Non-toxic PvP
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People have brought up plenty of great points. Here are a couple others.
Make factions that have a pre-defined level of conflict, along with the types of conflict they’ll most likely engage in, and alliances they may have. Some examples…
- The jungle faction is a high-conflict combat group.
- The journalist faction is a moderate-conflict social group.
- The spy faction is a moderate-to-high conflict espionage group who is enemies with the jungle faction but allies with the journalist faction.
- The enforcer faction is a moderate-to-high conflict social/combat combination group that tries to keep the peace between the jungle and enforcer factions.
- The cafe faction is a little-to-no conflict social group with an alliance with the enforcer group that they can call on whenever there’s a problem.
Another thing that you need to have zero tolerance for is what I’ll call the pacifist. The pacifist is a player archetype who will join a moderate or high conflict group, then do as much as they can for their faction without engaging in the central conflict. Then, when they get backed into a position where they’re called upon to resolve a conflict by fighting it out, they’ll agree to the fight but refuse to fight back, letting the opposing side win, in order to give the other players the most unsatisfying resolution possible. The two most notable offenders on Silent Heaven had to be removed from the game for their un-collaborative behavior.
Lastly, if someone is bringing down the mood of the game but isn’t violating any specific policy, you can still ask them to take a break from the game. Sometimes someone’s just not a good fit, and it’s best to wish them the best finding a game that’s right for them.
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I agree with all the comments on the OOC transparency, I think that’s the key. For all the issues the vampire sphere had on Fear and Loathing back in the day, it was a pretty PVP heavy space and it was run on a lot of transparency. I remember a ghoul doing some daytime snooping of my vampire’s haven to get back at me for something I did and they put the job in to spy on me, and staff just added me to the job and said ‘she’s made these rolls so she finds out this much, tell her what she learns’. And I did.
The information never really ended up getting used against me sadly, but every time I’ve engaged in any sort of PVP, being able to check in with each other, make sure we’re enjoying everything etc really just makes it a lot better.
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One of the issues which hasn’t been brought up yet is “who is involved”.
Because, honestly, I’ve had more problems in IC conflict from people who weren’t involved but now are sticking their oars in without anyone requesting their “help” than I have from straight conflict. Two characters have a bar fight or an argument, and both players are fine with it, but suddenly five other characters all want to jump in and make it a much Bigger Thing than it needed to be, and usually they’re nowhere near as respectful of other players as the original conflict-folks were.
That’s where a lot of PvP resentment and clusterfucks come from, in my experience, and neither of the original folks have any control over what those players do, even when it pretty much ruins what WAS a fun, rich conflict plot.
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One system I’ve been thinking about which I’d like some feedback on:
Would you play a game where:
- Ordinarily, character death requires consent. Your character can get into serious fights and someone can even try to assassinate them in theory, but the setting’s magic prevents them from falling into the red without prior staff discussion/approval from both parties.
- Players can permanently toggle a setting that makes their characters killable when they roll in; the flag is publicly visible and is intended as an “I’m up for anything do your worst” signal. In exchange they enjoy slightly accelerated XP gains (think in the realm of 10%), but obviously it means staff won’t rescue them from open PK unless there’s a very obvious/overt sign of OOC-motivated abuse.
I’m mainly interested in how people who wouldn’t turn it on would feel about this sort of system. Would it make you feel like a kind of second-class citizen that some people are getting more XP by being more willing to risk their characters? Would you feel pressured to turn it on even if the idea of open PK makes you uncomfortable? Do you think it would create a toxic subculture within the game’s wider community?
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@Faraday said in Non-toxic PvP:
I think that the more immersed you are with your character, the more likely there is to be bleed and OOC competitiveness.
This is very true. It’s a difficult balance for both players and staff to feel immersed while managing bleed and OOC competitiveness.
For me, I think bleed is just going to happen, it’s how we as players and staff work together to deal with it in a healthy fashion that’s important.
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I know it doesn’t apply for a MU, but one LARP I was in had a particularly fun way to deal with bleed. Ice cream socials. After every session of the LARP, we would all gather in the main room we were using for the LARP and break out ice creams of various flavors and an assortment of toppings. We would sit around eating ice cream and discussing stuff that gave us bleed, making sure to point out positive instances and negative. Usually everybody would go home feeling good about it, and over the year of the LARP’s storyline, OOC drama only sparked up twice, and in both cases because of external events to the LARP.
