Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2016 16:36:38 GMT -5
Sweg
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Post by fatfinger on Jan 25, 2016 17:41:20 GMT -5
So, here's my stance on this. I've never played a whiran and when I first read this I thought, "Oh! that's way to powerful!" Now that I've read through the thread some more, it seems that to switch places they need to be able to see the other pc, be outside, and contact them (maybe even have them contact you). Now, this is a lot of variables to get right to pull off a switch and kill someone, and from what I understand you also have to be flying above them and invisible so you have to set up a good location as well.
Now, along the same lines could a nilazi not take over a corpse (not at mon), portal to the middle of the grasslands with some poisoned weapons, portal to the person (ANYWHERE), poison them and kill them. What did they risk? Someone running through their portal to the middle of the grasslands, the time they were safely in their apartment across the known passed out, acquiring a body?
To me it seems that both of the 6 karma classes have the ability to merc someone (with preparation) from relative safety.
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jkarr
GDB Superstar
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Post by jkarr on Jan 25, 2016 18:21:34 GMT -5
So, here's my stance on this. I've never played a whiran and when I first read this I thought, "Oh! that's way to powerful!" Now that I've read through the thread some more, it seems that to switch places they need to be able to see the other pc, be outside, and contact them (maybe even have them contact you). Now, this is a lot of variables to get right to pull off a switch and kill someone, and from what I understand you also have to be flying above them and invisible so you have to set up a good location as well. no not nearly that many. the part ur referencing is this: Summon has been out of the game for what, two years? I feel like you might be stretching on how awful Transference actually is. This is the first time I've heard of someone using it for a gank in nine years. And I'm pretty sure back then it could literally hit anyone, anywhere, anytime with the sole caveat of being able to contact them. My memory might be faulty, though. The 'explicit' circumstances that outright block the spell are fairly broad. Unless my memory is failing me.. visibility to caster, being indoors, being in a city? Does anyone know if that extends to settlements? so thats not a 'lot' of variables. be outdoors and be visible (which 99% of non-delf mundanes are due to riding and fighting when outdoors). note hurrr said 'being able to contact them' which means being in-game in a place that isnt psionically blocked, not that u have to be in contact with them or vice versa at the time (correct me if im wrong hurrrrrrrrrr ) Now, along the same lines could a nilazi not take over a corpse (not at mon), portal to the middle of the grasslands with some poisoned weapons, portal to the person (ANYWHERE), poison them and kill them. What did they risk? lol well thats one additional but minor threat im glad u considered but ur forgetting some vitals factors that up the risk more 1 the vortex opens up on both sides which means the target will see that shit before ur there and can hide/run/prepare to fight 2 u have to enter the portal and go thru a couple of rooms and then leave portal to even get to ur target 3 if ur target isnt alone and u didnt have help to make sure they were then ull only know when u get to the end of the hallway and look out 4 if ur target is indoors in a city uve lost ur chance and alerted ppl to ur sdesc or cloak sdesc, even if u just went to the end of the hall, looked out, saw it was in a city, and ran back down the hall (because anyone who stayed would be spamming l in portal like a madman) 5 assuming the idiot was still there by the time u got there, u have to initiate combat, as a witch with very weak combat skills and defense at best (assuming u even chose a fighter subguild in the 1st place) 6 ur target has to be either defenseless or weaker than u in combat so that ur poisoned weapons can even hit (very low chance for any mundane combat pc) 7 ud have to hit them with heramide or peraine in order to have any chance of surviving the next few kill-lag rounds if they are at all skilled, armed or not thats a shitload more risk than invis levitate transfer w s w s w s lol To me it seems that both of the 6 karma classes have the ability to merc someone (with preparation) from relative safety. hell no |
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Post by fatfinger on Jan 25, 2016 18:52:27 GMT -5
Those conditions are much easier to meet than I understood it to be from what I read initially. I assumed the 'visible' meant you had to actually see them to switch places, meaning within 3 rooms. Just not hiding/invis is much easier to accomplish.
Now for the nilazi I was under the impression that a less than mon possess corpse was temporary and if the corpse died you would just wake up safely. I have never played either so this is all second hand knowledge from the board. As for the vortex that's why I said stop off in the grasslands first, and it makes more sense to just go somewhere near the target, then sprint in and stab them while they're sitting unarmed at a tavern somewhere, likely with sleep/vomit taints so their only hope is a Viv.
