Proposal: PC Lifestyles

[Mirabai]

As Jayde and I were drafting our Crafting thread for the forums, we got to thinking about PC Lifestyles and making/spending money.

A lot of stuff happens off Camera and while we at ALFA want to focus in RP and instilling immersion into the DnD experience, we have many considerations to make in our drive for immersion.

Here, we focus on the Lifestyle of the PCs.

It must be assumed that every PC has a place to stay when they aren't out adventuring. Some of them might be living under the bridge, some may stay in various inns, and others might have luxurious mansions. Along with this, we assume that a player has some sort of place to stow their stuff that isn't on them while adventuring.

However, our mods only have so much space and we cannot cater to every player that wants to have their living area included in the mod.

So we propose some sort of 'Official Lifestyle' for PCs based on their wants/needs/abilities.

In the Mod we might have an area open to all PCs that represents their various accommodations and that has lockable PChests. It would be an OOCish area that is divided into rooms based on towns and cities in the mod with each room having a respective entrance. PCs would gain access to a p-chest in one of these rooms once they have achieved some sense of longevity (something arbitrary like level 5).

I don't know if you can limit PChest space, but if so, we could limit an individual's PChest based on what their 'Lifestyle' is. We could also determine every so often if a PC is robbed (chances are also based on their lifestyle).

In game, the Lifestyle is just something the PC can kind of RP out. "I live with my Aunt" "I'm Rich!" "I'm homeless" without actually having to have the locale that they reside put into the mod.

Players and DMs agree on a PCs lifestyle by taking into account skills like Crafting and Profession and/or how much Gold a PC earns while playing that he wants to invest in his Lifestyle.

Pros:

Actually gives players a means to quantify their lifestyle, where they stay.

Gives us a way to adjudicate skills like Craft and Profession.

Gives everyone realistic storage space.

Cons:

Removes PChests as a Gold Sink

Unimmersive Storage Area.

Extra bookeeping for DMs?

Discuss.

[hollyfant]

Pros:

Actually gives players a means to quantify their lifestyle, where they stay.

Gives us a way to adjudicate skills like Craft and Profession.

Gives everyone realistic storage space.

"Quantify their lifestyle"?
PCs already, as you stated, have a "assumed live" when not being played. For some it's meticulously detailed, and others have theirs handwaved. I see no reason why this is somehow inferior to actually pigeon-holing all PCs.

I do like the notion that everyone might get (limited) storage.

Cons:

Removes PChests as a Gold Sink

Unimmersive Storage Area.

Extra bookeeping for DMs?

Storage is storage. Not calling it a pChest doesn't change what it is: a pChest.

I'm decidedly confused about this proposal. I just don't "get" it. Why would people have to report to an OOC area, to get a room that doesn't really exist in the game-world, and a pChest they can't use because they have to drop out of character every time they need something from it?

Limiting the capacity of pChests would be interesting, but probably way too script-intensive. I'd rather make it easier for PCs to get a pChest in a normal area, and maybe have a log of who has what in storage upon DM-demand.

[Mirabai]

By 'Quanfity their Lifestyle', I don't mean the crap they are doing when 'off-camera'. I mean it answers the question of "So, you have written in your character background that you live in the Upscale section of Balder's Gate… well, how do you afford that, exactly?" If a player isn't spending any of their adventure earned loot on a place to stay and they don't have a profession skill… well, it does make me wonder.


There are advantages to living in certain areas or having certain lifestyles, even if they are only RP advantages.


As for the 'why would they "report" to an OOC area'…


You don't necessarily have to 'drop out of character'… the point is that instead of making Joe's House where Joe can get to his PChest, and making Fred's House where Fred can get HIS PChest, and making Jenny's House where she can get HER PChest, we make a single area that represents EVERYONE'S houses and that's where all the PChests are. When you go to get your stuff, you don't 'drop out of character'. You say, "Hey, gotta go to my house and get my Demoofatchi." And then you go.


Sure, if everyone decides to get their demoofatchi at the same time, it creates a scene of everyone going to the same door which represents all of their different houses, but… enh, it's why it's listed as a Con.


Considering the options, it's either "Gary NPC's Storage Lot" where Gary offers IC FREE STORAGE for all Adventurer's, or it's Individual Areas for every PC with persistent storage, or it's an OOC placeholder for everyone's IC storage spots. the last one feels like it works best when you take in all the mitigating factors.


Anyway, I hope that clears it up a little bit… or maybe someone who gets what I'm shooting for here can better phrase it all for me?

[Mord]

Feel free to build this area, put in the necessary scripts, proper connections and then submit it for approval before the venerable alfa standards tribunal.

[Veilan]

PCs already, as you stated, have a "assumed live" when not being played. For some it's meticulously detailed, and others have theirs handwaved. I see no reason why this is somehow inferior to actually pigeon-holing all PCs.

This. I also prefer as little OOC in game as possible, and I'm not sure robbing or PK'in someone in that holding area would necessarily foster my immersion.

What we should do, though, is make some sort of IC (!) storage easily available to the majority of PCs.

[CloudDancing]

I suggest we upgrade to KEMO banking/storage system in regard to adding persistant storage. Why? Two great reasons.

1) No more duping of items.
2) No more stuck open Pchests
3) No more temptations to go into RP protected areas (ie OCC unproctected areas) and rummage through things in a dodgy and unlawful manner.

