Foyle
staff puppet account
Posts: 19 
|
Post by Foyle on Oct 26, 2013 14:30:44 GMT -5
Greetings everyone, as a brand new fresh-out-of-the-box newcomer to the game, I come across some questions (and ideas) I'd love to get some feedback for and get a better grasp of the overall world. So here we go! - Are large clans, nobility, and merchant houses truly nigh-untouchable? Are sponsored roles? In a game setting not tied to a particular mythology (Star Wars for instance), why not allow players run their course, for better or worse? In a setting of that suggests such bleakness, I find it hard to believe that some groups or characters are beyond reach due to the deus ex machina of NPCs (the most common reason I've seen). Particularly when three of the mundane guilds are conceptually about taking advantage of others.
- Many beginners state on the GDB of eventually running into a period of boredom for their characters. The cliched response is often to create your own fun (or store the character), however, this seems counterintuitive advice considering the requirement of always behaving in a believable manner. So, what's the middle ground?
- This last question is due to simple ignorance: does a well-written background grant a higher proficiency in a skill? Again, strikes me as counterintuitive when a character has a history of X and starts as a novice with said skill. Criminal skills stand out to me in this more than others due to basic idea that if the character has been surviving purely due to their ability to steal, you'd imagine that they be more capable. Desperation breeds necessity, etc.
- Can a group of players create characters already tied to one another (a budding merchant and his trusty house servant) or do all relationships have to be cultivated ICly?
|
|
delerak
GDB Superstar
PK'ed by jcarter
"When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." - Otto Von Bismarck
Posts: 1,670
|
Post by delerak on Oct 26, 2013 15:25:33 GMT -5
Yes the clans that are in game will be in game for a while. There's not much you can do because the staff want the clans to stay.
Once you play long enough you realize that the game is fun in different ways. I used to only have fun killing players and skill-maxxing my PC. Nowadays if I play I find the game to only be fun if I'm building my PC up through political maneuvering.
No. They have some kind of new character points you can use to bump skills now but you won't have these as a new player you have to earn the right to start a new PC with higher skill.
You can do family concepts. There is plenty of docs on it at the Arm website I think. There's a couple rules but otherwise families are fairly common.
|
|
Patuk
Shartist
Posts: 552
|
Post by Patuk on Oct 26, 2013 16:23:42 GMT -5
Greetings everyone, as a brand new fresh-out-of-the-box newcomer to the game, I come across some questions (and ideas) I'd love to get some feedback for and get a better grasp of the overall world. So here we go! - Are large clans, nobility, and merchant houses truly nigh-untouchable? Are sponsored roles? In a game setting not tied to a particular mythology (Star Wars for instance), why not allow players run their course, for better or worse? In a setting of that suggests such bleakness, I find it hard to believe that some groups or characters are beyond reach due to the deus ex machina of NPCs (the most common reason I've seen). Particularly when three of the mundane guilds are conceptually about taking advantage of others.
- Many beginners state on the GDB of eventually running into a period of boredom for their characters. The cliched response is often to create your own fun (or store the character), however, this seems counterintuitive advice considering the requirement of always behaving in a believable manner. So, what's the middle ground?
- This last question is due to simple ignorance: does a well-written background grant a higher proficiency in a skill? Again, strikes me as counterintuitive when a character has a history of X and starts as a novice with said skill. Criminal skills stand out to me in this more than others due to basic idea that if the character has been surviving purely due to their ability to steal, you'd imagine that they be more capable. Desperation breeds necessity, etc.
- Can a group of players create characters already tied to one another (a budding merchant and his trusty house servant) or do all relationships have to be cultivated ICly?
The problem with making the game's large clans fallible would mostly be that the game would turn into a massive clusterfuck before too long. As for sponsored roles, it depends on the sponsored roles themselves, and on how you go about it. Don't try to, say, talk down a noble, or to extortion a GMH leader without some serious backing. But no, they are never invulnerable, and in the year and a half that I've been playing I've witnessed not one sponsored role being revived or anything similar. I'm going to have to ask to try and not make it some kind of goal to bring down a clan or its leaders, though. Sponsored roles are a bitch to play, and clans provide much more fun than removing them would. As for such periods of boredom, well.. Making your own fun really needn't be contrary to acting believably in-game. You could spice things up by, say, breaking one of the minor clan rules. By trying to net yourself some spice in Allanak. By deciding you really hate that one clanmate's guts and that they should get a beatdown sometime soon. I'm really not sure what you're referring to here, so I couldn't say either. Backgrounds do not affect your starting skills unless you discuss it with staff in some kind of special app, no. It's just the way it is, and it is that way for most everyone. Hell, even sponsores Sergeants/Merchants get such marginal skillbumps it's laughable. As for the last question, read the documentation on family roles. Staff are very accommodating in that regard, as long as you realise that family role applications are low priority, and that getting it approved will take a while. Oh, and take some of the cynicism on this board with a grain of salt if you can help it. There's a lot of venting here, and that's perfectly fine, but it does a poor job of describing the game itself. The same goes for the gdb, in fact. Just focus on the goddamn MUD and try to have fun  |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2013 19:01:12 GMT -5
A lot of characters focus immense amount of effort to for example, eradicate all of the Kryl (Very dangerous insects) from the Grey Forest. A lot of characters focus immense amount of effort to eradicate the gith (An NPC race of humanoids who live, dream, and fantasize about eating your liver).
The problem is that if somebody does succeed in eradicating one of those threats. A great chunk of the game suddenly grows boring and 'too' safe. Considering the game is supposed to be dangerous and gritty, you can only do so much in eradicating a great threat. And if you do succeed, the odds are high that some 'new' great threat will arise to take the place of another. Otherwise, the game will be too safe.
But those are threats. Those are entities that are supposed to motivate people to destroy them. Clans and houses and so on are kind of similar, except you need some extra motivation to destroy them. They serve a purpose and you as a PC are capable on greatly affecting them. But if you're going to destroy a house, you better be creating something to replace the niche they have in the gameplay somehow.
Still though, clans have been destroyed before. Especially tribes. Red Fangs as the last ones, but also as Dune Stalkers and Silt Winds. All of those and possibly more, have been destroyed by player activity in one shape or another. With a lot of Imm intervention, and little.
While Houses are difficult to harm. The sponsored roles are most definitely easy to harm. In a way, they're more vulnerable then an indie ranger who everybody loves for grebbing rare gemstones and hides. The sponsored roles have a lot of responsibilities, and hopefully, a lot of goals and hopes to fulfill. Strike them at those, and you'll bring them donw, one way or another.
I remember how deeds of a long lived Oashi noble have caused Samos to spank him so bad, that the entire house was paying off some major fines for years. Which effected employee payments, and even quality of food that the cooks were making? I might be misremembering that one, though.
|
|
