High level ennui.

See, I just cant agree with all that. Personly I think that keeping track of things would make it easyer, even for non local plot, to absorbe other plot. Tags are a great way to do it, and without tags, its simply a case of the old cowboy and indians, aka one person saying yes, and the other no.

Now I am not saying you cant have stuff in the backround that you dont have records for, but records would allow plot to use it more smoothly.

In addition, downtime is adressed in the book,(in a limited way) and in general non RP stuff that happends in downtime is covered by the downtime. Aka kauss makes and sells and uses the money from things, all in downtime with little to no profit (aka whatever my ocs covers), but it still happends.
Some things can not be done in uptime becouse of physrep restrictions, but sometimes its simply not practical. I could RP ridding my caravans all over the place, but it would not be very fun, or it would be way out of scale.

BTW the exsitance of downtime is not an attempt to make Nero a tabletop game. Time does pass IG, and its realistic (unless your PC is in suspended animation or such) for things to have happend, hence why gamedays and mods happen.
 
Well in many ways, LARPS and other RPGS are pretty much Cowboys and Indians. For the longest time, tagged items were only used for things that needed an IG value and were phys repped. Without the phys rep, you didn't have an item.

I.E. You try to sell me a potion tag, you hand me a vial and tag. One should not exist without the other. Same goes with magic items, swords, etc. Estate and Ship "items" are not capable of being phys repped unless they are actually on site. If someone wants to say a cabin is an owned estate and buy it, that would stay consistent with the other tagged items. (I know the book has rules on estates, but they contradict the other tagged rules)

Everything else pretty much goes into a huge old book of plot that pretty much doesn't have any rules regarding it. Yet the subject point is that these "things" (aka- titles, ships, estates, etc) are not actually the character and are often more fruitless to the higher level players, as they either have then many times over or they simple chapter hop so often that consistently basing the character off something that only exists in one chapter is fairly difficult.

Rather than become a character, they become a place in "essence" - existing only in whatever chapter those possessions reside. It would be similiar in problem if a character had a lot of LCO items or even LCO skills (such as when some players have temp became golems, vampires or such critters in the past). In chapter A) I'm a Vampire. In chapter B) I'm a Dark Elf. In chapter C) I'm a noble with a castle.

Any of those things greatly changes the flavor of the character and while you may not want those dramatic of differences, sticking it in the realm of plot (without a transferable set of rules to back it up) means that you have are playing the what could be a dramatically different character- rather than the same character.

One of the problems with lacking a phys rep for items (ships, estates, caravans) is that you can't interact with them *live* ingame. I can't walk up to your caravan and steal a box or two off it, or kill a guard or two guarding it unless it is phys repped. In a way it starts to cross the PC/NPC mod line because in order to do something against something that exists ingame, you have to request a mod to do it. With any other tagged item, I can steal/buy/destroy it live and in person 24/7.

Here is a question that binds it more to the character-

Why can't I spend five build and be a noble? You can't be your race and get racial skills bought unless you RP it appropriately, so why can't I buy a noble title and rp it appropriately as well?

~B





Kauss said:
See, I just cant agree with all that. Personly I think that keeping track of things would make it easyer, even for non local plot, to absorbe other plot. Tags are a great way to do it, and without tags, its simply a case of the old cowboy and indians, aka one person saying yes, and the other no.

Now I am not saying you cant have stuff in the backround that you dont have records for, but records would allow plot to use it more smoothly.

In addition, downtime is adressed in the book,(in a limited way) and in general non RP stuff that happends in downtime is covered by the downtime. Aka kauss makes and sells and uses the money from things, all in downtime with little to no profit (aka whatever my ocs covers), but it still happends.
Some things can not be done in uptime becouse of physrep restrictions, but sometimes its simply not practical. I could RP ridding my caravans all over the place, but it would not be very fun, or it would be way out of scale.

BTW the exsitance of downtime is not an attempt to make Nero a tabletop game. Time does pass IG, and its realistic (unless your PC is in suspended animation or such) for things to have happend, hence why gamedays and mods happen.
Click to expand...
 
Yet again I think your missing some things. A workshops are tagged items that you cant actally go to IG unless you happen to make a workshop physrep, so ships and caravans and estates follow that example actally.

And to be honest, if you wanted to have a mod on someone's caravan, or ship or estate, or even workshop, something could be physreped as needed. The only real thing to keep in mind that these things dont travel the mist, being a good reason why you cant normaly use them cross chapter (unless you have some cross plot going on).

Honestly, if more things like this were tagged I think other plot would be more likly to allow transfer or at least acknoledge it. Case in point, its noted in the big alliance game that people may be run into their homeworlds, in that case, tho playing in another "chapter" They may see their workshop or ships or whatever. The problem lays in 2 places, one being consistancy, and the other being backround. Consisntancy can be solved, with some hard work, and should be left a bit fluid (prices and such would never quite match) Backround would require these invisable armys of stuff to have trackable backrounds. I have heard a lot of storys about nero charicters with 10+ships, and endless caravans, and noble titles and even whole kingdoms, but they never pay any kind of upkeep, and it doesnt go into curentl plots, and often its overlooked unless the plot people in question happen to know the story about it.
On the other hand, if I should up to a game with a longsword tag, even one that says something cool on it (like dragon bone) since its taged, it has a level of exsistance that none tagged items/things/places dont.

On the other hand, there are a number of people who dont want plot to have access to their backrounds becouse they might "mess" them up or the such. If you dont want plot to touch your stuff, then you cant expect plot to count it or use it:).
 
People are welcome to disagree; some people enjoy gaining these items and others don't. If they don't want to have ships, estates, vineyards, guild halls, etc., then they do not need pursue them or use them. It is that simple. Seattle will continue to have ships, caravans, estates and the like as options for characters who are interested.
 
Plot hooks

The fisherman casts his line, the fish bites. They meet each other halfway.

There are a certain amount of hooks you will get thrown, but if you never leave your cabin, it stops there. The people who go out searching for trouble before it troubles them are the ones who get a disproportionately larger share of action.

All of those estates, ships, etc. also have an upkeep cost listed in the book.
They are expensive to maintain in a supposed copper standard economy.

If you want to cross the mists with them though, Barry's right... you may well end up screwed, even with a tag. I speak bitterly, and from much personal experience.

-Gideon
 
most_precious_blood said:
The fisherman casts his line, the fish bites. They meet each other halfway.

There are a certain amount of hooks you will get thrown, but if you never leave your cabin, it stops there. The people who go out searching for trouble before it troubles them are the ones who get a disproportionately larger share of action.

All of those estates, ships, etc. also have an upkeep cost listed in the book.
They are expensive to maintain in a supposed copper standard economy.

If you want to cross the mists with them though, Barry's right... you may well end up screwed, even with a tag. I speak bitterly, and from much personal experience.

-Gideon
Click to expand...

Well yes, that is true... but really, why would someone care about a castle from beyond the mists? As I stated earlier, with the Alliance wide plot committee ramping up, this may be something that can get smoothed out.
 
most_precious_blood said:
If you want to cross the mists with them though, Barry's right... you may well end up screwed, even with a tag. I speak bitterly, and from much personal experience.

-Gideon
Click to expand...
True, but my point is that if they have a tag A) they are more likly to be accepted, and B) they will not be an on/off matter. What I mean by this is such: A few people IG say they have horses and caravans and ships, and use them for things IG, like "helping" the town out, and giving other charicters rides and carrying cargo secretly. But when something goes wrong(plot wise), suddnly they dont use these items, Ships are suddenly not around to be shot at, caravans dont exsist to be searched. its very much a case of trying to not tell plot so they dont "mess" with it.
 
Kauss said:
True, but my point is that if they have a tag A) they are more likly to be accepted, and B) they will not be an on/off matter. What I mean by this is such: A few people IG say they have horses and caravans and ships, and use them for things IG, like "helping" the town out, and giving other charicters rides and carrying cargo secretly. But when something goes wrong(plot wise), suddnly they dont use these items, Ships are suddenly not around to be shot at, caravans dont exsist to be searched. its very much a case of trying to not tell plot so they dont "mess" with it.
Click to expand...
See... I find that funny as in both cases even with tags being around I've known of people to ask for mods to do something to a tagged item and there isn't an IG method of doing anything to them. There's no way to sink a ship or destroy a caravan for instance.

