One GM, Seeking Chiropractor

[Yawoo]

People really need to quit screaming OOC motivation every time Triyun does something - it's getting old. Either back it up with some hard proof, or accept the fact he can do things in war that you can't/won't/don't have the testicular fortitude to do. There's no reason Triyun had to give any sort of meaning/motivation behind his attack on Ireland, that's the beauty of having non-planned wars. There's always the option of having another vote to go back to pre-planned wars, but be prepared for increased restrictions on who can roll where should we go with that option. The idea Triyun has to set up "adequate" back story behind his attack on Ireland is a very slippery slope to have in our open RP environment.

 

Now, to get to the real point of this thread. GMs already have more than enough power, so I am in favor of the status quo. 

[Triyun]

First, being provocative is not the same as just outright declaring war with a CB that seems made up on the fly. If you were just harrassing Zoot or lkhft, well that's one thing. But launching a full invasion, with the kind of IC reasoning you gave, is quite a few steps further. The reason why noone bothered to make a thread before, is mostly the tolerance treshold of parts of the community, which was only crossed by the later.

 

Second, if you hit Zoot over some similarly made up reason, responses might've been similar. Because people don't root for lkhft, due to his great amount of charisma, and Zoot isn't completely hated by the community.

 

I missed this earlier, but here I guess I have to again question whether people are on the same page.  Its a question of OOC tactics.  Had Zoot stood up for himself, I could have been in my right to allow the commander of that small unit to defend himself which easily could've escalated into a shooting war.  The act to make the road to conflict had already well been made, when I ordered those units to be put into harms way.  What would it matter once that decision has been made if a conflict started in one or five posts?  That I don't understand.  The political tipping point which was the Emperor's decision, which as I understand it is the one claimed to have been made OOC, was for all intensive purposes crossed had that not been a ruse.  I'm not trying to be nit picky here but as far as the Jia IC decision / Triyun decision OOC issue, I really do not see the problem.  If there is a different set of objections though people would like to raise I'm open to that.

[Zoot Zoot]

 

I missed this earlier, but here I guess I have to again question whether people are on the same page.  Its a question of OOC tactics.  Had Zoot stood up for himself, I could have been in my right to allow the commander of that small unit to defend himself which easily could've escalated into a shooting war.  The act to make the road to conflict had already well been made, when I ordered those units to be put into harms way.  What would it matter once that decision has been made if a conflict started in one or five posts?  That I don't understand.  The political tipping point which was the Emperor's decision, which as I understand it is the one claimed to have been made OOC, was for all intensive purposes crossed had that not been a ruse.  I'm not trying to be nit picky here but as far as the Jia IC decision / Triyun decision OOC issue, I really do not see the problem.  If there is a different set of objections though people would like to raise I'm open to that.

'Had I stood up for myself'.

I am many things Triyun, but I am not stupid, and I know when I am being baited into doing something. I did not respond to your posts in the way in which you wanted, because It was not worth the trouble of how you would try and spin it so I shot first, and then get the TSI/UNSC, to come down and roll me.

You keep referring back, in all your posts about the Emperors decision. You are the Emperor, You make that decision on his behalf. Now whilst you do have historical precedence in your favour in this particular argument as Tianxia does indeed, like to war for the sake of war, everybody else is raising very valid and thought out points which you are simply brushing off as being 'Not on the same page', which is code for 'I dont care'.

You can deal with this in three ways.
1) Follow Yawoo's example, and don't do anything, and simply don't care about this, which means that you stop posting and ignore it.
2) Actually read back over these gripes and concerns and take them on board and then do nothing.
3) Read back over these gripes and concerns, take them on board, and learn from them.

At the end of the day, you can always argue that OOC/IC line was not crossed, or that they are intrinsically linked, but we all know that somebody in Europe was getting hit, and none of the ones you are allied to, had done anything serious enough to Tianxia to warrant invasion, by that extension, there is no ICly justification, no matter how hard you wish there was, which makes it an OOC move.

But feel free to carry on arguing your corner.

[Triyun]

That's again a value judgement Zoot.  In Character includes villians and heros.  IF you play Grand Moff Tarkin and blow up Alderaan with the Death Star, you aren't Out of Chracter responsible for evil.  Just like I hope people who choose to play dictators, absolute monarchs, etc in CN RP don't truly believe in these forms of government in real life.  Not agreeing is not the same as ignoring.  I acknowledge the position but against its not the same thing.  Just War IC and Justification IC don't have the same meaning.  I'd freely admit that the war did not remotely meet Just War criterion OOC.  I would say there was IC justification, just like IRL I'd say Putin gave justification for annexing Crimea but it was in no way a Just action.  Do you see the difference?   If we're talking about being just thats a different conversation than IC vs. OOC, and that's what we should talk about.

