Shattered Kingdoms

I suppose I should qualify my statement, then, for clarity.

"You are setting the pace and tone of a faction (for both RP and PvP) so long as it fits within the established outlines for that faction."

If you are not doing that second half, the staff should be stomping your face into the ground and removing your flags. That's not something the non-flagged members of the faction should or could be responsible for doing.

Again it comes down to proper leader selection by the staff, not just flagging any Tom, Dick, or Sally that's available. If the characters who got flags were selected properly, you'd see far, far, far less gross deviation from proper alignment RP in factions. Like, for example, diabolics and anarchists employing and being defended by griffons.

I think your clarification makes sense. The leader must operate within the canon, but shouldn't be afraid to make new content (RP/PVP) that doesn't contradict it. I may have been reading too deeply into your suggestions and assuming too many things from your descriptions; sorry about that.

I think I agree with you in that leaders should be chosen after their capacity to lead, to follow canon, and to encourage as much as to engage in in-game actvity has been vouched for. All too often it does seem that availability and time are given too much priority and allowed to trump these other attributes.

I also think that charging loyalty tokens would never accomplish this discrimination we're talking about.

I agree, but this is easier said than done. There are people who believe they will be effective leaders but aren't convincing when asking for the job. Those are easily ruled out. Then there are people who believe they will be effective leaders, and can at least make a good case for doing it, so they get the job, but then end up not being very effective. We unfortunately have a history of a lot of those. And of course there are the people who really are effective, which is great, but those kinds of leaders are actually harder to find in the game then they are in employing people for real life jobs.

It's well and good to say we need the best leaders, but we can only have as good as the pool of volunteers provides.

I think there's some irony in you saying that. But we have not always agreed on established outlines.

Face stomping has definitely happened in the past due to these kinds of problems and it rarely goes over well. But I'd do it again in the correct situation.

lovely post Ezeant, thank you, i have enjoyed the read


i too have played with ideas in my head to extend longevity of characters

i think it would be cool if we could spend tokens to get permenant gear like tanso steel bracers that can be upgraded into mithril at the 1/2 age, and adamantite at 3/4 venerable or something

and buy them like the gods helmet for pilgrimage for 1 obsidian when we lose them


keep these comin Ezeant!

As a quick spin off from this should leader flag and HF flag get a special splash screen similar to paragon remind them they are responsible for extra effort and if they ever feel they can not provide it to surrender the flag etc. Giving an idea of how the Imm staff expect a leader to behave and such.

When you actually think about how many leader positions there are in SK vs how many players it is not shocking we do not have all positions filled, or even half the positions filled by great leaders. Then when you factor in how players behave towards opposing factions "trying to PK them in to deletion" I am actually shocked we have as many people in leadership roles that we do. In SK we really does not have a way for you to train up as a leader and develop the skills. There is no leadership retreats in SK for you to become a better leader. Its trial by fire and understanding why you are getting burnt is often hard to find out.

No. You should already know that stuff before you ever get a flag in the first place, and if you're so bad at it that you need a constant reminder every time you log in, the flag should just be removed.




You're wrong. SK has the single-most time-tested proven method of learning leadership skills: Watching and following a good leader. Those who do follow good leadership, with the mindset of learning to accomplish it themselves, will be better leaders once they've had the chance to develop and practice the skills.

Thing is, the same kinds of skills that make someone a good leader in-game are used to make someone a good leader out of the game. You need the same communication skills, the same organizational skills, the same kind of informational resources to draw on to support or improve the people you're leading. On top of those basic skills you need some SK-specific ones, like a cool head under fire in PK, knowledge of PvE areas and gear, the skills/spells of those you are leading to manage your "human resources" properly, etc.

If you don't have those (and if people are being honest with themselves they know when they do and don't have those things) then you shouldn't even be trying for or willing to accept a leader flag. You're going to burn out, you're going to frustrate those around you that are looking to you for direction, you're going to get butt hurt because people are going to be highly (and often rightly) critical of your failure of leadership, and you're going to completely kill a faction because all the people will abandon the sinking ship. If you can't lead your people to victory against their enemies, then can't re-gear them when you die, you just start a downward spiral that ends with a bunch of deleted characters and some jackhole standing there with his hat in his hand blaming everyone but his own failed leadership for the dead faction.

Some people can learn in the "trial by fire" environment that is sink-or-swim leader flagging. Most people can't. If more people took a step back and actually fell in behind a good leader, with the intent of becoming one themselves, it wouldn't take more than the life of a single character for them to develop the kinds of leadership skills that would follow them all through the rest of their SK playing experiences. THEN they could look for flags themselves...and would be able to live up to the responsibilities that accompany them besides.

There's been a lot of examples of good leadership in SK over the years, and a lot of the players who consistently fail to live up to those standards didn't bother to learn what they were while they were playing under them. That's unfortunate, but there continues to be worthwhile examples to follow now and then and I would encourage anyone who actually wants to effectively lead a faction someday to play a lackey character under one of those leaders and learn the ins and outs of doing so.

I think I can get behind most of what OA says, but I wonder about the fact that leadership is being discussed in an OOC context more than it should be discussed in an IC one.

It's the same problem you have in tabletop games with wizards. You cannot play a character any more wise, quick, or clever than yourself. However, you can play one that is willfully less so. In some situations, a person who has good leadership qualities might be playing a character who doesn't make as solid a case. Should character shortcomings be overlooked when player capabilities are known? How much are we metagaming when we talk about leadership potential of a player based on her previous character experiences?

I'm aware of the difficulty of finding good leaders, regardless of the setting. I'm also not saying that everyone to have a flag needs to be the best leader ever in the universe. I'm just saying that tapping Joe because the Hammer only has Joe in it is not the way to hand out flags. It will hurt Joe, it will hurt the Hammer, and ultimately it will hurt the game.

Wait for a bit, let Joe either get his legs under him, prove he can't, or for someone else to come in who CAN do the job. Handing the job to the first guy that walks in off the street is not an effective hiring practice, no matter the setting.



If the irony you're referring to is my two semi-recent attempts to make the Harlies something less pointless, directionless, and lacking in any kind of organizational cohesiveness, I'm going to disagree.

In both cases did I maintain the Harlies penchant for mischief, deceit, and unpredictability, their traditional ties to Uxmal, their image as something of a rabble, and to the broad strokes of their in-game history. Nor did I ever, in my own characters or amongst those I was leading, break alignment or encourage the violation of alignments. In fact, I went to great lengths to ensure that everyone was acting well within the bounds provided by their alignments, even going so far on a few occasions as to get some staff members to weigh in on certain potentially sticky situations and how to handle them so no one would be in violation of alignment.

There's a difference between giving people a common goal to work towards (in the long run, I mean) and completely scrapping years' worth of a faction's RP. I was trying for the first, and avoided the second with some great success if I do say so myself.

If that's not what you're talking about, I have no idea what you're referring to. Every other character I've played has been very strictly in the traditional bounds of factional RP.

As to "face stomping not going over well..." Well, no, it probably didn't. It probably never will. Does that mean that it's not something that should be happening more regularly? Absolutely not. Distasteful and messy is not the same as unnecessary and avoidable.

The difference between the example you make of the wizard and a leader in SK is that in a tabletop game you can roll dice to simulate the exchanges and mental gymnastics your character is capable of. There is no analogous process in SK. If you can't lead, you can't fake it with dice.

Agreed, however..




Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora.