Discuss: Changes To PK Guidance & Helpfile

[Athapaxis]

Not related to the masks but back to the PK discussion...   I once had a Templar light the side of my head on fire.  It was terrifying - it was traumatizing to my character - because it hurt and it affronted her dignity - and it set her on a whole new course of life that wound up being awesome.   It was still brutal. It still got my heart racing IRL.   

We need to be more like the Count of Monte Cristo.  He wasn't just satisfied to kill his enemies.  He wanted to ruin them.  That's way more fun.

[Riev]

We need to be more like the Count of Monte Cristo.  He wasn't just satisfied to kill his enemies.  He wanted to ruin them.  That's way more fun.

This is what I mean by changing the player perspective a little, because it still sits far too much on the side of "I need to kill people to avoid trouble down the road".

Burn your enemies. Break their legs. Cause temporary but debilitating injuries. Take a finger, disfigure an ear. We have a Consent file for far more than just "hey wanna sex". Its there for the brutality and gruesome nature of torture.

Unless its just easier to type "kill riev" than it is to "ooc consent for torture"

[Bogre]

Conflict is better promoted with autonomy of regions, allowing people to work as a villain in one place while being a saint in the other.

This is in direct conflict with one of the stated goals of the seasons, in that the playerbase is going to be more focused in a central location. And anyways, why not both? Being able to do something secretively in the place you live is important.

If done incorrectly it has the potential to prevent meaningful RP because its harder to hold people accountable for their day to day behavior due to the fact they can become anonymous/someone new whenever the heck they want. It will lead to pure foolishness.

Again, having played multiple RPIs with desc obscuring ability, it really won't. It's not something that just leads to pure foolishness because there's a lot of PC-PC regulation.  PCs are not really able to do more crimes codedly than they could otherwise do with near invis stealth and maxed subterfuge skills. Plus, maybe at the hoity toity bar the guard screens for masks/hoods, makes people remove them, etc.

 Do you have an example of exactly what you worry is going to happen? Like your clan mate is gonna show up wearing a mask and rob you and you won't have any idea? I mean that, to me, just sounds like conflict/plot. Maybe you should be worried that the person skulking around you has the exact same build and boots as your newly hired hunter.

[Athapaxis]

Unless its just easier to type "kill riev" than it is to "ooc consent for torture"

kill riev

Hmm - yeah that's pretty easy.

I really think the jump start rules are going to make for amazing changes in some of this.  Something about grinding for endless hours to get your skills to a certain level can sometimes make you feel like you have to use those skills.  Being competent with less time involved feels like its going to really shift things toward story telling.  Hope so anyhow.

[Lizzie]

Closed and hooded up ankle-length djellebah. All mdesc is gone.

Which would be fine, IMO. My issue with mdesc-hiding masks is that the description is -replaced- with the mdesc of the mask. So the green-eyed barrel-chested man, wearing the mask, appears to be a purple tregil with floppy ears, complete with a 6-line description of his smooth skin and tail.

That's why -masks- specifically - are a bad idea.  If the mask resulted in
The masked humanoid

and look masked returned

This person is disguised from the neck up to look like a purple, floppy-eared tregil. His shoulders are narrow, he has a barrel chest and long limbs. His left hand is missing a pinky and he has big feet with delicate ankles.

If that happened, then masks would work great. But that's not what happens, and that's why masks don't work.

Would be 100% fine with someone wearing an ankle-length cloak/cape, head covering, face covering, and gloves, to show "the tall humanoid" and an mdesc that says:

This humanoid is covered head to toe, it's impossible to see beyond their attire.

[Krath]

Yeah I don't think a mask alone is 'enough'.  Maybe (and this is just me theorycrafting, no promises or commitments) if it was a mask + a longcloak + hood up then it hides the mdesc.  Or something like that, where it's a combo of items that "make sense".

100% yes please!

[Riev]

Closed and hooded up ankle-length djellebah. All mdesc is gone.

Which would be fine, IMO. My issue with mdesc-hiding masks is that the description is -replaced- with the mdesc of the mask. So the green-eyed barrel-chested man, wearing the mask, appears to be a purple tregil with floppy ears, complete with a 6-line description of his smooth skin and tail.

That's why -masks- specifically - are a bad idea.  If the mask resulted in
The masked humanoid

and look masked returned

This person is disguised from the neck up to look like a purple, floppy-eared tregil. His shoulders are narrow, he has a barrel chest and long limbs. His left hand is missing a pinky and he has big feet with delicate ankles.

