The elusive yes-first game.

[surreality]

@Cirno said:

@surreality

Well, that escalated quickly.

I wonder if anyone told that guy that he could have just gone to Shang or Taps or FS if he was desirous of that.

In all seriousness? He does.

On Shang, he asks for consent for a scene with certain parameters that are reasonable, gets it, and then proceeds to do something that vaguely follows that format but goes so far beyond what was asked for and granted permission that I know of at least two instances of players either having to call in support from faction/establishment authority figures of some kind or disconnect to avoid him, since if you point out that he's gone beyond what he has permission for (which will be by miles, not inches), he will immediately accuse you of creating drama, going back on your word, and being unreasonable. Never mind that the other player was asked, "You cool with a scene where you're tied to a chair and teased?" and what was then posed involved engaging setting NPCs (not under his control) to aid in tearing her apart and raping her character to death with demonic weirdness and brutal, mutilating torture and gore. He doesn't see anything wrong with this. (I was the poor fucker who ran the establishment where he tried this who had to look over the logs I was sent in case the player needed IC assistance or asked if we could use the code we had for the business to ban him from the premises.)

This is not the kind of player this hobby needs, but... yeah, in terms of escalating quickly? So much 'unfortunately, yes, pretty much that.' Just not how one would expect. Basically, he found a whole new way to be abusive and horrible even with what the standards of behavior are for Shang.

[Nein]

It sounds like what is going to be needed for a yes-first game is staff training in 'how to spot the behavior of narcissistic abusers'. Even professional therapists and lawyers can miss these guys if they don't realize what they're looking at. Read up on overt/covert narcissistic behavior and if you are prepared to spot the red flags and usher these people off the game before they can start the manipulation fests, you'll probably weed out 99.9% of ongoing unreported abuse/explosions.

[Nein]

Because I want to be productive in this conversation/game development jam, I found that this website's descriptions of "workplace bullying' works almost interchangeably with MUSH abuse and harassment.

Some red flags to watch out for:

http://bullyonline.org/index.php/bullying/bullies/5-serial-bully
http://timfieldfoundation.org/wiki/index.php?title=Types_of_Serial_Bully

[Cirno]

@surreality said:

@Cirno said:

@surreality

Well, that escalated quickly.

I wonder if anyone told that guy that he could have just gone to Shang or Taps or FS if he was desirous of that.

In all seriousness? He does.

On Shang, he asks for consent for a scene with certain parameters that are reasonable, gets it, and then proceeds to do something that vaguely follows that format but goes so far beyond what was asked for and granted permission that I know of at least two instances of players either having to call in support from faction/establishment authority figures of some kind or disconnect to avoid him, since if you point out that he's gone beyond what he has permission for (which will be by miles, not inches), he will immediately accuse you of creating drama, going back on your word, and being unreasonable. Never mind that the other player was asked, "You cool with a scene where you're tied to a chair and teased?" and what was then posed involved engaging setting NPCs (not under his control) to aid in tearing her apart and raping her character to death with demonic weirdness and brutal, mutilating torture and gore. He doesn't see anything wrong with this. (I was the poor fucker who ran the establishment where he tried this who had to look over the logs I was sent in case the player needed IC assistance or asked if we could use the code we had for the business to ban him from the premises.)

This is not the kind of player this hobby needs, but... yeah, in terms of escalating quickly? So much 'unfortunately, yes, pretty much that.' Just not how one would expect. Basically, he found a whole new way to be abusive and horrible even with what the standards of behavior are for Shang.

I started out being merely shocked and appalled at this guy's behavior.

Now I'm just completely horrified.

People like him are partially why I left Shang. I have run into so many versions of that guy. I began to consider myself lucky when a scene actually went through the way it was described. While I'm good at spontaneous RP, you can count on me not to get tremendously weird, to stop when requested without taking it personally, and other basic forms of respect towards the other player.

Furthermore, my scenes always go exactly as I describe.

I also got real sick and tired of people on Shang who like gruesome, gory stuff like that. I can recall numerous people who enjoy things like that approaching me, and then guilt-shaming me with "But no one else likes this!"

