Brainstorming Magick Critical Failures

[Hauwke]

The Superhero Gick: doesn't give a hoot about the magick docs, practices magick all day, and manifests two days into the Byn with mon fireball and just blasts anyone who gives them crap in the face because "Look at these leet skills I ground up with barely any roleplay and a lot of solo grinding."

I'd just like to point out, if you have cast at all, which grinding your spells up means you have, you are considered manifested and doing a manifest scene is silly.

[Dresan]

I think making magick unreliable is fine but never unusable.

Magick was intended to be used on characters that had no supporting mundane skills so it needed to be 'scary', but mundane classes can be scary enough without the addition of magick. A fighter with a mage weapon is nuts.

At the same time, unless you go gemmer, the game is pretty harsh if people figure out you are a magicker. On top of that the life of all independents is harder then ever. With almost all benefits stacked on clans at the moment. We shouldn't want to want to make magickers frustrating to play.

However, just like backstab isn't always a sure thing, magickal murder doesn't always have to be a sure thing. For example, maxed out fireball of doom could  critically fail and only do half damage, with the victim's agility taken into account as well as your own wisdom in the likely hood of success or fail. It would still have been worth attempting but more preparation from the mage (not just popping out of hide) would be needed in order to ensure the victim dies or doesn't escape and tell everyone you are a gick.

I think spells having half damage, effect or time, or just using much more(or all your) mana would be enough to make magick interesting on critical fails without making playing a magicker feel like a throw away character.  Especially if they are more likely to critical fail on character with more agility (to dodge certain spells) or wisdom(to resist them). This keeps magick scary and useful, worth using and playing despite all the setbacks but still require effort on the mage's player to ensure they have made preparations in case the spell isn't a 'critical success'. 

I think the fact that you can use wisdom as a dump stat and be an effective mage as a strength/endurance prioritized fighter is a bit of a problem. If your wisdom is low you should have a higher chance of failure, high wisdom should have a higher chance of critical success.

[Halcyon]

I'm against crit failures.  If crit successes go with them, that'd be fine with me.

If there are crit failures on spells, I hope they apply equally to templars.

[Pariah]

I'm against crit failures.  If crit successes go with them, that'd be fine with me.

If there are crit failures on spells, I hope they apply equally to templars.

Templars are just sucking off Teks power. They aren't real mages.

[Jihelu]

I'm against crit failures.  If crit successes go with them, that'd be fine with me.

If there are crit failures on spells, I hope they apply equally to templars.

Templars are just sucking off Teks power. They aren't real mages.

The logs we got about Templar's mention their magic training, from what it looks like they are trained in a type of sorcery till they get the basics down and can cast ball of light (Or something similar) then don't do much till they get their amulet.

[mansa]

Some of those ideas for critical fails/successes are -amazing- and very creative.

If I were to attempt to summarize it:

Effect to the player
Effect to other players
Effect to the room/surroundings

If I were to summarize some of my wants and needs for these effects.. 
   I wouldn't want anything -visible- to affect the player themselves that they cannot dispel.  I wouldn't want to have a player "hide for 20 minutes until the spell effect wears off" so they can continue to be a hidden magicker, while forcing them to wait out a critical failure effect.
   The same thing for any other players, I wouldn't want them to wait out a spell effect so they can go to the bar and socialize.
   I do like having a lasting effect on the room itself.  Maybe everything is slightly damp, or smelly, or is slightly singed.

   I think having some echos to the player (and only the player) would be some nice effect.  That way it can act like skellebain, and have the player figure out how to react to the game telling them how they feel.

[Pariah]

I agree, I can't really play magickers on a whim so they are a two time a year thing with Special Apps, but I am really enjoying the brainstorming.  Even if I don't understand some of the principles being thrown around from inexperience, I do think that this has been a cool conversation at the very least.

[SpyGuy]

If I were to summarize some of my wants and needs for these effects.. 
   I wouldn't want anything -visible- to affect the player themselves that they cannot dispel.  I wouldn't want to have a player "hide for 20 minutes until the spell effect wears off" so they can continue to be a hidden magicker, while forcing them to wait out a critical failure effect.
   The same thing for any other players, I wouldn't want them to wait out a spell effect so they can go to the bar and socialize.
   I do like having a lasting effect on the room itself.  Maybe everything is slightly damp, or smelly, or is slightly singed.

Ooo, I like the idea of more things that affect a whole room.

And I did consider the whole visible effect harming interaction aspect some, it's a very valid point.  I think my own take on it is that hemotes are more interesting than immediately visible magickal effects, perhaps the caster doesn't even realize he's under the effect.  And that there's a lot in the game you might have to wait for: feeding a mount to full, regen, gates to open, shops to open, etc.  Why not magickers having to wait an extra 30 minutes if they cast a spell  and got a critical fail towards the end of their practice?  They were already likely in their temple/secret spot practicing their magick away from others so it doesn't strike me as too harsh to have them wait a little bit longer before they're suitable for the public.

That said thanks for the constructive criticism!  I hope it all can be taken into account as they flesh out this feature.

[X-D]

See, I am actually for such things as crit fails and crit success.

BUT.

I think they should mostly be !flash! in nature with very little "real" effect.

So Like a crit fail that costs a bit more mana and is flashy in the fail -message- Gogo maverick!

Same on a crit success, No actual change to the spell, mana cost down a bit and cool flashy message...Yes.

Much past that and I am likely to be against it.

[Dresan]

I think my own take on it is that hemotes are more interesting than immediately visible magickal effects, perhaps the caster doesn't even realize he's under the effect.