[MostGloriousLeader]

Why can't we all just get along and blame Obama for everything?

[Justinian the Mighty]

Plot Twist: Triyun is Obama.

[Margrave]

The original intent of the GM position was not police or arbitrator but story teller. Like a Dungeon Master, the GM would represent impartial forces, opportunities for story telling and community experiences. Unfortunately, that didn't communicate itself well to the community; GM's started being asked to weigh in on probability and things like that, logic and 'is this tech okay' and what have you. I'm not entirely happy with how the position evolved itself; however, I don't know what a GM could have done here to change or fix or work against Triyun's actions, OOCly or ICly.

 

 

I do think we have a problem of individual versus community. Triyun has a right as an individual to play his forces the way he wants to. There are players within the community who feel that he is too big, too powerful, and who fear being wiped out at any given time for any given reason. The fellowship amongst the top tier has left them feeling alienated and under the boot-heel, so to speak. Where once the top tier was ideologically diverse and given to conflict with one another, the top tier is now ideologically similar, allied, and control, like it or not, love them or hate them, the majority of the ground and the flow of the game. But I'm a capitalist, I believe in success; is it right that Triyun and Cent should be punished for being powerful? For growing their nations?

 

 

Ultimately, I feel the time has come for a return of moderator authority to these forums. Whether they assume the power of "decider" or not is up in the air, but a neutral party with no stake in this fight would be much more fair in judgment than either 'side' at this point.

[Uberstein]

I don't know what you're smoking Margrave, but that was never the intent of the GM's. The GM's were appointed to replace the mods after the mods got tired of dealing with us. Their job was to rule on disputes. Eventually we switched to an election.

 

It has never been a position of storytellering in the context of CNRP.

[Margrave]

You are incorrect about their original intent, and I'll leave it at that.

[Triyun]

Plot Twist: Triyun is Obama.

 

Justinian is Mitt Romney.  Inside he's always identified as being a strong black woman.

[Justinian the Mighty]

 

Justinian is Mitt Romney.  Inside he's always identified as being a strong black woman.

47% of cnrp are morons. You can quote me on that liberal media!

[PresidentDavid]

I thought it would have taken a bit longer for this topic to devolve but there is one proposal that I have thought the past few days that I believe should be considered. 

 

I believe that in the past the GMs were too powerful, in most regards, not because the position and the community didn't call for the office to hold authority but because those who held the office were not always fair. If everyone on the GM team was always like Shammy or Lynneth, who have had their discrepancies but are typically neutral, then I would be okay with supplementing them with much more power. However that is not the case. Giving the GMs the power they had before would not work in the long term and there would surely be some coup in the next few weeks or months where the system would be remade again. However, their current status as dice rollers seems irrelevant. The sad thing is that we actually have decent people being elected right now. 

 

What needs to be done is something in the middle. Not an overbearing amount of power given to them, but power focused in one specific area that we all care about: Conflict. Triyun has been accused by some players as using OOC reasons to invade Great Britain and Ireland or simply because he was bored and wanted something to do. I cannot confirm nor deny either of those, but he has been known to do the latter on the rare occasion. Now this is not to pick on Triyun, because nearly everyone on this forum has used poor IC reasons to take serious IC actions that greatly effect the progress of RP and the game; but, OOC reasons or just invading other players for the fun of it with totally fabricated IC reasons is detrimental to the game and the community because it has been known to eliminate players from CNRP all together. I know there have been members who we do not like, I am sure I am one of them for some of you, but when I think of this community I think of a certain phrase, "Beggars can't be choosers." 

 

The war system in our game may seem unfair to some, but it adds the interesting dynamic of "Will I be invaded? Who should I make an alliance with? What side should I take?" The system itself causes players to interact for their own security. I understand that now there are three superpowers who are virtually unstoppable when it comes to conventional warfare, but that is another discussion all together. The only thing this system requires is the basic understanding of military tactics/technologies (like what ships to use to transport troops or where to send soldiers in wars) but more importantly RESPECT. If we respect each other, then we will be willing to give the other side a fair chance in a war or the opportunity to have fun in a war. That respect has recently diminished which is why some people rage quit or complain that they don't have a "fair chance". Well of course they don't have a bloody fair chance, they aren't suppose to. But when there was at least a minimal respect that most players had between each other (which provided that IC actions would be based on other IC actions and that IC actions would not be fabricated to fit around OOC intentions) players could tolerate being at a military or technological disadvantage. 

