Estralis Seborian, the GM brought up a very good point; if anyone has any good ideas or concepts we should let them fly.
Everyone knows that there is a variety of problems with the magic system even though some would rather not talk about it or compromise it.
So we know there's a problem; what do we do about it?
I have a few suggestions.
On my way from college to work I was thinking about a few possibilities, and then a thought occured to me. How cool would it be if you had to take trials to earn your runes? For example, to earn the fire rune you'de have to goto the bottom of a volcano with a fire guardian, or the earth rune, the middle of a desert with giant antlions, the poison rune, the middle of a swamp with poison spitting creatures, and you'de see a giant stone with the rune on it.
Pellandria had a complaint that he'de rather not see mages degrade into numbskulls tossing around spells that didn't know how to RP and didn't know about Magic Theory
This is a two part problem, as far as them being good at RPing a mage, that would really depend on the person judging them, how to RP a mage is different to everyone. And I don't think the GMs have time to micromanage that, "oh that person is acting more like a fighter than a mage" and the only solution would be to ban the person acting un-magelike (I know that's not a word) which is very subjective in itself.
So enforcing RP is unrealistic in a way, but enforcing knowing Magic Theory? That can easily be done with a system.
Let's say you've braved the volcano with your travelling partners (which would be fun, and an opportunity to RP) and you finally made it to the rune stone (big red glowing stone with a big pic of the rune on it) past all the dangerous fire based creatures, you would start "The Trial of Fire", you would be required to answer 5 questions relating to Magic Theory and Fire Magic (or whatever the corresponding rune is Earth/Poison etc...), if you answer them all right you get the rune! If you fail 3 times in a row, you have to wait a week as punishment, and that would give you another opportunity to study again. This would enforce knowledge and a system where you have to earn your magic, you would still only be able to do 2 trials a week, and you could pay a teacher to learn magic/or them just take an interest to you (money or interest being the incentive/less risky for the student) and still have to answer 5 questions (same criteria), or go on the trial (which is a lot more risky/chance of death with guardians) with some other friends to help out.
And as far as the teaching rune BHONA, once someone has 28 runes, he could apply with a GM for BHONA so it would be GM regulated and not player regulated. Whether you would get the teaching rune or not would be based on if you were a good player (RPd well) and didn't abuse the rules (mindless player killing). And if a teacher becomes one and abuses it, the GM can giveth and the GM can taketh.
As far as learning improving upon the ancient language, I think you should be able to learn this from books, walls in ancient ruins or teachers. And as far as Commotio, Decisio and the magic skills based on the spells you cast, improving them would be based on casting spells of that type (makes sense).
This would make it so there would still be a teacher based system (which can be good for RP in certain circumstances/or the teacher's pocketbook) and a Trial system which would definately be fun and good for RP because it would probably take some friends to survive the trial (pretty tough for a frail mage to brave the dangerous creatures all by himself)
Just some suggestions =)
Josh (Rymar Tarken/Sakumo Hatake)
Retlak wrote:
I read all of that and it sounded REALLY good, the best idea yet. I like the way you took everything into consideration like the 2 runes a week thing. Excellent proposal.
-Matt
I second that! Sounds awesome!
Also, perhaps some of them should be puzzle dungeons, since I'm not sure there's that many monsters as runes.
Here are some of my crappy ideas of what could be in which dungeon:
(Only thing is, I suppose it would require a lot of map design for new dungeons and stuff to put the runes in. If there's noone to do that, I wouldn't mind helping with it.)
1.1.1 CUN - Water rune, so perhaps some puzzles with balancing scales with water or something (not sure how easy that would be to script :/)
1.1.2 FHEN - Perhaps a teleport puzzle, solved by trial and error, or a riddle at the start to show which teleporters to use to reach the rune.
1.1.3 HEPT - Since there aren't really any cold based monsters, maybe have a time limit on how long you can spend in the dungeon, and after that time you "freeze to death".
1.1.4 KAH - Food - Perhaps a riddle with a table of foods in front of you, you must pick the right one to eat, otherwise you incur whatever penalty - thrown out of the dungeon, clouded, stat penalty, whatever.
1.1.5 LHOR-Either a maze with invisible walls, or a room like the one in Irundar over water with an invisible floor maze.
1.1.6 MES - Rune of light, so perhaps a dungeon in complete darkness in which you are a given a light that extends 1 tile in front of you, and you must make your way through the dungeon avoiding traps on the floor. (should be visible in the light you are given)
1.1.7 ORL - rune of creating and materialisation - I'm not really sure for this one. Perhaps a question dungeon related to magic (as well as/instead of question at the end), with the questions becoming harder and harder as you move through the dungeon. The penalty for a wrong answer are monsters spawns of increasing strength.
1.1.8 PEN-Just have the rune in the dungeon, easily accesible, but make the dungeon quite hard to find.
1.1.9 RA-Fire elementals, or dragon. Elementals would probably be better for a level 1 rune.
1.1.10 SAV - Protection, so perhaps the hopeful rune reciever is reduced to 1hp on entering the dungeon, with no health regeneration, and his teammates must protect him from mummies?
1.1.11 SOLH-Earth, so one or two golems to fight, not many, as it's still level 1 runes.
Level 2
1.2.1 ANTH-Normal maze, but with static fires blocking some places.
1.2.2 IRA-Dungeon full of undead
1.2.3 JUS-Couldn't think of one :/
1.2.4 KEL-Some sort of puzzle thats only passable if the person doesn't stop moving-eg a maze with a strict time limit, that is quite easy to get through but requires fast thinking.
1.2.5 SIH-Poison spiders, since it's heal poison.
1.2.6 SUL-Anyone in the dungeon becomes encumbered, to slow movement, and if possible, fireballs move across the room which need to be dodged.
1.2.7 TAH-Inverse, so a maze in which you are given the opposite instructions of what to do and where to go.
1.2.8 TAUR-Panthers and gnolls
1.2.9 URA-Ogres and trolls
1.2.10 YEG-More poison spiders
Level 3
1.3.1 DUN-Simply a dungeon full of nasty things, such as beholders.
1.3.2 FHAN-FHAN is the rune of sending, bringing and giving. No FHAN spells have ever been recorded... (If no spells, nothing needed?)
1.3.3 LEV-LEV is the rune of change and transportation. It is an inactive rune which has no use. (If inactive, nothing needed?)
1.3.4 LUK- Demon skeletons/Ghost skeletons/Liches
1.3.5 PHERC-A dungeon full of traps on the floor that must be avoided.
1.3.6 QWAN-VERY strong monsters, eg. dragon, demons
I just thought I'd shove this into the proposal board, since it was on the thread in general.