Is powergaming bad?
- Thread starter jpariury
- Start date
obcidian_bandit
Pioneer
I can't, because I know it's not, unless what you mean by 'as expected' is "we get to let in LCO items and not call it that." You can point out that in more isolated chapters like SoMn, Calgary, and SF that you hear less about this, too, but it doesn't add much to the conversation, either. I've played long before the LCO issue got to where it is, but regardless of how you slice it, even if LCO items stay in-chapter, you're skewing treasure policy, and I think that that's a much bigger deal then letting them roam from chapter to chapter.Dan Nickname Beshers said:
obcidian_bandit said:
I don't. Treasure policy is Alliance wide because that's what it governs: the whole Alliance. If individual chapters want to increase the amount of treasure in chapter, why is that a problem? It's not, unless you're concerned that people from other chapters will be disadvantaged when playing there. However, even if you trust that chapter owners and GMs will be responsible enough to not dig themselves into that kind of hole, that's still a problem for one chapter that is undermining itself in the eyes of non-local players, i.e. only hurting themselves. If you don't like playing where local PCs are bogged down with ridiculous magical items or plot powers, don't play there. If you are offended that such a game could conceivably exist, I dunno how you fix that without masterminding a coup and becoming the new Fearless Leader. Not everyone plays the game with the same goals or in the same style; trying to tighten up the rules so that any one person's vision for the perfect game becomes inescapable within those rules encourages people to escape them.
obcidian_bandit
Pioneer
You're running around in circles here. LCO items are, de facto, entering other chapters, therefore they are impacting the whole Alliance. I'm not worried about other chapters having infinity bajillion items running around their playerbase, my concern is that there's an expectation being built when they do that. If someone is used to having 143 magic items, the idea of going over to Chapter Y where only 2 of them work isn't awesome, especially if people in Chapter Y still have dozens of items. That's one of the driving points behind allowing in LCO items at National (that and 'letting people use their rewards' pretty much sum it up).Dan Nickname Beshers said:
We're not talking about some single chapter that's putting out a thousand magic swords though, we're talking about more than 80% of the game putting out more loot than they're allowed to. We can point the blame where ever we want, Owners, GMs, Plot teams, Santa Claus, whatever, the fact of the matter is we're in the hole, it's been dug. There's a bunch of us down here with shovels. We've got to get out and start filling it in, and no one chapter is going to be able to do that.Dan Nickname Beshers said:
Wouldn't be the first time. :roll: (Sorry, that's an inside joke; a couple people will probably find it really funny, and a couple people will probably be offended by it. Whatever, I think it's hilarious.)Dan Nickname Beshers said:
Ahh, see, I'm not going around in circles, I'm jogging in place. Specifically, a place where:
LOCAL CHAPTER ONLY
actually means
LOCAL CHAPTER ONLY
and not de facto extra treasure that goes everywhere.
I'm aware you've said multiple times that that's not how it's been working, but that is (please, please just agree with this) how it was originally intended to. Hence the name. So if the rules change from ~3-4 years ago allowing legal transfer of LCO items were repealed, would the situation then not be as I described? From my perspective it looks like someone or several someones had the very well-intentioned idea of letting in LCO items to make things nice for visiting staff from other chapters or whatever the original reasoning was. It snowballed, it's now a recognized problem, so why isn't the first response to undo the change that was and is resulting in complaints?
LOCAL CHAPTER ONLY
actually means
LOCAL CHAPTER ONLY
and not de facto extra treasure that goes everywhere.
I'm aware you've said multiple times that that's not how it's been working, but that is (please, please just agree with this) how it was originally intended to. Hence the name. So if the rules change from ~3-4 years ago allowing legal transfer of LCO items were repealed, would the situation then not be as I described? From my perspective it looks like someone or several someones had the very well-intentioned idea of letting in LCO items to make things nice for visiting staff from other chapters or whatever the original reasoning was. It snowballed, it's now a recognized problem, so why isn't the first response to undo the change that was and is resulting in complaints?
obcidian_bandit
Pioneer
The place you're jogging in makes up 20% of the Alliance, and the place I'm jogging in (I guess I'm jogging? It goes with the metaphor) makes up 80%. Your answer to the problem can't be "Well, it doesn't affect me, so it's not a problem." It's still a problem, for 80% of the Alliance. "LCO" doesn't mean "Local Chapter Only" any more than "Restricted" actually restricts anything. It's "Here's some loot that travels into 80% of all of the Alliance," which is basically everywhere for most people. The original intent isn't the point, we're way past that now. There's no single rules change that occurred to allow LCO items in, it's been individual chapters one by one over the course of 5-10 years that have been doing it. Reversing it doesn't fix the problem, it just makes it so that everyone will do the "Trade an item to circumvent the rule" dance, which introduces the exact same problem. Call it what you want, but allowing people to trade LCO items with each other to get around restrictions = letting LCO items in, it's just an extra hoop, and only discourages travel. Repealing it completely just changes the problem, not solves it.
