Save Magnamund's economy (And other thoughts)

[zipp]

One thing that had bothered me about TOTS (almost from the get go) was the uselessness of the money system. What good was a commodity that wasn't coveted nor helped anyone's characters?

I know that initially the idea was that you couldn't use any item in the West Watch that you hadn't actually purchased, and this was good for a while, but eventually this got tossed out the window.

If you think about it, the only real commodities at TOTS were the medals and unique items. But they didn't really do anything with either the West Watch (as mentioned above) or in trade. You can't trade medals, and no one WANTED to trade their unique items, nor was there any way to get them from others.

This actually gets at a deeper role playing issue with TOTS... while a great fan community, the role playing was always somewhat flawed by the lack of ability for characters to (a) really trade meaningfully with each other (b) grow in level (again meaningfully) and (c) have actual battles with each other (meaningfully, once again).

I believe that adding meaning to these areas is quite simple. There are two things needed: currency that actually matters, and battles.

A currency that actually mattered could simply be EXP. Rather than automatically leveling up (which was really just a pretty face put on post count), you gain EXP from posts, and spend it on leveling and character upgrades (preferably based on your class).

Obviously this takes a little more work than simply disguising the post count, but this is an ideas topic, and I do think it's a realistic goal. In any case, the main point is not the mechanics (I just like talking and dreaming about them), the main point is to try and incorporate role playing more into the site (which for me, besides the obvious lone wolf connection, was one of the main draws of TOTS).

Of course, simpler would be to go back to the original idea of the West Watch, which was to write creatively within a role playing boundary. So characters have to acknowledge the limits of their levels and inventories when posting.

Along with this, characters have to acknowledge limits in general.

As anyone who knows me can attest to, I'm not one for putting limits on people's creativity. But I do have to say that character interaction between good and evil really suffers in the West Watch. The reason as I see it? There is a large group of people not willing to let their characters be hurt by another characters. Or even admit that their characters can be hurt PERIOD. What we end up with is a bunch of super powered characters who never interact except with NPCs that they can control.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not bashing the writing of the West Watch. It is, and has been, a great tome of fan fiction from day one. But one thing that is missing from those early days is the character interaction and improvising that comes along with a good role playing game. And I think we can all admit that the role playing aspects of the site have always been tenuous.

Now, I'm not suggesting we change the WW, or that we let characters kill each other. What I am saying is that I'd like to bring back some of the role playing aspects that the site was founded on. One possibility is to come up with some fair (non fatal) way to decide combat in the WW, or to start re-respecting levels and inventory there. Or have some other part of the forum meant to roleplay in, with these things in mind.

Another possibility is to come up with some lasting meaning to the site encompassing games, like the tournaments or the lottery. This would essentially mean having some meaningful and desirable currency, or something to spend that on. Obviously, if there is a role playing part of the forum, then levels and items become meaningful again, so problem solved. I remember we were developing a collectable card game at one point, only purchasable through a particular store on the site. This would also give the currency some point. And this is still a possibility I think about often, and am continuing to develop simple, but fun and strategic, ideas for collectable card games.

If you have other ideas or thoughts on what I've been discussing, I for one would love to hear them?

[Beowuuf]

I thas already been suggested that XP for levels (ie what post count counts) should be limited to RP places, which would tie in whith what you say - posting in contests and WW participation etc rewarded that way. Or still allowing large post count mean class level, just tiering the level divides better (so it takes months to build up a meaningly character, which would tie in with the experiences of the WW writing and contest, instead of being able to level up so stpidly quickly in days.

as for the currency, I must admit I had started writing down some plans for thief/assassin interractions. Having hidden player characters again earnign their abuilities in theft through post count levels, so that it reuired a longer term commitment and site commitment to become one. Also, through admin intervention or if it could have been programmed, having purchases mean something

I'd already allowed items in the inventory to be batrered to the three gods as a means of keeping in circulation a) items that needed safekeeping because the charatcer hadn't earned it, b) big game items not under possession but existing i nthe world, and c) the abiity to 'delete' items

I was goign to suggest havign a tiered system of house buying - different levels of buying housies or even strongboxes allowing protection from theives and assassins. Having these bigger houses demanded an upkeep - pay for retainers, an men at arms, and need to provide food and so forth. Buy an NPC who would 'manage' this for you, or else you have to manage it yourself and if not people leave and your property is not secure.


Anywya, i think currency and post count were fine as is, and we know modules exist and mechanics. I think limiting forums that add to your post count, and psacing levels better would help, and admins being more plentiful so you could actually have admins granting XP gains as tournament rewards, or at the same time as medals

And just have more logical reason and interraction with the currency and RPG shop! And control the economy much better - always have long term saving and slow gain to afford items (over months, even a year or more) as opposed to havig nthe economy go heywire and stupidly expensive items as sinks that have no RPG value


As for the interraction, it is difficult. Falling Pheonix and Dusk Fox /Gjost bear played very well together, but then that was because everyone was fightign for the story and not afraid to get their licks - infact FP might have been able to defeat both if he had pushed it, since GB was being quite generous there.

However, it's hard - are the villains always supposed to roll over and fail if they are being PC'd? Sure ly they have long term arcs and goals same as the heroes, and hence it's hard to tell who shoudl win and lose and by how much if the stories are merely intersecting. Whose story gets to be more important? If it's a general storyline,then the general storyline, let's face it, will always be biased to good winning somehow and so the villaisn will have to be subservient to that. Doens't make it attractive to be a villain if you have your own threads and storylines you want to pursue

[zipp]

beowuuf said:

However, it's hard - are the villains always supposed to roll over and fail if they are being PC'd? Sure ly they have long term arcs and goals same as the heroes, and hence it's hard to tell who shoudl win and lose and by how much if the stories are merely intersecting. Whose story gets to be more important? If it's a general storyline,then the general storyline, let's face it, will always be biased to good winning somehow and so the villaisn will have to be subservient to that. Doens't make it attractive to be a villain if you have your own threads and storylines you want to pursue

This is why a lot of the villains dropped out of the WW back in the day, because there was simply no way to really further a plot against the good guys. It was always doomed to failure!

I think there are ways, through roleplaying and simple rule mechanics, to make role playing interaction more interesting, but I'm not sure that the WW is the place to do it.

I do think a roleplaying area of the forum designed for this purpose could be a good addition to the site.

[Beowuuf]

Nothing to stop having a continuing d20 game - someone agreed to GM, or you use the d20 mechanics and player common sense to GM, and you carry on interactive confrontational RPG games.

So the WW is a plotted improvisiational story RPG< and there is a second concurrent mechanics based d20 RPG. Characters could even slip between one and the other, although the nature of the d20 game would dictate that you don't try to do both at once!

[Maerin]

*chuckles* Speaking as one of the last LWRPoL GMs, that idea is both not a bad one and yet also easier said than implemented and sustained.

There is no question, however, that if anyone is going to run an RPG where players are in some form of "opposition" to one another, it is almost a necessity to have a supervising GM to keep things reasonably fair for both players/writers/participants (even if the two know each other and think they can work together just fine at the outset). That is very likely why such kept failing in West Watch; running "opposition" games is not easy even WITH a GM riding herd on the overall story.

[Maerin]

On a more general note, I am of the view that it would be worth our time to wait until the new RPG comes out. The old Tower of the Sun was certainly founded on the old OGL game, and that was clearly done to offer support to that RPG. That being the case, it stands to reason that a new site should support the new RPG along the same lines.

[zipp]

Yeah, basically an RPG game with a supervising (or set of supervising) GMs. However, I think it should use simpler rules than an RPG, and be more focused on creativity, with rules coming in only where absolutely neccesary.

Namely, combat and leveling.

I think skills could be easily removed from such a system, and it would save us a lot of time and needless effort. Our system should focus more on special abilities, levels, and items.

maerin said:

On a more general note, I am of the view that it would be worth our time to wait until the new RPG comes out. The old Tower of the Sun was certainly founded on the old OGL game, and that was clearly done to offer support to that RPG. That being the case, it stands to reason that a new site should support the new RPG along the same lines.

I concur with this, as much as it follows my above statement.

Also, if I finish Lone Wolf: Quests of Power (as I'm currently calling the new OCCG: online collectable card game), then that gives one more element to the site that is worth saving currency for.

[Maerin]

zipp said:

Yeah, basically an RPG game with a supervising (or set of supervising) GMs. However, I think it should use simpler rules than an RPG, and be more focused on creativity, with rules coming in only where absolutely neccesary.

Namely, combat and leveling.

Probably not, and for the same reasoning you are applying to skills and such. The point of rules is never to bind players, but to give them a framework to build their own games. If one assumes that players can adjudicate non-combat situations and encounters without any sort of game mechanics to rely on; then honestly, there is no rational reason for why that assumption does not equally apply to combat. Now, that said, I am generally of the view that one should have an equal and equivalent framework that supports everything equally (and would rather have that framework than not have it). Too many RPG designers out there already muck that up by being too one-sided/mono-dimensional in their attempt at game design; I don't think we need to follow suit.

This is one reason why I suggest waiting for the new RPG. Because, whatever one's views as to whether rules are or are not necessary for this or that, a need to support the new Mongoose Publishing RPG (in whatever forms it ends up taking) trumps all such views.