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jkarr
GDB Superstar
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Post by jkarr on Jan 25, 2016 19:01:18 GMT -5
Those conditions are much easier to meet than I understood it to be from what I read initially. I assumed the 'visible' meant you had to actually see them to switch places, meaning within 3 rooms. Just not hiding/invis is much easier to accomplish. i get what ur saying and i think the risk would be a lot more if it was something like that, but it doesnt work like that u can do the spell between zones at higher lvls Now for the nilazi I was under the impression that a less than mon possess corpse was temporary and if the corpse died you would just wake up safely. I have never played either so this is all second hand knowledge from the board. As for the vortex that's why I said stop off in the grasslands first, and it makes more sense to just go somewhere near the target, then sprint in and stab them while they're sitting unarmed at a tavern somewhere, likely with sleep/vomit taints so their only hope is a Viv. yeah two things so the grasslands thing is smart but only addresses the more minor issue of getting followed back to ur body, plus u need a target to vortex so if u want to appear a few squares away from them then u need to know where they are and know some mobs nearby just to do that, which may be a pain in the ass when ppl are always moving and ur knowledge of where they are at needs to be current plus if u dont cast it at a high enough lvl the vortex could close before u finish the job. remember u have to flee from combat first and i dont even think the code supports flee attempts into structures (u can do it going out tho), plus subguild flee with a mage is not consistent enough to rely on directionally for a clean quick escape
so basicly the vortex will have to last long enough for u to open it, run thru it, attack the guy, wait the kill lag, successfully flee, run back into the room, enter the portal, and run down the hallway before it closes. edit: realized i misread u there itd be smarter just to let the portal close so u can finish the job then portal back after tho thats a lot of ifs u have to go thru to even have a chance of survivng and getting away vs invis fly/levitate transfer w s w relocate/mount/whatever and thats not even including most of the other major factors i already listed. the risk lvls between those two spells for taking someone out are miles apart the smart way to do when u want is to have some friends who want to portal jump and gank the guy, but that requires friends, making friends with a nilazi is a huge risk to most ppl, hard to for nilazi to find friends for that reason, even if buff friends are found they have to initiate combat, person still is able to flee before ur thugs cross the other side or even after combat starts, etc. etc. |
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Post by fatfinger on Jan 25, 2016 19:36:12 GMT -5
Oh, I was assuming you could use the spell that lets you teleport to a location with a marked item, and have the location marked in advance. Of course this wouldn't work on characters that are completely nomadic or they don't spend any time in public places.
I know they like to drink at the Gaj, so I'll port to north of the city, close the vortex, sprint into the Gaj with knives in hand, attack them with tainted daggers. I see it being much less foolproof because the person might not be there, or you might not get both the taints off. Conversely, there is pretty much 0 personal risk to the gick in this scenario, because they're just sleeping half the Known away, and even if there was a quick player with max scan already on, they're just going to merc this body.
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jkarr
GDB Superstar
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Post by jkarr on Jan 25, 2016 19:51:33 GMT -5
yeah travel gate would work good for that and i see what u mean about using the possessed corpse
so low risk but not as guaranteed or instant still fun tho
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Post by fatfinger on Jan 25, 2016 20:06:37 GMT -5
I think the way with the highest chance looks something like open vial, give target vial, charm target, order target drink vial, order target sleep, kill target. I don't know how long charm person lasts, but it's probably longer than the ~5 minutes they have before that cleaning fluid they drank offs them, and all of this while actually safe and asleep in your apartment. And if something happens before you get the order off, hopefully you have a backup body to go give the order a second time and finish them off.
