Faction Rights

The issue and purpose of this is being twisted into something it is not.

The issue is not GMs and FMs communication. The issues is communication in general.

(If there is a GM/FM problem it is not from my end of things)

I do not really see a point in this. I am on this with Raz and others that GMs and FMs should talk together. And I am on the fact that GM should not go too much from the canon of the faction with Ira. BUT. And as you can see it is pretty big but.

We are here to roleplay. Factions are cool and give us the oppurtunity, but they are fluff meant to be used by GMs to tell the story. So in the light of this I support the fact that GMs has the word.

That said this all is about being polite to each other and work with each other. GM doin whatever he wants is an arsehole, but if you FMs just go write these useless right that mostly work already, you are just pushing a chair from under the GMs. Hawgh.

Shotjon they do not work. I do not mean to call iattention to past stuff but to cite an example.

When Yamatai did its little event with the Lorath a few weeks ago(the one that ended with it in Gartagen territory) Somebody we are both friends with threatened to leave over it.

I reitirate this is not about GMs and FMs, stop making it a non-issue because that is not the issue. The issue is general Behavior of the other Factionmanagers and communication WHICH DOES NOT happen

Instead of creating new rules maybe we should use the Plot Planning and Faction Planning boards. Actively utilizing the ressources we have is better than creating rules that will be abused and clung to during disputes.

No, no more half measures. The events that have happened over the past few weeks are unacceptable. The fact that you seem to think that kind of behavior is acceptable only shows that yea these rules are very much needed.

Kyle and I discussed this at length last night. I wish it'd been in this thread because it was pretty productive. Anyway. I think all of the Lorath incidents lately prove that the current system does function. Doc brought up why certain things were misrepresented and it was removed. Things were talked about and rectified. System working as intended.

Now if people actually used the tools available to them first maybe we'd have avoided the minor unpleasantness.

This rights things won't help anything at all though Ira. If people started using PLanning forums, now that would help everything.

Me and Kyle also discussed what y'all discussed: Our conclusion was that what you said only solidifies the fact that these rules are very much needed.

Granted one core point did get made that you came up with. The stuff about how factions function needs to be enforced and made more public.

@ShotJon

These rules will be in place to ensure that the discussion forums get used a lot more then what they do, and if not that the two or multiple parties involved will communicate and work together as colleagues.

This is not old SARP anymore. We are here to entertain and have DARE I SAY: FUN.

Communication will also help alleviate what Fred said: stopping the formation of cliques and hopefully prevent people from being overprotective and making their factions behave like big PC factions.

Guys remember in the end it wasn't the GM who wrote up all of a factions articles, who sat and waited for the NTSE to process and or approve them. It was the FM, he is the one who put the most effort into his creation and thus he gets the right to determine how they are used. If hes lax and doesn't mind no big deal but at the end of the day its his material and GMs should always have to respect his or her rules.

Perhaps, but all the amount of red tape I'm starting to see regarding player-created factions pretty much makes me feel I don't want to have anything to do with them. I'd just rather use my own ideas simply because there's far less hassle involved.

Perhaps my mindset regarding this is just alien. Me, I kind of see all the factional additions as D&D books added to me GMing repertoire to use. If there's a book on, I dunno, gnolls... I'll pick it up, read how they work, and I might choose to use them in my game. If I want to make my player feel like they're part of a wider, dynamic and shared universe... I'll try to do it right. Or I won't try at all if I feel I can't.

But I won't tolerate having some high-D&D-game-designer like Mike Mearls come to me and tell me: no, that's not how you run gnolls. Fuck it. It's my table, with my players, and it's my time spent using assets I had at my disposal to entertain them. Who are you to tell me I'm not doing it right? What makes you so high and mighty that my NPCs aren't as good as your NPCs? What makes you so sure that all your faction behaves exactly as you wish it and that there are no exception? How can you expect people to take interest in investing in them if they cannot themselves create beyond the mold originally created?

It's not roleplaying if people are so keen on a piece of text to remain static under thier own vision. Things going exactly like planned is a novel.

Interact with me, you say? I could consult you if I feel inclined to, but it doesn't mean I have to feel obligated to on to the point actual rules need to be put on it. Another important point for me - as far as I'm concerned - is that cross-plot stuff with two arbitraters is not something I feel works out - I'll even go so draconian-ly say that I think it's dead. I've seen what it did at the Battle of Yamatai, and I'm not ever touching it again. I'm certainly not going to touch it with a FM either.

For example, Exhack's been making alusions that he'd be fine with somesort of my-plotship-contact-with-the-Iroma. The main reason it's really not happening is that if the Iroma NPCs in my plot aren't controlled by me, I'm not inclined to make it happen.

I've spent more than five years here on SARP, seeing the same damn kind of drama over the same kind of problem. People create factions far more for thier egos than to actually add to the setting. The ownership you people put into them, as far as I'm concerned, turns them into useless excess baggage in the site, as far as its use for a GM is to me.

Also, old SARP, new SARP, whatever SARP: new factions getting a playerbase shouldn't be an expectation. It should be an offshoot of its success lead by player interest. And it doesn't mean it'll last.

I look forward to the day someone is going to create something on the site that's actually meant to be used by everyone without being exceedingly policed like what I'm seeing. Without feeling one's actions is trampling on the ego of another. That I will be able to use. That will be a useful setting element.

So far, only the Mishhuvurthyar have qualified.

Wes, I applaud your generosity, but I truly do think that your ruling for creating new factions needs heavy revision. We always have people tripping around these issues. The only real way of stopping it is at the beginning, with what is allowed to be created and not what has already been created.

