Circles and RP

Jeremy Saunders

I am working up a few new ideas for overarching RP themes why circles will not like each other, outside of the am/magic/demon theme we have now. 

I have a few ideas that I would like to slowly start introducing to the game, but I am wondering what may semi be brewing out there. Maybe some new ideas that players may have. Basically I am looking for RP things here, and less actual coded mechanics. I like the idea of having complicated political situations. 

Right now each circle should dislike each circle. But what if we added in something that had a similar goal for both demonic and AM? So at times maybe political groups want to work together on something? Or maybe we add in another reason completely outside of circles for factions to hate each other more?

I have no problem with people who do not like each other needing to work together on thing, as has happened in this event. However, I would really not want that to become the norm. Or maybe that is a bad idea. 

Kind of a vague post, but do you have any thoughts?

Bathan

I wouldn't have three circles, to start with. Two, four, not three.

Alarick

Conflicts need to have depth to them. That means, unfortunately, a lot of it has to come from our end. It's fine for there to be zealotry and intolerance, but if that's all there is things become boring and repetitive very quickly. We have to fight because there's something for us to fight over - to that extent, I would suggest for later events things that require us to talk to our enemies.


Say the Frostbringers want to perform some kind of spirit ritual, but they're missing a key ingredient/item/bit of knowledge that only the Limorasi have. They try and talk to the Limorasi, and they refuse to give it up. There's an actual reason to fight.

I think it's for the best if you CAN see alliances outside of circle lines. It makes for a more dynamic and interesting setting, and it allows each city to pursue their own goal, rather than be stuck in lock-step with their bigger/more combative ally.

Abigail

With the Gods dead, AM wouldn't really have much reason to oppose magick beyond 'Well, they use magick and we don't.' You might still have the zealous few that are all 'Magick is dangerous and anyone who uses it risks destroying the world!' but the majority of Antiochians opposed magick because of the idea that using magick was stealing from the gods. Ithaqua, meanwhile, is all like "well, cool, just don't bring it in our forest".

Also, speaking of which, with no Gods how does fayth/devotion work?

Kari

The Gods are gone, but their essence still remains (Hence the Hammer of the Gods) and that's why we are powering it, as Tomas said it had to do with them knowing they can be killed so they created something to help us. Making the Hammer Divine itself. The Divine realm still remains. 

Also my guess is there will be more Gods, since Jeremy slipped in the Ustream and said something along the lines of "We have exciting plans coming up with Orders after the event!" Meaning...there will be more Gods. Unless we have orders to lost/dead gods?

Apoloc

I've honestly enjoyed the cross circle political roleplay of this event more than about everything else, bar the Gods.  So I am very much in favour of this.

Khizan

One thing I really like is the idea that Magick Delves Too Deep.

Where AM might occasionally be the antagonist as part of their plans to purify the world, and Demonic usually wants to conquer it, I like the idea that Magick routinely endangers the world by saying "What's the worst that could happen?" just before throwing the switch on their Large Elemental Collider. Hell, the IC justification for opening the rift and killing all the Gods was "Well, somebody would have done it EVENTUALLY. I mean, the seals WERE failing. So why not us? Let's see what happens. Maybe we can control it."

This comes with the caveat, though, that these kinds of things have to be beneficial on occasion, and notably so. If they never work, Magick is nothing more than a bumbler and a comical antagonist. If the work, though, they can give whatever cause you want. Stavenn could ally with Magick to create a device that amps up magical power in areas, where Antioch might side with them when the goal is to reduce the necromantic potential of an area or make it harder to breach the barrier and summon demons. There's any number of possible things to do when you're a magical mad scientist.

Juran

Everything could use a few more shades of gray. Three is an excellent number when the sides are allowed to work together, because the one on top can expect to be teamed up on by the two weaker sides the majority of the time to keep some degree of parity. That doesn't happen right now, because we're generally speaking not allowed.

I also don't like the top down approach of banning things that the game has always had. Antioch and Ithaqua must forbid all magick and demonic flavored desserts lest they perish, whereas Kinsarmar must only ban the demonic pastries and team Stavenn eats from the entire basket at their leisure. Each side should have some degree of poison to it that sets them apart from the others, but not so strong that you couldn't sit down for a snack occasionally and have a good time.

Mkvenner

I've always seen the problem of the circle conflict as it is and (until I wanted to try out new druid) why I have generally played magick far less than AM/Demonic is because their 'halfway' nature slightly dampens their role. AM and Demonic are further apart ideologically which provides a stronger conflict motivation. 

However I think we're at a good point to try and change that. Magick are responsible for getting the Gods killed. Push that, make people hate them.

