I hate magickers, official thread.

[Shalooonsh]

This is not the opinion of the entire staff.

Fighting a magicker should be the equivalent of going up against a 500 lb football player loaded on PCP, with an unstable cold-war era Soviet nuclear suitcase bomb strapped to his arm.

You should NEVER want to fight one.

Let me repeat this, for all of you 'mage hunters' out there.

You should NEVER want to fight one.

Magickers are not people.  They are half demon things that eat babies, lurk in shadows, and can strike you with a curse to make your genitalia swell to the size of a wagon which then starts to try to choke the life out of you.  You DO NOT know what they can do.  You DO NOT have any defense.

-EVERY- mage should be treated differently... but they aren't.  -EVERY- mage should be feared... but they aren't.  This is because players realize that in a slug fest, they might have a chance.  "Oh, that's a sardine elementalist... he has 'create salt' and 'everlasting tin container of safety' and no real offensive spells.  I can take him!"  UNTRUE.  Your CHARACTER has no bloody idea if that PC actually can actually cast 'floppy halibut of pain' and make you dance a horizontal jig while he curses every one you have ever known.  

I, for one, am extremely glad that magickers are very powerful.  I am glad that they are starting to go around and blow people up.  People have been very 'ho-hum' about magick lately, and it really Grinds My Gears.

If your PC looks cross-eyed at a water mage, they should be worried about getting a curse set upon them that makes every sip of water taste like gargled glass... and that's just a bad look, let alone actually attacking one.

To those about to cast.  We salute you.

Keep the fear level high.

Thanks be to Halaster for making all those awesome, scary-as-all-hell spells.  

Again, this post does not reflect the opinion of the entire staff, but only one snivelling newbie of a brainzeater who has not even learned yet how to properly crack open a skull without getting bits of bone in his meal.

[Halaster]

It is 100% completely intentional that magickers are the way they are in regards to how much power they hold versus the non-mages.  That is the setup of the game, sorry if you don't like it.

[LauraMars]

I don't have a lot of problems with mages being supermen, able to kill tall buildings in a single bound (though there are a couple of spells I take  passionate issue with).  I just do my UTTER best to avoid them, since unless I'm playing a magicker myself (and sometimes even when I am), I have no interest in interacting with them.

However, I don't like the fact that there seems to be so...many...of them.  Why do we need a ton of supermen in the game?  There's only so long I'm going to roleplay cowering terror.  Superman is cool because there's only one of him.

The mundane classes living outdoors...I feel for them.  They must see a lot of magick, and these severely (and according to staff, intentionally) unbalanced interactions grow stale rather quickly.  

It's up to the (increasing number of) players who have high-karma roles right now to play these roles fully and well, with complete awareness and rational of what they are doing.  We all know that with great power comes great responsibility.  



By the way, this thread is on the way to destruction!

[Bebop]

ANY character with enough time, practice, experience and aliases can pwn you in various ways.  Why do magickers always get the shaft?

Babies.

We don't want to whore ourselves out for water.

We don't want to bow to templars.

We don't want to be burned to crisp by 3 hour Elkrosian.

I see the fear that maybe invoked in a karma less system but I think things will balance themselves out.  As far as just plain hating magickers, this is the first I've heard of people just outright not liking them and to that I say magick is an integral part of this MUD.  That's kind of the bottom line.

[Ghost]

ANY character with enough time, practice, experience and aliases can pwn you in various ways.  Why do magickers always get the shaft?

No it is not like that.  With an assassin you would not really be going after PCs and expecting a score before you hit the 20 days of play time.  (And even after 20 days, there will be occasions you will get your ass handed to you even after preparation)

On the other hand, a friend of mine recently told me how fast he could become confident enough for survival:  He said he branched 9 spells within 2 days of play time and nearly 1 day of it, he was linkdead due to power shortage.

Considering this statement and a previous experience of mine, from this point on whenever I roll for an outdoorsy character, or more like someone who is not totally city-bound I will always roll a magicker.  Seriously, why make a mundane and try so hard and get smoked in the halfway before you are confident enough that you can achieve your character's goals?

[Bebop]

ANY character with enough time, practice, experience and aliases can pwn you in various ways.  Why do magickers always get the shaft?

