Influence/Reputation system?
-
@Balerion said:
@Gingerlily I found the original Sanguinis Nobilis code for their rumor system -- they posted it long ago on a now-defunct FTP site, but fortunately we saved it. It may give you some ideas for approaches:
The code: http://pastie.org/10451992
The help file: http://pastie.org/10451995Sorry, I missed this buried back here, but thanks for sharing Bal. No idea yet if it is applicable for anything I/people I know are working on presently but I reallllly did lurv it so I want to remember where it is for later! Thankya!
-
So, on the topic of a reputation system, I realize that we've been talking about numbers a lot, but in a MU*, things can be a hell of a lot more experimental and dynamic.
I read Thenomain's post about ranking and voting not working due to people bitching, which, yeah, I get it. I think the inherent flaw in this sort of influence system is using numbers period. What does that even mean? "I have 20 influence!"
Alright, I'm sure there's some sort of chart or whatever, but it doesn't really tell people anything at all other than "This person is allowed to do X things and order X people". So, my proposal would simply be to entirely do away with numbers entirely, and make an actually -meaningful- influence system.
I believe that there could be two numberless pools, let's say an +info-like pool that anyone in particular organizations or factions can take a look at, access depending on if they would be able to know that information about someone.
For every given org/faction, you would have a fame and infamy pool. Based on how particular characters perceive what your character has done, they'll add, say, a short paragraph (enough to be descriptive) describing this. A person will be able to write -both- their character's negative opinion and their positive opinion, considering that people tend to have both.
Now, there are limitations to this. I believe that a character's perceptions should -only- be added if they tell those perceptions to other people ICly. They cannot add things that they do not want to be ICly known. The other limitation is, those perceptions -must- be based on things that the character has actually done.
You can't add "Alice thinks this guy is lame", why does she think he's lame, what did she tell people to convey this guy's lameness?
The flip side of the system is that people -will- know who said what. Shit gets back to people, this could have consequences for the person -saying- that stuff. And that doesn't mean you can say stuff in a scene and not expect it to get around, because other people can say what they -heard- someone say. Of course this would possibly have some sort of rumor tag? And, again, it wouldn't be anonymous, it would get back to the person who told it to begin with, as this is a system that charts public information.
Anyway, based on all of this, people could decide what they think of you based on what they've heard, as what they've heard is right there in a convenient list. And makes perfect sense due to only being readable by people in the same organization where the reputation originated. Staff or GMs could also add epic shit that everyone would know regardless of if they're talking about, like, "Jim totally kicked a meteor and saved the city".
Using this system, they would also be able to much more simpler determine who should be moving up in whatever IC ranks, who's getting out there and doing stuff with a variety of people, etc. This system doesn't really benefit people who stay shut up in their rooms.
Obviously this is just a suuuuper rough draft of a system, but I think it'd pretty cool in some finalized form. And obviously if you use this kind of thing in, say, WoD, there may or may not be bitching. But hey, I've said before, if you let "This would never work" or "Players would never go for this" stop you, you can't progress. You've gotta take chances with new and experimental things, and proper implementation goes a long way in forming the response.
-
@Gingerlily said:
@Balerion said:
@Gingerlily I found the original Sanguinis Nobilis code for their rumor system -- they posted it long ago on a now-defunct FTP site, but fortunately we saved it. It may give you some ideas for approaches:
The code: http://pastie.org/10451992
The help file: http://pastie.org/10451995Sorry, I missed this buried back here, but thanks for sharing Bal. No idea yet if it is applicable for anything I/people I know are working on presently but I reallllly did lurv it so I want to remember where it is for later! Thankya!
The help file pastie is not there. It looks like a pretty neat system though.
-
@HelloProject
The real issue I can see with that is reconditioning gamers who have been programmed by the games they play to think about numbers. Not just mush or RPG games but all sort of games, talk to anyone who plays one of the Sports games regularly and they well start talking about various players ratings which are almost always numbers. Now on a superhero traits game it would fit but on those that use mechanics I could see it turning into a mess.
