Magickal Spook Factor

[Harmless]

I think yelling at people to RP better is a non solution to the problem.

Real problem #1 is a widespread bitterness that entire groups of content, all the mainguild magickers, were taken away.

Bitterness ends up being RPed as a protest against the fear of magickers. The lack of coded power of multiple magicker types gives the bitter player the fuel they need to suddenly rp not giving a fuck about magickers (there are still scary magicks, just not most magickers. The scariest are 3 karma now).

Now, I don't think I am in this category because I did enjoy some of the subguilds I played, but I didn't enjoy most of them. I am tapping out of playing magickers now for the most part having seen what I have seen.

I gave specific feedback when a certain magick subguild wad just so bad that I felt it needed repairs in a report to staff.

Real problem #2 is that players are not just being told to fear magickers or else. They are being told to enjoy the new subguild magickers or else. However the thematic difference is huge between being so involved in magick that it is a part of what you are (mainguild) and being a secretive part time magick user (subguild) that I basically agree; the docs no longer match the reality of how magickers are ROLEPLAYED. Magickers are described as being sources of fear and hate, but in ye olde days a magicker trying to accomplish anything needed to invoke weird magickal talents to get stuff done and it was unsettling. Now a magicker functions more like a stealth mage and would rather as few people know about their abilities as possible, since they can be countered as soon as their few tricks are revealed.

Either fix the docs with new lore or have more IC events that might affect lore or add more opportunities to RP with magick (vague suggestion I know) or just modify the subguilds based on what the players want. I don't care how it is done. I think there is merit to realizing that we now have a mismatch between code, docs, and what is RPed. I don't think criticizing the situation makes anyone a bad RPer.

[Riev]

I think yelling at people to RP better is a non solution to the problem.

This needs to be emphasized.

Be the change. Think differently. Do better. Try harder. You don't get it. Its all gatekeeping by any other phrase, which Armageddon is notorious for. "You don't belong if you don't agree, and we have no care to help until you prove you're worth helping."

I agree with Harmless that with main guild magick, you had to basically find broken ass old skulls and artifacts of the Old World to summon enough power to do something mildly spooky. A lot of component spells were really strange and weird, and the idea of how to find and create components is also quite foreign. A person randomly coveting some angular stone should be VERY weird and a trigger to think they're off their rocker.

We were told the change was OOC. We were told it wasn't. We were told that NPCs and the virtual world still has magicks that we don't have access to anymore. We were told this this is better. We were told this is what people wanted. We are still told to "just enjoy what we've done for you" despite not asking for it.

SHOW US HOW TO DO IT. Post a story. Run a plot. Engage with the community about what you want and how you want it, so it has ideas about your expectations. It is a tough pill to swallow when one is told it is their own fault, without knowing why or how it should have been.

[Lizzie]

Real problem #1 is a widespread bitterness that entire groups of content, all the mainguild magickers, were taken away.

Bitterness ends up being RPed as a protest against the fear of magickers. The lack of coded power of multiple magicker types gives the bitter player the fuel they need to suddenly rp not giving a fuck about magickers (there are still scary magicks, just not most magickers. The scariest are 3 karma now).

It's ironic that you post this 2 posts after mine. I'm one of the saltiest, bitterest people who still actually plays Armageddon, with regards to the split of the magick main guilds.  I've even been teased about it on the GDB by staff in the past.

But as I said in my previous post - just two posts behind yours: I have tried to lead by example in roleplaying a fear of magick. I've tried it. Often in fact. Before the split and after. I've been met with "yeah everyone knows they can't do that so stop being stupid." In some cases, I was met with a veiled, but clear message of "they're allowed by Tek, so you should just make friends with them." I've been met with a carefully worded "I've kanked one and my junk didn't fall off."

Everyone is out to prove my character wrong. But my character is being played by one of the saltiest, bitterest pro-old-style-magick players still playing the game.

So no, I don't feel that being salty and bitter is a widespread cause of lack of RPed fear. I feel that there are mages [edited to add] and characters who interact with mages being played by newer players who don't know better, and not enough actual code to back up a reason to have a RPed fear.

[Cind]

Bring main guild magickers back. Make them 2 or 3 karma. Make it so that if someone special apps a main guild witch but has not played one or two subguild witches, staff would deny their request, and state that in the karma docs.

