@Write The only possible problem i can forsee for getting rid of GMs would if we have new people show interest in joining the RP. I guess we could all nitpick their CS as a group, but part of me can't help but think of how chaotic it may be if we're all trying to decide if there's room or not for them. I like everything else you've said and if you can come up with a solution for the problem I mentioned, or you're just sure I'm crazy and what I said isn't a problem, than I'm okay with it.
I get your point. Stand by for rebuttal.
I disagree that we don't need a GM.
We need one, with Co's too.
We need a form of leadership for several reasons. Firstly, we need someone to blame when things go wrong settle agruments, have the final say in matters, and run a plot. Yes, I believe that having an overarching plot is important and I'll explain why in a moment. Also, as @Guess Who said, one of the importaint duities of a GM is to approve character sheets. Giving everyone equal option sounds nice in theory, but giving everyone equal power (ie true democracy) doesn't work in practice. History had proved that much. If we put it to vote and tie, or if we have a person or group that stubbornly hold out, we need someone with given authority to put their foot down.
I do believe that a an overarching plot is very important. It gives players the feeling of progression, and something to shake up the IC everynow and then, throwing a wrench in every body's plans. That element of unpredictability will prevent some feelings of the lack of anything important happening, which we have here now, and it can help provide and change players subplots, often for the better. We will need a GM and Co's to decide how this plot progresses. Obviously, players can still put in their input, and even change what will happen through their characters.
This I disagree with.
Really, Beacon is a unique little clusterfuck of a game the likes of which I don't think I've ever seen on Guild. If there's any game that
could prosper without a head GM or co-GMs, it would be this one, mainly because like
@Write said, there wasn't much that the GMs actually did in the first place. There
was no overarching plot, and really, Beacon has never
needed one. Every attempt to do it - whether it be creating a villain team, trying to add little in-game world events along with the end of missions, or whatever - has been either ignored or collapsed in on itself because nothing was being done with it. Players just weren't interested. Instead, they flocked to their own little quests during downtime - like the dive for Sapphire's daggers, or a pizza night, or any myriad of events like that. In a game explicitly based on Volume 1, namely the mission and class aspect, there isn't room
or a need for there to be anything bigger or more chaotic. Don't underestimate the ability of players to come up with shit to keep them motivated.
If anything, having a GM
is what's tied up a lot of this game - the people who are able to keep moving at their own pace and go along the original schedule for family day are doing so just fine. It's the people who wanted to be at the race, for example, who are being held up because a GM isn't around to do anything for them. The mission antagonists who wrapped up their missions last go-around the fastest weren't GMs. I have a lot more respect for Lug than I did, say, a year ago, but he - and honestly, most of the staff - were making decisions that were responsible for a lot of the OOC conflict we had before we all came together and finally sang Kumbaya as a player base. The problem now is that even if we thought we could replace him, who would it be? Those same exact divisions had a habit of separating players into factions, or causing grudges that have only been patched up fairly recently. Hell, we all saw how chaotic it was when we just tried to select a new co-GM back in November. If democracy doesn't work for approving character sheets, how the hell are we gonna universally agree on a new team to run the game?
A GM team in the traditional sense won't work for this game, but neither do we need to have a universal democracy like you're suggesting, Raven. I think the better idea is to let teams handle their own in-house decisions in regards to characters - when to come together and tell someone they're being inactive, for example, with a
stringent system in place and a series of mentions in the OOC so that everyone can see that the inactive player is being handled fairly and with due process. By that same token, if the players decide the teammate isn't working out after a certain amount of time, and someone comes along and registers their interest, any team(s) with a gap can view the CS that person puts up, and decide among the rest of their team if it's someone they'd want on the roster. At this point the players we have, even if we're an ornery fucking bunch who doesn't always get along, are mostly comfortable with each other - and
especially with their teams, which is why I think that
@Prince of Seraphs and
@Forsythe were off the mark when they suggested disbanding teams.
If anything, we should
cling to the team structure of RWBY and make it a central part of how the game moves forward from here - four-player teams, each team approving what's best for themselves and revoking membership based on inactivity. Then, when class time rolls around, we can select people to handle the challenges
@Write suggested the same way we handle contest hosting now, and when missions roll around we can select missions and mission antagonists in largely the same fashion we do now. That way we can keep our own teams moving, invested in things
they want to do, and still leave the power in their hands to create things to do that can get other teams involved if they so choose. I think that way, by sticking together with our teams and sort of self-managing ourselves maturely, we can keep our players active with other people we enjoy playing with
and avoid a long, protracted flare up over who's taking charge in the OOC.
I love all of you fuckers even more than I hate all of you, but there's no way I would feel comfortable with any one person among us taking charge of Beacon. There's nobody here with the GMing experience, free schedule,
and the universal respect to make it happen, and I think that realizing our limitations as a player base and sort of going it our own way as teams IC is an idea with way more merit.
EDIT: SORRY SERAPHS I JUST REMEMBERED IT WAS
@LUCIUS CYPHER WHO SUGGESTED DISBANDING TEAMS NOT YOU I LOVE YOU SERAPHS
