A small(ish) boquet of questions

[Odaarus]

It goes without saying that I am new here, but I want to get an idea of what to expect before I head in-game. I have plenty of prior experience with roleplaying, but I'm curious as to how CotH compares to some of the other RP environments I've inhabited before.

I may ask more questions in this thread as they come to mind, but the first salvo is regarding GMs -- what do they do, exactly? Can they be seen in-game, or are they/can they be invisible?
For example, in Neverwinter Nights, a Dungeon Master:

• Is nearly omnipotent.
  
• Can choose whether or not to be visible to players.
  
• Manipulates the world from an OOC standpoint to enhance the experience of those who are IC, but can also "go IC" by controlling and emoting/speaking through mobs, or providing narration.
  
• Can freely spawn any monster, NPC, or item.
  
• Can change anything about a player's appearance or stats at will.
  
• Holds the fate of everyone in their hands, in more ways than one.
  
• Is a volunteer who is either a member of the admin team, or has (we hope) been carefully interviewed, handpicked, and trained by the server administration to provide the best possible experience to the server at large.
  

As you can probably guess, the DMs had a whole lot of responsibility and a ton of clout. Are GMs in CotH similar, or are they more like moderators with less direct power over the world?

[Maarten]

First of all, welcome to the server.
From what I gather from my personal experience in events and outside events aswell, GMs can become invisible and spawn mobs/items. I've never seen one changing stats or anything. I think if you want to become an admin you will have to make an application first and go through a test phase.

Hope this helps.

[WingedReaver]

It goes without saying that I am new here, but I want to get an idea of what to expect before I head in-game. I have plenty of prior experience with roleplaying, but I'm curious as to how CotH compares to some of the other RP environments I've inhabited before.

I may ask more questions in this thread as they come to mind, but the first salvo is regarding GMs -- what do they do, exactly? Can they be seen in-game, or are they/can they be invisible?
For example, in Neverwinter Nights, a Dungeon Master:

• Is nearly omnipotent.
  
• Can choose whether or not to be visible to players.
  
• Manipulates the world from an OOC standpoint to enhance the experience of those who are IC, but can also "go IC" by controlling and emoting/speaking through mobs, or providing narration.
  
• Can freely spawn any monster, NPC, or item.
  
• Can change anything about a player's appearance or stats at will.
  
• Holds the fate of everyone in their hands, in more ways than one.
  
• Is a volunteer who is either a member of the admin team, or has (we hope) been carefully interviewed, handpicked, and trained by the server administration to provide the best possible experience to the server at large.
  

As you can probably guess, the DMs had a whole lot of responsibility and a ton of clout. Are GMs in CotH similar, or are they more like moderators with less direct power over the world?

DM's can be GM's, but not all DM's are GM's, I believe. Though, I suppose being a GM helps a ton with the dungeon mastering - being able to spawn mobs is just the start.

I believe that GM's are handpicked through Forum Helpers (the fellows with the purple names). FH's themselves go through applications. Once selected, GM's go through a Trial GM phase and then they are promoted to full GM's.

They can do all the things you've listed, I think, but I haven't seen any directly interfering with my RP unless (s)he were in the RP. Never seen them change any stats, either. But I have had a GM controlling an NPC near me and have it talk for a brief time.

[Caravan]

a Dungeon Master:

• Is nearly omnipotent. I wish! Why am I still human!? In all seriousness, it does help that there are a lot of us. Information is shared by both the GM Team and anyone who has an issue can come to us about it.
  
• Can choose whether or not to be visible to players. Yep! This is true, we can go invisible. Extremely handy when working events or assisting/checking in on players and issues.
  
• Manipulates the world from an OOC standpoint to enhance the experience of those who are IC, but can also "go IC" by controlling and emoting/speaking through mobs, or providing narration. Yep! We can build to enhance the in-game environment, as well as puppet NPCs. We also go IC with the use of our own characters, so we're not just stuck playing NPCs!
  
• Can freely spawn any monster, NPC, or item. Well, not "freely", but we are able to spawn mobs/NPCs and items. Most of the time this is through approval with the admins. (GMs =/= Admin)
  
• Can change anything about a player's appearance or stats at will. This would be an abuse of our power! However, if something -does- go wrong and a player doesn't want to reroll their character for a minor visual flaw, we can flag that character to go back to the character creation screen and fix that skin color or whatever.
  
• Holds the fate of everyone in their hands, in more ways than one. I guess this is kinda true, as we're tasked with keeping everything in balance. It's hard work trying to make a fun environment for everyone -- you have to think above the individual level/request when it comes to making decisions. We work in a committee-style, too, so that also heps. "Holds the fate of everyone in their hands" just makes it sound much more dramatic than it really is (I hope!) :3.
  
• Is a volunteer who is either a member of the admin team, or has (we hope) been carefully interviewed, handpicked, and trained by the server administration to provide the best possible experience to the server at large. We're volunteers, yep! You can't "run" or campaign to be a GM, but new GMs are carefully considered, trialed, and we are monitored monthly by the Admins to make sure we're doing our jobs . Sure, we make some mistakes, but we're volunteers and humans -- we have our own lives to run, too! However, at the end of the day, I like to think we do help provide a good server experience.
  

As you can probably guess, the DMs had a whole lot of responsibility and a ton of clout. Are GMs in CotH similar, or are they more like moderators with less direct power over the world?

TL;DR: We have a lot of responsibility and we are moderators


Thank you for your questions! I hope you enjoy your stay.

Edit!:

I believe that GM's are handpicked through Forum Helpers (the fellows with the purple names). FH's themselves go through applications.

Actually, this isn't true! While many of them are and have been selected from the FH staff, it is not a requirement to have been one (Hey, ImagenAshyun! <3). Forum Helpers are just more "in the spotlight", as it were, because they are expected to be active on the forums and a good presence to the community. Their interactions with others (and the Lore) are more easily evaluated. But no, when GMs are considered it goes beyond the FH pool.

[c0rzilla]

Can change anything about a player's appearance or stats at will. This would be an abuse of our power! However, if something -does- go wrong and a player doesn't want to reroll their character for a minor visual flaw, we can flag that character to go back to the character creation screen and fix that skin color or whatever.

What about a temporary .morph for an event? He may mean something like that.

[Caravan]

Oh! I took it (obviously :3 ) to be the base-character appearance. Sure, temporary .morphs happen, but that's also on a case-by-case basis. Usually they're all right .

(Turning into, say, a bomber for a war event versus circumventing the CMC process or whatever!)