Suggestion Rebellions Reconsidered

[Veino Garn]

[Disclaimer: Yes, I am restarting the Underground which is a very Rebel Alliance/Rebellion style faction. Which is why I was reading the Rebellion rules in the first place and realized this.]

So, everyone's in uproar about the map game being stagnant and the invasion meta being frustrating/impossible/not worth it, and pushing for map wipes, or pushing against map wipes. Maybe the map is crowded, maybe it's not. That's going to be a subjective response from anyone you ask. Maybe big factions are growing complacent. Subjective. That's not the point here. There are lots of threads with many people discussing that.

Instead, let us look at Rebellions.

Rebellions allow Minor Factions to claim or neutralize Major Factions’ territory.

Excellent, as it should. I see nothing wrong here. And if anything, it looks like an answer to the idea of there being no room for new major factions to spring up. Rebel a hex and go major. Cool, cool. Gives small factions a place to start or a way to start chipping away at big factions.

TARGETS OF REBELLIONS

• A Major Faction’s third completed Dominion in a month is vulnerable for 10 days after the Dominion is submitted in the Map Update thread.
• Any hex belonging to a recalled Major Faction is vulnerable to Rebellion for 2 weeks.

Huh. That is quite limited. Major factions don't get recalled very often, so that's not a really useful way of determining targets. What about third completed dominion? Alright, I can get behind that. The big factions are prety solid when it comes to completing three dominions a month and submitting them. The harder part is keeping track of which is the third dominion. My question is why keep it limited this way? It makes it really easy to be invulnerable to rebellions- don't get recalled and never submit more than two dominion threads. Not to mention the very limited number of places where a rebellion can start.

SUGGESTION: Make more planets and hexes open to rebellion. Maybe a capital hex and its immediately adjacent hexes can only rebel during a recall or something. But the rest? Why should they not be fair game? This is Star Wars. Rebellion is the foundation that the saga was built on. Resistance movements take time to develop and come to fruition.

HOW TO DECLARE A REBELLION

• Any Minor Faction or group of Minor Factions may launch a Rebellion, so long as they have been Minor Factions for at least 30 days.
• Rebellions cannot be started by Minor Factions that are owned by members who hold a position as a Major Faction Admin/Owner on any of their characters.
• To declare a Rebellion, a Minor Faction Owner must make a clearly labelled OOC thread in the Roleplay Discussion forum and tag the Owner/Admins of the Major Faction being attacked.
• Any other Minor Faction may join the Rebellion by posting their intention in the same thread.

I see nothing wrong with any of these. The separation between minor factions and major faction staff is good. Clearly announcing it is excellent. I'd suggest PMing the faction getting rebelled ahead of time and developing a story together before announcing it so the OOC thread can have a fun Star Wars scrolling intro but that's not really a rules thing. Other minor factions hopping in makes sense, I suppose. I'd leave some more options for how the hex ends up depending on the outcome and how things end up.

SUGGESTION: I don't know, maybe drop the minor faction age limit to 14 days?

HOW TO END A REBELLION

• A Rebellion ends 14 days after the creation of the IC Rebellion thread. This may be extended if both sides agree.

I think this is a reasonable amount of time, all things considered. A week is super short.

VICTORY CONDITIONS
I'm not quoting the whole thing. Pretty sure it's the same as invasions, which is being debated quite fiercely, so I'll leave that for others.

SUMMATION:
-Many people seem to agree that there is a problem with invasions, the map game, and big major factions. The nature of that problem continues to be a point of contention. I don't know what it is. I can't offer any ideas either, other than invasions are exhausting and draining to keep up with, which makes them not as fun as they might be. Why? I don't know.
-Multiple people are wanting more variety and change in the map game. Understandable. The current debates are about map wipes (either full or partial) and invasions (make them easier/more meaningful/higher risk and reward).
-Rebellions are sadly forgotten about in the discussion
-Past stories vs future stories- lot of debate about sacrificing old stories for the potential of new stories. Give more opportunities for new factions wanting to go major a place to go major. Don't let giant major factions turn into hibernating bears.
-Stagnation may be because people only tend to write people in their major faction so more interaction between them could freshen things up.

SUGGESTION: Make rebellions more open to initiation. Remove the requirements for them to be initiated on the third dominion of the month or recalled majors. Make capitols immune, maybe, but leave the rest open to rebellion.

WHY?: It gives minor factions the chance to go major wherever they like outside of capitols. It adds much more risk to major factions and creates an opportunity for that more dynamic map. There are far more opportunities for interaction between factions, especially with the possibility for more than one minor faction to join the party. It includes and respects past stories told by the major factions and the people who develop them by tying into those stories while creating an enormous potential for new stories, regardless of the rebellion outcome as the minor faction now grapples with the challenges of governing and probably being in some sort of war with the major faction they just rebelled against, or the major faction has to assess what it is about their IC policies/governance/circumstances that created the rebellion.

