10-25-2020, 09:54 PM
Okay, there's something I feel needs clarifying at this point in the thread.
Character Progression feels unnatural.
By that I mean leveling up does not contribute to good RP, nor is it fun or fresh content. The way you level up is by throwing yourself at BDPs until you hit level 60. But that's not fun, not contributory to RP, exhaustive over time, and tedious. It's nice maybe once in a while, but it's pretty well understood as not enjoyable which is why vets don't do it.
What's more is that BDP grinding doesn't make sense for how a character is becoming progressively stronger. Maybe you could argue the physical activity makes you better able to take hits or bulk your muscles, or that you get better insight into how monsters will attack- but especially at the low levels, this happens all too quickly, and it also doesn't give any explanation except for really boring and silly "I came up with it!!" explanations for the skills you learn along the way. It feels better to learn your magic spells from a tutor or during library visits or anything that's not "I beat up monsters and then I figured out how to cast a new spell/power up an old spell". This applies for other character concepts too. You don't just summon special arrows out of thin air I imagine(unless that's your lore I suppose???), they seem like the kinda thing that'd be prepared beforehand that an Archer pulls out for the right occasions. Learning a new Arrows skill out in the field doesn't contribute to this. Learning Pulling Shot doesn't contribute to good rp. How do you learn to meditate, or perform martial arts flipkicks, or do a crane hop, or all the other stuff that Martial Artist can do? The ways to learn skills that best contribute to RP have no effect or a negligible effect on mechanically learning those skills. No matter how much you practice magic? You'll make ZERO headway. No matter how much you cross swords in sparring practice with your pals, or get fencing lessons from your teacher? You will NEVER improve. Every two hours or something you can get RPXP, which is 10% of the way to a level IIRC, but that's miniscule enough that it may as well not be there.
It's because of this that OOC grinding has to be a thing, because without it, grinding up to level 60 would take months, or even a year of time dedicated to RP. Nobody wants a training arc that long.
The reason people level up to 60 isn't always so that they're out-the-gate a titan who's raring to go at the arena. It's often so that they have a strong handle on their character's progression and can ease it along properly so there aren't really odd power spikes that don't make sense.
How and how not to fix this:
I'll start with the how NOT to fix this. Fern already clarified in an excellent way why forcing characters to engage super actively with the world in order to be strong isn't especially great- it means that playing casually isn't really an option. It means you have to get super actively involved and stay actively involved and tax your time in a way that doesn't really work around the whole, having a job and a life thing that some of us do. It also means that characters lose their character backgrounds, because you can't reasonably have 'studied at karaten as a mage' or 'worked as a black knight' or even 'hunted for your own food' in your backstory because you have absolutely nothing to show for it. This sort of ties in with why people build even if they don't plan on doing combat; they need to represent the character they're playing in the few situations they do have to fight, or they break character and nobody wants to break character.
My suggestion on how to fix this: Keep the grinding system as is so that people have a way to progress their characters, but also on the new GM forum, create an application process for players to submit in-game logs of events where their character learned a new skill, sparred with their practice partner, learned from their teacher, or participated in an event. After a small review just to ensure the log is what they say, several level ups and maybe some murai could be given out as a reward; or for certain events, the end of a long training arc, or an extensive backstory, etc legend inks could be awarded. This lets you keep a balancing act between asking for engagement in the world and letting people manage their own progression; which I'm pretty sure people would rather do at least some of the time given how the game has handled itself so far.
I might have more to say later on the segment about roles, but I also don't want to let my day get totally drained typing all this up, so I'll take a break with that.
Character Progression feels unnatural.
By that I mean leveling up does not contribute to good RP, nor is it fun or fresh content. The way you level up is by throwing yourself at BDPs until you hit level 60. But that's not fun, not contributory to RP, exhaustive over time, and tedious. It's nice maybe once in a while, but it's pretty well understood as not enjoyable which is why vets don't do it.
What's more is that BDP grinding doesn't make sense for how a character is becoming progressively stronger. Maybe you could argue the physical activity makes you better able to take hits or bulk your muscles, or that you get better insight into how monsters will attack- but especially at the low levels, this happens all too quickly, and it also doesn't give any explanation except for really boring and silly "I came up with it!!" explanations for the skills you learn along the way. It feels better to learn your magic spells from a tutor or during library visits or anything that's not "I beat up monsters and then I figured out how to cast a new spell/power up an old spell". This applies for other character concepts too. You don't just summon special arrows out of thin air I imagine(unless that's your lore I suppose???), they seem like the kinda thing that'd be prepared beforehand that an Archer pulls out for the right occasions. Learning a new Arrows skill out in the field doesn't contribute to this. Learning Pulling Shot doesn't contribute to good rp. How do you learn to meditate, or perform martial arts flipkicks, or do a crane hop, or all the other stuff that Martial Artist can do? The ways to learn skills that best contribute to RP have no effect or a negligible effect on mechanically learning those skills. No matter how much you practice magic? You'll make ZERO headway. No matter how much you cross swords in sparring practice with your pals, or get fencing lessons from your teacher? You will NEVER improve. Every two hours or something you can get RPXP, which is 10% of the way to a level IIRC, but that's miniscule enough that it may as well not be there.
It's because of this that OOC grinding has to be a thing, because without it, grinding up to level 60 would take months, or even a year of time dedicated to RP. Nobody wants a training arc that long.
The reason people level up to 60 isn't always so that they're out-the-gate a titan who's raring to go at the arena. It's often so that they have a strong handle on their character's progression and can ease it along properly so there aren't really odd power spikes that don't make sense.
How and how not to fix this:
I'll start with the how NOT to fix this. Fern already clarified in an excellent way why forcing characters to engage super actively with the world in order to be strong isn't especially great- it means that playing casually isn't really an option. It means you have to get super actively involved and stay actively involved and tax your time in a way that doesn't really work around the whole, having a job and a life thing that some of us do. It also means that characters lose their character backgrounds, because you can't reasonably have 'studied at karaten as a mage' or 'worked as a black knight' or even 'hunted for your own food' in your backstory because you have absolutely nothing to show for it. This sort of ties in with why people build even if they don't plan on doing combat; they need to represent the character they're playing in the few situations they do have to fight, or they break character and nobody wants to break character.
My suggestion on how to fix this: Keep the grinding system as is so that people have a way to progress their characters, but also on the new GM forum, create an application process for players to submit in-game logs of events where their character learned a new skill, sparred with their practice partner, learned from their teacher, or participated in an event. After a small review just to ensure the log is what they say, several level ups and maybe some murai could be given out as a reward; or for certain events, the end of a long training arc, or an extensive backstory, etc legend inks could be awarded. This lets you keep a balancing act between asking for engagement in the world and letting people manage their own progression; which I'm pretty sure people would rather do at least some of the time given how the game has handled itself so far.
I might have more to say later on the segment about roles, but I also don't want to let my day get totally drained typing all this up, so I'll take a break with that.
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