Let's talk about karma

[Inks]

I preferred the old karma system. I had 5 back then, the 5th point was rewarded for my gith RP. So..I approve.

The old system was 8, wasn't it?

Yes but 5 karma is the level I played at clearly

After reading Najdorf's post I think he is right. Leave as is. Staff can be super judgy and I remember one review where a staff who hated me put every negative account note I had ever recieved in 8 years of playing Arm in his reply which kind of shattered me.

[Inks]

Interesting way to agree with me in a rude way. 

I do have to say, I enjoyed being awarded karma without reviews back then. But seems like a lot extra work for staff as Naj said.

Either way really, but having karma removed is always disheartening (mostly valid though but at the time because you were so invested in your PC you can not see it that way). I do wish I had tried more full guild magick options within my karma range back all those years ago but I remember hating my full guild nilazi.

[Usiku]

Part of the issue with leaving 'as is' is that we see RP standards as slipping. We want to maintain (or return to) a standard of RP that keeps us deserving of the RPI label. 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. I would rather see staff spending their time animating with their players and watching and supporting their players (which would allow them to award karma) than be 'coaching' and dealing with complaints. My hope is that a more robust karma system would take care of a lot of the 'keeping up of standards' so that we don't have to keep spending our time doing that.

To summarise.. more time spent assessing for karma is the same as more time spent interacting with players which is what we WANT staff to be doing anyway = less time spent on player complaints and coaching. Potentially for a net positive on time/energy spent for staff.

We get *a lot* of commentary from the playerbase about the behaviour of '3k' players.

It is also my hope that our current staffing team aren't the kind of people that would compose replies that could be 'shattering' to players. I wonder if a karma request system that allows for you to submit a request and get a response (either yay or nay) but opt out of any commentary would work? E.g. A "I want to know if I pass this criteria, but keep your feedback to yourself" option?

[Inks]

That could totally work. I was younger back then and even more defensive. Because many of us pour so much creativity and time and energy into our PCs it can really sting at the time you know?

[Fredd]

I've decided to retract my comments for now. My stances on this are well known. I don't think blowing the horn anymore will matter, especially this soon after my return again.

But no sir, I'm not a fan of the karma system.

[Lizzie]

Another thought - going in a totally different direction. Also very long.

Make RP karma a stand-alone add-on. Allow roles based on the regular karma + the RP karma.

And so - normal non-rp-point karma gets:

0 points = human, half-elf, city-elf, all non-locked mundane classes and sub-classes.

1 point = desert elf, all "touched" mage classes, plus the current non-mage 1-karma-required classes and subclasses.

2 points = to be awarded ONLY if one of the points includes "understanding of magick roleplay" - the mage aspects currently allowed with 2 points. This means they either had to play a touched sub, OR interact extensively with and show understanding of, prior to playing a 2-point character.

3 points = only unlocked IF one of the roleplay points has been awarded within the past 6 months, and is current: mul, all the other current 3-karma magick subs.

Noticed dwarf and half-giant are now missing.  Dwarf now bumps to 1 karma "or higher" and is dependent on earning a roleplay point.  So if they earned the RP point to get their 1st point of karma, dwarf unlocks. If they don't get that RP point until their third point of karma, then that's how long they have to wait to play one. Same with half-giant.

Sorc & Psi MUST have all 3 karma, AND current RP point, AND their "understanding of magick" criteria has to be currently valid to even special app one.


THEN:

Create verifiable criteria for that roleplay point. Make them reasonable. If they spam-craft in the privacy of their own apartment/clan compound, but respond whenever anything happens and "animate" at that time, that's fine.  But if they're spam-crafting in the middle of the road without any tools, no emotes, no thoughts, ignoring people who pass by, making a templar wait until they get the succeed/fail echo - then yeah that's a mark against them earning that RP point.

Starting a sentence with a capital letter, and ending it with some kind of punctuation, should be a standard in the minimum requirements to earn that RP. Even text-to-speech programs provide blind writers the ability to do this, so there's really no excuse to not do it.  This has to do with the flow of roleplay.  We "hear" sentences in our minds, based on how they're written. That drives the emotional investment in the scene.

Engaging others in the scene.  Using "tell" instead of "say", or nesting emotes in our "says" to direct to the person we're talking to. Including other people, other things, in our emotes. Tossing up a think/feel now and then. These are all things that can earn that RP point.

