Scrying Mechanic and FOIG policy

[-XXX-]

You misunderstand.

I do understand clearly. I've seen this play out many many times over.

Excercising mechanical power in these situations can hardly be described as "victory". It is a failure to foster inclusive RP.

"Remember that guy who got killbashed into a normal award?" does not exactly sound like the perfect showcase story for potential new players either.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I am firmly against any PC-accessible mechanic being FOIG. If it's a mechanic that a player has access to, it should be publicly documented, every time, without fail. No new player should ever face the indignity of 'you can't know this mechanical thing until someone tells you, and I'm not going to tell you,' because metagaming is already against the rules, and a reportable offense. All it does is make the new player feel left out in the cold with no real indication of what RP they should pursue to deal with the issue in most cases.

We aren't talking about the pattern to a trap in a dungeon, we aren't talking about the secret lullaby you can sing to put the giant party-wrecking monster to sleep, we're talking about abilities that, for whatever reason, someone thought it would be cool to omit the footnote at the bottom that should read [does this thing under these circumstances] and tell other people it would add to their immersion to not know they're being screwed until it happens.

That's not fun when it happens to a player- it's only fun when it happens to a character in a story.

No one went out and picked up NWN by accident at this point in time, and although it advertises(or used to, has it changed?) itself as Vanilla, with the addition of Sync and tons of custom content, FOIG mechanics is a slap in the face to new players on top of what is probably a shock of information overload at just how not vanilla the content already is.

[AstralUniverse]

The Scry mechanic is one of the most, if not THE most griefy tool that's terribly used on this server and I dont know how the staff hasnt seen it for the last... I dont know how many years. Scry should be removed entirely and ESF divination should receive love in a different form. It really contributes to nothing beyond ganking and flushing out someone's story ahead of their intention.

[Void]

'you can't know this mechanical thing until someone tells you, and I'm not going to tell you,'

"This one knows nothing of such things. However, that other one, called <character name> might".

By the way, public documentation is pretty much metagaming. Unless it is accessible in the game.
The game also has libraries on many topics. There are many books written by players as well... why not try using them?

There's a ton of things you can do here, to be honest, that would make character get involved with other players, possibly guilds, and form new connections to others. Why waste the opportunity...

[AstralUniverse]

By the way, public documentation is pretty much metagaming.

I mean... technically you're not wrong but where is the line? Should we not have Wiki at all then? Maybe just leave *everything* FOIG, and see how many people leave the server or try to join and dont stick around.

I'm not saying everything and anything about all mechanics should be publicly documented, and Scry is definitely one of those things a newer player doesnt need to know to map themselves in the server's mechanics and function in the game, but many other things are a lot more important for the player's game-play and functionality who must be publicly documented for the game to be even remotely close to fair between veterans and newer players. So I think some forms of meta-gaming in this regard should be encouraged. But again, I dont personally mind that Scry is vague and a lot of it is in the Foig territory. I think the problem with Scry has little to do with documentation, or lack of it, as I said in my post above. but it's important to point out that not all meta-gaming is bad and malicious.

[Red Ropes]

Scry is blocked by any kind of invisibility.

Scry is blocked by an epic abjurers ward or a loremaster's ward or the warlock's Glyph of Forestallment.

Scry is blocked by a ESF: PERF bardsong as Waltz of the Magical Masquerade.

That's literally it. Nothing else blocks it.

That is the current state of affairs.

I might be smote for this latter but I don't remember anything ever saying we should not be communicating this anywhere. It should absolutely be OOCly documented so people can report bugs. There was a while there where it apparently was not working. Also anyone who wants to find out what it does and test its limits should mess around on the PGCC.

This information is on the wiki about it, probably written with past intentions by our volunteers:

-scry
Magically spy a character in the server. For epic diviners only.
Use: -scry ["character name"]

Writing the name of the character (or sending -scry in a tell to the target character) will allow you to scry - that is to say, to magically divine and spy on the character - for a brief time. The command has a cost of 5 spell components.

