OOC: Summary of HRW knot on crafter-riders, 3/1/10
The HRW knot had a big discussion tonight, and this is what we (those of us present) came up with. XD It was double-checked on the knot and then posted here for length.
*cheers Ajatha, Gabrion, K'del, P'ax, Taikrin, Teris, Tiriana, Vyshani, and W'chek!*
( So long, even the summary broke +job/notes! )
*cheers Ajatha, Gabrion, K'del, P'ax, Taikrin, Teris, Tiriana, Vyshani, and W'chek!*
( So long, even the summary broke +job/notes! )
This has already been happening. P'draig pursued his Journeyman knot, and M'try has been going back to the Hall the past couple of months to finish his training as well. So I think we can establish that this is player-driven and already occurring.
Leova - The simplest version of a crafter-rider might be a paying student who happens to be a dragonrider.
I don't think this is a universal solution. Some crafts, like Baker (to pick on P'draig again), don't have a centralized crafthall, and don't accept paying students. Similarly, I can't see the Miners taking paying students-- or Starsmiths, Smiths, Sailors... pretty much any craft but Harper (as established) and maybe Healer. And I couldn't see Harper taking someone who was specializing in, say, etiquette or law, but music or calligraphy? Where they could make some money?
What I can see, however, is a Crafthall accepting a rider back into their fold and giving them the nominal rank of Journeyman. As long as the character is very close to finishing their training and walking the tables, the Craft is making a minimal future investment to train them. When that rider is ready to start taking commission work, the Hall starts making money off them again.
To use an example, this is what I assumed M'try has been up to:
He was a shoe-in to walk the tables as soon as he hit that critical 20-Turn-old mark. He's talented, he could still make the Hall a lot of money. He goes back, pitches this to the appropriate Masters, gets them to agree, and voila-- they give him the chance to brush up on what he needs so he can pass exams and take a Journeyman knot. Now the Hall can, in good conscience, give him commissions as a Journeyman, take their X% off the top, and both Harper and M'try make their cash.
This obviously wouldn't work for Crafters that don't produce something. Even P'draig, as a Baker, wanted the title so it would look nice for his restaurant (and we can assume the Baker Craft got some sort of monetary compensation there?).
Bottom line: The crafts need to profit off these people.
B'kaiv - It also (he said, and my goodness this is getting long) might make sense for those riders who want crafter training to be removed from the wings.
I think this depends on the Wing? And the rider? And the craft? And how much training they need, time that needs to be spent on it?
Which is to say-- case by case basis, neh?
Gabrion - Here's an interesting question: can rider-crafters be posted to a hall or hold?
I would go with a resounding "no" on that. The Hold/Hall in question would be getting short-changed, and the Weyr would be losing a rider.
Besides which, since none of our Holds/Halls are on-camera, it really shouldn't be an issue, should it?
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Yes, but I would have appreciated having this discussion happen before people went ahead and started making game-changing canon decisions all on their own.
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I'm sure, if it comes down to it and it's decided that rider-crafters aren't canon, we can always retcon that obviously game-shattering RP. It just doesn't seem like that's the direction things are going.
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I'm... not sure how it could have been brought up before people started doing it. Even if people had been shooting the breeze about it, there's a difference between that and actually taking action.
As for retconning, don't know anyone who likes to do that.
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Since cross-crafting happened before on PernMUSH and there are a few examples of the odd rider here and there from a craft background keeping up their craft-skills in the books, a rider with craft skills here and there pursuing additional training isn't exactly game-changing canon.
For the record, I asked permission from Ista's leadership for Paddy to pursue the honorary rank before I ever posted a vig about it and M'try asked permission from Fort's leadership to continue M'try's Harper studies.
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And in the end, policing each other's RP is not what this game was founded on. It was founded on the idea that players were smart enough to discuss their issues in open forums and come to a conclusion that everybody was happy with. It was not based on letting any one player or admin push ahead with game-changing ideas--and the very fact that we are having this discussion at all makes it obvious that this is game-changing.
In the end, I feel very uncomfortable, because I feel trapped between two equally awkward choices. Either I conform my viewpoints to what others have forced on me--something we expressly tried to get away from by leaving PernMUSH. Or I play the bad guy and force other players to retcon RP that is apparently of a much broader scope and timeframe than I ever imagined.
As for the legacy of PM specifically, as I understood it, Dyane specifically forbade craftriders from ever existing in a public wizmeet. Did she tell you differently at some point in private, or was this a Rodric/Harper thing only? I'm confused on the point, since it seems that people would like to bring in PM as a reference on craftriders, but will not allow its precedent to stand regarding senior journeymen.
