Out of interest, and to further expand on the arguments I've been having lately about this subject, what do people think...

...do we, as the players, define who the Divine are, or do the Divine define us? Or both?

On another note, should the Divine be the Admins, or should they be allowed to Roleplay actions and reactions that are -not- defined by the playerbase?

Someone I've been having this discussion with seems to contradict himself a lot.

He says firstly that the Divine are supposed to be there as Admins, and he does not think they should be allowed to respond to player situations, nor should they interfere in the cities/communes.

Then he says they should be there as roleplay tools, allowing us to develop our characters though taking up their battles, and being physical representations of their ideals...

So what about you all? What is your opinion? Do you define who your Divine is, or does your Divine define you?

This one's an easy call for me. Isune heavily influenced my character back when he was still basically a blank slate and many of her ideals have been imprinted into him. So it would be a case of the Divine influencing the Character/Player.

Generally speaking, it doesn't matter to me who influences who. Anything you interact with will influence you one way or another, so I'm sure we affect each other all the time. Granted, the Divine are all much better at roleplay than much of the playerbase (to my knowledge and experience), but I'm sure there are actions we have taken that have molded how they do things as well. Getting them to admit that would be another issue entirely. ;p

As far as what capacity I feel that they should be acting in, I don't believe that Divines should be Admins with the recent changes coming. Administration should probably stay in the hands of those who don't get seriously involved in the game. I do think that Admins should have some experience with the game so they can understand things, but I don't believe that they should be active players, as that tends to bias your viewpoint.

But maybe I'm a fool, I dunno.

The Divine will always be administrators to some extent. One can only hope that they are respectful enough to attempt to divorce themselves from their IC role when administrative action is necessary.

I don't know. I like the Aetolian Divine more. *eyeshift*

I think it is a give-and-take relationship. Not only do the Divine help distinguish players, in their beliefs and actions, but also the way players react and interact with the Divine helps to define them. So you can't really say 'Players make the Divine' nor the reverse, since both are vital and important to each other.

For the Admin thing, I think it is much easier if the Admin are seperate from the RP Divine. That way there is no temptation for bias, nor can there be accusations of it either. I know Hajamin, for instance, was accused of using his affiliation with Celest to support changes that helped Celest, or were detremental to Magnagora. If Hajamin were not a coder, say, then everyone would have just scoffed at such accusations and went on their merry way. However, since the Divine ARE coders, and are Admin to an extent, Im not sure that the structure of how the IRE divine/admin system is set up would really support a clear division between the two. If they had Admin Gods and RP Divine, they would really need two sets of Divine, one that code and one that 'play'. Thats twice as many as they have now. Granted, one set wouldn't need to be 'trained' as they would just need to know history and the like, but still.

It is of course possible to usefully distinguish them; Estarra is a good example. She is obviously an Admin, but she has RP influence and history as well. She just dosen't bang it up with the players all that often. If the other gods did the same, we would have much, much less interaction than we do now. I prefer to have a good RP Divine that also codes, than have a divine that is never around ever to interact with. It might mean a wee bit longer to wait for that Ultimate Bashing Ground of Glory and Wonder, but in the meantime we can explore the Divine and each other.

Well, in my experience, I would say a lot of Divine are also influenced by the players, and their wants and needs, especially those within their Order. I can tell you that Raezon is a large part of Nymerya, and her thoughts and opinions often align with what he wants, and I think, in part, a large part of how Raezon is portrayed to those ourside the Order comes from me.

Though, in other realms, such as Aetolia, where I'm going to be playing a much smaller role, if I ever get -into- the damn Order (*shakefist Galleus* Some divine need to harrass their OH's into getting their act together. Hmmph.), I think my character will largely be influenced by the Divine I want to follow.

Nice sig..

yeah, nice sig.

I always thought elder gods should be administrative/rp and vernal gods should be rp mostly (since they could eventually take out a small army, and wouldn't need to get involved in petty conflicts).

What? What do you mean we don't have vernal gods? I guess I'll volunteer. Someone find me a nexus!

The admin are volunteers and the major perk of doing the drudgery of the admin work is to play an RP god. Thus, it is an absurd concept to think anyone would volunteer just for admin work. I'm sure if we had positions where you ONLY are an RP god, we'd get hundreds of applications but that just ain't going to happen. In order to get to play, you have to do work!

In any event, one of the things I have tried to impress upon Lusternia is the concept of admin divine (Oneroi, Norns, Eryinyes, Moirae, Furies, Charites). Thus, all admin questions/issues should go through only those admin. All other gods should only be treated in an RP sense. I try to stress to the gods not to talk about OOC matters with players. However, I know this doesn't always happen and players used to gods in other realms may expect gods to also do admin duties. However, it would help that if you have OOC questions, not to ask a god directly but rather ask that god if the Norns or another "Administrator of the Fates" is available for a question.

Ah, excellent suggestion. I'll keep that in mind the next time I break something.

I think that Divine and Players influence each other. They help us define some of ourselves, whereas we also help them "develop" type thing. The Divine, to me, are there for RP purposes, but they still have a bit of Admin purposes as well. The heavily Admin roles shouldn't have any sort of RP whatsoever, maybe just a little but not a whole lot like the Divine. Right now, none of my characters are really influenced by the Divine, and my main character is kind of scared by Viravian and Shikari. To me, the divine are just there. Nothing more.

Interaction with anything that is alive tends to have influence on both parties.

I would like to say that Elcyrion defines Joli mostly, but Joli is not the perfect little pacifist scholar. She causes trouble, usually unknowingly, and then has to suffer the consequences. It's not that big of a deal, because she sort of curls up like a dog hit with a newspaper when she gets punished. She's very gullible and naive and people take advantage of that. Elcyrion and Geb have both tried to remedy this, but after her move she just seems to have retrogressed back into her "pre-GA" stage. So yes, he affects my roleplay to the extent of "I'm going to avoid doing this again so that I don't get yelled at again."

As for me affecting Elcyrion... well he knows who to talk to if he wants to see if something is breakable or if their are loop holes in rules.

I've seen examples of the newly created gods being influenced by philosophies the players had at the time they met them. And I've seen examples of people being influenced by the gods. I believe it depends on the situation, the god, and the player.