Going Public!

I'm not sure how many of you noticed (:P), but 'the Beast' fell into a weird rules conflict where it couldn't be controlled *or* interacted with. Because of the type of threat it posed, this ended up requiring it to be de-canonized.

'The Beast' wasn't the only thing in that odd conundrum.

Both The Crimson Chains and Clan Gothteng played roles in the retrospectives, and as such fall into a similar situation, having become part of CDN canon and therefore beyond the control of any one player (or even moderator), who would otherwise be actively dictating canon. Unlike the Beast, however, they're both *relatively* small-scale. The Gothteng are part of a vaguely ominous power bloc on Northern Tuchanka along with the Dinroth and Vynchar, while the Crimson Chains are fractured into three major parts across the Terminus, Abyss, and Confederation, each of which is significant but not 'Big Three' level on its own.

Basically, they're public domain now, which means everybody's free to use them as they see fit, but not manipulate the entire organization or clan. Playing the leadership is off-limits (yes, this means no more Vedix), but playing members of the groups is totally fine, and even encouraged.

This being the case, I've formatted and put up my notes on the groups and various important figures therein on the CDN wiki. There are pages for each of the major figures leading the groups of Crimson Chains, providing some small personal detail as well as hopefully some insight into how a given group works and what their sympathies are likely to be. The idea here is that they can be used faithfully in plots that make sense.

Leading the Cartagena Chains:
http://cdn.wikia.com/wiki/Joral_nabOrcas
http://cdn.wikia.com/wiki/Ashtor_Sam%27klar

Leading the Lorek Chains:
http://cdn.wikia.com/wiki/Melek_Ib-bar
http://cdn.wikia.com/wiki/Goronak_Ilorik

Leading the Chresk Chains:
http://cdn.wikia.com/wiki/Alto_Ord%27narak

As for the Gothteng, they have their own wiki page and clans connected/related to them each have their own as well.

Basically, if you want to use these guys, if they would in any way add to your plot - go for it! That said, they are groups of very clever people with their own agendas and methods, and none of them are 'cannon fodder'. If they show up, it shouldn't be as a couple of mooks to get shot right away.

If there are any questions about this or if there's something you'd like expanded on regarding one of the leaders or organizations in general, let me know either here or on IRC and I'll do my best to provide. I'm still going through my notes on the characters looking for other things suitable for inclusion, so more detail may be added later, but if there's something specific that would help in some way I'm happy to prioritize it.

So yeah, there it is - the sandbox just got a fair bit bigger. Have fun with it!

Okay. Here is the thing.

If there is an inherent and obvious problem with a rule, you don't change the plans, you change the rule. "Not dictating canon" worked well for CDN during its ME2 and ME3 time, but to say "It's in a retrospective so it's canon and, therefore, can not be intereacted with" is shortsighted.

I'm not directing this directly at you, but it's something I've wanted to say for quite a while now. The community of CDN needs to examine that rule because, frankly, making anything mentioned in the Retros unusable in RP defeats the entire point of the Retros. We are keeping the letter of the law, yes, but certainly not it's spirit.

Hang on, is that actually the case? When I asked about The Beast being removed, the impression I got was that the problem was that it was too large-scale a threat in general, not just that it was mentioned in the retrospectives. The only thing I see being declared off-limits here is running one of these organizations, not interacting with them - in fact, the whole point of the wiki edits is helping players who want to interact with them do so.

(Personally, I'm also in favor of slightly loosening the rules on "interacting with canon" in the post-ME3 era, but if the mods feel otherwise that's fine with me).

The core of it is that because the Beast was in the Retros (which for CDN purposes are canon), the mods (or anybody else) playing him would be dictating canon, and anybody interacting with him directly would be breaking the rule about using canon characters, yes. This extended to a couple of things I'd created, which is fine, hence the thread. The mods offered to edit out the references to my stuff and were in general very cool about the whole process, but I couldn't very well turn down canonization, hahah. Whether or not the rules should be adjusted is another matter entirely and not really the discussion I was hoping for in the thread tbh.

As I understand it Jeral unless your plan involve your character soloing the Beast's army you should be fine. And maybe if one of us has an ambitious plan he can just run it by the mods first and get green lighted. Just look at Who Goes There, big plots is not something unheard of here.

4Eyes has the right idea. As I said in the intro post, interacting with and playing as members of these groups is fine, it's just no longer possible to play as their leadership or dictate what they're doing.

I think what TechOptryx is basically looking for are people to treat his babies right- with the appropriate gravitas- and not just to chew through them in ways that make little sense, rather than being explicitly opposed to any and all forms of interaction or modification. It's a sentiment I think most of us here can get behind- one that would hopefully make for better and more enjoyable story-telling/RP.

What Mata Hari said: That's pretty much how I feel about the Sundowners. They're a big, diverse group, and so if anyone wants a turian in red solar facepaint, as either hero, villain or bystander, feel free. All I ask is 1. You're not the High Chieftain; 2. your NPC (or PC) doesn't dictate policy for the Sundowners as a whole. Other than that, have at it.

And that's the same for any of the more obscure tur-sep groups I've mentioned in passing like the Children of Liberty.

You're... kind of missing my point.

I understand what Abad is doing here and, for the most part I agree with that. That being said... Well, I'm not going to get into what I have a problem with here because I want to respect Abad's wishes, that this isn't the thread for such debate.

You could as well spill it, I think we've covered the main subject already.

Please read this post on the subject.