Triad Forum

Hi Triad Weyrs!

You're probably aware that the club has got a lot quieter over the last year, with not many posts or activity here on the forum. Recently, some of the council have been talking about possible ideas for becoming more active again and making the club more appealing to new members. We also understand that a lot of us don't have as much time as we used to and it would be good to adapt so people can participate as much or as little as they feel comfortable with.

We wanted to share those ideas here and get some feedback from the members - as some are quite big changes, we would really like to give everyone the chance to share what they think, ask questions, or make other suggestions.

It would also be good to know who is still interested in writing (no matter how often) or might be in the future - or even if not, we would love to hear from you just to know that everyone is OK!

If you want to reply, please do that here in this thread on the forum (as not everyone has access to Discord) - if you want to chat on Discord about this then that's fine, but if you can also post any ideas/responses to the forum it would be really appreciated!

If we agree on some/all of these changes, I (Estelle) can go ahead and update the website over the holiday period so it's ready for any recruiting people want to do! :)

Thank you!

Open Up Impression / Dragonrider Sexuality

When Triad Weyrs was first opened in the early 2000s, all Pern roleplaying groups had to follow a set of "canon rules", which are summarised on our website in the FAQ (http://www.triadweyrs.org/faq.php?fq_id=692). This is no longer the case, and while we are proud of sticking closely to the Pern of the novels and respecting Anne McCaffrey's vision for her world, we are considering making some adjustments so we're more open and welcoming to a range of characters. In particular, we want to make sure we're not restricting queer, trans and characters with disabilities from certain roles.

The suggestion is to:

• Update rule 4, so that a dragonrider's sexuality is no longer a factor in the colour of the dragon they Impress. However, any kind of serious difficulty arising from a mating flight would need to be approved by the writers of the Weyrleaders or the Council.
• Update rule 8, so that a dragon can Impress to a disabled Candidate with approval from the Weyrleaders or the Council.

"Difficulties with mating flights" could include not ending up with your preferred gender, but would also include inexperienced riders, large gaps in age or rank or even a strong personal dislike for the other rider - anything that would cause a rider (and their dragon) serious distress. The approval would ensure that these issues are written about thoughtfully and not over-used. Any mark requirements based on dragonrider sexuality would no longer apply.

If a majority of people wouldn't be comfortable with completely dropping rule 4, we could also consider relaxation of chromatic dragons, and having it only apply to metallic (gold and bronze) dragons.

As we're in a Pass, it's likely that the Weyrleaders would restrict Candidacy to those who are physically capable of fighting Thread. However, that does leave some options, such as Impression from the Stands or hidden disabilities - and ultimately, it would always be preferred that a hatchling Impresses, even if the rider might not be able to fight, rather than dies for lack of a lifemate. The approval is required here to make sure the story is realistic for the Weyr and not over used.

Relax Posting Requirements

This would remove the range of different posting requirements for ranking characters. The idea is to make it easier on people who have busy lives, need to take time off to deal with life situations or are finding it difficult to post for other reasons. It also means we don't need to track posting and enforce these rules, which saves on admin.

However, we do want to make sure that if the writer becomes inactive, a ranking position can be opened up for someone else to take over. Therefore, if a character is not posted about for a fixed time (6 months, say), the council may contact them and ask if they want to continue with the character, move them to a non-ranking position or retire them/write them out. If there isn't a response then, the council would decide what to do to open up the position. We would always want to keep our much-loved characters in place if we can and offer help and post inspiration!

This would remove the need for any mark rewards related to reqs-free months or characters. Also, posting outside the current "Pern month" would no longer be a problem (as we aren't counting posts) - although we encourage keeping up-to-date, backdated posts are always preferable to no posts!

Ideas to get active

We have some suggestions to get people excited about writing again which are listed below - if you are interested in any of them let us know! But would definitely like to hear if anyone has any additional ideas!

• Hold a PC Hatching
• Club wide plots - crop disease in ACH, tensions between EFH and the Weyr, etc.
• Themed posting challenges for a month/season
• Advertising for new members! Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, anywhere else?

I am very excited about these changes, and I'm on board for all of them!

In particular, I would love it if Blue could Impress before he's completely discovered and kicked out of the Candidacy for being (mostly) deaf.

I am still here and ready and willing to write with all of you.

I would love to get writing again, and removing sexuality impression and allowing disabled characters to impress gets a massive HELL YEAH from me!

I think that having a hatching, doing events, and having a big plot could all help get the game active! But I'll be real, it's a massive move, but for attracting new people, I think the best thing we could do is switch to being a forum game. Email roleplay is dying out and most people don't even know how to do it anymore. I don't see us attracting many new members sticking to this format.

Also, in terms of advertising, I would suggest avoiding Pern Connect. It is currently the big Pern advertising hub, but it has historically been used to launch harassment campaigns, including by the site owner, who has been known to livestream interrogations of other fandom members to enforce mass bannings and cancelation. If we step too far into that space, we will likely face massive pressure to remove gender impression as well (as in gis men on gold and cis women on bronze) and be accused of being transphobes if we do not capitulate, as recently happened to another game.

Rule 8, I think being deaf is about the only disability that would still allow a dragon to Impress to a Candidate, because physically you're still fit for fighting Thread, especially since dragonriders tend to communicate via their dragons and hand signals anyway while fighting Thread. However, I think vision or other physical impairments that would keep one from fighting Thread would prevent a person from Impressing.

Since we're still fighting Thread in our timeline, I think dragons would ultimately still only Impress to people able to physically participate in Threadfall.


