I cannot think of someone I respect more than @faraday when it comes to designing MUs. Ares has consistently impressed me, and I think of her contributing more to the overall hobby in the past few years than anyone.
Faraday is so good and so accomplished at what she does that when people on Arx come to me for suggestions about getting games going, I usually point them to Ares, not our code base. I cannot overstate how good of a job she's done in making the hobby more accessible.
Reminds me of how I was talking with @Tehom earlier today about using cloudinary's transformations to automatically change a character's PB to be grayscale when they died, and attach a superimposed In Memoriam with dates of their character's lifespan. Doubt we'd ever get to something like that, but you -could-.
We're probably only a few years from thispersondoesnotexist type editors in the public domain and being able to 'make me a supermodel' PB anyways.
@Pandora said in Favorite Youtubers?:
@Kanye-Qwest said in Favorite Youtubers?:
@Pandora There are 3 secret societies but if you don't go Illuminati you are doing it wrong.
Quoted for damn truth. I've literally only done the intros for the other societies to see their bases.
I literally am just playing through the game off and on now to see all the KG comments on every mission completion.
@Otrere said in Firefly - Still Flyin':
Thank you! This isn't the first time I've heard the suggestion to not take everything from this forum as gold, and I do take that to heart. I also appreciate your kind words!
Yeah I wouldn't worry too much about it, people just have strong feelings about privacy policies which makes for lively debate on here but it probably won't matter too much one way or the other in running a game. If you're having fun running the game and spend a lot of time and energy making the game fun to play on, people are going to play regardless of almost any policy for the most part. They can be useful to have and help set a tone for a game that can matter, but frankly most people won't read them.
Yeah, it does. The reason I haven't posted in this thread is because I didn't want to derail it but it's a core consideration if a game hasn't banned it entirely.
If a game is entirely collaborative and has no meaningful PVP, then you're mostly balanced around reinforcing a feeling of worth and satisfaction at how much someone can meaningfully contribute, and power is important to that but honestly there's a number of settings where it's just not that important and it's more a matter of balancing how much attention each PC is shown and providing satisfying outcomes instead of how relatively strong each PC.
Now if PVP is a factor, that changes really heavily, because you have a couple questions about dinosaurs and how -much- of a power difference is fair, and people are going to be really heavily biased on how that should weigh. And there's a lot of questions that determine the flavor of the game.
What kind of chance in a fight should a fresh CG, brand new character have against the strongest character in the game? How easily should a new player be able to grow and rival the most established characters? Should an extremely powerful character ever be able to take on multiple characters simultaneously, even fresh CGs?
These aren't trivial questions. If a dinosaur can defeat fresh CGs with no risk, bullying can become extremely common place. If new CGs can threaten a dinosaur easily, you can have uninvested players casually drive off the most invested players in the game. The exact line of balance for power ranges may have an extremely strong effect on player behavior, barring other factors. It's not just about protecting new players from dinosaurs, but also protecting dinosaurs from feeling their time investment is completely meaningless, and being unwilling to do that and having no one at all do that.
@Wizz said in Model Policies?:
But I don't get OOC rooms. They're like, the Pub chan condensed down into a very tiny pond that doesn't always have oversight and people who might be inclined to be an asshole on Pub will almost certainly be an asshole in one, in my experience.
I think they can be a positive if there is by happenstance a group that enjoys hanging out there that greets new players, makes them feel welcome, and oocly fills them in on what's going on in the game and makes them feel more of a part of things. I have never seen this actually happen, and all the OOC rooms I've seen have been a negative for the game. To me they are an artifact of bygone times when the player base was made up of a majority of people with way more time, way less obligations IRL, and way more energy. Then I think the majority of OOC rooms would reflected that kind of energy. Right now, it reminds me of automated announcements for someone leaving a channel- probably useful back in a bygone era, but now pretty much just used by people to passive aggressively announce they don't like the people talking. Net negative in the current era.
tbh I'm closer to @BlondeBot in thinking it is better to give specific examples, because I think 'don't be a dick' doesn't prevent as many problems as I'd like. It's helpful to give people a general feeling of the environment you are hoping to create, but relatively little of my time is spent policing really bad actors, but people that are reasonable and just disagree.
I think it's more helpful to just focus on policies that are around the kind of environment you enjoy, and there's a huge range in that. Some people really, really enjoy no holds barred, competitive environments, where ooc communication is very much like WORA. I certainly don't, but they aren't a small group in MU-dom, really. Like can you imagine a MUD like Stillborn having the same kind of civility policies as a purely collaborative, consent-based MUSH?
I think giving examples gives people a better heads up on what kind of environment you are shooting for, and whether someone will be comfortable there or stay far away. I mean if someone wants to try to appeal to everyone, can certainly give it a shot, but you'll definitely be banning people who have way different opinions on what being a dick means.
