Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages

[bardlyone]

... but why do they get triple the xp and level three times faster than everyone else?

For the same reason people constantly bitch about wanting something like it for raiders. Because people will be trying to kill you literally the moment you step out of character generation.

At best that's an argument in favor of level 6, 7, & 8 karma roles but it's very hyperbolic to say of a gemmed or tribal mage.

Funny that the only pc I've ever had pked by a total stranger on sight was 2 karma gemmed vivaduan.

But I'm sure your experiences aren't the same. In fact, once you get to 6 karma roles and higher, there are other, much better protections in place that dont require skilling if you have any clue what they're doing,  rendering the point about doing so more quickly kinda pointless.

[Dresan]

I do understand how some people felt when sorcerers were taken away.

My hope is that someday I can a character that becomes a kuraci Outrider. I always wanted to -earn- that role, grinding through the ranks. A truly just reward for years of dedication, finally getting to be an elite, with a lot of freedom, backing and respect. I find its a lot tougher playing something like a gritty hunter/fighter/assassin that can also get mixed up in politics while still going out and kicking ass, not always wearing silks, especially with tuluk and partisanship gone. But that's another thread.

I don't like the idea of adding a grind to mages as a form of balancing things out. If the staff won't consider buffing mundane defenses, and is considering buffing sorcerer sub-guilds, then I hope at the very least they consider making all mages part of the three year limit special app process alongside extended sub-guild. I never really consider Armageddon high fantasy, its more like low fantasy, magick is rare. I really think mage groups of significant power should be hunted down by a team of red robes.

With tuluk gone, and places like redstorm being beefed up, even I might stop seeing the point of playing a mundane when I can just roll a mage, form groups, gain status and influence and practically have it all with almost no need to grind skills at all. While sad ass mundanes are forced to join clans, get tied down with schedules and be looking at RL years of not really getting anywhere that interesting anyways.  

[musashi]

Funny that the only pc I've ever had pked by a total stranger on sight was 2 karma gemmed vivaduan.

I don't doubt that a minority of people have experienced greifing as a newbie game.
The same way I don't doubt that a minority of people have experienced greifing by a mage as a mundane.

That is not to say that griefing does not happen, but it is exceedingly rare these days.

But I'm sure your experiences aren't the same. In fact, once you get to 6 karma roles and higher, there are other, much better protections in place that dont require skilling if you have any clue what they're doing,  rendering the point about doing so more quickly kinda pointless.

As expected, my experiences were not the same. I've played 6-8 karma roles before. I have no idea what protections that don't require skilling you're alluding to. I felt just as helpless and vulnerable as a newbie sorcerer as I did playing a vivaduan. More so really given the utter lack of safe harbor anywhere as compared to the option of taking a gem and staying inside the walls of Allanak that a vivaduan has.

[Is Friday]

lol @ "people don't try to randomly kill tribal mages for no reason".

[musashi]

I never really consider Armageddon high fantasy, its more like low fantasy, magick is rare. I really think mage groups of significant power should be hunted down by a team of red robes.

Given that this is the definition of low fantasy:

Low fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy fiction involving "nonrational happenings that are without causality or rationality because they occur in the rational world where such things are not supposed to occur."[1] Low fantasy stories are set either in the real world or a fictional but rational world, and are contrasted with high fantasy stories which take place in a completely fictional fantasy world setting with its own set of rules and physical laws.

Low fantasy places relatively less emphasis on typical elements associated with fantasy, setting a narrative in real-world environments with elements of the fantastical. Sometimes there are just enough fantastical elements to make ambiguous the boundary between what is real and what is purely psychological or supernatural. The word "low" refers to the level of prominence of traditional fantasy elements within the work, and is not any sort of remark on the work's quality.

Why would you think that?

I mean ... granted RPG's use a slightly different definition of low fantasy compared to high fantasy ...

For their own purposes role-playing games sometimes use a different definition of low fantasy. GURPS Fantasy defines the genre as "closer to realistic fiction than to myth. Low Fantasy stories focus on people's daily lives and practical goals ... A Low Fantasy campaign asks what it's like to live in a world of monsters, magic, and demigods."[13] The book acknowledges the literary definition of the genre with "some critics define 'low fantasy' as any fantasy story set in the real world. However, a real world setting can include the kind of mythic elements this book classifies as high fantasy."[14]

And given that Armageddon is a game that focuses on day to day life as opposed to epic world altering adventures ... it would be true to say it's low fantasy in that regard ... ... but using the term in that sense would have no impact whatsoever on how prevalent magick would or wouldn't be in the setting.

