Rituals

[Hazard]

Today I was reminded that rituals exist. It is the first time I've thought about rituals since their announcement and it made me realise I haven't heard anything about them IC/OOC since then, I don't know anything about them, I've never seen them, nothing.

I love that there's FOIG aspects to rituals, that's really cool.
I'm really digging that rituals are a thing at all? I guess? I don't know what they do or what they are.

Just sort of dubious of them entirely being FOIG. There isn't even a wiki article about what classes are capable of rituals.
Is this something anyone can do? Do you have to be a specific class? What rituals exist? How many people does it take? Does it require components? A special time of day? What is a ritual, and most importantly HOW is a ritual?

As someone not on discord, I haven't been exposed to a shred of information except what is present in the announcement of the update saying 'There is rituals.' I just find that a bit off-putting, especially since I'm sure there are plenty of people who have figured things out and shared that info amongst themselves OOCly that I will never be privy to.

My question is, is there anything at all about rituals we can know as players that isn't FOIG besides .. 'Rituals exist. Good luck.'?

[neverwinternightly]

If you're a class that can perform one, even if you'd perform it rather poorly, typing -ritual will display a list of what you can attempt in my experience! From there, it displays more about prerequisites, needed components, the other classes able to perform it, the number of participants, and potentially a few other things depending on the ritual!

[Hazard]

If you're a class that can perform one, even if you'd perform it rather poorly, typing -ritual will display a list of what you can attempt in my experience! From there, it displays more about prerequisites, needed components, the other classes able to perform it, the number of participants, and potentially a few other things depending on the ritual!

Thanks a lot, that's exactly the kinda non-spoiler info I was after

[Edens_Fall]

When time allows we will see about adding more information to the Wiki!

[Hazard]

When time allows we will see about adding more information to the Wiki!

Sweeeet.

[Ithalan]

It'd be nice if the rituals your character was capable of starting somehow gave even just a general idea of what their purpose was. It makes no sense that someone can inexplicably start a ritual that they have never learnt about IC, but have no knowledge at all about what it might do.

If they are automatically made available to particular classes, then said classes should automatically have some IC knowledge of how they work as well, just like with every other class ability.

[Hazard]

Are all rituals class based, or are there some that are based on race and ignore class?
Would be cool to get a bunch of some race together of any class for a racial kind of ritual.

[xf1313]

I have only ever found ritual when playing Druid and cleric (I am saying it here since this is superfacial knowledge, no point hiding it from people who might just want to create a toon to play ritual). Thou I imagine, shaman and favored soul might beable to start it? Not sure if it is available to other classes.

I can confirm there are class requirements and lv restrictions for the host. And spell craft check, hm, this will come in handy, if u want to host/participate

Anyone can join in ritual by using -ritual as well, find nearest, and just kneel and worship LOL. Some ritual might cause a mess (like, a big mess), do be careful

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

My thoughts on FOIG all tend to slant one direction, which is that FOIG is a reductionist philosophy that attempts to preserve a sort of reverse dramatic irony (the players/audience can't know even though the characters they're playing could reasonably research and know these things), that ultimately creates a sense of exclusion for any player kept out of the loop.

I feel as though we have lore and spellcraft, and that between these two things as you progress in levels in a class that has rituals, the details of how to do these things and their less immediately obvious workings should be (selectively) revealed to you in increments. Kind of like how as you progress ranks in bluff you gain the ability to mimic additional stats.

Then you could just hard rule that no one should be RP'ing knowledge of any ritual they haven't revealed for themselves IC, and you can have proper dramatic irony (where the audience knows, but the character doesn't) without ever excluding a newer player just for being new.

I know, me and my pipe dreams.

[Hazard]

FOIG can feel unfair sometimes, but really cool other time. I dunno.
I think having some is great, but would at least like the vague/general basics to not be FOIG.

My charactr might have high int, but I'm an idiot : )

[-XXX-]

Rituals are tied to caster class type and spell foci. You can access information about the rituals available to your character through the -ritual console command.

What's currently left in the FOIG grey area is:

a) what each ritual actually does - this leaves room for experimentation RP, which is great fun.

b) what rituals are available - some rituals are specific for clerics, others for mages, druids or warlocks. They can all exchange this info IC.

