If writing was legalized should common psionics be more limited?

[Agent_137]

Hi I thought this would be fun to theory craft about.

Writing comes up now and then and it's always interesting to me.  I've been told there was a decision at some point decades past to choose the Way or writing. And the Way was chosen as writing had some code limitations at the time.

They do oppose each other some.  Why send a note when you can message someone directly and easily in near perfect secrecy? Sure nobles still write, but it's for offline communication, formal records, and books.  I can't imagine there's much plain message passing.

I'd love to see a push for writing being legalized this season or some future one. But what then to do about the Way?

Writing seems valuable because it offers IC offline communication, postal services, interception, spying, code making and cracking, business records, and no doubt much more than I can think of.

The Way makes some of writings benefits redundant.  But it provides its own benefit in connecting online players easily so they can play together in a world where we shouldn't coordinate OOCly  and there is no public channel. It also provides relatively secure and easy communications, but I'm not sure that's a good game feature. 

I think the game would be best if the Way changed into a public IC channel, perhaps with some range limits alongside a legalization of writing. This would make it easier to find and coordinate both with strangers and with your group. But the channel also is completely insecure giving writing a huge role in secure communication.

What are your thoughts? Obviously this is pie in the sky and may never happen. Just discussing for fun. Cheers.

[Windstorm]

I love it!

Minor psionic irregularities as a mutation should or could be a very fun common thing in general.

And, of course, writing would just be a straight playing enhancement I think. There are sooo many ways in which it would improve gameplay. Offline messages, intercepted messages, secret communications, language learning actually being valuable, IC stories, art, music, historical events being recorded, shared, passed down.

People like making their mark in the world, even in small ways. I know I've loved to in the ways that I have. Writing opening up lets almost anyone do that, long's someone values it enough to preserve it.

[FamousAmos]

Or perhaps Waying should be limited to a certain amount of words.

That way one can still communicate but not as intricate as a letter.

Also, a letter would also make, in example, a signed/sealed contract. Something that cannot be established purely by Way.

[dumbstruck]

I like the Way and RP using it. I feel like making it less prevalent would be directly disadvantageous to people who play psionic based classes and subclasses, and while there is a lot of new and different RP that greater literacy might add, I would not like to lose the ability to carry on a conversation with someone not in the room. I don't believe it adds enough to subtract stuff from the Way. Additionally I would say Zalanthas is already perhaps not psionic enough, in comparison to its source material, and I don't think that going further in that direction would be positive to the setting or to the game play.

[Inky]

Psionics in this game is a broken mess. For a game that's supposed to be about intrigue, its silly that the only way to eavesdrop on common and ubiquitous telepathic messages ... is to be a karma 9 monster class.

I've played games where this is handled better too. It actually feels like you need to be careful what information you share in them.

[parallax]

The problem with IC public psych channels is that it often removes physical encounters. People socialize entirely on that public channel because we kind of tend to be lazy or just because its safer not to physically go out. It makes it so people interface very little in person which I think is a super bummer. I would think waying should be made a bit harder if writing was introduced. I play another game that has a public channel and I'd totally remove it or make it SUPER costly (in whatever way) if I could.

[Kavrick]

Waying is one of those weird things that is honestly a little immersion breaking. The game is supposed to be low-magic and yet every single person on the planet can communicate through AoL instant messaging in their brain. I understand that it mostly exists for ooc convenience, but I would honestly prefer writing to just be a thing and give people ways to communicate with it. Writing in other muds has always been such a cool thing, being able to read books written by previous characters, or just generally giving more room to discover lore by finding writing in game. Armageddon has a bunch of cool lore secrets that are literally just impossible to ever discover because no one can read and that's just a little sad.

I've also never understood why tribals and elves would care about the templarate's ban on writing. If the whole idea is supposed to be 'writing is illegal to stop people learning sorcerery', why not shift it to 'writing about sorcerer is illegal'. Not only does this keep the theme, but it actually gives templars and mage hunters things to do by tracking down writing about magick and destroying it. Overall I just feel like the ban on writing takes away so much opportunity in the game.

[Tailong]

The main reason I play here is the fact this game is based on the Dark Sun world. Now, however loosely that might be, it is a major factor of me being here for so long. One of those reasons is the fact that literacy is so guarded.

Psionic abilities are severely hindered from Dark Sun, but is such a HUGE part of the world its not funny, and is often overlooked because of it. Its a shame really, because the Way has became a basic function of every living creature on the planet, from bugs to humanoids, and most of us only see one aspect of it, the Unseen Way.

