Community Participation and Otherside Entering.

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 16:53:47 +0100 (BST)

Jonas Schi=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=f6tt (no, really, that's how 'grep' spells his name <g>) writes:

> >> I think I do agree with you about Community Participation though. That
> >> is, if you were referring to the phenomenon of being penalized for having
> >> really enthusiastic supporters.
> >
> >That's the very one. Happily, it's fairly easy to fix (watch this space).
>
> I would think simply eliminating the numbers after the slash does the
> trick. Just give full bonuses for all levels of participation.

Ah, but that's broken too, alas. Observe how now, if I have 32 extraordinary supporters, I can get a _bigger_ bonus if I 'discentivise' 16 of them down to 'total' (or even to ordinary, in some such cases). Better would be to always pick the _biggest_ bonus (not the 'highest level'), and use that (left hand) number, plus the right-hand number for the other two. Though this required right-hand numbers for the extraordinary column...

Here's my preferred fix: pick any level of support you like. Say, the one with the most people in it. Then, 'convert' your other supporters into 'equivalents' at that level, in the ratio 8:4:1. That is, an extraordinary guy is worth 2 totals, or 8 ordinaries, and so on. Then total up these 'supporter equivalent values', and look it up on the appropriate column.

So for example, I have 400 total supporters, 32 extraordinary, and 200 ordinary (some of the clan were 'preparing' a little too hard the night before...). So that's worth 400, plus the equivalent of 64 for the E-O, and the equivalent of 50 for the ordinary supporters, for a total of 514, enough for a +17 on the Total column.

> It's not like otherworld interaction is ever going to be _easy_, no
> matter how high your bonus...

True. I think there may be a case for slightly more 'generous' CP bonuses all around, myself, given their _alleged_ importance in the game world. In the rules, they seem to be fairly modest, compared to some other means of bonus-hounding.

I'm also not sure I care for the 'bonus cafeteria' implied by the ritual magic rules. +40 on the otherside ritual, +1 on 'carryover', +1 on sword skill: it seems very mechanistic, and far from clear what's going on Gloranthocentric terms. In that particular example, it also seems odd that the questor didn't spend it all on the entering ritual itself: even at 17W2 vs. 5W2, the odds aren't exactly overwhelming, are they?

I'd have thought a more logical approach would not to allow any of this splitting, unless you do some explicitly separate ritual for some particular purpose (like the Arming of Orlanth, say, generically, in the middle of the ritual for the given quest). Then base starting carryover on the victory level from the entering ritual -- wouldn't that be more reasonable?

Cheers,
Alex.

Powered by hypermail