Out of Character and you... the grey of grey areas.

[BadSkeelz]

Don't want (bull)shit, don't start shit.

If you kick off a plot and it goes a direction you're not expecting, that doesn't mean it's ruined. You have to adapt.

If I kick off a plot and and my clan gets wiped by a bunch of bored do-nothing players, then yeah it's ruined.

No, son. It means you got Fucking rekt.

You know I sympathize with you Jimmy. But your wrong on the shut down angle. you can't play Pablo escobar and go to Washington DC to watch the races. You have to assume your opponents are ruthless dipshits players until proven otherwise.


If you get rekt by donothings then you should have planned better to avoid retribution. Hire more muscle. Stay in safe zones. Get Fucking Good.

[Malken]

How else are we going to meet our future rl girlfriends if we can't chat it up oocly.

[Jingo]

Don't want (bull)shit, don't start shit.

If you kick off a plot and it goes a direction you're not expecting, that doesn't mean it's ruined. You have to adapt.

If I kick off a plot and and my clan gets wiped by a bunch of bored do-nothing players, then yeah it's ruined.

No, son. It means you got Fucking rekt.

You know I sympathize with you Jimmy. But your wrong on the shut down angle. you can't play Pablo escobar and go to Washington DC to watch the races. You have to assume your opponents are ruthless dipshits until proven otherwise.

Ooooh nice one.

Your analogy is bad. Going to DC was part of my character's job.

[Delirium]

Ok.. clearly a difference in playstyle here. I don't think either side is going to convince the other. Maybe time to move back toward the main topic.

[BadSkeelz]

Sometimes staff give you bad orders and job descriptions. You should know not to stick your neck out like that. Send expendables.

First of all, I absolutely agree that House A getting full IC vegeance on B and C would have been fun. And it would have been nice to see the plot through, although I understand the stance that was taken to accelerate it.

But the lack of conflict and cold feet? Don't lay that one at staff's feet.

Fair enough. But from observing who staff promote to leadership roles, and what people do with those roles, it's pretty clear that nobody actually gives a shit about conflict or avoiding metaplay. People just want to do their own stories and give up or turtle at first sign of opposition.

[Narana]

This is a controversial suggestion but I thought I'd throw it out there: what would staff think of a sanctioned game chat room/area where people could meet friends and whatnot. A little like the Teamspeak but obviously monitored and logged. The reasoning behind it would be to encourage folks to chat with each other there rather than in private (somehow), with the idea being people would migrate here since it was easier to reach out etc. A little resource intensive to monitor and such, but possibly helpers could play a role too.

I think something like this would be the best possible solution. I do not think the current yellow-tape approach to OOC communications is working, hence the thread. People talk about what they enjoy, whether others approve of it or not. Might as well just have them talk about stuff at home, while trying to nudge them in the direction that knowing something doesnt mean taking advantage of it if your character doesnt know it.

I don't think it'd be a magic solution, and part of the problem would certainly persist anyway, but I think it has the possibility for lessening things somewhat.

[Lizzie]

Thanks for another example! 

This is the meat of the ooc communication case, from what I gather, and the question -- to steer us back to it -- is: what would you do as staff about the case at hand?

The player of House B and C's leaders, locked into their alliance and receiving a morale boost from this small success, pushed for the cave again. But they ran into hurdles. Separately, both players sent requests to staff with similar wording and arguments, faulting the players of House A for not reporting things accurately and faulting the staff of House A for loading NPCs to support A's PCs when Houses B and C were not getting a similar amount of support (although they were, and could ask for more if they needed to). The player of House C's leader was known to have coordinated requests in the past with other players, and it was not too much of a stretch to assume that other things had been coordinated too. When questioned, both players, of course, admitted to being friends but did not admit to collusion of any kind. The phrasing, organization, and timing of the complaints, however, told a different story.

(The separate dumbness of Player A going onto a foreign web-site and complaining about dying is not OOC collusion and pretty cut-and-dry.)

I would think this would be a tough call to make, and I can definitely see room for some benefit of the doubt when I'd go to address the two players in question.

I just kind of want to steer the conversation back to this.

I would've probably demoted their characters to recruits, where they had absolutely zero input on any movement of the clans involved, had to follow orders, and do nothing else. I would've promoted whichever of the rest seemed to have what it took to make decisions. If none of them did, I would've created a low-level boss avatar and told them that I was the new Special Agent that the House had assigned to head up this project. I'd head it up, and when the project was over I'd return to obscurity to step in if another bunch of bufoons got stuck in a plotline and couldn't get up.

