Gemmed Treatment and Roleplay v.68468176981435

[Bast]

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.

Oh okay...yeah I could see that. I thought you were saying cantrip like echos. I must have miss read it. sorry 

[Salt Merchant]

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?

I'm ranting now, am I? Let he who casts the first stone...

Actually, I thought I summarized the whole situation rather tidily.

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

Not if they were still gemmed. There could be a few templars or Oashi overseers stationed about. The gemmed themselves could guard the entrance (in fact, the entrance could well be "special" in the same sense as the temples').

Remember the primary function of the gem.

[X-D]

Used to be such a place, Staff shut it down.

[jhunter]

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.

By your own statements over the subject, the magicker players are karma'd players who have earn the trust of the staff to roleplay it properly. You are still laying all the blame over the issue on the magicker players rather than accepting that it -might- be at least in part in the fault of the mundane players not following the documentation and playing the part of the mundane in this gameworld being responsible just as much for it as well as the players of the magickers. It isn't just on the part of the karma'd players to play their magicker pcs within the documentation, it is just as much the part of the other players to strive to do so as well.

It seems to me that you have just as much indignation about having to roleplay fear of magick/magickers as you are accusing them of.

[jhunter]

Used to be such a place, Staff shut it down.

You are totally right. There was an attempt at a reincarnation of such which was also destroyed.

[Bast]

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

Not if they were still gemmed. There could be a few templars or Oashi overseers stationed about. The gemmed themselves could guard the entrance (in fact, the entrance could well be "special" in the same sense as the temples').

Remember the primary function of the gem.

I don't know if it should be a gemmed -only- fort or what not but it would be very cool to see something akin to this or maybe even a gemmed bar in the elementalist quarter. Might even attract more rogues to take a gem as well.

[Fool]

What would make players roleplay being more afraid of magickers?

I still question the motives to maintain this universal fear and hatred for magick wholesale, since it really narrows and limits the social potential for magicker characters.  Why is there such a strong push to maintain this, in spite of it being difficult to maintain amongst the player base as many of these magicker characters strive for employment, tolerance, peace, and social acceptance?  Why can't we fear the character instead of the class?  Making the classes with the highest potential for coded power the one with the least propensity for cooperative, peaceful, and positive social interaction only seems like it will achieve more threads like this.

Perhaps going more indepth into why mundanes would consider those with supernatural powers to be something to fear/revile/resent/hate would help? It can be bad when players have their characters 'fear' magickers because the docs tell them to without understanding why their character would. I think that kind of thing can lead to players acting out that fear in a slightly excessive manner (or not at all) frustratating both themselves and the magicker.

Personally I do prefer settings in which supernatural powers are considered "scary" because it just makes sense to me, and seems much more realistic. If group A has access to more power than group B due to entirely arbitrary reasons then it makes sense that mistrust and resentment will breed. Fear and hatred come later, for me it starts with mistrust and resentment.

If one person has more power than another then there are going to be trust issues. Its natural. The person without power is taking more of a risk if they choose to trust the person with power than the person with power is. So the mundane is going to be wary of trusting the magicker, constantly on guard for betrayal, and prone to overreacting to betrayals (real and perceived) if not outright acting preemptively if they feel they can no longer trust the magicker. The mundane is in a state of constant suspicion, which may manifest as fear, which may manifest in a variety of ways from hatred to grovelling servitude.

Could you enjoy drinking at the bar with the local crime boss every week? Sure. Would you ever forget that they _are_ the local crime boss? Not likely. Likewise I feel a small amount of fear when I see the police driving next to me. Not becuase I am doing something wrong, but becuase I fear that they might think otherwise becuase I'm in a situation where I have to trust someone else who has more power than me. Its uncomfortable.

