Combat Oriented Characters & Cc/design

[MonMarty]

In light of success of the previous religion debate, I decided to open another one related to combat character design.

Combat oriented Characters & CC/Design stands for the current school definition of Military Schools, and the varying degrees of skill levels. Now. Don't get me wrong, the current system is almost perfect in my eyes, the only downside being the lack of schools to satiate all needs of individual players, but a much bigger problem is the one this thread aims to open the discussion about: Namely the erroneous assumption that all characters can be assigned the same value of hypothetical skill level, and how this translates to individual evaluations.

Please understand that while I write this, I will be pointing at some characters and players. This is not a call-out post. I am specifically only going to mention Noble Characters, because I believe players who have signed the Code of Conduct of Nobility are resistant to a certain level of critique and public poking at their character designs in good faith, as they are supposed to function as the examples of the community. I aim to create a greater understanding of the issue I'm having, and to create a bigger underlying potential solution.

So. The essence of the problem is such: Two characters are never alike, so how do you rate combat characters in contrast to one another if they share the same skill level definitions. Take first and foremost, Leonzio Vauclain and Cedric Kade. Both are nobles, both are politicians. One is a Revain by marriage, the other is the Emperor. Both have the "ripped" body build, and both are Turall Bladesmen, Expert level. Both are male, both have a degree of facial hair, and both have had frequent trips back to the Turall Blades school. Now here comes the major problem in this equation: Time spent in activity, vs. logic. Before I go into detail on these points I'd like to point out logic is not so much about creating realism, but more so about creating fairness. This mostly concerns the core tenets of character design, and questioning why certain aspects are chosen, not if they realistically make sense.

Time spent in activity is the first problem. Leonzio Vauclain is married to Marianne Vauclain who runs a wine business and a Revainate. Leonzio also has his own title, a Duchy and some attached, and a major banking business to which he is the sole runner (since the family is pretty much gone). This makes Leonzio an administrator, a paper pusher, and a court decider. When one is a title owner, one is expected to decide on minor court cases locally, sign papers for aldermen to work with, but also manage tax quotas, personnel attachments and general financial management of a fief. Additionally, most if not all families own additional businesses, meaning these activities double in quantity. He sleeps in a comfortable bed, dines fine foods and wines at dinner and breakfast and has anything at his fingertips. Furthermore, Leonzio Vauclain also has political office in Regalia, and participates in numerous events that are often extremely sedentary like balls and wine drinking parties.

In comparison, Cedric is spending six out of seven days at the front line. Granted, he is the Emperor of Regalia, but has transferred effectively all government responsibilities down to Ministries and delegations. As such, he is constantly surrounded by soldiers, whom he trains personally, participates in exercises and military conduct at the front. His rations are simple, yet fitting for the crown, and sleeping positions are somewhat crude at the front line where noble luxuries are not present. He frequently walks around in armor, does not part-take in leisure events and mostly deals with soldier management as even within the Kade family all titles are held by his children and his younger brothers. Cedric has no paperwork to deal with aside from occasional letter correspondence from the Empire's elite.

And yet, due to the fact that both characters are assigned the Turall School Expert level, both characters are seen as equal in the system of combat. Should a battle hardened veteran who lives and breathes the army and military on a daily basis really be at equal odds with a paper pusher aristocrat enjoying life to the fullest who might barely have half an hour a day free time spent on physical intensive activities?

You could argue for the sake of game play, that would be yes. Our Review system does not root out these comparison issues, as comparisons are not made during reviews. Leonzio Vauclain does not get compared to anyone because only characters are judged in their own right. Essentially speaking, daily activities do not count into the evaluation process, nor should they ever honestly, because that's just too much paperwork. In fact you could argue this shouldn't even be such a problem at all, since combat roleplay should generally be free form. The skill levels and /dice help players understand where skill levels are at, but at the same time, none of this is enforced in any way and we are still of the opinion that undetermined roleplay between two people is superior.

This however doesn't apply to the thing that sparked this issue for me, the Rosewood Order. The Rosewood Order is supposed to be the cream of the crop deathsquad of the Emperor. This is a group of people who live and breathe the military life in service of the Emperor alone, and receive considerable benefits to do so.

