@eye8urcake said in DWOPP-spotting:

@Runescryer Even if it’s not that creepy fuckface, it sounds like it’s a creepy fuckface and either way, needs dealing with.

I think this is the more important point to focus on than actually finding DWOPP. Instead of trying to find out if a player is DWOPP, staff should be focused on verifying if a player has those tendencies and qualities, and taking action. It doesn’t matter if that person is DWOPP or not and they don’t have to fit the bill perfectly. There should be a line where when enough boxes are checked, they should be shown the exit.

DWOPP just fits the type of player that should not be welcomed in any game.

Past:

• SW1 - Howie Darklighter, Kell Draygo (Brief return at a much later date)
• SW Minos Clusters - Howie Darklighter
• SW Erebus Expanse - Forgot the bit name.
• SW Clone Wars - Howie Darklighter
• SW Brak Sector - Forgot the bit name.
• SW: A New Threat - Forgot the bit name.
• WC: Gemini Sector - Kell
• Serenity MUSH - Kell
• Steel & Stone - Kell and Erik
• BSG: Orion - Agrippa
• Game of Kings - Eldrick Lohstren (First one, before things went crazy)
• Fifth World - Erik
• Eternal Crusade - Elrick
• Creation’s Edge - Elrick
• Tales of the Round - Elrick, Steffan
• SW: Fires of Hope - Kell
• BSG: Unification - Kell, Aleksander
• Fifth Kingdom - Steffan
• Horror MU - Defender
• The Savage Skies - Keisuke
• Arx - Gaston
• The Network - Yongbin

Present:

• Concordia - Hanlin

@Faraday said in IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance:

Some players will roll with things - I love that. But I’ve had some players quit over what I considered natural (non character-ending) consequences of their PCs’ actions, and others throw gigantic fits over the smallest of setbacks.

PC death is my personal hot-button because it ends the story and makes you start over from scratch. That’s not fun for me, so I don’t play (or run) games like that.

@SpaceKhomeini said in IC Consequences and OOC Acceptance:

I usually operate under the assumption that the character I’m helming is largely an idiot and does idiot things that will result in idiotic self-owns.

Sometimes I forget that I haven’t communicated this loudly enough with everyone around me and they get kind of cagey when I do stupid shit IC.

The fact that this needs to be communicated at all is kind of emblematic of the core issue. Most players in my experience don’t want their character to come off looking bad (in their opinion) because they think it makes them look bad. There’s such an over-investment in IC success, glory, and coolness that if someone is actively trying to embrace natural consequences or have their character do something stupid, it’s looked upon with suspicion or disdain.

I believe it’s not only the player not wanting to come off looking bad, which is part of it, but there are some who already have a concrete roadmap planned out for their character. Their character progression is like Lockheed Martin’s stock, the only way is up. In their mind, they already have an expectation that after one event, their character’s coolness and popularity is at this level, then after another event, they will attain a higher level, etc.

This means, if they perform an action that they feel is perfectly fine and cool, and the GM in that scene throws an unexpected wrench which may sidetrack, delay, or even mar their roadmap, then their character is ruined. They’re out. They do not want to go through the effort to take this new, uncertain Path B, because it was not part of their original plan. They play for the ‘W’, they don’t play for the collaborative story telling.

I actually like NPCs that react with consequential actions because it makes the world that is being built feel more alive. If you have NPCs that are constant doormats, then, to me, the world feels very dull because NPCs are as important as the clouds in the sky or blades of grass in the background, just a dull color in the background. Now, on the flip side, if the NPCs are too strong, then it could become too challenge and players will feel a lack of fun, progression, or just suffocated on what they can do. That’s where the skill of the GMs come into play, which it sounds like plenty of IC warnings were given and that is all you can do. The players have to pick up on those signs or suffer the consequences. If they don’t like the consequences after ignoring the warnings, then the game is not for them. Not all games are for everyone and that is fine.

It comes down to what a particular player wants out of a game. Some want to feel like they are Gods of the game where they are in control of everything and steer the story their way. I personally want to just be part of the story, sometimes being a spectator watching what is being woven together by others move forward, sometimes throwing my hat into a plot to have an effect on not just the story but also my character, maybe sometimes throw in a wrench for a taste of the bad consequences. Bad consequences are not a bad thing (of course unless it’s death), because it can also lead to a chance of further character development or character’s internal shift. Which is interesting in of itself (Jamie with his hand lopped off) because it can spice up the story and character.