All of that being said, nothing is a deal breaker for me, I'm just happy to write :)


P.S. I think it is true that most role-play have gone to forums, but I've tried several different forums and never liked it. Everything seems to become centered on graphics, and font colors, and yada yada yada. With the play-by-email format, everything is centered on the quality of the writing. Not that there isn't quality writing on some forums, but all of the other stuff becomes a pain in the butt. The other thing I have noticed about RPing on forums is that people joining and leaving is a constant revolving door.

real quick from me, i'm down for the relaxation the impression rules on the chromatic dragons. nearly every club has gone that route over the years and it helps open up doors for writers. also fine with having disabled characters impress so long as their disability doesn't hamper their ability to be a fighting team, which i think pretty much just excludes a blind character.

most clubs that i've written in have also relaxed the posting requirements and gone the route the council is proposing, which i personally like because i am also busy with things but do like to write.

advertising on tumblr, reddit seem to be good ideas.

on the suggestion of moving to forum format, i have written in both email and forum formats and personally like email between because of the narrative flow of the story.

but, for all of the changes, down for whatever the majority decides.

Posting again because I forgot to mention this in my initial post.

To clarify, I support removing sexuality restrictions for all colors. I already supported allowing bisexual male green and brownriders, but if we're going to completely do away with sexuality for chromatics, we should for metallics as well. I don't really know how to explain it, but removing them for chromatics and not metallics makes me feel kinda... Icky? Like, having some sort of guidelines for all of them is following canon, but just making it so that just golds and bronzes are heterosexual only feels like it comes dangerously close to having something to say about queer people's ability to lead, especially with rank being so tied to color on triad. So this might just be me, but loosening restrictions is one thing, but for total removal, I feel like it should be all or nothing.

There is a strong possibility that I would need someone to constantly harass me to keep up with things if we were forum-based. I'm awful at it.

I'm all for getting the club more active and trying to recruit new members!

Dragons can and do evolve beyond their design. 9th Pass dragons were much bigger than what Kitty Ping designed them for, so 10th Pass dragons could change to lose their strict ties to rider sexuality.

I agree with disabled people Impressing too, with approval.

The idea of relaxing posting requirements is nice too. I know I haven't been as active as I'd like but I do want to keep my rankers.

I really like everything proposed here, and especially the fact that opening up Impression would need approval to make sure any storylines are thought through. Relaxing posting requirements makes a lot of sense too.

I tried out a forum-based group and found it disconcerting to have a bunch of unfinished posts everywhere, but I know a lot of people like that format.

I'd find themed posting challenges really helpful to get back into the swing of writing. I also always find PC Hatchings fun.

Quote from: Curious on December 03, 2023, 05:52:30 PM
Posting again because I forgot to mention this in my initial post.

To clarify, I support removing sexuality restrictions for all colors. I already supported allowing bisexual male green and brownriders, but if we're going to completely do away with sexuality for chromatics, we should for metallics as well. I don't really know how to explain it, but removing them for chromatics and not metallics makes me feel kinda... Icky? Like, having some sort of guidelines for all of them is following canon, but just making it so that just golds and bronzes are heterosexual only feels like it comes dangerously close to having something to say about queer people's ability to lead, especially with rank being so tied to color on triad. So this might just be me, but loosening restrictions is one thing, but for total removal, I feel like it should be all or nothing.

ah you bring up a good thing that i should clarify in my initial post: i'm fine with the sexuality of riders no longer being tied to impression. a lesbian goldrider is fine but i still support the metallics being tied to the gender restrictions. chromatics can do whatever they want. but again, totally going with whatever is decided. it won't stop me from playing 

What about female brownriders? Maybe as a higher-tier reward like HAD? I'm not after this personally, I just like the idea of women being able to potentially, even as a longshot, Impress anything but bronze the way men can Impress anything but gold.

I also definitely want metallics to stay gender locked! I'd be fine with female brownriders as a very rare thing though - it could be a fun plot and something to work toward. But I'm also fine with us not getting that, since they never appeared in the books.

(I will note, however, that it may allow us to more easily recruit MUSH-style roleplayers, as they're used to no sexuality restrictions and woman being able to impress anything but bronze. Triads restrictions probably seem, well, super restrictive. But there's also an appeal to there being one last game that does stick to book canon in terms of female brownriders! Sexuality restrictions are definitely doing us more harm than good by this point though.)

It was mentioned in the discord, but I second sexuality restrictions lifting in-story as a dragonkin development, with some wiggle-room for more recently impressed riders whose players didn't want them to be strictly one sexuality, but were forced by Triad's restrictions. Dragonkin changing, even in this subtle way, could be really fun to play out as a plotline! I'm loving the female blueriders plotline and definitely want to keep following that and this could be a similar thing, but without the mark or rarity restrictions.

Thank you for all of the responses so far and the great ideas! I'm really glad that people are excited about the possibilities of these changes and keen to get posting again.

I have summarised the ideas for the rest of the council and we will hopefully have some updates soon (but feel free to keep discussing, I will add any new ideas as they come in!)

I'm a new member still working on my first character, so take all this with a grain of salt, but here's my two cents:

The rule updates sound great, 4 especially. Like halyonix, lesbian goldrider is fine in my book, but I do like colors being tied to gender though. I always figured that flightlust generally temporarily overrode preference anyway.

Relaxing post requirements is also nice. I plan to be active, but over the years the post requirements (and mentor post vetting) are things that intimidated me about Triad.

The Activity Promotion ideas all look fun!

