Let's dialogue about plots

[Old Kank]

Since this is an open dialog between the players and the staff, however, I'd like to follow up my thoughts with a few questions:  Does the staff feel that the game could use some more conflict for the purposes of generating plots?  If so, what form(s) would you like to see it manifest (player-verus-player, etc.), and how?

I'd like to see players trying to move plots that are aimed at creating conflicts between organizations, within regions, and across the world. I know that sounds vague, but...that's what I'd like to see.

Talia, thank you for this!  (And the little Q&A you seem to be hosting!)

Your statement right here is exactly why I feel there's a need for staff involvement.

Left to their own devices, most organizations (clans) in the game sit at a very stagnant equilibrium.  Kadius doesn't need to spar with Salarr.  Tor doesn't have a reason to antagonize Oash.  Tenneshi gains little from robbing Winrothol.  There are a few antagonistic clans out there, but I think they lack the incentive/manpower/will to openly affront the other clans.  And so, you have what I see happening now:  The focus shifts from clan/bigger happenings to the characters/small happenings.  This is fine, up to a point, but bar brawls, parties, and lover's quarrels get stale pretty fast when there's nothing else in view.

Throw in a reason for conflict, however, and that picture changes dramatically.

[Bogre]

One thing that I've never understood is -why- the imm-animations of boss-NPC's went away.

I mean, hell, I would think that would be -fun- for an Imm to do, rather than just sifting through 3 pages of back and forth emails/reports to get to the gist of whats going on. I mean you don't have to go back to the old 'everything done through in game speaking to NPC bosses' but why does it have to be all or none?

[Salt Merchant]

I don't know, I've tried to think of a plot from time to time and always arrive at the same place.

1. Anything new is very unlikely to be supported. Buildings, items, whatever. Until Arm 2.0.
2. "Positive" quests (e.g. find the treasure/artifact) are very unlikely to be supported. They don't fit in with the harsh atmosphere.

What's left?

3. Various plots for screwing with other PCs and groups of PCs. In the interest of balance, rather than supporting kills, the staff will probably throw a wrench or two into any plan, though.
4. Ask to have NPCs screw with your group. Fun, at times, but not sufficient in itself.

[Talia]

Synopsis of suggestions to cut down on player frustration with "player driven" leadership roles--

1. Give newly incoming leaders some idea of what is expected of their role, especially when this may not be OOCly obvious, or the player is newer.
2. Give newly incoming leaders some idea of what is possible in their role, potentially through a list of IC events or rumors.
3. Straight up tell the player when goals they have listed in a character application are not likely to be attainable, especially when this goal is central to the application, before they apply the PC.
4. Be more forthcoming with reasons why the player is being told "no" on a project, and delineate between an IC reason (which may be ICly steered around) and an OOC reason (which is not).
5. Allow leader PCs to ask for reasonable advice (good or bad) when they are stuck on obtaining a goal.
6. Prompt leader PCs who are floundering and frustrated with reasonable advice (good or bad).
7. Make it easier to attain relatively tiny game changes, especially ones that would require very little staff work, but would leave players feeling like they have "accomplished" something their character spent a lot of time and effort on.

1 and 2. Adhira said last year, when the policy was announced, that one thing staff could/should look at doing is providing job descriptions for apped leader positions. I think this is worth pursuing, and I'll bring it up to staff again. I don't think this is the whole solution to all plot problems, but it might help newbie leaders get over the "what the hell do I do" hump and get their role-legs.

3. I think experience probably varies on whether or not leaders are told up-front that their ideas are not pursuable. I've had roles in the past where that was done. I've had roles where my ideas were largely OKed, with tweaks. I don't think I've ever had a role where I wasn't given any feedback. This is probably more about communication than policies.

4. We do try to keep IC and OOC reasons separate--I know that I have a way of doing that in my responses to clannies. Mostly I see staff doing a good job of this, but again this is probably more about communication than policies.

5 and 6. I believe we do. Looking around at the current staff, I don't believe there's a clan group that is not capable of helping out with stuckness. Sometimes, though, the answers aren't going to help much--for example, if you're dead-set on starting a war between Luir's and Steinal, and won't entertain other plot ideas, there may not be much we can suggest that will please you. The players have to work with us.

7. I'm not sure what you mean exactly. "Relatively tiny" may mean something different to you than it does to me. Adding NPCs where they are needed, changing coded clan functionality, adding a single mastercraft, those kinds of things seem "relatively tiny" to me. I think we do those things really well. Things beyond that level are not necessarily "relatively tiny" and may require a lot more work than you know. (Certainly more work than I would have guessed, when I was "just" a player.)

