Player Perspective on Magickers

[SpyGuy]

Just to TLDR that: if you think "it is only valid for gicks to befriend other gicks" you are [1] ignoring the social reality of people in castes like this and [2] being shitty to those players by unrealistically limiting what they can do with your definition of "good roleplay" that has nothing to do with the reality of social interaction.

Conflict makes good roleplay, and conflict can be subtle and internalized.

I reread your post before replying and don't think we're in total disagreement but posting my take anyways:

If you're openly friends with known magickers then you're playing against the docs and should suffer IC consequences.  This goes x100 for sorcerers.  By consequences I don't mean instant death.  Could be anything from side eye at the bar to distrust to outright hostility.   I'd also point out it's fine to be an exception but doing so too much begins to erode the setting. To address your points:

[1]. Gicks aren't just people with a different job or beliefs.  They have control over the elements of nature.  Your average commoner should fear them, their curses, etc.
[2]  The player playing the magicker chose to play a magicker.  They also chose to manifest.  And then they failed to keep it secret.   It's a karma role, they should understand it's severely limited and they will be treated as subhuman by a significant portion of the population.  There are still many RP interaction opportunities that don't involve being friends.

I don't think it's bad RP to be some sort of friends with a magicker (though that should be rare imho). I think it's bad RP to be casual about magick.  With the current subclasses you might find your best buddy is suddenly a gick.  Most of the virtual world and PCs would probably shun those former friends. A well RPed response who didn't immediately shun them should have some justification for why they didn't shun them and should still treat it as a big deal.  Going 'Oh cool, so you can make me stronger?' would be bad RP in this setting.  And if someone is RPing being friends with a mage then they should be prepared to navigate being seen as a gick lover.

[Lizzie]

I think it's up to players who've been around awhile to set the example for the newer folks. There are times when a mundane NEEDS to deal civilly with a mage. At those times, it's absolutely appropriate to do so. Examples of those times:

1. a templar orders you to do so.
2. you're an Oash aide and your Lord Oash orders you to at least tolerate his Mage Circle.
3. You're in the Byn, and your Sergeant has accepted a contract to escort some gemmed from point A to point B.
4. You're a bounty hunger who sometimes has to capture/kill rogue mages. So you make "contacts" with the gemmed or even other rogues you keep in your pocket. You might not like it at all, but business is business.

Those are times when it's absolutely appropriate, and even necessary, to be tolerant (to a point) and civil to mages.

The rest of the time, it depends on who YOU are playing, what kind of influence the mage has with "important people" you don't want to piss off, and the circumstances of the situation. And most importantly - what the mage is DOING at the time of the situation. If she's just sitting at the bar quietly drinking her ale? Maybe a "look." Maybe you shift your seat a few stools further away. Maybe a quiet mumble to yourself. Or maybe you'll ask the bartender for a cup to go and you leave. Are they talking about how they fireballed up a mek last week and how it was great to bring back some perfectly grilled mek steak without needing a cookfire? That's when you can start making actual comments, being less subtle about your loathing, cringe away in fear, or contact your pal Lady Templar Tinglebutt to let her know her pet gemmer is bragging about magicks again in the bar.  or even wish up and let them know that currently, the bartender is allowing this conversation to continue. Maybe a staffer will intervene, if available and interested.

Sometimes commoners have to deal with the mages, whether they like it or not. But unless you know you can best them AND their handler (if they have one), it might be more prudent to grit your teeth, and begrudgingly not turn the moment into a catastrophe.  If you know you can best them and their handler, then absolutely smack the shit out of that filthy mage if your character would!

Just remember that Amos sitting a few stools away might decide that the gemmer's blood on YOUR fists means he'd better stay away from you, lest the horrible magicks are contagious.

[triste]

I don't think it's bad RP to be some sort of friends with a magicker (though that should be rare imho). I think it's bad RP to be casual about magick

Cool, then we are in total agreement. That was my thesis.

I literally you said you can have a friendship, but it has to be tortured, secretive, etc.

Trying to understand why you think we are in total disagreement, you might have just been set off by my mention of real life friendships, but saying that was a completely moot and irrelevant point would be like trying to debate language code but having some arbitrary rule that no one could mention the real life discipline of linguistics while doing so (even though such an exercise would only be beneficial and illuminating).

[triste]

Those are times when it's absolutely appropriate, and even necessary, to be tolerant (to a point) and civil to mages.

The rest of the time, it depends on who YOU are playing, what kind of influence the mage has with "important people" you don't want to piss off, and the circumstances of the situation.

I think this is right and it fits into all of our points, which is the correct position, "Mages have frightening power that is hard for mundanes to understand." If people keep this in mind, wow, the roleplay works out, and works out in a way where people can interact and have great scenes.

I am going to briefly, and non-seriously double down on the previous analogy I made that SpyGuy disagreed with, but the more you dig into it, it really does prove to be completely fucking apt. There is not a single coder on planet earth who has a flawless reputation, except for a small handful who I will discuss at the end:

Linus Torvaldis - Invented systems that gave birth to our modern era, but huge asshole.
Ada Lovelace - Brilliant an innovative, but constantly challenged in her time and ended up being mentally ill in the same ways as her dad.
Alan Turing - Great coder, but a pervy gay, should probs sterilize him [according to the government]!
Carlo Acutis - Literally deified as a saint, but to huge criticism from non coders and coders alike.
Bill Gates - Okay coder, allegedly an intellectual property thief and idiot at socializing
Steve Jobs - Brilliant innovator, but huge asshole.
Elon Musk - Takes existing innovations and brings them to market, but huge asshole.

