Let's Talk ~ Galamion

Hey all, I just wanted to kickstart some discussion about our open world section - Galamion. For a long time now, it's been lying dormant despite the efforts to draw attention to it, sporadic though they may be. There was a bit of hype that was reared when Sole was planning his Crown of Thorns event in the summer of 2013 with the other Guardians, but outside of that... relatively little is ever spoken of our poor collaborative environment, barring the odd comment here and there in the welcome threads for our new users. It's a sad time for what could really be a cool place to roleplay. And I am genuinely interested in changing that.

I have had some quiet conversation with a few members over the years about how to make Galamion a tantalizing environment to engage in, even as early on as when it was back at Magnolia. There have been quite a few varied answers, but they have given me some ideas on how to really broaden the horizons of the subsection. If you guys don't mind listening to these ideas, I'll lay them out below for discussion.

What I don't want to do with this is step on the toes of the Guardians of Galamion who put a decent amount of work in setting things up, so if I am overstepping any 'boundaries' then let me know! Otherwise, I will keep chugging along. Give me your feedback. Give me your ideas. Let's get this going together and make Galamion something really special, collaborative, and open, as was planned at its inception.

~ A ~ ( M O R E ) ~ O P E N ~ W O R L D ~

I really want to emphasize the 'openness' of Galamion to everyone. It is meant to be a canvas for our imaginations to run wild, and I hoped to get the "Manaverse" crew involved with that when we were integrating Galamion into the Manaverse proper. There is an endless space for opportunity in this collaborative world, so fittingly, my first talking point is about how we're not really opening the world up, so to speak. Anyone is able to start a quest, but I feel like people are apprehensive of starting a quest line within Galamion for fear of stepping on the toes of the country 'owners.' As Sole and Inkblot (and ostensibly Blackout) are gone from the community, their countries are probably going to fall to the wayside if the expectation remains that only the country owners will start quests.


~ F R E E F O R M ~ A N D ~ S T A T I S T I C A L ~ I N T E G R A T I O N ~

This is the meat-and-potatoes of where my thoughts for a better 'integration' of Galamion stems from. A few members of the IRC chat have mentioned to me that they would be really interested in seeing a Galamion statplay come to fruition. This is the reason I started the Statistical Tutorial - to teach people who were interested in learning about statistical roleplaying for the purpose of opening up/demystifying the medium so that it could extend to include all of ZEJ. Since we have two 'main' ways of roleplaying around these parts, and inevitably everyone will have their own preferences, I think it makes sense to integrate both to coexist in harmony in what is to be our whole forum's collaborative roleplaying environment.

What I am not saying is that we make every quest have a statistical portion to it. That would be 1. unfeasible, and 2. alienate people who just don't want to roleplay with statistics attached. I do think there is a time and place for statistical roleplaying, and that it brings interesting things to the table in terms of how characters can grow and evolve over time (more on that in the next section).


~ C H A R A C T E R S : ~ F R O M ~ T H E ~ G R O U N D ~ U P ~

How do I propose we go about integrating both of our most popular 'mediums' of roleplaying? Well, at the most basic, I want to incentivize participating in quests. There are a number of ways in which we could go about this, of course, but mainly I want to start with character growth. Something I've been discussing quietly is the idea of starting a character from scratch - at Level One, as you would in a video game like Skyrim. If we use that as a base model, and look at the expansive world in which your decisions ultimately change your gameplay path, then we can easily apply the same principles to Galamion. So, what I am proposing is that every character be given a (relatively) equal footing. Characters gain experience from going on quests, freeform OR statistical, which allow them to Level Up (statistically), and then use that as a basis for their freeform powers.

Profiles - freeform and statform - and other pertinent character information (all their worldly possessions, money, powers, relationships with other characters, whatever) can be tracked in a "Character Chronicle" type thread (essentially a Dramatis Personae of all Galamian characters, with a Table of Contents [similar to the Cult of Ustream profile thread] for easy navigation).