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I'm going to have to digest a lot of this over the next few days before I comment on points made. There are a lot of posts, and right now I can't collect them all into something cohesive for me to respond to.

I do have a comment, though.

A primarily player-run system, honestly, does not work well in the overall IC environment that we have. Because of the various large governments and large organizations in the game, staff has to take a guiding hand in just about every plot, at some point, that interests characters. The reason for this is that reactions to major player choices are guided by major entities that, generally speaking, PCs do not play. Furthermore, it does not work because players will not start small plots that end small, as a common rule. They will start plots that do big things, because players want to do big things.

The only way that a primarily player-run system works well is when there are no grand, over-arching governments. In an environment more like the tribes of Armageddon, player-run works well, because most things in that environment are smaller in scale.

This is why you see more of the tribal players pleased with the way things are currently done, while the city-loving players tend to not be as happy.

A player-initiated system works best in the current overall system. That's because players come up with ideas. Staff just decides if they'll work or not, and then start making the world respond to the idea. Staff is not required to be inventive, just reactive (and hopefully inventively reactive ).


I do have one other comment before I get back to digesting all of this neat stuff.

There are four clans, two in each city, who are, honestly, the best equipped to have war. That's Tor and the AoD for Allanak, and Lyksae and the Legion for Tuluk. Nothing more than an staff-supported, in-house call for aggressive military action and being involved in those clans will mean automatic action over time. Throw in simple battle-points, like oasis, or a small vein of silver, or a tribe desired by either city city's slaving houses ... conflict isn't hard. Why have a huge war, when you can just have an ongoing conflict.

Battles, they call them. Battles. Wars are made up of battles.

[Bogre]

I'd like to see players trying to move plots that are aimed at creating conflicts between organizations, within regions, and across the world. I know that sounds vague, but...that's what I'd like to see.

One thing here is that for the past couple of years, with the big END OF THE WORLD plot, there was a significant trend for clans/PC's to band together against the forces trying to destroy them. Oashi-Tor squabbling gets pretty pointless when gith are streaming out of the sewers. And the best example was the player driven -ALLIANCE- between the north and the south. I mean, it made sense to the characters and the players at the time.

***Players won't always start big conflict just to keep things interesting, when its easier and more beneficial to be not competitive. Hell, my templar specifically aimed to keep people cohesive and actively squashed conflict between clans, because it was the most sensible thing for him ICly to do. (And not -just- because he was a 'nice' guy and a peacemaker and a hero and really wanted that he would have more warm bodies in front of the bad guys;))  


But as far as conflict goes now, I will. In fact, most of my past few characters have been specifically created with that goal in mind. Problem is, though, and here we get to the point I brought up earlier, most of those characters never really live to the point of serious plot development. I definitely created plots, and intrigue, and whatnot with those characters, but probably not long lasting, big things. And it's not just because I die really noobishly- most of them had 20+ days played over 3 IC years. And I think that probably applies to a lot of PC's- they die before they even -begin- to put the wheels turning on their big goals.

Staff intervention might not help those plots get off the ground if PC's are dying to early. But they could provide some framework for additional things to get started. Maybe my thug who plans to start a gang might never get to the point of starting it, but if Gang Boss Y, suggests PC hope-ful boss X show his talent by really pissing of Lord Templar Hardnose by abducting his aide, hell, my thug might just be needed to knock Militia Mack out of the way.

[Decameron]

What's left?

Honestly? Best plots I felt came up generally out of the blue, and were completely reactive rather than planned. By this I mean that a employee came to the character and reported, "Amos was throwing around his 'sid like nothing, earlier. Seemed a little weird to me. He's only a grebber, but sure does spend a lot of time with Clan X."

So we investigate, have the employee befriend the said individual. Maybe that's not enough though, as employee A's loyalty might be compromised. Amos is a pretty charming guy, after all. So we get employee B to spy in on employee A, maybe get a little romance going on that side. We get clueless free-lancer A to set up a meeting with Amos to see what's bringing in the 'sid, arranging a meeting for bartering for (spice/sex/fiery swords of steel). The meeting ends up with free-lancer A killed by a magicker, or Amos is a mind-bender! Spy for the northern/southern Templarate! Now we know something is up, so we .. You can sort of see how this might get complicated. It might lead to nothing, but the whole trick is really taking something simple, and putting a group of people together. They'll generally create the drama for you, trust me. All you have to do is sit back and make the decisions. Whether or not they follow them, well - that's the whole fun of the plot.

[Talia]

Left to their own devices, most organizations (clans) in the game sit at a very stagnant equilibrium.  Kadius doesn't need to spar with Salarr.  Tor doesn't have a reason to antagonize Oash.  Tenneshi gains little from robbing Winrothol.  There are a few antagonistic clans out there, but I think they lack the incentive/manpower/will to openly affront the other clans.  And so, you have what I see happening now:  The focus shifts from clan/bigger happenings to the characters/small happenings.  This is fine, up to a point, but bar brawls, parties, and lover's quarrels get stale pretty fast when there's nothing else in view.