You can scry someone under their disguised name, provided you know the disguised name if disguised, or their real name regardless of disguise status.

Characters with Epic Spell Focus in Divination can scry on other characters. Scrying works as a cutscene, showing the caster the target's current surroundings. (True Seeing won't show the scrier. Note that using any OOC methods to identify a scrier is considered metagaming.)

A Scrying characters cannot be reached by any (speedy/goblin/wisp/etc) messengers or images.

It is possible to protect yourself against scrying; for details you will have to find out in game! Epic Diviners can also sense when a scry is done upon them.

Scrying works even if a character is exiled from a settlement.

---

Anyway some of you guys are getting pretty close to posting suggestions or derailing to other topics. Stop it. The OP wanted to discuss the nature of the FOIG rule and scry.

Unless I get scolded about this later (as it is Christmas day!) I will add this to the wiki about scry. I think all of the mechanics of any epic spell should be recorded so it is known, anything mechanical, that isn't an in game puzzle or deep lore about secret wands, factions bases absolutely should never be shared willy nilly...

but scry isn't that.

[Aradin]

Scry is blocked by any kind of invisibility.

Scry is blocked by an epic abjurers ward or a loremaster's ward.

That's literally it. Nothing else blocks it.

Scrying is also blocked by a bard with Epic Skill Focus in Performance singing Waltz of the Magical Masquerade.

[Red Ropes]

Thanks, forgot that one. Updated it and the Warlock stuff.

Anyway- the bard thing is actually on the wiki, I think. lol

[Skane]

Scry is blocked by any kind of invisibility.

Scry is blocked by an epic abjurers ward or a loremaster's ward or the warlock's Glyph of Forestallment.

Scry is blocked by a ESF: PERF bardsong as Waltz of the Magical Masquerade.

That's literally it. Nothing else blocks it.

That is the current state of affairs.

I might be smote for this latter but I don't remember anything ever saying we should not be communicating this anywhere. It should absolutely be OOCly documented so people can report bugs. There was a while there where it apparently was not working. Also anyone who wants to find out what it does and test its limits should mess around on the PGCC.

This information is on the wiki about it, probably written with past intentions by our volunteers:

-scry
Magically spy a character in the server. For epic diviners only.
Use: -scry ["character name"]

Writing the name of the character (or sending -scry in a tell to the target character) will allow you to scry - that is to say, to magically divine and spy on the character - for a brief time. The command has a cost of 5 spell components.

You can scry someone under their disguised name, provided you know the disguised name if disguised, or their real name regardless of disguise status.

Characters with Epic Spell Focus in Divination can scry on other characters. Scrying works as a cutscene, showing the caster the target's current surroundings. (True Seeing won't show the scrier. Note that using any OOC methods to identify a scrier is considered metagaming.)

A Scrying characters cannot be reached by any (speedy/goblin/wisp/etc) messengers or images.

It is possible to protect yourself against scrying; for details you will have to find out in game! Epic Diviners can also sense when a scry is done upon them.

Scrying works even if a character is exiled from a settlement.

---

Anyway some of you guys are getting pretty close to posting suggestions or derailing to other topics. Stop it. The OP wanted to discuss the nature of the FOIG rule and scry.

Unless I get scolded about this later (as it is Christmas day!) I will add this to the wiki about scry. I think all of the mechanics of any epic spell should be recorded so it is known, anything mechanical, that isn't an in game puzzle or deep lore about secret wands, factions bases absolutely should never be shared willy nilly...

but scry isn't that.

The thread was made in response to a DM ruling on discussing scry being FOIG in the official discord. Adding the information you have added to the wiki was my goal with this thread, so mission accomplished I guess.

Merry Christmas!

[Red Ropes]

Developers need feedback from the player base for when widely used or advantageous things are made so we can fix them. Part of that is documenting them. Scrying isn't a one time thing done in a magical tower- its a widely accessible thing that anyone with a feat or three can do and is obviously popular.