The second thing is resentment. I don't know about anyone else but if my best friend suddenly got cool super powers... I'd feel some resentment that I didn't get them too, or to be brutally honest: That they got them instead of me. Overtime that resentment might build up into bitterness and hatred as my old friend outshines my achievements and makes my every effort surplus to requirements. Now if its some choadheaded asswipe that got super powers you better beleive I'd be resentful and bitter at the universe for not having gotten them myself. The outlet for that hatred? Well the only reasonable target is the person with the powers.

The magicker is likely to weary of the constant mistrust and resentment received from mundanes and treat them with disdain and contempt, which only fuels the fires of the mundanes mistrust and resentment.


To sum up, while I think LoD is right that Magickers could be better integrated into the PC population I would find it hard to relate to a situation in which the majority of the populace doesn't mistrust and resent them. My suggestion is for players to focus more on how their character deals with the mistrust and resentment rather that trying to force themselves to play unreasoned fear and hatred.


As an aside, I've always like the idea of rituals and what not that required the caster to have assitants to perform. Would increase the degree of interaction, interesting too if some of them required a drain of the assistants health, stun, or stam. Then of course there is the seks magicks with the orgy rituals... Never warmed to the idea of Elementalists tho so I wouldn't miss them, its just a personal dislike tho that is not Armageddon specific.

[Niamh]

There are IC reasons why the Elementalists' Quarter is the way it is, and no one has put a bar or anything of the sort in there.

Also, there is a sort of "meeting place" in the Quarter, with things for sale and entertainment.  Yet there always seems to be someone complaining that there isn't.

[FantasyWriter]

There are IC reasons why the Elementalists' Quarter is the way it is, and no one has put a bar or anything of the sort in there.

Also, there is a sort of "meeting place" in the Quarter, with things for sale and entertainment.  Yet there always seems to be someone complaining that there isn't.

Give the food seller a booze item.

[Pale Horse]

There are IC reasons why the Elementalists' Quarter is the way it is, and no one has put a bar or anything of the sort in there.

Also, there is a sort of "meeting place" in the Quarter, with things for sale and entertainment.  Yet there always seems to be someone complaining that there isn't.

Give the food seller a booze item.

Flag part of the area as "indoors" so said gemmers can hang out there for longer periods 

Needs more tables, too.

[AmandaGreathouse]

Think about this: The gemmmed quarter's been around since before all these catastrophes. Everyone hates/fears the gemmed. Already, there's people rioting around outside the quarter and plenty of people starving to death in the city. Can anyone see how these angry mobs would react if the templarate and/or nobility came in and put a fucking TAVERN up in the elementalists quarter while the 'real' citizens were starving? I can see a lot more things being destroyed out of a show of anger, and a lot more angry people joining up with that mob. And that's just with the tavern....

Now picture what the response would be if the outpost came to fruition? I don't see ANYONE in power in the city wanting to deal with the obvious wave of shit that that would cause.

edit to add:

Plus, add to that the fact that gemmed 'is' an isolated role. So them being forced to integrate with normal citizens when they want to sit at the bar and having a drink works from an OOC playability standpoint as well as the obvious IC reasons why they wouldn't have a tavern of their own.

[janeshephard]

There are IC reasons why the Elementalists' Quarter is the way it is, and no one has put a bar or anything of the sort in there.

Also, there is a sort of "meeting place" in the Quarter, with things for sale and entertainment.  Yet there always seems to be someone complaining that there isn't.

My gemmers never found this place and never knew it existed. I think that's an issue, yes. It should be more prominent.

[Lizzie]

My -non-gemmers from Allanak know about it. It's one of the neatest public spots in the city and in fact it's one of the reasons my southern-born characters have at least a begrudging tolerance for gemmers. I always make sure to give any southern-born characters I create, a built-in reason to at least visit the place on occasion. Their reaction would depend on the character's personality but I just love going there to soak in the atmosphere.

[Qzzrbl]

The second thing is resentment. I don't know about anyone else but if my best friend suddenly got cool super powers... I'd feel some resentment that I didn't get them too, or to be brutally honest: That they got them instead of me.

The rest of your post made sense..... Except for this paragraph.

