Feedback on playing and log-ins

[pilgrim]

This has to do with the Mul Outpost, but I'm putting here because this is a place for gloom and the other thread isn't intended to be.

When I played last, the Mul Outpost, the stories around it, and the general existence of the player effort there -- was the main thing that made me still want to play. It's hard to elaborate why, but I'll try, because that's relevant. It felt like the only good thing in a world where people reveled in everything bad. Slavery, cruelty, selfishness, lack of deep character thought and development, and the idea of just basically putting up with general evil for the sake of one's survival -- all that is normalized in Zalanthas, and this was a place -- a bastion of inner beauty in the ugliest possible landscape -- that felt as if it stood against all of that. It was precious. And it felt doomed, but I had hope for it. One of the things that depressed me about it was thinking about the short lifespan of muls and the relative speed of game time and how even if my favorite characters managed to survive the harsh world, they would end up weakening and dying of old age. It might have been a tragic and beautiful sort of sadness, if it wasn't for my stewing resentment and ugly hard feelings towards everything else, which I've mentioned before.

I kept checking back here because... to put it simply, Armageddon RPI is the only game running right now that I might want to play again sometime. Despite all its flaws, both mechanical and cultural, it is still the closest game out there to what I like to play, so I had some hope. I had hope for the game just ike I had hope for the outpost.

But seeing how the Mul Outpost is being turned into some kind of stupid MMO capture-the-flag game, where people are discussing how they can raid it and take power over it, makes me feel sick to my stomach. I can't fully express how much I hate this idea. And it just drives in more vividly that this is not the game for me, because the last thing I cared about in the game world is being turned into the kind of thing that disgusts me -- a cheap OOC-gaminess-based thought-empty thing-to-do. So now PCs will be overrunning the outpost for silly reasons just to play some metagame about shifting leaders and control.

I can't speak to the motivations of other players involved, but if I was still playing, I would choke on this so hard. I would have hoped staff involvement with player efforts there would have led to the place becoming more of a community. Like... make a real organization for it, with its own documented lore and clan forum, and make its positive zeitgeist capable of having a real effect on the game world rather than completely neutralizing it as a hollow shell for the interplay of external power struggles. Give it pockets of strength, escape routes, allied safehouses in lawless places, stability in ways that the main cities may not have. Eventually allow it to counter Allanak's strength through guerilla-based tactical patterns. Now that would have been interesting, and something I would've enjoyed.

Most people reading this complaint may think "wow, it's a good thing pilgrim stopped playing, that player wasn't suited to this game at all, and look at all that silly emotional crossover" -- and yeah, they are partially right.  Part of the wonder of roleplaying, for me, is that you can step into someone else's shoes and learn to sense more of the world -- you can experience a small fraction of the torment of a refugee, the persecution of a minority, the sorrow of an outcast. You can viscerally understand so much more of others' perspectives. Whether we are aware of it or not, there is a subconscious impact upon us from the characters we play.

So, think about these questions.... why does every effort in this game feel futile? If character-based efforts are doomed, then what will the players start doing? If they keep playing, how will their playstyle adjust? What kind of mentality does the in-game attitude breed? What responsibility do the runners of games have in terms of thinking about these impacts? How can you make your game a force for positivity?

If Armageddon's harshness and brutality was an IC condition geared towards allowing players to widen their paradigms and learn empathy for the downtrodden, to strengthen their minds in toiling against wrongness, or to gain an understanding of how conditions warp believable and relatable villains (I can think of one main villain in the game, during the time I played, that I loved for this understanding) -- then that would be an excellent use of Murder-Corruption-Betrayal, in my mind. Instead, it's being used to foster a toxic OOC atmosphere that even the most loyal players I know recognize as toxic (ask yourselves, how many players don't even want to engage in this thread?). The harshness of the IC world is used an excuse for reveling in senseless evil, for allowing the worst kinds of metagaming abuses that are easily excused by the setting, like a templar sexually coercing someone, or a pedophile getting their rocks off by talking about nasty things in-game, or people rolling in thoughtless characters who are just proxies for the player's desire towards generic mayhem. I've seen protected characters cage others up, for illogical reasons, with the metagamey reasoning of coercing them as sex pets. This player is still playing the game. I've seen players with large amounts of karma use shallow IC reasoning to metagame psychopathically against preferred victims. Still playing the game. I've heard of so many disgusting stories, recently one that included pedophilia, and this player is still playing the game.