Whatever DM wrote that I am not meaning to overrule or anything. But it is harmless to know and necessary (for Developers) to fix if it ever weirds out.

Scrying is also a level 3-4 spell that basically every casting class has (though in PnP it is also countered by Mind Wards, lol).

Anyway- I will definitely remove information if I am contacted or it can be freely removed from my post. But it is something Developers probably need out there to get genuine feedback and it runs counter to our aims if it isn't.

[WJLIII3]

On Improved Invisibility, it's the concealment effect (turns), not the invisibility one(rounds). Other sources of concealment won't do it. Thanks Ropes.

[Sincra]

On Improved Invisibility, it's the concealment effect, not the invisibility one. Thanks Ropes.

This is due to how effects are linked. It's technically invisible still as that's why invis purge removes imp invis concealment but not concealment the spell.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

'you can't know this mechanical thing until someone tells you, and I'm not going to tell you,'

"This one knows nothing of such things. However, that other one, called <character name> might".

By the way, public documentation is pretty much metagaming. Unless it is accessible in the game.
The game also has libraries on many topics. There are many books written by players as well... why not try using them?

There's a ton of things you can do here, to be honest, that would make character get involved with other players, possibly guilds, and form new connections to others. Why waste the opportunity...

The way you handle that IC is fine and perfect, and I'm all for it, but again, that's to a character. The player, however, should know that scrying is a thing accessible most diviners in the world, and should know, as a player, that should their character come into contact with scrying, that there are means to prevent it, and should know what those means are- so they can either RP a character-appropriate reason they'd know that (lore, spellcraft), or pursue another character with knowledge in that field to learn it on screen, which could still be fun for them story-wise even if they know.

Imagine, if you will, that you took Epic Spell Hellball/Ruin on a pixie mage, only to find out that, surprise, because you didn't take ESF: Evocation, there's a bunch of blowback damage that's going to send you to the fugue, or if you made a fighter who specializes in spear, but there was no note on spear that told you you can use it with one hand and a shield on Arelith, then weeks or months later you find out a bunch of those deaths that would've been prevented by a few extra shield AC weren't necessary. Imagine that all the casters on Arelith couldn't use any spell over 7th level until they found out IC that they have to go out and get a spell component pouch, or that HiPS only works in certain circumstances.

These things aren't fun for the players if they don't know- but they can be if they know and still decide to make story out of it.

Props to Ropes for taking the initiative to out this mechanic as a Team member - one might notice that the wiki until then suggested this be enforced as a FOIG mechanic, and that no one was really willing to go against that on the forums until they did for fear of repercussions.

I long for the day when we collectively as a community stop delighting in telling other players to learn mechanics that are accessible as part of their build choices IG, especially when everyone here is encouraged to optimize their builds as best they can or "Git Gud" before they suggest mechanical changes.

We also like to say this is a game and games are meant to be fun - excluding players from mechanics knowledge is never fun, except for the people in the know, and that can only come at the expense of those who don't. For example, we just had a thread giving explicit details on how to make the best use of your potions/non-character cast spells. In fact- I think I have a thread to go make.

[Void]

Imagine, if you will, that you took Epic Spell Hellball/Ruin on a pixie mage, only to find out that, surprise, because you didn't take ESF: Evocation, there's a bunch of blowback damage that's going to send you to the fugue, or if you made a fighter who specializes in spear, but there was no note on spear that told you you can use it with one hand and a shield on Arelith, then weeks or months later you find out a bunch of those deaths that would've been prevented by a few extra shield AC weren't necessary. Imagine that all the casters on Arelith couldn't use any spell over 7th level until they found out IC that they have to go out and get a spell component pouch, or that HiPS only works in certain circumstances.

It already works like that.

When you start playing a game, normally you do not go to its wiki and immerse yourself in the world. Because wiki means spoilers.

So the situation you describe is something that is already happening. You can take hellball without GSF, you can go months without realizing that spear can be wielded with a shield, and you can boldly level up to 7th level spell access to be shocked that you can't cast a thing without components.

