Zanz wrote:Doc wrote:-snip-
I personally think the onus is on you as the experienced player to shepherd them into a more reasonable position. In my experience the type of player you're talking about is likely brand new to PT, is probably young and ideologically optimistic OOC, and has probably picked your nation either randomly (or perhaps pseudo-randomly, because Kalistan uses English, which tends to draw the new folks).
Try to put yourself into their shoes (I imagine that you are quite capable of that, as I consider you a reasonable player) - they want to play, they don't necessarily know that they've got literal pages of wikis/bills/forum posts to catch up on in order to play reasonably. If I'm a die hard American Libertarian IRL, it's likely not natural for me to just understand that socialism has existed unchallenged in Kalistan for a millennia. If, as soon as I arrive, I'm bombarded by an experienced player who is annoyed that I haven't done my hours of homework yet, I'm more likely to get defensive and entrench or to just up and leave - both of which are crappy situations.
I counsel patience. You're the one who has the lay of the land. Explain the lay of the land. Do it in a tone that doesn't flat out deny them the possibility of playing the party they want to play (because at the end of the day if they want to play a libertarian party in Kalistan they're allowed to) but instead encourages them to play the party they want to play reasonably. All of us have a responsibility to the game that has drawn us in to help it draw in more people.
Yes, these are great points. I do think it is reasonable, however, to request that new players do take a MOMENT (especially when they have no seats) to ask "What's going on in Kalistan. I want to be an active player, and so what do I need to know right now to hit the ground running." Rather than saying "I am a brand new player. Kalistan is a communistic hellhole because they have a public sector, we have an accute immigrant crisis, and we need to wipe the slate clean." There is nothing which suggests that I, the caretaker player, should accept their version of reality, especially since they have done absolutely nothing to learn about the country they are attempting to radically alter in a single term.
And I know it is possible to do it too: We have a player in Kalistan right now who started out that way, and then when he hit the brick wall known as the SP, he took my suggestion that he learn a bit about the country. He began posting on the forum. He began RPing and started using some of the institutions that were there, and asking questions about the other ones. He demonstrated that he was interested in sticking around for a while, and became invested in the country that he arrived in, rather than trying to change it radically into something that it never was. And now he and I are governing partners, and we communicate back channel before we run up major bills, and we have begun to build basic RPs. I don't have any evidence that suggests that he is an experienced RPer, and he is certainly new to Particracy. But he joined the community, rather than attempting to take it over and make it his. And we may not agree on everything but I am way more willing to work with him because he showed that he is willing to play with the Kalistan that is there, and make moderate reforms, and then to RP them out.
Much different than the other main player we have in Kalistan now, who arrived in Kalistan at about the same time, immediately asserted that we have a drug problem and set about trying to not only undermine several of our RP institutions (like ODEN, which is synonymous with Kalistan since before even I got there), but claim the people have drug problems, the socialistic policies of the SP government have created a communistic hellhole with crushing debt (despite the evidence to the contrary which is easily findable where we run like 85 billion rubles surplus, and have done so for like 20 years, and before that it was more like 245 billion rubles in the black.) He ignores basic reality, and asserts a completely fabricated reality that he didn't RP at all, and I spend my time going over how there is no way things could possibly be as bad as he asserts. Just yesterday, he claimed that 3500 children in Kalistan regularly use cocaine, and that it comes in colorful packages dealt by private individuals. And I argued that ODEN sells in packaging exactly opposite of that, we have more or less regulated advertising out of existence, and if there are private individual dealers and a black market, that would be in contravention to the law.
It boggles the mind how different these two players are. I am sure the OP was about the latter type of player, and not the former. But I would LOVE more people to come and play in Kalistan, even as rightists, so long as they demonstrated that they knew even an iota about the country that they were attempting to reform. No evolution, no RPing, just assertion that everything is miserable and hellish, and endless debates on bills which don't have the votes to pass...
