Posts made by surreality

@ghost said in Social Systems:

But it's just a damned shame that I can't RP with every single approved character and expect the same level of metagaming ethic when it comes to that kind of stuff.

PLAYING THE PLAYER is like:

VLAD SAYS SOMETHING

• Who plays Vlad?
• Ask around
• No one knows him? Page him with "hey where else do you play?"
• wikistalk
• check if he is using a PB you hate

If your search turns up to be negative:

• Your character doesnt believe him
• Never RP in a room with them again

If you know him and like his player?

• Page "LOL OMG ARE YOU??? HIIIII"
• Plan RP together

If you don't know who they are

• Proceed with caution, ask OOC if they're lying

Quoting, as it is apparently necessary. Own your words, as they are your own.

ETA: Bold added for emphasis where necessary.

@faraday I have to second this, because I am more than a little disgusted by the idea that 'I know I like playing with this player and we have fun when we write together so I'm going to play with them when I get the chance to' is an indication that I'm a bad evil cheating metagamer abusing all the good-hearted players everywhere with my cheaty cheaty ways.

ETA: I'm doubly digusted that 'that player was gross and abusive to me in the past OOCly, and I don't want to play with them again' apparently also makes me a horrible cheaty cheater McCheatsALot.

@auspice ...for what it's worth, some of the logitech keyboards aren't bad. The apple magic keyboard works on bluetooth, and has a similar feel to most of the macbook keyboards, so while it's a little more expensive than some of the ones set up for tablets/etc. by default, I can vouch that they do work (and will actually still work with an iPhone or an iPad as well, if you have either). They're also non-huge and could easily slip into a bag beside the laptop itself?

@arkandel Exactly this.

I will not play with Jeurg because I know he will engage in disingenuous bait and switch behavior that skews toward subject matter I don't enjoy and find intensely disturbing, and he likes to force people to go along with it even knowing they are not enjoying themselves at all on the OOC level because he has said so.

I will not play with Spider, because she's keen on emotional manipulation of other players on the player level, and is abusive.

I will not play with Ravaun/Hawker, because I find him to be disturbingly unstable and he has no respect whatsoever for OOC boundaries.

I could go on and on. Is this metagaming? Frankly, I don't give a damn either way.

If 'playing the game' or 'being a good player' means 'my experience of the game consists of being forced to interact with these people at length through a chain of experiences that are no fun for me at all as a player because the rules say I have to', that game is not going to be a game I am interested in playing.

Further, I don't think 'is a game' is an excuse for this to be considered an acceptable space to engage in gross behavior OOC through game mechanics as a means of force. I don't think 'is a game' is reason to tolerate these behaviors, or that an unwillingness to tolerate these behaviors is an indication of immaturity, childishness, poor sportsmanship, or 'being too invested/having IC-OOC boundary problems/etc.' or any of the other utter bunk people try to pass off as being the case.

I consider this being a person who doesn't have infinite time to spend on anything, and if I'm going to engage with something, it has to be worth my time to do it. If it is not fun because it's set up in such a way as to encourage wholly selfish players to power trip or generate wankbait through game mechanics at the expense of people who are trying to behave in a reasonable and respectful manner toward their fellow players with cooperation, collaboration, give and take, and otherwise giving a damn about the fun other people are having as well as their own, it is not going to be worth my time to be there at all, and ultimately there's not much that policy or mechanics are going to do change that plain and simple reality.

@ganymede said in Social Systems:

Imagine how fun it would be if vampires were to play their requiem rather than their players' erotic fantasies birthed from teenage fiction.

^ This.

@arkandel This is a trend, actually.

People specifically seek out and go to memorial sites and similar to deface them in the same way for people who have passed. They do the same thing in cases where someone is missing, a child has been kidnapped, etc., often claiming they are the one responsible and won't be caught and how much they're enjoying raping the person's family member/child/sister/wife/etc. or how they have mutilated them or how they've murdered them and so on.

