Posts made by Ganymede

@Misadventure said:

Only if characters are randomly given Asshole Cards that dictate when they will screw over other survivors for something truly trivial or selfish.

That's silly. This is what staff is for.

Edited to add: I was running a W:tA 20 game last year, and there was a point where the pack alpha needed to roll to see if he Rage-frenzied when stopped by a sheriff at a traffic stop in the middle of the day in a downtown area. As GM, I told him I would give him an XP if he chose to fail prior to rolling. The pack spent the rest of the session running from other police and taking care of witnesses.

Players will do anything for extra XP. So, give it to them, and laugh.

@Arkandel said:

Given how prevalent zombie tropes have been over the last couple of years I'd be shocked if there are no MU* around already set in The Walking Dead universe or some such.

Find one for me. I'll pay you.

@Coin

Give me a Mortal game where you have to survive in a zombie apocalypse. Please. No powers or what not outside of the core GMC game.

Shouldn't be tough, right? Let's give it a shot. I'll figure out some sort of "local community development social power mini-game" to satisfy the RfK crowd's need for manipulating the Grid.

@tragedyjones said:

Y'all need some post apocalyptic pretty people in your life.

I need to watch this, being a devotee of The Last of Us and other post-apocalyptic games.

Also, Rebuild 3 is an awesome Steam game. Wrong thread, I know.

@tragedyjones said:

I get unreasonably nervous when having holiday related small talk. I don't want to offend people by saying Merry Christmas, I don't want to offend them by saying Happy Holidays. And I am horrified of my coworkers learningI am not religious.

This is why I don't express holiday-related sentiment. Have a nice day ... or don't, I don't give a fuck.

@Derp

Like @Thenomain, I think you're reading too far into the words I've chosen. I'll try again after briefly retorting and flailing about like a gibbering retard.

I don't consider myself standoffish on a game, even as staff. I don't consider myself obstinate, even as a lawyer. I never, ever said that I would demand that the opposing party concede their position, and I would not expect them to if they are as adamant about their position as I may end up being. Equally, I do not rage-quit.

But my opinion is the most important one to me, as it should be. If someone has an opposing view, that's fine. If someone can justify their position, I may or may not change my opinion; even if they cannot, I may see something in what they say that causes me to reconsider, even if they cannot articulate anything that resembles a cogent thought. But I will not simply reconsider an opinion due to an appeal to positional authority or when it is supported by flimsy or capricious reasoning. As antagonistically as I can muster: anyone that tells you they do not undergo a similar decision-making process is either incompetent or a liar.

Without jest, I have to refer and summarize from previous posts. I stated that where the hiring staff gives me a clear objective and a method to follow, and I accept the position, I will execute to the best of my ability. What authority or autonomy I demand or require -- or what any other reasonable, intelligent person would -- depends on the nature of the objective.

So, an example: Fallcoast. I was asked by Sonder and Spider to set up the Vampire Sphere. I believed I was given the authority and autonomy to come up with local government, covenant themes, and other important bits of background within the confines of what they had in mind for a grid. I accepted, and started to think about how I could improve on The Reach, namely in the social arena. I was also of the understanding that I would have whatever time to do this, or that I would be given some sort of deadline, which I did not receive prior to or around the time I was brought onto the project.

Interim, I was notified that the game would be reverting totally back to nWoD 1.0. Whitewater and I were vehemently against any step backward, but other staff thought it would be best in light of wanting to have Mage, Changeling, and other non-GMC spheres. So, that decision had some reasoning behind it, and even though I didn't like it, I continued forward, undeterred.

One day, I gave an update, wherein I said that I wanted to implement some sort of social power / influence system for the vampires. It could be tailored around the vampire sphere in that it would basically reflect the political power of a vampire among NPCs within the Praxis. I was told this could not be implemented immediately because Fallcoast lacked a dedicated coder at the time. I said that I could afford to wait, as that would give me time to type out the setting, themes, NPCs, and so on. But then I was told that the game would be opening up in only a few weeks, that Sonder and Spider had been promising others the game would open up by that deadline, and that the game could not wait for what I believed to be a necessary element for a successful vampire sphere.

In the above case, the objective seemed clear, but it wasn't because I was unaware of the self-imposed deadline Sonder and Spider advertised to "others." I determined from my conversation, and those I had with other staff, that there was, and would be, a communication problem between the Head Staff and the Sphere Staff. There's no reason for there to be poor communication, and the responsibility for communicating important deadlines falls to those who seek to implement them -- the Head Staff. I concluded from available information that there would be no substantial change between the bad practices of The Reach and that which would occur on Fallcoast, and I did not want to be a part of those bad practices. So, I quietly tendered my resignation and left.

