Gemmed Treatment and Roleplay v.68468176981435

[FantasyWriter]

Make being near a magicker codedly uncomfortable, disconcerting, or dangerous. Forcing something like "fear" on an entire section of the playerbase requires an environment capable of reinforcing that emotion or maintaining a source of that fear.  Right now, magickers are like guns.  You don't fear them unless they point at you with the ability and intent to fire.  The criminal system in Allanak muzzles them to the point of impotence.  And simply being a magicker, especially one that shares an ale with you at the bar as they chat about their family, hopes, and dreams, isn't enough by itself. 

There are magickers not wearing a gem and remaining as incognito as they can. If "bad" things happened around them they would be revealed pretty quickly.

They should be.  It would be MUCH harder for a city-dweller to 'hide' your touch to an element if the virtual world were taken into account than is the case based solely on current code, especially in Allanak.

[musashi]

The one thing we can categorically say is that, "Roleplay better, you shitty roleplayers," doesn't work.  

Note to magicker players -- the fact that your PC is feared is not supposed to be an advantage. It's flavor or it's class balance. I don't think the intended purpose of magicker fear is to extend the size of e-peens.  

Wait so ... you mean "roleplay better, you shitty mundane rolerplayers" doesn't work, but "roleplay better you shitty magicker roleplayers" is worth a shot?

EDIT: Also Ghost is a dick. A whole bag of them in fact.

[spawnloser]

Go spend time around a magicker outside the city gates and piss him/her off.  I can guarantee you, if that magicker has 15 days played, your death will be swift and sure.

Sorry, man, but that concept right there why gickers tend not to be as scary as Lady Tors or Lord Templar Fales.  That situation doesn't inspire fear. It inspires hate.  Getting pwned is not fun, and the reaction tends to be "revenge."

Think of how the best of our southern nobles inspire fear, or the nearly cliched crime-lord (who turns out to be an unpracticed pickpocket or merchant.) They don't tend to waltz around blasting people in the face. It's sheer presence, you might even call it bluff, not sheer pwnage.

THAT'S THE PROBLEM!  YOUR anger is the problem, and your hatred of being pwned.  Your character should fear being pwned because it means your character's life is no longer in your hands but another's hands, like when you face down a templar.  Hatred is generally regarded as the LAST thing you want to show the templar when s/he has you in a jail cell because it means your character could be summarily executed at that character's whim.  Magickers can do this, given the opportunity and reason.  They are that powerful.  They can blast entire civilizations out of existence, so your character should be pretty damn scared that his/her life could be blasted out of existence pretty easily.

YOU hate being pwned.  YOUR CHARACTER is scared of being killed (or worse) with a couple words and a gesture.

[jhunter]

I would like to see magickers have minor negative effects that can happen behind the scenes to mundanes spending too much time in contact with them. Templars should be immune from such effects, IMO. I also think that the selections of those effects should vary from mage to mage and those mages should be able to intentionally bring them about in others through cantrips than cannot typically be detected when cast.

[LoD]

However, the social trade off for choosing to be an elementalist is bad for a game with a small population of players and has proven itself difficult to enforce besides.  It would require some serious nerfing of elemental potential for it work, or an alternative balancing mechanic put in place, along with in-game changes to how Allanaki society deals with the gemmed.

This is the single largest issue with the success, or lack thereof, in supporting the current documentation surrounding fear of magick.

Elementalists, as a whole, comprise too large of the player demographic to be treated as monsters.  Yet, that is what the current sequence of IC events, code changes, and staff support achieves.  It's the source of almost every thread that has occurred on the subject of magicker-mundane relations.

The Cataclysm that destroyed Tuluk forced its entire elementalist population, and any future elementalist that wanted to hail from a region other than Allanak, into the wilderness, which exploited their anemic model for spell progression and where they were no longer protected by the same social safety net mundanes enjoy within the city proper.  Because of this, the elementalist class was given "teeth" with which to defend themselves.  However, this patch was applied wholesale to every elementalist, with the idea that they would still be a rarity amongst the player base.  And that had largely been the case, because successfully developing a powerful elementalist via the older system often took months, and even years, to reach the potential many elementalists can now reach in weeks.

