Did the admin actually come out and say, "You can't make laws!"?

I wouldn't imagine the odds of Gaudiguch going down in flames are any higher than those of Serenwilde going down in flames in a way the admin can observe easily, and for similar reasons.

Also, the question has been asked in this thread and yet the answer has never been given, but the words tyranny and oppression still end up in every second post.

So I will ask again, what exactly is this oppression?

Not going to go into what the admins said exactly or didn't say exactly as I don't want this turning into a flame war against the admins. Suffice it to say that the feeling left behind was that leadership in Gaudiguch was not supposed to actually do anything but make sure the bills are paid and the masses stay happy doing whatever they want.

Edit:; I also said in my first post it's possible we misunderstood the intent of what was said, but until clarification comes down all we can go with is what was said and how it was said.

Basically this, yeah.

I don't really want to push the issue, but the admin don't need to be telling you to "not make laws" unless they can give you a way to make sure there's a semblance of order in your city. I say, move on, work to write up a basic set of laws, and ignore the asshats.

I was under this impression too, what with one of IRE's selling points being that cities/communes/councils are all supposed to be player-ran.. interfering with that except in the more dire of circumstances (and this is not a dire circumstance, believe me) would be a breach of that kind of standard. Like Gregori said though, this isn't really about that. It's about asking for advice on what to do to establish order in the city and asking if Gaudiguch really should be an anarchy, and if it shouldn't, how do we make that clear? I believe it's been concluded that an 'anarchy' is a foolish thing to want here - so then, how do we progress toward an actual.. you know.. city, without every no-name sensationalist hitting the panic button while screaming at the top of their lungs about how "GAUDIGUCH IS A CITY OF FREEDOM!"

True freedom comes with great responsibility. Some of that responsibility is about personal accountability. It really isn't something that comes with no strings attached to it - you have to actively go out and get it. Sans a few core, dedicated people.. that doesn't happen.

Personally, I think a clan of with-it people is perfectly within justification, even with the inherent faults. Who'd bat an eyelash at there being a secret society in Gaudiguch?

Heck, have several. The more of these clans you're in, the higher your effective city rank.

Without reading everything but the first post, here's my take:


Freedom does not mean the ability to do anything, but the ability to do anything that is tolerable by society.
What's the difference between correcting a 4 year old girl who thinks 2+2=5 compared to a boy disliking broccoli ? She's wrong, and tolerating such things is counter-productive to society. Disliking broccoli has no bearing on society.

Gaudiguch is a society, so any actions and choices can't be counter-productive to the city. Anyone that spouts, "I'm free to do what I want." is right. They can do what they want, but if they choose to go beyond what is tolerable, then the city is "free to punish them." It's not hindering freedom, it's protecting the interest of the city: freedom.

You can go about it another way, too. Gaudiguch is its own entity and natural rights state that a person (or government) have a right to do what is necessary to protect itself. The leaders, on behalf of Gaudi, have the right to protect freedom and the city, and things that threaten it have to be taken care of.

Lastly, any citizen of Gaudi is part of the city. By being a citizen, they're inherently accepting the rules and punishments of that association. The citizens have a free choice between staying or leaving.

Don't forget that having rules does not entail lack of freedom. Limited options does not mean lack of freedom.

I'd recommend rights-based language that kindly reminds people of the different types. The proactive, the prudential, unalienable, inalienable, and what other kinds there may be. Your rights end where another begins (NOT ALWAYS TRUE!) is a good blanket. Again, remember about tolerable versus intolerable.

Laws exist to define the morality of a society.

The people who don't understand what practical RP is.. which seems to be an incredibly large bunch. The moment we make a clan that is even slightly exclusive, we'll see more ammunition being loaded in a political shotgun aimed at Kalin.

As for Sahmiam's post.. yeah, that's basically the gist of things.

First of all, great post.
I know 2+2 can equal 10,11. or even 100, but could it ever equal 5?

What math trickery is this!?!

I will create a Gaudi alt and start Skull and Bones. You start Scroll and Key. This will rock.

322

Everyone knows that in a proper mathematical context, 2 = 1!

If the leadership is placed in more of an administrative role, as the admin see fit, I can see the following scenario work out well.

1. Make dozens of "secret societies".
2. Tell the newbies about one or two of the less secretive ones, suggestive they may wish to join.
3. Join which ever societies you believe will advance your goals.
4. Try to use your society to vie for the actual power in Gaudi (ala Shadow government).
5. "Welcome to Gaudiguch! You are free to do whatever you want, but cross the wrong people, and bad things might happen to you."

It seems to me, that part of the problem stems from the fact that people assume that the elected officials should have the same amount of power as in other orgs. This, however, seems to not be what the admins want, so, instead, make the organization come from the myriad of societies (kind of fits the whole Chaos theme better).

As for adding political ammo against someone:

a. Ideally, everyone will be in at least one society. One might even strive to make all guilds have a bit of this.
b. The powerful societies will be, in theory, the ones that people know almost nothing about.
c. If you aren't elected to the leader position, so what? If they are as limited as the admins seem to be making them, it won't really matter all that much. Instead, try to extort them for what you need.

Note: I don't know how good of an idea this all is, but it sounds very fun to me.

I volunteer to help make this happen.

If we make multiple secret societies, few of them will ever actually see any substantial use, they won't actually be 'secret' either in that regard now that I think about it, and it just leads to obnoxious clanslot clutter. :S

Edit: Unless they're divorced from clans entirely, but that seems ... hard. Right now, the Illuminati and Templars are basically the secret societies. Pyromancers just smoke pot and set things on fire.

It would never work - the costs are astronomical, amongst other things.

Similarly, why MUST a chaos theme (if we even have one, I decline to comment lest I flip my lid about it) have ANYTHING to do with our political structure? Moreover, why MUST we have a chaos theme in general? If I wanted a city of chaos, I'd go to Ashtan in Achaea, frankly. I'm here for fire, enlightenment, and possibility - not chaos. Just because somebody got it in their heads to write 'chaos magic' in the Paradigmatics help file doesn't mean we must put chaos everywhere. Especially not in the places where stability is REQUIRED to function.

Lawl! Okay.

People like you make me want to get a Gaudi alt. Stop it



Certainly, some of them could be clans. The most secret, however, could not be. "He is a member of Secret Plot to overthrow Gaudiguch" Make it work like real secret societies -- word of mouth communication (made easier by tells and messages), randomly chosen meeting locations, secret handshakes (through emotes) and passwords, etc.

As for the Illuminati/Templars, the societies I'm referring to would only be interested in their own political gain. Illum/Templars should not be (in theory) and kind of fall into the category of "public secret societies".