Level cap

[Cornuto]

What I would actually love is if all monster XP was taken away and there was only tick XP Then if you go out to kill monsters, you are risking your life for virtually no gain (realism!)

Realism: when the fighter who sits around in the bathhouse all day gets better at fighting.

[GodBeastX]

Your RP exp reward concerns are on my mind, trust me. It's beyond the scope of a level cap though. A level cap won't solve your problem, just delay it.

I was considering a system I saw on another server that worked pretty well, but I don't trust our players to abide it very well.

This is all theoretical, and I have absolutely no blessing from any other DM to code this, so don't take the following as anything that may be happening.

Essentially I was thinking of tallying conversation made and rewarding experience based off this tally, only if the player gets an RP sanction from someone else on the server. So you RP with people, they go "Yep this person RP'd" and then you can claim the exp.

The server this is from doesn't have the RP sanction and it might be overkill. I'm just worried about people who will sit and spam chat to try and gain experience doing nothing. It's not a ton of experience so it's not REALLY a fear of mine, and I think DMs will notice right away that someone is spamming chat. But I thought it'd encourage people to also pay attention to others. After all, you want your sanction and I want mine So we come together to RP and pow!

It's all theory right now, but I do feel the 30 exp trickle is VERY tiny in the long run. I don't want RP rewards to overshadow dungeon rewards, after all, people should progress a little faster kicking their own asses.

However, as I said, this is beyond the scope of level caps.

I'm not going to initiate a level cap again, it was a headache, drove away players, code was a mess, nobody could even agree how to implement one, it punished our ACTIVE players, which makes little sense, and at the end of the day it should be the exp you gain that decides your cap not some barrier you can't pass.

I'm more than willing to look into alternate methods of rewarding experience, but I certainly do not wish to go down the cap route again.

[roguethree]

I don't think a peer-based RP vouching system would work well. Those of us who are well networked would be fine, obviously, but I think a number of people would suffer for it.

I'd suggest just increasing the RP XP ticker. Even doubling it wouldn't enable anyone to level quickly through RP. Neither would tripling it, nor quadrupling it. What's the timer on it, 10 minutes? 120xp/10 minutes is 720/hour. 190,000 xp to level 20 is 263.9 hours of play. Everyone okay with a PC taking 263.9 hours to reach level 20 just through RP?

[Rhifox]

I don't think a peer-based RP vouching system would work well. Those of us who are well networked would be fine, obviously, but I think a number of people would suffer for it.

I'd suggest just increasing the RP XP ticker. Even doubling it wouldn't enable anyone to level quickly through RP. Neither would tripling it, nor quadrupling it. What's the timer on it, 10 minutes? 120xp/10 minutes is 720/hour. 190,000 xp to level 20 is 263.9 hours of play. Everyone okay with a PC taking 263.9 hours to reach level 20 just through RP?

It's 10 minutes, yes. It's not that bad as it is, though it requires being online for a lot of time each day for it to really add up. I'd love to have it tick for more.

[The Butcher]

I don't think a peer-based RP vouching system would work well. Those of us who are well networked would be fine, obviously, but I think a number of people would suffer for it.

I'd suggest just increasing the RP XP ticker. Even doubling it wouldn't enable anyone to level quickly through RP. Neither would tripling it, nor quadrupling it. What's the timer on it, 10 minutes? 120xp/10 minutes is 720/hour. 190,000 xp to level 20 is 263.9 hours of play. Everyone okay with a PC taking 263.9 hours to reach level 20 just through RP?

A peer-based RP vouching system can work really well if well engineered. I am going to talk about a system that is used on a NWN1 server that I am quite fond of, but add a little twist.

On this server, every player starts off with a base number of XP they receive when they receive RP ticks. For this example, we will say that every player receives 30XP per RP tick. However, this tick can increase based on vouches from players -- but only to a certain extent. For example, if Player A receives 3 vouches from players, his RP tick will permanently increase to 45. If he receives another 3, then it will increase to 60. At that point, the player's RP ticker will be capped from player vouchers.

