Winners of the Coveted "Things That Make Me Excited" Award, from this list:
How about an apprenticing sub-system for the crafting system to help and encourage characters to learn from experienced crafters? Perhaps have a master and apprentice flag each other or just award bonus crafting exp if rping while a higher ranking crafter is nearby while you work (Or rather a person with higher crafting levels rping with a crafter with a lower crafting level while one or both are practicing.
Would be absolutely huge. The crafting system in its current form is a pretty horrible slog. In addition to the actual material cost, it requires a ridiculous investment in time. A handful of recent changes have only made that time investment more severe and even less convenient -- changes to the DC spread for potions, crafting places locking their doors at night, etc. The server economy relies on crafters existing, yet the actual pursuit of crafting represents a giant chunk of time spent
not role-playing. Given that we all have only so many hours to play each day/week/whatever, an apprenticing system of some kind would let people pursue their crafts without having to lose out on RP time. Moreover, it is cool RP for forming meaningful tutor relationships which is neat.
As a final mechanical consideration, I'd love if such a system allowed some kind of direct crafting XP gain, rather than simply a bonus to your crafting while another crafter is doing their thing. It'd be a huge boon for characters who only have a +1 or +2 ability modifier to their craft in overcoming those initial hurdles if having a tutor when a tutor was most needed actually helped gain them xp towards advancing -- making those first baby steps easier, both mechanically and IC.
What about a version of an ampc, but instead of using a template, you stick with base races while sharing the same tools, like ampc gear, and @voice command. Not all villains are monster. A player would still have to file an application and follow the same rules of having an ampc. I think bypassing the early stages of leveling for the propose of story driven to for the sake of others would be kinda cool.
Also huge. This is something that's been a bugbear of mine for a long time and something I was actually discussing with someone on the server the other day:
I have a love of conflict-based characters, but the nature of the server is that your ability to effectively engage in any kind of direct confrontation is limited by your level. Try to play an antagonist at level 4 and you will get roflstomped, corpse-hidden, or executed by the garda before you hit 5. There are just too many bigger fish, and for most characters your class features/build hasn't hit its prime yet anyway.
What ends up happening is that most antagonists will end up wanting to power-grind themselves to the double digits or even mid-teens before they really start trying to shake things up, but this creates a pair of issues on its own:
- First, it means that you're going to spend weeks if not months on a hardcore grind just so you can get to the point where you can role-play the character appropriately in the first place. Given how the entire xp system of the server is meant to disincentivize this kind of behavior, that seems to be undesirable. This is doubly true given that the amount of level-appropriate content relative to the server population has felt a bit off since the EE migration.
- Second, it has the unfortunate side-effect that because you've spent several months grinding this character to the point where they can be a competent antagonist you tend not to want to view the character as disposable. People will tend to resist letting that character close if they can help it, and if you do meet an early-end to your antagonist career (as is sometimes the case with AMPCs) it is kind of heartbreaking.
Allowing people to use the AMPC rules and stipulations to apply for antagonist-PCs of normal races would do a world of good towards making more interesting and meaningful conflicts, particularly as it would mean seeing more conflict-based characters who would graciously expire rather than playing team-based corpse-hide whack-a-mole.
Big +1 from me, boss.
Rentable areas
I've been a big advocate of this since the topic first came up ages ago. I'd love to see a ton of more rentable stuff, both in the guard-faction sense and in the Governor's Hotel sense. In the latter case, the Blue Water and Blood on the Vine are already ripe for that kind of treatment. As of now, both places are kind of wasted server space as few people use either set of rooms for their intended purpose. Either one is a bit out of the way compared to other alternatives, and it's always bugged me that Port is somehow the only place where players can "live" in any meaningful sense. Particularly as I've mostly played Barovians.
In the former case, I loved the initiative taken about a year ago to "rent" out different areas in vallaki, though they ended up suffering from two major problems: First being that all of the areas were effectively ruined buildings that have been reclaimed, so it had a very limited appeal for many people or groups. The second being that no locks/keys were ever really made a thing, so even if you rented the refuse-filled, mice-ridden, half-collapsed apartment, anyone could walk in any time. The net result being that you were no better off renting the thing than just wandering in at night.
If the goal is "systems to facilitate individual player-driven roleplay" then giving people more places they can actually invest in and make use of would be a big boon. If I want to start a player-faction, having someplace for that faction to meet is a major benefit and helps anchor people into the region and setting in a way that having everyone meet upstairs at the Lady's Rest does not.
That said, the tradeoff here is that it is probably worth re-examining how the rental systems work. The main problem with the Governor's Hotel is that the rooms all end up filled by people who will hold said room for RL months or years even when they aren't even playing the character actively, just by showing up and paying the rent once a week. Part of this is almost certainly the fact that the GH is the
only housing in the server outside of the tenements, so the availability v. demand is absurd. Even still, it might be better if those systems somehow required the players renting them to actively show up and use the rooms for some amount of time per week to still hold the keys or something.
