@surreality (Shamelessly stolen from Reddit)
"I'm here to watch my enemies burn and protect my children. . .and I'm all out of children."
--Cersei Lannister
@surreality (Shamelessly stolen from Reddit)
"I'm here to watch my enemies burn and protect my children. . .and I'm all out of children."
--Cersei Lannister
@Derp Let me provide a counter-example.
On St. Petersburg they used a hard-cap XP system you could hit once you roleplayed for a reasonable-but-not-too-high amount per week. The exact numbers might escape me but it was something like "you gain XPs automatically as you RP and you can make a maximum of 2 XPs per week". Once you hit the limit that's it, you couldn't go any higher.
At least one person I knew back then wasn't motivated to play any more once they hit that cap. The player was completely reasonable by the way and never one I associated with "play to win", just the contrary, but that's just how the system itself made them feel.
Anyway, my thoughts these days on the matter is that no matter how you design your system you should make sure of the following:
Don't fail to introduce diminishing returns or the players who can roleplay 24/7 will, and they are almost always the ones you don't want to take over. It's hard to maintain a healthy perspective on a game you invest so much of your life into.
Make sure if there's systemic advancement not to let it get capped too easy for the reasons highlighted above. Again, diminishing returns can serve a similar purpose but allow people to keep playing, and just track smaller progress.
Make damn sure to let your newbies be able to catch up. It doesn't need to (and shouldn't) happen too fast; let them work for it since otherwise it invalidates your oldbies' efforts, but make it possible. A system similar to Arx's @randomscene, tweaked to be a more long-term solution, probably works better than TR's massive auto-XP cron jobs since it also provides RP as well as XP.
Finally, IMHO, don't penalize death or retirement. For all that is holy, that's one of the reasons drama exists; if a PC dies in action let them carry their progress to a new one.
Just some thoughts.
@mietze touched on several interesting issues so I'll go over some of them real quick:
@mietze said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
Back when I was an active scene runner/prp person for vampire and werewolf and law, I just asked for the people signed up (or who'd requested I run a story for them) to privately disclose any "no go" areas/themes for them. Then I could privately advise them to either not participate or if possible alter some details that I knew about in advance.
Did it work? In my experience asking players in general to do any amount of 'work' in preparation for an +event doesn't unless I know them well and feel free to poke them.
To be honest, I think a lot of players like to be surprised/to feel unscripted/have to think on their feet. Unlike a published prewritten article, a plot is something that can change/move due to the dynamics of the people in it (in theory anyway).
Two things about it:
My experience has been ... well a mixed bag. Players - again, in general, not specific ones who're very good in general so of course they're better at plot participation as well - tend to want something formulaic, and taking them out of their comfort zone usually doesn't go well. I've had incidents where they weren't actually reading what I had typed either in posts or even in poses within the scene. And I've definitely had players ask me what 'medium risk' means and tried to make me explicitly reassure them it didn't really mean any danger. But on the other hand you are 100% right that if the scene feels like it's on rails they will - rightfully, that's valid criticism - complain.
Similarly I like to think on my feet. In fact I always felt that was one of my strengths as a ST - I can come up with shit on the fly and it makes sense within the story's narrative. No matter what I'd very much like to retain that freedom; it doesn't mean "throw dead babies at the players for shock value" but it does mean not having to walk on eggshells either. Surely there must be a middle ground where failing to put in that "#animalsacrifice" tag still lets me slay a virtual goat's throat over an altar if the situation calls for it.
Yes, that is cold to some extent. But a) I no longer tolerated people using MUSHing as their therapy/other players as their whipping boys/girls due to other issues and b) got sick of the squeaky wheel/needy player in the scene in progress slowing things down/wasting the time of other players that were GGG (Good, Giving, and Game). I'm a nice, considerate person in RL and most of the time in game. But when it comes to running a scene or plot, I prefer to protect the experience of the quiet people too, and respect everyone's time by avoiding derailing ooc behavior.
Again I must +1 this. I am not a trained therapist; I'm just here to play a game. I don't want to be an asshole and hurt people, but I also don't know what's good for them. There's no question I'd try to accommodate someone who pages me and says "hey, sorry, but I'm feeling kinda icky about this goat thing, can you tone it down please?" and will bust my ass to accommodate them but there's a limit to how far I'm willing to go in that direction preemptively. That goes twice as much for my friends (or players I know are sensitive about something in general) but having some stranger slap me with their RL trauma out of nowhere is too much. Being considerate goes both ways.
That's why one of the main questions for this thread was "if shit goes wrong what's the best way to go about it?". It's bound to happen; we all have buttons that can be pressed, but where do we go from there?
