Witcher MUSH Design

[Roz]

@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:

I like the idea of indefinite advancement but, on an unlimited time scale, this means that everyone can potentially become the best at everything.

Yeah, indefinite advancement with no scaling is the number one way to get to this thing you’re trying to avoid:

• Giant, insurmountable gulfs in power level between ‘old’ characters and ‘new’ characters.

There are a handful of ideas I am considering:

• Use classes and restrict some things behind classes.

This does sound like basically a form of enforced specialization, which is something I think is good to reward in general. I am a fan of systems that reward specialization in some fashion. It could be something like this, where you’re just entirely locked out of certain routes based on a class you choose.

• Allow experience expenditure only on things you fail.

I don’t really understand this one. Just that you have to have failed a roll on something before you can raise it?

• Force choices between abilities in tiers.

Can you expand on that?

• Use a pyramid-type structure where you have to build the base of the pyramid to get to a higher tier of abilities. Make expansion of the base potentially more expensive over time so that being too broad gets prohibitively expensive.

Not sure I’m envisioning the pyramid-like structure accurately. I get making expansion of a base more expensive, but it also seems to suggest that the base abilities are all building to the same point, just higher. Are we talking more like a video game skill tree kind of deal, where you build in a certain path?

I do think that if you want something along the lines of indefinite advancement on an unlimited time scale, and you don’t want something like an XP cap, that you’ll have to 1) reward specialization, and 2) make things more expensive the more things you have, in one way or another. You may not need to lock people out of different areas of skills entirely due to class, because sometimes players could probably come up with some cool combinations, but you might explore something like making it more expensive to buy skills in areas you’re not specialized in? Something like that. Maybe the more XP you’ve invested in swordfighting, the better you are at learning new swordfighting skills, but learning other stuff becomes harder.

[Istus]

@Roz

Allow experience expenditure only on things you fail.

I would track ability usage and only allow using experience on abilities that have rolled a failure in some window of time in the past. The effect of this would be that as you got better, and failed less, your ability to advance a skill would get harder as you have ‘less to learn’ so to speak.

There are some obvious paths to work around such a restriction but I am sure I could come up with something.

Forcing choices between abilities in tiers.

I could potentially only allow someone to select so many talents or advance so many abilities to a given tier of proficiency. ie. You could only advance 3 skills to tier 5, 5 to tier 4, etc.

The pyramid.

You can not advance a given ability to tier 5 until you have 2 at tier 4, 3 at tier 3, 4 at tier 2, 5 at tier 1, etc. Each additional skill at at tier could be more expensive than the previous. The idea is that sure, you can become great at everything eventually but the cost would be prohibitive. Not much different than a limit at each tier other than it forces a player to spread out more.

[Tez]

@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:

My goal is to avoid all of the pain points I have experienced in my time on other games. For example:

• Bar RP being the fastest means of accruing experience that can be put towards combat related abilities.
• Arbitrary time sinks being present that contribute nothing to RP.
• Giant, insurmountable gulfs in power level between ‘old’ characters and ‘new’ characters.
• Large scenes contributing more experience to players than smaller scenes.
• Character homogenization when indefinite advancement is allowed.
• Gear inflation and hand-me-downs.

I would recommend thinking about how you want to award XP. You have talked a bit about XP spends, but not how it would be awarded.

I would strongly advocate for getting rid of @votes for XP entirely if you want to avoid some of those pitfalls. I am increasingly in favor of a flat XP award per week.

Multiple games attempt to incentivize RP with newbies to help them for hooks and get a little bonus XP, usually with a system called @randomscene or +rs or some variant of the sort. I do not believe that this system actually encourages any kind of real plot or story involvement, and I believe that the bonus XP a newbie player gets is not significant enough to make a real impact.

Some games introduce scaling base XP costs, where things are not only more expensive as you reach higher tiers of ability, but so that costs become greater the more XP that you have in general. I think this is a pretty fair way to help curb the all-power dino.

I’m not entirely certain how I feel about the pyramid and tier system. I think I’d have to see numbers assigned to it, as well as have some idea about the comparative power of the dice.

While your stance on privacy means that this isn’t the game for me, I’m still excited to see what you do with it. I think there will absolutely be people interested. Good luck!

[Istus]

@Tez

While I do not intend to read logs unless there is an issue, I figured it was best to be upfront with the possibility that I could be. No guess work!

You are right, advancement is a critical piece of the puzzle. I do want to reward active players with more than just what those idling every week get.

One idea that I have had floating around in my head is having some equivalent of the voting system you mention but all it does is pull things in a given direction a bit. For example, perhaps the standard rate is 5 XP a week but then you could, relative to the rest of the population, be so active and contribute so much that instead you get 6 or 7 XP.

Another is that everyone gets the same advancement but votes instead contribute to /temporary/ bonuses that can only be maintained via consistent activity.

