Armageddon General Discussion Board

First I'd like to say that I think that both contact and barrier should be usable in combat. Not only that, but it shouldn't be broken because combat starting.

instead of it being impossible, I would suggest it being /very/ difficult. Maybe something that makes it too dangerous to be usable. Since using the way is so attention consuming let me go to the extreme and say max stun drops to 20 when combat starts. This way - it's still very possible to use the way. But obviously dangerous.
Barrier is different, I think, in terms of use. Instead of sending to some other mind in comparison to just being in your own mind. Let's say max stun drops to 40.

as for how the skill improves... everyone starts at master, which is lame. But... how about if everyone's ability to use the contact skill is master-like instead? What if the level of the contact skill is reflected in - not how easy it is to find someone or how often one suffers from the way, but instead... it was only reflected in how much max stun is taken from someone who decides to use the way. Novice contacters max stun become 50 on a regular and it improves as the skill improves. Not the same with barrier.

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etiquette of psionics

I'd like to discuss this. If this ability that everyone has takes up so much attention... just how much concentration is needed exactly and/or does it depend on the character? and how should one actually "feel" when one is concentrating so hard?

Quote from: Chettaman on August 17, 2016, 10:11:52 PM
First I'd like to say that I think that both contact and barrier should be usable in combat. Not only that, but it shouldn't be broken because combat starting.

Why?

Can I slip a question in related to op -- this is something that I've never fully understand since I'm of the 'master' contact generation -- never played (much) when contact wasn't at 'master'.

So:

Q1. Is it possible to actually use 'barrier' to block someone (with master contact) from contacting you?

As far as I can tell the answer is: not really.. or very very very rarely?  Unless I've just gotten incredibly lucky.  It's hard to tell from the PC perspective here.

Q2. If the answer is 'no' to Q1: Should we make barrier more effective against contact?

Sorry to sneak this in, but it's sort of related, right?

Barrier, as well as all other psionic skills are reliant on another parameter that's not shown on a skill/stat sheet. If you've ever tried to contact long played characters, especially if they're merchants, politically heavy personalities, or just people who tend to wheel/deal/and be in demand a lot, you'd notice that their barrier is a LOT stronger, then just some dude who spammed barrier up to max, but never actually spoke with anyone and doesnt plan to.


It is possible to make barrier nigh impossible to break. It just takes a hell of a lot of gameplay.

I also want to add:
"nosave contact and barrier" idea. So you can choose whether or not to accept the sudden loss to stun or not - when combat starts.

Mostly for the fact that I don't like not being able to do something period.
but I have more, less selfish reasons.

In case you /really/ want to send a message.
In case you /REALLY/ want to protect your mind.

upon re-reading. I realize those too, are quite selfish.

With the Contact boost, Master Barrier for the majority of players is useless from Novice through Mastery. It doesn't block anyone from contacting you, and very often is just a useless waste of stun. You CAN barrier when they -are- talking to you and it will stop them, but they can just re-contact to break it.

I'm not saying buff barrier, per se, but right now its only useful against a VERY SPECIFIC set of abilities the average person doesn't come against.

Quote from: Riev on August 18, 2016, 09:17:45 AM
With the Contact boost, Master Barrier for the majority of players is useless from Novice through Mastery. It doesn't block anyone from contacting you, and very often is just a useless waste of stun. You CAN barrier when they -are- talking to you and it will stop them, but they can just re-contact to break it.

I'm not saying buff barrier, per se, but right now its only useful against a VERY SPECIFIC set of abilities the average person doesn't come against.

This.

(https://media.giphy.com/media/11OOAQSnUaZT2M/giphy.gif)

I disagree. My characters with low stats even have a great ability to block in coming transmissions. I play a lot - and whenever I return to wherever with my characters everyone's like, "I thought you were dead. I've been trying to find your mind for weeks!"
Maybe I'm doing something different. ... muahaha!

but still. Even that can be added to the idea. Instead of the level of contact affecting the ability to find someone's mind it can affect instead:
- how often one suffers from the way.

And maybe breaking through barriers shouldn't be a thing non-psionosists can do.
-- adding to that. What do you all think about how barrier works making people literally invisible to the way? You don't get the echo, "The mind you seek is blocked." You simply can't find them. I think it's reasonable to not get a "your blocked" message, but what do you all think?

Quote from: Chettaman on August 18, 2016, 09:42:49 AM
I disagree. My characters with low stats even have a great ability to block in coming transmissions. I play a lot - and whenever I return to wherever with my characters everyone's like, "I thought you were dead. I've been trying to find your mind for weeks!"
Maybe I'm doing something different. ... muahaha!

but still. Even that can be added to the idea. Instead of the level of contact affecting the ability to find someone's mind it can affect instead:
- how often one suffers from the way.

And maybe breaking through barriers shouldn't be a thing non-psionosists can do.

You can't be sure they just haven't been trying to find your mind when you are offline.

The only way you can know if this is working how you think it is working is for you to stand infront of them with your barrier on and have them try to contact you repeatedly to test it.

Otherwise, this isn't really much proof of anything.

I know I've gotten into more than a few heated "Way Debates" with people and they have zero trouble crushing my barrier repeatedly over and over and over again.

Quote from: Desertman on August 18, 2016, 09:51:30 AM

You can't be sure they just haven't been trying to find your mind when you are offline.

I remember I'd gotten the schedule down of the people I played with and even contacted them and just blocked myself up. I know it seems like I'm making stuff up, but it's totally truth.
Sure, you're right. There's no legitimate proof, but man... I'm very sure on this one. I was also pretty far from anyone that might try and I suspect that helped.

I'm telling ya'll. Barrier works.

Still think mundanes shouldn't be able to pierce mind shields.
-- adding to that. What do you all think about how barrier works making people literally invisible to the way? You don't get the echo, "The mind you seek is blocked." You simply can't find them. I think it's reasonable to not get a "your blocked" message, but what do you all think?

Quote from: Chettaman on August 18, 2016, 09:58:19 AM

Quote from: Desertman on August 18, 2016, 09:51:30 AM

You can't be sure they just haven't been trying to find your mind when you are offline.

I remember I'd gotten the schedule down of the people I played with and even contacted them and just blocked myself up. I know it seems like I'm making stuff up, but it's totally truth.
Sure, you're right. There's no legitimate proof, but man... I'm very sure on this one. I was also pretty far from anyone that might try and I suspect that helped.

I'm telling ya'll. Barrier works.

Then you are doing something everyone else isn't dong. So barrier doesn't "work". It just works for one person which doesn't really help the game population use barrier in any meaningful way unfortunately.

Maybe barrier doesn't need to be changed and we just need to update the docs to better let everyone in on your secret you have discovered so barrier becomes useful to more than one person playing the game?

While I have no problem with exposing secrets, I usually respect the staff's request or whatever to not spread these knowledges openly. Unless I'm hanging out with gunner blaster.

Anyway.

I still think mundanes shouldn't be able to pierce mind shields. I think that would make everyone happy. -- at least, not as easily as they do now.
-- adding to that. What do you all think about how barrier works making people literally invisible to the way? You don't get the echo, "The mind you seek is blocked." You simply can't find them. I think it's reasonable to not get a "your blocked" message, but what do you all think?!

I like the idea of people being able to disappear if they want to disappear and put forth the effort of both physically relocating to a remote area AND keeping their barrier in play.

As it stands now any plotline you want to be part of that includes you "going away" doesn't work because of our global instant unfailing cellphone access.

It also REALLY screws up playing nefarious sorts since you can't really hide from anyone.

All it takes is one of your keywords getting out and you are the most popular mind in the entire game.

Quote from: Chettaman on August 18, 2016, 10:05:42 AM
What do you all think about how barrier works making people literally invisible to the way? You don't get the echo, "The mind you seek is blocked." You simply can't find them. I think it's reasonable to not get a "your blocked" message, but what do you all think?!

I'm ipretty sure it already does this, at extremely high levels. I joined the game when a character starts off with already-mastered contact, but there have been a couple of PCs whose barriers I couldn't get through, with it echoing "You are unable to reach their mind." And I know for a fact that they were online, because I was in the same room as them. To be honest, these were PCs who've lived at least a few years IG, so that might be one factor?

Yeah.
Escaping pursuers: you're going to get caught if all you do is live/hide in the ''nearest'' settlement. I've always had to go to extremes to not be found. And people might of found my mind, but I mean... I could always just say I'm someone else, not respond or barrier again. They /weren't/ going to find me. (after extreme hiding)
You kind of have to expect being found in a populated place. It only takes someone stalwart enough to want to find you. ... and being stalwart isn't that tough with five or six possible populated locations.
- if you're a bad guy: Don't do too much so that the city's leaders care about you. Soldiers and such, are no problem. -- also look out for vengance seekers.

Deciding to just disappear: If you just decide to disappear one day in spite of all your friends and ambitions, people who find you are going to stumble upon you. And it's easy enough for you to disappear again, if they're not actively pursuing you. ... unless you go to a remote area in which case only once in a while someone may stumble upon you and you can deal with them as you please.

Escaping anyone with psionics or certain magicks: Ha! Goodluck. Not impossible, but definitely much more difficult.

@azure - well yeah. Minds are already invisible when blocked. I was asking what you thought of that compared to getting the message "something is blocking your telepathy".

Who was it that said ''Just wait. I'm going to kill you wall." heh ... I'm gonna make a villain one day. The most reasonable tyrant of a man you ever met is going to kill you all. And whoever said it first... I'll kill him better. And get away with it. But these are just empty words. Only action will prove my truth!

@Chetta - Something is blocking messages only comes up, IN THIS SITUATION, when they've already contacted you, and you barrier. Something is, in fact, blocking your telepathy. (This can happen for other reasons as well). Therefore, the messages are fine as they are.

Quote from: Chettaman on August 18, 2016, 10:51:41 AM
- if you're a bad guy: Don't do too much so that the city's leaders care about you. Soldiers and such, are no problem. -- also look out for vengance seekers.

I honestly DO understand what you mean, but this is a terrible outlook in the game. You cannot play a bad person who is capable of escaping persecution or execution, because even if you use a distance factor, barrier doesn't do much for you. So the only way to solve it, in your mind, is to "don't do bad things because people might get mad". Again, I get it, but from a story perspective, its kinda hurty.

Also, if you're trying to be a raider around Red Storm, why would you base out of Morin's? Just so that your barrier is useful?




Barrier should not be "I'm barriered and nobody can get through" but it should be useful. I've WATCHED players log in, and immediately get 6 contacts, only 2 of which even talk. Sometimes you want to focus on your other aspects of your character, so why not let barrier be more or less "leave me alone"?

Its either that, or allow a certain script that completely blocks off connection to the way, but has other effects. You aren't part of the Way, but the loss and longing reduce your overall stun "You suffer from the LOSS of the way"?

Welp, my bad. Misread that.

Huh. I thought it already worked so that it showed something blocking your telepathy or a similar message if there was a lower-level barrier up. Must've mixed it up. If it isn't already, I'd like it if it were based on the skill level, with a lower-skilled barrier echoing something blocking the contact or a similar message, and a higher-skilled barrier echoing you being unable to find their mind.

You used to be able to use contact in combat.  It was changed to the current situation, probably for good reasons.

