Why use magic?

[Applesauce]

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

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.

Excellent reply (not just the quoted part)!

I think the confusion is that some people apply "scary to the player" onto "scary to the character". The only thing that literally affects YOU as a player is the loss of your charater, so for some people that's the only thing that scares their characters. And I don't mean affects emotionally, because that depends on the player. I mean objectively, character death forces a player to physically do something - reroll, write up a new desc, new help player file, do work. Any other outcome is "just roleplay" and therefore cannot be scary. IMO that logic is flawed, severely so in a game that's supposed to be RP focused.

Thematically, Lithmorrans have had hundreds of years of conditioning to make them believe that magic is evil, it corrupts your soul, and the only way to "fix" it is at the pyre. Mages are scary for the same reason silk is fancy - EVERYONE believes it, it's just The Truth. Maybe the nutjob in the corner who loves the feel of burlap pants might also not be scared of magic, but he should be the exception, not the rule. (I'm not calling any player or character a nutjob here, that's a hypothetical IC example only.)

Even if there was only one coded spell, and it conjured up daisies and puppies, and even if a mage explains to a crowd that this is the only spell any mage anywhere can cast, the crowd should still be afraid. The mage must be a liar, he's just trying to lure you in with cute puppies so his coven can flay you and feed you to demons. NPCs believe stuff like that, and while part of the game's conflict is the ability to believe otherwise, ICly most people should be scared that if they tuck one of those magical daisies behind their ear, all their hair might fall out. Or whatever.

And that's scary, even though it doesn't affect me as a player.

[Geras]

And would a game where mages could only conjure daisies and puppies be fun? Would you want to play said mage? Of course not. Scary to the player matters.

[Applesauce]

And would a game where mages could only conjure daisies and puppies be fun?

Depends on the rest of the game, but why not?

TI could still exist even if there were NO coded spells, so yes I imagine I could find a way to roleplay and have fun on that example game. Then again, I also played another game where I emoted bard "healing" and "attack" songs though the bard class didn't even exist codewise and none of the emotes technically did anything outside of being roleplayed. Did I have fun? Yes.

Remember, in real life there were (presumably) no real witches and no real spells, but there were very real Inquisitions with many convictions. Do you think that because nobody could throw fireballs or shoot lightning, that people weren't afraid of magic? Witches make your crops shrivel, your horse lame, your children sick, your nose bleed, your whatever. Nevermind the fact that they couldn't, the fear was real.

You're saying "scary to the player matters," and I'm saying "scary to the player matters AND scary to the character matters." I'm not even saying that TI mages shouldn't be given deadly spells. I'm just saying it should be exceedingly rare to find a character whose only legitimate concern is death, and everything else is a cakewalk.

[Voxumo]

And would a game where mages could only conjure daisies and puppies be fun?

Depends on the rest of the game, but why not?

TI could still exist even if there were NO coded spells, so yes I imagine I could find a way to roleplay and have fun on that example game. Then again, I also played another game where I emoted bard "healing" and "attack" songs though the bard class didn't even exist codewise and none of the emotes technically did anything outside of being roleplayed. Did I have fun? Yes.

Remember, in real life there were (presumably) no real witches and no real spells, but there were very real Inquisitions with many convictions. Do you think that because nobody could throw fireballs or shoot lightning, that people weren't afraid of magic? Witches make your crops shrivel, your horse lame, your children sick, your nose bleed, your whatever. Nevermind the fact that they couldn't, the fear was real.

You're saying "scary to the player matters," and I'm saying "scary to the player matters AND scary to the character matters." I'm not even saying that TI mages shouldn't be given deadly spells. I'm just saying it should be exceedingly rare to find a character whose only legitimate concern is death, and everything else is a cakewalk.

I think what geras was saying is that it wouldn't be fun for the mages who could only conjure daisies and puppies. You have to remember, whereas mages may not need spells to be scary to other characters, the mage may want to actually be scary to make the risk worthwhile. Even if mages had no spells, but something to identify themselves as mages, the current risk to their character would still be the same. The Inquisition would still go and actively hunt them. Mages currently like their spells, because it gives them at least some kind of reward for putting their character at risk. Be it the mage just likes screwing with people, or the effects of the spells actually help them, it gives them something in return for the risk. A mage with no spells, they have no reason to create a mage, a character that is doomed to die with little to no return in the xp devoted to it.