In my mind, this will allow both types of roleplaying to exist in a symbiotic relationship. What Cerby brought up to me when I was discussing this with him was that some people don't even want to create any profile, let alone both a statistical and freeform profile to keep track of, especially if the character is not meant to last forever. I made a proposal; just drop the name of the character in the Character Chronicle, and keep track of the experience/affinity/items that your character obtains on quests. That way, while you don't immediately need to create a profile to participate (except in statistical quests, naturally), what happens can be appropriately documented until you get around to filling out a profile skeleton.


~ Q U E S T ~ L E A D E R B O A R D S ~

One final thing on the note of 'incentivizing' quests - I would be interested in implementing a 'champions list' of characters who have embarked on the most quests. It's kind of nice to be recognized for your efforts, and it adds a little bit of friendly competition to see who can clear the most quests with their character. Or maybe have other people have incentive to eliminate the 'reigning leader' in-character. Notoriety should come with a price, in- and out-of character, and I feel like it could make things interesting, depending on how we choose to play it.

~ ~ ~​

So those are just some points for discussion that I'd like to hear about the thoughts of the Guardians ( @Rose , @ShadoeMayari , @CodasterTheDisaster , @blackoutEquinox ) especially, but also the rest of ZEJ's staff. Do you guys see these musings of a lunatic as something that could hypothetically work? I'd be interested in taking Galamion head-on to revive not only a barren open world, but also the ZEJ statplaying scene. Hopefully this can be an environment in which both types of roleplaying are acceptable, and character growth is encouraged. I'd be happy to talk more about my thoughts in this thread, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Once I've gotten some staff input, I might move this out into the open for some more discussion, but I have some plans that I'd like to just roll out soontimez. A couple statistical questlines, for instance, are on the horizon (and have been for quite a bit).

I'd also be totally cool with helping the Guardians get more acquainted with statplaying, if they're interested. I know it's a bit cumbersome to navigate for the first little bit, but it gets to be quite fun and entertaining when you get the hang of it.

Discuss away, lads and lasses!

 

Now that we've had the chance to do a little bit of 'internal' discussion, I figured I would bring this thread out into the public eye. The beginning bits of staff discussion have been left intact, and the original post covers just about all of what I would like to say. So, general public of the forum... let's talk!

 

I don't necessarily think that we need a large-scale reboot of the planet. We have a good framework for our play structure set up already, now it's really just a matter of getting the kids to play on it. I do agree with Shadow and Dark in that it could use some development, or some 'terraforming' so to speak. Whether we want to do that out of character (with structure) or in character (organically) is yet to be decided, I guess, but I don't think anyone needs to be a Guardian to pitch forth their ideas.

On that note, Shadow made a good point to me last night on the matter while the forums were down. To paraphrase his point, the Guardians are the 'mastheads' of the world, and they have the ultimate say in what flies and what doesn't in Galamion. That doesn't mean new people can't come along and volunteer themselves for running a country/important guild/whatever, but these newcomers will be subservient to the Guardians that we currently have. In that sense, I propose that the Guardians usergroup be closed to applicants.

As far as quests go, they are intended to be rather self-contained. The person posting the quest will handle NPC characters and dialogue, as would be expected of any Game Master. The expectation is that they will be resolved by the GM, and the characters end up at the end location of the quest (be that a town, a forest, off a cliff, in the middle of the ocean... wherever). In my mind's eye, I see characters being given Statistical Experience as a reward for these quests (which I will settle up with the individual quest runners), items, and the works at the conclusion of the quests, as well. My expectation is that everyone will keep track of the experience and items received in their profile (in the Character Chronicle I vaguely spoke of in the opening post) - even if they don't have a statistical profile. Even if they never plan on making a statistical profile. I think it will help establish a "relative" power level as the characters grow in a freeform setting, but also establish an "absolute" power level in terms of statplaying.

