Why use magic?

[Voxumo]

People don't fear mages because mages can immolate them with fireballs. People fear mages because mages because mages can hex their crops, curse their unborn children, spy on them from afar, etc.

Though I still don't get the HUGE focus on fear/death. I think someone mentioned somewhere on here that mages often rat eachother out just for the giggles. Why?? Why can't they enjoy helping eachother. Call me a pacifist, but does every mage simply want more dirty tricks/combat? From this thread it sure sounds like that's the consensus. Is there not enough interesting non-evil stuff that you can do as a mage? I heard there was lots of neat stuff possible. Perhaps that should be addressed as well.

Hmm, here's an idea, and it kind of goes along with blacksoul's ideas. Have two categories of spells. Tainted/black magic spells, which involve hexing crops, cursing unborn children, whatever. And neutral spells/white magic spells, such as blessing crops, blessing unborn children, and whatnot.

Firstly, I don't think 'white magic' spells really make sense with the theme. Though not all spells currently are ones aimed at 'evil' For example dreamweave. I've used it a few times before to give good dreams to people. It has the potential to be used for good. Other spells can be used for good. The one that allows a mage to affect the weather, which I know Fire has one that increases or decreases heat, can be used for good, and air has one that affects the wind, which can be used for good. Heck Fire mages have spells that can 'heal' people. It's all about how you play the spell on whether or not it is good or evil. Though that's not to say there aren't spells that are just cruel any way you look at them.

Secondly, I don't think it's so much being able to kill people through direct combat that those who have spoken up are wanting, all it seems is that they want to be able to hold their own in combat, instead of it being a major one-sided thing if you are alone.

[Lily]

Firstly, I don't think 'white magic' spells really make sense with the theme. Though not all spells currently are ones aimed at 'evil' For example dreamweave. I've used it a few times before to give good dreams to people. It has the potential to be used for good. Other spells can be used for good. The one that allows a mage to affect the weather, which I know Fire has one that increases or decreases heat, can be used for good, and air has one that affects the wind, which can be used for good. Heck Fire mages have spells that can 'heal' people. It's all about how you play the spell on whether or not it is good or evil. Though that's not to say there aren't spells that are just cruel any way you look at them.

If there are spells which are cruel no matter which way you look at them, why aren't their spells that are nice no matter which way you look at them? And I don't see how white magic doesn't make sense with the theme. Yes, the Order thinks all magic is evil and corrupt, but they could be wrong after all. It'd make for some very interesting roleplay if they had to deal with a mage who only did good, after all.

A side note: Part of the problem is, magic affects both mages and non-mages, yet non-mages can literally only read 1-2 magic helpfiles, so they have absolutely no idea about how magic works, unless a player who has played a mage tells them (and this seems to be not encouraged/not allowed). So until you decide to suck it up and spend 50-100+ hours investing in a mage character, you can't easily discuss how magic currently works. While I get that mages should have more say in what stuff mages receive, information about magic is really one sided.

Again, maybe I'm alone, but I'd love to play a white magic/good mage who is persecuted just because they are a mage and thus they need to be 'saved'.

As for combat readiness, mages can already focus on combat. I guess the issue is, some mages want to be a combat mage, instead of focusing everything on physical combat like what everyone else would have to do. So ideally, a mage could focus on magical combat, BUT only to the point of being as good as a knight. Then it'd be more like a flavour text thing.

This is why I really really like darksoul's idea, actually. This way if mages want to focus on combat, they have to like everyone else does, but their combat can just get a magey flavour to it, instead of how it currently is where if a mage only uses peaceful spells, they're suddenly magically also good at combat. So imo, there should be a combat/hexing spell list thingy, and a neutral/utility spell list.

[Voxumo]

There's been plenty of good mages, who have been pyred/hunted down just because they are a mage. Zeita von Zarrova, good mage who cured a plague, still hunted down because they are a mage. Beronica von Destral... Did alot of good, but pyred because they are a mage.

