If writing was legalized should common psionics be more limited?

[Agent_137]

I'm enjoying reading and learning from all the perspectives!

While I get it's interesting as a goal/reward, it's so limited now that pursuing it as a non-sponsored role would be idiotic.  What are you going to read? A whole lot of nothing. If you write something who will read it or even keep it? Nobody.

Maybe some rentable scribes overseen by Templars could allow for more gameplay and plot and player creativity without undermining too much oppression.  The government reading everything everyone writes is way more oppressive than nobody writing anything imo. 

I led a player clan for a time that could have greatly benefited from literacy. We had plenty of bribe money, and extensively used drawing to get around the limitation.  We were scared enough just having the drawings. It was all very fine IC, but OOCly being able to pay for use of a scribe would have been a lot more interesting. Texts could have been left. Communications could have been passed offline.  Texts could be smuggled.

Texts existing in the commoner sphere outside GMH blooded leadership actually gives players a reason to risk learning literacy and Templars a new thing to oppress. There would be new interesting gameplay and more chances to create and find player impact on the world. Maybe it doesn't need to be openly legal, but at least being rentable and monitored would produce tons of new player-made plot and content at no cost.

[cnemus]

I do not want writing to be legalized. I would like to see contact limited to advanced for non psionicists.

While I do see the arguments for reducing/limiting the Way even further for immersion, I think it would decrease participation. If something is happening right now you can currently tell people over the Way and they can get involved. If you have to track them down in person, whatever is happening will be over and people will miss out on the opportunity to get involved. There is also the consideration that less Way usage decreases opportunities for those characters that use it more extensively.

I would argue those in lifesworn roles are already handling and around writing enough that they are the ideal candidate to learn it right now. I don't know that policy/law has to change for that to be a thing.

Tatlum is also illegal, but if you play around templars long enough you're going to learn it.

[Riev]

Fun fact. I learned Tatlum once because Samos spoke it on accident and I popped it.

I then thought "Heh. Some more work with that, and I'll learn the Templarate's language of power!"

... That character did not last.

[sleepyhead]

You know, I kind of like the way things are to an extent because it makes reading and writing something special and mysterious to the common folk. BUT! I also think an information war on and about literacy would be really cool, like if pockets of illegal literacy started to pop up. I think it would make an awesome theme for a season if staff could find a good game design to make it work. Imagine underground societies trying to spread the secrets of literacy in the city and the powers that be trying to clamp down on it. Maybe the literate mafia even brings these secrets to a tribe who develops their own method of writing. Since it'd be in another season it'd give staff a chance to fix some of the coded issues with books and other written materials that exist, and expand on the code if they have any ideas.

[Veselka]

I'd personally love to see the Unseen Way become more limited regionally -- meaning you could send a Way to people who are in the same city as you, but outside of it, your chances of finding people's minds diminishes, your ability to send messages diminishes or fails altogether.

I could see it making way for literacy to be more valuable.

Honestly, from the OOC perspective, we're playing a text-based MUD. It's always astounded me why we've held on to the Dark Sun anti-literacy feature (?) for this long. It's one of the greatest strengths of the game (text based medium) that we are choosing to not explore more widely...

Maybe it would be a cool thing to explore in a future or far-past timeline within Seasons, and see how it works out.

[MarshallDFX]

like if pockets of illegal literacy started to pop up.

Next, Zalanthan book club

[FlyingFerret911]

If writing was legalized it would contradict the core setting / mythos of the game

[Tuannon]

Pretty much, yep

[RheaGhe]

This is what I meant by allowing more psionic characters on a mechanical level, would require less of the game world to shift than allowing R/W.

[Lizzie]

I'd personally love to see the Unseen Way become more limited regionally -- meaning you could send a Way to people who are in the same city as you, but outside of it, your chances of finding people's minds diminishes, your ability to send messages diminishes or fails altogether.

I could see it making way for literacy to be more valuable.