From what I've seen, that sort of blatant ugliness is the playstyle that Armageddon protects. Sure, all these disgusting behaviors fit with the setting. But is that why the setting is the setting it is? You have to intentionally moderate these things in order to maintain theme the way that you want it. And now you're ruining the last thing in the game that seemed to stand independent of these attitudes, basically just neutering any efficacy it might have ever been dreamed to have, and the disgusted resentment that I was too overwhelmed with previously to continue playing... has returned. I wish for the evolution of the game into something that suits my mindset. But I think maybe it's impossible, maybe your mental wavelengths are just in complete opposition to mine, and nothing substantial will ever really change. And it's for the best if players like me go and do something else; be somewhere that our efforts and feelings are respected. The problem with this thought is that it situates Armageddon and its culture firmly in my mind as a hive of wretchedness, and I don't like that feeling. I don't like the thought that this is how staff want the theme maintained, and they are secretly irritated by people pointing it out and complaining about it, and just trying to placate people and run damage control. I prefer feeling positive and hopeful. Unfortunately life is seldom to our preference, and this move with the mul outpost has confirmed to me how the mindset of Armageddon staff is completely opposite to mine.

[CirclelessBard]

Arguments against safety tools seem to forget that while the game already has consent rules, they are not being enforced to a standard that prevents sexual harassment. If the consent rules as they are now allow a staff member to say that a templar did no wrong in locking a commoner in a room until they submitted to sex with the templar, or allow a staff member to force a character to have sex with an NPC, then they are not good consent rules, and need to be revised, with any current staff members that have done harm in this way acknowledging that they were wrong. The best time to revise the rules was immediately after these incidents; the second-best time is now.

There is also the matter of non-sexual forms of abuse like when staff insult/admonish players unprovoked. This kind of behavior is just not acceptable. It doesn't help with communication between players and staff, and only seems to have the effect of goading players into responding to staff inappropriately, which leads to staff, in turn, justifying a reprisal. It is also a problem that has existed for a long time.

The fact that stories posted here are similar in nature to stories posted on Reddit, which staff have previously dismissed as untrue, is not lost on me. So, after seeing players explicitly say in this thread that they have left for reasons related to these forms of abuse, the reasonable expectation is to see what staff have to say for themselves.

I don't think there is a single player that benefits from sidelining these concerns by trashing ideas, or dismissing these concerns by saying that the thread is just an attack on staff. Players should have a lot of common ground in seeing these aspects of the game get improvements. That said, I think a team of player advocates appointed by the players themselves is a good start. I think the end goal should be open and honest communication, and a mutual understanding that mistakes will happen and the goal should be to correct the game's course immediately afterward, instead of letting wounds fester.

[Riev]

If my PC gets murdered in a way I think is wildly unfair, and staff say "Too bad, stuff happened that you can't see and we can't tell you about, but its fine" ... the only people I have to believe are the ones whose job it is to keep this game running by any means necessary. People who have said before that they don't care whether I play the game, or not, its up to me.

If my PC gets murdered in a way I think is unfair, and staff AND MANSA say "We looked at it, and there was a decent amount of buildup that led to it. The lack of a scene may be looked into, but this wasn't random or pointless"... well. Now I have to believe another play who SHOULD NOT have any ulterior motives other than to advocate on my behalf.

I don't know how the system would work, and I can see many flaws and issues, but if trust is a main thing that is missing... lets build a bridge instead of adding more soldiers on the banks to shout at each other.

[kahuna]

i personally do not want/care much. But with one coveat.  If absence of this genuinely triggers even a single person, then put them right in.

I love causing anguish in your characters, not the players.

How to respond here... I hope what you're saying is you love causing anguish to players that want that sort of roleplay? Because that's my point. Fundamentally what we're talking about is what type of roleplay people want to be involved in. There's a lot when you think about it. Some people want absolutely nothing to do with mudsex, but guess what? They're still harassed IC for sex, flirted with, propositioned, and basically forced into that aspect of the game. If you had a FLAG to set that you want nothing to do with it, the onus is now on the player to set that flag. You don't have to go OOC (you still can).

