[Gossamer's Scrapbook] The Ethereal Canyon I

[Gossamer]

. Faith My next project for Kavala after I finish fear is faith. This is probably something for a later date, because I'm still letting the revelations about fear sink in. However, I think it would be good for all of us to talk about faith. So that being said, I've posted a thread and asked you all for a favor to go post something in it. Fiath In Mizahar: Whats Your Personal Take On It? And Rath, for the record, that's the reason why Kav is so unhappy. Her world values and who she is kinda falls in direct conflict with her status in Riverfall. .

[Gossamer]

. Books This is a mini rant for all you know-it-all's out there! Lets start out with some cold hard facts. Fact: Books are rare in Mizahar. In fact, knowledge of any sort is rare in Mizahar. Tarot has kindly written most of his magics with a sense of availability on how they can be learned and if it says "...from books" then more than likely you can find a book on the subject. Enough said on that. Now, let me refresh your memory on the Books page in the wiki. Books Category: Culture Because of the utter destruction of the Valterrian, the availability of books in Mizahar is quite rare. People are quite frankly too caught up in day to day survival to actually enjoy too many scholarly pursuits. Books are considered uncommon, and pre-Valterrian books are considered an extremely rare commodity. Because of this fact, there is a whole industry that is quietly building up in locating, restoring, and selling copies of any pre-Valterrian manuscripts, texts, journals, and literary work. This is doubly so for magical texts or those texts that contain ancient knowledge, forbidden knowledge, or any sort of technology. These originals can go for tens of thousands of gold-rimmed Mizas. Copies of even mundane pre-Valterrian books usually cost anywhere from 50 to 100 gold-rimmed Mizas. A normal book written post Valterrian (Example: 'Medical herbs of the Bronze Wood' by Joe Herbalist written in 508) would cost somewhere around 5 to 10 gms (which still isn't cheap). Writing materials aren't that expensive however, so people can make a decent living either restoring old books or writing new ones. Even copiests do well for themselves. Zeltiva perhaps has the most books in one single place because the city itself survived the Valterrian but holds its collection in a university library. Mura has an enormous collection of medical books - most post Valterrian since the island did not exist prior to the cataclysm. Moving on. Fact: Just because its in the wiki doesn't mean your PC can easily find out about it. Lets use an example, a specific one, though there's dozens that I can probably pull up of the same bent. Recently there's been a rash of people that know all there is to know about Nightstalkers including that they talk to shadows, move through shadows, and have a secret language. This is making the current stable of Nightwalkers out there extremely pissed off. Their group, the Irst, which is forming up IC and doesn't have an wiki page is suddenly common knowledge because people are finding out about them in books? Can we say metagaming people? Yes. That's what it is. METAGAMING. Hardly anything is found in books in MIzahar except the really common knowledge things like auristics and glyphing. Why? Because there are no books in general. Why are these other things like glyphing and auristics common? Because every Tom Dick and Harry in the pre-Valterrian times knew them - they were taught like reading and writing in grammar school. It even says that on the glyphing wiki page. But why is everything else so common? The answer is, that it is NOT. It's only common because people are wanting to get their hands on the information and know things IC they think are cool OOC. But... Stop doing this, please. If you read a wiki page and every other word is SECRET/SECRETIVE/CONCEALED/CLOSELY GUARDED and its about the Goddess of Secrets, then perhaps one might want to connect the dots and think... "Oh, this stuff is probably secret.". Now, I want to talk about Dreamwalkers. I wrote that article Jan of 2010. No one touched it for a full year and a half. Divination, which is just as cool, is still sitting there rotting. I honestly think its because most people saw the sheer wall of text and decided to forgo reading it for something a little shorter... or something a little lighter. Anyhow, I waited. I seriously did. I wanted to play a Dreamwalker bad because in another life on another game I'd started down that road (with a version of dream manipulation that was really lame)... but I didn't want to be seen as taking advantage of something I wrote. You understand? I didn't want it to look like I wrote it just for one of my PCs to toy with and explore and thrive on. I find the whole subject matter fascinating. But I waited.. because I wanted to give everyone else who wanted a chance a chance to have a chance to pioneer something before I utilized an unused gnosis. But.. that being said, no one came forward so I tipped my hat and gave my pc permission to run with it since a decent amount of time had passed for it not to be all about me and what I wanted to write about. Now, Dreamwalkers should be incredibly rare. They should be incredibly hated too. They can mindfuck you in a heartbeat if they have enough marks and can rewrite your history to suit their own pleasure. There's no way they are going to let the knowledge of what they do out there in the general public and they certainly aren't going to write about it in books. So... why does a lot of PC's now know IC what dreamwalkers are? I can't begin to tell you the amount of disgust I have at this whole IC verses OOC knowledge issue and how it seems that people think that maybe because they are popular, awesome writers, staff, their mother's favorite son/daughter... hell I don't know what they are thinking half the time... that this gives them carte blanche to know whatever they want to know in game. Knowledge takes work, investigation, luck, and a whole lot of legwork. The knowledge also has to EXIST for someone to know about it. You have no idea how much respect I loose for people when this happens. Others loose respect too. And it seems the loss of respect grows proportional to the amount of ego and arrogance that is displayed. Because believe me it takes a lot of arrogance to transfer OOC info IC. And people wonder why I have so little motivation to finish Gnosis/God/Group writeups even though that's my 2012 goal for Mizahar.. to get them all done. .