Honestly, from the OOC perspective, we're playing a text-based MUD. It's always astounded me why we've held on to the Dark Sun anti-literacy feature (?) for this long. It's one of the greatest strengths of the game (text based medium) that we are choosing to not explore more widely...

Maybe it would be a cool thing to explore in a future or far-past timeline within Seasons, and see how it works out.

Already gave my thoughts on literacy - but your idea about the Way is interesting. Opens up an opportunity for a new system of "psionic relationships."  If you and a second person are particularly close - you could set your relationship as such (it'd have to be a mutual thing, maybe even an IC phenomenon) and it'd give you access even over long distances.  Great for tribals in clanned tribes, for Sergeants and their First Trooper, Templars and their aides, Guild bosses and their highest-ranking seconds, etc.

[sleepyhead]

like if pockets of illegal literacy started to pop up.

Next, Zalanthan book club

I mean I wouldn't say no to it as long as it was a RoUgH and GrITtY book club

[Veselka]

If writing was legalized it would contradict the core setting / mythos of the game

I guess I think that it's a pretty weak core setting that was borrowed from Dark Sun without consideration of the medium.

I would posit that the inability for 90% of players to engage with writing / literacy is definitely an obstacle to broadening our audience inside a text-based medium.

[wizturbo]

Not a big fan of having psionic touched subclasses.  While I think it sounds fun, the roleplaying demands on psionics are sky high and the karma requirements from my POV should make these just as high karma as playing a full blown psionicist.  This isn't from a hack and slash perspective, this is from a RP/Trust/not sharing OOC info perspective.

I really do love the idea of expanding the amount of psionics an average person could develop though in small ways.  For instance, having some small chance of feels or thoughts bleed through to those around you/linked to you would be really neat, even if it's a pretty rare event.  It would add a lot of texture to the game, and encourage more think/feels which I imagine would improve overall RP quality.  I really do love the idea of building up a psionic affinity for a person that someone brought up earlier too.  I personally think a random chance to develop/improve that channel should be tied to normal Way usage with those individuals though...  it would add some small consequence to repeatedly using the Way to communicate with someone, which could be viewed a positive or negative thing depending on the circumstances.

From my POV, this would be a stellar thing to test out in a Season as part of a global plotline, and could be turned off/tuned later based on it's impact to the game overall.

[Agent_137]

If writing was legalized it would contradict the core setting / mythos of the game

I guess I think that it's a pretty weak core setting that was borrowed from Dark Sun without consideration of the medium.

"Borrowed" as in took a line from the setting and made it even more restrictive which is typical for what Arm has borrowed from DS.

This is from 4E but you find similar notes in 2E:

In most city-states, the templars restrict reading and writing. Common citizens and slaves can be executed for being literate. Merchants can be educated enough to keep accounts, although most are fully literate and seldom face repercussions. Nobles, templars, and other servants of the sorcerer-kings are allowed the privilege of reading and writing without fear. Some nobles teach these skills to their most valuable retainers and slaves as well.

Outside the oppressive city-states, literacy is not constrained. Although few denizens of the wastes bother to learn to read and write, the ability is more common in the wilds than in urban areas. The skill becomes a problem only if one is caught and sold into slavery. Then, literacy is best kept secret.

Athasian player characters are assumed to be literate in the languages they speak unless they choose not to be; a character's theme or background might explain how he or she learned to read and write. Literate characters who were not born into nobility probably should not reveal their skill to the templars.

so yeah anyway we should not be beholden to 3 decade old badly informed and poorly thought out decisions. We should allow ourselves to make new badly informed and poorly thought out decisions!

[RheaGhe]

If writing was legalized it would contradict the core setting / mythos of the game

I guess I think that it's a pretty weak core setting that was borrowed from Dark Sun without consideration of the medium.

"Borrowed" as in took a line from the setting and made it even more restrictive which is typical for what Arm has borrowed from DS.

