Zuma/Daimons

[songqu88@gmail.com]

It's probably the phenomenon of finding a scapegoat really.

Easy to complain about something perceived as having unfair advantages because most of us don't understand how they work. Harder to complain about a human realm that is limited to the same rules. Also because more people are allowed in those human realms.

Having fewer GMs is actually better actually. Can you imagine if different GMs competed over whose vision was better? For example, if we put the current Zuma GM, Vellos, and Chenier, all into one NPC realm and told them to dictate the future. I reckon the daimons would implode. Having fewer means a more cohesive faction. Sure, it might not be to some people's tastes. That's too bad.

The daimons have been around since the start of Dwilight. If you must know, they were most likely created at the same time as the original 4 realms. By now, new players who decide to join any realm close to the Zuma Coalition should be told first thing they arrive what they can expect. It's not a categorical requirement for the continent to read: "Beware of daimons" because seriously, if people aren't stupid, then no one has to beware of daimons.

So the onus is on the human realm to ensure that its characters and players both understand that there is in fact a powerful NPC faction nearby, that has been there since the beginning of the continent. Best learn how to live with them, or face the consequences. It is very, very clear. Is it unclear? If so, where is it unclear? I think it is pretty clear, and I'm just like any other human player: Uninvolved with the higher plans of the GM, and I'm pretty sure I'm the one player on Dwilight who would be barred from ever becoming a GM due to my position.

If you want to debate SMA, then do it in the appropriate thread. While you're at it, talk about those monsters/undead that no one seems to complain about. Oh, could it possibly be because you think no one is controlling those?

[songqu88@gmail.com]

Ok, here's what I think is going on here.

Players around the Zuma want to play empire builder. It appears though, that such is not a possibility in their location. Much like becoming a major food producer is impossible in Balance's Retreat duchy. It's an unfortunate reality of location, and just because it's not as clearly obvious as stats would suggest, I think it's not that hard to figure out that you can't play empire builder near the Zuma as you might be able to in the east, in say, where Morek is.

If you think that was obvious, then you shouldn't be complaining much about the reality of your situation which is so obvious.

Now, another thing might be their frustration at not understanding how the daimons work. They think they are unstoppable or something. Well, actually, the point might not actually be to defeat the daimons. Maybe, just maybe, they are intentionally incapable of being defeated permanently. It seems as though players are hesitant to believe this might be a possibility because that would interfere with their plans. Possibly their empire builder plans.

Then I must ask: Why choose to continue to play in places that are affected by the Zuma? IC loyalty? Very well, then that remains your choice. To complain about it would be immature. If you had no idea what you were getting into, and by the time you wised up it was too late, then how unfortunate. You still can back out. What do you lose? Your positions in a game that are immaterial?

I think that something that is a point of contention as well is the unpredictability and the perceived arbitrariness of that. It's not. Certain daimons will respond a certain way.

Actually, I'll even help you out a little since I have more or less patiently watched people fail for at least three years now, starting with what I witnessed in 2008 while sitting as a rogue in a Netherworld region.

Your tone really, really matters. The more power a human gains apparently the more arrogant he gets. This is natural, and really, nothing wrong with it, except, when prudence is necessary. I'd say dealing with daimons definitely requires control. What makes you believe that talking so full of yourself would go well with daimons? ICly it might go against your character's strict values. Ok, but then accept the consequences. For example, Indirik would probably play Brance as arrogant to the end, even if it meant his downfall.

[Glaumring the Fox]

Oberservable Daimon forces on a recent scouting.

Volcano Nightscree- 20850cs
Dragon song- 0cs
Grymphen mire 7750cs
Kosht-6500cs

total=35100cs


Astrum perceived total = 25000cs
Terran=12000cs
Asylon=10000cs
Barca=9000cs
D'Hara=7000cs
Iashular=5000cs
Kabrinskia=10000cs

Total= 78000cs

Thats 35000cs in Daimons within spitting distance of Asylon, Daimons that have proven to go against their word, and attack realms without warning. What is  realm like Asylon supposed to do? We are basically in bury our heads mode and just hope the Zuma go away. Which doesnt seem likely because everyone is trying to buddy buddy up with the Daimons. Its lame...

[Indirik]

Can I nominate Garrett as the scapegoat?

[egamma]

Oberservable Daimon forces on a recent scouting.

Volcano Nightscree- 20850cs
Dragon song- 0cs
Grymphen mire 7750cs
Kosht-6500cs

total=35100cs


Astrum perceived total = 25000cs
Terran=12000cs
Asylon=10000cs
Barca=9000cs
D'Hara=7000cs
Iashular=5000cs
Kabrinskia=10000cs

Total= 78000cs

Thats 35000cs in Daimons within spitting distance of Asylon, Daimons that have proven to go against their word, and attack realms without warning. What is  realm like Asylon supposed to do? We are basically in bury our heads mode and just hope the Zuma go away. Which doesnt seem likely because everyone is trying to buddy buddy up with the Daimons. Its lame...

