pvp vs pvp
-
I’d say…make a game. Make it how you want it, and hopefully it will attract the people that you want.
Currently, no one in the MU* community wants to run a strong PvP WoD game, and there are a whole lot of reasons for that, but only one cure: be the person who takes it on. If you don’t want that, or can’t find help to do that, then it sort of says its own story about whether that game is wanted by the community as it currently exists.
There are some PvP-heavy MUDs out there, there are, as you say, MMOs you can model design on. But the only time a game gets made is if someone has a real passion for doing the work of making that particular game. If you don’t like the games other people have passion for, then your only true remedy is to invest your own passion. Do it. Do it right. Create something you can be proud of.
-
I have run a lot of PVP as a villain faction head! Some thoughts:
Death was not involved. We did what was called “cinematic defeat”, where you can lose a limb if you want to or fall down a reactor shaft or topple over a cliff. Whatever thing happens and just removes you from the action. “Full loot,” or losing all the items you had on you to the opposing party WAS possible, but rarely happened.
So even in this not-losing-your-char PVP environment, some observations:
- PVP is more exciting than PvNPC. It always is, full stop.
- PVP espionage is an unmitigated disaster. Even if you do everything perfectly in your secret covert actions, someone OOCly assumes you’ve cheated and raises hell about it, and it’s hard to speak to the accusations without blowing the successful spy’s cover. If you’re transparent about who the spy is from the start, no one will allow themselves to be spied upon.
- PVP “outside the box” actions that aren’t “direct attacks” are an unmitigated disaster. Trying to pin down exactly how much advantage a sneaky plan or trap gives and how to weight it is a losing game. People get mad when you don’t let them do their Super Genius Plan exactly the way they saw it, they get mad when it doesn’t obliterate the enemy, and the enemy gets mad when it has any effect on them whatsoever.
- Even when you plan specific events so that your own villain self will take an L, so that people can beat you up and capture you, people find something to be mad about and find a million things you did wrongly and badly. Even when you lose to them completely.
My PVPs were really successful, exciting, and fun. People did love beating me up and some loved the threat my group and I posed. Some gentle players participated in the PVP, and told me they were never brave enough to do PVP before mine. Some of them are still memorable to this day in a way PvNPC generally isn’t.
However
I recently cleaned out my discord and it was full of crazy abuse about how I suck, I’m a cheater, I’m a dick, I’m unfair, I interpreted the mechanics or rules wrong, I played favorites. That’s just the discord, never mind the smoke I got on-game, like people freaking out when I walked in a room or abusing me on channels and in pages for existing.
I would never, ever run a PVP game/faction again. The excitement is fun but the toll it takes on me just isn’t worth it.
-
@Ashkuri’s experience squares with what I have observed and seen friends who ran more PVP focused games have experienced.
I feel like you can’t really run a game of any sort without having to deal with a certain amount of whiny, abusive (or attempting to be such) players. I actually think that it’s not that there are MORE of those on a PVP game, but you certainly don’t escape having the same amount.
The ability to kill off other PCs at relative will has never really seemed that I’ve ever seen to encourage politer, less toxic behavior the next time around. I don’t fault the playstyle for that, but human nature.
-
@Ashkuri said in pvp vs pvp:
People did love beating me up and some loved the threat my group and I posed.
In my time playing a bad guy for a game there were a lot of really great players and then there were some people who were like-- super fixated on how they’d kill my NPC. To the point that I was at my keys like, are you guys okay?
-
I’ll also say that you really do have to separate out two concepts:
In-character conflict, which may be between player characters
and
Player vs player conflict, where the PCs are mainly proxies for beating ‘the other guy’ on an ooc level.
I’ve had far more rich, rewarding, and intense conflict and competition between characters when there is no OOC masque, when players OOCly communicate about stakes, outcomes, desires, than when that conflict is treated as a competition between players. Like, I’ve had intrigue and espionage plots/scenes that could only happen BECAUSE we were talking OOC and cool with things happening. Also, being able to chat with people OOC about how we see this conflict helps me identify at a much earlier stage if this is a player who can handle conflict, or who it’s just not going to be fun trying to have these sorts of scenes with.
A secondary issue is something I learned as a newbie GM and which has never steered me wrong in the days since: “You can’t solve an OOC problem with an IC solution.” If the problem is “this player is playing their character in a way that makes the game unfun for other people”, then punishing/beating up/demoting/killing their character is never the solution. Having an adult conversation with them OOC about the effect their play is having on others’ fun is, and if that conversation doesn’t go well, then removing them from the game is.