This is from 4E but you find similar notes in 2E:

In most city-states, the templars restrict reading and writing. Common citizens and slaves can be executed for being literate. Merchants can be educated enough to keep accounts, although most are fully literate and seldom face repercussions. Nobles, templars, and other servants of the sorcerer-kings are allowed the privilege of reading and writing without fear. Some nobles teach these skills to their most valuable retainers and slaves as well.

Outside the oppressive city-states, literacy is not constrained. Although few denizens of the wastes bother to learn to read and write, the ability is more common in the wilds than in urban areas. The skill becomes a problem only if one is caught and sold into slavery. Then, literacy is best kept secret.

Athasian player characters are assumed to be literate in the languages they speak unless they choose not to be; a character's theme or background might explain how he or she learned to read and write. Literate characters who were not born into nobility probably should not reveal their skill to the templars.

so yeah anyway we should not be beholden to 3 decade old badly informed and poorly thought out decisions. We should allow ourselves to make new badly informed and poorly thought out decisions!

Ultimately, the game world is built in such a way that Reading and Writing are what they are right now. In this hypothetical, wherein reading and writing is legalized... You would have to change very fundamental things about how the gameworld and certain things work.

It would require a good degree of effort to shift those gameplay elements of the world around the change. And I wouldn't like to see certain things shifted to a massive degree, reading and writing is allowed to be learned but still massively illegal, guess what, same problems occur as we have now, and it's effectively a nill change situation, except mechanically you have R/W on your sheet.

A huge amount of literature and lore in OUR game, has been built up over the years of commoners not having access to r/w. And so on. Discarding that, might be an idea for a seasonal concept. But it would ultimately be something that would act in defiance of the current world as it has been depicted.

There's also implementation concerns with the proposed ideas with the way. Would it make sense for it to grow more difficult to way someone just inside the gates when I'm just outside them? What about from Allanak to the Rinth? Would we have to run a pathfinding calculation between each player to determine an A* shortest path walking the grid to that person each time a way is sent, and then do some maths to figure out how scrambled the message should be? Would we do it by counting regions? What counts as a region? And so on, and so forth. These are massive hurdles that would have to be overcome programatically when we decide on an implementation. Because the simplest solution: IE, different region = difficult way, might not function in a way that is intuitive.

I do not want the way to become a public channel either. As I've seen what happens in other games, wherein there are massed public channels. It frequently becomes a haven for semi-OOC behavior and IC memetic jokes. Simply due to lack of ability to effectively moderate those.

[Kavrick]

Ultimately, the game world is built in such a way that Reading and Writing are what they are right now. In this hypothetical, wherein reading and writing is legalized... You would have to change very fundamental things about how the gameworld and certain things work.

We just had a pretty massive overhaul of how City elves work, including having every single one of their helpfiles changed. I really don't think writing being outlawed is 'fundamental' considering low little the law about writing even comes up. I would say completely overhauling the psychology of city elves is far more 'fundamental' than something like writing, and that worked out fine.

As other people have mentioned, this is a text-based medium, and completely denying players a playerbase which obviously has a lot of talent and passion for writing access to writing and reading in-game is just a massively lost opportunity in my opinion. I would absolutely love to see what players come up with in regards to songs, books, poetry and all that. The first and last already get done in game, but actually being able to keep them through written word would be awesome. We currently have a couple of super talented bards playing the game, and it's a shame that when the season ends or they die, there's a big chance that their songs will disappear.

[wizturbo]

I think a world where writing is more like spice level of illegal would be cool.  Knowing to read and write isn't extremely rare, but it comes with risks/fines/considerations depending on who you are.

[RheaGhe]

Ultimately, the game world is built in such a way that Reading and Writing are what they are right now. In this hypothetical, wherein reading and writing is legalized... You would have to change very fundamental things about how the gameworld and certain things work.

We just had a pretty massive overhaul of how City elves work, including having every single one of their helpfiles changed. I really don't think writing being outlawed is 'fundamental' considering low little the law about writing even comes up. I would say completely overhauling the psychology of city elves is far more 'fundamental' than something like writing, and that worked out fine.

