Let's talk about karma

[wizturbo]

I haven't read this entire thread, so apologies if I'm repeating a point someone else may have already made, but from my perspective Karma should have three main goals:

• Promote good roleplay
• Promote being a trustworthy player with the use of powerful characters
• Promote being a good member of the community (or at least not a bad one)

With these goals in mind, I believe the following things:

1.  Having more levels of Karma is beneficial, as it's more reactive and doesn't 'cap out' quickly.
2.  Karma levels should be largely based on in-game behavior, but repeated bad behavior on the GDB, Discord or other channels should absolutely count against someone.  There should be a consequence for being an asshole in this community, even if your character is anonymous whenever you make one.
3.  Karma for roleplay should grantable by other players, not just staff.

Two major reasons for using primarily players to determine Karma increases.  1)  Encourages consistency, no matter who is around you, because everyone can reward you.  2)  Creates more frequent positive feedback loops for good play.

With that said, here's my proposed structure for a system:

https://yourimageshare.com/ib/Ee4GOmGunF (my picture won't work for some reason?)

Core concept is there are 4 trust tiers that are controlled solely by staff.  These trust tiers determine the maximum Karma potential for an account, and will only be up for review periodically.  The first tier is very easy to get, the last tier is not.  Designed to allow staff to only act as the gate keepers infrequently, rather than requiring constant intervention and maintenance.  They set the limits, rather than policing the system entirely.

How far up an account climbs within the potential is determined by players and staff (but mostly players).  How exactly we allow players to 'vote' or 'grant' Karma is a separate design discussion, but I kind of like the idea of having a slowly refreshing pool of fractional karma points available for players that they can grant to others in-game or via the request tool via Kudos.   Accumulate enough of these "points" (perhaps at an increasing level) and your account 'levels up' to the maximum set by your trust tier.  Players should easily be able to see how many Karma points they've accumulated, so they get a surge of warm fuzzies when they realize they've been granted some more points and are progressing towards the next level.

An account can only lose Karma levels (or points that build up to levels) only by staff intervention.  This can come as a result of player complaints, their own observations of bad roleplaying, or for severe cases by having a 'trust tier' lowered which would restrict the account to a new maximum Karma level.

[CirclelessBard]

I much prefer a subjective system to an automated system, for that reason.

Any proposed system that requires subjectivity on the part of staff is going to continue to fuel resentment and cries of favoritism. Put simply, players will continue to wonder why they get passed up for karma increases and special/sponsored roles while other players are getting those things if they don't personally see any good reason for it. And even an "automated" karma system is subjective because there will most likely be a mechanism to allow staff to reduce karma manually.

Additionally, neither a subjective system nor an automated karma system do what staff apparently want the karma system to do: accurately depict a player's standard of roleplaying. In fact, no karma system can do that, because the karma system has never been able to do that. It has mainly assigned scores to players on the basis of how often they ask for a karma increase, and their luck with attaining a wider variety of roles than other players (such as sponsored roles), regardless of what the criteria for karma increases ostensibly is.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I really have to reiterate that Armageddon is in the extreme minority of RP games that tier its players the way the karma system does. Almost every other RP game does just fine assigning roles to players on the basis of what they bring to the game's collaborative story and routine communication with the staff and other players to ensure the community is having fun. I sincerely do not see why the karma system is seen as necessary to keep and reform, or why a karma system is preferable to regular OOC check-ins with players and staff.

[mansa]

I haven't read this entire thread, so apologies if I'm repeating a point someone else may have already made, but from my perspective Karma should have three main goals:

• Promote good roleplay
• Promote being a trustworthy player with the use of powerful characters
• Promote being a good member of the community (or at least not a bad one)

With these goals in mind, I believe the following things:

1.  Having more levels of Karma is beneficial, as it's more reactive and doesn't 'cap out' quickly.
2.  Karma levels should be largely based on in-game behavior, but repeated bad behavior on the GDB, Discord or other channels should absolutely count against someone.  There should be a consequence for being an asshole in this community, even if your character is anonymous whenever you make one.
3.  Karma for roleplay should grantable by other players, not just staff.

