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Implemented Require Managers to Have RP Activity

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Immortal Cyan

Immortal Cyan

The Cyan Neko
Right now on SARP, we are struggling for GMs and plots.

At the same time, there are also quite a few ongoing power struggles transpiring in IC and OOC contexts, specifically for political and military influence. This suggestion is probably going to lowkey (or highkey) call out a lot of people and potentially ruffle some feathers, but I felt like it would be worthwhile to vocalize this idea to the end of concluding these power struggles, while also generating more plots and RP for the site’s writers to enjoy.

Simply put, in order to run a division, a department, or something else of that nature, you also need to be running an active plot pertaining to that division, which is open to a reasonable number of the site’s players. Fail to run a plot? Your character is at risk of getting sacked in favor of someone else who is.

This suggestion is quite broad, mainly because the idea of what a “division” constitutes is subject to interpretation. Is it a specific command group that your character runs? A military fleet group? A system that your character is the senator of? A corporation? In addition, a requirement like this might be impractical for factions that aren’t as active as Yamatai, so there is some discussion to be had there. I would suggest that we only apply a rule like this to factions with as much activity as Yamatai, perhaps to be triggered at the discretion of site staff. However, the idea behind this would be to end power struggles (and the drama that comes with them) and to get more folks writing stories.

That’s all I have to start with, but I'll probably add more as the discussion evolves. I’ll let the community tap in from here to give their input. Thank you for reading!
 
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As an example I asked Wes to run SAINT tonight, obviously. I am running a plot heavily tied to it- kinda always have. He said someone else had called dibs. Going by first come-first-serve rather than interest serves the site little.

Making the bare minimum "running something pertaining to dept." would be better than the bare minimum amount of interest in dept.
If you look up "SAINT" the last page of mentions have a lot of my name, like more than half are. When you look up mentions of SAINT from the person who took it over tonight, they say it last in April this year...

Please set up a system for this so that someone with genuine interest doesn't lose out something important to them, as I have. Thanks for your time posting something related to it. I know it's happened elsewhere.

It's genuinely heartbreaking to write my heart out for the site and to be met with imposed frustrations. ALL I want is to know I can call on SAINT assets without a headache and I can't. When I did on Tuesday I was asked to edit my post and not even mention SAINT. That's a pattern of telling the only GM working with SAINT not to use SAINT and I can't figure out why that helps RP.
 
Personally, I think that SoloRP should be considered running a plot for the purposes of this (and being a GM). There are at least two of us doing it, perhaps more. Also I consider the Senate for example to be its own RP plot of sorts. That said, I do think this is a good idea. We need people who are as Ame has said, actually using the things.

With regard to the SAINT issue, there were some reorganizations while you were gone. There also is another thing separate from you that we've been needing a SAINT director for to the point that I was even willing to take it even though I have no interest or aptitude for SAINT. (Thankfully someone else wanted it more than me.) When it comes to the future of the SAINT director, we should let the current person have a opportunity to run some things for it before we decide to move it to someone else. (I'm sorry for the bad timing for this, but you happened to drop in at a really inopportune moment wrt SAINT.)
 
I want to focus the discussion less on the current power struggles and more on how we can prevent these from dragging on in the future. Let's say that Jake is running the Star Army 20th Fleet (Made up for the purpose of this example), but he isn't running a plot. Now, Sarina comes in and runs a plot for the 20th Fleet, thereby driving Jake to start a 20th Fleet plot of his own, so that he is not at risk of losing his position to Sarina. Instead of Jake or Sarina going after each other OOCly because they perceive each other to be a threat, they both work to run stories that serve SARP's playerbase! The entire site benefits from that!

While I do like solo RP, in this case the idea is to have plots running that benefit the site as a whole. In my mind, that means plots which are open to a reasonable number of players. This helps to take the load off of GMs who might be running oversized plots and also gives more story opportunities for players to choose from. While solo RP is fun and just as valid as any other, unfortunately, it doesn't really accomplish that because it only entertains one writer.
 
