Mages

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Delia
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Mages

#1 Post by Delia » Thu Sep 05, 2013 8:22 am

I'll keep the subject as broad as possible as some derailing is bound to come. Anyways, how do you think mages have incorporated themselves into the gameworld? Are they too visible? Too reclusive? Too flamboyant? Are they adorable fluffy bunny-shaped vending machines? Too fighterey? Are they treated too casually and given too much rope? Can they be seen as independent? Do they move with a purpose?

Insert your general impressions and opinions below!
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Re: Mages

#2 Post by fernao » Thu Sep 05, 2013 11:17 am

Well, so far they seem to have integrated well into the world and its lore. From the Satho point of view there seem to be too many of them being aligned with either Elvandar or directly with the Crusade or the Tanielites.

To me it seems as if there is a lack of evil mages. Neutral is the best I, as Satho, can hope for at the moment.

In general too few of them seem to be active, at least from my vantage point, but then again, I don't frequent places continiously where mages seem to roam.

In the beginning Delia seemed to be rather overpowered when most of her Shao abilities were still at her disposal, seems to have balanced out now. But thats a personal impression rather than a general.
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Re: Mages

#3 Post by ferranifer » Thu Sep 05, 2013 8:11 pm

I personally believe that the Mage roleplay is extremely deep and rich, but largely wasted in the grand scheme of things because it mostly happens behind closed doors.

I will not go into details, but the design and code work behind the Magic system is really something to behold. Like with everything that gets added to a game like Geas, where code resources are few and precious, it is a shame that only a handful of players will ever experience this. Now I'm not saying that it should be easier to become a Mage (well, ok, maybe a bit easier, the barrier of entry is massive), but rather that the kind of things that mages can do could have quite a lot more visibility and be enjoyed by more people. The current active Mages (particularly Lachtli) do a very good job at 'spreading the love' and letting other close people peek into the grandness that is Magic in Geas. But I think the Mage players could come up with ways to make the usage and development of Magic be part of the sociopolitical world and history of the game.

I would like to see the Mages being more involved with the World. Maybe they could offer certain services that people would find extremely appealing, thought provoking, threatening or repulsive. Maybe they could be antagonized directly by some major power group, like the Druids, or the Clerical orders (all of them). There is rather solid grounds for this both lore and character wise. Right now they exist in a very safe position outside of all the rest of the struggles of the game. I'd love to see what could happen if they decided to step out of their comfort zone and stop existing exclusively in the sidelines.

What I would dislike seeing is a polarization of the Mages influence in the World in the good-evil axis. In fact, I rather see that kind of polarization disappear from the MUD altogether at all levels and being replaced with multiple axis, as many as power groups exist in the game.

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Re: Mages

#4 Post by Nylessa » Thu Sep 05, 2013 9:32 pm

I am new to geas but i desperately want to see what magic is like in game some time; Espically with how indepth this system is said to be, magic is something that always intrigues me and i definitely will be looking forward to making an alt character that looks to be a mage. Even if that path is hard.

I do agree that i wish i could see more magic out there; perhaps its partially the player base being small that makes it harder, and with the apparently really hard requirements to become a mage, that too, is no suprise.

But i want to engross myself in this world as much as possible, as theres tons of cool things to see, even from an OOC perspective.

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Re: Mages

#5 Post by Delia » Fri Sep 06, 2013 3:37 am

The greatest obstacle in becoming a mage is finding a free master. Training the apprentice to full mage is a commitment for both the master and the apprentice. One that takes a lot of time.

Mages in general are hardly described with words such as good or evil but it cannot be argued that their predisposition towards things is greatly influenced by the positioning of the current "mage apprentice schools". That and the fact the first new mages had their own history of conflict with the evil groups of Forostar. Such things are much more subject to change now though, so seeing an "evil" mage is not out of the picture.

I guess this begs the question, what would the "evilness" of mages be like? Affiliating themselves with groups such as Sathos? Dealing with them can be done on a personal basis. Joining hunts and wars is very unlikely for mages. Infact, it begins to be a bother for both the player and character alike to go hunting monsters. Unless there is a solid agenda for it, of course. Mage work takes a lot of time so you might actually find yourself avoiding distractions or find out that you actually did not manage to do any work because of this and that and the noisy halfling buzzing around your ears and so forth.