You can't have it both ways. Either you want a welcoming roleplaying environment where people can setup the type of RP they want, or you want a free for all wild west (which Arm was 25 years ago). If you want it the first way, put flags in for the most sensitive topics.

If, however, you want to return to the wild west, anything goes, then convince staff to remove the consent rules altogether, remove the restrictions on rape plot lines, remove the restrictions on anything. And I know plenty of people want that sort of experience/roleplay environment.

[Dar]

If my PC gets murdered in a way I think is wildly unfair, and staff say "Too bad, stuff happened that you can't see and we can't tell you about, but its fine" ... the only people I have to believe are the ones whose job it is to keep this game running by any means necessary. People who have said before that they don't care whether I play the game, or not, its up to me.

If my PC gets murdered in a way I think is unfair, and staff AND MANSA say "We looked at it, and there was a decent amount of buildup that led to it. The lack of a scene may be looked into, but this wasn't random or pointless"... well. Now I have to believe another play who SHOULD NOT have any ulterior motives other than to advocate on my behalf.

I don't know how the system would work, and I can see many flaws and issues, but if trust is a main thing that is missing... lets build a bridge instead of adding more soldiers on the banks to shout at each other.

How do you know Mansa is not a staffer already?

[Riev]

Very much not the point, and not helpful to the conversation, thank you.

[najdorf]

This has to do with the Mul Outpost, but I'm putting here because this is a place for gloom and the other thread isn't intended to be.

When I played last, the Mul Outpost, the stories around it, and the general existence of the player effort there -- was the main thing that made me still want to play. It's hard to elaborate why, but I'll try, because that's relevant. It felt like the only good thing in a world where people reveled in everything bad. Slavery, cruelty, selfishness, lack of deep character thought and development, and the idea of just basically putting up with general evil for the sake of one's survival -- all that is normalized in Zalanthas, and this was a place -- a bastion of inner beauty in the ugliest possible landscape -- that felt as if it stood against all of that. It was precious. And it felt doomed, but I had hope for it. One of the things that depressed me about it was thinking about the short lifespan of muls and the relative speed of game time and how even if my favorite characters managed to survive the harsh world, they would end up weakening and dying of old age. It might have been a tragic and beautiful sort of sadness, if it wasn't for my stewing resentment and ugly hard feelings towards everything else, which I've mentioned before.

I kept checking back here because... to put it simply, Armageddon RPI is the only game running right now that I might want to play again sometime. Despite all its flaws, both mechanical and cultural, it is still the closest game out there to what I like to play, so I had some hope. I had hope for the game just ike I had hope for the outpost.

But seeing how the Mul Outpost is being turned into some kind of stupid MMO capture-the-flag game, where people are discussing how they can raid it and take power over it, makes me feel sick to my stomach. I can't fully express how much I hate this idea. And it just drives in more vividly that this is not the game for me, because the last thing I cared about in the game world is being turned into the kind of thing that disgusts me -- a cheap OOC-gaminess-based thought-empty thing-to-do. So now PCs will be overrunning the outpost for silly reasons just to play some metagame about shifting leaders and control.

I can't speak to the motivations of other players involved, but if I was still playing, I would choke on this so hard. I would have hoped staff involvement with player efforts there would have led to the place becoming more of a community. Like... make a real organization for it, with its own documented lore and clan forum, and make its positive zeitgeist capable of having a real effect on the game world rather than completely neutralizing it as a hollow shell for the interplay of external power struggles. Give it pockets of strength, escape routes, allied safehouses in lawless places, stability in ways that the main cities may not have. Eventually allow it to counter Allanak's strength through guerilla-based tactical patterns. Now that would have been interesting, and something I would've enjoyed.

