When I took my break this last time, I played on an NWN2 server that had seemingly solved many of the issues that have been troublesome for implementing RP XP on Amia. This is not a topic to start an argument, let me say that right off, but some observations that might make implementing it on Amia more feasible than it has in the past, and possibly addressing some concerns the staff has had with it:

First things first, on this server you must be within whisper distance of another PC for you to gain this xp.

Secondly, it did not work in party chat or tells, only in whisper, emotes and normal chat modes.

Thirdly, if you did not speak/RP in a given amount of time, you gained no xp from the interaction, matter of fact, if you did not speak or move within 24 minutes the server would boot you as excessively afk.

Fourthly, it would take you X amount of RP XP to gain an RP token, or in our case a DC. This accrual was persistent, you could work on it over a number of resets.

Fifthly, the RP XP capped at 2500 xp per four hours. After two hours of being unable to gain anymore RP XP, the meter would resume.

In all my years playing this is the first time I have seen an RP XP automated system that actually worked, was fair and did not reward the habitual AFKers. Sadly I do not know how it was scripted or how complicated the scripting would be, but I thought it might help and give ideas for a system of our own which has been repeatedly brought up, but has yet to sort out some of the flaws that this system seems to have found a way to sort out. I do not know how they measured RP XP, but many times I could easily get 40-50 XP every few minutes if I was consistently RPing.

I sincerely hope that these observation from another server give the devs and staff some ideas on how to implement such a beneficial system, as there are a lot of us that would rather RP all day than grind monsters.

Thank you for your consideration,
~LDR

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I don't have a strong opinion on this one way or the other - besides for the third thing.

Speaking as just a "private citizen" player and not a dev, I would rocket off into space if something like the Third Thing was implemented. It's intensely bad for sneak/spy characters; sometimes your Hide is higher than your Move Silently, so you're not likely to be moving around. And you're sneaking/spying so you're not likely to be putting anything in public channels for long spans on time. Often you just choose a good spot, put down anchor, and sit there for the four hour long meeting (or whatever) that you've crashed.

I'm also the kind of player who is happy to loiter somewhere, just to be available, not necessarily doing anything except keeping an eye on the screen, until someone happens by. Third Thing would also be bad for that.

The other things are fine to me, conceptually. Numbers would undoubtedly be tweaked to whatever was suitable for Amia. I assume one of the biggest non-scripting related protests will be that this is what Dream Coins effectively do/are for, but I think we're all familiar with the arguments about distribution and dead zones in timezones and the like. Maybe moot with Fourth Thing, although I'm not really sure how I feel about that. I don't know.

I mainly just had a visceral reaction to Third Thing, and am ambivalent about the rest.

The third one is why this has never been implemented on Amia, too easy for ppl to just go afk and accrue RP XP for nothing. There are plenty of sneaks that could easily earn RP XP just from the whispers they send a specific person while observing.... Don't want to start an argument here, but I don't feel too badly for sneaks that just want to stand and watch people not getting RP XP.... the whole point of RP XP is for RPing and interacting.

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Let's not sell espionage short here - while its immediate practice does not increase or decrease the amount of ongoing roleplay, its subsequent dissemination opens previously hidden roleplay for the masses (or a subset thereof) to enjoy and react to. Overall, they are making valuable contributions. But - these systems, done right, do allow them to receive their dues, once they report - it even gives incentive not to report through the magical and untraceable PM system, by offering a slight exp reward when talking to your handler. And yeah, we're not talking about huge amounts, so I don't think anyone is really getting shafted. Besides... The sort of people best suited to playing the fly on the wall don't really need exp, they already maxed out in order to beat the spotters.

I don't know much about scripting or servers but apparently the Ravenloft server managed a fairly robust system to transmit roleplaying exp while minimising potential exploits, so for the most part it appears doable.

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@Thanatopsis#6293

I don't really care to argue about the third point.
But everything else, absolutely fantastic.

