Karma Timer Proposition - Gemmed

[Armaddict]

If I have a character cooking, then as soon as its ready, I probably will store my current character.

If I have a special app that I know is coming, often times I won't play because all my energy is in this 'new' character I spent a lot of time preparing for.

Even the 'cook' time is going to make me not want to really play, because I'd rather not play than try to force the RP on a character I don't care about.

Which is where modifiers come in, something that is made possible by adding values over time in a progress fashion rather than hardset wait times or karma regeneration.  For example, there can be a modifier for 'stored previous character for cooked timer', where the storage is automated as well, but puts a modifier onto your next cook time.  Modifiers can be added for being in-game (i.e. While logged in, cook timer moves at 50% increased point generation).

I mean, if there's literally nothing that will make you play the game except for being able to play the mage regardless of the current state of the game (i.e. Population limit/Karma Regeneration) or expectation of character contribution for being what it is in the setting (i.e. limitations on karma spending/how it's used/multiple mages in a row, etc), then you really don't have much respect for the game at all.  It's just your playground.  You're not roleplaying at that point, you're insisting the world do what you want, everything and everyone else be damned.  Which is hilarious, because every time something gets brought up to try and curb that long-time concern, that's what people are accused of; just trying to ruin other people's fun.

Regardless, a key point to remember is that there are not just 2 sides to this issue, there are tugs and pulls in every which direction, which is why discussion is helpful.  Come up with -new- ideas.  Come up with compromises.  Remember to search for a solution that gives multiple sides what they want, and still things to be unhappy about, because that's a sign of a good compromise.  Come to the table ready to sacrifice something, or stop sitting at that table.

-I- would just throw good hard caps on all of it.  I'd make it discretionary.  I'd have it all sorts of draconian-controlled, because this can and does break the setting that most enjoy in exchange for personal enjoyment.  So I make compromises.  I try to come up with ways that are limiting but not stifling.  I try to come up with ways that make it so that even in non-magickal roles, magicker-preferring players can still find fulfillment during interims.

Just saying 'I'm not gonna play if you limit this' just makes me want to direct you to the door.

[Riev]

Show me the door. Go ahead and do it. Because I have an opinion on how I dislike an idea.

Cool man. Go draconian.

[DesertT]

Show me the door. Go ahead and do it. Because I have an opinion on how I dislike an idea.

Cool man. Go draconian.

To be fair, how many times have people used that threat, or posted a "final" good-bye thread, just to come back a week or month later.

So there's the door.  See you in a week or three.   

But honestly, I think we've all seen what happens without a karma timer.  We get a large population of the player base playing mages (if they're not in a sponsored role) and that's quite contrary to documentation.

I've tried to extend an olive branch by saying Gemmed should be more common, so offer a "karma rebate" for Gemmed, but hardly anyone seems to appreciate that idea.

Continuing down this path seems to be leading us to a point where the majority of the mundanes playing, will be sponsored roles (if they're not already).

Currently, it seems the more popular opinion is that Gemmed aren't worth playing if you can play a rogue and have freedom, and of course, Templars Bad.

How do we increase interest in playing a Gemmed (where a whole QUARTER of a City-State has authorized them to live and breathe (aka breed)?

How do we reduce the percentage reputation of the playerbase that are playing rogue mages so that it coincides with documentation?

It seems the reasonable step is to place limits like there have been on pretty much every clan (minus the Byn).

Otherwise, we're going to get to the point where amongst the player population, the mundane will be the minority (outside of sponsored roles).

[Armaddict]

Edit:  Whatever, it's quibbling.  People can read whatever they want to read.

Does anyone else have ideas for alternatives or new systems, automated or not, that can help maintain the overall setting that draws people as well as creates some sort of balance that also lets people enjoy magickal aspects of the game?

[zealus]

Show me the door. Go ahead and do it. Because I have an opinion on how I dislike an idea.

Cool man. Go draconian.

To be fair, how many times have people used that threat, or posted a "final" good-bye thread, just to come back a week or month later.

So there's the door.  See you in a week or three.   

But honestly, I think we've all seen what happens without a karma timer.  We get a large population of the player base playing mages (if they're not in a sponsored role) and that's quite contrary to documentation.

I've tried to extend an olive branch by saying Gemmed should be more common, so offer a "karma rebate" for Gemmed, but hardly anyone seems to appreciate that idea.

