Tarquinus

Remember that MD is partially (or all) allegory. Sometimes we would do well to consider what value roleplay has in an allegorical space, or what is its nature. So: though Bootes was able to record slight movements of MD's sun and the movement Kyphis refers to is a dramatic movement, I submit to you that the question to be asked is perhaps not "does MD's sun move" but rather "what meaning does the sun's movement have?"

Happy (belated) birthday, mate!

Happy birthday!

[quote name='MoonTide' timestamp='1299456400' post='80299'] Hi I'm totally new to this game, found a link to another game site, and thought about getting back in that game. But instead I found this, I've been playing for three days now. But I am still confused about the role playing idea of the game. I'm so used to games giving me a few choices to pick through. So yeah if anyone has helpful tips of being a roleplaying newbie, that would be helpful. Oh, and hi again. [/quote] Welcome! There are two general approaches to roleplaying in MD - one is indifferent or organic, and the other is wholly creative. The first approach, in which I include those who do not believe they are roleplaying at all, presents the character as a marginally (or non-) fictionalized version of the player. "Roleplaying" in this mode can include a belief that those operating in the second mode are delusional, a position that can be funny or irritating depending on your perspective. The second approach presents the character as someone or something rather different from the player. To give you an idea, my primary account uses the template of an NPC I had developed for another game, in which he was a liche. When he came to MD, he found he was just an ordinary person once more, though attired appropriately to his origins (Etruscan). I like to say that this character, Tarquinus, is my dark side given a life of its own. My secondary account, Keith Moon, is a guy somewhat like me but younger and in better shape. The details of his life have been drawn largely, but not entirely, from my own memories. Neither of these characters is "me". If you're really into roleplaying, just wander around and observe. You'll spot the avid roleplayers right away. Hope this helps.

Happy birthday!

My condolences. It is very hard to lose a close family member. Take your time about coming back, and know that we will welcome you when you do.

[quote name='Kafuuka' timestamp='1299267169' post='80038']Tarquinus, you admit having little experience with quests. Since I monitor who participated in my quests, I know you never did. In particular you never tried 'The book of Time', which was explicitly advertised as an | Ark Mattarox quest. ie, a quest about a shade.[/quote] I admit my experience is limited, by which I mean I have tried only my peculiar cross-section of quests, many of them quite long ago. [quote]If you claim kings, for whatever reasoning, know something about MD, then I think you should at least be interested in what a shade has to say? Not that I believe kings really know a lot. Two of them admitted the opposite already. As for myself, I have my answers to some of my questions.[/quote] I'll have a look at your quests, then. I don't think there is such a thing as a single answer to the mysteries of MD, but I know from experience that certain questions are encouraged while others, such as the ones cited by Pip, are discouraged. I also know from experience that the wrong sorts of quest writing can be wholly disavowed, at best, for their failure to align with the general vision of MD. When I refer to 'MD canon', I mean questions that have to do with the 'setting' of MD. At least two of the kings have experience asking those sorts of questions and would be good guides for quest writers who want to write in the idiom of MD and its mysteries. I mention them as a starting point for writers looking for people who 'get' MD - other such players will reveal themselves at their own discretion, though I think anyone who looks for them will find them without too much trouble.

Happy birthday.

