Lunara and Major Awards

[Spriggan Bride]

I’d suggest reconsidering requiring a major award if you’re having trouble finding applicants. Maybe a strong application should be enough? Or reduce it to Greater?

I mean it’s something I might consider but giving up the only major reward I have and have and may possibly ever have is a lot to ask to be part of an experiment. There are probably also plenty who might try to apply but don’t have a major or expect to any time in the foreseeable future.

[WanderingPoet]

It might get more people interested if you could apply on an existing character.

It is difficult to find a large number of people that:
1) Have a great story idea
2) Have a major award
3) Are near the end of a character, or are willing/able to shelf soon to make a brand new character

Which I think begs the question - how soon would one be expected to take up the award?

But removing one of the bottom two criteria would make more apply, I think. Like the OP posts, not requiring a Major; or allowing existing characters to accept it would find a lot more applicants, I think!
--------

Personally I think this is really cool!

I don't have any specific character story ideas for it at the moment, and being mid character, even if I did, I'd not be able to apply for it this round. But maybe in the future when the first character to get it is done, I'll be better positioned. I hope it goes well for the one that gets it!

Thanks for making a real cool idea Liareth.

[xanrael]

I think it probably wasn't advertised with much forewarning but it shouldn't be a problem going forward as people who maybe are less interested in playing a special race can plan to save a major over the next few months for when it is next available or if another item is released.

I don't think you really need a flood of applicants for it as there is only 1 on the server. Also if it was hotly contested by a lot of people you might see some griefing over it even if it would be a bit self-defeating.

I think it's requirements are suited just fine given its availability, just suffering a bit from early adoption.

[riffraff]

I was thinking of making a kudos thread about it to give the idea some love even though I can't apply, but as people are doing so here, I'll just throw in my two pennies.

I don't have any awards, being a newbie, but if I did and could apply on an existing character, I would definitely go for something like this. It is a really awesome idea. There's a lot of cool story ideas with sentient weapons, especially ones with complicated personalities and desires that might not always align with the wielder.

[Amateur Hour]

As someone who is actually eligible to apply, the reasons I'm not:

• I'm currently happy with the active character roster I have; I don't want to roll/shelve anyone and I don't have space for a new main.
• I've always felt hopelessly lost and confused in every DM event I've ever participated in (granted, that may be because I tend to get called along at the last minute and have zero context for why anyone's doing anything), so signing up for something that requires them is daunting
• Evidently I'm addicted to character concepts that have Extreme Reservations about sentient weapons since both my last two mains and the few character concepts I've been tinkering with in the back of my head would all run screaming from such a thing

This said, I do think it's a fantastic idea, and I hope more people apply.

[magistrasa]

It's hard to be interested in something I figure I'll probably never get to meaningfully interact with. Five years on the server and I've never had a reward higher than a Normal, plus it's hard for me to imagine how it might affect the way its owner might interact with the world in a way that changes their roleplay.

And I think that's my main concern here really. I love, love, love the idea of a one-of-a-kind reward existing out there to really enable some unique and creative ideas, but when I think of Lunara in practice, I find it difficult to imagine how I might use it to deepen my interactions with others. Unlike a unique race, it's not something that inherently changes your character's relationship with the world and with others. It's something you could go your whole character life just neglecting to mention to the people around you, which means it's only as relevant to roleplay as you make it. Thus, the weight of its narrative importance is really carried on your own shoulders. You have to be the one to tell Lunara's story - it's not like a vampire or rakshasa, where people can come to understand things about you and draw associations and conclusions and comparisons based on the fact of your origin. That's not a bad thing, but it's damnably difficult to do well, and it's easy to see why people would find that intimidating. You have to essentially exposit to the people around you and say, "Hey, this is my sword, this is what it's all about," and hope that they are creative enough themselves to contribute to its story. If they're not, they'll say, "That's cool," and then figure out what dungeon is next on the list for today.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's genuinely fantastic that new and unique narrative tools are being introduced to the server. But we've just been using hammers for so long, it's hard to imagine the ways one can wield a screwdriver or a shovel.

