Geras wrote: ↑Thu Oct 22, 2020 12:52 pm
So what's the solution Puciek? I agree that that was a real problem but if the alternative is no mage RP at all...
Some of the most prolific and game-wide impacting mages as far as I remember were from them manus-off "eras", so I don't think that's the core of the problem. In the end it's relatively easy to have a safe meeting/hiding spot with being able to get covert phomes with unorthodox entries, and then using some magery to not even leave tracks leading to it. Honestly, I don't think the hiding place is not the issue, though now if it gets discovered at least it can be breached with enough effort, while with manus tower it just (mostly) didn't matter.
Just to outline on the manus tower issue, when I started playing TI the mages were so dug up in the tower that they didn't even get back to applicants... most of the time. But the tower RP was going on in full swing. The isolation was really not great for the game.
Though a solution... It's a complicated subject but I guess I can rant a bit and maybe some of it will make sense.
There definitely is a problem with secrecy of magery and it's signs. Not only among most trusted order members but given just how many people OOCly know magery, its very easy to become a "mage signs expert" icly, takes some flimsy excuse in the past. When I started with TI, with my first Knight, I remember how players (including knights) pushed against spreading definitive mage-knowledge icly, so as new orderite if you didn't experience most of the magery yourself, you wouldn't be able to instantly recognize it. So even if you OOCly may have know that "yep, this is magery" your PC wouldn't. Last time I dabbled into TI then even lowly Southside had magery-recognition-knowledge shoved down his throat, and not by an inquisitors, or knights. And then people were willing to ICly belive most insane theories (think rising from the death type of insane) with very little doubt or debate, because, well, mages right? I think that's one of the biggest factors of the lack of balance, where population relatively easily accepts the impossible (because mages) and steer their suspicions accordingly. Sometimes not even finding it as worthy writing a cnote because it's so easily acceptable to your pc that someone has risen from the dead.
And that kinda goes against the core of mages - they are supposed to be mysterious and operate something that for normal people is impossible to comprehend. They don't need to actually be able to burn down a village in order to be dangerous, the myth around them should be more than enough for anyone to flee in terror when a mage passes through with a flame burning out of their skull, or doing anything else creepy. Heck, I can't imagine why wouldn't most knights run for the hills when faced with a mage, you never know if he won't just snap his finger and horde of demons will appear and eat your alive. They don't because "mages - complete guide to what they can and cannot do" is passed along freely, whether people do it knowingly or not, that's what's going on. So instead of building the portrayal of scary mages who with raise of a brow can level mountains we are building image of weaklings who need to fight with weapons and wear armor, otherwise they are relatively easy to beat. And when the mystery and myth is gone, well, mages really are not that powerful, and shouldn't be as that was causing a lot more of a problem when they were very dangerous in combat indeed, with mattack ignoring armor, and pretty powerful combat (direct and indirect) spells.
What that means in practice that for mages to thrive, there must be population of PCs that allows itself to be victims of the mages, and same applies to brotherhood and any other villain groups, that they require people willing to play along with those archetypes, not mostly unite against them. Or at least that's my 0.2$ on the matter.
That's my personal view at the core of the game. As a disclaimer I didn't play TI in few months, and then for year and a bit before, though I mostly stopped because the game is just too slow for me, and I do not have the big swats of time to do 3-5 hours scenes on even semi-regular basis, so I spend my time at RP games that are faster paced.