@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.

@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.

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.

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.

@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.

@Kestrel I feel like that comes down to personal experience. For me, I’ve seen fully cerebral Jesper Lynd / James Bond style conflicts go rather well even in a fully transparent situation. In those cases, the players of the character locked in CvC use the transparency to make the conflict a better watch for those people just on the outside looking in. Big reveals and stuff still happen, but both sides of the conflict are in on it from the start so that the story gets more detailed.

I think there’s a number of people who believe that CvC automatically involves the entire playerbase whether they want to be involved or not, and really, it should only involve the players of the characters directly fighting in the narrative, be it a crowbar duel in an alley behind a bar or a long drawn out series of espionage plays that result in the PC that is the King of Royalland being assassinated quietly in his private library.

@bear_necessities In games where I’ve experienced it, it works something like this:

• Staff are open with players regarding upcoming plots and players are open with staff as to how their character would respond to those situations.
• Players regularly debrief with each other (and staff) before and after scenes to work together on crafting a narrative all can enjoy and ensure that bleed is handled in a healthy fashion.
• PVP Conflict scenes are heavily discussed by the players before the IC interactions begin. Staff is on hand through all of this to ensure all parties are being heard in the OOC discussion and to make sure all of the games various rules are being followed fairly. Doubly so for any scene resulting in the final resolution of a PC’s storyline (aka death or other permanent change to the character that renders them unplayable).

In one LARP I’ve participated in, a particularly brutal PVP scene ended in the players of the two conflicting PCs having a big happy cry and many tales being told at dinner after the game that night because debriefing techniques were used for the whole game.

@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:

So, if you were designing a game where PvP is meant to be part and parcel (it doesn’t have to involve actual combat or risk of character death), how do you go about mitigating any risk of OOC toxicity?

100% OOC Transparency across the board is the common factor among the few games (mostly LARPs) I’ve played in where PVP didn’t cause resentment at all. In any given game, the players and staff are working together to collaboratively tell a story for the enjoyment of all. The moment the players are OOCly obfuscating their plans and actions, then resentment can creep in.

@sao I’ve done that very thing myself.

Brain meats failing happens.

@Aria said in LFRP: Light and support character acceptable places?:

Honestly, I don’t think anyone really expects people to be online and available every single day anymore.

Totally, the only expectation I have these days from fellow MUers is that if you sign up for some special event in advance, and do a bunch of RP prior to that in preparation for that, then no showing it (or even worse, jumping into a totally unrelated scene at the same time) is pretty uncool.

There are exceptions of course, but if you don’t have any emergencies or OOC drama on the game, why for aren’t you in the planned scene?

I think most games these days are open to whatever your schedule is. Just explain it in the OOC comms channels before you get super deep into it so that nobody’s setting incorrect expectations for your attendance.

The whole website looks like the text was generated by an LLM

@hellfrog said in Numetal/Retromux:

yam’s point is that there is necessary work that must be done to make different spheres work together on MU.

I’m not disagreeing with that. I’m saying that there are games claiming to be WoD games that have house ruled their mechanics and the overall WoD plot so much that they aren’t WoD anymore.

It’d be like if I claimed to run a baseball league, but baseball in my league involved driving modified cars down a quarter mile track.

@Yam said in Numetal/Retromux:

You have to house rule a bunch of shit.

I think this is a whole different conversation, because looking at the documentation for all of the active WoD games out there, at least a couple of them have house ruled too much.

@somasatori said in Numetal/Retromux:

no tabletop system was meant for a MUSH environment.

Hence my belief that LARP systems would work better.

@Pavel said in Numetal/Retromux:

Star Wars games

AoA is probably the current prime example of near constant shitfuckery, just based on the thread here.

@Pavel said in Numetal/Retromux:

It’s really no better nor worse than any other genre, there’s shitfuckery everywhere.

Can confirm, I’ve seen shitfuckery in all types of games. I think it’s just easier to spotlight WoD because the authors constantly traipse into edgelord territory.

@Pavel said in Numetal/Retromux:

The leadership isn’t bad because it’s demanding, or evil, or cruel, it’s bad because it’s a power trip for some prat who has no interest in aiding in the telling of interesting stories for anyone who isn’t them or their cronies/friends/harem.

You also forgot “because sometimes staff just hands out the leadership roles and then those players just ignore that aspect of their character and never actually do anything at all within the PC organization.”

@Wizz said in Numetal/Retromux:

from an objective third party, there is no chance, zero, none, that “I stand up to staff by forcing them into a combat scenario and everyone claps!” works. please understand that I am being frank with you in hopes that it helps, not to mock you.

I’m not suggesting people stand up to staff that way, I’m suggesting that sometimes, PC leadership (especially in a WoD game) is bad, and needs to be ICly dealt with. Now, if that’s causing a scene and berating them ICly or just going full PVP, whatever. But sometimes IC leadership churn is good for the health of the game.

@Gashlycrumb said in Numetal/Retromux:

Larry Leader tells your PC, “Fuck you, you useless fuck. Now lick my asshole for a few hours every week if you want me to give you the chance to do something that will benefit me and almost certainly harm you. I will not pay you for it. I won’t even let it improve your reputation if I can prevent that, and I can.”

So your PC does it 'cause that’s good RP?

No. Your character’s IC response to being asked is normally where the good RP happens. Though perhaps in some cases the response leads to the same request and repetition is the definition of insanity.