Bonus food

[theebie]

In order to enforce the harshness of the deadly world of Zalanthas, how about this ...

[BleakOne]

Wouldn't taking away clan's food just encourage independants? To promote harshness you'd need to make gathering food alone more difficult and unreliable.

[Riev]

Water has been brought up before, I think the consensus is "This is an OOC convenience; Nobody wants to join a clan and die of dehydration because of inactive leadership." This, I can hang with.

However, food... I see no reason for any clans to have free food (besides maybe the Byn as an old staple). No matter what city you are in, food isn't cheap, and you have to really haggle with a shopkeep for a steak cheaper than 30 coins. Most people get paid (lets say) an average of 200 coins a month. Thats not many steaks.

Sure, it would encourage independents because they can get their own food. I have a feeling if you have to dedicate part of your hunting in a clan (they're all hunting clans don't kid yourself) to gathering food, and THEN having someone whose purpose it is to cook and maintain that food... its only going to help the RP, give more job openings in clans, and I can see very few downsides. You can always buy food from a shopkeep.

[BleakOne]

I actually like the idea of a basic food gatherer being vital in a crew. Makes sense and adds in the need for a cook PC too.

I can, however, see the problem of during certain inactive times of a clan, a lack of hunters could leave the healers/crafters/anyone not allowed to leave the gates faced with a slow, OOC-induced starvation. Clan characters don't have the coin to sustain themselves on bought food for very long, usually.

[Gunnerblaster]

I'd like to see raw meat simply 'fade' away after maybe 24 RL hours?

Cooked food would remain 'permanent', as they are now?

[Riev]

I'm of the opinion that is no problem, and only helps the case being laid out.

If you are in a clan, with no active hunters, and leadership that cannot be around to get your character fed, and you also don't make enough coin to eat... rebel.

The command is there. Leave Kadius. Go join Salarr. Or tell the new Noble you're working for that "The last Noble couldn't even upkeep food for his aides." I'm not saying this should be happening all the time, but if your PC is not getting what they need from the clan, leave.

Food is relatively cheap, if you find the right people. Offpeakers and casual players might have more difficulty, but if they are in a clan, there should be food reserves for them as well. Independent groups do this all the time, and even provide their own water. If you're starving and you are in a clan, and you can't afford food.... beg. Beg someone at the bar for a scrap of meat. Sack up and do what your PC would do to survive. If people see a ton of Kuracis begging for food, I think the Byn just found a new contract to bring to them.

[Wolfsong]

I think while OOC this might seem like a good idea, most clans have long, storied histories and immense power in their respective cities - and hundreds of employees, discounting PCs. It doesn't make sense IC that a clan that can feed several hundred people can suddenly not feed 5-10 PCs.

[Tempest]

oops, delete please

[perfecto]

Every clanned house or house-like clan is established becaue they are the best of the best at what they do...
how foolish would they have to be to run out of food and water for their employees?

This seems to be number 1 or 2 on the list of a hundred on "how to run a profitable buisiness"

I wouldn't change a thing personaly.

[BleakOne]

I agree, in part, Riev. However, ICly the clan is made up of more than just the PCs, and even a lazy-ass Noble/Agent/Sergeant would have little to no effect on the clan HQ's food supply due to other crews in the same place made up of vnpcs would be gathering food.

I also don't like the idea of a bunch of Kuracis sitting at the bar (which would probably be a Kuraci-owned bar) starving and needing to beg independant grebber crew #32116 for table scraps. It seems backwards to the general theme of Zalanthas.

So gameplay wise I think it would be ok, but it doesn't fit the IC frame work, imho.

EDIT: One thing I would totally support would be all clan food being low-quality. Particularly in a place like Zalanthas, cost-cutting would be high on the agenda. Low-quality water that has a chance to give you the runs or something (make dehydration occur faster, maybe) and food that's just dried chalton strips and bland travel cakes. That way there's still an incentive to go out and get food and water, and so on.

[theebie]

This is why I thought about the idea of providing the clans with food & water, but food & water that gives stat-penalties (like -1strength, -1endurance, whatsoever)

Kuracis needn't starve if they don't have the possibility to gather their own food, but they'd be weaker/slower.
This way  the PCs (who will not like that at all) are encouraged to gather their own food, but if they cannot, they still won't starve.

