Roleplay Rundown..

[Larrath]

Singled out?  I'm just voicing my own opinions here, and I don't represent any groups, particularly not the nazis.


Now...I don't think the idea suggested here is nonsense that should be discarded and then burninated, but I am still against it.  Will I be kicking myself for it when my next warrior has below average str and 65 hp?  Possibly.

Even so, I still don't see why stat orderings are needed.  Bestatte is saying that she has a high roll on Agility that would better help her character if it was on Strength.  *This* is what I am against, as, to me, this is simple min-maxing.

This is how your character is born, and I don't think this thing should be removed.  I know I wouldn't mind trading some of my agility to boost strength IRL, but this is not how things work.  You don't have to be strong to be a warrior; you could just have a natural aptitude for it.

I think that Zalanthas is not a world where every guard is brawny and powerful and every merchant is cunning, and this goes for PCs as well as NPCs.  People do whatever they can to find their next drop of water, and if your stats are so drastically different, you could, yes, move *around* the problem.

Personally, I don't think there is a drastic difference between ordering stats to simply picking them, at random or not.


Where was I?  Oh yes.  If your character started out with low strength and is working out, there is a new helpfile called 'stat increases'.  If you depend on having a stat at some value (like with an archer being too weak to use a bow), you can email the MUD and see what can be done.  Maybe you can be given a weaker bow?


Picking races is involved with roleplay, and this IS a factor and a reason why there are more non-elven merchants than there are mutated elves.  No, my merchants would not has been elves even if they could act like humans.  If I wanted a human merchant, I'd pick a human.  If I wanted a half-elf, I'd do a half-elf.


Alright, I think I'm reaching the point where I'm starting to just repeat myself over and over.

To summerize: I think this is not a good idea because it will make every character almost perfectly suited to whatever profession they have chosen.  Good and 'appropriate' stats should be rare and valuable, and not special but just like everyone else.

If your stats are being an impossible barrier and you cannot have your character work out to try and improve them, it is always possible to send a polite email to the MUD and see what can be done.  No, this doesn't mean they have to boost your stats, but in if it is truly SUCH a bother, maybe you should ask them...though again, if you are not strong enough, why not pick up a couple of rocks and start to lug them from place to place ICly, then save logs and ask for a stat boost?

[X-D]

Yea, What Larrath said.

I'm personaly against stat ordering in any form other then what we already have from careful choice of race and age.

[jhunter]

Yea, What Larrath said.

I'm personaly against stat ordering in any form other then what we already have from careful choice of race and age.

Ditto here.
Stat ordering makes it possible for people to order against the weaknesses of nonhuman races and allows them to minimize the handicap those races are supposed to have, if you get it randomly then by all means...if you get it by picking it out every time...seems pretty twinkish to me.

[Sir Diealot]

This is how your character is born,

The rest snipped out, because this is the -MAIN- point of the argument.

My character is BORN with a higher capacity for strength.  That character is more likely to turn to the path of the warrior.  

My character is BORN with a higher wisdom or agility than most.  That character is more likely to turn to the path of a scholar, scribe, or thief. Especially if they have low strength.

Not ordering stats is like that episode of the Family Guy, post-apocalyptic, where Peter hands out jobs to people at COMPLETE RANDOM, giving the Doctor the town idiot..and the mule the dentist position..


It would be, in real life, if this happened, possible for Mike Tyson to be a school teacher, and Stephen Hawkings to be a professional Basketball player.

That, to me, does -not- make logical sense.  Sure, it can be abused.. but so can the knowledge gleaned from past characters.  A -lot- of things can be abused, but that abuse can ALSO be watched by staff.  There is logic and realism behind my way, and complete 'OGM ZALANTAHS SI A HARSH WOLRD!!!111' rote behind the other.  I have yet to see a -good- reason for Not allowing it, other than the potential for abuse, which can easily be monitored by staff with staff-notes on accounts.


