Councilor of Roleplay

[void]

Hello! I'm Sol/United Syndicates of Sol/The Screaming Void Beyond All Things, and I'm running for Councilor of Roleplay. I literally cannot stop running, and yet my legs refuse to give out. Something worse than death is chasing me. It is a good motivator.

Anyway, now that I've gotten enough distance from IT to actually write up a platform, here it is!

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WHAT IS THIS HELP – One difficulty with DSA RP is… getting into it in the first place. Helping new roleplayers is an ongoing process and I’d like to expedite it and provide some guidelines for older players as well by releasing a few friendly documents going over basic roleplay etiquette and the specifics of our roleplay in the hopes it can ease the transition of new players into roleplay. In particular, an emphasis is being placed on such documents being succinct and easily searchable, as people rarely enjoy massive textwalls.

PROMPT SERVICE WITH A SMILE. TOO MANY SMILES. OH GOD WHY ARE THERE SO MANY SMILES? – One element I’d like to introduce is a weekly worldbuilding prompt. These can get people thinking about different elements of their nations, interacting with each other, and even prompting roleplays between nations. Also people like to talk about the things they make. They really like doing that.

REMEMBER, NO TOLKIEN – Reworking the “magic system” and making things clear is a priority. This entails developing a simple, comprehensible overview, compiling an FAQ if necessary, etc. When it comes to the design of the “magic system” itself, the idea is to avoid things like wizard duels and the like. In particular, one major change will be on the nomenclature of the system itself. Rather than continuing calling it a “magic system,” I’d like to reorient and describe it as the DSA’s Paranatural System. This term is less loaded and carries with it different implications more in line with what the plan for low fantasy mechanics has been in the first place.

Focus will be placed in developing a unique system that fits within the DSA setting rather than parroting extant works of speculative fiction – More along the lines of the SCP Foundation, Control, and the like than Lord of the Rings. The implications of incorporating Actual Magic into a world are massive and I’d like to take that seriously. Some players want to engage with that sort of thing, others don’t. I’m planning on developing a system that can suit both rather than forcing players to engage with a part of the world that contradicts their lore/interests. Paranatural mechanics will be a hidden background to the world for the “interested reader” rather than being all-encompassing and pervasive. One could easily center their nation around these concepts; another could easily avoid them entirely. This is good, because it is Enlightened Centrism.

IF YOU LIKE YOUR ROLEPLAY, YOU CAN KEEP IT – While I’d like to continue development on the gameplay mechanics including the Charter of War, a priority is maintaining the ability for roleplayers to not have to change their lore or roleplay style constantly. Any “gameplay mechanics” can be ignored if players agree mutually. Roleplay will still be canon regardless of interaction with these systems. The systems are being developed in the hopes they’ll make roleplay more fun and interactive – If that’s not working for you, there’s no need to engage with it. You can continue using the flat d20 roll contests if roleplay partners agree or go with purely narrative means of interaction.

TRIM THE FAT. EXCISE THE INFECTION - I'd like to get around to some winter cleaning (more intense, existentially melancholy than spring cleaning) on a lot of older roleplay mechanics. Phasing out or otherwise replacing NPC nations now that puppet nations have been more thoroughly integrated, reworking older RP documents that tend to confuse newer players, and FINALLY getting rid of FREDWORTH, that HORRIBLE MAN-THING who SCREAMS outside our windows EACH and EVERY night.

A MEMORY LIKE BLOOD IN THE SPRINGTIME – I also promise that any and all voters will NOT be signing a permanently binding contract that voids their soul to me. Again, I assure you: If you vote for me, I will NOT use your soul as fuel in an aeons long blood feud between myself and other ontologically complex entities inhabiting the Void-Between. There is absolutely no risk of being drawn into this petty turf war if you vote for me. Even if you DID void your soul to me with your vote, you would attain new and exciting powers you would surely appreciate. This is fine.

