The Arcane Tower

[silverpheonix]

The Arcane Tower has been in a very strange spot for a while now. It saw a lot of activity last year, then died down sharply. I can't profess to know why RP is hard to generate and sustain there. But I do have some observations of my own, and from talking to others. Let's ignore the history of why the Guildhall dropped.

Forgive the bullet points, but it's 7am and I haven't finished coffee. I just want to put thoughts down.

• Too many tiny quarters - leave no room at all for fixtures, might as well just buy a bank vault. Same size.

• Replace the tiny quarters with bigger rooms similar to what is in the second floor dorms. If that means fewer rooms, no great loss. There's still tons of quarters.

• The Tower is big enough to be a settlement, but there doesn't seem to be any great, quiet central point for gathering and RP that isn't a classroom. You can get out of the way, but with how the Tower is set up, if you do that it's very very hard to stumble across your peers.

• Seriously, the Tower is bizarrely huge. Ground floor, Common Rooms, Hall of Memories, Warden's Hall, Exterior, Apex, Arena, Hall of Countenance, Hall of...Other Word (lack of coffee showing), Menagerie, The Love Shack, Observatory, Chef room off from the Menagerie, I think I'm missing a distinct area, but you get the point. It's huge.

• The Tower should be a central focus for mages on the surface to gather, regardless of city of choice. What can be done to encourage that instead of splitting into 3 or 4 city-based much smaller groups of mages? Why would the mages of the surface congregate at the Tower instead of staying in their city?

• Give the Tower some quest mechanic similar to Sencliff, but mage-focused. Something to have its inhabitants work towards and progress at something.

• Other interesting/fun mage mechanics being added would help. Yeah, there's the Map. But uh...yeah.

• Is there a reason the portal isn't a two-way portal?

[Amateur Hour]

• The Tower should be a central focus for mages on the surface to gather, regardless of city of choice. What can be done to encourage that instead of splitting into 3 or 4 city-based much smaller groups of mages? Why would the mages of the surface congregate at the Tower instead of staying in their city?

An obstacle that the Arcane Tower is always going to have is three (arguably four) major magical ethics issues:

• warlocks/pact magic

• animation

• wild magic

• (arguable because people aren't supposed to know it's a thing...but if anyone's going to know it's a thing it's wizards) shadow magic

If the Arcane Tower explicitly permits, say, warlocks, there will be mages whose response is "how can you do that? That's not okay," refuse to rub elbows with pact-magic apologists, and they'll make their own (arguably) more ethical group in another corner of Arelith.

[Svrtr]

Outsider perspective looking in, but a couple problems I seemed to see were:

1) people went there when people were active there in part. By this I mean most didn't want to be the ones to start generating rp but instead reacted to others. This is true in any location but you need a strong central figure or figures to drive to and then they need to find people driven enough to continue it

2) this in the case of the tower lead to dm events which lead to mages uninvolved with rp in the tower showing up to try and sway and be involved in the outcome of the dm event where before they wouldn't have even visited

3) the lack of central figure to own the tower like a guild house seems to lead to a too many cooks scenario. The tower isn't a guild hall to my knowledge which is a double edged sword, one can have less power there but it prevents an owner from abusing power to exclude others.

Then when people see they can influence it, it seems many might try and then actively work against one another because their view of how the tower should be will vary, or they may believe their idea is the best and thus they deserve power

If I seem blunt, it's because it is blunt and strongly put, but the lack of a strong central player figure and strong centralized idea makes internal strife seemingly inherent, and not always healthy as people who can't have their slice of cake might leave and go to do mage tower in a major settlement. Realistically you need to anyways to do recruiting since there's often not much incentive to leave settlements for rp

Bit of a rambling post, but too many cooks and lack of a core central player driving rp strongly seem to be common themes

As for the portal? It's unnecessary. There is a destination portal barely two transitions away, shorter than most all other similar locations by distance and shorter than most all settlements, while also having a centrally located exit portal. The arcane tower is slightly better than average in regards to portal access

[Security_Blanket]

I don't know much about the Arcane Tower, I've always loved the concept but only recently got more into the Wizardry RP so I'm learning a bit about the fabled tower in this thread and it feels far more lackluster than I was expecting. It's not player-run? I was under the assumption that it was, maybe there are caretakers not unlike the Banite monks in Minmir Keep, but there's no guildhall or faction specific facilities in the tower? Then what's the point of the tower? Is it just meant to be a glorified library and RP hub?

