Expecting the wrong type of Roleplaying game

[Gustav Kuriga]

I find that most of you are over-idealizing the past and completely exaggerating how big intra realm conflict is. I have been in nearly all the islands, from Darka, Carelia, CE, Tara, and Minas Ithil on Atamara to Sirion and Fontan on East Island. I have played in Hetland on Beluaterra, as well as Aquilegia and Morek Empire on Dwilight. I even did a short stint on FEI. Only two of these realms had major intra-realm conflicts, the one in Aquilegia being caused by a multi while the other in Morek Empire was resolved without major fighting. Not counting the nobles with Allison helping Astrum (how is the whole conflict on Dwilight not an example of how ridiculous you guys are being? You have a whole religion of several realms cooperating to stop a group of realms that are cooperating to destroy it. Not to mention the fact that nearly the entire island of Atamara has risen up against CE), Morek Empire is united and one of the most powerful realms on the continent.

Personally, I would find the game you describe very dull. There isn't much point in playing your character as extremely loyal when everyone is the same way. Besides, on Islands where all of the land is covered by existing realms, how else are new realms supposed to be created than by secession?

[Shenron]

I think the new style of BM has also given new players a much better shot at getting into higher positions.

While this isn't always the case: cohesive realms = little turnover in leadership.

Although I think heavy intra-realm conflict that happens to the point of crippling a realm is incredibly annoying. It's a hard line to place. I think I'm mainly happy with the way that BM has developed so I'm Vellos' side for this one. Having more personal freedom is certainly upside. I remember back when I played BM a long while ago, rebellions would be so hard to plot because everyone would just cry and tell the judge straight away. I think this happened partly because the government seemed like the almighty power in the realm and there was a heavy team feeling, so the word traitor had more weight.

Of course I may also be becoming better at double-crossing people. Sadly Battlemaster trains the mind for that kind of thing. 

[Chenier]

Aye.  It always annoys me when I see people in power in the game walking a pacifist path, and I've seen it all too often.

It all depends on the context.

On BT, I've built up my power and influence in order to increase conflict (to further gain more power and influence). Peace there always struck me as dull, and I always tried to disrupt it when opportunities presented themselves.

On Dwilight, though... There are *so many things* to struggle with, that war is the last thing I want. And I don't see that changing any time soon. I'm still careful as to now sign more alliances and treaties than desirable on the long-run, but still. Peace is what I've always strived for there, as war basically means death and I'd find little fun in dying to rogues and starvation as a result of diverted resources and manpower to a human conflict.

IMHO, the problem isn't rulers that seek peace. The problem is when all rulers of a continent do so, against the players' wishes.

[Bedwyr]

Dwilight's an exception, because the war with the rogues can very, very easily completely consume the resources of every realm on the island with room to spare.

[Shizzle]

Maybe an OOC discussion within a realm, where players can express their desires, couldbring aid? Once the players are involved, the characters willmore orless follow, each in their own style

What has always bothered me though, is how people can be part of a realm not even sending one letter to anyone. Perhaps their should be more incentives, or penalties. Though I suppose those could be rp'ed too. (for instance a ceremony for the new ruler, absentees get punished -the problem then would be though, that people couldn't care less about the punishment, and banning them only weakens your own realm)

[Longmane]

For myself I'm working on finding a way of using the army I'm marshal of for eliciting more team play in our realm, insomuch as encourage it's members play on two levels if possible, both as members of the realm "and" members of our army,  in the hope build up not only a spirit of cooperation as fellow realm members, but also an enjoyable (and perhaps sometimes competitive) one as fellow brothers/sisters in arms.

[Stue (DC)]

Well, i am repeating rather similar things in my (now rare) posts, but when I believe to see what is crucial problem, than i lose interest for side effects.

the subject is "merging strategy and rp", isn't it? and author presented his impression, which i fully agree with, that competition is so limited.

i would go one step further and say that most of roleplaying is currently related to long green letters with more or less stylish efforts to bring in fancy expression and to describes feelings and visions about... nothing.

almost all roleplaying is about trivialities as there are rarely any dramatic events, ever, and i admire players who put effort into it, but am not optimistic such enthusiasm will last for too long as enthusiasm is flower that fades without proper food, and there is no basic food - events.

when i mean events, I would be exact - "event" is something that changes many things - change of people in power, drastic change in war situation, like acquiring cities, taking large lands, secession that make significant influence on power balance.

what event is not - change of people in power because players leave the game, finishing phase of gang-bang wars. secession from realm that is dying anyhow.

to be more specific - "finishing phase of gang-bang war" is the moment when there is clear noone will help gang-banged any more.

all described as non-events bring no fun, no drama, changes are not results of any interactive efforts - there is no any competition about anything.

more and more i believe the problem is in game mechanics more than in anything else, and i fear there is already process in place where many players who were carrying funny events for years are leaving because of that.

