Warrior Cat Clans 2 (WCC2 aka Classic) is a roleplay site inspired by the Warrior series by Erin Hunter. Whether you are a fan of the books or new to the Warrior cats world, WCC2 offers a diverse environment with over a decade’s worth of lore for you - and your characters - to explore. Join us today and become a part of our ongoing story!
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11.06.2022 The site has been transformed into an archive. Thank you for all the memories here!
Here on Classic we understand that sometimes life can get difficult and we struggle. We may need to receive advice, vent, know that we are not alone in our difficult times, or even just have someone listen to what's going on in our lives. In light of these times, we have created the support threads below that are open to all of our members at any time.
Today, I'm here to present to you a thought piece that Komiharu and I have been working on for two and a half weeks titled "Disenchanted with Enchantment: How Classic Breaks Its Own Rules."
I'm actually quite nervous to actually post this. It's been in my to-do list since we got the greenlight, but I've been a little hesitant to, not because I think that the work that we did was unnecessary, but because it very well could be a display of an unpopular opinion. However, it is an opinion that we have worked on for a significant period of time, and we have constructed this argument as thoughtfully as possible.
I want to take a moment to explicitly address the length. This document is long and we are both fully aware of this. This was by design; we designed this piece to be thorough and to fully construct our argument so that we shouldn't need very many follow up questions on actual content (although, if there's a part that's unclear to you, please ask!). If you do not want to read the entire document, please message either Komiharu or I and we can tell you what to read to make it slightly abridged.
I also want to take a minute to addess the elephant in the room. Some of you who will read this will have participated in some of the things that we call out during this essay. I have too. This is not meant to be a callout of any users for their ideas or their eagerness to incorporate these aspects into your clans. The ideas are often super rad; however, in this piece, we seek to look at how these cool ideas actually can damage the site. This being said, we in no way intend our writing to be considered a personal attack.
There was a lot of deliberation about where this should first be posted. We have shared it with Cleaver, and after we discussed the piece with her, it was decided that posting it publicly was the best way to do this, especially since one of our points is that users do not get enough say in major changes. Please be mindful of this as you discuss our suggestions.
I think that's all the start up I have for you. Please do not hesitate to challenge our ideas, or expand upon them, or interact with them in any way that feels good for you.
Post by Honeystorm on May 12, 2020 15:21:48 GMT -5
I am currently still reading through it all, it is a really long doc, as you said. cx
But, I would like to say, first and foremost, thank you for bringing this up! This is definitely something worth discussing, and from what I've seen at least so far, I can understand where you're coming from. Especially with how many elemental characters I have, which I saw you brought up. I have far too many, ngl.
Why would you say something so controversial, yet so brave? XD
But seriously though, you've brought up a lot of really good points that I believe need to be talked about more here on the site. I found myself agreeing with a lot of what you're saying, and to be completely honest with no hard feelings, the absolute complexity of the lore surrounding Dayclan and Sunclan especially are the biggest reason why I do not have characters in the Forest Clans.
Obviously I have an unique viewpoint on this subject, considering I'm one of the most requested users to play the role of RR's Blind Protector when he's needed for plot-purposes. I can't even say for sure whether this is a result of a clique I unintentionally ended up in, or just because the current leaders of RR liked my characterization of him back when I used him as RR's Chaman. In any case, when I do use BP, I try to keep him as hands-off as I possibly can, generally limiting him to spouting cryptic nonsense. The only instance I can recall that I'm aware I godmoded was back circa 2013-14. Though obviously please let me know if I accidentally overstep myself ever. Role-playing a clan deity is tricky business and certainly not easy to do right.
As for potential solutions to the problem, I would be all in favor of hard limits and restrictions; I believe the existence of the Sun God and Moon Goddess make our clans very unique and can make sense lore-wise with a bit of tweaking, but they're unreasonably overpowered with very little to no normal user input.
Post by neverstarstar on May 12, 2020 16:09:27 GMT -5
I'm with Gidget as to part of the reason I have no cats in the Forest Clans: too much lore/different gods, etc. It's like I have to study to be apart of them and I find myself lacking the energy despite my awe that people have created such an intense and in depth place!
Aside from that I'm surprised to find that there's a document about godmoding as I've felt like it all but disappeared since Classic's early days when some one posted a thread about murdering the current medicine cat and now they were the medicine cat and they'd murder any cat who said otherwise xD
I probably have my eyes all the way shut because even with the outline in the documents, I haven't noticed this was a thing at all. I knew about gods/goddesses and whatever but I was unaware that they were being abused, I had assumed a leader just played them and it was all very above board and reasonable. This again is probably because my current clans are the mountain clans and swiftclan.
I think if this has become such a problem that we're discussing it then there must be some issue somewhere - I think hard limits seem fair. I personally don't partake in any of these god/goddess things but I see the appeal of them and think that they should be regulated but most certainly kept. They are incredibly creative and to stifle that would go against a bit of Classic's philosophy imo.
For years now I’ve roleplayed on Classic, but I’ve always been intimidated by and don't really understand SummerClan and FallClan. I don’t know the clans' nature or identity, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of plots that have anything going on, and honestly the clans are a little too picture perfect when they have little to no conflict.
But I joined SummerClan recently for the first time ever and I see the appeal. There’s a lot of little stories like them discovering the ocean and meeting up for a small gathering. It’s likable because the clan has great exploration stories whether it’s learning about their neighbors culture or their own land. But personally, I’m not really into that, however that doesn’t mean other people aren’t. I might not like SummerClan, but it’s not because it’s traditional or doesn’t have enough “new stuff” going on. It’s because I’m just not super into the stories. Because roleplaying at the center of it all is storytelling. I would never make restrictions in SummerClan to force them to make a new religion or create a crazy new rp rank because I would be taking away from the story that so many people love.