Unfortunately, certain events either weren't considered or able to be predicted when such changes occurred:

> Players continued to gain karma, with a larger portion of them beginning to experiment with the high-karma class options.
> Players continued to apply for high-karma class options via special app.
> Players decided to try out high-karma classes when Armageddon 2 was announced.

When the last of these factors came into play, the pot boiled over and there was a strong player reaction to the severe influx of magick and power into the game.  One of the byproducts of giving all elementalists "teeth" was that they were suddenly escalated far closer to the psionicist/sorcerer category of threat than ever before, whom we all know are hunted and killed on sight.  They aren't hunted down and killed because the mundanes are unafraid, but because they are too afraid of what will happen if they do nothing.

Treating elementalists as monsters also creates issues from a playability standpoint.  It just doesn't work.  There aren't enough players to support a mini-game for the high-karma, magickal classes to remain happily isolated from the mundane population.  Because of this, elementalists are required (by lack of numbers) to participate in mundane life, as employees, allies, enemies and friends.  The lack of balance between the classes is starkly represented when a large-scale plot line develops amongst the player base.  As the elementalists are too few, and the player base too small, for them to have their own entire agenda, they must share the stage with the mundanes more often than not -- which often results in the threads where mundanes complain that their efforts are being overshadowed or trivialized by the elementalists.

An environment of fear and hatred for the current power potential of an elementalist is probably warranted, but it sure isn't conducive to creating a variety of options for magick-mundane RP.  And it certainly doesn't map well to our small player base.  The true and accurate place of an elementalist in Allanaki society would likely be considered too isolated, boring, and removed for the average Armageddon player, especially for repeat play.  How they integrate into both the power structure and the social structure of the game has everything to do with the issues people are experiencing with regards to expressing "fear and hatred" toward them.

The documentation is trying to pick up water with chopsticks, and has both sides saying, "You're holding the sticks wrong!"

-LoD

[number13]

^^ That is the single best post I've seen in a magicker thread, ever.  gg, LoD, thread over.

[Twilight]

Ideally, things would be handled through the social side.  People hanging out and apparently friendly with magickers would be ostracized if they didn't have a good reason (like business).  However, our playerbase is small enough that excluding magickers and those people never seems to happen.

Compound this with enough people having either played with a mage or having played one to understand mostly what a mage can do with their coded powers.  So, if you add in more coded things...eventually people will know about those too.

I think the solution lies in un-coded powers.  Mages have utilized these in the past.  Most often, as far as I have seen, in epic, world-changing ways.  I think it would fit more in with the staff philosophy I have seen espoused over the last couple of years to focus these abilities on a smaller scale.  Allow magickers to engage the uncoded side of magick on a smaller, more personal scale.

So, something like Vivaduan feels rejected by a former lover, so they shrivel up their junk.  Sure, there should be hurdles for the magicker to be able to accomplish this.  Sure, there should be some solution the victim can find to their problem.  But it should be more than possible, it should be relatively frequent.  And, as you might suspect, get around the coded aspect of the crim code quite handily (as something like this could result in a simple staff email informing the victim of the state of their junk, or a change to their description, or something coded the staff could put on).

Another way is random magickal animations by staff, sort of how they do NPC animations.  Been spam casting for awhile?  You've created a preponderance of your element that burns you unintentionally.  Or, wow, something creepy with the shadows just happened to that gemmer, what is all that about?  Or better, something creepy with the shadows just happened to -me-, and they all seem to be clinging to me like wet silk now, it must be that gemmer over there!

The great thing about these is that you are now facing the imaginations of magicker players and staff, rather than some fairly static code.  Good luck in figuring out what that gemmer can do to you.

[janeshephard]

The lack of balance between the classes is starkly represented when a large-scale plot line develops amongst the player base.  As with the mundanes more often than not -- which often results in the threads where mundanes complain that their efforts are being overshadowed or trivialized by the elementalists.

I've seen this handled IC so far. I think that's where it should be kept. If a gemmer is overshadowing your contributions deal with it in game.

[Salt Merchant]

There aren't enough players to support a mini-game for the high-karma, magickal classes to remain happily isolated from the mundane population.

One thing that would really help with this though, for gemmed at least, is if they were concentrated into one structure instead of divided among six temples set into a big quarter, isolating everyone. That would go a long way toward promoting a community to form.

