Discussion of GMH's from Discord.

[SpyGuy]

Luirs could have been a sick ass battle royale with the highest bidders of mercenaries and tribes gaining fragile dominance and constantly changing hands but it became a table of make nicers that bid high for a position with no benefits that still rolled over for a big army sliding up to its gates.

I wouldn't put that on the players. The initial occupation of Luir's and the later burning of the apartments felt very scripted to me.  GMH employees were not given replies by staff about options and House stances before the invasion, or at least I wasn't.  The Garrison/Council was also kind of a mess with the role-app Captain being unable to play, the logical person to take over dying and Kurac having two brand new Dealers.  The Dealers really weren't given any choice but surrender or we destroy the gates.

[Aruven]

Yeah I got to play through GMH characters in that timeline. I'm not putting the onus on anyone in particular, just reviewing.

My experience was entirely:

"Hey I'm taking over the underground spice trade in 'x' area, kuraci reps are losers atm and fumbling so im slicing hard"

Staff:

"No only kurac trades spice"

Me:

"Not if they suck time for a new spice trade run it"

Staff:

"Salarr and kurac good friends boss guys won't ever allow this cease immediate"

Me:

"Okay I'm taking over this 'thing' and want to do this"

Staff:

"Okay yeah that need to involve kadius/nenyuk/salarr/kurac also so... oh and nenyuk doesn't like your tone"

Me:

"Ok I'm storing this character"

This was amplified incredibly during the luirs / council situation. And look, what's done is done. Yet I recap because as far as I know these roles operate exactly the same. I have 0 inclination to play one, no economy tweak is going to make this appealing, and neither are apartments in luirs outpost.

Let these clans and their leaders live on the knife's edge and have consequences. Like beyond their own death. Nobody is afraid to lose their own character. Fuck up bad your house can really be in danger. Give the leaders a sense of ownership and investment.

If kadius or salarr or kurac get wiped out it can only lead to more plots and filling the void. When they are untouchable, it leads to nothing.

[Brokkr]

If kadius or salarr or kurac get wiped out

This is an amount of work you are not going to be volunteering Staff to do because you want a plot to go a certain way, especially in light of some players willingness to burn it all down.

[Riev]

If kadius or salarr or kurac get wiped out

This is an amount of work you are not going to be volunteering Staff to do because you want a plot to go a certain way, especially in light of some players willingness to burn it all down.

Attitude.

GMHs are setup specifically to "not fail". They're GREAT Merchant Houses for a reason.

But there does need to be some sort of ownership. Like how Byn Sergeants get their own units, and you can technically be like "The Horrors are the best unit!" until they all die. But they were still "yours".
The Salarri ED was fun for a lot of reasons, but it also was a "We either do well or we fail and if we fail, there are consequences".

Right now, as Aruven said, there don't FEEL like consequences. You do something poorly, and it doesn't matter. Store. It won't affect plots at all because there SEEMINGLY are none that care about the PC in place.

[Aruven]

If kadius or salarr or kurac get wiped out

This is an amount of work you are not going to be volunteering Staff to do because you want a plot to go a certain way, especially in light of some players willingness to burn it all down.

Agreed, and believe it or not I also volunteered a lot of time at one point to contribute to GMH clans along with staff. We're talking 15+ RL years of this generally same situation. It's boring man, i'm sorry. That's not trying to discredit staff or players implementing coded systems and cool ideas in there, it's just played out for anyone that's played a few GMH members before.

8 Karma times were, you almost HAD to play a GMH role before you could ever take an actual noble/templar role, and this in many ways supported the GMH being played for 10-15 years and not having player issues. That's been gone for awhile. If you're a player playing GMH, god love ya for the work you do and I try IC to support those roles.

Players do a lot of work that shapes and makes the GMH what they are with staff, and ultimately I think they should be playable factions/clans available in game in some form, but there is a problem with how they exist as far as playability goes in my opinion and I look forward to seeing what ya'll hammer out here and bring over from the disco.

[Yelinak]

As you know if you've actively playing the game, GMHs are in a bit of a slump right now, the reason cited everything from overbearing Templars to just being a straight boring unfun role and everything in between.

I think it's a "boring unfun role" in large part because ordering something from GMHs is such an awful, discouraging experience that most people never do, and since that's the main function of GMHs, most characters never interact with them in any way. When it's already lodged in the back of your mind that there's no point buying anything from the Great Merchant Houses (lol), it's easy to ignore them altogether because the primary reason to approach them is moot. Even if sales in and of themselves don't necessarily represent an exciting venue of roleplay, the interaction builds the ties that lead to more interesting roleplay; but not if so many characters don't even take that first step.

So why does it routinely take upwards of a real-life month to buy something you already know exists? I get if you're asking for a codpiece with your own face embroidered on it, but when I go to Kurac and order a set of fucking desert camo gear that they've been selling for the last twenty RL years, what is it that makes it take numerous weeks before the transaction is ready? What phenomenon is causing this delay? Maybe players would be less inclined to ignore the existence of GMHs if this were not the case.