[url="http://www.scienceandyou.org/articles/ess_02.shtml"]Eppur si muove[/url]. Pip, you and others will recall the "Age of the RPC", when quests were largely the responsibility of RPCs to create. That age is past, and now we are in what might be called the "Age of Kings", or, in my view, the Age of Scribes. For now, with access to MDscript and clickables, the door has been flung wide open to all players to create quests as they see fit. As nearly as I can tell, the kinds of quests written today fall into two broad categories: the puzzle quest and the "roleplay with me" quest. That's only a slight change, however, from the way things were before. Thankfully we no longer seem to encounter the "find me [x] adepts" quest, which used to be a blight on the face of MD. Both kinds of contemporary quests suffer by varying degrees in not being all that connected to MD "canon". Is this the fault of the quest writers, or of the people who "get" MD (who, one would think, would be the most qualified people to write MD quests)? In my opinion, it's a little of both. MagicDuel is a multi-layered allegory. It seems to be Mur's attempt to communicate with "players" via symbols and subtle cues. Story-based quests, such as the one I threw together for the death of Mya, are entertaining if well done, but don't address any of the deeper, root questions and mysteries of the "game". In my limited experience, puzzle-based quests don't, either. What's to be done? When Mur imposed a "ban" on lore, he raised the bar for quest writers. The challenge now is to incorporate semiotics (the study of symbols) with MD "setting"-appropriate symbols and the actions and words of the community at large. This is not an easy thing to accomplish. I have been pondering how, exactly, to do it over several months, but so far I have not had any "eureka" moments of inspiration. I can hardly fault anyone else for having the same problem, and even less for writing a quest purely for entertainment's sake. The work of players to write quests should be respected. So I think it comes down to echoing what you and Aelis have said. Let those who "get" MD come forth and partner with experienced quest writers to give us something that is edifying (educational or informative) as well as fun. MD gives us as players a tremendous amount of freedom, but that freedom comes with a responsibility - in the end, since we can all write quests, we players have no one to blame but ourselves if the quality of the quests available is not up to what we communally expect the MD standard to be. Mur is hard to contact, yes, but not impossible. There are people who [i]do[/i] understand some of the mysteries of the game: they are much easier to find, starting with the kings. Let the veterans help the quest writers, but let the writers seek the veterans and forge something from their partnership, something entertaining, symbolically resonant, and thought provoking.

[quote name='Luke27' timestamp='1298638262' post='79589'] In MD terms: I actually haven't found out yet but I guess it has something to do with balance. But maybe not because there's no moon in MD or even a night. [/quote] Sure about that, are you?

Being an alt isn't so bad, provided your expectations are reasonable. I play one of my two alts (Keith) so heavily it sometimes seems like my main. I can absolutely guarantee you that living with alt restrictions will not deprive you of anything MD has to offer.

[quote name='Muratus del Mur' timestamp='1298427108' post='79369'] Existance itself is relative and we living beings, are counterbalancing the very essance of the void, we ARE.[/quote] Read Hawking and Mlodinow's [i]The Grand Design[/i] if you haven't already. You have neatly summarized part of it. [quote]Sadly the continuation of that story is beyond me at this moment. Mainly because my answers hit a wall that i refuse to accept, and that wall sais there is nothing , individuality is an illusion,[/quote] A Buddhist point of view... [quote]we are all a big big animal with many representations drifting in the void and trying to remmember himself. ...its our nature, we need lies to accept the truth.[/quote] ...translating to a Gnostic one, which the character of Lucius Tarquinus insists is the absolute literal Truth. I don't accept everything Tarq believes because he's crazy and I'm not... as crazy, anyway. Great thread! Douglas Adams, Plato, Hegel, and the darker recesses of our very own Muratus del Mur: this, for me, is MagicDuel at its best. Mur: MD = an enjoyable pretext

Happy birthday!

I would like to join this team as Tarq. Keith (and Konstantin) will sit out for contest purposes, though they may wander around as characters. [i]Edit: I'd like to be considered for the design team as well.[/i]

Happy birthday!

