pvp vs pvp
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@Cygnus said in pvp vs pvp:
might be kind of lame
Y’all. It’s 2025. Can we maybe think about trying to use a different word here?
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i do want to respond to the idea that OOC masque is necessary because RPers can be immature and can’t be trusted otherwise: if that is the case with the players you have, that’s a player problem and those players will find a different way to cause problems.
it’s basically treating a symptom instead of the cause. if you don’t have a masque and a player throws a hissy over something, then boot the player.
she/her | playlist
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@Roz Agreed.
Don’t get me wrong, I do love an OOC Masq. Mystery is fun, especially in a game culture where people are friendly and engaging, and they’re all as invested in the idea of maintaining the mystery as I am. I’d even argue that for a good version of an OOC Masquerade you’d actually need more trust than otherwise.
(For those unfamiliar the OOC masquerade is the concept where one doesn’t know details about other characters. “Don’t talk about players, alts, or OOC info your character wouldn’t know. Keep the mystery, protect the immersion, and respect the game.”)
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I think OOC Masq is silly given that our hobby is at its core supposed to be collaborative storytelling, and OOC Masq prevents collaboration. Also, there’s no way in the current era of speedy communication to prevent OOC conversations off game that shatter that Masq.
Also, in my experience, any time one PC learns juicy secrets about another PC through legitimate IC means, someone eventually claims some combination of cheating, OOC Masq violation, or staff favoritism. And in some cases, the person making that claim is totally unrelated to that particular instance of secrets being uncovered.
The most ridiculous version of OOC Masq drama I have ever seen went like this:
- Player A accidentally paged Player B with an IC secret about their character that they had meant to page staff about.
- Player B, realizing they were just given an IC secret about Player A’s character by Player A through OOC means immediately went off on public channels about it. They tried to get Player A removed from the game for the accident, claiming that if Player A couldn’t respect their own OOC Masq, how could they be trusted with anyone else’s OOC Masq.
- Player B continued to harass staff, Player A, and other Players about getting Player A banned for the next week before finally letting it go.
- Player B’s character took action against Player A’s character using the very secret he learned OOCly and was called out by Staff for this.
- Player B told staff that since Player A couldn’t maintain the OOC Masq, their character should just be eliminated, making their ban from the game easier. Player B could not explain how he came to know the secret IC, and admitted that he didn’t do anything to learn it.
- Staff banned Player B for being an arse.
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@MisterBoring said in pvp vs pvp:
given that our hobby is at its core supposed to be collaborative storytelling
Given that how you want to play is collaborative storytelling. Just because that’s what (general) we forum users tend to prefer doesn’t make that the default for the hobby as a whole.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
I agree with both of you! I enjoy not knowing everything OOC about other characters so I can discover it in play, and I enjoy knowing enough OOC about other characters to make RP happen.
If I’m playing in the Vampire sphere, I find it useful to know who the other vampire characters are, so I know who to look for if I want to talk IC about vampire stuff without a lot of hemming and hawing to make sure we’re not breaking the IC Masquerade by doing so. On the other hand, I don’t want to know what their sheets look like or what their backstories are because I enjoy that mystery.
But I’m also pretty sure everyone draws the line dividing “things they like to know about OOC” from “things they like to not know about OOC” in a different place. OOC Masq is a spectrum.
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@Autumn said in pvp vs pvp:
OOC Masq is a spectrum
Basically everything is, especially matters of preference. But everyone has their way, and their way is superior because it’s theirs, etc, etc.
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@Pavel said in pvp vs pvp:
Given that how you want to play is collaborative storytelling. Just because that’s what (general) we forum users tend to prefer doesn’t make that the default for the hobby as a whole.
I try not to slip into the idea of there being ‘wrong fun’ even if it’s not a style of fun that’s fun for me.
But. I’m not sure I can see this in ways that wouldn’t be wrong fun. This hobby is LITERALLY comprised of nothing more than dice and co-writing stories with each other. Co-writing stories seems to be a definition of collaborative storytelling, unless your only and entire RP is a string of endless vignettes.
Could you expain how it’s possible to MUSH without collaborative storytelling because I’m super confused and not understanding what you mean.
We're all mad here.
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@Jenn Sure. First:
@Jenn said in pvp vs pvp:
This hobby is LITERALLY comprised of nothing more than dice and co-writing stories with each other.
That’s not true.
That’s what we primarily do. It’s not the entirety of the hobby. MUDs are included, RPIs, weird shit I don’t even know about are probably included too. Cybersphere was an example I used earlier, and that’s definitely a MU. It had/has RP, deep and meaningful storylines. It also had the risk of you just being gunned down in the street, using combat code without any RP, because someone wanted your shoes.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
@Jenn said in pvp vs pvp:
Could you expain how it’s possible to MUSH without collaborative storytelling because I’m super confused and not understanding what you mean.
There is no one true universal definition for what a MUSH is. For some it’s more TTRPG+some writing. For others it’s more storytelling with (maybe) some dice or cards or something. Different players and games fall at different points along that scale.
But even if we accept the supposition that collaborative writing is the core, how you collaborate is open for debate.
Think of an improv troupe. It’s more about going with the flow on the fly, not knowing detailed backstories and collaborating OOC about the details and stuff. I think that’s akin to an OOC Masq.
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I guess I should have been clearer. It was stated earlier we were talking about PvP MUSH’s rather than MUDs or other things. I’ve not encounterd a MUSH that wasn’t storytelling first and foremost, but. There a a lot of things I haven’t encountered, too.
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@Jenn said in pvp vs pvp:
It was stated earlier we were talking about PvP MUSH’s rather than MUDs or other things.
