Just because you understand the feelings of others, and can feel their pain doesn't mean that you care one bit that they are hurting. You could delight in it even. You know, even if you can't directly feel the pain, that slicing someone's arm off with a sword hurts them but you still do it. Likewise with (some) empaths.

It's the old supernatural ability vs. moral choice debate that has been countered several times by GMs. I certainly don't want to see us ever be GSIV empaths but I do love that things are moving away from the huggy-bear pacifist-monk-in-glittery-dresses RP rut that the guild was stuck in for so long. Though that is, as Caraamon said, a player creation and assumption rather than actual lore.

And this, is a quote good enough for a signature:

"Melete should correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there's one central concept to really go into reading Empath stuff:

Empathy doesn't make people nice." - Armifer


-= Alesche =-
Mountain Elf - Historian - Free Empath of the Crystal Tower
Heavy RPer Looking for Connections!
AIM: DRAlesche

>>Jhaliascleric: Ok, so, I suppose the next question is why do the powers that be really dislike Empathy/Thanatology going to completion?

As far as Empaths' Guild is concerned, this decision was motivated by a desire for self-preservation in the wake of Jomay and the empathic plague that she may have spread. If the guild was to survive, it needed to sanitize its image. Accordingly, empathy would be limited to the ability to transfer injuries.

The guild leaders attempted to eradicate all other knowledge from the public record and divided the secret lore among themselves, so that no one person possessed all of the knowledge. Rank-and-file Empaths were taught only about transference so that they could be regarded as mere healers that posed no threat to the public.

Since that's the image the guild wanted to project, it attracted a lot of "nice" people with pacifist leanings. That PR campaign, combined with empathic shock and the very restrictive view of empathy, probably explains why a lot of the early player Empaths were "nice, pacifistic doctors who would never harm small woodland animals." Additional, people tend to confuse the concept of supernatural empathy with the everyday meaning of the word.


>>Stellarmagus: An empath intentionally harming another, even indirectly, shows a distinct lack of empathy in the literal sense of the word. This is why I'm generally against anything that nudges empaths into more action oriented roles (currently: manipulate and warrior.) It's very anti-thematic.

That's a good illustration of the misunderstanding of supernatural empathy. In the everyday sense, when we describe someone as empathic, we mean that he understands another person's feelings by putting himself in that person's shoes -- and usually that he feels sympathetic or compassionate as a result. Supernatural empathy doesn't really have anything to do with people's feelings. It is a breaking down of the barrier that separates two beings, allowing the Empath to sense and manipulate life essences. (As an extreme example, the First Empaths could not tolerate being around other people due to their godlike empathy. That doesn't sound very caring at all.) As a practical matter, Empaths try to avoid being the direct agent of harm, because it overloads their empathic senses, causing pain and a loss of empathic sensitivity. It's not uncommon for Empaths to eschew violence as part of their moral code, but that's the players' choice and not something the guild imposes on them.

>>Stellarmagus: I'm just saying that I *really hope* that Empaths aren't putting out hits on anyone in the lore.

The Empath guildleaders are not people you'd want to cross. They have a history of making people disappear when they delve too deeply into empathy. One of the interesting things about Empath lore is the untapped potential of empathy (and the brutal censorship of anyone who jeopardizes the guild's carefully manufactured façade by trying to realize it). You don't expect this kind of thuggish, close-minded behavior from something named the "Empaths' Guild."

---

You feel your Heart Link with a mug of zombie's revenge fade away.

Vote for DragonRealms on Top MUD Sites: http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

I can also see 'Godlike Empathy' as being particularly hostile, as proximity to induce such Empathy meant consciousnesses merge/blend/mix. I imagine being around others felt like... an extreme violation of personal space/being, to the point of your sense of self being lost or overtaken.

I imagine they weren't exactly passive in this struggle when encountering one another?

>>So do all of them have empathy? Is empathy a requisite for being one of them, or is empathy something they've developed?

Who knows! I think they just really hate competition.

>>I mean, they'd have to have brainwashed the entire society and write themselves into mythic history to do that, and that's just hilariously out of proportion with anything they could've done.

>>Right? ...right?

See, this is why Armifer is the worst. Because he's the best.

---

Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

Empathic identity crises ftw.

>>I'm not familiar with the long standing lore/history of DR; out of curiosity Armifer, have you been on board with crafting this stuff since the beginning?

Nope. I've only ("only") been a GM for ten years as of a few months ago.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

All hail Elanthipedia! :P

---

Weapons for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html

Also, to get back to the original topic a bit, I have updated Anther's Call to no longer be shocking. You can tell if a spell is shocking by prepping it and then PERCEIVING.

The sorcery updates also introduced a bug which allowed Empaths to cast shocking sorcerous spells without receiving shock, this has also been fixed. I don't think it was out there long enough for too many people to run into it, but empathic murderous sorcerous non-shocking rampages are no longer a thing, for anyone keeping track.

