The Elementalist Quarters - Present and Future

[Quirk]

Why must they be motivated to use their spells?  Why should they train like Olympic athletes?  One of my least favorite parts of the game is spell-training; so why do we need mechanics that demand it?  Why do we need mechanics that even encourage it?  Someone on the other thread even said that it makes them feel dirty.  The way spell-training works currently often seems very twinkish, even if you are actively emoting with brilliant, flowery, evocative prose.

To sidetrack a little: this is one of those things that bothered me most in the beginning playing a mage, and even now leads me to come up with unlikely uses for spells merely to convince myself there's a reason my character would cast them. The branching mechanic, unfortunately, makes it imperative to train spells that your mage would have no earthly use for so he can branch the spells he'd give his eye-teeth for. I can think of one guild I've played that has two starting spells which provide similar benefits, but one seems so much more generally useful than the other that there's no real IC motivation to practice both. At a slightly lesser remove, you have spells that do once in a blue moon come in useful, but not frequently enough that your mage will cast them often enough naturally to get them to a level where they're useful on that rare occasion they're needed... though I've always considered those somewhat more justifiable via the sparring/fighting analogy.

I don't suppose anyone's advocating changing the way magick progresses, but it really would make things a heck of a lot easier to RP if you didn't have to go through relatively useless spells to get to the powers your mage is actually interested in extracting from his element.

[Quirk]

Double post: lag was mad.

[Intrepid]

That sux, really. If your a magicker your going to have consequences, not just uber-cool spells. Your going to be discriminated against and in some cases hated. That just makes it funner in my oppinion. Just play it how it would be realisicly be played.

Exactly when did a rogue magicker become a class without any possible consequences?  You should try it before passing judgement.

That is, if the option isn't taken away from us.

[leaf]

Personally, I'm put off by the whole "fecking gemmers" thing.

There's a difference between the North and the South, isn't there?

In the North, people hate and fear mages, not because of what they can do, but because of what they're supposed to do. Superstitions that rival the witch-trials of Salem should run rampant. A mage knowing your true name means they can bottle your soul forever in a glass prison the size of a horta fruit and take your body over and use it to kill your whole family. Making a ring of rust around your house is a sure fire way to stop mages from sneaking into your house in the middle of the night to steal your children. People who come out of sandstorms with all their skin intact might be using evil magic! Northerners should have absolutely no idea what a mage can do, or what a mage is, or the difference between a rukkian, a whiran, a sorceror, and a nilazian. The supposition should be rampant, and ALL of them should be about fear and danger so that those feckers are killed Right Now to avoid anyone else catching their foul disease. This is not to say that the templarate would not know the truth - but the commons should have no way.

In the South, people shouldn't trust mages for the same reason they don't trust the average rinth rat. It's not because they're weird. It's not because they're abominations. It's not because they're magickally-bound slaves to the templarate and don't deserve any respect. It's because they typically use their abilities to screw other people over. The same as with anyone else in Allanak. But treating them like they're freaks should be the providence of the North, not the South. Those drovians aren't happy-go-lucky shademakers; they want to strike you blind and steal everything you own. That vivaduan isn't out to sell cheap water; he's trying to sell you poison water so he can strip your corpse. That whiran isn't out to see the world; he's in the room with you RIGHT NOW listening in on your conversations so he can sell you out to the templars for the right price.

The difference is that the majority of Allanaki's have all probably seen some of the beneficial things that mages can do in a day to day setting, and have likely even used them. And there are likely rumors about some of the things that mages have done that are not so beneficial. But Joe commoner wouldn't know so much about magic to know that Only <element> can do <thing> or that <element> can do <all things an element can do> - even if it seems common sense OOC.

Does this mean that Zalanthas isn't a low magic setting? No. It just means that Allanak has a culture that is at least partially supported by magic use. And that is one of the very big reasons the North hates them so much.

The main problem with mages, as I see it, is they have no context in which to exist on Zalanthas in a non-mundane way because no one but Oash and the templarate seems able/willing to use them because of Northern-style prejudices that make no sense in Allanak.

Suppose that you have 100 mages in a population of 5,000. With the things that mages can do - and the conveniences that magick offers, you're going to tell me that not a single one of them is going to find a lucrative use for his abilities outside of Oash or the templarate that is acceptable to a significant part of the population?

