Getting more out of clans

[Xan]

AC:  I love that post.  Yes the method is a bit silly, but its so much more entertaining than the "you from Allanak, you ever get in trouble with the militia?  Your hired" spiel we have going on now.

The hard part is until a clan is established (meaning even a small 3 or more) active Pbase, and Byn sergeants and whole squads do on occassion meet unfortunate ends) recruiters are almost desperate.  Its rough building up a force, but I think creativity in recruitment and catering to making the potential recruits life interesting is definitely a step in the right direction to improve clan RP.

[Anonymous]

Declaimer. I play off-peak hours and fairly new to the game. I read GDB and I know what you feel about clans and playability on Arm as well as I know arguments of your traditional opponents. I like conspiracies of all sorts, so I am not going to discard idea of immortals plotting to bore players to death. I disagree with people who enforce an idea of Armageddon being too cool to improve. I know regular posters' opinion, but everything below is based on my own experience only.

That's because clans suck. Most of them don't have a damn thing in them that you couldn't do while unclanned.

Clans help to concentrate players in small location and synchronize their actions. It's very important for off-peak hours, so you know where to look for a couple of familiar faces once you logged on, instead of hunting across Zalanthas for any sign of PC presence. Clans help to establish initial ties between characters. Worst problem with groups of people who sit in taverns idling is their inability to find reason to have IC relationship started. Clans provide these reasons. Clans are not perfect, neither they have anything you could not get on your own, yet they are extremely helpful even in the way they are.

RPTs are few and far between.

My experience with that kind of events is limited to the only clan RPT I was able to attend. It was my greatest disappointment on Arm so far and if all RPTs were like that one then I'd rather sleep at night instead of trying to catch up. It was major screw up and, yes, I did my best to screw it up further. But I don't see what staff could do to help it. Area was craftily written, plot was very interesting and logical, and descriptions did provide both flavor and hints of what to do and what to expect. It's not immortal's fault if players had chosen to spam generic emotes on regard of jumping on kank's back and pulling reins and gasping in surprise and taking step back in fear. All of that in cost of missing room descriptions thoroughly, like missing object very unusual for Zalanthas that was dominating the room, boldly marching down the crumbling stairs and so on and so forth. As result, seven hours of RPT were spent on emoting preparations and ass-scratching, leaving half of hour to complete IC task of RPT. Nah, emoting is good, but from watching the log I did not find a single emote I'd be proud to repeat myself. Which leads me to another topic:

Complain about it or a clan being boring and you'll get a 'it's your own fault you're supposed to make your own fun'.

I have something to compare Arm with. I admit: average level of ROLEplaying here is significantly better than on that other mud. But I can't get rid of impression that most of people come here to work, to do some kind of unpleasant, yet necessary task. It always shows, it has nothing to do with emoting and roleplaying skills, but you always see when player likes to do whatever he doing or he has to do it because of one reason or another. So, why atmosphere in Arm community reminds me of conveyer? I am not talking about OOC giggles and stuff; I am talking about having OOC fun with the game while staying IC. I agree that playability is not less important than realism and roleplaying atmosphere. I agree: people seem to be harshly limited in their playability. But I don't believe these limits were set by immortals. Yeah, maybe playing off-peak helps and I am yet to get my hands slapped by immortals and my, imaginary, great idea ruined; or someone will become mad about my hatred of solo emoting; or one day I'd get banned for having too much fun with the game. But, so far, noone slaps, yells nor bans me or anyone else in my presence. But I see players cutting interesting scenes in fear of appearing twinks or other players taking twinkish advantage of situation. I do see people hanging on doing nothing or doing routine because they trap themselves within character's concepts and nearly nothing is "IC" for them. I feel too many people sure that Event only starts with RPT announcement. I had my first character's long and boring life analyzed. I have come to conclusion that I am guilty in my own boredom. The rest was dependant on other players, a very little on code and staff. I am not saying immortals have nothing to improve, I am saying players are called this way for a reason: the game is what we play. And the last thing: Top 5 of most exciting events I had on Arm didn't involve RPTs, immteraction, PC leaders, assassinations, plots, treasure-hunting, mudsex and only one involved going out of the gates to kill something. Thought I'd share.

[My 2 sids]

As far as playability goes, I think diversity is the key.  Right now, it seems to me, the clans are overlapping so much it is splitting the player-base too thin and not really creating much to work with role-play wise.  I'd propose putting harsh limits on types of PCs allowed to join each group.  Basically, push for PCs to only represent what is unique in each clan, according to the DOCs.  Those clans who are known for their military type hire PC guards and such, clans known for magickers hire magickers, clans known for selling stuff only hire merchants.  Merchant houses should be restricted to only up to three or so merchants or agents.  This way we can keep the player-base together, making for more chances for characters to interact.  A house with five or seven members all with different jobs, just won't interact as much as a house who has a small handful of guard or merchants or crafters.  At the same time, it means the houses won't have to compete for every pc.  Even better, PCs would have to compete against each other.

I hope this reads better than my last post.

[fearwig]

In allanak the only people with the authority to do any violence at all is the Templarate and the Militia.  Thats it.  The Highlord Tektolnes rules Allanak with an iron fist, and his Templarate and Militia is going to make sure everyone, even the nobility, knows that.

Now.  Could a member of a prestigous clan ask a militiaman or Templar to beat the living fuck out of some random nobody.  Yup!  Sure could!

With uh, all respect, we're talking about Zalanthas here, not your old middle school. I don't see what the big deal about a fight here, a death here should be, as long as we're not talking about anybody important. The status quo in that department is as unrealistic as it gets.

That goes for theft, murder, and general bangings-around. In the alleyway, it shouldn't matter a damn if you're getting mugged unless the militia are staring you right in the face. And even then, it's the flip of a coin, the way I imagine it.

That's just the general premise. When it comes to minor scuffles, no one -would- give a damn if a Noble Guard beat the stuffing (or the life) out of a minor merchant, street rat, or other sufficiently insignificant low-life so long as there's even a hint of the thought that there might be a reason for him to have done so (that reason being the honor of his House or his Guard, most likely). The templarate and militia should be making every excuse for him, so long as it seemed even a tiny bit reasonable that he might've done what he apparently did. That's classism at its finest, and that's the way they ought to think.

[wizturbo]

With uh, all respect, we're talking about Zalanthas here, not your old middle school. I don't see what the big deal about a fight here, a death here should be, as long as we're not talking about anybody important. The status quo in that department is as unrealistic as it gets.

That goes for theft, murder, and general bangings-around. In the alleyway, it shouldn't matter a damn if you're getting mugged unless the militia are staring you right in the face. And even then, it's the flip of a coin, the way I imagine it.

That's just the general premise. When it comes to minor scuffles, no one -would- give a damn if a Noble Guard beat the stuffing (or the life) out of a minor merchant, street rat, or other sufficiently insignificant low-life so long as there's even a hint of the thought that there might be a reason for him to have done so (that reason being the honor of his House or his Guard, most likely). The templarate and militia should be making every excuse for him, so long as it seemed even a tiny bit reasonable that he might've done what he apparently did. That's classism at its finest, and that's the way they ought to think.

If it happened in an alley, a private home, or anywhere that doesn't have a crowd watching your right.  The militia won't give a damn.  They might care if they're extraordinarily corrupt, and are looking for a pay off, but otherwise your right they won't care.  But in -public- it matters.  The image of the Templarate and the Arm of the Dragon ruling Allanak demands that they care.  Now, a bar fight is one thing.  But a -fight- with weapons, and the intensions to kill someone...that cannot be ignored in the eye of the public.  They might only question the ones involved and then declare it was 'self defense', or whatever nonsense to let the issue go...but something has to be done.

[fearwig]

In the middle of a market square? Yeah, they'd see the need to make order of the situation, at least if it were as serious as murder. Say, in the Commoner's Quarters? I don't think so. A mutie could kill a mutie and no one would cry a teensy tear, save a handful of people standing around who'd be way the hell more likely to run away than to run up to a guard and tell them some poor schmuck with three eyes had two poked out by a one-armed degenerate with a baby on her hip. Why on earth would they bother?

I'm not talking about secluded alleyways... I'm talking about a good seventy five percent of a given city. Crime is like this in a lot of places in the world, even those with relatively good police forces. City life isn't extraordinarily pretty.

The militia would give quite a care if you started systematically enforcing your might, especially for political gain. But they'd be smart enough (and common enough) to leave private matters private.