I was feeling motivated today, so I tapped out this paper. It's an IC production, and I'll probably turn it into a book, but I thought the content was important enough OOC that I'd put it here too, see what people thought. Here it is, I know it's a bit long.

Elitism in Lusternian Society
A Proposal for Change

By Syh

Political success in any organization is a function of involvement, defined as initiative, the extent to which any individual participates actively in her organization. Evaluations of the success of individuals must always refer to this concept of involvement because any great action stems directly from the choice to take that action. Novices, fresh from the Portal of Fate, have a choice. They can involve themselves, which is always at their own initiative, or they can resign themselves to obscurity. The choice to remain obscure is not a conscious one; it flows from the potential of an individual to involve herself. Charisma is the central cog of the Lusternian meritocracy, positions of political power are not granted on a random basis. The choice to take meaningful action is the hardest choice and the one that fundamentally determines the greatness of an individual and the extent and depth of her potential.

Individuals who choose to be idle, who observe and fail to take meaningful action, are doomed to be the victims of elitism within any organization. The elite, whose names everyone within the organization knows, are those whose actions carry meaning. The choice to spend one’s time on the highway guiding pilgrims is not a choice to take meaningful action. Such action is a part of the life of any Lusternian, but for some it comprises the totality of their existence. Instead, the choice to approach a high-ranking elite and request guidance or a position of power is and example meaningful action. Conducting a conversation with a member of the elite is intimidating to many novices and many non-novices because the perception of the elite by others is one guided by their own inferiority. Elites, by accident or design, are by definition not approachable. The choice to take initiative is the path to becoming one of the elite.

Leadership will always relate to elitism. This relationship is a direct consequence of the thesis that involvement and success are the same. Leadership is impossible without initiative because in its essence leadership is the ability to make decisions that affect others. One who is not a member of the elite will never be able to make those leadership decisions because she has resigned herself to be an observer. Because the elite never offer the opportunity to make decisions to those who never ask, one who has resigned herself to meaningless action rather than attempts to join the elite will never lead.

Elitism in Lusternian politics differs from elitism in the traditional sense because the elite do not exclude, instead those who are not elite exclude themselves. Because they perceive the elite as forever outside of their reach, they never attempt to become elites and are relegated to obscurity. This self-exclusion is the foundation of the meritocratic system: those who involve themselves are capable of being leaders because they have the ability to take initiative, which is the same as the ability to make decisions and take risks. Those who cannot take initiative cannot lead and will never involve themselves. In this way, the elite are always qualitatively different compared to the obscure, and are more fit to lead.

However, organizations stand to gain from destroying this system. The power of organizations is not connected to their size but rather the amount of elites that they possess. For example, Magnagora in its golden age, before the rise of the Serenwilde as the Basin knows it at the time of writing, succeeded largely because the majority of capable fighters resided there. The aim of organizations then should not be to exclude individuals who have not attempted to join the elite, but to cultivate elites, because elites are by definition those capable of advancing the goals of the organization.

This stands in seeming contradiction to the fact that the elite system in Lusternia is a meritocracy. However, this contradiction rests on the fact that those who exclude themselves are incapable of ever being ones who can take initiative. Because no individual starts as an elite, the intimidation of the elite can outweigh the individual’s initiative to join it. Those who become elites are those who can summon the extreme initiative to overcome that fear. However, those who choose not to join the elite, or believe they cannot, are not completely without initiative. By virtue of existing in the Basin, possess the initiative to complete meaningless tasks such as destroying creatures to increase their own power and skill, and to assist various organizations with commodities or with finding new leaders, to cite a few examples. If organizations reach out to these individuals instead of exclude them, they have the unique opportunity to cultivate this initiative and create leaders, elites, who can advance the goals of the organization.

The practical benefits of this idea are obvious when applied to an actual organization and thought through. The new members of the organization, the novices, are those who will ultimately either become elites, become rank and file members the basin does not care about, or they will fade into the background, never to return. Currently, organizations ignore novices largely, until those novices take the initiative to receive increased aid. Organizations teach them skills and allow them to grow on their own, involving themselves to the extent that they wish. However, organizations that make novice retention and involvement their priority stand to gain in ways that no one can quantify because the model exists nowhere. Under this hypothetical system, retention and involvement of novices becomes the primary internal goal of the organization. The praxis has to exceed the existence of programs of novice advancement. These rely on novices taking the initiative of their own accord. Those novices willing to involve themselves are not the target of this program, because they are already on track to become elites.

Programs geared towards novices take on a different angle that removes the question of initiative. Guild leaders, for example, or city leaders, simply give the novices projects and missions. For instance, the Guildmaster of the Shadowdancers informs a novice that a Shadowdancer spy heard a hemp farmer in Delport passing on a guild secret. The mission of that novice, or low ranking guildmember who tends not to involve herself, becomes to assassinate that farmer. This particular example is problematic because of village enemy status, but the concept is applicable to any number of scenarios limited only by the creativity of leaders. Journey to a village on the other side of the Basin and buy three iron bars with guild funds. This kind of mission involves the novice in the guild and makes the guild a larger and more tangible part of her life of without requiring her to involve herself. By making the guild more approachable and ‘real’, the amount of initiative required to become a true member of the guild lessens.