PCs used to start out with a low contact skill.  It was changed to the current situation, probably for good reasons.

Quote from: Riev on August 18, 2016, 11:00:15 AM
@Chetta - Something is blocking messages only comes up, IN THIS SITUATION, when they've already contacted you, and you barrier. Something is, in fact, blocking your telepathy. (This can happen for other reasons as well). Therefore, the messages are fine as they are.
**
Well yeah. I didn't specify, but I meant before contact is made.

Quote from: Chettaman on August 18, 2016, 10:51:41 AM
- if you're a bad guy: Don't do too much so that the city's leaders care about you. Soldiers and such, are no problem. -- also look out for vengance seekers.

I honestly DO understand what you mean, but this is a terrible outlook in the game. You cannot play a bad person who is capable of escaping persecution or execution, because even if you use a distance factor, barrier doesn't do much for you. So the only way to solve it, in your mind, is to "don't do bad things because people might get mad". Again, I get it, but from a story perspective, its kinda hurty.
**
I didn't mean, The only way to solve it to "don't do bad things because people might get mad". - I said, "Don't do too much."
Example: If you're drinking and driving. Don't speed. --- and that isn't much of a rule or explaining what everyone's doing wrong. ... it's just a suggestion for people who may not realize that you can do a little "bad". Or a lot of "bad" depending on other factors. People may not even realize that those factors exist or maybe they don't consider them.The world isn't black and white. - right and wrong. Sometimes people don't know all of their potential or the potentials of others ... or they don't consider them.
If you're going to be a villain that's fine. What kind of villain you are is important. Are you going to be the careful villain, that knows exactly what he can get away with before a templar starts to care, or are you going to be the one that massacres people and you don't care who knows?.... or will you be the villain that tries to be careful, but is ignorant of the factors? -- there are more types of villains.


Also, if you're trying to be a raider around Red Storm, why would you base out of Morin's? Just so that your barrier is useful?
**
Yes. You pick and choose a hide out as well as you pick and choose the places you raid. - I understand the distance is quite a stretch, and I honestly would just pick some remote location close to my raiding places. - but if I were a bandit in this world where finding people is easy as cake, I would indeed have my character consider all of these things and, if I had to, would choose a place so far from my hunting grounds that it made sense that it would make me more difficult to find. Unless my character wasn't a good planner.

Barrier should not be "I'm barriered and nobody can get through" but it should be useful. I've WATCHED players log in, and immediately get 6 contacts, only 2 of which even talk. Sometimes you want to focus on your other aspects of your character, so why not let barrier be more or less "leave me alone"?
**
More than enough people complain about barrier not working for me to agree with you that barrier doesn't work.
I still like the idea that normal people shouldn't be allowed to pierce blocked minds. Then you would /need/ a templar to find that person so easy.

Its either that, or allow a certain script that completely blocks off connection to the way, but has other effects. You aren't part of the Way, but the loss and longing reduce your overall stun "You suffer from the LOSS of the way"?

True. There were probably good reasons for the change.
I still want to discuss the etiquette of using psionics, though. Especially roleplaying how much concentration it takes, because I'll be at the bar chatting up a storm - or in a brawl and wayin' the hell out of people like it were nothin'. And then I think, I'm such a twink...

Eh, I think roleplaying the difficulty of The Way was more of a thing before it started at Master.

I used to see people RP difficulty with The Way regularly.

I haven't seen it in a very long time but should I really? I mean....they are masters.

Quote from: Desertman on August 18, 2016, 11:58:21 AM
I haven't seen it in a very long time but should I really? I mean....they are masters.

xD

I mean... it must be difficult, right? We can't do it while actually fighting.
And I want to stop and be like, "Everyone hold on. I'm wayin' the master crafter. ... you know I can't walk and way at the same time... >nosave subdue "Alright. Pick me up." but everyone gives me shit.

Just like when I want to roleplay /not/ skinning everything in the blink of an eye - instead doing it later when we have more time to. What is everyone giving me shit for? This stuff is supposed to be difficult!!

I sometimes see people (and I do so myself) RP being a bit light headed when the stun gets down below a certain threshold.  Of course, I also forget to check the stun level a lot, hence my PCs always passing at the most awesome moments.

I also sometimes hemote when I enter commands like 'psi', 'contact', and 'barrier'.

I'm all for an enforced hemote when you enter the commands 'psi', 'contact', and 'barrier', something vague and generic, like: (You notice: The guy's forehead wrinkles in concentration a moment.)  Not only would it allow villains to get upset at you, it would also have a kind of OOC effect on me at least: I find it hard to resist the OOC urge to get impatient at people I'm RPing a scene with when they suddenly just drop out of the scene -- I can't tell if they went AFK, if they just aren't interested in RPing with me any more (not likely!), or if they are waying.

Maybe have it occur every fifth psi or something.

.

How about an hemote like, "so and so appears to be concentrating" more benign. I usually act a little less "with it" when I'm waying, but that's because sometimes I am less with it. For low stun, yeah, dizziness of headaches.

Hey Chetta, don't let them get you down. You do you. I support your efforts. We need to keep setting the bar high. Via waiting to skin though, just keep an eye on the passage of time. It goes so quick in game! That bestial corpse is going to start to reek in the dry heat before too long.

Quote from: Chettaman on August 18, 2016, 12:11:12 PM

Quote from: Desertman on August 18, 2016, 11:58:21 AM
I haven't seen it in a very long time but should I really? I mean....they are masters.

xD

I mean... it must be difficult, right? We can't do it while actually fighting.
And I want to stop and be like, "Everyone hold on. I'm wayin' the master crafter. ... you know I can't walk and way at the same time... >nosave subdue "Alright. Pick me up." but everyone gives me shit.

Just like when I want to roleplay /not/ skinning everything in the blink of an eye - instead doing it later when we have more time to. What is everyone giving me shit for? This stuff is supposed to be difficult!!

I personally liked the days of The Way being obviously more difficult and thus being roleplayed as more difficult.

I'm right there with you man.

QuoteI personally liked the days of The Way being obviously more difficult and thus being roleplayed as more difficult.

Was against the change then, still against the change now.

Not having either in combat is fine. The Way's not easy.

Testing how good barrier is is kinda iffy since you can't tell if you've successfully stopped a person or not. I know I usually try contact one person multiple times because contact can fail. Maybe if contact couldn't fail against non barriered people, and barrier was biased towards resisting contact unless they're like a psi or something, and truenames and additional targetting modifiers don't increase contact rate, then yeah. That sounds more reasonable.

Also, no more contacted cloaked people from keywords like "cloaked" or "figure" and shit like that, unless the sdesc you receive is their hooded sdesc. Things got harder for sneakies with look becoming hemote. This seems like a good compromise.

Being able to contact 1.man, 2.man, etc. as a means to finding out who's online and who might of done something is shitty play too.

Contact should only work with Names and the keywords in a character's sdesc. Ideally you'd need two so as to avoid the "contact 1.man" play.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on August 18, 2016, 05:07:36 PM
Being able to contact 1.man, 2.man, etc. as a means to finding out who's online and who might of done something is shitty play too.

Contact should only work with Names and the keywords in a character's sdesc. Ideally you'd need two so as to avoid the "contact 1.man" play.

Once did something shift as a rogue mage to a clan, causing them a bit of trouble. Considering at the time (only 8 players online) and 6 of them being part of the clan and present. The other 2 were me and my pc's associate. We both got this. Someone contacts your mind and says 'hi'. This was used to identify the potential 'suspects' for the shenanigans. contact 1.man, contact 2.man, contact 3.man. Fortunately the victim couldn't use that to icly identify it, but it sucks when you know that the player of some other pc knows you just did some shenanigans to him and is willing to use the code to figure out who.

I wish contact worked soley on the keywords you see in Score (Amos tall muscular man). It's silly that back in the day a common tactic after doing a crime was promptly lowering your hood after fleeing, not because you wanted to look casual but because you needed to shake yourself of the sdesc keywords associated with that outfit and the way.


On topic though, I don't have an issue with barrier. It's usable and does great so long as wisdom isn't always your dump stat.

If I recall part of the motivation behind the bump for starting contact was to make it easier for newbs to contact potential employers and get involved in plots. Which I think is totally legit. It would be rad as all get-out though if after receiving your first karma you no longer began a character with master contact.

I would also tweak barrier up a bit.  Or better yet... give the person who is breaking through your barrier a much larger stun hit than just a regular contact does.  Then you wouldn't have the 'way battle' problem of repeatedly having to barrier a dude who just will not let X go.

Quote from: Majikal on August 18, 2016, 05:48:39 PM

Quote from: BadSkeelz on August 18, 2016, 05:07:36 PM
Being able to contact 1.man, 2.man, etc. as a means to finding out who's online and who might of done something is shitty play too.

Contact should only work with Names and the keywords in a character's sdesc. Ideally you'd need two so as to avoid the "contact 1.man" play.

Once did something shift as a rogue mage to a clan, causing them a bit of trouble. Considering at the time (only 8 players online) and 6 of them being part of the clan and present. The other 2 were me and my pc's associate. We both got this. Someone contacts your mind and says 'hi'. This was used to identify the potential 'suspects' for the shenanigans. contact 1.man, contact 2.man, contact 3.man. Fortunately the victim couldn't use that to icly identify it, but it sucks when you know that the player of some other pc knows you just did some shenanigans to him and is willing to use the code to figure out who.

I wish contact worked soley on the keywords you see in Score (Amos tall muscular man). It's silly that back in the day a common tactic after doing a crime was promptly lowering your hood after fleeing, not because you wanted to look casual but because you needed to shake yourself of the sdesc keywords associated with that outfit and the way.


On topic though, I don't have an issue with barrier. It's usable and does great so long as wisdom isn't always your dump stat.

Afaik, contact doesn't work on hood/mask descriptors unless you are in the room with them now.

Quote from: Majikal on August 18, 2016, 05:48:39 PM

Quote from: BadSkeelz on August 18, 2016, 05:07:36 PM
Being able to contact 1.man, 2.man, etc. as a means to finding out who's online and who might of done something is shitty play too.

Contact should only work with Names and the keywords in a character's sdesc. Ideally you'd need two so as to avoid the "contact 1.man" play.

Once did something shift as a rogue mage to a clan, causing them a bit of trouble. Considering at the time (only 8 players online) and 6 of them being part of the clan and present. The other 2 were me and my pc's associate. We both got this. Someone contacts your mind and says 'hi'. This was used to identify the potential 'suspects' for the shenanigans. contact 1.man, contact 2.man, contact 3.man. Fortunately the victim couldn't use that to icly identify it, but it sucks when you know that the player of some other pc knows you just did some shenanigans to him and is willing to use the code to figure out who.

I wish contact worked soley on the keywords you see in Score (Amos tall muscular man). It's silly that back in the day a common tactic after doing a crime was promptly lowering your hood after fleeing, not because you wanted to look casual but because you needed to shake yourself of the sdesc keywords associated with that outfit and the way.


On topic though, I don't have an issue with barrier. It's usable and does great so long as wisdom isn't always your dump stat.

All of the above. Although: I also wouldn't mind it if barrier were tweaked upward a little myself at starting levels.

