There are two conflicting schools of thought involved in Aes Sedai roleplay. One school is that of pure player freedom. The philosophy of this school is that most people do not join a WoT MUD in order to play novices. They join to play Aes Sedai. The proponents of this school of thought contend that for the most part lessons are boring and time consuming and serve merely to stall the player from the type of roleplay in which she really wants to be involved.
The second school of thought is one of strict roleplayed history. The proponents advocate that a player should roleplay being taught everything that the character ICly knows. One part of the reasoning behind this is that if this rule is not observed, just anyone could log on and start playing as a full Aes Sedai whether she has any concept of the proper way to conduct such a character. They contend that having many roleplayed lessons is the best way to make certain that people who play Aes Sedai characters are not only justified in the IC knowledge they claim, but also competent at roleplaying it.
The purpose of this syllabus is to provide a compromise between these two philosophies. It is not perfect. Such would not be possible. It should be considered a living document which the guildleaders will be continually improving as problems in it become apparent. The philosophy behind this syllabus is one of testing. It recognizes the problem with the boredom and burnout caused by dozens of lessons. While a student has some incentive for trying to get lessons, that is, they cannot advance without them, those able to teach have less incentive. For many of them, teaching lessons just drags them away from more interesting roleplay. Regardless how interesting a lesson is, after teaching it for a couple of dozen times it loses its appeal. Therefore, there are very few required lessons in this syllabus. All of the information that would be gleaned from the lessons in a more traditional syllabus is provided in the form of files accessable by all in the guild. To insure that Aes Sedai can competently use this information, there are tests required before raising to the shawl. If someone still wishes to take all of the lessons ICly as in the older style of syllabus, she is allowed to do so. She is just not required to. Hopefully, this compromise will have the result of not holding back and boring a more adept student yet still provide the instruction that a newcomer to the MUD would need.
The syllabus is broken up into three sections, one for Novices, one for Accepted, and one for information not gained until raising to the shawl.
The Wheel of Time world is copyright © Robert Jordan and Tor Books