About the truce

[PFA]

Alright, so I've been thinking about what's been going on with the truce lately. And, well... I feel like it's spiraling out of control. I think we need to settle this before it gets any worse.

First off, Omni tells me the word "truce" is not the best way to describe what was agreed on. So for this purpose, I am going to instead refer to it as an agreement. An agreement for a neutral ground.

So for anyone who doesn't know, basically it was agreed upon by most of the major good guys and most of the major bad guys to turn the Icy Taco into a neutral ground. Basically, villain characters are allowed to come here and hang out without the good characters trying to kill them on sight, and vice versa. If a fight breaks out, then the agreement is null until the fight ends.

Now recently, the issue has cropped up where some people don't agree to this. And I know you're going to shoot me for this, but... it is of my humble opinion that this really shouldn't be as big of a deal as we're making it out to be.

First off, there was a point a certain one of my alter-egos intended to bring up back in the original negotiations that he never got the chance to. Well, this seems as good a time as any to bring it up for him: if someone chooses to start a fight, that should not be an open invitation for someone to go attack someone unrelated to the fight. That just doesn't make sense and isn't fair IMO. Calling on the aid of allies or going to help someone in an already existing fight is one matter, but the whole "one careless move and chaos ensues" theme is honestly ridiculous.

Secondly, I'm sure there are some who would agree with me that a lack of any fighting at all is... hindering. I had to abruptly call off one of my subplots in order to accommodate for this agreement, because said subplot was fight-based, and even though the character in question did not himself agree to the conditions, he likely would have been punished if he went through with his intentions.

Again, this seems... ridiculous to me. Some people like to have fights, and sometimes arena duels just don't cut it. Some characters prefer subtlety and are not about to go tell their worst foes to "come meet me in the arena so I can kill you." And getting in a big fuss over the whole "hey, there was an agreement that your characters weren't there for! D< No fighting!" deal seems, again, ridiculous.

May I direct your attention to some quotes from Stal, brought up when we came up with the idea for Peaceful Day, which I believe applies here:

Jul 24, 2010 22:43:35 GMT -5 Stal said:

My personal commentary on this, reading over the suggestions, is to back off of making it a matter of rules/allow and disallow.

The thread is not the property of any one person. A day set aside where you wish to avoid battles and so forth is great and something I can agree with and get behind. But forcing everyone to abide by it may not sit well with all. And telling people that some of their OCs are not allowed or permitted because of past events or drama is rather harsh.

Keep up the idea, and the event, and make it monthly, sure. But do not deny or get uppity or cause a problem if others decide they do not wish to participate in that way or manner. You have a choice of ignoring any aggression and allowing your own characters to remain peaceful even amidst pending conflicts. A voluntary armistice day all around, but not one mandated by rules or a mob of forumers.

Jul 26, 2010 0:48:37 GMT -5 Stal said:

Like I said, I fully understand the desire for all this and everything and think it's an awesome idea. Totally get props from me on it. It's just that it tends to be a bad road to start down when it tends to be more "disallow" and so forth. If someone tries to troll around and genuinely start trouble/rile things up, well... it's hard to do that when you're doing it on your own, people can altogether ignore the offending posts, and that kind of attitude would generally be talked over with the person anyway.

...So yeah. I guess basically the point I'm trying to make is we really shouldn't be making as big of a deal over it as we are. The Taco is supposed to be a place to have fun, not a place where we get all uppity about what we choose to do with our characters. A general blanket rule of "it's a neutral zone, no attacking unprovoked" is fine with me, but the drama that is erupting over this whole deal is not.

Feel free to debate and bring up any points I may have overlooked. Also, if any mods see this, I would appreciate your input as well—considering how this is becoming a quasi-rule and all, it seems like a matter the rulekeepers of the forum should be involved in.

[Lizzie]

PFA...

I'm all for it being neutral grounds, but you're right, Arena Duels... aren't as fun as just random fights.

hey, there was an agreement that your characters weren't there for! D< No fighting

My characters and I weren't there for the beginning of the truce, I didn't find out until much later cause nobody bothered to tell me. But I don't mind.

