Would anyone really mind if GMs could RP dragons as characters?

[Kage]

Um.. I'm no longer going to deal with thread. The purpose of it makes no more sense with that comment Dae, you asked if people minded, and I'm saying I do. If you don't like the fact that someone does and will tell them this isn't the place to say so, don't bother asking such. To be honest that post was rude and down putting. Do what you will with the dragons, I will choose to stay away from them.

Peace.

[Harmonic]

To put it in nicer terms, they're saying it's unfair to peg people who disagree as out to get you, which is what it felt like by seeing you say things like we were dismissing you, which we absolutely were not doing. What we were doing, however, was trying to have you understand our feelings on the matter just as you were.

It stinks that something so simple is getting so hostile. I agree with Cara, we all need to chill the heck out here.

[Spiky]

Alright. So, reading through this thread, I slowly start to see this becomming an arguement, not a discussion. Bashing eachother with your opinion until you have the most people backing it up / the other side agrees simply to avoid any more aggression.

That needs to stop. Everyone, please. Take a step back, relax. We're a community here, everyone deserves to be heard, and everyone should listen and give thought, regardless of how it is put forth. Until names are being thrown out and fingers pointed, everyone should act with neutrality. This thread started out as a suggestion, but quickly escalated (Keep that picture out of here, not even as a response to this.) into an arguement. This was NOT the purpose of this thread, I hope. So please. Everyone calm down. If you think you're offended someone, or you think someone offended you, please, take it to PM's or other private chats to sort it out, but please. Keep it peaceful. Nobody wants to kill anyone here.

Thank you.

[SachikoMaeda]

I personally think it would be rather unwise for GMs to play a dragon character freely. Lets see if I can explain why...

This is some rather dangerous territory. I'm not saying I don't trust the GMs to do it, but it could cause somewhat of a backlash. There are players that could say "How come they can and we can't", and would see it probably as a pointless perk. Sure, the GMs give a lot to the server and have earned a few perks, but it seems like it's an additional perk that just isn't needed.

I'd prefer it kept to the events to generate RP for others rather than what could be misunderstood as a "SPESHUL SNAWFLAEK" type deal we all pretty much go out of our way to avoid.

/mytwocents

[Rigley]

Not to but in right after Spiky has tried to calm everyone down, but...

Hrm. I'm honestly a bit lost here at this point.

From what I had read prior (rushing through before getting to class and the like), I don't think I fully understood the idea behind this topic, and I'm still not sure if I do now.

This thread is about GM's RPing dragons as in like... going to the tavern with their friend and having a grand old time? Or they are RPing them like, going out and doing the Love Exchange stuff..?

Thing is, isn't that most of the RP that goes on on the server? At least, that the dragons are limited from at this moment.

Here's the crux of my confuddlement: I view dragons as event NPCs. I know people were saying that it was in poor taste to compare them on-par with Varian and stuff like that, but I use him as I use dragons; when appropriate to an event chain, if its dealing with a matter of enough importance for the character to logically appear and act out.

I want to be clear that I'm not -against- these NPCs making appearances in any way. I brought out Varian for Solidarity and had him actually fighting alongside players, and I had a frost wyrm attack Hearthglen (if we're speaking in terms of sheer scale).

Personally, I'd love to have dragons be a part of our world. Have them discuss issues with the dragonsworn, try to subtly influence the happenings of CotH, and to even impart their wisdom upon our characters in passing. And if given the choice between just GMs playing dragons and no dragons at all, (other than as the puppets we have now) I know what I'd choose.

The matter is that to me, this sounds like things that would happen in a planned out event. And we've had event NPCs before that have actual character to them and all that. It seems to me like this is more of a request for storylines involving the dragons then actually having them be normal characters to RP with, since if they have their own agendas and the like then they're likely up to something that's above just having a chat with the average steves and making pals with other people. I guess its something of a disconnect on my own behalf in that I kinda view common RP that dragons are restricted from -as- tavern RP, since it seems that whenever I'm on that's practically the only thing I see if an event is not running or if a group isn't off on their lonesome.

TL;DR: Ultimately, there is no point in having dragons as dedicated characters since they'd fill the same purpose as our NPCs already do, as neat and fun as that could have been.

Essentially, this is the dilemma I see when reading this. Though as an addition I have to point out;

ADDENDUM: We could probably give our NPCs purpose if we wished to, the dragons and drakes, and give them tailored personalities.

I have to be honest in that I thought that was something of the point really, heh. I wrote Bala's profile with the intent of him being played out as a character, and in the brief RP I did do with him I acted him out with a personality. Granted I did not pursue anything more with this dragon, since I understood them to be communal and I just in general have never felt too good playing a figure close to lore.