I understand if the Enchanted Forest isn’t for everyone, but that’s no reason to take away the story from everyone else. Adding powers gives new storytelling opportunities, the genie in the bottle, the fallen angel, the guy cursed with bad luck. These are all just different stories on the same shelf.
Godmodding
The Enchanted Forest isn’t godmodding and if it was, it was voted for by the public and won during the overhaul.
New Members
And I know there’s an argument that new users are afraid to join these clans, but this isn’t true, returning and new users have joined all the ForestClans such as Creativefyre, Cookie, Disasterb, Archerz, Ashestoashes, and many more.
No Member Inclusion
In DayClan we also ask for users continuous feedback, but if you are not in the clan you wouldn't know. We have surveys and an entire committee made up of multiple members in the clan that are not just people who have staff or rp ranks. When we did have a demi god plot I asked multiple times if my members were enjoying it and the feedback was always positive.
Clique Nature
The Enchanted Forest has always planned to include everyone, but since I'm graduating college this week and the rest of the ForestClan leaders have been busy we haven't been able to make a kitting thread that would allow for members who do not yet have an enchanted character to participate.
My point is, I understand if not everyone likes the Enchanted Forest or the ForestClan in general. But other people do like it just as dearly as you love your favorite clan. We haven’t broken any of the rules, but if any of the CURRENT leaders have let me know. I would really love it if everyone gave us a chance the same way I gave SummerClan a chance even though I was a little intimidated at first.
I understand why the Enchanted Forest is an exciting idea and from reviewing the rules, I can see how much thought went into the plots. The Forest Clans worked hard to make this change as fair as possible and I don't want to undermine the effort put into the addition of powers. While these abilities aren't really my style, I know many of you enjoy what they bring to the roleplay, and I don't want to take that away for no reason. In particular, disliking the changes or believing they will hurt new clans are not valid reasons to stop the plot and I agree with Faith on that point. I also think there's a valid argument about the rules here, though, not personal dislike.
Although, I have a quick question for Faith: What are you referring to when you say the Forest was approved during the overhaul? The closest resemblance I can find is Cadence Valley, but I had an entirely different understanding of how that tribe worked during the voting. Furthermore, I don't think the overhaul signifies Classic's approval, since a) there were other fantastical elements that were conditional on the overhaul occurring and b) the overhaul did not pass and we can't conclude that wasn't because of these changes.
I still think the power imbalance argument comes into play with the Enchanted Forest, by the way. The rules state that using your powers in a fight is a war crime, which implies that it can be roleplayed out. That's inherently unfair in a fight. To return to the original document, "We also acknowledge that the language of the page suggests that no elemental cat will have greater powers than your average warrior, but we argue that this is inherently impossible." If a cat can use their powers to create an advantage for themself, that creates unbalanced roleplay, and that is what violates the godmoding rule. These cats have supernatural abilities that can give them an advantage, especially when the abilities aren't well defined right now.
I'm curious to see what everyone else thinks about this, but what I'm noticing about the replies above is a focus on personal preference about the clans. I want to quickly highly points from the document that show this discussion is about godmoding, not just preference (though that is also part of the argument in the document), and that's my concern here. It's also about the deities, not just the Enchanted Forest.
There's also a point to be made about clans not existing in a vacuum. Gods and powers influence other clans, not just the clan implementing the change, and an advantage is unfairly being given to clans that accept radical elements. Note the Tony section of the document, specifically "Though these examples do rely on hyperbole, characters who have atypical, lore-bending abilities inspire other users to upscale their own characters in order to be able to compete, leading to a never-ending cycle of “upgrades”. As a result, the worldbuilding is shot to hell, the original concept of the medieval world replaced by something entirely unlike it." When a clan can use their god to attack another clan, the other clan can never win a fight unless they have a deity of their own. Either those clans can never plot together or the 'traditional' clan must always lose, and putting the other clans in that position is problematic in itself, not just from a rule standpoint but also general enjoyment.
In addition to the earlier point: "Likewise as above, demigods and demigoddesses give irreplicable powers to some cats. This is also concerning when the powers are transferable, as is the case with Bloodyrhondo and the DayClan demigoddesses. These cats are more likely to come in direct hand-to-hand combat, so their ability to have powers is even more in violation of the rule." Giving normal cats powers can violate the rules because they are more likely to use them than deities, even against other clans.
We've made a lot of interesting plots so far with the deities and cats with power, but I'm concerned we're pushing the boundaries more than ever and starting to violate the rules. I'm not offering an opinion yet as to how restricted the powers etc. should be (completely banned, not regulated, or somewhere in between) and I want to hear more thoughts from everyone else, but I wanted to check right now and ensure we're on the same page about these powers violating the rules.
tl;dr I'm concerned about the powers violating the rules and open to interpretations where this is not the case.
EDIT: Credit for the vacuum idea goes to biyuu, who you are not supposed to forget is a part of this and will happily field your questions. :-)
Hi, so I guess just personal opinion: I agree that these sorts of things can cause problems. I'd say if other members vote on it (ie. enchanted forest, the member questionnaire was thoughtful and appreciated!), the next step is roleplaying basics. If the players agree on something before they rp it, it should be okay. For example, I work out an idea with a member about our two cats where theirs beats mine up and runs away. Beforehand, we settled that they had permission to harm my character to a specified extent. So with deities, if they get rp-er permission before exerting their powers over the other character, it shouldn't really be a problem. In an open thread, could it take away some freedoms like randomly acting to see how the other player reacts? Yes. But arguably that's a price to pay to have a character whose power exceeds other cats', and one that I imagine the deity roleplayer (s) would be willing to negotiate with the others involved in their threads. I imagine that as long as these members aren't abusing the power and just murdering/hurting others' characters without asking, or if they maybe add a note in an open thread warning others that their character can read minds, etc. so people have the choice to not interact, then there shouldn't be any large issues here.
