The World of Layonara
The Layonara Community => Ask A Gamemaster => Topic started by: ycleption on July 10, 2008, 12:08:07 am
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Ok, this seems to come up, and I'm never sure how to resolve it.
90% percent of the time, most of us can recognize a given spell by the effect that we see in game. Which raises the question of whether a similar recognition can be achieved IC as well.
Obviously, something like barkskin, well, you can see that it's bark. On someone's skin. Or Fireball, because well, it's a ball of fire...
But there are a lot of other spells that only produce incidental glowy lights (Which, as Jennara has pointed out, has never been satisfactorily explained by those knowledgeable in the Al'Noth), which some players treat as being recognizable, and some don't.
Obviously this leads to conflicting RP, when character A says "Although I've studied quite a bit, knowledge of the Al'Noth escapes me" and character B say "Ur.. Me see bad man cast Phantasmal killer"
I used to RP Drexia as having no magical knowledge, not knowing the names of spells and such, but that became to hard to maintain when just about every other non caster routinely refers to spells by their names.
Similar issues come up when characters request specific spells to be cast on them (or worse, to be "buffed" with a given spell), but I think there's a bit more leeway there, since most characters have at some point had a conversation with a magic user about what spells help them.
The other thing, is that there is a skill, Spellcraft, that is automatically rolled to see if someone can recognize a spell being cast. If a character can recognize a spell based on the visual effect, why even have that as an attribute of Spellcraft? (I realize that mechanically the recognition part of spellcraft can function before the spell is actually cast, for use in counterspelling, but still...)
So. What does it take for a character, expecially a non-magically proficient one, to recognize what a given spell is? does it make a difference if the spell is cast on them, so that they can feel the effects?
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If you have zero points in SC and it's not being cast directly on you, I will ignore checks.
IC, you can obviously see that someone died from a spell or is seriously injured, but a non-caster would not know what spell caused the damage unless that same character took damage or an effect from the spell.
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Well, precedence plays a large role in this all I think. The moment a caster calls an effect by name, it is a precedent. My melee has watched generations of casters call things by name, the same name each time, and by the gods he knows the names of the magicky flickery effects that have come to mean something in battle.
The important roleplay to me is in the learning of this. Like anything, it is something learned. It's common sense. You don't metagame knowledge of the NWN handbook. Likewise you don't use speech that diminishes from the environment around you. After learning about stoneskin, and hearing of it a million times over, part of your atmospheric value in roleplay is putting your spin on it. Be creative. Understand the mind of your character and how they would take that information and describe it. They wouldn't say 'I need an invis' perhaps... maybe they'd say 'make me unseen' instead?
I have to say, the only value you'll ever add to this fantasy driven world is being a character who immerses the others around you further. This sort of thing is no exception. And by that I mean that you can't be so fanatical about the man behind the curtain every player knows of, has read about, and sees right there even - insofar as to demand a necessary level of feigned ignorance to what is deemed proper roleplay.... but likewise you need to also provide atmosphere, know your character, and never take shortcuts on what he or she should be.
Eh? Eh?
;)
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If one is gifted enough to reliably detect the exact spells (whether due to the effects or something else), then one should really invest skill points into spellcraft (the primary usage of spellcraft is not to manipulate magical power, or it would be locked to the caster classes, but rather to do exactly this detection). :)
And when one has put skill points into spellcraft, one would quite automatically start to get the OOC-feedback without having to peek on the graphics only! I consider this on par with that one should put extra skill points into spot if one has really keen eyes. :)
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Fireball and Lightning Bolt wouldn't be all that difficult to identify, as well as stoneskin, I would think. The mages that be named them for exactly what they are.
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Phantasmal Killer (one of the examples in the initial post) would be, I think, right up there in the top of "difficult to identify spells for the layman". The spell's effect is barely visible to the caster, let alone to anyone nearby.
The caster sees "only a shadowy shape", the victim sees his or her worst nightmare, and everyone else sees the caster move their hands, speak some words, point at the victim.. who then falls over dead, their face a mask of fright.
It's likely more the symptoms than the act of casting that would allow a (high-INT) non-caster to start to recognize spells. The words would likely be garbled to someone who couldn't use the Al'Noth, no matter how many times they heard them, and the hand motions would be difficult to categorize for one not versed in the careful movements of the Art. But a clever person might say, "Hm. That could be that spell that mage called... what was it, 'Finger of Death'? Wait, no, look at the face. Scared to death. Ah! Got it! *snaps fingers*"
If you're going to go around identifying spells and you're not trained in the Art, at least RP the deduction involved in deciphering which spell you've just seen.
