Conworlds:Feudism
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Feudism, in the context of mapgaming or collaborative timelines, describes a negative mindset or perspective of taking a game or project too seriously, and/or taking ownership of a country in such a way where one becomes too emotionally invested in the performance of said country, often at the expense of having fun, cooperating with others, or benefiting the project as a whole. Named for both the paradigmatic former user "Feudy McPlagueface" as well as its propensity to generate unproductive feuds, Feudism is most often used as a pejorative to describe actions associated with a desire to "win" a project, to maximize or game the system, or to overwise individually profit from a project on the wiki. Although adopting elements of Competitionism, Feudism is disinterested in the friendly contest or playful motivation of Competitionism, instead often leading to ego-based over-competition, unfairness, and belligerence and boisterous behavior.
Feudism is strongly associated with map games, sometimes being defined as the distillation of the "map game mindset", due to their historical tendency to incentivize Feudian behavior through fierce competition, subjective algorithms, and an obsessive game culture. However, Feudism can also develop in community timelines, if users become attached to their nation states and seek to propel that nation to optimum strength or outcome. Feudism is considered antithetical to the core principles of the wiki and especially the concept of Collaborationism, as it deprioritizes good faith collaboration with others, as well as the pursuit of an overall high quality project, except when it benefits one's own advancement. As such Feudism has been formally condemned by the Administration and in the guidelines of many community timelines. Although commonly confused with implausibility, one does not necessarily have to be implausible to be Feudian in approach, however, a Feudian mindset may lowers one's inhibitions toward allowing implausibility if necessary, making implausibility a likely outcome of a highly Feudian project.
In major projects, Feudism is often contagious. This is because if one player bends the rules to unfairly improve their standing without being checked by the community at large, other users will often feel they have no choice but to also bend those rules, lest the original Feudian writer conquer them first. Feudism can also negatively impact projects by demotivating other users, causing arguments and fighting, causing users to quit or feel "eliminated", or in extreme cases can even sabotage the operation of the project itself.
Concepts
Nation association
A central tenet of Feudism is the idea that one's identity is tied to a particular nation and its performance. For example, a Feudian player who is signed up as the United States in a map game may say "I am the United States", and be motivated to preserve the might of the United States at any cost. While it is not uncommon in collaborative projects for someone to claim ownership over a nation in the sense that they are personally responsible for that nation's development (e.g. the signups on Altverse II), Feudism may arise if someone becomes too closely tied to their signup, to the point where they perceive an attack against that nation as an attack against themselves, or a shortcoming of that nation as a shortcoming against themselves. For this reason, many community projects encourage language such as "I write for the United States" or "I am the United States' caretaker", to emphasis that members of the timeline are collaborators helping to construct the United States, rather than personally "becoming" it. Although it is understandable that one would want to defend their creation, or in the case of a map game, rationally work toward that nation's success, Feudism arises when one adopts out-of-character obsessiveness or irrationality toward preserving their nation's success. When one strongly associates themselves with one nation, they may develop an emotional attachment to it that clouds their ability to objectively assess its plausibility, history, or actions. Commonly, Feudian writers will no longer consider what is the most logical or realistic outcome, but what benefits themselves the most. For example, in a war between two nations, the Feudian writer will demand that their nation win regardless of if that makes the most realistic sense or creates the most interesting story. As part of this strong emotional connection, if a nation must lose a war, suffer some defeat, or otherwise concede some point, the Feudian writer will most often take this matter highly personally or offensively, leading to arguments, fighting, and often causing them to quit the project.
Competitiveness
While Competitionism often includes the use of friendly competition as a means of raising user engagement and motivation, Feudism takes this competition to the extreme, disregarding all other positive aspects of wiki participation in favor of being awarded "the best". Feudism is often distilled to the desire to "win" at all costs, even when "winning" is an undefined end state or even antithetical to the true goals of a project. Most community timelines exist for the purpose of creating a rich and interesting world, often prioritizing plausibility, uniqueness, and thoroughness. A Feudian writer will often disregard these goals and work against them, because they are instead motivated by the personal goal of having the best nation or conquering the world. To this end, Feudian writers will often be willing to do things that they would normally not tolerate other people doing, including bending the rules or realism. They may have an end goal in mind that they work toward despite it not making sense for their nation or the lore of the project. They may also develop feuds with other players, in which they are motivated to destroy other nations or the experience of other users, to make out-of-character deals, or to undermine the operation of the project itself.
An important aspect to remember is that even if a nation is fully conquered or destroyed, it is never lost. Although the nation may no longer exist at the present, its rich history and past deeds remain fixtures of the project. Feudian writers often disregard this important consideration, or do little to leave their mark in the form of interesting lore, but rather focus solely on expansion. Feudian writers often treat history as a fairly linear progression from small to large, weak to powerful, and do not accept a drop in power or an end to their progression, rejecting the creation of realistic or compelling "arcs", stories, or shortcomings.
