Psionics: Ideas and discussion on etiquette

[RogueGunslinger]

Is there no way to have a conversation on this forum without pissing and moaning about other players?

[The Warshaper]

It's the same discussion of etiquette that comes up every time the player has to make the conscience choice of "If I take choice A I am putting the character I am invested in at risk." Or "If I take choice B I will minimize the risk to my character."

It's been seen about PK mentality, emoting before attacking and such quite offen. Fleeing and setting run to take off like a coked up erdlu despite injury. Skill grinding for the sole purpose of point gain. Some use labels of Metagaming and that's fine. If you put a player in the position where they have to make a coded choice that effects their characters then of course many will take the safest option. Less "You're doing it wrong." And more "We do things differently but that is ok." would be far more constructive imo.

[Jingo]

Is there no way to have a conversation on this forum without pissing and moaning about other players?

Hate to say it, but if all players had the same standards there wouldn't be a need for this conversation.

[Delirium]

There's a lot of "yeah, conflict is great" around here, but the problem is there's also a lot of players that only like conflict when they're winning.

Eventually some of them evolve into players who are willing to be on the losing side, for the sake of creating fun and telling a story.

[Nergal]

Please don't discuss mechanics of psionics in this thread (or in general).

[Reiloth]

I figured that would happen, but this discussion is basically a straw man for people who don't have the knowledge of Psionics, and those that do are sworn to secrecy and silence.

[Jingo]

And to add fuel to the fire, staff don't seem interested in enforcing psionic conditions on players that don't want to roleplay it.

So you're stuck in this bizarre roleplay catch 22.

Find players you oocly know will react appropriately to psionic thinks and feels. Or use them on players who might ignore them or attempt to out you for them.

Edit: Oh yeah. And potentially lose your karma because staff don't like how you respond to a lose-lose-lose situation. 

[Chettaman]

For Mundanes, while I love the idea of having a way to speak without being heard (by people who care) 80% of the time, I would rather see scenes where people who are putting themselves in danger be in danger during those scenes.
My suggestions are:
- cap every mundane's contact at apprentice. (I put this one first because I hate the biased opinions that sometimes come up, but at the same time, they make me giggle. That being suggested, here is what I would want the ''levels'' of contact to look like. -- or rather, I would post it if it weren't an idea of how the mechanics of the skill.
***
anyway. If we made it so that every mundane was only mediocre at the way, those who are supposed to be superior will actually be much scarier.
giving witches actual guilds has made them potentially much scarier.
if you give mind witches guilds /and/ made mundane, non-templar-ish people suck in /their/ speciality... they'd be frightening.
----
And of course, here's why I would want this stated clearly;
I don't want to see people sit down at a table and stare at each other if they've come to meet secretly. And I think 40-50 stun damage is enough to get one good, "I need help with this and that or this that and the other right now" sort of thing even in a some dire situations. ... admittedly. Not all of them.
-----------
More suggestions:
- contact during combat: In this suggestion, the dynamics of how contact work change, and we can do that because we control the code and it isn't impossible to make things fun, playable and realistic all at the same time.
---During combat: You can find someone's mind at the same cost, but your stun max will drop twenty points! Losing 40 - 50 during this combat will seem like more of a risk now, but... if you wanted to you could still speak sweet nothings to your sweetheart back home.
-barrier during combat: you find protect your mind during combat for the cost of thirty of your stun!!

I've got more to say, but I erased it all once already...

[Chettaman]

For psionicists: I've never played one. But I should.

-Make them harder to detect. Totally possible to do so and doesn't make them any more powerful, it just makes them less weak. More lucky, less weak.
-give them a spying skill
-- if they already have a spying skill make it come sooner than later
------unless the problem is in the practicing of the skills. In which case, being harder to detect will ease this pain.

[Molten Heart]

.

[Jihelu]

Create a chance for individual wild psionic talents to be applied to human characters after character generation, or even when rerolling. This would open up the possibilitiy of "mundane" characters being able to spy on the way and a whole bunch of other things. Open it up for any, if not all of the psionicist abilities.

If that happened and we still had the current view on psionics people would get executed for 'being a mind worm' while not being a mind worm.

[Molten Heart]

.

[Jihelu]

Than it isn't really a wild talent.


