ON MAGIC

ON THE USE OF MAGIC OBJECTS

ON THE DISTAFF ROLE IN SORCEROUS MATTERS (Found on a different page)

ON PRESCIENCE

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NOTE : I have more experience on Fantasy Mushes than any other genre, but for "magic" read any sort of unusual abilities that the typical or "mundane" PC won't have and is probably unlikely to be able to withstand in IC terms, such as comic book superpowers, science fiction psychic powers, fantasy spellcasting, etc., and you'll have the general idea. "Magic" is a nice short word and adequate for my purposes, and PCs who can use special powers will be referred to as "magic-users" or "spellcasters" for the sake of simplicity.

Sample of what could go wrong

Five motives for casting a spell

Four degrees of damage inflicted by a spell

SAMPLE OF WHAT COULD GO WRONG

You're some sort of VIP on a mush. You're currently online and available for consultation by Players with problems, but basically idling while you go through your e-mail in another window. Occasionally you glance at the Mush connection to see if any crises have arisen lately.

Suddenly it comes to your attention that the PC called Sybil (a magic-user, specializing in certain telepathic functions) has ICly used her power on PC Coren (a mundane, with no inherent defense against such mental tricks) to make him completely forget a controversial subject she prefers not be bothered with for the time being. "After all, how could he possibly stop me from doing it?" is her main point (OOCly).

And Coren is OOCly objecting that he didn't give consent, that he didn't have fair warning, that she is powerposing this induced amnesia as something that has already happened and he can't possibly avoid, etc. They can't agree on the solution, but they both agreed to pester you with their little problem and let you decide.

Now what do you do?

If you scratch your head and say, "Gee, I'll have to think that over for a day or two, or maybe a week to be on the safe side, take time to consult the other Wizards for their opinions, reach some sort of consensus, and get back to you!" then you've not exactly impressed them with your strong leadership style.

On the other hand, if you can patiently refer them to an online rules file spelling out what the balance between IC Magical Ability and OOC Consent Rules is considered to be on this mush, one which any literate reader ought to be able to examine and find some clear policies relating to what magic-users can get away with, then you and your fellow VIPs planned ahead for this kind of thing and did all you could to keep this argument from coming up, and to make sure it would be resolved as quickly as possible when it did. Pat yourself on the back!

I've seen mushes that take the totally consent-based position that you can't inflict a magic spell on another character's mind or body without his OOC permission, period (you can pose casting one, but it doesn't knock him over unless he lets it happen, is the idea). I've seen them take the position that a magic-user can cast any spell he darn well pleases without IC or OOC warning, its efficacy only limited by any coded systems that may apply (such as rolling virtual dice to see if he made a "hit" or not) and/or the IC magical defenses of his victim (if any), and the victim just has to live (or die) with the consequences. I've seen intermediate positions. Obviously the people who actually create any given mush have the right to hammer out their own policy to suit their own conception of the theme et cetera, and I'm not going to try to "sell" a particular POV to you on this matter. I merely stress that the important thing is to make sure that WHATEVER policy you choose is clearly and coherently expressed in writing BEFORE serious Roleplay begins so that these arguments can be resolved as quickly as possible by pointing to the rules and saying, "It's all covered right there, people! PLEASE Read it before you bother me again!"

FIVE MOTIVES FOR CASTING A SPELL

NOTE : Having started with the example of Sybil and Coren, I shall continue to discuss the Target as Male and the Magic-User as Female, for simplicity. This does not mean that I think only female PCs should be allowed to use magic, or anything of the sort :)

Examining the matter, I feel that there are five basic motives a spellcaster might have in casting a spell on a victim without the victim having explicitly consented in advance. Each position is summarized with the words the spellcaster might say if interrogated by you after the fact.

1) "I felt like it, so I cast a spell on him."

2) "He nonviolently provoked me, so I cast a spell on him."

3) "He threatened violence against me, so I cast a spell on him."

4) "He was already a known enemy, so I cast a spell on him."

5) "He attacked me, so I cast a spell on him."

