Roster Characters & WoD?

Ghost

@mietze said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

I kind of wonder though how one would track creepers/abusive people

Since most people who run games won't take the time/money to properly do SSL (and because the technology is literally decades behind modern standards) there's only one real option.

Auto-registration of new users needs to be shut off.
All users need to be tied to a federated/third party ID system (AresID, etc)
(most important) New/unknown players will need to be vouched for, and if "unknown" player turns out to be a repeat offender creep the player who vouched for them will be banned/punished/given 1 warning.

If you leverage people's attachment to the hobby with helping keep it safe, you'd probably see a "safer" (though I hate that word) environment rather quickly. Either way there's no way to keep out anonymous creepers, pedophiles, and abusers without either 1) putting in a security measure on the door (which means putting a gate in front of "walk-in" users or 2) requiring more money be spent to run the games. If random "person who was TSing with the creeper who knew they had a bad reputation but they seemed fine at the time" understood that there could be ramifications for vouching for the person, then maybe they'd think twice.

Tinuviel

@ghost That's where we get into the battle between accessibility and security. Which is an unending debate here and in the meatspace, so it'll just lead to annoyance and frustration if we get into it.

3543thrh67

@ghost said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

@mietze said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

I kind of wonder though how one would track creepers/abusive people

Since most people who run games won't take the time/money to properly do SSL (and because the technology is literally decades behind modern standards) there's only one real option.

I don't think 'won't' is the accurate word to use here. I think 'can't' is a better one because it could be more lack of money or lack of knowledge (not everyone wants or likes to learn code or is even capable because it makes there eyes go wonky).

Ghost

@Tinuviel @icanbeyourmuse Both good points, so really I think the only solution (since setting up SSL would be a bitch) would be to fall back on old-fashioned "gatekeeping" methods that clubs, parties, and other events fall back on. I don't see this happening in the MU community, though.

Tinuviel

@ghost said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

I don't see this happening in the MU community, though.

Of course not, some folks hate the idea of giving their email address to games. Besides any measure of proof of identity can be falsified enough to pass a bouncer relatively easily. It wouldn't take much to fool game staff.

Ghost

@tinuviel said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

@ghost said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

I don't see this happening in the MU community, though.

Of course not, some folks hate the idea of giving their email address to games. Besides any measure of proof of identity can be falsified enough to pass a bouncer relatively easily. It wouldn't take much to fool game staff.

That's why I like my idea of "people need to be vouched for and if you vouch for them and they turn out to be a fucked up person it reflects on you." Granted, I doubt people would be willing to stake themselves like this considering how tumultuous and paranoid the hobby can be. People tend to go from "best person ever" to "card carrying sociopath" in 1.5 seconds when they try to "break up" with a TS partner. I still don't see people being willing to apply risk to themselves, though.

All I know is two things:

If I ran a group/gaming space and had a problem with creepers coming in, I'd do this. I'd make the guest list "implicit deny" and like anything from the Masonic Order, country club, sex club, or a book club I'd hold people who "vouch" for others to their word. Staking people's involvement against "vouching" forces people to make better choices when nominating people for membership. Same concept applies in giving your recommendation for a new-hire at a job.
I've surpassed my allotted number of posts to MSB for the year and am going back to haunting. Hope all is well, Tin. Take care.

Arkandel

@ghost The problem with that is you'd probably end up running a ghost town (pun only partially unintended) since it'd take so much scrutiny to even start playing there.

If of course your goal is to have a small, controlled environment then that's fine.

Tinuviel

@arkandel said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

If of course your goal is to have a small, controlled environment then that's fine.

If your goal is to have a small, controlled environment then you wouldn't need it. You'd vouch for everyone personally.

Ominous

To elaborate on my proposal and address some of the concerns of it's implementation, I see this being feasible on a small server, say 20-30 players maximum. I would probably use Ares or at least steal Ares' system for doing scenes over time. I would have a forum or some other means for players to discuss scenes and characters so they can explore the personalities and develop the depth of characters with a communal understanding of what each character is like. I'd lean heavy onto Narrativist game mechanics and shift things to more of a collaborative storytelling/novel writing experience.

I wouldn't just set up a roster where a character goes after its current player logs off and leave it at that.

Tinuviel

@ominous No, no. Don't talk about it now. Get your ~~sample population~~ playerbase and ~~test your hypothesis~~ run the game for a few months. Then tell us all about it.

