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Recent Concerns Regarding Bamathis
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This was evident in how the AL didn't touch Moghedu while Enorian converted the mhun. Fezzix has to tell at least a dozen people that the end result is the same: "No more worship of the pantheon that kills thousands every time they show up."
It's also evident in how Fezzix has never harassed anyone who's ever left the org. I recall one person getting speared by Bamathis after they joined and left a second time, but that was a more extreme circumstance.
I try to lead the Argent Legion like a military on a religious crusade, but I have never pushed the "for us or against us" mentality. I remember when Bamathis first came around and went to all the cities. He (very forcefully) asked them if they'd "fall in line" behind the Legion, so I understand why people are assuming that the group thinks anyone who doesn't fall in line is therefore against them.
EDIT: Actually, I don't lead it like a religious crusade. I lead it more like a military unit hunting terror cells.
Like I mentioned earlier though, that hasn't been demonstrated. The people getting killed have all been cultists.
This is why we need better sources of lore, Aetolia's forever-problem.
For example, I think the arguments comparing extermination of NPC cultures to extermination of undeath are off base, even if they both ultimately come off as "fantasy evil". The simple fact that undeath is a broad, varied category of people, player and NPC, with obvious genre context, puts it in a different place compared to an NPC culture. An NPC culture is usually composed of one or two (often non-player) races, who speak some native language, and who live relatively harmless lives. I am not a POC, but I've read and heard enough from POC on race in gaming to know that fictional racism doesn't always feel like just fantasy evil, particularly when it mirrors real world traumas. The biggest of those traumas is obviously genocide, and with all of that baggage, fictional genocide is difficult to execute without calling on those real world traumas. Undeath gets a fairly solid pass, because there a dozen subtle and non-subtle differentiators that pull it well outside any real world parallels.
On the other hand, NPC extermination should really be approached with respect to the baggage such an act would and should have for the players behind the characters. I would never imagine that anyone involved created these events to intentionally draw on real world events, but I think Phoenecia's points about parallels with NPC and real world cultures are hard to ignore when they're made. I do understand that that's kind of the soup we swim in, because an NPC culture needs to seem real and any real-enough culture is unavoidably going to draw real world parallels. All that said, I think the story writers have done a decent job to justify Albedi worshippers as being the kind of evil that even the "good" guys would want to exterminate. Above all, it's well established that Albedi gods are a fundamental threat to Sapience, as demonstrated often in events leading to massive deaths (don't quote me, I'm just skimming event postings now) and similar consequences. It's hard to find real world parallels with that, and so we end up solidly in "fantasy evil".
Experience Gained: 47720 (Special) [total: 2933660]
Needed for LVL: 122.00775356245
1) On an OOC level I can acknowledge from a philosophical point of view the genocide of vampires on its face is indistinguishable from the genocide of albedi worshippers. I have no problems with this and if my character fully supported one but rejected the other I'd acknowledge that my character is a hypocrite but hey: playing a hypocrite can be fun. It's also worth noting that hypocrites by their nature are right half the time so calling it out doesn't support your argument - you still have to make an argument for which occasion is the time that hypocrite is in the wrong.
2) On an IC level... well, if you have occasion to actually talk to my character IC I think you'd be surprised with what he views. Yes, on an OOC level we choose where our characters grow up but I was both excited and delighted to play a character whose personal outlooks do not sync well with where they grew up or where they ended up and some of the best RP I've had in game so far has been trying to reconcile those conflicting viewpoints.
3) Getting more on the game design and narrative aspect: the key difference, which I wanted to highlight with my first post, between the light vs shadow conflict and the Albedos vs Sapience conflict (which I'm just going to call "shinies vs thinkies" because it amuses me) is that with light vs. shadow I can talk to vampires. I can actually walk up to a vampire player (theoretically), strike up a conversation, and discover that this vampire is actually a person. Or hell, even discover that this vampire is every bit the monster your fellow peeps made them out to be. It creates an opportunity to challenge IC beliefs and struggle to reconcile those beliefs with outside evidence. Perhaps it may even lead to affirmation of beliefs. A genocidal character can be forced to confront the personhood of their targets and is forced to decide how to deal with that.
I can't do this with Albedos worshippers AFAIK. I don't know of one that I can walk up to and strike up a conversation. I don't know where I can find some especially talkative NPC that is basically a person. There is no room for beliefs to be challenged, no room for affirmation or condemnation of a particular viewpoint. No contexts beyond the few clues that we get from an IC perspective and as such we are forced to fill in the blanks with RL examples we know about. Given that we only have a few RL examples of genocide in the common consciousness it should not be surprising that people immediately latched onto Nazis and draw comparisons there.
At the end of the day, that's what I personally really, REALLY want with this conflict. I want context, I want depth, I want nuance, I want something there that challenges where my character stands on the matter in a believable way and the opportunity to make a choice. To circle back to my original post I think these two things will help... not necessarily help people ignore fascist parallels they might see but give them a context they can stomach as part of their entertainment.
