I held this role once too.
I had absolutely zero authority to do anything. All I did was act as a friendly face to relay issues to the "real" staff who could resolve them. That's a recipe for frustration for both the ombudsman and the players.
If your game is in need of a friendly face because staff is too unhelpful, unapproachable, or ineffectual to advocate for players themselves, I think you've got bigger issues that having an ombudsman won't help.
The only category of staff that, honestly, don't need to be player relations people are dedicated coders. If all they do is make the ones and zeros sit down and stand up as required, fine. But anyone in a player-facing role needs to be approachable and effective.
If you're running a game and you need an intermediary between staff and the players, then there's a problem somewhere, probably in the way that staff relates to the players in general.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
So? If staff recognizes that problem, why is an ombudsman not a solution?
Not everyone communicates effectively online.
“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.
@ganymede said in Player Omsbudsman?:
So? If staff recognizes that problem, why is an ombudsman not a solution?
It depends on what the original problem was and how you expect the ombuds to solve it.
For example, one of the things mentioned by OP was the idea that players were too afraid to come to staff. How does having an ombuds fix this? They're still staff. Putting a different colored staff hat on somebody and saying "you can trust this person to help you" doesn't make it so.
Another thing mentioned was the idea that staff would self-sabotage their own game. Again, how does the ombuds keep them from doing so? If their natural response is not to take players into account and dismiss their requests out of hand, then the ombuds is going to face that same problem.
Now, if your only problem is that your staff is well-intentioned but sucks at communicating, then maybe a public relations officer to put a nice spin on things IS what you need. I'm not saying it can never work, just that it usually doesn't.
In this context an omsbudsman is basically HR for a MUSH. It'd be saddled with the same drawbacks any HR department has had, ever; it works for the MUSH, not the players, and at its discretion.
@ganymede said in Player Omsbudsman?:
So? If staff recognizes that problem, why is an ombudsman not a solution?
Not everyone communicates effectively online.
If communication is an issue, then you get someone that can communicate effectively, not an advocate for players. If your game needs someone to advocate for players to staff, then the problem is much bigger than communication.
@arkandel said in Player Omsbudsman?:
In this context an omsbudsman is basically HR for a MUSH. It'd be saddled with the same drawbacks any HR department has had, ever; it works for the MUSH, not the players, and at its discretion.
This yeah. A player rep would need to be a player that gets along with staff I think. Like, need a players union to advocate. But then it goes back to, if players need this voice it seems indicative that there is a bigger problem.
I agree with @Faraday that if staff know they have difficulty communicating a face/voice could help. I like the idea, I remember when @GreenFlashlight mentioned a player navigator sort similar idea. But I think as a player seeing one doesn't bridge the trust gap. One of multiple head staff that does all the chan chat and communicating with players to build that trust would be better than assigning someone as helper or player helper. I think more people see a lesser title like that as someone who tries to put out fires but has no authority to make change.
I'm just a surge protector doing my job, sir.
@lotherio Another thing, even though it's a bit flawed to compare how corporations and games can be ran, you can't really solve bad management through policies and rules.
It's a catch-22 since rules are enforced by human beings, and if they are not bad at their job - and the list of reasons that might be true is long - so will their enforcement.
In this case great staff will be their own best advocates but they can quite likely still benefit from someone who spreads the good word as their main job. On the other hand bad staff will ignore (or fire) any hype-folks hired to promote them.
There's an assumption being made here that the only people who would need such a position are somehow "bad staffers." That's hardly the case, though.
Nobody is perfect. We all have biases and blind spots and flaws in our logic that could hamper and impede us. And it's always good to have another set of eyes-or-whatever on an issue to make sure that we aren't missing something on it.
We've also somehow gotten into an idea that "good staff" are somehow capable of filling almost every role and interpersonal skill needed on a game. That is certainly not the case. I've staffed with some of you. Some of you are brilliant storytellers and coders and administrators. Some of you are downright jerks that could use some polish on your people skills. The overlap of those two circles is bigger than you might imagine, and I'm not saying I don't fall into the same trap. Doesn't make you bad staffers, though.
I think we're stumbling on the idea that 'bad staff will just ignore these guys anyway'. I mean -- yeah. They might. But bad staff aren't the only ones who could use people like this.
Just a thought.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
@derp said in Player Omsbudsman?:
There's an assumption being made here that the only people who would need such a position are somehow "bad staffers."
Not quite, some folks are saying the perception of having one by some players will be 'there must be something wrong if they need a player representative' - not that only bad staff need one. I'm in that boat, and agree, if staff just work to be trusted they'll be trusted versus requiring an additional staff just to build trust. (not that any or all need this or this advice either)
I'm just a surge protector doing my job, sir.
@runescryer said in Player Omsbudsman?:
So. An idea that I've been tossing around the recesses of my mind for a while now is the concept of an ombudsman position on a game. Basically Staff/Royalty whose sole function is to be an advocate for the players of the game. Someone who is not regular Staff that players can bring concerns to without fear of having said concerns either handwaved away or met with claims of the player being uncooperative, hostile, misrepresenting the facts, or any of the multiple ways Staff can sabotage their own games. This isn't a concept for complete lost cause games, but more for those games that honestly try to do things right, but might have bad instincts when it comes to Staffing and some control freaks are given power they really shouldn't have.
Thoughts?