Is Leonzio Vauclain really a deathsquad kind of person? From an OOC consideration, would Leonzio vauclain hand in all these administrative tasks and noble luxuries to be exposed to gruelling daily physically intensive situations for the sake of a deathsquad job? Furthermore. Why is Leonzio Vauclain even an Expert Turall to begin with? How does not combine the Turall aspect, the Military focus, with how political Vauclain has been? I don't even recall a single instance of Vauclain actually engaging in combat with Turall qualities. This could be because of personal considerations, but here is sort of the problem I have with this sort of rhetoric.

Say for example a character like Tristan Kade exists who is entirely designed to be military. He has no political ability as the player actively avoids politics and plays a politically stupid character that is clumsy and bad with words with people. He frequently fucks up relations with others and is generally considered a failure. Yet again, due to the skill ratings (Viridian Warrior/Expert vs Turall Expert) both Leonzio and Tristan would be equally matched in combat. This politian high-life roller could square on with this seasoned warrior who never so much lifted a pen to rule, and instead raised the sword on a daily basis as guard or warrior in the army. In comparison, Leonzio Vauclain almost seems overpowered in that regard. Tristan is only military, yet Leonzio is military and Politics and Prestige. Yet he isn't also. Because his character fits perfectly within the limitations and is a reasonably well designed character.

This is the problem sort of. Comparing people. When it comes to the Rosewood Order, I am expected to compare people and give them numerical rankings, but I have no way of actually doing this right now besides just giving an arbitrary numerical assessment.

Let me draw some other Character examples also so this is not only about Leonzio Vauclain. William Coen. William Coen is the Inspector of the Regalian Guard, he is the Patriarch and head of the Coen family / Coen Council, he is the Grand Revain of Gallovia and through his wife, Duke of some Drixagh place. He owns the Coen Mercenary Company (though officially ran by Osric his brother, he probably still pushes paper), owns numerous Coen Companies (smithing notably, also again ran by a brother, but probably still keeps in check with paperwork), sits also on the State Consul office, and maintains some rank in the military. One could argue, William Coen is the busiest character in the world. Does he even find time to sleep? The character is not overpowered though. It's in fact quite crippled, given the maims and political backlash the character keeps getting, but where does the character find the time to be muscular? One would say toned arms and a potbelly would be far more appropriate for the position. Now obviously, this is entirely a player's choice, and I don't (even as lore staff member) have the right to dictate how a character should look. After all, all of my characters one way or another look the same, and they all have this cookie cutter design. We just like our characters looking attractive? I would imagine if William was more like a decadent aging middle aged gentleman instead of a roguish charming connoisseur, maybe the player would not find the character that entertaining anymore, and it makes playing him less interesting?

Another, Percy Ravenstad. Since marrying the Emperor, Percy Ravenstad is not permitted to do anything. He just walks around the Imperial Palace, does his funk with the Emperor, and was recently appointed General. Ultimately however, he is now a Kade and his paperwork duties have been transferred to others within the Ravenstad family, and it's also uncouth for the Emperor to manage a boutique business, so that was also tossed away. Percy Ravenstad more than anyone has the time to fulfill that role of the military man, he has seas of time, hypothetically speaking, to just languish away in the gym and earn that strongman body build. Yet. He again, is equal to William Coen and Leonzio Vauclain and Cedric Kade in combat ratings, purely because of the skill assignment, which is made by a player simply writing a word on a thread and making it so.

I'm not calling for these characters to be rewritten. They are all fine characters in their own right. Sometimes I may question why certain characters have for example Turall School training (Leonzio Vauclain, Sigurna Wodenstaff, Juliette Vauclain previously. I think? Not sure about that one anymore) because it just seems to arbitrarily have been slapped on to give the character some combat proficiency in the case of an attack on them. That is a whole subject in and of itself that I intend not to cover on this thread or at all, purely because it goes into questioning the aspects of Mary Sueism. Either way, I'm more so focusing on characters that are supposed to live and breathe military, and how to properly award or recognize this in their character design even if they are "just the same" skill level of Expert.

So what could be done about that? That's primarily why I made this thread. The considerations to be made for a fair comparative combat related skill assessment relating to character design.