[askaran]

Having played, perhaps too many Bynners.. If they get paid to do something they should do it, any arbitrary rules to the contrary are just that.

[DesertT]

So why does it routinely take upwards of a real-life month to buy something you already know exists? I get if you're asking for a codpiece with your own face embroidered on it, but when I go to Kurac and order a set of fucking desert camo gear that they've been selling for the last twenty RL years, what is it that makes it take numerous weeks before the transaction is ready? What phenomenon is causing this delay? Maybe players would be less inclined to ignore the existence of GMHs if this were not the case.

!!THIS!!

Maybe too, give GMH players a bonus (or a few bonus) custom craft slots each month.  Maybe that's already a thing, but it doesn't seem like it with my most recent experiences.

[Patuk]

GMH characters do not, in fact, get extra CC slots no. They used to, but haven't for years.

[DesertT]

GMH characters do not, in fact, get extra CC slots no. They used to, but haven't for years.

This begs the question:  Why?

[DesertT]

What would happen if when a person played a GMH member, their plans, plots, and ideas were actually supported as the main effort for their StoryTeller?

What if they worked together as a team to figure out what was reasonable and what wasn't?

I know that it's frustrating for people when they get a "leadership role" only to find out that they have no real leadership and no real say.  They're basically administrators.

When this happens, it's made abundantly clear that that player is NOT one of the "cool kids".

Quite disheartening.

Edited to Add:

Here's what I mean.  A "leader" asks to run with a certain plot idea.  They get told, "Great, figure it out IC'ly with PCs."

Yet when it comes to the plot idea their StoryTeller wants them to run with, they get all kinds of NPC and vNPC support along with animations and the whole works.

THAT.... is frustrating.... AND Discouraging.

[SpyGuy]

I actually really enjoyed the GMH role I created for myself.  But it was 100% me making do with what resources I had without staff involvement.  Hiring the Byn to help move some secret stuff out of the war zone, organizing hunts, delivering secret messages, etc.

It was doable with a combat PC that could organize others and had money.  Had to lead from the front though and those sorts of things are just reliant on code.  The House rarely felt like more than just our crew and whenever we pushed the boundaries we were reminded we actually weren't all that important to be making big decisions. 

[Riev]

Well. I think the reason stuff takes 'so long' to get loaded into the game is because staff want hunters and crafters to have something to do.

Loading up the stuff you're asking for turns the Merchants into vending machines and reduces the other roles in the clan.

There ARE some things they should always have on hand, but for all the "amazing" quality weapons and top tier kuraci camo you want? I think they want to give Artisans a reason to exist

[HazelHomewrecker]

Edited to Add:

Here's what I mean.  A "leader" asks to run with a certain plot idea.  They get told, "Great, figure it out IC'ly with PCs."

Yet when it comes to the plot idea their StoryTeller wants them to run with, they get all kinds of NPC and vNPC support along with animations and the whole works.

THAT.... is frustrating.... AND Discouraging.

This. This this this. A hundred, thousand times, this. Any leadership position I've gotten, I've been the mover and shaker, but any plot I wanted to run myself which I coordinated with my staff at the time, I got extremely minimal support.

However, when a [redacted] recent plot came around, I was interacting with NPC's, getting animations, support, etc. Why does it have to be something STAFF wants you to do, for you to feel like you're allowed to do anything at all. This is another perpetuated issue that makes ALL leadership unfun in some way.

[SpyGuy]

This got a little off topic but I needed a rant:

Thirded. Those big plots also typically revolve around a few PCs.  I understand staff can't animate for everyone and don't expect them to but having my questions ignored in requests for a world plot my PC and clan were involved in was very annoying.  And having little to no agency to do any sort of plot or action that wasn't 100% doable with no staff involvement was frustrating.  All this while knowing if you fuck up anywhere and you have the wrong kind of staffer then you're going to get slapped down hard.

I lost all interest in the Yayara storyline and by extension the game when I had to play through the railroad that was the Luir's Occupation.   Staff plots are almost uniformly presented to (mundane) players as 'You can look if you're special enough but you can't touch this.  If you push really hard and try to interact with it we may let you in a bit to kill your PC because realism, staff plots get to be OP!'

So losing interest in whatever world plot is going on while consistently having your questions about said world plot not responded to...what's the point of engaging in that then?  What do players get out of it?  Where in the past 2 years has that plot even moved?  Act 1 (the stuff in Luir's) sounded fun.  Act 2 (the green eyed monsters) was actually pretty cool, it at least involved a wide range of PCs.  Act 3 was a railroad from my perspective and seemingly ended the plot on a note of 'Haha, you can't touch us. See how powerful our plot is! Fear!'  Yeah okay buddy, another untouchable uber sorcerer in their magic castle isn't the game I want to play.