Interest in Human Tribals

[HazelHomewrecker]

As requested in the Discord, here's a thread.

Now discuss Why aren't people interested in the human tribes as much as the desert elf tribes?

[Patuk]

The human tribe experience is akin to the city elf experience: you have one choice. One. That tribal experience is one where your two lonely tribes get pushed around by a shitload of desert elves who get carte blanche to fuck with you. If you then retaliate, half your people die.

So yeah, tribeless/virtual tribe indie PCs predominate.


Buuuuut Shabago took me up on writing a whole-ass tribe right now, so let's see where this goes.

[dumbstruck]

I think they are but without as many options there isn't going to be as much interest. I think if there was essentially one camp of D-elves open and you could freely make d-elves without tribes you'd see a lot less d-elves apped into existing tribes, and that that is the crux of what is happening with human tribals. There isn't a lot of coded variety supported in actual clans, and there is a lot of coded variety not supported in clans, so you're seeing a lot of nomad origin pcs with vague 'tribalish' stuff, but very few people in the one existing human tribal option open because it's so limited it caters to an extremely narrow subsection of the playerbase. I further speculate that it being heavily in the Pah with existing desert elf tribes often kind of kicking them around as if they were the Red Fangs or something makes it an even less appealing option.

[Pariah]

Back when a bunch of human tribal options were available I played some but I think it's down to two things:

Documentation Restrictions:
Some tribals are sequestered to certain areas, like don't leave the tablelands in their docs and then that leads to a huge amount of what I call single player Armageddon.  You just run around killing things, grebbing, exploring all on your own or with maybe one or two dudes if your tribe has multiple active members... IF.

So yeah it's great when you got an active tribe and you're doing stuff, but lots of downtime with literally no interaction is why I've always struggled with tribes.

But to be fair, I tend to only be interested in actually DOING things, not really a big bar sitter, tent sitter type, so maybe those roles are better for the more social leaning player.   If it wasn't for races being unable to see in the dark and gates closing, I'd probably be in town hardly EVER.

Staff Dependent or Leadership Dependent:

Let me explain first what I mean about that so nobody gets too offended or whatever.  Some of the times I've played a human tribal, we would end up sorta stalled by one of those two things.  Either the leadership HAD to wait for staff to approve whatever they were going to do every step of the way, so you might sit for two or three playsessions just waiting to hear from "The elders" on yes no maybe whatever.

Other times it was the leader, certain times I'd see forum posts where a staffer would be like, GO BALLS TO THE WALL, but the leader couldn't make a decision to save his life (Or possibly he was playing super safe, TO save his life).

So when you're part of a group like that you're bound, by the RP that you're in said group, to act accordingly.  Most of the tribal docs will say stuff like, "You would never do anything to cause harm to your tribe." which makes sense, but then when you wanna do something outside the norm, you're torn because you're like, Are they gonna think I'm just a twinky fuck cause I do X and Y?  Or are they gonna store me for this and that?  At least that's always been my fear/dislike of certain tribal roles.

So sometimes you have strict staff controlled actions, other times you have a leader who has RP erectile disfunction and both of those can be hard to swallow.

That's my take at least.

[HazelHomewrecker]

My primary issue lies in that you have 2 options to play when you want a clanned human tribal character -- the Al'Seik, and the Arabet. Those are you ONLY choices, and they might as well be 1 tribe considering as they live with each other and do everything together. If you want meaningful interaction away from the looming presence of Desert Elf tribes that can and will kill you if you so much as bother them in one way or another simply because they can, you have to completely disregard the clan documentation and go into the city states, or maybe Luir's Outpost if it's popping that week.

In my opinion, there needs to be more options, and more support dedicated toward Human Tribes to make it worth the effort over elves.

[racurtne]

erectile disfunction and both of those can be hard to swallow.

hehe

Human tribes have less options, and I echo previous sentiments on the availability of just crafting your own virtual tribe as contributing to peoples' unwillingness to play them.
I can't really recall the last time the human tribes have been heavily involved in anything, but take that with a grain of salt because I didn't play them. I remember the Muark being involved in stuff, way back in like 2010!
I also think Delf tribes just offer a more unique experience, so if people want to be constrained, they go ahead and go that route.

