argonian

ave

"House de Savoie has always been a great patron of the Church, with St. Olivier de Savoie, Fidei Defensor, serving as as great example thereof. May God bless this house," says Aetirix, Swaziland-unable-to-join-the-warclaim-icus.

The archive is unsearchable, which means like 90% of RP threads from over idk 2 years ago can take hours to find and are totally inaccessible if the author is unknown. If you wanna find threads you don't know of, e.g, you wanna find the earliest mentions of "Haelun'or" for a history post, or the original lore for Bardmancy, it's also a case of GG well-played, you cannot. Beyond that there's glitchy UI stuff like a perpetual horizontal scrollbar on my laptop - which is not a biggie obv but I'd like to fix that too for free so why would you say no. I think the admins keep saying no to me every 6 months when I offer because they don't trust me but there's like literally 0 risk if I just get access to a repo and have to have any PRs or whatever be approved. They just love stagnancy like algae in a pond. I mean it could be an Invision problem too but then they should be letting us know how their support ticket w Invision is doing instead of just letting the forums be broken like this.

Oh yeah, obviously I agree that you can't have a religion where people are constantly swapping in and out major prophets as if it was like having political elections. It had to stabilise at some point; I was just curious if the way it stabilised locked you guys into a particular narrative you'd rather have avoided. But yeah, I'm glad to hear it didn't. And yeah, it's kinda a funny point about how Canonism's dogma locked Emperors out of claiming to be divine like Godfrey did... until Mogroka came back and did it again on a different character lmao. I guess that sums up your point about how dogma can only limit people who actually care about it - BUT I mean, I think you're being far too harsh on yourself (and Dib and the other big Church-heads) in that a tightly defined Church dogma has allowed for a rallying point against excesses and contradictions of it at various points, which HAS worked out before in that the numerically superior power siding against the Church has ended up conceding to it. But, yeah, it's always a matter of proportion and player buy-in. I think it makes a big difference, but it's not always enough of a difference, especially when e.g. God-King Mogroka is commanding the majority of human manpower. With the Canon Law, that was always gonna be a delight for players looking to rule-lawyer except IRP as theologians, and I remenmber enjoying it myself from that perspective too. I think it wasn't a failure in its original forms and that it was cited a lot more in the past, but eventually people got confused and stopped trying to keep track after it was reformed a few times and the memory of what it was and why started to fade etc. If some Pontiff now did a similarly impactful reform and republishing of it as you or Hunwald (he did publish a version of it right? Or was that just the Catechism?), I'm sure its relevance would spike again for a while. And yeah lol the Krug stuff. I know I annoyed you because I kept bringing that up again and again (even though I've never even played an Orc lol), but as I've said before, I think the Scrolls are a masterful work and it's incredible how it feels like citing the KJV while actually being a unique, coherent, in-universe LOTC text (and I mean, writing well is hard enough, but writing well in the style of 1600sish English is a whole other level) and I only brought up Krug because that was literally the only thing that felt off to me. But I mean, part of every IRL religion is also people explaining why "x verse that sounds quite weird and doesn't fit with [other verse/other holy book/modern sensibilities/science/etc.] ACKHSUALLY makes sense" so for example squaring the actions of the Orcs with their blessing is also a valid and interesting avenue for Canonist apologetics too. Also, actually, on that note, early Creatorism in post-Godfrey Humanity had a strong if-not-always-stated view that only humans were saved, whereas I think by James II's time that idea was abandoned by the mainstream Church - instead the idea was that non-humans could reach at least the bottom two Skies (although some people IRP continued to contest this). Was this something you wrote intentionally into the Scrolls or just something that was read into them? And actually, on that note, I know you don't want to reveal all the backdoors in case people find them in future - but what are some of those backdoors written into the Scrolls that have been discovered post-James II? Especially ones that took a while to be picked up upon by the Church. I think that'd be fascinating.

I know you've already mentioned stuff you'd add into the Scrolls (minor prophets, more/better female characters - which can be improved via deuterocanon, other players or even yourself writing extra scrolls about ancient saints or whatever) but is there anything specific to the Scrolls that you would write differently now? Like, for example, after years of people writing theses and citing the scrolls in each one, maybe people have built up or ruled out theologies based on a verse or verses that you later wished you had written differently to avoid that. It's just interesting I suppose because there are a lot that can be changed by a new Pontiff coming in and just deciding to do it, but there are a lot of I suppose red-lines which are difficult if not impossible to cross while maintaining continuity. And that question also extends to stuff that happened before you ever published the Scrolls - is there stuff that was already set in-stone in Canonist/Creatorist dogma before you published the Scrolls that you wish hadn't been? I remember in the 2014 Fringe Era so much was still in flux and people were being made and "unmade" Exalted constantly (Horen V, Ostromir Carrion) in frequently occurring ecumenical councils, but I think by the end of the Schism War that was all settled and there were no more major changes to dogma despite the fact that (next to) no one would actually see the Scrolls for another few years. Did that restrict your writing in ways you didn't want? Like idk, did the focus on Exalted = Prophets get in the way of you including lesser prophets like you wanted to? I'm curious about stuff like that.