Should be able to read and write? Sure. I also think you should pay the price of learning that knowledge.

[RheaGhe]

Psionics as they are, are a negative space for RP for anyone but those gifted with them. The current space absorbs RP, and doesn't enhance it for anyone without psionic abilities.

Honestly, I'd love to see a few psionic subclasses sprinkled about the karma layers. With the full on mindworm level stuff being up there in Karma.

I think an equivalent of Psionic touched at 3 Karma, granting one or two psionic abilities, an equivalent of a branch or a half a branch of psionics at 6 karma, and a full on psionicist at 9 would be fitting.

This would grant people more experience with these abilities, and allow them to experiment with them. And open up the gameplay to a sort of training wheels-esque progression. Allowing greater formation of roleplaying opportunities, and it would make players playing... Genuinely fear the employment of psionicists more. Because they wouldn't be one of 100 or so players. If that.


That said, legalizing writing might also work. But I'd think, from a setting perspective, more would have to shift to legalize writing, than it would to mechanically open up psionic roles a bit more and keep the setting the same.

[FuSoYa]

I'm of the opposite mindset to be honest - though I definitely admit I could be wrong.

However the fact that psionicists are so rare is part of the appeal for me of Armageddon.  Kind of like Tailong said - the low fantasy aspect of this world isn't just a side thing for me, I honestly think it's one of the things that truly make this game so special. 

I also disagree in that somehow making subclass psions a thing and opening that up for general play would not make me fear true psionicists more.  It would make them just another thing.

I do agree that it's sometimes rough feeling like it might be something you will never get to experience.  If I ever have the option to play a psionicist in a game I ALWAYS pick that option (mainly thinking of CRPGs i.e. Pathfinder by Owlcat or Pillars of Eternity) so I definitely understand the appeal.  That being said - I have a ton of faith in where the game is right now and where the staff seem to be on philosophy so who knows, anything is possible right?

[Inky]

Yes. The frightening mind melting psionicist... just branched the ability to... read the way after twenty days of play.

Nah. Psionicists havn't really ever been a part of armageddon. Other than as powerful clan leaders. Everyone else gets popped because they made another pc feel a tickle.

[Inky]

Honestly, I'd love to see a few psionic subclasses sprinkled about the karma layers. With the full on mindworm level stuff being up there in Karma.

I think an equivalent of Psionic touched at 3 Karma, granting one or two psionic abilities, an equivalent of a branch or a half a branch of psionics at 6 karma, and a full on psionicist at 9 would be fitting.

This is a good idea and I'm frankly surprised it hasn't been done yet.

[dumbstruck]

Honestly, I'd love to see a few psionic subclasses sprinkled about the karma layers. With the full on mindworm level stuff being up there in Karma.

I think an equivalent of Psionic touched at 3 Karma, granting one or two psionic abilities, an equivalent of a branch or a half a branch of psionics at 6 karma, and a full on psionicist at 9 would be fitting.

This is a good idea and I'm frankly surprised it hasn't been done yet.

Honestly, I'd love to see a few psionic subclasses sprinkled about the karma layers. With the full on mindworm level stuff being up there in Karma.

I think an equivalent of Psionic touched at 3 Karma, granting one or two psionic abilities, an equivalent of a branch or a half a branch of psionics at 6 karma, and a full on psionicist at 9 would be fitting.

This is a good idea and I'm frankly surprised it hasn't been done yet.

[/quote]

Same. I love this conceptually. I've always wanted to play a character who could hear thoughts and feel feelings of others. The rest of it I honestly don't give a crap about. But those 2, those are the best parts for RP and some of the less abusable abilities. I would love to see that be a thing.

[Evilone]

I hate the Way. I wish Arm didn't have it, but I've come from RPI's where no such thing existed and things were fine without it. There are advantages about knowing if someone is online with the Way, but I think personal 'hangout' spots would become more of a thing and I like that. "I wonder where the Sergeant would be right now? Let's check the office. Not there? Well he does like to drink at the Gaj, let's check there. Or his special spot he likes to watch the city from the roofs" etc. It's been a long time since I've not relied on the Way, maybe it sounds better in theory cause I haven't really thought it through. Hard to say at the moment. There would be a greater use for Spies however, and I like that.

Writing could still be illegal, but there should be a guild, or subguild, e.g Linguist that should get writing, they just have to not get caught or face harsh punishment by the authorities. Letters and books more readily seen to record history and so on is a huge RP element ARM is lacking in. Let the PC Guild Boss have it maybe? It would be an interesting service they could provide, writing secret letters for folks.