In the end, I mostly feel sad that the game has come to the point where, once again, unilateral decisions are being made without consulting the playerbase or the other Weyrs. It doesn't matter how I feel about craftriders or what's already been laid down in RP. It doesn't matter what conclusion we reach in the discussion we're having now. What matters is the /way/ we do it, because otherwise we might as well never have left PM at all.
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Just to be clear-- this implies that you're not on board with rider-crafters.
You haven't really made any constructive comments to the matter at hand-- trying to decide how rider-crafters should be handled, or if they should be allowed-- so I just wanted to be sure I was reading this right. Obviously, some mistakes were made with regards to the implementation of the rider-crafters, but you seem to be the only person objecting wholesale to the idea. At least, that's what that comment reads like.
It's worth noting that the game council tabled discussion of crafts at least as early as November, and nothing was ever finished. We haven't even managed to iron out, in almost four months, whether or not every craft has exams; meanwhile, we have people at HRW RPing about exams all the time, while people at FTW RP that they only happen once a Turn. Hell, for a while, we had three Harpers at Fort all with different ideas about when exams took place.
Obviously, things need to be codified. I'm pretty sure that's what the people offering constructive discussion are attempting to accomplish.
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For the record, HRW has been toying with the idea of them for several years, going back as least as far as when R'hin was Weyrleader. It's something we've long thought would add variety and new interest to both crafters and riders, and I'm looking forward to how the playerbase as a whole can work it out. I love a lot of the ideas that have been put forth in this thread, and think the people voicing them have by and large put them very well, so that my only comment to add is, 'yeah, me too!'
Finally, I still like that this is up for discussion now, however clumsily it was brought up. I have high hopes that we can work out some compromise (even though it may well shift some pre-existing RP to make way for what more people might want) that allows all our players input on an even playing field. Because the game's for them, and while we admins may have our different playing styles, I trust still that we have the same two priorities: transparency and democracy.
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At Fort, a single former harper asked if it was okay to continue his harper classes in some form. This isn't game-changing and there aren't any formalized plans for crafter-riders at all - just some ideas that maybe the current plotline at Fort which has driven NPC crafters away from the Weyr could potentially result in a push for riders to take on some of the work those crafters were doing. It's very embryonic at best and not really at a stage that would warrant a formal proposal because there's nothing really firmed up yet. As for Ista, when something that did look possibly game-changing came up, it got punted up to Game Council for discussion and from my POV that's exactly what's supposed to happen, but apparently I misunderstood that and all of that stuff is supposed to go into +suggest, which since this discussion happened, has been cleared up.
Any references to PernMUSH have almost nothing to do with Rodric or Harper Hall, but rather a handful of rider characters who were playing about starting to study at crafts in the interval when it started. In my case, that was Emilly learning weaver stuff, which I'd asked HRW's leaders at the time about and got a nod for. I also remember someone who was doing some healer stuff and a couple of riders had /asked/ me about harper foo and working it out with various leader-types, but none of them ultimately pursued it. I'm not talking about formalized You Are A Member of the Craft AND a Rider-style, but the more informal path.
For this type of RP, it's been pretty clear that areas are autonomous and we've all been pretty laid back about working stuff out with players on a case-by-case basis and going with the flow of RP and when something sticks out as being game-wide or game-affecting it gets punted up the line to council so that it can get shared out across the game and discussed and stuff.
The basic problem I think, here is that there /are/ differing views on what the baseline of this world looks like so it's actually hard to understand what the baseline canon /is/ from area to area and so it's also hard to know when to bring something up in the first place, if it doesn't look like it's game-changing to a given person or group of persons.
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What Nenita is proposing at Ista per my understanding is a bit different than the odd rider cross-crafting in an interval. The proposal is for a mass shift towards double-professions by riders that's being pushed by the leadership of the Weyr, ICly, which is why she brought it up as something to discuss.
By double professions, do you mean lots of people knotted as apprentice/journeyman-rider, instead of just someone spending their free time (or even allowed some would-otherwise-be-flying-sweeps time)? Because that's huge. If that's the case, it's great that it's coming up as a topic for discussion as a game, so players can contribute their two cents. The prospect of this attempt and potential transition could make for really interesting RP if it's considerately handled, and could last quite a while.
(Has it been made an official proposal? At least one HRW game council rep hasn't heard about it before, and it doesn't seem to have been +pitch'd.)
Since cross-crafting happened before on PernMUSH and there are a few examples of the odd rider here and there from a craft background keeping up their craft-skills in the books, a rider with craft skills here and there pursuing additional training isn't exactly game-changing canon.