It kind of reminds me of how things were when subguild witches began. People didn't know enough about the subguilds to stop fearing them, and main guilds were still around, with no way to tell the difference. Peoples' fear levels were -exactly the same as before.- Let's bring that back.

[AdamBlue]

Here's a hot take, but I think that magic should actually have some different things, seeing as that different places use magic differently. This also applies culturally.

I think magick subclasses should be more varied just like regular classes are now, split between 'Offense, Defense, General' and 'Criminal, Wilderness, General', and done for each element.

After all, a Krathi in the wild may have an amazing time just killing the shit with crazy fire magic, but a criminal krathi may enjoy the more 'guile' that Krathi can give, while a 'generalist/city' fellow wants a little bit of both. While one can argue that the current 'paths' there are  may indicate that 'there is something like this', I think the idea can be refined further so a character can specifically get an idea of what the hell he's getting himself into and what his character's specifics lean towards. 'I want to play a criminal character, so I want magic that is subtle.' 'I want to play a city-based fighting character that only uses magic when absolutely necessary' 'I want to play a wilderness character that can literally nuke a mekillot'.
Make it way harder for mages to know who other mages are.
Magic is scary, and a powerful character (socially, economically, physically) is scary by themselves, but if you combine both into something specifically tailored towards the character, it becomes something that drives plots.
Yes, crime lord IS actually watching you talk behind their back. Constantly.
Yes, the undefeatable warrior of the wastes can actually pick up and throw a mekillot.
It seems that really old warrior's health just keeps on kickin'! He barely has any scars, for some of the wounds I've seen him take!

Make it harder to distinguish what is fiction, and what is reality. Mix up what 'oh yeah, he's a magicker' with 'oh my god this guy is a fucking monster.'
Make touched characters under the effects of magickal buffs without actually using magic during times of problems.

Imagine a Rukkian who, when he is panicking, suddenly finds that his foes simply cannot hurt him?
The Whiran who nearly falls from the shield wall but finds herself gracefully gliding to the bottom.
The Krathi who accidently greets a Templar in fucking Tatlum.
Make it more unpredictable.
Honestly, I have a lot of really fun ideas that could make Touched a lot more appealing to play in general, and actually make them on-par with other elementalists without making them entirely broken. Hit me up if you want some ideas.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

You know, I love a lot of these ideas, at their base. And I'd love code to enforce some of the things that we feel about magickers being scary and whatnot.

But really, a lot of you are suggesting that the onus is on code to dictate your roleplay. And that's just not the case.

Roleplay.

We know that we are supposed to be afraid of magickers. So be afraid of magickers. Do what's right, of your own accord. Being afraid of all magickers is no different than treating elves like shit, or thinking half-breeds are nasty because racism. It's acting out part of a role. Do your job and treat magickers the way the documents say you're supposed to.

Now all of that said, I absolutely want coded reinforcement of some of the fears we're supposed to have. That, or I want docs and the roles a magicker can legally have in clans changed to suggest a more integrated acceptance of them on some level. But until these things change, don't ignore the world you live in or the way your character has been brought up. Don't ignore your character's reality.

Roleplay.

[Harmless]

You know, I love a lot of these ideas, at their base. And I'd love code to enforce some of the things that we feel about magickers being scary and whatnot.

But really, a lot of you are suggesting that the onus is on code to dictate your roleplay. And that's just not the case.

Roleplay.

We know that we are supposed to be afraid of magickers. So be afraid of magickers. Do what's right, of your own accord. Being afraid of all magickers is no different than treating elves like shit, or thinking half-breeds are nasty because racism. It's acting out part of a role. Do your job and treat magickers the way the documents say you're supposed to.

Now all of that said, I absolutely want coded reinforcement of some of the fears we're supposed to have. That, or I want docs and the roles a magicker can legally have in clans changed to suggest a more integrated acceptance of them on some level. But until these things change, don't ignore the world you live in or the way your character has been brought up. Don't ignore your character's reality.

Roleplay.

Let's look at the docs that you're saying are getting ignored.