The change was when the owners passed a policy change saying that any chapter that wants to can accept LCO items within the guidelines they then set forth. Revert that change. Remind everyone, "Only means only, that's what's intended, buck the system at your own risk."
If individual chapters can say, (when it was against the rules, mind you) "Eh, we're going to let them in anyway," then they can certainly now say, "That pretty much backfired, we're going to stop now." That's it. If your percentages flip, and it's now 80% of chapters don't allow LCO transfers and 20% still choose to, that does change the problem. This problem:
Chapters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and I all give out 8 LCO items to various players; Staff, NPCs, whatever. Those players all show up in chapter J, bringing in their 72 LCO items. Staff at chapter J throw their hands in the air and cry out: "Woe to the world, this is much too much magic! Since there is no simple, in chapter solution, we must rewrite the whole system!"
There IS a simple, in chapter solution. Stop accepting them. Nobody's hands are tied, nobody is being forced to allow such items into their games. Just say "Sorry, it was a problem, we're going to stop."
It's just false to say that item trading results in the same problem. That only becomes close to true if a chapter starts handing out ten times the number of LCO items they currently are in order to make sure that visitors from every other chapter are covered when they show up and are given a complementary Cloak Necro 1/d in line at logistics. Again, at that point, the solution can be found at the local level: show restraint.
Think about this: if players from nine other chapters show up and have LCO items from your chapter, bought with goblin stamps earned by your staff or NPCs, then all of those items are items you were prepared to deal with anyway. Your chapter awarded the gobbies and adopted the policy by which the items were created. It doesn't matter who is holding them; you put them out. You can require items still be made in game, you can require people purchase spirit link for items of a certain size or duration to prevent them from floating around, you can simply disallow items you deem too large or that last for over a year, you can choose not to allow certain effects at all or charge huge costs for them.
You can even choose, for your chapter, to not give out LCO items for gobbies at all.
None of those choices necessitates re-writing treasure policy and bylaws and overturning the systems which some chapters are using, right now, to their own satisfaction and the satisfaction of their players.
Or maybe you're trying to make a point that I'm just not seeing, because I cannot figure out how not accepting LCO items does anything other than solve the problem of having too many LCO items.
If individual chapters can say, (when it was against the rules, mind you) "Eh, we're going to let them in anyway," then they can certainly now say, "That pretty much backfired, we're going to stop now." That's it. If your percentages flip, and it's now 80% of chapters don't allow LCO transfers and 20% still choose to, that does change the problem. This problem:
Chapters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and I all give out 8 LCO items to various players; Staff, NPCs, whatever. Those players all show up in chapter J, bringing in their 72 LCO items. Staff at chapter J throw their hands in the air and cry out: "Woe to the world, this is much too much magic! Since there is no simple, in chapter solution, we must rewrite the whole system!"
There IS a simple, in chapter solution. Stop accepting them. Nobody's hands are tied, nobody is being forced to allow such items into their games. Just say "Sorry, it was a problem, we're going to stop."
It's just false to say that item trading results in the same problem. That only becomes close to true if a chapter starts handing out ten times the number of LCO items they currently are in order to make sure that visitors from every other chapter are covered when they show up and are given a complementary Cloak Necro 1/d in line at logistics. Again, at that point, the solution can be found at the local level: show restraint.
Think about this: if players from nine other chapters show up and have LCO items from your chapter, bought with goblin stamps earned by your staff or NPCs, then all of those items are items you were prepared to deal with anyway. Your chapter awarded the gobbies and adopted the policy by which the items were created. It doesn't matter who is holding them; you put them out. You can require items still be made in game, you can require people purchase spirit link for items of a certain size or duration to prevent them from floating around, you can simply disallow items you deem too large or that last for over a year, you can choose not to allow certain effects at all or charge huge costs for them.
