The DM run quests require a bit of dicipline to run smothly:

1) When an NPC shouts something or walks up to you and talks.. or monsters come to a location they should not, like in middle of a city … it is probably a quest.

2) If you do not know from the NPC shouting where he is, ask other players, but assume the you are a follower and let others take lead in the discussions. Go to the place of the npc. Responding to the NPC shouts via shout are ignored.

3) Once at quest location, create a quest party and decide on leader, unless predesignated by facts.

4) Listen to what the NPC:s have to say, as well as the players who have a “clue”. Many of the quests run are somehow linked to either earlier storyline or a specific character's fate. If still clueless at end of a discussion then ask some questions from other players after the npc has talked as npcs(and DM:s) get confused by too many different discussions going on at same time.

5) While questing, refrain from ooc(out of charater) talk at all points. Most things can be made in character if you think about it a little.

6) React in character to the events.

7) While talking to a NPC or such with the group, Do not trigger NPC dialogues, Try to keep any out of character comments away, talk in character , and stick to the story, and try to not cast any extra spells or use extra items, limit voicechats.. All kinds of spamming make following the story harder for other people.

8) When moving, do not run away from the group, stay with the others, wait at trasitions atleast for slower people and let the leaders set the pace. This is because the DM can only be at one place at time and thus make it impossible to properly position encounters ahead of the party.

9) Any teleport action (e.g. scrolls, flyers) should be made only after the leader says so. Travel is not to be done by SOT, except when the whole group is Teleporting to cerea. Navigating is allowed to public destinations if the leader says so. (on some quests the DM will give the leader the permission to navigate to a stored location)

10) If you find unusal items or such, announce it to group, and do not just run in and grab everything. Also if you are holding a Quest item and have to leave, make sure to give it to someone else before leaving.

11) Most quest include some combat but much of that is against insane odds or insane monsters so carry a lot of heals and raise deads, and when raised, use healing potions immediately.. or you will die again.

12)Those wanting loot or XP , should probably not come questing. The xp is usually low, and while some loot is good, there are quite long periods of standing around and talking.

13) No “cheats” on quest: like respawning, casting dark so monster AI does nothing and so on.

14) People who ignore these quidelines should be warned(in tells) and if they do not stop they wll be kicked form the quest party.

15) Many quests are limited in some way(as too big quest parties do not work well), either by Level, number of participants or other Criteria. Only party leaders should invite people to the party. Especially kicked players should not be reinvited.

16) Large number of large familars and summons and such make moving around hard, but for the voice commands to work correctly, a low number of smallest possible companions is recomended.

Repeating the important things: Stay together, Talk in character, do NOT spam discussions, and Listen to things.

Any Positive participation is allways welcome.

The DM:s and most players have enjoyed those quests where things have gone as given above a lot more than the disorganised ones' where everything falls appart because of idiots running around and such.

In general a DM has a very limited view of the world and they tend to be busy with setting up things and so on.. and occasionally the spam on party channel is too much

So the following things are the way things work smothly:

Searching and examining if you wish to examine something, the best way is to say in either party or in talk the thing you wish to do:
/p *searching the bandit body for any odd tattoos*
then follow it by same thing on dm channel
/dm serching the bandit body for any odd tattoos

Then wait a while before saying nothing found.. as the DM gets occasionally quite many requests. Also giving any extra information you wish the DM to remeber about your char or so at that point, might help your case. For example a dwarf might say
/tk *looking at the cave walls and roof for signs of toolmarks*
/dm “Having lived most of my life in cave, does this cave look natural or artificial?”

And yes.. you should search when you are looking for things of the type you might find and examine if you thereis something of type you should know about.

Talking to NPCs:
There are situations when a specific PC is the right person to talk to a NPC. Like talking to a guild, a highranking guildmember is much more likely to get a friendly reception, or while talking to firegiants a Ra follower is more likely to be positively greeeted than a Storm follower.
And in general someone pursuasive is often good to speak to people

Casting spells at objects/creatures to cause a DM directed effect
The procedure to cast a spell so that the DM will react is:
/dm Preparing to cast mordenkainens disjunction on portal
/tk I think I will cast that Mordenkainens disjunction on the portal
(pause)
/dm casting mordenkainens disjunction on portal
/tk *casting Mordenkainens disjunction on the portal*
(pause)
Do the casting
(pause)
if nothing seems to have happened examine

That way the DM will have time to set up the reaction.

Leading a party is a thankless job for the most part.

These are my views, and they echo those of others. For an alternate view, see this post: On Leading

When everything goes really well, the leader is almost invisble and no one will even remember them. If everything goes wrong, the leader gets the blame and no one will forget.

To help leaders and other party members, this topic will give some insight into what a leader needs to do.

This has got to be the single hardest thing for a leader and they need to make important decisions many times during a single quest session. This is also the most important part of being a leader.