I think certain keywords shouldn't be useable as modifiers for contact. Racial (Elf, elven), Gender (woman, man). Too general.

I too think Barrier/Contact should be a little less binary (I'm on an anti-binary kick).

Contacting someone with barrier up, but failing, should message to the user. On a critical success for contact, their barrier weakens. On a failure to break the barrier, the barrier strengthens.

I'd like to live in a world (Zalanthas) where someone can live off the grid with their barrier up 24/7, and not need to worry about people contacting them. They also can't contact people. The longer they have the barrier up for, the more successful it is. If that barrier were to be broken, after a certain point, it would do bodily harm to them and knock them out. Something like this, at least.

Conversely, contact being a 'master' skill now is for the convenience of news. And thank god, really. I hated training it on my new PCs. But it'd be nice if there were more nuanced psionic skills available to mundanes beyond contact, expel, and barrier. Short of that, reworking how contact and barrier work.

Quote from: valeria on August 18, 2016, 08:34:13 PM
I would also tweak barrier up a bit.  Or better yet... give the person who is breaking through your barrier a much larger stun hit than just a regular contact does.  Then you wouldn't have the 'way battle' problem of repeatedly having to barrier a dude who just will not let X go.

Brilliant!!
you and reiloth are brilliant!

Reiloth, just a few issues with your suggestions. There are some PCs I find I have to contact by stringing keywords together, as their names or nicknames are either too generic or too hard to remember, or just flat out don't work for whatever reason. Further, while the barrier thing sounds neat, getting ambushed while living off the grid would be immediately deadly, as, iirc, you cannot remain barriered in combat.

There was some sort of post previously staff put in about how they were at one point working on changes to contact.

I don't remember the exact details (someone can find it if they are inclined) but the idea was more or less that contacting someone by name would go out of the window and that you would have to have their exact sdesc to contact them.

This would prevent people from "sniffing" people they had never actually "met" before just because they heard the name "Amos" in a bar once.

(Of course using someone's exact sdesc in the game to describe them in conversation is extremely frowned upon, so, it would in theory eliminate being hunted by the entire world just because the entire world managed to hear your name in a rumor and somehow that gives them the magic ability to contact you.)

The angry, bulky templar asks, in law-accented sirihish,
     "Okay, citizen. Which of these elves was it, the lithe one, the sinuous one, or the sinewy one?"

The confused, muscular man says, in newbie-accented sirihish,
     "The skinny one."

That, or barrier creating a more difficult environment for people to contact them. By this I mean attempting to contact people becomes more difficult the more you try. An open mind would present no difficulty, while an unavailable mind, whether by being offline or behind barrier, becomes progressively more difficult the more you try. Similar to the haggle code.

.

Quote from: Molten Heart on August 19, 2016, 04:40:45 PM

Quote from: Reiloth on August 19, 2016, 04:14:04 PM
That, or barrier creating a more difficult environment for people to contact them. By this I mean attempting to contact people becomes more difficult the more you try. An open mind would present no difficulty, while an unavailable mind, whether by being offline or behind barrier, becomes progressively more difficult the more you try. Similar to the haggle code.

It'd be cool if breaking a barrier were much more difficult the further away they were.

And if contacting someone were more difficult the further away they were. In tandem, it'd be hard to find someone living off the grid.

.

It'd be nice if we could designate how much of our stun we put into the barrier, and force those contacting us to commit just as much to break it, and failing to do so having some sort of backlash.

Also I pretty much just use barrier when dicking around on a guilded character to dodge any who -c notice.

Quote from: Molten Heart on September 02, 2016, 12:14:42 PM

Quote from: Reiloth on September 02, 2016, 12:10:37 PM

Quote from: Molten Heart on August 19, 2016, 04:40:45 PM

Quote from: Reiloth on August 19, 2016, 04:14:04 PM
That, or barrier creating a more difficult environment for people to contact them. By this I mean attempting to contact people becomes more difficult the more you try. An open mind would present no difficulty, while an unavailable mind, whether by being offline or behind barrier, becomes progressively more difficult the more you try. Similar to the haggle code.

It'd be cool if breaking a barrier were much more difficult the further away they were.

And if contacting someone were more difficult the further away they were. In tandem, it'd be hard to find someone living off the grid.

Not impossible, but more difficult to contact people over long distances, yes.

The way I see this happening, is pathing the distance between the PC trying to contact, and the PC being contacted. Over 50 rooms, your success gets reduced by 25%. Over 100 rooms, your success gets reduced by 50%. Over 150 rooms, it gets reduced by 80%. I'm sure it's not always possible to successfully path, with enterable objects and things like that. But just an idea.

Please.

PLEASE don't make psionics like a group text for the normal people.

Please!!!!

.

It annoys me that who-c basically alerts you that someone's got barrier up even if you haven't tried to Way them.

Quote from: Delirium on September 20, 2016, 01:35:05 PM
It annoys me that who-c basically alerts you that someone's got barrier up even if you haven't tried to Way them.

So few people HAVE who c to make it a problem.

I feel if you DO have it, you're using it to see who is around and available. If someone is barrier'd, maybe they don't -want- to be available? If you know they're around, but you who c them.. I mean. How can you fix that? Other than not use that command?

.

Quote from: ShaLeah on September 20, 2016, 01:30:59 PM
Please.

PLEASE don't make psionics like a group text for the normal people.

Please!!!!

Huh?

Psi intercept? Anyone?

2016 is almost over.

I just had a random idea that it might be interesting if when you wayed someone it created some kind of little way creature that had to travel from sender to recipient to deliver the message. To the sender and receiver, they mostly don't notice much of a difference, except a delay as the way critter now has to walk  over. The way critter has move and expires if it runs out or can't find a path. Dirty benders can do dirty bender stuff to the critter like capture, kill, change the message, and see where they are headed etc. Have it such that there is a chance you hear a whisper of the message if it happens to expire before reaching it's goal in the room you are in. The stronger you are with they way. the more moves, health and speed your critter has.

Quote from: Molten Heart on September 20, 2016, 01:59:37 PM
When playing a runner in the T'Zai Byn, I enjoy the autonomy barrier gives me while playing hooky from the routine.

Autonomy?  You mean you're using an OOC mechanic to play hooky.  Virtually you are either following your clan's schedule or not.  Using barrier to make the clan leaders not realize you aren't virtually there isn't autonomy, it's basically cheating.

With that said, people shouldn't have to adhere to an IC schedule 100% of the time purely for playability reasons...  So not really sure where the comfortable medium is for this.

.

Quote from: Delirium on September 20, 2016, 01:35:05 PM
It annoys me that who-c basically alerts you that someone's got barrier up even if you haven't tried to Way them.

You could have 'who c' do a minor hit to stun.

That said, the benefits of 'who c' in the clans I've been in have been HUGE, namely, in desert elf and tribal clans where you have very low numbers and actors who tend to, when nobody is around to RP with, travel very wide distances for entertainment.  It's just nice to be able to know someone is on in your clan so you can play with each other, instead of doing 'contact Bob', 'contact Suzy', 'contact Mary' every half hour.

I can also imagine the OOC benefit to leaders in more traditional clans to be massive.

(As to hiding from it: that I can totally understand too.  Some days you just want to solo RP.)

Quote from: wizturbo on September 20, 2016, 02:51:44 PM

Quote from: Molten Heart on September 20, 2016, 01:59:37 PM
When playing a runner in the T'Zai Byn, I enjoy the autonomy barrier gives me while playing hooky from the routine.

Autonomy?  You mean you're using an OOC mechanic to play hooky.

If anything it's an IC mechanic to hide from someone trying to use an OOC mechanic to find you.

Quote from: Jingo on September 20, 2016, 02:08:36 PM
Psi intercept? Anyone?

2016 is almost over.

no

PSI Relay:

Relay is a psychic ability that can allow an experienced way user to 'connect' multiple way users who have made contact with them within thier mind. Such practices are useful for coordination and tactics but is incredibly taxing for the one who has made the connection. For once a connection has been made the user literally becomes a relay for the way. Well trained users of this practice may form larger relays, given their physical body can handle the abuse.

Sort of came to me after a recent RPT. Think three way calling ect. Cept the one forming relays is probably not going to be able to do much from the sheer amount of focus needed.

If you create a psionic 'ring' (where A contacts B, B contacts C, and ... C contacts A) and you have a protocol for forwarding messages, then you can minimize the amount of stun drain on the team in such a way that everyone gets the message.  So:


A types: psi A here, with <message>

[B receives: "A here, with <message>"]

B types: psi "A here, with <message>"]

[C receives: "A here, with <message>"]

C knows not to forward the message to A because that's who he's connected to.


Hypothetically you could set up a series of triggers to make it all automatic.  You might have mixed results trying to tell people how to do this "ICly".

.

I imagined practiced servants or soldiers acting as relays for their masters between each other. Or possibly passing information to two or more fronts from a soldiers point of view giving status reports instantaneously. Think the radio guy in every Vietnam War movie you've ever seen. It would be demanding but getting information back and forth quickly between multiple groups could have its uses.

Quote from: Case on September 20, 2016, 04:22:19 PM

Quote from: Jingo on September 20, 2016, 02:08:36 PM
Psi intercept? Anyone?

2016 is almost over.

no

Or literally any way to add some risk to the mechanically broken, crypto-messaging service that all mundanes have access to.

But without the juvenile response this time. Thanks.

Quote from: Jingo on September 20, 2016, 08:33:58 PM

Quote from: Case on September 20, 2016, 04:22:19 PM

Quote from: Jingo on September 20, 2016, 02:08:36 PM
Psi intercept? Anyone?

2016 is almost over.

no

Or literally any way to add some risk to the mechanically broken, crypto-messaging service that all mundanes have access to.

But without the juvenile response this time. Thanks.

I disagree it's mechanically broken. Tie stun cost to the length of the message or make close range Waying taxinger.

Quote from: Case on September 20, 2016, 09:00:07 PM

Quote from: Jingo on September 20, 2016, 08:33:58 PM

Quote from: Case on September 20, 2016, 04:22:19 PM

Quote from: Jingo on September 20, 2016, 02:08:36 PM
Psi intercept? Anyone?

2016 is almost over.

no

Or literally any way to add some risk to the mechanically broken, crypto-messaging service that all mundanes have access to.

But without the juvenile response this time. Thanks.

I disagree it's mechanically broken. Tie stun cost to the length of the message or make close range Waying taxinger.

I guess we should have to sit down while we open up our secret chat lobby then? Because that happens already. It doesn't solve the problem of perfect utility. Even if it is made twice as inconvenient players will still hold their secret meetings in their minds because it's still the best precaution they can make.

It's a broken mechanic because it a perfect defense against:

Mundane spies.
Magick spies.
Most psionicist spies, irony of ironies.

It's a broken mechanic because it is functionally superior to:

The whisper command
Covertly signaling via gestures or speech.
Covert letters and secret documents.

Quote from: Jingo on September 20, 2016, 09:42:40 PM

Quote from: Case on September 20, 2016, 09:00:07 PM

Quote from: Jingo on September 20, 2016, 08:33:58 PM

Quote from: Case on September 20, 2016, 04:22:19 PM

Quote from: Jingo on September 20, 2016, 02:08:36 PM
Psi intercept? Anyone?

