Narcan
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A Guide To Realistic Gang Beefs, Conflicts And Wars.
by @Narcan
Introduction
This is a general guide for role-players in the street gang branches of active factions upon the server to keep in-character conflicts realistic. It is NOT a guide on how to find success from an OOC mindset. In fact most of these points will put you at a disadvantage OOCly if the faction you are currently engaged in conflict has not taken a similar approach. This is not an excuse to not engage in realistic conflict; you need to be the change you want to see and do it for your personal immersion, otherwise this current trend of toxicity and winning mentality will continue to persist on this server.
OOC Mindset
This takes me onto the first point. When engaging in conflict with other factions, the first thing you should do is take a step back and remember why we even have these conflicts, to settle differences between our characters or group of characters in South Central. Although this sounds rudimentary it is by far the biggest flaw in the current and past conflicts played out on GTA roleplay servers. Any standard role-player already understands that taking L's ICly is great for character development and lays the foundations for them to make changes to how they act, yet for some reason this mentality flies out of the window as soon as gun play is put in-front of them. Nobody cares about your aim, nobody cares about bodies boasted in discords. You're on a roleplay server for SA:MP, regardless of the genre of role-play, you are a nerd. Get over it and roll with the punches that happen ICly, all the extra shit is ultimately cringe worthy and puts people off trying to get involved with the genre.
Although communicating with other factions is great for conflict, of which I'll come onto later, if you're self-aware enough to realise that you cannot stop yourself from arguing and / or taking things OOC'ly with a specific faction leader, or others in general, do yourself a favour and don't even communicate with them at all. This also goes for when conflicting a faction who's leaders or members really can't just let it stay in-character. As mentioned earlier, just be the change you want to see in our genre. Don't rise to other peoples OOC baiting and don't lower yourself to their standard. IFM have eyes on all of us and your effort will not go unnoticed, the same for their lack of courtesy. Anyway, now the e-bangers that have no interest in changing are gone, we'll move onto the fun stuff.
Conflicts Should Be More Personal
Another thing I've noticed within faction wars is the forming of "hit-squads." When I refer to this, I'm referring to the same four people that load into a car and take care of all the violent acts of a set. Whereas gangs definitely have members who develop into soldiers more than others, it's not realistic to handle most of the problems with the same people. They won't admit it in-character, the same for real life gang members more than likely, but certain members will not care about certain other members getting hit. Your twenty five year old veteran leader figure is not going to hop into a car to retaliate for the fourteen year old corner kid that took a bullet in a shooting, regardless of the disrespect. Why is it worth their freedom or life? They're more than likely going to put some money on the head of the attacking party and keep a layer of separation from the crime, something not role-played near enough.
So who would handle this situation? Characters more intertwined in this characters story, somebody invested in this characters life. Maybe he has a group of friends that are put on, maybe he has an older member who's taken the kid under his wing. Although wars are faction vs faction / gang vs gang, they're still personal to begin with. I'm not for any moment saying that gang wars don't turn into mindless violence where nobody cares who they're targeting but they sure as hell do not start like that. Just because somebody got hit, even killed, doesn't mean you need to slide back and make the most out of your attack cooldowns. When you have patience it opens many avenues of roleplay and gives platforms to characters. Why not let the kid heal from his gun shot wound, if it's nothing major, and step up and handle this shit himself? The older members could use this unfortunate injury to motivate the kid to get involved, trapping him in the life and developing him into a future gang member. The same for his friends, they could really put the pressure on the kids friends to step up with a guilt trip: "You really going to let them shoot at your friend like that?"
A member getting shot by a rival gang is a reason for those that ICly care about them to retaliate. Stop using it as a reason for anybody within your faction go on an attack.
Escalation
Oh boy, here we go with the biggest grey area. Anyway, rule number one with realistic escalation is to ask yourself: "Am I raising the stakes here because it's realistic, or just because I can?" Nothing speaks to this more than when two gangs have hand-to-hand conflict for a few days where no blood has been spilled, where things start off interesting and lay the foundations for a long feud, just for it to be escalated because somebody made a threat. I know you've seen it, regardless who you are from LEO's and civilians all the way to gang role-players themselves.
People do get shot at in-real life for threats, I'm not saying it doesn't exist but the server corrupts you into thinking it's a normal reality that happens all the time. The server allows you to kill people or attempt murder and get away with it, where realistically you wouldn't due to investigation and witnesses. You don't need to shoot somebody after throwing hands because they threaten to come back spinning. Empty threats exist, both in-game and out, and are mostly not worth the risk especially when you're instantly gunning them down in the middle of South Central in broad day. People say shit they don't mean when they aren't thinking straight and I can't think of any clearer example of "not thinking straight" than having your jaw spinned and being dropped to the floor by a punch.
So when should I raise the stakes? When is a realistic time to do it? It's really not that simple unfortunately. I cannot advise you when too, I can only advise you when not too. All I can say is that every time I've raised the stakes ICly something has happened where I don't even question if it's the right move. You need to get out of the mind set of looking for a reason to escalate a conflict and instead waiting until you know it's time.
