Goblin Squad Member
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I have conferences until 8:oo pm and after sitting with parents for 7 hours, I don't know about tackling a several hour TS meeting. Shall we shoot for next Thursday and take advantage of the extra time to contact everyone who has replied here?
Sounds good to me!
I should be around for TeamSpeak at random times through the weekend, and have blocked out next Thursdat evening definitely.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I have conferences until 8:oo pm and after sitting with parents for 7 hours, I don't know about tackling a several hour TS meeting. Shall we shoot for next Thursday and take advantage of the extra time to contact everyone who has replied here?
Are we still on for tonight? I should be around after about 7 pm EST.
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Goblin Squad Member
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In attendance: Cyneric (Maelstrom), Khas (Pax), Aleron (TEO), Decius Brutus (The Seventh Veil), Avari3 (The Seventh Veil), Morbis (Maelstrom), Hobs (as himself)
Before I get into what was covered, I want to say that this was one of the most pleasant and amiable meetings I've had yet on PFO Fan (not that there have been any shouting matches prior). To have a chat-room full of people so similar in both shared desire and willingness to work together for mutual benefit was very inspiring.
Our first topic of discussion was the purpose and function of this group. We reached these common beliefs:
1. That this collection of RP coordinators (we avoided the term "RP Council" like the plague) is a meta-game group of like-minded individuals interested in working together to promote RP in PFO.
2. Regardless of our affiliations or the in-game status of those affiliations (alignment, wars, in-character tensions, etc.), we need to keep this group on the meta-game level and contacts between us open for the sake of RP on the server.
3. For RP to flourish, it often benefits from the intentional actions of experienced RPers, and that larger scale RP activities may require the collaboration of a number of these people. In short, really fun things often don't happen unless someone who knows how takes the bull by the horns and puts it in motion. If those people are actively working together to put things in motion, the whole community benefits.
4. Though each CC/settlement/etc. can and will certainly run internal RP events, the main focus of this group is to help promote RP on a larger/broader scale. To this end, when possible, groups need to support each other's RP initiatives. Without support across the PFO community, RP initiatives will likely not expand outside the hosting group's zone of influence (their own CC/settlement/etc.). We wish to avoid the scenario whereby RP becomes an activity cloistered away from the rest of the community, among only a group's trusted members and friends, and is often viewed by outsiders as a cliquish practice at best. For RP to thrive on a server-wide basis, we need to support one another's RP initiatives.
5. We seemed to agree that the best plots/story-arcs are those that are not scripted, but rather put in motion and allowed to take their natural course via organic (rather than manipulated or scripted) player involvement.
We then delved into a discussion of how we might further promote RP in the game. The wide ranging scope of the list below embodies that discussion.
1. List of Possible RP Events
Khas provided a list of events that he had generated. We thought other RP Coordinators might like to see this to either use ideas that fit their CC/Settlement's "theme" or as a springboard for generating their own list:
Fashion Show
Cookout/Beach Party
Scavenger Hunt
Date Auction
Trade Faire (Crafting)
Flight Path Run
Ball or Dance
Bard Event - Skits, poetry, stories
In-character Dungeon Run
Beauty Pageant
Fishing Contest
Carnival
Races
Player Quests
Pub Night
"Volunteering" - Help the Lowbies Night
Guild Lotto/Raffle
Naked Dungeon Runs (Hobs note - this may be a strictly Paxian pass-time...we're not really sure and we're not asking)
Costume Party
Games
Riddle competition
To help those with less experience at organizing and managing such events, I mentioned the sample of Event Templates I have posted in the past. I would love to see others donate their own templates to the collection.
2. Institutionalizing RP
We revisited Avari3's position that RP needs to, as often as is possible, be tied to other existing game activities and mechanics. In past discussions, I have called this "institutionalizing RP", in that it would tie RP to some of the institutional practices of MMOs - economic practices, political practices, etc. For instance, hosting a community market promotes not only the actual buying and selling, the establishment of future customer/crafter networks, the generation of contracts, and the development of new social ties, but it is also a prime opportunity for people to RP with one another while doing all those things, as well as an opportunity for tangent RP activities...performers, games, competitions, theft, etc.
Another means by which RP could be tied to the game's existing institutional practices is for political activities to be performed in-game as much as possible. Instead of every negotiation being done over Team Speak, we would like to promote the idea of at least some of those discussion/negotiations/ceremonies/etc. being performed in-game, so as to enable all the fun RP that could revolve around such events (e.g. face-to-face meetings and the travel and security concerns involved with same, signing of agreements, ceremonies, kidnappings, etc.).
3. In-house RP Education
Some "guilds" (hard to get past the old names for groups) may already have this, but we thought it worthwhile to mention that guilds may want to provide their membership with a written guide or even member mentors from which to learn RP. New players often have very little experience with RP, yet with a little guidance and modeling, many warm to the idea. Certainly, each guild will choose to emphasize RP within their ranks as they see fit, as well as their own interpretation of how to RP.
4. General Description of RP
On a similar note to #3, for those not in a guild to benefit from such guidance, we thought this group might create/borrow/steal our own broad guide to RP. We tossed together a Google-doc before we broke up and we will be banging out something in the not too distant future. Again, THIS IS IN NO WAY to be considered a dictate on how anyone should RP. It is simply a collection of helpful suggestions for those who are new to the RP experience. We also intend to provide links to those guilds who have their own RP guides so that new players can find the best fit for their RP, if they so choose.
5. Meeting Place
Our final thought was that we, as a group, need a place where we can meet, post ideas, hold discussions, store documents, etc. We also wanted a central location where the general public would be able to contact any of the RP Coordinators. For now (though I am more than happy to hand over hosting to any better suited website), we decided to set up shop at PFO Public Square which is a site I had constructed a long while back for possible RP event discussion. One of the main reasons for choosing this hosting site was the calendar feature, which we thought was pretty darn crucial when planning events. Currently the site is free, but I'm going to look into how much it might costs to gain more beneficial features and possibly remove the irritating spam-advertising. Again, if a better site exists for the benefit of the RP community, you won't offend me by suggesting it.
Sorry for the length of the post, but we did not record the meeting and I wanted those not present to have a full view of what we discussed. If I left anything out or misrepresented any participants' ideas, please chime in. Besides the Google-doc that we'll be working on, members also left with a bit of homework...to see how open their leadership was to items #2 and #3 immediately above. Again, sorry for the length.
Hobs
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thank you for the summary, Hobs, and also thanks to those who were part of the discussion. I'm very sorry I missed it! (And power was out until about midnight - apparently a large old oak tree branch was to blame. Proof that it doesn't take high winds or heavy rain to cause havoc.). These points sound great, and I'm looking forward to working with the group more.
