Pax Republica - Discussion

Polk

At this point I can’t help but suspect the player age thing is to allow a specific person to play. A relative, or the game runner personally.

Jax

@Zephyr They’re going to have bad actors show up whatever they do. What they’re doing now is enabling/empower them. So when things go bad they will be in a weak spot.

I wonder if this is a case of ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ or if it’s a case of ‘the call is coming from inside the staff lounge.’

icanbeyourmuse

I wonder if this is a case of ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ or if it’s a case of ‘the call is coming from inside the staff lounge.’

By how stuff is phrased on the website and how the person has interacted here (even if limited), I’m inclined to believe it is good intentions than anything else.

Pavel

@Jax said in Pax Republica - Discussion:

I wonder if this is a case of ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ or if it’s a case of ‘the call is coming from inside the staff lounge.’

I tend to opt for the adage of cock-up over conspiracy with things like these until proven otherwise. Though I think it’s genuine cluelessness, or perhaps there are young people in the circle of staff. Or both.

Xenon

I agree that this has “gamerunning inexperience” written all over it, at least to my eye. These are very basic lessons in game management the hobby learned a long time ago. Look at how universal these opinions are here, and this is not exactly hobby with a lot of monolithic opinions.

I wonder if the game runner(s) are from the olden days, and are kind of re-engaging with the community with an idea to run their own game (hey, mush mid-life crises are a thing!). I wonder this specifically because there WAS a time when 18+ was rare outside of specifically XXX games, 13/16+ was common, and it wasn’t unusual to not be asked if you are of a certain age at all. The thing is, this time was decades ago. The hobby has learned important lessons, it just seems OP’s staff haven’t quite caught up yet.

Pavel

@Xenon said in Pax Republica - Discussion:

These are very basic lessons in game management the hobby learned a long time ago.

Well, these are very basic things this part of the hobby learned a long time ago. We’re not the totality, nor even a majority. We can’t expect everyone out there to know what we know, or to have learned what we’ve learned.

OnceWas

@Polk That’s roughly my hot take on this, as well. And, as you said earlier, the theme can be adjusted slightly without any significant disruptions to the canon - simply stating there’s a policy that Padawan are at least eighteen years of age can heave this particular dead badger far down the beach and save some kicking. And even then, Jedi Padawan are basically the only age-themed element in play with the SW mythos, yes? It’s totally workable.

Pacha

I just went and checked because I thought I remembered it from way back when, and I was right, but the IRE games have a minimum age of 13 to play rule. That definitely surprised me because IRE is definitely the most ‘corporate’ of the text-based games out there, but they are MUDs, which do tend to feel more like a text-based MMO/Video Game in tone than a MUSH, in my opinion.

On the other hand, those games definitely have adult themes and are rife with TS. They also have coded-in IC marriages, so an element of romantic RP is provided for by the game runners.

Looking at this game, they have made a no TS rule, which I assume is in response to this, but honestly, “Kids might do TS” is only the tip of the potential problems. For one, the rule will be as ineffective and unenforceable as anywhere else that has tried it.

I was interested in the premise of this game for sure and would have been excited to play there, but I don’t think I will because as an adult I would be less than comfortable in a game where there might be kids - even though years ago I was one of those kids!

I think it is important to protect the adults as well as the kids in that kind of situation. While I think it would usually become apparent quite quickly if you were playing with someone who was that young, I also do not ever want to run the risk of having to answer the question of why (for example) I have a sixteen-year-old child I don’t know in my discord contacts.

Not that I think that in the year 2023, there is going to be a huge influx of kids putting down the PS5 to come and text-based roleplay as Jedi or whatever, but I have no doubt there would be a couple.

Honestly, if it is the case that one of the staffers is 16 or wants their sixteen-year-old kid to play and that is why they are hell-bent on 16. Just make the rule: “Everyone must be over 18 except this person, who is a special exception because we said so”.

Is it a fair and objective rule? No. But nobody ever said the rules on your MUSH have to be. It’s yours. We just get to read the rules and decide if we can live with them or not to play there. In this case, while the premise is tempting, I am going to give it a miss unless they make it adults only.

Pavel

@Pacha said in Pax Republica - Discussion:

But nobody ever said the rules on your MUSH have to be

I mean, we’ve definitely said that, but we’re no authority.

Jennkryst

@Pacha You don’t even need the ‘except this one specific one’… if you’re open about it and like ‘this player is my child/my close relative and I have their parent’s blessing’ … people probably won’t be as mad as if it’s super seekrit.