Proud Member of the Pro-Mummy Alliance
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@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:
One system I’ve been thinking about which I’d like some feedback on:
Would you play a game where:
- Ordinarily, character death requires consent. Your character can get into serious fights and someone can even try to assassinate them in theory, but the setting’s magic prevents them from falling into the red without prior staff discussion/approval from both parties.
- Players can permanently toggle a setting that makes their characters killable when they roll in; the flag is publicly visible and is intended as an “I’m up for anything do your worst” signal. In exchange they enjoy slightly accelerated XP gains (think in the realm of 10%), but obviously it means staff won’t rescue them from open PK unless there’s a very obvious/overt sign of OOC-motivated abuse.
I’m mainly interested in how people who wouldn’t turn it on would feel about this sort of system. Would it make you feel like a kind of second-class citizen that some people are getting more XP by being more willing to risk their characters? Would you feel pressured to turn it on even if the idea of open PK makes you uncomfortable? Do you think it would create a toxic subculture within the game’s wider community?
I wouldn’t turn it on. I’m the kind of player who is up for basically anything except death. I’d definitely be interested in some kind of flag to encourage people to enjoy some conflict with me, but the story abruptly ending because ganked ain’t it.
On staff side I immediately foresee people turning it on for XP gains, insisting they are cool with it, but then being so unpleasant when targeted that everyone steers clear and they essentially get that +10% xp for free.
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@Juniper This was exactly what I anticipated.
I also think that some people might turn it on thinking they are okay with conflict & want to present as ready for anything but then shit gets real and they are not as together as they think.
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I would turn it on and immediately request to staff that I not be given the bonus XP for doing so. I have no interest in incentives of that kind and also have no problem with my PCs dying or being permanently maimed or whatever as long as it makes good story and the Staff and other Players are all dedicated to making whatever happens the best story possible.
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@MisterBoring said in Non-toxic PvP:
After every session of the LARP, we would all gather in the main room we were using for the LARP and break out ice creams of various flavors and an assortment of toppings. We would sit around eating ice cream and discussing stuff that gave us bleed, making sure to point out positive instances and negative.
I think that’s great, but also an example of what I mean about systems not being scalable. Ice cream socials, debriefs, etc. work great for managing bleed with small groups of friends and/or modestly sized LARP groups. I think it would be virtually impossible to do that for a mid-sized MU with players scattered across a dozen different schedules and timezones.
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@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:
- Ordinarily, character death requires consent. Your character can get into serious fights and someone can even try to assassinate them in theory, but the setting’s magic prevents them from falling into the red without prior staff discussion/approval from both parties.
I think this should be the standard. Non-consensual character death is the least fun and most toxic outcome.
- Players can permanently toggle a setting that makes their characters killable when they roll in; the flag is publicly visible and is intended as an “I’m up for anything do your worst” signal. In exchange they enjoy slightly accelerated XP gains (think in the realm of 10%), but obviously it means staff won’t rescue them from open PK unless there’s a very obvious/overt sign of OOC-motivated abuse.
I think that’s a setting I’d only be comfortable turning on some months in to my character when I feel like I’ve played out their story completely. I also think it should only be allowable by other characters who have also turned the flag on, for fairness. Turning it on during character creation sounds like a recipe for toxic players to be predators.
Early on in Silent Heaven’s development, I played with the concept of allowing only specific characters to kill your character. Ultimately, I scrapped it and decided that character death can only happen in dangerous zones that are only accessible through Storyteller involvement.
Game-runner of Silent Heaven, a small-town horror MU.
https://silentheaven.org -
@Faraday said in Non-toxic PvP:
I think that’s great, but also an example of what I mean about systems not being scalable. Ice cream socials, debriefs, etc. work great for managing bleed with small groups of friends and/or modestly sized LARP groups.
We did it with 55 players at our largest session. A few of the players would stop playing early to set up the ice cream buffet and we made sure to let everybody have a voice during the debrief. I could see it definitely being an issue in larger games though I would also compartmentalize the debriefs into smaller subgroups in that situation.
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@Jumpscare said in Non-toxic PvP:
Non-consensual character death is the least fun and most toxic outcome.
I think this differs player by player. There’s a small subsection of players that are fully okay with non-consensual character death because they (myself included) chose to allow that as a potential for their PC’s plot line. Death requiring consent should be the standard, but with the ability to opt out if one chooses.
