User blog:Meriahm/Ask Not

I don't usually like to do blog posts too close to each other, especially ones that show up in a feed of recent activity and thus force everyone to have to read my long-winded sentences while scrolling through trying to do their job. In this case, though, I feel like I need to explore another facet of the Senate. It's cropped up a few times in our history and I saw it with Blackstone and Nethergarde as well, and I think it applies to a guild's success or failure enough that I just kinda want to think about it.

There's a quote from a former president that goes something along the lines of "Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather ask what you can do for your country." The entire notion of "getting what you give" is one that certainly seems to be a true one - after all, I give very little to my current art history courses and have since learned nothing other than mosaics are pretty and there's a chapel in Norway I really want to visit. In a way, I've seen a lot of fascinating examples of this play out in the guilds I've been in, as well as the ones I've watched rise and fall over the years.

Or the, like, one or two that have been steady the entire several year run I've been on Moon Guard. That's really impressive.

We have a few members of the Senate that are very well known amongst the guild and aren't officers. A few of them sit on our Outer Council, and a few of them don't, but the exact rank really isn't that important. What makes these members so well-known and well-liked is the fact that they contribute to the guild. And, more importantly, that they contribute to the guild in a way that's not necessarily all about them. One member, for example, ICly takes the time to send care packages out to new, promoted, or injured members. This is really cool.

When I became an officer (and for a time, Co-GM) in the Senate, my goal for the guild has always been to shape an enviornment rather than a guild with a singular goal. I wanted a place where people could do their own personal thing, but also contribute to each other's. There is nothing I love seeing more than personal stories intertwining - a group of nobles forming a sort-of council in Arathi, for example. We have a lot of random RP that goes on in the Senate, and I adore that about this guild. The characters feel fleshed out and real, to an extent, because they drive the Senate's "story" rather than the other way around.

By far, the campaign I've liked the most from the Senate was the Infinite Possiblities campaign helmed by Baelheit and Vanidicus. The reason I liked this campaign so much - and one of the major reasons it worked so effectively - was that the campaign was nothing but a skeleton. Yes, we had our major events and those were decently scripted, but the campaign was less a story and more of an opprotunity. If you look at the (incomplete) page here or the prequel short stories here, you'll see that a lot of people jumped at the chance to add their own personal touches to the world of the campaign. People were hardcore into Infinite Possibilites because it gave them a chance to be part of something, and to feel like their contribution mattered. They weren't watching the story unfold - they were the story, be their contribution small or large. Everyone was given a part to play that wanted it.

What I don't appreciate is watching situations where a person, either in one of my guilds or in another guild, tries to make everything about them all the time. We get this from time-to-time in the Senate, the biggest case being the now-disappeared Entilzha (whose story I was so pleased to finally make public a couple of months ago), who I believe the Sunguard had their own experience with. Some people are of the mentality that the story should be all about them, and that other people are there as spectators or to bolster the numbers.

This is infuriating from a member, and can be downright fatal if the GM has this mentality.

One of the lessons I've learned as an RPer is to not have my two mains - Meriahm and Viserth - in the same room at the same time when I'm running an event that includes them. This was a mistake I made in Blackstone, and it ended up becoming very much the situation I now attempt to avoid. I like bringing player characters out as antagonists for events and such, but the thing to keep in mind is to ensure that it's everyone's story. Viserth made an appearance at the end of the Senate's Nethergarde Keep event earlier this week, and while Meriahm was in the room, she didn't speak. The reason for this was because I wanted to give other people - Vanidicus, Muzula, Oliviaxi, Kinria, and others who knew who Viserth was, a chance to roleplay and respond. I wanted it to be our story, not mine, because while my stuff is good, our stuff is way better than I could ever come up with. This is why I deal with Meriahm and Viserth's conflict entirely in short stories or through other people now - it's just more fun when we can all shape each other's stories.

This is the same reason I don't really script events I run. I come up with the skeleton - an objective, a few ways to get at that objective, some obstacles I can throw in the way - but for the most part, I let the players determine where we go. But that's just my own personal opinion, and if something else works for another group, something else works. There's no right way to roleplay, but there are certainly a lot of wrong ways, and those are what I try to avoid with the Senate.

I don't want to tell anyone they aren't special or important - as I said before, my goal with the Senate is to create an enviornment where people can feel like they're exactly that - but I destest the mentality of someone thinking they're the most special or the most important. Any guild, and this entire server, is a community. Not a book. If I wanted to read a story one person wrote, I'd go read one of those.

And yet I'm still here roleplaying. How about that.