Race Rotations

[The GrumpyCat]

I personally think this thread should focus on how to get people to roll more often, and leave the whole grinding for rewards part to the side for now. That's for the dms to sort out, if they decide to sort it out at all. The idea of judging others who have 5% not only is a bad way to play the game for your own health and well being, it can also be horribly inaccurate which ultimately does nothing but make you look like a jack Snuggybear based on your assumptions.

Fair. Perhaps I overshared with my personal feelings on this matter.

How do you propose we 'get people to roll more often' in such a way that it helps those who currently don't roll very much, while not insanely benefiting those who currently chain-roll ECL -3 characters with minor awards and mark of humility without contributing one iota to the RP landscape?

I suppose the centeral question to this is 'why don't some folk roll more often?'

Find out the why then see if it can be ammended.

But with the added note that - for some - it's just that they don't wanna! No concrete reason beyond they really enjoy the character and the story they tell And that's fine too.

[Deryliss]

Part of being involved in ongoing storylines and finding a niche that you find fun and comfortable to play in is not conductive to throwing one's character into an oven for a chance at a reward. Those who become engaged in RP scenes don't want to throw it all away.

The only middle-ground is the slightly metagame-ish avenues like 'I'm playing my character's offspring/cousin' or being part of a very large faction/family/etc that will seamlessly slot your new character back into the RP niche your previous character had established.

With rolling a character comes a loss of connections and involvement. In many cases it can be a start from square one in getting involved once more. The opportunity cost of rolling an established character is *enormous* when the most likely payoff is -1 ECL.

This is why the -3 ECL totem druid exists, facilitated by the Mark of Humility which really has no other practical purpose other than enabling this style of play.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I personally think this thread should focus on how to get people to roll more often, and leave the whole grinding for rewards part to the side for now. That's for the dms to sort out, if they decide to sort it out at all. The idea of judging others who have 5% not only is a bad way to play the game for your own health and well being, it can also be horribly inaccurate which ultimately does nothing but make you look like a jack Snuggybear based on your assumptions.

Fair. Perhaps I overshared with my personal feelings on this matter.

How do you propose we 'get people to roll more often' in such a way that it helps those who currently don't roll very much, while not insanely benefiting those who currently chain-roll ECL -3 characters with minor awards and mark of humility without contributing one iota to the RP landscape?

I don't think the solutions are related at all, like I said earlier in the post. While I don't think grinding for rewards is as big as its made out to be, just based on the sheer time and dedication it would take, anything that boosts the desire to roll a character is also going to increase the reasons those crazy enough to grind for rewards do it. But they already do it, even if I think its not as common as you might think. If the Admin/dm team want to do something about it, they will if and when they figure out a balance between what they want and what is. Not that my opinion matters here, but me personally, I am indifferent. Grinding that much is going to ruin the game for you, and you will loose what's fun about it likely long before you ever get that reward, but if people want to spend that much time on something I say who cares?

[Gouge Away]

That's a fair point... I do think there ought to be a time requirement, even if not hours played just character existence could be enough (like, it must have been created 6 months ago to roll for a major.)

Of course people are going to game that too but it would at least discouraged the -3 ECL humility 1 month rush a little bit. At some point though you might have to shrug and let them be. I console myself when up against someone who has huge advantages because they seem to have 23 hours a day to grind that they'll pay for it eventually... That much time spent in this game gets you absolutely nowhere in your real life.

[Lexx]

That's a fair point... I do think there ought to be a time requirement, even if not hours played just character existence could be enough (like, it must have been created 6 months ago to roll for a major.)

Of course people are going to game that too but it would at least discouraged the -3 ECL humility 1 month rush a little bit. At some point though you might have to shrug and let them be. I console myself when up against someone who has huge advantages because they seem to have 23 hours a day to grind that they'll pay for it eventually... That much time spent in this game gets you absolutely nowhere in your real life.