For the record, I asked permission from Ista's leadership for Paddy to pursue the honorary rank before I ever posted a vig about it and M'try asked permission from Fort's leadership to continue M'try's Harper studies.
A rider with craft skills pursuing additional training isn't game-changing canon, we definitely agree there. What we think is game-changing canon is the idea that crafts and Weyrs are okay with riders having knots from both places. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done! It just means that on a game founded on the principle of transparency, it really helps to let players as a whole speak up about general policy decisions like this one, so players don't feel left out.
Little things like convicts being candidates or weed on Pern are easy to overlook, since they only really affect a minor contingent of the game and/or one area. While weed could be discovered and allowed at Fort, maybe it just isn't the drug of choice at HRW. Similarly, while HRW has allowed convicts to stand, this doesn't create game policy that makes other areas do so as well. (Maybe Ista is smarter than to let convicts Stand! Maybe it doesn't have as many convicts. It's all up to Ista.) Really, I think this place is pretty live-and-let-live and tries to blur inconsistencies (*waves to Z'yi!*), but when the drive to make things consistent came up, this got closer scrutiny.
The thing is that changing the structure of crafts, even in a somewhat organic RP-based fashion, does affect everyone on the game and stops being area-only policy. Thus a general game discussion, and ideally consensus, would be considerate.
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The council first started talking about codifying crafts back in November. That discussion stalled to a stand-still up until this started. So there hasn't been an official proposal, but I think we might have headed in that direction eventually had we not stopped working on things.
While there appear to be some hard-feelings, I personally am glad that this came up so the fire can be re-lit, since I personally would like to RP a character going through the issue of being a rider and a crafter at the same time. It's got roleplay potential, imho.
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First off, I absolutely can't take credit for the items listed in the summary. This was a HRW group effort from start to finish. So many people spoke up, and even the summary was sent to the knot for possible edits.
Leova - Process: This should be done slowly/gradually, pushed by PCs who're interested in it, possibly a two-steps-forward-one-step-back sort of thing.
This has already been happening. P'draig pursued his Journeyman knot, and M'try has been going back to the Hall the past couple of months to finish his training as well. So I think we can establish that this is player-driven and already occurring.
Yes, it's player-driven, which is great. It's been fun to see what Gabrion is doing with it at HRW. We want to make sure that it remains player-driven instead of... poof, there's a meeting, and all these crafts suddenly have their decisions made. We also want to make sure that there is the slow/gradual process to enjoy, the two steps back, the erratic path with missteps and changes. See Gabrion's "+job 134" about pushback. If it's too quick, we miss out on the great transition RP.
(There's a larger issue with how this first part has been handled, but it seems as though it would fit better into an upcoming comment to Milani's, further down the page.)
The simplest version of a crafter-rider might be a paying student who happens to be a dragonrider.
I don't think this is a universal solution. Some crafts, like Baker (to pick on P'draig again), don't have a centralized crafthall, and don't accept paying students. Similarly, I can't see the Miners taking paying students-- or Starsmiths, Smiths, Sailors... pretty much any craft but Harper (as established) and maybe Healer. And I couldn't see Harper taking someone who was specializing in, say, etiquette or law, but music or calligraphy? Where they could make some money?
First: We listed riders-as-paying-students as the simplest version, not as the only version. We listed several possibilities, and it's easy enough to have multiple types existing.
Second: Any craft can take paying students. All it takes is a posted journeyman who wants to get paid for teaching Holderette to make crepes. A miner could get a kickback for teaching a class in identifying semi-precious stones. And so on.
What I can see, however, is a Crafthall accepting a rider back into their fold and giving them the nominal rank of Journeyman. As long as the character is very close to finishing their training and walking the tables, the Craft is making a minimal future investment to train them. When that rider is ready to start taking commission work, the Hall starts making money off them again. [...]
*nods* That's an possible option we mentioned. Of course, what kind of commission someone like M'try might get, and what percentage the Weyr might try to get, would be up for IC negotiation. Good times. XD
We're interested in the transition, the part that's getting Masters to agree. We don't think it should be rubberstamped. (See above about pushback.)
This obviously wouldn't work for Crafters that don't produce something. Even P'draig, as a Baker, wanted the title so it would look nice for his restaurant (and we can assume the Baker Craft got some sort of monetary compensation there?).
Presumably people with baker-journeymen knots get paid more than those without, so there's production in that sense.
Bottom line: The crafts need to profit off these people.
Yes, yes, yes.
(Comments on B'kaiv and Gabrion's comments addressed elsewhere.)
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