@krmbm said in Difference between an NPC and a Staff PC?:

Can an NPC without extensive documentation exist?

I don't quite get this question. NPCs exist all over. They people our pretend worlds. Clarify?

It was something @Sparks said in another thread, about how staff can't just create NPCs because they're documented things.

This got me thinking.

When does an NPC become a Staff PC?

When that character is being used for ends other than plot.

Must an NPC only be used for plot?

@Kitty-Kat said in Not even sure what to title this, but here goes..:

@Ganymede said in Not even sure what to title this, but here goes..:

You don’t need to explain your apology to anyone. The apology is just fine.

Thanks Ganymede. I just, really want to be part of the MUSH community again.

But you almost escaped!

I guess it's true; there's nobody here but us crazies.

So, a staffer playing an NPC versus a staffer playing a PC.

Is there really a difference?

Can an NPC without extensive documentation exist?

When does an NPC become a Staff PC?

Fight.

@Sparks said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Thenomain said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Tangentially: It never ceased to amaze me that people who staffed acted like they needed benefits.

Why? I mean, demanding perks—especially specific ones—rather than being offered them is super gauche, yes. But staffing is an unpaid volunteer position, and many real-world unpaid volunteer positions do offer perks or benefits to say thank you.

Like a support network, the ability to get an insider view of the entire game, fast-track for your ideas to get approval—and you probably will already have them formed in the most likely way to be approved because of the previous two perks.

Staff already get perks just as a side-effect of being staff, and I'm not suggesting that anyone take them away. I am saying that they don't need extra kudos that players themselves don't get.

Now the word here is "need". If they get extra benefits, well I did preface with the "Theno Antiestablishment Game" and now we're in the fine details of what each of us think is okay for staff to do or get away with.

Too many games already treat code of ethics differently between players and staff. If the game's staff honors it then they're not doing the game's culture harm by bending the rules for anyone.

But this is the thrust of my argument: The game culture can overrule what the staff wants to do. Hell, I think this @Sparks person has already mentioned this, and she and I already agree with each other on the topic.

@Thenomain said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

And you have an organized support network, which is far more than non-staff players can say.

I disagree that this is even guaranteed to be true at all, much less that it's a benefit that only staff can claim

And I think you're starting to put words in my mouth. If I ever mentioned that staff were not entitled to benefits that were available to players, or that players couldn't also share benefits available to staff, then shoot me now because that's entirely the opposite of what I meant.

Staff better have the same benefits and responsibilities as players, except where their role implies otherwise.

I'm going to stand by my "instant social network" statement as I've yet to play on or staff for a game where staff doesn't have a private mode of communications with every other level of staff. Even if people don't use it that way, it's there, it's available, it's Godwin's Law or a sort of Chekov's Gun; the likelihood of someone using the tool as intended increases to "one" over time.

Staff just for the act of being staff have access to nearly the entire staff communications network and all the aspects of it—chat, jobs, bboards. Certainly a great deal more than players, and unless it becomes the new default, players do not get access to any of it.

This is a tool of necessity, but it's also a huge perk. I can think of examples, but I think I've defended my position enough for now.

ALL OF THAT SAID

If a game's culture allows something different, then do it.

If you want to see that you, as staff, can succeed at it, then try it.

Your goal as player, as staff, as coder, as plotter, is to make the game interesting and fun, and if I say anything that goes against that then throw it out the window. Throw everything out the window until you find what works for you.

...

(deep breaths)

...

I have had the exact same problem finding RP as the original poster, and like the suggestions about doing more work to entice people to open up to RP, but putting the work solely on the person looking for RP seems a little like a cop-out. As a coder, everything I do aims toward "will this facilitate game-playing?" Anyone who is encouraging and engaging to newbies needs a gold star, and Arx's "rp with strangers" bribery concept needs a gaming trophy.

Mr. VASpider once said that it's not anyone's responsibility to help anyone engage. While pragmatic and true, I think that goes against the best nature of this hobby. I think we want engagement, and most of us want to enjoy the engagement of others, but that is work, but a burden shared is a burden lessened.

Whatever we do to get there is okay with me.

@Sparks said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

However. I don't think that means it isn't still staff's game to decide what the culture should be.

I feel this was caused by poor wording on my part.

Staff has inherent powers to shape the game, but like any creative work they should--in my experience--be beholden to the same consistency in working within the game as it is implied as a player.

The real reason for the above justification is to get into people's minds that the staff does not come before the game.

Tangentially: It never ceased to amaze me that people who staffed acted like they needed benefits. You can change the course of the entire game, numnutz, what kind of benefit would you call that? And you get to RP any NPC at any time as befits the game. And you have an organized support network, which is far more than non-staff players can say.

Some people's children. Sheesh.

@Ghost said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Sunny said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

It's not 'wrongfun' to harass somebody -- it's harassing somebody.

Unless your fun consists of harassing others.

Then it's both harassment and wrongfun.

Stop kinkshaming.

@Arkandel said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Wrongfun may be used incorrectly but there's nothing wrong with the word itself.