[Tremere]

To touch on what Temi said, I played on a game with a similar theme that had a mage guild and all it became was mages sitting there 24/7 and only interacting via shadows. It reduced mages to silly Faustian mages who thought that they were super clever and powerful, yet it all amounted to hiding from all nonmage RP except to do the occasional silly prank that no one could really interact with.

It took the teeth out of the mages and out of the inquisition and knights as they couldn't hunt the people who refused to leave the hidden mage guildhall. The only time they ever seemed to leave were those occasional times one would get bored, go on a killing spree and drop the character. It wasn't condusive to good RP.

Also, as I said in on ooc, I think that mages have a lot of good utility and they should play to their strengths. A skinny mathelete shouldn't challenge the jock to a weight lifting competition. They should do a battle of wits. Don't go toe to toe with a knight in combat unless you are built towards that (which is possible with the right magic combos). Instead play to you builds strengths.

[Dice]

Honestly, I think the majority of the mages out there already fall into the camp of "I'm good and unjustly persecuted!" It's a very common RP trope enabled by the fact that mages don't have to be evil and that, yes, most spells are distinctly neutral - capable to be used for good OR for evil. It's just you don't tend to hear from many of those mages, because they don't do a lot that's obvious to the rest of the grid. You only tend to hear from/see the mages who decide to rock the boat.

And regarding a mage's guild, I'm in distinct agreement with a lot of the other posts- we tried a mage's guild that was 'nice', dedicated more to scholarly work and survival than anything else, but as Temi says it really just didn't work out. Any mage's guild that comes back needs to exist to drive mages to be a more visible force in the world. Mages can form smaller covens among themselves with different goals, of course! But official recognition should be limited to something that is good for the game.

[Voxumo]

And regarding a mage's guild, I'm in distinct agreement with a lot of the other posts- we tried a mage's guild that was 'nice', dedicated more to scholarly work and survival than anything else, but as Temi says it really just didn't work out. Any mage's guild that comes back needs to exist to drive mages to be a more visible force in the world. Mages can form smaller covens among themselves with different goals, of course! But official recognition should be limited to something that is good for the game.

I'd like to point out that it was only during the reign of the last rubeus that the manus became Scholar like. Before he took the position and completely steered the manus into a different direction, the manus was very 'Alright, we need to team, take out this target because he is a risk to our very lives' type of manus, instead of peace-preaching manus. Heck I had a mage in the manus who tried to assassinate the rubeus because she didn't like the current peaceful approach.. ended up with her getting killed. The manus was capable of some rather huge stuff... when there was enough active members.

[Rothgar]

Looking around at the responses, it's really good to see that everyone seems to have a different position on mages! It's exciting to see how many people are interested in playing them or have already played them, and it's always interesting to see how others feel about them, as my own personal opinion is a bit skewed. I'm not gonna sit around and quote everyone cuz I'm still at work, but I'll give my $0.02 in the meantime!

Concerning the Manus:
I don't think it's any secret that I'm totally for getting the Manus back. You all know that Curos was certainly the more scholarly type of mage, and combat simply wasn't his forte, nor his calling. Personally, I -really- enjoyed it when the Manus went into the esoteric realm of things. Curos ended up falling in love with the Library, and I ended up holding onto a book about Blood Magic when it all went down, written in Eld. It was awesome! The thrill of discovery, the promise of something greater then coded magicks... It really made me consider magic in a whole new light.
That being said, as much as I enjoyed it... I have to agree with the idea that it was very limited RP, and that we didn't really -do- much with it. The unfortunate truth is that without Mages, the game would absolutely fall apart. There would be literally no reason for the theme to be what it is, the Order would have very little reason to be around, and I feel like RP would be limited in a bad way. Mages -have- to act, in order for this MUD to exist. Mages -have- to make themselves known every now and again in order for the Order to seem as though they're right. In a real-life translation, I point out the witch trials of the 1600s. Were these people magicked? More then likely not. But between the fervor of the Puritans, and the political and social situation at the time, the Church required some sort of scapegoat, and a -reason- to stay relevant. If Mages, in-code, didn't exist... Well, that's practically what the RP of the Order would dissolve into. Which isn't bad! But, again... I'm not a fan of people dying.
So, a TL;DR on this : I'd love to see the Manus back, I want it to focus on scholarly Mage things, but I know in my heart of heart that if we -did- bring it back, it would have to be in a role that allowed for a great deal of RP between Mages and Mundanes, or else we run the risk of it dying a slow death once again.