There's a reason I genuinely loathe people sometimes.

@arkandel It's more a matter of 'try not to create more problems than you solve'. For a lot of the folks who were into the spreadsheet fu and whatnot from RfK, or more heavily coded environments, that might work brilliantly.

Just... not everybody's one of those people.

@lithium FWIW, it's probably the cross-state-lines idiocy. If you haven't paid taxes to more than one state at a time, it's a horror show the first time it happens, depending on the state.

In all seriousness, NJ felt entitled to take a higher percentage of my husband's income last year than normal because we were filing jointly, despite the fact that my business had made something like a whopping $2 profit or something after all the chaos that went down that year. (And what they took was more considerably more than $2.)

Even the accountant just stared at that one and shook her head in complete disgust.

@arkandel I can tell you right now, just looking at that makes my eyes cross and I cringe from the soul out at 'omg more code and fuss to keep track of' potentially for piles and piles of characters. That sounds like a lot of overhead to manage for one character, let alone the other dozen or more I would ideally be interacting with sometimes.

I realize this isn't a huge thing for many folks, but it is enough so for me that it would be a major 'do I feel like dealing with that' factor for me regarding 'do I play here or not'. Probably a bigger one than 'do I think the rules for what it accomplishes are tailored toward my preference for how to tackle this subject', even.

@ghost said in Social Systems:

Any caper/investigation show from Miami Vice to Leverage has an investigative phase where their target is researched before the lead female puts on some ridiculous dress and goes into the cocktail party to flirt with and plant a bug on the crimelord. Dexter did it before his killings.

These examples are RP gold and work well with players.

These are those early/intermediate steps the people trying to pull absurd bullshit tend to overlook. They're relevant and they are good form.

They also mean that everyone involved is much more likely to stay true to their character. That's the genesis of the stat described earlier: have people make a list of their things. Working against them, so much harder if not impossible. Working toward them? Easier.

Most good players are going to be down with something like this. The 'not in character for me' issue may not be wholly resolved, but it is mitigated by the aggressor taking steps to ensure that the ask is set up in such a way as to respect the other player's concept of their character and what that character would do.

Bear in mind, I do not consider 'I can never lose' and 'you will do what I want, how I want it, I don't care that it makes zero sense for your character' players to be 'good players', in that the selfishness level is right off the charts in both extremes.

@thatguythere said in Social Systems:

And yes I do think if they are an NPC only thing then they are mostly pointless since I would say 75 % of mushing (at least in my experience) has dealt with the interaction between PCs. True not all of it is diced out or need to be but I think that any system that is being used should be used for the majority of situations where mechanical arbitration is needed/desired.

This comes back to the whole 'tabletop vs. <any other environment>' clause. I would even say 'tabletop or LARP or Roll20 style online tabletop' vs. 'online persistent world', specifically.

Tabletop and Roll20 style online tabletop include an (ideally impartial) arbiter overseeing all action. This has a direct impact on what far more than 75% of players are going to attempt to do, and in what level of detail they are going to attempt to do it, in a way a persistent online game does not.

Tabletop and LARP include having to look the other players in the eye when you are taking action against their characters. Again, this has a direct impact on what far more than 75% of players are going to attempt to do, and in what level of detail they are going to attempt to do it, in a way a persistent online game does not.

In tabletop or online tabletop, the XP cost parity is much greater, because the ability to use a skill on a PC or NPC is roughly equal, because the only time action is occurring is when the GM is running a scene and can provide those NPCs -- to hit, lie to, etc. freely. The PCs are rarely around when there aren't also NPCs around to which these abilities can be applied.

When we are discussing systems created for use in one of the above environments, and not the one we are actually engaged with, we have to consider how the game was designed to be played and how we play differently. (Your post sums this up nicely, which is why I'm tacking on to it -- I'm not trying to go after you or anything here.)

