And why can't pure mechanics which can't be in any way, shape, or form be discarded from a story? I'm not seeing any holes here. I mean, if you were willing to go along with it, your character could have taught shatter everything he knows. Who could really argue based upon the information available to the CHARACTERS?

Shatter was coerced into undergoing an experiment by a necromancer, which happened to be remarkably similar to the Philosophers' method. Said necromancer was more interested in using subservient necromancers to more quickly amass a force, however, than avoid the demonic. In this particular case, the experiment dealt more with efficiency and expedience than safety to the slave.

>>There are plenty of instances of self-taught NPC characters out there, especially necromancers.

I'm just not a fan of players just deciding their characters are de-facto self-taught and above interacting with guild superiors, especially within the context of Necromancers, because there are a number of different Necromantic sects and a lot of the stuff that Book (and Xerasyth, I suppose), and I can't imagine the idea of a rogue Necromancer who is using Philosopher tactics outside of the sect itself would be something generally approved of.

It would be like someone playing a guilded Thief and just saying they discovered all the khri themselves. I can't imagine that person wouldn't be dead in a river for being from outside of the guild while having that knowledge.

>I'm not a huge fan of just handwaving away large parts of the shared setting and ignoring the things your character is actually doing and saying just so that anyone can inject random concepts as game lore without accepting current dev / game balance. Adapting to what is possible within the framework of the setting and mechanics (which are part of the setting to a degree as well) seems like a better bet instead of just rewriting or ignoring what's inconvenient for your narrative. That's my take on it, but I know it's not universal.

I'm sorry, the circling mechanics are just that, mechanics. I don't go to my boss and say "welp, I've read up on those new articles and I'm ready to gain a level." (ya know, assuming I was employed). They're a convenient and automated way to ration powers and abilities, and they're purely mechanical.

On the other hand, I have a harder time accepting spontaneous learning of spells and abilities. Those are specifically guild associated and hidden secrets. Some spells... maybe, since there is an established lore and mechnical way of gaining spells from scrolls. The more powerful you get, the harder it will be to justify constantly finding scrolls of just the spells you want without looking really fishy.

Rituals and other assorted things... that's harder.

>It would be like someone playing a guilded Thief and just saying they discovered all the khri themselves. I can't imagine that person wouldn't be dead in a river for being from outside of the guild while having that knowledge.

I totally agree. If said person continues to do that line of RP and is consistent enough to get GM attention, I'd hope and expect them to have ... issues.

I'm just not in favor of saying it can't be done.

---

Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
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>>I'm just not in favor of saying it can't be done.

Yeah, and that's why I said mechanics to a degree. The concepts of stat training and some other things just don't have good explanations for all that they imply. But if someone rides the ferry across the Faldesu, then claims they actually rode a dragon, and that there is no ferry really, etc... Your character rode the ferry, you typed it in, paid the coin, etc... or swam across. Pretending it never happened cause you don't want your story to be that is just dishonest at that level.

I think it's just making up what they want DR to be for them and them alone, instead of interacting with the same setting everyone else is in. Handwaving away an entire guild structure and claiming you just "learned" it in a way that's identical in function is trying to convince everyone that a horse is really a duck because you REALLY want it to be a duck.

It's still a horse though. A possibly psychotic horse, because you keep trying to make it quack and fly, but it's still a horse.


Player of Ryken
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"Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon." ~ Doug Larson

AIM - RykenDR

>I think it's just making up what they want DR to be for them and them alone, instead of interacting with the same setting everyone else is in.

I guess my issues is that I see many things as there because it's the easiest way for the GMs to code it and not because it's the only way to do it (circling mechanics specifically).

If you want to say you circle differently than others and can come up with a reasonable story why, more power to you.

I guess it all comes down to that one word: reasonable.

Stupid opinions.

---

Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
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>>And yet you still have to interact with your boss at some point to get a promotion.