Obviously I can't go into details without breaking the IC/OOC rule, but I really think this deserves some consideration before people start talking about whether or not gemmers should be "allowed" in the inns, or if they should be forced into their own iso clan.

[Intrepid]

This is a legitimate point and something that clearer documentation for each individual clan should resolve relatively easily:  does your clan hire magickers?  Publically?  Aggressively?  What for?  If your clan doesn't currently have documentation that answers this question, and you're in a hiring role, you should ask for it.  Whatever the answer, it is still likely that the relationship between clan and employee will be different for mages, especially if you've been hired covertly.

The above is a perfect example of how a lack of information ends up isolating the mud further.  A player might feel foolish asking about something like this and simply assume that because he/she has never heard of the house hiring such mages, they must not be allowed.

The possibilities remain, even for the hated.  Elves and half-elves thrive in Allanak, in spite of (from what I've seen) very thoroughly portrayed discrimination (too thoroughly, as some have observed on the sidelines of this discussion) -- the opportunities to pursue various ambitions remain.  And elves and half-elves don't even have a specific region of the city allocated to their specific use (unless you count the east-side of the labyrinth, which strictly-speaking, you shouldn't) -- what we're talking about is giving mages a relatively safe haven to retreat to in an event like that.  Are you arguing that a more fully developed Elementalists Quarter in Allanaki takes opportunities away from mages?

This was not a sideline comment.  I mentioned elves and half-elves as an example of how the playerbase goes to extremes in their interpretation of racism and the documentation.  By itself, a more fully develop Elem Quarter does not take away opportunities, but I wasn't referring to the act itself--I was referring to how players do, time and again, create trends within the playerbase by overdoing a portrayal of discrimination and causing the trend to become so common that it becomes thoroughly overdone.  This is either caused by a lack of information, such as the merchant houses never seeming to hire mages, to a small amount of information that is taken and overdone, such as elves and half-elves.

You seem like a convert to my point of view here.  Your initial remark, "why be a gemmer" is what we're trying to address, and is at the core of LoD's original remarks in the previous thread.  How do we find ways to make mages a more OOCly-workable set of classes without inflicting their IC whims and potential for mayhem and destruction on the rest of the PC-world?  I think a good step in the right direction would be to make being a gemmed Elementalist more OOCly interesting -- this also helps with the "too many rogue mages" problem, if you believe there is one.  Others have remarked that they consider being gemmed unplayable (maybe even you?  Isn't that in fact what you're saying in this post?), and no doubt that is because the possible niches for them to fill are limited.  Worse still, they are hampered by the bigotry of the mundanes around them.

If I gave the impression that I thought it was unplayable, I apologize, but I don't recall saying that.  I'm saying that your altruistic purposes of making the Elementalist's Quarter better defined and able to handle the needs of the mages will ultimately get soiled by the inevitable misinterpretation of an overzealous playerbase who must always take the most extreme course of action in any given portrayal in order to prove that they're playing the documentation of the setting to the hilt--when really, their extremes are just as incorrect.  Moderation is something we as the playerbase unfamiliar with.  If the playerbase can, they will ignore common sense statutes and generally harass any mages they see outside the quarter, regardless of the fact that they are legally accepted citizens in Allanak.  This is not tolerance, and this is why I went out of my way to define tolerance in a previous post.

Someone (you, again?) defined the term "tolerance" a while back on one of these threads, and the definition I most liked could be paraphrased as, "enduring or surviving, as with an unpleasant or unsettling meal" and I think that is the sort of tolerance you should look for from the mundane citizens of Allanak...  so given that, what opportunities does a gemmed Elementalist realistically have?  How can they be given directed and meaningful activities (without generating a tremendous burden for the staff)?  We already have this place in the world that is just a hair short of being an excellent solution to many of these problems.

I liked that version too, and that was the point I was trying to make.  You don't have a grandmal seizure just because an elementalist is in the room.  They're unpleasant, they're not welcome, you don't wish they were there...but they're allowed to live in the city and go wherever they please in public.  My issue is that tolerance is not practiced and Allanakis behave like borderline Tulukis.  I used the Burakumin of feudal Japan as an example of how elementalists should behave.  They handle the dead, so they're considered tainted and avoided.  They're mostly social outcastes, but people know better than to get into a fight with them; you might dirty yourself in the process.  You avoid these people and hope they don't make you filthy, basically.

