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Would like to see more radical political roleplay


kronosa

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7 hours ago, Trupiano said:

 

Like I stated in my original comment, I don't think we can boil it down to people being just too sensitive. A lot of the people I see become agitated by the existence of skinhead gangs are European. I think this plays a huge role as unlike you or I (I believe your American Ronnie) WW2 and Nazism isn't just something that happened in a far off land, it's something that dramatically effected your family, your community and your nation. 

 

Taking that into account, I can understand why someone would be shocked or confused by just how much Nazism and it's attached iconography is not only used but embraced by a noticeable percentage of the US population. I think the middle ground we have now where White power criminal groups are allowed but white power political groups are not is good for everyone. If you've got a problem with the criminal groups existing, tough shit because anyone who's actually researched them can tell you the symbols are just symbolism and they are 100% money motivated not race motivated. But I can't see the political groups adding anymore good RP then the unavoidable can of worms allowing them would open.

 

 

Racism is a huge problem in America, still. As it was in the 60s and before. Am I trying to take away from WW2/Nazism by saying that? Absolutely not. 

 

But again, you're choosing - nobody - is forcing you, to RP an American based around American culture, as GTA:W is IC in America. Here, in America, radically political events happen. Why should we penalize someone who potentially could bring some really unique, niche high quality RP to the table? 

 

I say, give it a chance, maybe make him ask for OOC consent with other parties if the RP is deemed too extensive per situation, per discretion. Not everything he'll RP/do will be radical. He won't be radical 24/7 when developing his character. 

Edited by Ronnie two poles
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On 11/4/2021 at 2:35 AM, Alyssa McCarthy said:

I’d actually like some politics of any kind.

 

This isn’t a slight at gov, because it’s out of their control but Im of the opinion that LFM suspending elections is probably one of the worst decisions and backward steps for political RP the server staff have made.

 

This removed a huge portion of political RP.

Political RP was at its best when Halford and other politicians were out in the community lobbying for votes and making their campaign pledges - when communities would have the politicians over and have politicians answerable to the people. It was one of the few times I’ve seen legal RP flourish outside of nightclubs and bars - dozens of players would gather and meet / talk to their potential candidates etc.

 

With LFM suspending elections, we’re no longer representative of the US and instead in some pseudo dictatorship where senators are neither democratically elected or representatives of the people.

 

So we’re now in a position where characters can join GOV and create laws that they’ve no democratic mandate to do, and having spoken to a number of senators, something they’ve no power to fix.

 

@cxn

 

We indeed already have radical politics. No elections and who the leadership likes best gets senate roles. Waiting since August for the chance to run in a pretty much never-ending election preparation. Having spoken to LFM already I am aware a new system is coming but in GTA world that could mean the next equinox. The government right now is treated as a closed off faction when it is supposed to be the most public one.

Edited by Tickle
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On 11/4/2021 at 9:35 AM, Alyssa McCarthy said:

I’d actually like some politics of any kind.

 

This isn’t a slight at gov, because it’s out of their control but Im of the opinion that LFM suspending elections is probably one of the worst decisions and backward steps for political RP the server staff have made.

 

This removed a huge portion of political RP.

Political RP was at its best when Halford and other politicians were out in the community lobbying for votes and making their campaign pledges - when communities would have the politicians over and have politicians answerable to the people. It was one of the few times I’ve seen legal RP flourish outside of nightclubs and bars - dozens of players would gather and meet / talk to their potential candidates etc.

 

With LFM suspending elections, we’re no longer representative of the US and instead in some pseudo dictatorship where senators are neither democratically elected or representatives of the people.

 

So we’re now in a position where characters can join GOV and create laws that they’ve no democratic mandate to do, and having spoken to a number of senators, something they’ve no power to fix.

 

@cxn

 

The situation that we see now is quite sad - a brief look at the forums suggests that the senate has devolved into a low-quality free-for-all, while elections weren't the perfect method of quality control, they did a pretty good job of weeding out the truly awful attempts of character development.