I personally like all of these points, myself, save for three. Though, I do have to wonder about the first point as well. More often than not, people wind up RPing in normal chat (myself included) without exactly being within whisper range. Perhaps sitting on the benches in Wharftown while someone his just across the road, for instance. The limitation of only being within whisper range to get said RP XP could be a little broken in that regard. I know that it would often work better with larger groups of people, as the distances could connect like a change. However, there are still people who interact with others while wanting to keep a side, whispered conversation to themselves and out of range of anyone else.

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I can't see how getting a little xp every few minutes for actively chatting is a bad thing. I mean like 50xp every minute or two. That's far from fast progression, but it might help out with keeping people who are levelling, gaining. PoTM has a good system for it, but, no idea how much xp you actually get, they hide that. Still, I'd like to see something like this implemented.

I hate to sound like a wet blanket, but i'm not a super-fan of free-xp for just chatting people up. It seems strange to me to just chat for several hours and suddenly know how to call a black blade of disaster and/or stop time, or chat for a month and walk out a scythe weapon master.

I'd think a cap per-level would be better, such as like 50% of that levels XP.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

I don't think a few hours would make you a powerhouse with a thousand or two xp.... but, I see your point. Still, more ways to give a little xp aren't bad, they help diversify the classes we see.

50 xp every few minutes does actually seem excessive to me. Mind you, I wouldn't be opposed to XP over time, with RPing. But likely something like... 10-20 XP per in game hour at the absolute MOST.

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I'm pretty much in the same boat here - Although I have a potential solution to this issue. One Neverwinter Nights 2 server I play on has a RP EXP system where, instead of the exp directly going to the player, it gets put into a pool that doubles your EXP gains until exhausted. Something like this would probably be a bit difficult to pull off, but it would give us the benefits of RP EXP without making you a master of magic over several cups of tea.

This is the common complaint about RP exp - "How did those guys who did nothing but discuss turnip economics for several days become ultimate masters of arcana?" but the thing is, under the current system you could be legitimately developing your skills either by discussing them, emoting training or any other number of practical things, and yet you won't get any better at anything (no matter how non-violent your skillset may be) until you massacre hordes of monsters in the field, or watch it done. Heck you get more exp out of shearing sheep than working on a thesis with your buddy. Roleplay is what we're here for, we should be further incentivising it to stop people feeling the need to run away from RP and grind (and it still is a need, you'll be hard-pressed to find a DM event with any sort of combat in which said combat isn't scaled for 30s).

Speed, hard caps and so on are just a question of figures. The question is whether or not the idea stands on its own merits - does the potential for abuse or the further abstraction of the already-abstract exp system outweigh the benefits of creating a system which rewards RP without a DM around? No? Then it's just a question of whether or not we have the devs to get it done.

More details: don't like the whisper range thing, you already have clause 3 to ensure people are engaged. 4 seems like a separate (and perhaps mutually exclusive) system altogether, as automated rather than essentially random DCs will mean it is safer to burn DCs for exp gain.

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@Thanatopsis#6293

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Edit: I've actually seen this system on an NwN1 server before as OP mentioned, same attributes... which makes me suspect/hope this coding might be in the NWVault somewhere *crosses fingers* so sad they shut that down. I'll try searching for it but I might need others' help. "roleplay xp reward" are very generic terms for a Nwn search engine 8/

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I think Serbiris has adequately argued a number of my positions on the subject.

I've personally enjoyed roleplay experience systems on NWN servers. I don't know the specifics of how they did it (Which is a point I'll expand in a bit), but despite how some claimed, it never felt like it was in replacement of actual combat and grinding. Rather, it was an excellent encouragement to continue to be involved and roleplay with one another.

I mentioned having specifics, before. It might be a little too late to consider, but I personally think that the less the players know about the formula for roleplay experience, the better. I definitely don't think we should be booting spies without them knowing about these changes (And I'd be against that afk booting, but not against them not receiving xp). But what I'm getting at with this is that roleplay needs to be for roleplay's sake. The focus should always remain to roleplay for the quality of the roleplaying experience, rather than to maximize the mechanical benefits. That's not to say having RP XP is a bad thing at all, it's just that the less we know about how to acquire the maximum amount the fastest, the less incentives players will have to strive for that 'efficiency' rather than roleplaying naturally.



