Hi there. I am a Lotro Player of about 2 years. I started out on Crickhollow and have recently made Landroval home. In addition to playing the game, I enjoy writing, developing my characters' backgrounds, and role-playing. It has been my experience, however, that kinships emphasizing role-play tend to fail in supporting members to navigate the game itself (crafting needs, deeding together, questing together, grouping together, etc.). Whether a kinship encourages role-playing or not, I believe that all kinships should group together in order to build and strengthen bonds, and underscore the reason for being in the kinship in the first place. The danger in not doing this, at least for role-playing kinships, is that members can find themselves feeling disconnected from one another when any role-play is not taking place. Role-playing kinships also tend to be smaller, in my experience, and the silence in kin chat can be deafening. This is especially true when not balanced by conversation about the game itself.
I first learned of your kinship from the Lotro Community Forums, where ShadowBane is listed under 'Medium Role-Playing Kinships' in the 'New Big List of Landroval Role Play Kinships' thread (https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?363924-The-NEW-big-list-of-Landroval-Role-Play-Kinships). I have enjoyed your website and especially appreciate that members seem to actually use it. Unfortunately, I am unable to view the Code of Conduct, Grouping Rules, or the kinship's Rules of Role-Play, as these forum posts appear to be locked to non-members. What I was looking for specifically, was to see if ShadowBane has an overarching role-play theme or ongoing campaign, and/or a role-play mission statement.
I enjoyed chatting in-game this evening with Nodread. He was pleasant to talk to and generous with his time in fielding my questions about ShadowBane. I understand that there have not been any rp events scheduled of late, but that there has been an interest expressed by members. Thanks for your time.
~ Best Regards