ooc

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Solitude
121

Note that St. Avery is not a pacifist - however, he does take issue with randomly trying to murder someone. Even within the context of the feudal system, people are still people - and only the most callous and entitled of the nobility(aka "sociopaths") just randomly kill people for being slightly in the way.

If this is the way Bastion is going to be played, that's fine - just know that St. Avery will call him out on it every single time he does so.

EDIT - and the ultimate insult by a fellow Bonisagus - calling one's intelligence into question.

122

Truth be told this is most a result of me being stupid, then seeing no real alternative than digging my heels in.

""Buuuut I can see no one but me cares about their plight and I'd rather not be marched over it so fine, we'll let them get on with their awful business.""

Basically at the moment I realise how stupid I was to do attack them like that, and now I'm trying to find an out while remaining somewhat consistent to my previous actions and not just doing a complete 180.

Essentially what I"m saying is I'm a complete idiot and I'll think a little more next time.

123

Heh - oh, so this was an actual PLAYER gaffe, rather than a PC thing?

No worries.

124

Yup almost entirely, but I can't really back out now because I already lit someone on fire, so may as well go full retard.

Me right now

125

No worries. If you like, we can roll with it, and have this be a role-playing point, rather than an RP accident. (ie, actually have the magi care for the nearly-crippled soldier for a couple of seasons, in order to ensure his speedy recovery, while at the same time attempting to downplay the whole thing with the bishop.)

However, that might be an RP side-quest that Pralix wasn't counting on.

EDIT - nice quote. :slight_smile:

EDIT II - That being said, I think these mini-scenes are Pralix's way of either introducing the characters to each other via minor dramatic points, or else doing a sort of meta-test in the "let's see how the PC's react to different aspects of medieval life and being part of the Order" sort of thing. I'm still up in the air as to whether or not it's actually a farie/infernal thing, in-game, though. (As this seems something that a farie would do.)

126

Writing up a reply now which will hopefully move to resolving things

Or maybe I'll create a new argument.

127

I'm waiting for Pralix to see how the woman responds...

I put one of them to sleep on the principal it had turned into a fight.

Anyway, you can't check for someone being a demon, but if Elizabeth gets some arcane connections, a scrap of clothes and some blood from the lady and man respectively, she can chuck some demon killing spells at them.

128

That was the general idea - either DEO them (to see if they start smoking and running around), or something along those lines.

129

For my part, I'm waiting to see how the bishop's soldiers react to what amounts to a lot of verbiage in Latin (which one or more of them may understand). Are they simply standing around while we discuss things? Have they moved to prevent the young man and the girl from just running away? I'm at least assuming that they aren't making threatening moves against us -- if they have recognized some of us as magi they certainly would be more fearful that agressive.

Personally, I am pretty sure these small scenes have two main objectives: help us try out our characters' abilities (so that both the sg and the players get a feeling of what we can or cannot easily do), and establish some sort of roleplay dynamic between the magi. There's almost certainly no big plot looming behind those. I do the same thing in the sagas I run. But I could be wrong! :laughing:

130

Yup, unless Kevin or anyone else wants to make another reply to Bastion then I think we're waiting on Pralix.

Didn't they lose control of their legs? I don't think they're doing much of anything.

131

Yeah, I think we're good - at least in terms of how much talking we've done in what is probably a pretty short (as Arthur mentioned) time.

Well, the effect itself was a base 2 ReCo "loose control of limb" effect - targeting their legs. My original thought was just that one leg would become complete jelly - in the "can't hold weight" sense. However, Pralix interpreted it as a "both legs lock up", which also works.

132

If that lone fighter isn't even able to follow a simple suggestion to help save his life, he is certainly not worth having at our service. No matter how good he is.

133

Submitting to arrest is probably just death delayed. Regardless, the sudden attack pretty clearly marks him as the bad guy in this situation.

