Psionics: Ideas and discussion on etiquette

[Armaddict]

I personally liked the days of The Way being obviously more difficult and thus being roleplayed as more difficult.

Was against the change then, still against the change now.

[Case]

Not having either in combat is fine. The Way's not easy.

Testing how good barrier is is kinda iffy since you can't tell if you've successfully stopped a person or not. I know I usually try contact one person multiple times because contact can fail. Maybe if contact couldn't fail against non barriered people, and barrier was biased towards resisting contact unless they're like a psi or something, and truenames and additional targetting modifiers don't increase contact rate, then yeah. That sounds more reasonable.

Also, no more contacted cloaked people from keywords like "cloaked" or "figure" and shit like that, unless the sdesc you receive is their hooded sdesc. Things got harder for sneakies with look becoming hemote. This seems like a good compromise.

[BadSkeelz]

Being able to contact 1.man, 2.man, etc. as a means to finding out who's online and who might of done something is shitty play too.

Contact should only work with Names and the keywords in a character's sdesc. Ideally you'd need two so as to avoid the "contact 1.man" play.

[Majikal]

Being able to contact 1.man, 2.man, etc. as a means to finding out who's online and who might of done something is shitty play too.

Contact should only work with Names and the keywords in a character's sdesc. Ideally you'd need two so as to avoid the "contact 1.man" play.

Once did something shift as a rogue mage to a clan, causing them a bit of trouble. Considering at the time (only 8 players online) and 6 of them being part of the clan and present. The other 2 were me and my pc's associate. We both got this. Someone contacts your mind and says 'hi'. This was used to identify the potential 'suspects' for the shenanigans. contact 1.man, contact 2.man, contact 3.man. Fortunately the victim couldn't use that to icly identify it, but it sucks when you know that the player of some other pc knows you just did some shenanigans to him and is willing to use the code to figure out who.

I wish contact worked soley on the keywords you see in Score (Amos tall muscular man). It's silly that back in the day a common tactic after doing a crime was promptly lowering your hood after fleeing, not because you wanted to look casual but because you needed to shake yourself of the sdesc keywords associated with that outfit and the way.


On topic though, I don't have an issue with barrier. It's usable and does great so long as wisdom isn't always your dump stat.

[path]

If I recall part of the motivation behind the bump for starting contact was to make it easier for newbs to contact potential employers and get involved in plots. Which I think is totally legit. It would be rad as all get-out though if after receiving your first karma you no longer began a character with master contact.

[valeria]

I would also tweak barrier up a bit.  Or better yet... give the person who is breaking through your barrier a much larger stun hit than just a regular contact does.  Then you wouldn't have the 'way battle' problem of repeatedly having to barrier a dude who just will not let X go.

[Reiloth]

Being able to contact 1.man, 2.man, etc. as a means to finding out who's online and who might of done something is shitty play too.

Contact should only work with Names and the keywords in a character's sdesc. Ideally you'd need two so as to avoid the "contact 1.man" play.

Once did something shift as a rogue mage to a clan, causing them a bit of trouble. Considering at the time (only 8 players online) and 6 of them being part of the clan and present. The other 2 were me and my pc's associate. We both got this. Someone contacts your mind and says 'hi'. This was used to identify the potential 'suspects' for the shenanigans. contact 1.man, contact 2.man, contact 3.man. Fortunately the victim couldn't use that to icly identify it, but it sucks when you know that the player of some other pc knows you just did some shenanigans to him and is willing to use the code to figure out who.

I wish contact worked soley on the keywords you see in Score (Amos tall muscular man). It's silly that back in the day a common tactic after doing a crime was promptly lowering your hood after fleeing, not because you wanted to look casual but because you needed to shake yourself of the sdesc keywords associated with that outfit and the way.


On topic though, I don't have an issue with barrier. It's usable and does great so long as wisdom isn't always your dump stat.

Afaik, contact doesn't work on hood/mask descriptors unless you are in the room with them now.

[bardlyone]

Being able to contact 1.man, 2.man, etc. as a means to finding out who's online and who might of done something is shitty play too.

Contact should only work with Names and the keywords in a character's sdesc. Ideally you'd need two so as to avoid the "contact 1.man" play.

Once did something shift as a rogue mage to a clan, causing them a bit of trouble. Considering at the time (only 8 players online) and 6 of them being part of the clan and present. The other 2 were me and my pc's associate. We both got this. Someone contacts your mind and says 'hi'. This was used to identify the potential 'suspects' for the shenanigans. contact 1.man, contact 2.man, contact 3.man. Fortunately the victim couldn't use that to icly identify it, but it sucks when you know that the player of some other pc knows you just did some shenanigans to him and is willing to use the code to figure out who.

I wish contact worked soley on the keywords you see in Score (Amos tall muscular man). It's silly that back in the day a common tactic after doing a crime was promptly lowering your hood after fleeing, not because you wanted to look casual but because you needed to shake yourself of the sdesc keywords associated with that outfit and the way.


On topic though, I don't have an issue with barrier. It's usable and does great so long as wisdom isn't always your dump stat.

All of the above. Although: I also wouldn't mind it if barrier were tweaked upward a little myself at starting levels.

