Thanks Akariel (RE: Touched Magick Users Appeal)

[mansa]

There was an old tabletop RPG called Paranoia, where one the goals of the game was to expose other player characters as commie mutant traitors. The joke of the game was every PC, including yours, was a commie mutant traitor.

That's what being a magicker in Arma feels like. It's basically impossible to be surprised that new PC Amos turns out to be some variety of elementalist, because that's the default.

Which is fine. Everyone wants to play an elementalist. Whatever. But since probably over 50% of us are playing elementalists, sorcs, or templars, you're just going to have to adjust to the idea that magick isn't really going to be scary for over 50% of the PC population.

The alternative is to make elemenatlists very rare, which would just piss off the 50% that likes playing some variety of magic-user.

Here's some stats of characters from when Brokkr gave out data:
https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,54260.0.html

[Brokkr]

Your post about the suggestion that, 'if they don't fear them, we'll make them' gives me hope, for sure. But another part of me thinks it's easy to buy into that a 'design' is good, because one or two people have wielded it well. You give Majikal a damn grandfathered merchant guild PC with 'thief' as his subguild and he'll find a way to butterknife a templar to death, and that shouldn't be the metric for measurement. You know what I mean?

If you haven't played the subclasses which had changes in November, your experience is outdated.

[ABoredLion]

If you haven't played the subclasses which had changes in November, your experience is outdated.

Shameless plug of own work is shameless, but I can't blame you.

It's true that the changes to guilds have been very beneficial to the immediate defensive capabilities of PCs. The obvious changes made (parry being much higher for many, alongside it being readily available early outside of a warrior guild, as well as advanced shield use in most cases) really appear to at base level give these magickers some defensive capabilities they might otherwise not have.

...that point is lost though, because this was a spread across all guilds, and it doesn't change that the same mundanes who don't care about these 'pseudo' magickers that remain are plenty capable of killing the crap out of them (and know it) when they are aware that the magicker is limited to (at maximum) their 10-11 spells. My thought is that defensively, magickers have been weakened. Offensively, they've been made into a niche where some of them get stupidly strong (if they treat themselves like just any ol' mundane and join sparring clan X for a bit).

None of these points of mine at least will address whirans, who outside of initially appearing to have 1 particularly terribly put together subguild (that I assume was recently remodeled a tiny bit) are the best idle-gankers in the game. Anyone who knows a little of anything is still cautious of them due to this, no doubt. Whirans never needed summon, heh. I think whoever set these up (from what I can tell witnessing them, and doing some idle guess work) did well. Then again, whirans were always so packed full of 'oomph' that splitting them didn't hurt them. They were never one trick ponies.

To be fair to Rathustra's point, I do think it's sad that people won't react like something is terrifying (truly) until it is. Most can put up a thin veneer of caution or worry, but the second their things are actually on the line, no one can really blame them for folding and 'reacting' with violence to their fear and then going, 'Turns out he wasn't so tough! It only took 4 rounds of combat to kill him with ye olde axe! That <insert one of the damaging spells here> hurt, but I'm fine.'. Crap, when you think about it, 1/2 the Known at least has a 'hunt the magickers!' reaction.

There's a weird disconnect, and I'm struggling to put my thumb on how to exactly point that out.

[Brokkr]

Not my work.

I think the reactions you describe are incredibly meta, way overboard in terms of taking into account OOC desires and information in determining IC reactions, and are a great example of the kinds of folks we get that think they are pretty good roleplayers that don't merit moving beyond low karma levels until they have changed their mindset.

[Riev]

Not my work.

I think the reactions you describe are incredibly meta, way overboard in terms of taking into account OOC desires and information in determining IC reactions, and are a great example of the kinds of folks we get that think they are pretty good roleplayers that don't merit moving beyond low karma levels until they have changed their mindset.

Once again, for those in the back:

"You are not good at this game until you think about the game in terms those in power would prefer."
"You think you are a good roleplayer, but you aren't, until you think about things differently."
"There are only a few varied routes to being a good roleplayer, and caring about the code in a MUD is not one of them."

The joke used to be:
Nyr: Fleeing is roleplaying

Now the joke is:
Brokkr: If you're fleeing without 3 pages, double spaced, with APA formatting, you may have survived but you aren't a good roleplayer. A good roleplayer would have died.

[Brokkr]

We make judgments about how good of a roleplayer a player is all the time.  It is literally part of our function.