Now, we could require everybody to play through skype video chat to replicate the latter 'have to look somebody in the eye', but, uh, maybe I doubt I'm alone in saying, 'maybe let's just not' (no offense to anybody out there).

We can, at least, take steps to emulate the former circumstances, much more effectively. The most obvious of which is 'call in a GM' to run the interaction. This is going to resolve the worst case scenario players -- like panther dude -- who are never going to try to pull that kind of shit in front of an impartial third party witness, let alone a witness who has any say in the outcome or potential consequences for failure (and is potentially a staffer who can say, 'this is abusive and gross, <action is taken in accordance with policy for people behaving in a manner that is abusive and gross>').

That's one step, and no matter what else someone does, I strongly recommend it, because:

• This puts the people who are keen on trying to exploit others on notice that the jig could be up at any time.

• It provides people who are gunshy that someone is going to try to take advantage to engage with the system when they otherwise might be resistant (especially if they see that others have asked for intervention and oversight and things have gone smoothly or fairly).

• If it is a case in which a player who simply dislikes the other player is trying to force them to interact when they don't want to, or screw them over somehow -- which absolutely happens ("I know we have a no contact but I can roll at any time to force you to interact with me anyway!", etc.) -- knowing that an arbiter can be called in is an important protection. We already collectively keep an eye on this when it comes to combat and potential PK scenarios, and know "I hate the player so I'm going to kill their character on the world's flimsiest pretext" is not cool behavior. That we see so few PKs compared to how things used to be 'back in the day' is some pretty strong evidence that people grew up and realized just how not chill this behavior is. That we're collectively 'not there yet' on many levels on social fu doesn't make it a big surprise that we're not there yet on this one, but that more people are starting to recognize it as problematic is a promising sign.

• "But I can't ever be intimidated/lied to/etc.!" is much less likely for anybody to try in front of an impartial observer, either, who knows that absolutely every character on grid can, in fact, be intimidated/lied to/etc., so cheating from that angle is going to be reduced as well.

There's more, but... that's a step people can take for most systems that will make some progress if people actually act impartially and staff are willing to take action if someone is behaving inappropriately. Solution? No. Progress? Yes. Progress is still helpful.

@thatguythere said in Social Systems:

Duh. No offense meant but no one likes to lose at anything, but any game has situations where sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

I actually don't mind losing at all, within certain limits. I don't even mind losing most of the time.

I do, however, mind losing (either through just consenting to or dice) and never getting a win.

Which has happened to more than a few of my characters, enough so that even with stupidly low expectations and a willingness to 'give' plenty on stuff, probably 2/3 of the characters I've played in the last 5 years never got a single win on something.

That also stops being enjoyable pretty fast.

@faraday said in Social Systems:

So yes - I'm all for randomness and unexpected victories/defeats as long as those results are bounded by rails of plausibility.

This. If it's so random or difficulties are scaled badly compared to what a character can accomplish with the dice they have, you may as well not have stats and just resolve things with 'whoever gets the higher on a 1d100 roll-off wins'.

@lotherio Well, even for the combat junkie, they're going to think that a few rolls is simplistic.

I have a few ideas about this, but they aren't really something that can just get tacked on somewhere. For instance, one of the attributes in the system I'm kicking around gives people X 'core motivations' that go along with their rating. (It isn't super complicated but it's complex enough I'd rather not go into more detail than that, since I'm still poking it here and there.) Getting someone to act contrary to things on that list (and people choose for themselves what is on it, and how important it is compared to the other things) makes social pressures harder. Getting someone to behave in line with one of those core motivations, though, is easier.

For instance (and this doesn't use the actual system but is just an example), say someone had:

#1: I will always protect my family.
#2: I would never harm a child.
#3: I would never drink alcohol.

