Continued from http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=4&topic_id=135735

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Entropy isn't about ending civilization, per se.

Aside from the magic stuff, it's about completely disrupting social structure and subverting ALL rules and expectations.

But don't kid yourself that magic is a secondary priority. It's all wrapped up together. The end goal for Entropy is complete freedom of magic (permanent disruption or destruction of the Veil) -- along with a complete dissolution of social norms. How each individual might imagine this playing out in practice is up to them. Nobody really knows what would happen if Magic went utterly wild and saturated everything, but Entropists might have theories.

Re conjuration, absolute freedom for magical energies can also translate to absolute freedom for elementals, who are typically sentient beings formed from magical/elemental energies.

As for its niche, it is definitely different philosophically from other cabals and it definitely FEELS different to play. You will never get in trouble for failing to raid or defend (or, alternatively, raiding literally any cabal for any reason), for instance. It's almost halfway between being caballed and uncaballed.

I didn't play a role in bringing back Entropy; that was done before I even IMMed. I'm doing my best to flesh it out and differentiate it within a set of constraints I've been given by Scarabaeus, the father of Neo-Entropy who has lately been busy being Professor Indiana Jones. (This must mean Neo-Entropy is going to grow up to be Shia LaBeouf.)

Entropy has relatively few powers, though the ones it does have are pretty neat. I've come to be OK with that, given the more than generous freedom and lack of cabal obligation.

In sum, Entropy does enable some really interesting roles and playstyles. It's not for everyone, and I'm fine with that.

As someone who's had a low-key Entropist or two since they went in I think there's a few ways to approach the cabal that work.

In practice it's a lot like Herald in that you pretty much have no competitive pk powers but you do have a lot of RP opportunity both within the cabal and without.

You can be a secret entropist, friend to everyone who works behind the scenes to cause chaos. Randomize the exits and call that ranger to come pk the imperial you're learning with.

You can be an outward Entropist, though this can be tough unless you're hero, because everyone know's you're probably down to fight, but your powers aren't really competitive, assuming you even have the equation, but you don't. This character will probably spend a lot of time at the Inn.

I think Ikno was the latter, and I think her issue was that she was down to PK too hard, but got frustrated that the powers just weren't there.

The real issue with Entropy not having goals is the lack of the puzzles. My first entropist had access to puzzles that unlocked powers. More recently those puzzles are MIA. I think you'd see a renewed interest and more RP opportunities as everyone put their heads together to solve them. You'd also get the powergamey types in there desperate to unlock the endgame powers.

Anyway, I don't know why the sudden hatred in chaotic stupid. It's always been around and been the bread and butter of some serial gnome players forever. Shouldn't you all be glad that they're all on their own cb channel now?

Anyway, I'm rambling.

Two of the powers are incredibly useful in PK, and give huge bonuses to fighting battleragers and other mages - things mages tend to have the toughest time with at hero. (The other two CAN be useful in PK situationally.)

That's a pretty good deal for what essentially amounts to zero obligation to do anything but be interesting and weaken the Veil, which mages ought to be doing anyway.

Yes, more powers were planned. However, for a number of reasons, it would just be best to just accept the current set of powers as the only powers you're going to get.

I think entropy powers sound quite attractive pk wise.

But then I'm the guy that thinks chamo is great when others say outlander powers are not pk orientated.

However, I never managed to get into old entropy despite having a character that Pico used to hang out with as I went around ranking etc. I reckon I might have a shot at it these days because you are at least allowed to pursue membership, from what I can tell.

> zero obligation to do anything but be interesting and weaken the Veil

Well, you still have to defend and retrieve, right? Honestly that's the majority of the "work" of any cabal.

You said it in one of these posts, if you can’t make/define a vanilla entropist then you won’t get numbers because most characters are a flavor of vanilla. Or at least add real incentives to draw those players so the cabal can build a core because village needs more mages to hunt. I haven’t played village in years and every time I consider it I realize my only opponent is going to be empire and there just won’t be enough to fill most of my login time.


