Roleplay, Leveling, and Questing

[Duraza]

The actual idea I'm going to talk about came up on IRC when discussing some ideas about how a quest system should work. One side was saying that history and such should be intertwined into the quests, an important part of them. The other side was saying that some people don't care about settings info and history and we shouldn't make them sit and learn about something they don't want to know about every quest they do.

After thinking about it I came up with an idea that I'd like to see in planeshift oneday, something that would apply to quests, leveling, and roleplay and would help them seem less like 3 seperate things.

When it comes to leveling I think that knowing the settings and things like that should help you level, possibly help you even level faster than not knowing it. For example, if there was some research that you could find in the DR libarary about the carkrass written by Londris. This research would tell anyone hunting it everything from how powrful and fast to any weaknesses it has. Londris mentions a weakness against crystal way spells. A player who happens to be hunting carkrass would know to use crystal way.

Notice I say player. It doesn't matter if you think of yourself as a roleplayer or you prefer leveling. The information is there to anyone who wants to seek it. It doesn't force a 'roleplayers' to level or 'levelers' to roleplay. It simply helps players, no matter who they are. You could do the same kinds of things with all kinds of the monsters, maybe not all of them but a good amount.

You don't have to make the info open either, maybe hidden/secret depending on the monster. Maybe tefusangs have some kind of weakness to bludgeoning weapons like hammers so anyone who uses a hammer will have an advantage but other weapons do little. It makes leveling a bit more challenging (and interesting in my opinion) and makes information something more sought after. It doesn't make it immpossible to level without knowing the info nor immpossible to roleplay without leveling.

As for questing its more or less the same only with an option. Lets say Leverus asks you to go and collect rat eyes for him. Before you go he'd ask something like 'would you like to know more about rats'. Say no and you go off on your way and fight the rats. Say yes and he tells you a bit about them, possibly whether all their parts are useless, maybe ones that are useful, weaknesses they have, etc. If you say no killing rats could be difficult, if you say yes it may give you some edge. Yes or no, you now know Leverus knows about rats. Maybe later Sharven needs you to make a special potion but doesn't know what part of the rat is needed. Leverus knows all about rats as you well know and can tell you what parts are helpful and what aren't.

Maybe someone wants a tefusang skin. You try and kill one but you fail. Then you ask around and a player tells you the tefs weakness is hammers. Maybe another NPC who you find out knows about tefs tell you. I'll admit, I've no idea how these things would be implemented, all the hard complications about it etc  Either way I think its a good idea and at least something to keep in mind. To me it makes the 3 things in the topic seem more like one thing than three.

[Mythryndel]

I like the way you are thinking about this. It isn't about alienating any one subsection of players, but also expanding what there is to learn and know about PS. You have my vote for this. Have you come up with a Feature Request to add to the bug tracker for this yet? If you want/need help drafting that... just PM me.

[Sangwa]

While this would contribute to a much better game, since it would give more depth to the monsters, areas and quests, I'm not sure how it would make role playing more fun (well besides giving the obvious bonus of an even more immersive setting.)

My opinion is that to make role play more consistent we need urgently to make the quests role-playable. For me this means allowing players to include their quests in their character's interaction with other played characters, having quests for all types of players and never allowing unique items to be rewarded through NPC quests (generally speaking. There might be situations where a NPC who can produce over and over again something unique will use it as a means of getting his chores done by adventurers.)

To make levelling more consistent we just need to erase the PPs and make it so that levelling one skill makes all the others a tiny bit harder to level.

[Mythryndel]

What is the point of making all of your skills harder to level if you train one? Are you saying that if i train sword, it should make all of my crafting skills harder? Biased much against people that want to play the game? Honestly, IRL if you learn a spoken language or a martial art... learning more spoken languages or a different martial art becomes easier because you have the necessary skills already and it is just a matter of learning the differences between what you know and what you are trying to learn.

I don't know that i like the pps AND trias exchange for skills/stats training, but I like it far better than the traditional level based systems. I like how i have to have training in sword to gain sword skill, not just gain a level and think to myself... hrm... i want sword, mining, metallurgy, and um... armor crafting skills this level.

[EDIT: fixed grammar]

[Zan]

This fits in with what I've been trying to think of lately ... a way to have NPCs serve players instead of the other way around. It is not easy to make a change like that with the Settings Team's current options. However this suggestion is something I hadn't thought about yet and might be possible. Further ideas that lie in the same line are:

- Skill or Stat point rewards from quests.
- Players giving NPCs 'a quest' instead of the other way around.
- ...

[Duraza]

I'm not sure how it would make role playing more fun

It was more about combining Roleplay, leveling, and questing in a way so that they intermix better than they do now than making roleplay more enjoyable. The need to know settings stuff will at least make roleplaying more attractive but I think ultimately roleplays fun is decided by the players of the game.

My opinion is that to make role play more consistent we need urgently to make the quests role-playable. For me this means allowing players to include their quests in their character's interaction with other played characters, having quests for all types of players and never allowing unique items to be rewarded through NPC quests (generally speaking. There might be situations where a NPC who can produce over and over again something unique will use it as a means of getting his chores done by adventurers.)

I'd agree. Quests are not usually easily roleplayed because each single person goes through the same process. Its how most game quests are done but doesn't mean its the right way to do it. I'd say it would be great if quests became a mixture of everyday tasks that could be completed over and over again as well as tasks in which the players always fail at. For example, a certain NPC has a rare sickness. Instead of every individual character curing it we all fail, still getting a reward for trying. You could even spawn GM events and things like that, taking the NPC's problem and making that final epic quest to cure the NPC. it would make the world seem more as if it were always changing.

