A Land Far Away

I'd like to see a simple crafting system put in place. Not all encompassing but designed for a player run business.

My arguments against DM crafting are as follows:

1. It takes time away from DM'ing more players and since we are short of DM's, it would be nice to have a simple system in place. Why should one player take exhorborant time from a DM over others in crafting unique items.

2. DM's get it wrong because the standards are still difficult to follow.





With a simple static type scripted crafting system, players can set up shop. They can craft potions, weapons, and armor, transcribe scrolls, and make money. They can buy raw materials such as herbs, animal skins, and minerals and players can collect them.


It is an ideal, for sure. Mundane items would not be crafted and crafting can only take place in a crafter's guild hall where the crafting equipment is. They would have to be licensed and have built up skill points in a crafting skill.


Or we can just have crafting - like statics.

I'm all for a crafting system. It should require materials to make, of course.

It can be integrated with outdoorsy types who can find herbs in grassy/foresty areas, maybe even put in survival checks to find some of the more obscure/rarer items.

It can be integrated with hunting, as skins, leathers, etc. can be gathered off of wildlife.

It can be combined with the proposed mining statics, as ore and other minerals (even gems) are needed, too.

There's a lot that can be done with it. There's also room for exploitation, such as grinding wildlife for skins, or (if mundane items are allowed) making dozens of the same weapon and then selling them for an instant gold cache.

If crafting is only going to consist of masterwork or magic weapons, it reduces the exploitation factor by a good margin.

And finally, I say we put trust in the players that they don't screw the system over. (If items crafted can be tracked, exploits can be made bannable offenses or something).

Crafting of mundane items, if allowed, should be so dull and make such meagre profits that very few players would choose it over adventuring.

It should not, under any circumstances, offer rewards remotely comparable to the high risk/high reward career of adventuring.

I kinda disagree. I love to adventure but what if I didnt want to be an adventuer? If I wanted to be a craftsmen I dont see why I could make a living making and selling items to others. Just because my idea of fun isnt slaying dragons doesnt mean I shouldnt be allowed to do it. Its more of a sims feel to the game I know, but not everyone wants to kill kill kill and in ALFA its very easy to die from some mob or overzealous DM.

Didn't say you couldn't do it, just that the rewards for sitting at home in the safety and comfort of your own bakery should not be remotely near the rewards for risking life and limb tracking down and slaying the bandits that are raiding caravans.

The sons and daughters of adventurers do not run away from home to seek out the excitement, riches and galmourous lifestyle of "apprentice carpenter".

Realise though, that the terrain we are entering is very murky indeed. Many, many companies of paid professionals have over the course of years struggled with the subject of a virtual economy. More than often the result was economic disaster for the playerbase. Economies worked, sure. But they just didn't make any sense.

Just one word of wisdom - economy doesn't happen when things are made.

It happens when they disappear.

Without wear and removal of items, you can't have a properly functioning economy.

Mayhem wrote:Crafting of mundane items, if allowed, should be so dull and make such meagre profits that very few players would choose it over adventuring.

It should not, under any circumstances, offer rewards remotely comparable to the high risk/high reward career of adventuring.

+1

we have quite enough soap opera, bar fly playing going on. I think Crafting is a great idea, it should be in place to relieve DMs of that work, but it shouldn't be something more lucrative than ADVENTURE!

Good point Demson, I concur, but how do we "bleed out" static magical items... like +1 Swords, after 2 years will the value of the +1 longsword become diminished ?

IIRC, we had a great deal of discussion about this in the past and even came up with some semblance of a system to use - the only problem is implementation.

If someone is willing to actually do the hard work of coding up and testing a system, I'm sure Acadius would be glad to hear about it.

I dont know if this has been suggested before or not but in teh great dead horse that is crafting im sure its been brought up more than once ... so I appologise in advance if it has but ...

What would people think about making a system that allowed For crafting to be rped with good interactions and such making sure to follow all the rules about combat and time etc only instead of having the item created at the end a token recording what was done when how etc is created that the player can ask a DM to exchange for the item they were crafting?

Have the system work for everything from an amulet of natural armor to a pie. If someones cranking out too many Nat armor amulets or pies some ones going to notice and the mear fact that they have to ask a DM that coudl very easily not only say no but what hte heck are you doing might serve as a good deterant.

I was think more of just a few statics and a couple of machines for conversion of a number of items based on a crafting skill check.

bartleby wrote:I dont know if this has been suggested before or not but in teh great dead horse that is crafting im sure its been brought up more than once ... so I appologise in advance if it has but ...

What would people think about making a system that allowed For crafting to be rped with good interactions and such making sure to follow all the rules about combat and time etc only instead of having the item created at the end a token recording what was done when how etc is created that the player can ask a DM to exchange for the item they were crafting?

Have the system work for everything from an amulet of natural armor to a pie. If someones cranking out too many Nat armor amulets or pies some ones going to notice and the mear fact that they have to ask a DM that coudl very easily not only say no but what hte heck are you doing might serve as a good deterant.

To dovetail what the Great Hatted One was suggesting, how about if we have the player-crafter perform all the ingame motions of crafting, smelting and what have you, and take screenshots, post those screenshots in a RP forum thread, and then have a DM give them the item in return. That's an alternative idea.

Um..no.

That just seems silly.

Lusipher wrote:
That just seems silly.

It's not every day I agree with Lusipher, but.....
+1!

This belongs in the brainstorming or ideas forum. somethin like that.