most new players regardless of source leave

"Reverse Situation" and "Afternoon of Konoha" are classics. For very different reasons. The former is an epic fight song and the latter is like "filler market music" but both are equally Naruto. "The Prophet" sounds like it should be a Pain or Orichimaru theme at least but I don't recognise it so it can't be that iconic. "Crushing" dpesn't sound bad but I don't recognise anything listening to it so it's sadly the most forgettable of all. Classics. #6 is one of the peak openings of the whole series. That Douten sound-track is incredible but it's def a remix an eariler track right? Courtesy sounds like Pain? Don't know any other villain who sounded this religious. He was prob the peak villain but I'm also glad it didn't end there.

Post peak Naruto OSTs in this thread. I'll start w some examples and if no one continues, then you're all just soulless ngl. Openings: 16: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV0p9PutcRU Iconic: Samidare: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6N9f1ad9Ow Sad: Father and Mother: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26DkJuBZW7E

At 24 I'm towards the very end of the 19-25 category. Crazy to think that only ~15% of ppl (not counting the 5% larping as 51+) here are older than me, when I spent most of my time on the server having to lie about my age because I was so much younger than everyone else. I remember LARPing as 16 back in 2012 lol. Guess it makes sense though, given the stats show that almost half the server joined within the last 4 years. Which is shocking given our new player retention rates and Minecraft in general not being as big as it was. Tbh I think a lot of that "1 year crowd" have got to be lying. Crazy poll though nevertheless.

I mean let's just break this down into its constituent parts, since it's not really coherent and each sentence describes a totally different concept/mode of behaviour than that before and after. "Coercing, pressuring or ostracizing players to influence in-character outcomes" - banning this is obviously good but in this case it would actually be the victim who would be metaplaying (influencing their roleplay with their own OOC desires, i.e. to not be ostracised). The culprits aren't actually altering their own roleplay whatsoever, so all they're guilty of is harassment. But of course, they can easily dodge any accusations of this by claiming the IC actions weren't what motivated them to, idk, remove the guy's Discord roles or whatever. Actually, that raises another interesting problem - if I add you to the "Felsen City Watch" Discord chat because you joined the Felsen City Watch IRP, doesn't it also make sense to remove you from it if you leave it or are fired from it IRP? Yet since these social Discord connections are so important nowadays, a player might well fear being kicked from such a group chat and alter their behaviour IRP to avoid that. It would seem like the only legitimate way to avoid metaplaying, or actually, to avoid inciting metaplay, would be to not have any RP-related group chats in the first place (and yes that would include Nation Discords - since the fear of being kicked out of a nation is obviously a much bigger one than just having to switch noble house). There's no serious discussion of doing anything like this though, because everyone realises it's totally unfeasible. "Out-of-character / backdoor driven narratives, events, or outcomes; fabricated or canned roleplay that serves an OOC motivation." - This is funny because all narratives are obviously driven by OOC given that we are all OOC. It's not like we're assigned characters at random and then exist solely in the RP-world with no idea who anyone or what anything is. From the second you decide to make a High Elf becaues your friends are playing them - that's OOC motivations driving roleplay. The sentence above is incredibly broad and would logically include messaging your friend, saying "hey, log on if you're around so our characters can meet ;)" or you making a character to try out, idk, guard roleplay and someone logging on to recruit you. Those are both incredibly common but canned scenarios, RP following a script and done for OOC reasons. I agree that canned RP is boring but everyone partakes in it multiple times a week - why is everyone logging on now? Oh, a feast was announced on Discord. Why was it announced? To hit activity checks this month. You went to a coronation? Every sentence was copy-pasted off a Google Doc written up in a Discord group. "IC activity that opposes the creative and spontaneous spirit of roleplay." - Our whole Discord culture of creating calenders full of events to log on for is obviously the biggest barrier to spontaneity in roleplay but there are no attempts to push back against that because it keeps playercounts on life-support. According to this sentence, activity check culture should be the #1 purest form of metaplay that we should really be fighting against, as it's totally planned and canned and makes up 99% of such roleplay, but instead absolutely NOTHING is done to stop it and everything is done to promote it - so the idea that we want to protect spontaneity with these rules is just not true and everyone knows it. "It may occur with or without metagaming & powergaming—but it does not include the facilitating or gathering of RP." - This is pretty much a direct contradiction of the previous quote, basically indicating that anything done to create RP actually isn't metaplaying. Ok, well then how is arranging a marriage metaplay if now I'm creating all the RP around that - like the (canned) meeting to agree on the wedding IRP, the ceremony itself, the celebrations, etc.? The answer seems to be: "it's not metaplay, unless your marriage might create conflict and force us to have to deal with the headaches of war rules". TL;DR: yeah, we do "all know" what metaplay is - only because virtually everything anyone does on this server is metaplay and the rules around it are broken by 99% of the playerbase every single day. Thankfully, you'll only ever need to fear being banned for it if your metaplay might influence politics in a slightly interesting way, so just commit to being as boring as possible and you'll be fine.