I also can’t tell how freedom and magic as goals relate to each other. Empire is the only other cabal that has dual goals on paper, but it only has one in practice (assimilate or die).


And seriously you made a mage only cabal and excluded one of the true mage classes(for freedom) but included the half mage AP that sucks and emprisons souls, and side stepped the enslavement of corpses from another.


Honestly I think the cabal makes more sense if you just push the freedom of the pursuit of magic and drop the reference to society(players can add that relationship personally). Then you have a clear cabal purpose. Of course that is masters and not entropy but entropy died in the first place because imms failed to define it properly and it became chaotic stupid.

And act as a natural counterforce to Battle. Not with the same powers as Masters of old, but similar though weakened - actually you could even make use of some variant of old Warlock and Scion powers and have, I imagine, many happy mage players for the cabal.

For now, most people don't want to dedicate their char to Entropy because it's non-competitive PK-wise and most who are left in CF are powergamers or at the very least want to have fun in PK, not be a punching bag. For pure roleplayers even something like Tribunal is better as it allows them to mush it out in relative safety, not to mention the inn. The appeal of Entropy is very narrow, hence why you don't see people in it. I've tried twice and it isn't working for me, mainly due to the lack of powers. I bet I can even make conjie work in Entropy, but it's not worth the effort.

TLDR: Even Shaapa will RP if forced to do so, but Entropy doesn't give an incentive to try.

Using magic to free people from any kind of oppression. What's so hard here to wrap your mind about?

It was used to perpetuate a civilization based on slavery (see dark elves).

AP's unholy's steal pieces of the soul (if that's not oppression I don't know what is...)

I could keep going on how magic and oppression are intertwined in CF lore...

Damnable oppressive slicey sticks.

>It was used to perpetuate a civilization based on slavery
> see dark elves).
>
>AP's unholy's steal pieces of the soul (if that's not
>oppression I don't know what is...)
>
>I could keep going on how magic and oppression are intertwined
>in CF lore...


Now that sounds like hatespeech! Like you make assumptions about entropists because of something done aeons ago by people who have no connection to the modern Entropy.

Shrek chaotic good
Hamlet chaotic neutral
Daedric Princes from Skyrim the non crazy ones. Chaotic neutral/evil
Jack black in most of his movies. chaotic good/neutral
Will Ferrel in most of his movies. Chaotic good/neutral
Zoom from the flash. Chaotic evil
Loki both norse and marvel chaotic neutral
Thor chaotic good
John wick chaotic good
Barf from space balls chaotic neutral
Wolverine chaotic good
Deadpool but he is insane chaotic good
George and Fred Wesley chaotic good
Batman chaotic good
Voldemort chaotic evil
JACK ####ING SPARROW my favorite chaotic neutral
Ichigo from Bleach chaotic good
Yusuke Urameshi chaotic good
Goku and about half the Z warriors. chaotic good/neutral
Edward from full metal chaotic good
Drizzt chaotic good
Sirius black chaotic good
Kid Buu chaotic evil
Piccolo Both good and evil
Vegeta good and evil
Goku Black chaotic evil
Deidera chaotic evil
Gaara as a child chaotic evil
Edward Hyde or better known as Mr Hyde chaotic evil
Lucifer chaotic evil
Albert Whesker from Resident evil chaotic evil
Kratos God of war chaotic evil
Skull kid from Majora's mask chaotic evil
GREED from fullmetal chaotic neutral
Huckleberry fin chaotic neutral
Conan the barbarian chaotic neutral
Achillies Chaotic neutral
Jarlaxle chaotic neutral
Smaegul Chaotic neutral

I've got a single #### to give...and it's just for you.

Loki from MCU and/or from Norse mythology is excellent. I'm not well-versed in that Dragonball stuff, so I'll take your word for it.

Jack Sparrow is also just a fantastic example of Chaotic Neutral - he's always self-serving but nearly impossible to predict because how he acts and what he says doesn't really telegraph what he's actually going to do. Oftentimes, he does something that seems really nice but turns out to be a totally mixed bag - or he does something that appears to be mean but is actually kind of for the greater good.