Maybe this is the years of cyclical conflict wearing down my creative spirit, but the main dynamic I imagine playing out involving the weapon is that some enemy of its owner will decide they are more deserving of the weapon, and relentlessly killbash its owner in an effort to steal it - except, it's a major reward, so it can't even be stolen. In practice, I worry that it will end up being a secret that someone furtively shares with close allies, for a somewhat reasonable fear of being targeted by covetous thieves. And those are reactions that make sense in the context of the events, but... it's also pretty boring. I hope my cynical prophecy is proven untrue.

If I were applying for the reward, I think I'd want to play a Selunite Paladin or Divine Champion Dark Moon Spellsword, interpreting the weapon as a sign of divine mandate to champion the cause, which inflates their ego and sense of self-righteousness to the point of hubristic blindness to reason, and that (hopefully) will end up being their downfall. I'd probably take an MoD for extra fun. The concept accounts for my cynical prophecy in a way that invites conflict from others, makes the weapon a central feature of the character, creates an expiration so they don't overstay their welcome, and also satisfies my own idiotic compulsion to play nothing but Sharrans and Shar-adjacent characters.

And on that note, what ways do people imagine the weapon could contribute to roleplay? I'm obviously not the right person for it myself, but I'd be curious to see what a hypothetical application looks like, even if some folk figure they might never get the major to use it either.

[With Darkness and Silence]

How is everyone somehow aware they aren't receiving applications or no one is working on one?

To be quite frank, this thread seems really presumptuous.

[magistrasa]

How is everyone somehow aware they aren't receiving applications or no one is working on one?

GrumpyCat made an announcement saying they only got one application for the award in a post made to encourage people to consider the award.

[Liareth]

Some great feedback / thoughts so far! I wanted to address one thing specifically.

• I've always felt hopelessly lost and confused in every DM event I've ever participated in (granted, that may be because I tend to get called along at the last minute and have zero context for why anyone's doing anything), so signing up for something that requires them is daunting

You can actually talk through Lunara like you can through associates. You don't need DM involvement besides the initial quest to find her. We'll give you guidelines to play her character correctly as a starting point, but from there it's really up to you - how much/little you involve her in, how her character develops, etc. She's not just a VFX stick that the DMs will sometimes do cool stuff with - she presents a unique opportunity to play an NPC (while also playing your PC!) and to make a lasting mark on the module's narrative, since once you're done with her, she'll be passed onto someone else with an updated personality and dialogue, based on how you developed her character.

[With Darkness and Silence]

How is everyone somehow aware they aren't receiving applications or no one is working on one?

GrumpyCat made an announcement saying they only got one application for the award in a post made to encourage people to consider the award.

Thank you.


Yeah I think that my feelings on this aren't deep. It's rarer than a dragon pc right now. That's a 5%.

I'm sure there's literally applications coming.

Though, personally, knowing that coded projects on Arelith take specific interest and often there's a player who came up with it to begin with, it was a given to me that a specific player would get this sword. I personally wouldn't be surprised if this discouraged others from trying based off the expectation. It does however seem like there is actually fair competition for this sword.

Now if only I had a 5%. How about that point system we're always waiting for?

[Liareth]

Though, personally, knowing that coded projects on Arelith take specific interest and often there's a player who came up with it to begin with, it was a given to me that a specific player would get this sword. I personally wouldn't be surprised if this discouraged others from trying based off the expectation. It does however seem like there is actually fair competition for this sword.

Lunara was not created by player request and we have no specific player in mind to wield her. I made her because I love the idea of interesting unique items floating about. At the end of the application process the DM team will decide on her wielder by a vote.

[MalKalz]

Also there have been other applications. But those applications did not qualify (ie. needs to be a new character and the players didn’t have rewards). There is interest around it I suspect, but it is also hard to come by a concept quickly when announced.

I believe the reminder was to let people know who might be interested that it hasn’t been decided yet and if they want a shot to submit something.

