Runestone/Invitational/Magic Tournaments in general

[Faye]

On 4/1/2018 at 11:30 PM, Cyef'a said:

I've watched people, ICly, berate the tournament and what is allowed in it. (The type of magic) Already magic tournaments are not nearly as popular as melee ones. Why that is? Honestly, I wish I knew. Hopefully someone might be able to pop up with an answer for that? Pretty please? 

Magic tournaments are much more difficult both to run and for others to participate in, and can be off-putting or overwhelming to others due to...

1) Lack of freedom. Anyone can pick up any weapon in the world (or any object that can be used as one). Pretty much anyone can, under the right circumstances, even become proficient with weaponry. There's no forbidden or illegal way to swing a sword, no weapons that are taboo to wield. Magic? There are multiple illegal magicks or ones that are just improbable a character could learn, like white magic, black magic, Void magic, summoning Primal egis, etc. We are limited in what magicks we can actually use in game that don't potentially break either lore and believability, or IC laws and ethics.

2) Power disparity. Magic is... magic. It's not real, we have no basis in reality, no reference to gauge its capabilities. In media, it can be portrayed doing everything from the mundane to the incomprehensible. In contrast, physical fighting is usually, at least for the most part, based in physics and the capabilities of human anatomy (assuming aether isn't being used to amplify anything). How do you decide the scope and power of spells that aren't real? What happens when you have competitors who want to use nothing more than cantrips but also have ones who want their spells to be able to level entire city blocks?

3) Lack of definition. Going off what was mentioned above, magic is not a real thing. Magic can, theoretically, do anything. There's no limits and no logic. This creates problems, because people will have different ideas about what abilities and spells are fair to other players and what reasonably fits into the game. Some people like to create types of magic that don't even have lore precedence in the game. Some people like to only use the classes and spells that we see and can use in the game, only using skills we have on our hotbars. Most people fall somewhere between. It's tough trying to mesh so many different playstyles together.

4) Lethality. Many of the physical fighting tournaments make use of training weapons and prohibit killing or lethal force. Imo, it's a lot harder to pull punches when you're shooting fireballs and lightning bolts, which adds another layer of difficulty to something that's supposed to be a friendly spar where no one is meant to walk away with missing limbs.

 

These are all things that you, as someone running a magic tournament, need to consider and find solutions for, to create rules and guidelines and decide your tournament's stance. What is the power cap on spells? How much freedom do people have to make up their own types of magic and spells? Are illegal and questionable magicks going to be accepted? It's up to you to determine what you want the tournament and the magicks used there to be like, and then to find a way to convey this information and enforce this among the participants. Your event, sadly, cannot manage to appeal to everyone, especially if you want to avoid OOC clashes and criticism, or IC ones that may simply be borne of someone's OOC unhappiness with the tournament. You need to decide your tournament's limits, realize who your audience will be, and then try to appeal to them and not worry about any others. Put in clear writing what's acceptable for your tournament and what is not so anyone attending will know what they're getting into, and if they still want to complain then? That's on them, and you don't need to worry about it. You're the event organizer; you have authority and creative freedom here, therefore only you can answer your question of when to step in and tell someone what they're doing is not okay.

And keep in mind, that if others are using exceptionally powerful, potentially lethal, illegal, improbably rare, or taboo magicks in what is meant to be a friendly tournament? Others probably are going to have snide remarks (at the minimum) IC and that is well within their rights. This is the lore and setting we're given, most people will want to be abide by it to some degree. If someone wants to break the laws and etiquette of the world and pretend it's okay or have no repercussions for their character, that's their choice in their own RP with consenting participants, but they can't expect strangers at a public event to play along with it. People will go with what we know and what is established, which is the lore saying "that magic is a no-no." If you want a tournament where people can have fun flinging any shady and powerful magic their hearts desire at each other without being disrupted by IC consequences? That's totally fine, but I'd recommend hosting it somewhere private, and you definitely need to be upfront in your event ads with some clause about how anyone participating in the tournament and engaging in RP surrounding it need to accept the use of forbidden magic IC and OOC and that they are expected not to pursue any recourse for it against the tournament's organizers or participants at any time. It may not be a popular rule, but ultimately it's your own event, so you're free to write your own rules and expect anyone involved to follow them.

Edited April 9, 2018 by Faye

[Laciel]

I want to thank everyone who has been kind enough to give me their opinions on this particular subject. I realize that it's a rather tricky thing to deal with and having all these different viewpoints will no doubt help in the long run of trying to make this event a better and more enjoyable place for people to show off their characters. Again, I can't thank you all enough for the contribution.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I haven't seen this mentioned yet, so perhaps it may assist in the building of future tournaments.

 

List out the magicks the tournament would support. Rather than a catch-all, why not have a Thaumaturgy tournament? Or Conjury? Or Astromancy? Arcanima, etc. In cases where the sliding scale of lore-abiding-ness and power levels it too diverse, sometimes it's better to make a single-focus. And if people can manage to filter their characters into the rules, then they can participate. (Note: Void Fire is not Thaumaturgy. Neither is Flare. Neither is Combust. Neither is channeling the power of a fire elemental to burn something. You get the idea.)