Just my two cents. Mostly I wanted to quote that excellent line above.

[BadSkeelz]

Desert Elves have some massive coded benefits over human tribals, which certainly has its appeal. Desert Elves also more certifiably "the other" compared to city-based roles. If you want to try something totally different they're a good choice.

[Kankfly]

Actually, there are three* (I counted the Araseiks as one). If I remember right, the Tan Muarks is also opened for play, but you'd have to put in a role app.

[Brisket]

Human tribes sound like a lot of work for not much reward - if people start clamoring for it maybe, sure, but the araseiks are basically good enough.  I have always thought the TM were kind of lame though, so take that with a grain of salt.  Also, as someone pointed out, two people from a tribe just.. isn't a tribe, you'd likely have more fun playing with 4 people in araseiks than 1, 2, 1 in three different tribes

[Pariah]

Human tribes sound like a lot of work for not much reward - if people start clamoring for it maybe, sure, but the araseiks are basically good enough.  I have always thought the TM were kind of lame though, so take that with a grain of salt.  Also, as someone pointed out, two people from a tribe just.. isn't a tribe, you'd likely have more fun playing with 4 people in araseiks than 1, 2, 1 in three different tribes

These are my opinions, not claiming its all correct, but my opinions none the less:

Simply put the world is too big for the amount of daily players Armageddon has to flesh out all these little niche things.

For YEARS I was super upset that Tuluk was closed virtually, because I enjoyed the ability to go rock out a character in Allanak, then switch to Tuluk and live a different type of life.  But this is also back when there were 60-70 people on prime time.  So those clans and roles were filled up, and there was plenty of shit to do and people to hang out with.  So if I played flimsy and went from Allanak to Tuluk willy nilly, it didn't really upset the balance too much, 1 outta 60.

Then the decline came, for whatever reason a lot of people left Arm, probably because like me they grew up, got big boy jobs, relationships etc etc.  Plus let's be realistic here, Muds aren't the pinnacle of entertainment in 2022 where we have VR and PS5s (PS5 is better than Xbox! I said it.)

So when Tuluk was closed, we lost a few more people, those diehard Tuluki players, folks who were pissed that their role was cut short etc etc again.

And Allanak was the center of the world, but honestly because there wasn't a whole lot of different options for full blown cities, it worked, we ended up with a good chunk of 30-40 people in Allanak.  So the occasional dude playing some Tribal or Desert Elf or even a few, wasn't a big deal.

Not to mention there were more D=elf tribes literally right on top of Allanak, so interaction happened all the time (Red Fangs come to mind).  So ultimately whether you point Allanak or point Tuluk, if you're interacting with each other, you don't feel the gap or the loss of Amos Number 10, because the interaction happens just with a different accent.

But now I feel, we have too many choices, we have Tuluk, Luirs (I didn't goto the HRPT so if it's gone now, don't freak out) and Tuluk, with a little Red Storm thrown in there.

With lets say an average of 20-30 players on most Prime Time I'm seeing, so if you split that up, there aren't that many folks to play with, lets say it's even and we use 30 as an easy number, there is 10 in Allanak, 10 in Tuluk and 5 putzing around Red Store or Luirs.

Let's take the Allanak number, say it's 10, Let's be generous and say we have 2 nobles, that leaves 8, two more of those are templars, that leaves 6.  You're one of them, that leaves five.  Say 2 of those players are playing sneaky fucks in the Labyrinth and they don't interact with you besides to steal your shit and smuggle spice whatever.

Now if you follow that math, there is 3 people realistically that you can TRY to run into and interact without going half way across the world or being a commoner who's like, "Lord Templar, Lord Templar, Lord Templar" over and over which wouldn't happen cause they might kill you for being annoying.

Now say 2 of those folks die (of boredom) or store and decide to dick around and play a human tribal.  That leaves 1.  You leave me all alone with some damn Templars and Nobles!

So to have those two guys being human tribals that can't go here, can't travel to X can't travel to Y, can't trade with Z, and all those other rules that are baked into being a CODED tribal, it makes it hard to find interaction.