Concerning Magely squishiness and combat magicks:
This one, for me, is multiple shades of grey. As everyone has pointed out already... There's nothing stopping a mage - other then XP constraints - from simply training combat skills and going ham on people. That being said... It makes very little sense to me that the Daravi would have contracted the Mages to assist them in a war against the allied forces of Dav if they were all squishy and tender on the inside. I understand how powerful mages are, I really do. Having played one, and seen what they can do... Being a lone Knight against a Mage - any Mage - is a very scary thing. I'd be shitting my pants if I had to go fight one on my lonesome, and he had time to prepare for my arrival.
Personally, I think that mattack fits the bill for mage combat. I recall it being extremely powerful for reasons that I won't spoil for anyone, and honestly, I feel like it gets the job done. I believe that the point that the Imms are trying to make is that we should all be encouraged to work together on combat and killing, not further the paranoia that we all hold so closely. Were I a less paranoid person, I would have absolutely contracted some buffs to do the heavy lifting for me. And there are spells for those without the stats to -get- the stats that they need, just saying.
TL;DR : Mage combat is iffy for me, and I'm kind of torn both ways about it. I think mattack was a great addition, and I'm leaning towards saying that it should stay that way. That being said, I'm sure that if the Imms get enough feedback on mages feeling weakly, they'll do something about it. Just gotta keep givin' that feedback!

Concerning Paranoia:
A situation that I know very well, har har har. It's true : Mages are paranoid. I think that a lot of that stems from how long and hard they have to train skills to be even halfway decent at magic. At maximum, a combat character has to master six skills (Four defensive skills, two offensive) in order to be as big and bad as he wants to be, and from there on out, they can improve stats to reflect the skills that they've got. A mage, on the other hand, must concern him or herself with multiple skills right from the onset. Each discipline has 2 skills - moon and element - and there are five (as far as I recall) elements. Before those are even trained, one must find a way to gather basic pooling and rituals, which is -another- skill. So you're taking a gander at attempting to master 10-12 skills before you even -look- at making yourself buff, combat-wise. There is a -ton- of XP involved in making a mage, and that a goodly amount of the more useful skills rest firmly past the 36th rank, you're spending a ton of time doing so. No one wants to lose a character they've put over 400 hours into training.
Additionally, like I've said before, the pbase for TI seems to be rather convinced that selling one another out is RP that is new and refreshing. Personal opinion, of course, so take it with an enormous grain of salt... But when you've invested 400 hours into a character, and seen a dozen of your friends go to Pyretown for sneezing and not Chalicing themselves, you're going to be a bit on-edge when it comes to revealing what is literally a do-or-die situation for your character. I understand wholly, and you all know I've lived that life. Both being a spy, -and- being the paranoid wreck that was what Curos ended up being.
Unfortunately, there's almost no changing this with code, nor is there really any way to change it via RP. It's wholly a player issue, and it's up to the players to sort it out among themselves. The imms can do nothing about it - and they've heard me harp on about it for years, now. I'm sure they're tired to death of hearing me say it. I think it's a Human Condition, and while I absolutely love playing with people and playing Mages... I'm probably not going to play one on this MUD for a bit. Maybe when I figure out how to be less of a Chatty Kathy and keep my mouth shut, but such is life!
TL;DR : Paranoia sucks, but it is what it is. Players gotta sort it out among themselves, and it'll sort itself out in time the more we RP with one another.

To wrap it all up, I'll just say what I said earlier. I, personally, don't think there's much payoff for being a Mage. I love the powers, I really do... But I don't really want to play them any longer. That being said, they're absolutely integral for the survival of the theme, and the MUD itself, so I encourage others - in spite of all that I've said - to play them and enjoy them. Personally, I figure that reacting over-the-top to Mage shenannigans, RP'ing a fear of Mages and the unknown, and a love of the Order will help everyone out in the long run. And I hope to run into more of the Mage players, OOC'ly, so that I can offer my own help to them! Being a mage is HARD. Don't be afraid to shoot me a tell!

