Magic - discuss

[tannorath]

I convinced a good friend of mine to play Geas about an year ago! He is quite an experienced mudder and he was looking for a game with a complex Magic System! I don't know much about it, but from what i heard, Geas has one of the moust complex and hard to learn Magic Systems!

Anyway, the story ends like this: after more then 7 months of playing, beeing a Scribe, my friend kind of stopped playing! When i asked him why, he said that at one point his skills completely stopped improving and also that in Geas the Magic System feels like somthing that is unexistant, or unfinished at best!

Now, considering the fact that all i know about Magic System are just some information the player of Caralandir (sorry if i messed up your name )gave me in an OOC conversation, i can't make an accurate statement about the Magic System!

So, if anyone is willing to discuss or think of a way of making the Magic System more visible to newbies, is welcome !

[Delia]

Well...first of all what I've heard the magic system is completely work in progress and has been that way for a really long time.Second, I think magic is supposed to be really arcane and secret part of Geas, something that people only know very little about, and third, yes its really hard to learn even to learn simplest of spells.
But I don't feel i'm the one to say anything more that I know...I'd hope the person involved in developing the magic system would contribute to the discussion too and would share ideas...but on the otherhand that would completely ruin the fun and surprise for me as a player

[tannorath]

It is not my intention to start a thread about the IC features of the Magic System! It was more like: In what way we can let the new players know that such a system EXIST, without giving them extensive informations about it, therefore without ruin them "the fun" its a shame that a feature of Geas that is very complex and will raise the interest of many new players, its completely unknown!

[jezz]

From the little I knwo about Geas, magic will be a snobbish power only accesible to those players with contacts and luck.

And from what i heard, magic will be one of the most powerful features of the world... which leads us to a system where maybe 2 or 3 players can start a "club of magic-users", restricting the rest of chars, who can get dissapointed and abandon them...

I know that icly is perfectly allowed, and I congratulate the players who have created that ghetto... but in the same way, one day Jezz, Cemoch and Vlad could start slasying every player they see on sight. With the current playerbase, I really doubt someone could gather a team big enough to catch us off-guard, and so we would continue killing players on sight until they don't go out of cities...

That could be done, but do we want it?

[stilgar]

I'd like to aproach this whole thing from another point of view. Abharsair seemed disappointed that players gave very little feedback on the topic of favourite areas in GEAS. He somehow suggested why code if no one cares? I'd say why code if no one is allowed to use it? That way a whole new continent could be coded for just 2 or 3 players... why not? IF they can restrict others to enter ICly then why not let them do that?

Of course this is a VERY VERY complicated question. I'm sure those players invested a lot of playtime creating their own little kingdom. also sure that would greatly harm their IC interests if we would just chage things from OOC point of view. YET... let us walk around this topic a bit...

I think there could be ways to limit access to magic. Like.. players involved into magic should research spells for example. Individually or in smaler communities.. THAT make sense.. but if you just "find" knowledge for example in the form of a book, and later you can hide it.. hmm.. Then the question is: Why bother to make any guild like scribes?

We could say.. IF you are lucky you find magical books, like you find artifacts... if not you do not find magical books... it is done..

just my opinion, of course

[Naga]

(I moved this post to magic ideas, where it is more relevant.)

[chara]

Jezz - from what I know of the plans for the magic system, there is not a single grain of truth in the rumours you mentioned in your note.

Perhaps you should wait for the system to be coded before you get indignant about it. And also, assuming the absolute worst of the wizards and the development of the mud is a hard way to keep coders interested and motivated to work on a project.

Naga - I hope it doesn't disappoint you too much, but I don't think any naked seal dancing has been discussed in terms of the mage guild. Though of course, what the players choose to do IC... well, just remind me to get a blindfold for my poor innocent PCs if that comes about

[Abharsair]

(This post is mainly in regard to Jezz' statements)

Well, it just completely puzzles me how rumours and wrong assumptions can grow like that among our players. Maybe it's time to clear some up once and for all:

1) Mages aren't coded yet. They haven't even been begun yet. We are still trying to come up with a decent and innovative concept which is different to most other games. So unless you know more about the Mages' concept than I do, I would really, really like to know why you came up with such an abstruse idea. Please?

2) Mages and Scribes will be two completely different groups. It won't matter whether you have been a scribe, an illiterate imbecile, a thief, a tanner, or only god knows what else, if you manage to find someone who teaches you magic. As long as you are intelligent enough (and now please read my lips very carefully) it will be completely irrelevant if you have ever seen the Scribes library or not.

3) No currently existing player has gotten any advantage whatsoever to join the Mages once they will be done. And before you even think about saying "But the master scrib...", read point 2) again, because apparently you didn't pay enough attention.

4) Scribe magic != Mage magic. Or for our non-coding audience: the Scribes' magic is not the same as the Mages' magic. I thought that was actually pretty clear, but maybe I was wrong.

5) Alright, I repeat myself, but please! For the love of god! Where do you people come up with those weird ideas?? Is there some alt.bizarre.geas.rumours newsgroup we wizards aren't aware of? Restricted to two or three people? What the... ? Well, let me tell you this: The Smurf village I have mentioned in another thread is much more likely to be coded than this.

And no, there is no "but", because as I mentioned before, we are still in the process of discussing a concept, so whatever you might have heard from other players about how it will be: it's wrong, because they don't know. It's simple as that.

And yes, if you do have ideas for magic, post them on the "Ideas" board, or send them to admin@geas.de.

