Best posts made by Arkandel

Hell, you could integrate parts of the question - what actually happened back then? - into your theme or even metaplot. Oral traditions carried by these fucked up enraged half-men over millenia, stories carried through word of mouth probably intentionally distorted to make for better stories or just to fit contemporary agendas and local fueds; the truth may need to be deduced the hard way.

And even so would all tribes or their established leaders want the truth? Again think of real-life religions; if it could be proven that some precious, time-honored events never took place or happened much differently how well would that go over with them?

What I'm trying to say is you don't need to provide such history as the word-from-above actual-way-it-happened anywhere in your theme. It could have been one way, maybe another, who knows any more? And if someone wants to know (and it might make for a good story) then let them earn it. It's worth more in a ST's hands than sitting in a wiki page from day 1.

@Auspice Yes, I like this one better.

Edit: Or leave the "YES"-part's implementation as before, to let the ST know what the consensus is for themes their participants so far like. But I still like your "NO" handling better.

@Rook said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

You know, this sounds very much like the +kinks system from Shangrila, only adapted simply to list triggers/themes/squicks and whatever-else-have-you that you want called out. It could be easily adapted, code-wise, if someone had something like this lying around. It's essentially a managed list with comments.

I mean, seriously. The functionality is there, a display screen, a like/dislike command, a comment field.

The problem with the +kinks system is that, by definition, you need to make it public and people other than yourself need to respect your preferences.

This implementation has neither of those drawbacks; your squicks are yours alone, and as long as the ST lists the themes they'll use for their +event it's easy for you to know if you'd be triggered by it.

Then it also becomes trivial for staff to regulate the system without violating anyone's privacy; if a ST didn't list things properly for their event they simply don't get XP for it. Any problems should sort themselves out pretty fast after that.

@faraday The truth of the matter though is that most of the people being triggered aren't from baby seals. It's not rare exceptions that get players' buttons pushed the vast majority of the time; it's specific themes. Specific things.

Now, I don't want to be a hypocrite here. I've discussed and supported even that it's unethical to have a hierarchy of sins where some grievous crimes are worse than others, and if we allow murder but we don't allow slapping then it seems hypocritical to me.

But having said... the world is what it is. Murder is on the menu. You can barely play a cellphone game where you don't see someone getting exploded or shot in the head, hah-hah. We're as a society desensitized to this, something which I dislike but I need to accept, and since that means many plots will include killing the bad guys it doesn't also have to mean other acts need to be equally on the menu.

In other words I'd be willing to accept locking certain specific major themes away from public areas of the game. If you want them you should only be able to do it in private with other players whose OOC consent you've had in advance. That would include rape, torture, domestic abuse, etc... the hard stuff.

I'd also be willing to see those same themes being mandatory as a warning label for PrPs; so not only can you not actually roleplay these in general, but if you are going to refer to them as a major theme of your plot (say, it's a spirit who took over a loving husband who ended up abusing his wife) and not actually show it there would need to be some advanced warning.

However if you'd only make mention in passing to something as part of a larger RP ("the band of outlaws you're looking for was here, they pillaged the village and raped two women then they went this way!") it should be fine. There's no focus on the act, it might just be an improvised pose, and STs can't be reasonably expected to scrub every plot they run completely clean.

Does that work better?

@Paris said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

Just leave an option to specify 'negotiable' and not just 'yes' or 'no' to a +prefs system, because me setting my prefs to allowing 'dark themes' on WoD games led to me getting rapey (physical and mental) stuff sprung on me by players AND staff, and then backlash when I expressed reservations ooc.

Apparently negotiating this so both parties are ok with it is a novel concept.

How binding would this 'negotiation' be? Because it can go wrong, fast.

You found out one of those ways yourself when someone asked you to do something then they took it back and blamed you for it. It can go wrong the other way, where someone gives a permission to do something and the other person takes it to the far, far extreme. Both have been known to happen. Some people change their minds; others are just assholes!

I think what it comes down to is... if you don't know someone really well you probably shouldn't be running controversial stuff with them from either end of the DM screen, and even if you are it can still go bad. Ultimately you may find yourself in front of a tired, cranky staff member with their own preconceptions on the matter and be labeled - unfairly or not - in a way you'd rather not be.

