Three Cheers for Staffers!

[Vorpal]

@Kanye-Qwest I don't know about Derp's staffing, myself, but generally speaking, people aren't...

And then there's Brave New World. My god.

That being said, and getting back to the topic at hand- on the whole, staffers do deserve their fair share of gratitude. While I have been tempted to help out at a MU* here and there when they were understaffed, I know myself far too well. I have a very dramatic temperament (just ask @silentsophia ) and can be very cutting. I'm also not afraid of being confrontational when I smell BS as opposed to taking the more diplomatic approach. None of those things make for an ideal staffer- so I admire people who can take the position and be good at it.

[Kanye Qwest]

I have been staff on exactly one game, and let me tell you, it was a thankless, thankless job. In fact, becoming staff led to a friend I actually really liked and cared about going off and ending that (though to be fair she seems to blow up and flake out a lot, evidenced here, so in retrospect I don't think that situation is what I thought it was at the time).

It led to a bunch of frustrations, as within any staff there are cliques, and woe betide the person who raises an objection. That led to a culture of people afraid to speak up because they would be sacrificing the work they had put into the game. In that game, if you stepped down from staff, your PCs ceased to matter, and you'd be in the negative, forever, any time it came to staff decisions.

Which is not to say I didn't have fun, of course I did. Some of the fun was even related to BEING staff. I enjoyed the things I was allowed to write/GM by myself. I enjoyed my war mission even though it killed the first PC of the season and I felt awful about THAT.

But I think people are way more judgmental of staff than they are players, disproportionately so. Maybe there are games where being staff means you get your way more often than not. That was the case for a few people, but they were the exception. Even then, I do not think most of them were purposefully trying to exploit their staff positions to 'win'. Not consciously. People are not as bad as momentary interactions can paint them to be, and I think we all know that, but it's hard to let go of a time you felt you were in the right and didn't get your way.

I have a pretty mixed rep due to that staffing, but it doesn't bother me. For instance, one player said I was the most terrible PERSON playing the game, and because of me she wouldn't even RP her character in my clan. I was that terrible. This person also said that my staffbit was a total darling because I did a tiny bit of research into her and tailored her part in a little one-off plot to give her a reward she loved. . .not realizing we were the same person.

Staffing is hard. Benefit of the doubt is the order of the day. Wall of text, here, sorry.

[Arkandel]

@Kanye-Qwest said:

I have been staff on exactly one game, and let me tell you, it was a thankless, thankless job.

Staffing, storytelling, coding (for games) - if the-generic-you go into it looking for thanks you'll be disappointed, not because you won't be but because it gratitude can only take you so far. The work is daily and the public's adoration will eventually and naturally give way to being taken for granted.

Do it because you like it, because it's enjoyable. If you run PrPs do it because you're having a blast, not because it's a task that needs doing... or you will burn out.

And yes, very often this stuff will work against you. "You're a staff alt" is likely to be the answer to many of your characters' IC achievements (and in some cases people will treat you differently, even other staff will, like it or not); you'll get bugged during your own RP to do things for other people, ranging from +jobs they want you to look at to plots they need ran. Some folks are great, others are less than great.

But ultimately if you're not having fun stop doing it. The number of staff I've seen treat people tensely - or even badly - because they're miserable or stressed but wouldn't admit that's a factor is considerable, and the sad part is that it's avoidable.

[Three-Eyed Crow]

I've honestly had very few experience I'd term out-and-out bad with MU staff, despite doing this off-and-on for 15ish years. This might be because I peace-out on games where I don't trust the administration pretty fast. I realize there are plenty of players who can just play with their friends and ignore the larger game, but I've never been one of them. I feel like cases of outright abuse and cheating are rarer than we often talk like they are (though they certainly happen now and then). Stupidity, bad judgment, and putting your faith in the wrong people because they're your friends? Sure, happens all the time and can be hugely damaging to a game, but at the end of the day that's the price of doing business with human beings. These are story games, and I'm not particularly interested in automating a story, so I'll never get away from dealing with flawed humans if I want to keep playing. I'm very grateful to anyone who takes the time to GM for me and work with me OOC on something, and I hope I generally show that to the folks I play with.

