A worrying new rule?

[jellybean]

Edit: I wrote a longer comment here, but I've thought better of it. I took some mean digs at other players, and that's not who I want to be or how I want to present myself - if you saw it, I truly apologize.

All I will write is that I think James makes some good points, and I also see too much hate thrown in Rob/Endralon's direction. I think it's become the sort of thing where people attack Rob's RP because it's from Endralon, and look for reasons to dislike it. I think we should all take a step back and cool off a bit on the anti-Endralon rhetoric.

[robmark0000]

First and foremost, thanks for @james, @due and @tundratrekker for their comments and for they stood up for my personal dignity as well. Gratitude, really!

I like when this is brought up, as Aquinas did in the other thread in reference to Vesica. I'm not sure why its cited as something that is somehow proving your point of "power playing" or "god modding". I can tell you that most of the conflicts with the exception of one or two that come to immediate memory, players would approach me and ask if Dorvik would be interested in intervening; often with a very specific purpose of losing. I presume this is due to the well known fact that Dorvik was a military power and had the ability to win a conflict.

I don't want to go for a "counter-attack", especially because we are already too far from the original topic, but on this topic both Aquinas and James have a valid point about you. If you are preaching against "meta gaming" and "god modding", why are you not showing how to loose first? Actually, I think we are all curious when Hutori or Dorvik actually loosed a military conflict, or when Hutori or Dorvik was a victim of invasion or intervention. Regardless of who asked, why asked, I don't believe that there were never a little tiny period of time when you could do something where your countries loosing relevantly.

It is really the "preaching water and drinking wine" category. "I presume this is due to the well known fact that Dorvik was a military power and had the ability to win a conflict" this sentence perfectly shows why you don't have a moral base to criticize me on this topic. Ability to win? Really? You are trying to paint yourself as somebody who wasn't a for-win player, however both you and Vesica are making it well known that you two have ability to win certain conflicts, while assuming others have less or none. Aquinas wrote it better than I could, so I'd link his post about this here.

Does this equate to what Rob has spelled out for us here that he will not permit Endralon to be on the losing end of a military conflict or something "negative" happening to Endralon? Hardly.

As he correctly points out, he has role-played a number role-play narratives and story arcs that involved Endralon facing economic, diplomatic or societal problems and I believe he has done so far more effectively than some other players.

A lot of negative things happened to Endralon since I played. Civil war, terrorist attacks, internal instability, economic recession, loosing Security Council elections, etc. But what I won't permit is that you end a story with 5-6 well-written military posts INSTEAD of me. Maybe once as a gift when you or Vesica loose one too

Are we to assume that we can RP our countries as glistening utopias that have nothing wrong despite the fact that this is a modern day political game?

Haha, Endralon as an utopia? I guess many players would right now fix your sentence with the word "dystopia", but that wouldn't be true either. Endralon is a capitalist-to-hypercapitalist regulated free market economy with a socially liberal population. Similar to what you guys have in the United States, but it also has elements from France, Switzerland or Austria-Hungary. What is your base, your proof to call my work "glistening utopia"? Show it to me, I am desperate to see, even if I don't remember I would write anything utopistic, at any rate, at any time. It was not my intention, thats for sure.

I also disagree entirely with the characterization that Rob is being bullied or harassed by anyone in this thread but I don't think this is an appropriate topic for such allegations, especially from those who have levied it.

Also:

I also welcome that you feel this rule is personally targeting you and your unrealistic role play.

You are in fact making this such a big deal that I can see you're going the route of "If I make it a big enough deal someone will pay attention to me!" or the "If I threaten Moderation they have to pay attention to me!" I guess if thats the route you want to take, you can now deal with the consequences.

[jamescfm]

I like when this is brought up, as Aquinas did in the other thread in reference to Vesica. I'm not sure why its cited as something that is somehow proving your point of "power playing" or "god modding". I can tell you that most of the conflicts with the exception of one or two that come to immediate memory, players would approach me and ask if Dorvik would be interested in intervening; often with a very specific purpose of losing. I presume this is due to the well known fact that Dorvik was a military power and had the ability to win a conflict. Does this equate to what Rob has spelled out for us here that he will not permit Endralon to be on the losing end of a military conflict or something "negative" happening to Endralon? Hardly.

As for James' words of advice: "If you don't like his role-play, don't read it and don't engage with it but your viewing something as unrealistic does not give you permission to engage in the consistent harassment of the player involved." The issue doesn't stem from the RP, it stems from the fact that several players have raised issues with the RP and have pointed out various consequences that might occur at several stages and alas, nothing comes of it. Are we to assume that we can RP our countries as glistening utopias that have nothing wrong despite the fact that this is a modern day political game? I think that's the root of the issue.

I also disagree entirely with the characterization that Rob is being bullied or harassed by anyone in this thread but I don't think this is an appropriate topic for such allegations, especially from those who have levied it.

