used; he is a first level character who has only played once. He gets two free passes and has not yet used the second.

I think widening the sign up itme could be good. I would ad that if you widen the timeslot, that you also give more advance warning. It would be annoying to sign up for a game, think you were in, and then be shuffled out a few hours before the game starts. I may not have a life, and thus be able to sit around hoping to the very last, but I bet many would not be so willing.

Agreed; the reason for not widening the sign-up window is the constrained nature of my schedule at the moment. I sometimes have troube predicting when I can run. It ain't conducive to any kind of planning.....................

@stephen, yes so he would still have one pass , but he hasn't played in a month and should therefore have a higher priority I guess. In the malus system he would be on place 7 without having a pass , with elee's system he would be on place 5....

Well then something is wrong with the way the system is being applied. How is he on 7? A new player pass trumps everything except an adventure pass and so he should be on 2 after Elee..............

P.K meant without the pass; seems to be a theoretical exercise looking at how a player who has not played for a month would get placed.

aha! I get you! You mean he should be compensated for not playing a game in a long while..........................Hmm. That is correct.

exactly, elee's system does that more than the malus system and partly takes care of that, another option would be to renew these passes maybe every month? or so? &nbsp;this will not be a lvl 1 character issue eventually and willl become really interesting when the average level is 5 and so new PCs start at 5 but a few of the others are trailing back...

I quite see Elee's system doing well but 4 tiers is more than I like. If we were to set it so that the 4th tier did not exist I'd be more inclined towards it. If the point is to get those who don't play in, I don't see why we need to prevent early sign uppers from competing in the third tier; those who haven't played aren't affected by that, right? As a disclosure to those who haven't had much contact with me before, and to be transparent as to my motivations, I'll say it again, and plainly; I really want to play. So I will, in as fair a manner as I can, lobby for systems where I would be able to play more. Suggestion clarification: Tier 1: The free pass/new character tier. Not sure what the decided rules are on this, but this is the tier for people who are guaranteed to get into the game. Tier 2: This is the tier for people who have played in 0 out of the last 2 games. Tier 3: This is the tier for people who have played in 1 out of the last 2 games

personally I don't see the big difference between 3 and 4 tiers... but if at all: Tier 3: This is the tier for people who have played in at least one out of the last 2 games. just to be more accurate (yes, sometimes i am german)

I am not sure I follow you meaning; you changed the 1 to "one"? Is that the only thing? ^^ I am always in favour of better grammar so if that's it Id say don't worry :)

no i added "at least" :)