What kind of game is Armageddon? What kind of game should it be?

[BadSkeelz]

Thread title. What kind of game are we playing here? What kind of game do we want to play? How do we get there? Feel free to post your thoughts, I’m just spitballing mine below.

I think it was LauraMars who first pointed out that Armageddon as a game has no defined set of values. I believe this ambiguity is at the root cause of much discontent, as everyone is free to bring their own philosophy to the game and that these sometimes mesh poorly. We have a stated theme of “Murder, Corruption, and Betrayal,” but that doesn’t really explain what kind of game we’re playing. Aside from (hopefully) murder, I’d say we’ve managed to achieve much more Corruption and Betrayal out-of-game rather than in it.

As I see it, there are two broad ways of defining Armageddon as a game:
1)   As a collaborative storytelling exercise that prizes narrative above all (with or without an ERP mini game bolted on to it)
2)   A ruthlessly competitive by-the-code and meta-social engineering power-amassing game (with or without an ERP mini game bolted on to it).

Given the current state of the game, the current state of Staff, and the current state of our community, I would say we come down much harder on the second category. This breeds resentment among all parties, as the stakes are artificially high.

Personally I would rather we move towards the first, and I think the way to accomplish that is by treating Armageddon more as a collaborative game and less the Stanford Prison Experiment that it is currently is. For us to begin treating this like a Collaborative Game, we need to know who we’re playing with.

 Under current rules Armageddon overly encourages players to “inhabit” their PCs by demanding we not discuss our characters with other players. This discourages us from viewing our characters as a character; rather we are psychologically primed to see the character as extensions of ourselves. Coupled with the game’s permadeath nature, players are pressured to seize whatever advantage they can to keep “themselves” alive. Cliques form out of a desire for safety, of being able to have some people around that you can trust. These out-of-game relationships are leaned on for in-game gains. This occurs on both sides of the Player/Staff divide. The specifics and capabilities of cliques vary, but they all stem from the common desire of wanting to play with people you trust and enjoy the company of.

Knowing who you’re playing with also has the added benefit of exerting social pressure on us to keep up good behavior and retain our seats at the table. It makes calling out easier, it builds trust among all participants, and it constantly reinforces that this is A GAME, with another person behind the text. If we want Armageddon to be Collaborative instead of Competitive, knowing who we’re playing with is the first step towards that.

[Synthesis]

I think the game is best enjoyed as a roguelike with RP elements.

It's like Dwarf Fortress, ADOM, or Cataclysm DDA, but with more intense RP.

You aren't going to win.  You aren't going to be epic.  You aren't going to do anything anyone remembers.  You just live in the moment until you inevitably die.

[Armaddict]

I think the game is best enjoyed as a roguelike with RP elements.

That's exactly how I describe it.  Or closer to it, a survival roleplay intensive roguelike.

In no way is this degrading the roleplay quality or importance.  To the contrary, the roleplay is actually what makes it the most -badass- survival/roguelike ever, because there are political hurdles that are not scripted, there are shifting circumstances, there are surprise alliances and enemies, and there's downtime-content rather than the constant drive to speedrun through a game.  The roleplay is the central part of the game...but the removal of the other two portions actually cheapens that RP rather than enhancing it.

[dumbstruck]

I mean. It's a roleplay game. With robust physics and settings.

I highly disagree of Arm as being 'a roguelike' game. Why? Because of what is actually defined as being a roguelike game:

Roguelike Qualities:

(Major Points)

-The game uses random dungeon generation to increase replayability.
-The game uses permadeath.
-The game is turn-based, giving the player as much time as needed to make a decision.
-The game has a degree of complexity due to the number of different game systems in place that allow the player to complete certain goals in multiple ways, creating emergent gameplay.
-The player must use resource management to survive.
-The game is focused on hack and slash-based gameplay, where the goal is to kill many monsters, and where other peaceful options do not exist.
-The game requires the player to explore the map and discover the purpose of unidentified items in a manner that resets every playthrough.

(Minor Points)

-The game is based on controlling only a single character throughout one playthrough.
-Monsters have behavior that is similar to the player-character, such as the ability to pick up items and use them, or cast spells.
-The game aimed to provide a tactical challenge that may require players to play through several times to learn the appropriate tactics for survival.
-The game is presented using ASCII characters in a tile-based map.
-The game involves exploring dungeons which are made up of rooms and interconnecting corridors.
-The game presents the status of the player and the game through numbers on the game's screen/interface.

Now, I've used red text to highlight where there is clearly an issue where there is clearly a problem with representing Armageddon as a roguelike. Now, roughly 1/4 of that if that, maybe, points, even remain without problems. So if 3/4 of the elements of a roguelike's main elements are problems with what's being found in Arm, maybe we need to look at it in a different lens? In fact, people endlessly opposed giving people 'plenty amount of time, turn based actions' when we talk about anything as simple as pose. Not to mention that people are talking about how 'hack and slash' and 'roleplay' are on opposite ends of spectrum. So which one are you after?

[Armaddict]

I mean, you can get overly semantic about it if you want.  But there's a lot of games that don't fit that criteria that are still called roguelikes, and I'm not certain why people talking about how they play the game or describe the game made you decide that you just had to go get the exact definition of that thing.  I specifically said roleplay is central to it and how those elements are incorporated in a way that expands the roleplay rather than diminishing it.

Call it whatever you like, when I talk to other roleplayers about it, they know what I mean and certainly don't start going down a checklist of what this game must have to fit my description.  They know that you make a character that will die.  They know that you progress in skills.  They know that combat is fleshed out.  They know there are survival mechanics.  They know it's focused on roleplay.

They also know it's not play-by-post or longform narrative writing like the places where I generally speak to them.  Fits pretty aptly, in my own opinion, rather than having someone enter and wonder why they have prompts telling them to stop what they're doing and go get food.  But you do you.

[Jimpka_Moss]

This is not a roguelike. It's just not. I started playing Rogue when I was six. So, I've watched the definition of the word slowly change over time to include things that are not at all roguelike. And you call Arm roguelike, and your friends know what you mean. Congratulations, you can communicate with your friends.

This overspecification of exacting, semantic language is sometimes necessary to communicate with people who don't talk like you, aren't your friends, and have different definitions to words you might associate with something else.

Roguelike with roleplay elements is different than A roleplaying game with roguelike elements, isn't? I would quit, if we started calling this a roguelike game. Does that make it clear how important the wording is?



When I read that someone playing this game for years considered this game to be a roguelike game, I almost quit right then. I had this shocking, painful worry that Synthesis might be one of those people running around, offering zero emotes, killing people quickly because 'Hey, they might get away and kill me later, or people might mob up', playing to 'win', killing every animal they can just to get more gains, etc. All of that, just one person saying they considered this game roguelike made me feel /THAT/ is what they thought the game was.


...but with some roleplay, to spice it up and make it fun. With roleplay, to increase their enjoyment. With roleplay, for the down times, when they aren't /into/ skilling up. And then I realized maybe everyone of you think this way, and that's why Byn troops move as fast as they can down a memorized path with little to no emoting (often), maybe that's why so many HG's are just murderhobos, maybe That's why this game is so bad when it's bad, is because people are playing a different game than me!


I've been playing a roleplaying game, like D&D, but partially automated for speed, static for constant immersiion, dynamic in ways that Roleplay, time, coordination and effort could change. Was I expected to rp out dying to someone who just comes in and kills me to make the game more fun for them???

Am I just animating victims and sidekicks for all of you? Does everyone think of their own character as the protagonist in their own story, and not even consider the stories of others or who to improve, mesh, and weave together your own? What game am I playing?!


Maybe it's no so bad, because we have a different definition of roguelike, of other words. I can tell exactly what Dumbstruck means, mostly because I know her language, but isn't it very clear to everyone what she means? Sorry you got upset about the semantic, I got upset about the word you used and all of the hidden connotations to that word and the meaning it has in a dictionary, but hey, you do you.

