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How'd this turn into a debate about Tarkuul? This is about a Non-evil faction creation.

AirPhforce wrote:

Guardian wrote:

AirPhforce wrote:

Give me control of Tarkuul for a week (with DM support) and watch how much shit gets done.

A week.

Sorry, but... who are you? :roll:

Someone who sees a ton of ooc whining but no ic action. Like, everyone says evil can't do anything because of the paladins, so go fuck them up. Destroy their farmlands, lumberyards, resource points, prevent them from launching a counter-attack by taking away their means to mount one. Tarkuul is a flying city with an army and massive firepower, go blitzkrieg.

I didn't want to step in to this, but... Do you really thing that Tarkuul can beat Kohlingen in frontal attack...? Silly you... :lol:

Holy_Avenger wrote:

I didn't want to step in to this, but... Do you really thing that Tarkuul can beat Kohlingen in frontal attack...? Silly you... :lol:

I don't know if that's a good mentality to have for lasting conflict. I'm not saying you're going to do this, but I think this type of thinking fuels the OOC irritation when evil wins, leading to tons of complaints to DMs and the evil character's players themselves (stating cheating, powerbuilding, call for nerfs, so on). Or, this:

Guardian wrote:

Also, I know a handful of people who were doing crazy evil shit and stopped after being bitched to on forums, PMs and tells non-stop. People cry for evil characters, but as soon as evil emerge, it's only a matter of time before insults and forum crying starts flying by.

Jes wrote:

He was probably referring to the inevitable connection between "Order of the White Stag" and "Kohlingen: White Stag Shore." Which is not unfair. I can see how that connection can and will easily be drawn, especially if you are physically based in Kohlingen.

Abdullah wanted the symbol to be related to Kohl at the beginning according to what he said in the opening meeting anyway. It was later determined that it is not Kohl's symbol and the stag has it's own heraldic meaning along with the colors.

Yes, I get that.

I was referring specifically to what others may draw from the symbol despite what it actually means IC.

treasured memories wrote:

I don't know if that's a good mentality...

It's not a question of mentality or approach. It's a first-hand experience.

I think what he means is that we should never have the mentality that any conflict will be strictly determined one way or another.

Sure, it's not at all probable that anyone beats Kohlingen in an up-front attack. But it's not to say that it can't, simply that it hasn't. That's the mentality Treasured is talking about. Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it never will.

Right. I totally missed the point, then. :oops:

Mr. Hackums wrote:

I think what he means is that we should never have the mentality that any conflict will be strictly determined one way or another.

Sure, it's not at all probable that anyone beats Kohlingen in an up-front attack. But it's not to say that it can't, simply that it hasn't. That's the mentality Treasured is talking about. Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it never will.

Yep, thank you.

A conflict like that would likely turn into World War Amia and leave the server as a smoking crater. Surely there's a happy medium between "nothing ever happens here" and Ragnarok.

In any case, Tarkuul isn't a conquering sort of evil, it's evil behind closed doors. The characters involved there clearly don't have any interest in playing pantomime villain to the rest of the server. Is that wasted potential? Perhaps, but I'm not going to chide the players of evil characters for not being dramatically convenient enough, any more than I would blame Holy for wanting to create yet another generically chivalrous order. I might hold the opinion that more interesting things could be done with both concepts, but people should be allowed to play what they want.

Can we not hijack someone else's thread with Tarkuul drama? If you guys wanna make a dedicated thread I'll post my perfectly valid opinions there I guess.

I think discussing ideas, including Tark's role in things, is part of an opinion of a new faction. Sort of? I won't deny it's slightly off topic, though still related, as I see it.

Quote:

Yes Tarkuul should be more of a community. I think we need to lose the illusion that there is an omniscient Voice and that is not something done easily playerside. A lot of schemers are put off by the idea their plans are exposed the moment a word of it is breathed in Tarkuul. I mean, why is it only Kohlingen who gets the murder mysteries?
The Living Guard are nearly redundant when it comes to crime in Tark, what is the point of having all those Laws? There needs to be more room for intrigue. A city that reeks of necromancy should feel more dangerous to live in. The only danger people feel is the seeming absolute power of the Voice and that can be somewhat stifling. And even when you take that omniscience out of the equation, the players need to be at some kind of equilibrium with each other AND the City or things might just go to the shit like Edonil did.

If this is how Tarkuul was portrayed when I was gone, then there was, and is, a gross disconnect in how the city actually functioned under my time, and what it morphed into. That's pretty disappointing on a lot of levels.

Plans were often exposed because we had a literal army of shadowdancers in the city during that period, not because the Voice gave us details of every conversation. There is a lot of things Tarkuul could do, and could have done, better, but let's not write a false history.

TormakSaber wrote:

Your character is one of the leaders of an evil city. You are a villain. Go do stuff.

