Good afternoon everyone!
I hope you all made it back safely from the game and have rested and recovered. We're here to talk about Treasue in Orn and judging by the comments I've heard about Silver Nuggets, this is an issue dear to many hearts.
I'd like to start out by framing our discussion. I, personally, consider a treasure system to be an aspect of game play and a way to reward players for participating in mods and defeating challenges. In that light, I think we should try to come up with ways for "things" in game to add to our fun. And I think we need to make a conscious effort to avoid people stockpiling treasue only as an informal way of "keeping score".
To that end, let's look at the aspects to consider:
1. Money/Currency: Right now we have a system based primarily around barter and no real clear idea of the value of items. If we introduce an in-game currency system, there needs to be a way for PC's to determine the gold piece value of their items and to come up with a value for intangibles and services as they may arise.
2. Accounting and storage: With the current system, players turn in all their gear at the end of the game. Will this continue to be the model with the coins as well? Will we need a member of Plot to act as a moneychanger to give PC's their coins when they sign in?
3. Challenge vs. reward: Should we have a tiered system of reward based on mod difficulty, rather than player level? Should we allow higher level players to combine treasure draws for a guarantee of a more valuable item?
4. Limited reward: Will players be interested in undertaking quests with a single good reward ie. raid a crypt and recover the magic sword inside, but only one player can wield it? Do players prefer to know what they will get at the end rather than drawing at random ie. you are hired to guard a wizard while he performs a ritual and he pays each person 5 silver for the task ?
What do you think of these, and what other ideas do you have?
In reguards to commerce...
I would like to see production added to the treasure pulls. (mining, tailoring, etc) Not everyone could use them, but it would cause the players to interact to trade these points for the points they need. Or just auction them off for gold. I believe this would also help the item creation which i feel needs a boost in the arm.
Also, I heard some talk about adding hammers to the weapon pulls... and other things as such. I had a thought, what if instead of making the tags more complicated and veried... We simplify the items recieved.
Such as:
+one hand blunt - instead of - a mace, hammer or club
+one handed sharp -instead of - a longsword, dagger or axe
two handed blunt, two handed sharp... etc
Then we can let the reciever of the tag choose the form of the weapon. If we think this system can work, it could also be applied to armour...
I'm iffy about production as treasure, both for suspension of disbelief reasons and because it takes away from the significance of being a tradesman in play. This is beside the point that it may go away entirely, but we'll see.
I like the weapon simplification idea. Call it something generic that sums up its stats, then let people give it whatever creative name they like. This could well be extended in other ways. As we were leaving the other day, for example, I told Marcel it was perfectly acceptable to let his hood be a hat instead. Particularly as Weapon Specialization goes the way of the dodo, this should work just fine.
I like the idea of having a ring with coins on it. It gives rogues a chance to play a rogue, and makes me as a warrior actually have a reason to distrust the bastards. Of course I am not sure how it will work with PvP vs Good in any case, but that is a different forum probably.
While I like the idea of having a badass reward at the end of a mod, I can see where it will probably cause in-fighting amongst players and make us "keep score" even more. We PC's are greedy people and eventually will want more and more. One of the biggest selling points that Orn has over other games is that everyone gets treasure, and I think that the pulls should remain the same.
I do like the trading up suggestion and think that a two to one trade is fair. I really like that idea.
As to the "Keeping Score" aspect of hoarding treasure I must admit that I have a whole lot of stuff and am hoarding it proudly. The issue of getting enough raw material to make things is why I have so many varied pieces of treasure. So the question to this is how do we make it more predictible to what kinds of treasure people can get. Tailor treasure to Mods. I know that we are simplifying everything in the game, but I don't think that should be the case with treasure. For example....
If a Mod is to appear underground, the tresure for that mod could be tailored to only include ores, gems, currency, and weapons (if the monsters are using them) I guarantee you that players would take that hook and go down into those caves or what not willingly, as everyone is looking for at least some of those things. Woods adventures are much more likely to have bows, herbs, poisons etc., while more urban environments may have more weapons and finished products. It makes it much harder on plot, but I thought I would throw it out there to see what you guys thought.
As the one who creates the treasure, Mark, I can say with certainty that what you're suggesting is impractical. It takes hours to create, print, and cut treasure as it is. If we have to start tailoring it to suit different mods, that makes an already difficult job twice as bad.
I am not sure how it is currently done, but I was thinking of something like percentages. I know it is not that practical, but if there were a way to say put 20 percent of certain items and 0 percent of others it would be more feasible. of course I know nothing of coding so I admit that I may very well be talking out of my ass.
Actually, Mark's idea is where a dedicated logistics/props person can help you, Thad. They can go through the tags at pre-game and split them out by the proposed mods. This way the person running the mod can carry the treasure bag throughout and everyone can come to them for pulls instead of the hordes descending on Scott each time for both treasure and death deck pulls. As each mod is concluded any remaining tags can go back into the big bag for randoms and "helping out" treasure pulls.
I'm still not convinced that using differential treasure by mod is a good idea for all of the reasons cited. However, let me propose an alternative.
Mods that go into specific locations can award specific treasure in place of a normal draw. For example, going into a mine, PCs may have the option to get a raw rare gem instead of a normal draw. Printing out a separate sheet of treasure like this wouldn't be outlandish, the value could be kept in line (a bit lower than average to account for the guarantee of value), and if we ran out, folks could still get normal treasure draws.
I happen to like silver nuggets, thank you very much. :P
As far as appraising the value of items, there is a way to do that: The Merchantry skill. The extent to which people pick it up is a matter of how useful they consider it to be. Are you suggesting dropping the skill and letting people automatically know the value of everything?
Yes, I think I am down with having a money changer at check-in. It'd be tedious, but it's what needs to happen for PCs to have money in play. We're already discussing how to streamline check-in, so now's the time to know about it.
Mod difficulty, as we both know, has to scale with the players who participate. It's too fluid to plan for with any degree of accuracy. I am, however, interested in a bag of double-value draws that counts as two-for-one.
I'm more dubious about alternate rewards at the end of an adventure. I like the story aspect of it, for sure, but it opens up a lot of issues. If the advertised reward isn't enough, will the PCs take the hook? If only one person gets the reward, will that create resentment from everyone else? Will people want to monster for it more or less because they perceive the loot from other adventures will be better or worse?
I've always been of the mind that the greatest treasures shouldn't be draws; you should have to work for them and obtain them after months or years. The crafting system does this nicely, but I see where it can be fun and flavorful to seek great treasures in other ways. The only stipulation is that the cost should be on par.