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I have returned to the game after a hiatus and looking at a new character. I'm trying to get a sense of what the style of the Necromancer Guild is. I have a very good grasp of the other Guilds and their daily routines, approaches to combat, etc. But I never paid much attention to the Necromancers before. Maybe this is too broad but especially for earlier circles are there any spells and abilities that are usable without outing, or is the challenge trying to avoid notice from the start with a significant handicap?
A good place to start is the newbie guide for Necromancers on Elanthipedia.
In short, a Necromancers existence typically becomes one of avoiding JUSTICE zones, which are typically where most players congregate. Knowing which abilities indicate you are a Necromancer is important, so you can avoid indicating you are a Necromancer.
>> Maybe this is too broad but especially for earlier circles are there any spells and abilities that are usable without outing, or is the challenge trying to avoid notice from the start with a significant handicap?
The interesting thing about necromancers is the game changes significantly throughout the life of your character. Initially, scared beyond belief that anyone will out you. Never using trans spells or any outing spells. "Laying low" so to speak. For awhile.
Later on you can start adding in trans spells because you simply either stop caring or won't instantly get shanked. I would say its a "relaxed tension." Justice can still PWN your face.
I think end game is about managing DO and worrying about instant smiting. But then you are ungodly powerful and can give a goblin a tyrium katana and have it wreck the entire town.
Of course your day can go to hell at any moments notice. You can be anywhere, and a zealot happens to notice something necromantic like and that can lead into massive conflict and RP. Good/bad.
Also self healing is awesome.
You could also easily RP openly perverse right from the start! Or you could try to cover up your necromantic nature indefinitely, or you could play with a style to match the concept of the Redeemed and avoid using any specifically necromantic abilities regardless of if any other players are around, ooooorrrr --
Honestly, it's all a matter of personal preference. You can absolutely avoid the most blatant abilities both right from the start and later on, if so you choose. You can absolutely go all-in straight from the start, too!
https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Necromancer_new_player_guide
-Persida
Honestly, it's all a matter of personal preference. You can absolutely avoid the most blatant abilities both right from the start and later on, if so you choose. You can absolutely go all-in straight from the start, too!
https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Necromancer_new_player_guide
-Persida
>You could also easily RP openly perverse right from the start!
>You can absolutely go all-in straight from the start, too!
I was around when Necromancers were first released. It did not end well. In fact there's a post still up from Solomon which is quite hilarious... something to the effect of "Maybe you guys should lay low until you can actually defend yourself? Stop complaining about dying if you are flaunting it."
>You can absolutely go all-in straight from the start, too!
I was around when Necromancers were first released. It did not end well. In fact there's a post still up from Solomon which is quite hilarious... something to the effect of "Maybe you guys should lay low until you can actually defend yourself? Stop complaining about dying if you are flaunting it."
Playing Perverse successfully means accepting you have precarious access to town services and should not be hanging out in justice zones. It is possible to Do It Wrong by not accepting your responsibility in the matter, and some people had immense difficulty understanding that. They did not have a good time.
-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino
-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino
Yes. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. You can totally play the grimdark bonelord from day 1. And yes, you'll probably get your face smashed in for it now and then depending on just how loud you are, because that's part of the role you've chosen to play. All of these roles, from Redeemed to Perverse, will demand different skills from you, even if that demand is only that you cultivate the art of not giving a crap about dying. Caveat Neccie.
That said, "tense, lurking paranoia" would probably be my best summary for the general feeling of the guild regardless of which path you choose.
Thayet
Follow @thayelf on Twitter for absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever!
That said, "tense, lurking paranoia" would probably be my best summary for the general feeling of the guild regardless of which path you choose.
Thayet
Follow @thayelf on Twitter for absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever!
A lot of the early days of the guilds release involved people meta gaming to hunt down the new necros, and A LOT of those tells have been removed. Even more frequently, it involved the new necros being moronically stupid with their abilities and then crying foul when they got stomped for being so stupid. For example, HARVEST material didn't degrade after being dropped initially, and wasn't updated to vanish on dropping for a couple of days (or weeks?) after guild release. Yet immediately after guild release it wasn't uncommon to find players hunting musk hogs, eels, rock trolls, leucros, gryphons, whatever, buried under hundreds of materials.
Gee. Think that's a Necromancer?
The guild has always had the disclaimer of 'play smart', and people have always managed to do the very opposite of that.
>>Playing Perverse successfully means accepting you have precarious access to town services and should not be hanging out in justice zones. It is possible to Do It Wrong by not accepting your responsibility in the matter, and some people had immense difficulty understanding that. They did not have a good time.
Playing Perverse has been a challenge. I didn't start that way but had my hand forced by a Therengian Court Cleric and accepted it gleefully. You give up A LOT largely I suspect on purpose. I look forward to Lichdom.
Condran Arkarm
Playing Perverse has been a challenge. I didn't start that way but had my hand forced by a Therengian Court Cleric and accepted it gleefully. You give up A LOT largely I suspect on purpose. I look forward to Lichdom.
Condran Arkarm
>>>>Playing Perverse successfully means accepting you have precarious access to town services and should not be hanging out in justice zones. It is possible to Do It Wrong by not accepting your responsibility in the matter, and some people had immense difficulty understanding that. They did not have a good time.
>>Playing Perverse has been a challenge. I didn't start that way but had my hand forced by a Therengian Court Cleric and accepted it gleefully. You give up A LOT largely I suspect on purpose. I look forward to Lichdom.
So what exactly does a Perverse Necromancer do, or really any Necromancer that's trying to avoid town services and not hang out in justice zones.
1- Lots of fishing.
2- Working on their fit summer Necromancer beach body through active swimming, climbing, and tanning.
3- ???
I guess I'm so used to hanging out in towns/justice zones, working on popping boxes, socializing with others, picking up a class, that I don't really understand the Necromancer lifestyle. Is it very, very isolated, with limited RP interactions when someone outs you? Is the emphasis survival as much as possible, with the payoff of great powers down the line, but a limited need to interact with the standard town goods?
>>Playing Perverse has been a challenge. I didn't start that way but had my hand forced by a Therengian Court Cleric and accepted it gleefully. You give up A LOT largely I suspect on purpose. I look forward to Lichdom.
So what exactly does a Perverse Necromancer do, or really any Necromancer that's trying to avoid town services and not hang out in justice zones.
1- Lots of fishing.
2- Working on their fit summer Necromancer beach body through active swimming, climbing, and tanning.
3- ???
I guess I'm so used to hanging out in towns/justice zones, working on popping boxes, socializing with others, picking up a class, that I don't really understand the Necromancer lifestyle. Is it very, very isolated, with limited RP interactions when someone outs you? Is the emphasis survival as much as possible, with the payoff of great powers down the line, but a limited need to interact with the standard town goods?
>> Is it very, very isolated, with limited RP interactions when someone outs you?
::deep breath:: Hokay, well, see, it's like this...
It kind of is, yeah. We just had a thread about this, actually. There is surprisingly little to do with regards to participation with the greater (read: non-Necromancer) RP community if you aren't Perverse; it's just not really supported, even/especially on a GM/official event level. So a lot of Necromancers seem to jump into that for lack of anything better to do, and the general feeling (rightly or no) is that Necromancers are kind of expected to quietly script somewhere and not attempt to interact with the rest of the community unless they're intent on being a cackling horror.
You can pull off a limited degree of integration with players/non-GM events for a little while if you have the chops to do it. Doing so requires being at peace with the fact that it won't work forever; people will figure it out one way or another, at least on an OOC player level, if you spend enough time with them. There are too many subtle tells, OOC and not, for anyone even remotely observant to not realize something is wrong. You'll use the wrong verb (AUGH RANGERS) or not have access to a spell or ability or area you ought to or someone will connect your character to your forums/twitter posts and welp.
That said, a lot of players will gladly play along with you and RP ignorance long after they personally figure it out, banking instead on a more dramatically appropriate reveal down the road. There is a great deal of interesting roleplay and dramatic tension to be found around the gradual process of outing. Many won't bother with all of this, but you can't win them all. A lot of people are just flat-out apathetic too, which is boring, but at least nobody is stomping your face in when that happens.
I've gotten extremely lucky in falling in with a group of players willing and able to play along while others have provided IC tension and conflict that has jeopardized my character without ruining her (hi2u Liurilias). I've had some really cool and interesting interactions around both concealing My Terrible Secret and managing it when it has come out. The house of cards will probably come crashing down at some point -- the consequences of which I expect Condran can speak a little better to -- but at least the ride so far has been fun.
As to whether it'll still be fun when everybody knows her for what she is and she isn't welcome among "polite" society anymore, and my options for interacting with other PCs become much more dramatically limited, well, that's to be seen.
Thayet
Follow @thayelf on Twitter for absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever!
