Karma Timer Proposition - Gemmed

[DesertT]

In an effort to NOT continue derailing another thread, I feel that karma timers should be put back in.

As the documentation states:  Magick is a mysterious and very rare power on Zalanthas.

Allowing people to role gick after gick after gick does not seem to be inline with encouraging documentation.

Allow me to extend this olive branch however.  What if selecting to be Gemmed at character creation, credited you back one karma point?  This would allow zero karma players to experiment with magick as a gemmed touched.  This would lessen the severity of the "karma jail" while also encouraging more folks to play a Gemmed as opposed to a rogue gick.

I imagine this might be easier to code in or whatever, instead of forcing folks to role a non-magicker every other character, or whatever ideas are out there.

Thoughts?  Feedback?

I know you all love me!!

[Fragmented]

-1

Sorry. I very much enjoy having the freedom to play what I want, when I want, be it mundane, or magicker. I think if someone keeps rolling Krathi psycho over and over and over, staff will notice and ask them to back off. I hated, HATED that OOC feeling of stress when I invested 3 karma, knowing that one little mistake would cost me at minimum 30 days to even get an ESG, up to 90 if I wanted to play something else 3K.

[mansa]

You need to answer these questions:

What system is telling the player that they cannot play that character, and what rules justify that system?


If the system is "time limitation", then the players will wait until time is satisfied and then continue.
If the system is "population limitation", then the players either wait until other players have been removed from the game and take their spot, or they will choose another open spot in the game.

[Riev]

The decision has flip-flopped a number of times, since the flattening of karma and an attempted introduction of CGP and "building the character you want".

The decision was mulled over a bunch previously, before landing here. What has happened that you think its okay to say it should be reverted, now?

[DesertT]

What has happened that you think its okay to say it should be reverted, now?

When people are inquiring about ways to make magick spell casting more elongated, that seems to be an indicator of an over-abundance of gicks.

Same when Staff says there are something like a third of players playing a gick of some sort even though documentation says it should be very rare in Zalanthas.

When I see a karma three gick take a shot at a sponsored role, fail, then just store and role again instead of facing IC consequences, that's an indicator.

When people store militia characters because of an over-abundance of gick raiders and adversaries, that's an indicator.

I'm further addressing Zealus' concern about only veteran players with high karma having the opportunity to know and play gicks.  If you start out as a gemmed, you get the bonus of shaving 1-point off your creation cost.  That seems a more than reasonable compromise.

[whengravityfails]

It's still a terrible idea. The consolation prize is a touched Gemmed? That's more of an insult than anything. Touching the karma jail should be a non-starter after seeing how many people it brought back - and how many it would once again drive away.

Whatever the solution is is not this or lengthening the casting time of spells and likely ought to be targeted at players who are actually doing the things you list.

[HazelHomewrecker]

Whatever the solution is is not this or lengthening the casting time of spells and likely ought to be targeted at players who are actually doing the things you list.

This.

If you have an invasive species of weeds growing in your yard, you yank them out by the roots every time you see them, until they're gone. You don't rip apart all of the healthy yard and replant turf instead.

If your issues are PLAYERS doing things, abusing the system, and abusing their coded power in an OOC, meta-esque way, you punish THOSE players. You don't make blanket adjustments for everything as a whole, especially when it'll be a net-negative effect on the players who AREN'T doing that.

[DesertT]

Maybe the answer is to limit rogue magickers like they do desert elves.

I feel like that would be even more limiting though.

[Halaster]

I feel that karma timers should be put back in.

Karma timers are not going back in.

[Krath]

-1

Sorry. I very much enjoy having the freedom to play what I want, when I want, be it mundane, or magicker. I think if someone keeps rolling Krathi psycho over and over and over, staff will notice and ask them to back off. I hated, HATED that OOC feeling of stress when I invested 3 karma, knowing that one little mistake would cost me at minimum 30 days to even get an ESG, up to 90 if I wanted to play something else 3K.

[DesertT]

I feel that karma timers should be put back in.

Karma timers are not going back in.

Is there talk about limiting them like desert elves and other clans?

[Kialae]

We got like 12 people playing the game these days. Let people play what they want or they'll go away. Simple as that.

[DesertT]

We got like 12 people playing the game these days. Let people play what they want or they'll go away. Simple as that.

32 on right now.  Wonder how many of those use magick...

[BadSkeelz]

Guessing about 15.

Magick stopped being rare or mysterious a long time ago.