I think one of the responses to that question is having an open, honest conversation. But for instance @Paris' mention of that incident earlier in the thread really irked me - someone has to play the bad guys, yet the fact doesn't mean their players are assholes. So if a player played that card with me despite efforts on my part to be accommodative I'd lose any willingness to work with them; at that point, frankly, I won't be dealing with them any more.
Posts like this shit.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/thor-love-thunder-mind-blowing-185800902.html
(Please don't read if you haven't watched Thor: Love and Thunder yet as it may contain spoilers)
But basically clickbait posts claiming revelations and HUGE THINGS WE ALL MISSED then when you read the article it's either pure speculation or absolutely nothing but noise. For instance in the URL above the 'mind blowing' thing isn't in the movie in any form.
@faraday said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
I think there are plenty of ways to show, as staff, that you give a shit. If you disagree, that's fine. I respect a difference of opinion. I've said my peace though and won't belabor the issue since I don't want to upset anyone further.
Of course I don't disagree - it'd be pretty arrogant to suggest only what we've discussed in this thread works. Different games have tried different approaches, some of which I have disagreed with (Arx...) and some which have seemed promising (Reno has a 'preferences' system which is a definite step in the right direction).
But I don't have skin in this game. I've ran risque scenes before with controversial material, but always with people I knew well, and I'd be a hard target to trigger.
I think debating these things out in the open matters, perhaps even a great deal. What's the better alternative, not talking about them?
@Macha The way (well, one way) for to make that kind of stance defensible is if it's also applied to factors other than race.
What I mean by it is the issue wouldn't be racism. Westeros doesn't have that particular problem (it has so many others!). The issue is legitimacy; is Bob actually Joe and Jane's biological son or did Jane uh, mingle?
So if staff enforce this kind of doubt universally, so that each noble family has a rather specific range of 'looks' it can have, then I suppose I could understand it a bit better. Did anyone tell Bob's player he can't play the character because Joe and Jane are canonically blue-eyed blondes but he's desc'ed as a green-eyed and dark-haired dude? Is he aware that should he play that concept anyway there will be some PCs/NPCs who crack jokes about him being a bastard?
If that is not an ongoing thing then neither should be skin pigmentation.
@Ghost said in Emotional separation from fictional content:
Which is why I think there's nothing wrong with staff creating a policy that states that if staff decide by consensus that a player's mental and emotional health is being affected by the game, then requesting the player take a break or freeze their character until their objectivity returns is wholly acceptable.
There's nothing wrong with it, but it's just not how it plays out in many cases. Staff is a very mixed bag, you know? We tend to talk about it here like there's some sort of hive mind but it's just a microcosm of any other groups of MU*ers; outside truly tiny well knit groups there are a lot of opinions, life experiences and yes... triggers.
The effect is that many times the outcome when an issue comes up depends on the player and the staff member who handles it. Be honest here for example, would you treat someone you know - perhaps a friend - the same way you'd treat a stranger if both of them seem to be emotionally affected by the game, going to the extent of force-freezing their character? It's so much easier to do that for someone else '*for their own good' when there are no consequences to your relationship with them.
And similarly having seen the range of reactions on this thread alone can you say we'd all have judged the exact same issue in a similar matter? That's got nothing to do with experience, willingness to be fair, empathy... it has to do with who we are as people. Some of us might go "hey, if you were so emotionally affected then you shouldn't have joined, or left when you saw where it was going". Others would have thought the ST "you didn't communicate with your players enough, you saw that player was vulnerable so why didn't you do something more than suggest they leave?".
In other words, I don't see staff being less divided on this issue than we are here, man. We need more preemptive prevention, IMHO; after shit hits the fan it's usually a crapshoot.
Hey all. Yeah, thanks @EmmahSue for the glowing review!
So, I am not keen on making any changes at all. As far as I'm concerned if you notice any differences in how things are ran around here tomorrow compared to yesterday I'll have fucked up. MSB will always be about having a censorship-free forum where people can speak their minds freely about the hobby.
... In fact please don't make me have to do anything. I'd much rather have this place run on autopilot, so unless things get way out of hand I can just quietly pay the bills and keep posting shit when I'm idle at work. Let's keep it that way.
Oh, and for the record - as ES and @Glitch already know - this place is theirs any time they decide they want it back.
@mietze I'm still mad Dungeons and Dragons didn't stop with AD&D.
The A stands for Advanced, motherfuckers. What else do you want? It's advanced! Leave it be!
I just wanted to go over some stuff real quick. Please don't draw any conclusions about the timing, as it's got nothing to do with anything particularly recent.
