Crafting and Clans - The oddity of it.

[Pariah]

This is an offshoot of https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,58841.msg1085822.html#msg1085822

So there seems to be a common thought pattern that being clanned in a merchant house or some other specialized clan that unlocks X craft or X QUALITY of crafting is due to lots of VNPC access, tools, equipment and a variety of other handwaved (Imaginary) things.

Now that's all fine and good really, sure you wanna justify why I can be a master widget maker as an indy, then join House Widgets-R-Us and suddenly be amazing by all this imaginary stuff or whatnot, cool cool, again, no hate no biggy really.

But where the part that's sorta Jarring comes up is that while that belief of we'll call it, "Better tools, better equipment, better people" comes undone is that it's not restricted TO those areas with those people.

So if I'm Master Widget Maker Widgey and I join the house of Supreme Widgets, I now apparently have virtual equipment, lackies and tools that follow me EVERYWHERE in the known.

Because sure I can work in the workroom/warehouse etc, but I also can make the same widget in the middle of a sandstorm in the Salt Flats codedly.  Are my lackies, equipment and such just following me around virtually till I snap my fingers and they attend me?

So where am I going with this?

Why don't we require those super masterful crafts of various clans to be keyed to a certain room or set of rooms (Allanak, Tuluk etc) to make it more palatable and make sense so that when we discuss why an indy sucks compared to a clanned, it actually has some meat on the bone of reason to support it.

Now I will say staff is reasonable, and I have no doubt that if I go play a crafter for an in game year or more and ask if I can retain the ability to craft certain things, they will probably grant it because I put in the time and work and you don't just forget how to butter bread because you leave the kitchen.  But that's all manual and request driven and let's be honest here, we have entirely too much stuff that requires requests.  Code is there to automated things, let's use it if we can right?

So I think logically there is a few ways to approach crafts, and I'm sure you all will add other suggestions as that's what happens, you put out something I totally didn't think about, someone insults Halaster's coding capabilities and great things happen.

1. Have crafts be unlocked via clan, but then kept permanently, that way crafter Amos doesn't just forget how to make decent swords because he decided to leave Salarr and do his own shit.  Maybe after a set period of time?  Maybe even not have them all pop from day one, I've joined clans where a piece of bone gives me 10 options, then I join the clan and the piece of bone is 25 options instantly.  It works both ways, you wouldn't learn how to make everything instantly either.

2. Have crafts that are clan specific require a certain room, or immovable tool to make.  Some clans/tribes already do this with alcoholic beverages as you can't just carry a still around with you, and that isn't jarring because you're like, "Sorry bro, can't make you beer, the still is back at my tents."  Not to mention things like Bow adjustment machines that only certain people have.

Ultimately, does it work how it is now, sure, but I think it could be improved with some tweaks.

[Riev]

For a few years now, I've been asking for clanned crafts to require not just specific tools, but high quality versions of those tools.

You want to make a Salarri Worm Hide Cuirass? And you AREN'T using very good+ quality leatherworking needles? Well. It doesn't matter if you understand the knowledge of how to make them, you're going to need someone who can supply those needles. And guess what? They're GMH specials.

So any indie found with these "top tier tools" would be just as targetted by GMHs as someone who "knows how to make metal armor, but just doesn't have an anvil".

Unfortunately, we have a LOT of recipes, and not a lot of people or time to spend going through all "clan-specific" items and re-doing the recipes to require quality tools.

That is my idea. Having to be in a certain room is... tedious and gamey to me, unless you're saying these top-tier tools are chained to the walls. Make tools non-virtual, let them be acquired/stolen/secretly sold off.

[Brytta Léofa]

IMO the ideal setup is this (using Salarr/weapons as an example):

(1) 95% of recipes for the highest-quality weapons are Salarr-only.

(2) Once you have used a recipe, your PC never forgets it. (This is a reason for Salarr to be really uneasy if a master crafter wants to leave.)