No not Cadence Valley, although another Overhaul group voted for with powers, I'm referring to the Pride. The Overhaul vote and which clans should be chosen for the overhaul does count for what I'm pointing out and that is that the public voted for it to exist. Not just the mods or the admins or a special staff member.
The Enchanted Forest was made with rules and I'm glad war was brought up because that is exactly what we're experimenting. One of the rules is that the power is trapped in the mist. Meaning that no ForestClan cat can ever bring their powers outside of the ForestClan and no cat can ever utter the powers outside of the ForestClan in order for traditional clans to not mix in with this if they do not wish to.
Yes, the rules are currently unfair, but the point of doing this was to rp out a natural decision for cats elements to be neutralized during times of normal battles. However as already discussed previously, if it were a plot rules can bend for the sake of creating conflict. This is unfair now for a future plot to be made to resolve it, but this was never meant to be something unfair forever. But as I said, currently the ForestClan staff has been busy with it being finals time and the pandemic becoming increasingly more stressful. We would have loved to have addressed these plot points sooner, but currently we're tied up.
Also Cookie mentioned a great point and I just want to say that mental powers are NOT ALLOWED. There is no mind reading, fire manipulation, atom controlling or shapeshifting kind of abilities allowed at all. Four out of five elements are all meant to be non combat related elements, meaning they physically impact/ hurt no one.
@faith and I especially like the point that the forest powers only work in the forest. it really does help with people who are uninterested in an "unrealistic" (or deviating from canon greatly, etc) plot allowing their characters to never have to worry about encountering an elemental. and even if the elemental told them, it would still be very starclan-esque as to whether the other cat even believed them since, well, no forest no proof.
overall, i'm glad there has been some reaching out to the rest of us nonstaffy members asking our opinions, and I would like to think that you in charge would see a majority vote of disinterest/disagreement and listen to that as well. and if nothing else, if the forest doesnt go well the plot can be edited or chalked up to some bad mushrooms in the area (lol, or whatever the staff come up with) so I'd say it can't hurt to give it a go if all involved (members in those clans) are cool with it. the deities are a whole other story and I feel like I can't comment more on that than I already have above because idk enough about it. ☺️ anyway i'm on mobile so forgive any mistakes. i'm not going to edit this comment.
but I think the doc was thought out well and raised some very valid concerns about powerful cats and abilities that should definitely be watched out for. i'm afraid being new doesn't give me much else to add. sorry if the opinion was a little lopsided or missed the main point/missed something important idk abt the site yet!!
I had previously brought up a concern to some people about the deities as god-moding and was planning on eventually bringing it up again, so thank you for all of the effort you guys put into this! Really, it's amazing and really well thought out.
I agree that the existence of the deities, as they are now, as well as the powers of the elements already violate the god-moding rule. They may not currently be used in a way to hurt others, but that's really only part of god-moding. As the document states, there are multiple types of god-moding, and this is more closely related to the first type, which uses Tony as an example. The fact that these characters have these abilities and are used in day-to-day roleplay is, in my opinion, unfair, especially when those characters are limited to a select group of people.
Now, Faith had previously said that they were planning on having a kitting thread to give more people access to the elements, but I still don't think that's entirely fair. For one, there's only a limited number of cats that will be claimed on a first come, first serve basis. Second, when everyone else had the option of giving these powers to already existing cats, I don't think it's right to only give others the chance to get in on it by adopting an entirely new kit. I do agree with the following point in the document: If cats like the Elementals are allowed, which we argue should not be the case, a user should be limited to a certain number of cats with powers. The number limit should be relatively small, but as long as there is a tangible limit, hoarding of magical cats will be much more difficult. It is unacceptable that upon the release of the plot, Faith allowed herself ten supernatural characters and Honeystorm was allotted seven It would give everyone an equal chance at having a special cat, especially if tryouts were to happen for this.
That being said, I'm still not entirely on board with everything. In my eyes, there are far too many ways for the powers and deities to be abused. The elements may be confined to the forest, as well as the powers of the demi-gods to their territories, but the unfair advantage in a battle is still there. If the Forest Clans were to be attacked by the Mountain Clans or Rev group, they will still have their abilities and deities to protect them.
On that topic, Faith had also mentioned that four out of five elements are non-harmful, but I am confused by that. Only one of the types of elements specifically say that, being the Innate Elements, which are described as follows: Unlike the other elements, the innate elements are the only ones to have no prerequisites to gaining their abilities, and are typically non harmful to others. Rather, they are spontaneously awoken, most often in times of necessity or extreme stress, though some outsiders who arrive in the Enchanted Forest have been found to gain their powers at random. Along with demon elements, this is the only other element that can be passed onto offspring. The wording leads me to believe that this is the only type that is typically non-harmful. But I am still confused as to what the difference in the elements are, other than the origin of the powers. Everything just seems extremely vague to me.
Almighty, Manipulation, and Mental powers such as controlling atoms, manipulating fire, reading a cat's mind, or physiology of any kind may not be allowed in the Enchanted Forest, but these are abilities that the Deities and Demi-Gods have. I believe one of them has the ability to alter the wills of others, which is extremely worrying to me. Now, I believe it would be different if the deities had smaller roles, or even if they and the Demi-Gods were confined to plots. As it is now, I believe it is god-moding.
Now, I do also want to mention that just because people are in the clans doesn't mean they are fully okay with all of the changes. I know that personal feelings should be set aside, but the feelings of the clan members are also important in this. Were the new members joining because of this? How many members are leaving the clans because of the changes? Prideclan may have been voted for during the overhaul, but that was months ago. We have new members now who never participated in that vote, and I want to reiterate Cleaver's point that the overhaul did not pass, and we don't know for sure that it's not because of these changes.
Currently, I am in favor of hard limits and mandatory tryouts, but that is subject to change as this conversation continues.