But let's take a second and review the math anyway, while it's still in its conceptual stage (To make a point, of course). A cap of 2500 xp over the course of 4 hours, with a 2 hour downtime. 450,000 XP is the number to reach level 30. That means that if the character was only roleplaying and wanted to use this system as fast as he could to level it would take 1080 total hours of roleplay for a character to reach level 30. That's 45 days of 24 hours-a-day Neverwinter Nights, with 2 hours of break every 4 hours.

That's not suddenly learning how to cast Black Blade of Disaster just by chatting.

That's a long time. Many people can grind a character to level 30 in a week, and they're not playing every hour of the day by a longshot. There are also people who have acquired enough DC's and can create an epic character within 2 minutes of making their character. I've done this twice, because I wanted to avoid the repetition of grinding that badly.

And let's at least consider that Roleplay encompasses far more than just chatting. It could be apprentice-master training, it could be political intrigue, it could be anything. So to invalidate the worth of roleplay experience simply by highlighting a handful of lighter-quality examples of roleplaying isn't looking at the whole picture. Roleplay experience helps numerous concepts who wouldn't realistically dungeon-dive, but who should be reaching higher levels as well. Sure, there are some non-combat characters who don't necessarily need any levels at all. But just because a build is non-combative doesn't mean that deserves to remain a level 3 forever. For instance, a master thief character who is by creed non-violent. A level 3 couldn't fulfill this role, because skillpoints are required. Hell, you could even have a wizard who while he has the potential to now cast Black Blades of Disaster could also simply cast divination spells or be an accomplished transmuter who refuses to harm another creature/person. These non-combat character concepts have historically been very difficult to do, when the most effective and main method of acquiring xp is dungeoning. This is especially true now with the reiteration of purpose that the job system was never meant to replace dungeoning.

Being particularly honest, if a character was around for 45 days worth of constant roleplay and they achieved level 30, I wouldn't be upset. They've earned it by contributing that many hours of roleplay to the server. Think about who this change would impact. It's not likely going to substantially impact characters who don't mind dungeon grinding, because it's just not that much xp. Their preferred methods are faster and more rewarding for their concept. It's not going to impact the vast majority of characters who are already level 30, as they get nothing from it. But it will impact non-combat builds.

In essence, these changes would help encourage interaction and encourage character diversity.

Except it's essentially 2500 xp, more then a full dungeon run, for sitting around and chatting.

As much as I love the bridge-bullshit-conversations, I've never felt like I should or needed to be tangibly rewarded for essentially idle chatter. Since the script or code is done without a human actually dolling out the XP or reviewing what's being discussed, we would be back to were we were before; epic weapon masters/wizards/druids dinging thirty/gaining epic spells/epic skills/epic weapon spec because they just got XP for standing around and chatting about butts.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

+1

... but this is an RP server and a character is much more than its mechanical make up, it is all the little quirks and butt talks that go into defining its personality as much as it is the class and build that allows you to play the game. A person is rewarded for running a dungeon by the xp, the gp and the time spent physically doing the run. Yet if you sit and rp for hours i'm told the only thing i should take from that is the joy i feel for getting the privilege of rping with someone? I am actually on the fence with this, rp is its own reward after all and getting a DC when a DM is on and not running an event is nice... but that kind of reward is really reliant on someone being there, sitting there, and watching the whole rp without taking an active part in it... and who enjoys just watching others rp? (Granted i do hence the character recluse in most cases! lol)

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When it rains, look for rainbows.
When it's dark, look for stars.

In this example, it's 2500 over the course of 4 hours (With a 2 hour cooldown, even). 4 (Effectively six) Hours of straight dungeon-running would yield manymanymany times that. I'd be willing to bet that even the nerfed xp job system would have a higher yield of xp over the course of 6 hours of spamming every few minutes.