[Pale Horse]

There aren't enough players to support a mini-game for the high-karma, magickal classes to remain happily isolated from the mundane population.

One thing that would really help with this though, for gemmed at least, is if they were concentrated into one structure instead of divided among six temples set into a big quarter, isolating everyone. That would go a long way toward promoting a community to form.

[partial sarcasm]
But that would further isolate the magicker character population from the rest of the characters IG as they would all congregate in that one building and "skill max!"  They need to get out where everyone can spit on them, hate them (never fear, of course.  That's just not fun for the mundane players involved), and ostracize them from society.  They shouldn't have a place where they can hide out and be out of sight where social rejection has put them, blah, blah, blah.[/partial sarcasm]

[simplification] Documentation says magickers are feared and hated.  They are rejected from most of society, which wants them holed up in their Quarter of Allanak or outside the walls and rogue.  They will not have a single place for themselves to congregate, due to OOC and IG decisions.[/simplification]

 Playing a magicker is being a pariah to the rest of the player base.  While role-play does not necessarily mean social interaction, that is a large part of the game for a dare say the majority of players to a lesser or greater extent.  From what I read, they were intended to be a partially "anit-social" roll..which creates all sorts of problems when by their nature, they can become powerful, code-wise, by having all that "free time" on their hands and no interaction beyond hate coming their way (precious little fear.  That's just not fun for mundane players! ...Documentation says to be afraid of them?  Screw that, that's (apparently) only for people with karma roles, not me!), it's little wonder that many players of magicker characters will try their best to be as helpful and productive to the rest of the player base so as to integrate themselves as best as possible into whatever plots, interactions and storylines are going on.  For many, it's not fun playing alone.
 
  Some people have accused this of being "against the documentation."

 On the other side, we have mundane players who are all for playing up the "hate" side of the documentations against magickers, but not too keen on being afraid of them.  Reasons have been explained and used as evidence for this sort of play and feelings, reasons that can be seen as valid, yes.  Unfortunately, too much hate and little to no fear is "against the documentation" as much as someone being friendly with a magicker in public and private.  Role-playing is as much a responsibility of a player of mundane character's as it is a player of magicker character's.  Just because the one currently has a higher karma guild role does not negate your own responsibility to keep to the documentation, even if it's something you don't like to do.  Mundanes are not absolved of their requirements to stick to the documentation when they see someone of a higher guild "not doing so."
Now, it seems I have picked a lot on mundane characters and players in this post.  From my point of view, this is mostly a reaction to the arguments put forward in posts made to defend mundane RP and criticize magicker RP.  I have found only a bit little of it to be informative or inclusive to the discussion (such as it is), and much of it to be the opinions of what feels like some who are trying to evade their own personal responsibility in favor of their fun over the fun of someone else.  This hasn't been exclusive to one side, no.  I admit that.  But I have seen far more of it on one side than the other.

 Everyone has played within and without the bounds, rules and roles set by the documentation.  Magicker and Mundane alike.  Either we all need to "suck it up" a little and adhere to the docs and play out the fear as much as the hate despite what we may like, and accept that in this incarnation of Armageddon magickers just won't be socially acceptable and integrated into the rest of the player base despite what we may like, or there needs to be a change in the documentation.  My personal feelings is that there is not enough "ebb and flow" allowed within them as touching upon this subject of magicker-mundane interaction and social play.  It is far too ridged, especially after such a long history behind the game.  I do not advocate a "break" but a "bend."  Too much change will change the game into something that is just wasn't before, and that will signal the beginning of the end (ironically enough, this was already accomplished by "The Announcement" several years ago), but no change at all will continue to spawn situations in which threads such as this one and the IG situations they spring from, continue to happen.

Edited for better spacing for better reading.

[hyzhenhok]

Where did this strawman about people only hating magickers come from, anyway?

[Pale Horse]

Where did this strawman about people only hating magickers come from, anyway?

Can't say for anyone else, but for me, it's the fear that if I play a magicker character out to hate and fear mundanes, "Not Good" things will eventually crop up on the GDB.  Looking at it from a magicker character's perspective, if they have access to arcane powers that can twist someone from the inside out without putting them in too much danger with the proper preparation, then it seems perfectly logical and "no duh!" to use them for such a purpose, should they be the sort that is inclined towards doing so..or someone who isn't but gets pushed into a situation where they would for any number of reasons.