 

But when it just comes to being "bored" OOCly and finding players to roll, that simply is harmful to every single member of CNRP because it is not only degrading the very idea of "RolePlay" which involves RPing out actual reasons for IC actions, but it is harming the story and work of players as well. I could stomach having my nation invaded because I sunk an enemy sub that illegally entered my waters, but I could not stomach my country being invaded because in #cnrp I called a player stupid and the next day they decide to interpret my new fishing laws as a danger to the global environment and declare war on me for the greater good of humanity. 

 

We cannot force respect, which is why I am not advocating that. However we can monitor and limit the effects of it not being there which would in turn encourage more fair roleplay and reasoning. Also, we should not give the GMs ultimate power over everything and everyone, however they need more authority than the paperweights they are now.

 

Here is what I propose: 

 

1. The GMs need to be reestablished as a serious role. Instead of giving all of them greater term lengths, only one of them should get this privileged. Once the GMs are elected, they will decide among themselves who will be the "Chief Justice" and chair the court. This "Chief Justice" will have the extra responsibilities of being the direct voice to the mods and gets to skip the next GM election - meaning he gets to keep his office for an extra term where he would continue as Chief Justice. After his term was up, it would already fall at the same time as a GM election which would allow all three to be open for election and the process would start over. Like in the Supreme Court, this will allow some of the "Old Guard" to remain temporarily so that radicals do not make up the entire court after each election. 

 

2. The GMs need some authority. Instead of giving them unlimited power or authority over all situations, let's give them authority over the specific area of Conflict. This is what there new powers would be: Any time a conflict ICly broke out, the GMs would immediately have the right to review the war and see if it was based on OOC reasons (such as being bored or not liking what someone said about them in the chat) or if it was truly based off of legitimate IC reasons. If the the GMs would declare that the war/conflict was started for unvirtuous reasons - excluding invasion for constant inactivity - then the war would not be considered canon and the defender could go about his business. Here is the catch: the GMs are required to make a ruling on every non-planned conflict. This keeps this new responsibility relevant.

 

 

I encourage all of the GMs to sponsor this proposal and put it up for a community vote. #2 may be more controversial than #1, which is why I believe they should be two separate votes in one poll. I understand some of you may believe the GMs already have this power, but if that's the case then consider this a renewal of their duties and support from the community to take a bold stance against unjust actions. I cannot offer a fail proof solution, but I believe this is an improvement on what we have now.... And someone gets to be called the "Chief Justice" of the GM's Court :P

Edited April 19, 2014 by PresidentDavid

[Evangeline Anovilis]

What's the point of the Chief Justice? We already got people that are decent and keep their job, like hammy, who only was not elected for a period, due to not accepting nominations. I do not see where the need to bypass direct democratic legitimation stems from, nor how it would make GMs more serious by having a Chief Justice.

 

In essence this reform would be the GMs being given the power to establish what was IC/OOC crossing and what wasn't and some superfluous post of Chief Justice.

[PresidentDavid]

Well.... Yes that's exactly the power they would get and that's a power they certainly need with the current events of the past few months.

And the Chief Justice would be the direct voice to the mods as a baseline responsibility. Because it would be a position for the GMs to elect amongst themselves, they should be able to decide what powers this position would have. Now of course this would have to be within reason. Think of it as the position of Vice President in the United States: the Vice President doesn't have the hard powers of declaring war or admitting new States into the Union because the constitution would not allow for this. However, the Vice President is the President of The Senate. While he has no power present day, he could be given Parliamentary powers by the Senate which in our situation would equate to having the Chief Justice approve all rule proposals before they would go up for a vote or the Chief Justice could, by himself or herself, freeze/blacklist a war to be reviewed by the court.

Those are just examples, but it would be up to the Court to decide what parliamentarian powers the Chief Justice has. I believe they know what needs to be done, not I who has never been a... Judge on our lovely court. Also this iisnt implementing a dictatorship, it's just allowing for the ideas of republicanism to take a bit more since representatives would be choosing a leader of their own on our behalf. But to keep power with the rest of us, they will only get to skip one election. It works out for everyone.

This can keep the GMs we love a bit longer without election and give a bit more stability to the court.