[BleakOne]

This is why I thought about the idea of providing the clans with food & water, but food & water that gives stat-penalties (like -1strength, -1endurance, whatsoever)

Kuracis needn't starve if they don't have the possibility to gather their own food, but they'd be weaker/slower.
This way  the PCs (who will not like that at all) are encouraged to gather their own food, but if they cannot, they still won't starve.

It's a good point, imho.

[Wolfsong]

What's the justification for these clans having shitty, shitty food when your day 0 scavenger/ranger can go out and immediately get better stuff?

[theebie]

What's the justification for these clans having shitty, shitty food when your day 0 scavenger/ranger can go out and immediately get better stuff?

The reason is, that it gives people something to do and something worry about. (Besides sitting in town, sparring their asses off)

[Wolfsong]

The IC justification, that is.

[theebie]

This is the IC justification:

Virtual NPCs hunt for virtual PCs in the big merchant houses.
Real PCs hunt for real PCs in the big merchant houses. If people have an active clan, they can and will go out regulary and gather food, or do whatever they do,
make coin with that and then buy food on the market. This way they won't have worse food than the average grabber. If it's a successfull clan-group-leader, they
will even have better food. (It's additionally a nice way to spend clan-money for something usefull).
If it's a sucky clan-leader, the crew doesn't deserve better food.
If it's a clan-leader who's not around often, can't play regulary, he shouldn't be clan leader.
If it's an offpeak / few people / whatever other reason group, they shall use the not so good -1strength food and try to change their situation.

[Wolfsong]

What about clans that don't allow PC hunters, but still have food due to other means, slaves, etc.?

[theebie]

What about clans that don't allow PC hunters, but still have food due to other means, slaves, etc.?

Those use the clan-money to buy food from the market.

[Aaron Goulet]

Can't say I like this, as there is already foragable food in the game that should be far worse (relatively speaking) than the worst crap clans could offer.  Also, food that modifies stats is very rare, and this doesn't seem like the best situation to start introducing it.

All this proposal seems to do is give clans that have hunters another reason to go out and hunt, and punishes every other clan out there by forcing their leaders to spend a large portion of their "plot money" on food for their employees.  Can you imagine how much it would cost to feed even a five-PC clan in Allanak? Ouch.  I see where you are coming from, but I don't think the pros outweigh the cons.

Perhaps a compromise would be that clans that do have hunters basically have the expectation that the hunters are supposed to feed themselves?

[Akaramu]

The rest should depend on cooks and a network of support as other RPIs have done successfully and as a result, encouraged cooperation and player interaction.

What other RPIs have done this successfully? The one I played that tried to implement such a system - where it made sense, because clans were much smaller and didn't have hundreds of VNPCs - led to countless moans and gripes within the playerbase because all those tasks were considered a chore that took up too much playtime and felt like a second job on top of the RL one. And whenever (insert only PC able to take care of vital task XY) could not log in for RL reasons, hell broke loose.

I really don't think we want Armageddon to be more casual player unfriendly.

[Synthesis]

Hunting and gathering coded food and water is boring, tedious, and time-consuming.

If you forced clans to gather their own food and water, it wouldn't be a year before people started bitching about having it the other way around.

[Cutthroat]

I don't see the point of changing things with clans at the moment. Clans are assumed to have the virtual resources required to be able to provide basic necessities to their employees, and greater perks to higher-ups (family members, nobles). Barring the occasional city-wide famine or drought, clans should have primary access to those resources from their city. It's just that the liquid resources (coins) aren't accessible by PCs - the food and water they buy is.

The actual disparity in-game is in what an independent can gain access to, versus what a clanned person can get without moonlighting or breaking their clan's rules. However, that is also offset by the clanned PC generally having more opportunities for plots, having more social power, and so on.

If harshness in-game is the goal, we could go a lot farther by remembering and roleplaying the big social differences between total independents, partisans (in Tuluk), and employees, which in my opinion is being done right now.

[AreteX]

This is my problem with food in general:  The more active you are in the game world the more time you're investing in gathering food/water for yourself, or spending your hard-earned coin on said food/water.

So, for example you have a clan of 10 PC's, all the same rank.  One PC plays about 4 hours a day.  The other PC's average around 2.  And a few PC's play 3 hours a week.