No it is not like that.  With an assassin you would not really be going after PCs and expecting a score before you hit the 20 days of play time.  (And even after 20 days, there will be occasions you will get your ass handed to you even after preparation)

On the other hand, a friend of mine recently told me how fast he could become confident enough for survival:  He said he branched 9 spells within 2 days of play time and nearly 1 day of it, he was linkdead due to power shortage.

Considering this statement and a previous experience of mine, from this point on whenever I roll for an outdoorsy character, or more like someone who is not totally city-bound I will always roll a magicker.  Seriously, why make a mundane and try so hard and get smoked in the halfway before you are confident enough that you can achieve your character's goals?

Being self sufficent?  So what?  Any ranger with half a brain behind their player is self-sufficent almost from the get go!

Magickers can't go around slaughtering people that quick unless they having godlike wisdom or they are just spam casting.  Not to mention you just have to stratagize every guild has their strengths and weaknesses.  

Are magickers immune to poison?  I think not.

Are they capable in combat?  I think not.

People focus and focus on magickers and really blow this kind of thing out of proportion.

[Ghost]

They are capable in combat.  I will give an example:

A certain elementalist with a single defensive spell on him withstood a combat  against 3 people, two of them had unnatural strength (consider it as half giant strength) the magicker did not cast a single spell for healing or any other purposes.  And he survived the combat, after a considerably long time (lets say there passed enough time to make travel cakes).

I will give another example now:

Another certain elementalist could outmatch a mul in melee.  Elementalist had only one spell on him, and mul has been played for a longer time (at least to my observation).  The fight was not to death, so the elementalist did not use any spells, just fought in melee.  And it was not like the elementalist was 30+ days old with byn training.  I don't even think he was any higher up than 4 days of playing time.  And as I said, mul had more time played (to my observation).


I will give you one final example and this will be it:

The real sad part, where I really decided to play magickers for all criminal and outdoorsy types from this point on was after I realized, whenever I need something done the first thing that crossed my mind was magickers.  
Someone needs assassinated?  This guy spends his time here, we need this elementalist.
The guy is too important and guarded too well?  We may use the combination of this and this elementalists.
It never was a "We need a maxed out assassin" because we all knew the chances of having a maxed out assassin is FAR lower than finding out an elementalist that can get the same job done.  And the elementalist probably has higher chance of survival in the end.
Not just assassinations, for other tools of crime as well.  For me, I don't really mind magickers anymore.  This is the way it is supposed to be, there is nothing else for discussion.

That said I am done with hating magickers.  Instead I will play one.  And I am done with this thread.  Everything has been discussed to death so many times.

[enigma]

It's the end of the world, people!  Of course the world's suddenly full of magickers.  Haven't you heard the prophecy?

When magicks come in vast abound
Apocalypse there shall be found
These dark days shall be the last
When arcane things doth kill us fast

[LoD]

I do not hate the magick system.  It's awesome.

I do not hate magick characters.  They're usually well played.

I do believe that IC events (i.e. Cataclysm) and class alterations (i.e. Halaster's notorious "teeth") have somewhat done a disservice to the role of the magicker within the gameworld.  I've said it all many times, so I don't want to rehash the entire conversation simply because another thread has popped up with a related title.

Magick was better when it rare and mysterious in practice rather than in concept.  Rare to the characters, and rare to the players.  It made discoveries all the more exciting, and encounters all the more terrifying.  Being fearful of magick is much easier when it isn't so prevalent a thing.  And keeping its terrible and wonderful experience difficult to attain, and I mean pretty damn difficult, helped to reinforce this atmosphere.

Magickal power was hard to attain.  Mundanes could take down fledgling and even accomplished mages without needing an army.  This partially helped thin the ranks, but the mages hunted/killed were predominantly those travelling in the wilderness, or attacking people on the roads.  Tuluk and Allanak both provided viable homes, lives, and loyalties for magick characters.  True power took time, effort, and no small amount of patience.

Magick haters will claim that every PC they run into in the desert is a magicker now, which is an exaggeration.  Magick lovers will claim that every player speaking out against magick just wants to be able to easly kill mages, which is also an exaggeration.

The truth is that the ever increasing number of players with access to karma restricited magicker roles, the lethal potential of the magicker, and their displacement within the gameworld have fostered the current culture which, to many, feels jam packed with magick.  Magick plots, magick fiends, magick armies, magick people hanging around our oasis, magick people travelling the roads, magick people travelling tribal lands, etc...

