Mages Vs Mundanes.

[Harmless]

People want to interact with magickers, they can. If people don't want to interact with them, there are a fuckton of ways to safely avoid doing that.

If magickers are "rare" then people who want to interact with them won't be able to. They should be represented within the appropriate IC boundaries, that, as far as I know, are being correctly enforced for the past, oh, years.

[BadSkeelz]

Wizturbo makes two good points regarding Gemmed and Commoner friendships. I'd be skeptical of even calling them friendships, much of the time. They can be more professional in nature.

He's also right in that it's natural for the Templarate to show favor to the Gemmed when it comes to Commoner/Gemmed interactions. There's a reason Gemmed are hated and shunned by the vNPC population, and it's not just because the Gemmed are magickal. Gemmed enjoy some real privileges and some imagined ones in exchange to being essentially slaves. They have (limited) room and board, which are HUGE luxuries compared to most commoners. There's also the protection that comes with being a Templar's toys. Mundane PCs should be free to feel resentment towards the Gemmed and act on it in whatever ways they think it's safe. IF you do that, though, you have to accept that you're dicking around with the Templarate's favorite toy and, if you're too blatant, you're going to have a bad time.

If Magickers seem too accepted, that's a failure of the mundane population to not effectively shun them and treat them like the creepy, unnantural, unlucky Templarate pets that they are. Gemmed sits down at the bar? Pick up your drinks and move to a table. (This actually happens in room echoes!) Give them dirty looks in passing on the street. Make a sign to ward off the evil eye behind their back. The first reaction should be avoidance and resentment. Mundanes should be loathe to work with Gemmed. It's only after years of working alongside them, if ever, that some characters would feel semi-comfortable.

[BadSkeelz]

If you're a mundane and know another mundane who wants to be friendly/ "get to know" the Magickers, they're probably ALSO a magicker and should be lynched.

[Down Under]

Now you're just playing Mafia.

[BadSkeelz]

Wanton killing is a proven winning strategy in Mafia, at least on this forum.

[wizturbo]

If you're a mundane and know another mundane who wants to be friendly/ "get to know" the Magickers, they're probably ALSO a magicker and should be lynched.

I definitely think this should be a common reaction, at least to some degree.  The social pressure should be on the mundanes even more than the gemmed.  When you look at prejudice in the real world, that's often the case.  That's how prejudice is reinforced.  Father's freak out when their daughters bring home a minority boyfriend.  Families disown their child when they find out they're gay, or atheist, or whatever...  

I don't fault anyone roleplaying that their PC has decided to be friends with a magicker.  I don't know what that PC's background is, I don't know what their history is with the magicker...  I won't ever know, so judging them really isn't worth my time.  I think that friendship should come at a social cost though, and from what I've seen in my own experiences, they often do.  At all levels.  A Templar isn't going to care what some worthless commoner things about them, but if House Borsail decides that Templar isn't worth supporting because they're too chummy with the gemmed...it might create the appropriate social pressures, even on someone as high and mighty as a blue-robed Templar.

[FantasyWriter]

Magicker-loving mundanes should be more hated than the gicks.
These are the people who CHOOSE to be around/involved with magick.

RE: OP
Every class has an advantage over most/all other classes.
Rangers can put a -10000000HP arrow in your eye.
Warrior can wtfpwn you with a femur upside the head.
Assassins can wtfpwn you from the shadows and all you see is a mantis head.
Pickpockets can procure that 1000000000 coin dagger off your belt from in your pack on your way to deliver it to Lord Templar Hardnose.
Burglars can turn a wealthy character's world upside down, and they don't even have to be in game for it to happen.

Nearly every magicker has a spell that can do one of the above (and none of them start out with this skill either, unlike all of the mundanes).
You can practice all mundane skills above in some way without being condemned to an instant death by any PC with the power to do so if caught, most INSIDE the walls.
You can work on all of the above skills while under the protection of a clan, half all of the above have clans who will TEACH you these skills.

The only non-sponsored class that I have every thought of as truly over-powered no longer exists (RIP sorcs, oh how I wanted to play one one day).

[wizturbo]

RE: OP
Every class has an advantage over most/all other classes.
Rangers can put a -10000000HP arrow in your eye.
Warrior can wtfpwn you with a femur upside the head.
Assassins can wtfpwn you from the shadows and all you see is a mantis head.
Pickpockets can procure that 1000000000 coin dagger off your belt from in your pack on your way to deliver it to Lord Templar Hardnose.
Burglars can turn a wealthy character's world upside down, and they don't even have to be in game for it to happen.

