The Nature of Crafting in a Better Economy

[Gulnyr]

LordCove's post here got me thinking. Again. Though his post in in reference to crafting in the current version of Layonara, the content can be reworded for the MMO and retain the same feel.

I believe the MMO requires a functioning background world of NPCs and a more complete economy. That's why I mention it so often. I also believe non-combatant PCs should be possible and even encouraged, with a potential for progression as robust and complex as the progression of more traditional adventuring PCs. That may be asking a lot.

Now to tie the first and second paragraphs together. Instead of "All the stuff my character can craft is available as drops," as the primary crafter's lament, imagine it is "All the stuff my character can craft is available from NPC crafters." The background world needs those NPCs, though, and it's silly to think that none of them would interact with PCs ever. From a certain point of view, crafters in the MMO may feel somewhat like they do in NWN when it seems everyone is a crafter. How do the PC crafters differentiate themselves from the NPC crafters and earn a more desirable place (and some profit) in the market?

Skill choice is a possibility. Imagine smithing. The average smithy (in my little imaginary world) may have four or five smiths. One is the boss; he knows a pretty good deal about shaping iron and steel and maybe even some other metals. Then there are a couple of journeyman smiths who work for the boss, making the iron and steel things people in the community need. Maybe there is one smith who specializes in copper and bronze and brass, because there is a demand for items of those materials in the community. And then there is an apprentice, learning the trade. These sorts of smithies would be all over the place. Most would be making horseshoes and plowshares and basic things like that. A few would be on contract with local lords to make weapons and armor. Basic weapons and armor - plain ol' steel blades and chain mail and such.

Besides the typical smith, there would be more advanced masters. These are the folks who can make magical weapons, and who almost certainly have exclusive contracts with someone important. How do they make magical weapons? By combining their smithing skills with their magical skills. How does this help PC crafters? Because almost all NPC crafters who can make magical gear are under exclusive contract to someone and can't sell that magical gear to adventurers.

There's no guarantee of buyers, though. There should probably be places PCs can buy better-than-basic gear from NPCs, though not necessarily the really top-end, fancy stuff. That doesn't mean there aren't NPCs who can make it (who else would the first PC smiths apprentice to?), only that they can't or won't sell to just anyone. Also, some NPC enemies have their own master smiths, so there should be drops of the sorts of weapons and armor PC smiths can make, though only from those sorts of enemies, generally. While a sword is a sword, basically, that armor may require some adjustments to make it fit (if it was close - no Human is going to be able to wear Gnoll armor), so there could still be work for the smith.

Balancing the crafters seems harder than balancing the combatants, really. The PC crafters shouldn't be so prominent that they are the economy, like now, but they shouldn't be overshadowed and lost in a sea of NPCs, either.

[Falonthas]

this mentioned something that rings a good bell in my head

why not have an apprentice style system for crafting? then instead of PC grinding to be the best crafter of this or that they would have to pass structured tests to move from apprentice to journeyman to master

and have those ranks be seen as status in the world

it reminds me of the dragonriders of pern books
you have many mastersmiths but of them all there is one chosen as "the mastersmith"
many journeyman serving under various masters across the realm
and apprentices who are just learning the basics of their craft

items made by apprentices would have to be seconded by their master of record to sell anything they make and it would bear the mark of such work

journeyman are the majority of the crafters as only the best of the craft are elevated to master status

then you could have staying with the smithcrafts
one who specializes in each metal and has his own separate hall for teaching those who would learn his specialty

most would simply be smiths, iron and steel like mentioned above

for those special items, you may have to travel to the far reaches for the one special hall that makes those items

in that local area the items would be commonplace, but across the isles they would be rare indeed

[Hellblazer]

I really like this idea.

[ycleption]

(apologies if this is rambling and only half thought out)

On a related note, how will the MMO control crafting leveling?

As I see it, there are two basic ways in fantasy worlds that people make better equipment (although obviously they can be combined): They can become better crafters (Hittori Hanzo and Domingo Montoya used normal metals, mjolnir was made from iron, etc.) In this scenario, the things Gulynr talked about become much more important. The little tircks and tips of the trade that someone who has worked their whole life to perfect are more difficult to learn on one's own. While some people in the current game (myself included), have RPed apprenticeships and whatnot, I think the aspect of -learning- a trade could become much more interesting in this type of scenario. RP becomes the means to control crafting progression - who will take a half-giant on as tailoring apprentice? At least before there are PC masters, it might take some sort of scripted quest, or even DM intervention to entreat a master to take them on... and of course, given competition between crafters, maybe it would be less likely that PCs would be able to learn multiple crafts, which would help create an economy between crafters, rather than people teaching themselves "lines" of crafting. (Tanner A supplies leathers to Leatherworker B, and of course would be cutting out his own business if he tought B's apprentice the art of tanning)


The alternative is to use better materials, (Bilbo's mithril chain shirt, Roy Greenhilt's starmetal sword, Sir Artegal's Adamant sword). Now, in most computer games, this provides the biggest way to control leveling in crafting... somehow, mysteriously, big bad guys always are guarding the best materials, and yew trees won't grow outside their native soil, and no monarchs oust the gnolls and set up armies with private mines (after all, adventurers aren't the only ones interested in materials). Aside from the implausibility of the arrangement, it has the drawback of making it very difficult for someone to play a pure crafter, since the only way to obtain the materials becomes to hire someone skilled enough to beat the baddies guarding the materials. Also, this system requires that better materials be universally more difficult to work with... which is often true in RL, but certainly not universally. On the other hand, this kind of system provides the motivation for characters to meet each other and team up for material gathering, which is certainly a positive in an RP oriented game. Certainly, a game could orient itself around buying materials from npc merchants, where better materials reasonably cost more, or some other means of making it difficult for crafters to amass high level materials to make high-level items. And yeah...

So. How will the MMO control crafting leveling?