@mietze But would you say that's the exception or the rule, from your observations?

@Ghost said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

While I'm not of the way some companies hide behind dreadful EULA's and "I ACCEPT" statements, I think they apply.

I hate saying @Coin is right because, come on, but he had a point earlier in the thread when he said some games are pretty much guaranteed to contain certain sensitive themes by definition - Changeling to involve kidnapping and stalking, Vampire to portray addiction, objectification or mental influence, etc. They are in fact such intrisic part of the material you probably don't even need to ask players to +agree such things might happen on the grid since of course they will! You can (and should) have FTB, you can even have strict levels of consent so they don't happen to your character but they will absolutely exist in the MU*.

Even so people get into hot waters - not can, they do, we've all seen it. I'm not talking about Juerg-level shit but just normal playing the game as written, someone will treat their ghoul as an object rather than a human being with feelings and ambitions of their own and... boom.

At that point it's not an answer to remind them it's what they signed up for; they know. The reason it's not an answer is we're not robots, we're not trying to shred responsibility here - in fact, to address @mietze, I'd say that's a hefty word, and that it's not necessarily the Storyteller's 'responsibility' past a certain point to ensure this doesn't happen, or at least to be able to point at some point in time - where that player typed +accept, or where they joined the +event even after tags were in place or... anything - and go "well, it's your fault".

It doesn't matter whose fault it is. I think looking for that is wrong in the first place because really, who cares? Knowing it's my fault for playing or yours for not warning me doesn't fix anything. What matters is trying to somehow mitigate the problem (we can't eliminate it) and give everyone the tools to avoid stepping lightly around each other. Or... after something does go awry to make sure staff at least recognizes their role in all of it, and not try to overreact either by swingin' the old banhammer around wildly or by dismissing an upset, hurt person's feelings as improper.

I am not a therapist, I don't know what's best for someone who's struggling with certain things, but I do know I'd like to help not make it worse for them - if I can. But they do need to meet me halfway for that.

@kitteh The difference being intent. My proposal is only meant to use it for one reason - borderline inappropriate behavior. Not conflicting opinions, bad typing, terrible English or bad grammar, generally not-liking-them, them not supporting your views on a different issue recently or just for the hell of it - all of which have arguably been reasons for people to downvote each other here.

But also - and the reason my comment was admittedly kind of flippant - not everyone has to agree with a system in order to use it. I kinda liked downvotes, it was useful (to me) to see which direction the consensus on a matter was moving towards, but I'm okay with not having them either. It just... doesn't mean anything either way.

And also also! All this stuff's effectiveness is really hard (probably impossible) to gauge; does it work? Is this better or worse? Would we have avoided <thing> if we had done <other thing>? There are no control groups here, no studies, small numbers of players in the pool, lots of baggage between us... we're all stumbling in the dark hoping shit we try doesn't go horribly wrong. But the way I see it we've learned some lessons over the years, some things have been improved because on average we're handling stuff better than we used to.

Maybe.

It depends on the target audience, at least for me.

Publicly offered story arcs - stuff that basically begins with a new +event accepting all comers - are the easiest, I think, because usually I want them accessible to all comers and I don't have to motivate them too much. All I do is offer a general sense of what it's about ("social", "exploration", etc), the expected risk level, and maybe some very basic IC requirements for joining ("you need to be a Vampire or ghoul in good standing with the Praxis").

Stuff I run for my friends also don't need to include spoilers because I get to talk to these guys ahead of time; I tend to have a decent idea of where they're at, what their characters are about and what they want to do on an OOC level. The tricky part here is to not mold the story too much after those things or in a way they are then spoiling themselves; if they're talking a lot about wanting to go to the Hedge and acquire a magical sword, I need to be careful to either not do quite that, or to twist their expectations in some way.

Either way what's a larger risk - for MU* - is to make people feel like they're in control, nor the story. It's extremely common for STs to place PrPs on rails which is, after all, the ultimate spoiler if you can see where everything's going and you can't even have an effect on it other than to go through the motions. I feel that's the greater risk.

But as for the content... it's a tricky one. My publicly offered scenes tend to be relatively PG13, or at least with no more than one finds in a Hollywood film (that's my standard at least). Little of it applies to stuff I throw to more specific audiences though since they theoretically trust me, and I know them at least somewhat, so I can avoid pitfalls (or communication is open and they know they can tell me if something's heading into hot waters).

