What's written on the box

[Gashlycrumb]

I was thinking more the scale and type like:

homepage/advert: This is a ‘Starship Troopers’ MUSH with a focus on Mobile Infantry actions. Support characters such as pilots, researchers, military hospital staff and starship crew are also welcome.

So you make an infantryman character, and then find that there aren’t really any infantry actions, it’s all pilots dodging those giant bombadier beetles and dropping bombs from space.

[Pavel]

@Gashlycrumb Yeah, that happens frequently enough to be a problem. It’s why people still ask “so what concepts are you guys looking for” kind of questions, and why the “make whatever you want to make” answer is fucking useless.

[mietze]

@Gashlycrumb I’ve seen that kind of thing happen before almost exactly on a few Battlestar places. The intent and structure was there to support both, but the people willing to run things leaned one way or the other and it wasn’t quite in balance.

I don’t think the creators lied, and they definitely WANTED both. But sometimes who makes what has an impact on a game. Especially when people are needed to step up and run things.

[mietze]

@Pavel yeah I wish people were not so afraid/disdainful of that question. It’s an honest one most of the time, though even there it’s sometimes hard to parse what is meant by it. So I understand why people are leery of it, but I’d say it’s just the beginning of a valuable conversation.

What concepts are you looking for could mean: what don’t you have a lot of that you want to round out your vision of your game/what would go well with the population now (which could be vastly different experiences for the player!)

And if you were looking for easy meshing things with existing players then being directed towards a so far underpopulated and not super supportive hole would very much not be helpful, even if staff’s genuine intent is to have broad scope game/have that hole filled!

[Gashlycrumb]

I find the trouble with the ‘what kind of characters are you looking for?’ is you’ll get directed to what’s on the box, because that’s the official intent even if the game has really already moved on to be about space-battles and most people are diggin’ it. (Unless you ask a friend who already plays that game.)

[icanbeyourmuse]

@Pavel said in What's written on the box:

@Gashlycrumb Yeah, that happens frequently enough to be a problem. It’s why people still ask “so what concepts are you guys looking for” kind of questions, and why the “make whatever you want to make” answer is fucking useless.

I /hate/ this answer. So much. Along with its cousin ‘Make what you would have fun on.’ I want to make something people would find useful in the stuff going on. @Testament was GREAT when I was asking what was wanted for Seven Nations. I explained why I wanted ideas (I play better at something people want over my random whims and want to help others show off their characters). Nothing puts me off a game more than people using ‘Play what you want’ when I ask what the game is looking for. It puts me off far more than not-really newbie friendly, people not really chatting and welcoming. I wouldn’t be asking if I knew what I wanted or something!

[Gashlycrumb]

@mietze said in What's written on the box:

What concepts are you looking for could mean: what don’t you have a lot of that you want to round out your vision of your game/what would go well with the population now (which could be vastly different experiences for the player!)

This! Hah. I can’t honestly remember if I answered that question with “This and that faction are the most active, the other one and the other other one are ones I have GMly ideas about and want to populate more,” but I will make a note to do so in future.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

You had me at using John Fogerty.

[Herja]

In my experience, I have found that it doesn’t matter how I answer the question of ‘What does the game need right now?’ in terms of characters because my answer has no effect on the longevity of the character or the quality of the game experience. I have given players really important and interesting (to me) hooks that they then never did a thing with. I’ve seen people pick up characters that have no introductory hooks and play them for years.

It’s why I rarely answer questions about which roster a player should pick up because it never seems to matter how many hooks a player has if they cannot connect to the character. If I don’t know you or know what you like to play, then any suggestion I make isn’t really going to be that valuable to the player, so I answer that question with exactly “Play whatever you find interesting and we can make story for you.” Also, it feels like putting a degree of the mental ‘labor’ of making the choice of what kind of character to play on me with a lot of expectation about what their experience is going to be like. It feels like a set up for a bad time for both of us.

Also, I have ADHD. I can barely deal with my own decision paralysis much less anyone else’s.

[spiriferida]

As a potential player I’d find it useful for a gamerunner to at least tell me “here’s some of our active character types and orgs, if you’re looking for some ideas to get started,” if I’ve asked about what character types they need. That way I can start looking for useful hooks, whether I want to join those active groups or play some countering force to those.

I also generally don’t look for the box label to tell me what the game actually is, though, I go straight for logs and such.

[Meg]

@Herja said in What's written on the box:

Also, I have ADHD. I can barely deal with my own decision paralysis much less anyone else’s.

I do find it a little unfair to classify this question as decision paralysis! I rarely get decision paralysis and I still ask about what people would like to see on the grid/what they need, etc.

But yeah, I stopped doing that in my last couple games when I did RP. Because yeah, the question doesn’t have a big impact on the story you get or even the game, because if you pick up something that people say they want, they may actually just want the representation versus the reality.

It’s about doing interesting, in the end. For the player, and for the game. Make something interesting, tell a story.

[Herja]

@Meg I wasn’t seriously saying that anyone who asks me about what character they should pick up has decision paralysis. I was just trying to make a self-deprecating joke.

[Meg]

@Herja Sorry! It did come off jokey but I NEEDED TO STATE. (i guess i didn’t need to.)

[KarmaBum]

@Herja said in What's written on the box:

If I don’t know you or know what you like to play, then any suggestion I make isn’t really going to be that valuable to the player

My experience with this is that people who ask “what should I play?” often already have an answer in mind, and are just looking to shuffle you into validating it.

“What should I play?”
“Oh, we have a very active group of assassins that could use a few more ninjas. Or we have an up-and-coming plot about magical goats that could use someone who works with animals.”
“Cool, I was thinking I might like to play a 19 y/o bartender who runs a podcast on the side. Can you help me fit that in?”

[DrQuinn]

@KarmaBum Obviously they run their podcast about their secret ninja assassin activities.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

[Roadspike]

Whenever working on a game, I try really hard to encourage staff to put together a mission statement for the game and tie everything back to it. If they’ve done that, then hopefully their advertising does actually represent gameplay experience (well, the general gameplay experience, @Warma-Sheen’s note that everyone’s experience is different is well-taken).

But for any game that doesn’t have a mission statement front and center, I tend to be a little wary of what their advert says, especially if it sounds perfect for me. I look at their theme files, their forum posts, and if it’s FS3, their skill/scan.

Sometimes, like @hellfrog said, things just get away from the game runners, because players will play what they find interesting, and a single playgroup with its own thoughts can totally tilt a game away from its design. But usually I assume that the front page and advertisement are what staff wants the game to be. Then it’s just important to see if that’s what it really is.

On the sidenote that is “what do you folks need?” and “play what you like,” I used to be really annoyed by the question, and lean hard into that exact response. I did it because a) if a player likes what they’re playing, they’re more likely to stick with it and enjoy it, and b) I was assuming they were reading the mission statement and theme files to know that they’re playing what the game is designed for. I still think that point a) is accurate, but I know enough to know that point b) usually isn’t. With that in mind, I generally aim to answer a similar question: “what concepts would fit in well with the game,” which is different than “what do you folks need” but close, in my opinion. Which usually gets a response like what @Gashlycrumb said:

“This and that faction are the most active, the other one and the other other one are ones I have GMly ideas about and want to populate more,”

[Pavel]

@Roadspike said in What's written on the box:

I was assuming they were reading the mission statement and theme files to know that they’re playing what the game is designed for

Heck, even if I do this I’ll often want to check that those ideas are still what’s being prioritised. So I’ll still occasionally ask something similar to “What kind of character is the game designed around” because I’ve had far too many experiences where I’m only told weeks or months later that the documentation is outdated and this is a dating sim now.

[icanbeyourmuse]

The suggestions of concepts that would be useful/would get most play is good. I don’t necessarily want direct connections to people (though it is nice) but I want to be able to have a concept that can get involved (even if I tend to be slow about it/not really one to push my involvement). I enjoy most things (not hugely combat stuff but I like combat as an aspect f a character). However, I could join a game, make whatever I would ‘have fun on’ then sit there with nothing to do because my concept doesn’t really fit with what is going on.

Staff on many games seem to wiggle back from saying ‘no’ to a concept for a game even if it is not a great fit for what the game is about. Which is not 100% the staff person’s fault. We have some dramatic people in the mu* world when they are denied what they want. Being denied my concept because it doesn’t fit the setting will make me rant at friends but unless it is a denial in a jerky way, that anger won’t last long and I’ll rethink what I planned. If staff is willing (sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t), I’ll work with them to create a concept that will fit the game but still be what I like. I’m going to use Seven Nations as an example again because besides Arx and Atharia it is the only game I really actively (actively being pretty loose) get involved on. Staff on 7N gave me ideas on how to tie into current plots for background stuff. Suggested changes that would make my bit mesh better with theme but never said I /had/ to use these suggestions (outside some stat fixes that was ‘against the rules’ or were potentially getting changed). I feel more connected to my new Arxbit than the one I’ve been playing a while because I talked with a couple people and worked out what I could do to help them advance their stories/plans and loosely based around that while still giving her angles I enjoy. I talked a bit with people on my ‘older’ Arxbit but not nearly as much as I did with my new one. It helped she is tied to people I’m familiar with and know that I handle better with a useful starting point.

So, at least on /my/ side, the ask is so I can get involved if I decide to press for involvement or if someone wants to offer a way for my concept to be pulled in.

[Roadspike]

@icanbeyourmuse said in What's written on the box:

Staff on many games seem to wiggle back from saying ‘no’ to a concept for a game even if it is not a great fit for what the game is about.

This gets into staff making sure that the game remains what is written on the box too. I am a firm believer that the game will be healthier all around if staff (politely) readily tells people “That concept won’t fit on this game” or “you’re likely going to have to work hard to get RP with that concept” and then suggests something related that fits the setting/theme better (if possible). Because if too many concepts that aren’t great fits for the game wriggle through, it’s no longer the game staff wanted it to be, it’s now Online Dating Sim N+1 (because every game is going to have some Online Dating/Romance Sim to it, and that’s not a bad thing, but unless we’re talking RegencyMU*, that shouldn’t be the point of the game).

[Polk]

Heh, the good old “What does the game need?” vs “Play what you like, friend!” dance used to frustrate me.

But I eventually found an answer. “Welcome. Tell me what you like to play, and I can help you craft an idea that matches what works here.”