I think I'll end up rambling into incoherence if I keep going too much longer, and odds are there are going to be more posts on top of this one by the time I press enter. So I'll go ahead and end here.

[Harmonic]

I see your point then Rigly, I was assuming that people were wanting to RP the dragons from a standpoint of running events or doing stuff for other people, rather than RPing them like every other run-of-the-mill character. In which case... yes, it's a bad idea, and I hope people are not doing it currently.

Like I said though, it should be an option to use these characters for events or major plotlines, but not for personal gain or the shiney "I has a new character"... thing.

I guess I'm getting mixed up here, mostly because I've considered puppeting NPC's and event running as RP.

[Xigo]

Having not read through most this thread, my thoughts on the subject are simple.

I will play a dragon when it adds to the RP. Just as I will play a lore character when it adds to the RP. I will not, however, play anything that the players can not play 'for shits and giggles'. That's unfair, and I view it as an abuse of my powers as a GM. When I play one of these powerful characters, I do not joke around. And I will take every emote very seriously.

They're NPCs. They show up when they can bring something to RP. It's due to this that I've rarely had someone say 'screw you Xigo stop puppeting NPCs when I don't expect it'. >.>

I don't joke around in the sense that I don't flaunt my powers in your face. At least, I try not to.

Spoiler:

[Rigley]

I believe I've become rather mixed up too then.

Like I said though, it should be an option to use these characters for events or major plotlines, but not for personal gain or the shiney "I has a new character"... thing.

The matter is that this is actually their entire purpose, and I saw this thread as attempting to broaden that purpose to... a length of which was not readily apparent to me, heh.

They are intended for events, mini-events, plotlines and storylines. So I suppose I have a great difficulty envisioning what else should be done with them. To me at this point part of this seems to be 'do more things with the dragons', which is quite fine, but on the same page I'm not sure if that was understood from the outset of things.

Sidenote: In response to your asking about if people are currently RPing dragons in such a way, Rensin-- no, they're not. The dragons are a bit drastically underplayed, and I think that might be the reason for why stuff like this could get posted. I actually personally veer away, for the same reason I was really hesitant on putting people like Varian in event-lines; I just see it as too much for me to casually bring around for RP, and that's partially on me. But I guess in that regard I was hoping for others to do the dragon playing for me, heh.

[Caravan]

I will play a dragon when it adds to the RP. Just as I will play a lore character when it adds to the RP. I will not, however, play anything that the players can not play 'for shits and giggles'. That's unfair, and I view it as an abuse of my powers as a GM. When I play one of these powerful characters, I do not joke around. And I will take every emote very seriously.

This. This is all I wanted.

[Harmonic]

Very good then, we all seem to be on the same page, haha. Mostly.

[Aphetoros]

I wouldn't say the dragons don't care. Through the process of leveling through retail an uncountable amount of time, I have seen dragons come in rather casually into your character. For example, there's a bronze dragon in Shattrath that gives you a quest to talk to an ogre who's down on his luck and needs help with his clan. That's really not a major event. It doesn't require the full-on attention of the dragonflights, but the dragons are still compassionate enough to help him despite how minor the event may be.

Maybe this was mentioned, but perhaps that had some serious significance for future events? It -was- a bronze dragon.

edit: And I seriously agree with Rensin on the stagnation bit.

double edit: I think this might be where we take a page from prologue, and get some sort of player/gm system set up like storytellers, solely based on puppeting NPCs and enhancing RP for others throughout daily CotH life. It is rare of late that I see anything happen with NPC puppeting, and such.

[Reigen]

The current GMs are story tellers. We really don't need another rank to the point where staff outnumbers the amount of players we have.

I will play a dragon when it adds to the RP. Just as I will play a lore character when it adds to the RP. I will not, however, play anything that the players can not play 'for shits and giggles'. That's unfair, and I view it as an abuse of my powers as a GM. When I play one of these powerful characters, I do not joke around. And I will take every emote very seriously.

I agree to an extent, so long as we are not rolling a dedicated character to be a dragon beyond the ones that we all can access. If it's on a personal account, I am against it. If it is a character morphing itself to be something else, or on the allotted accounts, sure.

[hiddengecko]

Succinctly - yes, I would mind. The GM position isn't assigned on the merits of a clear understanding of lore or being an experienced writer, for one; it's assigned because someone is passionate about the community, plays well with people, and - yes - has friends in high places. There's nothing wrong with any of this, but I certainly don't think it should grant any special RP privileges outside perhaps the usual NPC puppeting and the like.

On the note of 'skilled RP,' I had thought that CotH was trying to move away from the elitist mindset we've been scorned for in the past: the "Group X can RP Y, but not Group C," nonsense that made this server the punchline of so many jokes in other RP communities.

[Aphetoros]

The current GMs are story tellers. We really don't need another rank to the point where staff outnumbers the amount of players we have.