2016 is almost over.

no

Or literally any way to add some risk to the mechanically broken, crypto-messaging service that all mundanes have access to.

But without the juvenile response this time. Thanks.

I disagree it's mechanically broken. Tie stun cost to the length of the message or make close range Waying taxinger.

I guess we should have to sit down while we open up our secret chat lobby then? Because that happens already. It doesn't solve the problem of perfect utility. Even if it is made twice as inconvenient players will still hold their secret meetings in their minds because it's still the best precaution they can make.

It's a broken mechanic because it a perfect defense against:

Mundane spies.
Magick spies.
Most psionicist spies, irony of ironies.

It's a broken mechanic because it is functionally superior to:

The whisper command
Covertly signaling via gestures or speech.
Covert letters and secret documents.

Still a huge hassle if it's time consuming. I agree players shouldn't be sitting there and doing it though.

Some degree of intercept by burglars and pickpockets and any relevant magickers I could get behind, maybe a subguild if only it too. Assassins don't need more utility. If you set it up to need contact, it'll still be obvious to the person though, and I disagree it should be a ranged intercept of everybody. Maybe it can act a little differently to contact and be a silent entry with no success message at all for the user and even if it fails, it's still sustained (that gets around using that to check people online), but do have a fail message for the target. Make it cost stun per receive, and make it require proximity to the target.

Could be interesting. Paired with increased Way costs/difficulty for distance, I could see it working.

Why would pickpockets or burglars be more likely to intercept Ways? Give it to everyone or no one, I say. Make it unreliable.

Though I think we all know that the Way is only really useful when you're giving head.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on September 20, 2016, 10:17:03 PM
Why would pickpockets or burglars be more likely to intercept Ways? Give it to everyone or no one, I say. Make it unreliable.

Though I think we all know that the Way is only really useful when you're giving head.

Because it gives them more of a role as spies.

Giving one of a random subset of small psi skills to PCs human/helf PCs if they priority wis could also be quite interesting.

I just can't come up with a good explanation why these otherwise completely mundane Guilds would have an extra non-mundane ability. mah immersionz!

Quote from: BadSkeelz on September 20, 2016, 10:22:05 PM
I just can't come up with a good explanation why these otherwise completely mundane Guilds would have an extra non-mundane ability. mah immersionz!

Psionics are far more mundane than other things. Also they're considered not as good guilds, and since we have a much reduced guild set now, it'd be good to see it either extended, balanced some more.

Still seems meta and gamey.

I'd much rather it be tied to high-wisdom. The higher the wisdom, the higher your chance of intercepting a Way.

Man I don't even know why pickpockets get telepathy in the first place to be honest. Even the dwarves.

Let's try to remain polite. Thanks.

i do not want to see psionic relay abilities for anyone mundane - that seems to be beyond the scope of intended psionic power.

cabbages think that psionics should be limited to our glorious species, but that is a moot point.


still getting a laugh out of some of these posts, though. and other posts.

heh... no dwarven telepathy. that would be funny.

Psionics, to me, are a sacred thing. In spite of the fact that I do a great deal of mundane tasks while using the way - which is supposed to take up concentration.

I, and probably me alone, think that anyone without psioniasist abilities should be taxed a great deal more than now when using barrier or contact.
-- also they should be usable during combat. (but we won' get into that conversation)

Adding a new skill to un-psionasist characters like "intercept" doesn't make sense.

I'm not interested in adding more psionic abilities to non-psionicists.

If distances aren't taken into account, I wouldn't mind seeing that (although I've no idea how difficult that would be).

Rather that developing additional Psionic powers, it would be interesting if instead there was something more akin to a device that could be used to psionically easedrop on people without being a mindbender.

The devices themselves then become valuable, interesting tools that can either be outlawed, controlled, or traded.

There are a few different ways to implement something like this, but I envision them being some kind of psionic "receiver" that's paired with a psionic "bug" that can be dropped in a room or planted on a person that enables you to ease drop on the psionic communications of that person or the people in that location.  It would give burglars and pickpockets a reason to try and break into places or plant things, and it's something that could potentially be discovered through mundane means instead of relying on spooky supernatural things to combat super supernatural things.

Or, or!

Remove the way altogether.  >:(

what if it turns out that all sentient races in Zalanthas are actually cyborgs, the way is a radio transmission, and metal items give their wielder a chance to intercept transmissions

Quote from: BadSkeelz on September 22, 2016, 03:39:19 PM
what if it turns out that all sentient races in Zalanthas are actually cyborgs, the way is a radio transmission, and metal items give their wielder a chance to intercept transmissions

I have often pondered biomechanics myself.


My idea was from a position of limited player experience. I'm not saying it's a must have skill but maybe a psionic subguild of some sort?

People should be able to be in contact with multiple people at once if they choose, while still suffering compounded stun loss.

Benefits : People might pass out and die. People will inadvertently send ways to wrong person even more.

Quote from: KankWhisperer on September 22, 2016, 05:27:30 PM
People should be able to way multiple people at once if they choose, while still suffering the same stun loss.

Benefits : People might pass out and die. People will inadvertently send ways to wrong person even more.

yeah how about no.

the mental focus required to do that seems way beyond any normal beings capabilities.

Quote from: evilcabbage on September 22, 2016, 05:28:52 PM

Quote from: KankWhisperer on September 22, 2016, 05:27:30 PM
People should be able to way multiple people at once if they choose, while still suffering the same stun loss.

Benefits : People might pass out and die. People will inadvertently send ways to wrong person even more.

yeah how about no.

the mental focus required to do that seems way beyond any normal beings capabilities.

I modified my post, to say what I intended more clearly.

As a counter argument, How about YES.
If you got the stun to handle it, it doesn't seem any more unrealistic than any of the other shenanigans people get up to.

can family role calls get a family-plan stun-reduction bonus?

More seriously, my own personal choice for improving Psionics is to make as little use of it as possible. Feels more and more like my characters are just using a Zalanthan AIM or something.

it is not about how much stun you have available, it is about the actual talent involved in focusing your mind to such a degree that you can split it amongst -multiple- conversations.

it is not something the average user of the way could do.

The way is very nice for iso roles -- desert elves, wilderness independents, and so on -- where some days your only form of interaction with PCs is via the way.

I wouldn't mind if the way got all funky and hard (more stun) indoors, especially in bars.

I also wouldn't mind an automatic hemote every time someone does 'contact' or 'psi', or perhaps an automatic "think I'm not a statue.  I'm not a statue.  I'm not a statue."

Before I can have a PC sit and Way four different people at once, I'd like the ability to keep Waying one person while I craft. 
If I can't Way someone while I break a large chunk of stone into smaller shards, I don't see how I should be able to juggle multiple Way conversations, no matter what my stun is.

I like to think of the Way as at least as taxing, in terms of concentration, as talking on a phone. You should be able to Way while crafting, but it should increase your chance to fail.

I suppose this would be exploitable by metagamers if they're willing to have a ditzy PC who herpderps their way to mastery.

What about if you could only contact clan and people close enough?

Puts too big a wall between new characters and getting hired.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on September 22, 2016, 07:38:56 PM
Puts too big a wall between new characters and getting hired.

Or just requires that people who want to hire people go out and look for people and be out and about.  Or that people use aide-like employees more.

I've never really bought into the 'new people need this'. It's only true for as long as we keep things as they are.  If it changes, the game activity changes to compensate.

Edit:  I don't really feel strongly for any of this at all.  But the perceived need of new characters to have some immediacy dictating the entire communication structure seems a little overblown as the best reason.

SoI just used to have some built in ways to get recruited to some clans or like have recruitment offices that could echo to certain clans.

I also like the idea of having a shorter character limit on ways, like half of what we have now.  More like telegrams than telephones.

RPTR FULL STOP PLZ HLP

Keep in mind that the problem the Way has is that it invalidates the scope of possible espionage on Zalanthas. IE there is virtually no risk to communicating via psionics because nobody can intercept that communication and nobody can know that communication ever even happened.

While I think there are a lot of cool ideas floating around here, most don't address issue above.

Making the way more difficult or more inconvenient will not fix the problem. It would just make the way a hassle to use.

I feel that whatever mechanic comes into play, should be widely available. I think anyone can be a spy, and anyone should have the basic tools needed to spy.

Quote from: Jingo on September 23, 2016, 08:49:28 AM
I feel that whatever mechanic comes into play, should be widely available. I think anyone can be a spy, and anyone should have the basic tools needed to spy.

Everyone can be a spy and everyone does have the basic tools, of which the Way is one. A really awesome one. I've read this entire thread and I can't wrap my brain around the issues you're experiencing. Can you mock up some examples for me?

I'd like a spice that heightens the Way and then snuffs it out on the comedown, so you can't contact or psi out for a bit. Drugs!

The Way sucks.

The Way is an "awesome" tool in that it allows you to communicate with absolute secrecy and considerable safety over almost any distance. It cannot be intercepted or compromised except by the rarest of individuals. It's great if you want to be that sekret mol in an organization with little chance of being caught, or the leader who has their minions communicate with them strictly via the Way (even in a face to face setting).

For people who think espionage should involve observation and passing of secret messages, with some actual risk to the spy, the Way sucks. For those who find Way roleplay to just be bland and shallow, the Way sucks.

We've talked about this before. My thoughts are largely the same.

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,50384.msg920963.html#msg920963

The Way is fine. It can really suck (mostly for others interacting with your PC), but only if you use it in an extensive or metagamey fashion. And since I can never convince anyone to apply more of a Stick to the playerbase, that's individual players' problem more than the code.

contact templar

psi the large-nosed man, you know, that guy in the black cloak? he carries spice on him, i saw it in his pack.



there is your example.

No channels and no way would be a tough sell. Sure, a few people will get their jollies on their espionage, but I think it would harm playabilit and fun.

plenty of games had decent playerbases and did not have widely accessible telekinetic powers that enabled all forms of communication with 99.9% secrecy.

one of them at one point had comparable numbers to armageddon.

they stopped being a thing only because the staff team left (after a big corruption/cheating thing).

so, take from that what you will.

Quote from: evilcabbage on September 23, 2016, 01:31:01 PM
plenty of games had decent playerbases and did not have widely accessible telekinetic powers that enabled all forms of communication with 99.9% secrecy.

one of them at one point had comparable numbers to armageddon.

they stopped being a thing only because the staff team left (after a big corruption/cheating thing).

so, take from that what you will.

Like which games?  How big was the world?  Was there channels? Was there any other kind of OOC conveniences to make up for it?

shadow of isildurs when i played it easily had 30+ players, fairly sure it hit 50ish on the regular.

there was no ooc channel apart from the same convenience arm has for ooc.

the world was -quite- large, and moving to (and) from a room had a delay on it.


so.

yeah.

It is sad that half of the PC psionists were removed from the game last year. That only leaves the other half.

Quote from: path on September 23, 2016, 11:53:51 AM

Quote from: Jingo on September 23, 2016, 08:49:28 AM
I feel that whatever mechanic comes into play, should be widely available. I think anyone can be a spy, and anyone should have the basic tools needed to spy.

Everyone can be a spy and everyone does have the basic tools, of which the Way is one. A really awesome one. I've read this entire thread and I can't wrap my brain around the issues you're experiencing. Can you mock up some examples for me?