[magistrasa]

If you don't mind me picking your brain on this...

You can actually talk through Lunara like you can through associates. [...] We'll give you guidelines to play her character correctly as a starting point, but from there it's really up to you

once you're done with her, she'll be passed onto someone else with an updated personality and dialogue, based on how you developed her character.

That gives you a lot of freedom to portray the sword as you please, but what happens three inheritors down the line, when the memory of its history becomes muddy and colored by subjective opinion? Is the character who wins the award going to have to study a progressively lengthy bible on its history? Moreover, how does the team intend to monitor and judge this development of the sword's character? My concern here is that the character of Lunara won't "develop" so much as it'll be a game of telephone as it's passed on from player to player, different interpretations contradicting instead of complimenting one another. There will be players in the world who interact with Lunara across multiple owners, and to see her behave differently between interpretations will risk some jarring narrative dissonance that will disappoint and frustrate players who get invested in the continuing story.

You don't need DM involvement besides the initial quest to find her.

The fact that you can't automatically start with the sword and have to go on a quest to get it also strikes me as a bit... I don't know, strange to approach. Yes, it makes sense that you wouldn't be sailing in from some distant land carrying the sword with you if it's originally from Arelith, but it's a bit easier to conceptualize a character whose identity you intend to tie to the weapon, with the presumption that they've had the weapon for a while.

As it's set up now, there's just so many layers to the award, some of which seems at first glance like overwrought complications. You're signing up to play two characters - one that's under your sole ownership, and the other that's developed communally. It carries expectations with it that aren't entirely clear, and also (somewhat oxymoronically) has so much creative freedom that it's hard to know exactly what to do with the concept.

Nothing like this has ever been done before on the server, which is a crazy awesome thing to say about a server this old and rich with history. I don't at all believe With Darkness and Silence's comment that this project was started with a singular purpose or player in mind (very bad post by the way, terrible sentiment), but I can imagine an award with so much narrative potential was made with at least some ideas in mind for how it would play out - and, with the understanding that this is intended to exist as a piece of the server's history, I think a lot of players are going to want to, at least to some extent, play according to its presumed design intention.

I guess my main question is, what shape do you, as the primary developer, imagine this new award will take as it enters the world?

[Dreams]

You can actually talk through Lunara like you can through associates. You don't need DM involvement besides the initial quest to find her. We'll give you guidelines to play her character correctly as a starting point, but from there it's really up to you - how much/little you involve her in, how her character develops, etc. She's not just a VFX stick that the DMs will sometimes do cool stuff with - she presents a unique opportunity to play an NPC (while also playing your PC!) and to make a lasting mark on the module's narrative, since once you're done with her, she'll be passed onto someone else with an updated personality and dialogue, based on how you developed her character.

Is the sword going to be balanced in line with other weapons on Arelith? It sort of seems like otherwise it’s more like familiar RP where a player is playing as their familiar at the same time as their character.

[stoneheart-]

For me it's just kinda.. uninspired. And I don't mean that in a way that is an attack on anyone involved with this, it just feels like the first sentient weapon to be introduced should have been more interesting than your average "jealous anime girl" character. The character of the sword could have been more connected with Arelith, or the greater Forgotten Realms setting, something that actually feels significant to have. The personality, or I guess the general concept of the blade, just doesn't seem that significant. It's for a tier of award that is equivalent to something like avariel, fey'ri, etc., which are immediately apparent, connected to lore, has an aesthetic, etc. which can be turned into reactive rp and teaching moments with other curious characters, for me it just doesn't stack up as it is.

I hope you do not take offense, I mean this critique in the best of faith. If you wish to generate more interest in this from eligible people, or just inspire them to write better applications for it, I suggest going back to the drawing board a bit re: the sword's personality, origins, and possibly her goals. Make it more interesting, more desirable to own the sword and the people will come.

Most importantly, don't give up! I really like the idea of unique weapons existing, not even just sentient ones but powerful ones with a reputation like Sting and Narsil in LOTR, or Valyrian steel weapons in ASOIAF.

