IAmTheIsland

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

@Estylwen What I'm observing thus far is that there arem't many, if any, separate applications. On paper, spending W+P for either mounting an invasion or upgrading territory is it. In terms of *usage* (Spend Resource X to perform Action Y), that is, unless I've missed something, all we have on the table at the moment, and both W and P are being spend for the same action in (Spend W+P -> perform Action).

What I'm putting forth is potential actions that use ome or the other as a resource. (Spend (P) to perform X); (Spend (W) to perform Y).

Would kidnapping Personnel or stealing Wealth from another player require an investment of one or the other to accomplish? Or does it default to PC/NPC goes out and the player has full on narrate the effort?

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

Yep, you can lose Personnel as a seperate lose based on performance, whereas Wealth is only lost as the fee. So you could attack someone for -2 W and -4 P, but then also lose -10 P based on your performance.

@Estylwen

That's more a consequence than an action that can be taken.

I stand by my underlying opinion. Give the core aspect of the RP, the Wealth metric alone suffices as the expense for actions. The Personnel metric as supply doesn't seem to contribute anything to game state.

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

@Little Bird I get you and your idea is completely valid. We could use Personnel as a sacrifice, and negate an invasion. However, it would negate one of the most important and central aspects of Nocturnal Memoirs - the battles. I am leaning away giving anyone a way to escape a battle via game mechanics. Instead, I would rather you deal with a battle in a roleplay sense. Fight it head-on, have an ally help you, cut a deal, kidnap the enemy so they're forced to back off. There are a miiiillion ways to tackle an invasion that are a million more times more satisfying to go through with than simply using a game mechanic to 'skip' it.

@Estylwen

Outside of spending for upgrades and invasioms (which is also accomplished via Wealth) what can we legitimately do with Personnel to validate it as a separate mechanic?

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

New post is up, along with an updated 0th post. You are welcome to double-check my math. :> I haven't given Bella or Pops something to interact with as I had a feeling they were on their way to some collabs.

If you have any questions or have any ideas, please let me know! For example, we could collab out that scene with Ezra and Webb, @SporkoBug. We could also collab out the scene at Nickel, @The Savant. :D

@Little Bird I'm still leaning against paying to thwart an invasion, as the main point of Nocturnia is navigating those PvPs. To speed them up, you can always collab them out, which I would actually highly recommend. And if you're worried about missing pivotal moments, you can have NPCs engaging in other scenes around Nocturnia.

Does that answer it okay? :>

@Estylwen

IDK. Thw numeric elements leave me wanting a more dynamic action system to work within; expand the potential playbook available, leaving some legroom for for creativity. What puts you off of the idea of being able throw Personnel up as a quick defensive action? That is beyond wanting to have more of a stage for PvP, Character-on-Character combat?

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

Personnel does have the added feature that, in a battle, you can lose it. If a battle is particularly bloody, Player A could attack and pay the fee of P -2, but I determine they also lose an additional P -5. And maybe Player B defended really well, so they only lose P -2.

We haven't seen this mechanic in action just yet, but I believe it will enhance the battles.

@Estylwen

When attacking do we automatically send in all of our personnel? Or can we limit to only paying up the minimum? Hence my thought of paying personnel to thwart an invasion and forego an actual PvP event. Kinda just a thought for time saving if we were to hit a stretch where there's a lot of back and forth so we can concentrate on more pivotal interactions.

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

<Snipped quote by Little Bird>

You realize without bodies, making a check to wealth means nothing? For example, if I have $100,000 to build a house but I do not want to hire a group of people to build that house. How is that house going to be built? How is that money going to actually be used? Having personnel a little distracted from wealth investments just makes sense. You need someone/some people at least to focus on whatever you are upgrading.

You cannot upgrade an area and just think it'll magically be upgraded without anyone touching/working to get it upgraded.

Now, I could see there being already established weapons/gyfts/etc... in a personnel and your character sending out troops to go fight another district/take other a district without expelling extra money.

But to spend money, especially on something like upgrading/building. You need to actually have people to do that.

@The Savant

From a realism standpoint, you're correct. Bodies are needed the build/repair things.

From a game design perspective though, we're running two stats that are functionally the same thing; Personnel is an extension of Wealth. It serves no distinct mechanical purpose as of right now.

In the vein of realism we can just as easily say that the factions themselves aren't putting their manpower into the upgrades; rather they're investing monetary resources into the community and outside entities are using that momey to build and develop.

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

I'm really just spitballing ways to maintain a degree of parity so that the map doesn't turn into a Monopoly board.

As far as personnel expenditure on defense, I'm putting up the idea that sacrificing the requisite personnel can effectively counter an invasion without having to go into a drawn out battle sequence.

I'm of the opinion that the Personnel really should have it's own functional identity, and yhat it and Wealth should have actions in which they can act independently of each other. (EG - The above suggestion, and making District upgrades a Wealth only expense).

As I've more or less inquired previously, what's the point lf the personnel metric if it's just going to be used in exact tandem with Wealth and not play into the process of invasions and defense, etc? Would it not be simpler to just consolidate everything into Wealth and trust that no one is gonna pull a 'gotcha,' by having a full on army come around the corner in the middle of a battle? (Endgame scenarios notwithstanding; if we get that far into this I'd be dissappointed if we didn't have forces of 100s if not 1000s in a city-wide fire fight.

EDIT:

All of the above aside my sentiment boils down to two questions:
1. Are we all in agreement that the story is of higher importance than the game elements?
2. Are we (mostly) ok with collaborating our way to a more even board state before getting into the more cutthroat activity of trying to conquer one another?

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

We got some really good discussion going on here, and some really good insights.

I've given it a bit of thought, and it's true. Just like how one Wealth could equal $10,000 or $1 million, I may have been thinking about Personnel wrong. 1 Personnel could, in fact, equal to 10 people, or 100, depending on the district.

I believe it's still realistic to say that you lose Personnel when you claim a new district, as I'm sure there are roles to fill, and if there is a war, people die. However, I would be willing to make it so you only need to meet the minimum for upgrading a district - I wouldn't take your Personnel from you as a fee.

(That way Personnel are not turning into bricks....)

Would that make it more fair and realistic? :>

And yessss, I had a thought that in the beginning, all the mafias and organizations are small and struggling with their numbers, maybe due to a recent war, or people quitting. Perhaps the war was expensive, which is why no one really has any money right now. Whatever reasons, I want to leave this open to your own interpretation as to why you're starting out somewhat fresh.

@Estylwen

Retaining personnel after upgrading would certainly be a benefit for lower districts looking to grow. It's a lot easier to only have to accrue more wealth and still have personnel on hand to validate a competent defense of territory should one be attacked.

Call me selfish, but at least allowing Poor -> Comfortable to happen as a purely monetary investment coukd balance things a bit.

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

I find it a little unrealistic if the personnel number reflected the faction size.

Say, if having 5 personnel meant your team is only 5-man strong, and no gyft at that... I don't know how they would've came into control of an entire area, much less multiple... (Not to mention the possibility of being a bare-stick commander after losing an attempt)

If these personnel had their own teams or 'outsourced' certain tasks... But then it would be unrealistic for a group to double or triple in size over 1-2 GM posts (which I don't think spans that long IC), when everyone has already an established faction

@evierose

I just imply that my faction sustained losses prior to the RP which necessitated a rebuild. Losing personnel in attempting to take a district is reasonable. I'm not sure about upgrading though... kind of implies people are dying in the effort to improve conditions.

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

Does the personnel requirement for upgrading a District reflect overall faction number? Or do I need the minimum within the district to upgrade? Do I lose personnel when I upgrade, similar to wealtb?