[Story Update] - Magic Progression & Oversight

[KeiaTypeBeat 3277]

1 hour ago, squakhawk said:

Teaching is an important part of not only learning a magic and understanding it, but for roleplay and interaction with people. Be creative, have fun, have whimsy, be courteous and be kind. The theoretical and fictional crps are just that - do things by and for your character, for your group or community. Take your time and have fun. The point of the server, and of lore especially, is to stop and smell the roses. Take your time and accept not being so hyper-optimized, and enjoy the imperfect nature of roleplay. Enjoy yourself. 

1 hour ago, squakhawk said:

Teacher Guidance (OOC Oversight) teaching has been removed for all magics.

1 hour ago, squakhawk said:

Enjoy yourself

 

 

 

[Slorbin 2932]

Does this mean self-teach Housemagery and Bardmancy is gone? Because that was a net boon for the server.

[Chimeraof1999 1187]

1 hour ago, xo31 said:

I'm genuinely curious - why not just. . . enforce good faith rules heavier rather than punishing the entire server? Some people are busy, in school, or are in much more insane time-zones. It's already a big problem for how ridiculously long it takes to progress through a magic, and especially since other methods are "a very low priority" right now. I find more and more LOTCers are the busiest they've been in their lives as we all collectively grow older, and yet now it will be even harder to progress through things like this.

Of course, I share the opinions stated regarding magic's relevance to the character, but it's currently - for most magics - 16 weeks to progress, which is three and a half months. That is a very long time, and again while I do agree that magic shouldn't be picked up and thrown around randomly to characters who've not earned it, this is still meant to be a game which we have fun in, and we're treating magics like they are certifications for working in real life trades.

I agree that OOC oversight was heavily misused for a lot of OOC friend-trading and by lazy teachers with a lack of lessons, but it certainly was not everyone. I am seeing this philosophy heavily with the lore team these days of trying to make something more prosecutable despite it already being a rule break. It's already against the rules to be bad faith, OOC trade magics, or misuse one's TA. . . why not just punish the people who are misusing self-teaching?

Furthermore, the true problem is hardly addressed. Lazy lessons are still going to happen. Crack down on the people abusing the mechanic! Not the mechanic!

if you got me agreeing with xo31 of all people, you did smth wrong 

 

You can hate on me for making this comment or tell me to cope but for the past few weeks, it seems as if Story Team has been genuinely lacking in functioning LT members. Tickets required for literally binding a CA to their designated spots take almost a whole week to be responded to when it just requires confirmation, and FA / CA's not escaping pending hell because most LTs have no knowledge on or if not disregard any of the lore relevant to it. And now, one of the best ways to assist people with alternating timelines or just with full lives to relax and rp their fun magic is being taken away instead of cracking down on the people who are ruining just shows that this is laziness. 

 

I know it's a volunteering but at least put the effort in to the thing you are volunteering for?

[Tav 4336]

yeah squakhawk if a guy like me, who has bad takes agrees with ANOTHER guy who has bad takes .... lets just say. you're screwed buddy. 

idk maybe i'm not woke but the removal of OOC Oversight feels like a win, it's very obviously a frequently used way to gain magic without proper roleplay to back it up. i do agree that this will not do much of a scratch to people giving low effort teaching roleplay, but i mean if people stay with that they're where they wanna be and the exchange between student and teacher was never not going to be transactional

[ClassyDryad 2367]

Going through too much irl to go in depth but I agree with squak here that is all

[Chimeraof1999 1187]

12 minutes ago, Tav said:

idk maybe i'm not woke but the removal of OOC Oversight feels like a win, it's very obviously a frequently used way to gain magic without proper roleplay to back it up. i do agree that this will not do much of a scratch to people giving low effort teaching roleplay, but i mean if people stay with that they're where they wanna be and the exchange between student and teacher was never not going to be transactional

Timezones can conflict meeting times, then you say "oh why learn a magic then?" then why not just let people find a time oocly to help with magic? Not everyone is on the same timezone and not everyone can just leave their job or stay overnight to do a ritual because the guy you are learning magic from is from the middle of BULGARIA. It's genuinely a negative to remove this and not just... police it slightly? Though, you do give a good point to where people could do low effort rp but... people do low effort rp in a lot of magics? That's not even enforced either?

