From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Tue Nov 2 00:26:02 1999 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id AAA28211; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 00:26:02 +1300 Received: from kcbbs.gen.nz (kcbbs.gen.nz [202.14.102.1]) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with ESMTP id AAA28208 for ; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 00:26:01 +1300 Received: from bear (as5200-15.kcbbs.gen.nz [202.14.102.45]) by kcbbs.gen.nz (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id AAA13617 for ; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 00:07:54 +1300 (NZDT) Message-Id: <3.0.6.32.19991102000700.00797a20@kcbbs.gen.nz> X-Sender: salient@kcbbs.gen.nz X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.6 (32) Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 00:07:00 +1300 Subject: RE: Namer - Straw Poll Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" From: Sally and Brent Jackson To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Precedence: bulk X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. Reply-To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz I think that the key to Detect Aura is the sentence "The question must be intrinsic to that entity or object". Hence, intrinsic things such as skills, magical abilities, innate talents, magic in effect, plane of origin for enitities (ie where born), function for objects (ie the purpose for which it was built, if any). Things that should not be possible - finding out anything about a spell that was resisted (how can magic that never affected an entity be intrinsic to it ?), finding out about spells no longer in effect, thoughts, opinions, At 16:41 26/10/99 +1300, Andrew Withy (FAL AKL) wrote: > What do we want in auras? If we want stuff that rock has, then rock >has an aura. If we only want stuff that living things and magic have, then >they have auras. I do not think rocks, or never living objects should have auras. >* Is GTN, plane of origin in an aura? I think so. I agree. Though GTN may not be recognisable until you've seen a few of them. >* Are skills in an aura? Name of his second highest non-weapon skill other >than Courtier? Yes, but could be convinced otherwise. At least the primary skill(s) such as most often used, and/or highest ranked. >* Does this include all magic skills - spells, talents, etc and all mundane >skills? I have less of a problem with all magical abilities being gleaned. >* Are all details (college, name, rank, range, duration, method of >removing, MA of caster) of all magics in the last three months? No. I think only spells currently in effect, and Range is no longer intrinsic. MA of caster is also dubious (other than for curses of course). >* Is genetic heritage (was your paternal grandmother an elf)? Yes. Providing it is intrinsic to the entity itself, such as race. Skills, colleges, etc of parents and ancesters would not be. >* Is pacting? Common name of being pacted to? likelihood of master turning >up on death? Yes. >* Favourite spell/colour/relative? No. >* Remaining combined EN&FT? I do not think that this counts as "a single concept". Two questions should be required. I also think we should move away from numerical answers, (and hence questions) which should make it seem less of a game, and more of a believable fantasy world. So current health (EN) or degree of tiredness (FT) could be asked after, with responses such as "healthy", "slightly wounded", "not well", "very damaged", "almost dead". Of course, a five minute visual inspection without a DA would give a similar result in many cases. >* Whether the person is lying (one used by some overseas GMs)? Definately not. >* Emotions? No >* The whole kirilian (?sp?) aura thing and so on. No. >If an aura contains only the intrinsic properties of the being (or their >essence), then the information should be fundamental, not trivia. I'm >keen on just the basics. Hear, hear. >Say... A living entity has GTN, aura strength, plane of origin, age, >significant deviations from GTN (stats/skills well over limit, extra gills >?), distinguishing features of individual (e.g. signature skill - generally >highest ranked or favourite + all at Rank 8+), strongest emotion?, innate >weaknesses (sunlight to vampires, etc). A sentient (creature with MA) has >some magical info about them - College, signature magic + all at Rank 20 I think skills at ranks 5+, and Magic at 10+ should be pretty intrinsic. I do not think that emotions are "intrinsic" because they are so ephemeral. An emotion could be intrinsic if possessed strongly for a long time (eg love, hate, revenge). >A magic has name, college, rank, method of removal, age/duration. Agreed. >If a magic has affected an individual, you can get information on the magic >from the person's aura. I'd restrict it to "is affecting" instead of "has affected". >Or something on these lines. I concur ... Cheers, Brent. -- see unsubscribe instructions in message headers -- From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Tue Nov 2 16:58:21 1999 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id QAA29383; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 