[Discuss] "roleplaying island"

[Timothy Collett]

As you can probably guess, I really like this idea (the RP police  
idea, not the medals--I don't think there are nearly enough medals in  
the game for it to be workable right now, and I don't think people  
give RP medals for the right thing, which would be consistent  
character action, not long narrative RP).  I think that it will  
really revive the FEI, and RP in BattleMaster in general, which is  
one of the best things I've heard in a while (and that includes the  
new tax system *and* the invasion ;-) ).

However, I think that for it to work, you will need to be ready do  
something you have not historically been willing to: manually revert  
events.  It's all very well to object to Jon Doe claiming that the  
reason he banned Alex Rebel was because he read on IRC that he was  
planning to overthrow the government, but unless the ban is reversed,  
and removed from the player history, abusers will still have plenty  
of power.  (Perhaps a stronger example would be if Alex Rebel secedes  
the largest duchy in the realm, and gives as his reason, "I want the  
fame point"--a ban can be manually lifted by the judge who replaced  
the fried one; a duchy can't be un-seceded...)

As for how to go about it, I would hark back to some of the  
suggestions made when the FEI first began: use the list more.   
There's no need to force subscription to the list (though, frankly, I  
*do* think that would be a good idea...people can always set their  
preferences to "no delivery"): just force *sending* to it.

The way I see to do this is to designate certain actions as "RP-heavy  
actions" (or something).  All actions marked thus *must* have  
supporting RP posted to the list--and this is enforced by giving them  
a large textbox like the one for giving a reason for stepping down  
from positions...only this one provides an unlimited (or very large)  
number of characters, and rather than posting ingame, posts to the RP- 
list.

This would almost immediately catch those who don't want to give a  
reason, or give a bogus and obviously unacceptable reason (like those  
mentioned above).  It would also reinforce the spirit of *community*  
RP that has been lacking on the FEI for far too long--as opposed to  
private RP, which, while OK, isn't nearly as interesting, or as  
likely to build trust and, well, a sense of community. (Oh, and  
though I can't code in PHP, I'd be happy to code up some JSP pages  
for it as a proof-of-concept...)

Now, that said, I think there probably *will* need to be a true,  
official "RP police" as well, for at least one major reason:  
investigating alleged use of OOC info IC.

This is, and has always been, the biggest roadblock to commonplace  
public RP of private matters.  People are far too afraid of having  
their private thoughts used against them IC.  I think that forcing  
*more* public RP will help to quell the fear, and make posting  
private thoughts more generally accepted--but if we can really crack  
down on use of OOC info IC, people won't need to fear that their RPed  
inner struggle over whether or not to have the King assassinated and  
take the crown will be used as evidence against them when they're  
banned.

I really think this is a great idea, but I fear that if it's done by  
half-measures, it will end up being a paper tiger.  I'm more than  
happy to help with any stage of it...and I've never been sorrier that  
I don't code in PHP :-/

Timothy Collett
Anaris Family

--

"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do  
nothing."
~ Edmund Burke




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