[Siiri]

The problem, I think, is that for most people, there is no clear distinction between what they as a player want for their PC and what their PC want for themselves. Most of the time, it's really the same thing for most people. What you're talking about is similar to my issue with magic. Player X, finding Flux cool - or whatever is the magic flavor of the month currently - will find a way to get their PC to gain that skill, whether from an inexplicably-eager-to-teach-others-personal-magic-without-regard-for-the-consequences NPC wizard, or a suddenly-available book on the subject, or (perhaps the easiest way) just start with the skill (taught by a close relative who's secretly a wizard), or a wanderer (who's also secretly a wizard), or from an heirloom book (left to them by a deceased relative who jackpotted it in some ruin...because the stone/dirt that fell and covered it can preserve paper for over 500 years, yo). Or from another PC whose player has already done one of the above.

Mizahar's magic is beautiful, it's effects AND consequences well thought out, but not everyone considers the double-edged nature of it. They will take the cool parts to make their PCs awesome and find an OOC way to work around the detrimental aspects. Sadly, what happens is we end up with PC teenagers with knowledge and skill on three or more disciplines on magic running around the continent with hardly any negative effects on their bodies, minds and/or souls.

What's that quote from The Incredibles? "When everyone's super..." That's what happens when we metagame OOC knowledge to benefit our PC's in-game, especially when it comes to the rare and magical stuff. End result, the novel/amazing/awesome/magical things become mundane. And when you do that, I think you just diluted your Mizahar experience. I don't know about others, but I feel that working my way to discovering these rare things through IC experiences (rather than asspulling it by reading a book or whatever just so I can have the knowledge/skill/whatever ASAP) is much more memorable and fulfilling.

[Gossamer]

. Response That was very well said, Siiri. Though you are by far more polite than I am, I can feel the frustration in your opinion with what you do say and absolutely every word of it is the truth. I use gnosis as an example in my post, but the truth is personal and world magic falls victim to this situation a great deal more than the divine magic does. Its because we have divine magic leashed tighter because in some ways its can be far more powerful at high levels, though only in very specific niches. So you are right, the scenarios you laid out are often ways people learn magic and they seem to cheapen the whole thing. And what cheapens it even more is when pc's learn it, and then are brilliant at it with no forethought or concentration in their threads when pulling it off. I just hate that... because often I get the excuse that the concentration was sacrificed for the art of the writing and the artistry of the scene. Well, be that as it may, magic still takes effort and if it isn't shown I won't reward. I wish more ST's were like that. .

