An Upcoming Change in Guild Powers!

With the recent interest in templates that seems to have been sweeping over the guild-proper, the council felt it was the right time to reveal something we’ve been working on for maybe a month now. It is not ready to be implemented yet, but you’ll understand as you read more of this post why we’re telling you about it.

I believe we can all agree that in some cases the current powers forum has been relatively ineffective in a number of ways. Specifically:

1) The powers forum has an issue of the requester not checking their post regularly enough for it to get properly evaluated, and the issue of the councilors and mentors forgetting to check, post, and make comments due to RealLife commitments and other sorts of things. As well, the idea of what makes a power ‘good’ is totally subjective to the mentor or the councilor who is on and examining the power.
2) The problems of etiquette keep resurfacing. This should be done with congeniality, where the members respect the opinions of the councilors and at least attempt to either convince or explain what they are saying better, or fix the power to adhere to the advice given. In several cases, individuals who were not the OP have gone on to insult and derail the thread in favor of the OP, but this does nothing else besides frustrate both the guild-members taking the thread seriously, the OP, and the council.
3) The problem of consistency between different things. A lot of powers have surfaced and, to be honest, a lot of variety has been placed in things of similar races. Some of the fomor races don’t have all that variety, and a lot of times simple things such as a ‘werewolf’ have been taken in at least 3 or 4 different directions. However, we have only one world, and in a world, continuity is fairly standard (and more easy to organize).
4) The problem of not posting powers. Let’s face it. Some people don’t post their stuff at all. And retroactively approving powers already in use defeats the point of the system set up. So the question then becomes why do we have a system like this when no one will take advantage of it?

The council took all of these into consideration when forming our new idea, which we are dubbing Powers 3.0. This is a fairly radical idea, and while it may cause initial problems, the gain and the fluidity with which powers will be gotten and evaluated will make for a better standard for a guild as large as us to work with effectively.

The new forum will be structured something like this:

1) Suggested Races to be examined
2) Suggested Powers to be explored
3) Tomes and Histories
4) Your legacies

Let me explain further. The idea is to organize powers into template formats. By this, we mean have a number of different ways to get powers based upon race, skill, or quests. As well, this system will be ever-evolving with new ideas as they develop within the guild.

Each race that the council deems appropriate and the guild seems interested in will get a set number of powers based on what is deemed appropriate for the race-proper. In this way, we will attempt to standardize the different fomor-based and lore-based races that might appear as player characters. However, if you feel your character would not have a power, this can be discussed with the council to figure out how the template shall work for you. In some cases, we have already anticipated role-playing as younger forms of advanced races (succubi) and have designed two templates for young and old individuals alike.

Sets of individual ‘powers’ will also be added to the templates, as there are some things that people can do that others may not. In this case, there will be ‘unique’ powers not necessarily based upon race that players can either start out with or earn via RP quests. Examples of this would be something akin to Dalvar’s “Mana sight” or Teoxihuitl’s “Frost Bite.” Each character will be allowed to choose a certain number of these to start out with depending on their race (as some non-standard races will have powers of their own, it wouldn’t be fair to give them equal choices of powers here), and could possibly earn more through the use of RP events and quests within the guild.

As an addition to the current set of powers, we are also going to make a subset of ‘skills’ in regards to specific organizations within the world of Erinn. People have expressed wanting to deal with political intrigue, factions (such as the bandits), the militaries of the different nations. The council assumed that some of these groups would have special abilities, skills, and rights unique to their specific faction and the job they hold within the faction (ex: Tara would have knights and jousters. The bandits have specialties in desert warface, etc.). Effectively, we’ll be defining the world and allowing characters to interact with a version of Mabi that might suit their interests more than every-day living or battling random people. This could open up a score of RPs and plots that might just enhance the role-playing experience of the guild in general. However, each position should be applied for and earned by the character, so in a sense people cannot just ‘be’ something willy-nilly. Council will discuss it OOC and we’ll see how the IC stuff goes down.

These are the things we are going to bring you, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting off scot-free. We’re actually requesting that all of you assist us by fixing some of your characters to this new rule set. As this was passed, a number of characters (such as my own Entine) will need to be retconned in some way to allow for this change to go through smoothly. We understand the inconvenience. We understand that you may be angry that we are effectively destroying some of what makes some of your characters your characters. But we ask that you look at this project in the big scheme of things, because in the end it’ll be more rewarding and more effective than the current system in place.