[CirclelessBard]

Armageddon should be a collaborative storytelling game, via the medium of roleplaying. This is just a summary of what it says on the tin (or in our case, the main page of the website).

I think what Armageddon currently is, is a game where some players and staff members get to roleplay their power fantasy, and everyone else gets gritty slice-of-life roleplay if they are lucky enough to have rolled a character in a populated play sphere.

[Yelinak]

You aren't going to do anything anyone remembers.

What a sad thing to expect players to accept and embrace. Whenever that's reality in a roleplaying game, that game has failed on a fundamental level.

[Synthesis]

You aren't going to do anything anyone remembers.

What a sad thing to expect players to accept and embrace. Whenever that's reality in a roleplaying game, that game has failed on a fundamental level.

What's sad about it?

We all are literally living that experience as we speak.

There is no destination, only the journey--and the journey can be amusing in itself once you make peace with the fact that we are dust in the wind.

This isn't a tabletop RPG. If that's what you want, go play a tabletop (I do that, as well). The assumption of a TTRPG is that the DM is going to be fair with encounters, that fun is the priority, and the party is all going to help each other out while collaboratively constructing some epic fantasy tale

That most certainly is not Armageddon. In Armageddon--from the lowest 'rinther to the highest-born Templar--you are a piece of shit, and then you die. That's the story.  And it can be a beautiful story once you accept that it's going to be nasty, brutish, and short.

That's why I describe it as a roguelike. Obviously it differs from a roguelike in elements like leveling up and exp and all that...but the expectation is similar.  I don't get mad at ADOM if I roll a character and die at level 2 to Kranach the Raider.  I don't get mad at Dwarf Fortress if it spawns some ridiculously out-of-depth ancient bronze titan that completely  annihilates my fort before I even have a guard force set up.

If this was a TTRPG, and the DM TPKed us with a mekillot as soon as we stepped out the east gate of Allanak on our first session, I would be pretty annoyed at that, because there's an expectation of fairness. I have no such expectation with Arm. If a sorc wants to nuke me while I'm mining obsidian, they're free to do it, and I'm not going to gripe (much) about it.  Obviously "pk as much as possible" is not the point of the game, but neither is the point to make sure other people get to fully develop their aspirations for their character.

Sometimes your character's story is that they were merely another victim of murder, corruption, and betrayal.

Welcome to Armageddon.

[Jimpka_Moss]

If Fun is not the priority in Armageddon. I quit. I'll wait to see what the Mission Statement, if any, claims this game to be. If it ain't fun, why am I playing. 

This isn't a tabletop RPG. If that's what you want, go play a tabletop (I do that, as well). The assumption of a TTRPG is that the DM is going to be fair with encounters, that fun is the priority, and the party is all going to help each other out while collaboratively constructing some epic fantasy tale

That most certainly is not Armageddon.

I joined this game when I did, and stayed with it, because I thought this Roleplay Intensive was a collaborative fantasy game. I enjoyed the idea of harsh, deadly, abrupt, and disagree that a 'Mekillot killing you as soon as you leave the east gates is unfair'. Somehow, your definition of Fair and mine are way, way off.


'The assumption of a TTRPG is that the DM is going to be fair with encounters, that fun is the priority, and the party is all going to help each other out while collaboratively constructing some epic fantasy tale.' This, specifically, seems partly incorrect, too. Let me rewrite it, phrase it a different way.


'The assumption of a TTRPG is that the DM is going to be (impartial and just, without favoritism or discrimination) with the animations and outcomes they describe and/or decide, That Fun Is The Priority, and that the (Players, not the IC party of fantasy characters) are all going to help each out to collaboratively construct  and/or add to a fantasy tale'.

If that's not Armageddon, I might as well leave.