This isn't about hating magick.  No one hates magick.  They hate an environment that represents a direct contradiction to the documentation.  They hate an environment where players craving interaction sometimes force their magicker to make unrealistic choices such as travelling in lands known to be frequented/owned by VNPC or NPC tribes that would likely hunt and kill them on sight.

Certain areas of the game are accommodating OOCly to an outlaw mage, offering "free" water, creatures/game to practice spells upon, plants to gather/sell.  Each rogue magicker probably thinks they are doing their best to keep a low profile, doing what it takes to survive, and feels personally offended or attacked when other players claim magickers are a problem in the game.  They probably feel this way because they don't play out the perspective of the tribesman living there.  They don't see the view of the desert elf or human nomad that has run into the 8th magicker casting at their oasis this month, or hidden in the -same- cave smack dab in the middle of their -known- territory.

Jhunter uses an example of a cave rumored to be inhabited by a magicker as an example of unrealistic behavior for mundanes.  He argues that mundanes should be afraid of the magicker and should endeavor to leave it alone, run from it, avoid contact at all costs.

What about the people who own the land the cave is on?  What about the people who have used that cave for decades before the magicker got there?  What about their entire tribe feeling nervous about a magicker being close to them, or their territory?  Shouldn't the magicker feel any fear?  Shouldn't the magicker try to avoid angering the locals at all costs?  Shoudln't the magicker try and stay off other people's lands or areas known to be traveled or used by tribals for fear of being found?

Some people love the power potential of the current mage.  Some people love the "outlaw mage" concept.  Some people love the RP surrounding fantastical and magickal plots and beings.  They will always fight, tooth and nail, against any system that speaks of changing what they feel is their "right" to experience.  There's no easy way out of this mess, and I certainly hope that Arm 2 is able to strike a better balance.

-LoD

[jhunter]

They are capable in combat. I will give an example:

A certain elementalist with a single defensive spell on him withstood a combat against 3 people, two of them had unnatural strength (consider it as half giant strength) the magicker did not cast a single spell for healing or any other purposes. And he survived the combat, after a considerably long time (lets say there passed enough time to make travel cakes).

Did he -kill- any of them? Just because he could keep them from killing him with that one spell by no means displays that -all- magickers can do so. In fact, most of them would've just died in that situation if they could not get away.

I will give another example now:

Another certain elementalist could outmatch a mul in melee. Elementalist had only one spell on him, and mul has been played for a longer time (at least to my observation). The fight was not to death, so the elementalist did not use any spells, just fought in melee. And it was not like the elementalist was 30+ days old with byn training. I don't even think he was any higher up than 4 days of playing time. And as I said, mul had more time played (to my observation).

I'm pretty sure I know what one you're talking about. If so, you are sorely mistaken about how long that one had been played. I happen to know it had quite a few days of playing time on it -and- that also just happens to be the -one- type of magicker that specializes and excels in that area.

I also know of an 80 day rukkian that was two hit killed by a much much lesser played mul warrior as well.

It never was a "We need a maxed out assassin" because we all knew the chances of having a maxed out assassin is FAR lower than finding out an elementalist that can get the same job done. And the elementalist probably has higher chance of survival in the end.

I agree with this. But I don't see it as a problem with magickers. I see it as a problem with assassins.

[Ghost]

Hopefully my last post in the thread, just wanted to make it clear:

I'm pretty sure I know what one you're talking about. If so, you are sorely mistaken about how long that one had been played. I happen to know it had quite a few days of playing time on it -and- that also just happens to be the -one- type of magicker that specializes and excels in that area.

No.  It was not the type of elementalist that specialized in melee defense.  Completely different, and I think the elementalist does not have any other defense magicks against melee.  But it was pretty obvious even out of his expertise, it defended him better than muls/halfgiants/warriors with shield training.

Hopefully my last post.

[Agent_137]

Ghost, your inexperience with the system leads to your misconceptions. Quit listening rumors about playtime and spell lists and play your magickers and learn how it really is.

[jhunter]

Being fearful of magick is much easier when it isn't so prevalent a thing.

By that way of thinking, if you live in an area that has alot of mekillots/silt horrors/bahamets/gith/halflings,etc then it's expected that you shouldn't -fear- them? I don't really get what point you're trying to make here, LoD.
No matter how often you come into contact with it, you should fear it because it -is- dangerous and potentially lethal to you.

