RP: Subfactions? Subcabals?

Ok, a quick message exchange with Hollo and AWOL got me thinking.
Since the relaunch ODO stopped being a strictly Templar cabal. Even though all RP characters are amenable to Omne Datum Optimum doce of conduct, ideals and whatnot (or pay lip-service to them, I don't judge if you're a spy, infiltrator, or one of Daimon Kyota's personalitis given a new body:P) there are as many reasons o join ODO for a character as there are characters (or possibly more). Now - it's easier for a Temp character to become ODOite - but what about Drags and Lumies?

My question to you people is - do we need a unified front of some kind? A Blue Infiltrator ODO corps to have a explanation why a Lumie is ODO (and how much does it piss of KG:>?). An ODO (Official Dragon Oafs) Group to explain why Dragons seem to uphold Templar ideals?

I'm not talking about dividing ODO as cabal ooc, of course - just a flavor for those of you that enjoy role playing.

The way I see it - it would be good to get it all together, before two ODO Dragons meet IC and we'll see a conversation like "-I was sent here by Bong Cha! -You too? What the hell, is she getting senile? Amnesiac?" (terrible joke for those who finished Orochi Tower, I know)

First thing is to see how many RPers are there from different factions than Templars and if they want to get together and invent something together.

Any thoughts, people?

(The title is here just to piss Master Commanders off so they read it - no subcabals, of course! :>)

There will be a post tomorrow about the nature of the changes to ODO 😀

The short, non-rp version is that ODO is deliberately moving away from being templar only. We are instead welcoming anyone who shares our core aims and ideals in terms of the RP setting. Those aims and ideals are not going to be something which is purely templar, and there will be stuff which will appeal to different people for different reasons.

If people want to have some faction specific stuff in RP, awesome! 🙂 If there is stuff which people think of that they'd like to organise, shoot me a message and we can have a chat about how best to achieve that and what support we can give you. Don't think that just because you aren't a master commander you can't have input. Honestly, I'd be thrilled if we had 3 mini faction specific campaigns going alongside the main cabal-wide one 🙂

As a side thought, please be vocal about wanting to get involved with RP and what kind of times your available. We've got a cabal which encompasses most timezones, but if we don't know that people want stuff, it's likely to get organised around EU and US primetimes, just because that's when we have officers on to help co-ordinate stuff.

Aaah, damn you, AWOL! You foiled my deliberate plan of secret secession and espionage!

Ezgadi, that is a great idea! That also did get me thinking. It reminds me of a major event in World of Darkness called the Convention of Thorns. It was when three groups came together to try and make a peace treaty. Having an rp about agreements and disagreements on running a trifecta (experimental?) cabal would be really cool. What did we find that was lacking from a purist cabal,if any?

Woah. CoT happened because one faction got beaten to a pulp and betrayed by their leaders:>

Don't get me wrong, I'm polish, I'm genetically created to argue in courts and attend negotiations that have no chances of any success - but I don't know how negotiations you talk about could even take place. Let's consider - it's not as ODO was created by three factions. It was Templar first and foremost. As far as I can see, if other factions' agents got admitted to ODO - they had to swear to uphold ODO ideals. And few weeks after that they want to split the Cabal into splintergroups? Doesn't add up - they could just go to a different Cabal or start their own...

With that said - I wouldn't say no to few troublemakers shouting "ODO for everybody! Blue is NOT a second rate citizen!" (and I'd love to see someone playing Pit and Pendulum to silence the troublemakers).

I can't personally, Ezgadi is an ODO loyalist, but... wait. I have alts.

<goes somewhere quiet to think it through>

We'd rather avoid RP which seeks to divide the cabal tbh, as stuff has a tendency to leak over into RL a little too easily. The idea is that ODO members have chosen to associate with us, not that we have been ordered to play nicely by our different factions. If anything, the concept is closer to us working together despite our factions not trusting each other.

It'd be hard to have a good story about the running of the cabal without it relying heavily on the officers actually running the place. That throws up issues around the current lack of faction diversity amongst the officers (we are still predominantly templar) and runs the risk of causing rifts in the cabal based around factions.
I can totally get what Ezgadi says about it sounding cool about Blue is not a second rate citizen, but it's too easy for it to become a reality, and we don't want our members feeling that way. If anything, we'd want our illuminati members to be defending ODO to their faction mates, saying that ODO really is for everybody, and that they don't want to betray their cabal just because some lumie fixer thinks we'd be an easy mark, or a Dragon questioning whether his actions would harm the cabal, even though it might favour the Dragon. There are going to be groups in the Templar membership too who have different levels of loyalty to Temple Hall. AWOL for example is pretty contemptuous of Temple Hall, as he's not big on unearned respect and authority, and thinks that the Templar are often unnecessarily heavy handed and puritanical when it comes to their solutions. He's got a lot more loyalty to ODO than to the Templars.

The factions are still going to exert pressure on our characters though. There are going to be times when we're told not to share information about situations which do not effect ODO with other factions. Or it might effect ODO, and it's then up to the members where their true loyalties lie and how far they are willing to go.

Hear hear!

fair enough.