Continuing down this path seems to be leading us to a point where the majority of the mundanes playing, will be sponsored roles (if they're not already).

Currently, it seems the more popular opinion is that Gemmed aren't worth playing if you can play a rogue and have freedom, and of course, Templars Bad.

How do we increase interest in playing a Gemmed (where a whole QUARTER of a City-State has authorized them to live and breathe (aka breed)?

How do we reduce the percentage reputation of the playerbase that are playing rogue mages so that it coincides with documentation?

It seems the reasonable step is to place limits like there have been on pretty much every clan (minus the Byn).

Otherwise, we're going to get to the point where amongst the player population, the mundane will be the minority (outside of sponsored roles).

The reality is, that with a karma timer, a large chunk of the players do not play.
Adding a Karma timer just because you enjoy mundanes is not the solution you think it is.
Magickers can be in any clan. It's not just gemmed. Heck, some are in tribes, where they are very limited.
I do agree that playing back to back mages exclusively might be curtailed. But within reason. If you die 4 times within 10 mins? I don't see the harm at all.

[Riev]

I think some time ago, Mansa had a decent suggestion that revolved around setting a "hard limit" of how many of each magicker you want in the game, and if the game is at that limit, you cannot create the character. If it is a special application, staff maybe can turn it on for you, but based on {criteria}, if there are too many Vivs in game, you cannot create one.

Now, the exact criteria, and how to tell people there are too many vivs without saying "There are 4 in game currently. KILL ONE AND YOU CAN PLAY ONE" I don't know what to do. But I'd rather a "There's too many currently" than "you played one last month so you can't play one now".

[wizturbo]

The percentage of open magickers in the world is very small.  Probably representative of the rarity we'd like to see.  The issue is the number of rogue magickers, because subguild mages are really good, give up very little, and are super easy to keep secret.

The solutions should be around this issue in my opinion, not around restricting people's ability to play a class.  Limiting supply will just limit the number of players interested in playing.  Let's impact demand instead.

Some thoughts along these lines, without trying to imply any direct solutions:

• A suite of abilities/roles that historically uncovered secret mages in the past have also been nerfed or removed from the game.  With nothing replacing these 'rogue detectors' it's much easier to hide as a manfested rogue.
• Subguild magick makes some of the most self sufficient characters in the game, moreso than mundane classes focused on this.
• Most subguild magick dramatically improves the combat survival of any character, by an order of magnitude.  In a permadeath game, this is extremely desirable.  I'd argue the survivability you gain is actually greater than the increased risk you face from anti-magick PC's who might try to kill you.

[Armaddict]

Is the answer to create a lot of IC 'secret' but visible plots centered around gemmed hunting ungemmed?  Adds conflict, adds story possibilities, adds 'things to do' for both rogues and gemmed, etc?

ETA:  Not to say this doesn't already happen.  But I mean that prospect that I've touched on a few times where this becomes gemmed's actual purpose as a backdrop against everything else that may come their way, including if we opened up other clans to have their own gemmed.

[DesertT]

The reality is, that with a karma timer, a large chunk of the players do not play.
Adding a Karma timer just because you enjoy mundanes is not the solution you think it is.
Magickers can be in any clan. It's not just gemmed. Heck, some are in tribes, where they are very limited.
I do agree that playing back to back mages exclusively might be curtailed. But within reason. If you die 4 times within 10 mins? I don't see the harm at all.

I challenge your initial sentence.  I flat out don't believe it.  You can say a large chunk, but what does that look like?  Half?  I know that I don't wait for a stupid karma timer.  Never have.  When I have an idea that the karma timer said I wasn't ready to app, I would just hold and play something else fun, because that's what this is:  a fun game.

And I do have a problem with people dying four times in ten minutes when all they're doing is rolling up a karma three, taking a shot at a sponsored role, failing, dying/storing, then doing it again.

People get excited about being selected for a sponsored role, and they DON'T have the option to just role another one similar to the one they just had.  They have to wait for an opening an apply again.

What if all I want to do is play nobles?  Why should I have to wait for a role call?  Just let me role noble after noble after noble.  It's okay.  They're mundane anyway.

Or what if someone just wants to play templars.  How far are we going to take this?

We already have a limit on how many delves there can be, and how many players have we lost?

Doesn't seem like any when I check the WHO command since that change.

