Should You Play Your Own Game?
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So, what do you guys think about staff not playing the game? Would that raise any red flags? I know the immediate thought is from people saying ‘oh, staff shouldn’t play’! But if staff legitimately did not want to play any characters, would you find that a warning sign or anything?
It’s not a red flag for me in the sense that I’d be reluctant to play a game where this were the case, but it is a nuisance on the level that I’d tolerate from a friend whilst bitching about it to my other friends.
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It’s very easy for game admins to grow out of touch with what the actual day-to-day experience of the game is like. This especially matters on crunchy games. You need to have the experience of someone stomping you into the dirt in the least fun way possible, in order to appreciate just how unfun it is for everyone else (and realise it needs fixing).
As long as staff characters are marked as such, absolutely they deserve to play!
I strongly believe that every alt, staff’s PC or not, must be identified – RP as many characters as you want, but don’t pretend to be more than one player, whoever you are.
This rule put an end to ninety-some-percent of troublesome crap I had to deal with and reduced player anxiety by some unmeasurable but noticeable amount.
But it does mean that some players are going to treat staff PCs differently. But if you don’t mark alts, many players are going to figure it out anyway, and you’re bound to tell some. So in that case you’ve created an in-group with a seeming advantage (in front of people who’ve probably seen it abused to advantage in the past) and for what?
Staff should play PCs if they want and what they want, and it is helpful for knowing what’s happening on the game and what it’s like to use the systems, etc, but don’t expect it, or the words of your play-group, to be a great example of what it’s like for somebody who found your game on MUDstats or the like.
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@Meg
It’s kinda just whatever. I might wonder why they were running a game they didn’t want to play but if they weren’t engaging in weirdo behavior on their NPCs who were exempt from a lot of PC limitations idk that I care. -
@Third-Eye There’s a secondary issue in there – PCs that are just called NPCs 'cause they’re staff PCs and staff aren’t allowed PCs in their own section is a weird thing that happens. I’m not sure it matters much except for giving bad vibes, though.
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I think choosing to play or not choosing to play are just different ways to engage with a game you make, each with their own unique challenges and pitfalls, and aren’t inherently problematic or better on their own.
I agree with this. Some people just have more fun with coding, building, or GMing. As long as they’re not exhibiting any other troublesome behavior, I have no problem with it. I can think of several staffers like this, but the most iconic was Death from TGG (EUBannana I think was his MSB handle?) He rarely played a PC (at least while I was there) but ran a great game. I think mostly he just liked watching people play in the war sandbox he’d made
I do think that if staff isn’t actively engaging with the players in direct RP, it’s important to have some other mechanism for getting the pulse of the game. It’s easy to be out of touch if you’re not playing (for the reasons @kestrel mentioned).
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My thought is sure, staff should be able to play on their own game with some caveats:
- I agree with @gashlycrumb that all alts should be identified OOCly so that a lot of unethical behavior can be stopped at the pass, especially where staff is involved.
- Further to that, I believe that no staff member should act as staff for a scene involving their own PCs. So if Staffer A is playing their PC in a staff run scene, Staffer B is responsible for running the scene and making any rulings on the scene.
If a staff member doesn’t want to have a PC on the game, that’s okay too.
Proud Member of the Pro-Mummy Alliance
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So, what do you guys think about staff not playing the game? Would that raise any red flags? I know the immediate thought is from people saying ‘oh, staff shouldn’t play’! But if staff legitimately did not want to play any characters, would you find that a warning sign or anything?
Honestly, I think at least one staffer shouldn’t play the game, meaning not having a PC but possibly still running scenes, playing occasional NPCs, etc. I think it’s important to have a sort ombudsman staffer who has a bit of distance from the game and can be a least somewhat objective in analysis. Hand-in-hand with that, though, is that a few staff should play the game, so at least some of the staff have a view of what’s going on ground-level.
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Ideally, every staff member should also be a player. However, not everyone is very active RP-wise, and that’s okay. What’s really important is that they’re active in the community, that they’re visible. Whether they RP, or prefer to hang out on chat, or are always around for questions – that’s not so important which one it is. What really moves things is that players see them, hear them, and get to know them.
Staff that is essentially faceless authority figures invite abuse and fuckery from players who don’t identify with them as fellow hobby nerds. Staff that have faces and are the next guy over – not so much. At least not from the ordinary types – there’s always the occasional malignant creep, and no amount of good PR fixes those.
Any pronouns. Come to Chincoteague. We have ponies. http://keys.aresmush.com
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I believe that no staff member should act as staff for a scene involving their own PCs.
I used to believe that too, but I no longer do. On a good game with a decent staff, you can trust staffers to remain fair even for their own characters. I’ve been on a number of games run by couples (@roadspike and @blu for instance) and have run games entirely by myself. These games have demonstrated to me that strict impartiality of rulings is unnecessary. In contrast, countless games where “impartial” staffers rubber-stamp crazy things for each other have demonstrated that the thin veneer of neutrality on most games is just performative.
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On a good game with a decent staff, you can trust staffers to remain fair even for their own characters.
Funnily enough, I don’t suggest this based on fairness, though that’s an additional benefit of it. I suggest this because playing a PC in a scene at the same time as one is staffing a scene can add to burnout at a faster pace. While fairness is one part of it, I have noticed that staff who run scenes they’re PCing in seem to, in my experience, burn out faster than those that keep a separation between the two activities.
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Staff that is essentially faceless authority figures invite abuse and fuckery from players who don’t identify with them as fellow hobby nerds.
This, and more.
Staff who really want to be authority figures are, hm. Typically not great. If they value protecting their authority more than they value fairness and widespread fun, they’re liable to be a nightmare.
You cannot separate the authority from the work, but the authority should not be the reward for the work nor the reason you do it.
In workplace type situations that get studied by sociologists and the like, people who put much psychic stock into being an authority figure and protecting that status are at a much greater risk of burn-out as well as making everyone around them miserable.
Because I was raised by goats I am an anarcho-syndicalist, but even putting that aside I’d still actively make an effort to be an OOC-friendly chat-channel user as a staffer. Players should feel that I have a personality, and that I am accessible, and that I am open to making new friends, even them.
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@Faraday Very much appreciate the compliment, but it wasn’t always this way. I’ve been accused of spotlighting my own characters and she’s been accused of running scenes just for my characters. It’s been a learning process to get to the point where we feel comfortable running scenes that we have (or our partner has) a character in again.
I agree fully that staff should play their own game (as long as they want to) and that it’s a net benefit for them to do so. However, staff need to be careful not just about the actuality of improprieties when playing their own game, but also the appearance of improprieties.
It’s very easy for it to seem like a staffer is running scenes for their own character (or anyone else’s) if that character does particularly well in a scene, has an expertise that suits the scene (even if it’s just because the staffer is running a scene of a type they like playing in, which is why they play that type of character), or the character is connected to the scene in some way (even if other characters are too).
That’s another reason to be active and approachable and engaged on your own game, because even if no one will tell you directly if you’ve overstepped the bounds of reasonableness (but get yourself some friends who will tell you this), you can get a feel for the game by playing it and often recognize when you’ve stepped outside of the perceived realms of good behavior in running your own scenes. This does take some self-awareness that some don’t have, of course.
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On a good game with a decent staff, you can trust staffers to remain fair even for their own characters
Yes. And if alts are all marked, so everybody knows that the staff PC is a staff PC, and the staffer is not a raging ego who will explode at being called imperfect, then – while I was typing @roadspike hit it – that staffer/player will hear about it if they’ve overstepped.
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