Posts made by Arkandel

@Roz said:

Lol the real problem is probably that I've never played WoD

Some might call that a feature instead of a problem.

@VulgarKitten said:

Basically, people will complain no matter what you do, so you might as well do what you personally prefer.

Yeah, that's a thing too.

@Roz said:

I feel like we might have very different application processes generally. I'm not sure! The idea of giving application feedback being out of the norm is strange to me, because it's been totally common on games I've staffed on to send a first draft of an application back with things that need some adjustment or clarification.

And it's not really like "your writing wasn't good enough." It's "this thing doesn't really make sense" or "this thing really isn't clear" or "this thing doesn't work in the canon because this reason." Not really a critique of actual writing style.

I think the difference comes from how we view the perspective application processes for a feature character and for a normal but perhaps more important one.

What you may be talking about and correct me if I'm wrong is a character concept such as say, a potential Carthian leader. No extra power other than perhaps allowed more dots in Carthian Status, that sort of thing. So with that come more stringent background requirements - everything has to make a lot of sense and be appropriate and there can't be any weird points that would have caused them to not be elevated to that level of high regard by their peers. However since nothing says other Carthian PCs have to obey or become a bottleneck if they aren't active it's a normal character in every other regard, and staff need not worry if the player turns out to be a bit of a weirdo or stops logging on they'll have a bigger than expected mess in their hands.

What I was talking about is more along the lines of "a five centuries old Lasombra priest rose from torpor and was sent to be the Bishop". That character has significantly more powerful than average and if played badly has the potential to derail a lot of PCs; care has to be taken in picking them than merely going through the background to make sure the t's are properly crossed, as it's much better to have no one playing him than someone who'll be bad at it. It's just that the pay-off if you do make the right choice for a player is high since they could rejuvenate the game with their mere presence - and by requiring them to run plot and distribute RP around that potential just increases.

That's how I look at it, at least.

@Roz said:

Is staff just not giving you feedback or a reason in this scenario? Correct me if I'm wrong, that's just the impression I'm getting from your wording.

I'm not sure if feedback is going to make things better or worse. For starters it's so easy to come off as condescending by telling someone exactly why their skills aren't good enough. For another staff aren't professional writers or english majors, so being able to pinpoint the actual reasons something is 'okay' yet not 'great' isn't necessarily possible - let alone actually telling someone how to improve (although obviously I'm excluding the possibility that someone's writing is just bad or riddled with typos and spelling errors).

@mietze said:

And I also can't agree enough with the idea that for coveted limited "spots" either in position or in type, clear guidelines for activity and behavior expectations and removal procedures (doesn't have to be complicated) really need to be in place.

While historically this is an excellent idea it's also a pain in the ass to regulate. Sure, you're told you need to be 'active' but what does that mean? Even being told you need to run <X> plots a month requires someone checking in on that. But yeah, if there'll be 'tier' positions on a game they should be treated as actually being there for the game's own good. So if you're not doing something above and beyond to justify having it - stuff other players are encouraged but not required to do - then you shouldn't keep it.

... And yet because as noted earlier firing someone is much harder than hiring them, most staff will just tolerate someone who's just doing their own thing at their own pace as long as they're not actively causing trouble. It's just the nature of this particular beast.

@Roz said:

I can only speak to things like particular character concepts or powersets or something like that. Things where it's not that there's an internal opening, but rather just a type of character that we'd expect a higher quality of application on due to it being particularly powerful or something like that.

That's what I had in mind more or less. For example consider this scenario - staff want a veteran Werewolf with high Renown to come into the sphere since there aren't enough alphas for packs. I apply for it and write an application I believe is high enough quality... but I'm not picked. A few weeks pass, maybe I even figure it fell aside, then suddenly that Werewolf comes into the sphere possibly played by someone you've never heard of or wasn't even on the game to begin with.

Few of us have egos that can't be bruised in some way so why risk that in the first place? Then instead of having me be pleased when a niche is suddenly filled played by someone who's actually pretty damn good (let's assume staff pick well) I might feel a bit miffed because essentially they just demonstrated they don't think very highly of my skills.

In fact I feel the same way when I look for someone to play a concept relevant to my character. Opening it up means I'll have to tell some folks no, and it's a very small gap to leap from 'I found someone else, sorry' to 'I found someone better'.