I'd like a spice that heightens the Way and then snuffs it out on the comedown, so you can't contact or psi out for a bit. Drugs!

Functionally, the Way is (or should be) a tool of convenience to communicate over distances. More often than not it's used as a tool to communicate discretely.

Suppose you want to know what character a is up to with regard to character b. If you don't ask obliquely, then you only have one real other option and that's to stealthily follow one of them around until you get an idea. (Or get someone else to do it.) But none of that matters if they just decide the information they're sharing is too sensitive and load it up onto the The Way.

The issue is that no matter what skills of observation you have, you'll never know if they have been communicating via the way. This leads to all sorts of bizarre situations such as being able to plot someone's death right in front of them. Or with 50% of the communication in a social setting being secret way-traffic.

My favorite example: A templar once bitched out my legionaire for whispering instead of contacting him psionically. The subtext being that since there is a chance for someone hear a whisper, then it is inferior to just using psionics. At that point I remember asking myself about what the point of the whisper is if it's invalidated by psionics. Because there is no way to listen in on psionics and there is virtually no risk to sharing information that way.

Quote from: evilcabbage on September 23, 2016, 01:46:33 PM
shadow of isildurs when i played it easily had 30+ players, fairly sure it hit 50ish on the regular.

there was no ooc channel apart from the same convenience arm has for ooc.

the world was -quite- large, and moving to (and) from a room had a delay on it.


so.

yeah.

When I played, although the world was large, you had to basically join or apprentice with someone or you couldn't get much done at all. Armageddon is pretty free. You can make it economically on your own and everyone isn't forced to interact.  

SOI also been up and down a few times iirc.  So there's that.

I think people need to do a cost benefit analysis of removing the way considering the scattered nature of the playerbase. Some could argue that no way would force people to congregate more. It's possible, but I would personally hate it, and I disagree. I'm alright with mundanes having a little more powers to make waying more dangerous. Give everyone psionic listen at extremely low cap. 1 in a 100 chance someone in the room hears a way but you can't tell where it came from.

your point about joining someone does not detract from the fact that you did not need psionic communication powers to converse with people, and the playerbase is not 'that' scattered. it would be trivial for people to run from outpost to outpost delivering messages. in fact, it would give people even more to do.

Removing the Way isn't the answer. As others have said, it's too critical a tool for interaction for iso-roles, newbies, and others.

What needs addressing is the Security of the Way. The high Security of Way communications is what encourages players to make use of it in situations requiring secrecy. It's what leads to players using the Way to communicate when they're sitting at the same table.

Security of the Way tends to be an all or nothing affair. Finding ways to make that more granular would be ideal.

.

Quote from: Molten Heart on September 23, 2016, 02:19:52 PM
I may be wrong here but doesn't the existence and threat of mind benders invalidate the argument that the way is a secure mode of communication?

If this is still a problem, maybe a solution would be more mind benders.

I think people want mundanes to have more use in spying. I don't think they want more people who can spy and break plots with little to no risk to themselves.

Quote from: Delirium on September 23, 2016, 02:17:58 PM
Security of the Way tends to be an all or nothing affair. Finding ways to make that more granular would be ideal.

Agreed.

Quote from: Molten Heart on September 23, 2016, 02:19:52 PM
I may be wrong here but doesn't the existence and threat of mind benders invalidate the argument that the way is a secure mode of communication?

It should, and I encourage sponsored roles to think like this. In-character the Way should be thought of as unsecured.

But the fact of the metagame is that Mindworm characters are rare, and the skills that make the Way insecure are apparently rather late in their progression. This makes the Way a much more secure choice than other avenues of communication.

I think the problem with the way is the binary nature of its infallibility. Either you way them or not. Nothing really every goes haywire. So have, like I stated above a chance the way goes awry depending on your skill level, being drunk, wisdom and so forth and so on. On a fail, the way is echoed to someone in the room, but they can't see who it came from. HGs fail alot. Have it retconned so this is known to happen so everyone doesn't flip out. Drunk and HG ways would amuse me.

You sense the following telepathic message:
   "<INSERT SOMETHING FUNNY HERE>"

I'd love to see fails like that. I'm not sure I'd change how alcohol currently blocks the Way, however. It's the only real method we have to "prevent" someone from using the Way - I use "prevent" lightly because we have to rely on the other character's player to code-willing chug alcohol enough to blot themselves. I wonder if the new pour code allows us to force-feed people alcohol as a means to blotting their mind?

Quote
Removing the Way isn't the answer. As others have said, it's too critical a tool for interaction for iso-roles, newbies, and others.

What needs addressing is the Security of the Way. The high Security of Way communications is what encourages players to make use of it in situations requiring secrecy. It's what leads to players using the Way to communicate when they're sitting at the same table.

While I don't agree that the Way is an absolute necessity, I'm not necessarily on the side of complete removal.  I just think it needs some shaking up to address what Jingo said and what you're saying here.

I enjoy when I can stay in communication with people I enjoy playing with while out and doing other things.  But I don't enjoy that it trumps most forms of communication for most situations outside of that scenario, or some of the other uses of the Way (I really do hate the 'Are they online?' check and the 'What's your sdesc under that hood?' check).

Overall, I look for a balance that addresses these things.  I want there to be a reason for people to meet in person as much as possible when it comes to clandestine or secretive things.  I want for bodyguards to be necessary.  I want back alley meetings.  I want active spy games.  I do not want to unnecessarily make things hard, but the previous goals often make it that way (a side note:  Newbies are not dependent on the way.  Most enter the game with no knowledge of the way, and are -taught- dependence on the Way).

The increasing difficulty of its use always seemed to be the 'easiest' fix for this, despite it removing the prevalence what I often use the Way for, which is social.  But to address all the concerns while maintaining its current utility...I think there will be no easy fix, and we're going to have to brainstorm a seriously in-depth, complex system of checks and balances with it.

Edit:  Adjusted quote because for some reason part of it didn't come into this post, and it was relevant to why I responded.

Quote from: BadSkeelz on September 23, 2016, 02:38:24 PM
I'd love to see fails like that. I'm not sure I'd change how alcohol currently blocks the Way, however. It's the only real method we have to "prevent" someone from using the Way - I use "prevent" lightly because we have to rely on the other character's player to code-willing chug alcohol enough to blot themselves. I wonder if the new pour code allows us to force-feed people alcohol as a means to blotting their mind?

Alcohol is not the only method. And the pour command does open up distinct possibilities for way-blocking.

Find out more IC! :D

Quote from: KankWhisperer on September 23, 2016, 02:31:24 PM
I think the problem with the way is the binary nature of its infallibility. Either you way them or not. Nothing really every goes haywire. So have, like I stated above a chance the way goes awry depending on your skill level, being drunk, wisdom and so forth and so on. On a fail, the way is echoed to someone in the room, but they can't see who it came from. HGs fail alot. Have it retconned so this is known to happen so everyone doesn't flip out. Drunk and HG ways would amuse me.

You sense the following telepathic message:
   "<INSERT SOMETHING FUNNY HERE>"

This would be extremely awesome!  Extremely awesome.

In my humble opinion, the hermetic nature of the way has led to a lot of frustrations -- both as spy / information gatherer and also, let's be honest, as a player -- and I've done it myself: the 'statue phenomenon' where people don't (because it's hard!) emote and interact with those in the room while waying.

Personally, I would like to see adjustments that encourage face-to-face, but still allow for brief telepathic options. 

One solution is to make the way less reliable in certain situations, namely, when others are in the same room.  I love the idea of your ways sometimes being broadcast to others in the room -- this would be so very cool, and it kind of makes sense on one level of viewing telepathy magick or whatever.

Perhaps it could be a skill, like watch, that everyone has (or everyone with 'expel')...

As someone who never gets involved in the politicks and the power I always wondered why a few of the people who introduced themselves to me at my table did so over the fucking way. I would almost invariably reply to them with physical words. From now on, I will always do so. You take risks, boyo.

Quote from: Molten Heart on September 23, 2016, 02:19:52 PM
I may be wrong here but doesn't the existence and threat of mind benders invalidate the argument that the way is a secure mode of communication?

If this is still a problem, maybe a solution would be more mind benders.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: I'd be surprised if any psi has developed this ability since the lirathans were taken out. And even if they did and were in a position to intercept way messages; they are probably far more worried about getting metagamed by the powers that be to even worry about your plot.

Source: Last three psionicists I played.

I feel that a happy medium could be reached. The psionicist guild tree could definitely use splitting / enhancement. What I mean by this is allowing the 'Read Your Thoughts and Emotions' sort of Empath to be a lower karma rating (Say 5 or 6 instead of 8). They wouldn't get any offensive abilities (not that those are earth shattering currently, with Willpower being what it is). Their abilities would revolve more around passive listening to the Way and thoughts.

The downsides for Psions are already apparent. There are incredible downsides to playing the Psion, the least of which is 'you can fuck up royally at anytime if you try on a PC and then you are outed instantly'. Playing the running for your life game gets boring, quick. Their offensive abilities typically require close proximity to the target, and no ability to hide who it came from, in essence 100% outing yourself.

Having more of them around (and more of an extended subguild akin to Magick) would probably be the way i'd like to see it in the future. That makes:

*Using the Way less fool proof.
*Psions more scary (because they aren't that scary right now)
*More varying degrees of Psion, just as there are varying degrees of Magicker (Touched/Paths).

Quote from: KankWhisperer on September 23, 2016, 01:41:04 PM

Quote from: evilcabbage on September 23, 2016, 01:31:01 PM
plenty of games had decent playerbases and did not have widely accessible telekinetic powers that enabled all forms of communication with 99.9% secrecy.

one of them at one point had comparable numbers to armageddon.

they stopped being a thing only because the staff team left (after a big corruption/cheating thing).

so, take from that what you will.

Like which games?  How big was the world?  Was there channels? Was there any other kind of OOC conveniences to make up for it?

I feel the major hold up/hang up is that -- Everyone has Psionics, and almost no one can read or write.

So -- In another crazy universe where 80% of Zalanthans could read and write (or 50% or whatever), and they could use a messenger service to get messages around, the Way would be less required. The development of the Way (at least according to Dark Sun) was to give humans an advantage in an otherwise desolate world surrounded by super-buff mutant races. In ArmageddonMUD, it's obviously for the OOC convenience of seeing who's online and keeping in touch with people without needing to meet with them.

I don't think the Way should go away, I lean towards Armaddict's understanding. Alterations to make the Way less 100% reliable, increasing the difficulty of using it in certain situations or weather conditions, increasing the difficulty for a full message to be received over long distances, give a chance to randomly way your message to another PC who is online, make Psions more of a threat and a presence in the world. I think there's plenty that -could- be done. But that doesn't mean it needs to be done.

I think the example given earlier of a Templar telling a minion to Way instead of Whisper is poor meta play. We should be delighted to have our secret plots possibly overheard and foiled. We should whisper, instead of Way, and keep assuming that a cabal of Psions are listening to your every thought and Way. The more we isolate plotting / counter-plotting, the more boring the game is on the surface. The more boring it is on the surface, the less people want to play or even care about your plots.

