[Neus]

Prefacing this post by saying I'm kind of tired while writing it and am going to ramble, so apologies if this isn't very coherent.

I dislike how scripted Korvara is. It is even moreso than G6 was if you ask me, due to the several extra layers of player leadership you must contend with. But rather than go off on that topic again, I'd rather talk about some concepts that might give players who want more spontaneity a bit more to work with. Stuff like the player props system was great, but we can go further. Something like making player antagonism work better would require more of a shift in community perspective and setting, which I can't really supply the means to other than suggesting dev go make SL3 using all we've learned throughout SL2. But I can muse on mechanical additions to the game that could give immersive/spontaneous players more room for said spontaneity.

As I hinted in my post, I feel very similarly.

Rather than Korvara feeling like a flowing river where you can jump in and go along with the current, it is more like four pots of standing water where you have to take precaution to not let any water spill. At least, this has been my impression lately. Putting it in more understandable terms, you do have to a lot of steps you are expected to take for even basic things, in regards to communicating your whole intent with the leadership and anyone else involved, to make sure 'it's cool' and you aren't stepping on anyone's toes. If you fail to do that (and sometimes, even if you do) - you get people yelling at you. It makes doing anything very exhausting.

This isn't necessarily the fault of any individual, and I don't think that total chaos is a very good alternative, either - it can also be overwhelming for the people dealing with it. But I do think it's, in part, the reason why things have turned inward somewhat, with people preferring to do self-contained events because they don't need to worry about dealing with extra bureaucracy that way (there's nothing wrong with events, for the record, they're good times). I do also believe that OOC drama and general negativity also plays a part, however. Even I have not been immune to that, and I won't lie - it's depressing, discouraging, and demotivating, to have IC actions or plotlines met with OOC blowback due to their spontaneity (among other things).

I also see a lot of good things happening on the daily despite what I've said, so don't take this as me being blamey or negative.

I have very few refined ideas regarding how you could specifically integrate non-combat powers into something like SL2, and how you would limit them so not every character can use them. Maybe traits with specific class or stat requirements? Maybe new kinds of professions with a different vibe? Maybe a whole new system? It's the subject for an entirely new thread on it's own, probably. But wouldn't it be cool to be able to Nature Walk, Summon, Blink, Scry, Telepathically Communicate, Shapeshift, Make Portals, or however many new powers we could think of out of combat? And have them actually do something mechanically?

Alternatively, there's always the return of player housing, which we had a thread about not too long ago. I know I banged on about the integration of what eventually became event spaces, and got what I wanted in the end. (Thank you dev you're the best) So it feels a bit cheeky to ask for even more in this regard. But the spaces could reasonably co-exist, and giving players back some means of creating their own spaces helps with the hosting of IC community functions, as well as capital E Events.

I think that I would rather try to do what I can to make the world more interested in interacting as a whole first (not to say that I'm against the ideas presented, nor that I won't do anything mechanical on a smaller scale until then). I'm still developing my ideas on how to accomplish this, but I think that the game itself could do a better job of supporting such things mechanically. Ultimately interactions with other nations are just fluff, even within your own nation the things your character is supposed to do are limited by RP situations happening that let them do their job.

I don't think it's something that systems can entirely solve but I do think, for example, making interactions between nations less based on fluff has more of a recurrent, long term benefit. The same could be said for balancing 'things happening because someone wanted to make them happen' and 'things happening because of something someone else did' a bit more evenly. Sometimes circumstances need a good shake up, sometimes relationships need a tangible reason to change; and sometimes that needs to happen from the 'DM' level.

I'm not sure if it's something I can accomplish, but it's something that I've been thinking more and more about lately.

There's been a lot of other interesting things said in the thread that I agree with, but I'm nap bound for the moment.