introduction of ginka-points / which House is the best?

[theebie]

Hi,

In order to reflect the status/progress of the various Houses and the PCs
within them, I thought about the following concept:

Lets take House Salarr as example, lets say the northern compound is
at its actual state worth 5000 'ginka-points' a month.
These points will have to be earned by the PCs in the clan by solving
different tasks that will be given out by the imms/advisors/sergeants.

Example:
- bring in 5 mantis shells, lord fancy-pansies new guard needs a new set
 of armour, reward: 700 ginka points
- craft a whole dozend of plain agafari longswords. There's been a bigger
 order by the Byn, reward: 450 ginka points

If there are the 5 mantis shells / the dozend agafari longswords put into
a certain crate/chest in the garrison, the imm/leader will take them out,
junk them/put them somewhere and credit the unit the gained points.
 
If the PCs in the clan manage to solve enough tasks and manage to gain the
garrisons worth of 'ginka-points' the garrison will stay in the shape it
has been in the last month.
If there's a big plus in points the unit has done exceedingly well and
might get that new marble-fountain with the freshest of all water, and the
cost of the monthly upkeep will raise from 5000 to maybe 5500 'ginka-points'
If too few tasks have been done the garrison will be in bad shape, it
could be reflected by something like changing the descs of the gate,
displaying it a little rotten and dirty, or the npc guards having dust/blood
on their gear, you get the idea.

Why do that ?
- there could be some active competition between the various Houses that would
 be clearly displayed to everybody. "Have you seen House Kadius new shining
 armour ? The ones with all the feathers ? Way more cool than those dirty stuff
 them Kurac have, ain't it ?"
- even more important: it would give PCs stuff to do, and leaders stuff to
 give their PCs to handle. There could be all kinda things to get 'ginka-points'
 for, it would vary from clan to clan.
 

comments welcome :)
regards ---theebie---

[theebie]

what do you mean with 'you'd have to recode 3 or 4 sets' ?

and i dont think it'd be much work for the imms, most of the part
will be on side of the advisor/sergeant/lieutenant PC, he'll take
record about was has been done, and will just give the imms
status reports

regards, dwor

[Morrolan]

For me, I would never take a leadership position again.  I already have a full time job (well, sort of), and adding another is not on the schedule.  Do others agree?  Or it just me?

Morrolan

[theebie]

Actually it wont be as much work as you guys might think right now.

Create the task, look once in a while if its solved, add points to a text file ...

Whats the big deal ?

[EvilRoeSlade]

Rewriting room descriptions would be a big deal.

[theebie]

...which would have not to be done very often though.

There could be one set for

garrison-in-bad-shape
one for
garrison-in-normal-shape
and one for
garrison-in-pretty-shape

if the imm wants more, could be more :)

[Cale_Knight]

This is entirely unrealistic, though. Even if there are only 2 active PCs in a clan, there are hundreds or thousands of vNPCs doing all the work that needs doing. PCs perform such a tiny percentage of what goes on that they'd never have a real impact on the condition of the garrison.

And under this system, I pity the poor bastard who ends up being the only active member of his clan.

I like the idea of giving clan members things to do, but I don't like the idea of essentially punishing low playerbases. Arm isn't exactly overflowing with PCs as it is.

[theebie]

two things:

first, i see the active players in a clan as the average of what the
npcs/vnpcs would do.

if you have 4 out of 10 skilled hunters, there'd be 400 out of 1000
skilled vnpc hunters.

second:
the measurement for the 'ginka-point' rate to be sufficient for
keeping its state could be set regarding to how many players play.

if you have just 2 active players in a clan, you might get 1500
ginka-points for your dozend agafari swords, whereas you'd get only
350 in a clan with 15 active players.

[ale six]

I really don't like this at all, for a number of reasons. The overhead some people mentioned is one.

I play this game to roleplay, not worry about how many points my clan has. That's another.

I think plots should be driven by something far less mechanic, that's another reason.

This seems too materialistic. People shouldn't be motivated to go do things so they get the niftyest clan gear and the coolest clan perks.

