So, Conviction, or Hero Points, or whatever you want to call player-controlled dramatic editing doohickeys are sometimes a tricky wicket in a MU* environment. On the one hand, simple regaining by time ends up with players pretty much never running out. On the other, +voting tends to be a popularity contest with little recourse. This latter is handled somewhat by Conviction having a hard maximum based upon your level, period. My further solution is to make Conviction regain at a set rate regardless of how many votes are received, with excess votes being saved for time periods when a player may be less active. Some players will still regain faster than others, but nobody will be constantly full if they use it at all.
Specifically, I think players should regain one point per day if they have four Conviction votes. I say four because my perception of the average scene size, or perhaps optimum scene size, is around five people. That's about as big as a social scene can get before wooziness sets in for a lot of folks, and for action scenes, the more is emphatically NOT the merrier. Conviction votes are supposed to be for acting in accordance with one's Virtue or Vice, but I read this with an addendum of "in a dramatically appropriate way" which is of course open to interpretation. If my numbers prove too generous, we can raise the number of votes required to regain. Currently, I figure letting people vote for a person once every three days is enough since I am sure that social interactions will be taken for fodder as readily as adventure scenes.
Now, in addition to votegain, I'd like to let players gain one point per week for free, as a special gift. Probably at a set time on Sunday morning, with a pithy comment about days of rest. This would permit players to regain a maximum of eight Conviction per week, which is enough to completely refill a 12th level character. If they're spending more than eight in one day (thus to be completely empty) they are quite busy indeed, and may wish to take a holiday before they get themselves killed.
This should result in characters always having a little Conviction, but not usually a lot all at once. It removes the more dynamic ability to award Conviction on the fly, but I think this is a little bit more stable for an uncontrolled environment such as ours rather than a tabletop setting with a single permanent GM. There is also the option to let players "cash in" votes at a premium to regain a Conviction point immediately. Including that, or not, is undecided as yet. I am also undecided on allowing Conviction vote transfers between alts. Unlike with XP, there's a hard maximum they will reach, so pumping all one's votes into a single alt really doesn't make a lot of sense--or difference. I'd like to consider XP transfers as well, but that is a subject for later.
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6 comments:
It looks like you have put a lot of thought into regaining Conviction, and I am eager to try your system out.
As I understand it, a character would keep a running total of votes. And as long as that total was 4 or more, he would get back 1 Conviction a day. When do votes come out of that running total? That is, when does a vote "expire"? Three days after it was given?
I don't see why Conviction should be transferable, and I'd prefer not to make XP transferable either. At this point, players can only have one character anyway. And if they have a Feature, those don't even gain XP.
I'm confused Props, when did we decide on only one alt per person? I must've missed that. o.o
Sorry there. We have not talked alts. I am merely whispering out loud, and it's no secret that I am a one-character player.
I still don't think Conviction and XP should be transferred though!
JT
Ah-hah! :D Well then I vote for.. THREE! 3! Tres! Tre! Drei! For great justice!
Because then I can have my self-employed creepy char, my uppercrust char and my gutter poet one too. <3
Votes will probably just expire on a semi-regular three day schedule. It's simple, and it's ultimately only Conviction, so it doesn't matter so much--this does mean that you may sometimes be able to vote someone two days in a row, but I don't really see that as a great evil given the other limitations involved.
Transfers of any kind I do like, as they reduce the burden on non-social characters somewhat. You can do stuff like limit how much can be transferred per X amount of time, or put a reduction on it, or whatever. I'm willing to worry about that later, however, as it would be something else I'd have to figure out how to code.
For alts I tend to favor one, then one a bit later so appstaff isn't swamped, and then maybe a third--maybe. But later. A lot of games do pretty well with a limit of two, but when you have long term players, they may love an old PC lots and not want to give them up but not really be as into playing them as they used to be, etc. Freezing of old PCs would be limited to a matching number of however many people currently have.
'Mortal' alts or NPCs are something we should discuss as well, given the power that some contacts can present a PC without quite qualifying for a Benefit feat or whatnot. I think that deserves its own post, however.
I'm liking what I'm hearing in general. The Conviction voting is all sorts of goodness, and I'd love to try out Baba's working model. Alt numbers? I'm not sure I see a problem with three total, staggered in application over (whatever) time to make sure that someone is up to playing three characters.
Conviction transfers don't seem out of line either, presuming that PCs who can spend Conviction on 'projects' (I'm guessing this is possible, since I still haven't had a chance to go through the True20 book yet) either magical or technological aren't going to see rapid advantage over the more 'mundane' sorts of adventurers.
I see no reason for XP transfers, however. Screw that and a bag of chips. Get your XP through adventuring, not sucking out the soul of your more adventurous alt. Never liked it. Never will.
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