Lost limbs and magic/engineering. Good or bad?

[c0rzilla]

Go Dino!

I do hope Anna's use of a mech-arm isn't in that vein. She did it for research, knowing she did have the option to regrow the arm. I also hope I RP disadvantages well, like her staying the eff away from water, and infection.

Mech-limbs and techno-casters just...seem to go together.

[FlyingSquirrel]

I played a guy who only had one arm, and he never got a replacement. Hell, I've never had a character who's made/had more then something based off a WWI rifle.

Anyways, I feel like there's one thing with resurrections and cripples. Our characters go about their lives, and see people that have been resurrected, or people with a robotic arm, and perhaps their friend died, or they only have one arm, and they begin to think 'why not'? Overall, I've always found a reason for 'why not' harder to find then a reason to 'why'.

[hiddengecko]

I played a guy who only had one arm, and he never got a replacement. Hell, I've never had a character who's made/had more then something based off a WWI rifle.

Anyways, I feel like there's one thing with resurrections and cripples. Our characters go about their lives, and see people that have been resurrected, or people with a robotic arm, and perhaps their friend died, or they only have one arm, and they begin to think 'why not'? Overall, I've always found a reason for 'why not' harder to find then a reason to 'why'.

This is exactly it. Perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way, but this is WoW. I do understand that real life problems are relevant to all of us, but not all of them are relevant in this universe. Lost limbs, simply put, ought not to be terribly relevant in Warcraft because they can be regenerated or replaced.

Playing a healer myself, it is often frustrating to have to RP alongside characters who either make up (usually shaky) in-character excuses as to why they must keep their ailments, or steadfastly insist that overcoming them is impossible when everyone but them has done so before.

Warcraft is simply not a proper atmosphere in which to tackle certain real-world issues. A flu epidemic would be little threat in any place with a healer or two, for instance, and STDs are likely all but nonexistent in most areas of society. Likewise, missing limbs are likely either because of mutation - very unusual, and I can't say with any confidence whether or not it's healable - ignorance of the abilities of magic, or the inability to find a suitably powerful healer - the most likely one. This can become a bit silly at times.

"If only I had my arm, I could take up dueling again."
"I can grow it back, given some time to prepare."
"Impossible! The limb is gone, forever!"
"I've done it before."
"I have abruptly decided that I must keep my mutilation, because I have grown accustomed to it after only a few weeks of in-character time since my injury!"

But I rant, and this has likely veered off-topic. On-topic, unless your limb has superpowers you can't attach to a normal gauntlet, I see no problem with 'automail' save that simple regeneration is generally more practical.

[Rigley]

Ah, this!

Allow me to pull from the discussion held on this in another channel; this more or less should sum up the team's view towards this subject.

[quote>>]I've always preferred to say that the limb has better dexterity and feeling; so it isn't perfect but it is surely better than other mechanical limbs (which, if done right, should actually be very crude and poor for any means of combat). This is because magic in general is much more flexible, so you're not just taking into mind what the nerves are doing to make the mechanics move, but the magic exerted into it to make it respond as well.

You would feel it just like you would feel someone touching your arm, whereas other prosthetic would only be felt if someone starts tugging on them. It also makes it easier to maneuver, since it feels more natural.

>>I'm not sure how to fully describe it, but the best description I can think is that you are using magic to effectively animate and 'make' the arm. Thus you feel the magic exerted there, and when something touches it you can feel that thing pushing against the force you are exerting. I don't even think that it would be overly physical in being jabbed in the robomagi-arm, on that note.

>>Texture and temperature wouldn't be felt.

>>People who have pressure related somatic movements aren't spinning around combat controlling their arm, it's very light, basic and blocky movements. Those nerves weren't meant to control fingers. If anything, you'd be able to move it back and forth, probably best to put like a claw on it or something cool that didn't require intricate motions like fingers. [/quote]

(These are snippets from a private discussion on this very topic)


So effectively this is the stance I garnered from that thread:

-Technomage limbs are superior to ordinary mechanical limbs, but still lack a fine amount of dexterity. Clumsy in comparison to normal limbs, essentially. Fingers will likely only be fit to hold objects. A good idea to put this in perspective is that normal prosthetics might be closing their fingers and once, whereas technomages would be able to move each finger, possibly with something of a delay. So you can move the fingers in a more intricate way, but you wouldn't be able to really tinker or do any fine tasks such as play an instrument with the limb.

-Like mechanical limbs, technomage limbs are incapable of feeling objects.

-While they cannot feel items, they can feel when something touches them (IE: Could feel a person placing his hand on the arm, or brushing into an object, but not actually feel what it is or most likely even discern it from shape.

