GMH Conflict: Reflections and Replies

[Riev]

Nerdgal, does this mean that/can there start being more of a focus on "recommendations" from groups in game? Back in .... MY... day. Where I still couldn't RP for shit, having Byn Training meant that your Sergeant would basically vouch that, indeed, you did "follow rules for a year and weren't a headache". I VAGUELY remember contract lengths being like "If you spend three years in Salarr... woohoo. If you spend seven though, we'll give you a recommendation if you leave" and I remember thinking it was one of the best parts of clan life.

Sure, back then you would basically have been a Cadet for seven years, but if you were a headache and your boss said "Actually they're kind of a dingus, regardless of how much time they've had with us" I thought that'd carry weight.

With Life Oaths more rare, and terms of service being more the norm, maybe this can be a little more structured again?

[Zerero]

Agree w/ Desertman

[Ender]

Feedback isn't bad, however people who give it should make the effort to be measured and somewhat realistic. Like I said before, it's not out of the question to reevaluate other positions in GMHs and make them matter more, and give PCs a place in those positions. However it can't just be slapped together or it will lose meaning and fail. It needs to be done correctly and it needs to be planned out, and it's beyond the scope of what has been done so far. This thread was originally for drumming up thoughts on GMH conflict, and hopefully it will continue to be.

I think this is where the divide is.  Players remember those specialized units as ways to drum up both internal and external conflict.  Many of us remember them fondly, and I remember as a leader certainly using the potential of joining those specialized units to create competition among my underlings, even if I knew none of them would ever likely achieve it.  I don't see this as players demanding these things open up, they're just providing feedback that these types of units were used successfully in the past to provide the type of interest and conflict we all hope to see.

[Mordiggian]

I understand where people who want to do things like play an Outrider are coming from and as a player, one of my earliest tiffs with my staff at the time was the fact that I couldn't play in a particular elite group!

Opportunities for PCs to reach for are good, and I think we acknowledge that, and the GMH staff team appears to be taking steps to provide more opportunities (see the new GMH change that provides a relatively clear-cut path to having your random commoner adopted into a Great Merchant Family, which comes with all sorts of perks and benefits).

However, I think if your PC is a badass and carries themselves as a badass, they're going to be perceived as a badass regardless of the sdesc of their cloak.

[Norcal]

I have seen that there are many players in GMH, who are in a role that does not fit very well with the concept they would like to play. In the GMH I played in fairly recently, either you were a merchant, a maker or a hunter.

I had need of players that fit into other categories, such as spy, assassin, dirty tricks person.  And I hired them. Yet I had to stick them in the hunting division. It was not too much of a problem, except that in reality some guilds that I will not mention are very fragile and don't do well as hunters. So my special agent gets carrued of githed. Other players clearly did not like being hunters and really wanted to be guards.  Yet we only had a hunting division. Everyone hunts. I could have made an exception for the PCs, although it would have seemed out of place. Yet I -could- have done so.

Rather than opening up new -coded- subdivisions, ranks or jobs in a clan;

I think it should be left up to the clan leader to create the subgroups that she/he feels are needed, just through simple role play.  Then, if you really feel the need, go ahead and mastercraft a special cloak or some sort of insignia. When that leader PC dies, their sub group is disbanded. You get to keep the cool cloak kind of like your Masters hood from Uni. Unless the next leader wants to keep the group functioning.

This does not require any new code or changes to existing structure or docs.  It just requires a green light from clan staff, and the imagination of the PCs involved. I really do not think that the GMH staff would object to any of this, if you make a solid case. In my experience, Arm staff are pretty open minded and willing to give you opportunities.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[Nergal]

Nerdgal, does this mean that/can there start being more of a focus on "recommendations" from groups in game? Back in .... MY... day. Where I still couldn't RP for shit, having Byn Training meant that your Sergeant would basically vouch that, indeed, you did "follow rules for a year and weren't a headache". I VAGUELY remember contract lengths being like "If you spend three years in Salarr... woohoo. If you spend seven though, we'll give you a recommendation if you leave" and I remember thinking it was one of the best parts of clan life.

Sure, back then you would basically have been a Cadet for seven years, but if you were a headache and your boss said "Actually they're kind of a dingus, regardless of how much time they've had with us" I thought that'd carry weight.

With Life Oaths more rare, and terms of service being more the norm, maybe this can be a little more structured again?

There certainly won't be anything stopping people from using their past experience in a GMH to gain future employment. If anything, past employment in any clan should mean something significant. However I think it will still be up to PCs to acknowledge that experience.

Example time: If Shatuka hadn't been striving toward Outrider (her potential partners kept dying!) I can guarantee you I would have gotten bored and stagnated, no matter how many interesting plots I whipped up. Why?  Because at Sergeant, I'd topped out the glass ceiling and the only other movement was toward a more specialized, lateral unit - but one that happened to fit her and her abilities and her goals extremely well.

