Let's talk about karma

[dumbstruck]

I think it's funny that you took the 2 8 karma things and made them basically special role call or special app only and now with basically only able to app up to what used to be 7 karma roles now are kicking around a 10 karma system from a 3 karma system when just a few months ago the request time was changed to make it so you didn't have to wait 3 years to unlock the top apped stuff because you yourself thought it was ridiculous and unreasonable @Halaster as a time investment. What changed?

[Trevalyan]

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.

I agree with all of this, and would further remark that if someone doesn't take the time to read or make account notes, their opinion probably doesn't matter in assessing the suitability of a player for special roles. It might even be possible that people relying on karma to determine suitability is a major contributor to people playing special roles poorly.

[Usiku]

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?

To be perfectly candid, my concern isn't about driving these players away from the game. Rather, it's that their style is causing sections of our game to feel more H&S. The fear lies in these players becoming more pervasive, potentially deterring the type '7' players due to a decline in roleplay.

You also missed out:

8.      Low               High                  High

...which is a thing when we welcome exceptional new players, which we do. My hope is for these players to find what they are looking for and remain engaged. After all, there are alternative games available for those less inclined toward roleplay.

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.

This would mean every now-karma-restricted role would necessitate an application followed by a trust-establishing dialogue? One potential downside, if seen that way, might be the considerable demand on staff time. This could lead to a substantial limitation in the number of these roles.

Bear in mind, we have these comprehensive discussions with sponsored role applicants. Even then, despite hearing all the right things, the outcomes can sometimes be... unexpected.

These unexpected outcomes often lead to significant frustration within the playerbase that is then directed at staff for permitting players to assume, or enact, these roles.

It might even be possible that people relying on karma to determine suitability is a major contributor to people playing special roles poorly.

In most cases, karma serves as an automated gateway to all the karma-restricted roles. For sponsored roles, there's a thorough review of account notes, discussions among staff alongside the review of karma.

I think it's funny that you took the 2 8 karma things and made them basically special role call or special app only and now with basically only able to app up to what used to be 7 karma roles now are kicking around a 10 karma system from a 3 karma system when just a few months ago the request time was changed to make it so you didn't have to wait 3 years to unlock the top apped stuff because you yourself thought it was ridiculous and unreasonable @Halaster as a time investment. What changed?

The ten-karma system we've been exploring could be achievable within 12-18 months, possibly even quicker. The goal is to improve the pace of the process with smaller, incremental adjustments. We'll almost certainly share the final version after we've made necessary changes based on the insights feedback received. (I say almost since there is always a small chance we just tregil out of the whole thing and nothing changes).

[dumbstruck]

Thank you @Usiku for the response, because honestly, I don't even have a wide array of different types of karma things I'm interested in. I'm heavy explorer. I like illusion wind magick, and I was seeing it just on the cusp of being something I could ask for the karma to not have to special app for every time and seeing things turning into god knows what again... not super enthusiastic about it. I also like vivs of all sort for their rp and convenience angles, but for the most part, those are really the only magickers I even care about access to. But... I do care deeply about that.

[CirclelessBard]

This would mean every now-karma-restricted role would necessitate an application followed by a trust-establishing dialogue? One potential downside, if seen that way, might be the considerable demand on staff time. This could lead to a substantial limitation in the number of these roles.

Bear in mind, we have these comprehensive discussions with sponsored role applicants. Even then, despite hearing all the right things, the outcomes can sometimes be... unexpected.

These unexpected outcomes often lead to significant frustration within the playerbase that is then directed at staff for permitting players to assume, or enact, these roles.

If the goal is to maintain a high standard of roleplay, staff will face a considerable workload regardless if they approach it with a karma system or the "discussion" system. With the "discussion" system, the workload is front-loaded. If you get buy-in from a player to roleplay in a way that is more conducive to a collaborative storytelling environment, they are far more likely to actually do so.

With karma, the workload is back-loaded. Yes, it is simple to just add a point to a player's account. Now that the player is entitled to a new role, but with no guidance on maintaining a high standard of roleplay from staff and no need to assure staff that they will play collaboratively, staff workload will increase in managing the player post-character approval as the player proceeds to do whatever they want, even behavior that isn't considered a high standard of roleplay.

