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    “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour

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    • MisterBoringM
      MisterBoring @Gashlycrumb
      last edited by

      @Gashlycrumb said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

      So when I propose running a WoD game without sphere-separation, people spaz about it. Propose mandatory alt-transparency, same.

      It really feels like proposing any tools that would help staff do more to protect a game from toxic players gets shot down very quickly, even by players who aren’t toxic in their own right.

      Proud Member of the Pro-Mummy Alliance

      GashlycrumbG FaradayF 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
      • GashlycrumbG
        Gashlycrumb @MisterBoring
        last edited by

        @MisterBoring I found that just doing it was fine with the ‘Game of Thrones’ MU, no objections from players (but a fair amount of “that will never work” from the peanut gallery) but just mention it concerning a planned or merely talked-about WoD MU and there’s a lot of squawking about the privacy and theme and how-horrible-I-would-never-play-it.

        I think the legacy culture issue is strong in WoD. And that a lot of the toxic shit is coming from inside the staffroom.

        "This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
        – A. Bertram Chandler

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        • FaradayF
          Faraday @MisterBoring
          last edited by Faraday

          @MisterBoring said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

          It really feels like proposing any tools that would help staff do more to protect a game from toxic players gets shot down very quickly, even by players who aren’t toxic in their own right.

          They can only shoot down what staff lets them. The game-runner is the one in charge. Lots of players are quick to claim something will never work, and often that’s just not the case. In any event, I’d rather have a safe and friendly game than a toxic one, even if that means some players won’t play.

          MisterBoringM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 6
          • MisterBoringM
            MisterBoring @Faraday
            last edited by

            @Faraday said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

            In any event, I’d rather have a safe and friendly game than a toxic one, even if that means some players won’t play.

            This 100000%.

            a group of minions wearing overalls and goggles are standing in a row

            Proud Member of the Pro-Mummy Alliance

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            • PavelP
              Pavel @Faraday
              last edited by

              @Faraday said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

              Little House on the Prairie and Deadwood are both in the “Historical” genre and further in the “Western” sub-genre, but they are wildly different in tone and themes. RDM Battlestar and the original Battlestar are literally set in the same universe/storyline, yet also have very different tones. WoD can be vampires or hunters. Fantasy can be Game of Thrones or Willow.

              All true, unfortunately lines have to be drawn vaguely somewhere.

              @Faraday said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

              The way you structure your game absolutely influences player behaviors. But even if you argue that genre influences game structure by popular convention, the structure is still a choice (not directly tied to genre). Feels more like correlation than causation.

              Sure, but we won’t know that with any degree of surety if we don’t check. So we should check.

              @MisterBoring said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

              could be merged into one single hypothesis

              It’s all a single hypothesis broken down into sub-hypotheses for ease of conversation.

              He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
              BE AN ADULT

              FaradayF 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • FaradayF
                Faraday @Pavel
                last edited by

                @Pavel said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

                Sure, but we won’t know that with any degree of surety if we don’t check. So we should check.

                You’re only going to get surety from a carefully-crafted study that isolates variables and has a meaningful sample size. With the limited number of MUs and an obvious muddying between genre and other factors (like different game design/policy within a genre, or bleed, which crosses genres and even game types) you’re not going to have any confidence that genre is a causative factor.

                If you have fun looking at the results, cool - more power to you. I just think we should be realistic about what a survey like this is (and isn’t) going to tell us.

                PavelP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • PavelP
                  Pavel @Faraday
                  last edited by Pavel

                  @Faraday said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

                  I just think we should be realistic about what a survey like this is (and isn’t) going to tell us.

                  Indeed, which is why I’ve said as much.

                  @Pavel said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

                  But so long as everyone treats any results as a “hey isn’t this anecdotally interesting” rather than “we have proof that L&L games literally cause spontaneous combustion” that’s all I really want. It’s just neat to think about these things in a pseudo-empirical way.

                  ETA: That said, when I say “we should check” I don’t mean “this survey is that check” I meant that checking should be done. Even if we only find some minor correlation based on limited anecdote, that’s more information than we had before, and it’s interesting.

                  Anyone seeking deep scientific meaning from a google form survey based on a throw away joke on a niche forum is missing the point.

