Hi!

So, when I posted the log about Lyreth and Terentia (yes I remembered the correct name this time), as well as the costume contest for the Festival of Light, some were disappointed in the fact that their gods weren't active, and that their culture was down. Aye, it is difficult to run major cultural events without having the Divine involved. But it is possible to organize lesser events to spur some interest!

As a culture aide in charge of a few events, it can be downright disappointing to not have anyone participate. I want to thank Inagin, Arix, Naralis, Terentia and Lyreth for stepping in and taking part because otherwise I probably would have been like, "Well screw you, I'm going back to my manse."

So, with this in mind, how can one improve culture? What are some smaller things that can be easily and quickly organized?

From observation on what Naralis has done - bards/scholar gathering competitions among younger members, lead hunts with the younger ones, wargames and free for alls with prizes. I know Jazella used to do poetry contests as librarian (I've a strong opinion that the Librarian and Culture Minister need to work hand in hand). Other thoughts?

I've worked with a few different Culture Ministries and it's hard to get people interested sometimes in games and events. Offering prizes helps usually. I'm a fan of big prizes. Who cares if it seems like you're buying participation? You are. Big deal! If it gets people involved, that's what's important, in my opinion. People who get involved in one thing are more likely to get involved in another and another and another. And, honestly, it's just gold and credits and favors. Heck, I even supplement prizes using my own credits when I wasn't able to get the amount I wanted from the org I was in to make good prizes. The idea that people should participate cause they want to - out of nothing but a sense of civic pride or something is silly. Folks are lazy and greedy. Give them a reason to want to play or get used to not having many people playing.

Coming up with new and different things to do is important too. No matter what prizes are offered, doing ratting contests over and over gets old. Charades games, scavenger hunts, riddle contests, design contests, races, debates (actual ones, not influence ones), and so on. Killing two birds with one stone is good too, do book writing contests and then tout how the contestants are helping the Library and the official Culture. Work in your theater the same way. Oh, and unique arena events. Free-For-Alls and Wargames are fine, but do themed ones now and then! Low level only free for alls (10-30 for example), a wargame with everyone against one demigod or ascendant, do a guild-based wargame. Offer prizes occasionally to spice things up. Stuff like that.

Mostly, in my opinion, the key is to have the Minister of Culture be vocal and active about things. People don't think of stuff unless you mention it again and again and sometimes grab ahold of them and physically drag them to what you want them to do.

eta: Oh, and anyone complaining about their org's culture being depressed should stop complaining and start doing something about it! You don't need a Divine to do almost anything. Sure, they can add a bit of flavor or something, but it's not necessary. If you want more activiites in your org, host some activiites! Join your Ministry of Culture as an Aide or tell your CL you'd do a better job and why and replace the Minister. Of course, you don't even necessarily need to be part of the Ministry of Culture! If you want to hold some public rituals, hold them! If you want to give a lecture, give it! If you want to host a game or a party or a contest, do it! The only thing any average person couldn't do is promise org gold/credits and run the arena. Everything else is fair game and if you think there's a problem with your org's lack of events, you're part of the problem for not doing anything about it!

Everyone talks about culture like it's as easy as "just doing something" which is really trivializing and in some ways insulting. There's an awful lot of group psychology going on. Divine involvement is never a necessary feature, but it's a force multiplier of considerable impact.

When Serenwilde was having our cultural heyday, we had a virtuous circle going on which reinforced culture in three important ways, so that it was self-sustaining, self-reinforcing. It took work, yes, but the work was virtually always fruitful. The key was that every successful event improved the chances of the next one being successful.

• The person who organized the activity felt that all their hard work was worth something because people showed up and participated and seemed to enjoy themselves (and in some cases even expressed their appreciation). Thus, they were more likely to be involved in creating or participating in more of them.
• Those who came to join in had fun and thus got the sense it was worth it to come to the next one. They told their friends this, too. When a festival or wargame or whatever happened, a lot of people had the idea that joining it might be worth it.
• If you're the kind of player who is into doing culture things, you would get the idea that Serenwilde was the place to be. You would pay attention to that one of your alts, or move your character there. Thus, the more going on, the more people there'd be who'd help more happen.

But once things drop far enough you get the precisely opposite vicious circle where attempts to do culture things become self-defeating.