If that happened, then masks would work great. But that's not what happens, and that's why masks don't work.

Would be 100% fine with someone wearing an ankle-length cloak/cape, head covering, face covering, and gloves, to show "the tall humanoid" and an mdesc that says:

This humanoid is covered head to toe, it's impossible to see beyond their attire.

Okay. So masks won't work. Is the core idea of hiding the mdesc a problem, or just using an implementation from 2002 that you take issue with?

[Bogre]

Closed and hooded up ankle-length djellebah. All mdesc is gone.

Which would be fine, IMO. My issue with mdesc-hiding masks is that the description is -replaced- with the mdesc of the mask. So the green-eyed barrel-chested man, wearing the mask, appears to be a purple tregil with floppy ears, complete with a 6-line description of his smooth skin and tail.

There are a lot more ways to facilitate it sensibly than just blanket-hand waving that it wouldn't work.

>look figure

You see a very tall, obese humanoid wearing a faceless obsidian mask.
(Tdesc) Their hair has been bound back and pinned with a length of thin engraved bone, and their blue eyes are hard and purposeful.

Gear: They are wearing <X,Y> - normal
Tattoos: standard

>study figure

You look at the very tall, obese humanoid wearing a faceless obsidian mask. They notice you studying them!
You notice they have watery blue eyes.
You notice they have dark black hair.
You notice they are armed!

>draw sword

>You notice the very tall, obese humanoid wearing a faceless obsidian mask trying to slip into the shadows!
------------------------------------


Yes, this would require player buy in - to adequately set temp descs. Again, this is a game that the latest push (and this very thread) is about collaborating even in conflict. Players that do their best to leave breadcrumbs, not try to game the system, etc, or do foolish things would be appropriately noted by staff - in the same way that they are proposing to monitor magick, karma races, sponsored roles, etc.

And yeah - it would perhaps be a fantastic code project for coded additions to char-gen that add particular descriptors that are hard to conceal, or findable. And you have those be reviewed in approval so the hard blue-eyed, stocky man doesn't give descriptors of having green cat-eyes and a purple tregil tail. Like - we have code to summon magickal stuff of all sorts out of thin air, NPCs that will spar you, entire ecosystems - we trust players with near instakill buttons in spells, big clubs, crim code- a mask that blanks your description is not going to like suddenly have the entire PBase be spree Pkillers and running around emoting farting on nobles, no more so than that already occurs.


My thoughts:
Hood > obscures sdesc like current, M-desc visible to look. Closed cloak obscures some of the equipment, just like current.
Mask > obscures main desc, but eyes / hair / ears easy or moderately easy to notice
Facehelm > obscures main desc, hair / ears hard to notice, eyes moderately hard to notice. (person wearing helm might have downsides of their own perceptive abilities though)
Mask or helm + hood up> Makes hair, ears harder to notice. 

[Dresan]

Stuff 

I do have some hope that redstorm will be able to support small time troublemakers and villains, but that could just be wishful thinking on my part given the state of places like luirs and the rinth. Since I lack faith, I do feel the need for some ability to provide anonymity to promote non-lethal conflict. However, it should be in a limited and skill oriented way to prevent a ton of problem for the game. In the hands of someone who understands this game, anonymity is potentially more powerful than stealth, spells or assassination techniques.

If this is to be implemented, simplicity works best. You look at a person, the description should read that their m-desc is obscured. Anything more will just lead to cookie cutter looks and features just so people can blend in with a majority of the population when wearing these items. After all, people will continue to use things to their advantage because historically they have a lot to lose.  This is not going to change overnight.

I also fear that wide spread anonymity will result in bias or outright cheating by both players and staff to help learn or identify m-desc hidden players. This type of cheating is pure poison for the game and is best avoided all together. Equally, limiting the gear to certain clans for special purposes defeats the entire purpose of having them at all since clans should have less need for anonymity. 

That said if this goes in, I can't wait to see unconscious nobles lying naked on the ground. Probably not the intended outcome, but utterly hilarious none the less. 

[Usiku]

I also fear that wide spread anonymity will result in bias or outright cheating by both players and staff to help learn or identify m-desc hidden players. This type of cheating is pure poison for the game and is best avoided all together. Equally, limiting the gear to certain clans for special purposes defeats the entire purpose of having them at all since clans should have less need for anonymity.