I also tend to be on smaller games, so we're talking a pretty low volume of inquiries for these kinds of concepts in general. I imagine it might be more of a mess if you're on a big game and have an opening for something a lot of players want.

I guess that can be true where everyone knows your name. I tend to play on larger games, the perspective is likely different.

I actually am not so sure opening positions for which players may not be accepted until staff finds the exact thing they're looking for is a good idea.

Rejection never feels good so why invoke that negativity if you know in advance you'd only accept a very specific kind of player for it? Having to tell otherwise perfectly decent (if not great) players 'no' won't be pleasant for you or for them. It's better to simply be aware of the opening internally and open it to someone when they appear on your radar as good matches for it.

Basically, this isn't a good way to go at it; the intention is good but the result won't justify it. A player who's not allowed to play that advertised Elder and sees the position stay vacant for week before someone else fills it will feel they aren't valued very highly by staff on their own game instead of be thankful because the impression of equality was given, you know?

@TNP said:

Does it really matter if they only met this person on that game three months ago? The person has a limited track record on that game but they seem sane.

You answered the question as well but I wanted to chip in on it - it does matter. It's not a decisive factor but it's still important, track records matter.

Some of the players who've received the most complaints around here were by any means not bad roleplayers, in fact some have been exceptional ones. That's what makes their impact on our hobby felt so much after all. And they're not prone to going batshit crazy over a period of a week or two, it can be far longer until things are derailed enough that others not directly involved can look at them and go 'yeeah, we got batshit crazy on our hands, boys!'.

Either way though the reality is great players don't grow on trees. Flagship roleplayers to whom you can trust that Primogen position and expect them to lure others, generate activity and delegate tasks so roleplay is spread around rather than flow exclusively through them are rare - so adding knowing them for years to your checklist is an ideal but not necessarily feasible condition.

Personally I'd be willing to take a risk with someone I've only known for a few weeks and keep an eye on them but that requires being able to step in and do something about it if it turns out it's warranted after all. That's an important distinction since it's much easier to hire someone for a position than to fire them from it. Where staff historically fails is placing faith in someone, letting them do a lot of work and take some of the burden of everyday management from their hands (which anyone who's ever staffed knows it's a huge relief) then turning a blind eye when things go badly.

I figured we were derailing the RfK thread with the talk of nepotism, and it's probably a debate which warrants its own thread.

So how would you handle tiered, special or restricted concepts for a game? I think generally speaking games so far have broken it down into a few semi-distinct approaches.

• Nothing is special. Things are either allowed or they're not and people can apply to them if they are with an even chance of approval.

• Some things are restricted due to demographics but they aren't inherently significantly more powerful than the rest. A Bloodline is described in the books as being rare so only <X> of them are ever permitted on the MU*.

• Tiered characters are offered. The way I've most often seen this is with Elders - it's like the case above, only this time there is a power gap between them and the rest (more XP, dots, whatever).

• Specific positions or ranks are offered. This may be combined with the case above but it doesn't have to be; usually seen when a game first opens or in inactive factions, staff hand-picks people to lead them.

Pre-made characters can be a mixed bag. Most of the time they are a mere convenience for those who'd rather not create their own and have neither special or unique abilities or powers, but in some cases - book characters come to mind for MU* using a specific setting - they can fall under tiered content as well.

My personal take used to be to argue for rough equality, so I'd have allowed the first two cases and nothing else. If anything more potent was needed it could be played by staff on a case to case basis to fit a particular need or occasion.

These days I consider the game's well being to rate higher than the appearance of all things being equal - because they are not. Some players are simply more involved, pose better and can tell better stories so if given a choice of having one of those play a prominent role, with more responsibilities, I'd hand it to them.

For instance if I decided to allow four Elders in the entire game I'd rather one of them is played by a talented, active player I'm confident can convey the sense of ennui and Kindred politics than someone who won't be there as much or who might portray the character like everyone else only with more dots on their sheet. Coincidentally, such spots can also function as carrots to keep the ever-depleted Storyteller resource from dropping too low on a game, since the tiered character can come with such responsibilities.

Obviously this all depends on staff who're themselves involved and capable enough to pick well - and to not pick if there aren't any worthwhile options - but making bad choices is a risk overall while running a game.