Following The RoE Is Not Enough
Firstly, before there's any confusion I'll explain the basic premise of the heading above. Follow the RoE at all times, nothing says that your conflict role-play needs improvement more than an RoE violation.
So what's my point? My point is that the RoE are a basic set of server rules to keep things from going completely out of control. They are not there to, and were never intended to, make the conflicts you encounter be the best they can be. They are the base line of what's expected from you. So many factions follow the RoE to a tee to avoid punishment and put little effort in doing anything above that. The biggest example of this is cool-downs. You don't need to slide on a faction because the cool-down just passed, maybe you don't even need to slide at all yet. Why would you commence an attack on a faction that hasn't even retaliated to your last attack? Conflicts are usually tit for tat, blood for blood. Ask yourself if you're sliding because the RoE say you can now, or because it makes sense too?
Communication And Authenticity
Referring to my earlier point of not communicating with rival faction leaders and members OOC'ly, I'd like to just clarify this only if their attitude is toxic and a clear winning mentality. All conflicts, where possible, deserve close connection between the two faction leaderships. This allows you to set some boundaries and personal rules in order to keep the conflict as realistic as possible.
An example of this would be making it very clear that you intend to roleplay this beef out and have no intentions of playing to win. Try and set up a way to keep hits authentic and true to life. You do not need to block wipe a faction and try and boost that PK list at all. Everybody's quick to call out somebody writing a power-gaming emote as play to win but are quick to forget that needlessly racking up bodies is no different. A few examples you could use to keep hits authentic would be:
Conclusion
In conclusion, most things come down to eliminating the mind set of "could I do this?", to "should I do this?" Your conflicts are your characters and you have to put yourself into their mindset when making faction decisions and not the shoes of your own. Stop taking conflicts to heart and boasting about spinning someone's virtual block from your family house in the suburbs. We'll see an improvement to the whole scene, have less toxicity and allow people who are put off by these aspects to give it a go, thus helping the longevity.
I freestyled this as I went with advice and nags I've made in the past discussions mixed in with things that made sense to me at the time. I will probably expand on this, although it's not a WIP, if things come back to me or I realise something hasn't been quite explained as it should. Thanks for reading and I hope this helps you or your faction.
by @Narcan
Introduction
This is a general guide for role-players in the street gang branches of active factions upon the server to keep in-character conflicts realistic. It is NOT a guide on how to find success from an OOC mindset. In fact most of these points will put you at a disadvantage OOCly if the faction you are currently engaged in conflict has not taken a similar approach. This is not an excuse to not engage in realistic conflict; you need to be the change you want to see and do it for your personal immersion, otherwise this current trend of toxicity and winning mentality will continue to persist on this server.
OOC Mindset
This takes me onto the first point. When engaging in conflict with other factions, the first thing you should do is take a step back and remember why we even have these conflicts, to settle differences between our characters or group of characters in South Central. Although this sounds rudimentary it is by far the biggest flaw in the current and past conflicts played out on GTA roleplay servers. Any standard role-player already understands that taking L's ICly is great for character development and lays the foundations for them to make changes to how they act, yet for some reason this mentality flies out of the window as soon as gun play is put in-front of them. Nobody cares about your aim, nobody cares about bodies boasted in discords. You're on a roleplay server for SA:MP, regardless of the genre of role-play, you are a nerd. Get over it and roll with the punches that happen ICly, all the extra shit is ultimately cringe worthy and puts people off trying to get involved with the genre.
Although communicating with other factions is great for conflict, of which I'll come onto later, if you're self-aware enough to realise that you cannot stop yourself from arguing and / or taking things OOC'ly with a specific faction leader, or others in general, do yourself a favour and don't even communicate with them at all. This also goes for when conflicting a faction who's leaders or members really can't just let it stay in-character. As mentioned earlier, just be the change you want to see in our genre. Don't rise to other peoples OOC baiting and don't lower yourself to their standard. IFM have eyes on all of us and your effort will not go unnoticed, the same for their lack of courtesy. Anyway, now the e-bangers that have no interest in changing are gone, we'll move onto the fun stuff.
Conflicts Should Be More Personal
Another thing I've noticed within faction wars is the forming of "hit-squads." When I refer to this, I'm referring to the same four people that load into a car and take care of all the violent acts of a set. Whereas gangs definitely have members who develop into soldiers more than others, it's not realistic to handle most of the problems with the same people. They won't admit it in-character, the same for real life gang members more than likely, but certain members will not care about certain other members getting hit. Your twenty five year old veteran leader figure is not going to hop into a car to retaliate for the fourteen year old corner kid that took a bullet in a shooting, regardless of the disrespect. Why is it worth their freedom or life? They're more than likely going to put some money on the head of the attacking party and keep a layer of separation from the crime, something not role-played near enough.
