Padawan promotion to Knight

[Corvus Raaf]

This topic has been in a few threads recently and to be fair is currently being given an excellent review out on the main boards.

But regardless of any decision made there, I thought I'd post this for three reasons:

1. Because some posts that are relevant are hard to find (and we have two people working on streamlining our FU section to make it a one-stop shop for everything you need)

2. Because there are many misconceptions that need to be addressed

3. Because I want your opinion

Firstly, many moons ago, a short article was written that explained what you need to do to become a Knight. That article will be reviewed as we move forward as, when I read it now, it sounds an onerous task. It shouldn't be. I know the intent was to simply give light guidelines - so any changes will reflect that original guidance. Consider it what you will have done to become Knight, not what the FAs will 'judge' you on.

No mention of x development threads or y posts. If you're a Padawan with a Master (even if they're not in the GR) ask them if they think you're ready. If the answer's yes, all they need to do is contact the GR FAs via PM and we can ratify it so you can get your tags. Not judge you, or decide if you're worthy - but simply check to give you a post that you can take to have your tags changed.

If you don't have a Master, then you PM us yourself. Is it advisable to have a tracker? Yes, I'd say so. If we don't know you, then it never harms. Do you HAVE to have a tracker? Of course not. Even the tracker itself, if you read it, says it's optional. It's helpful but in no way essential.

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But regardless of the above, I know we are arguably the slowest Faction to promote, so here's where I need your advice. Just let me know, in this thread, what you think of the way we do things.

That way, we can fix anything that needs sorting out.

 

[Uri Aureleos]

I honestly wish there were a set requirement for the site. Nothing ridiculous you know but there are a few sith (FOR EXAMPLE) that started and made knight in almost the same month. Some do deserve it but most don't have the development or training like I have with Uri. It's hard trying to figure out how to rp with them. (so I avoid it)

I also I realize most find the development really happens when they hit knight. I wouldn't know. lol I have plans for Uri when he does hit it but he's already had a lot of good development even as a paddy.

 

[H3xle]

Like my pal [member="Uri Aureleos"] above me said, I do have some issues with how to handle playing with higher ranked characters that have put less effort in than I have with Dair.

That said, I do not have any complaints. Making Knight is a big deal in my mind and should involve serious character development on top of power development. My judgement is likely biased, my main hobby is a Medieval Recreation society and making Knight is just barely not a lifetime achievement. That likely skews my judgement a bit.

 

[Via Dolorosa]

I'm in NO rush to make Knight. I want all the bugs and kinks worked out this character while building her up through threads (training, mission, etc) . My only concern is this:

Drawing enough people wanting to rp with her. I stated in another forum thread that I've had difficulty getting people to write with me. I've done all the PMs (No laughing) I'm going to do. I put out enough flyers. So now I'll just try to get involved where I can.

 

[Tyl Ro]

I honestly don't know where I fall on the "training" aspect of tiered rankings among the Force Users here. I understand the necessity for fairness, but that is a multi-faceted topic.

One of the great aspects I've seen on Chaos is that we have people all over the place in terms of skill and experience. Many of the most veteran rpers play some of the youngest Padawans. I think it's a great idea for new rpers to start out as less powerful characters and having an experienced Master at their side, not only showing them the ropes IC but giving them helpful and kind criticism along the way for their writing/rping/idea-izing, what have you.

But, one of the downfalls of the system is that to be fair to all writers, Chaos is a game. The standards blur a lot of lines because, unlike a video game, there isn't an appropriate "experience" system for development. We have RPJs who police as best they can, but the incredibly wide variety of players on the site means that many get left behind, for whatever reason. Regardless of rule changes, I think that such a thing is inevitable. Is it unfair that some Knights are far more inexperienced than some Padawans? Absolutely. Can a rule change solve this problem? I highly doubt it. But what I find much more worrying is the lack of communication on the part of writers in terms of PvP. And I think that is a discussion much more worth having on a faction-wide basis.

If I've taken away anything from these past few weeks, it's that I'm quite proud to share my writing experience with those dedicated to their characters, not just for training and progression, but because they have a story that they want to develop. PvP can jump out a window as far as I'm concerned. I want to write with the folks that care about writing.

 

[Jsc]

If you don't have a Master, then you PM us yourself.

This is so important to understand. I can't begin to express how many new writers think that somebody is supposed to come to them. That somebody will just swoop down out of the sky and promote them to Knighthood, or build the next dominion, or reorganize the Sub-forums. So many bad experiences can be avoided if we all simply understood the power of doing it ourselves. Personal initiative can be everything on this website. Personal initiative built the Factions, it built the Factory, and it built this website itself. It is the key, and the difference, between having a good RP experience and a bad one.

Yet so few new members understand that.

So yeah. Thanks Corvus. For saying it twice.

 

[Haytham Kaze]

Things are fine.

To look for problems is nitpicking, I don't see any problems.