Maximization
In a Feudian mindset, one seeks to maximize their nation to the utmost strongest position, often sacrificing plausibility, introducing ASB, compromising morals, or even abusing out-of-character situations. At its most basic, this can include writing one's nation to be perfect, unrealistically wise, or extremely lucky, e.g. making it so each of their successive rulers happens to be a great ruler. Often, Feudian writers will disregard statistical probabilities or historical circumstances to say that by coincidence, stroke of luck, or other unexplainable force, their nation continues to experience exceptional outcomes. Although sometimes these outcomes may be technically possible, they often require modern hindsight or knowledge that someone in-character would not have access to. Feudian writers will also notably never voluntarily weaken their nation, or if they do it is often a false weakening that is for show and actually highly recoverable from. If negative conditions are imposed by others onto the Feudian writer, these negatives will be strongly fought against.
When a nation has become highly maximized, or has been exaggerated, expanded, or otherwise empowered to the point of absurdity or implausibility, it is also known as a "wank". Especially egregious examples of Feudian maximization include:
- Population inflating - Highly increasing one's population beyond what is realistic, or giving your nation an exceptionally high growth rate. This includes creating ASB booms to explain high population growth, such as claiming every woman has ten children, making the "manufacture" of children culturally significant, or being overly egalitarian toward childrearing, as well as simply raising the number on a whim, going above the OTL population without explanation, and disregarding population loss.
- Early technology gain - Creating situations in which your nation just so happens to discover or adopt crucial technologies far too early or without just cause, or shifting your cultural climate to suddenly accept such innovation. Most often this manifests through a simplification of the great man theory, or the belief that if one extremely smart man just happened to be present a nation could have invented anything or changed for the better easily. Often the Feudian writer will argue that an invention is technically physically possible at that time, ignoring the centuries of studies and innovation needed in our world to lead to that invention, e.g. trying to invent penicillin in ancient history.
- Cultural shifts - In addition to tangible inventions, Feudism can also manifest as suddenly shifting the cultural attitudes of the nation, whether that be making the population accept something more egalitarian, productive, or intelligent, despite that idea being highly foreign to the cultural attitudes of the time. For example, having the nation suddenly adopt hand washing, women's suffrage, or the abandonment of feudalism. A particularly egregious example that combines cultural shifts with population inflating and technology gain was present in the map game Principia Moderni IV, when immediately after the European discover of the Inca in the 16th century a nation in Eastern Europe converted their nation to terrace farming, arguing that they learned of it from the Inca, and that this new technology should increase their population growth.
- Army inflating - After inflating the population, what follows is usually the inflating of the army. Often, Feudian writers will say an unrealistic amount of soldiers are recruited, will ignore loses or costs, or will otherwise introduce military innovations and reforms to maximize soldiers. If a Feudian writer is quoted that their nation could theoretically raise 10,000 soldiers in an absolute worst case scenario, the Feudian writer will absolutely raise 10,000 soldiers for even the smallest conflict, if not argue for 15,000, often creating an implausible arms race where every nation must raise the maximum amount of soldiers to compete. Logistics and distance will often be ignored.
Subjectivity abuse
A particularly nefarious form of maximization seen in Feudism is the abuse of subjective or honor system-based rules or guidelines. While map games often seek to create objective measurements to assess how strong or capable a nation is, it is inevitable that many if not most elements will need to be subjectively judged. Many map games use computer algorithms to simulate wars and battles, which require inputs determining the strength of nations and armies present. As such, it is crucial to the Feudian writer that they not only maximize their nation's capabilities in-game, but also argue how much those actions should translate to algorithm values out-of-character. Feudian writers often abuse the psychological concept of conditioning, where their strength is frequently repeated in chat at any available opportunity. They seek to domineer discussions to make it known that their nation is and should be the strongest, harming any objective conversation about their true conditions. Any system that relies on good faith participation from members will often be abused to ensure a desirable outcome. To this end, a Feudian writer may have to adopt emotionally manipulative tactics (e.g. threatening to quit, guilt tripping other users) or a pseudointellectual arrogance to give the impression their knowledge cannot be questioned. Often Feudian writers seek the exception not the rule in real world history. For example, they will find an obscure or unusual example of something extreme occurring as justification that they should be allowed to do that thing too if not more.
This tactic is particularly egregious as it creates a toxic atmosphere on chat that's unconducive to collaboration or community. Feudian writers may make other users feel upset or powerless to participate, or may even directly fight other people's inclusions. Feudism creates the expectation that any decision or suggestion should be challenged when it's strategically advantageous to, making moderation of projects harder and more susceptible to infighting. A popular example that slows moderation is "algorithm policing", in which a Feudian writer will police every input of the algorithm to ensure they receive the most benefits.