Problems in Randland

[Temanin]

Gotta love Wikipedia. Here's what the d20 classes are: algai'd'siswai, Armsman, Initiate, Noble, Wanderer, Wilder, and Woodsman. The prestige classes are: Aes Sedai, Asha'man, Blademaster, Commander, Gleeman, Thief-Taker, Warder, Windfinder, Wise One and Wolfbrother.

Have you ever tried to use something as inspiration and found that you can't get past the fact that what you're looking at is perfect? Hmm. I wonder...

[Tony]

What now?

[Temanin]

That's a good question. How about the RP areas?

Now here's an idea for the structure of the things. This isn't set, though; I'd like to know what you think. It's a little more structured than it is right now and...well, you'll see.

The Model:

Board
>Sub-board
>>Thread

Example:

The West
> Andor
> > Caemlyn
> > Four Kings
> > Whitebridge
> > Baerlon
> > Two Rivers
> Cairhien
> > Cairhien
> > Jangai Pass
> > Umm...I can't think of anything else. =P
> Etc. etc.

Each thread would sit in the Sub-board with a little description about the area. Then if someone wants to RP in Baerlon, they just post in the thread and get started. Basically, this allows the player to pick a place to RP without having to consult a Randland map, pick a land, pick an area, then come up with the field themselves. For the casual RPing, this is rather beneficial.

That's not to say that you couldn't create your own fields; we'd leave that option open within the sub-boards. If you need a specific board somewhere in the northern fields of Andor by the Black Hills in order to hunt for an elusive band of Trollocs, you can post it and go. The above would simply be starter threads in places that are popular/populous.

Maintenance is rather easy, as I would simply monitor the threads and whenever someone's RP was finished, I'd simply delete and re-post the field and Whitebridge would be ready for another adventure. And I could always move them to a RP Archives board if people don't want their stuff to be deleted, too; that's not a problem.

Anyway...this post is getting rather long and I need to get going soon. So here it is. It's an idea, I've seen it work very successfully at other places and that's all I've got.

Cheers.

[Tony]

Sounds good. I'm going to direct Victor to this thread and see what he thinks. He knows more about RP games than I do and could offer more insight.

[Victor]

It seems like a good idea, but the biggest issue surrounding the idea is the fact that, in order for new members to become interested in our system, they have to have someone to play with immediately, otherwise they'll lose interest and leave.

The idea for specific areas of RPing is really good. The biggest concern, in my mind, would be for the GM(s) to coordinate the goings on among different people and make sure that nothing conflicts with what's said in another area or steps on any other player's toes. (Or, like you mentioned earlier, you could go the MMORPG route and let players complete whatever plot threads or quests you want them to and have their own independent storyline be completely seperate from everybody.

Would you mind going into more detail with what you want to do with character classes/professions?

[Temanin]

Basically in response to both of the problems you mentioned: Yeah, those are the two inherit flaws in the plan and I can't really see much of a way to get around them. The first one is the biggest problem because, as you said, it's more character-involvement driven and it's sort of hard to have large amounts of fun by yourself. But then again, if you look at the place in its current state, that's sort of what's going on now.

As to the second problem, you unfortunately have to just trust the players and hope that they would have enough courtesy to not go around completely screwing something up. As you stated about the MMO-esque route, that's the only other way. I'll have to think on that a bit; good points.

As for the character professions...honestly, I don't really know. I was just throwing out ideas. The driving thought behind it, however, was that we could shift the characters to something a little more level-based. Nothing as complex as a D&D setup but something that allows the comparison of characters in various areas and provide each character with the goal of increasing their "stats," for lack of a better term. This is all coming to me as I write so bear with me.

What we could have are simple stats that are an indication of the major attributes used in a WoT RP. They could be Melee Combat, Ranged Combat, One Power...and maybe that's it. They wouldn't really be for anything other than character/monster comparison in capabilities. For instance, Otho has a Melee Combat score of...I don't know, 10. Your basic trolloc has a MC score of...5. All that says is that Otho can whack around a couple of trollocs without getting injured.

Similarly, the Ranged Combat wold determine how accurate you are with your bow, how fast you can shoot, whether or not you know enough to teach others, etc. The One Power score would be an indication of how strong you are with the OP, which would dictate what magnitude of weaves that you can do. Everything else, such as diplomacy and the like, can be covered by one's personal RP skill. If they're clever enough to talk their way out of something, then that's that.

