Witch Loving

[nauta]

I just don't want people to mistake the perceived instability of magick as actual instability under the current setting.  If people want to argue that the setting should change, I guess that's okay.  But it's just like saying Zalanthas should have a rain forest, or muls should be able to have babies.  It might be worth changing, and there could be IC reasons for those changes to occur, but it would be stepping away from the setting as it stands today.

I don't know about the metaphysical claim that Zalanthan magick is stable, at least insofar as the docs are concerned.  The docs do not make a claim one way or the other on the metaphysics of it: it could be stable or it could be unstable.  Even if it is metaphysically stable, I'm of the view that even our magickers (and not just the brainwashed masses) view magick as unpredictable, dangerous, and scary.  (I remember I once asked staff if my magicker could do something [redacted] in the house, and the response I got was: No way!  Magick is scary, dangerous, and unpredictable.  This suggested that even House Oash -- who know the most on this stuff -- view magick as unpredictable and not stable, although you could argue that House Oash doesn't know hardly anything at all or something because apocalypse and lost knowledge...)

What -is- true is that codedly magick is stable, and I'm with those that would love to see a little more of the 'unpredictable' tossed into the code to make it more unstable codedly -- randomize the words, randomize the branches, randomize the effects, etc. etc. -- if not for the metaphysical claim (that magick is actually unstable) at least for playability (so that our magickers' magick does come off as scary, dangerous, and unpredictable.)

[wizturbo]

Do you really want me playing a krathi who has to find a person to cast his fireball of doom at un?

A creature or suitable object, yes.  

Nil is needed for some spells.

No it isn't.  It's nice, but it isn't needed.


Part of the reason players OOCly hate on magick so much is that magick users can get codedly powerful by sitting alone in a room somewhere.  Make it so they have to take risks to train some of their more dangerous spells, just like everyone else, and I think you'd see a lot less OOC complaining.

[Beethoven]

I could support something like "wild magick" IF the consequences could be circumvented by careful play.

For example, if you take time to make careful preparations, gather the proper components, and put yourself in the safest position possible, then things are going to be fine. However, you can cast the same spell without all the extra ritualistic business, but it's a lot riskier, and that risk goes up with power level and with the  of the spell. As you continue to cast without preparation, a hidden skill has a chance of going up, making you less prone to critical fails. Only true masters of magick -- those who have faced the sometimes terrifying negative consequences of their own powers and survived -- can cast the most powerful spells on the fly without any risk to themselves.

That's only if something like "wild magick" was to be implemented. Honestly, I'm fine with the way things are now.

[manonfire]

After reading this thread and giving it careful consideration, I have decided I will continue to play my magicker however the fuck I want.

That's well and good, this thread is less focused on the players of mages and more on how people treat mages, why, and whether that needs adjustment (with ideas on how to make that adjustment easier).

If you roll back through the thread, you'll find that it's both. It's also the case that last 27 times this subject has been discussed.

[Asmoth]

Honestly if you didn't need to branch water to water II to water III to finally get Water IV.  The one usefulness spell you want, then I wouldn't mind taking away NIL.

But as it sits now you gotta grind through a bunch of bullshit (in some classes) to even get the good spells.

But that also could have to do with magick hardly changing in forever.  I think a lot of spells need to be removed or changed, just like if nil has no effect, why does that vivaduan start a wet tshirt contest even at a no effect cast?

I think I would cum in my pants if someone actually redid magick and got rid of the fluff spells that do nothing and made the branching make more sense or take out branching in general and just make magick a skill like weapons.

[Beethoven]

Don't take away muh fluff spells. They're actually my favorite spells in the game.

[Asmoth]

Don't take away muh fluff spells. They're actually my favorite spells in the game.

Fine, but why do I have to work to earn a fluff spell? If anything make people start with the fluff spells and work up to the good shit.

But I still think magick should be a skill and not an individual spell by spell thing.

I can kill you with a single cast of fireball of doom, but wait while I exhaust myself to raise the temperature in the room...

[BadSkeelz]

You take more damage learning to ride by falling off your mount than you do fully branching most magick guilds.

