Re: Emraht

[Postmaster]

Originally posted by Armitace

Greetings,

With all due respect, what Emraht suggested is encouraging a
limit of role-playing, in my eyes.

What you are in effect saying, is that you need a bunch of
people in lesser guilds (like the gladiators or the mercenaries)
who cannot role-play, and should never be encouraged by their
guild to role-play because they are just there to offer the
basics.

But, then you can have a couple of more elite guilds which
can offer greater power to a smaller populace, with the lure
of role-playing as the standard of 'responsibility' (for a
lack of a better term) of having and using greater powers.

What does that do? Well, it will make the rich, richer. And
the poor, poorer.

We will have a few long-term players, who are enticed to
remain in those powerful guilds, and whose ability to role-play
will not be questioned (because of course, they had to
prove themselves to get that far in the first place) and
then a bunch of transitory people who are not encouraged
to role-play at all, so they can just quickly join a
guild, hang around for a couple years as filler, and
then leave to be replaced by another faceless entity.

Will it encourage everyone to role-play? Of course not.
If EVERYONE followed that path, then only the most
powerful guilds would have any population. Then the
wizards would have to either close the 'basic' guilds
or 'downgrade' the advanced one. Beyond that, only so
much training and supervision and judging of 'appropriate'
role-playing players can go on at any one time. So,
even if EVERYONE is trying their hardest, there is still
going to be a separation and judgement on who is the
better role-player and who is not.

As to the comments about how high role-playing ranks
on the list of Genesis priorities. Well, quite honestly,
in my best opinion, it unfortunately ranks lower than
where I would like to see it. Not because I think that
everyone has to role-play, but because I think that
it can create a better atmosphere which will encourage
more 'new' players to stay with us.

I do not think that we should worry about role-playing
and its relation to the powers a guild has. I think
that those two concepts should remain apart. I think
that role-playing is a personal matter, and as stated
in my previous note, aside from keeping in tune with
certain domain specific guilds and their history,
should remain a personal matter. The ability (as we
seem to judge it) to role-play, or not, should not
be the primary focus. Because at that point, we are
not encouraging people to role-play, we are forcing
them to follow the same list of actions which someone
else feels is role-playing for them.

Role-playing should be about playing the role that
YOU find enjoyable. So long as it falls within the
acceptable boundaries (see the rules on harassment)
If in order to become a Ranger, you have to be a
clone of Aragorn or Faramir (but never Boromir, whom
one could argue was a Ranger even though he had
left Ithilien before the books detailed what those
Rangers were) Or if you have to be a Sturm Brightblade
to become a knight, but never a Derek Crownguard. Well,
these are examples of how we are betraying even the
literary sources which inspire those guilds. And as
such, how a guild council can actually inhibit role-play
instead of encourage it.

I would love to see everyone create a diverse and complex
character, but I admit it is not likely to happen. However
much I might want that, I do not think that trying to have
guilds force the issue is the solution. All that will do,
is shrink our player-base. In my experience, the best way
to get more people to role-play, is to provide an example
with your own actions, and hope that they will reciprocate.

Armitace's player.