Magick - Power and Place in Armageddon.

[moab]

Damn, you, jhunter!

;-)

[Medena]

Because there -isn't- really a problem to begin with. There isn't any need for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

I hate it when people make a post of a quote and don't add anything themselves sooo...

Right on, brother!

[Hymwen]

As for the overpopulation problem, I don't think the solution is to set a maximum number of allowed magickers in the game. I'm not a big fan of restrictions like that, but if I had to come up with something, I'd suggest not allowing people to play magickers over and over and over. It's my impression that some players play only magickers, and I think it would be reasonable to say that you can't play a magicker twice or three times in a row. Or, say, only three magickers per six characters. Something like that. Noone wants to not be allowed to play the character they want because someone else is hogging their spot in the Cool Kids Club. I've never played a magicker, but when I get the karma I'll probably try, just to see what it's like. But it wouldn't feel right to me to play five Rukkians in a row.

[Intrepid]

But it wouldn't feel right to me to play five Rukkians in a row.

I feel the same way.  As much as I love playing magickers, I do take off every other character on average so that someone being considered for a special app magicker can get a chance.

[Quirk]

I posted general agreement with the first post on the thread it was first posted on.

Now, I could jump in and talk away here, but I think the first step is to work out what sort of game we want to be playing. Some of us would be quite happy in a magicker iso-clan. Some of us would be much happier if no magicker clans, iso or not, existed. We all differ. So, here's what I'd picture as my ideal Arm:

1) A gritty Zalanthas. The silk clad aides of Noble Houses, the servants and the guards and the nobles - none of these things ever properly felt like Arm to me. Playing at comfortable living in a large, static House led to the feel of Zalanthas being lost. The struggle was gone.

The Byn feels real, still, and the dirty 'Rinthers, and even the more successful hunters and crafters making a living and trying to build small groups up round them. The Zalanthas I'd like to see would feature few PCs in silk, and most of the organisations (not Houses, small-time merchants of below Byn-size) responsible for providing food and water for their members, not having it available automatically. It would be a struggle to survive, sometimes. And there would be lots of small-scale political RP; as Rindan said many moons ago, if we closed every part of Arm but the 'Rinth, and crammed everyone in there with no coded affiliations, intrigue would skyrocket.

2) A laissez-faire attitude to "less harmful" magickers. Back when our ancestors were burning witches, there were no shortage of people who went to those supposed witches to ask for love potions, for cures for disease, for blessings on them and their families and curses on those they hated. I picture in my mind a teeming slum in a city where the inhabitants know that the old, odd, blind man at the top of the most run-down of the tenements is a Vivaduan; but they don't sell him out to the templars, because firstly, it's none of their business that he's breaking the law, and secondly, their hard life would be even harder without the water and healing he can provide. They rationalise that he's not really a dangerous magicker, and an uneasy co-existence is maintained because they don't know what he might do to them if he finds them betraying him, and he can't afford to push them too far in case they do. And perhaps the templars know of him anyway, but aren't disposed to act as long as he's discreet in his law-breaking - after all, templars are busy people.

It's been many an IC year since Tuluk was destroyed, and there's been many a victim of starvation and thirst in the slums of Tuluk since. Magickers capable of alleviating such problems may well have made themselves niches here and there. Of course, the less a magicker can do to help others, the more likely it is that someone will snitch. It's never going to be wise to announce that you're a Nilazi.

To revisit 1), the reason this doesn't make perfect sense at the moment is that much of the playerbase resides in clans who give them food and water for free, and who feel it their duty to report "troublemakers" to the templarate. Your magicker's clients are likely to be VNPC only.

I would like magick to be rare though, or at least discreet. I want it to have mystique. I think it's more discreet at present than some give it credit for. Getting a group of three or four secret magickers together should feel like a major achievement. I don't personally like "gemmed" magickers all that much, but as long as they keep their casting to their temples, I think the mystique can be well preserved. I don't like the idea of sizeable magicker clans, particularly iso-clans.

