Posts made by Seraphim73

@Arkandel What you're discussing is very similar to the system that I'm trying to work out. I very much want coded social combat in the system, but I also want to make sure that no one expects instant-conversions, and to limit the impacts of using the exact wrong argument and still succeeding.

With that in mind I have a section at the beginning of any fight (social or physical) that includes Setting the Stakes. Each of the players involved states what their character intends to do, and the other players state whether this is a reasonable possibility. This is more important for social combat than physical, because we all (or at least most of us) understand and agree upon the physics of real-world physical combat -- the same is not true with social combat, it's more like a Jedi and a Borg trying to agree on whose universe is "right" before beginning a fight between them. The hope is that this will rein in some of the attempts at instant-seduction or instant-conversion or whatever. If the players involved cannot agree, Staff is called in, talks to each individually, and determines the available stakes.

Physical Example One: Player 1: "My character is looking to hit some people to work off some stress, but doesn't want to actually injure anyone." Player 2: "Sure, that sounds good, about what my character wants too." Player 1: "Great, we're agreed."
Physical Example Two: Player 1: "My character wants to rip someone limb from limb and bathe in their blood." Player 2: "Uh... considering you're playing a hacker with a Strength 2, probably not. My character is just looking to escape this attack." Player 1: "Oh, yeah, you're probably right. Well, okay, my character is looking to inflict as much damage as possible with their bare fists." Player 2: "Understood."
Social Example One: Player 1: "My character wants to get a discount of 20-30% on this item." Player 2: "Sounds high, but with some really good rolling, possible. My character wants to mark the item up by 10%." Player 1: "Ouch, over list price? I guess that could be possible with a good argument."
Social Example Two: Player 1: "My character wants to get your character to betray your King and let me in to poison him." Player 2: "Our characters have never met, and mine is a Royal Guard who loves his King. Romantically. Probably not going to happen." Player 1: "Hrm, how about casting doubt on the King's fidelity to crack some of that resolve?" Player 2: "Sounds plausible, we'll go with that. My character is trying to resist this argument and get your character to go away."

The second part is adding a step before rolling, and another before posing for social combat. Yes, this makes social combat more involved, but again, we have to define the world the characters are playing in before poses make sense. The first step is for each character to state (generally) what tact they're taking. The other character then provides a bonus or penalty for the attack based on how effective that argument would be. The second step is where the defender reconciles the attack with their character. If the argument was ridiculous but the roll was excellent (countering the penalty and beyond), then the player has a chance to suggest some ideas to the attacker's player that might explain why it worked. Sadly, it requires rational adults on both sides, so I don't know if it would ever work in a public system.

Example One: Player 1: "Since my character knows that yours just got out of a bad long-term relationship, she's going to suggest that the characters should totally have a one-night stand at a later date." Player 2: "Ouch. Sadly, he's really against one-night stands. Like, really, really against. Probably a -3? My character is going to try to suggest that yours chase after Bobby instead." Player 1: "Oooh, my character thinks Bobby's a hunk, +1." Rolls are made, Character 1 wins despite the penalty. Player 2: "Hrm, wow. Okay, so maybe it's not so much suggesting a one-night stand as simply friends with benefits at a later date? No romantic entanglements, but not something utterly meaningless? Or maybe she plays it cool and just suggests going out for drinks to complain about the bad breakup with the idea that she'll get him drunk and try again?" Player 1: "Okay, that second idea sounds workable, I'll go with that."
Example Two: Player 1: "I'm going to appeal to your character's love for protecting innocents by claiming that the rebels I want him to smuggle out of the city are actually innocents the government is hunting." Player 2: "That's a good idea. I think that's probably a +2. It would be a +3 if your character had evidence that they were innocents. My character's just hanging in there, clinging to his oaths of allegiance." Player 1: "Yeah, no modifier, obviously." Character 1 rolls well, Character 2 rolls poorly. Player 1: "How about noting that a couple of the rebels are women, and one is a teenager?" Player 2: "Yeah, that sounds like a great way to handle that social beat-down."
Example Three: One round, Character 1 tries to straight-up intimidate Character 2, with Player 2 deciding that since their character is tough and nasty themselves, that's a -1 penalty. Character 1 grumbles to themselves, but accepts it. The rolls are mixed, and no one makes much progress. The next round, Player 1 decides their character is going to threaten Character 2's family. Player 2 states that this would never work, and it's a -2 penalty. Player 1 protests, stating that Character 2 has stated how much they love their family in past RP, and in fact has the Quirk "Family Conscious." Player 2 is adamant, because they don't want to lose. Staff is called in, the situation is explained (in individual pages with each player to make sure it doesn't devolve into an OOC shouting match between the players), and Staff declares that the threat to the family is actually a +3 bonus. Rolls are made.