I don't care if you care about the code. I don't care if you just type flee, or three pages of emotes.  Just typing flee if you see magick seems like a thematic reaction. 

I care if you start making IC decisions just because of what you know about the code, rather than about IC circumstances.  One IC circumstance is that part of the setting is that most people are afraid of magick. To discard this IC circumstance because of what you know about the code, yes, that is the sort of thing that would negatively impact your chances of gaining the magick related criteria for karma.

[gotdamnmiracle]

I am confused. I often times don't know how to react to a magick user. I want to RP with them, but that RP is supposed to be a negative (in terms of outcome) experience, so what is their motivation to hang around my PC or I them?

And when I play PCs who are concerned with power because it is the most concrete form of security on Zalanthas they are often rebuked by magick users because I'm told "I can't do that" or "that's not what my element does" when asking for things like readings of the future or good luck charms. I am rebuked and I feel like I'm doing something dirty in response to the docs. And both players are left with less interaction as a result.

Not a coded complaint, but I wish there was some benefit to befriending a magick user to offset the hate (long term boons, charms, etc.), and by extension some incentive to screw over mundanes (sacrifice, thralling, component creation, stealing of essence or something). Currently screwing with magick users is a death sentence by others and magick users have zero reason to want to be scary.

I think the documentation is confusing if the knee-jerk response is to run in fear or run the gicker out of the tavern. Recognize this is anecdotal and my experience. It may be that it isn't yours.

[ABoredLion]

I can't speak for the other points brought up here. I think I've said my bit, and I'm not about to start on a riot act or something over it. I just think at the end of the day if you give me a subguild named 'Fearmonger' who has zero actual skills, but the IC is that fearmongers make everyone around them scared/bitter/cautious of them, with some suitable tell as to the nature of their 'mongering', you'd find the reactions and lack thereof positively silly. You'd get a lot of 'base' level 'fear' right up until something mattered, heaping helping loads of 'caution' and more than a little 'bitter' right up until it mattered. Armageddon has a massive kill culture that's been reinforced since forever. It's weird to suggest that you can make something scary (to these people) without the potential for it to cause death directly or indirectly. I wish we were both wrong and that things were different for the most part.

The admittance that people who react like that and don't care that the fearmonger is supposed to be scary despite not having the talent to back it up don't raise beyond the lower echelons of karma doesn't change that when your fearmonger gets rofl-smashed in a few weeks, that you've got to wait four months to play anything in the same ballpark. (or 2.5 for a reaver, or something)

Even if I ignored that 'magick roleplay' is only 1/7 points on the karma scale and anyone could still get 3 karma in theory without ever reacting appropriately to it by this scale. I hope none of my tone comes across aggressive, or defensive. I just feel like I want to directly approach part of what I feel like is the problem with the touched subguilds (though I do think some of them appear fairly well constructed), and just as much the actual aspects.

[Cind]

Not my work.

I think the reactions you describe are incredibly meta, way overboard in terms of taking into account OOC desires and information in determining IC reactions, and are a great example of the kinds of folks we get that think they are pretty good roleplayers that don't merit moving beyond low karma levels until they have changed their mindset.

If you guys don't understand this, think about it this way.

You're an ex-bynner who didn't make the cut for becoming trooper, or a jewelry peddler who buys from a half-elf grebber and gets bothered by House Kadius for being too gifted, or the daughter of an aide and a hunter who hates the idea of aiding and is learning to hunt.

You're sitting in the Gaj when your hunter best friend offers to take you out hunting; all you have to do is watch the horizons while he hunts and he'll get you supplies that you could do with what supplies are done with. You say yes.

The desert is hot today and the wind is kicking up in an unusual way. Suddenly, your mounts rear in fear and your own bucks you because you suck ass compared to your friend. A witch is suddenly hovering in the air between the two of you; his eyes are glowing yellow and he is wielding what appears to be a sword and a dagger made of fucking wind. Your friend yells "Run!" and books it, attempting to draw the witch's attention by waving their own sword around because they do care.

How many people would honestly draw their sword and start killing the darn thing?

[Riev]

How many people would honestly draw their sword and start killing the darn thing?

I'm still trying to figure out why I wasn't sitting at the bar, minding my own business in the first place.

And I would probably draw my sword because otherwise I'm defenseless. I probably wouldn't run because I'm not so good on my mount when both of us are frightened. I might die fighting, but at least I'd die proud.

[Brokkr]

Wait!?!?!!

You, or your character?