I think you may be convoluting the two definitions together in a way they aren't necessarily supposed to be. Armageddon is clearly high fantasy in literary terms (which focus on the world setting), but low fantasy in RPG terms (which focus on the scope of the PC's stories and campaigns).

[musashi]

I don't like the idea of adding a grind to mages as a form of balancing things out. [...] I might stop seeing the point of playing a mundane when I can just roll a mage, form groups, gain status and influence and practically have it all with almost no need to grind skills at all.

It seems like the thing you're actually against is having a skill grind, yes? I mean, you say that you don't like the idea of adding a skill grind to mages in one sentence. Then shortly thereafter, say that you might consider playing nothing but mages to avoid the skill grind of a mundane.

There's nothing wrong with not liking skill grinding. It just seems like we see the same disparity, but whereas I'm saying "make mages have to work for it like mundanes", you're saying "make mundanes not have to work for it like mages".

[Is Friday]

It seems to me like most complaints in the thread are focused on the random rogue magicker boogeyman. To my knowledge, this hasn't really been a problem since two things have happened:

1.) Summon changed.
2.) Whirans raised to 6 karma.

Therefore, less annoying and pointless ez-mode griefing is possible.

If people are looking for something more out of playing a mage than a boring grind-fest then I do recommend that you try a clan that supports magick in its documentation. I don't really like mages, either. But I do like mages with cultural docs.

[musashi]

lol @ "people don't try to randomly kill tribal mages for no reason".

Given what I have seen IG, I'm guessing this comment belongs more aptly in the "how to role play desert elves" thread, slid in right in that section about desert elf players not taking into account the setting of the world in regards to human tribes they are supposed to be sharing land with.

Because ... as a tribal mage who also happened to be a desert elf ... I once fell in a hole like a moron and knocked myself out for 30 minutes ... woke up to find an elf from a different tribe (who have the mantra of die all gickers die) telling me that they wanted to slit my throat the whole time I was sleeping but since their elders don't feel like courting a war of retribution over it ... they instead watched over me to make sure I woke up fine instead ...

Your mileage may vary ... severely (and in my opinion unjustifiably) ... inside the bubble of that dynamic.

[Is Friday]

lol @ "people don't try to randomly kill tribal mages for no reason".

Given what I have seen IG, I'm guessing this comment belongs more aptly in the "how to role play desert elves" thread, slid in right in that section about desert elf players not taking into account the setting of the world in regards to human tribes they are supposed to be sharing land with.

Because ... as a tribal mage who also happened to be a desert elf ... I once fell in a hole like a moron and knocked myself out for 30 minutes ... woke up to find an elf from a different tribe (who have the mantra of die all gickers die) telling me that they wanted to slit my throat the whole time I was sleeping but since their elders don't feel like courting a war of retribution over it ... they instead watched over me to make sure I woke up fine instead ...

Your mileage may vary ... severely ... given the desert elf/desert human issue.

I was referring to my tribal water mage achieving world-wide fame despite almost never leaving the Tablelands. (lol)

[musashi]

I was referring to my tribal water mage achieving world-wide fame despite almost never leaving the Tablelands. (lol)

Yep. I think our tribal mages overlapped during that time. IIRC yours was human. Hence my reply.

I encountered my own fair share of tribe mates and other desert elves during that time coming to me in a state of panic about how we needed to go on a witch hunt because there was an X in the 'pah ... only to discover a short time later said X was a human tribal, perfectly in line with the documentation ... that probably shouldn't have warranted more than a shrug of indifference.

[Is Friday]

Both city-states had "kill on sight" orders for her and the Byn frequently pooped their pants when she Wayed them during their Tablelands missions. Get on my level, boring elf mage.

[musashi]

Both city-states had "kill on sight" orders for her and the Byn frequently pooped their pants when she Wayed them during their Tablelands missions. Get on my level, boring elf mage.

Um, fine but like ... Tuluk had kill on sight orders for every single gemmed mage that has ever existed.

But me saying "lol @ "people don't attack gemmers on sight for no reason"" would be pretty silly if it turned out the Tuluk thing was my justification. Because ... gemmed mages don't go to Tuluk.

Likewise ... tribal mages shouldn't be going to the city-states if they don't plan on being killed/gemmed. If templars were forming war parties and regularly rolling into the table lands to hunt you down and demanding your tribe give you up because mages ... then I'd see your point ... and also think said templars were being ridiculous and in need of a corrective slap by staff.

But if this kill on sight thing was more like how gemmers get it for going into Tuluk, my opinion switches to ... yeah dude. My tribal mage too. Everyone's tribal mage. That's what happens man. That's what happens.