If the project succeeded, I'd make sure my unit got all the credit for working together. If they failed, they'd have to suffer the same consequences as if they failed in any project: the boss telling them how pissed they are, but what are you gonna do, shit happens, let's get those logs collected for Lord Poopsmith's order.

And then I'd raise the two demoted people to a non-recruit level, and seek out someone worth promoting or send out a roll call for a new boss.

But, I personally have no problem moving plotlines along with avatars in clans that I run, when I'm on staff. I let the players handle things for the most part but when they need a clue or a kick in the pants to get them moving on something, I'm fine being the one to do it.

[a french mans shirt]

I took one look at the front page of the shadowboards a few years ago and that was enough for me. I wouldn't go on there, they'll probably tell you exactly who Lady Templar Alwaysperfect is sleeping with, and what Salaar is hiding in the basement.

[Armaddict]

I took one look at the front page of the shadowboards a few years ago and that was enough for me. I wouldn't go on there, they'll probably tell you exactly who Lady Templar Alwaysperfect is sleeping with, and what Salaar is hiding in the basement.

Or who they thought they were, anyway, with normally baseless, opinion driven assertions that it must be fact because they said so.

This is a controversial suggestion but I thought I'd throw it out there: what would staff think of a sanctioned game chat room/area where people could meet friends and whatnot. A little like the Teamspeak but obviously monitored and logged. The reasoning behind it would be to encourage folks to chat with each other there rather than in private (somehow), with the idea being people would migrate here since it was easier to reach out etc. A little resource intensive to monitor and such, but possibly helpers could play a role too.

I think something like this would be the best possible solution. I do not think the current yellow-tape approach to OOC communications is working, hence the thread. People talk about what they enjoy, whether others approve of it or not. Might as well just have them talk about stuff at home, while trying to nudge them in the direction that knowing something doesnt mean taking advantage of it if your character doesnt know it.

I don't think it'd be a magic solution, and part of the problem would certainly persist anyway, but I think it has the possibility for lessening things somewhat.

Having been in an arm chatroom already, I disagree.  Just about the only thing that was good about it was:

<angelunit> i was told to submit a bug because something that was technically back-sheathable wasn't
<nessalin> The 4' graphixx bong?  I already fixed that item.  You can sheath it on your back now

Really, just need people to be responsible with their discussions, as we always have.  Sometimes they won't be, but that will happen, which the other board is proof of.  And from staff side, they need to be honest and deep in integrity with their investigation of it, rather than knee-jerk or taking a position of 'We're pretty sure of this, so any rational discussion about your defense will be overturned or ignored.  You're wrong, we've already decided.'

[Ath]

Once again I'll mention that there is always two sides of the story.  Most don't get to see the discussion had before any sort of action is taken, so a lot will think it's knee jerk, but I get where you're coming from.

This topic is getting a lot of good information out there, but attitudes are getting a bit high and I can see some are just on the side of being negative about pretty much anything.  Sucks to see that, but not going to make everyone happy.  Everyone is welcome to their opinion, we may take some, all or, none into consideration, but I can honestly say that you all are being heard. 

I will just call this out, no.. this thread was not created because of the game being a bit shitty.  It was created because of a few recent incidents and other things going on currently that have made me concerned.  They could have been prevented. 

In any case, I'm glad to see you all talking about this and hopefully it brings some awareness on what it can do to the game itself, staff, and other players.  We may not all see eye to eye, but I think we can all agree we're here to have fun. 

I'm going to be leaving this thread open for a bit longer, I think Nergal still wanted to post a few things, but otherwise... I'm open to some questions if you wish to ask.  Just as long as they don't deal with anything that we normally cannot talk about.

[Hashi]

I'll just say that reading this thread has made me think about this topic a lot.  Might even post some of those thoughts if they get a little more coherent.  But I think it's  certainly been a worthwhile discussion.

[The Warshaper]

This is a controversial suggestion but I thought I'd throw it out there: what would staff think of a sanctioned game chat room/area where people could meet friends and whatnot. A little like the Teamspeak but obviously monitored and logged. The reasoning behind it would be to encourage folks to chat with each other there rather than in private (somehow), with the idea being people would migrate here since it was easier to reach out etc. A little resource intensive to monitor and such, but possibly helpers could play a role too.