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bastilleangel
Clueless newb
Wielding the Power of Love and Investigation Since 2013
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Post by bastilleangel on Jan 25, 2016 23:46:04 GMT -5
That's not really the point, anyway. To use your analogy again, the character Renly was specifically written to be killed in that way because it was one of the story-defining turning points. Imagine if, in each novel of the series, one of the main characters randomly just vanished and was never heard from again. Swish, that's Jon Snow gone. Poof, Cersei gone in a puff of smoke. You never hear of them again. That wouldn't lend much to the story. In comparison to books, RPI murder is very rarely a net positive. The death of a PC almost never creates more for the game than it takes away. It's important that PCs can and do die so that there's risk and gravity to the game, but it's really rare that deaths actually enrich the game. They can, but they usually don't; certainly not when the death was just a random poof-gone vanishing act whose perpetrator is probably unknown. This is why effortless, anonymous murder buttons are a bad thing for the game. It doesn't even really give people a chance to derive meaningful roleplay from the death of a character. [Emphasis mine.] After having read through this thread, I think OT makes one of the most important points. Obviously folks play Arm. for a host of reasons, but I have to believe that some portion of that motive is to participate in a compelling story. If not, in 2016, we have a truly vast array of media to go to for different types of entertainment. As evidence to the above point, I found over the decade or so I played the game that when I did my best to engage in rich and multi-faceted role-play that almost everyone around me responded positively to it. That's not to say that PK stopped, nor should it, but rather that there was a lot more discussion about power dynamics, exploration of character's beliefs and motives, and even ethical arguments/debates revolving around vengeance vs. reconciliation. These scenes were some of the most precious in my Arm. experience, and inform my writing to this day. My sole PK was in this context: * Our pursuer (yes, "our", as we are talking about a tight-knit group) was uncompromising, relentless, and had the backing of a city-state behind him (so there was no ignoring him). There was no bribing or seducing him away from his goal, both of which I had already tried. * He was "politic-ed" to death, in the sense that none of the core group actually laid a finger on him, but rather set him up to be at a certain place and certain time with false expectations about whom he was to find there (we gave him dysinformation about where and when an enemy would be that I knew he couldn't resist) * A 3rd group, who wanted said individual dead, was maneuvered into being at the same place and time as my group's hunter. All of the above resulted in a dead antagonist, at least from our perspective. I humbly submit that this probably generated a good deal of role-play beyond my immediate group, including an attempted cover-up by the 3rd party, attempts at retribution by the deceased group (misguided or otherwise), as well as our own group rp around trying to keep a potentially-lethal secret from circulating and whether or not we now had to try to "assassinate the assassins". Good times all around. So, what does this have to do with whirans, or with the spell Transference? Really, it raises the same questions I ask about pretty much every element I include in my own tabletop games or LARPs I've run: Does it aid or hinder in-depth storytelling? Does it add or subtract to the role-play experience, or perhaps both in different ways? How? (Or in Oldtwink's words, is it a "net positive"?) Does it open up new and needed avenues of conflict? LARPs, especially, live and die based on that last one: conflict. Conflict is the engine that drives all good fiction; sustainable conflict that is still dynamic is pretty much the Holy Grail of every good LARP (Live Action Role-Play, for you good people who actually have a life and aren't complete geeks like myself). It attracts creative players and augments itself almost like magic (no pun intended). I don't know enough about whirans specifically to intelligently answer the questions I'm raising; even after all this time, I'm kind of notoriously code-stupid. (Props to kmart for trying to nurse me through my groan-worthy turn in a sponsored combat-heavy role!) I really think, though, that in discussions like this it never hurts to keep your eye on the rp ball. It's what keeps people coming back, usually, month after month, year after year, and it's what RPIs in general and Armageddon in particular have to offer at a consistent level that no one yet has rivaled. |
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Post by BitterFlashback on Jan 26, 2016 0:39:09 GMT -5
I also like how this board, with so many players who have supposedly left, or been banned, is 'infinitely' better than the other board. I assume that's because it has your 'infinite' wisdom behind it. Instead of crying because you're mostly just fagheads Says the guy who participated in an argument since the first page solely to whine about how tired of said argument he was, and who has 10 out of his 11 posts in it? You can't pretend you're too cool for school when you show up early to class. Some of what you're saying is already true Bitterflashback. IIRC as long as your fail isn't a "lose concentration" kind of fail, you lose your components with failure. Since I was talking about the failed murder attempt exposing the character to danger and possibly even public exposure/crimflagging, this is once again equivocation. If your OOC perspective is that the only thing behind this assassination was some bad player abusing a high karma guild, it won't matter what spells other players have or don't have in their arsenal. You'll complain no matter what. If the staff remove all magic from the game, you'll complain about sap. If they remove sap, you'll say poison is OP. There is over a year of evidence to the contrary on this board against your worthless slippery slope fallacy. If you have any proof from this board to support it, I'd love to see that proof. I prefer to envision these kinds of assassinations as acts similar to how Renly Baratheon was killed by that shadow of Stannis in Game of Thrones. It was cool in Game of Thrones because you got to see all the pieces that went into place to make it happen. Smuggling the witch to shore. Birthing the shadowy assassin. The price Stannis Baratheon paid for it. We don't get to see all the pieces in Armageddon. Equivocating multiplayer online RP to novel writing isn't going to work. The reason Renly's assassination was satisfying was because the motives leading up to it made sense and resulted from a reasonable chain of events. Renly didn't get snuffed pointlessly because one of the dozens of co-writers of the novel noticed Renly was a long-lived character and just snuffed him out anti-climatically for shits and giggles. Now, along the same lines could a nilazi not take over a corpse (not at mon), portal to the middle of the grasslands with some poisoned weapons, portal to the person (ANYWHERE), poison them and kill them. What did they risk? They probably took a risk or two "acquiring" a humanoid corpse. You know, when they had to kill it without a previous possessed corpse to do the killing with? Then another getting it to their apartment. Then they took a risk in casting, due to the frequency of drovians spying on apartments with sent shadows and nearly everyone being required to hate Nilazis... |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2016 0:52:17 GMT -5
Don't mind me I'm over here challenging dudes to cage matches while BFB is making sense as always.