With the "discussion" system, the problem of increased staff workload is self-resolving. If you give me a sorcerer on the condition that I do not use them to kill every PC in Allanak, and I go ahead and use them to kill every PC in Allanak, you will add a character note to my account stating that I went back on my word. Now, the next time I try to apply for a sorcerer, or any powerful role, you can point at that time you gave me a sorcerer and I went back on my word. I will have to answer for that in a sufficient way to get your trust again.

On the other hand, if I play that sorcerer impeccably, that's also to my advantage in future discussions because I have already proven that I can play a sorcerer responsibly. There is no need to get into an in-depth discussion on trust the next time I apply for a sorcerer or a similarly powerful role.

With the karma system, the problem of increased staff workload is ever-present. You will routinely get karma increase requests, player complaints where a player's karma level must be reviewed, or be in a position to decide if someone's play with a sponsored role was sufficiently high-quality to deserve a karma increase when they decide it's time to retire their character.

At the end of the day, the most important thing for roleplaying quality is not whether a karma system is used or not, how many points are on the scale, or how long it takes to reach maximum - but whether staff are sufficiently setting expectations for roles, and applying a process properly depending on how well those expectations are met. However, for workload, I think the choice is clear.

[Trevalyan]

This would mean every now-karma-restricted role would necessitate an application followed by a trust-establishing dialogue? One potential downside, if seen that way, might be the considerable demand on staff time. This could lead to a substantial limitation in the number of these roles.

It might even be possible that people relying on karma to determine suitability is a major contributor to people playing special roles poorly.

In most cases, karma serves as an automated gateway to all the karma-restricted roles. For sponsored roles, there's a thorough review of account notes, discussions among staff alongside the review of karma.

I like the way you address the issues, Usiku, and I particularly like the fact you're thinking about how the system will work for new players. I don't necessarily think the game should relax RP standards, and I can even see how you'd want those standards become stricter for higher-level concepts, but I do think that without new players all games eventually wither. I wish you luck for changing the karma system, but I honestly think doc updates, transparent information easily accessible to new players, and increased levels of scrutiny by Storyteller-level staff might help tighten up deficiencies in RP as well.

[Jimpka_Moss]

I used the way people emoted and spoke in arm to teach myself how to verbalize and socialize better with other people in real life.

I also used it to determine a system of afterlife I thought was fair and right so I could just stop thinking about it altogether and get on with daily life. It was crippling until I did that. I used what I had /originally/ expected the ArmageddonMUD karma system to be, when it was 8points, and shrouded in mystery to me.


Since it was 'Role Playing Game', I assumed that you would pick one of those options available to you:


A)Human     D)
B)Half-Elf  E)
C)Dwarf     E)Elf (City)

And then pick a city, yatta yatta yatta,

play that role, then die.

Then once you died, you'd make a new char and staff would be reviewing your old one and assigning your 'karma', only I had mixed up notions and thought in my young mind it would go something like 'Killed 50 chalton, hunted a lot, interacted with Oash, might be interested in Oashi hunting plots'. I think my first set of account notes I got to review was a list of every mistake I ever made and it was crippling. Nothing I was proud of got noticed, I assumed.

It was later I developed the afterlife ideas, that's only partially relevant, that's what I'll share.




So, this is a role playing game, you want to reduce staff workload, increase RP, change the karma system, and generally boost player confidence and positive interaction with said karma system. I'd like to propose we try a karma system wildly different.

Open every option up, in every area.

Play the role, expect everyone to be prolific with kudos and complaints (because we've stated we need this in this era because we just opened up every single role), and we a char dies, they can continue playing /other/ roles. Whatever they may be. To play a role /again/, or to play a higher or stronger /version/ of that role, it must be reviewed how well they did on the last one. Higher version you say? Everything's already been tiered up already, from magick, to races with high strength, to political powers, correct? Well, play the lowest tier without complaint and move up to the next, play that tier with any kudos and move up to the next, receive complaints, receive reviews. Receive kudos, receive reviews. It becomes on us to move the needles of others' power up and down, staff merely responds.


Chatgpt3, clarify this for delivery to a beloved audience. Make it seem it seem like I'm a sane person.