EDIT: I meant the GMs elect the Chief Justice

Edited April 19, 2014 by PresidentDavid

[Centurius]

That still doesn't solve the problem that IC/OOC cannot be proven unless it's really obvious and whether you like it or not nations attack nations just for the sake of war and conquering land. Especially when the nations doing it have never had to deal with much ic resistance to their attacks and thus hardly ever suffer any of the downsides of war.

 

The Chief Justice proposal seems unnecessary and adds only more bureaucracy to a position that shouldn't have any. 

[Kevin Kingswell]

Just keep the GMs the way they are with the duties they have. These duties being to carry out spy rolls and to rule on any meta gaming issues. See where I said meta gaming, this is important. Meta gaming is quite easy to see but deciding what is OOC or IC is not especially when people have different views. 

 

So in simple.

 

Don't modify the GMs

GMs carry out spy rolls.

GMs rule on any suspected meta gaming issues.

GMs also rule on other issues to the best of their ability, such as outlandish tech etc.  

[Triyun]

Agreed, people are far too political to be ruling on legitimacy of things IC.  This is especially true when you look at the level of hysteria people are prone too.  So long as you have popular election of GMs its inappropriate with preserving a non-bias role, for them to be ruling on anything IC/OOC as it turns it into an elected politicized weapon aka mob rule.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Triyun

[PresidentDavid]

That still doesn't solve the problem that IC/OOC cannot be proven unless it's really obvious and whether you like it or not nations attack nations just for the sake of war and conquering land. Especially when the nations doing it have never had to deal with much ic resistance to their attacks and thus hardly ever suffer any of the downsides of war.
 
The Chief Justice proposal seems unnecessary and adds only more bureaucracy to a position that shouldn't have any.

Invading someone for the sake of land is 100% acceptable seeing as RL nations do it all the time. RPing that your nation needs more land or wants this specific port is fine, I'd say that is canon. But invading someone for the OOC sake of invasion with no reasonable IC justifications is not RP and should not be canon seeing as those IC actions are based entirely on OCC boredom and not even backed up by IC facts.

Also, it's easy to know when someone is acting off of OOC actions but you are right it can be hard to prove. If someone uses a BS causes belli that makes no RP sense or is just obviously trolling then I think that can be more than enough to look at. Now the argument may be that nations use BS reasons to declare war all of the time and that's fine! But ICly these nations that are publicly using BS reasons should privately have a legitimate IC reason (which they have RPed) for invading someone. Otherwise it is obvious that said war was based not on IC actions but OOC intentions.

Also, the Chief Justice addition would not require extra elections and would not be a problem that the average player would have to worry about. It would put an extra item on the GMs agenda and they would be able to pick someone to chair their court; they would also be able to give the position whatever authority (within the given GM's powers) that they like. This would help them keep things organized and would keep some Continuity to the court. Edited April 19, 2014 by PresidentDavid

[Evangeline Anovilis]

Also, the Chief Justice addition would not require extra elections and would not be a problem that the average player would have to worry about. It would put an extra item on the GMs agenda and they would be able to pick someone to chair their court; they would also be able to give the position whatever authority (within the given GM's powers) that they like. This would help them keep things organized and would keep some Continuity to the court.

This would imply that there are currently issues with organisation and a lack of continuity. I do not think this to be the case.

[Kevin Kingswell]

Invading someone for the sake of land is 100% acceptable seeing as RL nations do it all the time. RPing that your nation needs more land or wants this specific port is fine, I'd say that is canon. But invading someone for the OOC sake of invasion with no reasonable IC justifications is not RP and should not be canon seeing as those IC actions are based entirely on OCC boredom and not even backed up by IC facts.

Also, it's easy to know when someone is acting off of OOC actions but you are right it can be hard to prove. If someone uses a BS causes belli that makes no RP sense or is just obviously trolling then I think that can be more than enough to look at. Now the argument may be that nations use BS reasons to declare war all of the time and that's fine! But ICly these nations that are publicly using BS reasons should privately have a legitimate IC reason (which they have RPed) for invading someone. Otherwise it is obvious that said war was based not on IC actions but OOC intentions.

Also, the Chief Justice addition would not require extra elections and would not be a problem that the average player would have to worry about. It would put an extra item on the GMs agenda and they would be able to pick someone to chair their court; they would also be able to give the position whatever authority (within the given GM's powers) that they like. This would help them keep things organized and would keep some Continuity to the court.

 

So if I am getting this right what you are saying is if someone declares war for extra land it is okay even though the only reason you would want more land is because you are bored with the amount you have and want more. That would be IC but if you were bored and just wanted to fight war for war's sake then that is wrong and is OOC? If that is right what I am getting at then that makes no sense as both are coming from OOC reasons.

