Magick and its place in Arm

[wizturbo]

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.

That's true, but not for the reasons you think.  

People don't choose to play Gemmed because it's "cushy and safe" they play Gemmed because it's the only way they can have an actual role instead of pretending to be mundane, but not having any skills to actually pretend to be that effectively.  I'll admit, the new subguilds and extended subguilds help with this, but it's extremely easy to sniff that you're an 'aggressor' vs.  an actual mundane guild.  The only roles where they might actually be able to blend in and pretend to be mundane are social roles, which generally mean roles in the cities, except the magick protections on the cities make this basically impossible so no one does it anymore.  So, they go to Red Storm, Luirs, or live in the wild and try to keep their secret.  If they're incredibly lucky (or OOCly collude with other players) they might bump into another rogue magicker to play with.  Unless they're very clever, or play off peak hours, they're bound to be discovered in short order and then they either die, lose all of their interaction by fleeing, or become "the scary bad guy" which is just another version of losing all their interaction, save for their few villainous Ways or rare encounters in the wilds.  Not exactly an exciting role you want to sink a lot of hours into.

So many choose to play a Gemmed.  At least there, they have other Gemmed to talk to, can join House Oash, or can participate in some plots the Templarate bring them along on.  Except even the Gemmed are incredibly limited.  You cannot visit other people's temples, so finding other Gemmed isn't easy.  There are no Gemmed forums to coordinate play times with others, and no central meeting places to congregate.  Many Gemmed take to standing aimlessly at the choke point that leads into the Elementalist Quarter in a desperate attempt to find people.  They literally just loiter on the street.  

House Oash is only an option for certain types of personalities, and the politics of that clan often means that joining Oash limits your interactions with non-Oash Gemmed.

Despite those limitations, at least you get to play an actual mage, rather than some hollow shell of a character.  And some of the best magickal plots I've been involved in were with Gemmed mages.  It just takes a lot of squeezing to get juice out of Gemmed roles, a lot more squeezing than anyone should have to go through.  And then uninformed, or biased people on the GDB say that even the limited roles available via the Gem should be taken away so they can have their 'scary and mysterious' magickers...  Except there are no scary or mysterious magicks anymore without staff assistance (which thankfully is granted from time to time, which is the only thing that keeps things fresh.  Thank you staff!).  They're all very well known and documented by cheaters.  No one is OOCly impressed when they encounter "normal" magick anymore, and it certainly effects the IC reactions of all but the best of role players.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

This reminds me of a time when I had a 'rather simple' human woman just out of chargen that an aide of some sort decided to cling to and he asked me stuff, like about myself, if I thought I might ever work for someone, etc. And a witch asks us to come into the vivaduan main room temple (the old version that was actually nice) because he wants to ask me a question. So we do.

Me and the aide suckup dude chat a little more and I think he finds me adorable in a cute kitten way. The witch comes back with a teardrop jewel on a string and says its a gift for me. And I'm simple and everything so it makes me real happy. I wear it and it gives off the echo telling everyone in the room that I'm a water witch.

[Molten Heart]

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.

Until the cops show up and they shoot the dog. Not that this would happen in real life but in zalanthas magikers are viewed as a huge threat for no definite reason that's also inconsistent with similar threats.

[BadSkeelz]

Re: Wizturbo and the Gemmed,

As I see the Gemmed, the suckiness and challenge of their role is very much fitting and intentional.

The Gem was not invented in-character to give mages a chance to be mages. It was developed as a lure, a token signifying that in a world where near everyone hates magickers, you can live in some safety and comfort within the walls of Allanak... so long that you submit and serve. Gemmed should be viewed as the hollow shells of characters, not rogue mages. They're cowards, who took the Gemmed so as to be protected from the envy and fear of the rest of the world. It is Gemmed who are basically slaves, who live only at the whim of the Templarate (and who get lynched in mass whenever the Templarate takes its eye off the ball). It is Gemmed who are thought of as weapons, tools, and occasional fuckpillows. Gemmed have no culture, no gathering place, no traditions, because it's in the Templarate's interest for them not to. The Gemmed should be beaten down and convinced of their own expendable nature.

Why then would anyone want to submit to this? Because it's better than the alternative - to be hunted and killed. To be a rogue mage is to be a rebel, to reject the submission demanded by the Templarate. You also put yourself at odds with the superstitions of the tribes, who are unlikely to view you as any better than a mockery and thief of their spirits' power. Rogues shouldn't become villains because they've spamcasted up to laser death beam, they should become villains because they reject the order of the world.

