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Aken
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Post Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 10:24 pm      Reply with quote

Re: your last point: majority of the "elite" (the skilled workers, craftsmen, scavengers and scientists) exist within the Family structure.

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caellyndria
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Post Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 11:54 pm      Reply with quote

I think there are a few possibilities and likely reasons that people would be independent, a lot of which probably aren't PC reasons. I mean, that's great, we're all free to make up our own rhyme and reason about what makes our PCs tick. But in terms of setting and backdrop, think about it this way...

You've got the hardscrabble life, worse than what's already tough for everyone, even people in Families that are working as an entire collaboration to keep stocked and provided and alive. Are you doing that because "fuck the man"? Probably not. That's the iffy thing about trying to have have a large scale independent mindset of rising up politically against any kind of monopoly, especially when the monopoly is a three-fold collection of establishments. You just probably wouldn't have the means. And if there's a large enough comeup to do so, are you even -really- independent anymore or just a fourth rise of power able to be a Family, which... defeats a lot of the motivation and purpose. Are you allowed to be pissy about having it tough and feeling pressured and discriminated against, are you allowed to think things are unfair? Absoeffinglutely. Again, though, think of the bigger scale. Why are people as a whole likely independent?

A: Like Aken stated above, a lot of the top-tier skilled or producing characters in this game, especially the virtual NPC population ... they belong to Families. This is because they have been given means to succeed from the start or from the start of their life within. It's like any kind of state of poverty-- it's hard to come up when you don't have building blocks to come up on.

B: If you happen to be an independent that is exceptional in any respect, be it crafting or fighting or anything that would be of great use and profit to a Family ready to accept you, at benefit to you both (let's face it, this is most PCs, and that's okay!)... why are you living as an independent? Most people would not be independent by choice. Family life is pretty damned cushy by comparison and there aren't a lot of downsides if you're lucky enough to swing it.

Backdrop addressed and as a roleplay advice sideline... It may be worthwhile to explore the matter of motivation and circumstance there when making an independent PC. It's likely that this mere thing alone defines so many facets of your PC's personality and life, your fictional personality comes together effortlessly.


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Bartleby
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Post Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 12:33 am      Reply with quote

It might clarify to say that I'm coming at this with the understanding that not all of these things are necessarily set in stone yet and it might be beneficial to discuss the advantages and drawbacks of them. If that's not the case, and everything is already decided, then that's fine, I'm not here to complain about what can't be changed.

caellyndria wrote:
You've got the hardscrabble life, worse than what's already tough for everyone, even people in Families that are working as an entire collaboration to keep stocked and provided and alive. Are you doing that because "fuck the man"? Probably not. That's the iffy thing about trying to have have a large scale independent mindset of rising up politically against any kind of monopoly, especially when the monopoly is a three-fold collection of establishments. You just probably wouldn't have the means. And if there's a large enough comeup to do so, are you even -really- independent anymore or just a fourth rise of power able to be a Family, which... defeats a lot of the motivation and purpose. Are you allowed to be pissy about having it tough and feeling pressured and discriminated against, are you allowed to think things are unfair? Absoeffinglutely. Again, though, think of the bigger scale. Why are people as a whole likely independent?



I think there's a sort of complicated problem with considering all independents as people who have chosen deliberately not to join a Family (for whatever reason). We know, OOCly, that this is true of the independent PCs, because we know, OOCly, that any player who wants to can app into a Family. We also know, OOCly, that any successful indie who wants to join a Family will have no difficulty in doing so.

But these are not IC situations. In IC reality there is a multitude of non-Family vNPCs (correct me if I'm wrong). We all know that the PCs are the "stand-outs" who are for some reason or another better equipped or more skilled than their vNPC counterparts, but if we don't consider the vast unskilled and unequipped multitudes as people living ICly within the world, then the population of Rust isn't 10,000, it's more like 60.

I don't mean to suggest that indie PCs should band together into some kind of cohesive political movement to oust the Families from power. What I do mean to suggest is that if any useful individual (not just PC) who wants to join a Family can join a Family, then there really isn't much of an IC reason for anyone to be independent, unless they have serious issues with one or all of the Families, or just serious issues with authority in general. Although, if they do, then that is surely plenty of reason to want "fuck the man" even if that's not really a viable thing to do. But that's not really what I'm arguing in favor of, anyway.

