Poll Crafting

[NESchampion]

I've seen a before and after where crafting was introduced to a high rp server. It was a disaster. People standing at crafting tables, still wearing full plate, ignoring everything around them; people dashing out at server reset to find rare crafting components, and hoarding any extras in their PChests; people spending hours and hours trying to mine ore and thus being unavailable for multiplayer rp.

Then you spank them for it. Done and done.

I hate customer service. If I have to spend my time parsing logs so I can poove (even to myself) that somebody deserves a spanking, I'm going to be seriously questioning how to stop it in the toolset.

Mulu raised four concerns - players ignoring everything around them for crafting at the table; people dashing out after server reset to find spawned rare materials; people hoarding in their pchests; and people spending hours mining, thus ignoring RP.

If you see a player ignoring his surroundings for crafting (i.e. not emoting what he's doing, not talking to other characters) you pull him aside briefly and ask him why. No good reason, you warn him that this is an RP server (seeing as we have an application, I see no issue here); if he continues, dock him XP or disallow him access to crafting for a while, until he's shown sufficient RPing consistency.

If you see people dashing for resources at server reset, there's a few solutions. First, make resources spawn at random time intervals after restart; second, global ALFA rule - no gathering crafting resources until 30 minutes have passed on a server restart (gives time to organize a group to go find them; DMs can setup some stuff if they want). Not perfect, but no system is, and the exploitability is pretty low here.

If people are hoarding in Pchests, set a weight and item limit for them (say 10 items or 100 lbs, whichever is reached first). If a hunk of metal ore weighs 15 lbs, you can't hoard much. Hell, you can even restrict crafting items if you wanted.

If people are spending hours mining and ignoring RP, take them aside and ask them why. Warn him, dock him XP if it keeps happening, or remove his crafting privelages. Or if you like, drop some mobs on him if he's soloing caves for ore.

--

I know that DMs are here to have fun, and believe me I want them to enjoy what they do. But sometimes a DM has to use the painstick; not everything can be coded to be non-exploitable 100% of the time, because that's not how things work. That's not saying we shouldn't aim for controls; but DMs are as important to keeping the rules as coders are.

[Nerine]

Or if you like, drop some mobs on him if he's soloing caves for ore.

And this is strangely satisfying - for me anyhow, so much so that I really hope players do try this. I've always relished finding a lone farmer... what? what are you staring at me like that for?

[Mulu]

If people are spending hours mining and ignoring RP, take them aside and ask them why.

"Because I'm a dwarven blacksmith and it's perfectly IC for me to do so." And it is, that's the problem. You can't punish people for being IC. You also can't punish people for using a system that you put in your mod. It's hard to call mining for ore for hours an "abuse" when it's very realistic to do so. Yet, it still has the net effect of reducing rp on the server. It's those harder to spot and fix problems that shy me away from a crafting system. Things like the economics is easy, just make crafted stuff worthless.

[NESchampion]

If people are spending hours mining and ignoring RP, take them aside and ask them why.

"Because I'm a dwarven blacksmith and it's perfectly IC for me to do so."

That excuse doesn't work for CE Barbarian's attacking other PCs for no reason; if it's blatantly obvious they aren't making at least some effort to RP, then I see no problem with saying that's no good either.

Again, something that's in the DMs hands. I think it's about time we trusted our DMs enough to let them be able to discipline as necessary, seeing as how they're putting in the effort to make our game more enjoyable.

But that's a subject for another thread.

[fluffmonster]

If people are spending hours mining and ignoring RP, take them aside and ask them why.

"Because I'm a dwarven blacksmith and it's perfectly IC for me to do so." And it is, that's the problem. You can't punish people for being IC. You also can't punish people for using a system that you put in your mod. It's hard to call mining for ore for hours an "abuse" when it's very realistic to do so. Yet, it still has the net effect of reducing rp on the server. It's those harder to spot and fix problems that shy me away from a crafting system. Things like the economics is easy, just make crafted stuff worthless.

and its perfectly IC for DMs to drop unexpected mobs on them. That's only 'punishment' if you expect to be left alone as you go about your resource farming.

[Ronan]

If people are spending hours mining and ignoring RP, take them aside and ask them why.