Khizan

One major problem I have with the circles is the classes. Specifically, class changes.

In Achaea, a Sorcerer who was driven out of their city for RP, politics, whatever... they could go anywhere and still be a Mage. A Serpent could get driven  from the Dawnstriders and go be a Naga. Ending up leaving an org wasn't a basically mandatory class change. Runewarden? Be a runewarden ANYWHERE. Aside from Occies/Necros and maybe Devotioners, you could take any class anywhere with no repercussions.

This isn't true in Imperian. Changing sides is SO EXPENSIVE. Unless you're a knight, you're looking at ~450cr in lessons, minimum, to pick up a new profession. This makes politics and inter-circle actions so much more passive than they could be, imo, because you lose so much more. If I could be driven from Kinsarmar without ending up a skill and a half in the hole when I went somewhere else, I'd be a bit more willing to step outside the RP box and experiment a little.

Alarick

Khizan said:

One major problem I have with the circles is the classes. Specifically, class changes.

In Achaea, a Sorcerer who was driven out of their city for RP, politics, whatever... they could go anywhere and still be a Mage. A Serpent could get driven  from the Dawnstriders and go be a Naga. Ending up leaving an org wasn't a basically mandatory class change. Runewarden? Be a runewarden ANYWHERE. Aside from Occies/Necros and maybe Devotioners, you could take any class anywhere with no repercussions.

This isn't true in Imperian. Changing sides is SO EXPENSIVE. Unless you're a knight, you're looking at ~450cr in lessons, minimum, to pick up a new profession. This makes politics and inter-circle actions so much more passive than they could be, imo, because you lose so much more. If I could be driven from Kinsarmar without ending up a skill and a half in the hole when I went somewhere else, I'd be a bit more willing to step outside the RP box and experiment a little.

This. This concern has actively colored my participation in these past events, because I don't want to have to lose Outrider. I really wanted to throw in with the Demons Lords, and tried to make covert overtures to them, but the lesson loss was just too steep for me to be willing to gamble losing so much in the short amount of time they were around.

I get that people are concerned about undead runed wardancers and stuff, but we've gone to such an extreme that for 90% of the population, its simply out of the question to even be allowed to hang out somewhere with a class of the wrong circle. A lot of this is the fault of the players, but if the main concern on the administration's end is putting a damper on cross-circle def stacking, maybe just making the classes incompatible with other buffs is the way to go? Make runes lose their magick when an AM class skill is used by the wearer, same for Blessings when magick/demon skills are used, and maybe Undeath would just create a mindless zombie if the player doesn't have a demonic class?

Abigail

Things like bliss, chargeshield and undeath are already only usable on the caster, and sharpening blades with whetstones/attaching chargers to them destroys runes, so progress has already been made in that direction. Honestly, I was hoping the Antimagick circle to become more of a non-magick circle, i.e. "We don't use magick for personal reasons, but we're not going to murder every magicker in existence just because of that" kind of philosophy. It's sensible now because of the whole dead gods thing. 

And while Antioch and Kinsarmar have a lore-based reason to hate Stavenn beyond the circle system, Celidon and Ithaqua really only have circle to use as a reason.

Khizan

Alarick said

This. This concern has actively colored my participation in these past events, because I don't want to have to lose Outrider. I really wanted to throw in with the Demons Lords, and tried to make covert overtures to them, but the lesson loss was just too steep for me to be willing to gamble losing so much in the short amount of time they were around. 

This was a major, major concern for me as well. I went with it, but I was incredibly nervous about it. A random pet wandered into the room when I was talking with Visyra once, and my immediate thoughts were "Oh god, if that has listen up, I might have just thrown away 450 credits". The owner wasn't even online, thankfully, but it was still the first thing I thought of.

It was the single most fun RP experience I've had in years, and I almost didn't take it because credits.

Sarrius

Circles are the worst thing to happen to this game, really. The game also doesn't need three - it needs two or four. Every other IRE game retains that sort of concept - one side. Chaos vs. Order (or did) in Achaea, for a while it was Water/Light/Purity vs. Undeath/Earth/Corruption vs. Dark Forest and Predation vs. Light Forest and Ancestral Spirits in Lusternia. Usually two factions gravitated toward one another, but it shifted occasionally. When they introduced Fire/Chaos/Freedom and Order/Air/Conformity, the game was stressed for a while but eventually shifted back to 2 sides, just 3 orgs per side.

The games ultimately gravitate toward two sides ANYWAYS - we should introduce a fourth circle or delete a circle.

Katarsh

Khizan said:

One major problem I have with the circles is the classes. Specifically, class changes.