Now I'll hand over the mic to the rest of the community.

 

[Fatty]

I'm not sure how to feel.

I participated in one of if not the first rebellions, (I made a minor faction for the sole purpose of doing it just once, and lost amicably).

I 100% agree that the conditions for declaring a rebellion are limited and a bit arbitrary (what is the significance of the third dominion?). I am not certain opening up all other non-capital adjacent hexes to it is the answer to it (I would like to point out that Rebellions are always allowed under a faction with the Fortress Worlds mandate).

Maybe there could be more Mandates that have rebellion hexes as weaknesses like Fortress Worlds?

Maybe we could start drafting "secession" rules, where members of a major faction can organize into a rebellion that is 3 contiguous hexes large consisting of that majors territory, and they have to fight for each one or lose it? (I.e., three simultaneously rebellions, and if they lose one of them they lose them all). Idk, I'm just spitballing for conversation sake.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

I've been advocating for easier rebellions for a few years now. I'm all for it.

I'd also note that the third dominion thing - eeeeeee. I'm going to assume things were very different when it was put in place, because when Agents of Chaos was minor, we didn't really have much opportunity to rebel because of dominions, and our rebellions were because we had to jump into contested hexes in the case of Alderaan/Kuat and Kesh, or the major faction's mandate allowed us to do so, as with Zonju.

When we wanted to go for third-dom based rebellions, the only potential candidate was TSE, who had their hands sufficiently full at the time regardless of it.

So yes. Make rebellions easier to launch.

 

[Judah Lesan]

Veino Garn

All threads are time stamped, and if you watch the map updates thread it’s clear which is the third rebellion. The third one handed in for judgement.

Mandates also make it easier for rebellions if minor factions are paying attention to who has what. I’ve steered away from certain mandates because the weakness makes all hexes open to rebellion.

Take the GA for instance... their mandate means they could potentially have 3 dominions in danger of rebellion if they max out, which I believe they did this last month.

That being said... I am a big proponent for story as I am in a lot of things. While all of these things have an OOC trigger what makes IC sense? Who gets to decide there is unrest in that section of space? The faction who owns it, or the minor that wants to rebel?

Are rebellions hard to initiate... not really... watching the map updates thread not a month has passed where a rebellion couldn’t be launched for a while now. It just depends on the faction you want to hit. If all you want is rebellions though, they’ve been ripe and prime to initiate for a time now.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Veino Garn
The problem with Rebellions being always available is that they can be used as a means of griefing a rival. It's not how it should be, but it's how it could be, and might well be.

I would like to change up rebellions to make them more of 'a thing' but it has to be done in a fair way so that both sides get something from it.

 

[Veino Garn]

The problem with Rebellions being always available is that they can be used as a means of griefing a rival. It's not how it should be, but it's how it could be, and might well be.

I would like to change up rebellions to make them more of 'a thing' but it has to be done in a fair way so that both sides get something from it.

That's a fair point. I hadn't thought of that. Alas, that the less than stellar among us once again let the rest of us down. An easy one could be that major winning a rebellion counts as successful dominions, but IC that doesn't make quite as much sense.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Veino Garn
The problem with Rebellions being always available is that they can be used as a means of griefing a rival. It's not how it should be, but it's how it could be, and might well be.

With the rules being set up about the difference between a minor faction and a subfaction, why is this a bigger concern than regular invasions which have on several occasions been used as such?

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Because major factions are finite, they can be counter attacked, they can be held accountable.

A minor faction has only to exist for 30 days and have staff who is not staff of a major.

Consider it overly suspicious but when crafting rules like this one has to consider the darker side of human behaviour.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Valiens Nantaris So why not limit them to being able to launch one rebellion at a time? There are no such restrictions are present, but this should more or less cover that corner. It also leaves them open to join the kiddie pile rebellions.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Scherezade deWinter
The better alternative would be to limit a faction to receive one rebellion at a time, and even then...not sure.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Valiens Nantaris Nah, if a faction can accept multiple invasions, they should be able to accept multiple rebellions in a go as well.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Scherezade deWinter
As I've said, the number of major factions is limited. The number of minor...not so much.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Valiens Nantaris And yet how often does it happen that all the Major Factions invade another specific major at once? Heck, even during flashpoints when rebellions were way easier to launch, how many did the site actually see? We need to stop being afraid of what ifs that promote potential activity and interaction.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Perhaps. I will consider this idea though, it's added to the pile.