If I end up having a character that does this and has a number of PC kills or near kills in their belt due to the consequences of their IC actions and their reactions to those of the other players, then sad experience has proven that it just kicks up more turmoil on the GDB.  The backlash just isn't kept IG.

Edit:  I have yet to see a thread made that started with someone having an issue with how mundanes are treating magickers.  It's been the other-way-around and only once the thread is made has this been pointed out or posted.

[spawnloser]

So, I've been thinking.  The way I see it, following LoD's argument, we can make magickers more tolerated as he suggests... or less.  LoD suggests that making them more tolerated would make shift things in a way that would make the game more playable.  I would posit that this may be true, but would shifting it the other way make it less playable?  I don't think so.

I would suggest that making them less tolerated would force more of them into under-cover mode, like playing a magicker in Tuluk is now.  I would not begin to suggest a way this should be done... since we're discussing Arm1.0, which means the only way this could be done is through IC means.  There are many ways to this, I would suggest, also.

See, the reason I think that making magickers less tolerated would also work would force more of them into under-cover until discovered, since discovery is always a possibility, and then into a primarily adversarial role... and of course, people could start out more adversarial if they wanted to.  Making the more adversarial, would very possibly have the desired result for Arm1.0 of making people fear magickers more, since more people would start to see the angry end of the magickers around them and begin to understand why they should be scared, even by strict code limitations, and without being a twink, too.

In Arm2.0, of course we will have multi-classing, which will change the whole nature of the beast.  In that case, I would suggest that LoD's assertions would indeed make the game a better one.  With what we've been told of the intention for multi-classing, magickers that are multi-classed with a non-magicker class will likely get fewer spells that don't get as powerful as a non-multiclassed magicker would get, but they lose this in trade for having mundane skills in addition to their magickal ones.  As far as we know, there won't be any tertiary sub-guilds, too, so if you want to play a magicker crafter, you won't be a straight-up caster and then... we can do things with segregation in and all sorts of fun things in Arm2.0 because there can be, as suggested, a difference in fear/mistrust/hatred/prejudice for pure casters and multi-classed casters.  Hell, we could possibly even have fun titles that differentiate the two in a purely IC way, too.  The sky's the limit and we don't know enough to come up with too many arguments about societal things in Arm2.0, since we don't know all that there will be to publicly know about Arm2.0 in that vein or have any data (even anecdotal evidence) about it yet to make any good predictions.

[Bast]

Where did this strawman about people only hating magickers come from, anyway?

I can only speak from personal experience but last time I played a gemmed I got a lot more "i hate you you fecking finger wiggler' and botched assassination attempts rather than obvious signs of fear. Which I was felt was pretty crappy roleplay especially giving I was playing a pretty freaking powerful Krathi. In fact on several occasions I had people go out there way to pick verbal fights with my PC by which I mean coming over to my table and start hurling profanities at me when I was minding my own business sitting with my gemmed hommies.

[hyzhenhok]

Where did this strawman about people only hating magickers come from, anyway?

I can only speak from personal experience but last time I played a gemmed I got a lot more "i hate you you fecking finger wiggler' and botched assassination attempts rather than obvious signs of fear. Which I was felt was pretty crappy roleplay especially giving I was playing a pretty freaking powerful Krathi. In fact on several occasions I had people go out there way to pick verbal fights with my PC by which I mean coming over to my table and start hurling profanities at me when I was minding my own business sitting with my gemmed hommies.

The last time I RP'd being afraid of a gemmer, my character was treated like they were a moron, even by the gemmer themselves. I've gotten the impression that fear of magick is an OOC construct forced upon us, to be discarded at the slightest IC excuse, such as being ordered to man up by your superior. Obviously the roleplay is not perfect. Magickers happily sitting at bars and players complaining about gemmers being socially isolated probably doesn't help any, though.

Edit:  I have yet to see a thread made that started with someone having an issue with how mundanes are treating magickers.  It's been the other-way-around and only once the thread is made has this been pointed out or posted.

I think there is some indignation that those damn mundanes aren't roleplaying properly, so why should we magickers have to, which of course rather silly.