@ThatGuyThere said:

I disagree somewhat. to me the grid can inspire rp.

There's nothing to disagree with, it's just my preference. I wasn't arguing it was the best or only way, just how it looks to me - and possibly why.

I guess I also asserted there may be others who see it the same way I do, but it's probably a safe bet, just like there are people who prefer to learn and navigate grids.

@Ganymede said:

So, while new staff could handle menial duties, the big ideas, plans, and stories rested with older staff, whose time and interest had begun to wane due to burn-out.

This is becoming (has always been?) one of the leading causes of MU* demise.

Maintaining a very small staff with any real authority has some advantages but with no contingencies for their own inactivity it backfires in the long term.

I'm not saying it's good or bad. I get the concept of 'this is my baby' all too well. But it's what it is.

What do you think was keeping players from signing up to lend a hand?

For a bad game or one thick with drama I can understand it, but RfK - for someone who never played there - seems well loved by the folks who were playing there. Was there an obvious reason no one stepped up?

Over lunch I read out about the most awesome conspiracy theory. It's fantastic in every way.

It's called Who Built The Moon and they claim the moon is fake. Not the moon landing. The moon.

They have a web site which promises mathematical proof but when you go to see it, they had 'run out of space on their web site' for it, and request that you read it in their book.

Their web site!

@Ganymede It's our responsibility to drive with our eyes open - we're obligated to pay attention. The same doesn't apply to MU* which are notorious for in-crowds, cliques and staff politics. Some people legitimately only log on to RP.

I'll grant you it's hard sometimes to understand that, as I remember chatting with people from Mage@TR back in the bad ol' days who had no idea there was bad blood and drama in the sphere. All they did was get together with a couple of friends and throw plots, maybe show up for an +event once in a while, the sphere was completely fine from their point of view even though entire groups of their fellow players had spent months throwing fits at each other. It happens!

Overall though it's also often not effortless nor fool proof to distinguish the difference between staff upheavals and general bellyaching and game-ending curtain closing.

My play style - it could be others' too - simply accepts the grid as a collection of pre-made, pre-described temp rooms. They are divided into two categories; regular public hangouts ("the Elysium at Jim's Bar") and locations catering to something specific ("a library") for certain kinds of scenes. Either way they're simply places be +summoned at. If none of these fits my purposes then spoofing or creating a temp room if the code allows it will do just fine.

I don't see that paradigm changing unless having neighborhoods and territories actually matters yet in my experience, and again YMMV, it's exceedingly rare that it does. Unless one's turf is a resource source and that implies a finite, depletable resource pool set up in the first place, that isn't likely to change.

@Roz Interesting! At least the playerbase was willing to be flexible about it.

I was playing on a Wheel of Time MUD back when the original series was still ongoing (and Robert Jordan was still alive); this presented us with some unique challenges since there were unanswered questions quite relevant to theme ('who is a Darkfriend?') and either had to make a call about it either way - and risk diverging from the books' plot - or somehow maintaining the ambiguity.

The former wasn't as easy as it sounds due to the butterfly effect and many players were hardcore about staying true to the official plot. Deviations were... difficult to introduce, so sometimes we were forced to work around such bottlenecks - they even affected mechanics in many ways. For example it wasn't until later books that it was established whether a Warder's bond could be dissolved while his Aes Sedai was still alive or if, once bonded, you could never not be bonded again, and attempts to settle the matter for just the MU* were very tricky.

@Roz Were you ever tempted to advance/alter the game's timeline to match that of a movie? I wonder if that's ever happened on an existing, running game.

@Ganymede Unless the writing was on a +bbpost it's not unreasonable someone might have missed other signs.

@JustNobody said:

Might be not perfect, but it always gives everything

Man you are hard to please!

For players who might have a better idea than I do, what would you say the impact of movies and TV series is - the big expensive, well advertised properties - on MU*, both in terms of new games being created or them attracting players?

For instance in the last few years we've had a major resurgence of superhero titles, are there more games based on them as a result? Are existing ones more active on average?

Alternatively... The Force Awakens will also be a smash hit blockbuster of a movie but do you think it'll result in games ran in its new future setting? Are current Star Wars games currently considering a switch (even if they can't do it yet since we don't know what the story is yet)?

I'm curious.