-Give people context and understanding that they can easily access so those inclined to gather information on the topic can do so.
-Let players actually make a stand without, y'know, risking org destruction or some other big bad admin slap down.
I don't know how to do the former as I understand there are limits to what the staff can actually accomplish and it's not practical to have somebody on "albedos" duty all the time to explain what the shinies believe and contextualize their society, culture, and other things that make us understand what we're being asked to oppose, but the latter can actually be resolved by a simple statement from the administration. A simple "alright guys - if you want to wage a war against Bamathis's order that's cool with us and we're not gonna delete your org for it but, y'know, Bamathis might get kinda pissy and send the legion to kick down your door but if your asses get handed to you it's players doing it" could help a whole lot here. Unless, y'know, that's not the reality and they do plan to delete orgs that actively oppose Bamathis. In which case you better put in overtime on that context because if I'm gonna have Jourik goosestep his way over the corpses of people whose only crime is worshipping the wrong Gods it better be a damn convincing argument.
After you actively reinforce the notion that a group in game is analogous to Hitler and the Nazi party and players get called white supremacists, however, I find hard to accept "in my experience/perception" as an excuse.
After you cross the line into mounting a campaign against a group of players by literally calling them white supremacists, you can't hide behind the caveat of "in my perception." You've fired shots based on an admitted assumption.
Even if you're not the one who directly called people white supremacists, you still fed into the hysteria among your group of friends, and you played a big part in spreading the hysteria around so that people accept your ill-informed opinions as the gospel truth.
For my part, I responded in anger to people who had legitimate concerns about the symbolism. I'm glad it's been addressed, and I'm sorry for being insensitive. I won't change my stance on the controversy, but I do understand why people feel uncomfortable. I think it's possible to disagree with people without getting nasty, and I made my own assumptions at the start of all this that everyone of the opposing viewpoint was on the extreme end of it. I'm sorry for that.
The supremacist accusations that came from this and the people who propagated and encouraged it for the past few months, though? Grow up.
I really don't like vague suggestions of allegations existing on a public forum, where people are able to be influenced one way or the other. After the grossness of what I was targeted with, I think you'd understand why.
That is two events with Enorian in 7 real life months. We don't have anyone who helps us with our small orgreqs(currently 1), we don't have anyone anymore who blesses us regularly, we don't have anyone who backs us up on anything, honestly. So, even though for the majority of us in Enorian, it makes no sense for us to back Bamathis for previous stated reasons in this thread, we're still afraid to do anything about it because we don't have anyone on Bamathis's power level to back us up.
It's honestly pretty miserable, and a lot of it makes no sense. You try to make your own direction, you get pooped on, you try to wait for direction from the Pools, you get no direction. It is really quite baffling. If you all want a God like Bamathis for everyone to rally around, telling us he's a Shadow god was an extremely nonsensical decision to make. If you want to blur the lines, then blur the lines, but the key point is here 'following the lines' has been what we've been told for 15 some odd years or more now. MAKE UP YOUR MINDS.
That is all.
That's a subject for a different thread though.
So the with us or against us mentality seems kinda... Unfounded? If anything it's players perpetuating that mentality, not the god himself.
I know the admin and volunteers are stretched thin and delays in story for the mining project but the standstills across the game put a lot of pressure on the players as well. I wish the admin could release like micro-events every so often to help alleviate the budding mass of frustrations but I've no idea what they're working with.
Kudos to the player leaders out there doing what they can to foster interest and generate buzz for their followers.
I don't want people to stop trying to galvanize roleplay as players. That's a great thing, as many players across IRE only really want to do things unless it's spoonfed to them by Gods. Gods should really just be giving you the push with the occasional active direction. Sure, events are one thing, but a lot of events can be driven by players doing things of their own volition. When players do things of their own volition, it also makes it easier for admins to craft an event since they have something to work with.
Volunteers are here giving up their /free time/ to make the game more enjoyable for you all, because they enjoy doing it. They're certainly not compensated in any other way for this (and that's a discussion far above the paygrade of both myself and Tiur unfortunately) so their enjoyment and your reactions to what they're doing is the only thing they're getting out of doing essentially free service for us.
With that in mind, I know there's complaints on both sides of the game about Gods being frequently inactive, so I just want to ask for a bit of self-reflection: would someone enjoy giving up their free time to roleplay at you? We don't expect either ourselves or volunteers to be above criticism. But, sometimes, there are far, far, FAR better ways of going about it.
We (paid staff) aren't blameless in this either, and I'm not trying to shift any blame away from us by posting this. But, in my long, over twelve years, history of being a member of this team, volunteers quitting usually comes down to one or two things: They've either stopped enjoying it, or they've had issues with other volunteers/staff. You guys obviously can't do anything about the latter, but you absolutely contribute the most to the former.