There are isolated problems with the roleplay in general, not with any specific party. I don't think the current situation is terribly broken or that there is a serious problem at all, really. My original suggestion was some simple echoes implemented in taverns that would both discourage gemmers from trying to integrate and cue mundanes to gear up their fear/hate drives. I don't think it's 100% necessary, but I do think it would add to the game.

[Bast]

Edit:  I have yet to see a thread made that started with someone having an issue with how mundanes are treating magickers.  It's been the other-way-around and only once the thread is made has this been pointed out or posted.

I think there is some indignation that those damn mundanes aren't roleplaying properly, so why should we magickers have to, which of course rather silly.

There are isolated problems with the roleplay in general, not with any specific party. I don't think the current situation is terribly broken or that there is a serious problem at all, really. My original suggestion was some simple echoes implemented in taverns that would both discourage gemmers from trying to integrate and cue mundanes to gear up their fear/hate drives. I don't think it's 100% necessary, but I do think it would add to the game.
[/quote]

This would completely kill the idea of a player playing a magicker that doesn't know they are one yet. You'd just walk into a bar and instantly know your a elementalist. I think it would take away from some very interesting roleplay situations.  It would also be the end of all closet magickers. 

[Salt Merchant]

Seems to me the best choice for a gemmer is to just not visit the taverns at all. This way:

. No one complains about there being too many gemmed (seems to happen every time someone spots more than two together).
. No one complains about gemmed acting too friendly.
. No one complains about other people not treating gemmed harshly enough.
. No one complains about gemmed being overpowered.
. No one complains about militia or other people defending the gemmed.
. No one complains about the gemmed not doing enough to create an atmosphere of fear.
. No one complains about all the complaining.
. No one even complains about your gemmer sitting in a temple too much because they don't know.

Why not just remove being gemmed from the game, and at the same time create a magicker haven somewhere. Then the mundanocentrics and karma-envy-impaired could all be happy, and it would be a noticeable improvement for magickers too to have a home somewhere. Or keep the gem but the elementalist's quarter gets removed from the city and the gemmed are placed in an outpost somewhere. The separation would help to promote the sense of rarity so many people have said they'd prefer in the game.

[janeshephard]

Or keep the gem but the elementalist's quarter gets removed from the city and the gemmed are placed in an outpost somewhere. The separation would help to promote the sense of rarity so many people have said they'd prefer in the game.

I like the outpost idea. It even makes IC sense to me. The only trouble is putting guards there. They won't want to work there.

[Bast]

Seems to me the best choice for a gemmer is to just not visit the taverns at all. This way:

. No one complains about there being too many gemmed (seems to happen every time someone spots more than two together).
. No one complains about gemmed acting too friendly.
. No one complains about other people not treating gemmed harshly enough.
. No one complains about gemmed being overpowered.
. No one complains about militia or other people defending the gemmed.
. No one complains about the gemmed not doing enough to create an atmosphere of fear.
. No one complains about all the complaining.
. No one even complains about your gemmer sitting in a temple too much because they don't know.

Why not just remove being gemmed from the game, and at the same time create a magicker haven somewhere. Then the mundanocentrics and karma-envy-impaired could all be happy, and it would be a noticeable improvement for magickers too to have a home somewhere. Or keep the gem but the elementalist's quarter gets removed from the city and the gemmed are placed in an outpost somewhere. The separation would help to promote the sense of rarity so many people have said they'd prefer in the game.

I agree     ...I think there used to be a fort full a gemmed at one point. Though even just putting a bar in the gemmers quarter in Nak would likely fix this. Just make the shop keeper a Viv and the cook a Ruk 

[FantasyWriter]

Meh, one of the cities would get worries about them becoming too powerful and wipe them out.

[number13]

I played a gemmed I got a lot more "i hate you you fecking finger wiggler' and botched assassination attempts rather than obvious signs of fear. Which I was felt was pretty crappy roleplay especially giving I was playing a pretty freaking powerful Krathi. In fact on several occasions I had people go out there way to pick verbal fights with my PC by which I mean coming over to my table and start hurling profanities at me when I was minding my own business sitting with my gemmed hommies.

I submit there's plenty of IC justification for this. There's NPCs right now protesting right in front of the quarter. Do you think they are there to nice to passing gemmers?

