I've also recently come back to the game after a significant absence, and many of my opinions have already been put forth in eloquent fashion and because of those things I was hesitant to post in this thread. However, I refuse to have the above post be the last word from the playerbase on this matter. [EDIT: someone beat me to the punch while I was writing this hugely long post so this sentiment is not aimed at them, but my point still stands.] This is because I want to believe that the views held in that post are not prevelant amongst the players of Armageddon. They are precisely the views that would once again lead us to the exact situation the community faces now. If I’m wrong, and those views are in fact common, then this is not the place I want to spend further time on, despite having spent a significant portion of my life here, since the very earliest days.
Being that I’m on the soapbox now, I will reiterate some things that have already been pointed out and proposed that I think are important, but will add some of my own thoughts, as well as some proposals that go further than what have been already suggested.
I’d like to start by saying that I don't recall having any particularly negative experiences with staff during the years I’ve played - they’ve been neutral or positive instead. I say this with the caveat that while the vast majority of my time has been in clanned roles with some leadership roles, I also have often been an off-peak player, which may or may not have reduced my interactions with staff. I suspect I often just didn't have the ability to be involved in ongoing plots or to create or drive new ones due to my playtimes, and maybe I just didn't encounter staff interacting with me as much as they would have with others because of that as well. I've also purposefully avoided interacting with both players and staff outside the game, which may have insulated me further from Bad Things Happening. Regardless, I've always had respect for the fully voluntary time and work that staff put in.
Before I came back to the game, I had I randomly decided to browse the GDB one day, and the reason why I decided to start playing again was seeing the recent thread by the staff specifically inviting players to provide their thoughts and input on the game (the, "what would get you to play in the cities again" thread), and a recent addition in reponse to a long standing player gripe and request (spec app boosted start characters, both skillwise to avoid grind, and clan positionwise to avoid tedium). I saw these as evidence of positive developments in terms of staff culture and direction of the game as a whole.
Then there was the staffing changes post, and the whole GDB being shut down for a couple days - like another poster mentioned, I don't believe I've ever seen that happen before. Reading through the replies in this thread and the other newer non-returning player one, it's obvious something very significant has happened, but I think like most everyone else, I can only guess as to what that is. There have been very serious allegations mentioned, and if there is any truth to them, they are both horrifying and troubling. This is all very alarming, and has put serious doubts in my mind about returning to the game and where I thought the culture of the game was.
So, that said - what changes would I personally like to see?
Transparency
Players have always been separated from the staff by a veil of secrecy. There were the periodic player-staff meetings, where players were invited to ask questions of staff in a town hall style conversation, there were always discussion threads on the GDB, and sometimes staff would chime in on things giving some insight as to their thoughts and the direction of the game, but generally staff and what they do has always been essentially a black box otherwise. Unless you were staff or former staff yourself or one of them spilled the beans to a player, only those people knew what was really going on behind the scenes. This applied to the direction, content and the day to day operation of the game world, player moderation, staff moderation, staff appointments, etc. There's a ton of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that players aren't privvy to. Traditionally, the argument for this purposeful obscuring of all of this was that if this information was open to everyone, it would be open to being abused and could ruin ongoing or future plots and the hard work the staff puts into fostering them, it might affect staff/player interactions and open people to being targetted unfairly, etc etc.
It's always been my view however, that any group that is in a position requiring trust will have a difficult time earning and keeping that trust if there isn't sufficient transparency as to how they operate. This applies very much to the current situation and overall for Arm in general. Radical Transparency was put forth as a general idea by Valeria. While I think the suggestions that have already been put out about this are good, I'd like to reiterate some because of how important I think transparency is, and provide some of my own thoughts on them:
1. Staff rules and policies should be open to all to see. Appointments/demotions/dismissals/changes to the game and world and the reasons behind them should also similarly be publicly posted. The players should be invited to comment and discuss all of this as well.
