Call it nostalgia. Call it me trying to remember why I quit 3+ years ago and why it still doesn't feel the same. Whatever the case, I went back last night and read through a lot of the old posts on the old RP list. And I mean "before you could physically have characters on FEI because right now it's only a map" old. And I was reminded of the incredible community that was built on three simple tiers. A singular jpg image of a map. A collective of creative minds. And a desire to build an incredible story.
Ultimately, mechanics were necessary to resolve conflict and to prove in game terms what had been narratively described. But the heart of FEI was always in building the world together. And now, looking back, I'm confident in saying that's why the island lost its luster and why long ago it lost its "RP Island" description. Once the characters dropped in, the world was populated, the secessions started to happen, and mechanics could replace a good story, it did. All three of the tiers fell down or were replaced. What was once a simple sandbox map became a tactile simulationist playground. Still good, still fun. But not equivalent. Where once we had a community banded together by creativity, we now felt fixated on the mechanics and how to get the game to do what we wanted instead of simply roleplaying it to be so, and then rolling with the punches. And then, our "story-first" mentality went down the drain and was replaced by a more "me-first" gamist attitude. Again, not a horrible thing. Most people like a game they can win. But it's not what the island was built on.
So what did that original worldbuilding, story first community turn to? Again with Tom's help, we attempted to revive SpellMaster. Characters were made and developed through interactive narrative, creative juices flowed about simple mechanics, and again we only had the flat map to unite our vision. Touting a lower playerbase, we had some good fun for a few months until we got bogged down again in the mechanics issue and people started losing interest when story alone seemingly couldn't resolve issues and they felt the mechanics were not coming soon enough. So again, it eventually fell flat.
Dwilight showed up but from day one, that project seemed all about the simulation and not at all about the story, so it never drew the same crowd.
I guess what I'm getting at is that in my opinion (and I don't think I'd be alone- though a number of the original worldbuilding crew has moved on like I did) BattleMaster has never been better than when it truly operates as a group of friends sitting down with just an image and some creativity to build an amazing story. So... who wants to build a world together?
((Tip of the cap to such sources as
this and
this, where I've learned much, as well as learning and losing a good bit in my own tabletop RPG writing endeavors.))