Someone trying to get them to act counter to one of those things would have a penalty of anywhere from -1 to -3 (going backwards, essentially, with #1 being -3). However, appealing to that person with, "That man over there is a threat, he's coming after your kids, you should do something about it," is going to allow for a bonus to the attempt to convince that person to do that thing they might not otherwise do by appealing to something genuinely distinct to them (and chosen themselves) that is inherently more true to their character and their vision of it and what's plausible for their character to do than just, "That guy over there is a threat, you should do something about it."

@lotherio You could arguably do that with this framework fairly easily, you'd just be reassigning the levels of what was a skill, what was a task, and what was an expertise, based on the intended focus of the game in question (which is designed to be easy for someone using the framework to do with the way the forms and templates are set up). The same is true of art or science or tech or anything else; I could come up with a dozen skills for various artistic and clothing-related fields, too, but if the game isn't about that in the slightest, that's not helpful to anyone. If it is, those things are going to be major determinants in some respect or another, so they better be there.

We're not really talking about games with a specific focus that's so narrow, though, so far as I can tell, just that combat has a much more defined focus and set of cause and effect chains than almost anything else (especially social things) in most systems, many of which are not designed to be focused so narrowly on combat. Ideally, I would think that for a general focus game, the amount of 'what goes into the outcome' would be roughly similar, be it combat outcomes, crafting outcomes, medical treatment, social fu, etc.

@lotherio said in Social Systems:

@surreality Just put up the skill thread of pondering. That lead me to this. She put up medicine, but damn how we oversimplify medicine. One roll, or one roll a day. I know all the folks who come in and make a medical character feel cheated in the end when its really just one roll that determine so much stuff all at once.

I can pretty much assure you that's not remotely how it's designed to work at all, but I'm not really gonna go into that here, either. Kind of a digression, though.

@arkandel said in Social Systems:

The way I see it a primary problem here is quantifying social 'damage' (maybe let's call it influence?). Obviously no one thinks changing someone's beliefs in one roll, even for a single encounter, is appropriate.

Part of the problem is that plenty of people do think the one-roll approach is appropriate. That's a problem that needs a cultural shift on the part of the community, to put it bluntly. Again, lots of moving parts, that being one of them. Another being 'staff should be willing to step in and say no or offer to arbitrate/observe on request' when these instances come up, rather than 'it's not a big deal, just fucking deal with it, we have other things to do!' or 'I don't even want to get in the middle of this shit' the situation. These things are as critical as any game mechanic, policy, etc. anybody could ever come up with.

No mechanic is going to universally resolve this in the same way no policy will, no setting will, and no community attitude shift will without the support of settings and mechanics and policies that work together to achieve a viable outcome.

Also a secondary issue here is actually tracking this down; there are immediate short-term effects - maybe your character made mine chuckle - and long-term ones.

Not necessarily, or at least no more so than a punch is likely to leave someone permanently maimed. These things happen, but they are outliers to experience, not the norm.

@arkandel said in Social Systems:

I think the issue here is a combination of a high overhead in making social plots compared to making physical ones, which devalues the former even when it comes to using them on NPCs, and pure stigma; far more cases have been recorded where assholes tried to abuse Manipulate to get others to play out stuff they didn't want than Brawl.

That's really just part of it. Way back, I mention the thing about the kinds of things people are trying to accomplish with their roll or skill.

Punch someone is a one stage effect, with the desired outcome of 'that person takes damage from being punched'.

Most social actions aren't handled the same way, and most people rolling them aren't going for the equivalent of 'that person takes damage from being punched' -- they are looking for an outcome that is much more specific, and involves many additional moving parts.

"I roll to seduce your character so they'll willingly have sex with me."
^ This is not an equivalent end-goal as 'your character takes damage from a punch', but it's the kind of goal people tend to go with, ignoring all the moving parts in the middle to get from point A to point Down-N-Dirty-In-Your-Pants.