[Kave]

As someone who has played TI for around six months on and off, I don't have the same depth of experience as some of you. However, I've played as a grandmaster mage and as an active Inquisitor. In my opinion Mages are far stronger than one might assume from this thread.

First, the idea of battlemages. When I was playing Hotae, I felt strong. I’d only invested maybe… 40,000 out of the 50,000 RXP I’d earned in him. He was a grandmaster in fire and arien, and was adept a footwork. Despite that, I am confident that he could have beaten any one fighter in the game with even a modicum of preparation. And I was making sure to play for fun rather than winning. Hotae could have killed the GI if he wanted to, but he didn’t. It took three -very- skilled combatants to take him down.

Demon summoning is so damn cool. It’s like free RPA. If you can’t think of plots using demons, you’re not trying hard enough!

Not only that, but I think that as long as there is a faith in separation between OOC and IC you can have a lot of fun with mages. I’d used spells that OOC confirmed Hotae as a mage on the Earl Marshall, but it led to IC fun. As an Inquisitor that separation is something that is a constant struggle to maintain, but Zae and I do our best to switch off any cases that have a conflict of interest, and I think we do pretty well. Side rant: Playing an Inquisitor is really frustrating at times, I’m not surprised so few people seek the role. Your job is to interrupt the RP of others, and many people dislike that. I would ask that people avoid pressuring people OOC for leniency. It taints the RP either way.

I do agree that mages are paranoid. Super paranoid. It feels like there are OOC cliques that are very hard to intrude upon when playing a mage. If you’re not part of one of them, you’ll either be turned in or isolated. Starting out as a mage is hard, and until you become strong enough to shelter new people under your wings, it is hard to find mage RP. I’m a advocate of returning the tower, though I never played when it was active.

[Geras]

Weird to see this thread back lol.

Mages can form smaller covens among themselves with different goals, of course! But official recognition should be limited to something that is good for the game.

I think there's an important issue too though that without that official recognition you don't have the same freedom or flexibility, particularly with regards to phomes. At least last time I checked. It'd be nice to be able to have limited recognition. Generally I agree that just having ad-hoc covens is preferable to having a single overarching guild, but these informal covens simply lack the code/policy support needed, or did last time I checked.

Re: Manus - keep in mind that Manus went through phases. Early on it was not very secure at all and got raided/purged multiple times. Only later did it security clamp down. I don't think extreme insecurity is any better than extreme security. The extreme security was facilitated by coded measures which I believe are no longer in place?

The insecurity part though is a problem when reckless knights can just barge in to a mage's lair without too much fear of death or maiming.

Which leads me to this quote from Kinky:

Geras, who started this thread, did so long ago before several magic changes. That said, it is definitely by design that mages are combat-squishy and that magic is not combative. If magic was combative and designed to help a mage win a fight, the whole archetype of combative characters would be nerfed. Magic is cool, but mages simply shouldn't be better in a fight than players who tailor their characters and ICly train for combat day in and day out.

I think there's a fundamental error if we consider "combat" as one big catch all. Should a mage with limited combat abilities be able to take down a combat expert in a heads up fight?

Of course not.

But that mage should have plenty of ways to make the fight less than heads up too.

A mage that isn't deadly isn't scary. Period.

Obviously there's a very delicate balance to be struck here. And I'm honestly not sure where it sits right now. When I was still active on Edwynn, I certainly felt like I had the tools to defend myself if I prepared right. It was more than a little bit cheesy though. If I got the right spell off in time, I'd win. If I didn't, I'd lose. And at the time range and combat had some serious issues which mages could exploit, which I believe has since been addressed. And a lot of mages' best tools have been taken away or redesigned.

How are things now? Are mages adequately able to defend themselves now, or are they as helpless as kittens?