It is a reality already.

If you want to avoid those situations, then all that information should be available within the game. And not on external resource.

[Paint]

I waffle back and forth on this. Personally, I like that a lot of the design choices of Arelith force people to interact and roleplay. Learning about mechanics IG is always a good way to get to know people, and it's actually how my character Ester met one of her best friends. But, when mechanics can give you a pretty consistent, direct edge in PVP, it does feel like the rules need to be different.

I'm not gonna lie, when I played Dark Souls the first time, I ended up using a wiki half-way through to figure out some of the more obscure, obfuscated mechanics of the game. One of the things about Dark Souls is that a lot of the difficulty of the game comes from grappling with systems that are fuzzy unknowns to you; You know the systems are in play, but you don't know how they function or how to manipulate them. When you figure out how Dark Souls work, suddenly the game becomes a lot easier. Point is, while I think there's merit in obfuscating mechanics, because it can be fun to unravel them, if the game itself doesn't give you the proper tools to do that, I will usually head to a wiki and feel no shame about it.

Am I going to compare Dark Souls to Arelith? Yeah, I guess. Arelith has similar some-such systems. I am fine with a lot of the specifics of these systems remaining relative unknowns to prevent people from abusing them too harshly -- especially some of the stuff surrounding dweomercrafting and godsaves. I think scrying is fun to find out in game, but I've also been mislead about what and what doesn't prevent scrying, only to get a notice while I thought I was protecting myself letting me know I was being scried. (As an aside, I do think there's RP merit in being wrong about things and I do wish people would be wrong more often!) Being able to look at a small list of counters that a lot of older players would already know about isn't the end of the world, anyways.

And uh, yes. I realize that Arelith is an RP server and Bad Things Happen to Good Adventurers, but one of the aspects of PVP is winning. For someone to win, someone else has to lose. That's how PVP works. And you can have fun with both, but if you want to win -- you'll be a little salty if someone is using some obscure FOIG mechanic to get a consistent advantage over you. Conversely... you might be secretive about how scrying works to keep that advantage.

I think there's a lot of information about mechanics that have been distilled in books throughout the module by players and I'm happy to see so much content produced on divining. There are divination seminars, divination tutoring, and divination literature in abundance. So while I do think that scrying needs to be more transparent so that PVP is a little more fair, I also think that yet another avenue of RP and engagement'll be cut off if the mechanics are laid bare. Once the mechanics of scrying are easily accessible to everyone, people are gonna want to RP about it less. It'll just be a thing your character does that doesn't require further elaboration or exploration. I don't like that.

In conclusion, I have no conclusion. Shrug.

[The GrumpyCat]

Strictly my own taste here, but I think that if a mechanic is pretty centeral or obvious (e.g. How the core of Scrying works, or at least some obvious ways of blocking it) then it should definatly NOT be FOIG. That just makes sense to me.

But other, side aspects that often don't give huge mechanical bonuses are actually better as FOIG. For example...

How to Scry Someone? Not FOIG
That you can Block Scry with a certain Bard Song/-Ward Scrying? - Not FOIG
That you can block it with certain Spell(s) - Uh... On the edge for me? I kinda prefer it FOIG myself but *shrug*
What the auras mean with Greater Divination? FOIG
What the deck of Cards means? FOIG

Those latter two don't neccesarly have huge mechanical bonuses, but are things that are deliberatly obtuse and should be explored In Game.

Having a few things FOIG encourages roleplay, exploration, and frankly is often more interesting and enjoyable than just reading up on a wiki, or having the information vomited out at you by someone.

Again I do think that was /sort/ of information that can be considered FOIG is very debatalbe, and to be considered on an individual level, and I do get the frustration with some of it. But I maintain that a bit of ignorance is definatly a good thing.

