Ghoulage on Kingsmouth
-
That would be almost sensible. Therefore, it's probably low on the list.
-
Not every game is the Reach, and not every game should be.
TR was a very fragmented, sandboxy free-for-all. Not every game aspires to that goal, and especially in a smaller game you won't have the same culture. The standards established there aren't necessarily the best way to run every game.
A major difference from TR is that on KM, the headstaffer is as approachable as any player. She'll give you input and advice, or just plain stop by to chat and make friends. That was my biggest culture shock on Kingsmouth.
There isn't as much sandbox distance as on other games, everything is much more tightly knit.
Here's my recent example. I've just returned from an unexpected two-week, three week long hiatus which protracted to a month of less-than-active play. I'd suddenly gotten a huge project and didn't have time to sleep or eat, let alone come to a mush and explain why I wasn't around. I didn't dare connect, actually, because I knew I'd get pulled into a scene and just could not risk screwing this up. I only let the game know through skype friends and the grapevine, in bursts of "I'm ok! I have RL! I will return!" I just had to say, fuck it, RL takes priority here.
I didn't get freezered or even considered inactive. I think I only managed to post an OOC apology after two weeks, when I managed to get up for air. Yes, in the third week I got an angry mail or two about abandoning a pretty intensive political position, but I still had my territory waiting for me, and everything was fine when I returned. Some things required patching up, and not everything is perfect, but I did /not/ get killed off.
What I'm trying to say is, even if the rule isn't formulated in a lawyer-perfect way, it doesn't mean it will be automatically forced on you. Sure, on TR nobody gives a shit if you're gone. There are too many players to care for any individual one. On Kingsmouth, there's no reason to apply the rule in such a cold, literal way, because it's not that kind of culture.
I see a lot of criticism levied on Kingsmouth which is completely misplaced, because it's a different kind of game in many aspects. There is actual criticism that I could give, that applies to the game from the perspective of someone who's actually playing it. Recently they've taken on some new staffers that I'm not so sure about. Apologies to them if they turn out to be awesome - which is quite possible, and I hope it goes that way.
Anyway, I don't understand the knee-jerk response to something just because it's different. Not every game has to adhere to all the same standards to be good.
Also, from what I've seen, the club13 rule seemed to fizzle out with nothing much coming of it. I haven't seen it applied, maybe I missed it, but I doubt it.
-
@Sundown said:
Not every game is the Reach, and not every game should be.
TR was a very fragmented, sandboxy free-for-all. Not every game aspires to that goal, and especially in a smaller game you won't have the same culture. The standards established there aren't necessarily the best way to run every game.
A major difference from TR is that on KM, the headstaffer is as approachable as any player. She'll give you input and advice, or just plain stop by to chat and make friends. That was my biggest culture shock on Kingsmouth.
There isn't as much sandbox distance as on other games, everything is much more tightly knit.
Here's my recent example. I've just returned from an unexpected two-week, three week long hiatus which protracted to a month of less-than-active play. I'd suddenly gotten a huge project and didn't have time to sleep or eat, let alone come to a mush and explain why I wasn't around. I didn't dare connect, actually, because I knew I'd get pulled into a scene and just could not risk screwing this up. I only let the game know through skype friends and the grapevine, in bursts of "I'm ok! I have RL! I will return!" I just had to say, fuck it, RL takes priority here.
I didn't get freezered or even considered inactive. I think I only managed to post an OOC apology after two weeks, when I managed to get up for air. Yes, in the third week I got an angry mail or two about abandoning a pretty intensive political position, but I still had my territory waiting for me, and everything was fine when I returned. Some things required patching up, and not everything is perfect, but I did /not/ get killed off.
What I'm trying to say is, even if the rule isn't formulated in a lawyer-perfect way, it doesn't mean it will be automatically forced on you. Sure, on TR nobody gives a shit if you're gone. There are too many players to care for any individual one. On Kingsmouth, there's no reason to apply the rule in such a cold, literal way, because it's not that kind of culture.
I see a lot of criticism levied on Kingsmouth which is completely misplaced, because it's a different kind of game in many aspects. There is actual criticism that I could give, that applies to the game from the perspective of someone who's actually playing it. Recently they've taken on some new staffers that I'm not so sure about. Apologies to them if they turn out to be awesome - which is quite possible, and I hope it goes that way.
Anyway, I don't understand the knee-jerk response to something just because it's different. Not every game has to adhere to all the same standards to be good.
Also, from what I've seen, the club13 rule seemed to fizzle out with nothing much coming of it. I haven't seen it applied, maybe I missed it, but I doubt it.
This diatribe is pretty pointless. We're well aware that Kingsmouth isn't The Reach. Nobody even compared it to The Reach. And your own personal experience doesn't actually make the fact that the policy is ambiguous and unclear any less true.
I can get behind different games with different cultures having different policies. But when it comes to killing of people's PCs because they idle out, I think just just a matter of common courtesy and basic respect for others that the policy be as clear as possible. Your 'may not necessarily be applied that coldly' or whatever is exactly why it should be clear.