(3) Salarr crafting halls provide a bonus to weaponcrafting (due to the virtual tools housed there). Therefore Salarr PCs can craft the best weapons more reliably / economically than anyone else. (This is a reason for Salarr to chill out a bit of a master crafter wants to leave...they lose access to the workshop, they can't really compete at scale even though they know a lot.)

(4) also, 20x the grind to get crafting skill from "advanced" to "master" (but lower the branch points). Somebody (Hestia?) suggested that maybe PCs shouldn't submit master-level recipes in their first month or two of play. Rather than adding an extra restriction, just...make it hard to achieve mastery.

[Windstorm]

(4) also, 20x the grind to get crafting skill from "advanced" to "master" (but lower the branch points). Somebody (Hestia?) suggested that maybe PCs shouldn't submit master-level recipes in their first month or two of play. Rather than adding an extra restriction, just...make it hard to achieve mastery.

Please, please do not even suggest this. The last thing anyone wants is more grind taking us away from roleplay!



That said, I'm down for everything else, and in fact I feel like having to account for and stamp out competition in their chosen fields would be realistic and create meaningful interactions/conflict between GMH PCs and their would-be competition. It's strange to me that they're allowed the monopoly they have when it would be so much more interesting, interactive, and give those players more to do if they didn't.

[Pariah]

(4) also, 20x the grind to get crafting skill from "advanced" to "master" (but lower the branch points). Somebody (Hestia?) suggested that maybe PCs shouldn't submit master-level recipes in their first month or two of play. Rather than adding an extra restriction, just...make it hard to achieve mastery.

I agree with all that, except this.  There are always skills that most folks don't master, crafting skills are different as they don't have to do with killing folks or critters in the gameworld in my opinion.

I -love- that realistic practice can get you from novice to master in a few weeks time.

If we had grind crafts that hard to get to master, we would need to revamp the shops and open up more places that buy more shit, otherwise it's just a sad waste to craft 50 stone thingamajigs and junk them all or leave them lying around.

[BadSkeelz]

The increased quality of Great Merchant House goods is best viewed as an abstraction of the House's superior resources, workstations, tools, and institutional knowledge. If you try and look at crafting too literally you'll go insane because there's a lot of crafts, I would wager most crafts, that have descriptions that go far beyond what "actually" goes in to them.

[Brokkr]

I mean, if you are out in the Salt Flats making a horribly complex weapon that would realistically require tools, that is a reflection of your roleplay.  Would be interesting to see how you are justifying that RP.

RP first, then code.

Not do whatever the code allows and fill in with RP.

This even applies to a crafter in Salarr.  In the Salt Flats or even in the workroom. Just because you see (master) on your skill list for all the weapon crafting skills...does not mean you are a Master Crafter in Salarr.

[Pariah]

I mean, if you are out in the Salt Flats making a horribly complex weapon that would realistically require tools, that is a reflection of your roleplay.  Would be interesting to see how you are justifying that RP.

RP first, then code.

Not do whatever the code allows and fill in with RP.

This even applies to a crafter in Salarr.  In the Salt Flats or even in the workroom. Just because you see (master) on your skill list for all the weapon crafting skills...does not mean you are a Master Crafter in Salarr.

We have tools, there is a whole category of them and a crafting tree.

While I understand that some of the clanned items are ancient, I would say that making them require tools or having specialized tools created for those clans would keep it more regulated.

If you trust people to just RP correctly, this would be a mush with no coded backup.

The easy fix is just find those master level things and make them use some type of tool that only X clan can make.

This allows for people to steal said tools and keep making their super fancy swords or whatever, and gives clans something to keep track of.

Or an even easier fix is have the craft tied to some room based thing like a Kiln for clayworking.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that "Trust but verify" is a huge thing with people in and out of games and life in general.