[Is Friday]

Mostly tongue-in-cheek responses, but it's all kinda true, too.

Repeat: She almost never left the Tablelands.

[musashi]

Oh I know. I think your mage was one of the "OMG we have to get the spears and kill the witch in the 'pah!" panic moments I experienced ... and indifferently shrugged at before calling them all idiots and wandering off to go carru tipping.

I'm just saying:

Both city-states had "kill on sight" orders for her

Mine too.

and the Byn frequently pooped their pants when she Wayed them during their Tablelands missions.

Mine too.

Repeat: She almost never left the Tablelands.

Mine too.

What I did not experience were people forming up warbands to come track me down in the 'pah, or even people taking pot shots with arrows while I was out foraging or doing whatever. My character's right to exist was begrudgingly tolerated so long as I stayed in my area ... in much the same way a gemmer's is.

So from my perspective, the only place where I saw a disparity between your play and mine was in how the desert elves of the time were treating you (and every other tribal human for that matter).

[Is Friday]

So from my perspective, the only place where I saw a disparity between your play and mine was in how the desert elves of the time were treating you (and every other tribal human for that matter).

I think I have a good understanding of why things happened the way they did after talking with some other players who had contact with her. It was one of those ridiculous "this can only escalate" plots in which certain people kept prodding others to "do more do more do more" actively against my PC. All this despite my PC being something of a neutral entity. Thankfully, a majority of players were disinterested in sending out warbands to track my PC down in the Tablelands, but that was definitely ordered on more than one occasion.

It makes me kind of sad, though, because I'm pretty sure my mage would have wrecked them. A little part of me wanted them to try.  

[Dresan]

Armageddon has always had a strange balance but it does have a balance.

The coded grind of mundanes is great but in exchange they can join clans, get involved in plots and achieve great things. Mages have no grind and alot of coded power but they are supposed to be isolated quiet and often boring roles. This is what the balance was supposed to be however the reality is of course different. None of the mages I've played have ever branched, and you know what, they didn't need to, their life was interesting and fun without needing extra spells. They were already cool and powerful in concept, that any coded power was secondary to the life they were experiencing.

Again tuluk and partisanship is gone, so independent life is utterly shit in terms of getting involved in plots and politics. That means I need to join a clan where I spend six weeks of my life(YES I think that is a damn long time) going through a pretty boring routine, hoping something interesting happens because my character are limited in what they can do both ICly and code-wise anyways. Just to add salt to the wounds sometimes the clan is empty and you are forced into solo RP.

It only takes one or two people to make a mage role interesting. Heck, my vivaduan had people both magickal and mundane coming to them to invite them along on their schemes. He went to fun places, talked to amazing people, got involved in fun stuff, and he never once branched. Also it seems like once you go magickal cantrip sex, you don't go back because even my mage couldn't believe how popular he was, even his other mage friends has lovers, mates and mistresses. Where as most of the females my mundane has  encountered in recent times seem to be lesbian with healthy virtual relationships.   

Basically I don't think adding a grind to mages will change anything. Mages are really fun to play in concept alone, and it just takes finding couple people willing to interact with you for the role to be a more enjoyable role than the average mundane independent, and in my own personal biased opinion even more enjoyable sometimes than the clanned recruit.

[musashi]

Armageddon has always had a strange balance but it does have a balance.

The coded grind of mundanes is great but in exchange they can join clans, get involved in plots and achieve great things. Mages have no grind and alot of coded power but they are supposed to be isolated quiet and often boring roles. This is what the balance was supposed to be however the reality is of course different.

I have to disagree here. Gemmed mages are not isolated with a quiet and boring role. This is by design. Tribal mages are often isolated and boring due to the wilds not having a lot of PC density (mundane tribals are often isolated as well for the same reason unless they go camp in the cities ... which is generally frowned upon), but within the design of the world, they are also not supposed to be isolated and boring. They are quite often embraced and adored by their fellow tribe mates, and this is reflected in numerous help files and documentation.

Edit to add: In fact when I was playing my tribal mage I started out portraying them as being quite removed and isolated from their fellow tribemates and I was corrected by the tribal staff who told me that virtually speaking, if my fellow tribemates thought I was growing distant, they would be redoubling their efforts to bring me back into the fold and make me feel welcome. So ... 

None of the mages I've played have ever branched, and you know what, they didn't need to, their life was interesting and fun without needing extra spells. They were already cool and powerful in concept, that any coded power was secondary to the life they were experiencing.

Then it sounds like any changes made to how magickal power is acquired wouldn't affect you at all?  