You can even choose, for your chapter, to not give out LCO items for gobbies at all.
None of those choices necessitates re-writing treasure policy and bylaws and overturning the systems which some chapters are using, right now, to their own satisfaction and the satisfaction of their players.
Or maybe you're trying to make a point that I'm just not seeing, because I cannot figure out how not accepting LCO items does anything other than solve the problem of having too many LCO items.
obcidian_bandit
Pioneer
Dan Nickname Beshers said:
I think this is the crux of it. I'm talking about a multi-faceted problem, and you're stuck on one of the facets. You can have more gobbies than god and if you can't spend them because you can't PC in your chapter, your gobbies are significantly less valuable than guy who shows up with 700 spell packets and PCs all season, since that guy can buy a magic item and use it. If you can spend those gobbies and use them on an item in a chapter you can PC in, suddenly your gobbies have their value back. Regardless of whether you can make the item in your chapter and travel to another one that accepts LCO items or if you and buddy Bob make LCO items and trade them, your gobbies have the most value when you can use them in other chapters. Either way, you're doing the same thing; every chapter allows you to use gobbies to have LCO items in other chapters, some just require a few more hoops.
Eliminating free mobility (what you're talking about) will just swing the pendulum the other way, and everybody will do the item trade dance, and net you'll have the same situation: LCO items on characters from other chapters. They'll still exist. Outside of treasure policy, and adding to the power level of the game/characters/etc. Disallow the trade dance and you're back to screwing your staffers who can't PC in their own chapters.
There's three things here:
*Staffers who can't use their gobbies on items in their own chapter.
*Chapters allowing in LCO items (including the trade dance, which is allowing LCO items in under a different name).
*LCO items being outside of treasure policy and contributing to power bloat.
They're coupled together, and can't be untangled unless all of the problems are solved together. Disallowing LCO items only solves one of them, screws up the first one, and no one actually does that anyways because of it.
I agree that the first point is almost always true. The second point, I disagree. Here's why:
Adam is staff in chapter A, Betsy in chapter B, Charlie in chapter C. Currently, Adam's LCO items from A can be used in all three chapters, although Adam rarely if ever uses them in chapter A. The same is true for Betsy and Charlie, and so from these three each chapter can expect to see two staff members with LCO items playing. If each staffer is given 3000 gobbies, then each chapter sees 6000 gobbies worth of items. If LCO items do not transfer then Betsy and Charlie are no longer bringing in 3000 gobbies each, because neither of them have gobbies in Chapter A. If both of them trade with Adam, they still cannot between them go over the 3000 gobbies Adam was given anyway. One can only hope that if chapter A is giving Adam 3000 gobbies they're prepared for him to have 3000 gobbies worth of items. Thus: item trading is not the same as allowing items, because the total LCO item value goes no higher than what each individual chapter is willing to allow, since they control how many stamps are given out and how they can be spent. This leads to your third point:
If a chapter is permitting the purchase of LCO items, then that chapter is prepared for the ramifications of those items existing. That chapter can impose whatever limits they so choose: for example, NH does not allow people to spend gobbies on items without NPCing. To buy a gobbie item you must NPC a full event, each time. Such items last one year or are times ever and are drawn from a list which does not include Life, Prison or Dodge in any capacity and has lesser restrictions on some other powerful effects. The list is created by NH, so nothing gets picked by NPCs that we are not prepared to allow. Further, the list does not contain all spells all the time; if you want to gobbie spell shields, you had best hope they show up on the list. They are not guaranteed. If you join NH staff then you are given the option to instead pick a ritual from a list of permitted ritual effects. This ritual and the components to cast it at its base effect level come with the listed cost in gobbies; extra components for additional effect cost additional goblin stamps. The trade off is that you can pick what you want to have rather than choosing from a random list, but the overall cost is higher. Any item made with rituals so purchased and lasting longer than 1 year MUST be spirit locked, which the staffer must pay for. Additionally, these items are always given a history, are tied into the characters personal plot, and will always have at least one flaw, chosen by other staff members to annoy their friend and ensure that the item adds to the game world in addition to helping kill small bits of it.