[icanbeyourmuse]

@Istus Your pyramid thing and your desire to encourage specializing (or am I misunderstanding something?) seems like they don’t work together. I don’t mind up costs for higher levels of stats and stuff. I am not big on the ‘You can’t advance unless you buy all this stuff first’. It punishes those that prefer to highly specialize and forces them to take stuff they don’t want to advance what they do. I vary between playing highly specialized and just spending XP on everything that gets my attention.

Like if I want to play a soldier who only wants to learn the sword and basics of stuff like doge parry and whatever else there is. How will I advance my swords without having to buy X number of things I’m not really wanting just to get the next tier of what I /do/ want?

I’m similar to Tez. I want your game to succeed but I’m unlikely to play on something that logs everything. It is not a deal breaker for me, I’ve done it, but I’m not likely to connect with people on the game because I would be too busy worrying I’ll say something to upset a staff member while/if they are looking at logs.

[Jennkryst]

The pyramid stuff is your typical FATE or Genesys Core rules (like the Ares FFG game has with talents instead of skills). A way to specialize on top of that might involve tagging in concepts from Cortex… after a certain level, you must narrow your focus, maybe?

But this sounds more Deus Ex-y… 'You have ONE leg upgrade slot, you must choose between speed or stealth. WHICH ONE DO YOU PICK?!?

[Istus]

@icanbeyourmuse

I appreciate the feedback on the logging point. In the end I have accepted there will be people that will be unwilling to take the risk of developing relationships, and making the general emotional investment that comes with these games, on the chance that I am a tyrant. I hope that over time that perceived risk will diminish. Transparency is the golden rule either way.

As for the ‘pyramid piece’ this is just brainstorming. I am hoping that by nattering on, and taking in the perspectives of others, I will land on something that achieves the balance I am striving for.

I like when characters are different mechanically and personality-wise. I also like giving people the opportunity to continuously improve their character rather than arbitrarily limiting them through some upper XP cap.

[Faraday]

@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:

I would track ability usage and only allow using experience on abilities that have rolled a failure in some window of time in the past.

FWIW, I’ve seen systems like this in the past and in my experience all it does is encourage people to +roll their skill in BS situations just to accumulate the necessary failures/executions to advance.

@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:

You can not advance a given ability to tier 5 until you have 2 at tier 4, 3 at tier 3, 4 at tier 2, 5 at tier 1, etc.

I understand that the goal of this system is to prevent people from pumping points into one particular skill, but it’s always bugged me. Humans just don’t learn that way.

[hellfrog]

@Faraday I mean, it’s a witcher game? Entirely possible in this (or other games) that the characters are not actual humans.

[Faraday]

@hellfrog said in Witcher MUSH Design:

@Faraday I mean, it’s a witcher game? Entirely possible in this (or other games) that the characters are not actual humans.

I mean, if whatever kind of being is reflected in the game learns everything in a perfectly balanced pyramid, go for it I guess? It’s just a weirdly arbitrary skill system IMHO. You don’t have to agree.

[Pavel]

@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:

I like when characters are different mechanically and personality-wise. I also like giving people the opportunity to continuously improve their character rather than arbitrarily limiting them through some upper XP cap.

Unfortunately, at least in my experience, if the only limit available is “things for people to buy”, given enough time, they’ll start to become the same mechanically. I’m not a game designer, though, so I don’t really have any advice or contribution to the mechanical choices you’re considering.

That said, if you want people to specialise, don’t let them specialise in things you have no interest in. If you want to run monster-hunting stuff, don’t let folks blindly specialise in basket weaving. Be specific and encourage the kinds of characters you want, while advising people making characters you’ve little interest in that they’ll have to find their own fun.

[Istus]

@Pavel I am definitely reaching the conclusion that I am going to need to divide things up in to classes and then have further specializations on top of this. The nice thing about this is that the end result is predictable and that I can telegraph my expectations on what will be useful for what I want to encourage. The negative is that there is an upper level on the amount of experience that can be sunk in to advancement. I think in a practical sense most people will grow tired of a given character in less than a year anyway so perhaps it does not matter.

What if I instead view XP as earned currency that can be spent on other fun things as well as character advancement? What would be fun?

Giving things a brief think I believe there is two categories of stuff I could see sinking excess XP in to:

• Temporary mechanical advantages. Luck points that might confer an extra boost die due to luck.
• Prestige items. Uniquely named/described items, for example.

I kind of like the idea of ‘cosmetics’ for that cool factor.

[Roz]

@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:

• Temporary mechanical advantages. Luck points that might confer an extra boost die due to luck.

I think this can be particularly potent. We’ve ALL had those dramatic moments in plot where we just really want our character to be able to succeed that roll to do the badass thing they’re statted for and focused on. I do think you’d need to cap this one pretty hard, just to avoid people being able to bank a ton and use them a bunch. And probably have a moderate to high cost? But I definitely think it can be an effective XP sink.

