The Jedi Iroh
If we get rid of invasions, I’d bet there’s a ton more demand for rebellions
Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos
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Question How do we fix Rebellions?
- Thread starter Tefka
- Start date
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- Tags
- do rebellions
Kurayami Bloodborn
Drunken Savant
We fix them by torching them altogether. The underutilization of them speaks volumes about the demand for them from the community.
The Jedi Iroh
In all seriousness though, as someone who adores the Rebel Alliance vibes and loves that sort of story, the problem I always ran into writing rebels was threefold:
1. Rebellions being treated like invasions , when the scale has to be different when minor factions and majors are involved. Even with a vibrant minor faction, the odds are we’d never be able to match a major faction in activity unless it was being recalled.
2. The opportunities are super limited and the narrative potential is almost always reliant on major factions. Between mandates and deliberate expansion regulation, the number of opportunities for rebellions is usually very small. The bigger part was the challenge of creating a justifiable narrative for them when the planets available for rebellions is almost random. Stories like the Rebel Alliance are better when there’s more focus to them and guerrilla operations are by themselves more long term than a single thread. This can be fixed by more coordination between majors and minors, but it does mean the possibility of failed dominions.
3. Major faction proxies. There is a way to do proxies in a fun and enjoyable way, usually as part of an ongoing narrative that could be military advisors/undercover agents, but that wasn’t what I usually saw. Typically the proxy minor faction/sub faction would jump into the Rebellion and say they’d be participating, just like in the rules. It adds neat elements, but again, the lack of narrative justification often felt like other majors taking advantage of it without having to commit to an invasion.
How do we fix these? I think a first step might be revisiting them as something entirely different from invasions. The judging criteria, I think is totally fine, because it’s pretty generic and abstract to cover a wide variety of thread types.
What I would tweak is what makes eligibility for rebellions, and perhaps a different way of framing them. Especially with minor factions, they’re often geographically based like the Hapans for example, or my own Rimward Trade League being based in the Western Reaches/Trailing Sectors. There’s often a bigger focus on a specific area or culture, which means if there’s not a third dominion in that particular territory, there’s usually not much IC justification to launch a rebellion. And when there is, if it’s not the third dominion, they’re out of luck. We considered launching a rebellion of Terminus this last time it was dominioned by the First Order, because there was the narrative justification, the historic IC presence, and enough to make a cohesive story, but it wasn’t the third dominion, so it was a no go.
The Second Great Hyperspace War is an amazing example for how factions with agency can create some amazing stories through the use of the rules, creating a very compelling ongoing narrative that I think could be an excellent model for a rebellion type story as well. However, minor factions don’t have the agency to pick their rebellion targets, which hampers it. In the thread I linked, griefing rivals was listed as a reason that rebellions weren’t unlimited. It happened with invasions all the time though, way back when though. Preventing that is a totally valid goal and motivation, but I think it’s hamstrung the possibility of rebellions to the extent they rarely get used.
(also this discussion from 2020: https://www.starwarsrp.net/threads/rebellions-reconsidered.140690/
1. Rebellions being treated like invasions , when the scale has to be different when minor factions and majors are involved. Even with a vibrant minor faction, the odds are we’d never be able to match a major faction in activity unless it was being recalled.
2. The opportunities are super limited and the narrative potential is almost always reliant on major factions. Between mandates and deliberate expansion regulation, the number of opportunities for rebellions is usually very small. The bigger part was the challenge of creating a justifiable narrative for them when the planets available for rebellions is almost random. Stories like the Rebel Alliance are better when there’s more focus to them and guerrilla operations are by themselves more long term than a single thread. This can be fixed by more coordination between majors and minors, but it does mean the possibility of failed dominions.
3. Major faction proxies. There is a way to do proxies in a fun and enjoyable way, usually as part of an ongoing narrative that could be military advisors/undercover agents, but that wasn’t what I usually saw. Typically the proxy minor faction/sub faction would jump into the Rebellion and say they’d be participating, just like in the rules. It adds neat elements, but again, the lack of narrative justification often felt like other majors taking advantage of it without having to commit to an invasion.
How do we fix these? I think a first step might be revisiting them as something entirely different from invasions. The judging criteria, I think is totally fine, because it’s pretty generic and abstract to cover a wide variety of thread types.
