Discussion of Tribal roles

[Adhira]

This thread is for discussion and questions regarding the changes to the 'family' role rules to allow tribes to be created.  Please see the helpfile here for more information: 

http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Family%20Roles

[Molten Heart]

Sweet!


(I'll post more later.)

[Zoan]

A question on this not elaborated on in the help file: can the tribal family status imply a larger virtual tribe, but only the four PCs representing it? Or is it 4 people = the whole tribe?

[th3kaiser]

I read it as implying a larger virtual family if you so choose and staff okay it.

[Adhira]

Yes. 4 is the amount of members that are playable by PCs. Just like a family can state that they have Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Parents, but are only going to play the 4 siblings.

Obviously there needs to be some common sense applied when writing up the tribal background. Writing up a huge tribe with wagons, waterslides and friends in every city would quickly see staff hit decline. Writing up a small tribe that has lived in the tablelands and traded in Tuluk on a regular basis is much more conceivable.

[RogueGunslinger]

Welp. That makes me want to store my character and start a city elf tribe.

[th3kaiser]

Same here, dammit.

[Patuk]

I'm not quite sure what this changes, seeing as tribes don't seem allowed to recruit people. Am I reading this wrong? Could someone elaborate on what is different?

[Adhira]

Tribes don't recruit that's correct.

Clans recruit. You can't form clans OOCly. You can form clans in game and recruit ICly.

Think of tribes like you would think of a real life... tribe. They're a group that shares a common culture and history. At some level they are likely family. Maybe in the origins of tribes there were multiple families that came together and settled a place and worked hard together. Then they started sharing a culture, they formed a 'tribe'. They have ties that aren't necessarily blood lines (though they can be).

A dictionary definition of 'Tribe':

a social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader.

In the context of ArmageddonMUD a tribe is something like: The Soh Lanah Kah, the Tan Muark, the Arabet.

Previously you were not allowed to create a 'tribe'. You could create a family, connected by blood. You did not create a tribe and create documentation for them, they didn't have shared cultural beliefs and goals.

Now you have the ability to create a tribe.  This means you can form a small group of 4 players to play city elves together in the rinth. They don't have to be siblings, but they can be linked together by their 'tribe' that allows them to have common ground, and a reason to interact together.

[th3kaiser]

I understand no recruiting, but could you accept another PC if one of them dies? Have one of those virtual members step forward?

[RogueGunslinger]

The help files say no. But I don't really understand why. I do think you shouldn't be able to have the person who died app back into the tribe for obvious reasons. But another player would make sense.

Couldn't you have people join your family before?

[Nyr]

The docs say no. But I don't really understand why. I do think you shouldn't be able to have the person who died app back into the tribe for obvious reasons. But another player would make sense.

Many things done here done are in a stepwise process--we rarely jump straight to "allow everything possible", if at all.  In this case, this change allows something that was not previously explicit before.  Let's see how that works out, see what interest there is from players in it, etc.  As time goes on, there may be other changes.

Couldn't you have people join you family before?

Not really, no, unless you mean prior to that being disallowed some years ago due to abuse (endless families).  However, there are some specifics related to this that might come up in some future changes.  You'll have to wait and see!

[KankWhisperer]

I think it's a shame to be constantly be re-inventing the wheel with these small tribes. It'd be nice if those that were exceptionally well written, interesting, or successful could be saved in some format to be used again.

[yousuff]

Out of curiousity, is this due to the request I sent in asking to make a celf family role call with a virtual tribe?

[Nyr]

I think it's a shame to be constantly be re-inventing the wheel with these small tribes. It'd be nice if those that were exceptionally well written, interesting, or successful could be saved in some format to be used again.

If someone comes up with an exceptionally well-written, interesting, or successful tribe filled out with the (up to) four PCs in it...and they demonstrate that to both staff and the rest of the playerbase over a reasonable period of time...it may well be a possibility.  But until then (and including after then), any playable tribe options will be vetted by staff.

[wizturbo]

This is AWESOME.  

If it works out okay, having people be able to app into a tribe at a later time (with the 4 PC limit still in place) would be cool, but I can understand reservations about opening up that option from day one.

I'm so glad with the direction the game is going lately.  Big kudos to the staff, you guys are really kicking ass.

[bracken]

Thank you!!! I feel really encouraged to make my future c-elf part of a family role call, either mine or others, rather than go the tribe-of-one +vpncs route.

[HavokBlue]

Thank you guys for this change. The no tribes rule seemed silly and arbitrary and I didn't think it was going to change.


Also, Nyr's "tribes don't recruit" line gives me hope for future iterations of the Akai and Jaxa allowing role applications.