As far for shops, you can phys rep them fairly easily. I carry a shop phys rep for my stuff and leave my tag around for it fairly frequently.

I don't know anyone (or at least haven't personally heard of) who uses caravans or ships and use them for things IG, like "helping" the town out, and giving other charicters rides and carrying cargo secretly and then refuse to have something bad happen to them.

I have been part of being turned down on a mod for doing something to several ships IG, simply because we've introduced an element to the game that doesn't have rules to interact with.

On that matter, one of the reasons I heavilly dislike having caravans, ships and estates as items to try to interact with is there are no IG abilities of effects to interact with them. You can't sink a ship in NERO by blowing a hole in it, you can't burn down an estate because it's not phys repped, and you can't steal things off a caravan or make sure it doesn't go somewhere because there is no IG representation of it.

~B
 
Balryn said:
See... I find that funny as in both cases even with tags being around I've known of people to ask for mods to do something to a tagged item and there isn't an IG method of doing anything to them. There's no way to sink a ship or destroy a caravan for instance.

As far for shops, you can phys rep them fairly easily. I carry a shop phys rep for my stuff and leave my tag around for it fairly frequently.

I don't know anyone (or at least haven't personally heard of) who uses caravans or ships and use them for things IG, like "helping" the town out, and giving other charicters rides and carrying cargo secretly and then refuse to have something bad happen to them.

I have been part of being turned down on a mod for doing something to several ships IG, simply because we've introduced an element to the game that doesn't have rules to interact with.

On that matter, one of the reasons I heavilly dislike having caravans, ships and estates as items to try to interact with is there are no IG abilities of effects to interact with them. You can't sink a ship in NERO by blowing a hole in it, you can't burn down an estate because it's not phys repped, and you can't steal things off a caravan or make sure it doesn't go somewhere because there is no IG representation of it.

~B
Click to expand...

Well, I have actually have been on a mod where my caravan was robbed and have run mods where caravans are involved, generally saving them though. It really depends... I know that Phil and Joyce are working on a way to do a ship. Barry, nobody is going to force these things on you, but let's not try to disparage them, since others do find enjoyment and value in them.

I do not think they are the end all be all solution for high-level ennui (which is what this thread is about) and clearly they are something that some people like and some people don't.

Let's try to get back on topic.
 
Change itself is stagnated...

This is such a long thread I simply didn't have time to read it all, so please forgive me if I duplicate someone else's ideas...

One thing about characters (whether high or low level) is that once they acquire skills, those skills are locked in, even if a player made a mistake or decides never to use certain skills again. After the player's second event, there's no back-tracking. The problem is more pronounced at high levels, because you can't acquire skills fast enough to make up for a deficit in desire (for change), so you wind up with characters who wish they chose such and such a career. Changing careers at high level is not a practical option (because it takes so long), except of course for Soul Forge, which could take years to acquire and then changes you completely in an instant (and potentially into a supposedly experienced character which the player has no idea how to play).

One possible solution (to both the dead-end development and Soul Forge dilemmas) is to allow skill trade-ins. Once a player drops below earning 4 build points per event, let him make up the difference by turning in unwanted skills to spend on something new. So, if he earns one build point for an event, let him trade-in three more if he wants. That way his character can shift gradually over time and not be stuck down a dead end from a development point-of-view. Trade-in credit could be saved up to a degree, to allow for purchase of the more expensive skills, but saving up trade-ins should be limited to around 10 points (or whatever the most expensive skill costs) so that trade-in credit can't be used for instant transformations.

In-game, the lost skills could be explained by the character being out of practice, out of shape, having travelled through the Mists too often, or being hit in the head one too many times. For fighters it could be going to pot, for scholars, spell-slot rot.

Elendril
 
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