(Also, looking back at this, it seems to me as though a lot of what I personally am looking for could be created if we had enough PCs getting together and forming independent clans in Red Storm with an intelligent attitude to magick.)

[Cenghiz]

I dislike this kind of posts.. Why?

"People shouldn't play magickers.".. Why? I love playing magickers. I confess, I play elementalists again again except breaks given with merchants and rangers. Why? I love magickers. I love to play magickers. One of my last recent notes in my account is: "Good job with <magicker name>. Can handle all mages.". I'm known amongst staff as a good magicker player, I make in-depth, plot-forming, deceitful magickers and I try to make the game joyful for both me and players around me.

"Magickers are too many.".. So what? What does staff say when we want a ground-breaking event? "Do it IC!". We, magicker lovers are making the world more magickal IC. We're not dying, we're not revealing our identities till we grow in power, we're forming our own plots, allying against sorcerer kings, allying to live freely against dangers.. We're seeking treasures, making treasures, helping our little trade with a little bit of magick and remaining unknown. We, as gemmers, are being a good tool in the hands of the templerate and living in luxury in exchange. We are doing many things all of which are IC and then someone comes and says: "Magickers are too many.". So what? It's the players' choice. Noone forces me to play more and more elementalists. I myself choose to play more of them. If we're making a low-magick game high-magick - Arm? Low magick? Hehe... - it's the usual turn of events. It's the choice of some players and the staff does not want to chime in. So what's there to talk?

We, as some magick-loving players, decided this era of Arm is the era of elementalism, when the rifts of the elements opened further and caused an increase in the elementalist population. It'll pass when everyone but true magicker-lovers like me decide to shift back to mundane. Wait for the end of the era.

[spawnloser]

I guess I have a different definition of low fantasy than a lot of you.
(snip)
low fantasy?  Yes.  Low magick?  No.
(snip)
So don't say Armageddon is low fantasy and thus should be low magick.

Twilight said what I would say, so I'll just say that these are the important parts of that post to take with you in my opinion.

[Hot_Dancer]

You see magickers in the wilderness because there is not a Templarate/Army to police or moderate their effect on the game world. The most challenge a magicker is going to see is from another wandering magicker or maybe a few tribals that live in the area (unlikely).

They tend to dominate these areas in the same way that they're able to typically dominate a PC without magick and they do so with very little threat from a 'gritty' Zalanthas world.

Really, I'd like to see the distribution of magickers even out again or for the Wilderness to grow more barbs, rather than the magicker PC's. There's tribes out there in the hundreds that are likely fairly tired of being given orders or having their tribesmen slain by every passing, overzealous magicker.

It'd be nice to see mundane-to-mundane roleplay again too, since my PC could actually participate in it. Until then, I'm patient.. I can deal.

Hot Dancer

[Quirk]

We, as some magick-loving players, decided this era of Arm is the era of elementalism, when the rifts of the elements opened further and caused an increase in the elementalist population. It'll pass when everyone but true magicker-lovers like me decide to shift back to mundane. Wait for the end of the era.

Cenghiz: this isn't a "do it IC!" situation. This isn't you changing the game world through RP, any more than it would be if you only made half-elves - half-elves don't mystically become ICly any more common just because players make them more frequently than some other races. All that's happening is that you're further skewing the balance of the PC population out of line with the Zalanthan one.

I'm not professing to be innocent myself. I've played 25 characters to their end, and 5 of those were magickers, which is proportionally about the same as the total PC population; but those 5 came in my last 12 characters, and in terms of playing time spent on them greatly exceed the mundanes. I used to justify this to myself on the basis that well, I hadn't played that magicker guild before and I'd played a (short-lived) mundane inbetween, and in any case there were plenty of other people playing non-magickers... and in doing so, I became part of the problem.

