There was only one occasion I ever had to bann a member and it was not even a member of this site, but was from a time before the forming of the weave.

I believe that a game must have some governing control, the forum needs a little bit of regulation and control or as sauid the site rules would go out the window and then members would be breaking the rules. However on the same note we rely on DMs to manage this within a game or for a user to report the abuses. The only person I ever had to bann however was someone who could not grasp the scope of what the rules allowed them. It happened to be a game I had joined to see where all the problems stemmed from as well as to play with some friends, to that end, this member had reported daily problems with players not respecting them, we had long discussions in private forums about them because her claims kept coming and they were empty. Upon joining the game I began to realize the problem was not the players, who were respectable members of the site and friends, it was the DM. In this case the DM had taken the rules to so much an extreme she was breaking more then one, she had formed this image in her mind that a DM is a tyrant and that site rules don't govern her, she was all powerful, that even moderators and administrators were under her in her forum.

It was quite a intense moment for me, as I had never gotten so into it with a member and in the end it ended up with her banning because it was there constant disrespect and inability to comprehend the simple rules that all site members are equal aside from admins and mods who have the powers to keep the peace, not horde it over people.

So while a game needs to at least follow the rules of the site, and while we give DMs mostly free reign over there forums, we do not under any circumstances allow them to freely break the rules of this site. No member DM or player has the right to disrespect another player. Not really on topic, but it goes to enforce the point that respect means a lot, when your a tyrant no one likes you, and when you don't stand up for the protections alloted to you by the rules you might get walked over, Bottom line know your rules so issues like the one above can be avoided.

Wonder who that was... hehe.

Yeah, all in all, I agree with Rigo that the GM is the main reason games fail or succeed. Then my advice would be to check the DM's number of posts and posting history. Do they have a lot of posts, and do they post on a regular basis? Does the DM have a history on other forums as well, like DNDOG, and are they still going strong at MW? Do they reliably appear on the site on a regular basis? If the answer to all of these things is yes, then you have a good shot at being in a successful game.

Hey,

I'll admit that much of my Posts per day are because of that thread. But at the same time, I'm only posting there because I'm here and have free time. Time that could be used on a game! So even if someone is posting in non-game related threads, at least they are posting on the site which means they are visiting the site often :-)

Whoo-hoo! I can proudly say that I have posted maybe once in that thread, if at all.

Go me!

On the note of "Post's per day" there should be a section to put yourself on a "time out". I pretty much came to a stop for a few months. My games had all stalled for one reason or another, so I took a break. That lowered my "posts per day" because I was inactive during that time. That gives a false impression of my posting frequency when I am active :-)

But it is a minor note, I do not think it has ever negativelyeffected me :-)

As for the word thread, I don't see posting in it a Negative and on the flip, not posting in it a positive. :-)

I don't play much. It's really only if a game jumps out at me, grabs me by the throat and screams "apply! Apply!". That being said, when I do apply (or consider applying before I remember how much I suck as a player), there's a few people who make my stomach sink when I see their interest post. It's not that these folks are bad people - I chat with a couple of them on MSN every so often - I've just seen or been involved with some nasty things with them as players.

I think that's what it boils down to - trial and error. You can do all the research you want, looking at post rates and previous games and so on, but then they'll have a kid, or get a new job, and kerpoofle.

Apply for games that look good. If they die in a month, well, you've wasted a month. Get into another one. Eventually, you'll get one or two good games that last a while, and you'll be building up not only your own reputation, but working out what kind of GM's/players other MW'ers are.

The HP system is not smart enough to handle something like this, so generally I would not trust it if your looking for people who are active, check there post history and see how many posts they made in the last week, HP is based around posts since they started here on MW, and anyone who takes a leave or break will be negativly reflected on by this, in fact, I may try and talk Rigo into editing HP to only show for the last week or month... ponder...

I feel terribly sorry for new members in the sites but we all have started there. It is unfortunate that some potentially great players may never get noticed or may not stick around long enough to be.

However, all of us started there in the past, and even the die hard veterans have that faint memory when they struggled just like the rest of the new members. It is sad that a number can determine so much, but it is the way of the site. All I hope is that the new players stick around long enough to keep the site running strong, and giving us fresh and new writing styles along with faces to keep everything mixed up and different. Ever-changing is brilliant on a site like this, and the Mods are just the first example straight from the top.

I remember when I first came to MW, it was a little hard at first, but I think it made me a better player. Starting here I quickly learned that I had to put a lot into character creation if I wanted to get into a game vs. just a simple concept. With a good character, your going to get into a game regardless of any numbers.

Yes, good applications always help.

And once again, I have to say that at least for me, I really only look at post count for DM's, not players. And that's because too many people come here and their second or third post is a game ad. Why should I spend time developing a character for a game that's almost assured not to happen? show me that you have some clue how this site works. Of course, a great ad can convince me anyhow, if a newbie showed up with an ad that looked as good as Cleokatra's, I'd feel like they had some clue. The number and frequency of posts is a useful guidline, not a hard and fast rule. And I would mostly apply it to GM's, not players.