 

Elections weren't suspended by LFM, but by Management, the whole purgatory that we see now is because for the past year and a half, everyone has had the point of view that the senate needs fixing, unfortunately time has shown again and again that nobody actually knows how to fix it, or even describe what the problems are. A dynamic, democratic system is incompatible with the level of control that certain stakeholders require in the server - the fact that the faction can't handle it's own quality control to the extent that SD leadership can is telling of a unexciting future.

 

Now the project looks semi-abandoned, with poor standards creeping through and no real care. Throwing in some edgy anarchists or Nazis isn't going to fix it, but simply be the thing that simply buries it, ending the story as an unsuccessful attempt at democracy that'll never be attempted again.

Edited by HaveADream
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9 minutes ago, HaveADream said:

 

The situation that we see now is quite sad - a brief look at the forums suggests that the senate has devolved into a low-quality free-for-all, while elections weren't the perfect method of quality control, they did a pretty good job of weeding out the truly awful attempts of character development.

 

Elections weren't suspended by LFM, but by Management, the whole purgatory that we see now is because for the past year and a half, everyone has had the point of view that the senate needs fixing, unfortunately time has shown again and again that nobody actually knows how to fix it, or even describe what the problems are. A dynamic, democratic system is incompatible with the level of control that certain stakeholders require in the server - the fact that the faction can't handle it's own quality control to the extent that SD leadership can is telling of a unexciting future.

 

Now the project looks semi-abandoned, with poor standards creeping through and no real care. Throwing in some edgy anarchists or Nazis isn't going to fix it, but simply be the thing that simply buries it, ending the story as an unsuccessful attempt at democracy that'll never be attempted again.

 

I agree with you (also ouch 😞 )

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30 minutes ago, HaveADream said:

 

 


Previous elections were awful and stunk of LFM over-involvement and rigging. Oswald Halford situation was pretty bad. (For those who know the actual story there, at least).

Recently, I've seen senators everywhere, discussing bills, opening city hall up regularly to talk, actually going out of their way and engaging people/factions not just popping up during election season and then disappearing to the forum - this is what the server needs. Just seeing some of the recent bills get pushed through are ten times better than what we had previously.

This isn't a dig at you, I know you did your best with your time there, but as someone that does RP with certain characters in the senate ( a total outsider civilian) - for the first time I'm actually enjoying seeing what the government is doing and them taking an actual active interest in what is happening on the server with the characters we have instead of just ham-fisting things that people do not care about.

They're changing things that are important - the charity bill that passed was actually a suggestion my civilian character made in passing to a random senator - because they got sick of dealing with fake charity scams. This wasn't done through the forum, it was done purely in-game and THAT is what the government should always have been - reacting to server culture and actually being a part of the server, not an external entity.

Seeing government characters pop-up for elections and then disappear. Are we forgetting that we literally put a brand new player to the community into a position of power without knowing ANYTHING about the server culture in-game? Bad decisions were made that, in my opinion, the new government is rectifying.

Your post seemed to come across as an attack and as someone that legitimately doesn't really care about government RP - the current batch of people have actuallydone something that has gained my interest and attention.



 

Edited by lux
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48 minutes ago, HaveADream said:

 

The situation that we see now is quite sad - a brief look at the forums suggests that the senate has devolved into a low-quality free-for-all, while elections weren't the perfect method of quality control, they did a pretty good job of weeding out the truly awful attempts of character development.

 

Elections weren't suspended by LFM, but by Management, the whole purgatory that we see now is because for the past year and a half, everyone has had the point of view that the senate needs fixing, unfortunately time has shown again and again that nobody actually knows how to fix it, or even describe what the problems are. A dynamic, democratic system is incompatible with the level of control that certain stakeholders require in the server - the fact that the faction can't handle it's own quality control to the extent that SD leadership can is telling of a unexciting future.

 

Now the project looks semi-abandoned, with poor standards creeping through and no real care. Throwing in some edgy anarchists or Nazis isn't going to fix it, but simply be the thing that simply buries it, ending the story as an unsuccessful attempt at democracy that'll never be attempted again.