Two major reasons for using primarily players to determine Karma increases.  1)  Encourages consistency, no matter who is around you, because everyone can reward you.  2)  Creates more frequent positive feedback loops for good play.

With that said, here's my proposed structure for a system:

https://yourimageshare.com/ib/Ee4GOmGunF (my picture won't work for some reason?)

Core concept is there are 4 trust tiers that are controlled solely by staff.  These trust tiers determine the maximum Karma potential for an account, and will only be up for review periodically.  The first tier is very easy to get, the last tier is not.  Designed to allow staff to only act as the gate keepers infrequently, rather than requiring constant intervention and maintenance.  They set the limits, rather than policing the system entirely.

How far up an account climbs within the potential is determined by players and staff (but mostly players).  How exactly we allow players to 'vote' or 'grant' Karma is a separate design discussion, but I kind of like the idea of having a slowly refreshing pool of fractional karma points available for players that they can grant to others in-game or via the request tool via Kudos.  Accumulate enough of these "points" (perhaps at an increasing level) and your account 'levels up' to the maximum set by your trust tier.  Players should easily be able to see how many Karma points they've accumulated, so they get a surge of warm fuzzies when they realize they've been granted some more points and are progressing towards the next level.

An account can only lose Karma levels (or points that build up to levels) only by staff intervention.  This can come as a result of player complaints, their own observations of bad roleplaying, or for severe cases by having a 'trust tier' lowered which would restrict the account to a new maximum Karma level.

I like the concept of separating "Tiers" and "Levels" so that you can do additional things.
a) "Punish" a level without actually dropping a tier.
b) Automatically distribute a level without affecting a tier (such as time-played on existing character / account)
c) Give people a perk for doing something good, and showing people "Yes, I hit this criteria, but I didn't quite hit other criteria, so when I request a review they have some additional information rather than just 'karma 1'"


It could look like this:

Karma Tier	Karma Juice	Criteria	Character Creation Perk
1	0	Time at 0 karma	Water / Stone / Fire Touched
	1	Trust	Desert Elf
			Wind / Shadow / Energy Touched
2	0	Time at 1 karma	Thryzn
	1	Trust	Water Healer / Creation
			Ruk Creation / Protector
			Whira Illusion
			Suk-Krath Guile
	2	Criteria 2	Half-Giant
			Water Corruption
			Ruk Empowering
			Elkros Vigor
3	0	Time at 2 karma	Whira Travel / Tempest
			Suk-Krath Agony
			Drov Stalker
			Elkros Havoc
			Nilaz Anathema
	1	Trust	Mul
			Suk-Krath Devastation
			Drov Dancer
			Nilaz Void
	2	Criteria 2	Mindbender
			Sorcerer

Now, why not just make it single bracket ladder, instead of splitting it into 2 categories?  Because some of the perks of character creation should be based on the time played within the game, and some should be based on how well the player understands the world, and understands the expectations of playing with other players in the world.

The partial earning of karma criteria should give some perks, even if you haven't hit everything in the list.

All of the examples above are just an suggestion of how we can split it up.

[Brokkr]

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I really have to reiterate that Armageddon is in the extreme minority of RP games that tier its players the way the karma system does.

Which games are you thinking of, specifically?  Which of those have the core attributes similar to Armageddon: code-determined conflict (so no MUSHES) with asymmetric class balance? I haven't played any other games in this genre in awhile, so quite likely some are out there I am not aware of.

[CirclelessBard]

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I really have to reiterate that Armageddon is in the extreme minority of RP games that tier its players the way the karma system does.

Which games are you thinking of, specifically?  Which of those have the core attributes similar to Armageddon: code-determined conflict (so no MUSHES) with asymmetric class balance? I haven't played any other games in this genre in awhile, so quite likely some are out there I am not aware of.

Silent Heaven and Sundering Shadows are two games self-applying the RPI label (well, Silent Heaven calls itself "RPI-lite") that immediately come to mind as being closest to Armageddon when it comes to character vs. character conflict. They are both relatively new games in the MUD space and very successful given their age.

