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Encouraging character balance


Sadrienne
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You know how it goes -- new member starts looking at the site and gets extremely excited at the possibilities and what your board allows. Next minute, you realise that there are very few characters that are "average". You have a population that is littered with interesting half-breeds and "special" abilities.... but where did all the humans go? 

 

How do you solve that without placing heavy restrictions on new characters?

 

So far I have:

  • Introduced a "what we need/don't need" topic to guide people to fill gaps
  • When new people come on board we do guide them (in chat) toward things like half-blood wizards, etc

 

And we plan to:

  • Adjust the species information so that the postives and negatives (with excellent potential for plotting) are more equally balanced

 

Now -- I don't want to move to a points/shop system. I don't want to put down restrictions beyond "we don't need more of these". And I'm at a loss as to how I can incentivise creating halfblood human wizards.

 

So what other options/ideas are out there?

 

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Is there anything you can offer players for creating (and continuing to play) the halfblood human wizards? Something that leans more in the 'happy shiny' end of things, not the 'throws off balance' end?

 

I'm a little outside of my depth, since I never did get into Harry Potter, so I don't have any specific suggestions, but something that's like a gold star type thing either ic or ooc would probably be your best bet.

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Echoing @Death Kitten

 

On the site I'm building, I readily admit (to myself) that some character types are easier to write than others. Or rather, some character types more readily lend themselves to the typically exciting parts of the world. 

 

I'm going to combat that by leading by example and giving a little award (like what you can get here) to players who not only create -insert rare character type- but stay active with them. How you define active is on you, I just do a simple, has posted X times. 

 

...I don't know if that will work. I know that I keep that sort of thing in mind when I'm a member. So I might base a character around something that will give me a shiny. 

 

So rather than nerfing or buffing, incentivise. 

 

Another tactic is wanted ads and featuring one that is genuinely interesting because of the impact they could have on the sandbox/plot and that requests a half blood.

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I've found that having a thread of "things we need" and clearly saying that it is preferred those things are rolled because they would assist with the site balance as a whole tends to help. There is a large amount of people that prefer to roll something that will "help." Though, usually this is in the form of a male/female ratio thing.

 

Do you have an award system? CW does awards for having 1 of each species, 2 of each species, etc. Might be worth considering.

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I think the most important is leading by example. If you play more ordinary characters not only are you showing how exciting it can be through your own writing, but you're also opening plotting opportunities for others to join in! Then, I think your idea of "what we need, what we don't" also works really well (for one, I always take those in consideration when I join a new board!), but it will be really cool if you manage to connect those what we needs with existing characters and plots!

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Be the change you wish to see.

Members will follow the lead as staff/core members. It may not be their first character, but you'll see more second and thirds being "mundane" characters if they see you guys playing them too and actively. 

 

If you have areas for character wants and/or plotting areas, you could possibly create some interesting avenues for members to explore plot-wise that specifically request Half-bloods, etc. 

 

I'm not sure it would translate well onto an HP board, but on my site I wrote it into the plot that in the particular main city featured, the number of Non-humans outnumbers the regular humans they're supposed to be hiding amongst. Basically for reasons of "like gravitates to like", so plotwise it makes sense for there to be a bit of an imbalance. 

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I definitely agree with a "things we need" thread - something that also helps is a Game Stats page (like this) that shows the numbers of what you guys have and what you don't.

 

Beyond that, maybe there's something you can do that will make "average" characters more appealing.  Do they get a special icon?  Are there areas of the forum that are just for humans - groups, societies, etc.?  Think about how Dungeons and Dragons does it.  Each race has its ups and downs, even the humans (humans get a +1 bonus to each of their stats when they start out, which is pretty great!)  You might not want to sacrifice the "average" nature of the human by adding special things to it, but those special things can be purely cosmetic (icons/profile titles/colors), or something that humans can get ICly, like clothes or technology or something.

 

If none of that works, maybe just consider that people are more interested in the fantasy side of your roleplay than the average side.  After all, we're all normal in real life!  Maybe the lack of "average characters" can become a plot; the town is being overrun with monsters and the humans are feeling crowded out - the wizards are scaring the muggles and they want to create a secret group of their own - regular wolves are being intimidated by the winged and horned wolves, so they try to find a new part of the forest where they can exist without being bothered.  Maybe there are stakes; a new IC area could be fun, and ICly be restricted to just a certain group!

Edited by Sunchance
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The way I see it is that your players are playing the "main characters". They're the protagonists of the story, and the rest of the world is populated by the average characters.

 

After all, the world is bigger than the number of registered characters on the site, otherwise it would be awfully empty. So does it matter if nobody is playing the average people? They still exist as NPCs and background characters.

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What's appealing about the groups that people are flocking to? Can you introduce a similar concept to your needed group?

 

For example, people like to have characters who struggle against the norm. Maybe they're drawn to shape shifters (I forgot the HP name, sorry) for this reason. Could you somehow add an optional element to the desired group to give members this option?

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Make sure that average people have something relevant to do in your game, otherwise maybe accept they're not great PC material. As others have said, characters aren't supposed to be a town's entire demographic, and if I join a fantasy or supernatural game it's because I want to play a supernatural, magic user, or adventurer of sorts, not a clueless muggle whose RP could be done more fruitfully on a Real Life board.

Edited by featherstone
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I think you should start by asking: Is it important for me to have these and why? If you're asking for these people for preference, then you probably don't NEED them to play the game.

 

I run a site where everyone wants to play dragonriders. They are less than 1/3 of the total population, and I would argue not as cool as the other people in the world - but people don't like playing as ordinary people when they can play as dragonriders. Basically, I have the same problem as you.

 

How I deal with it as an admin:

- Have a load of NPCs I (or anyone) can control on whim

- Incentivize the creation of NEEDed characters

- Reward players that create adoptables of the NEEDED character

- I personally have at least 1 character of every type of so I can roleplay with anyone that joins

- Don't worry about it too much

 

I do the best that I can by ENCOURAGING players to play things I would like to see in our game and trying to lead by example. People want the shining snowflakes and will gobble them up. Let people that want to play something, play that because otherwise people won't join and that sounds like a recipe for disaster. Very few people want to join a dragonrider site to play out farming politics or pirates (which is a shame because my pirates are my favorites). I just sort of live with it and know how it is.

Edited by Zahhy
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Guest BETA BLUE

Characters tend to balance themselves after a while. I really won't worry about it. Bans are just turn offs. Also look at your players. You may need to adjust groups to fit more into their comfort zones.

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Personally, I love unbalanced characters!

 

*frowns

 

Oh, wait.... character balance, not unbalanced characters! My bad!

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There's a lot of ways to approach something like this; I've found that events work very well with boards that need more average charries! Making a prize - maybe some graphics, coding, character art, shop item, award, what have you - available for those who make average chars goes a long way. Wanted ads that call for them, too, really really helps, as does just and simply plotting out some chars that aren't (in whatever verse) over-powered, special, or not-average in any regard.

 

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

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12 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. 

 

I see a problem with this approach - if too many people have special characters, they cease being special, since they aren't as rare anymore. And when by lore (or historical fact) they are supposed to be rare and special... this is a problem. I have talked here about this problem on my site...

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