Get plotting out in the open -- Meet in Booths, whisper, talk, say things out loud. Don't try to keep a perfectly secret plot, I think that's something we can effect as Players rather than needing to look so closely at the Way.

QuoteGet plotting out in the open -- Meet in Booths, whisper, talk, say things out loud. Don't try to keep a perfectly secret plot, I think that's something we can effect as Players rather than needing to look so closely at the Way.

I want to agree with this. And this may just be confirmation bias speaking.

But I find the leaders that do this just don't last as long, as someone who isn't interested in playing on that level invariably catches wind of what you're up to and ruins your fun by over escalating too quickly.

Quote from: Jingo on September 23, 2016, 05:42:03 PM

QuoteGet plotting out in the open -- Meet in Booths, whisper, talk, say things out loud. Don't try to keep a perfectly secret plot, I think that's something we can effect as Players rather than needing to look so closely at the Way.

I want to agree with this. And this may just be confirmation bias speaking.

But I find the leaders that do this just don't last as long as the leaders that play mother hen with their plots. But someone who isn't interested in playing on that level invariably catches wind of what you're up to and ruins your fun by over escalating too quickly.

I can understand this viewpoint.  But that's why we seem to want to end up having to enforce it with code rather than just ask players to do it.  Everyone has every incentive to play mother hen, with no incentive to share it, just like everyone not involved has incentive to discover it so that they, too, can profit in their knowledge of this event.  Sometimes it's to directly interfere.  Sometimes it's because there should be other interested parties to it.  But that is, in reality, what makes plots interesting, is the efforts made to keep it secret.  The current form just makes it much easier to that end, and leaves others twinking out in efforts to circumvent a too-effective method.  Or just being patient and selective with what they discover.  But the latter is harder to come by.

I won't forget the one time I was exposed to a meeting between people who shouldn't have a reason to meet.  So I went to that meeting place beforehand and 'posted up', eager to find out what this was all about.  To my disappointment, they sat across from each other and stared, made a couple facial expressions, then parted ways.  It was so disappointing.  I wasn't sure why they bothered meeting face to face.  Instead, I had to make do with knowledge that they were in discussion with each other...and didn't get to decide whether I wanted it to continue or not, or help, or hinder.  Instead, I had to just save it, sell that information to someone who was interested to know that those two people had meetings, and get a favor from -that- person in return.  Who knows what ended there...I didn't get a chance to decide whether or not I liked that plot.  I just had to get benefit out of it happening.  That's...kind of the catch of player involvement in player plots.  There will be people for it, and people against it, and everyone trying to push their goals along.


Complete random sidenote:  I hate the 'Are you online?' psionic checks.  Make a chance for your identity to be revealed when you contact people or something to make it have some sort of drawback.  ("Why does this guy keep entering my head and leaving?")

Yes, part of this problem too is the 'must win, must kill competition, must destroy all who oppose me' sort of attitude. It's boring.

Yeah. I agree that Reiloth is talking about THE IDEAL. But there are powerful incentives that work in the opposite direction.

Even when I discuss this thing ooc I get told that I should expect an inordinate response at the first tick of plotflict. And that it's my fault for not organizing to kill them via the easiest means possible as soon as possible in lieu of any nuanced approach.

Edit: woooo way off topics

Quote from: Reiloth on September 23, 2016, 06:01:50 PM
Yes, part of this problem too is the 'must win, must kill competition, must destroy all who oppose me' sort of attitude. It's boring.

QFT.

...that's not exactly what I was inferring, because to me that always sounds so egocentric, i.e. 'My plots are really important and you should leave them alone', thus essentially saying anyone else's interests contrasting yours are less important and should be dropped to avoid the conflict that ensues.

I was more pointing to the natural state of plotting, which is that there is inevitably an opposition to it, or else it wouldn't be a plot.  When it's players involved in player plots, everyone gets up in a dither over it because people have to actively work against each other.  The whole 'You're playing to win' argument never ceases to make me squint and wonder why a character wouldn't act in their own best interests, and why that doesn't promote progression of stories (just not necessarily yours).  It's like saying Game of Thrones is horribly written fiction because people's plots keep being ended by other players.

(Apologies if the above is out of context:  I always argue about it because I usually read it as 'Players shouldn't ever kill each other'.  If it's solely directed at frivolous wanton murder out of love of combat, then I can agree much more readily.)

Anyway.  The point was...the biggest incentive to twink out is when mechanics of the game stand directly in the path of reasonable character-story progression, and if we want more player interaction in player plots while having less divided interests (i.e. clans), then an almost infallible 'best way' to communicate is not really that helpful to anyone.  So I'd love for the Way to be one of the tweaks, even if it was gently tweaked, to see if it promotes more of an ability for more players to be exposed to even the existence of ongoing plots; one of the common things I hear is 'there's nothing to do' or 'I can't get involved', and so exposure to the personal plots that I know are rampant in the game, but well concealed, would be a good way to start shifting it the other way.

Subguild! Subguild! Subguild!  ;)

Another idea I've had was somehow recognizing who has contacted you before sending you any ways. Preventing this 'sniffing' I've read about. Or atleast giving you some warning ahead of time.

Quote from: Reiloth on September 23, 2016, 05:23:27 PM

Quote from: KankWhisperer on September 23, 2016, 01:41:04 PM

Quote from: evilcabbage on September 23, 2016, 01:31:01 PM
plenty of games had decent playerbases and did not have widely accessible telekinetic powers that enabled all forms of communication with 99.9% secrecy.

one of them at one point had comparable numbers to armageddon.

they stopped being a thing only because the staff team left (after a big corruption/cheating thing).

so, take from that what you will.

Like which games?  How big was the world?  Was there channels? Was there any other kind of OOC conveniences to make up for it?

I feel the major hold up/hang up is that -- Everyone has Psionics, and almost no one can read or write.

So -- In another crazy universe where 80% of Zalanthans could read and write (or 50% or whatever), and they could use a messenger service to get messages around, the Way would be less required. The development of the Way (at least according to Dark Sun) was to give humans an advantage in an otherwise desolate world surrounded by super-buff mutant races. In ArmageddonMUD, it's obviously for the OOC convenience of seeing who's online and keeping in touch with people without needing to meet with them.

I don't think the Way should go away, I lean towards Armaddict's understanding. Alterations to make the Way less 100% reliable, increasing the difficulty of using it in certain situations or weather conditions, increasing the difficulty for a full message to be received over long distances, give a chance to randomly way your message to another PC who is online, make Psions more of a threat and a presence in the world. I think there's plenty that -could- be done. But that doesn't mean it needs to be done.

I think the example given earlier of a Templar telling a minion to Way instead of Whisper is poor meta play. We should be delighted to have our secret plots possibly overheard and foiled. We should whisper, instead of Way, and keep assuming that a cabal of Psions are listening to your every thought and Way. The more we isolate plotting / counter-plotting, the more boring the game is on the surface. The more boring it is on the surface, the less people want to play or even care about your plots.

Get plotting out in the open -- Meet in Booths, whisper, talk, say things out loud. Don't try to keep a perfectly secret plot, I think that's something we can effect as Players rather than needing to look so closely at the Way.

I think purposefully using a less secure form of communication, for meta purposes (making everything more interesting for other people), is really no better than using it because you meta want to "win". Valid reasons could be you don't trust the way and benders, you feel you can better convince people with your charisma in person, you hate people in your head,  you are a fucking incompetent and or ignorant, and so on. So that's why I would rather it be a coded drawback instead of expecting everyone to play to lose for meta reasons.

Quote from: Jingo on September 23, 2016, 02:00:15 PM
The issue is that no matter what skills of observation you have, you'll never know if they have been communicating via the way. This leads to all sorts of bizarre situations such as being able to plot someone's death right in front of them. Or with 50% of the communication in a social setting being secret way-traffic.

I don't have an issue with this. If you and ...Kankwhisperer are sitting with me, plotting my death over the Way while we three are straight chilling, I think that's fine. It's part of the setting. Actually, I think that makes for a crazy rad scene! I was cleaning up a similar scene today where psionics played in pitch perfectly. As far as the theoretical and sometimes higher 50% of communication being done over the Way, I'm actually fine with that too. I think it's a really cool feature of the game world.

As an aside, I do also use whisper and I'd be happy to see a gradation of psionic subs, though I'd be sorry if we lost our psionic main guild. I'm not super psyched about intercept. Can you show me how you think a cool scene would play out with that?

Is it possible the real issue is you feel you've been party to what you'd deem unfair use of the Way -or- you're feeling left out of plots you'd like to have revealed?

Authentic Way-only same-table Zalanthan conversation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tl1qBLzApQ

This is how silly you look.

Quote from: path on September 23, 2016, 09:26:06 PM

Quote from: Jingo on September 23, 2016, 02:00:15 PM
The issue is that no matter what skills of observation you have, you'll never know if they have been communicating via the way. This leads to all sorts of bizarre situations such as being able to plot someone's death right in front of them. Or with 50% of the communication in a social setting being secret way-traffic.

I don't have an issue with this. If you and ...Kankwhisperer are sitting with me, plotting my death over the Way while we three are straight chilling, I think that's fine. It's part of the setting. Actually, I think that makes for a crazy rad scene! I was cleaning up a similar scene today where psionics played in pitch perfectly. As far as the theoretical and sometimes higher 50% of communication being done over the Way, I'm actually fine with that too. I think it's a really cool feature of the game world.

As an aside, I do also use whisper and I'd be happy to see a gradation of psionic subs, though I'd be sorry if we lost our psionic main guild. I'm not super psyched about intercept. Can you show me how you think a cool scene would play out with that?

Is it possible the real issue is you feel you've been party to what you'd deem unfair use of the Way -or- you're feeling left out of plots you'd like to have revealed?

It's a broken mechanic that leads to suspect/boring roleplay. That's why I don't like it.

I think the real question is why do you feel the way shouldn't have risk? Armageddon is in part a competitive game, why should there be only one correct option from an entire toolbox? And secondly why should I play a character that ever uses whisper (a way to communicate with risk) in that game? Why should I attempt to spy on anyone (an activity that has risk), knowing that I won't succeed if they use this mechanic?

i dont think basic psionics among mundanes are an issue at all...

Quote from: Jingo on September 23, 2016, 10:39:47 PM

Quote from: path on September 23, 2016, 09:26:06 PM

Quote from: Jingo on September 23, 2016, 02:00:15 PM
The issue is that no matter what skills of observation you have, you'll never know if they have been communicating via the way. This leads to all sorts of bizarre situations such as being able to plot someone's death right in front of them. Or with 50% of the communication in a social setting being secret way-traffic.

I don't have an issue with this. If you and ...Kankwhisperer are sitting with me, plotting my death over the Way while we three are straight chilling, I think that's fine. It's part of the setting. Actually, I think that makes for a crazy rad scene! I was cleaning up a similar scene today where psionics played in pitch perfectly. As far as the theoretical and sometimes higher 50% of communication being done over the Way, I'm actually fine with that too. I think it's a really cool feature of the game world.

As an aside, I do also use whisper and I'd be happy to see a gradation of psionic subs, though I'd be sorry if we lost our psionic main guild. I'm not super psyched about intercept. Can you show me how you think a cool scene would play out with that?

