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There are spells that make combat unnecessary, but it's kinda like if you make one mistake and someone manages to engage you in combat, then you need a decent amount of combat (which means grandmaster) to avoid being very quickly put down. Combat is an insurance policy that at the same time provides good rp.

This makes it a highly desirable type of character to play, a combat mage. I have seen plenty of people not play combat mages and do fine in this incarnation of the inquisition, but these people tend to turtle much more than me.

With combat turtling is not nearly as necessary, though this will be adjusted slightly by new combat I think it will be for the better.

I'd also like to point out, Raidon seems to have quit the MUD and Arten's player requested to retire his character. To me this indicates they were dissatisfied with the rp available to their characters and shows how difficult and emotionally draining at times it can be to play a mage.

I agree that if anyone wishes to engage in direct conflict, combat is the single most xp-efficient skill to dump xp into. But that is also the way it is IRL, in medieval times, when guns weren't invented yet.

The point is that mage spells do not need to be buffed further to include direct combat, because evasion of combat IS a strategy.

In general, I find myself nodding in agreement reading Estelle's post. I feel less convinced over the others because:

1) I have played a long-standing, secretive mage. In doing so, I loved the character immensely and didn't see the issues raised by the 'mages - lots of work, over quick' side of the fence. I think the fundamental difference though, was that magic wasn't my character. It was an aspect of my character. Typically, most of her plots did not surround her magedom anymore than an Inquisitor's plot surrounds his magedom (because they usually aren't mages). Some of her plots did - like how she arranged to protect herself with the knights and so forth. She did not attack people for the sake of it. She was a 3-D person whose goals in life were a bit run-of-the-mill with just an extra dimension of magic as a benefit or option if she needed it in a pinch. For me, this was fun.

I'm not saying the other mages have it wrong. If they want to play mages who exist around and about the magic, that's fine, but - it does have a shorter expiration date because the theme and atmosphere of the game is "See Mage. Kill Mage. Get Coffee. Do it all over again." Without that aspect of the theme, magedom would be run of the mill, and that's really the crux of the excitement in playing a mage.

2) I agree whole-heartedly with the analysis of Estelle's post on who has escaped, and how permissible those things are. I did not have a problem with Karel going into the square and boom, though I agree his indecision about what to do afterwards, and the stasis of just re-booming several times while he sorted out his OOC intentions, made it untenable RP.

The twink help file did not come about because Karel used Empyrclap, it came about because the players were upset. I defined twinking not to label him with a twink flag, or to say that mages are twinks (sure, some do twink, but not all), but to let the pbase as a whole know what twinking is and isn't and to set a TI standard. Now there's a real definition for twinking - law or mage alike. The biggest twinking offense that I've seen (and have personally participated in if I'm absolutely honest) was OOCly pressuring someone or judging people OOCly for their IC RP. There's a whole post dedicated to this very topic on the boards.

Being a mage or a law person isn't about winning or losing, it's just something that pops up a lot because it's a way we as humans break down tasks and attempt to achieve goals. On an RP game, just like real life, the point of existence isn't about winning or losing. The only time "mage vs law" is a rat race is if we perceive it that way. Rather, the goal and point of "mage versus law" is to RP and enjoy the ride.

I agree completely with your post, Kinaed, especially the last paragraph. :)

I've once played an extremely obnoxious character, where a select few people somehow found it excusable to treat him with less than ideal OOC respect. One chucked temijul at him without even posing going near, or anything of the sort. Another seemed to think it was okay to powerpose a bad smell coming from him. Not 'xxx says, "You smell bad, dude!"', but 'xxx covers his nose to avoid the bad smell coming from (my character)'. Interestingly enough, nothing had been posed on my part, or had happened, to imply such. While I found it funny and let it slide, the principle of it is rather saddening.

Wilderop: Trust me, Raidon's player has threatened to quit a lot in the past... and then not even as a mage. Arten's was the reaction of anyone forced to RP in hiding, really, be they common criminal, killer, or mage. It gets old having to restrict your RP so severely, although I admit there were people falsely calling him a twink as well.

I just want to note that things have changed with the recent PK policy saying please set up the RP and asking both law and mages not to code-hit-first, ask-questions-later. It was certainly permissible when it was done earlier. Now it is not because policy has shifted with the pbase's demands to curb that sort of mass-knock-out behavior.

I'm not really sure how tenable the replacement policy is. When we test it and see how it goes, I suppose we'll know. :)