I would offer that MUSHes should not really be struck out from this conversation, since characters can very much be asymmetrical in terms of skill level and social power in pretty much any MUSH, even if the rolls are sometimes being done manually. Conflict still does happen between characters in a non-pre-determined way. The only difference between many MUSHes and Armageddon is that MUSHes are more TTRPG-like. But the most code-reliant MUSH/MUD Hybrid is probably Arx, which lets you apply for a wide variety of social/coded power roles by simply sending a message to the staff about what you intend to do with the character and how you think it will add to the game, and is the primary example I was thinking of when I described that process in earlier posts.

Even though these games are not 100% similar to Armageddon, they do still rely on high-quality roleplaying and trust between players and staff. Although the first two games are still relatively new (about a year old or so), all three of the examples have it figured out without assigning scores to players, choosing an open line of communication instead.

I'm happy to provide further guidance on the current state of the MU* space privately, as I don't want to come off as if I am advertising other games here.

[Riev]

For those pushing a "time played" metric:

Is this time actually in game, promoting AFK characters?
Is this time since account was created, promoting no need to actually play the game?
Is this time as an active member of the communitY

[dumbstruck]

For those pushing a "time played" metric:

Is this time actually in game, promoting AFK characters?
Is this time since account was created, promoting no need to actually play the game?
Is this time as an active member of the communitY

People are going to log in and be afk when they're afk, whether or not there is karma in the mix. Apparently this is a known thing with leader pcs in 'safe' rooms that I have heard mention of on the gdb in the past few years by staff members more than once. I don't think that currently having karma requests tied to account creation dates promotes people to not actually need to play the game, do you, @Riev ? Because that's how requesting new karma without it being handled automatically is done anyhow, it's still tied to account creation dates.


Edited :  Let us try not to call people stupid please. - Kestria.

[tiny rainbow]

I remember looking into Arx when someone came here advertising it like a year ago or so, I think best I can say without trashing it is it seemed sort of very generic fantasy stuff and not really up to the same standard that you get from reading stuff like the staff story posts tend to be here - I would say that's inevitable with fewer checks and balances and frictionless apps like suggested, it's a case of be careful what you wish for really? Obviously some don't mind and will stay there, but from what I've seen with RP most people just tend to self-select and not complain or make a fuss, they just move on to a different place when they see the crowd seems a bit cringe, kind of like a club. If staff don't do much selection, "footfall" does instead

[Riev]

I don't think that currently having karma requests tied to account creation dates promotes people to not actually need to play the game, do you, @Riev ? Because that's how requesting new karma without it being handled automatically is done anyhow, it's still tied to account creation dates.

Problem is, we can't actually answer that, because we don't know how many players put a couple months in, want to play a 1-karma role but didn't get noticed, and just AFK.

We also don't have it directly tied... so could I just make an alt game account, create a character ... and not touch it for a couple months and have an account with karma?

There is no perfect system, but its all coming back to "what is karma". If its just playtime, how do you even measure that in an objective, mechanical manner?

[dumbstruck]

I don't think that currently having karma requests tied to account creation dates promotes people to not actually need to play the game, do you, @Riev ? Because that's how requesting new karma without it being handled automatically is done anyhow, it's still tied to account creation dates.

Problem is, we can't actually answer that, because we don't know how many players put a couple months in, want to play a 1-karma role but didn't get noticed, and just AFK.

We also don't have it directly tied... so could I just make an alt game account, create a character ... and not touch it for a couple months and have an account with karma?

There is no perfect system, but its all coming back to "what is karma". If its just playtime, how do you even measure that in an objective, mechanical manner?

