How to seize plot reins

You don't have to be high rank to drive a plot. But honestly who gives a fuck about plots? I never really played Arm thinking "Wow such plots." I played to kill shit and get loot. Also to explore, not once have I ever told myself.. man I really loved that plot or this plot. Plots are fucking stupid. Just have plenty of shit to kill, plenty of loot to gather and plenty of shit to explore and the plots will naturally come, you don't need any skills to create a plot they just happen on their own, that is human nature.

also most templars have jack shit influence. you can lead RPTs and such but your resources are going to be scarce, your combat skills are subpar, and lol templar magick is at best situationally dependent, and at worst useless. the only thing status in arm lets you do is shit on and stomp out people of a lesser common rank than you. you can never actually build or create anything, your power and influence is limited to kicking over the meager sandcastle someone else built.

What kind of independents can drive plots with imm help?  Guild specific?  Days played?   Known veterans?   Cool rp?

Not obvious to me.  What did you mean, other than snark?

... what? Here's basically how I read this:

A - 'I think this'

B - 'I totally agree with you!'

A - 'Not agreeable to me. What do you mean you agree, other than snark?'

There are two types of plot.

One is the silly Cluedo style nonsense where staff plant something for people to pursue, and that's always bullshit, both because you then depend entirely on one staff member's time and because everyone can see how contrived it is. Plots that don't spring from emergent roleplay are not interesting. It needs to be the result of actual in-game events revolving around player characters, otherwise it's just a kind of RP-within-RP where you pretend that you care about something in order to try to inject some purpose into character interactions.

The game actually tends to have some of that type of plot at all times because it's trivial for some storyteller to come up with some bullshit about a virtual serial killer leaving corpses in the street for soldiers to investigate, or something to that effect. But it's not really that satisfying to be part of, and it can by definition not lead to very much actual gameplay because you depend entirely on that storyteller's attendance as the plot doesn't continue on its own.

The other type of plot comes from emergent roleplay, usually without staff involvement. In fact, it's almost always better without staff involvement as we all know how bad that tends to be for players. This can be something like a startup spice dealing crew that doesn't give a cut to the Guild, someone preying on Atrium students, independent merchants selling so much armor that Salarr starts to see them as genuine competition, etc. That's the type of "plot" that actually keeps the game entertaining and creates gameplay and stuff for players to do for more than the hour a week that a storyteller could have provided.

This is what should be standard fare on an RPI. It only really deserves to be called a plot because the game lacks that kind of roleplay so severely that it's hugely unusual when it happens, attracting so much attention that it tends to be shortlived as so many players will be desperate to get involved, invariably leading to most getting killed as the game is so crammed with codedly powerful characters with nothing to do and a yearning to put their power to use. And that issue stems from the fact that throughout Nyr's tenure, Armageddon's playerbase has been held down, conditioned to accept that they can't do anything, and have had all their ambition and inspiration drained from them as staff has been systematically rejecting and kiboshing everything remotely unusual that anyone has tried to do.

As a result of this, nobody makes waves. Nobody has the drive and proactivity to begin anything like this, we've spent the last eight years learning that it isn't possible. Therefore, on the extremely rare occasion that something noteworthy does happen, it stands out so starkly that it just burns out before it can become really interesting. People are so starved for worthwhile roleplay that it just gets overrun anytime there's the first sign of it. It has become a vicious cycle, but it's one that staff created and one that they need to mend.

To fix this, staff needs to make a deliberate and honest effort to encourage player endeavors and support player initiatives. Forget about Tablelands RPTs and missing copper nuggets and whatever the fuck it is they think is keeping the game active. That stuff takes up 3% of people's time and leaves them with nothing to do the rest of the month. You can't work with that, you can't continue with it after the fireworks are over.

What the game needs is ground-level activity and space for players to do things that others care about, and since staff is responsible for running that out of the game, they should also be responsible for reinstating it by promising the players that their efforts will be supported again. Then, when people are once more doing things that matter, you can go back to the monthly mantis attack style of RPTs. Those are fine, but not when it's the only thing that happens in the game.