2. Everyone should know who is playing each PC, including, but especially if a staff member is playing a PC. As has been mentioned, clanned players already have this transparency. The 1 year talk rule could still be left in place that prohibits players from active collusion and potentially affecting ongoing storylines. The classic argument against this is that it opens the door to easier player collusion or unfair targetting/abuse, revenge PK'ing, etc. But I think we all know this already happens to some extent. It's simply impossible to avoid. I really wonder - for a long-lived PC that has pissed off a player, how often are there instances that the aggrieved player actually turns around and go after them with a revenge PC? Those that partake in this sort of thing already aren't going to stop if everyone knows who's playing who, and those that don't, won't suddenly start. Staff would continue, as they always have, to police things as best they can. This would also prevent incorrect maligning - where someone assumes incorrectly that they know who the POF a PC is, and acts in an inappropriate manner towards a totally innocent player. Importantly, it would also reveal who might be acting in an inappropriate manner toward you. It might even help prevent problematic instances from occurring in the first place, since players have their reputation openly on the line if they try.
3. I would go further here and agree with Badskeelz that staff shouldn't be playing a PC at all while they are staff. While I recognize that staff being former players obviously enjoy playing as well and that this might make it harder to find new staffing volunteers, I feel allowing this is too easily abusable and has real potential for conflict of interest. Even if there is extra oversight on staff avatars to prevent Bad Things from Happening, it at minimum creates the perception in the playerbase that abuse could occur which breeds distrust and resentment. As others have mentioned, TTRPG DM's don't generally play PC's in their own games for similar reasons, but that their joy comes from running the game as a whole, where they can shape and inhabit an infinite number of entities within it to direct and interact with their players in telling their stories. To mitigate the potential problem re: staff recruitment, staff that have current PC's could be offered storage/unstorage options when they join or leave staff, and if their current PC has aged out, a similar replacement substitute could be provided to them when they leave. A point was brought up about staff being able to play is valuable for game coding/design, but beyond the fact that presumably staff can already see everything players do (and can further invite direct feedback from them) there seems to already be a test server where things can be tested.
4. Punishment of any sort should be publicly posted but importantly also explained, whether it is imposed on a player or staff. It was mentioned by Moonlit that this would lead to dogpiling - I disagree that would be the case, at least any more than already occurs. I believe players (and staff) over the years have found plenty of reason to do that on their own without this kind of transparency already, but instead of doing that based on facts, they do so based on conjecture and assumption, which is much worse.
5. There needs to be a transparent complaint and appeals process available for both players and staff regarding both problematic situations and any punishments issued. If preferable to a player (or staff!) there needs to be an avenue for someone to make a confidential complaint instead to some sort of trusted player representative, rather than a staff member (or staff as a whole), and then that representative will advocate on their behalf. It’s crucial that whistleblowers not be antagonized, unless incontrivertible evidence is found that they have fabricated their claims. Anyone that has been banned in the past should have access to this process as well. In western societies, courts are typically public, and anyone can attend a hearing. Court records are also public, and searchable by anyone. There are very good reasons for this - both to ensure that people obtain a fair shake under the law, and to enable the institutions themselves to be held accountable. I wonder if this was available for this current situation and whatever occurred historically that was associated with it, would we be here now? The fact that we still don’t know what really happened, despite the entire community being affected is problematic, and I wonder if that in itself has turned away players and/or returnees. This will lead into my next topic of discussion.
Oversight and Good Governance
Synthesis mentioned the problem of the bad actor coming into power. It is certainly a difficult problem, but I do believe the problem can be potentially mitigated. If putting in some measures might help, I think it's worth the effort - modern day western societies have many such structural institutions in place which while certainly not foolproof, may help to keep the problem at bay. As an example, there is great distrust and even outright antagonism of the police forces in many modern day societies. The police are there to enforce the law. But who polices the police? When the police are left to investigate themselves without proper independent oversight, things can easily start to go wrong, but importantly the public lose trust in them as well.
So who polices staff? As far as I can tell, it is the higher ranking staff that purportedly do so. While this works so long as the oversight staff are being judicious, it fails when they aren't or are simply too overwhelmed to notice wrongdoing.
6. The idea of the Player Council has already been suggested by Mansa. I propose the members of the player council should be nominated and elected via the players. If it’s not unfeasible, I suggest ranked choice voting or something similar. Each council member should have a fixed term of one year, renewable for one year further if reelected. After serving, the council member may not serve again until one year has passed. A council member may voluntarily step down at any time. The playerbase may vote to remove a council member and replace them with someone else during their term, on a 3/4+ vote to do so. The council would serve as an open forum for hearing complaints/appeals and be a mediating and decision making body for player-staff disputes as Mansa suggested, and decisions would be made by it’s members by majority vote.