16:58:21 +1300 Received: from peace.com (defacto.peace.co.nz [202.14.141.225]) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with SMTP id QAA29380 for ; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 16:58:18 +1300 Message-ID: <381E5E59.C5BDC378@peace.com> Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 16:45:29 +1300 MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: Namer - Straw Poll Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Martin Dickson To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Precedence: bulk X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. Reply-To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Hi All, The straw poll has given me a good indication of your general views and clarified some ideas about the namer/aura/name revision. Summary --------- Feeling appears mixed on the subject of auras/names for never living objects, but I think falls in the favour of the "nays" and the status quo. There appears to be a general agreement that the information available in auras should be "intrinsic", as Brent wrote: > I think that the key to Detect Aura is the sentence "The question must be > intrinsic to that entity or object". Hence, intrinsic things such as > skills, magical abilities, innate talents, magic in effect, plane of origin for > enitities (ie where born), function for objects (ie the purpose for > which it was built, if any). The items that have most commonly been suggested as intrisic are: Aura strength, GTN, Plane of origin (birth), magical abilities, college, race, magic currently in effect, pact, very strong/long held emotions, resonably ranked mundane skills, age. I will make this clearer in the DA desciption and hopefully reduce its length. Much of the text on DA is spent clarifying how big an area a single DA can cover... this could also perhaps be simplified and shortened. My thanks to everyone who took time to think about this. Cheers, Martin PS: I'm still hoping to have a draft of the Namer revision available by this weekend... but it may be an extra week off -- I'm building a web site for my Dad, and its eating all my non-work time. I'll have the draft out shortly. -- _/_/ Peace Software New Zealand Ltd Email: Martin.Dickson@peace.com _/ Martin Dickson Fax : +64-9-373-0401 Analyst Phone: +64-9-373-0400 -- see unsubscribe instructions in message headers -- From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Tue Nov 2 17:36:25 1999 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id RAA29449; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 17:36:25 +1300 Received: from westpac.co.nz (firewall1.westpac.co.nz [210.55.236.18]) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with ESMTP id RAA29446 for ; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 17:36:22 +1300 Received: by firewall1.westpac.co.nz id <32261>; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 17:26:56 +1300 X-Lotus-FromDomain: WESTPACTRUST Message-Id: <99Nov2.172656nzdt.32261@firewall1.westpac.co.nz> Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1999 18:24:48 +1300 Subject: Re: Namers - A different topic Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline From: "Mark Simpson" To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Precedence: bulk X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. Reply-To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Something I personally dislike about counterspells, and I guess this applies to namers more than anyone, is their "all or nothing" binary nature. Basically if you have the correct counterspell on you automatically (almost) resist (given the namer has ranked the spell a moderate amount and that you reasonable base resistence). Perhaps my point can be best expressed in this way - Many adventures have a central villain who is often a mage. The party head off to confront him in his lair/castle/dungeon/whatever. They get the namer to cast counterspells on them and hey presto the entire party are immune to the villains spells. The villain then has to rely on his or her other colleged minions spells - very embaressing for your average meglomaniac. It shouldn't be so easy to negate someone elses magic, at least not to the point where there is no point in casting a spell unless it does something to a target who resists. I am not advocating removing counterspells, merely lessening their effect on magic resistence. This may mean either lowering the EM as well as compensating Namers by giving their college a bonus to all magic resistence and perhaps some new spells, talents or rituals. Another random thought which may be relevant to any revision of Namers. /\/\ark -- see unsubscribe instructions in message headers -- From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Tue Nov 2 18:07:20 1999 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id SAA29496; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 18:07:20 +1300 Received: from qedweb.qed.co.nz ([203.97.23.140] (may be forged)) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with ESMTP id SAA29493 for ; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 18:07:18 +1300 Received: by QEDWEB