It's that or I take the time to change all the spell scripts so they produce random glowy lights, rather than the same ones each time. ;) Wouldn't be too hard - I'd just have to persuade someone to include it in the next update, is all.
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Which brings up Jennara's ancient question of basically, "If magic is so powerful, why do mages seem utterly incapable of doing it without a lot of excessively flashy light shows? Are they simply gaudy?" ;)
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Obviously, something like barkskin, well, you can see that it's bark. On someone's skin.
This is further complicated when you have some people saying the spell visual effects are OOC rather than IG.
Regards,
Script Wrecked.
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This is further complicated when you have some people saying the spell visual effects are OOC rather than IG.
*raises hand* I don't think anyone can see the flashy lights surrounding your character and I think it is a visual indication to the player that the buffs/spells are still in effect on the character. Nor do I think your skin looks like bark or stone when buffed with stone/barkskin.
I wouldn't mind if all visual effects are taken off completely, including those on monsters/npc's. Each player has a whole bar of icons they can look at to see which spells are active and when they fade.
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*raises hand* I don't think anyone can see the flashy lights surrounding your character and I think it is a visual indication to the player that the buffs/spells are still in effect on the character. Nor do I think your skin looks like bark or stone when buffed with stone/barkskin.
I wouldn't mind if all visual effects are taken off completely, including those on monsters/npc's. Each player has a whole bar of icons they can look at to see which spells are active and when they fade.
I agree on that. Lets remove all flashy wards and spells from people, and just keep it simple.
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I agree on that. Lets remove all flashy wards and spells from people, and just keep it simple.
I am in full agreement with this.
However sometimes when you go through an area all the icons indicating current wards and buffs disappear which makes it difficult to know when those truly fade. But then again is it not the casters job to know when his spells will fade. Might make it interesting.
To be honest what is worse to me is when people see buffs fade and go, oh we out of buffs now. While some spells are visibly noticable and some you might feel, there is no way a non-spell user would know the spells have faded.
Another example is walking into an area invisible and going, "Oh watch out the shaman has true seeing". In my opinion there is no way of knowing that except looking at the "cheat" glowing lights.
Having said that I do believe some spells actually does have a visual affect.
For example barkskin or stoneskin, I always RPed that your body is covered with bark or stone. So in that regard I do believe it can be seen visibly. But true sight or mind blank for example does not have the glowy eyes (maybe the eyes are glowing on the fence here) or turning thing above your head. Those I think should not be visible.
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*raises hand* I don't think anyone can see the flashy lights surrounding your character and I think it is a visual indication to the player that the buffs/spells are still in effect on the character. Nor do I think your skin looks like bark or stone when buffed with stone/barkskin.
Which causes a sense of disconnection when one person is role playing that the barkskin/stoneskin can be seen, and the other person is role playing that the barkskin/stoneskin can't be seen.
I wouldn't mind if all visual effects are taken off completely, including those on monsters/npc's. Each player has a whole bar of icons they can look at to see which spells are active and when they fade.
Indeed. Most of the time I can't see what's actually happening in combat due to my character being smothered by great circling arcs of arcane lettering.
Regards,
Script Wrecked.
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I would just like to point out that "turning off all visual effects" for persistent buffs and such isn't just a matter of flipping a switch. It's going through each and every spell script and finding each duration-based VFX, deciding if it should be kept and removing it if not, or at least shortening its duration.
Translation: This is a non-trivial exercise, and quite honestly a pretty low-priority one at that.
And, as has been pointed out, sometimes you go through a transition and your effect icons disappear even though the effect is still present. The on-screen visual does provide some rather helpful feedback.
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Maybe that's something to look into for the MMO, that only players of characters with the ability to sense magic, through a "Spellcraft" skill or whatever, would see the magic indicators on their monitors. Players of non-magically-able characters would not detect any magic that didn't have an obvious, visible effect (soft glowing light, fireball, actually barky barkskin, etc). Kind of like only characters with Sight spells active can see invisible people at a distance in NWN.
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Aren't the visual attributes IC? Ioun stones swirl around and people call them red or blue, etc. If they're not IC then take them off but I don't see that it can be called wrong to RP that you can see them. Identifying them by sight too should be allowed in RP if it makes IC sense for you to do so. That's the way I play, anyway.