::deep breath:: Hokay, well, see, it's like this...
It kind of is, yeah. We just had a thread about this, actually. There is surprisingly little to do with regards to participation with the greater (read: non-Necromancer) RP community if you aren't Perverse; it's just not really supported, even/especially on a GM/official event level. So a lot of Necromancers seem to jump into that for lack of anything better to do, and the general feeling (rightly or no) is that Necromancers are kind of expected to quietly script somewhere and not attempt to interact with the rest of the community unless they're intent on being a cackling horror.
You can pull off a limited degree of integration with players/non-GM events for a little while if you have the chops to do it. Doing so requires being at peace with the fact that it won't work forever; people will figure it out one way or another, at least on an OOC player level, if you spend enough time with them. There are too many subtle tells, OOC and not, for anyone even remotely observant to not realize something is wrong. You'll use the wrong verb (AUGH RANGERS) or not have access to a spell or ability or area you ought to or someone will connect your character to your forums/twitter posts and welp.
That said, a lot of players will gladly play along with you and RP ignorance long after they personally figure it out, banking instead on a more dramatically appropriate reveal down the road. There is a great deal of interesting roleplay and dramatic tension to be found around the gradual process of outing. Many won't bother with all of this, but you can't win them all. A lot of people are just flat-out apathetic too, which is boring, but at least nobody is stomping your face in when that happens.
I've gotten extremely lucky in falling in with a group of players willing and able to play along while others have provided IC tension and conflict that has jeopardized my character without ruining her (hi2u Liurilias). I've had some really cool and interesting interactions around both concealing My Terrible Secret and managing it when it has come out. The house of cards will probably come crashing down at some point -- the consequences of which I expect Condran can speak a little better to -- but at least the ride so far has been fun.
As to whether it'll still be fun when everybody knows her for what she is and she isn't welcome among "polite" society anymore, and my options for interacting with other PCs become much more dramatically limited, well, that's to be seen.
Thayet
Follow @thayelf on Twitter for absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever!
>>I was around when Necromancers were first released. It did not end well. In fact there's a post still up from Solomon which is quite hilarious... something to the effect of "Maybe you guys should lay low until you can actually defend yourself? Stop complaining about dying if you are flaunting it.
So was I! Nothing that happened then goes against what I said, though it's certainly become far easier to lay low now.
In fact, watching players purposefully waiting to 'RP' or interact with others at all with their Necromancer characters until they think they are 'big enough' makes me pretty sad, no matter if they intend on playing an obscured Necromancer, an openly known Philosopher, a baby head juggling evil-in-your-face-because-I-feel-like-it member of the Perverse cults, or any other possible flavor of necromantic goodness. I'm not saying anyone here advocated that expressly, but I do see it advocated (and followed through on) a fair amount, and I feel like everyone loses out on so much when this happens.
>>There is surprisingly little to do with regards to participation with the greater (read: non-Necromancer) RP community if you aren't Perverse; it's just not really supported, even/especially on a GM/official event level.
I disagree that non-Perverse aren't really able to participate in non-Necro-only RP in GM-supported events. They can risk outing themselves doing so if they are attempting to be hidden (not hidden also =/= Perverse by default), but they risk outing themselves by hunting, walking around, and simply existing, too. They risk death/dismemberment/merry chases if they are openly known as a Necromancer and show up to RP events where Necromancers would be obviously less than welcome, GM-run or otherwise -- that's an aspect of the setting of the game -- but even that is not a given, and that I can say from extensive personal experience on both sides of that equation.
Participating in GM-run non-Necro-only events is, if anything, harder in my view if you are playing Perverse, since the in-your-faceness of the Perverse role tends to be pretty disruptive by its very nature (I don't use disruptive here in a necessarily game policy sense, though like anything else, it could go that way depending on specific actions taken) and unless the event you're showing up to is already pretty clearly one with factions who would embrace you in all of your Perversity, you're not necessarily likely to be able to interact as much more than a glorified invasion monster who walked into the room while something else was going on.
Does that mean there couldn't be more? Of course not, there could always be more! Does that mean that staff don't want more? Nope on that, too. Does that mean I think players shouldn't want more? Still no. But it boils down to two things:
1) The fact that no matter how much GMs run events of any kind (and that waxes and wanes depending on a lot of factors), the vast, vast majority of most players' RP time in the game, Necro characters or not, comes from interactions with other players without GMs involved at all. There are way more of you than there are of us!
2) Not all events are really intended to appeal to or even really be 'for' every type of character (or player, for that matter). By that I just mean that trying to be inclusive in eventing means that we try to have a wide variety of sorts of events, not that we throw ourselves against the wall of impossibility and try to make every event work for every possible person or character personality. This is something that is especially important for Necromancer players to understand, since yes, an outed Necromancer of almost any stripe has less 'sorts' of events that they could reasonably expect to participate in where their Necromancer-ness won't be a large determining factor in how that RP goes down than, say, a Ranger character would. Even a non-outed Necromancer is very likely to experience things far differently by dent of simply being a Necromancer if they are trying to interact with extremely Immortals-focused events. Know what you signed up for, and you'll be far less unhappy with the results.
Meeting new characters to have base relationships and interactions with can become far more challenging depending on how you play your Necromancer, and this is again something that I know very, very well personally. A lot of the QoL changes we've been making are at least in part to make certain impediments to that be less so while still keeping with the game's setting and lore. But RP as a Necromancer, while often contentious and not for everyone, isn't impossible or even improbable at any circle or any flavor of approach to your Necromancer. If you want something different than what you see a lot of currently, help make that happen by your actions in game, no matter what or who you play.
-Persida
So was I! Nothing that happened then goes against what I said, though it's certainly become far easier to lay low now.
In fact, watching players purposefully waiting to 'RP' or interact with others at all with their Necromancer characters until they think they are 'big enough' makes me pretty sad, no matter if they intend on playing an obscured Necromancer, an openly known Philosopher, a baby head juggling evil-in-your-face-because-I-feel-like-it member of the Perverse cults, or any other possible flavor of necromantic goodness. I'm not saying anyone here advocated that expressly, but I do see it advocated (and followed through on) a fair amount, and I feel like everyone loses out on so much when this happens.
>>There is surprisingly little to do with regards to participation with the greater (read: non-Necromancer) RP community if you aren't Perverse; it's just not really supported, even/especially on a GM/official event level.
I disagree that non-Perverse aren't really able to participate in non-Necro-only RP in GM-supported events. They can risk outing themselves doing so if they are attempting to be hidden (not hidden also =/= Perverse by default), but they risk outing themselves by hunting, walking around, and simply existing, too. They risk death/dismemberment/merry chases if they are openly known as a Necromancer and show up to RP events where Necromancers would be obviously less than welcome, GM-run or otherwise -- that's an aspect of the setting of the game -- but even that is not a given, and that I can say from extensive personal experience on both sides of that equation.
Participating in GM-run non-Necro-only events is, if anything, harder in my view if you are playing Perverse, since the in-your-faceness of the Perverse role tends to be pretty disruptive by its very nature (I don't use disruptive here in a necessarily game policy sense, though like anything else, it could go that way depending on specific actions taken) and unless the event you're showing up to is already pretty clearly one with factions who would embrace you in all of your Perversity, you're not necessarily likely to be able to interact as much more than a glorified invasion monster who walked into the room while something else was going on.
Does that mean there couldn't be more? Of course not, there could always be more! Does that mean that staff don't want more? Nope on that, too. Does that mean I think players shouldn't want more? Still no. But it boils down to two things:
1) The fact that no matter how much GMs run events of any kind (and that waxes and wanes depending on a lot of factors), the vast, vast majority of most players' RP time in the game, Necro characters or not, comes from interactions with other players without GMs involved at all. There are way more of you than there are of us!
2) Not all events are really intended to appeal to or even really be 'for' every type of character (or player, for that matter). By that I just mean that trying to be inclusive in eventing means that we try to have a wide variety of sorts of events, not that we throw ourselves against the wall of impossibility and try to make every event work for every possible person or character personality. This is something that is especially important for Necromancer players to understand, since yes, an outed Necromancer of almost any stripe has less 'sorts' of events that they could reasonably expect to participate in where their Necromancer-ness won't be a large determining factor in how that RP goes down than, say, a Ranger character would. Even a non-outed Necromancer is very likely to experience things far differently by dent of simply being a Necromancer if they are trying to interact with extremely Immortals-focused events. Know what you signed up for, and you'll be far less unhappy with the results.
Meeting new characters to have base relationships and interactions with can become far more challenging depending on how you play your Necromancer, and this is again something that I know very, very well personally. A lot of the QoL changes we've been making are at least in part to make certain impediments to that be less so while still keeping with the game's setting and lore. But RP as a Necromancer, while often contentious and not for everyone, isn't impossible or even improbable at any circle or any flavor of approach to your Necromancer. If you want something different than what you see a lot of currently, help make that happen by your actions in game, no matter what or who you play.
