Removal of teacher skill

Auric

Administrator
Moderator
Alliance Owner
The owners have voted to remove the Teacher skill. This will allow players to purchase new skills as they wish within the CMA without first finding someone who has the skill and can teach.

Those players who have the teacher skill will be refunded the build spent for it.( The cost will be reduced to 0 XP) . You will no longer see teacher as a skill available for purchase and eventually it will be removed entirely from your character page.
 
I am really sorry to hear that.
 
Don't fret, Evan - the removal of the Teacher skill does not mean in-game mentoring on in-game subjects will cease to happen. If you're worried that the removal of the skill will mean less RP and interaction between older and newer players, help be the change you want to see! I encourage you to facilitate in-game discussions with casters on the nature of how magic works, spar with fighters to teach real tips and tricks for becoming a better fighter, and other such activities that accomplish great in-character interactions. Just because people aren't required to be taught a skill doesn't mean folks can't still teach and make the game environment an engaging place. :)
 
Will we be able to take Craftsman: Teacher now?
 
Don't fret, Evan - the removal of the Teacher skill does not mean in-game mentoring on in-game subjects will cease to happen. If you're worried that the removal of the skill will mean less RP and interaction between older and newer players, help be the change you want to see! I encourage you to facilitate in-game discussions with casters on the nature of how magic works, spar with fighters to teach real tips and tricks for becoming a better fighter, and other such activities that accomplish great in-character interactions. Just because people aren't required to be taught a skill doesn't mean folks can't still teach and make the game environment an engaging place. :)

Some rules exist to ironhandedly encourage interaction with people you might not necessarily otherwise feel an inclination to do so with. For example: Classes.

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s fine; someone could easily just sign off on a skill for someone who didn’t really want to partake in the RP element, but the opportunity existed for people to try it out and be pleasantly surprised (or have their suspicions confirmed).

I worry that this will only serve to further isolate new generations of players from older ones, as incentive for the two to mingle is further deteriorated. I, frankly, don’t have the bandwidth to dedicate myself to trying to turn teaching into a culture thing; if it dies, as I suspect it will, it dies. I’ll be sad, but I can deal with that.
 
Will we be able to take Craftsman: Teacher now?
Absolutely that is now an option.

I can also say the owners discussed this at some length and it was agreed that there will be verbiage to encourage the rp in the final rulebook. It just is something that is no longer required. I think focus on making it a cultural thing and enhancing that more so with teaching tactics and monster weaknesses we may actually see a renaissance when it comes to teaching rp in some chapters.
 
An excellent decision and I laud the Owners for making it and whoever proposed it.

We should never be in a position where a player cannot spend OOG resources (XP) because they are not sufficiently well-known either in or out of game for someone else to enable that expenditure.
 
I'm hopeful that this will keep encouraging players to seek out others in game and find tutors for whatever they want to learn, but also not inhibit the players that dutifully read the rulebook to learn about skills they'd like to use.

This also alleviates a lot of pressure on the CMA team and every logistics team from having to work through all of those teacher tags. Plus, it will allow the "teaching" of skills your character may have seen but not picked up themselves now. Overall, I think this will be a positive change for us.

I encourage everyone to still seek and encourage that roleplay ♥♥
 
Overall, I think this will be a positive change for us.

I believe that, long term, this definitely won’t be. Teaching forces some people out of their shells and is ultimately a good thing for a game that is, at its core, about people working together.

This change will damage that. I realize it alleviates some work for the CMA, but if the CMA is costing us part of the soul of what Alliance is about, I worry not only for this change but what future changes this mindset will herald.
 
I believe that, long term, this definitely won’t be. Teaching forces some people out of their shells and is ultimately a good thing for a game that is, at its core, about people working together.

This change will damage that. I realize it alleviates some work for the CMA, but if the CMA is costing us part of the soul of what Alliance is about, I worry not only for this change but what future changes this mindset will herald.

I think at its core having mechanics that force player to player interaction create a fake sense of obligation and lessen the richness of genuine desire for a particular rp style. I agree with the saying "be the change you want to see" and the idea of giving more agency to adapt to a freestyle way of learning. This provides a means for more focus on quality over a check box mentality that the teaching system was promoting
 
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I think the people who are happy to see this go are the high level folk who haven't been benefiting from it.

