PSA: OOC Communication

[Usiku]

We've had a lot of newer players joining us over the last few months as well as a lot of returning older players. This is awesome to see and we love the community coming together, which is mostly based on friendships and positive interactions.

With that, comes a need to issue a small reminder about OOC communication and where the line needs to be drawn on what you guys share with each other.

I think most of our veterans know that sharing in game information, outside of the game, can have hugely impactful effects on the stories and skew the game unfairly in favour of those who do so. It can also undermine plots and cheat other players out of experiences and successes that should otherwise have been theirs.

We have playability allowances, which are limited to sharing your availability/playtimes with clan members, but really that's where it should end. You can find our general guidelines on that here: https://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Rules

I want to highlight a particular example that has happened somewhat recently. An issue came up where a couple of players stored their characters, and then later told their clanmates about it.  When staff first heard that they were storing, they worked to come up with an idea for a plot to explain it, possibly involving the characters' deaths, and using the storages to further the story for the remaining players.

However, since the clanmates were told about the storages outside of the game, any surprise or emotional impact that might have had would be dramatically lessened because of the fact they knew those people had stored.  Instead of it being "Oh wow, they died because of X!", they players would know "Eh, they were just storing".

Admittedly this isn't as serious as something like giving away clan secrets or calling your friend to save your in danger PC. But it does highlight why we try to discourage OOC coordination and chatter.  Of course people want to talk about a game they love, and they should.  You just have to be careful not to cross that line about giving away current IC events.  With this kind of situation, my suggestion would be to reach out to clan staff before you tell others you've stored, so that they can work with you to handle the character's "end story".  I don't mean you have to keep playing the character if you don't want to, just simply don't tell your friends you've stored until you've chatted with staff about it. Pretty please, give our storytellers the opportunity to support the stories we're all trying to create together in the game.

<3