Nah that's not really true. I've never seen players 'drop out' of playing to have to monster anywhere other than Labyrinthe, even at systems where monsters are required to pay a free to be able to do so.

Labyrinthe, IMO, has one of the best reward systems for monsters, but it only works (really) for those who can do it a whole lot.

I don't necessarily think that you should get the same rewards as playing if you monster: You're not paying your £40, you're not losing res chance and you're not 'building' a character. Although, I do think that being able to sign your 45 monster points directly onto a character works well, and having some kind of loyalty card where you monster X times and get to put X character points onto a character at the end, or X ISP in an item. That kind of thing.



I love incentives, I will always want my 750 Character points / 1200 Monster points or whatever it is, however Stacey raises a good point I think. Monstering could be more fun for a lot of people, so hitting back on the 'sign character points onto a character each time you play' Perhaps a system where crew can make a recurring NPC, to which they gain 'monster points' towards so that they can have something cool to work towards whilst monstering. It'd mean people would put more effort into parts they're playing, because they have some influence/drive to do so, they get to roleplay as a character that's theirs, even though they're monstering and it doesn't break the system in regards to people getting 5k characters out of the blue.

TL;DR 45 character points instead of credits/monster points sounds legit. Recurring NPCs monsters can bring into dungeons and earn monster points towards sounds cool, loyalty cards are cool.

Getting more than 45 points on a character for crewing would be insane. The point made about crewing to get a character ready for an extended length proves that. Think of how much money the club would loose if people could do this. This would mean no more new buildings and developments down the caves. No more latex weapons for extended lengths, just the bear minimum able to be provided.

I don't mind people getting characters to high levels without playing but there should still be a risk to those characters. There should be a real risk of death on dungeons of any level so if you put character points on from crewing you should still be that chance of dying. So how about you roll a dise, everytime you put character points on I this way, and have a 50 50 chance of loosing res chance.

Edd

Curve ball suggestion :

Monsters can elect to trade their monster points earned for CP

0.5/1 CP point per section monstered that they can put towards contracts (the contract number must be named at the desk.

Have CC contracts have a minimum Monster CC requirement for added incentive. (E.g., requires 3 CP, 1 of which must be earned monstering)

How about something like,

Normal rewards

50 character points go straight omto a char OR another card (yes another card) where you can put xxx amount of these char points onto a char depending on your monster point level.

So you can store up character points (requiring monster points to put more on) then if an extended length falls through with players you can make a 2k char from thin air.

Takes a lot of work but means those who have monstered a lot feel their hard work is paid off

I like the die roll. But not @ 50/50. Maybe 33% chance (5 or 6 on a D6)?

Surely the fun is in developing the character and learning the skills and powers? Going up the ladder too fast will make you miss a run or two 🤔

Woah, that's some pretty serious catastrophising there! I'm not buying that the caves would grind to halt. I think that the more likely outcome would be that if people are playing up a concept for an extended length then they would book onto a relevant dungeon that weekend. Why? Because playing is always more fun. However, if there wasn't the right threshold dungeon a number of people have agreed they would like the option of putting a decent number of points straight onto a character.

50% chance of dying on any dungeons, have you only been playing Istead's 3ks?

S

You don't get the same rewards, the players reward is the increased enjoyment of playing? Monsters provide the 'service' e.g. being the 'villians' in their characters story. Not sure res chance comes into it that much, people choose to lose this or don't.

A 5k character wouldn't come out of the blue - that hero or heroine would've monstered every weekend for over a year! Anyway, in terms of concerns over closing the door on rapid character progression that horse has well and truly bolted. Not that that's a bad thing as long as everyone's having fun.



Yeah totally get that mate, but many people have done the slow grind to AC 12, quad, basic immunities for a warrior so many times! We are just suggesting some further options for this demographic that may encourage more monsters, which equals more fun all round.

Anyway, soon we'll be able to shelve this discussion again for another couple of years :-)


S

Impossible to police but.....

Monster points added only buy standard abilities.

Points apps require points earned by playing.

Too uber-complex to run.... but has a certain "logic" to it.

Tim.

I can't believe I'm saying it but...... I kinda like Stotesbury's idea. So like signing monster points on now, there's a threshold for signing character points on. The more you monster, the more you can add.

Or.... do it like Tuesday club. Current reward or 20 char points. If you want to add more, you do Edd's suggestion of roll a dice but 50/50 if you succeed or lose res chance.

A loyalty card in place of the current incentives would be more beneficial to me but there still has to be a timeframe. Otherwise it's just a reward and not an encouragement for regular monstering.

I don't agree we need MORE incentives, but alternative/options are an interesting idea as long as they're balanced to the current rewards.

wrt the Loyalty Card idea, you would need to be able to fill the be then start another or people might fill theirs in a few months then think there is less point crewing the rest of the year

Last year I spent a lot more time monstering than I did playing, or doing anything else with my weekend for that matter. It started off with wanting to help out, I'd see a post begging for monsters and I'd sign on, people would ask me to crew for them so I did, but over time this changed. As the year went on my motivations changed when a number of dungeons I'd been looking to play were cancelled. The thing that kept me monstering become the incentives offered. By the end of the year I was putting in less and less effort and was only there because of the benefits I was receiving.

