Shattered Kingdoms

So you just let someone keep the precious relic that was an intricate part of your entire organization, that's great.

And you get to roleplay your cabal while losing all those nifty abilities, that sounds tons of fun. Why bother even joining the cabal then? Just start your own organization and skip all the crap related to CTF. Or better yet join a Tribunal. Because if you try and make a cabal secret or if you try and be strict with recruitment you're going to lose your relic and either have to show yourself to get your holy relic back or you won't be strong enough to take it back.

I still think CTF should just let you take over the fortress of the guardian you kill. Cabals could be jumping from one to the other all the time, no one would know whose headquarters would be where anymore and you could just not have one if you didn't want one, roleplay an underground/outcast/wandering organization or something. And one strong cabal could just start grabbing up fortresses to spread their influence across Pyrathia.

You join a cabal for the RP related to cabals. CRS is in no way shape or form preventing this. I'll be the first to admit there has been a backslide, but thats no reason it cannot be addressed with new or old traditions.

A

Archie v2.0 makes some really good points in a very strong post in this thread.

There are two things mentioned that I take issue with:



This is a terrible idea. It is something that we instituted in the Druids years & years ago. Then somewhere along the line it was also instituted in the Fists. While I really disliked the concept, I went with it- in both cabals- because it had been instituted via the rules of the cabal leaders, and was a purely RP-created player rule & tradition that was set forth.

However, as far as hard-coding goes... this concept is already implemented as far in code as it should ever be. "Minimum level" requirements have been banned, which means that characters can join a cabal at level 10 if they have the roleplay for it. The spells/skills of any cabal are amid a wide range of levels- if you are of that level and in that cabal, there does not need to be any hard-coded restrictions. This kind of idea simply moves SK ever closer to that mud that says "You can't do that"... which is ironically one of the cornerstones that the vision of SK was built on avoiding.




The code has never recognized a difference between the two. But roleplay and very often the immstaff and players alike have recognized that there is indeed rank & seniority among cabal leaders. The code doesn't have a "#1 flag" and a "#2 flag", but leadership of most cabals & factions have been recognized to have a senior & a junior leader. This is extremely important especially in the Midnight Council, the Adepts, the Fist, and the Hammer. The MC & Hammer because they are military organizations, and that strict hierarchy an extremely important part of the cabal's roleplay & purpose. The Adepts because their leader is typically a brutally wicked power-hungry bastard who won't dare allow anybody else to usurp their authority. And Fist because the Abbot/Prior hierarchy and deeply ingrained history of structure, discipline, and teacher/student relationships.

For Tribunals I know the Talons have a Commander and a Captain that is RP'd. Also the Peacekeepers have something similar albeit different titles.

So it's good roleplaying to sit around twiddling your thumbs while you're informed that a hostile group has invaded your sanctuary in an attempt to murder your guardian and steal your sacred relic?

If your character is a thumb twiddler and it is a part of the character's role to do so, then I am fine with it. I have even done so with my own PC's in the past because the leader had told me not to respond until I was given permission to.

A

However, it's very, very, very difficult for an entire organization to be secretive with the implementation of CRS. Unless of course, you don't feel like having a relic. I guess it should also be noted that most darkie factions do not like "thumb twiddler"s to be part of their organization. It makes them weak.

Carita being dead now:


The hardest part I found about trying leadership of a tribunal is the extrodinarily difficult time I had trying to organize/develop a plot with various white aura religions without resorting to OOC information. With the removal of forumIDs to leadership forums, to post meeting information to a certain faction of leaders without telling all leaders was an impossibility. And while the rules of the forum said OOC info is not to be taken into the game, I had a large difficulty trusting that if I said 'I'm looking for *said* individuals to work with me, it'd become an IC witch hunt and plot to intervene.'

I went the route of (take a guess) the note boards in the game. I struggled around to find IC the leadership of certain religions and groups to post a pair of notes two months ago. In all the followup, 2 factions lost leaders, 2 factions lost my contact individual, a past leader of the Talons never even recalls reading the note though I know RP was also done to all addressees I could locate in game to read and follow up.

The level of commitment I had to the project lasted well over two months to try and push the Zhenshi government into 'some light' of sorts, and ultimately would have probably led to involving the uninvolved factions with the revealment of things, giving them provocation to become in something greater.

Nothing left the launching pad. Faction numbers were down. Leadership seemed to change at the drop of a hat. No RP seemingly was done within factions. Contacts I made to faction members outside of the leaders for the most part outside of two characters indicated to me the leaders did not take the role play I put into play seriously. Effectively, it was like throwing kindling into a camp fire but the wind was too strong and it burned me out.

So what is wrong with leadership on SK today? Too few members to make a RP plot develop because groups are too busy trying to recruit. Leaders burning out because they spend months building up a group and 2 things happen. 1) the group is small and because of its inability to defend itself, members don't stay long and move on. 2) the group is large and dominates the game, develops an EYE CAN WIN mentality and enjoys itself doing the CRS thing, or ransacking a city or two because it can relatively unopposed. Neither of these things really MEAN anything from a plot development standpoint, but it's the direction the staff has led the players.