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If you have further comments, questions, or critique, feel free to DM me or @ me in regional-affairs on Discord, leave a post in this thread, or whisper it into the early morning fog. It will find me, and my reply will be witnessed in an impossible spectacle of terror and wonder within the fortnight.

[finnoestonianempire]

Greetings! I’m Finno/The Finno-Estonian Empire, and I am running for the inaugural, but not really in that it’s a name change, Councilor of Roleplay. This is my first time running for a position here (and yet I’ve only been here for 6 months, SMH) but I promise you that I’ve got plenty of ideas here on how our roleplay should be run, and if everyone is willing, we’ll be able to implement them.

Without further ado, here is my platform!

One Does Not Simply Walk Into DSA RP - When I first got into the RP, I had ABSOLUTELY no idea what to do. I wasn’t sure what the difference between the IC and Solo channels were (still guilty of mixing and matching them), I didn’t know how to start building my way of magic or even how to make IC contact with other nations. Because of this, I don’t just want to make a comprehensive guide on not just how to get started, but also a guide on how to help and fully flesh out any new nations that would like to join and immerse themselves into our world (such as how to help them on their lore, the flavor of their nation, etc).

Low-Fantasy? What’s That Mean? - Something that I noticed when I first got into the RP here in the DSA is that the topic of magic is a very divisive one, specifically on WHAT is allowed with magic and what isn’t. Sure, we’ve had a set of loose guidelines, such as not summoning storms or meteor showers, and I wholeheartedly believe that moving towards a high-fantasy way of RP is not what we should be doing here in the DSA RP. HOWEVER, what I believe should be done is that we should not use the term “low-fantasy” to describe what can be done via the ways of magic, but we should be focusing on the actual repercussions on what the magic can actually do, and have a strict set of guidelines on the controlling of certain elements and magical forces (such as the ability to control fire).

With this in mind, we won’t have to ask the question, “is it high-fantasy?” because that term is wholly subjective and can mean different things to different people. The question is if that ability is considered overpowered compared to the other branches and specializations that a nation should take (such as in conventional warfare). Someone can throw a baseball-sized fireball, and that’d be considered high-fantasy by our standards, but is it stronger than a flamethrower that can dispense a cone of fire (at least until it runs out of fuel)? These are the questions that I believe we should ask when thinking about what magic can and cannot do.

Communal Mechanics - Currently, the mechanical aspect of our RP is under construction, and I believe that we have many members here in our community that can be of great help in assisting in the mechanical aspect here in the DSA. As such, I would like to start delegating aspects of unfinished mechanical parts to our #experimental-features channel on our Discord server to ANYONE who wishes to aid the Councilor. Although we cannot guarantee that your ideas will be added in the final version of the mechanics, we can certainly guarantee that each idea will be vetted by the Councilor and their cabinet aides.

Story First, Mechanics Second - I’ve talked quite a bit about mechanics now, but I would also like to remind everyone that RP is a way of telling a communal story, and that telling a good story is more important than focusing on who wins or loses a dice roll. Two or more nations can act out the events of an entire war without rolling the d20 of fate even once, if they so choose. However, if anyone wishes to make things a bit more exciting and left up to chance, our strengthened mechanical system will certainly make things a bit more interesting if they don’t know how their story is going to go next!

A Southern Incentive - For a long time, the two most populated continents on Delusia (the DSA planet) were Iskar and Romaxia, or our western continents. Although RP in these two continents prospered, the eastern continents (Frimunira and Debsia) stagnated in the amount of RP that took place. Recently, a great incentive was created that gave more starting land to a nation if they chose an eastern nation to start in, and an extra expansion. This has been quite successful, with Frimunira’s population increasing to almost as many nations as Iskar, our most populated continent. However, Romaxia’s population has been dwindling (below Frimunira now), and I believe that it would make more sense to now change our incentive to no longer the eastern nations, but the southern nations.

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Any questions that you have about my platform, feel free to DM them to me on Discord, and I’ll be sure to answer! Cheers!