-Persida
There was talk awhile back about making the accusation interactions a little less binary. I think that would help tremendously. I feel that there are plenty of non-justice gathering spots to get your socializing ya-ya's out, but it is hard, and we don't really have too many tools for spending time in justice zones if players don't want us to. Perhaps as it should be, but it does force Necromancers to play at least that part of the game a certain way.
>>The house of cards will probably come crashing down at some point -- the consequences of which I expect Condran can speak a little better to -- but at least the ride so far has been fun.
In complete honesty - some of the most interesting nights I've had in DR have been POST reveal as a Necromancer and embracing being the bad guy. One of the keys I've noticed so many lose sight of is simply this: Bad Guys ALWAYS Lose. You can have a small victory. You can even be big dog for a while and strut your stuff. But: Eventually the good guys WILL win and if you push too far you won't like how. Considering the locale, history, and IG Power structures we're simply too small and going too far against the grain to expect anything different.
Yes - You can stack bodies up like cord-wood and laugh like a pirate but you'll get yours in the end. Buckle up though - its one heck of a ride.
Condran Arkarm
In complete honesty - some of the most interesting nights I've had in DR have been POST reveal as a Necromancer and embracing being the bad guy. One of the keys I've noticed so many lose sight of is simply this: Bad Guys ALWAYS Lose. You can have a small victory. You can even be big dog for a while and strut your stuff. But: Eventually the good guys WILL win and if you push too far you won't like how. Considering the locale, history, and IG Power structures we're simply too small and going too far against the grain to expect anything different.
Yes - You can stack bodies up like cord-wood and laugh like a pirate but you'll get yours in the end. Buckle up though - its one heck of a ride.
Condran Arkarm
>> In complete honesty - some of the most interesting nights I've had in DR have been POST reveal as a Necromancer and embracing being the bad guy.
Here's the thing though: I don't want to do that and my PC is not someone that would do that. She's not holding back on zombie hordes and murdering as many people as she can simply because it would out her to the general populace, she doesn't do that because it's not something she or any Philosopher (in her mind) would do. So I return to this notion of the cackling horror seemingly being the only apparent model for interaction available post-outing, and as fun as that has the potential to be for players who want to embrace that I want to come up with more things for people who don't want to adopt that particular role. Absolutely nobody is talking about being able to march zombies on Theren without repercussions here; this is not about winning and losing or good guy vs bad guy, it's about the diversity of the roles available to you while still maintaining some semblance of a connection to the community.
>> Persida
I hesitate to get into too much detail, but my single sincere attempt at getting involved in a GM-supported roleplaying group ended in my forums posts here in the Necromancer forum being connected to my character and my continued participation being revoked, OOCly, purely on that basis. It soured me quite a bit in terms of making subsequent attempts.
Mechanically it is far, far better now even compared to six months ago when I first rolled up my PC because the justice mechanics have been adjusted in such a way that the system feels more "fair" while retaining the general sense of paranoia, constant awareness of the specter of accusations, and forcing you to weigh the risks of being in town for too long. In general I like the direction the system has gone because it penalizes both incautious Necromancers and people attempting to brute-force the system.
That said, due to the way the Suspicion timer works, it is very unsafe to be in town for longer than half an hour or so, particularly not in gathering spots, because all it takes is one person to run you out (remotely and anonymously) for whatever reason. At that point you're scripting in the woods for awhile waiting for your SO to run down, everyone that saw that accuse knows you just got nailed for necromancy and are probably a Necromancer (which can be a considerable number of people if a GMPC is present and people are crowding) and in the mean time you are no longer a part of or party to any event or scene that is going on. Now, that's a calculated risk that I choose to take despite all that, but in terms of the question "what kind of RP opportunities do you have" it's worth considering because this makes both common gathering areas and showing up at GM-run events especially dangerous. The longer you have your character the more rapidly your ability to continue participating in the majority of social events and social spaces approaches 0. (I'm deliberately ignoring the additional PvP implications here, you'll notice. This is because I'm set to Open anyway, so it's a non-issue for me. But that may be a consideration for others as well. I've never been hunted down, even after an accuse, but I'm also not Lazzo.)
I want to emphasize that I'm not complaining about the bulk of GM-run events, that they exist, or that they are not catered toward neccies. I like these events, I am glad they exist, I want them to continue existing, and I understand why they're structured the way they are. In no way either am I diminishing the value of player-to-player interaction either and I tried to take care in my post to emphasize that the vast majority of the enjoyable scenes I've had since rolling up my character have been with other players. I expect this to continue to be true as well and there is a reason I spent most of my post talking about it, because it is the dimension of the game I get the most out of on a day to day basis. But many GM-run social events as well as gathering spaces for players are in justice areas, which makes it kind of hard to make new friends or find a scene to jump into sometimes. There is a reason the perception that you should just go off and script somewhere by yourself before trying to do anything exists and is so widespread. Non-participation in events, GM-run and otherwise, is not or at least should not be part of the concept of "hard mode," but it can feel like that sometimes.
I don't like leaving a post like this without some constructive suggestions. Adding granularity to the justice system would be lovely but is a prohibitively large project, turning off justice ala invasion mechanics during certain styles of GM-run events -- effectively forcing accusers to actually roleplay out accusing someone face-to-face and try to integrate it into a scene -- seems kludgey, "do more diverse events" isn't really a feasible suggestion since everyone responsible for events is presumably doing everything they're capable of already. Providing incentives to gather in more non-justice areas might be nice but I'm not sure how you'd go about doing that.
Actually... I don't know. Would shutting justice off (or ACCUSE, anyway) be an option during social events? How do people see that playing out? ACCUSE mechanics exist in part to provide players a mechanical means of policing the presence of Necromancers without the intervention of GMs, but if an event is ongoing and a GM is actively participating in a scene, that becomes moot. Of course, it becomes extremely risky as a supervising GM can merely jump straight to Hounding if it's warranted, but that might be a worthwhile tradeoff for people capable of skillful execution.
Thayet
Follow @thayelf on Twitter for absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever!
Here's the thing though: I don't want to do that and my PC is not someone that would do that. She's not holding back on zombie hordes and murdering as many people as she can simply because it would out her to the general populace, she doesn't do that because it's not something she or any Philosopher (in her mind) would do. So I return to this notion of the cackling horror seemingly being the only apparent model for interaction available post-outing, and as fun as that has the potential to be for players who want to embrace that I want to come up with more things for people who don't want to adopt that particular role. Absolutely nobody is talking about being able to march zombies on Theren without repercussions here; this is not about winning and losing or good guy vs bad guy, it's about the diversity of the roles available to you while still maintaining some semblance of a connection to the community.
>> Persida
I hesitate to get into too much detail, but my single sincere attempt at getting involved in a GM-supported roleplaying group ended in my forums posts here in the Necromancer forum being connected to my character and my continued participation being revoked, OOCly, purely on that basis. It soured me quite a bit in terms of making subsequent attempts.
Mechanically it is far, far better now even compared to six months ago when I first rolled up my PC because the justice mechanics have been adjusted in such a way that the system feels more "fair" while retaining the general sense of paranoia, constant awareness of the specter of accusations, and forcing you to weigh the risks of being in town for too long. In general I like the direction the system has gone because it penalizes both incautious Necromancers and people attempting to brute-force the system.
That said, due to the way the Suspicion timer works, it is very unsafe to be in town for longer than half an hour or so, particularly not in gathering spots, because all it takes is one person to run you out (remotely and anonymously) for whatever reason. At that point you're scripting in the woods for awhile waiting for your SO to run down, everyone that saw that accuse knows you just got nailed for necromancy and are probably a Necromancer (which can be a considerable number of people if a GMPC is present and people are crowding) and in the mean time you are no longer a part of or party to any event or scene that is going on. Now, that's a calculated risk that I choose to take despite all that, but in terms of the question "what kind of RP opportunities do you have" it's worth considering because this makes both common gathering areas and showing up at GM-run events especially dangerous. The longer you have your character the more rapidly your ability to continue participating in the majority of social events and social spaces approaches 0. (I'm deliberately ignoring the additional PvP implications here, you'll notice. This is because I'm set to Open anyway, so it's a non-issue for me. But that may be a consideration for others as well. I've never been hunted down, even after an accuse, but I'm also not Lazzo.)
I want to emphasize that I'm not complaining about the bulk of GM-run events, that they exist, or that they are not catered toward neccies. I like these events, I am glad they exist, I want them to continue existing, and I understand why they're structured the way they are. In no way either am I diminishing the value of player-to-player interaction either and I tried to take care in my post to emphasize that the vast majority of the enjoyable scenes I've had since rolling up my character have been with other players. I expect this to continue to be true as well and there is a reason I spent most of my post talking about it, because it is the dimension of the game I get the most out of on a day to day basis. But many GM-run social events as well as gathering spaces for players are in justice areas, which makes it kind of hard to make new friends or find a scene to jump into sometimes. There is a reason the perception that you should just go off and script somewhere by yourself before trying to do anything exists and is so widespread. Non-participation in events, GM-run and otherwise, is not or at least should not be part of the concept of "hard mode," but it can feel like that sometimes.
