Learning Non-Class Skills

[Sephiroto]

We've got extended subguilds and karma-related buy-ins for bumping skills at character creation.  What do you guys think about expending karma points toward unlocking new skills or slowly raising the maximum cap of ones you already have? 

What I had in mind was that it would cost 3 points to unlock a new skill with a very low cap, and then cost 1 point to raise a skill cap by 5 points.  At 1 point per month, this would mean it would take 1 RL year to go from the capacity to be a nobody at a skill, to the potential of being nearly advanced.  Obviously, magick and psionic skills would be out of the question and some limits would need to be imposed, but I think this could add even more diversity and fun to the game.

[Malken]

I'm all for rewards for those long lived characters and to give them something to "look forward" to code wise, when all of their skills have been maxed out.

[Pale Horse]

I've seen something like this happen, in the past, with particularly long-lived characters.  It only happened with a lot of interaction between Staff and said characters and was fairly rare.

Personally, I've always liked the idea of developing (limited) skills outside of a particularly guild, if sanctioned by Staff and with plenty of Role-Playing to bring it about IG.

[Malken]

I've seen something like this happen, in the past, with particularly long-lived characters.  It only happened with a lot of interaction between Staff and said characters and was fairly rare.

Personally, I've always liked the idea of developing (limited) skills outside of a particularly guild, if sanctioned by Staff and with plenty of Role-Playing to bring it about IG.

The problem with that is that, as you said, it was in the past, and I'm pretty sure it highly depended on which Staff you asked..

As an example, Sanvean was once nice enough to give me the armorcrafting skill when she and I realized that there was no way that my PC would ever be able to branch it without going through all kind of weird loops, even though he was working for Salarr.

I really don't think that something like that would happen now since everything seems much more.. Regulated.

[Dresan]

This doesn't seem like something the current staff would enjoy keeping track of, they seem pretty keen on reducing their work load after all.

I however can see them giving you a skill to train up to advanced in exchange for a special application. I might be assuming here but might be easier to add a single skill to an existing character then processing an entire skill/extended sub-guild/special app. Since we get only three a year that would limit the amount of skills a character can get, while at the same time making it worth while for longer lived characters. Keeping any skill you ask for (no magical skills) up to advanced ensures they won't totally be OP but still add a lot of flavor to your character.

On that same train of thought, we could also add an option for a modest stat boost to an existing character in exchange for a special application.

[Sephiroto]

This doesn't seem like something the current staff would enjoy keeping track of, they seem pretty keen on reducing their work load after all.

I would assume the bulk of this could be automated much in the way that extended subguilds and karma-based skill bumps could be automated.  Whether staff is able and willing to put trust in automated features like these is anyone's guess.

[tortall]

I'm all for this.

Though as others have reflected, I highly doubt this would be allowed.

[Fathi]

This is a cool idea and I was once blessedly allowed to learn some crafting skills on a combat-class PC after working in a merchant house for a long-ass time. It made sense and it was relieving during those times when crafter PCs were hard to come by to hire. I was also more than willing to give up some combat skill effectiveness in exchange given my character had been doing more politicking than hunting for a while.

That being said, I am not really so sure I'd like to see a system like this automated just because it brings up a few tough questions:

How and when would we decide someone had been learning a skill long enough to be granted it? People's definitions of what constitutes long-lived are pretty different. I don't consider a PC of mine long lived until they hit at least the year mark--some people say it's more like six months. And that's not even taking playtimes into account. Two people who play daily will have pretty different skill levels and amount of time played if one plays 2 hours a day and one plays 8 hours a day.

There's also the IC variances that would happen: getting lessons in a skill all the time vs. just trying to learn it on your own should impact how quickly one would be able to learn a skill outside one's regular skillset, too. And we'd have to take into account if a character was living and working in an environment that would be conducive or harmful to them learning the skill, as well.

This just seems like it would be impossible to automate in a way that would be fair and would likely still come down to staff judging it on a case by case basis, which is why we wanted an automated system to begin with.

Of course, if anyone has any ideas they think could balance all that, it'd definitely be something I'd be interested in seeing in the game.

[LauraMars]

I have always wanted a classless, Skyrim-esque skill system for Armageddon in which you can pick whatever path you want to take for your character and take it and grow in skill depending on what you choose to do. 

It is a wild dream of mine that will never come true.

[Fathi]

I have always wanted a classless, Skyrim-esque skill system for Armageddon in which you can pick whatever path you want to take for your character and take it and grow in skill depending on what you choose to do. 

It is a wild dream of mine that will never come true.

Yeah. It's a pie in the sky thing - it would involve such a complete restructure of the game that I don't think it could ever really work.

