Including Others, Player Factions, and Coming Together
-
I would like to make a suggestion to all players old and new. Something I have learned on my time here over the years, though not quite as long as some, is players succeed in making awesome things happen when they come together and cooperate. For instance, there are many times when a group of either good or evil PC's does some awesome things, ends up with a faction base, DM loot and just epic things happening to them and people complain or get jealous. Here is the honest to god truth, however, these people did came together, cooperated for common goals and cared more about the awesome stories than what color their armor was or if they got to pick the faction name.
For instance, look at the current Chaos Brigade group beating the crap out of team good and taking names! Do you think they are doing that because the DM's are favoring them or some foul play is at work? HELLZ NO! They are doing awesome because they are cooperating and involving each other. Do you honestly think each of them has the exact same goals and they are bound together by the promise of loot and levels? Are any of them? Because it is usually great RPers I see in these positions and not favoritism from the DM staff.
My suggestion to everyone is thus, why do we need 100 player factions with similar goals, similar motives and the only difference between them is either the color of the armor or the name of the group? Let me pose a little example:
Paladin of TROM comes to Arabel, wants to spread his faith far and wide and bring glory to the triad. He does this by making posters, creating a faction and maybe getting one or two other members. He notices that another establish goodly faction is getting all the members and he isn't getting things done. Everyone seems to go to this other faction (Holy Rollers) instead of joining his faction (TROM Knights). After loosing a couple of his TROM Knights to the Holy Rollers who now have a faction base, some successful plots and good fun amongst not only their members but across the server, Paladin of TROM get's disgruntled, quits his character and is overall very Salty about the experience.
Look, I've been in the position above as well, and I have since learned from the experience and am myself experimenting with changing my methods a bit, so let me propose a different story:
Paladin of TROM comes to Arabel, wants to spread his faith far and wide and bring glory to his god. He thinks about starting his own player faction but notices there is a successful goodly one called the Holy Rollers and decides his best chance of smiting evil and doing awesome is to ally himself with those with similar goals. Since he cares more about his story and working with others, he decides to join the Holy Rollers and voe to prove himself and make it to a leadership role. After doing awesome things for the Holy Rollers, he rises in rank and in fame. People know him as a hero and he and his fellow Holy Rollers slay powerful evils and do awesome things for players and the story of the server as a whole. Since they know he is a Paladin of TROM, the faith of TROM grows and they even get shrines of the triad added to the faction HQ of the Holy Rollers thanks his allies helping him on quests to locate relics of his faith. The character is successful, his story gets told and he accomplishes all his goals while bringing fun to himself, the Holy Rollers and the server as a whole. Overall much fulfillment!
The only difference between success and failure/disgruntlement in this story is Paladin of TROM didn't get to pick his faction name and armor colors. That is all.. I would say that is a small price to pay for fulfillment of your story and adding to the betterment of the server. But instead I see it day in and day out (And have experienced it myself more than once) A player is adamant that they NEED to start this faction to be successful and then get disgruntled when their goals fall through. For this reason I seriously recommend more people think about the server before they go on their faction creation quest and decide if perhaps one of the current player groups might suit you. You would be adding to the fun and experience of other players AND your goals would be successful. I myself am changing my perspective on whether I NEED to have my own faction and if it really is better for the server, or if there is another way to add to others' stories while I build my own and I sincerely hope you all do too. I am not preaching, but instead talking from personal experience of my own crushing defeats as well as watching so many new groups rise and fall and see posts of people upset that they couldn't get others to get involved in their plots.
For epic is wrought not of DM oversight, but by strength in numbers adding to creativity's might!
-
Wisdom 20 post