I don't like leaving a post like this without some constructive suggestions. Adding granularity to the justice system would be lovely but is a prohibitively large project, turning off justice ala invasion mechanics during certain styles of GM-run events -- effectively forcing accusers to actually roleplay out accusing someone face-to-face and try to integrate it into a scene -- seems kludgey, "do more diverse events" isn't really a feasible suggestion since everyone responsible for events is presumably doing everything they're capable of already. Providing incentives to gather in more non-justice areas might be nice but I'm not sure how you'd go about doing that.
Actually... I don't know. Would shutting justice off (or ACCUSE, anyway) be an option during social events? How do people see that playing out? ACCUSE mechanics exist in part to provide players a mechanical means of policing the presence of Necromancers without the intervention of GMs, but if an event is ongoing and a GM is actively participating in a scene, that becomes moot. Of course, it becomes extremely risky as a supervising GM can merely jump straight to Hounding if it's warranted, but that might be a worthwhile tradeoff for people capable of skillful execution.
Thayet
Follow @thayelf on Twitter for absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever!
>> So was I! Nothing that happened then goes against what I said, though it's certainly become far easier to lay low now.
Easier to lay low, of course. But the consequences when outed are virtually the same.
>> In fact, watching players purposefully waiting to 'RP' or interact with others at all with their Necromancer characters until they think they are 'big enough' makes me pretty sad, no matter if they intend on playing an obscured Necromancer, an openly known Philosopher, a baby head juggling evil-in-your-face-because-I-feel-like-it member of the Perverse cults, or any other possible flavor of necromantic goodness. I'm not saying anyone here advocated that expressly, but I do see it advocated (and followed through on) a fair amount, and I feel like everyone loses out on so much when this happens.
Life's hard out there. It falls on both sides of the coin too though. Necromancers could maybe try and "RP" more, but non-necromancers could also try and not "instantly slay" or "run off" potential necromancers.
My first interaction on my newbie necromancer involved a secondary character sneaking around a hunting area at which point they noticed I was casting a necromancer spell. They then told me if I didn't leave the area they would kill me. I left thinking it would blow over. I came back and the person tried to run me out again.
So I attempted to RP. I discussed the fact that the spell they saw could be learnable by anyone. That perhaps they were mistaken. At which point I got PVP warned about 2-3 times, which I declined because I was trying to work things out verbally. I tried some more talking, re: logic, necromancy is a serious accusation based on one little spell that anyone can learn off a scroll.
My persuasion failed and then I got threatened with death and dismemberment about 10 times. So I ran off. Then I was followed by this person's familiar for a good 45 minutes. So then I went back hoping to resolve the issue because I can't really have a familiar following me for the rest of my life.
A few more death threats later... I'm thinking, well I guess this guy wants to fight, might as well give it a shot. So then we get into a fight and I completely and utterly wiff all attacks. I wasn't quite understanding why because this is a low circle hunting area. Lo and behold this particular person is like 80-100 circle and was in the low circle area multiple times for whatever reason. I end up running off and having a familiar stalk me for the next hour. I then asked a friend for help but that is a different story.
Fast forward like 30 minutes and I'm running around town invisible, and the minute I uninvis, I get hit with an SO warning, likely for a failed accusation.
I'm going to go out on a limb here say this is likely a fairly typical experience. I was/am literally blocked from an entire hunting area, outed to said person, potentially outed to other people, and likely to have myself accused in town.
My response to this was to change hunting areas and avoid town completely for awhile. But the hunting areas in that range were sort of limited so I ended up having to leave town as well and go to a different area.
That was one interaction with one person. To continue that RP would have most assuredly ended in my death, most likely multiple times (20 circle vs 80-100th circle). I could have attempted to stay in the same town area by hunting in non-ideal areas until I could reach a different tier, and completely avoid town. But extremely risky and there's a good chance the person could find me or see me for a moment and reignite the "RP." Better to avoid that whole area completely.
And I really have to note that I don't blame this other person for RPing/acting like he did. Necromancers are bad and they should be hunted. I wish they would have given me a bit of wiggle room to talk my way out since it wasn't 100% certain, but that's fine. I also think its a bit cheap for high level circles to be trolling in low circle hunting areas sneaking around to find necromancers too, but that's part of the game too.
Waiting until you are big enough so that every tom, dick, and, harry can't stick a sword in your gut is pretty darn important. When you are at least strong enough to not get instantly blasted, you can actually hold conversations. Until someone bigger comes along. Ha.
Easier to lay low, of course. But the consequences when outed are virtually the same.
>> In fact, watching players purposefully waiting to 'RP' or interact with others at all with their Necromancer characters until they think they are 'big enough' makes me pretty sad, no matter if they intend on playing an obscured Necromancer, an openly known Philosopher, a baby head juggling evil-in-your-face-because-I-feel-like-it member of the Perverse cults, or any other possible flavor of necromantic goodness. I'm not saying anyone here advocated that expressly, but I do see it advocated (and followed through on) a fair amount, and I feel like everyone loses out on so much when this happens.
Life's hard out there. It falls on both sides of the coin too though. Necromancers could maybe try and "RP" more, but non-necromancers could also try and not "instantly slay" or "run off" potential necromancers.
My first interaction on my newbie necromancer involved a secondary character sneaking around a hunting area at which point they noticed I was casting a necromancer spell. They then told me if I didn't leave the area they would kill me. I left thinking it would blow over. I came back and the person tried to run me out again.
So I attempted to RP. I discussed the fact that the spell they saw could be learnable by anyone. That perhaps they were mistaken. At which point I got PVP warned about 2-3 times, which I declined because I was trying to work things out verbally. I tried some more talking, re: logic, necromancy is a serious accusation based on one little spell that anyone can learn off a scroll.
My persuasion failed and then I got threatened with death and dismemberment about 10 times. So I ran off. Then I was followed by this person's familiar for a good 45 minutes. So then I went back hoping to resolve the issue because I can't really have a familiar following me for the rest of my life.
A few more death threats later... I'm thinking, well I guess this guy wants to fight, might as well give it a shot. So then we get into a fight and I completely and utterly wiff all attacks. I wasn't quite understanding why because this is a low circle hunting area. Lo and behold this particular person is like 80-100 circle and was in the low circle area multiple times for whatever reason. I end up running off and having a familiar stalk me for the next hour. I then asked a friend for help but that is a different story.
Fast forward like 30 minutes and I'm running around town invisible, and the minute I uninvis, I get hit with an SO warning, likely for a failed accusation.
I'm going to go out on a limb here say this is likely a fairly typical experience. I was/am literally blocked from an entire hunting area, outed to said person, potentially outed to other people, and likely to have myself accused in town.
My response to this was to change hunting areas and avoid town completely for awhile. But the hunting areas in that range were sort of limited so I ended up having to leave town as well and go to a different area.
That was one interaction with one person. To continue that RP would have most assuredly ended in my death, most likely multiple times (20 circle vs 80-100th circle). I could have attempted to stay in the same town area by hunting in non-ideal areas until I could reach a different tier, and completely avoid town. But extremely risky and there's a good chance the person could find me or see me for a moment and reignite the "RP." Better to avoid that whole area completely.
And I really have to note that I don't blame this other person for RPing/acting like he did. Necromancers are bad and they should be hunted. I wish they would have given me a bit of wiggle room to talk my way out since it wasn't 100% certain, but that's fine. I also think its a bit cheap for high level circles to be trolling in low circle hunting areas sneaking around to find necromancers too, but that's part of the game too.
Waiting until you are big enough so that every tom, dick, and, harry can't stick a sword in your gut is pretty darn important. When you are at least strong enough to not get instantly blasted, you can actually hold conversations. Until someone bigger comes along. Ha.
>>GENERALLY, justice is disabled so folks can AOE. Generally.
This is true with the GM run invasions. The ones that are triggered with the forest warden and similar NPCs don't disable justice. It's always fun to forget that, cast a spell, and get criminal charges/outrage.
When in doubt, check JUSTICE first. I'm lazy so I put that in some of my AOE macros. JUSTICE command has no RT.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
This is true with the GM run invasions. The ones that are triggered with the forest warden and similar NPCs don't disable justice. It's always fun to forget that, cast a spell, and get criminal charges/outrage.
When in doubt, check JUSTICE first. I'm lazy so I put that in some of my AOE macros. JUSTICE command has no RT.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
>>Necromancers could maybe try and "RP" more, but non-necromancers could also try and not "instantly slay" or "run off" potential necromancers.
