Why we accept aggressive Circle attitude but not agressive Northwind attitude

I'll start by saying that I'm aware of the problems that RPing with the Circle present us. People end up standing and waiting for long times, either for the prepared "scene" to start, or watching Circle and co people play the scene out without us, Northwind, having much to do other than watch. I've formed up some solutions to those problems, but in the meantime I understand why people find it frustrating and I assure you I'm working on that.


As it is right now, people seem a bit miffed that the Circle and their allies have been allowed to be a bit rude or arrogant towards Northwind Mecenaries. To start off. Northwind is a bunch of ungrateful, arrogant, cocky bastards. Yes yes, to be fair. The Circle and their allies are the same.

So for those who were not here since the start of this contract. They treated us with fair respect until they noticed the increasing arrogance and cockyness within Northwind. I know many of you were not there when they treated us nicely, but it was there. And now it’s changed.

You see, as of tonight, the circle has reached up to 50 people killed within their ranks. It's not a made up number, 50 characters have been killed in this storyline and some have been recreated anew as a new personality and so on. The Divine absolution have lost about 30 people. Northwind has lost one, so far. And that is not as a result of this war.

Again and again, the circle has aided us, sent help, sent supplies for us, yet we remain as ungrateful and arrogant as always. Look at it from this point of view. You stand there, next to some cocky mercenary who's shouting at your foe "Hah! You pitiful little poot! You're just a weak little coward who can't even hurt us!", This person, shouting that at the very same foe who's killed about 50 of your friends or brethren and which basically is your worst nightmare.
(Many roleplayers seem to remain so arrogant and sure of themselves due to the fact that they consider their character to –not- be expendable. Their character will not die, so I can throw myself at anything and come out fairly unscathed)

Would you instantly like that taunting, loudmouthed person? I know I wouldn't.

There's the Circle, losing their family and friends, and even most likely losing the war. They are fighting for their lives and survival, fighting for their cause. Here comes Northwind, having no emotional ties to this war, waltzing in like we're the biggest heroes around, having had no casualties, and demand instant respect while basically flaunting the attitude of "Heh, you might've hired us, but we're cooler than you".


With that attitude in mind, and the painfully obvious discipline problem we have, when our mercenaries can't even follow the simple order of staying quiet in the midst of a meeting, nobody's having fun. You see, the only reason why Northwind has been able to remain such a rabble and still be so successful, it’s the fact that we’re virtually unkillable and in one way or another, we will come out victorious.

I love you guys, I really, really do. Please, keep all this in mind, and try to suppress the ego of wanting to be that big bad attention-sucking person who has the comeback for everything and doesn't take shit.

I'm not trying to tell you to change your character's behaviour, and I'm also not trying to tell you that you need to kill your character off. I'm only trying to give you insight in what's up with how people act and to point out that when someone acts that way all the time, no one around them is having fun.

So let's change that.

I'm going to chip in here and say that many of the issues Ceadric brings up really don't make us look good. Given so many of us seem to want to be the big heroes in shining armour, we don't look very heroic as it stands.

The discipline problems Ceadric mentions are a real, serious issue. When we have someone who is determined to disobey a direct, legitimate order and when they can't do something as simple as keep their pie hole shut for five minutes, it's really frustrating being an officer. Think about that. Really, genuinely not fun, on an OOC level. It makes the leadership look bad IC - a lot of the Circle think we are bumbling idiots who couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery. And no amount of punishment we mete out seems to solve the problem. What else can we do? This is why I am asking people to consider this and to consider maybe reining their characters in a bit when it comes to discipline. We try to do our part, but it's damned hard when we don't get any cooperation.

That was something of a rant and it had to be said. I don't think anyone here is a bad roleplayer, on the contrary. I just think we need to get our act together. We're professionals, the Circle has hired us to do a job, we're not the Boy Scouts. Let's act like professionals. Let's get the job done - THEN we can muck about a bit!

What else is going on, to help alleviate the issue? Well. If people want a bit of a break from what is quite a 'heavy' storyline, another event is in the planning stage, to be run concurrently with the Circle stuff if Ceadric approves. Something light, mucking about in the woods helping a slightly crazy druid. Or something