• My first idea has always been an assessment of character. This would involve me both using a characters job/backstory/app/general rp behavior to determine some skill rating which can be matched up to some higher contrasting character. This would be the most fair in my eyes, but it relies on the players also respecting my impartial judgement. It would also be the easiest solution since I can apply this directly to the Rosewood Order with affecting any other system.
• My second idea was the generation of new skill cap levels above Expert, Master and Grand Master which would be application based and have a limited number availability. This one feels unfair though, and will just shift the problem from one skill level to another, where minute differences would suddenly start mattering (for example, Cedric is 5'7 while Tristan is 6'6. If they are both Master, then why would they still be equal in combat skill, Logic dictates Tristan is simply more powerful). This would also require a lot of paperwork on my end to rewrite sections of lore.
• My third idea was to enforce a much stricter usage of combat schools, and to nerf Turall School immediately. This is considered highly unfeasible as it would require another unacceptable round of player changes.
• My fourth idea was to create a secondary skill definition stat related to Combat Focus. Imagine like a 10 point modifier where you can say "my character is 50% combat, 20% intellect and 30% pleasure" or something along those lines. Then Expert (as a number 5) can be muliplied by 50 to determine the final combat contrast score. In such cases, if Cedric was combat 90% and Leonzio Vauclain 20%, that would make them contradistinction 4500 and 1000. This seems like an unnecessary step and would also add another really difficult to explain feature of the character app template.
• My fifth idea was to create a character skill database, sort of a similar approach to Idea One, but to make this available to all players who want to rank their character in an opt-in case, and we would also specify that players are allowed to ignore the ratings if they don't like them. That being said, this would require a lot of paperwork. Arguably a lot of it early on, but then less later. We'd still risk people min-maxing characters though, which would just create the same problem. (namely that 90% of the people on the ranking system would be between score ratings 91 and 95).

So. I have fully laid out the situation. I am leaning to Solution One, with a potential optional mixture of Solution Five, thus simply creating my own non-official rating system that I will use for the Rosewood Order in which I take all life choices and design concepts into mind, but also permit people who arent part of the Rosewood order to get graded "for lulz".

I'm open to feedback on the matter and potential other thoughts that might develop this further.

 

[fuithlug]

Whilst I agree with what you're saying for the most part the post seems to assume that all people, or in this case characters are made equal. I think as a whole this is too hard to judge with an algorithm or equation for general use because not all people are equal in regards to their abilities quite frankly - but to label it as such would justify more people creating characters that are good at lots of things or min/maxing (I don't want it to seem like I'm accusing tim of that because he was used as the example tho, Leon I love u)


All in all, for the Rosewood order I would have thought you chose characters by reading through their sheets and deeming whether or not they were suitable rather than applying numbers to it.

 

[MonMarty]

Something else just popped in my head too. When talking about comparisons between characters that have these various different success rates in different fields, devalue the overall experience of those who aim for individual specialization as opposed to jack of all trade designs.

I highlighted some jack of many trade characters above, made for politics, military, prestige, debate etc.

Then you take one asset character, like Tristan. Tristan gets shat on in politics prestige and debate, so all he has left to succeed is military, yet in comparison, his skill rating is exactly the same as the people above, which makes him more mundane. In fact in comparison, it makes him less valuable than the other people, so is it really fair that the jack of many trade characters are stealing his thunder when they could just as well succeed in the many other fields these characters are designed to operate in?

Food for thought on that one.

All in all, for the Rosewood order I would have thought you chose characters by reading through their sheets and deeming whether or not they were suitable rather than applying numbers to it.

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If that were the case none of the applicants would be let in. You could argue that is because the criteria are too severe, but on a "judgement call" all applicants are characters designed with leisure in mind, not the combat military life. I also want to incorporate an internal mini-game with skill progressions, which is why numerical ratings are necessary. I cannot just arbitrarily point at XYZ and say "You are number 7 and you are number 4).