Edit: Formatting is apparently hard, even when it's that simple.

@surreality said in Social Conflict via Stats:

No one would expect to, using one of the physical examples here, chop off a person's arm by playfully blowing a handful of feathers and glitter in their face.
...
Just like a high brawl score doesn't make 'blow glitter at someone' a successful means of delimbing, no matter how much the delimber may want it to be the method, a high persuasion score doesn't necessarily mean <method of choice> is going to plausibly work, either.

The stats need to be respected by the target.

The method needs to be respected by the enactor.

I had not been able to put together a good example of why bad poses in social scenes ruined my enjoyment so well, but you've done it very neatly. Bravo. These entire posts exactly explain my discomfort with straight dice in social scenes without OOC give-and-take alongside it (because we all understand the physical rules of the world, but very few understand the social rules of someone else's world).

That being said, I want to find a way that dice can still be used for social scenes without getting into this problem. Is it as simple as setting stakes before the social combat? Is it as simple as checking methods before rolling dice, so that appropriate penalties/bonuses can be assessed? Is it as simple as rolling before the scene and then working together to craft the arguments necessary to achieve the desired result (this is a whole lot less fun for me, but may be necessary)?

@Kanye-Qwest Because some players are not comfortable having the thoughts/desires/beliefs of their PCs dictated to them by the dice. I admit that I have been strongly in this camp myself in the past, although I think I've come to feel that it might not be the end of the world, so long as exactly what can be accomplished by social dice in a single roll (or even a single scene) is limited.

I've swung wildly between the "Oh god, dice will totally screw with my immersion by making my character change their mind due to a crappy pose and good dice" side of things and the "Oh god, why must everyone pose like they're perfect liars and perfectly charming we need a damned social combat system" side of things during my time MU*ing.

The system I've been designing currently has a "hard" social combat system (based on a simplified version of A Song of Ice and Fire's system), but I do have cut-outs--winning social combat gets you toward your goal, it doesn't necessarily get you all the way there (physical combat is the same way in that you generally have to keep attacking after someone has fallen to actually kill them), and you can always walk out, although that may very well have social consequences as well.

I don't think there is a "base" way to handle social dynamics--I certainly don't want people acting as @SG described (posing in such a way that does not back up their stats), but I also feel that a badly-written pose punching someone with a ton of successes behind it is a lot easier to roll with than a badly-written pose convincing or seducing someone with a ton of successes behind it.

@surreality said in Harassment in VR, there's something we can likely learn from this.:

p creeper=We've received reports of unwanted sexual advances from you to another player. She was not comfortable addressing this directly with you, but we have received and reviewed her complaint. This behavior stops now. If it persists, you will be shown the door without ceremony.

This (pretty much exactly, although I'm pretty sure I used "The player" instead of "she") is exactly what I have done in the past. It has stopped (reported/observed) incidents of the behavior in the those cases. And if it doesn't stop the behavior, then the problem player has been told "no" already and can be hit with the banhammer while still staying explicitly within the policies of the game.

The reason I like to approach the problem player first? Exactly what @Groth brought up--they usually don't even know that they're being a creeper. Of course, if the conversation with them shows that they knew... yeah... banhammer.

How about a way to influence gang politics (or just NPC standard of living) in the various areas where the 'Runners lived? Either free reign to run gang-banging plots, a request-based influence system, or something else altogether.

Encourage outlaw bike/car/thunderbird races run by PCs at the drop of a hat.

What about Pirate Havens for a setting? Then you wouldn't have to worry as much about putting together constant shadowruns for small groups of players. People could band together as crews of various ships, and you could have competition between ships, between all the pirates and the local corps, between everyone and Aztlan, between sentients and non-sentient threats (Kraken!), all sorts of things.

