DarthPinkHippo wrote:
I have a Drunken Master / Drunken Brute (Agathion-heritage Aasimar can do it) PC. Her "rage" is drunken klutziness, accompanied by a constant stream of "pardon me", "excuse me", "oh, so sorry!" and "did I do that?"
I very much like the kernel of the idea, but would probably advise some adjustments to the initially proposal. Lottery / Random Distribution Whether people are aware of it or want to admit it (or not), even 21st century society has a surprising problem with innumeracy, both in terms of the depth (in any given person) and breadth (percent of the population) of the problem. I don't know whether RPG players deviate from the general population in this quality. (There might be no difference at all, and there might be a significant difference. I don't think there has been much in the way of research about this within the gaming community. Even if there is a significant positive difference in our community, the problem is STILL likely to be higher than any of us expect or dare to think!) That means that there will ALWAYS be hard feelings about random perks, no matter how it is implemented. Yeah, our game has inherent randomness at its very core with dice determining virtually everything, and yet the math behind probability is still not that well understood within our community, counterintuitive as that may be. I'm not sure that this is enough reason to completely avoid random means of distributing rewards. I guess it depends on PFS leadership's stomach for complaints of unfairness, especially unfounded or ill-informed complaints. As a personal example, over a 6- or 7-year period I judged at a dozen (+/- 2) major WotC-sponsored conventions. (Yeah, that's a different company, and a different game, but they are similar organizations with similar goals and objectives within the same industry and were mostly the same big conventions that Paizo/PFS attend/sponsor.) At each one I was slotted to work 7-10 times (usually just 7-8). In each game slot the senior GM / HQ gave away a "stack o stuff" randomly to 1 GM, and sometimes more than 1 stack was given away. (How many prizes were distributed in any slot depended on how much free product arrived from WotC, how many slots were left in the convention, whether the product arrived on time, and sometimes stacks were assigned to the player pool, too!) So, I had somewhere between 50-100 chances to win as a judge, and many chances to win as a player (which was both far less common and had steeper odds for winning - roughly 5-6 times steeper). I never won anything. Over the same period there were people who won multiple times yet had significantly less service time. There were those who won at their 1st, and sometimes only, convention, or even their only slot working! GMs who only signed on for 4 or fewer slots won quite often. On the surface, that seems grossly unfair or unlucky, and at times it felt to me that one, the other or both must have been true. In actual fact, those results are not that out of line with the statistical/probabilistic expectations, variability and other measuremes. The perception of fairness is extremely subjective, and can depend on how much fun, stress and/or effort a person has experienced/committed at the convention! If someone who is trained to work with numbers on a daily basis (teaching high school mathematics, tutoring university/college level computer science, and/or programming computer software for a living) and should know better can get sucked into that perception then people with less comfort and familiarity with numbers are going to be that much more susceptible to a perception of unfairness. (Which of optimism, pessimism and 'realism' is closest to a person's default outlook will also have a large effect.) Again, if disgruntlement is something with which leadership is OK, at least when the dissatisfaction is not supported by in depth analysis, then a lottery system is a great way to go! If leadership is worried about losing players and/or GMs to bad feelings regardless of whether they are merited or misplaced then another system would be better. If lottery/random assignment is chosen going forward, I would advise that the 10% rate used at conventions is too high for non-con play. If conventions and the biggest game days are Paizo's best bang for the marketing buck then they should receive a higher rate of reward. Also, I strongly suspect that the number of tables that occur that are currently NOT eligible for rewards vastly outnumber the ones that are getting boon access! Applying the same rate WOULD flood the OP with boons. I'd propose that the rate of rewards for non-con play be capped at 5%. This helps reduce the size of the flood effect and still makes conventions more attractive in terms of better boon access. Non-Lottery / Participation-Based Distribution I like the idea of a "star" system or any sort of rewards system being implemented. Once upon a time (and maybe still, since my affiliation ended many years ago) the RPGA tracked player and GM participation for various types of rewards. Rewards ranged from boons (once-per adventure use reward cards) to free product (acetate AoE templates, modules, special paint pre-painted miniatures, etc.) They weighed their points system in a way that promoted convention play and placed a premium on certain campaigns / play types over others. A high priority event at a convention could earn 8 points with non-convention, lowly valued events earning the minimum of 1 point. For Paizo, this type of system is easily implemented. The reporting system can differentiate between many types/sizes of events and could probably be expanded to differentiate even more categories — Paizo-sponsored conventions, other conventions, game days, store events, private games, and maybe others. Similarly, we already have many kinds of PFS-sanctioned games — scenarios, specials, exclusives, quests, modules, adventure paths, Free-RPG Day releases, and introductory titles. It also tracks party success in the form of prestige points, though that system is changing and the new method may change the difficulty of implementing a rewards system using any method. Assigning weights or values to these would be something that leadership would have to evaluate and discuss. "What do we want to promote the most, and what gains the most return in terms of sales and PR?" The next step is to implement the tracking of these values for GMs and players, quite possibly as separate values. If the data structures and data storage methods have been implemented in a professional way, implementing new functionality should be possible with very little churn. If things have been hyper-optimized for minimizing the storage space and bandwidth requirements for the company servers, expanding functionality won't be as simple but can still be done relatively cheaply, including testing / QA. Once a system is in place for earning and tracking points, a system for cashing in those points for rewards is relatively easy, depending on just how deeply it has to be integrated with other computerized systems (i.e. inventory control, watermarking by PFS-# or PFS-character-#, etc.). Whether leadership and corporate / IT decide to implement a lottery-based system or a merit- / participation-based system they should be able to further their own goals: * receiving more data input in the form of higher report rates and more timely reporting;
