National Guard?

[Snow Wolf]

I know this topic is usually very controversial because it is military themed roleplay on a majority civilian server. Still, I'd like to look at it and make a point to why it could be beneficial.

1.1) National Guard as a social hub and starter faction
Personally, whenever I joined a new RP server, I usually tremendously struggled with finding 'friends' or factions. This was because they were either very out of reach (Unknown hotspots) or they were simply not feasible (upper middle-class canadian born white guy can't join a LS black street gang). Add to that the fact that some people just prefer to stay on the legal side. When I create a character who I might want to join the LSPD with, I'd shy away from hanging around mobsters and renowned criminals. The National Guard could possibly intermingle all these groups -- it'd be a great melting pot for any group of players: RP veterans, new players, legals, illegals and any kind of nationality. The best part: It'd be cross-faction friendships. How likely is it that you create a mexican character and become friends with a chinese triad?

Sort of a hail-mary argument but still:
It'd expose new players to what they are supposed to be exposed to: good examples and roleplayers who (potentially) have known their trade for a while. I argue that chances are higher when people are groomed to properly RP with supervision like this than leaving them to dabble about for a few hours and taking the chance of exposing them to possible bad influence. Again, it's a long shot, and I am not saying that other factions may be a bad influence - it's just a very controlled environment. Of course, years and years of samp without a national guard has shown that factions are absolutely able to groom people - but there's two arguments I can make here:
For one, once players hear theres a national guard, they immediately know how to find it without having to check forums or anything similar -- Fort Zancudo. Secondly, the military theme may be very appealing to some people.

1.2) Adding further depth to roleplay
The National Guard I envision wouldn't be a full-time job (apart from a professional, standing contingent). This means that 80% of the people would be part time civilians, part time NG. This could create very interesting scenarios. Imagine a Police Officer spending one weekend a month in the National Guard - alongside people he knows are in a gang or are mobsters (or probably just metagames lol). While it may or may not pose an issue the NCOs may have to handle, it'd create the following situation: The policeman and the gangster are stuck in a drill and have to work together. This could actively fight the robo-cop stereotype. Imagine fighting together with this criminal, overcoming your enemies and winning a wargame against all odds. When you go back to your civilian lives and meet again - would you really arrest this man for having a broken taillight? You've fought together, do you really mind that handgun in his glovebox?

So, TLDR for this point:

• Easy to meet people
• Easier to make cross-faction friendships
• Unique roleplay theme which could cause bonding

2) Infrastructure
Those who have played GTA:O over the past months have probably noticed the huge influx of military-themed content. There's FAVs, APCs, IFVs, tanks and other armed vehicles - not to mention all the jets et cetera. There's also a huge Fort Zancudo base. It's all already there and up for grabs. Aside from a few nice things here and there, this faction wouldn't need any further content. (The only thing that comes to mind is proper uniforms)

While editing, I found yet another point but didn't know where to put it, so I'll just add it here: There's even houses on Fort Zancudo base. Actual housing, which is great for new players who lack an address.


3) The Role of the military and usefulness on the server
This is where 99% of the headbutting happens.

First and foremost, I'd like to state that this shouldn't be the National Guard, but simply a military-themed faction. I said above that it should be open to all nationalities, which I don't think is possible with the actual NG. If theres a choice to make between faction authenticity and what is useful for RP, I would always choose the latter. The benefits almost always outweigh these little unimmersive deficits.
By this I mean it would for example be very stupid to have a seperate Air National Guard faction. While realistic, it doesn't make any sense to not integrate it and simply have a pilot job.

With that out of the way, I think the faction can be whatever we all would want it to be. Let's have a quick look at what the NG does in real life:

They meet up once every while to drill and practice. ​

This can very well be portrayed in GTA and would benefit roleplay. This is also the point that would most impact the players. Those who love military roleplay have now a place to go to. Those who like it have a place to go to every once in a while. Theres a bunch of laws saying that when the National Guard activates you, you're on paid leave and cannot be fired - which means that it'd be more than realistic for a Police Officer to also be engaged in the NG. (among any other job group of course)

Law enforcement​

This is a really dangerous topic to write about because we all hail the priority of LSPD as the most important faction on the server but the NG was historically employed to quell the LA riots in 1992, which was a widespread riot with over 12k arrests. I don't see this happening on GTA RP however.
Another example was the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. National Guard arrived to provide security and I could see the NG providing assistance to the LSPD when such a thing occurs.