Can't we just have that blanket rule, and be on with it? No drama attached?

[The Scrac that Smiles Back]

*two thumbs up*
The villains hardly ever come here, so all I've felt the neutral zone has done is place shackles on certain writers.

[Omni]

Definitely. I can't say for sure, but I think we might be getting more drama over the truce/agreement, and/or what we can't do because of it, than we were getting over the battles.

And I'm pretty sure we still haven't touched on the details that we said we were going to iron out.

I might say more when I can think because I'm not listening to the TV...

[Gelquie]

I knew the time for this topic would come. It's true; there have been very high levels of drama over stuff that "should" happen in the Taco. (And just to beat a dead horse: I hate drama.)
(I may repeat some points in my post, including others'; I apologize in advance.)


But the thing is that when I picture the Taco, I kinda think of a free-for-all place where characters from all walks of life can gather. For a place like this, too many rules can be restricting. And the "truce" (I like the word "agreement" better too) is starting to become one of those restricting rules.

There's basically only one rule I'm arguing for; flexibility. Every place has their niche, but have you noticed that Taco seems more isolated than the other places? Not just because of the fan characters and stuff, but because of the feeling of a hard and fast rulership, making it seem like things have to go a certain way. But the Taco shouldn't have to be that way; it's just an RCI.

And the agreement seems to be just one of the restricting rules.

Not that I don't agree to a neutral ground. The stuff that instigated the truce was the fact that people would not bring their villains in, no matter what, and writers were prompted to have their characters react with rage whenever a good/bad guy came in. It was getting annoying and ridiculous to not roll the villains and etc and whatnot, so a truce was decided on. Of course, it may have been said at the time that the agreement was just a temporary measure until we think of something better. ...Or if I didn't say that, I'm saying that now, because the fact is that we really can't restrict fights altogether. Neutral ground, sure; I like villains coming in to chat with the heroes, especially since not all villains want to spend all their time killing people.

I like the idea of the Arena, and I still absolutely see so many thing we could do with it. But when I started it, I never intended for it to completely replace RP fighting. Not that Arena matches can't be fun and epic, but PFA's right; not everything can be taken there. I just intended for it to be a supplement.

But I recall the times before the truce where we had whole, scrapbookable moments because of someone instigating a fight. Heck, even the scrapbookable moments of now have been from people instigating things. While these things don't necessarily have to be fights, they can be, and often are.
And plus, not every fight has to have something absolutely horrible happening.

For those of you afraid of bad things happening... Yes, the characters' painful events can be memorable, but there can still be happy endings. And a tense fight can contribute to a very sweet, memorable ending; a feeling at the end that makes the entire journey worth it.

Just stuff to consider. Again, I'm not arguing to get rid of the agreement for neutral terrain, and we have not done so yet; I just don't want things to be so rigid.

[Killix]

The Taco is more or less a free-for-all roleplay with tons of characters and anything goes, right?

Then let it be.
You don't have to join a roleplay that you don't like, and you can't force others to join yours if they don't want to.


There's also no rule that says multiple roleplays can't happen at one time.
Just like the 'bloids doesn't have to have only one conversation going on at a time.


So, if there's a roleplay going on where characters are duking it out DragonballZ style and you're like "Ew. Don't want", you can always start your own completely seperate roleplay with other people instead of joining the melee. *shrug*

[Dan]

I think Mowf makes a good point, and I'd like to add something to that myself.

I'll preface my post by saying I'm very much an outsider to this culture. XD; I lurk in the threads at times but I can't really make much sense out of it most of the time. >> So take what I'm saying with a heavyduty grain of salt.

Now go with me here, and correct me anywhere I'm wrong -- I've seen you guys rolling your dice to bring out a character from your list of alter egos...and sometimes I see that you're hoping NOT to get a certain number, yes? Now, originally I thought that was because you didn't feel like RPing as that character, or that character kept getting picked and you wanted to get a different one, or something...but reading this thread, the thought occurred to me that it's because that character is one (i.e. a villain) that can't be brought out because they cause trouble for others and/or aren't "allowed" to be brought out because it's against the truce? Yesno?