GMs & Player Access I definitely think that non-con boons NEED to be tied to reporting. As has been pointed out by others previously in this topic boon access promotes reporting both directly AND indirectly. Paizo wants to capture as much information as possible about PFS play and this will help increase the rate of reporting. That being said, I'm not sure whether there should be differential treatment for GMs and players. A higher reward rate for GMs might encourage more GMing and it might not. It also might encourage people who really shouldn't be GMing at all (and know it) to GM by catering to greed. Is that a valid concern? Do bad GMs get adequately identified and either straightened or weeded out by the current VO and customer service system? If so, then this risk is manageable and shouldn't be a considered factor. If not, then maybe there shouldn't be a difference? My instinct is that there should be a difference since players in any "community" always seem to outweigh GMs by far more than a ratio of 6-1 and any tool to reduce this imbalance should be welcome and tried. (It can always be discarded or adjusted later if it proves problematic.) It would be a way to combat the incentive to judge things exactly once, since the second chronicle sheet access currently seems to be the exclusive motivation for many capable GMs (and also many not-so-capable ones). So maybe a 5% rate for non-con GMs and a 2.5% rate for non-con players will suffice? After a while, if the rates seem too low they can easily be raised later without ruffling feathers. Boon Types I can see how and why people feel that race access has become a bit of a Pandora's Box. I have no difficulty believing that in some communities PC Aasimar (I've always preferred using the word for both the singular and plural) and Tieflings outnumber human PCs. Even if you discard the scarce boon race PCs and the new open race access that arrived this season, the Pathfinder agent roster of PC dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings and halvesies probably outnumbered humans in terms of PCs. That isn't supported by Golarion canon, yet people don't complain about it, so I'm not sure whether expanded options via boons makes for a strong or even valid reason for complaints. IMHO, in general people are far too concerned with what other people/characters have or are doing. Why should anyone's entertainment factor be in any way eroded (or augmented for that matter) by what my character is or has? If my PC is being social/sociable, explores, reports and cooperates, fulfills a needed role for the group and/or makes others better at fulfilling their role, lets others have a chance to share the floor and/or shine, and I'm not cheating to do it, why should that adversely affect anyone? Are RPGs supposed to be collaborative activities or competitive ones? I really don't get it! On the other hand, I completely understand how one player/PC can erode or even preclude the entertainment of others. I don't think this has anything to do with PC race or anything else tied to crunchy rules. Lone wolves and/or antisocial PCs can be a problem for some. Comic relief PCs can be a problem for some (though they quite often start off as entertaining). PCs that do not place any value on, or commitment to, 'the team' can be a problem for some. Evil and/or over-the-top chaotic IC behaviour tends to bother most people and tends to be against PFS rules. Intentionally hopeless PCs can be a problem for some. Cheating, rules-lawyering, rudeness and other player behaviors also tend to be a problem for many. None of these things have anything to do with boons, races or any other rules options, so I don't see how they are pertinent to this discussion. Overpowered, solo-level PCs can certainly be a problem for many but this can be accomplished completely legally, without boons, and sometimes even without much in the way of exceptional luck (though that makes things worse! That said, perhaps boons should be tiered somehow. Race boons might be at the top of the list in terms of potential game balance. Trait boons, Day Job boons, item boons, and whatever else that has ever been handed out or even considered for distribution might be less influential and easier for the campaign to absorb in larger quantities, though I imagine each boon may vary widely/wildly. If boons are accessed randomly then assigning them a hierarchy and distributing them proportionately might be difficult depending on the (tech) tools, (tech) talent and time available to leadership. Further, if boons become more common, it might be worth considering some sort of cap to the number of non-scenario-based boons that can be assigned to a single PC. This limit might be tied to character level, fame, some other measure, or may not scale at all at the discretion and wisdom of campaign staff. Timing I think that the initial proposal of a 1-2 month period is probably not going to work very well. I figure that the intent here is to only watch the most recent releases, just as the "Faction Contraction" data pull only watched Season 4 scenarios. I didn't like that method there any more or less than I like it here. What is the intended purpose for applying an 'active' period in the first place? I'm not certain, but the proposed period sounds like it was meant as a way to limit the number of boons that get generated by play. I would argue that a longer period and a lower reward rate would be more equitable and accomplish the same ends. If there is another reason then I