PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: beau on January 28, 2007, 01:22:40 pm
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After a while of playing and contributing nothing, here are some ideas i have given serious thought.
Writing skill.
Basically, it lets you write things for other players to read. Be it a checklist of the iron ore to stock ratio, or a cookbook. But i hear you say "There is no way i will take that much time writing something that will be forgotten instantly!" Ah, but see, you won't write it unless you check the box that says "Self write". And you will be able to use the auto write (Takes a while depending on two things) to do those checklists. See, the write skill refers to another skill of your choice E.G Cooking, Mining, Brewing, Herbal Etc. and depending on that skill, it gives more information.
For example, you write a book on herbal, writing skill is 9 and herbal is 1. after two minutes, you finish the book. it says "For the night mushroom, look in XXX-XX-X." Not much there, eh? However, with writing 9 and herbal 9, it will take 10 minutes. you read it and it says "The night mushroom, an extremely potent fungi with healing properties and a boost to your stamina may be found in XXX-XX-X, and YYY-YY-Y, near the swamp."
This is my idea, but it is for much later along the development line.
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Maybe literacy is something that is best roleplayed?
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Well, perhaps. I do have ideas above my station, and this may be one of them. I just thought it would be a good information skill, and also to roleplay.
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Giving players the ability to write books and have them appear in libraries has been discussed before but I find your idea of a writing skill a bit complicated. Besides there is a difference between being able to read and able to write. The one does not always come with the other.
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I disagree, miss Karyuu. Roleplaying allows player to surmount the skills of their characters. For example, if my stats say I am a dwarf of very little brain, yet I -as the player- know quite a bit about advanced quantum physics, I could easily write a book in the game -as my character- about quantum physics.
Yes, -I- know that is bad RP (and an extreme example), and would never do such a thing, but how many other players can you say that for?
Roleplaying to me is not about getting all powerful in whatever you want. It is playing to the limits you are given, or chose.
Saying that, I am all for a skill in writing such as this. But, I am also for being able to select higher skill levels at creation, or rapid learning is selected areas, if you have seen my other threads. So, in the end, if you wanted to play the role of a very good writer (all books should have to be approved to back this claim up) it would not be hard at all to get there.
As a side note, only -very- advanced authors (IC-wise) would be able to write books that Jayose would except into his library.
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I doubt a coded "writing" skill would allow me to roleplay my character as someone slowly becoming fully capable of writing things on the same level of:
On the Best State of a Republic and on the New Island of Utopia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_%28book%29)
It will restrain many things. And coding it in a fashion that allows enough stylish or scientifical terms to make writing unique according to each author would require an incredibly ridiculous amount of programming that is not worth to waste the time for in my opinion. If there are people that makes roleplays beyond what they characters really are(godmodding), that is their problem and can be easily ignored by others that feel annoyed by it.
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I think having it as an actual skill that requires time and effort to be good in would discourage people from RPing literate characters.
As it is now, it's very rare to find someone in Yliakum who isn't literate, yet in medieval times the only people who were literate were the monks with nothing better to do.
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There has been a discussion about litteracy and analphabetics in Yliakum .. too lazy to search for it but I think that it was concluded that practically all inhabitants learn to read and write when they are young. PS doesn't resemble the middle ages in this aspect, I guess.
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It might be fun to have an oratory skill that takes your words and embellishes them so as to make them sound more important but it is unlikely this would be feasible.
Something like turning "I saw a man and his dog" into "Perusing the horizon I happened to espy a richly dressed man of noble bearing following intently after his gigantic mastiff bound on some indecipherable mission"
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It might be fun to have an oratory skill that takes your words and embellishes them so as to make them sound more important but it is unlikely this would be feasible.
Something like turning "I saw a man and his dog" into "Perusing the horizon I happened to espy a richly dressed man of noble bearing following intently after his gigantic mastiff bound on some indecipherable mission"
It should not be only "Oratory", it would be better if it was
"Oratory and Rhetoric" - takes words, embellishes them and uses even the most trivial thing to defend a point of view about anything or an institution against the criticisms directed towards them. Also may be used for demagogy.
