Survey: Devotion System Revision

Gathering community opinions on a suggested revision.

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Tei'serin Nji'ryn
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Survey: Devotion System Revision

It kind of seems like I am the only one who likes the system we have now. As I am not a reviewer, I don't know how much extra work it is to reward devotion. From that perspective, It could be a huge amount of work, and a good reason to change.

From the perspective of my character, however, going to the new system will very likely be the end of her progression through the mark; at least for the forseeable future. I've reached a level of devotion with her (115) where she has earned all of the abilities in her current tier of Severath. My plan was for her to discover those abilities, and learn how to use them in thread, then once I had earned three or more knowledges in each, to apply for a quest to gain the next level.

I had only vaguely begun thinking of ideas for such a quest so I would be able to apply for one when the time came, but the vague idea was to find a way (that made sense IC) to get Tei'serin to Desnind, have her stay a season while on her quest, then return home. IC wise, that is somewhat possible to arrange. A major quest chain, on the other hand, which would likely involve either several trips to Desnind, or her spending an arc there, would not be. Not without completely reworking her character to put her in a position that would allow for that plot wise, at least.

I am not saying that the major quest series wouldn't be fun to write out. I think it would be a lot of fun to plan out a series of 10-20+ quests that would start out small, with each one leading to something bigger until the new level was earned. Such a thing would likely take an arc or more in real life, would have the possibility of sending Tei'serin all over the world in the process, and would be a lot of fun to write. It just isn't feasable for my character without essentially starting over from scratch and using bits of her to make a new character. Likewise, earning new abilities via quests rather than earning devotion sounds potentially interesting to me as the writer, but not really possible in the limited existence my PC currently has IC.

So for that selfish reason, I have mixed feelings about this. The new system sounds like it could be very interesting. It just isn't something that will allow me to progress Tei'serin's mark unless I change her concept so completely that I might as well create a different character altogether. Having said that, if I were to pursue a mark with a different character, or create one for the purpose of doing so, this new system sounds very interesting. :)
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Survey: Devotion System Revision

Niv wrote:Edit: if you change this can I keep my useless points, As like I said they make me feel special...even if its like..one point of love.
If they're points gained outside of a mark you possess, I don't think you should've actually gained them. Devotion points are gained as part of supporting an Immortal and empowering them through the bond you have in the mark, gaining power by in turn empowering your patron. So these points would vanish. I don't think anyone would mind if you kept an archived record of them for your own benefit---they'll just have no function. :P
Baya wrote:Since theres no more points to sort of...prove devotion, would there be any prerequisites to making a quest thread for a mark?
The same as now! When you want to gain a mark, you approach the PSF and state which Immortal you are interested in and why, and outline the reasons why you think the Immortal would take an interest in you, and proceed from there with a moderated thread or series of threads (by the proposed system, depending) to gain that Immortal's favour, and hence their mark. No other prerequisites beyond being logically the sort of character who could or would catch their attention somehow.
Baya wrote:In that same vein how would that work in regards to obtaining the next level? For example, if a PC gained their first level but then never really does much with it or their immortal, would they even be eligible? If so, how should one track this sort of thing?
Maybe it'd be easier if I quoted Jade directly on what she said in the original post, for this. See below.
Jade Post
Calculating Mark Progression
  • Major Questlines: Involve a 3 or more part series of threads that details your character going through great lengths and battling many obstacles to prove themselves worthy for rewards. These questlines must be discussed with a prophet where the overall plot and objectives the character must go through can be discussed.
  • Minor Questlines: These questlines can range in many parts, however, most tend to be just 1 thread. Minor questlines are more than just regular stories of hunting criminals or serving within the deity’s temple for a period of time. They are typically about a character’s self discovery--- a storyline that goes beyond what is typically seen. Minor questlines are mainly used to gain new abilities.
  • To gain / lose a blessing / curse, 1 Major Questline thread is necessary. Major questline threads should be broken up into 3 part threads or more. These threads align with the story progression of the major questline and provide details of the work your character went through to gain or lose a blessing / curse. An example of this is listed above in the Questline Thread column. The character provides 3 separate links with titles Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. These threads essentially provide a ‘Beginning’ thread, ‘Middle’ thread, and ‘Ending’ thread, whereupon the rewards are given. These threads may be more than 3 parts, but it should be stated that only stories relating to the progression of a blessing or curse / abilities quests should be recorded here. Anything else goes into basic thread tracking.
  • To gain / lose abilities, a character must complete 1 or multiple minor quests. Again, prophet involvement is needed for correct plot direction and permissions.An example of a minor quest is listed above--- where the character begins building a temple in Rharne. This minor quest will most likely take multiple threads to complete, as it should detail the character getting permission from the city, buying the materials, labor, etc, and beginning construction. Because buildings take time to create, another thread should be added to the questline column, even though it is a minor one, as a sort of ‘finisher’ story by celebrating the completion of the temple with a public ceremony.
  • The difference between Major and Minor questlines are the level of challenges faced and obstacles to overcome.
  • Any amount of reward may be given from abilities, to titles, to sacred or enchanted objects, to actual marks, and more.
Elyna wrote:You said that already gained levels would be kept - what if you have points but can't use them to gain levels? Ie, in the example of a blessing taking over a year to be developed after it was awarded? Would the player in this scenario be able to level up once the blessing was published and then convert to the new system?
If you have points of progression in a blessing you get to keep them, and you'll get the appropriate abilities once the blessing is released. :) Hopefully in the near future.
Elyna wrote:I've been planning two solos where Elyna visits the temples to pray - and they would have earnt a lot of points - will these now not be awarded at all?
I'm not entirely sure what you mean? If they're completed and rewarded before any amendments go through they would still earn you the points and count towards the grandfathering process. This isn't a final decision by any means, so everything proceeds as previously written before anything else changes, and if a change passes in the midst of things and the projected Devotion reward would push you over the limit of a new ability, we could still award you the ability anyway since you would've fulfilled the requirements. Any such cases, including if people fall just a few points short of a new ability, would be handled case-by-case in the PSF but as far as I know, it would err on the side of giving people their abilities as a reward for their previous efforts, as they are grandfathered into any new system after the current one.
Elyna wrote:Also - how would a player request a 'quest thread' would it be through immortal interaction thread/ PSF?
You'd just outline what sort of quest you'd want to do in the PSF and then go ahead with the thread and be awarded upon completion of the quest. The Minor Quests are meant to be player-driven and not depend on being moderated by mods, but it's always safest to check beforehand that what you're planning to do is an appropriate act of devotion to advance to where you want to be (basically, using the terms of the current system, accomplish something of a magnitude that would gain you all of those points in the span of a single quest, to give some form of frame of reference). Once checked to be fitting of the Immortal you write the quest yourself and then when it's reviewed, you get the ability or other rewards.