[Patuk]

If that's so, I guess this is a start. I have faith enough in the playerbase that this should prove a success.

[Barsook]

This is AWESOME. 

[...]

I'm so glad with the direction the game is going lately.  Big kudos to the staff, you guys are really kicking ass.

[Evoru]

I get that tribes don't recruit other currently active PCs and bring them in, even if they're mated...but if the tribe played for a long time and started producing babies, could those babies (when grown) be taken over by players, thus making the tribe larger? Or is that still a "nope, those children would be virtual"?

[RogueGunslinger]

The docs say no. But I don't really understand why. I do think you shouldn't be able to have the person who died app back into the tribe for obvious reasons. But another player would make sense.

Many things done here done are in a stepwise process--we rarely jump straight to "allow everything possible", if at all.  In this case, this change allows something that was not previously explicit before.  Let's see how that works out, see what interest there is from players in it, etc.  As time goes on, there may be other changes.

Couldn't you have people join you family before?

Not really, no, unless you mean prior to that being disallowed some years ago due to abuse (endless families).  However, there are some specifics related to this that might come up in some future changes.  You'll have to wait and see!

I get that tribes don't recruit other currently active PCs and bring them in, even if they're mated...but if the tribe played for a long time and started producing babies, could those babies (when grown) be taken over by players, thus making the tribe larger? Or is that still a "nope, those children would be virtual"?

[Reiloth]

It'd be cool if that kind of restarted those tribes of yore -- If the people who played 13IC years ago or whatever the minimum starting age is wanted to drop back into that player-created tribe, they could do so. Then again, playing your own kid? Kind of weird. Maybe milestones could be recorded for when those babies were born, and role-calls could be put up down the line for those children.

[whitt]

Bit of a hiccup in the help file

Paragraph 2

You must be creating either a family, related by blood and all of the same race, or a tribe who have a common race, culture, background and history.

Paragraph 5

All members must be blood relatives and of the same race.

That noted, I just hope this doesn't create an influx of small "cliques" of certain races that, since they can't include another PC of that race into their tribe OOCly, have no interest in RP with other members of the same race beyond than of an antagonistic nature.  Four consistently present PCs having a great time as a tribe is a magnet for new players, no mechanism to bring that, say c-elf, into the fun - even if there was still an open slot in the tribe, is a bummer in my mind.

[Zoan]

So tribes can't 'recruit'. What stops me from, say, my family deciding to take on hirelings to do their greb work, and paying them to do so? I don't understand why any single person, let alone a tribe or family, couldn't do this. It's not like 'tribes' are actual coded communities anyway in this circumstance.

[HavokBlue]

So tribes can't 'recruit'. What stops me from, say, my family deciding to take on hirelings to do their greb work, and paying them to do so? I don't understand why any single person, let alone a tribe or family, couldn't do this. It's not like 'tribes' are actual coded communities anyway in this circumstance.

You can have a tribe, but if someone wants to join your tribe in-game, the answer you need to give them is NO TRIBES

[RogueGunslinger]

So tribes can't 'recruit'. What stops me from, say, my family deciding to take on hirelings to do their greb work, and paying them to do so? I don't understand why any single person, let alone a tribe or family, couldn't do this. It's not like 'tribes' are actual coded communities anyway in this circumstance.

But they would not be a member of your tribe. They would not be trusted the same way your tribesmates were. You wouldn't have the Tribal bond that is essential to elven play. They would just be employee's, or hired help. That shhould take a ton of tests of loyalty and competence over years of time.

[HavokBlue]

So tribes can't 'recruit'. What stops me from, say, my family deciding to take on hirelings to do their greb work, and paying them to do so? I don't understand why any single person, let alone a tribe or family, couldn't do this. It's not like 'tribes' are actual coded communities anyway in this circumstance.

But they would not be a member of your tribe. They would not be trusted the same way your tribesmates were. You wouldn't have the Tribal bond that is essential to elven play. They would just be employee's, or hired help. That shhould take a ton of tests of loyalty and competence over years of time.

2 caveats

1. It might not be an elven tribe, they could be humans or dwarves

2. what you described is exactly how the two city-elven tribes worked when they were open

[Case]

im gonna make a sorcerer tribe. 4 paths bitches

[Nyr]

You can have a tribe, but if someone wants to join your tribe in-game, the answer you need to give them is NO TRIBES

The answer you need to give them is an IC one.  An IC "no," not an OOC "sorry I can't recruit you because staff said we could not recruit people into tribes."  The IC no absolutely should be an IC no.  X person is not a member of your tribe because they are culturally different, they have not grown up in the tribe and learned its history, they cannot trace their lineage (however it is traced), their blood is inferior, they are not "us".  Forget what Akai Sjir and Jaxa Pah did or were.  The majority of other tribes in-game are quite different from this--they do not recruit outsiders.  Any cases in which outsiders are brought in by tribes are notable exceptions.  Tribes that recruit (and I mean recruit in the simple manner of clanning them because they want to join and you figure...why not...not recruit in the complex "exception" manner from the previous sentence) are a cultural aberration in Zalanthas.