Ability to show a range of emotions with your character. This adds dimension to the character and brings it to life. That doesn't mean they have to be bi-polar! It just means that no one is ALWAYS happy, or ALWAYS upset. Not even dwarves!

Ability to step back and allow others to take the spotlight when the situation calls for it.  Everyone plays for themselves. We all play for ourselves. Otherwise why bother? But sometimes, even though we want to say ME ME ME! we need to say "okay - enough about me. You have ten seconds to make it about you."  I exaggerate but you get the idea. We need to share the spotlight with our fellow players. If I create such a ruckus that no one has a chance to sit and think "okay what do I DO about this" - for hours on end, then I need to learn to step back and give other people breathing room to respond to part A before I jump in with part B.  Even folks who love making fun for others - need to sometimes retreat and allow others to make fun for themselves.

[Veselka]

A few things should be kept in mind:

-Systems help prevent and lessen discretionary decisions / bias. People point out good uses of systems here with Longevity -- Making it automatic after either a certain amount of time played on a PC, or longevity of an account (6 months). This prevents people from being overlooked -- I was overlooked for 2-3 years until Sanvean noted one of my PCs had survived a long time, and added 1 Karma to my account.

-The more that is automated, the less required interaction there is from Staff to Player in giving karma. This doesn't necessarily mean coded automation, but even written procedure automation. When X milestone is achieved, then Player Soandso receives 1 karma for 'BlahBlah'.

-The Karma system was initially put in place to quantify Staff trust in players. I think many players have felt this was misguided from the beginning -- after all, Staff has many tools besides Karma in reinforcing rules and conversing with a player they find problematic. Docking Karma is unnecessarily punitive in a volunteer environment (for Staff, and for Players). Someone suggested temporary docking that automatically renews after X time -- that sort of system makes more sense to me, rather than permanently knocking someone and expecting them to still enjoy the experience. By now, we have to recognize that bad actors (both on Staff, and in the playerbase) can manipulate a situation to look better or worse for themselves or others, so there have absolutely been poor judgements by Staff on both granting Karma, and taking away Karma.

-I agree that the 3 Karma system was not a successful experiment. Having 8 Karma as a spread was a far better journey as a player, and flattening the system has only put pressure on the steps between 1 and 2, 2 and 3, etc. I played for nearly 15 years and made it to 6 karma, and felt totally fine with that. I felt I was a 6 Karma player, not an 8 karma player. But now, with 1 and 2 and 3 karma, i'm like...So i'm just a 2 karma player? Dunno, it's just weird. Not sure what the impetus behind flattening the system was, but I think it's had unintended consequences.

--

In general, I believe instead of moving to a 'gaining Karma' system, we should move to a 'Special Application' system. This was suggested earlier in the thread as well.

After the Longevity Karma is achieved, one can assume that a Player has gotten a healthy dose of exposure to ArmageddonMUD. Perhaps not everything they will ever know, but most people learn by doing, not by description or osmosis.

I believe that after the Longevity Karma is achieved, more options should become available to the player. Many magickers, races, and advanced start options (but not all magickers, or all races). Perhaps the magickers can only be Gemmed, or if they are rogue, lesser versions of that Magick type.

I'm not sure which would be gated behind Special App only, but I think rarity comes into play (Muls, for example), power (full magickers or the more destructive elements, etc) or exceptional thumb on the scale possibility (Half-Giants, Thryzn, etc).

I would ideally see the cap on Special Applications increased from 2 to 4. This allows people to still 'burn' a Special App on things like Advanced Start, or other options that require a burn of an app, and apply for a concept outside of their current karma rating.

It also accomplishes a few things -- If someone really wants to play a Half Giant, they put thought into an application for one. They take the time from their day to show they are committed to the concept and role, which should be encouraging to Staff. It also provided an opportunity for a player to prove themselves, which is how the old karma system felt. If they do well in a role above their karma grade, common practice dictated they stood a better chance at gaining that karma point. IE, if a 6 karma player did not have Mul karma (7 karma back then), special applied for a Mul and did a great job with it, they would stand to gain 1 karma when reviewed next or when they died.