I FELT LIKE IT, SO I CAST A SPELL ON HIM

This one sums up the position at one "extreme," the idea that a magic-user can ICly do anything he pleases, and the people around him just have to live with it. Consent rules basically do not apply to spellcasting situations (unless - conceivably - you follow this philosophy, but limit it with just one or two little rules such as, "A magic-user cannot actually KILL a PC without OOC consent").

HE NONVIOLENTLY PROVOKED ME, SO I CAST A SPELL ON HIM

"Nonviolently provoked" is a beautifully vague term. I've seen arguments arise on mushes where the magic-using policies were NOT clearly defined concerning these matters. From the magic-user's perspective, the issues might include these questions:

"If he insults me and/or is generally ICly rude, can I cast a spell on him?"

"If he argues with me heatedly (over politics, for example), can I cast a spell on him?"

"If his dialogue indicates he doesn't think I'm really a magic-user at all, or doesn't think I'm a very strong one, can I cast a spell on him?"

"If he's blocking the door when I want to go out, can I cast a spell on him?"

"If he tries to turn his back on me and walk away when I feel our conversation has not yet ended, can I cast a spell on him to keep him in the room so he'll have to listen to me?"

"If he's making lots of irritating noise (like playing a song I ICly hate) and won't shut up, can I cast a spell on him?"

The main problem is, that in MANY cases the magic-user shoots first and asks questions later (if at all), i.e. encounters some situation such as one of the above, says to herself, "Gee, he's provoking me! He's not actually attacking me, but he's sure provoking me!" and ASSUMES she can retaliate with a forceful spell WITHOUT any OOC discussion of the matter with the target. The target is often shocked by this "bullying," and they both appeal to the Wizards. If the Wizards don't have a coherent policy ready to go, the whole thing becomes a nightmare.

If you intend to permit "non-violent provocation" as a fair reason to cast a spell without OOC discussion with the target first, but don't feel that a magic-user should be permitted to cast a spell ANY time she feels "provoked," you might want to look over these examples and figure out just what degree of "provocation" is appropriate.

HE THREATENED VIOLENCE AGAINST ME, SO I CAST A SPELL ON HIM

Hmm. This one seems fairly reasonable, even in the really Consent-Based Mushes, but (as always) it would behoove us to define terms. Possible "threatening" situations could include:

"He said, Do this or I'll shoot you!"

That one seems open-and-shut. A direct threat of physical violence about to occur unless the magic-user stops it by a preemptive strike.

"He said, Do this or I'll arrest you for a felony!"

Hmm. This one is not necessarily a threat of violence (many people, when arrested, have been known to go along quietly." It sounds more like an explanation of the magic-user's legal position if he is reluctant to comply with a law or legitimate order.

"He said, Do this or I'll tell people you're a coward!"

Here we have the marvelously confusing situation of a personal threat that does NOT threaten physical violence, but does threaten something else. Even if your mush considers a VIOLENT threat to be just cause for spellcasting under the doctrine of "self-defense," does it consider this sort of thing to be equally deserving of a nasty spell in response to the threat? Your call, but think it over carefully.

HE WAS ALREADY A KNOWN ENEMY, SO I CAST A SPELL ON HIM

This one makes some sense, but again there are different possibilities.

A) Personal Enemy. The Magic-User and the Target had gone up against each other before, and each considered the other one a foe.

B) Institutional Enemy. Regardless of whether or not they had ever met, one of them belongs to an IC Organization (such as a military unit) which the other one, or HIS Organization, regards as an active threat (in Star Wars, for example, a Rebel would regard a man in Imperial Uniform or Stormtrooper Armor as a Known Enemy even if they had never seen or heard of one another personally). In this case, it would be nice if the Target OOCly was aware that the Magic-User would see him as an Enemy. If not, he should probably be warned.

HE ATTACKED ME, SO I CAST A SPELL ON HIM

Few people (I think) would challenge a magic-user's right to self defense if someone actually shot at her, stabbed at her, tried to inject her with poison, et cetera, WITHOUT carefully arranging things OOC in advance so that both sides knew how much damage the other one was actually prepared to give and/or receive.