Most, if not all, of your staffers should have the player's interests at heart, and player interests should generally align with the staffers. If not, then it won't matter if you have a staffer with the soul purpose of advocating for the players. If the staffers won't take the player's considerations seriously, then why would they take that particular staffer seriously? And if players don't believe that they are being treated properly, they won't put their trust in that staffer.
@lotherio said in Player Omsbudsman?:
@derp said in Player Omsbudsman?:
There's an assumption being made here that the only people who would need such a position are somehow "bad staffers."
Not quite, some folks are saying the perception of having one by some players will be 'there must be something wrong if they need a player representative' - not that only bad staff need one. I'm in that boat, and agree, if staff just work to be trusted they'll be trusted versus requiring an additional staff just to build trust. (not that any or all need this or this advice either)
Pretty much. If that assumption is being made, I don't see it.
What is happening is that there is a distinction being made between a person who advocates for players to staff and a person who clarifies and facilitates communication between players and staff.
The former is indicative of a larger problem; the latter just takes into account differences in human behavior and the nuances of human interaction and communication.
But they are very distinct.
Yep. A communication facilitator is very different from "player advocate". I think if you need specifically a player /advocate/ that's a red flag for a few reasons.
Someone who can help people communicate better is useful for all, since not only is ham handed staff communication a huge issue, but a player who isn't capable of communication without these issues also would be served by having someone who could help them be able to advocate--for themselves.
When I have seen a 3rd party start to take on a psychic/empathic role (without the presence of the person, telling others what they "really meant" or going to bat for things that the 3rd party assumes but did not confirm) it can become a problem and also not solve the problem.
But again, I think if your whole current staff is so incapable of this that you need to bring in another person exclusively for that, I think that it is unlikely to succeed because one person is not going to be enough.
@mietze said in Player Omsbudsman?:
But again, I think if your whole current staff is so incapable of this that you need to bring in another person exclusively for that, I think that it is unlikely to succeed because one person is not going to be enough.
Also why not just use the more competent person handling the communication anyway be staff and cut out the middleman?
That’s what I am attempting to convey.
Broadly, the role I think an ombudsman plays is someone’s whose job is to handle complaints of all kinds. It could be player-player, staff-staff, and anything in between. In doing so, they can take a responsibility from head staff that may allow them to do something they would rather spend their time doing, like telling stories.
It is a role that needs teeth, though.
“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.
@ganymede while I think that could work if it was part of a co-headwiz type of arrangement, I think i would be a little leery if resolving complaints and issues was spun off to a single person because the headstaff did not want to be involved.
I also have to admit I'm exceptionally unlikely to want to play on a game that is so administrative/bureaucracy heavy that would be necessary (needed because of the volume/large staff dynamics, rather than disinterest) or an admin team on a small game where nobody was capable of communicating well or being able to assist with mediation to the point that a person had to be brought in specifically because it was such a problem.
Especially the latter. I can see the value in the former though.
@mietze said in Player Omsbudsman?:
I also have to admit I'm exceptionally unlikely to want to play on a game that is so administrative/bureaucracy heavy that would be necessary (needed because of the volume/large staff dynamics, rather than disinterest) or an admin team on a small game where nobody was capable of communicating well or being able to assist with mediation to the point that a person had to be brought in specifically because it was such a problem.
Especially the latter. I can see the value in the former though.
These I both agree with.
The small one that needs an extra staff to help communicate, I hate to say but better not to staff if you can't get along with the people you want playing your game (cynical but thought provoking). A large one that has someone to help I can see, but I usually don't play on staff deep games.
A month or so ago we talked about needing code to track everything staff touched for clarity. I don't agree with needing that much oversight, but if a game was so big, I can see the ombudsman being helping players with little things like 'what happened to my job' and such. Just, I don't see it as too helpful though, if I can't go to my sphere/faction/etc staff to find out or a head admin, I'm only going to see ombudsman as another hurdle.
If I see a big hierarchy of staff, I'll be more reluctant all around.
I think another distinction is in control and thrust of theme and whats happening in play. For me, I am of the mindset that tone and direction are set and controlled by staff. I know for others players come in and give direction and shape things, maybe for such a place as this, but that's not for me. If I have a place and folks don't like direction they voice their opinion by leaving or GOMO. If I don't like the direction of a place (not saying dislike of staff but dislike of theme interpretation), I don't get made at staff. WoD ref, if I want to play a Setite (cause its the only splat book I ever got) and the game only wants me to be haitian, wearing shades, selling all things for sex-fetish or whatever, I'll leave for difference of opinion not go off saying they're doing it wrong. Its their game, they have a vision, my want to play a character doesn't agree. I wouldn't take it up in with other staff, 'hey there are some isms for Setite sphere I'm not comfortable with, can we change this' I'll just assume they have a plan in place and I don't agree with it.
So for me, I wouldn't see Ombudsman as necessary, it would appear as an extra hurdle. As staff, I try to be friendly, approachable and trustworthy. I know other staff slap my wrist for catering to players too much some times, but in the end I figure its a game and we're all trying to have fun together.
I held this role once too.
I had absolutely zero authority to do anything. All I did was act as a friendly face to relay issues to the "real" staff who could resolve them. That's a recipe for frustration for both the ombudsman and the players.
If your game is in need of a friendly face because staff is too unhelpful, unapproachable, or ineffectual to advocate for players themselves, I think you've got bigger issues that having an ombudsman won't help.
