Posts made by Arkandel

@Cobaltasaurus said:

I was actually pretty okay with how we did on HM in vampire. Idunno how well the players liked it but --

Everyone in the covenant/clan got a vote. Their status was the weight of their vote, and the votes had to come out into the positive to pass. (I might suggest adding it has to be in the positive by that level. e.g. you need +3 to gain status 3. But that might be an extra layer of unneeded stuff.)

We need to distinguish on whether this is an IC vote or an OOC one.

If it's IC then existent status should apply, since obviously characters are throwing their weight around. But it's hard to reconcile this in some cases where there's a non-vote based system for growth as, say, the OD presents.

If it's OOC then what's the significance of using ICly weighted votes? Is the idea that more established players should be given more of a say in sphere affairs?

@Cobaltasaurus said:

Typically I don't think people should pay XP for status. I don't think it should be something that's purchased but acquired through play. Especially since it's really subjective. If people think you're an idiot, you're not getting above status 1. If people are afraid of you? You might have status 3 depending on how afraid of you are they are. If people think you're really helpful but not very powerful? You might have status 2.

Oh, sorry, I should have explained it better. What I meant/was implying is that I didn't think people should be able to buy status at will with XP, especially since that cost is too low. It'd be yet another I'm-so-pretty merit like Striking Looks. I think there should be some form of oversight and maybe a limited number of who has high status - I mean not everyone can be extra super special influential!

I know people hate it because it becomes a popularity contest but I think that status should be something voted on by other players, and probably NPCs. (e.g. you can use social dice against NPCs, or favors, and etc to get them to support your PC for status.)

The process for how to vote (I assume you mean OOC, as not all status is decided democratically IC) probably warrants discussion on its own, but I agree it's a good way in general. Potential issue: clique wars.

That kind of misses the point of what I'm proposing. Which is probably my fault for not being able to express it. The point is to have a small scale amount of status. If the max status you can acquire is status 3, then being at status 1 or status 2 isn't really that bad. The majority of characters stay at status 1 in games, as it is. Status 2 then becomes "pretty active/respective/whatever", and status 3 is "paragon of activity/respect/whatever". Status 4 and 5 reserved for NPCs, or PCs that are transitioning into NPCs / retirement / death / whatever.

Alright, fair enough.

@Tempest I've actually have no idea what you're talking about here.

For instance the idea of awarding automatic XP to the player, rather than the character, was brought up at the same time we were discussing whether alts should be allowed or not. Its purpose was also brought up - since we were talking about status, which is by definition tied to IC achievements and activity, so those two were possibly two systems whose goals were at odds. We also looked at its inclusion in games using GMC with built-in ways to earn XP. Etc.

There are no sacred cows. Everything ought to be on the table for a discussion. You seem to be looking for ultirior motivation which is not there (the idea @Cobaltasaurus might be considering these things for some kind of personal gain makes me giggle).

@Cobaltasaurus said:

But re: Status, the merit.

I have a pretty crazy idea of doing like a country-wide consilium / praxis thing. Where the most status a PC can get to is status 3 (because 4 and 5 means you're working at the national level rather than the local). They'd be like a huge council or primogen/priscus council going on, and stuff -- I haven't slept so I've not got many more thoughts worked out from there. There would be 'local' mini-domains throughout the country, but everyone ultimately had to obey the laws of the Big Wigs Outside The Area. The setting could be somewhere close to like the Mage/Vampire-Capital that they could brush up against the national level problems, but far enough away that they aren't in the thick of it.

This idea wouldn't work very well for werewolf. But I think it's kinda eat for mage/vampire. Also frees up the issue of approving new pcs like "are you a member of the consilium? Are you new? I NEED YOU TO PRESENT YOUR PAPERS!" 'cause everyone would be a member of the consilium/praxis already.

As you say, this works better in some spheres and worse in others. 'Status' unfortunately isn't even comparable to Renown (how other Uratha/blooded feel about you doesn't necessarily reflect on how the Lunes do) so it's hard to draw an equivalence there.

How are you thinking status is gained, for starters? Obviously (?) it can't merely be bought in this context since, well, 3 XP isn't exactly hard to come by. Hell, people would have it in CG. On top of it keeping track of achievement may be hard - at least without making people jump through loops (publishing logs, etc) which I openly despise. So the method staff needs to have to decide who's worth that rise in influence should be debated as well.