guess your mileage may vary. Different communities will always have different access to scenarios. The differences aren't necessarily strongly tied to anything that Paizo or PFS leadership should care about. The size of the community (in terms of players or GMs) and the age/maturity of the community (in terms of the average time playing PFS or total number of units played rather than the average chronological age of the PFS members) are going to have complicated and unpredictable effects on when scenarios are played. The amount of $ investment in Paizo products, and the loyalty, experience & devotion of individual PFS members is not well-tracked by the speed at which they access newly released scenarios. New scenario access depends on many things which vary from community to community. a. The lead time for event planning. Other have mentioned that their current lead time of two months would completely preclude them from being able to access new scenarios in the 'active' period. b. The reliability of the Paizo/PFS release schedule. Way of the Kirin and Rivalry's End, the 2 scenarios that could be considered test cases for this new access (given that their special boons have similarly short windows of access) have both suffered delays and for completely different reasons. How often have other scenarios and/or modules / APs been delayed from their initially announced release dates? Any kind of flux can have fairly large and fairly long-term consequences for a community. Some are so large, so new, or experiencing sufficient growth that they will have no qualms whatsoever with changing a scenario at the last minute and still being able to attract a player audience with whatever older substitute they use. Others will be unable to make a late substitution and expect to field tables. Assuming that communities that use the long lead time method of scheduling events use the release schedule to try to work in adventures in their 2 month active period they would have 3 choices: they could pushing ALL their scheduled events by a week, month or whatever the delay requires (i.e. massive churn for a community that thrives on stability and predictability); they could make a last-minute substitution for the late release when it initially fails to appear and then again to swap it back in at some unknown future date when it finally appears (significant churn); they could pull it for the week it isn't available and add it back into their first unscheduled slot, which we already know is outside the proposed 'active' period (least churn). None of these are great options for the community leaders if they want to promote the health of their community. The amount of spare time people have varies regardless of community, so their personal flexibility to commit to events with short notice varies and has nothing to do with anything that Paizo/PFS should care about. The preference for planning vs. spontaneity will also vary and affect schedules, both individually and in terms of communities. c. The number of GMs in the community that attend conventions. Many communities rely on 'seeders' to get things rolling locally. Some communities are lucky enough to be close enough to many urban centers and have frequent access to conventions for people with many socioeconomic circumstances. Others may not be that close to events but have enough people with enough disposable income to fly virtually anywhere — as often as once a month or even once a week! These gaming communities will have a much better chance to access scenarios in the active period since conventions always feature plenty of opportunities to sample the most recent releases. In communities that do not have many (or even any) GMs that travel often, they will generally access scenarios more slowly. They may have lots of players that travel, but they aren't interested in GMing for their local communities for whatever reason. Yes, it is completely true that anyone can GM anything before they've had the chance to play it, but the fact is that the vast majority of gamers prefer to play events before they have meta-knowledge of the adventure. For some, this means wrinkling their noses and sucking it up for the good of the community (and a 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' dynamic) and for others it means putting things off until they've gotten their game on, no exceptions! There really isn't a lot that can be done about that. d. The regional variation in the player-to-GM ratio. Some communities are rich in GMs, and others aren't. Some communities have lots of GMs, but their free time is scarce enough that they are simply unable to satisfy the wants/needs/desires of the player base. Converting players to GMs is probably the oldest 'disease' that gaming has known and to the best of my knowledge no one has ever found any significant and reliable remedies, let alone a panacea. e. Geography, geography, geography. Rural, international and online players are going to miss out on boons most of the time with such a short 'active' period. Basically, I think that the 'active' period either has to be longer, or there needs to be 'waves' as proposed by others. Waves sounds like it would entail more work, unless things could be completely automated! The third possibility is that timing not be a factor at all. Is there a real value in promoting the latest Season 5 scenario more than one a few months older, one from Season 4 or even earlier? If the goal is to push product, perhaps the boons themselves could be designed to accomplish that end? Boons could key to recently released rules sources or to older, less popular (in terms of residual sales or lifetime sales) releases. People need to own the sources to use rules items, so giving them a neat rules item they might not have chosen or been able to choose could move books and pdfs directly. Pre-order & Subscriptions I think Paizo and PFS leadership have done a pretty good job keeping player wealth/power from directly affecting character wealth/power. (I don't know whether this has been a conscious choice, or completely coincidental.) Abadar knows that isn't the case in MMORPGs (especially 'free-to-play' games) and hasn't always been true in other OP campaigns, past and present. Requiring source ownership for any PC rules access ensures sales are promoted and steady. Tying 'perks' to small relative differences in disposable income is a tried and true method for pure commerce but doesn't always make a lot of sense