[FaeLenx]

Everyone wanting to be around for every little thing happening is indeed a problem. The simple fact of the matter is that you will miss out on most things happening around the sim and there is nothing you can do about that. The server is on for 24 hours a day. People in different timezones exist. They have just as much or little claim to being involved in every event that occurs as the rest of you.

When my character, ICly, LIVES in Beggar's Hole.

As soon as I noticed something fucky was going on, I immediately logged onto Gormon and.. guess what?

"Scene lock."

This is going to be common in almost every situation that involves conflict for the exact reason you mentioned. When people hear, through any means, that something 'fucky' is going on, they go there. It doesn't matter where they were, what they were doing, in what context they feel they 'deserve' to be there, every situation that has remained unlocked has featured a large number of people who show up to gawk and complicate matters with what could be a scene that's done in a matter of minutes. This isn't specific to Beggar's Hole. I was scene locked out of the first coup in Geladyne and kinda just went and did my own thing for a while because the overall situation was still going to be there later. Every roleplay community has some form of this.

I did nothing besides walk out of the building. And due to the nature of "Nope. No forewarning for raids".. I don't get to RP at all.

You didn't have RP before. You didn't get it afterwards. Nothing was taken from you.

If our teams had both lost, 8 people would have been kidnapped in a scene lock where a lot more people, IC, would have stepped in.

This is thankfully not many other RP environments and, had they come up with some actual goal to keep ALL 8 people for, it would have been at most for a day unless they wanted to stay longer. There's a reason there have been so many jailbreaks in Geladyne.

To undermine it with acts like unannounced conflict, while other players have to go through loopholes including at least 24 hour forewarnings to GMs and pleading their cases to make such moves on 'bigger' settlements/nations, due to- again- NPCs, it seems downright mean-spirited to not afford a player-run faction at least some OOC notice so their players can prepare. This is not the only such case of such a thing occurring, either. With a GM's permission, Geladyne's jail was raided while Beggar's Hole and Geladyne were in mild conflict, and many took to the Discord chat to discuss how such matters were unacceptable, and air their ire with the perpetrators that Geladyne was not given proper forewarning. Many of these were the same people who had come to Beggar's Hole with much the same warning: none.

These aren't the same situation at all. The simplest reasoning will help you reach that conclusion: What would have happened if nobody showed up or nobody responded? In Geladyne going to Beggar's Hole, Geladyne would have done nothing, gotten nothing, and really just had to walk home. In Meiaquar's situation going into Geladyne? They would have achieved some goal that they were looking to win with in the absence of any response. In the former, the group that went was looking for Roleplay that could only exist with interaction. In the latter, they were looking to win something that would be defaulted upon in the absence of interaction. For the same reason I would need to contact a GM if I wanted to blow up a bridge or vandalize a statue, people need to contact a GM to do anything that NEEDS some sort of interaction beyond what the players currently present can provide.

The real end result here is that nobody had any reason to complain about how things were carried out or handled. People seem to default on discord for their preferred conflict resolution method when the rules state the choices are mechanical, dice, or RP for some reason, though, so that's to be expected.

One of my plans was a blueprint for more buildings (an infirmary, barracks, town center for merchants, and maybe even a museum and library for art for culture). Would that give us more of a population? Would people want to flock to it? Would we get our own NPCs? These are the base ingredients for a society. I feel like if NPCs are such a prevelant and strong point to why some things cannot kick off, then we should be afforded the same opportunities during our struggle to become part of the international (inter-continental?) neighborhood.

The place is literally named Beggar's Hole, a location picked because of its close proximity to smuggler NPCs and ramshackle appearance as far as the casual observer could determine. It's a community that exists because this overall OOC community loves memes and silly villains, because we love Black Falcons that talk about their unrequited love as they get beaten and recycled into the exact same black falcon for a later event, because we love Sawrock and his hand drawn maniacs who deliver equine fantasies into our inventories, and because we love bandits that ask for consent as a joke about the consent rules on the sim. If you would start trying to gussy up the place to be more serious so that you could win, then what even is the point? What even is the culture? Is it some anomalous, silly place where you can rob each other in the streets but for some reason merchants still want to come? Is it some place that makes a museum to a history it doesn't have? A barracks for thieves? An infirmary for- That actually is a good idea. They would probably need one.

The issue here is that you all did decide on what Beggar's Hole was going to be. In every interaction, every establishing moment, and every development it's been put forward as a silly, fun place where people can go to get rowdy and the Beggar's have their Hole. It's a vaguely lawless place with an honor of thieves sort of establishing order. It is a small place. Nobody decided what it would be but the people who went there.

I'm not sure what overall conversations went on with deciding what you could or couldn't do with the GMs. I assume it's a GM conversation you're referring to to determine that there's an actual problem because if it's just random people then you can just tell them to shove it and do what you want. But so far the general rule isn't that you need a certain level of NPCs or Culture or serious points or players or etcetera or this or that to get stuff done. It's just that you be reasonable with what you try to do when it affects other people. What is or isn't reasonable is a standard I hate to consider but so far it is the one that GMs and players and everyone else seek to use for the larger sort of rules governing how the lore develops with people. But...

When the previous Premier declared that they have a secret service of NPCs that beat every PC that was trying to stop them from hauling a corpse through the street, they were told that that was unreasonable.

If Beggar's Hole was told that they couldn't stage a solitary war against Geladyne because that's unreasonable as well... Then...

I can't really disagree with the GMs on that. Maybe I don't like it because it seems subjective, but with the barest scrutiny in good faith they are holding everyone up to the same general standard.

 But this can't happen with vague solutions. As Polk said earlier, wars are won with logistics, clear goals and objectives to be reached, along with rules of engagement would make this fine.

I do agree with this. I've brought it up with people before. Some of those people are on the other side of this conflict from me. Some of those people also disagreed on the need for clear rules for how these things should be handled. Candidly, I didn't push the topic after the fact because I knew this exact discussion would happen the first time there was even the smallest, least important conflict. As it stands, there is currently conflict, no players have any clear rules for how to proceed, and any attempt to establish rules will be met with cries of trying to game the system because of bias or go against the aforementioned reason for meme PVP results.

If you feel like you can provide an actual, actionable solution for how this conflict be processed please provide it. I've got some good data from the War Games that even in a situation where nobody loses anything, everyone hates something though. Do understand that however the rules are set up, they will also be used against you. Good luck. I will be more than happy to give my thoughts on whatever you come up with and how I personally would abuse it to win and assume everyone else would too.