Consilium Structure OOC

[Xander]

Crow- I'm likewise going to vote against an Assembly lite for the reasons West said. I like the idea personally, but it's easier for three Free Council mages to justify a concilium then nine Diamonds to justify an assembly.

West-I will concede that I'm using the word politics erroneously.

I'm not insulting people who want to do a deeper dive into the lore. Three posts ago I reiterated an idea you had while spit-balling in discord about detaching trials from the official concilium threads specifically to facilitate them. Doing so would allow the Council players to do the deeper delve into mage lore/society in a full scene dedicated to that purpose populated by people who are interested in and want to explore that aspect of the game. My point in reiterating that there are other themes in mage is not intended as an indictment or a justification for any behavior. It is a statement that some players, like myself, enjoy the cosmic horror (for example) mage is capable of more then the trials and proceedings. I have no intention of leaving, but the charter and concilium only really come up when people want to do a power play or someone screwed up and those situations just don't appeal to me on any level. They are independent of the things that brought me to this site and this venue, which are the personal reasons for those statements.

Now, I've stated that I agree people need to pay more attention in their threads and read the source material. I put forth an idea I feel would accommodate the deep delve for those who want it. I also agree that who can participate can be an IC issue so I think our best option moving forward might be to focus on what we want from the charter in this thread rather then player actions that we aren't retconning and have made our opinions known on. We could also have an optional thread now or later where those who want to discuss how concilium is conducted can voice their IC opinions.

[West]

I think Shodan's trial would be a perfect test run of that closed-session concept -- but I'd also suggest Woland has the ultimate say in it (closed versus another 'public formal') since his character would be the most affected.

[Stray]

I support the idea, if Woland is willing for the scene to be guinea pig. If it's done, it may help to have YYC announces the trial concept in an opening post?

Given the fact that there was a fair amount of chaos and interruption, the Council also has some IC motivation for making the trial a private affair.

[Mark]

Awesome! I'm looking forward to giving the closed session a run! Thanks for being the Guiana pig Woland

[Ruach]

It looks like there’s a consensus that the main problem is OOC which would seem to be difficult to address through purely IC mechanics; would it be possible within the spirit of the genre/venue to introduce an IC mechanic (spell, artifact, etc.) that took into account important OOC considerations?

For example, any prospective Position’s eligibility being at least partially based on an artifact ‘approving ‘ them based on OOC metrics like (# of posts for that character x average posts per week for that character) to factor in OOC engagement and commitment to sticking around for a while with that character?

[deltadream]

Not a mage player so feel free to throw my comments out the window but I would likely argue against the incorporation of such.

1. It plays onus on somebody OOC to cross reference that. And EoD struggles with just basic ST Staff, let alone someone to do that.

2. I always am leery of having an IC role be dictated by OOC requirements. Especially the ones you've outlined. Those requirements are skewed to favor a player who simply likes to write a lot of words and often. And that does not inherently = player willing to invest. Prime example: Me. I think I am pretty darn invested/a long term player but (sorry to bring Vamp in) Twist is a toon of few words and simple thoughts. So on paper she/I would not look like a solid choice for a position but in reality I like to think otherwise.

[West]

OOC problems should be addressed OOCly and quantity never equaled quality.

Moreover, creating new IC end arounds is effectively the same thing that encourages such problems -- it doesn't actually address the problem. It addresses the fallout. This whole culture of absolute confrontation avoidance/finger pointing is how problems snowball into unmanageable messes.

Bump posts.
Call people out ICly.
Say something in OOC.

Or as my my dad used to say: Shit or get off the pot.

Constantly giving out passes on negligence and layering rules instead? Not a fan.

[Ruach]

Totally agree with both, deltadream; West. Both the example and the prescription make sense.

[Xander]

I've got the scene slot open whenever we want to do Shodan's trial. It's been a while so I figured I'd repeat and see if peeps are good to get going.

On a related note, I've been thinking about the Tetragrammaton and previous rulings. I know the ruling for Striker was less then proportional and I was wondering if it would be better to implement a more explicit mechanical/social consequence for certain types of sentences rather then a glimpse like Striker had to do. Some options are below.

Major Reprimand- All shared merits are suspended for the mage. Certain merits may be exempt on a case by case basis, but not Sanctum or it's derivative merits.

Minor Penance- The mage loses a scene slot to represent the performance of the Penance. Alternatively, the Council may order that a scene slot be used for a particular purpose such as assisting in a plot.

Major Penance- As Minor Penance except the plots can be more explicitly dangerous. Alternatively two scene slots may be suspended.

Sever Reprimand- The Mage may be suspended from all City Shard, Awakening, unofficial concilium, and open social scenes unless given permission to attend by the Council. Part of this isolation may also include the suspension of shared merits as a Major Reprimand. Alternatively the mage may be required to abstain from certain actions like speaking or using magic.

Incarceration- The Mage may be suspended from all scenes outside a setting determined by the council. All shared merits are suspended unless they are accessible within the setting determined by the council (a mage under house arrest won't have their sanctum suspended for example).

Banishment- The mage is removed from play for the duration of the banishment, which may be permanent. Alternatively, a mage may be assigned a task as part of this banishment in a coexisting plane or other locale that the mage must perform. The task will be a sticky thread and the banishment will be given a time after which the mage may be assumed to have returned and reintegrated into the setting. No matter the circumstances the mage must be recognized again at Status 1 upon their return.

It's difficult to nail down terms like 'assistance' or 'aid', but that's why I figured I'd float the ideas and see what happens. In the end I was trying to think of how to reflect the consequences more consistently without rendering the criminal completely unplayable. I thought the Council taking progressively more control of their time/resources was a good way to do so.

Thoughts?