Merchants can make so much coin, they can pay one of each class above to do all of these things at the same time.  The most OP of all classes.

[Malken]

'Gikers probably make more coins than merchants. Just sayin'.

[wizturbo]

'Gikers probably make more coins than merchants. Just sayin'.

Maybe in some cases, but they have more trouble spending it.  People don't want a dirty 'gickers money, but Amos the Armorcrafter?  Sure!  Pay up!

[FantasyWriter]

RE: OP
Every class has an advantage over most/all other classes.
Rangers can put a -10000000HP arrow in your eye.
Warrior can wtfpwn you with a femur upside the head.
Assassins can wtfpwn you from the shadows and all you see is a mantis head.
Pickpockets can procure that 1000000000 coin dagger off your belt from in your pack on your way to deliver it to Lord Templar Hardnose.
Burglars can turn a wealthy character's world upside down, and they don't even have to be in game for it to happen.

Merchants can make so much coin, they can pay one of each class above to do all of these things at the same time.  The most OP of all classes.

Damnit! I miss one!!!

'Gikers probably make more coins than merchants. Just sayin'.

Maybe in some cases, but they have more trouble spending it.  People don't want a dirty 'gickers money, but Amos the Armorcrafter?  Sure!  Pay up!

True dat.  As it should be.

[Qzzrbl]

People don't want a dirty 'gickers money

my sides

[Chettaman]

Dood. I totally believe that Witches are Over Powered. Duh.
Who can honestly throw an ball of /sun/ power able to kill you in one hit and say they aren't over powered.
With that, I also say warriors can mess your world up, assassins too with a super-gank as well as rangers through arrows and dare I say merchants? With the power of politics? Someone else said it already. Every guild has its strengths and weaknesses.

the difference between a mage weakness and a mundane weakness is just that.
Mage weak points are mostly magick. I know it's frightening. You should be scared since you're not magick.

[boog]

Am I the only person to ever play a mage that was never fully branched in like, 10 days played? I don't know. I always was RPing. I couldn't stand skilling up as a mage. I found it even more dull and repetitive than mundane skilling up.

The last time I played a magicker, that wasn't insta-ganked hour 1, mind you, I was around for 3 months before another gicker. He ended up fully branched in, oh, a week? And I still was... well, not. :/ It was extremely discouraging!

I'll leave the mage playing to the people who know how to play them. I'll just hunt those bitches down.

[wizturbo]

Am I the only person to ever play a mage that was never fully branched in like, 10 days played? I don't know. I always was RPing. I couldn't stand skilling up as a mage. I found it even more dull and repetitive than mundane skilling up.

The last time I played a magicker, that wasn't insta-ganked hour 1, mind you, I was around for 3 months before another gicker. He ended up fully branched in, oh, a week? And I still was... well, not. :/ It was extremely discouraging!

I'll leave the mage playing to the people who know how to play them. I'll just hunt those bitches down.

You're definitely not alone in this.  Most of my mages don't "fully branch" anywhere near 10 days played.  Of course, the first time playing a specific mage class slows things down considerably as you don't know what path leads to what unless you're lucky to find a teacher.

[Kol]

Don't think I've ever fully branched a mage. Can honestly say I've never branched all six starting spells, even after fifteen days or so.

[CodeMaster]

I agree with MM that it shouldn't be the mage's responsibility to make themselves hated or rare.

There should be direct constructs, both coded and social (documentation) that make mages more hated and rare.

There should be less constructs, both coded and social that allow them to be less hated and less rare.

I don't want it to be the mage's responsibility to make themselves less hated and less rare. I want it to not even be an option for them unless it is in extreme cases of exception-to-the-rule due to IC reasons pertaining to that specific PC.

Yeah, I am beginning to side with MM now too.

I agree with you here as well about there being direct constructs that reinforce the documentation.

It would be cool if there were an investigator/inquisitor type in Allanak that investigated people who were known to (or were rumored to) fraternize with mages -- a bit of soft torture to discern their motives and discourage that sort of behavior at large.

[Gunnerblaster]

It would be cool if there were an investigator/inquisitor type in Allanak that investigated people who were known to (or were rumored to) fraternize with mages -- a bit of soft torture to discern their motives and discourage that sort of behavior at large.

Oh shit - That would be downright awesome!