SOI had an ooc guest lounge where all sorts of positive chatter occurred. From helping new players to Staff chatting with folks about potential roles and requirements to silly ooc chatter about the weather or presidential candidates. All this was done on the player port and essentially it's own ooc zone. You could even walk around and go to a museum that had npc's with full descriptions/equipment and the room desc was basically a helpfile describing their cultures ect.

This created a sense of community and if people got upset and loud about IC events they were politely reminded by players AND staff that there was to be no IC info sharing including mechanics ect. It helped folks get a feel for the game or ask simple questions and get answers. Heck even a way for staff to interact with players when they weren't busy.  I miss a guest lounge option...

[seidhr]

How else are we going to meet our future rl girlfriends if we can't chat it up oocly.

Malken,

I realize that you don't actually play the game or anything, so whether you understand the concept or not is totally moot.  However, I am going head this misstatement off at the pass because people who do play the game read this too - there is no directive that says a player shouldn't chat OOCly with other players.  We are all talking OOC here, after all, there's a team speak server, and so on.

You just shouldn't talk about current IC happenings with other players.

[Jihelu]

How else are we going to meet our future rl girlfriends if we can't chat it up oocly.

Malken,

I realize that you don't actually play the game or anything, so whether you understand the concept or not is totally moot.  However, I am going head this misstatement off at the pass because people who do play the game read this too - there is no directive that says a player shouldn't chat OOCly with other players.  We are all talking OOC here, after all, there's a team speak server, and so on.

You just shouldn't talk about current IC happenings with other players.

So when are you free, Seidhr <3?

[Bahliker]

I would've probably demoted their characters to recruits, where they had absolutely zero input on any movement of the clans involved, had to follow orders, and do nothing else. I would've promoted whichever of the rest seemed to have what it took to make decisions. If none of them did, I would've created a low-level boss avatar and told them that I was the new Special Agent that the House had assigned to head up this project. I'd head it up, and when the project was over I'd return to obscurity to step in if another bunch of bufoons got stuck in a plotline and couldn't get up.

If the project succeeded, I'd make sure my unit got all the credit for working together. If they failed, they'd have to suffer the same consequences as if they failed in any project: the boss telling them how pissed they are, but what are you gonna do, shit happens, let's get those logs collected for Lord Poopsmith's order.

And then I'd raise the two demoted people to a non-recruit level, and seek out someone worth promoting or send out a roll call for a new boss.

But, I personally have no problem moving plotlines along with avatars in clans that I run, when I'm on staff. I let the players handle things for the most part but when they need a clue or a kick in the pants to get them moving on something, I'm fine being the one to do it.

I hope the new staff class of '16 doesn't take this advice. I'm sure you were the kind of mud staffer your players were happy to have at the time - you seem so on the ball - but this is exactly the type of heavy-handed staff overreaction that Armageddon needs to take a hard turn away from every time it can. It's never worthwhile to take the game out of the players' hands. Especially in the case provided, in which the word "assume" should have been bolded and underlined. Even if cheating is evident, obvious, you let that shit play out for better or worse. Never ever take over with an npc to make all the decisions and say, "You guys just animate my minions for a while, this sandbox is mine now because you're playing it wrong."

Careful puppeteering is another story. Manipulating the game environment and outside forces in an attempt to put things back on track, even sometimes to make right the results of ooc abuse, is the tricky job of the people on the other side of that curtain. Go to town with that. Have fun. THAT's the job.

I tried to stay out of this thread but felt like that post deserved attention. Man, there's no easy answer to the core op question. There really isn't even a hard answer. There's no answer. You establish the guidelines, nurture a game culture that promotes an "I play for you, you play for me" attitude, hope for the best and punish the wicked. People are going to get burned if you monitor this stuff like homeland security and they're going to get burned if you let it all slide so that honest players can't ever catch a break from the cheaters. No way out of it. So take the path that hinders player freedom the least and we'll all do our best.

[Lizzie]

I would've probably demoted their characters to recruits, where they had absolutely zero input on any movement of the clans involved, had to follow orders, and do nothing else. I would've promoted whichever of the rest seemed to have what it took to make decisions. If none of them did, I would've created a low-level boss avatar and told them that I was the new Special Agent that the House had assigned to head up this project. I'd head it up, and when the project was over I'd return to obscurity to step in if another bunch of bufoons got stuck in a plotline and couldn't get up.