I'm also a sucker for SR3, but I assume people would want to play SR5, in which case I would agree that all the supplements with a few judicious excisions would be the way to go.

Definitely Karmagen or Points-Buy, and I think I would abstract Nuyen-tracking to a Wealth stat or something like that, so you don't have to worry about buying a KrispySoy, but everyone doesn't have deltaware all the time.

@Sunny Again, just so that everyone is on the same page, I'm not talking about metaplot scenes. I'm not even talking about PrPs with tangible benefits, I'm talking about gathering some friends together (who you have warned previously of the type of scene you're planning) to run a scene that furthers your character's storyline.

I think that folks have signed on for "reducing their characters to supporting characters" (tweak mine, because reducing characters to spectators is bad GMing no matter if you're in the scene or not) in this case. Anyhow, what's wrong with being a supporting character sometimes (as long as you get your own time in the spotlight too, by your own doing or someone else's)? Hell, some of the most fun characters I've ever played are Stormtroopers, or Children of the Light, or Warders, or Rhodey Rhodes. They're all supporting characters, even if they see the spotlight every now and then.

And in pro and rec leagues, there are definitely refs who aren't playing, absolutely. I would equate those to metaplot scenes and PrPs with benefits. But in pick-up games? Call your own fouls, man. No one wants to sit out and ref, players want to play.

If you don't like that argument anymore, how about this one: if you were getting together with friends to play a boardgame, or Magic: The Gathering, would you have someone sit aside to officiate? Sure, it might be a good idea with a complex game like anything Fantasy Flight has ever put out, to make sure that everyone follows all the rules, but isn't it more fun for everyone involved if everyone plays, even if it means you miss a little rule or two somewhere along the way?

Edited to add: Why do we have refs in pro sports/rec leagues? Because something is on the line, so we can't trust the players to call their own fouls. If you could trust players to call their own fouls, you don't need refs.

@Sunny said in Leadership, Spotlight, and PCs of Staffers:

You just don't get to run them for yourself.

Why?

That may sound flippant or even dismissive, but it's really not intended to be. I'm genuinely curious why you think that a player (whether they are a Staffer or not) should not be allowed to run scenes that further their own character's personal story without impacting metaplot or providing them with benefits beyond some time in the spotlight.

I have my own reasons why I wouldn't want some players to do so, but they all relate to a distrust that the player would follow the criteria laid out above (or would break with theme), and it makes me sad that I have this distrust.

Sidenote, I think that it's a fantastic policy to always let people know that you're inviting them to participate in your character's story, rather than a "plot" scene, and I think the idea of a Storyteller's Storyteller (or more ideally, two, so they can help each other occasionally too) to tell stories for those who are always telling stories for other is a great one.

@Misfortune I think it's really unfortunate that having to be so excruciatingly careful of any hint, whiff, or suggestion of impropriety is ruining your enjoyment of your own game (or at least the character(s) you play on it). That's a great way to end up with people not running games.

@Miss-Demeanor So adding more information that simply wasn't mentioned in the first post is "backpedaling?" And clarifying doesn't count. Alright. Cool.

@Miss-Demeanor Please read what @GirlCalledBlu wrote, not what you wanted her to have written.

And [how to introduce Grounders] is how the conversation started. By the time it got to the point in the story being presented here, I had already been given answers to the first question, and was looking for feedback on those answers.

She's saying that she asked other players how to introduce Grounders, and was looking for feedback based on what they had already provided. She's not claiming that she asked you how to introduce Grounders. She had already asked others that. She was inquiring whether you thought that people would be upset if we introduced them with a couple of people-who-would-become-PCs. And as I recall (I could be wrong about this), you said it would likely be fine, so long as others got a chance to play Grounders soon thereafter. If this wasn't what you thought... we're not mind-readers, we can only go off the responses that we get from others when we ask them questions.

