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Post by Rikku on Apr 17, 2010 2:20:53 GMT -5
Some interesting thoughts here! ^__^ I'm glad we're wondering about direction. The Mages have always sort of lacked motivation. I mean, Pirates are easy, they pillage and stuff, Knights follow orders and keep the peace, but our purpose has always been rather nebulous.
An alliance with the Knights would be an interesting possibility. There's a lot of crossover between them anyhow, if off-the-top-of-my-head recollections serve for anything.
*nods* I agree with that. It's a haven. We could offer asylum, or such. And it also serves an interesting purpose in that it educates mages in their powers; without such an institution, maverick mages who had too much power and too little knowledge of how, why and when to use it would be a lot more of a problem.
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Post by Celestial on Apr 17, 2010 7:56:17 GMT -5
Yay, interested idea-people! ^^ I don't care if you're newbies to the guilds, Tiger and GLQ, your voices are just as important as anybody's.
We were the general go-to people when it came to magical problems before so I'd think that this would be what we do now. This is after all the place where all the Mages are so it would make sense. xD
I do like the idea of a safe haven very much and I don't think it is something that has been brought up yet. We certainly can offer asylum to people if they need it as the Manor's defences would keep somebody contained but also keep them safe.
Now the trick is implementing this. I'm thinking we can revive the magical contract service where the other guilds can hire mages for their little odd-jobs which they can't do themselves.
GLQ, I think what's stopping us is that we are too nice. xD Yes we could theoretically blow everyone and everything up but we don't mostly because we are nice. Although we could make it that we need the other guilds for resources. The Knights for example have farmlands and we could buy what we need off them in exchange for magic and artifacts that we can provide. That's another thing I want to discuss with Shade in terms of alliance. >>
Also, I need your opinion here: currently magic is a free system with nothing stopping us from doing anything. We had some dicussions about implementing a system where the magic actually uses some form of energy. It could be just acknowledging the energy drain in roleplays or we could go for a more complex system with each mage assigned a specific amount of points of energy and when they cast a spell they decide how much is drained with common sense. (So a large fireball that would take up more energy than a small fireball would cost more points.)
What does everyone think? Should we have a system or not? I'm personally in favour of this as it would provide an explanation for why we can't do certain stuff and give a reason in roleplays as to why we can't just fix everything. xD
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Post by Tiger on Apr 17, 2010 8:41:29 GMT -5
Thirding the liking of the "safe haven" idea =D I like the idea of an energy system to keep people from overpowering their characters, but I'm not sure it's needed to explain why we can't fix everything. From the looks of it, there are a lot of different mage powers, but each is very limited within that character. Tiger can create animals, some that have magical effects, but...that's it. She can't break a curse or cast a shield or create the aforementioned fireball. In teams, it'd be a little more difficult to explain that, I guess, but I think the limitations of each individual mage will wind up being more helpful to keeping us from snapping our fingers and going "problem solved! =D" Oh, yes! Back to the original thing I was saying- I do like the idea of an energy limitation system. I'm personally fine with just acknowledging energy drain within the roleplay itself. While I see the pluses of a point system, I think it might risk making magic-use a little too rigid- the points would have to account for a lot of things, like how much time has passed since the last spell cast, or little things like adrenaline rushes (assuming that might dredge up some extra magic-juice ). Unless we want to use the system as a general rule, and acknowledge there might be situations where it can be slightly modified?
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Post by Shadaras on Apr 17, 2010 11:10:23 GMT -5
*remembered that this subboard existed* xD Some interesting thoughts here! ^__^ I'm glad we're wondering about direction. The Mages have always sort of lacked motivation. I mean, Pirates are easy, they pillage and stuff, Knights follow orders and keep the peace, but our purpose has always been rather nebulous. An alliance with the Knights would be an interesting possibility. There's a lot of crossover between them anyhow, if off-the-top-of-my-head recollections serve for anything. *nods* I agree with that. It's a haven. We could offer asylum, or such. And it also serves an interesting purpose in that it educates mages in their powers; without such an institution, maverick mages who had too much power and too little knowledge of how, why and when to use it would be a lot more of a problem. Yeah, there's a lot of crossover, since we're the two high fantasy guilds, really. I don't think any of the pure knights have much magic anymore, and considering all the strange things we're likely to run in to, a cordial relationship between the knights and mages, where we call on you guys for jobs that require magic and you get an opportunity to use your magic in an actually dangerous environment would be nice. Full-out alliance would also be fun, if you guys wanted it. ((And Celestial -- You'd PMed me saying you had an idea for the Mage/Knight envoy-whatever-person. I replied, but you haven't sent me those ideas yet.)) Anyway, your ideas look neat to me. I'm not one of the mages -- keeping up with the Knights is enough for me -- but I love the depth of thought you guys are putting into this. ^_^
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Post by Celestial on Apr 17, 2010 12:07:40 GMT -5
Shade, it's because Celest is lazy and also had revision, not a good combination. She'll send you the details today. ^_^
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Post by Lord Hayati on Apr 17, 2010 12:13:55 GMT -5
I think I've done a mana system with Krisseh, you may want to check that out.
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Post by Celestial on Apr 17, 2010 12:20:18 GMT -5
I think I've done a mana system with Krisseh, you may want to check that out. Can you give me a link please? ^^;;
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Post by Lord Hayati on Apr 17, 2010 14:35:03 GMT -5
its in krisseh's info on page 2. should't be hard to find.