What this would do is cause a few clans to get really big and sustain their awesome superperks, while the rest would deteriorate and then die out because no one wanted to play with them. If Salarr has no points and only has wooden swords, but Kurac has the steel swords of doom, where will all the players go?

Nobody is against more goals for pcs, more plots, more staff-driven stuff, etc. The thing is this already happens to an extent. PC leaders are given goals from their npc superiors, which they can either accomplish and get rewards, or not, or fail miserably at and maybe screw something up for the whole clan. This all happens, even if it doesn't happen in the blatant "go collect 50 million scrab shells and you get a prize!" sense.

Really really really really do not like this.

[Cuusardo]

I see absolutely no reason to implement something like this.  Each House already has its own goals and motivations, and installing OOC ideas like this would be a serious detriment to roleplay as well as the game world.  Armageddon is not a contest.

[WarriorPoet]

I see absolutely no reason to implement something like this.  Each House already has its own goals and motivations, and installing OOC ideas like this would be a serious detriment to roleplay as well as the game world.  Armageddon is not a contest.

This sums up my feelings on this idea perfectly.

-WP

[Rhyden]

Good idea, but not for Armageddon.

[Tamarin]

To me, this just sounds like some micromanaging real time strategy game, but in Zalanthas.

[Moofassa]

No. Like Morro. I would run from leadership positions. Becoming a leader would pull you further out into OOC waters if you had to watch for OOC points. Ew.

[Tarx]

Yeah, I'd hate figuring out how many points my clan needed or had.  That's...well, a lot of micromanaging, as people have said.  I'd rather just play.

[Gaare]

Heh.. Well, with a couple of small additions why not.

Both Tuluk and 'nak will have two mobs at the center of the cities. Their name can be Muk and Tek. When you go to them and type "ask tek points", in a channel all players in the city may hear the current clan points.

Also, I think another addition as clan points, can be player points. Same mobs can announce those as well..

Ah.. lastly, after a period of time, like 1 year or so, IMMs may reward the most point winner player or clan.. Think of all 'nak clad with Tor color flags... It would be cool.

[Folker]

It's ironic so many people dislike the idea for the harsh requirements it might demand, even though failure will give you nothing but a different roleplay.

You work on your skills, you craft/hunt/work all the time, you get lots of coin that is unusual for a person of your class, you spend all that coin on silks and uber armor. Twinkish? Perhaps, but fact of life that a character who spends all his gaming time working will have more expensive things.

Can you not do that? Absolutely, so what if you wont be dressed up in silks, so what if your weapons dont cut other's armor like butter. You are still roleplaying your character, and possibly even better and more interestingly then whomever's holding all the uber stuff. Moreso, through roleplay itself you have a chance to be noticed and given opportunities and experiences , a person who only plays for database numbers will never have. And majority of the players echo each other, saying that skills and wealth is not what the game is about, and that it's much more fun to play as a half starved commoner, then a well fed twink.

Absolutely similar situation appears with the houses if this idea was implemented. Can you, as a leader drive all your members to activity. Continiously set up gathering times in order to go out perform some kind of house-like activity. Continiously force yourself and your PC members to hunt, guard, dance, or whatever it is your house would have as tasks. And in reward, you'll get better descriptions of youe estates, merchandise and so on.

Can you not do that? Sure, you can not drive everyone so hard, take it easy, roleplay. Do something independant, perform power struggles within the house, allow those of your members who do not want to perform tasks by another's bidding, but acting on their own initiative to do whatever they like. Aaand maybe, your point attaining will not be as high, the estate descriptions will be poorer, or maybe even very poor. But on another hand, your house will be a unique one amongst all those richly described ons, and opportunities and offers that would doubtfully arrive to a richer house, would come to you instead, for your house is more desperate.

