godsoffortune | Suggestions

Is there something about the game that you think could be done better?
Do you have an amazing idea for a great plot that you want the mods to try and put into play?
Or do you just think you can give us some advice to make our jobs a little easier?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! Please reply here with your suggestion and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hello. Admittedly it is an idea that I've been pondering on for a long time. Generally, CR drops when framed as something sudden, and one has no control of can be very hard to deal with. There are situations where players whose characters just lost too many people, don't want to bother with playing the "angst but get back on your feet arc", or find their characters simply develop into being jaded and less inclined to form new CR - very often the player decides to just drop their character in that case.

One of the games I was in before, had a mechanic that alleviated it by having two options for drop mechanic. One the usual "going home" and other "character is still in the world, but elsewhere and not able to stay in touch regularly" - kinda like in a pre-internet era when if your friend moved to a different continent you could call each other occasionally and write letters, but that's all.

So here is an idea of how to adapt that mechanic to current Far Shore mechanics.

The options "suddenly goes home" still remains, but I'm obviously going to detail here an option of "Character stays in a world but is unreachable". I will separate it in points for Gods and Shinki

Gods: gods characters get spirited-away for their native pantheons - it can be done forcibly (old gods don't have to ask for permissions) or as a mysterious offer character ICly agrees to. Since in answer to questions in old FAQ it has been already established that other pantheons operate on a different set of rules. Because of that, all effects of drop are effective - the temple is gone, points reset (unless you decide you want to keep track of that), the bond to shinki lost (either by force or by unnaming them). CR of such dropped character can handwave interactions like random letter sending to their physical shrines on Near Shore, or maybe occasional meetings for some mundane talks (the dropped character is under compulsion to say no word what business they attend to in their new abode)

Shinki: shinki characters get assigned to old gods - again the rules is either to do it willingly for something promised to them, or by force/accidental mistake in bureaucracy (if I remember correctly it has been already established that players who OOCly want to separate their gods and shinki but can't find a way, can simply have "Heaven's did it" and shinki wakes up in temple of someone else). Perhaps they get to be stationed somewhere far far away (Far Shore is sprawling, but perhaps there are fortresses of Gates of Heavens that are manned by men of old guardian gods, idk i'm just making this up as I go). Again their CR can handwave occasional contact, but no information on their new missions will be given.

QUESTIONS

1. What if a character gets re-apped by the same person - since it's already an option to keep the memories of their previous stay, that still would be possible. Such characters know they were taken away for important business, but their memories are very hazy, as if someone sealed them away. If mods want to have it, there can be a very brief description what happened (again, shinki getting stationed on a Gate for training, but it was all mundane training and guard duty), if not then sealed memories are a better idea. For God characters, they can still appear as an incarnation of a different god.

2. What if a character gets re-apped by a different person - then the current rules are still in place. Such characters don't have memories of their previous stay, and it's up for their CR to interpret if the old gods messed up with taking away all their memories, or they just went home and reappeared.

3. What if God character was from Japanese pantheon - that's of course more tricky, but I would work with either having some different pantheon hijack them, or having some old gods taking them away for Important Mission (like, the Gates need to be manned by gods who can work with shinki too, right?). Throwing away all the "earthly" or "heavenly" in this case possessions (like temple and current shinki) would, of course be required. Maybe it's something, something, buddhist and shinto tradition interwines in Japanese Heavens but there are parts that are still quite seperate. (not to mention some of the Japanese gods have their counterparts in other pantheons, that could be played here too)

Edited 2019-05-05 19:36 (UTC)

I can only support this because this would certainly help any character who lost their important CR at any point and, as Shuu mentioned, don't want to go into grieve/jaded/angst/depressed arc. I certainly don't want this kind of development for Iskandar.

Sometimes you don't want to play out an arc brought by loss. Sometimes your character is in a delicate place (especially true for shinki characters) and the loss would result in consequences for them and CR best avoided. Sometimes you play a character that just won't function for whatever reason without that dropped character, and this gives you a way to keep playing. Whatever the reason, this softens the experience of losing the dropped character, which in my RP experience, tends to be the #1 reason why characters burn out of settings and are needed to be dropped themselves - characters can only deal with so much loss after all - which can be very unhealthy for the overall vitality of the game itself.

I fully support this idea 100% and then some.

While I have no complaints about the system as is, I can say that from personal experience that it can be very difficult to keep a character going after a lot of CR drops, especially if it happens suddenly within a short span of time. I have dropped a character before for this reason so I understand the appeal of a mechanic like this.

As long as a new applicant for the same character isn't forced to play according to the narrative of a player no longer in the game, I think having a little more variety in explanations for the sudden disappearance of CR could be helpful for those who wish to take it.

I'm a little concerned about this tacking on extra work for the mod team since gods getting called away sounds like something that the mods should keep note of moving forward for potential metaplot uses and setting maintenance. It could probably be kept track of with a simple spreadsheet but I just wanted to point out that drop mechanics that aren't just a clean break from the setting can cause inconsistencies down the road if they're not kept track of.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Suggestions

no subject

+1 or even +1000000

1++++++++

+.5