BUT, I'd much rather if it was just legal, and the Atrium could offer it as a service to teach people reading and writing for those with the wealth (should be really expensive).

[The Lonely Hunter]

I don't think writing should be legalized. The masses are kept ignorant on purpose and it makes perfect sense for the setting.

I think psionics are fine the way they are. There might be a little room for fine-tuning, but not much. There's a lot of people who comment about the psionic class but it's always been a very high karma class and I can't imagine everyone with an opinion regarding them has played one.

[Refugee]

I miss writing like I've done in other MUDs.  I like to journal my characters' experiences and thoughts for posterity.  I think it creates a more multifaceted history of events, and it's interesting to research (if you have that kind of PC) all the views of something that happened. 

My favorite PC that I ever played was a Master Sage for the government's military, who spent a lot of his time reading archives from generations past, and he created many, many books of his own about the things he saw, and the stories the soldiers would tell him from their points of view.

I can understand why the government(s) in Arm would prefer to keep their populace illiterate.  It would be very dangerous for characters to write about some things they saw or heard, particularly those commoners who moved in political circles.  I think that would have to be taken into consideration because the powerful would be pretty paranoid about it.

[Dresan]

Writing could still be illegal, but there should be a guild, or subguild, e.g Linguist that should get writing, they just have to not get caught or face harsh punishment by the authorities. Letters and books more readily seen to record history and so on is a huge RP element ARM is lacking in. Let the PC Guild Boss have it maybe? It would be an interesting service they could provide, writing secret letters for folks.

I have mixed feeling.

On the one hand I love this idea and would want to see linguists not only know how to read and write, but have be able to teach other people. However, it should be made clear that if you are caught with the ability, you will be enslaved or executed. So choose or learn this at your own risk. This could lead to a lot of fun as notes and other messages are uncovered.

On the other hand, with steal somewhat nerfed this season, the only way i see this working is if writing papers were indestructible. This would  allow people to find and take the writings at some point. I think historically we've seen that having no secrecy was a demerit to the game, but at the same time having too much secrecy doesn't feel much better either. I do feel listen, especially into other rooms with sitting people should be boosted, furthering the need to know different languages or take more precaution.

I am happy to be proven wrong but I am unsure reading and writing would be as much of a boon as people believe, especially given it that unsafe waying and public places drives the need for languages and personal meetings in private rooms in the game.  NPCS messengers to remember and pass short messages to people once they log in would suffice in many instances where writing is valuable.

[Lizzie]

With writing comes technology and enlightenment. Can't have that in a game where oppression is the driving force of conflict. Keeping the ignorant masses from getting their grubby claws on enlightenment is what allows the nobility, GMH seniors, templarate their position of being able to oppress everyone else.

Writing should remain illegal, with opportunities to learn incredibly limited.

The Way doesn't replace writing.

[dumbstruck]

Honestly I think tribals should be able to r/w bendune (honestly with elves allundean). The helpfile discusses the written side of the language making it very apparent that it is not just a spoken but also a written language. There is also not the Templarate in tribal camps keeping them from learning to do it. There's no law against it outside of Allanak (and Tuluk but Allanak bc Tuluk isn't playable rn). I get the angle of not letting commoners read and write (and especially not sirihish as that is what noble missives are likely to be written in). But outside of Allanak? With a language that the helpfile clearly indicates has a written form? I would love to play someone who writes bendune poetry IC.

(I still don't think you should make the Way harder.)

[Kavrick]

With writing comes technology and enlightenment. Can't have that in a game where oppression is the driving force of conflict. Keeping the ignorant masses from getting their grubby claws on enlightenment is what allows the nobility, GMH seniors, templarate their position of being able to oppress everyone else.

Writing should remain illegal, with opportunities to learn incredibly limited.

The Way doesn't replace writing.

Reading/writing and oppression are verifiably not mutually exclusive. Historically reading and writing, along with education and controlled media has been a driving force of oppression and indoctrination. They were both massively used during WW2 between both allied and axis forces to oppress their citizens and even modern day countries (that I wont get into the politics of for obvious reasons) use this sort of oppression. Lots of fantasy and cyberpunk settings use reading and writing for these reasons too. But yeah the idea that you cant have reading and writing in a setting with oppression is categorically false.

