regarding 'a random thought' in ATS

[Barzalene]

I think I said last time this came up that if you find yourself in that position it is more natural to question yourself than suspect an outside influence.

That said I've made bad decisions in real time.

Last year (more than a year ago) my pc had issues with an elf. First pc elf I came across I typed kill elf.
Seconds later I realized I was an asshole. That's a moronic way to play, but sometimes you just react. I imagine that's what happened to many people when suddenly encountering a foreign thought in their head. Sad but true, we all screw up occasionally.

Having screwed up though we should own it and do better, not justify and defend.
Next time we get a random thought, hopefully we'll all roll with it, like good players.

[Reiloth]

I think I said last time this came up that if you find yourself in that position it is more natural to question yourself than suspect an outside influence.

That said I've made bad decisions in real time.

Last year (more than a year ago) my pc had issues with an elf. First pc elf I came across I typed kill elf.
Seconds later I realized I was an asshole. That's a moronic way to play, but sometimes you just react. I imagine that's what happened to many people when suddenly encountering a foreign thought in their head. Sad but true, we all screw up occasionally.

Having screwed up though we should own it and do better, not justify and defend.
Next time we get a random thought, hopefully we'll all roll with it, like good players.

Yes, and as pointed out earlier in the thread, if we all use think/feel more, the 'foreign thought' will appear less foreign. I don't always get into a flow where I use think/feel often, but on PCs that I do, I find that a mindworm's 'suggestion' appears much less out of the blue. It may be in conflict with an emotion my PC is having, but I will typify that as internal struggle. Are people ever 100% certain about their actions? When I have trouble at work, I oscillate wildly between anger, acceptance, graciousness, humility, anger, vendetta, and so on. Emotions are fickle things that come and go quickly. So are thoughts. I have a million thoughts a day, and not all of them make sense or are in sequence.

So again -- I think people who are in a position to expect a mindworm, or are given reason to believe that a mindworm is in their heads, may jump to conclusions. They might not even be right. But most people? The real 'salt of the earth'? I doubt they would readily jump to that conclusion for reasons I mentioned earlier. When a regular Joe Amos says "I gots Mindworms in my head", it draws suspicion and doubt on to them, possibly even more than suspicion. If it doesn't, it should. I've seen people band together to hunt down a Mindworm, just because it's something to do.

We should really assess Mindworms as we assess Magickers -- Outside of the code. Yes, there are coded abilities. Yes -- They are capable of X Y Z, and veterans or people with the know how can determine the plateaus of these abilities. But we should remember that ArmageddonMUD isn't a H&S. There is code that should be acknowledged (As Armaddict points out in a post elsewhere). This isn't a MUSH, either. But there is finesse here that requires our imaginations and suspense of our meta-knowledge of the game and its code.

A Mindworm should be a terrifying thing to reveal, and to be the revealer may imply illicit knowledge of psionics. If they can read your thoughts and emotions, how will they not know that you were the one that fingered them? Would you be able to sleep at night, or without a knife under your pillow? Akin to Magick, we know that people have X Spells, but we also imagine that they might be able to curse us by wiggling their fingers at us. Zalanthans are and should be a superstitious ignorant people. I think we sometimes forget that in the face of 'winning'.

[Bahliker]

I should have said "only" 25%. It's not a complaint, more of a call to take a hard look at the other 75%, or at least a part of it. I guess in retrospect this doesn't add anything to this discussion. Too much of a derail, since only Ath and any of you secretly on staff are in a position to discuss it, and only a few others even know what I mean. Details would probably get me moderated.

I guess you're both right, I shouldn't fuss if people want to complain. That's my own M.O. and I shouldn't try to impose it on anyone. I've only once, to my knowledge, seen behavior that I thought really warranted staff intervention. It was before the request system. I could only wish all and hope for the best, and in my mind those were the golden years. So I'm comfortable taking that statement back.

Coming back around to the topic, it looks like people want an official word on rp guidelines of not actual rules. I feel like this isn't needed if things like fail mechanics and fail messages are changed. Let the system improve and the basic rp rules will cover the rest.

[Armaddict]

Eh, I'm not saying use the knowledge of code though.  I'm saying read what the game world gives you.

These aren't emotes of a mage wiggling their fingers, where we react according to documentation.  This is a mage casting a spell in front of you, but far more subtle (which is why I'm saying that it's repetitive fails that should lead to the beginnings of investigation, not a single echo of a strange feeling). I'm also purposely leaving out what the echos themselves are, so you have to kind of give me some leeway there.