[silverpheonix]

I don't know much about the Arcane Tower, I've always loved the concept but only recently got more into the Wizardry RP so I'm learning a bit about the fabled tower in this thread and it feels far more lackluster than I was expecting. It's not player-run? I was under the assumption that it was, maybe there are caretakers not unlike the Banite monks in Minmir Keep, but there's no guildhall or faction specific facilities in the tower? Then what's the point of the tower? Is it just meant to be a glorified library and RP hub?

With how the Tower is set up, you can have any number of factions based there, absent a guildhouse mechanic. So for a while there was the Azure Quill and the Earthkin Arcanum, both based out of the Tower, but their own separate organization.

Now, could each of the Halls be a Guildhall? Absolutely. If I was redesigning the Tower, I'd do something like this:

First, put in place a quest mechanic similar to Sencliff. PCs can advance in "rank"/recognition within the Tower at large. Maybe instead of Ink they get colored cords on their robes or something.

You have two paths: Arcanist and Warden. Warden can appeal to the more martial (or less "bookish") PCs. Similar to Sencliff, finishing the questline gives you tangible perks unique to the Tower.

Change the portal to two-way. Maybe eventually locked to those perks to avoid griefing.

Redo the main floor to have an area for people to congregate, that's easy to see, but isn't in the path of people using the Tower as a way to go somewhere else via the portal.

Consider other mechanical changes to encourage congregation. Access to the library part be behind a low rank in the quest. Helps cut down on all the theft the library has.

If RP is generated and the Tower starts seeing a sustainable population, enable guildhall mechanics for the Halls. Three guildhalls is a lot so maybe play it by ear.

[Kythana]

As someone who doesn't really play wizards/sorcs/whatever, I can't really comment on what the Tower should look like.

However, speaking from my own experience when the Archmage election event happened, I really hope that any further events targeting the Arcane Tower are tailored towards the people actually playing there, and not trying to bring in the wider audience.

There's an argument for inclusivity, but too much and it starts to become overwhelmingly shallow. I can't help but think it contributed greatly to its dwindling population. Especially so given the butting heads with actual settlements, when the tower seems the place to go to get away from that.

[silverpheonix]

As someone who doesn't really play wizards/sorcs/whatever, I can't really comment on what the Tower should look like.

However, speaking from my own experience when the Archmage election event happened, I really hope that any further events targeting the Arcane Tower are tailored towards the people actually playing there, and not trying to bring in the wider audience.

There's an argument for inclusivity, but too much and it starts to become overwhelmingly shallow. I can't help but think it contributed greatly to its dwindling population. Especially so given the butting heads with actual settlements, when the tower seems the place to go to get away from that.

That's a good point. I'm curious to hear what the players of Tower PCs who were involved with this event feel about how big it got.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I really don't know what's going on with the wizard tower over the last few years, and maybe it's already too far away from what I am about to lay out, but I always thought it would be cool if it were something like this:

A council of NPC wizards control the tower, one from each school. Each member of the council has a pc apprentice position that players can apply for, and part of the apprentices' duties is the safety of the community that sprung up around the tower. Main requirement to be an apprentice, specialize in that school.

Add a npc knight/merc company/whatever to the area as the martial protectors of the town. PCs can become members with the sponsorship of an apprentice.

Simple, clean, and unique enough from the other settlements to be its own thing. Gives the players enough autonomy to have fun with while at the same time giving the dms enough rope to hang said players with should they turn it into a clique.

[Xerah]

The tower has been in a sad state ever since it changed, to be honest. There have been some good attempts at putting something together but it always seems to eventually fade away. An actual guildhall shouldn't matter that much, but it does.

You have a place like Jotunhold, which is designed exactly like the Arcane Tower was after the redesign (i.e. guild hall inside a larger area).