As for options, I think more jobs working for the city (not just individual templars) would be a great idea.  Work with the merchant houses would be nice too.  I also think the templars need to stop conscripting mages everytime it's time to take a routine patrol out.

Oh, and the remark that you "can do anything a gemmer can do and more as one of the ungemmed" isn't correct:  you can't be openly employed in Allanak as an elementalist, without wearing the gem.  That's an obvious one, but I think a few of other options are made available by the gem, as well.  A better E.Q. would generate still more options AND help to make the mundane world seem less "oppressed" by magick.

True, I can become employed in Allanak as a magicker.  But having played a gemmer, I wasn't impressed by the options apparent to me at the time, nor did I really care for the overdone responses from the pcs around me.  Also consider, my pc is a character first and a mage second.  This means the character invariably has goals and a personality that magick gets in the way of.  You're saying that we shouldn't rely on magick as a crutch, and I agree with you.  But the further you get away from someone using magick habitually, the less incentive you give them to want to be exiled for it.

As for being oppressed by magick...I've watched a templar tear apart a magicker not too long ago.  I've never been more intimidated by magicker than I have even a low ranking blue robe.  The world isn't oppressed by magickers; it never was.  The world is oppressed by exactly the people who are meant to be oppressing it: Templars and Nobles.

[amish overlord]

Something noticed, who owns the mul and any other slaves in the magicker quarter? The temples themselves or are they city slaves, just curious.

Amish Overlord  

[Cyrian20]

Segregated is how things are now. Putting in a tavern is just pretty much going to put an invisible wall up between the elementalist quarter and the rest of the city.

Yes.  And?  Again, I fail to see how this is a bad thing.  If the players are going here voluntarily, then they are doing so because they enjoy it (or enjoy it more than the harassment of being in the other taverns), which is a good thing.

-- X

I kind of like rarely seeing a magicker in a bar, when you see one you should be tense as hell. I say give them their own bars to make them something people aren't so relaxed around when they visit the commoner's part of the city.

[Cuusardo]

Tell that to the templarate.  

[Anonymous kank with wings]

Something noticed, who owns the mul and any other slaves in the magicker quarter? The temples themselves or are they city slaves, just curious.

Amish Overlord  

I suspect they're city slaves. Someone has to keep the city streets clean of all of the sand that keeps arriving in storms.

[SykotikGith]

For the record, I am all for this idea. I think it is an excellent idea.

Firstly, giving the magickers a place to congregate outside the mainstream would greatly enhance magicker to magicker RP, as others have said. I remember when I played a magicker that I hung out in the Barrel because there was -NOTHING- else to do aside from go to my temple and spam/twink/train spells. While solo emoting is all well and good, if that is all you are doing, it still feels twinkish to me. If you bring more life to the EQ, then you could have things like apprentices, or Magick contests...and again all that stuff that has already been mentioned. I do not see why this is a bad thing.

Secondly, to address the tolerance issue. Yes, Magickers are 'tolerated' in Allanak. They are allowed to live there, and they are gemmed so that everyone knows who they are. I'd like to point out that tolerance can mean many things outside the strict literal definition. As I see it, you have this:
Templarate: These Magickers are useful tools. I can do with them as they wish, and because I am a Templar, they can't hurt me.
Nobility: For Houses that hire Magickers, refer to the tools option. For those Houses that don't, I see it like this. These 'creatures' are dangerous, and I don't like them, but the Highlord says they can be here. I'll ignore them because they are so far beneath me that it doesn't matter. If they try to hurt me, they'll be dead or wish that they were.
Merchants: I can see how this tool could be useful. It is dangerous, and may bring harm to me, but I can still make use of it.
Commoners: The Templarate says these people can live here. They scare the ever-lovin' piss outta me because I don't understand them. I don't understand the power or where it came from, and who knows what these monsters may do to me? The Templarate says I'm safe, but what if they curse me...yadda yadda.

The point I'm trying to make there is that to the average commoner, tolerance may only be acknowledging the fact that the Templarate lets these people live. Fear, hatred, anger...since the average commoner is largely ignorant, these things -should- be RP'd. Commoners should not know what magick is outside of the very, very basic information. I do not think that they should be completely comfortable in a room/barroom with a magicker.