Robmark has presented numerous examples of how he has engaged with the challenges that a country in Endralon's position would face. The accusation levied against robmark is that he would never let Endralon lose a military conflict, well you would never let Dorvik lose a military conflict nor would colonelvesica let Hutori lose one (at least not based on the evidence that I have seen). The only difference seems to be that robmark is honest about his unwillingness whereas you are not.

On chiefly economic grounds, I find these accusations against him completely baffling. Part of rob's role-play has always been that Endralon is a typical capitalist economy in which there is a wealthy economic elite possessing significant political influence. At no point has he denied this. Whether the same can be said for the players making the accusations is somewhat up for debate, I don't really see what substantive differences exists between the economy of Endralon and the economies of Hutori or Dorvik in terms of economic structure. If you were to look at the in-game variables, I imagine they would be pretty similar.

As for James' words of advice: "If you don't like his role-play, don't read it and don't engage with it but your viewing something as unrealistic does not give you permission to engage in the consistent harassment of the player involved." The issue doesn't stem from the RP, it stems from the fact that several players have raised issues with the RP and have pointed out various consequences that might occur at several stages and alas, nothing comes of it. Are we to assume that we can RP our countries as glistening utopias that have nothing wrong despite the fact that this is a modern day political game? I think that's the root of the issue.

The "several players" who have "raised issues" are almost exclusively the group of long term players who have been involved in the Moderation team and who have primarily played in countries at the top of the economic rankings and associated with the Northern Council. Explicitly those players are you, colonelvesica and Mr.God (with some other players involved to a lesser extent). In each case there is a different degree of culpability for wrongdoing in my opinion.

Outside of this core group there is little complaint about rob, most people find him to be a pleasant (if somewhat eccentric) individual and have no problems engaging in role-play with him. Turning the conversation back the other way though there are dozens of current and former players who will waste no time in telling people about the unpleasant experiences they have had with you personally as a player and as a Moderator. As the saying goes "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones".

As I said from the beginning I would prefer that this matter be handled in an open and mature way in which players avoided spurious accusations and unfounded claims. Not only is almost everything that you have said about rob and about this role-play untrue, it almost all applies to your conduct and your role-play. For me and many other players, this is what we find particularly vexing about the nature of these personal attacks against robmark: they are completely hypocritical.

The recent experience of Hutori provides a good example here: the country was without active role-play for several months but when colonelvesica returned it immediately resumed its position as a regional hegemon despite being surrounded by countries (Telamon, Davostan, Trigunia, Endralon and Dolgava) that were far more active over the period. Personally I find this a little bit unrealistic and unfair compared to the standards applied to other countries but it does not lead me to consistently berate vesica every time that he logs into the Discord server about it.

Like robmark I regret that this discussion necessarily involves generalisations and a critical focus on role-play. In case it was not already clear I would to make explicit that when I say that I find role-play in Hutori or Dorvik unrealistic, that is not a personal judgement on the players involved, I am just highlighting that these criticisms can be levied against many players and that they are highly subjective.

It has to be said that what the likes of Mr.God and Auditorii do in this game is irrelevant to those who are not interested. On the other hand colonelvesica is a Moderator and I think he has a duty not to be involved in this kind of behaviour. From my perspective, his actions are far less problematic than others involved: they do not amount to bullying at least based on what I have seen from the Discord server. At this point though it would be good to hear from him (and potentially from his co-Moderator Chitin too) on two specific points.

As I said earlier in the thread, I believe they should make absolutely clear that the "worrying new rule" giving this thread its title is not going to be implemented. After that I believe there ought to be some recognition that robmark has received excessive scrutiny, that players have consistently blurred the lines between their remarks about Endralon and about him personally and that at times this has strayed into the territory of bullying.

Without meaning to disrespect or patronise, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that robmark is a young adult, non-native English speaker who has been playing the game barely a year being consistently attacked by a group of adult men who have all served in positions of authority within the game and whose combined tenure in the game is longer than rob has been alive. Ultimately one side ought to know better.

[Auditorii]

We boutta get a sermon boys. Buckle up!

[Aquinas]

I want to generally endorse the points made so far in this thread by robmark, James, jellybean and DueWizard. There has indeed been a pattern of unfair and at times downright bullying behaviour towards robmark. I also want to specifically back up jellybean's observation about some of the OOC reaction to Rob's RP involvement in the Malivia situation, because this is something I have noticed as well.

The most important thing I want to communicate in this post is that I value Rob as a member of this community and as a RPer here, and I absolutely want him to feel able to participate here, and to feel comfortable in doing so. The whole anti-Rob/anti-Endralon crusade has gone way, way over the line, and it is not only ridiculous, it is downright obnoxious and as far as I am concerned it needs to stop the day before yesterday.

Something a little bit similar to this happened with John Cracker. It is not acceptable. It has to STOP.

There are individuals here who really need to reflect on their behaviour, and who I feel should offer a personal apology to Rob. Auditorii, Rogue and Vesica, I am sorry if this hurts your feelings, but I am going to name you here. And Chitin, I am going to call you out over the remark you made earlier today on the public Discord server, while all of this was going on:

being "pro-endralonian" is basically being a bdsm submissive to a frail 18 y/o

Turning now to the subject in the title of the thread, which is about how the rules should operate in terms of players receiving "realistic" consequences for their IC RP actions...

