New RP Restrictions?

[Danikat]

Its come to my attention that some people (myself included) are getting increasingly frustrated with the actions of some of our members in RP's.

To be specific they're power-playing and making the RP's unplayable for many other members. The Corperate Development 2 thread is a perfect example of the problem. There have been attempts to deal with problems as they come up, explaining why a characters actions aren't acceptable and asking them to change it, or at least not repeat the mistake in the future. But it seems that they've all fallen on deaf ears.

So I'd like to suggest that we restrict access to The Wilds, and other RP sections, until after people have proven that they can RP to an acceptable standard. Nothing as demanding as earning a Master RP'er rank, just that they have to be able to avoid power-playing and provide an adequet explaination of their actions.

Essntially the idea is that when a new member joins they can access all the areas like the General Chat or the Games Room, but the only RP board they could post on would be the Training Dojo.
If they're interested in getting access to the others (which I hope they would be if they're here) then a topic would be set up in the Training Dojo for them to fight either me (since I'm the training mod) or another member if one volunteers. During the fight all the have to do is avoid power-playing or making any overly stupid mistakes and then access to the other boards will be granted.

If you guys like the idea theres also some existing members I'd like to recommend be restricted to the Training Dojo because they could really use some tips on avoiding power-playing and other issues.

[Shaon]

Sounds good to me.

[LordPsycho]

This gets back to a point I was about to make later today.

I created blackstar to teach people about what is and how to RP, with giving people who do know how to RP as a secondary purpose. But since it started, the priorities have seemed to have been reveresed. People want to keep this a place for us to RP, without bringing in new blood.

I think this will go a long way towards correcting this problem. But I'm also about to start a new program, once I get the details worked out and present it to the Mods for their opinions.

This has my thumbs up, but before I run off to do anything, what does anyone else think.

And if you suspect a member of not RP'ing to a respectable level, please report the post in question so that I can not add them to the new group for proven RP'ers.

[Embri]

ABSOLUTELY!

Danikat, you're a genius! Bless you and your lovely dragons. I've been getting complaints left right and center from various members about *ahem* the inability of a select few to play by Blackstar's rules.

I would also amend that anyone caught powerplaying or otherwise wreaking a RP should be issued an OOC warning within the RP. A second offense, a written warning by PM. A third offense should "demote" the RPer back down to Training Level.

Well, it's a suggestion. Something has to be done to reduce the anarchy.

I am COMPLETELY FOR bringing in new members. Absolutely. And I'd be more than happy to apprentice or teach, if needed. Blackstar's purpose as a forum for learning the art of Role Playing (for indeed, it IS an art) is part of what makes this place special. Still, it is very hard to craft a good RP to show people that art when half the posts must be dedicated to unravelling inconsistencies, addressing power plays and asking for clarifications. All RP's will inevitably have some of these snags from time to time, but in many cases the entire RP is being derailed by these types of problems.

Maybe new members should get a mentor, to show them the ropes? Just another thought. Seems to work well for the EC.

[Goron40]

Well this is great and all, but I think that we would need more "Senseis" in the Dojo. Currently we've got a couple of random battles going on, and that's about it. If we could mantain some kind of ongoing instructional thread (preferably something interesting), then I'm all for this.

If there isn't any threads for them to practice in (and/or spam/screw up in), then you'll be getting wave after wave of noobies running in, saying that Danikat is dead, and then... well whatever happens then.

I am Goron40, and I approve this message.

[GBE]

I personally don't like slagging off people or anything like that really... However, I do agree that there are a few less competant roleplayers... I also agree to the fact that personal likes and dislikes should not affect someones judgement according to someones level of skill in roleplaying...

As it is, I'm in two minds as to Danikat's idea, yes, it would allow the less competant roleplayers achieve a better standard, and allow us to weed out rubbish newcomers... But it might also put a lot of people of roleplaying as they might just want to join in the fun. Remember, DP set it up to be a freeform roleplay...

I'd be happy to help train newcomers, providing that each individual trainer is the one who judges firsthand the level of someones roleplaying skills. If there is doubt amongst other trainers, then it should be brought up in a private mod area, or in pms...((I am actually interested in being a training Moderator...))