If the project succeeded, I'd make sure my unit got all the credit for working together. If they failed, they'd have to suffer the same consequences as if they failed in any project: the boss telling them how pissed they are, but what are you gonna do, shit happens, let's get those logs collected for Lord Poopsmith's order.

And then I'd raise the two demoted people to a non-recruit level, and seek out someone worth promoting or send out a roll call for a new boss.

But, I personally have no problem moving plotlines along with avatars in clans that I run, when I'm on staff. I let the players handle things for the most part but when they need a clue or a kick in the pants to get them moving on something, I'm fine being the one to do it.

I hope the new staff class of '16 doesn't take this advice. I'm sure you were the kind of mud staffer your players were happy to have at the time - you seem so on the ball - but this is exactly the type of heavy-handed staff overreaction that Armageddon needs to take a hard turn away from every time it can. It's never worthwhile to take the game out of the players' hands. Especially in the case provided, in which the word "assume" should have been bolded and underlined. Even if cheating is evident, obvious, you let that shit play out for better or worse. Never ever take over with an npc to make all the decisions and say, "You guys just animate my minions for a while, this sandbox is mine now because you're playing it wrong."

Careful puppeteering is another story. Manipulating the game environment and outside forces in an attempt to put things back on track, even sometimes to make right the results of ooc abuse, is the tricky job of the people on the other side of that curtain. Go to town with that. Have fun. THAT's the job.

I tried to stay out of this thread but felt like that post deserved attention. Man, there's no easy answer to the core op question. There really isn't even a hard answer. There's no answer. You establish the guidelines, nurture a game culture that promotes an "I play for you, you play for me" attitude, hope for the best and punish the wicked. People are going to get burned if you monitor this stuff like homeland security and they're going to get burned if you let it all slide so that honest players can't ever catch a break from the cheaters. No way out of it. So take the path that hinders player freedom the least and we'll all do our best.

I'm not seeing any kind of overreaction. I'm seeing appropriate response to a situation that involves both OOC cheating, and an IC plotline that needs to be resolved.

1. The cheaters cheated with colluding OOCly, and were caught. You could force-store their character. You could ban them. You could temporarily suspend their accounts. You could yell at them and tell them from this point on, they are now required to ignore the elephant in the room that they brought in, and have been parading around the shop. Or - you could just allow their characters to remain but remove their character's authority. If they were Sergeant, they're still in the clan but no longer Sergeant. They have proven they *cannot* be trusted on an OOC level to handle the IC authority that comes with the role.
2. In the meantime, you still need SOMEONE to be a Sergeant. So you check the current clan roster to see if anyone qualifies, or is almost qualified (whatever criteria is involved in promoting people, you go through that process, on an expedited level). If no one qualifies...
THEN you step in and be the pro-temp leader, just for this one project, because...the project still needs to be resolved, and you don't want to end it abruptly just cause a couple of buffoons decided to cheat badly enough to get caught at it.

[BadSkeelz]

The problem with demoting powerful PCs for OOC reasons is twofold.

1) it's difficult to justify incharacter and can be immensely jarring. For those players who are not partial to the whole story, or are biased in favor of the demoted, the easy assumption to make is staff don't trust or respect any of the current clan. That you're "playing it wrong." Now you have a much larger morale problem that is going to persist beyond the life of the current characters.

2) demoting a code-powerful PC still leaves them as a powerful PC. They are tougher than anyone staff will drop in, they have more in-game relationships and alliances to draw on. They're under no obligation but threat of death or storage to follow the new leader and not simply kill them to resume control. If staff try to force or punish them, you're right back at problem #1.

[nauta]

I would separate things into two discussions:

What should staff (and players) do about cheaters (and in particular those that collude):

1. in terms of punishment.
2. in terms of investigation.

Punishment. If someone has been caught with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, then I'd be comfortable with an objective punishment system.  I would probably like to see these spelled out somewhere, but I can understand the need for flexibility.  As well, a three strikes policy is definitely the way to go: first offense (and not just an assumption of guilt, but guilt beyond a reasonable doubt) should yield a warning and a note; second offense another warning and note but still no punishment; third offense, storage of the character with a hit to karma.   (Or something like this.)