The "Flag this post for moderation" button isn't a downvote alternative. Clicking it should mean that our very (veeeerry) relaxed moderation rules are being explicitly violated, and you want to bring the fact to our attention.
It's not there to signal that you don't like someone, or that you disapprove something that someone said; that's what the reply button is for.
This is more important if it's in the Hog Pit that you think something is inappropriate based on people being mean, unless they are also being blatantly racist, sexist etc at the same time; folks, it gets rude in there. If you can't handle that, please stay out. That forum category is opt-in only for a reason.
Finally, sometimes posts do go pretty... well, wrong, and it's easy to see why as soon as we look at them. However other times it's not as easy, not at a glance, and we don't always have the time to wade through those last eight pages of pissy back-and-forth to decide what the actionable problem is! So please send all three Moderators (myself, @Auspice and @Ganymede) a message at that time telling us in a concise way.
Thanks!
-The Management.
@Ganymede said in CofD and Professional Training:
Social combat often deprives a player of agency over their character, and there are a substantial number of people uncomfortable with this for a variety of reasons.
That is quite true. However then either social stats shouldn't exist (or be undervalued compared to their physical/mental counterparts) or they need to be enforceable like everything else.
Ignoring stats mustn't happen.
@sunny said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
Because I am. I get super snarky, and I'm sure I'd forget on occasion. Except I have zero faith that it would be consistently enforced, so the heavier moderation would smack me in the nose, while the people who are actively being mean to me...la la la, continue on their way.
Here's my point of view: You feel like this, and so do the people you think are just happily going on their way. Everyone feels singled out when it's their turn.
The line between consistent enforcement and perceiving that enforcement is more unfair to (generic) you than the others is pretty thin.
It's like sports, where players saying that referees should play it 50/50 means they should play it 90/10. It's a human trait; if you ask Tim Duncan he never commited a foul in his career.
Or to rephrase it; it's not my intention to discriminate. I have no incentive to fake playing favorites.
@Ghost said in CofD and Professional Training:
Social combat is important because nearly every player is interested in their social game succeeding, but very few players are willing to organically choose to lose in social situations.
Maybe I've been lucky but I've been around plenty of people who chose to 'lose' socially in scenes without any dice being involved.
Then again none of those involved ruining someone's character as a result. But if that's the desired outcome then that's also the problem there, not the system used to determine the result.
@sunny said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
If you genuinely do give a damn about how I feel about this, maybe stop dismissing me out of hand and consider why I might actually feel this way.
I am not dismissing your feelings. But, as you pointed out, actions speak louder than words and I can only change how we are doing things, not how people feel about them.
That's why I'm trying to give you the point of view from the other side; if you had visibility on our flagged posts you'd see they're coming across the spectrum of 'sides' on MSB about the way they are treated. So perhaps if we can't please everyone then we can at least displease everyone equally.
But my main point here was to address what you said about being unwelcome here. You are not unwelcome. And there's a point made several times in this thread about personal attacks outside of the Hog Pit, so the least we can do is be more vigilant about it since clearly it's one of the things we're less successful at.
@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
One thing Arkandel has pressed in his management method is that he wants us -- as a team -- to be able to participate in the forum as well as moderate and for it to not just become "a job."
Straight up, the day I can't post as a regular forum member is the day I quit administrating on MSB.
But the perception is an issue. Because people see us as "greater than." So if I step into a discussion and say "I disagree," it comes with more weight than if Jimmy over there says it. If I say "I think you're being ridiculous," it comes across as sharper.
People disagree with me all the time. Why can't they perceive my greatness!
But more seriously, I enjoy MSB. I like the hell out of debating MUSH things here, from how to run a Wheel of Time game to privacy issues, posing styles, how to handle who has the spotlight... those things interest me. I hope they interest others as well and more than the popcorn bait threads in the Hog Pit.
But a) there will be mistakes (none of us are perfect and anyone who claims to be fails the test by the mere fact they made an account on this site), b) let me be "just a player" too and remember I'm just a volunteer.
Another thing I want people to remember is that an actively participating admin is a pretty new ('new', since we've been at this for several months now) thing for MSB. Glitch and ES were here but not to the same extent as us three.
Perhaps the notion takes some getting used to, I don't know.
@Roz said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:
I think that bringing up the words "witch hunt" whenever multiple people agree on a player being toxic or problematic is actually a pretty harmful silencing tactic for information that could be actively beneficial to the hobby at large.
That's a common apologist tactic. Look at what happened when Custodius started getting attacked here, not even just for his past but for current actions on Arx; there was a whole campaign launched by people directly benefitting from associating with him, counter-accusing MSB of being negative and bringing everyone down.
