Posts made by surreality

Frankly, with or without groups of some kind, people can, to put it bluntly, fuck shit up.

I've seen this in action on WoD games as a problem child more than on games that were not, really. As a result, though, I'm speaking in broader terms based on experience with both.

Take a basic XP spend. In WoD terms, this is a spend on a skill or attribute. In a system where all characters function under the same ruleset/powerset, it could arguably be anything. 'Sphere staff' setups in WoD could handle anyone's basic XP spend, as while some spheres have special discounts or rewards for certain skills based on type, it's not hard to write a staff cheat sheet on this, and/or note to players, "Hey, if you have any special conditions related to this spend, put it in your job." (I favor 'and' because even clueful staffers sometimes overlook or forget.) There's no reason any staffer at all can't handle a spend like this. WoD is the only place I've seen people forcibly divide this up and it's an example of where the sphere model breaks down. This is the kind of job I think any staffer should be willing and able to do under the heading of 'basic jobmonkey'.

(I need to stop agreeing with you, @Derp, really this is getting weird!) But like @Derp says, some people are more knowledgeable in certain areas than others. Not everyone is qualified to make any given judgement call on the game, and this becomes more and more the case the more groups there are on the game that require tending. In a game like RfK, with one super sphere and m/+, it's not hard to learn everything. Now try applying that logic to TR and imagine the chaos that would have ensued. You would not have found many qualified candidates for staff at all under those circumstances. Also, I've seen 'the jack of all trades is master of none' proven true more times than I can possibly count, so frankly, in WoD, this becomes an absurd expectation without someone who can handle certain special cases because they're the person that knows them best, and has ideas most in line with headstaff's intended direction for the game.

Again, I have seen the 'too many cooks' problem in action. If I was running a TR-style game, I would stick to the sphere model with a middle-level authority to filter the heavy duty judgement calls for any given group, though 'basic jobs' would be open to any admin to pick up and do.

Personally, I wouldn't allow the 'no one but this sphere is allowed to play with our toys by staff fiat' other games have permitted under the authority of a TL/sphere head/whatever, which is one of the primary problems people have with the sphere system. But again, this is a headstaff call as to whether or not that is allowed as part of that role's authority or not.

Problem is, that means headstaff is the de facto lead for all major calls.

We see what happened when headstaff got overburdened.

That's the #1 reason a middle tier is a necessity.

@Alzie said:

I think sphere's are a bad idea. You're already separating the player base. The game as a whole is a single unit and should be run that way. I don't think there's an issue with staffers that are noted as being knowledgeable about a specific thing. Like 'Hey, this guy is really good with werewolves.' That's different. This guy still does everything he can for the game as a whole, it's just he knows a lot about werewolves.

RFK was structured that way. We had mortal, mortal+ and vampire, but we didn't separate those. We didn't have a mortal staffer, a mortal+ staffer and a vampire staffer. We didn't have a werewolf staffer for those npcs and plots. We had staffers that were noted as being more knowledgable in certain things. Shav and I did blood sorcery because we were more familiar with it, but others did it too. The understanding was anyone could do any job.

Basically, I hate the idea of starting out a game with the idea of segregation. That starts out bad and ends badly because people go into it thinking that every piece of the pie is separated by a divider wall.

I think this works and it doesn't, though it's somewhat outside the scope of the thread in some ways.

IMHO, people should be willing and able to work any job they are knowledgeable enough to handle -- and everyone should be able and willing to do jobmonkey work. Plot should be coordinated game-wide as much as possible.

When it comes to making HRs for a certain character type, or approving custom content, however, I do believe there should be someone who gets the 'the buck stops here' authority for that group to ensure cohesiveness. Should they listen to ideas and suggestions? Obviously. But I'd personally never grant anyone staffer on the game the authority to change or add anything to any group's HRs, restricted content, or custom content.

I have experienced the 'too many cooks' problem to an astonishing degree, and it can rapidly lead to utter chaos even among friends and with the best of intentions and knowledgeable people involved. Headstaff still retain final oversight, obviously, but having experienced the divisiveness and horrible ideas being thrust on a game due to the 'too many cooks' problem, there is no way in hell I'd ever implement it myself.

I've also seen what happens when people get a shiny idea in their head and want to ramrod it into being despite it being a terrible idea. That's a can of worms I not only wouldn't open, but I'd drop back and nuke from orbit at the first possible opportunity.