Our chapter's policy is written with the intent of yielding a level of magic items we're willing to see in game and is tweaked whenever we feel something is too much (Skill Store Dodge was originally allowed; now it is not under any circumstances because Dodge is too strong, even times ever). We don't see this as power bloat. We see it as power growth, something that for the time being we are more or less comfortable with as a group. If people want extra magic treasure without earning in game, then they will earn it out of game. I fully believe that a motivated player can walk away with as much or more treasure by PCing than NPCing, since NPCs cannot collect coin, components or ritual scrolls and are limited to buying production with gobbies at the standard restrictions. Further, an unplayed PC cannot have the interactions with plot NPCs and other PCs that are the driving force for much of our plot lines and also probably the most fun aspect of the game. When I PC the Connecticut chapter I do so more to enjoy being with my friends and relaxing in character than to flex my muscles and "win" the combats with overwhelming stats. I do more than enough fighting in NH, most of it as the same incredibly unsuccessful vampire.That's my inside joke; a few people will kind of feel bad for me, the rest will remember that they kind of hate my stupid face.
This is a little off topic, but if the only satisfaction you're getting out of being staff for a chapter is the items you can buy with the gobbies, then to a large extent, you're in it for the wrong reasons. Same with if having items makes or breaks your game. I know people who've NPCed a season, or done crazy props or work days to earn gobbies, but none that have joined staff and given up playing the game they enjoy unless they get equal or more enjoyment in helping to run the game. If you do something you hate, you're going to drag the quality of the game down, and it ends up doing far more harm in the long run.
I've got chapters where I have thousands of gobbies, and chapters where I can't purchase an event blanket. I haven't turned around and made anything crazy... the nuttiest I went was a 25 AA for a year, and a handful of skill stores. I think a Magic Armor 2/d item, once upon a time. (All of those only worked in CT, and not the other 4 chapters where I played.) I'm not angry that if I choose to make an item in SF with the gobbies I get from marshaling that when I go back to the east coast to play I can't transfer the item in. I did the work in SF, I'll reap the rewards there. It's really nice of Seattle to pat me on the back for it, but it was a choice made by the chapter owner to do so. If I got told at logistics "Sorry, we're not taking LCOs anymore," I'd toss the rep and tag back in my bin and call it a day. Forewarning would be nice, but it wouldn't end my world. If the item were that important to my character, I'd quest for the stuff to make it a Restricted item.
I can also say that I've now played chapters on both sides of the divide, and can see that this is becoming the Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss. Choosing to allow LCO items into your chapter doesn't mean that the LCO/gobbie system needs an overhaul. It means the policy by which chapters agree to allow in LCO items needs to be looked at again. I know New Jersey as certain restrictions on incoming LCO items (12 rituals per person, not including extenders and links/locks, creatable in the standard ritual system) and it helps avoid anything too crazy coming in. It is, AFAIK, the only chapter with a limiting of incoming LCO items other than "We don't take them."
Most of the disagreement has to do with proximity to games. The East Coast has 5 chapters within an afternoon's driving distance. When I lived in CT, NH was 90 minutes away, CT was 45, HQ was 3-ish hours, NJ was 3.5, and Catskills was about 2 hours away. Now, living in SF, I can either drive 2 hours, or 16. I can see the difference it makes, when you're required to put in all the extra travel to play another game, while putting in hard work for your own. My initial response is "That sucks, it you really want to play with MIs that badly, staff for two years, take a year off and play. Rinse and repeat," but I know some people don't want to leave the chapter they work on for that amount of time. It's also unfair to someone who might know that they have a limited amount of time to play because of <school, family, job, RL responsibilities> and want as much of the Alliance experience as they can get.
In the end, if a chapter thinks things are getting out of hand with the LCO items coming in, it needs to exercise it's right to no longer take them in, or do what Jersey did and limit the number of rits. If enough people want to limit the number of LCO items transferring around, then the whole "Staff" or "NPC" designation needs to be made as a third tier of MI types, and only those are transferable. I'd actually prefer to see option 2. If the EC suddenly started allowing the transfers of LCO's, I think there'd be some backlash from the midwest and WC chapters that now not only do restricted items get more use, but LCO items do as well, making EC players' gobbies more valuable in terms of uses per ritual year. This is a lose-lose situation that is, again, solved by making that category for staff gobby purchases. Could always make "Gryphon stamps," given out only to staff members, and Gryphon items transfer. Same idea for limited transferability, just Life money instead of Monopoly or Uno cards.
As for Nationals accepting LCO items, I don't think it's a statement one way or the other that LCOs should be accepted wholesale or not. I think it's more a statement that this is a game taking place where the entire Alliance is the "local chapter".