I can't even believe anyone would argue that a policy needs to be clear and accurate. It's like... policy-writing 101, unless you're deliberately trying to be a jackass that wants to write ambiguously worded things that can be abused or not at your whim. And since I'd rather assume that's not the case...
-
So you're saying that it's not only unclear, it's applied inconsistently. Winning argument there.
-
@Derp said:
That would be almost sensible. Therefore, it's probably low on the list.
I know, I am a tortured genius
-
@Sundown said:
I only let the game know through skype friends and the grapevine, in bursts of "I'm ok! I have RL! I will return!" I just had to say, fuck it, RL takes priority here.
Actually, @Coin and @Derp, this follows what I said numerous times previously. All you have to do is tell someone you aren't going to be around due to RL circumstances. That's it.
This really isn't hard to do.
RfK's policy is draconian almost by necessity. Staking or sudden departure does not cure a ghoul or thrall of their addiction to their regnant's vitae; in fact, in character, those PCs ought to be chasing after said vampire, desperate for their blood and affection. That's the problem with Vampire games.
There are likely many ghoul players that are happy with the "finality of disappearance" policy, whatever that is. I agree that the policy could be better defined.
-
@Ganymede said:
@Sundown said:
I only let the game know through skype friends and the grapevine, in bursts of "I'm ok! I have RL! I will return!" I just had to say, fuck it, RL takes priority here.
Actually, @Coin and @Derp, this follows what I said numerous times previously. All you have to do is tell someone you aren't going to be around due to RL circumstances. That's it.
This really isn't hard to do.
RfK's policy is draconian almost by necessity. Staking or sudden departure does not cure a ghoul or thrall of their addiction to their regnant's vitae; in fact, in character, those PCs ought to be chasing after said vampire, desperate for their blood and affection. That's the problem with Vampire games.
There are likely many ghoul players that are happy with the "finality of disappearance" policy, whatever that is. I agree that the policy could be better defined.
I don't care if it follows, though, because it doesn't touch on the issue of the policy being badly written, which is my one and only complaint. I don't care how draconian it is, just be fucking clear about it. If you have to sit here and explain that 'if you just let someone know it doesn't count', it's not clear.
-
Yeah, I don't think anyone is saying that Kingsmouth is a bad game or the Reach. I think there is just a strong interest in establishing clear policy in writing over a way of handling something that is kind of an anathema to the MU* community at large. I can understand why certain folks are being defensive but I think that the simple solution is for Kingsmouth's policy makers to just express in clear and unambiguous terms what the policy is.
All they need to do is use a lot of 'may' and 'can' and 'reserve' statements that give staff flexibility over their own policy but also shows potential and existing players unambiguous potential consequences of certain behaviors.
I fail to see why this is so controversial. Despite early thoughts indicated back in WORA, it sounds like Kingsmouth's paradigm is working so why not give clear indication of policy and be done with it?
-
Okay, I am tired but I suppose people will find a reason to get upset about anything.
@Tempest Said:
I got pseudo "uninvited" for bitching about stuff on WORA early last year and my character was killed off screen according to the wiki.
Nobody gets uninvited or asked to leave due to WORA. So you can stop on that note. As for your character getting killed off, while I'm not sure who you played, if you were gone for a year, then it's pretty clear you're not coming back.
@Tempest Said:
ETA : No way is randomly killing Player Characters off-screen with vague shit like "killed by something?" not done out of OOC spite for one reason or another, even if it is just 'fuck this asshole for disappearing'. Use NPCs for your fucking "plot".
So, let's be clear. We moved wikis. That being said, the old one is at http://requiemforkingsmouth.wikia.com/wiki/Requiem_for_Kingsmouth_Wiki . So keep that in mind when you look at the new wiki for dates. As to the 'killed by something' line. There is not a single person on this list http://kingsmouth.info/wiki/Deceased that does not have a specific method of death. So I have no idea what you're even talking about.
@Misadventure said:
Staff set idle out time. They decide that is a freeze equal to abandonment., THAT may be (to me it is) poor policy
We do not equate time out to abandonment. We do equate being gone for several months or a year with no contact to abandonment. As would anyone else, so none of you start.
@Derp said:
Killing a PC is the absolute laziest and most unfair method of going about something. If the goal is to fix people sitting on territory or whatever, then it's pretty easy to say that they abandoned it, for whatever reason.
That is not the goal..
Now that all the rhetoric is addressed, actual explanations. The policy exists because while on the reach if you freezered six times in one day you never bothered anyone or anything. On our game, if you freezer six times in one day you cause us work and affect the political landscape. Anyone that plays on our game should know that the inactivity policy exists first and foremost as a way to buffer the monthly eminence and influence rankings from being inflated by people that don't actually play the game. This has so far been a successful deterrent to people having their friends make point mules. Additionally, having players show up that are 3 weeks idle affects our census and we feel that it is a lie to tell you there are 3 gangrel when one of them hasn't bothered to log in for 3 weeks.