To make the system less discretionary, most special applications should be approved if they meet minimum requirements, and there is room/space for that PC type. If there are issues with the minimum requirements, those are enumerated to the Player so they can work on certain fields of RP or game world understanding before applying for that role (and it isn't left vague or cryptic). If there is no room for that PC type, they are offered to be put on hold and notified when their position becomes available, or they can choose to apply again in the future and have their special application spot returned to them.

The Karma system could be returned to how it was (either 8 karma, or if you want to flatten it a bit, 5 or 6 karma to provide more movement possibility for players), and for roles over a certain karma threshold, you have to special apply for them and see if there is room available. I think this will help with the Rogue Magicker Pandemic, and cap amounts of available Muls, Magickers, etc at a given time.

As BadSkeelz points out, we need to figure out first and foremost why we have Karma in the first place. Is it something to point to and say 'You're a 2 Karma Player, I expect Better from you' (Which was a quote from Shalooonsh on one of my PCs)? If so, it is a poor power structure for Staff that leans towards negative interactions with the playerbase. Is it a fun mark of how well you are doing as a Player? That is how it used to feel to me before the 3 Karma adjustment went into place -- it felt less punitive, and more interactive with Staff. You had more possibility for having Karma added to your account after playing a well-lived, well-played PC -- Now, given how little movement there is up or down, it reduces the standards required to achieve higher results.

My personal opinion is akin to what Mansa has been requesting politely for a while — Karma should help dictate population control for more rare roles, while also providing reward (mainly reward) to players for jobs well done and opportunities to pursue different more challenging roles.

I think slipping RP is definitely true -- the quality of RP on the game has degraded in the last 10 years. I think we're all getting older and lazier with our RP. I certainly played better 10 years ago. Is it the zeitgeist of the game? I'm not sure.

I think if there were better rewards for good RP, it would go a long way towards encouraging it. Right now there is certainly good rewards for understanding the code of the game, but not so much the RP.

[Riev]

Just to be a saltlord:

One major issue to consider is what the work would be staffside. With staff inactivity, disappearing for weeks to months on end, leaving the entire game to be run by about 1/4 of the people its meant to. Its a lot for these 5-6 staff to monitor everything. Especially when they, too, want to play and experience the game.

So whatever system you come up with? Don't make it wholly dependent on staff. This is not 20 years ago when staff played alongside you and did stuff with you. This is 2023, when the staff that remain don't have playtimes like the no-life players anymore.

[dumbstruck]

We then have 3 karma players doing things that staff (and players) will complain is poor RP for a 3 karma player.. for example not paying attention to the virtual world whilst committing crimes. Except we have no criteria for karma advancement that requires that. At no point did a player need to prove that they paid attention and respected vNPCs in their RP to reach 3k.

If we expect our max karma players to adhere to a certain standard then surely that is the standard that the karma criteria needs to require?

EXCELLENT point

I actually have a lot of beef with this. This as a reason why someone got a pass is very fucking silly. You (general you) are as producers the ones who decide what these bullet points are. How about replace Leadership (which is a crapshoot and only a handful of people get a shot at and often get the same roles over and over) with actually demonstrating taking the VNPC world into account? Problem solved? Like. These bullet points didn't spring into existence from nowhere, and no one is forcing them to remain as they are nor has forced them to remain. At any point they could have been changed to require this. And if you know and I know that this is silly and yet it's remaining, why is it like this?

But I'm also a fan of hot takes. And mine is to completely throw out karma and let people show that they are too big of a jughead to play something via letting 3 player complaints on them in that role seeing it knocked off their play options for a reasonable period (a year, three years, whatever) until they can ask for a review after having shown they're not being like that anymore and maybe they can handle it now (so special app, and if it goes well, you get the option back). And if the option proves too many out of the available pcs, (a. figure out why b. rebalance other options to make them more appealing using similar principles, and c. impose a reasonable cap, not 2 unless it's a nilazi or something but maybe 5 or 6).

[Miradus]

If staff has a problem with certain people's roleplay they should open a conversation with those people and hash it out.

Gutting the entire karma system YET AGAIN does nothing but make people unhappy (speaking for myself) and every time it's been changed I got screwed. Every. Time.

Changing the system to improve the quality of RP seems a very passive-aggressive way of getting around having to actually talk to the people involved.

If it's me, open a request today about my behavior. Let's chat.