Gemmed is a difficult, soulcrushingly isolated role by design. It's a slave role in all but in name, which historically have abysmal application rates. The only reason you see as many Gemmed as you do is because of the whizbang factor of magick (plus a few people who actually play characters). Perhaps its too difficult, but I don't think they need to be given more clan jobs.

If anything, rogue mages need more love and room to exist. Room for them to be hunted in, and to fight back from.

The focus should not be on incorporating Gemmed in to mundane play. It should be the antagonistic nature of civilized (and tribal) culture fighting against those who've rejected it.

[Tisiphone]

My vision for magick is as follows. This covers both my desired place in the world, and coded changes to accomplish that. That said, I think it roughly covers where magick is 'supposed' to be, according to the documentation. Note also that I'm talking about elementalists; sorcerers are their own bag of wind.

Magick should be useful. Magick should be scary. Magick should be dangerous. Magick should be weird. Magick should be powerful. Magick should be dark.

First, do away with standard casting echoes. They're often inappropriate, and usually ignored. If we took the code at its word, Allanak would be a burned-out pile of rubble by now.

The next level would be easy to accomplish with minimal changes to how magick appears to work to the players. (Note that I'm not talking about coding difficulty, just perceived change.)

Magick should carry consequences in the form of uncontrollable or difficult-to-control side-effects, depending on the spell and the power. A 'low level' or 'starting' spell might, at lower horns, have no side effects...usually. Higher horns, or more powerful spells, have more severe effects. Furthermore, what side effect types you get should not be strictly deterministic, but based on probability. Finally, the more casting you do in a short period of time, the more severe the side effects. Side effects might include, in rough order of severity:

• Personally-visible echoes (such as strange feelings, or arcane senses. Things like, "You notice an oppressive presence take momentary notice of you," or, "You have a sudden conviction that there are crawling beetles inside your eyeballs, trying to get out." These are poorly written examples in the spirit, not exemplars.)
• Room-visible unsettling echoes. (e.g., "A small band of roaches assembles into a pair of eyes before skittering away again," or, "A large, translucent hand appears through a hole in the air, groping for something before fading from view.")
• Lingering personal echoes to simulate temporary derangement. (e.g., "You have an unaccountable craving for eyeballs," or "You need a rock friend. Only the rocks understand you, and the rocks whisper secrets when you stroke them just right.") Think skellebaine echoes, but not so frequent and more consistent. There would be several different possible 'echo status effects' that are invisible to the status command and each self-consistent.
• Magickal misfires. The spell affects something else, or more, or less, than its intended target, or has a greater or lesser effect, or a side effect. (e.g. you cast a spell to buff your stamina. It does so, while also lowering your agility and giving you a temporary echo of uncontrollable tics.)
• Lingering description changes that mark one as a mage to other mages or mundanes. Either tdesc or using wearlocs, like fading scars. Range from an arcane eye on your forehead only visible to other mages through a disfiguring weal across your face to a stunted third arm or a vestigal pair of wings that remove your <back> slot until they wither and drop off.
• Lingering status effects that change real stats or abilities. Lower stun or HP or stamina or mana, etc. Maybe refreshed by new casting. Maybe temporarily relieved by new casting, thus tempting the player to pile on more effects.
  
• Permanent description changes, as above.
• Permanent status effects, as above.
• Permanent personality changes. You get told, e.g. "You are now convinced there are beetles made of pure darkness scratching at the edge of the world trying to get in. You hear them in your dreams, and are terrified of what would happen if they succeed. Only you can stop them." That gets logged to your character info so staff can see it and check that you are roleplaying accordingly. (There might need to be a system for negotiating different insanities with staff, so this doesn't get repetitive.)
• Plenty of other ideas might fit on this list.

The possibility, severity, and specifics of each of these effects should depend on what spell is cast, the severity of the spell, and the element. Vivaduan spells should generally be less creepy than Drovian spells, and side effects from Suk-krathis should be more outright destructive than those of Rukkians. This would go a long way toward reinforcing the 'magick is scary, but useful' place accorded to it in the documentation, with tiered reactions depending on the element of the caster. You might employ a Viv for some things, maybe, but unless you're a templar you're going to stay well clear of a Krathi. Drovians are truly weird, and so forth.

The second level would be to add a different, supplementary sort of magick itself. Mages should get 'ritual' spells that take time and materials to cast, for powerful but indirect effects. Depending on element, you might change the weather, or turn all beasts of a given type in a certain area into your temporary friends, or increase changes of finding gemstones, or turn some area into a maze where people always lose their direction, or cause an entire section of the Red Desert to temporarily break out in bubbling lava, killing everything caught there. They might summon elementals (if these don't exist, make them) or gain temporary (or permanent!) large boosts to stats (like mana or mana regen, mostly?) in exchange for body parts or permanent effects as above or a living human (PC) sacrifice.

