A Meta-Analysis of Magic on LotC

[Sagwort 833]

A Meta-Analysis of Magic on LotC

 

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Forward

So this is just me overanalyzing the state of the LotC magic system.  I have attempted to avoid any direct criticism or praise and just look at the system for what it is objectively.  Then, of course, I include some of my own insights on why magic ended up this way and where it might be headed, or even how we might direct its progression.  Most people on the server will probably have little interest in this, namely the one’s with the power to change anything about magic, but if you’ve ever wanted read words I pulled directly from my ass this is the place to read them.

 

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An OOC History of Magic

For you ******* noobs out there, allow me to give a brief summary of magic on this **** hole of a server:

 

Basically, during the “Aegis Era” (2011) magic was an extremely niche though desirable community on the server, for the most part.  To my knowledge the long gone GM Slayer[Some-Series-of-Random-Numbers] was to be put in charge of the distribution of magic on the server by the infamous administrator Availer.  This was back when the fabled Magic Plugin was in the works and was to be released within “a few months”.  Once it was released, Slayer was tasked with distributing it.  To give an rp explanation for this distribution, Slayer founded the Mages Guild with a few “original Mages Guild members” which included such people as Barnovo, tehlulu, hwalder, etc… (No, I was not one of these original members, let me just clear that up before people criticize me).  When the plugin was released the Mages Guild was to be the main proprietor of the magic plugin.  Normie players would be allowed access to the magic plugin by joining the Mages Guild (which was to be highly selective).  Slayer mentioned that the Guild was to have an official application which would be the primary approach of joining the Guild.  At this early stage in “magic lore” it was planned to have the plugin divided based upon race.  Dwarves would have their own sort of magic, elves, humans, etc… which more or less aligned with the racial traits and cultures of each.  It is for this ooc justification and power that probably had so many players wanting to join the Guild.  I mean, if you dig through the archives and find the original Mages Guild post by Slayer you will see mostly comments asking questions on when the app would be out, what qualified someone for joining the guild, etc…  The anticipation was akin to a new game being released or something.

 

Now, allow me to comment on other magical guilds at the time: Undead, Druids, Shamans and Ascended.  I am not entirely sure if the Druidic Order would play a part in distributing magic, though the way Respiren talked certainly made it seem that way.  The Undead and Ascended were in a league of their own and managed their own distribution of magic at this point.

 

For a period of time, magic was more or less nonexistent on the server except for the odd Druid pulling some random druid magic out of their ass.  And yes, this is how magic pretty much worked back in the day.  Druids would sit in a TS chat and try and come up with some random druid chant to heal someone or summon a tree or something.  Beyond this, there were also highly valuable items such as the Staff of Respiren which would spawn a tree wherever it clicked.  Mages, on the other hand, were much more restricted in what they were allowed to do rply.  Members of the Guild were discouraged from rping magic until the magic plugin came out.  I can also tell you that once I became a member of the Guild (pretty much by bribing my way in) in mid-to-late Aegis I was taught nothing about magic lore or how magic worked… mostly because there was no lore.  By late Aegis, players were no longer allowed to rp ANY magic except for the Undead and Ascended, which was, again, understandable considering no coherent lore existed on how mage/druid magic worked.

 

Faaaaaaaaaaast forward to Asulon and things are pretty much in the same state.  All magic is pretty hand-wavy and done with little explanation.  We did, however, start talking about Void Nodes and elemental evocation around this time.  Oocly, however, the most groundbreaking event in magic during Asulon was the whisperings of a magic app and… the magic team.  In late Aegis it was founded by Mogroka, the team included Blundermore, Grabthar, Jameson (or some other old druid player), another guy who I believe was a friend of Grabthar, dsdevil and I, Sagwort.  The original magic team had a surprising number of shamans on it…  Tehlulu would also be brought on in early Anthos.