The average Zalanthan commoner doesn't look at them as "super cool powers", they look at them as world-destroying abominations.

[spawnloser]

hyzenhock, first thing's first.  Last time you RP'd being afraid you were treated like a moron?  Bullshit.  Your CHARACTER was treated like a moron by people that were ignoring the documentation, not to mention the reality of things (because I and everyone else isn't kidding when we say a magicker is powerful).  If you had the stones, you could have reinforced the documentation for everyone instead of bitching about it now on the GDB.

Second, hyzen, did you even read anyone else's post when you suggested this last time?  (By the way, the new suggestion was for them to leak curses everywhere they go, and you hijacked it with your own idea, so don't get surprised when people think you're talking about the new idea, not the echo idea you had.)  Not to mention, also, that what you're looking for, we already have in the form of rioters all over Allanak, so I think your argument is silly.  You want scripts attached to the gem to follow everyone around everywhere they go?  That's ridiculous.  I can't see this script actually doing anything realistically, since it would have to target NPCs around the gemmer and how could it make that work without it commonly doing ridiculous things by nature of what NPCs it targets?

Third, number13, I still think you don't get it.  A MAGICKER CAN BLAST YOU INTO YOUR COMPONENT PARTS WITH ONE SPELL!  They are all Chuck Norris, wrapped in dynamite, doped up on PCP and they've got a bazooka in each hand.  The only reason those people can protest outside the Elementalists' Quarter is because there's better than a score of them... safety in numbers.  You do not have safety in numbers as a PC in the same way unless you get like 20 PCs together.  VNPCs and NPCs don't count, because they're the kinda people that are just going to get out of the way and not help you.  The magicker him/herself may be the friendliest, loviest hippy that Arm could put out, and that isn't a comment on their roleplay.  When your character isn't still scared, it is a comment on YOUR roleplay.

You are totally right. There was an attempt at a reincarnation of such which was also destroyed.

By PCs, not the staff.

[LoD]

To sum up, while I think LoD is right that Magickers could be better integrated into the PC population I would find it hard to relate to a situation in which the majority of the populace doesn't mistrust and resent them. My suggestion is for players to focus more on how their character deals with the mistrust and resentment rather that trying to force themselves to play unreasoned fear and hatred.

One of the largest barriers toward making integration work in the current game is the artificial efforts made to keep mundanes and magickers separated.  The documentation comes across as very, "Magickers on this side.  Mundanes on the other side."  I'd much rather see an environment where mundanes could choose to be on either side without strong OOC prejudice from either their peers or the Staff.

What if there was an additional social layer in the game for mundanes that willingly choose to aid, consort with, and befriend magickers in a similar way to Vampire familiars.  I don't mean to imply that they would be strange, blood-sucking servants, but more that they would be associated and viewed by the populace with the same levels of mistrust, disdain, and prejudice.  This would allow those mundane players that want to interact peacefully with magickers to do so, without feeling like they are ignoring the documentation or role-playing inappropriately.

There may even be names that develop from such relationships that mean "allies of the damned" and, perhaps, even some kind of side-effects that may inflict mundanes that have consistent exposure to magick.  Similar to people that have spent a lot of time tracking through a swamp, sewer, or other area teeming with parasites, diseases, and inflictions, someone who spends the bulk of their time around elemental magick may not be well-suited to resist some of its unsavory side-effects. Longer term supporters might develop visible signs or conditions, hinting at their involvement.  Signs that some mundane characters may work to disguise, as they may not want their involvement to be obvious.

I think this would open up more RP opportunities between magickers and mundanes and potentially even add a new social layer that wasn't there before which would help ICly define and support the general reaction to magick.  Instead of magickers vs. mundane, it's more like magick-supporters vs. non-magick-supporters, which I think is a much broader and playable category into which to funnel the citizens of Allanak.

