Let's talk about karma

[wizturbo]

I think a karma system is absolutely essential for the success of the game long term.  Putting the wrong players behind the wheel of many of the Karma restricted options is a recipe for disaster.

[CirclelessBard]

Putting the wrong players behind the wheel of many of the Karma restricted options is a recipe for disaster.

In commenting on the decline in the quality of roleplay in the game, staff have essentially said that this is already happening.

[Usiku]

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.

This is my personal and candid opinion but I imagine many tenured staff likely share the sentiment: I don't want the bulk of my time and energy focused on negative interactions with players. Such interactions drain our morale. I can't support a system that forces staff into the role of the constant bad guy. The reality is, addressing player issues, whether it's a poorly role-played scenario or outright rule violations, always carries a risk. No matter our familiarity with the player or how tactfully we approach the conversation, there's always potential for things to escalate unexpectedly—be it due to a bad day, misconceptions or tone misinterpretations. Ideally, these types of conversations should be kept to a minimum - and we're certainly not aiming for them to be a central player-staff interaction.

[BadSkeelz]

I hear you. Personally I think we should all know who is playing who, and be able to cast votes to ban other players or at least retire their roles if a sufficient number of us get sick of them. Take some of the burden off staff and on to the community at large.

[Usiku]

That sounds pretty brutal too. I'd rather we just all got along. 

[dumbstruck]

That sounds pretty brutal too. I'd rather we just all got along. 

I mean, in many (most other games that are mushes, and many muds) other text based games it's done, and not really considered brutal even when your characters kill one another, even when it's nonconsent, even when it's permadeath. If it's a shitty death over and over again, a behavioral pattern appears, and people start to shun people and staff don't /need/ to prevent them from playing stuff, because people will just avoid them and they will leave, and then the abusive player is gone. They're not trying to get around ISPs, they just don't have an audience. Because when avoiding doesn't work, mob justice happens. It's only brutal if you're a shitbird essentially.

[BadSkeelz]

That sounds pretty brutal too. I'd rather we just all got along. 

Frankly impossible given the strict IC/OOC separation expected of the playerbase. I think Armageddon is a roleplay-at-your-own-risk hack-and-slash because that's the gameworld presented by some characters, and I have no means of checking that behavior other than to avoid them or PK them right back. Or vaguebook drag them on the GDB. Those are the only legitimate means of community regulation we have.

[Riev]

Hot take:

People wouldn't ONLY play magickers if mundanes had more than kick bash disarm and charge. Because mages have those, too.

Do I have a solution? Hell no.

[BadSkeelz]

Hot take:

People wouldn't ONLY play magickers if mundanes had more than kick bash disarm and charge. Because mages have those, too.

Do I have a solution? Hell no.

Full guild mages and restricted subguilds that don't have kick, bash, disarm, charge, or ride (animals sense magick and hate it).

[dumbstruck]

Hot take:

People wouldn't ONLY play magickers if mundanes had more than kick bash disarm and charge. Because mages have those, too.

Do I have a solution? Hell no.

Full guild mages and restricted subguilds that don't have kick, bash, disarm, charge, or ride (animals sense magick and hate it).

I'd be with this but only if you make every subguild mage eventually branch mount if they don't already so they can make magickal mounts that don't and give them ride to whatever old school mage guilds had ride at. I agree that giving them an unreasonable ride is unreasonable, but so is completely removing it. They're not elves for gods sake.

[Lotion]

A lot of mages don't have bash. The only mages that can have bash and wilderness quit are elkrosian touched. The only mages that can have bash and brew are vivaduan touched. A good mundane subguild gives so much utility to cover a main guild's weaknesses. People like to complain about the stalker guild giving mages too much, but it doesn't give them bash.

[wizturbo]

Putting the wrong players behind the wheel of many of the Karma restricted options is a recipe for disaster.

In commenting on the decline in the quality of roleplay in the game, staff have essentially said that this is already happening.

That's like saying climate change is already happening, why don't we remove all the environmental protection legislation because it doesn't matter anymore.

[Yelinak]

Start caring a litte more about who's actually good at roleplaying, and a little less about who's being a diligent fan of the game and fighting the good whiteknight fight. The latter seems to have been what it's all about for a very long time and it hasn't actually served the game very well.

[CirclelessBard]

Putting the wrong players behind the wheel of many of the Karma restricted options is a recipe for disaster.

In commenting on the decline in the quality of roleplay in the game, staff have essentially said that this is already happening.

That's like saying climate change is already happening, why don't we remove all the environmental protection legislation because it doesn't matter anymore.

No, it's not like saying that at all, because no one has suggested removing all regulation. Even those arguing that the karma system is unhelpful are still saying trust and player-staff dialogue are important.

[Riev]

Putting the wrong players behind the wheel of many of the Karma restricted options is a recipe for disaster.

In commenting on the decline in the quality of roleplay in the game, staff have essentially said that this is already happening.

That's like saying climate change is already happening, why don't we remove all the environmental protection legislation because it doesn't matter anymore.

No, it's not like saying that at all, because no one has suggested removing all regulation. Even those arguing that the karma system is unhelpful are still saying trust and player-staff dialogue are important.