Now we're having a similar response to limiting magickers as we did to delves and we think the end result will be any different?  People just griping about not getting EVERYTHING they want and continuing to play the best MUD out there for those of us who like to think that we're hard-core because we play a perma-death mud that's been around since before HOW MANY OF YOU were born?  (Halaster not included).

[dumbstruck]

What if all I want to do is play nobles?  Why should I have to wait for a role call?  Just let me role noble after noble after noble.  It's okay.  They're mundane anyway.

People should absolutely open up all the noble houses in Allanak and let people freely app in until there's 2-3 in each of them and cap them there and let people play them and that's up do about 20 noble spots if people want to play them. It's more than d-elves, more than human tribals, and a reasonably small number of each, small enough each could even already have their own bedroom without requiring new building and enough people that they'd all have peers and rivals to play off of. I encourage this.

And unlike TEMPLARS, they don't have the ability to jail and execute people publicly for funsies without something happening, they don't have call on the nukes (the gemmed), can't use a command to pk a subset of people who can't fight back (again, the gemmed), and more.

Yes, let's do this please.

Modify to add:

I've literally already said that this would have me playing both a mundane and in the city, basically fast as a shot. I can't be the only one.

Additionally though, you don't have to 'believe or disbelieve', about the karma timer as you're talking about here:

The reality is, that with a karma timer, a large chunk of the players do not play.

Right here: https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,58484.0.html It has hard numbers. 9 don't play, 9 will make something they actively don't like and only play it until the timer is up, and less than half were unaffected, at 16. So if 1/4 of people tapping out, and another 1/4 literally making throwaways that literally only last until they can play what they like or want to is what you think is what is good for the game or what it needs, idk what to tell you. Sure the chars now might be more magickal but you're not seeing a cool 1/4 of the pcs actively be designed as throwaways your plots will never go anywhere with because someone said they had to play something else.

[Jimpka_Moss]

Nowhere in the documentation does it say 'PCs with magick is very rare and mysterious'. Nowhere. DesertT, you're seem to be starting fro ma false premise to begin with. If every single player in the game was a magicker, that wouldn't budge the percentage of magickers in Zalanthas a single percent.

If you want something to 'thin out' or 'challenge the status quo' of many Players choosing magick classes and not gemmed or mundane, I suggest having an IC reaction be present in the game world, rather than OOC restrictions be placed on players.

Perhaps a cluster of magickers in an area draws ire or unwanted magickal calamities. For instance too many krathi and vivaduans gathered together in Vrun Driath, ungemmed, causes dangerous steam geysers, or elementals to come at them. The greater the combined power of the PC gickers, the greater the calamity. The gem removes this possibility.


Something like this would encourage people to get gems, to escape the uncertainty and have magick be dangerous, for everyone involved. Everyone, including the user. No more cuddle groups unless you're willing to risk it. Less shitcloak imposters only there for a year because of the risks invovled. Magick would not be just rare, and now even more mysterious, it would be dangerous.


And if you want more gemmed, by the way, someone make some cooler Templars. Please, they're all just the same as the PCs I see, same emotes, same goals, different faces.

[Patuk]

To be fair, how many times have people used that threat, or posted a "final" good-bye thread, just to come back a week or month later.

So there's the door.  See you in a week or three.   

Not as often as they do in fact leave, judging by player numbers being not even half of what they were when I got here.

[BadSkeelz]

To be fair, how many times have people used that threat, or posted a "final" good-bye thread, just to come back a week or month later.

So there's the door.  See you in a week or three.   

Not as often as they do in fact leave, judging by player numbers being not even half of what they were when I got here.

To be fair, the numbers were essentially halved in the last 4-5 months as fallout from Staff actions. They do seem to have hit the players of mundane characters relatively hard; perhaps they were already on the cusp of quitting given the general gameplay and narrative state of Armageddon even 6 months ago.

[Patuk]

To be fair, how many times have people used that threat, or posted a "final" good-bye thread, just to come back a week or month later.

So there's the door.  See you in a week or three.   

Not as often as they do in fact leave, judging by player numbers being not even half of what they were when I got here.

To be fair, the numbers were essentially halved in the last 4-5 months as fallout from Staff actions. They do seem to have hit the players of mundane characters relatively hard; perhaps they were already on the cusp of quitting given the general gameplay and narrative state of Armageddon even 6 months ago.