Either they're lying, or they are actually one person with thousands of alts. I go to Shang to get away from playing at all the mutilation and death in the Medieval War and WoD games I play, not to have more of the same.

I've got no particular objection to RP'ing out one of my characters drinking horse semen, unless we are on a game where TS is forbidden. Like, if @Ghost respectfully asked me to bring my female character over to their place to drink a mug of horse jizz from their giant throbbing horsecock, I'd say, "Sure."

We'd be like this:

That doesn't mean people should be bugging other female players who aren't amused by that particular set of fetishes, however.

[Ganymede]

@Ghost said:

Ive said it before and I'll say it again, I don't think a liberal, yes-first game would work.

For me, more pointedly, this sort of game isn't one I would ever want to play on.

[Ghost]

@Cirno

@Ganymede ...I dunno. I might play in a game like that? I think it all depends on the culture and population of the game. If it works, then it works, and if it's working, then fuck it, make a character, yeah? All animated gifs aside, I've heard a lot of horror stories from places with less consent and more "get out and roleplay" vibes. Pin me into the column of people who would monitor this project and see how it turns out. I need plot, drama, and action, so if the end project is a more sex/kink-related MU like Shang, then I probably would go for it.

[Arkandel]

It's not consent which allows the worst of these offenders to create horror stories the rest of us repeat here afterwards and go 'whyyy was this allowed?'.

I can tell you why it was allowed if you want, @Ghost. And what the most major reason it doesn't get reported is. I didn't really want to because it might derail the thread - but it's got nothing to do with what administrative system the game is using or what its goals are.

[Alzie]

@Arkandel is it because you're going to blame the people involved? I bet your'e going to blame the other people involved. That's always the solution.

[Arkandel]

@Alzie said:

@Arkandel is it because you're going to blame the people involved? I bet your'e going to blame the other people involved. That's always the solution.

Do you actually have any reason to be here other than to be dismissive and patronizing?

If you don't care for the content of the thread there are other ones around. If you are here to contribute then it's as good a time to start as any.

[Alzie]

@Arkandel I decided it was pointless to contribute when you showed you were incapable of responding to contributions, reading or keeping a consistent opinion on how your game would operate.

Edit: For the record, 'I would tell you, but nyah-nyah-nyah' is a pretty good example of 1 of these things.

[Arkandel]

Maybe that's your issue. Or it's that you somehow seemed to be rubbed completely the wrong way by the mere existence of a thread where people were discussing a different kind of gaming philosophy to build a game around than yours that you decided to disrupt it.

If you don't have anything constructive to offer please stay out of it.

[Alzie]

@Arkandel I did contribute, I'm still waiting on you to answer it. In case you've forgotten, the question was:

You seem to switch between Staff interference and player agency constantly and this is just the theory crafting phase. If your goal, as stated in the first page, is that staff should be involved in as little as possible and only saying no because of thematic reasons but you're already suggesting staff should step in because you believe that some actions that are perfectly thematic and within the rules are trolling then how do you expect this idea to work? And how do you reconcile what is trolling and what isn't?

The specific situation was an army of NPCs. Which I'll add isn't hard, by either merits or blood sorcery. Especially with blood sorcery, do you know how easy it is with blood sorcery to summon an army of sentient creatures?

[Arkandel]

@Alzie Can you please explain how or why this wasn't a satisfactory answer to your question from that time?

To clarify though:

• Staff wouldn't be involved at all in how a player amasses any IC resources. They don't 'justify' (and thus, can't deny) spends, merits, NPC acquisition within the rules, contacts.

• Any OOC means of harassing a player are within staff's purview. If you are paging a player pushing for what you want, making alts to keep track of them, not accepting the right to fade to black... staff can and should step in immediately to shut that down.

• Any conflict on the IC grid remains under the control of players. If your PC picks a fight with another you can either resolve it through mutual agreement or let it be decided by dice. If asked staff can monitor a fight to answer questions about mechanics and ensure the result is respected if needed.