Deleted
POSTEDMay 12, 2020 23:18:20 GMT -5 TO Ideas & Suggestions
First I would like to commend everyone for how civil this discussion has been and I’m so glad everyone is voicing their concerns and are being heard. c:
Second I understand there are a lot of concerns about godmodding with the Enchanted ForestClan idea (and in general) but, I would like to gently point out in regards to the Forest Clans specifically we haven’t actually had a chance to fully get to the part about explaining it in depth to everyone yet. We had a plan to slowly introduce the idea in a thread and we came up with a way to give users a fair chance at being able to claim an elemental, and we were still discussing how their abilities work and how to limit their abilities so that it wasn’t blown out of proportion, as Faith pointed out we got busy and haven’t had the chance to pick that conversation up again.
I agree that there needs to be limits and a fair way for distribution but this wasn’t supposed to be a sudden 100% certain change. This was meant to just be a trial run to get user feedback so we could figure out what people liked and disliked so we could make changes to this idea to make it work or, just go back to the way things were if people decided they didn’t want this change.
Hey everyone, just wanted to post and let you know that this is my final week so my replies won't be super immediate. But I will reply to this soon! ~♥
don’t worry faith it took me almost 24 hours to reply to this thread and i co-wrote the darn thing, it does not get less punctual than this
I’m going to step away from the Enchanted Forest point a bit and post what I think is either a WILD TAKE or a case of yes komiharu we know, stop telling us what roleplay is smh. So, uh, sorry in advance xD
Like Cleaver said biyuu who is me said, the Clans on Classic don’t exist in a vacuum. I mean, they’re not real, so they do kind of exist in the vacuum-esque structure that is our shared consciousness, but what I mean is that the changes we make to an individual Clan ripples out and affects the other Clan, both in-universe and out-of-universe—we as roleplayers note the ripple ourselves, and act out the ramifications that we think said ripple would have on our characters. No matter who’s actually in the thread with you, you are effectively roleplaying with every user, all the time. Am I exaggerating a bit? Sure, but I’m not going to lie and say this isn’t how I try and roleplay here. Everyone takes liberties from time to time (who hasn’t spontaneously made up a cave in a Clan’s territory, only to never mention it again once that particular thread has run its course?), but it’s not like Player A and Player B go and make up stuff about Player C’s characters when Player C isn’t in the thread roleplaying them.
I don’t mind that Classic has some Clans that have more dense lore, or more of a learning curve than other Clans. If I did mind then my “main” Clan wouldn’t be DayClan, which does admittedly have a lot of reading right on the main page. (I still maintain that DayClan is actually one of the easier Clans to roleplay in because it has a lot of worldbuilding to jump off from but YMMV on that one.) However, I’m wary of crossing the line where one Clan’s lore—storytelling—begins to negatively impact another Clan’s storytelling. I was being a little cheeky with the Tony Bobanza Whatever I Called Him example in the document, but reiterating that example is essentially where I’m going with this (and here’s where I get conceptual oh god). Imagine that you’re roleplaying out a fight scene where you have a powered cat and the other roleplayer in the scene has an unpowered cat. You’ve already worked things out with the other roleplayer that your cat can use its power on their cat, but assuming that everything we roleplay is immediately canon, aren't you setting a precedent for every fight your character is involved in at least a little bit?
...At least, that’s my point of view, and it’s from that point of view that I wrote those parts of the document from ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's not like nobody can challenge that opinion or anything.
Also I’d like to stress that this document talks about the potential future abuse of the powers/deities/etc, as much as it talks about whether the rule is currently being broken or not. We don’t just want to say ECH NO IT’S BAD GET RID OF IT RIGHT NOW, we want to ask if it’s possible we’re setting ourselves up for problems further down the line, and if there’s something we can do to fix those problems right now.
The way that god-modding is defined in the document is not how it is defined on Classic. To say that Classic has ever in recent years defined god-modding as something that wouldn't allow deities to have impact on the world around them, for cats to not have supernatural abilities, couldn't be further from the truth. We've had deities since Toxicity, cats have had supernatural abilities for a long time such as medicine cats that can see auras, rp ranks where you can see the future or see ghosts. This has been going on since 2014 and to suddenly say "Yeah, since 2014 we've been breaking this rule" is a poor way of phrasing it. What's really happened is that since 2014 we've changed the way we rp and the rules have changed with it. In fact the rules used to include no supernatural rping and now it doesn't. The silent rule back in 2013 used to be that leaders can't change their territory and now they can. No one is breaking the rules, what some of the proposals in the document are is to revert our rules back to what they once were with a few minor changes.
Absolutely! The furthest I push anyone is to give something a try, but if people still aren't into it after trying it I always drop it. And no, I don't think your opinion was lopsided at all, I really appreciate you as a newer member taking an interest in the ideas and opinion forum! ^-^
@lavellan
The kitting threads are just the start of it! In fact having elemental characters was not a new thing we just came up with they've been around for years. For instance the ForestClan leaders created the Experimentation Element based off of this ForestClan plot where anyone could have the experimentation element HERE in July 2019. Every element you can get in a different way, however because this is a plot and a trial run we want to take things slow. Start with a kitting thread and observe.
Did enough people who wanted elements get them? How many more kitting threads should we do? How are people using the elements currently? Are we ready to implement more ways to get elements based on this?
Tryouts are selective and not everyone would get a chance to have an element But if we use kitting threads and open plot rps that lead to a rp experience every member will have the chance to enjoy elements instead of a rare select few being "Chosen" by a tryout.
Yes! The differences in the elements are how you obtain the element and how the element impacts the others.
Demon- Impacts others (The one element that does)
Spiritual- Is a connection from yourself to others (Seeing ghosts)
Experimentation & Cursed- Impacts you (Longer tail or inability to speak)
Innate- Impacts only yourself, but can impact others typically for plot purposes (Good luck)
The rest you can really only speculate. I could ask the same thing about FallClan. Do we know if FallClan members are joining because of this cool plot? Or maybe they're leaving because it happened? But I wouldn't assume anything, I would research into it.