I love playing magickers, too. There are still guilds I haven't played I'd really like to tinker round with. I can even claim to be discreet, to rarely give myself away to PCs who I'm not certain are magickers also.

But the problem is this: magickers simply aren't that common IC.  This is reflected in Tuluk the city itself, where it's possible to go a long time without knowingly meeting a magicker. But if they start to become common sights in the wilderness, or even take up half the seats at the bar in the Barrel, then the game still suffers as a result. Do you enjoy the mystique of the magicker, the lure of the forbidden? That's what's in peril, here.

I too think part of the trustworthiness equation that's implicit in you getting karma is that you won't abuse it; you've now got the ability to make characters with a coded advantage, but if you're trustworthy you shouldn't be using it all the time. It's a question of taking responsibility.

[Anonymous]

I have no problem with there being alot of magickers...i have a problem with those magickers that are busting into taverns full of drunk and spiced people every other day and then complaining people are attacking them is bad RP (in the wilderness 80%+ of the people will flee regardless i'd say).

I'm mean if you want that kind of utter fear from everyone all the time play a templar otherwise magickers are uber enough that not attacking a magicker due to fear is more of an ic/ooc warning rather then an RP suggestion.

[LoD]

"People shouldn't play magickers.".. Why? I love playing magickers.

I don't want you to stop playing magickers.  My entire post was not about whether there were too many magickers, but that magickers are too densely distributed in the northland wilds due to the Cataclysm and will soon need a non-violent way to interact with northern society.  If there are 5 magicker players in Allanak, it's easily tolerable because you have tens of mundane PC's, hundreds of mundane NPC's and tens of thousands of mundane VNPC's balancing the population.

5 magicker players in the Tablelands makes it seem like there are crap tons of them running willy nilly all over the place.  How can a tribe of 5-6  compete in the same space with 5-6 magickers?  Especially if they're supposed to RP being afraid of them under penalty of more buffs to the elementalist guild?  I'd prefer to see "rogue magickers" as uncommon in the wilderness as escaped muls.  Magick should be rare in the first place, and even moreso in hostile environments.

"Magickers are too many.".. So what? What does staff say when we want a ground-breaking event? "Do it IC!".

There was a point years ago when escaped muls were a problem.  You saw them almost everywhere you looked, and they were unbalancing the game because of the raw power potential of the race.  It also went against their normal documentation for so many to be escaped, when really the percentage of them would be much smaller.  Was this taken care of by some major IC event?  No.  The karma setting for muls was moved higher than the bulk of these players who kept making them over and over and over again couldn't access them any longer.

Making escaped muls over and over and over was not appropriate for the game, just as making rogue magicker after rogue magicker shouldn't really be appropriate.  You're skewing the numbers and balance of the game according to the documentation.  It's what you like to play?  Sure, I'd like to sit in a room for a couple months and become a miniature god amongst men too every single character, but that's not a realistic choice for me.

"Magickers are too many.". So what? It's the players' choice. Noone forces me to play more and more elementalists. I myself choose to play more of them.

My post was aimed at hearing suggestions for how magickers in the northern wilds could again find a viable, non-violent way to interact with society.  I had no problems with the number of magickers when they were part of a working civilization in Old Tuluk, but players aren't taking responsibility to view the situation appropriately.  For there to be just as many magickers played now (or more) when they are hated, hunted, and destroyed on sight in the north as when they were accepted, tolerated, and part of the Old Tuluk society is highly unlikely.

Their numbers should reflect the relative difficulty their kind would have surviving in the wilds.  When people continue to roll them, it ignores some of these intangibles and creates an unbalance of power.  While I don't think a cap on the total numbers of magickers in game is necessary, I do think restricting how many of them are played outside of civilizations that tolerate them would help.

-LoD

[jhunter]

I'd prefer to see "rogue magickers" as uncommon in the wilderness as escaped muls. Magick should be rare in the first place, and even moreso in hostile environments.