When I first started playing Arm, the guild system actually turned me off. I've always hated them. It would be nice if the skillsets in this game were more flexible, although the new subguilds go a long way toward fixing that at least.

It would be nice if some of the game's skills were divided into a category of like "General Skills" or something that any PC could eventually learn and become relatively adept at given time. Nothing too specialised, but just really basic levels of things like climbing, searching, cooking, maybe butchering animals for meat if not for pelts, etc.

Kind of like how anyone who practices enough can eventually pop the "ride" skill or an accent.

[MeTekillot]

[SmashedTregil]

I find the idea to be very interesting. Especially once the whole CGP thing gets implemented and using up a high karma role would consume CGP with them regenerating over a period of time. Having this automated feature would be awesome.  And it will not matter much how often a person plays, or for how long. Though if "necessary" it can be put in so this feature can be activated once every rl month.

So say, someone creates a mundane warrior/outdoorsman and has 6 Karma. That means upon creation, he spent 3 cgp for outdorosman and has 3 left. Upon playing, he decides to learn a new skill of armor crafting. He unlocks it at the cap of 10, and his cgp count is reduced to zero. Then, as the points regenerate over time, he spends them to increase the armorcrafting skill by 5 points, for every cgp he regenerates and uses up. 

Whether he plays a lot, or a little. Since the max cap is increasing by only 5 points, he 'has' to play out a gradual and slow improvement of it. And in a rl year, provided he chose to use up every cgp he regenerated (and assuming it's 1 per month. I forget now). He will be able to get his armor crafting skill to 70 (10+60). And of course, if once he's done doing all that, he dies to a tregil on steroids. He has 0 cgp to use to create his next character and he will be restricted to mundane class. Keeping the 'special'/high karma roles as rare as they should be. Yada, yada.   Overall, I like the idea. Though maybe limit the cap this feature can possibly raise to some kind of a plank that tends to be common to extended subguilds.

[Ourla]

Once, I asked Sanvean if my northern templar character could have feathercrafting so she'd have something to do with her hands while she sat around in meetings all day, and she gave me a magickal skill with a similar name by accident.

[Sephiroto]

I find the idea to be very interesting. Especially once the whole CGP thing gets implemented and using up a high karma role would consume CGP with them regenerating over a period of time. Having this automated feature would be awesome.  And it will not matter much how often a person plays, or for how long. Though if "necessary" it can be put in so this feature can be activated once every rl month.

So say, someone creates a mundane warrior/outdoorsman and has 6 Karma. That means upon creation, he spent 3 cgp for outdorosman and has 3 left. Upon playing, he decides to learn a new skill of armor crafting. He unlocks it at the cap of 10, and his cgp count is reduced to zero. Then, as the points regenerate over time, he spends them to increase the armorcrafting skill by 5 points, for every cgp he regenerates and uses up. 

Whether he plays a lot, or a little. Since the max cap is increasing by only 5 points, he 'has' to play out a gradual and slow improvement of it. And in a rl year, provided he chose to use up every cgp he regenerated (and assuming it's 1 per month. I forget now). He will be able to get his armor crafting skill to 70 (10+60). And of course, if once he's done doing all that, he dies to a tregil on steroids. He has 0 cgp to use to create his next character and he will be restricted to mundane class. Keeping the 'special'/high karma roles as rare as they should be. Yada, yada.   Overall, I like the idea. Though maybe limit the cap this feature can possibly raise to some kind of a plank that tends to be common to extended subguilds.

I think this is a very good working example of what I had in mind.  It is very moderate and shows how useful adding non-standard skills to our list can be, while also laying down the drawbacks and limitations.

There's also the IC variances that would happen: getting lessons in a skill all the time vs. just trying to learn it on your own should impact how quickly one would be able to learn a skill outside one's regular skillset, too. And we'd have to take into account if a character was living and working in an environment that would be conducive or harmful to them learning the skill, as well.

Fathi, I get what you're saying but I was humored when you mentioned some environments being non-conducive to a character's skill list.  If we go too far in that line of thought, then we would have to start docking skills or lowering caps on every PC grew up an orphan or was malnourished.  There would definitely be no warriors from the 'rinth, and no noble would ever learn direction sense.

I think that in order for this idea to make sense, we have to view it as using karma to expand on what your character can innately learn, not what it makes sense for them to learn.  What's karma for, right?  We already use it to bump skills on chargen for no logic reason, so why not use karma add or raise them as the character ages?

[FantasyWriter]

Once, I asked Sanvean if my northern templar character could have feathercrafting so she'd have something to do with her hands while she sat around in meetings all day, and she gave me a magickal skill with a similar name by accident.

