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Post by NineOfSpades on Jan 31, 2015 3:28:40 GMT
So, this is something I've been pondering since the day the site opened, and I think its time to bring it up for group discussion.
Firstly, I'd like to introduce a system where by a player can be rewarded for RPing with character and developing their story, rather than just making disposable characters you use once or twice and then get bored with. What I'd like to do is have it so that, as a Character reaches certain posting milestones, they receive increasing rewards. Its additional motivation to stay with your characters and really flesh them out.
Rewards might start out as getting a Small bonus feat once you hit 100 posts with your character (Just an example number), or perhaps a free magic item. As you hit greater and greater milestones (a few hundred), you might be rewarded by increasing an ability score by +1, or gaining a castle (Like with the Landlord feat from Stronghold builders). At extremely high levels (500 or more, maybe) Perhaps you could even be given a quest to get a minor or major artifact.
These are just potential ideas, of course, but I hope they get the point across.
The second point up for discussion is additional characters. Some folks have already filled up their 2 character slots, and are itching to pick up a third. I'm all for allowing people to play as many characters as they can handle, but I also want to ensure that people aren't just making characters to play once or twice and then get bored with. There needs to be a system in place to limit when a person can gain a new character slot. One way would be to limit it by post count, though I am uncertain on this, given that vignettes do allow two people to get a huge number of posts in a very short window of time. Having some kind of time factor would probably also be appropriate. I could see this working in combination, like say, needing 100+ IC posts with your exsisting characters, and have RPed them for 2 months before unlocking a new character slot. But again, thats just a example of what might work.
Anyone interested in providing feedback should feel free to, though I make no claims of this being a democratic system, or that any of these ideas will be implemented anytime soon. This is more about brainstorming than anything.
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Post by Gaiyamato on Jan 31, 2015 3:33:57 GMT
I generally agree with all of that and feel it is a great idea. I think that posts with main accounts need to be taken into account as well as ooc chatter in games can be a sign of activity, even though their character may not have enough to fill an IC post yet (See my Genindy in the Campaign for example).
10 posts a month per character should be a sign of at least minimal activity. Instead of making it x posts, make it x posts/time the character account has been around? So a character 1 year old with 100 posts has obviously had very low use. But a character who is 1 month old with 60 posts has had a very high level of use.
Also rewarding and encouraging DMing is something that needs to be looked into.
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Post by NineOfSpades on Jan 31, 2015 3:40:12 GMT
Yes, DM rewards will need to be worked on.
My concern with Posts/Time is that the vignettes, as I said, give players a way to seriously screw with those numbers.
Just as an example, The "Nature's Lore" Vignette has been going for 6 days, and is up to 84 posts. That's pretty impressive, but it completely scews how much activity is being done with the character, and how much actual story progression is being made for them.
Put another way, Vignettes are ment to be short little encounters, like two characters meeting to discuss politics over tea. They don't represent major milestones for a characters story arc, and I really value characters who undergo story arcs, which is the kind of thing I'm trying to reward with the title system and additional character slots.
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Post by Kitsune on Jan 31, 2015 3:46:35 GMT
I would like the system to be in place to reward those who roleplay well with their characters, someone who can keep their character in mind and tell an interesting story with their development, for example, rather than rewarding them and the guy that just posts a dry, mechanical statement of what their character does every post (not pointing names at anyone, as I haven't personally seen someone do it yet, I'm just bringing it up). But I understand that would make things a bit trickier to perform.
I do very much like the idea of a Milestone system in place to provide things that might reflect events that happened in a story, although it would likely have to be a campaign to prevent adventuring abuse. But rewarding a castle, land, or a keep to someone or a group of adventurers that capture it from some evil wizard, for example. Or perhaps even the Leadership feat if during a Campaign the player character somehow manages to assume control of a group of people/be put in charge of an adventuring company or similar events like that (I know leadership is abuseable, but perhaps this could be a limited version of it. For example, you can't involve your cohorts and followers in things that don't involve them, so unless you were doing an adventure where your adventuring company is hired/directing your tribe to some purpose, they wouldn't be involved. Your cohort would then likely be the 'second in command' that controls things whilst the player character is off adventuring/campaigning). Or even things like a king grants the player character a boon, a blessing from a deity, and other such things.