Melete

---

Nature, it seems, is the popular name
for milliards and milliards and milliards
of particles playing their infinite game
of billiards and billiards and billiards.

"I'm not sure how I'd rank Empaths on a shadiness scale, among all the guilds, but they're definitely in the top three."

:(

Both currently think they're winning.

Given how society views the two of them though I don't think it's actually hard to say which one has a better PR machine.

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

I'd assume Thieves weren't being counted in the top three because, let's face it, the Thieves don't really hide what they do from their own members. They're Thieves. It's right there in the guild name.

They're not shady, they're criminals.

Necromancers get away with their manipulative shady stuff because, well, if they aren't getting away with it they're burning alive. So maybe that doesn't count.

Empaths get away with it because they have enough of a PR department going on that most people, public and guildmembers, just have no idea there's anything to even question.

Moon Mages get away with it because no one understands what they're doing and if they did understand it might well break their minds.

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

Now I'm wondering who the third guild is. Guessing it might be Paladins or Clerics.

I figured it might have been Necros in the lens of "well, people know Necros exist, but they probably don't know there is a structure proactively training/fostering their development"

---

Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.

>Coming back to the game after quite a few years away, I'm saddened to see what's become of the guild. That and removal of the starry road are my only two really big complaints (most all the other changes are awesome!) C'est la vie, I suppose. Not sure what I'd have done differently, honestly.

Weird; I think giving Empaths some bite and sturdiness has breathed new life into the guild. It solidified the point that Empaths shouldn't just be giggling, tittering doctors who just love taking peoples wounds like most people were RPing them. GS thematically fits just fine; I'm actually glad they didn't take the route of having a cyclic that needed to be held that, say, just let Empaths attack critters.

And the starry road was... not a good thing, given the ongoing evolution of the game.

>Now I'm wondering who the third guild is. Guessing it might be Paladins or Clerics.

Given some of the descriptions of Clerics as shredding souls, yeah, probably them. Although that may have been a Necromancers description. Which doesn't make it wrong... But yeah.

"It solidified the point that Empaths shouldn't just be giggling, tittering doctors who just love taking peoples wounds like most people were RPing them."

Oh, I'm not arguing that the guild lacked gravity. I just feel a better way to have gone would have been to emphasize the sacrifices that they make, rather than downplaying them by giving the guild teeth. Just tossing an idea out there, but I'd have given serious consideration to making transference more painful and slow and debilitating than it currently is. Expanded on the horror of taking someone else's problems and making them your own, and of losing your identity in a sea of otherness. It kills me to see Empaths these days who actively encourage other people to harm themselves so that they can get some Empathy exp. Manipulate is a reasonable alternative, but ultimately a step in the wrong direction, imo.

Anyway, that's all water under the bridge and probably better off in a separate thread. If I'm ever in the mood I'll make one. It's something I'd at least like to discuss as a hypothetical, since it's fairly obviously too late to change it.

>>DR-Melete: You can tell if a spell is shocking by prepping it and then PERCEIVING.

Thanks!


>>Stellarmagus: I just feel a better way to have gone would have been to emphasize the sacrifices that they make, rather than downplaying them by giving the guild teeth. Just tossing an idea out there, but I'd have given serious consideration to making transference more painful and slow and debilitating than it currently is. . . . It kills me to see Empaths these days who actively encourage other people to harm themselves so that they can get some Empathy exp.

The practice of begging people to injure themselves (or offering to injure yourself) for empathy experience has always struck me as being jarringly OOC. For example, this is a conversation I recently witnessed:

---

[Empath] sweetly says, "I need some wounds."

[Moon Mage] says, "Let me see if I can blow my arms off for you."

[Moon Mage] says, "Give me a sec."

You ask [Moon Mage], "Were you nuts before you became a Moon Mage, or did that come later?"

[Moon Mage] says, "Comes with the territory I guess."

[Moon Mage] says, "I can fry my nerves real quick if you want those ..."

[Moon Mage] says, "Be right back."

[The Moon Mage leaves and returns with wounds.]

[Empath] sweetly says, "All good."

[Empath] sweetly says to [Moon Mage], "Thanks darlin."

[Moon Mage] says, "Welcome. Give me a few more rois and I'll see if I can't blow these arms off for ya."

You exclaim, "Loony Moonies!"

---

However, I don't think that changing the lore of empathy would make players stop doing this, as the players who engage in this behavior are not basing their decisions on lore. (The process of transference is already described as being agonizing, with Empaths involuntarily crying out in pain throughout the process.)

I think this would be better addressed by enforcing mech abuse policy.

---

>>I hang at the empath guild a lot: I don't see how its any easier than the folks that pincushion each other, blow traps on purpose, or intentionally backlash spells upon empath request.