 

Anyhow, our job was to:

• Develop the magic app
• Develop the magic system and lore
  • Blundermore (Divine magic)
  • Grabthar/Other guy (shaman magic)
  • Sagwort/dsdevil (Arcane magic)
  • Jameson (Druid magic)
  • Dsdevil (Dark)
• Develop ideas for a magic plugin following our magic system and lore
• Develop a system for accepting or denying new types of magic

 

Basically, we were trying to make magic less vague.  We had A LOT of meetings and divided magic into two types: Divine and Arcane.  Divine was to be power granted by a deity and Arcane magic was to harness its power from the Void.  It was later decided that arcane magic was to be divided into four subcategories: Illusion, Evocation, Conjuration and Alteration.  So pretty much Elder Scrolls.

 

So this is essentially how we ended up with the system of magic was have today.  Minor alterations and explanations for less developed aspects of magic came with later magic teams but we still see essentially the same structure.  You can effectively blame me for the boring arcane magic we have now.  One can wonder if I had divided arcane magic differently if we might see an entirely different sort of system.

 

In Anthos was saw an exponential increase in magic users thanks to our implementation of “self-teaching” arcane magic.  Granted, I do not believe the old way of managing magic was sustainable.  By late Asulon people were already beginning to disdain the circle-jerky nature of magic users and thought it to be “unfair” and too exclusive.  Inevitably more players would have ended up with magic with or without the magic app.  Also, as soon as we gave the option to create new magics Cognitism, Telekinesis, Electrical Evocation, and Mental Magics were the first to be proposed and accepted… it got pretty out of control after that point.

 

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Analysis

At this point you're probably asking yourself, what does this all mean?  Well, we can see that magic was essentially created with heavy inspiration from Elder Scrolls and D&D without much thought on how it might develop or evolve and how dynamic it might be beyond the constraints of: I wanted to shoot fireballs.  I’m sure if we could go back to 2012/13 and redevelop the magic system we would have done it much more thought, care and nuance, but edgy teens make edgy magic systems.

 

Demystification of Magic

One of the largest complaints one hears about the current magic system is how “nonmystical” it is.  It seems as though over the years we have effectively sucked out any and all mystery that was once so endearing about magic in Aegis.  Here’s my problem with this view, a  role play/MMO/RPG nature of LotC could not support a magic system based upon mystery and, well, “magicalness”.  While we look longingly at such systems as LotR and A song of Ice and Fire, we are stuck with a Misborn/Harry Potter system.  This is by no means a bad thing but it leads to magic seeming more scientific than supernatural.  Players need to know the drawbacks and effects of their magic, if the player didn’t know then how would one rp it?  It’s impossible to rp something you have no knowledge of, and I mean it quite literally.  You cannot roleplay what you do not know.  Roleplay hinges upon ooc knowledge of how the world works.  If we had personal Dungeon Masters that could follow us around and tell us what our magic did, then it might be different, but the player is solely responsible for the knowledge of effective magic roleplay.  So, players need all the information available on how magic works to avoid powergaming, leading to the scientific system we have today.  One suggestion for how we might instill mystery back into magic is make magic more exclusive and rare.  Magic would not be mysterious for the players who used magic, but it certainly would be for the rest of the players.  However, I already stated above that an exclusive magic community would be unsustainable considering the circle jerky nature exclusive groups have.  So there is my insight on how we ended up with a scientific and highly easy to obtain magic system.

 

Exclusivity of Magic

Now, despite all these conditions, I think we can all agree that the circle jerkiness of magic has never left.  There was a period, I would late Asulon early Anthos, when all magic was available to pretty much everyone who could get an app accepted.  Granted, players soon felt a desire to exclude themselves and set themselves apart from the rest of the “normie” magi users on the server.  So new magics were developed hinged upon access to certain deities, or were unable to be self-taught by their nature.  I’m not suggesting that exclusivity is a bad thing, I believe it is essential to create a goal based community, however, a need to be exclusive played a part in the entirely too broad magic system we have today… with some magics only being used by two or three players.  And who can blame them?  The desire to be unique is a very western desire which all of lotc is steeped in.