 

I have to respectfully disagree with nearly every point that you pointed out, and here's why. As someone who's sat in the spot for the past 6 months, it's just been recently getting back on its feet. Minus a few specific instances where Senators are acting completely unrealistic and rogue; of which would get shut down in real-life, the roleplay that is portrayed overall has been accurate and fair. The elections were very erratic and the system was something that completely dumbfounded me, to be frank. It follows a literal European ideology that has completely no justice when replicating United States democracy system. For example, I nearly got booted from the Senate because 'the party picks the seats,' yet there has been absolutely NO system in United States history that has followed this mentality. I get that there is a break between OOC and IC, however; any voting should be done completely in character. People maintain multiple characters that could, potentially, have differing political stances. This system forced people to act out of character and force people to disregard one (or several) of their other characters. This system did have its pluses, as you stated; it did a good job of weeding out the poor characters. However, every system is going to have its pros and cons, and the system selected had cons that far outweighed the pros.

 

As for this mentality that the 'senate needs fixing,' this has been a completely blanket term for any and all people that have had any measure of incident with the Senate that did not favor their outcome. I am not saying this applies to you, but this message is the default that echoes throughout the community when less-than-desirable outcomes come from an IC interaction. For one, when the bill that my character introduced was met with out-of-character bashing and disgusting words tossed at me, it was completely astonishing to me. At that point, I heard a lot of the same messages and phrases. The only real thing is here - no one wants to actually put in the effort that a majority of the current characters have put in (shoutout to Zani, H04X, Eriks, and Hugh). They would rather instead sit behind their screen and complain at any waking moment they get.  If the faction leaders of SAGOV truly listened to 'this shit sucks,' nothing would get finished. Don't fix what isn't broken. Any issues that we have ever seen arise are purely internal and not something that affects the community in any measure.

 

As per quality control, there is a level of trust between Keane, cxn, H04X, and Zani as far as I can tell. In contrast from when you were the leader; they don't maintain a tight grip on the amount or quality of roleplay that is held inside and outside of the Capitol. This is because you have the players (H04X and Zani) that maintain this, which is exactly how it should be. Should any conflict or quality assurance concerns arise, that is when it is brought up to the proper channels. LFM should not (and has not recently) shoot down or shit on the players every chance they get. When that happens, you're going to allow LFM lapdogs who sit in on leadership positions which is where the real problems will arise. The fact that the current LFM handlers of SAGOV and the player leaders of SAGOV have (clearly) found a good balance between their communication has allowed for the faction to flourish in ways that have not been seen from when I first joined.

 

I believe I have thoroughly analyzed and dismantled any arguments you may have against the Senate being a thing. The characters in there (AFAIK with the Republicans) have been well-established and are all thoughtful in their development. Minus two characters - I cannot name a single one that has portrayed an unrealistic standard when it comes to a Senator. I will go so far as to say that the staffers and any support characters have been fantastic, not only with their portrayal; but there the way that they take their job from an IC standpoint. Honestly, I won't go another day allowing players to just publicly come to the forums and spew that the Senate is a shit faction and have absolutely no supporting evidence. A lot of people are too far gone and miles away from the faction to even reasonably say why.

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This pretty much sums up my whole feelings of the whole affair of "Don't shoot the messenger."

 

Really - I didn't create a democratic system or a state government or even politics to keep it strict and tightly controlled - but a bunch of mistakes were created along the way that allowed the senate to be a wholly irrelevant on a macro-sense, such as giving a lieutenant governor position to a complete narcissist, not realising the intervention that'd be had from other stakeholders in the server and not pushing back on things like marijuana etc. 

 

LFM wasn't intended to have a strict control over the senate or what it does or what bills it passes - that was a players responsibility, most of the time LFM was the messenger, and when it wasn't, it was the only thing that stood between yourselves and getting the faction closed - believe that or not, I don't really mind, but consider the perspective I have and I can now openly talk about. 