Civil Service​

This is probably the biggest one. Almost every hurricane, tornado, flood or wildfire in the US has seen NG-involvement. Sadly, these are all widescale events which require immense coordination by the admin team and we'll likely rarely see, if at all.
There's also records of Search & Rescue missions somewhere but I can't name precedence off the bat.

Governor's Service​

The governor has the right to activate the National Guard at any time for any reason, for example the execution of laws. There's a precendence of an I think Arkansas governor utilizing the National Guard to keep black people away from high schools.



That's about most of what it does in reality. Sadly, it's a very narrow field outside of a lot of things possible in GTARP. However, we could totally tuck eg. Coast Guard duties onto that as the NG is already involved in some S&R missions. The major challenge to tackle would be to not step on the LSPD's and LSFD's toes. They are the main factions and should receive the bulk of work. But the same can be said about LSPD and LSSD? I don't expect there to be a lot of civil unrest or disasters that truly warrant an active NG faction- but does it need to be very active?

The faction itself doesn't have to be overly active in public. Infact, the real organization is mostly "one weekend a month only". People live their civilians lives and become weekend warriors. I can really imagine this working for GTA RP. The faction doesn't require a high permanent headcount - maybe five people at best. It's okay if the NG gets seldom called upon - the majority would have their everyday jobs. Those who decide to actively roleplay at base I can imagine would have enough to do, from drills, wargames to transporting tanks across count(r)y. This isn't very different from any other faction - mobsters have the agenda of causing mischief, the National Guard can have the agenda of staying in shape for a real emergency! Factions roleplay amongst themselves all the time.
However, I'd of course be all open to adding a new set of jobs should it be required! Whether that'd be Coast Guard or some sort of Military Police/Marshalls is entirely up to the demands of the server


All in all, I argue that it would provide military RP to those who desire it. It would probably be it's own cosmos far away from most, but I figure theres many people being somewhat interested in it. I've played on many militaristic roleplays (proof: https://forum.ls-county.com/threads/showcase-your-old-samp-mods.133/#post-2612 ) and have met a lot of people - I'm sure a few would be interested enough to come check it out if I mentioned a military faction on a GTA V roleplay server.


Having outlined the benefits (social hub, unique rp theme, low maintenance) and the negatives (overlapping duties with FD/PD or nothing to do at all aside from on-base stuff), I'd love to hear everyones thoughts now!

 

[Fox]

2) Infrastructure
Those who have played GTA:O over the past months have probably noticed the huge influx of military-themed content. There's FAVs, APCs, IFVs, tanks and other armed vehicles - not to mention all the jets et cetera. There's also a huge Fort Zancudo base. It's all already there and up for grabs. Aside from a few nice things here and there, this faction wouldn't need any further content. (The only thing that comes to mind is proper uniforms)

While editing, I found yet another point but didn't know where to put it, so I'll just add it here: There's even houses on Fort Zancudo base. Actual housing, which is great for new players who lack an address.

Fort Zancudo will be used by the LSPD and LSFD as a shared training facility, so there will be utilization of the facility regardless of whether a National Guard will come to exist in one shape or another.

3) The Role of the military and usefulness on the server

Law enforcementThis is a really dangerous topic to write about because we all hail the priority of LSPD as the most important faction on the server but the NG was historically employed to quell the LA riots in 1992, which was a widespread riot with over 12k arrests. I don't see this happening on GTA RP however.
Another example was the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. National Guard arrived to provide security and I could see the NG providing assistance to the LSPD when such a thing occurs.

Having been part of the LSPD on LSRP and having taken part in the Summer Riots of 2011 and 2012, I really need to say that for riot control even at such large scales (the server was full with 500 people and it was about 250 to 350 vs 50 PD Metro) the PD can handle it without assistance. Especially since we have the people leading the Metropolitan Division who led it during that time too. With enough resources (personnel) at our disposal we will be able to manage it quite easily without having to call in National Guard.