7. The idea of a player Ombud has also been suggested by a few, but should also further be nominated and elected via the players and/or the player council, but also have further oversight/investigatory powers. Similar to the council members, the Ombud should also have term/reelection/conduct rules, etc. The Ombud should beyond what others have suggested have oversight power over staff. In order to do so, the Ombud should have the same access to staff communications/forums/game logs etc that the highest level staff have as necessary to conduct oversight and investigation into alleged staff misconduct. The Ombud should be subject to both player rules as well as staff policies. If staff are to be allowed to play PCs in whatever fashion, the Ombud should be able to as well, with whatever restrictions or oversight staff have. In the context and with the benefit of having full access, the Ombud should further have the equivalent voice to a staff Producer in all game matters (even so far as the thematic direction of the game and it’s content itself) as the representative voice of the players with the exception of disputes and complaints, where it would have the power to refer such matters and any collected evidence to the player council for deliberation and decision upon completion of an investigation. This leads me to my next topic.
Collaboration as a Whole
8. Invite the players to participate and drive real storylines and change in the world. There have been some positive developments that I’ve seen introduced over the years such as inviting players to become builders, putting out submission calls, or introducing structured custom crafting systems. But overall, stories of players being stymied and restricted have been a constant refrain for most of the time that I’ve played, and this has been the same for years and years. In the very olden days of yore, players used to be able to become real movers and shakers in the world. They used to make real history of note. It wasn’t necessarily always the staff and “resource PCs” (what are these even?) that took centre stage, but sometimes it really was the players who stepped up and drove central storylines and bade the world evolve alongside them. I’m not necessarily advocating for the return of the days of Thrain Ironsword, where the Flint’s of old was a wild west free-for-all of metal wielding magickers, halflings and mantis. But as others have suggested, the glass ceilings put in place upon the playerbase since those days have historically impaired the creativity of the players and their ability to create meaningful storylines. It should be a collaborative storytelling process, rather than a experiential one - or at least that is always what the the staff has always suggested they’d like to see of the players, yet the artificial barriers erected seem to have often prevented that from happening in the first place. The players should have a strong voice in moving the world forward.
9. Give players the tools, ability and trust to do so. I understand that there can be a lot of work that comes with a changing game world. But piggybacking on LauraMars'/Rahnevyn’s suggestions - this could be offloaded in part or even in whole to the players as well. Some player plot happens where Luir’s is to be completely destroyed, and staff doesn’t have time to rewrite a bunch of NPC’s/room descs/items/scripts, etc? Get players involved that want to help! Need some “resource PCs” to step in somewhere to bring alive some great villian or drive some big change somewhere? Get players involved that want to help! There is already a trust system in place. Karma. Use it to trust players to get involved in these sorts of ways and more. It would be a positive way to use this kind of system, rather than the historically negative way it’s been wielded over players. Staff could still oversee the process, and provide general guidelines. Maybe the player council could be involved somehow in choosing trusted players (or giving people a chance to become such), etc. Remove that trust, if and when warranted. Retcon things, if things really go badly. But I think if the line between "player" and "staff" starts to blur a bit and we start to place some trust in the players, the same sort of trust we've been asked by the staff to place in them, good things could really happen.
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Maybe this is all wishful thinking. As we’ve seen in the recent threads, we the players don’t even necessarily all agree on how to move forward. I’d imagine there will be other proposals, other ways of doing things but trying to achieve similar goals. Even if some things are introduced in some fashion that have been proposed, it would be helpful just to show that hey, we’re really serious about making things better - that one of Mansa’s suggestions to shift moderation to players has already been put in is a first step forward (but again transparency - how were the moderators selected? is there a process to replace/remove one or more if they’re not working out? etc). It’s a lot of work. A lot of self reflection which takes a heaping dollop of humility. But I’d like to think there is a way forward for this community, for this very special and unique game where the game doesn’t rest on those laurels and turns its nose up against its own community members because it thinks it’s so special. It can’t, because as a niche in a niche, doing so risks its very continuing existence. Its reputation is already in tatters - before I came back, I looked through /r/mud. Armageddon is at a crossroads. It is up to those that steer it to look at what changes might benefit us all, and that this thread even exists at all is in itself, a glimmer of hope that things might be set in the right direction for the future.