Karma requests has been tied to karma reviews historically before they were split up and were limited to 2/year, and a 6 month limit by that if you wanted not to glom them up together, since I've been playing. Which means, after a fashion, karma requests have been tied to time since the account was made for 15 years or more. Are you arguing that it shouldn't be? If not, what should it be tied to instead? I'm merely arguing that it should be automated unless someone fucks up at which point basically your account gets flagged /stop giving this asshole more karma for now (if it's a scale, I think it should be a simple this person is trusted and gets to play restricted roles, vs this person is not, no scale, because the scale I think is a big part of the problem, and no matter how you do the scale, people are going to have a problem, and the people who are playing higher things on the scale when they make antagonistic moves are going to garner endless complaints to the staff about what they did, whereas if it's just a 'well, you're not a newbie, you can play stuff if you're showing you're doing reasonable stuff with it, do stuff', there's gonna be less envious people trying to tear others down about the moves they make aka haters but more than that, if you show that you're not trusted, you literally just get a switch flipped off which is much easier to get flipped back on again than a whole ass ladder to climb, but again that's just me)

[mansa]

For those pushing a "time played" metric:

Is this time actually in game, promoting AFK characters?
Is this time since account was created, promoting no need to actually play the game?
Is this time as an active member of the community

I have been pushing for a "time played" metric, because it is something that can be automated, and it is something that doesn't need to be "tracked" by staff - it is there to help the players who haven't caught the attention of staff members but are still active players.

The problem that a "time played" metric is solving is for those players who feel they have been left behind because they either play in a non-active timezone or their characters aren't popular characters.

::edit::

To answer the question from Riev,
It doesn't matter how it is calculated - you can design the perk so that it gives you something that isn't "game breakingly powerful".
From my example above:
* The first perk is getting 3 Touched Elemental subclasses
* The second perk is getting the Thryzn race.
* The third perk is additional magicker subclasses.

[digitaleak]

I really like the idea of staff trust tiers and co-player karma levels. This seems like a really good solution to touch on most of the needs.

1.) Less maintenance for staff, yet still providing some security
2.) More autonomy and influence for players
3.) The ability to clearly label what is needed to achieve trust tiers and karma levels.
4.) The ability to integrate a time-based system that works alongside/supports the human aspect.

I also really like the additions @mansa suggested for doing a command similar to 'bug' in order to "tag" someone you notice doing well.


(edited to fix some typos)

[strangerdanger]

I also really like the additions @mansa suggested for doing a command similar to 'bug' in order to "tag" someone you notice doing well.

I mentioned something like this on discord recently. I like the idea of being able to 'kudos' people on the spot in some way. There's the downside of needing to be able to target their keyword, but it's a hell of a lot better than not being able to do it.

[Tuannon]

Tagging with a string argument.. Like..

tag bedraggled_elf Really good sewer encounter ending in me being lightened of some coins for 'toll'.

If that is what you mean, I like it. It means a bit more staff footwork but it's more relevant and organic than

'Tuannon has spent 300 hours afk because his noble lives in a complete other timezone and Tuannon is too dumb to calculate differences.'

[Brokkr]

There is no perfect system, but its all coming back to "what is karma". If its just playtime, how do you even measure that in an objective, mechanical manner?

Time spent in a room with another PC, where both are active (measured by both characters doing some form of communication command in 5 minute increments, exact repeats of last X commands ignored)?

[Usiku]

I'm not convinced any other game is comparable. I'm confident that no other RPI Mud has staff who are acting as guardians to a three decade long legacy and world created by the combined efforts of probably hundreds, if not thousands, of players and staff. We are slow, cautious, careful and protective because what we have is special and it's important, not just to us, but to every contributor who has passed through.

I also doubt that other communities have the same ratio of staff to players that we have and the same level of hands on support where a player's actions can potentially result in tons of backstage staff hours being spent on building or changing the world.

Karma is the system that we have here and it's one we are pretty comfortable with. We think it needs work to be in a better place, we also want it to come with much more structured and transparent criteria so that it's super obvious to players and staff what needs to be demonstrated. The objective is to minimise reliance on subjective staff opinions while still enabling the review of role-play, adherence to documentation and other aspects that are challenging to define and cannot be automated.

While Brokkr's definition is good, and it certainly captures the core of why we need karma in our day to day, there are other aspects to it too. So, 'karma is a way for Staff to not have to individually remember all the players.  It is a number that is shorthand for the institutional knowledge Staff have about a player.'

In that sense, it is very much a measure of trust but also knowledge and experience. It's not, "Do we trust this player not be an asshole." but, "Can we trust this player with a Southern noble because we know that they understand the culture, social stigma related to various races, how to treat gemmed etc."