These kinds of characters can be so fun to play.

My tension in playing (and understanding) the chaotic ethos is that it seems to have two different definitions:

1. Not thinking ahead and planning stuff out; being spontaneous.

2. Not being bound by society's "rules", including laws.

I can imagine a character who is not bound by society's rules but that plans things out and is not very spontaneous.

I can imagine a character who doesn't plan things out and is very spontaneous but nevertheless rarely veers outside society's rules/laws.


For this reason I rarely play chaotic characters. (I have similar trouble playing neutral alignment.)

I definitely agree with a bunch of this, but you lost all respect
when you called Deadpool chaotic good. GOOD? No.

Secondly, I feel like flipping between good and evil is not chaotic.
It's either an alignment change, or they're really just plain neutral
alignment to begin with.

Also, I absolutely love the Chaos Lords in Moorcock's Swords Trilogy. They do well at chaos without insanity, and I think they really fit
the bill well.

Comic books no not at all.
They flipped from evil to good due to character progression but they were always chaotic in nature prior and during. It was to stop the but but he wasn't evil...or but but he was only good at this point. Those that are labeled good and evil went from evil to good or vice versa


and never saw that series might look it up.

I've got a single #### to give...and it's just for you.

I wouldn't say they flipped him, but rather slid him into the neutral zone. He's chaotic neutral. But none of that matters cuz I'm here looking for my marbles.

I'm going to quote a few pieces of the ENTROPY helpfile:
"Entropy strives to bring Thera to its natural state of disorder -- free from civilization"
"Entropists wage war on rules and societal mores"
"seek to hasten the collapse of the orderly systems"

That is three snippets from the Entropy helpfile, from three different paragraphs. As-written, Entropy IS about ending civilization (violently or otherwise).

And to compare, here are all of the lines about magic:
"referred to as Chaos Mages"
"Entropy accepts only chaotic anti-paladins, invokers, necromancers, shapeshifters, and transmuters. Conjurers are not allowed, as binding any creature into servitude is anathema to the Barons of Chaos."


I will trust you when you tell me the priorities and goals of the cabal. But if you're struggling to find players who adhere to your viewpoint, I recommend you re-write the helpfile (and possibly other in-game lore) to better define what you view Entropy as. Because as it stands right now, a player that can't see into your mind only has that helpfile to go off of.

What I would also recommend: Clarify what Entropy's goals are in-game. They need something concrete to do. "Do whatever the hell you want" is great and all, but it leads to pretty empty gameplay. Players need achievable goals to focus on, otherwise they're just wandering around.

Based on your explanation here though, I have a few questions:
1. Entropy needs a "why". You can say they want to disrupt social structure and expectations.. but why do they want to? What do they hope to accomplish?
2. Apart from casting spells, what does an Entropist actually contribute to Carrion Fields? I feel like the default is a fallback to the IC philosopher position of "they do whatever they feel like", but from an OOC perspective.. what is that supposed to be? What does the cabal actually add to the rest of the game?
3. You said there were some good Entropists with this new incarnation. Which characters actually "got it" and played Entropy the way you view it was meant to be played? Literally every other cabal has examples of the ideal, and I'm sure most of us could name them. I know, every character can have wrinkles, but who's come closest to the ideal Entropist?

I think Reeking_Revolutionary and I both have answered most of these questions for you to my satisfaction. I'll take another look at the helpfile later and see about clearing up some confusion if possible.

Just to reiterate, if your dual priorities are Freedom and Magic, it would stand to reason that you wouldn't use magic to enslave anyone, or you wouldn't use slaves to make magic. Everything else is fair game.

