07 Jul, 2011, duwnel wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
So I've been developing an RPI game for a few months now, and it has a nice character creation system that you can select aspects such as your sex, name, concept, and assign your core stats.

Right now the "concept" dictates the distribution of points to stat categories, the amount points in abilities that you'll start out with, your greatest sin (an element involved later in a sort of supernatural classing system)… Right now I'm not preserving the concept in the player file, but was toying with using the concept to create a sort of invisible role-playing incentive system to give a small bonus for playing the character according to the concept you took on, and a small penalty for going completely contrary to that concept.

My question is, is this a step too far? Should I leave well enough alone and let people just play their character in whatever manner they choose at whatever point they choose? Or is it reasonably acceptable to say, "Okay, Michael Smith started as The Failure, a snively, wimpy, waste-of-space, pathetic example of a human being; so when he's acting like Rambo with guns blazing it's completely out of character."? Now, of course, there are "change of life events" that may shift your personality and I intend to account for that if I do take this approach, but is this one of those features that'd be considered "useless" or "boring"?

Thanks.
07 Jul, 2011, RoFAdmin wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Hello-


Simple answer is no that isnt a step to far. Your basically in some form talking about alignment, which a lot of games do take in to account. Now you may not be talking about alignment specifically, but the concept is the same.

The real question is…. is the juice worth the squeeze. Have you really thought out in depth everything you want to involve in this system, especially since your saying there can be "life changing events" and all the code youll have to do with it? How will you enforce this, through programmed mechanics? more stuff to code. So you have to ask your self, do YOU find this to be worth the time invested to create it how you want it to be. Then the second question is, do you think your players will make an appropriate use of this system given the time you will put in to coding it.

You will of course have people complaining that they dont fit just into this group or that group. Take me personally for example, some days (or weeks) i dont feel like doing anything, im irritable, and may complain alot and not get much done. Other times im on top of the world and accomplishing mroe things in one day then people do in a month. Sometimes im anti-social and dont feel like associating with that many people, other times im the life of the party and i want all eyes on me…. A very black and white system like that doesnt have room for me, and i have to pick something that may not exactly fit in with how my character is played. Just my two cents.
08 Jul, 2011, quixadhal wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
I agree. If you're trying to make a role playing game, you should enforce consistent gameplay for your characters. Some people won't like it, and that's fine… those people will move on to other kinds of games. Don't try to cater to everyone, as that's the best way to fail. Be true to the core audience you're aiming for, and those people will spread the word amongst themselves.

If you DO stick to a firm RPI system, you may wish to allow people to have a limited number of alts (which you, the DM, will know are the same person, but others may or may not). That way, when someone wants to switch gears, they can switch characters without hurting the reputation of their main.
08 Jul, 2011, duwnel wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
RoFAdmin said:
Now you may not be talking about alignment specifically, but the concept is the same.


Yes and no… There is an alignment (read: Morality) system that's core to the components and can change like alignment in nearly every other game I've seen. Morality is adjustable based on action, and just because you're good one day, doesn't mean you can't and won't do bad things. Being good, in this case, just means that the majority of your actions are good.

The concept (as I see it) is simply a rough outline of how your character behaves, augmented through the use of a merit/flaw system to further design your character. Right now it literally functions just to tighten up the character creation process (as well as starting equipment) and get players into the game faster, I'd just like to give it more importance.

RoFAdmin said:
Have you really thought out in depth everything you want to involve in this system, especially since your saying there can be "life changing events" and all the code youll have to do with it? How will you enforce this, through programmed mechanics? more stuff to code. So you have to ask your self, do YOU find this to be worth the time invested to create it how you want it to be.


Yes, I've thought through how it would affect the coding schedule. The code isn't the problem – Since the adjustments are consistent with various actions, a simple mathematical function to adjust a player file statistic shouldn't be hard to implement and definitely not a problem to call at the appropriate points. Making the adjustment small enough will also make exactly what actions give you a bonus or penalty relatively invisible. All they'll know is that drawing relatively simple lines from concept to action will give them bonuses, and going contrary to that will give them penalties.

RoFAdmin said:
Then the second question is, do you think your players will make an appropriate use of this system given the time you will put in to coding it.


Hm, now this is interesting. Since it's an embedded system within the core mechanics of the game, it really won't be about a choice. But will it do enough to steer them toward better RP; I don't know. I'm trying to think of ways not to simply enforce RP, but to encourage it. The carrot and the stick, if you will. Please, if you have any ideas… do share.

RoFAdmin said:
You will of course have people complaining that they dont fit just into this group or that group. Take me personally for example, some days (or weeks) i dont feel like doing anything, im irritable, and may complain alot and not get much done. Other times im on top of the world and accomplishing mroe things in one day then people do in a month. Sometimes im anti-social and dont feel like associating with that many people, other times im the life of the party and i want all eyes on me…. A very black and white system like that doesnt have room for me, and i have to pick something that may not exactly fit in with how my character is played. Just my two cents.


Great points, and I don't feel that sitting around and communicating or not communicating or doing or not doing very basic things would penalize you; but they wouldn't benefit you either. But say your concept was a lazy wimp, it doesn't make sense to give you a bonus if you start running around and picking fights with everyone and trying to beat them to death. If you're attacked, you may well wish to defend yourself, and that wouldn't be penalizing.


quixadhal said:
If you're trying to make a role playing game, you should enforce consistent gameplay for your characters. … Don't try to cater to everyone, as that's the best way to fail.


