Medieval & Fantasy Minecraft Roleplaying

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The great value of books in Altera

Jase

"Something need doing?"
Legend
The ban on learning things from books is unlikely to be lifted as long as books exist whose entire contents is

"*The bearer of this book is considered to know the dwarven language.*" For a particular example.

I've got the largest private collection of books on the server, and the number that I'd say count as solid knowledge references... I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Lifting this constraint requires staff to vet books for knowledge across all authors and requires them adjudicate content. Suggestions that drastically increase the burden of work in the Lore/Moderation department are.. unlikely to meet success.

You'd need plugin-based support and a skills system of some sort for tracking too, because otherwise I can say "My character got X from book Y" and without a plugin it's even more work.
How about a peer review system. Say we make a google doc and have people who read the book, rate it on its content on that doc. Perhaps if it has more that x number of favorable comments then the book can be deemed vetted for knowledge.

It could be the writers responsiblity to have it read by others and vetted. If we all chip in and ooc vet some of them, then bam done.

Bear in mind we may not have to do this for hundreds of books. We would only have to vet the ones that try to teach the player about something, not the history ones or the journals as those are subjective.
 

Electric

professionally deranged
Retired Staff
electricwisekid
electricwisekid
Legend
How about a peer review system. Say we make a google doc and have people who read the book, rate it on its content on that doc. Perhaps if it has more that x number of favorable comments then the book can be deemed vetted for knowledge.

It could be the writers responsiblity to have it read by others and vetted. If we all chip in and ooc vet some of them, then bam done.

Bear in mind we may not have to do this for hundreds of books. We would only have to vet the ones that try to teach the player about something, not the history ones or the journals as those are subjective.
Here is what I was doing about learning from books. I was OOCly having all of my learning/practice being watched by someone who was very familiar with the topic. So I was doing whatever IC, but I was able to ask "Can I do x" or "What if I do y" and get a proper response from someone who knew the "subject" so to speak. And, it gave a sense of validity to have someone checking over your work to make sure you're progressing properly.
 

Solus

object oriented
Staff member
Admin
Retired Owner
Don't know where it says on the forums
I've recently had 8 ppl coming to me "Dangit, Staff said we can't learn from books"
And I got the same reply quite some time ago, so it seems to still be in place
But, to be sure
Archbishop Solus
We're a roleplaying server and what we try to do is promote roleplay. If players turned to books to learn all their skillsets, we'd be doing a poor job of puling people together to learn and lead. This goes strictly with Magic, and trickles down to Blacksmithing, Alchemy, Herbology, Combat and Medicine- most of all. These have skills that we make sure players don't just conjure to be experts in when there's a book full of it all they could read. What we allow is learning basic skill sets in these fields, though, and starting off that way in-character. One can say it came with reading a book. When climbing the experience ladder, we prefer people read and have a teacher in-game to help them as we're aware players have written books on most things.
 

Rygan

Deathblade
Evil
Rygan_Deathblade
Rygan_Deathblade
Evil
Reading from a well written book and practicing at the same time is a valid form of RP and should be acknowledged.

The problem is no one writes well written books that teach things.
 

Narvendel

Lord of Altera
It doesn't really promote RP when there are no teachers to be had or they don't want to take on more students, just a sense of frustration because you can't progress in something that might be a core profession or concept of your character. Your character might not get along with the potential teacher, so they're shut out to be forever mediocre. That's just not a good system. Trial and error should be a feasible system, as that's how the teachers or their teachers got their skills in the first place, right?
 

Rygan

Deathblade
Evil
Rygan_Deathblade
Rygan_Deathblade
Evil
It doesn't really promote RP when there are no teachers to be had or they don't want to take on more students, just a sense of frustration because you can't progress in something that might be a core profession or concept of your character. Your character might not get along with the potential teacher, so they're shut out to be forever mediocre. That's just not a good system. Trial and error should be a feasible system, as that's how the teachers or their teachers got their skills in the first place, right?
I think too many people are concerned about being the best in their field. It really doesn't hurt you if someone learns to be a useful physician from properly roleplayed practice and asking around without what one would define as a real teacher, for example.
 

Naelwyn

Non sum qualis eram
REPUTATION MECHANICS.

Being the 'Best in field' gives more argumentative potential and thus needs to be held on to.
 

Baron

Sovereign
Retired Staff
yeah there's always going to be someone who's the Best At That Thing, and there's no reason to discourage others from trying to attain Best At if they run into a field where there's no active players able to teach it.
 

Bartooliinii

An Alteran Bard
Patron
Retired Staff
Pronouns
He/Him
Slimy_Froggy
Slimy_Froggy
Patron
It's nice to see so much passion about books!
I did not intend while writing this thread to start a riot against a rule that has been put in place for a reason, so I hope this discussion stays civilized and doesn't turn into one :)
 
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