I believe the number depends heavily on how many active staff you have to help manage those players. Having a dedicated team of 8 staff can handle a much larger player base than a team of 3. Staff to player ratio would lead to less of a burnout on the staff side.

I would also like to add my two cents from my experiences and takeaways from the game as I play (as much as I can due to RL time constraints). I did not see any issue with the clarification of IC theme that was added, because from the previous lore that was available, having children did add potential dire results that can affect a region, or even the realm.

“However, the moment the first child was born to this second generation of Beyonders – the Lost Generation who have never experienced even a moment of life in their respective “real” worlds– new rifts tore open the sky, dozens of them, each responsible for a new threat.”

So having the staff put some sort of thematic control over birth of children in the game makes sense. Now, I don’t know when the staff decided on the official IC system, but the game is still in Beta and I would personally give the staff the benefit of the doubt that they are treating Beta as a real Beta. Now the Betas of video games nowadays that is basically a free advertisement to pre-order the game.

The various posts on this subject though is definitely an opportunity for me to learn how some people can be very uncomfortable with this decision since the bbpost update didn’t hit me as hard as it hit some of the other players or those who are keeping an eye on the game.

@Faraday That is one of the biggest hurdles of a PvP game. Even if you try to rebrand it as a CvC game, it requires a very mature player mindset for everyone involved. It’s really hard for everyone to do something for the greater good of the story, especially when everyone’s vision of the story is different. Even if the staff lays out a clear direction or goal, everyone’s path in that direction or to that goal can differ, which will impact how much they are willing to give to have their vision of the story reshaped.

Another level of difficulty is that the longer the characters last, the richer the character’s story becomes as it continues to build over time. That also means it is much harder to give up on a character or “lose”. It may happen where in a scene, two characters with very lengthy experiences and rich stories clash, and whichever side loses or has to give way, can impact what they have built up rather negatively moving forward. Then a “loser” will result and can even leave a bad experience for them, which sucks for not only that person but also for characters whose stories are heavily involved with that character who lost.

So PvP games may work best on games with short episodes, where characters are “wiped” or killed off in each episode, without consequences that are long lasting. If you lose or die, it’s fine because in a month or two, the slate is wiped clean and a new story is created.

@Doozer It’s been a while, shaking the rust off. I did miss it though!

I’m definitely one of those who are guilty of not being more disciplined with my Async scenes, which I need to fix on my end. I used to be an avid live scene RPer when I first started MUSHing but back then, I had a lot more free time to dedicate to RP and the people I RP with were also mostly in the same time zone and same time slots with free time. Now, RL is a bigger obstacle which is a shame, which is also why it’s impossible for me to play on more than one game.

Things have changed a lot with technology and also how life has changed for people. My free RL time has reduced and instead of hashing out a scene in four hours, I’m mostly down to two hours on a week night where I can fully focus. Oddly enough, even before Ares, I’ve had really great scenes with fun RPers where we can pause the scene after one night and pick up the next night. Or, even before Ares, I’ve done async (before it was coined Async) where the log was copied to google docs and continued there before the log is posted on the wikidot site for the game.

This is where my personal discipline needs to be tightened up on my end, where if a good scene has to be paused, instead of going fully async, it may be better to continue with a continued live scene on the second day. Async is definitely much harder when more people are in a scene, because everyone’s schedule is fragmented and it is much harder to line up the timing. That is why I try to reserve async to one on one scenes or plot advancing scenes so everyone has a chance to contribute to progression of the plot when they can. That’s one of the strong points of async it allows more people to participate instead of people not being in the same timezone of the majority being left out.

In the end, there are strong pros and cons to async, the challenge is to properly juggle it so it works out for those involved.

PvP games can definitely work and can also be a ton of fun. However, it would require a lot more work than your usual PvE games where everyone can win. Staff will have to be on point and very hands on in PvP games, to ensure that the playing field is fair in terms of rules are being followed, that any loopholes to any rule in PvP engagement are removed before it can be fully abused, and constant checking in on all players (not just the loudest or flashiest) that they are having fun or if they have any concerns.

This also means that you have to size the game to the number of people that staff can handle, not just open the floodgates to anyone who wants to join. Staff will also have to be much more picky on who can play and be very willing to show people the door who are not cooperative with the staff. This, obviously, can stir up drama and accusations of staff favoritism, cliques, corruption, etc. This also will be a heavy drain on the staff, which will have to support each other heavily and have the good players support the staff as well. It will be a challenge but can be awesome if done correctly.