Another issue is at some point two people will want to use influence to do mutually exclusive things which is where the numbers come in handy, but I think that would be more easily solved the the cultural one. -
@Bobotron Oops. Not sure what happened. Here's the help files: http://pastie.org/10459001
-
@Balerion said:
@Bobotron Oops. Not sure what happened. Here's the help files: http://pastie.org/10459001
Thanks much Bal. We're actually looking at it and considering. We want to play with Influence/Status in some new ways but also our rumors system too, and its likely will use bits and pieces of a couple ideas to get to an end result, including this one. Totally appreciate your sharing it!
Are there issues that players have particularly liked or disliked as its been rolled out in full and gone on? I was never there to see implementation completely in full, but if you ran into something you wished you could have done differently I'd love to know now to bear in mind.
-
The Status system for the current edition of MET is awesome, easily adaptable to Requiem, Changeling, or Mage, and should at least be considered.
-
@The-Tree-of-Woe
Yup. We're doing our own conversion for Mage for when the Vampire chronicle ends, assuming BNS won't have the book out by then. And it's fun coming up with Mage-specific stuff in that style.For people interested, I posted a link to a PDF of just the Status stuff earlier in the thread.
-
@Gingerlily As far as the rumor portion of it goes, one of the features that have been discussed is the fact that if someone successfully investigates a rumor -- finding the person who actually started it -- then suddenly everyone who has heard the rumor will also know the identity. It's been argued that this takes a lever of power from the successful investigator, since they can hold over the person's head the fact that they know but are willing to keep that to themselves.
Not quite had the time to think through how to fix the code to allow this. Obviously the idea would be that a successful investigator would have some way to share their knowledge in a code-verifiable way (like +rumor/share then also sharing the identity), and also perhaps provide them some method to readily make the identity more widely known. Though now that I think of it, the way to make the identity widely known would be to start a fresh rumor implicating the person in what ever gossip they were spreading... maybe not so tough to sort out after all.
-
@Balerion I see more benefits to there being no code proof to share. If you want to share what you know, share it, and the receiving end can verify it themselves through a separate investigation. Or perhaps they don't, because they're too lazy. Perhaps you counted on that, and you lied, and whoever you fingered wasn't actually culpable. Perhaps they did investigate, but came up short, and you still lied and said they must not've dug deep enough (ie, gotten successes on their roll). And perhaps they buy that, too.
-
@lordbelh Yes, that's a straightforward approach. I feel the reason you need to have some code-verifiable method in place, however, is to actually have a check to make sure someone's not spinning OOC knowledge of who started a rumor as IC knowledge of same. My feeling is that coded systems need to be as air tight as possible against that sort of abuse.
It's true that this would then limit the possibilities of people RPing out bluffing about something, though... I suppose a solution would be to allow a person to spend some influence to try and attach a name to a rumor, and then people could investigate that detail separately if they decide they don't trust it. Could go pretty deep down that rabbit hole, though. But something else to ponder. Thanks!
-
@Balerion I find that the best game decisions tend to be based around 'how to enable role play' rather than 'how to prevent cheating'. If in your quest to limit cheating you cut out aspects of your game's role play, you'll inevitably find that the people who would have abused X system are simply going to abuse Y system instead. And probably they're still abusing X system anyway in a way you haven't foreseen. This is because your problem is player mentality, rather than code. Which is not to say you shouldn't limit cheaters, and that code can't in some ways help, but it should never guide your mechanical decisions.
Best of luck, though.
Edit: Especially as I really do love well made influence/rumor systems. They add a lot to a game.
-
My favoured approach in those circumstances is 'Trust but verify'. In practise this means giving players a wide freedom to do handle things on their own while making sure that everything important is logged somewhere so a staffer can investigate if needed.
-
Investigate or research. It's always good to see how something is being used, to try to improve its usefulness.