Magick is a mysterious and very rare power on Zalanthas, about which the general public knows very little, and generally fears and hates a great deal. While magickers are tolerated in some places, they are generally feared and distrusted by the vast majority of the population of Zalanthas. In many places, magickers are killed upon discovery, and even the rumor that one is a magicker can lead to one's death.

1.) Knows very little: I'd say that this is roleplayed just fine; to my knowledge, most players aren't spouting details about magick unless they are playing a magicker or one of the rare cases that work with gemmed or templars, all of which are not the "general public."

2.) Fears and hates: Note: there are two words used with the conjunction "and." Hate, is more common now than fear. However, one can roleplay a hatred of magickers which is predominantly expressed with the "killed upon discovery" part. You kill and destroy that which you don't understand...the exact amount of fear needed to be expressed is up to the roleplayer.

3.) Feared and distrusted: Again, two words with the conjunction "and." Distrust is something that also stems from fear or lack of understanding; I'm HOPING that people aren't bonding more and building trust more with magickers. In my experience, people would rarely if ever trust me, even though I was a codedly weaker magicker than I used to play, so I'd also say people are doing this.


--- In summary, there is no requirement that fear be the predominant expression of the same exact IC concepts, because in the docs that currently exist for magick, the concepts of hate and fear, distrust and fear, and destroying and avoiding are all linked to the same idea.

So, I really don't see why folks in this thread seem to think that yelling at the playerbase that they "aren't doing their job" is a solution.


again: if you brought back mainguild magickers, and added back the variety in spells that are used that we used to have, then you would introduce more uncertainty. This is a form of fear. It'd also bring back more coded power, yes, but overall I just predict that the fear half of the emotional reaction would be enhanced.

And if you don't bring back mainguild magickers, there are lots of other things one can do: we can come up with more incentives to spread fear and hate (A bounty on mages..such things existed in Tuluk before it closed). There are lots of ways to do it, but right now the culture around mages is stagnating..due to the step-by-step trimming away of content that has reduced the uncertainty and fear factor over time.


I like Lizzie's idea right above, also. It also helps to add that element of uncertainty, which is key to building fear.

[Delirium]

Moderated a post. Please do not discuss the specifics or existence of spells beyond that which is mentioned in the helpfiles.

[Lizzie]

Pretty sure I tipped over the line there, sorry about that. But yeah I think the idea that was moderated has merit.

[MeTekillot]

Bring back the cheesy instakill spells and unbalanced buff spells. Bring back Drovians with the same req as psionicists. Actually punish specific abuses instead of fucking everyone for the actions of a few.

Bring back all the super buff magick shit that's been whittled away for years and years. I don't mean just spells.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

@Harmless: I don't think I was yelling, as you say. I think I was encouraging. I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I am as guilty of struggling to roleplay fear and hate as anyone that I am encouraging to do so might be. I hate very few people in real life.

I have no OOC reason to hate every breed that crosses my path, but I try when it fits my character to do so because I'm supposed to. OOCly I'd love to have a magick friend, but ICly that's supposed to be an abhorrent thought. If I find a magick bauble that makes my character strong, I should flee and fear, not fit and flex. And I struggle sometimes to remember that.

So my exhortation to remember your reality concerning how dangerous magick is supposed to be when you decide to try to kill a magicker, or how likely you are to be cursed if you buddy up to a magicker, shouldn't be construed as yelling. It should be considered encouragement to always remember the difference between you and your character - to remember the difference between your reality and their's.

If you feel as though it's yelling, I guess I'm sorry.

[gotdamnmiracle]

I think you're focusing on the wrong thing. Harmless is saying we've already heard the suggestion RP better. It's unhelpful. It must sound deafening when it's the go to for everyone who sees something they don't immediately agree with or a problem they don't immediately know how to fix.

At a glance it's pretty mastubatory. Saying learn to RP better implies you aren't part of the issue and are a better RPer. I see your admission of guilt however and am not leveling that claim at you, 7dead.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I guess that's fair.

