Contact and Psionics

[Kalden]

I recently, around a couple months ago, told someone OOCly that my old character could not be contacted anymore, hinting that he was dead. I got a little reprimand from a staffer, but I'd like to discuss this. People would have known I was dead, after trying to contact me about five times.

I don't think people really realize the far-ranging effect that psionics would have on a society. There are no search parties, no "missing" people, and it's very difficult to run or hide from anyone. People can harrass you from the far ends of the earth, barraging your mind with insults. You can never be truly alone and private unless you put up a barrier, and I don't think people really realize it.

When a person dies, realistically, the people who try to contact him/her should know. When a person is online and available, you can usually contact him within your first or second try. That proves that contacting people is never really difficult, and if you try long enough, you'll contact the person.

Amusingly enough, I've witnessed people talking about their "lost" friends who they haven't seen. Huh? Why dontcha contact 'em? If you get 'em, they're alive, if you don't, they're dead. That's what makes sense. No search parties, no asking around about your friends.

It's pretty impossible to make this work exactly right, but it is something to think about.

[Kalden]

Right now there's an ICly inexplicable impossibility of contacting a person when they're offline, and then its suddenly very easy when they get online. You can try for ten times when they're offline and get nothing, but get them ten times in a row when they're online.

Psionic static?

Maybe there should be some sort of "psionic" mail, where you can leave messages that your character sent and the person should have received, had they been online.

[crymerci]

I don't think people really realize the far-ranging effect that psionics would have on a society. There are no search parties, no "missing" people, and it's very difficult to run or hide from anyone, since there is the trace command. People can harrass you from the far ends of the earth, barraging your mind with insults. You can never be truly alone and private unless you put up a barrier, and I don't think people really realize it.

I agree that it is hard to 'disappear', much less take on a new identity.  

Also, I wish that barrier worked better (or maybe it does now, or maybe the character I used it with was deficient or something) because it seems to pop pretty easily, the times I've used it.

What is the "trace command"?

When a person dies, realistically, the people who try to contact him/her should know. When a person is online and available, you can usually contact him within your first or second try. That proves that contacting people is never really difficult, and if you try long enough, you'll contact the person.

Amusingly enough, I've witnessed people talking about their "lost" friends who they haven't seen. Huh? Why dontcha contact 'em? If you get 'em, they're alive, if you don't, they're dead. That's what makes sense. No search parties, no asking around about your friends.

It's pretty impossible to make this work exactly right, but it is something to think about.

I don't think it's possible to tell the difference between someone whose character is dead and someone who isn't logged in. There are plenty of people who just stop logging in for weeks at a time, or whose playing times change.  There's no point in making assumptions.

Furthermore, I think it's silly to use (solely) the Way to determine whether or not someone is dead. If you haven't been able to contact someone in a month AND no one has seen them, then maybe they might be dead.  But people are always showing up that others had thought might be dead. I think that's a lot more realistic than saying "I can't reach Bob's mind, therefore he must be dead."

Yes, it is hard to explain why you can't reach someone when they're logged off. However, there's a lot of things that are hard to explain when someone is logged off.

[Barzalene]

I don't advocate that we all become ostriches, but I think some things are better not looked at too closely. I don't want to be able to use psionics to tell things about pc's my pc wouldn't know.

If the argument is your pc would know because if you can't find someone's mind, then we hit playability vs reality and I'd rather find some excuse for why this isn't so.

After all if we can tell from the way who is and isn't dead why not post  it on the message boards.


I think the changing identity question is far more interesting. Unfortunately, I have nothing intelligent to say on that matter. I'm looking forward to seeing other people's take on that one.

[Marauder Moe]

I always figured that ICly the Way has its own 'weather'.  Just like the storms on Zalanthas, sometimes its easy to find someone's mind, sometimes its impossible.  Though usually if you can see the person you're trying to contact its easier.  Its unreliable and unpredictable, and anyone saying otherwise might be a 'bender and should be put to death.  :wink:

[Rindan]

I personally always viewed contact as a very fickle thing.  Most of the time it flat out doesn't work.  True, it might be just because that person is logged, but I take that as meaning ICly contact is utterly unreliable.  When it works, great.  When it doesn't, well, that is just the way it is.  You could go for months and never contact a person, then be able to do it five times in a row.