@Snackness There are new hires these days in the workforce that do not know what a zip file is.

@mietze I agree with what @Pavel said, sometimes there is just nothing staff can do and it is out of their hands. Through my decades of playing on games (no game running experience and very limited staffing experience), I would also also say that there is no perfect blue print to a successful game. The main reason is because the core of these games are the players, who are human, which means each player is unique in their own way, how they respond, how they perceive things.

The best thing that game runners can do in terms of fairness is to truly ask themselves, am I doing the best I can for the people who are on my game, am I still focused on the vision of my game, am I seriously reviewing incidents that occur on my game. And lastly, am I learning from mistakes I have made, which results in building experience which will only take time. Just like in life, you can do everything right and things just don’t work out sometimes, it can be hard but those times you just learn what you can from that experience and try to move on. Certainly harder done than said, but in life, you can only move forward.

I would also like to add my two cents from my experiences and takeaways from the game as I play (as much as I can due to RL time constraints). I did not see any issue with the clarification of IC theme that was added, because from the previous lore that was available, having children did add potential dire results that can affect a region, or even the realm.

“However, the moment the first child was born to this second generation of Beyonders – the Lost Generation who have never experienced even a moment of life in their respective “real” worlds– new rifts tore open the sky, dozens of them, each responsible for a new threat.”

So having the staff put some sort of thematic control over birth of children in the game makes sense. Now, I don’t know when the staff decided on the official IC system, but the game is still in Beta and I would personally give the staff the benefit of the doubt that they are treating Beta as a real Beta. Now the Betas of video games nowadays that is basically a free advertisement to pre-order the game.

The various posts on this subject though is definitely an opportunity for me to learn how some people can be very uncomfortable with this decision since the bbpost update didn’t hit me as hard as it hit some of the other players or those who are keeping an eye on the game.

I’m definitely one of those who are guilty of not being more disciplined with my Async scenes, which I need to fix on my end. I used to be an avid live scene RPer when I first started MUSHing but back then, I had a lot more free time to dedicate to RP and the people I RP with were also mostly in the same time zone and same time slots with free time. Now, RL is a bigger obstacle which is a shame, which is also why it’s impossible for me to play on more than one game.

Things have changed a lot with technology and also how life has changed for people. My free RL time has reduced and instead of hashing out a scene in four hours, I’m mostly down to two hours on a week night where I can fully focus. Oddly enough, even before Ares, I’ve had really great scenes with fun RPers where we can pause the scene after one night and pick up the next night. Or, even before Ares, I’ve done async (before it was coined Async) where the log was copied to google docs and continued there before the log is posted on the wikidot site for the game.

This is where my personal discipline needs to be tightened up on my end, where if a good scene has to be paused, instead of going fully async, it may be better to continue with a continued live scene on the second day. Async is definitely much harder when more people are in a scene, because everyone’s schedule is fragmented and it is much harder to line up the timing. That is why I try to reserve async to one on one scenes or plot advancing scenes so everyone has a chance to contribute to progression of the plot when they can. That’s one of the strong points of async it allows more people to participate instead of people not being in the same timezone of the majority being left out.

In the end, there are strong pros and cons to async, the challenge is to properly juggle it so it works out for those involved.

On a perfect game, an unlimited number of players. Think of BG3 but every NPC is a PC that is working together seamlessly on crafting the overall story, their individual story, and your story. Every encounter is not scripted depending on the actions you take but their interaction with you depends on when you interact with them, how much of their own story has been built, what the world is like at the time of that interaction, etc.

@Faraday That is one of the biggest hurdles of a PvP game. Even if you try to rebrand it as a CvC game, it requires a very mature player mindset for everyone involved. It’s really hard for everyone to do something for the greater good of the story, especially when everyone’s vision of the story is different. Even if the staff lays out a clear direction or goal, everyone’s path in that direction or to that goal can differ, which will impact how much they are willing to give to have their vision of the story reshaped.

Another level of difficulty is that the longer the characters last, the richer the character’s story becomes as it continues to build over time. That also means it is much harder to give up on a character or “lose”. It may happen where in a scene, two characters with very lengthy experiences and rich stories clash, and whichever side loses or has to give way, can impact what they have built up rather negatively moving forward. Then a “loser” will result and can even leave a bad experience for them, which sucks for not only that person but also for characters whose stories are heavily involved with that character who lost.

