Wanted to wait for others to post their opinions given that of course this is (in a more direct way) revolving around me as the current Battle Host.   In terms of which options I feel like C/B/A are the best options (listed in order of "Best" to "worst" relatively).  Option C I think would certainly help AND I feel like is a plausible long term solution not only for myself but in general as actual potential permanent changes to the rules.  Option B of course is clearly a temp fix/band-aid so of course will work for now but doesnt really do much to fix some flaws in present rules (option C i feel like strives to do this).  Option A will "work" technically but does nothing to fix the present issues caused by lack of posting and does nothing to fix flaws in current rules.  Option E sounds like it would "work" but yeah doesnt fix flaws in present rules and yeah places more work on Soul Reaver versus on myself AND can potentially result in issues like we had recently where 50% of the players are going to be god-modded. 

I am largely indifferent to approach taken except for options E and F, which I would definitely -not- want to see implemented.

Sometimes life is busy or sometimes you're not particularly inspired for a post and it takes a while. But the board is supposed to be fun, not homework. I don't mind getting prodded occasionally if I've been slacking on posting something for a bit, but being threatened with something like 'make a post or I'll make it for you' just tends to make the inherently rebellious part of my brain go 'well fine, fuck you then, do it better yourself.' and want to post even -less-.

I find myself agreeing with Shadow, to me E and F feel like they may cause more issues than they would solve for that reason.

In the interest of keeping things going, options B and C stick out for me. Less stress on the Battle Host that way.

I think you might have both misunderstood what (e) is about...

The current rules already allow the Battle Host to god-mod a player that’s holding things up and preventing them from posting within their own deadline.  Veldanya just hasn’t done so.  In (e), I was proposing that if I see a situation where Veldanya's post deadline is coming up and a player still hasn't posted, it would me that would god-mod them instead of Veldanya needing to do so.  That would leave them one less thing to worry about when they have time to post.

We’ve always had a rule that the Battle Host would be able to god-mod players that were holding up the plot.  I personally have always thought that this was in important rule/tool to have available.

Put yourself in the Battle Host’s shoes: you’ve posted almost a month ago where you cooked up some sort of special attack against everyone that will wipe them out if they don’t respond in some clever way.  And everyone’s responded, except for one person.  What are you supposed to do?  Unless you can god-mod the actions of the non-posting person to at least some extent by ‘assuming’ what they might have done, then the only options open to you are:
i) to hold off on your next Battle Host post, keep harassing the player that hasn’t posted (assuming you can get hold of them) and hope this person will post eventually (leading to a situation where one non-poster is holding everyone else hostage, and where you, as the Battle Host, need to ask the Admin/other players for more time so that they don't God-mod YOU to move the plot along)
OR
ii) pretend like that character has done nothing at all and gets hit accordingly (which is a total jerk move and a type of god-mod in its own right)
OR
iii) 100% ignore the character in your next post (which makes for some really incoherent writing, not to mention is sometimes close to impossible in certain situations where the characters really need to give their input)
OR
iv) something else I haven't thought of...?

Making a god-mod post for a non-posting player is supposed to be a last resort when other methods (eg, ideally reminding the player etc) have failed.  Practically speaking we’ve very rarely had to use that rule in the past, though in some rare cases we did have to do so.  In those cases I was glad the option was there.  I’d also like to point out that those god-mod posts should be kept very restrained – only as much detail is included to provide what is necessary.  The posts tend to be relatively short, ‘conservative’ solutions to a given problem that are as much in-line with established character powers/personality as possible, and don’t do anything like introducing new powers or result in any key character development.

If the idea of the Battle Host (or Admin in the interim, if we accept (e)) making God-mod posts for a player who doesn’t post in a certain timeframe is something a majority of players can’t get on-board with, we will need some alternative, ‘official’ means for the Battle Host to deal with a situation where they are supposed to post but a player hasn’t posted yet.

If you’ve got any alternative ideas, or refinements to the current rule (please do re-read it if you need to jog your memory), this is a good thread to discuss those.

I am largely indifferent to approach taken except for options E and F, which I would definitely -not- want to see implemented.

Sometimes life is busy or sometimes you're not particularly inspired for a post and it takes a while. But the board is supposed to be fun, not homework. I don't mind getting prodded occasionally if I've been slacking on posting something for a bit, but being threatened with something like 'make a post or I'll make it for you' just tends to make the inherently rebellious part of my brain go 'well fine, fuck you then, do it better yourself.' and want to post even -less-.

The guardian of the keep disappears, resulting in the companions' attacks doing seemingly nothing.  He now stands atop the large glowing crystal.  The crystal appears to be flowing into the guardian, empowering him.  The guardian guards the crystal, and the crystal guards the guardian.

Kitharsis stands in a defensive guard with his main sword.  The floating sandstone swords dance around him covering his flank.  If this guardian can teleport so easily it would do well to be prepared.

Jharm launches forward, delivering a heavy blow to the ebony crystal itself.  It cracks, but they fade just as rapidly as they were created.  A sound plan, but more force is needed to break through whatever defenses this crystal has.

There is no time to approach the ebony crystal and aid in its destruction, as portals open near each of the Companions. 