Generally speaking for your first point, sadly this would not be something that I can consider acceptable. The National Guard does not allow people with prior charges in its ranks and thus yea. Another part of that is, they would get access to heavy weaponry. What would hinder them from trying to exploit it? Staff sadly won't be omnipresent. It might be my pessimistic outlook, or my previous experience but not everyone does things for the good, most will expect to gain something and if it is done via exploiting it is just another step really.

Furthermore, we would need to discuss the way this "faction" will function in our script. As people would need to either leave their faction and then be re-invited or have it be on another layer of the faction script where you can switch between the factions. Or have it similar on LSRP where the PD could type /NG and it would switch them to the NG faction automatically, though having this sort of command available for everyone at any time will only cause havoc, never mind the potential to just use the command for personal access to the equipment (assault rifles, tanks, or just armored vehicles).

The points you listed as positive, especially the low maintenance just strikes me as wrong. Running such a faction would not be low maintenance, as the people in charge would need to prepare scenarios for the weekends they are being actively used and that would require quite the time, especially when done in cooperation with the staff team as potentially we would need to be at the ready to provide support.

Similarly, I sadly do not see it being an attractive faction for long. There might be a drive to do once or twice but then it will die down due to having "seen it all". As for the social hub aspect, we are aiming to provide social hubs for people and to some degree enforce an inclusive atmosphere, I think I speak for many in the staff team here when saying the following: if you are new on the server and want to join, say, a gang and someone comes around to you and says: "who you, you new, never seen you face round here?", it would not be taken kindly as in relative terms the possibility of knowing everyone in "your" "hood" is neigh impossible. Good roleplayers will enforce this etiquette and will certainly realize that Los Santos has not come to be with the server launch but has existed prior to it. This is basically what I would coin as "robo-gangster". Aside from that, there will hopefully be in-character events where every player can go to socialize, be it clubs, sports, or any other sort of activity really.

Overall, for the reasons you outlined for me are not enough to consider it a necessity to have a National Guard. But as I stated on Discord, these are my views and we are open for discussing it.

 

[Snow Wolf]

Generally speaking for your first point, sadly this would not be something that I can consider acceptable. The National Guard does not allow people with prior charges in its ranks and thus yea. Another part of that is, they would get access to heavy weaponry. What would hinder them from trying to exploit it? Staff sadly won't be omnipresent. It might be my pessimistic outlook, or my previous experience but not everyone does things for the good, most will expect to gain something and if it is done via exploiting it is just another step really.

That's true and probably ambiguous from my side. I meant that there is sometimes low-level dealers who are known to be dealers but haven't been arrested yet because they are just too insignificant. Unless they have actually been charged/had their files marked, I think they'd count as 'clean' - which is good enough imo, aslong as their character isn't an actual felon.

Why would they have unrestricted access to heavy weaponry? I don't envision the NG with anything but AR-15s - I wouldn't trust anyone with a grenade, not to think of rocket launchers. That's crazy and unnecessary on such a RP server. If people are pulling a heist and stealing from the armoury, that's of course an event that needs staff approval.

Furthermore, we would need to discuss the way this "faction" will function in our script. As people would need to either leave their faction and then be re-invited or have it be on another layer of the faction script where you can switch between the factions. Or have it similar on LSRP where the PD could type /NG and it would switch them to the NG faction automatically, though having this sort of command available for everyone at any time will only cause havoc, never mind the potential to just use the command for personal access to the equipment (assault rifles, tanks, or just armored vehicles).

Now, you know a lot more about the script than I do, and I don't know about the possibilities of a multi-faction system (which generally isn't an issue as we had it working for SAMP already).
But on the other hand I wonder why they need to scriptually be in the faction? What speaks against having a personnel register on the forum and just roleplaying? If you're going "career", you'd obviously be part of the standing NG personnel and in the faction (and thus have full access), but I don't see the necessity to have everyone in the faction who is there just once a month.

I'm also very critical of the way you're writing this. I think you're implying there'd some kind of /ng command which gives you an uniform and a ton of guns? That'd be really really silly, as with any kind of weaponry I think it's best to just roleplay a proper armoury and retrieving your guns/putting them back in. I imagine there to be some kind of container which holds ~50 rifles. They get handed out and they get taken away. End of the day, if the container doesn't have 50 rifles, there's going to be trouble.