-LoD

[AmandaGreathouse]

Third, number13, I still think you don't get it.  A MAGICKER CAN BLAST YOU INTO YOUR COMPONENT PARTS WITH ONE SPELL!  They are all Chuck Norris, wrapped in dynamite, doped up on PCP and they've got a bazooka in each hand.  The only reason those people can protest outside the Elementalists' Quarter is because there's better than a score of them... safety in numbers.  You do not have safety in numbers as a PC in the same way unless you get like 20 PCs together.  VNPCs and NPCs don't count, because they're the kinda people that are just going to get out of the way and not help you.  The magicker him/herself may be the friendliest, loviest hippy that Arm could put out, and that isn't a comment on their roleplay.  When your character isn't still scared, it is a comment on YOUR roleplay.

Best post in the thread yet.

Magickers aren't beholden to be baby eating monsters. Magickers are regular people, cursed or blessed, depending on your perspective, with a connection to their element. It has little to do with their actual personality. The baby-eating soul-flaying pyscho of doom stuff is based on the perspective of the mundane population.

And according to the magicker documentation:
A thought to keep in mind when working with elementalists is that they're not priests. Or philosophers. Or druids. Or seers. Or Wizards. They do not get their powers by prayer, worship, communing with a greater power, or studying ancient texts. Many of them make no effort whatsoever to nurture their power and never sought it out to begin with. They were born this way and that's that. Some elementalists doubtless view their powers as a curse, but have taken up the life of an elementalist because there's no escaping what they are.

Despite their powers elementalists are mortal, and have the same motivations as others of their race. A dwarven Whiran has a focus like any other dwarf, a Suk-Krathi elf is still sly, and a gypsy Vivaduan still tries to steal babies when she thinks no one is looking. These things don't change just because they can use magick. There is no philosophical bent that comes along with, or is a requirement of, having access to the elemental planes.

A Whiran may have no greater aspiration than to get drunk as often as possible, and only keeps up attendance at his temple because it gives him a community to rely on when times are hard. There are slackers, moochers, and freeloaders in every society, even one made up of elementalists, and they rarely stick around when times get hard.

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Emphasis mine.

So yeah, as long as your magicker is taking the npc/vnpc world into account in their roleplay, there's essentially not any other requirement for how they're played. They're not 'doing it wrong' if they're not ACTUALLY the soul-eating monsters your pcs perceive them to be. That's your pcs own inaccurate perception. And anyone who gives you crap about that is 'doing it wrong', because that's how your pc OUGHT to see them. Hippie or no.

[number13]

The only reason those people can protest outside the Elementalists' Quarter is because there's better than a score of them... safety in numbers.  You do not have safety in numbers as a PC in the same way unless you get like 20 PCs together.  VNPCs and NPCs don't count, because they're the kinda people that are just going to get out of the way and not help you.

Convenient. In current climate Vampires magickers will always out-gun mundane commoners.  Even if every last single mundane southern commoner there is got together, there'd be like 0 to 5 off-peak.  Probably less than 20 even at peak.  You are expecting way too much from a player base that is a) small b) too spread out.

You're ignoring the fact that the fear of magickers is supposed to be a bad thing for magickers, not a automatic ticket to pwns-ville.  And fear can be expressed in many different ways, foolhardy swagger being one of them, and probably not atypical reaction for a culture where Might Equals Right -- like Allanak.  In short, YOU ARE (probably) NOT PLAYING A TEMPLAR. Sorry, I want to play a templar too. Everyone does, but most aren't, and that's just how is.  You don't get the good kind of fear as a magicker. You get the "that guy is creepy, I don't want to be his friend," or "that guy is dangerous, let's take him out," variety of fear.

PCs represent their population, their demographic.  If a mundane PC wants to join in on the riots, he has to deal with being singled out for scorn by gicker PCs, yes, but you can't say it's not ICly justified. Staff set up an NPC crowd, and an degenerating social situation. PCs should be able to take cues from that choice.