I will state some things to show why game mechanics kills competition, while it could be subject of new thread as well, or not, because all is about competition:

tome called the game battlemaster, as he described once, as in the beginning all become from this impressive battle mechanics we see in our battle efforts. though some current tweaks erased my ability to learn from battle reports, it is still deep and sophisticated thing.

it would be logical that skills in battles bring some in-game benefits, but currently it is on contrary

1. marshals, who need to have much of game knowledge, interactive skills, leadership, charactrer skills, deep understanding of players mutual relationship, and, of course IR - those marhsals are miserable in rank and influence, any completely unimportant region lord who barely ever talks to one of two of his knights outrank them. that is rather absurd in may opinion.

2. generals, that are mostly selected among the most experienced marshals, are on position which could give depth to overall game-play - from tiny little interests to overall continental politics. generals could organize their armies according to excellent wiki article which describes difference between generals and marshals, making wars much more than "go-to-region-A-fight-refit-to-region-B-than-go-back-to region-A cycle"
they could, if they are not rendered completely powerless.

finally
3. rulers. they have so little power and so much burden and responsibility, that any sense in playing left to them is to "keep things stable" as their power is so fluid and imaginary. they, only they can create really dramatic continental struggles, but they have to hold their shivering thrones, and have no power to do anything more than that.

4- all that influence which is coming from designed base of power - landed lords - is reactive power. i mean they can obstruct things, but cannot move things forward. nobody can move things forward as nobody is powerful enough to do so.

drama can come only from overly powerful characters, who feel strong enough to take risks, reasonably expecting that they are so strong that even failure will not cause absolute disaster for them.

fun could also come from sophisticated wars, but as war commanders are made shadows, nothing can move wars toward sophisticated events which could bring attentions of large number of players.

martial skills mean little, as large-alliance diplomacy is so much more important than military effectiveness that noone really cares. in future, who will actually care to develop martial skills?

the only real skill you need these days is to be very silent (not troublemaker), and extremely loyal (never question anything), and you will eventually be granted opportunity to collect wealth and ignore everybody else, forever.

[Chenier]

I've seen my share of drama and exciting turn of events, storylines which people really invested themselves in, and RPs that had actual impact on what would happen next.

Not really lately, though. But still. It's not only the people from up high that must bring this. You just need enough people. Mind you, having experienced/influential people join in increases the potential significantly.

[Heq]

I gotta say, I disagree about rulers having having no "power" in an RP and theme sense.   While they lack actionable power, they control the bully pulpit so to speak.  Realms tend to quickly start to resemble their councils in a lot of ways, and praising or letting slide certain behaviour can really help establish a core RP mechanic, and RP leads to conflicts for reasons other then "winning".

If two or three players put the effort in and one is a ruler, the ball gets rolling pretty quickly.  I don't have a lot of experience compared to most, but as long as there is some general compact between the rulers of a continent that action is perferable to inaction, I don't see any reason why a continent should ever be lacking in intrigue and war.  It's right there in the guide to being a ruler, if you make mistakes your problem and not the regular players, people will be much more willing to play "lively" characters and start trouble.

[Chenier]

I gotta say, I disagree about rulers having having no "power" in an RP and theme sense.   While they lack actionable power, they control the bully pulpit so to speak.  Realms tend to quickly start to resemble their councils in a lot of ways, and praising or letting slide certain behaviour can really help establish a core RP mechanic, and RP leads to conflicts for reasons other then "winning".

If two or three players put the effort in and one is a ruler, the ball gets rolling pretty quickly.  I don't have a lot of experience compared to most, but as long as there is some general compact between the rulers of a continent that action is perferable to inaction, I don't see any reason why a continent should ever be lacking in intrigue and war.  It's right there in the guide to being a ruler, if you make mistakes your problem and not the regular players, people will be much more willing to play "lively" characters and start trouble.

I'd say it depends a lot on the rulers' skills and expectations, too. Characters are generally conformist... but to a certain extent. If you decide you want a kingdom where the monarch is worshipped as a god, then you'll have to earn that worship with a lot of work, others won't simply give in simply because you pitched an RP concept out there. I saw multiple rulers try to give a "flavour" to their otherwise bland realms, but if that flavour doesn't really excite the players or match established RP, you are going counter-current.

