RP By Mail

[Bryony]

Apologies while I resurrect some old threads here. I'm sure this won't be the last one.

This wasn't in the Rejected file, so I thought it might be worth a try.

I have a hellish schedule for RP. I sometimes have a whole weekend with nothing else to do, but frequently don't have more than an hour or so to find RP and get a scene in during the week.

As much as people groan about mail, it's often one of the few ways I have to keep any sort of RP going. I love IC letters, and would love to see this idea revisited.

I have to admit to being a bit leery of this even as I think it should be done. My main concern is that people might write extra-long gibberish just for XP.

I write extra-long gibberish for the fun of it, but it would be nice to see a little RPXP for it. I like the ideas of only a certain amount that gets capped on a daily basis. That, or somehow let the receiver decide how much, if any, RPXP the letter is worth on a sliding scale?

[Kinaed]

I like letting the receiver decide, but oh man, talk about nightmare code and usability streamlining.

Basing it on a length of a letter might not be wise either. I did ask if anyone had a suggestion as to how much XP should be granted - do you have a suggestion? And the daily cap suggestion?

[SlyViolin]

Maybe a set amount per letter for 3 letters per day. Just think of all the juicy RPXP Guildleaders would get sending out the monthly evaluations.

[Geras]

It'd definitely be nice. Some of the most interesting and deep RP occurs by correspondence.

[Bryony]

Could a copy of the recommend system be changed to apply only to IC letters, and award RPXP instead?

In my perfect world, this would not be tied to length of the letter at all, it would be solely up to the discretion of the receiver. You could nominate any letter you feel is advancing RP. I'm sure there are some very effective and RP driving letters that aren't long at all.

Letters are a semi-enduring, indisputable (except in the case of forgeries, and weee, what fun would that be!) record, something which is very hard and rare to come by in this setting. Committing certain things to letters is a risky business and should perhaps be rewarded as such.

If it's one again up to the receiver, with the letter perhaps archived somewhere just in case it needs to be monitored, I think it takes most of the concerns of abuse out of it.

But that's in my perfect world. I'd still be happy with RPXP for up to a cap of three letters a day, setting some arbitrary length of, I don't know, 600 characters? Maybe set the RPXP amount to whatever the equivalent of 5 or 6 poses would get you? I have no idea how these numbers shake out.

[Temi]

What about a similar system to rpxp for thinks?

[Geras]

That'd be fine with me. Though does it count to activity? It'd be nice if it did.