So, I've recently been a pretty unpleasant person to be around and I know it, so I would sincerely like to offer an apology to anyone that I've been unkind, impatient or offensive toward.
I am the type of player that tends to try and design and play characters that are not carbon copies of the Prime Fiction, nor a shallow representation of a single aspect of a race. (I am not accusing anyone else of being this kind of player, I'm just explaining myself). To that end, I often try to give my characters a lot of depth and personality, background reasons for some of their beliefs and motivations as well as internal conflicts when faced with hard choices and decisions.
Azdan is a product of this mindset. He's intended to a "good" Amarr, as in someone who genuinely believes in the message of the Amarr faith and seeks to enact it in the most benevolent and compassionate way he is able. He has a heart for people, regardless of race, but is extremely proud of his heritage as an Amarr and his place as one of God's chosen people. I've done a lot of in-depth study into the Empire, its history, hierarchy, demography, culture, moral and immoral acts and even the Scriptures and the Amarr faith. (I've practically written an expository book on the Amarr Scriptures and designed a consistent and thorough interpretation and doctrine around them).
Yet I find myself frustrated with the difficulties of playing him. My favorite aspect of the game is Faction Warfare which has proven suicidal to the RP angle and the current state of the Amarr FW is horrendous. There are enough people RPing the callous, inhumane, wicked Amarrians to justify the bile and hatred toward Amarr. I know some have told me to just ignore them, they're just trolls or strawmen, but the fact of the matter is that their RP affects other's RP and subsequently how those people will interact with me and my characters. It's just a fact of RP.
I've been feeling around to try and get an estimate of how many people are willing to try and play a "good" RP corp that's focused on purging the bad elements of the Empire and restoring the religious focus to the Reclaiming and sadly the interest is extremely low. I asked about focus on House politics and upstaging the internal conflict and competition between the Houses, which had more interest but still a very small amount.
I'm in a position where my hands are tied. Trying to play a "good" Amarr immediately puts me in the minority (or so it seems) and because I'm at a minority and a very young character (and player), there is very little I can actually do in space to match my character's RP and convictions. For example, recently a member of Gankbangers decided to declare that they were taking slaves while in the Amarr militia and when they switched to Caldari militia just had them all executed and dumped into space to taunt the Minmatar. This is absolutely repulsive to Azdan and he called them out on it but there's absolutely nothing I can do about it beyond that point because I'm one person, in a Punisher against an entire corp and alliance.
This makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to actually do anything with Azdan apart from sit in channels and on the forums and shake his finger at people while trying to preach a different message. Not only is this not fun, it will eventually be used against him in RP as well. So, I have no idea how to proceed. I didn't actually write this post to rant (though I guess it seems like that's exactly what I'm doing), but simply to share some of my personal struggles and frustration with those that want to listen.
I'm doing my best to be a better person OOC and not complain as often, not constantly seek approval or justification and not change characters so often (because it certainly seems to cause a level of irritation that I'd rather avoid from the people that I'd like to be playing with).