 

[Magivore]

Personally, I believe option one (independent judgement) would be best. All of the reasons the other 4 would not be suitable have already been said in your own post, as it either leaves too much room for players to unfairly judge themselves, or would require a rewrite that will affect a lot more characters. What I will say is that idea number four could become useful on the Rosewood recruitment page as a option to speed up process of accepting / denying, along with the basic "name, ign, character app, Skype name, etc." It would provide more insight on a character along with their application in basic terms to how they want to be presented vs. how they are presented.

I highlighted some jack of many trade characters above, made for politics, military, prestige, debate etc.

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Assuming you are doing number 1 with a spreadsheet set out to do the math for you, why not add modifiers to prevent those Jack-off-all-Trades from stealing spots from specialised characters? Logically, even if you were a 'good' at many tasks, that's going to force you to not be as 'great' as someone who only does that task.

Perhaps something like this:
Inactive Politician: -1 STR, -1 DEX, -1 CON
Active Politician: -2 STR, -2 DEX, -2 CON
Non-combat Talents: -1 DEX, -1 CON
Actively Serving: +1 STR, +1 CON

Additionally, if a character is doing too many things at once, maybe it is necessary to re-review them. People can't master everything, so people shouldn't master something if their character doesn't dedicate most of their waking lives to it. If someone is an expert in something, they better use it a lot, or else they're just sitting on a valuable permission that can and should be spent elsewhere!

 

[Conflee]

Perhaps some form of... addition to the Skills section, about Activity. IE if a character is mainly a politician they write that in. Or if they are a guard or soldier they write that in.

A character who is an Expert Turral who is weighed down with paperwork and business would then rank lower than an Expert Turral who is constantly in fights and training as a guard.

Im not sure how rolls work but characters who are actively using their skills should also get bonuses when Rolls are happening for events, as opposed to characters who just do paperwork.


Another issue this might reflect could fall down the how permissions are given out. Because like you said its not realistic or fair for someone who sits in their estate and drinks wine while doing paperwork to be anywhere NEAR the level of someone who actively serves in the field. Im personally of the opinion that all Special Permissions should need to be approved manually, instead of people tacking them onto their character sheets whenever. Maybe making it so you have to register the permission before a sheet is approved, and having it marked as approved manually in the Permissions sub-forums by the reviewer etc.

Because, like Magic, Expert in any military/combat form should be rare. Not everyone is going to be an expert. Experts would make up maybe less than 10% of a school's population. As it stands everyone is Expert though. Leads to the same oversaturation issues that Magic has currently (though with the Magic rework that will be fixed).

 

[Eternal_Wrath]

I agree with Conf on most of this, Permissions in Military schools should be based on the skills and lifestyle of the character.

Because, like Magic, Expert in any military/combat form should be rare. Not everyone is going to be an expert. Experts would make up maybe less than 10% of a school's population. As it stands everyone is Expert though. Leads to the same oversaturation issues that Magic has currently (though with the Magic rework that will be fixed).

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There are a few exceptions to the rule though Conf, namely the School of Skagger, you don't graduate the school until expert level. I thikn Ha'kix is another similar.

 

[Proudbucket]

I would be inclined for a simplified option 4.
Depending on how focused a character is on combat is the level that the character can achieve in a school.

60% combat allows fighter
70% combat allows warrior
80% combat allows expert

Spoiler: Examples

The noble warrior
"A 60% combat, 20% intellect, 20% social" is a good fighter that can talk with sages or move in the court without looking like a fool.

The exiled warlock
"A 20% combat, 80% intellect, 0% social" is a healthy individual that has little or no martial art training, great academic or arcane knowledge and no social skills whatsoever.

The experienced diplomat
"A 10% combat, 20% intellect, 70% social" is a thin framed individual that grasps the basics of an academic discipline and moves at ease in most social situations or cultures.

 

[Timisc]

Another issue this might reflect could fall down the how permissions are given out. Because like you said its not realistic or fair for someone who sits in their estate and drinks wine while doing paperwork to be anywhere NEAR the level of someone who actively serves in the field. Im personally of the opinion that all Special Permissions should need to be approved manually, instead of people tacking them onto their character sheets whenever. Maybe making it so you have to register the permission before a sheet is approved, and having it marked as approved manually in the Permissions sub-forums by the reviewer etc.