Is it possible the real issue is you feel you've been party to what you'd deem unfair use of the Way -or- you're feeling left out of plots you'd like to have revealed?

It's a broken mechanic that leads to suspect/boring roleplay. That's why I don't like it.

I think the real question is why do you feel the way shouldn't have risk? Armageddon is in part a competitive game, why should there be only one correct option from an entire toolbox? And secondly why should I play a character that ever uses whisper (a way to communicate with risk) in that game? Why should I attempt to spy on anyone (an activity that has risk), knowing that I won't succeed if they use this mechanic?

I do think it has risk. I think the low amount of risk is has is cool. Having my Ways go everywhere sounds like chaos. I've been Way'd junk people should probably have asked consent for.  A lot of the time it's used for boring purposes but that's really good too, because Arm is such a time suck and I need to be able to conduct several conversations simultaneously to keep things moving.

It's a competitive and cooperative game, yes. You should use whisper when you feel it would be appropriate for your character to do so, without the meta standpoint, but via roleplay. I'm not sorry for you that the Templar yelled at your character. He's playing his own persona who has his own ideas about how business should be conducted and he was giving you insight into them. In my experience these things change depending on who I'm playing with and how the Known is at the time, and Jingo - that's so cool too! I love it that the world has times of higher paranoia about mindbenders and times when it's more worried about flesh and blood spies.

Spying on people using the method you mentioned, shadowing them, can yield lots of information and maybe not the information you need. It's not the only way to spy, though. You can seduce their lover, you can befriend them. You can send someone else to befriend them. You can pay off someone in their employ. You can pay someone more important to speak with them sternly.

Jingo, THESE methods have risk and lead to fantastically interesting plotlines. You're so smart. I don't believe you actually need to hear what someone's Waying to know when you're in danger. I think you can pick up on their tells from their phrasing. If you can't, then to return to your earlier plot of someone dying. Well, you die! By PK! Which is the best way to die.

sometimes it literally is a blanket

Welcome to Armageddon!

and not a phrasing thing. people will intentionally phrase things to make sure you are not going to die, in such a way that no hint is given, with no hemotes whatsoever in relation to it.

they intentionally remain vague emotionally so that you don't feel like you are in danger.

Quote from: evilcabbage on September 24, 2016, 08:33:24 AM
sometimes it literally is a blanket

Welcome to Armageddon!

and not a phrasing thing. people will intentionally phrase things to make sure you are not going to die, in such a way that no hint is given, with no hemotes whatsoever in relation to it.

they intentionally remain vague emotionally so that you don't feel like you are in danger.

Agree. It's not all about Jingo's ability to suss out the situation. Sometimes they're more reserved than usual and it could just be that they're distracted OOC. Sometimes people don't roleplay at all before you're killed. Bam. Knife to back. While it's really fun to have the opportunity to roleplay with someone who's willing to allow for their character's failure, I don't think there's a problem with any of these methods.

Where did you misplace your third person perspective?

This all seems to be coming down to your concerns that people don't roleplay as you wish they would. As far as I can tell, people are doing their best.

refer to mafia:

cabbages post in third person when they feel like it.

Not sure how this became all about Jingo exactly.  But he's mirroring thoughts that have been discussed for a few pages now, and as far as I can see, he hasn't yet made a post that is directed at anyone in particular, so it's kind of strange that he's being called out as the one not seeing the big picture of your responses.

I very much see the big picture.  I'm very deeply embroiled in intrigue in the game, because I am a player who does believe that a lot of characters will fight to the top of a body pile, against other people climbing and adding to the same pile.  While not necessarily directly competitive, it often crumbles this way just because people are, again, pushing their own goals and agendas which oftimes need to be protected from other characters doing the same.  And I, despite not having an altogether strong feeling for the Way in particular, do have a strong feeling that plotting/intriguing in the game could use some love/adjustment, for reasons that have been scattered throughout the thread by various facets of discussion that essentially come down to an overall increased exposure to the goings on of our fellow characters, and thus more opportunity for us to impact each other if we're looking for ways to do so.

QuoteSpying on people using the method you mentioned, shadowing them, can yield lots of information and maybe not the information you need. It's not the only way to spy, though. You can seduce their lover, you can befriend them. You can send someone else to befriend them. You can pay off someone in their employ. You can pay someone more important to speak with them sternly.

These are all true (aside from the seducing them part.  That is wildly unsuccessful for the most part, for the same reason that people don't go behind locked doors.  Coercion and intimidation work far better in our code-world, despite often being ruined by...the Way)  However, none are anywhere near as effective at uncovering information as the Way is at keeping it.  If you need to keep multiple conversations going at once, that's well and good.  That doesn't have to be taken away.  That's why the compromise to security was being discussed.  It retains that utility while still making the Way a less reliable means of holding secrets dear, and forcing more interesting roleplay in lieu of long-distance instantaneous secret conveyance.

While I won't be worked up if change doesn't happen, I don't find your posts absolutely compelling on why gentle tweaks to it (not complete removal, or making it chaos, as you exaggerated it to) would negatively impact anyone.  I see only bonuses to it being mildly harder to maintain, or with a slight chance of insecurity without dependence on there being an 8 karma player/special app around who actually cares to eavesdrop.  The latter is -not- a risk, which you're very well aware of, because you, too, are smart and experienced.  The instances of that happening outside of tuluk are rare.

Altogether, the shift away from 'I need a mindbender to uncover the plans of my enemies' to 'I need a good spy to keep tabs on them until their plans are revealed' is a bonus in my eyes.  While the latter is still far from infallible, and still requires some smarts...keeping things as they are pushes nothing but:
1) A 'requirement' for a hated class, giving incentive for people to see the usefulness of them rather than follow the documentation (which has happened many times through the course of the game, as you know), and
2) Incentive for those trying to fulfill the spy role to be pigeonholed into undesirable behavior, such as shadowing into places that people don't think shadowing should be possible.  You simply can't afford to miss one of the few times where the Way isn't being used, unless you are a character with no stakes involved who is only curious and gathering information at large for later use.

QuoteI think the real question is why do you feel the way shouldn't have risk?

Jingo's question here wasn't really addressed.  It was deflected.  I'm curious as well. Why are even gentle tweaks to the Way to -lower-, rather than eliminate, its viability for plotting something that brings a serious detriment to the game?  Altogether, I think minor tweaks to its security, or a slightly less mild to how it taxes the character using it (Perhaps making 'suffer from the way' a bigger deal, so that shorter messages and contacts become the rule), aren't terrible things to at least experiment with and see how it impacts things.

Or maybe we'll find another way, as a playerbase or as a staff project.

So, at least in Dark Sun, psionists came about in order to give humans an edge. That's like saying midgets were created to give humans an edge, because that's about how common they are. That part, doesn't make sense to me. It seems to me like you could fix two things at once (if psionists originated as a race saver) by allowing for partial psionists of some sort. People who are useful for information-gathering, but are nothing compared to a true psionicist. (How do you spell that?) I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to learn how to give human minds a couple of extra weaker psionic abilities if they -created a whole race, with breeding and everything- with magick in the distant past.

One I'd like to see is (never had a real one, by the way) being able to toggle an ability to catch between 1-20% of ways depending on how good you are with it. That way, you'd KNOW that nasty elf was actually a rinthi with plans of some sort and then Merchant Mal is really disappointed but you'd have to add those tidbits to what the aide found out for half a picture to form.

I think it's dreadfully easy to avoid the question of 'Why make the Way risk free'? Because the Way is incredibly useful, and people don't want to mess with or potentially change that utility.

The thing is, the Way being as it stands is yet another incongruity with the 'harshness' of the world. Just as water should be a scarce commodity, but rarely is, the instant communication across the entire Known World flies in the face of 'Murder, Corruption, and Betrayal'. It is an OOC convenience to make our lives easier, in a MUD that doesn't have OOC channels to communicate. It mirrors Dark Sun, as it does in many ways, in that humans in particular developed psionic powers to combat the terrible onslaught of the wastes, a sort of evolution. This is explained by Humans being the only race that can be Psionicists.

However, by removing the Tuluki Templarate, we now have probably 1-3 Psions in the game. Those that can listen to the Way or thoughts are probably 0-1.

That is a risk free environment.

Quote from: Reiloth on September 23, 2016, 06:01:50 PM
Yes, part of this problem too is the 'must win, must kill competition, must destroy all who oppose me' sort of attitude. It's boring.

Quote from: path on September 24, 2016, 08:45:31 AM
This all seems to be coming down to your concerns that people don't roleplay as you wish they would. As far as I can tell, people are doing their best.

Some don't even try. For them this game is not about telling a story or setting a scene. For them, It's about expressing their dominance through use of mechanics. And my only recourse is to find a way to play around them or have some systems changed.

Quote from: Jingo on September 24, 2016, 03:16:25 PM

Quote from: path on September 24, 2016, 08:45:31 AM
This all seems to be coming down to your concerns that people don't roleplay as you wish they would. As far as I can tell, people are doing their best.

Some don't even try. For them this game is not about telling a story or setting a scene. For them, It's about expressing your dominance through use of mechanics. And my only recourse is to find a way to play around them or have some systems changed.

Another reason I rue the absence of Tuluk. It was a nice way to avoid an area for a few months until people died off or the scenery changed enough to come back to something unrecognizable. Now it feels like watching Cheers.

If we could completely redesign it, I'd make the Way more like a passive pool.

Person A sends messages.  Person B uses a very taxing 'check in' to the thought pool to pull out the thoughts sent to him. (Voicemails!)
Person B gets intense, sits down, enters a very taxing, high concentration state(i.e. 'You start receiving...' that is broken by action, but not psionics) to receive messages in real time. (Phone talking)
Occasionally, thoughts get tied up with other thoughts and get pulled out by the wrong person, and occasionally, duplicate thoughts are made so that multiple people receive them. (<1% of cases).
Mindbender A can sift through the passive pool, but has to enter an active concentration (i.e. 'You start listening in...' that is broken by action), very taxing state to monitor it to see who the thoughts are going to.

But that's what I meant by it getting complex quickly if we wanted to actually make it a really dynamic sort of thing.  In lieu of that, I think small chances of 'misfire' establish that middle ground to make the Way still just as useful to everyone but also foster more care and intrigue (Social and inconsequential things aren't a big deal to be misfired.  Only secrets are.)

I'd rather just implement the 'distance = harder' scale, and make it a more taxing process in general. The predictability of stun loss per psi, for instance, could be more variable. Passing out from overusing the Way is most certainly the only danger I can perceive currently.

I keep agreeing with that, but then I keep getting irritated at the whole 'Waying across the table to avoid saying it out loud' thing.

yes, the whole... sitting at a table, waying each other...

well, we probably all do it, but it would be nice if sometimes the way did something odd, like have a small chance to just send to other people other than your target - within a small area. that way, you might have wayed your plot to assassinate a templar to your buddy... and the militia soldier that happens to be sitting at the bar.



but that sort of failure would not give your desc, just you talking. and if you happen to namedrop your buddy while you do it? well, heh.

that is the price you pay!

Thats all well and good, but the time some people had their thoughts occasionally spoken out loud as says... I know a couple of them just stored or found a way to stop playing for a while to avoid the consequences.


