[Poll] Impact of Disease

[BlackSoul566]

I'm in favor of allowing character death, but only at the players choice.

[Gerolf]

I am of the same opinion as most of the people:

Players should be given the option to have their characters go out by succumbing to a disease but it probably shouldn't be coded.

Diseases should have a couple of different variables:
Communicablity - How easy is it for the disease to spread?
Severity - How bad are the symptoms
Prevalence - How common is it?

Personally I think it would be fun to have a highly communicable disease spread through the pbase and watch it ebb and flow, but I am weird like that.

[Klapman]

As a newbie, I think this would be a really cool way to instigate some antagonistic RP between people that would otherwise have no problems with eachother. If they're just minor annoyances, like having to scratch your bits every hour or two, then that's just a token gesture to follow in RP. Make it a little more extensive and suddenly Freemen won't be able to enter high-class restaurants and bars in the midst of, say, a plague.

Now that might hurt RP a bit, but I figure that occasional reminders of the distance between Gentry/Nobles and Freemen could make the relationships between them more meaningful. For example, rather than just mere tolerance, maybe a Freeman is actively allowed into that same bar his other lowborn friends have been tossed out of. Maybe it's because he's useful as a staff member, or a member of the gentry is taking a serious risk letting him in despite the possibility of disease, etc.

The main problem I see in this would be further limiting the possibilities for Gentry/Nobles in particular, rather than Freemen. If you add seriously debilitating diseases, that's further disincentive to go out into places like the Bear and the Boar, where I've been doing the vast majority of my RP lately. This would put a lot of pressure on the Gentry and Nobles to find good reasons to go to those places, and having to do that every single time you want to RP could be exhausting.

In the end, I still think it would be a net positive to have potent diseases, if only to give the doctors more interesting stuff to do and something else for people to be properly afraid of. I think that generally it's not great to have coded-in reasons to be more cagey, but in the case of the Inquisition, it just adds further to that theme of fear of your fellow man. Adding another reason to be worried about someone that's more than just "I think he's magey" might be a great thing.

[Kinaed]

I agree that we need to consider how diseases would affect the RP atmosphere, so will have to be implemented carefully. I also agree that diseases (at least one or two) should have some potent affects.

We're currently working on something, which I hope to see advanced soon since we're getting to the pointy end of when we have to have all of this in to switch over to the City Metric system.

[Voxumo]

I agree that we need to consider how diseases would affect the RP atmosphere, so will have to be implemented carefully. I also agree that diseases (at least one or two) should have some potent affects.

We're currently working on something, which I hope to see advanced soon since we're getting to the pointy end of when we have to have all of this in to switch over to the City Metric system.

I thought we already were in/on the city metric system?

[Hansel]

I created an account to say I don't feel comfortable with the disease idea, as I currently understand it. I wish my post will help you to convince me.

- In general, I don't like constraints on a character concept. I choosed to play a freeman with low constitution. I fear not being able to afford the preventing things, the cure, and I know my character will statistically suffer more than others of the disease roll. But being constantly diseased does not fit well with that character concept.

- the same goes for debilitating effects. While it can fits well with some characters, it can ruin some others.

- I heared we should expect one disease a RL month. That means, considering the time to find a physician, to get the cure, to heal, something like one week a month spent roleplaying a disease. That's too much in my eyes.

- I also find it so difficult to achieve something with the sole contraint of player interaction, that I fear that a disease could be a too much strong constraint. Being diseased the day you eventually can roleplay that event you prepared during RL months does not seem very fun in my eyes.

- As a conclusion, I would say that I could roleplay a frequently diseased, suffering debilitating consequences, character, and have fun with that. But that's not what I expected to roleplay with that character, and I know that a disease appearing at the bad moment, or too often, or with debilating consequences would ruin my fun with that character.

I wish to propose another implementation:

Code: Select all

roll disease

When one wants to roleplay a disease, he rolls, gets a disease, and receives a RPXP bonus. That way, the disease thing remains in the hand of the story teller.

At least, please, make diseases affect each character equally, and don't align this to their statistic.

PS: how do we vote on the poll?

[Kinaed]

To vote on the poll, just select the radio dial of the option you want - but this will only work until the poll is closed. I set it up to be open for 7 days and to allow people to revote.

[Hansel]

Thank you Kinaed. I could vote after I wrote my post. I believe I was not logged in before.