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Champion
 
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Rheinfelden (3/2/2007)
OK - here is an admittedly provocative idea - How about not allowing anyone to play an Eidolon as a first character. People would need to attend an event, see what it is like and then if they wished change character for any subsequent events. The idea would be that players would see first hand the levels of roleplay andcostume required for an Eidolon and get an idea of the sort of challenges they would face in playing one. Would this improve the situation?
Interesting idea, and as a general principle it's definitely something I'd encourage.
However I know a few players who played an Eidolon as their first character and they actually did very well.
It seems they hit the nail on the head first time round.
In the case I know, they did have extensive guidance from current Eidolon players however.
Maelstrom: Khaniel, Liberated Angel of Enlightenment
RL: Tom
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Initiate
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Something else to remember with some of the players/characters views on Eidolons, is that not everybody is truly faithful. Some people may claim to be followers of the teacher (as an example) and his divine will, the truth maybe far different. The faithful may well be impressed by the abilities and the authority of the Eidolons, but for those who aren’t? Why should they listen to what any of the Eidolons have got to say? I think there is case that Eidolons and the faithful have to work very hard to make people believe in both the power of the gods and their servants’ mandate.
Now speaking from my characters perspective, the Eidolons are strange beings, fairy tales and myths given form. Even though he is one of the faithful, he is still very wary of even the Loyal Eidolons, and isn’t sure that he can trust them. And I may not be the only player who has had their character react in this way to the Eidolons, who are meant to be scary! How can you truly respect something that you fear?
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Wag
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mysyndrome (3/2/2007)
Why should they listen to what any of the Eidolons have got to say?
Why should I listen to what you say just because you have a gun and I don't?
mysyndrome (3/2/2007)
And I may not be the only player who has had their character react in this way to the Eidolons, who are meant to be scary! How can you truly respect something that you fear?
Typo? I don't see how you can truly respect something you don't fear. In recent years the word 'respect' has been repeatedly redefined by in closer alliance with daytime tv norms (in the same way that bravery is now 'overcoming prejudice' - clearly the people who refused to serve in WWI and stayed at home sipping tea and get spat at were the real heroes). Prior to Oprah, 'respect' connoted a certain amount of 'you can crush some vital aspect of my life if I piss you off' (i.e. before the first world war - and for quite a bit afterwards - people respected their employers because they respected their ability to annihilate their ability to ever work again by firing them without giving references). That's visceral respect which keeps your mouth shut when his Lordship is drunk and beating his wife.
I think you're confusing 'respect' with 'feel safe around' or a very intellectual 'I respect your opinion' (but since I don't fear you at all, I'm perfectly comfortable with brushing it aside). That's quite a modern thing (at least for dissemination beyond one or two philosophers writing about how society ought to be) and I think it misses out on a lot of enjoyable depth (i.e. the majority of interesting social interactions did not (and still do not) occur on a level playing field - level playing fields are boring, surely the point of an interesting game is create a much gut-wrenching topography as possible?).
Personally, I'd like to see eidolons who everyone - particularly the faithful - treat with care. Silly half jokes spoken too loudly in the presence of a loyal leading to ugly brands "BLASPHEMER"/"FOOL" across the forehead would rapidly lead to a certain level of deference and respect.
Marios
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Heroic Knight
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I think it may not be as much of a problem as people suspect. Now admittedly I'm new to Maelstrom, and have only had dealings with a couple of Eidolons, but I'd have to say that both Riddle and Rune (might as well name check 'em since they're doing a good job) manage to make Eidolons feel different, alien and special. One thing my years of playing and running LARPs has taught me is that no matter how you write the background, it will in practice by played differently to how it's written. It's something that's possibly inseparable from the way human beings work.
No-one has control over how other players react to them, and part of playing any character with a lot of respect written into background is being aware that that respect will not necessarily be forthcoming from the player base. (Anyone who's familiar with White Wolf's Changeling: The Dreaming ought to be aware of the problems of taking 21st Century democratic players and placing them in an environment where the Sidhe exist and really do have more power than the rest of the bunch because the universe just respects them more.) This will of course inform and influence the roleplaying of the Eidolon's themselves if they feel they aren't getting the respect they should, which in my opinion is all well and good and part of the game.
I think what bothers people about powerful groups is some sort of feeling that their roleplaying experience should be fair. In a tabletop, when a character has a bit of bad luck, the GM can often shape the plot around that and turn it into an obstacle for the player to overcome. In LARP, and this goes double for something as large as Maelstrom, there often isn't that much flexibility. What this means is that, entirely separate from the issue of the existence of Eidolons, it's entirely possible to die through bad luck, just like in real life. The problem arises in that if an Eidolon is involved in this, there is a perceived asymmetry. The Eidolon player simply isn't risking as much as the mortal is. Which leads to resentment.