Eh, Shatter is self-employed and doesn't get promoted. He brought his skillset with him from his last job (including the spells) and, while he can refine it and learn some on the job, he doesn't get the benefits of any synergy that occurs through the guild. He's been offed by a number of "competing" necs. Selling his personal sense of redemption to the world is pretty tough, but he's trying. No takers so far. Maybe when he's starving and needs to eat, he'll see if he can get a guild job, though he's just good enough at larceny to survive.

The analogy really fits pretty well. I like it.

>>He brought his skillset with him from his last job (including the spells)
No, he didn't. He learned his magic, his attunement, and how to pursue the Great Work from his current job. Tote did not learn Thanatology from his years of killing critters as a Commoner, he learned Thanatology when his mind was twisted by joining the guild and he went out and killed critters looking for that special insight that lends itself to the Great Work. The Great Work, which by the way, he was made aware of as a goal, upon joining the guild.

It was said earlier; don't rewrite/ignore huge swaths of the shared lore experience to fit your little idea of individuality. A moon mage can't claim to directly tap into Grazhir because of a magical amulet their great grandfather left them, and you shouldn't be claiming that you learned the secrets of our guild through some previous special secret method. If you want to RP that you were coerced or tricked into joining, that's pretty neat, and now you seek advancement as a means for revenge... But you, and every other Necromancer, became a Necromancer when you joined the guild, at our guild, by the same process that each of us undertook.

The GMs have laid out a great deal of lore for us to play with, and there's TONS of ambiguity; in my opinion, it's lazy and bad RP to simply cast it aside and make up your own line of storytelling that has very little to do with what the rest of us are operating under.

>>For the record, my character never HAS met Book and yours likely hasn't either. As I recall the "Zamidren Book" in the guild is a "carefully constructed risen" and "sufficient information exists around the guild for a character to figure that out".
I've honestly never heard this; can someone verify or link to a resource that would suggest this?

Also, you misunderstand the word hyperbole. I've literally delineated the difference between your claim and a reasonable claim.

To be totally honest, I'm glad someone has some imagination, I mean this is fantasy. I don't see him throwing around huge, I'm megadeath, minmax character. Is some of it maybe alittle bit out of line. Maybe, but I think he has thrown back reasonable responses to most of the critiques (should have had more previous poster line of progression within his posts, but overall well done).

There are quite a few times that the game is to linear, to blocky. We live in an expansive world, yet frequently there are only a few ways to get to places (because coding extras is well extra coding that takes coders from coding other useful things).

Maybe I'm miss interrupting her but Iggy Dane's player (sorry if i misspelled that) said/wrote "And don't forget to lie." On more then one occasion and many different ways. I'd suggest that this is something of that nature. Don't get caught up in the mechanics to much, it'll destroy the game.

Brought to you by People against Scripting, get out and Play!
-Shadow7988

_____________________________________
Victory Over Lyras, on the 397th year and 156 days since the Victory of Lanival the Redeemer.

Ignoring events and stating that you're anything specific other than a student of Book's particular vision of Kigot's Philosophy just doesn't work. You typed JOIN while in front of him. While there is no chance of a witness seeing this, it happened, just as surely as one just isn't born fighting dillos. Just as characters aren't Bone Elf necromancers or students of Velmix, they did learn from the Philosophers.

Now, debating whether or not the Work is actually Necromancy is another story entirely. There is knowledge that is along necromantic lines and that benefited from necromantic work, but you're not forced to practice it. The Philosophers just bring that knowledge to the table and let you choose what to do with it. Book also doesn't stop talking to you if you don't follow his ideas on working with the dead, but he does get particularly irritated. This is a man that keeps company with Xerasyth, for example. Book made the knowledge available to you, and attuned you to Arcane mana. He made the information available, handed it to you, and let you seek out your own understanding and pursue your own version of True Will.

My character also insists he is not a Necromancer, hinging on this very fact. He patently refuses to muck about with the dead if he can help it, based on the fact that it is entirely inconvenient and too messy. Then again, I'm still toying with him becoming Redeemed once it becomes an option.

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You typed Roar Help. Good for you!

