Magick and its place in Arm

[Kryos]

Clan magickers should be PKed before every RPT lest they steal the glory and/or cause staff to ramp the difficulty up too much.

We get it, you personally don't like magickers/involving them.  Plenty of that already to sit on.

Also, to many speaking of 'the magicker show' . . . I humbly disagree.  My experience has shown me both the profound strengths, and weaknesses, of magick and its users.  I would put forth that the player of mundane or magic user makes the experience.  I've had PCs put under their heel, asked to collaborate with, and who went after one or more.  More or less the full spectrum.  The result for me is that a well played character with magic powers is a ball to be around, be you on the receiving or giving end.  They are karma locked, and this I think is necessary.

Rarity?  Keep it as it is.  Distribution?  Maybe open up just a wee, wee bit more.  Maybe.

[wizturbo]

Break for stamina and bandages isn't any different.

But those involve completely reasonable things Erythil!  I mean, those bandages were covered in these herbs you see.  /sarcasm

The whole argument against magickers having some place in this game is crap.  If you have a spell echo come before the instantaneous heal it's glory hogging, but if you used an herb soaked bandage, then it's okay.   Make sure you emote really well about how you're applying that bandage though!  But Vivaduans, you'd better not emote any light shows when you heal someone magickally.  It takes away all the fun.

The same goes with combat.  If you cast fireball and burn up a mantis, you'd steal all the glory at the RPT.  It's okay to shoot the mantis with a bow from a few rooms away though.  Or sap it unconscious at the start of combat.  Or use a poison that makes it paralyzed in a few seconds.  No problem there.

We don't want RPT's to feel like WoW instances or anything, but our combat leader PCs tell people to "assist" each other.  Or tell the half-giant to go play tank.  Or take a break after the fight to heal up.  What a load of crap.  Don't pretend that having magickers involved in it somehow ruins the experience and makes it more like a WoW raid than it already is.  

I swear, the anti-magicker arguments on these boards essentially boil down to "I like Aragorn more than Gandalf."  

Good!  Good for you!  This is Zalanthas.  There's magick.  There always has been.  Stop trying to turn it into AragornMud.  Play an Aragorn style PC if you like it, and hate Gandalf if you like that too, but don't OOCly say that Gandalf should go sit in a cave alone because if he comes along it's going to ruin your Aragorn party. 

[BadSkeelz]

It really does, at least for me. Everything else you mention has real weight behind it, a visceral realness. Something I can imagine and become immersed in. Spells are just kind of... Bleeuuuugh? Forced. Made up. Contrived.

It's a weird distinction to make in a text based game of hairless dwarfs, I know, but trust me when I say I believe it.

The nice thing about Armageddon now is that it is a big world and it's possible to play in different spheres with minimal overlap.

Also my favorite character was Ugluk.

[wizturbo]

The nice thing about Armageddon now is that it is a big world and it's possible to play in different spheres with minimal overlap.

Yes, you're right.  It is nice, for mundanes.  But what about the magickers out there?  It fucking sucks for people who want to play a magicker and are pigeon holed into, to use your own words,  "Forced.  Made up.  Contrived" roles because someone arbitrarily decided they should be that way.  

It makes no fucking sense that a magicker who can cure all kinds of grievance injuries, diseases, or poisons, and create water on a desert world is not employed by any clan in the entire world except for House Oash or a human tribe.  That could be used as a fucking dictionary definition for forced, made up and contrived.

Why is it okay for mundanes to be saved from these kinds of contrived situations, but magickers just have to shut up and deal with it?

[BadSkeelz]

From a meta standpoint, it's because magick offers the easy way out. It undercuts the theme of 'harsh post apocalyptic desert world' if we can just magick our way to survival or comfort.

In character, I don't know how you justify the exclusion beyond hatred of the concept itself. Zalanthans are pretty dumb.

[Inks]

Wizturbo and Skeelz are basically opposites. One can't bear magick like it is a red headed stepchild and one can't stop going back to it or say anything bad about it like a cukolded spouse.

I forgot where I was going with this.

Oh right, I think 2 mages at a time should be allowed in the Sabers. As long as they were treated as a living machine gun and nod as a friend.

[Vwest]

Magick will always have a place in my bawdy band of adventurers.

[RogueGunslinger]

IMO Aragorn used magick.  

He sat down on the ground, and taking the dagger-hilt laid it on his knees, and he sang over it a slow song in a strange tongue. Then setting it aside, he turned to Frodo and in a soft tone spoke words the others could not catch.

[wizturbo]

Wizturbo and Skeelz are basically opposites. One can't bear magick like it is a red headed stepchild and one can't stop going back to it or say anything bad about it like a cukolded spouse.

We agree on some things actually.  I think Nil should be removed, so does BadSkeelz.  I think magickers should be scary, and earn their coded strength, so does BadSkeelz.  

We also both agree that neither one of us play characters that always reflect our OOC biases.  I've played characters who absolutely loathe magick, and I'm sure he's played characters that tolerate it.