I couldn't disagree more. I think this is going way too far to one extreme. I don't know where you all are playing but unless I was personally playing a magicker or playing in Allanak, I haven't run into that many with my own pcs. Also, with all the gemmed in Allanak, there's a fuckton more magickers there than you all take into account, so who gives a shit if there happens to be four or five pc magickers sitting in one of the taverns? Honestly, with the way things are there that seems about right to me.

Besides the fact that one magicker spotted (as a blur or whatever) could be seen again later and mistaken for another magicker. Wow, if we have about 25% of the mages spotted outside counted two or three times it makes it appear as if there are more than there actually are.

[Quirk]

I couldn't disagree more. I think this is going way too far to one extreme. I don't know where you all are playing but unless I was personally playing a magicker or playing in Allanak, I haven't run into that many with my own pcs.

This is possibly part of the problem. I've played a few magicker PCs that have run into other PCs who've turned out to be magickers, but the manner of our meeting has been an awkward encounter in an out-of-the-way place, where we've evidently both gone to cast in peace. Great RP ensues for both of us. However, now, if for a significant number of secret magickers the out-of-the-way places they're meeting in are also frequented by hunters and tribespeople, then the hunters are going to be understandably aggrieved at running into magicker after magicker where ICly the magickers are meant to be relatively rare.

You'd only experience this if you had a Northern hunter who frequented areas that magickers liked to cast in. But, for these people, it seems to be a real issue. I never encountered any of the rogue muls in the wilds, either, but I'm quite sure they existed.

Also, with all the gemmed in Allanak, there's a fuckton more magickers there than you all take into account, so who gives a shit if there happens to be four or five pc magickers sitting in one of the taverns? Honestly, with the way things are there that seems about right to me.

Sure, there are loads of magickers in 'Nak. But percentage-wise, they're not that large a part of the make-up of the city. Four or five magicker PCs in a tavern when there are eight or ten PCs total in there makes for a PC population that's one-half made up of magickers - way way too many. One or two magickers would not be unreasonable, but as soon as magicker PCs threaten to become the majority outside their quarter, the balance is destroyed.

Besides the fact that one magicker spotted (as a blur or whatever) could be seen again later and mistaken for another magicker. Wow, if we have about 25% of the mages spotted outside counted two or three times it makes it appear as if there are more than there actually are.

But at most that would give you half as many magickers again, and would still account for the same number of magicker sightings.

[Intrepid]

1) A gritty Zalanthas. The silk clad aides of Noble Houses, the servants and the guards and the nobles - none of these things ever properly felt like Arm to me. Playing at comfortable living in a large, static House led to the feel of Zalanthas being lost. The struggle was gone.

The Byn feels real, still, and the dirty 'Rinthers, and even the more successful hunters and crafters making a living and trying to build small groups up round them. The Zalanthas I'd like to see would feature few PCs in silk, and most of the organisations (not Houses, small-time merchants of below Byn-size) responsible for providing food and water for their members, not having it available automatically. It would be a struggle to survive, sometimes. And there would be lots of small-scale political RP; as Rindan said many moons ago, if we closed every part of Arm but the 'Rinth, and crammed everyone in there with no coded affiliations, intrigue would skyrocket.

Situations like this are the reason I dislike the Byn.  People start in the clan and assume, without a doubt, that it's somehow "more like Arm" than any other clan in the game.  Why?  Since when has an uneven distribution of resources been unrealistic in any setting?  Why shouldn't a class of people be living the high life while the masses suffer?  It may very well be one of the most realistic components in the Zalanthas experience.

Do you think a city where everyone is poor is realistic?  Cities must be controlled by an administration to function, and they're always going to be the wealthiest--the ones on top.  Should templars be impoverished and dressed in rags when there is a sufficient industry and resources to maintain them in luxury?

