I will state, we are the TSN RP Community. Though not everyone engages fully in the RP, it does need to be our primary focus. Those not fully engaging I feel should respect that, and as a result avoid breaking character with OOC references as often as possible. I am not perfect at it myself, but I do try to maintain my character and like it when others help reinforce that. (Matsiyan helped correct me when I talked OOC to the bridge crew durig the shift, which I appreciated)

I enjoy the RP, which is one reason I keep reading and writing logs, and going to the Bar. I can go along on a ship with little or no RP, but I prefer the suspension of disbelief to be maintained.

It’s more difficult to maintain RP through sims, I find, because then we’re playing officers who are pretending to be on a mission. It stands to reason the atmosphere on the bridge wouldn’t be quite as tense.

Before Fish replied here I considered to just let this message go, as there were very few answers that wouldn’t be confrontational, and those would be way too noncommittal. I’m not fine with that, and I most definetely don’t agree with what you wrote; but now that we have a proper, messured response by someone else I can build with that.

I was one of the founders of the old USN, the group that split from the TSN. That gives me a different perspective on some things, from combat doctrine to the value of roleplay, and what keeps the community running. The USN succeeded in what we wanted to do: to beat the game, to find new ways of doing stuff, and to bring a change in the way some things were done in the TSN that we didn’t agree on, but this is not the place to discuss this one.

I firmly believe that the TSN wouldn’t be here today if Xavier had an habit of killing dissent. I’m pretty vocal about my many, many disagreements with him, and my ego is big enough to assume my tactical and strategic theories are more valid; but there’s one thing to be said about the fleet captain: he always respected my way of doing things. He didn’t shoot down my promotion into command because of those arguments, and he gives some genuine thought to my ideas even though he has something else in mind, even when I’m being an ass about it.

All ships have their own way of running. The group as a whole gets a lot from that. This allows the more relaxed people to be on a friendly environment without ruinning your fun; and it also prevents the most heavy roleplayers to play as they want without killing the mood for the less RP oriented. This system works much better than just telling half the group, whichever half, to suck it; and the proof is that nowadays we have the TSN; while the USN came and went once its main mission was accomplished.

I’m proud of my relaxed crew. Phoenix is a place to joke around with friends. We will mess around, and we still will manage to pull as much weight as any other ship. If someone who doesn’t share our inclinations comes to our ship we can try and make it less painful for them, but our bridge crew ought to remain our dear ragtag buch of misfits, because that’s our way to roll.

I also believe that one of my duties as a captain is to protect my crew. If we get out of hand, as we did during the FF incident a long time ago, it is my personal responsibility and not that of my crew, and that’s why I apologized about it, publicly, during the next shift’s debrief. And we totally stepped out of line, because our messing around started to affect other ships.

But the crew tags? So far, none of us used a fake tag outside the ship. I really don’t see an internal joke becoming a division wide issue. None of us was forced into it, and my crew is always welcome to raise their objections to me, or even to present a transfer request, should they feel that our bridge is not their place.

How do you run away in space, without kidnapping a whole space ship, like what happened to TSN Hydra. And after suffering such a loss, why would we allow anything other than complete discipline?

Because it’d be allowing storyline to take precedence over group leadership when establishing policy. The stricter discipline was part of the arc where Cessna and I stole the Hydra, embodied in the NSD.

Do we punish Slate for never stating her rank?

This can be addressed by the DO during the briefing, as that’s the officer in charge on enforcing protocol. But, don’t you think you’re going a tad too far, recommending a punishment in the same post you considered a temporary demotion a valid option? Even in character, that’s a tiny thing. When I, in character, caused a security breach, I only got a temporary loss of seniority, so the scale doesn’t work. At all.

Do we punish Allard for behaving the way he does? Performing Allard manouvers, picking up mines and endagering the crew, ignoring DO’s instructions.

The evaluation of what constitutes danger to the crew is largely Captain’s prerrogative; and if his CO is fine with letting him on helm, it is beyond my rights to mess with that. As per his ignoring the Duty Officer, it was adressed. I don’t believe there was a new instance of the DO’s authority being breached, but if there is, as I already said when this was raised, feel free to bring it up to my attention, that of the fleet captain, or to the acting division commander.

Do we require from every Commander to be reevaluated after taking a long break? Do we demote some people if they are not up to par with others of their rank?

