Secondary Currencies
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This is a proposition for a server-wide baseline system that is meant to in the end to foster regular competition amongst players.
The basest idea of this system is the propagation of a resource through regular play within the most basic system CoA has. Killing monsters. By using this as your baseline, you ensure that 95% of players can participate in some way towards the accumulation of this stuff and therefore can take part in the systems built out of it. This is the crux of the idea, that all players have the potential to have a stake in this system and are able to participate in it.
So, in its basic form the system works like this.
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Player kills any mob on the server
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Mob has a percentile chance to drop [Magic Goop]
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If mob drops [Magic Goop] then it drops [Magic Goop] based on its CR*100 (Capped at a large but reasonable amount, having it drop as a more significant base amount allows for easier division amongst parties)
This is the system at its most baseline. Everything else is either built from this system or is layered on top of it. Now you have a system that provides a resource. What do you do with it?
Systems that can form from this include:
- Factions
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- Faction players are the main targets for this. They can turn in [Magic Goop] for points that go towards:
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- Promotion
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- Faction Stores
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- Special Faction Loot
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- This helps factions create conflict naturally by forcing them to compete over a resource. Unaffiliated players are now a HUGE resource, because their use is more limited (mostly to crafting) than factions.
- Crafters
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- Apply this system to all crafting systems going forward across the board
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- Not just systems like Blacksmithing but Brew Potion, Craft Wand, ect ect.
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- Creating a limited but also freely available resource helps players who aren't crafters gather materials for other crafting PCs without a significant deviation or added cost beyond what they are already doing.
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- Layer other systems on top of this- Bounty creatures with special drops for more exotic craftables for instance.
The prospects beyond this are limited only by imagination. To be clear, this isn't Mythalite. It's not an exponentially more powerful substance, just a broadly useful one. Having a bunch of this won't make you able to cast more powerful spells. It will never put out more than you put in, limiting the destructive potential.
Some ancilliary ideas (More to come:)
- The Mortuary
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- The Mortuary operates differently than the other factions. Instead of wanting the stuff, they are the only faction that can generate it themselves.
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- Bringing a PC body to the Mortuary to have the rites performed means they can extract the HUGE amount of this stuff from their body. PC adventurers being exposed to more magic in a single day than most creatures or people do in their entire lives.
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- This gives the other players in the server an actual REASON to want to use the Mortuaries services when there is a PC within it.
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- This also opens up a LOT of potential for abuse, so I would probably make it something only a PC within the faction can do, and something that throws up a lot of alerts when it is done.
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So what is this stuff then? I've done a writeup, but this is the basic gist for now as I have it because why make it more complicated than it has to be? This is also just an idea I had, so take it or leave it. There are other ways to implement it involving PCs that I could probably come up with in an afternoon.
"Mystras Tears™ are the last breath of Mystra, as her scream echoed within the Weave as she was slain all connected to the weave were seeded with a crystalline substance. Entirely benign when ensconced within a creature, this crystal sand and its growth within a creature are directly correlated with the magical properties associated with it."
So, that's largely it. I understand there are a few implementation issues, namely that the script isn't written (But my limited knowledge of scripting tells me it's not all that complicated) and it will have to be applied to every single monster in the module. Which will take a lot of work. I'm willing to volunteer to help because tedium is weirdly zen for me.
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We got a system similar to this already. I believe Puffy documented in your forums called the faction favor/prestige system?
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Just takes time to implement it.
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There is a problem with that system. It functions wonderfully when layered on top of this but by itself it does not accomplish what you seem to want it to do.
Because it is limited to the creatures that have bounties, it means you have to go out and hunt specific creatures in order to participate. It doesn't fold naturally into the style of gameplay that CoA is good at creating, because there's always the chance that you won't find whatever it is or don't care about whichever monster it ends up being.
This system is a base upon which you can implement additional systems on top of it. It ensures that, practically speaking, no matter what you are doing you are contributing to the environment of the server in some way.
More specific bounty systems tailored to each faction for instance, are a good way to specifically aim factions towards certain areas and monsters but otherwise it doesn't reward players for going out and doing the things they want to do, only the things the DM team deems relevant. This isn't a bad thing, but it's not sufficient for a basic system in my eyes.
EDIT: To be clear, I'm not saying that the system Puffy worked on doesn't work. I'm saying these aren't the same thing and they still work in conjunction with each other to better effect.
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@HellzYeah said in Secondary Currencies:
specific creatures
All creatures can drop prestige bounties, as long as they drop loot. (No summon loot)
Special bounties can be rare items spawned in the wild desired by a faction
It can also be common items, desired by a faction.It isn't 100% complete yet, it takes a bit of time to add the layers in and wrap things into the system.
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It isn’t a bounty mob system, but rather, an item system.
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Just want to say that idea of a single "universal resource" is great. And easy to implement. It can be just an additional item in the current bounty system for now, but with additional methods of getting or use it added with time.
