Community Based Monster Classes VII

[Hyudra]

What level do casters normally receive geas? From what I remember of it, it's a pretty beastly spell :3

12th level, give or take?

Thing about Geas is that it's got a long casting time. In this case, it's being drawn from for the 'I own you' aspect of the faerie. You do not want to be in their debt.


Boreal Whirlwind... is this... Is this Janna's Q, from LoL 0_o?

I take inspiration from a variety of places. Yes, Janna's Q was pretty much the starting point for that ability. She also inspired Zephyr.

[chrisrawr]

12th level, give or take?

Thing about Geas is that it's got a long casting time. In this case, it's being drawn from for the 'I own you' aspect of the faerie. You do not want to be in their debt.



I take inspiration from a variety of places. Yes, Janna's Q was pretty much the starting point for that ability. She also inspired Zephyr.

Many loves for this. Yeah, the Fae are beastly. Not quite as militantly powerful as humans, but a helluvalot scarier.

Would play, would enjoy.

[Hyudra]

Sounds reasonable at first, but the problem is that the determination of what is "quality work" should be made by the nominators, not the caretakers. If two dozen people vote for a monster to be accepted, it is not the place of one or two to set that vote aside because they do not think it is up to their standards. A democratic process will always include some results that an individual finds unpalatable. The solution is not to set aside democracy in favor of oligarchy (at least not if you want to remain on this message board).

Has that cleared up any questions about our stance on this thread?

Just explaining where we were coming from:

The trouble is that the results weren't just unpalatable. They were unplayable. People were promoting and voting for content that was appealing to them but which could not be brought to a table and used, due to swathes of missing content, nonspecific rules, unclear or open-to-interpretation text, massive imbalance issues and/or abilities that would have made a combat take twice as long to resolve (10+ dice rolls in a turn).

We have seen, prior to the 'ogliarchy', among other things:
Unkillable monster classes.
Monster classes half again as powerful as the Wizard.
Monster classes which let a level 10 PC have a half dozen level 8 cohorts.
Monster classes which could kill one's own party by accident.
Monster classes which should have been cool but were on par with the commoner.
Monster classes with no abilities for half their levels nonetheless getting promoted to the list.

As a consequence, we had people expressing stuff to us like "I want to use a monster class, but my DM read some of the stuff and said it wasn't usable". Further, those who were producing quality work were getting little to no attention/votes. Generally speaking we went weeks or months between monsters getting added to the list, because votes were so few and far between, and that which did get added wasn't what anyone would hope for (let alone my/our own subjective opinions).

As such, we decided democracy just wasn't working and, as I mentioned on a previous post, we figured it would make sense to just have a 'council' of people who figured they knew what they were doing passing judgment. This wasn't exclusive - anyone who asked was free to join just by sending a PM (see front page, first post). The fact that it became an ogliarchy was more of an unhappy accident spurred on by the fact that only a few people could be bothered to review and/or give a verdict on others' work.

So that leaves us where we're at here - the mods are saying no rating system unless it's a democratic rating system, which we've seen be absolutely disastrous in the past. I also fear that (on the flip side of the coin) if we impose such, we're going to slide down the same road, where the people who can be bothered to vote are few & far between and are thus deemed a elite few and we get the mods looming ominously over our shoulders once more.

So I'm rather disappointed, lost and frustrated as a consequence. I'm sorry this thread is proving such a headache, mods.

[Crafty Cultist]

I think one of the biggest problems was a lack respect. The people who took charge of this project shouldn't be seen as bullies trying to force their opinions on others, but hardworking individuals who shouldered the burden of managing the project.

The option was made for anyone to join the council, but no others did, prefering to complain about the management than contribute to the job.

I understand that the forum staff are concerned with the issues caused by having a few people with higher authority than others, but if they didn't provide some form of quality control then this thread and all the classes that were worked hard on will lose any respect as part of a greater whole.

I for one trusted those in charge to know what they were doing, and my only issue was when I was given critique that I found to vague to follow. There has to be someone to have the final say or the project will split apart from all the disagreements that come from a group of people working like this.

[Gorgondantess]

Sounds reasonable at first, but the problem is that the determination of what is "quality work" should be made by the nominators, not the caretakers. If two dozen people vote for a monster to be accepted, it is not the place of one or two to set that vote aside because they do not think it is up to their standards. A democratic process will always include some results that an individual finds unpalatable. The solution is not to set aside democracy in favor of oligarchy (at least not if you want to remain on this message board).

{SCRUBBED}

And yes, we understand that an "oligarchy" won't be allowed. We're just saying, we believe it's the only system that'll work, and since it is not allowed, very clearly, then it is frustrating.

[Mystic Muse]

I for one trusted those in charge to know what they were doing, and my only issue was when I was given critique that I found to vague to follow. There has to be someone to have the final say or the project will split apart from all the disagreements that come from a group of people working like this.

We could always go to Competitor games. Remove the Oslecamo stuff and it's our own seperate project. Or we could make our own forum.

Those are the two options I'm currently leaning towards since our last method doesn't work here.

[Lyndworm]

Is there a problem with putting each new monster in its own thread, and then having a thread collecting them all? It's not against the rules to collect all of your favorite 'brews in one thread, after all.

[Makiru]

Honestly, I have quite a bit of free time, and I'd like to think that I'm getting a handle on the basics of our current level of quality. Should future rulings regarding the nature of the thread allow, I'd be more than happy to do some general critiques and lighten the load on everyone.

[Forum Staff]

I'm sorry this thread is proving such a headache, mods.

It is proving to be a headache, and as a result, it is now closed--this time permanently.

We have tried several times to explain exactly what sort of procedure was going to be required to keep this project open, and each time, the caretakers of this thread have balked at our demands because they wouldn't like what they believed would be the end results. Therefore, we have decided that if democracy "wasn't working" for you, then there is no need on our part to keep this thread open. We will not support a project that claims to be "community-based" that does not heed the verdicts of that community.

At this point, those wishing to continue creating and critiquing monster classes have the following options:

Begin your own thread for your own monster projects. Each person will have their own such thread, on which you can post as many monster classes as you want. If you have more than one monster class you wish to post, please keep them on the same thread together (they'll be merged if you try to start a new thread for each one). You will not be allowed to index other monster classes by other posters or on other threads, with or without the guise of a community-approved list.

Begin a "Hall of Fame" type thread, in a similar manner to Realms of Chaos' Homebrew Galleria (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188088) threads. However, note the following restrictions:
The process must be truly democratic, with no favored class of poster having the final say or any greater number of votes at all. No exceptions.
No monster classes may be "grandfathered" in from the existing list. Every class by every poster (banned or otherwise) must be nominated from scratch. This includes all "I vote for everything from the old master list!"-type shenanigans.
No posting new classes on the Hall of Fame thread. From now on, every person has their own thread. If you need to make changes to a monster that was posted on this or another locked thread, you have blanket permission to start a single new thread for the purposes of reposting all of your monster classes. (If you start more than one, they will be merged, as above.)
No critiquing or discussion of any given monster class on the Hall of Fame thread.
If there are more than one similar Hall of Fame threads springing up after this announcement, the moderators may merge them.

Continue this project on another message board where you can make it as exclusive as you wish. Such discussions should be conducted via PM or other private communications; do not start a thread about it.

The choice is, as befits the community-based spirit that this thread failed to capture, up to each of you individually.