I'm so sorry I'm still really confused by the analogy xD
Honestly I think I would need like a back and forth more in depth conversation to understand it so I'll message you. Because I know myself and I know how this goes where it takes like six tries before I'm like, "OHHH, I understand now." LOL
tl;dr I'm slow and still confused about how powers work in these clans. I'm still concerned about gods and demigods abusing their powers and breaking the rule.
I really appreciate you clarifying the powers, Faith, but I'm still confused. also thanks for reading this thread and responding so well, and dealing with all my paragraphs oof. So there are four different types of elements, each gained in a different way with a different impact on other characters, but are the different powers for each (good luck) exclusive to that type (innate)? Are there guidelines for what the elements can be? Are they the same powers as the ones in the plot you linked to? From reading the page and what you explained so far, I don't really understand what the different options are for each type, especially demon elements (which seem to have the most potential to abuse). I'm glad that they're mostly non-combat powers, though.
For powers like luck: how does this differentiate the cat from someone who is normal but lucky? Does every situation go their way, or do extraordinary circumstances compel the world to bend to their will? Can it affect the behavior of other cats, ie by making them fall in love easier or miss attacks?
(Also, I'm curious about this long tail. How much longer is it? Is it prehensile? How much of it is left when the cat leaves the clans? How does it grow back? I don't this isn't the crux of your argument but now all I want to know is how this tail works).
About that plot: were the mutations permanent? Are they still used? How much of the plot was roleplayed out? It looks like there was a variety of applicants which is good, but did you do any surveys before/afterward to check how users felt about it? (I'm only asking that since you mentioned earlier you've done a lot of surveys and are planning to do one for the Enchanted Forest.) The majority of the cats were from DayClan, so how did this plot affect the other clans that were only marginally involved, like MoonClan? It seemed like a good opportunity for some background research to prepare for this plot, which is why I'm curious. I know some of those questions are hard to answer so feel free to skip over 'em.
"No not Cadence Valley, although another Overhaul group voted for with powers, I'm referring to the Pride. The Overhaul vote and which clans should be chosen for the overhaul does count for what I'm pointing out and that is that the public voted for it to exist."
I still don't understand what argument you're trying to make by bringing this up, tbh. The Pride's powers were only vaguely hinted at on the page so I can't refute this in detail, and I certainly don't see how they're similar to what is being done now. Furthermore, my point was simply that we don't know why people voted that way. It could be because they're far more liberal with their inferences than I am, and not only figured out the cats were superpowered but were excited by that and wanted to vote for them; conversely, they might not have noticed, or disliked the powers but voted for other reasons.
Faith said:
"There is no mind reading, fire manipulation, atom controlling or shapeshifting kind of abilities allowed at all. Four out of five elements are all meant to be non combat related elements, meaning they physically impact/ hurt no one."
As lavellan pointed out - the deities do have these powers, and so do the demigods, like Bluejay/Pandora and Bloodyrhondo. These powers definitely affect other clans as well, seeing as Bloody used his powers in the Renegade Regime to fool cats, and they seem like a strong example of the cats breaking godmoding rules.
"I'd say if other members vote on it (ie. enchanted forest, the member questionnaire was thoughtful and appreciated!), the next step is roleplaying basics. If the players agree on something before they rp it, it should be okay."
I completely agree that if the site gets to vote and wants to allow these changes, we don't have an issue at all. But my concern is that there hasn't been a vote yet, and there is no vote planned concerning the deities. Honestly, I'm more concerned about them than the Enchanted Forest.
Faith said:
The way that god-modding is defined in the document is not how it is defined on Classic
How would you define godmoding, then, and which parts do you take issue with? Do you believe the rule fully defines all aspects of godmoding, or that the first sentence can be used as a catch-all?
Also I know I directed many of my questions at Faith, but anyone else can feel free to join in, and I apologize for the length cx
If I do go into game design I'll have to defend my strategies and ideas, especially if it's already an established game.
The short answer to all your first paragraph questions is there are no ability guidelines. I created a trial run to observe how the elements are being used, what abilities are being chosen, and how the elements interact in rp. I could create guidelines and I absolutely will if the trial run passes. But there is no way I'll be able to account for all the scenarios unless I observe first hand how it's being used to even attempt to get an idea of what guidelines I need to instate the most.
Were the mutations permanent?
Yes
Are they still used?
Some chose to use them, others chose not to
How much of the plot was roleplayed out?
The first part of the plot was rped out where peoples characters got captured. After that it was discontinued due to something I don't remember anymore
Did you do any surveys before/afterward to check how users felt about it?
Because the plot hardly even got started outside of cats getting captured I didn't bother surveying anything, especially because, at the time, we all agreed that we would try and do this plot again.
The majority of the cats were from DayClan, so how did this plot affect the other clans that were only marginally involved, like MoonClan?
Plot hardly got started so it really didn't effect anyone.
PrideClan Question
It was stated earlier that members aren't interested in confusing clan lore. But clearly, despite PrideClan having much lore it didn't deter people from still voting for it. This wasn't in response to anything you said.
God Question
I was never talking about Gods because that to me isn't even on topic about the Enchanted Forest. Nor do I rp a God to really touch base on this, but I do know that StarClan was never given restrictions and since the Gods are essentially StarClan then they wouldn't either. But again, this isn't a new thing, Gods have been around since 2014 and through the dozens of staff we've had over the years no ones ever called this god modding. To me, it sounds like this can be an issue, but it's not against the rules.
Rule Question
There have been plenty of times where I feel a member has broken a rule such as respect, spam, names, but unless a rule outright says anything it's not a Classic rule and there's little we can do. I don't define god modding because it's on the page. Unless your character is invincible or you are rping a persons character being hurt or killed or a kit taking on full grown warriors, it's not against the rules of god modding. I have personally ensured that every elemental has a weakness. As for Bloodyrondo we already said at the beginning of this thread and in the document that the plot rule is fine. Bloodyrondo changed during a plot, it's perfectly within Classic's rules.