These are people who are having magical calamity after magical calamity visited on them. For the common citizen, there probably doesn't look like there's a recourse.  Trusting in the Highlord didn't save their wife/son/neighbor. They are literally starving to death. What are they supposed to do about it?  Wait to die? The gemmers are an obvious available target.  A commoner convinced that he is going to die due to random magickal explosions anyway, might very well become the cornered rat, lashing out due to fear.

Again, the fear/hate of magickers isn't supposed to work to their -advantage-.  A few magickers seem to expect to wield the fear/hate stick to earn automatic respect. But it's not the type of fear of Templar or fear of Gage Gritshaw that lets that kind of character swagger around. This is the fear of Frankenstein, an inspiration for mobs to take up torches and chase the monster.

[Bast]

I played a gemmed I got a lot more "i hate you you fecking finger wiggler' and botched assassination attempts rather than obvious signs of fear. Which I was felt was pretty crappy roleplay especially giving I was playing a pretty freaking powerful Krathi. In fact on several occasions I had people go out there way to pick verbal fights with my PC by which I mean coming over to my table and start hurling profanities at me when I was minding my own business sitting with my gemmed hommies.

I submit there's plenty of IC justification for this. There's NPCs right now protesting right in front of the quarter. Do you think they are there to nice to passing gemmers?


These are people who are having magical calamity after magical calamity visited on them. For the common citizen, there probably doesn't look like there's a recourse.  Trusting in the Highlord didn't save their wife/son/neighbor. They are literally starving to death. What are they supposed to do about it?  Wait to die? The gemmers are an obvious available target.  A commoner convinced that he is going to die due to random magickal explosions anyway, might very well become the cornered rat, lashing out due to fear.

Again, the fear/hate of magickers isn't supposed to work to their -advantage-.  A few magickers seem to expect to wield the fear/hate stick to earn respect. But it's not the type of fear of Templar or fear of Gage Gritshaw that lets that kind of character swagger around. This is the fear of Frankenstein, an inspiration for mobs to take up torches and chase the monster.

First off this was way way before all those things your talking about happened. Secondly yes I am well aware magickers are an easy target. And I have no issue with a fear response or even occasional anger, glares, under the breath comments. However when I play mundanes unless circumstances prove otherwise I live in fear of mages. I mean honestly if you know someone is capable (or believe they are) of causing plagues, mass famines, and blasting people to ash where they stand (oh and eating babies )  are you really gonna tell me your first response is to walk over and try to pick a fight? Even if you hate them to death I would think most people wouldn't walk right up and say it to their faces or be silly enough to attack them in their temple. Honestly when I play a gemmed I'm normally going into the role expecting to get ignored, used by Templar, and being socially ostracized.  In way that's part of the fun of playing a magicker.  

[hyzhenhok]

This would completely kill the idea of a player playing a magicker that doesn't know they are one yet. You'd just walk into a bar and instantly know your a elementalist. I think it would take away from some very interesting roleplay situations.  It would also be the end of all closet magickers.

No, the idea was to apply it to gemmed characters.

karma-envy-impaired

Is this what it boils down to? You're ranting against a strawman because someone (who probably has less karma than you) dared suggest that you, the karma-endowed, proven Zalanthan roleplaying expert, can't play and enjoy a gemmed exactly how you want to?

[Bast]

This would completely kill the idea of a player playing a magicker that doesn't know they are one yet. You'd just walk into a bar and instantly know your a elementalist. I think it would take away from some very interesting roleplay situations.  It would also be the end of all closet magickers.

No, the idea was to apply it to gemmed characters.

karma-envy-impaired

Is this what it boils down to? You're ranting against a strawman because someone (who probably has less karma than you) dared suggest that you, the karma-endowed, proven Zalanthan roleplaying expert, can't play and enjoy a gemmed exactly how you want to?

Its hardly fair to only apply that to the gemmed as it would imply something about the -gem- itself not the mage causes the effect and I don't see the Templar or the Highlord doing such a thing.

[hyzhenhok]

Its hardly fair to only apply that to the gemmed as it would imply something about the -gem- itself not the mage causes the effect and I don't see the Templar or the Highlord doing such a thing.

Echoes and scripts like a bartender frowning when you sit at his bar. Nothing more. Obviously the bartender would be reacting to the gem, not the fact that you're a magicker.