Jhunter uses an example of a cave rumored to be inhabited by a magicker as an example of unrealistic behavior for mundanes. He portends that mundanes should be afraid of the magicker and should endeavor to leave it alone, run from it, avoid contact at all costs.

What about the people who own the land the cave is on? What about the people who have used that cave for decades before the magicker got there? What about their entire tribe feeling nervous about a magicker being close to them, or their territory? Shouldn't the magicker feel any fear? Shouldn't the magicker try to avoid angering the locals at all costs? Shoudln't the magicker try and stay off other people's lands or areas known to be traveled or used by tribals for fear of being found?

Noone owns -every- damned cave and hidey hole in the game. In fact I quite agree with you that if a magicker is looking for a place to hide out it would make sense that they do not do so too close to other groups of people that may consider the area "their land". The problem is also that some people seem to overstep their bounds on what is considered "their land" in order to have excuses to go make contact with magickers and go magehunting.
If they're foolish enough to go attempt to hide out in a place that's quite obviously known to be a certain tribes land then they deserve it when -the tribe- gathers forces and attempts to do something about it. That still doesn't make it realistic for single tribe members to head for that cave and attempt to take on an abomination against nature that could possibly put a plague on their tribe.
I take no issue with a -tribe- or other -group- going to hunt down a mage that's too close to home. I do take issue with people going to take care of this dangerous being alone.

[Halaster]

On the other hand, a friend of mine recently told me how fast he could become confident enough for survival:  He said he branched 9 spells within 2 days of play time and nearly 1 day of it, he was linkdead due to power shortage.

Just something to note - that is good and intentional.  We want mages to get survivable and semi-powerful in a decently short time.  The reason is so that they will spend less time powergaming and more time roleplaying.  Yes, they have to practice their magick to get good, but it doesn't take too terribly much time to practice.  Generally speaking, mages are karma or special-app roles, so we usually trust the player enough to let them get that kind of power fairly quickly.

And by "that kind of power" I mean survivably-powerful, not take-over-the-world powerful.

[Twilight]

Of course, then there is the issue that I can only think of perhaps three or four areas in the game that aren't claimed by something, at least virtually (ie those tribes in the docs with no present NPCs in the territory).  And at least one of those isn't really liveable.   So yes, they are pretty much always going to be in someone else's territory.  But so are other tribes, etc.  And while we may go to every single room in a tribal territory, this is because there are a limited number of rooms in the game, not because a tribal would necessarily do this.

I've made melee capable elementalists.  It is possible, but not easy.  I would ask Ghost what guilds were fighting the elementalists in question.  I would hazard they were not warriors.  Two warriors of decent skill will destroy an elementalist in melee combat.  There isn't a single defensive spell I know of that will, by itself, prevent this.  If they were not warriors, or combat guilds, then yes, an elementalist with a single defensive spell vs three other elementalists can survive.  You aren't giving us enough to judge anything about relative power.

As for me, I definately don't hate mages.  I think that in the last two years there has been a steady increase in the number of them.  However, having played them previous to that, from the magicker perspective the current situation is very, very nice in that you actually have other magickers to RP with.  I had one gemmed, years ago, a Krathi with Tor.  I played him perhaps 9 RL months, and I met something like 5 other mages in that entire time, total.  I never got to interact with a single other gemmed on a sustained basis.  No magick RP, theoretical discussions, etc.  Its fun to have other mages now.

[mansa]

I have karma for a magicker, but I don't play them.


I like having skills that people can't pinpoint by viewing them once.

I like being an -everyman- character, like a warrior, ranger, pickpocket, burglar, or assassin.


That's just me.  I find casting to be in the same category as crafting.

[Ghost]

Again for clarification:

I've made melee capable elementalists.  It is possible, but not easy.  I would ask Ghost what guilds were fighting the elementalists in question.  I would hazard they were not warriors.  Two warriors of decent skill will destroy an elementalist in melee combat.  There isn't a single defensive spell I know of that will, by itself, prevent this.  If they were not warriors, or combat guilds, then yes, an elementalist with a single defensive spell vs three other elementalists can survive.  You aren't giving us enough to judge anything about relative power.

My first example of 3 against one:  Two of those with the unnatural strength was a warrior (with enough playing time to be considered a real danger), the other was not but he was a very long lived character and also again, the strength category is that of a halfgiant, I could easily say he could beat a 10 day warrior in melee (he was able to outmatch the other warrior)
The third attacker was not much of a melee

The second example:  It was a mul warrior.