Related note, the shift of Allanak's PC population being heavily gemmed is terrible for bringing new players into the game. Next time you log into Allanak during off-peak hours, pretend you are a new player. You've just popped into the Gaj.  If I were a new player, I'd see be logging off for good shortly thereafter. (I did exactly that, the first time I logged into Arm, way back in the late 90s.) Yes, I know it comes and goes in cycles, but right now is a miserable time for a new player to point at Allanak when choosing a native city.

When your character isn't still scared, it is a comment on YOUR roleplay.

I guess that's why you have more karma than me, spawnloser.  I'm the MUD's worst roleplayer.

I've interacted with a couple PCs that I knew for a fact belonged to you, and mostly enjoyed it. I don't recall specifically, and it's hard to tell because I don't go looking for OOC information or participate in the IM/IRC scene, but it's possible that I've sent you a kudo -- a character I suspected belonged to you anyway.  So I know you aren't the MUD's worst roleplayer.

And yet...

All this "I can roast your guy 15 different ways, no savings throw" sounds really twinkish. I might be costing myself some brownie points by calling it out, but fuck it. It's sitting right there.  Is the appeal of magickers that you can kill noobs, and they are supposed to RP being scared of you?  That's pretty much the opposite of what I personally expect out of players running a karma role. I doubt you are seeing yourself in that light, and you are probably responsible and engaged with attempting to make the entire experience fun for everyone in-game, but they way your messages are reading... It's giving me an unfavorable impression.

[Chettaman]

First. Let's all take a second to breath. And calm down.

Honestly, though. That last post Spawnloser posted was spot on... the last paragraph anyhow. And you usually wouldn't find me saying things like that about his posts.
Anyhow... The fear of magickers isn't -just- "that guy is creepy" or "let's take him out" The fear of magickers spawns from ignorance. The people of allanak don't know what the magickers are capable of. That vividuan... most people don't know what a vividuan is. Most people don't give the time of day to learn anything about magickers. That vividuan, most people think has the power to snap your neck from a distance... or shoot you with mind arrows... or make you hold your breath 'till you die. Not only what they can do. Or how many times they can do it. The fear of magickers comes from people expecting the worst. -and- when a magicker does happen to become your friend, he might be controlling your mind with his magick. Earned your trust? Please... it -must- be a trick. To a commoner, gemmed have the ability to do anything.

What spawnloser probably tried to get across was, hate is good. But deep down... people should be scared of the person who could make them explode with a snap of their fingers.

[Salt Merchant]

There are IC reasons why the Elementalists' Quarter is the way it is, and no one has put a bar or anything of the sort in there.

Also, there is a sort of "meeting place" in the Quarter, with things for sale and entertainment.  Yet there always seems to be someone complaining that there isn't.

There are reasons too that the sort of "meeting place" is rarely used.

1. No message board.
2. No drinks.
3. Food, such as it is, is in a different room.
4. A single table.

So hardly a tavern at all.

But these all pale in comparison to the main reason: to put it bluntly,
the location SUCKS.

Put it one room north of the Vivaduan temple and it could work. Gemmed
PCs are pretty thin on the ground, but they do all tend to move past
there and so could look in. If one sat there, it wouldn't be long
before another passed by and could join in.

Proof is how the Vivaduan temple used to work. Before the changes
upstairs, which drew the Vivaduans out of their temple proper, and
before the pool and messages were changed to indicate an uncomfortable
and undesirable environment, impromptu gatherings of the gemmed
happened all of the time.

Another thing that would help would be to encourage mages to at least
spend time in their lobbies. Every temple has an interior room for
best "contemplation". When a gemmed PC walks around, the temples are
always looking empty from outside.

[Semper]

I think there will always be players (and thus characters) that want to be friendly with magickers for no other reason than that they're cool, and you can get special benefits, when the code doesn't prevent it otherwise.

Take spice IG for example. There's benefits. There's also disadvantages. Why isn't it more prevalently used?

The stigma attached to it in a certain location, the code which lets you know the consequences of taking spice, and the high price that it takes to purchase them.

