This post will be long. If you want to read it and follow the substantiated debate, thanks. If you don't want to read it all, here are the synthesized conclusions I am asserting at this point.
First however, I must acknowledge that we are all volunteers in this game. Zunna is a volunteer. I am a volunteer. Zunna knows I have thanked him several times for assistance in the events I have organized for the player's. Ironically I had thanked Zunna for helping with setting up the stage and getting books for the debate. That is real, was heartfelt then and despite my anger at subsequent treatment, is still heartfelt. And I also acknowledge that people make mistakes. In this case I feel Zunna and Eonwind are making mistakes. I am pretty sure they think I am. That is also debatable.
This is why I offer this post as my experience of and thoughts about the discussions during and surrounding Speak With the God/dess.
SUMMARY of my position, if you don't want to read the substantiated thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
1) RR was totally in character with everything he said in main in that RR believes it.
2) RR was within his rights to debate his opinion in character.
3) RR's player was within his rights to challenge the GM for interference in a player led event.
4) Zunna overstepped his job in attempting to suppress RR's players DEBATE. Just because Zunna doesn't think there is a debate is irrelevant. Zunna can think what he wants. The fact is that there clearly IS a debate BOTH in IC ways AND in OOC ways. Saying there is no debate is not only specious, it is inaccurate.
5) GMs do not have the authority to police character's “manners.” If that were true then no characters could Icly play BF- the most unmannerly of religions, nor could stonehammers drink to excess, nor could any fistfight happen, nor any poisonings etc. That would just be unmannerly....
6) Eonwind is wrong in his assumption that GMs have the “right” to supervise game play to the point of policing opinion and role play character choices.
7) The unwarranted intervention of Zunna took Roled away from the in character debate, so I ended up not actually being able to Icly participate in the event because of Zunna's actions.
8 ) There is no right to marriage equity in the Octarchal Degree, so no right is enforceable because of the decree's silence icly. [See discussion of unwritten rights below]
9) There is legal substantiation from real life social governance history, which was used to inform the Octarchal Decree, that citizens have the right to petition and debate and insist upon redress of philosophic wrongs done against their civil rights.
10) The easiest answers are: make the marriage button available to all genders and races in settings OOC AND insert language attesting to full citizens right in the Octarchal Decree and not merely in a book of opinions about the decree.
THE SUBSTANCE: A considered rebuttal
Poezza, I am sorry you believed RR was ooc. I clearly do not believe RR was ooc nor was RR "bashing" the developer Talad. It is clear from the logs that RR was speaking about the God Talad. RR made the point that the god Talad did grievous wrong to Laanx and instead of "fixing" the wrong, chose to allow Laanx's suffering to continue. The God Talad did not give up his own power to redress the injury done. RR then made the point that the god Talad, as represented by his followers, supposedly believes in kindness and compassion and yet allow great wrongs to continue. Roled then reasserted that he didn't believe in the Taladian faith because of the disconnection between asserted tenets and actual rights.
A) The point being, this is TOTALLY within character for RR to say that. As you see in the logs, just because YOU didn't find it understandable [and you were the one who went OOC to say so btw in main albeit in [ ] which doesn't really bother me] and then RR asked you to ask him Icly which you did, which RR then answered ICly] does not mean that Roled in character doesn't believe this disconnect to be true. Roled did not talk about the infamous button Icly ever!
B) Eonwind- you are attempting to use what Alan Badieu terms an arguement of "governmentality" [look it up if you don't understand this term] when you say the GMS are
I want to make it clear that the GMS were NOT in charge of this event.
Let me remind the GM team is always in charge to supervise any event, whether it's player driven or not. It's their responsibility and the players may not even notice their presence and they don't even need to bother about.
1) “Governmentality” is the overstepping of assumed authority, typically committed by petty bureaucrats, trying to use intimidation and reference to ungranted power over, in an attempt to deny citizen's rights, such as the right to free speech. This is exactly what Zunna did to RR- this is exactly why RR'a player is in the process of FORMALLY PETITIONING the DEVELOPER TALAD for redress. Zunna nor any GM has the right to be the “thought police” ICly. RR used no vulgarity, used no threats, but Zunna decided that RR's "manners" were enough to issue and OOC warning. This is false logic and sloppy thinking. Disagreements spoken/ even argued passionately are not a realm of intervention by a GM who was not even in charge of the event IN ANY WAY. Eonwind, maybe its a European thing, I don't know, but in the USA the right to free speech is an unalienable right, written into law in the Constitution. So Eonwind you are wrong in conflating “Supervision” with “opinions held and voiced.” This principle goes back in law to the 12 Tablets of the Roman Empire.
2) btw- in the tablets there is apparently a similar discussion – A DEBATE- over who holds actual rights and who oversteps authority because they think they can. I refer you to for an interesting discussion. One relevant portion is:
1. “The Twelve Tables came about as a result of the long social struggle between patricians and plebeians. … In the context of this unequal status, plebeians would take action to secure concessions for themselves... One of the most important concessions won in this class struggle was the establishment of the Twelve Tables, establishing basic procedural rights for all Roman citizens...”
http://www.crystalinks.com/romelaw.html. Web. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
2.) “Patricians long opposed this request, but around 451 BC, the first decemviri (decemvirate - board of "Ten Men") was appointed to draw up the first ten tables... The first decemvirate completed the first ten codes in 450 BC. Here is how Livy describes their creation,
'...every citizen should quietly consider each point, then talk it over with his friends, and, finally, bring forward for public discussion any additions or subtractions which seemed desirable." (cf. Liv. III 34) '”
The point being the laws, even the Octarchal Decree, are based on assumptions. From time to time, various societies have found it necessary and useful to define in writing those assumptions. Roled is not only acting in character, following the suggestion of Livy to consider talk with friends, and (my italics now): “bring forward for public discussion any additions or subtractions which seemed desirable.”