 

On top of this I don't think it says anywhere in the rules for CNRP that a valid reason for war is needed. I mean I could declare war because I disagree with how another nation's leader dresses if I wanted to.

 

This is for all those complaining about Triyun's Ireland attack/war. Is it the fact that Triyun carried it out at all that people are complaining or is it the fact that the reason for the war came out of the blue with little RP to it? 

[KaiserMelech Mikhail]

That still doesn't solve the problem that IC/OOC cannot be proven unless it's really obvious and whether you like it or not nations attack nations just for the sake of war and conquering land. Especially when the nations doing it have never had to deal with much ic resistance to their attacks and thus hardly ever suffer any of the downsides of war.

If you want to play that game, there is always Risk or Civilization or Total War. This isn't a game to see how much of a map you can cover, it's a game to start interesting stories with your fellow players and have fun. I think this is why people advocate so much for the removal of the CNRP map, since it forces wars to go from "You got that land that I want" to actually needing some political back story.
 

Invading someone for the sake of land is 100% acceptable seeing as RL nations do it all the time.

Your use of present tense makes your statement highly incorrect.
 

If someone uses a BS causes belli that makes no RP sense or is just obviously trolling then I think that can be more than enough to look at.

1. Causus* belli
2. Everyone needs to stop using that phrase. I hate it and I think people use it just to look smarter than they actually are.
3. We did that before. Remember when Triyun invaded Borneo with the subtitle "Plotting is bad?" That is because he only knew of something happening on IRC, with no RP on the forums actually put into it. That is metagaming, and yet it was allowed to go ahead.
 

This is for all those complaining about Triyun's Ireland attack/war. Is it the fact that Triyun carried it out at all that people are complaining or is it the fact that the reason for the war came out of the blue with little RP to it?

Second one.

[Yawoo]

Your use of present tense makes your statement highly incorrect.

Crimea.

 

Once more, I advocate for status quo on the GM power issue.

[Kevin Kingswell]

If you want to play that game, there is always Risk or Civilization or Total War. This isn't a game to see how much of a map you can cover, it's a game to start interesting stories with your fellow players and have fun. I think this is why people advocate so much for the removal of the CNRP map, since it forces wars to go from "You got that land that I want" to actually needing some political back story.
 

Your use of present tense makes your statement highly incorrect.
 

1. Causus* belli
2. Everyone needs to stop using that phrase. I hate it and I think people use it just to look smarter than they actually are.
3. We did that before. Remember when Triyun invaded Borneo with the subtitle "Plotting is bad?" That is because he only knew of something happening on IRC, with no RP on the forums actually put into it. That is metagaming, and yet it was allowed to go ahead.
 

Second one.

 

So would you have been okay with the Ireland invasion if Triyun had put some extra work into setting out the Aussies and their friends complaints against Ireland? If yes then does that mean you would also support RP needed for say land expansion? So if someone needed or wanted land they would be required to write up a story about lack of resources or over population. 

[KaiserMelech Mikhail]

Crimea.

One time in the last 40 years isn't "all the time." Additionally, since there was no actual war, does it really count as conquering?
 

So would you have been okay with the Ireland invasion if Triyun had put some extra work into setting out the Aussies and their friends complaints against Ireland?

I still would have called it a massive dick move, but yes, I wouldn't have opposed it to any real extent.

If yes then does that mean you would also support RP needed for say land expansion? So if someone needed or wanted land they would be required to write up a story about lack of resources or over population.

Yes

[Centurius]

If you want to play that game, there is always Risk or Civilization or Total War. This isn't a game to see how much of a map you can cover, it's a game to start interesting stories with your fellow players and have fun. I think this is why people advocate so much for the removal of the CNRP map, since it forces wars to go from "You got that land that I want" to actually needing some political back story.
 

Your use of present tense makes your statement highly incorrect.
 

1. Causus* belli
2. Everyone needs to stop using that phrase. I hate it and I think people use it just to look smarter than they actually are.
3. We did that before. Remember when Triyun invaded Borneo with the subtitle "Plotting is bad?" That is because he only knew of something happening on IRC, with no RP on the forums actually put into it. That is metagaming, and yet it was allowed to go ahead.
 

Second one.

Show me the rule that says it isn't.

 

As Yawoo said, Crimea.

 

Casus belli, if you're going to correct someone make sure you actually do it right.