New parties ignoring RP history- A question

[Reddy]

So, back to my original question: How do we encourage new Parties to observe the established RP history BEFORE they attempt a unilateral retcon of the Country's current situation, BEYOND the election mechanism? And I suppose then, what tools do we have to sanction them when they refuse to do so?

Well, in my view this will always be a problem. New players naturally have been attracted to the game by the game mechanics and are unlikely to be aware or sympathetic to the efforts made by current players. I've taken a look at Kalistan's RP laws and I must say that there are quite a lot of them. It would take any well meaning new player quite some time to get through them. The trick is how to encourage the new player to accept and absorb your long standing RP laws. It should probably take quite a while.

I think what usually works is to give the player an exuberantly friendly welcome, be lenient somewhat with the RP laws and cultural protocols initially; becoming adversarial as soon the new player begins opposing or ignoring the established RP only hardens their generally anti-establishment and often what was a misguided attempt to reform the country turns into a malicious anti-establishment crusade.

Of course this might seem like I would advise surrender and perhaps in the short-term your established system can fall apart but I think what you will find is that your system will survive, whether because the malignant invader leaves when the fun of trolling runs out or perhaps the well meaning newbie becomes more familiar with and appreciative of the system.

I think creating some kind of official Welcoming Committee or 'Big Brother/Sister system' could help to reduce the clash between new and old players. Don't ask me about how such an idea would work

[Doc]

I think creating some kind of official Welcoming Committee or 'Big Brother/Sister system' could help to reduce the clash between new and old players. Don't ask me about how such an idea would work

Somewhere between surrender and being a RP-laws nazi is where I would like to land. We have focused on political rather than cultural development in Kalistan, and I assume that most CPs are as finetuned and considered as our political culture.

I like the welcome message idea that Rathon wrote about- I just wish I could get new players to heed it before they start this "a huge population has always hated socialism and now its time to throw it off" business I get from a lot of these new folks.

As for the big brothers/sisters program, perhaps you would like to work with me on my RP guide viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6908. Surely there are things I will miss which others have wisdom in dealing with. I want to go forward, but as we can see, I would certainly benefit from a LOT of community input and ideas about how to deal with, especially, new folks who are just starting out.

[toro42]

How did you include the links like that?

[Zanz]

We have focused on political rather than cultural development in Kalistan, and I assume that most CPs are as finetuned and considered as our political culture.

I just wish I could get new players to heed it before they start this "a huge population has always hated socialism and now its time to throw it off" business I get from a lot of these new folks.

I've not got much skin in this anymore as I'm not actively playing, so take all this with a grain of salt - also, for the record, I'm not looking to pick a fight, though I have an inclination that my thoughts on this are pretty contrary to your own, Doc, so I apologize in advance if I come off as confrontational.

Frankly, I've always been a little unclear on why you've felt that Kalistan's "political culture" should have some standing equivalent (or nearly so) to the concept of culture as protected by Cultural Protocol rules.

Culture as defined in the CPs is entirely RP'd - Dorvik was no more German than Dankuk was when Wouter created the game. It therefore makes sense that culture should be protected by RP rules and regulated by Moderation and new people should be held at least minimally to playing along. If we as a community decide Dorvik is German, and we do so using CPs correctly, everyone should have to play along.

"Political culture", however, is some sort of mix of RP history and game mechanics. Dorvik is different from Dankuk in the code, and so certain political positions will be more popular in Dorvik than in Dankuk and vice versa. These are aspects of the game beyond our control. If the "voters" (the game mechanics) of Kalistan elect a fascist party despite ~1000 years of absence of fascism, it's just the screwy game mechanics we've all had to deal with grumpily for the years and years since Wouter ceased development. If we as a community decide Dorvik is fascist, and then somebody comes in as a communist and sweeps the election, it's tough, but it's what we have to work with.

The difficulty of reconciling our RP with these inconsistent mechanics is something that made it incredibly hard for me, over the years, to care about the actual in-game year to year play of Particracy, but it's still a difficulty that exists for everyone. I understand that you're tied to the concept of Kalistan as a socialist nation, but I worry (and it seems you're worried too, given this thread) that your ties to that concept might cause you to push others away from Kalistan (and maybe even PT, if they really don't understand) for doing nothing more than winning an election fair and square, according to the game mechanics.

I've said it to you directly elsewhere (I remember we had basically this conversation once, long ago) - I really do think that there's only one way to deal with this situation. The player who joins Kalistan and plays a fascist has every right to do so in terms of the mechanics of this game. If we want to say that they should not be allowed, then we might as well ditch the game mechanics altogether and become a purely forum game. Your only recourse should be to point them toward the inconsistency of their usage of the mechanics with what has been RPed - if they choose to ignore that RP, they can, insofar as they are allowed to do so by the game rules.