In the cacophony of some people saying 'boo' and others going 'yay' it's easy for the truth to be lost. But at least it's still out there - imagine if MSB didn't exist. How would anyone have known about this guy, even if they had reasons to go look? The in-game forums don't allow it, staff isn't taking action, so what's left?
@ganymede I can't think of a better outcome than solving our social problems here with a code change, and I'll obviously install and setup any plugin we need. Upvotes, weighed downvotes, you name it.
But let's face it, although such things might help they can only take us so far.
The other thing (which you already know of course) is that although we do try to make MSB universally appealing to the community it's well understood that we can't do that. Any choice we make - or don't - will be liked by some and disliked by others, and of course we are that much more likely to hear back from the latter than the former. It's just how human beings work; there's a stronger incentive to go "ugh" than "yay".
That's why I try to not care about how popular any decision is, or on how many people support it, and focus more on how strong the arguments against or for it are. Sure, that's subjective deal but that's why we get paid the big bucks.
Ultimately cliques and dogpiling aren't solved problems either within MSB or the community it represents. This isn't a separate space with different people than those who frequent the games where we play and carry baggage from, nor can it, and perhaps it shouldn't. Posters here bring their histories with them - it's part of the forum's appeal, after all, that it gives us all a persisting identity that transcends any one game, which has its upsides and its uglier side-effects.
To go back to what you and @Auspice both pointed out... it'd be nice - as in, it'd make our task easier in the exact things we are explicitly being asked to do here by many - if once we do step in and clear our throats at someone there was an understanding that we are not trying to single anyone out.
"But Bob did it to me before!" may or not be a legitimate concern, and one we can address as well seperately, but at that time it's irrelevant. Are you doing something wrong at that time? Is the fact we had to step in and bring you back in line fair? That's what matters, because if we're just going after you to be dicks and you didn't do anything objectively wrong then that's on us, but if you're the one being a dick then it doesn't matter what Bob did to you 'before'.
Don't be a dick.
@surreality said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:
There have been times I have not been self-aware on this front, and while it was a hell of a long time ago now, I certainly wouldn't fault anyone for an instant for hating me hardcore if they only knew me from back then, or that was their only experience of knowing me/etc.
Yeah, I get you. And if it helps there have been times when a critical mass of disgruntlement and indignant butthurt had turned me into an (even bigger) pain to be around. Sometimes a break helps; and I assume by the fact I haven't heard again from people I know who were in assorted similar situations that sometimes those breaks are permanent, too.
But we've had this conversation before in private so you already know what my ultimate response is... you need to take care of yourself first, because no one else is. We all have our shit, our agendas, our perspectives - but none of us lives in your head or walks in your shoes.
In the context of this thread that means if there's someone we might not like we need to know how to deal with it, first and foremost. Staff won't necessarily do it, our friends won't necessarily be able to buffer us, and our emotional capacity might not be as inexhaustible as we'd like; we need to own this shit ourselves.
@magee101 said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
Thus to me, it looks very bad that three people are individuals and not a TEAM. With 3 people there should be no varying facets shown from the mods, you 3 should be united especially in situations like this or SIMPLY do not comment because as people are pointing out, it is confusing the fuck out of us and making us even more worried.
Perhaps I'm in the wrong here - it wouldn't be the first time - but I don't value conformity very much when it comes to administrating MSB. Consistency yes, absolutely, and each time we had to actually act we made sure we agreed beforehand whether it was to decide on whether someone had stepped over the line, or to introduce a new forum or whatever else.
I just took a look at some stats for this past month, and there have been 4717 posts made in that time. Other than like 5 of the ones Lain's assorted accounts made that got deleted the fraction of the rest we even considered acting on (let alone actually did anything with) is tiny. Miniscule.
Sometimes things get blown way out of proportion and this is one of those cases. We're not trying to resolve an epidemic here but to discuss with our users how to improve. We've been working on keeping toxicity outside of the Hog Pit, and we want to do a better job at it, so instead of conferring internally to make a decision solely on our end we brought it to you guys to see what you thought.
In the process of doing so we - as members of this community - also presented our individual thoughts. Which differ, since we're not a hive mind. I don't view this as a problem, especially since moderating a forum is different than staffing a MU* which requires the regular (everyday, in fact) exercise of authority, having a united front, clear separation between what one does as staff and what they do as a player, etc.
So I disagree with you here. I do think though the messaging itself should have been clearer when I started asking for input, which is solely on me. So my bad there.
@Ganymede The strange thing is that games historically haven't taken that route. It's weird.
"In the name of fairness we'll let that asshole chase away good players, although we know he's an asshole, but we're not 100% sure about it/they haven't done anything particularly horrible this week".
It makes no sense.