The big question about status, other than the above, is what it does. Giving extra access to RP could be a unique enough way - letting your PC go have an one-to-one chat with a legendary NPC for example, or small things to gain face such as being allowed to sit with the Prince rather than the rest of those peons during sphere-wide activities - but ultimately it'd still fall into staff's laps to do something with it, and staff at least traditionally are overworked as it is. Especially in such scenes. It's not always possible to throw those extra bones to the high status people.

A final observation: A scale of 1-3 is limiting in practical terms. It's almost binary - offering characters more 'steps' (i.e. making it 1-5 before you break to the national level thematically) might be preferable so there is gradual advancement without reaching the cap after only a couple of jumps up. It's the same thing on a smoother curve.

@Tempest said:

I hate RfK's xp system, and I am baffled by the people complaining about auto-xp.

Why do you care? If you're some pillar of awesome that does "so much stuff!" and are the one true hero of MUing, out there generating all kinds of RP and are so much better than everybody else! You are still getting more xp, especially in a GMC system. So stop worrying about how Joe idles 6/7 days a week and has a decent level of XP. Jesus. Try to remember we're all here to have fun.

You may be confusing debating with complaining. Just because a thing can be improved it doesn't mean we hate it. Conversely, it is possible to like a system and try to make it better.

It's also not personal. We don't only discuss ideas which benefit 'us' here (in fact I don't know that's applicable, since debatably a character's best interests don't align with their player's).

@Glitch said:

I was also speaking generally, neither in the context of status nor of WoD. I'm only speaking in the context of XP in a MU'ing environment with the expectation that "always-available" is the norm. In the case of WoD, I probably wouldn't include beats and aspirations as a method for gaining XP and so yes, overhead would be reduced.

Okay, that makes more sense then. I guess it'd be harder though - since the thread mentions 'GMC' - without converting the system to an extent, since Conditions/Beats are an integral part of it.

So in this case we'd have flat gains for everyone who's flagged as a 'main character' but no other XP incentives of any kind? So status would be more or less the only way a character achieving things would have something to show for them?

@Coin said:

"Letting people buy stuff without having to RP". This is basically what auto-XP does. It lets them be able to accrue enough experience even if their actual activity doesn't match their stat purchases. No judgment value on my part, but that is what it does. At best we can say it encourages people to stick around even when they can only devote a very limited amount of time to the game.

Right. So my follow-up question is, why? Is it a gimme meant to encourage casual players to keep... not playing? As such, is it a more effective mechanism than (say) TR's where you were automatically caught up to a bracket <X> points away from the game's leaders?

The reason I'm insisting on this point is that we are discussing status, and part of the point of status as an attribute is to specifically reward activity and even more so, meaningful involvement/IC achievement. It seems a bit counterintuitive then to, at the same time, let casual players fall back on one (typically less meaningful) ladder of improvement but keep up in another. More so because some spheres value status way less than others, so for instance an inactive Vampire is penalized a great deal more in such a system than an inactive Werewolf.

It feels a bit arbitrary, you know? More like these notions have been inherited from game to game because that's the way it's always been rather than with a game purpose in mind.

@Glitch said:

• It lessens the focus on gaining XP.
• It removes a dependency on type and level of activity.
• It makes the power-curve more shallow and gives a general power-level to the game.
• It removes staff and player overhead involved in variable XP tracking and awarding.
• It gives a reliable, known quantity of XP for expenditure.

Do we want to lessen the focus on gaining XP though? And if there are other methods of gaining XP (Aspirations, Beats, etc) then is it really relieving the overhead at all? I mean it's a flat number added on top, so what's the difference?

I suppose there's a gain in being able to know in advance just how many weeks maximum it'll be before you can buy the next dot of whatever, so there's that.

I'll frame that and put it up on my wall!

Let's look at it from a different perspective.

What is the purpose of auto-XP? What function does it serve in a MU*?

@Coin The problem would be in case the auto-XP rate diminished its returns over time (as does Eldritch, for instance).

In that case it either wouldn't work at all, since you'd simply switch your 'active' alt to another once the curve dipped low enough, or the second/third alts would end up receiving considerably smaller returns compared to the first one.

