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In lugnet.castle, Franklin W. Cain writes:
The title of this thread reminds me of the excellent novel,
_Too Many Magicians_ by Randall Garrett (I think). It's a
classic 'locked-room' murder mystery with a twist - it
happens in a world where magic works, at a convention of
wizards. And yet, it's still a mystery how the murder is
committed...
> In a message in another thread,
> someone made a comment that we should not have
> too many mages/wizards in our armies.
That was me. I didn't want to stomp on any feet, so I'll
elucidate further below.
> Unfortunately, in the "army" (actually, population)
> that I'm building, I've already got a dozen or so wizards,
> most of them "bad guys", and I'm in the process of making
> a few more. • <snip>
> Thus, as I see it, if I want to build an army worthy of
> (in-character) respect, I'm stuck with using the wizards
> and dragons as the main source of strength for my army.
First, I don't *necessarily* see this as a problem. If
someone were fielding an army of a hundred troops *and*
said that every one was a trained master magician that
was the equal of Mephisto - then it would seem to me
like they were being a little bit unrealistic.
Remember that the chief goal of CW is for everyone to
have fun, and while one person may have fun having an
indestructible army of warrior-mages, it won't be fun
for the people who have to deal with them. (I realize
that's not what you're doing, Franklin, just making a
point.)
So I personally don't think your cadre of wizards is a
problem unless you want each of your wizards to also be
the most powerful mages on the planet. This is especially
true since your army has other weak points - it's size,
for example.
Perfect people and things are boring to write - or to read
- about. It is the flaws that make them interesting. 8)
J
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In lugnet.castle, Jeff Johnston writes:
> In lugnet.castle, Franklin W. Cain writes:
>
> > Unfortunately, in the "army" (actually, population)
> > that I'm building, I've already got a dozen or so wizards,
> > most of them "bad guys", and I'm in the process of making
> > a few more.
>
> Remember that the chief goal of CW is for everyone to
> have fun, and while one person may have fun having an
> indestructible army of warrior-mages, it won't be fun
> for the people who have to deal with them.
Which is why people can turn down Battle requests and can come up with a
mutually beneficial outcome. :)
>
> So I personally don't think your cadre of wizards is a
> problem unless you want each of your wizards to also be
> the most powerful mages on the planet. This is especially
> true since your army has other weak points - it's size,
> for example.
I'd say the more wizards you have, the less powerful the average wizards are.
I would not bar powerful leader mages, though.
Jeff
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In lugnet.castle, Jeff Stembel writes:
> In lugnet.castle, Jeff Johnston writes:
> > In lugnet.castle, Franklin W. Cain writes:
> >
> > > Unfortunately, in the "army" (actually, population)
> > > that I'm building, I've already got a dozen or so wizards,
> > > most of them "bad guys", and I'm in the process of making
> > > a few more.
> >
> > Remember that the chief goal of CW is for everyone to
> > have fun, and while one person may have fun having an
> > indestructible army of warrior-mages, it won't be fun
> > for the people who have to deal with them.
>
> Which is why people can turn down Battle requests and can come up with a
> mutually beneficial outcome. :)
Yep.. I think this is probably the best thing about castle world... If I post
an army of 550,000 mephisto-equivalents all with dragon steeds and each with
his own magical mech and pistol, I'm still no more powerful than anyone else,
because all interactions are predetermined and mutually agreed on... And the
problem with having an army like that is that fewer people will WANT to bother
making a story against my army...
So really, you can post anything you want-- just don't make your army TOO
'powerful and indestructible' or nobody will want to interact... in your case,
(as is my understanding) a small army with a dozen wizards is kind of saying
that the wizards are counterbalancing the lack of raw manpower.. hence your
army is ROUGHLY the same in strength to another army thanks to the wizards...
> > So I personally don't think your cadre of wizards is a
> > problem unless you want each of your wizards to also be
> > the most powerful mages on the planet. This is especially
> > true since your army has other weak points - it's size,
> > for example.
>
> I'd say the more wizards you have, the less powerful the average wizards are.
> I would not bar powerful leader mages, though.
<reminice geek_factor='high'>
Reminds me of something I remember dealing with in my MUD programming days...
All the programmers all wanted their own ultimate demon or ultimately powerful
weapon or something, and it made the meaning of "ultimate" rather blahze. As I
recall we had HP a maximum of roughly 2 billion (your standard C signed
integer), which we (the admins) said that "you shouldn't use unless you really
really mean it". We ended up with about 15 different monsters who all had 2
billion HP, maximum speed, strength, etc.... it was kinda silly-- especially
when you consider that we had more 2 billion HP NPCs than >50 HP NPCs...
</reminice>
Anyway, I'd agree... in essence the more wizards you have, the weaker they
become, such that on the whole, your army remains roughly the same
toughness-wise...
DaveE
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