What is a Summoner?
Jan 9, 2017 15:35:54 GMT -6
Post by Nayru Al-Saiduq on Jan 9, 2017 15:35:54 GMT -6
Aside from being a miserable little pile of secrets, of course. But enough memes, HAVE AT YOU!
Seriously though, anyone who knows jack about site history is aware of the many, many, MANY attempts at evoking a 'summoning' approach to gameplay that have been thrown around over the years. I myself have always been a big fan of the concept and probably spammed the most of them over time, and from a flavor perspective I think we've seen some pretty cool concepts. Certainly for anyone who's seen an evil necromancer raise hundreds of skeletons to dispose of their foes or played Persona enough to dig the evoker/Persona vibe, there's a certain allure to the concept.
But at the same time, the practical issues with summoning have held the idea back from being reality. To put it simply, most of the 'generic' summoner concepts simply don't work very well in RP - being able to summon 300 skeletons on command looks friggin' cool, but doesn't really involve YOU doing much, and there are balance concerns too. Kisaragi may be pretty good with a sword, but without mass AOE she has literally no way of handling that many skeletons and never will, whereas Don or Kenshin can just blow them all away with wind magic and murder the summoner. Oh wait, the summoner can fight back? Then they're even MORE busted and no one can really fight them. They can't fight back? Well crap, now you're just useless because Mila cast one spell. The concept just tends to lend itself to broken roleplay and hard counters that aren't really any fun to RP.
So instead, I'd like to propose a question to y'all, not just to the mods specifically but to everyone who is interested in the concept: what does summoning mean to you? Is it disposable minions? Being able to make friends? The bonds formed with a unique summon? Are you more interested in having your summons fight for you, or with you? Do you just want the Sacred Stones' Summoner class or something more creative? Would Zach having a troll skeleton named Mr Bones follow him everywhere be hilarious or just hilarious? You don't have to answer all those questions, lol, just bringing up some possible things to think about.
Seriously though, anyone who knows jack about site history is aware of the many, many, MANY attempts at evoking a 'summoning' approach to gameplay that have been thrown around over the years. I myself have always been a big fan of the concept and probably spammed the most of them over time, and from a flavor perspective I think we've seen some pretty cool concepts. Certainly for anyone who's seen an evil necromancer raise hundreds of skeletons to dispose of their foes or played Persona enough to dig the evoker/Persona vibe, there's a certain allure to the concept.
But at the same time, the practical issues with summoning have held the idea back from being reality. To put it simply, most of the 'generic' summoner concepts simply don't work very well in RP - being able to summon 300 skeletons on command looks friggin' cool, but doesn't really involve YOU doing much, and there are balance concerns too. Kisaragi may be pretty good with a sword, but without mass AOE she has literally no way of handling that many skeletons and never will, whereas Don or Kenshin can just blow them all away with wind magic and murder the summoner. Oh wait, the summoner can fight back? Then they're even MORE busted and no one can really fight them. They can't fight back? Well crap, now you're just useless because Mila cast one spell. The concept just tends to lend itself to broken roleplay and hard counters that aren't really any fun to RP.
So instead, I'd like to propose a question to y'all, not just to the mods specifically but to everyone who is interested in the concept: what does summoning mean to you? Is it disposable minions? Being able to make friends? The bonds formed with a unique summon? Are you more interested in having your summons fight for you, or with you? Do you just want the Sacred Stones' Summoner class or something more creative? Would Zach having a troll skeleton named Mr Bones follow him everywhere be hilarious or just hilarious? You don't have to answer all those questions, lol, just bringing up some possible things to think about.