[Kadrath Onktaka]

Just my 2 mizas, which doesn't amount to much but: I personally think it comes down to simple all consuming greed. IC and OOC. If it isn't managed ie, kelvic who was 'born with' 3 gnosis marks vs a PC who has worked 10 years ICly (and 2 yrs OOCly) for the same level abilities, it could make a saint angry. Greed for magic knowledge to make your PC look cool, sick, awesome, and respected will sometimes replace that not-so-common sense.

Yes, having a gnosis mark is a good feeling. It's literally a mark of the Gods and people like a touch of greatness. But to achieve that by blatant, inane cheating/metagaming is just plain stupid. You wanna scream, I wanna scream, the rest of us want to scream, "We know you're not doing this right so STOP IT coz you look pathetic not impressive!"

Maybe we can set up either some kind of a monitor or staff position just for that? Or perhaps a thread like 'I Spied' where someone copy/pastes or screen shots incidents like that and then the best way to correct it? While it's frustrating for staff and players, this entire topic is a pure slap in the face for the people who have directly written these important magical wikis. There's gotta be a way to stop this ridiculous cycle from repeating itself!

[Gossamer]

. Response Every thread that's turned in for grading is monitored in one way or another. If we actually get staff on board and make them require players to actually show effort to give XP then that's a huge plus. I think sometimes staff get a little star-struck about the popularity of PCs and are afraid to chastise them or make them do the work. This is an aspect we can definitely work on. Because I see trends where this happens and I send gentle reminders when they are needed. This blog really is a version of a gentle reminder to the whole game. But I'm honestly not above calling bullshit when I see it. And I have. We don't need extra positions. We simply need extra vigilance. .

[Verilian]

I'm actually beginning to crack down on things like this in Ravok. While magic hasn't specifically come up yet since I've started, I do recall you saying something somewhere just recently about not grading threads unless the CS is up to date. I just refused one thread today telling them they wouldn't get graded until they deducted their living expenses. But yeah, I'm cracking down in Ravok on all the little (huge) things like magic, money, gnosis, ect. ..anyway, just thought I'd throw that in there. >.> ... .. *runs off*

[Gossamer]

That's really great Verilian. Its going to be a requirement to even post in RF once the players guide OOC portion is up and its also going to be a requirement to earn grades. I'm glad your trailblazing this!

[Elhaym]

This may seem like a bit of a self bash, maybe it is... but I myself have been in this position. I had a thread where, with one of my PCs, frankly I went nuts. I will quote Dani on this because I actually laughed the last time I read it.

However, even with a gnosis mark from Myri, he is a Novice in those things, and I think you are pushing the envelope... toward a cliff. Where below the Myrians have made a bonfire to dance around. I realize it is fun to play a one-man army, but your sheet does not support it.

This is in reference to my handling of my PCs combat skills in a thread. Looking back, oh god, it's so true. I completely blew the lid off our skill system. There have been other instances where because of either my inattentiveness or laziness, I have done things or known things IC I shouldn't have. Why point this out to everyone when that god awful humiliating double moderator intervention was already plastered for the whole of Mizahar to see? Because I learned from it.

If you are one of the folks who have made a mistake like the ones mentioned above, really, don't rage. Don't get on AIM and bicker to your friends about what a meaniehead everyone is. We get carried away, we do things, people call us out. Learn from it. Oh I seethed when it happened to me (two or three times), don't get me wrong. We all want to know cool shiny things, or to be a one many army. Those things are so much sweeter when you actually earn them (Instead of just deciding your Myrian can kill like sixteen guys, and oh, is a jujitsu master with 2 in unarmed). And try this on for size; say you do have one of those shinies, or that rare bit of knowledge, or you really are that one man army because you earned it. How annoyed are you going to be one some random player cheeseballs their way to your level, and everyone accepts it? Pretty damn annoyed.

So basically +1 to Siiri for the wealth of wisdom he posted above, and a shoutout to anyone who may be a current offender and thus offended by what has been posted here. Don't gripe, just realize your mistake and correct it. Play by the rules and check yourself often, or you will be checked. And it's pretty embarrassing when you are.

[Paragon]

I'd also like to point out, Echelon is doing a fantastic job on this (far better than me!). He's questioning PC's use of skills in comparison to their XP, especially use of magic at 0 points... XD