Alright, it is about time I come in here and give my two cents.
There is, inherently, one major problem with the profession you have presented, Clarity. The issue is the fact that it isn't a profession.
What is a profession? A profession, by our site standards, dictates what you are good at. It dictates what you are bad at. It determines what you are skilled in and what you aren't skilled in.
The main problem with your profession is, it doesn't offer any set of skills. Your profession literally states that the user literally doesn't have a profession. Not having a profession, I'm sorry to say, isn't the same as having one. It is the antithesis to actually having one. This wouldn't work as a profession by site standards for this reason.
When creating this profession you must ask yourself: "Am I really trying to create a character skilled at being unskilled?" I'm sure you can find the paradox in this. It just doesn't work functionally with our system. If you could find a legitimate way to represent your idea through an actual profession then I'd gladly join your side of the argument. But, you can't do that with the path you are trying to follow. A profession dictates life skills. ie: you can't lose a profession without scooping, which is, essentially, a soft reset. If you do come up with a legitimate profession that would work with this and offer a set of skills, you couldn't simply replace it at another point in the future. that would literally force you to claim your character came down with amnesia on that particular subset of skills. I understand you are trying to expand rp options, but what I see only limits them.
My conclusion is simple, use scoops as they were intended. This entire issue isn't really an issue. Scooping allows soft resets of characters and massive shifts in dispositions on characters as well. By scooping you can change professions to showcase ic shifts, by scooping you can change personality drastically to showcase ic shifts. There is nothing wrong with the system as it is now. Please don't try to fix systems that aren't broken through means that would completely redefine what professions are. You claim we set the slippery slope, which we do. But, from what I see, you are trying to make a profession simply become another trait bonus. You aren't making a profession, but a trait in the place of a profession. I will not let you go down this slope.
"And says 'at last' just as the time bell rings Goodnight, now it's time to go home And he makes it fast with one more thing We are the Sultans We are the Sultans of Swing"
Characters 🐐 🐏
"I arrive, brother, for these wretched funeral rites so that I might present you with the last tribute of death and speak in vain to silent ashes" -- Catullus 101
Xia Ji Li • Thief • Bounty: 0 • SD Earned: 0 • Beli: 500,000 Location: N/A • Text Color: #FF00FF
Measures the worth of others by their perceived social status
Pretends to be fearless when in front of those he wants to impress
Is restless when under the influence
Either fights or runs from problems when under the influence, these decisions are made without a thought of consequence outside of whether he will be killed by it.
Tset D. Clay • Crew Position • M/A • No Crew • Bounty: 27,000,00 • SD Earned: 148 • Beli: 69,500,000 • Location: Little Garden
"Having a blank spot to be filled in later does not merely state 'My character will find his calling'. If you honestly wanted that, you should decide their calling and deny them their mastery. A borne Navigator who's never handled a chart, or a young woman with a beautiful voice who has never once sang a note. Instead you have a character who can become anything - they could just learn mastery of the spear from being taught, or discover a talent in creative machinery, or suddenly become a penny-pincher, or suddenly fall into the world of assassination. You're making a multi-talented character who has the ability to become anything - once - and that's not realistic nor does it represent a higher level of RPing. It's putting 'TBD' there, it'll be used to reflect what you want later, rather than how the world takes them. If it was honestly a 'what he was meant for' issue, you'd be better served to have someone else tell you what they sound like. None of this 'I want to master the sword now, something I have previously shown no rare talent with'. Grow on your concepts, don't obscure them. "
Much like predetermining a calling and denying the mastery, the fated profession only acknowledges that the character has found their calling, and it is up to the player to determine the rate at which their mastery is gained. The character isn't multi-talented as they are literally deprived of being talented at anything until the calling is determined and to take the profession would really be tedious for any other reason then letting plot determine what exactly it is the character is good at. As waiting until 150SD just to have a tech over r14 for anything seems a stretch especially from the perspective of power gamers.
Dyson
2. Use the Scoops.
"Go for that Octopus Mermaid and then decide the personality wasn't right. Sure, it causes work for everyone involved, but scooping was done so you could experiment, see where you can have fun, and roleplay out your ideas without getting harassed by massive power losses or even going back to square one if your mood changes. "
The profession itself severely reduces the workload of the staff and the headaches of the player. They would not have to wait days, weeks, months to simply see their character with a different profession. Their TP expenditure wouldn't even bee that high as they wouldn't even have access to rank 14s. This is a generally all benefit, no loss trait for all parties involved. Staff would literally take 1 minute to approve the switch in profession via trait opposed to days, weeks or months to approve the entire character sheets of the scooped characters.
Dyson
"Counter IV: Fickleness
Scoops are important, but also we hate them. We set a time limit to stop people from flooding the registrations with their new biggest idea, and even then people feel they need it more often.