For the Major Quests, they'd be very similar to how Immortal interactions work already, with varying moderator involvement depending on the length and significance of the storyline (which mostly depends on circumstantial stuff or which level you're advancing to in your mark).
Tei'serin Nji'ryn wrote:It kind of seems like I am the only one who likes the system we have now. As I am not a reviewer, I don't know how much extra work it is to reward devotion. From that perspective, It could be a huge amount of work, and a good reason to change.

From the perspective of my character, however, going to the new system will very likely be the end of her progression through the mark; at least for the forseeable future. I've reached a level of devotion with her (115) where she has earned all of the abilities in her current tier of Severath. My plan was for her to discover those abilities, and learn how to use them in thread, then once I had earned three or more knowledges in each, to apply for a quest to gain the next level.

I had only vaguely begun thinking of ideas for such a quest so I would be able to apply for one when the time came, but the vague idea was to find a way (that made sense IC) to get Tei'serin to Desnind, have her stay a season while on her quest, then return home. IC wise, that is somewhat possible to arrange. A major quest chain, on the other hand, which would likely involve either several trips to Desnind, or her spending an arc there, would not be. Not without completely reworking her character to put her in a position that would allow for that plot wise, at least.

I am not saying that the major quest series wouldn't be fun to write out. I think it would be a lot of fun to plan out a series of 10-20+ quests that would start out small, with each one leading to something bigger until the new level was earned. Such a thing would likely take an arc or more in real life, would have the possibility of sending Tei'serin all over the world in the process, and would be a lot of fun to write. It just isn't feasable for my character without essentially starting over from scratch and using bits of her to make a new character. Likewise, earning new abilities via quests rather than earning devotion sounds potentially interesting to me as the writer, but not really possible in the limited existence my PC currently has IC.

So for that selfish reason, I have mixed feelings about this. The new system sounds like it could be very interesting. It just isn't something that will allow me to progress Tei'serin's mark unless I change her concept so completely that I might as well create a different character altogether. Having said that, if I were to pursue a mark with a different character, or create one for the purpose of doing so, this new system sounds very interesting. :)
With your grandfathered abilities you wouldn't have to do any quests retroactively for them. You're free to discover and explore them at your leisure in threads in order to gain the appropriate Knowledges and ease yourself into using them in-character, which also goes for new abilities earned in the future. Gaining it doesn't mean you automatically know how to use it, so you explore it after it's awarded and you gain Knowledge as a result.

