A healthy game culture
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@il-volpe So having played at a rather large Sabbat LARP for years? A good LARP group is as invaluable as a good TT group. Our group could be anywhere between 20-30 people, had one head ST with 1-3 satellite ST's on any given evening... but a lot of it was done on the honor system. You had to be trusted that what you were doing was being done correctly, that your 'rolls' weren't being manipulated or cheated, and since we were often at large public venues, that you weren't engaging in asshole behavior that would get us kicked out or asked not to return. And by and large, people stuck to it. Because we wanted the game to keep going, because we were having FUN. There were inevitably a few asshat apples, but they were quick to be ejected from the group and things never got so out of hand that we needed to involve property management or the police when someone had to be ousted. We did occasionally have to cycle venues, due to either costs... or subject matter. Some places just don't want grown ass people running around pretending to be evil vampires. But it was always done politely and we never balked when someone said we needed to move on. We just.. found another place. One of our longest runs was actually at a church that our head ST attended. That one always tickled me.
LARP gets a bad rep because there are shit ST's or shit players that reinforce stereotypes in the worst ways. But not all of them are terrible, much like with anything, it depends on the people involved and how they choose to act.
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I am finding that there is a core of truth to the idiom that tabletop RPGs in general do not translate well to MUSH'es -- it's not just WoD though the competitive setting of WoD doesn't help.
The underlying issue is that a tabletop group is very much us against them. You have 5-7 characters against the game world. They don't have to be literally back against the wall, fighting everything -- but their core concept is 'how do we survive and make things happen', their little group against the world they live in.
A MUSH community is the world. There's too many people, too many stories, to keep it that simple. So to migrate that concept in a fashion that doesn't invite pvp and backstabbing you need to have a game setting that's still us against them. Players are the good guys, working against an external enemy. Not necessarily as one team or one group, but when push comes to shove? Shoot the alien, not Private Hendricks. Hendricks may be an asshole, but that's an alien.
A game that has other players as enemies on equal footing with an external enemy will see a lot of pvp and backstabbing ic -- and a lot of players who fail to keep ic and ooc separate because ultimately, we're only humans and bleed happens.
http://keys.aresmush.com -- Come to Chincoteague, we have ponies.
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@l-b-heuschkel Or the bad guys looking to take over the world. I cannot express how often I wished for a good WoD MUSH where the players got to be the bad guys trying to take down the good guys. But I agree, you can't have both factions being playable PC's, it invites entirely too much backstabbing and pvp.
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@too-old-for-this said in A healthy game culture:
@l-b-heuschkel Or the bad guys looking to take over the world. I cannot express how often I wished for a good WoD MUSH where the players got to be the bad guys trying to take down the good guys. But I agree, you can't have both factions being playable PC's, it invites entirely too much backstabbing and pvp.
Yeah, that works too. Or both sides have grey mentalities, but they're still opposed to one another.
You see this in traditional TTRPGs a lot as well. There's a reason a lot of game systems recommend restricting 'evil' or 'opposition' races/nationalities/species to NPC use. The mystery is lost when half the party is from 'the enemy' and know all about how it works, and gameplay does tend to get far more complicated in terms of politics.
http://keys.aresmush.com -- Come to Chincoteague, we have ponies.
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I don't know about the rest of you, but the backstabbing and the politics is the main draw of WoD (specifically vampire) to me. It's almost the entire point. That and the fact that there are no good guys, everyone is fucked.
He/Him
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@tinuviel Yeah, there's reasons I'm not drawn to Vampire. At least with Werewolf everyone is nominally on the same side, but with some leeway as to how they go about it.
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@l-b-heuschkel To say nothing of how complaints about a 'bad roll' take a sour turn when it was a contested roll against one of the other people at the table. Instead of Jane patting Jack on the shoulder to commiserate the dice screwing them over, Jane has to listen to Jack bitch about how if the dice hadn't fucked him he'd have totally kicked Jane's ass... basically invalidating her win. Much as there are times I want to really really have my character punch another character in the face... I hate pvp so much.
@Tinuviel I mean, oWoD Vamp gave you built in bad guys, giving a reason why the fractious Cam/Ind/Anarch clans needed to come together to make sure the Sabbat didn't, you know, end the world. nWoD took that away, and that's when I lost interest in Vamp. I have no interest in getting into constant virtual dick-waving contests with other players. Same with Werewolf and Mage, to an extent. Oddly, Changeling went the opposite direction and is probably why I like it the best of the main nWoD splats. It gives a clear and present NPC bad guy to fight against, rather than just the same bullshit office politics that I have to endure every day at work.