[Hestia]

I always thought of the clan-lock on GMH-made items as requiring special tools or equipment. Sure maybe they're virtual tools or equipment. But they are under guard, and no you shouldn't be sneaking them out to spam-craft in your apartment.

Maybe adding some kind of line of code saying that if it's flagged as made by House Kadius, then the only way you can make it is if you're in one of the Kadian workshops.  Because that's the only place where you'll find the exact correct height of table, in exactly the right condition to do the work, with exactly the right ambience to stir a proper Kadian's creative juices, with exactly the right vNPCs to remind you that cross-stitches have to go counter-clockwise, not clockwise, or whatever else.

Rather than re-flag every Kadian item, someone who knows how to deal with the "clan-locked" metatags can add a new script that gets applied to the room. And if the item has that metatag, and the crafter isn't in that room, then the crafter can't make the thing.

In other words - the room itself becomes the tool.

[Pariah]

I always thought of the clan-lock on GMH-made items as requiring special tools or equipment. Sure maybe they're virtual tools or equipment. But they are under guard, and no you shouldn't be sneaking them out to spam-craft in your apartment.

Maybe adding some kind of line of code saying that if it's flagged as made by House Kadius, then the only way you can make it is if you're in one of the Kadian workshops.  Because that's the only place where you'll find the exact correct height of table, in exactly the right condition to do the work, with exactly the right ambience to stir a proper Kadian's creative juices, with exactly the right vNPCs to remind you that cross-stitches have to go counter-clockwise, not clockwise, or whatever else.

Rather than re-flag every Kadian item, someone who knows how to deal with the "clan-locked" metatags can add a new script that gets applied to the room. And if the item has that metatag, and the crafter isn't in that room, then the crafter can't make the thing.

In other words - the room itself becomes the tool.

There ya go, that would make sense.

[Hestia]

Notta coder here - no idea if this is doable or not, or if an actual coder would take an interest in it. I'm brainstorming with y'all.

But if something like what I suggested above were to happen, a builder/staffer could apply it to any room in the game. The center room in the merchant employee apartment building in Allanak, for instance. Or the communal work area on the east side of Luir's Outpost, as another example.  Maybe some kind of script that would be hm - (again - I am not a coder):

gmh_crafter_room
/allows a room to be used as its own tool for the
/purpose of GMH-employed crafter PCs to craft
/clan-locked objects.
command: craft
function: if (pc_employed_by_clan) = (House_Kadius OR House_Salarr OR House_Kurac)
permit PC to craft objects with those tags
  else return message "A VNPC senior crafter shakes a scolding finger at you."

(allow me to remind you that I'm not a coder)

[Pariah]

That's great, it's all hopes and dreams till someone makes it happen.

I appreciate the thoughts regardless.

[creeper386]

I'd really love some high end tools to be required for some crafts.

Rather those be large in room tools that can't be moved, which already exist.

Or various other hand held tools.


The actually items allows for MCB a little bit better. Especially combined with need for better materials and such, which right now the better material is, horror shell over scrab shell, but any old horror shell works just as well as any other.

I'd love that there was quality, and based on skill you can maintain that quality through skinning/tanning/woodworking, various subcrafts and there to make the really good stuff, you'd need good materials, processed by skilled people, and good tools and everything. Instead of things just being clan locked, that requires staff lead plots to be overcome.

But I also think it'd have to be done in a way to be incredibly difficult to overcome, and would require more involved, multi-step crafts instead of the, craft x y z into mastercrafted sword.

[najdorf]

Clan room giving either immense bonuses or allowing specific crafts is / has been a great concept. One shouldn't only consider the virtual tools part of it. The full experience includes Salarr apprentices and master crafters there aiding you, showing things to improve from the houses thousands of years of accumulated experience.

[BadSkeelz]

Clan room giving either immense bonuses or allowing specific crafts is / has been a great concept. One shouldn't only consider the virtual tools part of it. The full experience includes Salarr apprentices and master crafters there aiding you, showing things to improve from the houses thousands of years of accumulated experience.