"Perusing the horizon I happened to espy a richly dressed man of noble bearing following intently after his gigantic mastiff bound on some indecipherable mission, therefore I bring these wise observations as a proof to the inherently curious stance about our surroundings, as an accountable evidence for the fully immutable aspects of human nature that are detailedly explained through the pages of insight about the theory of mankind collective personality, that I humbly created and am proving to this noble audience"
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If you say so, of course your example could be the result of a critical failure on your skill check %}
Yes, I evaluated it as the typical example of bad speech. But your example would be a critical failure as well in some circles. Some people prefer hearing things that may be embellished but still straight to the point without too much excess of useless words. Like this
"Imagine you are seeing a gentleman walking with his large hunting dog, and this man is walking like if he was looking for something or someone while the dog seems to sniff all corners of the street where this sir cautiously treads. Would you not become at least minimally curious on what is such man searching for? That is one of the common aspects of our nature, curiousity, the moving force of our progress in the discovery of knowledge."
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If you say so, of course your example could be the result of a critical failure on your skill check %}
P.S. That smilie is my patented googley face, cross-eyed, crooked grin.
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Maybe literacy is something that is best roleplayed?
I think literacy is too much just te be in the hands of role player's minds. Lets just say your discussing some book with someone. Its possible that the two people have a completely different understanding of the book if its not written down. Like thoes africian folk stories. They would change too much. If we had a public library or something, where people could write books and put them on the shelves, people would have a source for written peices.
I think Role Play has more room to expand when you have game mechanics that act as pillars, or supports that enable it to expand to places it's never gone before.
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I must say that the original approach seems very limiting to me. It would basically not allow you to write anything that is
1) not implemented and
2) different from what anyone else, given the same stats and skills, would produce.
My #1 most hated thing in computer games is exactly this limitation to what the author(s) of the game foresaw or saw fit. That's why I much prefer P&P RPG.
In an MMORPG, people strive for originality and distinctness. This is being catered to by the extensive customisation that usually is provided. Were this not the case, one single set of clothing would suffice if it's stats could change.
Especially when you are starting to provide content, which is what you are trying to do when you write books ingame, it is important to not be limited by the game itself. Otherwise, it would be reduced to unlocking things that aren't even originating from you.
Literature should be ingame, as game mechanics, in form of library books, snail mail, bulletin boards, etc., while literacy should be left to the players. It is true that the vast majority of players will RP literate characters. It is possible that they simply take literacy for granted and the possibility of illiteracy never occured to them. It is also possible that they don't want to put up with the constraints of illiteracy, even though these are much less severe in some medieval setting that barely has any texts it relies on, than modern times where without text you aren't going anywhere (even literally, pun intended) most of the time.
However, this may be just one of the points where realism should be put on the back-burner for sake of enjoyment. Similar to allowing people to choose their skills and stats: being forced to RP something that you are not comfourtable with, or quite possibly not capable of, is inevitably doomed to result in poor RP at best, and continous frustration on average.
IOW, books and such should ideally be similar to the char description window. Obviously, they need to have a much higher standard than that in order to be put in a library - however, that is for the librarian to judge. I don't even see too many problems regarding appropriate content, because 1) noone is exposed to the content without choice and 2) it will be easy to track down the offender. It would be possible to add a "Flag as inappropriate" checkbox to the examination window, as well as a "PG rated" mark.
Edit: I have seen some games using forms of distortion (usually removing / adding letters) to implement being drunk or daft. However this, while being fun initially, IMO has only limited success in the long run. Also, it doesn't capture the full spectrum, since for example even a daft person can be able to furmulate decently, even on paper. Likewise, someone highly intelligent can be unable to write properly. Granted, a mix of: rhetoric, literacy and intelligence could account for this, but still there would not be much individualism (be it the char's choice, upbringing, or both). If one were to apply this scheme to books, though, one would also need to apply it to general chat.
