[Discussion] State of Aelyria Prime

[Hanzi Ambarando]

Unfortunately much confusion reigned about AP because of shoddy housekeeping. While I might try to parry the kind jabs by my ex-co-gm with excuses I cannot. I came into AP finding it in disarray and half-heartedly tried to do stuff. I had not much to work with other than asking other PC's what was going on until I said heck with this and I winged it. I wrote up a city profile and other stuff but I quickly lose steam doing such things. So I just started playing, making stuff as if I was a creative hurricane, and managed to write close to nothing down. It wasn't until Goss came along with her insatiable need for formatted location writeups did AP become clear and understandable. Oftentimes she had to threaten me into submission and decipher my rants, exclamation, and musings that represents my plot notes.

However, it was never my intention to make Old Prime seem impossible when I GM'd there. It was just a really tough problem that would take a lot to "cure", and what is being cured anyways? I forget what all this misunderstanding is exactly about.

Through my own distorted lens I saw AP very much as the Rome Alexis describes. One street splendid, one street squalor, shantytowns residing the in the shade of the Imperial buildings. As beautiful as it was ugly, it was only one thing- AP.

(-ex-gm Shortround)

[Gossamer]

It's all your fault and you know it, Mr. Shortround! Naw, I kid. It wasn't a jab, Shorty. You're great! And you know it.. we all just mod differently. I think the whole feeling was not that we handed out impossible unsolvable problems. There are reasonable approaches to Old Prime's problems. I'm just not going to tell a PC what they are in a thread... half the fun is letting a person think for themselves ... no freebies here. I don't mind doing so in a discussion thread, but when we are in roleplay, all that changes. We felt the approach to the problem was not going to work the way some pc's proposed. I think Old Prime's problem wasn't to throw a bunch of money at it and hope to solve its issues that way.

Great communities are built up internally by changing the people's attitudes by giving them the feel that they can make a difference and they can do for themselves rather than simply be handed things by the rich... which they will always always always hate, being the poor. Throwing money, throughout all of history, just breeds resentment and disfunction.

It goes back to the old addage... give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.

That was the essence of Old Prime's problem. Building them houses doesn't change the mindset. They have to want to be a community and want to grow and prosper. Traditionally the best way to do that is to educate people. Its rare that educated folks participate in the kinds of problems Old Prime has... and if you could just get a hold of one generation, the whole demography would change over time... and thats a whole lot easier than prettying things up.

[Tarot]

Juan, I've edited the AP coat of arms to remove the edge artifacts as best I could. I'm afraid I can't do better than this with an image so small and blurry.

Edit: Er, posted to wrong thread.

[Kaelon]

Awesome! Thanks so much, Tarot!