wild talents discussion

[Agent_137]

wild talents would be cool, guildchanging would not.

you all of a sudden can cast a fireball. Cool. that's all you get. You aren't a krathi. you're just another commoner who happens to be able to cast a fireball, but can't really develop any other abilities.

[Anonymous]

I think magick/psionics are pervasive enough in this game as it is.  I'd rather see people mailing the mud for the occasional freak who can fart lightning rather than some sort of automated system that takes the control away from the staff.

[bloodfromstone]

I love the idea of wild talents, assuming they're extremely uncommon. I seem to recall a staff member saying in a similar discussion that this sort of thing would never happen. I think that's a shame, myself, given the extremely interesting opportunities (both from a gameplay and roleplaying perspective) that this could open up.

I just imagine some hardass militia sergeant on his way home to his apartment just at sun down. He reaches into his cloak and pulls out a torch. Just as he's patting himself down to find his flint or whatever, the torch ignites on its own, and he's left with this sudden, terrible realization that he's the proud new owner of a tiny bit of magick. Things could go in so many directions from there. I could see him turning himself in instantly. Maybe, angered by his own curse, he becomes doubly hateful towards magickers, or maybe he softens towards them (or maybe just Krathis) a bit, his frequent harassings and finings towards the local gemmers slowing down suddenly.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like it could be really interesting to deal with IC.

[Dakkon Black]

The reason I see this as being important is because right now, we teach that you shouldn't look at code for your ooc response.

But lets face it, if bob never swings a sword well, never fights well, you start to believe that bob, in fact, oocly, must be a magicker as a class (eg.)

Or, he's amazing at fighting, you know for damn certain now, that he's not a bloody vivaduan.

And yet, technically, couldn't anyone have the curse and not know about it until it hits later on in life?

I think random skills would be not only incredibly fun to rp out, but at the same time, take away a lot of our prejudice when we see someone try a backstab and instantly we know he's not (list classes that aren't assassin)

With a choice random skill, you could be a merchant with backstab, and now oocly, we can see someone use a skill and be like, shit, that doesn't mean crap, because maybe that's just random.

Leaving us to -rely- on our IC inspections of chars, and not our ooc ones.
.

[bloodfromstone]

That's a good point, Dakkon. That is one thing I've always wanted to see fixed up. It could be achieved through more expansive subguilds, as well, but random skills would certainly through the occasional monkey wrench into guild sniffing.

[Arabian Nights]

Don't care for it.

[Cuusardo]

Wild talents are NOT magick.  Wild talents are purely psionic abilities.

[Tamarin]

Wild talents are NOT magick.  Wild talents are purely psionic abilities.

Says who?  You?

[Yang]

say (looking around the trader's in as he holds a smoking spice pipe) Shiiiit....this isn't Tuluk....

[Demonaire]

I've been in some PK-oriented MUDs where they would allow character customization. Perhaps a new system for doing your character's abilities and such is in order? Give each major skill a grouping and such, allow only one of each group.. Just a thought off my head. What do you think?



- Demonaire -

[Cuusardo]

Wild talents are NOT magick.  Wild talents are purely psionic abilities.

Says who?  You?

Says the Dark Sun rulebook.

[Larrath]

Three words, and I mean them very seriously:
Screw wild talents.

[Tamarin]

Wild talents are NOT magick.  Wild talents are purely psionic abilities.

Says who?  You?

Says the Dark Sun rulebook.

Good thing this is armageddon, and not Dark Sun.

[Kennath]

Wild talents are NOT magick.  Wild talents are purely psionic abilities.

Says who?  You?

Says the Dark Sun rulebook.

Good thing this is armageddon, and not Dark Sun.

Aren't wild talents dark sun?

[Demonaire]

Wild talents are NOT magick.  Wild talents are purely psionic abilities.

Says who?  You?

Says the Dark Sun rulebook.

Good thing this is armageddon, and not Dark Sun.

What is with the prick attitude tonight man? Atleast, thats how you're coming off in my opinion. Is it just me?

[Tamarin]

It's not just you...

[Arabian Nights]

Three words, and I mean them very seriously:
Screw wild talents.

*applause*

[Sokotra]

Wild talents are NOT magick.  Wild talents are purely psionic abilities.

Heh, okay.. we understand that Dark Sun rules 'wild talents' as being only psionic.. but I think what some of us were trying to do is discuss 'wild talents' in a broader sense - as in any sort of random (wild) skill (talent) that one might perceivably somehow... have... or be better at than the average schmoe.  