@BlondeBot said in Model Policies?:
I'd say limit what can or can't be said on channels is a good one. Keep the guidelines clear and the consequences consistent. For instance:
No religion
No politics
No social justice
No sexuality/gender/orientation
No 'just saying' or 'telling it like it is'
No recent tragedies
No cat de-clawing
No bad-mouthing other games/players/staffOf course, tailor the exact guidelines to the kinds of conversations you want/don't want to see, but in my experience, not allowing people to bring up hot-button topics that are proven powder kegs helps to keep things calm! And helps keep the focus where it should be: on your game!
In general I don't think I'd define many specific categories, except to broadly avoid controversial subjects or one that would reasonably start arguments. Since the problem is if you define one category as a problem that some people find unobjectionable, that appears to be passing a value judgment on all discussions of it whether it would start an argument or not, and helps nudge towards an environment that can be slanted.
I'm remembering the dude I had to ban for a joke about Harambe right now. I dunno if the 'no recent tragedies' would have even occurred to him, since it had been some time, but he just predictably did the thing of making a tasteless joke, someone saying they didn't think it was funny, him getting upset someone implied he was insensitive and bites back, and on and on.
If it helps to think about whether code arbitrating something like this is a good fit, I'd say games that are specifically designed to be competitive versus ones that are collaborative have very different priorities, and this is much more suited to the latter.
For a game designed around being competitive, the most central aspect of the game environment is fairness and consistency in creating a level playing field. People have a much more difficult time being invested and pouring in their effort without a guarantee it will be treated equivalently to every other player. This means that players in general are very suspicious of any means to alter an outcome based on personal preference. A lot of MUD players, with entirely coded, mechanical outcomes, would never, ever be comfortable on a MUSH where a GM arbitrates outcomes because of this.
For collaborative games, we're much more interested in fostering environments that allow shared stories to thrive, and for that the comfort of players is critical, and vastly more important than perfect game balance. Someone that's a raging asshole can actually be pretty healthy for a competitive environment in some circumstances, where even someone that is merely unconcerned about whether a shared story is fun for other people is detrimental in a collaborative one.
So I kind of think it's a little bit of the wrong question when talking about collaborative story environments like MUSHes to ask, "do we need a tool like this" and it might be better to start a step further and ask, "what's are the best approaches in making sure people feel at ease in withdrawing from RP that makes them uncomfortable without any disruption to them or shared stories?" And I think that question is the critical one for any game runner in making sure no player is sitting through squicky RP that creeps them out because they don't want to be considered a problem and they don't want to feel like they are screwing up other people's stories.
It's not exactly coincidental that the most problematic members of the community gravitate towards new players that are unclear on what is and what isn't permitted behavior in the community, and are a large reason why games that don't have strict enforcement have such high churn rates with new players.
@Ganymede said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:
@Auspice said in Personal Agency for Personal Boundaries:
Make an opt-in. Make people running scenes, plots, writing shit for the game, etc., label their stuff clearly.
What's the default level of play?
If you have an opt-in, there has to be some expectation of baseline play. What is that baseline? What if baseline RP naturally progresses into a kind of RP that requires an opt-in, but the players involved forget about using the right command and barrel on in?
The easiest one honestly would be everything logged and public facing with an expectation of PG rating community standards in logged public scenes, and if they want to move a scene private without public facing logging for adult content, that's the cutoff point for opt-in. There's plenty of people that would not be on board with that for a number of reasons, but it would counter the largest Creeper Avoiding Public Scrutiny usecase by forcing consent at the point they are most likely to try to exploit.
@Pandora Pretty much any command would be a huge cultural shift for the game in how it feels, but a command doesn't have to be on an opt-out.
One approach would be to not put responsibility on the party that feels uncomfortable, with not using a command to duck out in the +Iamreallynotdownwiththis or whatever, but instead to go entirely to a culture of affirmative consent. Say that every scene in public defaults to a PG-rating, and anyone wanting to take it to say, a hard R rating would have to do a command of, +okaytimeforadultcontent and if everyone codedly agrees, it's now an R rating scene and scene keeps going as private/adult/whatever. If they don't all opt-in, scene ends and FTBs, and they then do a handwaved, offscreen synopsis. If contentious, just arbitrated through dice.
I think virtually any kind of coded flagging for adult activity is going to squick at least some people out, because it says the quiet part out loud in a way that can't really be politely ignored very well or code going places where they feel it has no business at all going. There's a lot of really strong reactions to Haven, Firan's sex code and so on, and I think anything coded trying to establish boundaries for consent is going to run into that, as well as people feeling that it just guts the organic feeling of RP and makes something that's freeform and flowing into a mechanical hassle they don't want to deal with. That said, if you are looking for more of a MUD-like vibe of player arbitration to reduce terrible outcomes and prevent creeps from trapping people in miserable and deeply offsetting scenes, I think forcing affirmative consent is a strong avenue. And for a MUD-like, you can do a lot with say, tagging specific grid areas as very clearly having different defaults that are not PG, and or categorize what people are comfortable with. And filter people's 'No, Absolutely Not, Will always FTB if this is in a scene' categories with very awkward degrees of detail.
