While its wonderful to focus on role-playing and immerse yourself in the character and the world, something I have always been mindful of is the fact that this is still a game, and as such there is still a need to satisfy the basic needs of a gamer as they play the module. Philosophically speaking, satisfaction from playing a game generally comes from two related areas: Advancement and accumulation. When you think about it, just about every game that is played can be reduced to these two very primal concepts for deriving enjoyment.
Advancement
In its simplest form, the further you get through a game the more you enjoy it. After all, the aim of most games is to overcome obstacles and journey through the game until you complete it. Whether this is by advancing through the levels, taking part in new or more difficult challenges, completing the story, or levelling up your character, we get a sense of enjoyment by somehow making progress and we continue to play the game because we have this sense of moving forward. Of course anything which can be enjoyed, can also cause frustration, hurt or disappointment when things go wrong. When advancement stops or even goes backwards it isn't fun, and when a lot of time and/or effort has gone into reaching the point you have, it is understandable that some sense of loss or grief is felt when this happens.
For CRPGs I think this concept becomes even more critical. The focus is placed so firmly on the character, their advancement in level and their progress through the game world that any setback or loss strikes a major blow. The loss of a character who dies means advancement has completely stopped and all is lost. The though of having to go through the long process of rebuilding a character from scratch, starting at 1st level and struggling is a bitter pill to swallow. Even if resurrection is used there is still a loss of experience which must be regained in order to get back to the level you were at previously.
Accumulation
In a way, accumulation is a form of advancement, however it is measured in a different way. Whether its a high score, or gold coins, or an abundance of equipment, the more that is accumulated the more one either feels as if they have advanced or has the means to advance as a result. This accumulation may then be traded for other items, which may again offer avenues for advancement that were not previously available.
As before however, this is also vulnerable to causing hurt or disappointment when that which you have accumulated is lost. Its one thing to choose to give something away, another to have it taken away from you. If the loss seems harsh or steep then the grief caused by this can sometimes feel real, as if you have actually lost something you owned.
Perhaps this has been fostered by years of playing arcade games that have an ever increasing score, or perhaps its just the modern world mentality of being happier the more you have, but ultimately any loss like this is palpable.
For CRPGs this is also a critical concept, which focuses primarily on the equipment and gold that a character has. For this reason most persistent worlds have rules against stealing other peoples items, and it has long been considered that once you have your hands on an item, it remains with you unless you choose to give it away. This mentality reinforces the loss that is felt if ever an item is taken against the players will or is lost as a result of the player dying or becoming unconscious. Waking to find every item you have taken may even be enough to cause some players to stop playing altogether.
How does the Template combat this?
With the template I wanted to take a different approach. Instead of pandering to this pre-established concept of advancement and accumulation I wanted to turn things on their head. I wanted to find a way in which the "in-game" reality wasn't so harshly changed by the "meta-game" need for gamers to enjoy playing the game. After all, I don't think that the workings of the game world itself should have to be moulded to fit into the needs of a gamer, especially when the template is so finely focused on the role-playing aspect. There still had to be rewards however, rewards that gave the sense of advancement and accumulation without forcing the game itself to change as a result.
The first step in doing this comes from looking at the psychology of enjoyment and loss, in the context of these two factors. In order to feel either enjoyment we must have something invested in what we are doing. If the character has no meaning to us then advancement has no meaning either. It is because of this investment however that we also have the ability to feel loss. As we are invested in the character, anything which detracts from them or stops them makes us suffer as a result. So to alleviate the loss without threatening the investment we need to try and shift the value that is invested or have some kind of reward to compensate for any loss that is suffered. By doing this any loss is minimized or offset and enjoyment can continue.
