Magickal Spook Factor

[John]

What if these random oddities of the code (the ones you suggest become curses) happen randomly, anyway? And people can just blame it on magick. That's basically what superstition is all about, afterall. It's not about a mage ACTUALLY cursing a victim. It's about a victim experiencing something unfortunate or strange in their lives, and blaming it on the mage. The mage doesn't have to have anything to actually do with it. It's basically shifting the blame from "random natural life" to "the witch did it."

So let's take code where things happen over time (sometimes randomly) and introduce an extra random component so that we can blame the extra random portion on magickers? Why not just blame magickers for the existing effect without the semi-random component thrown in? What is the semi-random component actually adding to the game?

[Lizzie]

What if these random oddities of the code (the ones you suggest become curses) happen randomly, anyway? And people can just blame it on magick. That's basically what superstition is all about, afterall. It's not about a mage ACTUALLY cursing a victim. It's about a victim experiencing something unfortunate or strange in their lives, and blaming it on the mage. The mage doesn't have to have anything to actually do with it. It's basically shifting the blame from "random natural life" to "the witch did it."

So let's take code where things happen over time (sometimes randomly) and introduce an extra random component so that we can blame the extra random portion on magickers? Why not just blame magickers for the existing effect without the semi-random component thrown in? What is the semi-random component actually adding to the game?

It adds more emphasis on the notion that magicks can cause weird things to happen, because the entire world of Zalanthas is a magick-created world, from an IC standpoint. I feel like these random oddities of "coded ticks" aren't frequent enough to make people think SOMETHING is happening right now because I'm suddenly turning thirsty, and I can't attribute it precisely to the fact that I'm in the middle of the salt flats. And I've fallen down 3 times in 3 rooms even though I'm almost sober and it's mid-day and there's no wind to blow sand in my face. It still needs to be random, it still needs to be infrequent, but it needs to be slightly more frequent than it is now. Right now the frequency really IS random. I'm saying - make it be just slightly less random, and slightly more frequent. Put in a new variable called "random_magick_world_effect" with maybe 15 different possible attributes attached to it, and toss it in once every RL hour of play.

[John]

I don't think making things more random or less random is going to make people suddenly sit up and go "oooh! Magick!" If people want to RP being supersitious, there are currently plenty of opportunities to do so both with code and without code. Changing the code and then telling people "pretend the new RNG is magick!" isn't going to increase any superstitious roleplay. After all, staff could just SAY they've done it and to behave appropriately. People are already plenty superstitious on an OOC level, being sure they know how something works when in reality it's just RNG or completely non-existent.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

If I'm being 100%, honestly, you could add a million shitty, terrifying things that magickers could do to mundanes to the game, and they would still be very much a non-iso role with one simple(ish) change to the game.

Allow all the clans to hire them.

It's like elves and the Byn. I imagine non-elves in the Byn don't like elves any more than non-elves not in the Byn do, but they have to work with them, because the Byn hires them. Or rather, takes their money. The Byn doesn't hire, exac ... you get the point. So those racist people in the Byn have to balance hate/work in their interactions with those elves.

And your superiors don't care what you like. They care about what helps them do x,y, and z. So if they hire gemmers, or in some clans, ungemmed, you have to work with them anyway. Whether they can curse you if you piss them off, or whether being around them does weird shit to you or not.

Yeah, that makes magick more obvious in a PC's life, but really ... we all OOCly know it's there, and for an unclanned, they can just go on with the way things are. I feel like letting all, or most, of the clans hire magickers would not only not hurt the game itself, but allow for the roleplay of dislike/hate/fear/etc to evolve the way I'm sure it does for players of elves in the Byn, and possibly Kurac (I haven't played in Kurac in so long that I have no idea if they still hire elves).

[John]

If I'm being 100%, honestly, you could add a million shitty, terrifying things that magickers could do to mundanes to the game, and they would still be very much a non-iso role with one simple(ish) change to the game.

Allow all the clans to hire them.

If you think it was bad when Drovians removed mundane spies from the game (the sneaky, sneaky type who would eavesdrop rather than the pretending to work for you while reporting everything to someone else type) and scouts from the game, letting every clan hire magickers would make that 1000 times worse for every role in the game. Magick would go from hated to the most desirable employee in the game.

But if there was an infrastructure in place that allowed the Powers that Be (merchant houses, gangs, templars, nobles) to surreptitiously employ magickers for specific jobs then that'd be the best of both worlds. It would give magickers something to do, it would give people opportunities to try to find out what the magicker did and who for, and people would still be incentivised to employ people because they're less likely to betray you (even if only marginally less likely).

