ROYAL RUBY • NIGHTCLUB • BEHEMOTH/PRIMAL

[SaberMaxwell]

A few thoughts:
- it wouldn't be so bad if the mark up was realistic, some items are real cheap to craft
- real items don't have to be exchanged and that can save cost there
- placing housing items is another way of having a physical item for people to ICly consume without there be repeat costs and I'd argue plays the effect better because the food remains physically there and physically represents the food you've put down and not a generic eat emote
- allow people to pay in pretend Gil and thus receive pretend items.
- hired staff seems to be where the business mentality comes in, the idea of RP is to have fun, so my expectation is that the people serving are doing it because they enjoy the RP...and people do, it's not like work you get some great IC interactions. And you can rotate with other RPers or offer to help them out if they doing it as favour to you. Do people have this mentality in these places that they only RP in those scenarios if they get paid? And not because they enjoy RP?

- some items, yeah, but also take into account the actual time it takes to craft them. It's not a lot to craft 3 mors, but 300 can take a while.
- that's true, although that's not the model we've ended up choosing. For some, transacting real gil for real items is part of the charm.
- true also, and I can see how establishments can make that work, but as far in as my particular venue is, that kind of shake up would probably just get us deserted.
- again, we've just ended up catering to people who like transacting real gil for real items.
- if you're able to maintain a full staff of employees for your venue on the joy of being there alone, I wish you all the power in the world. Turnover is harsh, people burn out over time even with the gil incentive to come around. At some level, getting paid hourly is part of the roleplay as well.

I can see where your concerns stem from. I just wanted to sort of show why some pricing is the way it is from the other side of the fence, as it were, maybe try and get it into the air that gil changing hands doesn't mean we're raking in money hand over fist. Well in gross we are but in net it's a lot closer to breaking even.

And you know what, I can also only speak for my own place, so take what I say with a grain of salt as well when looking at other places.

[Saefinn]

snip

No, by all means I appreciate your perspective and I realise you can only represent yourself and you seem quite conscientious on these things. So if anything it allows me to try and better look at it from another angle.

When people are talking about running RP like a business, it sounds like like people trying to generate money for profit especially when their mark up is rather...high. My obvious notes of concern with it being the norm is a payment wall gatekeeping RP, room for people to exploit RP for money and a situation where there's very little to accommodate RPers unless they're willing to pay. But if it's something the general community there is happy with, then it's hard for me to say it's wrong for said community, at least in the case of people who're in it for the RP and not the money.

Staffing can have its challenges, I can relate but we've had ours in check for our FC tavern for about a year now. I can relate in that I experienced burnout when I was doing too much as a bar person. We've got it set up help avoid burn out. With the market event I help run, staffing hasn't been an issue during the time I've been involved with it.

I guess the way it works well for us at our tavern is that we treat it as an RP scenario, like it's you're writing slice-of-life, meaning character development can happen between staff, it can happen between staff and regulars and people can make new IC friends through their interactions as staff and things like that can be a hook. One of the characters I serve on has become friends with another member of staff and it has create some good writing between then and this is to the point where I almost exclusively use that character as staff at the moment because I am invested and then it doesn't feel like it's work and she is getting good character development out of some of her other interactions there too. Guests still get attended to, and we help promote interactions with guests too, it's how we end up with regulars. And that also leads to RP away from the bar, because are part of our group we run plots and characters get tied up into each others plots through various social interactions. And this is stuff that can happen for both staff and guests.

There are costs for us as well because there are things that we do that require it (even if we don't stack up items to give out), but we keep our FC bank topped up and are able to front those costs. And we also have omnicrafters who can help us from delving too deep into that.

However,, it does sound like you guys have something that's working for you, but from what you say there is a demand for people to spend their gil like that. Aren't people And if it's the norm, aren't people worried it gatekeeps out potential RPers out from social venues?

So update on the whole RP thing for you other weridos like myself who don't get it. Bartenders don't seem to accept fish as payment for their NPC bought drinks. From what I remember in these sorts of medieval settings, bartering with items was common practice. But these fancy pants places with their heretical electricity apparently think they're above that.

I'll update you more as I continue my investigation. I'm gonna find out tonight if a foot rub requires me to unequip my shoes

People can normally smell a troll from a mile off. They REALLY stand out. You don't get it, it's fine, not everybody has to. It's just a thing.

But I suspect even then you might not have much success especially at venues that charge real gil.