Your other questions:
1) Again, this is not a cabal with a strict philosophy and agenda beyond freedom and magic. You seem to have trouble wrapping your head around that. Disrupt social structure, free Magic... then, once these things are absolute, keep doing whatever you want, but in a more chaotic world. It's less nebulous than "bring the Eternal Night!" Being a loose-knit group of individuals, it's important that every Entropist has some individual goals or viewpoints, since it won't be satisfying to be a vanilla Entropist in the same way that it can to be a vanilla Imperial whose goal it is to just keep getting promoted. You've got to be yourself, together.

2) An Entropist *should* contribute a bit of uncertainty to CF. "I was going to go get darkened gear from the Mausoleum with my buddy, but Joe the Entropist just woke up. Do you think he's going to help us or kill us or disperse us? I have no idea." There's currently a character in-game who people really do speak about in this manner.

In theory, anyone in any cabal could login at any time to find Entropy has their item. In practice, Entropy doesn't really raid anyone but Battle -- which is fine and makes sense, given the magical focus of the cabal -- and sometimes Tribunal, which also makes some sense. Everyone generally just kind of floats around passively without actually doing much except fighting ragers and tribs sometimes. You could do so much more.

3) There's one around right now who is pretty well-known that I won't talk about until they're gone. It's the person mentioned in #2. There may have been one or two others but they were short-lived.

Finally, why don't you give it a try yourself? There's plenty of room to experiment, and wide latitude to make it whatever you want. Just avoid the Chaotic Stupid trap and you'll do great.

This is very high concept - how is it intended to be fun?

And I also get where you said on the other thread that this cabal concept isn't really working in CF.

It isn't so much that I have a hard time wrapping my head around the concept, as I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how that concept can work in a fun and playable way in CF. I'm not sure that it can.

Regarding the Magic vs Freedom thing, I do get what you're saying. But my counterpoint is that you cannot be wholly devoted to both concepts.. there is a point where they contradict (in this case - conjurers). You have to pick one to be the priority. From the conjurer issue (and the helpfile), it's clear that freedom is more important to Entropy than unrestricted magic. Yet the cabal is still limited to (some) mages, and in practice (by your own admission) it doesn't actively fight for freedom... members only raid the magic-hating cabal, not the civilization-focused ones. So it seems like the priorities and the goals of the cabal in theory vs in practice aren't aligned.

I think the focus needs to be clearly directed in one way or another (my preference: towards magic), so that the playerbase knows what they should be focused on. Right now, it's tough to play an Entropist role because it's tough to even define what an Entropist's perfect world would look like.


PS. If you want to get rid of the chaotic stupid mindset, please please please get rid of the Beer Elemental. It makes no sense for a lot of reasons and at this point, the joke is pretty stale.

Re: Magic focus, you have a point there and I'm working on changes to the helpfile. Thanks for pointing that out!

Re: Beer Elemental, don't think I haven't tried.

Make Entropy a 2 tiered cabal, like Fort.

Once members perform like you want Entropy to perform you give them despoil*.

Problem solved. The cabal has members. RPs how you wants. And is PK viable. Right?

*I don’t know what other powers you had planned for Entropy and so many they work as a substitute here. If not and despoil is OP just tone down the hp gain a bit. That might be the best balance actually.

The mechanical beauty of the forsaken portal ability was just so god damn cool. It needs to come back.

I would like to see some way for them to open rifts to a force of pure wild magic that can alter reality in the world around. Either make it a straight up skill or make it a possible outcome of using any entropy powers.

Portal could do all sorts of stuff.
-spawn beer elementals from alcohol containers
-reverse magic affects (damn redux becomes soften, reduce becomes enlarge, frenzy becomes calm etc.
-randomly do mirror image on people in the area
-boost magic like a veil tier weaker in that area. Maybe max tier in same room.
-spread insanity to non mages
-turn people into toads
-freeze/set rooms on fire/make air poison
-cause orderly people to feel ill and vomit in its presence
-reverse all directional commands
-conversely the affect could be like a cloud spell instead of area wide like portal. Extra points if calling magic through it fuels it more and it has tiers of affects based on thinness of veil.
-animated nearby corpses
-change the weather
-start a magical plague
-random neat stuff

Plus it doesn't really fit with entropy.