Sage Hint - > NPC Camp

[GM-Mike]

And Debbie Does Dallas wasn't Shakespeare. It was Tennessee Williams.

[Esmerelda]

Where were YOU on Saturday? I was at the fort most of the day and there was LOTS of stuff going on! It's not the GMs fault if you were there to miss it....

[Wyrmwrath]

* ponders Mikes post wondering if its me or Eric that mike was calling a bastard before coming to the conclusion its likely both of us*

[cole45]

"This means that every sage hint is a (potential) combat situation for what are essentially non-combat characters. This means that all sages would need to rely on warriors to safely get their sage hints?"

Isn't risk and inter-dependance the entire POINT of the FH ruleset? So they are non coms, so what that they need warriors, I just don't see why this is an issue. Healers have to brawl, sages can too. Grab a warrior go down and get your hint, that's what ALL the sages in the Inn DO.

[Torakhan]

I've written and re-written my post about 10 times... but I'm really trying to not get emotional or aggressive about it. It's not my place. It's "their" game.

It's obvious the direction the GMs (at least the vocal ones) want to go with this. So be it.

[Wyrmwrath]

and who says the sage cant be a Sage/Knight or savage orc sage barbarian or...etc; making him/her other than a non combat PC.

[GM_Chris]

Well the vocal GM's, and I am positive Wayne would agree here, is that we want people out of game as little as possible while at the event. We also want NPC's out of character as little as possible while at the event.

This means that I don't want NPC's with hands above their heads. yes it is nessissary from time to time, but I really want it minimized.

As for the Sage Skill.

Original Intent for Takki

The reason it is 15 minutes or what ever the time is was because sage was suppose to be used during a plot when time was of the essence. You have 15 minutes to solve a puzzle before you all die and you only brought 1 sage well bummer no 3rd level hint for you.

Now when you are bebopping around town you can always find 3 sages to research anything you want.

Basically, I think I might be cool with the hand over the head if the sage skill was 15 minutes if on a plot ond 3 to 5 hours when not on a plot. That way I am looking at maybe 3 trips to NPC camp per event.

OR I would be willing to do hand over the head if we said you can only get general plot hints during the game break on Saturdays.

Thoughts?

[Malphus]

COUGH COUGH BASTARD COUGH

Asthma?

[Wyrmwrath]

and the general plot hint required you go to eat with the GMs and pick up the tab!

[Malphus]

Eat with? I misread that....I didn't see the "with"

yuck

[dier_cire]

Actually, sages are the second most powerful general combat class in the game due to their lack of armor restrictions. Aaron played Arthos and was on par with most warriors.

Didn't the sage used to have a skill that took like an hour?

[Torakhan]

Sorry about this... I've been trying to figure out how to write this for two days (watching the updates on the site as it sits on my screen) with the least ammount of aggression or making it sound like I'm looking for changes... but it's going to sound like that from here on down. Sorry about that. I'm just saying these thoughts "out loud" so that it's not something kept bottled up inside. These are my thoughts, and I understand that the game will be what it is and I may be alone in these thoughts. I'm not asking or begging for change, I'm just giving my sole opinion and concerns.
In the end, it's my decision to play or not to play a game if I so see fit. And no, that's not a threat... that's what you're supposed to do when you're playing someone else's game that you're not forced to attend (LARP or otherwise).

Actually, sages are the second most powerful general combat class in the game due to their lack of armor restrictions. Aaron played Arthos and was on par with most warriors.

Well, considering that the other options of classes (other than Warrior) for combat are Empaths, Healers and Rogues... the tier of "combat usefulness", or the chart of how effective the Paths are in physical-swort-swinging combat is pretty much a curve, I would imagine. Sage represents the "everyman" for anyone who doesn't want to be a Warrior, Rogue, Healer or Empath. I would guess that in this world, 90% of the world would be "Sages" if they had to pick a Path.

But we're not talking about if someone can swing a sword or not. It sounds like you think that it's a mechanical reason why Sages wouldn't want to go out into combat. That's not the case that I'm presenting. It's about making up a bad artificial IC excuse for an OOC action that is baddly thought out. Why would a character who's method of acquiring such sagely information go wander out into the dangrous woodland JUST because OOC there isn't a GM in the room? That's the only excuse why a Sage has to wander outside and go up to NPC camp--because there isn't a GM closer to them. Period. If a GM or someone was there with the Sage Hint that person/character would not have to go to NPC camp. And it's not a safety issue either, like why Warriors can't swing at heads, or why archers can't draw back harder on their bows to make better shots.
If a Sage wants to go out into the woods, or walk to another villiage IC to get the answers, then so be it. That's an In Character action that will result in the consequences. But why artifically make them walk out to NPC camp IC in order to accomplish it just because there's no GM standing next to them when they finish their Recall skill? Why not make every Healer have to walk up to NPC camp when they want to heal, or every Alchemist have to walk to NPC camp when they make a potion? Every Craftsman go to NPC camp when they repair or make anything? Funny how none of this would affect warriors...

It often seems more like the GMs can't understand how a player could enjoy the game without at least a chance of combat or a situaton turning into a confrontation at every turn. While no scene should be without the ability for a danger to come into it if need be, there is no need for every situation to be placed in danger.