But, if all the unit is, in staff's eyes, "a special patch and a nicer footlocker", then yeah, the purpose and options open for those units needs to be revised. But that's not the fault of the players.

To use the example of Outriders: unfortunately, they have been closed for a long time, for reasons I'm not terribly familiar with, because I was a relatively new player at the time. I can tell you that if I was going to re-open the Outriders, I would:
- define a clear purpose for them, ICly
- make them fit into the game in a way that fits into everyday, typical RP
- give them a reason to RP with the rest of their clan
- create special gear for them, and possibly mounts/NPCs
- open/create other parts of Kurac, so that the Outriders aren't the only thing to aspire to

It's the last one that ends up being the trickiest part, and it can be the death knell for a clan if it is ignored. Put simply, if there is only one special group in a clan, with severely limited numbers, it becomes something that will largely be out of reach for people in a clan anyway. There needs to be other options so that the clan can attract different types of characters. These principles apply to Kadians/Falcons and Salarr/Expansion Division to some extent as well.

[seidhr]

Oops!  I forgot, for a scarce moment, that I'm not allowed to kid around - or people will take offense.

[nauta]

Pretty much everything Norcal says I tend to agree with, including this.  Anecdote: one of my first PCs was a pickpocket in Salarr, and, although a hunter by name, she was put to various non-hunter tasks by the leadership.  As far as I could tell, there were no red lights to any of it, but it could have been staff being nice to me as a newb.  This was within the last two years.

I also see where Mordiggian is coming from: viewed form one perspective (even a players perspective), such elite units are flavor, so just add the flavor to your RP.  That said, I can see where the advocates are coming from too: some people like the tangible rewards -- reaching a rank that isn't just internally generated (i.e., generated owing to how you and the leadership RP it) but comes from the outside (i.e. from the docs/structure/staff of the clan).

(I also think seidhr's post was inappropriate for the reasons Delirium stated.)

[Norcal]

Oops!  I forgot, for a scarce moment, that I'm not allowed to kid around - or people will take offense.

It's Ok Seidhr. 

[seidhr]

Ahem, in a more straightforward and hopefully easier to follow manner - another thing to bear in mind, players, is that there is a finite number of you.

If we had 100 people on every night, it would make a lot more sense to open up additional clans.  It would kind of suck if we opened up 8 new clans and we had to rob Peter to pay Paul in order to populate them with players, and suddenly other clans dried up and became inactive, as a result.  I don't think any of us want to be the only person playing in a clan - from experience it's not a lot of fun.

As Nergal is already mentioning, there's also the matter of whether the clan is sufficiently documented, has a clear-cut IC purpose, has enough coded support, and so on.  My own dream is to play a Blackwing elf again!  But I'm telling you right now that would require a mountain of work to get them up to par for modern standards.

Steering back towards the purpose of this thread, Nergal has some awesome ideas for the GMHs so I do think you guys will be happy with the direction things are going!

[Asanadas]

Oops!  I forgot, for a scarce moment, that I'm not allowed to kid around - or people will take offense.

You have to post on your player alt if you want to kid around.  

The reason I brought up special groups is that it seems to breed GMH conflict just by existing. And aspirations, as well. I really disliked it when I was told I'd never be promoted past [rank], even when I'd been under [rank] all my clan career working towards it. Having a rank can change a character, and facilitate a character's arc or evolution. It breathes new life into a character that has probably stalled out on his or her ascent to First Hunter.

I think that special forces will be an augmentation, or an old guard's club -- and I was never disappointed I wasn't the man in charge, when the man in charge was doing great. Even if there was just 1 special guy as the adjutant Lord Competent Superior, it should be good for the clan.

Really, injecting that enthusiasm into the old formula of GMH again (especially with everyone remembering what was lost with it) would relate to GMH conflict positively.

[555]

Oops!  I forgot, for a scarce moment, that I'm not allowed to kid around - or people will take offense.

I feel your pain.

[Saellyn]

I took a fence. What are you gonna do about it?

Anyways, most of my questions/concerns about the GMH change were cleared by Nergal in the TS, and I feel better.

Clarification wise, a SENIOR level PC (Read: SENIOR Agent) could also life-swear a PC, but this is a SENIOR level player, not some fucking scrub agent or merchant. This is a player that has earned the right to basically kick a blue robe in the shin and get away with it.


Not really. But he probably could.

[Brokkr]

Lifesworn Regular = the new Outrider

Okay, not really, but sorta.  Lifesworn really is an insane level of prestige given their rarity in a House now, sort of like those special groups used to be, but while still doing your normal job.

But taking Outriders as an example, they'd need to be run through the Nergal Process (tm) as they shouldn't be just a new cloak.  Part of the problem is that what Outriders is meant to be is very hard for players to do (in addition to what they were meant to do changing depending on what decade you are talking about).  Not necessarily because of the players, but because of how the role was envisioned coupled with the reality of how things work.