[wizturbo]

It would be cool if there were an investigator/inquisitor type in Allanak that investigated people who were known to (or were rumored to) fraternize with mages -- a bit of soft torture to discern their motives and discourage that sort of behavior at large.

Sorry, but that makes little sense.  This isn't Dragon Age...  The Allanaki Templarate tolerates mages. It's the commoners and some of the noble houses that don't like mages.  Unless you're talking about some grassroots, commoner or noble vigilante playing "inquisitor"..., i guess that would be okay?  Don't be surprised if the Templarate or a gemmed don't take such a thing lying down, but I think it would be pretty cool role...doubt it'd live very long though :p  

Edited...to be less harsh...

[CodeMaster]

It would be cool if there were an investigator/inquisitor type in Allanak that investigated people who were known to (or were rumored to) fraternize with mages -- a bit of soft torture to discern their motives and discourage that sort of behavior at large.

Sorry, but that makes absolutely zero sense.  This isn't Dragon Age...  The Allanaki Templarate tolerates mages. It's the commoners and some of the noble houses that don't like mages.  Unless you're talking about some grassroots, commoner or noble vigilante playing "inquisitor"..., i guess that would be okay?  Don't be surprised if the Templarate or a gemmed don't take such a thing lying down, but I think it would be pretty cool.

Absolutely zero sense?  Harsh, man.

If you had an ultra powerful slave and someone was buddying up to it while you weren't around, wouldn't you want to know what's going on?  Wouldn't you want to discourage someone from even thinking about trying to manipulate your cherished neutron bomb?

(So maybe we're just on different pages - I'd imagine if you're playing a commoner, and you're not roleplaying out the requisite disgust, then that should be noticeable to someone in the higher echelons)

[Armaddict]

I think the word 'tolerate' is pretty operational word.

The 2nd definition of it is the one I think fits: accept or endure (someone or something unpleasant or disliked) with forbearance.

In other words...they're not really -wanted-, but they're necessary.  So they have restrictions in place.  Earlier, someone made a reference to how they have a whole quarter, and that being indicative of there being more of them than we thought.

I see the quarter as indicative of this definition.  They are useful, but not wanted...so they're all kinda put out of the way over here, in their own quarter that is never described as anywhere near densely populated.  They're segregated.  This is reminiscent of the -city's- behavior towards the gemmed.

I think the population at large, however, likely has a different outlook.  They don't see any necessary need for them.  For them, they are the ones subjected to magick's continued existence.  They know they're protected from it by the templarate.  They know they're controlled.  I don't think the argument of 'It may occur to be nicer to them since they can curse you' is an extreme case, still, because of that known protection.  Historically speaking, rogue magickers, those who worked against citizens, have been harshly dealt with.  Sometimes in public, even.

I think 'average' behavior is more akin to treating them something like a leper colony.  In a world filled with slaves, the concept of 'living but not a person' is an easily received concept.  I don't think pity runs wild.  I don't think most would see it as an unfortunate affliction on a poor soul.  I think most would view it as something the templars want -for some reason-, and so they just have to deal with it...but they don't have to be nice about it.  At all.

This is reinforced, even, in the Allanaki senate log (I believe it shows it).  Even the noble houses, those in the know, want it outlawed.  They don't want it anywhere near them.  It's literally only the highlord's will that keeps it around.  And thus...with templars being as feared as they are...it's fear that keeps them protected from people (and people protected from gemmed).

The inquisition thing?  It's a cool idea, and I'd like it, except for that it, too, doesn't fit into the documentation.  The documentation literally requires it to be played accurately on both sides, and so there are these huge swings back and forth depending on who's playing whom, and their preferences.  Which is fine.

To reiterate...I don't think a gripe about their -power- is a valid one.  It's...magick, man, that's some crazy shit.  I think the gripe is when it's a thing that more of the population is constantly subjected to for the sake of the other player's enjoyment of the game.  For me, it's about the number of them...you start having magick discussions in public places, you start seeing gems everywhere, they start being used as tools everywhere, and the role of the mundane setting starts to waiver and fall out of place.  For gemmed, if there's too few (like the numbers I want), they have to leave the quarter to get any sort of interaction.  Once there's enough of them that they don't have to leave for interaction, there's now a nice small community with...nothing to do.  I'm really unsure that there -is- a healthy balance, which is why from the getgo, my understanding has been that the social ostracism and yes, the boredom, was part of the role.  You got powerful.  You got the cool magicky stuff to base your character's life around...but it was a life filled with solitude and loss.  That was why the population of it stayed in check...playing one, just wasn't as action packed, or fun, but it appealed to the player at that time, or they wouldn't have made one.

