Game Handing Overs

[IoleRae]

I’ve seen it work a couple of times, but mostly it fails – all of the successes had the game lead handing it off to somebody who was already involved and invested on staff side, so it was just a case of changing who wore the pointy hat. Or a game had a triumvate or similar and that structure changed.

The ethical issues are related to PII and giving somebody access to info they didn’t have before. It’s a big one, and this should stop most folks in their tracks when they’re thinking about it. It’s a big deal to hand off a bunch of peoples’ personal information, and should never ever be done lightly.

MOSTLY, most folks actually have no idea whatsoever what’s actually involved in running a game, and lots of the people that volunteer to take over a game have no capacity to actually do what they’re volunteering to do.

The first time they realize that what the job entails is like at least 50% (number out of my ass) dealing with people’s interpersonal issues, and NOT storytelling/coding/admin work, that’s it. You get to this realization BEFORE the game opens if you’re the one running it at the start and your WELL PICKED STAFF TEAM can’t stop effing bickering over the GRID NAMING CONVENTION (or some other similarly petty, petty fucking topic).

It is not a pleasant bomb to have dropped upon you, and it’s far more of a risk when the person being handed the game did not go through the development process.

[Faraday]

I’ve taken over games from other folks before. It went fine, but I was already staff in some capacity first. I’ve also turned over a game and seen it almost immediately crash and burn. So YMMV.

@IoleRae said in Game Handing Overs:

The ethical issues are related to PII and giving somebody access to info they didn’t have before. It’s a big one, and this should stop most folks in their tracks when they’re thinking about it. It’s a big deal to hand off a bunch of peoples’ personal information, and should never ever be done lightly.

While I don’t want to trivialize the conern, I can’t help but wonder if someone would have the same objection if staff brought on a new system admin, or Wizard (in Penn/Tiny/Rhost terms), or a new coder, in Ares? Either would basically have unfettered access to all private info in the game regardless of handing over reins.

FWIW, I’m making an admin command for Ares that will clear out private info, similar to what’s done when a char idles out or goes on the roster. The pragmatic issue though is how someone would reclaim their character after the wipe - how would you know who was who if everything got wiped.

[IoleRae]

@Faraday said in Game Handing Overs:

While I don’t want to trivialize the conern, I can’t help but wonder if someone would have the same objection if staff brought on a new Wizard (in Penn/Tiny/Rhost terms)? Or a new coder, in Ares? Either would basically have unfettered access to all private info in the game regardless of handing over reins.

I’ve left a game when they hired a known problematic coder before, yes. Generally, I trust the game lead if I’m going to play there, and that extends to their staffing choices. If their hire screws up, there’s still a person (game lead) to take responsibility and address the situation, including getting RL authorities involved if needed. So the concern exists, but it’s addressed in different fashion.

FWIW, I’m making an admin command for Ares that will clear out private info, similar to what’s done when a char idles out or goes on the roster. The pragmatic issue though is how someone would reclaim their character after the wipe - how would you know who was who if everything got wiped.

I love this so much.

[Faraday]

@IoleRae said in Game Handing Overs:

I’ve left a game when they hired a known problematic coder before, yes. Generally, I trust the game lead if I’m going to play there, and that extends to their staffing choices.

Sure but we’re not talking about an individual choice of someone deciding to leave a game over their staffing choices. We’re talking about the ethical considerations of “you can’t turn over a game because it’d be turning over everyone’s private data.” I’m not disagreeing with the notion, per se, just questioning how it’s fundamentally different from bringing on a new staffer.

[IoleRae]

@Faraday said in Game Handing Overs:

@IoleRae said in Game Handing Overs:

I’ve left a game when they hired a known problematic coder before, yes. Generally, I trust the game lead if I’m going to play there, and that extends to their staffing choices.

Sure but we’re not talking about an individual choice of someone deciding to leave a game over their staffing choices. We’re talking about the ethical considerations of “you can’t turn over a game because it’d be turning over everyone’s private data.” I’m not disagreeing with the notion, per se, just questioning how it’s fundamentally different from bringing on a new staffer.

Responsibility.

I have an ethical responsibility as a game lead to hire people who are not going to abuse access to PII, or to deal with them immediately if they do.

I also have an ethical responsibility as a game lead not to hand over a copy of the database that contains PII to random Bob. Could they get it without my intervention? Sure, it happens. Once it’s out of my control though, it’s out of my control. I have abdicated responsibility by giving it away.

I have an ethical responsibility in relation to that data, whether that’s providing access or providing a copy. Access and a copy are different, but it is the same ethical concern – it’s just the solution is different, because the format of the risk is different.

Every game lead ABSOLUTELY has an ethical responsibility to not hire someone that’s going to abuse their access to PII. I did not realize this needed to be said.

And I don’t think “somebody could abuse their trust or you could make a wrong hiring choice” changes the ethics, either.

[junipersky]

I feel like there is a real difference in handing a game over to a new wizard after they have been on the team for a while. I wouldn’t hand it to someone who hadn’t been co-in-charge for a while, but if they’ve been my right hand for a while…

Then I say go for it.

I’ve seen a couple game hand offs go fine. Ansible went from Cat to Chey and dive, and HT went from Kira to someone else.

[KarmaBum]

@junipersky Handing off Pern games used to be common - because of the whole “permissions” thing. Both original PernMUSH and SouCon had multiple owners, and PernMUSH eventually rifted into two games.

I feel like it used to be much more common to pass a game off from a head admin to the next person in line, but it’s a lot different when you’re a single game-runner (or one person that you insist is two even though one is clearly a sock-puppet) and you’re passing off what is essentially your brain-child.

