Magick: how does my character deal with it?

[janeshephard]

There is a significant demographic of players that choose desert elves, halfing PC and magical characters for the very reason that they enjoy either playing alone or in small groups.

My own experience in the last 7 months joining a clan is almost always less interaction. Especially when you're a recruit being isolated in your little outpost/city. Role anything else outside of these restrictions and interact with everybody. The exception to this rule is when you have a very active leader. I'm trying to think and can only think of two instances where the leader logged in regular hours to interact with other players. The rest just logged in when they felt like it. I knew one leader who did about 20 minutes a day whenever they felt like it.

I'm not sure people rolling loners is because they want small groups. They just don't want clan restrictions.

EDIT: Sorry I derailed :\ Just thought I'd correct this.

[X-D]

We've "dropped the hammer" before in other clans for other reasons, whether it be via NPC, e-mail, request response, or board post.  I have done this myself.  What is the point that you are making, and how does it relate to the discussion at hand?  Are you saying that there should be more clans that gemmers can be involved in?  Is this causing a problem?  Is there a void in the game that is not filled due to these changes?

I was just pointing out that 90%++ of the reason the game is towards mages today and the fact that they are all hated almost equally, is staff doing, NOT IC or player driven...at least not to start or for the majority.
As to more clans allowing gemmers, Yes, there should be. As to a void, again, yes, and a very large one. It was closed a tiny bit when the council was in play, but then it was closed and the void became large again.

I'm not sure how to classify this one, but I'll try.  You already know that we do not make any plots (except one) staff-created anymore.  We let things develop as influenced by players.  This has developed over time.  In the past, there was less of an emphasis on player-created plots, but players still had the capacity to do so, and the ability to be involved in staff-created plots.  Staff-created or no, players influenced it and were a major part of it (the Cataclysm stories I've written were based on logs, staff wiki information, and staff information about PCs involved).  Where should the line be drawn, and is that even an important distinction to make?

Yes, today, and recently, staff has tried to push towards player driven plots or at least ones that can be heavily player influenced. But this is recent.

Even when you talk about back in the day and logs etc, the influence by the players was at best, window dressing. The Building still went as staff planned it. Hell, if it was not for the staff influence in the rebellion, specially the rebellion at luirs, that would have turned out totally different. Since the north was heavily outnumbered PC wise.(alright, the 666 crashes did not help either, but still.)

Magick and how it affects my PC:  I played one PC in a severely anti-magick area of the game.  Even PCs that have plots and plans to destroy magickers can still fear them.  Even PCs that fear and hate magickers can interact with them in a neutral setting.  Even that PC found an occasion to interact with magickers without trying to actively kill them.  (one occasion only though)

That is all well and good, so have/do I. But should your PC hate/fear a rukkian the same as they do a sorcerer? I don't think so, and that has been half of my point.

Over all I agree with LoD in that the old model was better.

[Nyr]

That is all well and good, so have/do I. But should your PC hate/fear a rukkian the same as they do a sorcerer? I don't think so, and that has been half of my point.

I would agree.

[Intrepid]

I played in both the old model and the new model.  I remember having a 60+ day mage that still did not have all the spells in that grouping.  I was also in a certain clan back then that accepted mages.  This clan, unfortunately, was shut down.  I understand the reasons why, and the frustrations behind the decision, but there were some of us who wanted to work the situation out with the imms and keep the clan going.  It served to give mages a societal option back then that was not Allanak or rogue.

That said, I think the hatred and distrust of mages has reached a ludicrous and unbelievable level.  Each year that has passed has only worsened the situation beyond the previous year as each instance of the playerbase tries to prove they are playing to the model by simply overdoing the expectations.

I can understand one noble house hating mages.  Maybe another distrusting them.  Maybe another simply superstitious and fearing them.  However, we seem to have created a blanket reaction for all houses, noble and merchant.  There was a time when merchant houses were salty.  They would deal with halfers, they would deal with mages.  They opportunists.  Somewhere along the line, the merchant houses badly, BADLY lost their way and somehow developed standards on par with a noble house.

