The whole organizational statues/totems bit is totally killing -any- chance of secrecy RP now. DoC first, now Order of Raezon. Sometime in the future, I've an idea of a great clan where ALL members must remain hidden, but it'd be worthless, because all one has to do is see the name of the clan, and boom, totem/statue tuned against all members.

Would it be possible so -individuals- would have to be enemied, instead of organizations?

If your RP requires that you find out who they are.... send a spy to infiltrate the organization!

Agreed wholeheartedly.

Individuals, or enemy lists would be great. Really, it's sad when a person has to avoid any major city on the continent just so he doesn't risk getting detected by a statue/totem.

It also discourages people from potentially interesting roleplay situations/conflicts, such as a Serenwilder secretly maintaining relations with and supporting the Crows while pretending to be an ordinary commune member. People just think "Yeah I'll just get caught by that totem as soon as I walk by the Moonhart tree to get power" and don't even bother with it at all.

Honostly, it makes more than enough sense that Seren would enemy DoC. Most secret clans aren't going to be trying to revive a forest, that would in turn weaken an existing one, so most secret clans are not going to be openly an enemy of a city or commune. Also, the last time I checked, if you wanted to keep a clan a secret, you didn't publically flash the name around, and have a figure head, you want to RP a secretive clan, don't act like a glory hound on shouts. I mean no offense, but how secret is a clan when you are actively in the spotlight?

Well, it makes sense that the Seren would enemy DoC. It doesn't make sense that the totems are able to hit, and thus, detect members of the DoC with no way of knowing how they are affiliated. Theres no reason simply knowing the name of a group should allow you to use totems to discover all of their members. Also, theres plenty of examples of groups that are constantly in the spotlight, but still have people who privately follow/support them.

Look at the Al Quada. They flash their name around, they have a figurehead, and they keep quite a deal of their members secret. How did we find out who they were? The same ways we should try to find out in Lusternia- subterfuge, espionage, spying. In short- Roleplaying!

Whatever you might think, the DoC has a large number of people who joined in a state of total secrecy and never once gave out their clan but were indeed found out though the use of totems. There are more who haven't been found out but there is the possibility of a totem revealing them. It is a very real problem, not just idle speculation; I think it really needs to be changed.

Agreed with Kaelar, totally.

I know WHY Seren dislikes the DoC, that's not the issue. I don't care WHY Celest dislikes the Order of Raezon. But when secret members are forced to quit because of a hard-coded statue...

...wouldn't such people just not join the clan? It at least presents (slightly) some logistical challenges in passing information back and forth, whereas having a private clan makes things rather.. easy.

And a higher level of comraderie, but bleh.

It doesn't make sense that large trees covered in runes are able to know who passes by and whether or not they are on some arbitrarily defined enemy list. *shrug*

Arguing that it should be enemy lists for gameplay reasons is reasonable, but arguing that the totems can't know who's in there doesn't make sense for the same reason that they can't know who's on enemy lists. They're magic, logic doesn't have to apply.

I think that the statues and totems shouldn't be tunable against secret clans or orders (any other organization is fine) but instead the tuner would have to compile a list of known members of that organization to tune it against. Something like "This statue is tuned against suspected members of such-and-such a clan." Of course, there'd still be morons who would use alts to get complete lists, but we could all just poke those people in the eye like they deserve.

Why is every other organisation fine? If the statue is constructed by a Celester, the Celeste doesn't know whether Person X passing by is from Magnagora or Serenwilde. It's the same deal as orders and secret clans. Consistency should be the key here, otherwise you'll just end up with a whole series of exceptions. Enemy lists and/or organisations, not "all organisations but X, Y and Z".

In the interests of RP, I have to agree. As much as we can justify the totems hitting secret clans via magick hoobyjaba (like my word?) Lusternia is about RPing, and this does diminish the ability of some people to RP.

The reason I think cities are fine for totems is that it'd be logistically impossible to get a list of a city's members, and cities aren't secret oranisations. I'm tempted to say just eliminate tuning things against members of an organization, but that'd mean if you wanted it to just hit a clan, you'd have to make a clan of your own, and enemy everyone in the first clan to your clan and tune it against enemies of you clan, and that's just too much work.