once social factors are considered. Getting a little extra scratch here and there from those can afford to spend without thinking twice boosts the margin in the short term, but may have deleterious effects to the size and satisfaction of the player base as a whole. Tying boons to pre-orders and subscribers would do the same thing. I understand the allure — the profit margin on printed matter is vastly higher than the margin on PDFs. At present time, there are no subscription options for people who only want PDFs and PDFs can't even be pre-ordered. I personally feel that I have far to much clutter in my life already and LOVE the growth of the paperless society! I cannot be alone in that feeling. Others may choose to only purchase PDFs for their own reasons, including but not exclusive to economic reasons. Still others have made the decision to support their grass-roots, brick-and-mortar game stores and buy as little as possible (or nothing at all) via the Internet. Is that not still considered a noble and necessary part of keeping the hobby healthy and vibrant? Should all of these people be excluded from the expanded boon access? If so, why? How is that any different or better than the current practice of accessing boons exclusively at conventions? Is the idea to reward different people, or to give more rewards to largely the same group of people? If the goal is to find a way to make rewards possible for the greatest number of loyal patrons/customers, tying them directly to pre-orders and subscriptions does not accomplish that goal. Honestly, if that's the way Pazio/PFS wants to go, then they should just start selling in-game gear, gold, property, titles and even experience points for US-dollars a la MMORPG. Scenario- / Series-Based Access In general, I do not like the concept of strongly linking scenarios or series to boons. It pre-empts many of the things that PFS wants to promote in its player base. I can't tell you how often I've seen tables cancelled, crippled or at the very least delayed and then rushed due to people being adamant about their choice of PC for scenario X. Whatever the specific reason or specific effect, very few people had fun or had far less fun than they wanted or hoped for. Most often this is due to a meta-reason like series-based access. Literally everyone has seen this, if not done it themselves. "I played the first Y scenarios with this PC and I don't want to give up the boon at the end, so I'm NOT bringing any of my other in-tier PCs." "This scenario has {boon, spellbook, unique item, etc.} access that is great for {insert class or faction here} so, I'm not going to flexible on this, end of story! I don't care that you're all L1-2 and I'm L6-7!" "I don't want to give up my maxed out Day Job roll (with or without DJR boon substitute) so I'm not bringing a pregen, even though we all want/plan to bring low-AC rogues (or diplomats, or whatever)." "This GM interprets the 'pregen plays for Grand Lodge' as anyone playing a pregen for any reason gets Grand Lodge prestige instead of the faction prestige for the PFS-PC# to which the chronicle is being applied, so I refuse to play a pregen." (This is still not crystal clear and table variation is still large.) "I have an in-tier PC so I'm not allowed to play a pregen." (Is this true for scenarios or only modules and APs? Even if the PC is already locked into a multi-session event?) "This is my only in-tier PC, I have no choice." (Sometimes this is true, sometimes it isn't.) "Well, I guess {I am / were are} not playing then. That means there's only 2 of you left and no one gets to play. Serves you right, jerks." There are already enough reasons for people to be selfish and inflexible and in the process negatively impact the fun of others, or outright deny them the chance to play. Let's not introduce any more of them, please and thank you. If this has to be incorporated then please make the rules regarding pregen use crystal clear and less draconian. I get that we want people to make and play real, defined PCs. I get that this ultimately promotes product sales. I get that we don't want people somehow 'abusing' the system. I assume that the pregens are designed to be fairly pathetic to discourage their use. I assume that after all this time the pregen errors have never been changed to further discourage their use. (I can't believe that this is a cost-related choice as there must be a line of volunteers willing to bring things up to professional publication standards for nothing — not even public acknowledgement / credit — a league long!) Still, at some point the negatives outweigh the positives and changes have to be made. On the other hand, soft-linking scenarios to boons is perfectly fine, IMHO. I played/judged scenarios X, Y and Z during the last reward period and I somehow earned/won a boon. The choices available to me are dictated by having played scenarios X, Y & Z (regardless of how, or with what PC I played or GMed them). Scenario X is associated with a ratfolk race boon, scenarios Y is associated with a (type of) extra trait boon, and scenario Z is associated with a (specific) Day Job boon. The boon I receive for this period can only be one of those three. Whether it amounts to random selection, player choice, or whether I must be able to pay the specific number of 'reward credits' required to purchase any of those boons (e.g. the ratfolk boon costs 30 credits, the trait boon costs 20 credits, and the DJR boon costs 10 credits, and with only 18 credits my only options are to take the DJR boon or to take none of them and maybe be allowed to and bank the credit balance) is entirely up to PFS leadership and Paizo IT staff to decide. I'm sure there's more that needs to be considered and more will come up as time is devoted to the topic by leadership and membership alike. Thank you very much for thinking of those of us who aren't traveling as much as we used to (or not at all), haven't yet discovered the attraction of traveling to game, or cannot for whatever reason travel as easily as we'd like! (For those who haven't thought about it, in addition to the obvious economic reasons, health, disabilities, responsibilities and even a person's culture/religion/philosophy are compelling and valid reasons that can keep people from traveling even short distances, from being able to cope with moderately large crowds or many other subtleties that most of us never even considered could be significant barriers for people.)