 

Magic As a Tool or Lifestyle

In regards to the mass distribution of magic.  Back in the day, to become a mage, druid, ascended, or undead meant to become entrenched in that world.  Countless hours were logged on roleplaying with just the group of people.  A character’s identity transformed into whatever magical group they were learning magic from.  Jon the Farmer BECAME Jon the Druid.  Magic became a character trait.  This is especially the case with the Ascended and Undead.  Players who became Undead or Ascended were never viewed in the same way, they were looked up to and generally regarded as the creme de la creme of LotC roleplayers.  This is because much of the recruitment hinged upon whether they were viewed as good roleplayers or not.  One can argue that the Undead and Ascended of Aegis were far from the best roleplayers… and they would be right, but many still regarded them as celebrity status on the server regardless.  Fast forward to the magic app and this view of magic was turned on its head.  When everyone could possess magic it became more of a tool, like a sword or skill, rather than a lifestyle or character defining trait.  For instance, one can be a farmer and happen to know water evocation.  One can be a lich… and also live a fairly normal and mundane life.  Whether you regard this is a good thing or, I believe there is an argument for this view of magic contributing to its demystification.  People just know magic now, there are no “mages” out there.  At least not in the character defining sense of Aegis.  Magic is just a skill people pick up as their character grows, like a college degree, not something they must dedicate their entire life to and steep their roleplay in like some taoist monk.

 

Broadness of Magic

Adding to our issue of a magic system that is too broad with little to no cohesiveness…  I think some time into Athera people began to realize how boring the magic system was… throwing fireballs, telekinesis… illusion the most uninspired cookie cutter magic system one could possible develop.  People began talking about reorganizing or rehauling the magic system entirely several times.  Of course, this was never done for one reason or another… so I believe some people’s solution was to develop their own unique magic which they believed to be more dynamic or what have you.  The result is a dozen different subcategories of magic which don’t relate at all.  Any writer or novelist can tell you this is a terrible idea for a coherent narrative.  Numerous fantasy writers mention that magic rules need to be established early and remain consistent throughout the entire story.  This way people can become attached to those rules, and learn how to manipulate them.  Instead, we have a dozens of rules all associated with different kinds of magic which makes it very difficult to determine if someone is rping magic correctly unless we reference dozens of lore posts associated with these dozens of magics.  This also leads to magic becoming very droll and even boring.  This seems counterintuitive, surely uniqueness can only lead to intrigue?  Well no, not necessarily.  It just leads to confusion which leads to an unwillingness to learn which leads to boredom.  This also contributes to the edgy nature of magic.

 

CONCERNING the edgy nature of magic.  It cannot be avoided.  Magic is edgy.  One can make it less edgy, but one can never escape full edginess.  Just look at Game of Thrones… fire sex magic is about as edgy as it gets.

 

In summary:

• Magic MUST have thought out and coherent rules to be effective in a massive multiplayer roleplay setting.
• Magic is the way it is now because of early decisions from the first magic team.
• Exclusive and mysterious magic, while good in some doses, is unsustainable.
• Magic is inherently edgy.
• Broad magic systems have various problems.
• When magic is viewed as a tool and not a character defining trait it becomes mundane.

 

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So those are my thoughts… you probably didn’t read all of it but tell me your thoughts.

[Taketheshot 3834]

Thank you, I think that a day where all players can have a chance to access magic, would be a great day.

[neopsychedelia 207]

stop fkn misusing that word "edgy"

[Kvasir 1121]

Just now, tatarini said:

stop fkn misusing that word "edgy"

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edgy

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

You're pretty much right on most cases. However, the mysticalism and weight of learning it all depends on how you present it to people.

 

I can RP druidism with all the weight of a side hobby,

 

Or, I can RP my character holding it with immense weight, a millenia old blessed tradition of his people, direct from the line of Malin, a sacred and important life-long commitment his people make to preserve his society and the wilds they live in, etc etc

 

At the end of the day, the way YOU portray your magic is how people will RP it, and OOC rules and meta-analysis can't do much to change that.