Not committing to something as major as -what your character is good at- is as bad as making them a TBD Mermaid. Commit to the character when you make it, at least for three months. You're writing a character for people to interact with, not a blank slate to be formed by whoever you fall in with. "
I'm not too keen on the rate of SD gain, but I'll figure 1SD a day, and some of the best gains I've seen in SD is 2SD a per post per day, but if we implemented it with what is generally the most (for averages) it would take a player gaining 2SD a day 75 days 2 and 1/2 months to get the 150SD necessary to gain the primary they wanted which is rather short of a scoop itself. Unless someone was very anal and wanted to "scoop" 15 days earlier and simply took the profession to "scoop" during this time (which in my opinion is downright idiotic when they could have just made a character with the profession they planned to scoop into from the get go) the only reason for taking this profession would be to allow rp to determine what the characters profession or calling is and go from there, it would be an easy way to ease in the undecided. This also saves staff less time on scoops, which we hate while giving players a near equal amount of waiting time making fickleness completely not an issue.
Zander
There is, inherently, one major problem with the profession you have presented, Clarity. The issue is the fact that it isn't a profession.
What is a profession? A profession, by our site standards, dictates what you are good at. It dictates what you are bad at. It determines what you are skilled in and what you aren't skilled in.
The main problem with your profession is, it doesn't offer any set of skills. Your profession literally states that the user literally doesn't have a profession. Not having a profession, I'm sorry to say, isn't the same as having one. It is the antithesis to actually having one. This wouldn't work as a profession by site standards for this reason.
The entire purpose of this profession is a general lack of a knack. If it were to be skilled at something it would be the skill of finding it through living/experience. It is for this very reason that it was considered controversial to begin with. The controversy itself stems from the supposed utility or exploitative capabilities of the profession. But when analyzed it becomes easily apparent that the only difference this trait provides is a difference in the time where potential is acknowledged. Characters with other primary professions are immediately acknowledging their potential in that field while people who take this profession are simply choosing to acknowledge their characters potential in a given field at a later time. Their abilities are limited more-so than those who chose a a different primary upon creation as they do not have the option to excel at anything. In the event that a player tries to determine a profession for a situation they are only given the option to determine their profession once every 150SD the likelihood of them taking this profession, and deciding their (at least 75 days) of rping and character development was worth tossing aside for some short term situation is almost non existent.
Other Miscellaneous Issues that may or may not have been addressed
"You'd be amazed just what sort of metagaming goes on here. I'm sure people would do this."
Then they are left with a profession will most likely not benefit them outside of the situations they were currently dealing with. If it is something they will be running into often then bonus well spent as the entire purpose of the profession is to have your character adapt to the situations they are constantly dealing with. If not then the metagamer is given a profession that may or may not help them get out of a binding situation, they will then have to have the techniques they will now have to get to help them out of the situation approved, but in the event they get out of a situation that is forced on them by doing so, good job them. It will most likely be something staff is doing and if they realize it is metagaming they will most likely handle it in the next post or SL (look @ Yaksha's response to Spirit's Sinne for an example) If it something that is not handled by staff then they most likely have creative reigns over the ordeal and if they are willing to metagame a profession to save their character they would simply just have whatever bad thing that is going to happen, not happen.
"Why get it later when you can get it now?"
Because some people would prefer to have their stories guide their characters even to an OOC extent which they already do (which is one of the main reasons for people scooping to begin with) and would rather have the transitions be smooth and fluid rather than the rigid manner in which it is currently handled and even then it's only for people who choose to do it this way.
"Why don't people just get the professions earlier and wait until later to use them?"
Because they believe they have not done the rps/had the experiences that would determine what exactly their character is good at or would rather have the setting influence such factors rather than slap on a profession that they are uncertain about and have to scoop out simply because they had to conform in order to have any rp experience at all.
"But can't people rp their experiences the way they want?"
To a degree yes, but this profession takes into account the fact that RPs do not always go the way you want and characters like all living things must adapt to the environments and situations they are placed in. The shifting of rp direction is one of the things that makes RP what it is, so to simply say "can't people rp their experiences the way they want." is to say that all rps are fan fics and not constantly shifting experiences shared between different individuals with different ideas that may cause SLs (and by association characters) to go in different directions then the initially expected route.
"I've never had that problem before, and I'm sure you can get people to help you in your endeavor."
Such thinking is very egoistic, the problem has arisen and has even been addressed in this topic, (this was the very reason for the profession being created), and just like you will find likeminded individuals who will support you in your endeavors there are also an equal if not larger amount of others who will oppose it or conflict in some manner and this trait benefits either side of that
Measures the worth of others by their perceived social status
Pretends to be fearless when in front of those he wants to impress
Is restless when under the influence
Either fights or runs from problems when under the influence, these decisions are made without a thought of consequence outside of whether he will be killed by it.
Tset D. Clay • Crew Position • M/A • No Crew • Bounty: 27,000,00 • SD Earned: 148 • Beli: 69,500,000 • Location: Little Garden
Still think its dumb honestly though either i've grown somehow more tolerant over this time or i've lost the will to care but it doesn't offend me as much as previously.
happiest day ever
Hainen: That would be too easy Mon Dec 15, 4:07:30pm Hainen: Dark usually has very well-thought out and rational opinions Hainen: I shall defer to his superiour judgment
Neon is a prophet
the characters
Colin G. Fist • Martial Artist • Frostbite Pirates • Bounty: 370,000,00 • SD Earned: 1009 • Beli: 215,400,000 • Location: Grand Line Ivan• Assassin • Marksman • Bounty: 0 • SD Earned: 228 • Beli: 88,000,000 • Location: Grand Line
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