Dread Angel
2012-11-22, 08:24 PM
Hello folks.
I know WoW is not actually a roleplaying game, but it does have the elements there.
My little guild has the setting that it is a college, of sorts. Therefore there are instructors.
Before I joined, they used a system with the /roll command to simulate fair duels between characters, regardless of their in-game level.
Worked simply enough. Player 1 describes an attack with the /emote command, rolls an attack, defender rolls, comes out looking like this in the chatbox, from Araris' perspective:
Araris draws his blade and slashes at Nathaira's eyes.
You roll a 64
Nathaira rolls a 79
Nathaira jerks backwards out of the path of the blade, and sends a bolt of hellfire at the swordsman's face.
Nathaira rolls a 2
You roll a 53
.....and so on and so forth until someone scores 3 hits, winning the duel.
This is literally perfectly fair, as any character can duel any other character and the odds of winning are 50/50 regardless of gear, level etc.
I've taken over an officer's role in the guild, and have proposed this more in-depth system.
As it is a college, we have instructors. Araris, my character, is the school's blademaster (as well as being a highly respected duelist and weapon master in his own right), etc. And we have students.
Becoming an instructor is a matter of consulting the guild leaders and organizing it first, showing you can roleplay teaching properly, etc. But being a student is where most of our members find themselves.
Now, what is the point of attending in character classes if you don't see a benefit from it? Further, what's stopping any old student from challenging an instructor and having the 50/50 chance of beating the absolute crap out of them?
At the moment, nothing.
I came up with a simple system that is more in depth and lends more realism to the whole "collegiate" setting.
Each character, be they student or instructor, gets a skill level at whatever form of attack they use. This reflects as their minimum roll limit, and instructors have a very, very high one, reflecting that they are essentially Boss types. Let's use Araris as an example.
Araris is highly trained in most every type of weapon, and is the blademaster of the College. His entry would look like this:
Main Weapon (in this case, his twin katanas) 75-100
Other Melee (any melee weapon besides his swords) 60-100
Ranged 35-100
This is his stats as a boss encounter. These are both for attack and defense, i.e. if he is wielding his swords he rolls between 75 and 100 for his attacks and for his defense, etc.
He engages in a practice bout with Issirin, a student who prefers ranged weapons. Issirin is an expert hunter and stealth attacker, but is not versed in open combat. Her stats are:
Ranged 10-100
Other 1-100
This means that essentially she has a better chance to hit with her crossbow than her daggers, because she is more practiced with her ranged weapons, but not so practiced that she has the discipline and skill to hold her ground in the face of a charging plate-armored warrior and place a kill shot perfectly.
So she still has the chance of rolling upwards of 75, meaning that anzthing below 75 can't hit Araris by virtue of the fact that he never rolls below 75. They clash, he closes with her and disarms her, she draws her daggers as a desperate measure and has a full 1-100, i.e. only the 25% chance that she will even have a chance to hit him. If you follow.
So, that balances the student-instructor relationship.
As students attend class, practice, become more versed in their weapons, they increase their skill with it, raising their minimum roll value, until they gradually approach the skill level of their instructor and become thus more likely to hit and defend successfully.
This rather neatly simulates learning and ties it in to the roleplaying.
If two people of equal and high skill level such as two instructors duel, they use 1-100.
In this way, any character can improve any of their weaponplay by actually practicing in character.
Each instructor will be required to keep track of each student's current stats on the website, and anyone can look into it.
This simulates actually watching your classmates practice and knowing how good they are with what....which would realistically happen.
No skill level ever goes about 75-100.
It rather neatly solves our problems, I think.
Nath pointed out that people can simply create characters and claim to be a world expert in the field or whatever, which is true in itself.
This is where roleplaying comes in. If you're a world expert in swordsmanship, you aren't going to end up in Araris' classroom because you don't need improvement. By choosing a student role, you de facto assume that you are there to learn and improve your skills.
I think this makes sense, the people I have spoken to so far agreed. I wanted a more broad opinion though, does this make sense or am I just being super-biased because I'm one of the instructors, at least with that character?