This seems to suggest that you think we have a high proportion of players who simply exist to grief and want to run around causing mayhem or otherwise winning at hurting other PCs. In fact, a lot of this thread does. This honestly is not the case. Most, if not almost all, of our players are here to roleplay, create characters and tell stories. Not all of them are great at stopping to put a bit more thought into their PK attempts or their conflicts though and that's what these guidelines are about. But these are the hardest times to remember to take a pause. We will continue to weed out the genuine griefers, but they are few and far between and things like the 1k requirement for dwarves will help a lot to prevent situations like the great dwarven massacre of I'm not sure when because I wasn't on staff yet. Lots of our players care about their skills, progress and PCs prowess and ability, because it's a game and that's natural, but there isn't really a theme amongst our players of people who actively want to cheat to win, it's just the occassional very few who then stand out in our memories.

[Master Color]

This seems to suggest that you think we have a high proportion of players who simply exist to grief and want to run around causing mayhem or otherwise winning at hurting other PCs. In fact, a lot of this thread does. This honestly is not the case. Most, if not almost all, of our players are here to roleplay, create characters and tell stories.

I feel like I'm being gaslit.

I've been burnt enough times to know that players in this game arn't curious about stories other than their own. They will seek out positions of power in game and they will use them to clique, cheat and grief. And then staff will punch down on the victims when they complain about it.

[dumbstruck]

This seems to suggest that you think we have a high proportion of players who simply exist to grief and want to run around causing mayhem or otherwise winning at hurting other PCs. In fact, a lot of this thread does. This honestly is not the case. Most, if not almost all, of our players are here to roleplay, create characters and tell stories.

I feel like I'm being gaslit.

I've been burnt enough times to know that players in this game arn't curious about stories other than their own. They will seek out positions of power in game and they will use them to clique, cheat and grief. And then staff will punch down on the victims when they complain about it.

I don't think you are necessarily. I've seen this from the top down with a larger playerbase even. All it takes is 3 or 4 people that you neither curtail nor speak with to ruin the fun for everyone. Remember, these are people who will run off into the silt sea specifically to get better stats. Probably people who exploited that spice stat character creation bug. I honestly think that making dwarves require karma is gonna do a lot but so would stuff like flagging people to have X or Y guild not be available if they're griefing with it. It would only need to be an extreme minority to fit this as long as their respective playtimes were high enough there'd be someone on most to all hours of the day with it just a handful of people. I'm sure it will result in something greater at this point and they've now made rules about stuff they'll even have something specific to point at for the why. It could feel like a lot more and worse than it really is if that person's current grief puppet is spamming around your area. It only takes 1.

[Master Color]

The code abusing lolcows arn't even the worst offenders.

This game has a history giving leader characters to players who will "play the system" but will still make the game fucking miserable to other players.

This is a problem that has yet to be addressed.

[CirclelessBard]

The PvP documentation puts a shared responsibility on all players to respect the storytelling process. I think if a sponsored role goes off and starts to disrespect that dynamic, they will stick out like a sore thumb even more than usual because there will be a significantly higher share of players following the guidelines.

If the concern is that staff won't intervene even when it is highly obvious that they should, that comes with its own risk. Other players will start to see that following the PvP documentation is no longer necessary because it's not being enforced, and the game will see players leave, which I don't think is an outcome anyone wants.

Viewed from the standpoint of a staff team that can be characterized by their statements and actions as clearly trying to improve the game and pull players back in, I have no doubt that they intend to take the PvP standards seriously.

I think the most important things that players of sponsored roles will need to understand are alternative conflict resolution and conflict escalation. And I think this game has a history of many leader characters that already voluntarily followed those guidelines because they had a natural understanding of what it meant to play a leader PC in a storytelling focused game. To see the behavior of long-feuding nobles and conniving templars codified into the game's documentation is a really big change for this game's culture.

[Usiku]

I don't think you are necessarily. I've seen this from the top down with a larger playerbase even. All it takes is 3 or 4 people that you neither curtail nor speak with to ruin the fun for everyone. Remember, these are people who will run off into the silt sea specifically to get better stats. Probably people who exploited that spice stat character creation bug. I honestly think that making dwarves require karma is gonna do a lot but so would stuff like flagging people to have X or Y guild not be available if they're griefing with it. It would only need to be an extreme minority to fit this as long as their respective playtimes were high enough there'd be someone on most to all hours of the day with it just a handful of people. I'm sure it will result in something greater at this point and they've now made rules about stuff they'll even have something specific to point at for the why. It could feel like a lot more and worse than it really is if that person's current grief puppet is spamming around your area. It only takes 1.