Essentially, I like the idea of Exceptional Rewards for Exceptional Deeds, rewards that don't necessarily fit into a standard adventuring reward, but could offer a nice, thematic pay off for doing something cool or meaningful - rather than just being tied to post rate.
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Post by Gaiyamato on Jan 31, 2015 3:51:18 GMT
What about instead of using posts characters earn "achievements" - a bit like game achievements on Steam. A DM can submit to a Mod/Admin to approve awarding one to a character for good roleplaying, good activity etc.
Characters can then "cash-in" those Achievements in exchange for a third character or for rewards that suit their character story/personality/goals etc.?
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Post by Salient on Jan 31, 2015 4:29:13 GMT
There is already a system in place for granting player rewards based on their participation in story arcs: XP and character levels. I recommend using that instead of something as easy to abuse as a post-based metric.
(If you want to encourage frequent posting, then you could have GMs award bonus XP for frequent and consistent posting during an adventure. Just make sure there are very obvious standards and rules for this, please, that aren't open to individual interpretation.)
Let's say for example:
You start with up to 2 characters at 5th level. When one character reaches 7th level, you unlock another 5th level character. (3 total) When one character reaches 9th level and one character reaches 7th level, you unlock a new 5th level character. (4 total) At 11th/9th/7th, you may have another. (5 total) ...and so on, up to whatever you decide is the maximum.
The exact numbers can be tweaked, of course.
Anyway, this sort of system would guarantee they're playing all their characters roughly evenly, leaving one slot open for wiggle room.
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windstruck
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Post by windstruck on Jan 31, 2015 4:53:18 GMT
I think I'm all with Salient on this one. The adventures and campaigns are already supposed to be giving players rewards. Rewards, special medals or whatever should all probably come from end rewards of completing them.
Say completing The Night Hunt got you the title "Werewolf Hunter" and completing Sheperding and Pie got you "Meat Pie Connoisseur" for medals or something. Maybe you could have a special point currency that goes toward getting small feats or other benefits, I dunno.
But as has been pointed out, frequent posting in things that don't make an impact like in vignettes shouldn't be a contributing factor to the rewards. So as it stands, that means it can't just be based off post count.
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Death
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Post by Death on Jan 31, 2015 20:52:03 GMT
I really like this system idea on one hand because it causes people to focus on the characters that they are playing so they can progress them through the story, rather than have dozens of characters. The mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons was never too keen on the ability to give players rank and title in organizations, even Leadership is a weak feat thats really on the small scale level.
I personally know of only certain game mechanics feats such as Tyrant for evil characters in the D20 Third Party Feats book, if anyones ever taken a look at it. But i certainly think aside from in game things that a system needs to be created, but it shouldn't be totally based off of your post count. A friend of mine on another site helped devise a unique reputation system involving fame/infamy points. Depending on what 'campaigns' and 'adventures' you were involved in and how they turned out, you could gain fame or infamy points depending on success/failure.
Staff could dictate the fame/infamy you get after each successful campaign or mission you create, and in the organization that your character is in, you can rise in status. A system like this would function a lot better than the affiliation chats in D&D books such as the Complete Champion. I recall a game I was playing in where i started my new character in an organization, and due to my classes and setup, I was almost the highest rank you could be just by how i designed the character.
A Fame/Infamy system would allow for controlled progression for characters. Especially in the instance of rising through military ranks, or trying to gain renown and rank among savage hordes such as goblinoids, orcs, etc, etc. Staff can oversee your stories and aid in the fame/infamy of the characters involved in their campaigns. Also if someone manages to get enough of the people together to run their own thing, that could earn Fame/Infamy too.
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Post by NineOfSpades on Jan 31, 2015 22:10:39 GMT
To clarify, The titles I am talking about would not be represented IN GAME. Rather, they are a means of showing that a player has reached a certain level of achievement by using a single character for many adventures. These are titles like Bronze, Silver, Gold, Mithral, Etc. Status. The rewards would be just a minor benefit or boon as a way to say 'Good job for sticking with this character'. I am not talking about titles in the sense of 'Leader of the Assassins guild' or 'Mayor Of Waterdeep' Or something like that.