Killing someone’s character because you’re OOCly annoyed with the player is one of the ways PvP gets real toxic, real fast. It’s not ‘policing the community’, it’s just taking your frustration out on someone who you usually know that you can beat and have often taken every measure to make sure that fight is as one-sided and humiliating as possible, because you’re there to ‘teach the player a lesson’, not to have fun with them.
-
@Pyrephox said in pvp vs pvp:
Player vs player conflict, where the PCs are mainly proxies for beating ‘the other guy’ on an ooc level.
I mean, this is what a lot of people who talk about PVP actually seem to want. Which is fine, I understand the rush, but when you look at the amount of code and real-life work that goes into adjudicating this on a pay-to-play AAA game…idk, my friends. Perhaps there are reasons this is less popular in our hobby of unpaid volunteers doing this for fun.
-
@Pyrephox “You can’t solve an OOC problem with an IC solution.”
From your lips to God’s ears. Perfectly crystallized.
-
@Pyrephox I’ve been fiddling with Rhost in my spare time, I do have a cool concept for a game like this. But about halfway towards amping myself up to learn Rhost’s finer details, I started learning Unity for a video game and have put my creative juices there for the moment. This has been a constructive conversation about what is needed in a MU* with pvp though and I’m thankful for those that helped me notice some of the stuff I may have missed; I’ve scribbled various house rules trying to tackle many of the issues that were brought up today.
Maybe the ease of newer systems comparatively is why so many devs go towards those languages, or maybe from the various reasons Ashkuri posted. I do get the pain of doing it from the ST side of things, been there as a staffer and it’s not always fun and sometimes outright painful.
I do completely agree though that the game I want to exist cannot exist unless I make it a reality. I’ve basically given up on most games at this point because they don’t hit the way they used to. There are no turn-key solutions, I just have to get my hands dirty with the code and challenge myself past what I’m comfortable with code-wise. And making games is challenging no matter what it is you’re making.
-
Generally, I enjoy conflict with other characters. I tend to shy away from the use of the term ‘pvp’ because when it’s done well it’s just the same as any other collaborative storytelling effort we do on these games, and while your characters may be in conflict the players aren’t. I’m with @Pyrephox’s points above. Having OOC communication available for these sorts of things heightens the experience for me.
I’d probably join a WoD game with a lot of ‘pvp’ in it just fine, but the idea presented earlier of having no OOC discussions at all would really turn me off. Half the appeal of being on a MU* for me in general is the OOC community, the chatter, and all of that. If all my games were just log on, role play, log off, then I wouldn’t have this cool group of online friends I’ve made over the decades, and I think that’d be unfortunate.
I know some people really like that entire OOC disconnect, that’s great but it’s certainly not for me, though I don’t tend to shy away from the confict with other PCs that much.
-
It seems what our friend here is after is less of a modern MU and more a new version of something like Cybersphere, or Sindome. Where you can and will be shot, stabbed, mutilated, abused, assaulted (yes that kind too), etc, etc, etc all because you had the temerity to step outside of a safe zone.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
@Livia This is kind of where I fall too. I definitely did less OOC discussion/avoidance of it earlier when I was on a lot of WoD games, and it doesn’t bother me when people prefer less checking in. I’m neutral on it for myself.
But I personally have found that many people I run into now are a lot more relaxed and willing to change it up with RP/invite more and more diverse tension/conflict in RP when it’s okay to have that OOC check in, and a more overt understanding that saying “I’m into whatever RP,” does not mean that “and I am down with giving you whatever you want whenever you want it so go ahead and lay that assault and kidnapping scene on me 5 minutes after I walk into this upscale restaurant on grid/feel free to snipe me unseen because I forgot to change my clothing object before coming to the dive bar so I’m dressed inappropriately, since of course if I’m logged in I’m at your disposal.”
Sometimes I could do without the “and anyone who’s into gritty RP is obviously a psycho if I’m not in the mood–even if they’re not even remotely interacting with me or affecting my RP in anyway,” that I’ve seen too but again I think that’s just people peopling, and the desire to yuck other people’s yums that aren’t yours is not something I think is ever going to stop completely.
I enjoyed the thrill of non-consent-based places. But I think I’d only play on a private/invite only one where I trusted the people running it to vet and/or remove problem people from it these days. I’m just too old/low energy for that shit.