I would also like it to be a way to guide people through learning our game in a somewhat structured way because the learning curve can be intimidating. And also a way to outline the level of RP we would ideally like to see, at least in sponsored roles and those that serve as influences to other players, and encourage maintenance of that level. Not that you always need to bring your A game, but knowing how to and when you ought to

Simply providing the docs and hoping that all players will avidly consume them is not enough. I know this because we still get apps for bearded, mining dwarves and Tolkien elves. We still have half-elves who act like humans with slightly pointy ears (and are treated well, cared for and cuddled). I know this because we've had higher karma players try to spec app muls with no acknowledgement of bondmates. We also have a lot of thematic docs that are hard to adhere to, because they go against our nature as players. Karma allows us to check that a player has studied up on a particular field of play and essentially conquered it.

Briefly I will address the idea of player to player awarding. This is something that we have discussed in detail, because on paper it has merit. However, the main concern here is that, like it or not, we do have cliques of players and then we have players who stay away from those cliques and I'm not sure how we would make sure that players acknowledged and recognised all players and didn't just focus on their circles. There is also not knowing whether a player would be awarding because they liked and agreed with a particular angle of play or because the play actually adhered to our criteria and documentation. I did think about a concept where players could give other players their own karma (e.g. they would lose it) because it would have a lot of meaning behind it, but ultimately it diluted the purpose, definition and structure of karma.

The other theme that has come up here that we have discussed is the balance of staff involvement across awarding and removing karma. For example.. karma goes up over time and staff just remove it for 'poor' play. That is not something we would want to implement, it puts such a pressure on staff to only be having these negative interactions with players when all staff honestly just want to be having positive interactions. That would be such an unfair system to ask our staff to carry out. I also floated the idea of the reverse at one point, where we would award points (quite liberally) but they would tick down over time and players would need to keep earning them. That concept did seem like it would be a bit too demanding on staff time and attention though, and the liberal application of karma would probably mean more subjectivity would slip through.

And by the by, we are very aware of new players and we work very hard to make sure they don't slip through the net. There are a few particular staff members who also strive to champion new players and lower karma players. I think across the breadth of staff.. every player is on someone's radar pretty much.

This has turned into something of a ramble. We are working on trying to put together a concept. At this point we are not looking to reinvent the wheel or to scrap the wheel altogether. I think if we try something new and then, given enough time to see how it plays out, it still doesn't function the way we envision it will.. at that point we might be ready for something more radical? Be it a new system or even letting go of our ideals a bit in terms of the RP standards. Who knows.

[CirclelessBard]

I'm not convinced any other game is comparable. I'm confident that no other RPI Mud has staff who are acting as guardians to a three decade long legacy and world created by the combined efforts of probably hundreds, if not thousands, of players and staff. We are slow, cautious, careful and protective because what we have is special and it's important, not just to us, but to every contributor who has passed through.

The fact that other games don't have long legacies should not discount them from being compared to Armageddon. If anything, it should further invite comparison. The newer games were not made in a vacuum; almost all of these games are run by people who know of Armageddon, or have even played it in the past. They know that Armageddon is a special game. They know that it has a long history. Many of them have been inspired by the exceptional nature of Armageddon to make their own game. They also know that Armageddon's history is dotted with flaws and mistakes that people who run modern RPIs would prefer to avoid, and the karma system with all of its flaws is clearly one of those mistakes.

That being said, I have the wherewithal to realize when I'm about to beat a dead horse. It is clear that the producers are looking for ways to change the system in minor ways, and I sincerely hope the staff and players all get what they want out of the next iteration of the karma system, whatever it ends up looking like.

[dumbstruck]

Well, good thing you asked for our input before you did whatever, regardless of what the input actually came out to be. That'll surely soften the blow. And good thing @Hestia didn't let the cat out of the bag after leaving staff but before now on discord (result 3 when you search 5 karma in discord, even with a date! September 7th! Watch for it kiddos!) already about how there was a plan to change the karma scale from 3-5 weeks before this came up. I'm sure these two things are unrelated.