Most people reading this complaint may think "wow, it's a good thing pilgrim stopped playing, that player wasn't suited to this game at all, and look at all that silly emotional crossover" -- and yeah, they are partially right.  Part of the wonder of roleplaying, for me, is that you can step into someone else's shoes and learn to sense more of the world -- you can experience a small fraction of the torment of a refugee, the persecution of a minority, the sorrow of an outcast. You can viscerally understand so much more of others' perspectives. Whether we are aware of it or not, there is a subconscious impact upon us from the characters we play.

So, think about these questions.... why does every effort in this game feel futile? If character-based efforts are doomed, then what will the players start doing? If they keep playing, how will their playstyle adjust? What kind of mentality does the in-game attitude breed? What responsibility do the runners of games have in terms of thinking about these impacts? How can you make your game a force for positivity?

If Armageddon's harshness and brutality was an IC condition geared towards allowing players to widen their paradigms and learn empathy for the downtrodden, to strengthen their minds in toiling against wrongness, or to gain an understanding of how conditions warp believable and relatable villains (I can think of one main villain in the game, during the time I played, that I loved for this understanding) -- then that would be an excellent use of Murder-Corruption-Betrayal, in my mind. Instead, it's being used to foster a toxic OOC atmosphere that even the most loyal players I know recognize as toxic (ask yourselves, how many players don't even want to engage in this thread?). The harshness of the IC world is used an excuse for reveling in senseless evil, for allowing the worst kinds of metagaming abuses that are easily excused by the setting, like a templar sexually coercing someone, or a pedophile getting their rocks off by talking about nasty things in-game, or people rolling in thoughtless characters who are just proxies for the player's desire towards generic mayhem. I've seen protected characters cage others up, for illogical reasons, with the metagamey reasoning of coercing them as sex pets. This player is still playing the game. I've seen players with large amounts of karma use shallow IC reasoning to metagame psychopathically against preferred victims. Still playing the game. I've heard of so many disgusting stories, recently one that included pedophilia, and this player is still playing the game.

From what I've seen, that sort of blatant ugliness is the playstyle that Armageddon protects. Sure, all these disgusting behaviors fit with the setting. But is that why the setting is the setting it is? You have to intentionally moderate these things in order to maintain theme the way that you want it. And now you're ruining the last thing in the game that seemed to stand independent of these attitudes, basically just neutering any efficacy it might have ever been dreamed to have, and the disgusted resentment that I was too overwhelmed with previously to continue playing... has returned. I wish for the evolution of the game into something that suits my mindset. But I think maybe it's impossible, maybe your mental wavelengths are just in complete opposition to mine, and nothing substantial will ever really change. And it's for the best if players like me go and do something else; be somewhere that our efforts and feelings are respected. The problem with this thought is that it situates Armageddon and its culture firmly in my mind as a hive of wretchedness, and I don't like that feeling. I don't like the thought that this is how staff want the theme maintained, and they are secretly irritated by people pointing it out and complaining about it, and just trying to placate people and run damage control. I prefer feeling positive and hopeful. Unfortunately life is seldom to our preference, and this move with the mul outpost has confirmed to me how the mindset of Armageddon staff is completely opposite to mine.

On a philosophical level, I disagree with your perception of what the ideal moral status of zalanthas should be. What you describe as -good- is subjective to me, and armageddon lacks the necessary historical events to set a basis for such a good to establish. (to that similar of our RL) However, it's fascinating to hear someone having such deep level of feelings towards a place many just skip by. I don't even have such intensity towards anything in RL, let alone IC. So, respect, and whoever you are I hope you keep playing.

[Shabago]

Very much not the point, and not helpful to the conversation, thank you.

It's a valid point, in fact. Considering there are how many threads (or posts in this very one) about how a minority of folk, no matter what is said or done, do not trust staff, nor each other. So, an 'advocate' elected from the player-base (with the proclaimed cliques that exist so it's a popularity contest) is in no way, shape or form subject to bias behavior towards players they don't like and lean heavily to the ones they do in their own 'circle'?

Sounds like a recipe for a player to get blasted by both sides if they remain unbiased and become a burn out hell, or not solve a thing when bias (real or perceived) is presented to those involved.

[Brytta Léofa]

How do you know Mansa is not a staffer already?

Very much not the point, and not helpful to the conversation, thank you.

Digressing: actually I think it's a good point.