I've got chapters where I have thousands of gobbies, and chapters where I can't purchase an event blanket. I haven't turned around and made anything crazy... the nuttiest I went was a 25 AA for a year, and a handful of skill stores. I think a Magic Armor 2/d item, once upon a time. (All of those only worked in CT, and not the other 4 chapters where I played.) I'm not angry that if I choose to make an item in SF with the gobbies I get from marshaling that when I go back to the east coast to play I can't transfer the item in. I did the work in SF, I'll reap the rewards there. It's really nice of Seattle to pat me on the back for it, but it was a choice made by the chapter owner to do so. If I got told at logistics "Sorry, we're not taking LCOs anymore," I'd toss the rep and tag back in my bin and call it a day. Forewarning would be nice, but it wouldn't end my world. If the item were that important to my character, I'd quest for the stuff to make it a Restricted item.
I can also say that I've now played chapters on both sides of the divide, and can see that this is becoming the Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss. Choosing to allow LCO items into your chapter doesn't mean that the LCO/gobbie system needs an overhaul. It means the policy by which chapters agree to allow in LCO items needs to be looked at again. I know New Jersey as certain restrictions on incoming LCO items (12 rituals per person, not including extenders and links/locks, creatable in the standard ritual system) and it helps avoid anything too crazy coming in. It is, AFAIK, the only chapter with a limiting of incoming LCO items other than "We don't take them."
Most of the disagreement has to do with proximity to games. The East Coast has 5 chapters within an afternoon's driving distance. When I lived in CT, NH was 90 minutes away, CT was 45, HQ was 3-ish hours, NJ was 3.5, and Catskills was about 2 hours away. Now, living in SF, I can either drive 2 hours, or 16. I can see the difference it makes, when you're required to put in all the extra travel to play another game, while putting in hard work for your own. My initial response is "That sucks, it you really want to play with MIs that badly, staff for two years, take a year off and play. Rinse and repeat," but I know some people don't want to leave the chapter they work on for that amount of time. It's also unfair to someone who might know that they have a limited amount of time to play because of <school, family, job, RL responsibilities> and want as much of the Alliance experience as they can get.
In the end, if a chapter thinks things are getting out of hand with the LCO items coming in, it needs to exercise it's right to no longer take them in, or do what Jersey did and limit the number of rits. If enough people want to limit the number of LCO items transferring around, then the whole "Staff" or "NPC" designation needs to be made as a third tier of MI types, and only those are transferable. I'd actually prefer to see option 2. If the EC suddenly started allowing the transfers of LCO's, I think there'd be some backlash from the midwest and WC chapters that now not only do restricted items get more use, but LCO items do as well, making EC players' gobbies more valuable in terms of uses per ritual year. This is a lose-lose situation that is, again, solved by making that category for staff gobby purchases. Could always make "Gryphon stamps," given out only to staff members, and Gryphon items transfer. Same idea for limited transferability, just Life money instead of Monopoly or Uno cards.
As for Nationals accepting LCO items, I don't think it's a statement one way or the other that LCOs should be accepted wholesale or not. I think it's more a statement that this is a game taking place where the entire Alliance is the "local chapter".
For better or for worse (I am inclined to say worse), having items does make or break the game for a lot of people because those who do[/] have them make such a scaling issue that an unequipped character simply can't compete.
It isn't fun to be cannon fodder for the wealthier characters on the long term.
It isn't fun to be cannon fodder for the wealthier characters on the long term.
obcidian_bandit said:
If you are going to use numbers please state them correctly. I will assume that 2.8 (2.8 of 14 chapters= 20%) of the chapters don't allow lco items to transfer (I can say right now that I know at least 4 that don't). When saying a problem makes up 80% of the Alliance, you really mean 80% of chapters correct? Remember that doesn't mean 80% of the player base, just chapters.
If you want I will do some leg work, find out what every chapter policy is and then do the math to get a percentage.
Dreamingfurther
Exemplar
What's the issue with giving every chapter x number of dragon stamps per player that are awarded to the staff and possibly notable NPC's for work playing the game and also allow some percentage of restricted treasure policy (say 5-10) be 'saved' for goblin stamps rewards and having all 'items' created as rewards be restricted?
Do away with 'unlimited' LCO item creation and suddenly everything becomes a whole lot simpler.
Either you earn some (fairly small) amount of dragon stamps and are eventually able to make a couple dragon stamps Restricted items. Which are controlled and scaled on a national level. Or you earn goblin stamps locally and get to make some number of Restricted items from the treasure policy your local chapter sets aside to reward local goblin stamps.