If anything, there seems to be a surplus of people that can be squandered as a resource of their own.  Note how much war the two city states are waging?  People vanish in one city, thrown into the arena for public execution in another.  There is something gritty about being one of the few haves in a world full of have-nots where the majority of a list of draconian laws can not even touch you.  It's a huge example of the blatant corruption in "civilization", if you could even call it that, where the masses are bred like cattle for the abject use of the few privileged with any true right to live and prospect.

[Hymwen]

I love playing magickers. I confess, I play elementalists again again except breaks given with merchants and rangers. Why? I love magickers. I love to play magickers. One of my last recent notes in my account is: "Good job with <magicker name>. Can handle all mages.". I'm known amongst staff as a good magicker player, I make in-depth, plot-forming, deceitful magickers and I try to make the game joyful for both me and players around me.

Whether or not you love playing a magicker has nothing to do with the possible problem that there are too many. I think there are way too many, there are times in Allanak where I see as many gemmed as non-gemmed hanging around, and while I don't know about the wild magickers since I rarely play non-city PCs, I've been told that there's quite a bit and that you can barely travel through an area without meeting one. We're not suggesting less magickers because we don't want you to have fun, we're doing it because it's against IC reality. Magickers are supposed to be very rare. Should you be allowed to play a bearded dwarf becase you would love to, even though it's against IC nature?

We, magicker lovers are making the world more magickal IC. We're not dying, we're not revealing our identities till we grow in power, we're forming our own plots, allying against sorcerer kings, allying to live freely against dangers.. We're seeking treasures, making treasures, helping our little trade with a little bit of magick and remaining unknown. We, as gemmers, are being a good tool in the hands of the templerate and living in luxury in exchange. We are doing many things all of which are IC and then someone comes and says: "Magickers are too many.". So what? It's the players' choice. Noone forces me to play more and more elementalists. I myself choose to play more of them. If we're making a low-magick game high-magick - Arm? Low magick? Hehe... - it's the usual turn of events. It's the choice of some players and the staff does not want to chime in. So what's there to talk?

Again, I think you're typing a lot that has little meaning. You're making the world more magickal... not dying, seeking treasures, allying etc. - where's the relevance? The fact is that you're causing an imbalance in what is IC reality, and it doesn't matter what your PC is doing. I'm fairly certain that PC magickers far outnumber PC elves, which is just silly. And the argument that "it's the players' choice" is a bad one IMO, because it's also the player's obligation to not do something that skews the balance.

We, as some magick-loving players, decided this era of Arm is the era of elementalism, when the rifts of the elements opened further and caused an increase in the elementalist population. It'll pass when everyone but true magicker-lovers like me decide to shift back to mundane. Wait for the end of the era.

You've decided that it's an era of elementalism? Is that for you to decide? Our PCs represent a tiny tiny minority of the population of Zalanthas. The problem is that there are too many magicker PCs relative to non-magickers. There may be like 20% magicker PCs compared to other PCs but they're not 20% of the world population, and unless I'm missing something and you have actually worked it out IC and with the agreement of the staff that you've created an era of elementalism, this sounds like a bad excuse to me.

End of the day, my point is that yes, you should in general terms be allowed to play what you want, but people who play magickers over and over and over are pulling the balance in the wrong direction. And there are consequences for other players because a lot of people like you are playing magickers almost exclusively. It's not as simple as "I want to do this, why won't you let me?". You're not only going against what is ICly natural, you're also potentially keeping others from playing a magicker of a certain type because you're "hogging the spot" over and over. The staff does restrict the amount of special-type characters in the game, as far as I've been told.

[Quirk]

I'd wager a great many of these Northern magickers start off as secret magickers within Tuluk, and move into the wilds as their powers become harder to hide.

Solutions? I can think of a few, though not many of them seem particularly viable to me.