Rules that can't be enforced fairly and predictably should not exist. Everyone knows that nations cannot be run solely in-game and that none are. Metaplay rules seem to exist solely so that the Admins can hand out a ban-wave any time anything might actually happen. Maybe the irony will occur to them next time they open a War Chat and realise they're literally requesting the NLs involved engage in metaplay with them.

God bless.

what is your roleplay philosophy? do you believe in writing the story that works best for everyone, or the one that makes sense to you? how do you write your characters in scenarios you don't expect or want? what are your favourite roleplay settings/types?

Heyo, The title is clickbait so nevermind it please. Anyway, Forum Roleplay was originally meant to be for Forum Roleplay unrelated to the actual server. It used to be filled with Nation RPs set anywhere from the Cold War to the Middle Ages, and with all sorts of individual character (but wholly OOC) roleplays. Yet now, the only posts we see there are IC RP posts relating to characters and events who actually exist and/or happened on the server. These people and these events deserve to have their stories told, but not in this way. The reason is obvious - it used to be possible to post in the general "roleplay" section without having to click into any national or racial subforum - but now that's impossible. Now, when people want to post their PK posts, they use the OOC Forum Roleplay section, believing it to be the most neutral space. They aren't wrong - but they should be. It's an OOC section and so they shouldn't post anything relating to their characters there at all - but wait, if it would be cringe to post about my character dying in the Haense subforum, and I can't post about it in the Roleplay forum in general, where else can I put it? Oh right, no where. And herein lies the question: why the Hell did we remove such a useful section? The obvious solution is to restore the old general Roleplay section but we'll see how that goes. o7 boys. msg me if u forget what it ever was like or how to restore it.

Sadly, this just seems like a less flavoursome and more rule-burdened version of your last submission. And the reponse? To rule-lawyer you further lol. It's a joke. Not this lore - but the fact that you had to spend the vast majority of it blogging about the minutiae of individual spells. This clearly isn't what magic should be but whatever, all the best.

just 2 (two) more weeks (14 days)! and then LOTC will finally have conflict! the cancellation of the Heartlander civil war was honestly the final nail in the coffin of meaningful conflict on this corpse of a server. 100% agree with this. wtf is this design philosophy of creating gigantic maps, primarily for the purpose of showing off cool terrain features which are (1) totally impossible to appreciate with the actual server render-distance and (2) generally hugely impractical for travel or building (bar pastes which just delete the old terrain)? i think it's getting even worse as the server gets more nation-brained too, as now providing clear paths and areas around which traffic might congregate would inherently mean that whatever nation managed to ****** (edit: sn4tch is a valid verb) that spot would benefit. since (understandably) no one wants other nations to leech activity in this way, we end up with everyone having an equally SHITTY spot instead. or at least that's the aim - in reality some spots are shittier than others, but no natural hubs exist regardless. btw ive noticed lately that all your pics are bugged for me. i think cuz they're from discord. do they display for you? can anyone else chime in? Land was shared to people with initiative and ambition because building up the nation's overall manpower was very important and was worth the risk of those people rebelling against you in the future. Since then, however, war and realm rules have made external conflict mostly pointless while internal conflict can destroy your nation within 2 WCs, so it's generally better to not have vassals than to have any chance they might rebel. And if you have to have vassals, you keep them weak as shit. Now, this isn't what caused it - the roots of anti-vassal stuff go back further. Novellen Oren, for example, didn't face any risk of internal war either since Telanir effectively banned that too, but it was a good chance to shit on troublesome vassals who in previous eras would have had to have been tolerated. It was an era of intense centralisation where evicting your vassals meant they died out - and where they couldn't just all rally for the next 5 Coalition Wars to destroy you as they traditionally did. Then, after wars were finally brought back, internal wars were made OP while external wars remained mostly meaningless, and that system has made sure that vassals never return in a big way and never will.

if u actually married someone who joined this server in 2016 and who still plays, without knowing abt it, then congrats if this is real, what do you do think of people in real-world romantic relationships having IRP ones?