Left to their own devices, yes, this is true. I don't believe it has to be true, though. I believe that players tend to avoid conflict unless they believe they can win. But what if we abandoned thoughts of winning, and just played to have fun? There are, really, as many reasons to have conflict as you can possibly imagine. They don't even have to be good reasons, or true reasons--they can be about ancient enmities, lies your PC believes, things your PC wants, personal power, political power, sexual power, money, revenge...it's an endless list.

In short, if you're playing Bob Kadius and you want to take down Dick Salarr and his whole gang, as well as a good chunk of Salarr's widget business...there's no reason you can't try. You might not win. And...so what?

Staff intervention might not help those plots get off the ground if PC's are dying to early. But they could provide some framework for additional things to get started. Maybe my thug who plans to start a gang might never get to the point of starting it, but if Gang Boss Y, suggests PC hope-ful boss X show his talent by really pissing of Lord Templar Hardnose by abducting his aide, hell, my thug might just be needed to knock Militia Mack out of the way.

Why can't your thug decide to abduct the aide in order to impress the gang boss, on his own? That's what I'm not getting. Why do players think they need staff to tell them to do that? Aren't you just as inventive as we are?

[Shabago]

I agree, the term "hands-off policy" should go out the window, because that's not what the policy was ever stated to be. If that's been your perception of the policy, then that's simply not correct. I have seen some players behaving as if they did believe that the policy is a "hands-off policy," and they tend to get disappointed--but you can't blame staff for that. It's a pretty gross misinterpretation of the policy.

From Adhira, when the change was announced.

Staff instead will be concentrating on facilitating the stories that players are creating. The overall goal is that gameplay happens at a level that is accessible to players, allowing them to feel a very real part of the action.

Another goal with the change is to move the focus of Storytellers from the administrative side of running clans, to the story oriented side. With a Highlord in charge of each group we hope that much of the admin work can be relieved and with dedicated HL's for each group decisions can get sign off at the team level.

The overall aim of this is to see STs out there animating every day, because they –want- to, to see plots and stories that reflect what players are interested in and want to achieve and staff supporting what you all are doing.

Huh. Here I would read the policy to mean (bolded and italics for aid) that the change was happening to have the players (it's mentioned/bolded and in italics twice above) create and run things on their own, to some extent, and the general role of the ST was to help them achieve that, because that is what the players are interested in.

Players are interested in building wagons.

Nope. Forget it.

Players are interested in larger scale wars/conflict.

Nope, not right now.

Players are interested in having new/older clans opened to bring about renewed conflict/interest.

Nah.

Players are interested in having numerous changes of all shapes and sizes just in this thread alone.

I don't think I've seen very many "We'd support that" type answers to them.


I'm not aiming to try and be sarcastic here, but maybe a revision on what it is actually suppose to mean is in order?

[Zoltan]

Hey guys, thought I'd chime in here with my apparently over-optimistic and exceptional opinions/experiences.

Just to get it out of the way, I'm a pretty happy camper. Overall, I've had very fun experiences with this game. Granted, I'm not some grizzled veteran, but I've experienced a lot this game has to offer. My most enjoyable role in the game was a sponsored, hardcore leadership role. At times it was sort of overwhelming, all the IC and OOC crap that went into "making things work" and "making things happen" (two very different things, by the way).

But holy crap, I was so glad I didn't have my hand held the entire way. In my time playing that role, I can only think of two times the staff threw a whiff of a plot at me (this isn't counting the times they "kept things real" from the vNPC/NPC standpoint), but there was absolutely no pressure. They weren't world-changing or anything, just insanely fun. At least the one in particular. Anyway, that's the sort of thing I liked. Let the PCs attempt whatever, and only throw out some MacGuffins or whatever when there's a serious lull. In my experience, that's what gets done nowadays. I know that's not the same for everyone, but there you go.

I can understand how some people may be confused by the whole "is this just an IC no, or an OOC no?" I feel like that should be something explicitly stated in staff correspondence when possible. To kind of sort of maybe touch on something Decameron said, "no" isn't necessarily an answer you have to accept. The virtual world -can- be played around with. Just try to get the mindset that you're playing with the staff. That's what works for me. I trust them not to unfairly dick me over, but maybe I'm just a sweet, gentle and trusting person to begin with? Most likely it's because I haven't had the misfortune of being burned in the past, so there's that.