This. I'm not trying to diminish your experiences. Just reassure the general playerbase at large, that the vast majority of players are not griefers and are not out just to harm other players. The griefers are rare and few and far between but their actions stick in our memories and cloud our experiences so much more. There are also cases of good players or very new players getting things wrong once or twice so that most players may have felt attacked by a griefer when actually it was a decent player who mucked up or did something out of character or that they regret. We have a different perspective from where we are and I promise you, most of our players are awesome and we do shuffle out the genuinely bad ones as quickly as we can weed them out. With this in mind, we do not need to approach our policy or game design choices from the perspective of needing to predict the expected behaviours of griefers and cheaters. They will generally surprise us with new things anyway.

[Bogre]

I also fear that wide spread anonymity will result in bias or outright cheating by both players and staff to help learn or identify m-desc hidden players. This type of cheating is pure poison for the game and is best avoided all together. Equally, limiting the gear to certain clans for special purposes defeats the entire purpose of having them at all since clans should have less need for anonymity. 

That said if this goes in, I can't wait to see unconscious nobles lying naked on the ground. Probably not the intended outcome, but utterly hilarious none the less. 

I'm really puzzled by the above comments. Why would players suddenly be cheating to find mdescs anymore then they currently 'cheat' to find out sdescs or 'cheat' by remembering perfectly every detail about someone who had a mask and hood on. Also- why would staff be cheating to find out...? They could just pinfo or stat check or whatever to know.

There aren't typically unconscious nobles lying around everywhere, assassinations of nobles is exceptionally rare. Why exactly do you except the streets to suddenly be littered with them ? Players had access to stealth, invisibility spells, sap, half giants with clubs...and it didn't happen. But changing the look desc of people- it's  suddenly going to be mayhem...?

[mansa]

I also fear that wide spread anonymity will result in bias or outright cheating by both players and staff to help learn or identify m-desc hidden players. This type of cheating is pure poison for the game and is best avoided all together. Equally, limiting the gear to certain clans for special purposes defeats the entire purpose of having them at all since clans should have less need for anonymity. 

That said if this goes in, I can't wait to see unconscious nobles lying naked on the ground. Probably not the intended outcome, but utterly hilarious none the less. 

...

There aren't typically unconscious nobles lying around everywhere, assassinations of nobles is exceptionally rare. Why exactly do you except the streets to suddenly be littered with them ?

When I read that, I understood it as /the noble was wearing the mask, and pretending to be batman/, because of the anonymity... Rather than people attacking the noble.

[Dresan]

the vast majority of players are not griefers and are not out just to harm other players. The griefers are rare and few and far between but their actions stick in our memories and cloud our experiences so much more.

Two different points here.

The first point  is that the community has different definitions of what a griefer is exactly. Someone who PK like a psychopath, using lame excuses to go after newbie or non-combat characters not directly related to the conflict was not a griefer about four week ago. For example, raiders and muggers are not griefers in my books, especially if they are only looting virtual goods but not everyone agrees. Ultimately, the majority of people do only care about their stories and that includes people in staff. And to be perfectly clear there is nothing wrong with this either, no one should be forced to play something that find unfun, they should play as they want as long as it is within the rules and coded framework of the game.

The second point is that when rules, code or lore are at times ambiguous or left to interpretation (eg. backstabbing animals, frequency of steal mechanics), it has  lead to staff intervention at some point. This has been historically toxic for the game, because staff are people/former players of this game and have their own biases. People naturally side with those they like regardless of the reason. This is just being human, sure does suck the person on the other side and the game in general but its just reality and this is historically what has happened.

Something like anonymity granting items or skills removes the ability for players to decide what appropriate action to take in response to IC behavior.  It is a very powerful tool in the hands of someone who understands the gameplay mechanics. Unless staff intervenes or players cheat can be impossible to identify these people.  Regardless of the reasons or outcome of these interventions, these are potentially poisonous situations for the game. It will only take a couple semi-active mugger/raider, who aren't griefers in my books, to potentially force a toxic situation that will hurt the game. 

Again, despite that,  i fully see a need for anonymity to promote conflict but it needs to be handled with care and have well defined limitations. This isn't a Mush so both rules and gameplay mechanics need to be taken in consideration when making these types changes. Players supported by game mechanics should continue to have a role in determining appropriate action for IC behavior, even if that unfortunately means that the entire mud is after one lone raider who mugged a few coins off someone.

[Kavrick]

I both agree with Dumbstruck and Usuki. The average Armageddon player is kinder than you think, you just need a little more faith in people. But at the same time, I does only take a small handful of people to ruin the game, doubly so if you get those players in a high karma role or a sponsored role, which I have seen both happen and the consequences of it.

