pvp vs pvp
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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.
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You know what I notice about the posts in this thread? Most of the people who are adamantly against PVP are also people who ran from any game where they thought it might happen before ever giving that game a chance. The objections to ICA=ICC always seem to be that a hypothetical psychopathic player will just go out killing everyone for OOC reasons and ruin the game anyway, so they might as well abandon the game before it happens.
It’s like people who never go on dates because they know it’s going to go poorly so why even try? Most of them are giving up based on fear alone.
Not that there isn’t a valid point that yes, there are assholes in the world and if someone is PVPing just to be an OOC prick staff should step in and do something about it. If you feel you are being targeted for PVP just because someone wants to be a jerk with no IC reason tell a staff member then bow out of the scene gracefully OOCly.
It’s highly unlikely staff are going to make you fight to the death over some random encounter with zero IC motivation.
I know PVP adds complications to a game, but I also know the only games that I remember 30 years later are the games that there was danger of dying on.
I remember the epic battles, the crazy stunts, the insane back and forth between factions. I remember the after battle orgies and divvying up the loot. I remember someone leaving the head of a NPC cop in a box on my door step so that the law would come after me and keep me out of the action for a few weeks while I was a suspect.
What do I remember about the “safe” games where everything is negotiated ahead of time and there are never any surprises because everything had to be approved by a +job first? Not much.
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@RedRocket said in pvp vs pvp:
The objections to ICA=ICC always seem to be that a hypothetical psychopathic player will just go out killing everyone for OOC reasons and ruin the game anyway, so they might as well abandon the game before it happens.
I have no objections to ICA=ICC and I have both played with and had the misfortune of having to deal with psychopaths who PVP for purely OOC reasons as staff.
I too remember some of those games having epic battles and stuff, and I also remember games where getting asked for “RP” from certain characters meant a pvp combat scene. In a few rare cases, those players managed to single out completely new players with completely new characters.
Your experience is not my experience, and neither of our experiences are invalid in this particular conversation. Everybody has their own thoughts on the topic and there’s probably not a single sweet spot of PVE / PVP balance that covers everyone in the hobby.
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It’s funny, the only time I ever PKed, I felt like shit for a week afterward, even though the player was seemingly okay with the outcome. I’d been in PVP situations a few times before and since, but just deleting someone’s character in one roll was rough. IC he fully deserved it, the player even agreed, but I didn’t like how it made me feel.
Fast forward some 15 years and the game where I was playing a genuine honest good guy type, that’s the game 2 different people OOC accused me of wanting their characters dead and ran to the ST for safety. The thought had never crossed my mind regarding them. Most amusingly the one character I’d have been happy to bump off didn’t even realize IC or OOC that she was the one person on my list and came about one sentence away from flying lead.
It’s all good though, cause I’m free and she’s still in her self-made pit.
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@RedRocket said in pvp vs pvp:
Most of the people who are adamantly against PVP are also people who ran from any game where they thought it might happen before ever giving that game a chance.
If you like PVP - more power to you. I don’t have any problem with people playing/running games that do not align with my personal tastes.
But many of us in this thread are speaking of actual things that have happened. We gave the games (plural) chances (plural) and we didn’t have fun. Your characterization of the anti-PVP conclusion is very dismissive.
It’s highly unlikely staff are going to make you fight to the death over some random encounter with zero IC motivation.
I have literally had this occur on a PVP game before, and know of others who also have.
I also know the only games that I remember 30 years later are the games that there was danger of dying on. What do I remember about the “safe” games where everything is negotiated ahead of time and there are never any surprises because everything had to be approved by a +job first? Not much.
Okay? I have plenty of fun, detailed memories from the “safe” games and mostly unpleasant ones from the PVP/permadeath games. All that means is that we like different things. That doesn’t make what you like superior to what I like (or vice-versa).
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Running from a game that involves some kind of play you have tried before and don’t enjoy is a rational thing to do.
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You know, I kinda don’t care if anyone leaves a PvP game without giving it a chance. At least they know what they want out of their RP experience and are mature enough to recognise it. A PvP game absolutely won’t benefit from a population of players who don’t like PvP and hope desperately it’ll never become a factor.
I like competitive gameplay and all, but I wanna be playing with people who also want that. Let’s allow people to curate their own experience and move on if it isn’t their thing.
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@Juniper
Right, I’m not sure why self-selecting out of an experience you don’t want is a problem. I don’t think my posts are particularly anti-PvP but I also don’t get much of it and don’t find it worth the aggravation.FWIW I’ve been on PvP games. I’ve been on games that said they were primarily PvE but ‘allowed’ PvP (probably more common in the MUSH sphere), inevitably with very unclear rules and wildly variable types of players who approached the game real, real differently. The first is fine but not for me, the second is a mess that pleases no one.
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@Third-Eye
I just think that on a game where a core theme of the setting is conflict between factions, making that conflict between players meaningless or even impossible for no IC logical reason makes the game setting just as pointless and boring.It’s like making a game set in the marvel cinematic universe but no one is allowed to play as the heroes or villains, they can only play normal people doing normal things. What’s the point of having a setting with extraordinary things if you are going to ignore them because it might involve conflict?
If you want a safe, casual, roleplay experience, don’t set your game in a world were killing the other guy is the main objective in the theme. It’s lame. Also, it’s false advertising.
MUSHes promise a world of darkness but deliver a world of boredom. They promised us a game of heroes fighting villains and delivered heroes trolling for sex scenes. That’s why the medium died. People will only put up with being disappointed so many times before they just stop trying.
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@RedRocket said in pvp vs pvp:
If you want a safe, casual, roleplay experience, don’t set your game in a world were killing the other guy is the main objective in the theme. It’s lame. Also, it’s false advertising.
I now fully believe that you regularly kill the other party members in traditional high fantasy adventuring parties because the monsters aren’t enough challenge.
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@RedRocket said in pvp vs pvp:
MUSHes promise a world of darkness but deliver a world of boredom.
Well, this also explains a lot of your thinking.
MUSH (a code base for online text-based roleplaying) does not equal World of Darkness (a popular TTRPG & LARP setting involving creatures of supernatural origin in varying levels of conflict with each other.)
Plenty of MUSHes are set in settings that aren’t Dark or Grim or anything like that. Hell, one of the most popular MUSHes I can think of in recent years is Arx, and as far as I can tell (Arx players help me if I’m getting it wrong) it’s a Lords & Ladies game that was set in a high fantasy world, and while there was some darkness and nasty bits, they weren’t the regular thing in the game.
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