                  He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
                  BE AN ADULT

                  FaradayF 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • GashlycrumbG
                    Gashlycrumb
                    last edited by Gashlycrumb

                    It’ll be fun to see the results, but there’s no way to control for confounding variables unless you get a cumbersome amount of data or build experimental MUs.

                    I bet If I made a My Little Pony '80’s edition MUSH and ran it like WoD with separate Pony, Unicorn, Sea Pony and Pegasus spheres (and winged unicorns a super-special restricted sphere, oooh) and a lot of seckritz and attempts at equine intrigue and very little transparency, it would, like a WoD MU, produce some high-level vicious fuckery if it lasted any length of time.

                    "This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
                    – A. Bertram Chandler

                    PavelP FaradayF 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • PavelP
                      Pavel @Gashlycrumb
                      last edited by

                      @Gashlycrumb It could help determine what kind of things future game-runners would want to look out for or prioritise in their behavioural policies, but it’s not going to change the world. It’s like an exit poll, not an election result.

                      That said some of the results I’m getting so far are a touch on the surprising side. I suspect the most interesting results would be when/if I do a thematic analysis of the long form text answers rather than the numbers – I personally prefer qualitative to quantitative anyway.

                      He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
                      BE AN ADULT

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                      • FaradayF
                        Faraday @Gashlycrumb
                        last edited by

                        @Gashlycrumb said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

                        I bet If I made a My Little Pony '80’s edition MUSH and ran it like WoD with separate Pony, Unicorn, Sea Pony and Pegasus spheres (and winged unicorns a super-special restricted sphere, oooh) and a lot of seckritz and attempts at equine intrigue and very little transparency, it would, like a WoD MU, produce some high-level vicious fuckery if it lasted any length of time.

                        Exactly. And we’ve already seen that same exact sort of behavior on sci-fi games. The behavior is tied to game design elements (factions, PVP) that are not dependent upon genre.

                        GashlycrumbG 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                        • KarmaBumK
                          KarmaBum
                          last edited by KarmaBum

                          I know the resume-post usually means nothing but… I’m a data analyst who’s spent the last several years on a project examining incoming customer surveys alongside operational KPIs. When this topic opened, I cringed but thought it’d be fine FOR FUN.

                          It might be interesting. But that’s not the same as insightful. 🙂

                          So please read any interpretation of the results with about as much gravity as you would a personality quiz: FUN but not REAL.

                          On Dragon Wings · https://pern.gaslightswitch.com · pern.gaslightswitch.com port 4201

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 5
                          • GashlycrumbG
                            Gashlycrumb @Faraday
                            last edited by

                            @Faraday I think it’s possible to do factions and PvP without it going too pear-shaped if you prevent factionalising OOC. Certainly factions-lite and happily supporting mutually-agreed-upon ‘let’s try to kill one another and see what the dice do’ scenarios worked for me.

                            I think it has a lot to do with creating the vibe that we’re all sitting at the same table.

                            "This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
                            – A. Bertram Chandler

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                            • FaradayF
                              Faraday @Pavel
                              last edited by

                              @Gashlycrumb said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

                              I think it has a lot to do with creating the vibe that we’re all sitting at the same table.

                              Right, I’m not saying it can never work, just that if done poorly it can contribute to some of the negative behaviors that Pavel’s asking about in the survey. I’m asserting that those behaviors are tied to the game design and personnel, not intrinsic to the genre.

                              So even IF the survey shows that, say, Sci-Fi games have more of (some bad behavior), that doesn’t really tell you anything at all. It could be that those games just share a particular design element (rosters, PVP, you name it). Heck, for all we know, all the respondents played on the same one bad Sci-Fi game back in 2001. That’s the problem with drawing conclusions from terribly small sample sizes.

                              @Pavel said in “All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour:

                              Anyone seeking deep scientific meaning from a google form survey based on a throw away joke on a niche forum is missing the point.

                              I mean, you had an ethics statement and everything in the intro. It seemed that you were taking it pretty seriously, so I didn’t get “funsy joke opinion poll” vibes from the whole thing. If that’s all you want from it, then by all means, have fun.

                              People (broadly) just tend to be very bad about attributing deep scientific meaning to statistically insignificant studies though, so that was my concern.

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