1) Make magickers rarer across the game.
a) by rejigging the karma system

It's what was done with muls. Conceivably the karma system could be rejigged so it went up to 10 and the first magickers started at 4. You could put half-elves in at 1 karma (without gaining any coded advantage, simply to keep their numbers down to more realistic proportions), desert elves at 2, half-giants at 3, Vivaduans (after perhaps a little adjustment to take them longer to become capable of surviving in the wilds) at 4, and then arrange the rest over 5-10 karma. Maybe to add to that, you could prevent people from special apping for characters costing more than five karma above what they possess. I don't think it would be a popular move, and I'm not suggesting it, but it would be a possible solution.

b) by making magickers harder to play

Magickers could be weakened code-wise to make them more at risk in the wilds early on. This would be unsatisfactory in a number of ways. There's no guarantee people who enjoy playing magicker characters won't just bite the bullet and keep on going, and it would just lead to new rounds of "twinky warriors keep attacking me solo in the wilds!"

c) by diverting magickers to a magicker-specific iso-clan somewhere

I think this is a pretty horrible solution. Magickers require karma and thus get handed out to seasoned roleplayers. If you tie up a serious proportion of the game's seasoned roleplayers in iso-clans, the rest of the game suffers. Much as people with immaculate emoting style, sophisticated characterisation and a genuine understanding of the gameworld may shudder when confronted by an hour spent with the tall, muscular man, if the tall, muscular man is ever to join the ranks of skilled RPers someone has to be around to show him the way.

2) Make magickers more viable to play wholly inside Tuluk.
a) because the templars don't waste time on minor threats

I touched on this in an earlier post. This would probably need a "grittier" PC population than we're ever likely to have, and is at perennial risk from bored players of militia and templars deciding that if something's technically illegal, they can take time out to care about it.

b) because there's a magicker underground that provides support, RP with fellow secret mages, and gives them places to go to do their magick that won't often be encroached on by non-magickers

This seems a more plausible solution than most to me. One issue, of course, is that magickers want to try out their powers for real for time to time, but I can think of places in or near Tuluk where magickers are already reputed to lurk which offer the chance for exploration and danger without taking to the wilds to annoy hunters. Ideally this would be achieved by a group of magicker PCs acting ICly, but we've had years for that to happen, and even some magickers trying that from time to time, and it doesn't seem to have arrived yet. It may need imm guidance to succeed.

3) Make magickers impossible to play inside Tuluk.
a) because the templarate catch them quickly

I don't think anyone wants this, and I'm not sure it would help greatly with the magicker-in-the-gentle-Northern-wilds syndrome. It would probably lead to an explosion in the number of gemmers.

I'm sure there are other solutions, I'll post any I come up with.

[Marauder Moe]

*sigh*  When will you people learn?  Armageddon has trends, fads, cycles, whatever you want to call it.

Apparantly, we're in a magicker phase right now.  A lot of people, for some reason or another, have made magicker PCs.  In a few months, though, most of them will probably die off and maybe dwarves will be the next big thing.  People will be complaining that suddenly half the PCs sitting in the tavern are stumpies, and that the playerbase is being irresponsible for not making their characters in proportion with Zalanthan demographics.  After that, half-elves could make a comeback, or maybe all the D-elf tribes will suck away players from the cities. :roll:

Now, granted, when the game is in a magicker phase people notice (and complain) about it more.  Magickers are more powerful than the other minorities and have a bigger impact on the game world.  They're more visible and thus player perceive them as a bigger problem than when there are too many half-elves around.

[Morfeus]

I totally agree with Marauder Moe here. We have posts about "too many magickers" right now. Before it we had posts about "too many d-elves" and before it about "too many half-breeds". Wait a few months, the trend changes again and you will have chance to complain about something else.

*shrug*

[Intrepid]

In regards to whatever happens to be occurring in the wilderness (though I'm finding this a bit hard to believe, personally), the idea that all of the magickers are flocking to the same places to cast is either a lack of creativity on the players' parts or simply a wide dissemination of information they're not supposed to have.  If hunter npcs have been placed in the area that were not there before, it could be the imms' collective way of saying, "this is not a private place: get out."  If the hint isn't taken, there's a problem there.

