Out of Character and you... the grey of grey areas.

[Armaddict]

I'm confused what this has to do with the topic.  That was a weird twist.

[Reiloth]

Slightly off-topic, for sure. How did that come up? Haha.

[BadSkeelz]

Mutant catgirl commoner would have been the real problem. Sounds like poor staff oversight, but then who really wants to be monitoring that kind of business.

FWIW, I don't think it was poor Staff oversight. I mean, Catgirl's allowed existence via character approval, maybe, but I think they clamped down on that shit tight and quick. I was playing a Noble at the time and it was like maybe a couple RL days. The Nobles were there, then they weren't, and the reasons why became very clear very rapidly.

I bring up staff oversight because, from French's initial post, it makes it sound like the cat was only out of the bag once someone blabbed OOC and clued Staff in.

In my opinion, the Noble should have been punished because something of that nature would have been known to the VNPC populace of the estate. Which would require Staff to have been keeping an eye on the Noble and the Noble's guests' comings and goings. Staff should have (And could have) known to punish because of flagrant IC doc violation, not because of any OOC tattling.

[BadSkeelz]

Which just kind of proves my point that people are very quick to look for OOC justification and excuses for why their plots and characters go awry, when in reality there are very good IC reasons for them to go awry.

[Iiyola]

Maybe we could have an Allanak/Red Storm/Luirs subforum?

I'm not sure how this would work.
I'd like it though.

Same news as the rumor board, questions, discussions regarding the city, etc. Or even a general report of an RPT that has happened. It may sate peoples curiosity and it's much easier to regulate the exchange of these happenings between players.

[Reiloth]

Which just kind of proves my point that people are very quick to look for OOC justification and excuses for why their plots and characters go awry, when in reality there are very good IC reasons for them to go awry.

But wait, how do we know it was OOC tattling and not Staff monitoring? AFAIK, it was the latter?

And thus, a Legendary Rumor was born.

But yes, there are actually often perfectly normal IC circumstances as to why X happened to Person Y...But the OOC collusion is suspected immediately, perhaps by Staff and Players both. I tend to give the benefit of the doubt and just assume everything that happens IG is for IC reasons, but I dunno. I guess OOC collusion does happen and does ruin plots. I see both sides of it, though we all could perhaps benefit the most from assuming everything that happens IG is for IC reasons...And if you have a doubt, put in a complaint or ask Staff to take a look at it.

[manipura]

Stopping OOC collusion is impossible.  Efforts to do so will only create a witch-hunt atmosphere that is not fun for either players or staff.  There will always be a few people that form half-giant/elementalist/mul power ranger teams and who play the game to win.  It's not like you can put a keylogger on their AIM chats to prove they're doing it, either.

The only viable option, really, is trusting people to keep their IC knowledge and OOC knowledge separate.  I think an atmosphere of trust inspires more mature behavior then an atmosphere of draconian enforcement.

My tastes here are somewhat atypical, as I prefer a MUSH-style atmosphere where most players are free to share informaton with each other about ongoing plots and peek into the 'big picture,' and I realize this is not that kind of game.

To paraphrase what someone else said earlier in the thread, in lots of cases it isn't the OOC sharing that is problematic, it's what the players -do- with that information that is problematic.

In the example of the 'rinthi aide, the player of the disgruntled acquaintance, and the noble...sure it's frustrating when the truth is spilled OOC about something your character has been spending a good bit of time and effort plotting...but if the player of the noble learns the origin of their aide...guess what, they don't have to use that information.  Will they?  Maybe.  Who can say, that sort of thing depends on the player in question.  I would hope they wouldn't, but the fact is they might.  The point is...just because a player knows something OOC, it doesn't mean their PC knows it.  OOC sharing doesn't automatically ruin plots, that happens when players decide to abuse that OOC information.  

With every new character we all file away OOC knowledge and (hopefully) don't make it available to our new characters simply because we know it.  
We, the player, know things about the world and about other characters that our new PC doesn't know.  Maybe our new character has a background which makes sense for them to know some things, maybe they've made the right connections in game to actually have gained this knowledge, maybe they've simply lived long enough to have amassed a lot of information about the world.  But if they haven't, then it's up to us to not let them 'know things.'

