Hi Storytellers!
First off... if you want to give a PC a job, that's great, but please pay them off the job list. If the job isn't listed on the profession via the Price List, please request Gillar add it and ask a founder for a quote for the job if you are not sure what a job should pay. Do not extrapolate what you think it would be worth because PC X is GREAT at this group of skills etc. Just pay them the base price off the price list.
Then, add in their skill bonus for the skill that they need to run the job. For example, if your running a business you need Leadership or Business management. If your dealing cards, you need card dealing XP. If you are busking, you need a musical talent. If you are a tattoo artist, you need tattooing. Healers need healing skills or medicine, and if a chef is cooking, then they need the cooking skill.
You can't take a skill, even if its sort of related, and use it for a level bonus. For example, if a pc is selling wigets in a shop, you don't get to use persuasion to boost the skill (or heaven forbid seduction) and get a level bonus to the PC's paycheck. You instead have to use business management or leadership. If you are a blacksmith, you can't use your rhetoric to talk 'marks' into buying better armor than they need and thus use rhetoric for your skill bonus when you need blacksmithing to make the stuff.
All bonus' are based off the skill being used and what they are being paid for.
This seems to be a huge point of confusion when it comes to jobs. In individual threads, things like assisting skills use is fine (persuasion to make a sale) , but in general for a job you need that skill required to complete that job for a salary paycheck.
That leads me to job threads and seasonal salaries. I think most of you have some misconceptions about jobs and seasonal salaries.
A seasonal salary and seasonal experience points are two different things and while they are often awarded together, they shouldn't be considered together. What in the heck do I mean?
They are both designed so PCs can earn a living at their profession and enrich their RP experiences. How? A job is designed to be an rp backdrop for that PC which holds a job. When I say a PC has to rp their job to get their seasonal xp, then I mean they have to use their job as a backdrop and do threads in which their job is preformed.
What I see storytellers doing is requiring two or three job threads a season and then seemingly double awarding XP for first the thread then the seasonal XP. No no no! ST's seem to combine these two things, which should be totally different, into one singular request.
Lets have some examples:
Sarah is a busker. A busker is someone that stands on a street corner and plays music with a can out or an open guitar case in which she gets donations for her playing. Now, Sarah should earn a base salary of 4 gm a day for performing. To get this coin, she has to talk about busking, set other threads in the busking scenario (Say almost get hit in the street by a run away carriage or get stolen from and chase the thief), but she doesn't have to actually busk. She just uses the busking as a backdrop. These threads earn her the seasonal XP for busking even though shes not actually performing in them. She's not really busking in them, but she's being a busker and using that busking lifestyle as a backdrop.
Now.. Sarah needs a few job threads for a salary. She does a busking thread where she works a festival and gets some requests asked of her. Then maybe she works a really bad day where its pouring down rain and she gets no tips or really has to struggle to stay at work. IN this thread she's awarded XP for the Busking in the form of the musical instrument or performance etc... and these two threads count for seasonal salary. They do not, however, count for her seasonal XP because she already got busking XP for doing them.
Where most ST's make the mistake is that the second scenario is required and awarded both coin and XP seasonally. Why? She got XP already for busking/musical instrument/performance.. why give her double? In the first scenario she was trying to busk but got run over by a carriage or ended up having an adventure chasing a thief.
See the difference? Don't double XP threads up. Require people to show threads where they use their job as a backdrop.
Another example we'll use is from an actual trio of players. Victor/Seven/Laz all own a tavern together. Say to get their seasonal wage, they need to actually do threads where they are running, cleaning, storytelling in the Sun and Stars about the sun and stars and their work. They also earn bartending or flunky XP in this thread. To earn their seasonal XP they need to set threads in the Sun and Stars (or talking to buyers where they end up having an adventure) where they arent' actually doing the job but using the job as a backdrop.
Say Laz and Seven get into a huge knockdown drag out fight over how Laz is sloppily cleaning glassware. He's not actually doing this lazy half-assed wipe-down of the glasses in the thread, they are just fighting over it. Victor then drags Seven upstairs to distract him from being such a hardass on Laz who's naturally lazy and won't change... and they have some pillow talk where Victor calms Seven down or maybe even accidentally murder an innocent widow and her children after hitting the town. Since they feel better, apologies are passed out and they all celebrate surviving their first season being open on the anniversary of Sun and star's opening by baking each other cakes and gifting each other with kittens. This is worth seasonal XP!
Do you guys understand the difference? Dont' require both in one, double up XP, and cut corners. Really stress the idea to players that they earn their salary by doing their job, but they get job XP by using their job as a way of identifying their pcs and using it as a backdrop to who they are. |
by Bolden Denusk on January 11th, 2012, 4:03 pm 
