The Zuma

[Penchant]

It's not selfish, I don't live anywhere near the Zuma and never will. Thank God.

And I'm not saying they should change their behavior, I'm saying they should just dissapear without a trace. They're supposed to be enigmatic, it's not like there's anything preventing them from just disappearing beyond an obsession with a failed experiment.

That comparison doesn't follow. If I get crushed by a rival kingdom, I am being crushed within the confines and the rulesets of the sandbox. I built up something, they built up something, and we fought and I lost. That's all fair. I could have done the same. What isn't fair is when someone stomps around, blowing !@#$ up, playing by different rules and demanding you either heed him or leave the game. One is fair game, the other is a GM who thinks his power gives him leave to do whatever he wants. I've yet to hear one single argument about how the Zuma enhances the sandbox. Everything put in the game needs to do one thing: enhance player choice. The Zuma do the exact opposite. They are attention whores and bullies of the highest order.

Attention whores and bullies? They occasionally do stuff that gets people attention otherwise they don't do much and don't require a lot of attention to be fun. They are at war with Morek and have been for awhile but aren't doing much there when they could fight some massive war against Morek until Morek does whatever the Zuma wants. That could maybe be considering being an attention whore and bullying realms, but the Zuma isn't doing that.

How does Zuma add to the sandbox? They are great roleplayers and another cool thing in the game that has interesting diplomacy/different to interact and deal with compared to other realms.

[Telrunya]

"The Zuma don't act the way I want so they are stupid"

They are Daimons for a reason, not Humans. If you don't like it, just don't go near them and stop the continuous whining whenever they take an action that is inconvenient and 'ruins the game'. That is forgetting they are part of the game themselves, not outsiders, and built the story just as much as any Realm does. The Zuma GM hardly just do whatever he wants. He has his own rules and confines he follows and you can always reason with them. The Zuma GM spends his own free time doing this and he always gets complaints hurled at him whenever he does something because people think they can just ignore a part of the game, then get angry when hey big surprise, they can't. You can't win in BM, you can't lose either.

This is why we can't have nice things. It wears people out having to defend their every step.

[Penchant]

Good...there is someone else reasonable.

[Norrel]

"The Zuma don't act the way I want so they are stupid"

actually, that's not my argument. I actually don't care about how the Zuma act, I justdon't  think that any non-player faction entities should exist outside of Beluaterra. The Zuma's behavior isn't exactly good but I would want them gone regardless. Please don't straw man me.

I don't care about if he spends his own free time doing it. Obviously he enjoys it because he does so, taking flak for his actions is just what comes with the territory when you start !@#$ting on other people's creations and give them no recourse beyond either leaving the things they've created, "continuous whining" or dealing with your ridiculous "story" and "intrigue". I'm hoping more people take the former option in the future so he can just sit in his little corner of Dwilight jacking off about how mysterious and cool he is with the other 5 or 6 people who actually care about how "mysterious" and "intriguing" his all-too-human arbitrariness is.

I spend my free time complaining on an internet forum but I don't make the argument that people should respect or acknowledge me because of it. That's a bull!@#$ argument and you know it. If you disagree with me, you are entirely free to insult me and tell me to get the !@#$ out. The same applies for anyone who puts their actions into the public domain.

Give anyone enough power and they'll use it to !@#$ everywhere. That's not daimonic, that's human nature.

[Kwanstein]

And you know what? If I was a DM and my group wanted to fight and find epic loot, I wouldn't punish them, I wouldn't ruin the game, I wouldn't arbitrarily destroy their stuff and claim that they aren't playing the game the way I want them to, I'd do what they want. If I don't do what they want, I'm a !@#$ty DM, they stop playing with me. That's the way it goes. The DM is providing a service, the game is not about him, it is about the players.

But they can't leave this !@#$ty powertripping DM because they have literally invested hundreds or thousands of hours into their sandbox, and this toddler is running around and smashing !@#$ up because he's not being paid attention to. !@#$ that.

This is hollow rhetoric, now that I think of it. First of all, you act as if you are speaking for everyone, when it is not true. Secondly, you propose that it is the patron who knows best, not the artist. That is not necessarily true unless you can prove it so. I am thinking right now that it is false.

[Norrel]

This is hollow rhetoric, now that I think of it. First of all, you act as if you are speaking for everyone, when it is not true. Secondly, you propose that it is the patron who knows best, not the artist. That is not necessarily true unless you can prove it so. I am thinking right now that it is false.

hahahaha wow. Okay.

You're acting like you're speaking for everyone when you say the Zuma's good. Protip: I don't have any census data and neither do you. If you polled Dwilight and everyone said that they loved the Zuma and it really was an insane vocal minority that's been spouting off anti-Zuma rhetoric, I'd shut up. Until then, leave the what-ifs at the door.

Yeah, it's true. If I go to an art gallery and instead of paintings I get kicked in the nuts, you can't tell me that I should keep coming back because of his artistic integrity. I'm going to leave and never come back and complain publicly about how duplicitous and idiotic this art museum is. Being a DM and punishing your players for wanting something you're not providing is called being a bad DM. If you don't want to cater to other people, play by yourself.

If you're seriously saying that all of Dwilight exists so that the Zuma GM can enjoy himself you need to get your head checked.

[Vellos]

FWIW, as a player who has often bitched about the Zuma– I'm psyched about them torching Saffalore.

I just wish they would also burn down Aurvandil.