 

[Roshki Belawiiks]

I have a problem: posting guidelines to becoming a Knight means I can't use the "ignorance" excuse for being the oldest Padawan...ever. Darn preparer..ers...

xD In seriousness, though, I think y'all are doing fine in terms of promotions and whatnot. Especially considering the fact that there's a lot of Jedi running around, and not a whole lot of Adkins.

 

[Aithne Charr]

*Becomes an old geezer.* Back in my day, it took months to make knight.

Naw but to be honest its not really a time thing to me so much as an effort. Yes, it shouldn't be massively quick but there is one thing i see alot of people skimp on and IC wise it would make sense for the people who are being made knights to know the proper basics of their force religion things... Lets take examples rather than me just saying that though. How many people in the last year have we seen turn from Jedi to Sith or from Sith to Jedi or from light to dark and dark to light. What i mean is that ICly the number of people is staggering, i know OOCly its to try new things, hell solan has been getting darker as time goes by.

I guess what i mean is it seems from the outside like there is very little training in the prevention of falling. I could be wrong, like i have said before i have never made a Jedi and do not see myself making one in the near future, but... i dont know if anything of what im saying is making sense. Kinda talking in circles at the moment.

 

[Zonia Kalranoos]

I haven't been around for aeons like some of you, but I noticed people are really concerned with rank progressions. Questions like "Have I done enough?" and "What else do I need to do?" really come up often... more often than they should.

For me, RP is more about interaction than gaining rank. I am currently in several training threads, sparring or learning from Masters, but also use this for character development. Tionne is a long way from Master herself and to be honest - I kind of like to take it slow because it allows me to be consistent with my character, make her feel real and my posts organic. Ultimately, the people I roleplay start enjoying her as a character.

The problem with Star Wars - it has very shallow characters, compared to most literary work. It's not exactly Joyce, or Bronte, or Flaubert or Dostoyevsky. But you can make it so if you allow sufficient character development.

Personally, I've abstained from interacting with certain Sith Knights, despite them showing interest. I just find their characters incomplete and their writing really not on par with character rank they are trying to impersonate. Shame, really, I could've used some Sithly snuggles.

 

[Judah Lesan]

There are those who have been promoted to master after 2 months of starting a toon here... When I first started RP I was concerned about Rank because who wants to the Padawan, but I grew to appreciate what could happen if one actually had to focus on character development...

Thread count and post count don't matter... character progression does... It's qualitative, yes, but the best measure if the writer can handle writing a higher level responsibly...

 

[Jsc]

Questions like "Have I done enough?" and "What else do I need to do?" really come up often... more often than they should.

When the website first opened, Rank was something that nobody bothered to define. We ported over old characters and some people started smashing through new ones. There was like only 40 active characters, Factions were just being created, zero Judges, nobody knew how to run a forum, and Teferi was still struggling to decide how to do everything. It was a massive massive beautiful mess.

We never answered questions like "Have I done enough?" or "What else do I need to do?", way back then either. There was nobody to answer them. And we didn't have enough writers to care. Haha. We were all so happy to just be away from 'other' websites. Everybody did their own thing and characters jumped up the ranks lightning fast. Pop. Pop. Pop. Everybody ranked like crazy. No big deal. We were free. And that sustained us. Zero structure. Zero guidelines. Zero history. Anything goes.

So. Funny enough. I'm finally glad that people are asking these questions. People who didn't see Year One. I still kinda laugh when people say: "Hey? Where's all the stability? Where's our time tested precedence?" Lol. Because I remember just two years ago when there wasn't any. CHAOS was a no-man's land. You just did whatever. Because that was all there was.

Today? Brave new world.

 

[Zonia Kalranoos]

Everybody ranked like crazy. No big deal. We were free. And that sustained us. Zero structure. Zero guidelines. Zero history. Anything goes.

Ahem, Jay, doesn't this remind of the website you and me RPed on for quite some time? Sure, I was not there from the beginning, nor here for that matter, but when they opened up new factions people who were on good terms with admin got really high ranked characters with zero posts. And what happened? It didn't last very long, the entire thing fell apart.

Allow me to explain why. FA and other high ranked staff are there to make it interesting for people to join. Esentially, they are the DMs in jargon of DnD. This takes time, effort and creativity. If you end up on the top with absolutely zero posts, there is nobody to post with. You have this giant gaping hole between say Prime Minister and some lowly political aides who just joined. And then RP does not make sense. What is the Prime Minister going to be talking about with an aid from Malastare? You simply cannot flesh out quality RP if you have a bunch of high rank characters who haven't posted to make character development possible for themselves and others.
[member="Megan Rhymes"]

 

[Micah tol Powl]

When I first started RP I was concerned about Rank because who wants to the Padawan...

*raises hand*

Yo!

Thread count and post count don't matter... character progression does... It's qualitative, yes, but the best measure if the writer can handle writing a higher level responsibly...