The effect is that it feels to me more like Final Haven is less "LARP with Foam Combat", and more like "Foam Combat with LARP". It appears the vocal GM staff is unable to think that the game can have any roleplaying that doesn't involve GM or NPC created combat or antagonism within the scene, even one where a character wouldn't even be in such an artificial situation. Maybe this is because the vocal players get upset when they are sitting around bored while others are enjoying their time of non-combat roleplaying. It's always easy for a scene to break down into physical combat. But maybe the bar's been lowered to reach the lowest common interest. It's just something I'm getting tired of, though I realize I'm on the far Left of the combat spectrum... I'm not a White Sash, but I'm a non-com.

But this is the direction that the game is going in, and rather than making an issue with hopes of change and taking away from other people's fun, I'll let them have their fun and just find other things to do with my time. That's the civilized way of handling this sort of situation. (Now, if I was forced to pay for the event whether or not I went, then I would have a problem... but I vote with my attendance, as does everyone else. ) I may be the only one with this opinion, and that's fine. If everyone else is having fun with this, then why should I try to change it? I'm just voicing my opinion so that it's not something I have to talk about behind other people's backs.

However, the clarification that has been presented here (regardless of whether or not other people think is fair or not) is that, as far as the rules state the facts are thus:
If there is no GM present to give a Sage Hint to a character once they have performed their Recall ability, Players must play their characters walking to the OOC NPC camp In Character in order to get a sage hint AFTER spending the 15 minutes allotted to get the hint. That is the rule and that is how it must be played if you want use the Master Sage "Recall" ability.

Correct?

[Tullus]

I agree with Art. Here is my example of what the rule sounds like. There is this obelisk in the forest. It has the possibility of attracting monsters and other forms of baddies. A person roleplays in character that they are reading, talking aloud to themselves, scrying with crystals, etc.; In order to find what should be done about a situation. Then the same character says, "Darn it! I can't seem to think without walking to this possibly dangerous obelisk."

That, to me ,just sounds plain weird. Not quite freakin' weird. Yet it's almost there.

The thing about speaking with each other online, this has been talked about before, is that no one knows about others emotions on a subject without an emote, phone call, or very long explaination. I suppose some are taking Art seriously. Even then there can be misinterpretations on feelings. Yet others who would get incredibly frustrated in other game related rules are making fun at the situation or are not even trying to think of how this rule may be somewhat strange. I feel it's a form of being close minded. Something I know that many, including myself, have been guilty of being.

It's easy to see how a person would need protection if they were going out to get alchemical materials. Yet, to need protection or even having to leave the area you're in, to think!? That's just plain weird.

Edit: I mean this in walking to the 'obelisk' in character. Rather than o.o.c. walking to npc camp. Just for clarification. I think going there o.o.c. in that situation is fine. It seems a logical way of thinking without having to walk large distances in game. So that's my vote, Chris.

[dier_cire]

Well, the point is the rules clearly demonstrate the skill is not "just thinking". It takes more. If the player cannot figure out a way to work this mechanic into their roleplaying, then I'd say they need to think harder. I mean, hell, you have to go to the bathroom right? Well considering in other locations (or most medieval fantasy), we don't have indoor bathrooms, consider the time walking to NPC a culmination of all the times your character might be heading to the bathroom and be vunerable to attack.

It's really not hard to work the mechanic into a concept. But creating a concept that doesn't fit into the rules and complaining about it is just dumb. My old CARPS character doesn't fit into the rules for FH so I did something crazy, modified the character concept to make it fit.

As for the GMs not understanding PC vs. PC interaction, you do realize the number of events that I've seen where the GMs have stepped back to let the PCs deal with their internal isses? And how would GMs adding combat type adventures at all hinder others non-combat roleplaying?

[GM-Mike]

A couple more things from one of the vocal GMs

First, we spend ten to twenty times as many man hours on non-combat puzzles, plots, role playing for the minority of players who enjoy that kind of thing than we do on combat plots that the majority enjoy. Why? Because we are trying to tailor to both sides, because we think it is a very important part of the game, and because we don't just want to be a combat LARP. I believe that more often than not we do strike some sort of balance though admittedly, not all of these things, maybe not even most of them come to and play out entirely in the inn, so it's possible to miss them.

Now back to Sage. I think the thing that is frustrating from our side is simply this: What you are suggesting has been tried, done, and playtested for many many years at a game called CARPS, a game that the people who run this game created, played in, and loved (in fact still love). To suggest that we are close minded about this issue is simply not correct. We've been there, we've lived it, we know what the problems with it are, and we believe that keeping everyone in game all the time is the best way to fix those problems. If it comes off like we are insulted, then it is because we don't feel we get enough credit. Of course we can see it is strange. We are not blind. We are simply saying this is the lesser of two problems and we know this through YEARS of empirical data collection.

If we seem insulted and defensive in other ways, it's probably because we spend hours, days, weeks on noncombat story and plot and then to have that work reduced to "Foam Combat with LARP" is alarming. If we are truly failing to that degree, then we need to relook at what it is we are doing, and I'm sorry that that is your experience.

Again, back to Sage, I'm simply going to repeat what I said before. We can admit that it is a little strange, but if after years and years and years (ie over a decade) of running these LARPS, after seeing the problems on both sides and factoring into the FACT that Sagely danger to and fro NPC camp is so rare to the point of laughter, we feel that this is the better proposal.

Now, I agree with Chris that we should return NPC camp to more the peasant village as it was when we first started the game, that even we were always in game or tried to be. Maybe you should think of it instead this way: Not even Sages have all the answers, but only Sages know how to get the answers. Not everything is kept in a neat little book that you keep in the inn, but perhaps you remember seeing something about that in a book that one of the Elders had. Only one way to find out, better make that very short, pretty darn safe journey to the peasant village and check that book out.