"Leveling" is a similar, though distinct, problem, because either one (whomever that "one" may be: staff, GMs, admins, or whoever) has to keep everyone on a more or less equal footing to sustain functional interactivity between participants (which, obviously, removes the need for a leveling system at all); or try and implement and sustain some insane structure to try and keep people of various different levels separate in their own corners with as little crossover as possible (since people of higher "levels" will inevitably overshadow those of lower levels in an unacceptable fashion). Honestly, from a roleplaying game/story standpoint, leveling is a crutch we do not need. I can concede its merits from a site adminstrative standpoint (and the form that it evolved into on the old Tower bears me out on that point); but from a roleplaying/storytelling it is almost completely unnecessary.

Look at what one remembers of some of the recent LWRPoL games, since I know you were paying some attention to them as we went into January this year. Balgrin's game granted experience at a relative snail's pace, even when the game was moving along. Alyss' (and later my) game did not grant experience at all (and therefore no levels either). In both cases, the play-by-post RPG still functioned just fine and all players were both having fun and not overly bothered by the lack (leastwise neither game saw too many quitters over the course of time both ran).

[eviltb]

Speaking from an evil POV, yes it is difficult for the bad-guys. Traditionaly, no matter how powerful we get, we're sposed to lose, right? So while the WW continues on as it does, with all the characters with their own contributions to the main storyline, unless there is mass collaboration between the PCs on both sides, good will always naturally be one-up on evil. Having a GM-based RP section on the new forum would be interesting to see, if run correctly. Said GM would certainly have to be completly unbiased in running such a scenario, as Maerin has said, would be very difficult indeed.

[fallingphoenix]

I don't know, I had a very memorable time as a bad guy a while back...

We got to invade Toran, beat the town around a few times, and I got in a big fight with about half of the members of the Kai order and BCS, who often played willingly to the pre-established power of their character.

In the really key fights, a few PMs exchanged between opponents about where they wanted to see the fight go usually gave a satisfactory RP for all involved.

Basically, I'd like to see the West Watch continue as a shared writing experience without an established rules set, personally.

FP, who admittedly hadn't been posting much lately, anyway.

[Beowuuf]

Your FP stuff was amazing in the battle of Toran etc, but you had the space to evolve - you weren't sitting there plotting the next evil move, you then went on with your GRandmaster. If you interact with anyone good, they would want to thwart that, and perhaps even expect to. When the whole point is, you will succeed in that, unless you have one heck of a redemption plot twist coming up!

So you coiuld interact with a goodie two shoes if they agreed to be too late, or to lose and be just tow steps behind and a foil to you, but if they wished to throw a spanner in the works, then it would make your quest less epic. Sure, LW had his pitfalls, but you still knew he would triumph in his quest!


The FP and Kai interactions were some of the best fights, as you say cause the kai allowed for you being powerful - in fact I think GB even overplayed it, since in the end you'd expected to be defeated but escape wit ha lorestone, and he was pretty beaten up against you

I seem to recall the EV and Malphis fight being a very weird respectful stalemate - but, if you allowed Malphis's character to have the power he claimed, then really EV should have lost and quickly - solsword jsut adding enough of a chance. His level was too low and Malphis's power to new and undefended against. EV should have lost, and it would have been great to have the Kai forced to withdraw from the monastery. Malphis claims it,, witha Darklands force camped inside, yet given the testimony of Al and NH about the traiterous Kai (SS pickign a bad time to go rogue) then you could have had a separated Kai trying to reestablish themselves and work out how to take the monastery, while being temporarily feared by the population, and meanwhile Malphis is claiming to have taken the monastery for the king for the kai not being worth and the kai doing secret bad stuff, meanwhile he is growing and evil army

That would have been a nice little arc there! Ah well, good had to win I guess, so Malphis was forced to be injured by EV and retreat!

[zipp]

Similarly, me and Slavemaster had a great thing going when I was playing as Cloe, because we were both semi neutral characters who left devastation in our wake, and we just moved one step too quickly for anyone else to show up.

Similarly, Hazelae was able to decimate Eshnar because it was somewhat off the beaten path. It had just seemed problematic to try and make her interact with the Kai Lords.

I have to admit, I never did get around to reading your last posts in Eshnar.

[Beowuuf]

Oh, it's all craziness you probably never intended and would be horified at!

I think Eshnar should remain intact as the new Kazan-Oud personally

[Agrarvyn]

How much of the board posts did you manage to save, Beowuuf? For instance, did you manage to save any of the custom rules and d20 adaptations and suchlike? What about any of the various class write-ups?

[Beowuuf]

Sadly I only saved the WW threads, mostly to read them off-site in my travels, and also with a vague idea to putting them into a better format one day.

I only have what files I saved to my HD, I do not believe I have anything else saved post-wise like your sorcerer class