You're not 'up against' anyone though. A racial bonus only gets someone so far in mechanical ability over someone with a non reward option. The main allure for most people wanting a reward race is the RP options it usually opens up for them. At least in my time on the server largely speaking.

[WanderingPoet]

I personally think this thread should focus on how to get people to roll more often, and leave the whole grinding for rewards part to the side for now. That's for the dms to sort out, if they decide to sort it out at all. The idea of judging others who have 5% not only is a bad way to play the game for your own health and well being, it can also be horribly inaccurate which ultimately does nothing but make you look like a jack Snuggybear based on your assumptions.

Fair. Perhaps I overshared with my personal feelings on this matter.

How do you propose we 'get people to roll more often' in such a way that it helps those who currently don't roll very much, while not insanely benefiting those who currently chain-roll ECL -3 characters with minor awards and mark of humility without contributing one iota to the RP landscape?

I suppose the centeral question to this is 'why don't some folk roll more often?'

Find out the why then see if it can be ammended.

But with the added note that - for some - it's just that they don't wanna! No concrete reason beyond they really enjoy the character and the story they tell And that's fine too.

I disagree that the thread should be about how to get people to roll more often, as Grumpy Cat said if people don't want to roll they just won't. I would argue that people rolling too often is far worse than people not rolling often enough, but the two questions are: "What is too often?" and "What is not enough?".

Too Often: Should a character have a minimum life of a certain number of hours? Some players can make a huge impact in their first week of a new character while others focus on grinding for a month and make zero impact before they roll. With a minimum lifespan we would have people need to actually get involved but this may mean a casual player has to spend a RL year to get the minimum requirement while someone with more time can spend 2 months.

Not Enough: What's the upper limit? Is 6 months a long time? A year? Two years? Four years? What if a character lasts for four months before shelving for a year, are they effectively resetting the timer or not? How important is it to maintain some stability, to have characters that know the history and can teach the newer generations the lessons of the past? After all, many people are put off by the instability of Cordor with how often it can make a 180 degree change; but that is also what attracts a lot of people to it. If there was an upper limit on number of months/years should it be based off hours or just the date? If the upper limit was 1000 hours, some people would reach it in 4 months while others could go for two years. If it was a fixed 1 RL year limit, while should one player get to have fun with a character for 3000 hours while another only gets 480? Not everyone has the same amount of playtime - and if it took eight months to get to level 30 there will be a disinclination to roll.

Anecdotally I have always been a more casual player (no more than 25 hours/week); I have had characters' stories be told in 4 months(400 hours), and I have had stories last two RL years(2400 hours). The characters went when I felt the story was complete and it was time to move on. I know some felt that two RL years was not enough time, and others felt it was long overdue. Likewise some felt that four months was wasn't enough, yet they've still made an impact felt years later.

What're the actual metrics? It's easy to have a gut feeling that people don't roll enough if you know a dozen characters that have lasted for a few RL years but is that even close to the norm? It is also easy to feel that half the server grinds rewards when you've met hundreds of characters that're gone after the first meeting but is that even close to the norm? Those two polarizing gut feelings would suggest that there are few characters that last an 'appropriate' amount of time, yet I would argue the vast majority probably do. It's only the edge cases that trigger the gut feeling. So what're the actual metrics, what's the actual average rolling time, and does the current reward system actually give a reason to roll?

-----------------

TLDR
Ultimately it comes down to personal preference for your own characters, it's not something the server should enforce. If people are having fun, if people are roleplaying and making stories then it doesn't matter how long the character lasts for. The trick isn't to convince people to roll, the trick is to convince people to tell stories. As long as people have the drive to continue to tell stories then it doesn't matter if the character lasts a month, a year or a decade, stories are being told and the server moves on.

Note that nothing in the above is directed at any particular player/character; so if you feel called out then you have fun doing what you have fun with!

[The GrumpyCat]

I don't think it should be enforced - (Or if it should, the time scale for it should be very long indeed!) but I do think it needs to be encouraged.