FOUR DEGREES OF DAMAGE INFLICTED BY A SPELL

Now we go into the subject of overkill. I see at least four basic categories which a magic spell could fall into (from the Target's POV).

1) "She Killed Me!"

Does your mush permit this to be done, without the Target's consent? If so, but if you don't want to turn into a Pkill mud and feel killing is only justified "sometimes," then you ought to figure out just what gives "Just Cause." Self-defense against a violent attack might be a justifiable cause to stop a man's heart, for example, but his accidentally spilling a glass of water on your clothing probably would NOT be a good reason to kill him on the spot. So where do you draw the line?

2) "She Maimed Me!"

For purposes of discussion, I define "Maimed" as "Caused me significant - but not fatal - physical/mental damage which, in all probability (as far as my PC knows) cannot be cured anytime soon." Examples would involve chopping off an arm or leg, or destroying a PC's recent memory of something, or giving his face some hideous scars. Are these things permitted without OOC Consent? If so, under what circumstances?

3) "She Hurt Me!"

"Hurt" is used to mean anything less severe than maiming, but still a physical and/or mental inconvenience, such as a second-degree burn, or a sleep spell that's supposed to knock out the Target for an hour or two, or casting a pain spell that causes him to collapse on the floor screaming in agony, even though it does no permanent harm to his mind or body.

4) "She Did Something Non-Physically-Damaging Which I Didn't Like!"

Examples : causing all the money in his purse to change into pebbles, tying him up with invisible "ropes," reading his mind to find out something he wanted to keep secret.

One suggestion is to make a rule that if a Magic-User thinks she is justified in casting a spell, but the actual situation is not quite as open-and-shut as the other guy has already launched a direct attack on her, she is REQUIRED (not just "encouraged") to page a Warning to the Target concerning the danger of his current situation, and give him a chance to retreat. At the very least, this will make the Target happier and let him feel that his "rights" have been "respected." But that's just a suggestion.

ON THE USE OF MAGIC OBJECTS

NOTE : As always, "Magic" is used very loosely. A Magic Object is one which can perform some function a typical Player Character cannot easily perform by himself. This might be something "really" magical, such as a ring that turns you invisible when you put it on your finger, or just something very hard to obtain, such as a personal computer in a world where computers are considered instruments of the devil and thus almost impossible to find.

If a Newbie has come to your mush because of the theme, which is drawn from preexisting material such as a popular sword& sorcery series, or a futuristic science fiction TV show, or some other weird and wonderful world where people are depicted as having abilities and resources which the typical denizen of the Twentieth Century can only dream about, then it behooves you to consider ways to make them feel that in truth, they are actually "in" such a world, i.e. magical effects can be seen at regular intervals and even be included in their roleplay.

You probably don't intend to give EVERYONE access to "magical powers" such as changing their shapes, or reading minds, or flying through the air by sheer willpower, but you have to face the fact that it's quite likely that everyone will be happier if they get the chance to do roleplay involving such "special" occurrences. Sad to say, I have seen it happen that the Features, or High-Powered Characters, or whatever you want to call them, often congregate together for their high-powered RP and leave many poor commoners locked outside in the cold, mundane world, with no special effects to liven up their virtual lives. A detailed description of such an occurrence on a certain Fantasy Mush is available HERE.

How can this problem be overcome? One solution is the frequent use of Magic Objects, which can be distributed here and there to deserving Roleplayers of Mundane characters, to encourage enjoyable RP which makes use of the special opportunities provided by your particular theme. Consider, as the classic example, the way in which J.R.R. Tolkien was able to use his One Ring to profoundly influence the lives of several ordinary Hobbits, none of whom ever had any inherent "magic powers," but all of whom had many fascinating experiences as a direct result of the Ring's presence in their lives.

