[MUD-Dev] moving advancement away from experience

[Travis Casey]

On Tuesday, April 25, 2000, Eli Stevens wrote:

> Players would be able to increase their skill levels by obtaining what I am
> going to call "rolecredits."  There will be additional ways to increase
> skills as well, but I am not really sure what form they might take (I would
> like to stay away from use-based increases, I like the thread recently on
> using offline time).  The official line would be that RCs should be given
> when a player thinks that another character has done an exceptional job of
> roleplaying their character.

> The base of the system would work like this:  If you have a rolecredit, you
> can give it to someone else.  When someone recieves an RC, it actually
> spawns three things.  The first is a skill increase point.  Second, a
> reputation modification point.  Third, the character now has a rolecredit to
> give to someone else.

[snip lots]

The biggest problem I see with any sort of "reward for roleplaying"
system is keeping it from encouraging a certain *style* of
roleplaying.  For example, one player decides to roleplay a
dashing, flamboyant, devil-may-care warrior who cracks jokes in the
face of doom; another decides to roleplay a priest who is meek and
quiet on the surface, but has a solid core of inner strength.

Guess who's probably going to get more RCs?  Almost certainly the
first one, because his/her roleplaying is going to be highly visible.
The second may play the character he/she's decided on more
consistently and well, but since that character isn't going to draw
attention, he/she will probably get a lot fewer RCs.

IMHO, this is going to be magnified by giving it to the players to
decide.  A player who decides to play a friendly, outgoing character
is going to meet and befriend lots of people, and have many more
opportunities for gaining RCs than one who decides to play an
introverted character.  They're both likely to gain more than someone
who decides to roleplay an abrasive character.

Further, as you note, there's no good way of policing it -- you can't
be sure whether people are giving out RCs to reward roleplaying or, to
use an extreme example, auctioning them off on Yahoo.  (If it's the
latter, it'll probably get back to you of course -- I chose the
example mainly for humor.)

As someone who usually plays introverted characters, it seems unfair
to me.  :-)

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
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