Poll - How many Clans should players be allowed to have?

[Davin]

I have no idea what "deep pockets" is... in my world a clan is $5 with three special actions and a city is $5 with three special actions.  I'm used to most of the GM comments on special actions being "Noted and done," and I'm okay with that if I'm doing something like training or another action that doesn't require much of a response.  Paying $5 to input a build order and recruit command with three special actions sounds reasonable -- that is what my usual turns consisted of (building along with special actions).  I was paying close to $100 a month on Midgard.  I may not do that now, but if I have to donate plasma again I would consider it -- if the game was fun and like it was.

Oliver, "deep pockets" has to do with as you pay more hard currency for a game, you get more game benefits which makes you more powerful.  Those with lots of money in their pockets, then, can "buy" major game advantages creating an unfair situation for players that are just trying to struggle along.

I plan to have the costs structured entirely differently these days.  As noted on my web site front page, what I'd like to do is allow people to play all the positions in all the games that they would like, all for a single $5/month fee.  This means you'd only be paying $5 instead of $100 for all the fun you can have - not exactly a financial boon for me but I hope to make it up by gaining many players.  I feel like everyone should be able to have as much fun as anyone else.

However, that assumes that I can automate most processing and reduce GMing time to a very low level.  My major concern right now is the GM time needs for special actions.  But I'm hoping to automate most of the easy stuff that used to require special actions, such as construction projects, "contracting" for tasks to be performed for payment, clan-to-clan heliographing, coordinating cooperative clan movement and actions, picking up simple rumors in the local taverns, and hopefully even training for skills.  The more I can automate, the less GM labor I'll be required to do and the lower I can keep my costs.  But if I can't cut out enough, I may have to add extra turn costs for special actions beyond the automate-able stuff.

[FutureSojourner]

Oliver, "deep pockets" has to do with as you pay more hard currency for a game, you get more game benefits which makes you more powerful.  Those with lots of money in their pockets, then, can "buy" major game advantages creating an unfair situation for players that are just trying to struggle along.

I plan to have the costs structured entirely differently these days.  As noted on my web site front page, what I'd like to do is allow people to play all the positions in all the games that they would like, all for a single $5/month fee.  This means you'd only be paying $5 instead of $100 for all the fun you can have - not exactly a financial boon for me but I hope to make it up by gaining many players.  I feel like everyone should be able to have as much fun as anyone else.

However, that assumes that I can automate most processing and reduce GMing time to a very low level.  My major concern right now is the GM time needs for special actions.  But I'm hoping to automate most of the easy stuff that used to require special actions, such as construction projects, "contracting" for tasks to be performed for payment, clan-to-clan heliographing, coordinating cooperative clan movement and actions, picking up simple rumors in the local taverns, and hopefully even training for skills.  The more I can automate, the less GM labor I'll be required to do and the lower I can keep my costs.  But if I can't cut out enough, I may have to add extra turn costs for special actions beyond the automate-able stuff.

Gotcha. I like special actions and I trust that Penn and several others do too. It is what helps with the role-playing aspects of the game and always made Midgard stand out. I think playing a 190 retainer clan is boring. But if there was a flat fee of $5 I could play a few boring clans to do boring things with no special actions. Construction was always my thing, so larger clans made that more fun and I did build up some of my clans. I got to experience a lot of the game during Zan's tenure because I would pick up clans that other players dropped and let go. I would pick them up and run with them and that was fun to experience the game through several different lenses.

You could have a set fee of $5 or $10 a month and then make $5 per special action. Some clans would just do construction, patrol, etc... but the main clans would do special actions.

[DreamWeaver]

Hey Davin is it $5.00 per position a month? Or is it $5.00 a month to play regardless how many positions you play?

[Davin]

It's $5/month, flat rate. For that you can play any (allowed) number of positions in Midgard, Galac-Tac, and any other games we get on-line, all for the one fee.

[DreamWeaver]

I will be the first to state you should make it $5.00 per position (Clan or City with 3 Special Actions).

[Davin]

Financially that sounds good (and you're far from the first person to say it), but when I started the on-line version of Talisman Games I picked a fixed-cost pricing model.  I'm not fond of going back on that now.

But as I said, I'm not opposed to charging extra for special actions and the like, and we may well end up with that.