[monkeypoacher 8055]

Sure. But the problem is that magic lore is in and of itself pretty boring and unless the teacher brings a lot of unique seasoning to the fireball lessons then it's just insipid box ticking.

 

You should revisit book selfteaching with the intent of making magic interesting to learn and people will pursue selfteaching RP as an end in and of itself. I am sure that in the long running narrative of the craft there are enough interesting stories about magic to fill a textbook. Yknow object lessons about wizards who got too ambitious and turned themselves into worms or secret shibboleths and incantations. Heroes, villains, stories people can relate to their characters or might actually want to read. But more importantly, lore knowledge that you expect players will care enough to remember so that you can assess them on it for worthiness to progress in the magic.

[Tav 4336]

Just now, Chimeraof1999 said:

Timezones can conflict meeting times, then you say "oh why learn a magic then?" then why not just let people find a time oocly to help with magic? Not everyone is on the same timezone and not everyone can just leave their job or stay overnight to do a ritual because the guy you are learning magic from is from the middle of BULGARIA. It's genuinely a negative to remove this and not just... police it slightly? Though, you do give a good point to where people could do low effort rp but... people do low effort rp in a lot of magics? That's not even enforced either?

if timezones are as grave as people are hyping them up to be then there wouldn't realistically even be a before for the characters to interact and build up the so-called great teacher student roleplay that OOC oversight provides. the magics/feats that OOC oversight is applied to have several teachers by being widely spread lore on the server

[Lockages 548]

1 hour ago, Tav said:

yeah squakhawk if a guy like me, who has bad takes agrees with ANOTHER guy who has bad takes .... lets just say. you're screwed buddy. 

idk maybe i'm not woke but the removal of OOC Oversight feels like a win, it's very obviously a frequently used way to gain magic without proper roleplay to back it up. i do agree that this will not do much of a scratch to people giving low effort teaching roleplay, but i mean if people stay with that they're where they wanna be and the exchange between student and teacher was never not going to be transactional

so real. OOC oversight was often (not always) used as an excuse to just tell your student to read the lore vs actually teaching them through practical lessons. while removing it won’t solve the problem of bad actors doing half assed lessons, it’s a step in the right direction.

 

im not the most active and i feel bad when i cant meet with students consistently, but doing it OOC felt like it always robbed some RP potential between student and teacher. Worst case scenario students can RPly find other TAs to get in person lessons if their teacher is inactive, which is something they’d probably be driven to do if their teacher isn’t around. Limiting OOC oversight will encourage people to seek other avenues for obtaining their lessons and I’d like to see more of that.

[Venomous_Pup 2978]

Definitely a step in the right direction, even with magics that never had OOC Oversight. I know one player tried to skimp on teaching, and it was difficult to get anything done because a lot of it happened between early 2024 through mid 2025, and I only got informed about it in late 2025, which brought up the slew of issues Squak mentioned. Hopefully, in time, it can return in some form, but I think it would be worth mentioning that people need to report these issues as they crop up, as the longer it is left, the more difficult it can be to get it handled, and it ultimately ends up lowering the quality of RP for everyone around. Even if you aren't staff, it's everyone's job to make sure standards are upheld, and ultimately, trying to 'cheat' for Minecraft magic by accepting bad teaching may reflect on you. 

[wowj 9747]

2 hours ago, Slorbin said:

Does this mean self-teach Housemagery and Bardmancy is gone? Because that was a net boon for the server.

book learning is ok

[Lord_of_losers 1546]

cool! :)

[Direswift 296]

I dont think this actually solves the problem it's intending to solve, but I dont disagree that ooc oversight has become an abused part of the server, but as a guy whos done teaching rp over and over and over, It gets boring; Maybe thats just me, and maybe thats not a good excuse. Overall... 7/10, im not sad

[thejack 198]

Are self-teach tomes still allowed to be used for learning? Such as the alchemy self-teach books, or the Bardmancy ones.

[Wolfy-D 468]

2 hours ago, thejack said:

Are self-teach tomes still allowed to be used for learning? Such as the alchemy self-teach books, or the Bardmancy ones.

Someone asked in the ST discord.

Self Teach books are still a thing, and it's low priority but they have self Teach stuff in mind for other magics as well

 

Also since when were there alchemy self Teach books?