[Usiku]

Context is important. That was Hestia's reaction to the posting of the roadmap it looks like? She hasn't been on staff since March-ish and conversations around karma only very recently started (much later than that comment). Ex-staff are not involved in these conversations and they are not being given any kind of special, early insight. I'm not really sure what she meant by it, but 5 karma specifically isn't something that we have looked at. There was no cat and no bag I'm afraid, nothing is finalised yet and we are taking feedback on board. We're just not going to do exactly what you want. I'm sorry if that doesn't support the narrative you are trying to spin. Your sarcasm isn't really conducive to this discussion.

[Halaster]

Well, good thing you asked for our input before you did whatever, regardless of what the input actually came out to be. That'll surely soften the blow. And good thing @Hestia didn't let the cat out of the bag after leaving staff but before now on discord (result 3 when you search 5 karma in discord, even with a date! September 7th! Watch for it kiddos!) already about how there was a plan to change the karma scale from 3-5 weeks before this came up. I'm sure these two things are unrelated.

Took a little digging to understand what you're even talking about.

"[6:57 PM]La Hesita: So we're changing the karma system from 3 to 5 karma points in 3 months! That'll be September 7. So excited. I'll have my request typed out in advance and just have my computer automatically hit the send button at midnight."

She posted that on June 7, that same day this thread came out:  https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,59492.0.html

Where we said in about 3 months we're going to do a karma system review.  Reading the context around her post in Discord it's pretty clear that was some kind of weird joke of hers.  I guess she just wants a 5 karma system and that's her way of joking how in 3 months form the date the post was made that she'd get what she wants? 

Let me be clear:  Hestia does not speak for staff, is not on staff, and has no idea what we're discussing in regards to karma beyond what's in this specific thread.

[Windstorm]

Whatever it takes to have inherently high powered roles have expectations for roleplay and standard-setting to match. Roles, races, classes, whatever, should be selected for the roleplaying angles and opportunities, not for the power fantasy of being able to kill easily. Killing PCs is fine. Killing PCs is a part of Armageddon. Killing PCs being entire objective of someone's play is not. Making a (max-karma option or special app'd role) just to kill PCs is doubly not - it both looks and feels bad on the game.

I'm not sure Karma is actually the easiest way for this to be accomplished either, but I don't really have a good suggestion besides what CirclelessBard wrote.

The game needs to kind of define what their ideal of play is. Some people don't even think emotes are necessary. I've enjoyed play quite a bit and sent kudos to people who emote and people who don't, but I'll always prefer when people do.

So what's the staff's ideal?

[Lizzie]

Well, good thing you asked for our input before you did whatever, regardless of what the input actually came out to be. That'll surely soften the blow. And good thing @Hestia didn't let the cat out of the bag after leaving staff but before now on discord (result 3 when you search 5 karma in discord, even with a date! September 7th! Watch for it kiddos!) already about how there was a plan to change the karma scale from 3-5 weeks before this came up. I'm sure these two things are unrelated.

So - I don't post as Hestia anymore but - uh - yeah that was a joke, a "wishful thinking" in direct response to the roadmap, which was posted almost three months after I left the staff.  Because I would love a 5-point karma system and they said they're going to revamp the karma system somewhere between 3-6 months from that roadmap post date.

Context is EVERYTHING folks.

[Halaster]

So what's the staff's ideal?

As varied as the playerbase's is 

We've got some specific ideas but we haven't settled on anything yet, so we want to hear from you all too, your specific ideas.  We're kinda leaning, based on opinions posted, towards more points than 3, but we don't wanna do something and find out 90% of players hate it.  Usiku and I mocked up a 10 point scale to see what it might look like, got feedback on it, but we're by no means settled on it yet.

Here's a totally opposite idea I was mulling over:

What if we removed karma, and then made all mages, muls, half-giants as specapp only.  There'd be a lot less of them in the game.  The huge downside to that is that each specapp would have to involve staff doing some kind of 'research' on the player to get an idea if we'd want/trust that person playing it.

Ultimately, as Brokkr pointed out, that's what karma is for.  A quick way to represent someone's past with the game.  I don't genuinely believe we'll get rid of karma, but that's a personal opinion.