Other suggestions:

Upping Allowed Candidate Ages?
The upper limit at least. 25? I saw one club that went up to 28, which was tempting. Thread is actively falling. Getting capable adults on fighting dragons seems like it would have it's draws. I'll be honest. I've been writing in the Pern fandom for over a decade. I've played a lot of teen candidates. I'd be excited for something different and new— Also in my previous clubs, eventually all the PC hatchings tend to make the rider population skew very young.

Have Some Way to Publicly Show In-Progress Post activity?
One thing that made Triad seem dead to me when I first looked at it is that there's no real way to tell if members are currently working on Joint-Posts? And as far as I can tell, finished joint posts are all that get posted to the mailing list I signed up for. Seeing replies fly back and forth, either on a forum or on a mailing list, is what tells me a game is hopping and inspires me to post more too. (I DO like the practice of posting whole JP to the site later though. I love the little summaries at the top).

One random thought about relaxing posting requirements that the council might already be figuring out. As someone who doesn't currently have any ranking personas but is eyeing a few, I'd find it helpful to have some guidance to help me figure out when to reach out to someone about creating a new ranking persona, or how long to wait between getting new ranking personas. I assume some of this will be determined on a case-by-case basis, but I'm imagining a cool down period (of a few months? or more?) after getting a new ranking persona before you can create another. And then being a member in good standing (whether that means a minimal posting requirement or something else) for some amount of time before being "eligible" for a ranking persona.

Regarding Corrin's comment about candidate ages, doesn't the human brain develop until your mid-late twenties? That would align with increasing the age of Impression. I don't feel strongly either way, but appreciate the question being raised. It wasn't something I'd thought about before.

Alright. I know this might not be very popular, but it feels important to say, so bear with me.

I second Francesca's post. I wasn't sure how to bring it up, but as it stands, it honestly kinda feels like there's an unspoken rule that rankers are reserved for older, established members and newer members need to be content with only playing wingriders forever. But the problem isn't just that there's no guide as to how to obtain rank. A lot of the ranks haven't been played in a very long time, even prior to the activity slump this year. And because they are filled by older inactive members, no one else can play them.

The combination of there being no guide for how to receive rank and many ranks being filled by inactive members is very discouraging to newer members who are trying to be active. Talking about loosening requirements actually makes me anxious because it makes me feel like people are going to be able to sit on their inactive rankers indefinitely and new members will simply never get opportunities. I can only speak for myself, but while I'm not going to quit if I don't get a ranker soon and appreciate the opportunites that have been given me, if it becomes clear that I'm just never going to get the opportunity to play rank no matter how active and involved I am, I'm not going to stick around.

Edit: It also feels worthwhile to mention that I did attempt to apply for an open Wingsecond position. I was at the height of my activity, very involved in the game, and meeting all requirements. However, I was ultimately unable to because I was told to speak to the Wingleader's player, who never responded to my email. So as it stands, newer members may not be able to get rank even if they do dig up for information and try to apply, as with how Triad works, you are effectively unable to create characters for the lower ranks if the rank directly above is inactive.

Hi folks,

I'm also brand new (hot on Corrin's heels) and have some ideas too:

• The rule updates would be fantastic. I'm mostly done my first character and honestly I'm just waiting to see what the verdict is on sexuality changes. At this point I think it's best to do away with sexuality-based impressions entirely, and it could be a neat plot-arc for some established characters. I think it's very odd to keep The Gays (tm) out of leadership roles, and I don't believe that the dragons and Weyr mindset really have the same understandings of 2SLGBTQIA+ that we do anyway. I'm okay with keeping the colours based on gender, but could go so far to say that nonbinary/genderqueer riders/candidates will be considered on a case-by-case basis. I'm super biased that browns are my favorite (which is why I'm waiting on the sexuality changes, lol) and offering women impressing brown as a very special impression-only plot arc would be really neat and give some extra incentive to write women, especially since gold eggs tend to be so few and far between. 



• I like the idea of posting requirements, but maybe they need to be refreshed to reflect how folks are posting now that the game isn't a round robin PBeM style? Honestly I haven't looked too much into it, but I wonder if it's harder to hit the post requirements now that folks are only posting finished works to the group list. I like having some sort of accountability so ranking positions continue to be active and pushing along group-wide plotlines, but maybe a check-in/"role call" periodically may fit better?

For site-wide plots, I'm happy with just about anything! I haven't played Pern for several years now so everything will be new.

As a new member trying to figure out all the canon before I submit a character, there looks like there's a lot of items on the website that aren't up to date with what it says on the forums or could be condensed-- for example, the actual Impress rules stay only straight women on greens, but there's an FAQ item later that offers buying a lesbian/bi impression or a woman on blue. It's not super easy for new members to get a sense of if the game is active or not, and having a more recent edited date on some of the intro articles would definitely help.

On that thought, I think the marks/point collection and items to "purchase" could be updated. Does an entirely finished joint post on google groups count as 1 point, or multiple points? How is this tracked? This is tied a bit into the post requirement issue too-- I'm not entirely sure how any of that is tracked anymore and if the expectation is accidentally higher than it was originally intended.

If the intent is to do a PC hatching to bring in new members/get folks active again, it may be worth it to look at the mark costs for impressing bronzes, women on blues, and Stands impressions-- these can be great incentives for activity and really hype up a hatching. Hatchings I've run in the past very rarely have a large amount of folks looking for any of these things even when there isn't a "cost" associated with them, so I only expect those kinds of changes to lower barrier to entry for new members, if anything.

