@Jaunt said:
"You cannot play PCs" is pretty straight-forward. It might be a bit of a blunt solution, but it definitely works.
It is a blunt solution, and, as demonstrated, it has the unintended consequence of making it extremely difficult to find willing, knowledgeable staff for a game.
If you hire well, however, you won't need such guidelines because you won't need to worry about staff making bad calls.
@Jaunt said:
I also think that enforcing and encouraging strong policy helps to teach newb admins good ethics while staffing. Creating an atmosphere of accountability and ethical behavior can rub off on folks that work for/with you. New admins tend to emulate the behavior that they are taught by the veterans that lead them, and nothing says, "This is what's acceptable and this is what's not" better than having strong policy.
I have had the privilege of staffing with very good people. I did not have to tell or teach them much. Few of the staff under me have ever been accused of being unethical.
It starts with who you ask to join. New or old, the character of the person is what will make or break their careers as staffers. If staff put half of their time and energy into that instead of into the creation of labyrinthine, scarcely-enforced policies, we'd all be saved a lot of headaches.
@Groth said:
If those policies hadn't been written down I think it would have been harder for her to build that trust and harder to ensure that the members of staff she brought in would stay true to her vision.
Even if those policies had been written down, I would not have continued to play on the game if the rules were not consistently enforced. Even in the absence of those policies, I would have continued to play on the game because of my opinion of stiffly conduct. My coming to the game had nothing to do with the staff policies at all.
I suppose, after our discussion, that if I had a point, it is that the conduct and character of your staff will speak louder than what policies are publicly listed.
@Groth said:
In the absence of a well written policy it's very hard to tell when a staff member is being fair and when they're just making things up as they go along.
If you say so. I don't need a well-written policy -- or any policy -- to alert me when a staff member is unfair. All that matters is what I think is fair, not what that policy may tell me is fair.
@Groth said:
Note how even though Judges can be impeached and censured, they are still expected to recuse themselves from cases where there might exist appearances of impropriety.
That's not what I was getting at. I understand this. Judges should do this voluntarily, but do so in obvious cases because their ethical code can be enforced against them. On a MU*, if staff don't follow or enforce their policies, the policy is pointless.
I've been around the block for a long time, and I don't believe any code or set of policies will make me trust staff more or less than the reputations they have.
@Groth said:
To me the problem is not if I trust staff or not, the problem is if the players trust staff.
As you've pointed out, Groth, staff will always have superior power over players. You can't change this, even if you hobble their PCs. If staff want to screw you, they will, no matter what policies are put into place. In my experience, every policy calculated to check staff power or interests can be overridden or ignored, and is ultimately useless. Worse, they are often twisted to justify otherwise immoral acts.
You cannot reasonably compare the situation to judges and their family members. Judges can be impeached and censured in a variety of meaningful ways. Staff cannot, other than removing them.
Character is what is most important. And vigilance by administrators..
@Jaunt said:
I do think those issues become even more problematic if a core feature of your game is non-consent permanent death. They're definitely not good mojo in either scenario, though.
I don't think the issues are problematic if you have good staff. In fact, none of these scenarios of doom-and-gloom arise if the staff can be trusted with the power they have.
As an administrator, if you don't trust your staff, why are they staff?
I understand the concern, but I, like many ex-staff, despise setting policies based on the lowest-common denominator's behavior.
I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, Misadventure. Can you re-state?
@Misadventure said:
At least with Ghouls, the spectrum of standard relationships includes many negatives. If you asked someone "Hey want to portray the destructive effects a vampire has on a ghoul even when they appreciate something specific to that ghoul?" they would be likely to think that's okay. I'm not sure you could even ask that easily for a Kinfolk/Wolfblooded and a werewolf, even with such being in the books, and in werewolfy type movies and books (it was even in Twilight, over in a corner, cuz domestic abuse even in the service of a spiritual duty isn't romantic).
Whether I ever engage in this sort of RP depends on who I'm playing with. I think that you'll find many players of wolf-blooded don't mind playing up the domestic-abuse angle, as long as they trust the abuser's player not to go out of their comfort zone.
It was a good game. I enjoyed my time on it. I dropped only because RfK was a very time-consuming game.
I liken Exalted to Street Fighter.
I was always good at Street Fighter. Maybe it's because I'm Asian. I can get past most of the games against the CPUs.
But against other players, I get hosed because they've mastered the intricacies to a level that's beyond my skill and time-investment.
I can play Exalted. I can read the rules. I will never be able to get so immersed so as to actually enjoy it deeply. So, I don't play it.
It looks nice, though.
I'd gladly play on an Exalted game if I had a better handle on the rules. They seem overly complex to me.
@Derp said:
How the man fails to grasp the difference between etc. and et al. (I was referencing a list of authors, for chrissakes) is beyond me.
I'll bet he'd dock you for using the Oxford comma too.
I don't think presuming everyone is male here is safe, actually.
I mean, we are talking about basketball here.
@hedgehog said:
Are you and your partner the only people under fifty in Dayton? 'Cause, damn, there's a lot of old going on there.
There's plenty of young. You just have to know where to go. And when.
@Miss-Demeanor said:
@Ganymede You had me until the snow. I moved away from the snow because I dislike the cold. XD
Then you shall pay for your unwarranted, unreasonable prejudices, madam.
@Miss-Demeanor said:
Damn, I want to live where you are. 700/mo isn't likely to get you much here other than laughed at...
Here's another reason: http://www.dayton.com/news/news/local/dayton-named-ohios-drunkest-city/nnnBy/
@surreality said:
...except then you've got all the citations above about how that is cheating, too. (See all the references to reacting to advances with hostility of any kind.)
It's not cheating to shoot the people you love to death. That's pretty much the M.O. for most murder-suicides.