Eh, I'd say the copper war strong disagreement at the time was a pretty good show of mundane chicanery, where the GMHs (remember them? Anyone?) were concerned. It will always go down as the time staff decided the legions must commit senseless suicide, sure, but people did in fact.... Try.

[Armaddict]

Nowhere in the documentation does it say 'PCs with magick is very rare and mysterious'.

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.

Literally the first line from the website documentation on magick.

ETA:  Please remember that this has been a topic for over a decade and a half, if not longer, as far as how to both make it appealing and also not the centric part of the game.  This conversation can be better than 'f u, I hate mages' and 'f u, if I don't play mages the game is boring'.  Let's get creative.  Again, these threads are generally not prophecies, someone bringing up points about mages good/bad does not make change.  What we do get to do is catalogue good ideas, offer criticisms of ideas (hopefully in a manner that actually works from a game design component) with the desire to improve them or find something better, and to demonstrate that we are capable of entering a defined world and roleplaying with each other in it.

[Jimpka_Moss]

Maybe .... Maybe I wasn't very clear.


PC's means player characters.


Players, themselves, are not the general public of Zalanthas. We get to know stuff.... it's kind of a perk of playing, remembering your past char's lives. Zero PC's can do this, btw.

I feel reasonably certain none of our players are hating on magick-using player characters oocly because documentation tells them.

Nowhere in the documentation does it say 'PCs with magick is very rare and mysterious'.

PCs with magick is a mysterious and very rare occurrence on Zalanthas, about which the general discussion board knows very little, and generally fears and hates a great deal.

Literally the first line from the website documentation on magick.

Oh, there it is. See... Now I get it. Thanks mate.


edited for snark and syntax.

[Armaddict]

Maybe .... Maybe I wasn't very clear.


PC's means player characters.


Players, themselves, are not the general public of Zalanthas. We get to know stuff.... it's kind of a perk of playing, remembering your past char's lives. Zero PC's can do this, btw.

I feel reasonably certain none of our players are hating on magick-using player characters oocly because documentation tells them.

Nowhere in the documentation does it say 'PCs with magick is very rare and mysterious'.

PCs with magick is a mysterious and very rare occurrence on Zalanthas, about which the general discussion board knows very little, and generally fears and hates a great deal.

Literally the first line from the website documentation on magick.

Oh, there it is. See... Now I get it. Thanks mate.


edited for snark and syntax.

I'm confused.  What role do you see a setting having in a long term, consistent RPG where emphasis is on the roleplay rather than a party-going-on-an-adventure campaign?  I mean...if we were playing Waterworld RPG, would it be so that you could play the person who knows where dry land is, over and over?  Or is it the badass waverunner and boat fights and seedy floating bars?

Our focus when roleplaying is to be non-representative of the setting?

[dumbstruck]

I'm confused.

If every single player in the game was a magicker, that wouldn't budge the percentage of magickers in Zalanthas a single percent.

My estimate of the numbers:

Total population - 1,700,000 humans and demihumans.

Allanak, its farms and the Labyrinth: 776,000
300,000 humans (3% noble, 2% templar, 50% slaves)
200,000 elves (5% slaves, 10% tribeless)
100,000 dwarves (20% slaves)
95,000 half-elves (10% slaves)
80,000 half-giants (70% slaves)
1000 muls (95% slaves, the rest in the 'rinth)

Tuluk and surrounding villages: 665,300
250,000 humans (2% noble, 2% templar, 35% slaves)
180,000 elves (5% slaves, 10% tribeless)
80,000 dwarves (30% slaves)
80,000 half-elves (5% slaves)
75,000 half-giants (75% slaves)
300 muls (95% slaves, the rest in the ruins etc.)

Tablelands:  65,000
30,000 humans (98% tribal)
33,000 elves (99% tribal)
2,000 others (80% tribal)

Red Storm:  3,500
1,000 humans
1,000 elves
500 half-elves
700 dwarves
200 half-giants
100 muls


This is my estimate, but I also read once that Zalanthas' population is approximately one million.

What would you say is 3% of a million? That's 30,000. So, even if there was only a 3% of the population ("rare", right? It's considered fairly rare in the medical community when discussing a lot of medical things, how rare would you need something to be rare? 3 in a 100 good?) So, from what I'm seeing is, you think that in some way your pc seeing a few magicker pcs, even a lot of magicker pcs somehow over represents this 30,000 possible magickers, when realistically, even every pc in the game being a magicker would not be enough to alter that more than a fraction of a percent.  To treat it as though it's on 150 players to always be broken down in a way to accurately represent minute fractions of a populace of a million at all times to suit your whims when even using the numbers from the setting every single pc being a single guild wouldn't shift the numbers meaningfully... feels like that ignores the game world population doesn't it?