So yeah, I think what geras was trying to say is fun for the mages. And applesauce, I understand what you mean by it shouldn't be rare to find a character whose only concern is death, but ultimately thats on players heads. I think so many of the players on here have grown used to magic and whatnot, that they subconsciously forget that their character should be afraid of alot more...

[Applesauce]

I think what geras was saying is that it wouldn't be fun for the mages who could only conjure daisies and puppies. You have to remember, whereas mages may not need spells to be scary to other characters, the mage may want to actually be [deadly] to make the risk worthwhile.

Different topic, but totally valid.

All I disagreed with was the comment I quoted: "A mage that isn't deadly isn't scary. Period." If that's true, then it means people on both side of the magic divide are not RPing, they're hack-and-slashing. In RP there's plenty for characters to be scared of, and mages (while not the sole source of fear) are definitely part of that.

Your interpretation is more like, "A mage that isn't deadly isn't fun. Period." I also disagree with that, but I'll back out of the thread and leave that topic to the people more familiar with the magic system as it stands.

[Tremere]

I will say, I do think that the teaching time for spells should be reduced. I am generally an advocate for realism, but I also know it's a game and the teaching time for spells I think should be 2 hours at the top end. Otherwise it seems like -too- much of a burden. I think if this was tooled in, things would be perfect right now.

[Kinaed]

We're reviewing the teaching time for spells now.

[Geras]

I think what geras was saying is that it wouldn't be fun for the mages who could only conjure daisies and puppies. You have to remember, whereas mages may not need spells to be scary to other characters, the mage may want to actually be [deadly] to make the risk worthwhile.

Different topic, but totally valid.

All I disagreed with was the comment I quoted: "A mage that isn't deadly isn't scary. Period." If that's true, then it means people on both side of the magic divide are not RPing, they're hack-and-slashing. In RP there's plenty for characters to be scared of, and mages (while not the sole source of fear) are definitely part of that.

Your interpretation is more like, "A mage that isn't deadly isn't fun. Period." I also disagree with that, but I'll back out of the thread and leave that topic to the people more familiar with the magic system as it stands.

It isn't a different topic. It's the original topic - why play a mage? What makes playing a mage fun? What makes interacting with mages fun?

If mages are 100% harmless it harms everyone's suspension of disbelief. Maybe you would enjoy a game with toothless mages that just sit around and talk people to death, but I certainly wouldn't.

And I'm not just saying this as someone who's played mostly mages in recent iterations of TI. The most fun I've had was planning a Knight on the original incarnation of TI during the time where mages were the most ridiculously overpowered in the game's history. Now obviously the imbalance was a bad thing, but the danger was just fun. It's fun to feel a bit of the fear your character is experiencing. You should be afraid when confronting a mage. That's what making those characters - on both sides - worth playing.

[Puciek]

The danger should come from the fact that your character doesn't know that they cannot just turn you into kitty-litter with blink of an eye. And it is hard to keep on being afraid of mages icly when everyone around you tells you how getting hexed is no big deal (really) and treat it with less concern than common cold. And when less characters will be stoic and the fear-of-mages will be visible after wherever they act, fearing them will become a standard behavior which will give a lot of power to the mages without giving them any coded power.

[Geras]

The danger should come from the fact that your character doesn't know that they cannot just turn you into kitty-litter with blink of an eye. And it is hard to keep on being afraid of mages icly when everyone around you tells you how getting hexed is no big deal (really) and treat it with less concern than common cold. And when less characters will be stoic and the fear-of-mages will be visible after wherever they act, fearing them will become a standard behavior which will give a lot of power to the mages without giving them any coded power.

And still boring as all hell. You're expecting 100% of chars to be complete morons, even the ones who are familiar with magic. If you honestly think the game would be better without useful magic, with due respect, you're just wrong.