A leader will many times have their own ideas about what has to happen next, but every party member will also have an idea and many times these are not the same as those of the leader. The leader needs to weight these other ideas, both against his own ideas and against every other idea. He cannot afford to ignore them as someone might have notived something imporant that he missed.

He also cannot afford to listen to every idea and every possible arguement. A decision needs to be made fairly quickly. If a leader allowed the debate to continue for a long time, or until it naturally finishes then the quest would never get anywhere.

Of course, when the leader makes a decision, be it the right one or the wrong one, they will incur the wrath of everyone that had a different idea. Especially when it later turns out that another idea would have been better. “I told you so” is a comment leaders quickly get used to hearing.

A good leader is one who can make a good decision, not always correct, not always right, but someone who can both make the decision and make a good decision.

This is the next most important task for the leader and the one that needs constant attention and high levels of concentration. This is what exhausts a leader and the bigger the party and the more work the leader has to do the more exhausted they are at the end. The players can do a lot to help here.

Keeping the party together - Keeping the map open at all times and ensuring that no one is running head, no one is lagging behind, and telling them get back with the party. This also involves keeping an eye on the party bar and ensuring no one is in a different area to the party.

Monitoring behaviour - this involves keeping an eye on all players and also on chatter to ensure no party member does anything to offend the NPCs, e.g. going through chest, wielding a weapon when they shouldn't, casting or having spells active then they shouldn't.

Managing Joining/Leaving - People joining or leaving a quest also need attention. Usually this is most stressful at party formation when a leader gets dozens of tells like “Is there a quest?”, “can i join?”, “where are you?” and everyone thinks they are being ignored.

Arbitrating Trouble - A leader has to keep peace within the party as well. Sooner or later 2 or more party members are going to get offended at eachother and the leader has to spot this and try and sort it out before it gets out of hand and if it does, to put a lid on it and get people calmed down again before everything falls apart, all the while answering all the tells he gets about who did what and what should be done about it.

This falls both into the making a decision and managing the part sections, but is so critical that I think it deserves its own section.

Choosing a Speaker - this involves making a decision (yes, one of those) about who would be the best person to speak for the party. Someone known to NPC, an expert in the NPCs field, someone who is good at asking questions or someone who is polite and preferably someone who is all of them. This is where it becomes important for a leader to know their party. Who is good at what etc. Many times this can involve asking for people, or choosing someone best suited, e.g. an Archbishop of Ra to talk to the Ra priest.

Controlling the conversation - This is not to stifle speach, but to in fact to encourage ideas and try to ensure as many people's ideas and comments are heard. It involves monitoring all conversation that goes on, ignoring repeats questions ensuring most questions get answered and picking up on discusions that are happening in the background parallel to the conversation with the NPCs.

Getting all the questions asked - this involves ensure the NPC has answered all the questions party members raised, and reasking them if not, and also means addressing all the points the NPC raised. All the while the leader also has to do a quick filtering job of the questions, deciding which are important and can advance the quest and which will not help or which might insult the NPC and get a negative reaction.

The problem with leading is that everything described above needs to be done ALL THE TIME on a continuous cycle. Add to this the numeours tells that leaders get from players giving this or that suggestion, complaining about this player or that decision, as well as the conversation the leaders also have with the DM, clarifying points and drawing attention to things/players.

Also, most of the things all happen at once. Everyone wants their idea to be recognised and acted upon, or at least replied to. With 5 or so people this is fairly easy, with 10 it gets hard with 15+ it gets extremely difficult.

Leading is a very taxing job with many argueing that the rewards are not always worth it, and sometimes, in my experience at least, they are correct. Every so often though a quest comes a long where everything goes right and you get that great feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that makes up for many of the nighs of fustration and exhaustion.

There are different leading styles. My own tends to be very military. I tend to allow discussion and debate, but when I make a decision quickly and I follow through with it and expect people to follow. I also tend to be more strict in keeping the party under control. This style is best for large parties and minimizing chaos, but it has the disadvantage that it can stifle ideas and conversation and can also lead to resentment when people don't “tow-the-line”. It's most successful in situations where you need to do things quickly and keep the party moving.

Everyone has their own style, some more suited to some situations than others. But in the end the success of a quest is due not only to a good leader, but to good party members.

If people realise just what a leader has to do, and what a difficult juggling act it really is, then maybe before they speak, or tell, or get anrgy and resentful they stand back and see the situation from the leaders perspective and realise that the terse call to “stay with the party or get kicked” is just a leader trying to resolve 10 different issues, 1 lagger, 2 runners and a nosey rogue while carrying on a conversation with 10 other players and an NPC to decide where the party should go next. And maybe… the player will realise that no insult or slight was intended, and that next time he'll stay with the party and not add to the leaders workload.

Leading a quest is a demanding job. A rough idea of some of the things a leader must do:

Waiting before and after transitions is helping this. Plus this gives a good chance for people to roleplay while not in a NPC-conversation.