Unfortunately the game doesn't currently have any infrastructure to help facilitate this. Fortunately with templars and player run clans the infrastructure needed can be implemented by pioneering types.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Desirable? Sure, for the bosses. But that makes sense. And I think that kind of depends on what exactly the role of the clan was. And these new magickers aren't really the swiss-army knives of the old days, either, so they aren't exactly the same nuclear bomb they used to be. They're more like a high-yield missile.

But for the mundane employees? Wouldn't that honestly create more hate for magickers, while having to have it balanced around tip-toeing around the lines created by their employees?

And if the full sub-class is too much, then the touched? I have no idea if Templars can tell the difference between a touched or a full mage, but if they can, then perhaps a Templar sanctioned touched?

[John]

Yes they're desirable for the bosses. Along with everyone else who gets to enjoy the perks they bring to the table. And while magickers aren't the Swiss army knives they once were, they are now mundane+extra and once they get to have the same rights as all other nonsponsored PCs, certain combinations will become the optimal solution and the meta game will become you HAVE to have that magickers subguild to  with that guild.

Also boss and hireling RP will be limited with these magickers if we include the curse idea.

As for touched only. I don't know. I personally suspect the touched subguilds are a waste but I don't know for sure as I haven't really played any. But I don't really like the idea of codifying the subguilds into the RP that obviously.

[John]

I also don't see how forcing mundane and magickers to work closely with one another is going to foster fear and distrust.

[Brokkr]

Why can't this just be solved the old fashioned way?

Players who know how to play magickers (as a subguild) simply making mounds and mounds of corpses out of the rest of you, until you learn to fear subguild magickers?

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

... damn you, John. I don't have a rebuttal. Yet.

Good points.

I still would really like to somehow get magickers to be able to walk the line that elves/breeds walk in the clans that hire them. That line where they're there, your bosses said they're there, you don't have to like them, you probably are weird if you do like them, but they're there and they're useful to your boss and sometimes to you too and so ... suck it up. Add boss-roleplayed fear to that (particularly since PC bosses are really at best middle management and so they would mostly still have the typical commoner's education regarding magick), and you set up a clean case for player-supported mingling and appropriate magicker interactions.

Obviously, there are a couple of clans where magickers can interact, but I'd obviously like a wider-spread system of this, beyond those couple of clans and the tavern.

As far as fostering fear and distrust, working together doesn't need to create any sort of real trust or understanding. Hatred is ingrained in people from birth. Just because someone grows up and meets these people on their own terms doesn't change the fact that you were bred to dislike/fear people that are different than you. Education changes that, but Zalanthans don't really have education.

I'm sure you'd see more magicker-friendlies, but if the magicker is worth their karma, they should be able to discourage friendlies if they're wont to, and veteran mundanes would most likely shore up the gaps there. Actually ...

... putting incidental curses in code, unbidden by the magickers themselves, that happened to those around magickers while also allowing them to be hired would soak up a generous amount of the buddy-buddy thing too, I think.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Why can't this just be solved the old fashioned way?

Players who know how to play magickers (as a subguild) simply making mounds and mounds of corpses out of the rest of you, until you learn to fear subguild magickers?

... I mean, sure, but I like stories that don't involve corpses sometimes, too. By no means am I suggesting that magickers shouldn't be villains here and there, but I prefer stories that don't end in violent death all the time. I know, I know, blasphemy, but a good book doesn't end on the 30th page because the robber shot the cop. Sometimes good short stories do, I guess ...

[John]

As far as fostering fear and distrust, working together doesn't need to create any sort of real trust or understanding. Hatred is ingrained in people from birth. Just because someone grows up and meets these people on their own terms doesn't change the fact that you were bred to dislike/fear people that are different than you. Education changes that, but Zalanthans don't really have education.

I'm sure you'd see more magicker-friendlies, but if the magicker is worth their karma, they should be able to discourage friendlies if they're wont to, and veteran mundanes would most likely shore up the gaps there.

Reread this thread. It exists because people aren't being afraid of magickers and people genuinely don't understand why PC magickers should foster that fear. Throwing in employment as it currently stands would make that worse, not better.

Curses that are time based will simply limit how long PCs stay in the same room. Which limits meaningful role play. Also those magickers better never idle in the compound lest they curse all of the VNPCs.

I don't think elves and halfelves are a good mark to measure magickers against. They are simply too different.

[John]

Why can't this just be solved the old fashioned way?

Players who know how to play magickers (as a subguild) simply making mounds and mounds of corpses out of the rest of you, until you learn to fear subguild magickers?

I think acting out paints a target on your back in this game far more often than making you impervious to it.

Everyone has become so damn risk adverse. I worry the game won't ever see another Plainsman again. Hopefully someone with the code know-how will get inspired and make a magivker worthy of being feared,

[Lizzie]

Why can't this just be solved the old fashioned way?

Players who know how to play magickers (as a subguild) simply making mounds and mounds of corpses out of the rest of you, until you learn to fear subguild magickers?