3) Let me give an example, which is exemplary because some parts of the Octarchal Decree itself contains vestiges of a reference to constitutionally written underlying assumptions found of the rule of law. In the USA there is written in the Constitution, in Amendment 9 “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” -
http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendments.html#f6 Web. Retrieved 11 May 2015. AND YET the US found it necessary to OVERTLY STATE that people of color in this case, are citizens and are afforded the full rights of citizenship in Amendment 14, “Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” -
4) AND Amendment #15 “Section. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendments.html#f6 Web. Retrieved 11 May 2015.
5) Also interestingly, women were assumed not to have the voting rights of citizens in the USA until yet another Constitutional Amendment, #19 in 1920, less than 100 years ago. There are several states of the USA who have not yet ratified the 19th Amendment, but it has been legally certified as part of the explict law and rights in the USA. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendments.html#f6Why would the lawmakers of the land find it necessary to add specific language? BECAUSE the assumption that the right exists for citizens AND the actuality that the right does not exist equitably was/is the REALITY. This is a parallel to the situation that PlaneShift finds itself in on the issue of equity in marriage rights.
This is the stream of unspoken rl background that informs the IC lives of characters.
Sometimes it is necessary to have specific language to guarantee rights so that “governmentality” and “thought policing” do not exist unchecked, either in the real world or in the laws of the fantasy world of Yliakum.
Zunna never actually asked RR's player why RR believes he is acting Icly. [Instead Zunna in a massive display of Godmodding, told Roled what he thinks Roled thinks in character. So disappointing from so many standpoints! Check the log and you will see where the GM overstepped his bounds.] So I will tell you: RR is in character a law abiding person. He sees himself as heroic, a defender of those who are too weak to defend themselves. He believes harm is being done to same gendered people FROM A LEGAL STANDPOINT ICLY. The Decree does not speak to marriage. Now I know some have said books are being worked on to clarify but at this moment such books are not in game therefore are not yet to be seen as part of the legal code. So, since the Decree does not speak to marriage, Roled's logic is to do exactly what Officer Mogrrim said he should do- petition the Octarch for redress of this exclusion. That is what RR's character is doing in a long running role play sequence, of which the Speak With the God/dess debate was only one part.
What RR's player is doing OOC, is also formally petitioning for redress of unjustified GM interference, of unwarranted attempts at being the thought police, and what Eonwind is attempting to do, by trying to bully RR's player into not fighting for the equal rights of citizen/ players to free speech both icly in the game and OOCly concerning the button.
The easiest answers are: make the marriage button available to all genders and races in settings OOC AND insert language attesting to full citizens right in the Octarchal Decree and not merely in a book of opinions about the decree.
I have more to say on all these matters, of course. And I assume more debate is warranted.
So, in conclusion.
RR was totally in character with everything he said in main in that RR believes it.
RR was within his rights to debate his opinion in character.
RR's player was within his rights to challenge the GM for interference in a player led event.
Zunna overstepped his job in attempting to suppress RR's players DEBATE. Just because Zunna doesn't think there is a debate is irrelevant. Zunna can think what he wants. The fact is that there clearly IS a debate BOTH in IC ways AND in OOC ways. Saying there is no debate is not only specious, it is inaccurate.
GMs do not have the authority to police character's “manners.” If that were true then no characters could Icly play BF- the most unmannerly of religions, nor could stonehammers drink to excess, nor could any fistfight happen, nor any poisonings etc. That would just be unmannerly....
Eonwind is wrong in his assumption that GMs have the “right” to supervise game play to the point of policing opinion and role play character choices.
The unwarranted intervention of Zunna took Roled away from the in character debate, so I ended up not actually being able to Icly participate in the event because of Zunna's actions.
There is no right to marriage equity in the Octarchal Degree, so no right is enforceable because of the decree's silence icly. [See discussion of unwritten rights below]
There is legal substantiation from real life social governance history, which was used to inform the Octarchal Decree, that citizens have the right to petition and debate and insist upon redress of philosophic wrongs done against their civil rights.
The easiest answers are: make the marriage button available to all genders and races in settings OOC AND insert language attesting to full citizens right in the Octarchal Decree and not merely in a book of opinions about the decre
Fighting for one's rights as citizens in any organized social forum, be it virtual or real life, is often contentious historically. Many people of color in the USA were lynched doing just that. Many women were jailed, force fed, tortured, raped and killed for doing just that. Many people of various faiths, such as Jewish people, were brutalized for doing just that. Many self identified gay women and men were beaten, shamed, and maimed during the Stonehead Rebellion and continue to be, even to the point of death by stoning, in some countries in our world. Many children, like Malala Yousafzai, have been shot and tortured for insisting upon their rights. It sometimes takes time. It sometimes takes perseverance of the few to preserve the rights of the many.
Working for a more equal, just and inclusive world in all manifestations of world sometimes takes ruffling the feathers, breaking down the concrete walls, and standing against the Wind.
AND I assume this post itself might spark more debate. Which is real.