Anyway, thanks for listening to me! I hope we get to write together soon. :)

Hi! Also new, so please also take my opinions with a grain of salt, as I know that those of you who have already been here and been active have a better understanding of the game and its culture than I do!

But, my thoughts:
I've been in Pern fandom for 25+ years now, and was there for Anne bringing the big hammer down on the fandom and the infamous tent-peg statement, etc. and wow, nothing drives home how much times have changed more than looking back on that stuff, and realizing how much our understanding of, and attitudes about, sexuality in general have changed.

My view on sexuality-based Impressions, as laid out in Anne's Renewable Airforce document (the origin of club rules like these in most clubs, and I assume Triad, as well) has always been this: if a dragon's urge to mate is so strong and undeniable that they will mate regardless of whether their rider even wants it to happen or not -- as is drilled home to us canonically many times -- why should they suddenly care enough about the particulars of their rider's desires and preferences to make it a literal hill to die on? Does it really make sense that Kitti Ping would program a creature that will drag their rider into non and/or dub-consensual sex with no second thoughts, but would choose to die on the Sands for lack of a partner rather than pick someone who is going to be sad about putting their eggplant in the wrong salad for two minutes once every few weeks/months during said non/dub-consensual sex?

That said, from a new member standpoint: I can't recall the last time I was in a club that actually still adheres to the old Renewable Airforce, and I think it would be great if Triad dropped all sexuality-based Impression requirements. They feel really limiting -- not just from an Impression standpoint, but from a what-relationships-can-my-character-develop standpoint, and a what-ambitions-can-my-gay-or-bi-character-have standpoint. Of course, it wouldn't change how the Hold and Craftfolk may view it.

As for gender-based Impression and any special requirements for those, I'm neutral on it. ICly that may be limited by lack of female candidates to choose from, though OOCly-speaking I doubt that's a problem.

For posting requirements, can't really weigh in as I'm not sure how the current level of these is affecting the club. I do think there should be some way to address the problem of people sitting on rank and blocking others from obtaining it or even doing other things due to lack of response from writers of important characters, and I personally don't mind adhering to requirements if I ever wrote a ranking character of some sort. But what approach/level of these works for Triad is beyond my ability to give proper input on currently.

For activity: Hatchings are the classic, for good reason. I think most of us probably got into Pern in the first place because of the Impression fantasy? And plots in general do tend to draw folks in, especially if there's lots of opportunity to get involved.

Not sure where the best place to recruit is these days, but I'm absolutely certain that there are old Pern veterans like myself that really miss it and are having increasing difficulty finding places to play that are reasonably canon-compliant.

Thanks for reading my little piece -- I'm happy to be here regardless of what the club decides, and look forward to writing with all of you eventually!

Brief Edit: Just wanted to clarify that I'm not suggesting that people/characters shouldn't care about where their eggplant goes. Sexual identity is very important to many people. Just that I don't think the dragons care.

Other wishlist items that occur to me as I get more familiar with the site/s:

1. Fewer and easier security questions to posts in the forums.
Would it be secure enough with just one? It's not so easy to be casually active and shoot off a short post. Especially since I haven't read the Pern books in ages, lol. I've had to google the answer a few times.

2. Allow gold only candidates. Let them be disappointed!
We had a chat about this in Discord tonight. Curious seconded this, and added most of the description below:
It's strange that male candidates can state an Impression preference, but female candidates have to take a gamble on two very different outcomes. It's almost like a punishment. The fact that they automatically Impress green if they don't get gold, locks us out of other neat storylines, because if you want a female character to be able to potentially get rank, there are other opportunities for women if they don't get gold, but green locks a character out of rank forever unless you're okay with a wingthird glass ceiling.

Even if you're not interested in Rank, if you'd just prefer other story lines-- considering there is active Hold RP at Triad, there's also a whole other route of plots we're cut off of for girls who fail to Impress. We can have disappointed girls returning home to marry; trying to get into one of the few crafts that will take them; trying to get back into the graces of a family they left; trying to rise through the ranks and become headwomen or ensnare a Holder!

I get wanting to dissuade Shiny Hunters, but I don't think this is The Way. It limits and dictates a writer's RP choices too much. I think (light?) activity requirements and or actual responsibilities like I've seen for rankers (Location reports?) does the job much better. Also, I think the club is small and intimate enough that Shiny Hunters shouldn't be too much of an issue? At least not such an issue that it's worth handicapping other play. And the club wide vote for impression should really do the trick to thwart them anyway. I imagine any gold Impressee really has to earn it here. 

Duskdog also chimed in and put it well:

"Personally, I would think that someone writing a candidate in pursuit of gold, who also puts in the time and effort to consider and plot out other possibilities for the character should they not Impress -- particularly outside of the candidate-Impression cycle -- should be encouraged. It shows forethought, and devotion to the character concept as-is without a gold involved.

"On the other hand, I could also see there being a fear of "abandoned" female candidates who get tossed by the wayside if they don't get the gold and don't plot any alternatives. But honestly, if that's going to happen, it's going to happen regardless -- they'll just be abandoned greenriders instead of abandoned candidates."

Shiny Hunters were a huge problem back in the height of fandom, but I think that now, with fandom as small as it is, this is far less of an issue.

And, as Corrin quoted from me above: putting them on green doesn't really discourage Shiny Hunting in general, because if all they wanted was gold, they're still going to abandon the character regardless of whether they're on green or not. It really just bars "failed" gold candidates from seeking any sort of storyline outside of "well you're a greenrider now".