with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) id <45ZC73Y5>; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 17:54:34 +1300 Message-ID: Subject: RE: Namers - A different topic Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1999 17:54:33 +1300 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) Content-Type: text/plain From: Stephen Martin To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Precedence: bulk X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. Reply-To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz If the GM is relying on one bad guy using magic alone to confront the party then the bad guy is probably toast in a very short period of time, especially if the party knows what they're facing. Staunch bad guys have lots of options up their sleeves and generally have some company. However changing CSs to give 10% (+4/Rank) could still be a reasonable change. Cheers, Stephen. > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark Simpson [SMTP:Mark_Simpson@westpactrust.co.nz] > Subject: Re: Namers - A different topic > > Perhaps my point can be best expressed in this way - Many adventures have > a central villain who is often a mage. The party head off to confront him > in his lair/castle/dungeon/whatever. They get the namer to cast > counterspells on them and hey presto the entire party are immune to the > villains spells. The villain then has to rely on his or her other colleged > minions spells - very embaressing for your average meglomaniac. It > shouldn't be so easy to negate someone elses magic, at least not to the > point where there is no point in casting a spell unless it does something > to a target who resists. > -- see unsubscribe instructions in message headers -- From owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Tue Nov 2 19:02:18 1999 Received: (from bin@localhost) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) id TAA29576; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 19:02:18 +1300 Received: from smtp1.ihug.co.nz (tk1.ihug.co.nz [203.29.160.13]) by mail.sf.org.nz (8.8.6/NZSFI-19980830) with ESMTP id TAA29573 for ; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 19:02:16 +1300 Received: from jimarona.ihug.co.nz (p336-tnt2.akl.ihug.co.nz [203.109.255.96]) by smtp1.ihug.co.nz (8.9.3/8.9.3/Debian/GNU) with SMTP id SAA29102 for ; Tue, 2 Nov 1999 18:50:47 +1300 Subject: Re: Namers - A different topic Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1999 18:50:16 +1300 Message-ID: <01bf24f6$239e60c0$60ff6dcb@jimarona.ihug.co.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 From: "Jim Arona" To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz Sender: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Errors-To: owner-dq@dq.sf.org.nz Precedence: bulk X-Loop: dq@dq.sf.org.nz X-Requests: To unsubscribe from this list, or change your subscription address, send a message to dq-request@dq.sf.org.nz. Reply-To: dq@dq.sf.org.nz >If the GM is relying on one bad guy using magic alone to confront the party >then the bad guy is probably toast in a very short period of time, >especially if the party knows what they're facing. >Staunch bad guys have lots of options up their sleeves and generally have >some company. Yeah, but Mark's point is that counterspells are very tough, in their admittedly very narrow area of impact on the game. Whether or not the bad guys have other options is a different kind of issue. > >However changing CSs to give 10% (+4/Rank) could still be a reasonable >change. I don't know that I'm a fan of just changing the formula. Personally, I like the idea of Namer's getting a bonus to colleged magic in general (perhaps as a talent). This still leaves us with 24 odd General Knowledge spells that something has to be done about. The issue is, really, and it is astutely pointed out, that counterspells are extremely binary. They apply a game pressure to developing magic that has an effect, even should the spell be successfully resisted, or that doesn't allow for a conventional resistance check that cannot be adjusted by a counterspell (e.g. Noxious Vapours). Given that a counterspell can allow a character a bonus to resist of as much as 90 points, and also given that there are whole sections of colleges for which there is absolutely no game pressure to advance a counterspell (e.g.General Knowledge Water College), perhaps the idea of what a counterspell is, and what it can do, should be addressed. I fear that we have lived within the game system too long, and have not uncovered a basic flaw in design. I'm inclined to believe that this issue is one that we should have been addressing some time ago. That said, I must say I've never really noticed that counterspells being that much of a problem, however tough they are. Players may not fail very often when they have them on, but they seem not to be able to cover all of the bases, either. It may be that there is no real problem to be solved. It may be that by changing this part of the game, it would open whole new avenues of development that we have blindly closed off to ourselves. It's worth investigating, anyway. Jim. -- see unsubscribe instructions in message headers --