-Most importantly, Technomages are the only ones allowed to make use of technomage limbs, as it requires magic to invoke a response (and because it's the rules.)

I will stress the fact that a normal 'robotic' arm isn't going to be a big plated super-cannon or fist like one might imagine, to be clear. Metal is heavy, and unless you want it ripping off the side of your body its best to go light. More often than not a prosthetic would look similar to the ones we have today:

Spoiler:

And even then, that's modern technology-- odds are the WoW equivalent would be even cruder. To the point of the matter though, these limbs would be both extremely clumsy and more likely than not very lightly armored; heck, I wouldn't be surprised if most was made of wood or such instead of metal.

Just some excerpts from the GM team and some thoughts of my own.

[flammos200]

I played a guy who only had one arm, and he never got a replacement. Hell, I've never had a character who's made/had more then something based off a WWI rifle.

Anyways, I feel like there's one thing with resurrections and cripples. Our characters go about their lives, and see people that have been resurrected, or people with a robotic arm, and perhaps their friend died, or they only have one arm, and they begin to think 'why not'? Overall, I've always found a reason for 'why not' harder to find then a reason to 'why'.

This is exactly it. Perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way, but this is WoW. I do understand that real life problems are relevant to all of us, but not all of them are relevant in this universe. Lost limbs, simply put, ought not to be terribly relevant in Warcraft because they can be regenerated or replaced.

Playing a healer myself, it is often frustrating to have to RP alongside characters who either make up (usually shaky) in-character excuses as to why they must keep their ailments, or steadfastly insist that overcoming them is impossible when everyone but them has done so before.

Warcraft is simply not a proper atmosphere in which to tackle certain real-world issues. A flu epidemic would be little threat in any place with a healer or two, for instance, and STDs are likely all but nonexistent in most areas of society. Likewise, missing limbs are likely either because of mutation - very unusual, and I can't say with any confidence whether or not it's healable - ignorance of the abilities of magic, or the inability to find a suitably powerful healer - the most likely one. This can become a bit silly at times.

"If only I had my arm, I could take up dueling again."
"I can grow it back, given some time to prepare."
"Impossible! The limb is gone, forever!"
"I've done it before."
"I have abruptly decided that I must keep my mutilation, because I have grown accustomed to it after only a few weeks of in-character time since my injury!"

But I rant, and this has likely veered off-topic. On-topic, unless your limb has superpowers you can't attach to a normal gauntlet, I see no problem with 'automail' save that simple regeneration is generally more practical.

This.

Warcraft has both mechanical replacements for limbs, such as Tinker's Arms or steam-fists, to a lot of ways to heal and regenerate limbs.

Where Light healing would mend the flesh, Nature-based healing would regrow it. Simply different methods to the same end: Restoring a lost limb, or life, in the case of resurrections.

And no, Geck'. Mutations can't be healed, as they're not an affliction, but rather, a change of the very nature of the individual's body. So, healing doesn't pick them up as an 'injury', per se. It's the reasoning that the NElves gave to the deep scars left by Satyr's Fel-scythes never healing right. And to why no one's been healed of Fel-mutations, ever.

'Sides, I don't believe that a character should be made or broken around being a cripple. It's like having oh-so-deep scars that hint to a tragic past and all that. That's not to say that they're an invalid way of expressing one's char - sure, they're fine. But they must not become the main ways of characterization, or the only thing that sets them apart from the rest of the flock.

Anyhow, that's all I had to say on the matter. Healing is healing, mech-limbs are fine too. /salute.

[Grakor456]

The one thing I would like to bring up is to make sure that, if you're going to go the route of the mechanical limb, that you keep it balanced. If your mech-limb is better than your normal one, why aren't people chopping off their own arms and legs for super-duper robot limbs?

WoW tech is crude. More than that, it's experimental and unreliable. While a metal arm may be stronger and more durable than a human one, it's also quite likely to be prone to frequent jams, lock-ups, being in need of frequent repairs and cleaning, etc. And if you think a household appliance or computer getting glitchy/broken is inconvenient, imagine how frustrating it would be when it's one of your own limbs that's having the problem.

[flammos200]

The one thing I would like to bring up is to make sure that, if you're going to go the route of the mechanical limb, that you keep it balanced. If your mech-limb is better than your normal one, why aren't people chopping off their own arms and legs for super-duper robot limbs?