When I was a new player, the teaching system drove me to meeting and having a half hour of 1:1 roleplay with a number of people who I probably would not have. It was a great driver for meeting new people, especially for an introvert like me. And when I went to Big West, it was a great excuse to reach out to folks outside of my local chapter. At my second event, the grumpy fighter from the team with a reputation for being cut-throat turned out to be the only player who could teach shield, and a really nice person. And the interactions I had with them (and their team) have continued to shape the character even though I've not played with them in 10+ years. And even now, when I started a new character, I've used teaching system as a way to reach out to players I know less well. And similarly, the teaching system gave me a chance to have an interaction with the aloof stone-elf by teaching them their first school of celestial magic. The teaching sytem is a great tool to drive interactions that build social ties.

So do I think this is going to break anything? No. But it does weaken the community. It puts more onus on all the older players to be actively more proactive than they are now, to reach out and engage more, especially across team boundaries.

Honestly, what I'd have liked to have seen happen is for the Teaching system to come with some reward for the teacher, to drive more people to engage with it and to reward what is functionally community building. Because larps live and die by their community, and anything we can do to improve and grow the community should be reinforced.
 
This change will damage that. I realize it alleviates some work for the CMA, but if the CMA is costing us part of the soul of what Alliance is about, I worry not only for this change but what future changes this mindset will herald.

From a technical standpoint there was no problem with Teacher. I had already coded up about 90% of it. The CMA team did propose some minor changes to how Teacher would work to make it more player/logistics friendly in the CMA age, which I believe passed but is now irrelevant. Removal was proposed by someone else. While removal does simplify some things for me, I don't think that was a CMA-motivated decision.
 
I agree there is room to provide added incentive for veterans players to reach out to new players but again opt in over mandatory is my jam. I'm a new player and while Ill seek out all the peoples I can absolutely understand being hesitant and wanting veterans to approach you if possible. Hopefully the local chapter owners can facilitate something in the form of mods and plot to foster that community feel.
 
From a technical standpoint there was no problem with Teacher. I had already coded up about 90% of it. The CMA team did propose some minor changes to how Teacher would work to make it more player/logistics friendly in the CMA age, which I believe passed but is now irrelevant. Removal was proposed by someone else. While removal does simplify some things for me, I don't think that was a CMA-motivated decision.

I kinda thought we were done with 2.0 rules changes/implementations for awhile? I understood this one, because it pertained to the implementation of the CMA, which is part of the 2.0 transition (it might technically be separate, but I think we all realistically view it as part of it).

If this change wasn’t justified by the CMA, that bothers me even more, because We’re Still Changing Things Without A Cooldown From 2.0 Implementation.

I was holding off on some proposals to owners, but I guess I have no reason to, now.
 
Funny, I had the opposite effect as Feldor. When I went out east, I couldn't find anyone that had any teaching to teach me a skill I needed. So I ended feeling like a door to door sales man, "Do you have teaching?" "Do you have teaching?".

I'm mixed about it. I felt that the One Teach Card per purchase was pretty limiting. And I've seen it used as a power play to keep people from getting skills. Plus the reporting it, and making sure it showed up on your character card, then making sure you skills stayed on your card. Plus the card clutter it cause. Hum, maybe I am happy to see it go.
 
I kinda thought we were done with 2.0 rules changes/implementations for awhile? I understood this one, because it pertained to the implementation of the CMA, which is part of the 2.0 transition (it might technically be separate, but I think we all realistically view it as part of it).

If this change wasn’t justified by the CMA, that bothers me even more, because We’re Still Changing Things Without A Cooldown From 2.0 Implementation.

I was holding off on some proposals to owners, but I guess I have no reason to, now.

Before 2.0 was officially released, ARC requested a moratorium on rules changes to allow 2.0 to set in. This specific request came about due to implementation of existing rules. You can submit proposals all you want, but don't expect any action on them for quite some time.

-Bryan Gregory
ARC
 
I'm thoroughly in favor of this change. Forced box-checking, especially with arbitrary terms like "10 minutes" is a way that a rules system can point players toward a mechanical view of the game, rather than a more free-flowing roleplay environment.

I would much rather that the rules displayed a trust in the players. "When your character wants to learn a new skill, take some in-game actions that would lead to that kind of learning. [example, example, example]."

I expect I may end up doing more "teaching" with this change. I enjoy it and gravitate toward engaging newer players. In the last few months there have been a few conversations that ended with "I don't have Teacher" that now could go forward (maybe).

I'm with Alexander (above)! I will strive to be the RPer I want to see!
 
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