Magick is a grind, but it's less of a grind than any other in the game except maybe tailoring. The only thing that makes it remotely fair is how terminally boring it is.

Either remove nil so Magickers have to go out in the world and practice like real people, or make it so casting at Nil has a chance of failing and blowing yourself up.

Like with Advanced Weapon Skills, the first thought on seeing a fully branched magicker should be "Wow, they're so powerful and worthy of respect!" Not "Wow, what kind of twinky shit have they been up to?" That's a problem.

Also this:

Don't take away muh fluff spells. They're actually my favorite spells in the game.

[Jave]

Personally (read: having nothing to do with my being on staff) I'd prefer if mages had no ground to go to. No elementalist quarter. No gemmed. No tolerant tribes or settlements. If you go magick you put it in the closet, go rouge, or get murdered like sorcerers and psions.

ETA: And if you didn't hunt and kill other opposing elementalists your elementals killed you. Welcome to magick: no friends allowed.

I hope you realize how incredibly boring, isolating, and awful that sounds to play. Not to mention very black and white; strict either/or scenarios are very opposite of actual human nature.

I think we need to remember that IC mistrust or hatred of magick is one thing; OOCly it should still be a role that is enjoyable.

I think it sounds awesome in every way imaginable.

To each his own.

Like Desertman, I find that awesome in every way imaginable -- but then again I've never played a mage who wasn't in the closet or completely rouge and hunted with the exception of one tribal mage and even then staff at the time told me they were a bit worried I was being too isolated from my tribe in light of my character's nature. In that case I split the baby by refusing to do anything of a magickal nature around my tribemates unless something(s) was about to be severely murdered.

The reason I played mages this way goes back to something Desertman alluded to earlier: You simply cannot have magick be both a familiar everyday soft social RP kind of aspect of the game ... and also have it be the subject of intense suspicion and fear. We aren't frightened or even wary of things that we understand, and are used to -- even if we really should be. It's just a hang up of human psychology.

You should, statistically, be very wary of the gun in your home. It's a tool with no other purpose than to murder things and the simple fact of it being there puts you in more danger on average than if it wasn't. -- But you've been around guns your whole life. You know how they work. You've seen them, heard the gunshot, and smelled the gunpowder from a spent casing for years. They just aren't scary anymore. Even when your friend accidentally shoots himself in the face while trying to clean one, they still aren't scary. He just had bad luck. It's ... just the way we are I think.

So I feel like trying to have magick be scary and feared, while also trying to have mages be commonplace and accepted in society is a square peg trying to cram into a round hole.

I love the magick in Armageddon, but my personal preference is to go in for the frightening unknown theme.

[Large Hero]

You take more damage learning to ride by falling off your mount than you do fully branching most magick guilds.

Magick is a grind, but it's less of a grind than any other in the game except maybe tailoring. The only thing that makes it remotely fair is how terminally boring it is.

Either remove nil so Magickers have to go out in the world and practice like real people, or make it so casting at Nil has a chance of failing and blowing yourself up.

Like with Advanced Weapon Skills, the first thought on seeing a fully branched magicker should be "Wow, they're so powerful and worthy of respect!" Not "Wow, what kind of twinky shit have they been up to?" That's a problem.

True statements and good ideas.

[Asmoth]

Personally (read: having nothing to do with my being on staff) I'd prefer if mages had no ground to go to. No elementalist quarter. No gemmed. No tolerant tribes or settlements. If you go magick you put it in the closet, go rouge, or get murdered like sorcerers and psions.

ETA: And if you didn't hunt and kill other opposing elementalists your elementals killed you. Welcome to magick: no friends allowed.

I hope you realize how incredibly boring, isolating, and awful that sounds to play. Not to mention very black and white; strict either/or scenarios are very opposite of actual human nature.

I think we need to remember that IC mistrust or hatred of magick is one thing; OOCly it should still be a role that is enjoyable.

I think it sounds awesome in every way imaginable.

To each his own.

