To all Multi-time NLs & SLs; Questions

[Javert 5573]

Hello there, if you read the title you can probably figure out what this is. If you've been a NL/SL multiple times (doesn't matter if for the same nation/settlement or different ones), here's a few questions for y'all!

 

1. What's your favorite part about being an NL/SL?

 

2. What's your least favorite part about being an NL/SL?

 

3. What's your most prominent memory as an NL/SL?

 

4. If you led your Nation/Settlement into a war, do you regret it and did it turn out to be fun? If yes/no, why?

 

5. Did you inherit your Nation/Settlements most of the time or build them from scratch? Or was it different each time?

[MailC3p 1159]

Never been an NL/SL, just wanted to be first comment

[seannie 6856]

[Dogged 2129]

1. What's your favorite part about being an NL/SL? Having a community to always come online to and hangout with.

 

2. What's your least favorite part about being an NL/SL? The ooc part of settlement and nation building

 

3. What's your most prominent memory as an NL/SL? Building Sedan as a whole.

 

4. If you led your Nation/Settlement into a war, do you regret it and did it turn out to be fun? If yes/no, why? Never regret any of the wars I participated in because it all worked out in the end.

 

5. Did you inherit your Nation/Settlements most of the time or build them from scratch? Or was it different each time? Build! Build! Build! Build! Build! Build! Build! Build! Build! Build! Build! (Best way to build a small community and friend group.)

[Mannamannaa 1626]

Well hello there! I play Kor'garr, who was first Dominus (SNL) and then Rex (NL) Of the War Kingdom/ Rexdom of Krugmar almost a year and a half ago. It has since been rebranded multiple times with massive OOC community changes but the overall nation lorewise is the same. I look forward to answering these questions!

[writing responses now]

[NotEvilAtAll 9940]

Never been a settlement leader under current rules (I'm just the Mayor of Bywater, not it's Settlement Leader).

 

I did lead an independent Dunshire for a while in Atlas as its Mayor. You can also argue I count as a Co-Leader along with KingOfHearths in Bywater due to how much event and build stuff I do.

 

1. What's your favorite part about being an NL/SL?

It's really satisfying when your settlement is successful and active. I also think planning events can be really fun and I enjoy making crazy storylines that break creatively use server lore.

 

2. What's your least favorite part about being an NL/SL?

You don't actually get to be a REAL player in your own community. You're always a slave spamming out forum and discord notices for events and whatnot. It's nice to sit back and enjoy experiences and roleplay crafted by others but sometimes you don't get that when leading a settlement b/c if you aren't personally doing anything nothing is happening.

 

My favorite type of player is the player who plans their own events and storylines, makes their own builds, starts their own conflicts & narratives without asking anyone. Some control-freak SLs or NLs might not like these players, but I'm always very fond of them because they take pressure off of me and add a bit of unpredictability that you don't get otherwise.

 

If you ever are an SL or NL and are wondering "Why is everybody reliant on ME and me alone for roleplay and events?", it's because you haven't properly cultivated the above type of players in your settlement. These players are rare and valuable commodities and it sucks whenever they go inactive or quit, so honestly I think the server as a whole ought to promote these sorts of people. To many people are passive in their roleplay instead of actively creating narratives when nothing else is going on.

 

3. What's your most prominent memory as an NL/SL?

Probably doing religious diplomacy with the Orcish Shamans roughly a week ago. I didn't do too much besides generic tavern events when I was Mayor in Dunshire. so I don't have too many big memories of that. Most of my memories of that time period are when other halflings took charge and made big changes, creating the Thaindom system that still survives to this day (somewhat).

 

4. If you led your Nation/Settlement into a war, do you regret it and did it turn out to be fun? If yes/no, why?

Halflings have never been in a war so I wouldn't know. The only thing that comes close is when a few halflings rallied for Haense during the War of the Wigs. I don't regret that (got some pretty cool footage for my YouTube channel), but nothing was at stake for us personally as it wasn't really our war to care about.

Independent halflings have absolutely NEVER been in a war (apart from antag stuff in old maps). The above was when halflings used to be a Haense vassal (no longer the case!). We have zero plans for wars of any kind in Bywater so I don't expect to see one in the future.

 

5. Did you inherit your Nation/Settlements most of the time or build them from scratch? Or was it different each time?

Inherited. I was elected Mayor in Dunshire and, when we moved back to a Democratic system in Honeyhill and then Bywater, I've been elected Mayor again.

@Hearth pls give ur opinion as the current REAL OOC settlement leader of Bywater, I think it'd be cool.

[Werew0lf 12022]

I enjoy playing a god. To see all these players bend at my knees.

 

I always make sure to let people in my roleplay circle know they aren’t as good as me. That’s the most fun part about it.

In my spare time, I enjoy belittling others who aren’t apart of my roleplay circle - why aren’t they worthy? 

 

That is all. 

[Cracker 4556]

I haven't been the official NL or SL of a community since 2016, but I do think that building nations and settlements is some of the most fun you can have in the game if you have the patience and team to get it done.