Bounties & Beyond I've been reading lots of opinions on many of the proposed game mechanics, starting with those of GW and moving on to those of the community members. I was glad to see that there seems to be some people thinking about how different mechanics may interact in unexpected ways. As a result, I think that the bounty system might benefit from a re-examination. Everything that GW says seems to be centered on the concept of “meaningful player interaction”. There may be great debate over what constitutes ‘meaningful’ but I’m going to leave that to another time. Other key concepts mentioned over time have been character role specialization, anti-griefing mechanisms, player/PC organizations, PvE elements, and ensuring that alignment has meaning and consequences. There are other key concepts but they may not be directly related to the bounty mechanic — if you can think of others please add them in your replies! This post will be presented element by element, both for clarity to the reader and for portability for game designers should they decide they see something they like. (I have a computing/engineering background and significant experience in writing technical documents so I’m treating this post like a professional document.) 1. Anti-Griefing — Capture vs. Killing In other posts I postulated that sending PvP opportunities, i.e. parties of bounty hunters, to people that love PvP may not be much of a punishment. The punishment in setting bounties lies solely in the death of the ‘criminal’ / ‘aggressive’ character. Death itself inherently has a very limited amount of punishment — a very brief ‘time-out’, and the potential to lose some gear. Please note that this is only a potential, not a guarantee. A mechanic that presents a more meaningful punishment and may lead to more meaningful player interaction would be preferable to all players and game designers, with the sole exception of players who intend to operate with a fast and loose play style, live in the grey-to-black areas of ‘legality’ and/or simply bully / prey upon weaker characters or smaller groups. FWIW, I consider all forms of Banditry griefing. The only possible exception to this would be in times of war, and then the banditry would be state sponsored. State sponsored banditry should have alignment consequences for characters, communities AND kingdoms. Perhaps the Criminal tag is sufficient to make this a less attractive or palatable option, I think it remains to be seen. I’m not even certain that GW considers any form of Banditry worthy of earning the Criminal tag! In the examples that Ryan Dancey gave, it seems to me that his opinion regarding the talkative, logical bandits that are willing to take a significant “road tax” and then let travelers go on their less-than-merry way is that they have committed no crime (of note). Logically, I would guess that Mafia protection rackets aren't crimes either. I contend that capture as a punishment is preferable to killing. It can be argued that lawful and/or good societies may prefer capture over killing in many cases. In an environment where death is transitory this is even more preferable. There has been no mention of capture as a possible game mechanic and I think that is a shame. If anything, it has been implied that the closest to capture that is available in PFO is the ‘Marshal’ ability to immobilize. Given that the Marshal is an NPC role, this seems to mean that PCs will only be capable of killing when push comes to shove. Let’s fix that. 2. Contracts Including Capture as a game concept means a small change in the existing contract system. It can be entirely flavor or it can include an entirely new kind of contract. 2.1 Bounties The PC setting a Bounty can decide whether it is a Dead Or Alive bounty, an Apprehend bounty or a Marked For Death bounty. For Dead Or Alive bounties, the PC opening the contract can offer different reward levels for each outcome depending on their own personal preference and perhaps their alignment’s compatibility with the option. Alternatively, bounty options may be designed to be available only to certain alignment subsets, for example, an Apprehend bounty might be considered too lawful to be an option for a Chaotic PC in a Chaotic community. Similarly, Marked For Death may be considered too Chaotic, or perhaps too Evil, for use by a Lawful (or Good) PC in a Lawful (or Good) community. PCs that have decided to be professional Bounty Hunters will have the option to gain an ability to capture their prey when presented with a Dead Or Alive or Apprehend bounty contract but not a Marked For Death bounty. At GWs discretion they may also employ this ability in taking down known criminals in appropriate areas. What constitutes “Appropriate” is debatable. Perhaps it is only areas controlled by the Bounty Hunter’s employer, or the Bounty Hunter’s home territory. Perhaps it will also include the fringes of control for those areas. Perhaps it may also include uncontrolled areas. Perhaps it will be entirely unrestricted. Let the debate begin. Having the option to capture does not mean they must use it. It is just another tool in their arsenal. 2.2 Retrieval & Recovery If PCs are going to be Captured and Incarcerated, there will be other players/PCs that are inconvenienced or outright enraged by the Lawful society that arranged this ‘insult’. The prisoner’s friends, allies, settlement or kingdom may decide that this insult cannot go without reprisal. Thus a new contract is born, the Retrieval / Recovery contract. This contract is intended to be used for breaking prisoners out of jail, but could be used for the recovery of stolen or looted items as well. It differs from Transportation and Bounty contracts enough that it merits a category of its own. Bounty Hunters that have had their alignment shift away from Law or had their reputations eroded to what amounts to ‘scum’ may not be able to secure bounties anymore. However, chances are pretty good that they’ll be trusted enough to earn R&R contracts, for who else would want them? Fulfilling an R&R would almost assuredly result in gaining a Criminal reputation, so expect that those already considered Criminals will feel that they have nothing to lose and jump all over these! Lawful and/or Good societies will probably never issue these contracts and maybe they shouldn't be allowed to. If a Lawful or Good group felt that one of their own was unjustly imprisoned, they’d be far more likely to try many other ways to secure their ally’s freedom. Negotiation, trade, prisoner exchange, embargoes or outright war are likely all better options for organizations with morals and/or ethics. Does this sound like the kind of meaningful player