Light/Dark Keepers Discussion

[Shadowlord]

I don't necessarily like the idea of adding towers that are explicitly aligned with Light/Dark. From an RP perspective, this would hamper someone who doesn't see themselves aligning with one or either of those from trying to hold each tower at least once (because really an "evil" aligned character really shouldn't be able to hold a "Light" tower). From an OOC and RP perspective, allowing a "dark" aligned character to hold the "light" tower (and not affect its alignment) or vice versa seems a little ridiculous too.

To avoid this, adding something similar, such as Life/Spirit, where Life is more or less tied to physical nature (animals, plants, etc.), and Spirit to the spiritual world (undead spirits, shamanistic spirits, angels, demons, etc., but not elementals as those are controlled by the elemental Towers already) may be more preferable. (Side note: I'm not proposing trying to match things up with any Opals. Any resemblance between Towers and Opals should be purely coincidental and not by design.) This removes the "alignment" issues of residing in/claiming a specific tower (if your goal is to add towers), and works even if the Light/Dark alignment isn't used. Light/Dark towers could still be used intermittently or added later on.

You know, I'd just been having very similar thoughts - the removal of alignment considerations, good/evil etc - along the lines of Light being 'positive', or aggressive energy, and Dark being 'negative' or defensive energy. In extremely simple terms. Someone who's evil could certainly find uses for positive magic, and the same goes for a good mage using negative. I like your idea of Life/Spirit, too!

So, whatever the terms used, I think it can be done in RP. A new title holder decides 'alignment', which is a concept I think most are comfortable with.

[Esperwind]

Okay, so I missed the whole Keeper of Light/Darkness bit. If they aren't the equivalent of Keeper of Good/Evil (which is how I felt they were being portrayed in this thread) then I'm not as opposed to them. Again, I just don't really want to see Towers/Keepers irrecoverably tied to a specific "alignment".

[Esperwind]

Light being 'positive', or aggressive energy, and Dark being 'negative' or defensive energy. In extremely simple terms. Someone who's evil could certainly find uses for positive magic, and the same goes for a good mage using negative.

I felt the Tower of Fire really was about energy (adding or removing). When Vanion tainted it, it was certainly negative energy. Esper's aspect did not match Vanion's, but it still wasn't bright, happy, fire magic. Esper flames may appear white, but they have negative aspects (draining heat away, soul searing, etc., somewhat similar to the "coldfire" of C.S.Friedman's trilogy) to them. Someone putting a positive aspect on Fire could possibly translate it to the "warmth of life" and use it to heal, spark a fire in people's hearts, etc., so I would be against the Light/Dark tower creation as energy aspected towers based on those already being within the aspect of Fire (at least in the way that I envisioned it).

[Andrea Anderson]

Light and Dark isn't really black and white as good / evil. Even the most pure people can work in the dark for their own reasons. The same with the most evil people using the light as a way to hide away their own evil-doings. It's mostly a perspective thing.

Shadow Priests in WoW aren't exactly evil. And you had a priest of the light becoming a tool to the Old Gods in World of Warcraft. Light and Darkness shouldn't really align good or evil, it should align what a person wishes to be at the time.

Someone is a ninja-type of character? They might pick the Tower of Dark since it could allow better usage of shadows and the darkness. Some corrupted sorcerer could use light so that they could perform blinding spells and other such things to keep their enemies dizzied or in a state of blindness.

The same personal perspective can be seen with Fire and Light. Fire is Fire, Light is Light. They both might provide the same things to some, but Light can be used more religiously or divine, while Fire at its core is simply a base element of one of the big 4. Dark isn't really covered on the Isle. Shadow abilities and what not. Some might say the Celestial Tower could be it's reflection since it deals with the depths of space and stuff, but meh.

It's pretty much going to go down to the perspective of each individual player. It will, hopefully, spark RP -- which I think is Lems intent. What some might view the towers as - others don't.

It's like with the Opals. Some dislike the usage of Opals + Towers being connected somehow, etc. But that dislike doesn't mean players should have to follow the perspective of another individual.

The tower of Light / Darkness has been used already IIRC and it was Neos creation.