I think there's a big difference between private clans, and secret clans. Is this topic addressing secret clans, where the members can't tell who else is in the clan with them?

I was addressing private clans, as that's what I thought the original post was meant to refer to, and because who really uses secret clans?

I maintain that making it so you can only tune against enemies of an organisation is the best option..

Elryn, what does it matter if it's secret or private? Or are you arguing "Well we should be able to tune against a PRIVATE clan because 'all' we'd have to do is have a spy sneak in and get a list". If that's your reasoning(And I don't see why else you'd argue the idstinction), then why not just make it so you can only tune against enemies and have a spy sneak in and give out a list of people to enemy?

At least that way there's some roleplay..

I find the whole definition of roleplay here, massively lacking.


For example,

who is to say that a Clan, in any sense, is roleplay?


Why not have secret members, who only one or two individuals know who they are, and they sneak around, making their way, doing their thing?


Or the people who want to infiltrate an organization, do so without being an official member of the clan?

Isn't that what a spy is, anyway, an outsider looking in?

Regardless, the whole concept that the totems/statues/whathaveyou, is ruining roleplay, is baseless, since 'roleplay' does not consist of membership of a clan, but in how you act. You can roleplay being a member of DoC, or the Order of Raezon, without ACTUALLY being in it.

Welcome to your imagination. There are no limits.

Aye, that would be close to my reasoning. I think there -should- be a difference between private and secret clans. Private ones just don't share any information with outsiders - the secret ones are for real cloak and dagger stuff. Though I think here the whole 'spy roleplay' thing is being a bit exaggerated.

If you think of it from the reverse position, not being able to enemy private clans would mean anyone can just join up with a city or other organization and have full access to news/channels/etc, and can then report back instantly and telepathically to their group. Where is the spy roleplay in that? You are hiding your allegiance, but there's little requirement to act any differently than you would normally.

Can city leaders check the SCORE of citizens? If so really the only 'rp' required (even without totems) is to manually check the SCORE of all citizens for clan memberships from time to time.

If your argument is really for spy rp, maybe news scrolls should be made physical, and locked away in a city/commune only room. That way they might be able to be stolen by enemy organizations. Otherwise, I think if you're infiltrating an -enemy- organization I think it would make more sense to quit the one you're trying to hide.

I do think secret clans should be immune from blanket enemying, but not because of any ic concerns. Merely because that would really destroy any advantage they have.

I have to admit I'm not awfully familiar with the uses of private/secret clans (other than the obvious example at the moment), so these are my thoughts in theory only.

EDIT: Hmm, I agree completely with Merloch, and he said it better than I could

I cannot agree with this logic. I'll try to soundly rebutt the point without resorting to basless rheoteric.

Why have organizations at all, if we can just roleplay being in them instead? The reason you need those clans and orders is so that you can work with the other people, have a newsboard, and the like. Sure, I could just go out and roleplay being a member of the DoC, but without any other people, I'd get stranded pretty fast.

And another thing - there are two ways I can justify the statues hitting people, magically knowing who they are. One, they're in a city, and the statues can trace their link to the city nexus. Two, they're an individual, and can be identified by an aura or some such thing. But arbitrarily knowing someone is in a secret clan when no one else has a clue? That I don't follow.

When I was an active divinity in another realm, I had a secret order, where many members didn't even know each other's names, etc. Totems in this other realm were tuned against my order and was used to 'weed out' my super top secret order members. You know what? I didn't even THINK about asking that the code be changed to accomodate me. For those members at risk for being discovered, I removed them from my order yet RPed that they were still officially in my order yet in a deep cover capacity. They loved it. I loved it. I submitted reports from them on my order news. They were kept informed through 'contacts' of other members in cells. It was great.

I don't see why we should change things here. If you want a clan to be completely secret, don't advertise its existence. If you do, perhaps arrange for deep cover agents. There are ways around this. It only takes some RP.