Ardent's Future

1. I love events, both IC and OOC. I think these could be easily tied into skills later, giving skills yet another use (I'll type an example later.)

2. Skills! I think there should totally be skill-locked actions. We could treat them in the same way we do skill claims. EX, if an expert healer wants to collect a rare plant or use a rare plant, they can, but a lower-level one can't. Or if expert hunters have a wider range of prey they can kill or are able to hunt larger prey by themselves. I mean, Idk how much monitoring this would take for real.

An easier one would be Navigation because if you had boards for high-level navigators only (like steep cliffs, caves, mountain tops) then no one else should post there except experts. Put the name in red or do like "[Expert only] Pretty Peaks." If anyone else posts there, it's pretty apparent. Or it could serve to be something like "If you go here and you're not expert level, you're automatically subject to an 'accident' roll" or something.

IDK about adding items. With dice rolls or inventory or whatever, it does get pretty close to a game... I also like those types of games usually. I like earning things. I like saying "yeah well only 3 characters can do. have this particular thing and I'm one of them," but I'm not sure how others feel.

3. I LOOOOVE the idea of specializations. Both IC and OOC. I think it should def come after mastering a skill, but idk how all to implement that for IC. I'm sure we could find ways.

I'll pm you something I thought about this as pertaining to a pack!

4. I think the current system not only takes entirely too long,, but its inefficient and seems to really bog down and stress out the staff. Everyone is waiting for that judging and everyone has real lives. Something that ICly would be simple (a spar), suddenly gets pushed back because it's not urgent to judge. I think my last spar took around 6mos to get judged and I can't even lie and say I wasn't a little irritated and deterred from fighting again. Sparring is essential to building up those skill points, but it's also not urgent.

I can totally understand staff taking a while on them. I doubt they're much fun. I think the system needs to be revamped for sure.

Dice rolls are quick and easy, however, they tend to fail us when we need them most and for that reason I feel like they can't be relied upon for anything other than spars unless both parties agree. But then again, if that's the case, and skills play into the rolls, then anyone facing a real challenge might simply forsake the dice rolls because it would automatically give the more skilled opponent a large leg up.

To even that out, it could be an addition to total score on non-dice fights and an addition to rolls on dice fights? That way it's always beneficial to have the more practiced character?

I definitively had my fair share of losing to lower-leveled players on another site I was on. My character fought so much, he was a master, but his rolls ALWAYS sucked and he lost more than he won. Now if anyone had decided to maim or DM him, I can't say for sure how I'd feel since I always felt his rolls were bad. Granted, that's the risk you run when playing an asshat.

For spars, I'm totally for dice. For more serious claims... I'll have to think more on it haha.