But that's just the numerical side of your argument. The other side, while I may think you word it poorly and don't expand upon it, is the most compelling argument against Rp Xp. And that's that Rp Xp rewards roleplay interaction without regard for its quality. Furthermore, it could be said that we already have Dreamcoins to reward good rp that can be used for Xp. That the DM's can pick and choose among roleplayers who is performing quality rp. 'Sifting through the butt-chat', so to speak.

These DC's can furthermore be used for customization, 15,000-20,000 xp in a single minute, etc.

But at the end of the day, I've been rewarded for butt chat too. I once earned 4 DC's in a single instance for having my character adopt a Kurchin accent, trip, and faceplant into a light pole. I guess I made the DM laugh enough to break protocol. DC's have been given from interacting with Bro-Dog, Tyrant of the Orc Kingdom (Hallowed be His name). Or for simply being present to observe a bunch of DM's possessing gnomes who were racing on the back of frogs pass through Bendir Dale.

And I'm not saying that to trash DM's-- I'm saying that silliness isn't necessarily something that we have to keep away from always, or that can't/shouldn't be rewarded.



I guess that I'm saying that even butt chat can be quality butt chat. And that the Amia I know and love supports a wide variety of roleplayers.

Giving xp for things that normally wouldn't yield xp realistically (training, slaying) is alright, given the state of NWN (being old and low population). It's breaking character a little, that's undeniable- but isn't mindless no RP grind doing that too? And to date, I've not seen one party stay IC the entire grind session.

A more realistic approach for this, though, might be actual training. A wizard casting spells in a testing chamber. An archer shooting apples out of a tree. A WM targeting weak points on an armored combat dummy. Just an alternative though.

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so he would always have a friend

Yeah, and I think that's the disconnect I have with the proposed system. I don't feel it makes sense to have someone attend partes and work their way to being a scythe weapon master build through idle chatter through a slow iv drip of xp. At the same time, I don't know why someone who just rp's needs to be level thirty at all. If said character doesn't care about combat or training or honing their skills, good. Their ig abilities should reflect it. You dont need to be Billy Badass epic weapon master/wizard to hold office or rp or do events or anything.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

Yeah see I like this because it makes sense.

I just feel that if you want a character with level thiry/epic shit you need to actually be doing stuff to make you better at that.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

I dunno. I'm still greatly in favour of an RP XP system over time. Specifically in favour of the 2500 xp thing over the course of 4 hours (6 hours with cooldown). I get that people can get this by sitting around doing idle chatter, sure, but there are also a great many times I see people taking actual initiative and the like with training (sparring or otherwise), performing their craft outside of combat, etc. All-in-all, it's impossible for a system to differentiate between idle chatter and actually RPing out said training. So honestly, I feel that it doesn't really matter a great deal as it will benefit things a lot more to actually award people for RP, given the use of actual training. The number of times I've gone through extensive RP of solving problems, training, learning from things, etc, far outweighs the times I've just had idle chatter.

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Allright ya swung me. Im in favor of it now.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

I've heard it said that some RP XP systems use key words that trigger timers, or something to that effect. I guess some of the words are from a more medieval setting as well.

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Knoweth not for whom for the xp goeth. For the xp goeth to thee.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

A system that can't reward hiding, stealth, and spying players properly (and doesn't require them to do emotes that give themselves away) isn't a system I'd want to implement on Amia. That's the biggest hurdle to anything like this and one I'd need to see safely leapt over before I could support anything.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

I agree with Serbiris that any spy in Amia that relies on Stealth is maxed level with plenty of H/MS items, and that if they are lucky enough that their target doesnt have 3500 gps for Deep Fried Something, that doesnt even require UMD.

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I play:
Frums Deedone, the Green Child
Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum

Are you saying that shouldn't be rewarded, then?



This isn't true.

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Davion Telemos - Monk of the Four Winds
Korthan Isharnos - Dragon Shaman of Thunder Spirit Zamasham

Heh, if it were true, there would be no lvl 30s with epic drops, obviously...