At the same time 'fix' treasure policy so that everything comes out of the 'points' pool (ritual scrolls, comps, and cats cost a certain number of points with certain 'maximums' if you will) and it all becomes a whole lot simpler...
We could continue to argue/discuss endlessly the various ways of 'handling' LCO items and unlimited item creation via 'LCO chapter discretion'. But does anyone really think it would be a bad thing to just say ALL items created that PC's use and can take with their character (this excludes special plot artifacts and such which I HOPE no chapter just goes whole hog and creates loads of) are 'restricted' and 'capped' by National treasure policy??
Do away with 'unlimited' LCO item creation and suddenly everything becomes a whole lot simpler.
Either you earn some (fairly small) amount of dragon stamps and are eventually able to make a couple dragon stamps Restricted items. Which are controlled and scaled on a national level. Or you earn goblin stamps locally and get to make some number of Restricted items from the treasure policy your local chapter sets aside to reward local goblin stamps.
At the same time 'fix' treasure policy so that everything comes out of the 'points' pool (ritual scrolls, comps, and cats cost a certain number of points with certain 'maximums' if you will) and it all becomes a whole lot simpler...
We could continue to argue/discuss endlessly the various ways of 'handling' LCO items and unlimited item creation via 'LCO chapter discretion'. But does anyone really think it would be a bad thing to just say ALL items created that PC's use and can take with their character (this excludes special plot artifacts and such which I HOPE no chapter just goes whole hog and creates loads of) are 'restricted' and 'capped' by National treasure policy??
evi1r0n
Exemplar
So now we are doing the nitpicky your percentage is off dance... I don't think that is the point of the discussion. Seriously. Chapters that don't accept LCO items are in the minority, would that have made you guys more comfortable if Matt had said that instead?
On the west coast we have 3 chapters within "driving" distance if you call 12 hours driving distance. I can't afford that kind of gas or flights so my only options are Seattle and OR. I personally love running the style of game we run in Seattle but have no desire to play it with my current PC nor do I have the time and money to costume an alt. I don't want to take a hiatus just to use up my gobbies, I like doing plot too much.
Item swapping is just another way to cheese the system. OR and Seattle have nearly identical gobby item lists (barring a few of the RP rits that thematically don't make sense). How is it any different than if I have Adam (Avaran) buy my dream item in OR with his gobbies and trade it for his dream item in Seattle with my gobbies, when we could just make them in our home chapter? Like Matt was saying, that's just a work around.
If it is the only satisfaction than yeah I can agree but that doesn't invalidate compensating hard work.
Right but again you are just working the system. It's a work around, not a solution. And yes the alliance is what you put into it but finding a pseudo IG/OOG work around isn't enriching the experience and system.
On the west coast we have 3 chapters within "driving" distance if you call 12 hours driving distance. I can't afford that kind of gas or flights so my only options are Seattle and OR. I personally love running the style of game we run in Seattle but have no desire to play it with my current PC nor do I have the time and money to costume an alt. I don't want to take a hiatus just to use up my gobbies, I like doing plot too much.
Item swapping is just another way to cheese the system. OR and Seattle have nearly identical gobby item lists (barring a few of the RP rits that thematically don't make sense). How is it any different than if I have Adam (Avaran) buy my dream item in OR with his gobbies and trade it for his dream item in Seattle with my gobbies, when we could just make them in our home chapter? Like Matt was saying, that's just a work around.
phedre said:
If it is the only satisfaction than yeah I can agree but that doesn't invalidate compensating hard work.
Gilwing said:
Right but again you are just working the system. It's a work around, not a solution. And yes the alliance is what you put into it but finding a pseudo IG/OOG work around isn't enriching the experience and system.