Magick should be useful. Magick should be scary. Magick should be dangerous. Magick should be weird. Magick should be powerful. Magick should be dark.

[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.

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

For me it's easy enough to maintain incorrect beliefs about what magickers can do, deliberately or no. There's a whole list of superstitions regarding magickers and the little curses/blessings they can lay on you with small actions in the docs. I don't like all of them, but I've definitely used some of them IC (among others of my own invention) and I didn't feel like I was forcing it.

Your PC is (likely) a bumpkin commoner, not too skeptical, not too good at determining causation. Try stopping seeing random unfortunate events as coincidences and start blaming them on witches; it's a lot of fun (in my opinion) and you can really get a sense of how these superstitions can persist even when they aren't logical.

[BadSkeelz]

I really like Tisiphone's suggestions. They'd go a long way towards making magick scary and weird and not just a useful tool with OOC baggage that cheapens the game in multiple ways.

[Bogre]

Yeah, Tisiphone's post was yummy.

[hyzhenhok]

Magick is scary because of the ignorance of the population. Magick is scary because it is unknown and powerful. This is thematically very different from a Lovecraftian-style corruption and insanity attached to the occult that Tisiphone is suggesting.

Not only would this represent a substantially change in the game's magickal theming, there's no reason to think it would even solve the problem. One major problem is players often do not appropriately roleplay the fear and ignorance and superstition they should have towards magick. Why should we expect them to appropriately roleplay fear and insanity and corruption?

Rather than changing the theme, I would rather just reinforce the one we already have. If you want to make magick actually scary and unknown, you don't have to change the theme of the game to accomplish that.

[BadSkeelz]

Except magick isn't scary, unless the person wielding it is an asshat.

[RogueGunslinger]

Except magick isn't scary, unless the person wielding it is an asshat.

If you make an enemy out of a magicker it is scary, and they're not being asshats, they're tryin to survive, roleplay and have fun, like you are.

[BadSkeelz]

But why would any rational person go out of their way to make an enemy of something that is useful, effective, reliable, with zero drawbacks save social ones? There's little incentive for players to follow the docs here, so they don't. Magickers become tolerated, included in more and more things, and ultimately warp the setting from low fantasy gritty post-apocalyptic survival to "everyone has a buddy who can summon food, water, and kill dangerous beasts. Sometimes all three!"

Civilized Magick is in an awkward position where it's hated and feared and carries massive negative connotations, but there's little in game to back it up.

[BadSkeelz]

Daww rath


The more I think about it the more convinced I am that Gemmed are the weak point of Elementalist Magicker RP in the game. But other than removing the temple visiting restrictions, I'm not sure what you'd need to do to fix them and make them feel a more intrinsic part of the game without making them totally unfun.

[Erythil]

My interpretation was always that magic can be perfectly safe and effective (such as in prior or now-destroyed civilizations that seem to have been much nicer places to live than Allanak), but that the templarate has intentionally created a situation based on ignorance and fear in order to monopolize its power for themselves and maintain a stranglehold on what is essentially the world's greatest force.

To my mind, if we're going to go to an example in media, armageddon shares a ton of features in common with Dragon Age, and the way magic works there is similar to how magic works here.  Gemmed = Circle mages, semi-enslaved, misunderstood, used ruthlessly by an organization of holy knights, the Chantry, roughly analogous to Templar, while rogue mages, despite perfectly capable of being The Good Guys, are roundly condemned because of a few Blood Mages (like Defilers) who give the rest of them a bad name.

The world was also clearly a much more magic-accepting society before defiling was discovered by the Dragon.

I think a lot of players have internalized the IC biases in an OOC fashion.  The original goal of Dark Sun was to -fight- the evil biases and oppressive corruption of the setting, not cheerlead it.  The setting is full of ignorant peasants that want to burn down the temples (and have), but that doesn't mean we all have to play them.

There are always people who will go against the dominant views of their society.  'Everyone must react to this in negative fashion X' is as reductive and dumb as the CAM power rangers, just in the opposite direction.

[hyzhenhok]

My point was that if our problem is players currently have no problem rationalizing away something that is supposed to be scary, changing the flavor of what that scariness is supposed to be won't fix anything. We don't need to turn the magick side of Armageddon into a lovecraftian horror game, and even if we did, it wouldn't solve the problem.  And adding stuff that is actually frightening to the player behind the character (if we assume that is the problem) wouldn't require a massive change in theme of the game's magick.