As other people have mentioned, this is a text-based medium, and completely denying players a playerbase which obviously has a lot of talent and passion for writing access to writing and reading in-game is just a massively lost opportunity in my opinion. I would absolutely love to see what players come up with in regards to songs, books, poetry and all that. The first and last already get done in game, but actually being able to keep them through written word would be awesome. We currently have a couple of super talented bards playing the game, and it's a shame that when the season ends or they die, there's a big chance that their songs will disappear.

They have options for that OOCly, if they really feel that strongly. They can submit those songs as original submissions when the seasons ends. Or even once their character dies IIRC. So that those songs can be remembered OOCly, or even sung ICly if you provide it context as a common tavern song.

Alternatively, if they attract the attention of a noble, the noble could commission a piece that would be written down.

And I would say completely overhauling the psychology of city elves is actually less fundamental, than overhauling the nature of read and write. As that is mostly a gameplay factor. It swapped a skill, and changed the attitudes.

I think a lot of people get caught up in the idea of a modern day well read society. It wasn't until the evolution of widespread empire, and global trade that written language developed outside of the merchant, noble and liturgical class. Which is where it's depicted in Arm. England for example, in the time of Shakespeare(So well WELL beyond Arms time period) had a 13% literacy including men and women. That level was consistent from the roman period on till the Age of globe trotting Empires.

The places that are literate, are literate for a reason within Arm. They are Noble houses, they are merchant houses, and they are the governments and priesthoods of kingdoms larger than your simple commoners.

You want to alter that setup? Where would you store those books that these bards and PCs produce? Where would these bards and PC's be trained to read and write? Who would be teaching them? Would the Templarate players care enough to review each and every text they come across for potential sedition as they thematically should? You see how a staff and players would have to create and enforce a lot more than it seems like? You can handwave a lot, but in handwaving it you would lose a lot of the current tactile feel of the game.

[Kavrick]

I think a world where writing is more like spice level of illegal would be cool.  Knowing to read and write isn't extremely rare, but it comes with risks/fines/considerations depending on who you are.

I agree, read/write outside of allanak/tuluk, don't mention you /do/ read/write when you're in allanak. Also it's been pointed out by several people that it's actually mentioned in the help files that Bendune has a written language but for some reason nobody knows it. There's no reason as why Red Storm, Cenyr, Luir's and the countless elven, dwarven and human tribals wouldn't read/write.

[RheaGhe]

I think a world where writing is more like spice level of illegal would be cool.  Knowing to read and write isn't extremely rare, but it comes with risks/fines/considerations depending on who you are.

I agree, read/write outside of allanak/tuluk, don't mention you /do/ read/write when you're in allanak. Also it's been pointed out by several people that it's actually mentioned in the help files that Bendune has a written language but for some reason nobody knows it. There's no reason as why Red Storm, Cenyr, Luir's and the countless elven, dwarven and human tribals wouldn't read/write.

There's 3 possible explanations within the current framework of knowledge we have about the setting. Two are viable, a mixture of those two is likely. One is an OOC explanation that is possible inaccurate.

1. Allundean and Bendune are tribal/nomadic languages. While extant at one point during a prior unification, the current diaspora, lacking an ability to maintain texts and their teachings over multiple kings ages, likely lost their ability to write and read, while they maintained their ability to speak coherent Bendune and Allundean due to infrequent mixing with other tribes.

2. The Templars wiped out the written texts long ago, knowledge was never recovered.

3. Those help files are fragmentary examples that are probably 15+ years old, and no one really thought about it too much, beyond making a reference to Semitic languages from the Middle East often being spoken with vowels and written without them.

[dumbstruck]

I think a world where writing is more like spice level of illegal would be cool.  Knowing to read and write isn't extremely rare, but it comes with risks/fines/considerations depending on who you are.

I would love this. This would empower my publishing empire of just dogshit trash adventure and romance novels with 'collectors editions' that are magnificent overpriced works of illuminated art for nobles then like little scrawled superpamphlet versions for commoners but also way overpriced part of that paying you off and the Templars shaking you down about said discreet clientele.