As far as the ISO part goes, I just don't see it. I've never seen the degree of hatred (except in Tuluk) that Intrepid has mentioned. I did not see it with my magicker, and I have not seen it towards others recently. Also, here's something that also may have been overlooked:
Since Magickers are a tolerated group in 'Nak, that means that they have the same protection that other Citizens have. If someone assaults them in the streets, the city's soldiers are going to wade in to assist (guess who?) the Magicker! Unless there are groups of people lying in wait to 'kidnap' magickers and essentially twink their deaths, then I don't see how sprucing up the EQ and giving magickers a 'safe' haven is going to 'force' them to isolate themselves. As others have said, they'll have many other reasons to come out and interact. The gate on the EQ has not been built yet, and I just don't think it's likely to happen.

[Rindan]

Personally, I have always been for a seedy hole in the wall elementalist bar, preferably with close to the 'rinth.  The idea would be to create a place with true elementalist atmosphere where elementalist, outcasts, and the people that want to hire them for one thing or another can find them.

Playing a gemmed sucks.  Even if you can overlook the absolute tedium of solo spam casting... err training, the interaction you get is bare bones.  For interaction you can go to the local commoner tavern and watch other people interact while you become a master of non-interacting emotes.  The "tension" quickly gets dull as you start to question the sanity of a fellow who goes to bars to sit alone and take the occasional insult.  If you are lucky, you might have one other gemmed in your temple (who will almost certainly burn/bore out and die before you).  Other wise, short of making the rounds to look inside every single temple (which I have certainly done) and inventing excuses to go and talk to the only other PCs, you can live a life of complete non-interaction.  At best, you can join one of the few clans and get some marginal interaction from them.

To make things worse, you RP in a void.  Throw a complete n00b into the Byn or Kurac and after a few RL months 90% of the time you will have a fellow who is at least passable RPing a soldier or mercenary, if not very good.  Spend a year as a gemmed and it is completely probable that you will leave roughly as good at RPing magik as you arrived.  I think magiker RP some times suffers despite the karma requirements simply because many magikers never spend any length of time learning from other well RPed magikers.

Personally, I think that a seedy magiker tavern could solve many problems, increase role play all around, and result in some much better played magikers.

I personally envision a hole in the wall tavern where gemmed, and desperate commoners and criminals meet.  It would be a smoky little place in some basement where magikers can quietly talk shop and learn from each other both OOCly and ICly.  Subtle environmental emoting that would get you lynched in the Bard's Barrel would be allowed to slide.  Every torch in the room flaring up when a Krathi gets pissed might be utterly normal.  The shadow that the Drovian sits in might seem to be a little darker then even the poor lighting of the tavern would allow.  A cool breeze might stir the tavern when a Whirian walks in, and a Vivaduian's glass of water might suspiciously seem to never run out no matter how long she sips at it.  Throwing a fireball across the room would still bring a pissed off Templar, but more subtle offenses might be overlooked.

In addition to talking shop away from the skittish ears of the commoners, this tavern would serve as a central location for acquiring the aid of a magiker.  While most non-gemmed might feel very uncomfortable staying in this bar for too long without a purpose, they would still occasionally come.  Shady 'rinthers, desperate mothers with sick children, and vengeful brothers looking for vengeance your average assassin can not dish out would show up seeking magiker aid often enough for it to not be out of place.  Even Templar and noble aids would not be entirely uncommon sights as the rich and powerful seek to use magik in less then official ways.  Anyone with a few 'sid and great need might find themselves in this hole in the wall tavern.  Maybe a few mundane folks would be regulars there to meet gemmed relatives and lovers who they are not ready to give up on and cut out of their life, yet still are afraid to meet in other less accepting taverns.

In essence, you would have a central location that would act as the heart and the gate to the world of gemmed RP and magik.  Sure, like the Storm's Eye tavern the population might wax and wane and probably always remain low, but at least there would be an avenue for people to meet.  Nothing is more worthless then some poor dumb gemmed sap who rightfully feels like a freak sitting in the Gaj and so wastes his time in the temples all day.  I would much rather see gemmed living interesting lives with actual interaction and getting tighter karma restrictions, then I would like to see leaving gemmed to suffer non-interaction as some sort of sick population control mechanism.

[Anonymous]

yes, i think so...

[Jherlen]

Eadbalde is a spambot.