Rules Change: 3+ Characters

EDIT: This post is outdated. Read the post below for current policy. This post will remain for records. Hi, all, The GMs have been discussing some old-established rules the Guild has and have been re-evaluating some of them to see if they still make sense now that the Guild has grown so large and continued for so long. With the reasonably large number of heroic sessions that have not gotten off the ground recently, we decided it was time to adjust one of our rules that governs the number of characters a player can have. As the rule stands now, each player is allowed one "main" character, one "alt," and one "paragon PC," the rules for which are below: Optional Third PC: When you have 2 characters that are paragon level or higher you may create a third PC at level 5 using normal character creation rules. This PC does not have to be a different role from your other characters. It is, however, strongly encouraged that you take advantage of this extra PC slot to try out new things such as a role you have not played much before or an interesting hybrid. However, we have many players who wish to help new players fill in heroic games but do not want to give up all the progress they have made on their other high-level PCs by retiring them down to 5. With that in mind, the rule above will be supplemented with the following: Additional PCs: When all your player characters (excluding DMPCs) are paragon level or higher, you may create another PC at level 5 using normal character creation rules. This PC does not have to be a different role from your other characters. It is, however, strongly encouraged that you take advantage of this extra PC slot to try out new things such as a role you have not played much before or an interesting hybrid. Any player character from the fourth PC onwards (excluding DMPCs) will have anti-priority for any sessions they roll to play. This means that any and all players that are eligible and roll or wait will have priority over these characters and will be automatically accepted to the session before any anti-priority PCs (APPCs) are allowed to join. Players who roll in with anti-priority PCs must inform the DM running about their anti-priority status or risk forfeiture of their character. On a player's name, the APPCs' levels should be marked by an asterisk, e.g. "Matt W. (18S,16D,12L,6C*)." Once the APPC levels up to paragon, another APPC may be made following these same rules. The anti-priority tag is permanent on a character, regardless of its level. A player may however remove the anti-priority tag on a character by retiring one of its non-anti-priority PCs. If they do so, the former APPC counts as one of the three non-APPC "character slots" for that player. I tried to be as thorough as possible and likely ended up being overly wordy, but questions about this policy can be asked here or in the Questions thread . Good hunting!

I was going to make a whole new thread for this, but we've already got one! As of today, we will be implementing a new policy for people with additional characters that supersedes the APPC Policy . The previous APPC policy can be found in the post above. The rationale behind the policy was that older players with high level characters would still have an opportunity to play in low-level games, but with anti-priority, so newer players and their characters would still have first dibs on low-level sessions. This worked, to an extent, but it had unforeseen consequences, specifically concerning the following rule: A player may however remove the anti-priority tag on a character by retiring one of its non-anti-priority PCs. If they do so, the former APPC counts as one of the three non-APPC "character slots" for that player. The problem was not immediately apparent, but it became more evident over time. The Guild has always been a pyramid in terms of player levels: lots of heroic characters, fewer paragons, and (recently) a couple of epics; the number of games for each group follows a similar pyramidal pattern. Thus, people with very high level characters have few opportunities for sessions and have actually been incentivized to retire their high-level characters. This creates a feedback loop: Few games for epic --> People retire epic characters to have heroics --> Few epic characters --> Harder to organize epic games --> Fewer epic games. Since some older players were just retiring their characters to avoid the curse of anti-priority and we were losing the ability to run very high-level games, the GMs decided that the policy needed a change. With that in mind, we will be altering the additional player character policy by removing the anti-priority from new characters. The rules text for additional characters will instead read as follows: Additional PCs: When all your player characters (excluding DMPCs) are paragon level or higher, you may create another PC at level 5 using normal character creation rules. This PC does not have to be a different role from your other characters. It is, however, strongly encouraged that you take advantage of this extra PC slot to try out new things such as a role you have not played much before or an interesting hybrid. Players with higher-level PCs are encouraged, but not required, to step aside in favor of newer players for lower-level sessions. As always, DMs have the ultimate word on which players get to take part in their sessions. We are lucky enough to have a community that is by and large understanding and encouraging of our new players, so between older players' willingness to stand aside for newer players and DMs' ability to give selective priority where they see as appropriate, I do not foresee this change causing issues of exclusion for new players in low-level sessions. That's it for now from the GMs. questions about the policy can be asked here or in the Questions thread . Good hunting!