The difference between "staff checked it out" and "staff and Mansa checked it out" is that Mansa has a reputation in this community outside of staffing. (I have no idea if Mansa has ever staffed btw.) If Mansa joined staff and folks knew it, this would color their interpretations of StaffMansa's actions...probably in a good way.

I have a three-part thesis and I don't know if it's true but I'm intrigued: it is,
  Player anonymity reduces community trust.  (i.e. most people never know who played "Amos")
  Staff pseudonymity reduces community trust.  (i.e. most people don't know that, fictive example, Shabago == Mansa or whatever)
  Anonymity has some value but way less than we think.

[Brytta Léofa]

Sounds like a recipe for a player to get blasted by both sides if they remain unbiased and become a burn out hell, or not solve a thing when bias (real or perceived) is presented to those involved.

For the sake of argument...imagine a world in which players rotated on and off staff pretty regularly, and didn't use different identities as staff. Community-strengthening or just hellish? I think it could be the former, but I don't know.

As a player hath said, all Arm players are a little crazy.

[Kismetic]

While I do agree with you that anonymity leads to distrust and I think it is a tool that could be used for abuse and has no place here anymore, I don't think knowing the public identities of staff really addresses that problem.  This is a small community, a lot of times we already know.

I've been dying to post in this thread, but just haven't had a chance to whip all my thoughts together.  I've got a boring flight this evening where I may do just that.

[CirclelessBard]

Very much not the point, and not helpful to the conversation, thank you.

It's a valid point, in fact. Considering there are how many threads (or posts in this very one) about how a minority of folk, no matter what is said or done, do not trust staff, nor each other. So, an 'advocate' elected from the player-base (with the proclaimed cliques that exist so it's a popularity contest) is in no way, shape or form subject to bias behavior towards players they don't like and lean heavily to the ones they do in their own 'circle'?

Sounds like a recipe for a player to get blasted by both sides if they remain unbiased and become a burn out hell, or not solve a thing when bias (real or perceived) is presented to those involved.

Personally I see the player advocate idea as more something to bridge an existing gap, than an end goal. It is, like many suggestions in this thread, just a suggestion; malleable and open to adjustment. The end goal should be open, honest, and polite conversation between players and staff. It doesn't really matter how we get there, as long as we get there.

It might be more useful to examine why some players do not trust each other or staff, and do what is necessary to ensure that future players don't end up with the same feelings. That way, even if you never win over the few players who will never trust other players or staff, you at least ensure that the cycle ends. Fortunately, many people in this thread have stepped up to say why that trust broke down for them.

[Kaathe]

Hey as new story teller I'm excited about solving problems but largely powerless to do so. Thus I will just give some advice from my professional career instead.

The most important thing to come out of this thread will be well defined problems. Solutions, ideas, and critiques of the ideas are fine, but solutions will ultimately have to get iterated on and many will not be viable. A well defined problem doesn't go away until solved, so having that in writing is very powerful.

[mansa]

A little bit ago, I made a suggestion to rewrite the consent helpfile, as a few players and myself felt it wasn't as explicit as it should be in scenarios of power imbalances.  I was hoping we could re-look at my revisions to see if we can change it.  The major additions are in the section about coercion and social power imbalances, as well as to clean up some of the examples and to limit the use of acronyms.

Current Rules:
https://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Consent

Revised Policy:
Consent                                                                  (Rules)

There are few restrictions on roleplay in ArmageddonMUD.

Rape/Sexual Torture plotlines are not to be played out in the game. See 'help
rape' for further elaboration on this subject and a definition of what is
considered rape in ArmageddonMUD.

Erotic roleplay and graphic torture are permissible roleplaying scenes to
explore in ArmageddonMUD.  However, before instigating such an act with another
player, you need to communicate using the OOC command to make sure that the role
play is consented to, in each and every scene it happens.  You must do this as
you can't be sure that you are alone in every situation, and as such consent
must be addressed every time.  As well, fellow players may be comfortable in
roleplaying these scenes during some days, and may not be comfortable the next
day.  Perhaps a good analogy is the movie ratings system: some players may wish
to see the details acted out in a way which would deserve an R rating while
other players might prefer that the details be communicated in an Out-Of-
Character fashion and left offstage.

