Teaching - GM necessity and Level teachable to

[Hviti]

I guess this came up most after the new spell system came in, when hard caps decreased Gmed spells to their appropriate levels as per guild regulations, but I believe that teaching could be made a much more useful skill by a change to the teaching code, especially in the amount that can be taught.

On the matter of whether GMing ought to be a prerequisite I'm of two minds. On the one hand, GMing a skill/spell does represent a fair investment of time and effort and should certainly have some meaning. On the other, it would be heavily time/soloing intensive to GM every and all skills/spells/trades, even for the purposes of teaching. Besides, teaching RPs are some of the best I've seen and it would be very nice to be able to have them more often without the GM requirement stopping such.

The matter of the level to which one can teach, even with a GMed skill/spell/trade, might also be in need of some attention. It's bit frustrating that one can't teach, say, magic missile, to someone who took the five/six lessons from some random mob (the irony of the situation is that more common skills/spells/trades will be GMed more often...but those also have more commonly findable mob teachers, so you hardly ever find someone who can be instructed in such). The only time I've actually found someone who I could teach, only two teachings were possible, and I think it brought the skill in question to a level of amateur.

Perhaps teaching could allow improvement of a skill/spell/trade based on the comparative levels of the teacher and student.

Examples:

A. Bob the wizard wants to teach his adept floating disc to Jack the wizard, who doesn't know it yet. Because Bob knows it fairly well, he can teach it to Joe to a level of apprentice or so...basically at the level of a mob trainer. If Bob knew it better (master, GM), he could teach it to a higher level than a mob.

B. Joe the smelter wants to teach his GMed trade to Adam, who is an adept at the trade. Even though Adam is of quite a high level in said trade, since Joe has invested the time/RP to GM his trade, he can teach Adam once or twice (1/2 of the 25 points, maybe? in the trade) - but cannot teach Adam any more after those one/two...after all, he's already very high level in the trade.

I'm not so sure about B, but I think modifications along the lines of A would be helpful. Perhaps GMed skills/spells/trades could even be taught out of guild/class with an application/significant time investment?

Comments, Ideas, etc.?

[Dalvyn]

I have recently submitted to the imms a new complete teaching system (well, two actually, since the first one was rejected), and I'm waiting for input to see whether or not to code it. The main changes would be that:

- you would not need to be GM anymore to teach people;

- those who choose to specialize themselves into a teacher's role will be valid alternatives to trainer mobs, able to train newcomers as high as the average trainer mob

So, depending on the kind of feedback I get, this might make its way into the game.

I have to address something you raised in your post though.

On the matter of whether GMing ought to be a prerequisite I'm of two minds. On the one hand, GMing a skill/spell does represent a fair investment of time and effort and should certainly have some meaning.

I wholeheartedly disagree that being GM represents a "fair investment of time and effort" that should have have some meaning, as in: that should be rewarded. Being GM means only one thing (well, two, actually): that the player behind the character either found a loophole and became GMs by abusing a bug (I'll just set this option apart for the sake of this discussion), or that the player behind the character spent hours practising the skill/spell/trade/whatever in question.

Being GM is a soloist's reward in itself, and I see no reason why it should entail any additional reward. The process of becoming GM is currently a strictly personal thing, by which you just spent time on increasing your character's power. There is nothing inherently wrong with it and it can be fun at times, but that certainly does not qualify as an occupation "deserving of a reward" on a multiplayer game. (For the discussion's sake, generating roleplay, interacting with others in one form or another, helping ICly or OOCly newcomers, ... are what I would call occupations worthy of a reward).

So, what I mean here is that being GM does not mean in any way that you should be a good/better teacher. It's actually often the contrary: people who master the finest point of an art/science often are (there are exceptions, of course) so self-centered and absorbed in their own view of the art/science that they utterly suck at teaching.