I would advise when encountering a magicker in RL in this scenario to flee, as we can't afford to loose valuable players to this sort of stuff.

[number13]

How many people would honestly draw their sword and start killing the darn thing?

In the real world, violence is often a consequence of fear.

This is true in Armageddon as well. When BIG MAGIC stuff happens, there's often staff run riots in Allanak, sometimes even mundane commoners forming mobs outside of elemental temples.

That mundanes are afraid of magickers isn't supposed to be an advantage, an I-WIN card. It's a disadvantage. Conan the Byn-barian might fear and loath witches, but he's still Conan. He's going to express his fear by calling to Tek and swinging his sword.

[Hauwke]

How many people would honestly draw their sword and start killing the darn thing?

In the real world, violence is often a consequence of fear.

This is true in Armageddon as well. When BIG MAGIC stuff happens, there's often staff run riots in Allanak, sometimes even mundane commoners forming mobs outside of elemental temples.

That mundanes are afraid of magickers isn't supposed to be an advantage, an I-WIN card. It's a disadvantage. Conan the Byn-barian might be fear and loath witches, but he's still Conan. He's going to express his fear by calling to Tek and swinging his sword.

He may not like it, but he will deal with the situation the only way he knows how. KILL IT WITH STABS!

[Kol]

So I've been keeping an eye on this thread for a little while, and thought I'd finally drop my 2 cents into the mix.


Whilst I understand the frustration of some people who may feel that the way magic used to work is better than the current system, it's changed, for better or worse, and as Rathustra stated, the majority of the world, wouldn't have noticed any change whatsoever. This is important, as it comes into play later.

Sure, some previous main guild witches had pretty damn near godly power, some, not so much. Most of what I've seen in this thread is 'Why should I be scared of a witch if they can't codedly kick my ass with witch shit they way they used to?'

Because they're WITCHES.

You're playing a RPI MUD That means Roleplay Intensive, and if you rely on Coded aspects of the game to enforce the fact that, in this game, magic is a hated, feared, and mysterious force 99.9% of the population does not understand and has no desire to understand ever, you need to re-evaluate what role-play means.

I point out that because unless you are in that 0.01% (a witch yourself, Templar or Oashi etc) and a student of history (unless your witch PC is old enough to have lived through the changes or whatever while manifested and lost contact or whatever with aspects of your element) You, as a character, would not know of, care for, or want to know, about any change in witchery. Witches do witch things. They're dangerous, mysterious, and not to be trusted.

I'll explain a few common myths and tragedies as to why witches should be feared and mistrusted.

They eat babies to get their power. And sacrifice people to whatever figure they worship to get more power.

They curse people who slight them with crotch rot and other nasty ailments.

They caused my buddy Malik to die in a fall from his Inix. I know this because Malik spat at one on our way out the gates this morning.

That still-born baby was obviously the work of some witch.

The fact you had that fruit in your bag for months isn't the reason it turned rotten, it obviously went that way because of some witch shit fucking with you.

THEY DROPPED A FUCKING VOLCANO ON ALLANAK, CAUSED EARTHQUAKES, MADE A WALL OF WATER WASH OVER HALF THE KNOWN AND LITERALLY DRAGGED A NEW MOON INTO EXISTENCE

They can sneak into your dreams and drive you mad, I know, it happened to My cousin Amos, because he died in the arena after mouthing off to a lord templar after some bad nightmares.

They destroyed the world and brought the dragon on us all. It was only thanks to the (insert respective overlord reference here) that we live today.


Someone mentioned that they've seen mobs inside the Elementalists Quarter outside temples.

There's a reason there are never any Mobs of commoners that enter the temples when they Riot. And there are reasons that the majority of rioting happens outside the mages quarter when riots do happen, and that's because witches are fucking dangerous, and those who riot or mob outside of temples, are pretty much the same as idiots who go to a protest or riot in any major city.

They're angry, scared, and frustrated, and driven by a few passionate zealots who have enough intelligence or charisma to pull on peoples fears and frustrations and drive them into a stupid action.

But much like mobs and riots in real life, as soon as the object of peoples blame and frustration shows any fight, the majority will disappear because that's what happens. People might be frustrated and angry, but they also have lives to lead, and regardless of how things feel at that point in time, for the most part, the lives of most, if not all common people, remain largely unchanged.