 

Perhaps it'd be useful to get a survey or some stats on what interested parties would want in such a tournament, what they RP as, and what they'd be looking for? Unlike physical combat, magic runs into an issue where someone will always try to cast the bigger-er spell. Some basically need to be forcefully reminded that this is not physical combat and bigger harder faster stronger mentality tells us nothing about how they're casting or that their character even knows what they're doing.

[Suko'to]

On ‎4‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 3:45 PM, Warren Castille said:

"They didn't say this is impossible" is frankly shitty rationale.

 

Not -exactly- what I was saying. Sorry if my response came out that way. Words are hard sometimes (XD). There -is- a realm of believability we still have to follow along, but I firmly believe there are very feasible ways of using aether in other ways than has been revealed thus far in the game. For example, my 'red mage' fights mostly using her 'jewel' which is actually an aether powered sentinel of some form that has the ability to absorbed aether based attacks, convert that aether into another form (for me, a kind of beam/light energy) then expends that energy at its master's discretion. Obviously, the aether used to control the sentinel isn't elemental-based. Heck, when I ran the Runestone, I fought a Samurai who was using aether attacks thrown out by their sword. I've also seem talismans used. Then there's also Blue Magic, which we don't know much about, but there's certainly a way to implement it that's believable as well. Although, to date, I haven't personally seen any players RPing as a Blue Mage, and I would love to see how players would portray them. Then there's also Chi, which could arguably be a form of aether, expended through Chakra in Monks and similar archetypes.

 

I agree with you that anyone using the "it doesn't say in the lore it's impossible" rationale is probably just trying to be a special snowflake, I just haven't personally seen anyone go -that- far yet. If it's happening at the Invitational, then, yeah, should definitely be scrutinized/criticized, but also using the correct channels.

[Warren Castille]

21 hours ago, Suko'to said:

 

Not -exactly- what I was saying. Sorry if my response came out that way. Words are hard sometimes (XD). There -is- a realm of believability we still have to follow along, but I firmly believe there are very feasible ways of using aether in other ways than has been revealed thus far in the game. For example, my 'red mage' fights mostly using her 'jewel' which is actually an aether powered sentinel of some form that has the ability to absorbed aether based attacks, convert that aether into another form (for me, a kind of beam/light energy) then expends that energy at its master's discretion. Obviously, the aether used to control the sentinel isn't elemental-based. Heck, when I ran the Runestone, I fought a Samurai who was using aether attacks thrown out by their sword. I've also seem talismans used. Then there's also Blue Magic, which we don't know much about, but there's certainly a way to implement it that's believable as well. Although, to date, I haven't personally seen any players RPing as a Blue Mage, and I would love to see how players would portray them. Then there's also Chi, which could arguably be a form of aether, expended through Chakra in Monks and similar archetypes.

 

I agree with you that anyone using the "it doesn't say in the lore it's impossible" rationale is probably just trying to be a special snowflake, I just haven't personally seen anyone go -that- far yet. If it's happening at the Invitational, then, yeah, should definitely be scrutinized/criticized, but also using the correct channels.

 

You're fine. I was conflating what you said with what I've seen other people say and it wasn't directed at you specifically, just the point. There's a lot of people who don't quite understand how burden of proof works and wrap themselves in the safety blanket of "well they didn't say I CAN'T do it." Ain't no rule dogs can't play baseball, you know?

 

Caveat: Most of my experience with that sort of thing was from ways back and I'm pretty sure most of them don't play anymore.

Edited April 13, 2018 by Warren Castille

[Shoshopu]

I think I might as well give my input while I wait on Spellguard to start...

 

The whole forbidden magic thing that was going on with the Runestone is, completely frankly, the reason why "no illegal magic" is an IC rule at Spellguard. The design of the magitek aether-shield generators each team has was also a direct response to criticisms I was hearing about the Runestone's method of protecting its combatants from harm-- I was trying to find something that had precedents in the lore, and also had IC limitations, and aren't just flawless and powered by how incredibly magical Shoshopu is or whatever. The Familiar clause was implemented as an attempt to kind of... manage IC power level I guess, because one time a summoner character who had lots of different -egis beat someone and the loser kinda blew up my DMs about it even though they didn't have any actual advantage, it's random vs random. Ever since I made that clause I've not really had many summoners enter. I hope it didn't scare them off.  : x

 

Spellguard's been more successful in the past, but obviously its claim to, uh ... Well, its Thing is the whole 2v2 aspect that adds another dimension to writing emotes and things. I was trying to go for something different to make it stand out from the other tournaments going on. I like Unnamed Mercenary's idea of a tournament for a specific school of magic, but of course you'll have fewer people at those because it's more limiting by design. I feel like it's more important to enrich the experience of the people who do enter than to try and grab as many people as possible for a sub-par experience, though.

 

If I may half-hijack this thread, I'd love to hear how I could make Spellguard better too!