Roleplaying Semi-Permadeath Guild with Improved Economy

[SilverthorneRP]

This is a cross post since this is likely the server I will attempt this.

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to find out if others are interested in this concept of a guild. I have always enjoyed the thrill of a permadeath guild. The excitement of knowing that death and danger lurks around every corner, it brings chills to an adventurer's soul. But I also enjoy the imagination and creativity that roleplaying brings to the "table". I am interested in blending the two togethers to form a new, exciting guild.

I believe that permadeath lends itself well to roleplaying. The more you care about your character, the more you will develop them. But the thought of completely losing your character due to a single misstep can bring roleplaying to a crash. That's where the semi-permadeath comes into it. I think I've come up with some interesting and exciting rules regarding death that still gives a character a sense of danger knowing that death brings with it a harsh penalty.

Another thing that has bothered me about DDO, is the economy. Being able to purchase any scroll, any item, any wand, makes the game far too easy. And the auction house is an unrealistic entity that kills roleplaying. To solve this, I came up with the idea of only being able to purchase items from guild mates that have delved into the deepest parts of Stormreach to recover these relics. I think it also opens up a level of roleplaying that is involved with the transactions themselves. I'd also made up rules regarding the selling of items below.

So, take a look at the guild ruleset and tell me what you think. If you are interested, feel free to reply! If enough people are interested I'll gladly put together a website and forums and begin working on making the guild a reality. I'm looking for people who are interested in helping to make this guild happen. Thanks for looking.

Roleplaying Rules
1. You must remain in character as much as possible.
(Instead of saying, "Tavor, you have a higher Search skill than I do, try Searching here," say, "Tavor, your eyes are sharper than mine, do you see anything here?"

2. You must have a character description in your biography page, not a history.
(You should describe how your character looks, things that cannot be seen by DDO's avatar system. A diamond encrusted ring on your left hand, a tattoo of a flying dragon on your right arm. Don't put a history here, your character history should be told over a period of time through your roleplaying and interaction with others.)

3. No spoilers.
(Not everyone has played out every single dungeon multiple times, don't spoil it for others. You can give subtle clues, in a roleplaying manner, but don't outright spoil things. If you know there's a fire trap ahead, and the rogue does not seem to be searching, you may something like, "Something looks a little off up ahead. Are we sure it is safe?")

Semi-Permadeath Rules
1. You are only allowed to group with fellow guildmates.
(To make the game challenging, you need to only play with others who are following the same ruleset that we are.)

2. No leaving and re-entering a dungeon.

3. Your character must be level 1 to join the guild.
(You need to have been abiding by our strict rules for your character's entire career)

4. Do not re-use rest shrines.

5. You are only allowed to group with others within a 3 level difference.
(If Ragnar is 5th level, he may group with Catabrie who is 2nd level. Dirk is 7th level, and would normally be able to group with Ragnar, but since Catabrie is in Ragnar's party at the moment, Dirk may not join with them.)

6. Death:

Dying is a costly and draining experience.

Anytime you are RAISED FROM THE DEAD, whether by a guild holy person, or by the grace of your god, you and the rest of your party MUST leave the dungeon immediately.

Anytime you are RESSURECTED, whether by a guild holy person, or by the grace of your god, the individual who has died MUST leave the dungeon immediately.

Anytime you have died and have been brought back, by whatever means, your character's body and soul are thoroughly damaged and must be repaired over time. You are not allowed to play that character for 1 week while your body and soul heal. Record the date of the death on your Character Biography tab.
(This is done to make death a serious thing. Also, it encourages people to make new characters and have several characters in multiple level ranges so that everyone has someone to play with.)

The Favor And Grace of the Gods can bring a fallen character back to life without the aid of a holy person. You can earn the favor of the gods by tithing to the deity of your choice. It costs 10,000 x Character Level to receive proper favor.

You MUST send the gold to our guild banker through the mail system. You MUST then record the favor onto your Character Biography tab. Anytime you die without being raised from a holy person, you can use one of those favors to breathe life again. Erase the favor from your Character Biography page, leave the dungeon immediately, and do not play that character for 1 week.

If you are killed and cannot be raised by a holy person, and do not have any Favors from the gods, then you must delete that character immediately. Anyone remaining in the party with you may select 1 of your items to take from your doomed corpse. A stack of potions or items counts as 1 item.

You cannot have more than 1 Favor at anytime. This means no purchasing Favors at low levels to stock-pile them.

If you forget to purchase a new Favor and die, that is unfortunate, but the rules must be followed. Delete the character.

7. Quests must be ran at the highest possible level they can be opened at.
(Example: If someone in your party has already ran Tangleroot on hard, then you MUST run it on elite.)

8. Hirelings are not allowed.

New Economy Rules
1. You are not allowed to purchase ANY items from a vendor, broker, or the auction house.
(Currently DDO's economy and ease of obtaining consumable magic items such as potions is crazy. Our entire economy is going to be guild based. The only exception to this are NON-magical weapons and armor, ammo, spell inscription materials *NOT SCROLLS*)

2. You are allowed to purchase items from Favored House vendors such as House D arrows and the like.

3. You are allowed to share chests with other party members that are in the same dungeon as you.

4. You are NOT allowed to GIVE items to any character, including your own. Excluding the sharing chests in the same dungeon rule.

5. Do not accept ANY gifts from anyone, whether they are within the guild or not. The exception is the guild rewards at certain levels.