There is OOC sharing, and there is OOC abuse.  One is not in the spirit of the game and has the potential to ruin plots, the other...not so much.  But it comes down to players policing themselves and deciding whether to use information or not.  Short of using a keylogger to prove there is sharing which might lead to abuse...what can staff do?

One suggestion was that players who learned things OOC could alert staff that there had been sharing... Does staff want however many requests to deal with that are essentially a bunch of grown-ups tattling on one and other?  Is it that hard for people to just not use the OOC information that they know and their PC doesn't?

We still haven't talked about the other person who is wronged here. What about the player of the noble who now has to play around the knowledge. They've had the element of surprise robbed from them.

I am friends with many of you. Most of you I avoid these discussions with.  Sometimes you guys say too much. Sometimes I have said too much. Generally we are ok. We do our best. We show up, play, and we aren't cheating. We also tell each other when we've crossed a line. Sometimes it's hard to say and hard to hear. That's ok. We still say it and hear it.


We are not the problem.

The problem is when people rely on friendships to avoid risk or gain advantage. The problem is when instead of exerting influence in game you influence how your friends play in discord or aim or at a bar.

I don't know but what staff could or should do. I know that we can police ourselves and each other. Don't make excuses to justify how and why we can be cheaters, or why it's ok to be mediocre. Do better. If you fuck up, own it and do better.

Yes, in this case the player of the noble has had the element of surprise robbed from them.  It's unfortunate but it's happened.  And now it's on them to use that information or not use it.
If this is such a horrible position to be in, then don't talk to the people on AIM ...or whatever the cool kids use nowadays... who are free with their game chatter.  It should take one time for you to realize whether or not this is someone you want to keep talking to.

If someone on your chat list tends to be overly chatty in regard to the game, then you tell them you don't want to talk about game things, you don't want to know game information etc.  If they continue to over-share, then stop communicating with them?  
I mean, after you've told them once that you don't wish to communicate about the game...if they keep on trying to engage you in that talk, they're just disrespecting the request you already made and it doesn't seem out of line to stop communicating with them.

When you are saying "We are not the problem" I assume you are putting yourself in the noble position, the player having the surprise taken from them, the player who now has info they don't want.  This I agree with.  You aren't the problem.  You have been told something you didn't want to know, and now you have to act or not act on that information.  At that point you can choose whether you act on the information and also whether you keep communicating with the over-sharer.  
If you have a list of people you communicate with and someone makes a habit of disregarding your requests for not talking about the game, then yeah, I think it's on you to stop communicating with them.

I just think it comes down to policing ourselves, because there are always going to be people/places where information is shared beyond the point we want it to be shared.

So I've been sticking back and just reading for now... I haven't had too much to weigh in on, but I will add a few points.

In no way would I ever tell someone to not talk about the game at all.  I'd be guilty of that... shit, a few players that I've met know I'd be guilty of that.  I love talking about the game, I will talk about things that are kinda IC related, but I won't talk about something that could very likely have IC consequences.  I am not going to talk about the Psion that has been very active in the game.  I'm not going to talk about how I did this cool thing that will likely get someone killed.  I will talk about some awesome past characters, some neat things I did in game, and talk about some great riots that happened in the game recently.  Now I mentioned something that is recent... yes... I did.  This is an item that is public, it's on the boards...  this is something that someone could easily find out IC, so something like that I'm not worried about.  I'm not going to talk about my current character and his plot to kill Noble Fancypants Poopsmith.  Lastly, I'm not going to ask the player I'm talking with to see if they'd like to work together IC.  I can already see everyone's characters, so that cat is already out of the bag... so I don't care if a player talks recent events with me, as long as they are not near my own character.  I'll warn them if it does come near it though, as I don't want things spoiled for my own character... but you'll have to understand, it happens more than you realize.  (I accidentally found out one time that another player was out to kill my current character at the time... holy crap can that be hard to deal with.)