I'm saying the game tells you feelings that you have, and you should react to them.  The game tells you things that happen to you, and you should react to them.  This is not one of those things that has a grey area; you are being told directly what you think on their successes, and you are being told directly what you feel on their failures.  This is not an interpretive emote.  This is not a 'Just fyi, this is going on so that you can roleplay better.'  This is indeed not a MUSH, there's no need to twist things around so that echoes aren't -really- echoes, and skill failures aren't -really- skill failures.

If you fail on someone, it should not lead to the witch hunt.  If you critically fail on someone, it might lead to someone getting worried, but not a witch hunt.  If you fail on the same person multiple times, they have every justification to start thinking something is up.  If you succeed all the time on one person...congratulations, you are now the super-scary mindworm!

I feel like this isn't needed if things like fail mechanics and fail messages are changed.

This was also what I inferred, and put into my other post; if this is -not- how the skill failures should be treated, then the code needs to be modified to reflect that, because the code is our law of physics that tells us, directly, what we are and aren't exposed to.  The point of that other post was exactly this kind of situation, where we create a grey area basically just to tell other people who are reacting to things the game tells them that they should actually be doubting what the game tells them or allows them to do.

[path]

I love being bent. I love getting those forced thoughts. It's so fun! I love playing ignorance to what's happening. Last time I'm afraid I meta'd into trying to manipulate one psion with my character's interior world, but that's just one of my other mini games.

Occasionally things won't meld or feel right. I try to just let that slide, because, you know, if confusion or mismatch of emotions is the ticket price, I still want to go on the ride.

Anyway, I see these happy occasions as an opportunity to roleplay with another player on a different level than usual and I really enjoy them. Occasionally newer players get freaked and know "from the docs" and do their best to flush out the psion out post haste. I just want you to know, in my opinion, that's the least fun plot arc you can have if a psion has become interested in you.

I hope my perspective can help other players find different ways of sussing out fun.

[Bahliker]

I'm saying the game tells you feelings that you have, and you should react to them.  The game tells you things that happen to you, and you should react to them.  This is not one of those things that has a grey area; you are being told directly what you think on their successes, and you are being told directly what you feel on their failures.  This is not an interpretive emote.  This is not a 'Just fyi, this is going on so that you can roleplay better.'  This is indeed not a MUSH, there's no need to twist things around so that echoes aren't -really- echoes, and skill failures aren't -really- skill failures.

I mostly agree with this. I mean, you're absolutely right. You don't get to pretend you didn't just think something weird and you shouldn't go all bender crazy if all you get is a forced think or feel with no other suspicious echo from the game. The game says let there be thought and bam, there be thought. I worry about establishing hard lines though because there is leeway for extremes.

For example, I was playing with my 2 year old a little bit ago while I was thinking about this. And I thought, what if right now I had a surface thought that went something like, "I should give her up to human traffickers." First of all, thoughts as words? We could talk all day about what that actually is. Imagining the act would be an echo, no? "You imagine yourself getting a fat was of cash from some shady European." There's likely a power for that. Just thinking those words, that's a curious thing. Language is imagined as spoken, I believe. Thoughts aren't framed in language unless the thoughts involve language. Does that make sense? That's where I'm coming from when I consider that there's an element of player interpretation here. Secondly, to actually make me do something so against my grain, to consider it beyond a brief moment of self-loathing because I muse on such sick crap, to force not just surface thoughts but deeper motor function control, that's probably its own power. If I'm forced to think she's probably fine left alone for a few minutes so I can go take a shower, allowing the traffickers to come take her, that's a different story and one that I would hope for people to play along with. It's so fuzzy all around.

[Armaddict]

I also think I'm coming across as far more contentious than I actually am.  I have no plans of starting mindbender witch hunts unless, like has been said, things get taken to an extreme.

Mostly, I'm trying to elaborate on the whole conundrum that people may be facing, and clarify from a code-based perspective for everyone.  Don't treat the psionicist skill's success like proof that they exist, because...that's them succeeding, man.  Even if it's a weird thought, it shouldn't ever come across as 'foreign'.  Just weird.  Likewise, don't get mad at people for reacting to failures...that's a failure, man, and the game definitely gives you that information for a reason other than to be ignored.  It -is- to be reacted to, we just need to set the bar for how that reaction should compare.

