Originally posted by Cha0s
Skills for the senses that have values from character creation, but that... wait for it, CAN\'T be trained. [...]

The most realistic and simple way to deal with this problem is to separate the attribute and the skills. The attribute exists from the character creation and cannot change, whereas the skills can be learned, trained, etc.

A global Perception attribute wouldn\'t match because the balance of senses is different among the races: a Kran could have a good sight but a bad touch, when a Nolthrir could have a good Touch but a bad smell.

IMHO, the best way is to have five (or more if some races have other senses (density?, magnetic?, magic?)) attributes for senses.  Then, for each, several skills can be linked:

 - Attr. Sight, skills: nightvision (cannot be trained beyond the race limitation), see far, global vision, metsuke enzan no (sighting faraway mountain), recognize animals, recognize plants, ...

 - Attr. Smell, skills: smell far, olfactive focus, separate smells, cooking, follow olfactive trail, detect poisons, recognize plants, ...

 - Attr. Taste, skills: cooking, detect poisons, recognize plants, ...

 - Attr. Touch, skills: feel the wind, feel the temperature, feel electricity, feel the pain, play music, ...

 - Attr. Hearing, skills: hear far, hearing focus, separate sounds, recognize forest sounds, recognize aquatic sounds, recognize animal cry, play music, singing, ...


For sewers, there is a very strong smell that should hinder (and even deconcentrate) Enkis. This could be avoided by a successful \'olfactive focus\' and skill test (with a big malus). To chase someone there, a successful \'separate smells\' test should be realized.

Any critics or improvement suggestions?

To summarize Waylander\'s post, he doubt a sense can be trained if it depends on actual construction of the organ.  So some senses can be trained and others not.  For attributes, intelligence and will cannot, but charisma and strength can, for example.
Karyuu is not agree for some things.  Hellios details how several senses can be trained.

In a nutshell (in real life), all senses depend on your body constitution, as if you have eyeballs to see, you have also ears to hear, etc.  You cannot raise your sense beyond what is allowed by your physical constitution: if you have destroyed a part of your ears hearing too loud music for example.  If you are myopic, you can gain at most about +0.5 dioptre by excercising your eyes, but that is all, either you are at -1 dioptre or -7 dioptre.

But, even if you cannot improve your senses, you can train them to be more accurate, to use them better.  The real truth about this is that an unused (or misused) sense becomes lazy.

So, you can train your hearing to recognize and isolate particular sounds (ex. a man who is an Oreille d\'Or in a submarine (sorry, I haven\'t found the english term)). At home, you can also do blind tests about smells and tastes (or sounds), with small pots containing spices, flowers, anything. Do it regularly with various scents and parfumes, and you will note that your smell has been trained.

For mental and physical attributes, it should be the same. After your body has finished to built itself (when you\'re about 15 years old perhaps), connexions in the brain, skeletton, etc. will not change. So you cannot improve them but you can trained them (body building, training to solve riddles and crosswords, learn to look nice and trustful, etc.)

Now, PS is an imaginary world, so limitations are the ones we (or more likely developpers) impose. If they want all senses to be trainable, they can implement it.

A realistic way to implement it (imho) would be to separate the attribute (your physical and mental constitutions, diminished by wounds and injuries) from the skills.
For example, an Oreille d\'Or has a quite good hearing, but has developped a lot \"recognize sea sounds\" and \"distinguish sounds\" skills.
Also, a swindler may have a quite good Charisma, but has a big score in \"smooth talk\" skill.
Then, the test would be done on (natural_talent + relevant_skill). Il would be much more subtle and full of nuances ...

Originally posted by Seytra
We seem to have dramatically different views on RP...

) Indeed.  I think I\'m closer of Nikodemus\'s way of thinking.  A fine thing with PS is that everyone has his own perception of the world, and its own way to complete lacuna of implementation ...

My RP attitude consists in forgetting real world, and considering Yliakum as the only reality while I am ingame.  I consider the world is as I perceive it, and to interpret and understand ICly all what I see and feel.  Popping up and off, telepathy, mutation-week, why the gates of Akkio stay closed and why we cannot get to other levels (I\'ve heard rumours of epidemy... Haven\'t you ).
My only inventions are about
 - my background,
 - my clothes, appearance and moves,
 - to justify a log in/off by a normal attitude (I\'m tired, bye-bye!)
 - to invent a more complex interaction with NPC ...
 - to RP a capacity once I\'ve learnt it from a NPC (ex: find traps, melee and climb).

You RP-way seems fine to me, and I belive mine won\'t hinder you if we mee ingame.

About the setting as it is explained in manual, I  don\'t consider it as a complete reference about all PS world, but outlines of the world required by the player to understand the world and play correctly.  A manual is heavy to keep updated, and will not explain everything (else there wouldn\'t be much fun to play in a world without surprise and discoveries).  Two samples are the message of the day which has been a \"big wipe warning\" long after the big wipe occured, and the groffels that I haven\'t found in manual whereas many are scampering around ...

Also, I haven\'t meet any historian in Hyplaa, and very rare phenomenon as mutation week (or comets in our world) are certainly unexpectable and ununderstandable without History to remember them.

The economy and social model works exactly like the RL one, which would be impossible if it was IC.[...]
IOW: the catastrophic consequences didn\'t happen because the cause for them doesn\'t exist.