Magick documentation is what drew me into this game in the first place.  Not just the magick system and how it works, but its place in the world.  I quickly learned it wasn't the role for me, even though I love the spells, the spellcasting, and the magick plots.  So I get pretty heated whenever people talk about changing the documentation to suit people who are the same.  They love the spells, the spellcasting, and the magick plots, but just hate that they aren't exposed to as much of the social world as a result.  I don't think that should change for that.

Completely my own opinion and interpretations, kind of trying to blanket a bunch of stuff and reiterate it from the multitude of my contributions over time.

[Bast]

Mages are hard to play in a whole other way..Its hard to find people to play with, if you aren't gemmed your hunted in one of the few places you can live, if you are gemmed your the closest thing in the game to a PC slave and your wearing a giant here come kill me sign on your neck. People don't even need a reasonable reason to murder you. 90% of pking I have done on Arm has been in self defense while playing a magicker. Half of those people were characters I didn't even know, trying to murder me (as far as I could tell) just because I was a mage. Playing a rogue is horribly lonely even when you do find a group of other rogues to run with.  

Even when trying to branch slowly there is a lot more pressure on a mage to get good fast or at least get the spells you need to defend yourself and survive. I don't think thats true for any other class aside form Sorcerers and Psions. Additionally because its hard to find people to play with you have a lot of time sitting around with nothing to do but practice spells. As for the money? They really don't need it..you tend to primarily play with other magickers because of mages role in society (or lack their of) so mages take care of each other. Need water? I'll make it for you. Magickers tend to take care of each other. They do that because they have too..Merchants won't deal with you or sell you things so it piles up. Any big project you try to save up for gets shot down by nobles that hate mages or templar so what do you even do with money?

I will never get the mage hate...What I would like to see is mages having more of place somewhere. Being able to join more orgs and thusly more involved in stuff other than themselves in little isolated clusters.

[Fujikoma]

I played a mage once. People loved that silly fuck, so I must've been doing it wrong. I don't think I'll do it so wrong next time. As far as branching, I had to go through a bunch of RP just to figure out what the hell I was doing, what are these strange words? No one ever tried to kill me. In the end, died because of failure to understand code, as usual, alas.

[Desertman]

I would love for there to be more emphasis placed on people who are "buddies" with gemmed mages being ostracized and possibly, if not CERTAINLY investigated and almost always harassed by the authorities for their relations.

When I play a southern Allanaki Templar, you folks who are buddying it up with or even banging my gemmed slaves better expect to get some shit from me. Because it is coming and I will make sure my Arm underlings adapt the same mindset.

It would make people who are going to be buddies with mages do it in a private secure setting so that it stops appearing to be the norm in the middle of public commoner taverns.

All of you mages who sit around at the bar in the middle of these taverns and have discussions with each other and even other non-mages about what your magic powers can and can't do like it's a Jenny Craig support group for gickers etc...etc...etc....get ready, because when I play that Templar, your life is going to be shit.

There is also some fancy new code that I've seen in game that keeps certain people out of certain taverns. I wouldn't mind seeing that code adapted to check for gems. This would have not only the benefit of keeping them codedly "out" and away from "common people", it would also create a coded construct in game that would help create a socially accepted construct of truly ostracizing and separating that group.

When you have NPC's in place that do something openly, it becomes commonly accepted by the playerbase that, "This is the way the world works. Staff backs this entirely. I should be this way too.".

[nauta]

I'm curious, having never played a mage, but, um, sorta, well, let's just say, I've watched a lot of you with previous PCs from the shadows: Is it fun at all?  Do you basically just log in for RPTs and otherwise code up the skills in your temples alone?  Are there outlets for interaction that are satisfying?  I'm thinking here of the standard run, the gemmed mage in Allanak.  My hunch is that it would be terrible, the worst of both worlds, just slightly better than a city elf: you are isolated (-and- there are hardly any other PC mages to hang with) -and- treated as a tool.  You can go on those RPTs, but while everyone else is sitting around the campfire (YOU MADE) singing happy songs you get to go to the other room and be all alone and creepy, alone, by yourself, whispering the words to the song and watching Krath settle over the dunes, alone.  (Of course, such a PC would be fun in theory, but I doubt it'd be fun in practice, at least to me.)