Coded consequences to gemmed

[Pariah]

So there are a few magick related consequences and many social ones for gemmers, however there really aren't many coded ones that come into play with day to day that make being a gemmed "hard", in fact I would argue that they are the easier role to play when it comes to gaining coin and general survival.

Some can make their own sustenance, this isn't a spoiler it's listed in the helpfiles, so that eliminates one coded barrier right there.

Some gain a metric shitton of combat survivability or glass cannon power to kill things that would normally take a non-mundane tons of days played to even think about.

So one thing recently bothered me and I figured I'd bring it up for discussion and see what staff and players alike thought.  Why is it that there is supposed to be a stigma, and is in some cases (Can't get into certain areas with a gem on for example) but yet I can go make a master skin class, and run around being super hunter, getting tons of hides/bones/whatever in my bag and then...

As a stigmatized, hated or feared or both member of Allanak, just walk up to the local merchant and sell them all the things in my bag and they don't bat an eye?  Yet just sitting near me could make my baby have three arms or some other crazy superstition that illiterate commoners have?

It would seem to me that gemmed shouldn't be able to be cashing in on NPC sales as easily as they can.  If anything they should need to seek out more interaction that is harder to get due to their witchery than a normal dude.

So that's why I think witches should be blackballed more, at least known ones, make gemmed witches really feel it.

Make it so gemmed can't sell to non-gemmed merchants, so that they have to have middlemen, and that in itself should be hard because who wants to deal with gemmed?

What do you think?

[dunecrawler]

Gemmed already have the very real downside of having a giant target and collectible item around their necks. What IC reason would there be for any and all merchants to refuse trading with the gemmed? They would miss out on profit.

[Pariah]

Gemmed already have the very real downside of having a giant target and collectible item around their necks. What IC reason would there be for any and all merchants to refuse trading with the gemmed? They would miss out on profit.

The theme, they are witches, eww

[dunecrawler]

Gemmed already have the very real downside of having a giant target and collectible item around their necks. What IC reason would there be for any and all merchants to refuse trading with the gemmed? They would miss out on profit.

The theme, they are witches, eww

And whoever ends up buying the item from the merchant will have no idea where it came from or who the last owner was.

[Pariah]

Gemmed already have the very real downside of having a giant target and collectible item around their necks. What IC reason would there be for any and all merchants to refuse trading with the gemmed? They would miss out on profit.

The theme, they are witches, eww

And whoever ends up buying the item from the merchant will have no idea where it came from or who the last owner was.

Of course, but if there is supposed to be this huge stigma of even socially interacting with gemmed, shouldn't there be one with buying from them too?  Those things make your dick fall off after all.

[dumbstruck]

I mean, tell me you want to see people stop playing gemmed without saying the words outright: 'make it impossible for them to deal with any npc'. Yeah, that sounds like it. I think you'd just see people decide to store or die rather than taking the gem if they got caught because it made the role unplayable. This is one of those ideas that might sound great on paper but imagine never being able to buy water or get an item tailored? You act like there is an actual population of appropriate vendors in the gemmed quarter to make the role survivable and there aren't. And that's leaving alone the baseline inconvenience of having to use a go between. In fact, if the shopkeeper is refusing to deal with you, can you even type list and see what he has? How does that work exactly? What is the extent of interaction that is okay? No thank you, I don't care for it.

[Pariah]

I mean, tell me you want to see people stop playing gemmed without saying the words outright: 'make it impossible for them to deal with any npc'. Yeah, that sounds like it. I think you'd just see people decide to store or die rather than taking the gem if they got caught because it made the role unplayable. This is one of those ideas that might sound great on paper but imagine never being able to buy water or get an item tailored? You act like there is an actual population of appropriate vendors in the gemmed quarter to make the role survivable and there aren't. And that's leaving alone the baseline inconvenience of having to use a go between. In fact, if the shopkeeper is refusing to deal with you, can you even type list and see what he has? How does that work exactly? What is the extent of interaction that is okay? No thank you, I don't care for it.