You are the experienced player - you have to make the case for your creation, but you have to do so with the understanding that, yes, you'll probably lose a few nonsensical elections now and then. You'll probably hate those time periods, but you've got to do what you've done - outlast, and synthesize. Show them what good RP is by coming up with ways to integrate any nascent RP they might do into the larger Kalistan story. But don't expect them not to play a fascist party or to make fascist bills - they're allowed to do so.

[Siggon Kristov]

I don't think Doc's real problem is that the player is RPing as a fascist. Where I empathise with him is when players/characters make claims that just don't fit with the political situation. For example, when Darkylightytwo came to Lodamun, he wrote some weird news article which painted Lodamun as some regressive sex-negative state, when our laws were all sex-positive, and it just didn't fit into what the rest of us understood Lodamun to be. I also get annoyed when anyone claims "for decades" without even checking/asking about the history OOC before.

Also, in a state where the official religion is mandatory and blasphemy is a major offence punishable by death, it's common sense that you shouldn't try to slander the religion until after you get to change the laws (Aquinas learned this the hard way). This is how moderate wings of Lodamese Nationalism were born, where players said they were in favour of Lodamese Nationalism, but against restrictive policies. When they got rid of the restrictive policies, they didn't care about being seen as Lodamese Nationalist (or not) anymore.

Significant change is good, but it can kill things when done too rapidly. What I mean here is that you'd spend an entire month transitioning gradually from 1 thing to something else, and a lot of debates and RP can go in within that time. If everything changes in a day, there's not much to talk about. It's just a battle of game mechanics and so on. I appreciate new players who take the time to debate, because that's what I enjoy in the game... debating, and the basic AF news articles I write that most of you find boring/simplistic.

But tbh, apart from the rookie mistake of not distinguishing OOC interactions from IC interactions, I don't see what the new guys in Kalistan had done that was so wrong. I mean asking "are you Socialist or something?" and ignoring the fact that Socialism was a norm in Kalistan, unlike it is in the USA, doesn't make much sense, but I see how he spun off that and changed it to "you're Communists disguising yourselves as moderate Socialists!" which isn't such bad rhetoric if you want your character to resemble someone from the GOP in the USA.

On an unrelated note...

The difficulty of reconciling our RP with these inconsistent mechanics is something that made it incredibly hard for me, over the years, to care about the actual in-game year to year play of Particracy, but it's still a difficulty that exists for everyone.

You've raised this in other words before, but I never really understood until recently.

[Doc]

I don't think Doc's real problem is that the player is RPing as a fascist. Where I empathise with him is when players/characters make claims that just don't fit with the political situation. For example, when Darkylightytwo came to Lodamun, he wrote some weird news article which painted Lodamun as some regressive sex-negative state, when our laws were all sex-positive, and it just didn't fit into what the rest of us understood Lodamun to be. I also get annoyed when anyone claims "for decades" without even checking/asking about the history OOC before.

Also, in a state where the official religion is mandatory and blasphemy is a major offence punishable by death, it's common sense that you shouldn't try to slander the religion until after you get to change the laws (Aquinas learned this the hard way). This is how moderate wings of Lodamese Nationalism were born, where players said they were in favour of Lodamese Nationalism, but against restrictive policies. When they got rid of the restrictive policies, they didn't care about being seen as Lodamese Nationalist (or not) anymore.

Significant change is good, but it can kill things when done too rapidly. What I mean here is that you'd spend an entire month transitioning gradually from 1 thing to something else, and a lot of debates and RP can go in within that time. If everything changes in a day, there's not much to talk about. It's just a battle of game mechanics and so on. I appreciate new players who take the time to debate, because that's what I enjoy in the game... debating, and the basic AF news articles I write that most of you find boring/simplistic.

This is it, precisely. Change is alright, but like many rp aspects of this game, it is completely reasonable to expect that it be built up.

I think my OOC position toward these Parties is being confused with my IC positions toward them. IC, the SP and the LP were the ones who had 750 seats, and if they IC view the positions of these new Parties as being, IC, incompatible with their vision of Kalistan, and there is nothing to prevent them from rigging the system against the new Parties (and there isn't a penalty to be paid by using the mechanic) the only thing that keeps them from doing so is good will. And if no good will has bothered to be built up, why wouldn't the SP take the actions it did, especially if we were interested in keeping the power for the Left and out of the hand of our explicit oposition? We should have justified it as "Well, you ain't us so we aren't about to help you take power from us. Deal with it, win the election and then try to change it back. Sorry, that's democracy..." which is the equivalent of the OOC comment, "Well, sorry, that's the mechanic of the game. That's Particracy for you... Guess you just have to deal with it." But we wouldn't have produced a very satisfying RP environment that way either...

But OOC- I can totally see the points raised here, and this was the impetus for the OP- to ask what you all do to deal with new Parties who don't acknowledge the RP history and rules, either because they are too new to the game to understand just what they are, or because they are interested in playing a Party of a certain type, come hell or high water, which is as incompatible with Kalistan as the Communist or Nazi Parties are to the US political environment (as an example).