But remember, not every thread on Blackstar is a roleplay thread, and as such, access to quite a few of the threads should still be allowed.

If you can achieve a fair balance, I'll offer my full support...

[Embri]

Good points, Goron... I'm not convinced we need more Mods, not yet anyway, but some good training threads would be very beneficial.

I think restricting the main RP'ing areas a little would make many of the more accomplished members much more willing to assist with training and teaching others.

In fact, I suggest we couple this with an eventual change in the currency award system. I have been discussing several ideas for stabilizing the Dojodian economy with The Sensei, and this one seems feasible:

Those who are trainees, would be paid for participating in training RP's, thus providing incentive to improve their art. Those who are already accomplished RPers would earn their money by training newer players. This would be simple to arrange - only the Training Grounds (possibly expanded?) would award for posting. Areas such as the Bingo Hall and the Primary RP boards (Wilds, Unexplored) would have potential non-monetary rewards, such as a special item or medal, instead of cash.

An idea. Feel free to comment.

[Goron40]

Damn. There goes my "Get rich by spamming" plot.

[UncleAsriel]

I think this would help to remedy things around here quite a bit. However, shouldn't we also be try to encourage the use of the moderators. As much as I'd like to read every single post made in the wilds, there's no way I can do that, get a calculus credit, hold down a job, take psychology 201, train to be an action hero and have a normal social life without going insane and making an offering of my left ear on the Sensei's temple doorstep. If there's a specific post that's annoying you, PM me about is.

Send the link to me (or any other mod of the wilds, for that matter) via pm (you can get a specific post's link by clicking on the white thingy next to the text "Posted on:[DATE]"). Explain to me - or that other mod - what your issue is, and how you'd like me to remedy it. I'll then contact the poster, and tell them that they may need to clean up a post a bit. I'll try to sort this out as soon as I can, but please be patient, since I don't have a computer implanted in my frontal lobe (yet!).

Please don't overuse the "Report Post" button on this one, unless severe abuse - spamming, profanity, overly offensive subject matter, etc - occurs. The last thing we mods need to do is have to do is remediate urgent complaints all the time. Please, just use your head, and be reasonable, and everything will be alright.

Sound good?

[Goron40]

Ummm... maybe I misunderstood that but... are you sure you posted that in the right topic Azzy?

And just so everyone knows, I never said mroe mods. I said more Senseis. You know, people to help train the younglings. We have a plentiful supply of mods to work from.

[3kul]

Damn, looks like I'm a little late in giving my opinion. To be honest I didn't think that this'd go from idea to martial law in such a little amount of time though .

Anyways, personally, I'm against this whole thing. No, I'm not just saying this to be controversial, I'm saying it because this is what I believe (those of you who've read my post on the EC forums feel free to skip this, because I'm basically repeating what I said there). I learnt to RP by RPing with people who were better at it than me, and still are better than me. I'm sure that many of you also learnt the same way, and it makes me wonder why you all agreed to this so easily.

All that splitting people apart and forcing them to prove themselves is going to do is make the Dojo less popular - who the hell wants to have to prove themselves to people like us just to RP with everyone else? I can understand why we at the EC do that kind of thing, because we're an exclusive group, but I thought that "The place for Masters and Pupils Alike" was just that, not some place where everyone's forced to RP in different places depending upon how good we think they are.

Now that I've picked it apart and complained about our current solution, I guess it'd be best to offer an alternative solution, lest I be seen as a counter-productive mod . I believe that altering the ranking system might've been a much better way to do this. As you most likely are aware, the current "Belt" ranking system goes up automatically by posts, just like rewarding people with money for posting it tends to mess things up a little. To give an example, I'm currently not far off from being a Black Belt (800 posts), whilst Shaon is only just approaching Brown Belt (400 posts) status. Yet both of us are in the Master's Guild (and imo, Shaon is definately better than me at this). I can already see a post count, so the belt system really doesn't seem to be serving much of a purpose at the moment, and can be a little deceptive given it's origins.