The only way to increase these stats is to go on some long, involved quest(s) in which you are trained by someone. It has to be realistic, so in order to raise your Ranged Combat score, you'll quest with an expert archer - which would be played by a GM - and would have to do all kinds of stuff in order to advance. Going from 1 to 2 wouldn't be bad, but I'd say that around 10 - 15, things would start to slow down quite a bit. I don't really know what the scale would be so I'm just picking numbers here. Eventually, you'd be so high that there wouldn't be anyone to train you. As such, you would have to lead a self-quest which would then be checked by a GM and they would determine if you pushed your character hard enough, etc. I would say that someone would top out around 15 - 20, at which point it would be virtually impossible to improve. But then again, you'd be a blademaster at that point so I guess you wouldn't mind too much.

And that's where the professions come in. When creating a character, you would select a beginning profession. These would help to determine your starting scores as well as provide a general classification for your character's daily activities, which helps the casual gamer. For instance, you decide to create an Armsman. As such, you may select a MC up to 5 and RC up to 3. A Woodsman would have MC up to 3, RC up to 5. An algai-d-siswai would have a MC up to 4 and RP up to 4. A Noble would have MC up to 3 and RC up to 3. The Wilder and the Initiate could have a OP up to 5 and a MC up to 2. Or something; these are just ideas. We may want to remove some of the profession or combine others considering there isn't a lot of stat-difference between an armsman and an Aiel, for instance. But then again, there's definitely a large RP difference so I don't know. Maybe there could even be a commoner "profession" in which you can't have any OP and only a MC and RC of 1. If you ever wanted to RP an innkeeper or something.

Then the "prestige classes" could have MC, RC, and OP requirements before you can even apply. And then they would require a rather intense quest or quest chain in order to become a member - as most are organizations anyway. For instance, to become a blademaster you would have to follow the traditional rules: beat a blademaster (someone with, say, MC: 20) or prove yourself to a gathering of blademasters. Someone could become a Commander by having high MC and RC scores and complete a quest chain in which they prove their leadership capabilities. May want to cut out gleeman, though...

But that reminds me. These stats are very loose in meaning and a lot of value is still placed upon an individual's role playing skills. A person with a MC of 6 can beat a person with a MC of 10 if they RP really well. A Wilder may be able to, in a clutch, suddenly throw forth a massive fireball though her OP score is only 3. The RC: 5 guy may get a lucky shot and place an arrow through a enemy general's eye at 300 yards. The guy with the MC: 6 probably shouldn't attempt to beat up the MC: 10 guy, as he's generally more skilled, but he could possibly pull it off. It's just a way to generally compare yourself to others, as well as the various creatures and NPCs that you may encounter.

And then a list of creatures and characters can be created for the GMs to use in order to decide what to throw against the people in their quests. For instance, without this, they could be RPing with my character Tarac, who is a fairly talented channeler, and decide that a single Myrddraal should be enough to stop him. Well Tarac has been known to blow away a Myrddraal with a single blast. Now with this system, they look and see that his OP is...I don't know, 13 (Not trying to make my characters awesome; again, I don't know what the scale is so I'm picking numbers). Then the GM looks at the list of Shadowspawn and decides that two Myrddraal and a group of Trollocs would be able to stop him. The One Power is tricky, though, as there's a weave that would obliterate all of the Trollocs in one go...so that's something that needs some more thought. But anyway, you all get the idea.

This "stat" idea also provides a good measure for godmoding. A character wouldn't be able to miraculously run their enemy through with a single thrust without trying because we would know that their MC score is 4 while their enemy's score is 7. As stated above, it's possible the MC: 4 could still be triumphant, but he'd have to work at it a bit.

If you can't tell, I've been running on the assumption that "official" stat-changing quests would be led by an actual GM...namely we staff folk. Or just me if need be. It simply wouldn't be fair, otherwise, methinks. One person could just run a single-page quest that raises his MC from 10 to 11, while someone else runs a long, involved four-part quest chain to do the same thing. Official quests would be a way to make sure that someone earns their increase. Of course, characters could run their own plot quests and what not on their own without the need of a GM. And of course a character could easily decide to stay at whatever MC, RC, and OP scores they are currently at. Nobody is saying that they have to keep growing to infinity; that would eventually make RPing boring. It's all up to the player whether or not they with to increase their stats and what not. Now that I think about it, there should probably be a stat ceiling in which a character could not go above. Otherwise, an extremely dedicated, extremely good RPer could end up with a MC and RC of 50 and be able to lay siege to a city all by himself. Or a channeler could have a OP of 70 and single-handedly break the world. And that wouldn't be too good.