There's some common ground, but we butt heads on the GDB more often than we agree.

[wizturbo]

IMO Aragorn used magick.  

He sat down on the ground, and taking the dagger-hilt laid it on his knees, and he sang over it a slow song in a strange tongue. Then setting it aside, he turned to Frodo and in a soft tone spoke words the others could not catch.

Herb-soaked bandage.  Prayed to Tek.    Fuck it, I should've used Gimli in my analogy.

[RogueGunslinger]

IMO Aragorn used magick.  

He sat down on the ground, and taking the dagger-hilt laid it on his knees, and he sang over it a slow song in a strange tongue. Then setting it aside, he turned to Frodo and in a soft tone spoke words the others could not catch.

Herb-soaked bandage.  Prayed to Tek.    Fuck it, I should've used Gimli in my analogy.

But he has a beard! Hah, but no really, Aragorn totally did use Master bandage. I conveniently left out the rest.

[Incognito]

A lot of these issues - the place of magick on Arm - would be addressed, if Templars, nobles, clan leaders (like the Byn, just for example) and even the general Allanaki population - would start utilizing gemmed mages for their various abilities.

Left on their own, gemmed have really no direction, other than to interact between themselves, and practise their spells and be on their own, and plan their own miniscule plots.

As a PC, you might hate or fear the gemmed, but, you would also know their uses, and when to approach them for help. Trading favors (either in cash or kind) with a gemmer, doesn't mean your PC has "accepted" them, it just means you are being practical in a given situation and using the resources available to you, even though the outcome might be different than what you expect, sometimes. In other words, dealing or associating with a mage wont label you as a witch-lover, as long as you do it in an ICLY realistic manner.

If players start thinking in this way, it'll open up a whole new range of RP possibilities and interactions - for mundane and mages alike.

[Inks]

I hope the gemmed aren't used widely like this ever.

[Dakota]

The rarer they are and the more RP obsticles put forth, the better magickers are for the game world.

If a Viv is w. a group on some RPT and is healing everyone and keeping everyone alive, then, frankly, fuck all those people. The way magick is in the world, I'd reckon most would feel fear, spite and repulusion to that magickers magic.

Maybe I'm a bit extreme but I think a guilds which are innately powerful, need strict RP from themselves and others to keep checks and balances AND to add color to the world. It's gritty. It's hard. It's brutal. This ain't WoW.

And it's probably why most my PCs fall into the RP stereotype of a magic-loathing / fearing variety and why I choose to play mundanes.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

From a meta standpoint, it's because magick offers the easy way out. It undercuts the theme of 'harsh post apocalyptic desert world' if we can just magick our way to survival or comfort.

In character, I don't know how you justify the exclusion beyond hatred of the concept itself. Zalanthans are pretty dumb.

Hate of groups is an overwhelming power in a world full of water, food, mass production, metal, healthcare and education. I always thought that the hatred of mages made sense in the world.

[burble]

For the benefit of having mages accepted, add a penalty.

Certain spells could cause unease in animals - cast within 5 rooms of a hunting type and it would be set to hunt you. Any other agro type and it would be set to charge you. Make npcs (gith, etc) autotarget mages when they cast spells. Maybe casting a spell calls more to the fight.

Make it so that magic is a last resort weapon, not a front line event.

Magic on arm makes no sense to me. I've had my pcs wet their pants when realizing they were talking to a gemmed at a bar then leave. I've had them run in circles with their hands in the air out in the wilds, screaming in fear (after giving them time to cast a spell, leave). Show fear and leave is the only encounter I know that is IC for meeting a magicker. Leave hatred for the stronger types.

[azuriolinist]

In my opinion, the hatred/fear of magick makes sense because magick to Zalanthans is this utterly powerful thing capable of all sorts of destruction. This can tend to cause envy, panic, and what have you not. And, codedly, from what I've read on these boards, that is already represented (whether poorly RPed or not)...

The adversity to mages balances their power out pretty well, making them difficult to play in a non-coded way. Mages are often never accepted by the rest of the people, and there is little hope for them to rise through the ranks and resemble something important whatsoever. That said, I'd like it if there were more opportunities for mages to interact with others and contribute to plots, even if it's for them to be used as a tool to die later on (because filthy magick, come on). Opening a slot or two in clans for elementalists would be neat, and from there I think it should fall upon the clan's leaders on whether they'd wish to hire one or not.

I'm not saying have Zalanthans accept them, but to make use of them. And if they act out, all the more reason to fear mages.

[palomar]

I'd like magick to be rare and powerful. While I understand the removal of full sorcerers from the hands of the player base, I don't like that quite a few aspects of magick are locked away from PCs. The CAM era of 2007-2008 (I played a fully branched-and-some-more rogue elementalist at the time) revealed a lot of stuff about what's possible with the magick system on Arm, and my understanding is that most of it is now unavailable. Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the feeling that there's not much of long-term development for magicker PCs anymore. I intend to explore the magicker situation at some point with future PCs and perhaps I'll be proven wrong in my assumptions.
That said, my personal experience is that magickers are quite rare and also quite scary when you run into them. While I as a player might know what a Rukkian is capable of, most of my PCs wouldn't, and that's what I take into the game. As for the gemmed, I have no idea. Never played one or around them much to have an opinion.