In my final example:  All those plannings had been done.  Never using an assassin crossed our minds.

[LoD]

By that way of thinking, if you live in an area that has alot of mekillots/silt horrors/bahamets/gith/halflings,etc then it's expected that you shouldn't -fear- them? I don't really get what point you're trying to make here, LoD.

Perhaps I can make it more clear for you.  Mekillots, Bahamets, and Silt Horrors are known dangers and predators that frequent specific and limited ranges of land.  People know where they live, people know where not to travel.  They respect that boundary, and the mekillots, bahamets, and silt horrors do not encroach into areas where they, themselves, would be killed - such as civilization centers or sprawling territories where they would be hunted.

You don't see bahamets in the tablelands, do you?  If not, then that's case closed on your arguement.  Magickers know no such boundaries and choose to move across commonly used and travelled hunting grounds, water sources, roads, and other such infrastructure.  

If you aren't one of these magickers, then don't respond personally.  However, just because YOU wouldn't float around the grasslands, tablelands, or roadways frequented by mundanes doesn't mean that all magickers don't.  They do.  And they are representative of the types of magickers people are speaking of here, who don't respect these boundaries and, thus, invite and warrant the often aggressive attention of the mundane populace they should hope to avoid.

Noone owns -every- damned cave and hidey hole in the game.

I never said they did, but we both know that magickers DO sometimes use such areas that DO reside on tribal lands.  It is to those people that I speak, not you personally.  If you aren't one of them, then you shouldn't have anything to worry about as far as that point is concerned.  It's important, however, for players to consider whether or not the area they're using to "hide" is in fact remote and unused.  If not, they shouldn't be surprised if mundanes DO find them and DO try to do something about them being there.

In fact I quite agree with you that if a magicker is looking for a place to hide out it would make sense that they do not do so too close to other groups of people that may consider the area "their land". The problem is also that some people seem to overstep their bounds on what is considered "their land" in order to have excuses to go make contact with magickers and go magehunting.

I'm really tired of the 'magehunting' excuse out of you, jhunter.  It comes out of your mouth every time one of these dicussions pops up.  You seem completely unable to conceive of a reason why someone would want changes to made to the magicker role other than a very specific and twinkish agenda of "making them easier for my PC to kill."  New flash, that ain't the main reason.  Not even by a longshot.

Mundanes don't want to "magehunt", they want to interact with other mundanes and go about their lives without some invisible mystical mouth harassing them when they're just trying to RP out a nice hunt, or tryng to get to the next town.  They want to RP with their peers instead of having some player with an inferiority complex show up with their mage expecting the mundane to grovel and their feet and beg for their life simply because they selected "g" on the character creation sheet.  These are the very same people that have caused all this magehunting in the first place.  

[rant]

Guess what, I don't hunt tigers.  Know why?  Because they don't come into my town.  They don't try to attack my car while I'm driving to my job.  They don't show up at restaurants while I'm eating my food.  They stay away from people and people stay away from them -- and we both survive.

But if a tiger showed up at my doorstep, ready to fight and kill me.  I would run.  I would hide like a little girl and call the cops.  The first time.

But after I survived that encounter, you can be damned sure I'm going to load up on protection against some mother fucking tigers.  And if that bastard shows up again, I'm going to be ready and gonna do something about it because I'm only going to be afraid until that tiger FORCES me to be unafraid by coming around again, and again, and again.

It's no longer a rare and wondrous creature.  It's a threat.  A viable threat.  And all of its wonder, and power, and mystery isn't going to mean crap when my "tiger patrol" goes riding around town specifically looking for tigers to kill.  And we're gonna kill 'em.  Every single one we see, whether it's someone's exotic pet or a special one-of-a-kind pacifist tiger that contains the holy spirit of an entire religion, it's freakin' toast.  Because we can't tell and it's not worth finding out.  

And we do this all because that first tiger couldn't leave well enough alone.  They couldn't keep all their power, and strength, and speed, and lethal cunning to themselves and just enjoy being a tiger.  No, they had to go out and fuck with people who had NO intention of ever hurting tigers in their entire lives.