The points you listed as positive, especially the low maintenance just strikes me as wrong. Running such a faction would not be low maintenance, as the people in charge would need to prepare scenarios for the weekends they are being actively used and that would require quite the time, especially when done in cooperation with the staff team as potentially we would need to be at the ready to provide support.

It's one weekend every month and there is many many activities I can think of and they hardly require staff attention. There needs to be approval for a few things, of course, like cordoning off the mountains for wargames, but some are plain simple. A pair of soldiers could get lost in the woods and you'd have a search & rescue scenario, we could do trainings based around convoys, check points or plain firing drills. In these regards, possibilities are endless and, if done right, are immensely fun if you don't do the overly stupid milsim stuff.

Similarly, I sadly do not see it being an attractive faction for long. There might be a drive to do once or twice but then it will die down due to having "seen it all".

Italian mafias have been around since the dawn of rp and people still enjoy them. Same goes for any kind of biker gangs; I know people roleplaying bikers exclusively when they get the chance.

Overall, for the reasons you outlined for me are not enough to consider it a necessity to have a National Guard. But as I stated on Discord, these are my views and we are open for discussing it.

It's absolutely not a necessity but a nice-to-have gadget thing. It's absolutely not a day-one must have, I was just highlighting what could be; similar to a sheriffs department or other factions which evolve over the course of the server (either out of necessity or demand). Thank you for your opinion!

 

[Schleich]

I've hosted many special events that included the use of a national guard faction on other servers, and it's best reserved for such a purpose.

There is unfortunately no viable day to day role play available that makes sense. Drills, helping out during riots, and taking care of natural disasters all sound like situations that will only arise during special events on the server. As such.. the faction would not be utilized and would sit idle except during the listed special events (if they even occur).

 

[Psychedelic]

There is unfortunately no viable day to day role play available that makes sense. Drills, helping out during riots, and taking care of natural disasters all sound like situations that will only arise during special events on the server. As such.. the faction would not be utilized and would sit idle except during the listed special events (if they even occur).

I’d have to say that I agree with this.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the idea on paper, it would be fantastic. But: having lead many factions in the past (some very successful, some not), another point I’d make is that due to the lack of day-to-day need for a National Guard organisation, you may find that you initially have a lot of power hungry people that join to give it a try. Then after a while, when there’s not much happening each day, they’ll get bored and leave. I feel like it would be a big challenge to keep people interested for any length of time.

 

[nanpou.]

I believe it could stay there even in times when events aren't going on. It'd have more to the immersion, as not every day in real life do NGs, Police, FD get into shit; specific officers that is.

 

[Snow Wolf]

There is unfortunately no viable day to day role play available that makes sense. Drills, helping out during riots, and taking care of natural disasters all sound like situations that will only arise during special events on the server. As such.. the faction would not be utilized and would sit idle except during the listed special events (if they even occur).

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the idea on paper, it would be fantastic. But: having lead many factions in the past (some very successful, some not), another point I’d make is that due to the lack of day-to-day need for a National Guard organisation, you may find that you initially have a lot of power hungry people that join to give it a try. Then after a while, when there’s not much happening each day, they’ll get bored and leave. I feel like it would be a big challenge to keep people interested for any length of time.

Actually you could do drills and trainings almost daily and it'd give the NG enough to do. It's the same as any faction ever; if you want to roleplay you'll find something to roleplay, whether thats survival trainings in the woods of LS or inspection & maintenance. I think y'all are too cramped on giving the national guard actual tasks that rival the broad spectrum of the LSPD or LSFD. When we actually have such an event, it'd be a super fine cherry on top, but until then, it's more about offering a more than unique roleplaying experience available to everyone.

Again, I consider it to be like any other faction. You don't open a mexican cartel faction with the premise of abducting tourists and beheading them and then do that every day. There's a lot of roleplay to be done around that. I've played on a military RP server for years and while yes, there have been ups and downs, I'm still be looking forward to carrying on with this type of RP. It's not about being power hungry and in control during riots, earthquakes and other things - it's about playing pretend. The NG would come together to train and pretends that there could be a riot anytime, that there could be a hurricane headed towards LS or that they could be activated by the president and be sent to war.
All these things are likely not ever happening the server. How would hurricane even be possible, scriptually? But it'd totally affect the faction's premise and day-to-day life. Imagine some IC newspaper reporting "Oil prises rise - President Drumb says intervention in Persia isn't unlikely". That' one-line and barely affects the PD, FD or anybody else, yet we'd have reason enough to go to base and train. Again, it's about playing pretend, or immersion as stated above.