Some mushes take the bull by the horns and have online newsfiles stating that anyone is free to submit a proposal for a Magic Object to the appropriate Wizard, and if the proposal is approved (possibly with some strict guidelines being given on what he can or can't do with the Object), he is then free to create the Object, describe it appropriately, and begin using it in a TinyPlot with his friends. This is an excellent idea, but I feel that even then they aren't doing enough to help the typical Newbie enjoy the benefits of this option. For one thing, he may feel too diffident to want to

Some points on regulation of Magic Objects:

1) The designer, if not a Staffer, should be required to submit a Proposal to a qualified member of your Staff, with a complete description of how the silly thing works, what it can do, what its limitations are, etc. This will be OOC knowledge only, of course, but the file should be forwarded to anybody who takes IC possession of the Object so that they will know how to Roleplay its functions.

2) Possibly you will want the Staff to create the actual object, including any special coded functions it has (such as communicating with another object a long distance off, like a cellular phone), to make sure it is done properly. The Object could then be delivered to the designer and he could change ownership of it to his own character.

3) I heartily recommend that you require that all RP sessions including Magic Objects be logged and submitted to the Wizards for eventual publication (after the Object has been used long enough that reading the logs won't spoil any surprises for the rest of your regular Players). Aside from the entertainment value of being able to read the history of the Object, this will also help you quickly resolve any arguments that may arise over whether or not the Object's special powers are being abused, exaggerated, unjustly ignored, etc. Such arguments arise with depressing frequency.

SOME BASIC CATEGORIES OF "MAGIC OBJECTS"

1) Communicative. In the Classic Star Trek series, whenever Kirk and friends beamed down to a planet, their personal communicators that let them speak to a starship in orbit (and to each other across wide distances on the planet) could be called "magic objects" in those cases where the local natives did NOT have their own radio technology and did not immediately understand what it meant. It gave the heroes a big advantage, so we'll call it "magic." Another example of commicative magic objects would be an item used in Terry Goodkind's fantasy novels : a matched set of daybooks that work like a teletype connection in a way, meaning that each day, whatever the user of one daybook writes on a fresh page will immediately be duplicated on the corresponding page of the other book, wherever it is. Very useful in a "medieval fantasy" setting where only one organization can produce such items, and practically nobody else is even aware that such things exist.

2) Offensive. Weapons, that is to say. Guns in a world where such are rare or unheard of; explosive materials in general; a magic wand that shoots out lightning when you use a certain command; things meant to hurt people.

3) Defensive. A "shield belt" in the Dune theme fits the bill here (basically a personal force field that seems to absorb the kinetic energy of anything that approaches your body with a dangerously high velocity. A bullet would be stopped in midair, but a hand reaching to shake your hand would come right through, if it was moving slowly). Ditto magical armor, almost unbreakable, in a "medieval fantasy" setting. Defensive items are meant to protect the user, or several users at once if it's big enough, from unfriendly strangers.

4) Illusory. The infamous One Ring of J.R.R. Tolkien's books would qualify here. Whenever you pulled the Ring onto a finger, it caused you to become invisible (it also had hidden depths in other ways, but the invisibility was the most obvious consequence of wearing it). Other examples would be items that let you look like whoever the viewer will be likely to trust, or that let you project a hologram of a dragon into the middle of a room in order to panic everybody, or anything else that creates a false appearance of a person or thing.

5) Transportation. A magical doorway that lets a person step through it, and instantaneously they emerge coming out of a linked doorway in another city, or continent, or even another dimensional plane, would be a prime example. On a more modest note, if you are a visitor with a helicopter on a planet where native means of transportation are limited to sailing ships and horse-drawn wagons, you have a "magic object" which nobody else can duplicate. Until you run out of fuel, that is :)

6) Medical. Anything that can heal or medically aid a person, and which is very hard to come by locally, would qualify. A magical potion which heals minor injuries if you drink it, or an experimental robot doctor trained to perform delicate surgery on people, or maybe even a magic amulet that can cause a patient to go into "suspended animation" so that even if they are already gravely wounded, they won't actually bleed to death before you can carry them to the nearest physician, a mere hundred miles away.