[Glowing Mushroom]

I don't think it should be enforced - (Or if it should, the time scale for it should be very long indeed!) but I do think it needs to be encouraged.

Unfortunately, there are times at which players will hold leadership positions or specific quarters for literally RL years. Sometimes without being active. That's not fair to the other players. Someone will always be able to step up and fill those leadership roles, and logging in once every week or two to save a quarter that other players would love isn't nice. Encouraging older characters like that to roll with an award system that could guarantee something they would like to play would greatly help these types of issues.

I've posted all my thoughts on this already on how I personally think the system could be structured, in terms of part automation and part DM boosting of that system with a hands-on approach. I know this is probably a big project on your guy's end so it'll take a while, but I'm really glad it's finally being changed!

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Wrote a bunch of stuff with some quotes in it.

While I am always going to be the biggest supporter of more turn over this server has, I agree, it can't be enforced. But that's not what I was saying, I was saying that the thread should be about how to encourage people to roll not force people to roll.

As far as some of your other points, while I can concede that constant turn over can be a bad thing for continuity and you don't want to reach that point, its still way better then people lingering around for too long. Here are some of the issues that come with the second.

-Top notch properties getting little to no use.

-Entire towns dead because people go there with the intention of settling, only to find that those in power log in generally long enough to refresh their status and then log out.

-DM plots, pc story lines, even just one off events eventually becoming "the usual suspects" show. I personally don't know how much of a problem this is here on arelith, so I am just basing this on the potential rather then actual experience.

-Meeting the same character your first character on arelith met five years ago in game for the 8th time with a new character today, and having to pretend like their story line is all new again.

-Getting into a conversation with a group of characters about a character yours has to deal with because of settlement politics or whatever, only to have them show you 15 different copies of their head.

-A general feeling as a newer player, true or not, that all of the good things you can own on the server are just passed back and forth among the same characters/players that have been around forever. I gave this a true or not, but you would have to work hard to convince me otherwise.



Now, none of this specifies a time frame or revolves around a time frame at all. Most of it really comes down to what your character is doing. Are you actively approaching new players and getting them involved in your story lines, using the sweet property you have, or getting them to help you get the town humming again? Have you avoided becoming a parody based on how many people have killed your character over the years? Are you stepping aside to let new characters shine, playing more of a guiding role now that you are a dino on the server? If the answers to all of this are yes, then no one is going to care how long you have been around. They are probably going to appreciate you as a steady force to help their stories along. If the answers to more then one of them are no, then maybe its time to think about retiring. Just my opinion, mind you, but I think its a fair one.

As a side note, if you want to do all of those things, but are real life busy and can't get into game that much...maybe give up that guild house? I mean, if its about your attachment to the character and not their personal belongings, whether or not you own something shouldn't matter. And honestly, if people didn't horde all the good stuff on the server they would change hands all the time, making it rather easy to get something equally as good.


Anyways, just my opinions and things I live by when deciding to roll a character. But if I make sense, just start living it like I do and maybe it will become the new norm eventually...

[The GrumpyCat]

I pretty much agree with your points here Babylon. I've put another mega long post saying very similar to what you're saying here.
I don't want to -force- people to roll, or retire, or whatever. But I think encouraging it is a good thing.

[WanderingPoet]

Wrote a bunch of stuff with some quotes in it.

Also wrote a bunch of stuff with some quotes in it.

Thank you for your reasonable and well thought out response!

I agree that all the points you noted are definitely problems. Some of them are very specific to long lived characters (Such as the 'usual suspects' one), but some of them are specific to long lived players (such as top notch properties rotating between the same few players, or towns dead).

Though personally I think that "-Meeting the same character your first character on arelith met five years ago in game for the 8th time with a new character today, and having to pretend like their story line is all new again." is actually pretty interesting and the bonus of long term characters - getting to understand a character and see how they've changed over the years and learning new things about them is really cool and fun, in my opinion.