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@too-old-for-this said in A healthy game culture:
@l-b-heuschkel To say nothing of how complaints about a 'bad roll' take a sour turn when it was a contested roll against one of the other people at the table. Instead of Jane patting Jack on the shoulder to commiserate the dice screwing them over, Jane has to listen to Jack bitch about how if the dice hadn't fucked him he'd have totally kicked Jane's ass... basically invalidating her win. Much as there are times I want to really really have my character punch another character in the face... I hate pvp so much.
I'm not a fan of pvp for this reason. But I will cede that as long as it clearly says on the label what you're getting into -- well, no one forces me on a pvp game, and no one forces someone who loves pvp to join one that doesn't offer it. To each their own.
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I played in two PVP campaigns with my gaming group in college - one WoD, one Amber. In both cases we fought against each other - my chars were captured, thwarted, even killed - but it was fine because we were already friends.
PVP games among strangers on the internet is a recipe for toxic behavior, plain and simple. The players are in direct opposition to each other, without the buffer of friendship to mitigate the hard feelings. You can see this in everything from first person shooters to MUs. I don't think you can avoid it, you can only try to manage it when it inevitably arises.
I've played on tons of games through the years. Sure there were occasional toxic players, and how you deal with those are important. But the only ones that had a toxic culture were either run by psycho staff (no amount of policy or code can save you from that) or were strongly PVP focused.
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@faraday Tempted to say that if you want to run a genuine pvp game you need to take it all the way and make no illusions of 'supportive community' or 'team play'. And also make it so that losing a char is not a big deal -- roll a new one, get back in the game, this is not the game for long, deep stories.
Which is fine. Again, boiling down to being bluntly honest on the label.
http://keys.aresmush.com -- Come to Chincoteague, we have ponies.
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@too-old-for-this said in A healthy game culture:
nWoD took that away, and that's when I lost interest in Vamp
No, it didn't. There's Belial's Brood, there's VII, Hunters... plenty of enemies.
ETA: This is to say that there are enemies designed into the books, they're rarely used - and when they are, they're rarely used well.
People are going to be dicks regardless of the system or the theme. Dicks are dicks.
He/Him
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@tinuviel said in A healthy game culture:
People are going to be dicks regardless of the system or the theme. Dicks are dicks.
Experience in gaming communities just doesn't bear out that theory though. There are a few card-carrying jerks around, to be sure, but they are the minority. Most people are influenced by the type of community around them. Put them in a game filled with backstabbing, manipulation, and competition, and that tends to drive a certain type of behavior. We see this over and freaking over again whenever games have certain elements (IC PVP, OOC competition for limited slots, etc.). Put that same person in a PVE/Co-Op environment, and they behave differently.
This isn't a MU-specific phenomenon. You can see it in everything from video games to board games to RPGs to 10-year-olds on the playground screaming "I got you!" "No you didn't!".
I'm not saying that PVE games are free from drama (I wish!) or that nobody should run PVP games. I'm just saying that there's a clear correlation between certain themes/game elements and a higher degree of toxic behavior among the players. If you want a less toxic environment, consider changing the environment.
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Player vs player in theory could be a wonderful and exciting thing. After all drama, conflict and change makes a better storyline than everyone getting along and everything staying the same. Conflict doesn't need resolve with the death or destruction of another character - it could be competition over who has the most social prestige, who throws the best parties and etc. Conflict could also resolve with characters coming to work together and get along. Conflict and competition often gets people more invested into games. However it can also go very very wrong.
I think player vs player should probably only be pursued when....
- Everyone is on board and wants this kind of rp.
- Everyone is prepared for the possibility that they might not come out ahead. That their character might be defeated whether that ends in character death or in just not getting a title or whatever.
- Anyone engaging in player vs player should like each other ooc and respect each other's rp or at least be neutral toward each other. Anyone who dislikes each other ooc, is having an ooc conflict or is healing from a recent ooc conflict should avoid pvp rp with each other. It is better to avoid/ignore a player/character one cannot stand than engage in pvp.
- The player vs player storyline is not being pursued ooc and people are not getting on discord and plotting how to /get/ the characters they are against and etc.
- Everyone involved doesn't view their character as totally the hero/good person in the situation, but sees it as a more complicated situation and is able to see that their character has some faults.
- It is not a case of ooc clique against ooc clique, but is the result of story. Or rather it is character vs character rather than player vs player.
- Fading to black and hand waving is always kept as an option if anyone involved is no longer having fun.
- Players have only one alt going after any given character and are careful to avoid any COI.
- Nobody is being stalked, harassed or followed around and etc.
- One is being careful to not use information their character wouldn't have access to in the conflict
- Having fun is the goal rather than winning.
- Everyone can emotionally distance from the situation and are in a headspace there they can take a break when needed and etc.
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I’m sorry, but whereas the majority of gamers may not be dicks I can tell you from almost 25 years of experience that Vampire, as a game, seems to tease out the worst of them.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@tinuviel said in A healthy game culture:
People are going to be dicks regardless of the system or the theme. Dicks are dicks.