[Reiloth]

I think certain keywords shouldn't be useable as modifiers for contact. Racial (Elf, elven), Gender (woman, man). Too general.

I too think Barrier/Contact should be a little less binary (I'm on an anti-binary kick).

Contacting someone with barrier up, but failing, should message to the user. On a critical success for contact, their barrier weakens. On a failure to break the barrier, the barrier strengthens.

I'd like to live in a world (Zalanthas) where someone can live off the grid with their barrier up 24/7, and not need to worry about people contacting them. They also can't contact people. The longer they have the barrier up for, the more successful it is. If that barrier were to be broken, after a certain point, it would do bodily harm to them and knock them out. Something like this, at least.

Conversely, contact being a 'master' skill now is for the convenience of news. And thank god, really. I hated training it on my new PCs. But it'd be nice if there were more nuanced psionic skills available to mundanes beyond contact, expel, and barrier. Short of that, reworking how contact and barrier work.

[Chettaman]

I would also tweak barrier up a bit.  Or better yet... give the person who is breaking through your barrier a much larger stun hit than just a regular contact does.  Then you wouldn't have the 'way battle' problem of repeatedly having to barrier a dude who just will not let X go.

Brilliant!!
you and reiloth are brilliant!

[Dunetrade55]

Reiloth, just a few issues with your suggestions. There are some PCs I find I have to contact by stringing keywords together, as their names or nicknames are either too generic or too hard to remember, or just flat out don't work for whatever reason. Further, while the barrier thing sounds neat, getting ambushed while living off the grid would be immediately deadly, as, iirc, you cannot remain barriered in combat.

[Desertman]

There was some sort of post previously staff put in about how they were at one point working on changes to contact.

I don't remember the exact details (someone can find it if they are inclined) but the idea was more or less that contacting someone by name would go out of the window and that you would have to have their exact sdesc to contact them.

This would prevent people from "sniffing" people they had never actually "met" before just because they heard the name "Amos" in a bar once.

(Of course using someone's exact sdesc in the game to describe them in conversation is extremely frowned upon, so, it would in theory eliminate being hunted by the entire world just because the entire world managed to hear your name in a rumor and somehow that gives them the magic ability to contact you.)

[Raptor_Dan]

The angry, bulky templar asks, in law-accented sirihish,
     "Okay, citizen. Which of these elves was it, the lithe one, the sinuous one, or the sinewy one?"

The confused, muscular man says, in newbie-accented sirihish,
     "The skinny one."

[Reiloth]

That, or barrier creating a more difficult environment for people to contact them. By this I mean attempting to contact people becomes more difficult the more you try. An open mind would present no difficulty, while an unavailable mind, whether by being offline or behind barrier, becomes progressively more difficult the more you try. Similar to the haggle code.

[Molten Heart]

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[Reiloth]

That, or barrier creating a more difficult environment for people to contact them. By this I mean attempting to contact people becomes more difficult the more you try. An open mind would present no difficulty, while an unavailable mind, whether by being offline or behind barrier, becomes progressively more difficult the more you try. Similar to the haggle code.

It'd be cool if breaking a barrier were much more difficult the further away they were.

And if contacting someone were more difficult the further away they were. In tandem, it'd be hard to find someone living off the grid.

[Molten Heart]

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[lostinspace]

It'd be nice if we could designate how much of our stun we put into the barrier, and force those contacting us to commit just as much to break it, and failing to do so having some sort of backlash.

Also I pretty much just use barrier when dicking around on a guilded character to dodge any who -c notice.

[Reiloth]

That, or barrier creating a more difficult environment for people to contact them. By this I mean attempting to contact people becomes more difficult the more you try. An open mind would present no difficulty, while an unavailable mind, whether by being offline or behind barrier, becomes progressively more difficult the more you try. Similar to the haggle code.

It'd be cool if breaking a barrier were much more difficult the further away they were.

And if contacting someone were more difficult the further away they were. In tandem, it'd be hard to find someone living off the grid.

Not impossible, but more difficult to contact people over long distances, yes.

The way I see this happening, is pathing the distance between the PC trying to contact, and the PC being contacted. Over 50 rooms, your success gets reduced by 25%. Over 100 rooms, your success gets reduced by 50%. Over 150 rooms, it gets reduced by 80%. I'm sure it's not always possible to successfully path, with enterable objects and things like that. But just an idea.

[ShaLeah]

Please.

PLEASE don't make psionics like a group text for the normal people.

Please!!!!

[Molten Heart]

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[Delirium]

It annoys me that who-c basically alerts you that someone's got barrier up even if you haven't tried to Way them.

[Riev]

It annoys me that who-c basically alerts you that someone's got barrier up even if you haven't tried to Way them.

So few people HAVE who c to make it a problem.

I feel if you DO have it, you're using it to see who is around and available. If someone is barrier'd, maybe they don't -want- to be available? If you know they're around, but you who c them.. I mean. How can you fix that? Other than not use that command?

[Molten Heart]

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[Reiloth]

Please.

PLEASE don't make psionics like a group text for the normal people.

Please!!!!

Huh?