Now, as for killing PCs off in plot. If you care to go investigate the PCs killed off in plot, they were either inactive for a long time (Several months to a year) or we were told they were not coming back. We also don't do this just randomly out of spite. We only do this in relation to a plot, we also sometimes use them as plot NPCs. This is a better use of existing resources that someone has just abandoned than just letting them sit there. If you don't like that, then make it clear where you're going when you decide you no longer want to play at Kingsmouth. The reason we do this is because there are no random NPC vampires in kingsmouth. Every vampire in kingsmouth is a defined entity. We have no shadow entities, no 'this random daeva,' no 'that guy.' They all have names. So when a player has been gone 7 months and we need a female daeva for a plot and that player hasn't contacted us in 7 months, yeah we will use that player as our NPC. And why not? I don't think that's unreasonable to assume if you can't bother yourself to tell someone in several months that you're busy but want to retain the PC that you are not coming back. Writing an email takes exactly 3 seconds. All it needs is 'I play x. RL.' We will understand this.
-
Side note: why not have a week cooling off period between freeze request and actual freezering. Link that with any caps only preventing a new PC if at that new PCs approval you still haven't started the freeze on whatever characters conflict with the caps.
-
@Misadventure said:
Side note: why not have a week cooling off period between freeze request and actual freezering. Link that with any caps only preventing a new PC if at that new PCs approval you still haven't started the freeze on whatever characters conflict with the caps.
In the case of influence, we don't actually need to do that because the slot just opens and people can take it if they want.
In the case of territory, we do just that because people compete for it.
In the case of everything else we don't need a cooling off period unless players are fighting over it (like retainers).
-
@Alzie
Hate to break it to you but if someone has been gone and unplayed for seven months there death has the exact same impact as a nameless npc no matter how important they may have been.. My argument has always been less with the policy, hell if I ran a game their would be regular idle purges of anyone gone more then 3 months barring something like RL military deployment or something like that., but againt the waxing of the pcs if you want to do that do in universally as in weather the player says this is what my char does or not. At least then it is only lazy storytelling that is the issue, not the presence or appearance of ooc spite.
And no I do not think all death in storytelling is lazy but I have seen too many times storytellers acting like the mere presence of death make it someone compelling. -
@Alzie said:
Nobody gets uninvited or asked to leave due to WORA. So you can stop on that note..
I think this happened before you started playing there, Alzie. (This was back like, 2-3 months after the game opened?) You can ask Shavalyoth if it happened or not. There was no staff but her and Kougyoku at the time, if I remember right.
As for the dead stuff, I was looking at this.
http://kingsmouth.info/wiki/Departed
Which has a link to it straight from the main wiki page, and it has a 'Dead' section if you scroll down.
-
@Tempest said:
As for the dead stuff, I was looking at this.
http://kingsmouth.info/wiki/Departed
Which has a link to it straight from the main wiki page, and it has a 'Dead' section if you scroll down.
The question marks in those cases are players who died but the players haven't found out why. That page is maintained by players based on their IC knowledge.
Alicia Vasquez for instance was found dead. It was presumed to be TFV but no one could ever prove it.
Augustin Courtland is dead and for a very real reason, the players just don't know what it is.
Keep that in mind as you read that page. Staff isn't telling people why all these people died and for the most part, players aren't actively investigating why a player that isn't still active is dead now.
-
Alright, that makes more sense. Thanks.
-
@ThatGuyThere said:
@Alzie
Hate to break it to you but if someone has been gone and unplayed for seven months there death has the exact same impact as a nameless npc no matter how important they may have been..I don't think this is true. PCs who had pre-existing relationships with a PC who dies off-screen will generally RP about it, and take more active steps to investigate it if warranted, because there's more of a feeling of investment. Even if it's seven-months gone investment, at least that's kind of a person you can pretend to have some knowledge of. NPCs who die get much more sporadic attention, in my experience, even if the ST wants their death to be important to an ongoing plot and to affect people.
-
In the time we've spent arguing about unclear policy, new and unambiguous policy could have been posted.
-
Riiight?
-
It's not a democracy. Or a meritocracy. It's tyranny, in both it's positive and negative connotations. It's a brand you chose to purchase or not.
-
@Apollonius said:
In the time we've spent arguing about unclear policy, new and unambiguous policy could have been posted.
What about the policy seems ambiguous to you? The policy about idling is pretty clear. If you up and leave a PC for several months without contact or tell us you're never coming back, I don't see why you would care if we use your PC for plot.
In any case, kingsmouth is not a game that you can play for a couple days then disappear for a month and come back.
@Tempest I asked just so I could say I did, but the answer was no. We have never asked anyone to leave due to something said on Wora. We wouldn't ask anyone to leave over something said about the game. Nor would we ban them. So the answer is no, as I knew it was, but now you can rest easy knowing I asked Becca directly and the answer was still no.