pinned PLEASE READ PSA: IC Fights/Conflicts and Your Officers

Dear Members,

Quite a few officers and I have noticed the amount of IC fighting and conflict happening in and around the tavern in the past weeks. This is totally cool, and a dynamic part of RP. It is what keeps things interesting, and besides, who doesn't like throwing a punch every once in a while?

There is one thing, however, that would we would like to ask of you as you RP.

As it stands, there are really only 2-3 relatively regular people who ICly deal with these fights and have the authority to enforce our IC clan laws. These few that are around, tend to have mains or frequently-played alts in these positions, and it's beginning to come to the point where some officers, myself included, are feeling very VERY burned out. It's additionally much harder when people constantly question the IC authority of guards and such, and try to walk all over them. Mullet doesn't want to have to RP that way, nor do I.

I'll give you an example from my own experience—
One time, as I tried to RP with Lulie:
"Lady Nightwind, wh-" *interrupted by another fight, Elsy shouts some things, it gets settled* "Miss Nightwind, are you from arou-" *interrupted again* "I guess you're busy..." *Lulie walks away*

I was unable to RP because of the fights in the area. I could not even carry a simple conversation. But I couldn't really ignore it because, well it's Elsy, and she wouldn't do that. But I can say, it's beginning to come to the point where 60% of my RP is dealing with these fights and conflicts. Which, normally I don't have an issue with doing, I would just like some more time to be able to RP the way I'd like to, without being interrupted, and not having to feel burned out and deterred from RP due to the amount of issues I end up dealing with ICly.

And I know I'm not the only administrator feeling this way.

So, while I DEFINITELY do NOT want to discourage you guys from RPing the way you'd like to, nor do I wish to discourage your amazing ideas, conflicts, fights, and so forth, I would just like to ask you to be a bit aware of this, and perhaps help us out in some ways:

• Instead of yelling and screaming and bordering verbal abuse, try taking it to a friendly hand-to-hand duel outside in the courtyard. It helps relieve the stress and tension. Just make sure it's kept honest, and everyone consents. Get someone to monitor if you really have to.
• Join the guard! We need more people to help enforce laws.
• If your character is the type to do so, step in and try to calm people down.
• Have some sort of other way to settle a conflict, i.e., drinking contest, some sort of game, and the like.
• Consider what your characters challenge. Would your character really challenge the law/authority figure? If yes, is it worth challenging? If yes, then go for it! If no, perhaps it's something to let go.
• Bring it out of town. Especially if you want to do something illegal and don't want to get caught. We can't ICly do anything about something we don't ICly know about and clan guards don't patrol outside the town. As long as all parties involved agree on everything done there, it's fine to battle it out or do illegal things there, and saves our characters the need to get involved.

Additionally, we may be having to crack down on our laws, and perhaps lengthen jail times, so that violators of the law have a bit more realistic consequences. This would make it so your characters would have to stay in the jail for whatever duration, or roll with an officer present for a breakout of the jail (though be wary, if you're successful, and caught out of jail, you can bet your punishment is going to be worse). This isn't any major change, more so just a better enforcement of what we already have in place. We're also considering legalizing spars as a way to settle a fight. Though none of this is set in stone, and we have yet to talk about this at an officer meeting. I will update later with what is decided.

If you DO happen to have story arcs that involve major fights and possible arrests and/or don't mind dealing with the IC consequences to your characters actions, that's fine. This thread is not to say that we're trying to get out of having our guard/authority figure characters do their jobs. We're just beginning to feel overwhelmed and would appreciate it if the petty, less serious IC fights are settled in ways where we don't have to constantly intervene.

I just wanted to post this so everyone knew how some of us in the administrative team were feeling, and so that you guys would be aware of it, and consider it as you RP. We know you all just want to have lovely RPs with lots of wild and crazy amazingness, and I love that. Just please try to help now and again.

Thanks <3

Love,
Elsy

Elsynia wrote

-Instead of yelling and screaming and bordering verbal abuse, try taking it to a friendly hand-to-hand duel outside in the courtyard.

D:

POWERFUL wrote

Elsynia wrote

-Instead of yelling and screaming and bordering verbal abuse, try taking it to a friendly hand-to-hand duel outside in the courtyard.

D:

It's happened before and worked out well. I remember Elros and Alena got into a shouting match and settled it with a friendly fight. The fight ended in a hug.

Edited a bit.

Bumping - PLEASE READ

I surely belive that it is hard to manage all the little fights that happening during the day, even when i wasnt able to get online yet when all the events and stuff is going on... *DMAN YOU TIME ZONES!!!!*

But you are right Elsy. As a good RPler, you something have to think to yourself "Is it worth to get into trouble now?". Most of the times in real life you would say now, but in a RP the conflicts are there to have fun... which is also a problem especially for people like you that have to look over such things. However, i also appeal to some RPlers that they should take more care of they character. Especially people that get into a knife fight, got heavily injured, getting healed up in 2 days just to jump into another conflict again to get injured.

Sometimes you have to think yourself into the character and be like "Do i really like to get knifed again?" i guess not xD. Yes RP always should stay excited, but maybe you have to do it in a different way now and then. Going for a great adventure at a nearby dungeon soon? Why not playing 1 day as how you prepare yourself with your friends, making plans what kind of loot there might be and stuff like that.

I looking forward to 'Master' my own story one day with people that are recently online at my times. I hope i will be able and allowed to do this but this is something where every player can gets involved into in a OOC way and play a role like a NPC (just for 1 or 2 days) that he has to play ordered by the Master in IC.

Now i talked to much and forgot what i actually wanted to say... Oh yeah:

"Everyone, just play your character like the way would to see yourself in such special situations."