So, no, I don't believe that becoming/being GM makes you worthy of any additional reward. And I am actually firmly opposed to giving GMs any additional rewards and making it look like we expect people to skill-level up to GM before they can do interesting things like teaching others. Teaching others is good, that's interaction, that's an opportunity to generate roleplay and flesh out characters. There is no reason why people who chose to spend hours (most likely on their own) to just get "grandmaster" on their score sheet should be the only one who are allowed to (role)play a teacher's role.

[Nedylene]

Currently as a wizard I teach spells by the use of scrolls. They can be copied into spellbooks and I will teach them the basics of a spell before handing a scroll over. I played my invoker for .... three and a half years actively and I gmed a grand total of three spells. Two of them were the attacks spells I used consistantly .... everytime I went anywhere. The other one was a cosmetic spell which I used more times then I can count. I can make fires as good as any ranger.

These all came GM purely by chance and since then I have tried to GM another spell or two solely for the purpose of teaching them.... and gave up. Killing dummies in the SoW is so NOT my definition of an enjoyable time. I would LOVE to see a new system in place so we, as wizards, CAN teach more and have apprentices and be able to do more for them then lectures, handing over a scroll or journying to the correct teacher in game for them.

That said however, how can we keep teaching responsable? How can we ensure that those spells that are only giving as quest rewards are suddenly every day ho-hum? We have a few options. We can require that the person take the teacher feat to "activate" this new system.. Or we can completely make these quest reward spells unteachable (is that a word?) Personally I would like to see it required that the person takes the teacher feat to be required to teach anything at beneath a GM level but also for it to activate these new systems. Now I will wander off to go drool on the idea of these new teaching systems.

[Hviti]

They why does, say, GMing a trade get a trademark? (please don't kill me y'all with GMed trades, just asking)

[Nedylene]

My personal answer to your question, which may be the wrong one..... a GMed trade should have a trademark because a trade makes something physical. A smithy is making a superior piece of armour and it gives people a way of seeing WHO made it so they can seek out the same smithy.

It does not improve quality, does not improve anything except to mark their work of art. If you have ever seen a knight's tale the female armourer (Can't remember her name for the life of me) put her mark on her armour so if others admire the work they know who made it.

[Dalvyn]

I have never said I thought the trademarks were a good idea.

I actually think they are not a good idea, and if I was to redesign the trades, I would most likely change the following:

- allow people with a low skill in the trades to be able to make interesting items (i.e., equivalent in quality to what can be found in shops), as opposed to the current situation where people with low level can only make junk;

- change the progression system so that people do not have to make and junk 5,000 copper daggers just to progress; real-life plumbers do not craft 1,000 pieces of pipe and 2,500 taps then bury them in their gardens just to become "good" plumbers: they progress by making things that are actually needed;

- allow anybody to get a trademark, as long as they meet up some conditions that would mean that "they are effectively roleplaying as craftsmen" and not "they have spent 500 hours practising their skills as if that was a single-player game" (for example, have IC recommendations from 5 characters supporting their claim to get a trademark, and send in a mail to the applications email).

That being said... that's another topic (another topic that I like to rant about, in case you hadn't noticed!)

[Amalia]

I'd just like to add a big whoop-dee-doo to this thread-- I absolutely abhor having to practice trades by making junky item after junky item, destroying raw materials regardless of whether the creation process actually goes well-- especially with metals being relatively unavailable (in my experience) due to the small number of miners!

For this reason, I haven't practiced any trades my characters have learned, so I'm not sure on the following point-- but if, during the lag that follows when you do a trade, you can't talk to other characters, I object to that. Further, I think it would be glorious to make the lag longer, allow RP actions during it, and make the single action more effective both in terms of experience in the trade and results of the effort (you mine for half an hour or an hour game time while chatting with Bob, for example, and are almost guaranteed to at least find something). If the action were interrupted, say by an enemy attacking, the likelihood of success would be less or nothing, but since most trades occur in peaceable places that would only be set for rare occasions or to avoid cheating by attack-code.