Unfortunately, as @Faraday said, there’s no clear distinction between MUSH and ‘other things.’ Does coded combat make it not a MUSH? Does roleplay make it not a MUD? Does a lack of furries make it not a MOO? There’s no hard line.
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And this is only anecdotal, but my experience of MUing earlier than the last decade… two decades… or so has been… less collaborative and more authoritative. Staff ran plot, and players reacted to it. Co-creation wasn’t really as important as it is now, sure it happened but it wasn’t the focus. So, storytelling? Absolutely. Collaborative? Not to much of my recollection.
As more and more places put the storytelling onus on players more than staff, player agency increased, and so co-creation became a requirement rather than an optional extra. So it certainly feels more collaborative than it was.
Though that could also be because we’re all fifty years older and we don’t have time to tolerate the bullshit we used to put up with.
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A few decades ago, we had more of a bell curve of gameplay styles among MUSH/MUX games.
TTRPG/often-PVP games on one end, full-consent on the other. One highly authoritative (through GMs or code), the other highly collaborative (at least until you hit a wall and someone picked up their toys and went home.)
Both extremes were (and probably still are) super popular among a subset of players, but had dramatic issues. TTRPG/PVP games became known for capricious behavior. Full-consent games often devolved like schoolkids playing cops and robbers. “I got you!” “Did not!” “Did so!”
So over time, we saw a shift toward the middle. Fewer headaches for staff, more agency for players to run their own plots (since GM staff became harder to come by), and a wider appeal to potential players (which became even more important as MU populations dwindled.)
That’s not to say you can’t make a successful game in the margins these days. I just don’t think the shift to the middle was random, or the result of PVP players going to video games or whatever. I think it was just collective experience into what kinds of games appealed broadly and weren’t nightmares to run.
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It definitely feels like Faraday’s the actual MU historian and my brain is wandering through ruins of memories like Philomena Cunk.
“At first, most MUSHes were ruled by mysterious figures called staff, who controlled everything like digital Roman emperors with slightly more access to @boot. These staff ran plots, awarded XP, and decided whose tragic backstory was tragic enough. Players were largely decorative.”
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@Pavel said in pvp vs pvp:
It definitely feels like Faraday’s the actual MU historian and my brain is wandering through ruins of memories like Philomena Cunk.
Lol, I think we just played on a different cross-section of games. My early experiences were at both extremes, between SW games (better have your +blaster +equipped in case you get ambushed in the town square) and historical ones like Maddock (barely an admin or GM in sight). I didn’t start out anti-PVP, I became so through experience.
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I feel like, as others have said above, there’s a difference between Player vs Player conflict and Character vs Character conflict. Yes, sometimes people get frustrated or upset and CvC becomes PvP, but most of the stress and toxicity I’ve seen from games on which competition of that sort was encouraged comes from PvP, where the egos of the players get involved and it’s less about losing the character (sometimes it is) and more about just losing.
I have no interest in high-stakes Player vs Player conflict. If I did, I would play PvP video games or play competitive chess or try to become a professional poker player. I love high-stakes Character vs Character conflict, when done with a player who you trust in search of a better story for all involved. I find it elevates the heart-rate almost as much as high-stakes PvP, and has a much better chance of a positive outcome.
I wish that there were more games that were open to CvC conflict (alongside PvE) but whose staff came down hard on any attempts to turn CvC into PvP. And if I had more time in my life, I would absolutely run the one I’ve designed.
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Reading over @Roadspike’s post, I want to pick out this line about CvC: “when done with a player who you trust”. I would kindly submit that this is rare less because games don’t allow it and more because it requires a solid underlying OOC relationship with the other player. This is not the dynamic we enjoy with most other players and not really something a game can be designed around.
I also want to pick out a few words that turn “CvC” (positive connotation) into “PvP” (negative connotation):
Frustrated, upset, stress, toxicity, egos, [dislike of] losing
These are the same pitfalls endemic to any competitive context, and these are things that we can design around. Healthy PvP requires the same things as “CvC” as described above, and there are things that a game runner can do to address them.
1. Trust/fairness (the belief that success is based on mutually shared controls, evenly applied)
OOC masque and private sheets came up earlier as things that make a game system more conducive to PvP, and that FS3/Ares is bad for PvP because it emphasizes transparency. A hot take here on my part is that transparency increases your odds of maintaining a healthy PvP environment dramatically because it helps address concerns of trust and fairness directly without relying on OOC relationships.
A more obvious thing is having referees who ensure that the rules of an encounter are understood and enforced evenly.
Other things game design can address in this space are stat bloat for older characters by limiting the amount of progression that can be made and access to “high caliber” gear. This is not to say that any advancement is bad, but the more advantages long-time (or “staff favorite”) players have, the less fair the playing field will feel and the more likely it is to incur OOC upset.
2. Sportsmanship (the practice of winning or losing graciously)
This one is harder to set up mechanics around, but you can easily design policies with it in mind. The expectation that players do not complain about the outcome of an encounter, that they do not engage in mean-spirited activity, that they maintain a modicum of care and concern for the fun of other players, applies in any competitive context and should be enforced. Referees in most sports can penalize players for bad behavior just as they would violating any other rule.
Why bother?
Even if your game has no PvP, PvE is not a panacea and the two points above still matter. The big difference between PvP and PvE is not that drama connected to these two things or the lack thereof doesn’t occur in one and they do in the other. It’s that in PvE the target of the upset is much more limited: one GM rather than a whole crew of opposing PCs. Designing and policing your game to promote Trust and Sportsmanship is still a good idea because even a PvE game is, fundamentally, a game.
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@Trashcan said in pvp vs pvp:
transparency increases your odds of maintaining a healthy PvP environment dramatically
1000% this.