-
One thing Requiem for Kingsmouth, a Vampire the Requiem game, did well was having tiers of characters not based on getting extra XP or having extra activity requirements, but based on what you wanted out of the game. If you wanted the full political-thriller-taking-power-fucking-over-your-friends game, then you came in as a so-called Political character that had a bit more stuff you had to do in your application. And that character was basically as Full Consent as it could be, you could be targeted for killing and all that jazz, all mediated through staff as per. Then there was a Support level where you got to do some political stuff, and you could be targeted for some PvP stuff. And then there were the lose-- I mean the non-political folks who just wanted to tell cute coffee-based stories with their friends. They couldn’t be targeted for anything, but at the same time couldn’t be involved in the political machinations of the game either.
My memory may be wonky so please feel free to correct me on the particulars, but this is in broad-strokes how I believe the game went and might serve as a model for future game runners.
-
@Pavel That’s how I recall it as well. But honestly there were so many ways to do the machinations, that the non lethal stuff was kind of inherently more rewarding. Also the system allowed great diversity in types of PCs that could get involved too (non-vampires were quite valuable). If someone only focused on the ability to kill someone whenever they wanted to, that really wasn’t going to be as effective as in essence team building for their side, ect.
However, that was also a very intensely managed game, and when the person doing most of the managing couldn’t, and it had to shift more into a traditionally managed thing, it really became problematic because people didn’t have as much fun diversity to focus on. I do think that’s really why you don’t see as much of that style of game. It’s a lot of work, if you want it to be sustainable it takes a lot of cultivating/caring for it, and if playerbase gets too big or there’s not as much time for cultivating the atmosphere then you get the same old same old problematic stuff.
-
@mietze said in pvp vs pvp:
But honestly there were so many ways to do the machinations, that the non lethal stuff was kind of inherently more rewarding
Agreed, though frankly that’s more what I think of when it comes to PvP these days anyhow. I don’t have five hours to do WoD combat shit anymore.
-
@Pavel oh the glory days of days (or weeks) of being timestopped/frozen.
-
@mietze To be fair, I didn’t really do a lot of the OOC discussion stuff really either back in the day, at least not to begin with, but I would have moments of it. I played some pretty antagonistic characters that I thought should’ve ended up dead or whatever but no one really seemd to want to because I guess it was more interesting to be threatened/attacked by a street ganger than yet another bar scene? idk really haha, but I do remember my Haunted Memories days having a lot of people coming to me and my antagonsitc character for combat tutorials and the like. I do miss the thrill of that sort of non-consent place too, but I also do remember losing a PC unexpected to IC conflict and it wasn’t that fun at all to just have my story be over now. So in the end so IDK. I like conflict and understand that sometimes it ends in PC death but I try to avoid actually ending PCs in the end, maybe I’m just too soft after all.
-
@mietze With nary an “RP Room” in sight, so we’re just stuck there on grid standing around like we’re waiting for the bus. Ah good times (they were not).
-
@Pavel See I never said want a cybersphere where you die as soon as you step outside the safe zone, just something inherently more dangerous. People tend to blow these things out of proportion – if there’s any PVP at all, diehard PVE players have a tendency to distort things and overstate how bad they really are. This happens in all games.
@Livia I agree that making friends and socializing is fun, hell I even remember when we had several chats in the past (on HM too I think lol). I still have many friends from the old MUSH days so I suppose taking it TOO far for metagaming protection purposes might be kind of lame and missing the forest for the trees.
Out of curiousity, would you be interested in a game that has such communication semi-public? Or would you need the private @mail/page system for it to be the kind of communication you want? Maybe keeping it to channels would be a good medium ground, with subchannels for coteries and such?
@mietze I agree with both sides of this sentiment. There’s got to be a good tension-building middle ground between jumping people for their misspelled descs and needing to ask permission for every interaction.
-
@Cygnus I mean I guess I don’t specifically NEED private communication, just being able to chat on channels etc would probably be enough, but I also don’t really see how limiting it is beneficial. I know some people really like it though.
I guess I can’t see how, in a system as complex and full of niche interactions as World of Darkness or Chronicles of Darkness (and others), you can really take away OOC communications. Even if we’re just RPing in a room and some conflict arises at some point I’m going to have to explain ‘I’m using X power with Y modifiers due to this merit and that clan bonus.’ Because I can’t imagine you can (or want to) automate absolutely every niche interaction in these rules systems.
Paging people as a way to get RP happening is also pretty standard in my experience, and you don’t always want to broadcast that on public channels for a lot of reasons. But I could probably make do with just public channels and the like if the game was interesting enough.
-
If anyone actually does end up making the PvP WoD game of their dreams, I’d play. Put me on your mailing list.