Like Desertman, I find that awesome in every way imaginable -- but then again I've never played a mage who wasn't in the closet or completely rouge and hunted with the exception of one tribal mage and even then staff at the time told me they were a bit worried I was being too isolated from my tribe in light of my character's nature. In that case I split the baby by refusing to do anything of a magickal nature around my tribemates unless something(s) was about to be severely murdered.

The reason I played mages this way goes back to something Desertman alluded to earlier: You simply cannot have magick be both a familiar everyday soft social RP kind of aspect of the game ... and also have it be the subject of intense suspicion and fear. We aren't frightened or even wary of things that we understand, and are used to -- even if we really should be. It's just a hang up of human psychology.

You should, statistically, be very wary of the gun in your home. It's a tool with no other purpose than to murder things and the simple fact of it being there puts you in more danger on average than if it wasn't. -- But you've been around guns your whole life. You know how they work. You've seen them, heard the gunshot, and smelled the gunpowder from a spent casing for years. They just aren't scary anymore. Even when your friend accidentally shoots himself in the face while trying to clean one, they still aren't scary. He just had bad luck. It's ... just the way we are I think.

So I feel like trying to have magick be scary and feared, while also trying to have mages be commonplace and accepted in society is a square peg trying to cram into a round hole.

I love the magick in Armageddon, but my personal preference is to go in for the frightening unknown theme.

So talk to the people with the juice and get it changed.

I can't really ever recall a time when I was playing this game that staff needed popular opinion to change something.

In fact, no offense, it normally was like, We are changing this, this is how it works now, don't like it? GET FUCKT!

Heh.

[LauraMars]

Rouge mages, they're the best.

They cast spells like 'MAKEOVER' and 'GLOWING FLUSH'.  Their most powerful spell is 'PAINLESS MASCARA REMOVAL' which is a fourth tier spell and very OP.

It's no wonder they're hunted across the Known.

[Large Hero]

The reason I played mages this way goes back to something Desertman alluded to earlier: You simply cannot have magick be both a familiar everyday soft social RP kind of aspect of the game ... and also have it be the subject of intense suspicion and fear. We aren't frightened or even wary of things that we understand, and are used to -- even if we really should be. It's just a hang up of human psychology.

You should, statistically, be very wary of the gun in your home. It's a tool with no other purpose than to murder things and the simple fact of it being there puts you in more danger on average than if it wasn't. -- But you've been around guns your whole life. You know how they work. You've seen them, heard the gunshot, and smelled the gunpowder from a spent casing for years. They just aren't scary anymore. Even when your friend accidentally shoots himself in the face while trying to clean one, they still aren't scary. He just had bad luck. It's ... just the way we are I think.

So I feel like trying to have magick be scary and feared, while also trying to have mages be commonplace and accepted in society is a square peg trying to cram into a round hole.

I love the magick in Armageddon, but my personal preference is to go in for the frightening unknown theme.

Yes! Exactly. If we want mages to be feared, we need to change things so they have a reason to be. The unknown is the key. People fear what they don't understand. We OOCly understand what mages can do; and any reasonable PC will grow, in time, to ICly understand what mages can do. "This is the third manifested magicker I've come across in this job. And I see gemmed all the time at the Gaj. Nothing's happened to me yet, and it's been years. Nothing to fear!"

Right now, mages are as scary to me as a half-giant: they can kill me right now if they wanted to, but they probably won't, and I'm in no danger unless the half-giant decides to attack me. Like a half-giant, I know exactly what the mage can do to me.

We can talk about docs all we like. People will play, and characters will act, according to how things actually are. The best thing to do is to actually back up the docs with gameplay.

And the best way to introduce conflict and fun would be to make it so the mage themselves is also fearful of their powers' consequences: what might happen to the people they care about, what might happen to themselves.

[Patuk]

Arm has disease code just fine. Make some that are contagious and start out with magickers, and you've got your reason right there.

[Large Hero]

Arm has disease code just fine. Make some that are contagious and start out with magickers, and you've got your reason right there.

Yep! I remember docs referencing the commoner's belief that being near magickers will disease you. Why not make it a reality?