[Lotion]

If karma regen was changed so that a person's karma level was the maximum karma they could spend at chargen and they could generate up to 3x or so their karma level in karma that would be pretty nice. It still time gates how many witches can be created very quickly but also heavily mitigates karma jail.

0k -> 0 max
1k -> 3 max
2k -> 6 max
3k -> 9 max

it still allows players some leeway if they quickly splat a gick and allows "long lived characters" to be much more greatly rewarded

[SpyGuy]

I'm all aboard the 'there's way too many mages out there' train.  Some parts of the player base feel so strongly about karma timers that it just won't happen.  And I'm unsure if role caps are the way to go either, desert elf one certainly wasn't popular. 

Problem is staff decisions that have led to a game world where mages are objectively better subclasses with little coded cost.  The social cost of late (from my mundane perspective) is also barely enforced if at all.   I've frequently felt more isolated as the mundane in the game surrounded by magickers than is fun. Except for the short lived Tuluki, every mundane character I've played since subclasses came in has had their story defined by magick.  Hard to avoid when 50%+ of the PCs outside Tuluk are mages. Magic is no longer rare, special or even interesting in the high magick environment Zalanthas is today.

Why is that important?   The mundane experience is what new players enter the game to see.  Most sponsored roles require mundane aides or clans like the militia or Byn to be healthy to push plots forward.  People should play what they want sure but something is seriously out of balance when choosing mage is many players' default choice.

[Pariah]

So the general consensus is Karma Timers bad.

Halaster said he's not going to put them back anyways.

Others have agreed that there is too many witches rolling around.

Do we look at limiting them like d-elves in tribes?  Won't that be similar to Karma timers?

Or do we do nothing for fear certain people won't like anything?

[BadSkeelz]

Staff should be asking players why they're playing magickers and outside of cities, listening very carefully to the responses, and then seeing what positive actions can be taken. Instead of limiting players, find out what is making players play outside "normal" roles. Why is the playerbase so skewed towards independents, magickers, and independent magickers?

Conversations have been swirling around this question for awhile now, but having a frank discussion about it on the GDB is difficult. It's very prone to getting moderated because (at least in my opinion) a big reason for the drift out of the cities and mundanes has been how Templar PCs and Staff have handled themselves for the last ten years.

[Pariah]

Staff should be asking players why they're playing magickers and outside of cities, listening very carefully to the responses, and then seeing what positive actions can be taken. Instead of limiting players, find out what is making players play outside "normal" roles. Why is the playerbase so skewed towards independents, magickers, and independent magickers?

Conversations have been swirling around this question for awhile now, but having a frank discussion about it on the GDB is difficult. It's very prone to getting moderated because (at least in my opinion) a big reason for the drift out of the cities and mundanes has been how Templar PCs and Staff have handled themselves for the last ten years.

This comes up every day on the discord.  Templar hate.

[Kialae]

What is the grievance about magickers, anyway? Are people constantly creating 3 karma magickers and killing your characters? Or do you just not like people having fun the way you do?

[DesertT]

If we incentivized being a Gemmed, maybe that would help.

Thus my suggestion on taking the Gem at chargen giving you a rebate of one karma.

Maybe we institute rogue mage limits (like delf tribes), but not Gemmed?

Just spitballing here.

[Pariah]

Nah. The Templars already got a massive army of witches to play with, don't make them more.

[najdorf]

give mundane new subguilds higher caps. lets assume hide is 80 at max but 90 at a mundane subclass (one of brokkrs new)

and i would always play a mundane for the rest of my arm times

[Krath]

People don't play gemmed because of templars and the gem slap. Gemmed are slaves...period..in most cases worse. Ungemmed slaves cam escape and do things, if you're a gemmed, you will get gem slapped. Don't do what a templar says? Gem slapped. According to the docs, slaves aren't playable.

Want more gemmed, Remove the slap.

That being said, i may be mistaken, way back when, the gem was used to allow magickers to trade within allanak and let folks know they are safe. If I am wrong please correct me.

[whengravityfails]

What is the grievance about magickers, anyway? Are people constantly creating 3 karma magickers and killing your characters? Or do you just not like people having fun the way you do?

As far as I can tell it's the latter. One day someone on staff mentioned the amount of magickers in game and a few people have been in hysterics since - not because of anything done, mind you, just because of the numbers.

As far as incentivized playing a Gemmed goes...there's very little incentive you could give to people who don't want the oppressive city vibe in the first place when being Gemmed is pretty much the absolute worst as far as that goes. You cannot avoid being fucked with by Templars, period.