Opo o3o

Already read this when it was originally posted, but it would be beneficial to point out that Kashya has witnessed two ICly fights, a murder, and two attempted assassinations in the past *three* days. This should speak for how empty the guard is at the moment.

There is always a need for more guards but the problem is that most people do not want to join them because it feels more like a job half the time than just RP. I've rp'ed a guard and I have a BSR Guard character now who's one of my alts. And when I do rp as a guard, I'm pulled away from an rp that I'm in the middle of, to take care of yet another fight/argument/attempted murder/drug bust AND I have to deal with the many characters that like to undermine the Guards. It's really not fun when you spend about 2+ hours trying to diffuse a fight only to be either ignored or challenged by so many at once. Everyone that RPs a guard/healer/bartender or other similar character has noticed that there is a problem, and more so lately, with constant fights in the town and it needs to be taken care of. From what I've witnessed, it seems to almost always involve the same characters and even when a guard stops one fight, another just takes its place. So when it's happening that often, people get burnt out of RPing the lawful character very quick. It's why I pulled out two of my characters from healing and bartending. It's just not fun anymore when it's constant. Just standing there every night for 3 plus hours healing, serving drinks, breaking up fights and then be told you're doing a bad job at it, really doesn't help keep people rping that job or get people to want to join in too.

Maybe if the new punishments are followed and the fights don't happen four or five times a night, then more people will join these factions and have fun with it.

I agree entirely with Lu. More guards will certainly help but we can't force people to play them. It's why we're turning to asking you guys to come up with alternatives for fights or to find ways to settle it that won't constantly need us lawfuls to intervene.

Because 1) it's tiring to have to keep intervening and 2) a lot of characters just yell at us, hate us, and we feel ICly frustrated when that happens. And while playing IC frustrated is nice once in awhile, logging in to RP as a frustrated character every night is NOT fun. At least, not at all for me.

So this PSA is to just get people to think about how they're RPing, realize that their RP does effect others and the officers/IC lawfuls, and to see if people can't start to balance being OOC considerate of people and their RP time while still playing their character the way they want.

Kashya Vulano wrote

Already read this when it was originally posted, but it would be beneficial to point out that Kashya has witnessed two ICly fights, a murder, and two attempted assassinations in the past *three* days. This should speak for how empty the guard is at the moment.

Hence the reason the current active guards are tots burned out. Imagine being one person trying to deal with that murder, two assassination attempts, and two fights while having the town side against you and still try to grow your own character via rp. This is the reason for this PSA, trying to calm the fighting and crazy while the guard gains members and recovers.

It's not just a lack of guard, there is a lack of guard for a reason.

I'd like to point out too that there was a time when we had at least three very active characters as guards, who basically wore the uniform 24/7 and would always jump at the chance to solve an issue ICly, but sadly one of the characters is IC'ly dead and the other two left the guard because the IC and OOC stress was just too much and the constant undermining and fights were not fun anymore. So there really has been some attempt on the guard side to stop the fights but they need the public to also work with them, both in IC and OOC.

Lucrezia wrote

I'd like to point out too that there was a time when we had at least three very active characters as guards, who basically wore the uniform 24/7 and would always jump at the chance to solve an issue ICly, but sadly one of the characters is IC'ly dead and the other two left the guard because the IC and OOC stress was just too much and the constant undermining and fights were not fun anymore. So there really has been some attempt on the guard side to stop the fights but they need the public to also work with them, both in IC and OOC.

Yep, but it gets hard for people like Menelin and Elsy who CAN'T leave. I can't resign as Treethane for IC and OOC reasons. We feel stuck. Neither of us is having fun anymore. And so something needs to be done to fix that. I don't want to have to leave RP for this. And I don't want to have to make a new character just to get a spare moment. I should be able to play who I want.

Elsynia wrote

Yep, but it gets hard for people like Menelin and Elsy who CAN'T leave. I can't resign as Treethane for IC and OOC reasons. We feel stuck. Neither of us is having fun anymore. And so something needs to be done to fix that. I don't want to have to leave RP for this. And I don't want to have to make a new character just to get a spare moment. I should be able to play who I want.

I completely understand. I wish I had more time to dedicate to my guard character but he's there when needed. I think this, along with the new thread on IC punishments is a great start to lower the stress on Elsy and Menelin, hopefully. I know that SCC did the IC punishment thing an it did help stop the characters that always seem to find trouble from constantly being arrested every day. It just makes you think twice about committing a crime when you know you can't rp that character for up to two IRL weeks. Perhaps even think of the idea of an invisaguard being in the tavern at all times that can be controlled by officers when there's not an IC guard available to wallflower the tavern at all times?

Hloriella wrote

Hence the reason the current active guards are tots burned out. Imagine being one person trying to deal with that murder, two assassination attempts, and two fights while having the town side against you and still try to grow your own character via rp. This is the reason for this PSA, trying to calm the fighting and crazy while the guard gains members and recovers.

It's not just a lack of guard, there is a lack of guard for a reason.

Aye, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that 'somebody needs to do something about this,' and I'm not trying to blame anybody. I see the problem just as well, and it's frustrating. I am simply stating that the guards are understaffed; nothing more than the observation, agreeing with Elsy's original post. An announcement solely meant to recruit guards may be beneficial, in this case; with new members around, advertising the guard a bit may positively alter their numbers.

Nevertheless, Kashya has been watching the tavern herself ICly for the past week since no guard has been around, from about 4-12am. She will likely join the guard, as nobody is usually around except for Teeny around those times.

It is very evident that the guard tends to find themselves exhausted, but a few more members have joined the guard in the past few days, have they not?

My main, Krimie is now a guard. I'm not sure if this is a good thing though. But if you try to cross her, yer gonna pay. Just ask Hlor.