I don't think karma is a perfect system, but I long ago gave up trying to find a 'perfect' system.  Whatever we do is going to have its pro's and con's.  I think it's an evolved system, and if we do expand it to more points, that's a yet-another evolution of it.

[najdorf]

There is no perfect system, but its all coming back to "what is karma". If its just playtime, how do you even measure that in an objective, mechanical manner?

Time spent in a room with another PC, where both are active (measured by both characters doing some form of communication command in 5 minute increments, exact repeats of last X commands ignored)?

This will work. Here is why. I would categorize players by 3 main criteria: knowledge, role-playing, and responsibility. Responsibility covers aspects such as not involving others, sticking to committed timelines, not abusing code, and avoiding OOC communication.

I'm going to simplify the possible situations here to identify player segments.

         Knowledge      Roleplaying      Responsibility
1        Low                Low                  Low
2        Low                High                 Low
3        Low                Low                  High
4        High               Low                  High
5        High               High                 Low
6        High               Low                  Low
7        High               High                 High

Time played is correlated with Knowledge (significantly) and RP (highly). Hence, as time leads to karma, responsibility will be gained as you keep rewarding people. The last part is where I occasionally disagree with the staff on the style of handling things. When someone causes trouble, what would work better? Punish them, leading them to quit the game because this is 2023 and people are too old to listen to negativity, especially on vague or subjective matters. Or, you could kindly show them a better solution, guiding them on how they can improve, with a pat on the back and acknowledging that you still love and respect them?

Let responsibility be the main driving factor for prioritization of restricted role calls. Make HG and muls restricted too, and let the time played determine the Karma points.

For instance,

         Knowledge      Roleplaying      Responsibility
1        Low                Low                  Low
2        Low                High                 Low
3        Low                Low                  High

These are people who are new to the game. They don't know anything and might not care much. They might RP or not, but they are just looking around. They might lack responsibility, approaching with a hack & slash mindset, because they aren't deeply invested. Time played will automatically increase their Knowledge, Role-playing, and even Responsibility.

Similarly, for

         Knowledge      Roleplaying      Responsibility
4        High               Low                  High

Allow these players to enjoy the game. If they're dedicating hours to it, why not reward them? Who are we to determine the RP standards? Baxxxx Kadius (disclosing name) was one of the most enjoyable players I've encountered. He crafted 5 chests in a minute without RP, but so what? When you punish that behavior, will the player's RP improve? The character might lack in emoting a simple craft, but he excelled in other areas, like reasonable political actions. Over time, as people play, their role-playing will likely improve too.

I think most of the player base is concerned about

         Knowledge      Roleplaying      Responsibility
5        High               High                 Low
6        High               Low                  Low

And again, restricting options for magickers will drive these players away from the game. What's the fear here? That they'll abuse the code and use their characters' powers for ill? They don't need karma for that. Anyone with some knowledge of the game can skill any mundane and wreak havoc, if they wish. Limiting their options will NOT help them. The critical fact we often overlook is that people change. A player once deemed irresponsible may outgrow those traits. But if they seek restricted roles or role calls, they'll be deprioritized unless they commit to improvement. Even so, this provides motivation for them to play better and remain in the game.

[CirclelessBard]

Here's a totally opposite idea I was mulling over:

What if we removed karma, and then made all mages, muls, half-giants as specapp only.  There'd be a lot less of them in the game.  The huge downside to that is that each specapp would have to involve staff doing some kind of 'research' on the player to get an idea if we'd want/trust that person playing it.

For what it's worth, this is essentially the idea I have been suggesting and endorsing in previous replies to this thread.

I don't think the downside is actually all that huge if instead of "researching" players, you use the application to discuss expectations for holding the role - both on the player side, of essentially providing a rough plan for the character (more than just a character background), and from the staff side, of what they think that type of role should add to the game. Ideally the "research" is just glancing at account and character notes for recent red flags. The real trust-building should happen in that conversation, sort of a handshake to make sure player and staff are on the same page before the player starts playing the role.

(Of course there can still be some restrictions, e.g. you probably have an idea of how many mages, muls, etc. you want in the game.)