And I'm going to have to defend Tamarin this time because I often see *cough* someone else snapping at people and being a smartass or just plain rude, like their crap don't stink... hence Tamarins snap in return, I would guess... but I'll at least admit that I could be wrong, unlike certain other people. *snicker*

[Nao]

hmm, I'd love to see this in game. First, you couldn't sort people per classes so easily any more. Second, it would fit into the world really well... people might discover magicks any time in their lives... It never really made sense to me that magickers had it as soemthing primary, and wouldn't do good in battle even if they had been a warrior until age 30. Also, just one skill wouldn't make them all too powerful in most cases, until you are lucky enough to get the random chance of getting this random thing AND are lucky enough to get something very powerful... Then again, this should'T be an isue anyway... This game isn't about balance, some characters are more powerful from the start, so it's tough luck if you're on the weaker side.
this would maybe add a little bit of power to a pc but it would also add a LOT of rp potential... Think about it, the random hunter that was suspeted of magicking earlier, then somehow he gets it and is like wtf!? Militia guy that was the opne pushing gems on random people, trying to sort out ungemmed mages, then suddenly he ends up being one of those. Or the house aide, or a bard... The possibilities are endless.

[Larrath]

Don't kid yourself, there is balance in the game.  That's first of all.  This is why magicker guilds aren't selected as subguilds which would have been the logical route, and are main guilds instead.  This is why they suck at combat - give the skills of a 20-day warrior to a 40-day Rukkian and that character would be such a disgustingly powerful monster people would stop playing.

Random wild talents, whether psionic, magickal or mundane, just don't really sit well with me.  I just don't see what they will add to the game.

[Nao]

Don't kid yourself, there is balance in the game.  That's first of all.  This is why magicker guilds aren't selected as subguilds which would have been the logical route, and are main guilds instead.  This is why they suck at combat - give the skills of a 20-day warrior to a 40-day Rukkian and that character would be such a disgustingly powerful monster people would stop playing.

Not the entrire rukkian class. Just one skill/spell. I have no experience with magickers whatsoever, but I could imagine that a mul or whatever would still beat them.

So where's the balance when a three day warrior could beat most other classes, and a mul again would smash them with one hand?
Then again, merchants don't even get a weapon skill, so at least when it comes to battle, this game is definitely not balanced.

[Sokotra]

As far as balance goes... I think things are attempted to be kept balanced, but obviously every type of character and race are not going to always be equally matched.  

As I said in the discussion about the psionic listen idea...

'wild talents' could be given without making them extremely powerful... or at least the more powerful ones that you might have the chance of getting would not be extremely common. It's all about balance.. and I think these sorts of things would make the game much more interesting if they were done properly. There's always people going nuts saying "OMG NO WAY, I DONT WANT SOME RANGER COMING AFTER ME WITH A POISONED FIREBALL BOLT OF ACID ARROW FROM HIS VIBRATING GREATBOW OF STEALTH" ... come on... nobody is saying to change things that drastically and create some sort of massive unabalance in the game. There are ways to make things like 'wild talents' work without going overboard... just as an example, you could even throw your basic 'skills' into the mix so that there might be a chance that you could get either a wild psionic talent or a random skill... just as in real life, there are certain things that make each of us individual and set us apart from everyone else... those little things that you are just good at or better at than everyone else. Again.. done in moderation and being perhaps somewhat rare to get anything powerful, or have the skill 'top-off' at a certain level of effectiveness, or things such as that... would keep things balanced and still much more interesting.

Read above... I think balance is what most people are worried about.  If psionic talents just don't fit into the gameworld then I think maybe making them extremely rare or using random skill talents instead, might work just as well... it's all about making things more interesting.

I remember playing a certain game on the old Commodore PC years and years ago... can't remember what it was called now, but I always remember that game because there was such a huge variety in the types of magic items you could find.  Everything from a "+1 mace of sleep" to a "vorpal dagger of venom" or whatever.. some would increase certain skills or give you special abilities...  Anyway, this has nothing to do with Arm but the point is that the possibilities were just endless, and that sort of excitement over the variety of characters and skills in Armageddon would be nice.  As I said, nobody is saying to go nuts and make things extremely unbalanced... but a few little random things here and there might be nice.  And I guess they already are there to a certain extent, as far as special apps and karma characters and junk like that. So I appreciate the gameworld as it is, but what I'm talking about is a little different.  Giving each player a random chance of having at least a little something special... a little more than what is currently given.  Just a few thoughts...

[Delirium]

My thoughts can be summed up as:

magic/psionic wild talents = no
mundane wild talents = yes

[Gaare]

I think Dark Sun setting has those wild abilities because the setting is mostly based on hack&slash style. They only make PCs more powerful and fun tabletop gaming combat with combos, lightning bolts...

Also, I believe there is enough supernatural very powerful momba jambo around. Gemmers, templars, psionists, elven tribes full of magickers, etc..
I think there is no need any more to lower the standarts of those powerful abilities.