Hell, even if it was only 1% of the population that'd be 10,000 magickers in Zalanthas, and yet your 1 of 150 pcs can't be justified as being one of 10k because that's setting breaking for... how/why, exactly? Not representing the setting would be trying to use popular music in a way that makes no sense or referencing cell phones. Playing something that exists within the game world within the parameters in which it exists... I'm not sure how that is not representing the game world. Could you enlighten me, perhaps?

[Armaddict]

What would you say is 3% of a million? That's 30,000. So, even if there was only a 3% of the population ("rare", right? It's considered fairly rare in the medical community when discussing a lot of medical things, how rare would you need something to be rare? 3 in a 100 good?) So, from what I'm seeing is, you think that in some way your pc seeing a few magicker pcs, even a lot of magicker pcs somehow over represents this 30,000 possible magickers, when realistically, even every pc in the game being a magicker would not be enough to alter that more than a fraction of a percent.  To treat it as though it's on 150 players to always be broken down in a way to accurately represent minute fractions of a populace of a million at all times to suit your whims when even using the numbers from the setting every single pc being a single guild wouldn't shift the numbers meaningfully... feels like that ignores the game world population doesn't it?

Hell, even if it was only 1% of the population that'd be 10,000 magickers in Zalanthas, and yet your 1 of 150 pcs can't be justified as being one of 10k because that's setting breaking for... how/why, exactly? Not representing the setting would be trying to use popular music in a way that makes no sense or referencing cell phones. Playing something that exists within the game world within the parameters in which it exists... I'm not sure how that is not representing the game world. Could you enlighten me, perhaps?

Is this really the line of logic you want to use here?  I mean...I know what you're saying, but if you apply that same logic to any other arena you're going to run into conflicts.  Dwarves with no need for a focus.  Elves who don't steal and become heads of major houses.  Half-elves being social butterflies fawned upon everywhere.  Templars who are subservient to the demands of commoners.

These can be nice quirks, they are representative of the diversity of things.  But if I play any of those roles repeatedly, so that you constantly have to deal with a deconstruction of the setting...does the setting even mean anything?  If I show people the documentation and explain the world of Zalanthas, should they expect everything to be different than what they read?

I like to play city elves.  Sometimes, people even complain about there being too many elves.  But it's entirely inconsistent, and they are technically under-represented by the numbers you gave.

The documentation and setting are there, setting the backdrop for characters, but it can't just be completely ignored over the long term or you're not playing that setting.  There are surely variances from documentation.  But by and large, the thing that makes games like Armageddon different than a traditional TT is that it's not focused on the 5 people doing stuff in a setting, it's focused on the setting and having dozens or hundreds of people participate in it.  Throwing that to the wind, then counting yourself as just one of 10,000 by documentation when you are forming 1/3 of the available interaction is not exactly genuine in spirit.

I know this is a giant derail, but I think it's pertinent to the overall argument at play; do we get to ignore the documentation and just do what we feel like, and do you not think that's a hard precedent to set in a hardcore rpg?

[dumbstruck]

What would you say is 3% of a million? That's 30,000. So, even if there was only a 3% of the population ("rare", right? It's considered fairly rare in the medical community when discussing a lot of medical things, how rare would you need something to be rare? 3 in a 100 good?) So, from what I'm seeing is, you think that in some way your pc seeing a few magicker pcs, even a lot of magicker pcs somehow over represents this 30,000 possible magickers, when realistically, even every pc in the game being a magicker would not be enough to alter that more than a fraction of a percent.  To treat it as though it's on 150 players to always be broken down in a way to accurately represent minute fractions of a populace of a million at all times to suit your whims when even using the numbers from the setting every single pc being a single guild wouldn't shift the numbers meaningfully... feels like that ignores the game world population doesn't it?

Hell, even if it was only 1% of the population that'd be 10,000 magickers in Zalanthas, and yet your 1 of 150 pcs can't be justified as being one of 10k because that's setting breaking for... how/why, exactly? Not representing the setting would be trying to use popular music in a way that makes no sense or referencing cell phones. Playing something that exists within the game world within the parameters in which it exists... I'm not sure how that is not representing the game world. Could you enlighten me, perhaps?