On the note of trainings, which sound like a really dull word: there's things the army does in real life and there's things which simply don't ever work in video games. Just to be clear, trainings don't equal a "/me does 50 pushups" writing contest. It could be anything from driving tanks, coordinating air vehicles (possibly even utilizing air vehicles to track ground vehicles) to fire & maneuver drills (bounding exercises etc) or even SERE drills. All these could be day-to-day but don't affect the server as much as earthquakes do.

Going back to the immersion argument - how badass would it be if you came back to your faction and you'd tell your fellow policemen how different driving a tank is from driving a SWAT van?

 

[Schleich]

It seems like you are really passionate about the idea, but I highly doubt it'll ever become a thing. It falls in line with many other concepts that have been attempted on different servers and failed once the novelty wears off. A tank is fun to drive..but when you have nowhere to drive it aside from in circles around the same desert it loses appeal.

National Guard would be a ton of fun for special events but people will get really tired of doing "drills" on a daily basis. NG members would rarely have a reason to interact with anyone but themselves.

 

[Maxim]

Well, as the person in charge of the government and whose character is going to be roleplaying as San Andreas' Governor, I support the idea of having a National Guard. But, I don't believe such a thing can be decided upon in the server's current state, as there are more pressing matters and our focuses lay in different areas as of now.
In addition, I don't think it's a good idea to stretch the legal factions as of now (but it is an idea which can be brought up at a later date, once we know how things unfold and what the playerbase is going to be like on average and during peak time).

 

[Schleich]

Well, as the person in charge of the government and whose character is going to be roleplaying as San Andreas' Governor, I support the idea of having a National Guard. But, I don't believe such a thing can be decided upon in the server's current state, as there are more pressing matters and our focuses lay in different areas as of now.
In addition, I don't think it's a good idea to stretch the legal factions as of now (but it is an idea which can be brought up at a later date, once we know how things unfold and what the playerbase is going to be like on average and during peak time).

I'm curious to hear your reasoning as to how, in your opinion, it would be used on a daily basis in the future even. How would a National Guard faction be kept active and interesting, and in what ways would it interact with the rest of the server on a daily basis?

 

[Maxim]

I'm curious to hear your reasoning as to how, in your opinion, it would be used on a daily basis in the future even. How would a National Guard faction be kept active and interesting, and in what ways would it interact with the rest of the server on a daily basis?

I'm not, as a matter of fact - I don't think it can be.
I haven't entertained the idea of a National Guard, so I don't have answers to all of your questions because these are things I haven't tried to think of. If a National Guard does become a thing, I don't believe it'll be as an active faction (this is just my opinion, again).

I simply stated it is something I support in general, but it's not something I support having right now.

 

[nanpou.]

The National Guard, in theory, is good and could create some passive RP when something's not going down. But practically and logically speaking here, would anyone dedicate 1-2 hrs a day of RPing passively doing it? That's the question we need to ask ourselves.

 

[Schleich]

I'm not, as a matter of fact - I don't think it can be.
I haven't entertained the idea of a National Guard, so I don't have answers to all of your questions because these are things I haven't tried to think of. If a National Guard does become a thing, I don't believe it'll be as an active faction (this is just my opinion, again).

I simply stated it is something I support in general, but it's not something I support having right now.

I misunderstood then, sorry!

I think we are all in agreement it would be a blast to have around/functional for server events but has no viable use otherwise. Like @nanpou. just said.. would someone really dedicate hours of their time to role playing passively within a faction? Why do that when they could do legal role play with the many available factions that offer an endless stream of role play integrated with the entire server.

 

[Snow Wolf]

It seems like you are really passionate about the idea, but I highly doubt it'll ever become a thing. It falls in line with many other concepts that have been attempted on different servers and failed once the novelty wears off. A tank is fun to drive..but when you have nowhere to drive it aside from in circles around the same desert it loses appeal.