[Usiku]

I'm not sure that there is a goal to reduce the staff workload from where it is now specifically. We're managing pretty well. Rather, reassign some of that workload. As it stands, the bulk of the time required for karma reviewing (of any system) involves STs (and Admins) spending time monitoring their clan players, reading their reports, interacting with them and animating for them. These are the activities that allow them to witness and review the roleplay and behaviour of the players they work with. These are the activities we want STs to be doing anyway.

So technically, a karma review or spontaneous karma award should not be something that requires a heavy, additional time investment at all. What we do want to do is free up ST (and a bit of Admin) time and energy from doing other things so that they have the time to spend interacting with their players more. Ultimately how we manage staff time is on us and there are many moving parts to it that are likely impossible to really have a good understanding of unless you are on staff and actively dealing with it, with that in mind it is probably not worth including how we manage our time as part of the feedback from a player perspective. I don't mean to be dismissive with that, just 'staff time' is such an indeterminate and fluctuating thing.

Then once you died, you'd make a new char and staff would be reviewing your old one and assigning your 'karma', only I had mixed up notions and thought in my young mind it would go something like 'Killed 50 chalton, hunted a lot, interacted with Oash, might be interested in Oashi hunting plots'. I think my first set of account notes I got to review was a list of every mistake I ever made and it was crippling. Nothing I was proud of got noticed, I assumed.

This makes me sad and I'm sorry that was your experience. If I'm honest, it was pretty much mine too. It's hard but that is something we are actively trying to work on. It's not that we don't notice the awesome things players do, it's just that we have a lot of documentation and recording that we do generally, and pinfos can be hard to remember. They do happen, they are happening more frequently and it is my hope that we can improve more on that. It's a bit off topic, but just wanted to address it!

[GreenTransient]

I'm not sure that there is a goal to reduce the staff workload from where it is now specifically. anyway.

Another part of that issue is that we spend an awful lot of time on player complaints or 'coaching' of players when they do things that don't conform to the standards that our community expect.

No idea where we might of gotten the idea part of the point was reducing the staff workload.

Is this going to be a situation where this is being done to "improve rp" but negative account notes will still be added in secret, without any kind of player defense, and only discovered on the off chance you put in a request for your own account notes.  Or will there be interaction between players and staff where the player is not only informed what it is they did wrong, but informed how it is they should be expected to perform in the future?  Or are we sticking with the Armageddon traditional learning style, the subtle art of "fuck around and find out"?

What is the standard of RP in Armageddon, other than mandatory?  Can anyone tell me?  In what way, is the player base not meeting documented requirements?  Or are we just, being told we aren't good enough as a default with no genuine basis of comparison other than romanticized memories of the past?  If the RP is so bad, that Karma has to be overhauled, surely there must be some kind of proof?

[Tuannon]

While I'd think that there should be a quantified process for giving points for 'good' and 'bad' RP, the game isn't a democracy and in the end I cannot think of any MU* that is. I think the best point is somewhere in the middle of as draconian as you seem to be implying and anarchy.

[CirclelessBard]

Ultimately how we manage staff time is on us and there are many moving parts to it that are likely impossible to really have a good understanding of unless you are on staff and actively dealing with it, with that in mind it is probably not worth including how we manage our time as part of the feedback from a player perspective. I don't mean to be dismissive with that, just 'staff time' is such an indeterminate and fluctuating thing.

This is just food for thought, but it's difficult to provide meaningful feedback on staff proposals when staff emphasize their own workload being an issue, player feedback tries to take staff workload in mind, and then staff turn around and state that staff workload is not really an issue players can be concerned about. A lot of my prior feedback is based on your earlier statement that staff spend a lot of time in the position of being corrective about players' roleplay, and I agree with you that the ideal system minimizes the amount of time staff are doing administrative stuff, and maximizes the time staff are actually having fun and helping other players have fun. We just obviously disagree on which system is going to do that.

If the standard of roleplay is declining and staff see poor roleplay quality as an issue with the game, then disagreement over that system is meaningless. Whether a max karma player has 3 karma, 8 karma or 10 karma means nothing if that player does not try to meet a high standard of roleplay. What the discussion really needs to be about is what the standard of high-quality RP should be and how that should be communicated to players - to the extent that such a standard can even be set objectively.