I will expound, as I apparently am the first to react in "hysteria". nadrolski posted something close to this in the mood panel: [quote]Forced to move to MP5 just to avoid my reprisals? Gay-ish move.[/quote] I wish I'd taken a few seconds to screen-capture it, but nad responded to my response before I thought to do so. I had responded in anger, sufficient anger to make me break character as Tarq, something many of you know I almost never do. I will not sit by and be silent when hate-speech is used, and it's quite clear from the context that nad meant it in a pejorative sense. I will not apologize for my reaction, which included telling nad to get stuffed. I am aware of at least six people in MD who identify themselves as gay, and one is a very close friend of mine. I don't need him to be offended, for I am offended. It's not cool to use "gay" in a pejorative way. It is something I consider absolutely unacceptable. When I taught English to teenagers, I allowed them to use almost every curse word imaginable in my classroom. I did [u]not[/u] permit the use of "gay", "bitch", or the infamous n-word in a pejorative sense, which tended to mean I did not permit their use at all; the way my students used them was almost always pejorative. Seigheart, you're posing as a civil-rights advocate by conveniently ignoring what I said, which was "it is NOT acceptable to use 'gay' as an insult." It isn't. I stand by that statement, and I will repeat it as many times as I must. [i]Edit: despite what nad seems to think, I don't hate him. I don't wish to see him punished or sanctioned. I simply want him, as I want everyone, to be considerate about the way things are said. Sometimes "being politically correct" is simply being nice.[/i]

Happy birthday.

[quote name='Chewett' timestamp='1296232608' post='78148'] Misdirection is wrong. You should not be claiming anything, Nor have anything which would be adding to, or changing what is fact and known about MB. Making up history is an intresting one, Im prettymuch against it because we have quite a lot of background to base most things on, Im still waiting for someone to make some nice quests based on the shade wars that many players havent heard about. Espically if you are "misdirecting" people, like you say, because that merely confuses the issue and means that the real lore is merely hidden by people making up rubbish. [/quote] Chewett, all due respect etc., I think you are missing the point of what Fyrd is saying. You should read Zelazny if you haven't. The "real lore" of which you speak seems to be the consensus among a tiny, close-mouthed elite. There is real lore about Marind's Bell? Really? Who knows it? Is the lack of "nice quests" at all attributable to the fact that the "real lore" is nowhere readily accessible to independent researchers, [i]even the leader of an MDA guild?[/i] It's all very well to shoot people down for violating canon, but what actually qualifies as canon keeps changing. We have seen recently that the AL itself has been partly disavowed. Where is a quest writer to begin? If he writes from his own array of ideas, he's spewing rubbish. If he bases his quest on "actual" in-game events, he's glorifying the long-dead, no-longer-relevant past. He's between the devil and the deep blue sea. A ghost has been spotted, but someone clever enough to earn himself a tag at MP3 can't figure out that ghost's identity. What's wrong with this picture? The idea of presenting a story-based quest with symbolic and setting-appropriate resonance is an intriguing one, but it's no easy task even to conceive. It has been amply demonstrated, quite loudly by you among others, that anything less than that is "made up rubbish" - surely the irony of such a qualifier in a fantasy setting is not lost on you - and that therefore the majority of MD story-related quests are doomed to fail before they even begin. If MD is postmodern, it has no need of (and frankly should reject and even mock the very idea of) canon. If MD is symbolic, Fyrd's archetypes are appropriate. If it is a more standard roleplaying adventure game, it needs hard, immutable, canonical history in a form that quest-writers can consult. It's not encouraging to see motivated, creative people shouted down. If you see an idea that seems wrong-headed to you, can you not provide some direction to the would-be creator? Or shall we go back to ciphers and "find me [x] adepts" quests?

I was to host the 05:00 story night session on day 21, but I was unable to be present due to RL forces beyond my control. I offer my deepest apologies to all concerned, and will host a "make up" session at 06:00 on Day 22.

Happy birthday, Poe, and all the best.

Happy Birthday, my friend. Have fun... your way.

Happy birthday, Deba.

I'll help.

Happy Birthday, Mike!

Spartan: come home with your shield, or on it. If the arrows of the enemy will obscure the sun itself, then you will fight in the shade. The question for those such as ourselves is not whether we can defeat Eon. The question is whether we are willing to face him in a duel. It is my opinion that both of us, from the perspective of our characters, must always say "yes". Do we know we will lose? Yes. Does that matter? To our characters, no. Eon's not breaking any rules, and indeed has a record of being as polite and helpful as any of the grinders I have known. I do not think you will find much support for your complaint. [i]Go and tell them in Sparta, passerby, that here, obedient to their commands, we lie.[/i]