Investigation.  This, I think, is where things should be handled with the most delicacy so as not to alienate players who might not know what they did was wrong or who didn't do something wrong in the first place.  So let's return to the example from Nergal if we can.

The evidence:

1. The 'wording' of the requests.
2. With one player, a previous infringement (or more?).
3. The simultaneity of the requests. 

(3) doesn't strike me as dubious: there were IC reasons for both leaders to file reports at similar times -- the plot was time sensitive, they were both 'allies' with the same goal, etc.

(2) also should not have much bearing, except in terms of punishment.  In terms of investigation, I wouldn't want to see staff hold it against people for previous mistakes.  (People change, etc.)

(1) is the most damning evidence, and I will assume that by 'wording' Nergal means that it was clear that the two had exchanged OOCly e-mails or whatever to draft up the requests and stupidly plagiarized each other.  This would put the collusion into a class of non-reasonable doubt.  However, if the requests were simply similar in content, again, like (3), this would make a lot of sense and wouldn't suggest collusion.  It might well suggest enough to send a letter to each of the players saying something like: while we don't want to accuse you here, we noticed your wording was similar.  There's a big problem with collusion ruining the fun of staff and players.  But make it clear it is not an accusation, just a red flag and an investigation of that red flag.

Again, for me, the most important thing is not to alienate potentially innocent players.

Those are my thoughts at least.

[Lizzie]

Nauta, it wasn't a, or b, or c. It was a AND b AND c combined. Any of those three might/might not be dubious. Any of those three might result in a raised eyebrow, but not necessarily any kind of conclusion. But it was all three.

It walked like a duck.
It quacked like a duck.
It laid an egg like a duck.

It's a duck.

[wizturbo]

Yikes, this is a beast of a thread and a beast of a problem to try and address.   Here are my thoughts:

We want players to talk OOC, because we want this game and the community to be more than just in-game characters.  Something would be lost if I was just "Player131391" instead of "Wizturbo". 

At the same time, we do not want players to talk OOCly about things that can ruin fun plots. 

That requires every player, every time they talk to someone, to have good judgement about what they should or should not say.  It requires people when they're emotionally charged, excited, drunk, horny, or stoned out of their mind to make good decisions.  That's going to be very tough to manage.  I would consider myself to be 'very good' at keeping secrets through OOC channels, but even I probably let something minor slip in the 15+ years I've played this game.

Utter elimination of this problem is going to be practically impossible, and I have no silver bullet solution to offer.  In fact, the only thing I can think of are more complications:

1.  Valeria's post about having any cases of this handled by people who are not emotionally involved in the situation (a third party) is spot on, but I'm not sure it can realistically happen that way.  No staff members are unrelated third parties, they're a team.  If someone pissed off one of my team member's at work, I would almost certainly take their side.  That's what team members do.  I'm sure some staff members are better than others at being objective, but I doubt those staff members want their new job to be judge on OOC abuse cases.  And I don't see staff recruiting a "High Inquisitor" to handle these cases removed from all other staff business.  With that said, having someone who is not the primary 'victim' of the situation handle the OOC communications with the abuser is a VERY good idea.

2.  By the very nature of the problem, having solid evidence of abuse is going to be very difficult to acquire unless someone has contacts with the NSA.   And, because evidence is going to be so rare, the times staff do get solid evidence they're going to naturally be inclined to swing the ban hammer with righteous justice.  Partly fueled by the dozen cases they didn't have enough evidence to act upon, even though they're pretty sure there was some wrongdoing going on.  This might be true even if the person in question didn't do anything too awful.  It's like the guy who gets pulled over and has just enough weed on him to put him over some state limit that makes his punishment significantly worse than if he had just a few pinches less on him.

3.  Trying to apply black and white rules to grey situations is problematic.  Sharing your thoughts on the new monsters in the salt flats via AIM is OOC abuse, but relatively harmless.  Sharing who is a mindbender, or some major plot secret is not harmless.  Problem is, you might catch someone for the former but not the later.

Not sure what the solution is to address these things, because anything I think of comes with it's own nasty issues to worry about...

My general feeling is I trust the staff to make the best calls they can on how to handle these situations on a case by case basis.  There's no world where this can be regulated in a precise, clear and fair way unless we 'legalize' the sharing of IC information and I think that would basically ruin Armageddon for me and many other players.