Go do stuff and then wait for 2 years to see something implemented into the server? Shall I name the things I am still waiting for and shall I count out loud the amount of years for each and every one of them? Shall I name all the posts that are left unanswered and ignored by the "DMs" of Tarkuul? Come on Tormak. You can talk to these people that I don't do jack, but you can't say that in front of people who know what is going on and who know what went on in the past few years.

About "full frontal attacks" it's silly to even talk about it. Kohlingen wouldn't stand a chance attacking Tarkuul. Tarkuul wouldn't stand a chance attacking Kohlingen.

And AirPhforce.. if you had Tarkuul for one week, you would spend 10 weeks just reading on the stuff. Then you would understand half of it and know that what you speak of is absolutely out of question.

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

Yes Tarkuul should be more of a community. I think we need to lose the illusion that there is an omniscient Voice and that is not something done easily playerside. A lot of schemers are put off by the idea their plans are exposed the moment a word of it is breathed in Tarkuul. I mean, why is it only Kohlingen who gets the murder mysteries?
The Living Guard are nearly redundant when it comes to crime in Tark, what is the point of having all those Laws? There needs to be more room for intrigue. A city that reeks of necromancy should feel more dangerous to live in. The only danger people feel is the seeming absolute power of the Voice and that can be somewhat stifling. And even when you take that omniscience out of the equation, the players need to be at some kind of equilibrium with each other AND the City or things might just go to the shit like Edonil did.

If this is how Tarkuul was portrayed when I was gone, then there was, and is, a gross disconnect in how the city actually functioned under my time, and what it morphed into. That's pretty disappointing on a lot of levels.

Isn't the Voice only partially in power now? That Netherese mage (cough Glim cough) took over, didn't he?

Also, I think part of the issue with the Voice was that it can read any unprotected mind in the city (or so players said/thought), so anyone entering was at risk of their plans being immediately known by the city.

edit: I'm sure a derp, bobwest makes a good point. I'd move the posts to a new thread but I don't know where to begin, heh. So I'll just keep this as my last comment

--------------------------------------------------

More on topic, I do like the general idea of the faction. I think there needs to be more evil stuff going on to help provide things to do, but you can still generate a lot of RP! And not being city-based will be super.

Edging back on topic a bit... my only issue with this faction is that I think it won't have much of an identity, not that it's "yet more good guys". It was framed as a faction of action, but if you're going to have a "reasonably" Good and Lawful ethos there won't be anything for you to do that isn't already being done by older factions. However, if you instead go for a more extreme philosophy of self-righteous vigilantism and authoritarianism there'd be so many roleplaying opportunities... and targets.

Protecting the innocent is tricky business nowadays, because there isn't anything threatening them. Your only option is to protect them from themselves.

I think Larsaan brings up a good point there about identity and making yourself distinct. I don't have any specific suggestions, because you (as the faction organizer) would know best what would or wouldn't fit for the organization's concept, but injecting a fairly rigid ideal, and one that is off beat from typical Good-aligned groups is a pretty easy way to start with that and let it evolve through interactions. A lot of faith-centered groups have things they are obliged to do, or odd customs, or stuff like that which cleaves them away from just being a generic good guy institute. This something doesn't have to be inherently antagonistic, although it can certainly be fun when they are.

treasured memories wrote:

Holy_Avenger wrote:

I didn't want to step in to this, but... Do you really thing that Tarkuul can beat Kohlingen in frontal attack...? Silly you... :lol:

I don't know if that's a good mentality to have for lasting conflict. I'm not saying you're going to do this, but I think this type of thinking fuels the OOC irritation when evil wins, leading to tons of complaints to DMs and the evil character's players themselves (stating cheating, powerbuilding, call for nerfs, so on). Or, this:

Guardian wrote:

Also, I know a handful of people who were doing crazy evil shit and stopped after being bitched to on forums, PMs and tells non-stop. People cry for evil characters, but as soon as evil emerge, it's only a matter of time before insults and forum crying starts flying by.

bingo bango nail on the head.

Naivatkal wrote:

Also, I think part of the issue with the Voice was that it can read any unprotected mind in the city (or so players said/thought), so anyone entering was at risk of their plans being immediately known by the city.

To reveal anything about the nature of The Voice would be to give away IC info. So I will just say.. unless you are on the Council, all you know about The Voice is an assumption. Bringing out the assumptions OOCly as if they were fact is undesired and should be used with lots of caution. :wink:

For the DMs who take this assumption-info as granted all I have to say is - check it with us (me, Silkelock, Sicarius, NinjaClarinet, bobofwestoregonusa) first.

Heh, no prob. I'm just Voice-ing (Hurr, geddit?!) the perception of players and characters alike

Naivatkal wrote:

Heh, no prob. I'm just Voice-ing (Hurr, geddit?!) the perception of players and characters alike

ZING!
The perception is perfectly fine IC, but OOC you should at least leave the possibility of doubt.