So PvP games may work best on games with short episodes, where characters are “wiped” or killed off in each episode, without consequences that are long lasting. If you lose or die, it’s fine because in a month or two, the slate is wiped clean and a new story is created.

I believe the number depends heavily on how many active staff you have to help manage those players. Having a dedicated team of 8 staff can handle a much larger player base than a team of 3. Staff to player ratio would lead to less of a burnout on the staff side.

PvP games can definitely work and can also be a ton of fun. However, it would require a lot more work than your usual PvE games where everyone can win. Staff will have to be on point and very hands on in PvP games, to ensure that the playing field is fair in terms of rules are being followed, that any loopholes to any rule in PvP engagement are removed before it can be fully abused, and constant checking in on all players (not just the loudest or flashiest) that they are having fun or if they have any concerns.

This also means that you have to size the game to the number of people that staff can handle, not just open the floodgates to anyone who wants to join. Staff will also have to be much more picky on who can play and be very willing to show people the door who are not cooperative with the staff. This, obviously, can stir up drama and accusations of staff favoritism, cliques, corruption, etc. This also will be a heavy drain on the staff, which will have to support each other heavily and have the good players support the staff as well. It will be a challenge but can be awesome if done correctly.

@kalakh These are just the levels of mental maturity and experience that players will go through. Just like in life when people are children who are full of innocence and vigor for discovering new things, the new players that joined the game has found this new shiny thing that they are passionate about and dives head first in, consequences be damned because like children, they probably don’t even realize what consequences were in the RP world and if there were even any. To them, it’s just a game and they want to have fun which is great.

The toxic player that was described has advanced in maturity but also fallen into the pit that many fall into. A lot of veteran RPers do get past this pit and push through to the next level of RP maturity, some much quicker than others, but some never do and those are usually the toxic players, the only thing that they advance and skills they sharpen is further down the path of that toxicity.

We have all seen those types of players, from the twinkish min-maxers who are super knowledgeable about the game system, the stats, how to game the system and perhaps even learned how to push the boundaries and rules while hiding due to their years of experience. The same with the toxic or even harmful brain parasite pests, attention hogging me-me-me pests, and sex pests on the game, they’ve honed their RP skills while also honed their camouflage skills to stay hidden, to trick players into their circle, etc.

Entering this level of maturity usually happens because RPers who were new and fresh into the RP world have become better at their poses and better at understanding the game rules, the stats systems, etc. This also resulted in other players acknowledging their advances. They usually praise this player in their growth, want to RP with them more because his poses are just so nice and descriptive like in the stories they read, their characters are shiny and strong, and they make great decisions in events that help push the party or group forward to success. This is where some of the players then fall into the pit of becoming toxic, they have tasted success, they have tasted praise, it tastes so sweet, they want more. Much more. As they continue to improve and gain success, they may feel that other players and maybe even staff start treating them like they are the main character. Some games even state that every character is a “Main Character”.

These players begin losing sight these games are cooperative games, not competitive games. So they must continue to be better than others, through stats, character status, player status, they must be on top. They are the chosen one. If they continue to find success and are continued to be consistently fed praise and accolades, this only reinforces it. Sadly, they lose sight of the goal of RP, of the innocence when they first stepped into the RP world, and lose sight of the path to an even more beautiful world where cooperative RP weaves a much grander, more inclusive, richer story.

I believe this is what separates the toxic players (veteran RPers or not) and those who have pushed beyond this layer, who have embraced cooperative story telling and RP. The toxic players have not been enlightened to the fact that in the end, all this isn’t as meaningful as they believe it is. The tighter you grip this concept of self-importance over all others, the easier it is to lose those you RP with, those who you may have considered to be friends and RP partners, lose this image you have tried to build up over time. That what is important, what builds a much stronger foundation, is the story and positive experiences that you create together with others. Games are not eternal, we’ve seen the biggest, most popular games come to a close or become ghost towns. What is eternal are the people who continue to RP, who have moved on to another game, who remember their experiences with you. Who had genuine fun with you and who you had genuine fun with.

We all want that fun that we first discovered that was so vibrant and shiny, it is just that over years and years of RPing, honing our RP skills, layers and layers are built over that shiny fun where sometimes, enough layers are built that we lose sight of the fun.

@junipersky