No. You get xp from doing things that carry risk. Sitting around hiding behind crates on the dock is a lot different than hiding for your life behind a rock in a goblin warren. Otherwise, the highest level fighter is the fighter who never fights, he just goes out and smacks a scarecrow all day.

Anyways, all I need is this RP XP, then I can dress all in black and sit around Caraigh whispering menacingly and I won't know if I accidentally logged in Ravenloft or not.

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Rashad the Azure, Zakharan Merchant-lord Most Fair and Master of the Desert Wind
Loremaster Tukson Devers, Oghmanyte Wrestler of Knowledge and Child of the Passive Voice

(No tells for Rashad while I'm playing other characters please.)

Not at all, I just dont think the XP reward matters much for those characters. They should absolutely be rewarded, but IMHO the best way to do that would be a thread in the DM forums listing those characters and those players, so that a DM who is not running an event could watch out for them more easily and maybe give them a double touch of the DC wand (if that doesnt exist already, of course).


As for the events that involve combat, I agree that it is not exactly true, and should have made it clearer it was a hyperbole. From personal experience though being low level or even having a non-optimized build does make you take a lot of dirt naps when events involve combat. I had a new player telling me the same too a couple days ago, they joined what was advertised as a Low Level Event and felt that they were basically stomped and couldnt contribute to combat at all.

I'll say again that this is not trying to be a smartass or snarky, or criticizing. It is just how it felt to me as a player, and I'd have to search the forums but I believe I read it mentioned that even regular spawns in many areas are balanced towards "providing boss-hunters with a challenge", hence my hyperbole. If I am completely off the mark I apologize.

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I play:
Frums Deedone, the Green Child
Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum

I'm against this, personally. I don't really have much to add, either, I just disagree with the points. I think we're still playing a game, and nobody is forcing you to hunt monsters and level up. You can RP just fine as it is, and frankly, I think all of that 'grinding' which isn't that much, does help you adapt to your role in combat both through RP and otherwise IC. I just don't see the value in playing a game that plays the game for you.

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

Another good counterpoint.

I'm off-board with this plan once again.

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ANT ALARM

ANT ALARM

Now, mind you, I definitely don't think RP XP should ever come remotely close to XP from actual combat. However, being an RP server (and I know adventuring is a major part of all that), there's going to be a LOT going on, on the side, that no one may even know about. While I do agree that RP should honestly be its own reward, it does feel a bit poor when RP you might do alone or otherwise carries absolutely no progress with it. There is character development, sure, but that should honestly be translated towards at least a small portion of XP, I find. Experience is literally that. It's the quantification of your character's own experiences to further their development.

I also know there are DMs that are around, at times, to toss DCs to people for good RP, of course. I'm definitely not discounting this in any way. But DMs also can't be everywhere at once, or online 24/7. A character really doesn't only gain meaningful experiences through combat, but also the conversations they have, the things they do and interact with, etc. It's literally everything a character does that defines their "experience".

As a quick footnote, I do realize the stuff Tormak mentioned about the inability to gain proper XP for espionage/spy RP. I'd normally suggest the person in question just tossing out emotes through whisper. Things that the people can't see. However, as has been proven maaaany times on NWN, metagaming can easily become a thing. Not specifically suggesting anyone does it consciously, but even the best RPers can perform metagaming without entirely realizing they're doing so. It's definitely a complex point. But even with everything, I'm still very much in favour of XP over time. Even if it needs to be more spaced out than 4/6 hours. It really does make more sense than gaining absolutely nothing for your character's experiences.

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Yes?

Surely you can gain some experience from non living things- additionally NPCs one could spar against, or hide from in a room set up like a cave or whatever (the point being real world scenarios). BUT, are you trying to say that everyone who's ever trained for things (combat, martial arts, so on) would be just as well off without that training? There's no substitute for real world experience, but you can certainly gain a ton from less risky actions too.

A more correct statement would be: You gain more xp from things that carry risk.

