thegamesooc | (no subject)

Entry tags:

credits,
mod post

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Look! Another OOC post!

So we have been considering the whole credit system, because right now there is no real in character incentive to gather up credits. You die when you die, whether you have food or not.

So we were thinking, what if we set up a system where you could OOCly "buy" yourself out of situations, with prices going up as the Arena stretches out?

The benefit would be you would have more control over dying, and it could reflect the Hunger Games a little more thoroughly, letting your action within the arena reflect more on your chance of survival. The draw back would be less long term knowledge of death if you do not have the money and the mods throw a bear at you. We're still figuring out exact details but does this sounds like something you guys would be interested in?

If we did this I'd also set up a way to keep track of credits being awarded more in the present time. Speaking of which!

Go vote! You can only post one event for each person. You can vote as many times as you like, however. (Although only once for each event) So I can post an event for Amy and I can post an event for Ken, and I can vote for other events of Amy's if other people post them, but I can't nominate her or Ken for any more actions. You can nominate people you didn't ICly interact with. The more active you are nominating and voting, the better the whole system works for you and others! I've put up one so you guys can see. Just like actual hunger games, you are competing for people's favors. Keep it interesting, sweetheart(s).

Also, people in the arena. Shit will be going down soon. Don't get too comfortable. /maniacal laugh

Also also, again we are very open to input, especially right now! If you have any questions, comments, concerns...come at us! We wanna hear.

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I have a lot of thoughts, on a variety of things, so I'm just going to go ahead and let y'all know. I want to emphasize that you guys are great and I trust whatever decisions you'll make and you're doing a wonderful job of listening to us thus far, and obviously you don't have to take any of these suggestions, etc.

1) On the credit system -- honestly, I feel that tributes can die in the Games even if they have a lot of sponsors. I mean in the books in the Games. Shit happens. I don't think that being able to buy out of situations will help all that much, and it might just make the credit system more complicated. I think that it should be as simple as possible, while still conveying its purpose.

In fact, I'm not sure you have to have it at all. If we replaced it with something like a 'gift request' page, where players could ask for gifts for either their characters in the arena or characters they're mentoring in the arena and you guys approve it if you feel it's within the bounds of reality. (So, like, a request form that's 'gift requested', 'reasons for request', etc.) It frees people up from keeping track of a lot of numbers and might make things more flexible as far as plotting.

2) Speed. The Arena is a place where things happen fast and develop fast, and I'm having a little bit of a hard time keeping track of where my character is as far as survival goes. Is there any chance you could consider slowing down the game's timeline? Maybe so that one OOC day is IC day, the next is IC night, and so on? A kind of 2:1 ratio?

3) Missing tributes. When I joined, I did like how activity check played into the credits system. But, I think we ended up with a problem this first round in that there were a few tributes that never showed up at all, and I personally had to do some workarounds to try and handwave things. I'm still not entirely clear on what happened with Holly's missing tribute. Which is partially my fault, and not really your guys' fault, but I'm wondering if we could make some sort of AC system that could auto-kill people who don't tag in on the Cornucopia thread, or something?

So overall I guess my message is 'let's simplify and slow down', in a way. Again, you can feel free to disregard anything I'm saying here. ♥ you guys!

1) Well, the one thing we want to encourage with the credits system is to reward people for doing things like tagging new people, starting plots, etc, more than just activity. Which clearly we can do a game without it, most do, and it might in general not work out because it is a lot. We wanted some way to reflect that in the books, interesting people can last longer simply by being interesting.

However, no matter how you work the system, you wouldn't always, or often, be able to buy yourself out of things. Being interesting only gets you so far if a bear attacks. Especially since things get more expensive as the arena goes on.

This would be simpler than what we currently have, but I do like the ask for gifts idea, I just don't know a way to use it to reflect actual participation in a clearly non-biased way. Simpler is better (for you and us), but I also do really want a way to work in that idea of being active and engaging is rewarded, because I feel that's too big a part of the Hunger Games to be ignored.

2) Actually the pace is set slower then that. Technically the plan was one IC day=one OOC week since the nightly protections in the sky posts are weekly, but you guys are moving faster than that (And I just in rereading realized in book the arena's are longer than I thought typically.) Maybe 3 days=OOC week?

3) Anyone who doesn't post ICly will be added to the next weekly projections as having died the previous week is our plan right now, both for the two tributes who dropped, and because of the way we shifted apps.

So he will be listed as dead when Rikku makes the new post Tuesday-ish, along with Vriska. They won't be slated as "to die" but as "having died" (The way the NPCs were last week). From now on that'll happen with any tribute who drops, and any tribute who apps and doesn't show up ICly within 5 days of the cornucopia being posted.

And no, always always give us feedback! ♥ I love it, it gets my gears turning.

1) Yeah, I trust you guys to find a balance. I've pretty much said my thoughts, so it's up to you to make a decision on it as you please!

2) Ah, shoot! Is that listed somewhere? Did I totally miss it? That would be a perfectly okay pace for me, but I thought it was 1:1 and it seems like most other people are playing it that way.

3) Awesome, sounds good!

1) TY bb, your feedback is appreciated.

2) I found where it is, and I think between me, Hats, and Sarah all editing text, it went from like...it's own little bit to a brief mention that's super easy to over look. I will add up a FAQ about it and make a mention next death role about pace!

3) ♥

I really like the idea of being able to buy yourself out of deaths - maybe a once per game limit or something if it gets out of hand, but if it costs enough that wouldn't be a problem anyways. Also, maybe make it so you can't buy yourself out of death on the final week, just so there won't have to be ten separate rolls to see who the winner is.