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Define "detect"? See it being cast? See its persistent visual effect (if any)?
EDIT: Ioun stones are actually designed to circle one's head, not their entire body. The visuals are much larger in NWN so they can be better seen.
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I have always imagined the visual effects to be IC. However, I have also always wished I could turn them on and off at will.
We need to come to a consensus, at least for consistency, on whether the visual effects are IC or OOC. I actually don't care which, but since there seems to be more than a hint of uncertainty on this, I'd like a "final" word on whether the visual effects are IC or not.
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I have always imagined the visual effects to be IC. However, I have also always wished I could turn them on and off at will.
We need to come to a consensus, at least for consistency, on whether the visual effects are IC or OOC. I actually don't care which, but since there seems to be more than a hint of uncertainty on this, I'd like a "final" word on whether the visual effects are IC or not.
Which visual effects? The visuals that surround a caster while casting? The fire-and-forget burst of light and sound when a spell goes off? The persistent visual effects that last the duration of the spell?
The problem is that some of those will rightly be considered IC and visible. I'd even go so far as to say most are, especially the casting effects. Nearly all of the "impact" effects are also likely visible and very much IC. Regarding the persistent ones, for spells like Shadow Shield, Invisibility and several others, the visual effect is very much part of the spell and would also be IC. Something like Elemental Resistance (ring of runes) shows a visual that is more a reminder to the player than anything. Several spells have ambiguous persistent visual effects (Spell Resistance and Protection from Spells). Still other spells already have no persistent visuals (i.e. attribute buffs).
So there's no "One, Final Answer" to this question. Each case is potentially different.
To be honest, I don't think it's terribly important.
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For people that are not well versed in magic, the best way to identify the spell is by recognizing the effect.
Based on previous experience someone might recognize Phantasmal Killer cast on him, even though that someone didn't recognize the magic involved.
But this also means that same person would have no idea it was phantasmal killer if it were cast on someone else. After all, the target was the only one to experience the effect.
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With forty-odd years of running around, getting spells cast on him and around him, I play Pyyran as being able to recognize many spells by their effects (though some he actually does get through Spellcraft rolls, albeit untrained). Fireball, Invisiblity - easy ones, sure. Wierd, True Seeing - more difficult, but there is still a visual effect, albeit one much more difficult to identify/spot. Charm Person? Fox's Cunning, on someone OTHER than him? Ain't happening.
If a Strength buff fades, your character feels it. Ditto, any of the rest... Though Wisdom and Charisma might be a little more difficult. An elemental resistance? Not sure - that could go either way. Mind Blank? Oh, yeah. You'll notice that one.
This isn't to say that, even with forty years' study of magic, both in practice (read: getting spells cast on him), and in study (read: pestering mages about how things work), Pyyran (or any character with similar experiences) can identify a spell while it's being cast - that's what the Spellcraft skill represents. Nor that he can identify a spell's effects that he hasn't seen before... Just that, while he also may not be a master sapper, he's learned a few things over the years.
In the end, though, it's all about the RP. If it adds to it, it's probably a good thing. If it detracts from it, it's probably not.
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Consistency, my dear Dorg, is quite important. (and you, of all people, are keenly aware of that)
But anywho, the point behind the request is to avoid a situation like the following:
Two mages and a fighter stand in a clearing.
P1-Talk: "Ooo, colorful glowing lights floating around you. Can you cast that on me, too?"
P2 to P1-Tell: "Hey, dude, you can't really see those things floating around my character. They're OOC."
P3-Talk: "Sure thing. Then we can be glowy together. *giggles*"
P1 to P2-Tell: "Who told you that? I can see them, you can see them, everyone can see them. They must be IC."
P2 to P1-Tell: "Just because you see it on the screen doesn't mean it's actually there."
P1 to P3-Talk: "/// hey, can I see the glowy lights floating around you from your spells?"
P3-Talk: "Um, yeah."
P2-Talk: "///No, he can't see them; the visuals are OOC."
I think you know where this is going..... right back here to this forum.
Like you've said, Dorg, some of the visuals make sense to have, some don't. And making a decision on which ones do and don't is a much bigger task than we want to tackle right now.