[Hviti]

That said however, how can we keep teaching responsable? How can we ensure that those spells that are only giving as quest rewards are suddenly every day ho-hum? We have a few options. We can require that the person take the teacher feat to "activate" this new system.. Or we can completely make these quest reward spells unteachable (is that a word?) Personally I would like to see it required that the person takes the teacher feat to be required to teach anything at beneath a GM level but also for it to activate these new systems. Now I will wander off to go drool on the idea of these new teaching systems.

High level transport spells (astral walk, gate, etc) can't be scribed, so I guess it probably wouldn't be too hard to make them unteachable if quests were to be the only way to learn them.

[Selveem]

I wholeheartedly disagree that being GM represents a "fair investment of time and effort" that should have have some meaning, as in: that should be rewarded. Being GM means only one thing (well, two, actually): that the player behind the character either found a loophole and became GMs by abusing a bug (I'll just set this option apart for the sake of this discussion), or that the player behind the character spent hours practising the skill/spell/trade/whatever in question.

Being GM is a soloist's reward in itself, and I see no reason why it should entail any additional reward. The process of becoming GM is currently a strictly personal thing, by which you just spent time on increasing your character's power. There is nothing inherently wrong with it and it can be fun at times, but that certainly does not qualify as an occupation "deserving of a reward" on a multiplayer game. (For the discussion's sake, generating roleplay, interacting with others in one form or another, helping ICly or OOCly newcomers, ... are what I would call occupations worthy of a reward).

So, what I mean here is that being GM does not mean in any way that you should be a good/better teacher. It's actually often the contrary: people who master the finest point of an art/science often are (there are exceptions, of course) so self-centered and absorbed in their own view of the art/science that they utterly suck at teaching.

So, no, I don't believe that becoming/being GM makes you worthy of any additional reward. And I am actually firmly opposed to giving GMs any additional rewards and making it look like we expect people to skill-level up to GM before they can do interesting things like teaching others. Teaching others is good, that's interaction, that's an opportunity to generate roleplay and flesh out characters. There is no reason why people who chose to spend hours (most likely on their own) to just get "grandmaster" on their score sheet should be the only one who are allowed to (role)play a teacher's role.

I think this kind of idea is rather insulting almost to the few people who actually took the time to GM trades/skills/spells and the like. While I am certain that was not your intention, please consider that people quite often make such commitments for the ability to provide the other players of the game with rare items/materials/accessories/weapons/armors currently unavailable in the game otherwise.

People already do complain about how hard it often is to get raw materials for things such as weapons crafting. I think those that have taken the time and invested so much into their characters should not be classified as soloists. I actually admire their patience and dedication to their craft. I am uncertain if you actually realize, as a player, how much time and patience that really takes.

For instance, dual wield is an ability to my knowledge one of the _hardest_ to increase. I tried and tried and the most I think I ever got was master (which seems to be lower, now, but I assume that's code-related). I have a character who spent hours and hours mining/smelting for part of his faith quest. I thought I would never end and it was painful. Even still, his skill in the actual crafts are minimal at best.

I understand your reasoning behind why you feel that this behavior should not be rewarded, but how many people do you know that would just sit there while someone smelts RPing every single movement and be able to keep more than one other person interested? If you wish to say that skilling up takes too long to be of RP value, perhaps lower the amount of time it takes to increase skills?

[Dalvyn]

There you did it again and got me going on one of my favourite rambling topics!

I think this kind of idea is rather insulting almost to the few people who actually took the time to GM trades/skills/spells and the like. While I am certain that was not your intention, please consider that people quite often make such commitments for the ability to provide the other players of the game with rare items/materials/accessories/weapons/armors currently unavailable in the game otherwise.

The number one reason for people to do it is to become GM. I can agree that, for some skills - especially trades -, there might be some altruistic reasoning behind becoming GM, but let's be honest here: people might spend hours on a skill/trade to really kick ass, or to be able to show off, but those who do it to improve the game as a whole are not the majority. I'm not saying that it's bad, or that there is anything wrong with it: it's just the way it is. I have a hard time seeing what altruistic reasoning support the effort made to become GM in bastard swords or fireball.