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Post by Drake Darkstar on Feb 1, 2015 2:17:25 GMT
First of all, i think i can say that the method to figure out when one can make a third+ character was pretty much not even touched, still Salient did mention it so i will answer to that first: the level of your characters seem like a balanced method to resolve that on the surface, but the problem is they only check progression, not frequency, not availability, not even the speed of said progression, what you need for more characters, is the ability to frequently post with all of them, sure you could have a level 7th character, but what if it took you say.... 2 years to do so, in my opinion that certainly wouldnt qualify, besides, due to the character import in this forum, some players started with 9th level characters, which instantly nullifies the validity of using levels to meassure progression, on the other side, you can say all you want about post count, but they can help figure this out much more easily, i see the argument that Nature's Lore is going lightspeed, but that is only because both me and windstruck are very active players, as far as i can see, most vignettes, even those with very few players, are nowhere near as quick, and even then, Nature's Lore has quite a bit of backstory related progression, sure there isnt any fighting or looting, but you know what, because of that we could develop more on the storyline, talk a bit about the characters own backstory, going into details about that where most adventures wouldnt even touch the topic, not to mention campaigns, so im sorry, but i dont think disregarding vignettes altogether is something you should do only because 2 players managed to quickly advance one.
Now as far as titles go, i think the achievement system works best, where staff (or DMs with staff approval as mentioned) would reward a character with certain amount of achievement points, then that character can spend those points in a shop of sorts, likely in the character progression forum, examples of something you could buy could range from an additional feat maybe, lands, something you couldnt just buy most likely, as far as bronze silver and such for the character ranks, well theres a simple idea that comes to mind, you just reduced tax rates to 1% right? well, those special ranks (either bought with achievements or simply earned by getting a certain amount of them), make them increase tax rate, so for example, normal is 1%, copper/bronze could be 2%, silver could be 4%, gold 7%, platinum 10%, mythral 15% and adamantine 20% or such, it probably shouldnt scale that high to be honest but its just an example
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Post by NineOfSpades on Feb 1, 2015 2:21:34 GMT
I do not possess the ability to grant different members different GP progressions. It is one fixed rate for everyone. I also do not think that the GP interest rate should be higher than 1%, given that it could rapidly allow players to accumulate wealth that is FAR outside the expected WBL and totally disrupt game balance by doing so.
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Post by Drake Darkstar on Feb 1, 2015 2:29:30 GMT
ok that nullifies that specific option, well the ranks are supposed to be milestones right? so they could simply be meassured with how many achievements you have gotten, regardless of if you spent the points or not.
as far as the rewards, that is a more difficult question, different characters want different things, you could make a small list, 3 or 4 options for every milestone/rank, and have the character choose among them, if a character is unhappy with every choice, well thats why the homebrew request forum exists
regardless, i still stand by that post frequency should be an important matter when considering wether or not to allow an extra character, but if you feel an extrarequirement is needed, then youre free to add an achievement cost or it being part of the rank options, thats my suggestion at least
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Post by NineOfSpades on Feb 1, 2015 2:36:36 GMT
Yes, that was always the intent.
If I were to do it based on post frequency, I would also need to include a Minimum time limit as well.