Armageddon pcs are supposed to be this opportunistic because they can't afford to be picky when their ascent to power and their survival is at stake.  Refuse the cleanest water you've ever seen in your entire life when you're dying of thirst in the middle of a sandtrap...and the guy next to you will accept it and laugh in your face.  That's exactly what the trends of recent years have come across as.

Now...I don't blame the imms or the players.  This is a subctultural trend that we all allowed to happen.  We forgot the original purpose of having elementalists have a quarter in Allanak.  I can assure you, playing back in the day, it was not a cage.

For those of you wondering just how self-destructive the playerbase can really be in the setting just to prove its hatred for mages (not fear, hatred and hatred alone) check out some of the rp logs.  One in particular that drew my attention was a log of a motion by the Senate to illegalize mages entirely from Allanak.  It took a black robe templar's visit to halt this motion, and the fact that they had to explain to the assembly that, yes, Allanak would buckle under the loss of mages, was a truly a saddening event for me as a player.  I realized then that even the best roleplayers had lost foresight and could literally run a city state right into the ground.

Anyway, common sense should have been applied by all of us back then.  The unnamed clan that used to take in mages is now, more than ever, sorely missed by those of us who can recall its existence.

[AmandaGreathouse]

hatred for mages (not fear, hatred and hatred alone)

THAT is what spurred my comment that apparently got the thread started to begin with. At this point, considering the way they're essentially universally treated where marked, I see death outside the city as preferable to being marked and a life of shit and being bodily and verbally attacked every day for being stupid enough to get marked with a gem.

It HAS become a cage. And if shit IG isn't going to change, I think the magick helpfiles need to be updated to reflect the attitudes of people toward mages, as well as what the gem has become.

[Intrepid]

It HAS become a cage. And if shit IG isn't going to change, I think the magick helpfiles need to be updated to reflect the attitudes of people toward mages, as well as what the gem has become.

I actually tried a couple of times to play a gemmer a few years back.  Probably the worst mistake I ever made in making a pc, and each time they died, I felt it was euthanasia.

[AmandaGreathouse]

It HAS become a cage. And if shit IG isn't going to change, I think the magick helpfiles need to be updated to reflect the attitudes of people toward mages, as well as what the gem has become.

I actually tried a couple of times to play a gemmer a few years back.  Probably the worst mistake I ever made in making a pc, and each time they died, I felt it was euthanasia.

Any time I've played one that's stayed in the city, it's felt like that. And, truly, the worst gemmed experience I ever, ever had was with House Oash. And it wasn't the players, I love the people who played the characters. It was every other thing about it.

[Intrepid]

Any time I've played one that's stayed in the city, it's felt like that. And, truly, the worst gemmed experience I ever, ever had was with House Oash. And it wasn't the players, I love the people who played the characters. It was every other thing about it.

So, I'm going to expound on this a little bit.

I understand that magick is meant to be mysterious, and LoD logically can explain why it's not.  That said, the idea of preventing it from being a known factor has come to the point where the magicker factor in plots has been flushed down the toilet; all potential to utilize them, even if you don't like them, has been destroyed via the inevitable increase in utter hatred.  So, what could have been a tense deal with the devil is now impossible.  Only certain people are expected or even allowed to deal with the mage class of Allanaki society.

Anyone ever see 300?  One of my favorite scenes was Leonidas talking to the mystics.  He dreaded dealing with these guys, and their description should have set the supersititious on edge.  Of course, "on edge" does not mean "homcidal".  Leonidas didn't just wack them to pieces.  He not only needed their advice, it was expected and required that he get it.  Now that's an interesting roleplay scene to me.  Unfortunately, it's become convenient to completely eliminate all possible dealings with the underhanded.

When was the last time someone in Allanak dealt with an elven market or tried to acquire something from the elves that was necessary?  What about buying a spell when you're neither a Templar or an Oash?  What about even dealing with a half-elf that was not part of the Byn?

I think the formula strayed too far out of wack, and it's made dealing with half-elves, elves and magickers obsolete through outright refusal.  In doing so, it's eliminated an entire type of storyline from our potential, just to satisfy a paradigm that has to be forced.