In that case, I'd probably also check the 15th fleet to see if that might also work for Sarina. For me, I've always had problems with recruiting people into RP and with the stress of running a RP for other people. I feel that SoloRP does benifit the site as a whole. Perhaps the rules might be stricter for soloRP, but it should definitely be an option.
 
Having just returned from medical leave, I find myself confused by this same topic - the first question I asked Wes when I got back was "Did I come back during some kind of power vacuum?" There seem to be a lot of "dibs" and "mine" going on, especially in the Yamatai faction. I understand that everyone wants positions, and recognition for the hard work their characters and them have done. Just I don't understand why it has to result in tantrums. It seems to go even a little deeper than that like people are curb stomping the creative work of others in the name of having "control" of something.

Let's keep in mind a few basic things when it comes to Yamatai:

1. @Wes has the final say, and the rest of his Faction Managers should have input as well.
2. Just because you submit a wiki page to improve something like a department in the SAoY doesn't mean that you can hoard its assets. Faction Managers should be the ones stepping up in this kind of situation. If a GM needs something for a story they should not have to jump through hoops. Where is the communication?
3. I hate to say this but there comes a point where one person controls too much within the Star Army or Yamatai and it seems to turn badly, It results in these arguments, fights, and the swinging ego. Major changes to a faction's fabric need to be discussed in the community.

I know I've been absent because of my health and perhaps I shouldn't be giving my opinion. However regardless of if I am still an FM or a GM or anything else for that matter I'm still a Yamatai player. I've seen so much infighting, temper tantrums, taking in-character events to out-of-character, and vice versa since I got back that quite honestly it makes me start to think about who I want to interact with and what plots I'm involved in. Hate to say it, but this boils down to communication and people needing to be nice to each other and considerate.
 
I made up the 20th Fleet for the purpose of the example, but the idea behind the suggestion is to ensure that highly sought after positions of power are given to people who are actively contributing to the site. In this case, maybe Sarina wants the 20th Fleet because in this made-up version of Yamatai, they're the biggest fleet and they have control of some kind of advanced technology or special unit. Instead of going after Josh to try and undercut him OOCly, she runs a plot! The site benefits from that.
 
Saying, "I can do better at that RP than that person who is already doing that RP!" for the sake of winning an OOC prize is not a benefit to the site. Building each other / the site up means saying, "I saw you looking at that goal, here's a helpful step to get there!" not, "I want that goal RAH! and tearing at it" imo. Ties into being nicer to one another.

Also I am not planning on solorping forever. Since if solorp adds to the site is a point of discussion ig

Also Soban from what I can tell, nothing beyond SASO was going on with SAINT. Peeps jumped on SAINT after I took my stance, not before.
 
In regards to SAINT, Ame, nothing prevents you from using its resources. You can if you desire, no problem. Some of the things between SAINT and SASO were caused by concerns on the other side of the fence. I had hoped to mend that bridge a bit to prevent further OOC bloodshed and drama. But it seems that my attempt to rectify it prior to your return has been causing the exact opposite of what I intended. As with Ethereal, I am quite open to discussions, suggestions, and plot-related requirements for those that wish to utilize SAINT resources, backing, and interests. I was trying to act as a peacekeeper rather than a destroyer in this I truly was.

And I must mention something, having names mentioned over and over again should not bar those trying to keep something going. At the time you were not around and designs were made on it. I stepped in to keep it as a separate entity as it has always been. As stated in my opening sentence, you are most welcome to utilize SAINT resources for your plot without a headache-inducing nightmare. If you need in-character justification for using said resources. Just say the word and they are yours. But for now, I am pleading, and hoping we can resolve whatever discord there is, and be on amicable terms. I do not want to hold you back. Just talk to me, and we can easily work things out. And please give my best to razman, it has been a long time since I've seen him around and I hope he's doing well on whatever project he is working on or work he is now doing since I believe he was doing a journalist gig?
 