Again tuluk and partisanship is gone, so independent life is utterly shit in terms of getting involved in plots and politics. That means I need to join a clan where I spend six weeks of my life(YES I think that is a damn long time) going through a pretty boring routine, hoping something interesting happens because my character are limited in what they can do both ICly and code-wise anyways. Just to add salt to the wounds sometimes the clan is empty and you are forced into solo RP.

I'm still bummed that Tuluk closed as well. And I'm an off-peak player so joining clans has always been difficult for me since even heavily populated clans will often be ghost towns when I login and I end up solo RP'ing in the sparring yard anyway. It's doesn't have anything to do with mages, but I sympathize with the feelings. I've had them as well.

It only takes one or two people to make a mage role interesting. Heck, my vivaduan had people both magickal and mundane coming to them to invite them along on their schemes. He went to fun places, talked to amazing people, got involved in fun stuff, and he never once branched. Also it seems like once you go magickal cantrip sex, you don't go back because even my mage couldn't believe how popular he was, even his other mage friends has lovers, mates and mistresses. Where as most of the females my mundane has  encountered in recent times seem to be lesbian with healthy virtual relationships.  

That's great but, why is this an argument against making the acquisition of power for mages more challenging? It seems like this story would fit better as a response to someone saying: It's too hard to gain power as a mage and I can't do anything till I have it, so it needs to be easier.

Basically I don't think adding a grind to mages will change anything. Mages are really fun to play in concept alone, and it just takes finding couple people willing to interact with you for the role to be a more enjoyable role than the average mundane independent, and in my own personal biased opinion even more enjoyable sometimes than the clanned recruit.

I enjoy the concept of mages as well, and think that in concept alone they are tons of fun to play. So much so that I have and do play mages that go for more than an IG year before they manifest and do anything magickal. The anticipation of shit getting freaky keeps me going despite the fact that for all that time, I've got basically no skills to improve, and no coded power to be useful to anyone. But I can still make friends, focus on the day to day RP of life, and develop relationships with people that will then be sorely tested ... later ... when it turns out I can set things on fire with my brain.

But once I manifest ... my mage is going to go from fledgling apprentice to maxed out grand wizard in about 2-3 months. And to do that, all I have to do is have my character practice his magick for maybe one IG hour (10 RL minutes) per IG day that I'm logged in for. If I want to branch slower than that, I have to avoid it on purpose.

The one thing adding "a grind" to mages would change ... is how quickly mages go from apprentices to grand wizards.

I can see how this would bother you if you didn't like skill grinding and wanted to max out quickly whenever you played a role.
I'm having trouble understanding why this would be a problem for you if as you say, you're loving playing mages despite having never branched a single spell at all.

As I said before, there's nothing wrong with just disliking having to practice skills in order to improve them. Some table top games prefer to give out tons of experience while others are paced much slower ... and that all boils down to what kind of game the group at the table wants to have.

But it seems like you're saying that ... you have an awesome time when you play mages even though you never develop their abilities ... and that's the reason why making developing their abilities more of a challenge than it presently is wouldn't change anything ...

I'm honestly not able to follow the logic.  

[Armaddict]

Again tuluk and partisanship is gone, so independent life is utterly shit in terms of getting involved in plots and politics.

...you have such different experiences with independents than I do.  Being able to be useful to multiple groups at once instead of having an allegiance tied to one only means that I can float where-ever the fun is.  In no way, shape, or form was this affected by Tuluk closing, aside from there being less clans open to float between, which is an acknowledgement that has been discussed in many other threads, so I instead find this a shameless plug that is pretty much outright wrong.

In terms of the original post:

--Coin:  While I agree with the economy thing, I also kind of think this is a necessary evil for now.  Gemmed mages have a hard time making coin without it, there are not a lot of job opportunities, and there are no reasons for anyone else to want to support them in the current atmosphere.  The only irritating thing about it to me is that those moneymakers share shops with things that are entirely mundane and kind of a vital place for the mundane, as well.  Nothing as irritating as going on a risky expedition to make some coin and going to sell it and finding out there is no coin to be had because someone sold 3 unfinished blahs and 5 blahs for exorbitant amounts of money.

Perhaps a viable solution would be to a) Make such things somehow useful to mundanes so that they'd need to purchase them, or b) Make more spells require them so that they are more valuable to keep and there is an internal economy around it.