134

I was suggesting that he surrender to us, with the details of a trial to be negociated with the relevant authorities. That was a compromise solution that would have left him in our custody, not the spearmen's, in order to safeguard him from summary execution.

135

I'm not sure there's any "good" of "Bad" guys here, only soldiers following orders and noble following chivalry code.

136

After all that has transpired, I don't think that's a terrible idea, it's a bit late where I am but Bastion will probably do the same as Clovis considering that the night chose not to be rational.

137

Eh, the knight is in the wrong, IMO - while he's superficially acting chivalric, actual codes of chivalry would have him admire his love from afar and be courteous to her in a fairly chaste sort of way. What he's doing right now is acting like a horny moron with a veneer of self-righteous, short-sighted 'honor'.

Girl doesn't want to be in a convent? Well, she's a minor. even in modern society, minors have to go to the schools that their parents send them to - and if they run away, they get hauled back by the cops. The only real justification for this is if there was actually some sort of abuse going on that authority figures refused to acknowledge - such as sexual abuse, or maybe actual diabolism, or something.

Toing it down a notch - if she was refusing to marry someone she hated, that might be a thing. (Even at the time you could get a sympathetic ear for that sort of story.) And whether or not her father/parents could force her into something like that depended on time and place, although I'm pretty sure the Catholic church has never condoned forced marriages. Of course, there are always unofficial pressures to marry, but I'm pretty sure the Church requires both parties to actually say "yes"- and in looking it up, it seems that a forced marriage is grounds for annulment in Catholicism.

Outside that - she's a freakin' noblewoman. She's got it better than 95% of the population, and she's deciding to act like a petulant teenager. (Which, based on the age, is actually appropriate.) It's just that her actions have now gotten 2 people killed, and is looking to get another person killed (the knight), as well. Although it could very well be the knight's fault for pushing her into this course of action - or even some adults encouraging the behavior (a la Romeo&Juliet - freakin' monk...)

So - unless there's more going on here that we don't know about (which there probably is), the knight and lady are in the wrong, IMO.

138

Pralix, what's the level of Muto Vim level of difficulty for changing the implementation of a guideline in a spell? In context, I'd like to have St. AVery MuVi his Dragon's Eternal Oblivion into a Demon's Eternal Oblivion - just to check that no one is possessed. This would be similar to changing a transformation spell that changed the target into a dog, rather than a cat.

Personally, I rate it as a "minor' change, in that the MuVi guidelines include "using a different guideline within the TeFo" as a Moderate change. (As such, using the same guideline, only differently, should be easier). However, the Minor changes say that you can't modify "the primary effect" of the spell. So, if "primary effect" means guideline, then it can change it. If "primary effect" means implementation, then it can't.

Unfortunately, I have never found an actual definition for "primary effect" in the book. The main problem is that the MuVi guidelines were imported from 4th Edition, and even then they were kinda vague.

Again - I like the idea of using MuVi to easily change how spells work, simply because I don't care much for buying the same spell over and over again, just to get it to work slightly differently. As such, I'm cool with having 1 main spell, and then several easier MuVi effects that you can use to play around with it a bit. (This is mainly for Vim realm changes, MuCo shapeshifting, and probably CrAu weather phenomena - in essence any guideline that you may want to implement a number of different ways.)

It also makes MuVi a viable thing to study - as otherwise you need to have a specialist MuVi guy to get into the levels at which it is useful. (Ie, if changing a guideline is a Moderate change, you may as well just learn the original spell over again, as it's going to be just as difficult to MuVi it. But if it's a minor change, the player can choose to take the additional difficulty roll and extra time to learn an easier spell. This creates more options for the player, which I consider a good thing.)

However, others have disagreed with my interpretation - mainly on the "primary effect" clause - which I can understand.

139

@kevin: No idea. Ask the forum, ideally with a poll.

140

This is what happened in the last scene (spoiler alert. Click the black bar repeatedly to read the spoiler)

[spoiler]I was trying to provide you guys with a captain of the guard and a scribe, both human[/spoiler]