• Whoever poured their heart into yet another attempt at a festival, contest, play, or whatever would have their morale crushed when two people showed up -- or zero -- and be less likely to bother again, instead turning their efforts and will to other things.
• The few people who participated would be disappointed, and get the attitude (which seems mild but is actually incredibly pervasive and persistent) that it's not worth bothering to participate. Every new announcement is just an eyerolling "oh, it's just that again" and no one wants to interrupt their other activities for something that's probably not even going to happen. And again they spread that attitude towards their friends.
• If you're the kind of player who's into culture, you've got steadily increasing odds of giving up on Serenwilde by leaving it, going dormant, or just focusing more time on an alt.

Prizes do not significantly change this, despite people always assuming they do. We've actually had some hefty credit prizes unclaimed. Anyone who is motivated by those things tends to have other ways to get them.

For a long time Serenwilde kept trying to do big festivals and other large events that depend on a lot of people showing up, essentially, behaving like we were still in the glory days. I now think every one of those big events was significantly harming our cultural activity, because every one of them strongly reinforced the idea that these things never go off successfully.

My idea for how to break out of this and start the virtuous circle up again had two prongs.

• I suggested to my aides that we start producing a large number of very small events whose key design decision was that they would still work, and be fun, and not feel disappointing at all, if only two people showed up. The hope is that if only two people show up but still feel like the result was fun and worth attending, they would be more likely to try the next time, and tell their friends. It's a very, very fragile hope to build up this way, with a high chance of anything going wrong causing one step forward two steps back; but it's possible. But it's vital that we produce no events which are large enough that those who show up, or help produce it, would have reinforced the idea that these things never get enough interest so they shouldn't bother. One overenthusiastic big treasure hunt that no one shows up for can undo the tenuous advances of ten previous small events.
• There's an undeniable "celebrity effect" when the Divine are involved. That was true even before Celest's recent Bloodfaire-analog cranked up what people can expect out of a culture festival to previously unseen possibilities, and maybe now, with that incredibly motivating "you could end up in an Events post" factor in play, it could be even more. Serenwilde is notoriously short on Divine, with three of them officially dormant, one unofficially but just as effectively dormant, and the only one who remains a quiet type who most of us never, ever, ever hear from. We've been more than a month now just trying to get a price to make a few changes to how something in our guildhall works without even having the question acknowledged. Nevertheless, I obtained from Hoaracle a promise to offer very, very tiny tokens of support: being the one to announce the first clue, or hand out the prize, things like that. We never expected Hoaracle to do the work of creating or supporting events, merely by being visibly present making people more likely to get excited about it than "oh, god, Lendren is blathering about another festival again" could ever accomplish. This really runs counter to Hoaracle's personality (as I understand it) but he nevertheless graciously agreed.

I never got to act on this because just as I was putting it all into place, I had a few things make clear that my vision for how to revive Serenwilde culture, and my idea of what the job of the Culture Minister is, do not correspond to what the current Moonhart Circle wants or expects. I could do the job as they imagine it, but not only do I think it would be counterproductive, it would be exhausting for me, and I don't want to burn myself out. So I instead have tendered my resignation so that I can bundle up these ideas and save them until a time when a new Moonhart Circle comes along that is more compatible with my ideas, and I'll take the job back up then.

In the meanwhile, I'm sure there'll be more "oooh, look what Celest had, we should have one of those" ideas which are just going to burn out more culture aides and more potential participants, having the opposite to the desired effect. Don't get me wrong: these drives for big festivals are entirely well-intentioned. I just think they're based on a dangerous oversimplification that we need to get past if we're going to start reviving Serenwilde.

All this is analogous to the cheap-and-easy bromides people tend to cite about how to revive anything else, like morale, combat participation, or political standing. Very similar patterns apply and are just as frequently dominated by well-intentioned oversimplifications that people cling to -- especially those who are on the upswing, because, after all, when you're in the "virtuous circle" phase, those things really do help, so it's easy to imagine that's all you need even when you're in the vicious circle phase.

This is so tremendously helpful.

Lendren, I wasn't meaning to be insulting. I was merely pointing out all the things that worked for me. I've BEEN a Culture Minister. I've been an aide in other culture ministries. The things I said weren't assumptions. They're how I did things. How I'd do them again, if I got the urge to do culture work again.

And, honestly, so what if the Moonhart Circle wanted things done a certain way. You're the Minister. Tell them, respectfully, "Thanks for your input guys! But I think you're wrong."

