Points of Interest

[Olme]

Would it be possible to have the Points of Interest be more desciptive ?

A bit of text perhaps at each one that conveys it's significance.

A further thought would be to reward a character with the completion of a 'series' of Ponits of Interest ( ie  Mistone Badge ?) with an increase in lore ability of 1 point.
 If this could not be done directly , perhaps  it could be accomplished via an item ( akin to an elemental resist) that the character could then add to an existing equipped item .

[Acacea]

I like the motivation behind but not really anything about the current implementation of exploring/lore based xp. The idea of some boy scout planting magic flags that give xp throughout the world just goes ALL over me and despite altering viewpoints I still consider them wholly OOC. Sorry.

I would like to see the flag taken entirely out of focus (right now it's all you see - I touched a flag, I got xp! No idea why though!) and the reason for the flag brought more into play. Before, it was suggested that a mini-writeup of the area or legend were put on the flag's description, but I think that is in it's own way too much in the opposite direction.

I kind of like the idea of forcing lore checks, and giving something no matter how low the roll, but giving the more detailed result to higher ones. That way everyone can get a sense of "something happened here," and in a party of 3+ chances are someone is going to be able to elaborate. More importantly, even if no one does... you now have a reason to ask. "That tower, with the shifting fog in darkness and sense of timelessness, isn't there anything known beyond that? Someone must know."

Instead of, "Look! A flag! By some berries. Flagberries. Hey, you ever been to the Flagberry place? Them's good berries. Watch out for ogres and vines and traps, yep."

I admit I'd rather see the flag go away altogether and be replaced just by a scripted roll and player-tell description/xp grant (which is already more than the flag itself accomplishes anyway), but I know people get attached to queer implementations

[Olme]

Yes, I  agree.

I know little of the scripting involved so I can't make any kind of useful contribution in that area or pronouncement of what is or isn't possible.

[Hellblazer]

well considering what is already in game. (thinking of the deep elevator here) It certainly could be possible to give a text that would appear for all (don't know if it can be just for one person) with the history.

The question is if there is a possibility to renturn many variable from one check example:



int StartingConditional()

{

  int iDC = 20; // or whatever the DM wishes to set it to

  int iBonus = GetSkillRank(SKILL_LORE, GetPCSpeaker());

  if ((d20() + iBonus) >= iDC)

  {

    return TRUE;

  }

  return FALSE;

}



that would be a straight forward skill check with only one possibility pass or fail.

Now What I don't know but I imagine is possible due to the vendor system that allows you a % of discount the higher you beat the opponent rolls. Is if depending on the result of the roll, a different conversation can be applied and said either in whisper, tell or talk mode.

an example would be

If 0>10  = say verry little about the lore
if 11>20 = say an average that could spike an interest
if >21 = Say the whole lore about the place.

[Acacea]

If I (or anyone, just don't want to volunteer someone else) were to write a few different levels of description for each Point of Interest location, could we use those as feedback for lore checks instead? Maybe that is better as a different suggestion, sorry, just related.

On the subject of granting lore bonuses, I am torn because I have always felt that lore and things learned through experience were very separate things. A fighter with zero ranks knows what he has done because he has been there done that. If that includes meeting Shifter and being told the meaning of life, well, that is what he knows, he was there. He won't ever have to roll for that.

Lore, to me, is more focused on information you were not present for - things that you would need to roll to find out from a DM.

I think views on that may differ, though - just my opinion.

[Acacea]

My question was not of possibility (it is, yes), but rather of choice and implementation (as in, would anyone do so)

[Hellblazer]

If I knew the lore of the area, and the team said yes to implementing the idea of having different depth knowledge of the lore returned by the % of the lore check vs the dc. I will volunteer to write up the different conversations.

[Acacea]

See several posts up - no response, though.

[Dorganath]

Not saying no...not saying yes...

However, there are a whole lot of those points of interest (possibly most of them) that don't necessarily have any official or complete lore written for them.

So then, why are they points of interest?  Well, the whole point of the system was to encourage exploration.  And maybe you go there with a group and someone says, "You know, there's a story about this place...." that might well be some tale of some grand event or just its history.  Or it could be "Heh...one time I was here, you would not believe what happened..."  Who knows!

Anyway, it's not a bad idea, just not one I think we can fully support at the moment.

I could be wrong though. I would have to dig up the list of points and see what has been written for them (or have Ed do it for me).

[cbnicholson]

How about something simpler, a gm sign with some Commonly known Lore bits about the location? At least then the flags would have some meaning beyond get out and look around.  Most of us who have been for any amount of time can rattle off the locations of all the flags nearly.

[Acacea]

A sign listing common lore is the same problem, only also keeping the original problem, which is an OOC marker giving out XP in the first place.

If Dorg is saying the common lore points are the problem to begin with, then it doesn't matter if it is a tell, a sign, or a flag. If they are not the problem, it is just as simple to do something less obtrusive.

Edit - As an aside, I really don't know why the problem is the lack of information, as most of those areas have many events tied to them, regardless of official writeups existing for them or not. 2 lines of text does not require a writeup - we are talking "this is Milara's throne" and "this was the dude that summoned the dragoncalled" here, not encyclopedias.

[Lareth]

I remember having played on a world which would give an XP hit to a character the first time that they entered an area (only gave it once).. I believe it was an on enter script that would run to check and see if this was the first time for that pc.  