@Bobotron said in Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition Info:

We'll see. I like the concept of moving back to street level but I fucking hate the Anarchs as a baseline. A fractured Camarilla with neonates and ancillae in over their heads is more appealing to me.

If anything I'm just happy they are doing something with the IP other than recompile what they wrote 20+ years ago. I hope they can preserve whatever magic I loved back when I first encountered V:tM.

@Ganymede said in Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition Info:

I hope you don't think I'm being personally critical of you; I'm not. I'm just lamenting what I see as very lazy game design.

I won't argue the point that it's lazy, only that it's necessary.

White Wolf's niche and intended audience is pretty specific; placing a crucial part of the metaplot in the Middle East covers their 'overseas warzone' demographic in a way most people buying their books would understand even if they know very little about what's actually happening in those parts of the world or, for that matter, whether they could point them out on a map or not. Most wouldn't know anything about what's happening in China though, and that's without even getting into the potential controversy of saying (or even implying) something negative about the country's government even cloaked in the most supernatural lore versus making similar allegations about say, Syria.

They're trying to be respectful (which is why they didn't develop KotE in-house after all) which might mean many things. I wouldn't be shocked if the financial impact of doing so crossed their mind as well.

@Bobotron I steal so much I don't even know where I originally found it any more.

@Ganymede said in FS3:

And here I am thinking: "Man, I like FS3, and I'm going to use it as inspiration to simplify my own system!"

Remember though that on a MUSH things are different because you can automate so much, whereas on table-top everything has to be done by hand. So maybe you can hide some of that complexity behind the code (since it knows the target's armor/defense, the weapon's penetration and modifiers, etc).

@ThatOneDude said in CofD and Professional Training:

When games have no PK, why does PT benefits matter?

Oh, they matter.

Dick measuring contests always matter.

I also think seduction/mind control/abuse is a paper tiger in our community. Yes it has happened but it's rare, and there can be plenty of safeguards against these cases. No one is suggesting we don't honor grapple rolls because they can be used to justify rape, after all. The vast majority of cases wouldn't have anything to do with teh sexz0rz.

But all this is a very long-standing debate on MSB and for good reason; figuring out how to use social stats, especially in cases of PC vs PC, is very tricky. Even the best implementations I've seen on MU* so far were basically utilizing them in +jobs (or the equivalent, i.e. not in real time and going through staff) but I've never seen one that satisfied me for in-scene conflict resolution.

@surreality said in CofD and Professional Training:

I also think seduction/mind control/abuse is a paper tiger in our community. Yes it has happened but it's rare, and there can be plenty of safeguards against these cases.

Not anywhere near as rare as they should be.

Remember, a lot of the type that pulls this is the same type that only approaches female names with the 'so you must be a submissive' bullshit -- which means as a male player, you're going to experience it directly much less unless you're playing female characters relatively often and the other player thinks you're female OOC.

Although you're of course correct in that perception dictates a certain bias in rarity, and I'm sure women have it much harder than men in that regard, I still insist it's 'rare' - in the way that assholery is a clear minority of the total number of IC social interactions taking place on a grid.

What do you think about the following reasoning I just pulled out of my ass? The reason jerks seem to tend to use social rolls and mechanics to abuse others is because they're less likely to care about the general social stigma involved in making such rolls in the first place.

I suppose "OOC forcing her to do it" through a roll tickles their fancy more than "her OOC agreeing consensually to do it" though. Hrm.

@faraday said in FS3:

@Thenomain Yeah I don't think it was a personal distrust, just skepticism about the system math. I mean , say you're that sniper who botched the 96% chance of success?

On Tuesday the NBA draft took place. In it the Los Angeles Lakers' chances of landing a top-3 pick were 46.9%.

The way this works is literally through gold balls being put in a container which then spins. Representatives of all teams are physically present in the room, observing everything, and as this is a multi-billion dollar business you better believe they are watching closely.

When the Lakers got their pick the allegations of rigging were strong.

It's not just the system, it's humans too. We can't accept things we don't like, sometimes.