Like I've been saying for maybe a few years now: the Zuma need to burn !@#$ down, like all the time. Not just sit there and play a measured game. Them torching Saffalore added a new entertaining bit to a power struggle and levels the playing field within the former Terranese states. Think of the Zuma as the US and Terran as.... Yugoslavia in 1991.

It bothers me a lot that the Zuma GM functions on a very restrictive information diet, yes. I think they should make lots of public announcements to lots of players, not private messages. The Zuma GM needs to play with a megaphone.

But is there fundamentally a problem with walking in and burning a city down? Nah. I just wish they'd do it more often and more indiscriminately, or else go jump in a volcano.

As long as the Zuma are DOING things in an approximately understandable, public fashion that enables more than just secretive RP-heavy players to interact, they can be cool. That just isn't usually how the Zuma work, AFAIK.

[Dishman]

Honestly, I think the only way you could please most players/characters was if the Zuma had a civil war and the realms got to join in at their leisure. It would probably require two GM's and still would probably require more of the GMs. I had heard two Zuma GMs were tried before (and that it was too hard to coordinate), so actually this sounds like a good path to me. Two GMs who could battle it out, autonomously control their own faction, and generate RP more efficiently.

So long as the Zuma interfere, there will be those that will be avidly against them and some who will laugh to themselves. It's not a horrible thing, but it makes winners and losers...and losers get sore.

[Vellos]

Honestly, I think the only way you could please most players/characters was if the Zuma had a civil war and the realms got to join in at their leisure. It would probably require two GM's and still would probably require more of the GMs. I had heard two Zuma GMs were tried before (and that it was too hard to coordinate), so actually this sounds like a good path to me. Two GMs who could battle it out, autonomously control their own faction, and generate RP more efficiently.

So long as the Zuma interfere, there will be those that will be avidly against them and some who will laugh to themselves. It's not a horrible thing, but it makes winners and losers...and losers get sore.

Or if the Zuma stop playing intriguemaster, are public and clear about their actions, and kill EVERYTHING in sight. Then everybody will be on the same page real fast.

[Perth]

I have to ask, what -is- the purpose of the Zuma? They're too powerful to provide meaningful conflict -- if you manage to hit a nerve, you might as well keel over and accept whatever demands the Zuma might ask for and save yourself the trouble of trying to fight against them. Meaningful conflict means that the two sides in the aforementioned conflict have a chance at winning; this is not true for the Zuma. So, what exactly does the Zuma add to the game, aside from being a win button?

Or if the Zuma stop playing intriguemaster,

These are the best two quotes about the Zuma, so far.

The problem is that the people on the receiving end of the Zuma wrath are ALWAYS going to feel like they got screwed over exactly because the Zuma are GM played and have options and powers unavailable to normal players.

My character Kerwin recently lost his Kingdom, Eston, on Atamara in a hugely pivotal war for the island. It sucked. I wasn't happy about it. I disliked the direction the island was going and I hated that we lost the war. But I knew it was fair and it felt fair. Because I was playing against a bunch of players who were working with the same equipment I had.

The Zuma don't. They play with tools I don't have. And the fact that they play so secretive and play favorites makes it even worse. They play on the intrigue level of some of the BM's biggest politckers and players and possess a massive, crushing army to go with it.

It would be like handing Chenier or Vellos or Ironsides 60,000 CS to push around in a realm made up of only themselves to play politics with the world. And when Chenier stomped on your realm while all you could do was sit and watch all he said in explanation was "Oh, sorry, you just didn't intrigue enough."

It is ALWAYS going to feel like being screwed over by those who are suffering from it and the victors ALWAYS sit around and just say "Sorry, brah. Guess you didn't hear about secret conversation X and secret event Y and secret individual Z. Play the game better."



I also want to say that the fact that this caused the player of the Scarlett family to pause Quintus is a damn shame, cause he's a great player to have around. Big loss for Dwilight and specifically the Maroccidens.

[Nosferatus]

vote Chenier for the next Zuma game master!

Eventhough i think the zuma have been played well especially during the start of Dwilight.
they could start playing a more active role now.
Especialy now Beluaterra will not see any daimons any more (or atleast we think).
If Aurvendil keeps rolling like its rolling now, it will be left with no more enemies but the Zuma.

With a bit more active zuma and some realms allying/ worshiping the Zuma the north will also have more intresting things to do.

a fair quistion, why did Safalore get attacked by the zuma anyway??

[Feylonis]

Quick post regarding the comparison between Astrum/Morek and the Zuma:

Astrum and Morek can conceivably be defeated and destroyed. As far as I know, the Zuma are GM-mandated to always be around, and that no amount of war or starvation or intrigue will bring the Zuma down. It's a faction that is, basically, invincible. There is no fun fighting against invincibility. Even Aurvandil had a slight chance of being defeated.

[Perth]

a fair quistion, why did Safalore get attacked by the zuma anyway??

My initial guess is what if usually par for the course for Zuma attacks: somebody forwarded them a message of someone else calling them a name/expressing dislike for them.

[Arundel]

And when Chenier stomped on your realm while all you could do was sit and watch all he said in explanation was "Oh, sorry, you just didn't intrigue enough."

Aw man, I really thought Luria had the whole intrigue thing mastered. Back to the drawing board, I suppose.

Zuma.

Rawr.

[Solari]

Thought experiment time!

A realm appears to act capriciously, while the head of state either doesn't see the need to communicate its intentions, or does so sparingly. Into this information vacuum flows all sorts of craziness. Why is the head of state or the realm to blame? Why is there some special burden that falls upon them as opposed to any other realm that behaves in the same way?