So what you're telling me is, if the humans actually wanted to get rid of the Zuma, they have twice the CS?

[De-Legro]

What amazes me is that the viewpoints of the players who are forced to deal with the Zuma regularly by dint of proximity are so consistently ignored, dismissed, poo pooed, or outright attacked on these forums. The point of the Zuma, presumably, is to add something to the player experience and hopefully not solely to provide some GM with a toy to play with for his own amusement. Given that fact, I would think that player feedback would be taken seriously.

I recognize that the natural reaction to criticism, especially when said criticism is not always delivered in a constructive manner, is to become defensive. However, this tendency also leads those who are being criticized to dismiss *all* criticism as invalid, when that's not the case. Clearly the manner in which the Zuma are run is a source of increasing frustration to the players who are having to deal with them. I would think that a review of why this is the case might be in order, along with some honest consideration of how the experience could be improved for everyone involved. After all, what's more important, the plot or the players? It sounds to me like the Zuma are losing the players. When players start throwing up their hands and talk about deleting their characters out of frustration, something isn't working. This is the point where I, as a GM running an RPG for some friends expressing this level of frustration, would be engaging in some serious introspection and reconsidering my entire campaign.

The problem is that no one that is complaining seems to want to offer an option to fix it that isn't one of the following

• Make them so weak we don't really need to worry about them
• Revel everything so they are completely game-able and we never set a foot wrong
• Make them do nothing but send nice RP's

[Indirik]

Which doesnt seem likely because everyone is trying to buddy buddy up with the Daimons.

Not me. I was all ready to start shooting when Fang Fang turned his expedition into a monster hunting trip at the last minute.

But neither am I looking to poke the bear. Brance is content to leave them alone, if they're willing to leave him alone. But he's not interested in being their friend.

[De-Legro]

Not me. I was all ready to start shooting when Fang Fang turned his expedition into a monster hunting trip at the last minute.

But neither am I looking to poke the bear. Brance is content to leave them alone, if they're willing to leave him alone. But he's not interested in being their friend.

My observation, budding up with the Zuma is generally a great way to end up invaded by them. Sure you might get some short term power out of it, but eventually they will realise that someone is trying to manipulate them.

[Perth]

But to be more specific, the thing that really set them off was when Hireshmont decided that he could convert Zuma and/or use Zuma imposters to call himself by some pompous name.

Oh yeah, what a ridiculous assertion, there might be some Zuma tribes people who belong to the largest and most widespread religion in the Maroccidens, that happened to be founded in a realm directly on Zuman borders. What a ridiculous thing to RP, Zuma people who might live in/around/near Terran and might belong to Triunism and respect Hireshmont as an elder of the religion? Bah!

Again, pretty funny how these mighty Zuma overlords would become so upset over a "pompous" name such as "Diviner," but never seem to care about other titles like, oh I don't know, "Chief Magistrate," "Mootgram," "King" or what have you. Sheesh, us little petty human ants are annoying, coming up with titles for ourselves all of sudden!

Oh, and wasn't that a message to Garrett anyways, not any Daimons?

[De-Legro]

Oh yeah, what a ridiculous assertion, there might be some Zuma tribes people who belong to the largest and most widespread religion in the Maroccidens, that happened to be founded in a realm directly on Zuman borders. What a ridiculous thing to RP, Zuma people who might live in/around/near Terran and might belong to Triunism and respect Hireshmont as an elder of the religion? Bah!

Again, pretty funny how these mighty Zuma overlords would become so upset over a "pompous" name such as "Diviner," but never seem to care about other titles like, oh I don't know, "Chief Magistrate," "Mootgram," "King" or what have you. Sheesh, us little petty human ants are annoying, coming up with titles for ourselves all of sudden!

Oh, and wasn't that a message to Garrett anyways, not any Daimons?

You think Garrret doesn't pass on messages?

The Overloads tend to believe the Zuma worship them and them alone. I imagine that if any Zuma tribes were worshipping another religion they might get very very cross. Least that was how things stood about four months ago. But anyway why just assume that their are such worshippers? Priest have the tools to find out if anyone in the region is a member of a religion.

[vanKaya]

What amazes me is that the viewpoints of the players who are forced to deal with the Zuma regularly by dint of proximity are so consistently ignored, dismissed, poo pooed, or outright attacked on these forums. The point of the Zuma, presumably, is to add something to the player experience and hopefully not solely to provide some GM with a toy to play with for his own amusement. Given that fact, I would think that player feedback would be taken seriously.