The thing is, there's no such thing as a perfectly balanced system, and actually trying to approximate one actually reduces the riches of story available to the player base. The problem of power disparity will remain forever. Newer characters will never be as powerful at least some of the characters who've been played for years. It doesn't mean that the game is no fun, since one of the things Maelstrom as a system seems to do really well is to scale the experience so that there is something to do at any level.
I suppose what I'm saying is that a power imbalance will result in both character complaints (which people should be very careful not to take OOC) and player complaints. There will be some leakage from IC to OOC, because, well, there always is. It's a side effect of the empathy that allows us to take on the role of our character in the first place. Many of the player complaints however are simply human nature, and essentially unfixable without reducing any setting to a homogenous mass that makes for a bland and uninteresting roleplaying experience. People who play Eidolons need therefore to be prepared for a certain amount of disgruntlement from the player base at all and to recognise that it's in the nature of many people to behave in this way. If an Eidolon player is satisfied that they're fulfilling their brief and adding value to the game for those they interact with, there's little else that can be done.
As a separate point, the tendency in current times to hold gatherings away from a ritual site seems to me to be the biggest, and most addressable problem here. It's a player generated solution to an obvious problem, and I can see why PD might be loath to interfere with that, but it strikes me that the Gods themselves must have some opinion as to this development. And even if they don't, aren't the Eidolons who it's disadvantaging looking for some sort of solution through research in downtime? It's in the nature of innovation that no situation is ever static and I wouldn't be at all surprised if there wasn't something as yet undiscovered about the nature of the universe that might change the balance of the game again.
---
Maelstrom: Cethlenn, Eidolon
previously Andrea Popova, Havocstani Armed Forces and Amélie Dubois, especially Wayward Scholar
Eos: Claudia of the Fellowship of the Traveller
Bladelands: Ekaterin, Durandan Sorceror
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Wag
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christi (3/3/2007)
It's a player generated solution to an obvious problem, and I can see why PD might be loath to interfere with that, but it strikes me that the Gods themselves must have some opinion as to this development. And even if they don't, aren't the Eidolons who it's disadvantaging looking for some sort of solution through research in downtime?
The (Old World) Gods seem to have been pretty happy with an Old World largely devoid of ritual sites - all things being the same, I'd imagine they'd prefer the New World to be more like the Old World. Loyal Eidolons seem to manage without ritual circles, whereas demons and necromancers are put at a disadvantage - on the face of it, I'd expect the Old World Gods to be in favour of seasonal religious festivals not being dominated by the presence of ritual circles.
The eidolons most disadvantaged are - presumably - the Fallen and, I would assume, keep themselves loosely allied with groups with access to ritual circles and do what they can to see that those groups end up hosting. Probably there are high-tech tree related ways of bringing ritual circles into existence at events - but that's an overcomplicated solution to simply persuading people to host next to a/their ritual circle. If you're politically blocked, then you have to pursue whatever options remains, but you can't really expect PD to bail you out in a player-lead game.
Marios
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Champion
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Without wanting to turn this into a rehash of the whole ritual site debate... the trouble with that attitude is that whilst not having a ritual site doesn't fuck over the Fallen/Undead Characters very much from a purely IC perspective (instead of being in an area with a massive horde of Angels and Religious Fanatics seeking there destruction, they are instead 30 or so miles away with relatively undefended villages to subvert)
It does however fuck over the players trying to play the characters. Since whilst theoretically Flail, Dizzy, Aestar and co exist for 3 months between each festival, they're obviously not being roleplayed in uptime for that period. Instead the characters and their actions exist on a semi-automated database.
Therefore the players of Fallen/Undead either give up and retire the characters (losing some of the coolest characters in the system) or else have to play secondaries (and I think you know how restricting that can be Marios)
Frankly to me it seems like a metagame solution in the fact that people know that downtime isn't as real as uptime. Although I understand people might view this analysis as overly harsh.
Also, you've seen what alot of the Faithful get upto when we don't have daemons to bash...
Maelstrom: Khaniel, Liberated Angel of Enlightenment
RL: Tom
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Wag
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Illithidbix (3/3/2007)
Frankly to me it seems like a metagame solution in the fact that people know that downtime isn't as real as uptime. Although I understand people might view this analysis as overly harsh.