Now I say a lot of this in jest and those numbers are pulled outta the air, but the breakdown I feel is a realistic thing...  I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I honestly think closing Tuluk was a GOOD IDEA.

Because it didn't dilute the game so much.

[Tranquil]

I'm always a supporter of opening more things, but I'd say human tribes should be far lower on the list of priority.

Cities have been very untouched for the last while, despite being the core part of the game - where most of the plot, interaction, and money comes from. At the moment, the cities have little reason to ever interact with each other unless a noble or templar was feeling particularly aggressive that day. That aggression often peters out to nothing, because they simply have no force projection at all. Unless they're going to send mean words over the Way or send a single assassin on a secret and private mission that will probably die before they even get to the other city, nada will happen. More city clans means more friction between Tuluk and Allanak, which means more interesting stuff happening in the game.

A combat character in Allanak only has two options for a major combat clan: Byn, or AoD.

The Byn is completely and utterly 'neutral' for some mind boggling reason, which means the only thing they're doing is contracts that don't generate much interesting happenings past the contract itself. Like killing spiders, or escorting a wagon. The AoD is even more extreme when it comes to this.

I would first go about opening up clans such as the Wyverns, Scorpions, Cavaliers, Kuraci Fist, the other GMH militaries, etc, before going and opening up the isolated Anyali. Whilst the Anyali have cool docs, they are out in the middle of nowhere and tribals are notorious for a general lack of direction. Little would happen.

However, if you give a noble/merchant the ability to send their House-sworn soldiers out to do things on a whim, without having to go through staff red tape or being told that it's 'against regulations' by the Byn, there would probably be more player-started plots in the world instead of the current situation.

Not to mention, playing an elite soldier for a Noble House is way kewl, dood.

My 2 cents.

[HazelHomewrecker]

I think there's a bit of a misconception going on already.

This thread isn't intended to say "Need human tribes now give more tribes now." This is just a discussion, not asking for immediate changes.

[Filthy_Grey_Rat]

I'd like it if I could app for a human tribal, but have staff pick then later reveal what kind of touched the char was. Even be a neat option for people who don't yet have the karma for it, because they'd in up in staff watched areas with just a few proven roleplayers to help guide the transition. If the subguilds for tribals were just 'surprise me', there'd be the extra added fear IC that interacting with the any, or maybe just the /wrong/ witches, you'd get infected too. I dunno, just spitballing my interests.

I don't know if I want to play a tribal. I've had some interaction with, and a few good pc's of, tribes but there's such a revolving door that it makes it hard to be truly invested ICly. Either you're seeing people pop in, go wild, and disappear or store pretty quickly, or you're just alone, trying to rp taking care of grandma or tending the beasts. And these are probably just my own, hyper specific problems that you all don't encounter, but tribal role = lonely in my mind. Unfortunately, they're the bread and butter of the fantasy I enjoy in this game, as there isn't any cult religions I can join or deep, philosophical magic. Bonfires, booze, outdoors stuff, animal and environmental rp, getting in on some lore and weird culture, it can be very fun. I'm actually probably going to try one soon, because I want to add some flavor and depth into the ones we have, just in case someone throws a volcano at them.

[Agent_137]

I don't recall docs saying you can't go into city states. Maybe there used to be. You can't get a job that keeps you far from home in a walled city for long lengths of time, of course not. But visit and swindle some pit dwellers? High five some kuracis? I thought all  that was encouraged. 

Regardless good feedback

[Shabago]

I think there's a bit of a misconception going on already.

This thread isn't intended to say "Need human tribes now give more tribes now." This is just a discussion, not asking for immediate changes.

This was the purpose of my ask in discord for this thread, yes.

I wanted to gauge the interest in human tribes, as they are periodically brought up as either A) Rotate to another off the twin tribes or B) Open more in general.

Thus far, it seems the majority doesn't want either?

IF this were to change, my particular idea is to make it so there is continued interaction regardless of where people play. I had mentioned in the discord discussion that the Ara'Seik camp placement is a good example of this. This way, people in transit literally go right into them, or the players in the tribe have interaction in any direction they go.