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I don't exactly agree with this. First off, special perms are looked over and taken away and such when the need arises. Going through each one may help a bit but is also taxing on staff, I just don't think that is a problem.

Because, like Magic, Expert in any military/combat form should be rare. Not everyone is going to be an expert. Experts would make up maybe less than 10% of a school's population. As it stands everyone is Expert though. Leads to the same oversaturation issues that Magic has currently (though with the Magic rework that will be fixed).

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As for this, I again don't exactly agree. Yes there shouldn't be hundreds of experts running around but also Regalia is the most militaristic region in the world, there will obviously be a lot of people who have graduated from their school with expert skill. That isn't to say that there aren't better experts than other experts cause, for example, Leonzio would easily be taken down by Cedromar or Tristan, might be a little fight there but it wouldn't last at all.

Also, and I'll use Leonzio as an example without hopefully being pinned as bias, my character was supposed to be very military based but after having married into the Vauclains that changed and caused him to have to pick up the slack of the rest of the family and do what needed to be done, which caused him to begin to drop in his training. This doesn't remove his expert mindset though, he still knows his technique and what to do, he just performs a little subpar. So that is something to take into account I suppose. Was a person once very militaristic but then had something else arise to change him.

I'm personally of the opinion option one is best but also option four shows some potential. Maybe having a small section (similar to the skill section) on the character app section that can be edited when things cause the character to change where they put their time. Might save some time when it comes to having to learn where a character puts their attention most.

 

[Conflee]

As for this, I again don't exactly agree. Yes there shouldn't be hundreds of experts running around but also Regalia is the most militaristic region in the world, there will obviously be a lot of people who have graduated from their school with expert skill.

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I agree with that. Given how militarized Regalia is, especially in the ranks of nobility and guards there would probably be a lot of experts. But I also dont think there should be as many as there are now.

And yea, checking every application would take ages so I doubt that will ever happen. I was just saying in the ideal situation it would be best if each was checked manually. Maybe in the future, though probably not lol

 

[Gwyndo]

I read the original post and a few comments; sorry if this has already been said.

The "Jack of all trades" problem is something which really raises my eyebrows. It's such a good point.

Like, I'm gonna list this out as an example so I can explain why I think this is such a big / interesting problem.
---
Dave spends all his time devoted to combat and military, and is expert.
Bob splits his time between politics, military, balls, feasts, paper work for his business, paper work for his other business, and is somehow also expert.
---
So both Dave and Bob are seen as equals in the current system when they clearly shouldn't be.

Now, imagine if you replaced politics, balls, feasts, paperwork for two business, and all that other time filling stuff with magic.
---
Dave used to spend all his time devoted to combat and military, but he realised he could spend a massive amount of time doing other stuff, and still be on-par with Bob. Thus, he decides to have spent all that free time learning magic, and is now an expert who can cast spells.
---
"How much time you have to do other stuff and still be considered an expert in combat" is definitely something worth talking about.

Though, correct me if I'm wrong as I might've made a mistake in my thinking here.
I know I didn't add much to the discussion with this, I just kind of felt like writing it down.

 

[Sidereum]

This whole argument goes into one of the significant flaws that I've seen over the 4 years (more like 2 1/2 years seeing as for a good while i was not competent enough in roleplay to notice any of the issues), is that Massive has always lacked any sort of structure to the definition of certain skills until recently. While yes, there are defined intellect, magical, and combat skill levels put in place, there is no set-in-stone limitations on skills in relation to lifestyle and other skills. I'm aware I'm rather redundant as this point has already been effectively made, in different wording.

Personally, I find that a numerical system akin to, say, the Fallout games (S.P.E.C.I.A.L.) or Dungeons and Dragons would balance the system. A minimum set of aspects for each race could be set in place, Wulong with a lower intelligence and Qadir with a higher one for example. Then in the same vain, levels could be set for whatever occupations might exist; a blacksmith having a greater strength than that of a politician. Obviously the list of aspects for occupations would be a hassle to develop and adequately set in place on the part of the staff, however, it would have a greater benefit for numerical and clarity reasons. Obviously the system would give benefits in the rolling system for the adventure system, world progression, and in day-to-day rolls.