Let's talk about karma

[BadSkeelz]

Plenty can argue we're already a hack-and-slash with a veneer of character roleplay atop it. Documentations and guidelines tend to go out the window when people's characters (representing hundreds of hours of their time) are on the line.

[wizturbo]

I think that's an eternal struggle that should probably be removed. If you remove karma you remove the unrealistic expectation for players to be held some arbitrary definition of a good player, or a good roleplayer. Removing karma should be coming with an understanding that if you don't like how another player is doing something, too bad.

It's exactly this mindset that makes Karma completely mandatory.  Without Karma it just becomes arbitrary on what "good" looks like.  With karma it's enforced and bad players aren't given the same options as good players.

[CirclelessBard]

What about karma makes good roleplay no longer arbitrary?

What is good roleplay?

Why are some max-karma players not good roleplayers?

[Classclown]

If you need Karma to force people to adhere to basic roleplaying standards, then we've already lost the point of the game. Roleplay should be the focus of the game and why we're here. There are plenty of hack and slash and video games where you can kill stuff. Coded skills are only there to enhance our roleplay. Live your character's lives without worrying about coded skill, except where your character might be worried about their training.

 I do understand days where you're not in the mood for rping, but there are ways to even do that that would still be good rp, rping your character being in a mood and needing to be alone, or whatever. If you close your eyes and imagine inhabiting your character's life, how they would feel, what smells they would smell, the sounds they'd hear, how they would walk down a busy street or through the bustling bazaar, it gets easier to roleplay them when around other pcs. There is a coded limit to emotes, so we're not expecting paragraphs here, just something true to your character.

  I am for no karma or maybe everyone starts at the highest karma and it goes down after every karma role used and then resets when you hit 0.

 I understand people have favorite builds, but I find it a little childish to say "Oh, I won't play for a month because of a timer." Mundane characters can be fun too. where you have to use your brain without the added coded bonuses. I don't know, this meandered a bit. My point is you shouldn't need karma to force you to play well and good rp should be common sense. Be in the world, be your character, acknowledge the npcs and vnpcs in your actions. Try to leave ooc thinking out of the game. It's hard for me sometimes too, but it improves the game immensely when everyone is playing together instead of fifty solo players.

[Master Color]

Except we are an RPI game with a huge wealth of documentation and play guidelines. We're absolutely not going to remove the expectation of adhering to a standard of play otherwise we might as well become a hack & slash and be done with it. Seems to me that would be a pretty big one for the 'con' list.

You've basically just solidified my feelings on the necessity of karma.

Speaking as a max karma player that has played some high power roles here. I havn't played in a few years though.

Armageddon is already a hack and slash that incentivizes abusive play styles and it always has been. Information sharing, griefing and skill chasing should be considered endemic. How about staff supported leader roles that seem more interested in tricking players into back room deaths than actually engage in interesting longform rp?

When I role played in Armageddon I did so IN SPITE of these incentive structures and often payed the price with a dead character. Similarly when I engaged other players in good faith and empathy I was routinely rewarded with a dead character. When I complained to staff and other players, I was basically just told I was doing it wrong.

In the face of these problems what does karma give me? A couple new subguilds to tinker with? A couple of combat races that are stupendously limited in how and where they can play? Unlikely access to a super magicker that takes 20+ days played to get anywhere?

For a player primarily interested in role play it might as well be nothing.

A far as documentation goes? I actually don't care. Racial documents are routinely glossed over and ignored, though I can't blame anyone with how little use most of them are.

City/Location/Tribe RP is mostly vibes based IMHO. It's cool to have in depth documentation for all of these but I bet you I could pick a desert elf clan, never read the clan specific documentation and come out just fine. Note that after 20 years, Redstorm still has basically no location specific documentation.

[Riev]

Except we are an RPI game with a huge wealth of documentation and play guidelines. We're absolutely not going to remove the expectation of adhering to a standard of play otherwise we might as well become a hack & slash and be done with it. Seems to me that would be a pretty big one for the 'con' list.

You've basically just solidified my feelings on the necessity of karma.

Speaking as a max karma player that has played some high power roles here. I havn't played in a few years though.

Armageddon is already a hack and slash that incentivizes abusive play styles and it always has been. Information sharing, griefing and skill chasing should be considered endemic. How about staff supported leader roles that seem more interested in tricking players into back room deaths than actually engage in interesting longform rp?