I recognize that the natural reaction to criticism, especially when said criticism is not always delivered in a constructive manner, is to become defensive. However, this tendency also leads those who are being criticized to dismiss *all* criticism as invalid, when that's not the case. Clearly the manner in which the Zuma are run is a source of increasing frustration to the players who are having to deal with them. I would think that a review of why this is the case might be in order, along with some honest consideration of how the experience could be improved for everyone involved. After all, what's more important, the plot or the players? It sounds to me like the Zuma are losing the players. When players start throwing up their hands and talk about deleting their characters out of frustration, something isn't working. This is the point where I, as a GM running an RPG for some friends expressing this level of frustration, would be engaging in some serious introspection and reconsidering my entire campaign.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. I could not have better described my problem with the situation better than this.

As Glaumring has said, every realm around the Zuma are walking on eggshells. This is not only a not fun way to play, but it prevents further player interaction. Terran, for example, can't get involved in either the Lurian or Madinan conflict, even if it wanted to (which it may or may not). Wouldn't that be a funner interaction for the whole island rather than an incredibly powerful force exerting itself whenever it pleases. Here are some of the Zuma's demands of humans around it so far:

-do not insult us (this includes perceived insults and insults from secondhand sources)

-do not take a region surrounding our realm without our permission

-do not, under any circumstance, enter our lands without our permission.

All these infractions have been met with violent force from the Zuma. Huge, indefensible invasions of 10s of thousands of CS.

This paralyzes the game for all the players around the Zuma, and this is coming from a player who has no problem with BM's sometimes slow place. I have a friend I recently introduced to the game and this whole Zuma thing is not leaving him impressed.

Here's an interesting thing to consider as well, who are the chief people complaining about the tactics of the GM controlled Zuma? Players within geographic proximity of the Zuma who have been feeling frustrated for weeks. Who has been defending them? Players who have never had to deal with the Zuma and, of course, the Zuma's human ambassador.


De Legro, you want a suggestion?

How about the Daimons stop acting with hairpin trigger against any perceived slight against them. As has been said before, they act psychotically, and are more like sensitive children with powerful weapons rather than "higher beings" or whatever they're supposed to be....

[vanKaya]

You think Garrret doesn't pass on messages?

The Overloads tend to believe the Zuma worship them and them alone. I imagine that if any Zuma tribes were worshipping another religion they might get very very cross. Least that was how things stood about four months ago. But anyway why just assume that their are such worshippers? Priest have the tools to find out if anyone in the region is a member of a religion.

That message was meant for Garett, not the Daimons.

Part of the problem is Garett is an awful ambassador who often misinterprets the messages he sends to the Zuma.

The game states that many of the Zumalands inhabitants are Triunists. If the Daemons had a problem with this, they sure had pretty quiet way of showing it up until now. If I'm not mistaken, a large portion of Zuma inhabitants worship different religions, so what's wrong with having Vellos RP that Triunist Zuma approach Garett and inform him that Terran no longer wishes to speak to Garett. What part of that is a legitimate reason for the Zuma to go on warpath.

The thing you don't understand De-Legro, is that I'm not trying to convince you the Zuma are a bad idea. I'm telling you that *I* don't like it. Other people are also saying *they* dont like it. This isn't about you. This is about people expressing their feelings and whether or not you think those feelings are legitimate is irrelavant.

You can choose to not adress this apparently widespread discontent, but if the situation doesn't improve, I feel like the best thing for me to do would be to call it a day, give my character a nice end and thank BM for all the good memories.

[Glaumring the Fox]

So what you're telling me is, if the humans actually wanted to get rid of the Zuma, they have twice the CS?

That is 35000+ observable Daimons merely below Asylon. How many more thousands nearer to Terran or deeper inside Zuman lands? I'd say close to another 35000 if I wanted a blind estimate, I could be wrong the Daimons may only have around 50k Daimons in total..

And yes the Humans have more CS, but you have to take into account its scattered between 5 or 6 different kingdoms all varying degrees of miles away from eachother, all with their own internal problems, monster attacks and or certain nobles unable to make the movements like one single GM controlled army of 60000cs Zuma. It would take a week or so for just Astrum to show up for a fight, I merely included them to show that out of all of Dwilight our largest army is only a mere 20-30000cs. And that combined CS is only if every kingdom in the area agrees to fight.

I have absolutely no trust for the Zuma at all, zero. Before the incident I believed that they were of tolerable and at least could be held to their word and if things got bad we could at least see the reasons why things got bad. Instead, it doesn't matter you could have excellent relations, a long peace and interactions and then the next thing you know total hatred war and back-stabbing, its like fighting the AI in rome total war or CIV-II you just have to reach a certain point in the game and it doesn't matter how much work you put into your alliances and trade, the AI just flips on you.

