Insurgencies and LOTC - Are they good RP?

[Javert 5567]

So I got infected with what we call curiosity. From my own personal experience with IRP insurgent/Guerrilla groups (The Mercatorii Revolutionary Army, That one group a guy called Gustav led, etc) it can be a pretty fun experience for both the Guerrilla fighter and the law enforcement if it's kept purely IRP and done with fun intentions. Nonetheless, I want to know what the general population thinks of Insurgency RP and if you guys think it's a fun/beneficial style of RP or not.

 

Yes, this is despite the fact that there's no real OOC mechanics for insurgency RP.

[Gandhi 2674]

MRA trol(ed)

[Wavey 1446]

I support radical pacifism. 

[MailC3p 1159]

As a guy who RP’d as an ISA soldier during the days of the MRA and Tryaxrex’s Terrorists in Helena, I would say that those where great, gave us events to do and it never really got boring. Most of the people (atleast for the MRA) where OOC friends and where in our discords (until leadership forced them out… Sergi…) 

[Nectorist 7422]

It depends on how it's done. Groups like the MRA were fun because they'd just roll around and set things on fire, get into fights with people, etc, and generally function more as an event group than a real political force.

 

Unfortunately, any insurgent group that legitimately and seriously threatens the RP status quo will be OOCly cracked down on to the point where any potential for good RP to come out of it will be negated by people's insistence on keeping their power. Even a non-threatening group like the MRA was met by OOC reprisal for what they did. 

[Nouveau_Chateau 244]

 VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII

 

[christman 2303]

VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII VIVA LA MERCATORII 

THE CLOCK STRIKES

VIVA LA MERCATORII 

SIMON ROBERTS LIVES! 

 

I HATE THE PAGENS BUT THIS BEACH IS WARM

[wowj 2796]

if everything is kept purely IC with little to none OOC malice towards each-other I'd say it's very beneficial to both sides.

[argonian 12837]

insurge if it makes sense to

 

dont ask for permission

[Borin 5256]

big up the mujahideen

[MaltaMoss 1771]

As the MRA godfather and resident schizophrenic vomitposter I must concurr with the sentiment that we, infact, did nothing wrong.

Anyways yeah we got a lot of OOC pushback for our generally non-threatening demeanor and friendly cooperation. What I remember was funny about it, is that we stuck closer to oren because of how other Anti-Empire insurgent groups treated us at the time. Gustav and the revolution guys often harassed us for being "Oren Plants" ect. 

Btw the MRA guys are looking to come back and im glad there is still some love for the type of things we used to get up to

Viva Mercatorii n that

[TheWhiteWolf 1028]

A lot of people in nation leadership positions are afraid to engage in events that may offer truly engaging RP and actual consequences. But this also stems from a lack of communication.

 

I find that the best way to go about running these sort of events is to reach out to their leadership, establish friendly relations and explain what you want to do.

 

Communication is generally what solves a lot of the ooc issues people have.

 

I always go back to this because its the best example ive got, when i led the Mystic War on Fenn i reached out to monkee to explain my intentions and while there was initial pushback he realised that i really only cared about creating fun RP for everyone involved.

 

Over multiple events both Fenn and the Mystics took multiple losses and the final event even had the potential to spawn a regional antag. Nothing was scripted, everything was influenced by player actions and real consequences were there from destruction of multiple buildings and areas in Fenn to the ultimate loss of the Mystic apparition and their menhirs.

 

Throughout the whole event there was zero staff intervention, multiple big CRP fights and the final Siege of Fenn was about 45 player CRP total and i didn't even have to engage with the warclaim system at all.

 

And the best part there were no ooc arguments and everyone had fun!

 

I truly believe insurgency RP has a place and can provide great fun for everyone involved if done properly abd both parties come to the table with the right intentions.

[Burnsider 4542]

Insurgency is fine, as long as it's kept only IC and there is frequent "after-care" reach out to other players after antagonizing them. Honestly, this should just be done normally in all player conflict situations. 

 

That said, whoever was leading that Mercantori group was exceptionally toxic and shouldn't be held up as a standard for it, even if the RP amongst the others was fun. 

 

EDIT: I mistook the Mercantori group for Gustav's rebels. I have never had contact with the Mercantori group and assume they're cool. I meant to say that I found Gustav to be toxic.

[MaltaMoss 1771]

40 minutes ago, Burnsider said:

Insurgency is fine, as long as it's kept only IC and there is frequent "after-care" reach out to other players after antagonizing them. Honestly, this should just be done normally in all player conflict situations. 

 

That said, whoever was leading that Mercantori group was exceptionally toxic and shouldn't be held up as a standard for it, even if the RP amongst the others was fun. 

I dont think we ever interacted with you once

[The King Of The Moon 5121]

The RP can be good, problem is with almost all conflicts impacting nation leadership it's never contained to RP for long.

 

I'm going to mald, cope and/or seathe a bit here, but I promise it's with intent. 

 

There are painfully few rebellions/ uprisings that've occured since Axios that weren't first meticulously planned in a backroom voice or group chat before anyone risked actually discussing things via emotes.

 

Insurgencies, due both to bad player attitudes reinforced by Discord and the increasingly OOC necessity of group leadership with the modern nation ruleset very quickly seem to devolve into "me vs him" rather than "my character vs his character" (as with most wars). IC disagreements get hyped up as OOC slights, and before you know it either side of an insurgence is clamouring to get the other banned and friend groups are torn apart as a result of it... and sadly I can't think of any way to fix that.

 

It's always been a problem, but I suppose in the Skype/ Teamspeak days OOC-win mentality was a lot less practical to enable and moderation was also a lot more vigilant about metagaming (the closest rule we really have to dealing with OOC scheming/ player versus player "win" mentality), thus it was less commonplace.

Nation and war rules were also vastly different back then, in some ways better and other ways worse; coup rules didn't even exist until the Haelun'or NL was overthrown by Oren-backed insurgents, which left everyone scratching their heads as to whether or not it was valid for the humans to be able to conquer a nation with no interest in vassalisation without a single warclaim.

Today's climate is very different. LoTC as a whole is different. This is in my opinion felt most severely in nations and other groups with high OOC engagement. With everyone sat in a voicechat as they RP with eachother things tend to devolve into an echochamber, and storytelling (which we're all here to do) becomes second banana to sterilising any sort of IC leadership that might've once RP'd as flawed for fear of OOCly displeasing the players you hang out with.

Insurgencies turn this closeness on its head more often than not. We've a whole generation of players now that don't remember things being any different, and ultimately I feel OOC sensitivity to what should be RP-contained conflict is at its all-time height. People fail to separate other people's characters from the players themselves in a meaningful way, and vice versa. So then people get upset and people get angry. Players are harassed, players quit.

 

I do not think these sorts of behaviours should be accommodated either, though. Roleplay should be allowed to progress naturally. We're all here for RP - dynamic, freeform and improvised narrative - not to act out a script. We shouldn't feel obliged to ask permission to roleplay. 

It's a whole can of worms, and I don't have any solutions to offer.

 

I would like insurgencies to be good. Insurgencies in concept are not at all the issue, but due to the aforementioned I personally struggle to find enjoyment, due to the more often than not rampant toxicity that comes to overshadow the actual roleplay surrounding them.