I think acting out paints a target on your back in this game far more often than making you impervious to it.

Everyone has become so damn risk adverse. I worry the game won't ever see another Plainsman again. Hopefully someone with the code know-how will get inspired and make a magivker worthy of being feared,

The game will NOT ever see another Plainsman again, because sorcery is no longer an option as a main class, and has been split up into different paths. Plainsman was Plainsman, in part, because he had access to ALL of the sorcery paths, not just one.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Why can't this just be solved the old fashioned way?

Players who know how to play magickers (as a subguild) simply making mounds and mounds of corpses out of the rest of you, until you learn to fear subguild magickers?

Ahh. The "build it and they will come" approach.

[Greve]

Why can't this just be solved the old fashioned way?

Players who know how to play magickers (as a subguild) simply making mounds and mounds of corpses out of the rest of you, until you learn to fear subguild magickers?

They don't, is the problem. Whatever one believes the reason to be, magick has stopped being "the old fashioned way." If making mounds of corpses was something people had a reason, desire and opportunity to do, they would. But they don't. So if mounds of corpses is the expected result, something needs to give players the reason, desire and opportunity to do that. Right now, I don't see what that could possibly be. It has been so long since big, world-shaking things happened that I think we've forgotten how, and why, mounds of corpses are made.

[Brokkr]

So if mounds of corpses is the expected result, something needs to give players the reason, desire and opportunity to do that.

Reason:  This thread
Desire:  This thread
Opportunity:  Exists

[th3kaiser]

Because they wouldn't have any fun with me using magick to make it stupid easy to kill them with mundane skills.  But if this is a challenge I guess I could make a PC and give it a shot, I just don't think anyone really wants that.

[Greve]

So if mounds of corpses is the expected result, something needs to give players the reason, desire and opportunity to do that.

Reason:  This thread
Desire:  This thread
Opportunity:  Exists

I think you misunderstood my point. When I say reason and desire, I don't mean a thread where people say someone ought to do it. When I say opportunity, I don't mean that it's technically doable. I mean something that actually causes players to do it, encourages it and facilitates it. The proverbial mounds of corpses are still absent despite the fact that this thread is almost a month old, and the concerns voiced in it are much older still. Magick didn't lose its spook factor this month.

You can tell players to do something until the heat death of the universe, but if the game doesn't lend itself to doing so, they won't. There are no wars, no noteworthy conflict between groups of player characters, no enemy city-state, no encroachment on tribal territories. There's no signs of feuds between noble houses or between criminals and templars. There's no Copper War, no Gin and Quick, no CAM, no Dragonthralls... none of the things that used to make magickal headlines. For better or worse, the notable events from a decade ago were things that just don't happen anymore. Doesn't matter whether or not one liked these things. The fact is that they fuelled the magickal spook factor by making magick happen, and happen for actual reasons.

Today? Well, you could create an elementalist and go around murdering people, sure. But why? Some contrived reason based on nothing but the desire to see it done? Evidently this isn't enough, because people don't do it. That's not to say that nobody at all is trying to do scary magick, but clearly not enough to create the expected results. We could really do with something like an extended HRPT where the gemmed population of Allanak rebels against the city, fighting back against the restrictions and prejudices they've suffered under. I expect there's a lot of players who would be delighted to play a scary magicker under those circumstances, with real tangible reasons to do it. You might then say that nothing's stopping players from starting a rebellion like that themselves and BEING THE CHANGE, but at the end of the day, we can see that nobody is doing anything like that.

And opportunities? I don't think they're as readily available as you suggest. The new brand of elementalist can't live by the spell. Magick now serves mainly to enhance the otherwise mundane parts of one's character. The elementalist subclasses whose spells I know of would all be beaten pretty easily by two mundanes of the same class and skill level. Most of the spells that were powerful before are still powerful, but you don't have the same kind of ammunition. You can't survive being a lone antagonistic magicker because most of your coded arsenal consists of the same mundane skills as anyone else. And attempting it is even less appealing now with the way karma regeneration works.

If you really wanted magick to be a meaningful, relevant factor again, you have to do something to encourage it. If you don't, and you maintain that it's not happening because the entire playerbase has collectively failed to make something happen that should be happening, everyone might as well pack it all up and call the whole thing a failed experiment. If fear and loathing of magick is meant to be something we invoke as a frequent aspect of our roleplay, there needs to be something that fuels that sentiment. When you can play for a year straight and the only magickal thing you ever see is pleasant, peaceful gemmers at the bar, you quickly grow bored of scowling and muttering at them.

Players are not neglecting to react to magickal things around them. There are no magickal things around them.

[X-D]

I was going to ask John the same thing as 7dv did then I found the issue.