[Armaddict]

Nauta, it wasn't a, or b, or c. It was a AND b AND c combined. Any of those three might/might not be dubious. Any of those three might result in a raised eyebrow, but not necessarily any kind of conclusion. But it was all three.

It walked like a duck.
It quacked like a duck.
It laid an egg like a duck.

It's a duck.

I still don't see how the duck walk, quacking, or egg ruined the pond given the information provided.  The pond seemed to continue behaving like a pond as expected, and the part that 'set things off' appeared to be the requests for support in similar ways, and the dead player of House A advertising his death, which players B and C would have heard about anyway as the fruit of their IC plot.

And I don't even agree with the above post, due to being in a similar accusation that was also completely false.  None of that -actually says anything- except for 'I think this looks shitty.'  Even in the case of similar wording of the requests, which is the -least dubious of things on the list-...who cares if two players agreed that they thought they should be able to get the same things?  That's literally coordination of OOC communication to staff.  What's that got to do with anything?

The whole point was that this story was supposed to be demonstrative of the heinous affects of people being in contact discussing IC events, but I see nothing in this story that is a heinous affect of people discussing IC events with each other as presented.  Instead I see that essentially a plot was deemed unfit to continue because of what became the strong suspicion that two people who admitted to being friends ooc manipulated the situation, despite the results of that being...exactly the results that were expected anyway.  It's weirding me out.

[BadSkeelz]

Nauta, it wasn't a, or b, or c. It was a AND b AND c combined. Any of those three might/might not be dubious. Any of those three might result in a raised eyebrow, but not necessarily any kind of conclusion. But it was all three.

It walked like a duck.
It quacked like a duck.
It laid an egg like a duck.

It's a duck.

But what did the duck actually do to ruin this plot? According to Nergal, two things ruined the plot:

The plot was ultimately a failure, spoiled by OOC news of Leader A's murder and spoiled further by evidence that the two IC allied Houses were talking out-of-game at the same time. The plot was always on a timer - and the timer was sped up, ending the plot before it could be ruined further by out-of-game meddling. We specifically waited for characters to die or store before running the next GMH plot.

This doesn't make sense to me. First: the OOC news of Leader A's death was very unfortunate, and is an example of the worst kind of OOC blabbing. But I don't think it really ruined anything except for the enthusiasm as the person who ordered the hit, which is their problem more than anyone else's. Discovering the truth of that murder was as simple as asking "Who has the motive to want this character dead?" and making logical assumptions. If House A had simply assumed House C was the culprit without any sound IC evidence, it would still have been justifiable based on the paranoia and hostility already present in the game. Really, it was the only conclusion one could draw.

Second, the collusion between Houses B and C. What unfair advantage did this actually confer on them in game? You can't pass each other skill ups over AIM. Coordinate all you want, you still have to put the time in game to make sure your characters are stronger than the ones you want to combat. If House B and C characters are spending half their time twinking their skills and the other half-mudsexing, by all means Staff should say "Hey you fuckers are twinking and mudsexing a lot, how about doing your actual jobs?" But that doesn't appear to be what as done. Players were trying to further the interests of their Houses, using plenty of IC justification. The worst thing they did was assume Staff were partial to House C and bitch about it. They should have trusted Staff to be impartial and moved ahead with their plotting. But no one really wants to do anything unless they're sure of absolute success; we're all too attached to our characters.

I think what ultimately "ruined" this plot in the eyes of Staff was the fact that no one wanted to kill [redacted] and turn their hides on to codpieces, or breed them to be pink, or do anything with the cave Staff added to the game. And by all reports (OOC-shared of course because who in their right mind would want to explore that cave with a mundane PC, given what was inside?) it was an awesome looking cave. Unfortunately, House A did the only sane move by "getting defensive" about it and sealing it off for their own safety, effectively rendering it moot. Instead, the plot seemed to be escalating towards all out House warfare. That appears to have been outside the scope of what Staff were prepared to deal with. The "reasons this plot was ruined" seem more like excuses to shut it down before things really got out of hand (or "interesting" as I'd like to say).

This entire thread seems to have been started unintentionally in bad faith. The only time OOC chatter or collusion or meddling seems to really upset people is when it causes their plots not to go in the direction they expect. Claiming a plot's ruined by OOC has become an excuse for a plotter's own shortcomings, lack of planning or inability to adapt.

