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Mercan · 01-10-2004, 09:34 PM

I've never had anything to do with the Administration of a MU* of any kind, so this idea is completely based on my experience as a player, and a occassional builder/coder for my own enjoyment. However, in my mind the best system would be one that is basically classless at the code level, but effectively class based at the playing level.

By this I mean, that the administration of skills/classes should fall to player organizations and not just to code. The general skills would be accessible to everyone and anyone can gain any skill that they like. However, in order to do this they need to find someone IC to teach the skill to them. There would be no NPC teachers, at least not for specialized skills, and gaining a skill, and increasing it past certain levels would both require learning from a Human instructor (An action that would be ideally combined with Instruction RP.)

Instead of gaining skillpts, or XP, or something like that, players who were sufficiently skilled in a particular /skillset/ would receive a certain number of teaching points/time period (perhaps including a dependence on a teaching skill level as well). They could then teach another player for a certain number of Teaching points based on their evaluation of the effectiveness of the RP.

The specialized skills would then be placed in the hands of Player Organizations and the dissemination of those skills would be determined by the decisions of those organizations. This would lead to a great divergance of the availability of skills, that isn't available in other systems. For instance:

-A Metalworkers guild may exist, but mostly for trade purposes. The learning of Metalworking skills would likely involve paying the guild to set you up with a Master Smith, to be apprenticed to.

-A Religious Order may have access to healing abilities and magic. They may decide to freely teach the some initial healing abilities for free or a small donation of time or money to charity, but keep back the higher level skills out of fear that they will be misused.

-A group of reclusive magic users may refuse to teach anyone their secrets. Even forcing those who wish to join their circle to spend several years in apprenticeship before being taught even the most basic of magical abilities.

While not exactly class-based, this would help keep things a lot more IC than just having NPC teachers scattered about the realms, who you can spend some skillpoints at to suddenly gain a new skill completely unrelated to anything you've done before.

There are obviously lots of issues with this system, as there would be with any system. But I think it would allow for a lot of good RP opportunities. It would also help give the skill setup a feeling of authenticity and realism, and allow players to effect the evolution of the world on a larger level.

Some of the big problems that I foresee with a system like this are:

1)It would require a fairly large playerbase to sustain itself without a lot of Admin involvement in teaching and the like, Especially if a lot of skills are available

2)Like any automated system it is suseptible to those who refuse to play according to the rules (ie. teaching without IC reason and/or without RP'ing the actual lesson.

3)The system could rapidly devolve into a simple classless system over time, or quite rapidly if groups decide not to protect the value of their skills. Keeping the number of teaching points that individuals can get to a low value may help protect against this.

4) Not really a problem, but an issue. Permadeath would be necessary for the system to work. The guilds have to have the ability to dissuade those who leave the guild from teaching protected skills to people who shouldn't have them. If killing the person only temporarily sets them back, then control of the skills could very easily be lost.

01-10-2004, 09:34 PM	#66
Mercan New Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 4	I've never had anything to do with the Administration of a MU* of any kind, so this idea is completely based on my experience as a player, and a occassional builder/coder for my own enjoyment. However, in my mind the best system would be one that is basically classless at the code level, but effectively class based at the playing level. By this I mean, that the administration of skills/classes should fall to player organizations and not just to code. The general skills would be accessible to everyone and anyone can gain any skill that they like. However, in order to do this they need to find someone IC to teach the skill to them. There would be no NPC teachers, at least not for specialized skills, and gaining a skill, and increasing it past certain levels would both require learning from a Human instructor (An action that would be ideally combined with Instruction RP.) Instead of gaining skillpts, or XP, or something like that, players who were sufficiently skilled in a particular /skillset/ would receive a certain number of teaching points/time period (perhaps including a dependence on a teaching skill level as well). They could then teach another player for a certain number of Teaching points based on their evaluation of the effectiveness of the RP. The specialized skills would then be placed in the hands of Player Organizations and the dissemination of those skills would be determined by the decisions of those organizations. This would lead to a great divergance of the availability of skills, that isn't available in other systems. For instance: -A Metalworkers guild may exist, but mostly for trade purposes. The learning of Metalworking skills would likely involve paying the guild to set you up with a Master Smith, to be apprenticed to. -A Religious Order may have access to healing abilities and magic. They may decide to freely teach the some initial healing abilities for free or a small donation of time or money to charity, but keep back the higher level skills out of fear that they will be misused. -A group of reclusive magic users may refuse to teach anyone their secrets. Even forcing those who wish to join their circle to spend several years in apprenticeship before being taught even the most basic of magical abilities. While not exactly class-based, this would help keep things a lot more IC than just having NPC teachers scattered about the realms, who you can spend some skillpoints at to suddenly gain a new skill completely unrelated to anything you've done before. There are obviously lots of issues with this system, as there would be with any system. But I think it would allow for a lot of good RP opportunities. It would also help give the skill setup a feeling of authenticity and realism, and allow players to effect the evolution of the world on a larger level. Some of the big problems that I foresee with a system like this are: 1)It would require a fairly large playerbase to sustain itself without a lot of Admin involvement in teaching and the like, Especially if a lot of skills are available 2)Like any automated system it is suseptible to those who refuse to play according to the rules (ie. teaching without IC reason and/or without RP'ing the actual lesson. 3)The system could rapidly devolve into a simple classless system over time, or quite rapidly if groups decide not to protect the value of their skills. Keeping the number of teaching points that individuals can get to a low value may help protect against this. 4) Not really a problem, but an issue. Permadeath would be necessary for the system to work. The guilds have to have the ability to dissuade those who leave the guild from teaching protected skills to people who shouldn't have them. If killing the person only temporarily sets them back, then control of the skills could very easily be lost.