Does that help? Do you need another illustration?

@Thenomain said:

I have some problems in how your words look, to me, like you are otherwise saying: I will do what I think is right and if you disagree then I will judge that on my own terms.

If my words don't look like the way you'd want them to, it's probably because I'm blunt. So, I'll be blunt: that's not what I wrote, and that's not what I'm saying. Nothing the statement above is false, though. In any job I do, I do, in fact, do what I think is right. I also judge disagreement by my own terms; opposition can be reasonable or unreasonable. Whether I find the disagreement reasonable will help guide how I react to it. I do not consult with anyone else as to what I find to be reasonable or not, and I doubt you do as well.

Part of teamwork is being able to have a reasonable discussion as to objectives and methods. Another part of teamwork is trusting that a member can handle an objective on his or her own by employing reasonable methods to accomplish it. Reasonable minds can disagree as to which method is better or worse, but the eventual goal must be in focus unless the method is unreasonable, which, to me, means one that is capricious or completely unjustified.

If I did not say so expressly, then I said, by implication, that much depends on the objective of becoming staff. If you are staffing merely to assist with processing jobs, the need for independent action and evaluation is low. If you are staffing to set up a new sphere on an existing game, then the need for discretion and autonomy is somewhat higher. That increases further if creating a new game wholecloth, which is why it is so very important for the founding staff members to have near-absolute faith in one another.

In short: I'm pretty sure I'm a good team player. But I'm the team player that will stand firm on issues that relate to my players or that will lead, in my experience, to bad outcomes. When that happens, I have to ask if I want to continue to volunteer on the team, or move on so as to avoid a messy game divorce.

@Arkandel said:

The resource healthy spheres run on isn't authority, it's trust. And trust has to go both ways.

And this is the reason I pick a harder line.

Players depend on their staff to advocate for them among other staff. I did this on Haunted Memories, when it was decided that all XP requests would go through Koi. I repeatedly and expressly voiced how that decision took a great deal of decision-making authority from sphere staff, and that players are more apt to trust sphere staff, with whom they interact more, than general administrative staff. I cited the decision as one of the primary reasons I stepped away from that game.

If I can say confidently that my decisions will stand, then players can trust that I mean what I say, and that they can depend on what I tell them. If a head staffer can immediately by fiat overrule my decisions, then what I tell my players cannot be depended upon. That's not fair to me and my responsibility to run a sphere or fulfill an objective for the game, and undermines the players' trust in me, which makes everything that much more difficult

@Warma-Sheen said:

The problem is that the overturned staffer doesn't think one of those things applies. For example, you may not think you were being arbitrary or capricious but Headstaff thinks you were.

Since you don't speak lawyerese, I will not lecture you on how the term "arbitrary" and "capricious" have very specific meanings. That said, the standard is more than "Headstaff thinks you made a wrong decision"; it means "there is no fact or reasonable inference that can be made to support your position."

For me, it boils down to this. If you hire me as staff, you are giving me a set of expectations and a clear objective. I will follow those expectations if I am hired, and will meet that objective. But if what I do to meet that objective does not meet unsaid or irrational rules, I'm not going to follow them.

Generally, I come into games when a sphere or game needs to be re-booted or fixed-up; something happened, and the game needs serious help to get straight again. So, I'm going to make some decisions that other staff may not like, but I'm going to ultimately expect support unless I make a decision that is contrary to (printed) rules or have no basis in fact or reason. If you want someone to do your work that adheres strictly to your decisions, you need to find someone else; I can definitely do this, but I can think of eleventy-billion other things I'd rather be doing than acting like a cog.

I don't mind discussion; I encourage it. But if you want me to assume responsibility for something, I want the autonomy I described. Otherwise, you can assume responsibility, and you will probably need to look for someone else.

@Thenomain said:

What if you believe something needs to be done and your superiors disagree?

They can do what is necessary to supersede my decision or alter it as I see fit. Again, I'm not proposing complete autonomy; it is unreasonable to demand that, unless I own and operate the game myself. Generally, all I ask for is an explanation for the superseding action, if taken. I'll react accordingly.

@Warma-Sheen said:

I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're trying to make.

If what I've been saying is unclear, I'll try again.

If I make a decision, and have purportedly been given authority and autonomy to make that decision, then I expect those above me to support that decision unless I: (1) acted arbitrarily and/or capriciously; (2) ruled in a manner that is contrary to the printed rules or game policy; or (3) otherwise exercised power without a quantum of reasonable justification. In that case, they can justifiably take action to correct things.