MY QUESTION FOR CLEAVER
What do you want to get from this? This is a lot of questions man and I keep answering, but they keep coming xD
Post by Honeystorm on May 14, 2020 22:34:01 GMT -5
Okay, so I've been having trouble actually trying to write a concise, cohesive response. Aaand, that hasn't been going well, so if this gets rambly, I'm really sorry. xD
Anyway! I'm gonna speak mostly on the Sun God stuff, since obviously I rp him. Though, to start, I should mention that I only continue to rp him because Racer has allowed me to. When I stepped down, I did ask if she'd like to rp him, and she told me I could continue to do so. If she, or any future leader, for that matter, ever wanted me to stop rping him for any reason, or even wanted to kill him off, that's their prerogative.
The Sun God as a whole, is a character I try to be very careful with. It might not seem like it, but I get permission from leaders before rping in their clans. In the Primal Instinct & Wanheda example, as was suggested, I asked Ashenfate & Strawberrycupid if this was okay, and the entire plot was okayed & worked on with them. I would never want to rp the Sun God directly in a clan without first having permission. For example, even though the Sun God technically 'owns' Primal Instinct skies, he doesn't just show up wherever, and he really only a god in name there. He basically went "If you annoy me, bad things are gonna happen" and never followed up on it, and never would, without express permission from the PI leader. Even in SunClan rps, I generally get permission before jumping into threads with him. (I would have to actually look through each and every thread to tell you which ones I did not first get permission to reply using the Sun God with)
It has been mentioned that the Sun God could directly interfere with battle in some way. I can see how this would be concerning, and I fully agree that barring such a thing being agreed to & intended for a plot between all leaders involved, a deity should never, ever be involved directly in battle. Any "Blessings" or "Protections" would, in my mind, not mean anything at all. Just because after victory in a battle, a clan/group might thank their ancestor/deity for protecting them, doesn't mean they were actually involved.
I also do not feel the Sun God is stronger than other deities, in a general sense. In the case of Wanheda, yes, he was stronger, but her group was both gone, and Wanheda was encroaching on the Sun God's territory, where he was strongest (not to mention this was scripted that she'd lose), if we're going with rp reasons for why this was potentially possible. Now, he's arrogant enough to believe he's stronger than all of them, yes, and he's certainly had a lot of moments to shine. But, when push comes to shove, I don't feel as though any clan/groups' ancestors/deity would have a problem just shoving him out of the way if he was on their territories, and tbh, if he tried, say, fighting StarClan, he'd lose. He's shown a lot of varied abilities, but his power isn't unlimited, by any means.
To speak on Pandora and Bloodyrondo specifically. I'm not sure where the idea that the Sun God has created a god cat came from? If I could be told which character this is meant to reference, that'd be helpful. I assume it's Pandora, but maybe I'm incorrect Anyway, Pandora is Foxstar & Glowstar's daughter, created by the Sun God. She was created mortal, though she was given powers intentionally for that apocalypse plot that SunClan & DayClan had. At the conclusion of that plot, she lost her powers (this was not fully rped out, so I can see where that might be confusing). She was then, later on, given demi-god powers (alongside Bluejay) for the purpose of converting DayClan to the Sun God, which they then turn into their quest to become DayClan's new deities. Bloodyrondo's power is the power that was given to Pandora/Bluejay, so technically, Pandora is powerless at this moment. (I also told Jadie that Bloody could show up to that Regime thread, btw) Pandora is mentioned to be an "Innate" Elemental, however, the intention for this was that she would discover she has this innate power during this Enchanted Forest plot, as up until this point, all the powers she's had, as far as she is aware, is due to the Sun God allowing her to have them, and she is, as far as she knows, powerless atm.
It's also not unheard of that StarClan has given mortals powers, and caused disasters, reincarnated cats, the Dark Forest has often had random cats training there, getting them to do their bidding, and to use BrookClan as an example, Nivet also created gods. I can see the issue in the Sun God starting fires (though, as far as I remember, he's only done this on SunClan territory, save for a fire illusion at the White Tree a while back, which was something Faith okayed.) and using giving power to create demi-gods, but this is also something that has been previously done, which sort of leads into my next point.
There aren't really direct rules on deities. As far back as 2010 we have had StarClan give characters powers, we've had various deities. The rule doesn't directly state anything on religions, or limit the powers of deities, or at the very least, hasn't been interpreted to conflict or limit what has been previously done with deities, for years now. As Faith has said, over the years, this hasn't been called godmodding, and I'm not sure it makes sense to suddenly be saying everything the Sun God has done for years, has violated the rules when up until this point, deities have been essentially unregulated.
I can absolutely see how this would be an issue going forward, however. Just because we haven't really been limited in any capacity before doesn't mean we shouldn't consider limits now. And I'd agree that we definitely should be looking at making limits to avoid issues in the future. I'm definitely cool with discussing what kind of lines we want to draw on the topic of deities.
Welp, this turned into an essay. At least I finally replied, lol. cx
Ian and Komhiaru I really do admire you for posting this. Even if I don't agree with you completely, you should never be afraid to point out flaws in something going on WCC2. It is how we grow as a community, and honestly I expected a little bit of push back on enchanted forest plot from the beginning. It's a new idea, and the concerns you brought up are valid and well thought out. I can tell that the two of you put a lot of effort into writing this, and I wanted to give myself the time to come up with a reply. I just want to point out a few things, and clear up a few misunderstandings since it seems that SunClan keeps being brought up in this debate and I am the clan's current leader as well as a current administrator. I tried to organize my thoughts into a cohesive post, however it is difficult with how many things are being addressed at once. [Also this was copied from a google doc, so the formatting may be wonky.apologies] ___________________________________
Clearing Up some things about SunClan:
Rping the Sun God - As Honeystorm pointed out, when she stepped down there was no pressure on me to continue to allow her to rp the Sun God at all. In fact I was the one who asked if she would be interested in continuing rping the role almost a week after she had officially stepped down from her position. I did this for several reasons, but mostly because I enjoyed the way Honeystorm handled playing the character and the reactions the Sun God and Littlestar had in the past.
