The Great Failure of Maelstrom
like jason scott's great failure of wikipedia speech im going for an attention grabbing title, deal with it
after someone else's problems with mael came up (and ive heard others) it got me thinking about the basic problems that can alienate and drive away players from that system to me it comes down to a series of issues and in most cases its not PD's fault per se but simply a combination of factors and human nature let me take it piece by piece
1, Player powerblocks formed - lets face it you have 10 players groups will form and powerblocks assemble themselves, its community building at work this isnt anyones fault nor is it odd or unexpected
2, A PVP system leads towards these powerblocks considering each other the enemy and becoming antagonistic to each other, again its intended its expected lines are drawn, however with a few notable exceptions by and large these lines have entrenched, certain major blocks innatly oppose each other and will not come to a peace ending the cold war because its a PVP system the point is to try and get one over not achieve a peaceful utopia and hell people dont work that way
2a, this has been going on for some time, and thus the lines get repainted so often that certain groups of people, dont like certain other groups of people and this can in some cases bleed over into ooc relations as you dont want to get too close to the enemy, again not pd's fault this is again human nature again they cant legislate for people's behaviour to people,
3 By its inherent nature Maelstrom promotes Cliques. knowledge is power, if you look at the rules you see maybe three dozen skills total, i know for a fact there are more spells in one branch of casting than that but even then apart from some names and some 'vague intimations' i do not understand the details and facts of such things, this means that people who do know the exact details of Summon Cherry Cobbler they have a power and one up on those who have heard of said spell but dont know the details, heck unless you take them you dont know the mechanistic details of the skills everyone knows exists!
Whats the problem of this part. cliques its just like a knowledge powerblock isnt it? but combined with other facts it creates two tiers of people those who can in theory loose a character and climb back up the path reasonably quickly as they know which skills to go for what does what and how, but also it makes it hard for people to break into an area and start a new because mostly you get stonewalled by people not wanting to let the secrets out the bag or you get hit with
4 FOIP, in some situations FOIP is good and i have no problem with it, who assassinated the Archduck Bob Smith, FOIP fine yes perfect, What is the chain of skills you have to train as a kamakuran to become a master weaponsmith who can make the most fabled of Kamakuran weapons or heck even what those legendary kamakuran weapons are FOIP, NO NO NO, yes we can guess that being japanese based Katana's are probably on the list and swords is probably the way to go but still how does mystifing the skill tree help? people would know, now as a premise Magic was new at the start of Maelstrom so an obfuscated and FOIP skill tree for magic would make sense as thats a discovery path, the steps in going from Jim Horseshoe maker to Jim Wayland maker of blades that can cut the wings off a fly should be mostly known with maybe a secret that there is a God level of crafting beyong the official top which is a nice prize for someone who gets to the top,
FOIP gets called too often and often innappropriatly, also FOIP works together with the basic obfuscation of the system to basically frustrate players by hiding how and where you can advance and you only get to know the next step from your current position,
5 Player deaths particularly once you have advanced into your clique or powerblock becomes few and far between, this is inherent to the lethality of maelstrom a fight kicks off someone is probably dead, this is again not a bad thing in and of itself but it means as people become avatars or clique, power, factionalism and FOIP insidery they become less and less likely to die, they still can, it still happens but its less common, this means instead of dying and regenning and starting from the start again which allows players to be freshened and reimerse in the general base and dont get to cliqued by forcing them to either climb back into the old clique from the edge or start joining another, which also makes things monolithic so that the small person feels they cant affect change,
but where next for Maelstrom, are the problems terminal? can it be fixed? well thats the big question really, some fixes might work but would kill the spirit and essence of Maelstrom
after someone else's problems with mael came up (and ive heard others) it got me thinking about the basic problems that can alienate and drive away players from that system to me it comes down to a series of issues and in most cases its not PD's fault per se but simply a combination of factors and human nature let me take it piece by piece
1, Player powerblocks formed - lets face it you have 10 players groups will form and powerblocks assemble themselves, its community building at work this isnt anyones fault nor is it odd or unexpected
2, A PVP system leads towards these powerblocks considering each other the enemy and becoming antagonistic to each other, again its intended its expected lines are drawn, however with a few notable exceptions by and large these lines have entrenched, certain major blocks innatly oppose each other and will not come to a peace ending the cold war because its a PVP system the point is to try and get one over not achieve a peaceful utopia and hell people dont work that way
2a, this has been going on for some time, and thus the lines get repainted so often that certain groups of people, dont like certain other groups of people and this can in some cases bleed over into ooc relations as you dont want to get too close to the enemy, again not pd's fault this is again human nature again they cant legislate for people's behaviour to people,
3 By its inherent nature Maelstrom promotes Cliques. knowledge is power, if you look at the rules you see maybe three dozen skills total, i know for a fact there are more spells in one branch of casting than that but even then apart from some names and some 'vague intimations' i do not understand the details and facts of such things, this means that people who do know the exact details of Summon Cherry Cobbler they have a power and one up on those who have heard of said spell but dont know the details, heck unless you take them you dont know the mechanistic details of the skills everyone knows exists!
Whats the problem of this part. cliques its just like a knowledge powerblock isnt it? but combined with other facts it creates two tiers of people those who can in theory loose a character and climb back up the path reasonably quickly as they know which skills to go for what does what and how, but also it makes it hard for people to break into an area and start a new because mostly you get stonewalled by people not wanting to let the secrets out the bag or you get hit with
4 FOIP, in some situations FOIP is good and i have no problem with it, who assassinated the Archduck Bob Smith, FOIP fine yes perfect, What is the chain of skills you have to train as a kamakuran to become a master weaponsmith who can make the most fabled of Kamakuran weapons or heck even what those legendary kamakuran weapons are FOIP, NO NO NO, yes we can guess that being japanese based Katana's are probably on the list and swords is probably the way to go but still how does mystifing the skill tree help? people would know, now as a premise Magic was new at the start of Maelstrom so an obfuscated and FOIP skill tree for magic would make sense as thats a discovery path, the steps in going from Jim Horseshoe maker to Jim Wayland maker of blades that can cut the wings off a fly should be mostly known with maybe a secret that there is a God level of crafting beyong the official top which is a nice prize for someone who gets to the top,
FOIP gets called too often and often innappropriatly, also FOIP works together with the basic obfuscation of the system to basically frustrate players by hiding how and where you can advance and you only get to know the next step from your current position,
5 Player deaths particularly once you have advanced into your clique or powerblock becomes few and far between, this is inherent to the lethality of maelstrom a fight kicks off someone is probably dead, this is again not a bad thing in and of itself but it means as people become avatars or clique, power, factionalism and FOIP insidery they become less and less likely to die, they still can, it still happens but its less common, this means instead of dying and regenning and starting from the start again which allows players to be freshened and reimerse in the general base and dont get to cliqued by forcing them to either climb back into the old clique from the edge or start joining another, which also makes things monolithic so that the small person feels they cant affect change,
but where next for Maelstrom, are the problems terminal? can it be fixed? well thats the big question really, some fixes might work but would kill the spirit and essence of Maelstrom