To give a concrete example, let's say we decided to re-open the Jul Tavan. Their camp would, say, be southeast of Luirs somewhere. The players moving between Luirs and Allanak would be going right across their path. The tribe players would be able to go to Luirs or Allanak in a matter of minutes. Perhaps some doc polishing about a resource in that area they control, or have some talent over, further fostering interaction with the GMH, etc.

The world is "huge", but that doesn't mean playability and interaction need to be scraped for it.

Beyond that, I feel believing the player count isn't high enough for X is a self-destructive, self serving prophecy. If a player wants to play a role off the website, or have a change of pace from Y location and that is closed, they may well play in the locations you feel need more hands, sure - or they may well leave. People play what they want to play. If they can't, they'll find a place where they can.

When Tuluk closed, I don't feel we had a net-gain for Allanak. It seemed players were playing indy clans out of Morins (anyone remember The Maw?). We had a D-elf surge and Luirs became very popular. And those that only really enjoyed Tuluk? Some outright left.

[mansa]

...
Thus far, it seems the majority doesn't want either?
...

I would tend to shy away from using majority/minority in the discussion board.   I would say something like "the people who have engaged with this topic."

I would like to see the Jul Tavan opened up.  They already have a camp in game.

I would like to see the choice of picking from 3 "virtual human tribes" that are okay to use as a background - and their tribal history does not have anything to do with secret magick.  Where a player can say - oo.. there's 3 virtual tribes I could join, that have a 4 paragraph background that I can use, and then work in game on trying to turn those tribe campsites non-virtual.  Or not - just a background that isn't Al'Seik or Arabet.

[dumbstruck]

...
Thus far, it seems the majority doesn't want either?
...

I would tend to shy away from using majority/minority in the discussion board.   I would say something like "the people who have engaged with this topic."

I would like to see the Jul Tavan opened up.  They already have a camp in game.

I would like to see the choice of picking from 3 "virtual human tribes" that are okay to use as a background - and their tribal history does not have anything to do with secret magick.  Where a player can say - oo.. there's 3 virtual tribes I could join, that have a 4 paragraph background that I can use, and then work in game on trying to turn those tribe campsites non-virtual.  Or not - just a background that isn't Al'Seik or Arabet.

All of what Mansa said, though give or take on the magick part for me. But the rest of it definitely. I like that the Jul Tavan already have a camp, and I like the idea of something where people can pick from tribes that don't and try to work toward creating one as well, the idea of wheeling and dealing with other coded tribes and utilizing stuff like the tentmaking skill with custom crafting and in game alliances seems incredibly appealing as a thing, especially if you have some sort of say in where those tents then wind up rotating through (I'd love to see a trade heavy tribe that literally just camps a little ways outside Tuluk, outside Luir's, outside Allanak as their rotation, never far from a settlement, rather than off into the Pah somewhere for part of the time or off into carru country for part of the time, and a focus on trade, for example). That's just one example though.

[Inks]

I like making own tribe, it is a super useful RP tool for your PC's base morals, values and taboos. Just be aware that only other tribals will ever treat your virtual tribe like they exist. Hehe.

[HazelHomewrecker]

I don't recall docs saying you can't go into city states. Maybe there used to be. You can't get a job that keeps you far from home in a walled city for long lengths of time, of course not. But visit and swindle some pit dwellers? High five some kuracis? I thought all  that was encouraged. 

Regardless good feedback

It's entirely possible that I'm just misremembering the documentation I'd read--it's been like 8 or 9 months since I played one of the twin tribes.

[Barsook]

I don't recall the docs ever say that.

[Pariah]

I could totally be not remembering right, but I seem to remember the tribal docs for everything, Desert Elf and Human having some line about not leaving their territory or some such.

I could be wrong, it's been years since I played a tribal of any type.

But I thought they had baked in (Don't run around the whole world on a whim) clauses.

[Barsook]

I do remember reading about territories, but you aren't 100% bound to stay in those. How can you trade? Someone has to come out to do that. They just can't stay out of the bounds for too long.

It's also true for city dwellers, they will come back inside from a hunt or grebbing. Even within the city, they will go back to their territory, as it feels safe for them.