Agreed. I ultimately feel that while there are players with different styles of gameplay, there are, as well, players just like me. I am not a special snowflake. If I can make something I genuinely would like playing, there are likely players who would genuinely like playing it as well. May problem is with enforcing consistent gameplay. People are still, after all, people. I want to provide the open mud-wide chat channels for OOC talk and the like, but keep local communication IC; but I don't want to enforce that by skimming logs and kicking out bad players.

quixadhal said:
If you DO stick to a firm RPI system, you may wish to allow people to have a limited number of alts (which you, the DM, will know are the same person, but others may or may not). That way, when someone wants to switch gears, they can switch characters without hurting the reputation of their main.


This is a good call, and part of the reason I originally made the character creation process. I never thought of it as a way to encourage RP though. I will definitely incorporate that shortly.

Thanks for the advice!
08 Jul, 2011, KaVir wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
duwnel said:
Right now the "concept" dictates the distribution of points to stat categories, the amount points in abilities that you'll start out with, your greatest sin (an element involved later in a sort of supernatural classing system)… Right now I'm not preserving the concept in the player file, but was toying with using the concept to create a sort of invisible role-playing incentive system to give a small bonus for playing the character according to the concept you took on, and a small penalty for going completely contrary to that concept.

I like that, it reminds me a bit of the new WoD system, where each player selects a Virtue and a Vice. If I recall correctly, in situations where the Virtue or Vice comes up the player can spend a willpower point to temporarily ignore it, or earn a willpower point by following their nature. In this way the player isn't forced to act in a specific way, but they generally will.

duwnel said:
My question is, is this a step too far? Should I leave well enough alone and let people just play their character in whatever manner they choose at whatever point they choose? Or is it reasonably acceptable to say, "Okay, Michael Smith started as The Failure, a snively, wimpy, waste-of-space, pathetic example of a human being; so when he's acting like Rambo with guns blazing it's completely out of character."?

A few players may complain, but as long as you make it clear in advance I suspect it would be novel enough to draw in more players than it would drive away.

duwnel said:
Now, of course, there are "change of life events" that may shift your personality and I intend to account for that if I do take this approach, but is this one of those features that'd be considered "useless" or "boring"?

Obviously it depends on the specifics of your implementation, but I think the idea has great potential. My main concern would be balancing the different sins, particularly if they're each encouraging very different playing styles. But that's a design challenge, not a problem with the concept itself.
08 Jul, 2011, melopene wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
duwnel said:
My question is, is this a step too far? Should I leave well enough alone and let people just play their character in whatever manner they choose at whatever point they choose? Or is it reasonably acceptable to say, "Okay, Michael Smith started as The Failure, a snively, wimpy, waste-of-space, pathetic example of a human being; so when he's acting like Rambo with guns blazing it's completely out of character."? Now, of course, there are "change of life events" that may shift your personality and I intend to account for that if I do take this approach, but is this one of those features that'd be considered "useless" or "boring"?


I think the question comes down to the level of staff involvement in monitoring and rewarding player activity. I know that since you're going for an RPI environment you prefer to have a lot of rewards in place for RP behavior to reduce the efforts required by staff, and that's fine. You might want to consider using the character background code approach as an enhancement to other codey bits, but I would not rely on it completely. Of course, I have a preference for staff involvement over hard-coding for most of that sort of thing, because I think that it adds a richness to the player experience and makes life more interesting for the player staff.

In fact, the type of player who would often completely violate their original character plan (rather than allow for some growth over time) will likely fall into 2 categories: the type of player you don't want to attract, and the type of player who needs assistance in developing their roleplay skills. For both cases, you'll want to have a strong staff who can identify which is which, and help them accordingly. The ones needing assistance can have some handholding, some discussions on how they can be more consistent in their behaviors, etc., and those who truly don't fit in and are potentially disruptive to the remainder of the player base can be gently suggested a few other MUDs that might be a better fit for them.
08 Jul, 2011, duwnel wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
If I recall correctly, in situations where the Virtue or Vice comes up the player can spend a willpower point to temporarily ignore it, or earn a willpower point by following their nature. In this way the player isn't forced to act in a specific way, but they generally will.


This is cool. I draw a lot of inspiration from the old WoD, but haven't had much exposure to the new one (having not played in a game since my early college years), but it was the theme of my game that drove me to design a "sin" system (basing it on a post-rapture type of occurrence those left behind have a core sin that more or less damned them), and the concept carried the sin so they'd have a bit of a pre-generated background. It does remind me of the old nature/demeanor for encouraging the direction you take the character. I'd forgotten about that…

KaVir said:
Obviously it depends on the specifics of your implementation, but I think the idea has great potential.


Thank you.

KaVir said:
My main concern would be balancing the different sins, particularly if they're each encouraging very different playing styles. But that's a design challenge, not a problem with the concept itself.


Personally I kind of feel the sins "balance" themselves. If you take a "lesser" deadly sin (for instance, luxuria [lechery/lust]), it's not as difficult to "back up" as it were, so the benefits would likely be less to successfully completing a sinful act. By the same token, chastity being it's opposite might give you an adjustment toward good and a bonus for playing up that sin/virtue.

I think the real hard part with the design of something like this may be that I'm just not going to know until play testing.
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