"Because I'm a dwarven blacksmith and it's perfectly IC for me to do so."

That excuse doesn't work for CE Barbarian's attacking other PCs for no reason; if it's blatantly obvious they aren't making at least some effort to RP, then I see no problem with saying that's no good either.

CvC is different. In ALFA, CvCers are expected to differ as much as is reasonable to keep CvC from happening. You can play a CE nutcase who kills random people, just try to make those people NPCs. Any good RPer leaves a bit of his PC ambiguous for everyone's overall enjoyment. CE barbies may have their PC in a "good mood" when accidentally insulted by a party member, and people invent little excuses to meet up all the time. CvC is an extreme example of this, where murderous PCs are litterally required not to commit random acts of murder against PCs.

Dwarves are insane little workers who mine like crazy. They mine to such an extent that they'll dig their way into the Underdark out of sheer greed, and get pwned by horrible monsters. If someone wants to do mine all day, I have no problem with it. The system should be set up in such a way that its a poor form of PGing. We've already established that ALFA's model of PC advancement places most of the gains at the hands of DMs, and that crafting should be below adventuring statics in terms of gain-rate. That leaves crafting at the bottom of the barrel.

Don't get me wrong, if someone is farming crafting and not RPing properly, they shouldn't be in ALFA. But if they are staying IC, we have no business telling them how to RP their PCs or that they should be interacting with others. Don't forget that farming is exploitation, not a simple dedication to task. If said PC is exploiting or not RPing properly, he needs to go. If he's doing none of the above, let him be.

[Mulu]

Precisely.

[NESchampion]

If people are spending hours mining and ignoring RP, take them aside and ask them why.

"Because I'm a dwarven blacksmith and it's perfectly IC for me to do so."

That excuse doesn't work for CE Barbarian's attacking other PCs for no reason; if it's blatantly obvious they aren't making at least some effort to RP, then I see no problem with saying that's no good either.

CvC is different. In ALFA, CvCers are expected to differ as much as is reasonable to keep CvC from happening. You can play a CE nutcase who kills random people, just try to make those people NPCs. Any good RPer leaves a bit of his PC ambiguous for everyone's overall enjoyment. CE barbies may have their PC in a "good mood" when accidentally insulted by a party member, and people invent little excuses to meet up all the time. CvC is an extreme example of this, where murderous PCs are litterally required not to commit random acts of murder against PCs.

Dwarves are insane little workers who mine like crazy. They mine to such an extent that they'll dig their way into the Underdark out of sheer greed, and get pwned by horrible monsters. If someone wants to do mine all day, I have no problem with it. The system should be set up in such a way that its a poor form of PGing. We've already established that ALFA's model of PC advancement places most of the gains at the hands of DMs, and that crafting should be below adventuring statics in terms of gain-rate. That leaves crafting at the bottom of the barrel.

Don't get me wrong, if someone is farming crafting and not RPing properly, they shouldn't be in ALFA. But if they are staying IC, we have no business telling them how to RP their PCs or that they should be interacting with others. Don't forget that farming is exploitation, not a simple dedication to task. If said PC is exploiting or not RPing properly, he needs to go. If he's doing none of the above, let him be.

*motions to fluffs post just above Ronans* Couldn't have said it better.

[Veilan]

ALFA has crafting. I was quite able to stonecarve several statues and pillars on a plethora of servers ranging from TSM to BG, not to mention able to create improvised slings and other weaponry.

And I quite allowed characters to paint paintings or dabble in other arts and crafts on NW (well, we had a crafting system installed later anyway, drama ensued). Point is, ALFA is supposed to be a fully immersive world, so, d'uh. Don't think we need un-immersive subsystems in a rulework that feels mechanical and not very intuitive and fluid at all.

So what's this thread about actually? Compare it with Avlis? Well, crafting is only part of the wealth and exp treadmill there and one of the most un-social behaviours people engage in there... but oh well, I guess 24/7 content that advances your character really is needed...?

Gotta say TPI scripts were a better idea than crafting for that, because they were the opposite - they encouraged people to stay on and do something worthwhile together, even if it was just chatting and roleplaying, instead of encouraging them to run off on their own and make those elixirs of heavenly healing... ah well.