It might also help to say that I'm not actually coming from the point of view of playing an independent PC and wanting more freedom/loot/indie solidarity/what have you. I'm coming at it from a what-I-think-would-be-interesting-and-make-sense point of view, and it's fine if people disagree with me on those points, but it seems that in general people are sort of reactionary about the indie thing and I'm not really trying to trigger that particular debate.


caellyndria wrote:
B: If you happen to be an independent that is exceptional in any respect, be it crafting or fighting or anything that would be of great use and profit to a Family ready to accept you, at benefit to you both (let's face it, this is most PCs, and that's okay!)... why are you living as an independent? Most people would not be independent by choice. Family life is pretty damned cushy by comparison and there aren't a lot of downsides if you're lucky enough to swing it.


I don't really disagree with any of this, in terms of how things are and how people perceive them to be.

What I'm saying is that the model that's been laid out is fairly skeletal, and I had been under the impression that fleshing it out was part of what we were here to do.

If these things are open for discussion, I personally think that more political triangulations is better from a complexity-of-roleplay standpoint, and the situation where most people, vNPCs included, belong to a Family, whether it is currently the case or not, doesn't seem either a) very logical to me, or b) very useful from a roleplay standpoint.

Yes, any player can join any Family at any time, provided their PC hasn't angered the Family heads sufficiently to prevent this being possible, but does that necessarily mean that any person should be assumed to be able to do this?

Well, it could. But let's consider the implications.

If anyone in Rust who wishes to join a Family can do so, then we must also assume that the only people who don't belong to Families are crazies, uncontrollable criminals, and few others. We must also assume that Families have no vetting system whatsoever, nor any ideology which they require their charges to follow, since either of those things would weed some people out. We must also assume that Rust has virtually no belief system or culture that would cause people to believe that some things were more important than giving up their freedom to a Family. And we must finally assume that for every business that a Family might own (such as a bar), they're basically just passing money around among themselves without anybody really getting any richer, because nobody has any money but them anyway. So why would anyone who wasn't, for instance, a Niner, spend their money (or trade), for instance, at the Dark Side, knowing that it would strengthen the Niners and weaken their own Family?

To me, personally, if, say, 80% of the citizens of Rust belong in some respect to a Family, it doesn't make a lot of sense that the other 20% don't, since with that kind of power a Family could easily press-gang anyone remotely useful and kill anyone who wasn't, and they would have literally no motivation not to. Sure, they might be fighting over who claimed which rabble, but no slummers would be outside the jurisdiction of a Family to whom they belonged, even if who they belonged to changed periodically through no effort of their own. The element of choice that PCs enjoy just doesn't, to me, make sense in that situation.

So in that situation you have really strong motivations for people not to want to be independents, and really strong motivations for Families not to want to let them be independents, so why are there independents?

And beyond that I think it's not as interesting or complex as it could be, to do it that way. I get that people want the Families to be Very Strong, and I totally support that, and I get that they want the Families to be oppressive and tyrannical (or at least have the option of being so) and I totally support that as well. But if all of that is decided beforehand, outside the game, in a totally OOC fashion, what is left to decide ICly? Which Family has which PCs in it?

I'll admit that I don't completely understand people's reticence about making it more complicated than "Rust is made up of Three Families and nobody else the end," and I'll admit that I'm not sure what the place of indies is if that's the case. I really do understand why the Families need to be propped up virtually, since there just aren't enough PCs to represent the power and resources the Families canonically have. I really do. But given that they are propped up in that way, I don't really understand why people are so afraid of their being challenged in any way, especially since a total lack of any challenge is less interesting, it would seem to me, than the potential for a challenge would be. Again, I don't mean, necessarily, an organized political challenge, really, although if it happened through IC means that made sense it would be interesting. I'm not really proposing anything specific, since what to do with the possibility of a challenge is a step farther than we're on now, which is discussing whether or not a challenge of any kind would be totally non-canonical and potentially break the game (which is in no way what I want to do).

The dynamics could be so much more complicated and interesting, imo, and if I'm the only one who thinks so, then, obviously I'll be outvoted and that's the end of it. But it was my understanding that we were here to discuss things, not just fall back on what was true in That Other Game or react to what we wish hadn't been true in That Other Game.


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I would prefer not to.
Holmes
Dictator in Absentia



Post Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 12:48 am      Reply with quote

I'm currently avoiding any strenuous thinking because I have an important exam tomorrow, but to give your post a far shorter reply than it deserves so that you know it's not being ignored and also to alleviate your concern of everything being 'fixed', let me say:

Things are definitely still changeable. I agree that non-family life is currently underwhelmingly fleshed out. Top of my list for new docs are a clearer outline for how and why the Market functions as it does, who controls it, exactly how the families function in comparison to independents, and a few other things along those lines.