However, this is not the only source in which a player could increase their XP ticks. Perhaps rank in your faction will increase the ticker by a certain amount, encouraging players to increase rank. Maybe winning RPotM permanently gives you a +15 XP for that account. If you capitalize on all sources of ticker increases, a player could go from a meager 30 to 120, or more. This will give players a healthy alternative to grinding XP without removing the usefulness of grinding, which I like!

[Cornuto]

^ I quite like that suggestion.

[Catastrophe]

^ I quite like that suggestion.

Me too!

[Seheren]

That would be lovely.

[OnyxTigress]

I've played on a server where there has been a vouch system that granted people xp and stuff. It worked great, at first. But then it got to the point where no one would use it, because they forgot or they figured someone else would just vouch for them.

But I do really like the system that Butcher has put up there, still.

[Fezzik]

The only problem with Butcher's idea, although 95% or more a good idea for most characters, it would detriment the few that actually don't interact with people because it's not in their characters concept. There was one character way long ago that collected LOTS of information for team good, but only about 3-5 people knew he actually existed because he kept out of the way that well (very high stealth abilities).

Onyx has a point as well.... how many people actually remember to vouch for lower faction members?

[Talleyman99]

Im gonna toss this out there.... this is not realism this is guys walking around in fullplate and all hours of the day and night with flaming swords. Wizards holding the power of the universe, and priest making the dead walk. This is DnD. you are suppose to adventure and kill monsters and take there loot and get xp's. That is the heart of this all. The setting is where we do all this though, and we should be mindful of this at all times and be ready to rp at a drop of a hat!.

That said. I played under the old cap system, the rp was no better then, all it did was force you to gain server time, and all anyone did was stand around in the exigo and look at a fire. With the big server changes I've already seen way way more rp then I ever have on the server So i can say im happy the way things are now. Just keep that open mind and talk to poeple Rp will be there. Also when grinding if you keep talking others will talk and rp more as well.

[GodBeastX]

Onyx has a point as well.... how many people actually remember to vouch for lower faction members?

I'm more creative than that. You make it so vouching also rewards YOU. Mwahaha!

[The Butcher]

The only problem with Butcher's idea, although 95% or more a good idea for most characters, it would detriment the few that actually don't interact with people because it's not in their characters concept. There was one character way long ago that collected LOTS of information for team good, but only about 3-5 people knew he actually existed because he kept out of the way that well (very high stealth abilities).

I can agree that the theoretical system I've proposed does not reward players for choosing to not interact with other players. However, I see this as a benefit of the system, not a problem. The idea is to create a system that encourages roleplay amongst players and gives a viable alternative from grinding.

There will still be grinding for the characters that do not interact with anyone else.

[Delexos]

The only problem with Butcher's idea, although 95% or more a good idea for most characters, it would detriment the few that actually don't interact with people because it's not in their characters concept. There was one character way long ago that collected LOTS of information for team good, but only about 3-5 people knew he actually existed because he kept out of the way that well (very high stealth abilities).

Onyx has a point as well.... how many people actually remember to vouch for lower faction members?

No disrespect Fezzik, but if you come to a game that's all about interacting and developing story lines with other members of the community, and you actively choose to make a character who's very concept is designed so that they do not interact with others, then they simply do not get to ride the cool xp boost bus. It's all about choice, no one forces a player to make an anti-social character and no one forces a player to make a character that goes around hugging every one either.

If 3-5 players knew of that stealthy 'Norman Nomates' guy, and if his info gathering skills were as good as you claim then even they would get a boost if those 3-5 peeps repped them with the idea presented by "The Butcher".

Sure he might not get the max that might be possible with some more outgoing characters but it doesn't mean they get nothing, besides using the plans suggested the spy chr would still be getting it's base 30xp a tick.

I fully endorse the idea presented by Butcher, for what it's worth.

[Cornuto]

(apologies, google image search was just too spot on to not post this...)