[valder]

(Scribes get magic?)

*sells his traps*

[Delia]

Just wondering...are the mages going to be an occupational guild when they are done?

[anglachel]

How Abharsair mention is there no concept for the mages and magic.
There some ideas and thoughts to a magic system, but till now no idea
was able to grow to a concept, that found common acceptance.
(Besides the problem that some ideas are nearly impossible to code)

And now to the point: scribes and magic.
Till now the scribes have an own magic system. That happen to this
system depends on the magic concept (when ever it is finshed)
May be it keep a own thing, like Abharsair mentions or it will be
a part of the new concept, if it fits together.

But in all case you must be not be scribe to become mage! The
scribes may be an entry point to the mage carrier, but they will
not be the only way.

I personal would prefer to see tha magic of scribes as a part of
magic system. It would be bit less work for the wizards to take
care for one system as for two.

But there is no final decision about it and still all is possible.
Only one that is sure is that there will serverel ways to become
mage and all ways will be long and hard!

[Delia]

I'd like the scribe-kind of magic being the starting point for bigger things...and before anyone objects the scribe magic doesn't use but three skills in order to use it...you'd just have to learn them somewhere else.Of course that is currently impossible as you can't learn fonts outside the scribes I think, and you can't write a studybook about fonts either.But still...starting out practicing with weak scrolls is fun, I'd hate to see people just "learning" a spell and start blasting out fire and brimstone, bit like the clerics have it now, ok of course they have their own limits and masteries and somesuch, but they have it easy.

[tannorath]

It seems like i have opend the Pandora Box

Anyway, this for the Coders: If you guys care to share some of the ideeas you have for the Magic System, i am sure the Player Community can come up with some interesting ideeas or features that would be within the general "line" of the Magic System as you imagined it and will help of bringing the Magic System from the "imagination" state, closer to a codable thing !

[anglachel]

There is topic 'magic ideas' in the 'Ideas' section.
Please post your ideas for a magic system there.
If the ideas are spreadover two topics , it is a bit confusing!

[Delia]

Continuing with the discussion theme, how do people view magic in Geas in general, both IC and OOC? Magic has played a major role in the history of Forostar, and clearly demonstrated it can warp both body and soul. So is a mage a person who organizes New Year's fireworks and does parlor tricks? Or is a mage who summons something out of thin air a cause for happy smiles and joyous clapping of hands?
Just feeling around here, as even though most magic practiced by players( atleast publicly ) is quite harmless, do the characters have any inkling what goes on? Its bit like seeing the same old text lines again "Person X does this and that" and people go, oh, now this happens, shrug, and move on. This applies to priest miracles as well. Ok, with time its pretty tiresome to react to all things around you but...

[vurdijak]

In response to Delia, I see magic in Geas as a force to be reckoned with
in the hands of someone experienced. But for beginning mages I think they will mostly make people laugh and mess up their spells very often. In my view, two of the branches of magic should require very little armour. And
here I have an idea the wizzes may or may not have thought of. I think that
the deflect feature is one of the most interesting and attractive parts of Geas. The deflect bar requires a player to wear the right armour, very little of it, and use the right weapons as well. The heaviest weapons are useless when trying to deflect with a full bar. Why not require 2 or all three types of magic to be usable only when the mage has a full deflect bar...or perhaps even decrease the potentcy of the spells depending on how high the deflect bar is. At halfway the spell is roughly half strength etc.

Getting back to Delia's question, I also view magic as on par with fighting. I would like the system to be very complex, and impossible to perfect every aspect of it. Anyone would have a tough time getting every weapon skill to 100 or even all the skills associated with their style of fighting. I think using magic should be equally as slow-going. If there are three branches of magic, I think it should be as hard to learn them all simultaneously as if you were to try to learn all the shao skills, the fighter skills, and lets say 5 different weapon types. In other words, if someone wants to be a mage of all three types, I think thats great, but they will never be able to perfect all three. I think lots of various skills should be unique to each type of magic.

Vurdijak

[Kortha]

I'm not sure I like the idea of having spells have a direct relationship with the deflect bar. This would give shaos an unfair advantage, which I don't think they deserve since being a shao has nothing to do with magic (that I know of). Yes a few other players have decent deflect skills, but a VERY few. Yes powerful magic is supposed to be rare, but I think it should be equally rare, not rare among 99% of players and less rare among one certain guild.

[Alamar]

Mages are supposed to be lightly armoured and lightly armed. The deflect bar is a system that is already in place and coded. It may be geared towards the shao, but there are plenty of other players that have high deflects and are non-shao.

Perhaps, instead of using the deflect bar, which is based on weight and volume (including what you are wielding), the magic be based on armour and weapon type. Clothing interferes not at all. Leather only slightly. Chain quite a bit (maybe very light mithril chain is possible? *shrug*). Plate completely prevents it.

As for weapons, a mage should be able to use at least one hand when casting. Either he is holding a wand, a rune stone, clenching a ring, or doing little magicky signs in the air. This means that one-handed weapons are a MUST for wizards. If a one-handed weapon is also very heavy then it should, due to its encumberance, hinder spell-casting. It would lead, quite naturally, to mages using the more traditional mage weapons: daggers and staves. Light swords are also possible, even short spears or polearms.

I'm not sure if the "deflect" bar should be the direct measure of magic, but certainly it is a starting point for discussing what kind of encumberance a mage should have to deal with when casting a spell.

-Alamar

[Drake]

It was suggested you move this to the other thread, so let me just encourage you a little.