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Con Rewards vs. Homeplay
http://forums.paradigmconcepts.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2018		 Page 1 of 5
Author:  Nierite [ Fri Oct 02, 2015 5:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Con Rewards vs. Homeplay
Having a discussion and the topic came up about how to balance rewards for those who go to conventions and those who cannot/do not. For example, if you have played every publicily available adventure, you would only reach between Tier 2.7 to 2.8 (about 2.4-2.5 with the 1.5 Cert), but if you have played at Conventions with all the additional BI's, Special Events, LARPs, etc, you could be as high as Tier 3.2. This is a massive (and increasing) level gap which I know makes my life as a writer more difficult, if nothing else.

However, the problem comes (as was seen a couple Origins' ago) when the Campaign tries to remove the XP and/or gold from these special events people don't like it and feel cheated. Basically, they are paying money to attend these events and want something tangible to reflect their efforts beyond the enjoyment of the story. Even giving a token amount of XP to avoid power creep leaves people feeling cheated, and still increases the gap between the Haves and Have-Nots.

So what is the solution?

Honestly, I cannot say with any authority what the best solution is, hence why I bring this up. My personal view is that these events should give a minimum amount of XP and Gold, maybe a few unique but not overpowered items (ie: Magic items no higher than Player Tier -1), and 'interesting' things. Speaking for myself, I am a HUGE fan of temporary bonuses which expire after a certain amount of time.

For example, at the First ArcaniCon's BI there were two major 'rewards': One was a spectral flower which gives no benefit but looked nice, the other was a temporary (ie: 10 adventure?) bonus to that character's maximum Stamina. While powerful, this bonus wasn't game breaking as far as I know, and because it was temporary it meant that the character eventually self-leveled the playing field between them and those who couldn't attend.

This is my personal vote to what Special Events like BI's and LARPs should give. It is tangible and directly reflect's that character's mechanics, but is not so powerful that it upends the power curve of the game. Any 'shifting' it does will be temporary so people who cannot attend these need to feel bad about not getting the 'full experience'.

Another thing I'd like to see is the special "Character Creation" certs which allow players to make new characters when theirs die at a slight level penalty without having to re-run all the previous adventures to power-level them. This would also be a good 'benefit' for people attending special events. For example, if you were killed by the Iakhova in the last BI, you get to play as a former member of the Blue Cloaks who saw the bravery of the Heroes and decided to start adventuring themselves. It would be a limited character build option, but one that allows the player to save time and not have to start from scratch behind the power curve.
Author:  wilcoxon [ Fri Oct 02, 2015 6:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Con Rewards vs. Homeplay
Also, the 1.5 cert makes the gap even worse. I haven't run the exact numbers, but I think a character playing through the Crusade SPs and HPs will end up around 2.2-2.3. This is a very large gap over 1.5. The 1.5 cert should really, imho, be replaced (retroactively) with something closer like 1.8-2.1 (exactly where it should be would depend on exactly how much XP Crusade does give).
Author:  wilcoxon [ Fri Oct 02, 2015 6:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Con Rewards vs. Homeplay
As to Cody's main point, I mostly agree. Since BIs are not being released for home play any longer, they should really give much lower XP to avoid huge discrepancies among players. However, in order to make people feel like they are still worth attending, they need to give some tangible and useful reward that won't unbalance the game. I'm not a big fan of temporary bonuses but they can sometimes be appropriate. Personally, I'd love to see more interesting options as rewards. This could be unique (or hard to access) items that aren't overpowered (such as Vault of Larissa). This could be new character options (either allowing something unique to a new character or allowing a new option to an existing character (new Path or allowing ignoring certain prereqs on a talent/path/whatever). Again, they need to be useful and interesting but not overpowering. New character options shouldn't be too plentiful as each player can realistically only play a certain number of characters.
Author:  Hat [ Fri Oct 02, 2015 8:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Con Rewards vs. Homeplay
Max listed XP for hard point arc 1 and soft points 1 - 11 (12 - 15 are playable by 1.5 certs) is 7,945 or almost 1.9. It's 3,945 XP more than the 1.5 cert at max XP, though not everyone earns max XP all the time. While it is a gap, it's not as significant as the 2.2 - 2.3 you mentioned. There were a couple of other 1 time special events at Gencon which amounted to another 1,000 XP, but that's separate from the general arc question.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul
Author:  val Holryn [ Fri Oct 02, 2015 9:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Con Rewards vs. Homeplay
Oooohhhh. Shiny. Yes. This is a topic worth revisiting.

Originally all the BI were released for home play and the LARPs had no rewards. So there was no issue. The people who never make it to cons were on exactly the same field reward-wise when compared to the Con goers.

But then PCI made a decision that going forward they weren't going to release the BI's for homeplay. I remember at the time that they said that the rewards for the BI were going to be dramatically reduced or dropped. And that the BIs would pivot away from key elements of the story (since obviously people away from Cons wouldn't ever get to play them). Around this time more Special events started popping up. Some of them were promised for home play (such as the first Arcaniscon Special Events) but never made it ... presumably due to the amount of work involved.

In practice it seems that "Big Events" still give out a lot of cash and xp ... in addition to some other items. Further at least the BI at Tultipet was central to the ongoing story arc of the Blessed Lands. Which again, people who weren't at Origins will not be able to experience first hand.

This has led to the growing disparity Cody has mentioned between characters that have played "everything" and characters that have "played what comes out for home play."