7) Information Gathering. In the classic Star Trek episodes, the heroes always carried tricorders which could analyze all sorts of things (vital signs, energy surges, etc.) and store the data for future use. This gave the users a huge advantage in tracking down alien life forms underground, or figuring out what sort of plague people were dying from, or whatever. Other examples could be "X-Ray glasses" that let you look right through walls and other objects, or a magic mirror that answers your questions truthfully and accurately ("Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?"). Or even a pocket compass, if nobody in the local culture has ever heard of such a thing before :)

8) Miscellaneous. Other categories will probably occur to me in due time, but this will do for now. Any magical item that doesn't clearly belong in another category belongs in here. A lantern that never needs to be refueled? A knife that cuts through wood as easily as if it were butter? A bag full of food, that is never empty no matter how much you take out and eat?

ON PRESCIENCE

Now, considering the popularity of the "Consent" ideal on most roleplaying Mushes, it's generally considered bad form for a Prescient Character to spontaneously produce a prophecy for a character he has just met ICly and say loudly, "Moriarty, I see you building a vast criminal empire! I see a brilliant detective tearing it down around your ears! I see you fighting a duel to the death with him and LOSING as you are thrown off a cliff to die!" and then OOCly expect Moriarty's Player to quietly cooperate in arranging his subsequent Roleplay to bring about this unhappy fate, just because it was prophecied that way.

As a general rule, it's appropriate for the Prescient to first negotiate OOCly with anybody directly involved in a Vision he wants to have, to get their approval. Or, to take it from the other direction, for the Subjects of a Prescient Experience to decide what they WANT people to Icly know will happen to them (a Player, conceivably, might want his friends or his enemies to Icly know how he would die, but did NOT want them to share this information Icly with his own character) and then give the Prescient permission to officially Foresee it.

These situations need to be handled delicately because if the theme states that anything a Prescient clearly "sees" in the future will INEVITABLY occur (barring divine invention, perhaps) then as a matter of thematic consistency you have bound yourself to make sure that any such Vision (if it was "received" in accordance with whatever rules you have set up) DOES occur. If one or more of the characters principally involved in this vision are vehemently opposed to the idea, you have a catastrophe on your hands.

In addition, I should point out that occasionally Wizards of mushes with Prescient Characters will want to ORDER the character to have a particular vision, as foreshadowing for an upcoming TinyPlot. Usually the ordered vision will be vague (i.e. it won't specifically describe Character X as being killed ICly within the next 10 IC days) but occasionally someone may want to insist on a more specific one. Again, all I can say is to try to make sure everybody directly affected by a Vision understands and preconsents as appropriate to any consequences of the vision which are supposed to ICly inevitable for them. Unless, of course, you have for some reason placed loud warnings in your online rules and on your BB and so forth stating that the Wizards reserve the right to occasionally FORCE certain events to happen to certain characters in the name of moving the global storyline forward. But if you don't give fair warning, they'll feel betrayed when you order them to lose an eye in an upcoming battle, or whatever.

A few notes on the different "strengths" of Prescience:

Some themes have characters who only receive the occasional Vision without warning, at irregular intervals. These can be coped with in the manner suggested above.

Some themes have characters who are supposed to be constantly seeing branching options ahead of them ("if I do this, I almost certainly win this duel; if I do THAT I only have a 30 percent chance of getting away with it; if I do something else, I'm dead within the next thirty seconds . . ."). These characters have "Twink" written all over them, frankly, and I recommend that you not permit them to become common on your mush. Guild Steersmen in the DUNE theme were supposed to be something like this, and at least one Dune-themed mush decided the best thing to do was keep that profession out of daily circulation, labelled as NPCs who were only used by the Wizards for specific purposes, so that they didn't have to worry about constantly arguing with a Player concerning how much he could get away with in terms of stock market investments, choosing the winning lottery numbers, taunting others ICly with his knowledge of their destinies, and so forth :) If a particular Prescient Vision was needed ICly to get a special TinyPlot up and running, a Wizard could control its generation and publication.

As always, the crucial thing is to work out your policies in advance and post them online so that any player who conscientiously reads the rules relating to Prescience will understand exactly where he stands when conflicts of interest arise in the future between a Prescient and a Normal character - or even between two different Prescient Characters with very incompatible personal agendas :)