[Usiku]

1. Constantly opening conversations with players to hash out issues with their roleplay is something we would rather not have to do. It's unpleasant and it's draining. Having a system in place that explains to players the standards they should be adhering to that also helps encourage them to keep to it is definitely preferable to having to have these kinds of conversations with players. Those are not fun for anyone involved.

2. Yes, we can change it. And that's what we're doing right now, we're looking at how to change it. We're not just going to tack on more and more criteria to karma each time something comes up that doesn't work right because we have to consider the impact on the whole system. So we take our time to try our best to do things properly and really think things through as a team.

3. Dealing with player complaints and talking one-on-one with players about behaviour are two of the most draining and time consuming parts of staffing, these are things we seek to minimise by trying to encourage players to play the game, according to the standards long upheld by the community, with less staff hand holding. So we can do more stuff like animations, running plots, building stuff you guys dream up and so on.

p.s. No one got a pass. Please refrain from assuming that we do 'very fucking silly' things. But these situations highlight the flaws in the karma system when we have to deal with them.

[JohnMichaelHenry]

Karma system is okay. Roles that can walk into the game and kill anyone they want from the start should be gated, imho. The problem comes when players don't trust staff to be fair judges of karma reward. I'm not criticizing staff or players, btw. No matter what the spread is, 0-3 or 0-8, maybe GAINING karma should be automatic (by meeting some standard like time and/or longevity of PC's) and only the taking away part should be done by staff with a transparent reason. This would take the burden off staff of rewarding karma, and removal of karma would be such that the player would understand the specific reason so they could correct their behavior.

[Miradus]

... according to the standards long upheld by the community ...

I've been playing ... what ... 10+ years now ... and I have never seen consistent standards. I have seen a guy do XYZ a hundred times and then I do it and boom .. the vNPC community comes alive and 10 HG soldiers teleport in. I've seen staff say "you shouldn't do this ... the vNPC ..." and I'm like, "What vNPC? It's an empty rooftop at night. The vNPC isn't in the room description or echoes." And the answer that came back was, "a guard on the wall saw you."

vNPC community largely means whatever the individual staffer wants it to mean at any given time. There's no consistency there. If you see me doing something that's against the vNPC community and you echo down to me IC then I'm going to respond IC and change my behavior.

Recently a comment was made about me being in a location I shouldn't have been. The staffer didn't notice my emotes about sneaking in, they didn't notice all my emotes about hiding, struggling to not be seen, etc. What they saw was a 'ding' alert when I failed sneak on the way out and they commented on it as if I hadn't done any of the other things.

I'm saying your roleplay standards are going to be incredibly fuzzy if you don't talk to people about it in advance, and if you change the karma and AGAIN I lose options that it took me 10+ years and several bitter staff who were blocking me leaving the game in order for me to earn them ... then it's going to feel like punishment out of nowhere.

[Riev]

I would like to echo Miradus' concerns about consistency. I, too, have seen instanced where "we didn't see someone else do it, but we saw you, so you get to be punished".

Maybe take a Tuluki look at it and stop 'punishing' people and just try to correct them. Don't take things away until you've had a talk with the player and they've given you reason to pull their ability to play a dwarf. Don't just say "You keep abusing dwarves and now out of nowhere you lost dwarf as a race".

Also, crucially, it shouldn't be "one point of Karma per criterion mastered" but it should be particular ones that have to be achieved. Maybe you're real good at longevity and leadership, but you suck at realizing the vNPC world exists. Maybe you cant get "beyond 3 karma" until you prove you can hit that benchmark?

[RheaGhe]

So less gut reactions this time, and responding to a lot of the critiques so far.


The current system is flawed, because it's inconsistent, because it not just wants, but requires staff coaching, and often times, as Miradus pointed out, staff don't have full knowledge of a situation. Adding to Miradus, there's a time recently where I've pointed out, a basic policy regarding spam selling that I knew from my time as a GMH member. I tried to offer it ICly, and then when I couldn't find the words to explain the mechanics, I explained it bluntly OOCly. I got told to send in a request to make sure this was actually a policy. It was, and I got an apology from the staffer. But it still was an example of no staffer being fully knowledgible on all systems.


In Miradus' staff reaction there, he likely should have wished up before doing a scene like that, and got given a go ahead that at least someone was watching. Not talking about it from a critiquing Miradus standpoint. But rather as a reinforcement that these types of common behaviors should likely be included publicly in Karma review process.