That's more equivalent to 'My punch landed, so I do damage, knock you unconscious, and it tore your shirt so everybody could see you're wearing that greasy old laundry day tank top underneath, and since you fell on the floor, you're face down, and now you have to roll a save vs. whatever gross stuff is all over the bar floor you're drooling into.'

If people took the same approach to the seduction attempt as they did to the combat -- namely, it's not a 'one shot and I get everything I want the way I want it' -- things would be different. For example, it's going to take a bunch of punches for most people to go down as described above. How about 'I'm going to make a roll to see if I can get your character's attention in a positive way' first? For instance: "Rolling to see if flashing a little leg gets your character's attention." <-- most people would not find this in the least bit objectionable, and it's closer to being on par with landing a single hit in a reasonable combat scenario.

And a lot of systems do approach things from this perspective now, which is good. But the culture has to catch up to that, and it needs to smack the people still trying to turn one landed punch into a TKO for the title belt with every possible flourish and bit of fanfare under their complete control. We would not tolerate that under any circumstances in combat, but for social rolls, plenty of people still operate under the assumption that that's how it's supposed to work.

I thankfully have a doctor that recently stopped being stupid about this. Instead of fighting through calling in refills every fucking month to his office about things, he set one of the prescriptions up for half a year, the other for a full year, with 'only x per time period' or something.

Needless to say, pretty sure all of us are happier for it. Since I have no car, either one of my folks always had to pick the scrip up when they would go in (we all see the same guy) or my husband would have to wedge it in on one of his days off from work when he's even in the same state (one of which, the doctor's office is closed... )

One of the two will expire at the end of this month, but six months of not having to go through that song and dance? Fucking priceless. We plan to bring him a thank you card when we next go in, no joke.

Still nothing to help with the migraines, which I have to ask him about this go round, finally, since our insurance is finally seemingly stable(maybe... ?)

The disgruntlement part: almost all the women on one side of my family (father's mother's) get migraines. Literally ALL of us. Every single one. (Some also get cluster headaches, which is what the folks at the hospital were convinced I ended up with as well, lucky me!) But, well, I'm the one who had no insurance for decades, and <just points upward> the price point was too high to do anything about it.

The cousins: "OMG how did you not go to the doctor years ago and demand a prescription for X, Y, and Z?! I would never have been able to survive without it!"

Me: "I have only had insurance for a little over a year."

The cousins: "BUT HOW DID YOU NOT DO IT ANYWAY?!"

Me: "...because you were just bitching about how it's $200+ month after insurance whacks most of the price down? And we can't even afford anything near that even now with insurance?"

The cousins: "BUT HOW DID YOU NOT DO IT ANYWAY?!"

Me: . o O ( I dunno, magic pixies? And fuck you all so fucking much. )

@faraday WoD is at least a little better with the 'opportunities to use them' problem -- it's just not universal. They do better in that they create more abilities and such that rely on them that might not necessarily be the 'smack somebody over the head with it', re: effectiveness of some powers and whatnot.

I've seen a lot of the 'let's leave this to the dice, I could go either way' rolls, too, amongst people who generally know each other well enough to know the people they're playing with aren't going to go crazy places with the results. That can genuinely be a lot of fun and I wish people would do it more.

It hits a number of walls, though, and while I think it's entirely possible that (generic) we'll get there at some point, it would take time and a willingness to act on multiple levels. I hammer on the notion of 'moving parts' in mechanics and policies and staff enforcement and all the rest, but I think the long-standing social fu problem is one of the most glaring examples of this.

It goes all the way down to the 'if someone can do this with the dice, is it inherently universally permitted that they be allowed to do so' question.

A lot of folks come down on the side of 'yes': if the mechanics allow it to occur, so must staff/other players/etc., even if it means the game ends tomorrow because someone blew up the grid.

'No' gets a lot more murky in that it has more moving parts (system, policy, staff enforcement, player culture, setting), even if 'no' is pretty clearly the sane answer, and where any given person puts that 'no' line.