[Delirium]

Oops!  I forgot, for a scarce moment, that I'm not allowed to kid around - or people will take offense.

You have to post on your player alt if you want to kid around.  

Tone's hard to convey, and I've been wrist-slapped before for being too snarky. And you know? They were right.

The GDB should be a welcoming place, no matter how silly people get.

If you find yourself wanting to post something that could be construed poorly, maybe you should rethink if it needs posting.

[valeria]

I'd much rather see special divisions be something that PCs/staff collaborate on to match a certain set of circumstances (Tired of Kryl?  Join Winrothol's Kryltastic division!), rather than re-work old divisions top-down with the intent that players fill them up.  Kind of in the way my nonprofit board creates committees when certain things need done.  "You, you, and you, I've been talking with Senior Twaffle about the Kryl problem, you're now the Kryl divsion, do it up, by the way, my crafter mastercrafted you a cloak.  CLOAKTASTIC. ... do a good job or else."

But I didn't start playing until 2009 and I've never played when there have been special divisions.  They were all before my time.  In fact, one of my first experiences with other player butthurt was when someone in the Legion wanted to get into a special division, but couldn't.  So I really don't know what I'm missing if anything.

[Saellyn]

I think I asked once about the Falcons and was told it wasn't feasible to join them because their purpose in the game was -very- niche. It's like joinng a noble house strictly to bodyguard. I mean, you "can" do that, if you'd like, but it would probably get boring. Fast.

[Delirium]

I'd much rather see special divisions be something that PCs/staff collaborate on to match a certain set of circumstances (Tired of Kryl?  Join Winrothol's Kryltastic division!), rather than re-work old divisions top-down with the intent that players fill them up.

Agreed. I think if we re-introduced special divisions, this would be a great way to go. Collaborate instead of mandate.

[Zerero]

I'd much rather see special divisions be something that PCs/staff collaborate on to match a certain set of circumstances (Tired of Kryl?  Join Winrothol's Kryltastic division!), rather than re-work old divisions top-down with the intent that players fill them up.

Agreed. I think if we re-introduced special divisions, this would be a great way to go. Collaborate instead of mandate.

+1

Or why wait to 're-introduce' special divisions? Let PC clan leaders delegate.

[Nergal]

PC clan leaders are already allowed to delegate people into positions.

[Malken]

I'm going to go and call seidhr a jerk on jcarter.org if he doesn't tone it down.

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED SIR

I especially like the part where you can (with a lot of effort and time I'm guessing) be adopted in the family and have your own wife NPC that you can store in your closet when you're not using her. I hope it's actually -achievable- and doesn't demand 20 years of your RL like some goals seemed to be in the past.

[LauraMars]

I WANT AN NPC WIFE

[BadSkeelz]

etwo wife

[Dresan]

First of all this is an awesome change. The idea that people can be adopted into family members, is awesome and makes playing in these clans much more fun.

I was thinking about it this for a few days after reading some posts... and I haven't change my mind, I really still think that conflict in GMH is for the most part is internal and petty. However, its occurred to me that unless the staff is actively churning out plots for any particular clan, all conflict is very petty and internal in any clan. The reason for this is basically every clan has won the game. This is a problem with many things in Arm right now including overall Allanak but that has already been mentioned elsewhere and would need its own thread.

However, with GMH's it goes farther than that, besides having won ICly within the game, they've won oocly too. If a player wants the best gear, they need to go to salarr, kadius and kurac. There are no other options. I think this is something that needs to change. I think PC master merchants should have equivalents to salarr, kadius and kurac's best gear/products. Perhaps not as great looking as what is offered from salarr but from a functional(code) point of view there should be no difference. With custom gear PC can make being slightly better too than the regular stuff the clans make. You can still go get custom stuff from clans ( as you can currently) but of course the cost is insane.

I don't think any PC merchant will ever be able to compete within a city with the merchant houses, but the game begins giving more attention to places outside the city like the tablelands, redstorm, luirs, morins, etc etc. I think an alternative to dealing with merchant houses will benefit the game alot. Because not every house has (to have) a firm grip on these more remote places and there is room for other smaller groups to compete. In luirs, kurac might get pissed if you are selling spice or desert gear but if you are selling weapons to the table lands, pushing out salarr's influence there, well  (hopefully) they will not give a shit. I'm sure salarr will care and will probably do something about it, but perhaps even something like that might cost, for example maybe killing you would piss off the tribes you were supplying, setting them back for a while, leaving room for other small groups to fill the void.

I know there might be good reasoning why clans should be only ones that can make the very best gear in the game (and they should be still able to make excellent -looking- gear that is fully functional code-wise),  but again while PC merchants have no coded equivalents to offer players looking for gear, then there is no way the GMH can ever feel like they could ever lose, or even be set back even in the most remote of places.

[Mordiggian]

The Merchant Houses have little to no influence economically or otherwise in the Tablelands