If I'm in the Gaj, waying the person next to me about killing Templar Hardnose, and the AoD PC at the bar has ANY chance of hearing it? And I KNOW he can? I'm just going to do it a room away.

Quote from: Riev on September 24, 2016, 04:13:36 PM
Thats all well and good, but the time some people had their thoughts occasionally spoken out loud as says... I know a couple of them just stored or found a way to stop playing for a while to avoid the consequences.


If I'm in the Gaj, waying the person next to me about killing Templar Hardnose, and the AoD PC at the bar has ANY chance of hearing it? And I KNOW he can? I'm just going to do it a room away.

Lame. Loosetongue was one of my favorite things on Lantry.

Quote from: Riev on September 24, 2016, 04:13:36 PM
Thats all well and good, but the time some people had their thoughts occasionally spoken out loud as says... I know a couple of them just stored or found a way to stop playing for a while to avoid the consequences.


If I'm in the Gaj, waying the person next to me about killing Templar Hardnose, and the AoD PC at the bar has ANY chance of hearing it? And I KNOW he can? I'm just going to do it a room away.

We could get rid of people who don't want to deal with their characters' infallibility being done away with? I don't see how this is a problem.

Is there no way to have a conversation on this forum without pissing and moaning about other players?

It's the same discussion of etiquette that comes up every time the player has to make the conscience choice of "If I take choice A I am putting the character I am invested in at risk." Or "If I take choice B I will minimize the risk to my character."

It's been seen about PK mentality, emoting before attacking and such quite offen. Fleeing and setting run to take off like a coked up erdlu despite injury. Skill grinding for the sole purpose of point gain. Some use labels of Metagaming and that's fine. If you put a player in the position where they have to make a coded choice that effects their characters then of course many will take the safest option. Less "You're doing it wrong." And more "We do things differently but that is ok." would be far more constructive imo.

Quote from: RogueGunslinger on September 24, 2016, 05:11:53 PM
Is there no way to have a conversation on this forum without pissing and moaning about other players?

Hate to say it, but if all players had the same standards there wouldn't be a need for this conversation.

There's a lot of "yeah, conflict is great" around here, but the problem is there's also a lot of players that only like conflict when they're winning.

Eventually some of them evolve into players who are willing to be on the losing side, for the sake of creating fun and telling a story.

Please don't discuss mechanics of psionics in this thread (or in general).

I figured that would happen, but this discussion is basically a straw man for people who don't have the knowledge of Psionics, and those that do are sworn to secrecy and silence.

And to add fuel to the fire, staff don't seem interested in enforcing psionic conditions on players that don't want to roleplay it.

So you're stuck in this bizarre roleplay catch 22.

Find players you oocly know will react appropriately to psionic thinks and feels. Or use them on players who might ignore them or attempt to out you for them.

Edit: Oh yeah. And potentially lose your karma because staff don't like how you respond to a lose-lose-lose situation.  ::)

For Mundanes, while I love the idea of having a way to speak without being heard (by people who care) 80% of the time, I would rather see scenes where people who are putting themselves in danger be in danger during those scenes.
My suggestions are:
- cap every mundane's contact at apprentice. (I put this one first because I hate the biased opinions that sometimes come up, but at the same time, they make me giggle. That being suggested, here is what I would want the ''levels'' of contact to look like. -- or rather, I would post it if it weren't an idea of how the mechanics of the skill.
***
anyway. If we made it so that every mundane was only mediocre at the way, those who are supposed to be superior will actually be much scarier.
giving witches actual guilds has made them potentially much scarier.
if you give mind witches guilds /and/ made mundane, non-templar-ish people suck in /their/ speciality... they'd be frightening.
----
And of course, here's why I would want this stated clearly;
I don't want to see people sit down at a table and stare at each other if they've come to meet secretly. And I think 40-50 stun damage is enough to get one good, "I need help with this and that or this that and the other right now" sort of thing even in a some dire situations. ... admittedly. Not all of them.
-----------
More suggestions:
- contact during combat: In this suggestion, the dynamics of how contact work change, and we can do that because we control the code and it isn't impossible to make things fun, playable and realistic all at the same time.
---During combat: You can find someone's mind at the same cost, but your stun max will drop twenty points! Losing 40 - 50 during this combat will seem like more of a risk now, but... if you wanted to you could still speak sweet nothings to your sweetheart back home.
-barrier during combat: you find protect your mind during combat for the cost of thirty of your stun!!

I've got more to say, but I erased it all once already...

For psionicists: I've never played one. But I should.

-Make them harder to detect. Totally possible to do so and doesn't make them any more powerful, it just makes them less weak. More lucky, less weak.
-give them a spying skill
-- if they already have a spying skill make it come sooner than later
------unless the problem is in the practicing of the skills. In which case, being harder to detect will ease this pain.

.

Quote from: Molten Heart on September 29, 2016, 02:36:01 PM
Create a chance for individual wild psionic talents to be applied to human characters after character generation, or even when rerolling. This would open up the possibilitiy of "mundane" characters being able to spy on the way and a whole bunch of other things. Open it up for any, if not all of the psionicist abilities.

If that happened and we still had the current view on psionics people would get executed for 'being a mind worm' while not being a mind worm.

.

Than it isn't really a wild talent.


If everyone had wild talents people would have to believe psions were less 'deadly' or there would need to be a full proof way for a templar/soldier to just
"Yep thats a psion"

Otherwise people would just get killed for using some stupid psionic ability that a bunch of other people have.

Quote from: Molten Heart on September 29, 2016, 04:17:48 PM

Quote from: Jihelu on September 29, 2016, 03:45:56 PM

Quote from: Molten Heart on September 29, 2016, 02:36:01 PM
Create a chance for individual wild psionic talents to be applied to human characters after character generation, or even when rerolling. This would open up the possibility of "mundane" characters being able to spy on the way and a whole bunch of other things. Open it up for any, if not all of the psionicist abilities.

If that happened and we still had the current view on psionics people would get executed for 'being a mind worm' while not being a mind worm.

Yes, wild psionic talents would make people mindbenders. Some would probably get caught, especially if they used those abilities.

I'm a big fan of wild talents. I think the staff should deal them out as they see fit, instead of having a random generator, but still. Yes.

I'm not totally against wild talents, but the argument against doesn't stick for me. Anyone using a skill that isn't the basic psionics 'everyone' gets WOULD be a mindbender. If "more" people starting developing these talents? Kill them before it happens more and more often!

The argument that "people who aren't psis would be killed" is fine. People that aren't magickers are killed because a stiff breeze knocked off a noble's hat. I once had a character banished from Tuluk because a Nilazi was fucking with the Legions and I was AROUND AT THE TIME.

If, at generation, everyone got psionic shit then everyone would be psionic and we would have to mass execute everyone.

If it were like
Every 1 out of 10 characters you just randomly got some psionic shit and it wasn't as rare, IE: You know ic not to go flaunting it, I'd be fine with it.



I just don't want to get behind the idea of "Everyone gets psionics but if you use them templars cut your head off"

Quote from: Jihelu on September 29, 2016, 08:18:52 PM

I just don't want to get behind the idea of "Everyone gets psionics but if you use them templars cut your head off"

Please report to the nearest termination booth for immediate debriefing, citizen.

Quote from: Narf on September 29, 2016, 09:22:23 PM

Quote from: Jihelu on September 29, 2016, 08:18:52 PM

I just don't want to get behind the idea of "Everyone gets psionics but if you use them templars cut your head off"

Please report to the nearest termination booth for immediate debriefing, citizen.

You misspelled the pyramid.

.

Quote from: Jihelu on September 29, 2016, 08:18:52 PM
If, at generation, everyone got psionic shit then everyone would be psionic and we would have to mass execute everyone.

If it were like
Every 1 out of 10 characters you just randomly got some psionic shit and it wasn't as rare, IE: You know ic not to go flaunting it, I'd be fine with it.



I just don't want to get behind the idea of "Everyone gets psionics but if you use them templars cut your head off"

1 out of every 10 means any random new player could end up with a random psi power, not realize it's something most people don't have (since he's new) and end up ganked for attempting to use a skill on his skills list, just to see what it did.

Sorry - I vote no.

Not to mention this is one of those "so astoundingly rare, dangerous, and icly freaky" things that I really truly believe would take away from its freakiness, rarety, and danger, and mystery, and wow factor, if any random character out of 10 could end up with one.

I still think the expel skill should've been kept with psionicists and not with just anyone though - so I'm a hold back to the "bad ole days."

requirement of at least 5 or 10 characters played, or 1 karma before such things start kicking?

just about everyone can get 1 karma.

As a real question...

Is the best way to lower the prevalence/lower the security of psionics to give out more psionics, by most people's opinion?

That's not snarky.  That's an actual question.  I was in the boat of making them harder/less secure, but establishing that by making more people psi-capable seems ripe for unintended consequences.

I'd prefer we keep with the armageddon 'mentality' of low psionics, low meaning not many available as opposed to contact/barrier/expel, and have everyone hate it.


IF we were to have more psionics for everyone I'd rather we change that mentality.
Though I'd rather we not change at all.

Staff mentioned that it is supposed to be easy for mundanes to use basic psionics due to having used them all their lives. That's why we start with master contact I believe. Course, as with anything, they might retcon this if you yell hard enough.

I'm of the belief that Psionics should not be more ubiquitous, for reasons mentioned above. Magick, and Psionics, should be more rare, more scary, and more powerful.

I dont think Psionicists are dangerous or scary. They are annoying, at best.

I do think Magickers are still scary. Maybe not 'as powerful', though I would argue having a full main guild and a spattering of spells could make you more deadly. I haven't experimented much with this, so have to rely on the Code Guru's experience.

You're not wrong about them magickers being deadlier. But it's more about having a magickal sub that compliments the mundane guild well and less about the actual magick. They're basically a ranger/warrior/whatever with a few x-men powers.

I thought I'd never say this.



Psionics would be cooler if it were broken up into subguilds.

I don't know that I agree. I already feel bad for the players of Psionicists. It has such a high difficulty already, I don't really think making their endgame weaker is really a thing we'd want.

Quote from: th3kaiser on September 30, 2016, 05:11:24 PM
I don't know that I agree. I already feel bad for the players of Psionicists. It has such a high difficulty already, I don't really think making their endgame weaker is really a thing we'd want.

I agree -- If anything, I would like the subguilds to be as powerful as a full psion, with just different foci.

If you have a secret to keep (and are a responsible roleplayer), psionicists are terrifying.

That's all I'll say about that, I guess.

Quote from: Delirium on September 30, 2016, 09:09:52 PM
If you have a secret to keep (and are a responsible roleplayer), psionicists are terrifying.

That's all I'll say about that, I guess.

I feel really happy I'm not alone in finding psionics still relevant and scary right now.

Quote from: Delirium on September 30, 2016, 09:09:52 PM
(and are a responsible roleplayer)

Shit. That's a pretty high bar to set.

Quote from: Patuk on October 01, 2016, 09:47:25 AM

Quote from: Delirium on September 30, 2016, 09:09:52 PM
(and are a responsible roleplayer)

Shit. That's a pretty high bar to set.

Patuk, you're so jaded! Sit down. Have some tea with me, my darling. Our playerbase is what makes this game. They are the pulse and the blood.