04-19-2014, 03:31 PM
My response to this is YES for a few reasons.
My thoughts as Director
The main reason goes with the whole purpose of creating Word of Darkness: Denver. This whole site is one big experiment in trust. My trust in the Admins, their trust in me and in the players, all of us trusting in each other to do what's best for the overall good of playing these games. If we trust in each other then we can experiment more and do things that aren't possible on sites where the management tends to be more tight-fisted.
Which doesn't mean that everyone will get everything they want all the time, but hopefully players trust that the Admins have their best interests and the best interests of their systems in mind when they make any decisions.
So as the Director I am all about experimenting with new ways of managing systems and character advancement.
My thoughts as a player
Now for the meat of my response! I'm for this because I feel like the Arete XP expenditure is an extra challenge that isn't terribly necessary. According to the book, putting aside what individual Traditions think about it, the basic mechanic of rank is that a character's rank is determined by their Sphere rating. That means that they have to fork out a minimum of 30XP to go from Initiate to Disciple (Arete 2 x 8 + Trad Spec Sphere 2 x 7). And forget about advancing stats like Attributes and Abilities.
That is madness. I think I play Mage pretty hardcore consistently and I kept having to push back Sid's Seeking because of XP spending. I can only imagine how hard it is for more casual players to have the XP ready for advancement.
So yeah, removing the XP expenditure for Seekings appeals to me both as the Director and as a player. It's a new thing that would take some time to work out all the kinks before it settled into a system everyone was happy with, but I genuinely trust this playerbase to be able to work something out like adults.
My thoughts as Director
The main reason goes with the whole purpose of creating Word of Darkness: Denver. This whole site is one big experiment in trust. My trust in the Admins, their trust in me and in the players, all of us trusting in each other to do what's best for the overall good of playing these games. If we trust in each other then we can experiment more and do things that aren't possible on sites where the management tends to be more tight-fisted.
Which doesn't mean that everyone will get everything they want all the time, but hopefully players trust that the Admins have their best interests and the best interests of their systems in mind when they make any decisions.
So as the Director I am all about experimenting with new ways of managing systems and character advancement.
My thoughts as a player
Now for the meat of my response! I'm for this because I feel like the Arete XP expenditure is an extra challenge that isn't terribly necessary. According to the book, putting aside what individual Traditions think about it, the basic mechanic of rank is that a character's rank is determined by their Sphere rating. That means that they have to fork out a minimum of 30XP to go from Initiate to Disciple (Arete 2 x 8 + Trad Spec Sphere 2 x 7). And forget about advancing stats like Attributes and Abilities.
That is madness. I think I play Mage pretty hardcore consistently and I kept having to push back Sid's Seeking because of XP spending. I can only imagine how hard it is for more casual players to have the XP ready for advancement.
So yeah, removing the XP expenditure for Seekings appeals to me both as the Director and as a player. It's a new thing that would take some time to work out all the kinks before it settled into a system everyone was happy with, but I genuinely trust this playerbase to be able to work something out like adults.