[Void]

Imagine, if you will, that you took Epic Spell Hellball/Ruin on a pixie mage, only to find out that, surprise, because you didn't take ESF: Evocation, there's a bunch of blowback damage that's going to send you to the fugue, or if you made a fighter who specializes in spear, but there was no note on spear that told you you can use it with one hand and a shield on Arelith, then weeks or months later you find out a bunch of those deaths that would've been prevented by a few extra shield AC weren't necessary. Imagine that all the casters on Arelith couldn't use any spell over 7th level until they found out IC that they have to go out and get a spell component pouch, or that HiPS only works in certain circumstances.

I'll elaborate on it, a bit.

All described things already happen. Some things have to be figured out, and even if information is available freely somewhere, that doesn't mean that you'll find it, that you'll read it, remember it. And even if you do, you won't be able to efficiently use it because you'd be lacking experience and need to learn the game first.

One good example is that if you get into hostile situation you might be thinking that you can run away with a portal lens. If your opponent is skilled, however, then while you're still considering use of lens, they'll lock teleportation. Even if you knew it can be done, experiencing it will be different. As theoretical knowledge is different from practical.

Figuring out mechanics is part of the game, and someone who played longer will possess deeper mechanical knowledge that will give them advantage. The idea seemed to be that if you give information to everybody, you'll level the field and make it all fair somehow. That's not how it works. More experienced people will have upper hand regardless, as the amount of information is quite large. And then there's aspect of fun from finding FOIG information and figuring it out. Posting things on an external resource kills part of the fun and cheapens the experience quite a bit. Ideally the wiki shouldn't be needed.

[Poggersman]

Figuring out mechanics is part of the game, and someone who played longer will possess deeper mechanical knowledge that will give them advantage. The idea seemed to be that if you give information to everybody, you'll level the field and make it all fair somehow. That's not how it works. More experienced people will have upper hand regardless, as the amount of information is quite large. And then there's aspect of fun from finding FOIG information and figuring it out. Posting things on an external resource kills part of the fun and cheapens the experience quite a bit. Ideally the wiki shouldn't be needed.

No harm in attempting to even the playing field still, game mechanics shouldn't be subject to FOIG and should be made crystal clear for everyone especially newcomers. When you sit down to play a tabletop game you have your rulebook, you have your monster manual, you have other sources to learn about the game because there isn't anything fun about hitting a mechanical wall while trying to have some fun. In this particular case scrying is a very definite mechanical benefit to those who know how to use it and utilize it and there are very few scenarios people will know that they are being scried unless scry victim has esf: divination or they are told that they were scried on. There isn't anything ideal about not having an OOC source for game mechanics, this game requires you to invest a lot of your time in it and it is a game with very strict numbers game meta.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Why should I have this advantage over a new player?

Because it is not possible to make you forget all those things, alter mechanics every time you make a character, shuffle the areas and so on. It is also not possible to restrict you to ever only playing arelith once with a single character.

Discovering this sort of stuff for the first time is fun, and if you make the knowledge public, in essence you're depriving the new player of fun you had. Why shouldn't the new player experience the joy of discovery you had?

That's unfair towards the new player.

By this same logic we should remove all mechanical explanations outside whats available in the base wiki, and allow people to figure out whats best IG.

I'm of opinion that the less information is available in public, the better.

We don't, because that's not fair, just like this isn't fair.

THe information available online is a compromise towards people that do not want to invest as much time or want easier time playing. It is not really a matter of "fairness", however, as this is not some sort of MOBA where every class/build combination is supposed to deserve a chance.

Look, trying to argue about it with me won't make it happen. As I'm not an admin. Just saying.

Ignorance of systems results in countless incomplete feedbacks. Like I barely play so i never get to enjoy any foig stuff, which is fine, but having a knowledge of rhe mechanics allows me to make more accurate reports with limited experience and lets me help steer other players in their perception that certain classes might suck etc.

I enjoy building and theory crafting and never reach lvl 30 in a decade of arelith. I once upon pit in the hours that could have lvled up fast but was too ignorant mechanically to do it then. The gap between top builders and someone new to NWN (not even adding arelith stuff) is just way too massive. New players reading it all STILL get it all wrong.