I know with GH, we looked at it from the perspective of the game having gone so far off the rails that it wasn’t really ours anymore, it really felt like some psychotic community creation. But that really wasn’t the right thing to do. It just felt kinder and thus easier than telling everyone “nope, sorry, taking this with us.”

[Faraday]

@IoleRae said in Game Handing Overs:

And I don’t think “somebody could abuse their trust or you could make a wrong hiring choice” changes the ethics, either.

I agree - it doesn’t change the ethics.

If I’m a Headwiz, and I hire a new wizard, I need to hire someone I trust because they’re going to have access to the game DB.

If I’m a Headwiz, and I’m going to transfer a game to someone else, I need to transfer it to someone I trust because they’re going to have access to the game DB.

In either event, that trust might be misplaced or abused. And even in the first case, where theoretically I could act on misuse because I’m still headwiz, I may never even know it happened or - in the case of a coder or sysadmin - they might even end-run around me and lock me out of my own game (I’ve heard of it happening, though admittedly third-hand).

It’s really no different in the corporate world either. We don’t have any control over who takes over Facebook, or Twitter, or even this forum. Once we’ve given our data over to any entity, we are kind of implicitly giving it to whoever might take over that entity in the future.

(Which is why in the real world “right to have private data deleted” is a thing, and - as mentioned - why I’m trying to add that to Ares.)

[IoleRae]

@Faraday

I’m not really sure what you’re getting at. I said it should never ever be done LIGHTLY, I didn’t say it should never ever be done.

It is my opinion that handing a database copy off to somebody else is abdicating responsibility for that data. Once it leaves my control, I can do nothing in relation to protecting it. As a game lead making hiring decisions, I retain control.

[Third Eye]

I think game hand-overs from head wiz to other fellow staffers that the head wiz knows very well and trusts can work. I don’t want to totally bag on the idea.

That said.

That’s usually not what’s happening when players ask a head wiz for control of the game or a copy of the DB to effectively just restart the same game when things close. It always feels like a very visceral ‘I don’t want my personal RP to end’ reaction. And while that’s human, it’s not a good reason to run a game, I don’t think. And frankly the people staff would WANT to continue the game are rarely the ones that have this impulse.

IDK, I think it’s OK for games to end and close. I think it’s OK for things to have endings. My own experience is that I look back more fondly on things that have a period instead of an ellipsis in terms of closure.

[hellfrog]

It’s the worst when a headwiz hands a game to another staffer and you THINK you can trust that new staffer to destroy everyone with meteors

but then they don’t

top ten anime betrayals

[crawfish]

@hellfrog I giggled.

[SpaceKhomeini]

@Third-Eye

There’s handing over a game and then just becoming ST staff and killing off the headwiz’s character and then he stops logging in

[Herja]

@hellfrog If people are expecting it, then it really loses some of the shock value. You have to slowly allow people to gain a little confidence that it won’t happen. After all, it’s only a joke, haha, surely Herja would never REALLY drop a meteor and then-

[mietze]

@Third-Eye yep. I do think it’s one thing when it is internal and done after a transition of key sharing.

To me “handing it over” means an decision is made to close the game, and then someone convinces someone else to give it to them instead because some of the players say they’re not ready to move on.

I think even transitions can be tricky. Maybe handing over wholesale can work too. In all the places I’ve seen (game closes/runner done, gets asked for the keys by sad parties and is allowed them) it just does not end well. I think for the main reason you articulated. The desire to run the game in full isn’t there, its an emotional action to not want the story to end for their character.

[Gashlycrumb]

The game I ran that was a succes was a hand-over, and an absurdly random one at that. But it came with one or maybe two active characters (more came after I got it) and we rebuilt it completely at another site after a few months and had everyone re-create their PCs.

[mietze]

I think in my brain a wipe of all pcs except for 1 or 2 sounds more like a reboot or something to me.

I know that sort of happened with code and the like sometimes by design and sometimes with great drama (what was that WoD place that lifted everything from the other one without permission when someone got asked to leave? Iirc that happened a few times).

I had not really thought of that as a handing over either but you know, especially back in the old days I think it probably was.

[Warma Sheen]

@Faraday said in Game Handing Overs:

(Which is why in the real world “right to have private data deleted” is a thing, and - as mentioned - why I’m trying to add that to Ares.)

Could you add something to each player bit that they could toggle to approve their information transferring? Anyone who doesn’t toggle it gets wiped by default? The person handing over the game would give a time frame by which everyone would need to set that before the switch is made. Random suggestion from someone who knows nothing about coding. Cheers.

[Gashlycrumb]

@mietze Yeah. It was a dead game with one or two PCs who were still showing up and started to play when I got a handful of new folks to join after I got it. One or two who stayed in spite of the fact that the game-owners had handed over the reins to me, a completely random person who’d showed up and was chatting to the headstaff, who just offered it to me for no reason. The whole thing was weird and weirder still that it worked out to be a pretty good game.

ETA Part of the reason we rebuilt it on another site once a sizable-ish group of players were invested was that the original headstaff had site privileges and I was a little uncomfortable with that given the whimsicality.

[Arkandel]

@IoleRae said in Game Handing Overs:

I’ve seen it work a couple of times, but mostly it fails – all of the successes had the game lead handing it off to somebody who was already involved and invested on staff side, so it was just a case of changing who wore the pointy hat. Or a game had a triumvate or similar and that structure changed.

I concur.

Usually it’s either a very natural, organic transition where the new person in charge is essentially a no-brainer, or it’s all downhill from there.

There is usually little in between.