This is the give and take of an RPI. Staff involvement must by necessity be heavy, because the consequences of things being done without staff/GM's knowing about it is... Severe.


Especially in a game as chaotic and where consequences are as permanent as arm.

I fully believe that Karma should flow freely in both directions, and quickly, of the systems I proposed before, I prefer the temp karma point buy the most.

I think given the shorter hopefully term of it. That work would be reduced on staffers ends.

And it adds neatly into the already good cycle of, "Report how you died and why, and leave the forums you got access too" loop that death already has in Arm.

Now instead of that report on how you died and why only really being a factor at 6 months, 1 year, and 1.5 years played, with a mass of other reports. Needing to be reviewed in a single Karma review, and then hopefully never again without a player complaint. It's a factor each time a character dies. And a formal moment that a player should EXPECT coaching. Within limits, I think staffers should be able to play fast and loose with it. It should be something that's quick, easy, and not require as extensive of reviews as we have currently.


You also have the opportunity to shut off the tap as it were as a method of corrective action.

Someone fucked up bad, but not in a ban worthy way? "We're removing your ability to spend or earn karma until a staff vote allows you to do so. You are still welcome in the game. You may submit mundane character concepts, but your abuse of mechanics in this instance warrants a severe breach of trust. And notably impacted others play in a negative fashion that didn't occur through natural processes of RP. In X months you'll be able to ask for a manual review. Please don't take this as a point to die on. We like you, we like your RP. We just need to guide you down a more constructive path, and don't feel like allowing you more high power concepts will let you do that at this moment. In X months, please ask for a review."

[RheaGhe]

Final note and I'm sorry to double post like this.

A big thing to consider from the staff side.

On one end you have Complacency and on the other, scale.

I have people I've tried to recruit to the game, who looking at the rules for the higher end concepts said, "1 and a half years?! Nah, I ain't gonna cap to that. Seems like a lot of work just for a fucking video game. Soun's like it's gon be an old boys club." if the scale is too long, many will leave before the opportunity to be weighed.

And on the other end, you have complacency.

When you have played 100 characters, your RP will suffer, because complacency will set in. It's lost novelty. And your mid brain stops dialing in the focus 100%. It may be that these players were full on 10 karma or whatever players back at character 30, but now that they're full on 3 Karma players, they are tired. And have grown complacent.

There's a good quote from Karl Jobst on youtube about speed runner who submit illigitimate runs. I'm going to butcher it here to apply it to this game.

They are often some of the best Roleplayers in the game, they know they are capable of this level of play. They just have grown tired of the time, and commitment it takes to perform on that level. And so they take what they view as shortcuts.

[Fredd]

My solution is the same it's always been.

1 and done: You either know the game setting and can be trusted not to abuse dangerous mechanics, or you aren't trusted enough yet.

Maybe call it something else like "Security Clearance" I dunno.

Then make Karma temporary. Lets staff who notice people doing neat stuff tack it on, and then let that karma be spent on skill boosts for your next guy.


This would let staff reinforce better rp, and reward people for putting in effort on things.

I also think it should be rewarded for consistent good emoting. Maybe cap it at 2 points. But make it an easy 2 karma to get because staff love to watch/be in scenes. Which would promote more of it.

[Patuk]

I see a lot of ideas for changes on points, criteria, roles, but I'd kinda like to know what karma even is supposed to do and mean.

I was not here when the system got added twenty (fifteen?) years ago, but even as I joined the MUD in the early 2010s you could see that it was wonky. Something notionally about staff trust awarded to a great deal of players who just got oodles of theirs because a staffer threw it their way. Constant tinkering with options down the scale. To this day I don't really know what it's all supposed to be for.

Is it a measure of staff trust? The median player has been with the MUD for maybe ten years now. I would very well HOPE that even half that time is plenty to establish some trust. Do we set three quarters the playerbase to max karma since they've spent half their lives here? I'm not necessarily opposed if so, but that is an argument you have to actually stand by then, and it is one hell of a daunting cliff for the few people who are indeed new showing up.

Is it a means to limit rare and powerful roles? If so, is it a good way? Can we think of no other such mechanisms? Do we have to gate that by an opaque system that has been abused more often than not?

Is it about encouraging RP? Whose RP? Do we tell someone who brings an extremely entertaining stoneworker to life they can now toss around lightning? Do we tie it to kudos received(please don't)? Do we keep the cyrrent system, where writing an eloquent karma review request is the meta-game? Armageddon is a MUD where the game's culture makes feedback on anything IC extremely difficult.