While sure, I'm not going to argue, some people may feel it's correct and proper for their character to fight and kill that witch, the majority of PC's should not be fighting that witch, they should be running. If a Witch has a Gem, most 'Nakki's and anyone who spends much time in 'Nak would know that the templarate keep a close eye on the Witches for obvious reasons, they'd also know that if, for any reason, the witch got away, they'd not only be fucked by the templarate for attempting to Raid a traveler (as that's pretty much what would be told to them) They'd have also pissed off a Witch., who likely has witch friends (I mean, they have an entire QUARTER of the city to make witch friends in) and Witches with Witch friends are fucking dangerous. (See above at for why witches should be feared)

The desert is hot today and the wind is kicking up in an unusual way. Suddenly, your mounts rear in fear and your own bucks you because you suck ass compared to your friend. A witch is suddenly hovering in the air between the two of you; his eyes are glowing yellow and he is wielding what appears to be a sword and a dagger made of fucking wind. Your friend yells "Run!" and books it, attempting to draw the witch's attention by waving their own sword around because they do care.

How many people would honestly draw their sword and start killing the darn thing?

Let me give you a better example.

You're a Person. It's real life. You've done a little hunting before, and are out in the plains, hunting with your small calibre rifle on your motorbike it's a sunny day, and everything seems fine, even if the woods are a -little- quieter than usual. Suddenly, you hear a growl and turn, and there before you is a fully grown, snarling Lion,  standing on two feet, with a pair of fucking plasma firing AK-47's in his hands with opposable thumbs and itchy trigger fingers. Your buddy you've been hunting with guns his motorbike away firing a round at the obviously magical lion you've discovered yelling at you to run.

You gonna stand your ground and try and take it down with your .22 rifle, or get the fuck out of the way of the plasma firing AK wielding Lion? Because, I know what I'm doing, I'm running as far away from the motherfucker with the AK's, because if the lion can appear like that in the open, holding AK's like Rambo that shoot fucking lasers, I don't want to be anywhere near it.

Because that essentially what you should be picturing whenever your scenario occurs.



Apologies if I rambled, Its late, I had a long day, and I'm trying to cut chocolate and some other shit from my diet.

[Heade]

Let me give you a better example.

You're a Person. It's real life. You've done a little hunting before, and are out in the plains, hunting with your small calibre rifle on your motorbike it's a sunny day, and everything seems fine, even if the woods are a -little- quieter than usual. Suddenly, you hear a growl and turn, and there before you is a fully grown, snarling Lion,  standing on two feet, with a pair of fucking plasma firing AK-47's in his hands with opposable thumbs and itchy trigger fingers. Your buddy you've been hunting with guns his motorbike away firing a round at the obviously magical lion you've discovered yelling at you to run.

You gonna stand your ground and try and take it down with your .22 rifle, or get the fuck out of the way of the plasma firing AK wielding Lion? Because, I know what I'm doing, I'm running as far away from the motherfucker with the AK's, because if the lion can appear like that in the open, holding AK's like Rambo that shoot fucking lasers, I don't want to be anywhere near it.

Because that essentially what you should be picturing whenever your scenario occurs.



Apologies if I rambled, Its late, I had a long day, and I'm trying to cut chocolate and some other shit from my diet.

I don't think this is a valid comparison. IRL, we "know" magic to be mythical, so seeing something like that, that challenged our idea of reality is a completely different thing than seeing a magicker in Zalanthas.

In Zalanthas, magick exists, and everyone knows it. Sure, it's supposed to be rare and mysterious, but it really isn't all that rare. And if you're playing a character that is in a position where they're forced to amiably deal with magickers on a regular basis(such as certain Militia positions), there is only so far you can go with the whole "magick is scary" thing before you can't ICly justify it as really being that scary any more.

The lack of rarity is making magick mainstream in Armageddon. Mainstream things aren't that scary, unless it can actually hurt you.

I understand that having a completely dynamic magick system isn't something that's possible with our current system. So, we currently have a static system that is meant to represent a dynamic "reality" IC.

Maybe we could let magick subguilds "custom craft" a spell effect or two within their given element over the lifetime of a magicker. This would allow them to better represent the fact that magick, in the gameworld, is a dynamic thing, and not static. It'd be supported by the code, and would work to ensure that each individual magicker holds some wonder and mystery, where people don't necessarily know the full extent of their capabilities.

I'd also like to discuss ways to make magickers more rare in general. It's really tiring playing a mundane in a position where you learn who many of the secret magickers are, and it ends up being just about EVERYONE of any note.