 

Do you think if anything meaningful or anything that impacted other legal/illegal factions that had an actual, active effect on the server passed, it would raise alarm bells? Please don't see this as an attack as I'm not really around anymore or even play, but that's the perspective that I got from being involved in the faction from before it started.

 

Funnily enough, the election system used was voted for by the stakeholders before the election, interestingly when people didn't actually care to learn about it or it didn't produce the results they wanted, they had an issue with it.

 

Now we have a situation where elections aren't going to happen for quite a long time, people are just airlifted into positions and we're all running down the clock for the project to end. I'd truly hate to be wrong, but democracy seems like a fickle thing. 

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On 10/31/2021 at 1:34 PM, Koko said:

 

Not interested. If you want to make a grassroots organization? Go ahead, but ultimately it always plays out the same way, and it becomes the breeding ground of throwaway troll characters, people who use the excuse of radicalization to do all sorts of stupid shit, and to RP extreme scenarios for the sake of the edgy factor. Besides, I'm not going to lie: in a game that includes people from all corners of the world, from all ends of the political spectrum, and from all ends of the LGBT+ range, having radicals around just so they can laugh on Discord and clap while they yell slurs on the internet at people who might be seriously troubled by them is not worth whatever RP it might generate.

 

Most of it is always disingenuous anyway, and the US is hugely bi-partisan. I'd be more for a more modern approach for things like the far right, like an alt right trying to dogwhistle and sound more "reasonable" instead of people shouting f-slurs.

 

didn't expect such sensible input in this thread

 

every time people want this kind of roleplay they go in assuming players (specifically those who want to become involved in that rp) are rational people and this just isn't the case, it's usually an outlet instead

 

On 10/31/2021 at 4:14 PM, Topinambour said:

To add a bit more: 

 

I'm not sure we really need to give in-game encouragements for them to make their OOC bigotry bleed more within the game. 

I've had a few occasions to interact and RP with existing groups who are on the server right now, and who are racist, migogynistic, ... while the peeps behind the keyboard weren't. The RP was great, the interactions interesting, it was very clear there was no mixup and the guys were really cool to play with. I'd say it's a good situation, that doesn't need to be worsened by some artificial encouragements given to the kinds of players we'd rather see on another server ^^' 

wtf when did you come back

Edited by shaobadman
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Echoing those who said they just want to see more political roleplay. I think I wasn't around when the political roleplay stuff on the server really peaked in terms of activity (that seemed to be with the mayoral elections), but I've seen a lot of interesting stuff since joining. The State Senate is a really well thought out project and I enjoy following it even as someone who's not involved in the SAGOV faction, it adds a great deal of depth and the server would be a lot worse off without it. It's one of the main reasons I've spent time playing here. I think my main issue is just that the politics that should fuel it seems to have fizzled out a little. I suppose that seems to really have stemmed from both the election just never happening and administrative intervention killing off bills that were polarizing/generated controversy.

 

Over time it seems to have morphed into something that suits those involved in the day to day roleplay in the faction better (which has been said above), which is great in its own way. It's just unfortunate that the drama, controversy, and all the things that make politics gripping doesn't seem to be around so much. When I look through the recent bills I see a lot of things that yeah provide utility to other factions for sure (a lot of the more LEO focused bills are a good example of this), but also don't really have the same draw to them in the same way that the sex work legalization bill did, the abolishing the death penalty bill did or the marijuana legalization bill did in terms of political involvement. At that point I begin to wonder if there's much point in having the two parties, what big issues are they actually opposed on? Maybe you should consider moving away from the party system, rather than having characters switch parties randomly/not really seem to have actual party affiliation in terms of political stances? 

 

Extreme politics could be interesting but it'd be out of place were it near the Senate.  If I was to suggest anything to spice things up, maybe just throw in some more polarizing politicians. We need moderates and we need people who really aren't so moderate, it mixes things up from a spectator's viewpoint and adds further depth. They don't even need to be actual Senators, even just candidates or party figures could do that. 

 

I really hope we do see elections again before the new year, at the very least a repeat of March's system couldn't go wrong. 

 

 

Edited by books
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