Otherwise it'll be a one-day bastard special app who smokes spice and writes novels IC as a hobby.

[Agent_137]

There's a pretty wide gap between what we have now (only nobles and secretly top level blooded GMH) and what Rhea seems to be arguing against (everyone can freely read and write).  Granted giving it to everyone was the opening thought experiment, but most of the ongoing suggestions now are narrower in scope and have a lot of merit.

You don't need any hand waving to move from what we have now to a middle ground (and dark sun accurate) situation where it's still illegal for commoners in cities, but merchants/wealthy can do it in secret, some tribes could do it, and very interested commoners can learn at great risk and actually have shit to read.

On the other topic, the criticisms regarding IC group psionic channels has definitely changed my opinion and reminded me of the buy/sell spam that plagued them even in dragonrealms in the 90s. :/

[Lizzie]

There's a pretty wide gap between what we have now (only nobles and secretly top level blooded GMH) and what Rhea seems to be arguing against (everyone can freely read and write).  Granted giving it to everyone was the opening thought experiment, but most of the ongoing suggestions now are narrower in scope and have a lot of merit.

You don't need any hand waving to move from what we have now to a middle ground (and dark sun accurate) situation where it's still illegal for commoners in cities, but merchants/wealthy can do it in secret, some tribes could do it, and very interested commoners can learn at great risk and actually have shit to read.

On the other topic, the criticisms regarding IC group psionic channels has definitely changed my opinion and reminded me of the buy/sell spam that plagued them even in dragonrealms in the 90s. :/

You hear the thoughts in your mind:
"SELLING!!! 3 GM-made scarves w/+3 str each! TTM!"

Please god no. Prevent, don't correct. Don't break what doesn't need fixing.

[Inky]

On the other topic, the criticisms regarding IC group psionic channels has definitely changed my opinion and reminded me of the buy/sell spam that plagued them even in dragonrealms in the 90s. :/

Silent Heaven has direct and gamewide channels. It does not have this problem. That said, I'm not sure if it's right for Armageddon.

What Armageddon REALLY needs is a way to deal with the "texting under the table" problem that The Way allows. Players naturally gravitate to the secret communication method in ways that are immersion breaking and obviate any real attempts at espionage.

[RheaGhe]

There's a pretty wide gap between what we have now (only nobles and secretly top level blooded GMH) and what Rhea seems to be arguing against (everyone can freely read and write).  Granted giving it to everyone was the opening thought experiment, but most of the ongoing suggestions now are narrower in scope and have a lot of merit.

You don't need any hand waving to move from what we have now to a middle ground (and dark sun accurate) situation where it's still illegal for commoners in cities, but merchants/wealthy can do it in secret, some tribes could do it, and very interested commoners can learn at great risk and actually have shit to read.

On the other topic, the criticisms regarding IC group psionic channels has definitely changed my opinion and reminded me of the buy/sell spam that plagued them even in dragonrealms in the 90s. :/

Functionally what does a narrower change effect? Say you change nothing else, but allow 1 or 2 groups to Read/Write without legality in cities?

The tribals can write? Sure? Are they going to use it commonly enough to be worth the risk? Does it then create an impetus in the cities for a really samey confiscation style search RP by templars and legion on any tribal that enters? Why would every tribal human understand every other tribes written language? And there's more questions I can come up with.

The elves can write? What does that give them except a strange level of privelege over human PC's? Are they going to use it? Are they going to suffer confiscation RP like human tribals would? Why would every tribal elf understand every other tribal elves written language? There's more questions I can come up with.

Human bards in cities can write has potential to be an interesting and novel change with some use, but that's running the risk of character termination by noble and templar for what? Recording a few songs? Where do they learn it? What functionally changes about the world? There's more questions I can come up with.

It's far more complex than just a switch to be flipped, or an attitude to be adjusted. It's a whole aspect of the game world, a nearly core aspect. And one that needs a lot of consideration in the how's and why's to make it consistent if it is changed.