Mechanic wise. There's been an upswing in challenges for DoM. Adding a new Tower might not be so bad. DoM is also lacking really in Storylines. It's been that way for a good while. The boards are a ghost-town and the only real activity seems to be challenges. Anything that can spark RP = A good thing.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Sir_Zeliek I'd like to see this guy hold the Tower of Light.

IMO. If the Tower of Dark/Light does give a buff to anyone, the Tower Holder should have no grace period. If there's no buff.. RP wise? Keep it contested and have no grace period. Maybe make it so only mages can challenge for it. Though some might say there needs to be a reason beyond RP Fluff of making the Isle Darker or Lighter there. Maybe allow the Dark/Light Keeper to use their EF within normal dueling? Though this might make them more overpowered than the Archmage. It's hard to think about.

There's already five towers and the drawing in of community RP or visible RP on the board is slim to none. Some might say adding another Tower might not fix this problem.

It's a good concept either way. But there should be a balance to..

1: Keep Archmage as the most sought after title for DoM
2: Keep normal towers relevant enough.

If the Tower of Light/Dark was Mage-only, it should be in the middle ground between those.

[Vanion Shadowcast]

Some thoughts here, in response to Apple, Shadow and Esperwind:

- I agree with Esper's idea of not anchoring the new Towers to Good/Evil aligned characters, as was my initial proposal here. I don't have a super strong preference on the name of additional Towers, as whatever they are can be bent around a storyline.

- I don't think that new Tower/s should be Mage-only and that their Keepers should be able to challenge for Archmage. I'd honestly rather see them follow the same ruleset of the other Towers, particularly if we're leaning towards making Sorc the new rank for challenge pre-requisite.

- I like the idea of Archmage counting for two slots, and this would allow for a completely neutral alignment of the Towers (4 vs 4).

- I do think that Keepers should have to choose to tune their Tower in one direction or the other. As I mentioned initially, if balance is what they seek, then they might find themselves tuning their Tower in either direction, situationally. Forcing them to choose means that everyone's invested in what would be an ongoing struggle.

- I do think that this would increase the amount of roleplay and rivalries on the Isle in a more permanent and longterm way.

[Shadowlord]

Some thoughts here, in response to Apple, Shadow and Esperwind:

- I agree with Esper's idea of not anchoring the new Towers to Good/Evil aligned characters, as was my initial proposal here. I don't have a super strong preference on the name of additional Towers, as whatever they are can be bent around a storyline.

- I don't think that new Tower/s should be Mage-only and that their Keepers should be able to challenge for Archmage. I'd honestly rather see them follow the same ruleset of the other Towers, particularly if we're leaning towards making Sorc the new rank for challenge pre-requisite.

- I like the idea of Archmage counting for two slots, and this would allow for a completely neutral alignment of the Towers (4 vs 4).

- I do think that Keepers should have to choose to tune their Tower in one direction or the other. As I mentioned initially, if balance is what they seek, then they might find themselves tuning their Tower in either direction, situationally. Forcing them to choose means that everyone's invested in what would be an ongoing struggle.

- I do think that this would increase the amount of roleplay and rivalries on the Isle in a more permanent and longterm way.

My only comment here, is that I don't think Keepers should be forced to tune their Tower any certain way, should they so choose. This is designed to enhance the roleplay environent, but not at the expense of free-form choice. Alignment, in these terms, is different than Barons in DoS being aligned Renegade or Loyal. And I'm not saying good or evil alignment, just to be clear. But if someone doesn't want to align Light/Dark, Life/Spirit, Positive/Negative, then that should be their choice to make.

[Vanion Shadowcast]

Well, you can definitely make your counter-suggestion work with a few small adjustments.

Let's assume that we're taking a system with seven total towers (two new towers), where the Celestial Tower counts twice for balancing purposes (a sound suggestion). In that case, the numbers that I would suggest for balancing would be:

Tier One Mechanic Bonuses: +2 Towers (ex: 5light vs 3dark vs 0 neutral, or 4light vs 2 dark vs 2 neutral, etc)

Tier Two Mechanic Bonuses: +3 Towers (ex: 5light vs 2 dark vs 1 neutral, or 6light vs 2dark vs 0neutral, or 3dark vs 0light vs 4neutral, etc)

It's just a slight restructuring and balancing of the pre-requisites and certainly doable. You just have to balance those numbers with the idea in mind that none or the majority of Keepers could align neutral. To me, the +2 and +3 numbers seem to be the best balance there.