Elves are weird in that they are fanatical about trust and loyalty.  The rest of their beliefs about tribe being paramount should be true for the majority of tribes composed of any race.

With that said, yes--there is an OOC element to this on top of the legitimate IC element mentioned above.  That element is simple as well:  players have abused this before.  It is now a rule, preventing that abuse and also providing more IC structure for what a tribe "is."

2. what you described is exactly how the two city-elven tribes worked when they were open

What was describes is what the two city-elven tribes did when they were open.  Previous discussion (here and here) has proven to staff (at least) that the things these tribes did didn't necessarily mean they worked.

[Harmless]

I love this change so so much.

I remember back in 2010 or so I knew someone with a city elf family that its member PCs referred to as a tribe.

Now I can see that in 2014 we are finally returning to this very excellent way of doing things.

The rules that city elf families couldn't call themselves a tribe was pretty silly, I'm glad that's out the window.

Huzzah!

[Gimfalisette]

The difference between a tribe/family and a clan is like this:

Let's assume I work for a very large company that is actually privately owned by a single family. Everyone who works in this company knows who the bosses are, that they are family, and that the rest of us--no matter how trusted--are not family. We are not the tribe, we are employees. No matter how useless or dumb one of the family members is, they are family. The family has a hierarchy, but people in the family get to skip through the hierarchy of the company, that is if they even do their "job" at all (some of them just appear to have titles and don't do much). Family members don't get fired. They get preference and special treatment that the employees just don't get and will never get.

Occasionally someone marries in from the company to the family, maybe? I'm not even sure if that's true. Doesn't matter, they're pretty much a VNPC to me anyway. For 99.9% of people who work for this company, we will only ever be employees. We will never, ever be family.

That's what a tribe is. Even if the tribe uses outsiders and treats them very nicely, outsiders are still outsiders.

[Molten Heart]

im gonna make a sorcerer tribe. 4 paths bitches

been done

[nauta]

Hi,

A couple questions from reading the tribal role helpfile.  I think this
could be a lot of fun!  These are just matters of clarification...

You must be creating either a family, related by blood and all of the same
race, or a tribe who have a common race, culture, background and history.

Is there a difference between "same race" and "common race"?  Could a
tribe of elves (or humans) also include a breed?  Could a family of elves
(or humans) also include a breed?

'Clans' cannot be created in this way (ie you may not create a 'Merchant
Clan'). Even if it's a clan that cannot recruit IC, no. Contact your clan
staff if you feel that your clan needs more players.

I think, maybe, I get what this means, but it isn't very clear (to me, and
certainly not to me like a year ago).

What is a Merchant Clan?  (Small pet peeve: should be 'e.g.' not 'ie'.)

What do you mean by a 'Clan' in this context?  Do you just mean that the family
must be a family and the tribe must be a tribe, as defined in the first
paragraph?

The 'contact your clan staff...' line seems out of place.  If you are using this to 'create a clan' (- I'm still not sure what
that means -), why would you think your clan needs more players?

Anyway, I'm pretty confused about this paragraph,
so perhaps it could be clarified, either in the helpfile or out here.

Also, sorta related, I assume there's no "staff" for a family/tribe, each member
would be staffed wherever they end up, e.g., if dad took a job with Salarr
and mom took a job with Oash, then the staff for dad would be Salarr (or
GMH?) and mom would be whatever staff handles Oash.  Or would there be a
common staff for the whole tribe/family?

Finally, would it be at all possible to have "sample" tribes/families listed,
that is a sample "proposal" that someone has submitted?  - Not necessarily
to plagiarise but just to get an idea of what an application actually looks like.

[Saellyn]

I think it was mentioned that breeds are the ONLY exception to the common race/same race thing, HOWEVER that doesn't mean you would love your breedy counterpart unconditionally.

[Nyr]

Hi,

A couple questions from reading the tribal role helpfile.  I think this
could be a lot of fun!  These are just matters of clarification...

You must be creating either a family, related by blood and all of the same
race, or a tribe who have a common race, culture, background and history.

