OOC log of guild leaders meeting interested in more meaningful RP

[Kithraks]

This is the log of the a meeting me and many other leaders of rp oriented guilds attended. As you can see we are NOT trying to get official recognition etc. Lets face it, there is only so much one guild can do and plan alone. But if we pool our resources together we might just be able to plan some fun events for everyone.

Its late here so I will comment on this later but its up here so you can look at what we did.

Thankyou Caid, Unitsi, Uprising and many others for gathering such a large group together. When I first got there I thought I was intrudeing on someone else's meeting only to find that they WERE the meeting.

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http://boards.stratics.com/php-bin/a...b=5&o=7&fpart=

I hope AO Stratics dosen't mind me posting logs on their messageboards. They do have some of the most well structured forums of any AO site I know of. <--- earning his keep for useing their forums

[Andross]

heh no problem Kithrak

[_________Merasandrin]

I turned up at this and for the first few minutes it sounded like an IC meeting about co-operation or not. Then it became apparent it was OOC but half the people there were IC. I left.
Now I've read the log and I still don't get it.
If you want to Roleplay political solution and peace - then do it.... If you want to roleplay vengenace attacks.... then do it...
Why stand around talking about who wants what kind of RP in advance.... you end up losing some of the great RP possibilities.

EG Omni faction approaches moderate Clan guild has series of successful-ish peace talks... member of that clan killed in isolated Omni attack(probably a non RP pvp ganking in MMD!) - clan member goes off on loopy vengeance thing at next peace meeting and end peace talks as a result Omni guild has to work really really hard to get talks going again... etc etc...
Half of the "meaningful RP" in that is lost if you've already met up and discussed what you want the RP to be about...

As has been said to me in other threads.... if people want to have this kind of meeting then who am I to interfere - well... you have a point but...

I'm interfering because a lot of people are learning to Roleplay in AO never having done it before - and I believe that this type of meeting can spoil the Roleplay experience for them by turning RP into agreed theatre. Yes you might need to plan things in advance, yes in some circumstances you might need to look at a particular clans ooc aims in Rp to decide whether to push some RP towards them... but trying to do it for everyone at once in a big public meeting means that there is no RP left because even when the conversation actually manages to stay ooc (rare)everyone has ends up with too much info about everyone else - leading to theatre...

I also think that whilst it is perfectly reasonable for a character IC to be tired of backward and forward vengeance attacks, and fine for a player ooc to want to do something different for themselves and their guild... ooc slamming the players who have put a lot of effort into organising these raids and giving them a RP feel by writing reports about them, and making one thing a response to another is out of order. It may not be what you want...but its been a strong entertaining part of the game for many players (and yes roleplayers) so far.


I'll be quiet now.

[Kithraks]

Dear Merasandrin,

Your concerns are valid and not the first time someone has asked about that at a large gathering of leaders type meeting. I will try my best to answer your questions.

First off, I announced well in advanced that the meeting will be purely OOC. I've told that specifically to the clan leaders that I've spoken with and a few said they announced it on the clan leader channel. Wether they mentioned the OOC aspect of the meeting I don't know. From the half IC replies being voiced at the meeting only reassures me that the leaders gathered were on the calibre that are fairly good and interested at it.

I have roleplayed political talks of peace numerous times in my trips to Tir. Unfortunately I was unable to link up with the guild leaders and therefore the scope of the results have been severely limited. The reason for asking who is interested in what is because I want to get a feel for what the leaders present at the meeting want. I can then try to gear future events with interested parties with their interests in mind.

To address your concerns that we will become a group of guilds that are running scripted events (ie. You will make a peace treaty while we lose during the assult on target X for sure...) is exactly what I am trying to actively gear away. I have participated in several official FC sponsored events and that is what I did not like about their events. If we were scripted to lose they made sure we lost regardless of what we did.

What I am trying to do is get several guilds together that are interested and create interactive secnarios where the participants can interact and those planning the event will react to the participants actions.

I understand your concerns but the point of this meeting was to try and find other interested leaders(who have already shown they are proficent roleplayers.) to help plan secnarios, not pre-scripted outcomes and let the members of our respective guilds determine the outcome based on their success or failure. A sort of GM lite given the limitations of what we the regular players can do.

The meeting did not in any way OOCly "slam" those organizations that DO happen to like back and forth attack and vengence attacks then write reports ICly. But my origional intent is to try and gather the guilds that don't like that sort of thing and try to work with them to create something that we can enjoy. Basically, we are trying to cater to a different audience, the non-pvp/npc-guard slaughter focused kind.

This was something that I have been trying to try for a long time but have not because I was unsure if there was enough support in the rp interested community for this sort of thing. I have planned, organized, and executed a number of these events. Useing the experience and what I have learned, I hope to now start working with other like-minded organizations and increase the scope of future events to hopefully bring the politics of Rubi-Ka to life to an even larger audience.

You are correct in that respect, these events are somewhat similar to a play except that the ending is to be written by the audience, not the actors.

I hope this answers your questions and concerns. Anarchy Online has a great potential for player run roleplaying events that cater to different wants/tastes. I am just trying to cater to a sector of roleplayers that I feel has not recieved much attention.

Sincearly,
Charles "Kithrak" Houston

[_________Merasandrin]

Yes

Addresses the vast majority of my concerns.

Except for me to say once again.... stop doing this kind of meeting in game... get the leaders together in IRC... use the leaders boards...anything that encourages pure ooc discsussion.... because being unable to drop the IC for OOC talks is potentially far more damaging to RP than people who don't go IC at all.

And secondly that some of the best political RP for a guild wanting to make peace to be had would be with some of those very same guilds that run the raids. They are just as up for talkative meaningful RP as the others who don't want to do the raiding. ((see meranews interviews with Opfor, Redruum, and Windguard, and Tredge for proof of this on both sides - www.anarchy-meranews.org.uk cheap plug over!)). You may have not intended any attack on these people...but by defining your conference as being about "meaningful" RP you belittle what has gone before....

[Kithraks]

Merasandrin, I've repeated before the meeting several times that this meeting is OOC and reinforced it a few times during the meeting. As far as I can tell, all the leaders present caught on and remained OOC after the first 15 minutes.

As for contacting the other guilds that are conducting raids and also want peace talks I find that rather contradictory. How can you say you seek peace and shoot the omni guard on your way out? Look at my past logs which I have always posted. There were two other peace talks, both with advanced warning on these boards and word of mouth in-game. I have only recently been able to start linking up with the other clan leaders that have shown an interest in working together.

They serve to entertain the rp sector that likes millitary action, I hope to serve the rp sector that dosen't. So far none of them have approached or contacted me expressing interest.

I have now started planning on a third peace conference. I will be contacting the leaders/representatives that were still present at the end of the logs. If you are unsure if you will be included but are still interested you can reply here and I will look you up in the coming days as time permits.