This has always been what I thought Armageddon was supposed to be, intended to be. I had believed we were all working towards this goal. If the Staff isn't going to be impartial and and just, if Fun is not the priority, and if the Armageddon Community is not going to help me collaboratively construct some fantasy tale, then I don't belong here and I've been playing the wrong game.


No wonder we've been having so much strife in our community, lol! You guys have been playing a griefer game with a dark sun skin and a theme of every living being is a piece of shit but it's kind of beautiful because you think life is the same way, whereas I have been playing a D&D game with a partially automated system, moderating my own story choices to improve quality of STORY for the other players, and believing others were doing the same for me. Hahaha, no wonder so much contention has happened. No wonder so much stress has been had by the intense roleplayers and storytellers our community ONCE had. No wonder all the epic, badass writers I knew that had inhabited this game have just up and fucking left for any place that they can help tell a story with others.


Every one of my character's stories have just been a piece of shit to someone who thinks epic fantasy doesn't happen in this game, and that fun isn't the priority. At least.... not MY fun.


Thanks. This explains a lot.

[Synthesis]

K

[kahuna]

Dang I've been playing a totally different game these past 20 years. Should I uninstall?

[Armaddict]

Dang I've been playing a totally different game these past 20 years. Should I uninstall?

No?

If the purpose of this thread was to -tell- people how to play the game, then I'd call it misguided in the first place.  And perhaps that's why I'm totally comfortable describing things the way I do:  The beauty of how things are structured on Armageddon, to me, is that it has entire areas of gameplay to appeal to just about any type of roleplayer.  You don't -have- to think of it the same way.

We have merchant-y people, we have socialites, we have explorers, we have hunters, we have soldiers, we have criminals.  We have players that LOVE some of those roles more than others, and other players who LOVE the other ones.  The only requirement to be here is: Be ready to run through multiple characters, and be ready to roleplay your butt off.

Before you get too off-put by how some long-time players of the game describe that game, maybe see if you've played with us before, because it's likely that someone in this setting for so long isn't playing it the way you think.  You'd probably be pretty pleasantly surprised, rather than judgmental of surface level description of our train of thought about the game.

[Rahnevyn]

Without weighing in my full opinion, I’d just say that there are whole lists of past players and characters that have been remembered in various prominent ways, so saying “you won’t do anything that anyone remembers” is probably selling the game and its players both a bit short.

Aside from that, let me put my moderator hat on and just say that I hope the game and community and large enough for players to have fun even if they have different definitions of what “fun” in Armageddon means. Hopefully no one would actually leave because someone else doesn’t appreciate the same features of the game that they appreciate.

[Kryos]

1) I've been championing the driving force of this, and any game, should be fun for the last decade.  Still do.
-Fun is social interaction for some
-Fun is achieving things in game for others
-Fun is exploring mundane and esoteric mechanics, places, and implementations for others
-Fun is the thrill of conflict, the rush of uncertain danger for yet others
-Fun is adding to the world, making something new, changing the shape of things for others
-And everyone can be a mix of any and all these approaches
-That which is not what you enjoy is not inherently bad, and all these types of players together make for the most fun, for the most people. 

2) Arm's distinctiveness is what crafts its allure
- The fact you can't just read a wiki and find everything down to the code base about arm is a rarity if not novelty about the game, and needs to stay
- There are thousands of games you can use to get your mmo/spreadsheet simulator/whatever fix.  Arm ain't that.
- Perma death, RP enforced, harsh dog-eat-dog world are all excellent qualities in Arm, not unique but becoming increasingly rare in other options

3) Arm's excellent qualities are strong lures for poorly intentioned griefers
- Griefers want to ruin the player's fun - this makes the anathama to any game. 
- No coddling them, no covering for them, no BS:  Burn them with fire.
- This is unfortunately, a job for staff that they need to prioritize and its freaking hard to do right

[DesertT]

I think the game is best enjoyed as a roguelike with RP elements.

It's like Dwarf Fortress, ADOM, or Cataclysm DDA, but with more intense RP.