People already do complain about how hard it often is to get raw materials for things such as weapons crafting. I think those that have taken the time and invested so much into their characters should not be classified as soloists. I actually admire their patience and dedication to their craft. I am uncertain if you actually realize, as a player, how much time and patience that really takes.

If the problem is with the availability of raw material, then this is what we should change. An option would be to make it so that the success rate at lower level of mining is much much higher than it currently is. The solution is clearly not to incite more people to go through that "duress".

For instance, dual wield is an ability to my knowledge one of the _hardest_ to increase. I tried and tried and the most I think I ever got was master (which seems to be lower, now, but I assume that's code-related). I have a character who spent hours and hours mining/smelting for part of his faith quest. I thought I would never end and it was painful. Even still, his skill in the actual crafts are minimal at best.

Why do people do painful things on a game?

I think that it's extremely poor game design to force people to do painful things and worse... that it's very perverse to reward them for doing them!

That actually reminds me of a social experiment I heard or read about... where people were asked to copy, by hand, the telephone book. That's something that I would describe as very painful and boring. Yet, they were copying it... because they were asked to do it and paid for it. They wrote page after page after page of phone numbers and names, and they kept at it. Then the experimenter came, took the pages they had written, tore them into bits and threw all of them into the trash bin, right in front of them! Yet... most of them continued to copy the phone book... (By the way, if someone can find a reference to this experiment, let me know!)

I understand your reasoning behind why you feel that this behavior should not be rewarded, but how many people do you know that would just sit there while someone smelts RPing every single movement and be able to keep more than one other person interested?

That's not what I am suggesting. I'm not asking people to repeatedly roleplay every move of their smelting. The idea below most (all ?) of my recent proposals is that people who take the time to make the game more fun not only for them but also for other people should be rewarded. And skill increases might be one kind of rewards (but they wouldn't need to be actually roleplaying, again and again, their smelting to deserve the reward).

I agree that a game that would require people to roleplay every single step of their smelting again and again and reward them for doing it would be as perverse.

If you wish to say that skilling up takes too long to be of RP value, perhaps lower the amount of time it takes to increase skills?

No, I do not mean that skilling up takes too long to be of RP value; I do not mean that skilling up requires so much time that it does not leave any time for roleplay. I am saying that we should examine exactly what kind of behaviour we want to incite on FK, and reward THAT kind of behaviour.

If we want to incite people to concentrate on skilling up, then we should indeed increase the skill improvement rate, and give additional rewards to GMs and those who increase their skills.

If we want to incite people to do other things (like, interact with other players for example), then we should reward those other actions.

An option would for example be to make the skill improvement rates depend on how much a character brings to the game. In other words, the more you interact and help other people have fun (PC-to-PC ratings anyone?), the faster your skills increase. And, naturally, the more you stick to yourself, the more often you just stand up after being raised and walk off, the more often you limit your interactions with others to "Someone spell me up, I need fly", the longer it will take for your skills to increase. Another option is to give "skill increases" to those with high ratings, that they can spend to immediately increase one of their skills. There are actually plenty of options.

But, to be back to this topic, since it's currently not how it works... since, right now, the only way to become GM is to grind mobs / create 5,000 daggers and bury them in your garden / solo skill up... I see no reason to reward GMs anymore that they currently are.

[Lukon]

Then, by all means, don't. But please spare us from all this talk of altruistic judgement of a valid playstyle. Those who want to GM skills AND RP are not worse players or worse people than those who want to just RP and consider 'bashing mobs' to be painful. I, and I'm sure some others, get a strange sort of kick out of managing a growing character, incremental rewards, and maybe even a bit of private character RP 'practice' on those poor, poor mobs.