[surreality]

I'm guessing this may be a communication issue -- asking to clarify:

Would the intention here be 'anything in the books is fair game and available to play', or 'we'll go through the books and determine what is and isn't available to players, but what we decide is available is available to all players equally and there will be no quotas, caps, justifications, or hoops to jump through for any character of the proper splat who has the book pre-reqs for the thing'?

It also could be both, but in reading the exchange, this is where I'd guess the potential confusion may be coming from.

[Misadventure]

Answer to army of NPCs: Try to get them to do anything without Staff or other player consent. Done. The merit is powerless unless folks give it power.

Same with most powers, skills, merits, etc.

[Arkandel]

@surreality said:

Would the intention here be 'anything in the books is fair game and available to play', or 'we'll go through the books and determine what is and isn't available to players, but what we decide is available is available to all players equally and there will be no quotas, caps, justifications, or hoops to jump through for any character of the proper splat who has the book pre-reqs for the thing'?

Well, either way. All that is available for purchase at all is equally available to all players. All merits, skills, powers and so on can be purchased in the same way by everyone in the same way, subjected to XP availability, timers, etc. There are no justification requirements or restricted concepts.

Whether it's 'everything in the books' or '<this stuff>' would depend on the material in question and would presumably be designated clearly on the wiki.

[Alzie]

@Arkandel It's an adequate answer if you hadn't already stated on page 3 that you consider a person amassing an army of NPCs to be 'OOC Trolling.' Perhaps you only meant in the given situation, but if that's so that's all you had to say to answer the question. I'm probably the biggest supporter of this type of game, but it only works if the person making it doesn't enter into it starting off deciding that players that do certain actions are trolling. There are many reasons players do things, trolling is not always the answer. Even as big of a cynical bastard as I am, I can accept that there are more genuinely good people than bad in this hobby, its just that all the bad shit tends to happen all at once and all the bad people tend to gravitate towards each other.

Though, following along with @Misadventure, it would be interesting to see how you would handle social powers. Since you know, nobody ever even acknowledges them.

[Arkandel]

The 'trolling' part referred to on that page wasn't that someone was amassing NPCs (or any other type of in-game resource), it was the idea of someone who would specifically do that simply to try and rape everyone in the game. Even that though I followed that up with some examples of why and how I expected characters to deal with unless OOC pressure or means entered the equation in which case it would certainly be up to staff to intervene.

Ignoring social merits is an old problem especially in the WoD, abused on all sides. The more I think about it the better a well defined weighed consent system would work for a game like this. My initial reservation in including it was worry it might dominate the debate but we've crossed that bridge by now.

What I had in mind was something chosen at CGen. Maybe something close to this (ignore the exact numbers for now):

• Level 1 - You can't be killed/mained/tortured by PCs/NPCs. Receive 35% of XP
• Level 2 - You can't be killed/maimed/tortured by PCs. Receive 70% of max XP
• Level 3 - Full access, max XP.

Rape would certainly be included under 'torture', but I'm open to suggestions for better word to use. The idea is your character could still be roughed up in normal plots (punched, stabbed, etc) but not permanent things like loss of limbs, personality changes due to mind powers, etc.

Finally I'm not certain - and I'm open to suggestions - about if and how to allow changing the setting afterwards but I'm not sure it should be possible unless the XP system is flexible enough to allow retroactive changes like that and the one described in this thread isn't.

[ThatGuyThere]

Wow the fate system from DM lives again.
Not to mention this closely mirrors the risk system from City of Hope only with with out xp being involved there.
For my experience on DM this if how thing will go, everyone who cares about character building will be Level 3 for the xp bennies, though keep a friend who make s a level 1 char around them to keep the actual risk down. Regardless of what level they are set it will not lessen the ooc drama when things happen they don't want.

[Sovereign]

@Arkandel

What do you believe the benefits to this style of game to be? At first glance, I see all downsides and no upsides, and that influences my responses in critical ways. I could give better-tuned feedback if I had some idea what you desired from the system.