Another reason we are bringing this up is because we need your assistance. What races do you want to see in the tomes? What original powers do you think would enhance RP and would be good for the entire guild? What organizations do you want to see built on? Another thing we need done: What from the old powers do you want us to consider salvaging and making amenable to the new system? We want the general membership involved in this project, and when the first version of this goes up, it will still be fixable and changeable. That is the entire point of this project. It will evolve with the guild. As the guild sees it and as the council justifies whether it should exist in the world or not.

This project is far from done. As of now, things will continue as they have been for the last number of months. But when this gets up, we expect people to abide by the new rules as they were written. We are building this for you, and with you, and we hope that you will enjoy the process and be as excited as we are in regards to this positive change in things.

We will be keeping you updated as things progress. We have more ideas for this that we are keeping in reserve. After all, who gives everyone every present before Christmas, eh? We hope you appreciate all the effort being put into this, but please realize more work must be done before this is put into place.

PM anyone on the council, or even me for that matter, if you have any questions. I would love to speak with all of you as we work on this idea together. As a matter of fact, and OOC post will be going up soon to gather your thoughts on what templates and abilities you would like to see.

We love you all, and we hope you will assist us as we do something for the guild, by the guild, and always with the guild.

Yours most sincerely,
The RPS council

Dellinger wrote:3) Tomes and Histories

Ok, this is something I brought up in guild chat after this was posted:
This means we will have a section devoted to RPS records, yes? In the form of IC books, etc, like an RPS library? If so, does this mean we'll need a book keeper? I'm writing something for an RP and if there's a section for this sort of thing, I'd be super mega happy deluxe~<3Personally, I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be happy to make IC records with a section especially set aside for them...

Sin Asmodeus Luxuria wrote:

Dellinger wrote:3) Tomes and Histories

Ok, this is something I brought up in guild chat after this was posted:
This means we will have a section devoted to RPS records, yes? In the form of IC books, etc, like an RPS library? If so, does this mean we'll need a book keeper? I'm writing something for an RP and if there's a section for this sort of thing, I'd be super mega happy deluxe~<3Personally, I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be happy to make IC records with a section especially set aside for them...

Is this like..condensing plots (Like the ultramegaamazingly long Temo plot. >.> ) into a book form?

Well, given that J and Fai are both werewolves (Though I keep forgetting to define J's abilities in that spectrum, and thus, don't ever really mention in when I do RP...Stupid, stupid me...) I would be interested in seeing what the concrete abilities for them are, as far as RPS is concerned.

...But they still won't be as irritating as Vindictus werewolves. Friggin' spazzes.

Soifa wrote:

Sin Asmodeus Luxuria wrote:

Dellinger wrote:3) Tomes and Histories

Ok, this is something I brought up in guild chat after this was posted:
This means we will have a section devoted to RPS records, yes? In the form of IC books, etc, like an RPS library? If so, does this mean we'll need a book keeper? I'm writing something for an RP and if there's a section for this sort of thing, I'd be super mega happy deluxe~<3Personally, I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be happy to make IC records with a section especially set aside for them...

Is this like..condensing plots (Like the ultramegaamazingly long Temo plot. >.> ) into a book form?

Ya, something like that But it'd be IC information, like.. someone could go to the Dunbarton library and check this book out.

I'd like to ask real fast, but would this mean that powers that were approved months ago under the old rules would be reconsidered, or would they still be allowed, just reworked a bit? If at all possible, I'd like to talk about this more myself, due to a number of reasons (1 of them being that I seem to one of the people that applied for powers the most for one character, and a few I believe would not have gotten through anymore if they hadn't been posted so early (Shan's ability to expel Cast-wipes/curses/mind control, for instance)), and I really would like to keep as much as possible with my character (Although I'm hoping I don't have anything really to worry much about, even with the "Unique" traits and things Cru has at the time, many of her other skills are all able to be explained through her condition, and her experience.)

The idea I'm seeing here mainly is to sort stuff out, so that someone can't go claiming that they have so-and-so ability because they are a werewolf, or that they are a giant or some other thing like that. It kinda seems like we're sorting out abilities kinda like Mabi did with race specific skills, only more so, and also with factions and abilities that would come from professions/living conditions one would be under. Swordsmen characters would have advanced meele combat skills and more so with swords, people that live in forests and such an advanced instinct/survival ability (meaning they'd live longer in the wilds cause they know how to survive better).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that is basically the jist of what I'm getting out of this.

In a short answer, yes characters will be able to keep some of their already approved of powers.