That's why there is a blurb about that in the elven roleplay helpfile (or just the racial one).

So yes, you are right about they shouldn't be running around the world, but they still would have reasons to leave their territories for brief moments of time.

[Pariah]

I do remember reading about territories, but you aren't 100% bound to stay in those. How can you trade? Someone has to come out to do that. They just can't stay out of the bounds for too long.

It's also true for city dwellers, they will come back inside from a hunt or grebbing. Even within the city, they will go back to their territory, as it feels safe for them.

That's why there is a blurb about that in the elven roleplay helpfile (or just the racial one).

So yes, you are right about they shouldn't be running around the world, but they still would have reasons to leave their territories for brief moments of time.

That's always been a problem with Arm in my opinion.

Different strokes for different staff.

So some staff will ask questions if they are concerned, "Hey, why did you do X and Y?"

Some will assume the worst and just call you a twink or say you're not following docs. (RIP NYR).

(I haven't had any issues for a while with staff, so this experience might be out of date now)

But that's the problem for me.  I'm torn between, "I can justify this." and "Will they bitch at me for this."

I feel I need to walk such a tightrope to stay on the "Right side of the law" in terms of RP.  Whether it's my character typing HUNT or my Magicker casting shit.

So when you take something like a territory and docs that say, "Homies never leave their tents." (Paraphrasing, the docs aren't that eloquent lol).

You either fall into the RP Erectile Dysfunctional lot, (I can't do anything unless I specifically ask or am told for fear of doing it wrong) or the Balls to the wall, interpret your character and docs as you will and act accordingly.

So for me that's the rub right.  If you put in a request for every single choice you wanna make for a role, then that's slow as dirt and not very fun.

If you just wing it based on your interpretation, there is the chance of getting yanked into a staff room, or having a bunch of wish conversations getting scolded.

That's why I think Karma is such a hard thing for most of us to get.  I know I personally don't wanna abuse anyone's trust, staff or player when it comes to playing roles outside the normal human.  But I also don't want to be afraid of every choice I make adding to the list of, "On this date, we told you X and you did Y wrong."

But again, I just want to specify, I haven't had negative interactions with staff in years, so maybe this is less of an issue now.  But even from years ago, that makes you gun shy to go too far out of the docs even temporarily.

I personally play hunter types, DAMN NEAR ALWAYS.  I would love to play a tribal, but even though I'm mostly PVE, I do like some social RP.  So I can't just go hunt and sleep at night, go hunt and sleep at night by myself or with one other dude (Tribal roleplay experience I have had)  and even on D-Elves that could literally run across the world without resting I've been scared shitless that if I run to Allanak or Tuluk for some interaction, I'm gonna have the staff down my throat about leaving X area.

But it's hard right, I can't claim innocence or anything, I've been a huge douche to folks in the past here, ooc shit has always been my downfall in this game, so maybe the staff took a harsher tone with me in response to that.  But I think that maybe more assuming positive intent and less you suck and did it wrong would go a long way in both player and staff interactions.

[Kaathe]

But I think that maybe more assuming positive intent and less you suck and did it wrong would go a long way in both player and staff interactions.

Just to be clear, staff agrees and there's explicit public policy now to act this way on both sides. 

Personally I like the idea of virtual tribes that are freely pickable for background, but I don't know that it would make sense for players to not know about each other in those tribes.  Maybe it'd be better to have some examples of small tribes people can take and rename to be their own and tweak a little.  Small enough that if they ran across another similar tribal they could even virtually merge their tribes if they wanted. 

[dumbstruck]

I could totally be not remembering right, but I seem to remember the tribal docs for everything, Desert Elf and Human having some line about not leaving their territory or some such.

I could be wrong, it's been years since I played a tribal of any type.

But I thought they had baked in (Don't run around the whole world on a whim) clauses.

IIRC there was definitely something about not going and living in an apartment in a city or something, but that it's fine to go and visit cities even on the reg, and that joining (at least) Kurac is not unheard of for (human) tribals, if not likely for other merchant Houses, Kurac's got Luirs as a base near one of their campsites after all. That said I haven't seen human tribals docs in about a year, so this is not the clearest or most recent memory I'm speaking from.