I think there's a lot of variance in what people expect they're able to do -- or what their authority can/does entail.

A good example of what I mean is something @Ganymede has mentioned a number of times: being able to say, "No, that person can't play in a sphere I'm TL/head admin/sphere head for." (Or removing someone from the sphere if they're already in it.)

Some games require spheres to take all comers, while others could potentially extend these abilities to any staffer in the sphere, with or without the TL's approval.

Another would be something like sphere caps or temporary app freezes (for whatever reason) -- if it isn't game-wide policy, are sphere leads allowed to do this? Sometimes that'd be a yes, sometimes a no.

But I'm betting that for each of these examples, each of us has an idea of what we should be allowed, and not allowed, to do if granted authority over a sphere.

This is the kind of thing I mean when I say: a lot of folks have different takes on these -- and countless other -- situations, and it's probably a good idea for headstaff to lay this out somewhere if they have a strong opinion about it one way or the other. RfK gets a commendation here because it sounds like headstaff there did a fairly solid job of laying this out, even if I disagree with some of the specific choices they made.

It's also worth noting -- this is just going back a bit in the conversation -- that autonomy is just one tool in the required toolbox.

There are others that, without them pre-existing, make a job impossible.

Sometimes, especially in this medium, part of the job is to create the tools to accomplish it well at the same time. It's something that, while we tend to grouse about it while we're doing it since it can be a real pain in the ass sometimes•, is a less visible process. (Basically, we're used to it.)

Problem-solving around missing tools is something we do a lot of, broadly speaking.

Autonomy is one of the ones that doesn't have a workaround like this, which is partly why it's essential to have clear boundaries and limits about it.

A lot of us like to take a no-nonsense, common sense approach in talks like this -- I mean I know I prefer it -- but a lot of us have different ideas about what, exactly, constitutes common sense on this front. It might be worth having a community discussion about what various people think this entails at some point, since I suspect it would be fairly illuminating. (Shouldn't happen in this thread, though a thread splinter off a thread splinter is amusing in principle.)

•It also can be awesome brainstorming sessions that are fun, but those are often more rare than the other end of the spectrum is, alas.

@Thenomain said:

This thought just came to mind.

Has anyone ever asked the comic book writers how they do it?

No, they're not looking a PvP situations, but they are looking to tell a story with characters whose powers are limited not by statistics but by narrative.

You see arguments and fights and articles about the inconsistencies and changes, too, from fans.

What's interesting to me about that specific example, though? It is a genre in which many people may be writing about the same world and characters in it at any given time. It may be closer to something like Firan's 'roster and broad stroke sequence of planned events' than the average WoD MUX, but that is a closer comparison than a single author writing everything all the time for a setting in terms of 'who gets to do what'.

There's someone I can ask about this in a few days who would probably have a good handle on the answer there, and now I'm too damn curious not to.

I read it more as "If you know you won't have the tools available to accomplish what your responsibilities entail, don't take that job."

@mietze said:

I have had too many instances of seeing someone primarily in one context, and not listening to others saying "yes, they are nice, but are they good for /this/?"

This pretty much sums up my take on this.

Bear in mind, if I know someone is qualified for something and it's in their interest range, I may approach them about it -- but that tends to be when it involves, uh, work. (See other thread for an example. ~cough~)

PC slots... nnngh. Though I could see myself approaching someone I know who has the responsibility to check in as needed, not overstep any set restrictions noted, and can play the ever living crap out of a certain type in a way that people enjoy to pitch in on a temporary NPC ally or antagonist/etc. The temporary part is pretty relevant, there, too. We generally let anybody create NPCs like this for plots as players with staff approval most places; while this isn't exactly the same thing, it's a delegation and workload handler and sanity saver, basically asking someone who isn't going to abuse what they know/etc. to help pitch in on a staff plot they aren't involved in on their PCs.

I'm pretty broad on this one, admittedly -- since while there are some things I'd want to poke someone I know would be perfect for it about, I'm not above putting out a random call for "there's a staff plot for X group; I need me some NPCs to disseminate info/stir up trouble/be seen in public/nose around for info from PCs/get dirt on characters in faction X IC/whatever" so people who wouldn't normally have the chance to participate in a certain plot on their own characters can still be involved in a different way and have stuff to do that could be fun for everybody.