Make Disease A, a contagious form, and give it to magickers. Non-magickers that get infected become non-contagious carriers.

[Jave]

So talk to the people with the juice and get it changed.

I can't really ever recall a time when I was playing this game that staff needed popular opinion to change something.

In fact, no offense, it normally was like, We are changing this, this is how it works now, don't like it? GET FUCKT!

Heh.

I don't go in for taking what I personally find fun and hammering everyone else over the head with it as if my preferences must dominate all  

Some players really like the gemmed scene, a lot. -- It's not my bag. I never played a character in Allanak. All my PC's were Tuluki, tribals, or Luirites but that's because I didn't want to play in a city where mages were accepted. I preferred the shunned and in fear of your life motif.

Armageddon is a big enough sandbox to let people who like different things experience different things.



I do miss Tuluk though. Precisely because it was a city-state you could play in without having mages walking around and sitting at the bar next to you (openly anyway!).

[BadSkeelz]

Rouge mages, they're the best.

They cast spells like 'MAKEOVER' and 'GLOWING FLUSH'.  Their most powerful spell is 'PAINLESS MASCARA REMOVAL' which is a fourth tier spell and very OP.

It's no wonder they're hunted across the Known.

cast mon un CLOTHES BEAM

[Lizzie]

You take more damage learning to ride by falling off your mount than you do fully branching most magick guilds.

Magick is a grind, but it's less of a grind than any other in the game except maybe tailoring. The only thing that makes it remotely fair is how terminally boring it is.

Either remove nil so Magickers have to go out in the world and practice like real people, or make it so casting at Nil has a chance of failing and blowing yourself up.

Like with Advanced Weapon Skills, the first thought on seeing a fully branched magicker should be "Wow, they're so powerful and worthy of respect!" Not "Wow, what kind of twinky shit have they been up to?" That's a problem.

Also this:

Don't take away muh fluff spells. They're actually my favorite spells in the game.

"Real people" (meaning, non-mages, if I understand you right) don't have to go out in the world to practice. They can practice in the relative safety of their apartments and clan sparring halls. As it stands presently, you *cannot* use un on aggressive spells that require a target, in the city, on anyone, without being immediately crimflagged. This includes being inside the relative safety of your temple, and it includes casting it on yourself as the target.

So unless you want to do what most other PCs do NOT have to do - which is go out and find an NPC to attack - which is optional but not required for everyone OTHER than mages - you have to use nil.

[Asmoth]

You take more damage learning to ride by falling off your mount than you do fully branching most magick guilds.

Magick is a grind, but it's less of a grind than any other in the game except maybe tailoring. The only thing that makes it remotely fair is how terminally boring it is.

Either remove nil so Magickers have to go out in the world and practice like real people, or make it so casting at Nil has a chance of failing and blowing yourself up.

Like with Advanced Weapon Skills, the first thought on seeing a fully branched magicker should be "Wow, they're so powerful and worthy of respect!" Not "Wow, what kind of twinky shit have they been up to?" That's a problem.

Also this:

Don't take away muh fluff spells. They're actually my favorite spells in the game.

"Real people" (meaning, non-mages, if I understand you right) don't have to go out in the world to practice. They can practice in the relative safety of their apartments and clan sparring halls. As it stands presently, you *cannot* use un on aggressive spells that require a target, in the city, on anyone, without being immediately crimflagged. This includes being inside the relative safety of your temple, and it includes casting it on yourself as the target.

So unless you want to do what most other PCs do NOT have to do - which is go out and find an NPC to attack - which is optional but not required for everyone OTHER than mages - you have to use nil.

Yeah this is true, I once cast a harmful spell in my own temple with permission and it turned into me begging for my life from a Templar... Wtf crimcode!

[Large Hero]

Armageddon is a big enough sandbox to let people who like different things experience different things.

Is it? I'd argue that no matter where you're playing in Armageddon, you're going to run into magick eventually. If you're in Allanak, gemmed are all over the place. If you're in Luir's, you'll find them there too. If you're a wasteland wanderer, you'll run into rogues (and gemmed)...