One time recently, with a nobody PC, I was given a flat out OOC "not gonna happen" about a plot point I was probably going to pursue IG. I knew why they said no, even without them telling me, because I would have said no too. It would have been too unbalancing and it would definitely have seemed unfair to other players. However, it didn't stop me from inching towards that plot point. This is sort of specific, and of course I can't give exact details, but sometimes when you're trying to do the impossible you should accept it as an endgame death/storage. I knew I would be taken out one way or the other, but I had my fun. The character was extremely enjoyable. He didn't get anywhere near that "not gonna happen" goal, no. But I gave the staff plenty of heads-up and said "doing it anyway, I know this can't be in, kill/store if I come close to attaining this highly-unlikely-anyway goal".

Okay, that probably makes no sense. I guess it can be simplified into a more general "you're probably going to get stored if you become a black robe/head of house/Sorcerer-King, but dude what a way to end a character, and what a goal to strive for!"

A couple more things. One thing I think needs to be taken into consideration is the game world. We play our characters in a world ruled by sorcerer-kings of immeasurable power in near-totalitarian states. The Known World is practically a wasteland, full of terrible creatures both mundane and not-so-mundane. Other than that, it's full of people who can and will fuck you over. This is a really shitty world we all know and love. I realize this won't apply to some of the things people have mentioned, but you have to realize that it may well be the -world- that doesn't want your construction project to succeed. It may be forces simply beyond your grasp that are stopping you from starting/changing a clan. Hell, it may be other players doing it in game, but you can't expect staff to go "hey, those dudes are screwing you over by doing a, b, and c." These are IC things, or at least can be.

Finally, I want to throw my hat in the "sometimes totally player-led leads to stagnation" ring. Most characters are going to get tied up in their personal lives, and though this can be very fun, it can lead to less motivation to do risky, adventurous andexciting things. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Hell, I never play a character with the intent to make mega-plots or whatever. I will say that sometimes the world can use a little prodding about by the imms, though. I thought the HRPT and the build up to it was great. That stuff can't and shouldn't happen even semi-frequently. But sometimes players just need a little nugget to go after and some prodding before things snowball.

[Kiara]

Left to their own devices, yes, this is true. I don't believe it has to be true, though. I believe that players tend to avoid conflict unless they believe they can win. But what if we abandoned thoughts of winning, and just played to have fun?

Maybe our characters aren't suicidal?

Maybe we're not being as OOC as you think we are?

Maybe our characters are weighing the risk/gain effectively?

I think as of now there is far too much risk, as opposed to too little gain.

[Kiara]

Shabago: Come back. Fuck.

[Semper]

Why can't your thug decide to abduct the aide in order to impress the gang boss, on his own? That's what I'm not getting. Why do players think they need staff to tell them to do that? Aren't you just as inventive as we are?

I don't quite think that example was the best to use. There's definitely plots that can be run with PCs, but I think what people are trying to get at is that there are certain plots that -cannot- be started with the resources that PCs have on their own. Examples:

natural disasters that wipe out farms, shifting changes in animal behavior, etc
a cave-in revealing the ruins of steinal or some other ancient place or new raw materials (copper war / adventure plots)
a power-struggle in the senate that influences the entire city (players can be involved to some extent, but never able to lead it)
and other such large-scale, region-affecting plots that simply cannot be maintained with PCs alone, or without staff direction

I feel that the present model is definitely better. Many of the large, region-changing plots are possible through PCs starting them, but what seems to be frustrating a lot of players (from my own view, and what seems to be the sound of it) is that once they start plots, it becomes very very difficult and frustrating to keep things going without the staff stepping in to stir things up. In addition, players don't always want to have to start plots from scratch. Some of the plots with greatest potential can come much more easily and with less time if staff start it (with the oversight and tools that they have) than players, who work with what limited and finite resources available to them.

[Bogre]

Staff intervention might not help those plots get off the ground if PC's are dying to early. But they could provide some framework for additional things to get started. Maybe my thug who plans to start a gang might never get to the point of starting it, but if Gang Boss Y, suggests PC hope-ful boss X show his talent by really pissing of Lord Templar Hardnose by abducting his aide, hell, my thug might just be needed to knock Militia Mack out of the way.

Why can't your thug decide to abduct the aide in order to impress the gang boss, on his own? That's what I'm not getting. Why do players think they need staff to tell them to do that? Aren't you just as inventive as we are?

Impress the gang boss who's going to do...what? A boss who isn't there? Who never talks to your character? So the response you get is -maybe- an 'Oh, that's cool.' on an email. And then your thug gets executed for the abduction, all the RP you had going is lost, etc, with no benefits to your character beyond a) the jollies of doing the abduction, and at the severe detriment of the aide.