interaction we want? R&R contracts are probably fairly straight-forward and may or may not be brutally expensive. I don’t think that is something that matters in the slightest as game economics are dynamic and will determine themselves through game-play. They will be straight-forward because they are so outside what is considered acceptable by ‘civilized’ society that nuance is neither necessary nor reasonable. By default, they could be ‘by any means necessary’ types of contracts. If GW wants to make them more complicated and more widely available, I suppose they could include clauses like ‘no collateral damages’, ‘no civilian death’, or other stipulations that one might not expect from this type of contract. Finally, it is up to GW to decide whether specific skills, alignments, reputation-levels or other game mechanics are pertinent in who can qualify to accept an R&R contract and who would be skilled in executing one. (My suggestion that fallen Bounty Hunters would be good candidates is just that – a suggestion.) 3. Death vs. Capture GW has given us lots of information about how Death may/will work. * There is a lock-out / respawn timer;
The way I see it, death is still going to be big business and profitable under the right circumstances. “The right circumstances” coupled with one type of design will essentially be about numbers. If you can say “my gang is bigger than your gang” you’re probably going to find that PvP death is your friend. There will be major, massively chaotic elements to the game: mob rules, last man standing, etc. With a pairing of “the right circumstances” and a different design choice death may benefit no one as it mainly serves to cause items to disappear into cyberspace rather than get plundered and simply change hands. From a design perspective, chasing the right (balanced) formula will be quite the Holy Grail. Worse, it may very well be a dynamic and ever-changing problem that can never be solved for any measurable length of time. I figure that whatever design GW chooses may be less about game balance, economics and other issues and more about ensuring that they don’t accidentally shut down all “meaningful player interaction”. In any case, whatever punishment bounties do present to the hunted is inherently tied to Death. The introduction of Capture doesn't have to change any of those punishments, but maybe it should. Capture will almost certainly mean the hunted is inconvenienced for longer than they would be by transient death. Capture breaks down into a few components: 3.1 Defeat In order to capture an offender you must first defeat him/her and whomever comes to their defense. 3.2 Transport Once you've defeated the offender, and potentially their allies, you have to get them back to your or your employer’s home settlement / kingdom. 3.3 Incarceration If you manage to get the offenders’ bodies back to friendly territory there is still the matter of enforcing the punishment. The offenders get tossed into the big house. It is up to GW as to how long an offender must stay incarcerated. By necessity, it would have to be longer than the ‘time out’ involved in Death, but everything else is open for debate and probably scalable. It won’t be comparable to real life sentences and I don’t think anyone would ever suggest it should. The duration could be related to the offense, the number of offenses, the reputation of the offender, the alignment of the community enforcing the incarceration, or other less ‘fair’ things. Less fair factors could include the reputation or influence of the aggrieved PC that set the bounty. Historically, rich merchants and nobles could expect ‘more justice’ than lesser citizens. Regardless, part of the enforcement of incarceration is not simply watching a clock and saying “OK! Time’s up…you’re free to go.” It can be completely expected that prisoners will try to escape by any means necessary (bribes, murder, lock-picking, wall-smashing, tunnel-digging, etc.) and further, their ‘friends on the outside’ may decide to reward your enlightened and merciful decision to imprison rather than kill by breaking them out along with all the other criminals, and if they’re lucky, destroy some buildings and kill lots and lots of characters in the process. I think this qualifies as “meaningful player interaction” by prevailing definition. Mechanically, I would contend that incarceration be measured in terms of active server time. Players shouldn't be allowed to just log off for the duration of the sentence. Nor should they be allowed to switch to another character while they wait for the sentence to elapse. Similarly, they shouldn't be able to go have a sandwich and come back free. GW says that escaping into real life won’t protect you from death (i.e. logging off to avoid danger) and incarceration shouldn't be avoidable by the same reasoning. So, what can a player do while they are waiting for their sentence to run its course? They can role-play! Role-play options may include: attempting to contact their allies and arrange a jailbreak from the outside; trying to buy/bribe their way out of jail; tongue-wagging to annoy the PC or NPC jailers (within the behavior policy enforced by GW); and interacting with the other prisoners — who knows what plans may be hatched by these unplanned meetings! Handled properly, people may actually WANT to get their PCs captured in order to have meetings with other PCs with whom they wouldn't normally be able to fraternize or even contact. GW could conceivably toss in simple dice or card games for prisoners to while away their time. Another option that could be considered is that the real time clock on skill advancement is suspended (or at least slowed) while they are incarcerated. This would be a significant penalty and would be a real way to dissuade players from ‘bad’ behavior! Since time lost to offenders is more significant in Capture than in Death, GW may want to consider reducing the other potential penalties, i.e. loot potential. On the other hand, the extreme increase in risk involved in transporting captives vs. only having to stay long enough to loot a husk may mean that capture would entitle Bounty Hunters to higher looting potential! This is yet another item open to debate and beta testing. 3.4 Release If you manage to hold your prisoner for the duration of his sentence there is still the matter of safely releasing them back into the game environment. This will be as trivial as the prisoner, or his allies, decide to make it. 3.5 Rehabilitation This concept should probably be kept out of the game entirely! If rehabilitation occurs it will be incidental and experienced by players, not PCs. 4. Character Role Specialization — Bounty Hunters, Sheriffs and Jailers It’s been pretty clear that both GW and the community expect that there will be players who choose to have their characters specialize as Bounty Hunters. It has also been stated that the Game Environment will have ‘marshals’ to enforce certain laws within a certain distance of NPC communities. With the addition of Capture as a game concept, additional specialty roles begin to make sense. 