It's the popularity of magick roles that makes their interactions with the rest of the playerbase so critical to get right. As it stands, they're ubiquitous, plot-dominating and there's pretty much one way to interact with them: "here's this powerful walking weapon that everyone else tolerates. If I'm too overt in my dislike for them, I'll be smacked down by the authorities or targeted by the powerful walking weapons themselves. I will mildly dislike them but tolerate them."

[BadSkeelz]

Sparring is attacking other PCs. At least that way you're interacting with someone else.

I can spar indefinitely. I love the Sparring Hall RP, doing drills, the banter between PCs. It's interaction that helps me build up my character's personality. It's fun.

I can't play the magick grind for more than a week without wanting to suicide. That's a beef I have with the current magick code, and how I think it's unfun.

Nil casting isn't relative safety. It's complete safety. A magicker can obtain full power, become practically untouchable, at no risk to themselves at all. If a warrior could sit alone in an apartment, type >kill with no target once an hour, and in 10 days come out fully branched with max offense and defense, I would hate that too. But they can't. They have to work for it, one way or another. We think of some of them as twinks, but the very nature of Magick makes it look like a cheat.

Nil encourages magickers to isolate themselves, which is good for the theme (and me, since I don't have to see them) but bad for their fun level. It also encourages magickers to obtain full power before "introducing" themselves to the world. While this makes magick dangerous, I also think it encourages the apathy of "Well, nothing I can do to stop this magicker, so whatever, just shrug and hope they're not an asshat" that myself and others appear to have towards the roles. So overall, I think Nil is a negative influence on Magickers fitting in with the rest of the game. It's harming both magickers and mundanes' level of fun.

If you get crim-flagged by casting an offensive spell in a temple, I think that's something that would have to change even if Nil wasn't removed. Fear that your fellow Elementalist might be a fucking whackjob who decides to try a new weave on you should be a fear magickers should have, just like the rest of us have to worry if our girlfriend is going to try backstab on us, or Runner Grimstump is going to forget to turn mercy on.

[Jave]

Armageddon is a big enough sandbox to let people who like different things experience different things.

Is it?

... Yes?

Magick is a part of Armageddon. You are going to run into it eventually. Very true. How you want to run into it is where the room is.
If you want to sit down at the bar and have a social chat with a mage in an everyday life setting Allanak is your city. If you'd like to have your encounters with magick be frightening life threatening ordeals you used to have Tuluk, but now you've got certain less magick friendly tribes and Luirs and of course wasteland wandering.

If you want to never run into magick at all, you need to play a different game. I didn't say it was big enough to let people experience everything.

[wizturbo]

I've played magickers who shunned the Nil reach, and it was a much more enjoyable experience.  However, that particular character was Gemmed... Playing a rogue under the same rules would be a lot more challenging if you want to keep it secret.

[Vwest]

I'm also saddened whenever an interesting character manifests because they just become a gimmick.

That isn't really a fair statement.

Also because I have a bit a time, let me explain why it is a fair statement.

You sound bitter.

It might be you've had enough bad experiences, or seen that very narrow spectrum of things happen enough times that you're sold on it being absolute. I've seen the opposite time and time again, where interesting characters are forced to adapt to and endure the change, some rising above it to scrape together the scraps of their former life and others... they aren't so fortunate, succumbing to the self-horror, the oppression and the fear.

That isn't to say the gimmick thing doesn't happen, but slapping the label on everyone and slamming the door? It is unfair.

That's pretty much the game.

That's pretty hyperbolic.

You could go back and delete almost everything in that post, leave the last few bits and it'd be about spot on, though.

Do you really want me playing a krathi who has to find a person to cast his fireball of doom at un?

Nil is needed for some spells.

Our stalwart chalton companions are prepared to take one for the team on this.

What's good for the grebber is good for the 'gicker, too.

[RogueGunslinger]

I love how multiple people have defaulted to "oh well a magicker clearly ruffled your feathers" or "You must have had bad experience" when they apparently can't accept someone has a difference of opinion.

Take the opinion at face value. Stop trying to devalue it by assuming stupid shit about the person with the opinion.