The question isn't "How do we reduce OOC chatter," but "How do we stop letting OOC chatter affect our enjoyment of the game?" My answer is to loosen up and get over yourselves. Play your character as you think they should be played. Don't look for OOC justification in other characters' actions, simply react to them in-character. Don't trust other players, instead make sure you inhabit a position of strength to protect yourself from the worst abuses. Recognize that some PCs are going to have a target painted on them as soon as they're out of the Hall of Kings. As players we can only be responsible, and act responsibly, in our own actions. Other players colluding is stupid and lame, but is shouldn't be anything you cannot overcome with diligent in-game training, alliance building, or simply recognizing what parts of the game are unsafe for your character. I think Staff need to loosen up too. Sometimes your plots aren't going to go according to script. Keep your eyes on the pieces on the game board. If someone is getting too powerful in game, spawn some more pieces to challenge them. Encourage other player-characters to stand up to them. If none of that works, declare an HRPT and drop a meteor on them.

[Bahliker]

Badskeelz is spot on. I hadn't even thought of the replacement sergeant issue. That is -exactly- what happens. Every time. Go ahead and set your hypothetical newbie leader up with master level skills and oodles of money and authority. Everyone is still going to follow the guy you just snubbed, who now has no obligation to send weekly reports or answer for how he, the de facto leader, runs the clan. I thought you people were all up on your machiavelli 101. Banhammer or leave it alone.

But avoid the problem to begin with, Lizzie. No, the project doesn't NEED to be resolved. Even if things are about to fly off the rails into the realm of staff headache now-we-need-to-rebuild-the-estate and my adventure didn't reach stage 5 nightmaretown, don't double-down on strong arming the clan you... what, watch? Help? It's not manage, run, supervise, even monitor; these are the wrong words for the impression a mud's staff should have of itself, because the players are not your employees. They're not your kindergarten class, no matter how immature a few of them act. They're not volunteers in the 501c you do paperwork for. They're not prisoners. Remember you're just a player, probably not even the best or the smartest and definitely not the most experienced, who stepped up to be one of the people that dances the hand puppets around and cleans up the set between acts.

And the worst of it is, there isn't one person who got the aforementioned banhammer for all of this stuff, or stood before an invisible inquisition in an ooc room for questioning, who did anything that (past) staff hasn't done on the regular. I'm not talking about the burnout legends that nobody remembers or the ones that famously erupt in an epic secret-spewing meltdown. I'm talking well respected people that everybody thinks of as "pretty good people." They help their buddies too.

My point - and there is a point - is that this isn't about things that players do that staff needs to watch, or punish, or prevent. We're all one (say kumbaya) and the problem we have is one that is allowed by our community attitude and rewarded by the very nature of the game. Deal with it (no change) or address THAT end, the community culture end. Don't start a witch hunt in an emotionally unstable usergroup.

[Nergal]

I think what ultimately "ruined" this plot in the eyes of Staff was the fact that no one wanted to kill [redacted] and turn their hides on to codpieces, or breed them to be pink, or do anything with the cave Staff added to the game. (snip) Instead, the plot seemed to be escalating towards all out House warfare. That appears to have been outside the scope of what Staff were prepared to deal with. The "reasons this plot was ruined" seem more like excuses to shut it down before things really got out of hand (or "interesting" as I'd like to say).

Nope. I already said that we were prepared to deal with any IC situation. The plot was designed for all-out conflict as well as political cooperation, and every approach in between. It's when the IC situation was blatantly being influenced by OOC behavior and connections that things took a turn for the worse.

We want players involved in a plot to have equal opportunity in participating. That is ruined when people begin to OOCly collaborate on achieving in-game "success" in a plot.

[BadSkeelz]

It's when the IC situation was blatantly being influenced by OOC behavior and connections that things took a turn for the worse.

So, what actually happened that made things take a turn for the worse? What could have been done in game to actually give the colluding players a real and unfair advantage? Yes, Houses B and C were colluding OOC, but they had plenty of IC reason to IC collude as well.

I saw all of the characters involved in your example in action on multiple occasions. I honesty don't know who I would have put money on to win in an all out brawl, but it would have been exciting to watch. It would have been exciting to see all the new roles open up, the new avenues for expansion, the bloody swathe cut through the PC population.

Edit: I mean, really. How does OOC collusion negatively affect participation, short of launching DDOS attacks on House A players to prevent them from logging in, or scoping out when they're online so you can raid the compound when the players are asleep?