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Post by Gelquie on Apr 17, 2010 17:50:11 GMT -5
If we do have a safe haven for others, I trust we'll have extra security in the places that the visitors are allowed, right?
Do we have a stance on renegade mages, like mages that are with neither the mages guild or the mercs guild, but simply go out and cause stuff, possibly bad? (Assuming they chose not to join or refuse to join; newbies come from somewhere.) If so, how do we feel about them?
Yeah I noticed that everyone really is too nice. Gosh-darnit, I can't consume souls that way! XD (Not that my character could.) Anyway, I agree with having the others around for trade and service and stuff. I was also wondering where the food for our kitchen came from. Trades are well and good to cover that. Do we have a backup plan in case everyone decides to gang up on the Mages Guild?
As for power, I've thought about that. I work under the fatigue system; the more spells and more complex spells my character casts, the more she gets tired and the more chance she has of messing up. ("Oops, sparkly multi-colored lions don't ride iridescent leprechauns and float into the sun, do they?") That way, they can only do so many major things depending on how perked up they are. At the same time, it gets rid of the silliness of not being able to cast an extremely trivial cantrip.
...I suddenly got the mental image of a mage downing 10 cups of coffee at once to keep themselves perked up. XD
In any case, when it comes to how much magic my character can do at a time, I pretty much use common sense. All depends on what my character feels.
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Post by Celestial on Apr 17, 2010 18:28:37 GMT -5
GLQ, the Manor takes care of all that by itself since it is sentient and can change itself depending on the situation.
I've never thought about that but I guess the mages that cause bad things and are not under the control of the guild are our enemies and we have to be the ones who deal with them. Although we haven't had a crisis like that for a while, if ever. Still, that's useful to know in case anything ever happens.
I guess we could live off of the supplies we have and create something using magic as well as having a greenhouse which we can use. Again, nothing like that has happened in a while so we've grown rather lax. Of course we send out envoys to deal with the situation in case it ever does and go to war if negotiations fail.
As for energy, I'm in favour of just ackowleding it since it allows for creativity and at the same time actually makes sure our magic has limits. The mana system, while a good idea in theory could get a mite too complex. That said, I'm leaving it up to everyone to decide on how they wish to acknowledge a magical drain. If you wish to use mana then more (or less. xD) power to you but if you just wish to say that energy has been drained by maigc I'd think that's ok too.
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Post by Lord Hayati on Apr 17, 2010 18:49:36 GMT -5
KRisseh is the chef of the mage manor. what else do you expect of a royal jelly? XD
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Post by Celestial on Apr 17, 2010 18:54:02 GMT -5
KRisseh is the chef of the mage manor. what else do you expect of a royal jelly? XD Head chef? ^_^ Most of the housework, including cooking, is done by golems but Krisseh can easily coordinate them.
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Post by Lord Hayati on Apr 17, 2010 19:00:33 GMT -5
yeah. XD -wobbles- Dessert is her speciality, though.
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Post by Rikku on Apr 18, 2010 2:32:12 GMT -5
I love magic systems with restrictions. They make things so much more interesting, because a character being clever about how to use a limited power is much more interesting than a superpowered character just doing whatever they want. Books like Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind and ... just about anything by Brandon Sanderson ... show this, that interesting magic with limits can make for some really unique writing, really fun to read.
That said, I certainly object to a points system, and even having an energy-type system would bother me a bit. The impression I've got of magic-users in this constantly-being-redefined world of the NTWF is that each of them has different magic with different limits and different areas of expertise. I mean, sure, yes, energy would most likely work with almost all of the mages, but what if someone wanted to have a mage character with a really odd power that wouldn't fit within those guidelines? Like, someone who had a curse that made everything they touch turn into gold, and refined it until they could make jewellery and weapons or whatever they wanted at the time, but had to always wear gloves and never touch anything for fear of changing it forever.
Odd example. I can't quite think of something to illustrate the point off the top of my head. xD But even if you just had someone with the ability to talk to animals or something - how could you use energy to do that, and how would /not/ having energy affect it? And - darn, now I want a character that can talk to animals. But still.
... 'Energy' just means the amount of work something can do, anyhow. >.>; By which I mean that it's an ambiguous term. What are we meaning it by here? Energy like 'a glowing ball of energy', or energy like 'she was filled with energy'? I'm gathering the latter, but the former would make sense considering the nature of many of our mages' magic. (... Mostly fire. Hahaha.)
But I so very definitely need to give restrictions to Rikku's magic. xD Or any further information about it at all, really. Just writing whatever seemed to work was okay with me when I was fourteen, but it's making me more and more twitchy and guilty-like these days. I just don't know where to go with it, really.
Sorry for rambling, I've been away from the computer for a week and it's making me talkative. If this has any resemblance to making sense, I am honestly surprised. xD
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Post by Tiger on Apr 18, 2010 7:37:46 GMT -5
Well, I assume we're talking pretty specifically about spell-casting, so unless you need to cast a spell to talk to animals, I assume that wouldn't be something regulated by energy. It's a talent, rather than something you'd be powering. The example I want to use is of making a cloak (or whatever) as opposed to just wearing one you bought. It takes energy to make the cloak, but wearing it is completely effortless (assuming it's a normal, made-of-cloth cloak. I just had to join the mages, didn't I? XD).
....That 'turn stuff into gold' character sounds pretty awesome, though =D
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