@mietze said:

I have seen what happens when a great player organizer gets poached for staff. Sometimes it works, but that's very rare to keep up both ends. Usually one or the other suffers, especially if they are aged/have a real life. And you can have someone super talented at player organizing in all of its nearly complete freedom really become a terrible staffer. (I bet you can name times where this has happened too).

Definitely! From the first game I played on until recent days, even. But I've also seen people able to do both. They weren't necessarily people with much of a life outside the game in all cases, mind, but those folks exist, so, uh, awkward as that is, if that's how they want to invest, and they're doing a good job with it and being fair? I'm inclined to let them.

You can't live your life with what if, of course. But for the same reason I would consider limiting a player to a single faction head position on a multisphere game, I could see limiting staff in the same way. Especially if one wanted to avoid the awkward conversation of "you're falling down on both jobs, pick one".

...which is the other awkward thing, yeah. But I'd rather let folks try first. Most of the folks who think they won't be able to hack it, and are super responsible people (of the kind I <3), will generally pick one or the other when they see there's a problem managing time before that conversation needs to happen -- but I'd rather give people the chance and have the conversation than not. I do think this is more viable if there are other 'leaders' in the faction as well, or if the staff role is more minor (jobmonkey or admin level more than TL-level), but I've seen people pull off miracles like this before, sometimes for years. I've actually run across non-evil Spider types (in terms of activity and productivity), for instance. (No, really, I swear they exist! Rare as hen's teeth, but extant!)

Of course many places don't have really defined staffer roles or faction head roles, which cna lead to some mismatched expectations and other problems that influence whether people think that's a good idea or not.

This is a good point, too. Also, game size is a HUGE factor. Public vs. private faction is a factor to consider, too. I'm generally not interested in games of TR scale at this point; Reno's size was viable at its peak and people were good about CoI.

I think a lot of things get made into policy to avoid awkward conversations, really, that maybe shouldn't. Admittedly, I'm just as guilty of this as anybody else ever is -- so I am not pretending innocence here. (Seriously... a wiki-side preference system so people who aren't keen on certain topics can say so in advance in a public space and have it seen without having to interject or surprise someone with the info? Yep... )

@mietze And this is why I you, you know this. Srsly, minor templates 4ever. All the in the world.

Basically, my take on it is something like this: factions/groups vote on who they want in charge -- whoever that is. People in the group get to pick, people get to play it out, and staff oversees things to make sure everyone (no exceptions!) plays fair about it all. If they pick a staffer's alt, cool. If they don't? Also cool! Characters sink or swim on their own merit.

I'm also very fond of player-created factions and groups. The idea that a group of players could organize themselves well and, after demonstrating great executive skills, someone in leadership gets hired on to staff, well... I see a pretty big issue there. They earned both positions. If they can handle both impartially? Someone else's prior game baggage they had nothing to do with seems a poor cause to deny them, or force a difficult choice that might potentially do the game more harm than good in the long haul -- losing an active faction head or losing out on someone who could have made the game better for everyone as staff.

@ThatGuyThere Basically, I think rules about OOC behavior should not impose limits on IC behavior that are not universal limits for all players.

"Don't cheat" and "Don't abuse OOC information because that is cheating" are rules for all participants on the game.

You shouldn't need additional limits for staff if those policies are already in place.

Rules are necessary. That specific rule comes across very badly for a number of reasons I've described before.

I get the argument that most staff are privy to more information than most players, however, abusing OOC information is not kosher for players or staff already. I also get the argument that sometimes this happens unintentionally -- which can happen with players as well. (No, really, we're some gossipy bitches in this hobby. But truth is, I was privy to more things going on behind the scenes as a player since I was more involved on grid than I ever was as staff.) So, again, I think rules are necessary in regard to this -- but the kind of rules that are needed are already extant as universal concepts that everyone on the game is expected to abide by. Staff doesn't get extra restrictions (and shouldn't need them!), but they don't get a pass on using that info, either, because no player would.

@ThatGuyThere said:

Earlier you said staff shouldn't hand;e their own jobs? Well why not? If it is just about people you can trust either you can trust them to handle their own jobs or not at all right?

That's a standard policy on every game I've ever seen, and every game I've staffed on over the years. You don't make judgment calls for your own PC. I've never not seen that policy in place.

Oversight doesn't get thrown out the window, nor should it. Trust is not blind lemming behavior, and 'trust, but verify' is valid. Oversight prevents so much more potential shenanigans than limitations ever could.