Most of the time, a psionicist probably shouldn't have a hard time keeping under the radar.  In reading that documentation though, I got the distinct impression that it was a roleplay guide, yes, but one that would go at odds with how the code functions.  I think there could be some wording changes to show that suspicion can come along reasonably, but it's more of an over time, am-I-going-crazy sort of idea, rather than the stark, eye-widening realization that people often play it as (wrongly imo, I might add).

Does that make sense? That's where I'm coming from when I consider that there's an element of player interpretation here.

It does make sense, but I consider it a moot point considering that it's the same method for which information is also gleaned by the class.  It's the medium that we work with, and we work around it as much as possible.  Your second example illustrates what I mean by 'real' psionicist manipulation, though...projecting the thought of 'You hate that guy.' is a lot less effective than 'You never noticed how much this behavior of his grates on your nerves.'  But as noted, that's kind of hard to do sometimes due to those of us who use think and feel more sparingly.

[Bahliker]

You're right, it's the medium in which we play. It's like... Descriptive conveyance of... Coded conflict resolution of... Make believe fantasy telepathic powers... manipulating the most difficult to understand of human behaviors. But it had me thinking something that may help inform the discussion. Do you all think there is a meaningful difference between:

You think it's been a really crappy day.

And

You think, "It's been a really crappy day."

Is one better than the other for our purposes?

[solera]

Not one of my PCs has been told in plain language what a mindbender's failed attempt feels like.

[nauta]

Or:

You think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyk-Vdd_Qrk

More seriously, this has been really helpful.  Like I said, when I first got a think that I didn't type out, my gut reaction was to suppose that my character would view this thought as somehow foreign.  Luckily, I filed a character report on it, and staff told me there's no difference at the level of qualia.

I wouldn't mind this being added to the help file (not sure which one).  I also would like to figure out how to interact with mind benders.  Without going into too many details (and I'm not sure you could answer these without going into those details, but):

1. Do they see thoughts and feels?
2. Do they see my emotes?
3. Do they see my psis?
4. Do they see my says?

Now, don't answer that, since I feel it'd be too revealing, but here's why I'd like to know sometimes:

Code Select Expand


You feel an itch on your ear. (Sent by a mindbender, or maybe staff.)
> em itches ^me ear

Did they see anything?  Or should I have also done a corny thought: Oh I think I should scratch my ear?

How best can we interact with mind-benders?

The answer is probably: just do your thing and not fuss it.

[Armaddict]

Not one of my PCs has been told in plain language what a mindbender's failed attempt feels like.

I never said they were explained.  I said that it was a distinctly different feel that was definitively Way-related that was subtle enough to be just a weird thing, but not subtle enough to be ignored over repeated exposures.

[Bahliker]

I love being bent. I love getting those forced thoughts. It's so fun! I love playing ignorance to what's happening. Last time I'm afraid I meta'd into trying to manipulate one psion with my character's interior world, but that's just one of my other mini games.

Occasionally things won't meld or feel right. I try to just let that slide, because, you know, if confusion or mismatch of emotions is the ticket price, I still want to go on the ride.

Anyway, I see these happy occasions as an opportunity to roleplay with another player on a different level than usual and I really enjoy them. Occasionally newer players get freaked and know "from the docs" and do their best to flush out the psion out post haste. I just want you to know, in my opinion, that's the least fun plot arc you can have if a psion has become interested in you.

I hope my perspective can help other players find different ways of sussing out fun.

Best. You're never going to win. Neither is the psi. Search your feelings, trust in the dark side. Down tha path lies awesome.

[Reiloth]

I love being bent. I love getting those forced thoughts. It's so fun! I love playing ignorance to what's happening. Last time I'm afraid I meta'd into trying to manipulate one psion with my character's interior world, but that's just one of my other mini games.

Occasionally things won't meld or feel right. I try to just let that slide, because, you know, if confusion or mismatch of emotions is the ticket price, I still want to go on the ride.

Anyway, I see these happy occasions as an opportunity to roleplay with another player on a different level than usual and I really enjoy them. Occasionally newer players get freaked and know "from the docs" and do their best to flush out the psion out post haste. I just want you to know, in my opinion, that's the least fun plot arc you can have if a psion has become interested in you.

I hope my perspective can help other players find different ways of sussing out fun.

Best. You're never going to win. Neither is the psi. Search your feelings, trust in the dark side. Down tha path lies awesome.