This means the guy who plays 4 hours a day will be starving or trying to fend for himself to gather food.  The other PC's will have trouble, but not as much, and the few PC's who play random times during the week will eat one piece of food a play session and be fine.

So, the way the food system works on Arm right now it almost punishes the players who play often.  Now, if you're the type of character who can't go forage their own food, or doesn't have a means of truly making 'sid BEYOND the clan itself... then well, you're going to starve.  What I mean is if you have a clan pay schedule, you still get paid if you don't log in to the game(you just log in to claim it) and therefore don't spend as much money on food, but gain the same amount as someone who is buying food every RL day because they play often.  I'm talking ONLINE time.

There are characters who can't go forage salt, or at least they're too scared to leave the walls.  Perhaps they CANT leave the walls because of their clan's rules.  What does that player do to keep themselves fed?  Do they violate clan rules to make coin?  That wouldn't be too good, really, to encourage people to violate rules on an OOC level so they can stay fed or starve.

[valeria]

For the main reason mentioned by other players--that clans have a lot more vemployees/slaves and many even have vfoodsources--this just doesn't make sense to my believability.

[Kastion]

If we had to hunt and gather for food to feed the clan we might as well not be in a clan. People eat and drink alot more then you think and if 1 or 2 people have to supply that for 5 or 6 people they are going to be out constantly getting food and water. Also about 10x as many animals would have to be spawned because EVERYTHING would be constantly dead.

[Riya OniSenshi]

Sounds like some of you have never played a clan hunter...

There is no problem with food and water supplies currently. Please stop trying to invent new things to "fix".

[Tisiphone]

If you want to enforce the 'harshness' of the game regarding resources, make getting food harder for independents, not clannies. (Said above.)

The entire point of joining a clan is to have access to their resources, because people have already carved up what little's left in Zalanthas, and they defend their territories viciously, because there's not enough left to run a socialist Western European state. A large piece of the calculus of joining a clan should be that they have something you need that is very difficult to get on your own.

[Talia]

Yeah, I don't really think we're going to be changing the way food and water works for clans. Forcing players to do more routine, grindy code stuff doesn't make the game more fun.

[Cind]

Food and drink with stat penalties would be recognized early and strongly avoided, too.

Kuraci chick: Hey, poor-as-feck grebber, you want a fried, delectable spice-and-cheese filled scrab head? Its from my work.

poor-as-feck-grebber who needs all the help they can get, and also their faculties intact: No, thanks.

[Bacon]

The only things this would accomplish is to increase the number of people playing guild ranger or subguild scavenger and decrease the number of people playing in clans.

[Desertman]

I think it fits well for certain clans, and for other clans, not so much.

For example, Noble Houses would probably provide food and water for all of their employees. Thats a pretty highclass job for a commoner honestly.

The higher end merchant Houses probably -could- but I'm not sure in reality they -would-, for all posiitions anyways. I mean really, why would Salarr and Kadius pay extra to feed their hunters....thats like, paying crafters to craft items for your crafters instead of making them do it themselves. Herp derp.

The Byn would probably provide some sort of food, but it would be very very very low quality. Oh wait, nevermind. (Hehe)

At the end of the day I think its really just an OOC convenience thing for the most part.

I'm personally in favor of Houses, and especially the Byn, not providing food, and/or water to some of their ranks and making exceptions for others. Maybe once you become a Trooper the Company feels you are valuable enough to spend extra watering you? Maybe not.

There are a lot of different angles here. I think we all know that independents can make a lot more sid working solo, maybe the free food and water is a perk to make up for that fact. But then again, for hunters in Merchant Houses, thats a moot point, if you are already bringing in tons of food, why is free food a perk? Who knows.

I'm rambling.

If it is realistic or not is really irrelevant. If it had always been the case that some Houses/Clans didn't provide food, noone would really think anything of it and it would be a common place thing to hire hunters and gatherers to supply your employees. But, it hasn't always been that way, so its a common place thing to have fantastical-magical-infinite food and water.

At the end of the day, its just an OOC convenience thing. Some people prefer it, some dont.

[Bacon]

Nah, it's an IC bonus too. Not just an OOC thing.

"Oh, so you're gonna give me shit pay and I have to provide my own food and water?"

"Yes."

"Well, House Sweetness offered me a job and I get pay plus they provide me with food and water. So, see ya."

I could see if this was taken away some leader pcs just paying for their employee's food and water themselves just to have employees. And others would do it to keep up with them, etc.