Changing SunClan - Honeystorm gave me her full blessing to change SunClan as I saw fit. She even asked if there was anything she could do to help me achieve my vision for the clan. If I wanted to revert the clan back to worshiping StarClan it would NOT have difficult. Honestly I debated on doing just that for a while, but decided against it. For one, even though I am well within my right to change SunClan, myself and my staff(which only consisted of Faith at the time she stepped down) enjoyed the way SunClan was set up. SunClan is set up to create conflict within the clan, and conflicts with other clans. It is one of the major draws of the clan, at least from the feedback that I have gathered since becoming leader.Secondly, it was out of character for Littlestar. She came to SunClan when she was still a kit, and it would have been out of character for her to go back to worshiping StarClan.
Future Changes To SunClan - When I step down eventually, I have already told Jadie and given her my support to make SunClan what she wants it to become. Jadie has already told me that there are changes they want to make when Bloodyrondo takes over SunClan, and I support this 100%. To me, part of what makes classic different from other sites is that the leader is allowed to influence the clan to such an extent. Do I run things differently than Honeystorm? Absolutely. Littlestar is not Foxstar, and even though she was raised by the former leader their personalities are quite different. Forcing leaders into keeping things that previous leaders put into place could force leaders into acting out of character. If a leader sees the need for a rp rank, I don't see any reason why that should be limited. One example of this is in NightClan. When Spot took over NightClan from JetClaw, Nightclan was apart of the Pride Alliance. Flamingstar is more distrustful of others, and staying in the alliance would have been out of character for Flamingstar To stay in character, she withdrew from the alliance, and there were no hard feelings about her doing so. Should Spot have been forced to stay in the alliance just because JetClaw(the former leader) was in it? No, when she took over as leader NightClan became her clan to run.(Yes I did ask Spot if I could use this example)
The Sun God’s Role - The Sun God's role in SunClan is more direct that StarClan's to be sure. However, that doesn't mean that the Sun God is all powerful. The Sun God is powerful because of how strongly his followers believe in him. As far as I know, the Sun God has never directly been involved in the outcome of a battle between SunClan and the other clans. Take the war with the Renegade Regime a while back, not only was Foxstar captured and SunClan defeated when they ventured into the tunnels to save her, but the Sun God had to rely on the strength of the clan. He wasn't able to do anything to help them, and SunClan was defeated even though the far outnumbered the renegade regime. The only reason SunClan was able to get Foxstar back, was because the commander eventually gave her back when she went insane and became pregnant. The biggest problem I run into when trying to form plots with other clans is because SunClan is popular and had a lot of members, not the Sun God. SunClans sheer number of characters is something that I have to keep in mind when plotting, so as to not overwhelm other clans.
SunClan Success - There is one point of your argument that did bother me, but it is for personal reasons. It was when it was stated that "the supernatural reserves activity to certain groups at the cost of others" Honestly I don't feel like SunClan's success is because of the Sun God, but due to Honeystorm’s careful planning of setting up the clan structure, the hard work of the staff, and because there is always something going on in the clan. Even as one plot is going on, we are working behind the scenes on what is going to happen next so there are no lapses in events happening in the clan. To say that SunClan's success is mostly due to one factor undermines the hard work that has been put into the clan. I see my promised, soothsayer, and Janus working very hard to make SunClan great, and It's not fair to my staff to underestimate how much influence that is having on the clan's success. I feel like I owe it to my current staff to show my support for them. I don't believe you intended this statement to come off in this manner, but the first time I read what was written it is how I took it. This one statement convinced me to wait on creating my response, until I had some time to take a step back and think about what I wanted to say. The only reason I included this in on my post at all, is to show my support to the hard work everyone that everyone has put into SunClan. If I took that as an attack on SunClan’s success, I'm afraid other members of my staff might as well. I feel like they deserve some recognition for their efforts. In fact one of SunClan's most active weeks post wise was a direct result of the Romance Festival. The Romance Festival was a success because ANYONE was allowed to participate and create their own mini-plots. The Sun God was minimally involved, and no one needed my approval to take the idea and run with it. The whole goal of this festival was to encourage interactions between SunClan characters, to inspire people to create their own plots, and to get new users involved in SunClan's way of life. One major aspect of it was blind dates. Originally I wanted newer users to be paired up with older users, and to break up "Cliques" so that we all got a chance to rp with someone new. It is a plot that could easily be replicated in any clan, just take out the Sun God elements. There are other ways to draw users into a clan besides supernatural elements. Just to clarify, I don’t have any hard feelings but this particular point was weighing heavily on me because of how it could affect moral amounts my staff. After all why should they work so hard on SCs activity, if they are being accused of hurting other clans just because SC is thriving? Shouldn’t we be celebrating every clan’s successes?
___________________________________ My Thoughts on deities/enchanted forest:
As many people have already stated, the enchanted forest plot was always intended as a trial run to see if people were interested and like the idea. It was never intended to be a permanent addition to the site. Your concerns about people abusing the system are well founded, and even the people involved in creating it have shared these same concerns. If the people of the site don’t agree with the idea, that is OK. That is the whole reason for the trial run, was getting feedback. Everyone involved was well aware that the entire idea might not work and be scrapped. It is simply an idea that we thought the users of classic might enjoy, since people seem drawn to supernatural elements.
It seems that there are four main debates going on in the comments of this post. I feel like they really should be separate conversations in order to avoid confusion and to be productive. If we continue to go back and forth about all of these issues the way it is currently, than I fear little will be accomplished and leave everyone a little frustrated.