 

1. What's your favorite part about being an NL/SL?

 

Watching a community grow and become a mainstay in the LotC canon can bring you a strong sense of achievement. To me, what settlement building is about is doing your best to build a creative and organized space where people can log in to find and create narratives easily. When it's successful, you leave behind an ethos, culture, and community that will long outlast you, and make people feel like the stories they invest on the server will live on through an active, player-made community that continues it.

 

You also have a unique opportunity to delve into building a creative canvas. As a NL/SL, you are responsible for setting the tone and culture of a community on LotC. When you're successful, you've effectively sold a world and vision that you designed to a group of online strangers - there's something extremely rewarding in that.

 

2. What's your least favorite part about being an NL/SL?

 

Dealing with raids that aren't narrative driven, as well as dealing with people who feel entitled to your work. Sometimes it feels like LotC is just an on-going improv class where you can elect to pelt dodgeballs at the actors whenever you like. As a NL, the rules are often set up in such a way that while you try to organize a movie scene between all the builds and actors you're trying to work with, you're being raided with impunity from people that are not even putting 1% of the same effort in designing their narratives or growing their communities. Some people treat the game like it's a single-player GTA campaign, and that totally undermines the cohesion you might be trying to accomplish as a NL. The standard for good faith in conflict can be quite low, in that regard.

 

I also find it frustrating in how being a NL can limit your scope on LotC - you may want to be involved in other projects on the server, but you end up largely confined to the community you are cultivating. There aren't a lot of tools to meet other groups or organizations in the middle. Nations interact sparingly through events, but there aren't many narrative bridges that really help tie the world together, and the world can feel very zero-sum, especially in human RP.

 

Finally, there are always tough decisions to be made, especially when you are involved with nations at scale, that you often lead to people feeling excluded, or you having to decide between the lesser of the two evils. Whenever you entertain the latter, it tends not to be worth it anyway. At this point, I've learned it is always better to fight for the good option, or just walk away if you can't find it.

 

3. What's your most prominent memory as an NL/SL?

 

In general, seeing the cool flavor that emerges in a successful settlement. Orcish caravans, strelt culture in Kralta, anarchy of an Adrian Duma, assembling the Nauzica, sushi shops and chicken parm in Helena, etc - whenever I really sit down with my thoughts about what gave me joy in running a settlement, it's seeing some novel idea of that settlement become a cultural mainstay of the community, and knowing that you worked on building a creative space for a group's ideas to flourish.

 

I think when I look at my early runs at being a NL like being Rex of the Orcs in 2012 or Holy Orenian Emperor in 2013, I think the prominent memory is really the moment where I actually earned that title. Everything after felt clumsy and difficult, even if they worked out in the end, largely because so much of my time was spent trying to prove to others that I deserved those positions. Later, when I learned to enjoy the process for what it is and pay less mind to the actual title, I think the prominent memories come instead from serendipitous moments with your peers, or seeing an institution you've built during your tenure as an NL/SL ripen. 

 

4. If you led your Nation/Settlement into a war, do you regret it and did it turn out to be fun? If yes/no, why?

 

The only war that I could say I truly enjoyed all aspects of leading was an old Orc-Dwarf war in 2012, and that was because the scope of the war was decided early on to not involve annexation or political takeover. Everything else was usually predicated on the goal of annihilation, and even if the outcomes were favorable, it still was a process that was intensive and often unnecessarily stressful.

 

5. Did you inherit your Nation/Settlements most of the time or build them from scratch? Or was it different each time?

 

I've only 'inherited' one settlement in 2015. The rest were all effectively built from scratch, or redesigned in such a way that they may as well have been from scratch. It's a fun and creative process, though I will say working within the constraints of an existing settlement and community has its own rewards and challenge as well.

[puffables 1125]

retired now (and hopefully for good) but yknow how lotc is;
1. What's your favourite part about being an NL/SL?

i loved being able to contribute to the communities i love in meaningful ways, and i love getting to know new players + helping them settle into the community !! i think being able to communicate so directly with staff was pretty cool, hanging out with folk in the nl chat etc (but then again, similar and even better vibes through that from when i was on CT!). its rly nice to get some insight into the behind the scenes and feel like you're really playing a part in keeping the cogs of the server turning, and it genuinely does feel like such an honour to represent your community - both current, and the numerous players who've passed such a rich rp history down to you.

 

2. What's your least favourite part about being an NL/SL?

not gonna lie, on the overall i absolutely hate being an NL/SL; i'm much more of a sidelines sorta person. love making fun little events, doing little bits here and there.

 

being an NL is so stressful and props to those who can do it without feeling just completely drawn away from the rp itself - ooc bs sucks ass. suddenly. its no longer 'your character' making decisions for the sake of story, but a whole string of requirements for vague ooc settlement-survival stuff. i am someone who loves pure rp, and loves rping from an 'undergaming' type perspective, and it sucks to find yourself having to instead weigh in all these other bits and pieces - because if you do make a bad call, its no longer a 'character quirk' part of fun dynamic rp, its 'possibly gacking a community's beloved rp-hub that they've entrusted you with etc etc'.