With the game population in the decline you really want to avoid mechanics that promote players being unable to interact with people in order to keep their characters alive.

If casting spells have a potentially hidden effect where a hidden mage might be outed then you would effectively be turning these into throw away characters unless they play in the remote wilderness which again something that is not ideal in a declining population. Even as a gemmer getting caught with a spell effect is less than ideal.

That said I like the idea of critical fail/critical success, but it should not make mages frustrating to play or at any point useless.  Again my opinion is that is should be tied to the wisdom stat, just like poor strength is not uselss in combat but much less effective that exceptional strength, then having low wisdom should be prone to have more critical fails and thus making magick less effective.

I would also love for critical fails to give the victims more chances to survive by causing half effects or damage and/or allowing dodges/resists again depending on the stats/defense of the character you are casting against. This doesn't mean magic is useless in these instances just that the player would need to take time and effort in preparation to ensure success. 

I think this will really add to the game's character customization options.

[SpyGuy]

Honestly I would like for magick to have more of a risk (and benefit in the form of interesting critical successes). My person preference is for magick to be weird, unknowable and 'dangerous'. I also feel the place of rogue magickers in this game is to be hunted and shunned if discovered as per the docs with the caveat that they can and should develop relationships that then become strained to varying degrees when their nature of being magickers is revealed. At times there are a -lot- of hidden mages and there's basically no way to prove they're a mage as a mundane unless you stalk them and catch them in the act or they mess up somehow. 

I think the point of limiting interaction is a valid one that should be considered.  I also think that it's a weak point.  The nature of a critical fail would be it's a small percentage chance of happening and only happens when spells are cast (presumably cast using the reach that actually manifests the spell not the practice reach).  So said mage had already most likely sequestered themselves away secretly to practice or were with those accepting of magick when they cast the spell. What makes a small chance of a critical fail that could give a short duration effect that reveals them an undue burden if by their nature hidden mages are already hiding themselves to do their magick?  Also we still have the Way for interaction, it isn't like those PCs are cut off from all contact.

As for the other points about resistances and wisdom affecting crit chances, all for something like that.  Can't say I know the depth of the code or intended code changes on this but it'd be cool.  My intention with the OP was to write up one direction it could go and spur discussion on how this new feature could be made really unique and not basic or bland.

[mansa]

I think the point of limiting interaction is a valid one that should be considered.  I also think that it's a weak point.  The nature of a critical fail would be it's a small percentage chance of happening and only happens when spells are cast (presumably cast using the reach that actually manifests the spell not the practice reach).  So said mage had already most likely sequestered themselves away secretly to practice or were with those accepting of magick when they cast the spell. What makes a small chance of a critical fail that could give a short duration effect that reveals them an undue burden if by their nature hidden mages are already hiding themselves to do their magick? 

Players will do interesting things to prevent harm towards the characters they play, and they will stop interacting with other players until they feel they can present their character the way they want to.

This has been brought up in other conversations about how players want to portray their characters in terms of injuries, and some players will absolutely retire/store their character if an injury they didn't agree to has been put upon their character they play.

In my opinion, it's definitely a strong point, ... Strong enough that the game designers recently created a dispel reach for magicker characters to allow them to interact with the playerbase without having to wait out their spell effects.

...Also we still have the Way for interaction, it isn't like those PCs are cut off from all contact.

I think in terms of game design, we want to push characters towards central locations of interaction, rather than separating them into their own secret hideaway bases. 

One of the major complaints recently is "I just visited all the taverns in Allanak and there was no player characters in them."


I'm totally for critical failures, I would rather not have any lasting visible effects that would pigeonhole player's decisions in hiding their secrets by waiting out the negative spell effects.

[SpyGuy]

I must have missed the addition of a dispel reach.  That's cool I guess.  I'll need to think on whether I actually like it or not.

I'm going to be stubborn and still say that I have little sympathy for the idea that a mage who intentionally hides away from the playerbase to practice magick secretly is then terribly burdened by having lasting effects from said practice.  I believe it's a valid concern and there should be ways to mitigate it (certain reaches not causing crit fails, low percentage chance of crit fails, shortish durations on any effects, the fact you can just not use your magick if you plan on seeking public interaction soon).  I still wouldn't call it a strong argument but I appreciate the input.

And as said in the OP I'm in no way involved in making this code and the likelihood of any of these ideas making it in is slim to none.  But I'm glad there's been some tossed around already and I'd love to see more ideas on how to make this feature interesting.

[Khorm]

it would be neat to increase either the effect or the chance of critical fails in the presence of other elements.

create a dangerous scenario for magickers that congregate.

[Rashad]

I'd really like to see critical failures associated with spells, not just generic 'Vivs get this, Krathis get that'. It would be something new to discover and could potentially make things more interesting. Some spells could be more dangerous than others.

[slipshod]

I'm not a big fan of the critical failures or successes on spells, but I still want to engage with the underlying issue, which seems to be the RP of non-mages being too accepting of proximity to magick/mages.

What if whenever a non-mage PC is in the same room as someone with active visible spell effects, or in the same room as someone who casts a spell, they get a "general queasiness" debuff for a while afterwards, not unlike some spice and poison aftereffects (e.g. less stun to represent having the heebie jeebies)?

And even better solution, in my opinion, would be something that incentivizes the desired behavior rather than something that uses code to punish people involved in undesirable behavior.  I don't know what that is.

[Alesan]

And even better solution, in my opinion, would be something that incentivizes the desired behavior rather than something that uses code to punish people involved in undesirable behavior.  I don't know what that is.

The satisfaction of playing by the docs?