If I'm right with that interpretation, my thought is this -- why can't a villain be brought out, but not immediately cause trouble? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but why can't you have that character there, but just not make them so... evil for that day? I don't know your characters, and this may not be true for all of them as a blanket statement, but isn't it a mark of a good villain to not be a stereotype, to have character traits that define them? It seems like it'd be a fun/interesting challenge to use those characters in ways that weren't "evil" and annoyed the other characters, but were still true to their personality that you've worked hard to define. That way you'd develop the characters more, and put a different spin on the RPs than you had before, while still honoring the "neutral ground" type that you've setup for yourselves.

Again, I'm just spitballing here, and this may be horribly, disastrously wrong, in which case you can kick me out of your thread. XD But this is something that kind of fascinates me from my perspective, and I'd love to know more about the culture you've set up. And maybe from an outsider point of view I can help with a bit of clarity. ^_^

[PFA]

Actually Dan, technically the truce was set up in the first place so we could roll those numbers without chaos ensuing. XD; The problem isn't so much the inability to bring them in as the chaos that ensues if one of them decides they don't agree to the truce.

Oh, and another thing I thought I'd throw out there: I'm not saying "get rid of the truce." Those who agreed to it shouldn't just spontaneously decide not to agree to it anymore. I just think we shouldn't get so riled up about those who didn't is all.

[Dan]

Dec 6, 2010 2:37:03 GMT -5 PFA said:

Actually Dan, technically the truce was set up in the first place so we could roll those numbers without chaos ensuing. XD; The problem isn't so much the inability to bring them in as the chaos that ensues if one of them decides they don't agree to the truce.

Ah, okay. XD Well, I was close. >_>

But my point still stands, I believe. Is it not possible to RP your characters in ways that doesn't immediately incur the wrath of everyone else around 'em?

[Killix]

Dec 6, 2010 2:37:03 GMT -5 PFA said:

The problem isn't so much the inability to bring them in as the chaos that ensues if one of them decides they don't agree to the truce.

In reality, the person writing the character is the one who decides, not the character.

[Omni]

Dec 6, 2010 20:21:35 GMT -5 Killix said:

Dec 6, 2010 2:37:03 GMT -5 PFA said:

The problem isn't so much the inability to bring them in as the chaos that ensues if one of them decides they don't agree to the truce.

In reality, the person writing the character is the one who decides, not the character.

Technically, yes. However, in the Taco it's a bit more complex than that for those of us that use/play characters who have differing opinions than ours (and that doesn't always just mean villains).

[Huntress]

Dec 11, 2010 18:14:05 GMT -5 Omni said:

Dec 6, 2010 20:21:35 GMT -5 Killix said:

In reality, the person writing the character is the one who decides, not the character.

Technically, yes. However, in the Taco it's a bit more complex than that for those of us that use/play characters who have differing opinions than ours (and that doesn't always just mean villains).

But in the end you're the filter between the characters' thoughts and the final outcome on the thread. You kinda have to be, because when the characters create drama, who ends up facing the consequences for it? It's rather like being a parent.

From the modly POV, my logic goes thusly: as anywhere else, thou shalt not attack/insult other forumers. So what this seems to come down to is communication. Make sure that you both know where the line goes and what the rules are. If the person whose chara you're fighting with knows that it's all in good fun, yay, no problems here. If the person tells you that seriously, this ain't funny, drop it please, do it. If the person who's rubbing you the wrong way doesn't drop it when you ask them nicely and make sure that they realize that it's you who's telling that, not your charas in-story, we're at that point where the forum rules kick in and your best bet is letting a mod know. We've this nifty little Report to Mod button in works for the purpose.

[Killix]

What Huntress said.

and not only that, but you are always responsible for what you post.
Talking normally or roleplaying, it's all the same.

You choose whether or not to post that your Character X says something like, "Stuff it up your tailpipe Killix, I hate you!" (Just a random example. Nobody said that to me as far as I'm aware. XD)

It's your judgement call, remember that. These roleplays (or characters) don't control your own actions - it's the other way around.