Devrex

@ominous Honestly if my character isn't mine I can't imagine caring about playing that character that much. No matter what other tools existed. If someone else could touch my character and make decisions about them then my own sense of investment has been destroyed. I'm not saying your idea could never work or that there aren't people who might not be interested in the more overarching story or whatnot, but I am saying this is what would turn me off the concept as described/as I understand it. Shared NPCs are one thing, with one or two highly trusted individuals, but shared PCs? Why? I no longer get to experience the story as if I'm there, I'm just writing a book at that point, and if I'm going to do that, well...there's two or three unfinished projects in my Gdrive that I could just go finish and try to make some money off of instead.

Pyrephox

@ominous This would be intriguing to me, although more from a collaborative writing standpoint than a role-playing standpoint per se. I think you'd end up with a small but invested group of players - the biggest thing I could see needing some very firm rules is how to resolve conflicts of depiction when no party wants to give way. You don't want to end up with Wikipedia edit wars, but with players.

faraday

@ghost I don't really see what SSL has to do with keeping out creepers.

Even if you used a third party identity system backed by SSL - say, MSB logins, for instance - I can always just use a VPN, create a new account on MSB, and be somebody else.

And even invite-only games can get someone in who ends up being a jerk under the right set of circumstances. You can't expect a walled garden in this kind of hobby, IMHO, you just have to be prepared to deal with issues as they arise.

Tinuviel

@faraday said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

I can always just use a VPN, create a new account on MSB, and be somebody else.

This just in, @faraday is actually our repeat troll.

Derp

@pyrephox said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

the biggest thing I could see needing some very firm rules is how to resolve conflicts of depiction when no party wants to give way.

I don't even think this would be the first big fire that you'd have to put out. The first big fire that you'd have to put out is figuring out how every single job that a player puts in is going to be resolved before that player logs out.

And who gets control over the xp pools that come with that character if you have to give them up every day.

And...

Pyrephox

@derp said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

@pyrephox said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

the biggest thing I could see needing some very firm rules is how to resolve conflicts of depiction when no party wants to give way.

I don't even think this would be the first big fire that you'd have to put out. The first big fire that you'd have to put out is figuring out how every single job that a player puts in is going to be resolved before that player logs out.

And who gets control over the xp pools that come with that character if you have to give them up every day.

And...

I doubt that this sort of system would have either jobs or 'XP', and that's okay. Based on what Ominious has said, it would probably be more like people collaborating on what the arcs for characters are and players who are interested in those cooperating to pursue them. I imagine that if there's XP at all, it'd be on a milestone system - but, honestly, it'd probably be better to do away with it.

It wouldn't be a typical MU* experience, or even a typical tabletop experience. Less focused on 'this is my character and it progresses individually' and more 'this is our game and we move the characters to experience the stories we want to tell'. A niche appeal but not an invalid one, at all. It actually reminds me of a lot of the better freeform RP you find out in the wilds, which is a lot less individual focused, and may have one or more players trading off for for each other during their 'poses' (which often more resemble vignettes).

Ominous

@pyrephox

Yes. I am surprised at MUs not borrowing more ideas from other RP mediums and tabletop games. Microscope, Dread, Fiasco, Icarus, Universalis, and other atypical RPGs have interesting ideas.

Tinuviel

@ominous said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

Yes. I am surprised at MUs not borrowing more ideas from other RP mediums and tabletop games.

tradition

faraday

@derp said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

I don't even think this would be the first big fire that you'd have to put out. The first big fire that you'd have to put out is figuring out how every single job that a player puts in is going to be resolved before that player logs out.

I mean... just use Ares, have everybody make up a playerbit character for the OOC stuff, set all the 'cast' characters to NPCs, give everyone the control_npc power, and code up some kind of 'today I claim Bob' queue to say who can pose who. (Or don't, if you want a true collaborative novel approach, and just let anybody pose anybody at any time).

I'm not saying it's a good idea, but from a purely technical standpoint it's not all that difficult to execute.

Devrex

@pyrephox I've been on some of those and they drove me a little crazy. I was running a thread where I presented a character with some NPCs to interact with. The guy proceeded to take control of every character in the scene. Every one. His. All the NPCs I was posting. And was confused when I said well...you've left me nothing to post after you and nowhere to go, because you were supposed to play your own character, not the characters I introduced to give your character something to do. And apparently I was the counter-cultural one there. And I still couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do or where I was supposed to go after someone had taken all these NPCs off in this crazy other direction. What was the right interpretation? There no longer was one. No baseline for me to use to decide how anybody reacted cause he'd already changed everybody's personalities around. I couldn't figure out what to do next. And he got mad at me for not posting next. And I'm like...but why? You can just keep right on writing in this set-up. You no longer need or want my input.