[Lizzie]

All of those are great examples of "fear of magick roleplay" Kol. And they are all made 100% invalid by a single person at the bar saying "no one has ever actually experienced any of those things, no one has ever sent rumors (oocly via the tavern boards) to support these myths, no one has ever walked into this bar and shown any evidence of suddenly being cursed by a mage who was also in the bar. Since the world doesn't support the myth, the myth must be unfounded."

They can say that in the most IC way possible, but the result is the same. And it's based on fact. The game world has never supported those myths. Children are taught about tigers living in the woods, and once those children grow up they learn that there are no tigers there. When Zalanthans grow up they realize those myths are unfounded, because none of those myths have ever come true, and yet there are all those mages, being mages.

[number13]

All of those are great examples of "fear of magick roleplay" Kol. And they are all made 100% invalid by a single person at the bar saying "no one has ever actually experienced any of those things, no one has ever sent rumors (oocly via the tavern boards) to support these myths, no one has ever walked into this bar and shown any evidence of suddenly being cursed by a mage who was also in the bar. Since the world doesn't support the myth, the myth must be unfounded."

They would be wrong. It's probably too recent to talk about on the board, but that character would be incorrect in his assumptions.

[Brokkr]

All of those are great examples of "fear of magick roleplay" Kol. And they are all made 100% invalid by a single person at the bar saying "no one has ever actually experienced any of those things, no one has ever sent rumors (oocly via the tavern boards) to support these myths, no one has ever walked into this bar and shown any evidence of suddenly being cursed by a mage who was also in the bar. Since the world doesn't support the myth, the myth must be unfounded."

They can say that in the most IC way possible, but the result is the same. And it's based on fact. The game world has never supported those myths. Children are taught about tigers living in the woods, and once those children grow up they learn that there are no tigers there. When Zalanthans grow up they realize those myths are unfounded, because none of those myths have ever come true, and yet there are all those mages, being mages.

That level of scientific inquiry and enlightenment is not thematic and is anachronistic to the setting.

[Heade]

All of those are great examples of "fear of magick roleplay" Kol. And they are all made 100% invalid by a single person at the bar saying "no one has ever actually experienced any of those things, no one has ever sent rumors (oocly via the tavern boards) to support these myths, no one has ever walked into this bar and shown any evidence of suddenly being cursed by a mage who was also in the bar. Since the world doesn't support the myth, the myth must be unfounded."

They can say that in the most IC way possible, but the result is the same. And it's based on fact. The game world has never supported those myths. Children are taught about tigers living in the woods, and once those children grow up they learn that there are no tigers there. When Zalanthans grow up they realize those myths are unfounded, because none of those myths have ever come true, and yet there are all those mages, being mages.

That level of scientific inquiry and enlightenment is not thematic and is anachronistic to the setting.

It's scientific to say, "I've never heard of someone being attacked unprovoked by a turaal, and I've personally seen turaals, so turaal's must not attack unprovoked."? I mean, that's the level of deduction we're talking about, here. It's not exactly the scientific method.

Without basic logic like this, everyone would just have to believe every tall tale they're told. Are we RPing "The Invention of Lying"?

[gotdamnmiracle]

All of those are great examples of "fear of magick roleplay" Kol. And they are all made 100% invalid by a single person at the bar saying "no one has ever actually experienced any of those things, no one has ever sent rumors (oocly via the tavern boards) to support these myths, no one has ever walked into this bar and shown any evidence of suddenly being cursed by a mage who was also in the bar. Since the world doesn't support the myth, the myth must be unfounded."

They can say that in the most IC way possible, but the result is the same. And it's based on fact. The game world has never supported those myths. Children are taught about tigers living in the woods, and once those children grow up they learn that there are no tigers there. When Zalanthans grow up they realize those myths are unfounded, because none of those myths have ever come true, and yet there are all those mages, being mages.

You see, the solution to this seems obvious to me. It would be to curse some people. Really fuck them up. Animate a whiran who gets his foot stepped on by your byn sergeant and all of a sudden you can't roll the dice to save your life and trooper Hana kicked your ass in your most recent spar which NEVER happens. But the problem is that we can't expect staff to just animate something as a response to this each time we need it because they aren't mind readers.

The only way I could see reliably accomplishing this without relatively frequent staff reinforcement that things are the way they are supposed to be is to put the tools in the players hands. This requires coding them to be there. Permanent debilitations and things like that are a great example of something like this.