WoW tech is crude. More than that, it's experimental and unreliable. While a metal arm may be stronger and more durable than a human one, it's also quite likely to be prone to frequent jams, lock-ups, being in need of frequent repairs and cleaning, etc. And if you think a household appliance or computer getting glitchy/broken is inconvenient, imagine how frustrating it would be when it's one of your own limbs that's having the problem.

Without a doubt. Heck, I remember Sebastien's hand. Not only did it freeze up in cold temperatures, but it also literally fell off on Outland.

Tech is bound to be glitchy and in need of loads of maintenance to keep it running. In fact, all of the technology in Warcraft is based around a Malfunction Rating, in mechanics terms. Basically, every piece of tech can go -very, very bad- on you very rapidly.

For a mechanical limb it can likely range from electrocution to freezing up in the middle of combat, to giving you insane jolts of pain, or such. They aren't safe to work with, but they're still useful.

And, with steam-fists. I recall Gnome tinkers cutting off their hands to replace them with such, much to the chagrin of their peers. It'd take me a while to find the reference, but I know for sure I've read it somewhere...

[Beltharean]

I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that if you're a technomage, and you get stuck in an anti-magic circle...

The arm should be useless for all intents and purposes. Other than that, I'm perfectly fine with them.

[Rigley]

WoW tech is crude. More than that, it's experimental and unreliable.

Fun fact!

Spoiler:

This is a victorian prosthetic arm, in contrast to the one I set out in my last post. Now I realized what will be the likely response; This is an arm from real life, without supergnome and goblin tech that we have. And you're right; this is indeed a fantasy setting, and we -do- have better than this for characters in-game.

This is a good thing to look at in reference, though. If you look at the way its made it is comparatively light to the usual depiction of mechanical prosthetics; partly made of wood, and not even solidly made of metal. It's built with weight in mind, essentially.

Now, a gripe might be that as a group roleplaying in a fantasy setting, the fantasy equivalent to prosthetic limbs should be available; At the same time there are other threads which have carried on looking for realism in certain topics, so I really don't know which way to go with that. What I do know is that weight and gravity don't change with WoW, so in the very basic issues of weight and the like, this point would stand.

And I think that's about all from me. :u

[Beltharean]

I know personally that, back in the day, Jarvi had to wear a harness around his chest in order to keep his own arm from tearing him apart. He was in the arena once, and lost a fight and the final blow was someone severing the connections on his harness and the arm tearing out of the socket. Fun stuff!

[Xigo]

Seems like we're all agreeing with eachother.

>.>

[FlyingSquirrel]

That always happens in threads like this, Xigo. The offenders rarely look at the forums, from my personal experience.

[Reigen]

I think it's fine if Techno-mage/priest/lock's have and are able to use with some easy fake limbs. It wouldn't be as great as a real arm, sure, but it wouldn't be as bad as what someone who wasn't one would have.

When I had Reigen's fake arm, I would do maintenance RP. After a few fights, I'd determine that the arm would have become damaged, dented and locking up at the joints. It would have to be removed for a full day or two, in which she would be stuck in an area until fixed. When someone ICly offered that they could upgrade it, she'd allow it. The arm was slower to respond and something that she'd not use often because of how fragile it was.

It is a shame that people do not trust fight more often, because it is -hard- to play off a disability when it comes to rolls. In a trust fight, someone could have taken a whack at the joint in the arm and disable it for the rest of the fight. In a roll fight, it somehow doesn't harm it in an way shape or form because a RNG decided I'd get a 50 to their 49. In trust fights, I'd have any attacks from a certain side of the character auto-hit, because if one is blind in an eye, you're not gonna see anything coming from that side. Once again, thanks to RNG, you somehow have super hearing or are just lucky to get distracted by the shiny in front of you.

TL;DR: Fake limbs are fine and dandy, the fault lies in insisted roll fights to where the disabilities can not properly be played out.

[Flammeschmieden]

My Technomage, Sylir has muscular distrophy in her left arm, and because she was born with it (and therefore being part of her initial 'natural' state), no real magic has been able to do more than just prolong the inevitable. That is, the eventually complete atrophy and uselessness of said arm. It's the reason why she became an engineer a long time ago: to replace her weakness. She is a person who wishes to find perfection, starting with herself. I've been RPing her doing research for literal months. Heck, she had been doing her research in her backstory. She knows she will need a really good doctor, another engineer to install the device, and maybe another healer just in case. She understands the risks. Ironically, I have that exact same picture of the Victorian arm prosthetic as Rigley posted, and I planned on designing it very similar to that with maybe some modern-y looks so the fingers are thicker. And yes, there will be a lot of recovery RP time. You don't just walk away from crazy life-altering surgeries like that.

[Beltharean]

Unless you got new mechanical legs.