In light of the concerns that I've raised, here are some ideas for dealing with them.
-Spend a minute figuring out what the heck is happening to the IC world as a whole. Get faction headcounts down, roughly. After battle scenes, figure out what just happened to factional strength. Break out a map and ponder the borders. Think about where troops are deployed. These latter steps are mainly for those of us who roleplay commanders, and whose characters care about such things, but anyone whose char is involved in this (read: /EVERYONE/) should at least have a vague grasp of how things are going. The ones who could really help here are the Admins, or perhaps the facheads - simply put, we need an objective statement on the status of the IC world. Not only is this important to RP in the short-term, but in the long term, it'll prevent things from becoming a tangled mess of varying interpretations.
-As an addendum: figure out what's going on sociopolitically. I think people have gotten a good start on this, but there's so much potential. For example...given time, some might argue that the Mavericks should be respected as a legitimate government. Why should we care about this stuff? Because a great deal of roleplay takes place when characters are confronted with tough questions ICly, and have to think them out (or ignore them). Ever annoyed that your chars lack something to talk about? Here you go.
-Think about how PCs can be interesting and, if you like, "Make a difference". There are tons of options in a "war" climate - indeed, I think that an NPC-loaded martial environment /INCREASES/ the importance of PCs. Let me show you why. Here are some instances/examples where PCs have a pivotal role, without any consent-twinking.
-Leadership. Even a Corporal PC is often an elite warrior, whom others look up to: they're the heroes. (Not gods, but heroes.) Their prescence boosts morale considerably, and they often step up to handle nasty enemy elites or handle dangerous yet important tasks. Mid-level command gives orders that can easily win or lose the battle. Indeed, it'll be nice to have commanders doing something besides pointing and yelling, "PCs! ATTACK!" or if they're really into it, "AND DON'T HURT CIVILIANS!" High-level command determines broad strategy that changes the course of not just a battle, but the war. General's not important because he stomps on NPCs (or PCs) - he's important because his decisions make or break a massive military. Indeed, going back to low-level, a Corporal's personal might is really rather irrelevant on a massive battlefield, in and of itself ... but it can certainly inspire, and in a close fight, that one gutsy Corporal might well win his or her army the day. (It's like the little engine that could, but with more wholesale slaughter and the depravity of violent conflict.)
-"Right place at the right time." A few PCs might be in an area when an enemy force comes moving through. They have all sorts of options that might give their side the time to react. (Although this would /probably/ not involve lunging at the advancing army and trying to fight them alone ... that'd kind of hurt - "Halt in the na-" *BLAM* (times 5,000))
-Imagine the following scenario: Repliforce is stretched thin on multiple fronts. High Command takes a gamble, and tells the SpecOps CO to bring down the teleporter facility of a certain pesky border territory. An elite team (read: a few PCs) is sent behind enemy lines to accomplish this task. However, some alert Mavericks (read: a few PCs) might notice them. If Repliforce manages to take out the facility, it can deploy the few thousand troopers it can scrape together and, since the Mavericks can't readily get reinforcements without their teleporters, win the day.
-Or perhaps a group of PCs are sent to perform force reconaissance: obtaining or failing to obtain data vital to successful strategy.
-Maverick PCs could start a riot, distracting Repliforce while an attack is launched. Without the attack, simply starting that riot could cost Repliforce in PR - a precious commodity.
And so on. To use an analogy, James Bond didn't help by standing on a battlefield and shooting enemies one by one. He helped by running around stealing the plans for the Super Evil Deathlaserblastercannon of Doom and Evil Evilness. I'm not saying PCs should be less important; merely assuring people that they can maintain an IC and OOC "spotlight" without throwing any semblance of realism out the window. Indeed, to thusly abandon all IC coherency would make RP stilted and boring. (I've seen it happen elsemu*, trust me.)
TP Concerns
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