[Barzalene]

I didn't realize it had gotten that bad.
I think I am reacting to the situation that was in effect in late 07 or in 08. When the magickers were all kitted out on the most expensive silks and partying up at the bar.
And I think there should be, yes, enough interaction that people can play a gemmed magicker without wishing they hadn't. Seriously, I didn't know it was that bad.
But it has to stop short of erasing the stigma. There should still be a stigma.

[AmandaGreathouse]

There should, of course, still be a stigma. But the only FEAR I've seen of mages IG other than 2 people who I sent kudos to, is that which I've made in the VNPC population. Although I have to say, most likely a certain NPC set at the entrance to the mages quarter (thereabout) which has echoes about throwing ROCKS probably has a lot to do with new players and their perceptions of how to treat gemmed.

[Intrepid]

But it has to stop short of erasing the stigma. There should still be a stigma.

I like the stigma.  However, "stigma" is not what's being played anymore.  And it hasn't been for a while now.  The thing that gets me is that there has been a lot of work put into detailing the elementalists' quarter, making clothing and tattoos unique to them, creating an atmosphere of what a place would be like that was saturated with magick.  However, I think most of it is being wasted.  Players who aren't aware of pointless it is to make a non-human mage in Allanak will make one and take the gem, then rot in one of the temples or get killed/arrested in an altercation with, quite frankly, overzealous mundanes.  I've tried it myself and watched it happen to others.  It's a shame, since that much work gave me the feeling of a subculture in Allanaki society, not a group of castoffs and targets.

[Armaddict]

...are people really complaining about mages being treated badly?  Stop playing them immediately if so.

[Intrepid]

...are people really complaining about mages being treated badly?  Stop playing them immediately if so.

Are people hating them for no believable reason?  Yes.  The answer isn't to eliminate the role.

[Barzalene]

I, now that I'm listening, am hearing that it's more than treated badly. It's that they're treated so badly that it's not palatable to play a gemmer.

I remember when I started, back in 02 Tor used to have war mages.

And people would go back and forth on whether to bring their dying friend to the vividuan.

But you didn't get chummy with them.

[Reiteration]

...are people really complaining about mages being treated badly?  Stop playing them immediately if so.

Are people hating them for no believable reason?  Yes.  The answer isn't to eliminate the role.

No believable reason? Mages, wielding a plethora of deadly abilities while masked by superstitions and assumptions does not count as a believable reason to hate them?
Doesn't that come with the job description?

[Intrepid]

No believable reason? Mages, wielding a plethora of deadly abilities while masked by superstitions and assumptions does not count as a believable reason to hate them?
Doesn't that come with the job description?

What you're referring to should result in fear and mistrust...but the primary emotion being exhibited is hatred to ludicrous level.

[Reiteration]

No believable reason? Mages, wielding a plethora of deadly abilities while masked by superstitions and assumptions does not count as a believable reason to hate them?
Doesn't that come with the job description?

What you're referring to should result in fear and mistrust...but the primary emotion being exhibited is hatred to ludicrous level.

I usually hate that which I fear, as it allows me to try to control it instead of slinking away and hiding. I can hate dark places because I fear being trapped inside them, I can hate magickers because I fear being destroyed by them.

[AmandaGreathouse]

This:

And what about good wine, music, and comfortable clothing? There are people who will endure the prejudice of a city-state in return for having access to the lifestyle and culture it makes available to them.

No longer seems to be accurate. It should be changed. When you are told not to leave the gemmed quarter, if you actually listen to the templar telling you (and yes, more than one has told more than one of my pc gemmed this), then you not only don't have access to wine or music, you only have access to elemental robes.

As only one example.

And this:

Just because an elementalist in Allanak is treated poorly does not mean they have an overwhelming desire to leave the city. Even slaves in a city-state setting will not leave the city-state when given the opportunity, instead fleeing to the slums or possibly trying to pose as an artisan if they have the skills to do so.

does not equate with mages. Because presumably, a slave can remove its collar. And you are now expected, from (staff placed) NPC echoes, to believe that any time you go in or out of the gemmed Quarter, you are literally having rocks thrown at you.