So, you want someone to blame for people "magehunting" - look at the mages.  Don't look at the people just trying to go about their daily lives, hunting food for dinner, travelling from city to city to make a sale, or going about their general mundane business.  You want to be left alone, then leave them alone.  It's really freakin' simple - but it's surprising how many people just can't manage to do it.

[/rant]

-LoD

[Malken]

I want to add a point that no one really ever considers.. Now with stat placement, it's VERY easy to get anything above very good wisdom as a magicker.. Anything under and I would find myself quite unlucky.. All the magickers I've played so far at least had very good wisdom, if not exceptional, easily..

So very good wisdom + faster spell branching, of course now you'll see ever more powerful magickers attaining a dangerous level faster.

Add to that a crafting subclass that allows you to easily survive on your own, branching new recipes really fast with your high wisdom, it's easy now to play a non-gemmed magicker, you don't even need to seek out faraway caves anymore..

Can any of you honestly say that they never place widsom first when they create magickers? (Those who don't randomly select them, of course)

[Dresan]

Wow...LoD is my hero.

I also agree with LauraMars. However i want to add that its just not magickers (players). Its also magickal things going on in various places. Alot of people have mentioned there always seems to be magick involved in the plots or staring you down in the face in the wilderness.

All of it adds up to magick not feeling as rare and mysterious as it did before and even though that might be only the fifth magicker talking to my character ever out in the wilds trembling in fear yet again gets old.

[Onimantu]

I'm going to give the usual disclaimer that this is not an official staff opinion.

I'm the type who either plays rangers or 'non-mundanes' pretty exclusively. The strategy of the various systems appeals to me in a way that, frankly, most other situations just don't. This might change in 2.arm, and I will be immensely happy if it does.

Having played mages for oh... 5 years of my 7+ on Arm, I can honestly say I've intentionally killed a PC without being directly provoked by aggression maybe... three times? And then I had a reason for every single one of those kills that was far beyond "omg, i want l00t."

Again, in my opinion, which in no way reflects that of staff, if you want to look for the reason your PC likely died in a horrible fashion to a mage you might want to examine your own IG behavior. Let me paint some scenarios I've participated in or seen.

1) Non-Mage walks in, looks at mage. Sees evidence of magickry and draws weapons in order to attempt to kill mage while mage is sitting on the ground minding their own business, or in a lot of cases even acting friendly. NM gets owned like nobody's business.

2) NM walks in, sees wounded mage with some sort of visible spell on. Assumes they can take wounded mage. NM attacks. NM gets destroyed utterly.

3) NM charges in blindly, attempting to kill mage for the phat magick l00tz they must have, not even bothering to use a think or a feel or an emote as they prepare (and by prepare I mean spot the mage, decide OOCly if they have a chance of taking them, and then press the direction the mage is located in)

There are some people who play aggressive mages. This is a viable option. Some people aren't nice. Some people want the womenz (or menz), the power and the money. It's ok to play like that, in my opinion, as long as you don't take it to senseless PKing which I've seen rarely, and by rarely I think twice.

As Loon noted, it doesn't matter where they are. Just. Don't. Attack. Them. You wouldn't attack a friendly ranger(I'm assuming so since there isn't a three page thread called 'I hate Friendly Rangers'), why the hell are you attacking someone who every bit of documentation available on the game tells you is twenty times as powerful? It doesn't matter if they -are- that powerful or not, what matters is that everything you know should be saying "A mage! Run!" or at least "A mage! be wary but don't provoke it!"

But, I'd like to be constructive in this post rather than just pointing out that the majority of magick realted deaths occur when someone decides OOCly they can take a mage without ever having actually -killed- one IG with that character. So, here are some solutions:

1) Use think, feel and emote before you attack a mage. Not only does this give staff a better idea of what you're doing, the most important thing it does is -buy you time so you can think a little more like your character-. If you think like them, maybe you'll realize you're probably going to die if the mage is a) smart, b) prepared or the worst possible combination, c) all of the above.

2) Make a PC who doesn't look at killing like sneezing. It is possible to roleplay someone who finds killing to be unpleasant, doesn't have a desire to end the lives of other thinking, feeling beings, and in general acts like life matters to them(some folks seem to confuse a survival oriented existence with a suicidal existence). This doesn't mean you can't be a hard as nails ranger or warrior, who doesn't like killing but will do it if they have to (times of war, etc) but it does give you a reason to let people live or to not engage them at all. That slight tweak in personality can change your -entire- gameplay perspective.