You aren't going to win.  You aren't going to be epic.  You aren't going to do anything anyone remembers.  You just live in the moment until you inevitably die.

I actually agree with this assessment.

In nearly 30 years of playing this game, an OVERWHELMING Majority of my characters are unremarkable and unmemorable.  Sure, I remember a thing or two about them, but most people don't highlight them or even recall most of them.

I think it's a pretty safe assumption that for the majority of the playerbase, a LARGE majority of their characters will not be fondly recalled by most other players.

I'm sure you can point out to me the exceptions, and that's great.  Those are exceptions, but for most of us, what Synthesis rings entirely too true.  AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT!! If there was, we wouldn't keep coming back.

My favorite moments with Tariq (former Byn SGT, died a Jal Foreman) aren't during the Crimson Salt War nor any other RPT or HRPT that was put on.

My favorite moments with Tariq were small, personal moments with other players.  Nearly dying to kagor on the ride up to Luir's.  Brawling in the Byn kitchens for shots of alcohol with his unit.  Clearing out literal poo from the Jal sewers while being taunted about falling down multiple flights of stairs (damn climb check).  The aftermath of a fellow Trooper sparring (and breaking) a mul.  Brawling with that bantam Kuraci employee.  Calling out a Gemmed from sitting at -my- bar and brawling them.  Brawling with Larimar (and kicking his ass) in Red Storm.  Playing cards and/or dice with folks.  The response from the other Bynners when Tariq nearly died and lost his leg during a Salt Worm hunt.

You know, small life moments.  Those are my favorite parts of the Armageddon experience.

[FantasyWriter]

I agree with DesertT... after you've been here long enough to "do all the things" you want to, it is really the small, fun memorable RPI moments that make it worth sticking around.  All of my best memories are those. Not the RPTs, not the finding of "Exotic" locations, beasts, etc that I loved in my first few years.

[Yelinak]

You aren't going to do anything anyone remembers.

What a sad thing to expect players to accept and embrace. Whenever that's reality in a roleplaying game, that game has failed on a fundamental level.

What's sad about it?

What's sad about the notion that players of this storytelling game should accept that they're unable to do anything that anyone will remember? I would hope that's self-explanatory.

Surely memorable roleplay is meant to be the very essence of a game like this. I would agree that Armageddon has not lived up to that, but that's another matter. It should, at least in principle, be the thing that such a game aspires to do. If ever the players of that game should come to believe that it isn't even an intended part of the experience, I maintain that the game has failed.

[Armaddict]

Surely memorable roleplay is meant to be the very essence of a game like this. I would agree that Armageddon has not lived up to that, but that's another matter.

Perhaps that's what the thread is meant to be about, because I think the explanation was not well worded, or I'm just on a different page.

We absolutely create memorable moments and characters.  You can see evidence of that in threads like the 'Whatever happened to...?' thread, where people recall characters, and character moments, that are forged into their memory.  But these impacts get lost over time, which is the reason that some (not all) long time players have that 'jaded perspective' or seem at odds.

What we don't create is characters that are epic world-changers, or at least those are very rare.  We are not the Frodo bagginses, the Aragorns, or the Boromirs or whatnot from the world-scope perspective.  We play the Gondorians who man the wall, the captains who report to Faramirs, the city folk, the hunters...and we bring all of that background of a living world to deeper life in ways that make it more real and more enjoyable.

How much do you actually -know- about Gilgamesh, or Hammurabi, or Cyrus the Great, aside from what histories tell of them?  Those are the biggest movers and shakers of their time, dominators...and we just don't think or talk about them that much.  Surely during their times, there were other powerful figures as well.  Amazing soldiers, master crafters, rich and powerful merchants, shrewd negotiators, criminal masterminds...but they are entirely forgotten in the sands of time.  The same thing is true of Armageddon characters.  We carve out the world of our character, we live in it, and they die.  We use that time to bring the world to life around it.  For me, and for many, it becomes less and less about making that carving permanent; maybe, if we're lucky, someone will mention us in an IC book so that some future character wonders who that was.