[Arabian Nights]

Don't kid yourself, there is balance in the game.  That's first of all.  This is why magicker guilds aren't selected as subguilds which would have been the logical route, and are main guilds instead.  This is why they suck at combat - give the skills of a 20-day warrior to a 40-day Rukkian and that character would be such a disgustingly powerful monster people would stop playing.

Not the entrire rukkian class. Just one skill/spell. I have no experience with magickers whatsoever, but I could imagine that a mul or whatever would still beat them.

So where's the balance when a three day warrior could beat most other classes, and a mul again would smash them with one hand?
Then again, merchants don't even get a weapon skill, so at least when it comes to battle, this game is definitely not balanced.

Balance doesn't necessarily mean that all guilds can compare to each other in melee combat. In fact in this case it doesn't at all.
Balance in this case means that each guild does what it does best and nothing else.
Also muls, while burly, are not that all powerful as some people seem to believe. I believe the reason that they are so high on the karma scale is the rp of their race is rather difficult and different from the others.

A half-giant right out of the box is the most deadly IMO, if you are talking in terms of melee combat power.

A mul warrior could beat a mage in melee combat sure, if the mage wasn't protected by spells and such and that's how it's supposed to be. If the mage is prepared for the encounter and wishes it so, that mul is probably going to die.

[A Stinky Bug]

I think it would be best if these wild talents were kept to mudane, basic skills that certain guilds dont get. As in a warrior thug who suddenly comes to realise he can haggle and barter like merchants.

[Agent_137 (2L2L)]

Ok. I'm definitely interested in wild talents, but something that wouldn't shift balance at all.

here's my idea.
Wild talents would be rare.
Wild talents could be -ANY- skill (except maybe some super high blow up the world spell that i don't know about.)
Wild talents wouldn't happen for some number of days of play.
Wild talents would have a karma check. Let's say 2. (don't want the beauty of randomness giving some newbie twinker Fire Rain.)
The wild talent wouldn't branch. You just get that skill, with some fair cap less than that of a primary guild, but more than a subguild.

So basically, you probably won't even notice.
Most people won't get shit.
Some people will get crap like "underwater basket weaving."
And every now and then, some poor Byn Sergeant will fart fire.

p.s.
I don't want to leave this in the Immortals' hands because if they say "yes, we'll look over your app and roll a few dice for you" then they'll get swamped with apps. And if they say no, then, i'm a sad panda.

[Larrath]

Nothing in-game should ever ever be affected by karma.  Karma is completely OOC, and a warrior with 8 karma should be no better codedly than a warrior who had his elf option removed.

Second, just no.  Seriously.   This isn't some H&S where people study magick casually.  People who want to learn even a tiny bit of magick have to go through great lengths to avoid being killed by the Templarate.  If some random warrior learned a medium-power spell, they'd either try to forget that spell as best as they can or leave the city and pursue their studies and become sorcerers.

I'm even sick of arguing against this.  I don't think this will help the feel of the game at all.  If you want to play a mercenary that can cast fireball, you can special app.

Any wild talent could seriously affect game balance.  Magickers with scan.  Rangers with disarm or Heal or all sorts of very nasty spells.  Magickers with psychic powers.  Psionicists with haggle!!!  This goes much further than giving one out of ten PCs basketweaving or a couple of warriors Listen or haggle to a ranger.

[amoeba]

I wouldn't worry too much about arguing, it's highly unlikely it will happen.  If it makes people feel better to wish for things thats fine. And for the record I'm not for the idea.

[Anonymous]

Nothing in-game should ever ever be affected by karma.  Karma is completely OOC, and a warrior with 8 karma should be no better codedly than a warrior who had his elf option removed.

This just struck me as odd.

I think it's clear that a player with a decent level of karma/good account notes is much more likely to receive an additional skill if he or she mails the mud account requesting it with a reason than a player who has a track record of inconsistent adherence to the rules who does the same.

Specific to the thread I've alway wished that there was a move away from cookie-cutter characters but to me the answer isn't giving every merchant a chance to have a flamethrower.

A 'random selection of skills from a staff-defined subset' subguild might be nice though.

[Kennath]

My thoughts can be summed up as:

magic/psionic wild talents = no
mundane wild talents = yes

Delirium, I agree.

I say that merchants with a weapon skill will own the world. And rangers with sap.... ohhhh ya. and templars with backstab, and burglers with dessert sneak. I'm not being sarcastic, I say EVERYONE would have a quirk outside their guild, may it be farting and emptying an entire bar, or useing a merchant to cut down scrabs.

[Maybe42or54]

Except for the templars part. I'm not seeing how any of that is impossible. I just don't know templars either so.. It may be ossible. Since they get whatever the highlord wants to give them.

[Dracul]

Nothing in-game should ever ever be affected by karma.  Karma is completely OOC, and a warrior with 8 karma should be no better codedly than a warrior who had his elf option removed.