I very much dislike the mul example in regards to this.  I have no intention of ever being forced to play a gemmer, as my favorite pc type is rogue magickers.  I play responsibly and keep a low profile, and I have no desire to have my playing style and personal attempts at creativity stemmed off because a few players couldn't handle playing wild mages.  It's easier than you can imagine to find places no one else goes in a wilderness as big as Arm's.  If people are coincidentally finding each other, they're not trying very hard or they're trying to find other mages.

The biggest problem with these discussions is that many of the posters are attempting to control the rest of the playerbase because they believe their personal vision of Armageddon is somehow more valid.  Players have always taken the documentation to the next level of severity, and I believe the game has suffered for it.  We've gone from the idea of magickers being distrusted and barely tolerated to being so hated and feared, even in Allanak, that players are saying it's within their characters' rights to kill them.  Then you get into half-elves, the outsiders of society.  Sure, it's one thing to be racist and dismissive to these characters, but now we've gotten to the point where people do a quick assess, figure out what you are and the entire room ignores you.  And so the bar keeps getting raised more and more, until the game stops being a single game and breaks down into several miniature games.

I think, overall, what I'm trying to say is this: Common sense factors into all of this better than a ridiculous blanket rule.  If any of the playerbase could be accused of having common sense, we wouldn't need the imms to run the game...so trust them to make policy, not any of the people posting here.

[Quirk]

Situations like this are the reason I dislike the Byn.  People start in the clan and assume, without a doubt, that it's somehow "more like Arm" than any other clan in the game.  Why?  Since when has an uneven distribution of resources been unrealistic in any setting?  Why shouldn't a class of people be living the high life while the masses suffer?  It may very well be one of the most realistic components in the Zalanthas experience.

But I didn't begin in the Byn, nor did I play in it at all until pretty late in my Arm career. The problem I have with the game is not that we have an uneven distribution of resources, but that PCs are predominantly members of the most stagnant layer of society, the top tier.

Do you think a city where everyone is poor is realistic?  Cities must be controlled by an administration to function, and they're always going to be the wealthiest--the ones on top.  Should templars be impoverished and dressed in rags when there is a sufficient industry and resources to maintain them in luxury?

No, nor did I even suggest this. My beef is that in a city where the majority are poor, the PCs are generally not. Arm is billed as a harsh, hard desert world - and, for some PCs, it is - but for a great many it's a tale of silks and Noble Houses. Zalanthas goes to war, and the majority of the PCs in at least one of the camps are House-affiliated; the dirty commoners making up much of the army are under-represented.

There is something gritty about being one of the few haves in a world full of have-nots where the majority of a list of draconian laws can not even touch you.  It's a huge example of the blatant corruption in "civilization", if you could even call it that, where the masses are bred like cattle for the abject use of the few privileged with any true right to live and prospect.

There's nothing "gritty" about it when the have-nots are a minority of the PC culture. You might as well call "gritty" a MUD about the doings in a posh manor house between urbane nobility, because the lower classes are represented by a few stableboy and valet PCs and there's a VNPC world out there of poor peasants.

If the templars and successful merchants are rich, stupendously rich, but most of the PCs are desperately seeking their next meal - yes, the grittiness is still there, thrown into sharp relief by the existence of the upper classes. But when the game focuses on the upper classes, the grittiness recedes into the background.

[Intrepid]

I don't know where you're currently playing, but there isn't a place in the southlands that's like that at the moment.  You may be experiencing a deficifiency in warriors now that there is a war going on, but I can assure you that, at two days prior to the HRPT, the haves weren't even in the public eye but were in small supply and the have-nots were crowding the public taverns.