I'd disagree, only because I feel that the writer and the character are separate considerations. Zak Dymo and Sor-Jan Xantha have the same writer behind them. The reason one is a padawan and the other is a knight is purely a literary device for me. That they have those ranks is not a measure of any responsibility I claim or desire, it's just window dressing.

With Zak, the story is always how he sees something with a completely innocent perspective. His padawan tag (and more so the youngling tag) are just visual cues convenient to our PbF format to reinforce to the reader that he's a naive little kid. Plus, a result of how FUs are handled on Chaos. In terms of canon, he even wouldn't be a padawan yet.

With Sor-Jan, it's how he's burdened by both his past and his future. I only made Sor-Jan a knight because that rank lends in-character credibility to him as a veteran of several Jedi wars. As for how long it takes to rank up, I started writing Sor-Jan in 2003 and didn't bump him to knight until 2009 (and three websites later).

To me, the issue is often that people tend to look at the rank and not at the character, instead of it being the other way around.

My $0.02

 

[Jsc]

[member="Tionne Thanewulf"] Lol. Yeah. Well, then you came to chaos at the perfect time. Never has the demand for structure and quality development been higher. And? Never have we experienced such a large portfolio of up-an-coming writers.

I know the discussions seem rampant and the opinions are flying everywhere right now. But? I really think that is the perfect creative mixture for everybody to get in on the ground floor of building something awesome. The future really does belong to new chaos writers like yourself. In the months to come, I think the Republic Faction will be fashioning some it's best policies, (and some of it's best developed characters), that this website has ever seen.

And I can't think of anyone better to build them than folks like you Tio. Cheers!

 

[Zenitha Chuma]

I'll support the idea of rank being a simple byproduct of a character's own development, rather than some external circumstances or faction rules. I have a pair of padawans, which I declined to write here in favor of Aimone, that I created in 2007. To me, I can't fault a writer for maintaining a character at padawan status for 8 years any more than I can fault one for advancing their character to master after 2 months.

For me, the caliber of the writer and her/his understanding of their character is much more important than how long they've written the character or how much written development has occurred. How do we arbitrarily draw the line that a Master-level character of only two months is too short, but a padawan of six months hasn't had long enough? It's simply a level where a writer has chosen to write the character, where the character's best attributes shine, and so forth. I could be just as criticized for writing Aimone as young adult without properly developing his childhood. At some point, we have to trust that a writer is doing what's best for her/him and their character.

So, my point of all this is, I don't think rank matters at all. Whether a character is a padawan or knight or master may preclude them from some specific scenarios (but part of me really wants to see the [member="Zak Dymo"] vs. Sith Master battle), but that doesn't mean there's nothing to write or do. I see the site's ranking system as a way of ensuring that writers of high-level characters spend a minimum amount of time with those characters before being able to roflstomp the competition in PVP, but otherwise I really can't say it affects me much at all.

Once Aimone has been developed to that point, between Varus and myself we'll discuss his promotion, but until then I'm happy to write Aimone as a padawan.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

Firstly, many moons ago, a short article was written that explained what you need to do to become a Knight. That article will be reviewed as we move forward as, when I read it now, it sounds an onerous task. It shouldn't be. I know the intent was to simply give light guidelines - so any changes will reflect that original guidance.

Consider it what you will have done to become Knight, not what the FAs will 'judge' you on.

I don’t understand how that article can be thought of as onerous. Has it been changed?

It boils down to:
- Work on character depth
- Be helpful in OOC
- Do some faction threads
- Do some training
Hardly onerous, but at the same time not particularly insightful either.

I'd say your progression template, with its focus on twenty skills, with a suggestion of a ten post training thread for each makes it seem like the focus should be on individual training threads (which are always a dull affair). That would seem more the culprit than the linked article?

You guys must have some standards for judging when enough progression has been made? With so few masters to padawans, many will have to come to you to request a promotion. This should be made explicit and very clear for padawans. I’ve never come across a roleplay site where people asked for promotions before, so it may need to be made more clear.

If you have some standards for what constitutes “good enough” for a promotion, perhaps you could try and put them down in writing. If it’s on a case by case basis, and you make requesting more explicit, you may well get a lot of requests that you have to deal with, or almost none with people becoming confused as to why they don’t receive a promotion for all the hard work they put into the faction.

The forums are an absolute mess at the moment, and dearly need sorting out.There are 13 forums for perhaps 30 ish active members? There are 15 stickies on the three Jedi forums. The Holocron forum is nearly empty.

 

[Seraphina Shel'tah]

The forums are an absolute mess at the moment, and dearly need sorting out.There are 13 forums for perhaps 30 ish active members? There are 15 stickies on the three Jedi forums. The Holocron forum is nearly empty.

I'm working on this right now.

 

[Jacen Voidstalker]

[member="Seraphina Shel'tah"]

Good stuff!

 

[Sanya Val Lerium]

to be honest I'm in no rush to rank as my plan is to age my char on my birthday as it isn't more a char but myself, I seek the training I would if I was in this universe and my actions on a situation that arises again is what I would do if I was put in that place.