3) If you feel bound by the rules of your clan, tribe, organization in regards to mages... interpret them a little differently. Weigh your potential loss to the clan/tribe/organization vs the potential gain of killing some random dude wandering the wastes. He might have a few hundred sid, or some interesting looking trinkets but you represent a being that can work, hunt, procreate, etc for your tribe/organization/clan. Losing you over some piddly guy wandering around, not bothering anybody, is not worth it so you can assume if you go back home and say something like "Watch out around, X Y or Z, I saw some magicker." Nobody's going to look at you and go "Get out of the clan loser! You didn't throw yourself at them!"

Those are my points, and my suggestions. They do not reflect staff's opinions (except for the bit about staff -really- liking it if you use thinks and feels to describe how your character is at any given point, that part might be a staff opinion , but the rest is purely me).

[Fathi]

When your character goes on a 20-league-or-less ride that's mostly a perimeter jaunt around a large city-state and you run into not only two mages, but two sorcerers, magick is too prevalent.

People can bitch about how mundanes are too hostile to magickers in the desert all they want, but if you're an ungemmed and you're going to openly cast around people without even wearing a facewrap or whatever to disguise yourself, there are gonna be consequences. Even if they don't try to attack you when they see you casting, if they run, you bet they're gonna tell their buddies about it. Hey, they might even realise that in some towns, if they report you to a templar, they could get paid for it.

You might have been trying to heal my character or summon a box of muffins for him, but my ranger or warrior wouldn't know that. It looks like an offensive action.

And also, don't assume my mundane doesn't like your magicker becausee I have an OOC bias against the class. My character's family could have been burned alive by Krathi in his background. He could just be hostile to -anybody- he meets out in the desert because he's paranoid or has gotten attacked a lot recently. Maybe he's ducked into his favourite ranger hidey hole and gotten hit with invis/paralyse twice in a row now and thinks your Vivaduan who happened to be passing through did it, because it's not like he knows the difference between a water mage and a Whrian or Elkran.

[Onimantu]

And also, don't assume my mundane doesn't like your magicker becausee I have an OOC bias against the class. My character's family could have been burned alive by Krathi in his background. He could just be hostile to -anybody- he meets out in the desert because he's paranoid or has gotten attacked a lot recently. Maybe he's ducked into his favourite ranger hidey hole and gotten hit with invis/paralyse twice in a row now and thinks your Vivaduan who happened to be passing through did it, because it's not like he knows the difference between a water mage and a Whrian or Elkran.

Then perhaps they shouldn't complain about it when they do get slaughtered for attacking someone randomly because they're paranoid?

[Medena]

If there is a single thing which dilutes the mystique of the magicker as rare/mysterious/dangerous it is these f***ing threads.  It is not their great proliferation in recent times.  It is not magicker PC's sitting in every single cave in the world spam-casting.

It is you folks talking about how magicker X can branch spells X, Y, Z in two days; about the places secret magickers hang out; about the areas of the world they are prevalent;  about how good or not good magickers are in combat; about how a warrior can fight a mage; etc, etc, etc.  So that now every player who might not have known any of these things now know. So that newer players who might not have been so wary now see a magicker behind every bush.

A while back I played a ranger who spent a lot of time rambling around near Tuluk at a time when there was a big "there are magickers everywhere around Tuluk" thread going on.  My PC was pretty dumb, both in general and specifically about magick, and I can honestly say that apart from a run-in with a sorceror, she never to her knowledge saw a single magicker.  She probably did but didn't know.  And I am probably lucky that, despite threads like these, my personal magick knowledge was low and so I could quite easily play my character's naivety.

[Fathi]

And also, don't assume my mundane doesn't like your magicker becausee I have an OOC bias against the class. My character's family could have been burned alive by Krathi in his background. He could just be hostile to -anybody- he meets out in the desert because he's paranoid or has gotten attacked a lot recently. Maybe he's ducked into his favourite ranger hidey hole and gotten hit with invis/paralyse twice in a row now and thinks your Vivaduan who happened to be passing through did it, because it's not like he knows the difference between a water mage and a Whrian or Elkran.

Then perhaps they shouldn't complain about it when they do get slaughtered for attacking someone randomly because they're paranoid?

I'm in full agreement with you there. It's dumb for either side to complain OOCly about consequences of their own character's actions.