This file will try and sum up the OTHER ideas we've discussed for
the Musicians' Guild. (with reservation for typos)
FEES
Perhaps we should have fees that should be payed in a specific play time. If you dont pay, the collectors come for you, break a bone and throw you into the river. What do you think? Fee's or no fee's ?
An idea might be that you get a week licence which you must upkeep
by paying fee's. If a collector see you without that licence, well
though luck.
COMMANDS
Maybe there should be an "improvise" command also, with which
a player could join a song without editing a new part for them.. The
result would depend highly on the player's skill.
JOINING
Well let's see here. In Soul Music, I believe the entrance fee
was around 75 Ankh-Morpork dollars, wasn't it? I don't see how a newbie
would be able to get this kind of money, so a free entrance and a guild
cut would probably be more sensible. I don't like the idea of a quota
system however. And music should be free anyway. :P
On the other hand, the newbie might get a gig at the Hatchet &
Entrail, and risk either getting stabbed, smashed or splatted there,
or getting stabbed in the back by a Musicians' Guild heavy for unlicensed
playing.
In fact, here's Mister Clete to explain it all to you:
"That's twenty-five dollars registration fee, twenty per cent of fees,
fifteen dollars voluntary compulsory annual subscription to the
Pension Fund. Hat. Hat. Hat."
Er, thank you, Mister Clete. Anyway, I know him, he's an old
softy really. Perhaps I might persuade him to let the newbies work it off
and give them a sort of pass so that the heavies leave them alone?
OTHER THINGS TO DO
Right, then. Now that that's settled, how do we make money?
When playing on the streets the NPC's walking past could flip a few
coins into a strategically placed hat, depending on the musicians'
skills.
When playing in a pub or a club of sorts, the fee would be
negotiated. Plus you'd get free drinks if you were a skilled haggler.
Also, I believe that clever chap at the University, Stibbons is
his name I think, produced a sort of music-inna-box. Can't really remember
how he did it, and if it was Music With Rocks In, but he did it anyway.
Captured it in a box with a wire in it, and if you opened it it played a
sort of tinny version of the song.
When playing in a pub or a club of sorts, the fee would be
negotiated. Plus you'd get free drinks if you were a skilled haggler.
SKILLS
Also, by the time the Musicians' Guild will be open for players,
I hope that we've pretty much removed xp from the game. However, and I
hope otherwise, there probably won't be enough places to get TM advances
especially for very skilled musicians, (note, I didn't say high level :P)
and killing to rack up levels is most certainly out of the question
for a musician. (not to mention impossible since xp will be gone :)
So what we need is another way of advancing skills. A realistic
way would be that the guild would have instructors in the various
primaries, and would teach them at a high(ish) price.
First you would pay for a certain amount of teaching time for
a certain skill, then you would enter a sort of "learning" mode where
you have a high chance of getting a taskmaster advance in the certain
skill, higher than discovering something on your own.
This would be a realistic method of advancing, and I don't
see why it wasn't like that from the beginning. Of course, if it'd
be implemented in all of the guilds (of course it would), then the
Thieves' Guild would have the advantage, since they can gather the
most money in the shortest of time. So there should be a functioning
economy system with lots of ways of making money by that time, which
raises another range of problems.
As I said, the guilds would only teach primaries, and the
rest you would have to either TM, or learn from other players. Now
that would work just like learning from the instructors, but the
teacher should also benefit from it with a TM or two for himself
(although with a fairly low chance of getting one) and, of course,
no-one should do it for free anyway. :P