In Achaea, a Sorcerer who was driven out of their city for RP, politics, whatever... they could go anywhere and still be a Mage. A Serpent could get driven  from the Dawnstriders and go be a Naga. Ending up leaving an org wasn't a basically mandatory class change. Runewarden? Be a runewarden ANYWHERE. Aside from Occies/Necros and maybe Devotioners, you could take any class anywhere with no repercussions.

This isn't true in Imperian. Changing sides is SO EXPENSIVE. Unless you're a knight, you're looking at ~450cr in lessons, minimum, to pick up a new profession. This makes politics and inter-circle actions so much more passive than they could be, imo, because you lose so much more. If I could be driven from Kinsarmar without ending up a skill and a half in the hole when I went somewhere else, I'd be a bit more willing to step outside the RP box and experiment a little.

Yes! Why is switching circles so expensive? Kat has all sorts of RP considerations to deal with, and this comparatively arbitrary loss of skill limits his choices. That, and the fact that many of his artifacts are druid-specific, and thus useless in any other profession.

Sarrius

Because of the utterly divisive nature of circles and the conflict of Imperian. You must entrench yourself in one side or be prepared to pay plenty of money if you want to shift. Affinity and a tripod conflict system makes this a problem.

Khizan

Those existed pre-circles, too, with the exception that AM could go anywhere and Magick could go demonic.

Katarsh said:

Yes! Why is switching circles so expensive? Kat has all sorts of RP considerations to deal with, and this comparatively arbitrary loss of skill limits his choices. That, and the fact that many of his artifacts are druid-specific, and thus useless in any other profession.

Switching classes has always cost that much. Always. It's just that in the other IRE games, you don't always have to switch classes to switch factions. Imperian's divided along different lines, though, and so a faction switch necessitates a class change. I am not sure what could be done about this, except maybe extending arbitrary class-change lines to other classes, sort of like knights have. Hunters can get credit towards outrider, Mages towards I dunno, priest? Etc, etc.

Jazzster

The conflict is there but I feel a lot of the conflict is lost. If memory serves correctly, a lot of what separates these Circles is something that happened in the past (whether it be written story or actual RP set forth by players) and a lot of new characters are just told, "You hate these guys and this is why." Each person isn't given the opportunity to decide why they hate a Circle and whatnot.

Lalitana

It would be a lot of work but one thing that made class switches in Lusternia less painful was the concept of different lesson pools. So if you were switching from class A to class B and their skillsets were all in the same "pool" it was much less expensive (only a 20% loss I think?) than switching to a class at the opposite end of the spectrum.

I'm not sure how well that would work here considering that the professions don't directly conform to a limited number of archetypes, but a number of them do bear enough similarity-of-concept that their skills could be grouped into pools. E.g. Druid, outrider, ranger/amazon, hunter, defiler. Mage, priest, wytch, bard (maybe?), summoner, diabolist. You get the idea. It could get complicated pretty quickly, but even a simplified version might at least make switches a little less painful.

Ohm

-----------------------Lawful -------------------Chaotic-----------

Good --------------Antioch------------------Ithaqua------------ (Demons and users of demons are bad, they must be stopped at any cost)

Neutral ------------Kinsarmar------------Celidon-------------- (Survival and proliferation/ ensure balance of magickal/ non magickal energies)

Evil -----------------Stavenn --------------Khandava----------- (Conquer the world, by hook or by crook)

 not sure if this is a scheme which is applicable going forward.

With the subversion of Khandava I believe the above scheme is possible

Sarrius

The problem is that alignments don't apply to any of the powers of Aetherius. There is no good or evil. To be honest, it is all subjective based on the person at either end of the sword. This is what makes the conflict compelling. The actual mechanical problems of the circle system and the setup of the conflict aside, the lack of 'good and evil' being a major player in it is what keeps it fresh. Very few stories actually have this kind of trait - most fantasy storylines tend to be almost naive in their approach to 'the good guys' and 'the bad guys'.

I still stand by the requirement to create a fourth circle or destroy one circle and distribute its classes to both sides with some refluffing. I see no reason to continue going on with three sides, when in the end what happens is that one circle can't make a bold move because then the other two forsake all roleplay to keep the aforementioned bold circle in check. It isn't fun, it isn't fair, and it most definitely is counter-intuitive to conflict. What ends up happening is everybody sits on their hands waiting to be the 2 side, not the 1 side.

Ohm

I think the reason why they want three circles is to have more intricate politics. Unfortunately, the rigidity of the current system doesn't allow that. There has to be some underlying motive each nation strives for, which compels them to plot against its own allies from time to time.