golden:
don't pretend you're too cool for school if you show up early for class.
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jesantu
Displaced Tuluki
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Post by jesantu on Jan 26, 2016 2:02:45 GMT -5
The reason I tout this board so much and why saying so really gets under the skin of such naysaying contrarian gdb cheerleaders as smokey is simple. Everything is so damned 'find out ic' on the gdb that there never is any real, open discussion about anything. You can't even post pics of what your past char looked like without risking violating some date of expiry, or without getting all the approval paperwork signed. What the frack is a picture gonna ruin? I could care less if people were posting their current chars! You have to wonder if whoever comes up with this shit is secretly doing it to have a laugh at us all, rather than implementing it because they somehow feel it's the right thing to do and in the spirit of the game.
Even if everyone here is wrong about transference and it's actually an incredibly complicated spell to ever pull off a single pkill with, under gdb conditions only the imms are allowed to discuss that....which is probably part of the reason why very little ever gets done. Look, if transference is really not all it's being accused of being it will stand up to the evidence. But no evidence will ever come to light without it being discussed in the first place. Openly, without a bunch of pedantic policies cockblocking you at every turn. So I guess for me the importance of this discussion is not about transference. It's definitely not about ruke. It's the very fact that game mechanics which may require change can be discussed freely. Your only real obstacles here are the gdb sycophants who make occasional appearances and employ their teenager style debate tactics, resorting to badmouthing as profusely as possible in desperate attempt to conceal their lack of any real, valid argument. But if some smokeys want to be the exact same mountaindew guzzling, glue sniffing nimrods they were literally 15 years ago (without any change in their maturity level after all this time), what they should consider doing is 'wazzap' back to the gdb where they belong.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2016 3:22:43 GMT -5
FWIW, spawn loser, hardly any two people on this board agree on much. There isn't much of a hive mind, and if you're wrong, you'll figure it out pretty quickly. I've said it before, but people posting here tend to either be good at calling bullshit or ignoring it.
But if you do come here insulting people as a whole, well, it is not very productive at all. It is sorta funny, but we can all do better. Just because one person insults another doesn't mean everyone is in agreement. So when you throw out insults, maybe remember that instead of speaking in negative generalities about the entire forum.
And I have never been banned from ArmageddonMUD. I have had my password scrambled - per my request - but I have never been banned from the game and many others here likely haven't either. Some of the bans are probably from the Sanvean era, too, like with delerak.
If you really want to bust someone's balls for not getting along with Nyr, well... Where have you been since 2007?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2016 3:25:11 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure it's a rite of passage nowadays. To get your 5th karma, you must first go to jcarter.org and call them all whining fagheads. You then kneel down before staff, presenting this accomplishment, and they will nod and deign to acknowledge your servitude.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2016 3:53:10 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure it's a rite of passage nowadays. To get your 5th karma, you must first go to jcarter.org and call them all whining fagheads. You then kneel down before staff, presenting this accomplishment, and they will nod and deign to acknowledge your servitude. It's worth a shot. I'm stuck at logging into to jcarter.org There goes the dream. |
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