I'll avoid going my usual route of saying the hobby's in a slow, steady decline due to the telnet-based protocol it's been burdened with, and deal with "the hobby" exactly as it stands today.

So!

What do you consider to be a major issue in the hobby as it exists today?

I'd say the biggest problem, and I include myself as part of it, is we're reluctant to try something new.

Sometimes that just means we have a plethora of MU* which aren't any good; that's not a bad thing on its own since they're offered freely, but it lowers the bar. With every new sandbox game basically cloned from the last one - down to the policies and procedures but with some cosmetic HRs which are basically pet peeves of its runners - the standards are just a little bit down, players' expectations of what we can do with the medium are just a bit less.

But they get players anyway because they are familiar and offer the same shit we already know how to do; I'm definitely a culprit here. I don't wanna learn new systems, I don't like it, so at times I've settled for things I knew were subpar, whose staff had no enthusiasm for the material or creativity to invest in their work, and there was no pride about the result. There was no passion in it; it was just some code running over a code with a grid - there you go kids, we're done here.

Why do you think it's an issue?

Because new projects, ambitious ones, fail way more often than not. Obviously that was always going to be the case - novelty comes hand in hand with risk after all - but I've known developers who couldn't even find enough collaborators to begin working on something. Many interesting ideas are failures to launch, usually for the lack of a pocket coder to do some customization although that's not the only reason... and going through all this, investing tons of hours and sweat into the gruelling process making a new MU* is only to see 10 players on at launch can be heartbreaking.

So some pretty cool things might be aborted in favor of yet another $city of Darkness. I don't think this is an issue, I think it is the issue. We're at the point we have almost nothing to lose by innovating and perhaps a lot to gain as a hobby, yet we aren't doing it.

Do you have any ideas that you think would help resolve it?

I think it'd need to start with coders. Most of the time that's the main roadblock; there are damn few available, but unless you have some guys to at least mentor new ones games die on the conceptional stage. Either a potential game-runner is already networked or they are not, and in the latter case things are very tricky.

There is also no structure about it. If you don't already have a crew how do you start a game? Make a thread here (and be told by twenty people why it won't possibly work but hey, you go ahead and try and waste your time), which gets derailed three posts into it with stories about that one MU* five years ago and that guy, what was his name? How do you recruit help? How do you actually have a proper brainstorming conversation which stays on topic and which yields some interesting ideas that can maturate into actual systems? There's no roadmap - no successful game-runner has actually put this shit together to document the path to actually making their own MUSH a reality back in the day so new ones could learn from their mistakes.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. That's the easy part. Turning them into games is fucking hard work and there's almost nothing out there - other than on a purely technical level (that does exist, courtesy of many hard-working folk) - that can help make cool new games a reality.

@faraday said in FS3:

I don't know if that's something you can ever really fix with the system, though.

I don't even think that's a problem let alone something you can 'fix'. It's just a different approach - as long you document your particular game's expectations clearly it's not a big deal.

@faraday said in Identifying Major Issues:

There are also a lot of players who are gunshy about participating in PrPs. My last few games have all but begged players to run PrPs and empowered them to do a lot, but the number of people actually doing so is tiny.

What I've found is that this greatly depends on the distribution channel.

For instance let's take Arx, a very well populated game, just to exclude the factor of whether the game itself is active or not. I ran open public PrPs ("if you walk into the bar at 20:00 there'll be something happening"), invite-only PrPs (@mail Joe,Bob,Jane="hey, if you come to the House study at 20:00 there'll be something happening") and also 'gated' PrPs ("there will be something happening at the city harbor at midnight if you have an IC reason to be there, @mail me so I know how to include you").

The first type was packed. People came in and RPed anything, from engaging what I was giving them to playing with others already engaged, to just doing their own thing completely.

The second type had okay results only when I also 'advertised' it over channels and communicated with people directly else participation was unreliable. I had considerably more interest, too, when I was running stuff tied to staff metaplot as well as players preferred the extra value for their time.

The third type is basically a no-go. Unless I'm dealing with specific people I know, if a scene requires any kind of buy-in it's really hard to find people willing to invest a few minutes to figure out why their characters would be eligible for it, offer requests or additional details or... anything, really.

TL;DR - the least effort it takes for people the more likely it is they'll join your stories. Plan accordingly.