Is this really the line of logic you want to use here?  I mean...I know what you're saying, but if you apply that same logic to any other arena you're going to run into conflicts.  Dwarves with no need for a focus.  Elves who don't steal and become heads of major houses.  Half-elves being social butterflies fawned upon everywhere.  Templars who are subservient to the demands of commoners.

These can be nice quirks, they are representative of the diversity of things.  But if I play any of those roles repeatedly, so that you constantly have to deal with a deconstruction of the setting...does the setting even mean anything?  If I show people the documentation and explain the world of Zalanthas, should they expect everything to be different than what they read?

I like to play city elves.  Sometimes, people even complain about there being too many elves.  But it's entirely inconsistent, and they are technically under-represented by the numbers you gave.

The documentation and setting are there, setting the backdrop for characters, but it can't just be completely ignored over the long term or you're not playing that setting.  There are surely variances from documentation.  But by and large, the thing that makes games like Armageddon different than a traditional TT is that it's not focused on the 5 people doing stuff in a setting, it's focused on the setting and having dozens or hundreds of people participate in it.  Throwing that to the wind, then counting yourself as just one of 10,000 by documentation when you are forming 1/3 of the available interaction is not exactly genuine in spirit.

I know this is a giant derail, but I think it's pertinent to the overall argument at play; do we get to ignore the documentation and just do what we feel like, and do you not think that's a hard precedent to set in a hardcore rpg?

I don't see a whole Quarter dedicated to Focusless Dwarves or any House helmed by an elf. This seems like a really lazy strawman. He literally clarified that he was talking about the pc population and what it was compared to the virtual population. And you seemed to conveniently misread that. No one's asking to ignore documentation, and honestly can't you do better than pretending like that's what telling people who are angry about seeing 30 of that there are 30000 of that they're breaking documentation when you're clearly not taking the virtual world into your account of how 30 people are skewing a million?

[Jimpka_Moss]

I'm confused.  What role do you see a setting having in a long term, consistent RPG where emphasis is on the roleplay rather than a party-going-on-an-adventure campaign?  I mean...if we were playing Waterworld RPG, would it be so that you could play the person who knows where dry land is, over and over?  Or is it the badass waverunner and boat fights and seedy floating bars?

Our focus when roleplaying is to be non-representative of the setting?

What role do I see a setting like that having? The role that Arm currently fills.

I think I understand what the next sentence is trying to force me into choosing... Not a fan of waterworld, so... I'mma rephrase it. Allow me, please.

If we were playing Desertworld RPG, would it be so that you could play (A black robe templar, A senior Agent, A sorcerous noble bastard who can read and write, Tek, Muk Utep, The Sandlord), or is it the badass deserty stuff, and gith fights and seedy, sandy bars?

It's clearly the second. The singular, one-shot person who had a map on their back is not a demographic in Waterworld. It's not even relatable as an analogy, but it /does/ do a very good job of making two very binary extremes seem to fit your problem with what I am saying.

Are you no longer on the 'It says so in the documentation' wagon? Is that why we're trying this? I'm down to debate, your ETA disclaimer seemed very civil, so...

Next question - Our focus when roleplaying is to be non-representative of the setting?

Nope, never suggested that.

Lemme try some math, math usually helps (sarcasm)



If there are 50000 people in Zalanthas (there are exponentially more, trust me) and every single player chose to play a magicker, and then we got ten to fifteen more newbies AND they started playing magickers too, and we all lived and played and logged in at the same time, that would be 50 magicker players.

That's a less than .1% change to the population of gickers in Zalanthas. I know, I know, it's going to be hard to roleplay this accordingly, it can be earth-shattering to encounter things you don't like when other people do them, but we Will get past this. I even have tips handy.



When you join the Byn, your char should see about 300 bynners daily. Most of those that aren't gickers, aren't gickers. If you suspect a Bynner of being a gicker, and your PC has experience with bynners turning into gickers, rest assured you can act accordingly. Kill them. Kill five, and it will be a .01% change to the drastically reduced, pointlessly small number of 50000 I randomly picked when researching the population of Allanak.


On the way from Merchant's Gate to the Gaj, a PC should see about 6000 people or more, conservatively. You shouldn't see many magickers on the way, and if you do.... how many /is/ that?