I hope you guys can see the difference here that I'm trying to explain.  The hope is that we can prevent people from spoiling a bit too much with other players.  To stop the people that intentionally talking OOC with each other about current events that will likely affect their character.

I see what you're saying Ath, I think part of the problem though is that (in this thread at least) one staff viewpoint seems to be "talking about the game in non-specific, non-current ways is okay, because it's very unlikely to impact the game" but another viewpoint is "all chatter about the game is bad."

I'm not sure how I would feel if a friend convinced me to play some new game, and then when I got hooked and tried to talk to them about something I got told "No I don't want to hear anything about it, it might ruin the game for me!"

[Nergal]

Here's a story from earlier this year:

As GMH admin, I made it a point to start running season-long plots to encourage competition between the GMHs. The first such plot involved a newly-revealed cave filled with rare, but dangerous, animals. The GMHs were thus encouraged to find a way to make the cave useful to them. Numerous possibilities were open to them - they could find a way to breed the animals and make obtaining their parts more reliable, or they could wipe out the whole nest and keep the parts rare. They could work together, or alone. Anything the GMHs came up with, we were willing to support. There was a catch, however - one end of the cave had a bubbling pool of lava, and so the plot had to be completed before the cave filled with lava. (Hence, the "season-long" aspect of the plot, vs. one with indefinite length.)

There was some discussion and competition between the GMHs. Eventually, House A got very defensive of the whole area and Houses B and C decided to team up, to cut out House A. This led to a bit of a stalemate, with House A establishing a home advantage. Then the playing field changed. The leader of House B hired a magicker to kill a leader of House A with a spell that switches the caster with the target. The end result: the leader of House A was eaten by gith, while Houses B and C could sit back and enjoy their victory.

At this point, you might think that this is standard Murder, Corruption, Betrayal. And you would be right, except for one slight hitch: the player of House A's gith-food leader, or someone purported to be them, played that death beep in a Discord chat set up by members of jcarter's forum and declared that their PC was finally dead. Within minutes, the full details of the death were circulating, and details and speculation on the mechanics of the spell were posted up.

The player of House B and C's leaders, locked into their alliance and receiving a morale boost from this small success, pushed for the cave again. But they ran into hurdles. Separately, both players sent requests to staff with similar wording and arguments, faulting the players of House A for not reporting things accurately and faulting the staff of House A for loading NPCs to support A's PCs when Houses B and C were not getting a similar amount of support (although they were, and could ask for more if they needed to). The player of House C's leader was known to have coordinated requests in the past with other players, and it was not too much of a stretch to assume that other things had been coordinated too. When questioned, both players, of course, admitted to being friends but did not admit to collusion of any kind. The phrasing, organization, and timing of the complaints, however, told a different story.

After a roll call was put out to replace a leader of House A that had stored after the death of the other House A Leader, the drive to win (and frankly, there's nothing else that it can be called) led to the leaders of Houses B and C to plot more killings of House A's PCs so that they could not report to House A's leader's replacement on the behavior of House B and C, completely disregarding the fact that House A had the virtual knowledge of B and C's actions already, and NPCs could easily pass the knowledge of the behavior to the PC replacement.

The plot was ultimately a failure, spoiled by OOC news of Leader A's murder and spoiled further by evidence that the two IC allied Houses were talking out-of-game at the same time. The plot was always on a timer - and the timer was sped up, ending the plot before it could be ruined further by out-of-game meddling. We specifically waited for characters to die or store before running the next GMH plot.

Edit to add:
There are more stories where that came from. I'll write more examples every day or two.
And a reminder:
Don't identify yourself or other players if you feel you're a star in the story, or if you think someone else is. My goal is not to start a pity party or a witch hunt. It is to explain that plots are still ruined by OOC and on a fairly regular basis.
Edit #2:
In case it wasn't clear, there were multiple leaders in each clan at the time. The actions of one leader of a clan doesn't reflect on or state the actions of the rest of the leaders.

[BadSkeelz]

House A had the coded means to kill every single PC and nearly every loaded NPC in House B and C and, in my opinion, should have. Damn where the information came from, it would have been more interesting to watch.

