Player Ratios
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@Gashlycrumb said in Player Ratios:
@Roz Yeah, but the actual numbers for that ratio will vary depending on what pace you want to keep and how much time individual GMs want to put in.
Yeah, the ratio number will be different depending on the specifics of the game. My point was more that I don’t think that makes the ratio unimportant; it will always be important for every game. It’s just that it’s dependent on the situation.
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@Tez said in Player Ratios:
Maybe Abelard is just a drag.
It’s inevitable that that will happen.
Is it actually that hard to spot, though?
And how much of a not-drag must a player be to get a seat? Obviously much of the time when a staff storyteller is criticised for cherry-picking who to GM what they are doing is GMing the people who are the most fun for them.
If you don’t have GMing staff, and players running stories for one another is just how your game rolls, you really have no reason to worry about Abelard.
@Tez said in Player Ratios:
You’re right, though. People love points go up, and having a visible badge. (Achievement unlocked.)
Crowdsourcing all sorts of game stuff and just giving people silly titles on the Wiki etc. for contributing seems to work. I think people are pretty into it and it fosters the ‘our game’ community feeling.
I never played Firan. I wouldn’t want ‘share points’ to be a publically viewable thing. They ought to be kinda squishy – you have too many, GM-staff start looking to include you in more stuff. You have too few, well, if there are a limited number of slots for an event, you fly on standby. Since I’m imagining things I can also imagine an event +signup system that isn’t first-come-first-serve but gives people an amount of time to sign up and then assigns the slots to them with the most share-points.
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@Gashlycrumb The whole idea of share points might work for some games, but it feels like it is absolutely rife with the possibility of the perception of bias. Like, “X told me that it only cost them 3 share points to get spotlighted at a plot, but it cost me 5” or “how does Y always have so many share points?” or even just “I never get into a plot, even when I have share points, Staff must be manipulating event signups.”
Even if none of that is actually true, the perception can destroy trust in a game.
Formerly known as Seraphim73 (he/him)
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@Roadspike said in Player Ratios:
@Gashlycrumb The whole idea of share points might work for some games, but it feels like it is absolutely rife with the possibility of the perception of bias. Like, “X told me that it only cost them 3 share points to get spotlighted at a plot, but it cost me 5” or “how does Y always have so many share points?” or even just “I never get into a plot, even when I have share points, Staff must be manipulating event signups.”
Even if none of that is actually true, the perception can destroy trust in a game.
I don’t like these systems for this very reasoning. But I just now thought up a suggestion for games that do use these things. What if any spotlight cost half your points?
I don’t know how that would work in practice, but I suspect it would discourage absurd grinding of points. And over time, the spotlight-stealers would have to put in twice as much effort to not fall behind the little guys. Inevitably, though, the little guys would have their chance in the spotlight.
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IMO dealing with points, levels, ranks, tokens, achievements, etc are just levels of bureaucracy that take ST time from actually doing the things that points, levels, ranks, tokens, and achievements are meant to unlock.
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@Faraday said in Player Ratios:
incentivize the behavior you want, without incentivizing negative behaviors
That goes double for taking things that are typically “free” (staff attention, entrance into plots, add your own example here) and making them require points. The EA or Ubisoft approach to staffing.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
@Pavel said in Player Ratios:
@Faraday said in Player Ratios:
incentivize the behavior you want, without incentivizing negative behaviors
That goes double for taking things that are typically “free” (staff attention, entrance into plots, add your own example here) and making them require points. The EA or Ubisoft approach to staffing.
Don’t you dare try to coin “microstaffing” or “microplots” as if we’re going to reach the MU* equivalent of microtransactions.
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@dvoraen if you pay save up 50 share points, you can get a cool new player skin
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@Pavel said in Player Ratios:
That goes double for taking things that are typically “free” (staff attention, entrance into plots, add your own example here) and making them require points. The EA or Ubisoft approach to staffing.
Yeah that’s why these kinds of systems always felt icky to me. We’re all here to tell stories. I’m not going to bribe you to do it, and I don’t want to be coerced to do things I wouldn’t already do just because you racked up some kind of brownie points.
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I’m kind of with Faraday here. As long as the lore files on what is and isn’t allowed on PRP are clear, and especially if there are a few ‘plot in a box’ options that get pinned up now and then to be claimed…
We’re all here to be telling stories with, to, and for one another. We take turns running, or we just pitch and idea and co-run, or we just tell the stories we want and trust others to do the same.
But as long as there aren’t barriers to people starting, seeking, and running their own RP, a lot of story-telling needs take care of themselves just as long as a +req about:
Gonna run this plot, out of A/B/C which big bads are most appropriate, what outcomes need avoided at all costs, and any information in that setting I should know while running it.
It takes a few minutes to drop that knowledge onto a PRP that anyone (no storyteller needed outside the participants) can run, and that group is off and going, same as any of the others. If they overlap, cool. If they don’t, also fine. But for the most part… As long as we’re trusted with the pieces of plot that are relevant, we’re all capable of entertaining ourselves without hopefully becoming overly burdensome.
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@Roadspike said in Player Ratios:
@Gashlycrumb The whole idea of share points might work for some games, but it feels like it is absolutely rife with the possibility of the perception of bias.
Even if none of that is actually true, the perception can destroy trust in a game.
Yep. Honestly, I suspect that no matter what you did for transparency people would still percieve bias there just because it has an icky feel to ‘pay’ for shit. I am not sure it would really work on any game, but it’s an idea I had. I am now quite curious as to how it worked on Firan.
I really would like some method of displaying a player’s desirable-activity/inclusion-in-cool-shit ratio but if you do it openly it has this ‘paying for stuff’ ick feel, and if you did it secretly people would soon find out and it’d look weird and bad that way too.
I have had GMing staff put me off by saying I get a lot of votes and am thus a star.