For the sake of counter balance, I'll list a few that could be attributed to rapid cycling of characters too (though you conceded the point):

-You encounter characters that feel like echoes of the last one, especially if they have some major issue (such as an incurable illness, or mean parents or whatever)
-Stirring up conflict and rolling to avoid consequences / the same conflict being created by a new set of names, with identical goals but having avoided consequences and getting a 'do over'
-More time spent solo/buddy grinding than leveling (which often leads to leveling cliques)

The thing is, in both our lists, most of the items are reportable offences. Walking around with 15 heads of someone? Quarter hogging? Settlement hogging? Etc, these should be reported.

Which brings us down to the wonderful point you made:

Most of it really comes down to what your character is doing. Are you actively approaching new players and getting them involved in your story lines, using the sweet property you have, or getting them to help you get the town humming again? Have you avoided becoming a parody based on how many people have killed your character over the years? Are you stepping aside to let new characters shine, playing more of a guiding role now that you are a dino on the server? If the answers to all of this are yes, then no one is going to care how long you have been around. They are probably going to appreciate you as a steady force to help their stories along. If the answers to more then one of them are no, then maybe its time to think about retiring. Just my opinion, mind you, but I think its a fair one.

This is basically what my post was saying. Ultimately if you're doing a great job on a short lived or long lived character then you're doing a great job. You can exit for 2 weeks or 2 years and guide people, or lead factions or bring stories and RP. If you're holding up people's RP and stagnating or killing stories because they don't match what you want, then that's just bad RP on a collaborative story telling medium such as this.

Ultimately there is a list (your two lists and mine) that is what could be considered 'poor behaviour', or sportsmanship. Some of those are enabled by being very long lived (or very short lived in my list's case), but it isn't the time limit at fault, it is the player. Report problems and the DMs can guide players to healthier RP.

In conclusion: As long as people are focused on telling stories, together, then the length of the character doesn't matter. A great RPer can tell an amazing story in 2 months, or tell an amazing story over 2 years. What's important is what stories are being told, together.

Related to this thread which went entirely off topic, Grumpy started another thread that is an interesting read on why people like to play long lived characters. I would suspect that the vast majority of long lived characters are in the 'good' or 'great' categories, with only a small percentage in the 'please roll already' category. viewtopic.php?f=18&t=29721

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Yeah, I read the thread after Grumpy's post above yours. And since you brought that up and it was not only mentioned there but here by you, I don't get the "stirring up conflict and rolling to avoid the consequences" thing. Isn't death the ultimate consequence? I'm probably not reading what you mean right, but it sounds like you are advocating a fate worse then a characters death, forever having to live with the shame of whatever conflict you stirred up

[WanderingPoet]

Hah! It's more the other way around, unfortunately.

For example, a character goes on a murder spree but rolls before anyone can retaliate/arrest them. Or someone steals a settlement's treasury and rolls as soon as someone finds out. Generally the concept is that someone stirs up a whole lot of conflict and makes a lot of characters mad at them and then rather than letting the other side participate/complete their side of the story the roll and move onto the next troublemaker.

It's sort of the same as what you said above with a long term character hogging the spotlight, in this case it's a short term character who starts a narrative but doesn't let others have their half.

[Hazard]

I'd roll my tiefling in a heartbeat if I knew I could make another one.

I love the character, but I created her with a very simple idea in mind. I wanted to play a freak with horns.
I chose elf, because I stupidly assumed horns would be right around the corner with haks and also because it was a bit different, everyone else always chose human because it is mechanically optimal (best stats). It's been many years now, and they're still just an elf with a tail that has been treated as an elf by the vast majority of the players they encounter. Very disappointing.

People just don't react to things they can't see, and I don't blame them. Who wants to read a description all the time every time?

[CNS]

I do roll but I don't really use the awards because if you don't want an underdarker or to play something a but wacky but surface acceptable there isn't much to pick from.

I get we are limited in options but it's pretty thin right now for non-evil and no wings.