Back on Shadowrun: Denver, there was a whole house of players, the Dad, two of their upper-teen kids, and I think a fiancé? But they were incredibly vocal about it, the minors’ alts were all openly listed, and there was a strict ‘you lewd with the kids, you are banned’ policy.

… of course Denver was also the place where you could be 16 out the gate from chargen, so like. It gets a little suspicious look anyway.

I, uh… forgot where I was going with this.

Gosh, all this ‘great setting, handwobble mechanics, extremely suspect policies’ is really making me want to load up the virtual machine and try to headbutt that Evennia FFG code into submission again.

oknow

@Jennkryst said in Pax Republica - Discussion:

Gosh, all this ‘great setting, handwobble mechanics, extremely suspect policies’ is really making me want to load up the virtual machine and try to headbutt that Evennia FFG code into submission again.

do it

sixregrets

SpaceKhomeini

@Pavel said in Pax Republica - Discussion:

Even if certain species mature at ages humans would consider ‘under age’, I’d still suggest mandating an 18+ (for players and characters) limit.

Sure, Mission Vao might have technically been an adult at 14, but she was still child-like in many aspects and there was no romantic nor sexual content involving her. You can’t say the same for people on your game.

To sort of prove (or at least make) a point, if you Google “mission vao fan art” sooner rather than later you’re going to find something you’ll wish you hadn’t.

Jynxbox

These do not seem to be people that are familiar with MU*s or the community in general, which is probably why there was such a glaring reluctance to understand things that had become obvious years ago.

They converted an existing game system into a custom system, as is obvious from the missed entries that had not been entirely rewritten, but their custom system isn’t really complete. Especially when it comes to combat. They just have some loose guidelines. And in SW, that’s… well… wishful thinking.

They also still nitpick backgrounds which are almost guaranteed never to come up again and have you spend days and days rewriting things that won’t ever matter. I’ve heard they ask you to justify every single stat you take, even if there’s only a point in it. Who wants to be tortured like that just to get a character approved?

All in all its a pretty amateur operation, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Every place can improve. But all the lessons of MU*ing over all the decades seem to need to be learned all over again from scratch for this place.

somasatori

@SpaceKhomeini said in Pax Republica - Discussion:

@Pavel said in Pax Republica - Discussion:

Even if certain species mature at ages humans would consider ‘under age’, I’d still suggest mandating an 18+ (for players and characters) limit.

Sure, Mission Vao might have technically been an adult at 14, but she was still child-like in many aspects and there was no romantic nor sexual content involving her. You can’t say the same for people on your game.

To sort of prove (or at least make) a point, if you Google “mission vao fan art” sooner rather than later you’re going to find something you’ll wish you hadn’t.

Very much sooner, good fuckin lord.

Warma Sheen

The problem is people.

Pavel

@somasatori said in Pax Republica - Discussion:

@SpaceKhomeini said in Pax Republica - Discussion:

@Pavel said in Pax Republica - Discussion:

Even if certain species mature at ages humans would consider ‘under age’, I’d still suggest mandating an 18+ (for players and characters) limit.

Sure, Mission Vao might have technically been an adult at 14, but she was still child-like in many aspects and there was no romantic nor sexual content involving her. You can’t say the same for people on your game.

To sort of prove (or at least make) a point, if you Google “mission vao fan art” sooner rather than later you’re going to find something you’ll wish you hadn’t.

Very much sooner, good fuckin lord.

That’s Rule 34 for ya, unfortunately.

SpaceKhomeini

The best part is I never even googled it, I just assumed those results were there.

Jennkryst

NECRO!

Since the game opened and changed some of it’s policies and is now advertising, I figured I’d re-open the discussion page!

Upping the minimum age to 16 and making the game PG-13 overall is kind of a solve I guess. Making TS a bannable offense is also a kind of solve. Not that it’s going to stop people from locking themselves in a spaceship and getting lewd with each other.

The question, I guess, is still why?

Third Eye

@Jennkryst said in Pax Republica - Discussion:

Upping the minimum age to 16 and making the game PG-13 overall is kind of a solve I guess.

I mean, this policy change was noticed and remarked upon. I’ll just quote myself from November 2023 when this was seemingly done in reaction to this board.

Third Eye
Third Eye
Nov 9, 2023, 1:47 PM

The game’s policies appear to have been updated so 16 years old is now the minimum (which doesn’t seem to really solve the problem) and also to entirely ban TS, which is a choice. Go with God on enforcing this stuff, I guess.

I really and truly don’t see the difference between 16+ and 13+ and this continues to be a policy that looks driven by 'we want some underage player/staffer to be able to play here and will write the rules around them.

That said, go with God.