Add the ability to mark a character "completed" instead of forcing retirement
Stories can end either by "suspension"--meaning they didn't actually reach a conclusion--or by "completion"--meaning that they did. But if a story is ongoing but a character has died or otherwise completed his story, currently the only option is for the player to retire or be retired.
It would be cool to give narrators the option to mark a character "completed" rather than forcing retirement in these cases, and have Completed characters show up on the player's profile. (I think I'd keep it just as a narrator power, but not sure on that.)
This can matter, as honestly a player having a lot of retirements looks pretty bad on their profile when you're a narrator looking for players for your game--it leads you to question if a player will actually stick around. But if some of those retirements are because they were in games where characters could be killed off or where an ensemble cast would change for new "stories" (like the "Game for Beginners," for instance), this could help by showing those as positives instead. The player did finish a complete story with their character.
Robert Mohr
shared this idea
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Boyd.Crowder
commented
Agree. This is agreat idea
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Anonymous
commented
Hope this gets implemented soon, especially now that the game is public.
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Robert Mohr
commented
As a side note...presently, Storium actually adapts to this concept by allowing retired players to receive completion credit for the game. I'd prefer it to work differently, though--a player who actually does just disappear on the game or something receiving credit like they played through the full story just feels wrong to me.
I'd rather have it work like I state above -- make a difference between a player who completes his part in the tale, thus receiving completion credit, and a player who disappears or otherwise retires before his part in the tale is done.
This would allow Beginner's Games to provide completion credit for the time the players spent in the story (as people aren't expected to go the distance in those), and also allow people to receive completion credit for things like bits of the story where a main character needs to die and they step up and offer their character, while still making sure that people who actually do disappear on games aren't being shown like they stuck around and completed them.
There's a suggestion up regarding that part of things here: https://storium.uservoice.com/forums/211322-general/suggestions/13318461-not-give-completion-credit-for-retired-characters
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Truman
commented
It's a great idea. These things affect reputation when immediate context is lacking. A new term or terms would help greatly.
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Tacronicus
commented
Great idea. Retired characters are, essentially, failed characters under the current setup. Having a "mission complete" option for a Player's character would be a great feature. Presumably, if the game itself concludes successfully, "Completed Characters" would receive credit for going the distance, whereas Retired characters--as is the case now--would not.
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Matt Moran
commented
I am on board with this idea, I am running a beginners game as well, and I am writing with a new team each chapter. I have a work around...going to un-retire all at the end of chapter 3 and give them each a complete on their record...but even outside of this instance, I can see how this would be helpful if a character finishes their natural arc even thought the larger story continues.