But anyway...I've written a lot more than I planned to and most of it probably doesn't make any sense. There it is, though. I'll be happy to elaborate or completely throw the idea out the window if need be.

[Tony]

I understand what you are saying.

The cap for the stats is a good idea. We wouldn't want people to Break the world or lay siege to a city by themselves. One person doing a siege is unrealistic. Although someone could Break the world if they got a hold of one of the super sa'angreal, but we won't let that happen.

As I've said before, go ahead with this idea. I back you up. I'll do anything to help you get the RPing going because my ideas thus far have not worked.

To recruit new members I want to hold back on that until we have everything set up and ready to go for them to RP. I wouldn't want to recruit them and then have to have them wait to play. I'll do some searching around today and see if I can pull anything up we could use to get our word out when the time is right.

[Temanin]

*contemplates making a OP: 275 Channeler who has the Choedan Kal ter'angreal* Now that would be fun...

But alrighty. I agree that we should hold off with another recruiting push until this RP thing gets settled. And I'm also going to wait and see what Victor thinks as it was in response to his question, after all.

*waits*

[Tony]

If I see him online before he sees this I shall direct him here.

[Victor]

I like your idea regarding the different stats indicating what a character is likely to be able to do. One idea I'd like to suggest, though, would be having different specializations for each "class" -- say, Initiates find it easy to raise their One Power rating but harder to increase their combat abilities, while Armsmen have good progression with melee, average with ranged, and poor with the One Power (if they have access to it at all). Not a necessary idea, but I think it'd prevent different character classes from encroaching on other classes' specialties.

As for the stat system type you're leaning toward, it seems pretty simple, but considering that this is a mostly roleplaying environment, that's good. Especially when you consider that if a GM ever needs to throw together stats for a random NPC or enemy, they only need to consider a few factors.

[Temanin]

Yeah, the "specialization" idea is a very good one. I guess I just assumed that an Aes Sedai wouldn't attempt to become a Blademaster, but it's always a possibility. So yeah, the Woodsman would be ranged-oriented, finding it easier to increase that stat than anyone else, while the Initiate would find raising her One Power score a lot easier than learning to fight with an ax. This responsibility would fall upon the GM, obviously, as an Initiate has every right to at least attempt to become a warrior.

Furthermore, I'd say that only the Initiate and the Wilder classes would be permitted to raise their One Power score at all. But that raises a question that I need help with. Should the other classes be completely restricted in gaining the use of the One Power or should it be a possibility? I again use as an example my over-powered Asha'man Tarac. He was a soldier for the beginning of his life and even commanded a group of soldiers before he learned that he could channel. That was in his back-story, but what if I wanted to actually RP it out? Would I select Armsman and then RP with that specialization until I became a Wilder, at which point I'd switch over to that one? Or would I be required to pick Wilder from the get-go and just wait? There's arguments for it either way so I don't know.

As to your second point, that's exactly what I was going for. While I really like stat-driven games and number crunching, I'm trying to keep this place RP-driven, as you said. So...cool. ^^

[Tony]

I would go with being able to change your class when you want. We would have to restrict it so that people can't just keep switching their classes to even out their scores. It would have to be a one time thing.

[Temanin]

Hmm. Yes, we can't have people just flip-flopping professions to make themselves invincible. Perhaps you can technically change it as much as you want but that also requires a long, involved quest. One that most people would be too frightened to go on. I mean, consider this: I'm currently 35 years old and I've been a noble all of my life. I suddenly decide that I want to become a Woodsman. I'm not going to be able to just walk out into the woods and start shooting deer and concocting complicated potions from the local vegetation. No, I'd have to be mentored along the way and since I'm starting from a knowledge base of zero, it's going to take a very long time to figure everything out. I may eventually get frustrated and just give up.

Yes, I like that. You can try to change your class all you want. =P

[Tony]

That is a good system. If someone does not follow it or they try and go around it by saying, "I was taught this when I was really young" we step in and stop it.

[Temanin]

Nay, my OP: 275 Channeler steps in and stops it. *Balefire* =P

Well, let's see. I suppose I should start writing up an actually Information post that people will read and understand the system. The next two days are going to be pretty rough on me so I don't know when I can get started...but it should definitely be finished by Thursday or Friday. Hopefully. Yeah.