Surely, "Quest Ranks" will establish themselves as the time goes on. Nobody is going to be dismantling governmental systems or slaying the Last Known Dragon™ at Level One. I don't care how good you guys think you are or how frontloaded you can make your characters - I don't want to see things move THAT quickly!

On the subject of Galamion, Gist noted in her interest check (check it out, guys) that we could use some tags in the Interest Checks section for the denotation of a freeform or statistical Galamion quest.

 

Maybe an appropriate term would be 'soft reboot.' The world and its countries make up some solid linework on an otherwise blank canvas, so now we just need to start colouring it in (yeah, I'll probably keep making dumb analogies like this). We're essentially starting from scratch here, apart from Castaways. Now might be a good time to bring all of our Country Info threads in line with one another; they each provide varying degrees of information themselves, but we should settle on a unified style for what they should be displaying (and update the maps, while we're at it, so that we aren't condemning ourselves with the ugly MS Paint maps of yore).

By "established characters" I can only assume that you mean Rashid as there are canonically no other characters with quest experience in the ZEJ iteration of Galamion (barring Shaylee, but it was my understanding that that was to be a one-off? Correct me if I'm wrong, of course). I'm sure you're not going to be particularly pleased with my answer, but in the interests of keeping everyone on a level playing field, I would provide a couple options:

1. Rashid becomes an important NPC. He's already the quest leader of Training Days (though I would imagine that quest would also need to start anew, being that it kind of petered out in terms of activity), and as you've stated, he has a lot of experience 'canonically.' Although it is my gut instinct to say that coming up with background history is a sort of invisible power that I want to avoid. He has been shown to be someone of significance, and I don't want to automatically either "nerf" him or deprive you of the experience of playing him. But I want people to start from Square One, and allowing Rashid to be a pretty high-ranking member of the Unity Guard of Deunti right away doesn't seem congruent with that goal.

2. Rashid gets hella nerfed and brought down to a Level 1 character (+ appropriate rewards given for his participation in Castaways). In this option, he can still keep his background and everything, but he will be starting from, more or less, the same place as any other prospective Galamian character. This option isn't elegant or anything, but it does keep the playing field equal. The only problem with this is that I know that it will be tedious to bring down a demonstrably strong character equipped with things that I would equate with a strong, higher-levelled character... plus he has a pet dragon rofl. Offering him Level One stats in a statplay (or the equivalent freeform power level) seems like it isn't fair to him as a character.

In my opinion, I would sooner make Rashid into your personal "important NPC character" who can be at a higher level, and request that you start another character from a lower beginning. I'm sure that the Guardians would/should all be allowed a higher-level NPC character, as well, and I would be interested in helping you guys saddle up Statistical Profiles for such characters. But for the sake of participating on an equal playing field with other ZEJians, I'd request that you guys come up with other characters for general quest participation/climbing prospective "leaderboards."

(That also translates to other characters designed to be "high-ranking," but I want to keep that exclusive to the Guardians. That isn't to say that others cannot create/play as NPCs, but ideally they won't be recursive like someone like Rashid seems to be.)

 

The thing about essentially banning him from use is that we may not see people reach his "level" for a long time. It really depends on the activity levels of Galamion, and that isn't exactly fair to Blackout (who surely just wants to roleplay his character) either. We have briefly discussed this dilemma (I believe @Flimzy brought it up once) - that statplaying as a system does not lend itself well to characters that have a pre-established power level. We can definitely discuss the nuances of the system, but this is a definite shortcoming of it. I think the opportunity cost is appropriate in this circumstance, but I want to know particularly what Blackout thinks of this before I make a hardline stance.

Additionally, if I keep Rashid specifically banned from statplays but continue to allow him to participate in freeforms, then we'll see an instance of what is essentially Markovnikov's Rule - the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. As I plan to assign statistical experience for the successful completion of freeform quests, then Rashid can go on his merry way getting stronger and stronger than everyone else by accumulating experience from all the quests he'll do.

Nothing against Blackout or Rashid, I am just trying to keep things fair in this sort of a fresh start. That's why we're having a discussion, I suppose.