Concordia Thread

[somasatori]

@mietze I’ve come to agree wholeheartedly with this perspective. One or two spheres for WoD is a more effective experience than playing everything under the sun (moon?). If I were to run a Fading Suns game it would be only one group (probably Guilds, I’m a Charioteer whenever I play). It seems like that would create a stronger story experience since everyone is focused on the same general pathway vs. five semi-opposed player orgs working on their own unique agendas.

[SpaceKhomeini]

@Polk

Yeah, to be honest the setting felt more Byzantine/Ottoman but it’s thousands of years in the future and clearly designed to be a mash-up.

Also I just took advantage of this thread to talk about the Dune universe, how on-brand.

[SpaceKhomeini]

@mietze said in Concordia Thread:

@somasatori yep. No matter the intention on a game that allows everything the guilds never fill out well and neither does the church though you will def have a handful of Amaltheans and Brother Battle.

I think its better to pick your focus on a stratified world game and you’ll get more actual real meat of storylines about that conflict than you do with players feeling competitive for storytelling attention focused on their class, because on a broad scope game with players allowed to choose anything with lip service (even if intended to be true at first) that they will get some focus it just really hasn’t been sustainable long term that I’ve seen. And then that leads to player jealousy and frustration that they take out on each other.

And even on a specific class focused game you can then run in to the 2,872 Houses with 2,805 of those with 1 person in them after their friends bailed that still get pissed they can’t move up the tiers faster because they are convinced that being higher will gain them the attention they perceive others have because they are “more important.”

I get that people love creating many things to call their own, but i am interested and glad to see if sticking to established smaller number of houses and not trying to support pcs who aren’t ennobled will lead to less player sniping at each other especially in combination with excessively squeaky wheels maybe being just taken off rather than given a lot of personal time and extra special grease.

Will it be perfect, no. I am interested to see what happens though.

What I’ve found with a lot of sprawling political game settings is that people tend to make a cardinal mistake from the very start.

By “People” I specifically mean “me.” I like to throw in believable scale and toss out this giant, overbuilt world that is frankly too large to handle any reasonable-sized playerbase and unless you’re running a huge game with concurrent players in the triple-digits, good luck filling out those houses/factions or whatever in any meaningful way. You (and by “you” I still mean “me”) run the risk of just sprawling the playerbase out with nothing to do.

[somasatori]

@SpaceKhomeini said in Concordia Thread:

@mietze said in Concordia Thread:

@somasatori yep. No matter the intention on a game that allows everything the guilds never fill out well and neither does the church though you will def have a handful of Amaltheans and Brother Battle.

I think its better to pick your focus on a stratified world game and you’ll get more actual real meat of storylines about that conflict than you do with players feeling competitive for storytelling attention focused on their class, because on a broad scope game with players allowed to choose anything with lip service (even if intended to be true at first) that they will get some focus it just really hasn’t been sustainable long term that I’ve seen. And then that leads to player jealousy and frustration that they take out on each other.

And even on a specific class focused game you can then run in to the 2,872 Houses with 2,805 of those with 1 person in them after their friends bailed that still get pissed they can’t move up the tiers faster because they are convinced that being higher will gain them the attention they perceive others have because they are “more important.”

I get that people love creating many things to call their own, but i am interested and glad to see if sticking to established smaller number of houses and not trying to support pcs who aren’t ennobled will lead to less player sniping at each other especially in combination with excessively squeaky wheels maybe being just taken off rather than given a lot of personal time and extra special grease.

Will it be perfect, no. I am interested to see what happens though.
… unless you’re running a huge game with concurrent players in the triple-digits, good luck filling out those houses/factions or whatever in any meaningful way.

On TR we had pretty good player factions during my tenure (we were also new, so there was a lot of post-opening excitement). When I came back as a player a couple years later, it did feel sprawling and disconnected despite having triple digit player numbers. I think there’s a level of enthusiasm that needs to be shared and is difficult to quantify.

[SpaceKhomeini]

@somasatori

Yeah, for that sort of thing, you really need actively engaged staffers to nudge things along.

[Polk]

@SpaceKhomeini Gotta admit I don’t really know how the late Byzantine and Ottoman empires worked. You’re making me curious.

[SpaceKhomeini]

@Polk

The Persian Satraps were a bunch of regional/provincial governors and bankers who were nominally in place to look over the shoulders of the Satraps.

The Byzantine/Ottoman courts were so fucking dense I barely have an idea, it seems to me to be a mix of social prestige and economic leverage but I’m out of my element here.

[Pavel]

@SpaceKhomeini said in Concordia Thread:

The Byzantine/Ottoman courts were so fucking dense I barely have an idea

That’s why we describe incredibly complicated (usually needlessly complicated) systems as Byzantine. I can practically guarantee that even the folks in the middle of said systems didn’t know exactly how they worked… which was probably by design.

I have no views on the game being discussed, but hardcore history talk? I’m here for it.

[Rinel]

@mietze said in Concordia Thread:

@Evilgrayson that’s nice in thought, but it’s rare that staff attention can fully flesh out to support a huge scope of classes. my experience playing a non-noble was that nobles pushed themselves into everything, or when they couldn’t they made it so unpleasant with complaints or just straight up being oocly rude that it was offputting, and there weren’t enough non-nobles to not have to engage with those folks.

The last bit about being unpleasant wasn’t my experience on Arx, but nobles being in places where they had no business being was an obnoxiously common thing, honestly. It wasn’t something that I think staff supported; it was just too much to deal with manually slamming people with huge penalties for hanging out at nasty bars in nasty slums.

[SingstheTails]

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[SingstheTails]

@Pavel @Coin Staff should never be required to train or educate their players on how to improve their behavior. Staff is busy staffing, for sure.