6. Guild Merchants:

Everyone in the guild is a merchant of sorts. You're all adventurers collecting magical treasures and artifacts throughout Eberron. Of course people are interested in purchasing those items.

You can SELL any item that you have obtained to anyone within the guild.

The item MUST be purchased at it's BASE VALUE. No exceptions. You cannot pay someone later for an item, you must have the gold at the time of sale.

You may SELL an item to one of your other characters as well, but it must be SOLD just like any other person.

This means that characters are encouraged to hold onto good weapons, armor, scrolls, and other items, even if they themselves are not going to use them. Because we are limited in inventory and bank space, care must be taken.

7. Unwanted items may be sold to vendors or brokers, so that you can earn the highest amount of gold.

Guild Rewards

5th Level - Medium Collectable Bag
7th Level - Medium Gem Bag
others to come.

Guidelines

Don't run ahead of the group. Since we are playing semi-permadeath, we need people to play slow and serious.

Wait for everyone before entering a quest.

Consider a naming convention for your characters. This makes it easy to recognize who is whose character. Tavnor, Tavee, Taveus, etc.

Always try to group together, leave no one behind. Always invite level appropriate people into your group. If you see a stranded person who is soloing, and you are running a full group. Consider splitting up the group.

If you see a lower level person on by themselves, consider dropping down to a lower level character and playing with them, or make up a new character!



Well, I'd love to hear what you think of the rules and if you are interested. If you have any rules change suggestions, add that in here as well! Thanks!

[Borror0]

Anytime you are RAISED FROM THE DEAD, whether by a guild holy person, or by the grace of your god, you and the rest of your party MUST leave the dungeon immediately.

Anytime you are RESSURECTED, whether by a guild holy person, or by the grace of your god, the individual who has died MUST leave the dungeon immediately.

Does that mean that True Resurrection allows the resurrected party member to stay in the group?

[SilverthorneRP]

Hmm, not entirely sure on that one.

Let's see....You'd have to be a cleric of at least level 17 to cast it. I'm not sure how allowing someone to completely remain in the party would affect the balance.

Maybe it'll be something like this:

The character who receives True Ressurection must still immediately recall from the quest, but does not need to wait one week before playing that character, he may continue to play on that character.

In addition, if that character who receives True Ressurection also spends his Favor point, he may even remain within the quest.

[Borror0]

In addition, if that character who receives True Ressurection also spends his Favor point, he may even remain within the quest.

Talking about which, you might want to adjust your equation for that. Try something quadratic.

It starts as too expensive (but that may be intended) and because pretty much trivial at end game. By the time a character reaches level 20, he will be making 20,000 gp per item he sells, more or less. That means about ten chests and the character can pay for his favor again. Not that hard.

PS: I would think that logging off that character for 24 hours would be enough of a cost. Not playing for a week is not only a punishment, but preventing from playing. I understand the goal behind, but I think it will hurt in other fields than simply being a punishment. But then, what do I know?

[branmakmuffin]

Well, I'd love to hear what you think of the rules and if you are interested. If you have any rules change suggestions, add that in here as well! Thanks!

The problem (as one person put it) with perma-death is that it often means "perma-zerg" as players run the same low-level quests over and over again (that's one of the reasons, but not the main reason, I stopped PD-ing). It can also be a challenge to RP quests everyone in the party knows like the back of their hands ("no spoilers" also makes little sense when everyone in the party knows the quest inside and out). Semi-perma-death would probably just become semi-perma-zerg.

Going without twinking, magic purchases, broker purchases and the AH is always a good idea.

I hope you get enough people interested to make a go of it. Good luck.

[SilverthorneRP]

About the cost, it's actually 10,000 per character level. So a lvl 20 would pay 200,000 for a favor. Which is a decent amount, I think.


The semi-permadeath means that people aren't constantly rerolling, so higher end content will be approachable. Really, with the favor system, you are VERY unlikely to ever have to delete a character. You just have to stop playing them and switch over to a different character upon death.

[Borror0]

About the cost, it's actually 10,000 per character level. So a lvl 20 would pay 200,000 for a favor. Which is a decent amount, I think.

If by decent you mean "very easy to pay, then it is one. By level 20, 20kpp will probably be pocket change to your guild.

[sisterjinx]

I find this concept of semi-perma death very interesting. I'd love to hear how this is working out for you all if it comes to pass. Maybe you could post some info on it as it goes forth as well. Good luck.

[Thailand_Dan]

Sounds like a good idea. I too like the semi-PD idea. I think one of the things that has kept me from PDing is how monotonous lower level content can be. With PD, many get 4 levels, then reroll, over and over. The idea of being able to hit level 10, 12, or even cap sounds interesting.

I think the 1-week rule is a bit counter-productive. Many people only have 1 or 2 slots open, so unless they want to devote their entire account (or an additional account) to the guild, there may be problems with having enough people to quest with.

One big question...Where does all the the plat to buy favor go? I would imagine that would buy a lot of gem and collectible bags. Are there surprises down the road? Like after 1 month in guild, you receive a stack of CLW potions. Or once a month, a party is thrown and everyone gets a party favor? Or does it go to the founder for going through the trouble of starting up the guild? Not being judgmental, just curious about the plans for this money.

I'm not really into RP. I know a lot of people like it, but I just don't get it. I like talking to people, not characters. I know D&D is based on RP, but it just seems silly to me....but I digress.

Good idea as a whole.