From saidar@fantasyalternative.org Sat Jul 31 02:03:57 2004 Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 15:30:48 -0700 (PDT) From: Rhonda Peters To: Melissa Tabbifli Subject: Re: Log: Nyn on Firan > [Asking Nyn about Firan: What code they have, and perceptions from her POV > as both a player and an admin.] > >From afar, Nynaeve chuckles. They're code is open under GPL license, but I > understand. Lets see. They've got a working +social system, a working > economy that's dependant on players making items. Players are vastly > restricted in what they can do as far as code goes. IE, all the generic > commands that are usually available are locked ot them. They can't > create anything with @create, examine anything, etc. In fact, they are > limited to the IC or OOC commands that are specifically 'in theme' for > them to use. Which makes the economy work so well, players can't just > @create things. hey've got banks and their own form of money, > etc. (MORE) Currency (and barter) is one of those things I think ties into theme a bit. I believe we've got people coming in from all different places, so you have to look at what would be valuable to a wide variety of people or what makes sense as a currency and whatnot? > >From afar, Nynaeve nods. Remember how we were going to do social status > stuff? > > Nynaeve pages: They've got a whole system on that, and means of gaining SPs > (social points) etc. Does that seem like something you want? > Nynaeve pages: They've got social imperatives like persuade and praise and > diss - which gives or takes away social points for the social system, > or spend points with other skills (manipulation, intimidation, etc) to > make/coerce people to do things - but only if its IC. They've got a > combat system, its a little advanced and takes some time to learn, but > otherwise seems alright. Its got timers, and engages and disengages > people, etc. (MORE) I'd be interested in hearing how well this works. I seem to recall a level of complaining on WoD and like statted games about people failing to RP to back up their rolls or just counting on the dice rather than coming up with a logical context for them to be used in and stuff like that. I'd be interested to hear what the general response is to these systems that rely on personality traits and whatnot. If it works, by all means code this, saves people calling judges in. ;-> > Nynaeve pages: They have a mixed approach as far as players and RPing > go. They've got 3 levels of characters, Really Important Characters, > Middling Characters, and Not So Important Characters - all > pre-generated. Are you wanting to do something like this, or more a all pre-gens are created equal? > No one can make their own char, which is an acquired > taste but isn't so bad. They have secrets, plothooks, family, and > relations all written into them already. Players are pretty much free > to RP out whatever they want with the characters, so long as they stick > to their sheets - even stealing (which there's code for) and killing > people if necessary. A couple of questions on the pre-gen issue. How is personality handled, and how malleable are the pre-set personalities? Can people create plots/RP to shift personality slightly if they aren't entirely comfortable with the pre-set one? Which leads into my next question - presumably one of the advantages of the pre-gen character roster is that if one person idles out, the char is then just transferred to another person. How are significant RP events and personality shapings kept track of to keep the pre-gen character info current with what's been RP'd? (Or I could be wrong and a pre-gen just goes through one set of hands?) > Nynaeve pages: Mainly by @voting people. They're limited to 5 votes a > week. There's no voting tiers. People can earn XP other ways too. They > have monthly 'Help Question' contents, where players are given a series > of questions on the theme and help files of the game, and they dig > through them - and if they get as much XP as the number of questions > they answer correctly. Firan staff also closely watches RP. They have a This is an interesting way to encourage a basic level of knowledge about the game. > Nynaeve pages: Dislike - Admin - Dealing with crankies - but then, I've > never liked dealing with crankies, not even here. But I will when I > must. As a wizard, sometimes having to kill players for stupid > things. Like the player who couldn't swim, and wasn't a guard, > attempting to defeat a Kraken knocking down buildings along the > shoreline. I GM'd a scene like that, and gave the player plenty of > @checks and stuff to see if he'd make it out alive, and the rolls went > against him. There was no logical way to save the char. But, I deal > with that too, when I must. Playing - Character Death - I've been > through it, it can be pretty hard to play, even if its the most logical > step to take. Death is a big issue, and can be a polarizing one for players (some won't play games where death isn't a risk, others won't play games where it is), so that's definitely one to think about carefully. R.