In a way that made more sense to me than a flag, as it seemed to reflect how travel and experiencing different places could lead to personal growth.  But on the whole that's kind of how I interpret the POI flags, as it's kind of hard in world like Layonara which evloves so much to tie these things down to particular places / events.

[Acacea]

Yes, there are also various modules that do this ("new area discovered! 50xp!") as well as minor XP bumps for disabled traps, opened locks, and pickpocket (pocket-picked?) creatures, or for pretty much any successful skill check that is not a repeat, ie social skill, spellcraft, tumble, lore, whatever.

The flag, agreed, does not make sense - it is actually the place that is supposed to be important in some way, as they all mark a location where something worth knowing happened (edit - or where someone interesting lives or lived) ... just don't give you a clue what that something was.

On the subject of skill-rewards, I am always for those, even if they are strictly 50-100xp each. They make more sense to me than XP bumps in the tens of thousands for discussing ex-boyfriends

[willhoff]

When i first came to the world all they did was say look at that  flag.  I did and I got some xp wooopeee.  But no lore for the area.  Having some lore attached to the flag would be nice for those who dont know zilch about the area.

[Masterjack]

When ever Beli or Buddy is showing someone around he takes them to the flag and tells them a story about it. Then tells them to touch the flag.

[cbnicholson]

2 lines of text does not require a writeup - we are talking "this is  Milara's throne" and "this was the dude that summoned the dragoncalled"  here, not encyclopedias.

The flag, agreed, does not make sense - it is actually the place that is  supposed to be important in some way, as they all mark a location where  something worth knowing happened (edit - or where someone interesting  lives or lived) ... just don't give you a clue what that something was.

This is exactly what I'm suggesting and why.  A clue as to the areas significance in history would be nice.  Nothing lengthy is needed, just some reference that could be looked up in Lore if it was wanted.

[Dorganath]

Edit - As an aside, I really don't know why the problem is the lack of information, as most of those areas have many events tied to them, regardless of official writeups existing for them or not. 2 lines of text does not require a writeup - we are talking "this is Milara's throne" and "this was the dude that summoned the dragoncalled" here, not encyclopedias.

I don't disagree, but for a lot of them, there's nothing blatantly obvious about the location.  There are a couple I can think of in the middle of swamps. Two markers in caves also jump to mind immediately in that category of "why is this important." I don't know why or even if it is important beyond something to go out and find and maybe (hopefully) some interesting RP along the way.

And I wasn't suggesting we needed encyclopedias. Taking one of the caves as an example, I can't think of a single reason why the cave is significant other than the fact that it's a place to go, kill stuff and collect CNR.

I'm not arguing that this couldn't use some improvement.  The absolute truth of the matter is that when Leanthar and I implemented this system, two things were true:

• It was intended to encourage people to go out and explore, using a modest XP tap as the carrot
• There wasn't half the written lore we have today

The flag, agreed, does not make sense - it is actually the place that is supposed to be important in some way, as they all mark a location where something worth knowing happened (edit - or where someone interesting lives or lived) ... just don't give you a clue what that something was.

Not all of them, actually. Again, the prime idea behind them was for exploration.  The idea that we might use them for a more lore-relevant purpose quite honestly never occurred to us when we set it up. It was a quick and simple implementation, focused for a particular purpose and nothing more.

I'm not making any apologies about how it was done. It is what it was meant to be.  This suggestion is for it to be more than that, which is fine.

This is exactly what I'm suggesting and why.  A clue as to the areas significance in history would be nice.  Nothing lengthy is needed, just some reference that could be looked up in Lore if it was wanted.

There's no disagreement here. I think it's well-established that people would like to see something more from these things.  So, that being said....

*switches to intermission to increase the suspense*

[Dorganath]

... I spoke to Ed yesterday on this and gave him a list (mostly complete at least) of the various POIs we have across both modules. He confirmed for me that he has some text for many of them, but not all of them, and even among the ones he has, most of them are not yet up on LORE in any way.

So, he and I talked about possibilities and we came up with a proposal in this regard.

THE PROPOSAL:
We would like someone or someones to send in a short (1 paragraph maximum.) description of each location you know about. It can be grounded in fact (for those places with a definite significance) or complete local legend and hearsay....or a little of both!

This is not a request for official lore, but rather a request for interesting descriptions that might spark someone to look deeper, relay the story or whatever.

I'll likely take more than one submission per POI and randomize their display. We're not going to be fact-checking for the most part

So if anyone is interested in doing this, e-mail me something with "POI" in the subject (so I can organize them better) and I'll see about implementing a solution for this in the near-ish future. If you don't have my e-mail, PM me and I'll give it to you (so it doesn't get picked up by the spam-bots).

[Gulnyr]

Just checking: these bits of rumor/legend/whatever would be displayed for any character, right?  I can't speak for everyone who plays a single character rather than a rotating stable of them, but I'd like to see the little stories, too, and it would suck to miss out just because Jennara's been somewhere before.

[Dorganath]

Just checking: these bits of rumor/legend/whatever would be displayed for any character, right?  I can't speak for everyone who plays a single character rather than a rotating stable of them, but I'd like to see the little stories, too, and it would suck to miss out just because Jennara's been somewhere before.

Yes, it would display whether you've gotten XP from it already or not.