Leaving that aside, there's also the IC info redacted - Nyr

Kinda makes this:

One reason for doing this is a lack of knowledge on the conditions of life outside of the city walls. There are gaj, anakore, gith, and worse out in the desert, and what do they know of such things? The land is covered with people that don't even speak a civilized language like sirihish, how would they communicate with them?

and

Possibly they've traveled, or are from another land, or have gone shadow walking if they're a drovian. They have seen life outside of the city state and don't care for the lawless nature of that life

combined with this:

Within the city-state at least the rules are known, and if observed with a great deal of humility, one can expect to live by them.

no longer being true... is a damn good reason to drive magickers out of the city rather than see them gemmed.

A damn good one.

And, again, I'm NOT complaining about things, or saying that they need to be changed. But perhaps the documentation needs to be adjusted to reflect things more as they ACTUALLY are NOW.

[Armaddict]

Alright.  Let me go more in depth with this then.

First off.  I have no idea how this turned into alluding to times when magickers weren't treated badly, aside from those various times where you saw elementalists -everywhere- and where saying one bad word about them resulted in not only them banding up against you, but in their mundane friends jumping in as well.  Those times are few and far between.  As far as job availability, there have been brief surges of more job availability within Allanak (which is the place where my perspective comes from, FYI.  I rarely play in Tuluk.) but those times were just that.  Brief.  For at least a decade now, gemmed within the city have been not pushed, but herded into jobs with a few select places.  You don't -have- to work for them, but they are the ones who make ready use of the gemmed, and through their own relationship with the city, make those gemmed more 'trusted' (though not necessarily better liked).  Something changing for six to seven months then going back to what it was does not make that the new norm, that is a deviation.  What it returns to is the norm.  I can probably count the number of gemmed not in those clans who made a pretty damn good name for themself on two hands, out of those who remained unclanned and in the city.

I have no idea where this concept of increasing hostility comes from.  I remember times when groups would assemble to go out and slaughter a troublesome mage (who was known to not be a sorcerer).  Lone elementalists in the wastes, particularly those in a vulnerable position, have -long- been in danger of being targeted and taken down by someone confident or foolish enough to do it.  That is not -new-.  At all.  None.  That is how it has always been.  At least in the past eleven or twelve years that I have played here, and in the southern region of the world.

Socially, I remember times when gemmed mages were taken to a jail and killed, or thrown in the arena, for even -threatening- to use their magick on someone who started shit with them.  That's a long far cry from when it briefly became standard to use 'cantrips' to try and scare crowds in the bar, and face no repercussion because no coded spell was cast.  Templars have very very very often made it one of their themes to treat the gemmed horribly, and that has come at fairly frequent intervals through the years, only to suffer a complete switch in the other direction once that particular templar dies or retires or whatnot.

So again.  I have no idea what you're referring to as 'new' hostility.

You are making a huge assumption, which is that your average commoner will readily and easily know or take the time to know between an elementalist's magick and a sorcerer's magick.  Most don't.  Most just know that there's something different that makes it so -these- can stay in the city, and -these- can't, and then templars order them to sometimes kill magickers, and sometimes....sometimes, there are these really fucked up ones that are incredibly powerful, do crazy shit, and kill lots of people.  That doesn't necessarily mean they distinguish classes, in other words separate a weak drovian from a sorcerer.  They're just at different levels of power, for all they know.  And those that do know the difference, still really may not care.  They get told which ones to leave alone, the others are fair game.

The mere idea of people who play mages consistently demanding that social repercussions of their class be changed because they don't like how they play in the city is ridiculous.  If you don't like playing a magicker in the city, don't play one in the city, but you can't complain when a group of hunters sees you out there doing your shit and sees that you're not even acknowledged by their city, and decide to kill you (or try, at least).  And demanding all these clans open back up to mages because you want to play in them with your mages is asking for documentation, and the way the world works as a whole, to change because you don't like it anymore.  Which is also ridiculous.

So again, I say...if you don't like people treating you badly in cities, please stop playing mages in cities immediately.

Now.  On to a couple other things.