I do think there is a difference between a player doing something bad and being a toxic player. Toxic players deserve nothing and should instaban. Toxic players are problematic OOCly (like paging harassment for TS). Someone here said that toxic players usually know they’re toxic (often because they’ve been banned before), and I think that’s true. A lot of workplace analogies have been made here, and in my suit and tie corporate office world, I can attest that when a person gets fired, MOST of the time, they aren’t surprised because they know they did a thing.

Sometimes, a player just makes a bad decision but their OOC behavior has been good. I think in those cases a small explanation feels respectful. To those players, I also would consider giving them a “Hey, stop X behavior” warning/conversation as opposed to moving immediately to the boot.

[Coin]

@SingstheTails said in Concordia Thread:

@Pavel @Coin Staff should never be required to train or educate their players on how to improve their behavior. Staff is busy staffing, for sure.

See, you’re using absolutist language (‘never’) whereas I didn’t. I never used to words “train” or “educate”. I believe people should be informed as to why they’re being banned. I didn’t say staff then needed to spend time and effort helping the person change.

But do you see where my language is different from yours? I am expressing my opinion in a way that makes it clear it’s my opinion. You’re presenting yours as if they’re objective truths. But that’s not how this works. Everyone has different opinions about what is moral and ethical and, no surprise, what efficient staffing looks like.

Staff doesn’t have to do anything, they are under no obligation to do anything. But do I think they should? Yes.

I do think there is a difference between a player doing something bad and being a toxic player. Toxic players deserve nothing and should instaban. Toxic players are problematic OOCly (like paging harassment for TS). Someone here said that toxic players usually know they’re toxic (often because they’ve been banned before), and I think that’s true. A lot of workplace analogies have been made here, and in my suit and tie corporate office world, I can attest that when a person gets fired, MOST of the time, they aren’t surprised because they know they did a thing.

Playing and running a MU is not a job and if you’re viewing it as one then you’re inviting toxicity into your hobby. It’s not a job. It’s not even comparable to volunteer social work.

It is a hobby, and to me it’s clear these comparisons are detrimental to discussions about the hobby (not in small part because we start applying tactics and norms seen in capitalist organizations as justifications for actions and attitudes in non-profit, personal entertainment spaces, and we need to gtfo with that shit).

Sometimes, a player just makes a bad decision but their OOC behavior has been good. I think in those cases a small explanation feels respectful. To those players, I also would consider giving them a “Hey, stop X behavior” warning/conversation as opposed to moving immediately to the boot.

Gee, it’s almost like you understand my point, but decided to misinterpret the language so you could establish a false binary.

[hellfrog]

@Evilgrayson said in Concordia Thread:

You can’t have someone ennobled in play if everyone’s already a noble, and there’s a whole slew of potential conflict just… missing.

lemme just. lemme just help you out

people don’t actually WANT that conflict. they want to be ennobled all the way to the TIPPY TOP without real setbacks or consequences. or, they want to provide pushback but not in a way that actually risks anything or requires true alliances or choices.

a few, a FEW, do want that conflict, and of that few, you can probably rely on half to do it without it becoming a nasty and bitter feud. If this type of conflict is really wanted, the game needs to be set up for pvp with clear guidelines. which sounds like a lot of work to me but go off

Maybe chatGPT could come up with a good set of rules ZING

[SingstheTails]

@Coin said in Concordia Thread:

@SingstheTails said in Concordia Thread:

Gee, it’s almost like you understand my point, but decided to misinterpret the language so you could establish a false binary.

Not only did I understand your point, I only tagged you because I agreed with you. I apologize for not expressing it better.

[Coin]

@SingstheTails said in Concordia Thread:

@Coin said in Concordia Thread:

@SingstheTails said in Concordia Thread:

Gee, it’s almost like you understand my point, but decided to misinterpret the language so you could establish a false binary.

Not only did I understand your point, I only tagged you because I agreed with you. I apologize for not expressing it better.

Lol (<-- far more self-conscious than amused).

I think I woke up on the defensive today. I apologize for reacting that way. While I don’t think our approaches are entirely the same, I think my expectations of this forum and how tagging/replies are often used made me read your post in a way it wasn’t intended.

Ugh, being a grown up is hard work, you guys.

[icanbeyourmuse]

@hellfrog said in Concordia Thread:

@Evilgrayson said in Concordia Thread:

You can’t have someone ennobled in play if everyone’s already a noble, and there’s a whole slew of potential conflict just… missing.

lemme just. lemme just help you out

people don’t actually WANT that conflict. they want to be ennobled all the way to the TIPPY TOP without real setbacks or consequences. or, they want to provide pushback but not in a way that actually risks anything or requires true alliances or choices.

a few, a FEW, do want that conflict, and of that few, you can probably rely on half to do it without it becoming a nasty and bitter feud. If this type of conflict is really wanted, the game needs to be set up for pvp with clear guidelines. which sounds like a lot of work to me but go off

Maybe chatGPT could come up with a good set of rules ZING

I would also say most of the time they want to be the ‘special’ person ennobled or love or their deeds. Which in theory is a good angle just very common on L&L mu*s.

[MidnightSin]

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[somasatori]

Man, I don’t login for a week (or more) and the place goes to hell. I knew that Felix was special, but I didn’t know he was that critical to keeping the place together.

[helvetica]

not going on a hurt feelings rant moments after they make a post asking for feedback to improve

[Raeras]

Well all I’ll say is the Domain System isn’t dead. They’re literally setting up for the first official Crisis phase of the first run of it. Also it’s Alpha, transitioning into Beta so things around going to work and not work and be improved or tossed out.