If this is the case then I definitely would like to see more of it. People may still disagree with me, but the stagnation of the server as of current is leading to what seems like an overabundance of tavern RP and idle chit-chat RP and more prevalent OOC chatter in the OOCC (Out of Character City ;D.) With, of course, the occasionally story-less tourney in the arena.

I'm not saying this is bad; if people wish to have mostly these sorts of RP, then more power to them! It's not really the kind of RP I find myself enjoying as of late (I literally cannot get into any sort of idle tavern RP right now, it seems) and I really do wish something epic could happen that, at least for a while, would change the world and the way things work. If even by the end of such an event, things are back to normal and ready for Cata, by all means let it all be rectified at the end of said long and poignant storyline. I personally feel that something big needs to happen to spark avid RP again-- to make people remember what it was like when you could walk through Stranglethorn Vale and Duskwood to find cults, battle, ambush, and intrigue. I know I was not here for this, and some do not look on it fondly as I understand, but things like the Sin'sholai.

I am not quite sure why we are so very set upon sticking with the lore of Blizzard aside from remaining prepared for a Cataclysm change-over, when this universe we've based our own stories in is near limitless with potential quests and journeys that simply cannot be done due to the constraints of this distant and yet uncertain cataclysm. I know we've veered off-topic, and for some reason I'm writing in a style that... feels odd and slimy when I reread it, but I'm tired and have no time to rewrite it in a different way, I hope my point gets across and I do not offend.

At the end of the day, it has become increasingly difficult to spur random RP. Everyone has begun to, whether noticing it or not (including myself), form cliques and inadvertently divided the server. People don't just RP anymore; it's got to be an event for anything aside from a few bros in a tavern joking around for consistent and random RP to occur. It's almost as if, apologies if I'm jumping topics, we need another Heretic Circus or even (despite the drama involved at certain points) White Sun Covenant (although I was admittedly more fond of the RP spawned by the Heretic Circus.) Perhaps I'm looking back on those days with rose-tinted glasses, because I really do wish I wasn't as jaded (yeah, I feel jaded it's weird) when it comes to RP. Back in the day I could RP with anyone, and despite the fact I know I may've left a bad impression because of my nubbery then, I didn't seem to care, y'know? I'm totally rambling, but whatever. I miss when it didn't really matter what I thought about what people thought of what I was doing, because it seemed to make everything more free. For some reason now, I worry whether or not I'm coming across as a good writer, a good RPer, an intelligent person, interesting character-wise and kind OOCly.

I don't know when, or how, but everything seems far more complex than when I first began RPing and I feel almost like it's ruined, because I have a hard time getting into RP without being hypercritical of myself, or of others.

[/endrant]

Sorry, that was really unusual. O_o

[Dae]

ADDENDUM: We could probably give our NPCs purpose if we wished to, the dragons and drakes, and give them tailored personalities.

I have to be honest in that I thought that was something of the point really, heh. I wrote Bala's profile with the intent of him being played out as a character, and in the brief RP I did do with him I acted him out with a personality. Granted I did not pursue anything more with this dragon, since I understood them to be communal and I just in general have never felt too good playing a figure close to lore.

That is the point.

You made a character for the sake of giving CotH a means in which to experience dragons, but now the characters can't really go anywhere. They can't develop as characters, lest they have too great a dissonance between the people playing them, and they probably have a lot of amnesia over the fact that its hard to inform an entire team of people about the intricacies of each time they're used and what is said. Not to mention, the fact that they're used for events and seen both in their dragon and mortal forms would make them the most outed dragons around.

And I don't need GMs to have dragons as some sort of "special privilege" that they can do as they please with. I just want to experience dragons more as characters than just lore puppets or whatever. I'd like the GMs to at least consider having dragons who would actually be able to stay hidden, (even OoCly unless a reveal were necessary) and were played by one person, so that we knew that the character would be the same, and that if the dragon didn't remember us, it was because Honey Dragon don't care, not because of OoC matters.

I suppose I gravitated to the idea of them being played by the GMs at will, because I like the idea of things persisting beyond just the scope of events, but the reason I felt motivated to propose this as a question to the server as a whole was so that the GMs could not worry so much about self-policing for the sake of a good story. I get the idea that you guys rein in yourselves a lot, and I thought yall were trusted enough around here to give yourself more freedom if we were all OK with it.

But damn, this thread has shown me an incredible lack of faith in our existing users, GMs and even the people who might join at some point in the future.
I thought that if the community itself were to give staff permission to do so, the notion that it were an elitist privilege would be a non-issue. And I never suspected that people would think that a GM would use any roleplay opportunity to turn the server into a lorebreaking clustercuss...

I'm just really disappointed by this mess... :/