If everyone had wild talents people would have to believe psions were less 'deadly' or there would need to be a full proof way for a templar/soldier to just
"Yep thats a psion"

Otherwise people would just get killed for using some stupid psionic ability that a bunch of other people have.

[Eilwen]

Create a chance for individual wild psionic talents to be applied to human characters after character generation, or even when rerolling. This would open up the possibility of "mundane" characters being able to spy on the way and a whole bunch of other things. Open it up for any, if not all of the psionicist abilities.

If that happened and we still had the current view on psionics people would get executed for 'being a mind worm' while not being a mind worm.

Yes, wild psionic talents would make people mindbenders. Some would probably get caught, especially if they used those abilities.

I'm a big fan of wild talents. I think the staff should deal them out as they see fit, instead of having a random generator, but still. Yes.

[Riev]

I'm not totally against wild talents, but the argument against doesn't stick for me. Anyone using a skill that isn't the basic psionics 'everyone' gets WOULD be a mindbender. If "more" people starting developing these talents? Kill them before it happens more and more often!

The argument that "people who aren't psis would be killed" is fine. People that aren't magickers are killed because a stiff breeze knocked off a noble's hat. I once had a character banished from Tuluk because a Nilazi was fucking with the Legions and I was AROUND AT THE TIME.

[Jihelu]

If, at generation, everyone got psionic shit then everyone would be psionic and we would have to mass execute everyone.

If it were like
Every 1 out of 10 characters you just randomly got some psionic shit and it wasn't as rare, IE: You know ic not to go flaunting it, I'd be fine with it.



I just don't want to get behind the idea of "Everyone gets psionics but if you use them templars cut your head off"

[Narf]

I just don't want to get behind the idea of "Everyone gets psionics but if you use them templars cut your head off"

Please report to the nearest termination booth for immediate debriefing, citizen.

[Jihelu]

I just don't want to get behind the idea of "Everyone gets psionics but if you use them templars cut your head off"

Please report to the nearest termination booth for immediate debriefing, citizen.

You misspelled the pyramid.

[Molten Heart]

.

[Lizzie]

If, at generation, everyone got psionic shit then everyone would be psionic and we would have to mass execute everyone.

If it were like
Every 1 out of 10 characters you just randomly got some psionic shit and it wasn't as rare, IE: You know ic not to go flaunting it, I'd be fine with it.



I just don't want to get behind the idea of "Everyone gets psionics but if you use them templars cut your head off"

1 out of every 10 means any random new player could end up with a random psi power, not realize it's something most people don't have (since he's new) and end up ganked for attempting to use a skill on his skills list, just to see what it did.

Sorry - I vote no.

Not to mention this is one of those "so astoundingly rare, dangerous, and icly freaky" things that I really truly believe would take away from its freakiness, rarety, and danger, and mystery, and wow factor, if any random character out of 10 could end up with one.

I still think the expel skill should've been kept with psionicists and not with just anyone though - so I'm a hold back to the "bad ole days."

[evilcabbage]

requirement of at least 5 or 10 characters played, or 1 karma before such things start kicking?

just about everyone can get 1 karma.

[Armaddict]

As a real question...

Is the best way to lower the prevalence/lower the security of psionics to give out more psionics, by most people's opinion?

That's not snarky.  That's an actual question.  I was in the boat of making them harder/less secure, but establishing that by making more people psi-capable seems ripe for unintended consequences.

[Jihelu]

I'd prefer we keep with the armageddon 'mentality' of low psionics, low meaning not many available as opposed to contact/barrier/expel, and have everyone hate it.


IF we were to have more psionics for everyone I'd rather we change that mentality.
Though I'd rather we not change at all.

[a french mans shirt]

Staff mentioned that it is supposed to be easy for mundanes to use basic psionics due to having used them all their lives. That's why we start with master contact I believe. Course, as with anything, they might retcon this if you yell hard enough.

[Reiloth]

I'm of the belief that Psionics should not be more ubiquitous, for reasons mentioned above. Magick, and Psionics, should be more rare, more scary, and more powerful.

I dont think Psionicists are dangerous or scary. They are annoying, at best.

I do think Magickers are still scary. Maybe not 'as powerful', though I would argue having a full main guild and a spattering of spells could make you more deadly. I haven't experimented much with this, so have to rely on the Code Guru's experience.