Karma Timer Proposition - Gemmed

[ShaiHulud]

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

Or are there too many karma 3 players presently?

I found less options for me the last 8-3 change, will that happen again 3-8?

[Jimpka_Moss]

@armaddict

That was verbose enough that I've locked in on exactly what the discrepancy between your thinking and my thinking was. There are some salient points that had to be first spoken in order to be addressed.


I can say with confidence, you feel as if a multitude of pc magickers are in rotation in a given play area it can damage the atmosphere of the game, it can make players feel disconnected from the setting, it is and has been causing problems with the way plots are aligned. Yes, I can agree with this, put this way, specifically.


I chimed in to correct a perception that maybe the documentation says we should keep magicker PC's rare because of the rarity of magickers in Zalanthas. I perhaps falsely recognized some sociopathic argument tactics that I was only just projecting, and if so, it's likely because I've come to absolutely hate zalanthan magickers.



Probably a topic for a different post, but if people here are saying 'the current way we do things with magickers, mundanes, and arm is broken' yeah, I'll agree to that, and just add my fourth two cents that a timer won't work. Maybe it /should/, but it won't. I suggest collectively agreeing to change magick. It really, really needs to be different. Margeret Weiss and Tracy Hickman's ten chapter essays on how their magick system works type of different. Elemental contamination, tables of effects for spell failures, weather and environment distortion when too many magickers gather in one area (except the gemmed). If it's creative solutions you need, I can churn them out all day long, just let me know and I'll make a post and they can be picked apart endlessly.

[Armaddict]

Probably a topic for a different post, but if people here are saying 'the current way we do things with magickers, mundanes, and arm is broken' yeah, I'll agree to that, and just add my fourth two cents that a timer won't work. Maybe it /should/, but it won't. I suggest collectively agreeing to change magick. It really, really needs to be different. Margeret Weiss and Tracy Hickman's ten chapter essays on how their magick system works type of different. Elemental contamination, tables of effects for spell failures, weather and environment distortion when too many magickers gather in one area (except the gemmed). If it's creative solutions you need, I can churn them out all day long, just let me know and I'll make a post and they can be picked apart endlessly.

M'dude, this stuff sounds -awesome-.

[Kaathe]

I keep advocating not for limits but incentives.  Want more mundanes? Inventive it.

How? Lessen the grind below that of grinding magick. At cap magick is always more powerful than mundane skills. So let mundanes reach cap faster instead of how it currently is: slower and more dangerous. Advanced start roles and the new subguilds move us in this direction. I want more, but patience will let us see how these changes impact the ratio. 

[wizturbo]

I'd love it if mundanes progressed in combat skills faster than mages, across all of the classes.  A mundane stalker should progress at the same speed, or even faster, than that of a subguild magicker raider, even if the raider has a higher cap to their skills overall.

[Case]

I like the idea of mages being more random and chaotic. Maybe they could have randomised quests or tasks to do to learn new spells, instead of branching?

I feel that a key fix for some of the frustrations being found by the playerbase could be to remove key skills from guilds and put them more liberally on subguilds. Drop the idea that subguilds are lesser than guilds altogether. Make them two halves of the whole, instead of 90% from the guild and 10% from the sub.

It would serve a few purposes:
1. Make full guild elementalists more viable but not too flexible.
2. Make sub guild elementalists lack diversity of crucial mundane skills. They would need to compensate.
3. Increase mundane diversity.

[Armaddict]

Not trying to be arbiter of the conversation, just chiming in to try and be encouraging of things I like.

I like the idea of mages being more random and chaotic. Maybe they could have randomised quests or tasks to do to learn new spells, instead of branching?

I feel that a key fix for some of the frustrations being found by the playerbase could be to remove key skills from guilds and put them more liberally on subguilds. Drop the idea that subguilds are lesser than guilds altogether. Make them two halves of the whole, instead of 90% from the guild and 10% from the sub.

It would serve a few purposes:
1. Make full guild elementalists more viable but not too flexible.
2. Make sub guild elementalists lack diversity of crucial mundane skills. They would need to compensate.
3. Increase mundane diversity.

This is interesting, just because I've had things touching base with these but somehow never arriving at this same idea.  I've always been a proponent of cutting down guild-skills (I call them bloated), but it never occurred to me to make the present fully capable mundane a product of both guild and subguild combined, making it more of a sacrifice to take a mage subguild.  Perhaps not in overall power level, but in terms of versatility and all-roundedness.

It'd take a whole boatload of discussion on what that would actually be, and not like we are having now since those discussions have been under a different guild/subguild paradigm...but it's totally viable I think.

[LindseyBalboa]

I don't think increasing mundane stats/combat capabilities really is that motivating, unless that's all you care about. It's nice but it would not influence my decision either way. To me it's also veering unthematic as magickers SHOULD be scary af, which creates a new problem while trying to solve 'too many gicks to reflect thematic reality.'

I think instead of focusing on making individual mundanes more powerful the focus should be on the areas in which mundanes are more powerful than magickers in other ways than code/combat. Tuluk and Allanak were both examples of which when they were busier and there was a large playerbase, but neither one of those locations is ideal with a smaller playerbase: they explicitly exclude other mundane parts of the playerbase. 10 people in one city and 10 in another doesn't have the same 'i wanna make a new char there' draw that 20 people does.