You have the Arcanum Tower, which is one of the pinnacle of guilds on Arelith in that leadership changes, but the stability of a magic guild that allows pretty much everyone to enter. (I know people will complain about the non-accessibility nature of the guildhall, but it's also probably why it's been so stable)

I'll be the first to say that everything doesn't need to be 1:1 fair, but it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to have this magical tower, very cool design/built, in the center of the island and not give players tools to allow it to succeed. The fact that most magic guilds operate within their settlements should be enough to say, "yo, this is wack". At this point, we could probably wholesale remove the tower from the module and few would notice.

[silverpheonix]

The inaccessibility of the Keep is, well...only inaccessible in that you can't hit Tab and look for the hidden climb spot to get in, or pay your local QBer. You actually have to RP your way in to do nefarious things.

Last year, I think people were getting in constantly.

That's a tangent though. It does help cut down on fixture theft and such.

I want to see the Arcane Tower succeed. I'd much rather see something drastically change instead of it being removed, even if few would notice.

[Shadowy Reality]

I think there is real opportunity to do something interesting at the Tower more akin to how settlements function, with an election process of their own.

I think the Arcane Tower should mostly be closed to the outside. It's fine for it to have the lobby and rooms as before, but I truly think the rest should be locked up as before.

The way I envision it is that the Arcane Tower would become a quasi-settlement with eight seats up for election, one per school of magic (aka the Archmages). The seats probably should require epic spell focus of the required school to be able to be elected for that position.

They would need to vote and agree to get things done. Want to evict a shop owner? Got to convince 5 of 8.
You can go further and have different ways the Archmages can rule the Tower.

Is the current council very open to outsiders? They can allow any mage to join the Arcane Tower freely.
Is the current council secretive? They can make it so mages need to get votes from 5 of 8 archmages to join, that way they control who joins and who does not, and who gets to vote in the Archmage election process.

[Security_Blanket]

I've run through the Arcane Tower for what might be the first time, and I noticed a couple of things. Firstly, it's empty, there must be around 15 quarters in that tower of varying prices, and two-thirds of them are empty. I saw two bigger public storage chests, also empty (probably because they're public), and I didn't see a single golem-crafting station throughout the tower unless I missed it.

From what I've read, the tower is already under the ownership of a council of mages, each representing a different school, yes, including necromancy, with Thoromind as the most prominent member of this secretive organization. These guys also have a history with Cordor, helping to lay the foundation for the city by the sounds of it, so I'm guessing they get a little leeway from Cordor, but do they own the land the tower is on, and do they pay taxes to Cordor? What's their political stance? Are they keen on neutrality, and what happens if some arcane criminal organization makes a base in the tower and draws attention from the whole island?

The way it's set up is a little confusing to me. I can see how multiple arcane factions might set up a base in the tower, but I see glaring reasons not to. There are no guildhalls, and it's all open to the public, so there's no point in having storage containers. There are no special facilities for arcanists beyond a store with a wider selection of scrolls, not even a golem-crafting station, which to me is a wizard's bread and butter.

If I were redesigning the tower, I'd like to see something similar to what the Radiant Heart has with their ranking system. As was said, different colored ropes represent different ranks within the tower. Apparently, the Radiants also get access to writs that only they get, I wouldn't know, as a player, joining those groups doesn't fit my playstyle, praise Bane. But with that in mind, I'd also give special writs to members of the tower, offering any combination of gold, spell components, and higher-level spell scrolls as payment, in addition to the XP.

I'd also install not one, not two, but three separate guildhalls that can be bought, locked, and available to only surface arcanists. The reason I say three is to allow for more than one faction but to minimize the likelihood of these factions just banding together to take over. Maybe the circle of mages has a blanket rule that no group may rent out more than one guildhall within the tower, seeing a little competition as healthy and with other factions potentially at odds with one another can help to manage the inner workings, as they're more focused on one another than banding together, but all the knowledge and resources still trickle upward.

I would add some tower-specific henchmen (Animated Suits of Armor) that can be hired, as well as maybe some different types of golem henchmen, which can be another way the circle of mages are making money off the adventuring mages that come by.

[-XXX-]

There might be a correlation between the state of the arcane tower and the popularity of the wiz / sorc classes.
It'd be also worth pointing out that the Arcane Tower used to be an actual guildhouse and now isn't.