The first and third parts are easy to explain; the second is not. If I judge a scene and decide to give a modifier for a roll that is questionable, that is not ruling "in a manner that is contrary" to rules; I simply exercised my discretion on the scene. If I decide to make a house rule that some players don't like, that is also not sufficient.

Ultimately, if I am to be held responsible for operating a sphere or for getting a job done, I like being allowed to get that job done and take the appropriate, reasonable steps to do so without being questioned, overruled, or harangued along the way. If I toss a person out for being a dickbag, I won't do it willy-nilly, but I certainly am going to throw a fit if you force me to let them back in.

The above is not complete autonomy. Unsurprisingly, it's a little closer to the authority that non-Supreme Courts have.

@Derp said:

Thus why it's important to have people who are focused on those aspects of those game lines that help to define their reason for being, even if you don't organize it into sphere staff.

In non-gaming terms: every lawyer that can practice in a jurisdiction has passed the required bar admission test; however, you don't necessarily want a criminal attorney to handle your workers' compensation claim, and you shouldn't expect him to be able to.

@Thenomain said:

It's dangerous as hell to promise autonomy. There will be a time where people with higher authority and responsibility will need to tell you "no". Cutting themselves out of this possibility is not something anyone should do.

Maybe I was not clear: I was not given the authority or autonomy to do what needed to be done, as I had expected and was told.

I don't need someone staring over my shoulder and directing me when I put together a sphere. That's the autonomy I require. It goes hand-in-hand with my decisions to remove players' PCs from certain positions, if I do not feel they are the right fit. And so on, and so on.

Autonomy is not complete autonomy. I wasn't suggesting a carte blanche; only the freedom to do what I believe needs to be done.

@ThatGuyThere said:

... if someone offers you a job but not the authority to do said job you should never take it.

On more than one occasion, I was told that I had the authority and autonomy, which turned out to be false. It would only have been foolish had I remained, which I did not.

@Arkandel said:

An issue here is that 'shitty' often translates to "I don't like them" or even "I should have had what they got". So in a game where there are multiple groups and no one enjoys universal support - a very common scenario - there won't be a smoking gun, and thus it all comes down either to who you listen to or who you care to displease the least.

Mostly, you're attacking a presumption. I'm not sure why, but, here we are.

I recognize that it is very rare that a staffer is objectively bad for a game. And I recognize that, in general, your average complaint is something comparable to the above.

Taking all previous comments made into consideration, you can avoid one of your two vocalized complaints by not limiting certain statistics to a handful of players. Everyone can get everything, as long as it is consistent with the rules and policies. Nothing should only be obtainable by application, unless it's some sort of position hat.

Regarding the other, if you let your staffers boot people that they can't work with, you sort of solve that issue. If the complaining player is causing problems, let sphere staff handle it. If the sphere devolves into some shitfest, step in and take control, if you have authority to do so. Sometimes, the best staffers get a hold of spheres full of toxic people, get overwhelmed, and cannot get the situation unwound.

@Arkandel said:

@bored said:

But that gets into the whole 'don't hire shitty staff' (and perhaps more important, 'actually fire your friends when they turn out to be shitty staff') thing.

Sure, but what is the point of having good ('not shitty') staff if you can't trust them to make decisions like that without accusing them of favoritism?

Presuming that the friends are objectively shitty and I had authority over the good staffer at issue, I would simply step in and fire his or her friend(s). If the good staffer objects, they can either resign as well or continue to staff.

It sucks being a boss at times, but reasonable decisions need to be made. Again, this presumes that the person-to-be-fired is objectively shitty.

@Arkandel

Did you see what I wrote back there about restricted concepts? That also applies to Tier PCs. I don't like the concept, and would never implement them in my sphere. If I were forced to do so, and presuming that I don't outright quit because of such stupidity, then I would not hand-pick the player, and I would ask people generally if he/she/it would like to play that elder. From the list of people who show interest, I would pick the person I felt would be the best choice based on the surrounding circumstances.

What the hell does that mean? It means that I would try to consider all the angles. What if all of the players that would be good for the role did not want it? What if they already had positions of importance that I need to keep filled? What if the only person applying for the role were someone I barely had any experience with, but gets high commendations from others, including those I know well? Is the sphere such that I could find a "friend" from elseMU* to drop in? Is that a bad idea? Etc.

Of your five options, option 4 is my go-to. If that's not a choice, option 5: elder NPCs. Otherwise, look at the totality of the circumstances.