[Pale Horse]

If magick is supposed to be mystical, powerful and scary...why not make it hidden?

Remove the ability of anyone who isn't a gicker of some flavor or another to see the specific casting animations that a mage goes.  Replace them with a generic "such-and-such waves their arms about" instead of "blood falls from the sky as such-and-such waves their arms about" to anyone who can't cast.  Add some of the uncertainty back in.

Added scary when facing a rogue out in the wilderness.  Sure the witch has been throwing fireballs this whole time and you're pretty sure their a Krathi..but do you really know?  Maybe they're a secret sorcerer and will pull out a lightning bolt on your ass any moment now.  You ain't the wiggler, you'll have to trust your powers of observation or, Tek-forbid, trust the word of another wiggler.

[Beethoven]

I would support this. Sometimes I want my mage PC to cast subtly and do something simple, but instead it's like ROARING FLAMES GATHER AROUND YOU or THERE'S SUDDENLY AN EARTHQUAKE or DAMN IT SUDDENLY GOT HUMID IN HERE.

[Warsong]

Personally, I find that the whole concept of gemmed mages completely destroys the notion that magick is rare, and that encountering a magicker should be something scary and impressive. Even if you don't see gemmed people doing magick at the bar and whatnot, the fact that you sit there with them every day - and they're often trying extremely hard to be nice and considerate - makes it hard to keep up the charade. It forces your character to consciously distinguish between gemmed mages and rogue mages, which feels jarring and weird. It forces you to either give up on being standoffish toward mages, or go through this tediouos and contrived pretend-unfriendliness every time you go to the Gaj, to the point where it just feels annoying and fake.

I don't know what the gemmed add to the game as a concept. I've never seen it. I've never witnessed anything good come from it, just awkward and off-putting interaction as well as a watering-down of the game's magick theme, and of course the enabling of the most powerful type of reasonably available character also being the easiest to max out. It's all negative to me. Rogue mages, they're great and I think that's precisely what magick should be about. Gemmed, though? That completely undermines this and just creates tedious, meaningless interactions that I don't think anybody on either side is interested in. Gemmed characters aren't even really useful, they're largely limited to a single clan and, almost by definition, cannot have anything significant to do with the playerbase at large.

Rogue mages represent what I feel magick should be, and gemmed mages really undermine this. I feel like the option of going gemmed is probably also a blow against rogue mages because a good portion of players will choose the path of least resistance, tying half (or whatever) of mage PCs up in the gemmed role where they're severely limited in what they can add to the game world in terms of representing magick as a scary, dangerous thing. A lot of it stems from the fact that the gem is visible, though, because I think a lot of these problems would be solved if being a gemmed mage was something you could keep secret between you and the templarate, creating a whole new venue of plot and intrigue that's elimiated from the start when all gemmed mages can be identified at first glance.

If there was a time in the past when gemmed mages had a real purpose and a meaningful role to play, I feel that it's gone. I guess the gemmed concept wasn't meant for a game with no other city that could be the opposite counterpart.

[valeria]

Personally, I find that the whole concept of gemmed mages completely destroys the notion that magick is rare, and that encountering a magicker should be something scary and impressive.

I disagree. I think the distinction is fine. It's the difference between coming across a huge, scary-looking dog in the park that has a collar and is attached to its owner by a leash. And coming across a huge, scary dog in the park and no one is around even pretending to control it.

[Warsong]

Personally, I find that the whole concept of gemmed mages completely destroys the notion that magick is rare, and that encountering a magicker should be something scary and impressive.

I disagree. I think the distinction is fine. It's the difference between coming across a huge, scary-looking dog in the park that has a collar and is attached to its owner by a leash. And coming across a huge, scary dog in the park and no one is around even pretending to control it.

Right, but it seems to me that the existence of the gemmed option makes it so that a number of mage players take that course and subsequently don't fill the role as scary, dangerous mage. The scary, dangerous mages seem to be a bit missing from where I'm standing, probably because the cushy temple and safe gem was tempting to those players. Consequently, I never actually hear about the scary, dangerous magick, and my character's only exposure to it is seeing them in the Gaj where they're friendly and a common sight, i.e. not scary and rare.

[Beethoven]

They're not necessarily just scary because they're unfriendly, although obviously an unfriendly one is scarier. They're scary because their very presence is supposedly volatile. I enjoy playing the discrimination against mages a lot more when I play a superstitious PC rather than one that just frowns and grunts or whatever.

[Patuk]

They're not necessarily just scary because they're unfriendly, although obviously an unfriendly one is scarier. They're scary because their very presence is supposedly volatile. I enjoy playing the discrimination against mages a lot more when I play a superstitious PC rather than one that just frowns and grunts or whatever.

You're not wrong, but the word supposedly is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.