When I role played in Armageddon I did so IN SPITE of these incentive structures and often payed the price with a dead character. Similarly when I engaged other players in good faith and empathy I was routinely rewarded with a dead character. When I complained to staff and other players, I was basically just told I was doing it wrong.

In the face of these problems what does karma give me? A couple new subguilds to tinker with? A couple of combat races that are stupendously limited in how and where they can play? Unlikely access to a super magicker that takes 20+ days played to get anywhere?

For a player primarily interested in role play it might as well be nothing.

A far as documentation goes? I actually don't care. Racial documents are routinely glossed over and ignored, though I can't blame anyone with how little use most of them are.

City/Location/Tribe RP is mostly vibes based IMHO. It's cool to have in depth documentation for all of these but I bet you I could pick a desert elf clan, never read the clan specific documentation and come out just fine. Note that after 20 years, Redstorm still has basically no location specific documentation.

My man. /Denzel Washington

Staff have been getting 'better' and bridging the divide between themselves and 'us' players, but we're still a 'them', or so it feels.

Playing to your character, and taking risks? Doing something your character would do that is not 'the best course of action'? Leads to dead characters. Staff also cannot support your PCs goals if you're dead, and often won't support your crazy risk taking by giving you an 'out'.

Unfortunately, Master Color has the right of it that even if you rise up the Karma Ranks, you're awarded with different skill sheets that may or may not be of interest, but you don't end up having more support, followthrough, or accessibility with staff to cultivate plots.

[Halaster]

Speaking as a max karma player that has played some high power roles here. I havn't played in a few years though.

Do you have any suggestions as to how to improve things, then?  I see a list of complaints in your post, but I think it'd be even more helpful to see a positive effort or list of ideas to improve the situation.  As someone who hasn't played in a few years (you), are you thinking of coming back to contribute towards moving the game in a better direction by your standards?

[kahuna]

Speaking as a max karma player that has played some high power roles here. I havn't played in a few years though.

Do you have any suggestions as to how to improve things, then?  I see a list of complaints in your post, but I think it'd be even more helpful to see a positive effort or list of ideas to improve the situation.  As someone who hasn't played in a few years (you), are you thinking of coming back to contribute towards moving the game in a better direction by your standards?

Remove karma and the stigma it creates that some players are some sort of elite caste and others not.

[Master Color]

Speaking as a max karma player that has played some high power roles here. I havn't played in a few years though.

Do you have any suggestions as to how to improve things, then?  I see a list of complaints in your post, but I think it'd be even more helpful to see a positive effort or list of ideas to improve the situation.  As someone who hasn't played in a few years (you), are you thinking of coming back to contribute towards moving the game in a better direction by your standards?

Reduce or replace Armageddon's system of unrestricted pvp. Good luck with that.

[Tailong]

Speaking as a max karma player that has played some high power roles here. I havn't played in a few years though.

Do you have any suggestions as to how to improve things, then?  I see a list of complaints in your post, but I think it'd be even more helpful to see a positive effort or list of ideas to improve the situation.  As someone who hasn't played in a few years (you), are you thinking of coming back to contribute towards moving the game in a better direction by your standards?

Remove karma and the stigma it creates that some players are some sort of elite caste and others not.

Umm but everyone can attain karma so....there is no stigma or elite caste. 

[Windstorm]

My suggestions beyond making muls special app - which is essential - to return karma to what sounds like its intended function of becoming and rewarding adherence to roleplaying standards:

1. Determine what we want from our players and what the structure of trust will look like. Is it more thinks? Is it more feels? Is it more emotes? Where are players with karma collectively doing well and where are they coming up short? I know opinions will vary on this but if there's no agreement on what the direction of the game is or what improvements you would like to see, then it's all but impossible to actually move forward productively! So what is it?

2. Establish standards. IMO, the standard for playing a higher-powered role should be an increase in what I would call interactive expression. At a minimum, we should expect when a high-powered role walks into the room, even if it's to kill you, you're getting some emotes or some dialogue that can be responded to and a well-written description. The standard you expect from a templar you should expect from a mul.

That should be the burden of a high-powered role. If players don't want or don't live up to that level of scrutiny, fine: just don't play a high-powered role.

3. Limit the number of high-powered roles. Unless they are story-driven by origin, there should only be a limited number of these per-year and definitely per-person or per-region. Keep in mind that these should be rare, not only current population-wise but frequency-wise. If two people have played (rare race or class) in the past month and gotten themselves killed, a third should not be appearing in the same region for a considerable period. They have been exterminated here for X length of time.