Loss of Equipment or Accumulation
To minimize the loss of equipment or gold the general focus needs to be shifted away from the equipment and placed back on the character. All too often in Persistent Worlds and CRPGs in general is the "Monty haul" syndrome. In these situations it becomes less and less about the character and more and more about what equipment they have and how good it is. This is personified by the fact that advancement to new areas or to combat new opponents is generally only possible through the use of bigger and better equipment. The final nail in the coffin is struck by having uber-items that come with a multitude of properties which basically gives a huge advantage to the person who has it over someone who doesn't. Here an impossible value has been placed on the equipment while the poor character is completely forgotten.
The template alleviates this by redirecting the focus back to the character. The Item Sub-system is designed to keep items in check and make them beneficial to the character without making them absolutely essential. The expanded set of skills, feats, spells and abilities the character has available to them means that equipment plays a smaller role in template modules than it does elsewhere. By doing this, the loss of any given item or any amount of gold is minimized by the fact that the true value is in the character. While it may have been nice to have that item, the fact it is gone isn't the end of the world because it isn't the "be-all-and-end-all-uber-item" which turns you from a weak peon to a superhero. While the item is lost, the character still has their home, their business, their ability to earn money, other equipment they have stored in a safe place, their knowledge and skills and the power within themselves to continue to explore the world.
The intention is for characters to go out into the world and adventure "lightly", taking with them only the things they need for the journey and leaving everything else safely kept behind lock and key. Keeping the character light means that at the very worst, if everything was lost to them that they could still function and regain useful items as they scrabble to regain composure.
Escaping Death Principle
Of course by shifting the focus as we have, we are placing more value on the character themselves, which in turn would increase the sense of loss felt if the character were to die. Of course we could be like every other persistent world that automatically resurrects you when you die, smacks you on the hand, takes some of your gold, sets you back a few experience points and sends you on your way, but what enjoyment would be in the game if we did that? The suspension of disbelief is driven home and the real game world has now been shaped to suit the desires of the gamer, not the joys of a role-player. Now the "game" has intruded so much upon the real world that we are reinforcing the concepts of advancement and accumulation.
The solution has to be something we can believe in, something that is realistic, and yet still holds risk and the
possibility of loss otherwise why would we fear it? It is at this point that movies come to mind, how the hero somehow manages to always find a way to survive. No matter what the odds, or how bleak things look, somehow they manage to escape death at the last minute. Even when it looks like they are dead, we discover to our joy and amazement that they are only near death and that by some miracle they have managed to cling to the world of the living. While we may scoff a little at the implausibility of the odds in escaping death so often, we cannot deny that it "is" technically possible, and if anyone is likely to do it, it would be the heroes or villains of the day that could manage it.
This is where I have developed the "Escaping Death Principle" as part of the Death Sub-system. This principle basically states that when a character dies, they are considered to have "escaped death" in some way. Whether this means they wake up under a mass of bodies, mistaken for someone who is dead, dragged back to the lair of the creature awaiting to be their dinner, or taken prisoner by their enemy and thrown in a jail cell, they are not quite dead. There is a vast amount of randomness here however, and there is the possibility that they may wake up without any of their possessions. Thus the element of risk is kept, the feeling of believability remains, but the loss of a character is kept to a minimum.
Whats more, this principle opens up the possibility for role-play and adds richness to the game world by making even death a doorway to possibilities. You could awaken to find yourself the captive of a rogue who was passing by, who seeks "compensation" for nursing you back to health, or you could find yourself being kept for "material" to construct a flesh golem by an evil wizard, or you may even find yourself waking up in a nearby church, resurrected by the local priest whom you now owe a favour too.
The ability to escape death is not endless however. If there wasn't at least some point at which death becomes
permanent then any risk is only fleeting and people would at no point truly feel the weight of life the way they should in a game. It is far easier to be resurrected or returned to life via magic, at least knowing you have all your equipment than leaving it up to the fates to decide what happens. But there is only so many times the fates will step in and help you. This is where the concept of Character Points comes in.
Finally I have reached the topic that has gotten you to read this far. What are they? What do they do? How do you use them? Where exactly is the character pointing???