So, all your retroactively earned abilities, you're completely free to explore at your leisure. The quests are a replacement of required acts of devotion spread through other threads, which jumps you up by an effective amount of 30-something Devotion in the current system based on the single quest you completed, or sometimes even more than that depending on how significant it was. Even so, like I said... how you explore these things on your own time is up to you and your PC, and not all quests are going to look the same or have the same requirements, nor require you to always return to the same place, etc.

I hope that covers all questions so far. If not, let me know!
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Survey: Devotion System Revision

Essentially, you would just be tracking your threads, like what you're doing now, to show how involved your character is with worshiping their deity. Also, here's an exampled of what we mean to do: EXAMPLE

@Tei --- Actually, the new system here would probably be more beneficial to your character than what you think. What we're trying to do is allow players to provide their own interpretation of how their characters would worship their Immortal. Sure, Moseke might have a marked Sev'ryn that fights back hordes of monsters just so she can protect the sanctity of a forest, but she also has a marked human who provides peace, health, and comfort in a small village, and looks after the people there as best they can. Both causes are respected by the Immortal and one cannot be so easily bettered by the other because they're both completely different.

As a player, you get to decide what these 'Major' quests are, that you devote Tei to--- and it doesn't have to be anything crazy because it's based on your interpretation for your player. I hope this helps clarify things a little better!
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Tei'serin Nji'ryn
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Survey: Devotion System Revision

Jade wrote:
Essentially, you would just be tracking your threads, like what you're doing now, to show how involved your character is with worshiping their deity. Also, here's an exampled of what we mean to do: EXAMPLE

@Tei --- Actually, the new system here would probably be more beneficial to your character than what you think. What we're trying to do is allow players to provide their own interpretation of how their characters would worship their Immortal. Sure, Moseke might have a marked Sev'ryn that fights back hordes of monsters just so she can protect the sanctity of a forest, but she also has a marked human who provides peace, health, and comfort in a small village, and looks after the people there as best they can. Both causes are respected by the Immortal and one cannot be so easily bettered by the other because they're both completely different.

As a player, you get to decide what these 'Major' quests are, that you devote Tei to--- and it doesn't have to be anything crazy because it's based on your interpretation for your player. I hope this helps clarify things a little better!
That does make me feel somewhat better about it. :)

I think I'm more concerned with the time frame. As I understand it (and as I think Rumor told me back when I first started since Tei had Severath from the start), Tei'serin would need to go to Desnind in order to increase her mark when the time came because Moseke rarely leaves Desnind. As a character, Tei'serin leads a very controlled life; though not a slave, her NPC guardian has complete control of her life. Her entire concept is based around this, and the issues coming from this at this point in time. She lives on a small farm near Treth, goes into the village regularly, and very rarely into Ne'haer. I think I've come up with an IC reason she could get to Desnind for a while so she could go on her quest. But when I saw "major quest series," I was thinking it would require a huge 10-20+ quest series that would take an arc or longer involving...well, I hadn't really gotten that far yet. Rediscovering some ancient artifact that Lisirra's followers stole from the Sev'ryn hundreds of arcs ago, tracking it down, and taking it back, or something in order to earn the second tier of Severath. Something that could easily take arcs to do. And it would be impossible for Tei'serin to do anything close to that in her current circumstances.

I may have been overreacting when I saw that. :)
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Survey: Devotion System Revision

I like both the old and the new system. I love quests, I love that you want to make blessings more story-driven, and it will potentially also make reviewing easier.

I’m kind of sad though that all my Ilaren devotion will apparently disappear because she hasn’t marked Tristan yet (she "just" spent the night with him).

Anyway, in the past I was able to gain Zanik devotion by writing a play or music or creating a work of art and dedicating it to Zanik. Will I still be able to do that once you implement the new system? I’m thinking yes, because Zanik is the Immortal of Music, among other things, but I thought I’d ask to be sure.

What about negative devotion by the way? How will that work with the new system? Will we even still have negative devotion? What if somebody insults their Immortal or does something that they dislike (for example a Sesser falling in love) after the implementation of the new system? Will they be punished in any way?
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Survey: Devotion System Revision

Tristan Venora wrote:
I like both the old and the new system. I love quests, I love that you want to make blessings more story-driven, and it will potentially also make reviewing easier.