I mean you can look at it from lots of ways. You can say: Oh, that's player-driven plots, and involved conflict, and worked out. Or you can look at it as a pointless abduction/PK or whatever.

But it seems like to me, players are not going to choose something dangerous and risky without a certain gain possible.

The scenario works if: the staff is responsive and reactive to the plot, which the player emailed them about, and then actual consequences, both the good and bad, realistically result from it. If only the bad is going to result (whether from PC's responding realistically or staff shutting down the plot) then no ones going to take that option.

[Old Kank]

Left to their own devices, yes, this is true. I don't believe it has to be true, though. I believe that players tend to avoid conflict unless they believe they can win. But what if we abandoned thoughts of winning, and just played to have fun? There are, really, as many reasons to have conflict as you can possibly imagine. They don't even have to be good reasons, or true reasons--they can be about ancient enmities, lies your PC believes, things your PC wants, personal power, political power, sexual power, money, revenge...it's an endless list.

In short, if you're playing Bob Kadius and you want to take down Dick Salarr and his whole gang, as well as a good chunk of Salarr's widget business...there's no reason you can't try. You might not win. And...so what?

I've done stuff like this in the past, and usually had my hand slapped for it.  By the staff, completely OOC.  Just saying.

[AmandaGreathouse]

Just MY opinion, but I imagine there's a fair bit of resentment within the playerbase that intelligence is being insulted by thinly veiled cover-ups on this fact, such as "Be the change" or my personal favorite, "Sure you can do X, Y or Z" which is an incomplete answer. The rest of it is "So long as you somehow manage to stop Krath itself from rotating, Kill Tektolnes, morph into a Dragon and fly off to a brand new planet, because we really don't want it to happen, so we'll make it impossible TO happen but still give the impression it was possible all along."

...

I'm sorry, but I just don't recall seeing THIS level of hostility/arguements/disagreements/GDB discussions and so on when the PB just logged in to have "Fun" by joining in on whatever storyline/plot was "in your face visible" because staff were running it, could point you in the direction of the "fun" by a superior NPC animation, give you a "quest" when things were in a lull period, and so on.

Shabago, I don't think I ever played in any of your clans while you were on staff, but now I wish I had.  You just became my favorite ex-staffer!

I dislike the new policy, and would like to see more staff-driven stuff.  This has nothing at all to do with a lack of ambition on my, or the playerbase's part, so please, please, please don't feed me the "be the change you want to see" line.  The staff have both the tools and the long-range vision for the game needed to drive some of these things that, by design, the players lack.  Given that, why should players be expected to be able to step up and fill the void the staff left?

The new policy hasn't done anything helpful to the playerbase that I've seen, though it's completely possible I've missed it.  (I hope it has been hugely beneficial on the staff side, but I can't speak to that.)  Before, you had staff-driven plots, and player-driven plots, and player-driven plots spun off of staff-driven plots.  Now we just have player-driven plots.  It's as if the staff closed Allanak for play in order to focus on Tuluk, which would be okay if Tuluk became an awesome place to play, but it still feels like same-old-Tuluk.

At the same time, there has been a trend toward tying the hands of the playerbase, which is the opposite of what should be happening.  People like to point back 5, 10, 15 years ago, to some influential PC and say, "Look!  Look!  See what's possible?" without accounting for the climate of the time.  I'm not trying to diminish those players' accomplishments, but the fact is that things were much looser back then than they are now.  It's not impossible to create an influential PC today, but I do think the bar has been set a lot higher -- and that's a double-edged sword.  PC's behave more realistically, and players are more responsible, but you're less likely to find people willing to step outside the rank and file, or overpowered PCs (in terms of time:skill) that are willing to do crazy stuff just for shits and giggles which, like it or not, generate interest.

If the staff are set on the new model, then the staff need to loosen the reins and let players take over in order to sponsor and encourage player-driven plots.

-Let players recruit OOC, both for family members as well as general clan members.  Yes, it's kind of stupid and there's potential for abuse, but shit gets done when you work with people you can trust and rely on.

-Grant clanned PCs much more autonomy and authority to run their own clans.

-Let the indies get away with stupid stuff.  If Amos and Malik can spamcraft their way to millions of 'sid, let them build a wagon without going through 10 RL-months worth of hoops.

-Make the noble houses more appealing.  Pay noble clan members much, much more, and give them discounts on items, and make the law a little flexible in their favor.

-Bump the clan caps up a notch.  If House Kadius becomes a massive blob that consumes all PCs before it... so be it.  They must be doing something right in order to attract that many players.

-Take the Byn down a notch.  I've never been able to hire the Byn to do anything for less than 300 'sid, and usually it costs much, much more than that.  I don't care what the IC justification is, if you make the armed force of the Byn available to most PCs, they'll get used more.

