Post
by The GrumpyCat » Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:20 pm
Before I start I want to say that I totally sympathise with the desire for players to have rebuilds when a change happens to various classes and such. Others have spoken correctly when they say it can be frustrating to have a 'thing that your character is supposed to do well' be utterly nurfed.
I wouldn't want to demean their argument by saying that every player that wants it is just doing so just for powergamy reasons.
The recent rebuilds happened for two reasons
1) As someone already mentioned, the previously existing Knights weren't just in a situation where their build was nurferd, it was absolutly unplayable for some. They just couldn't level! That's not a fair situation to leave characters in, so it's very reasonable to allow them a build, to let them continue with the class they chose.
2) There was a fair bit of salt over the Dragonshaper lot, but more to the point there aren't/weren't that many dragon shaper characters outthere, and so the work level was deemed to be reasonable enough to allow a rebuild in this specific situation.
And really that's the centeral problem. Work Load.
Ultimatly there's two obvious ways of allowing rebuilds.
Automatic or DM oversight.
The Automatic way is far, far less work but would also potentially allow huge abuses. An example:
Person: Bob the Wizard! Joe's been kidnapped by Drow!
Bob: Oh no. And I only have epic spell focus Divination, Transmutation and Abduration. Hrn hold on.
Bob: -relevel. Rebuilds for Epic Spell Focus Conjouration
Bob: Right, now I can save Joe!
That's just one of may examples of weird and silly situations that would come from allowing an automatic rebuild.
So then we look at the option of having some sort of DM oversight.
To allow this we'd have to work out first off what we 'would' and 'would not' allow (and there would end up being people upset that we'd said 'no' to about certain relevels, or who missed the window to have their characters rebuilt if we allowed it only on a temporary basis) and more to the point – it's /Work/. Especialy around times when changes happen.
DM's have a chunk on their plate, we run events, change RPRs, do voice changes, head changes, portrait changes, alignment changes, help report/fix bug, unstick people, give out PRC tokens, answer questions, look into rule breaks, check logs, police rp, oversee player events and more! On top of this we have Real Life to deal with, and on top of that sometimes we want to, y'know... play.
To use the example of the recent Ride change. How many people I wonder took just 8 ranks of ride, thinking that would be enough, and now are regretting their decision? How many people would jump at the option for a rebuild just for the ride change? Ten? Twenty? A hundred even?
How full would my Inbox be, and how bored would I be, going through each and every person, de-leveling them and re-leveling down to the right amount, overseeing that they didn't do anything weird with their rebuild? Maybe I'm sounding terribly lazy here but I have to be honest- I don't really went that extra work on my plate.
The other reason why I'm leery of offering rebuilds is that they don't encourage character circulation. Instead they (at their worst) encourage someone to keep playing the same character, but with no 'cohesion' Year one Joe is a fighter, then he becomes a monk, then the player decides to make him a Rogue, then a Wizard for a giggle... until it's not really a 'character' any more, but a collection of memories and a player who just can't let go.
Don't mistake me – players are free to play a character for as long as they like! But it is good to see characters be played out, cast aside, and new ones appear. It's generally a lot healthier for a server if character cycling happens.
Yes this server allows people to de-level and then rebuild by working their way back up with levels. But at that point someone has to be committed to that idea. Rebuilds can't be done on a whim, but can be done because someone believes that the end goal is worth the reward.
This too shall pass.
(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)