[Roadspike]

My thoughts on your design conundrums:

@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:

Are classes a thing?

I don’t see much point in classes – that’s really not how people work. It’s not like you can’t learn something if you want to put in the time just because you’re a baker and not a candlestick maker.

How is advancement going to be handled?

I’ve become a fan of weekly XP rather than XP based on noms or scenes or anything (as @Tez suggested too). Then you don’t have to worry about Bar RP leading to swordmasters, and you don’t have to worry about the people who have all the time in the world shooting past the people who can only play a couple of times per week.

I would actually suggest caps on skills – only allow one skill above certain level, two skills to a level or two below that, three to a level or two below that, etc. That way the only benefit that dinosaurs can get is that they can fill out all of their ‘other’ skills to a certain low level that newbies can quickly get their specialties past (preferably at chargen so that they’re useful right out of chargen).

So maybe you can get one still to 10, two skills to 8, three skills to 6, and as many skills as you want to 4. This doesn’t just encourage specialization, it requires it after a certain level, and emphasizes that if you’re going to become a master of something, you aren’t going to have the attention/time to master something else.

If you wanted continual improvement, you could even have a system that theoretically had no cap on what you could get your highest skill to, but with diminishing returns and increasing costs. I don’t think I would suggest that, but it would accomplish one of the things you were aiming for.

I agree that recording everything on the game and having Staff (or even Head Staff) have ready access to that if they “need” it is a turn-off to me. I know that other systems record that data, but it’s not easy for Head Staff to access without significant coding knowledge, and is only shared with Staff if there’s a complaint/report.

I agree strongly with @Pavel that you should know what types of character you want, and only let people create those characters – there’s very little more frustrating than being allowed to create a character that will have little to no bearing on what Staff wants to do on the game.

As someone who enjoys FS3, I do enjoy having a pool of Luck to spend to enhance my rolls or make dumb-dice failures less likely.

[Pavel]

@Roadspike said in Witcher MUSH Design:

I agree strongly with @Pavel that you should know what types of character you want, and only let people create those characters – there’s very little more frustrating than being allowed to create a character that will have little to no bearing on what Staff wants to do on the game.

I generally go a little less prescriptive than this. So long as you make it clear that X-character type is what you’re aiming for, if someone makes something antithetical to that then they’ve only got themselves to blame.

Some people just want to play a baker in a world full of swordsmen, and that’s okay.

[Istus]

@Roadspike To further clarify the logging situation, I would be the only one with access/visibility of them in the off-chance that they are required.

On to classes, I think one of the biggest problems with them is that you have to make a choice at the beginning that you do not truly understand the consequences of. Perhaps you organically go in a different direction and that puts you in a bad place mechanically.

To side step, I think I may change it so that once you hit a certain level in a class of abilities you can purchase a specialization. This will open up access to a branch of talents specific to that specialization.

I think continual improvement is a pipe dream. If XP advancement is mostly automatic and predictable (with a little fudge factor for activity related bonuses) then I can set an arbitrary timeline for when someone will ‘max out’ and provide other things to spend XP on that do not affect mechanical prowess in a permanent way.

[Pavel]

@Istus said in Witcher MUSH Design:

and provide other things to spend XP on that do not affect mechanical prowess in a permanent way.

There’s a bit of a… kink, I guess, in this plan. XP=mechanical progress, so adding things that don’t contribute to mechanical progress as an XP sink may not work the way you want.

It’d likely depend on specifics, though.

[Istus]

@Pavel I can not figure out how to allow unlimited advancement without clamping down growth to a point where it may as well be 0, or implementing some form of skill decay. At that point, I started to consider what else could potentially be ‘fun’ for someone who does not wish to try something new or what sort of temporary boosts could be purchased to provide a sink.

[Pavel]

@Istus Oh, for sure, I absolutely understand your goal. I just don’t know whether people would opt to spend their mechanics tokens on non-mechanics things.

One could implement some kind of ever increasing cost for buying skills or what-have-you. When you have X-amount of XP invested, it takes more XP to raise things. And/or it costs more to raise things outside of one’s specialty than within it.

[bear_necessities]

I’d probably take a look at Arx’s system because I think that’s a good example of specialization and how you can create more XP sinks. It definitely gets more costly the more things you are great at, and so you are forced to pick a few things to be great at and then some other things to be less-than at.

That being said, I kind of question the flavor of game you’re going for? The hard focus on skill-gaining seems more MUD than MUSH, which is fine if that’s what you’re looking for. If the focus is on RP, I’d start with a more simple system and then add things in as you get off the ground.

I agree with the other comments about not tying advancement to failure, that just sounds exhausting and I don’t think that’s how most creatures advance in life.

I also would rethink the whole privacy thing. While there should not be an EXPECTATION of privacy on a game, I also wouldn’t play on a game that is transparent about logging everything. It seems very Big Brother and admittedly from an outsider’s perspective, kinda creepy.