So, from what I'm getting, the "official" answer is:
"We don't want to say that all visuals represented IG count, or that none count. Also, since we don't have the time to define whether each effect should be there or not, just go ahead an role play it however you want."
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To be honest, I don't think it's terribly important.
To give the situation that precipitated my question, and why I do think it is important: npc who had cast spells like hold person during an encounter, cast Wail. Now, if Drexia had been able to realize that was what was being cast, she would have felt fully justified in attacking said npc in defense of others. I assumed that she had no knowledge that the spell differed from what she had previously cast. Another character, assuming that he could recognize the spell, was very confused as to why nobody reacted...
So, to me, as it affects character decisions, it does have quite a bit of impact.
And yeah, I'm with milty, I don't really care which way it is, just a decision one way or the other would be nice (or even some general guidelines for RPing the matter).
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So, from what I'm getting, the "official" answer is:
"We don't want to say that all visuals represented IG count, or that none count. Also, since we don't have the time to define whether each effect should be there or not, just go ahead an role play it however you want."
Works for me, assuming some degree of common sense is applied. :)
So, to me, as it affects character decisions, it does have quite a bit of impact.
I was referring to whether or not the visual effects that may have be more OOC than IC were displayed.
Not knowing Weird was cast, your character probably reacted appropriately. It's going to depend a lot on the spell. Some would have effects visible to all (Fireball, IGMS, etc.) while others would not (Phant. Killer, Weird, etc.) unless they were cast upon or affected by them.
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As a purely IC note, I've always assumed that most of the flashies or glowing stuff were related to the fact that spellcasters are making natural forces do things they wouldn't normally do. Just as even the really good rocket scientists can't turn rocket fuel directly into thrust without having some spillage with light, sound, heat, etc., casters are turning magical energy into whatever effect they desire - with some waste-energy going into visual or auditory effects.
There really is no reason why stoneskin or barkskin should be exceptions to the 'no manifestation' rule if nothing else is. One could just as easily say that Stoneskin just toughens your skin to such a degree that it can turn away a blade, and for barkskin - well, there's no appreciable difference between barkskin and any other natural armour.
Generally as a rule of thumb, evocation should almost always be seen - it's powerful flashy magic - transmutation should be seen whenever its effects are inescapably visual - that man just turned into a dragon, but he still looks like a man?. Arbjuration is largely at the discretion of those watching, and may vary dependent on the spell, although one imagines that it's a trifle more subtle.
Enchantment effects MIGHT be noticed by someone who's especially observant. They've got a glazed look to their eyes, or they're acting out of character. Illusions are by their very nature somewhat visual in nature - or invisible, as the case may be, but there are a few rare exceptions where these manifestations are only visible to select people. Conjuration is, of course, visible unless you're conjuring an invisible stalker or something. Necromancy varies, but if it walks like a ghoul, and talks like a ghoul, chances are, it's a ghoul. A VISIBLE ghoul. And Divination could really go either way, although someone in-tune enough with the Al'noth would probably be able to detect someone scanning them.
Just my two cents.
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Define "detect"?
I can expand on the idea.
If we are on a hypothetical quest and the GM asks for a Spellcraft check on an object, or even just says, "You're a mage so you can sense this," then Connor knows the object is magical and Jennara doesn't. Jennara can't detect magic that isn't obvious in some way and has to rely on the magically inclined to tell her there is magic. If it doesn't glow from within or make a lot of fire or alter the way she feels somehow, or whatever, then she's "blind" to the magic in it. Connor can probably detect it, sense it, feel it without thinking too much about it the same way you and I feel the wind blowing or hear the dog barking three houses down. It's like another sense, one that's been trained, one that "mundane" people don't have. Much like certain Rogues know what to look for so they can spot traps that others may blindly cross, those wise in the ways of magic know what to "look" for when it comes to magic that others may miss completely.
If it does something that is visible to normal, everyday senses, then it's detectable by non-mages. If it only does something to the winds of magic and doesn't otherwise produce an effect that can be perceived through normal, everyday means, then it isn't detectable by non-mages.
See it being cast?
I wasn't really considering the casting effects, but I can see how that ties in. If there should be an obvious visual, auditory, or other effect that "normal" people could detect with their regular senses during the casting of a spell, then yes, everyone can detect that. Maybe fire spells tend to cause casters' hands to blaze up during the casting process, for example. Everyone can see fire. That could be pretty intimidating and might be considered a bonus, even. But would every spell have a flashy "light show" around the caster that "normal" people could see? That seems a little over the top. Maybe magic is ostentatious like that, though. I can imagine that someone who knew what to look for (aka had the right skill(s)) could sense magic swirling, coalescing, or somehow gathering around or being manipulated by a caster during the casting of any spell, but that isn't something a "normal" person would detect.