I'm completely agreed, it is a metagame response but I don't think people go for it for this reason, they go for it because on the face of it it seems to work. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the hosts' nearest settlement to a ritual site was discovered to be destroyed by angry rampaging Eidolons just after an event (or a whole bunch of MaA dead, if they've the presence of mind to guard it).
PD - Brother Farael of the Ordo Dictum Dominus
ODY - Aderbaal Chusek of the Hands of the Old Father
RL - Will Robinson
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Wag
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Illithidbix (3/3/2007)
Without wanting to turn this into a rehash of the whole ritual site debate... the trouble with that attitude is that whilst not having a ritual site doesn't fuck over the Fallen/Undead Characters very much from a purely IC perspective (instead of being in an area with a massive horde of Angels and Religious Fanatics seeking there destruction, they are instead 30 or so miles away with relatively undefended villages to subvert)
I think it's important - and necessarily responsibility of the players - to keep IC motives inline - as far as you have a free hand - with OOC motives.
In this case, you can choose to perceive the seasonal religious festival where almost all the important people of the New World get together as really significant or not. If you don't view it as significant IC, then you have only yourself to blame if your character decides to wander if it things get a bit difficult.
A more (I think) extreme version of the dilemma is what if you're effectively exiled (under threat of death) from events? Really, this just knocks the ball back into your court - it's your responsibility to create a character with a sufficiently strong motivation to attend - in that sense, it's best to create characters who are inclined to view the uptime events as significant (spineless cowards who view yak-yak politics as irrelevant compared to survival and the construction of new buildings/items are going to be hard to justify keeping in the uptime game if threatened).
Illithidbix (3/3/2007)
Therefore the players of Fallen/Undead either give up and retire the characters (losing some of the coolest characters in the system) or else have to play secondaries (and I think you know how restricting that can be Marios)
I think secondaries play an important role in (i) allowing a pressure release valve and (ii) providing a really good incentive to equip your primary character with sufficient motivation not to wander off and force you to play a secondary.
I don't think it's an issue of people being unable to equip characters with strong motivations - merely getting caught out 'unprepared' as it were. In general, I think it would be good ("") if a bit more were made of the significance of the festivals - they aren't just convenient hook-up joints for merchants and traders (more like Christmass circa 1500, rather than Christmas circa 2000). There's no modern infrastructure which lets you get to places and find people who don't want to be found between events, short of outright invasion - no multimap, no yellow pages. Festivals are uniquely significant to everyone (or, at least, they should be for anyone who wants their character to keep attending/trying to attend even when the situation is adverse).
In that sense, I think it's important to think about your motivations before you attend events - i.e. what will make you scarper and what you'll play as a secondary if you do scarper.
Illithidbix (3/3/2007)
Frankly to me it seems like a metagame solution in the fact that people know that downtime isn't as real as uptime. Although I understand people might view this analysis as overly harsh.
I think it's just one of those things which you have to base your worldview around - observably it is the case that festivals offer rare opportunities to get things done which would otherwise be impractical.
Demons can go raid nearby villages as part of a downtime action - but they can't track down individual important people unless they attend/sneak into the festival.
Attending an event without a ritual circle is reasonably comparable to attending an event run by well-armed enemies - you're either going to get run-off (or killed if mortal) or you're going to have to alter your modus operandi to fit the situation (hide/keep your head/cut a deal/find some allies to protect you/launch a pre-emptive defence). 'Re-appearing' immortality is good, but probably not as good as 'all my enemies are dead' immortality.
Marios
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Wag
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If you prefer brevity:
Apocalypto > Pride and Prejudice.
Marios
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Squire
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I was apart of this rant on the Pagga board.
And i have a simple comment about how to make the Faithfull scared of the Eidolons.
If the Eidolons see someone being a pranny, offending the eidolons ( as divine entities of the gods) doing something that the gods frown upon... ect.... then i think we should be able to excommunicate people.
once a day, if they must. But Only eidolons know how hard it is to play eidolons.
I played an Eidolon of the Huntress, and was appalled ooc at the complete lack of respect i got. I was "sent" on mission by god to camp xyz (no names) and was told how i wasnt allowed a weapon, and how if i was a fallen eidolon they had abilities to kill me quickly, when i pointed out i was a Faithful of the Huntress and how it may anger the huntress to kill her servant unnessarily but they didnt believe me and said how it didnt matter if i was or not, they'd kill me if they thought i wasnt faithful.
I think people should be a bit less stat conscious when dealing with Eidolons, its because everyone knows they cant have any stats that people arent scared of them.
In a way its metagaming.
but anyway before i go on a rant.
my 2 pence
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