Personally, I think that power struggles are good for RP. Having characters be invested in something for once and have their world tugged at a little can only be a good thing. Throw them an interesting situation to think about and see what they feel about it, it's good roleplay. We had a discussion thread recently about the way Yamatai has some things unwritten that should probably be written. Part of SARP is exploring what it means to be a futuristic society and military, but no society is homogenous, especially when you're talking about 48 billion people (or insert current number here) and a dozen separate cultures inside just Yamatai.

Having things remain in a state where a jigsaw piece or two is missing leaves a bad taste in the mouth, I think. That's been one of the main reasons behind the half dozen or so reforms/updates I've done for various parts of the SAOY (SARA, SAMP, SASO, Rangers, Kamirakurai, etc). Every one fills a gap I saw and Wes didn't mind me correcting. In a future military, there are some things that once you think about it for a moment probably should exist, otherwise you have gaps in capability that the SAOY wouldn't have realistically overlooked.

In terms of OOC power struggles, that assumes that people actually care about control or being the best or whatever. I know I certainly don't. It's just the case that I've consistently put the effort into doing improvements to unmanaged military corps and organisations, often creating several new subarticles, which then effectively makes me the manager for that thing as people come to me for questions about it. It's not some kind of power grab, it's just that the unmanaged and old things tend to need the most love, rather than the ones people have maintained being active managers of.

We're all here to make or facilitate RP. Personally I take joy in making something exciting like SASO or Rangers, then seeing people like Glein be inspired to run a Ranger plotship. I like seeing multiple people take an interest in trying to run a TANTO plot, message me about JPing special training, managing CSAR, becoming a fighter Ace, running experiments with SARA, or like a JP I'm currently in, help form the Kamirakurai. It's all original RP and the fruits of an experiment filling in some jigsaw pieces, that has proved good so far. How you quantify my RP personally, of whether SASO or SARA for example, can be qualified as a plot in of itself, is up to you. But I do RP them, and people do RP with them, probably a lot more than most settings elements.

The issue comes when people assume that SARP is a kind of time capsule where things were one way and should always be one way. We had a chat in Discord a few days ago about this kind of thing. There's some old hats here who believe that SARP should be a static place, or try to strip away things that have happened due to fixing common sense issues, for the sake of returning to a less common sense past. Unfortunately, that's not how any work in progress operates. If someone wants to explore or update something, there has to be a real reason that you've raised beforehand as to why things should remain in the past way. Oftentimes, new things inspire new RP that may have never been seen before. Exciting, for a place as venerable as SARP. Without something like Rangers or SASO, a lot of active PCs would have a lot less flavour in their lives, I think.

So, rather than assuming things are one way and not talking to anybody about things that may have changed, talk! Ask questions! Everyone is around and a lot of the people who've stayed active for the past couple of years can answer most questions to some degree. Otherwise you run the risk of bumping into inconsistencies that can be, as others have said, jarring.

For example, SASO was made to give people a single point of contact for a lot of the non-plotship combat/training side of SARP. It makes things easier for newer players and older players alike. Part of that was simplifying down disparate parts of the Special Forces, such as how SAINT had half a dozen special forces that effectively were all the same as a SOFT team just with different cool names. Curio Squad being an exception to that rule. None of them were actually played and nobody seemed to mind their reorganisation until recently. However, there's been a year IC following SASO of admirals trusting other admirals and SAINT is no longer as spooky and an uncanny iceberg as it once was. Because, kind of obviously, people who are Taishos and Chujos generally have enough trust from Yui to have knowledge of most things. That's probably a good thing, because realistically why would it be any different?

All the things I've done, I've run by Wes first as FM and SM. There are some things I know he's not overly fond of and I'm glad he's made me aware of those, but as he told me recently, if people want to see something new and it builds RP..