Edited: because bath and path are two very different things.

[Larrath]

The reason is that a strong warrior should be something SPECIAL.  Agile thieves should be a commodity to whatever stable would employ them.  Smart merchants would be assests to their employing Houses.

If every PC is strong, wise, or whatever else his guild requires, it will dilute this specialty and make it irrelevant.  I think this should be preserved.


The idea is that if you want your band of raiders to all be strong humans, you will actually have to *search* instead of being able to settle for any warrior you'd find, since they are all strong.

[Sir Diealot]

The lack of that would be the exploitation that the staff would stop.  I'm actually up with the idea that only Karma 3 (although I say 1 or 2, because it's hard enough to get your first karma) should be allowed to Order their stats, and.. if they CHOOSE to play a bungling fool.. then they have that CHOICE.. if they CHOOSE to actually define themselves as something different, due to the way their life went before hand, then that makes sense.

But, spending all your days in the Sid mines, to end up with Abyssmal strength just doesn't add up, and REALLY removes the fourth wall.."

[Bestatte]

Ugh - Larrath I think you're missing a very important factor here:

We do not determine the stats themselves. We determine ONLY which stat will be the highest, whatever "highest" ends up being.

So if I have worse than average, average, good, better than average...and I picked a whiran...which is something you are born with, not something you learn to become...

Then it would just plain make sense that the wisdom would take the good - or at LEAST the better than average. It would naturally fall there ANYWAY - because a whiran is BORN to be a mage. They are born with that innate talent engrained in their physiology. They stand out amongst their non-magickal brethren because of some quirk of fate that has given them a power that they can use, and others cannot.

If they end up with good strength, and less than average wisdom, they can't just say "Oh well, I'll never be a good mage, I'll go be a dentist instead." or a farmer, or a merchant (a merchant who doesn't speak cavilish, who can't craft anything other than shriveled masses of burnt meat, who doesn't know a wheel from an inix when it comes to piloting, who can't negotiate a price to save their lives...RIIIIGHT). A warrior? Yeahrightsure. How about an assassin? With what weapon, exactly - since they'll be piss poor with any weapon they try to use?

What good is "good" strength if the vocation you were born to do has no use for strength? What good is being a whiran if you lack the mana to cast, and the wisdom to regain mana so that you can - without sitting there for a RL hour waiting, that is?

Same for a ranger. If you show up at age 22, you're old enough to know what your general strengths and weaknesses are. You might not know how to hold a bow yet, but you sure as shit know that all your life people have told you that you'd make a great bowslinger because you are just so damned agile and good with your hand-eye coordination. So you pick ranger - and show up with "poor" agility. Uh - okay - so we'll just try for a really weak bow, right? Bzzzzt...there are no bows that will work for you. I guess I'll be a umm..uh...err....kank seller, yeah. So much for submitting a character application complete with background and goals.

This is why - again - I support stat placement. Not determining the stats. But determinine which ones will get the higher of the unknown random roll and which will get the lower. We pick our guilds and subguilds because we have a few ideas in mind, and immediate goals for our characters, and some notion of the kind of thing we want our character to do. That is also part of the application process where we have to give a background for our character. It doesn't happen all that often, that our stats don't coordinate with our class/subclass. But it does happen occasionally, and I feel that it makes good logical sense for our stats to support our character concept, which has already been approved by staff via our character background.

[EvilRoeSlade]

So if I have worse than average, average, good, better than average...and I picked a whiran...which is something you are born with, not something you learn to become...

First of all, I think that the power of the connection one has with an elemental plane should vary from person to person.

If they end up with good strength, and less than average wisdom, they can't just say "Oh well, I'll never be a good mage, I'll go be a dentist instead." or a farmer, or a merchant (a merchant who doesn't speak cavilish, who can't craft anything other than shriveled masses of burnt meat, who doesn't know a wheel from an inix when it comes to piloting, who can't negotiate a price to save their lives...RIIIIGHT). A warrior? Yeahrightsure. How about an assassin? With what weapon, exactly - since they'll be piss poor with any weapon they try to use?

