First, Danjuh the character!

The RP was hilarious and I was a big fan of the heads arguing. I know a lot of folks don't like the more 'out there' backstories and things but I think this one was well done and not out of the realm of CF lore. (Ettins are a thing) You weren't a cyborg cop from Detroit coming to bring the law or anything.

I definitely picked up you did NOT like shaman and I think that, as others have said, was a big mistake. The 'starter' combo you picked was NO fun for you. This carried over to some impatience to get things moving and that came across heavy in how you played. If you'd played EVERYTHING out and been patient would the class change have happened? I dunno but I think there woulda been a better chance if you were able to play the shaman and play the role out and just let it happen instead of push, push, push. I had some plans for 'events' to happen to you that woulda defined the character a bit and asked some questions I had overall that I'd prefer not answered in a role entry. "Why a fire giant druid? Why an evil druid? Why should this guy be evil?" Etc. I apologize I wasn't able to get around to it between some work chaos and our times not meshing in a super awesome way. In the future in this situation I'll try to get another imm to tag in and help out when I can't be around.

I haven't read this whole thread but the advice I'd give if you wanna try a nonstandard combo is make sure the base kit of whatever you're playing, you can enjoy. Basically assume you won't get what you want...and that you'll be able to have fun without it. If it happens? Awesome, but don't plan around it.

Now, onto the whole nonstandard combos as a whole thing.

You mentioned being angry when you saw dwarf transmuter and that it wasn't fair. Oddly? You're right. It isn't fair. CF isn't fair. It's an inherent quality of the game...and it's why CF in my opinion is awesome.

"Wait, WTF. CF isn't fair and that's why it's good? WTF Arv what are you smoking?!"

There's plenty of games out there with tight, rigid rules you can't break. You won't ever see a draenei rogue in WoW. That won't ever happen. Ever. The rules are unbreakable and everyone plays within those rules. There's a lot to be said for games like that and most people want to play those games. You're on complete even footing with everyone and the only thing separating folks is their knowledge of the mechanics of the game and how to play it. The developers focus their efforts on content and maintaining a level of balance between player options.

CF? The rules can be broken. We have our mechanics and our rules...but once in awhile since our admin staff actually is an integral part in a lot of the game? We break those rules. We let dwarf transmuter happen, or neutral necromancer. It's part of the magic of CF. Sometimes crazy #### can happen. Sometimes things that go against the flow of the game happen and it creates a buzz. Those characters stand out. Look at the character challenge. A bunch of people got a chance to play a role, and some of them were non-standard. The aforementioned neutral necro. The goodie druid. A golem dwarf, all kinds of crazy things. There was a huge buzz and honestly despite some pitfalls I'd say the whole thing was a success. Would I do it differently than Amaranthe in the future? Certainly, but it was one of the cooler things I'd seen in the game.

So the other side of the coin is that these rule/mechanic breakers are rare. That means generally? It won't be you that gets that chance. Since that 'chance' is inherently breaking the rules of the game, there are no 'rules' to getting that opportunity. There's no list of guidelines you can follow to get a chance to play a race/align/class combo not allowed by the game. You can have a phenomenal character with a great role and a history of stellar unbreakable roleplay. Every situation the character his you handle in role and never break role for an advantage or go OOC. ...and you might not get the opportunity and a player who does a subjectively 'worse' job does. Why? Maybe the timing worked out better. Maybe it's the nature of the admin who takes up the mantle to play it out. It's any number of things and the very nature of it isn't 'fair'. There isn't an unbiased set of guidelines on how to do this, and likely there won't ever be. We as a staff try to maintain consistency with how we handle this, but even there we don't have "The List" on how to handle this. It's a mix of trying to stay measured, not creating something gamebreaking that ruins everyone else's fun and...just rolling with it.

This isn't fair. This means someone could get a shot at something you wanted and do a worse job of it. That's not fair at all, but it's also part of the magic of CF. It's random. You can't expect anything and when it happens it won't be expected. It's fun playing a game and suddenly you see that character. You wanna check it out, interact with that character. Or maybe you want to kick his/her ass. Something...but it creates a stir. It disrupts the usual flow of things and CF is one of the few games out there where you will see that.

It's because we let the admin/staff dip in and have a direct impact on the game. No other game would remotely ever allow this because human have biases. We try to be unbiased but even when trying that can leak out. There's a certain style of playing that might appeal more to Whiysdan than me. The player with that style might get more love from him than they would me...purely based on they had the right style of character with the right admin watching. It's not fair, but on that same token the fact we allow Whiys and myself to do that kinda stuff at all makes this game unique and special. We can dip in and have direct impact on the course of the game. We want that to be a positive impact overall. We don't want to go in and ruin everyone's fun.

What we can't control is if we do something fun for someone and the fact they are a 'have' and someone else is a 'have not' will always occur. You will always see someone get something you didn't. You might even think they don't deserve it and if we measure up against some perfect system you might even be right. However? That's the game. It's a flawed system and we're rolling with it since it allows us to do things not even thinkable in other games. For better or worse. Are there things we as a staff can do to make sure that it's more 'net good' than 'net bad', absolutely. However we need to strike a balance. If all our rewards are purely cosmetic I think we lose some of the magic of say, the occasional quest form, or powerful quest skill. However it means everyone is more on par with each other. ...which is like every other game in existence. If our rewards are too far in the other direction...they can ruin other player's fun and that isn't cool either. We need to make sure we're growing and learning everytime we do this stuff too. Will we make some mistakes? Absolutely...and when we make mistakes does it impact real players? Yeah. That sucks and it's part of the inherent risk for running the game the way we do...but we'll work on being better about it and won't stop doing it since again. It's what makes this game so different from any other game out there. (Not to say any mistakes were made here, and that Danjuh should have gotten fire giant druid, but speaking generally here in terms of the greater issue of 'how we handle nonstandard roles in CF')

Dwarf transmuter? This probably isn't going to ruin the game for everyone else. It might in the sense of "Hey, that guy got something I didn't!" ...but that's never going to change. Someone will always get something you didn't. On a similar note 'fire giant druid' wouldn't break the game either. However we would need to know "Why is this fire giant a druid when others can't be?" "Why is this druid evil?" or "Why is this fire giant neutral?"

So CF will always have an element of unfairness to it in that we allow the rules to be broken in a way that isn't governed by a set of rules. Dumb luck plays a part, timing, etc. I can wholly understand how this can cause issues, frustration, etc. However it's also one of the unique things about this game which I honestly like. It will happen on occasion and there is not predictable method to making it happen.

As others have advised here at the end of the day when you make a character, the goal should be you should be able to have fun with that character without any 'extras'. If you get them? Gravy. IE: For Danjuh I would have found a way to play a class you actually enjoy, or pick a race that can be a druid. Make sure that even if you don't get the extra special sauce, you can still have a lot of fun, since you won't ever be able to count on the special sauce.

In addition some of the most memorable characters have been regular combos and basic roles just played extremely well. No special sauce, nothing. Just a really, really well played character within the rules. There's a lot you can do within our rules too without having to get something special nobody else has done. A well played dumb giant role? Maybe an extra prissy elf bard? These aren't new ideas. They're tried and true but done well? They can shine even more than the non-standard stuff.

Anyway, all this rambling was basically to say. "I understand the frustration and that you think it wasn't fair, and in a sense, it isn't fair since the rhyme or reason behind these opportunities isn't a strict set of rules. That chaos creates a sort of unfairness and it's what happens when we run things the way we do here."

....which was still a pretty rambling sentence.