fluff vs gameplay disargeements

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Doctornull
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#31 Post by Doctornull »

Crim, The Red Thunder wrote:Icky Person? You mean the sole hero willing to stand up and fight for the rights of magic?
This is a Zigur sanctioned thread, citizen.
Did you mean to type "the WRONGS of magic"?
Earwicker wrote:1) In other words, since 'available evidence' is not the same thing as 'absolute evidence', you're explicitly admitting that you're generalizing (since that's actually what 'generalizing' means.)
2) Your 'logical conclusion' is otherwise known as a fallacy of weak induction. "All the sheep I've seen so far are white, thus all sheep must be white."
3) Since when is lore 'evidence'?
Are you seriously going to eschew every principle of rationalist epistemology just to avoid losing a goddamn internet discussion.

Just stop talking and walk away.

You'll survive being wrong on the internet.
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HousePet
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#32 Post by HousePet »

Doctornull wrote: This makes some sense, but wouldn't that mean a player Alchemist who overwrites his Manasurge rune gets left alone by Zigur patrols?

They do not in fact leave such a character alone. Not even one of them.
You would also have to give up the ability to make gems explode, transmute items and animation of a large lump of stone if you want them to leave you alone.
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Doctornull
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#33 Post by Doctornull »

HousePet wrote:You would also have to give up the ability to make gems explode, transmute items and animation of a large lump of stone if you want them to leave you alone.
Summoners get to animate large lumps of stone, and they don't get picked on.

Doomed make explosions all over the place, and they don't get picked on.

Mindslayers transmute items, and they don't get picked on.

Why is Zigur so hypocritical?
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HousePet
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#34 Post by HousePet »

After being subjected to magical experiments and then the Spellblaze happening, I think they do have a reason to hold a grudge against magic.
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Doctornull
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#35 Post by Doctornull »

HousePet wrote:After being subjected to magical experiments and then the Spellblaze happening, I think they do have a reason to hold a grudge against magic.
All those people are long dead.

Nobody in today's Zigur was the victim of any kind of experimentation.

Instead, they're terrorists who have institutionalized their story of ancestral victimhood to justify their inhumanity (and inhalflingity, and inelvanty, and indwarvanity). That's not an uncommon story in reality, so it's insightful of the game to include such people, but that's not really a justification of their current agenda.
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#36 Post by Grey »

You say yourself that it's not unusual in the real world. This is by design. There are many illogical parts to the game lore, and many areas of ambiguity. It was deliberately designed to have no clear right or wrong.
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Doctornull
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#37 Post by Doctornull »

Grey wrote:You say yourself that it's not unusual in the real world. This is by design. There are many illogical parts to the game lore, and many areas of ambiguity. It was deliberately designed to have no clear right or wrong.
Zigur is very HUMAN, and its rhetoric and tactics are REALISTIC, and as an institution it's very PLAUSIBLE, but that's not a justification for its morally reprehensible actions. People in-game (and in real life) may use the rhetoric of victimhood to justify victimizing others, but their justifications aren't justice, and their self-righteousness isn't righteous.

--

But we're veering a bit far off topic of "are Alchemists really Alchemists", aren't we.
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#38 Post by Grey »

Doctornull wrote:
Grey wrote:You say yourself that it's not unusual in the real world. This is by design. There are many illogical parts to the game lore, and many areas of ambiguity. It was deliberately designed to have no clear right or wrong.
Zigur is very HUMAN, and its rhetoric and tactics are REALISTIC, and as an institution it's very PLAUSIBLE, but that's not a justification for its morally reprehensible actions. People in-game (and in real life) may use the rhetoric of victimhood to justify victimizing others, but their justifications aren't justice, and their self-righteousness isn't righteous.
Would you rather side with the mages and their crazy experiments that keep endangering the world? As nuts as the Zigur are, they are built on a truth - magic is dangerous. The quest of the campaign is to save the world from two Angolwen-trained sorcerers. Other powers threatening the region included a deactivated Atamathon, a cult bent on ripping open a portal to a world of demons, two necromancers (one in possession of a supreme Sher'Tul artifact) and an insane Tempest.

Zigur are saving lives. Okay, so they're also killing innocents in the process, but in their view they are fully justified in the completion of a greater good.
But we're veering a bit far off topic of "are Alchemists really Alchemists", aren't we.
Alchemists are really alchemists :) Potion brewing can be magic based or natural. Zigur tend not to trust any of them, especially not adventuring alchemists that parade around the world using magic for destructive ends.

Summoners, Doomed, etc don't use magic. The underlying power they have is personal. It's impossible for them to ever bring about such widespread destruction as the Spellblaze.

Read the lore pieces "What is Magic?" and "The great Evil" for a little more depth on the differences.
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Doctornull
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#39 Post by Doctornull »

Grey wrote:Zigur are saving lives. Okay, so they're also killing innocents in the process
I'm of the opinion that it's better to let ten guilty men go free than to imprison even one innocent guy, so yeah, at the point that they're killing innocents I'd say they're blatant bad guys.

They're not the only bad guys in the setting, of course, and the player who sides with them does so in order to gain the power to fight against other bad guys, but that doesn't make it okay to kill innocents. It means you're making a deal with one devil in order to go fight another devil.
Grey wrote:
But we're veering a bit far off topic of "are Alchemists really Alchemists", aren't we.
Alchemists are really alchemists :) Potion brewing can be magic based or natural. Zigur tend not to trust any of them
Okay, so an agent of Zigur is working to help an Alchemist make more potions so he can join the Brotherhood of Alchemists... is this a thing that ought not happen?
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#40 Post by Grey »

Doctornull wrote:Okay, so an agent of Zigur is working to help an Alchemist make more potions so he can join the Brotherhood of Alchemists... is this a thing that ought not happen?
The player is fully in control of whether this happens or not :) It could be that the player is a more moderate Zig than many.
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#41 Post by HousePet »

Just because you feel their agenda isn't justified, that doesn't mean that they don't.
Consequences of actions don't just affect those in the immediate timespace vicinity of the actions. Ripples spread out in space and down generations. Large chunks of the world are still affected by the Spellblaze. Yeeks still hate Halflings. Orcs still hate everyone.
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The Revanchist
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#42 Post by The Revanchist »

...and everyone still hates Orcs. And nominally-to-excessively hates the Shaloren.

Doctornull
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#43 Post by Doctornull »

HousePet wrote:Just because you feel their agenda isn't justified, that doesn't mean that they don't.
Consequences of actions don't just affect those in the immediate timespace vicinity of the actions. Ripples spread out in space and down generations. Large chunks of the world are still affected by the Spellblaze. Yeeks still hate Halflings. Orcs still hate everyone.
Plenty of racists and other bigots feel justified perpetuating violence upon other people, but that doesn't make them justified.

Hatred doesn't give their actions any kind of moral benefit.

It makes them evil.

Just like Zigur.
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#44 Post by HousePet »

Yeah, but we already know that.
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Re: fluff vs gameplay disargeements

#45 Post by Grey »

Zigur aren't evil, they're just misunderstood :( And a bit sadistic and nuts sometimes... ;(
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