Sometimes this is very hard, with so many ideas flying around. Keeping who said what straight. And if you thank someone for a good idea, but someone else also said it, the leader can be sure of getting told about that. If you pause to scroll back up the chat window and try to keep up with everything, people get fussy cuz you aren't doing anything.

This one, could use some group help. Anyone can fuss at someone who is not behaving, don't feel the need to TELL the party leader and make the party leader handle it. Try to handle it yourself first. Go to the party leader when the person doesn't straighten up with a warning. Another thing members can do to help, if you notice someone not with us, yet in our party, send them a TELL. Ask if they are AFK, or lost. If lost, help them. If not, then tell them to leave the party if they aren't going to stay with the group. If they don't, then TELL the leader to kick them. Yesterday, I had numerous TELLS of “*BlatantIdiot is being an ass, kick him”, “*WanderingSoul isn't with us, kick him”. I took the time to address each problem. A simple word of warning to the bad behavior took care if it. And in the 'other area' cases, I found that often the person had gone afk, and we had left them and they were trying to find us. I did kick people, the minute I saw them picking things up (a quick check of their location showed them shopping in Cerea).

Almost all of the time, there are several ways a group can continue. Each person will have their own ideas. The leader has to decide, and it is many times wrong. But, all they can do is listen to all and then make a decision. If you don't think your idea got heard, step closer to the leader and state it again, don't stand at the back of the crowd muttering about your way being the right way, leaders can't always hear all the TALK in big parties.

I disagree with the leader doing all the talking. But, I also think EVERYONE talking at all the NPCs is wrong. I, personally, will always step up and chat with the Sheriff and Suttus, due to my past history with each, even if I am not the leader. As a leader, I will try to state when someone should take over. Such at the Ra temple, Praio or one of Ra's worshippers, at the Dragon Cleric, could be one of many, the Mage academy, Vindir or another mage, the Fighter school, Borg or another fighter, any Cerea business, Naredia. If each person, could pick one or two NPCs that they feel strongly about, and at those, step up and talk along with the leader, it could be managable. It would give everyone a chance to interact with NPCs and yet would not overwhelm the DM. I can follow 2 or 3, talking with an NPC, as long as they are curteous. But when 4 or 5 are all trying to carry on conversations, it gets hard to follow. One person I will point out, and name here … Aartya. She has a nice habit, of waiting until the discussions seem over and we are about to leave. Then she steps up, saying “May I ask you something”. That stops us from leaving, and she gets the NPC's attention. I always pay attention then, for I am sure that she has a question that wasn't answered during the main chat with the NPC.

One of the recent ideas, is to make people Roleplay their way into the adventure. And, only have the leader invite them in. I am not sure about this one. It is hard for each player, to come up with some reason they are where they are, and why they want to join us. I try to do the curteous thing and stop at each player we pass, give a one or two sentence summation of what we are doing. If they so much as say “Can I help?”, or “Need another sword?” I will invite them. Remember, RolePlaying is new to many people, we have to give them a chance to learn. Being in the party is their best way to observe and learn. Yesterday I was getting TELLS from people in our party, complaining that *NewPerson had not really RolePlayed their way into the group.

Leading is not always easy. I enjoy leading most of the time. I feel with having lived much of Cerea's history, that I have alot to give. My memory may not be the best, but I try.

–Being called a Bitch, to my face or told to new players. –Having someone chant and crow at end of the day, going on and on about being right, and the leader being wrong. Yes, I was wrong, it happens, I admit it. People need to learn to be graceful about being right, I don't go on and on about something when I make a right decision.

* names preceeded with this symbol, are completely imaginary, there is no direct reference to anyone in Cere

The Theoretical flow of the after quest chat goes like this:
1) Talk obout the current quest, how it went.. and such
2) tokens
3) guild ranks
4) other questions not pertaining to the current quest

A few things I notice:
1) in the first part everyone (including me) tends to stray.. so.. if possible try to remember to get back to topic at times…
2) during token giving, people ask me questions. I do not really see most of those as the tool giving the tokens has a converation that “spams” my dialog box.. so the likelyhood of getting a response to those questions during that time is low
3) When asking ranks please say the organisation and the rank you want. If the rank results from a quest given by higer member, please say when that was posted and by whom. (Making sure that both your and the masters posts are on the forums beforehand saves everyones time)
4) This should be the time for the questions and such… but unfortunately seems most people have left… as the previous seem to take a lot of time.. and occasionally it is getting really too late to have a too long one. In general the more complicated questions work better if asked here on the forums.

And a general comment.. during this time I will unfortunately have to ignore out of order comment and such as the total number or things said is too high… so try asking/doing the thing in the correct order and if still nothing.. I try to remember to ask at end of every part of it was done.. so repeat then. All those should be in Talk during this time.