For staff, I think code like that comes down to whether you're okay with approaches that feel ham-handed, in-organic or controlling, that could scare off anyone that takes a look at commands and decides you're running a sex game and they want absolutely nothing to do with that depending on the degree of the commands and the sensitivity in implementation. Otherwise, it's accepting that creepers will probably pressure the fuck out of people and put the responsibility of saying, "I'm not cool with this" on people that might feel like they should go along with intensely creepy shit because they don't want to feel like they are being dramatic and making a big deal out of someone slowly racheting up the pressure on them, like they have to 20 other people, since boundaries are not clearly defined and consent is just assumed until someone sets their boundaries very clearly.
@Sarah said in Good MU with sense of progression:
Sorry guys, it was a hell of a month. I left from Sindome actually, mostly because as I said they discourage any and all ooc communication and so I was completely on my own for figuring out basic survival mechanics.
Anyways aside from a sense of progression?/i guess medieval? Lord and Ladies games where I can /do/ things, etc.
So most MUSHes are really designed for a tabletop RPG writ large feel, that's very character relationship driven with GMs often telling stories or maintaining plot, but they generally don't have the kinds of game mechanics you'd see on a Sindome or HellMOO or Armageddon that has a player versus environment feel, that could give you the kind of sensation of progression.
I'm adding some of that to my game over time for what you might be thinking of, but it's still really downplayed, because games that are MUD-MUSH type hybrids are deciding where their focus is on creating an environment that can act as RP prompts for players and let them develop things on their own, versus a collaborative storytelling experience where the focus is really on letting those players drive stories without an environment possibly getting in the way. I like to try to combine the two and want to keep adding in more environmental features on Arx, but they are still noticeably different styles of RP.
@Pyrephox said in L&L Options?:
I wouldn't mind helping build systems and setting for a game. I'm too much of a flake to run one, but I like writing and testing systems, especially these sorts of systems.
It's still on my to do. Really what I'm most looking forward to, tbh.
@Pandora More code helps with it, imo. It removes the vagueness of what's okay to do and what's not, and makes things more organic where people feel it's okay to shut shit down.
@Auspice tbh I was thinking of active posters on this board, and Firan, the Reach, and Fallcoast more than my current game because I've leaned so heavily away from conflict mechanics
@Ganymede I don't think it's as hard to draw the line as it sounds. In a non-consent scene, if a pose or emit would detail graphic harm done to another character, or describe sexual or non-sexual torture or assault, could just state that it's going FTB before that pose or emit is said. And then players can state if they'd all prefer to proceed, and go on as normal.
Say you were gaming with an underage gamer, and there's a point where the scene would get uncomfortable graphic. I think most players would say, 'well okay it's going this way, so we'll handwave it and this is generally what happens' in an ooc explanation.
Mind you, I just ban all sexual assault storylines. It's just not permitted, and that's understood, because I don't want to have to spend time sorting those. If staff wants to permit it, that's fine, staff can and should do whatever they are comfortable with. I'm just saying that almost every game I saw that said, 'well okay we'll allow it and just leave it to players to set boundaries', I've seen threads pop up over some huge blow up specifically over this. And I think that a, 'default FTB' is probably a wiser course that would avoid that if you don't want to ban it all together like I do.
I also worry that we can easily forget how petty people can be, and how much they really want to see their 'enemies' on games get what is coming to them. An awful lot of people want their opponents to RP out scenes uncomfortable for them. Embarrassing and humiliating ones. I have, on at least 4 different occasions, seen people complain that someone not playing out some kind of torture or punishment scene as trying to avoid the consequences in ICA=ICC. Even if they would be fine with taking it in a FTB. No, they want that player to be upset. Wanting to see a character in an antagonistic relationship be publicly humiliated and punished IC is pervasive, and that can go way too far way too fast.
@Trix said in Consent in Gaming:
It was the responsibility of the person initiating the violence of the scene to ask permission if they wanted to do it and if they had, I would have refused to roleplay it out. The end result would likely have still happened, but maybe the refusal would have gotten across that I didn't want to play that way anymore and it would have been a FTB scene. My character already had two disfiguring injuries from the other character and I was annoyed at the possibility of RP'ing a third.
So I wanna emphasize this here. I think we'd generally be better off with a lot clearer boundaries that players can set for themselves as what they are comfortable with, but anything that's non-consent that involves torture and similar themes is so wildly unpopular that it would frankly be a good idea that FTB is the default for those, and it's assumed they will always be FTB unless all parties specifically say otherwise. I think it's a terrible idea to put someone in the position of having to feel like the wet blanket and the unfun person of saying, 'I don't want to play this out'. Over and over again, I see good roleplayers play things out that make them feel intensely uncomfortable because they don't want to feel they are ruining someone's fun, even when that fun is really creepy to a lot of people and guts their enjoyment of the game.
FTB should be the default, and if everyone would enjoy it, let them chime in to play it out.
Things we can control:
Not much else. Categorizing games might be boring to other people, but it's not irrelevant. There's a world of difference between someone that comes from a very freeform, prose driven RP environment that would like Ares games that really supports that and hammers it home in a fantastic way, versus someone that's transitioning from RPIs and would feel lost in something without some coded immersive world. Knowing the differences does help us nudge people to games that work for them, or at least explain the difference.