Selling to NPCs my dude, selling.

And there are still a few gemmed merchants.

I'm just saying they shouldn't be flooding the markets with hides/bones/whatever with their super powered selves when regular hunters are stuck with bags of the same shit that they actually risked their lives for.

Course water sellers and all that would still sell, you could still buy, but they wouldn't be tainting their inventory with gemmer acquired skins/hides/bones etc.

[dumbstruck]

Less than 6 total iirc. Wanna bet they don't actually buy anything much, too?

Additionally, this, to me, goes against the spirit of the changes made when magick was moved from main class to subclass where staff talked about making magickers 'people first', as in, hunters first, and merchants first and foremost as their focus, not just a bunch of spells.

Further, if you think people using magick don't also take risks and at least a good portion of the time engage in combat to procure these items the same way your mundane hunter does, I really don't know what to tell you.

If it's inventory they're just looking to sell to the next guy who comes along looking for something, there's no reason to believe that the next guy who comes along looking to buy that thing would have any reason to believe that the thing came from a gemmed over a nongemmed or an elf over a human or whatever. It's store inventory, the point is to flip it for a profit. Now, pay the gemmed a lesser amount? (say 80% or something?) because you can? Sure, and they probably ought to be doing it to elves, too, to cover the cost of whatever merchandise the elf likely stole when they came in.

But to refuse it altogether? Nuh-uh. Not only would that make playability shit and make little sense from the perspective of someone just out for money, but additionally, the knock on effect that is going to have is a lack of gemmed not a lack of magickers. And if that's something you're after, fine. But please believe me when I tell you I am pretty decent at calling how these things shake out.

[whengravityfails]

I'm definitely going to have to back dumbstruck up here. Pariah, have you played a Gemmed? Not all of them are superpowered combat death machines, for one. Second, they face the same limitation in that the shops face the same glut of stuff from all hunters. On top of it, Gemmed are actively hunted by a great deal of different groups out there in the sands.

Mundane hunters also have a -much- easier time selling stuff to PCs than Gemmed do. Again, I'm just going off my own experience here. But a lot of PCs will turn their nose up. Some might want to just kick the stuffing out of you and rob you. I really don't think the role needs more downsides than it already has when playing a rogue witch is much more enjoyable (imo).

[Pariah]

I'm definitely going to have to back dumbstruck up here. Pariah, have you played a Gemmed? Not all of them are superpowered combat death machines, for one. Second, they face the same limitation in that the shops face the same glut of stuff from all hunters. On top of it, Gemmed are actively hunted by a great deal of different groups out there in the sands.

Mundane hunters also have a -much- easier time selling stuff to PCs than Gemmed do. Again, I'm just going off my own experience here. But a lot of PCs will turn their nose up. Some might want to just kick the stuffing out of you and rob you. I really don't think the role needs more downsides than it already has when playing a rogue witch is much more enjoyable (imo).

Yeah, I enjoy a good magicker here and there, but honestly I don't really like gemmed, they tend to be very one dimensional in my experience when it comes to what they can do socially.  I'm more the sekret magicker type...

But yes, maybe not have them get denied, maybe we could have the NPC merchants lower their buy prices because "eww witch" then?

There are people out there who are specifically hunting anything that moves, that's one of my complaints against roles like the Crimson Wind and such, they tend to go just murderhobo instead of anything that brings anything to the game, more of a drov beetle that's smarter and uses weapons, but that's a different subject.

I dunno, I just think it's too easy for the gemmed, at least from what I've experienced as a hunter character finding all the avenues of sale full up.  But this is why we have a discussion board, to post differences of opinion and see what comes from it.

[BadSkeelz]

You think Gemmed are too one-dimensional socially so you want to even further limit them socially?

This is a bad idea.

[Halaster]

This is one of those ideas that might sound great on paper but imagine never being able to buy water or get an item tailored?

Pretty much my thinking here.  Socially it makes sense, thematically it makes sense, but it would make them a little too unplayable and people just wouldn't play them.