So properties you can rent tend to be run-down or empty on the inside, but what about a series of premade house/shop interiors for each town so that when someone rents a property, they can get a quick tour of the “upgrades” there are to choose from, and select which interior to have linked to the door?
As an addendum to the above, this would be pretty neat, as well.
RPXP Faction Locations
I've disliked this system for a whole number of reasons, and this is among them. It's always seemed an inherent contradiction. We are repeatedly told that this is a role-play server and we are frequently told about this or that decision being made to enforce the setting. Yet at the same time, we have the same system saying that my random Barovian peasant should, upon hitting an arbitrary point in his life, decide to abandon his lifestyle up to that point, his friends, connections, and ultimately his country.. to don a cravat and move on to Port. Like a Galapagos tortoise, he will reach a point in his life where will be inextricably and instinctively called to some far-off point..
Lame. Extra lame if the character in question is built to do some kind of faction something or other. So short of actually dismantling this system, I'm giving the faction-location exclusion a big +1.
I'd also really like to see something to support the more mundane, average evil characters (as in, not MPCs/AMPCs). I've heard the idea of giving evil alignment a tiny EXP increase or something similar to encourage people to play evil more and enforce the idea that good is meant to be outnumbered and outgunned, as well as counterbalance the fact that evil characters typically end up getting less support and assistance. It should be hard for good to triumph rather than the other way around really.
This is actually pretty hardcore related to the earlier antagonist thing. One of the major bits of contradiction between fluff and server reality is that we are told in the fluff that evil is pervasive, temptating, and on the demiplane of dread, ultimately triumphant. Good is supposed to be compelling because it's both challenging and ultimately futile, but that the struggle itself is heroic.
The reality of the server seems to be the opposite. Good or neutral-aligned characters tend to have a significantly easier time of things. They make fewer enemies, they have an easier time gaining allies and resources, and of the playable areas the only place goodly-aligned characters will really run afoul of is Hazlan. Sure, Barovia is run by a vampire count but on the day to day you don't see Garda busting good-aligned PCs chops unless they are doing something stupid or breaking the obvious laws.
Meanwhile, evil is supposed to be a temptation. The easy path to power... But it isn't. Evil doesn't really gain you anything on the server. There are a few prestige classes with an alignment requirement, but that's about it. If you get a DM noticing you being evil, you might get a DP check but there's no real guarantee that a gained dark power will be any kind of net gain. Even necromancy is kinda meh on the server, as despite the number of feats you might sink into it, summons just aren't great on the server. In addition, there's also a significant cost to being evil. Being openly evil will dramatically limit your number of potential allies in a way that being Good does not, and often will make you a target for Team Good Guy™. Being openly confrontation as a Good-aligned character pursuing good is generally rewarded by the player population. Being openly confrontational as an Evil-aligned character doing evil generally means that you will get bounties on your head and a posse after you.
All of those things would be fine (IC actions get IC consequences) save that it directly contradicts the setting fluff. Not only is evil
not a tempting path to power and darkness, it's actually way more difficult to pull off in the long run. In a gothic horror setting, let alone in the Demi-plane of Dread, this seems backwards.
And a Teacher/Student system for spells. If we can't scribe them because of the economy (Although I think if you kept an XP cost people wouldn't become scroll mills) then allowing wizards to trade their knowledge would facilitate great RP.
This would be awesome as well. In any other version of the game, wizards trading spells around is part of the assumed class-features of a wizard. It's disabled here for reasons largely related to the item economy. Allowing Wizards to somehow teach spells would not only restore the component to the class, it has a number of related benefits:
- Lack of spell-trading means that wizards are more reliant on grinding on a server that seems to otherwise want to disincentivize grinding.
- Apprentice/Teacher RP is a really fun part of the tradition and having an actual reason to engage in it would be great.
- Any time you can create meaningful incentives to form and maintain relationships IC, it's a good thing.
Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing a more comprehensive "mentoring" system in the game in general. Wizards and crafting were obvious examples, but how nice would it be for your freshly misted would-be warrior to form a meaningful relationship with a veteran who can then tutor them in a meaningful fashion other than letting you bunny off their XP while they fight things way out of your level, or bringing you gear you shouldn't have yet so you can go grind on your own.
From the other side of it, I love the notion that a veteran swordsman character might choose to become a fencing instructor or something and that mean something other than just hand-waving the RP XP for it. Right now, the only place that an apprenticeship situation matters in any objective way is if you're going for a prestige class that requires training from another member of that class.
The server seems set up in such a way that we want to incentivize RP and disincentivize grinding mobs. The more ways you give people to meaningfully work towards their goals other than grinding mobs for xp/gold/items/scrolls, the closer you will come to that.