For the most part, our big impact is relatively temporary, and localized to those in immediate contact with us.  You can make the best badass character ever, and maybe the people on the other side of the known will know your name and some things about you.  But it all fades into time, so that only those brief memories rise to the surface for specific players: How -that- character of yours was a total badass as they died, or that -hilarious- moment where x happened and you did this.

This doesn't make characters meaningless.  It just means you're not playing the tippy top of the epic story, because there's a tremendously limited amount of space up there that just can't accomodate everything every player wants.  We don't reshape the sandbox by large degrees all at once, we play in the sandbox and make our character-spaces, and when those characters die we get to continously play all the different scenarios of the same sandbox, but in different corners, with different people, with different events going on, with different goals.  We definitely make great times for each other, and for ourselves, as long as we aren't expecting to build the Gilgamesh, or the Tektolnes, or the Muk Utep.  We play the unknowns.  And they're fantastic.

[Riev]

So is the game a collaborative storytelling game with permadeath and consequences, or is it a rogue-like with social interaction?

Armageddon used to bill itself out as a Roleplay Intensive MUD. Meaning, combat is coded and your actions have consequences in a world where if it isn't coded, staff members will assist in the world reacting the way it should.

Is that not Armageddon anymore? Recent events make me believe it is a Souls-like game where NPCs respawn and the social interaction is invite-only.

[FantasyWriter]

Armageddon used to bill itself out as a Roleplay Intensive MUD. Meaning, combat is coded and your actions have consequences in a world where if it isn't coded, staff members will assist in the world reacting the way it should.

[Armaddict]

RPI is what its official genre is.  It's just not overly descriptive and puts it in the same place as RPI muds that are really...nowhere near similar, which is why I started trying to mash other genres together in hopes of describing it as something else altogether.

[digitaleak]

It seems to me the initial point of this thread was to learn who we are playing with and also to determine how we as a community want to move forward in light of recent events.

Despite the choices that other's make, I'm going to continue prioritizing (consenting/healthy/safe) RP above all else. I will keep weaving stories because I think it's fun to improvise and see what happens next with the resources we as players are given (coded or imaginary). The point for me is not to be the most notable character of all time, it's to be in the moment... in this particular created world... using all of the parameters to create story and opportunity for others to join me. Also, as an aside, I think that's exactly how epic characters and situations come to be. Something interesting happens and the player rolls with it and adds to it, which makes it more awesome. Then someone else adds to that and it becomes even more awesome, until eventually, its got enough steam and people behind it that it's left an imprint.

As far as moving forward, I think continuing to create healthy communication between staff and players, define and uphold rules/values, and try to repair and protect those who are vulnerable or mistreated is a step in the right direction. I'm choosing to trust people will make the honest and ethical choices with the positions of power they are given, both player and staff alike, and when they don't, there will be accountability.

Also... I promise if I try to kill you in game... it will be dramatic. And if someone tries to kill me in game... it will be dramatic, even if they just race on by. 

[Dracul]

An RPI built on a Hack and Slash engine that facilitates fast paced rock/paper/scissors pvp with permadeath.

I see it as a few layers within the game with the way we seem to play it.

[Master Color]

The most damning thing I can say about Armageddon is that it's not really a role playing game. I'll defend that by saying that if you want to play a character among interesting characters in an interesting world, the game is a failure. The emphasis through play has never been about the above.

The game is much more about building your little empire and accumulating as much power as possible to punish other players that are marginally misaligned with your character/fiefdom/whatever. It hasn't become this way out of a vacuum. It has become this way because of the incentive structures that the game has built and exhibit for most of the year's of the game's existence. The players that play the game this way are the ones that get the reward. The players that aren't constantly hyper vigilant about all the bullshit ways they can get offed, get punished.

For players like me it basically sucks all the interest of actually role playing with other characters out of the game completely and I just end up skill grinding while mostly avoiding other characters, playing with my clique etc.