So switch back when that's the case. Only one character receives the auto-XP, but it can be a different one (say, with a sanity clause of only switching once every <X> weeks).

@Glitch said:

Also, on a game with multiple alts, now-a-days I lean toward only a single one of your characters getting this flat-rate. If you want to explore other character archetypes or blow off steam on your mortal or whatever, have at it, but pick one character to be your main and that one gets the XP benefits.

I like that idea.

Just referencing some things in a semi-random order.

• Only one character.

This completely works for me - I'm an one-alt kinda guy - but I know there are people who like to mix it up. I'm not convinced people who don't play but merely 'rest' a character are that much of an overhead for staff, assuming of course they're not hogging sphere cap spots with their presence. There's one more exception but I'll cover it later in this post.

• Only earning XP from 'doing stuff'.

Again, the idea is fine but... not everyone has the same access to 'stuff'. I can usually wiggle myself into plots but I know and have spoken to people who haven't been able to do the same. So this might end up dividing the population into the haves and have-nots based on their OOC friends. Also how would that work out for Storytellers running those stories but not advancing themselves?

• Status. Social influence.

This is a sore point in most games I've seen - for starters because just what it means changes rapidly based on whether we're allowing PCs to rise in IC ranks. While my recommendation is not to (because OOC dramaz) it does create an issue when powerful go-getters with plenty of clout end up being lowly peons in the overall hierarchy, and it does take something away from certain spheres, such as Vampire (I don't know if we're only discussing a Mage game here or what) where rising is part of many concepts' thematic growth.

Another issue is that sometimes even when it exists status does nothing except on paper. Sure, your character has City Status 3 but what does that actually do? I mean when you get Brawl 3 you punch harder, but what about influence? Staff is often way too busy (and, traditionally, far too worried about staying impartial) to let their NPCs pick sides in situations of character conflict so favors usually come down to imparting with some advice or information about metaplot - all things quite nice and fine, but more in the realm of merits like Contacts/Allies.

So how do we make status both be actually functional and genuinely useful while remaining unique? It's supposed to be a major resource - how?

Another issue is that sometimes PCs sit in rooms and accumulate XP. Yes, this is an argument in favor of @Ganymede's point (god I feel dirty now) because it's been seen far too often for someone to let weeks pass gathering auto-XP and spending it on twinking wildly with virtually no benefits compared to someone who risks their PC in plots and is out there doing stuff. This is important because we want people motivated to do these things any way we can - the game gain nothing from that vat-grown powerhouse. So if one of the ways to discourage one practice and incentivize the other is to let NPCs respond to it ('who the hell is Bob? I've never seen him before, why would I help him?') is status then we should design the game around that.

Which takes me to my point in this post... if status is to do something the MU (including its metaplot) needs to take that into account on a fundamental level. If it's an afterthought it'll be irrelevant.

@Coin It's only in beta. DUHH.

@Coin Then @HelloRaptor's device finally worked and he punched you in the face over the internets?

(We're next)

If we're going into pet peeves about the WoD, mine has to do with how far better attack dice scale (and continue to scale in 2.0) compared to defense.

That makes combat pretty brutal and bursty, which while it may be an appealing factor in some regards - if we aim for 'realism' for instance, since a normal person being shot in the belly would at least incapacitate if not kill them instantly - but in both PrPs and (worse) PvP it tends to be anticlimatic for my tastes. That's for two reasons:

1. It places way too much emphasis on who wins initiative.

2. It often makes opponents who're created challenge combat characters one-shot everyone else, and ones who're created to challenge non-combat characters get stomped into the dirt by the former.

I prefer a more normalized difficulty curve through encounters.

@Misadventure Hm, shame. See, what I had in mind here is that most systems are built with the traditional the-DM-is-ever-present idea in mind then we go in and introduce MU* where that condition is rarely satisfied, so we're bastardizing them a bit so they can work.

Maybe something more loose and designed from scratch to accommodate the concept of everyone-is-a-DM instead could catch on.

Has anyone actually tried Ars Magica on a MU*? I've heard of the system (but never played it), yet just going from the wikipedia link that collaboration concept seems intriguing as a built-in element of what we're more or less using.

@Glitch said:

@Arkandel said:

Again, you (the generic 'you') are free to do what you wish with yours. I'd never discourage someone from running their own thing, there's nothing wrong with that.