I don't mind setting aside a bunch of the things I've made if people are getting weirded out by me being the manager of a lot of things. However, it'd be a dereliction if I tossed them to the winds of being unmanaged so they can eventually wither up and be forgotten. So if anyone would like to put their hand up to take the responsibility of actively managing and improving something like SAMP, SARA, Reconnaissance, or any of the dozen or so MOS inside SASO please put your hands up in this thread. I've already happily been helping CSAR get its own manager and been splitting off a lot of SASO's stuff to Rikugun and local Fleets. Just let me know. I'd actually like to see more people take an interest in building the SAOY up rather than putting glass around it and mounting it on a wall, heh.
 
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So the core of the suggestion seems to be adding the following rule:
  • If you manage something OOC, you're expected to provide related RP for it.
    • For example
      • Wes manages Star Army Personnel Command, so he provides recruiting center RPs and orders threads
    • The minimum expected activity is one RP thread a month.
    • If you're unable to meet this, staff may, at our discretion, ask you to release management of the setting element.
  • OOC Management of setting elements may occasionally be redistributed by staff to whoever is doing the most related RP for that element
  • This Rule applies to:
    • Factions
    • Corporations
    • Fleets, Divisions, Starships, and other units of the Star Army of Yamatai
Let me know if this looks right to you guys.
 
Wes said:
So the core of the suggestion seems to be adding the following rule:
  • If you manage something OOC, you're expected to provide related RP for it.
    • For example
      • Wes manages Star Army Personnel Command, so he provides recruiting center RPs and orders threads
    • The minimum expected activity is one RP thread a month.
    • If you're unable to meet this, staff may, at our discretion, ask you to release management of the setting element.
  • OOC Management of setting elements may occasionally be redistributed by staff to whoever is doing the most related RP for that element
  • This Rule applies to:
    • Factions
    • Corporations
    • Fleets, Divisions, Starships, and other units of the Star Army of Yamatai
Let me know if this looks right to you guys.
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This phrases it better than I ever could! I have a few suggestions:
  • OOC Management of highly influential setting elements may occasionally be redistributed by staff to whoever is doing the most related RP for that element.
Added the bit in green. This is mainly to distinguish between management positions that are highly sought after and positions that aren't, with the idea being that you can get away with not doing RP pertaining to a setting element that you control if the element in question is kind of niche and not really all that popular, like say, Kagayaki Cosmetics. On the other hand, you likely won't be able to get away with not RPing when running something popular and influential like SAINT. In short, if you're just managing a small thing that is kind of off in the corner, there won't be a risk of losing control over it.

Otherwise, this looks good!
 
*stares at the Star Army Military Police*
Yeah, nobody's ever RPing with that thing, despite my best efforts, but that can hardly be classed as influential in that case 🤣🤣

It can be slightly difficult to RP with entities such as SARA. I do a lot with authorising projects, providing ideas, connecting PCs to work together, providing IC materials and stuff. A lot of that is through SYNC messages in the same way that Personnel issue Orders though I imagine. As for SASO, I'm very often working with people to do JPs like one with Alex currently where he's becoming essentially the figurehead of the Kamirakurai, which is easier to do than the same thing for SARA. Are we sure that SYNC threads count as RP, just to clear up on that?

On redistribution, will fair warning be given that someone is falling behind someone else that Staff have noticed using the element more? Or is it more of a 'we do it when we like' thing?

Other than that, all sounds fine to me really.
 
SAINT units, like the SOFT being mentioned above, and NPCs should remain usable moving forward. Like SAINT's SOFT units are all Operative MOS soldiers, so destroying them only hurts SAINT and IC intelligence gathering because SASO's units can exist without operative participation. Without them there is a lot less cool lore, cool usable units, and less rule of cool imo.

Sorry if this is too specific for this thread or smth I just am hoping for spies in YE 45 still!!
 
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It's very true that technically speaking, any MOS can be on a SOFT team - they're generalist by design in that way, unlike other special forces. They'll never be able to triage a starship, investigate a scientific anomaly, or quell a riot, but they're a kind of collection of people who are good at working together. So, while it detracts from the generalism of having a mix of different panel colours, it's still valid to have anyone be on a SOFT team that is considered good enough by the person who formed the team locally, so all-SAINT SOFT teams can and do exist.