I like what you're aiming for, Dalvyn, which is rewarding contribution to the game as a whole. But I also worry deeply that this is going to turn into a group-happy witch hunt, and alienate those people who want to enjoy a game on a personal level, without necessarily making grand strides to improve the game 'society'.

[Dalvyn]

Looks like it spurted some emotional response.

Then, by all means, don't. But please spare us from all this talk of altruistic judgement of a valid playstyle.

There are two interpretation errors in that sentence. The first one is about the "altruistic" qualification, and the second is about "a valid playstyle".

I used "altruistic" to describe the justification that Selveem gave for some people to GM skills (e.g., "to be able to provide everybody with good equipment"). The playstyle I described in the second part of my answer though, is not "altruistic". I simply pointed out that, when you interact, you make the game more fun not just for you, but also for others. It looks to me that you are mixing up the two notions.

And then, I did not present the interaction playstyle as THE valid playstyle. I wrote that I believed that this kind of behaviour/playstyle should be encouraged, because it brings much more to the mud than its contrary.

As for the judgement part, well... I think that it's my and anyone's right to judge playstyle and state opinions about them, especially when no name is given.

Those who want to GM skills AND RP are not worse players or worse people than those who want to just RP and consider 'bashing mobs' to be painful.

Ok, that's a typical answer and that is a very fallacious/deceptive argument. Nowhere in my post did I write - or even hint - that people "who want to GM skills and RP are not worse players or worse people than those who want to just RP and consider 'bashing mobs' to be painful." You are stating an extreme view and pretending that I have it, while it is not true.

I stated two things: (1) the "interaction" playstyle is better for the mud than the soloist playstyle, and (2) interactions should be encouraged, and thus rewarded, whereas, currently, they are not rewarded at all. I am also not advocating that the rewards given to those who try to GM skills by practising be taken away... I am simply advocating for the other playstyles to be re-evaluated and rewarded as they should.

I, and I'm sure some others, get a strange sort of kick out of managing a growing character, incremental rewards, and maybe even a bit of private character RP 'practice' on those poor, poor mobs.

That's fine then. As long as you have fun doing it, you should feel free to continue. And your actions already have their own rewards: you grow up in skills. So, why want still more rewards?

Or, worse, why cry about injustice when I suggest that other playstyles be rewarded too?

I like what you're aiming for, Dalvyn, which is rewarding contribution to the game as a whole. But I also worry deeply that this is going to turn into a group-happy witch hunt, and alienate those people who want to enjoy a game on a personal level, without necessarily making grand strides to improve the game 'society'.

Well, I do not intend to alienate anyone. Except perhaps those who really show no willingness to roleplay; those players are better somewhere else anyway. And by that, I mean the players who do not communicate with anyone else, who have not greeted anyone, who barge into the square and immediately ask to get a fly spell, who "stand, get all corpse, wear all, go back to fight" immediately after being raised, ... and who do not change when people try to give them advice. I have seen a few of those players and most of them did not stay on FK for more than a few days anyway.

I'll try to restate it once again... my goal is not to penalize those who like mob bashing and concentrating on skilling up. My goal is to reward those with different playstyles. And I am aware that players just don't fall into one category or the other, but that each player (those who stay on FK at least) does both of those things, in various proportions: some are 20% interaction - 80% skilling up, others are 80% interaction - 20% skilling up, ... I just do not want the "skilling up" part to be the only one that is rewarded.

And... since right now becoming GM can only be done with "skilling up" (since interaction does not help you in becoming GM), I see no reason to add another reward to being GM.

[Lukon]

Then I apologize for misinterpreting your words. I'm just tired of the perhaps perceived notion that bashing mobs is an evil practice, especially when there are many 'elder' players with maxed characters/bank accounts. Stats DO affect RP opportunities and interactions in a real way, after all. So GMing, at least when I've pursued it, has been definitely an RP consideration, and not just for PKill.

I am all in favor of rewarding those who contribute to the game as a whole, and more rewards indeed. As long as this (again, possibly perceived) trend of making things harder for 'bashers' doesn't worsen.

