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Social Idea for Inns and Wilderness Campfires
nimloh
Member Posts: 177 Bounty Hunter
I've been thinking through how pen-and-paper D&D is played and how to bring more of that experience to Neverwinter--especially non-combat related gaming. It's difficult to implement at lot of non-combat features because there is no real DM to interact with.
A fair amount of D&D gaming involves resting, and interacting with people in civilized areas. So why couldn't a kind of resting system be developed?
Suppose you are out in the wilderness. Perhaps there could be a camping feature (different from a campfire to recover health that is apparently in the game) that will award you some kind of "social points." When you first start it, you make a simple campfire and sit down and rest. Points are awarded for time spent camping as well as having friends join you (everyone involved will accrue points).
As you rank up your social points you can gain access to elaborate campfire upgrades and social gear. Some rewards could be:
1. Bigger campfire.
2. A cookpot over the fire.
3. A spit with a animal roasting.
4. Bedrolls laid out at the campsite.
5. Ale keg and some crates/sacks/etc.
6. A few mules with a wagon.
7. Travelling Bard to play some gentle songs.
8. Granted ability to play music (cf Lord of the Rings Online)
9. Cosmetic gear.
10. Stat bonuses.
Similar scenarios could be worked out for being inside inns and alehouses.
This will provide an incentive for players to gather socially for awhile. Since dungeons delves are currently advertised as being under an hour to complete, groups can easily spend some time doing this before or after a delve.
Since extended resting is a part of D&D gaming, the above mechanics could help generate an evocative feel of gaming outside of combat that gathering around the campfire (or around the hearth of an inn) can produce.
A fair amount of D&D gaming involves resting, and interacting with people in civilized areas. So why couldn't a kind of resting system be developed?
Suppose you are out in the wilderness. Perhaps there could be a camping feature (different from a campfire to recover health that is apparently in the game) that will award you some kind of "social points." When you first start it, you make a simple campfire and sit down and rest. Points are awarded for time spent camping as well as having friends join you (everyone involved will accrue points).
As you rank up your social points you can gain access to elaborate campfire upgrades and social gear. Some rewards could be:
1. Bigger campfire.
2. A cookpot over the fire.
3. A spit with a animal roasting.
4. Bedrolls laid out at the campsite.
5. Ale keg and some crates/sacks/etc.
6. A few mules with a wagon.
7. Travelling Bard to play some gentle songs.
8. Granted ability to play music (cf Lord of the Rings Online)
9. Cosmetic gear.
10. Stat bonuses.
Similar scenarios could be worked out for being inside inns and alehouses.
This will provide an incentive for players to gather socially for awhile. Since dungeons delves are currently advertised as being under an hour to complete, groups can easily spend some time doing this before or after a delve.
Since extended resting is a part of D&D gaming, the above mechanics could help generate an evocative feel of gaming outside of combat that gathering around the campfire (or around the hearth of an inn) can produce.
Post edited by nimloh on
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When I first heard about this game, back when still online co-op, I imagined there being something like a "supply kit" resource. It would be cheap and found in every shop and even the occasional loot drop. You could carry it in small stacks so you weren't constantly running out, but occasionally the group would run dry if they got beat too often. Inside the main hubs supply would be useless (and unnecessary), but outside in the wilderness where supplies weren't necessarily readily available they would be your only way to recover large consumables like healing surges and daily powers. Without them you could only rely on recovering your current hit points and your encounter powers.
The idea was that you'd occasionally have to stop adventuring and use a supply kit (which took about 30-60 seconds all said and done) to recover every single one of your consumables. Maybe during this time a little campfire visual would pop up and in the surrounding areas monsters wouldn't be able to respawn for a few minutes because you were effectively holding down the fort to take a break. Perhaps if you didn't have any supply kits you had a steep risk of respawning monsters in the middle of your rest cycle.
The end result for the user would be that you would click on the supply kit, a message would pop up asking if you wanted to make camp, and when you confirmed that a supply kit would be deducted from your inventory and the "camping" process would happen automatically. A few seconds to a minute later the user was back in the fight and presumably a few hours had passed for their characters in the game world.
Considering how the game works now I suspect that down time, if it even happens at all, will require little to no micromanagement of anything. I suppose time will tell. As to social stuff...I actually hadn't even considered it until this thread. It's an interesting idea.
Class: RolePlay --> 5.
It has links to campfire related ideas which were given by some users quite a while back(near around a year or so ago I believe). You might want to have a look at that too. It also speaks of possible random encounters while resting, removing armor while resting etc.