Idea:

If Luir's had apartments and were suddenly extremely anti-magick, that could be a place where every current mundane could gather and 'be more powerful' than magickers.

If desirable bring more Allanak and Tuluk noble/soldier/merchant/aide presence into Luir's so there's always that tense feeling: it keeps both cities involved, and offers even more potential employers and mundane hooks in a much more central location to the current active player base.

Luir's already has the added benefit of centralization and a layout that organically encourages congregation in two easy-to-reach public places. That "20 PC population" is easily able to draw more current PCs as well as newly-made PCs. PCs that come into Luir's are visible, quickly see activity if it's there, and know if there is not activity that they will probably see when people arrive. This makes the oft-suggested-activity of tavern sitting in Luir's (or firepit sitting) a low investment activity with a quick return in roleplay.

With no changes to theme or reality, it's a city in which the only excluded group could be magickers by changing the mood to be a little more pro-actively and resolutely against magickers. This could also easily be part of a storyline.

If it proves to have a draw, there's a place for a small rinth/warrens-style slums already that could be built. Add that to previously mentioned apartments and you have a fully functioning, small-grid city for mundanes to rule in with extremely little staff work if that's desirable.

[dumbstruck]

I don't think that will work the way that you think it will. Much of the population in Luir's that is willingly there other than Kurac is.... magickers or tribals from tribes who allow magick, and always has been. Not only that, but without Tuluk or Allanak it's no longer "central" TO anything. And it locks out large swathes of established roles in all noble houses that are mundane and typically have been almost exclusively for well over a decade. This would also torpedo Kurac's relations with damn near every tribe there is which they are surrounded by, as most of these tribes at the very least have a couple mages, some of them which, they actively revere.

Like, definitely feel free to do whatever, but please take those things into account. I don't understand why this has to be Luir's in your idea rather than Tuluk. You'd have access to about the same amount of area as noncitizens do in Luir's, and Tuluk is already completely antimagick, they go hunt and kill magickers last I checked.

Magick as it originally existed was designed to go with a small handful of skills and other than that be nothing but magick, and this let mundanes ALWAYS be better at mundane things than magickers were. The only thing that would be needed to make mundanes better at all the mundane things than magickers are again would be to have magick be full guild magick again and none of the magickers have more than subguild skills. Can a magicker custom craft? Sure. Like clothes or jewelry, or weapons, but never /all of them/. Can a magicker fight? Maybe with an axe (or literally any other one weapon) sure, but only that weapon and definitely not as well as any (t1 combat class) can. Can they find their way in a storm and shoot a bow? Sure, but they'll never be able to brew cures and use poison with it, etc etc etc. Like, it literally fixes itself.

edit: because my tired ass had the word 'literal' or 'literally' in here about six times and it irritated me to reread it, so I removed some usages of it.

[Lotion]

I keep advocating not for limits but incentives.  Want more mundanes? Inventive it.

How? Lessen the grind below that of grinding magick. At cap magick is always more powerful than mundane skills. So let mundanes reach cap faster instead of how it currently is: slower and more dangerous. Advanced start roles and the new subguilds move us in this direction. I want more, but patience will let us see how these changes impact the ratio.

It would be cool if every main guild got -10 to every kpc and then every mundane subguild (including none) got +10 to every kpc. Maybe make it a higher number. If someone makes an elementalist dune trader then their KPC should be poo poo bad

[Pariah]

You have to explain what kpc is when you post these things.  You did the same thing in discord and nobody knew what you're talking about.

[BadSkeelz]

Beat me to it.

[Lotion]

https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,59259.msg1090653.html#msg1090653

In the words of Halaster regarding kpc.

For those wondering what this is, it's basically how fast guilds train combat skills.  Nothing in regards to skill gain timers was changed.

I like to imagine that your kpc is an integer and every time you get an offdef fail you roll a really really big die and if the roll is below the relevant kpc then your offdef will go up.

Giving magick characters innately nerfed kpc would discourage powergamers from relying on mundane combat.

[Lotion]

KPC is why a figher's offdef increases faster than that of a laborer.

[DesertT]

edit: because my tired ass had the word 'literal' or 'literally' in here about six times and it irritated me to reread it, so I removed some usages of it.

I want to laugh and make fun of you so bad but.... this hits home!!

Anyway, maybe I should start a new thread about How to Incentivize Gemmed because as it stands, it certainly seems like the majority prefer to play rogue magickers instead.  And I know, mainly because "Templars Bad".

I'd say something bad about Templars, especially the fat ones, but someone might deem that as inappropriate, insulting, and in poor taste, sending me yet another moderation message. 

[dumbstruck]

edit: because my tired ass had the word 'literal' or 'literally' in here about six times and it irritated me to reread it, so I removed some usages of it.

I want to laugh and make fun of you so bad but.... this hits home!!

Anyway, maybe I should start a new thread about How to Incentivize Gemmed because as it stands, it certainly seems like the majority prefer to play rogue magickers instead.  And I know, mainly because "Templars Bad".

I'd say something bad about Templars, especially the fat ones, but someone might deem that as inappropriate, insulting, and in poor taste, sending me yet another moderation message. 

There's a lot of people who are on about this like it's about the templars, and they can definitely be a negative, but in my experience it's basically only a brick in the wall sort of situation where the wall becomes stiflingly unbearable.

[Lotion]

the first templar I experienced was kair kasix and now my brain just associates templar with avoid