Agreed. I think people think the 'I Found the Mindbender' is another notch for the belt, or somehow a really cool plotline. It really isn't.

Play your demented PCs to the hilt and don't elevate their thoughts/understandings to be important.

GET ON THE RIDE.

[Dunetrade55]

My first experience with a mindworm, when I was still a newb, I reacted and ran off and reported it to who might very well have been the mindworm themselves for all I know. They went with it IC...

"Everything is going to be fine, it's probably all those beatings you take. Here, I have something to fix that right up!" and handed me a purple tablet, and it dawned on me just what a shitty thing I'd done, so I took the tablet, had a hallucinagenic freak out, and never spoke of it again.

Later, I'd be involved in plots with people who'd say "I think Amos is a mindworm!"

"Really? Why?"

"Because he was the only other person at the bar and I felt some weird things."

"I feel weird things too, besides, that tavern's usually pretty busy, you're telling me it was cleared out for once?"

"Oh no they're after you too!"

"No they're not. Besides, mindworms aren't real."

"How can you say that?"

"Because, they're, not, real. And on the off-chance they are, do you think I'd really want a mindworm to think that I was a threat to their existence, with all they could do to make my life miserable."

"Suppose you got a point there."

Then there's being accused of being a mindworm which results in something akin to this:

think (angry) Because if I really was a mindworm I'd make you cut your own throat, asshole.

[Jihelu]

If I was a mindworm
You think to your self, there is no way Jihelu could be a mindworm

I'd make people think the people next to them were, and even actively try to frame them.

To throw people off my trail?
Nah.
Because it'd be funny.

[a french mans shirt]

Which is worse for being hunted, being a rogue or being a mindbender? What I mean is, 1. which is more difficult in general and 2. which is more metagamey?

[nauta]

I think in the case of psions the meta-game that is being pointed out is quite different from any meta-game with witches in at least this sense: it seems to me that a new player could well interpret the current documentation and echoes associated with mindworming to allow their character immediate and easy inference to: this is mindworm, it is bad, I should tell people.

a) Receiving a thought that you did not type in was (at least to me) something I didn't know how to process.

b) Funnily, staff once animated a kankfly and accidentally made it talk to my first character.  I flipped out, and all those around her immediately suggested that it was likely a mindworm and to take precautions.

c) HELP PSIONICIST suggests that mind worms are fairly common.

d) The various echoes you do get are very confusing.  I've also wished up receiving them on my first character, unsure how to interpret them.

So, in sum, I think its a lot more natural for people to respond to psionicists in the way that Jingo worries about.  I agree with path that the -better- way would be to let the tickler tickle the mind, and live the ride.

How do we get there?  As with a lot of code things, it just takes time and experience.  Maybe your first encounter with a psionicist you flip out, but by #3 or #4 you realize that you can roll with it, and how to interpret things.

[Reiloth]

Which is worse for being hunted, being a rogue or being a mindbender? What I mean is, 1. which is more difficult in general and 2. which is more metagamey?

Mindbender is worse, Mindbender is more meta-gamey.

To clarify, when someone is outed as 'the bender', it appears that all other functions of the world cease and the hunting of said bender pushes enemies into becoming friends, and the whole rabble gets pitchforks and goes hunting.

While some might say 'this is how it should be working, Mindworms should be hunted down and killed' -- You might then wonder aloud, why do Mindworms practice mainly on NPCs? Because of the fear that one -- Yes one -- critical fail among other things might ruin their (for a lack of a better word) fun. So you don't use skills on PCs until you are incredibly talented.

I would argue that is a slightly borked system. Mindworms should be able to practice on PCs without the fear that they will be outed 1/100 times.

I'd suggest altering the 'critical fail' message to be less cryptic and revealing, but to simultaneously make it difficult for a Mindworm to repeatedly use an ability. Doing things like causing physical damage to the Mindworm (Nosebleeds, HP loss), and other sorts of 'identifying marks' that people can pick up on, might be a more nuanced way of going about it.

As with many things related to Magick or Psionics though this is a difficult subject to broach on the GDB without revealing too much.

[Riev]

Mindbender all the way. Its a guild unto itself. Magickers now are at least a subguild so you supposedly have other things to fall back on.

Mindbenders don't have (as much) to fall back on, if someone starts sniffing around.

[BadSkeelz]

Mindbender is far worse. They're the only Guild that relies on other people's RP to be dangerous.