To clarify my point, it is more the idea that a being such as the Voice has such power was a turn-off for schemers. To the outsider an unknown quantity such as the Voice being privy to your plans is something that offends one's basic sense of paranoia.

Naivatkal wrote:

Also, I think part of the issue with the Voice was that it can read any unprotected mind in the city (or so players said/thought), so anyone entering was at risk of their plans being immediately known by the city.

That's the sort of sentiment I refer to when breaking the illusion of the Voice's (and to a lesser extent, the city's) omniscience. It makes perfect IC sense to have that idea, but because of that Tarkuul comes off more like a controlling bugbear and a lot of evil folks would immediately be put off by that.

And to be fair, there's more to the issue than just that. Tarkuul works more like a classical faction than a sandbox city. We're too top heavy when it comes to generating activity.

I might elaborate, but we should probably split this to another topic if people want to keep talking.

Seriously, make your own thread for this. This is a faction recruitment thread, and you guys are derailing it, this is a discussion worth having but it's not fair to the OP to take his thread and turn it into this

Repeatedly saying "off topic! off topic!" is also adding clutter without contributing to EITHER the primary or tangential conversations. Just like this post.

Conversations evolve

Let's not derail the thread by arguing about arguing about derailing, it's too meta.

Larsaan wrote:

Edging back on topic a bit... my only issue with this faction is that I think it won't have much of an identity, not that it's "yet more good guys". It was framed as a faction of action, but if you're going to have a "reasonably" Good and Lawful ethos there won't be anything for you to do that isn't already being done by older factions. However, if you instead go for a more extreme philosophy of self-righteous vigilantism and authoritarianism there'd be so many roleplaying opportunities... and targets.

Protecting the innocent is tricky business nowadays, because there isn't anything threatening them. Your only option is to protect them from themselves.

I do not believe this faction would require a big evil to battle. That is reactive. This is a RP server so some things to RP? Training sessions, active training session. Once again I mention an island full of undead. Slaying them on patrol will protect the people from harm.

One of those job missions: The diplomacy job always sends me to find someone in a cave filled with bad guys. Why not RP out the adventurer of freeing the diplomat from the villains which captured him (only to fail the roll and he refuse the request)

Random RP: Oh no newbie 03214 is hurt and bleeding in the goblin cave, will you save them? (the emote laying down shows a character being knocked out). The heroes come in and aid the adventurer. They might also give them tips on how to stay alive with IC warnings of what to look out for.

These three things do not require a DM. They do not require any other faction, yet they are protecting others, providing RP and being out there doing things. This is a RP server do we need epic plots of saving the day? Maybe ICly mentoring someone is not as epic as saving the world from a pack of demons, however when that happened for me in game it was a lot of fun. Which is why I log on to RP and have fun.

Make the faction, enjoy the play that comes from said faction. There's no need to be so overly critical about this. It's a game, and another faction. It might work out and be the greatest thing ever, or.. just ebb and flow like the rest of them. The one truth that will come from all of this: If you ask for opinions, you will get them. Most of them that you get don't matter. Go with what you want to do. Put in the effort. Expecting others to support you a lot in this is asking a bit much from the forums of Amia. Just have fun, don't worry what everyone else thinks. If you do it well, and it's interesting, players will come.

sera wrote:

Make the faction, enjoy the play that comes from said faction. There's no need to be so overly critical about this. It's a game, and another faction. It might work out and be the greatest thing ever, or.. just ebb and flow like the rest of them. The one truth that will come from all of this: If you ask for opinions, you will get them. Most of them that you get don't matter. Go with what you want to do. Put in the effort. Expecting others to support you a lot in this is asking a bit much from the forums of Amia. Just have fun, don't worry what everyone else thinks. If you do it well, and it's interesting, players will come.

So much wisdom in this statement I require a like button. :

sera wrote:

If you ask for opinions, you will get them. Most of them that you get don't matter.

treasured memories wrote:

sera wrote:

If you ask for opinions, you will get them. Most of them that you get don't matter.

I kind of see the opposite here. Just run your faction and have fun. If you have the right attitude and help remind people that we're here for a game then it usually turns out at least okay if not great. You have some buddies you do cool stuff with and it might blow up over night like I've seen some groups do. Who knows.

treasured memories wrote:

sera wrote:

If you ask for opinions, you will get them. Most of them that you get don't matter.

What I meant was, "Many will have something to say, but how many of those with something to say will ever add anything to your play of this faction? Remotely few, in all likelihood. Everyone wants to give input when it's simply an opinion on a forum, but few of those will ever step forward to help or do anything ingame. It's not really a slight at any person specifically, it's more of a truism of society."

Anyway.. make the faction, enjoy the faction, get others to join the faction, have fun. Isn't that what we're here to do?

New Faction? What is your opinion?

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