-Randomly put interesting items into the game, in the hands of low-level people, if possible.  It doesn't have to be the Cursed Sword of Steinal or anything.  A horse, a pet quirri, or an ancient but useless artifact will all work nicely to spur interest and intrigue.

-Slightly off-topic, but put an end to the food/water shortage in Allanak. A single meal has been the price of a commoner's yearly wage for years now, and that's kind of silly.  Enough of the population should have died off or fled to other places now that there should be a sustainable equilibrium.  Once the shortage is over, lower the cost of living in Allanak, and make mining/salting less profitable.

90000000 times everything this man posted. Especially the bolded parts.

[Zoltan]

Just MY opinion, but I imagine there's a fair bit of resentment within the playerbase that intelligence is being insulted by thinly veiled cover-ups on this fact, such as "Be the change" or my personal favorite, "Sure you can do X, Y or Z" which is an incomplete answer. The rest of it is "So long as you somehow manage to stop Krath itself from rotating, Kill Tektolnes, morph into a Dragon and fly off to a brand new planet, because we really don't want it to happen, so we'll make it impossible TO happen but still give the impression it was possible all along."

...

I'm sorry, but I just don't recall seeing THIS level of hostility/arguements/disagreements/GDB discussions and so on when the PB just logged in to have "Fun" by joining in on whatever storyline/plot was "in your face visible" because staff were running it, could point you in the direction of the "fun" by a superior NPC animation, give you a "quest" when things were in a lull period, and so on.

Shabago, I don't think I ever played in any of your clans while you were on staff, but now I wish I had.  You just became my favorite ex-staffer!

I dislike the new policy, and would like to see more staff-driven stuff.  This has nothing at all to do with a lack of ambition on my, or the playerbase's part, so please, please, please don't feed me the "be the change you want to see" line.  The staff have both the tools and the long-range vision for the game needed to drive some of these things that, by design, the players lack.  Given that, why should players be expected to be able to step up and fill the void the staff left?

The new policy hasn't done anything helpful to the playerbase that I've seen, though it's completely possible I've missed it.  (I hope it has been hugely beneficial on the staff side, but I can't speak to that.)  Before, you had staff-driven plots, and player-driven plots, and player-driven plots spun off of staff-driven plots.  Now we just have player-driven plots.  It's as if the staff closed Allanak for play in order to focus on Tuluk, which would be okay if Tuluk became an awesome place to play, but it still feels like same-old-Tuluk.

At the same time, there has been a trend toward tying the hands of the playerbase, which is the opposite of what should be happening.  People like to point back 5, 10, 15 years ago, to some influential PC and say, "Look!  Look!  See what's possible?" without accounting for the climate of the time.  I'm not trying to diminish those players' accomplishments, but the fact is that things were much looser back then than they are now.  It's not impossible to create an influential PC today, but I do think the bar has been set a lot higher -- and that's a double-edged sword.  PC's behave more realistically, and players are more responsible, but you're less likely to find people willing to step outside the rank and file, or overpowered PCs (in terms of time:skill) that are willing to do crazy stuff just for shits and giggles which, like it or not, generate interest.

If the staff are set on the new model, then the staff need to loosen the reins and let players take over in order to sponsor and encourage player-driven plots.

-Let players recruit OOC, both for family members as well as general clan members.  Yes, it's kind of stupid and there's potential for abuse, but shit gets done when you work with people you can trust and rely on.

-Grant clanned PCs much more autonomy and authority to run their own clans.

-Let the indies get away with stupid stuff.  If Amos and Malik can spamcraft their way to millions of 'sid, let them build a wagon without going through 10 RL-months worth of hoops.

-Make the noble houses more appealing.  Pay noble clan members much, much more, and give them discounts on items, and make the law a little flexible in their favor.

-Bump the clan caps up a notch.  If House Kadius becomes a massive blob that consumes all PCs before it... so be it.  They must be doing something right in order to attract that many players.

-Take the Byn down a notch.  I've never been able to hire the Byn to do anything for less than 300 'sid, and usually it costs much, much more than that.  I don't care what the IC justification is, if you make the armed force of the Byn available to most PCs, they'll get used more.

-Randomly put interesting items into the game, in the hands of low-level people, if possible.  It doesn't have to be the Cursed Sword of Steinal or anything.  A horse, a pet quirri, or an ancient but useless artifact will all work nicely to spur interest and intrigue.

-Slightly off-topic, but put an end to the food/water shortage in Allanak. A single meal has been the price of a commoner's yearly wage for years now, and that's kind of silly.  Enough of the population should have died off or fled to other places now that there should be a sustainable equilibrium.  Once the shortage is over, lower the cost of living in Allanak, and make mining/salting less profitable.