However, SOFT units as they currently exist are tied to starships and plotships exclusively, as TANTOs are more qualified to be rushed across the galaxy as they are entirely composed of a mix of skills, whereas SOFT teams may be more homogenous in composition. SOFT are now tied to ships to standardise them, because prior to SASO, the definition of what was a SOFT or what a SOFT did wasn't one thing. Some SOFT teams were ship-based, formed organically from a crew and helped that ship with issues. Other SOFT teams were more like modern TANTOs, with people selected from all over that flew all over, and didn't do the same things that other groups under the banner of SOFT did. You can imagine how confusing this must have been to Command, or people being told a SOFT team was in an area. Nowadays, they only mean shipboard teams helping with local issues - one definition. They are also all registered with SASO (but commanded locally) just so they can send any high priority stuff in the viscinity their way.

For groups of forces, there's this "we already know what the problem is, now you lot go and solve it" concept that SASO works off. Whereas I'd hope SAINT are more to the side of "we need to gather the intelligence here but may need several operatives to investigate and observe the situation". Spying, after all, is an entirely different skillset to what happens when the jackboots, medics, scientists etc are sent in.

In my head, Operatives are sent along with SASO responses regularly, to interrogate anyone captured, collect further information on an emerging emergency situation, even act as field liaisons and coodinators with local fleets or back to SAINT. They however, probably aren't as likely to dive right into a firefight unless the situation is declining. I don't believe that SASO and SAINT are as separated as some might think, more that they're forming a unified response. As a few people have said in terms of analogy, "SAINT is the eyes and brain, SASO is the hands" when it comes to armed responses. Intelligence goes hand in hand with operations, but each have unique skill requirements.

So, I still believe that this kind of 'fireteam spying/intel gathering' kind of team is entirely SAINT without a need for it to adapt to SASO's collaborative presence. It's just that once the intel has been gathered, oftentimes other MOS might be better at the jackbooting or otherwise resolving the situation than intelligence operatives. Intelligence gathering and spying training is great and incredibly useful, but sometimes you could use a medic, scientist, ranger, MP, rikugun or a heavy PA instead. I'd suggest using a new designation other than SOFT for the reasons already stated, but essentially it'll mean a group of operatives investigating or observing a situation and collecting intel.

Or, if a team is more of the jackbooting variety, that exists insofar as an actual all-SAINT modern SOFT team aboard a (potentially SAINT) starship, that is just registered with SASO too. Just in the latter they'd be getting their hi-prio response missions from SASO (because they've gone and decided this team should have it first rather than any other MOS unit and there's no more intel to gather there) and their sneaky beaky standard missions from SAINT.

I hope that helps clear things up. I know I've got a call later today with Soresu about whatever other questions might come up in this area.
 
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In my mind "highly influential" is a flexible status that is always subject to change. If people were to start caring about Kagayaki Cosmetics to the point that there is a lot of wiki activity, a demand for plots, and discussion surrounding it then the owner would become subject to the rule and be obligated to start providing RP or to step aside for someone who will if that person is available.
 
If something became that popular, wouldn't it be apt to assign popularity that to the owner? If the OOC owner/operator of Kagayaki Cosmetics is doing something right and everyone's crowding to get involved, we shouldn't push them out. Crucially (and conversely), we should be elevating that creator to do what they are doing.

Do you see why? They helped something flourish and must be doing something right and are an asset to the site. Is that something just I see?
 
Ametheliana said:
They helped something flourish and must be doing something right and are an asset to the site.
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Being absent is being absent. This is a living setting with stuff that goes on. It's not a book, a movie, a serial, or a painting that's done and is just consumed once the creative act is completed.

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Don't yank popular stuff from people who made it that way without REALLY trying to make sure they're gone. But they should be doing stuff with it. No matter how good and popular it is, it can and will stagnate if stuff isn't done with it. We have literally thousands of examples lying around our prop house.
 
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