@Miss-Demeanor said in The 100: The Mush:

@Seraphim73 Perception may well be the biggest problem that happened on The 100. Because while you're saying that yes this happened but you fixed it... you're neglecting to mention that it happened for months and only got fixed after people had left the game and this thread had started getting snippy about how you two were handling the game. ... By the time it got to the Grounders being open for play, I already had a foot out the door because of unresolved worries and concerns that you and @GirlCalledBlu claimed to be 'watching'

Actually, the last log on the Wiki from your character (assuming I have the right character, if not, I apologize) was IC Day 5. So, 10 RL days. The Grounders were introduced 2 RL weeks into the game (1 IC week). Grounder PCs beyond the first two were on-grid and RPing by IC Day 11 (22 RL days into the game). Just to be clear on the timeline here. And here we come into the perception issue, because we were watching many of the "problem players," and we talked to some of them who we thought were doing things the worst. We may not have come down on them as hard as you would have liked, or, given how things ended up, as openly as we perhaps should have. But your perception that we were doing nothing is not consistent with what we were doing.

There are, however, things that we have learned from this experience. We do not plan to Headstaff on other public games. We've discovered that it's not our cup of tea, and we that have some issues as Headstaff (especially as sole Headstaff, as has been mentioned by you and others here, and we admitted previously was not a good choice) that while we will certainly try to correct going forward, are even easier to simply avoid by not putting ourselves in that position again.

I think you strongly underestimate our intentions to separate player and staff roles and our (general) ability to do so. We definitely did slip up a few times, but I am a very, very strong proponent of the separation between player and staff, always tried to shift any Staff discussions to Staff bits rather than player bits, apologized whenever I answered an on-channel question from a player bit rather than Staff bit, and always tried to separate myself from my role as a player whenever considering something as a Staffer. I explicitly stated on channels and in OOC many times that Grey's words were the words of a character, not a Staffer, and in fact, he ended up being wrong more often than he was right -- by quite a bit -- because I wanted to discourage people from simply taking what he said as the Word of God (and because it can be quite amusing for your character to be wrong). And to be clear, @GirlCalledBlu mentioned sometimes failing to separate the Staffer and Player bits -- as in, talking to someone from a Player bit about Staff issues. Yes, it blurs the lines, yes it's bad, but it's an "oops, my bad" sort of bad, not a "OH GOD, THESE PEOPLE DO NOT SEE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING A STAFFER AND BEING A PLAYER" bad.

@Auspice and @mietze - I can definitely see that perspective, and would absolutely suggest such a thing to the Headstaff of any game I beta'd or assisted with going forward.

@Auspice said in The 100: The Mush:

There's definitely something to overcome if you join a game 'late,' but if you're joining within the first couple months a game is open and there's already a massive power curve... something is wrong.

Definitely not a massive power curve. It was a few XP, I believe 2-3. In fact, we had to boost the power of the starting Delinquents after the introduction of the Grounder/Adult Arker PCs to bring the Delinquents up to the starting level of other PCs. Still, the point, as noted above, is well taken.

@TNP said in The 100: The Mush:

Issue #3
This one has no qualifier: A husband and wife team should never be the sole staff on a game (not including the coder). I'll expand this to any two people who happen to be close and think similarly about the direction of the game.
...
The point being, games need multiple staffers who don't necessarily have the same opinion on how the game should be. It's not only best for the game, it's less stressful for the staff to be able to take a break and not have everything come to a grinding halt.

Based on past experiences (once could have been a coincidence, twice definitely wasn't), I now completely agree with y'all on this.

And the answer would have been: would you have given a player permission to do it? If the answer is no, then the staffer shouldn't be either.

In this case, we actually did allow another player to do it. But yes, that's always the question we've tried to ask one another, and one that every Staffer should ask whether the subject is something another Staffer wants to do or something that one of their friends wants to do. Again, completely in agreement.

@Miss-Demeanor said in The 100: The Mush:

So its rather disingenuous of you to say that you never have characters in positions of power/leadership.

Gideon was about as far from a position of power/leadership as possible. She was disgraced, and ended up leaving her clan entirely to start at the bottom again with the Skaikru. I wonder if perhaps there might be some misunderstanding (on your part or on ours -- I'm not discounting the possibility that we have been defining things differently from others) as to what a position of power or leadership is. I would definitely say that Gideon was in the spotlight early on (along with Wren), and that could have been too much or done poorly -- that's entirely possible. But she was definitely not in a position of power or leadership. Also, asking others before making decisions... isn't that exactly what's been suggested? As I remember, while there were some suggestions about how the character was going to be handled -- but no one said it would be a bad thing. (Side note... did we rush Grounder PCs? Yes... we absolutely did, it's one of the errors we definitely made early in the game.)