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so he would always have a friend

In my opinion, the more elegant solution would be the suggestion a while ago about players having the ability to give out a certain number of DCs/amount of time to other players, rather than something automated and mindless that could be exploited fairly easily in ways that we really couldn't account for without making the system so overbearingly complex that I think it would lose both its charm and efficacy.

Everything described here could be done by the allowance-of-player-to-player-DCs idea. It still leaves out Sneaks to an extent, but not in any new ways at least, and the people they report to could always DC them for the ones they are theoretically missing out on by being good at eavesdropping.

That suggestion also supports mentor-student RP better, I think, because it would allow not only for the option to use that DC for a EXP, but the option of putting it toward a Requestable, which could include things like whatever custom stuff the mentor has come up with, allowing them to teach and train their student in that way as well, to foot the cost of the custom thing.

Actually, I suppose I do like that idea a fair bit more, actually. I do remember that discussion from a while back. It would definitely allow for a lot more range of things, as well as, as you mentioned, master-student RP to flourish really nicely. I am definitely in favour of something that would do that. I mean, I suppose not everyone /could/ give out DCs. Especially if they are low on them, themselves. But there are definitely a large number of people who have many DCs on them that could always help out others.

The one question that comes to mind is "How would that be moderated?" Specifically, how would it be limited to prevent people from just giving out DCs because they're friends and want to give someone higher levels? Like, mainly a situation where there's absolutely no RP happening, but someone just dumps a bunch of DCs on someone because they can, and to effectively level the person up to however far they can go. Now, if that's not seen as an issue at all, then alright. Would definitely be nice to see some sort of limitation, though. Like once or twice per reset, maybe. Similar to the existing mechanic of recommending people with the DC wand. Or... how it used to be, at least.

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I recommend asking the question in the other thread and kicking it back to life in the process.

If it has a solid foundation, and can't be exploited, it definitely sounds much better than this does to me, at least. I'm also in favor of people being able to earn more DC's more often outside of being in the popular factions or events. If they choose to use it for XP, you could argue that it's not so different from this system, but I just have to say, that the primary method of obtaining DC's that we currently have certainly leaves a lot to be desired for some groups of people/timezones, and as we well know, DC's are worth more than what you burn for XP.

That being said, the ratio per time/DC has to really be considered carefully here, but while I am unmoved by this topic, I'm personally willing to at least entertain someone's math for a debate. Obviously in the end it's up to the DM's. Anything that relies on an honor system, just leave it at the door.

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

I've always been supportive of this concept. My issue with it lines up with Faded's. I have yet to see a suggestion for player-to-player DC's that isn't heavily exploitable, even working with a smaller playerbase.

I actually think the new rp advertiser is a step in the right direction for this sort of platform, though. Now that PC's have the ability to mechanically advertise their willingness to rp, we may have a way to tie that in to DC allocation outside the wands. Something along the lines of:

Player uses advertiser.
Player can now choose to activate DC wand on another player, starting a timer.
Player can use the wand again at the end of the timer to give another player a DC.
Cooldown initiates, for however long is deemed necessary. (6 hours probably?)

Something like that is at least less exploitable, because you still have to do the legwork to get that DC.

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okay, so I only need to log on once every 6 hours to get a DC?

See that's my problem with these systems. Some people will use it legitimately, and others will just abuse the crap out of it. I personally won't be in support of any exploitable system, as I believe no system is better than that.

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a.k.a. Audrey Zinata

That depends on the time between the first use of the wand and the second. That doesn't need to be short. And it shouldn't be. That timer would force players to rp for quite a while before earning a DC. It then makes it more difficult to actually exploit the system than use it, because you'd have to track down the person you began the process with.

I'm not saying it's perfect, or even possible actually. I just think the benefit of this kind of system outweighs the possible exploitation. So if this is something a lot of people end up wanting, it'd be good to try to figure out the two main points against it: Exploitation, and fair use. (I.E., how does a stealthed character get a DC if the players giving them can't see the stealthed character?)

I don't have a good suggestion for the second one off the top of my head.

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