This is actually not a new principle in terms of the history of the game. I know some of you will groan when I talk about "the old Game Rules", or "Aquinas's Rules" as they are sometimes called, and I'm not entirely blaming you, but if you will bear with me a moment...

21.3 Players who consent to a particular role-play by acknowledging it in their own role-play cannot then disown it or withdraw their consent from it. For example, if player A role-plays the assassination of player B's character, and player B then acknowledges the assassination in a news post, but then backtracks and insists the assassination did not happen, then he will be required under the rules to accept the validity of the assassination role-play.

21.3.1 Players also consent to the reasonable and predictable consequences of the role-play they consent to. For example, players who role-play their characters as committing criminal offences should expect those characters to experience the predictable judicial consequences of that.

It has, I think, always been the case - long before the old rule above was ever drawn up, in fact - that there have been moments when Moderators have felt it necessary to intervene to do something about that player who just goes too far in imposing his own RP on others. The classic example of this would be when someone RPs their party doing all sorts of violent and blatantly illegal things in their nation and then expects to be able to get away with that with no IC consequences at all.

I suggest it would be more interesting, and more helpful, to talk about how and to what extent Moderation should regulate RP in terms of the whole issue of RP actions and their realistic consequences. Should there be a relatively light touch, which there has been through most of the game's history, or should we have Moderators getting much more involved, even to the extent of forcing players to accept war RP scenarios they do not want to consent to?

It is no secret to those of us who have been around long enough and followed things closely for long enough that Vesica, along with Auditorii and a few others, have a very particular vision of how Particracy should be played, which takes military RP and international RP really, really seriously and lacks empathy for those who are not so interested in those things, or indeed who are interested in those things but do not see eye-to-eye with them on how those things should be done. These types of players are often very enthusiastic, and can produce great RP...although, and let's be honest here, they do need to be watched over by a solid and fair Moderator to check they do not go over the line with their RP, and do not end up trampling over the needs of other players. Some issues begin to arise when these types of players...enter positions of responsibility and influence themselves, even becoming Moderators. And then there is nobody and nothing left to check or balance the over-enthusiasms to which they are prone.

[jamescfm]

We boutta get a sermon boys. Buckle up!

For what it's worth I think this a pathetic response that demonstrates perfectly your lack of restraint and self-awareness. My sincere hope is that the Moderation team will see in your response the epitome of arrogance and respond to this incident and this discussion in complete opposite way. In the short time since you have left Moderation, there has been an almost immediate improvement in the attitude of Moderation towards players that I hope will continue.

[Auditorii]

21.3 Players who consent to a particular role-play by acknowledging it in their own role-play cannot then disown it or withdraw their consent from it. For example, if player A role-plays the assassination of player B's character, and player B then acknowledges the assassination in a news post, but then backtracks and insists the assassination did not happen, then he will be required under the rules to accept the validity of the assassination role-play.

21.3.1 Players also consent to the reasonable and predictable consequences of the role-play they consent to. For example, players who role-play their characters as committing criminal offences should expect those characters to experience the predictable judicial consequences of that.

It has, I think, always been the case - long before the old rule above was ever drawn up, in fact - that there have been moments when Moderators have felt it necessary to intervene to do something about that player who just goes too far in imposing his own RP on others. The classic example of this would be when someone RPs their party doing all sorts of violent and blatantly illegal things in their nation and then expects to be able to get away with that with no IC consequences at all.

I suggest it would be more interesting, and more helpful, to talk about how and to what extent Moderation should regulate RP in terms of the whole issue of RP actions and their realistic consequences. Should there be a relatively light touch, which there has been through most of the game's history, or should we have Moderators getting much more involved, even to the extent of forcing players to accept war RP scenarios they do not want to consent to?

If I might add, I generally agree with this part of your sermon. A rare occurrence, I know. I cannot remember a single instance in which this was applied on anything but a "small" scale, such as characters, certain political incidents, etc. If I remember correctly one of the original "concepts" behind the RP Team was the development of group of players with the authority to react to these sort of things, something that the RP Team never really became iirc.

[Auditorii]

We boutta get a sermon boys. Buckle up!

For what it's worth I think this a pathetic response that demonstrates perfectly your lack of restraint and self-awareness. My sincere hope is that the Moderation team will see in your response the epitome of arrogance and respond to this incident and this discussion in complete opposite way. In the short time since you have left Moderation, there has been an almost immediate improvement in the attitude of Moderation towards players that I hope will continue.

Yes, the rate at which Moderators have threatened Wouter has dramatically decreased because they got their feelings hurt.

[colonelvesica]

I'll unpack this in the morning after I've slept. For now, as I see EXACTLY where it's going... locked

[colonelvesica]

I've unlocked this. If there are to be further additions to this discussion keep it civil. After I've had my coffee, ill address everything in order.