I ask this genuinely: what is karma supposed to even measure? What do we have it for, inertia aside? What problem does it solve, are the tradeoffs worth it, can we do better?

As long as we don't talk about questions like these, a thread like this is going to be one with many confused people and little clarity.

My actual thoughts are complicated, and mostly err on the system not having ever worked that well and one of the probably-goals (keeping high-power roles rare) just working out less well in 2023 than it did in 2003. We aren't a freshly ex-hack 'n slash MUD any more, the playerbase doesn't lean as new, as inexperienced. I'd much prefer the system be scrapped, and that we had other safeguards in check than to whitelist some oldbies and pray things work out thereafter

[papertiger]

Part of the issue with leaving 'as is' is that we see RP standards as slipping. We want to maintain (or return to) a standard of RP that keeps us deserving of the RPI label.

Can I ask what about the RP has been slipping? Just generally?

[650Booger]

the standards for a max-karma player should be really high and require a great deal of scrutiny from staff before achieving.  that is my contribution to this conversation.

[GreenTransient]

Ultimately if Karma is a measure of staff trust, I would argue that the level of RP is indicative of the expectations that have been successfully communicated to the playerbase by staff.

How many players have been taught something by another member of the Community just to eventually get ripped apart over it by someone in a position of authority within the Community?

If you want better RP, try articulating some intelligible standards and levels of expectation.  We are literally forced to play a game without enough information, without the ability to actually ask questions, in an environment where you can expect almost no one to be helpful, but also get don't do it wrong, or you'll get punished for not knowing something we weren't taught, or told.  That isn't listed in the rules, or on the website.  The type of things that is only documented in the gray and unknowing void of Staff group think, and even when you ask they say "I'll have to ask the others and get back to you on that."

Don't want to "constantly open conversations with players"?  Improve your publicly available, expansive, and comprehensive expectations.  If your expectations aren't publicly available, expansive, and comprehensive you should probably work on that.

Keep seeing the same performance over and over?  Update your Lore and documentation to cover the issue and do a public release on it informing everyone of the new expectation. 

As far as I'm concerned Karma, is staff's rating of how well a player has learned a system that is literally designed for them to not know, or do well in.   The fact that this is a "don't ask don't tell community", combined with it seeming to be run by folks who are specifically trying to find ways to not have to interact with players, I can't imagine how the quality of RP is going to improve without a change in the information flow. 

[CirclelessBard]

To answer the OP, I think karma in its current and past iterations is a needlessly hierarchical system, especially considering the size of the playerbase. There is very little need to distinguish between two players whose roleplay is high-caliber when one may have different slightly experiences than the other, or simply better luck when asking for a karma raise. This was just as true when the game had more players than it does now.

Many other roleplaying games assume trust based on a player's compelling interest in a role. Newer RPIs and MUSHes will more or less allow you to play characters as codedly powerful as a sorcerer or psionicist here, or as socially powerful as a noble or templar, by simply demonstrating that you understand what will be expected of you in the role. This is achieved by writing your plans for the character in the application, writing about what you feel you can bring to the game in this role, and promising frequent contact with staff. These games have few to no problems with griefers or otherwise poor-quality roleplay because the players of these roles work in parallel with staff to ensure they're always a net positive for the game. In the unlikely event that ceases to be the case, the character is simply retired - or in the case of games with rosters, the character may be given to another player.

Armageddon and several other RPIs do the opposite, and assume no trust until players go through the rigors of proving that they can be trusted. As seen in the past, this proof is only as sound - or as faulty - as the judgment of the staff member or members involved in determining a karma increase or decrease. Karma is simply not a good indicator of trust, not a good indicator of player skill, and not a good indicator that a player is contributing positively to the game. There are low-karma players who deserve more recognition, but simply don't receive it because they never get the roles they need to demonstrate that they deserve it. There are, as evidenced by the upheaval earlier this year, high-karma players who use the trust they acquired as a cover to earn a position on staff and be abusive from there. Karma is awarded, oversight is minimal or non-existent until complaints are raised, and then karma is reduced. This is not a system concerned with roleplaying quality, but with rewarding players and denying rewards more or less arbitrarily.