The lack of leaders who take the time to develop the RP, and the lack of leaders some factions have to PK well enough. An organization shouldn't need a Salak, Tragonis, or a Vealos to thrive. It would be well enough if each organization had 2 leaders whose combined strengths brought both PK leadership and diplomatic leadership. With the limited number of active characters at a given time, I would suspect ensuring quality leadership for each position religion/cabal/tribunalwise is as much of a far fetched idea as simply filling each pantheon slot.

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Suggested solutions which do not include asking for something that Dulrik has already said won't happen (ie abolishing CRS)

1) Leadership on SK should place an importance on the note board system. If a plot seems to come in their way from the playerbase, treat it as an opportunity to RP. Plots shouldn't have to develop from forum dictated events and immortals dropping out of the sky. It is the responsibility of leadership not to simply accept the status quo of recruitment but to both create the RP, and work with other leaders in game to bring about actual plot development to SK. This is NOT the primary job of administration. It IS the primary job of leaders. Organizations become stagnant when leaders do not do this. Dulrik has also stressed any number of times that OOC contacts to make plot happen should be used as a tool when needed, but should not be the dependant thing through which all RP revolves.

2) Expectations of internal communication/responsibility over diplomatic changes.. How many times in your group has the diplomatic status changed without any member knowing the RP that brought it about? How many times do you hear 'Oh group X is bothering us so I'm going to declare war now' and yet as a member you haven't even a foggiest clue who is in group X, nevermind that when war is declared on X, weeks go by and leadership has given 0 RP and minimal PK on the situation, which has now grown stagnant. This all includes religions too who have declared war on each other, or some group. Same thing can be said for 'a truce' that comes about purely because 'nothing happened' for a month RL time.

3) Activity level expectation of leadership. I don't know if it is merely a monthly quota that must be reached, but a weekly one should also be considered. Also if someone's trying to RP a coup, or if a leaderslot is open because someone deleted, and a group selects someone (even temporarily) to fill the space, better a position filled to generate RP, than further stagnation of the group. Of course in an ideal situation, when a leader deletes, the other leader should be able to drop immediately, and keep moving things forward. Of course this begs the question 'are there enough players to hold all this leadership... what about some suport here... (read on)

4) I wholeheartedly support the diplomacy system of SK to better support it's alliances. This would seriously go a long way to allow two factions to combine PK forces and protect each other more effectively in times of need. Times of need have appeared rather consistent since the separation of tribunals and cabals. Much like there is a call/response system in play to accept truces, simillar things should be able to set up between leaders as far as law immunity. Another thought to add to the pot is if countries are at war, should tribunals be able to transport their guard to launch an offensive attack? Could add an interesting twist to CRS and diplomacy both. A side benefit to this all is a struggling group could be supported by a strong one. More RPK is promoted, and a player seeking to join a group would assuredly see more activity coming. Side benefit example: Memberships may find some anomymousness playing consistently off an alliance.

I'm sure there are more ideas, but this is where I am with things right now. I will likely try another character, though I will admit at this time, it is more for social reasons and RPing a character who is not remotely leadership material. And a time to broaden some horizons as there are race/class combos I have considered dinkering in.

Okay, first, the RP you tired to put into play, there is no way this was ever going to get off the ground wtihout some ooc discussion, especially within the Talons. I completely misunderstood what it was you were trying to do, I've also gone to our KD and voiced my displeasure with the way this was done and the change that was supposed to take place. This change would in effect mean the last two years of playing my character were all played quite wrong and there was enough missinformation or mis wording as it is. While this change could have worked, I think leaving it to one player to put into play, especially when this character is having some in game quarrels within her faith, within her tribunal and just really isn't having the pull in game to do this alone.

What should have been done for this, has nothing to do with leadership, or leadership ability, what it has to do with is a lack of total understanding and communication. As I said this change should ahve first gone before the full Tribunal on the Forums for opinion and discussion first. Now, whatever the majority of the group decided, I would have gladly gotten behind. But as was discovered, noone really knew what was supposed to be going on, except evidently the KD and Carita.

I also feel this change would in fact invalidate almost 2 years of RP in my characters time. So while most IC things should remain IC, this was in fact an ooc change that hadn't been discussed by all parties involved ooc to be implemented to IC.

Yeah, a couple things about leadership. When I led the Guardians. Most of my time was spent either putting out fires caused by my members (legit reasons or not) or spent time recruiting. I eventually got quite bored doing the same thing in and out. Gets a tell, "Do you really let xxx do this?" put fire out or "Have you ever considered becoming a Guardian?" This took up most of my time. The only thing that I think the each Trib should have that I have seen can be done, is their own noteboard. This would save a lot of time w/o it being posted at a place where everyone can read it. Either that or give the option when writing a note to make to whom [name of trib/cabal]. Information getting disseminated right now in tribs is too slow and hard to deal with.