In short, only because there is a mechanism that involves improving the state of your house, doesnt mean you HAVE to do that. It just means that if you wont, your roleplaying experience will be different then those who do do it. Barring roleplayed out exceptions that cant be predicted. There is a specific likeness between character improvement and organization improvement. And I am suprised that so many people disliked the idea basing their opinions on number crunching, instead of roleplaying side of it.

So, I would like a similar system of this sort. But it must flexible, 'extremely' flexible. So if some predetermined task is completed and gives your house 100 points. A performance that was NOT predetermined, and appeared only due to some PC initiative, should give a 1000.

Also obviously, such things should not relate only to gathering of halfling hides or whatever. It must revolve around anything that the house tends to do, which becomes rather complicated. What will Oash/Borsail do ? They have no coded backing to perform what they're famous for. Though it's clearer for the merchant house I suppose

[Jherlen]

alesix and Cuusardo put this best. Making people jump through OOC hoops to get OOC points would be about the worst thing for roleplay I can think of. If you want to do that, you may as well make skill points visible and give everybody back levels and experience points too.

PCs who are smart and who know how things mesh with the game world and the virtual aspects of Zalanthas can affect big changes. A clan leader motivated enough to get a big fancy addition built onto his estate can certainly try for it. House status can (to some extent) fluctuate up and down based on PC actions. None of this requires any sort of numbers to do. Constricting plots to some sort of mechanical number would just be awful.

[Tamarin]

I am so vehemently against this.

If you want to improve your house, go out and and gather a bunch of coins, then find the proper IC channels to make additions.  Keep in mind though, that all the existing Houses already have lengthy histories, and a whole bunch of virtual population that may not necessarily want a fountain stuck in the middle of their complex/estate/manor/compound.

But getting updates automatically just because you racked up points...that's fucking retarded, I'm sorry.  That's EXACTLY like improving your clan hall from stock DIKU muds.

[Jarod550]

It's ironic so many people dislike the idea for the harsh requirements it might demand, even though failure will give you nothing but a different roleplay.

You work on your skills, you craft/hunt/work all the time, you get lots of coin that is unusual for a person of your class, you spend all that coin on silks and uber armor. Twinkish? Perhaps, but fact of life that a character who spends all his gaming time working will have more expensive things.

Can you not do that? Absolutely, so what if you wont be dressed up in silks, so what if your weapons dont cut other's armor like butter. You are still roleplaying your character, and possibly even better and more interestingly then whomever's holding all the uber stuff. Moreso, through roleplay itself you have a chance to be noticed and given opportunities and experiences , a person who only plays for database numbers will never have. And majority of the players echo each other, saying that skills and wealth is not what the game is about, and that it's much more fun to play as a half starved commoner, then a well fed twink.

Absolutely similar situation appears with the houses if this idea was implemented. Can you, as a leader drive all your members to activity. Continiously set up gathering times in order to go out perform some kind of house-like activity. Continiously force yourself and your PC members to hunt, guard, dance, or whatever it is your house would have as tasks. And in reward, you'll get better descriptions of youe estates, merchandise and so on.

Can you not do that? Sure, you can not drive everyone so hard, take it easy, roleplay. Do something independant, perform power struggles within the house, allow those of your members who do not want to perform tasks by another's bidding, but acting on their own initiative to do whatever they like. Aaand maybe, your point attaining will not be as high, the estate descriptions will be poorer, or maybe even very poor. But on another hand, your house will be a unique one amongst all those richly described ons, and opportunities and offers that would doubtfully arrive to a richer house, would come to you instead, for your house is more desperate.

In short, only because there is a mechanism that involves improving the state of your house, doesnt mean you HAVE to do that. It just means that if you wont, your roleplaying experience will be different then those who do do it. Barring roleplayed out exceptions that cant be predicted. There is a specific likeness between character improvement and organization improvement. And I am suprised that so many people disliked the idea basing their opinions on number crunching, instead of roleplaying side of it.

So, I would like a similar system of this sort. But it must flexible, 'extremely' flexible. So if some predetermined task is completed and gives your house 100 points. A performance that was NOT predetermined, and appeared only due to some PC initiative, should give a 1000.