[AGP 3169]

Most of the quirks of our magic system can be blamed on the core decision that magic is "I cast magic missile" in the way it is cast. If magic was ritual and reagent based, like you have to draw a magic circle and chant a specific phrase to cast a spell, instead of "I feel like summoning fire now" the required scientific nature of magic wouldn't be as much of a problem and would in fact feel right at home. Elder Scrolls type magic is maybe the worst kind of magic for mcrp.

[Sagwort 833]

8 minutes ago, 吳憾戰士14 said:

 

Or, I can RP my character holding it with immense weight, a millenia old blessed tradition of his people, direct from the line of Malin, a sacred and important life-long commitment his people make to preserve his society and the wilds they live in, etc etc

abcabc

 

You can rp it that way, that does not mean anyone will react to it in like manner.  People know how druidism works, so why be impressed?  Sure, you can rp your character being impressed but there is something to be said about people being oocly impressed resulting in a more genuine reaction.

 

Also, the fact the magic is already mundane takes away from people who DO roleplay it in the way you just described.

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

Just now, Sagwort said:

 

You can rp it that way, that does not mean anyone will react to it in like manner.  People know how druidism works, so why be impressed?  Sure, you can rp your character being impressed but there is something to be said about people being oocly impressed resulting in a more genuine reaction.

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You'd be surprised what the common player doesnt know. The only people who read deep into what druidism can fully accomplish are people deep in the druidic clique. To players outside of it, you can still very easily impress them.

 

People react to the stimulus around them. I have always RP'd druidism with a strong, heavy cultural context and made it a life-time commitment and the people who I teach have RP'd that way in turn. Influential RPers can rub off on others.

[NotEvilAtAll 10906]

1 minute ago, AGiantPie said:

Most of the quirks of our magic system can be blamed on the core decision that magic is "I cast magic missile" in the way it is cast. If magic was ritual and reagent based, like you have to draw a magic circle and chant a specific phrase to cast a spell, instead of "I feel like summoning fire now" the required scientific nature of magic wouldn't be as much of a problem and would in fact feel right at home. Elder Scrolls type magic is maybe the worst kind of magic for mcrp.

0

 

Agreed, a system involving rituals instead of casting will almost always be more mystical and interesting, for it could expand the uses and characteristics of magic without dividing magic into a billion sub groups 

[Sagwort 833]

7 minutes ago, AGiantPie said:

Most of the quirks of our magic system can be blamed on the core decision that magic is "I cast magic missile" in the way it is cast. If magic was ritual and reagent based, like you have to draw a magic circle and chant a specific phrase to cast a spell, instead of "I feel like summoning fire now" the required scientific nature of magic wouldn't be as much of a problem and would in fact feel right at home. Elder Scrolls type magic is maybe the worst kind of magic for mcrp.

 

I think most people interested in a dynamic sort of system would like this much more, me included (You saw the system I developed for your rp server).  However, the way magic is now... "administrated" and the people who administrate it, I would say, enjoy this sort of rpg style magic insta-magic.

[AGP 3169]

1 minute ago, Sagwort said:

 

I think most people interested in a dynamic sort of system would like this much more, me included (You saw the system I developed for your rp server).  However, the way magic is now... "administrated" and the people who administrate it, I would say, enjoy this sort of rpg style magic insta-magic.

0

 

Never remind me. My solution to bad magic is to not rp on lotc it works out well for me.

[Volutional 935]

There's a two silly reasons why I can't get behind this thread:

 

- Use of the word 'edgy'

- Use of the word 'forward' instead of foreword (the americanisation kills the purpose of me studying English)

 

And one actual reason:

 

- The following line:

 

For you ******* noobs out there, allow me to give a brief summary of magic on this **** hole of a server

 

Please, don't be a pleb and patronise people for not knowing about magic, when you're actually hoping for people to be more 'mysticised?' by it.

[Sagwort 833]

If you can think of another word which means: "Trying to be cooler or more serious than it is" I will gladly replace it.  Perhaps... pretentious?  It doesn't quite mean the same thing though, does it?

 

I use the words normie and noob sarcastically.  That is fairly clear.

[Zarsies 6795]

sagwort hurts my feelings 

[The Fact Core 511]

This is a Minecraft server.