[Sincra]

Arcane Tower was popping off until the last DM quest over the swapping of NPC Archmages.

Having events where everyone wants to get involved is fine but when it's to the detriment of the rp that is happening in a place I have to wonder if DM's should stay away instead.
Largely this is why I prefer small and micro DM quests that last only a couple sessions at most, and if not this, in places that I can avoid if I don't feel like dealing with the swarm of interested parties.

Especially with the Tower Archmage event it felt like a lump of unaffiliated people rushed in. People who shouldn't have had a say and in the end it felt like a Railroaded NPC was put in place.

[Irongron]

So - full disclosure - The Arcane Tower has never interested me. I've never worked on the areas, and each time it has been updated it's been by volunteer area devs, none of which I think are still on the team.

I do (strongly) feel that warlocks should be excluded from a place focused on studying the arcane weave, either through direct study or mastering one's connection to it, but beyond that? It's not really my thing - creatively or in character (I find the lectures especially tedious...).

As a poster above said I think it is almost certainly too big, and fails to channel players into a common area, and I'm also not clear of its ic governance at all, or indeed what would be the best approach in that regard.

I would definitely take suggestions (for both it's physical design and in-game administration, but would need a short refresher course on the latter's current state first)

[D4wN]

I've genuinely only seen activity in the Arcane Tower when there's DM attention to be gained. I know that sounds harsh, but even without settlement tools etc. you could do really nice things leading a guild from the arcane tower. People just aren't interested.

I agree with the OP on some of the points they mentioned to why it's not as populated. Maybe it would be improved as a guild house but then you have the issue where someone is hogging it without necessarily being super active or inclusive (yes, that has happened and still happens to many Guild houses). The Tower needs to be inclusive.

I do agree the Tower could be thriving under an active and invested faction leader, it requires dedication from a willing player. And with mages and conjurers etc not really being so popular anymore and warlocks and animators etc not really being welcome (even though they technically are, they never last due to the controversy) there's just not enough players I think who would be interested to carry it unless there's a DM involved. It's why you see many settlements have their own mage guilds established.

[Xerah]

Some good suggestions already in the thread. For something simple, just doing something like turning some areas into 3 different guildhalls would be a great first step.

3 guild halls:
Each of the two wings could be its own guildhall
the warden's hall could be a guild hall as it was previously (and maybe be something different, i.e. melee types)

With 3 groups there, no one group is in charge of the tower so you don't get into the annoying RP from before when players expected Tower people to stop/PVP anyone they didn't like in using the portal for some strange reason (this happened all the time).

I also think it would be very cool to have elections for each school of magic as long as they had ESF in that school. I'm not sure giving mechanical power to this would be recommended since I can see that being easily exploited, but maybe a figure with the names of the current archmages on it would be all.

I've genuinely only seen activity in the Arcane Tower when there's DM attention to be gained. I know that sounds harsh, but even without settlement tools etc. you could do really nice things leading a guild from the arcane tower. People just aren't interested.

It was extremely popular back when I first joined the server without any kind of settlement powers. This was before the tower redesign and you could only get into the bottom floor of the tower (the rest, small, was the guildhall). After the change (it still had the warden hall as a guild house) it was still going okay (not as great) but really completely died off after the guildhall was totally removed. If you build it, they will come.

[D4wN]

I believe that yeah. But I also know there have been groups hogging it and excluding people. It's always a risk with every faction, but moreso I think when it involves a building like that. I do agree that if you turn it back into a guild hall you'd likely get more interest again.

[Algol]

If the tower is too big, and has a lot of tiny quarters, perhaps in addition to the guild houses those small rooms could become a student/ apprentice dormitory for a magical academy setting?

I also think it's pretty cool to have shady magic students who are failing at their classes and thus have become warlocks to pass magic tests or something. O think warlocks should be allowed mechanically but discriminated culturally

[silverpheonix]

If the tower is too big, and has a lot of tiny quarters, perhaps in addition to the guild houses those small rooms could become a student/ apprentice dormitory for a magical academy setting?

