@Arkandel said:
@Sunny said:
Staff will not gain experience for their characters from running plots on the staff level
Care to explain what that means (and what the reasoning behind the decision was) ?
Why would I, as a player, gain XP from running a plot but BobStaffer who runs the plot isn't eligible? What happens when a staff member runs plot as their character? Etc.
Part of this is, I admit, holdover from ye olden days. I cannot conceive of a system in which staff are virtual-materially rewarded for being staff and doing their jobs. It is, to me, abhorrently unethical, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Earning a reward for doing your job as staff, to me, is on the same level as taking care of your own experience spends/jnotes or judging your own scene. I feel very strongly about this. I understand and recognize that the community has progressed to where this is not actually the case, but in my opinion that's not something we should have let go, or something that should have even been tolerated when it first began.
That said. there is a distinct structure / framework for storytelling on Dust, and nobody is getting a direct XP reward for running things (players are being rewarded, just with player points, something still under development). To try and make it simple, there is one category that players can run with review but not needing approval (that means they submit what they're doing and just go do it, and if we need to we chat after the fact), and the other player-level category which requires approval.
If one of my staff members chose to run something at either of those plot levels, I would counsel them to run it from the player side, not the staff side. The approval level plot stuff is actually not as limited in scope as people might imagine, either -- primarily, the distinction between whether players can run it or not is the makeup of the factions the plot is intended for. It's a rule, though -- there are some things that are off limits for players to run, because they do not have and will not get access to staff information.
There are also multiple levels of staff plot; all of them involve the game's forward story progress directly. This is the "perk" of being a staffer. You get to peek behind the screen and ruin everything for yourself, but you also get to help craft and execute the story of the game. There are people that enjoy that, and with the structure we're building in for staff, I might even be able to keep them for more than a few weeks.
tl;dr: If my staff are running player level plots from their staff bit, they're goofballs and should be swatted lightly to remember they earn points if they do it from their player bit.
Edited to add: After some consideration, I realized, I did lie up above. With the system we're using on Dust, I actually would allow staff to handle their own XP spends and jnotes WAY before I'd conceive of rewarding them for staffing.