Magick on the other hand does have a stigma, and benefits, but the harmful consequences of interacting with it is non-existent in the code. Aside from the documentation, there's nothing stopping a character from enjoying the benefits (and the cool-ness of the magick-code) aside from the potential risk to their social status.

Make magick to mundanes like spice. You want to play with it, have it so you understand that constant affiliation around magick will affect your character in not-so-good ways as well. This will also give a dilemma to magickers and their view of their magick.

[edited to add: This isn't a very clear post but hope it'll get the point across, as I wrote it while rushed out the door.]

[Pale Horse]

I think there will always be players (and thus characters) that want to be friendly with magickers for no other reason than that they're cool, and you can get special benefits, when the code doesn't prevent it otherwise.

Take spice IG for example. There's benefits. There's also disadvantages. Why isn't it more prevalently used?

The stigma attached to it in a certain location, the code which lets you know the consequences of taking spice, and the high price that it takes to purchase them.

Magick on the other hand does have a stigma, and benefits, but the harmful consequences of interacting with it is non-existent in the code. Aside from the documentation, there's nothing stopping a character from enjoying the benefits (and the cool-ness of the magick-code) aside from the potential risk to their social status.

Make magick to mundanes like spice. You want to play with it, have it so you understand that constant affiliation around magick will affect your character in not-so-good ways as well. This will also give a dilemma to magickers and their view of their magick.

[edited to add: This isn't a very clear post but hope it'll get the point across, as I wrote it while rushed out the door.]

Sort of some sort of magickal addiction for any mundane that ends up around them while they're casting, too often?  I could dig that.

[janeshephard]

Sort of some sort of magickal addiction for any mundane that ends up around them while they're casting, too often?  I could dig that.

I'm for this as long as its just buffs and such. You shouldn't become addicted to magick merely by its presence or all of Allanak would be addicted by now.

[jhunter]

You're ignoring the fact that the fear of magickers is supposed to be a bad thing for magickers, not a automatic ticket to pwns-ville.

You're just plain wrong there. The fear -can- be a negative thing -or- a positive thing for the magickers. You are skewing it to fit your personal view of how it should be. Not how it -is-. You are refusing to use it -because- of the fact that it isn't always to your mundane pc's advantage. Nowhere in the documentation is it stated that the fear of magick is only supposed to work one way, against the magicker. Not to mention, if it were the case, that would be extremely unrealistic. True fear is usually a weakness to exploit. It sounds more and more to me like you refuse to do it because it won't help you "win".

[number13]

You are skewing it to fit your personal view of how it should be. Not how it -is-. You are refusing to use it -because- of the fact that it isn't always to your mundane pc's advantage.

Welp, that's 100% true.  I'm viewing social perception of magickers as class balance, the trade off for having faster progression and in some ways better potential than mundane PCs.  If LoD's right, it's actually that the social perception of magickers resulted in their progression being amped up.

If I'm wrong, then I'm looking at the problem from the incorrect point of view.  I should instead just say that it's a terrible idea to allow the majority of the active player base to start off with characters that are flat-out better than those available to new players, and essentially leave a significant portion of our small pool of vets unable to form groups and positive relationships with new players.

I prefer magickers to be very rare, but failing that they should be nerfed (or better yet, mundanes' progression buffed x2 or x3) and then allowed to mix more freely with mundanes in Allanak.  Small p.base needs a excuses to interact with each other, not excuses to not interact with each other.  

Meanwhile, playing out Snotty the Human Kickball isn't fun, and isn't desirable unless it's explicitly the role you've signed on for. You can't remove magickers' barely extant disadvantage without either dramatic reduction in numbers or dramatic reduction is power potential differences, or you can kiss the idea of mundane Allanak good-bye and make it a city of PC wizards. (I should say, keep it the city of PC wizards.)  In which case, for the sake of new players, I'd remove Allanak as a start option for anyone with less than 2 karma.