A healthy game culture
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I'm actually really torn on if it's vital to have staff who also play. On one hand, it'll keep them happier and more involved. However, it also makes it really hard (speaking from my own experience) to have that distance from the immediacy of a situation/individual that is causing an issue.
I wish there was some good balance of, "I'm a player and also having fun" with that "this person is my BFF, IC relationship, OOC Friend, Ride and Die (whatever)" in more staff so that there can be that unbiased look.
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@silverfox GMing should be fun in itself.
MU GMs who treat it as the price one pays to get enough control over the game to have your PC (regardless of if you call her an NPC or not) get to be super-cool ought to have learned to do better during table-top games when they were 12.
I'm pro staff-PCs, though.
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@silverfox said in A healthy game culture:
I'm actually really torn on if it's vital to have staff who also play.
In my experience, it's fine if there are rules in place. For instance, on Requiem for Kingsmouth, staff PCs could not hold territory or title. It was a double-edged sword, I suppose, because at one point they offered me a position on staff but I declined because I was more vested in my PC, who held territory and a title.
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If staff are forbidden from playing the game they help run, then they can become detached. Not seeing what players actually want/need, and making assumptions instead. Akin to billionaires trying to understand the plight of the working class, for instance.
Generally, I don't play when I staff (when the staffing role is player-focused), but keeping lines of communication open is important. It's far easier to do so while also playing. I would submit that the granularity in hierarchy on many WoD games enables this, to an extent. If you're in a position of staffly authority over the vampires, you don't get to play a vampire. But you can play a werewolf or a Changeling.
He/Him
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I actually really like that kind of split. You get your fun times but also some distance.
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@tinuviel The only problem comes in that we've seen what happens when staff play the games they staff, too. HM, The Reach, Fallcoast. How many times did a rule get changed, erased, retconned, etc. because it would adversely affect head staff's characters and/or their friends' characters? It wasn't even subtle. Remember when Sonder stated flat out that it was her game and she was going to do what she wanted to do and would absolutely play favorites?
And then there's the people like Spider, who get their friends to become staff and manipulate things from behind the curtain in their favor. So she couldn't staff Mage, but she could install someone she could manipulate. Every sphere at one point or another saw corruption from within. Rules changed to benefit self or others with zero regard to theme, logic, or sanity.
I definitely agree that there needs to be open lines of communication, there needs to be feedback received. But that is the worst way to go about it. No offense, but I've seen far, far less corruption and fuckery from Arx, where staff are restricted to NPC's than to ANY game where staff was allowed to play their own PC's.
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@too-old-for-this In Sonder's tentative defence, at least she changed the rules and let them apply to everyone. Rather than just flaunt them. It got a bit ridiculous, of course, but it didn't really appear to be one rule for her and one for everyone else.
He/Him
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@tinuviel Yeaaaaaaaaaaah, blanket changes to rules that were blatantly made to benefit her/her friends' characters being applied blanket didn't make them any less wrong. Breaking the theme and rules to suit yourself isn't made better because you let everyone do it, it just makes it more broken as fewer and fewer people follow the actual theme and rules. There's a reason both of those games sank like the Titanic. People got tired of their shit being invalidated by her whims.
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@too-old-for-this said in A healthy game culture:
There's a reason both of those games sank like the Titanic. People got tired of their shit being invalidated by her whims.
From what I saw, The Reach ended after the story was over. Fallcoast crashed because staff withdrew to do Miami, or something.
So you can absolutely disagree and dislike the thing, but changing rules is nowhere near as corrupt as what we're talking about.
He/Him
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Ultimately, shitty people are going to do shitty things. No amount of transparency or organisational structure or written rules will stop them.
Rules aren't there to stop the bad guys.
He/Him
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@tinuviel And yet again, I will point out that Arx has lacked a HUGE amount of the 'shitty things' that happened at HM, TR, or FC. It's not to say it's been completely clean, it hasn't. But it has been a damn sight better than any of the other three. I would say that across three games and multiple staff all showing the same tendencies once they have a stake in the game? That's a pretty good pattern of showing that people in power probably shouldn't be playing characters in a game where they have authority.
Rules are absolutely there to stop the bad guys. It just doesn't matter when the bad guys run the show.