Nothing wrong with that storyline, but do they all need to be forced into the same path?

For the forum post verification: I have no problem answering the questions, but I have to make it say the letters out loud every single time, because dang if I can actually read the verification jumble LOL

Maybe a "gold only" candidate could be bought with member reward marks? The writer would pay ahead of the Hatching to guarantee that if they don't win the contest, their Candidate character doesn't Impress.

I think that would at least help to prevent characters being abandoned if they don't get gold. If you're willing to pay with member rewards, you're likely to have story ideas for a disappointed Candidate.

I second what Devin said. If someone wanted their candidate to have a shot at gold and had a storyline idea for if the candidate didn't impress but didn't have anything that they wanted to do with their character if they impressed green and was forced onto green regardless, I can actually see it making them far more likely to abandon the character. I can imagine that people would be willing to pay marks to avoid that, even knowing that it does not at all increase their chances of impressing gold and they won't get a refund if they do get it. I know I would under certain circumstances.

i would like to pivot and ask the question about writer inactivity because i was wondering if the council had any plans to reach out to some of those writers with rankers who have been inactive for a long period of time. it might free up some ranks for newbies to step into and revitalize the club.

Great Question.  Have you looked at the Open Rank page?  There are 24 open positions at the moment. Do any of those interest you? 

Still open to the discussion of the rule changes of course but there are currently many open positions.

Open Rank: https://triadweyrs.org/list_openrank.php

And if you're interested there are also adoptables and some of them are also rankers:
https://triadweyrs.org/list_adopt.php

Hi everyone!

Thank you all so much for all of your feedback on the proposed rule changes and for your honest and constructive suggestions for improvements! I am really excited to get Triad Weyrs more active again and this has generated some great ideas which I think will make the club much more fun and welcoming.

To give you an update on what's going on:

• We plan to update the website with the proposed rule changes and posting requirement updates at the weekend, having taken all of your comments into account, and will let you know when this is done.
• The council is actively discussing all of your additional suggestions and will update the club on each one. It may take a little while, as we want to make sure that they are all fully considered and that council members with busy lives have time to respond! We also want to try out changes one by one and check they work for us (for example, seeing how we do with female blueriders before female brownriders).
• In the meantime, the rules are what they are :) I know there is some conflicting information on the website which we plan to correct - if you have any questions please do post in the Member Inquiries board or reach out to a council member. We know people are waiting for changes to create new characters and start plots and we appreciate your patience!

Do continue to post ideas here in this thread if you have any! If you'd like to use Discord, that's fine, but don't forget that not everyone uses it so:

• Please post any suggestions that you want considered by the council in this thread on the forum
• If you want to have a detailed discussion on Discord, it may be better to take it out of the main #general or #triadweyrs channels and into a group chat or message a council member to avoid any confusion about whether you are asking about the current rules or suggesting a change!

One final note - everyone appears to like the idea of having a Hatching soon so we will definitely be doing that! We'll make an announcement with a location soon...

:goldegg

Quote from: Corrin on January 03, 2024, 10:50:17 PM
1. Fewer and easier security questions to posts in the forums.
Would it be secure enough with just one? It's not so easy to be casually active and shoot off a short post. Especially since I haven't read the Pern books in ages, lol. I've had to google the answer a few times.

Just to quickly reply to this - I was initially not sure what was going on as had never seen this, but I found a forum setting where members with less than 3 posts have to pass verification. I have changed this to less than 1 so it should (hopefully) only apply for the first post and for guests now!

Quote from: Suzee on January 04, 2024, 10:45:01 AM
Great Question.  Have you looked at the Open Rank page?  There are 24 open positions at the moment. Do any of those interest you? 

Still open to the discussion of the rule changes of course but there are currently many open positions.

Open Rank: https://triadweyrs.org/list_openrank.php

And if you're interested there are also adoptables and some of them are also rankers:
https://triadweyrs.org/list_adopt.php

Just to clarify before I start, since there seems to be a lot of confusion about the difference between folks personally wanting a thing, and folks just trying to look at the overall picture and discuss problems they see: I am not personally seeking rank at this time, nor do I plan to in the immediate future.

But I think it's important to point out a few things here:

1. People are rarely just looking for any random rank that may be available. They are typically looking for some specific role, or a specific advancement for a particular character. So "24 open positions" may not mean anything to a person who's hoping for, say, an established persona to be promoted to Wingleader, because none of those 24 open positions are Wingleader. (That's just an example, not meant to be taken as a literal representation of ranks that are available.) And I don't think anyone is opposed to waiting a while for a particular position to come open, if necessary -- nobody expects all ranks to be open at all times. The issue is that players need to at least be able to have some sort of hope that a particular position may come open in the future. If the character occupying the spot is active, there's always hope, because that writer may eventually choose to have that character's story take a turn that leaves the position open (whether through death, demotion, promotion, lateral movement, etc.). But that hope doesn't exist if the spot is occupied by an inactive character if consequences don't exist. If it's apparent that people will be allowed to just sit on their rank indefinitely, despite not actually writing for that character in months or even years, it starts to get very discouraging for players -- especially if it starts to become a pattern.

2. Many of them say "Contact [Insert Person Here] for Details". If [Insert Person Here] is inactive and missing in action so that you can't contact them, then what? (This exact scenario has already been a problem for someone, as detailed earlier in this thread.) Will the Council override and allow someone to fill the position, even if the person "in charge" of it never replies to inquiries? The answer to this is unclear, and I think folks are just looking for clarification on this.