Second of all, I've never found that my character is unplayable because of a randomly-alloted statistic.  Race is a far more important factor from my experience, and so if you're tired of your characters being weak, stupid, or slow, then stop playing humans.  Don't argue for a change in the way stats works when it won't increase or decrease the amount of playable characters.

[Sir Diealot]

It's not playability, it's realism.

Playability will NOT suffer from the change.  Realism suffers now.

[Mordere]

I haven't read this thread, because it seemed to be the same arguments presented over and over in different ways. I personally think players should be able to increase their stats. As always, I'm not a coder, but I've seen a setup where a pc typed train stat str/wis/con etc, etc. The code would engage them in a series of forced emotes to show what they were doing, very generic, so the player could expand on this with their own emotes.


At the creation process, a player was given a set number to their stats, and they could detract from some stats, and add to others, within reason. So a player, knowing what they planned to be, could work their character to someone represent this. Sneaky characters put more focus into agility, but lost out in other parts.

Then upon actual creation (approval here), maximums that were hidden were generated as a number at random between the starting number and 100, and one never knew when they would "max out" until they reached it.
So for instance, a character with 70 agility, 25 str, and 30 wisdom would have maximums set between 71-100, 26-100, and 31-100 that they couldn't see. The higher your "prime" stat, the better chance you had of getting a good number.

Now, this may seem redundant, and some may ask 'why work towards random max outs when we already have maxouts already done'. The answer is simple. Only on very,very rare occasions, can a person not improve themselves. In the mind, a person may just simply be stupid, and unable to attain a higher thought process. But anyone can make themselves stronger, faster, and tougher. And it gives something else to work on.

Anyhow, I'm threatening to get long winded. So, I'm done. If anyone takes any intrest in this suggestion, feel free to implement it. *wicked grin*

[Angela Christine]

Infinite Rerolls!  Infinite rerolls now!  Still random, but you can spend up to 2 hours looking for that perfectly suitable combo if you really, really want to.


AC

[Vettrock]

I would be in favor of allowing you to do a +1 or +2 to a stat as long as you had a corisponding -1 or -2 to another stat.  You would still roll your stats as normal, they would just have a slight adjustment made to them after the rolls too place.

[Sir Diealot]

Now we've switched spots.. I disagree, as it's twinky.. It's just not the same as saying.. even though I may not be the strongest.. my -best- foot is my strength.

[Larrath]

Same thing.  Being a good warrior does not mean you have to be stronger than you are durable, or quick, or cunning.

These types of warriors arell exist, really.



A fast warrior might try to use flashy manuevers/feints and minor acrobatics to throw his opponent off-balance and make an opening.

A durable warrior's fighting style could be to simply trade blows as equally as he can, or to bull-rush people.

A cunning warrior could be using the environment better, or setting up complex fighting-traps (not pitfalls, tricking your opponent to thinking you'll hit high and then kick their faces as they duck).

A strong warrior could just stand there and hack away with a sword or whatever.


These are all warriors, and they can all do well, really.  And it can make for some cool emoting, I'd say...a signature fighting style is always good.

[spawnloser]

Larrath, you may be surprised by people's choices on stat placement if they can choose which stat is highest.  I for one know that not all of my warriors would have strength picked as #1...nor endurance.  It's all a matter of preference, really, on what someone thinks fits their character, and not everyone is a twinky idiot.  This 'but everyone will do this' argument is getting really old.

[Sir Diealot]

And now I understand Larrath's point. He doesn't understand.

If I want a quick, dextrous warrior..and I app a quick dextrous warrior.. I DON'T WANT AI strength.

If I app a slow, not-that-bright elementalist, who still has a connection to (element)..I don't want Good wisdom.

Stat placement is to be used to make the character work, not twink out.