Speaking as one of the "good" guys, there are those of us who do try. Feel free to find me in game or contact me any time if you want to set up RP. My character is fairly easily duped and I'm also available as a victim of Evils.
It might help if we posted a "how to interact with Necromancers" guide somewhere. It seems like it should be obvious not to camp your hunting grounds or use meta tools to out you, but sadly it isn't.
Another thing that would help (which I have mentioned before so please forgive me for repeating myself) would be stronger in-game reasons to engage in conversation with Necromancers rather than immediately killing them or running them out of town. I see 2-3 main possibilities:
1) Create a system whereby a Necromancer really could be "cleansed" somehow, perhaps even rerolled in a way that makes IG sense. Maybe make it a weeks-long process so there's plenty of chance to talk to them throughout, and they could always ditch it near the end. Maybe even let them fool their "helpers" into thinking they've done it but really, secretly, the Necromancy continues!
2) Insert some in game lore, or GMNPCs, who start counseling people to try to "save" the Necromancers by talking them off of their ledge.
3) Maaaybe give Necromancers some kind of information or artifact (via RP event) that is sought by others, forcing them to interact in order to extract the info.
I've already started moving in that direction independently but it may help to guide others toward a different and more talking-oriented RP style with Necromancers.
It would also be nice to see better hidden-guild options, perhaps at a slot cost so that only the truly dedicated would be able to continue to keep up the charade.
- Navesi
Speaking as one of the "good" guys, there are those of us who do try. Feel free to find me in game or contact me any time if you want to set up RP. My character is fairly easily duped and I'm also available as a victim of Evils.
It might help if we posted a "how to interact with Necromancers" guide somewhere. It seems like it should be obvious not to camp your hunting grounds or use meta tools to out you, but sadly it isn't.
Another thing that would help (which I have mentioned before so please forgive me for repeating myself) would be stronger in-game reasons to engage in conversation with Necromancers rather than immediately killing them or running them out of town. I see 2-3 main possibilities:
1) Create a system whereby a Necromancer really could be "cleansed" somehow, perhaps even rerolled in a way that makes IG sense. Maybe make it a weeks-long process so there's plenty of chance to talk to them throughout, and they could always ditch it near the end. Maybe even let them fool their "helpers" into thinking they've done it but really, secretly, the Necromancy continues!
2) Insert some in game lore, or GMNPCs, who start counseling people to try to "save" the Necromancers by talking them off of their ledge.
3) Maaaybe give Necromancers some kind of information or artifact (via RP event) that is sought by others, forcing them to interact in order to extract the info.
I've already started moving in that direction independently but it may help to guide others toward a different and more talking-oriented RP style with Necromancers.
It would also be nice to see better hidden-guild options, perhaps at a slot cost so that only the truly dedicated would be able to continue to keep up the charade.
- Navesi
>> It might help if we posted a "how to interact with Necromancers" guide somewhere. It seems like it should be obvious not to camp your hunting grounds or use meta tools to out you, but sadly it isn't.
But but its normal for every character in the game to know every spell in the necromancer spell book and its exact effects, duration, and quirks.
>> Rest of Navesi's post
I like all of your ideas. Nice post!
So many ideas too! There could be a temporary (temp in the sense that they haven't found a way to make it permanent) "forced cleansing" or "attempted cleansing." Players could attempt to escape, sort like a museum mini game. Various skills could help like stealth survival, lockpicking, etc. If a cleansing was successful it could disable necromancer spells/skills temporarily for awhile.
Also if there was in game stuff where all the players could see, like announcements that a necromancer was captured and is going to be cleansed and/or executed in 5 rois. Sort of like the pillory but more flashy and... deadly.
>> 3) Maaaybe give Necromancers some kind of information or artifact (via RP event) that is sought by others, forcing them to interact in order to extract the info.
I really like this idea. But they sort of moved away from that with the new crafting systems. Everyone can do everything. Although I'm still not sure how Kodius is going to do enchanting without destroying moon mages. I'd personally like to go back to some guilds can do things that others cant. Differences aren't a bad thing!
So yes, sign me up. Hell, even if only they could create ingredients for a certain dastardly enchantment or something. Of course I'd like to see tools that players could use to combat this. E.g. if a necromancer gives a certain item to a player it could be tracked by other players via scent/smell/unholy aura, etc, and players could be like hey.. why you interacting with a necromancer!?
I even think there is a script in place... that axe that gives SO! Yes, perfect.
So many fun ideas. Not enough dev power.
But but its normal for every character in the game to know every spell in the necromancer spell book and its exact effects, duration, and quirks.
>> Rest of Navesi's post
I like all of your ideas. Nice post!
So many ideas too! There could be a temporary (temp in the sense that they haven't found a way to make it permanent) "forced cleansing" or "attempted cleansing." Players could attempt to escape, sort like a museum mini game. Various skills could help like stealth survival, lockpicking, etc. If a cleansing was successful it could disable necromancer spells/skills temporarily for awhile.
Also if there was in game stuff where all the players could see, like announcements that a necromancer was captured and is going to be cleansed and/or executed in 5 rois. Sort of like the pillory but more flashy and... deadly.
>> 3) Maaaybe give Necromancers some kind of information or artifact (via RP event) that is sought by others, forcing them to interact in order to extract the info.
I really like this idea. But they sort of moved away from that with the new crafting systems. Everyone can do everything. Although I'm still not sure how Kodius is going to do enchanting without destroying moon mages. I'd personally like to go back to some guilds can do things that others cant. Differences aren't a bad thing!
So yes, sign me up. Hell, even if only they could create ingredients for a certain dastardly enchantment or something. Of course I'd like to see tools that players could use to combat this. E.g. if a necromancer gives a certain item to a player it could be tracked by other players via scent/smell/unholy aura, etc, and players could be like hey.. why you interacting with a necromancer!?
I even think there is a script in place... that axe that gives SO! Yes, perfect.
So many fun ideas. Not enough dev power.
Lack of guild-hiding options are not only thematic, but face a hard reality: I cannot out-meta a smart (or simply well rehearsed) player within what I consider a reasonable amount of time-investment. This is the sort of thing that would've made the most sense if we had planned Necromancers out at the start of the game and could have built in support for guild hiding into the bones of the game (keep in mind, even Thief guild hiding came years after the game's introduction!).
I am getting the sense that there's a move toward exploring / exploiting the Redeemed angle, though. There's work I can push there if it's desirable.
-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino
I am getting the sense that there's a move toward exploring / exploiting the Redeemed angle, though. There's work I can push there if it's desirable.
-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino
Only problem with that is Redeemed, while maybe regretful of their past, will still be necromancers to society and therefore monsters. While players may not be cutting up the population for experiments, Lyras did, and I can't imagine if she at the last moment apologized things would be any better for her (well, the entity that claimed her not withstanding). Not only would Redeemed be a path that limits our abilities even more than what many of us already do to maintain cover, but it also will continue to be riddled with Necromancer stigma.
By all means add the Redeemed, but feel in general Transcending/Lichdom would be a better step currently for the guild. Anyone can currently roleplay Redeemed (minus regaining favors) currently if they wanted, unless Redeemed get a cool handshake and carebear stare to signal others they truly aren't a monster anymore (until they are again).
IMO the hardest part of playing a Necro, especially in Prime, is that you put a lot of trust into other players for it to "work" in a RP sense.
On the other side of the same coin, other players also have to "trust" Necromancers in a RP sense.
What does this mean?
hidden in plain sight necros need to trust players to not just go "nah I'm going to accuse you" because they as players know something their characters might not necessarily know, while players interacting with them need to trust them to necro responsibly by making attempts to use RoC, not run around with mudmen and zombies in tow, not show up covered in trans spells, not insist that using rituals in the middle of town is reasonable/acceptable, etc.
perverse necros need to trust players to not continually hunt them to the point where training is impossible, while players need to trust perverse necros to know when to stop proactively hating the world and tossing themselves into conflicts.
It requires a lot of people to trust each other when it comes to interacting in good faith.
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.
On the other side of the same coin, other players also have to "trust" Necromancers in a RP sense.
What does this mean?
hidden in plain sight necros need to trust players to not just go "nah I'm going to accuse you" because they as players know something their characters might not necessarily know, while players interacting with them need to trust them to necro responsibly by making attempts to use RoC, not run around with mudmen and zombies in tow, not show up covered in trans spells, not insist that using rituals in the middle of town is reasonable/acceptable, etc.
perverse necros need to trust players to not continually hunt them to the point where training is impossible, while players need to trust perverse necros to know when to stop proactively hating the world and tossing themselves into conflicts.
It requires a lot of people to trust each other when it comes to interacting in good faith.
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.
Thank you everyone for your responses.