[MeTekillot]

It's not just masturbatory at a glance. It's 90% masturbatory. Maybe it will help for those people it didnt occur to, but most of the problem is power people in game having in depth OOC and IC knowledge ("fRoM mY bAcKgRoUnD") of how gimped magick is currently.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

To be honest, claiming it's 'masturbatory' at all is masturbatory, since you have no idea why that other person thinks they had to say what they have to say. For the statement to be masturbatory, there has to be intent to show off in some way. Since that's not the intent of my statement at all, it was in no way masturbatory, even if it could be read like that. And I think it's important not to read intent into a statement posted on a forum unless that intent is explicit, like, it says, "fuck you, you suck," or some such. We lack the ability to accurately present tone and expression in such an arena.

Still, because I added less than I wished to the topic, I'm sorry it felt like some sort of indictment of any percentage of the playerbase.

But that's enough of this. I really shouldn't even be defending myself. This is devolving into a topic removed from the original topic. Let's get back to discussing that, yeah?

Mek, are you suggesting that most of the problem is people making characters who ICly know how magick works, even when they are mundanes, because they know OOCly? I'm not sure I completely understood what you meant there.

[MeTekillot]

We lack the ability to accurately present tone and expression in such an arena.

I disagree on this point. Almost all my posts are meant to be somewhat condescending or bombastic and I think that's accurately communicated. The structure and diction of one's posts, as well as rhetorical questioning and how short or how long and winnowing a post is can all lend tone to it. The presence of profanity, etc. But that's neither here nor there.

My claim of it being masturbatory is that the advice to "roleplay better" implies that the person delivering such advice roleplays properly and thinks that if everyone were just a little more like them, then the game would be better in whatever direction their advice of roleplaying better would take it. I disagree. Expecting people to act like you do has in almost all avenues of my life lead me to disappointment. You need to lead people into doing what you want either by example, by force, or by implication The second of these is extremely effective only in singular occasional cases, the first of them is unreliable without an absolutely overwhelming amount of charisma and ability to project oneself into situations without interruption. The third, which is to say, by implication, is much better

If magick IS ACTUALLY something you should fear and hate, people will fear and hate magickers, whether or not they have greasy shadowboard gained code knowledge of how magick works. And I think the current cadre of staff can be trusted enough to not go screaming to the shadowboards with a reddened ass if any of them decide to step down. At least, I hope so. Presuming that anyone who would step down would be privy to any changes made to magick.

Mek, are you suggesting that most of the problem is people making characters who ICly know how magick works, even when they are mundanes, because they know OOCly? I'm not sure I completely understood what you meant there.

Many people think that because they are playing a leader that they don't need to play to the docs, or people who don't play to the docs become leaders. Leaders are usually exceptional, usually through ability or simply because whoever promoted them decided they wanted to give this person a shot or they wanted to meet a certain level of diversity so nobody would cry favoritism. In Arm's case, in MY opinion, anyway. The extreme phobia of appearing to project favoritism is another problem I want to address but that's beside the current point.

Basically, leaders are powergamers or excellent social manipulators who have powergamers under their thumb. Many times, they are both. But the problem is, either type has the same level of notoriety and public facing influence. So whenever Magicky McBackground Badass decides they wanna drink from the pool of water the Vivaduan just decided to squirt out instead of recoiling in fear from it, their five little lemming and their five little friends have that much more reason to not be encouraged to roleplay fear of magick. What's more, that Vivaduan just created water, so you just narrowed him down to two subguilds, of which knowledge has percolated out to many people, so they have no reason to roleplay actual fear of him besides social nicety. And you can only expect politeness to be so effective. The threat of the hammer is often as effective if not more than the hammer. Magickers need to be able to drop the anvil, not just the hammer.

Bring back all the magick shit that's been taken out. Make it less accessible if you like, but bring it back. OUTSIDE OF staff animation. Nobody wants to watch an animated NPC jerk themselves off with wicked cool magick shit. Or at least, I don't.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I'm going to refrain from commenting any more about the other stuff.

To your second train of thought, that's probably a real issue, in at least some cases. Having not been back long enough to evaluate that many leaders, I'm not certain it is a wide-ranging issue, but I'll take your word on it. I know it has been in the past, at the very least. I was, of course, trying to pinpoint this very issue when I mentioned your reality versus your character's reality.

I certainly also agree concerning giving magickers the anvil. While I personally love the ideas behind splitting up the magick guilds into these new facets, I wasn't a fan of doing away with the coded power that the old guilds possessed. I loved that they had been turned into sub-guilds versus main guilds, because I thought that was the sort of thing that would allow them to be real people beyond their magick.