Having 6 neutral Keepers and 1 dark Keeper just doesn't seem like it should beg for a bonus. If there are no neutral keepers, going +4 or higher gets ridiculous when considering the weight of Archmage, the infrequency of new Archmages and the potential for neutral Towers.

[Lem DeAngelo]

All personal opinion here:

My main concern with alignment is that I don't think anything should overshadow the Archmage. I'm concerned that if we have Light/Dark Towers and Light/Dark alignments then that will overshadow the Celestial Tower.

If there are alignments, I like the idea of having a neutral option.

RP wise, I'm not sure we would have to tie anything to the previous towers as they were temporary without a back story. I'd prefer to see any new towers introduced with a storyline as to how they appeared on the Island other than "Lem made the goblins build them."

If tower alignment were to count towards an effect on the Island and perhaps in game bonus, perhaps all duelists could choose alignment and we could track Light vs. Dark duels all cycle and declare one side the victor at the end of the cycle? That gets everyone involved and allows for more interaction. Although, I'm sure there could be times where a heavy majority chose 1 side over the other and there may only be a few qualifying duels. And if there is a neutral option, that could complicate things further. After typing this, I'm not sure all duelists aligning would work out, but posted this paragraph in case it spurred someone else to have a good idea.

[Esperwind]

I apologize for this post. It’s not as organized as I would like, but if I wait to get it perfectly organized, it won’t get posted. It’s just a refinement of some of these various ideas. I am also not pushing to have this implemented, it is merely an entertaining discussion at this point.

You would want to keep things relatively simple, both to implement and track. Duelists would declare an alignment(Light/Neutral/Dark, we wouldn’t want to use good/neutral/evil, as those labels while potentially accurate could be viewed negatively) , which could be listed on the Standings. Their alignment would be OOC information. Initially everyone would be declared neutral until they officially took a position. This would make the initial setup a nightmare for the Standings Keeper. We would also want to keep the alignments recorded of duelists who dropped off the standings. Duelists would be allowed to change their alignment once per standings release and it would take effect when the standings were released.

A Keepers’ alignment would affect their tower’s aspect , and the overall alignment balance of the Keepers/Archmage would affect the balance of the alignment/aspect of the magic on the Isle. All duelists (not just the Keepers) of the dominant alignment (Light/Neutral/Dark) would get a +1 Foci boost (even beyond 3, so a total of 4 could be had). This would keep things simpler than some of the alternatives proposed. Doing more than this I feel would be tough to implement and track consistently. This would make everyone involved (whether they liked it or not) and could encourage more participation in shifting the power status back and forth, if that’s what you’re going for. If people don’t like it, they can all just choose “neutral” and everyone just gets a free foci. The alignment shift would affect the overall aspect of the Isle for RP purposes.

Now Lem doesn’t want this to overshadow the Archmage. Counting the Keepers as 1 and the AM as 2 does give the AM more influence. In the AM tourney finals, a boosted AM versus a non boosted Mage may be a really tough battle for the Mage, while a boosted Mage versus a non boosted AM may give more of an advantage to the Mage, but maybe these aren’t bad things. If we added 2 towers (and we would probably want to for this) so we had 6 Keepers and one Archmage, this would bring the total count to 8. Now, here is where you could play with numbers. With 8 you could have 4/4/0 or 3/3/2 ties, where no alignment was dominant, and in this case either nobody gets the extra foci, or maybe the two tied both sides do (maybe in the 4/4/0, but not 3/3/2?). Now, if one side got 8/0/0, someone might argue that the dominant side should get more of a benefit (2 foci). That could likely be too unbalancing, or maybe we allow the imbalance (life isn’t always fair, and sometimes it’s more fun if it’s more challenging) and the other sides actually have to fight to shift it back.

Please critique.

[Shadowlord]

I like it. Still a bit leery of anything giving more than 3 foci, but I could live with it.

I think the best part is the ArchMage having extra 'alignment weight', if you will. The AM has always been something of a first among equals, and this is consistent with that.

[Vanion Shadowcast]

I'm not sold on every single duelist getting benefits based on the Keeper balance, or on the balance being determined by all duelists and their respective alignments. Let me explain.