Anyway, "how to make magick scary to players" is probably its own topic.

[Taven]

Reading through this thread, there was one piece that stuck with me the most: People want and like documentation that helps place them in the world


It sounds like some of people's favorite magickers (even ones Badskeelz approves of, which is shocking), are tribal magickers. This is because of the incredible richness and depth of their documentation, which makes them not just folk churning out spells, but place their magick into a system of tribal and spiritual beliefs. It both limits them (what they can do, how they're expected to do it) and strengthens them (giving them a contextual place in the world).

Gemmers don't have documentation. I understand that a lack of temple structure is intentional on the part of staff as an IC representation of the Templars keeping the gemmed from getting too strong, but it leaves people with nothing to fall back on. Gemmers don't have the benefit of being able to explore their magicks in a way that is anything more complex then "these five words do this," unless it is on an individual scale.

What if we gave the gemmed documentation? Let's give people the support and structure they need to explore magick. So the temples are complex places without leadership; maybe this means there are different gemmed factions with different views. Maybe we have stories passed down through the temples about what has happened when gemmed got too strong, whispered of as warnings. Maybe--just maybe--we also have stories for the gemmed that are sources of pride, times when they helped the city and nobody else could (even if the vast majority doesn't know it). We can still keep gemmers as scattered and without control, but let's give them a cultural context.

The idea of mages as being actually scary has come up a few times, which goes hand in hand with making them more complex. I found Tisiphone's post to be an interesting read with some good ideas... But the approach I would take is a little different. What if instead of having coded things that occurred, we had documented guidelines for what could happen to a magicker character? Right now, it's up to the individual, but if we had documentation just for mages that outlined some of the strange and bizarre things that could happen to them as they explore their powers, they could more fully role-play the process--and mundanes could have more to react to as they role-play their hate and mistrust.

As to Wizturbo's idea of more magickers in clans... My gut reaction is to rebel against this. Magickers, especially gemmed, should be limited in what they can do in terms of involvement. They have super powers in some ways; this is limited by their social opportunities. These social limits help ensure that mundanes have more opportunities overall and help keep the mundane/magicker separation better. However... I don't think that this necessarily limits some of the magicker utilization that he was talking about. Having mages not a part of the clan yet still giving leaders an opportunity to utilize them is what I would find ideal. I think this is largely how the current situation works, though.

[Large Hero]

Not only would this represent a substantially change in the game's magickal theming, there's no reason to think it would even solve the problem. One major problem is players often do not appropriately roleplay the fear and ignorance and superstition they should have towards magick.

It's less interesting to roleplay fear of something that isn't actually dangerous unless the player behind the magicker wants it to be. I think it would be more interesting and fun to roleplay fear of magical that actually -was- not able to be perfectly controlled, or that at least warped its users.

Why should we expect them to appropriately roleplay fear and insanity and corruption?

Because under a system like Tisiphone's, it would actually be dangerous, even if the player of the magicker didn't want to be.


Unfortunately, changes like these have little chance to be taken seriously, even if they have merit (and I think Tisiphone's ideas do merit exploration).  Many people will reject many changes out of hand, because it's not the way things were, or the way things are, or that it conflicts with IC lore and history.

To my mind, I'm playing a game, here. The design of the gameplay systems absolutely has to trump the lore or "it's the way things have been" factor.

The logic is simple to me - what's better?

Good gameplay systems and "new" lore to go along with it
Flawed gameplay systems and the lore we've had?

I've been playing for about 5 years now. I've played two magickers in that time - one rogue, one not - and I stored them pretty quickly, because I just don't find the magick system very fun or interesting.

Yes, I know that there's a lot under the hood, behind the scenes (maybe). That doesn't help the day to day experience of playing the role.

Disclaimer - these are just my opinions. Of course your experiences and opinions may vary. I don't claim to be right. I just think there's a healthy amount of people who'd like to see a change - and that probably warrants a change.

[Pale Horse]

I spent a few minutes trying to gathering my thoughts into a post, but Taven basically summed them up.

[Delirium]

My interpretation was always that magic can be perfectly safe and effective (such as in prior or now-destroyed civilizations that seem to have been much nicer places to live than Allanak), but that the templarate has intentionally created a situation based on ignorance and fear in order to monopolize its power for themselves and maintain a stranglehold on what is essentially the world's greatest force.

To my mind, if we're going to go to an example in media, armageddon shares a ton of features in common with Dragon Age, and the way magic works there is similar to how magic works here.  Gemmed = Circle mages, semi-enslaved, misunderstood, used ruthlessly by an organization of holy knights, the Chantry, roughly analogous to Templar, while rogue mages, despite perfectly capable of being The Good Guys, are roundly condemned because of a few Blood Mages (like Defilers) who give the rest of them a bad name.

The world was also clearly a much more magic-accepting society before defiling was discovered by the Dragon.

I think a lot of players have internalized the IC biases in an OOC fashion.  The original goal of Dark Sun was to -fight- the evil biases and oppressive corruption of the setting, not cheerlead it.  The setting is full of ignorant peasants that want to burn down the temples (and have), but that doesn't mean we all have to play them.

There are always people who will go against the dominant views of their society.  'Everyone must react to this in negative fashion X' is as reductive and dumb as the CAM power rangers, just in the opposite direction.

Great post. Not sure about the solution still but this is a very clear-headed thought to keep in mind.

Unfortunately the grey area is a challenging place for many roleplayers adjust to. Especially if they're used to thinking of fantasy settings in very b/w Tolkeinesque terms.

[BadSkeelz]

Kiiiiiiiiinda sounds like you're saying people who don't like magick are bad roleplayers, you two.

Though I do agree with the reasoning here,

My interpretation was always that magic can be perfectly safe and effective (such as in prior or now-destroyed civilizations that seem to have been much nicer places to live than Allanak), but that the templarate has intentionally created a situation based on ignorance and fear in order to monopolize its power for themselves and maintain a stranglehold on what is essentially the world's greatest force.

[TheWanderer]

Magick's place in Arm is beneath the heel of my boot.

[Norcal]

My vision for magick is as follows. This covers both my desired place in the world, and coded changes to accomplish that. That said, I think it roughly covers where magick is 'supposed' to be, according to the documentation. Note also that I'm talking about elementalists; sorcerers are their own bag of wind.

Magick should be useful. Magick should be scary. Magick should be dangerous. Magick should be weird. Magick should be powerful. Magick should be dark.

I would agree with the first five, yet not the last.  Magick in Arm is elemental. It is not -necessarily- twisted or demonic. I see no reason why a Krathi, Viv, Whiran or a Rukkian should be dark, I see nothing dark about their  powers.  For a Nilazi, perhaps twisted is a good word. The darkness you are referring to I think should be more of the human (or whatever race) element, how the person chooses to use magick.  Power corrupts, so elemental power should also in some way corrupt.

I think having some adverse effects when spells go wrong would go a long way to making gickers more feared.  These effects should impact the gicker and those near him/her and they should less frequent as mastery of the spell progresses.  Their should be some consequences when a spell goes awry. 

There has been some discussion in this thread about how the gemmed are eventually tolerated and even to some extent accepted by many mundane PCs. While it is true that this goes against the current documentation, it may be due to the fact that the documentation no longer reflects the reality of how the player base sees the game. The documentation may make the game less playable, and because of that it is pushed aside or ignored in the interest of playability and FUN.

I think elementalists should have a place in clans, because their skills are useful and profitable. And they get used by clans anyway "unofficially". So update the docs to reflect the IC realities.

[Erythil]

Kiiiiiiiiinda sounds like you're saying people who don't like magick are bad roleplayers, you two.

Though I do agree with the reasoning here,

My interpretation was always that magic can be perfectly safe and effective (such as in prior or now-destroyed civilizations that seem to have been much nicer places to live than Allanak), but that the templarate has intentionally created a situation based on ignorance and fear in order to monopolize its power for themselves and maintain a stranglehold on what is essentially the world's greatest force.

I'm arguing that both are valid options, and it's not inherently objectionable to play a 'good guy' in a harsh setting.  It's only when -everyone- is playing one that it becomes theme-breaking.  Not every single person needs to simultaneously be on the letter of what's normal in the world.

[Lizzie]

I agree with Erythil, and point out to Large Hero:
You want to ask "which is better?" But you can't answer that. Better is subjective. Better for whom? If it's better for me, then it'll return to the "end of the world" plots when magick was all over the place, everyone and their brother was a magicker, and there was room reach, and it was insane, and everyone who wasn't a magicker was either in league with one, running from one, or trying to kill one.

That's why there are always these discussions. Because what's better for you isn't going to be what's better for me, or what's better for Badskeelz, or what's better for Desertman or Wizturbo.

There will be -no- agreement on what's better.

[evilcabbage]

cabbage refuses to listen to anything you all say.

tisiphone is right.

vestigeal wings for everyone!