4.1 Bounty Hunters Bounty Hunters should be more than mercenaries that kill killers. They should be specifically empowered to visit grief upon griefers. As mentioned above, one way of doing that is through capturing offenders and their allies / abettors rather than just killing them. Being effective at capturing criminals at large could mean many different things in terms of game mechanics. These would represent player options that enable Bounty Hunter PCs to do what other PCs cannot, but could also have built in costs as well as the standard opportunity-costs involved in all decision making. 4.1.1 Game Mechanic: PC Ability Proposal — Bring ‘Em Back Alive Possible alternative names for this ability: Always Get Our Man,
The Bring ‘Em Back Alive skill allows Bounty Hunters (and perhaps other potential PC roles, such as Sheriff or Slaver) the opportunity to defeat specific targets without killing them. This ability would only be usable on PCs for which the Bounty Hunter has an Active/Open Bounty Contract and PCs that are marked as Criminals. It would be the Bounty Hunter’s option whether or not to invoke this ability since there may be situations where capture is too dangerous or risky and the bounty allows for killing to fulfill the contract. Using this ability in combat might be more difficult than killing. This could make an easy combat more difficult, a fair fight hard, or a difficult battle a no-win situation. At the designers’ discretion, the ability would have to be enabled for the entire encounter, or perhaps only used long enough to prevent a killing blow. Further, if group tactics are used, it is a game design decision as to whether one of the Bounty Hunters using this skill is sufficient or whether all of them must have the skill for it to be effective. Finally, the mindset and skill-set required to beat someone down without killing them may erode a Bounty Hunter’s general ability to kill. Perhaps they will suffer a small regression in combat skills in non-capture situations, making this ability a more difficult option to take. Alternatively, maybe this skill requires the use of weapons suited to the purpose. Since PCs can only own and carry a finite number of items, using up a slot for non-lethal methods may be too high a price to pay in order to gain this capability? 4.1.2 Game Mechanic: PC Ability Proposal — Pharasma's Loom Possible alternative names for this ability: Lost & Found,
This ability is entirely optional and dependent on GW's decision on how looting should be affected by Capture vs. Killing. If the time, risk and expense entailed in Capture is determined to be sufficient to warrant potentially better looting than is available from the husks of the temporarily dead then Pharasma's Loom would be the skill that Bounty Hunters must train to pry items out of the hands of their prey. Pharasma's Loom represents two separate issues — Fate and Bureaucracy. First, as the name suggests, some Bounty Hunters' become adept at loosening the Threads that bind items to characters, even in death. Whether this ability will ever allow a Bounty Hunter to take a protected item is up to GW. Since this is a Fourth Wall issue, it isn't that relevant to the name or the concept. What the ability would certainly do is increase the number or value of items that can be looted from their unconscious bounty and possibly decrease the number or value of items that would evaporate in the normal ‘unclaimed husk’ scenario. At sufficiently high levels of training in Pharasma's Loom, Bounty Hunters just might be able to pluck ONE plum protected item from their prey’s pocket! This is the Fate component of the skill. The second component is the ability to convince the key members of the employer’s society (the Sheriff, the employer, the mayor/king, etc.) that the bounty doesn't deserve to keep the gear when they are ultimately released. Sure, in a completely Lawful society everything that didn't previously belong to the PC that set the Bounty contact (and therefore stolen or ill-gotten goods) should be held in escrow/trust until the prisoner is released at which point it is returned. Sometimes, inexplicably, items go missing. This can either be due to Bounty Hunters not reporting an item in the first place, or convincing the right people that returning the item to the released prisoner is just a disaster waiting to happen as it will once again be used in the commission of crimes. 4.1.3 Game Mechanic: PC Ability Proposal — Break & Exit Possible alternative names for this ability: Bust ‘Em Out So, we've got Capture and Incarceration as an alternative to death, and we've got R&R contracts as a dirty solution for Incarceration. Such a specialized job needs a specialized skill. B&E is a skill that would help a PC deal with the logistics of a jailbreak and the unavoidable chaos that ensues. B&E will augment other skills which the PC may or may not have trained. Stealth, the safe handling and use of explosives, implementing effective diversions, stunning opposition instead of slugging it out to the bitter end, disabling devices (locks), and whatever else it may take to get your man out of the hands of the enemy can all potentially be improved by training B&E. The more chaos you create the easier it may be to get in, get out, get away and claim your reward out of escrow. I’ll leave it to the game designers to decide the specifics of this ability and whether it should be something available in the Bounty Hunter career path or is perhaps more appropriate for another role / profession / archetype. 4.2 Sheriffs Marshals patrol and respond to events in NPC communities. Sheriffs could possibly be an equivalent PC role. They wouldn't be automatically notified of egregious events the way that Marshals are, nor should they be. As such, they would need certain non-combat skills to be effective. Perception would be important. Perception could mean keen sight and hearing but it could also mean having effective networks of contacts. In a fantasy world, not only do the walls have ears figuratively, but travelers, the trees, rocks, animals and even the roads themselves can be credible elements of an information network. GW could decide that Perception and Contacts are separate skill to maintain and upgrade. Either way, both are important for Sheriffs to be effective. 