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I think one of the most common (and global game effecting) toxic factors on mushes is when a large group with power/influence starts to defend things as being the terf/right etc of people within such group or on good terms with such group and starts to /other/ people who are not liked by the group or who are outside the group. The othering can come with being blacklisted/stonewalled/bullied and etc.
This can include thinking that certain ic positions, titles, plots and etc belong to certain players and that other players should not have access to them and if they do have access or pursue such they are somehow taking from the players who deserve such more.
Once someone talked on a public channel about wanting their character to be a demon hunter and was immediately jumped on by people going no that this the domain of so and so and it would be ooc wrong of you to ic pursue to that because that plot is the property of so and so. The person jumping on this person had great influence on the game and the person they said demon hunting should be reserved for was their good ooc friend was in with their powerful group. The person who was saying they would like to pursue being a demon hunter was outside the group and not liked by the powerful people on the game. I have seen this time and time again. If someone in their group had said they wanted pursue that the response would probably would have been completely different.
That plot belongs to so and so.
There are limited people I can take, so I will take five characters played by my ooc friends.
They don't deserve such because they are too new, didn't work as hard and etc.
If you take my character on this, I will have my alt bring your character on their next thing.
So and so might feel hurt and quit the game if they don't get such and such. You pursuing such and such plot line is wrong and hurting that person ooc.
Everyone thinks this plot should belong to such and such.
Everyone will dislike you if you run for such and such title.
Oh your character has violet eyes and white hair like mine? Clearly you are copying so and so in our group and its not right.
We don't need a healer xyz is already the healer and they been around longer than you. In fact you are ass for even making a healer in the first place.Etc, etc.
Generally the people reserving things for their group sincerely believe they are doing a good thing. They see how hard their friends work for things. They feel like /others/ are stepping on toes. They look at rp and plot as limited rather than expansive. As someone else getting involved will take away a slot from one of their friends, not as in roleplay and increased involvement of others creating more rp and story for the game at large.
One person being insecure and defensive about their plot can be annoying, but generally doesn't wreck a game. However I noticed that some mushers can be even more intense in their plot-hording, bullying and etc when they feel something is being taken from the friend than from themselves. Sometimes people can get very intense and passionate when defending friends. A group of people who are defensive about things belonging in group can be seriously damaging to a game, especially if they are playing multiple high powered characters with positions across spheres/factions/house etc. It can be this way even if staff are decent.
I am not sure what the answer is, but I think limiting people to one alt with a big title could help reduce one group dominating the powerful positions. I also think that rewards for bringing different players who are outside one's group into plots/scents etc could be helpful. I also that allowing a character to be close/allies with only one alt per player. So it is not like all the alts of players in a certain ooc group are allies with all the alts of the those same players and etc. And I think that people should be limited to have one alt hate/dislike/go against a certain character. To help prevent the this group doesn't like me ooc so all their alts are jerks to me effect.
But then I think that awareness helps too. For people to be aware of this and not surrender to a powerful group, but at same time to keep their cool and calm.
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@tinuviel said in A healthy game culture:
If staff are forbidden from playing the game they help run, then they can become detached. Not seeing what players actually want/need, and making assumptions instead. Akin to billionaires trying to understand the plight of the working class, for instance.
I used to strongly agree about this point. I am no longer so sure, since there's also this thing where staff experiences on their PCs are used as validation for assumptions. Staff, having fun on their own PCs, think they've got the pulse of the game. This is why sometimes you find a bunch of 'em saying, "MU problems come from player perceptions" and they don't mean this in the zen you-are-in-samsara-even-when-role-playing way, they mean players who feel wronged are wrong. (Tell me what percentage of MU problems come from player perceptions and I'll tell you what percentage of your games you staff.)
ETA: I still strongly feel staff should get to play the games they run, I just don't think it's a good preventative.
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I think that it is pretty unfair to expect anyone to run a game on their own free time without being paid and not play that game themselves. While I think it is ideal if staff doesn't play the game, I think it is also way to much to ask and expect.
So I am for staff being able to play the game they run. Although I think they should follow the rules of any other player and should restrain themselves and be capable of using some judgement.
For example on City of Hope, staff seems to be allowed more alts than players or to play multiple alts in high ranking positions and I think that does create problems.
I don't staff on any games and I probably never will. I am super grateful that some people are willing to staff and I would never feel like it would be okay for me expect them to run a game and then not enjoy it themselves.