 

highkey i think NLs need more bonding sessions. like, cmon, NL game night; i think a lot of NL's are pushed into a mindset of aggression and distrust of other NLs, and i would LOVE to see more communities working collaboratively on a storyline between them; conflicts for the fun of the plot, tongue-in-cheek aggression between two parties that can be resolved in a satisfying way without the ooc shtfest 'winner-takes-all' 'other guys bad as ooc people' mentality that comes with it.

 

3. What's your most prominent memory as an NL/SL?

oh god thats a difficult one. i'd like to say that my most prominent memories were the good times, but ngl probly the most prominent memory as NL was being kicked off it lmao - whilst majorly upsetting and stressful at the time, esp as i was under a lot of stress from irl stuff, looking back on it, was pretty interesting and fun rp !!  

not as an NL, but two good memories otherwise are a bit of scenic rp i did with a player i never met before (who is now a good friend)  trying to set up a telescope, and looking out to the stars. another is from i think war of two emps?? where we gathered this huge rally, such a hype energy and taking some screenshots together with this community we'd gathered rly put it into perspective. around this time also we had a lot of ooc game nights and man do i love a bit of scribbl.io.

 

4. If you led your Nation/Settlement into a war, do you regret it and did it turn out to be fun? If yes/no, why?

Lots of things i regret from times as NL, especially because a lot of the time i spent as NL was also during some of the most busy times of my IRL life; i regret not being able to put in the proper time and energy as NL, then playing for like 3 days straight when i had time, stressing tf out of goings-ons and then burning out so quick. I think wars can be fun, and I rly enjoyed a lot of the war rp and the kinda community-building of rallying for warclaims!

 

i do however wish that i had more of a choice to not get involved in wars, as they are majorly draining - i think it would have been nicer to focus on some internal development and more chill, internal storylines, and probly would have been less gruelling and stressful than one war chat/diplo chat after the other. another regret  - as mentioned earlier, i rly would have loved to try and get some actual, ooc-friendly, fun minor conflict going with another nation ! we see the 'shared events' 'culture exchange' thing more often nowadays, which is cool, but like,, a more drawn out storyline with a bit more depth than just 'attending each others' events' would have been sick to do - if i ever return to lotc for an extended period of time, this is probably one of the things i would like to spark most (as well as my goddamn cursed pirate town project... shalesport, forever in the google doc drafts...)

 

5. Did you inherit your Nation/Settlements most of the time or build them from scratch? Or was it different each time?

Inherit ! though, i'd never call them just 'mine' - the hnor community is ancient. lots and lots of brilliant people working on keeping the spark going, passing down the torch of one of the oldest consistent cultures on the server. 

 

i think if i ever became some sort of NL/SL again, i'd really like to try make something from scratch. honestly, i feel like there's a lot less pressure and i'd feel a lot more free to just play with stories, rather than the overwhelming fear of accidentally snuffing out an ancient flame.

 

[monkeypoacher 6993]

as king of telemar my favorite thing about being a nation leader was having a cool castle and crown and scepter. my least favorite thing was not having players to see my cool castle and crown and scepter

[TwilightWolf 883]

How insightful! I love this question.

I led Malinor during the switch to Anthos until my character stepped down. Currently, I'm helping to lead a little druid community in the Atoll!

 

 

1. What's your favorite part about being an NL/SL?

I really enjoy getting to meet so many new people and their characters. I still chat with a lot of people that have moved on and consider them close friends, one of them even helping me land a professional script writing job for a documentary channel!

 

2. What's your least favorite part about being an NL/SL?

In my experience I have felt a tremendous pressure to provide what I hope to be a good payout for players' investment in traveling to the place where the nation/guild/group roleplays. I figure if somebody has come out of their way to roleplay with me or my group I led, it makes sense to give them a worthwhile experience (time permitting)! 

Of course, this isn't a terrible thing at all, but sometimes it can feel like a 'bartender in the weeds' so to speak, juggling good roleplay but also keeping your head cool with bumps in the road AND ensuring that you're not breaking character, playing fair etc. The amount of 'stuff' nation leaders need to keep in mind is pretty mind boggling, especially now with an implemented economy system. That wasn't a challenge I faced then, or at least not nearly as tricky!

 

In short, I suppose the best and the worst part of nation leading inherently go together. It's great to be able to help nurture and grow a community, but at the same time it's almost akin to being promoted manager of a kids' summer camp. It can be stressful!

 

3. What's your most prominent memory as an NL/SL?

A mod accidentally world edited ALL of the snow in the North of Anthos into torches and broke the server for a considerable amount of time.

 

4. If you led your Nation/Settlement into a war, do you regret it and did it turn out to be fun? If yes/no, why?

We were on the defense most of the time, by the time my character came along. I do not have great memories of this period.

 

5. Did you inherit your Nation/Settlements most of the time or build them from scratch? Or was it different each time?

The first time I completed a major build for Bravepaw, then leader, was in the transition to Anthos. Then, my character inherited the throne and I've since then bounced around building for the next generation behind them. I built Luminaire, Luemalin, Caras Eldar, Irrinor and Norseth'onn to name a few, with my projects now focusing on the Atoll Grove!