This was discussed, in lenght, about half a year ago, when we reformed the rank system. The post in question should still be hanging around the Div Development forums, and it’s public access.

Also, if a senior officer doesn’t feel like being CO or XO for a particular shift, that person can always RP as another character of a lower rank.

We do that, a lot. Xavier has his Turnez alt. When I was a prisoner during the NSD arc, I created an alt, Ensign Ricky, and nobody raised any eyebrows. We could write more formal guidelines for the creation of alts, but this isn’t urgent enough to deserve inmediate attention.

To top this off, I believe the most important thing you wrote is actually this:

If that’s something we tolerate or not is decided by the group and by it’s leader. Currently, we tolerate it, laugh at it, go with it.

If my personal actions affect the experience other people get from the group, I’m open to hear about my “general annoyances”. But I think that my way of running the Phoenix works, and I don’t plan on sacrificing our goofiness. As Slate said, and I think she described the spirit of our crew just fine, we’re here for the people and friendships. I’m not in for the RP, but I know and accept that most people actually are, and I have no right to ruin their fun. If my way of doing things actually is hurting the community, the fleet captain is free to dismiss me from command and I’ll be OK with it, but right now my job is to protect my crew’s place.

Fish, please don’t cough your lungs out. I don’t think even the TSN MedBay is up to full lung replacement yet.

I spent a good bit of time thinking about this. Why do I stick around with the TSN? Why do I spend four or more hours of my Saturday afternoon and even more time on the fourms screwing around with a bunch of people I’ve never met (yet) in person?

Sure, I enjoy the game, it’s a lot of fun, but I don’t think that’s the main reason. I definitely enjoy hanging out with the people I’ve met here, and a few of you I’d venture to call you my friends.

I also enjoy the RP. But here’s a question I’ve been pondering: How much of your RL self do you show in the RP? Is your RP self completely different from your RL self? I don’t think that’s possible. Sure, there’s aspect about yourself that you don’t have to (and in some ways can’t) show, but how much do you be yourself in the RP. I think it’s easier to RP when I’m being myself, and I enjoy it more.

As another member of the Phoenix‘s crew, I think that our OOC antics and conversations contribute to the fun of the RP. I can get to know people instead of just characters. I’ve served on other ships now and then, but I’ve never felt at home like I have on the Phoenix because of that. I’ve often thought of requesting another assignment to get experience with other command styles and crews, but then I realize I don’t want to. I genuinely enjoy serving on the Phoenix, where in general I know the crew as well as the ship herself.

I remember a mission awhile ago in which two ships got destroyed. The GM spawned them back in and they RP’d a sensor glitch or something that made it seem like they were destroyed instead. The general consensus(OOC) on the Phoenix‘s bridge at the time was that both ships should be permanently destroyed. But that would’ve complicated a lot of things and mightn’t have been fun for the players, and all in all it probably was the right call. I remember another time when I was still working on learning the weapons console and I dropped a mine on a friendly ship (I think Aramond was in command, but I don’t remember the ship name). The ship was destroyed, but they RP’d a big hole in the hull instead and respawned it. Again, probably the right call.

There’s limits to the RP during the duty shift, and if everything had to be RP, I would’ve left long ago, and I suspect there would be a lot fewer people around. On the forums of course, in the bar and on the holodeck and on missions like the Manticore mission, having as little OOC stuff as possible is perfectly fine imo.

I want to ask, though, and this is a question for everyone: Why do you like the RP so much? Do you prefer RP over meeting and getting to know people? Some people get into RP stuff because they want to run away from some problem or other, and not be confined to their perception of themselves. That’s certainly one reason why I originally joined (I also just wanted to play artemis, and I couldn’t get my friends to play consistently). But now, it’s because I genuinely like many of the people in this group, and I now feel free, at least among my crew, to be very much myself, and I much prefer that over being someone I’m not. RP is fun, but why does RP take such a precedence in your life?

Just something to think about, you don’t really need to answer me 🙂

Fair warning: this might ramble a bit.

I’ve read people’s posts, and they’ve been going round in my head, so now that I’ve had some sleep and some time to mull things over, I’ll add a longer opinion on why I value RP.