I’m kind of sad though that all my Ilaren devotion will apparently disappear because she hasn’t marked Tristan yet (she "just" spent the night with him).

Anyway, in the past I was able to gain Zanik devotion by writing a play or music or creating a work of art and dedicating it to Zanik. Will I still be able to do that once you implement the new system? I’m thinking yes, because Zanik is the Immortal of Music, among other things, but I thought I’d ask to be sure.

What about negative devotion by the way? How will that work with the new system? Will we even still have negative devotion? What if somebody insults their Immortal or does something that they dislike (for example a Sesser falling in love) after the implementation of the new system? Will they be punished in any way?

This is kinda where I am, Both Systems have their appeal, I mean having to actively be kinda faithful to reap the rewards and gain more is kinda a good incentive in my eyes. So yeah I think the old system was good in that it kept track of if you were actively aligning with your deity.
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Survey: Devotion System Revision

Tristan Venora wrote:I like both the old and the new system. I love quests, I love that you want to make blessings more story-driven, and it will potentially also make reviewing easier.

I’m kind of sad though that all my Ilaren devotion will apparently disappear because she hasn’t marked Tristan yet (she "just" spent the night with him).

Anyway, in the past I was able to gain Zanik devotion by writing a play or music or creating a work of art and dedicating it to Zanik. Will I still be able to do that once you implement the new system? I’m thinking yes, because Zanik is the Immortal of Music, among other things, but I thought I’d ask to be sure.

What about negative devotion by the way? How will that work with the new system? Will we even still have negative devotion? What if somebody insults their Immortal or does something that they dislike (for example a Sesser falling in love) after the implementation of the new system? Will they be punished in any way?
I imagine you could still gain devotion with other Immortals even if you're not already marked, but not in the same way as before. With this system, the "accidental" allocation of Devotion will be wiped, more or less, where you're in control as a player of how your character approaches the matter of devoting themselves to or commiting acts in the name of an Immortal. Simply doing fitting acts by accident isn't really what you should be gaining devotion points or progression for, which was the case for the old system as well but was kind of iffy because everyone handled that differently with no real baseline, and it was never really stated outright how "intent" played into it.

The way the proposal was built, however, this amended system could definitely allow for characters to dedicate threads to increasing their devotion with a select Immortal even if they aren't already marked, which could well lead to them being noticed faster and actually gaining a mark down the line and starting off with more abilities than you normally would, for instance, as recognition of past actions. It could very well work like that, provided the player takes care to track their own devotion quests for future reference. :)

That's nothing official, of course, but I could see that being worked into this system, since it still falls in line with what this amendment is trying to achieve.
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Survey: Devotion System Revision

I don't know if I understand this right ...is this how you meant?
  1. in order to get a mark the player still need to ask for moderation by a storyteller
  2. in order to unlock one (1) new ability in a tier the player needs to write one (1) self moderated quest thread with a wider theme than just "farming an ability" but where religion and gaining the ability is one ingredient
  3. in order to level up a mark to next tier the player needs to write a series of storyteller moderated quest threads with a wider theme than just "farming a mark level" but where religion and gaining next tier is one ingredient
I take it we aren't meant to write separate "religion threads" just to farm abilites, but the intention is to embed the religious development in stories about other things, where the characters eventually find themselves in situations that gives them a challenge or obstacle that makes it logical to let them reach a level of pressure where it becomes necessary/logical for them to push themselves to the limit and as a consequence of this develop into a new ability in a tier or to a new tier.

One thing worries me. Will you really have time to moderate long quest chains for all the tier upgrades of all the PCs this can be needed for? (Or perhaps I misunderstood point 3 above. In that case I blame the summer heat ^^. )
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Survey: Devotion System Revision

Personally, I do suggest that we find a way to weave in devotion from before obtaining the mark. Perhaps when unlocking the mark, a more dutiful follower with a history of worshiping that Immortal will be granted additional abilities, rather than the base 3?
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Survey: Devotion System Revision

I'm really new here and still learning how each system works, but couldn't help myself but chime in.

Making this system more story-centric and less tally marked seems like it would be a lot more natural and eloquent way of going about devotion. Ultimately, we are here to write, and I would much rather quest for a special ability than bank points for one. I know this will not be a popular opinion, but I may even argue that getting marked by an Immortal should not even be "asked" for OOC, but tracked through prophet notes privately and awarded by the mods as they see fit.

TLDR: I'd prefer the revised system, as it focuses more on questing and furthering our character's development. It also allows for the potential to fail, which would make for some interesting stories!
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