[oldgrayrogue]

Anything that makes P-Storage available is worthwhile to discuss. Frankly, with many adventurers being transitory sorts I don't think a "self storage" type business is OOC at all. I am sure some enterprising NPC in Silverymoon or BG would see this as a way to make money. Perhaps the basement of a bank or an inn has "storage lockers" like you see in apartment buildings. Just a row of small rooms with a chest in each one. For more permanently based PCs who belong to recognized factions i think there is already P-Storage available. I say make that storage room totally IC, with a nasty NPC armed guard like you see with some merchants. Maybe a script that charges a PC an initial cost for the room (25GP?)that grants you a key to your locker, and then fires like once a month RL when they seek access and asks for another fee (5GP?) for rent. I don't see it as immersion breaking to have this sort of place to run to to get your stuff IC before you go adventuring. As far as theft, this has been discussed before, and I think it should be allowed but ONLY with DM oversight and involvement to avoid abuse and metagaming. We would need a set of OOC rules for players who "go missing" from the game in RL, and what we do with their stuff if they do. IC there could be a "Notice" posted at the establishment (i.e. part of the dialogue when you initially buy your key) that anyone who falls into arrears for three months in a row or something will have their stuff auctioned off by the supply house. (these auctions could actually be nice RP events). We would have to coordinate this with some OOC notification to a player before such an auction, but as long as everyone knows the rules of it going in, I think it could work. As far as building it, the interior area seems pretty simple for most of our builders. I volunteer to work on the scripts (with the exception of the P-storage scripts which I have no idea how to do but since we already have P-storage available for some should not be too hard to import).

[dergon darkhelm]

I don't know what KEMO is but I like the idea of easily accessible PC P-storage

I personally liked the of Daggerford server system with a set of apartments each with a bed, p-chest that players paid for based on RL time frames on the order of months.

Build taverns/apartments etc in major towns with tagged keys and let PCs buy them.


I have been fortunate to have been given Pstorage in Danielmn's build-out of HI. I wish everyone had similar accessibility.

[danielmn]

No, there should be no discrimination against Rathalan for his chosen lifestyle....

[Brokenbone]

On solely the point of semi-OOC storage, picture this:

An ugly checkerboard map, basically a honeycomb of tiny areas, each with a door into it. None of the doors actually connect to other of the tiny areas, they connect to doors "wherever else" in the server. Each little honeycomb room has a pChest in it.

There you go. A 12x12 slum of 144 "rooms", each of which is meant to represent a dwelling, sometimes grand, sometimes horrible. Space and technical constraints mean not drawing a giant mansion of sumptuous furnishings, or a squalid hovel with poo in the corner... just an unadorned square with a chest plopped in the middle, and a uniquely keyed door from it to go back to whatever alley, cave, hidey hole, lovely neighbourhood, secret lair, or whatever elsewhere. The areas would be "restable" so lovely lovely.

Is that not a bare bones solution BETTER than an OOC warehouse? It's 144 dwellings, although afraid you have to use your imagination when inviting people over for a tea party, picture whether it's a dump or better.

Bells and whistles within technical / resource hogging limitations could be dreamt up. In honeycomb cell 16, there could be a placeable sign saying "This two room beat down dwelling smells of the horse knackers just down the way" etc. Or there could be one decoy pChest, and a real pChest stored as a secret object on a high DC secret door-type trigger which only "those in the know" would know to linger in the NW corner for awhile until it triggered and revealed the chest.

No, not to the point of all the lifestyle stuff, just an idea about "not exactly common" storage, just "all on the same map though no one can dig through an OOC wall to raid the whole honeycomb." Those 144 doors could lead to any corner of the server. *shrugs*

[CloudDancing]

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NW ... 997&id=303





So handy-dandy storage system with server side saved inventories OR crappy pchests that get stuck open, get abandoned, have lots of cluttery key issues (as per my experience with Everdusk), or tempt perfectly reasonable players into snooping?

I tell you the minute our Pchests get stuck open, all the log data becomes utterly incomprehensible w/o requiring the poor HDM to spend hours checking the server logs. And KEMO makes good good stuff.

[danielmn]

I proposed a banking system in the recent past myself. If the KEMO adaptation can be incorporated, I think it would be a good idea.

[CloudDancing]

Kemo built a simlair text based banking system. Works like this:

NPC has three functions, deposit, balance, withdraw.

You speak the amount you wish to withdraw/deposit in local say (and not while invisible) and voila, it stores your gold and tells you your balance.

In Alfa, being that our only reason to store gold server side is possible rollbacks due to crashes, its not entirely neccessary. On Haven its more needed since if you die players are fined large amounts for death of XP and gold, and even more gold if they wish to go back to the point where they died. You can actually delevel yourself to 1if you play badly enough.

[Brokenbone]

Past NWN1 banking systems seemed to somehow tie to character name. Does this KEMO one do the same? DMs occasionally need to peek into storage as part of managing their plots, figuring out who has what doohickeys where, or in attempting to assess wealth and future rewards.

[t-ice]

As a simple solution, I would be overtly elated if someone could make a bag of holding that whenever it's opened outputs to the DM channel: "[PC name] has used his persistent storage". I don't know scripting enough to. Then the PC uses the bag only when ICly at his storage.

Couple to bank note items that can be bought and sold at a bank for fixed amount, if you want to store gold. That and a little bit of trust is all that is needed for "persistent storage". Once the player is established enough for the DM to trust him with that bag (easy, but not total noob), and the PC is established enough to ICly have a place of storage.

Right now we have several instances of standard bags of holding in this use at Amn, but the "trust and verify" check of that DM channel message would be a welcome addition.