Also obviously, such things should not relate only to gathering of halfling hides or whatever. It must revolve around anything that the house tends to do, which becomes rather complicated. What will Oash/Borsail do ? They have no coded backing to perform what they're famous for. Though it's clearer for the merchant house I suppose

I applaud you sir or madam, for actually thinking for yourself and not following the mainstream of groupies.

Jarod bows down low to the ground, showing his respect

[Maybe42or54]

*shoots Jarod for being a kiss ass*

Along the original post, how would making 4 hunters hunt more and bring in more thing affect how the garrison looks? They aren't the ones maintaining it.

Making 1 hunter hunt by himself in the south is just as crazy as you can get. You are literally sending him to his death, for what? 15 coins. So then you have to lose money by waiting for a new hunter to fill his position


I just don't see how realistic this is. At all.

[Jarod550]

*shoots Jarod for being a kiss ass*

Along the original post, how would making 4 hunters hunt more and bring in more thing affect how the garrison looks? They aren't the ones maintaining it.

Making 1 hunter hunt by himself in the south is just as crazy as you can get. You are literally sending him to his death, for what? 15 coins. So then you have to lose money by waiting for a new hunter to fill his position


I just don't see how realistic this is. At all.

*evades the arrow and spins, landing a crushing blow on Maybe42or54's neck*

Being a hunter in previous roles, and some strong ones at that, unless you're stupid and go slap a mekillot, you can live quite a long life by hunting by yourself.  Stop trying to push people into joining houses and clans, you don't "have" to do everything in a group.

Peace,

Jarod

[Folker]

*shoots Jarod for being a kiss ass*

Along the original post, how would making 4 hunters hunt more and bring in more thing affect how the garrison looks? They aren't the ones maintaining it.

Making 1 hunter hunt by himself in the south is just as crazy as you can get. You are literally sending him to his death, for what? 15 coins. So then you have to lose money by waiting for a new hunter to fill his position


I just don't see how realistic this is. At all.

Well, other vnpcs do it, that's realistic?

I think we're getting too hang on the example mentioned that involved hunting up some scales or whatever. It's not only about hunting some set amount of whatever critteri. It's about giving an incentive to people who're playing a specific role within their house to go and do that role. The jobs can differ with the house obviously, but some will indeed be have to go out there and hunt up some critter. How well organized that deed will be is up to the players obviously. And if your players cant do that, or dont want to, or arent lead and ordered by their lazy leaders ... then the house would deteriorate. Doesnt mean it'll stop existing, doesnt mean you wont be able to play anymore, it's just you'll play your character that is employed by a house that's less lavish then another. That's all there is to it

A question to the one who posted this idea originally. Alright, you gave one example of a merchant house. What will be the tasks of other houses? Borsail/Oash/Tor for example?

[Maybe42or54]

Well, other vnpcs do it, that's realistic?

Do they do it? I don't think they run on ginka points or any other points for that matter.

I don't see how this isn't being used IG anyway.

Good leaders always reward good followers. If they aren't good leaders, then that is great. Noone is perfect.

Forcing them to be good leaders Ic through OOC means would be bad.
Noone is perfect.

And I forgot the rest of what I was typing, so bah.

[Folker]

Do they do it? I don't think they run on ginka points or any other points for that matter.

What does this have to do with ginka points?  What I meant by my earlier statement, is that vnpcs DO hunt. All those scales for the armor dont just magically appear supposedly. So sending a hunter ... to hunt 'is' realistic. Yes, sending a single hunter to hunt some huge beast is moronic, well then ... dont send him alone, organize something. Set up a hunting party, or whatever. It's already being done.

Forcing them to be good leaders Ic through OOC means would be bad.
Noone is perfect

Well, first of all. Chances are they are being forced somehow. But even if they're not, they're not being forced by those ginka points either.