[Morrolan]

Limiting food in clans would make the game harsher, but not in any interesting way.

If this were done, the overall number of food-animals would need to be changed in the wilds. Oxen would need to provide thirty, not three, steaks and other cuts. Those animals would need to be fed in one huge eco-system that would be cool, but would also be a huge programming problem and a research project worthy of someone's dissertation [literally, that means that it would take a very smart and educated person working obsessively in poverty for peanuts years and years to complete such a project].

If all that weren't done, then we would need full-time staff tweaking the animal economy constantly based on the average number of players for the week. We would actually be limiting the number of characters in the game based on food supply...and that would be kind of lousy considering all the effort we make to invite people in.

On the bright side, I think I heard that food will spoil in 2.Arm.

[Marauder Moe]

I'm OK with the price/availability of food (actually I still think it could be a little cheaper) and water.

I've thought for a while that the best way to increase harshness through economic adjustments would be to make equipment much more expensive.  A decent meal shouldn't be on the same order of cost as a freaking weapon.  Armor should also be hard to obtain, and getting a full suit should take a lot of effort, even for those who are employed.

[RogueGunslinger]

Now that I can get behind. More expensive armor.

[Lizzie]

And then everyone rolls up an armorsmith, gets to work as an independent, and makes a fortune selling their stuff in NPC shops. You'd have to change the crafting difficulties, to make things harder to succeed, to justify the increased fortune that people would spend. And then, you'd have to increase the cost of raw materials, and then you'd have to increase the forage/chop difficulties to accommodate the increased value in raw materials.

Economics is not just a matter of tweaking one thing and saying "hey great job." Economics involves a rippling effect. Make even one tiny change, and it -will- affect everything else.

[Marauder Moe]

Affecting everything else seems to be the point.

[Bacon]

The problem we have is that some people want the struggle and strife to be the focal point of their play. Others do not. Rather than fuck the whole system up, play roles where you can have these things be the focal point of your play.

[Nyr]

We really need to add "clan hate" and "indies hate" to the Hate Cycle.

[Cind]

A decent meal shouldn't be on the same order of cost as a freaking weapon.

Seriously.

Outside Allanak with half its food supply sources gone anyway.

[Celest]

It seems like this is the sort of thing that should be done through player-driven RPTs, not forced onto the players as a regular chore. Certain clans are hard enough to manage as is (Byn comes to mind), and so adding more obligations just seems like a bad idea. Combined with the fact that role-apped people to these clans would likely not have the immediate means to get coded food, contrast with the 40 days-played, 17 year old rinthi warrior who can kill beetles, and you end up with player-made rinther clans eating lavishly while the largest, most powerful clans in Allanak starve due to OOC weirdness.

There's also the fact that if every clan had to get their own food/water, then you'd see a lot more over hunting. Then again, you'd also see a lot less rooms with 20 pieces of gortok meat left behind, I think.

[My 2 sids]

Start with employers and employees really role-playing how amazing it would be to be employed:  food, shelter, water.

We can play around with PC economy all we want, but at the end of the day it comes down to PCs (and players) in the mindset that "pay" is really the "bonus" when one is hired by a House.

[EldritchOrigins]

While removing food wouldn't be good, limiting food would be.  Make the clan cooks refuse to give out more than a certain ammont to any one person ( with some allowances for leader types that would not be limited).  Combine this with food that spoils over time and food would contiune to be a concern for most pcs, not just newer/unestablished characters.

[Morrolan]

A decent meal shouldn't be on the same order of cost as a freaking weapon.

Seriously.

Outside Allanak with half its food supply sources gone anyway.

Buy food and eat for a day. Buy a weapon and eat for life.

[Dar]

One thing I liked about ... I think it's the Kuraci food, is that you could not put it in your pack. At least you couldnt with the stew. It would spill all over the insides of your pack. I kind of like that idea for clan food. So members can get food from the cooks and it will be good tasty food. But ... they cannot keep it in the pack and maybe it's a little extra heavy. So feel free and fill your face, but if you're going on a crazy long multi day ride. You wont be taking 'that' food with you.

[BleakOne]

Buy food and eat for a day. Buy a weapon and eat for life.

No matter how short that life may be. 

[ianmartin]

Suddenly, the population of Viv's increased 300%