Some examples would be:
OOC Do you consent granted for graphic scene (torture, mild mutilation)? If we
Fade to Black, the maiming/torture will still occur, but be off screen.
Alternatively, if you do not wish to live with a maimed PC, we can do a
straightforward kill/execution.
OOC Sure, bring on the blood.

OOC Consent to erotic roleplay?  Or FTB (Fade to Black)?
OOC I want to fade-to-black and pick up after.

If someone is instigating roleplay that makes you uncomfortable, please use the
OOC command to state that they should stop. If they continue despite being told
to stop, please use the wish command and 'wish all' immediately to notify the
staff.

If you act out a graphic sequence without first obtaining the other player's
consent, and the player then complains within a reasonable amount of time (so
that the runlogs can be checked and the complaint verified), you will be banned
for thirty (30) days for the first offense, permanently for the second offense.
If the Producers deem an act that is a first offense especially egregious, you
will be permanently banned. Please use common sense and have respect for other
people's sensibilities.


Relationships with a social power imbalance have additional rules:
In situations where a power imbalance between two characters exists and said
imbalance is used as leverage (or coercion) for an adult situation, consent must
be sought at the earliest possible juncture.

Example:
OOC Do you consent to pursue an amorous relationship between our characters?

If any player does not consent, that storyline cannot continue, and the
characters must change their play to avoid a sexual situation going forward,
including any inappropriate touching (grabbing asses, touching thighs, grabbing
breasts, kissing, etc..) or other forms of sexual harassment. In this situation,
the instigator should adjust their intent or desire to avoid a sexual situation
entirely, and there should be no negative repercussions for the character of
the non-consenting player.


Torture and Mutilations:
In the case of mutilation, an action that would cause a character to lose their
ability to function in some way, the victim may request that they be killed by
the procedure.  It is then the instigator's responsibility to attempt to kill
the victim, or take some other appropriate course of action. The victim should
not request other punishments, bargain, or otherwise discuss the situation out
of character beyond this provision.  Castration/sterilization must not be
roleplayed out in gory detail, as then it would cross into the realm of sexual
torture.


Summary:
Armageddon is a game with some mature themes, and included among those are
things that some players may find more or less appealing to play out for any
number of reasons. If you find yourself in a situation that does not go against
the rules listed above, though you would rather not play in that situation you
still have a recourse available to you: You may WISH ALL to request direct
assistance from staff (please provide applicable information and see HELP WISH).
When possible, we will offer an avenue out of the scene, and when not we will
offer a swift end to your PC. (In situations that call for a swift end.) None of
this will be done without confirmation from you, the player, first.

Consent Not Required:
-A tattoo is forced upon your character. (Mutilation is considered the loss of a
body part, such as a limb or an ear.)
-You are in a room with another player who is in a state of undress, though no
sexual connotations can be discerned. (Certain cultures in game may be more
liberal with their view on clothing.)
-You are being whipped with the 'whip' command, but no gruesome or visceral
emotes are being emoted. (Command echoes are not considered 'mutilation', and
are a part of the game.)

If there are any questions to be had regarding this rule, please submit a Game
Related Question Request at your earliest possible convenience.

Notes:
You must be 18 years of age or older to ask for or give consent for sexual
roleplay.

[Brokkr]

  Anonymity has some value but way less than we think.

I disagree.

If you knew something as simple as my GDB non-Staff handle, it would be hard, but possible, to find out my RL identity.

Given actions of a very small number of former players in the past, this is not something I would want to be available to them.

[Aromit]

On the topic of anonymity, there is no requirement for staff to be anonymous. I was not forced to make a new handle except in that our mortal accounts and our staff accounts are indeed two different accounts (thus two account names). I did not make a secondary discord account, I simply changed my original handle live. My twitch (which was indeed just my mortal handle) was still linked to my discord and in plain view, my identity was not a concern for me and indeed isn't for many staff.

I use alternate gdb handles because when I join a clan I want to be treated with the same fairness from the playerbase as they would treat any other player, I would not want someone knowing I was an active staff member to affect the separation of ic/ooc or their desire to play around me.