To note: There's a difference between being -in- a family and being -under- a family. When you say we know OOCly that anyone can be -in- a family, the actual coded, color-wearing members of a family are different from the various folks who are basically forced labor for the same. That is the lot of life for the majority of slum-dwellers, doing menial labor for families, in exchange for protection and food.

This is an avenue that could likely use a bit clearer representation in the game, and I'm thinking that adding some turfquest-esque interaction along these lines might be a worthwhile thing.

Please know that these sorts of dissections and critiques are very much helpful in letting me know what holes need to be addressed in the game's underlying structure, as well as what sorts of things players would like to see.


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caellyndria
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Post Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 3:00 am      Reply with quote

I think, Bartleby, we were kind of discussing the same stance in different words there in the start of your bit. More of my address was based on the idea that yes, getting in a Family may be easy for a player because of OOC reasons, but on the same foot, I think it's easy for players to rally for the wrong reasons-- like if they don't have the framework idea that independents, as a majority (vnpc), wouldn't be in that life by lifestyle choice, logically. Instead, the PCs would be those exceptions and have a stronger, more interesting lead and motivation to be independent, thus resulting in richer characters.

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Onasaki
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Post Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 3:38 am      Reply with quote

I tend to look at the families akin to Fallout New Vegas, in that respect. Where they're all working to better Vegas and make it a center point for all kinds of revelry and the like. But then, they all answer to Mr. House, who eventually tries to kill them all and take over the entire Nevada-Colorado Line.

In the sense of Indies though, you have to figure too, that there are VARIOUS indie gangs that don't answer to the families, that don't even run with the families. Infact, part of my current char's history states that he was in a youth gang before he joined up with the current family he's in.

I think the misconception here, is that Indies are all independent and don't answer to anyone but themselves. When that's just not true, they still in a way, serve the families by offering business opportunities, and the like.

There's also a plethora of random mini-gangs spread throughout Rust, that probably end up getting ganked or mercenaried out by the larger families in exchange for food or weapons. I personally don't think Rust is as 'small' as the code makes it out to be. It's the only colonial state in all of the Moon, that we know of anyway, I'm sure it's more expansive from a realistic standpoint. There's nooks and crannies where people fight over turf, and food, and scav.

The market itself, is probably run by Bjork, or someone like Bjork, as a both a neutral ground where families can interact, and a place where it's reletively safe for people to hang out. I would figure though, that places get robbed on a daily basis by slummers. Though, probably not at gunpoint (since Guns are essentially supposed to be super rare). Returning to my New Vegas Metaphor, the Market is Inner Vegas, where the slums are Outer Vegas.

Granted, I know most people might not get the reference, but that's just how I see it.


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DrJohnSmith
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Post Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 9:13 am      Reply with quote

Religion? And in a broader sense, similar artifacts of Earth history?

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Holmes
Dictator in Absentia



Post Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 10:05 am      Reply with quote

DrJohnSmith wrote:
Religion? And in a broader sense, similar artifacts of Earth history?


Religion isn't something we'll be regulating much. They tend to survive, realistically, so if you want to play someone who believes X earth religion, go for it. 99% of people would be pretty much completely ignorant of any Earth events. Some cultural traditions might survive, but no one ought to be speaking Earth languages, and no one identifies themselves as any earth nationality.


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Nedinu
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Post Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 11:22 am      Reply with quote

I say the best chance someone has to be religious in Rust is to make up their own; though they'll be mostly seen as crazy. Although, one of the three families could develope one naturally because of their devotion to a cause (mostly likely the Reds in that case) or develope one in an attempt to motivate their members to do better or to control people better in their turf much like the Catholic Church during the middle ages (most likely the New Guard, but then again also maybe the Reds). The Niners just don't seem like a sort to make a religion on purpose, so it'd probably just crop up among the lower ranks and have to gain ground first.

Second best chance is to have an education in which they learned about history and just picked it up.

Third chance is it was just passed down through the generations, which may not be that hard to believe because prisoners tend to become highly religious. But with no artifacts of said religion, it'd probably be distorted.


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padweld999
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Post Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 11:57 am      Reply with quote

the Niners will worship the Cult of Slaanesh.

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Featured artwork used on Parallel RPI given permission for use by original artists macrebisz and merl1ncz.