[Heq]

I actually think that's doing it backwards.

I've kind of accepted that the moment Ciann became ruler she became as much everyone else's character as my own.  The core themes and feel is still there but there are certian things that just had to change so everyone else could enjoy the game more.  It's sort of like anything else, if you want to play a ruler it should be expected that you'll work to make the game fun for everyone else, so that means going with their concepts as well as your own.

Being worshipped as a God is usually more fun for the worshippee then the worshipper.  Too much Hayek studied in school I guess, but my thinking while the top can try to inspire it needs to try to be something which everyone else enjoys, otherwise it's really just ego flogging, and that's why we have Dukes 

That may just be me, or maybe it's just the Far East, but we've got players who get asked what kind of stories they want to tell and they seem to enjoy telling them.  I can't think of a more then a handful of characters in the kingdom that I don't know something about and that isn't involved in some story if they've been there for more then a month.  Come to think of it, I should post that in the most proud forum because that's what I'm most proud of (though it's not a personal accomplishment by any stretch).

[Chenier]

I actually think that's doing it backwards.

I've kind of accepted that the moment Ciann became ruler she became as much everyone else's character as my own.  The core themes and feel is still there but there are certian things that just had to change so everyone else could enjoy the game more.  It's sort of like anything else, if you want to play a ruler it should be expected that you'll work to make the game fun for everyone else, so that means going with their concepts as well as your own.

Being worshipped as a God is usually more fun for the worshippee then the worshipper.  Too much Hayek studied in school I guess, but my thinking while the top can try to inspire it needs to try to be something which everyone else enjoys, otherwise it's really just ego flogging, and that's why we have Dukes 

That may just be me, or maybe it's just the Far East, but we've got players who get asked what kind of stories they want to tell and they seem to enjoy telling them.  I can't think of a more then a handful of characters in the kingdom that I don't know something about and that isn't involved in some story if they've been there for more then a month.  Come to think of it, I should post that in the most proud forum because that's what I'm most proud of (though it's not a personal accomplishment by any stretch).

Well, I'm not saying the best thing to do is to try to get oneself worshipped as a god, but to each his own, I guess. Mind you, being the "god"'s right hand and chief of piety would probably be rather interesting, and there'd be many ways for everyone to react to this. As with any RP pitch, though, it can easily flop.

The ruler (mostly, though every other meaningful character as well imo) should indeed set his priority to be creating fun for all his peers. It doesn't have to be selfless or democratic, though, and can manifest itself in a great number of ways.

[Solari]

I have something I want to say about the roleplay I've seen lately. I don't like page after page of illiterate or pretentious "roleplay" -- especially if it's not something that people can respond to. Some people seem to be under the impression that roleplay consists of thinly-disguised religious/philosophical treatises or lengthy inner monologues regarding a characters' feelings on battle. (This isn't a single-player jRPG.) These posts are, quite frankly, tedious to read. How about something practical and tangible -- i.e., with very few feelings or thoughts -- such as: working in groups to destroy fortifications, looting and plundering, interacting with the army and one's lieges, etc.?

Roleplay is collaborative. In my opinion, it should be brief, it should be concise, it should be tangible, and it should allow others the chance to join in or respond.

[Bluelake]

I must say, I too miss some more team work in the game.

I suspect many strategy players left due to the end of war islands and the mechanic & atmosphere changes that made strategy be regarded as the bad guy for a while. Strategy play was very team-enforced, with lots of attention to the military (even region maintenance was treated militarily) and not a lot of internal power struggle. They were the status quo, so when they started to leave or try to adapt to a new gamestyle, I suspect the characters that were scheming to overthrow the status quo were able find their way, and slowly became the status quo themselves. Now, strategy players have retreated to some niches, and the new ones that come don't find many of these environments to thrive in. It's probably a dynamic balance that will change over time.

(which all comes back to my previous post on player retention: the key is to find a realm that suits your style)

Basically, yes, I think we did go from team vs team to player vs player. And even in my own realms I'm not sure how to change the atmosphere. Just as an example: some time ago, spies were very rare, were considered scum IC, banned, executed, etc. Nowadays, people basically expect that any unsatisfied knight will probably tell your plans to the enemy just for fun or power or something.

Which means that even the awesome RP and thrill that was to be a spy, now's seen with "oh, you too? gee, go ahead and move already"

Of course these are huge generalizations... and going off topic a bit, about the Roleplaying part of the thread. I think the secret would be to have your character be a pacifist (after all, we should roleplay people who don't want to risk their lives) but be bad enough at it that s/he always gets mixed up with a war.