I'm currently at the point of apathy and have no desire to crew, essentially I've burned myself out.

Ideally I'd like to get back to crewing because I want to help out, I'm planning this year to crew for certain guilds and campaigns where there is a sense of continuity between the monster parts. I find myself enjoying these events a lot more than open dungeons. In fact one of the highlights of last year was playing the recurring role of Kas the vampire on the Gaolthis Tree campaign, it got to the point where I was interested in his development between dungeons so I could formulate a plan of attack to be more of a threat to the players because I didn't want him to die a pathetic death. I think those that played that dungeon would agree that Kas was a pain in their [----].

Given that altruism is something for those with time and money to spare most of us are not able to offer it regardless of our desire to do so. That means the incentive to come and crew as Richard stated in the original post needs to be on a par with the desire to come and play.

To achieve this though we need to appeal to the reason we all come down and play, which for most of us really links back to having a character to grow and love to play. We need to transfer this to crewing.

My suggestion is not to have even more power creep on characters but instead start a whole new part of the game that can only be achieved by crewing, call it non-combat character development (NCD) or something. These are the people of the world of Primus, they are the briefs, the crafters, the government officials, the criminals, the villians. Lots of these things are already in the game and compete for our character points with the things that keep us alive.

Let me use my dwarf Gilmore as an example, I've developed him to become a crafter, however I've found I've need to spend all of his points on being useful on the dungeon, it would be much nicer if I could level his crafting abilities along side his dungeon abilities by crewing instead. After all defeating a dungeon does little to improve my crafting skills but spending a day in the forge (because I'm crewing and can't play him) would.

Maybe I want to start a noble character, instead of spending the first points of each table on buying the next tier of this have the noble level up by being the brief on the dungeon, have him/her send a group of mercenaries to deal with a problem on your land as a noble would.

I would jump at this, I'd be torn between wanting to play a character or to crew so I could get the next rank of something. Isn't that what we want?

It would take a bit of reworking to sort this out but if you change the way this part of characters grow to be crewing only and allow people to receive Development Points instead of Monster Points on a 1 for 1 basis for crewing and kept the points value the same for all the non combat abilities that exist it would give a long term sustainable incentive along the lines of CC contracts that gave in game benefits to people characters as well as immerse them more into the roleplay world in which we spend our free time.

I've never liked the problem of "to be the best armourer in the world I have to go save villages from undead". The above is wonderful.

As an after thought you could also setup an exchange rate between Development Points and Prestige for Contracts, as you spend time working on building your guild hall or spreading the word about your new shop, or conducting job interviews...

Great idea, really like the idea that you can develop a character in their days of when not on a hire.
Maybe their could be a Secondary Skills table(s) which you use monster pints on, doesn't mean changing the current MP system or any other benefits just another avenue to spend them.

The problem with that is many people have crazy amounts of mp's, and if you could use them there is no incentive to crew. It needs to be a separate and new thing to work as an incentive.

James..... the reason some people, have "crazy amounts of MP's" is that they do a lot of Reffing/A-Reffing and Monstering. I find your assertion that there would be "no incentive to crew" mildly offensive.

I can see that a new system, starting from "whenever" would be effective though.

There are a number of things available to players via the CP system for example "Possessions" and "Other". Rather than take your MP reward you could take one of the CP rewards instead. It could, for ease of admin, be taken for a specific character on the day of monstering. You could have a CP card instead I suppose. (You can currently spend 250MP on one of these if you Monster a special event.)

Some CC contracts might be payable using them.... though becoming an Elemental Lord as a 4th level character that's never played having paid 30 CP points from monstering would seem a little off. Perhaps apply for specific CC contracts using the new points?
e.g "Gilmore spends a lot of time working in his Forge and therefore gains a 10% reduction on Forge/Armour/Weapon related points apps costs" Costs "X" MCPs
e.g "Gilmore spends a lot of time sourcing the best deals for excellent materials and gains a 10% reduction in the cost of making weapons and armour" Costs "X" MCPs
e.g "Gilmore has apprentices that do a steady trade in basic weapons and armour and gains 1,000 grulls a week as well as his normal make slot." Costs "X" MCPs

There are lots of possibilities.

Tim.

Since James C has spent a shed load of his time monstering and also playing a bit :-) I think that he has some really useful insights.

I actually like the whole NPC style development idea or alternatively maybe STATUSES can only be purchased with monster points or new rewards points?

I think this is pretty under explored - got something like this on my potion maker.

Possibly I'd make it so possession CPs can be purchased on normal days and perhaps be a bit cheaper - not sure they're worth 250mps at the moment.

I'd also argue that making skills do let you do the dungeon if you're using them well - Turning up with a magic sword, shield and armour is worth ~600pts vs Empower Weapon.


Don't see a problem with adding points straight to characters either. Put sanity checks on it if you need to - character you put points on must be below the threshold of the dungeon you're monstering or something.

Definitely this