Agreed. I really like the idea.

[LindseyBalboa]

Yeah 1000%. Being IN the master workshop is a huge part of having those master craft advantages. This is what keeps people from being able to steal and large scale produce competition, because you can't just steal the workshop.



easily

[Patuk]

Clan rooms giving huge bonuses would be kinda funny for one reason: clanned crafters would need to practice anywhere but there to get good at their skills. This isn't a huge issue, but it definitely reads kinda funny to me.

[FantasyWriter]

Heh, I kinda always assumed being in those rooms DID give you some sort of bump due to access of the highest quality [virtual] specialty tools.

[Hestia]

Eh - I'm not pro or con giving crafting bonuses to rooms.  My consideration is only for the OP's specific concern: the hows and whys and IC believability/playability of GMH employees having exclusive crafting rights to GMH-crafted items.

If that's the only thing we address, then that would /be/ the bonus: a crafter employed by Salarr, would be able to make Salarr-made armor and arms, as long as they are physically within the Salarr crafting hall (and possibly other locations, but this is the specific address).

If they try crafting the salarr-made super-sharp broadsword in their apartment, they won't be able to. Not even if they have maxed out their mastery of broadsword making and have the highest quality broadsword-making tools equipped in each hand.  No Salarr crafter room = no make Salarr broadsword.

The point is to explain in an IC way, with the support of the code, WHY people who quit a GMH or are fired from one, are suddenly incapable of crafting that house's stuff even though they were masters of it an hour prior.

[FantasyWriter]

>push like button

[Riev]

The point is to explain in an IC way, with the support of the code, WHY people who quit a GMH or are fired from one, are suddenly incapable of crafting that house's stuff even though they were masters of it an hour prior.

This is why I'm for the more tedious but overall better idea of making these "clan only" crafts require specific quality tools. Tools that are non-virtual, can be moved, sold, stolen, pilfered, whatever. It would explain why some ex-Salarr Indie is now cranking out toothed warswords with nary a ding or mistake on the blade.

When you make a tool required, any failures reduce the quality. So the thief will have to acquire more of these top tier tools, and/or Salarr is going to have to ensure that tool gets broken.

Rather than like "I could make this edge sharper if only I were standing at a BLUE painted table in the Salarr headquarters"

[whengravityfails]

Eh - I'm not pro or con giving crafting bonuses to rooms.  My consideration is only for the OP's specific concern: the hows and whys and IC believability/playability of GMH employees having exclusive crafting rights to GMH-crafted items.

If that's the only thing we address, then that would /be/ the bonus: a crafter employed by Salarr, would be able to make Salarr-made armor and arms, as long as they are physically within the Salarr crafting hall (and possibly other locations, but this is the specific address).

If they try crafting the salarr-made super-sharp broadsword in their apartment, they won't be able to. Not even if they have maxed out their mastery of broadsword making and have the highest quality broadsword-making tools equipped in each hand.  No Salarr crafter room = no make Salarr broadsword.

The point is to explain in an IC way, with the support of the code, WHY people who quit a GMH or are fired from one, are suddenly incapable of crafting that house's stuff even though they were masters of it an hour prior.

I'm far more fond of this idea as it makes a lot more sense in my head with high quality handheld tools providing the bonuses, not the ability, to actually make the clan-only items - be it Salarr or tribal or what have you.

[Hestia]

The point is to explain in an IC way, with the support of the code, WHY people who quit a GMH or are fired from one, are suddenly incapable of crafting that house's stuff even though they were masters of it an hour prior.

This is why I'm for the more tedious but overall better idea of making these "clan only" crafts require specific quality tools. Tools that are non-virtual, can be moved, sold, stolen, pilfered, whatever. It would explain why some ex-Salarr Indie is now cranking out toothed warswords with nary a ding or mistake on the blade.

