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Guild Profile: The Broodslayers Profile by Duleepa "Dups" Wijayawardhana, Nov 13 2002 In September 2002, BioWare opened the Neverwinter Nights Guilds and Registry system to Neverwinter Nights game owners. Since then hundreds of guilds have been created and over 10,000 people have registered as members. The guilds range from roleplaying and gaming-based guilds to those exploring specific areas of the Neverwinter experience such as scripting, building or dungeon mastering. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank the thousands of players who have made this system an overwhelming success and profile many of the guilds which are enhancing the Neverwinter Nights community. This week: The Broodslayers!
The Broodslayers My first level ranger was in complete shock. Mouth wide-open, eyes glazed over in confusion, his fingers were stuck on his bow and his feet caught in a spider's web. I had innocently joined a Broodslayers game session at the invitation of DM and guild owner Chokra Broodslayer and now I was vainly attempting to help fend off a swarm of respawning, spell-casting, monkey-throwing undead (why had I chosen "vermin" as my racial enemy?). The guild was so popular it had attracted over 20 very enthusiastic and excited players for this one game session and the module was making us pay for our numeric superiority! And then came that shout from the party leader, an exasperated cry all the more striking in its loud yellowness: "Fall back to the Inn, we need to regroup!!!" Of course as I read this an errant fireball exploded over me ... Now into its third month as a Neverwinter Nights guild, the Broodslayers have become one of the largest game playing groups on BioWare's Guilds and Registry system. However, size isn't all that important -- to the credit of Chokra Broodslayer and its members, the guild is also ranked in the top 5 in our list of Most Active Guilds on the NWN Guilds and Registry system this week (a weighted measurement of guild activity, events and more). I asked Chokra some questions about the Broodslayers, his goals and what has made his guild successful. After all this is a guild that hadn't existed before the system was introduced. 1. Tell us more about the Broodslayers. Why did you start the guild? I started the guild the first day of beta testing because I wanted to find a group of gamers who wanted to actually roleplay out their characters. In the past, I've played games by other companies and there's little room for roleplaying in those games' structure. Neverwinter Nights gives you the roleplaying capabilities and I love to use them. I detest pure hack-n-slash format. The concept is to try to emulate PnP (pen and paper) as much as possible in this world of MnM (mouse and monitor), to quote a Gary Gygax expression for computer roleplaying games. We're over 200 members now and I'm very proud of that. We welcome players who prefer to play in character and stick to the game. Typically, our games run for 4 hours or more -- we go for the long haul. If you're going to play a game the quality of NWN, you need to take full advantage of it. This past week alone, we had 6 guild games. We've had a naming contest for the persistent world (results pending). We vote for guild leadership positions -- we have a guild structure for leadership, GMing, server administration, building, scripting and much more. We look for quality over quantity, but we have to keep activity up too. I have about 15 years experience in D&D, Star Wars, Rolemaster and many other PnP roleplaying games and computer games. I wanted an online group of roleplayers, especially for the times when I don't have a group of my own for PnP. 2. How has BioWare's NWN Guilds and Registry system helped in fostering your guild? It has helped immensely. When I started this guild, I think it was just me for at least a week or two. My hopes were to get my brother, some of my good roleplaying friends from real life and a few others together for some quality RPing (roleplaying). They didn't get in on the [Guilds and Registry] beta test and I sat there at first, wondering what to do. I did a thorough search of the [system's] capabilities and found out I could search for people who wanted "roleplaying" style games and invite them to my guild. Before long, I had a handful of people, including GreatWyrm, who has turned out to be a great DM and an Avatar in the guild leadership for us. After learning to use the forum tools and the administration tools, I found it an excellent place to keep track of guild members, foster the guild's growth and offer additional things such as a roleplaying forum for the guild. As I added members, I also came across Amber Jade who is the Faded Shadows guild owner and we became friends and formed an alliance between our guilds. Amber is now also an Avatar in Broodslayers. 3. Has the gameplay differed from playing with guild members as opposed to simply joining a game online? I would like to defer this question to one of our guild leaders, Avatar kannibal25, who said and I quote, "Oh, yes it's changed! You get to know others' playing styles. Plus, the group more or less remains the same, which creates the feel of a PnP game. Look for a style that suits you. Play to your strengths." I would certainly have to concur with that. 4. What has been one of the difficulties in keeping an active guild? Getting members to check the forum and keep up on what's happening in their guild. We can host events all day, all night, all weekend, it doesn't matter -- but if we can't get the members to show up, it becomes fruitless. After we discovered these initial problems, I began to take advantage of even more of the guild/registry features, such as the calendar system, news posts, creating additional forums and my own personal e-mail list. We've even grouped together a bunch of us on MSN Messenger so we can discuss guild issues in real time. 5. What suggestions would you have for people thinking about joining or creating a guild in the NWN universe? The number one thing is to find a group of people that have similar interests to your own. If you're a roleplayer and you join a hack-n-slash guild, you're probably not going to feel at home. Plus, you have to find a group where the people are amiable and you can get along with them. Hence, these are all reasons I enjoy spending time with my Broodslayers guild members. If you're looking to start a guild, I would look at coming up with a good name, a cool concept and plan on spending A LOT of time on it. I estimate, I spend at least a couple hours a day just dealing with guild business -- replying to e-mails, replying to forum posts, answering questions, preparing mods for games, creating custom portraits for games, doing some light scripting, writing storylines for the ongoing campaign to defeat the dark sorcerer Mordain, talking with members and guild leaders on the messenger programs and much, much more. This doesn't include playing, DMing and work on our future persistent world. Trying to juggle all that with a full-time professional job, still playing some PnP a night or two a week, spending time with family and friends, and other outside stuff can leave you wondering how you have time for all this. I have no idea how I get as much done as I do. 6. Any funny roleplaying stories resulting from guild game sessions? Well, just recently, a portion of the ongoing campaign led into the module "An Errand for the Lady (With Journal and Sounds Added)". It's not my creation, but we enjoyed the module so I thought I'd give whoever created it a plug. Anyway... the module begins with a lady giving the adventurers a quest to retrieve a harp. I couldn't figure out at the time what the purpose of the harp was. Anyway, the party fought off some drow and went into the underdark and faced a drow lich mage and his minions. Since we DM the majority of our guild games, I possessed the lich and had a big showdown with the party but they kept running off -- who wouldn't? The lich had a [Challenge Rating] of 65. The average party member was level 5 at the time, I think. So, they get down in the crypt and find the chest that contains the harp the lady requested. They head all the way back up to the surface with the lich following them and pegging them from behind. They get all the way up near the lady they're supposed to give the harp to. All the time, the lich is yelling at them to give his property back to him. Here they are, just near the lady and they get to talking to the lich and decide to give him back the harp. The lich, who wants the harp because it's the only magical item in the land that can destroy him, gladly takes it back and "lets them live." He disappears, but not after killing the lady who sent them on the quest. Now, they're standing there with her corpse and the only thing that can avenge her death is in possession of the murderer who is too powerful for them to face. Well...maybe that isn't so funny?
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