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.