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Ehh. I'm torn.
If all we ever did was interact with NPCs, then our stats would be enough to determine things such as speach making, charisma, and rhetorical skills (essay writing, convincing others that your opinions are correct, and so on).
However, Planeshift is an extremely social game. Almost all of the interactions I have are with other players. So if I decide to make a character that can make speaches that move the masses to any direction of my choosing, my character won't be very successful unless I have those skills in real life.
This is a point that Verrliit, for all her faults, has attempted to make in the past: That at the end, our characters are but reflections of who we are, if only in parts. Our characters cannot exceed who we are in real life. So there are certain things that can't really be properly expressed in the game as skills.
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If I read this there are two things that come to mind.
1. It would be a good idea in the aspect that it would actually act as a Dungeon Master in the respects of checking if you are actually able to write something like that. It would givve something substantial to proof or disprove ones qualities. So if you are writing a cookbook or a book on mining it would work in my eyes.
2. However I also feel it would only work for "how-to-do" books for a certain trade. If you would implement this you would also have to have an option to write fictional and philosphical books. Things like a guildhandbook perhaps.
I have to say though that some people seem to view this rather restrictive like if you had this skill you could only RP the books actually there. Although in my eyes if the only books actually there are a trades "how-to-do" books it's rather obvious there will be other books not implemented yet.
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Dungeon Master? Why not Dragon Master? Or even better! Dungeons and Dragons Master. What is it anyway? A guy who cares about his dungeon and dragons he keep inside? This title is just stupid everywhere besides the certain game the title was created for.
Call them GMs or RMs (Realm Master).
A skill for writing books is pointless. We don't have many people who are capable of writing something decent and making a needed skill for it, would only discourage those, if we had any left at all.
What we need is a setting team to validate books written by players. Would be nice if our setting team would be a little bigger, to meet requirements of this task.
A character writes a book, then player ask setting team if it is good. Setting team is more than happy to have 80% of the job they are doig done by someone else or they say the book isn't good and point out the mistakes. If there are too many of them, they just sent the player off till he learn more about PS.
After few successfull validated books without questions, the player don't have to ask for permission anymore and his character may act without disturbing his IC life. Of course, ike any crafter items, books carry the sign too and if books of such players are found to be wrong, the player meets some consequences and looses his status. Simple. Of course there needs to programmed system for this last paragraph, but it is how i see it.
For now we just go on proper IRC channel and ask proper people.
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Allow players to write anything they want on manuscript, and then GMs could run an ingame printshop. So if you want to release a book, you write a really long manuscript and then submit it to the printshop. The GMs then decide if it's suitable for mass production. Players could pay for the service, or players could be paid by the printshop for their work.
How does that sound?
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We don't know if the books are being printed. They all may be as well being written by hand so all the books are manuscripts. The thing is that sometimes you just want to write simple note, or few pages as there is need and you an't to do it without permission. Obviously not everyone can do it, so maybe at least those who proved to be trustworthy.
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I could actually see a use for a writing skill if you are going to allow players to be trainers. It might work like this: The player who wants to be a trainer must train his writing skill to be able to to make training manuals and could only impart wisdom to the level of this ability. For example I have maxed out my light armor and want to make some money by training others. I work my writing skill up to level twenty and so can now produce manuals for skills up to level 20. Joe comes to me and wants to increase his light armor from 15-16 so using my writing skill I produce a manual for him which he reads to acquire the technical knowledge and now all he needs to do is go practice.
It might be that the greater the difference between the average of your skill level in the skill to train and your writing skill would affect the quality of the manual and the time required to consume the material. I am thinking that getting training like this might take time similar to the time it takes to repair weapons.
It might also be that there is a further requirement for directed study of the writing skill in each particular discipline so that to produce weapon training manuals you will need to get training in weapon training manuals on top of your basic writing skill. That might be overkill, I don't know.
