Knights vs Mages - Game Design

[Noobus]

Sorry, Edited that a bit for clarity after reading it again and the changes should be.. ashes. That was Yesterday, I could not invoke a long distance spell on someone with ashes and when we did another test today I could. So I am not sure what was happening there but that did not sit well with either one of us, thus the frustration. At the time it came across as intended(Unless it is and just.. doesn't work sometimes.)

[Starstarfish]

Isn't it written right into the major helpfile on magic that it can be temperamental and unpredictable? So .. isn't there being a random/unpredictable nature to things on theme/point? Should things magically always go exactly as you want them to?

As for the output of ashes, I'll take the heat and say I was the one who put forth the idea. One first and foremost for realism to the roleplay that no human produces just a single handful of ashes - a search reveals it's something usually more like 4 to 6 lbs. Also expecting one side of the "equation" here to need to potentially spend QP or hope staff can answer an RPA request in order to fulfill their basic job function while the other does not, is not indeed from an OOC player perspective fair.

[vaxin]

It's not really fair to judge mages based on me. Sure, with 400k XP in my character and IC friends as powerful, I could kill the Order one by one. That's precisely my point, these changes force people to use overwhelming force. Unless the combat system is changed completely, as long as I have more friends than there are Knights, you can't stop me. Instead of hindering a mage's ability to trap and kill someone, these changes are stopping anyone from using magic in public, which is how Knights catch people and fun RP is formed.

Not every mage is also a grandmaster in combat skills and has legendary stats, and those new characters are the ones who will suffer from these changes. It will be the new players, the ones who don't know about ash or how to counter it, that will die.

You're making it so that every scene with a Knight, I choose between my death and theirs. That will lead to more killing, not less.

[Kinaed]

That's only true in your limited situation where there's a known mage running free. For the most part, I don't think mages go into RP with a knight thinking "It's him or me", rather they go in thinking, "Hope I don't slip up and get caught".

[vaxin]

The point that I'm fumbling making is that if you're attempting to make Known Mage = Death, these changes don't do much. Instead you're making Mage In Public = Death, which I don't think is the same. And, more importantly, these changes will have a disparate impact, favoring OOC knowledge and OOC friendships.

[chronodbu]

Magic isn't supposed to be a combatty thing either. If you want to be able to stand up to a Knight, then focus on the combat skills. Creative use of magic and combat skills can be terrifying.

[Voxumo]

Having read a bit more into this, I've also got to say the mage ash thing kills any chance of large scenes with non-mages. For example My final scene with Rhea, where during a pyring, which had I think 11 people at most, I waltzed in there with several protective spells up, knowing what I was walking into. Do you really think if the knights at the time had access to mage ash, I would have been able to get a word in before they dusted her and likely laid into her with weapons? Without that ability I was able to bring intrigue, concepts counter to the norm, and in general create more rp for those present than if I just used some spell to do so from a distance. Yes it still resulted in my characters death, but at least I was given the time of day to engage in actual conversation and a proper scene, versus having to cut the entire thing short because someone was quick to dust.

I have no faith in the majority of the playerbase being willing to hold off on dusting to allow rp to happen, and as such all it does is stifle rp. Really, what reason does the mage have to risk themselves when all the prior planning they put in, can be undone with a single command? The most effective mage is one who never actually has to engage in combat. As Rhea, never once did I actually kill someone, or even injure someone, aside from a volunteer.

I mean Kinaed, you've in the past even talked about how planning should be what mages excel in, yet you've added a function that says "F*** your planning." I mean I think ashes should be able to be used to dismiss spells either effecting a person, like oh no, a knight has been hexed, quick sprinkle him with ash. Or another example is spells affecting the environment, Oh no, there's a magical energy barrier, quick get the ash. These are understandable dismissals.

Or at the very least make a counter measure for mages to ash. For example, maybe a very high ranking magecraft spell that requires mage ash as being one of the ingredients, that creates a kind of counter ash, nullifying the effects of untampered ash.

[Starstarfish]

There's a play-ability balance at hand here, and I think the basic issue is how "fun" can be found by both groups.

I won't go blasting IC info on the forum, but things went beyond casting magic in public to have fun a while ago. I personally didn't have an issue with that, and I agree that can be fun. I had scenes with that as an Orderite and had a blast and it seems the mages did too. With the sort of mostly harmless "ha ha" sort of bantering. But the reality is yes, one person can set the bar for how everyone else is interacted with. That's the reality of RP. When you change how people think, the risk is other people are caught in the crossfire.

At some point mage interactions went from annoying/amusing/scary/magical to having deadly intent. If we want to go back to not every encounter being like that, then that requires an understanding it won't be.

I have no faith in the majority of the playerbase being willing to hold off on dusting to allow rp to happen, and as such all it does is stifle rp. Really, what reason does the mage have to risk themselves when all the prior planning they put in, can be undone with a single command? The most effective mage is one who never actually has to engage in combat.

How is that different than, was using the travel commands wasn't 100% on my A game, got trapped and died. Both require trust that other people want to RP and don't want every encounter to lead to death but instead RP.

We don't want every noob mage being toasted, then maybe we need to find some OOC understanding on how things are supposed to be balanced. I agree I don't want to toast every noob mage. But when the only way to catch the one(s) who is/are the problem is catching the small fish as collateral damage, that's the stalemate we are at. That was always the case - and that was more so the case when any single mage only gave one pile of ashes. How many noobs should we want to churn through to catch one supermage?

Also, OOC knowledge sharing and collusion to my knowledge is against the rules, to my understanding. So how is threatening to break the rules a thing?

[Starstarfish]

Wouldn't allowing/encouraging mages to need well ... mage ash in their spells though just potentially encourage them to trap and kill the very noob mages we are looking to protect?

[vaxin]

How is that different than, was using the travel commands wasn't 100% on my A game, got trapped and died. Both require trust that other people want to RP and don't want every encounter to lead to death but instead RP.

That particular encounter was intended to be about death for IC personal reasons, I'm sorry. Magic didn't change much except widen the venues we could use to trap you, we could have done pretty much the same thing with swords. That sort of scene sucks, and is why I'd rather that wasn't what magic was forced to be about.

Also, OOC knowledge sharing and collusion to my knowledge is against the rules, to my understanding. So how is threatening to break the rules a thing?

OOC knowledge sharing is distinctly not against the rules, you do it everytime you answer a visnet question. But that's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the fact that I know a lot more about how the code functions from using it than a new player will. I know what ash is, I probably know better the Order what it does and doesn't effect. Not everyone has that same advantage, and those people are going to suffer.

Wouldn't allowing/encouraging mages to need well ... mage ash in their spells though just potentially encourage them to trap and kill the very noob mages we are looking to protect?

Ash only comes from burning, a code that mages don't have access to.