I know WoW is not actually a roleplaying game, but it does have the elements there.
My little guild has the setting that it is a college, of sorts. Therefore there are instructors.
Before I joined, they used a system with the /roll command to simulate fair duels between characters, regardless of their in-game level.
Worked simply enough. Player 1 describes an attack with the /emote command, rolls an attack, defender rolls, comes out looking like this in the chatbox, from Araris' perspective:
Araris draws his blade and slashes at Nathaira's eyes.
You roll a 64
Nathaira rolls a 79
Nathaira jerks backwards out of the path of the blade, and sends a bolt of hellfire at the swordsman's face.
Nathaira rolls a 2
You roll a 53
.....and so on and so forth until someone scores 3 hits, winning the duel.
This is literally perfectly fair, as any character can duel any other character and the odds of winning are 50/50 regardless of gear, level etc.
I've taken over an officer's role in the guild, and have proposed this more in-depth system.
As it is a college, we have instructors. Araris, my character, is the school's blademaster (as well as being a highly respected duelist and weapon master in his own right), etc. And we have students.
Becoming an instructor is a matter of consulting the guild leaders and organizing it first, showing you can roleplay teaching properly, etc. But being a student is where most of our members find themselves.
Now, what is the point of attending in character classes if you don't see a benefit from it? Further, what's stopping any old student from challenging an instructor and having the 50/50 chance of beating the absolute crap out of them?
At the moment, nothing.
I came up with a simple system that is more in depth and lends more realism to the whole "collegiate" setting.
Each character, be they student or instructor, gets a skill level at whatever form of attack they use. This reflects as their minimum roll limit, and instructors have a very, very high one, reflecting that they are essentially Boss types. Let's use Araris as an example.
Araris is highly trained in most every type of weapon, and is the blademaster of the College. His entry would look like this:
Main Weapon (in this case, his twin katanas) 75-100
Other Melee (any melee weapon besides his swords) 60-100
Ranged 35-100
This is his stats as a boss encounter. These are both for attack and defense, i.e. if he is wielding his swords he rolls between 75 and 100 for his attacks and for his defense, etc.
He engages in a practice bout with Issirin, a student who prefers ranged weapons. Issirin is an expert hunter and stealth attacker, but is not versed in open combat. Her stats are:
Ranged 10-100
Other 1-100
This means that essentially she has a better chance to hit with her crossbow than her daggers, because she is more practiced with her ranged weapons, but not so practiced that she has the discipline and skill to hold her ground in the face of a charging plate-armored warrior and place a kill shot perfectly.
So she still has the chance of rolling upwards of 75, meaning that anzthing below 75 can't hit Araris by virtue of the fact that he never rolls below 75. They clash, he closes with her and disarms her, she draws her daggers as a desperate measure and has a full 1-100, i.e. only the 25% chance that she will even have a chance to hit him. If you follow.
So, that balances the student-instructor relationship.
As students attend class, practice, become more versed in their weapons, they increase their skill with it, raising their minimum roll value, until they gradually approach the skill level of their instructor and become thus more likely to hit and defend successfully.
This rather neatly simulates learning and ties it in to the roleplaying.
If two people of equal and high skill level such as two instructors duel, they use 1-100.
In this way, any character can improve any of their weaponplay by actually practicing in character.
Each instructor will be required to keep track of each student's current stats on the website, and anyone can look into it.
This simulates actually watching your classmates practice and knowing how good they are with what....which would realistically happen.
No skill level ever goes about 75-100.
It rather neatly solves our problems, I think.
Nath pointed out that people can simply create characters and claim to be a world expert in the field or whatever, which is true in itself.
This is where roleplaying comes in. If you're a world expert in swordsmanship, you aren't going to end up in Araris' classroom because you don't need improvement. By choosing a student role, you de facto assume that you are there to learn and improve your skills.
I think this makes sense, the people I have spoken to so far agreed. I wanted a more broad opinion though, does this make sense or am I just being super-biased because I'm one of the instructors, at least with that character?