The addition of the PK rules is good because as long as the rules don't exist you'll get players who specifically look for opportunities to pk other players just for the fun of it. Even if people deny these players exist, PvP is it's own reward and the popularity of PVP games proves this. Not only this, I've actually seen in the past a good few long-time community members in this forum admit that they enjoy killing other players, I'm obviously not going to name names but I think it's more a less a fact that people do play Armageddon specifically to ruin the game for other players, whether this is from being a borderline griefing Pker or a sponsored leader who doesn't put the enjoyment of the players who play their subordinates first.

I'm thinking in the future I'll make a post about playing sponsored roles and antags in a way that's fun for the players involved. I know I haven't played many of these in Armageddon, but my time as a Dungeon Master for around 10+ years gives me a good idea I'd like to think, it's very much in the same area of the DM vs Players debate. And I just think it'll be a good discussion to have because it's important to see other perspectives on these things, especially staff.

[Valkyrja]

I understand why some players feel that a majority of others are inherently selfish players or that staff are the same way. I am looking forward to doing my part to prove that peoples' time and energy will be valued in Season 1. Creating memorable rivalries and scenes is my favorite part of this game that is very unique, because of the stakes involved.

I'm thinking in the future I'll make a post about playing sponsored roles and antags in a way that's fun for the players involved. I know I haven't played many of these in Armageddon, but my time as a Dungeon Master for around 10+ years gives me a good idea I'd like to think, it's very much in the same area of the DM vs Players debate. And I just think it'll be a good discussion to have because it's important to see other perspectives on these things, especially staff.

@Kavrick That sounds like a lovely idea.

[Riev]

I have experienced everything from players/groups having access to weapons or items they should not have (and staff EVENTUALLY stepped in and removed the item), to people Mortally Wounding someone in a public room, then performing the kill in another room so that the log shows they were killed in a 'better area', to people leading their would be attackers into Red Storm Alleys or other "bad areas" so that NPCs will help them out.

The simple fact is that the code won't matter, and a help file won't matter. It will be up to staff doing the things they're promising (not playing PCs themselves, actually observing things in game, and being available to intervene when things are needed). It only takes one player to "do whatever the game's code LETS them do" to ruin people's stories. And staff's only recourse is to punish the one doing the abusing (who will just use a VPN and make a new account), while the 10 days played PC's owner has to deal with it.

I don't think the help file will change anything. I don't think "requiring a wish up" will change anything. And having your mdesc hidden will just allow people to feel better about NOT killing immediately, because we can't shake the idea that "Perma-death PK is allowed" seems to mean "Fortnite in text"

[Dresan]

To be clear this has nothing to due with players being inherently selfish but rather people have difference of opinions to what good and bad is for the scenes and for game. I too doubt few players and staff come here to purposely grief but their actions may still be interpreted differently by others or have unexpected harmful outcomes.

All I am saying is when it comes to a new powerful mechanic like anonymity, both rules and gameplay need to be taken into account. Some events, both good and bad, have been rare in the past because people cannot escape IC consequences very easily. This may unintentionally change that with unexpected outcomes. Again, even then I admit we may need more anonymity abilities at this point, but I still think it should handled with time limited skills that require time to improve.

[Usiku]

This thread has gone sooo far off piste.. But anyway... just hypothetically, if we were ever going to implement mdesc covering masks, I feel like they could not and should not be infallible. Like there's always a chance other people might catch a glimpse of your eyes, hair, a tattoo and so on.. and you shouldn't know. That's how I would want it to be implemented anyway. But we have a whole trello board of coding backlog already, so you know, pipe dreams.

[Krath]

This thread has gone sooo far off piste.. But anyway... just hypothetically, if we were ever going to implement mdesc covering masks, I feel like they could not and should not be infallible. Like there's always a chance other people might catch a glimpse of your eyes, hair, a tattoo and so on.. and you shouldn't know. That's how I would want it to be implemented anyway. But we have a whole trello board of coding backlog already, so you know, pipe dreams.

The answer to this question is Peek

[eska]

I now see why veteran players tend to stay away from GDB. This thread started as discussing Changes to PK guidance and now we are talking about why we should bring or not mdesc hiding masks or why people PK.
As a over 20 years Armer, I had some PCs PKed in some shitty ways. It's Zalanthas and there's always death at the corner. So I learnt not to whine and to move on.
ArmageddonMud has always been a harsh game. I don't see any reason to change Zalanthas into a meek world. There is perma-death and PK. There are rules. Just trust the staff.