Here's the kicker. Every human being on earth is complex, and sometimes an asshole, sometimes socially awkward. But the power and inscrutability of what these people do makes them scary, hard to understand, hatable, etc.

There are huge swathes of populations who will talk about these people, well, like evil magicians. Other coders might be able to see them more realistically, but other coders also deal with the same reputation of being bad for X, Y, and Z reasons. Where does this fear come from? The power granted by their abilities.

I am just struggling to think of a coder with a good reputation, and damn, here's the exception: those chicks who worked for NASA back in the day when it was hard to, and they conducted themselves like good little gemmed, being treated like shit and never speaking up. How many people can individually remember these women's names? Few.
They were coders who helped America win the space race, did it under oppression yet begrudging acceptance of their abilities [these women were literally called "Computers" as people and as their job title]. In a way this is a beautiful but heartbreaking analogy for the gicker well played.

Thankfully I think we are on point in game and very few times has there been "Randy, that gick everyone just loves!" Even though in that other thread it looks like there was some whiran named Hoof or something like that. I didn't know this character and I shouldn't shit talk though and I hope anyone who posts in that thread saying "I loved this gicker!" posts because their interactions were setting appropriate and not because they were like, warped around for free by a cool Whiran.

The one time I met a gicker with a unilaterally well liked reputation in game and going to parties and such, he died to a jealous gicker who thought what he was doing was wrong [it was].

Again. There is only one way to roleplay with a gick wrongly, and that is to unequivocally like them and sympathize them. Even if a gick saves your life -- you get split in half by a Mekillot and a Vivaduan puts you back together -- your skin should always crawl wondering what exactly it is that they did to you and fearing you might have some latent illness as a result, or what have you.

[Lizzie]

Triste you need to stop comparing "Zalanthan humanoids' reaction to the existence of mages" to real world coders or any other real-world people. You really need to just not do that. It doesn't clarify anything. It doesn't explain anything about the game. All it does, is give people an "excuse" to bring their real-world opinions about "other" into the game, where it just flat out doesn't belong.

Armageddon is a fantasy world, taking place on a non-existent planet, with species that don't exist in the actual world. The world itself is a vast desert wasteland as the direct result of a power that some people in the world still possess, to some degree or another. That alone should be sufficient for any player to wrap their minds around the fact that they *should* loathe, hate, fear, distrust, vilify, or otherwise feel negatively about mages and the magicks they possess.

How a player will roleplay this loathing, hatred, distrust, fear, vilification, or negative feelings about magicks is up to the roleplayer. But their character - with VERY few, very specifically documented exceptions (in very specific, clans) - will have that approach to some extent or another.

If you find yourself playing a character that's starting to be "friends" with a mage, then there SHOULD be that tickle in the back of your character's mind that knows damned well their friendship is WRONG, dirty, sullied, tainted, contaminated.  And you should absolutely EXPECT that other characters who learn of this friendship would react accordingly.

[Brytta Léofa]

Triste you need to stop comparing "Zalanthan humanoids' reaction to the existence of mages" to real world coders or any other real-world people. You really need to just not do that. It doesn't clarify anything. It doesn't explain anything about the game. All it does, is give people an "excuse" to bring their real-world opinions about "other" into the game, where it just flat out doesn't belong.

I find Triste's examples very helpful. There are probably several different approaches that we-the-players use to generate roleplay: for Lizzie, it seems important to understand the Arm world in your head in a way that's independent of the real world; I understand things much better by analogy to real life and society (or cultural tropes, to be fair).

The great thing about real life analogy is that real life is vastly detailed and contains multi-layered strife and prejudice. It's hard for me to reason about prejudice and hatred; it's much easier to import some of those feelings from elsewhere. (Is this method acting?) So, for instance, my current magicker story card (rather cruder than triste's examples) is: "we hired an ersatz Nazi and the boss told us to stop being assholes to him." It's pretty easy for me to understand why I continue to think "this dude is deeply not okay" and tell other people that, even if we can have civil interactions and he has many personal charms and has not actually fireballed me.

[WarriorPoet]

RAT: Ersatz Nazi would be a sweet name for a punk album.

[Veselka]

While I don't think triste's analogies work exactly (magick /= coding prowess), finding real life analogies helps me (and others) break down the differences in Zalanthas/ArmageddonMUD's fantastical approach to ostensibly very real life problems and cultural stigmas.

It is difficult when first playing the game to understand why magick, this awesome power, is so reviled. But! Through playing the game, around more veteran players, and understanding the lore and history (while also reading some of the Dark Sun material that it was inspired from) I could, after some time, understand where the hatred and loathing and mistrust came from.

I don't expect everyone to get it 100% of the time. Particularly when it is in your [insert PC]'s life cycle and social group. It can sometimes be messy and complicated. But the 'tickle in the back of the throat' feeling that Lizzie mentions is accurate.

What I think should be avoided is the mindset that a player can fall into -- that most of their PCs will have some level of tolerance for magick users, given the right circumstances. It should be the opposite -- Most of the time your PCs should have no level of tolerance for magick users, and there can be very rare exceptions.

I can't help but wonder if the same [tribal/independent/etc] PC that touts that their friends are cool even though they are magickers are played by the same person or persons. These PCs (and players) shouldn't be surprised when they are suddenly lumped into the same category as their magicker friends, that is documentation working as intended, IMHO.