90000000 times everything this man posted. Especially the bolded parts.

My experience with a recent clan leadership role was very much "this is your clan, do what you want with it." Actually, I've heard that more than once. And it worked, too. As to the Byn being over-priced thing... it's only over-priced until you've played a Byn sergeant. I've had to deal with near-monthly mutinies in the past over contracts where the -runners- didn't think they got paid enough. *ULTRA SIGH*

I'm on board with the "sustainable equilibrium" thing in Allanak now. It's been a while, and many citizens should be dead by now. Those prices hurt my soul.

I don't think noble employees should be paid more. I lean more towards perks of some sort, like unique items or discounts. Still, if you're in a clan getting food, water and shelter... those are pretty big perks. That's not even mentioning the relatively-safe combat training in military clans.

I don't like the idea of OOCly recruiting for your clans. Sure, people may cheat anyway, but I just don't like it. For that matter, maybe it's just me, but I really, really don't like playing with people I talk to regularly in real life. It has driven me out of clans/groups before (it was in no way my friend(s)' fault, it just takes some of the magic out of it for me). I guess I'm just antisocial like that. 

Anyway, sorry for the sort-of-derail, but I just feel like most people's gripes would be handled by everyone communicating better in staff-player correspondence, and by staff maybe occasionally throwing players a plot bone here or there when it's needed.

[Spice Spice Baby]

My experience with a recent clan leadership role was very much "this is your clan, do what you want with it."

Then you got lucky.

In my current sponsored role, I'd wager a good 50% of suggestions I ever made on things to do or things to change--not documentation, rooms, objects, or anything like that, just sort of "we could do this better" suggestions--were either ignored or I was told my PC didn't have the authority to do that.

Sorry, your PC does not have the authority to learn to drive a wagon to take your dudes places. Sorry, your PC does not have the authority to make the training schedule more fun. Sorry, your PC does not have the authority to etc. etc. etc. The responses were not coming IC via letters from an NPC, it was a flat-out OOC "nope you can't do this" from a staff member to a player. I've noticed a lot of it tends to happen right after staff rotations, especially the reversal of decisions that other staff members had previously agreed to.

Player-run is only interesting if you actually let players run things once in a while. After so many staff rotations, it feels like you have to start your character and your player-run plots over again from scratch because the next staff member will come along and decide no, you can't do that after all. I've stopped trying.

Edit: Just a quick edit to add something positive. I've found one of the best ways to mitigate the damage of staff rotations on your plots as a player is to send in a big ol' "this is who my character is, these are her current goals, this is what she's up to, and these are her thoughts on current events" report. And I also figured I'd add that my comments aren't to be directed at my current imms, but rather the constant feeling of having to build your PC back up from nothing after the tenth or twelfth staff member that's been overseeing you.

In short, I think that the shift toward emphasising player efforts has made the impact of staff rotations far heavier than it was, and not for the better.

[Marshmellow]

SSB, I don't want to know about your character, but isn't it possible that just because your character is a sponsored role does not mean they actually have the authority to authorize such things?  Did you pursue such things with other PCs that might just have such authority?  (An example, there could be two people in Tuluk both sponsored roles in Kadius, but one's an Agent and the other is First Hunter... does First Hunter really have the kind of authority where s/he can take out the wagon?  No.  Does the Agent?  Yes, with limitations.)  I dunno, I think you're taking the "no" responses you've received as more than they really seemed.  You were being told, "Your character can't make such a decision," as a prompt to do some work to get what you desire through other means?

[FantasyWriter]

Just a side not.... if you can't pay the Byn 300 coins, you're not planning profitable enough ventures to need them.

[Nyr]

Players are interested in building wagons.

Nope. Forget it.

I think this was written about earlier in the thread.

Players are interested in larger scale wars/conflict.

Nope, not right now.

I have no response to this other than "huh?"  Where do you see people saying "no, not right now?"  For that matter, where do you see staff saying it?

Players are interested in having new/older clans opened to bring about renewed conflict/interest.

Nah.

I'd change that one to "some" players.  And no, opening up old clans and new clans doesn't solve everything, especially Blackmoon, a clan that was rife with problems from the staff perspective on top of being cool to play.

Players are interested in having numerous changes of all shapes and sizes just in this thread alone.

I don't think I've seen very many "We'd support that" type answers to them.

I'm not aiming to try and be sarcastic here, but maybe a revision on what it is actually suppose to mean is in order?

Aiming or not, the sarcasm is at least sensed, so I'd reply in kind--have you read any staffer replies in this thread?  You aren't providing any solutions, just picking at semantics and acting as though everything sucks and players can't do anything.  There has to be some regulation of PC activity, and there has to be some initiative by players.