[Riev]

As is my salt-lord status, I do have to pile on to the "too much work", "a lot of time spent on" and "effort put in" as phrases we did not just hear historically, but are in this same thread.

Staff is a thankless position. You'll never see me apply because I wouldn't want to deal with a player like myself, nevermind the three that are probably worse.

However, you cannot both espouse "it is a lot of work that we spend on this game" and also say "Its not about the workload". It seems some players want to think about how much time staff have, and how they can more efficiently use the time they dedicate to staffing to supporting players rather than playing the paperwork mini-game.

How can we help you, so that our experiences are better or more positive when staff get involved with karma? How can we show you that our mul was angry and thats why they killed your new sponsored Byn Sergeant and not a result of "ha ha byn sux"?

[Lizzie]

Reading the past few ideas, especially Jimpka_Moss, clicked something in my head. Idea:

A new staff echo that triggers to all clan staff and all unaffiliated staff (new trains not yet assigned) at a certain time a character in that clan logs in. Cannot be toggled off.  It is triggered by 30 days with no "karma check." Something like:

>Jimbob has entered the game. Karmacheck due.

And SOMEONE on staff needs to check off that karmacheck. Either with an actual karma pinfo comment, awarding/removing a point, or a "karma has been checked" notation.  It would need to be someone overseeing their clan, OR an unassigned staffer (because they should be checking all players at some point or another, it's part of the training process).

A karma check result could be:
pinfo jimbob kudos received
pinfo jimbob kRP amazing thinks when stressed
pinfo jimbob kmagick spam-casts for hours in temple
pinfo jimbob kgeneral monthly check complete
pinfo jimbob kcomm argumentative in discord re: magick system

Any comment that would help admin see that staff ARE looking at the players, and ARE noticing when the player does something terrific or not so terrific, or understands/doesn't understand a concept.

Once every month. If a staffer has already commented, then the month timer begins anew. Every time a staffer adds a comment, that timer starts over. In this way, no player is overlooked by mistake. No one falls under the radar.

If a player doesn't log in for more than a month, then the next time they DO log in, the staff message would be:
Jimbob has entered the game, first time since 1Jan2020.

And that will let admin know that THEY might also want to take a look.

[Classclown]

Let everyone play anything, if there aren't too many ig. If someone is bad at it, and I'm talking abusing the system, ignoring the gameworld or docs, etc...,  then don't let them play that role again until they've demonstrated an improvement in their gameplay on mundane characters. Having a tiered system will continue to foster resentment. Make all races playable, but like desert elves, make it so that you have to inquire about vacancies before rolling a mul, half-giant, etc.
 Maybe auto-email a "General characteristics of <race/magicker>." message when one of those races/magick users are chosen.

 This way everyone can have fun and you might find someone who would probably have less karma, but plays an awesome mul or half-giant.

[Kavrick]

Let everyone play anything, if there aren't too many ig. If someone is bad at it, and I'm talking abusing the system, ignoring the gameworld or docs, etc...,  then don't let them play that role again until they've demonstrated an improvement in their gameplay on mundane characters. Having a tiered system will continue to foster resentment. Make all races playable, but like desert elves, make it so that you have to inquire about vacancies before rolling a mul, half-giant, etc.
 Maybe auto-email a "General characteristics of <race/magicker>." message when one of those races/magick users are chosen.

 This way everyone can have fun and you might find someone who would probably have less karma, but plays an awesome mul or half-giant.

I agree with this. Punishing people who abuse a race/magical is far better than requiring a player to play for an entire year irl to play something like a normal mage without special apping it. It's also probably easier for staff to manage complaints on a role being misplayed than to authorize every single player to play one eventually.

[Windstorm]

I'd actually agree with the no karma, open the gates kind of thing, if population numbers were monitored and muls/sorcerers/psis were special app.

If there needed to be some level of division to separate truly new from knowledgable players, make it between 0 and 1, call it standard and advanced players.

[Lotion]

Should half giants be allowed to be magickers in the new system? I think we should remove them just so that people don't ever subject themselves to that again.