A copy of the armored guardian leaps out, greatswords slicing at Kitharsis.  He meets one of them with his main sword, the molten edge activating as it swings through the air.  As the swords collide his molten edge threatens to melt through the guardian's greatsword.

Two of his flying sandstone swords meet the other greatsword, attempting to parry the blow.  The third flying sword surges forward directly at the armored guardian copy.  Kitharsis intends to skewer the figure while its two greatswords are occupied.

As the two of them meet swords, sand starts amassing at their feet.  This bolsters Kitharsis's footing, while creating an unstable surface for the armored guardian. 

Hello everyone.  I wanted to address the current Board Battle rules, and the pace of the current Epic Board Battle.

The current rules were put in place post-Eye of Terror, because I believe that for people to be adequately invested in the story/boards, the main plot needs to move forward at a semi-reasonable pace.  During the Eye of Terror we would often only have one post every few months at best from the Battle Host, and we saw a number of people drop off the boards during this time - I believe the two were related.  The Board Battle is a tandem story, and meant to be a collaborative thing: if one person is holding everyone else up, then that isn't fair on everyone else and makes them feel disengaged.  The situation was made worse by the fact that there was also no effective way to deal with a situation where the Administrator is the one holding things up.

I felt it was necessary to basically come up with a way of enforcing a "at least once a month" posting schedule for the Battle Host (and the same for all the players).  That's effectively what the current rules are asking people to do.

Let's fast forward to now.
Previously I've been chasing people up to post, but to be honest that's really something the Battle Host should be doing mostly, not just me.  After Veldanya's post in June I let things play out to see what would happen.
Between Veldanya's last post and the one before, we had a 3 month gap.
Other than myself, everyone took more than 1 month to reply to the post.

If we'd followed the rules (which we didn't), the following would have happened:
- Every player (except mine in this case) would have had their character god-modded by myself or Veldanya, and would have been put on 'Probation' (so they would have had to post within 3 weeks after Veldanya's next post
- I would have stepped in after 1 month had passed to God-mod the Battle Host
- If I didn't step up and do the above within 1 week, anyone could God-mod the Battle Host

Of course, this would be a bit of a ridiculous situation - it most likely would have meant that Veldanya or myself would have had to God-mod 75% of the active players.

Vedanya has made it clear to me in a private conversation that they have a lot of stress on them at the moment, so the Board Battles are low on their list of priorities, and the current inactive battle rules just feel like an additional deadline/stress for them on top of everything else.  This is fair enough.  However, they have also made it clear they do not want to hand off posting responsibilities to someone else, as they understandably want to see their own plot-line through.
This leaves us, one again, in a very similar situation as we had during The Eye of Terror, which is a situation I personally am not keen to repeat.

So, an open question to both players and Battle Host: what do we do about it?  I'm open to ideas, but here are some of my own.  Most are not mutually exclusive:

a) Relax the rules.  Let things play out as they do.  The purpose of the rules was to "make the board battles fun again(tm)" by making sure people actually posted, not to stress everyone out and make them miserable.
- Personally I don't like this idea, as I do firmly believe the slump in interest directly corresponds to a lack of posting.

b) Give Veldanya a hospital pass on the rules, given their difficult circumstances, for a timeframe they propose.  During this time hosting duties won't be given to anyone else and Veldanya can post as little (or as much) as they want.  Agreement to this would be by majority vote in a hidden poll.  Once the time is up they'll let us know if they need it extended further, and we vote again.  I'll add such an option to the rules for the future.
- I think this is a fair option and workable given the number of active players we have.  This is a collaborative thing, so people should have their say, and it also means we have an option that will give Veldanya the breathing room they need right now.

c) Change the rules so that the Battle Host doesn't have to post within 1 month of their own last post, but rather within either 1 month of their own last post or within [timeframe] of the last PLAYER'S post, whichever is longer.
- This reduces the stress on the Battle Host if people drag their feet with posting - which has been happening regularly.  The longer [timeframe] is, the less stress is on the Battle Host.  On the other hand, it also results in slow-posting players possibly leading to an even longer month gap between Battle Host posts, which gets worse the longer that [timeframe] is.  While I can see some benefit to this rule (having myself had a couple of occasions where people only post a day or so before my own 'host deadline' was up), it does reduce the pace further.

d) Since Veldanya has other priorities, I make it my job to remind people to post.  If they've posted, I'll probably start bothering people to get their posts up within a couple of weeks or so (please let me know the best way to contact you so I can do this).
- This places more responsibility and work on me, but I'm not under as much stress as Veldanya right now.

e) I enforce the players' side of the rules myself and will god-mod people that take more than 1 month to post from Veldanya's post.  This is so that when Veldanya DOES want to post, they don't run into a situation where there are still other peoples' posts pending.
- Again this places more responsibility and work on me, but I'm not under as much stress as Veldanya right now.

or, the option that IS mutually exclusive with (a), (b) and (c):
f) I enforce the rules as written for everyone.
- This would certainly ensure better pace, but based on my observations of the last set of posts, would make this a one-man show, with me basically posting for everyone, which isn't really what this is all about.  Not my favourite option.

I'd like everyone's opinions on the above and any other ideas that you may have.  Once I've got everyone's feedback we'll decide how to proceed.