Frankly, it was transparent in-game who was doing what and why (if not the precise methods; the identity of that magicker never needed to be revealed, for instance). I think the "OOC meddling" angle was overblown and used as an excuse to not do anything that would inordinately impact anyone else's characters.

You wanted conflict and you could have had it, but everyone seemed to get cold feet.

[Armaddict]

The plot was ultimately a failure, spoiled by OOC news of Leader A's murder and spoiled further by evidence that the two IC allied Houses were talking out-of-game at the same time.

I'm not condoning any behavior here, but I'm wondering how exactly the plot was ruined when they had worked IC to make this happen and would have known it was successful anyway?  And how does their simultaneous requests for more support...ruin that the plot was going on?  Was any of this behavior that didn't make sense, IC'ly speaking?

I feel like the outright downside of this should be self-evident, but in reading this all I see is that things happened, they kept trying for the same goal, and the timer was pushed forward out of disappointment that people had worked together, even though it was known they were working together beforehand IC anyway.  Did I misread this?!  

Edit:  Again, not condoning any of it, just was expecting something pretty drastic to appeal to the 'plot ruined!' plight.  This seems like the players should have been dealt their dues for keeping things out of reach of IC investigation, but overall, the spirit of the actions described seem to fall into line with what was already expected, tagteaming for more support not included.  I don't have details, but as a third party having it described...-were- there valid reasons they would both ask for the same support?

[John]

So let me make up a situation that is 100% false:

['rinthi infiltration example]

That's a completely mundane example for you, by the way.

I wouldn't be glad that I "flushed out the shitters". I'd be extremely frustrated, and upset, and I'm sure in that position I'd consider if I really wanted to play Arm at all, if that's what the playerbase was like.

That's the stuff that needs to be prevented

Your example is flawed (and I realize is a quickly put together example).. Had the noble player played a rinthi they would have had the exact same information without OOC communication.

As someone who hasn't played in a while (so feel free to disregard me), either players and staff trust each other to not abuse OOC info, or they don't. People will always talk to friends and it is not unreasonable to do so. People can always abuse info their character shouldn't have, and banning OOC communication (if such a thing was possible) isn't going to stop that.

So this is what I ask you...  How does we regulate this rule?

This problem is as old as Armageddon. First the problem was ISCA where people coordinated and shared information. Then the problem became AIM and private messenger. The problem has on and off been IRC. Today the problem is an offsite message board (and also AIM, etc).

Staff policy has been inconsistently enforced. The way the current policy is enforced simply doesn't work and can't work.

At the moment we have perfectly honest and reputable players going offsite to talk about their characters because it's felt such talk has too many restrictions on the gdb (regardless of whether or not there are). At the forum they can be exposed to other information they may not necessarily want to see. So any solution needs to disincentivize people from going offsite to partake in completely reasonable human behavior.

I'd suggest a sub forum set up specifically to share IC information with threads needing approval before they're viewable. Anyone who doesn't want to see the information doesn't have to. No-one has to unreasonably restrain themselves in creating the initial thread for fear of getting smacked down as initial posts that cross the line simply won't be approved. Anyone caught repeatingly abusing OO.c gained info can have their privileges to this forum revoked.

[evilcabbage]

friends in roles like that should not coordinate or talk to each other if they are in leadership positions.

but that is just my opinion.

[BadSkeelz]

We already have clan forums, which serve a similar function. I actually think we'd be better off if there were no clan boards and all game-related communication had to occur in game or through the request tool. You wouldn't know who is playing in your clan unless they broke OOC and told you. We'd need vastly better in-game communication methods for that to work, of course.

I think the real question is "How do we respond to people potentially using meta knowledge in game?" And the only answer to that is "respond as your character would." Trust the other player to not be a shithead, and if they turn out to be a shithead, react accordingly. Probably by killing their PC.

I don't give a shit how the player behind a character came to a decision on how to act. I only know how my character should act.

Prioritize strength!

[Jingo]

House A had the coded means to kill every single PC and nearly every loaded NPC in House B and C and, in my opinion, should have. Damn where the information came from, it would have been more interesting to watch.