It is something which Kinsarmar and Celidon do quite well in the current system. We need to see this on a much greater scale and complexity - but mostly, this is based solely on what 2-3 combatants in each city/ council decide, which is the problem.

Sarrius

Intricate politics do not excuse the deadlock of conflict/non-conflict, especially when those 'intricate politics' are a conjured fantasy that only exists during  these events. And when it does exist, it isn't intricate. It ends up like what we just saw. And it only ended up like this in this event because Kinsarmar has a lion's share of bodies, plus a few strong arms. Any other org would have backed down from the fight if it were 5v1.

Juran

Even with four competing organizations, you're still going to have people looking out for their own best interests. With three you can have a pyramid of shifting alliances without overly dilluting the player base like you'd get with four or more.

Garryn

I'm rather curious about the motivation behind the reduction to two circles request. Having watched the forums of the IRE games that do have two primary sides, a very frequent opinion there seems to be that there is little to no variety/change and things get stale. There may be other factors at play, of course, but nonetheless, I'd be a tad concerned about the "greener grass" syndrome here.

Bathan

Well, for me, it mostly stems from a desire to have four orgs tops, so as to consolidate the player base.

Delrayne

I agree with Khizan and co, who point out the fact that circle jumping is just way to expensive. Back that up with the cost for new players to get involved in combat. I suggest that reaching Aspect gives you enough lessons/credits to tri-trans your guild skills. You can spend them however you want, but you'll always get enough to at least tri-trans guild skills on any character. Either way, I'm all for being able to join any city/council regardless of class. Heck deep down, thats part of why Delrayne brought the Alliance about.

Ohm

I vote for horde as becoming the fourth (playable or non playable) - yet interactive faction. In that, they could negotiate different terms with different organizations

Khizan

I love the three circle system. The power balance in Imperian, over the years I've played, hasn't notably favored one faction more than others. Sure, there's always one on top, but it rotates with a fair amount of regularity, and the way they're split up ensures that any truce is always an uneasy one at the best.

I'll admit, I would like to see a little more interaction between the circles, but one thing that this event really drove home to me was just how glad I am that the circles exist. Worst thing to ever happen in Imperian my ****. Going up against stuff like "Monk with Noctu support" with regularity was completely and utterly miserable and I do not miss it AT ALL.

Sarrius

Garryn said:

I'm rather curious about the motivation behind the reduction to two circles request. Having watched the forums of the IRE games that do have two primary sides, a very frequent opinion there seems to be that there is little to no variety/change and things get stale. There may be other factors at play, of course, but nonetheless, I'd be a tad concerned about the "greener grass" syndrome here.

I would prefer the solidarity of a consolidated two sides of players than a diluted tripod of player groups. I would prefer there to be two sides and no shades of grey whatsoever rather than three with the illusion of shades of grey (but there really aren't any because circles shut them down anyways). I would rather there not be a constant pendulum between three sides. I think any of the circles could feasibly vanish and we'd have a better put-together population. I would greatly prefer this because there's too much 'confusion' in roleplay that is attempted, but was shut down long, long before it could begin. Take for example the struggle in Kinsarmar months ago when it was found out that Alesud was Cassiopeian. In the old days, this was acceptable roleplay. The divisiveness of circles absolutely stomped on that. If we reduced to two circles, we could draw lines between "side a" and "side b", instead of "side a person who works for side b god, and also fights side c and side a".

It is just convoluted to have three sides and I have always thought we could eliminate any circle - the division between magick and demonic is mostly the extent to which they will seek power and what sacrifices they will make. There is nothing else dividing them.. really, one is just less picky about the tools they use to get the job done. They don't really have much of a point of contention besides 'demons are icky'. I would prefer to see demonic or magick stamped out, and the game become either magick vs. anti-magick or demons vs. anti-demons. I feel like it just works better in other games and I've never felt it was stale. I am not picky about which route you'd take in this hypothetical situation, despite belonging to one side. I would gladly sacrifice my roleplay, my city, my character's previous achievements and origin of reputation/history, plus much more - if that meant seeing the game reduced to two circles, two sides, two ideologies that are interpreted differently by the two organizations within those circles. I just feel like at any one time, one circle is utterly irrelevant - we don't have the combative population to support the continued growth of all three circles, nor the creative population. One circle is always getting absolutely shafted/excluded from things because they are a virtual non-entity in the military category.

Aeorden

If anything I'd be in favour of leaving orgs as they are and removing how strictly they're bound to circles. Being forced to work with Celidon simply because you're in the same circle can be frustrating at times.