[Cutthroat]

I don't know, I've tried to think of a plot from time to time and always arrive at the same place.

1. Anything new is very unlikely to be supported. Buildings, items, whatever. Until Arm 2.0.

Have you been trying in the past 18 months? Did your PC actually have the means to make these things? If the answers to both of these questions are "yes", I find this observation very hard to believe, primarily because it's proven wrong by the new buildings/items/rooms that have been put into the game, or are in the process of being put in, in the last 18 months, by players.

2. "Positive" quests (e.g. find the treasure/artifact) are very unlikely to be supported. They don't fit in with the harsh atmosphere.

What puts you in a position to ask the staff to load an item for you to find? It's not that it doesn't fit in with the harsh atmosphere (it should, it follows that if entire cities have been destroyed then there are ruins in various places in the Known), it's that you're asking for something to do that will just result in a free item for you, after your PC randomly gains a reason to search for it.

What's left?

3. Various plots for screwing with other PCs and groups of PCs. In the interest of balance, rather than supporting kills, the staff will probably throw a wrench or two into any plan, though.

Plots don't always go as planned because if they did, then players could throw up their proposal step-by-step to staff and the plot will be finished up quickly. In reality, they do support PCs fighting/killing other PCs, but there are a lot of hurdles to overcome: especially, can your clan/tribe/city-state (incl. the virtual portion of it) handle a possible counter-attack?

4. Ask to have NPCs screw with your group. Fun, at times, but not sufficient in itself.

If what I wrote above is not a good indication that there can be sufficient plotting happening, I'm not sure what else to write. I find that claiming "there are no player-driven plots happening" is easier than claiming the positive, because you don't have to offer examples for the former, and offering examples for the latter can be going into Find Out IC territory.

[Talia]

Edit: Just a quick edit to add something positive. I've found one of the best ways to mitigate the damage of staff rotations on your plots as a player is to send in a big ol' "this is who my character is, these are her current goals, this is what she's up to, and these are her thoughts on current events" report. And I also figured I'd add that my comments aren't to be directed at my current imms, but rather the constant feeling of having to build your PC back up from nothing after the tenth or twelfth staff member that's been overseeing you.

In short, I think that the shift toward emphasising player efforts has made the impact of staff rotations far heavier than it was, and not for the better.

Staff rotations, getting new staff for whatever reason, CAN be really difficult for the player leaders, the clan members, and the staffers all. I think you're right, it's very helpful if players send in a thorough synopsis of the state of things. I also believe that now having all character reports contained within the request tool has the potential to help a lot, because I can sort out by "House Kadius" and "Amos" and take a look at everything you've been up to in the long last while. Previously, when all this stuff was only retained in emails in staffers' accounts, it seems like there was very little way for the new staffer to figure out what had been going on. Now, we have the capability to be much better-informed.

Not to mention--the request tool I think keeps us much better-informed on an ongoing basis on everything that's happening in the various locations around the world, because we can check out anyone's requests as they come in, regardless of whether it's in our own clan group. So even though I am just tribal/indies staff, I actually have a pretty decent view of what's happening plot-wise in the southlands and northlands as well. If/when I do get rotated to another area, I think I'll actually be much more ready than I would have been in the era when all those reports were going through email I wasn't privy to.

So...the request tool, I believe, has potentially made us much better in our staff role. Of course that's dependent on the individual staffer to keep up and make use of, but it's there.

[Nyr]

From my own experience:  I'd say that staff communication back and forth is more important than animations, but animations are important, too.

I played a leadership role before coming on to staff.  I checked back through the responses I got via e-mail.  There were several times where updates sent in just never got a reply, even when there were questions in it.  I didn't act discouraged about it at the time, but I was discouraged and felt cast-off.  Even if it had just been "we got your report, you're doing fine, continue," that would have been better than no reply at all.

Since coming on to staff, I know that we've put things into the request queue but we have also made a big push to making sure that things are replied to in short order.  What I'm seeing a lot of concern over is the nature of communication, whether it's too harsh, too vague, not involved enough, too much against the player, etc.  I think that I could stand to do better in communicating to people in my responses to requests regarding plots, and in light of the suggestions here, I'll endeavor to do that.  (Granted, I don't answer plotty stuff much, but I do occasionally chime in.)

[Kiara]

I'd change that one to "some" players.  And no, opening up old clans and new clans doesn't solve everything, especially Blackmoon, a clan that was rife with problems from the staff perspective on top of being cool to play.

Problems? What problems?

Highlight the problems with Blackmoon, and allow both players and staff to figure out ways to make these problems disappear.

Would you consider a separate thread for discussion?