[Lazloth]

So age affecting stats would need to get yanked and it get completely randomized?

[flurry]

That's been my big concern/objection.    It's absurd to just decide strength is the best stat for your 13yo character, and override the aging guidelines.   (That's why I think if we had stat ordering, age modifiers need to be applied after the fact.)

I also think if someone chooses to order their stats, they should have no opportunity to reroll.

[Larrath]

Or people should be able to completely pick their stats?

Look, I already put my view on this.  I don't think it's a good idea because I believe it will do more bad than it will do good.

I did not accuse everyone here of being twinks and I don't think everyone here is a twink.  I'm even reluctant to say that Armageddon has one twink out of every five players.


We have enough twinks to make this a Bad Idea instead of a Good One.  This is my personal opinion and not an attempt to shoot anyone down.  Except this idea, I guess.

[Miee]

That's been my big concern/objection.    It's absurd to just decide strength is the best stat for your 13yo character, and override the aging guidelines.   (That's why I think if we had stat ordering, age modifiers need to be applied after the fact.)

I also think if someone chooses to order their stats, they should have no opportunity to reroll.

In essence, when you log into the HoK you have the option or ordering your stats or taking a random roll and having to opportunity for the reroll or just being able to order stats without a reroll?

To me either works, except in the case of the former I'd imagine a good number of people would opt to order stats except for some grumpy hardcore RP folks and the folks who's concept can work with nearly any stats.  I'd also imagine a lot of people putting wisdom either first or second though or at least being very, very tempted too.  (I would be.)

I personally favor the idea of ordering stats, but I still like my random rolls for when I don't care.

[Sanvean]

Ness and I were talking about this yesterday, along with different possible implementations.  I'm not saying it's something appearing immediately, but I did want to let you know that we're at least trying to susss out what it would involve.

[flurry]

In essence, when you log into the HoK you have the option or ordering your stats or taking a random roll and having to opportunity for the reroll or just being able to order stats without a reroll?

I meant it the first way - having the choice of either ordered stats with no opportunity to reroll, or unordered stats with the option to reroll.

[JollyGreenGiant]

I kind of like my random stats.  I just like to be surprised.

[X-D]

I like random stats, partialy for the suprise and partialy because it adds a uniquness to each char, even if somebody is playing cookie cutters, at least there will be something different from the last one.

I do not like ordering stats, I've stated such many times.

I also think it is silly that people make these chars with a "concept" That is so totally dependant on a stat.

"Look, it says right here in the sdesc that he is almost as big as a half-giant and covered in muscle!!..But he has poor strength and AI AGI...he is simply unplayable as a burly warrior!!"

Bah.
As for us "Hardcore RP folks" Excuse me...I was under the impression this was a "hardcore RP" mud...GASP.

I also think that in the end, you WILL end up with a game of cookie cutter pc's stat wise, A majority of warriors will take str first then end then wis then agi, the rangers will take str, wis, agi end, the assassins and pickpockets and burglers will take agi wis str end, the elementalists/sorcs/mindbenders will all take wis/agi/end /str...Maybe not 100% but 80% will. And thats for the humans, the non-humans will order stats to cut down on racial negs, no reason for a city-elf assassin to put agi first, he has high AGI anyway, so, what is he lacking, Ah, strength.

Again, Bah.

The current method allows for enough control while still giving the world a nice randomness to the pc's, because even though we have a huge number of mdesc and sdesc described muscled brawny warriors because the players can't come up with anything else, at least the game randomizes for us, they may all look brawny, but they are NOT all brawny...

[Mr.Camel]

Saying that stats aren't part of a character concent is just ridiculous. If a character's stats wasn't part of the concept, then a smart half-giant would make a valid concept for half-giant character. Stats are a part of your character, unless you ignore them, which we shouldn't resort to. But, I'm against stat ordering for the points Larrath brought up.

EDIT: And I agree with X-D, we shouldn't make concepts that depend on stats.