Wait wait, I can expand on it.
Keeping with the idea of making combat entirely off-limits, until a player chooses to increase the Hunt/Kill/better-word-here Skill: how about making the very first (and first only?) way of gaining money and experience through quests? Bam, first thing a player must do is roleplay somehow. And to make a player\'s first interaction richer, the quests may require a group to do them, together. So then a player must find others, either similarly inexperienced newcomers, or those who know the ropes, to learn with. And then once various quests have been finished and some PPs are available for increasing skills, the player can choose to wield a weapon, or a mining pick, or a crafting tool, or a spatula, or whatever his or her desired trade requires. And those quests shouldn\'t require something mindless such as \"Hunt me down a rat and bring a hide.\" They can incorporate some Yliakun history, or an NPC guild (so players can perhaps even learn how to form them properly, from NPCs themselves), or exploration of the landscape to find a hidden treasure, or a message from one city to another, etc. That\'s roleplay :) And the first and foremost task.
A dilemma comes up, however, when I try to think of how it might be possible to implement the changes that will occur with the increasing of that Hunting/Killing skill, since basic character stats normally influence that - strength, agility, etc. There could be a radical approach, that was once been suggested in Old Threads of the Past, and that is to get rid of those normal and common stats that appear in every RPG, and just stick to skills. I\'m rather fond of this approach now, myself, since it again will eliminate several elements that are often talked about in-game OOCly: \"What is your strength?\" or \"How high is your intelligence?\", etc., and I think it can be done successfully.
Or I\'m just running away with this idea into unspeakable territory, I don\'t know ;) I know that I would personally prefer this system.