Dumping open info on the wiki would make this all go away, which would've been a shame.

[Irongron]

FOIG can feel unfair sometimes, but really cool other time. I dunno.

Even I have mixed feelings. Arelith is, in part, an exploration game, so having a heavy element of discovery is great. It also can heavily offset the whole raw numbers/spreadsheet approach to play.

Henchmen, boons, secret locations and special items and songs, stream books, and now rituals help make building a character something done in game, sometimes with unexpected and unplanned elements. A changing game environment, can make this experience a lot more fun than it might otherwise be.

Then again, it can also be really frustrating. Knowing that for some it is not only high end gear getting supplied by one's OOC network, but also pretty crucial knowledge that can leave casual players, and those not willing to do the whole OOC guild thing left out in the cold. In that respect? It can feel like a whole other kind of gatekeeping.

Still, there are things we can do by way of setting an example. Try to divulge secrets in game, and by RP. Do a lecture at one of the academic areas, write and publish an in game book. Set up a crafter guild that will share information on the best current locations to find a specific resource, rather than pinging whatever unofficial Discord you are in for that information.

In the end though, eradicating metagaming is as hopeless an ambition as eradicating suggestive descriptions on Elven player characters or the descottishifaction of dwarves; whatever steps we take we take it will keep happening, because that's how many people want to play this game. I hope, at least, we can curtail it though.

[Sandrow]

At least there is one thing that I can tell you: don't try it inside a bar. I saw it happened once, and swarms of undead attacked The Silver Bough, what a mess : )

[WanderingPoet]

There is a book on one of the rituals floating about, the Hallowed Rest.

But I do think that on accomplishing a ritual it'd be nice to know what the ritual actually did. It's a little awkward RPwise to be 'Hey, I know this ritual that does... Something. No idea what, or how it works other than we stand here and hopefully don't die. Come join me in performing it!'

First time most people do hallowed rest if they don't know about it, they often end up dead. But even when you complete it, all you get is a 'ritual successful' - and some percentage (that can go higher than 100%) and... that's it.

So what they've been is just RP tools for doing Rp'd rituals and looking cool and having interesting VFX; but without knowing what they /do/ it's hard to RP them for their actual purpose. Maybe that's a good thing!

The loot books in game don't really clarify what they do beyond what you get from the name of them, and not all of them have books. It would enhance the rp to at least know what bonuses they give, rather than just making them up and hoping you're consistently making them up with other players.

[ActionReplay]

Ritual effects are covered to some extent in the books, not all of them, but some. If people would prefer some sort of scroll items instead to
A) Actually learn the ritual and B) to get some more mechanical information on them

I can do that. But there are other components to a ritual's success that can be learned from the books.

[WanderingPoet]

I think scrolls would be a cool way to learn them.

I'm even fine if the rituals don't actually do anything mechanical and just -look cool-; but it's the vagueness of 'what does this actually do?' that makes it awkward to RP.

The first time I did Springs Promise I was asked what it did and I could only guess, but did the ritual anyways. It doesn't inspire confidence in competence if there is no information to even hint at.

Hallowed Rest was a bit easier because it hints at helping against undeath, it's clearly kelemvorian so you can assume it probably weakens undead or stops them from spawning. But it's still a bit strange to just have zero idea in character what a ritual does, that you know how to perform.

It can even be vague like
Hallowed Rest: Weakens undead in the area, can prevent animating of undead by animation spells, removed Unhallow effects.

At least then we can RP some knowledge, we don't need to know exact effects.

[Aradin]

...it's the vagueness of 'what does this actually do?' that makes it awkward to RP.

...it's still a bit strange to just have zero idea in character what a ritual does, that you know how to perform.

I agree. It'd be like unlocking spells when you level up but if none of the spells came with descriptions. I'd prefer not knowing how to perform a ritual if I haven't already learned - in some tangible mechanical way that the server recognizes - what the ritual does.
Or just have a little flavour description in the -ritual menu for each ritual. I feel like if our characters know how to perform a given ritual, they probably have at least a vague idea of what that ritual's effect is.

[ActionReplay]

All fair points, will look into this eventually.