If a volunteer isn't enjoying their time volunteering, they're not going to stick around.
p.s. don't forget you can EXPRESS ESTEEM FOR POOLS, or EXPRESS ESTEEM FOR , and it doesn't require one nor use up one of daily esteem votes! Easy way to make a volunteer feel good about themselves.
You're damn right you did. Few people I've seen in any mud I've played understand that RP is more about involving those around you than it is about puffing your own character up. As Bamathis, you managed to make him very interesting while also making us feel like our characters matter. I've rarely ever encountered anyone with such RP skill that has been able to achieve both of those objectives rather than just constantly keep the spotlight on themselves.
With that said, I honestly can't convey my disappointment with this community in words and I'm pretty bummed that you stepped down but I completely understand why. Thank you for setting an amazing example for me of what a good roleplayer is and for taking the time to involve Drystin even though he wasn't a member of the order.
I knew you could do this for the Gods, but not the Pools at large. I took the time to do a nice thought out esteem for the Pools. I would encourage everyone to do it as well.
I have been -blessed- with this in the short time that I have played here in Aetolia to have those interactions and advance in some small way the story of Bamathis. I cannot comment on the many aspects that this thread has voiced, nor the complexities that surround it. But, I can comfortably say with no regrets, that you advanced and enriched my character.
Bamathis was there in some of the darker times of my character's arc and will likely remain a continuous thread through character development and the future. Through your work, and honestly the fun I've had with Bamathis you have changed my play-style and writing in a meaningful and impactful way. I don't have enough words for it, but if I did I'd probably ramble.
I hope that wherever your next adventures take you, you'll be in a good place and successful in all that you do. Thank you.
If you have constructive criticism about storylines, or a God's current RP, or anything community related and you think it's too heavy for a volunteer because it's harsh (albeit true) then e-mail Tiur. If it's constructive criticism that is healthy, then create a forum thread to open it for discussion. Or engage with the God ICly to get a deeper understanding of them. Most, if not all, of our volunteers welcome the opportunity to roleplay with the community to spread a deeper understanding of their role.
If it's downright mean, you should reflect on what exactly you're criticizing. Is it your hurt feelings, or genuinely something you think is a detriment to the game? If the latter, it loops back to e-mailing Paid Staff.
All of us, volunteers and paid staff alike all understand that criticism is part of the role. What our volunteers should not have to endure is the toxicity around their role due to emotions running opinions instead of clear logic and a genuine interest in X topic.
edit: I realized this could be misconstrued so I felt it prudent to clarify by saying that Bamathis' player did a fantastic job of portraying the character and, though never involved directly, I loved every bit that I got to see. However, I feel (wrongly or rightly) that a key facet of Bamathis as a character is to give our characters something to doubt each other and disagree over instead of "obviously evil" vs "probably good" and this has, clearly, been done with aplomb. Bravo to everyone involved in designing and playing the character.
Myself and Sibatti after a day took some time to speak to each other as the players, privately.
There are some take-aways from this I want to share with you, and I think her and I both had agreement on.
We are a very small community, not just in aetolia but in MUD's all together.
Alot can be harmful in what we say and how we say it, and even if we think we are venting our frustrations in private, it is likely that information is going to travel, and even though we see it in text form, the emotion, the words we say can be harmful and take a good thing and make it quicky very very hurtful. It is not beyond us to want to air frustrations, but it is also not beyond us to be willing to accept the validity of how these might make a person feel. We are in a unique situation currently with the state of our world, we have uncertainty with health, finances, political, educational, employment...you name it, it is an uncertain time. At the end of the day the last thing we need to is to be penalizing the last bastion we might have to escape some of these things happening in our lives, our little sanctuary.
While we may have idealistic differences, we dont need to let that attack our fantasy world and furthermore one another.
We all come from different backgrounds, we have different careers and different life experiences and I believe we often assume of one another too much.
So like I said to Sibatti in our discussion, let us tell our stories and not let those OOC differences and feelings harm what we have nurtured as a place to enjoy. Let the storytelling come as it may, if we cross paths, then we cross paths, if we don't we don't...it is our story to tell in Aetolia and no-one elses.
We are human, we are bound to vent our frustrations, but lets remember what it is doing to others when we do so.
For Aetolia? For Sapience!
That was ridiculous I know...for real though, were not the kids we used to be, lets be willing to apologize and move on.
If someone genuinely asks for assistance/information/lore/clarifications to get a better sense of where to go (since sometimes information can get lost because players disappear or don't talk for whatever reason and it's difficult to get some consistency), it should be provided as clearly as possible, and keeping in mind that the person is reaching out for help for a reason.
Player-driven rp is awesome, but solid foundations are sort of required for it to keep making sense in the long run. Some organisations need better foundations to help facilitate this.