3. Adoptable Personas are great, but again, most people aren't just trying to collect rank badges to slap on their chest. They're looking for a fulfilling roleplay option for a particular character (whether it be an established one, or a new one they're working on), and often the adoptable in question doesn't fit what they're looking for -- and may even be attached to other "dead" or AWOL characters, themselves, which removes a lot of the appeal.

I'm glad we have the Open Ranks page, and available adoptables, but those don't really address the specific concerns that have been raised.

Quote from: Estelle on January 04, 2024, 01:41:49 PM

Quote from: Corrin on January 03, 2024, 10:50:17 PM
1. Fewer and easier security questions to posts in the forums.
Would it be secure enough with just one? It's not so easy to be casually active and shoot off a short post. Especially since I haven't read the Pern books in ages, lol. I've had to google the answer a few times.

Just to quickly reply to this - I was initially not sure what was going on as had never seen this, but I found a forum setting where members with less than 3 posts have to pass verification. I have changed this to less than 1 so it should (hopefully) only apply for the first post and for guests now!

Oh thank goodness, you didn't see me trying to figure out which of...three? Mastersmiths during the 9th Pass the security question wanted. I'm glad it's just a newbie thing and not for every post going forward.

Thank you for all the updates and I'm excited to see what comes next!

Just wanted to add something, there's been many comments made about people "sitting on rank" and inactive people in ranking positions. For people who have not been at Triad lately, the entire club has been inactive for the past year, maybe two. Only recently have members been returning and coming out of hibernation - this coincided with a sudden influx of people wanting to join and wanting to suggest changes to a club they've just joined or haven't even joined yet. Some of us have been here at Triad for a decade (or decades) and now a lot of change requests are being thrown at us.

Please just give us a second to catch up from the whiplash, lol.

I'm not saying this applies to ALL positions of rank held by inactive writers, but give us a second to get the sleep out of our eyes.

Thanks  :sheepish:

If you've joined recently and are looking coposts all of my personas are up for coposts :)

You can shoot me an email at obsidian.writer@gmail.com - I'm still old school and suck at Discord, so email is best.

I can't speak for anyone else, of course, but I'll offer my apologies if any of my suggestions have come across as attacks, because that certainly wasn't my intention. I'm just excited to get involved, and well, the rules discussion seems to be where the action is happening right now -- and it seems important. As I've said, I don't expect my opinions to necessarily carry much weight, as I'm not yet familiar with club culture.

As for the thoughts about rank: I'm not actually trying to make a judgment on whether anyone is actually sitting on rank or not. I haven't been around long enough to make that call. But I saw a couple of other members who have been around longer than me raising concerns about some things, and it felt like some of the replies they've gotten (both here and in the Discord) have been missing the essence of what they're actually saying, so I was hoping to help clarify.

Please don't feel rushed! I'm sure nobody intends for their discussion on these topics to imply "change this now", and of course getting together to make decisions on important stuff takes time and organization that can't always happen quickly.

Personally-speaking none of the proposed rules changes even affects any of my currently-planned characters, so you're eventually getting them regardless of any decisions made here. :D

Hey guys, I'm a very old writer from here back in the day who-to be honest-left because of the strict straights only on Crome, no female on blue or brown, etc. I so love that you guys are loosening the rules up. I just want to add that women on brown and blue, and LGBT on gold, brown and bronzes would make me so delighted.

A consideration for the Sexuality Rule Change Policy :)

Rather than rolling it out to only new characters, why not throw it open to everyone? That way, we can play it as something that's always been in our world, as opposed to "oh my gosh, that unicorn brownrider who is gay/bisexual, how NEW!" It can just be people being whoever they want. People grow and change in real life, so I don't think a past history on a persona sheet should keep a Pern dragonrider from growing and changing as well.

If it's kept to only new characters then I feel like there would be a marked delineation of "old rule personas" vs "new rule personas"

Just a thought. I'm happy either way, of course!

echoing heather here since we were chatting about this on discord. in the books, brown and blue riders were often gay/bisexual and i think it would be fun to play out those men who ride male dragons but are weyrmates (ie: a brownrider with a bluerider). 

Yes!

I can see there being some concern about retroactively changing some characters, especially if they were originally another writer's character, NPC, or adoptable. But in that case I think we can reach out to the other players that have connections to those characters and have that conversation before making that kind of backstory change. There's lots of backdated stories that could happen that way (ie. coming out, first dates, etc) so I feel like many of those conversations would happen naturally anyway.

Another way we could go is that older characters can "lean into" the new sexuality rules, in a way-- older characters that were mostly straight before developing into LGBTQIA+ relationships. Love me an older person coming out story, or maybe this was the first queer relationship they decided to pursue. There's a lot of opportunity to build these kinds of stories so everyone is included. :)

Also, because this could be us:

Retroactively changing rider sexuality rules means our current personas have unfair restrictions. A queer male rider could only Impress green or blue. That character never had the chance for a brown, to be a Wingsecond or Weyrlingmaster. A bronze or brownrider could never have had a romantic relationship with another man - their history is limited to being heterosexual.

When I created characters I had to decide, for example, if I wanted him to be gay OR a brownrider. I can't go back and give my greenrider a brown instead.

So if we completely did away with any sexuality restrictions for both new and old characters, a Weyrleader could be queer (cool, cool) BUT an existing queer character can never be Weyrleader.

(we already have men on male dragons as weyrmates. I write blue/blue relationships allll the time!)