--Skilling up:  I agree that this is done super fast.  I haven't played a mage in a long time, though.  I do not know the ramifications of turning down this speed, but I do remember that it was purposely sped up at some point to combat some sort of problem, which might have been people not being appropriately afraid and instead hunting mages down (This is uncertain, just a recollection).  I haven't seen mages doing anything that would make me want this reversed in some time.  They actually seem...relatively tame right now, compared to what I'm used to.  I think mages for the past year or so have, with some exceptions, done a very good job.   And that's from someone who hates that this game has mages.  Heh.

[Eyeball]

... but why do they get triple the xp and level three times faster than everyone else?

For the same reason people constantly bitch about wanting something like it for raiders. Because people will be trying to kill you literally the moment you step out of character generation.

To make rogue mages, who start off virtually helpess, viable.

[Eyeball]

I suspect that these players boasting of having popular mages that are invited to this and that are part of online cliques.

[Dresan]

@musashi

1. Even gemmed role are supposed to be more quiet and isolated roles compared to say being a ranger in the byn. Rogue mage even more so. Again think about it. If mages are so great, what is the point of anyone rolling a mundane? If you want coded power, you have mages, you wanted interaction and get into plots your role mundane, everyone is supposed to love you.

To a point this is true but my experience as soon as the mage whether they are gemmer or not, finds a small group to run with, this really doesn't matter one bit, it becomes more enjoyable then a lot of mundane roles currently offered.

2. Instead of making mages more shitty to play by adding a grind. Why not make mundanes more enjoyable to play and grind up? Thats my point. While mages can become grand wizards, the most interesting thing a player can sometimes become is sergeant in a clan. To make it even simpler, instead of changing the grind, why not give mundanes more interesting roles to achieve again like kuraci outriders or make getting political backing not such a rare think like when we had partisanship in tuluk.

3. I have no problem with mages, but I do prefer to play mundanes myself. Mages were given so much love for so many years though that I think they are fine. The suggestion of making them more annoying for some people to play as sounds silly to me. Instead I'd like to see more love being put the mundane experience especially since the closing of Tuluk (mundane central).

But sure, go ahead and add a grind to mages, as if making people spend ten days in their apartment instead of five, will add anything to the game other then people finding the quickest and sometimes twinkiest ways to become max level again like they sometimes do with mundanes.

@ Armaddict

My experience has been that while you can be of use to many different people, no clan trust you enough to trust you with any real information.  The things my independent was asked to do was more like "Hey are you bored enough to suicide for us yet?" kinda stuff. The world hates independents, but that kinda part of the charm. Its often a lonely existence, except with a grind and you don't get to become a grand anything.

I think I just miss how tuluk had more ways for independent to get involved even politically while still being a hunter.    

[Patuk]

I'm pretty sure that independents being politically insignificant is a feature, not a bug.

[Dresan]

I'm pretty sure that independents being politically insignificant is a feature, not a bug.

No one said it was a bug, just saying it was not always true in  Tuluk. Now closed.

[Delirium]

So from my perspective, the only place where I saw a disparity between your play and mine was in how the desert elves of the time were treating you (and every other tribal human for that matter).

I think I have a good understanding of why things happened the way they did after talking with some other players who had contact with her. It was one of those ridiculous "this can only escalate" plots in which certain people kept prodding others to "do more do more do more" actively against my PC. All this despite my PC being something of a neutral entity. Thankfully, a majority of players were disinterested in sending out warbands to track my PC down in the Tablelands, but that was definitely ordered on more than one occasion.

It makes me kind of sad, though, because I'm pretty sure my mage would have wrecked them. A little part of me wanted them to try.  

Maybe if you weren't so successful at trolling people things would go differently for you.

[musashi]

1. Even gemmed role are supposed to be more quiet and isolated roles compared to say being a ranger in the byn. Rogue mage even more so. Again think about it. If mages are so great, what is the point of anyone rolling a mundane? If you want coded power, you have mages, you wanted interaction and get into plots your role mundane, everyone is supposed to love you.

... the gemmed do not live in isolation. They have an entire quarter in the largest city in the Known and they are tools of the political elite. They are supposed to be second class citizens. Not shut ins or hermits.

I don't think balancing coded power against something else was particularly on staff's mind when they designed mages. As was already mentioned earlier in this thread: Armageddon is not rock, paper, scissors. For example, breeds and elves have all the same if not more restrictions on what they can't join without any of the coded power a mage possesses. There is no balance there.

But sure, go ahead and add a grind to mages, as if making people spend ten days in their apartment instead of five, will add anything to the game.

If you think that I am advocating for increasing the amount of skill fails it takes to branch a spell so that mages end up just sitting in an apartment for longer casting spells at nil reach ... then you fundamentally misunderstand my position and I ask that you go read the first post of this thread again to correct that.