If (rare role or class) isn't being played well frequently, consider adjustments that will move them more into line. If they are being played well, consider empowering them. Make half-elves better, make muls worse.

4. Go down the current list of Karma "checkboxes" and clear out every one that does not encourage or reward what is actually good roleplay. Good and responsible roleplay doesn't include forcing me into roles I don't want to play - out of areas I enjoy most or into races that don't interest me for example.

[Tailong]

Good stuff

I pretty much agree with this.  All of this. While I have had leadership roles, I personally don't want them currently and have no interest in leading. Same goes for role calls or sponsored roles. Should I be exempt from certain karma requirements? Maybe, but it should be more based on my roleplay and merits as a roleplayer and not the roles I want to play.

[titansfan]

So this game revolves around pk and death in general having such a high impact, right?

Whether we are talking "high powered" roles or 0 karma options.  The ability to quickly cause death can exist. What rp would you wish to see when any of those things enter a room with you that would make a pk acceptable to these rp standards we're trying to apply?

Players flee upon first sight of endangering conflict probably 80% of the time.

I'm not a big pk oriented person so this all seems moot to me but the way I'm reading this it seems to be the biggest issue in regards to rp vs hack n slash. Outside of that I see people doing really well in many different roles including muls and magickers.

Karma is just a tracker of staff trust in my eyes.  Not a judge of poetic role play. Some people are very straight forward with their emotes and stuff and they are just as value as the paragraph long emoters imo.

[Cordon]

One PK limiting option I found, that I try to keep hidden IG, is the idea that my PC has a favoritism for females, will only kill one if last resort. I think that similar things could be easily adopted. I.E. the dwarf that never kills another dwarf or muntants that only hunts 'normal' folks.

As well as adding RP hindering factors to PKing it also creates a general idea of the more dangerous PC's to pick and wonder out with if you want that added PK potential/risk to your game.

In my experience female PCs are less likely to be killed as is.
Dirty-half breeds are always the first to go XD

[BadSkeelz]

Arguably against the docs as sexism (positive or negative) isn't supposed to exist in Zalanthas. Pretty silly strategy really, though granted like 60% of the PCs at any given time are women.

I think to really change how PK is approached and the roleplay (or lack thereof) that surrounds it, you would have to make it so Player characters are no longer expected to be antagonistic towards each other. This means certain roles - templars and rogue sorcerers, in particular - would need to stop being player-characters and instead be staff-run antagonists that PCs either need to defeat or avoid. PC focus shifts to being the underdogs of Zalanthas - the common people, the tribals, the rogues, the escapees. The PVP axis shifts from powerful sponsored and karma roles carving out their own turfs and crapping on anyone they can get away with to a PVE focus of trying to survive under NPC Templars and wasteland sorcerer-lords.

This would of course probably require a complete rebuild of the game, so I doubt it's going to happen. Armageddon was built as a PVP hack and slash and it will remain one so long as you can target PCs with lethal commands.

[Trevalyan]

I think to really change how PK is approached and the roleplay (or lack thereof) that surrounds it, you would have to make it so Player characters are no longer expected to be antagonistic towards each other. This means certain roles - templars and rogue sorcerers, in particular - would need to stop being player-characters and instead be staff-run antagonists that PCs either need to defeat or avoid. PC focus shifts to being the underdogs of Zalanthas - the common people, the tribals, the rogues, the escapees.

This would of course probably require a complete rebuild of the game, so I doubt it's going to happen. Armageddon was built as a PVP hack and slash and it will remain one so long as you can target PCs with lethal commands.

I'm not sure you'd have to go this far. In fact, I rather think there's an area in the game where you can enjoy something very close to this experience.

[digitaleak]

Just because you can target a pc with the kill command, doesn't mean the game is focused on that. It just means the threat of perma death is codedly real and adds real stakes to rp. Just my opinion.

[Usiku]

Stuff...

If you're not playing and you're not interested and all you have is non-constructive criticism based off your experiences from.. I don't know when.. then you're not really bringing much to this conversation.

Unfortunately, Master Color has the right of it that even if you rise up the Karma Ranks, you're awarded with different skill sheets that may or may not be of interest, but you don't end up having more support, followthrough, or accessibility with staff to cultivate plots.