If you had to emote "flails around on fire" everytime a krathi flings a fireball at you, people wouldn't take them seriously either.

I would advise Mindbenders to only use their abilities on sponsored roles, but you can't even really trust the RP there sometimes.

[Jihelu]

Here's a comparison between mind benders and rogues.


Mindbenders are pickpockets

Rogues are burglars.


Mindbenders NEED a person or npc to train on, same with pickpocket, and failing these is fucking disastrous.

You could argue finding someone to help you with pickpocket training is easier than psion training, rip in piece tuluk, but messing up will start a witch hunt either way.
And depending on who you stole from/what you stole from you might get murdered.


Burglars don't necessarily need a pc to practice on. And in the same way 'someone might see me burglar/use magic' you may or may not get caught.
The only difference is doing Templar's can't look at you and see that you are a burglar the same way they can look at a magicker and tell he's an idiot becuase he's done [REDACTED]

[BadSkeelz]

I also think training on NPCs as a mindworm is frowned upon by staff.

[Ath]

Lets steer clear of the mechanics a bit guys, I'd appreciate it.

So there was a bit of discussion on this staff side and we came to the term that Psionics in the form of a Forced thought or feeling, are Forced, not injected.  So what the means is to the receiver, it's their own mind making this thought or feeling.  I really cannot go into any more detail to be honest due to mechanics of the skills and of the guild itself, but I wanted to share this clarity as it thought it would help in this discussion.

At the same point I do think at some point I may look at writing a Guild Roleplaying Guide for Psions.  If at least, it will show staff's wants for Roleplay when it comes to a Psion, and guidelines that we request to be followed.  Of course with any Guide, it isn't going to be all hard rules, there can always be situations, but it is more suggestions to good roleplay.  For example "It's bad form to just tell someone to jump off a cliff with your powers.  Subtle application is more effective and likely to get proper response."

Either way, I do appreciate the feedb and I also did get a volunteer to edit the new helpfile that is being built.

[Akaramu]

Agreed. I think people think the 'I Found the Mindbender' is another notch for the belt, or somehow a really cool plotline. It really isn't.

Sometimes it's IC for the character to seek a notch for their belt, for instance because they desperately need recognition from their superiors. I did this once for that very IC reason, and to be fair, my character overreacted a bit because she was so friggin' desperate for a templar (Or Torgun, that ole meanie head) to tell her she did a good job with SOMETHING. I wouldn't have done it if I wasn't also OOCly convinced the person was a bender, though. I would have felt too bad about it otherwise.

I also think training on NPCs as a mindworm is frowned upon by staff.

Yes, this was true last I knew. Probably still is. It is however okay to just 'contact elf', you don't have to pick specific PCs you know.

[Reiloth]

Lets steer clear of the mechanics a bit guys, I'd appreciate it.

So there was a bit of discussion on this staff side and we came to the term that Psionics in the form of a Forced thought or feeling, are Forced, not injected.  So what the means is to the receiver, it's their own mind making this thought or feeling.  I really cannot go into any more detail to be honest due to mechanics of the skills and of the guild itself, but I wanted to share this clarity as it thought it would help in this discussion.

At the same point I do think at some point I may look at writing a Guild Roleplaying Guide for Psions.  If at least, it will show staff's wants for Roleplay when it comes to a Psion, and guidelines that we request to be followed.  Of course with any Guide, it isn't going to be all hard rules, there can always be situations, but it is more suggestions to good roleplay.  For example "It's bad form to just tell someone to jump off a cliff with your powers.  Subtle application is more effective and likely to get proper response."

Either way, I do appreciate the feedb and I also did get a volunteer to edit the new helpfile that is being built.

Absolutely -- New helpfiles would be wonderful, and having a sort of 'What you know about Psionics: Commoner Edition' would be a helpful guide post as well. It's as simple as the story nauta mentioned -- New players don't know it's possible to have thoughts forced on you, or what that is. So something to OOCly approach the subject, so the player is informed, even if the PC isn't, would be cool.

It's a -really- important thing that you said here that should definitely be included in the helpfile -- That a forced thought or emotion is not fabricated externally from your mind. It is -your- mind fabricating that thought or emotion. So, even if it is left-field, it is your mind having a left-field moment.

What I can infer though, is that repeated failures on the Mindbender's part, or simply too bizarre of thoughts or conflicting moods back to back, may make someone who is suspicious or doubtful even more doubtful and suspicious.