Other staff conceal much of their other handles for things like brokkr has stated which is a very real (very verified) concern, if you wish to be anonymous you have the option to do so. It is not a requirement of staff.

[Riev]

Very much not the point, and not helpful to the conversation, thank you.

It's a valid point, in fact. Considering there are how many threads (or posts in this very one) about how a minority of folk, no matter what is said or done, do not trust staff, nor each other. So, an 'advocate' elected from the player-base (with the proclaimed cliques that exist so it's a popularity contest) is in no way, shape or form subject to bias behavior towards players they don't like and lean heavily to the ones they do in their own 'circle'?

Sounds like a recipe for a player to get blasted by both sides if they remain unbiased and become a burn out hell, or not solve a thing when bias (real or perceived) is presented to those involved.

The point of suggesting an advocate wasn't "Hire Mansa". Please replace "Mansa" with whatever community member doesn't make you wonder if they're a staff.
My idea isn't perfect, but I'm trying to put forward an idea rather than just say why others won't work.

What if we talk about the idea, not the specifics of how it is done. WOULD having an advocate not tied to the staff work in building trust?

[HazelHomewrecker]

Hey as new story teller I'm excited about solving problems but largely powerless to do so. Thus I will just give some advice from my professional career instead.

The most important thing to come out of this thread will be well defined problems. Solutions, ideas, and critiques of the ideas are fine, but solutions will ultimately have to get iterated on and many will not be viable. A well defined problem doesn't go away until solved, so having that in writing is very powerful.

This is a good point!

I have a small issue with Custom Crafting--the timegating on it. It feels kind of clunky when you're CCing things because a LOT of the time, you finish your CC before the 30 day mark, so the rest of that time you're just..sitting in crafter limbo, waiting for that number to ding so you can speedrun another. I don't like this system, I know plenty of other people don't like this system, so I'd like to propose an alternative:

Limit us to 2 CC's a month, no more/no less, instead of just the 1.

Maybe it's just me, but crafting is one of my favorite things to do in the game, especially when I get to make new things and add to the game in a meaningful way. A lot of CC's have distinct memories attached to them, and being able to give someone something that they can have fond memories with as a long-lasting item is really fun for me.

[BadSkeelz]

How about players get to vote to ban one staffer a year for a whole year (with an option for none if no one staffer has made enough enemies to warrant ostracization).

[HazelHomewrecker]

I don't think that.. voting people off of staff like it's Total Drama Island is really the uh.. really the way to go about fixing problems.

[BadSkeelz]

I don't think that.. voting people off of staff like it's Total Drama Island is really the uh.. really the way to go about fixing problems.

Why not? Are you on staff? Getting on staff wouldn't change, being on staff wouldn't change. It'd just introduce some accountability to an otherwise unaccountable system. Maybe restore some trust in the system and the people running it that this thread, just like every other "why no one play game?" thread at some point or another, has shown to be a depleted commodity.

But, eh, just an idea.

[Master Color]

Only if their staff avatar gets bound at the tickler and players are allowed to throw fruit from a nearby vendor at them.

[Brokkr]

I have run this by another Producer, and they have agreed that I can post it here.

I still think about my noble being murdered, for refusing to have sex with the NPC. Staff married her to him as a punishment for not wanting to participate in a plot.

This keeps getting referenced.

or allow a staff member to force a character to have sex with an NPC

Reading how this event is being quoted by others, my interpretation at least is that it reads like:  Staff wanted to RP out a sexual scene with a player, and when that didn't happen, they killed the PC with NPCs.

So perhaps it is a good case study. 

Of active Staff, I am the only one that was involved, and likely the only one that has any idea, from a Staff perspective, of what Is Friday is talking about. If something is still bothering a player after this long, whether they play or not, we often have a limited ability to address it simply because we have limited or no knowledge of it. Or the in-depth knowledge is limited to a single Staff member, which can also be problematic.

The situation in question came about from a plot I developed and ran as a brand new Storyteller.  We pit two PC nobles against each other.  One would win and get married up, and one would lose and get married down. This was a learning experience for me, which I have tried to percolate to other Staff since then, in terms of being very careful with Marriage plots and trying not to box players in with them, surprise them with them, and do a lot of communication with the player on them if you can. This sort of experiential learning on the Staff side isn't transparent to players involved in the situations that give rise to it, but can absolutely change our interactions as Staff.