This kind of novice program produces effective a greater quantity of guildmembers willing to devote themselves to more tangible guild causes like village influencing. Also, by making the guild more real and important even absent huge worldwide events, the novice immerses herself in its culture. The events themselves create a guild culture, Shadowdancer novices embark on spying missions in the Tosha Monastery, Paladin novices bring messages to political leaders in the Serenwilde by hand, Hartstone novices plant herbs and maintain populations. In addition, the skills required to complete the missions, such as navigation, and above all interpersonal interaction, produce effective Lusternian citizens. Novices who might find nothing worthwhile in a guild instead decide to both involve themselves and stay in the guild and become guild elites.

The first organizations to adopt these strategies will gain a tangible advantage because they will possess a greater quantity of individuals capable of advancing organizational goals. This increase will in turn prompt other organizations to adopt these methods of retention and involvement, and the Basin as a whole will benefit. The current system of elitism, while producing some effective individuals, will never produce as many as this system because this system includes others without excluding those who would become elites under the current system. This paper and its advocacy are a challenge to a prevalent and ingrained social system, but these changes are intuitive and not in the least difficult to effect. Ironically, the implementation of these changes depends entirely on the initiative of guild leaders. If they are good leaders, then this is initiative they possess, and soon, Lusternia will be a different, and much improved, realm.

This is an interesting view, and one that I've scratched the surface of in my own experiences. From an IC perspective, it makes quite a bit of sense; simply put, by drawing in guild newcomers, the power of the guild as a whole will increase. And you gave several good arguments on behalf of this, I believe.

The problem, as I imagine you are aware, is not in-character but out. The limiting factor from an out-of-character perspective is initiative -- but as a tripartite function of dedication in addition to motivation and time available. It is a fact of online gaming that players will join and leave games freely, so by prioritizing the involvement of novices a significant amount of guild resources (time, funds, experience, etc.) will be spent without any return to the guild at all.

With the turnover rate of novices, I'm afraid that the priorities you propose would be like slitting the purse of the guild's resources and letting them all drain uselessly away.

Definitely an interesting point, and something I did consider. I agree that devoting too many actual resources could be a risky investment at best, disasterous at worst. Ideally, the guild would simply restructure the way in which they approach novice training. I do think some increase in time resources is in order, but not necessary gold or any other expendable commodity. Obviously, this time wouldn't be at the expense of defending the organization from attack, but just in spare time or already allocated novice training time.

At its most basic level, this is a program to reduce novice turnover. I'd say the more effectively this kind of program is applied, the less this becomes a risky investment because you're retaining more novices.

You're right in that there are many OOC reasons turnover is high, like OOC time availible to play games like Lusternia, so some risk will always exist. As such, I would definitely advocate guilds not pouring so many resources into novice training that they put their financial or physical security on the line. I do think they should alter their approach though.

Thanks for your well thought out response

I'd just like to say, first of all that any novice who asks an GM/GA/GC for a 'position of power' is not only going to be told 'you don't know enough' but is also going to be looked at as a person who only wishes to gain power for power itself.

Perhaps some people take longer to build a name for themselves then others, but you can not force them to do so if they don't wish to, and in fact some will get angry that you are taking away their rights and forcing them to get involved in something they don't want to be involved in.

If we force people whom are not ready into positions of power then we are doing the guild a disservice, such positions can, and usually are awarded to those who have shown themselves to be knowledgeable and useful in their interactions with others in a guild.


All guilds I’ve had the experience of playing a character in , for a short or long time, tell their novices from the start what they need to survive, how they can improve their social standing, and what they can do to help themselves, their money bag, and their organization grow. There are also basic rules of decorum which they are told to follow, such rules are based in the guilds/nations RP and guides the novices in that way as well, helping them structure their roles. Novices are then told to ask questions, and seek out elders in their quest for a better understanding of their guild’s role in the basin of life.

Any Novice who does this will start to befriend their guild leaders, and will prove themselves worthy of later advancement as they help the guild when needed.

Sufficed to say, I don't agree with a single conclusion you came to, even if certain points you brought up were very factual and true.

On the first point there, what I meant wasn't so much a novice asking to be an undersecretary or some such position, because I agree that would be senseless. What I meant more was the kind of novice who doesn't ever try to involve themselves, even when they have been around for a while. By position of power, I refer mainly to any kind of position, or even just having the status where people really respect what you say.

As for the second, the paper addresses exactly those novices who don't ask questions or involve themselves heavily in guild affairs because ways to involve themselves aren't apparent or are too intimidating. The whole point is not all novices pursue those opprotunities and easily befriend guild leaders, my ideas concern the possibility of cultivating the initiative of those novices so that they feel comfortable approaching guild leaders, asking questions, and working within the guild.

That said, you are right in that I probably was too hard on guilds in general, and a lot of what we have probably doesn't have to change. I'm just suggesting ways that those novices who currently lose interest or never fully involve themselves once they graduate could be retained and involved.

EDIT: Yea, just to be absolutely clear, my advocacy boils down to sending novices on missions to involve them and build culture, I'd think that would be helpful even if we don't reform the systems we already have in place. Why not? The point isn't to stick them in positions they're not ready for, it's to prepare them to be able to seize those positions for themselves and populate the guild with involved individuals.