Class Leaders

[Al]

I wanted to create a list of classes and leaders here, both for new members and so we old members can remember who is who.

If I make any mistakes, or miss out a class, please let me know

Read as follows; class, leader, status

Kai Lords, Black Cat, accounted for
Knights of the Realm, Night Hunter, accounted for
Buccaneers, leaderless
Dwarfs; Al, accounted for
Dessi Mages; unknown,
Crystal Star; Nahrus, unknown
Telchois: Aquila Sabre, accounted for
Commoner; Alyss, unknown
Shianti; Xex, unknown
Herbalish; Sweaty Gourgaz
Sage; leaderless (Zipp and Mearin acting up?)
Wytch; Simaldinach, accounted for
Vakeros Knights; Methos, unknown
NAK; Falling Pheonix, accounted for
Cultists; unknown
Nadzarium; Argravyn
Drakkar; unknown
Overall Forces of Darkness; Darklord Vashna; unknown (maakengorge?)
Knights of the White Mountain: Simy, accounted for
Lastland Navy; unknown

[Agrarvyn]

DV was definitely in overall charge of the Dark Forces.

Considering that Adez-Ziran and I were the site's entire Nadziran contingent, I was the class leader by default, being 24th-level or something, not that it mattered with only two of us.

[eviltb]

Apr 26, 2008 4:54:03 GMT -5 Al said:

NAK; Fallen Angel, accounted for

I thought fallingphoenix was the NAK class leader...?

[Al]

Apr 26, 2008 6:43:35 GMT -5 eviltb said:

Apr 26, 2008 4:54:03 GMT -5 Al said:

NAK; Fallen Angel, accounted for

I thought fallingphoenix was the NAK class leader...?

That is it - got the name wrong!

[Ghost Bear]

Hey Al, I think I can help a bit here:

Xex was the highest ranked Shianti and I think he was class leader too.

Sweaty Gourgaz was class leader for the Herbalish.

The Cultists, Drakkarim and Nadziranim - were they actually officially split as classes yet? Although they should be once we get TotS back.

-GB

[dharn]

Does commoner even counts as a class?

[Maerin]

It doesn't if it is not treated as such. I do think there might have been a time when the commoner group was treated as such.

[Agrarvyn]

The dark classes hadn't been split up at the time of the crash, but all we were waiting for was someone coding the ranks etc.

[Al]

I thought Alyss was the leader of the commoners as a class (although what that means I am not sure)

[Maerin]

She was, but the questions being posed here illustrate what I view as a very critical point. If a leader in a community is not visible or ceases to be active, they just are not viable as a leader. I understand the reaction people have had in the past to the idea of "defrocking" someone as a class leader, particularly if they are responsible enough to own up to the forum that real life or other circumstances change their participation in a community. But that reaction does the community, and particularly the group in question, no favors at all. Allow for enough time without active leadership, and a given group (such as one of our "classes") does and will fall apart. The leader of a given group has to be regarded as an active responsibility, and no mere honorary distinction of "seniority". Put another way, if there is a need for honorary recognition of seniority, than class leadship should not be it. It is too easy for someone to "rest on their laurels", disappear for however long, and leave others who are active in the community in a frustrated lurch; and I do not think there is any lack of examples people might cite in, say, the six months leading up to the loss of the Tower.

Now maybe that means that functional leadership of a sub-group requires that a few such "classes" be banded together. Certainly there is one example of that already in the MKC, and that group pretty dramatically illustrates its effectiveness within the community, being much greater than the sum of its individual "class" parts. Now, I would prefer not to see something mindless like "all the bad guys" or "all the sages/mages/scholars" lumped as arbitrary groups. The strength of the MKC is that it does have more to it than "all the good-guy fighting types": there is a history, a description, a compelling in-setting reason for its existence, and so forth. Such does not have to be completely exclusive either; I could see a one-class (probably no more) "overlap" possible for such groups, to provide the overall community a degree of RP cohesion. So, for instance, one might have the MKC and the Sommerlending, with the Sommerlending Knights being the overlapping "class".

Personally, I find that idea a heck of a lot better than the old, and obsolete, system based on classes in an RPG that ever more people do not (and will not) have access to as a resource (putting aside the people who clearly never did in the first place, even in past years). Further, it has the additional merit of allowing for characters that are not bound nor restricted by the inherently limiting "classes" of the RPG.

I understand Beowuuf's concerns about us creating something here that may not mesh back with whatever Winterhawk might be creating in the way of a new site...but I don't think we should worry overly much about that. First of all, the MKC functioned just fine on the old Tower, and so expanding that idea does not appear to conflict with the old vision. Second, we honestly do not know when a new Tower might arise (and the last couple years have shown Winterhawk much less able to do these sorts of things than he was, say, three years ago or six years ago or whatever; I have nothing against him, but it did take a year or so just to mail the wandering book...). If we sustain a "refugee mentality" right now it is inevitable that we will start shrinking as a community long before any such new Tower comes about. Third, anything can be adapted. Consider how much we have adapted the old Tower community to this current forum. If we find ourselves, down the road, with an element that just does not work, then yeah, we will likely have to adapt again. So be it.

[Al]

To add to Maerin's point about adaptablity, there was not only the Knights Council, but there was the formal alliance between the Knights and the Dwarfs, and the Dwarfs and Kai as well, complete with an exchange of Ambassadors, which was not only interesting from an RP perspective, it also injected (or at least was hoped to) life into the separate forums, and we made sure that the Ambassadors were active participants, when an Ambassador was silent for a month or so, he was replaced (both the Knights and the Dwarfs are one their second Ambassadors).

This system worked so well that the Kai sent an emissary to Bor (Ghost Bear) to determine if it would be a good idea to start an alliance between the Kai and the Dwarfs (a touchy subject since Black Cat started selling counterfeit Bor Brew), unfortunately that did not take off as well, but, it proved it was adaptable.

The point is, that the site has evolved from a Kai dominated, BCS backed site to one in which many classes are both active and evolving, and their has been changes that occur without needing to adjust the coding of the site.

The code gives us a frame, we build upon it.

And Mearin makes an excellen point about the refugee mentality - why is the only class forum that appears active to be the Warriors one? Surely the other classes must have stuff to talk about? Were we Dwarfs just a really talkative class (about three pages of topics in our private forum)?

[fallingphoenix]

Well I can't speak for everyone, but I haven't said anything in the Forces of Darkness forum because it says I need a password.

[Agrarvyn]

Well, I've posted a few things, but hardly anyone says anything in the Dark forum

[Simey]

Isn't Grolam a Dessi Mage? Maybe he was high enough level to be a class leader....?

When we return to TotS and all start from zero though, will this not all be academic?

[Maerin]

This all? No, I don't think so. Only whatever may have existed in the old Tower that does not somehow translate through the community here into the new Tower will prove "academic", I expect.