In general, I agree. I'm not optimistic about people overall. But I think one of the big problems with that statement is that so many different people have so many different definitions about what it takes for someone else to be labeled "a dick".
When someone does something on a MU* it usually comes from a place informed by their own preferences. Very few people do things just to be cruel to others. To really understand why something was done you need to know things like: What is your interest in roleplaying? What interests you about this genre or game? What is your idea of fun?
Because most games set very few expectations or guidelines for what they want their game to be in order to open their space to as many people as possible, that's exactly what you get - as many people as possible with wildly differing expectations about what they want to happen, what should happen, and what they are okay with happening in this RP space that everyone shares.
So while the "don't be a dick" mantra seemed like a general, basic, simple concept that everyone could follow, what often occurred instead was people labeling each other as "dicks" as soon as they encountered someone doing something that wasn't in their realm of expectation.
On a base level, so many people are unable to see things from someone else's perspective, but especially so when they've been negatively affected by that person's actions. They are quick to label that person "a dick" because they don't like what that other person has done to them, regardless of whether it may be valid.
That person might not be a dick, you might just be narrow-minded. But that's a problem we see not just in our little niche world, but everywhere: differing (and shifting) boundaries about what is and is not acceptable to them, to others, and to groups as a whole.
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@ganymede said in A healthy game culture:
I’m sorry, but whereas the majority of gamers may not be dicks I can tell you from almost 25 years of experience that Vampire, as a game, seems to tease out the worst of them.
I think this goes hand in hand with Faraday's point about a game's structure and environment bringing out different sides of people -- it can also ATTRACT certain kinds of players. If someone loves being an asshole about competitive environments, they'll seek out places where they can leverage that.
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Going to just reiterate my agreement -- that ultimately, all of this is about two factors:
Communicating clearly what your game is and who it's for. Don't try to be for everybody.
Make up your mind what game culture you want, and reward the behaviour you want to see more of.
I agree 100% that game culture changes player attitude. I've met people plenty times who were absolutely dicktastic in one environment and the sweetest, laid back people in another. The more competitive the environment, the more toxic, the shittier behaviour. And usually, some vague mumbling about how you have to adapt to a game and find its tone and so on.
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Vampire is kind of intended as a deconstruction of vampires as a concept, and god knows deconstructions tend to attract fans who totally miss the point and just think yeah man killing people for food is awesome!
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@tinuviel said in A healthy game culture:
I don't know about the rest of you, but the backstabbing and the politics is the main draw of WoD (specifically vampire) to me. It's almost the entire point. That and the fact that there are no good guys, everyone is fucked.
When I started in WoD, this was the thing. And it was awesome. It was tabletop with friends and it included "fuck your buddy notes". These were index cards where we secretly wrote stuff we wanted to do. It didn't always fuck your buddy over, but sometimes it did. Every 30 minutes the ST would collect cards (everyone turned in a card regardless if they wrote something on them that they wanted to do), read through them, and secretly roll people's dice pools to see who did what, if it was successful, and if anyone else noticed. He would write the results on each card and hand them back. You never got a card back blank. Sometimes it would just be some random ass crap like "it is a busy night tonight. A lot of people are out." And you're just like 'wtf' is that supposed to mean. Sometime it didn't mean anything. Sometimes it was a clue to something someone else did (PC or NPC). And being surprised by what people were doing was the best part of the game. The important part was that you couldn't just do anything you wanted. There consequences besides the other PCs being angry. There were NPCs that had interests and alliances. There was the city in general to consider. Blood baths and shootouts were not looked favorably upon, nor anything else that drew attention.
It was great and in the top 3 of the best fun I ever had. But life stepped in. We got jobs or went to college or turned towards relationship and the gaming group broke up. So I found MUs. And, holy shit, MUs are not at all the same as tabletop even if you're technically playing the same game IP.
@faraday mentioned about how playing with friends is different than playing with strangers on the internet, but I think the key part of that dynamic isn't friendship as much as it is trust. You trust your friends, you trust the people you play with (we had different people in and out for play sessions and STers all the time and some I didn't know at all but it still went great). You trust the ST isn't going to fudge the dice for their friend. But on a MU* there's very little trust. Quite the opposite, I think. People are wary of staffers and other PCs, super skeptical about their intentions or motivations. People don't trust that someone else isn't just going to use their character as a weapon to avenge personal slights like an expendable object. Whereas real people (and characters played well) have consequences and things to lose, some characters act regardless of consequence since players can just drop the character and roll up another. So while I agree with the sentiment that friendships keep games fun, I'd argue that the key ingredient to a successful game is trust.
And that's not likely to happen on a MU* any time soon, if ever. (I could be wrong about this and I really wish I was cause that would be awesome).