I hope people never begin casually conducting research while jovially chatting away at the marketplace. Or atleast if they do, there will be repercussions...(insert more botches and outraged mobs here). Personally I think that mages are constantly getting away with it, meaning they have already caused quite many disruptions but there have been very little consequences that I know of. Sometimes I make the effort with Delia with her displaying her powers more openly, but I guess in the end it is hard to compete with all the Sathos, dark elves, undead, insects and demons by only being somewhat suspicious.
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Re: Mages

#6 Post by Delia » Fri Sep 06, 2013 3:37 am

Lost my train of thought here...
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Re: Mages

#7 Post by Delia » Fri Sep 06, 2013 4:15 am

But yes, mage RP. I guess most of all guild related RP happens behind closed doors, more or less. I have found some similarities with monk RP which has been delightful, even if other mage characters do not share Delia's background.

Most mage RP tends to locate wherever the mages might happen to meet, or in their grand HQ. Being somewhat solitary creatures they have trouble acting as a group and easily lose contact with each other.

Should they meet inside a city or somesuch similar area their options are reallly limited. They simply cannot sit down and talk shop and casually go about it. Or they can, but I think I already voiced what I think of it. Of course, if society is so gracious that anything goes mages surely will not object ;)

I simply approach this by imagining a suspicious stranger arriving into town. Upon entry that stranger might be disarmed and his weapons kept until he has concluded his or her business and upon leaving the weapons are given back. A reasonable safety measure if the region is dangerous and rowdy guests are not that uncommon. Or if you visit a person of importance. There are numerous situations where such safety measures are warranted but one can never really disarm a mage(well, you can knock him uncon or kill him). He can simply state "insert sword through guts" and make it so(to put it roughly), or worse. Priests of course belong to this category but they have worldly power and authority to back them up. They can do, in some instances, pretty much what they please when compared to mages.
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Re: Mages

#8 Post by Skragna » Fri Sep 06, 2013 10:11 am

Evil mage? Rawhide. There you go, right there. 100% evil, 100% mage.

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Re: Mages

#9 Post by Delia » Fri Sep 06, 2013 12:51 pm

Rawhide is both a warning example and an npc. If pc mages could transmute just about anything into monsters like Sathos spawn undead, then yea ;)
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Re: Mages

#10 Post by ghalt » Fri Sep 06, 2013 7:45 pm

Delia wrote:Rawhide is both a warning example and an npc. If pc mages could transmute just about anything into monsters like Sathos spawn undead, then yea ;)
You should research this. ;)

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Re: Mages

#11 Post by Zehren » Sat Sep 07, 2013 6:16 am

I personally preferred when there was no mage guild and magic research was carried out by masterscribes. I found it a far more interesting scenario than having a full mage guild (no matter how wellmade the mage guild in question is). Of course, the progression from masterscribe dawdlers to mage guild is a logical one, so eh.

The mages are bound to get some hate against themselves sooner or later, and once it happens, the events will no doubt stick in the back of everyone's heads forever. No stress about that.
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Re: Mages

#12 Post by Delia » Wed Sep 11, 2013 5:56 am

I would like the low path mages having a possibility for a good, beneficial master and apprentice relarionship as well, with the public mantras eventually removed(no spells just appearing into your head from thin air)and limited research enabled for both alchemists and scribes. Masterscribe research....those were good times in many ways.

Now both scribes and alchemists lack that social dynamic which is bit of a shame and a majority of their choices are made out for them. If they could fill their own list( list being a vague term at this point)of spells from the start instead of going through pretermined routes, mages might actually have to confront them at some point. Now with scribes and alchemists only doing things like first magnitude detect magic does not inspire worry.
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Re: Mages

#13 Post by Cuetlachtli » Sat Sep 28, 2013 4:25 pm

Well here's one of those derails you were talking about!

But as for the situation with the Alchemists and Scribes -- I totally agree that there should be a more formal way for Masters and Apprentices to interact. The Scribe Bureau does actually basically still have this, though it's more or less completely player-enforced. The cooperation is great and I think it works really well, personally.

Seeing something for Alchemists, which I think has been discussed elsewhere between other people, similar to this system would be great. It would also give a little bit greater feeling of importance upon beginning to learn wand crafting.

As for the research situation for Magi, Scribes, and Alchemists....this is what I am thinking at the moment. Pure research, like we are already familiar with, I think should be completely left to the Magi. They should be the ones with a deep enough understanding of things to be able to create such incredible changes.

I agree though that public mantras should be done away with. I think an idea for what you said as "limited" research for Scribes and Alchemists could simply be allowing them more freedom (particularly in wand crafting) and letting them attempt to 'discover' spells that might already exist.

Exactly how they did that would have to be figured out...if there would be hints given...or methods suggested. Anyhow that might be an interesting way to go about it, I think.

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Re: Mages

#14 Post by lanyara » Mon Dec 09, 2013 12:19 pm

I can understand PO Zehren.

The scribes forced interaction between different guilds and players.

With the introduction of the mages, the Scribes kind of died in my opinion. Or at least the old interaction died down.