They dont 'have' to do it, they can aswell not do it. All that ginka points concept provides are the symbolic cosmetic consequences of doing it or not. Nobody is forcing anyone. Nobody is forcing a character to work or do anything except sit in a tavern enjoying himself and experiencing various roleplayed out encounters. But this doesnt mean that this character should be immune to hunger, only because he chooses not to perform any currency attaining performances

[Maybe42or54]

What does this have to do with ginka points?  What I meant by my earlier statement, is that vnpcs DO hunt. All those scales for the armor dont just magically appear supposedly. So sending a hunter ... to hunt 'is' realistic. Yes, sending a single hunter to hunt some huge beast is moronic, well then ... dont send him alone, organize something. Set up a hunting party, or whatever. It's already being done.

Isn't there a problem of over hunting still?

What problem will it fix then?

[Folker]

I dont understand what you mean by this, I'm afraid. If by over hunting you mean ridding a whole territory of everything that moves and then bringing it home, then ... what does this have to do with this concept at all? Or do you define over hunting as a process of dedicating the entirity of character's gameplay to hunting and hunting only, even if it means leaving the spoils behind.

In each case, I ... dont understand what you're trying to say.

[Ktavialt]

I'll chime in, though I do gotta say to Jarod first, when you quote
a huge amount of text of another player just to add two or three
sentences below it, Imms here will eat your brainz, it uses forum
space, and they pointed out previously to not do that. Just a little
reminder.

Anyways, on topic now...
I'll be honest, when I first read this I was incredibly against it,
but it's probably because you used the term "ginka points" and
that example you gave about the marble fountain. In a lesser,
maybe for specific situations kind of way, I like it. I still have
some problems with it, but there is a certain part of it which
appeals to me. There are a few points I would have to make,
mostly a large number of limitations to the idea:
- Some Houses are stingy, and if a person does good, shouldn't
be rewarded. This leads to realistic conflict. This stuff happens.
Just briefly envision a 'House Wal-Mart' in Zalanthas and I think
you can agree. Perhaps when X is Sergeant all that extra 'sid
goes into his pocket instead? The system would have to be
flexible enough to allow stuff like this to happen.
- A marble fountain is probably an incredibly unrealistic example
of a "prize" or upgrade due to a units good performance,
however I am giving the orig. poster credit as he/she probably
knew that already
- Certain roles would be persuaded to be standardized, and
should be protected from this sort of change.
- Players should not feel forced to log in to keep up. For the
roles that do have a specific job to hunt/craft/etc then they have
a specific quota for hours they are logged in.

Unfortunately, now that I get to the end of it, with all the
limitations I put on the idea, what this really comes down to is a
system which is either intricately designed code allowing for a
multitude of variations, or just an informal, PC leaders keep in
contact with their employees and with the clan Imms and
saying what they have accomplished. Does the PC leader have
the power to request improvements to the barracks? Does the
PC leader use it for an ultra-secret sorcerer training school
hidden beneath the sands instead, which the hunters may not
see?

That's my two cents on it to chew on,
- Ktavialt

[spawnloser]

Jarod, just becuase everyone agrees doesn't mean they're just hopping on the bandwagon.

My thoughts on this matter:
We don't need an arbitrary system to reward people like this.
We already have staff that set goals for the people in their clan.
We already have staff dictating how clans grow/change over time, taking into account the actions of PC members of that and the other clans involved in the change/growth.

I feel that setting some sort of hard and fast rules that feel, to me, like 'how many points to get the wax lips at Chuck E Cheese' is not necessary.

[Tarx]

My thoughts are with the majority on this one because the emphasis on this game has been different than many other games I have played.  The emphasis is roleplay and separating IC and OOC, and generally having fun while doing that.

Having some sort of concrete OOC goal to work towards is not want I want to do with a character.  I want the character to do what he or she wants.  He or she cares nothing about OOC points.  I care nothing about OOC points, either.

Really, overall, I don't see this working.  I don't necessarily want to see it work, either.  Whatever other arguments other people have for varying ways of doing something else should probably be placed in a different thread if they want their ideas to be considered with any sort of merit, because if they (as I) read the very first post about "ginka points," they will associate your idea with ginka points.