[magistrasa]

Also as an aside - gating this behind a 5% doesn't make much sense to me. It's not like there's a risk of the world being overrun by Lunara's. There's literally only one. If any restriction is warranted, it should be RPR locked. This is a narrative-oriented award with limited appeal that's further limited to the small pool of players that happened to be the luckiest grinders. No offense to the lucky 5%ers, but if you want this concept to fall into the most capable, creative hands, maybe allow for more of your talent to take a shot at it.

[Tesla420]

I think this weapon seems pretty sweet, although I would rather see this reward manifest in the form of actually being the sword. Being stuck with someone. I know quite a few players who only really sign on and play with their friends and I bet many of them wouldn't mind just being a weapon in their friend's hands yelling at people and making their owners life a general hassle. Some swords in the module already fly and attack on their own.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I hope there will be more items like it in the future.

An idea for a sentient magic item I have is a magic book item. You could equip it as a book offhand. Instead of eating swords, it'd work like a bookshelf. But whatever book you put in it would stay there forever. So future characters who get the book could see the things added by previous owners. For a personality, it is excited by the prospect of learning new things. It learns best when it absorbs a new book, it remembers things best that are contained within its pages. When speaking, it tends to quote or reference things contained within it.

While the idea lends itself to scholarly characters, storytellers could use it too. If a storyteller owns it, the book will happily learn as many new tales as possible.


Downside to this idea is it'll hit database size limit issues. I don't know if the database can be optimized to handle larger entry lists.
You'd also want to limit it from being able to hold magic books (except for weight reduction, since people sometimes put that on books), and you'd want to limit generic shelf spawning deity books since people cannot help themselves from putting those everywhere.


EDIT: I thought of a way to deal with the database issue. Currently player libraries work by having multiple shelves. So what if the book worked like a player library except all on one item, have each "shelf" be called a chapter. Once the book absorbs more than 150 books, it starts a new chapter. Using the book would bring up a dialogue asking if you want to view chapter 1, chapter 2, etc. Basically a database that stores databases. I figure this is possible because people are already doing it with fixtures. It would make usability a lot nicer too, because once the magic book starts to get a lot of books in it, it'll be easier to navigate its contents by splitting it up into 150 book chunks.

[WanderingPoet]

I hope there will be more items like it in the future.

An idea for a sentient magic item I have is a magic book item. You could equip it as a book offhand. Instead of eating swords, it'd work like a bookshelf. But whatever book you put in it would stay there forever. So future characters who get the book could see the things added by previous owners. For a personality, it is excited by the prospect of learning new things. It learns best when it absorbs a new book, it remembers things best that are contained within its pages. When speaking, it tends to quote or reference things contained within it.

While the idea lends itself to scholarly characters, storytellers could use it too. If a storyteller owns it, the book will happily learn as many new tales as possible.


Downside to this idea is it'll hit database size limit issues. I don't know if the database can be optimized to handle larger entry lists.
You'd also want to limit it from being able to hold magic books (except for weight reduction, since people sometimes put that on books), and you'd want to limit generic shelf spawning deity books since people cannot help themselves from putting those everywhere.

Please. This is amazing, and I want it.

[Edens_Fall]

While I lack a Major award, the idea of playing a Banite with a talking sword that demands I rule Arelith in order to satisfy its thirst for other weapons to devour tickles my fancy to no end.