First off.  300 analogy.  Doesn't work.  First off, he knows them to be a farce.  Second off, he clearly states the desire to kill, but inability to due to tradition and law (i.e. THEY WEAR A GEM).  Third off.  He is not on edge, he is clearly disgusted and repulsed and irritated, but not in fear of his life, or of what they can do, or of the power they potentially hold.

Second off.  Half-elves and elves.  Once again...wtf, -new- hostility?  -New- lack of willingness to work?  Half-elves haven't been closed out of any clan that they were able to join prior, and still do absolutely fine as independents.  I don't see any change whatsoever.  Elves?  Of course no one wants to deal with them.  And the elven mentality loves it.  Normally they have to search for their prey, for their scams, and have to manipulate to get things their way.  When a roundear comes to them, hating elves but still needing help?  Well shit, this scam just got -easy-.  That's not new either.  And it's far from unplayable, it actually enhances the roles quite nicely.

[Nyr]

everything

I do not mean to directly target this, but I do not feel that this is a fair portrayal.  I could break the entire post up and refute everything written, but that will take time and will only result in back and forth with no one feeling good about it.  Cherry-picking sections of documentation out of context, exaggerating IC events, and using a current IC problem as the basis for changing documentation--I'll just mention this is not fair, accurate, or helpful at all.  This doesn't add to a discussion, it just muddies the water.

As for the other posts about magicker stuff, a lot of responsibility falls on the players on both sides.  When you are a mundane, it is easy to take things too far.  When you are a magicker, it is easy to take things too far.

[Armaddict]

(a huge amount of gemmers killed for being gemmers?  Really?)

Having done it a fair bit...yeah.

And as far as templars coming down hard on gemmed who start threatening to use their power blatantly, to scare commoners who make an ill remark at them? Yeah.  Seen it.  Been part of it.

And that's exactly what I'm saying.  It's not an IC problem unless it's -always- been an IC problem.  Which it very well could be, but seriously?  No.

[Salt Merchant]

And people would go back and forth on whether to bring their dying friend to the vividuan.

I remember when people still used to do this. If they were dying, they -would- fearfully visit the Vivaduan temple, even though it was technically illegal. Some of the brave would even stop by to buy water.

That was in '05. By '07 or '08, visits had dwindled to a trickle (mostly wounded/thirsty militia).

The whole notion of paying gemmed for their services went from common to almost nil in the same period.

[Armaddict]

Hrm.  After rereading, let me reiterate the true point in the ramble.

The hostility isn't new.  I'm not saying everyone -needs- to go out gung-ho antimagicker, but I am saying that it has not taking as polarized of a shift as it's being presented as.  For however exaggerated you think my post is, I find the posts it responds to just as exaggerated, only in a way that says 'tone it down' where toning is not necessarily needed.

For all its worth...my current character, when encountering mages who cast...panics, and attempts to flee (though usually doesn't leave the room, the scene continues).  I've yet to had an aggressive spell cast on me since my return, but he -has- been around casting.

Edited to reply to Nyr:

No no no, not -solely- for being gemmers, within the city.  Those are the ones who are marked for toleration.  But gemmers who start threatening aggression with their magicks in the midst of rabble, resulting in templars being contacted.  What I was referring to was a few times in the distant past where even the ones doing so in defense of themselves were taken and killed or severely punished, just to pound in that unsanctioned magick outside the quarter would not be tolerated.

Where I was talking about them being killed just for wearing a gem was in places where they were vulnerable in lawless areas where toleration was not enforced.  Because that has been present over the long term as well.  What I was meaning to say was that aggression instead of just a passive loathing has been present in the magicker vs mundane roleplay for a very long time, so I think this assertion of it being a 'new' problem is unfounded and...well...a result of people wanting to play magickers without having to deal with such aggression.

[AmandaGreathouse]

To be more specific on the part I can address on the boards:  I will email you with regards to it.

[Salt Merchant]

If there's a will to provide the gemmed with more community, a very simple step would go a long way: remove a certain room from the Vivaduan barracks.

The Vivaduans would gravitate back to their temple proper, and resume their old function of serving as a nucleus for the gemmed community to gather around.