It just does not feel the same anymore - the mages are on pursuit on their own path now, and the Scribes are kind of left behind in regards to this.

Personally I liked it more when there were no mages (sorry guys! I do agree that mages are important, I just don't like the way how they were added...). I am also not entirely sure what kind of direction the mages are being pushed... are they a guild? Or more an organization of individuals? What purpose do they serve?

I am not quite seeing it...
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Re: Mages

#15 Post by luminier » Mon Dec 09, 2013 9:16 pm

Without veering too much from the main topic, scribes are still the only guild where there is a wealth of knowledge both magical related and not... it is still worth it to have a membership there if that is what your character is interested in.
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Re: Mages

#16 Post by Delia » Tue Dec 10, 2013 6:35 am

My biggest problem with magic has always been that it all is basically accessed from the same place. Arborea. Sure you can access alchemists more readily and sneak about if your fellow guildmates think that you are only a little nefarious.

The problem is that while forcing various factions to co-exist somehow, it eventually fails to be more than a nice diversion. One which begins to elude logic as well. I mean, I think some of the non-human masterscribes would have quit being Arborean scribes if they had a choice. It still feels silly to visit the place all the way from Elvandar to meet a bunch of elven masterscribes chatting how they dislike being there :D The following is pure speculation but sometimes it feels it can be somewhat of a barrier for other races to join the scribes with all the elves hanging about. It could be renamed as the Elvandar Embassy or something ;)

Ok, there are other races there as well but elves seem to be very dominant. I can understand the reasons for only one layman guild per type existing in the world but seeing more than one of each seen as a bad thing I cannot. Personally I have felt that it would have made for a very different Forostar if there were regional scribes and alchemists(not necessarily 1 to 1 duplicates)available for different domains. The question about evil/more nefarious mages would have been solved atleast.

Anyways, just a reminder about history that Mages have been influenced by their ties to Arborea domain and events that have transpired there.
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Re: Mages

#17 Post by Zehren » Tue Dec 10, 2013 1:02 pm

Delia wrote: The following is pure speculation but sometimes it feels it can be somewhat of a barrier for other races to join the scribes with all the elves hanging about. It could be renamed as the Elvandar Embassy or something ;)
Cough. Also Rafael-heartbreak.

There *is* a majority of elves - I suspect in part because elves and scribes have some of the same austere atmosphere. Indeed, my grand choice when starting play was whether I should bring anelf or a hobbit to the table... I must say I am pleased with myself for not going elf, as my character has surely turned out more interestingly by this choice.

I cannot wait for when we are joined by a masterscribe dwarf, writing great theoretical works inbetween chugs of rat and chunks of ale.
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Re: Mages

#18 Post by Delia » Thu Dec 12, 2013 3:41 am

Mages are not an ordinary guild like the other guilds are. That is, they are not so strictly united. They have goals but those would require a peak period in player activity to pursue. Other than that, there are common goals but as they have little interest in combat and killing stuff finding the regular goal of slay the heretic/enemy/what I do not like, protect the lands from aforementioned, take the lands of the aforementioned, and so forth, most goals would usually require code support to see through. There is one thing D has worked towards but the time requirements always make me gringe. Someday...obelisks will sprout all over Forostar like fungi.

(It would actually be fiendishly fun if it were someday revealed that mages and such are unwittingly working for Lilith as her agents of chaos.)

Some other stuff...regarding scribes. I think mages should not have such power over there as they have now. I do not think mages should ever have it easy having anykind of "mundane" mortal power. Their goals and machinations should seem alien to the general body of scribes and as such they have distanced themselves from the normal work people do there. At the very least a mage/masterscribes votes could be reduced? Just a quick thought.
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Re: Mages

#19 Post by Delia » Thu Dec 12, 2013 4:11 am

A wild thought! Kick the mages outside society! Layman Guild memberships revoked from all mages!

Instead, they could have internal capabilities to perform said tasks or choose to pursue the other. Yes, this might make you want to shout "too much!" but the idea is that mages could not join layman guilds, they would be layman guild integrated so to speak. They would also miss out on the convenient guild locations, resources, gathered knowledge, help from other members and what else?

It might suck for some mages if some nifty layman guild is added later but they do have their mage thingies, which is a lot.

Of course this would hurt alchemists and scribes as well. Scribes would be near crippled, I think but even so I somehow feel this might be the right way to go.
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Re: Mages

#20 Post by fernao » Thu Dec 12, 2013 5:42 am

Nice idea.

+1

Would like to hear a definitive statement from Admin/Wizards about the standing of mages and gods. If only for the clerical players amoung us. Might be a bit different depening on the God you serve or worship, you know...
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