You looks like a friend of mine who had argued for half an hour that the consequences of a specific spell could not be those, because this was against laws of physics.  What he had forgotten was that magic defines things that (among other things) do not obey to physics.
If something is impossible in RL, it does not mean that it has to be impossible in PS too (and vice-versa).
I don\'t know why catastrophic consequences didn\'t occured when I appeared. perhaps someone will explain this someday. I\'m glad of it for the groffel and me, that\'s all.

I think it is more interesting to see how things will evolve with special features of PS (and that do not exist in RL, as magic, telepathy, groffels, etc.).
Efforts to coerce economy (for example) to look realistic according to our RL-experience is in my opinion a perverted way to create economy in PS world.  I do not know how it will evolve, but it will be very interesting.

But wouldn\'t dragging RL into RP by trying to explain logoffs within RP represent RL changing what everyone RPs?... Yes, you can RP something different if you wish, but it would nontheless apply only to very few incidents: those that you witness within /say range. It would also mean that you would need to adopt that for crashes, even if that player always RPs some other reason for leaving, so it would force itself onto that player.

I don\'t think that an explanation would modify the way people RP their vanishing.  And I don\'t want to force player to use this explanation.  Again, it will be used only for unexplainable cases, so when you are too far for the /say and you don\'t know the character.

But let\'s forget this \"official explanation request\".  Let\'s anyone have his own explanation, and perhaps rumours transmitted by word of mouth will create an onofficial one (natural dynamics of PS !)

8O ! Many posts this morning !
Not enough room to quote you all !
There is no need to quarrel on RP aspect of Bob shadowing Joe, as all of us have our own way to RP (in PS or others RPG).  This also is not to say that tailing anyone to exasperate him or to stab him is a valid way to RP; it is abusing, we all agree.

Taken overall, I agree with Nikodemus & Zanzibar, and will try to explain my point of vue to Seytra & Stfrn...

If I am shadowed by someone, I do not want to know it for a pseudo-RP reason.  Either he\'s clumsy and I remark him, or he\'s clever and I won\'t know I am tailed util he shows himself.  His reasons for following me can be various, not only backstabbing: as much as it is correctly roleplayed, I don\'t mind.  As soon as I discover that I am followed, I will try to resolve the problem myself, by roleplaying.
If the guy is sticky, does not roleplay, and keep bothering me, then (and only then) I will complain about him to GM.

RP does not mean that we have to play a role in a prewritten theater play.  We have a character with a background, wishes and fears, and we play him.  That\'s why I do not want to hear about any follower, above all to set an appointment if he lost my trail!!
Also PvP must not be mistaken with normal character interaction.  Else, we could play single player games: iy would be the same.


For the log in/out problem, Seytra, I think that an OOC feature with such strong consequences on play should be considered IC, with an explanation like the Crystal absorbing lives and dropping them an unpredictable while after (but I would prefer a better explanation).
It won\'t prevent players to RP their exit (\"I\'m tired.  Tchuss pals!\" and to log out discretely behind a wall), but it will be an explanation for all other cases.
Again, the Crystal randomly mutating lifeforms was a nice explanation for last fool\'s day

Originally posted by Seytra
you can, for RP purposes, assume / claim whatever seems most logical / convenient at the time, and it would also be identical to all other cases liek crashes, etc..
You are also free to say \"/me walks off\" and immediately /quit.

What I claim for is mostly an explanation from those who imagined PS world, settled why Kran cannot cast magic, etc. Or a very good explanation imagined by players.

Your solution, Seytra, consisting in claiming whatever seems most logical is not always convenient, and do not prevent problems due to the game nature of PS.

Scenario:
Bob is tailing Joe.  Within Bob\'s sight, Joe logs off (as he thinks he\'s alone, in a deserted area) ...
What should roleplay Bob?
Should he /tell Joe \"Hey, dude, I want to backstab you, so don\'t log out before please;)\"

Consequences are that you lost the guy, and do not know when he will log in again.


As log in/out is a intrinsic feature of PS (as Death Realm, etc.), there should be an official explanation (or an official hypothesis like the stalagtite shape of the world floating in space).

This explanation could be:
\"The crystal sometimes absorbs some living creatures and releases them randomly after a while that can last a few seconds to several centuries.\"

(please find something more considered and deeper that this)

Originally posted by nattuo
yes i would quite like to see my char \"beam out\" just before logging off, maybe something similiar could be used for death with you disentegrating into the realm of the dead.

A pre-computed animation disintegrating the 3D model of the character, each triangular facet separating, rising, then only three particles at vertices positions soaring with the wind, flying like snow flakes..?

Maybe Lotus position would be more suitable, but possibly caricatured also.

Seating cross-legged or on knees should be valid position. Especially, for the moment, spells are casted without speech nor gestures (a nice addition would be extra parameters to cast command:
\"/cast Rock Armor speech of the invocation blah blah\"
this text being sent to server and displayed only 1/10 times to avoid saturating spam).

Enki\'s posture is stable enough to cast by concentration (and no gestures with hands).

I also don\'t think lying down would be an effective way to concentrate.

At last, about Enki sitting position, PS is a RP and RP does not limit in what is implemented. To be sitting signifies to be sitting in the mind of the player, whatever the implemented attitude. He can also accompany this action by a text (in a shortcut for example):

Shortcut 0
/sit
/me sits crossed-legs, bows his head, frowns and begins to mumble with a voice too low for an enki...

Then, the player type by hand the command he wants:
/say Another boowttle of wine, daaaarling !