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

[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