You did say do what you want, but that was a throw-away at the end of a long argument expressing exactly why they shouldn't.

No, but I did present an alternative to my long argument, advising that perhaps a niche game better fits a Skype campaign (or the like) instead of a fully-fledged coded MU*. Approximately the same effect for a fraction of the investment.

What does that even mean?

Do you have trouble with is too?

I don't think sarcasm is warranted here. Asking you to define what 'should' means in the context you presented is a legitimate question; does it mean for example most players ought to give new mechanics a chance? That they should care more about the system and enjoy it as part of the games they're playing? That you think people already favor such systems more than I believe that they do? Were you, in other words, claiming people's behavior towards mechanics needed adjustment?

If anything people should try to have fun.

Look, you found a meaning astonishingly close to my meaning in the very next sentence.

Again, misplaced sarcasm.

If people don't care about mechanics, but instead care about having fun, enjoying a good theme and finding roleplay with new people and friends, a new system won't be much of a hurdle. It'll be more of a hurdle for some, but that's hardly a reason not to do it.

Existent systems is already a hurdle for many players. We're going back to empirical evidence here, but many folks I've spoken to didn't even want to delve deeper into mechanics they're already a bit familiar with and have been using - in some cases - for years, let alone care to try on fresh, radically different ones for size.

In fact my impression of what's popular is many people only care for the part of the mechanics which describes their characters' abilities (can I turn invisible? turn into different creatures?). Obviously I could be wrong, and there's no way to prove it anyway.

It's alright to value different things. I place great value in being able to play with more than the same 2-3 people I have been all week because no one else is logging on. I find no inspiration in that.

See, this is the worst part of your argument. You say people can do what they want, but you spend a lot more words saying how they shouldn't (or asserting something so you can imply it without having to use the word should). Or, like this comment, say it's all right to value different things and then immediately offer a backhanded reference to what you "greatly value" that, shock of shockers, implies otherwise.

Those are my priorities. There are folks who wouldn't care if they only interact with a relatively small group on a consistent basis, or build a MUSH with a limited time horizon (say, running metaplot with a strictly defined end-point and shutting the game down when the story is told). I would have little interest in that, which is exactly what I said.

@Glitch said:

I wish I could upvote you more for this. People should be running these things out of passion because they really want to play or make the game they envision. If others don't share their vision, the game will fade or die, but always deciding to go with what you think will be popular is worse than going with what makes you happy.

Because those two things are mutually exclusive? People do run these things out of passion; they have had for a while. And since MU* - unlike table-top games - are massively collaborative efforts where no one or two people can pull it off - you need to rely on others to realize the vision you set out with.

I remember the first time I ever launched a game. We had been working on it for months and once we actually opened I remember looking at some players whose names I didn't know at all being in a public room at 1 am playing and thinking - hey, wow. This is so neat.

This isn't commercialism versus individualism (the idea of even WoD as a massively pushed product is hilarious given what we're doing with our time and how many of 'us' exist), it's a mere matter of practicality and best allocation of effort and time.

Again, you (the generic 'you') are free to do what you wish with yours. I'd never discourage someone from running their own thing, there's nothing wrong with that.

No, it's not opposite. You're talking about hunkering down and sticking with the familiar as the community shrinks, because we all know how well that ever succeeds at making anything better. Instead, people should try new things, experiment, fail or succeed based on their attempts and do what inspires them to tell stories and roleplay (even if that is WoD or D&D). Maybe the community still shrinks, but it's also not the option that is guaranteed to make it stagnate further.

I am saying there's no such thing as 'should'. What does that even mean? If anything people should try to have fun. I am asserting - and there's no way for me to prove it other than empirical evidence so I can only push the idea that far, but I find it far from hard to defend otherwise - the majority of players don't care about the mechanics they're using, they care about the game's themes, roleplay being available, their friends being around.

It's alright to value different things. I place great value in being able to play with more than the same 2-3 people I have been all week because no one else is logging on. I find no inspiration in that.

Because of three reasons.

a) I don't care about the intricacies of the system as as a whole. I only care about what I'll be using.

b ) I don't memorize things I don't care about a lot. I look them up.

c) Screw you!

But seriously, we should probably have a thread and discuss the merits of popular systems versus more niche ones before we derail this poor one even further. @EmmahSue, @Glitch, @Thenomain?