"All of these are mech abuse and can result in warnings. Don't do it." --DR-Raesh

---

POLICY 5

Examples of serious bug abuse: Disconnecting from the merchant manager to avoid paying the purchase price of an item; finding a "feedback loop" with spells or mana points, which allows spells to be cast multiple times with little or no cost; repeatedly injuring yourself (or another character) in order to generate experience for an empath or cleric; finding a special circumstance in which to use a potion whereby its quantity is not decremented when it is used; abusing game mechanics to cause duplication of items or coins.

---

"Empathy doesn't make people nice." --GM Armifer

Vote for DragonRealms on Top MUD Sites: http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

Sarkranis - that's kind of why I'd have been in favor of making transference slower. If an empath can get pretty much all the exp they'd need for a while from just one reasonably injured patient, that'd have gone a long way towards addressing some of the concerns the guild faces as population dwindled. Combined with more expansion, both in lore and in mechanics, of how displacing or downright harrowing it can be to form a physical/emotional link with another being (and to always have other creatures feelings on the periphery of your senses), the guild could have kept its roots and still become very dark and gritty, without sacrificing that treasured place Empaths have (or used to have) in society.

Nowadays, I know a fair few people that are more annoyed by the majority of the guild than anything else. Makes it really sad to remember how special Empaths used to be, by and large, waaaay back in the early days.

>>This is still considered mech abuse and should be avoided (Setting aside the jarring rp). It's just very hard to police.

>>-Raesh

I had no idea that this was considered a policy abuse. Though it's obviously not being policed very hard at the moment it makes me happy to know that it is. The jarring OOCness of chopping people's arms off so empaths can lose their own arms for EXP and the various other things people do to hurt themselves is a key reason why I've left Crossing for the most part. I just can't stay in character in that environment.

I understand the desire for it, I've sat there with five other empaths and little to no patients for hours at a time too. But there has to be a better way. (In fact there is! It's just that telling friends to hurt themselves is the easier/quicker route.)

Also, as someone who became an Empath (and chose it as a main) in part for all the shadowy politicking and for the potential fun of challenging the norms and expectations of what it means to be an Empath: Huzzah for everything GM-Melete has said this thread :)


-= Alesche =-
Mountain Elf - Historian - Free Empath of the Crystal Tower
Heavy RPer Looking for Connections!
AIM: DRAlesche

>>Stellarmagus: Combined with more expansion, both in lore and in mechanics, of how displacing or downright harrowing it can be to form a physical/emotional link with another being (and to always have other creatures feelings on the periphery of your senses)

I don't think we've downplayed this at all. In fact, most of the newer healing techniques emphasize it, in both directions, and the majority of Empath GMPCs do as well. Players, however, can choose to ignore it, and they typically do. We can make your character collapse in agony due to the pain of his injuries, but we can't make anyone roleplay a realistic reaction to it. Remember, this is the same class of players who stick their faces into a nest of snakes in order to possibly receive crossbow ammo, kill themselves for cupcakes, and systematically slay homeless people for 'the experience'.

>>I had no idea that this was considered a policy abuse. Though it's obviously not being policed very hard at the moment it makes me happy to know that it is.

This is definitely, as Raesh said, still considered mechanics abuse. However, it's a tough thing to police because the behaviors themselves are not against policy, it's doing the behaviors specifically to generate wounds for an Empath that is. All people have to do is not explicitly state that they're doing it to generate wounds. So we could enforce the policy for a week or so until people learned to at least pretend to be doing it for some other reason, and then we'd be right back where we are now.

>>that treasured place Empaths have (or used to have) in society.

In my experience, this treasured place was quite superficial, and honestly I found that in many cases beneath that veneer of paternalistic benevolence, you'd find contempt. Granted, that's extremely rich ground for RP, but I do have to wonder if people who lament the Empaths' Guild former place in society ever seriously played one as their main character. We no longer support the combat/non-combat guild dichotomy for very good reasons.

Melete

---

Nature, it seems, is the popular name
for milliards and milliards and milliards
of particles playing their infinite game
of billiards and billiards and billiards.

>>DR-Melete: All people have to do is not explicitly state that they're doing it to generate wounds. So we could enforce the policy for a week or so until people learned to at least pretend to be doing it for some other reason, and then we'd be right back where we are now.

At least it would be a little less jarring. There is no attempt at subtlety right now. If this were scripting policy, it would be the equivalent of announcing that you are going to be lost in thoughts while you collect piles of rocks (as opposed to just quietly collecting piles of rocks, and other people having to infer that you are not paying attention).


>>DR-Melete: In my experience, this treasured place was quite superficial, and honestly I found that in many cases beneath that veneer of paternalistic benevolence, you'd find contempt.

One thing that quickly became obvious when the PHA was active is that the "respect" that many people claim to have for Empaths lasts only as long as the Empaths are accommodating.

---

"Empathy doesn't make people nice." --GM Armifer

Vote for DragonRealms on Top MUD Sites: http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

PHA? I must have missed whatever that is ...