If you pursue the path of the Redeemed, you are turning your back on the temptation and power and knowledge of the Great Work. Which is a perfectly reasonable path to choose for yourself, but it's different from saying "Infusing inanimate objects with Arcane power and blood to do my bidding isn't Necromancy!"

It is also, importantly, one of the paths defined by our guild, existing withing the framework of the lore, the ethos of how our characters can/may/should respond to the situation we find ourselves in, and theoretically, supported by in game mechanics. It does not hinge upon using smile or act verbs to clarify what we're doing/think we're doing.

In short, it's perfectly reasonable for a Moon Mage to be a Celestian, or a Cleric to be a worshipper or Ush'nish, but it is a bit of a stretch for a Necromancer to be neither Perverse, Redeemed, or a Philosopher.

I guess one of the problems I have with some of the arguements against his (her?) story is that whatever specific issues it may have, should the same story come from a previously unknown GMNPC, I'd be willing to bet most of you would give him or her the benefit of the doubt.

Barring blatant mechanics issues, I don't see why the same shouldn't be true of PCs.

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Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
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>>Point 1: You've been in the guild. You cannot guarantee you've never been seen there. Only Necromancers can get in. My character reasonably knows this. Therefore, your character is a Necromancer. It's knowledge that has to be considered "common", and it's not within your right to force ignorance on the entire rest of the guild.

Player--me
Lets get the following straight, as it seems at this level you're (probably intentionally) misinterpretting what I'm saying. Is Shatter a necromancer? YES! To believe otherwise would be beyond stupidity. As was mentioned, "INFO".

Character--Shatteringwave
Does he think he is? No. This is part of what makes him who he is.
WHY NOT? His ideas regarding what makes a necromancer a necromancer don't include him.
IS HE WRONG? Yes.
DOES THAT STOP HIM FROM BELIEVE IT? No.
IS HE IN DENIAL? Eh, maybe. I haven't completely decided this one yet. I'm leaning toward him quite honestly believing that he is right and the world is wrong though.

Now that we have that out of the way in no uncertain terms...

>>But you mentioned this already, and argued in your own voice that the evidence was insufficient. You cited "semantics".

Correct. From a player perspective "How the character defines it" is more a matter of semantics than fact. Insufficient evidence, however, I assume this relates back to the character knowledge/ignorance argument?

>>I think it's not your character who is in denial. You're conveniently flip flopping from character to player and back in your own defense.

Please look up Ad hominem.

>>We are arguing with the player playing his character when it suits him, and playing other people's characters' ignorance when that's what works. But you've even said, it's you who needs to be convinced....

My responses have been from the standpoint that makes sense when asked. Character ignorance makes sense as a defense for dismissing pure mechanics. If no player has witnessed the occurrence of a purely mechanical action, there is no reason it needs to have happened RP-wise. The plats-for-dollars market almost requires the dismissal of transfer mechanics, yet it happens and very few people complain about it. The previously-mentioned alteration mechanics are also there. This is the character ignorance argument in a nutshell.

>>Ignoring events and stating that you're anything specific other than a student of Book's particular vision of Kigot's Philosophy just doesn't work. You typed JOIN while in front of him. While there is no chance of a witness seeing this, it happened, just as surely as one just isn't born fighting dillos.

These are mechanics. I state many of them can be ignored (less the born fighting dillo portion). My defense of it is largely made of 2 arguments.
A) There is no character knowledge to overcome in doing so.
B) I believe if x is not explicitly disallowed, x is allowed.

MELLIONM6, good luck with that. My character believes yours is delusional, and I will be ignoring emotes I find inconsistent with the game lore and mechanics.

Otherwise, I like how you express yourself. I don't agree with almost anything you've said, but you say it well.

For what it's worth, I forget the name of the Necromancer, but early in the guilds opening, there was a conflict between some Clerics and some newer Necro's and the Cleric in question was 'tied down' and killed. The Necromancers then used act/smile to cut out the Clerics heart and eat it.

