Darkside of Roleplay - UKRP Party Review

Day 3,509, 12:34 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Topher Fair

This week I'm going to look at the state of the UK, with each article focusing on one of our political parties.

Last week I interviewed the Party Presidents of the top five parties and while I've not been around for a few years, I saw many of the same names and the same issues as when I played long ago. So while I may be slightly out of the loop and would appreciate lots of comments (positive and negative!), I think I can also be quite neutral about the current situation.

I asked the Party Presidents about their policies and how they thought they were different to the other parties. It was quite obvious, and several agreed, that really our political parties are just cliques of friends. However I think they have a little more depth than that... let's start with the United Kingdom Reform Party - UKRP...



UKRP are the oldest surviving UK political party and were founded back in 2008 to save the then broken UK from our first and very inactive CP. They ruled unopposed until they were overtaken by TUP, the second oldest party, in 2009.

UKRP are a clique who love traditions, hieracies and rules. They go for the "cultural victory" where everyone holds similar sorts of attitudes to them and follows their structures, influencing future governments of other parties for years to come.

UKRP brings a number of positive qualities to eUK:
* They add a little spice to the game with comedy articles, if you enjoy seeing Monthy Python or Yes Minister jokes copy and pasted with the names changed, these are your guys.

* While the appeal is a mystery to me, they reward friendly players with made up earldoms and lordships, keeping a certain sort of player interested for maybe longer than they would otherwise.

* "Legislation" to create rules designed to guard against rogue Country Presidents and Ministers stealing all of the country's money. Under their rule the treasury is safe and unnessesary risks are blocked.

UKRP have also caused great damage to the UK:
* Their articles can be tedious and alien, many players new and old will have no idea what they are talking about. Pretty sure I saw someone claiming to be the Earl of London last week and I have no idea what that's about, it REALLY entertains a handful of odd people but I wonder how many players nope out from their weirdness.

* Their rules can be intentionally confusing and restrictive so only the people who wrote them can make any changes, this paralyses governments. Go have a look at the bizarre latin legal documents on their forums. There have also been many cases of UKRP players stealing the treasury and justifying it using their own rules.

* When you are playing an elaborate game of your own making, it can be easy to forget to actually log into the actual website and push some buttons. Worse, the people who climb UKRP's heirarchy then get put forward for actual important positions in the eUK government without experience actually doing anything.



Last week I was delighted to see hardly any of the typical UKRP jerking themselves off with the weird articles and complicated rules. Great!

However we do have another UKRP promoted beyond his ability with Dishmcds, who has run away to join the ranks of UK players whose little brother logged in, got their laptop stolen or got hit by a bus and needed to be impeached (all these things apparently happened to various players; they didn't).

The sad thing is that he will reappear in a few months with his fake IRL issues solved and run again because he needs to be the top of the UKRP and UK pyramid, you'll all let him!

Topher Fair - UK Political Analyst