[Agent_137]

well thought out, theebie!

But there's one hole:

Houses/Clans are largely virtual. This has various effects for good and ill throughout the life of Armageddon. One of these effects is that player actions often have little impact on the house at large.

Walk a whole Byn unit into a spider cave and never come out? The Byn feels no pain, though it might take awhile for Byn to gain a sizeable PC base again.

So I don't see how the actions of a few PCs gathering more wood should affect the entire house, virtual, coded, and players. This game isn't built that way. The pros and cons of this can be argued, but that doesn't change that it's a fact.

BUT.

BUT.

I think this idea of Theebie's would be great on a unit to unit basis. Let the lieutenants and sergeants implement this. Set IC goals for their unit and reward or punish based on how many points the gain. Every zalanthian can count. Give more incentive for the characters to bust ass. The Byn does a great job of this: you only get paid for contracts. And some clans have a reward system in place already, mostly by focusing bonuses.

LEt some enterprising lieutenant take this idea and run with it. He can even get immortal support, i'm sure, easily. "hey, can i take out x more than usual if my unit does y z and n?"

But from a top down, immortal pushed system with coded affects to clan gates and barracks? No, it doesn't fit the reality of armageddon. The houses are too large compared to the player-character base in them.

Reading folker's post, it's interesting to see that we often disagree but have the same core beliefs and goals. We all just disagree on -how- to get to those goals. You'll find, Jarod, that this community isn't a bunch of band-wagon followers. It's insulting to be labeled as such.

[Tlaloc]

I think the biggest problem with this idea is that, largely, its already done.

No, there  isn't a hard and fast coded system, with actual 'points'...but the clan staff does pay attention to the IC work of the Players in the clan, and often you can affect (or not affect) the way the clan is doing by your actions (or inactions). Many, many clans have had their garrisons rebuilt, remodeled, created from scratch, destroyed, saved, and sold, all through what the PCs did in-game, and how they performed for the Clan.

I will echo what several other posters have previously stated: the PC population of a clan does not represent the entire population of a clan. They might only be a tiny fraction of actual manpower, so sometimes the 'work' or 'failure' of the clans is hard to percieve, and might only be visible when you take a step back and look at the story from a longer point-of-view than next week.

As examples of this, I would point to how certain city-states have evolved over time, the status of certain noble-houses, the expansion of mercenary companies, the rise and fall of some of the more minor merchant Houses, and the creation and closure of countless smaller 'units' based within the clans - and much of their associated real-estate.

[proxie]

There is one good idea that can be taken from the original poster's suggestion.

More specific and yet flexible lists of things for PC leaders to do with their peons. Yes, we have broad generic lists, but how do we fill our day to day or the "I'm sick of this city, let's go do something." moments of our PC's lives. Instead of just going out and hunting scrab, if we had a shopping list of foragables, huntables, or even things you can't buy, then in the absence of higher ranking PC leaders, the Sergeants of the world have something to do.

I spent some time in Borsail recently, had a great time, and Naiona was doing a great job with us. The only real problem was that she had real life constraints on her time that made her not so available for long stretches when they occurred. We also fluctuated between four nobles at one time to none, and the nobles (this is true for all noble clans) weren't always responsible for keeping us busy, and so the time would occasionally be long periods where we only had vague goals as to what we should be doing. Great and fine, but the times where I had a specific 'shopping list' or a simple "Go here and check this location" were the times I could keep my PC busy and those around me. Without feeling like I was contributing to over hunting or over sparring or over tavern sitting.

So! My suggestion is that PC leaders and their NPC superiors think about having a list of things needed by the clan, either virtually or actually, and keep it on one of their clan boards for people to work on. Nothing huge or terribly IC, but if it's known that Family member X is a stoneworker and to make sure their basket is always full of interesting things for them to work on, it might be helpful.  It also would create plots of it's own as the underlings go to fill these lists without always knowing the purpose, "Why does Ronald Kadius need cups of ginka jam?"

Just my thoughts on it.

Proxie