[Quirk]

Players have always taken the documentation to the next level of severity, and I believe the game has suffered for it.  We've gone from the idea of magickers being distrusted and barely tolerated to being so hated and feared, even in Allanak, that players are saying it's within their characters' rights to kill them.  Then you get into half-elves, the outsiders of society.  Sure, it's one thing to be racist and dismissive to these characters, but now we've gotten to the point where people do a quick assess, figure out what you are and the entire room ignores you.  And so the bar keeps getting raised more and more, until the game stops being a single game and breaks down into several miniature games.

And here I think we curve gently back into agreement. Reactions to magickers are frequently ridiculous. Magickers are unnatural, unpredictable and thoroughly untrustworthy - but the average Zalanthan commoner has more serious fears to contend with, such as starvation, drought, ending up permanently maimed in the risky lines of work she's forced to undertake, or being casually killed by a petty thug or even a rival. Again, Earth history tells us that (early) humans believing themselves surrounded by powerful, hostile spirit forces as they scraped a meager living in harsh and dangerous lands tried instead to propitiate their demon-gods and win their indulgence. A magicker is not a being a Zalanthan seeks aid of lightly, but such aid is a solution far preferable to more certain risks of death.

[Malken]

Not to derail, but I remember a few months ago people were complaining that it seemed like 1/2 of the PCs in Tuluk were half-elves..

We see a lot more people with the karma to play magickers lately, there has been tons of great tips on how to get noticed and gain karma, and like Halaster said, there's probably more players with the karma than there is players actually losing the karma to play them.. And it's just going to keep growing as more and more players take the tips from fellow GDBers on how to improve their roleplay..

It took me a very long while to gain enough karma to play magickers, and after playing one, I'm not sure I'll go back to them.. So people are probably gaining karma lately, and are curious about magickers, just like I was.. I'm going back to mundane classes now, but give it a few weeks, it'll eventually go back to less magickers, more half elves, less half elves, more burglars..

Remember the thread about too many burglars and should they be a karma class as well?

[Quirk]

I don't know where you're currently playing, but there isn't a place in the southlands that's like that at the moment.  You may be experiencing a deficifiency in warriors now that there is a war going on, but I can assure you that, at two days prior to the HRPT, the haves weren't even in the public eye but were in small supply and the have-nots were crowding the public taverns.

We probably play different hours. Two days prior to the HRPT for me, there were plentiful (I believe majority-numbers) House Guards and aides and crafters on display in the Barrel, an on-and-off noble and templar presence, a gemmer or two, and nary an elf nor 'rinthi in sight.

The Gaj, meanwhile, was empty and collecting dust as far as PCs went.

[amoeba]

Yes, I agree there is a bit too much hand wringing going on here.  There are more magickers because there are more players in general.  Many of these players have earned karma, and with this the right to play a magicker.

There are some upcoming trends which will naturally cull the number of magickers.  People pick magickers because they want something somewhat different to play.  More options are opening up.  We have halflings opening for play. I'm sure that will suck away some magickers.  We have a gob load of new noble positions opening in the north.  This will suck away magickers.  

If we get far more players, other interesting "things" can be opened up for play to serve as a relief valve.  Gith, mantis, Setinal rising from the sands, pirates captaining a silt skimmer (yes I'm kidding).  Things will find their balance in time. Patience grasshopper.

To address some of the OP's original points.  I would dislike seeing magickers with more "productive" things to do in the north.  Being terrified of exposure and struggling to survive and be relevant in the north is part of the experience.   It could stand to reason, the cause of all the mages roaming the wastes is that they are driven out of Tuluk.   I still contend that traveling the roads is too safe anyway.

To address the "fear factor", I used to be afraid to travel from Tuluk to Allanak. It was scary, mostly because I ooc'ly didn't know what was out there. Now I do, Even under the worst of conditions (baring sandstorms) I have little to no OOC fear.  The same holds true for magickers. As you become familiar with them, you OOCly fear them less.  You can't turn back the clock, you know what you know.