Harpers?

[Glim]

Is this still an organization in game? An active one?

[Mele]

It is not. Organizations on the whole need work, as they tend to only keep a few stray members and generate no roleplay from joining.

[Bellayana]

I personally would love to see the organizations be slowly worked back, perhaps use each of the organizations against each other for say the throne of a citystate. I think it would generate a new whole sphere of roleplay, knowing who harper agents are, or who Zhentarim soldiers are to capture and extract information. It does open up a new look into the world, but don't get me wrong Forgotten Kingdoms has that and more already.
But I just thought I'd throw my shout out, saying I'm in full support of slowly working organizations back into the game.

P.S.
I will say I always thought a certain Paladin of Sune was a Harper. Just sayin >.> but that is me just being skeptical about characters.

[Briek]

Building on that idea you could probably cap membership to a low number through application only and turn them into RP based positions. So the respective member gains powers through the story council, can link with other SC members and organise RP related to that organisation.

[Althasizor]

Everybody knows it would be -cool- to be a Harper agent(or if your character's kind of a douche. a Zhent). But like most things, you have to weigh benefit vs. effort.

(Read: Below is just, like, my opinion, man)

The problem is that organizations such as the Harpers are secretive. You could not go out telling everyone you're a Harper, and with nobody learning about it, it simply becomes a little star on your imaginary sheet. No roleplay is generated by becoming this thing, and I'm guessing the policing necessary to keep people from acting out of accordance with their organization as well as not abusing any 'powers' they had in it would be far more effort than the zero roleplay this generates is worth.

Continuing to use the Harpers as an example, there are two roleplay opportunities that arise from being this. First, you interact with everyone normally all the while snickering that nobody knows you're a Harper as they spill all their inconsequential secrets. Then you go off and swap stories with the maybe 1-2 other Harper members(Also note that this is something you can already do without the secret Harper label!). Second is the 'finding out who Harpers are' bit, which is a one-off gig. Once someone finds out, everyone finds out. And for the second player who comes along and reveals as a Harper, they don't even get the shock value of it.

(Also, capturing and extracting information from Zhents or Harpers would require a strong amount of trust and cool-headedness between players. See bottom paragraph.)

I'm fairly certain organizations require applications as it is? Even if they don't, the numbers would be kept low by way of a relatively small playerbase. If there were more players, organizations in their current incarnation might be fun. But as it stands, like Mele said they would need a lot of work. So that it's not just that extra dash of special snowflake you slap onto a character and can never do anything with.

That said - plenty of the incomplete RP experiences one would get from being in one of these organizations, conflicting with enemy organizations, etc. could both still exist and be more satisfyingly incorporated into a series of in-game quests that appeal to a much larger audience. (Shadow battles in the streets between Harpers and Zhents, spy missions, interrogations, finding out some NPC you just helped was a Harper agent.. Imagination!)

[Harroghty]

Ideas like this are great, but promise little when members of existing player-run organizations or faiths are scarce. There is no reason to believe that the effort to resurrect an organization such as the Harpers would be worth the effort. We will always throw weight behind what players are doing if it's in keeping with the game theme and Mask's goals, but our time and energy is thin enough where it makes little sense to erect vast projects with no promise of success.

Glim: there are some out there, but -as it's been noted- they're hiding.