I'm far more in favor of the oversight approach than "do not ever".

As @Derp mentioned, most things that people put in jobs for -- XP spends make up the bulk of it -- are transitioning to automated things that players can do on their own. That involves trust, too -- and it's a beneficial system to have for all involved. Saves everyone time and energy and stress. Typically, some things are exceptions -- merits with special qualifiers, powerstat, a few others that may require justifications or notes or whatever -- and many are things that require a staff judgment call.

'Treating everyone equally' is a requirement. Love them, hate them, don't know them from a hole in the wall, everybody should get treated the same. Yes, this does include you -- but since other people don't have the ability to make that call for themselves, you need to be willing to let someone else make that call for you, too -- because that's fairness.

@mietze The 'immunizing' stuff is in response to @ThatGuyThere -- the last bit of the post above mine. I don't think it's possible to immunize, and with methods that do more harm than good IMO, it's just doing more damage while pretending it's possible to create a perfect world.

Partly why it baffles me we're not on the same page is that -- well, we have worked together. I've seen how diligent you are about CoI, and consider you a seriously amazing role model.

You didn't need rules demanding that... that's just what you did because you knew it was the right thing to do, you know? I would trust you to staff on a game I was running in a hot second! (And if I ever get the place I'm slowly prodding together I am seriously going to puppy dog eyes at you, woman, because I think it may be right up your alley and I KNOW you are trustworthy.)

I'm very much in favor, personally, of 'some pivotal roles will remain in NPC hands full stop' for the sake of continuity/etc. on the game, as a player resource. But here's the thing... while those characters are not personal PCs, they're often staff-run if they're of the high end type. (I am also super fond of 'local color NPCs that any player can pose in accordance with whatever notes are provided for the NPC, like 'the waitress that always is stuck with night shift at the diner and remembers everybody's order the moment they walk through the door', etc., but they're a different animal entirely.) Since often enough these NPCs are more powerful than the average PC, I would actually worry more about the potential for abuse there than on a staff PC that, say, owns a club they consider their domain that is their build, is the head of a coterie/pack, or is some important person's second or advisor/etc.

I get the attachment argument in the broad sense -- as in, 'MY character is more important to me than the NPC that might be more powerful' -- but either can be exploited... badly. And one can be taken out, while the other, usually, cannot.

I'm not talking about a free for all with no rules for staff regarding CoI. I just think rules involving OOC behavior need to not bleed over into artificial IC restrictions that further an atmosphere of distrust.

@ThatGuyThere No one is immune to backing a crappy horse. That's a given. Similarly, perfectly awesome people can still fuck up unintentionally and/or have some kind of crazypants moment of total mental breakdown and go bonkers all of a sudden.

MU* is no more immune to this happening than any other aspect of reality and having an expectation that it will -- or even could -- is... well, it may take me a bit to whittle down the adjectives for ZOMG HAHAHAHAHA ARE YOU CRAZY that should be associated with that notion.

You are not going to immunize people with the policy that RfK had any more than any other policy, and its policy has all the downsides attached that I've described before.

I can't, for instance, say I ever had any 'advantages' on TR when I was staffing there in terms of what I knew or didn't know. I got along with most people fine but never asked for -- and never would have dreamed of asking for -- special favors. (Hint: if someone is the type to do this, don't fucking hire them, omg.) I got so busy with staffing on Reno I more or less never had the chance to actually play again• so I can't say I had any advantage there, either...

You are supposed to trust staff to handle whatever shit you need handled in a fair and even-handed manner. If you don't or can't, don't play there. Your personal baggage is not their problem and it is not their duty to cater to your personal emotional damage that some other staffer did ten years ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Rules that essentially say "we can't trust our staff to play fair so we don't let them do things" doesn't help, it codifies that idea that staff cannot be trusted to be fair.

•I think you were witness to my sole, pathetic attempt at such on Nora, where I got all of three dinky-ass poses out before I got dragged back to the salt mines to tend everyone else's fun and/or drama without even a chance to pose out, so I think that speaks for itself.

@mietze said:

@surreality said:

Taking the 'distrust by default' approach, which RfK initially did in this case, exacerbates the problem considerably. Why? Because you've already established that you needed rules to prevent staff from playing because they can't be trusted to not cheat or be unfair if they're doing both. When you establish and foster that mentality among the playerbase, you encourage the worst elements of paranoia and staff vs. player dynamics from the top down.