You are absolutely correct. More karma does not bring you better access to staff and more support for your plots. Because that is available to all players at all karma levels equally. Staff support is entirely separate from karma and is gained by having well-planned concepts with achievable, realistic goals, being ready to engage with the challenges/quests/activities required to achieve them and communicating regularly with staff. We maintain a very high staff to player ratio so that our storytellers can enable our player's stories. Yes, we have limited manpower and therefore limited time, but everyone has a good shot at getting a piece of that pie and over the few years I have seen no pattern as to who gets that support beyond people communicating and playing in ways that help us to help them.

[Kestria]

I have always been led to believe that karma is given to those who show that they understand the game, the dynamics, the lore, and the general way that the game world works. I would not want to have karma taken away and let new boots bob have a half giant, a mul, or a witch. Does the system need tweaking? Yup. Should it be taken away? Nope. I understand both sides of the coin with this arguement, but if we take karma away, you're going to be looking at a REALLY long waiting time on your special apps that will be protected roles such as witches, muls, hgs, sorcerers etc, which will only lead to frustration on both sides.

[CirclelessBard]

It's uncomfortable seeing two staff members come in and call Master Color's criticism unconstructive and unhelpful because it is dated and without specific solutions in a thread that contains many replies lacking solutions. I understand the reflex to do so - the staff team of today is made up of mostly different members than it was a few years ago, and it's worth acknowledging that the current team members are trying to take the game in a new direction, ideally without having to be tied to the mistakes and abuses of former staff members and players.

Where I think critique from an older standpoint - constructive or otherwise - is most valuable is in pointing out old mistakes the game, has made and encouraging the new iteration of the game to avoid them. Some people are good at identifying problems, others are good at coming up with solutions, and some can do a bit of both with roughly equal skill. I think we shouldn't dismiss what anyone has to say when they're posting in a thread to collect thoughts on making the game better. I would assume good faith of anyone trying to contribute to this particular conversation, especially since the next iteration of karma (or whatever it ends up being called) will have a long-lasting impact on the game and I would like to think that none of us would be here if we weren't trying to make that impact as positive as possible.

[najdorf]

It's uncomfortable seeing two staff members come in and call Master Color's criticism unconstructive and unhelpful because it is dated and without specific solutions in a thread that contains many replies lacking solutions

It is not uncomfortable to me. It would get uncomfortable if staff decides to take action and try banning him or whatever. As long as they are sharing opinion only, it is fair game. Freedom of speech exists for all parties.

[CirclelessBard]

I'm not discomforted about staff taking moderation action, but rather staff going back on the initial wording of the original post which asks all people not to shoot down others' ideas and perspectives.

[Usiku]

It's also meant to be a discussion about the karma system specifically.. not a thread in which to offload all your gripes about your history with the game.

[CirclelessBard]

It's also meant to be a discussion about the karma system specifically.. not a thread in which to offload all your gripes about your history with the game.

I understand that, and I read Master Color's post as a critique of the karma system in that karma has historically not been indicative of good roleplaying skill, something I think you mentioned and has been broadly acknowledged/agreed with at this point.

I disagree with Master Color on the matter of documentation not mattering and I think that if the game is going to use the karma system to measure roleplaying skill, the documentation does need to be shored up so that players know what expectations we're supposed to meet. I imagine this will be an evolving process, with players and staff getting the initial bulk of the work done together, and the documentation being added to whenever questions about edge cases arise. Sort of like a moderated Wiki.

One question I have asked repeatedly throughout the thread and haven't really gotten a sufficient answer for is: what does good roleplaying look like? If some max karma players are bringing mediocre quality roleplay to the table then we need to know what the opposite looks like so we can emulate it as much as possible. I think that will contribute to the quality of the game much more significantly than the scale players are rated on.

[Tuannon]

It's uncomfortable seeing two staff members come in and call Master Color's criticism unconstructive and unhelpful because it is dated and without specific solutions in a thread that contains many replies lacking solutions

It is not uncomfortable to me. It would get uncomfortable if staff decides to take action and try banning him or whatever. As long as they are sharing opinion only, it is fair game. Freedom of speech exists for all parties.

Staff won't take away someone's ability to post or whatever in the current system, so I'll go ahead and nix this thinking before it gets taken anywhere it shouldn't be going. Please try to keep objectively on the subject and keep the conversation civil and all will be well.