So who would handle this situation? Characters more intertwined in this characters story, somebody invested in this characters life. Maybe he has a group of friends that are put on, maybe he has an older member who's taken the kid under his wing. Although wars are faction vs faction / gang vs gang, they're still personal to begin with. I'm not for any moment saying that gang wars don't turn into mindless violence where nobody cares who they're targeting but they sure as hell do not start like that. Just because somebody got hit, even killed, doesn't mean you need to slide back and make the most out of your attack cooldowns. When you have patience it opens many avenues of roleplay and gives platforms to characters. Why not let the kid heal from his gun shot wound, if it's nothing major, and step up and handle this shit himself? The older members could use this unfortunate injury to motivate the kid to get involved, trapping him in the life and developing him into a future gang member. The same for his friends, they could really put the pressure on the kids friends to step up with a guilt trip: "You really going to let them shoot at your friend like that?"
A member getting shot by a rival gang is a reason for those that ICly care about them to retaliate. Stop using it as a reason for anybody within your faction go on an attack.
Escalation
Oh boy, here we go with the biggest grey area. Anyway, rule number one with realistic escalation is to ask yourself: "Am I raising the stakes here because it's realistic, or just because I can?" Nothing speaks to this more than when two gangs have hand-to-hand conflict for a few days where no blood has been spilled, where things start off interesting and lay the foundations for a long feud, just for it to be escalated because somebody made a threat. I know you've seen it, regardless who you are from LEO's and civilians all the way to gang role-players themselves.
People do get shot at in-real life for threats, I'm not saying it doesn't exist but the server corrupts you into thinking it's a normal reality that happens all the time. The server allows you to kill people or attempt murder and get away with it, where realistically you wouldn't due to investigation and witnesses. You don't need to shoot somebody after throwing hands because they threaten to come back spinning. Empty threats exist, both in-game and out, and are mostly not worth the risk especially when you're instantly gunning them down in the middle of South Central in broad day. People say shit they don't mean when they aren't thinking straight and I can't think of any clearer example of "not thinking straight" than having your jaw spinned and being dropped to the floor by a punch.
So when should I raise the stakes? When is a realistic time to do it? It's really not that simple unfortunately. I cannot advise you when too, I can only advise you when not too. All I can say is that every time I've raised the stakes ICly something has happened where I don't even question if it's the right move. You need to get out of the mind set of looking for a reason to escalate a conflict and instead waiting until you know it's time.
Following The RoE Is Not Enough
Firstly, before there's any confusion I'll explain the basic premise of the heading above. Follow the RoE at all times, nothing says that your conflict role-play needs improvement more than an RoE violation.
So what's my point? My point is that the RoE are a basic set of server rules to keep things from going completely out of control. They are not there to, and were never intended to, make the conflicts you encounter be the best they can be. They are the base line of what's expected from you. So many factions follow the RoE to a tee to avoid punishment and put little effort in doing anything above that. The biggest example of this is cool-downs. You don't need to slide on a faction because the cool-down just passed, maybe you don't even need to slide at all yet. Why would you commence an attack on a faction that hasn't even retaliated to your last attack? Conflicts are usually tit for tat, blood for blood. Ask yourself if you're sliding because the RoE say you can now, or because it makes sense too?
Communication And Authenticity
Referring to my earlier point of not communicating with rival faction leaders and members OOC'ly, I'd like to just clarify this only if their attitude is toxic and a clear winning mentality. All conflicts, where possible, deserve close connection between the two faction leaderships. This allows you to set some boundaries and personal rules in order to keep the conflict as realistic as possible.
An example of this would be making it very clear that you intend to roleplay this beef out and have no intentions of playing to win. Try and set up a way to keep hits authentic and true to life. You do not need to block wipe a faction and try and boost that PK list at all. Everybody's quick to call out somebody writing a power-gaming emote as play to win but are quick to forget that needlessly racking up bodies is no different. A few examples you could use to keep hits authentic would be:
- Pulling drive-by's where you speed past and unload into a crowd aimlessly. Don't worry about trying to kill people and more about sending the message and getting out before police are onto you. Let an automatic or a few handguns go off into a crowd without even slowing down and giving reaction time.
- Similar to the first one, but you could also pull up with a weapon of choice. Stop for a moment and fire upon one individual and nobody else. Choose this individual based on IC events. Maybe you know somebody shot your friend or was dissing a deceased one and let him pay for his disrespect. Don't just kill everybody affiliated.
- Even if the faction's deep, find somebody lacking on their own and do a walk-up before leaving the scene. Stop prioritizing body counts over the authenticity of the roleplay.
Conclusion
In conclusion, most things come down to eliminating the mind set of "could I do this?", to "should I do this?" Your conflicts are your characters and you have to put yourself into their mindset when making faction decisions and not the shoes of your own. Stop taking conflicts to heart and boasting about spinning someone's virtual block from your family house in the suburbs. We'll see an improvement to the whole scene, have less toxicity and allow people who are put off by these aspects to give it a go, thus helping the longevity.
I freestyled this as I went with advice and nags I've made in the past discussions mixed in with things that made sense to me at the time. I will probably expand on this, although it's not a WIP, if things come back to me or I realise something hasn't been quite explained as it should. Thanks for reading and I hope this helps you or your faction.