When you make a tool required, any failures reduce the quality. So the thief will have to acquire more of these top tier tools, and/or Salarr is going to have to ensure that tool gets broken.

Rather than like "I could make this edge sharper if only I were standing at a BLUE painted table in the Salarr headquarters"

The problem with that (as mentioned upthread) is that we'd have to add the flag to every single clan-crafted item in the game, manually. That's a couple thousand items.  As opposed to a single flag added to specific rooms, which might be maybe - 20-50 rooms total, if we want to give perks to merchant apartments, and satellite barracks, and argosy workrooms.

[Brokkr]

The point is to explain in an IC way, with the support of the code, WHY people who quit a GMH or are fired from one, are suddenly incapable of crafting that house's stuff even though they were masters of it an hour prior.

This is why I'm for the more tedious but overall better idea of making these "clan only" crafts require specific quality tools. Tools that are non-virtual, can be moved, sold, stolen, pilfered, whatever. It would explain why some ex-Salarr Indie is now cranking out toothed warswords with nary a ding or mistake on the blade.

When you make a tool required, any failures reduce the quality. So the thief will have to acquire more of these top tier tools, and/or Salarr is going to have to ensure that tool gets broken.

Rather than like "I could make this edge sharper if only I were standing at a BLUE painted table in the Salarr headquarters"

You are making some assumptions that would likely not be true.

The tools could be made non-virtual.  Except we would make them "workstations" without a take flag.  So moved, sold, stolen, pilfered and whatever would be off the table.

Tools without take flags do not degrade in quality when there is a failure.  So that would be off the table as well.

Which is why what Hestia is talking about would be equivalent, but easier.

[Pariah]

Yeah the wonkiness of clan crafting is that the instant I'm inducted into House Salarr, I have this massive influx of crafts into my craft bone for example.

The idea Hestia posed and Brokkr is talking about with workstations as tools, makes a TON of sense.

That way you can't sit at the Gaj and craft that fancy Salarr sword because you want to or don't want to take the time to walk all the way across the city to get into your workshop.  The choice is gone, you -must- go get to that workstation.

The RP implications are great too, because say Joe crafter starts selling Salarr's trademarked super sharp swords without permission and the market is flooded with them, every hunter in the known has them but Salarr merchants are like "Hey I don't recall selling all this." it gives them something to investigate and find out that Joe crafter is being a shady fuck and doing unapproved sales.

Because the NPCs of the Salarr compound are gonna see him running out with armfuls of super sharp salarri longswords.

It gives accountability and not free reign to make shit willy nilly in the salt flats or the bar.

100% a good idea to limit those clan crafts to workrooms or places that make sense.

[LindseyBalboa]

Eh - I'm not pro or con giving crafting bonuses to rooms.  My consideration is only for the OP's specific concern: the hows and whys and IC believability/playability of GMH employees having exclusive crafting rights to GMH-crafted items.

If that's the only thing we address, then that would /be/ the bonus: a crafter employed by Salarr, would be able to make Salarr-made armor and arms, as long as they are physically within the Salarr crafting hall (and possibly other locations, but this is the specific address).

If they try crafting the salarr-made super-sharp broadsword in their apartment, they won't be able to. Not even if they have maxed out their mastery of broadsword making and have the highest quality broadsword-making tools equipped in each hand.  No Salarr crafter room = no make Salarr broadsword.

The point is to explain in an IC way, with the support of the code, WHY people who quit a GMH or are fired from one, are suddenly incapable of crafting that house's stuff even though they were masters of it an hour prior.

This is sweet. It reflects the in game reality very well. 100%.

Also... Salarr isn't a tool it's the high quality ore, the 20 apprentices, the knowledge, the maintained tools, the workshop protected from elements, the countless OTHER Salarr nearby to learn from on the fly when things go wrong. You can't just shoplift that.

Would at least require a bunch of PCs and a long term plot ha.