Staffing Encouraging character balance

[Sadrienne 242]

Now that we've looked at the numbers in depth, things actually are more balanced than they first appeared. 

 

It does tend to be a case of people reading through the documentation and getting so excited about the possibilities that the thought of a "regular wizard" character falls out of their brain. There's not really any extra things to do with cross-species characters, they're just that tiny bit more "cool" than a boring old human.

 

So I'm gonna stick with my current methods: the "what we need" list, most of the adoptables currently up are regular human wizards, and we're working on some adjustments to different species that will add a few quirks that (I think) will make them more interesting to play, and give them a bit more purpose on the board outside of "hey this is not a human!" (think: ministry control and social distrust of anyone not fully human, colonies of beings living in the outback---shunning members who would interact with humans, casting out halfbreeds, etc).

 

16 hours ago, Verridith said:

However, never ban not-average characters! You will drive away players who want to play that special char, and they'll go to somewhere that'll allow them to freely. If a member joins, and plans to stay for a while, chances are that they will create plenty of average characters alongside any special ones they make. Also talk to your members to see their views on it, too <3

 

Yeah---I am never gonna place any full bans on any character element that is allowable within our canon. I will guide, suggest, encourage, and work with members to find other things just as exciting, but if someone comes to the board with a character concept that fits---I want them to be able to play that character even if it contains elements that I feel we have a lot of already.

 

Cause you know how it is---you come to a new board to play that old favourite, and "NO MORE X" means you can't, and that's sad. 

[Quell 249]

I don't have a lot of personal experience with this. (Ark somehow has the bell curve we were looking for. *knock on wood*)

 

That said, I am driven insane by a shop or in any way needing to do a dance to make a character the way I'd prefer. That said, I totally understand what you're saying -- most characters who attend hogwarts aren't animagus werewolves, so how does Remus stay a snowflake without raining on other people wanting to play snowflakes. 

 

I think the best way to do it is establish consequences for having snowflakes and rewards for playing not-snowflakes. This wouldn't be OOC it would be IC. Make it clear that playing a werewolf means that a lot of other characters will be legitimately scared of that character; that that character has to live in fear that he'll kill his friends; etc. It could be an interesting character, certainly, but you can't play #cooljock and #moodywerewolf at the same time?

 

If you've ever played D&D, that does some cool things with making different playable races really appealing; they all have advantages but also disadvantages. Being human is just neutral ground and then gets some extra cool stuff -- so you could likewise do something like "half-trolls get __ number of memorized spells" but "humans get __ number" or something. (I have no idea how the site is set up in regards to spells/abilities. Maybe that made no sense.)