In your case, what might have been a better way of suggesting that your character is missing would be to e-mail your clan imm and have him make it clear through NPCs and what not that your character has not been seen.  He could still be alive, but he isn't virtually there.  Whatever the case, I would let the clan imm do it and not do it yourself.

There is a very good reason for this, and perhaps someone can post that old story.  Basically, the quick and dirty version of the story goes like this.  One day a delfier learns how to make a fake copy of another person.  The delfier starts to use this copy for his own ends.  The real person dies.  The delfier keeps using this fake copy.  As far as everyone is concerned, the guy is still alive because they see him wandering around on occasion.  The person who died ends up telling everyone that he died.  Thus the plot is ruined because suddenly everyone knows that the person wandering around who looks like him is a fake.

In other words, just don't do it.  E-mail a clan imm and tell him if you have one.  Other wise, let them slowly come to the conclusion themselves that you have vanished and are probably dead.

[flurry]

Could you people with mindbendery skill knowledge keep that to yourself, please?     Some of us like to be surprised.

[Anonymous]

Could you people with mindbendery skill knowledge keep that to yourself, please?     Some of us like to be surprised.

I agree.  If you can't do 'help' on a skill, it shouldn't be discussed.

[crymerci]

Could you people with mindbendery skill knowledge keep that to yourself, please?     Some of us like to be surprised.

Ditto.

[Kalden]

Sorry, I mixed up command with the other similiar command. I won't say it, but in my experience, it does not have to be on your skill list to work. I remember seeing both of those in the helpfiles.

You could go for months and never contact a person, then be able to do it five times in a row.

Of course, you're just saying that as an excuse for people logged off. Realistically, if you went for two days just trying to contact someone whenever you built up the strength to try it, you -would- contact them if they existed. I'll make that excuse, even if it doesn't make complete sense.

The delfier starts to use this copy for his own ends. The real person dies. The delfier keeps using this fake copy. As far as everyone is concerned, the guy is still alive because they see him wandering around on occasion. The person who died ends up telling everyone that he died. Thus the plot is ruined because suddenly everyone knows that the person wandering around who looks like him is a fake.

That doesn't apply, and I'd never heard that magickers can do that. Are you giving out magicker secrets here or something?

Part of what I was just saying that psionics aren't just for "chatting" with people, and the skill would have far reaching consequences in the world. Besides knowing whether people are alive or dead, harrassing people would be big. Could get a gang together and spew scathing, emotionally striking insults at your victim 24/7, cluttering their mind. Protests, rebellions, ect, all could be done with psionics. Think of a hundred people, all contacting their poor victimized, uh, Tuluki with dark threats and anger.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I mixed up the trace command with the other similiar command. I won't say it, but in my experience, it does not have to be on your skill list to work. I remember seeing both of those in the helpfiles.

You *used* to be able to do help psi_skill even if you weren't a bender.  That got fixed like two years ago.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

I'd never heard that magickers can do that. Are you giving out magicker secrets here or something?

Rindan was summarizing a classic tale of OOC plot-ruining that has been recounted countless times on the GDB. The first time I believe it was told was by an Imm on the old GDB. So if you hadn't heard it from Rindan, you would have heard it from some one else eventually.

[Carnage]

Quote:
The delfier starts to use this copy for his own ends. The real person dies. The delfier keeps using this fake copy. As far as everyone is concerned, the guy is still alive because they see him wandering around on occasion. The person who died ends up telling everyone that he died. Thus the plot is ruined because suddenly everyone knows that the person wandering around who looks like him is a fake.  

That doesn't apply, and I'd never heard that magickers can do that. Are you giving out magicker secrets here or something?