[De-Legro]

That message was meant for Garett, not the Daimons.

Part of the problem is Garett is an awful ambassador who often misinterprets the messages he sends to the Zuma.

Yes I agree that Garret is a terrible ambassador, but you know what, he can be. His role is not a GM role, his character can do whatever it wants. Hopefully there is a RP basis for his actions, which from what little I can see is true. The real question is how long Garret can play his balancing act before his head is demanded by the Zuma.

Just like any other message we send in game, once it is out there you can't control who gets it.

The game states that many of the Zumalands inhabitants are Triunists. If the Daemons had a problem with this, they sure had pretty quiet way of showing it up until now. If I'm not mistaken, a large portion of Zuma inhabitants worship different religions, so what's wrong with having Vellos RP that Triunist Zuma approach Garett and inform him that Terran no longer wishes to speak to Garett. What part of that is a legitimate reason for the Zuma to go on warpath.

I'm not sure the Zuma GM has the ability to really see what his peasants follow. I would have to look again, but there are some weird limitations with regards to the info he can get about different things. Likely this would be the first he hears about other religions within his borders. Or it might have been that the GM felt that within the RP context of his Zuma they wouldn't worry about even thinking it was possible, until someone brings it up and forces them to address it.

The thing you don't understand De-Legro, is that I'm not trying to convince you the Zuma are a bad idea. I'm telling you that *I* don't like it. Other people are also saying *they* dont like it. This isn't about you. This is about people expressing their feelings and whether or not you think those feelings are legitimate is irrelavant.

You can choose to not adress this apparently widespread discontent, but if the situation doesn't improve, I feel like the best thing for me to do would be to call it a day, give my character a nice end and thank BM for all the good memories.

The thing YOU don't understand is that I'm offering my point of view. I have no control or influence over the Zuma GM, I don't know what the purpose of the Zuma is or the guidelines that Tom issued. I'm giving you my opinion as a player who has lived close to the Zuma, and who interacts with them still to this day.

[Geronus]

The problem is that no one that is complaining seems to want to offer an option to fix it that isn't one of the following

• Make them so weak we don't really need to worry about them
• Revel everything so they are completely game-able and we never set a foot wrong
• Make them do nothing but send nice RP's

You're asking us to make suggestions when we have absolutely no knowledge of the Zuma's purpose. Without knowing why they were put on Dwilight in the first place, it's a bit hard to suggest options since anything we come up with might defeat their purpose. But for what it's worth here are my observations:

1. The Zuma are overpowered.

2. This is probably to deter us from getting it into our heads to try to destroy them, forcing us to instead deal with them on their terms.

3. This has resulted in a classic example of power-GMing, as the metaphorical GM has now placed into his plot an obstacle that can only be overcome by following his predetermined story arc, into which he is now railroading his players who, as it turns out, aren't actually that interested in it and would rather pursue their own plots but can't. This is resulting in unhappy players (surprise!).

You can argue that everything they do is a result of player actions, but the fact is that you have a significant population of players suffering and getting frustrated as the result of the actions of only a small handful of players over whose actions they have no control whatsoever. My advice: Stop using such a big damn hammer to hammer such small nails. Stop overreacting to things and punishing entire realms over the trivial actions of one character. Start ignoring the little things and let things settle down a bit. There's no reason that the Zuma *have* to go bat-!@#$ crazy every time someone casts a shadow in the wrong spot. They're swinging that big hammer around indiscriminately every time someone sneezes, it's forcing everyone to dive for cover every time they do, and people are starting to resent being forced to do that when most of them were minding their own business.

A choice was made to overpower the Zuma. Because of that fact, their power should be used sparingly at best, and preferably not at all. Some realm decides to attack the Zuma? Go ahead, eat them alive. They deserve it. Someone is having a bad day and says something more harshly than he intended? Find other ways to punish him, or if you must, just ignore it. Keep whipping out the big damn hammer and handing out massive punishment over such trivial things and the players are going to be *miserable* before long. Just read this thread and you'll find all kinds of evidence to that effect already, and that's just the players who post in these forums. How many players in Barca, Terran and Asylon that don't post here are feeling the same level of frustration? I know I would be if I had the misfortune to be next to the Zuma.

It needs to be recognized that there are a lot of players around the Zuma that just don't care about them. The Zuma need to find a way to stay engaged with the players who want to engage them while not railroading everyone else into doing so as well, which is exactly what this constant and uncompromising resort to force is doing. So there's my advice: Lay off the hammer for a while and start reserving it for serious provocations.