Also none of this explains why non-city state people don't read and write. Tribals, Cenyrians, Desert elves. As DS mentioned, bendune has always been implied to have a r/w, but it just doesn't exist mechanically. There's no real explanation for this as far as I can tell. Especially considering most human tribals are nomadic traders, trade and writing go hand-in-hand.

[Inky]

I don't think writing should be legalized. The masses are kept ignorant on purpose and it makes perfect sense for the setting.

I think psionics are fine the way they are. There might be a little room for fine-tuning, but not much. There's a lot of people who comment about the psionic class but it's always been a very high karma class and I can't imagine everyone with an opinion regarding them has played one.

This is the case where gameplay should trump setting. Creating a new avenue for players to express their characters should be more important than the b-tier fantasy setting.

And no. From another gameplay perspective, psionics are broke as hell.

[Lizzie]

I don't think writing should be legalized. The masses are kept ignorant on purpose and it makes perfect sense for the setting.

I think psionics are fine the way they are. There might be a little room for fine-tuning, but not much. There's a lot of people who comment about the psionic class but it's always been a very high karma class and I can't imagine everyone with an opinion regarding them has played one.

This is the case where gameplay should trump setting. Creating a new avenue for players to express their characters should be more important than the b-tier fantasy setting.

And no. From another gameplay perspective, psionics are broke as hell.

The avenues for players to express their characters aren't used all that much now. When was the last time you saw the results of the scribble command? How often does your character, or any character in your character's circle of friends/clannies, draw things? When was the last time you used the "mood" command? How many players even realize it exists, let alone use it on a regular basis to express their characters?

The avenue for reading and writing in game already exists, and it's built into the theme of the game. It's one of the potential "rewards", both ICly and OOCly. From an OOC standpoint, opportunities exist to create specialty characters (nobles, templars, GMH family sponsored roles), and then knock yourself out reading and writing stuff to your heart's content from day 1 out of the Hall of Kings. From an IC standpoint, there are rare opportunities to learn how to read, after showing up as a character who cannot. That requires a LOT of IC work, keeping your character alive for a long time, manipulation, ingratiating yourself with the "right" characters, or blackmailing them - or kidnapping them - tons of plotlines involving more than one person.

If you just give it to everyone, you eliminate those rare moments when your character accomplishes something that is ICly astounding.

[Inky]

The avenues for players to express their characters aren't used all that much now. When was the last time you saw the results of the scribble command? How often does your character, or any character in your character's circle of friends/clannies, draw things? When was the last time you used the "mood" command? How many players even realize it exists, let alone use it on a regular basis to express their characters?

I've seen all but one of these used since season one started. And even if they didn't, I would be glad existed. Scribble in particular could use some code work though so it doesn't go bad so quickly.

The avenue for reading and writing in game already exists, and it's built into the theme of the game. It's one of the potential "rewards", both ICly and OOCly. From an OOC standpoint, opportunities exist to create specialty characters (nobles, templars, GMH family sponsored roles), and then knock yourself out reading and writing stuff to your heart's content from day 1 out of the Hall of Kings. From an IC standpoint, there are rare opportunities to learn how to read, after showing up as a character who cannot. That requires a LOT of IC work, keeping your character alive for a long time, manipulation, ingratiating yourself with the "right" characters, or blackmailing them - or kidnapping them - tons of plotlines involving more than one person.

If you want it to be rare, make it a karma 6 subclass instead of a karma 2 subclass. If you want players to learn to read over multiple real life years... uhhh no that's a ridiculous waste of time for everyone and probably unattainable.

[ABoredLion]

One thing that might be cool would be to make it a kind of "made" commoner thing. Like, any commoner that's above a certain level of society can get granted the right to learn it (pending some notation and templar interaction) but then can never really 'leave' those upper echelons of society following that. For instance, a quite senior aide to Lord Templar Fancipants can learn it, but now if the Lord Templar dies, they have to seek employment with a noble house or another templar, because they're not allowed to just go off into the desert with their knowledge and live as a hunter.

Same goes for noble houses. Perhaps very high ranks in militia and so on.

Important to keep the drawback however that they then can't ever really 'leave' that life. You're documented by the templarate and can write, but if you try to leave, you get murdered. Same rules in general for possession of writing/ability to read for anyone else that isn't "made".

I don't think I'd want the Way changed at all though.

[Tuannon]

My only issue with the lifesworn literate idea is player clashes. You are kind of rail roaded, but with the option of shifting to the templarate is kind of a work around. If you have the misfortune of having a low viability new employer and a low viability templar it's storage time.