Did my post equate to "roleplay better"? Yes. It's pretty much the only thing each individual player has control over. Putting in curses that get placed on someone for being in the vicinity of a magicker for X period of time would simply make magickers OOC pariahs as well as IC pariahs

Now, I do remember somebody suggesting that...but most of us do not want that, I know I do not, instead most people have suggested some sort of active system where the mage actually does the curse on purpose, pays the mana cost and upkeep. (and can do it sneaky like...with a chance of getting seen/noticed of course) I would farther limit it by saying that Though a mage should be able to have as many curses active as he has mana to maintain,  he/she should only be able to have 1 on a PC....So Malik the mage can curse Amos and Kalim but not Amos 2 times at the same time. I would be on the fence on even allowing another mage to put a curse on Amos...Oh sure, he might be a real dick and deserve it but gotta think about the player, if he is that much a dick you really should just be working on killing him. So I think I would only advocate 1 curse on a PC at a time.

As to the mounds of corpses, Much as I LOVE putting the fear of something back into the game and have made PCs just for that in the past....

My experience with the mage subs so far is that they are way too gimped to do so....true, my experience with them is limited but that is the perception so far.

[number13]

When there are mounds of corpses, people (including this person, unless it's in the context of an RPT) get upset by PKs preemptively ending stories before they can begin.

Personally, I think there's ways for strong characters to drive plots and do interesting things that don't have to involve mass scale murder of PCs.

There's just two classifications of PCs that don't have to worry so much about what an elementalist can do to them: templars (a good thing) and dwarves/muls. Maybe fix dwarves and muls (and maybe half-giants) so that they are even more vulnerable to magic than a human, and the problem of elementlists not being scary fixes itself. All the sudden, the scariest PC warriors can get their asses kicked by a witch.

[John]

I was going to ask John the same thing as 7dv did then I found the issue.

Did my post equate to "roleplay better"? Yes. It's pretty much the only thing each individual player has control over. Putting in curses that get placed on someone for being in the vicinity of a magicker for X period of time would simply make magickers OOC pariahs as well as IC pariahs

Now, I do remember somebody suggesting that...but most of us do not want that, I know I do not, instead most people have suggested some sort of active system where the mage actually does the curse on purpose, pays the mana cost and upkeep. (and can do it sneaky like...with a chance of getting seen/noticed of course) I would farther limit it by saying that Though a mage should be able to have as many curses active as he has mana to maintain,  he/she should only be able to have 1 on a PC....So Malik the mage can curse Amos and Kalim but not Amos 2 times at the same time. I would be on the fence on even allowing another mage to put a curse on Amos...Oh sure, he might be a real dick and deserve it but gotta think about the player, if he is that much a dick you really should just be working on killing him. So I think I would only advocate 1 curse on a PC at a time.

As to the mounds of corpses, Much as I LOVE putting the fear of something back into the game and have made PCs just for that in the past....

My experience with the mage subs so far is that they are way too gimped to do so....true, my experience with them is limited but that is the perception so far.

7dv clearly was (he reiterated it a couple of posts before yours). I am always behind giving magickers some ability to be creepy and antagonistic. I personally don't know how good the current mechanics available to mages are. But I'm always for tweaking or changing them to help enable in the playable game what should exist in the virtual one.

[X-D]

Ah, I admit I did not read all his posts.

For the record, I am fully against any type of automagick curse aura.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

John, upon reading my posts in our chain from this morning, I realize that I skipped over a thing - I don't want people to be cursed in any way for being in the vicinity of a mage. I want mundane people to have a fairly decent chance to be cursed in a relatively harmless, completely silent way, when a mage actively casts spells in their vicinity. And I wanted this to be offset by bringing magickers into clan structures with mundanes, thus giving players of both mages and mundanes the opportunity to interact in a mutual environment while also dealing with the havoc that magick supposedly wreaks upon mundanes.

I also want mages to be able to cast real curses, too, of course. And at first I liked the idea of giving these curses unique echoes, but now I like the idea of them being silent, noticeable only in the way the numbers and the world reacts to your curse, instead of spice-like messages conveying that you are a victim.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

To me, the cry to create the next Plainsman or White Rantarri or whatever is a really good thing. But it segregates the players of all the mages even more than they are already segregated. I think the fun of this game happens when people are not segregated without plenty of other people like them in the same wagon, particularly in a specific region. I think the fun of this game happens in the mixing pot, when you throw in all of the ingredients and let them do what they do. That's the only reason OOCly why I want sanctioned magickers to be included in more clans.

I want the next magicker villain too. It's absolutely fun, of course, and good times and great story and whatnot. But I also want people to play together, and separating all of the gemmed from meaningful employment and meaningful interaction with the mundane PCs seems like less fun than coming up with a good, IC way to throw them at each other.

And of course this is an Allanak thing - I feel like it fits there fine.