1. Does the Enchanted Forest plot break classics rules as they currently stand?
2. Does the clan’s deities(sun god, moon goddess, ext) break the rules as the currently stand?
3. Should Classics rules be amended to create restrictions/guidelines on deities and powers?
4. What are the rights/powers of a leader on classic?What should leaders be able to do? What should leaders be prohibited from doing? What kind of changes need staff approval, what kinds of changes need a clan member survey? What kind of changes need outside approval? Who should be the ones to approve it?
_______________________________________ My responses to comments on the thread 1.GidgetGal - “As for potential solutions to the problem, I would be all in favor of hard limits and restrictions; I believe the existence of the Sun God and Moon Goddess make our clans very unique and can make sense lore-wise with a bit of tweaking, but they're unreasonably overpowered with very little to no normal user input.” Actually the Sun God’s actions are usually a result of user input in most cases. We have had a lot of users approach myself or Honeystorm about having the Sun God do different things for their own personal plots. He has dished out user requested curses, prophecies, or just interfered. However it is for the sake of plots that people have requested to further develop their character. Im all for creating guidelines/restriction though, especially since it is impossible for one person to rp the Sun God forever. Even if I don’t feel like it’s really being abused right now, I see the potential for it in the wrong hands.
2.neverstarstar -” Aside from that I'm surprised to find that there's a document about godmoding as I've felt like it all but disappeared since Classic's early days when some one posted a thread about murdering the current medicine cat and now they were the medicine cat and they'd murder any cat who said otherwise xD” Actually I was surprised myself if I am being honest. However, I don’t feel like it is a little unfair to use an old document that not even all the administrators were aware of as a basis of an argument. I am trying to keep all of my arguments based on what is currently available for everyone to view which is the way it is written in the current rules.
3.cookie -”overall, i'm glad there has been some reaching out to the rest of us nonstaffy members asking our opinions, and I would like to think that you in charge would see a majority vote of disinterest/disagreement and listen to that as well. and if nothing else, if the forest doesnt go well the plot can be edited or chalked up to some bad mushrooms in the area” Yes it has always been planned to have a survey to gather people’s opinions and ideas once the trial period was over for that very reason We want to know what people think, and even had a plan in case the user of classic did not agree with the idea so that it could be scrapped if need be. Since this all centers around the mist around the forrest, it wouldn’t be difficult to get rid of if we (or future) leaders decided that the idea needed to come to an end
4.lavellan - “Now, Faith had previously said that they were planning on having a kitting thread to give more people access to the elements, but I still don't think that's entirely fair. For one, there's only a limited number of cats that will be claimed on a first come, first serve basis. Second, when everyone else had the option of giving these powers to already existing cats, I don't think it's right to only give others the chance to get in on it by adopting an entirely new kit. “Hey so I see what you are saying in most of your post, but this one comment confused me. Why are you being forced to adopt an entirely new kit to have an elemental? As far as I know the only requirement is that you must disclose their powers when joining other forest clans. For example, my cat Turbulentsea in NightClan was going to awaken an innate elemental power for a plot. He is really the first cat of mine (other than the Sun God listening to Littlestars prayers) that I was planning on making into an elemental. I just oked it will staff first. So no one is saying that you can’t join as an elemental or have one of your existing cats discover their powers. The kitting threads are mostly to give people ideas, that you don’t have to get approved since they are created by the leader.
5.komiharu “Also I’d like to stress that this document talks about the potential future abuse of the powers/deities/etc, as much as it talks about whether the rule is currently being broken or not. We don’t just want to say ECH NO IT’S BAD GET RID OF IT RIGHT NOW, we want to ask if it’s possible we’re setting ourselves up for problems further down the line, and if there’s something we can do to fix those problems right now.” This I agree with completely. I didn’t really find much in the document offensive, instead more constructive criticism. I really appreciate that. As such, a lot of the point you made about future abuse is valid, and should be addressed. I spoke on this a little more in depth up above.
Just a comment in response to faith mentioning new/new old members still joining the Forest Clans. I personally didn't realize an Enchanted Forest was on the horizon for those Clans, I just figured most of them had changed religions or new ranks. I didn't realize the Sun god was actually a character that was RPed, I figured it was like StarClan; it was there and it didn't interfere much. With this new knowledge, my interest in those Clan's have dropped to none. Even if I do feel slightly personal with NightClan, having been part of the staff team many moons ago. Though I personal have also found the add on of armor and crafting in NightClan off putting in this sense. Don't get me wrong, I understand the appeal of cats with powers. To be honest, back in like 2009-12 I made a site that was Warrior cats with powers. But this is not a site for magic unless it's part of a plot, and will disappear after the plot is done. (Example being the Three in the Warriors series.) Perhaps we can make a separate section for this, if a lot of people want it?
Another note, on one of the sections in Disenchanted with Enchantment; it mentions i n the section "What is godmoding?" with Tony Bonanza Fofanza Xxxtreme. It states that "Tony Bonanza Fofanza Xxxtreme is probably not a realistic name for a twelve year-old boy in a medieval setting." There are so many unrealistic Warrior names on the site. I understand if it's an ex-kittypet, but a Clan born cat doesn't know what a mirror is, and quite frankly cats don't know what a reflection is unless its a really smart cat. And even with a kittypet, there is only going to be so many twoleg words a cat is going to be able to retain. Is this not also godmoding, by making a cats vocabulary vaster than it would be?
And I totally understand, that's your opinion and preference to have! I'm going to trial run the Enchanted Forest, but if members vote that they don't like it then I'll drop it. If I didn't trial run other ideas like the class system, blind dates, hunger games, feathers, and so much more DayClan wouldn't be where it's at so I definitely want to try something new like this and see where it goes. I hope to rp with you in the other clans you're in though ^-^
We want to know what people think, and even had a plan in case the user of classic did not agree with the idea so that it could be scrapped if need be. Since this all centers around the mist around the forrest, it wouldn’t be difficult to get rid of if we (or future) leaders decided that the idea needed to come to an end