obcidian_bandit
Pioneer
I meant chapters, and I was counting HQ, CT, and NH, (and rounded 21% to 20%, because I thought being that specific sounded more bitchy when I read it before posting it, really) because those are the three that someone invariably rattles off every time this issue comes up. (Really, it's EC folks that I hear on about this the most, so I assumed that when people were always rattling off the same three chapters it was because that was what they knew and that was it, being geographically more familiar with the issue the I.) I didn't think Gettysburg had run any events yet, and I just didn't know about NY (did they used to let them in?) And to be honest, I also just found out about Calgary last night when I was looking through their policies. Either way, if you count all 6, you're still looking at about 40%, a third of which are new enough to not really have contributed to or experienced this issue yet. Point remains, it's a minority that's not having the problem.Gilwing said:
I think you've missed the point here, 'cause there's like 3 things wrong with this. We're mostly talking about people who can't PC (1) because they're on staff (2) in the chapters that they have gobbies in. Who wants to trade a less travelable item for a more travelable item? (3)Gilwing said:
I see your point here, and it's really not something I'd considered, but I'm still not sure I think it's a big deal.Dan Nickname Beshers said:
Firstly, here's my 'situation bias,' both for "why I didn't consider it" and "why it doesn't affect me": There are 2 chapters within 1000 miles of me. I'm on staff in one, and PC in the other. If I have 3000 gobbies worth of items, and go next door to OR, I bring 3000 gobbies. If someone from OR comes over with a 3000 gobbie item, we see 3000 gobbies of loot come in. If we trade items, nothing changes. It's the third chapter in your example that makes any difference at all, and we just don't experience it. It seems like a **** move to let in OR items and deny them for the handful of SF players that make the 16 hour trek up here, since they've got nowhere else to go play. It's like 5-10 PCs, compared to our local 60+, so even if they're loaded down in LCO trinkets, it's not a huge deal. On top of that, I personally have a stupid number of gobbies, so my knee-jerk response to "Can't use that same item in both chapter B and chapter C" is "Buy another one so my gear is consistent." (I like consistency, in my rules and in my skill set.) That's where long-distance trades become an issue. Maybe I can't buy the same combination of rituals in the chapter I'm traveling to, maybe no one wants to trade an item with someone from 3000 miles away because they'll never use it.
Second, I'm not sure it's a big deal. People with a pile of gobbies are in the minority, so the 3000 gobbie 'bump' Chapter A sees from Beth and Charlie is pretty small compared to Jack the 35th level Dude that PCs in all 3 chapters with all restricted gear. Plus (and I think this is the bigger deal, really) the idea is that Beth and Charlie are supposed to be using their gobbies to have 'appropriate loot' for their characters (and maybe a little bit ahead of the curve) who have 'leveled up without gearing up,' so Chapter A should be expecting to see a certain amount of loot show up on every character that they didn't put out because they got it by PCing in Chapters B and C. Chapter A should say "that's a 14th level scout, I bet they've got a couple little items" when they're scaling their mods, rather than "That's a 14th level scout with a couple restricted items they got while PCing and this other person is a 14th level scout who got to that level by NPCing and has a couple LCO items." The power level of that person should be roughly equivalent whether they got there by PCing or NPCing, so "how many gobbies of stuff" someone has is not as big a deal as "how much stuff" someone has. The person with the most "unbalanced" amount of stuff could be someone who has LCO or Restricted gear, it's the amount that makes the difference.
That's really why I say that the issue is a Treasure Policy one, not a travel restriction one. If everyone's gear was Restricted (and therefore attached to the national standard Treasure Policy), Chapters A, B, and C should all see exactly what they expect on every PC, and have fewer 'anomalous' PCs with gigantic piles of LCO gear.
MathGwyson
Adept
Been reading this thread, but not much to add until now (as our chapter is new and small, so not alot of power creep).
However, this discussion of LCO meaning Local Chapter ONLY (really really only!) brings something that might be work looking at for other things.
One of the LCO things our chapter has is referred to as 'Titan Tokens'.
From the webpage;
And in the world guide;
While '...not travel through the mists.' is a fancy way of saying LCO... it also means it does NOT travel through the mists. It won't work in any other chapter beyond the mists. (Though we had an event last weekend where we went through the mists to the fey realm - which makes me wonder if it would work there? No players had any at the time, though a few of us got some as a reward at the end of last weekend, so I'll ask if it comes up.)
However, this discussion of LCO meaning Local Chapter ONLY (really really only!) brings something that might be work looking at for other things.
One of the LCO things our chapter has is referred to as 'Titan Tokens'.
From the webpage;
And in the world guide;
While '...not travel through the mists.' is a fancy way of saying LCO... it also means it does NOT travel through the mists. It won't work in any other chapter beyond the mists. (Though we had an event last weekend where we went through the mists to the fey realm - which makes me wonder if it would work there? No players had any at the time, though a few of us got some as a reward at the end of last weekend, so I'll ask if it comes up.)