Role Purchase & Age

[Crayon]

Presently, in character creation, it is only possible to take the most entry-level roles in any guild; this is all well and good when guilds are running smoothly and when new characters are predominantly aged 16 to 25, but becomes a bit problematic when you're looking at characters starting off in their 40s or guilds where everybody in the guild is an apprentice and the chain of command is nonexistent.

I've heard mixed things about this, both that non-apprentice roles being locked is a bug and that it is actually the intended functionality, and I know this is probably already under review, but I would suggest that elevated roles within guilds be made available to characters in chargen as a function of their age (so long as they meet the other requirements).

This could allow, for example, Troubadours who are at least 25 years old and who meet the other requirements to enter the game as Journeymen, Troubadours who are at least 35 years old and who meet the other requirements to enter the game as Bards, and Troubadours who are at least 45 years old and who meet the other requirements to enter the game as Master Bards, and this could work as an alternative to the RP hour requirement for new characters.

This would allow newer characters to potentially fill more varied roles within the chains of command in guilds that need it, and would alleviate the weirdness of, for example, somebody making a character who is a veteran knight in their 50s and having to start as a squire with all of the teens.

I understand that 'progression' stories where somebody starts off as a teenaged pauper and gradually becomes a master of this and that, and climbs to lead their guild, and becomes a noble, and so on appeal to many people and the framework within which this system is viewed/created seems to be built around this idea of conceptual mobility and progression over time, but there are a lot of people who prefer to play more static and consistent characters, too, and the way things are set up currently can feel terribly limiting and awkward to navigate.

[Myrella]

I might be wrong, but I assume the RP hour requirement is account wide, so it helps ensure that higher ranked individuals are more familiar with the setting? Probably still wise to require that, or some other litmus test for guildleaders, but I certainly do think it wise to allow older aged characters to app into higher ranks (confessor/detective/bard etc.) at a lower cost.

[astronamika]

I really like this - as someone who took the devil's path and rolled an 18 year old mega hottie, I really love & am humbled by the visually interesting, intentionally imperfect cast of characters we have right now.

Incentivizing people to roll different ages sounds like a good way to mix it up even more (I even like the idea of offering bonus XP per year over 18 but I get that's more polarizing and would need to be balanced).

[Satoshi]

Purchasing promotions is already implemented, it has an rpxp cost and every GL set the requirements for what is required to purchase up--as in, what levels of skills are required to promote yourself.

GLs can see all the roles and the requirements with 'role list <guild>', while members can only see the roles that they qualify for.

I don't disagree that it would be nice to see more older characters about, but I think people are afraid of old-age code nerfing their skills and stats. The few older characters I've seen have certainly had color to them!

[Julea]

Purchasing promotions is already implemented, it has an rpxp cost and every GL set the requirements for what is required to purchase up--as in, what levels of skills are required to promote yourself.

GLs can see all the roles and the requirements with 'role list <guild>', while members can only see the roles that they qualify for.

This doesn't actually work. Or at least it doesn't for me in the Troubadours. The only roles I qualify are the apprentice one, interim GL and retired. I can't even view what the requirements are for the others. And it doesn't seem to register my current rp hours.