Also, I'm growing to think that the role of FM is superfluous. If I'd see anyone in position to create new civilizations, it's not prospective FMs: it's GMs wanting to present them into their plots. At least then we'd be sure they'd have a purpose in entertaining our playerbase at the first.

Fred all I see from you are personal reasons and your own views which poses the irony that you keep mentioning Egos. The Irony being that I see this is some kind of slight to your own ego. It is your Ego that is standing in the way of you making contact with the Iroma because you can not deal with the fact that you will not have a draconian control over them.

As far as you being inclined to contact say me about dealing with my faction. I will be so bold as to make a correction, with or with out these rules you WILL contact me or you WILL not be allowed to use them. All these rules are doing is making it universal. This is nothing to do with my ego, my Ego would see the garts being great cheesy super power. However my ego is not important. What is more important is that a good story is made minus the drama.


It is not nothing to do with policing, I think you are misunderstanding or trying to make the issue into something you want it to be. What the issue is being mature and working with your colleagues on the site. That attitude you are demonstrating is the cause of a symptom on this site, your favorite word OOCLY and ICLY; clique.

Heh. What other point of view do I have offer other than my own?

It is your Ego that is standing in the way of you making contact with the Iroma because you can not deal with the fact that you will not have a draconian control over them.

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You realize that 'draconian' is an euphemism for severity, right?

Point is that yes, I won't bother if I can't call the shots with them. I'm not giving anyone else the chance to suck except me. If something goes awry in my plots, it's my fault, and not someone else's. I can't be accountable for the other arbiter, and I can't make himself be accountable for himself as well.

Perhaps it's a similar issue regarding control, but factions alone don't end up being the medium entertaining players - they're just one of the resources used.

I will be so bold as to make a correction, with or with out these rules you WILL contact me or you WILL not be allowed to use them.

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Precisely. Yours, yours, yours and not mine. Therefore not useable by me.

It kind of harkens back to something I heard in networking class regarding security: with too much security in place, eventually you start hindering connectivity. There's a point when a level of security and pulling the cable amounts nearly to the same.

Me? It's what I'm seeing. You might see it as perfectly reasonable, but from my point of view, it's been escalating for the last five years. How long until the next time a FM feels slighted (because it will happen) and wishes to make his faction even less accessible for use?

Fred said:

I look forward to the day someone is going to create something on the site that's actually meant to be used by everyone without being exceedingly policed like what I'm seeing. Without feeling one's actions is trampling on the ego of another. That I will be able to use. That will be a useful setting element.

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That is what I've been trying to do with Origin.

While I agree that faction managers should be communicated with, I also agree that the GM does have the final say in how something is to be used in the story. Having served as both, and running my own setting on another site, I have seen things be used incorrectly, but have always been able to simply talk to the person who used it incorrectly to get things worked out, without ever needing a rule to help me do so.

I think I'll have to say no to this- Litigation and politics never really appealed to me, and that's all I see here. Instead of complaining about it and making some text to point at, be more active in working with others. For my part, I actively suggest things I might have available that others can use, and help to instruct them on how these things work if I can. If I see others using them, I make sure to talk with those who are so that there are no misconceptions. Recently I even had someone get mad at someone else, supposedly in my place, for using something I had made. The people who were getting angry had never once bothered to see if it was something that I had a problem with others using, and those same people also happen to be the ones making this set of superfluous rules here.

Much like that, yes.

I'm not opposed to peer review, mind you. I'm just not interested in an individual slapping my fingers because I didn't do something the right way. But I'm not deaf to comments like "These X things felt weaksauce", "We know these were pirates, but they didn't really feel like X race" and such. Like anyone, I attempt, revise and iterate.

The exception being impossible is what is being really galling to me. This all started because of Nashoba's thread and how it 'treated' the Lorath, right?

Well, I never saw the harm in it. Was it really that inconceivable that a Lorath ship commander would've been incensed enough at Yamatai to be willing to disregard consequences?

Strangely, I didn't see them as running on remote control from the homeworld, with their emotions constantly under straight control and check by how their government wants them to act.

Maybe the crew would've stopped the commander, but hey, maybe they agreed too. Maybe they didn't, but had faith and loyalty enough in him to know whatever crazyness could be worth it. Because people have an amazing capacity for stupid, really. And things do go wrong, often. >_>

In any case, the capacity here to allow for stupid, here, would've made them feel more accessible in my ken. Opportunity lost, as far as I'm concerned.

The fact that this is disliked pretty much states that this is needed.

Ira said:

The fact that this is disliked pretty much states that this is needed.

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Everyone against this is a respected member of the site and have given specifics for why they think its a bad idea. Please, specifically, state why "the fact this is disliked" equates to it being needed.

As stated before, the way things are now does not work. Trouble keeps starting over the same issue over and over again. We need to be adults and stop pretending something is not broken.

I realize that many of you dislike change and that is fine, but those who can not adapt can not survive.

I see the arguments against this, but the truth is these rules also put the responsibility of the faction being kept up in the FM's hands. So where as yea there will be more protection there is also added responsibility.

If the faction manager can not keep a player base for 30 days then guess what? the rules do not apply and the faction is fair game. This is harsh, but necessary because it happens a lot. A faction gets made, then gets abandoned and we are all sitting there like "okay now what should we do with it."

So I see personal reasons why this is disliked. But this is necessary how ever it is not the only way so I CHALLENGE YOU to come up with something better.

What we have now is not working.

What we have now is a fine system and encouraging people to use GM/FM/Mod-level tools already in existence is the solution. New rules that'll create more fights than they're worth is not the solution.

No, we do not.

*edited, previous post was in bad taste*