Character points are a purely "meta-gaming" concept. They have absolutely no existence in the game world, nor are they accumulated for game world reasons. Instead character points are used to satisfy the needs of the gamer in the real world, and to provide that sense of accumulation and an avenue through which they can advance.
At the end of the day we have still effectively put the focus on the character, and the eventual loss of that character (as all characters must one day die) will hurt no matter what. Thus in order to reduce that loss and to provide an avenue for future advancement, the character point becomes the reward. So the focus is finally shifted back onto the player in the form of character points, and their accumulation of them. The player then has the option to spend these character points where they see fit, providing them with avenues to advance or accumulate more. So no longer is the whole purpose about getting your character to the highest level possible, but about the players experience over time with various characters, all enhanced through the gaining and spending of character points.
Spending Points
During character creation, only certain races and classes will be available for "free". These represent the most common races and classes in the game world. All others will have a character point cost associated with them. Whenever a character finally dies, the loss is diminished by allowing the player to choose from more races and classes with the character points they have. Whats more, but the player can also choose background options with character points that may provide them a greater advancement than they had with their previous character. This could mean starting with higher wealth, a house, established friends or allies, be in a respected position or some other benefit that can only be gained through character points. Not only does this reward those who have spent a lot of time on the server, building characters and role-playing well, but it also puts value into various races and classes by making them harder to obtain unless you have already "put in the hard yards". In this respect it increases the reward of advancement and accumulation without providing any negatives.
When a player dies, they are taken to Limbo where they are caught between worlds, still attached to their corporeal forms in some way. During this period, party members can resurrect them or bring them back from the dead. If however they are not brought back then the player must decide what to do. They can either allow their spirit to disconnect from the body, ending the life of their character, or they can spend a character point and instead "Escape Death" in some miraculous way. Thus as long as they have character points they are able to come back from the dead. No longer will there be magical auto-resurrection, no longer will there be an infinite number of times they can come back. This provides the sense of value in the lives of the characters by having perma-death a real possibility, while not being too harsh in making their life so fragile and easy to snuff out.
There may be other times throughout the game where character points can be spent. All of these will be considered major situations where a great loss could result. To protect against that loss character points are spent to show the favour of the gods or some unbelievable level of luck which allowed them to prevail.
Gaining Points
So how do you actually gain points? The process all starts when you enter the server for the first time. You are given a modest amount of character points which you can either choose to spend straight away on race/class selection, or you could "save" to build up for a future character. You may even spend some of them on some background options for your character. It is recommended that the very first character you make is made without spending any points. Not only does this you the most points for the following character, but it allows you to experience the template at its lowest level. As repeating the process of starting new characters becomes tedious and repetitive, having character points to spend means that you open up a greater choice of races, classes and background options which vary the advancement of your new characters enough to make it interesting.
When a character dies for good, you are awarded a number of character points to compensate for their loss. The number of points you gain is based on how well you role-played that character and the level of advancement they achieved during their life. Thus the death of a high level character would grant the player more points because the loss is considered more pronounced. In any case, the player will be awarded more points than what a starting player would receive, thus increasing the feeling of advancement and accumulation.
It is also possible for a player to "retire" a character instead. Once a character has reached the highest level
possible, and the player wants to start a new character, then their current one can be retired. In doing so they are granted "half" of the character points they would if they died, but in return they can be used every now and then for special events or high level adventures. This allows players the chance to keep their old heroes while not making it open season and allowing them to create hundreds of characters that are all played concurrently.
Points are also gained from good role-playing. They could be granted by a DM who has witnessed an event where the player role-played well, or the template itself may offer them as a result of certain actions being taken. A lawful good paladin who sacrifices his life to close the portal to hell and save the world is given a character point reward for their heroism, a character who takes action that fits their alignment or abilities but causes them some form of loss would be rewarded character points in compensation. The point being that any loss which is made for role-playing reasons above "gaming" reasons is offset by rewarding them accordingly
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