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Post by Drake Darkstar on Feb 1, 2015 2:58:14 GMT
so basically, to summarize extra characters requirements: 1) having x posts in y time, among all your accounts 2) at least one of your characters must have done something incredible or simply worthy of fame and well, achievement points 2a) either spend the points required or reach a certain amount for a milestone, depending on final choiceat this thread 2b) do note that achievement points should be kept separate between accounts, even if said points are only used to make another, same goes for milestones
3?) im not sure how would an ooc account earn these achievements, but the simplest solution comes to mind, good DMing, at the end of an adventure or campaign, players should rate their DM, on a scale of 1 to 10 and why, we add the totals and divide by the amount of players and it should give you the amount of points, this should also make a good reference for prices and points rewarded to characters
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Post by Salient on Feb 1, 2015 3:06:36 GMT
the level of your characters seem like a balanced method to resolve that on the surface, but the problem is they only check progression, not frequency, not availability, not even the speed of said progression, what you need for more characters, is the ability to frequently post with all of them, sure you could have a level 7th character, but what if it took you say.... 2 years to do so, in my opinion that certainly wouldnt qualify I actually think my system does adequately address this point. To use your example, if it takes them 2 years to qualify, then that adds up to just a single new character by that player in 2 years. If the problem we are trying to solve is a glut of characters that no one is playing, then consider that a player who posts very slowly will also qualify very slowly, naturally leading to fewer characters by people who are not appropriately active. It might offend you to think that such an inactive player could ever earn another character without being active enough to "deserve" it, but as far as the system goes, it is a relatively light burden on this forum and the administration to allow it when you consider the time scales involved. besides, due to the character import in this forum, some players started with 9th level characters, which instantly nullifies the validity of using levels to meassure progression I thought of this when I made my post, but I didn't want to water down the point with a whole lot of minor details. Situations like this are fairly easy to resolve by using a relative measurement instead of an absolute one. In other words, look at how many levels were gained through active play rather than whatever happens to be the current level of the character. For example, if they start at level 9, then they earn a new character at 11 instead of 7. If they start with 4 class levels and 1 LA, gain a level, buy off the LA (thus losing a level), and then gain another level, then they earn a new character at 6 instead of 7, because they did the work to gain two character levels. If they suffer a permanent level drain during the course of an adventure, that doesn't count against them, etc. It doesn't really seem like a problem to me. Details like that can be ironed out easily enough.
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Post by Gaiyamato on Feb 1, 2015 4:20:18 GMT
I like the idea of earning points by moderator award for roleplaying or for x posts / y time sort of thing and then putting in place a "shop" that "sells" little bonuses in exchange for those awards. One of the things they could sell could be a third character for a hefty price.
I love the DM rating suggestion there.
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Post by NineOfSpades on Feb 1, 2015 4:27:48 GMT
I think this point has gotten a bit muddled. The character title system is Independent of gaining new characters.
Titles are there as rewards for sticking with a character for a long time, and will probably be rewarded based on number of threads completed and/or the number of posts. These rewards will be minor In game benefits, like an extra feat, a castle, or a bonus to an ability score.
I dislike the idea of achievement points. The idea of rewarding players for spectacular deeds or great role playing is nice, but adding it in means another layer of work to keep track of for the staff. I also dont think it will mesh well with the random nature of D&D, where someone can get screwed due to consistantly poor rolls. Tying it to level progression among your characters might be a good way to go.
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windstruck
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Post by windstruck on Feb 1, 2015 6:11:33 GMT
Well either way you look at it, anything fair and that's actually worthwhile will take a considerable amount of work and bookkeeping. Quite frankly, with the speed things are going on this site, these "achievement points" are NOT going to be huge burdens for anyone to keep track of. Just tack something onto the bottom of a player's Adventurer Guildhall page.
Plus, I don't think dice rolls entirely screw over players. It's just extremely unlikely. A lot of the time making decisions depends both on RPing out your character and managing risk. That's just the nature of the game. Even in real life, risk is often rewarded, but risk is risk, so therefore taking one might not go well for you.
Down to the last of your HP and still facing down that hydra? Maybe you should retreat and think up a different strategy instead of trying to charge it one last time for a 20% chance to kill it but 80% chance of failure. Same thing with using teleport. There's always going to be a risk, so it would be quite unwise to even go to a place you're familiar with when on your last legs.
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Post by Gaiyamato on Feb 1, 2015 7:28:53 GMT
Yeah, any system you put in is going to significantly add to your bookwork. You could simplify it by having DMs submit for rewards, but then you get more variance as DM opinions will vary. What you need is a Mod of rewards. Dedicated to that one sole task.
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Post by crazyaido on Feb 1, 2015 9:55:36 GMT
I was going to suggest that you could reward people by giving them significant resources outside of what they may be able to use during adventuring. Basically, as they advance, give them a base of operations, a city house, a small keep in the wilderness, something like that. Give them a decent amount leeway to actually make it their own, and you have something that people might want, but that won't have too significant an impact on actual gameplay.
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