This idea would make a writing skill something that is actually useful albeit abstracted in that the manuals produced are merely "switches" and do not contain meaningful content as a real book would. It might even be that there could be a magical skill which used in concert with this mundane skill would allow you to make manuals that remove even the need to practice but this too is likely to be too much. Such skills if implemented could have high requirements and costs to balance the power they offer.
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I'd like to keep the settings team and even the GMs out of the process as much as possible, because they already have other stuff to worry about.
With books I don't see much trouble if, and this must be guaranteed, the book is clearly designated as being done by a player, and not verified.
Books written by players could become verified if there is time, possibly they can be put in a queue. This can easily take quite a while and noone should expect any particular book becoming verified. It'd be like stickies on the board.
I have to say though that some people seem to view this rather restrictive like if you had this skill you could only RP the books actually there. Although in my eyes if the only books actually there are a trades "how-to-do" books it's rather obvious there will be other books not implemented yet.
What I meant was that one can only write the books that are already implemented if the original proposal were to be used, simply because the book would be pieced together from preexisting blocks, possibly distorted by lower skill levels, by the system. And the system is unable to create, it can only reproduce.
Obviously one can RP what is logical, including unimplemented books, most importantly stories. I had therefore dismissed this approach as not worth the effort. However, bilbous's latest post made me rethink this, at least partially.
In VtM - Bloodlins, for example, there are books that do more or less what he proposes. And they actually have content to be read by the player. This content, however, is only a few lines of text mostly, and most often glaringly inaccurate, or merely joking in nature, to phrase it nicely.
This could be improved by the originally proposed system, creating books that are mainly for the characters use, but also have something akin to a summary for the player's enjoyment, and possibly to even aid their RP (i.e., if someone has no idea about how magic is supposed to work, then the summary could give them ideas on at least what phrases / words to use when talking about magic).
I am still unsire if this would justify the effort (both coding-wise and writing-wise), but it sounds better this way than it did before.
For all other books, which should not have to be approved, the free-form approach seems to be the only actually feasible one. The only problem would obviously be the obvious discrepancy between books written in the two modes, by one player / character. This might end up hurting immersion, but maybe not - would need to be tested.
If it turns out to be detrimental, I'd rather opt for removing the text from the insta - training books (wasting the effort of coding and writing), than to remove free-form books, as they are much more universal.
It would be nice to be able to for example create your own poetry book, or write letters, or notes, and have them actually appear as items in your inventory, to give to others, or add to, or whatnot.
Speaking of adding to books: it would be nice to be able to scribble in them, like you do IRL when you think something important is amiss, or you are bored, or whatnot. Maybe be able to rip out pages or parts of them? Or put new pages in (either loosely, or glue on, or seamlessly using a book-binding skill).
The idea about the printshops also appeals to me. This could be a form of crafting as well, and therefore use (most of) the crafting system. If not only the name of the author, but also that of the printshop would appear on the finished book, the printshops might even be interested in quality. At the minimum, it would make it possible to track down bad apples. All possible to be done by players.
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I'd like to keep the settings team and even the GMs out of the process as much as possible, because they already have other stuff to worry about.
The GM team will be expanded in the future though, and there could eventually be two people who are entirely dedicated to in game literature.
I could see it working this way: There's a NPC who you can give manuscripts to. The manuscripts have zero weight and the NPC can hold an infinite amount of them. Game Masters can then access that NPC's inventory and read through the manuscripts. Ones that get a pass can be turned into items that can be bought from another NPC for a limited time. Players will be told not to expect their submitted manuscripts returned. The limited nature of the print run will keep things realistic. Certain books will become rare and desireable.
The idea about the printshops also appeals to me. This could be a form of crafting as well, and therefore use (most of) the crafting system. If not only the name of the author, but also that of the printshop would appear on the finished book, the printshops might even be interested in quality. At the minimum, it would make it possible to track down bad apples. All possible to be done by players.
This could work as well.