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Hey there! Sorry if I'm putting this in the wrong place, but I just had a question regarding the classification of incarnates. I know you have examples listed on the page about them itself, but the most recent reserve confused me a bit, as I thought something like evil would classify as an omega incarnate. While this is probably a complete misunderstanding on my end, I'd just like ask for maybe a bit more clarification between the omegas, alphas and betas? Would something like devotion or exploration be considered an alpha or omega class, stuff like that. Thanks in advance!
In the case of the Sicks reserve, I had a glance at what's been written thus far of their app (public on their journal) and it looks like they'll be apping him as Alpha or, if that's unacceptable, a Beta Incarnate of Evil Intent.
As they appear to be apping him as an Alpha rather than an Omega, this is an acceptable reserve, although I'd say that 'Evil' straddles the line between Alpha and Omega rank - if the player intends Sicks to dull people's morals for a while and start a small crime-wave, that would perhaps be Alpha rank, while easily turning people into complete psychopaths would be more like Omega rank. If they do app and the app doesn't clarify the issue, I'll be getting in touch with the player to specify exactly how their aegis fits Alpha. I actually expect to do this quite a bit with Incarnates whose aegis are fairly broad or loosely defined, so it's nothing I didn't expect to do.
(As an aside, I'm already very familiar with the canon and character, so accepting him as a Beta of Evil Intent would be no problem.)
The entire ranking system is ICly defined by the city council, which means that technically-speaking, there's a lot of fudging and leeway, in-game. OOCly, it's a balance between several factors; how 'broad' is it? Might there be sub-aegis beneath it (such as an Alpha Incarnate of Anger might have a Gamma Incarnate of Mild Annoyance)? How powerful and game-breaking is it? How useful is it in everyday-life or in combat?
For ones that aren't immediately obvious, it depends how well you can define them. If we take Devotion, for example, is that an Incarnate of devotion of a specific persuasion (religious devotion, devotion to a cause/person/concept) or devotion in general? If it's a specific one, you might argue between Gamma or Beta rank depending on what they're Incarnating the devotion of and how much effect it has on people's lives in the city. If it's devotion in general, that's an entire city/world's worth of mild to intense devotion to friends, family, jobs, goals, hobbies, religion... that's Alpha rank.
Exploration is an interesting one, because as the game is mostly in a city and outlying farms, followed by wasteland, there isn't much exploration! Thus, geographical exploration isn't very important to people's lives - that would probably be Beta rank. If you counted exploration as involving all types; geographical, personal and emotional, maybe even sexual, then that's very broad and people 'explore' new things every day, so Alpha rank.
Basically, there's no hard and fast rule for ranking cut-off points, it depends on what kind of depth and breadth a player honestly considers a particular aegis to have. It's more about an 'exploration' (haha) of what power and influence an ideal or concept really has in life, and I'm happy to leave leeway as long as it makes sense to me and isn't just a player desperately trying to justify something as Alpha because 'it'll be cooler to play an Alpha.'
I'll probably update the Incarnate post to explain all this, but there's no strict, absolute rules.
That's okay! As a side note, because I forgot to put it in, rankings can actually change if something becomes more or less important. So if a Beta Incarnate of Exploration was accepted, and then a characters starts a movement to explore further afield or colonize outside the city boundaries, and public interest in the subject rose enough, they might gain more power and become Alpha rank as 'Exploration' has more influence on the world and daily life.
I have a quick suggestion! I saw on anon memes people disappointed there was no test drive meme, especially since you have on the app a thread can be used, so maybe you can link it somewhere more obvious? Even cross post, like on both reservations and the app? I had no idea there was one, either, till someone on plurk dug it up.
I'll get on that, thanks! I actually created the test drive meme if people just wanted a place to do a sample thread for an app, but I guess it might as well be used as the name suggests.
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In the case of the Sicks reserve, I had a glance at what's been written thus far of their app (public on their journal) and it looks like they'll be apping him as Alpha or, if that's unacceptable, a Beta Incarnate of Evil Intent.
As they appear to be apping him as an Alpha rather than an Omega, this is an acceptable reserve, although I'd say that 'Evil' straddles the line between Alpha and Omega rank - if the player intends Sicks to dull people's morals for a while and start a small crime-wave, that would perhaps be Alpha rank, while easily turning people into complete psychopaths would be more like Omega rank. If they do app and the app doesn't clarify the issue, I'll be getting in touch with the player to specify exactly how their aegis fits Alpha. I actually expect to do this quite a bit with Incarnates whose aegis are fairly broad or loosely defined, so it's nothing I didn't expect to do.
(As an aside, I'm already very familiar with the canon and character, so accepting him as a Beta of Evil Intent would be no problem.)
The entire ranking system is ICly defined by the city council, which means that technically-speaking, there's a lot of fudging and leeway, in-game. OOCly, it's a balance between several factors; how 'broad' is it? Might there be sub-aegis beneath it (such as an Alpha Incarnate of Anger might have a Gamma Incarnate of Mild Annoyance)? How powerful and game-breaking is it? How useful is it in everyday-life or in combat?
For ones that aren't immediately obvious, it depends how well you can define them. If we take Devotion, for example, is that an Incarnate of devotion of a specific persuasion (religious devotion, devotion to a cause/person/concept) or devotion in general? If it's a specific one, you might argue between Gamma or Beta rank depending on what they're Incarnating the devotion of and how much effect it has on people's lives in the city. If it's devotion in general, that's an entire city/world's worth of mild to intense devotion to friends, family, jobs, goals, hobbies, religion... that's Alpha rank.
Exploration is an interesting one, because as the game is mostly in a city and outlying farms, followed by wasteland, there isn't much exploration! Thus, geographical exploration isn't very important to people's lives - that would probably be Beta rank. If you counted exploration as involving all types; geographical, personal and emotional, maybe even sexual, then that's very broad and people 'explore' new things every day, so Alpha rank.
Basically, there's no hard and fast rule for ranking cut-off points, it depends on what kind of depth and breadth a player honestly considers a particular aegis to have. It's more about an 'exploration' (haha) of what power and influence an ideal or concept really has in life, and I'm happy to leave leeway as long as it makes sense to me and isn't just a player desperately trying to justify something as Alpha because 'it'll be cooler to play an Alpha.'
I'll probably update the Incarnate post to explain all this, but there's no strict, absolute rules.
Does that explain everything?
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(Anonymous) 2013-01-08 02:24 am (UTC)(link)no subject