+1 foci is a big boost, IMO. The ability to score 1.5 points has largely changed the metagame for DoM already. Making it blanket is a big shift, I feel. Additionally, newer duelists are going to align themselves with whatever side is dominant, which is going to create a larger gap between the "two sides".

As it stands, the entire concept assumes that "dark" will be able to drum up enough duelists to contend with "light". Having played Vanion for a long time, and him being inherently evil, I can say that I don't think the numbers are anywhere close to comparable. I suspect a 4:1 or larger ratio in terms of "good" characters vs "evil" characters, even not counting "neutral" characters.

By keeping the contest contained within just the balance of the Towers vs one another, you give a chance for there to be competition. If the competition opens up to everyone, I just don't see it being much of a competition at all due to the numbers.

Additionally, adding a lot of tracking for all duelists can become a bit of a nightmare. I don't think that the additional work will yield much overall value.

If you keep the "contest" to Towers only, you will encourage consistent challenges, ongoing rivalries - and a reason for newer duelists to be active enough to reach the rank of (Sorc?) to be able to partake in this part of the game.

As to the mechanics themselves, I'm definitely not too worried about what the "boost" should be, beyond balanced.

+ 1 Tier (4 Towers vs 3 Towers): Keepers of the dominating side earn the ability to regain a foci (up to a maximum of 3) whenever they successfully score with a ___ (REFLECT for Light-side, FOUL FOG for Dark-side).

+ 3 Tier (5 Towers vs 2 Towers): Keepers of the dominating side earn the ability to cast ELEMENTAL FURY once per duel, regardless of their opponent's rank, after they successfully score with a ___ (SHIELD for Light-side, GHOST FORM for Dark-side).

I suggested this, because I think it'd be an interesting high level metagame addition that wouldn't break anything. You could simplify to give Keepers of the dominating side +1 foci, or +1 foci against other Keepers/Mages at the very least.

I don't think that the specifics of the bonus are the key to getting this right in so much as defining the objective and creating a system to achieve it effectively over a long period of time.

[Esperwind]

I left tracking for individual duelists out on purpose. I had considered having some counts associated with which alignment had won the most duels for that week or cycle, but decided against it, as it would again make the Standings Keeper's life even more difficult, and really the Keepers should be able to have a much greater overall influence anyway. The alignment of the Keepers would determine the overall alignment/aspect of the Isle's magic.

I do think that the aspect should influence everyone, otherwise it just becomes another thing that can be ignored. +1 foci is a big boost. +2 foci would be, as I said, really unbalancing. Having to beat an Archmage with 5 foci in a best of 3 matchup would be really tough (in which case maybe you'd want to get a couple of your friends to unseat a Keeper or two before the challenge). Both could be big motivators for getting people actively involved.

[Esperwind]

I do think that the aspect should influence everyone, otherwise it just becomes another thing that can be ignored.

And, the other thing is, since (at the moment) anyone ranked Enchanter or higher can challenge for Keeper, almost everyone can attempt to influence the aspect if they so choose.

[Vanion Shadowcast]

It might be a little easier to digest it affecting everyone if you don't name your alignment until you reach Sorcerer rank (which seems to be the popular choice for the new rank requirement for Keeper challenging), and the boost only affects Sorcerers+. I definitely think that newbs and new alts coming in will choose the dominant side every time, if it means they get to start off with one focus.

Alternatively, I'd counter with part of my proposal, being allowing people to regenerate foci up to their maximum potential by scoring using a key spell. That feels more fair to me, and could affect everyone. Perhaps you limit regenerations by domination tiers (1 regen per duel for +1 Tier, or 2 regens per duel for +3 - something along those lines).

[Esperwind]

Alternatively, I'd counter with part of my proposal, being allowing people to regenerate foci up to their maximum potential by scoring using a key spell. That feels more fair to me, and could affect everyone. Perhaps you limit regenerations by domination tiers (1 regen per duel for +1 Tier, or 2 regens per duel for +3 - something along those lines).

From a perspective of having officiated DoM for eight years in various states of mind, mood, distraction, and consciousness , I feel that rules that are this conditional would be tough for an official to consistently and reliably administer. It would also be more confusing for to learn from a duelist's perspective. Making it this conditional also seems to minimalize its effect, and may make it less worthwhile to pursue.