To simply state that this is an RPI and roleplaying properly is what you should be doing is a tad obtuse. Just because you roleplay perfectly does not mean anyone else will be doing so and often, I imagine, people manufacture reasons for their PCs to roleplay to their liking anyway. Is the guy who says his PC isn't afraid of your witch because of IC reasons wrong? What if every other person is doing this?

I say if we can't succeed in enforcing the message that magick users are terrifying through suggestion we make them that way. If you say turaal are terrifying a thousand times it doesn't make that so. If you made it so their bite had a percentage chance to permanently drop one of your stats, disfigure your character, or randomly teleport you, then you wouldn't need to say anything. They'd simply be terrifying.

[tapas]

How many people would honestly draw their sword and start killing the darn thing?

In the real world, violence is often a consequence of fear.

This is true in Armageddon as well. When BIG MAGIC stuff happens, there's often staff run riots in Allanak, sometimes even mundane commoners forming mobs outside of elemental temples.

That mundanes are afraid of magickers isn't supposed to be an advantage, an I-WIN card. It's a disadvantage. Conan the Byn-barian might fear and loath witches, but he's still Conan. He's going to express his fear by calling to Tek and swinging his sword.

Might as well forget about the fear part if you're not going to represent it.

[number13]

Might as well forget about the fear part if you're not going to represent it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghrzxvRxCIo

Was this kid scared? Did he stop and ponder, "Monsters aren't real, therefore this is just some guy I can punch?" No. His backbone did all the thinking there.

I have close to the same reaction when I'm startled. I've never actually punched someone because of it, but my fist reflexively raises. I don't think about it. It's just my fear reaction.

It's called a "fight-or-flight" reaction. Choosing 'fight' doesn't mean they're not afraid. It's perfectly natural and involuntarily reflexive for some people to choose 'fight' when they are afraid.

[Nao]

All of those are great examples of "fear of magick roleplay" Kol. And they are all made 100% invalid by a single person at the bar saying "no one has ever actually experienced any of those things, no one has ever sent rumors (oocly via the tavern boards) to support these myths, no one has ever walked into this bar and shown any evidence of suddenly being cursed by a mage who was also in the bar. Since the world doesn't support the myth, the myth must be unfounded."

They can say that in the most IC way possible, but the result is the same. And it's based on fact. The game world has never supported those myths. Children are taught about tigers living in the woods, and once those children grow up they learn that there are no tigers there. When Zalanthans grow up they realize those myths are unfounded, because none of those myths have ever come true, and yet there are all those mages, being mages.

If this was how people worked, there would be no superstitions in the real world. There would be no witch hunts and there wouldn't have been any at any point in history.

Correlation is enough to convince people that the myth is true. Got sick or a case of boils after pissing off a magicker? Blame the witch. This applies to any sort of misfortune, really. Accident, someone dies, sickness, bad luck gambling, any injury... You can blame a brief encounter with a witch for anything bad that ever happened to you, and people who believe witchcraft is real did (or still do) just that.

[tapas]

Might as well forget about the fear part if you're not going to represent it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghrzxvRxCIo

Was this kid scared? Did he stop and ponder, "Monsters aren't real, therefore this is just some guy I can punch?" No. His backbone did all the thinking there.

I have close to the same reaction when I'm startled. I've never actually punched someone because of it, but my fist reflexively raises. I don't think about it. It's just my fear reaction.

It's called a "fight-or-flight" reaction. Choosing 'fight' doesn't mean they're not afraid. It's perfectly natural and involuntarily reflexive for some people to choose 'fight' when they are afraid.

Pretty sure there's a difference between jump scares and the same kind of fear we're talking about with magick.

Nobody attacks templars on a dime because they're afraid of them.

[number13]

Nobody attacks templars on a dime because they're afraid of them.

A templar is in a position of authority. A witch is an aberration, an unwelcome outsider. The Salem Witch Trials weren't born of hate, but of fear.

You shouldn't be expecting to use witch-fear as a social or PvP advantage. It's means that people want you gone or dead, not that people want to be your bitch. If you want to play a character that inspires the kind of fear-respect that makes others bow before your might, those roles exist -- they are the nobles and templars.

Which isn't to say that your character can't hold that philosophy. One of my longest lived characters believed that elementalists were chosen, and that mundanes should bow before him. But OOCly, I never expected that to actually work. It was line that I fully expected and hoped would fail spectacularly. (and it did!)