I think we can agree on magick needing to be terrifying for a magicker's foe again for coded reasons.

[HavokBlue]

Random magic thoughts:

I think we largely agree that the disconnect occurs when the IC reality of magic is that it is powerful and scary and the coded reality of magic is that it is sometimes powerful and always predictable. I've seen staff animations in the past few years of magic scenarios (ie. during the Gith War) that were terrifying and intense, that really drove home why people fear magick.

I've been thinking of how to make the coded power match the virtual power of magick and while it's probably not feasible from a manpower/code work perspective...

My ideal magick system would see all mage classes redone to have spells significantly more powerful than they are now. Not every spell needs to be godly, but the general toolkit of mages should instill not just IC fear but OOC fear as well. To that end, to balance and compliment the boost in power, spells would have a miscast chance. As you skill up, the miscast chance decreases relative to your overall power. More powerful levels of each spell are still more difficult to cast successfully. Miscasts have a range of effects, from the spell simply fizzling out, to hitting the wrong target, to a completely unintended effect. Did you cast 'mon un summon familiar'? Bad news, newbie gemmer. You've made a terrible miscalculation and summoned a horror from the void. Trying to fuck up that sewer horror with a fireball? You could cast at mon and incinerate it, knowing that there's a chance you miscast and explode for 80 damage to everyone in the room.

Just some thoughts.

[RogueGunslinger]

So the argument is that magickers are not powerful enough or unpredictable enough to be scary?

[HavokBlue]

That's my read of it, I think?

Like yeah, code is not a solution to bad roleplay, but Armageddon is a MUD, not a MUSH. Mechanics exist to enhance roleplay and this is a situation where a change to mechanics can reinforce the setting's treatment of magick both ICly and OOCly.

[RogueGunslinger]

I don't think it would hurt at all to make magickers more powerful and erratic. However, the unpredictable nature of the magick shouldn't be so stifling that it's just a general pain in the ass to play as or be around. There's a balance that need to be maintained.

I personally would prefer ideas that somehow stayed within this trinity of fun, powerful, and erratic. But I'm coming up mostly blank on good ideas at the moment.

[ABoredLion]

I think people have clearly worked their way back around to the idea that I was trying to suggest. The only part that disappoints me in this thread is that I can't even remember if I'm the one that was moderated. That's how many times I considered writing up a response and just shook my head and stepped back, hah!

That said, every single one of them needs to be made more powerful. The ones who might not (a particular cool whiran) could still be given a lot of utilities that would make their lives pretty cool and better again. I'm not lopsided in hoping for this kind of thing.

[gotdamnmiracle]

-snip-

Edit that part about the sub guild. I'm not getting another thread locked on a whim.

[Lizzie]

I don't think "more powerful" but just as limited as they currently are, is a solution to anything. I think "more variety" without any "more" power would do the trick. If people could pick an element - and select from a menu of options within that element, we would have the mystery mage everyone wants. Yes, he's a vivaduan. But what KIND of vivaduan? Answer: there is no "kind" of vivaduan. They're all custom, so you won't ever truly know what he can do, until you see him do it. His player knows. His character might or might not know, depending on how he's chosen to play his character.

Perhaps even start the out-of-chargen spells out at a higher level than the current starting level (this stuff IS in the docs but I'll refrain from naming the levels). One step higher, 10 points higher, whatever. Have them come out of chargen with a working and somewhat efficient ability to a) use a few spells and b) practice a few spells. Maybe even make that next-level startup be a freebie option for 3-karma players. "Yes, we acknowledge that you know your way around the magick system, which is why you have 3 karma. And so, for all your magick characters, you MAY if you wish - start your character's first spells at power Y instead of power X. Do you wish to do so? Y yes N no C custom.>" and if they only want one or two of them to start out higher and want to roleplay the struggle for the lower (or just aren't interested in the lower) they may do that as well.

[MeTekillot]

I don't think we should throw caution to the wind, but I do think extreme conservative cautious temperance when it comes to giving players more coded power is stifling to the game. The game would be more exciting and dynamic if the same philosophy were applied to giving players power that is followed when it comes to taking it away.