Maybe you'd do without commune gold/credits if the CL got huffy about it, and maybe you'd get fired. But, as I said, you don't NEED the culture ministry to hold events really. Especially if you don't care for big prizes. Prizes DO have an effect though. I've had games/contests have no participants at all until I mentioned that there might be prizes. Then, I'd always get one or two. A couple more usually if I mention the word credits. And there are other benefits you can offer as prizes. Hefty discounts in guild/commune (or personal even) shops is always a fun one to offer occasionally.

But, anyway, instead of quitting and storing up your ideas, why not act on them! Hold those small events and encourage others to as well. Show the Moonhart Circle that they'll work and accomplish what you want. You might have to foot the bill for a while, or try to gather donations for prizes or something, but when you're having a positive effect, I'm sure that would change!


eta: Oh, and I hardly ever involved a Divine in any event I ran. Not cause I don't like em (I the Divine) but cause interacting with the Divine IG always makes me nervous. I get flustered and am never confident about speaking OOCly to them if I need to in order to plan something like I am with non-divine helpers. The few times I simply had to, I felt like I was going to get yelled at for being OOC every time. So, not having a Divine to help, not a big deal. And sure, they do have a celebrity factor, and that helps, but it's not necessary. Which isn't to say that I wasn't happy when one of them would show up and participated in some way or watched or something... but I was never disappointed if they didn't.

Just because that would probably also burn me out. Being in Serenwilde for the last two years means always being on the edge of burnout, at best. I won't be very good at inspiring morale in my aides if I'm using my own reserves of it fighting against the people who should be my primary source of support. It's just an inefficient use of my energy.

Any tips on acquiring aides and inspiring them to do things?

Post about it, remind people, ask people their ideas, potentially assign things they may be interested in, etc. Sometimes it wont work, but sometimes you end up with great aides that want to do things.

That's just my experience being with Culture in Serenwilde and Gaudiguch.

Aides of Culture especially need to feel like their contributions are important. Maybe devise smaller goals for each of them? A long, long time ago, I appointed aides to specific categories of work and checked in on their progress every now and then. If they were moving along at a nice pace, I'd communefavor them or offer up some kind of gold or credit prize. I also made sure that credit was given where credit was due in my quasi-regular posts to the commune.

Well, what worked for me:

Almost every guild I've been in had 'become an aide to a Ministry' as part of some form of advancement task, optional or not. I think most do, don't they? You can usually count on a few folks volunteering for that now and then. When I was first a Minister, I actually grabbed someone and told them they were an aide whether they liked it or not one time. They did pretty well for a while, as I recall too. I also recruited via news postings when I needed to. Getting people was never the hard part really. Getting people who wanted to actually do things was another issue sometimes.

And as for getting folks to do things, I experimented with a few different methods. Compensation works pretty well, if you can swing it - you need CL support, obviously. So many events are done, they get paid, just like any other job - this one fell afoul of my own record keeping badness a few times though. . Letting people only work on projects they're interested in helps. If someone only wants to run arena games, that's fine - as long as they run them. If someone only wants to work with the theater, fine too - as long as they do it. Or only run small contests as long as they do. Stuff like that. Also, if you do things yourself, as Minister, a lot, that just seems to encourage other people to want to do things too. Not everyone, but some of them. The ones you want to keep.

And fire the ones who never do anything, cause some folks won't do anything no matter what and just want the City/Commune Aide title. Having a short list of Aides who do things is better than having a long list that does nothing.

Now I want to work in a culture ministry again. This thread has made me remember how fun it is to hold games and events.

I think you have all brought up some terrific points. I want to thank Lendren especially for the insight - I know it can be frustrating. Yes, Celest had some terrific Divine intervention and extra things added in - but you can't blame us for this. Aye, people will want what we had now, but it doesn't have to be that.



I know it's not "just doing something", but it can be a lot of little "doing something"s. No one said it was going to be easy. Yes, we know, some Divine are inactive. They have their own lives in the real world, and your characters have their own lives in game. Time passes, people forget to do things. Even in Celest, do you know how much the utter lack of participation has been in regards to designing and writing? People don't want to do those things. I'm sorry that things are turning out the way they are, but we weren't attacking you there.

I would love to see more culture in Hallifax, Daraius... I will shoot you a letter IG and apply for aide.