[Proposal] Player Character Living Space Threads

DalkonCledwin · May 2, 2012

Since I was the one who initially suggested these (not counting Mowgli's original attempt whenever long ago), I am making an official proposal at the insistence of two of the other posters in this community. Not sure if this is appropriate given the number of proposals currently being worked on, but I figured it couldn't hurt too much. Anyways the basic idea is to have an area's where Player Characters can interact with one another in a more intimate environment than is possible in the Dunn Wright Inn. This can most easily be accomplished by providing role playing locations that represent the housing of a particular player or another that is as of now currently purchasable through the Mystic Pearle or other mercantile locations within the game.

I just thought it made sense to have such locations featured as locations to be able to Role Play in the game so long as these locations do not provide any serious mechanical benefit other than developing storyline for a given character (i.e. no time based XP or GP should be awarded in these area's in my humble opinion just as it isn't awarded in the Dunn Wright Inn under most circumstances).

Below is what Satin Knights had to say on the matter:

Satin Knights said:
If I counted right, you have five unofficial "I would probably vote yes" comments. I think we will create an "At Home" category/line on the Adventures page when the first thread is built. To do it right, that "game" will need to point to a wiki page instead that lists multiple "Home threads" in the 'Playing the Game' area of the forums.

The last hurdle is how to mark the "looking for a new game" characters differently than the "Sitting at home, on vacation" characters that are not interested. I suppose adding "on vacation" to their class line in the hidden wiki block would be enough of a marker.

So, technically and unofficially, it can be done. Implementation: maybe soonish. An official proposal would probably speed the process and hash out a few details. It also leaves a "this is what we intended" marker to point back to later.

jkason · May 2, 2012

For the basic 'at home' thread concept, I've no problem giving a YES. As SK said, I think we should hash out how we want to juggle / delineate them for purposes of recruiting and tracking. I think SK's suggestions re: an 'at home' category with attached link page & an added "on vacation" line for players who are on some kind of Personal Epiphany scene and don't want to be interrupted for adventures yet are both good ideas to help keep these sorts of threads from negatively impacting GMs abilities to see who might be available as they design.

It probably sounds silly, but I'll bring it up anyway because what the heck: Do we want to create any special etiquette for 'home' threads? I think a simple "knock first, and your host can ask you to leave at any time" is sufficient. Yes, I'm probably just being paranoid, but what the heck, go with my strengths, I say.

Satin Knights · May 2, 2012

Base idea Yes
on vacation Yes
Etiquette Yes

I think they should also be restricted to those players that have two or more characters in play. I have seen my fair share of players that come, get bored and disappear quickly, sometimes even before finishing their first adventure. This idea would cut down on the "Oh wow, something shiny, bored now, gone" threads with only three posts. If someone has their two months in that gets them a second character, they know if they are going to be sticking around. Yes

Just homes? Some clerics and paladins may want to call their church's temple home. unsure

Servants? I thinks we have already worked out that people can have servants in their homes paid out of the "under X gp purchase is not tracked". I suggested then it should be 1/2 X for the max wages since that money is spent continuously. A 1 gp allotment still gets 1 skilled servant at 3 sp and 2 untrained servants at 1 sp each per day. Yes

GlassEye · May 2, 2012

This idea has captured my imagination so, YES. I do think that 'home' or 'living space thread' is too limiting as there is so much that could possibly be done in these threads. I prefer 'Character thread' since that's what I think we're trying to build here.

Other issues:
On vacation: YES
Etiquette: YES
Limit: YES
Other sites: YES
I think limiting these scenes to just a character's domicile is too restricting. A temple is an important site to a cleric, probably more so than a separate home (if they even live separately). One could argue that that sort of scene should be handled in an adventure but to be frank, not every character is going to be blessed with their own tailor-made adventure.
Servants: YES

Systole · May 2, 2012

I think it's a good idea. I'd like to see a separate Home/Non-Adventure sub-forum for it, though. Is that difficult to get through EnWorld?

Maidhc O Casain · May 2, 2012

Systole said:
I think it's a good idea. I'd like to see a separate Home/Non-Adventure sub-forum for it, though. Is that difficult to get through EnWorld?

It is a very hard sell. LPF is already a sub-forum of Living Worlds, and Morrus has said that his goal is to cut down on the number of forums and subs. To get a sub-forum of a sub-forum is probably asking too much.

We had to demonstrate very active participation both in games run and in discussion threads in the Social Group for a year to get him to consider letting us have a sub-forum for LPF.

Qik · May 2, 2012

GlassEye said:
This idea has captured my imagination so, YES. I do think that 'home' or 'living space thread' is too limiting as there is so much that could possibly be done in these threads. I prefer 'Character thread' since that's what I think we're trying to build here.

Other issues:
On vacation: YES
Etiquette: YES
Limit: YES
Other sites: YES
I think limiting these scenes to just a character's domicile is too restricting. A temple is an important site to a cleric, probably more so than a separate home (if they even live separately). One could argue that that sort of scene should be handled in an adventure but to be frank, not every character is going to be blessed with their own tailor-made adventure.
Servants: YES

YES to the items GE hit. I also agree that these sorts of threads would be better thought of as "personal threads" than "home threads" - I really like the idea of playing out scenes like replacing an animal companion, visiting one's homeland, etc, in these threads in addition to just having it be a space for RPing out scenes in one's home.

Satin Knights · May 2, 2012

I think it is difficult. I think it took a year to just to get our own main forum. Before then we were stuck in the social groups. The old area has since been converted to a campaign. I am not impressed with the campaign interface yet.

GlassEye · May 2, 2012

Supposedly there have been modifications to the Campaign Manager forums adding things to make it more like the regular forums. Those forums were very limited before but maybe we could use them as the home for personal threads. I wouldn't like to mix them in with our OOC & discussion threads here or swamp the Playing the Game forum with them.

DalkonCledwin · May 2, 2012

Mowgli said:
It is a very hard sell. LPF is already a sub-forum of Living Worlds, and Morrus has said that his goal is to cut down on the number of forums and subs. To get a sub-forum of a sub-forum is probably asking too much.

We had to demonstrate very active participation both in games run and in discussion threads in the Social Group for a year to get him to consider letting us have a sub-forum for LPF.

GlassEye said:
Supposedly there have been modifications to the Campaign Manager forums adding things to make it more like the regular forums. Those forums were very limited before but maybe we could use them as the home for personal threads. I wouldn't like to mix them in with our OOC & discussion threads here or swamp the Playing the Game forum with them.

What GlassEye says is basically what I was thinking would be a good idea. I hadn't realized until now that the old User Group sections were being transformed into some sort of Campaign Manager Forums. But if that is the case I think that type of system would possibly be ideal for use as a place to house the "Personal Threads" for Living Pathfinder's PC's.

That said, I too think there should be some sort of limiting factor on who is allowed to create one of these new threads. Some of the ideas put forward so far do sound interesting and I am liking what I am seeing so far. I look forward to seeing if this gets implemented