This is something you can do within the context of the story, because it's something your characters not only would potential do, but they probably have a knife on them, and they probably know where a heart is, and they probably have a mouth to eat said heart with. It's a bit hand wavy because it required a willing Cleric to not simply depart and leave the area, and I don't think any damage was made to the corpse, but it's an example of smile/act being used to ENHANCE the RP experience, not newly define terms.

>>Please look up Ad hominem.
Ad hominem attacks are attempts to dismiss an argument because of who the argument comes from. "You are stupid and claiming that 2+2=4 is wrong" is an ad hominem argument. Pointing out the inconsistencies in your and your characters argumentation is not ad hominem.

>As for your conclusion, it's a weak argument at best. To restate it:
>"Some of you hold GMs to low standards of consistency; therefore, players should be held to the same low standards."

No, my conclusion was "If the story works for those who can ignore inconvenient mechanical limitations, then it's a decent enough story."

---

Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Blunts for Sale:
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Combat Balance Sheet:
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/balance2.xls

>>He brought his skillset with him from his last job (including the spells)

No. Just, no.

>>I guess one of the problems I have with some of the arguements against his (her?) story is that whatever specific issues it may have, should the same story come from a previously unknown GMNPC, I'd be willing to bet most of you would give him or her the benefit of the doubt.

GMs can also be dragons.

Players can't claim their characters are dragons because GMs could plausibly do so.

GM Necromancers can also summon spiritual undead.

Players can't claim their Necromancers can create Death Spirits because GMs could plausibly do so.

So on.

>GMs can also be dragons.

>Players can't claim their characters are dragons because GMs could plausibly do so.

A player who claims to be a dragon but does not show any signs of being such should, in theory, be treated exactly the same as a GMNPC who claims to be a dragon but does not show any signs of being such.

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Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Blunts for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.com/wiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Combat Balance Sheet:
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/balance2.xls

>>Circles, stats, ranks, skills, commands, all should be used to further the story, not limit it.

I agree and disagree.

Those things provide a set cap of how far the story can be driven, which is a limitation. I don't think it's a bad limitation, though. In fact, the progress of circles/stats/ranks/skills/etc are what help further the story by allowing a character to accomplish more and more over time.

There wouldn't be a lot story progression if everyone started killing 'dillos and dragon priest stabomancers.

>>A player who claims to be a dragon but does not show any signs of being such should, in theory, be treated exactly the same as a GMNPC who claims to be a dragon but does not show any signs of being such.

Agreed.

At the same time, Shatter isn't being RPed by the player as someone who is just in great denial, but someone who is literally not a Philosopher getting his spells and abilities from Book (but instead always had them?).

>>None of this changes the fact that PC Necromancer = Philosopher of the Knife.

Part of me wishes it was called the Philosopher's Guild instead of Necromancer's Guild, just to drive this fact home.

>>This is a very "What would Armifer say?" discussion. Haven't seen him around for awhile though...

Finishing my degree work, moving across country, and settling into my new life as a serial killer.

Handwave versus not-handwave is not a discussion that has a simple, binary answer. We ask you to handwave that guild training for a Commoner takes mere seconds in-game, or that you can quantify your character's potential for personal growth into actual numbers, but to not use SMILE to stab someone in the eye with a fork. The spirit comes down, whether handwaving or being literal with the mechanics, to honoring the narrative of the game.

'The narrative of the game,' as opposed to 'your personal narrative,' is important insofar as we care that roleplaying in DragonRealms is a cooperative venture supported by GameMasters that write material and design systems to adjudicate RP situations like, say, trying to stab someone in the eye with a fork. While nothing will physically stop you from saying you're a winged Elf from Middle Earth come to bring the light of Jesus Christ to Elanthians (and using SMILE toward that end), it is incorrect from the perspective of the setting we have tried to make.

Insofar as Necromancers go, it is intentional (and, in both the pre-guild events and the guild joining quest, wildly explicit) that the PC is a Commoner who is inducted into necromancy and receives his continuing education from Book's faction. A PC doesn't need to say that; he does not even need to believe that if his brain was sufficiently scrambled by the Attunement. But that is what we regard as the true state of the PC's history if "Necromancer" appears when his player types INFO.

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