Are there magickers in the Rinth? Are there magickers in Tuluk? It seems I couldn't find any myself. A good place to play if running into a magicker is a problem, I believe.


Where's the overpopulation? If everyone is playing rangers, is it up to ME to play a slipknife? You know, to accurately represent their are people with criminal skills?



If this were an RPG where my enjoyment of it mattered, would you rather me point out inaccuracies and falsehoods when discussing the fate of my game, or should I help you find an argument that convinces me using logic and appealing to my reason and my desire for everyone's enjoyment? I don't feel I'm getting either vibe.


[I mean, my goodness, this is actually ridiculous from my point of view. Someone wants to play a role available to them, and someone else says 'No, they shouldn't, we have enough of /these/ virtually' when massive chunks of the game and world are forcibly, forever virtual and inaccessible to players. I'd like to put a hard cap on weapon skills, so there can only be Two master swordsman at a time. I mean the word is MASTER. How does that really represent the population? Bone swords and leather armor and these guys are MASTERS? Uhuh, okay. Everyone can't be an excellent fighter, that's just unrealistic, but every time I go out into the desert, I end up facing an excellent fighter. Jeez, I sit down at the bar, I join the byn, I go to the 'rinth, always an excellent fighter strutting around with their amazing armor. How is that representative of the game world?] -- This is an attempt to make a point. Idc what you play, I try to assume any PC could be a staff avatar and then RP with them accordingly. Roll bone swords forever, idc.

[Armaddict]

I don't see a whole Quarter dedicated to Focusless Dwarves or any House helmed by an elf. This seems like a really lazy strawman. He literally clarified that he was talking about the pc population and what it was compared to the virtual population. And you seemed to conveniently misread that. No one's asking to ignore documentation, and honestly can't you do better than pretending like that's what telling people who are angry about seeing 30 of that there are 30000 of that they're breaking documentation when you're clearly not taking the virtual world into your account of how 30 people are skewing a million?

I'm curious what the strawman fallacy is; the assertion was that there is nowhere that says that there can't be 100 pc mages.  I spoke to the rarity of them being documented.  The clarification was that this is PC's, not setting.  So I asked what the role of setting was in a roleplaying game; do we fit within the setting, or do we do whatever we feel like within the setting regardless of it?  Does that change when speaking of small scale (a party in traditional TT) versus dozens of people collaborating?

I'm glad you brought up the quarter, because that's actually important; the mages are indeed represented in the game.  There is documentation on that quarter, as well.  The quarter is actually quite thematic in displaying the way magick is viewed, controlled, avoided, segregated, etc.  There is avid representation that they exist, which no one has contested.  Does the existence of the quarter justify a shift in the playerbase towards non-representation, i.e. If it's common enough to be a whole quarter, then locked away, does it make sense for it to be present in a large amount of interactions and relationships outside of that segregation?

If so, is the onus on the mundanes to also go against what the description of the world is, because it will be more interesting?  Should we all just say the virtual populace can be afraid of mages, and that is the representation required, and the rest of us should hunt them and show no fear?  Or do you hold the expectation that people react according to documentation of how magick is viewed?  If a tribemate in a desert-elf tribe that is mage friendly decides to kill their brother mage, do we criticize it for what it is or just say they were different and the rest of the tribe is not doing the same, so it's good?  What if they do it over and over?

These are not sidesteps.  They are equivocations of the same argument you posed, but placed into different scenarios that show a discrepancy in expectations.  We create documentation because it determines the behaviors that we're supposed to roleplay around, as players.

I mean, my goodness, this is actually ridiculous from my point of view. Someone wants to play a role available to them, and someone else says 'No, they shouldn't, we have enough of /these/ virtually' when massive chunks of the game and world are forcibly, forever virtual and inaccessible to players. I'd like to put a hard cap on weapon skills, so there can only be Two master swordsman at a time. I mean the word is MASTER. How does that really represent the population? Bone swords and leather armor and these guys are MASTERS? Uhuh, okay. Everyone can't be an excellent fighter, that's just unrealistic, but every time I go out into the desert, I end up facing an excellent fighter. Jeez, I sit down at the bar, I join the byn, I go to the 'rinth, always an excellent fighter strutting around with their amazing armor. How is that representative of the game world?] -- This is an attempt to make a point. Idc what you play, I try to assume any PC could be a staff avatar and then RP with them accordingly. Roll bone swords forever, idc.