Ok I have another thought. Queer people are just people but that queerness shapes who we are. Our characters live in a homophobic world even if they've been in the safe bubble of the Weyr their whole lives. Queer male dragonriders could only have Impressed green or blue. Queer women couldn't Impress at all until just recently (per club rules must be new Impressions only).

We can choose to say "dragons don't care about rider sexuality" but the characters have lived in a world where that DID matter. It feels dismissive of both the characters and real life queer people to introduce 50 year old lesbian greenriders and 30 year old bi brownriders as if they've always existed and it's no big deal. It can and should make an impact on the world when a gay man Impresses brown, or a woman to blue, or for that matter a straight man to green. It forces everyone to reevaluate what's possible. It challenges stereotypes.

I write novels and in some queer characters are no big deal. In others being queer is a significant difference. Both of those are interesting and important in different ways. Given that Triad has been strict canon with rider sexuality up until now, I think it's far more interesting for characters to react to the changes as they happen, to have the dragons themselves change how they choose riders (with typical dragonic dismissiveness of WHY they choose the rider they do. They just know, that's all that matters to them.) The dragons, even the older ones, will be totally chill about it. The humans will freak out. LOL.

Hidebound folks thinking a dragon made the "wrong" choice. A gay boy realizing he could one day become Weyrleader. Older riders confused but happy for the younger generation. Harpers scouring the records to see if anything like that happened before. A straight boy utterly confused at Impressing green, insisting he only likes girls and no one believing him.

There's so much possibility for this to happen in character.

I think Devin makes a great point. There's a lot of narrative potential here, and we've already kind of started it with the first female bluerider.

So far I like Avery's explanation the most - that it should apply to characters who've Impressed within the last 10 or so Turns as dragons have seen the need for more riders/rider selection because of Threadfall.

Perhaps an older brownrider discovering they're bi could be a Member Reward option?

OK, now I'm going to go play with Google and FRIENDS as Sia suggested xD

I'll admit that I don't feel right about the idea of bi brownrider (etc) discovering his sexuality being something you have to purchase. I don't think there should be a pricetag on internal character development. Rank, and things of that nature, that are external forms of advancement/change? Sure. But a personal, internal emotional journey like discovering your own sexuality? There's something that feels a little wrong about placing that behind a paywall of sorts.

For context, I am speaking as someone whose own journey of personal discovery took literally decades, because I grew up in an environment that did not acknowledge people like me and never spoke about it. I didn't even know there was a word for it, let alone how to determine that this is what I am (and people still to this day deny that I exist -- Anne's Impression rules don't acknowledge people like me, either). This is always who I was, but I didn't have a full understanding of it, or realize that this is what fit what was always "weird" about me, until I was nearly forty. I would hate the idea of us shutting out the very concept of some older dragonriders being able to discover who they always actually were inside. Or ignoring the reality that sexuality, for some people, is fluid and can change over the course of their lives.

And while I understand Devin's point and think it's important to consider, I also think it's doing queer people a disservice in a different way to continue to give power to any of Anne's incredibly flawed and frankly offensive ideas about biology and sexuality in particular. That's why I personally would prefer to wipe the slate clean and pretend it never existed. Because if we acknowledge that it did, we're also saying that Anne was right -- at least in our canon past -- about a lot of the really gross things, about homosexual men in particular, that she used as a basis for her Impression rules.

That said, I acknowledge that I don't have any established characters who would be impacted by what amounts to a retcon of club past the way that Devin and others do, so it's probably much easier for me to feel the way I do about it, with an eye towards what I personally want to be able to play in the future. The idea that, if I were to write an adult bronze or brownrider in the future, he would still be required to be straight despite the kiddos queering it up all day makes me really sad. But my intention isn't to diminish the concerns that others, with a different perspective, have.

(Personally, I blame Anne herself for giving us such a difficult problem to unravel, not you guys. Reconciling the established history of the club with what's actually biologically and realistically true -- and sensitive to the representation of queer folks of all ages -- may be an impossible task.)

Yeah that's the sticky thing for me. Anne's sexuality rules and ideas were always awful -- but we had to follow them up until now.

All of my dragonriders were limited by that. The dragons they could Impress, and therefore the kinds of leadership positions they could hold. The kinds of relationships they could have based on what color dragon I wanted them to ride. My queer characters always knew they could never be Wingleader or Weyrleader, and in some ways I had to shape their personalities around those limits.

If Anne's terrible rules don't apply to anyone anymore then . . . what? Do we retcon everything?

Do I give A'dryn a brown instead because he has strong leadership skills? Do I write about D'ren having an ex-boyfriend in the past because I like the idea of him being bi?

If this was a new club we were building I would 100% want the sexuality rules gone for all characters.

Bi people don't have to have had an active relationship with the same gender in the past in order to "justify" being bi. (Just like straight people don't have to have been in a relationship in order to earn the right to call themselves straight, and gay people don't have to have been in a relationship with the same sex yet in order to know that they're gay and have the right to call themselves that.) So no, you wouldn't have to make up an ex-boyfriend for D'ren to have. He could have been bi the entire time and just never acted on it, or just recently realized that he might be attracted to men, too. That was the point of my previous post -- to point out that some people don't realize or develop these feelings until later in life.

Or... well, yeah, you could just make up an  ex-boyfriend for him. Why not? Unless your character entered the game as a shiny, brand new virgin, and has only had all relationships on-camera, isn't it just assumed that most of them have probably had relationships in the past? Why is it okay to assume that an adult character has had opposite-sex relationships in the past, but not okay to assume same-sex ones, if that were to become an option? The greenrider I just submitted doesn't have any lovers listed on his sheet, but do I have to do that in order to "prove" that he's gay? Of course not.

