Barriades and You: A Self Help Guide to Healthy Personal Boundries

[Markku]

Barricades are now in your hands to do with as you will!
https://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Barricades
*Please read the helpfile before continuing.
*Please read the helpfile and all of this original post before commenting.

Some issues we addressed/clarified earlier in the Discord channel after the helpfile was released:

Clarifications

1. For the first release, there is a single set of stone barricade that are now craftable.
(more are planned for later after thorough testing and staff/player feedback)
These will take a long time to build. To be transparent, my aim is about a game day per barricade with two people.

2. Some of the work, grebbing the proper stones and the first stage of the craft can be done by essentially everyone to encourage team efforts and reduce build time for larger groups. The remaining steps will need to be completed by someone who has a good understanding of stonecraft.

3. Barricades are one way. You build them in the room you want to prevent travel from.
i.e. - You can leave your "camp" through the barricade, but will have to leave one direction open to get back in.
To make them two-way, you will need to build one inside and outside your camp "room" in each direction.

4. Craftable barricades can only be used for north/east/south/west exits (not up/down/in/out)

5. Barricades are not to be used as traps.  By traps I mean structures built to let someone pass into an area, they cannot, then, get out of.
(As always, if you find yourself in a situation your PC cannot get out of through code, wish up.)

6. Barricades CAN be used to block roads, passes, etc. "Police checkpoints" came up quite often.

7. "Barricades are not safe walls" - They can be destroyed by anyone with the proper tools.
(there was lots of speculation, but to be sure, FOIC [find out in-character])

8. Barricades will decay over time.  As of now, there is no way for you to tell what shape it is in, so in the spirit of transparency, this variant will last about 1 RL week +/- a day without upkeep.
(see the helpful for information on how to perform upkeep)

9. For those who are still feeling left out due to your current skillset, we are planning a less durable variant (two actually) that anyone can craft, a and two other "good" ones, all with different features/advantages/disadvantages. Woodworkers will see some love here as well.


Other questions/concerns:
Q: "Can you build barricades in the city."
A: I believe so. The better question is: SHOULD you?

C: "Can you shoot past barricades?"
A: Good question, FOIC!

Q: "Are barricades one-way for everyone?"
A: They treat all players the same, there are no clan perks or anything out there. Think of this as much more "realistic" than unassailable staff-loaded forts/argosies/etc.

Q: "Can I cast fireball on a barricade and destroy it."
A: Anything regarding magick will have to be FIOC or brought up with in a request if you try to interact with an object with magick and it does not react as you believe it should.

Q: Paraphrased from a back and forth: Why this variant first instead of the ones everyone could use to get more input/bug testing?"
A: This is the variant that makes the most sense for the current RP needs of the active plots that spurred this effort.

Q: Paraphrased: Why isn't the barricade object in the room I am protecting?
A: What we have now uses existing code to roll out this "new" feature to you and your characters. I [will] start a GDB thread, [and] add your suggestion that the object "be" in both rooms.

[Patuk]

This is really cool, actually. Wonderful stuff!

[Tasemu]

Can raiders use these to lure hopeless travel parties into traps.

[RheaGhe]

Can raiders use these to lure hopeless travel parties into traps.

5. Barricades are not to be used as traps.  By traps I mean structures built to let someone pass into an area, they cannot, then, get out of.
(As always, if you find yourself in a situation your PC cannot get out of through code, wish up.)

6. Barricades CAN be used to block roads, passes, etc. "Police checkpoints" came up quite often.

[helix]

Love this idea.

Though I would throw out - the camping skill might be good to get a mid-tier barricade recipe in, as well. Obviously not as good as a stonecrafter or lumberjack, but it might be a good way to expand the idea of a 'camp' in-game. I also like the idea of building more permanent, upkeep requiring structures and this is a good example that could also be extended to that skill.

[Markku]

Love this idea.

Though I would throw out - the camping skill might be good to get a mid-tier barricade recipe in, as well. Obviously not as good as a stonecrafter or lumberjack, but it might be a good way to expand the idea of a 'camp' in-game. I also like the idea of building more permanent, upkeep requiring structures and this is a good example that could also be extended to that skill.

I thought about this a lot (how it would work with camping to an advantage).  Camping is not a "crafting skill."  Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any crafts that come from non-crafting skills.  Even if it is possible, I'm not sure its something we would want to set a precedent for.

This would be a GREAT role for someone to create a character for (several combos were discussed on discord). Someone that gets camp and can create higher-tier barricades is totally doable by several guild/subguild combinations.  I made sure anyone that any class/sub that gets stone crafting could create the current variant.  I plan the same to be true for the wood variant that is similar to this one in use-case value.

Edit to add: I actually LIKE the idea, but I don't think it "fits in the balance," so to speak. With the variety of classes/subclasses we have now, almost any set of skills is possible, but there does still need to be some tradeoffs/costs to each choice.

[helix]

Camping is not a "crafting skill."

Hey Markku,

I don't want to derail your thread, I just love this idea of barricades and more permanent structures. I think my feedback is probably better off in the camping ideas thread.

But! I did want to reply to the above quote, do you mean in terms of how Arm sees the skill?

In real life, I grew up in the wilds of Alaska and have done crazy stuff like no tent winter camping. As well as doing mountain and jungle warfare schools in the military.

Camping is like... the crafting skill that mixes all other skills, IRL, lol.

Anyway, derail over, I promise! Please do more stuff like this, it's super cool.

[Markku]

Camping is not a "crafting skill."

But! I did want to reply to the above quote, do you mean in terms of how Arm sees the skill?
...
Camping is like... the crafting skill that mixes all other skills, IRL, lol.

I don't think it's a derail, especially since these two things are intended to be used in tandem.  I am a huge outdoorsman IRL, and I thought about this quite a bit when I started working on making barricades craftable.  Also: yes, I meant how Arm sees the skills AND how the community views skills. Not everyone that can poison a dagger can make strong poisons, not every expert archer makes their own arrows, and not everyone who can set up a campsite can build their own tents and walls, although there are many class/subclass combinations that make this possible and can improve quality-of-life for the character and player who want to be self-sufficient.

There are different types of campers:  RL example (in-game equivalent)

• Those who buy their supplies and go for the weekend every now and again. (relies totally on other people for camping)
• Those who who regularly go camping and have some good gear. (can quit out on their own)
• Those who are strong survivalists, have a good set of camping gear, and are experienced in long-term camping. (those with the camping skill)
• Expert survivalist who could go out and turn a plot of land into a homestead with nothing more than a pocket knife to begin with. (those with the camping skill AND a decent set of crafting skills)

 When we are talking about being able to actually build walls around a site, that is going past camping into something that is more like homesteading, or in the current use-case, trying to claim/defend a plot of land for its resources.

Camping is like... the crafting skill that mixes all other skills, IRL, lol.

Y'all would hate me, but if I were going to do the camping skill, I would have required a tent and a campfire to be in the room before you could make camp.
*ducks*

[Tuannon]

I think if there was a 'Herding' subguild and suitable foliage you might want to enable them to recreate the animal enclosures certain sub saharan africa tribes use to protect their cows from predation, but until that happens something is better than nothing.