- Skill or Stat point rewards from quests.

I think items are okay for quests to give so long as the truely rare items would be kept for special occasions. Commonplace items are what we should find the most. A few 'powerful' or 'special' NPC's will give you quests in which you obtain a rare item on your own. Not that you did their task and they gave you the reward but that you do a task for them and in return they tell you how to get such a rare item. The really special items kept for GM events and distrubuted to players as they see fit.

[Zan]

Or how about you ask them about a certain item and they help you get or make it?

By the way I meant to add stats to the questing rewards, not replace current experience, tria or item rewards with them.

[Duraza]

Or how about you ask them about a certain item and they help you get or make it?

That would sound good to me. Possibly instructions to make a weapon. Or possibly they have a glyph symbol and their willing to allow you to copy the symbol to your own piece of stone/wood to make a glyph  (I wonder if thats how it works  )

[Sangwa]

For example, a certain NPC has a rare sickness. Instead of every individual character curing it we all fail, still getting a reward for trying. You could even spawn GM events and things like that, taking the NPC's problem and making that final epic quest to cure the NPC. it would make the world seem more as if it were always changing.

This is exactly the sort of stuff I'd love to see.

What is the point of making all of your skills harder to level if you train one?

It's a way of making each character more specialized, rather than having most characters with all skills.

[Mythryndel]

I have talked about that on other topics... but I agree that all characters should not be vanilla... all characters should not be able to do the same things or max out to the same levels. I don't think that it should be incorporated in this request though. The resistance to this that i have encountered is that a lot of vocal people on the forums want equality instead of balance. They would like their dwarf to be able to wield the same 8 ft claymore that a kran can. Balance is much harder to achieve than equality though.

[Arlaton]

What is the point of making all of your skills harder to level if you train one?

It's a way of making each character more specialized, rather than having most characters with all skills.

Instead of making it harder to level a stat or skill, why not do what uo did and set a maximum total points a character could have that is significantly less than what would max out all the stats. Though UO also made it so that the total could be raised a little bit later on.

[Beniel]

Hmm, I prefer Sangwas idea over yours Arlaton, as it makes more sense. With your points limit, it means that a character is physically unable to max out everything. with Sangwas, it just means that it is harder to be a master of multiple things, which does kind of make sense, as in real life it is possible to master a number of skills, though it is easier to master just one.

On the flipside, as a mechanic for preventing lots of awesome completely maxed characters, your idea, Arlaton is probably better. Because Sangwas idea may create a much larger gap between powerevelers and casual players.

So in the space of one sentence I've managed to change my mind, somehow. I suppose each idea has their pros and cons. So to sum my thoughts up:

Sangwas idea - Makes more sense
                      Possibly tilts things the Plers way

Arlatons idea - An effective mechanic for making sure people only specialise in a few skills (which can also be taken to be more realistic as well).

[Duraza]

I'd say if you go with Sangwa's idea there is still an easy way to stop PLing from becoming dominant and that would skill decay. I mentioned this before I believe but basically if you stop using a skill you'll skill will decrease. Obviously it won't go all the way back down to 0 but you can make skills decay a max of like 25-35%. Makes it hard to not only master a lot of skills but keep them mastered. Just like what people say about riding a bike. You never forget how to do it. This way you won't forget but that doesn't mean you'll have it mastered after not doing it for so long.

[Prolix]

How would that stop power levelling? It would just mean max-o characters will always have a reason to keep playing. They will not need as many alternate characters because their first ones will always have stuff to do.

Are you suggesting skill degradation only with time spent in game or continual even when not played?

[Duraza]

How would that stop power levelling? It would just mean max-o characters will always have a reason to keep playing. They will not need as many alternate characters because their first ones will always have stuff to do.

Well some people will do that. But I think most will give up on purely powerleveling for the fact that maxing will be immpossible. Maxing one or two stats would be possible but not them all so it would be utterly pointless to try. That hand in hand with Sangwa's idea that by raising one skill level others become harder to raise and I bet you'd see less players who only level. We'd still have a few and theres nothing wrong with that so long as they don't disrupt roleplay. But I think we'd have less.

Are you suggesting skill degradation only with time spent in game or continual even when not played?

Thats a tough question. Both sides have their ups and downs. I'd probably go with continual degradation, even when your not playing. If it were only for time spent ingame it would solve nothing at all (it may solve nothing at all either way though). Sure, people who can't play a lot would get the worst bet because their characters would always be the ones losing their skills but you could fix that.

Firstly, create a sort of restriction to when your skills start to degrade. Say the first 20 levels of a skill you can pass without skills going down. After that your'll start losing levels slowly, a max of 25% but you can never go lower than that first 20 levels. Makes it easier when you start training off because even with the skill decay if you just achieve level 21 the most that can happen is you getting set back to 20. Once you start getting higher You'll still only ever be able to lose 25% so you can still achieve and maintain say level 75 sword if you ever got it to level 100. Start training it again and when you don't train you'll start losing levels.

It does in a way make people level more but at the same time makes maxing hard. I'd say it keeps the game challenging for anyone who wants to just spend their time leveling and it gives those who rather roleplay reason to level because they can catch up (though they might not because we prefere taverns ). Since the game doesn't enforce roleplay on everyone, just wants to support it I'd say this would be fair.