Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning
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@lisse24 In a perfect world, anyone not interested in a system or that doesn't find it fun just wouldn't participate in it and it wouldn't trouble anyone that exists on its own, but that's not really how I have to plan things, unfortunately.
So there's a ton of questions I have to ask for any coded system in order to keep the same atmosphere I want. Who is this fun for? What kind of RP does it help foster? What problems does it solve? What potential negative behaviors might it introduce as a consequence, and how to counteract that? What are the abuse cases and how do we stop those?
Those are the most basic ones, then you get into a lot more nebulous feel, because for any system with any kind of mechanic benefit, you have this really fine line of feeling worthwhile for players that are motivated mechanically, but also then you'll have a niche appeal of ones that will enjoy it and ones that won't, and you have to try to make it worth enough that most players will see it as a worthwhile endeavor without being so overwhelming that it feels mandatory.
One use case that you just can't help are players that are true completists, that feel extremely unhappy unless they have total mastery over every aspect of the game and are completely independent and self-reliant. Particularly when you design specifically to counteract that by trying to design collaborative systems that create scarcity by force reliance upon other PCs, because the former goal can lead to extremely problematic outcomes. The best you can do in those situations is try to balance by degree in trying to make the rewards scaled to give diminishing returns.
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@dontpanda said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
It'd add either a barrier to entry for new crafters, or a cool rp hook as they try to build a reputation from the ground up
I haven't played on Arx in a long time, but dinosaurs having an advantage was always part of how its systems were designed, or at least a byproduct of them.
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Strong, established characters are always going to be an issue, and one I'll never be fully satisfied with, because again it's a balance. You can't only approach it from the angle of new characters feeling edged out, or at risk by being bullied. Those are two terrible possibilities that have to be counteracted. You also have to ask how capable should new characters fresh to the grid be of disrupting all the existing power structures or destroying an established character, and what degree of effort it should require and how feasible it should be. On one hand you have extreme outcomes that can feel unwelcoming, and on the other hand no meaningful stability or structure to play off of.
From a game design perspective, I think it's significantly easier to punish established characters that would use abuse cases that would be hostile/unwelcoming to new players, than it is to have a much flatter entry point and then try to ensure that new players all avoid abuse cases due to that flatter scale. I think the level of investment necessitates opting for the former.
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@griatch said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
Edit: Actually
pagein particular does not use the regular search mechanism, so you cannot nick that one. Gah.Now it does and you can (in base Evennia).
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@aria said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
Journals are, in fact, considered IC material.
@Roz and @Darinelle too: just wrote a journal! (Apparently I accidentally wrote one before, but this one was intentional.) I hope brevity and
terriblepuns are OK. -
@fortydeuce Absolutely, the Scholars would much prefer a written entry, even if it's akin to a modern-day twitter post, than nothing at all. There's also incentive in the way that you get XP for posting journals (3 journals a week is the cutoff where you stop getting XP). Some characters may look down on the 'twitter journals' but most typically don't care.
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@ribbon It's a paragraph, but a short one at that! So all good.
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I look at the Twitter-style journals as something akin to how our respected American Founding Father's started newspapers specifically to trash each other. And any number of other historical cases you could name. Leaflets and letters as vehicles for gossip/quippy asides seems like one of the less fantastical things on the game (lack of printing presses aside, which strikes an odd note in my brain but I've accepted).
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@three-eyed-crow said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
(lack of printing presses aside, which strikes an odd note in my brain but I've accepted).
I had to handwave that today about books, and just had the PC say something about how it "takes time" to produce a book, because that's true even through the era of early print and typesetting, anyway. Go figure.
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@three-eyed-crow said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
our respected American Founding Father's started newspapers specifically to trash each other
I challenge you to a duel, Mr. Hamilton!
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@fortydeuce said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
Oh, also a question: if someone can page/PM me with the Discord channel, I'd be interested in taking a look, though I doubt it'll be my cup of tea. Thanks!
i would not spread it even if i still had it
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@roz OK, I just caught mention of it in other places here, although it seemed to be of the "rocks fall, everyone dies" theme. No worries.
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As to the fashion/clothing thing: there's a weird thing I've noticed where "system that exists that offers some sort of benefit, however minor" suddenly equals "this system is necessary to use to WIN." Which really doesn't have to be the assumption. The idea, as far as I can see, is to build different systems that appeal to different interests and also to give different types of characters some coded areas to use their skills.
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@roz Right, like has been said, the fashion system can be safely ignored if it's not something that interests you. There are plenty of players that want nothing to do with combat, or politics, or religion, so they can ignore those aspects of the game. The fashion system is exactly the same as that. As for people not wearing anything? Well clearly they're wearing clothes that are appropriate for their station, but are completely unremarkable. I think that's a fair way to play it.
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@roz said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
As to the fashion/clothing thing: there's a weird thing I've noticed where "system that exists that offers some sort of benefit, however minor" suddenly equals "this system is necessary to use to WIN."
I don't think this is weird at all. Just about every WoD game I've played on has someone who wants to win at everything.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@ganymede said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
has someone who wants to win at everything
sure, but that's not at all what @roz was describing.
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@kanye-qwest said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
@ganymede said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
has someone who wants to win at everything
sure, but that's not at all what @roz was describing.
I don't want to win at everything, just at the Info channel.
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@roz You've already won, in my book.
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@kanye-qwest said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
sure, but that's not at all what @roz was describing.
Sure it is. At least, I'm pretty sure it is.
I get it. There's a new mini-game coming that has some benefits attached to it. Some people will play, some won't. Some people don't want it around because it will confer some bonus for activity that they don't want to engage in, and some probably don't care if it does.
And some people, to argue against the implementation of the new system that they don't want to engage in, will inflate it to something it is not rhetorically.
In WoD games, this happens an awful lot.
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Some people see MU*s as zero-sum games: if another player has gained something that they have not, then they have lost something. So if there is a mini-game that provides some benefit, if they don't play it, they're losing. Thus, it's necessary.
It's a more-than-slightly toxic view of MU*s (although one I have fallen into on occasion myself), because it makes them competitive rather than cooperative, but it is a distressingly common one.