And to answer Zanz- if there is no expectation that RP is going to be acknowledged, then I sort of feel the way you feel about the Mechanic- if we can just ignore it, even RPed recent history, because of the inconsistency with the mechanic, then what the heck is the point in putting any time or energy into RP? I may as well just vote against bills I don't like and promote bills that I like, and not debate or RP anything... If it is just going to be ignored by Parties who have no obligation whatsoever to acknowledge them...

[Siggon Kristov]

they are interested in playing a Party of a certain type, come hell or high water, which is as incompatible with Kalistan as the Communist or Nazi Parties are to the US political environment (as an example).

I think this is the problem Zanz has with what you're saying. To define any ideology as incompatible with the politics is really... eh, I don't know the word for it, but it's not something good.

The US has been around for a little under 250 years, and we don't know what's coming there. I don't think we should preserve any nation to be Socialist - or anything else - in a game where 100 years fly by so quickly. I don't think we should preserve any situation where there is a narrow range of ideology and anything outside of that is seen as "incompatible" with the politics there. Let the natural course of things play out. I really can't outright stop Hosianism from taking over Lodamun. Aquinas played in Lodamun and was never able to be in the cabinet, because we labelled his party as a bunch of Hosian sympathisers. I had to rely on wit in debates to convince other players to keep resisting his party. Captain-Socialist and Polites visited Lodamun and were closer to successfully having Hosianism win in Lodamun. Lodamese politics is very heavily anti-Hosian, but I allow it to change with the currents. For a while, it did revert from Lodamese Nationalism and adopt another native religion, Shadowism or something like that.

I will protest against things that don't make sense OOC, OOC. IC, I will just be extremely hostile to my opposition, and cunning with the neutral parties, but I won't really oppose change OOC unless there's something that doesn't make sense at the specific time. We don't have any RP laws IIRC, so the only things I bring up realism in are religion and economics (but shock therapy has been done IRL, so I usually complain about these things IC instead of OOC).

Sometimes it's nice to watch the currents change, you feel the thrill of losing a firm grip on the boring power you've monopolised for a while. You finally have a reason to propose things and debate again.

[Doc]

I will protest against things that don't make sense OOC, OOC. IC, I will just be extremely hostile to my opposition, and cunning with the neutral parties, but I won't really oppose change OOC unless there's something that doesn't make sense at the specific time. We don't have any RP laws IIRC, so the only things I bring up realism in are religion and economics (but shock therapy has been done IRL, so I usually complain about these things IC instead of OOC).

My position exactly. The RP laws we have, as I have explained, build institutions which the mechanic does not cover. They are designed to promote RP in the country. There is no bill which says "Kalistan is now, has always been and will always be a socialist nation." and no RP bills which says "In Kalistan, you may only play as a leftist Party." Our RP laws say "The Constitutional Court exists, and here is how to play it when you want to call it or bring a case" or "Parties are allowed to keep militias, and when you want to register one, here is how you do it."

The mechanic electorate rewards social libertarians and secular moderately small government secular types in Kalistan. The problem is that the RP which happens just ignores anything that we have done, and attempts what is basically unilateral retcon by new players. So... I suppose I have to have faith that the mechanic will sort it all out. What this means, though, is if I can't trust that RP will be enforced with new players, I decreases my incentive to put much time into it.

[SelucianCrusader]

I've taken a look at what you have been subject to in Kalistan, Doc, and I can't blame you for any negative feelings.

There are some people we all have to deal with who just want things to be in a certain way and gets their mind blown when it isn't and nags about "equality" b. s. as a way to get what they desire themselves. You can't argue with them. You can't compromise with them. No matter how nice you are, you'll only be replied to with a not-so-nice response. Those people have sacred away players from the game in the past and it sometimes feels like we need to protect ourselves from those a lot more than we do. This has little with being a new player to do - I've seen examples of this with people who were anything but new to the game.

[Doc]

I've taken a look at what you have been subject to in Kalistan, Doc, and I can't blame you for any negative feelings.

There are some people we all have to deal with who just want things to be in a certain way and gets their mind blown when it isn't and nags about "equality" b. s. as a way to get what they desire themselves. You can't argue with them. You can't compromise with them. No matter how nice you are, you'll only be replied to with a not-so-nice response. Those people have sacred away players from the game in the past and it sometimes feels like we need to protect ourselves from those a lot more than we do. This has little with being a new player to do - I've seen examples of this with people who were anything but new to the game.

Eh, it's alright... its the mechanic, and as screwy as the mechanic is, the rules clearly state it comes first. I am in the process of reorganizing the RP rules, and am calling them RP institutions now, which can be used, but may or may not actually be enforced, to lower the cost of entry for new Players in Kalistan. Whatever... There is really no point in fighting all of this...