I've staffed off and on in the past and have come to the conclusion I'll probably never do it again, which makes me somewhat sad. But the last time I did, was stunned by how much I just fundamentally did not enjoy it. In a different way than, 'This is a bitch amount of work.' It became draining to log on in a way I'd never really experienced before, even on games where I had a higher work-load. I can call a couple of specific players out as contributors, but at the end of the day it's a me issue and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's age and my tolerance bottoming out. I keep hoping I'll feel differently as more time passes, as there are parts of storytelling and wider story arc construction I miss very much. It's stupidly stressful and involves more cat-herding than it should, but parts of it were very rewarding at its best.

[Kanye Qwest]

I wasn't looking for thanks. What I was expecting/looking for, I didn't really get, but you could say that's my fault. I had the unreasonable expectation that if I jumped through all the hoops set before me, I'd eventually be allowed to tell 'important' stories with the Sacred Theme.

But not to hijack another thread - I just think a lot of lingering hurt feelings and issues could probably also be avoided if people just tried to be a little understanding. Then, maybe, staffing wouldn't be such a burnout.

[Misadventure]

@Vorpal What do you do when you act like you smelled BS, and you were wrong?

[Arkandel]

@Kanye-Qwest said:

I had the unreasonable expectation that if I jumped through all the hoops set before me, I'd eventually be allowed to <snip>

Oh, that's easy. If staff put hoops to jump through between me and telling stories I go tell stories elsewhere where they're more welcome.

[Vorpal]

@Misadventure eat crow and apologize like a grown-up It's why I try not to raise a stink unless evidence itself tells me that it's not just me. A few tiffs with a staffer or a player in particular might mean that our personalities are incompatible or that we get on each other's nerves. A fail-conga of that same staffer with a large number of players, on the other hand, means there's something rotten in Denmark...

[skew]

What I look for when I staff is a sense that the people I am staffing for are having as much fun playing as I am staffing.

It might seem silly, but I find players actually saying that they're enjoying themselves way more than I do any sort of "thanks staff!" sort of thing. Sometimes I'll get pages, sometimes I'll get OOC laughs or gasps or whatever else. I think those moments, where I can tell players are entertained, is what truly makes me want to keep telling stories.

[Scissors]

Late to this, but let me add my appreciation for the awesome staff on BITN.... because I'm the person who sees a 10-minute lineup at the cashier and drops the shopping basket. Efficiency and fast responses make me happy, and BITN staff are absolutely top-notch with that.

How fast? Using my CGen as an example, after I finished the process and hit "Submit", I proceeded to go and write my character description on notepad. When I went to copy and paste it 15 minutes later, I was already approved.

They keep saying they're fast because the various +jobs are easy. Maybe that's true, but that still takes someone to pay attention; the fast turnaround means less time spent on bureaucratic paperwork and more time on the fun stuff.

[lordbelh]

@Scissors said:

They keep saying they're fast because the various +jobs are easy.

It was a revelation for me to use @Thenomain 's code when I was staff at Reno. My previous staffing experience had led me to dread anything code based, working on sheets, whatever.

[tragedyjones]

Once you learn the basics of @Thenomain code it is quite easy to do things. Which is nice.

[Derp]

@tragedyjones

I was a little intimidated when I first saw Theno code. It looks really complex at first glance. So many things everywhere. And then I realized that he actually made it really, really nice and easy to change things when they need to be changed by just breaking it up into little tiny pieces and then smooshing them back together, in the example I saw.

@Thenomain does things with code, though, that I'll freely admit I don't understand at all. I just sort of trust that it works. I think at this point he's earned that with just about everyone.

[Lithium]

@Derp The first time I saw Thenocode I was like, "What is this madness?!" because of how he splits it up into separate lines. When I write it's just one huge line because I have a pretty large monitor and have a lot of screen realestate. So I was looking at his code and going: "How the hell does that work?" then I realized that it just was expanded downwards piece by piece I got it and was like: Ohhhh.

I still don't code so prettily but I at least understand what he's doing with it now for the most part. Occasionally with the help of some function help files I don't have all the functions memorized yet...

[Thenomain]

I'm happy to take some credit for this, but even with the system being easy to get to the 'ready to go' state, staff can still hang you up on explanations for your 5 in Dexterity, for your power selection, for your background not matching your stats, no background, and so forth.

As a coder, my job is to make staff's job fast-er, to write into code any business rules. Only staff can take the efficient tool and use it efficiently. Sometimes I code for my particular staffing philosophy (the dark flag is ignored for 'staff'), but administration's actions can turn any code into a pile of poo by not using their own business rules.

Truism: A tool that isn't used is a paperweight.