Distant Relation wrote: ↑Sat Jun 18, 2022 10:33 am
In Arelith scrying is, at best, a way to find out
way too much about an ongoing, interesting plot in a way that is completely unfair to the ones being scried upon.
God forbid we don't have complete control over every narrative beat of our characters' contrived and sequestered plotlines. If only private discord roleplay were allowed - then Arelith would truly be a paradise.
Sarcasm aside - yeah, I just really hate this argument. The server has too many walls put up around its active cliques as-is. Scry-ganking is treated like some kind of omnipresent boogeyman, but I'm tempted to think it's not nearly as prevalent as people make it out to be. And what is with the assumption that a plotline is going to be "ruined" once it's discovered by someone you didn't explicitly invite into it? Some of my most exciting and memorable moments of roleplay were either created or accentuated by either scrying on someone, or being scried upon. Yes, its current implementation has its flaws. Yes, most of the time you use the ability, it's either a peek into someone's most mundane shopping experiences, or it's outright blocked. But when it's good, there's nothing else in the world like it.
If there's anything I'm getting out of this thread and the dozens like it, it's that neither the pro's or the anti's think scrying is "fair" - it's either a capstone ability rendered useless by its arbitrarily-defined counters, or it's a powerful tool abused by griefers and fun-ruiners with no recourse. So rather than approaching this with the characteristically Arelithian mindset of, "Thing Bad, DELETE THING," why don't we figure out ways for scrying to be made more fair?
I think there should be a Will save associated with it. Succeed on the save, and you know someone's scrying on you. If you have ESF Divination, or Illusion, or Abjuration, maybe you can prevent the scry entirely on a successful save.
Alternatively, as suggested many a time, how about a low-to-mid-level Illusion spell specifically designed to block scrying?
Zone-scrying could be a cool feature, too - and I have a few ideas for how something like that might be reasonably implemented.
Or, what if you had to "attune" yourself to your potential scry targets, limiting yourself to only people you have interacted with and forcing you to keep a short, curated list?