[TimeAdept]

to paraphrase another discussion I had on Lunara:

Without any malice, there's a few eaqsy to see reasons why there's little interest in the weapon.
1: By narrowing it to people who have a current 5% reward you're already massive slashing your potential candidates.
2: You're also relying on the fact that the people who get the reward didn't already immediately have a plan for it, so you're fractioning your potential again. It also has to be a brand new character, so again, you're relying on people that don't already have a plan for the 5% being willing to essentially create a character around having a sword buddy.
3. It's said you will allow her to develop as a character, but I really question if this weapon described as maidenly blushing joy is really going to end up in the hands of a Drow who will end up corrupting it to murderousness, for example. And if it does, then I worry about consistency of character development for the blade as it passes from owner to owner, similar to magistrasa.
4: You can also have the reward removed for DM reasons. Activity definitions are always tough. Is someone going to be threatened with the loss of Lunara because they went on vacation? Hard enough to lose your house.
5: Perhaps one of the biggest sticking points, was already mentioned above. The fact that you're buddied up with a DM may not appeal to people. There is a not insignificant portion of the population who do not want anything to do with DMs and only want to come onto the server to engage with PCs and the systems around the PCs. I suspect there is significant crossover in "people with majors" and "people who don't want to partner with a DM constantly", because people willing to consistently work with DMs tend to be people who don't roll characters often, in my experience, wanting assistance with DMs in crafting longer term narratives. The ones who are good at doing it on their own as a PC can quickly create flashpoints and move on without DM assistance.

So in the end, your weapon's candidates have to be as follows:

1: Have an active 5% they don't have a plan for.
2: Have a character concept they're willing to include the sword for.
3: Be willing to give it up/lose it to the DM team's definitions.
4: Be constantly partnered up with a DM for a significant portion of your character's creative control for character development decisions, and while they say the PC has control, again, I question how much a character will actually have when it comes to significant weapon character development, and what that means for future owners down the line and people who have to interact with them.
5: Be willing to do all of the above for no actual bonuses whatsoever, and for a thing that can currently be already done with no reward whatsoever with no sacrifice of creative control on the player's part. Sentient weapons can just be RP'd on a character.

Oh, and finally: 1a: not only is it limited to 5%'s that they had a plan for but they had to have an active 5% they didn't have a plan for from the time the announcement was made (9/11) to the time they're closing applications (end of September-ish). That's not even a full roll cooldown on the lowest reward possible, so even if someone wanted to try their luck at the slot machine, they couldn't even gt off cooldown in time.

All of this has to be in confluence with each other. It's no surprise that there's not many candidates.

[Xerah]

So in the end, your weapon's candidates have to be as follows:

1: Have an active 5% they don't have a plan for.
2: Have a character concept they're willing to include the sword for.
3: Be willing to give it up/lose it to the DM team's definitions.
4: Be constantly partnered up with a DM for a significant portion of your character's creative control for character development decisions, and while they say the PC has control, again, I question how much a character will actually have when it comes to significant weapon character development, and what that means for future owners down the line and people who have to interact with them.
5: Be willing to do all of the above for no actual bonuses whatsoever, and for a thing that can currently be already done with no reward whatsoever with no sacrifice of creative control on the player's part. Sentient weapons can just be RP'd on a character.

I'm someone who is fine with all of those things (and would actually really enjoy that sort of setup; I don't think I'm that alone in this) and have a not in use major reward and just started a new character after this was announced. I know Arelith is very much mechanics first these days, but using a major reward for a unique type of roleplaying experience should be the goal of the reward system, not an extra +2 to CON.

The reason why I haven't applied for it is that my activity is not really that consistent and I'd feel bad holding it while not actively playing as much as someone else could be.

[The GrumpyCat]

to paraphrase another discussion I had on Lunara:

Without any malice, there's a few eaqsy to see reasons why there's little interest in the weapon.
1: By narrowing it to people who have a current 5% reward you're already massive slashing your potential candidates.
2: You're also relying on the fact that the people who get the reward didn't already immediately have a plan for it, so you're fractioning your potential again. It also has to be a brand new character, so again, you're relying on people that don't already have a plan for the 5% being willing to essentially create a character around having a sword buddy.
3. It's said you will allow her to develop as a character, but I really question if this weapon described as maidenly blushing joy is really going to end up in the hands of a Drow who will end up corrupting it to murderousness, for example. And if it does, then I worry about consistency of character development for the blade as it passes from owner to owner, similar to magistrasa.
4: You can also have the reward removed for DM reasons. Activity definitions are always tough. Is someone going to be threatened with the loss of Lunara because they went on vacation? Hard enough to lose your house.
5: Perhaps one of the biggest sticking points, was already mentioned above. The fact that you're buddied up with a DM may not appeal to people. There is a not insignificant portion of the population who do not want anything to do with DMs and only want to come onto the server to engage with PCs and the systems around the PCs. I suspect there is significant crossover in "people with majors" and "people who don't want to partner with a DM constantly", because people willing to consistently work with DMs tend to be people who don't roll characters often, in my experience, wanting assistance with DMs in crafting longer term narratives. The ones who are good at doing it on their own as a PC can quickly create flashpoints and move on without DM assistance.