Is there a difference between "same race" and "common race"?  Could a
tribe of elves (or humans) also include a breed?  Could a family of elves
(or humans) also include a breed?

The only exception to race is for half-elves (this is not carte blanche for loving half-elf family applications).

Personally, I would prefer not to see a tribe with a breed in it.  We might change this to say that it is only for families.

What is a Merchant Clan?

What do you mean by a 'Clan' in this context?  Do you just mean that the family
must be a family and the tribe must be a tribe, as defined in the first
paragraph?

A clan in this sense is an organization that can indeed recruit in-game.  Salarr, Kadius, noble houses, the various militias.  Your tribe/family cannot do so and will not be this, so it is not that.  This is reinforcement of that notion.

The 'contact your clan staff...' line seems out of place.  If you are using this to 'create a clan' (- I'm still not sure what
that means -), why would you think your clan needs more players?

It is essentially what was here and in the old helpfile:

This must be a family role.  No tribes.  No clans.  Even if it's a clan that cannot recruit IC, no.  Contact your clan staff if you feel that your clan needs more players.

It can be reworded for the new documentation. To elaborate, the point here is that you cannot recruit on the GDB in player announcements for the clan that your PC is playing in, period; this has been the rule for some time but it is being reinforced here.

Also, sorta related, I assume there's no "staff" for a family/tribe, each member
would be staffed wherever they end up, e.g., if dad took a job with Salarr
and mom took a job with Oash, then the staff for dad would be Salarr (or
GMH?) and mom would be whatever staff handles Oash.  Or would there be a
common staff for the whole tribe/family?

It is individual.  Contact your clan staff.  Regardless of what you play or where you are playing, you have clan staff.  Contact them.

Finally, would it be at all possible to have "sample" tribes/families listed,
that is a sample "proposal" that someone has submitted?  - Not necessarily
to plagiarise but just to get an idea of what an application actually looks like.

Possibly in the future, but for now, we do not have an example for tribes.  Families are quite simple, though.  "I have a family.  There are 4 members.  We are all brothers.  Here are their names.  We had a sister but she died, and there might be a cousin in there somewhere but none of us like her.  We live in Allanak, our mother and father did these jobs in general."  Hopefully you get the idea.  It can be more complex but it needs to provide the information requested.

[Ouroboros]

In a word: Awesome!

In a few more words: This is definitely an inspiring policy change, and I hope that works out well in the long-term. While I imagine the application process will be (and should be) quite strict for something like this, I think the game will benefit from the individuals that put this to good use.

The massive wave of change and energy from staff is impressive, keep it up!

[valeria]

I definitely approve of this change.  It makes a lot more sense than the old interpretation of the rule (which really seemed more like a stopgap, and probably actually was).  Yay for being able to create a city-elf family that isn't self-contradictory!

[timber]

Maybe I'm missing it but why is it that staff doesn't want the players to have the power to make a long lasting / new tribe with lasting power and able to overtake established tribes. I mean from the ground up growth and player driven?

[Nyr]

I think it's a shame to be constantly be re-inventing the wheel with these small tribes. It'd be nice if those that were exceptionally well written, interesting, or successful could be saved in some format to be used again.

If someone comes up with an exceptionally well-written, interesting, or successful tribe filled out with the (up to) four PCs in it...and they demonstrate that to both staff and the rest of the playerbase over a reasonable period of time...it may well be a possibility.  But until then (and including after then), any playable tribe options will be vetted by staff.

Does this answer your question?

[deskoft]

I agree completely with the limitations. These are needed for some reasons that I can currently think of: 1) If anyone could create a long-lasting tribe, the problem would be that perhaps they aren't able to actually roleplay the LORE and move it forward. There is no ensurance that they will actually add something to the game. If all tribes move in different directions (lore and RP wise), it can really affect the game. 2) If anyone could simply go ahead and say, on skype: "hey, archive your PC, let's form a tribe IG, get more people", not only is it really -bad- for the game to have all this stuff going on, but it also will affect the other real, long-lasting, supported tribes, and reduce the number of members they have.

I agree with the idea, but I think that, as said by Nyr, if a tribe is showing excellent performance, it could get supported. But, until then, they should simply limit to four PCs, which is a lot.

[MeTekillot]

Maybe I'm missing it but why is it that staff doesn't want the players to have the power to make a long lasting / new tribe with lasting power and able to overtake established tribes. I mean from the ground up growth and player driven?

It could have a detrimental effect on the setting if a tribe with tradition gender roles and a happy-go-lucky attitude regarding magick who are just huge fans of racial equality gets a lot of traction that would allow them to wipe out or overtake tribes/the powers that be that currently enforce the setting.