4.2.1 Game Mechanic: PC Ability Proposal — Ears To The Ground Sheriffs need to be in touch with area beyond the reach of their eyes and ears. Ears To The Ground is a trainable skill that incorporates and represents the ability to collect knowledge of semi-remote locations that are within the fringes of a PC Settlement’s are of control. This can either be a completely independent skill or can provide a modifier to the use of other skills in specific ways, such as augmenting the Diplomacy skill for gathering information about crimes taking place in controlled or fringe areas. Mechanically and socially, members of a community will always be trying to communicate with one another. Unless the community is unusually small the amount of noise (or chatter) in the in-game chat channel will be overwhelming. For Sheriff PCs with a well-developed Ears To The Ground skill / ability, the game itself can cut through the chatter with highlighted A/V alerts indicating the presence and location of such events. Just like Marshals, there is no guarantee that Sheriffs will arrive in time to prevent malfeasance, but they might arrive in time to exact justice or at the very least to minimize the damage caused to citizens and allies. 4.3 Jailers (and Spies) If there are jails / prison, there needs to be jailers, guards or wardens — the role’s name isn't that important. The role of jailers can be simple or complex. If the role of jailer is allowed for PCs they could be limited to being alert sentries and excellent at defense / incapacitation. That’s fairly simple. Perhaps they can also have elements of spy-craft in their job description, attempting to learn of the intrigues and schemes being hatched by their charges while under their watch. Perhaps they can be allowed a certain amount of duplicity/corruption and can help prisoners escape…for the right price. With the right skills they may even be able to do that without it being obvious to the leaders of the community and they may be able to line their pockets from time to time without raising too much suspicion. There will almost surely be alignment consequences in the long run even if this activity is masked well. Perhaps this is a role that is, for some bizarre reason, ideally suited for enemy infiltrators! Break out the prisoners and escape with them? If this is true, Sheriffs and their bosses will have to be wary about PCs that volunteer to be jailers, lest they be spies in deep cover. 4.3.1 Game Mechanic: PC Ability Proposal — Hold The Line Jailers need to be able to stop prisoners from escaping. This doesn't necessarily mean that they have to be able to quell riots or jailbreaks on their own. What’s more important is that they hold the line while raising an alarm to ensure that enough allies respond quickly and with enough firepower to prevent escape. Instead of trading damage with prisoners, jailers can simply try to contain them, parrying blows and making combat maneuvers like tripping and grappling to stall for time. Good jails will use the building layout to give the jailers a tactical advantage even if they are outnumbered by the prisoners. Jailers would have to really drop the ball to lose this advantage. In any case, only in the rarest circumstances would all the prisoners be freed at once but it could happen. 4.3.2 Game Mechanic: PC Ability Proposal — Under The Table Jailers with the Under the Table ability would be able to take bribes from prisoners with a smaller chance of being caught. They would still have to play out a believable scenario. A jailbreak while they were sleeping or using the water closet just won’t cut it. They’d probably have to be killed or incapacitated by the prisoners or their outside benefactors for their lack of complicity to be believable, but I never doubt what someone might be capable of doing if offered enough coin or other considerations. Since the prisoners are likely to be Criminals blackmail and other threats could be substituted for coin and similarly, Under The Table would allow jailers to avoid some of the nasty ramifications of giving the bad guys what they want. 4.3.3 Game Mechanic: PC Ability Proposal — Alias If PCs are going to misrepresent themselves anywhere in the game they will have to face consequences. Sure, one way that people have done that in previous more traditional (theme park) MMOs is have a relatively pointless alternate character that they have no emotional attachment to do the scouting and deal making. Nearly all these games had nothing to prevent false newbie PCs from appearing with access to as much wealth as kings and level-capped veterans through a chain of coin trades. Joe Anonymous with a pristine reputation and perfect teeth could arrange all kinds of anarchy and nonsense, sowing the seeds of misery for the real PCs to reap! Since GW has said that this will be much harder in PFO, these fiends — and zealots of all stripes — will have to do their own dirty work. This will mean either being able to temporarily disguise or mask certain details about themselves, such as alignment, reputation and affiliations or the ability to maintain a “deep cover” false identity. Alias is a skill that might allow the suppression of character details that might make completing “a mission” difficult or impossible, or perhaps even replacing these details with a work of complete fiction. Alias could also be a skill that augments other ‘face’ skills like Disguise, Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate but only when utilizing a false persona. These are the bread and butter tools of a Spymaster and what role could be more satisfying to a Spymaster than infiltrating an enemy stronghold and obtaining the release of all you friends without your nation/faction having to give up anything in return? If this ability becomes available every society will have to watch their backs for they’ll never truly be 100% certain who it is they are dealing with when they hand out contracts or assign jobs…like Jailers. 5. Construction and Settlement Development If Capture and Incarceration are going to be concepts in PFO then one of the construction projects that may be undertaken in a settlement must include building prisons. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* All these proposed mechanics, roles and abilities try to decrease the value of ‘undesirable’ behaviors in the final cost-benefit analysis. Further, for those that want to engage in these or even similar behaviors they are simultaneously meant to make them lead to more meaningful and consequential player interactions and hopefully a richer play experience. Comments are heartily encouraged! |
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