So in the end, your weapon's candidates have to be as follows:

1: Have an active 5% they don't have a plan for.
2: Have a character concept they're willing to include the sword for.
3: Be willing to give it up/lose it to the DM team's definitions.
4: Be constantly partnered up with a DM for a significant portion of your character's creative control for character development decisions, and while they say the PC has control, again, I question how much a character will actually have when it comes to significant weapon character development, and what that means for future owners down the line and people who have to interact with them.
5: Be willing to do all of the above for no actual bonuses whatsoever, and for a thing that can currently be already done with no reward whatsoever with no sacrifice of creative control on the player's part. Sentient weapons can just be RP'd on a character.

Oh, and finally: 1a: not only is it limited to 5%'s that they had a plan for but they had to have an active 5% they didn't have a plan for from the time the announcement was made (9/11) to the time they're closing applications (end of September-ish). That's not even a full roll cooldown on the lowest reward possible, so even if someone wanted to try their luck at the slot machine, they couldn't even gt off cooldown in time.

All of this has to be in confluence with each other. It's no surprise that there's not many candidates.

I'll clarify a few points here -

1) I'm actually willing to look at this, and maybe lower the award to a Greater or something. We'll see.
2) I'm not planning on changing the 'new character' requirement. Not unless we get rid of the award requirement all together at any rate.
3) Going on holiday for a week or two won't mean you loose it. Going on holiday for two months without giving us any notification might, sure. But even then if you contacted us before hand then maybe we could works something out. We're not going to be unreasonable about this. Further more, if your activity drops off a bit- we'd probably try and talk to you first, rather than simply taking it. We're not expecting people to be logging in every day to rp, just a few good rp sessions a week, ect.
4) You'll get a DM event to recieve the blade. Maybe a DM event if you willingly give it up. That's all that's 'needed' as it were. I can't promise Dms won't drop things on a pc that has it, but I won't guarantee or threaten it either. So Dm interaction is actually pretty minimal.
5) Sure. It's not the most powerful blade around. Then again we don't intend that 5% awards should be overpowered. And sure, you can rp already having one if you want - and if other players want to go along with it fine. But other DMs won't, and players are free to also call your character koo-koo for saying their sword talks to them.

[TimeAdept]

If DMs will refuse to acknowledge a player RPing their own sentient weapon or item, something that has been done for years and years on the server, then "No sentient items" should be codified into a server rule.

These sorts of things are kind of why people might be reticient to partner with DMs on this. Did anyone out there know that DMs will refuse to acknowledge a PC's sentient item? I can think of at least one situation with at least one current DM where this was, in fact, not the case, and the PCs sentient item was regularly recognized.

re: Xerah, congrats, you are lucky (5% is luck, nothing else) to meet all qualifications. And yet, due to another one, you are not interested. You're sort of proving the point in my post with how many stars need to align here, and showing why there might not be as much written, submitted interest as was hoped. And until this post here from grumpycat regarding DM refusal to acknowledge a PC's sentient items, this was not a unique narrative or RP experience, but something a PC could do on their own at any time.

[Good Character]

A thought I haven't seen brought up is how weapon feats will be addressed. With how the weapon-devouring feature for the weapon sounds, it will, for an example, devour a scythe and become a scythe rather than a longsword that has a scythe's stats.

Will the owner be given every weapon proficiency and every weapon foci (including epic)?