Like there's nothing wrong with the swastika when used for its original purpose.

(Oh yeah, I went there.)

--

@Derp said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

This works if all of your staff are onboard

Are you saying that a cultural thing works if the culture is for it? Because...I didn't think that needed to be said, but I guess it needs to be said:

Any rule, idea, law, news file, or expectation needs to be supported and enforced by staff.

Or as I keep repeating: All behavior on a game stems from staff.

@Ghost

That's if each sphere is its own game.

The good multi-sphere games (Haunted Memories for a time, Dark Metal if you have a sense of irony, Aether forever, probably every Babylon 5 game since I'm on a Bab5 kick) have the spheres mixing it up. Hell, we even managed it on TwoMoons, where each tribe was in a distinct and incredibly distant part of the game map. Some of them were antagonist clans, too.

The idea that a "sphere" is an "independent game" is one that can probably get out of WoD players' vocabularies.

That is: Totally Disagree (not looking for GIF).

@Coin said in MU Things I Love:

Being engaged enough in a character that it inspires IC creativity.

I miss the fuck out of this.

@Ghost said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Don't wrongfun me

By logging into a game you agree to play the game. Not your game. The game that you logged into play.

Whether or not "your" game is fun is not in anyone's interest. Really, we all want to have fun, but the game that you log into is not your game.

--

But here's where I do the Theno game and throw some anti-establishment into it: Sometimes it's not staff's game either. Even staff should be beholden to the game. The rules, the theme, and the allowances that the game makes.

So as long as you, the player, fall within the allowances of the game—theme and setting and culture—and as long as staff does too, then this conversation becomes moot. Staff may ask you to tweak your behavior for the theme, setting, or culture, but the amount that a lot of us are used to staff doing things for their own whim, or for what appears to be "because I said so", then these staff are wrong.

It may get to that. It may get to that if a player is so oblivious, or stubborn, or trolling, that "because I say so" is the only answer left, but let's be reasonable and assume this kind of staff has also tried to be reasonable.

That is, without people giving other people the benefit of the doubt, none of this works. Not the help files, not the staff-player interaction, none of it. It returns to being the same kind of embarrassingly bad staff-player reactions that we in the WoD community and those from the Firan community and even players from the old Pern community have lived with for far too long.

--

Or in other words: I agree.

@Derp said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Staff needs to get better at saying 'this is what our vision of the game is, and the kinds of things that we are expecting. If this is not what you want, then this isn't the game for you.

Needs framed and displayed prominently on a poster involving a kitten, or a dog dressed as a chemist.

Interesting note: Oleo is probably our first widely used manufactured food. Enjoy your whipped fat!

@Arkandel said in What do you eat?:

Food.

What do you guys think about Impossible Foods and manufactured meat in general?

I am deeply wary of Soylent because it’s an unvetted replacement for food.

For things that you replace other parts of food with? As long as it’s healthy, I’m fine with it. I even embrace our manufactured-foods cyberpunk future/present.

Okay! Now that everyone has settled on their opinions on what makes a good game, go out and make one!

...

Hey, it was worth a shot.

@Cobaltasaurus said in Part time ST For Hire:

(unless @Thenomain is gonna code it for me and @Tributary is gonna help me admin it).

For you? Any time.

I log into an RP game to RP.

I’ve always hated the culture in WoD games that there was more to it than that, and I am deeply sorry for helping create the +vote system that lead to this.

My bad.

@Lotherio said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Despite the 'bar-RP is bad' (and other words of defense for Bar RP)

I’m going to rant.

Bar RP is not bad.

Bar RP is not now nor has it ever been bad. I’m going to offer a pair of middle digits to anyone and everyone who pisses on Bar RP for being Bar RP.

Bar RP is social and often mixes people together who would not otherwise have a reason to interact, for no pre-planned reason. Scenes with no reason are fun, and I have easily had just as much fun starting from a bar, or a living room, or a park, as I have any event or coming up with a reason to meet.

This is not to say there is anything wrong with either. Events is the best thing to happen to Mushlikes since Anomaly Jobs, and I will note that we can all thank Cobalt for being the one to put code to game. She deserves the recognition.

What we should criticize about Bar RP is that it cannot carry a game. It can facilitate passage of information, sharing of plots, gaining new play groups, but it can’t be the reason for the game.

But that’s it. Bar RP is a tool that is inherently social, and that's pretty much why we’re here.

@Ganymede said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

When I feel like I am having a hard time finding RP, I find other venues in which to RP. My quest is often fairly short.

More details please, because what @krmbm said would be disallowed on many of the WoD games I used to play on.

@Jaded said in General Video Game Thread:

@Tempest
I understand your impatience. I'm waiting for the pre-order to hit Steam and I'm watching for the collector's edition.

Here's one of those cases where you should go to Good Ol' Games first, considering it's owned by CD Projekt and so the most money will go into their pockets. Plus you can probably get the Steam key there, and if you want a stand-alone install with no DRM, unlocked from anyone's servers, yours forever, then you can.

@TNP

Now I’m grumpy.