However there can absolutely be issues with staff alts getting special treatment be it real or imagined. I even okay with staff alts getting a little bit extra, they work harder after all. So long as I still feel like the game is fun to play and plot is accessible t people who are not staffers and etc.
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@tinuviel said in A healthy game culture:
Ultimately, shitty people are going to do shitty things. No amount of transparency or organisational structure or written rules will stop them.
Rules aren't there to stop the bad guys.
Transparency does stop them. Player-visible alt registries combined with posting logs of GM-run scenes make it so I don't even have to app to know that the world-shaking action is almost always related to the RP of a handful of players and it's really Abelard GMing the orc tribe for Brigid and Camille on Monday and Camille GMing the thieves' guild for Abelard and Brigid and Darren on Wednesday and Brigid GMing the Seagull Knights on Saturday and what looks like thirteen players having regular gamey-game is actually four having very frequent gamey-game. And that knowledge is liable to make me move on, preventing them from doing shitty things to me.
"... you'll find the story doesn’t end how you think, and the most important characters aren’t who you expect.” - Penny 40 to Derek, The Magicians S04E07 ‘The Side Effect’
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@kk This is why I sorta like Arx's approach. Staff get access to staff NPC's. These are extremely powerful characters that come from races/backgrounds that players cannot access. They have powers and abilities beyond anything players can access (currently, at least). But they are meant to be limited playtime. So like... if Staff 1 runs NPC A/B/C and decides they feel up for some RP, they can step into an NPC and reach out via messengers, show up randomly in events or on grid. They can scratch that RP itch, maybe throw a plot seed or something in with it, and they don't have to worry about needing xp to build their character. Their characters are already pretty much the pinnacle of their chosen fields.
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I had people use secret alts against me and so I would welcome alts being public on any game. Some of things I experienced, I don't think people would even try if their alts were public to other players.
It would be too long a story and degrade into too much of a rant to talk about my experiences specifically - but I had people be like oh she will be in trouble in this player vs player conflict with my character if she talks about x. I will make a secret alt who will try to lure her to talk about x while my alt's protegee is in the room to witness and etc. That kind of stuff is toxic af and transparency might help.
Its harder to go after the same character again again on different alts with transparency and its harder to lay ooc traps with outted alts.
Sadly some people will take advantage of secret alts to mess with people and even if they rule is that cannot do such, if one doesn't know it is their alt, than one cannot report it. And just knowing that alts are public is enough to stop some people from trying to trap with alts.
Of couse some people will be jerks no matter the rules.
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@il-volpe said in A healthy game culture:
Transparency does stop them.
Eh, not really. Players can never actually know what's truly going on, and whether what they're being told is what's happening. Any amount of code can be circumvented, or be designed with staff-only abuse holes.
There's no such thing as transparency. There's trust. And if you don't have trust, don't play there.
We keep talking about Arx being the greatest, and sure it's fine. But it's also a fuck of a lot of work. It works with a small crew right now, and that's great. Players seem generally fine with backlogs and delays and the like. But if you want a widely available game, that's just not going to necessarily be feasible.
All that being said, we can't even agree that playing on a game run by toxic shitbirds is a bad thing and you should stop.
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@kk I wanted to allow secret alts, because I wanted people to be able to avoid 'log on your alt!' harassment. What I got was a player making half a dozen or more alts to try to interact with another player who did not want to play with them. So I made the public alt registry rule to stop that harassment, which worked, and did not have a problem with the other kind, at least not that I was made aware of.
@Tinuviel Stop it vs stop it completely kinda thing.
"... you'll find the story doesn’t end how you think, and the most important characters aren’t who you expect.” - Penny 40 to Derek, The Magicians S04E07 ‘The Side Effect’
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@il-volpe said in A healthy game culture:
@Tinuviel Stop it vs stop it completely kinda thing.
Still, I disagree. Transparency isn't something we can actually see in action, we simply have to assume that it is when we're told it is. And even if it is evident for some actions, there could very well be things hidden from us for others.
I'm perfectly fine with staff knowing my alts, but I don't want everyone to know. Sometimes I like to avoid people for a time, and not be hassled or feel compelled to engage with them. For instance.
ETA: This is to say, I don't trust anyone not to be corrupt and/or break rules. I hope they will, but bad actors are going to be bad actors regardless. VPNs are affordable enough that it is conceivable that someone can violate an IP ban relatively easily, so even that level of punishment doesn't actually guarantee anything.
He/Him