I think one thing that is very different between DR and other fantasy tropes is that DR has the resurrection option for players through favors. I would think that normally a guild structured thematically around avoiding death and the ultimate trap of the Immortals would have a lot of options and expertise in avoiding being killed. But for DR, with favors available to early players, and later the ability to resurrect out of your shear evilness, there's less of a need for that. So you're going to get killed, maybe a lot, because that's just the way the game works.
So some follow up questions.
What is travel like as a reflection of trying to avoid justice zones? Maybe I need to brush up on what is a justice zone, but it seems like some provinces may be more hostile than others because more of the area is in a justice zone.
With the impact of justice zones and travel, what is combat like if you struggle to make certain leaps because you have to avoid certain areas?
What is combat? How often are you just waving a knife around to cut something up, versus feeling comfortable enough to cast Necromatic spells?
What's the role of AP spells or other spells? Does the AP offer enough cover for Necromatic spells that you explore the entire spellbook?
I think one thing that is very different between DR and other fantasy tropes is that DR has the resurrection option for players through favors. I would think that normally a guild structured thematically around avoiding death and the ultimate trap of the Immortals would have a lot of options and expertise in avoiding being killed. But for DR, with favors available to early players, and later the ability to resurrect out of your shear evilness, there's less of a need for that. So you're going to get killed, maybe a lot, because that's just the way the game works.
So some follow up questions.
What is travel like as a reflection of trying to avoid justice zones? Maybe I need to brush up on what is a justice zone, but it seems like some provinces may be more hostile than others because more of the area is in a justice zone.
With the impact of justice zones and travel, what is combat like if you struggle to make certain leaps because you have to avoid certain areas?
What is combat? How often are you just waving a knife around to cut something up, versus feeling comfortable enough to cast Necromatic spells?
What's the role of AP spells or other spells? Does the AP offer enough cover for Necromatic spells that you explore the entire spellbook?
>> It requires a lot of people to trust each other when it comes to interacting in good faith.
All of these are really excellent points and really sums up the realities of Necromancer roleplay really well. It really does require a disproportionate investment in the good faith behavior of other players when compared to any other guild. As with all things in DR, when players make an active effort to comport themselves with an eye to the enjoyment of the people they're interacting with, life is a lot better for everybody.
A guide might help but in truth I don't know how much, since the people guiltiest of behaving in ways that aren't generating interesting drama probably aren't going to care.
Thayet
Follow @thayelf on Twitter for absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever!
All of these are really excellent points and really sums up the realities of Necromancer roleplay really well. It really does require a disproportionate investment in the good faith behavior of other players when compared to any other guild. As with all things in DR, when players make an active effort to comport themselves with an eye to the enjoyment of the people they're interacting with, life is a lot better for everybody.
A guide might help but in truth I don't know how much, since the people guiltiest of behaving in ways that aren't generating interesting drama probably aren't going to care.
Thayet
Follow @thayelf on Twitter for absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever!
I'm rather afraid that the way necromancers were introduced into the lore (pure essential evil world-ending and all), the average player is never going to see them as anything more than bloodlust project: necromancers are player-controlled mobs.
>Forgive my snark, but welcome to the life of a warrior mage.
>Forgive my snark, but welcome to the life of a warrior mage.
I still think one of the issues with the way Necromancer RP works out is due to the fact that ACCUSE is effectively a binary. You're either about to get smoked or you get smoked.
>What is travel like as a reflection of trying to avoid justice zones? Maybe I need to brush up on what is a justice zone, but it seems like some provinces may be more hostile than others because more of the area is in a justice zone.
You can run through a town just fine. Especially if you've got RoC up. JUSTICE zones are basically a binary - all major towns are JUSTICE, and are treated the same. Therengia is particularly anti-Necro, YMMV in other townships.
>With the impact of justice zones and travel, what is combat like if you struggle to make certain leaps because you have to avoid certain areas?
Meh. Sometimes someone will start something and it's your decision to leave or not. You won't be hunting in a JUSTICE zone anyway, so it's really up to you. I've been run out of Therengia twice, and still occasionally pop back.
>What is combat? How often are you just waving a knife around to cut something up, versus feeling comfortable enough to cast Necromatic spells?
I didn't use Trans buffs for a while, because I was hunting in pretty crowded areas. Now I hunt in pretty abandoned areas, and use Trans spells all the time.
>What's the role of AP spells or other spells? Does the AP offer enough cover for Necromatic spells that you explore the entire spellbook?
MaF is virtually a must for training Warding, since our only other Warding option is CH which is Trans and causes DO. We're getting two more Wards with the barrier rewrite that are not Trans though, so that may change. I've waffled a bit with using GaF as a trainer, and have started using it again.
>I'm rather afraid that the way necromancers were introduced into the lore (pure essential evil world-ending and all), the average player is never going to see them as anything more than bloodlust project: necromancers are player-controlled mobs.
That's not entirely wrong though.
>What is travel like as a reflection of trying to avoid justice zones? Maybe I need to brush up on what is a justice zone, but it seems like some provinces may be more hostile than others because more of the area is in a justice zone.
You can run through a town just fine. Especially if you've got RoC up. JUSTICE zones are basically a binary - all major towns are JUSTICE, and are treated the same. Therengia is particularly anti-Necro, YMMV in other townships.
>With the impact of justice zones and travel, what is combat like if you struggle to make certain leaps because you have to avoid certain areas?
Meh. Sometimes someone will start something and it's your decision to leave or not. You won't be hunting in a JUSTICE zone anyway, so it's really up to you. I've been run out of Therengia twice, and still occasionally pop back.
>What is combat? How often are you just waving a knife around to cut something up, versus feeling comfortable enough to cast Necromatic spells?
I didn't use Trans buffs for a while, because I was hunting in pretty crowded areas. Now I hunt in pretty abandoned areas, and use Trans spells all the time.
>What's the role of AP spells or other spells? Does the AP offer enough cover for Necromatic spells that you explore the entire spellbook?
MaF is virtually a must for training Warding, since our only other Warding option is CH which is Trans and causes DO. We're getting two more Wards with the barrier rewrite that are not Trans though, so that may change. I've waffled a bit with using GaF as a trainer, and have started using it again.
>I'm rather afraid that the way necromancers were introduced into the lore (pure essential evil world-ending and all), the average player is never going to see them as anything more than bloodlust project: necromancers are player-controlled mobs.
That's not entirely wrong though.
>> I still think one of the issues with the way Necromancer RP works out is due to the fact that ACCUSE is effectively a binary. You're either about to get smoked or you get smoked.
Agreed. But it's hard to think of good suggestions to mitigate this without effectively giving Stupid Evil types too much slack.
>> You can run through a town just fine. Especially if you've got RoC up. JUSTICE zones are basically a binary - all major towns are JUSTICE, and are treated the same. Therengia is particularly anti-Necro, YMMV in other townships.
Therengia has the most ways around travel bottlenecks (ferries etc) but it also has the most weirdly out of place justice areas (Langenfirth and all of El'bains, for example).
Don't rely too much on ROC, honestly. ROC is good for quick jaunts into and through town. The suspicion timer is still very, very tight even with it up.
Thayet
Follow @thayelf on Twitter for absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever!
Agreed. But it's hard to think of good suggestions to mitigate this without effectively giving Stupid Evil types too much slack.
>> You can run through a town just fine. Especially if you've got RoC up. JUSTICE zones are basically a binary - all major towns are JUSTICE, and are treated the same. Therengia is particularly anti-Necro, YMMV in other townships.
Therengia has the most ways around travel bottlenecks (ferries etc) but it also has the most weirdly out of place justice areas (Langenfirth and all of El'bains, for example).
Don't rely too much on ROC, honestly. ROC is good for quick jaunts into and through town. The suspicion timer is still very, very tight even with it up.
Thayet
Follow @thayelf on Twitter for absolutely nothing of any value whatsoever!
>>I'm rather afraid that the way necromancers were introduced into the lore (pure essential evil world-ending and all), the average player is never going to see them as anything more than bloodlust project: necromancers are player-controlled mobs.
Well, let's not throw the demonic baby out with the unholy bathwater. Necromancers are supposed to be persecuted, and I don't think anyone is asking for people to be OK with Necromancers at any point in this conversation. I guess the thing I'm looking at is I don't think it's OK for anyone, of any guild, for any reason, to just be swooped in and murdered without interaction. That's why I made sure that Necromancers by and large work under the same policy considerations as the rest of the PCs, except when they screw up.
I've watched Necros more closely than before over the past few months and I've come away with mixed feelings. I've seen more willingness to engage in hostile-but-not-PvP roleplay than I imagined I would, and for that I thank these people for continuing to fan the flame of my engagement. But I've also seen plenty of frankly crappy playing and non-roleplaying from supposed pillars of the community, which leads me to feeling despair for the game.
It's been an interesting ride, if nothing else.