Like Cody I don't know what to do about it. In the old campaign there were hard xp caps above which you couldn't play the modules. This was unpopular with the core aracnis players who hit them and had to temporarily retire their characters till the rest of the campaign caught up with them. I don't know that its the best solution to return to this path.

But still I worry. My biggest concern is that power differentials in PCs could potentially become a disincentive to new players. We need to bring in more players. OTOH players who participate in an 8 hour BI, that shapes the fate of a city - and puts their characters at higher risk of death - are probably right to feel under appreciated if the results of that are less than a standard rewards of a 2 hour module.

I feel for PCI. No matter which way they go on this, they're going to hear mutterings in the ranks...either from the most loyal players who go to everything or from the new players we need to recruit into the campaign. This argument last broke out then the "leveling certs" came out. My understanding is that originally they had been planned to be at 1.8 but at some of the long time players were upset. Arguments were often a variation of: "its unfair. I've taken the time to play all these modules, and they can step in at the same place I am at. They haven't earned it." And the leveling cert came out at 1.5

I like Cody's proposed solution of temporary benefits. It won't be appropriate in all cases but where it works, I think its a great idea. I also like the idea that people there get access to something not normally purchase-able. Not full on magic items but things that are restricted in the campaign.

I would also suggest bringing back the "Weekend in..." format. Many past Living style campaigns have had a major event run at multiple regional sites in public conventions and gamedays. WiGE - the Weekend in Gothic Earth, (for the Living Death campaign) may be the best known example of this. Basically a set of themed mods and perhaps a special event go out to trusted members of the campaign to be run no more than once per "region." The results are collected and that determines continuity. People would be able to experience a special event in their local area. Gothic Earth was a low magic world largely free from permanent magic items so it was often the case that each region was given 1 special version cert of an item (from a mod) to be given out to a lucky player.

I would *LOVE* to see a Weekend in the Shattered Empire (WiSE). 1) It would be a chance for local only players to do a Special Event. 2) It might be a good draw to new players. While it wouldn't directly solve a widening gap in PC power in the campaign but it would indirectly help by by turning the argument into one of degree (I don't get to as many special events) rather than one of binary differences (there are two types of PCs in the campaign...those who go to the special events and have all the "toys" and those who don't).

My opinions
Author:  Haakon_val'Ishi [ Sat Oct 03, 2015 8:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Con Rewards vs. Homeplay
One reward that might be fun but not break the bank is situational. For example let say you played in the last BI where we save a lot of the movers and shakers of the First City. That player gets a circumstance bonus to interact with those folks plus grateful citizens give you free drinks, a free room at the inn, preferential treatment etc. Maybe you get a medal or key to the city as it were. As for eps and gold I wouldn't mind getting less in trade for the "shiny" things. Maybe you get a cool certed title. Something tangible on a piece of paper. A temporary boost is fine as well. Bottom line is I am okay with less gold and exp from a BI as long as we know it up front, but think some sort of reward to balance that out for the time, money and "suffering" :) put into it should be given.
Author:  acurrier [ Sat Oct 03, 2015 1:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Con Rewards vs. Homeplay
val Holryn wrote:
I would *LOVE* to see a Weekend in the Shattered Empire (WiSE)

This is a great idea, especially for the small groups of players outside the US who have difficulty making it to cons.

It seems to me that reputation could be granted in more special events. I also agree that in certain situations a certed 'medal of ______' would be appropriate. I recall being very proud of getting the Hero of Semar cert after the Origins BI in...2008? It wasn't the material benefits so much as being able to say that my PC was a certed war hero.

This definitely is not a simple problem for PCI to solve, and I doubt that there is any perfect solution. There is always going to be some kind of disparity between those who go to cons and those who don't.
Author:  toodeep [ Sun Oct 04, 2015 1:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Con Rewards vs. Homeplay
I have one idea that I've been considering, but the only problem is that it requires additional work for the campaign staff - which is never a good thing. But essentially, it would just come down to publishing a module that occurs simultaneously with the special event at Origins or Arcanicon. Because the module occurs somewhere else at the exact same time as the special event, obviously whatever character played in the special can't play that module. People who played the special shouldn't mind this, since it is still a module they can play with a secondary character, and their main character has all the special splat of the special event. But people who can't get to the special event get a module the can put into their main character that those who went can't -thus minimizing the power differential of the main character of those who went and those who didn't.
Author:  acurrier [ Sun Oct 04, 2015 5:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Con Rewards vs. Homeplay
toodeep wrote:
...publishing a module that occurs simultaneously with the special event at Origins or Arcanicon...

In principle this is a really good idea. A module where (for example) the Heroes are working somewhere on the perimeter of the battle for Tultipet, not directly involved in the main fighting, but perhaps defending an outpost, procuring supplies, etc. I like the fact that it could potentially address the XP/GP disparity between con-goers and everyone else.

Unfortunately, as you stated, it would cause a lot of extra work for campaign staff. It is my understanding that a big part of why the special events stopped being released for home play was that it was a lot of work to convert the document from BI stats into something releasable to the public.

This idea, while really cool, would be even more work than converting BI stats, as the author basically has to start from scratch and write an entirely separate module.
Author:  mininin [ Mon Oct 05, 2015 2:15 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Con Rewards vs. Homeplay
Would it be possible to see what a BI document looks like before it is tweaked for home play? I mean a lot of us would be happy if we had something we could run the players through in our own way even if it meant not giving them XP & rewards. Being in Britain does make life harder for American Cons.
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