@Thenomain said:
@AmishRakeFight said:
One more innocuous reason is that player behavior does tend to change in front of staff members, in and out of character.
But why?
If this can be addressed, maybe the rest will seem more like a bandaid?
Maybe?
I guess you first have to determine that you have an actual problem. If staff are monitoring @mailboxes, eaves dropping on pages, darkwatching private grid spaces on the off chance that they might see a savory bit of grist, and reading +jobs that they're not cc'ed on just to be inappropriate and creepy, that's an actual problem. That's a level of unacceptable we can all agree is deservedly extinction level event in terms of allowing that staff regime or maybe even the game to continue.
But much of the time, while nebulously strange and uncomfortable, its not really a problem. (ETA for clarity because otherwise this sounds like I'm advocating the above.) It's not really a problem, I mean, if its taking place on a public grid square. At least to me, its really not if there's an awareness of staff presence to observe something or not.
People as human animals moderate their behavior in front of authority figures . The way we behave in front of our boss is differently moderated than the way we behave with the people we hang out with at the bar on Friday nights. While some of this a conscious choice (like boss v. bar friends), for a lot of people there is not a lot of awareness that they're editing behavior based on who is present, most especially when this person is not a peer.
Put another way:
I currently play on a game where there's a dude who is in deep abiding love with his sword. I mean, not really, its not a character affectation that's meant to be twee or cooky. He just drags this damn sword all over the place, often into mundane and public IC spaces where walking into a bar with sword should rightfully make people freak the fuck out. Generally, when staff aren't around, he's pretty into pulling his sword everywhere and on everything regardless if its necessary or wise. Often its neither and other PCs sensibly tell him off IC for it.
If a staff member is not present for scenes, his normal response is to get super butthurt IC and bails. If staff are present, that sword gets pulled a lot less frequently and there's a whole lot less butthurt bolting. I'm pretty confident the player has no self-awareness of the degree to which his behavior moderates when staff is around.