Story Arcs

Hi everyone,

Tossing my first suggestion and one of many I wish to raise for discussion.

In previous sites I been to, there were 'epic quests' that were a series of quests or personal stories that spanned for several threads. Usually with great personal growth AND length of effort to complete. They would span from three threads total to however long it took.

While taxing time-wise to complete, the rewards were great. You were given points, closely equivalent to Cosmic coins or whatever the dungeon coins would be when rewards are given. The point was they were adventures so personal or grand that the rewards were that well earned. I would like to propose one.

Of course, the Arc would be in written guidelines of summaries of each thread for approval. If the arc theme and difficulty is approved by staff, the people who signed up for it could complete. The rewards would be 1 for the leader ( the one who made the arc) and for the others journeying with them. The rewards are only given to the members who stick it out to complete the arc. (There should be a means if people drop out, someone could take over with smaller reward yield)

For example, let's say there is an arc that spans 3 threads. The leader, who made the arc, gets 3 Cosmic coins at the end. Two other people joined at the start-- and 1 dropped out due to time. That person who left wouldn't get any cosmic coins. If someone picks it up, they would only get coins equal to the number of topics they were present in. Ideal concept is Arcs should NOT be soloable. They are collaborative to earn such a prize.

Anyway, that is my idea and Kite is familiar with my concept as well from a past site. This would add a new form of quests, and activity.

Oh-- also a player should only be able to host 1 Arc at a time. They can join others arcs but not host more than 1 till its completed or failed.

Anyway, let me know what you guys think. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Zaber

While I appreciate the thought put into this, it's important to know most all things people do on this site are part of their character's story arc, whatever that may be for someone. I don't want to be "that guy" but there's really no need for there to be a system for this considering, in another perspective, FTRP creates systems that ultimately create opportunities for you to create your own story arcs while being rewarded. The Job System, Dungeons, Socials, on-site positions, basically everything caters to this.

Jobs can literally be anything and you can create custom jobs to accommodate your character's unique plot, all while being generously rewarded with it. Even posting in socials rewards you were jewels. This site is amazing in the sense that, from another look, everything is created to make your roleplaying experience enjoyable (jobs reward experience to rank up, and you stop ranking up at Z-rank. It's pointless if you do it just to grind, but is exceptionally meaningful and enjoyable if you do it because you enjoy the process and the plot you create for it along the way, right?) and frankly, adding a system like this would be redundant and would overcomplicate things!

Good suggestion, even so!

I slightly disagree. The site gives free form and story like you said however this system would reward multipart jobs that have no actual rewards for doing outside of another completion under your belt. We have multipart jobs but no actual reward for completing all of the jobs in that line an example being the job series starting with the stables which a possible 9 jobs for that entire series with nothing that really rewards the completion of it. It might actually fit nicely in our existing systems.

I can see both sides of the argument. The site does indeed give a lot of freedom thanks to job creation and free-form jobs allowing character arcs to be made, I myself have done a character arc on my main that helped him raise through the ranks; even now I have one that has begun with my character Apollo. I agree that an arc system could be beneficial due to this but it would all come down to how it would be implemented.

I agree with Tamashi. This is going to depend heavily on how it is implemented and the other details of it. What makes these arcs difficult and challenging? Simple word counts like the jobs we currently have? How much? What are the rewards? People can already get pretty much everything other ways with less difficulty. I am also fully against cc being given out unless the requirements justify that reward, especially since you are eliminating the solo aspect. It's a RP site, yes, but character stories are sometimes best done solo depending on what is going on with that person's character and the timeline they are currently on. There are also those that work on solo things while waiting for replies elsewhere. This idea completely eliminates the rewards for people who do this, and is already causing alienation among the member base.

Thus far it sounds like it would end up being a redundant addition to the job system that no one will use because they will just get more rewards with their normal character and freeform jobs. Unless the cc was added on, of course. I see no reason why these would reward more exp and jewels than normal jobs just because they went through a series. The quantity of threads in a series doesn't equate to being more difficult than a normal job that consists of 1 thread. Unless stats are going to be added in to ensure it is kept difficult, which won't happen because stats are optional and that'd further alienate other people of the member base, then there is nothing to stop someone from taking the character arc through easy street and completing it for extra rewards. This is just the tip of what needs to be thought of when trying to implement this idea. It needs a lot of work.

The reason I bring this up because the rewards for multi-part jobs for example, which is the same kind of concept here, don't even offer much reward difference. There should be one. A REAL reward that is different from the table example because that is extremely inflexible.

And to be clear, I only am using CC as an example. The concept is a significant token that is of higher value than just normal jewel and items.

Also difference isn't so much word count, but the number of topics needed to complete, like chapters in a story. Which of a fact takes time.

While I do agree that implementation is a good aspect to look at simply saying "Depends on how it is implemented" doesn't actually contribute anything to the conversation.

Now, Zaber brings an interesting point to mind. While yes our site has so many wonderful ways to play out a saga, there is no real incentive for doing so. Kite mentioned a job series that was created for a job creation event. The creator made a series of jobs all linked by Theme, by mythos, and some characters. There is nothing to reward the people who do the series. There should be some kind of reward in place for those who are not only willing to create a complex series of jobs for EVERYONE, but there should also be a reward for those who go through and complete said series. This should be aside from the normal rewards done by each quest. Because at that point there is no point to doing a job that is part of a series at all thus making them all completely pointless and wasting our members' time which is bad.

I think Zaber brings out a point that should be seriously looked at. Aside from one's own desires what real incentive is there to do epic jobs? Sure you can create your own job, and jobs with your own rewards, but the guidelines are very strict now. Thus limiting creativity.

At any rate I'm sure our talented Staff could work something out together if they were so inclined. Maybe even just a badge you could get, or maybe the option for a lineage change (To specific lineages related to the series) depending on the series you completed? Something rewarding, but simple.

As for the epic Story arc. That is for your character to go through. Now, if you'd like to do a "Campaign" which I believe is the word you should be using then that is entirely different. A Campaign for an epic quest would be interesting, and I think the rewards for completing each section of it should be at the maximum allowed, maybe granted special permissions to increase the rewards based on completion of past steps in the Campaign would be warranted.