I can understand why it would seem ridiculous.  I think it may be because the discussion is often spiked with harsher bits.  I'm not telling you NOT to play roles you enjoy.  But I am saying that if that's the ONLY role you enjoy, it creates a conundrum as far as the setting that we're all engaging in because...we like it.  And I'm asking us to brainstorm ways that we can both reinforce setting and keep those roles enjoyable.  When the majority of interaction does come via players, I believe it becomes sensible to give players the burden of representation of the world, otherwise we are not actually involved in the setting.  We're...more skirting on top of it.

So again, circling back...what are ideas that we can have that both reinforce a low-magick setting by documentation, and allows multitudes of people to enjoy magick without it throwing the experience of that setting out of whack(ETA here for clarification: I mean if there are 10 total people, and 3 only play mages...how can we let the other 7 also try mages without it coming to where the mundane do not experience mundanity)?  Clearly the original posit doesn't work; we don't want karma-spending.  We don't want population limits.  We do want to reinforce a setting and engage in it.  We do want to roleplay our guts out in that setting.

I know it's difficult because of how charged this hate-cycle always gets.  But please, realize this is not an attack.  This is asking people from both sides to be creative on how we can enrich it for as many as possible.  I believe we're a cut above the average roleplaying group, interested in the setting, reasonably intelligent, and gifted storytellers.  It's well within our grasp to solve these kinds of problems.

[Armaddict]

As an addition, I really liked the randomness factor that was brought up in the other thread; I thought it would be neat for things around mage creation to be...unreliable, varied, a little bit chaotic.  Make the character a little bit less 'locked in' on concept, in exchange for potential drawbacks and benefits of their magery.

I also like built in conflict points.  Documentation for most mages has brief (very brief, almost a footnote) mention of elemental rivalries and dimensions.  I think more reliable conflict between mages on those points could either 'OH FUCK, EVEN MORE MAGERY NOW' or provide less stability as a built in component of the character; if the conflict is built in, the risk is higher right out of the gates, and it might make playing a mundane feel more measured and reliable because it's not just personal power at player; it's the forces at work.

I like the idea of spreading out mages into more relationships in the world (i.e. Vivaduans are the big one), but have those relationship circles be -small-.  Think in terms of a tribemember who is kinda shady; they've never let you down, but you aren't fully comfortable with their loyalty, either.  But man, your circle (i.e. Clan/Group), they're the ones who protect you from the masses in a world that gets pissed at you for protecting yourself.

Things of that nature, we can come up with neat changes.

ETA.  Again.  By the way...I expect almost nothing to result from this thread.  I believe I said it earlier as well.  The number of times a thread pops up asking/demanding change and having it happen is incredibly small.  I do, however, think we can move the trend towards productivity and collaboration.  When we remember.  (I forget often, I am not claiming paragonhood)

[SpyGuy]

Snip

Agree with most of what you said here. I've debated starting a new thread on the costs of magick but think it'd just be flooding the boards at this point.  So I'll just summarize here with a list of costs that were once associated with being a mage but no longer are or are not to the same degree:

Karma timers - OOC cost to keep people from repeatedly mages.  Flawed but was a cost
Full guild mages - arguably more powerful but had severe trade offs
Elemental transformation - Meant eventual forced storage
Staff killings - Lost my whiran to (redacted) back in the day. Good death. One way to keep powerful mages down
Remaining hidden - Quite easy these days. No sacrifice of having to rely on a subguild.  Dispel reach only made it easier
Social costs - At this point and proportion of mages in the game, it's as much of a social cost for my mundane to hate your mage as it is for you to be shunned by me.

These are just the costs lost, not to mention the buffs mages have received intentionally and through various tweaks over the years.  I think karma timers and player caps aren't the way to go because people hate them so much.  My preferred 'easy' fix would be introducing full guilds again (with magick subs as special apps).  It wouldn't lower mage player numbers, might even increase them for a bit, but those mages would be playing a significantly different game.  It wasn't that hard to survive as a full class Whiran but it certainly played different.  And I'm pretty sure the players who prefer mages would be happy to try full classes themselves, they'll just need to adapt to the game differently but it gives them a new challenge while adding to the flavor of magick in the game.

[DesertT]

So maybe the answer is going back to an 8-point karma system.

Or are there too many karma 3 players presently?