Put simply, karma as a system has always had faults. I don't think there is a way you can change the karma system to be "less" faulty - it will simply retain some old faults, and change some other old faults for new ones. Any karma system is going to be unfair, and I think trying to reform the system is basically a question of "how unfair should it be?" when really we should be striving for a system that is fair.

But if we really must have a karma system, the fairest possible karma system is one in which all karma is awarded solely on a basis of time playing the game actively (ideally automatically), and in which it is reduced solely due to poor conduct.

[JohnMichaelHenry]

[/quote author=CirclelessBard link=msg=1095928 date=1691325688

But if we really must have a karma system, the fairest possible karma system is one in which all karma is awarded [/b]solely [/b]on a basis of time playing the game actively (ideally automatically), and in which it is reduced [/b]solely [/b]due to poor conduct.
[/quote]

This is what I said (see above) +1

[CirclelessBard]

Part of the issue with leaving 'as is' is that we see RP standards as slipping. We want to maintain (or return to) a standard of RP that keeps us deserving of the RPI label. 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. I would rather see staff spending their time animating with their players and watching and supporting their players (which would allow them to award karma) than be 'coaching' and dealing with complaints. My hope is that a more robust karma system would take care of a lot of the 'keeping up of standards' so that we don't have to keep spending our time doing that.

To summarise.. more time spent assessing for karma is the same as more time spent interacting with players which is what we WANT staff to be doing anyway = less time spent on player complaints and coaching. Potentially for a net positive on time/energy spent for staff.

We get *a lot* of commentary from the playerbase about the behaviour of '3k' players.

It is also my hope that our current staffing team aren't the kind of people that would compose replies that could be 'shattering' to players. I wonder if a karma request system that allows for you to submit a request and get a response (either yay or nay) but opt out of any commentary would work? E.g. A "I want to know if I pass this criteria, but keep your feedback to yourself" option?

I also wanted to write a separate reply to comment on this sentiment specifically. It's understandable and commendable that staff want to improve the quality of roleplay in the game. I think that the current karma system is actually unrelated to roleplay quality, however. There is no objective standard of "good roleplay" beyond that which the staff and players of the game prefer. This is because the game does not direct players to play in any particular way. If you ask ten random players here what good roleplaying is, you will get at least ten different answers, as evidenced by the rotation of arguments over the decades about purple prose vs. simple emotes, whether emotes are or aren't RP, how to take vNPCs into account, how magic should be treated, etc.

If you want to improve the quality of roleplay in the game, my strong recommendation would be to outline expectations for players. At the same time, give us a vision, a mission statement, for what the staff want to achieve with this game. Then set in motion the changes required to reach that vision. Armageddon suffers a lot from having its attention split several different ways.

[whengravityfails]

I'm going to flat out say I don't like this proposed change at all for multiple reasons and will be deleterious instead. It won't really fix the problem for reasons already specified by others - if some people still want to get away with bad behavior, they'll still do it knowing that staff is too stretched for time to police or have discussions with players for behaving poorly. You'll just have complaints about the behavior of 5k or 7k players doing dumb shit instead of 3k players and have it go largely unacted upon. Meanwhile, the barrier to entry for current 3k roles for newer players is just going to become increasingly time gated and cause frustration (and possibly turn away said newer players) because we're all tired adults (or at least most of us) and who has time to chase an increasingly distant goal?

Do away with it entirely if what we have now doesn't work. As Circleless Bard mentioned, most other RP games either trust you with roles or they don't (or they ban you). Give everyone x number of special apps per year to apply for anything that isn't a role call or a sorc/psi app. If the special app is reviewed and found to be compelling enough by the staff to give the okay, then great. Perhaps capping the amount of each type of non-mundane, non-basic races (humans and breeds - dwarves should be also put into the special app purview) would help. If someone has a thing for abusing a certain type of race or magick, then temp ban them from it.

Also, Circleless Bard has another excellent point. With the expectation of what constitutes "good" RP so subjective - even from different staff members, not to mention players - there really needs to be a document which defines what they wish to see. What is good, what is bad, what is explicitly necessary and what is amazingly sucktastic. The Karma system isn't going to achieve this. It would require too many ideally objective decisions by staff on something that is inherently subjective - to get a better idea, it would require something like ALL of staff to make a decision on every player's bullet point, and that would be a heavy load indeed.