How to Make the Gemmed Hated and Enslaved

[Narf]

I think this thread is aimed at people like me who are willing to talk to gemmed or make secret friends with them?

Don't think so, but who's to say. OP's reasoning was left a mystery.

[manonfire]

Currently playing a gemmer, and have been for nearly a year. The hatred, distrust, and relative isolation is sufficiently enforced by the playerbase.

Calling a gemmed "enslaved" is a bit of a stretch, but the level of which they're used and abused depends almost entirely on the PC templarate who, as far as I can tell, are given free reign to interact with the gemmed in any way they see fit.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

Don't tell people what you're currently playing!

[Fujikoma]

How? Just log in, or, if you're a filthy gick lover, don't.

[manonfire]

I don't give a shit if people know who or what I'm playing.

[whitt]

Edited: Too Soon.

[Dalmeth]

Yeah, I've let this stew a while.

My point is that hate for hate's sake has always been infantile.  Distaste for elementalists is supposed to be bound to their deadliness and vast powers, but the practice of that concept has always led to elementalists being too damned useful.

The trick is to make elementalists annoying.  Any visible favoritism is likely to generate envy among all those who do not receive greater favoritism, so giving gemmed elementalists a defined relationship with the Templars is going to build ample cause for grievance as the gemmed scramble to curry favor.  In this way, the players are given genuine reason to dislike the gemmed and exclude them from their business.

The ability for a Templar to tailor the gemmed to his tastes makes the gemmed handy for his own uses, but usually does not make the elementalist very useful to his own self.  So by letting Templars dictate the abilities of elementalists, it is a form of enslavement.

In this way, the gemmed feel empowered while everyone else hates them because they are essentially pathetic.  The idea is to create a system where players can act freely but still retain an oppressive culture.  That means allowing players to do things that generate negative feedback, so that while a few may get away with it, most are strongly discouraged.

[Taven]

I'm pretty sure making a gemmed a Templar's personal pet wouldn't contribute to hate. It would make people never want to mess with them, because to mess with them or hate them is to mess with or hate a templar.

I think hating them because they're foul, unnatural and something different is fine. If you look at history, it's filled with all sorts of horrific discrimination and oppression just because people were a little different.

I'm also not sure it would be at all fun to play a gemmed in your proposed scenario, because it sounds like they'd be directly dependent on a templar for a lot of their fun. Not to mention, templars would just laugh and totally gut the usefulness of any Oashi gemmers if Oash so much as glanced at them wrong.

Finally, I don't think the proposal matches the nature of magick in the game world. Templars aren't elementalists. Elementalists draw their power from an element. Making elementalists get their power from a templar, or have restricted access through a templar... Basically makes them mini-templars.

[Dalmeth]

I think hating them because they're foul, unnatural and something different is fine. If you look at history, it's filled with all sorts of horrific discrimination and oppression just because people were a little different.

I emphasize a little different.  When a group of people are united by a common experience, it's the little differences that force them apart.  The big differences have no bearing in the social situation, as they are so foreign as to be irrelevant.  The more similar two people are, the more their differences are emphasized.

Time and time again, I have seen a top-down approach fail to generate the desired degree of conflict in the game.  In the end, it just doesn't make sense.  These directives for a divided society create a society that never meets to conflict.  Only common cause allows people to oppose eachother.  To that end, I would begin to modify attitudes toward elementalists from abject fear to general distaste.

[Majikal]

I think there's a good mix of all sorts of emotions when dealing with the gemmed, maybe my game experience has been different. Shrug.

Fear is fine.
Hate is fine.
Trust is fine.
Roleplay.