As for A'dryn... I don't think that having strong leadership skills guarantees a brown. Even in canon, the books constantly hammer home that Impression is impossible to predict. Putting aside the fact that this flies directly in the face of the sexuality rules in the first place (seriously, you'd think that if dragons only Impressed strictly to certain sexualities, it would be way easier to predict who's getting what), I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that dragon choice isn't flawless, and/or that human interpretations of it are also flawed. There are probably plenty of great potential leaders who have unfortunately been overlooked because they Impressed greens and blues. And there are probably plenty of people ill-suited to leadership who have Impressed brown or bronze. Can a baby dragon, who's new to the world, panicking with urgency to pair up, and not even intelligent enough to know when to stop eating, really choose so perfectly? And even if they can, are humans really so perfect? Can we really be reduced down to a list of separate and distinct qualities which are rock-solid and will never change in our entire lives -- particularly when we're teenagers, as the Candidates are? And even if that were true, do the dragonets pick based on immediate qualities, or on potential? Potential is not really a thing that can be measured, but if it were, how can a dragon predict the future? Can it take into account the cultural bias about dragon colors that will undoubtedly affect the weyrlings? Does it understand that the very act of Impressing bronze automatically confers with it the cultural perception that you're special and suited to lead, and is probably an immense confidence boost? Can it take into account the fact that the brown and bronze weyrlings will be actively encouraged as leaders, and supported in learning those skills, while the greens and blues won't? Can it consider the fact, in that split-second of Impression, that the 12-turn-old shy boy that it's looking at is going to grow in confidence and become someone entirely different by the time that he's 30? How does it even determine what "leadership skills" means? Is it being strong-willed? The ability to see the bigger picture? Being unafraid to make decisions? I would argue that plenty of blue and greenriders have those qualities, or certainly could develop them... if they had the opportunity and were supported in doing so.

(My personal belief is that dragonets choose based on personality-match first and foremost, rather than with some grand design about the future of the Weyr in mind. Maybe it's possible that bronzes tend to be stronger-willed, and tend to seek riders who are similar -- but that doesn't mean that they might not also seek other qualities, or that a green can't also be strong-willed and pick a strong-willed rider. Or choose the opposite, and be a complementary pair who enhance each other, rather than samesies. This is just my personal view on it, though.)

Regardless, though, my main concern is the idea that "people had to suffer this in the past, therefore it's not fair to them if we change that thing" is an argument that forestalls all positive progress. Forever.

So I suppose the big question is: is that what we want?

I'm not saying nothing can ever change because of past rules I'm saying we shouldn't retcon the long history of Triad.

Whatever our ideas of who dragons choose to Impress -- WE in the club before now HAD to follow Anne's rules. It sucked! I had to build my characters, their personalities and limits, entirely based on stupid rules about sexuality of riders. Our characters have always said and thought certain things about who can Impress what color -- because it was true!

If a brownrider can have romantic relationships with men, that . . . would have been discussed before. If there are straight men riding green that . . . would have been discussed before. If other colors were open to me at the time I might have had A'dryn Impress brown. Most of my characters would have been written differently - how they thought of themselves, what their potential futures could be like, who they flirted with, who they could have relationships with.

The changes should be for new Impressions. We've already established something has changed in dragon choice -- Kadira Impressed blue. Or do we change that rule so women have always been able to Impress blue and erase Kadira's storyline because it wasn't that shocking after all?

Duskdog makes a great point, and I have a similar personal experience. I think it's incredibly plausible that there have been bi people who didn't ever have it figured out because they'd always been told it was impossible because of the color of their dragon's hide. That can still comport with the narrative we've written so far without having to retcon anything.

Well yeah that happens all the time in real life.

But again, if we say that gay characters could always Impress brown and someone even makes a 43 year old gay brownrider . . . that changes the history. It changes what other characters even think is possible. Representation matters. A gay boy knowing he could Impress brown might change his whole outlook on life.

Or are these older riders all suddenly figuring it out . . . now? At the same time? Does that mean that any boy that knew he liked boys before Impression was locked out of brown and bronze, but if he didn't know then he could Impress brown or bronze? And then brown/bronze riders never realized any romantic attraction to other men until . . . now?

Well, we're saying that the dragons were the ones making these choices, right? So if the rider wasn't aware of it, then the dragon might not have been, either. I think the idea is that it could have already been a change in progress that people didn't notice because the dragons started choosing more fluid people first. Or if they did notice, they just assumed the people were lying or confused because of flights, etc.

It's pretty impossible to deny that a girl Impressed a blue, but folks dismiss people's sexuality all the time if it's not what they expect or are used to.

Hi! Just to give a quick update - the Council has a draft update to the rules and the FAQ concerning dragonrider sexuality. We are currently working on making sure we're agreed on it, and that we address the important points raised by a few people about how it works with the existing club history.

For now, I think it would be a good idea if we pause that particular aspect of the discussion in this thread for now until the FAQ is published?

If anyone has points they'd still like to make then please feel free to share them with the council (or a council member if it's easier) and we will take them into account as best we can.

Hopefully the updated FAQ will deal with some of these concerns. It might not be ideal - as was previously mentioned, transitioning over from these old rules is a complicated matter! We need to find a balance between staying consistent with the club's history and existing characters, what is now accepted about sexuality compared to when the books were written, and giving members the chance to write characters they're interested in or feel represent them. It might take a bit of time - bear with us, and thanks for doing so, so far :)