So that got me thinking, why not have it judging by skill? After all, in a real Dojo one doesn't get a black belt just by doing 800 karate chops or something like that, you have to take the tests to earn it. People could simply put rules in their RPs to keep less skilled RPers out. For example, "Blue belts or above only" is pretty easy to understand and follow, and if someone below that rank posts in your thread, notify the mod and get their post/s deleted if they refuse to do so themselves.

This solution doesn't feel quite as elitist as the current one that we've got, as it means that those of us who want to RP with people of a certain skill level are able to differentiate between members enough to do so, whilst those of us who don't mind are free to RP with whomever we please. Additionally, I feel that by having one's skill level associated with something you can show off to fellow members, it would only encourage beginners to better themselves. Our current system seems a little less rewarding imo, as a black belt can be a beginner and a white belt can be a Master.

I'll be interested to hear what people think of my alternative idea, as I'm not a huge fan of the current solution (no offense to those of you who thought of it or agreed with it).

[LordPsycho]

Well, Luke, your opinion is noted.

And that reason is why I took away the monitary benefits from the Guild's board, and kept it for the Training board. I'm trying to encourage people to RP there more with newer people. I have faith that the truly skilled won't need such a benefit to RP in the wilds, etc, but they just dont' seem to be doing much to help train people in the Dojo.

This alteration is only on a trial basis, and can be reversed if so I choose. But then I place luke responsible for giving the lesser skilled among us motivation for improving their art, just because he's the only one brave enough to speak up.

[Danikat]

Wow, I didn't expect this thing to take off so quickly. I thought there'd be a lot more time to make sure we've worked this idea out fully before its put into practice.

3kul it was never my intention to turn the Dojo into some sort of elitist club or to exclude anyone.

I'm not sure what anyone else was thinking but I intended the requirements for access to the other RP sections to be extremely relaxed.
Only the worst cases, people who actually make an RP unplayable for other members would be restricted from posting in them.
...........I don't like naming names, or picking on individuals but this is going to be infinately easier if I stop skipping around the issue and use an example.

Forte in the Corperate Development 2 thread.
As soon as Net mentioned there was a machine stopping us getting into the Corrupted Cave Forte found it (conviniently right in front of him) and was about to blow it up. Solving a major section of the plot in 2 posts.

When Net finally talked him out of that, on the basis that destroying it would destroy the entire Dojo, and cut out a lot of the intended plot, and suggested that the only way to get rid of it was to find someone with the knoweldge to disarm it Forte instantly gave himself 5,000 years of engineering experience (and a tool kit) and sets to work disarming it himself. (Although he did finally concede that it would take him 3 posts.)

I know for a fact this kind of behaviour has put people off posting in the thread. Which is what I'm hoping to prevent. I'm all for new people joining in and learning as they go but if a select few put people off participating then there won't be anything for new members to join in with. (Except maybe turning up to be killed on sight by unstoppable super-characters.)

A new rank system could be a very good idea (and I do agree that the belts seem a little redundant) but I don't see it solving problems like that.

My original idea was that the disruption for new members would be absolutely minimal. Maybe a one page sparing match at most. Just enough to show they're not going to power-play and can understand that their character is not master of the universe and won't always be the center of attention or have things going exactly their way. What they do beyond that would be entirely up to them.

Its only in rare cases, like Forte, that any actual training would be required. To try and help them understand why their approach puts other people off and how they can get around that.

[Embri]

Regardless of weather the board restrictions are kept or dropped, I think monetary rewards should remain limited to the Training Dojo.

Similarly to how post count overinflates Belt Ranks, it does the same to bank accounts. The Dojo's enconmy doesn't need more money being pumped into it constantly.

The belt idea is intruiging... it's along the lines of what I thought they would represent originally. Still, it involves testing and we would probably need a large number of Mod's to supervise this. (Potentially a good thing, as it fits the whole mentor/student idea, and would give the Mod's something constructive to do.)

One problem I foresee is HOW the testing would be done. Criteria would
have to be established for each level of belt. Up to trying that, 3kul?

EDIT: In response to Danikat's post... I wasn't really expecting the changeover to happen last night either, but I'm doing my best to make it work.

Unless there are any objections, I'll open viewing access to the Wilds and other areas shortly.

[Danikat]