@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 perksāespecially specific onesārather 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 approvalāand 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 itāchat, 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.
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(deep breaths)
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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.