Doubly so since your husband put his first character into a position where he was very loud and opinionated and strong enough that few people really wanted to challenge him outright, which put him into a leadership position even if he's protesting that he doesn't want to be.

Strong enough and opinionated enough that no one wanted to challenge Grey... except Cameron, Morgan, Fiona, Faolan, Cole, and others. As for my wishes with the character, I didn't want him to be in a sole position of power. It's my belief that no Staffer should ever have a position that a) another character has not already held, or b) another character does not also hold. I don't believe that I've broken that rule -- I try to be very careful not to. Grey was in the spotlight too much early in the game, but thanks to feedback here and on-game, that's a problem that I corrected, and Grey was significantly quieter the rest of the game, and only in a leadership position for a single scene later on in the game -- and that because no higher-ranked Guard showed up for the pre-scheduled scene.

Also.. that you and a handful of your friends had started playing the game weeks before it was open to everyone, and thus were guaranteed to have more xp/higher stats that nobody else was privy to?

This was what... 2 weeks? That's 2 XP. Some players are always going to be on a game first. Do you think that no XP should be given during early Beta period? When should XP start being given, two weeks in? What about the people who join the game four weeks in?

You set yourselves up as players to have every advantage, to be at the front of every new thing, every major decision... and then claim that you don't do that.

Gideon was one of two of the first Grounders, yes. Grey co-led one early decision with Faolan and Fiona, and was one of several ex-Guard Cadets in favor of restricting firearms, but other than that... no, none of our characters were any more influential in decisions than any other character.

I'm not saying you're a terrible person, you aren't. But you are definitely lying to yourself and others about what you do in a game.

This feels really condescending. In that vein, I think that this may be an issue of perception more than actuality. While our characters may not have massive advantages or be in positions that others cannot be in... if we're giving off the perception that they are, that's almost as big of a problem. And that's something we absolutely can and should work on if we ever Staff for someone else on another game.

@WTFE @GirlCalledBlu and I never actually played on The Fifth Wave, let alone staffed (I don't know that I'd ever heard of it, in fact). We did run The 100, The Fifth World, and staffed on a couple of Star Wars and Wheel of Time games between us back in the day.

We have opened Ark Adult (and non-Delinquent teen) apps, as well as apps for (N)PC Mountain Men. The Mountain Men will generally be short-term characters for the purpose of providing RP for those who have chosen to have their Delinquent characters captured by Mount Weather, although if IC circumstances lead to a way for them to survive and integrate into the rest of the playerbase, they can certainly become long-term characters. If you were waiting to check the game out because you didn't want to play a teenage criminal or a Grounder, now's the time to stop by.

Hey. I remember Merry (briefly). Played Franklin there. Long time.

@Thenomain
Actually, most of the original writers of Shadowrun lived in Chicago (there offices were right where the Bug City nuke went off). When they moved to Seattle later (WizKids days), they noted that if they'd written the books again, they would have mentioned all the damned hills in Seattle.

I believe that they used Seattle because it's got a great combination of Asian influences, High Tech influences, natural surroundings, and Native American influences.

@mietze My one experience there did not go well. In addition to the (as I recall) total bias toward Adepts and other Magic Users because Karma was more readily available than credits (and didn't have to worry about the Essence cap), I had the pleasure of going on-grid, moving my gear into the room that I had written into my background as having stayed at for a good long while (I don't remember if it was weeks or months), and logging back in to find a Staffer in my room, telling me that some NPC saw my character hauling his half-dozen pistols up in a duffel bag and decided to break down the door and burgle his room while he was out and about.

I was not impressed by the welcome given to a new player.

Not to say it was a bad place, I didn't really stick around much longer than that (long enough to get obliterated in a fight-club type fight, and run a few automated missions).

@mietze Oh god... despite having tried SR:Seattle briefly, I would never look for a Shadowrun MUSH. The whole idea of small teams of professional paranoiacs who do covert (or overt) jobs for pay... just doesn't work on a MUSH, unless you have 1 Storyteller/GM per 4-10 players or somewhere around there.