See its persistent visual effect (if any)?
This goes back to the other two paragraphs. If there is something "normal" people could see or otherwise sense, they should see or otherwise sense it. If there isn't, then they shouldn't. Maybe magic requires flashy lights...
Is there any particular reason feet have to glow to be free? Could mages sense Freedom of Movement? Probably. Maybe they have to focus and try to detect it or something, but sure. Is there any reason Francisco Fighter should just be able to look at Tilly Tapdancer and know she has magical enhancement on her feet? I don't think so, but maybe there's something I don't know. He's just a Fighter, after all. If Tilly isn't doing something to demonstrate the effect, how could he sense it, assuming it doesn't have to glow? Like Haste. Haste doesn't glow. If a highly disciplined hasted person stands still, how would anyone but a caster trying to feel the magic around that person know? Well, maybe the very keen eyed and eared, but people with such keen senses aren't "normal" and that's not really the point, anyway.
I don't think there's any reason to try to change anything with NWN, which is why I said maybe it was something to consider for the MMO. Mages can sense magic and "mundane" people can't, unless the magic happens to be flashy or otherwise creates some obvious effect. If a spell shouldn't have an obvious effect that the common crowd can sense, don't give it one. I am, of course, assuming in all of this that there is something special to detect (which seems to be the case, else Jennara could sense magic from all sorts of objects on quests, too) and that magic doesn't have to be unnecessarily flashy, which seems especially inappropriate for natural magic.
I think it's mostly a small thing, though having a consensus would be nice. To echo Script Wrecked, there have been a lot of times I've wished magic was mostly only visible to the magically trained, since I would like to see something besides a pack of glowing bubbles on the screen. The best screenshots don't have hamster balls, heh.
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It's rather fun playing a spellcaster with zero spellcraft. Take rangers for example, for us it is crossclass and very few pureclass rangers are likely to ever place a single point into spellcraft. Yet after a few levels, we start casting magic spells. What does Earl with a -1 intelligence modifier and untrained in spellcraft think of all of this?
"Whoah! I got super powers, man! Look at this... *clenches his fists and strains as the barkskin covers him* Ahm Treant-man! Rraargh! *stomp stomp stomp* smash defiler ah trees!"
Kor the orc shaman of Grand also has spellcraft untrained. For him, he only knows that he prays to Grand and that his god does it directly. So he's always talking to his god like an invisible friend. He has to be right there with him, of course, if he can see and hear Kor and is casting things for him. There's no comprehension of Al'Noth, only religious fundamentalism and faith. Me not cast "divine hammer", Grand smash you with claw! Cast "Bull's Strength?" bah, bull not make strong. Grand make you strong!
Now as far as Bjorn the 2 century old dwarf who for the past century has had Skabot cast spells on him before battle, yeah, he knows what a stoneskin is when he sees it. I'd just as soon default to my Lore skill for things encountered every day. Spellcraft would entail knowing the how and why of knowing, Lore the what.
You need not be a trained and licensed technician to know what a television is or how to turn it on or use even use the remote control. Only if you expect to take it apart, fix it or build a new one properly will you need to bother with knowledge of its inner workings. But any recognizes brand names like Sony, Sanyo, Hitachi, etc. as they have seen and owned and watched them before! They just don't know how to rewire a circuitboard or create an LCD panel.
That's the difference between basic Lore and Spellcraft.
Earl has *neither* so he really thinks he gained super powers and is therefore an action hero. Plus the drinking modifier drops both skills down to -3 ;)
Also remember, Spellcraft allows one to identify spells AS they're being cast, not afterwards. So a mage casting a fireball, you would be taken off guard if you couldn't tell what he was casting. But a wizard looking at him, listening to what he''s chanting and feeling the Al'noth energies swirling around him could scream "Duck everyone, it's a fireball!" before it is cast. Likewise, after the fighter gets struck with a fireball, he has a pretty good chance of realiizing, "ow, he hit me with a fireball" versus "oi! what was that, a divine hammer? angry badger swarm?". He saw a fireball... he felt it. He just didn't see it coming till it was too late.