National Guard would be a ton of fun for special events but people will get really tired of doing "drills" on a daily basis. NG members would rarely have a reason to interact with anyone but themselves.

Valid points and I suppose it's up for taste.

Well, as the person in charge of the government and whose character is going to be roleplaying as San Andreas' Governor, I support the idea of having a National Guard. But, I don't believe such a thing can be decided upon in the server's current state, as there are more pressing matters and our focuses lay in different areas as of now.
In addition, I don't think it's a good idea to stretch the legal factions as of now (but it is an idea which can be brought up at a later date, once we know how things unfold and what the playerbase is going to be like on average and during peak time).

Again, I wouldn't call it stretched, it complements them. A police officer who is with the LSPD may aswell be with the national guard. It's not an exclusive thing.

The National Guard, in theory, is good and could create some passive RP when something's not going down. But practically and logically speaking here, would anyone dedicate 1-2 hrs a day of RPing passively doing it? That's the question we need to ask ourselves.

well, idk, i would, lol
even if you don't - there's nothing that says you have to be on base and have to play army soldier. you may aswell just go offbase and go into a bar. When you feel like army RP, you do army RP, if you don't then don't. it's the national guard, not the actual army.

I think we are all in agreement it would be a blast to have around/functional for server events but has no viable use otherwise. Like @nanpou. just said.. would someone really dedicate hours of their time to role playing passively within a faction? Why do that when they could do legal role play with the many available factions that offer an endless stream of role play integrated with the entire server.

I would, because it's unique. roleplaying the military is different from driving around ganton and hollering stupid shit at other gangs. but again, personal taste. I've come from military RP servers from other platforms/games and know for a fact that there's many likeminded people out there.

 

[Snow Wolf]

Additionally, I could also throw another name into the ring: Merryweather Security. The lore of GTA is really weird and I could see that working out better than the actual National Guard. From how I understand, it's a PMC cleared to operate on US Soil and contracted by the US government. If we disregard the entire private contractor thing, it'd be roughly the same as having a military but solves the entire question of "what do they do when nothing is happening that requires military action?" - they have a civilian branch which provides basic security and guarding duties to private people. This way, you would also have an actual faction instead of a dual purpose thing where a LSPD officer can double as a national guard corporal.

 

[Schleich]

Additionally, I could also throw another name into the ring: Merryweather Security. The lore of GTA is really weird and I could see that working out better than the actual National Guard. From how I understand, it's a PMC cleared to operate on US Soil and contracted by the US government. If we disregard the entire private contractor thing, it'd be roughly the same as having a military but solves the entire question of "what do they do when nothing is happening that requires military action?" - they have a civilian branch which provides basic security and guarding duties to private people. This way, you would also have an actual faction instead of a dual purpose thing where a LSPD officer can double as a national guard corporal.

I do like this idea! It falls in like with GTA lore and could potentially bring more interaction and role play with the local community as it has a daily use. Could be a fantastic idea for a faction that you or another player may want to put together and work towards official status.

 

[Snow Wolf]

I do like this idea! It falls in like with GTA lore and could potentially bring more interaction and role play with the local community as it has a daily use. Could be a fantastic idea for a faction that you or another player may want to put together and work towards official status.

I'd love to hear @Maxim 's input on this if he is playing governor of SA State - especially what the chances of negotiating possible contracts between the state and a potential merryweather faction are, how it could work or what he could envision. At the very least, I think it could act as some sort of 'secret service', ie. bodyguards to the governor himself, with options for further jobs maybe?

 

[slim]

Not so sure about this one, you've got solid points, but I don't see this being an everyday faction type of thing; on the other note, there could be a potential event that could commemorate all the armed forces.

 

[Schleich]

@Snow Wolf at this point it seems like you have a plan in mind and lots of opinions to consider. May I suggest that you take this information, compile it, and make an actual suggestion? I think the idea has run it's course as a general discussion and more so belongs in the suggestion forums.

 

[Fox]

Locked, fur further discussions of this topic as Schleich pointed out, either use the faction's forum if you wish to present a faction or compile all necessary information and throw in a suggestion.