...

Well directly against that, karma -does- affect such thing. A vivudian will never be as powerful as a sorcerer. Well, codewise that is.

[SpyGuy]

My thoughts can be summed up as:

magic/psionic wild talents = no
mundane wild talents = yes

Delirium, I agree.

I say that merchants with a weapon skill will own the world. And rangers with sap.... ohhhh ya. and templars with backstab, and burglers with dessert sneak. I'm not being sarcastic, I say EVERYONE would have a quirk outside their guild, may it be farting and emptying an entire bar, or useing a merchant to cut down scrabs.

It has been my impression that this is what subguilds are for, to allow you some skills outside of your guild skills.  And I wouldn't be surprised if there's a reason why there are no subguilds that give scan, magick or psionic abilities or weapons skills.  If we want to add options like this I'm all for logically expanding the subguild list but it's not a priority to me.

As far as the narrower topic of wild talents, I'm completely against magick talents at all.  Call me a Dark Sun purist for this but I do not want to see a warrior casting remove poison, Arm is set up in such a way that that character would be hunted down and slain.  And what on earth is the point of having a wild talent that you have to constantly hide and never use?  If you want this sort of ability you can have it...by special application.  This to me should be the rarist of mutations, and the way I see it you basically get all the IC drawbacks of being labeled a magicker for one lousy ability.

As for what I would see as a good wild talents system is something basically similiar to Dark Sun.  Maybe even have a subguild called "Wild Talent" as to be the route to get this sort of thing.  Everyone has the minor psionic skills contact and barrier and no one blinks an eye.  Have a few people have some other minor psionic skills, preferably random, that could be of use in certain ways but wouldn't necessarily provoke a witch hunt if you were found to possess them.  Something that would in my mind enrich the psionic aspect of the game (since psionicists are in my experience some of the rarest and most secretive of all guilds) without broadening the use of magick or powerful psionics.

But that's just my opinion.

[Jherlen]

In a perfect game it -might- work.

In a less than perfect game, sooner or later you'd see the staff give someone Skill X that his guild/subguild shouldn't normally have, and instead of using it as a roleplaying opportunity the person would just run off twinking it. You know it would happen. This would probably discourage them from giving anybody else that skill.

Also, say you're a warrior but you use your 'wild talent' of super psionic doom to kill somebody. I wouldn't be surprised if people started crying foul and whining about favoritism. Arm's playerbase is far more mature, but that's what would happen on other places I've played.

So.. if they were just mundane talents, given to very trusted players and only very rarely... maybe? But it seems like at that point it would just be so restricted as to not even be worth discussing.

Now, as a slight derail.... what would be cool for a high-karma player is to email the staff as a special app and tell them he wants to have a character with a karma guild who discovers it 'by surprise' in the game. Then you go roll up just your average human pickpocket and, without your knowledge, the staff selects one of the karma guilds available to you and guides your transformation from normal Joe into Joe the Nilazi of d00m. THAT would be awesome... but it would also take a lot of special staff attention, which might not be fair to expect.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I'm not really a fan of this.

[Dalmeth]

Couldn't this wild talent business be approximated by making a character in the appropriate karma guild, making it older than normal, and then making a background which would incorporate a life as something else?  Next, you choose a subguild which would connect this character to its past.  It seems simple enough to me.

[flurry]

For the most part, I have to say I don't really like the idea of wild talents much.  I don't like cookie-cutter predictability or guild-sniffing either, but I don't see wild talents as a fix to that.  If it were that common, it wouldn't be special.   To address the mundane guilds problem, I'd rather see a more significant change in the guild/subguild system that involved more of an a la carte system at least for subguild skills.  I think you have to keep guilds as we know them in place to keep some kind of logical skill branching.  

I guess the bottom line for me is that I think magick/psionic wild talents seem like they would do more harm than good (if just given out, and not attached to karma).   Mundane wild talents would be harmless enough, I suppose, but I don't really see the benefit.   If anything, I'd rather have a choice of an extra mundane skill, that I knew fit my concept, than some random mundane skill.    Great, my warrior has dyeing.   Wow, my merchant has parry.

As for what I would see as a good wild talents system is something basically similiar to Dark Sun.  Maybe even have a subguild called "Wild Talent" as to be the route to get this sort of thing.  Everyone has the minor psionic skills contact and barrier and no one blinks an eye.  Have a few people have some other minor psionic skills, preferably random, that could be of use in certain ways but wouldn't necessarily provoke a witch hunt if you were found to possess them.  Something that would in my mind enrich the psionic aspect of the game (since psionicists are in my experience some of the rarest and most secretive of all guilds) without broadening the use of magick or powerful psionics.

This I actually kind of like.   This "wild talents" subguild would have to require karma, IMHO.   And maybe only mundane guilds could use it?