I want to address this directly. I think taking that viewpoint above is a very combative one as well. Why is it that, vs. "We wish to establish an environment for players where they do not have to worry about PvP conflict with staff alts, as part of the culture of our game."

Because PvP conflict with staff alts is not, and should never be, handled any differently, ever, under any circumstances, as PvP conflict with any other person on the game. Period.

Which means having to place rules there is bullshit coddling of either cheaters -- by preventing them from cheating (in easy ways and forcing them to be more subtle about it because if someone's going to play unfair they're going to find another way to do it anyway) in which case gods help you if you gave them authority in the first place -- or of paranoia. And both of these things need to stop for any semblance of health to return to this hobby. Both are egregiously entitled mindsets, and both need to go.

@mietze said:

Surr, the draconian policy on no staff alts being allowed to have positions of power or huge influence was one of the things that kept the community (of players who are/have been/probably will be at each others throats and princessing and cutting each other out of play on other games) from doing that on RfK. Huge, glaring You Shall Not Pass CoI demarcation with wide lines. It was fantastic. I think that's what made the politics happen ICly as much as the downtime system. That and headstaff with balls AND a customer service touch.

I get what you're saying here; I simply disagree with it wholeheartedly.

That policy essentially states: "the people I hired to run the game can't be trusted to handle these matters impartially or otherwise hand it off to someone else to avoid CoI". It's what it comes down to in the end.

That's exceptionally destructive, as it sets up the expectation that staff could not be trusted to behave properly without those rules in place, when "don't process your own jobs, those of your close associates, or jobs that otherwise involve you" covers it without restricting happy fun times for anyone or implying that your staff members cannot be trusted to be fair if they are also enjoying the game in the same way as any other player is allowed to do.

And that's just nonsense. Plenty of staff can, do, and have done, every day, many for years on end. I would never hire someone who I couldn't trust to do so in the first place.

It feeds the paranoid nonsense by coddling it, frankly, and more or less says people simply can't be trusted. Some people can't. Some can. Hire the ones that can, if someone proves otherwise, fire them. This punished everyone for the sake of the fear of bad apples, which are considerably less common than the tasty kind without rotten cores.

@Ganymede said:

They were also making exceptions to long-existing rules in order to allow people to both staff and play. These requests and changes were public.

Public or not, this is probably the core of the problem. I have no idea how the original setup compared to the changes, or what either set of rules entails, but I'd bet on that being the crux of the problem.

If you're somewhere you enjoy playing? I can see wanting to pitch in. On the time investment alone, that's going to compromise your ability to play (sometimes immensely). Most folks who staff are willing to make that sacrifice. It's been suggested they were asking for a much bigger one than that.

Frankly, I feel it's a well-intentioned approach to a long-extant problem, but it's one that doesn't solve the problem, it perpetuates it and justifies paranoia. All work and no play makes for shitty staff over the long haul. It leads to lots of burnout, considering the way people tend to treat staff (as punching bags or people they're terrified of, often for zero reason in both cases).

Taking the 'distrust by default' approach, which RfK initially did in this case, exacerbates the problem considerably. Why? Because you've already established that you needed rules to prevent staff from playing because they can't be trusted to not cheat or be unfair if they're doing both. When you establish and foster that mentality among the playerbase, you encourage the worst elements of paranoia and staff vs. player dynamics from the top down.

Under these circumstances, when you change the rules, you're essentially announcing that "it's now OK for people in power to cheat", rather than "we would not have hired these people to staff if they were not trustworthy enough not to cheat".

That's a wretched message to send, and it's fucking subtle, insidious, and destructive as all hell.

@Ide said:

Simultaneous meaning, if there was a rational way to set the scenes so that they're really happening at different IC times, you could be multi-scening in RL with the same PC.

This already happens fairly often, since the rigid adherence to IC +time has gone the way of the dodo in a lot of places, as RL scheduling concerns tend to be less pliable.

Specifically, Florida. Then Family Fun Fest 2015(tm).

The idea of logging in here or on a game from the tablet just... did not grab me this time around.

@Rainbow-Unicorn said:

Well.

We knew there was something funny about Jill.

...more funny.

...I am so glad I wasn't the only one who thought of Jill immediately.