-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino
Well, let's not throw the demonic baby out with the unholy bathwater. Necromancers are supposed to be persecuted, and I don't think anyone is asking for people to be OK with Necromancers at any point in this conversation. I guess the thing I'm looking at is I don't think it's OK for anyone, of any guild, for any reason, to just be swooped in and murdered without interaction. That's why I made sure that Necromancers by and large work under the same policy considerations as the rest of the PCs, except when they screw up.
I've watched Necros more closely than before over the past few months and I've come away with mixed feelings. I've seen more willingness to engage in hostile-but-not-PvP roleplay than I imagined I would, and for that I thank these people for continuing to fan the flame of my engagement. But I've also seen plenty of frankly crappy playing and non-roleplaying from supposed pillars of the community, which leads me to feeling despair for the game.
It's been an interesting ride, if nothing else.
-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino
>>It requires a lot of people to trust each other when it comes to interacting in good faith.
Wholly agreed, one hundred percent. I couldn't have said it better.
Sadly, at least in Prime, the default demeanor people have is the opposite, especially on this issue, leading to people drawing up lines (Team Good v Team Evil), and only few crossing those lines, largely to skirmish between the two -- and talking between these two largely is "forget it." There's the expectation of some cosmic cold war that perpetuates itself not just among characters, but among players. Sure, there are some wonderful crossings of the two sides that have resulted in great roleplay (Shout out to Rileos).
However, most of it relies on putting a lot of faith and hope in someone that role-plays an enemy, and very clearly is part of an enemy power structure (say, the Inquisition, or the Theren Guard) that would share information. Once information disseminates, either IC or OOC, the control is gone, and when -- not if -- it hits someone that betrays that trust -- or the Gweth, and suddenly there's a whole lot of unintended nonconsensual hostile roleplay that doesn't respect that trust. Suddenly, our control over our own character's narrative entirely disappears in a moment, and that isn't something that can be un-done once people set their highlights and substitutes. Once one person goes public, the narrative is over, and we're forced to either redefine that narrative to embrace the new public narrative, or to be inherently dissatisfied with our own characters.
To attempt to demonstrate for any would-be Inquisitors reading: Imagine that, after the Shadow's Fall storyline, it was dramatically and publicly revealed that you'd not only been passing out Morlaena's blessing, but that Morlaena was secretly an avatar of the Hunger (which she wasn't), rather than a priestess of Idon (which she was). Additionally, your character had a mark that showed up to every single way a character has to perceive another, and there was no mechanical way to atone or rectify the mark. Players are alerted to your character's blasphemy by OOC Lore posted on both the 'Pedia and the forums. Everyone suddenly shunned you every time you spoke on the Gweth, and the only responses you tend to get are either pithy comments about you being blasphemous on a good day, or puns about zombies irrelevant to your character. Every time you tried to publicly buy or sell something, someone decided to try to humiliate you. And, additionally, every time you were sighted publicly in a province, someone tried to tell you that you aren't welcome, because they've all added you to highlight lists they pass around and post on the 'pedia in a manner that can't be taken down.
Even I'm guilty of it, to some extent -- I have a highlight list of fellow Necromancers, when I haven't taken the time to confirm the majority of those highlights. And, similarly, I very much also have highlighted and avoid roleplay with members of organized factions to avoid that dreaded day when I lose control of my character.
Navesi -- The single biggest step I think we can agree to take, and can encourage others to take to resolve most of this is, simply:
If we suspect someone of being a Necromancer, or have heard someone is a Necromancer, and we intend to engage in roleplay based on that alone, take the time to roleplay an investigation, or a conversation -- not just counting arranges. If you don't see a zombie and trans buffs, at least give the player the courtesy of talking and a roleplayed investigation -- and don't just parrot off Necro lists to anyone whom you're willing to talk to.
And I'll agree to not tell players to avoid a list of known people even vaguely associated with the Inquisition.
"Nobody cares about the feasibility of Sidhlot's portrayal of evil. That's not the point. He's older than dragons and so metal he poops viking helmets." - Armifer
"That is so not how magic works." -Raesh
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu-proxy R'lyeh
Wholly agreed, one hundred percent. I couldn't have said it better.
Sadly, at least in Prime, the default demeanor people have is the opposite, especially on this issue, leading to people drawing up lines (Team Good v Team Evil), and only few crossing those lines, largely to skirmish between the two -- and talking between these two largely is "forget it." There's the expectation of some cosmic cold war that perpetuates itself not just among characters, but among players. Sure, there are some wonderful crossings of the two sides that have resulted in great roleplay (Shout out to Rileos).
However, most of it relies on putting a lot of faith and hope in someone that role-plays an enemy, and very clearly is part of an enemy power structure (say, the Inquisition, or the Theren Guard) that would share information. Once information disseminates, either IC or OOC, the control is gone, and when -- not if -- it hits someone that betrays that trust -- or the Gweth, and suddenly there's a whole lot of unintended nonconsensual hostile roleplay that doesn't respect that trust. Suddenly, our control over our own character's narrative entirely disappears in a moment, and that isn't something that can be un-done once people set their highlights and substitutes. Once one person goes public, the narrative is over, and we're forced to either redefine that narrative to embrace the new public narrative, or to be inherently dissatisfied with our own characters.
To attempt to demonstrate for any would-be Inquisitors reading: Imagine that, after the Shadow's Fall storyline, it was dramatically and publicly revealed that you'd not only been passing out Morlaena's blessing, but that Morlaena was secretly an avatar of the Hunger (which she wasn't), rather than a priestess of Idon (which she was). Additionally, your character had a mark that showed up to every single way a character has to perceive another, and there was no mechanical way to atone or rectify the mark. Players are alerted to your character's blasphemy by OOC Lore posted on both the 'Pedia and the forums. Everyone suddenly shunned you every time you spoke on the Gweth, and the only responses you tend to get are either pithy comments about you being blasphemous on a good day, or puns about zombies irrelevant to your character. Every time you tried to publicly buy or sell something, someone decided to try to humiliate you. And, additionally, every time you were sighted publicly in a province, someone tried to tell you that you aren't welcome, because they've all added you to highlight lists they pass around and post on the 'pedia in a manner that can't be taken down.
Even I'm guilty of it, to some extent -- I have a highlight list of fellow Necromancers, when I haven't taken the time to confirm the majority of those highlights. And, similarly, I very much also have highlighted and avoid roleplay with members of organized factions to avoid that dreaded day when I lose control of my character.
Navesi -- The single biggest step I think we can agree to take, and can encourage others to take to resolve most of this is, simply:
If we suspect someone of being a Necromancer, or have heard someone is a Necromancer, and we intend to engage in roleplay based on that alone, take the time to roleplay an investigation, or a conversation -- not just counting arranges. If you don't see a zombie and trans buffs, at least give the player the courtesy of talking and a roleplayed investigation -- and don't just parrot off Necro lists to anyone whom you're willing to talk to.
And I'll agree to not tell players to avoid a list of known people even vaguely associated with the Inquisition.
"Nobody cares about the feasibility of Sidhlot's portrayal of evil. That's not the point. He's older than dragons and so metal he poops viking helmets." - Armifer
"That is so not how magic works." -Raesh
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu-proxy R'lyeh
Well, I think we're talking about two different things, as often happens when the subject of PvP comes up. Necros exist in the confluence of them, unfortunately. The problem of the people who want to ruin the game for others, and the problem of Necromancer development and interesting RP choices.
Fun Ruiners - There are some people playing that are a cancer on this game. They cannot handle anything that makes them look like anything other than the bestest person ever, even if their actual roleplay is of a rather odious person. And they'll chain-kill, harass, ambush while hunting, or send tougher friends out make others' experience in the game miserable. They don't play to let everyone have fun - just themselves. I understand that some people play the bad guy - that's great! We need that. The line here, though, is one of harassment vs conflict, particularly RL harassment, and people cross it, IMO. But that's a different discussion.
Necro Lore - This, actually, is something that can be addressed. And, Armifer, I think there's a real opportunity to develop the Redeemed angle and put some lore out there that makes it profitable to roleplay with Necromancers. In my case, I'm friends with someone who plays a Necro, and my character is in the dark (but suspicious) even though I'm not. I try to play a character who's on the side of justice, so I've been really struggling with how to deal with this situation in such a way that allows me to not only continue to interact with this person but also remain true to the character.
Now, I've seen things on Elanthipedia and the forums about the Redeemed, but AFAIK there hasn't been anything in the game, so my character doesn't know about that stuff. All I've ever heard is that Necromancers are a lost cause, can't be redeemed. Don't even talk to them, all it can do is hurt you. So... what I'm kind of left with is this weird space where I have to justify it as what's probably a poor decision on my character's part to "deal with the devil" for information about that dark art in order to better fight it. That still limits what kinds of interactions I can have.