[kahuna]

Let everyone play anything, if there aren't too many ig. If someone is bad at it, and I'm talking abusing the system, ignoring the gameworld or docs, etc...,  then don't let them play that role again until they've demonstrated an improvement in their gameplay on mundane characters. Having a tiered system will continue to foster resentment. Make all races playable, but like desert elves, make it so that you have to inquire about vacancies before rolling a mul, half-giant, etc.
 Maybe auto-email a "General characteristics of <race/magicker>." message when one of those races/magick users are chosen.

 This way everyone can have fun and you might find someone who would probably have less karma, but plays an awesome mul or half-giant.

And here is your answer. Want to bring the game into the 21st century? Karma is an old, outdated concept that hinders arm far more than helping it.

[dumbstruck]

What all of these other players are saying. Make it a 0 or 1 thing. Are they so new they don't know, too abusive to be trusted? 0. Can they be trusted? 1. Jesus, just trust them, don't make it a scale. Then people won't tear each other down.

[mansa]

My disagreement with allowing the playerbase to play anything is that they will only play magickers.

So to prevent that, you would need to put harsh limits on the population of certain classes and subclasses.

I would say something like:
10% of the active playerbase can be a mul or half-giant
15% of the active playerbase can be vivaduan/rukkian/suk-krath/whiran
10% of the active playerbase can be drov/elkros/nilazi
20% of the active playerbase can be a desert elf / thryzn

And I would prevent players from playing a magicker character two times in a row.

[dumbstruck]

My disagreement with allowing the playerbase to play anything is that they will only play magickers.

So to prevent that, you would need to put harsh limits on the population of certain classes and subclasses.

I would say something like:
10% of the active playerbase can be a mul or half-giant
15% of the active playerbase can be vivaduan/rukkian/suk-krath/whiran
10% of the active playerbase can be drov/elkros/nilazi
20% of the active playerbase can be a desert elf / thryzn

And I would prevent players from playing a magicker character two times in a row.

People like playing magickers. Do you want people to play or? You can't make people play what they don't want to play. You can try but that's not going to make them do it. I said that on the IDB when they planned to instill the karma timer and sure as shit, a cool 25% of the playerbase are willing to admit when polled that they would rather just not play than play something they don't want to. How many more are just not admitting it? Come on, dude, it's a game. Ask Pathian about the numbers. The plots are high magick. The setting's backbone is magick. If people want to play magick, maybe just let them do it. I mean.

You can try and make an artificial limiter but look at the stats that you're gonna create on deaths, playtimes, storages, and so forths on that. You're not going to do what you think you're going to do. You're going to force the people who are in spirit of what you're doing to just drift when they play what they hate to conform to suit your tastes, and twinkish asshats to game the system to whatever degree they can fall through cracks or are allowed to, or are we going to say that it's gated on playtimes, like 20 days played as a mundane, what do you want, how badly do you want to micromanage people's pretendytimes my guy?

[JohnMichaelHenry]

I'm for opening everything up to everyone, (except for muls and sorcerers, which imho should be spec app only) and only taking away the option of something is roleplayed poorly, in which case the player should be informed immediately how they performed poorly and why, in an open discussion with the identified staff member.

Even with enough karma to play magickers, I rarely play them. I enjoy mundane roles and I doubt I am the only one.

[BadSkeelz]

If everything (barring muls and sorcerers, and I would add psions and half-giants) is made open-play with only "bad roleplay" the check, I hope you're all prepared to aggressively monitor and snitch on each other via player complaint. Frankly I'm skeptical.

[dumbstruck]

If everything (barring muls and sorcerers, and I would add psions and half-giants) is made open-play with only "bad roleplay" the check, I hope you're all prepared to aggressively monitor and snitch on each other via player complaint. Frankly I'm skeptical.

Exploitative play and 'I dislike how this guy plays' are a bit different metrics.

[BadSkeelz]

Still require players to file requests, and people generally don't. I also think the player base's general standard of roleplay is low enough that it'll just further drive Armageddon into Mageageddon.

eta: Plus Staff have to be on board for reviewing and investigating these requests, and staff do not seem particularly keen on having to (re)actively monitor players.