Rothgar raises a really good point too:

Back to the point, however, on the Mage side (and on the Brotherhood side, as well), it truly amazes me how -many- people think that it's revolutionary or great RP to be a turncoat. Honestly, at this point, it's more surprising and refreshing to me to find a character that will stick by his/her friends and not sell them out for profit or freedom.

This is a huge deal. IMHO the most valuable tool you can give mages is a means to protect their identities from one another, and ideally even protect their sanctuaries from turncoats. I'm not sure how to go about that exactly. The introduction of mattack did help though - at least you could murder traitors.

Re: Manus - I think people mistake rational self interest for passifism. Which is what I originally made this thread about. I was always reluctant to pull the trigger when the risks seemed to outweigh the rewards. I don't think that's unreasonable - that at least some mages, whether villains or heroes or both or neither, would have some rational motives and seek to pursue them the best they can. Does this make me stronger? More powerful? Safer? Does it get me what I want? Hard questions to answer, but I think worth considering still.

The only exception I had was with one kidnapping, though even that turned into a bust. I think the reasons it became a bust have been addressed though? Re: captivity and escapes?

I realize this may all be off base at this point. It's been a while since I played a mage, and with the election in Canada right now, I'm not really playing anyone.

[Kinaed]

A mage that isn't deadly isn't scary. Period.

I don't mean any offense, but 'deadly' is not the bar for something being scary. Surely, you've been on a job interview, watched Paranormal Activity, slept in the house that was robbed yesterday, watched your kid fall off their bike, worried you'd lose your house because the mortgage bill was too high... I can keep going, but the point is that deadly isn't a true bar for fear. In fact, there's plenty of people who do 'deadly' things like jump out of planes or raise venomous snakes for fun. Heck, Death on TI can be totally mundane to people who have lost plenty of characters - for them, it's not whether they went out, it's how they went out and if the RP was fun.

There are plenty more ways to kill someone on TI than by getting into a physical altercation. In fact, combat is nowhere near the number one way people die on TI. About 95% of deaths are due to poor information management and social behaviors (doing things that make people hate you). Mages are the kings of information management and impacting character behavior - with spells. For example, they can read minds, sneak into places without a trace, spy on people at a distance, etc. They can even use compulsion to make people offend others. All this requires is a bit of creativity.

Fear is caused at any time a person has something to lose and a risk of losing it. Mages can very easily impact people in these ways , up to and including being deadly - they can easily plant evidence, for example, or simply tell a well-timed lie. It takes a bit more creativity than walking up to someone and bonking them on the head, but bonking on the head is fairly mundane and anyone can do it. There is no reason to give mages a stronger ability to bonk than the general populace of bonk-focused players. And in the case of mages/criminals, bonking people to death over the head gets really old really quickly - case in point how people felt about the "invincible" mage, Amethyst.

The issue, I think, is that mages want to reduce risk, and the best way to reduce risk is to be certifiably stronger than your opponents when they come for you - but that creates a one-sided game. People's ability to "win" needs to be situational like rock-paper-scissors, and the real game being about setting up the right conditions and situation for your triumph. Anything less, particularly coded superiority, is cheap. So, in the mage world - information control, social behaviors, etc, the mage is designed to triumph. Get into a fight, and the mage character is not designed to triumph... at least not on their mage ability alone.

Because it is a pkill situation, there's a bone thrown to mages - there are simply no code detriments to a mage becoming as powerful of a combatant as any knight. If someone wants to be good in a physical altercation, the should learn how to fight in a physical altercation. It's straightforward and available to everyone.

Heck, if anyone wants to take anyone else out, they just need to get one or two buddies to help. The strongest combatant in the game cannot take on multiple opponents and win, so two-to-three mages against a single knight... bye bye knight. There's a deadly coven.

With regards to turncoats - I agree, they're a problem, but a thematic one that actually does cause fear... that whole risk assessment deal.

Laying low may well be in a mage's best interest. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with that per se. Generally speaking, however, magic is useful enough that most mages do use it frequently (I've had reports that this is on a daily basis for many).