I also think it's pretty cool to have shady magic students who are failing at their classes and thus have become warlocks to pass magic tests or something. O think warlocks should be allowed mechanically but discriminated culturally

I'm all for warlocks catching flack, but for it to be sustainable and not drive a congregated population of them out, the discrimination should be "You're all quacks, chiropractors calling themselves doctors while us ACTUAL SURGEONS study and practice real medicine."

No offense to any chiropractors.

That's generating RP. You can't generate RP by constantly driving the RPers away and shouting them down.

[The Vandals of Rome]

I played in the Tower as part of the group inhabiting it before the most recent DM plot.

I've played in the Tower multiple times before.

I disagree with most of what has been said in this thread.

The Tower is fine. It's not empty because there's a diagnosable fault. It's not for lack of a system. It's not "only" inhabited when a DM animates it. In fact in my experience the moment it's inhabited a DM turns up.

It's a good space for a specific theme. In my experience if you move in and start offering that theme to other PCs, they move in too. You build a little group. My consistent experience with roleplay in general is if you build it, they will come.

I do agree with Sincra on what "killed" the Tower most recently. The DM plot was extremely disruptive to what had been going on. I did enjoy the plot, and I thought it was a good story. I think explaining why the DM stuff was disruptive goes beyond the scope of this post. But I also think the "dying" is okay?

I've thought it was okay every time I've seen the story I've been involved in going on in the Tower wind to a close. I've enjoyed each new chapter I've started, or involved myself in there. I don't see the lack of continuity as a failure. It's an open space to grow in if you're into that. It can be daunting to start from nothing. It takes time, and regularity, and it can be work. But I don't mind that stories last as long as they should.

I don't think a place is thriving just because there's 20 statues of PCs my character never met around. I don't think it's thriving because there's PCs keeping the lights on in a space. What thrives and where in Arelith waxes and wanes, because there's clearly been a lot of thought into making it a place where you have the tools and freedom to build something up.

If you really want to change something, maybe touch up the Tower. It looks a little dated. But, I don't really think it's essential.

warlock magic is typically still of the weave!!!!! they can have a religious relationship with Mystra, creation and the weave, please let them participate in the tower

[Ruzuke]

So - full disclosure - The Arcane Tower has never interested me. I've never worked on the areas, and each time it has been updated it's been by volunteer area devs, none of which I think are still on the team.

I do (strongly) feel that warlocks should be excluded from a place focused on studying the arcane weave, either through direct study or mastering one's connection to it, but beyond that? It's not really my thing - creatively or in character (I find the lectures especially tedious...).

As a poster above said I think it is almost certainly too big, and fails to channel players into a common area, and I'm also not clear of its ic governance at all, or indeed what would be the best approach in that regard.

I would definitely take suggestions (for both it's physical design and in-game administration, but would need a short refresher course on the latter's current state first)

I would be fine with removing Warlocks from their membership. I would however think a guild in the abyss and hells for warlocks, blackguards, and harbingers could provide that sort of community. Where plots of battling the other side (demons vs devils) with ranks and privilege could add a bit of RP.

It could also provide grounds for Radiant Heart, Arcane tower against team literal evil and their pawns.

[-XXX-]

Why not move the Arcane Tower into the planes and make it a themed place for all arcane related stuff?
With primary focus on arcane study, all sort of mage types could kinda mingle there without the pollution of Prime politics.

[Definately Not A Mimic]

Allow some rooms for non-casters to be able to rent again, either in added guilds or a small section of the current. You used to have Wardens who were martial characters living there and last I heard that can't be the case any longer. The wizard don't have their guards living on sight?

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I'm getting the sense that I am in the minority here, but I absolutely despise the idea of making it an "arcane" tower instead of a wizard tower. A warlock is very different from a sorcerer, and they are both very different from a wizard, and I would prefer a world where wizards mistrust the other two because they are far less disciplined in the arcane arts.

Also, lumping them together only serves to exemplify how far behind wizards are from warlocks and the sorcerer variants currently on a mechanical level. So, yeah, I'm rocking my red MAWA hat here, and saying "Make Wizards Great Again!" And I think a big part of that is some setting-based differences between the arcane classes, with little care right now about who's more powerful than who when it comes to pvp.