Artemis is a fun game, but as people have pointed out, it isn’t so difficult that beating the game would be enough of a satisfaction – even if I were a completist (I have some tendencies in that direction, tempered by laziness and lack of time), and had the time and the opportunity to play every bridge station until I achieved what I considered satisfactory proficiency (hint: nowhere near where I am), on every type of ship, at every difficulty level, I would probably get bored before getting to that end stage.

What really makes the game for me is the interaction between officers. And this is where the RP comes in. I’ve played a few times with friends, in the same room, without RP, and the game just loses some flavour as far as I’m concerned. When the bridge stations are simply game posts, the game is, well, a game. We’re not risking our lives to protect anything or anyone, we’re moving pixels around to switch off other pixels. Might as well play Tetris.

I’m not saying that I really believe we’re in a spaceship. Do children waving light sabres at each other really believe they’re Jedi? We step in and out of RP all the time, when we get up to make a cup of coffee in our real kitchen (but see, Matsiyan has a coffeemaker in RP, and now it’s part of his character) or when we struggle with real computer glitches – but we’ve worked out a way to talk about those in RP terms too, and it allows people to have fun. The Matsiyan-Mundy psi-link is an RP solution to why we’re able to know what the other one is doing when we’re on different ships.

Some people enjoy the RP more, and some treat it more lightly. I wouldn’t want to impose strict RP guidelines on anyone, if it was going to ruin their game. I definitely think that to “punish” people for approaching the game differently from me would be inappropriately dictatorial. I do think that we should stick to RP in the Briefing Room, partly for the practical purpose of quelling the chatter that otherwise might drag on too long, and make the briefing difficult to follow; partly to give a sense of community, as TSN officers working together. Outside the Briefing Room, RP is pretty much by consensus, and each ship is different. RP-ing the ranks serves the same practical purpose of keeping the ship and crew on task; how much each officer is a fully realised personality is a separate question, and much more about personal enjoyment.

I’ve been on ships with almost no RP. I find it disappointing, but it’s only for the length of a shift. There are other ships. Just because someone doesn’t enjoy RP as much as I do doesn’t mean I don’t like them, or I don’t like being on a ship with them. As a beginning player, I learned a huge amount from commanding officers who don’t RP much, and I appreciate them for it. Someone in the posts above (and I’m trying not to lose my train of thought, so I’m not going back to check who it was) said part of the fun is being on a ship with friends, and I agree. Where In Character and Out Of Character friendship begins and ends is one of those wonderfully indeterminate areas.

There may be people we like more, and people we like less. We can deal with that in RP, in fact: if Hornblower, or Harrington, or Aubrey had never had to deal with difficult superior officers, or insubordinate crew, or any difficulty at all in their personal interactions, guess how many people would have read the books? I’ve put some of that in Mundy’s logs, with the excuse that they’re her private thoughts, and she can express anything she wants there, even if it’s undiplomatic or downright disrespectful.

And as for how much of ourselves is in RP, that’s one of those great universal questions: some, of course. Mundy is much more organised than I am, much more technically competent, to say nothing of a much better shot and a much better fencer… (I haven’t touched a foil in mumble mumble years, and a sabre in even longer) She has a much more dramatic background than I have, of course – I’ve tried not to go Goth with her, it would be too easy to have her endlessly moping about Paragon and her brother – but I can’t help giving her my snarky sense of humour.

Having said which, she’s not me. I don’t think there’s the side of me in Mundy that comes out when I GM… the side of me that has my Firefly players fully believing the naive girl they saved is grateful to them, while, after nearly getting them killed twice, she’s infiltrating their family and business network, setting up ambushes on them (damn near misses that caused them physical harm and cost them money) working out where their friends are hiding, arranging for several of them to be kidnapped as a lure to a secret facility where they will be used as guinea pigs for an experimental new FTL drive that has so far resulted in the deaths of many skilled pilots. Oh, and she’s working on turning one of the player characters over to her side. I think she’s mostly there. I’ve been lying to my players for about six episodes now. Mundy has A Strict Regard For Truth.

That’s what RP is for, sometimes, I can be a much nobler version of myself… Also, it’s relaxing to go along with somebody else’s story, and just have one character to think about.

I suppose the TL; DR version of this is, I come back to the TSN week after week because of you lot. May you always know where your towel is.

Why is it that Slate doesn’t state her rank at the beginning of a shift? @Slate.