If Redeemed were a thing, and able to be mechanically backed up... wow. If a bone like that were thrown out there, it turns any theological conversations from a one-sided attempt by the Necro to corrupt my character (which will get old after a while) into a real back and forth! Maybe I can help them! I could justify all sorts of interactions with Necromancers to swap them from their dark path, and not just with my friend. Heck, I could even see some people standing in opposition to burning them advocating conversation. After all, they're just going to come back after being killed anyway... I could even imagine this friend becoming Redeemed (or convincing my character of it at least) and standing alongside my friend against more zealous people who want to burn them, and having lots of interesting drama that way too.
Man. The more I think about it, the more Redemption being brought in excites me. Because, right now, I feel that I don't have a whole lot of options for maintaining the integrity of my character as a good guy and really engaging with Necro players with anything other than violence and conflict, or as my character's dark secret. And I can only play that card so many times.
Fun Ruiners - There are some people playing that are a cancer on this game. They cannot handle anything that makes them look like anything other than the bestest person ever, even if their actual roleplay is of a rather odious person. And they'll chain-kill, harass, ambush while hunting, or send tougher friends out make others' experience in the game miserable. They don't play to let everyone have fun - just themselves. I understand that some people play the bad guy - that's great! We need that. The line here, though, is one of harassment vs conflict, particularly RL harassment, and people cross it, IMO. But that's a different discussion.
Necro Lore - This, actually, is something that can be addressed. And, Armifer, I think there's a real opportunity to develop the Redeemed angle and put some lore out there that makes it profitable to roleplay with Necromancers. In my case, I'm friends with someone who plays a Necro, and my character is in the dark (but suspicious) even though I'm not. I try to play a character who's on the side of justice, so I've been really struggling with how to deal with this situation in such a way that allows me to not only continue to interact with this person but also remain true to the character.
Now, I've seen things on Elanthipedia and the forums about the Redeemed, but AFAIK there hasn't been anything in the game, so my character doesn't know about that stuff. All I've ever heard is that Necromancers are a lost cause, can't be redeemed. Don't even talk to them, all it can do is hurt you. So... what I'm kind of left with is this weird space where I have to justify it as what's probably a poor decision on my character's part to "deal with the devil" for information about that dark art in order to better fight it. That still limits what kinds of interactions I can have.
If Redeemed were a thing, and able to be mechanically backed up... wow. If a bone like that were thrown out there, it turns any theological conversations from a one-sided attempt by the Necro to corrupt my character (which will get old after a while) into a real back and forth! Maybe I can help them! I could justify all sorts of interactions with Necromancers to swap them from their dark path, and not just with my friend. Heck, I could even see some people standing in opposition to burning them advocating conversation. After all, they're just going to come back after being killed anyway... I could even imagine this friend becoming Redeemed (or convincing my character of it at least) and standing alongside my friend against more zealous people who want to burn them, and having lots of interesting drama that way too.
Man. The more I think about it, the more Redemption being brought in excites me. Because, right now, I feel that I don't have a whole lot of options for maintaining the integrity of my character as a good guy and really engaging with Necro players with anything other than violence and conflict, or as my character's dark secret. And I can only play that card so many times.
>Because, right now, I feel that I don't have a whole lot of options for maintaining the integrity of my character as a good guy and really engaging with Necro players with anything other than violence and conflict, or as my character's dark secret.
I personally want to have an opportunuty to roleplay sort of like a "Necromancers are bad, they are not even human, but we need them to help/fight X big bad thing" where I can help make them a bit sympathetic by being horrible to them when they are legitimately trying to help.
"Hey now, hands off that Necromancer, he is my personal demon tracker and helps me kill them off, and I won't have you messing with *my property*. And he is, can't you see the brand?" And what have you.
- Starlear, Warrior Mage and Lieutenant of Ilithi's Crystal Vanguard -
I personally want to have an opportunuty to roleplay sort of like a "Necromancers are bad, they are not even human, but we need them to help/fight X big bad thing" where I can help make them a bit sympathetic by being horrible to them when they are legitimately trying to help.
"Hey now, hands off that Necromancer, he is my personal demon tracker and helps me kill them off, and I won't have you messing with *my property*. And he is, can't you see the brand?" And what have you.
- Starlear, Warrior Mage and Lieutenant of Ilithi's Crystal Vanguard -
Redeemed will not be the answer you hope it is. As I said before, Redeemed are slated to be Necromancers who have fallen, but have had the foresight (Book says weakness) to see the horror that is necromancy and forsake spells of Transcendental Necromancy and Animation, as well as most (if not all) rituals. At any time your character could violate these after becoming Redeemed and no longer be so (it has not been mentioned how many times a person can Redeem/Fall/Redeem). For giving up those spells and rituals, you are able to gain the favor of the gods, but I cannot imagine that Social Corruption makes being in town any better. You did horrible things, the common man doesn't know the difference in a warmage backlashing a lunar spell and a necromancer flinging undeath, so your time in public is still going to be difficult. Beyond the peasants, many adventurers themselves will still not be willing to forgive your past crimes, even if you had the Avatar of Chadatru fist bumping your Redeemed necromancer and telling people that you and him are tight now.
Of the three stages that a necromancer can morph into (Redeemed, Transcended, Lich), Redeemed is the one that can already be portrayed in game if you have people willing to listen (which again is the issue people have since once you are highlighted, you will never be able to unhighlight). Without a system that lets a player hide their name, the damage can never be undone. The game is also lacking in systems that either side can interact with that would force/encourage actions between the parties other than threats and mauling.
Simply said, I don't think seeing Redeemed Necrobob as a title, or Necrobob the Redeemed Necromancer, is going to change anything in regards to the current situation, and we will have this discussion again a few months after mechanical redemption is available.
Reposting with an edit. Sorry DR-Helje!
I think that some lore-goodwill could go a long way for role-playing opportunities, myself.
What if Necros "succeeded" at the great work, and something happened which made their reaction be "Oh crap, we truly, deeply, irrevocably screwed up, that was a horrible idea". Then they (probably non-perverse only) became more about cleaning up their mess for completely self-serving reasons - they don't care that they broke the world except for the part where whatever they brought about by breaking the world is waaaaay worse for them than it is for the rest of the world (though still pretty bad for the rest of the world too).
The primary reason that I think so many people do so many stupid things re: necros is that there is literally no way to interpret anything they do or could do as good or helpful in any way. Society loses nothing in eradicating them from existence completely.
I always try and roleplay consistently regarding necros (in that he hates them, but my character is not omniscient so even if I know a character is a necro, my character does not necessarily) but even with that in mind, at the end of the day there is literally nothing to gain from roleplaying with a necro other than the experience of the roleplay itself. It is particularly tricky as a member of a militia, as I am always worried with how far is too far to go as far as interaction that doesn't involve swords in faces, and how badly will I get in trouble in an IC sense if I roleplay openly with a necro who is incognito (but who I as a player know is a necro) who is then publicly outed? It doesn't matter if theg are revealed via metaknowlege or not, the rumor mill is gonna spread that stuff so fast. I've always approached this IC with a "You SAY that but I need more proof" and waited for something concrete or to see something myself, and I always assume that Staff are not going to get mad at me and kick me out of the militia because I was trying to give a necro a chance to roleplay, because from where I have been sitting, I have only seen good faith from the events team. But at best, when they are revealed, you will look foolish (probably extra foolish since if you choose to ignore meta-knowledge, there are going to be lots of people who don't and then scream about how they told you so).
If something like this bit with the great work or something similar happened, or redeemed came out and had compelling lore reasons to be more accepted by everyone, or something else, it would be nice to be able to have "Yes they are terrible and self-serving and completely wrong in every way, but it benefits us to help them try and fix the crap they did because we are all screwed if we don't" be a valid train of thought from an IC sense.
Necros let out the hunger with their hubris and ignorance and become demon hunters to save their own hides or something. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. We can burn that friend in righteous fire when we aren't in imminent danger of being devoured.
- Starlear, Warrior Mage and Lieutenant of Ilithi's Crystal Vanguard -
Lore side of things, what is transcending beyond controlling(?) your own soul and putting it back in body when dying (preventing the gods mucking with your soul, cleansing it, and making you reborn again). Obviously you can still die, but I guess you are timeless at that point? What happens when a necromancer transcends? Have any already? If so, or when it happens, obviously it can't be used to transcend others, so the goal of the transcended is to figure out why it only works on oneself? Are there super saiyan levels of transcending, where well they can't help those too weak to seek it themselves, but they can improve their own power further?
Lichdom is easy to understand since they have the a lust for power that would carry on and intensify their monstrous appetite for more(which makes since in a game since you will always require Thanatology to level). Redeemed could either only be able to perform rituals of delaying decay, or none at all and be stuck at whatever thanatology level for as long as they desire. Transcending ?