You wanted conflict and you could have had it, but everyone seemed to get cold feet.

I think most people understand that this is a shitty, metagamey way of going about it. I know I lose interest in playing when this kind of thing is supported.

[BadSkeelz]

The game's already "shitty and metagamey," or else why would this thread exist?

There were plenty of good IC reasons to justify such a reaction. For whatever reason they weren't followed up on. Instead people (apparently) went "Oh no OOC gotta shut it all down."

[lostinspace]

The game's already "shitty and metagamey," or else why would this thread exist?

There were plenty of good IC reasons to justify such a reaction. For whatever reason they weren't followed up on. Instead people (apparently) went "Oh no OOC gotta shut it all down."

It would have been a slaughter, and I'd have loved to see it, because the Known would have exploded with activity.

[Jingo]

The game's already "shitty and metagamey," or else why would this thread exist?

There were plenty of good IC reasons to justify such a reaction. For whatever reason they weren't followed up on. Instead people (apparently) went "Oh no OOC gotta shut it all down."

Because staff knows that letting a handful of code-heavy players dominate the game is a bad idea? Or getting killed for joining the wrong clan is a good way to piss anyone off?

I'm not against pitched warfare between houses, I think it could go to some interesting places. But I am against selectively killing the PC population "cuz dey duh compuhtision".

[BadSkeelz]

Read Nergel's post again, Jingo.

House A knew their leader was dead. It didn't take a fucking genius to figure out who could have ordered the hit. They should have reacted. Killed every House B and C PC they can get their hands on. Kill their NPCs. Crash their wagons in to sinkholes. Do something amazing and long-lasting.

Instead we allowed butthurt players (not just the one whose PC was killed, but the player whose master plan was outed sooner than expected) dictate non-events.


Also if the House A leader had been killed via mundane means instead of a magickal assassination I doubt there'd be as many hurt feelings and the plot could have proceeded. Certainly less expectation of "my perfect plan was discovered it must be due to OOC collusion because there could be absolutely no IC justification for finding out and anyone who appears to figure it out IC is a cheater."

Edit: Really, Nergal's leaving out an important detail of how the House B and C leaders reacted to the dead A player's transgression. I think that reaction (being disheartened) shows the dangers of OOC chatting to be way more destructive than active colluding.

[Jingo]

I did read it again. My position doesn't change.

I've been on the receiving end of the "kill all the competition" shit shows before. It isn't fun. It adds nothing to the game.

If house A wanted to ambush parts of the other houses, fine. But directly targeting and killing all the pc's is bullshit.

[BadSkeelz]

Don't want (bull)shit, don't start shit.

If you kick off a plot and it goes a direction you're not expecting, that doesn't mean it's ruined. You have to adapt.

[Armaddict]

friends in roles like that should not coordinate or talk to each other if they are in leadership positions.

but that is just my opinion.

No no, I totally agree with you in terms of -coordinating-, unless it's coordination to meet up about coordinating.

I was honing in on the 'plot ruined' part, because it sounded like all behavior was to be expected to go as it did.  They did the assassination.  They made their move afterwards.  But the plot itself was cut short rather than playing through because of the shadiness even though the end result was fine otherwise.  There are obviously things wrong with depriving the rest of the game from the ability to react.  But the knowledge of the death in particular, and then both of them requesting the same support (I'm assuming for mutual benefit) that was granted House A (and was even mentioned to being acceptable if they asked, which they did, just in very similar manners) doesn't seem to have ruined this plot.

When questioned, both players, of course, admitted to being friends but did not admit to collusion of any kind. The phrasing, organization, and timing of the complaints, however, told a different story.

This is what I've been honing in on for the entire thread.  This is a very subjective judgment based on the assumption that two friends couldn't possibly see things the same way, or have actually had IC reason to have the other's benefit in mind, or that they couldn't be speaking about being mutually dissatisfied with how things were handled and wanting to bring it up.