And if we want to reflect the Hunger Games, maybe let people volunteer their characters to die in place of another? Obviously this would only work for the random rolls and not SUDDENLY BEARS, but it would reflect both the ability to volunteer as tribute and the ability to stay alive if someone finds your current plots interesting enough to sacrifice a character for. I played in another RP similar to this one a few years back that used that system and it worked pretty well.

o t l. idk here's my two cents and you can completely ignore it if you want. the tl;dr is that I really enjoy how it's going. I don't mean any of this is a mean way.

1) as I've shown you, I really do enjoy the credit system how it is. I enjoy the idea of having a price on items to be cashed in and such. It makes the whole "characters have little control in the arena" a little easier and keeps ac up. if your character needs some wire, s/he better make an open log or tag around. It's a very unique idea for ac as well! and it makes perfectionists like myself happy. s-stats page, my friend.

2) I, personally, was operating under the assumption that the pace was 1:1. I've never been in a game where it was anything but, and it wasn't clearly stated in the faq/rules etc. For this, I have to apologize because I've been playing and posting like it's 1:1. I'm not completely sold on the idea of slowing it down, either. backtagging is there for a reason. playing it at 1:1 gives more of a sense or urgency, I feel; which is what the arena is ultimately about. I can understand the appeal of a slower game, but it's just a little difficult for me to understand.

3) I feel like the idea of being able to buy yourself out of situation is a little superfluous. The games are about dying suddenly and violently, liked or not, for the capitol's enjoyment. Being able to sneak out of that seems a little... it undermines a bit of what the arena is about.

I think that's all :|a idk, if there's anything you want an opinion on I can provide it. But all in all, I really enjoy the game, I enjoy keeping up with it, the speed (Which i got completely wrong lmao u_u) the credit system... just all of it. I think you're doing a great job of adapting the premise of the book to a rp game.

Oh, I really like the volunteering thing, a lot. We will look into that for sure.

And yeah, prices would be high enough that you couldn't just buy your way out of death over and over, both so we don't get people just....living the whole game and to reflect the canon price inflation.

TY for you feedback!

Sorry for the late response, been mulling a lot. TL;DR incoming! Take everything for a grain of salt since I'm sure you've thought about a lot of this stuff.

1. I like the credit system in theory but I'm not sure you necessary need it. Since all the characters are scored, barring any really random dice results, I think most people know what's going on and can figure out what their character needs to survive and do some hand waving in that aspect.

When things pick up, it might be something to revisit since then it'd be a joint effort between Mentor and Tribute and so the mod team can make sure people aren't taking undue liberties, but if you're just looking to OOCly reward participation, I'd suggest bumps to dice rolls?

This is mostly speculative since I'm not sure how often you're using random dice to determine things but I'm envision something like this. For example, if you have a character that comes across an obstacle and has a 2 out of 6 chance of dying, if the player's been active maybe add a +1 to whatever the final roll stat is? So it isn't a free pass but it does give people better odds? Or if you don't use dice in that manner, maybe even get less complicated and say their character gets to luck out and survive a week longer? (I get the sense that you kind of want to reward participation by having the character stick around a little bit longer?)

2. I think the character scores are a pretty good starting base and I think they're necessary to keep players from trying to power game and to curtail arguments. But I also kind of feel it might be nifty if they changed depending on what happens in the arena? If people team up, or get protective over one or another, or have injuries from a prior tangle or two, all those things could make a difference. So maybe a place to track character information/stats? (It would also be a way for the mod team/players to OOCly track what weapons are out and about since presumably character death also reaps rewards?)

3. I'm ambivalent how in game time corresponds to out of game time. Like the others, I assumed it was about 1:1. Either way, I think the mods should call the end of the day with the death round up/capitol anthem or keep the current day/time somewhere to simply things for players and avoid all the timezone hitches.

All that said! I'm having fun and shame on me for not participating more in OOC chatter.

As it is, there's no real incentive for anyone to use their credits, IMO. So, beyond the bare minimum, what's the motivation to wrack up more credits?

Personally, buying out of death would be awesome.

And all those people who die in the Cornucopia and really don't get to play the Games at all actually get a chance to play, potentially.

1) I think, a chance to buy another roll might not be a bad idea. So you could still die, but you could also live.

2) We have taken into consideration that game to game people might have their score change. Like that, if Lottie really put her mind to it, she could train 24-7 for example and go up a couple scores. But your idea interests me, could you explain in more detail?

3) We will try to put more detail (in general) in the weekly posts!

Exactly! Thank you for the input! ♥

1) There's a lot of ways to implement it to so you guys can decide which way works best and what seems the most fair. :) It could be a one free re-roll or if you're using a more complicated system you can raise or lower the success percentages or add extra die, etc...

2. I think it depends how much you want the scores to affect the game play? Obvious the base scores would still be necessary since it's part of the Capitol's process so changing the scores would only affect matters OOCly. It would mostly be quantifying a lot of possibilities with a numerical base. It's probably more work than is needed at this point (and might not ever be needed) but it might prevent meta gaming or future conflicts. However, it might be completely superfluous too.

For example, if someone manages to find a weapon, maybe that's a +1 or more depending if they know how to use it. If they get injured like a broken arm maybe their score drops a point or two. If people decide to team up, maybe their score becomes cumulative to an extent. So if Lottie and Yutaka team up maybe their scores are combined to a 7 for the duration they stick together. So if they run across some Capitol monster that's got a score of 6, they probably have a chance of surviving it. An added benefit would be that it'd be an easy way for the mods (and maybe the players) to see the current status of all the characters in the arena. Does that make a little more sense.

3. My bad. I actually meant "indifferent" and not "ambivalent" but more detail would be great. :D

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