Posts made by Ganymede

@Tinuviel said in How To Treat Your Players Right:

On the flip side to that, if we the general player base know about the complaint (and if it's complaint worthy, gossip has already started about the behaviour) and then see staff do... nothing about it. Why would we complain if it happens to us?

Act I, Scene 1

Tinuviel: Did you talk to Faraday about Arkandel harassing me by pages?
Ganymede: Yes.
Tinuviel: And what did she say?
Ganymede: She said that you should talk to her about it so she can get more details. Also, purple monkey dishwasher.
Tinuviel: But I don't want to talk to her.
Ganymede: Then why do you expect her to do anything for you?

FIN

@Thenomain said in Modiphius Games:

You have a problem.

I have many problems. I don't suppose you'd be more specific?

@Ghost said in How To Treat Your Players Right:

The only way to be fair and ensure that you are making the right decision is to place the burden of proof onto the accuser. This is a text based hobby. Log that stuff.

Yes, but DownWithOPP's behavior had an effect on a lot of other people too.

We had a report of a bad player on Victorian Reverie through a third-party. I did nothing in the absence of a complaint from the aggrieved. The aggrieved simply left. Over a period of a couple of months, we lost half-a-dozen relatively-active players without an explanation. The third-party finally filed a complaint, and, when the bad player was confronted, she threw shade and accusations at the departed parties, and then at the third-party. I eventually determined that the behavior she was accused of in fact led to the departure of the aggrieved, but despite taking action the aggrieved would not return.

The damage had been done.

The burden of proof in a court of law is on the prosecution, but the responsibility of staff is to not only be an adjutant, but also an investigator. Investigators act on anonymous tips all the time because those tips can lead to the discovery of evidence of bad acts. And I think that staff need to adopt the position as investigators as much as being mindful of their role as judges.

In your collective opinion, how well would the Modiphius system work on a MUSH? Or would it?

@Ghost said in Modiphius Games:

Yeah, I bought in on it. I like it. It's bot a super crunchy game system, very RP driven, lots of content, stuff like creating cameo characters.

How does it handle ship-combat?

@faraday said in How To Treat Your Players Right:

I think that's a fair policy to have on your game. In absence of such a policy though, I would feel it a breach of trust if someone came to me in confidence and I violated that. It also makes it harder to actually get the person to cooperate in giving you details/logs/etc. if they feel they can't trust you.

What you described, though, is similar to a Vincent Vega request. And Mia Wallace responded perfectly:

No, no, no. You can't promise something like that. I have no idea what you're gonna ask me. So you can go ahead and ask me what you're going to ask me, and my natural response could be to get offended! Then, through no fault of my own, I would have broken my promise.

If a player makes a complaint and then asks that it would be confidential, that is a patently unfair request that I have no obligation to follow. Suppose, for example, that the complainant describes to you a method by which a staffer or player is cheating or gaming the system. You have a duty to the game to fix that problem, and that duty supersedes the complainant's request. I would say the same about any complaint about someone running other players off the game through a whisper campaign.

There is always an element of discretion -- most complaints aren't so dire -- but I think that any complainant who wants some level of confidentiality or non-action would make that request before informing me of a dumpster fire.

In my experience, you are more likely to receive legitimate, honest complaints than illegitimate complaints calculated to harass privately.

I keep seeing this designer come up. Anyone have a look at the Star Trek game?

@Saulot said in Good TV:

Umbrella Academy is amazing. My view is likely biased since I never read the comics.

@faraday said in How To Treat Your Players Right:

• "Please don't do anything; I just wanted you to know." OMG this one drives me nuts. Why tell me if you're just going to tie my hands? Now you've put me in a position where either I let a potential creeper continue creeping, or I violate your confidence by taking action against your wishes. IT SUCKS. Please stop doing this, people.

I think it might be a good policy to put up front that staff will act upon information given for the good of the game. Under the circumstances, I don't really care what the informant's or complainant's desires might be.

Consider staff -- good staff -- to be like mandated reporters, people. If you ring the bell, they will act.

In my experience, complaints should never be anonymous to the person tasked with investigating such complaints.

On Victorian Reverie, I served as the player ombudsman and the third in a triumvirate of headstaff. The other headstaff didn't always agree on things, and I acted as the third vote to break ties. My duties otherwise only included investigating complaints. We didn't have many.

From that experience, I can tell you that player ombudsmen do not work the way you want them to. By the time a complaint is filed by someone with the wherewithal to raise it, the damage has already been done. Predators don't persist because they target people who are well-established or known to have the sort of courage to report problems. Problematic behavior has to be caught at an early stage.

In my other kinds of experiences, I've found that allowing your staff to play PCs allow them to get a feel for the player-base. I've seen staff pick out and remove problem players before they become too awful to extricate, but these were staff that I knew to be reasonable, responsible players too. Or staff was literally omni-present, and so involved with the game that it became impossible for predators to remain under the radar for long.

Here's a few suggestions for staff to keep the player-base happy, engaged, and feeling safe:

• No staff should be playing PCs that obtain any sort of status or power on the game. If the game involves territory, staff PCs should not be able to gain control over territory; if the game involves titles, staff PCs should not be able to have anything but middling titles or offices. Only non-staff PCs should have the ability to gain positions of power that can affect a game's social environment.

• Complaints about a PC's player should be sent to the head of that PC's sphere, if you have spheres, or directly to headstaff via @mail or e-mail. Staff should then open up a +request about the complaint on a +job system only visible to wizbits, or into a bucket only visible to wizbits. The matter should be investigated by a wizbit-staffer without direct authority to affect the PC at issue if possible, else by headstaff with control over the game.

• Logs should not be required. In my experience, confronting the behavior is usually enough to elicit some explanation or confession from the accused, else a counter-complaint.

• Action should not be predicated on a complaint. Staff should be keeping an eye out at all times for odd comments on channels or in pages.

No system will be perfect, but I think the modern practice of having minimal staff on a game is making it easier for problem players to fly under the radar.

@Pyrephox said in RL Anger:

Eh. Will Smith is actually an impressive dramatic actor, when he's put in a role that calls for it.

I know, but he's still not as good as Idris Elba or Mahershala Ali. Especially the latter.

@Arkandel said in RL Anger:

Sure, but the controversy isn't that he's not a good enough actor. It's that he's not a black enough actor.

Maybe he isn't. I don't know. I'm not going to presume to know "who is black enough" and who is not.

@saosmash said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Sadly it's a responsive declaration in a family law case (WHY do I take these). Without my client's signature I don't really have anything to file.

As a civil litigator, this is me practicing family law.

I'm sorry for your situation, friend. Come. Let us drink.

@saosmash said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

I am missing a filing deadline in approximately 8 minutes because my client has not signed and returned a thing I sent him last week.

One thing we do at my firm, if you're talking about the verification of interrogatory answers under oath, is submitting the unverified version to opposing counsel and/or the court, and then submitting the verification later by amendment.

"I mean, the thing got filed, your Honor; it was just missing something that we added later. Where's the harm?"

@Arkandel

What the critics meant to say was that Idris Elba or Mahershala Ali would be better choices because they are better actors.

@Derp

You're probably better off. An attorney who cannot keep track of his own cases does not deserve assistance of any kind. That attorney needs to take fewer cases and learn to handle his own docket.

I use my admin assistant for the important things: (1) making sure my documents gets filed into the electronic storage system; (2) fielding calls so I don't get disturbed; and (3) making sure my shit looks and sounds right. Everything else is on me, and I make that very clear to her.