The big injustice here is if any planning on the actual event happened OOC instead of IC where it could be reacted to.  Not that people knew that their plan succeeded, or that they both wanted things to be done differently afterwards.

Unless there's something missing that I didn't see, which is why I was asking.  Neither of those influence the plot or its affects as the story is written.

We've been walking back and forth over that question for the whole thread: Is it terrible and plot ruining if it's not influencing the affects/actions that are performed IC'ly?  As noted earlier, we've had both stances attacked and defended, often by the same people in different posts.  This leads to a very arbitrary, inconsistent way of how it's dealt with when it's that subjective to 'how things look and feel at the time', assuming that there's enough to say that it should be dealt with with a hammer in the first place.

If house A wanted to ambush parts of the other houses, fine. But directly targeting and killing all the pc's is bullshit.

I won't agree or disagree with it, only point out that that's not really the issue at hand in the story.  It's a method you don't approve of, and it ignores some VNPC issues, but altogether, that's not about OOC and IC boundaries, which is what's being discussed.

[Jingo]

Don't want (bull)shit, don't start shit.

If you kick off a plot and it goes a direction you're not expecting, that doesn't mean it's ruined. You have to adapt.

If I kick off a plot and and my clan gets wiped by a bunch of bored do-nothing players, then yeah it's ruined.

[Taven]

House A had the coded means to kill every single PC and nearly every loaded NPC in House B and C and, in my opinion, should have. Damn where the information came from, it would have been more interesting to watch.

Frankly, it was transparent in-game who was doing what and why (if not the precise methods; the identity of that magicker never needed to be revealed, for instance). I think the "OOC meddling" angle was overblown and used as an excuse to not do anything that would inordinately impact anyone else's characters.

You wanted conflict and you could have had it, but everyone seemed to get cold feet.

First of all, I absolutely agree that House A getting full IC vegeance on B and C would have been fun. And it would have been nice to see the plot through, although I understand the stance that was taken to accelerate it.

But the lack of conflict and cold feet? Don't lay that one at staff's feet.

Also if the House A leader had been killed via mundane means instead of a magickal assassination I doubt there'd be as many hurt feelings and the plot could have proceeded. Certainly less expectation of "my perfect plan was discovered it must be due to OOC collusion because there could be absolutely no IC justification for finding out and anyone who appears to figure it out IC is a cheater."

It seems to me that nobody thought House A was at fault at all, nor that their assumptions were based on anything other then IC. Nergal's example seems to be saying that B and C were at fault and plotted OOCly to facilitate the murder. It would not have mattered if the murder was mundane or not, the OOC is the issue, rather then the form it took.

[Gravity]

This is a controversial suggestion but I thought I'd throw it out there: what would staff think of a sanctioned game chat room/area where people could meet friends and whatnot. A little like the Teamspeak but obviously monitored and logged. The reasoning behind it would be to encourage folks to chat with each other there rather than in private (somehow), with the idea being people would migrate here since it was easier to reach out etc. A little resource intensive to monitor and such, but possibly helpers could play a role too.

[nauta]

Thanks for another example! 

This is the meat of the ooc communication case, from what I gather, and the question -- to steer us back to it -- is: what would you do as staff about the case at hand?

The player of House B and C's leaders, locked into their alliance and receiving a morale boost from this small success, pushed for the cave again. But they ran into hurdles. Separately, both players sent requests to staff with similar wording and arguments, faulting the players of House A for not reporting things accurately and faulting the staff of House A for loading NPCs to support A's PCs when Houses B and C were not getting a similar amount of support (although they were, and could ask for more if they needed to). The player of House C's leader was known to have coordinated requests in the past with other players, and it was not too much of a stretch to assume that other things had been coordinated too. When questioned, both players, of course, admitted to being friends but did not admit to collusion of any kind. The phrasing, organization, and timing of the complaints, however, told a different story.

(The separate dumbness of Player A going onto a foreign web-site and complaining about dying is not OOC collusion and pretty cut-and-dry.)

I would think this would be a tough call to make, and I can definitely see room for some benefit of the doubt when I'd go to address the two players in question.

I just kind of want to steer the conversation back to this.