I wrote up the NPC, but never actually animated it. As far as I know, there was never a demand for a sexual scene, and if there was I profusely apologize. The Staff member that did animate talked with me about this beforehand, and they indicated to me at that point they had no intention of that at all. That said, this is where it gets complicated.

The marriage contract stipulated that there would be children. Unfortunately, I did not have much experience Staffing at that point, a few months at most, so I thought surprising the Player IC'ly made sense, rather than working over what they were comfortable with beforehand. They expressed later that they were not comfortable with this, and I did not have the experience at the time to bring this up with the player beforehand.  Partly because as a player that had recently been made Staff, I would have had so little of a problem with it if done to me as a Player as to not even think to do something like this. I took from this series of events not only a lot more caution in how I approached marriage plots, but also a lesson in trying to see things not only through my Staff and my Player perspective, but trying to think through how other folks might view things as issues that I would not.

So, the player already felt violated about IC'ly having to bear children.  We made their husband unattractive, unambitious, unappealing and happy that he got a babe of a PC to score with. The NPC probably made insinuations about sex, creepy comments and other stuff IC for an ugly loser noble who just scored a babe to make, they were made to be un-likeable. The intent was not playing out some sexual scene. The intent was to try to make it so there was a clear path and appealing reasons for the PC to kill off the husband. This is where things get a bit foggy for me, as I can not remember if I witnessed them firsthand, but the PC basically engaged in some activity, I think as a protest in being made to bear children, which ultimately lead to their demise. I do not remember the exact details of the demise, but I know it was a PC that landed the killing blow, so this was not just NPCs involved.

There was a lot more around this whole plot and the outcome of it that did not deal with the sexual part referenced. It was complicated, from the plots to the player behaviors to the communications back and forth, and there was certainly friction already. The different viewpoints and expectations definitely contributed to this entire thing going as badly sideways as it did.  I was excited for the possible future of the character, where they could end up redeeming themselves IC'ly and the possibilities that presented, and the player was (my interpretation, but only after it all played out) extremely bummed out by all the bad stuff that had happened to their character, acted out IC, and their character story was cut short by the consequences of that.

None of this is meant to disparage Is Friday's experience. They had their viewpoint on the entire series of events and felt extremely negatively about it all (my interpretation). I apologize for contributing to causing them to feel that way. There were certainly a number of things about this plot we could have done better.

[HazelHomewrecker]

I don't think that.. voting people off of staff like it's Total Drama Island is really the uh.. really the way to go about fixing problems.

Why not? Are you on staff? Getting on staff wouldn't change, being on staff wouldn't change. It'd just introduce some accountability to an otherwise unaccountable system. Maybe restore some trust in the system and the people running it that this thread, just like every other "why no one play game?" thread at some point or another, has shown to be a depleted commodity.

But, eh, just an idea.

Because it could become a witch-hunt VERY easily. One staffer could do something 1 player doesn't like, then that player will get their personal clique involved, and then it'll snowball out of control. It's /not/ an inherently fair system, it /doesn't/ create accountability. What it does, is gives players the power to get rid of a staffer for not doing what they want. I'm not trying to argue or sound shitty, I'm just explaining why I disagree. I do, however, agree that there does need to be some way to hold staff directly accountable, this however isn't the way to do it.

[Dar]

Mansa has every tell tale traits of a staff alt.


Good roleplayer : check
Had a character that built a lot of new buildings: check
Has been around for long: check
Is active on forums with game enriching data and graph
Canadian: check

Mansa is more staff then some staff.


But anyway. Yes. There is a point.  Thing is staff and players are being differentiated here. And they really shouldnt be.

But some behaviours are definitely corruptive.

Staff does tend to circle the wagons and protect each other. Which removes their humanity and makes them cogs in a system.  One responsible for faults of all other.

They think communal front makes them appear to have greater authority, wisdom, and agency. Which they think is useful in resisting the Karens amongst us. And maybe it is. But the price they pay for this is not worth it.