Look somewhere on the old GDB archives, it's a post by Thanatos.. A story like this -did- happen. It was a dwarf defiler named Freil who was going to do this, but OOC communication ruined the entire plot.

[Myrdryn]

I believe this is the post that people are talking about http://www.armageddon.org/HyperNews/get/general-archive1996/7.html

[House Rising Sun]

You can get the wrong person via contact in a few ways:
-The same keyword
-The same name
This is purely a code thing. Or is it?
We're all different. Everyone is different. But if you look at enough people, you realize there are only a bunch of copies of a limited number of real people walking around. If you don't know someone -very- intimately (or even if you do) it's easy to pair them up with another person that is so very similar.

The point of that is, that it -must- be easy for someone using the way to find the wrong mind. How do you do it anyway? Name? Keyword? No, you just think really hard about the person you are trying to find. So what if you just can't think of enough specifics, or forget his face? You might very well come up with someone you've never met, that just happens to be similar.

Or, you just can't remember that one certain look on his face or the way she reacts to teasing. That one little detail slips, and you -just can't- connect. There's your explaination for why the way doesn't work when characters are offline, or why using the way to determine if someone is dead would be unreliable.

I'm probably not wrong, if being me is any indication of who I am.

[Rindan]

Of course, you're just saying that as an excuse for people logged off. Realistically, if you went for two days just trying to contact someone whenever you built up the strength to try it, you -would- contact them if they existed. I'll make that excuse, even if it doesn't make complete sense.

Realistic nothing.  The way it works ICly is that you can't contact people for days, weeks, and sometimes months.  Is it due to the fact that they are OOCly off line?  Sure.  Might as well use that fact as a good excuse not to make a world where the ability to contact rules the world.  I really wouldn't like it if when I tried to contact a dead person I got, "you can't contact him, he is dead."

Simply saying that the way is fickle helps alleviate making everyone able to automatically tell if all their friends are dead or alive.  Within clans this really is not much of an issue.  You can simply ask the clan imm if a person is missing ICly or virtually there, but just logged off.  Outside of a clan things are a little more hazy if someone is dead or simply not around.  That isn't a bad thing.

Following that link someone posted to that story will explain why it is bad to tell people that you are dead.

[Silent Bob]

I myself think the way is too powerful.  It should not go as far as it does in range.  I could think maybe you could talk to someone in the same room, or maybe the same town with effort or perhaps an outside area next to your own, but across a planet landscape?  It should cost a heck of a lot more to contact Joe in the north while sitting at a bar in the south.  The distance and number of people about you have to ignore to find Joe should be a greater expenditutre of effort and energy than to think to Joe across a room.

[Overone]

I myself think the way is too powerful. It should not go as far as it does in range. I could think maybe you could talk to someone in the same room, or maybe the same town with effort or perhaps an outside area next to your own, but across a planet landscape? It should cost a heck of a lot more to contact Joe in the north while sitting at a bar in the south. The distance and number of people about you have to ignore to find Joe should be a greater expenditutre of effort and energy than to think to Joe across a room.

I'm not too sure.  Distances people are away from eachother is fairly 3-dimensional and who's to say that the minds on this world and the way we use the Way has to exist within these 3 dimensions?  Perhaps distance does not exist in the plane where our minds communicate with each other.  heh.

[creeper386]

For the most part, I'm going to have to agree with Rindan. Overall I acctually hate having a mix of IC and OOC knowledge, but it's the best way I see to do it to make everyone at least alittle happy. As the next best thing is to drastically reduce/get rid of the way altogether for the normal people, which would be a sad thing.

As for the distance, most likely it'd depend on disturbance. Contacting someone just outside the city and contacting someone all the way in the north when your in the south is probably going to be the same as there isn't going to be much disturbance in the wastelands. Specially since animal minds work differently. You also have to consider, the known world is pretty damn small. It still takes awhile to travel around in it, but traveling in sand isn't always the easiest. It's not a huge place.