-
I don't think you can stop people from playing OOC games, really. There will always, always be people who do that. And to be honest, because most people thankfully don't really want to go through MUSHing with the attitude of "you're a liar unless I can prove you're not" there will always be folks who are able to do that sort of thing. (I just think it's far more problematic to automatically assume everyone's a liar OOC when it comes to game culture. ) The worst of it doesn't usually involve outright cheating anyway, though usually that's how folks get caught when they get too lazy or convoluted in who they've told what when OOCly.
I agree with lordbelh that it's actually pretty important to allow for PCs to lie/cheat /ICly/ though. People don't like that either really, but it's a valid thing in game. I think the negative stuff tends to happen when people extend it OOC or keep it all OOC. Which you aren't going to prevent with code. So I don't see a reason to cut off a valid avenue of RP for the small minority of OOC gameplayers; it's not like it's not obvious via other venues after awhile. I think we tend to do a little too much legislating to the exception and closing down things because of the few bad apples, when there are other ways to sanction/remove that behavior that don't take away from others using a valid IC strategy.
-
Lying etc is great for stories. The question is re the players playing to make a story, or are they playing a game to win still? I think that a large potion of RP game play is still unconsciously shaped by the war game origins.
I like using the terms "to exercise" (as in put through their paces) and "to portray" for characters and their situations. Suddenly if the goal is to portray a troubled relationship, having lies that are believed is a good thing, and not a failure. The idea of playing through a bad relationship sounds dumb, why put IC stress into my OOC fun time?
We need to move the idea of success and fun to full on experiences where we see the IC bad as a good thing to portray, as a necessary thing even. We really shouldn't be trying to outsmart one another, and rather be enjoy each others creativity and differences.
-
@Misadventure said:
Lying etc is great for stories. The question is re the players playing to make a story, or are they playing a game to win still? I think that a large potion of RP game play is still unconsciously shaped by the war game origins.
I like using the terms "to exercise" (as in put through their paces) and "to portray" for characters and their situations. Suddenly if the goal is to portray a troubled relationship, having lies that are believed is a good thing, and not a failure. The idea of playing through a bad relationship sounds dumb, why put IC stress into my OOC fun time?
We need to move the idea of success and fun to full on experiences where we see the IC bad as a good thing to portray, as a necessary thing even. We really shouldn't be trying to outsmart one another, and rather be enjoy each others creativity and differences.
This sort of thing is a lot more common in roleplaying circles outside of MUs. I played on livejournal for a long time and it was relatively chill. All the IC cheating and lying in the world didn't create as much full-on fucking drama that a single IC lie can cause on a MU.
There was drama, of course, but the quantity was just so glaringly small by comparison.
-
Do you think it is the real time nature of MU* play? I know some folks sit waiting for play by post stuff, but ... I feel like many folks hold the mental/emotional state of their character in their mind as they await a reply when its real time.
-
I do not know.
I think it may just be a culture thing. I think maybe this hobby attracts people who invest too much of themselves into their characters. I've said it before, that it has happened to me. I try not to let it.
But people still get upset when I do something IC that makes sense for my character, even though I know it might upset their character and their plans (or even them, OOC). But to me it's the different between paging someone with, "How would your character react if my character did X?" and just going over and doing X. The first one is prodding to see if you actually wanna do it from an OOC perspective and the second is actually risking it.
I've done both, the former often because I'm not willing to put too much effort into something that might not work out (such as relationship RP, especially things like ghouling and the like).
-
At least with Ghouls, the spectrum of standard relationships includes many negatives. If you asked someone "Hey want to portray the destructive effects a vampire has on a ghoul even when they appreciate something specific to that ghoul?" they would be likely to think that's okay. I'm not sure you could even ask that easily for a Kinfolk/Wolfblooded and a werewolf, even with such being in the books, and in werewolfy type movies and books (it was even in Twilight, over in a corner, cuz domestic abuse even in the service of a spiritual duty isn't romantic).