What I would tweak is what makes eligibility for rebellions, and perhaps a different way of framing them. Especially with minor factions, they’re often geographically based like the Hapans for example, or my own Rimward Trade League being based in the Western Reaches/Trailing Sectors. There’s often a bigger focus on a specific area or culture, which means if there’s not a third dominion in that particular territory, there’s usually not much IC justification to launch a rebellion. And when there is, if it’s not the third dominion, they’re out of luck. We considered launching a rebellion of Terminus this last time it was dominioned by the First Order, because there was the narrative justification, the historic IC presence, and enough to make a cohesive story, but it wasn’t the third dominion, so it was a no go.
The Second Great Hyperspace War is an amazing example for how factions with agency can create some amazing stories through the use of the rules, creating a very compelling ongoing narrative that I think could be an excellent model for a rebellion type story as well. However, minor factions don’t have the agency to pick their rebellion targets, which hampers it. In the thread I linked, griefing rivals was listed as a reason that rebellions weren’t unlimited. It happened with invasions all the time though, way back when though. Preventing that is a totally valid goal and motivation, but I think it’s hamstrung the possibility of rebellions to the extent they rarely get used.
(also this discussion from 2020: https://www.starwarsrp.net/threads/rebellions-reconsidered.140690/
L Admin
Rebellions were introduced for two reasons.
1. At the time, there was a fervor to give Rebellions a purpose via mechanics, beyond story and grouping.
2. Organically clean up dying factions.
The first point has a legion of problems in today’s Chaos. Cliques run rampant, OOC still being a major reason most groups stick together, re: Discord climate, voice conferences, gaming, hanging out. Most people preach story as a uniting reason, and it’s mostly true for it being the unifying reason the cliques form, but they’ll never fully convince me it’s why they stay together, or why MFO’s retain their positions for so long. The clique argument goes back throughout all of Chaos’s history, it’s just an organic way how factions retain permanence. Friendships OOC naturally occur, and writers find validation in that.
This is a huge gate for Rebellions to cross, though, as it by design tries to prevent factions from dying. Providing the issue for #2. Rebellions were designed to help kill dying factions. It never really successfully worked, as a dying faction doesn’t have activity to respond to a Rebellion.
The last problem is, both IC and OOC, Rebellions represent change. Change in factions, change in climate, change in leadership. A leading representative of our forum’s namesake, Chaos. A piercing change in the status quo.
The problem is, for a multitude of reasons, we don’t see change that often - and when we do, it’s a subtle nuance, almost a lie. Some MFOs have been going for years now. New Major Factions are becoming rarer. Sometimes, cough CIS cough, the factions vote for a “new” leader only for old one to come back a little further down the road.
I don’t think Rebellions have a place in today’s Chaos. I think they were a violent method of change eventually bucked by a community continually resistant to it. I also think they placed OOC pressure on a map game meant to fuel IC stories. I can’t fix that, not without firing every MFO and resetting the map.
1. At the time, there was a fervor to give Rebellions a purpose via mechanics, beyond story and grouping.
2. Organically clean up dying factions.
The first point has a legion of problems in today’s Chaos. Cliques run rampant, OOC still being a major reason most groups stick together, re: Discord climate, voice conferences, gaming, hanging out. Most people preach story as a uniting reason, and it’s mostly true for it being the unifying reason the cliques form, but they’ll never fully convince me it’s why they stay together, or why MFO’s retain their positions for so long. The clique argument goes back throughout all of Chaos’s history, it’s just an organic way how factions retain permanence. Friendships OOC naturally occur, and writers find validation in that.
This is a huge gate for Rebellions to cross, though, as it by design tries to prevent factions from dying. Providing the issue for #2. Rebellions were designed to help kill dying factions. It never really successfully worked, as a dying faction doesn’t have activity to respond to a Rebellion.
The last problem is, both IC and OOC, Rebellions represent change. Change in factions, change in climate, change in leadership. A leading representative of our forum’s namesake, Chaos. A piercing change in the status quo.
The problem is, for a multitude of reasons, we don’t see change that often - and when we do, it’s a subtle nuance, almost a lie. Some MFOs have been going for years now. New Major Factions are becoming rarer. Sometimes, cough CIS cough, the factions vote for a “new” leader only for old one to come back a little further down the road.
I don’t think Rebellions have a place in today’s Chaos. I think they were a violent method of change eventually bucked by a community continually resistant to it. I also think they placed OOC pressure on a map game meant to fuel IC stories. I can’t fix that, not without firing every MFO and resetting the map.