You know I love you, but some in this thread ARE arguing for a full deregulation. Not everyone is suggesting your idea of frontloading the trust in a player's ability via a dialogue.

[dumbstruck]

I can't think of anyone that's thinking of fully doing away with anything either as much as a 'are they too new or prone to abuse to be trusted or are they trustworthy' at the absolute baseline, which is a binary over a scale, for sure, but even I, who I think am the most wanting to do away with stuff, know that some people are absolutely going to be abusive asses or are too new to get certain stuff right, and it needs some safeguard on that.

[digitaleak]

It seems we keep forgetting to touch on the RP standards we want to agree on as a community, so I'm gonna suggest some to get the ball rolling again.

1. Basic punctuation and grammar. (No shorthand or slang like "u" instead of "you")
2. Conservative usage of the OOC command.
3. Regular use of emotes in both action and speech when interacting with others or in the vicinity of other players.
4. Adherence to general documentation on the game's setting and culture.
5. No godmoding. (You can't force another pc to high five you, for example. But you can raise your own hand and set the high five up!)

For new players, bullets 3-5 will understandably need to be learned over time.

[CirclelessBard]

Putting the wrong players behind the wheel of many of the Karma restricted options is a recipe for disaster.

In commenting on the decline in the quality of roleplay in the game, staff have essentially said that this is already happening.

That's like saying climate change is already happening, why don't we remove all the environmental protection legislation because it doesn't matter anymore.

No, it's not like saying that at all, because no one has suggested removing all regulation. Even those arguing that the karma system is unhelpful are still saying trust and player-staff dialogue are important.

You know I love you, but some in this thread ARE arguing for a full deregulation. Not everyone is suggesting your idea of frontloading the trust in a player's ability via a dialogue.

I've read (well, listened to) this thread pretty thoroughly, but I admit I could be wrong with my generalization. The closest I've seen people come to saying "let everyone play everything" was also with the caveat of "staff should be telling people what they actually want from us". And while those messages seemed tinged with frustration (frustration which I think is understandable, considering how much of a divide has been created by needlessly stratifying players over the decades), I did not get the sense that they don't want any staff guidance at all. If that was not the case I apologize for misinterpreting.

[Tuannon]

It seems we keep forgetting to touch on the RP standards we want to agree on as a community, so I'm gonna suggest some to get the ball rolling again.


3. Regular use of emotes in both action and speech when interacting with others or in the vicinity of other players.

Some understanding of 'pacing' during a scene would be great too.

For new players, bullets 3-5 will understandably need to be learned over time.

[Classclown]

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.

I disagree with this. I have never played a magicker and probably never will. I am probably not the only one. It would be easy to implement a no back to back rule. You played this last char, so you can't play this on your next one. Instead of it being tiered, it can just be based on your personal account. No back to back muls, hgs, or magick users, etc.
Example:
Did you play a mul last character? - No.
Are there mul vacancies in the game? - Yes.
= Free to roll a mul.
If one of those is a no, you'd have to wait.
ETA: I would add a time limit of 30 days as well, to avoid people suiciding to get around it.

[Usiku]

A time limit of 30 days huh? Sounds a bit like... A karma timer.

[dumbstruck]

A time limit of 30 days huh? Sounds a bit like... A karma timer.

With a 0/1 on off binary though, which is a different context than the original one existed in.

I will note that I still don't agree with it and still believe it will drive a large portion of people to just sit out the time period (or sit there afk, or idle, or play in the most disengaged absolute minimum) where the role they desire to play is locked, if people try to force things, because there's evidence it has been the case historically and it was something that was predictable ahead of it then too.

But a couple days ago I had multiple people point out here to me that context was important, and I think it's important here, too. This is a different context, not a scaled ladder, just an on/off.

(back to my goblin hole)

[JohnMichaelHenry]

In order for me as a player to trust the awarding or reduction of karma to another PERSON, I would have to:

1) truly believe they are a better roleplayer than I am.
2) have complete trust that they are unbiased and will judge based on roleplay only. Not just of me but everyone, equally.

A difficult but not impossible task. Staff PC's should be the most awesome RP'ers, setting the example. Awarding OR reduction of karma should be completely transparent. WHO is doing the giving or taking and WHY it is happening.

[Classclown]

There can't be 40 magick users and 50 muls in the game at one time. If you can't play any other character, that's not the game's fault. If you've already played a mul last character, roll a different one when that one dies/stores. I don't see a big deal. The timer doesn't have to exist. Maybe if you suicide/store to get around the rules, that proves that you're not mature enough to play such a challenging role.

[wizturbo]

You know I love you, but some in this thread ARE arguing for a full deregulation. Not everyone is suggesting your idea of frontloading the trust in a player's ability via a dialogue.

This.

Also not a fan of front loading trust all the way, but I could see giving people the benefit of the doubt and offering some mid-tier karma options sooner if they're doing well.  That's why I like the player driven approach to granting karma with staff setting their maximum.  I'd be cool with new accounts starting with their max karma limit in the middle, so if the player base is regularly rewarding them for great play they could climb the karma ladder quickly.  Players like Papertiger who just started a few months ago would probably already have reached that level based on the quality of their play, if it was just players granting them karma and not entirely at the mercy of staff witnessing them.