[Raona]

My two cents: I think it pretty IC that if you keep falling off your horse, you will eventually, slowly, learn how to avoid doing so. But if you talk with others about the problem, compare saddles and exchange tips, watch others and pick up techniques from them, especially others with great skill, your horsemanship would improve much more quickly than it would by learning the hard way. Granted, that's less true with some skills than others, but I'd argue it's generally true. Compare how quickly you learn a new language immersed in it, speaking with native speakers, as opposed to reading a book, alone, and trying to master the language that way!

The game currently reflects the first reality (learning by doing), but only to a limited extent the second (learning by teaching), and I think that's the point. The latter is worthy of encouraging, not just for reality's sake, but also because it opens a fun vein of RP opportunities.

[Lathander]

Good anology Raona. I believe Dalvyn's point in a nutshell, and using your anology, is that practicing "mount" currently makes you better at "mount" but no other way is possible. He would like to see other ways included without doing away with the practicing option.

Using your analogy, wouldn't the PC that did BOTH options be the best?

[Dalvyn]

Using your analogy, wouldn't the PC that did BOTH options be the best?

Exactly. Some sort of balance would be the "best" as in "most efficient" way to skill up.

[Leohand]

I'm not sure how easy it would be to code this, but here goes. What if the IMM's watched the game some times, and rewarded those that RP more, like set an alaround experience multiplier. So that those who role-play might get 1.1 to 2 times the experience as a normal basher of same level and all for the same amount of work. You could even make the multiplier effect favor. And you could make it effect the player, not just the different characters. Giving known role-players a bit of an edge at character generation.

As for the part about teaching, I love that, as long as it doesn't make the teacher feats useless. Perhaps if you GM something you can teach up to adept, but if you have both teacher feats you can teach up to master?

[Aegir]

I've been out of the loop regarding FK for quite some time, but since someone else necro'd this thread... I might as well comment.

Anything that shifts the game away form "the grind" is an extremely good thing. Allowing PCs to train other PCs up to, say, a step below their own ability level (with a max of, say, apprentice/journeymen) would be a huge step in the right direction. Would it make certain things easier to come by? Absolutely. But it would make the game as a whole much more interaction-friendly.

Suddenly apprenticeships would have real value instead of being a purely RP thing, and PCs wouldn't be forced into the grind just to GM skills so they can train them.

Is it abusable? Probably; theres no guarantee everyone will actually RP training, and instead simply train all comers, or simply sell trainings for some gold, but that is a small price to pay, and doesn't seem like it'd be terribly hard to discourage if it becomes a real problem (anyone caught abusing it could easily have their teaching ability removed temporarily/permanently with an item that blocks the command).

I'd like to see this expanded as Dalvyn said into the trades, so that PC smiths can make high-quality items that are of use to PCs. I'd even go so far as to say there should be a way mages can enchant said mundane items with minor magical abilities tied to certain spells, like magical weapon (bonus to weapons), mage armor (bonus to armor), and perhaps some other things, that could make various decorative/treasure items of real use beyond simply RP garb. Probably best to limit such things to minor enchantments: leave the better magic items for quests and such, but something small is certainly not going to hurt anything.

Pretty much anything that encourages PC-to-PC interaction is a good thing, and by the same token, anything that encourages "the grind" is counterproductive thats suppose to be about interaction. Anything that makes a game like this step towards a truly dynamic, PC-influenced world is a large step in the right direction.

[Leohand]

Well, people can normally teach up to novice now anyways. How bout the two levels of teacher feat be changed to increase the max level you can train to. So taking teacher once would mean you could teach to apprentice, and the second time would give you the ability to train up to Journeyman. Also, I think Faith Managers should be able to teach up to adept if they take both teacher feats.

[Nysan]

I have never said I thought the trademarks were a good idea.

I actually think they are not a good idea,

They were my idea...

Hehe,

They were too.