So many good jokes there.
But they are all too IC for the GDB.

[Synthesis]

Meh, as proposed, this idea would have very little impact on the game.  Almost nobody lives long enough.  Only realistic point-spends on this would be to get crafting skills that are relatively high-yield at low levels, like armorcrafting or swordmaking.  Taking anything else, you'd simply be deluding yourself about the long-term benefits.

I suppose it would be kind of nice for people who never play karma-required races/classes and don't ever have any interest in the extended subguilds, but I suspect that population of players is very small.  (Noobs don't count, because the idea as proposed would require 3 cgp to get started, which assumes karma to start with.)

Edited to add:  actually, it would be really useful to immediately gain access to branched skills for primary classes that would theoretically automatically populate with the primary class's skill cap...not sure if it would be worth it for a powergamer who knows the system already, but I'm sure there are a lot of folks out there who take a lot longer than 3 months to branch certain primary class skills.

[tortall]

For me, it's pretty rare if my PCs last fewer than 6 months, so this would have a HUGE impact on my playing. Plus.... No interest in 90% of the karma roles.

[Synthesis]

Even at 6 months, your character would only get 2 extra novice skills, or 1 extra skill at apprentice.  I'm not sure how HUGE a difference that could even make.  I guess if you have a reasonable expectation of surviving RL years (ha) and have a lot of karma to start with, you could spend 4 cgp on an extended subguild, another 3 cgp on that skill you just gotta have, and 1 cgp to improve its initial cap.

At any rate, I'm a little concerned how the long-term upside potential could affect the overall game.  If everyone starts playing extremely cautiously because they want to take advantage of this sort of system, it might have some positive effects with respect to realistic roleplay (e.g. not taking stupid risks), but at the same time, that could get really boring and frustrating for folks who aren't content to play the game as 99% chatroom and 1% dungeon crawl.

[tortall]

that could get really boring and frustrating for folks who aren't content to play the game as 99% chatroom and 1% dungeon crawl.

The only difference would be that they had it no differently than they do now, but those that play characters who want to stay alive are more likely to learn new things. Just like people IRL. Those that take insane and life threatening ricks are less likely to live long enough to learn more.

[Delirium]

I'd like to see lots and lots and lots more different subguilds and extended subs.

It would help.

[RogueGunslinger]

Just saying: Extrended subguilds are amazing.

[Malken]

Just saying: Extrended subguilds are amazing.

Yeah yeah, you're currently playing a character with amazing stats and a great extended subguild, we get it by now 

[RogueGunslinger]

Just saying: Extrended subguilds are amazing.

Yeah yeah, you're currently playing a character with amazing stats and a great extended subguild, we get it by now 

It feel so nice Malken. I just wish to share in this feeling. Feel it with me. Feeeeel it.

[Narf]

Even at 6 months, your character would only get 2 extra novice skills, or 1 extra skill at apprentice.  I'm not sure how HUGE a difference that could even make.  I guess if you have a reasonable expectation of surviving RL years (ha) and have a lot of karma to start with, you could spend 4 cgp on an extended subguild, another 3 cgp on that skill you just gotta have, and 1 cgp to improve its initial cap.

There are some skills that are pretty good even at low levels.

Direction sense comes to mind.

[Synthesis]

Even at 6 months, your character would only get 2 extra novice skills, or 1 extra skill at apprentice.  I'm not sure how HUGE a difference that could even make.  I guess if you have a reasonable expectation of surviving RL years (ha) and have a lot of karma to start with, you could spend 4 cgp on an extended subguild, another 3 cgp on that skill you just gotta have, and 1 cgp to improve its initial cap.

There are some skills that are pretty good even at low levels.

Direction sense comes to mind.

Maybe there are a few that would be worth 3 months of cgp.  I'm not sure direction sense at 10 would be one of them, but anyway...what I'm saying is that consistently gambling away your cgp on relatively minor things is a risky proposition if you regularly play karma-required or extended-subguild roles.  The only people who would consider it to be worth it are the sorts who play very long-term, entrenched characters...and I'm not sure what the game needs is for long-term, entrenched characters to be -more- effective/dangerous/etc.

I'd be more favorably inclined if the menu of skills was limited to "utility" skills (climb, scan, listen, direction sense, bandaging, haggle, etc.) and maybe some of the minor crafting skills (tanning, dyeing, bandagemaking, featherworking, etc.).  It might also be useful for languages and accents.  Even then, I'm not so sure, because -lack- of the ability to do something often creates just as much interaction (if not more) than having the ability to do it, and this isn't a single-player game.