RPing with Everybody (or not)
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@MisterBoring said in RPing with Everybody (or not):
@Faraday said in RPing with Everybody (or not):
If you’re going to expect players to somehow guess at your intent in creating a game, I think that’s inherently misguided.
I would never have them guess. In any future game I run, my intent will be documented in the game’s documentation, and pointed out on the front page of the game or in the initial room upon connection.
OK but this thread as a whole is not about players who are willfully ignoring clearly stated rules of a particular game. We’re talking about general, tacit expectations for behavior in the broader MU community.
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@L-B-Heuschkel Yeah, for me what comes to mind is RPI muds. I recall having to salute my captain on channel every time I logged in. It was just in the rules. I signed up for those rules. I can also sign up for enforced engagement (I think?) but the reasoning intrigues me.
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@Yam said in RPing with Everybody (or not):
I can also sign up for enforced engagement (I think?) but the reasoning intrigues me.
I think the reasoning for some level of required player engagement comes out of home RPG games, or small group games. For example, you run a Star Trek game and invite 6 people to play. When it’s time to play you begin to tell a story of the crew of a Federation diplomacy vessel making headway into the Delta Quadrant. Five of your players engage with the story and the setting, while the sixth immediately walks into your den and starts talking about how his character is a Klingon warrior uncovering dishonorable criminals in the First City on Qo’noS. He isn’t technically hurting anything by doing so, but he is a distraction.
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@Yam said in RPing with Everybody (or not):
I’d like to hear the cold hard requirements that you might expect from players and how you plan to enforce them. Hypothetically.
I don’t plan to enforce them and I don’t think that attempts should be made to enforce them. I’m arguing that it is better (for the game community, of which each player is a part) if individual players choose to RP outside of their core group of friends than if they do not. I’ve said a couple times that it’s not a crime, and I’m not sure that I’d even “have a polite conversation” with someone about it. It’s somewhat rude and people will notice it, but it’s not an infraction (unless specific game policies are being violated) or an indictment on their presence on the game.
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I am friendly but I don’t have friends really or join games with groups of people. If I recognize someone from a previous game that I enjoyed RP with, I’ll wave and smile and hope to RP with them again.
As a ‘lone wolf’ type, I heavily rely on people breaking away from their friend groups to RP with me (or let me in on the RP with those groups).
Do I expect it though? No.
If I can’t find RP on a game, I’ll just leave without a fuss and find somewhere else.
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@Yam said in RPing with Everybody (or not):
ya’ll want a No Dead Weight policy, which seems like it’s usually applied to staffers.
And IC leadership. In theory.
The problem arises when a staffer or IC leader plays only with favourites. So they’re not dead weight to everybody but they’re absolutely dead weight to some players.
In my experience, this happens regularly.
AwesomeStaffer is the Blue Faction GM, but she’s too busy with stuff for Red Faction to respond Blues. She’s dead weight to Blues and active and fun to Reds.
The PC Squad Leader loves to play with PFC Parts and PFC Eye and PFC Jet, but isn’t interested in PFC Property or PFC School, and refuses to pass info to them because he’d rather spend his limited RP time RPing playing poker with Parts and Eye. He’s dead weight to Property and School, and active fun to Parts, Eye, and Jet. Very likely he will not have to face the IC consequences of being a squad leader who only does the job for half the squad.
"This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
– A. Bertram Chandler -
Yes. Everything about this!
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All of that seems fair. But, I’m not sure that the expectations I would have for staff and ST’s to be inviting and inclusive would be the same as the onus I think is on players. It’s GREAT if players are or can and want to be. But. They don’t owe it to a game to include folks, as long as they’re not actively pushing people out and away.
We're all mad here.
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Given my current schedule, I’m waiting for the “RPing with Nobody” thread
(all good points from Gashly and LB)
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@Jenn said in RPing with Everybody (or not):
All of that seems fair. But, I’m not sure that the expectations I would have for staff and ST’s to be inviting and inclusive would be the same as the onus I think is on players. It’s GREAT if players are or can and want to be. But. They don’t owe it to a game to include folks, as long as they’re not actively pushing people out and away.
Yes – I don’t think expectations for staff should be the same as for players. And I don’t think expectations for IC leaders should be the same either.
Still, as player complaints go, this theme-and-varients is common: GM has a three-day turnover time for +requests from Group A, and runs plot-scenes for them every week or two, while we in Group B wait two weeks for a +request response and GM takes a month and a half to give Group B “You visit the chapel and the priest tells you to fuck off,” minimal sort of things.
With IC leaders, it’s more common, but maybe less complained about, because of those different expectations. Faced with an IC leader who was unavailable and unpleasant to play with, I just asked the GM to give me ways to access plot without that person, and was annoyed that GM would not do it. Though honestly, I think it’s utter rubbish to put gatekeepy players in positions of IC power that allow them to gatekeep. (UNLESS you are going to also allow the natural IC consequences of this to smack them inna face.)
There’s also the reverse – Ages ago my PC was the police chief. There was a PC cop who was a problem player. He would basically wander around and interrupt people’s RP to harass them, commit unlawful searches, false arrests, etc, etc. He did not follow orders, would not RP getting dressed down by his boss, would not accept a dressing-down in an @mail as IC, and staff refused to let me fire him. (Inexplicably, since they also admitted that they really just wished he’d go away.)
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The problem there is gating plot behind a single access point. Story should not bottleneck.
let it be a challenge to you
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One of the better things I’ve seen to counteract this is what Arx did with leaders and their “voices.” A second-in-command-type person who carried all the same weight as the leader for when said leader was inactive, unattentive, unwilling or unable to deal with you, etc.
Generally, I prefer IC leadership to be a mix of staff and players (players can be the deputy personal private secretary, but the prime minster will always be staff), but if there’s a built-in fuckery-avoidance mechanism like Arx had, I’d be more amenable to player-oriented leadership.
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@sao said in RPing with Everybody (or not):
The problem there is gating plot behind a single access point. Story should not bottleneck.
This is the point. Story should not bottleneck. Players who are exclusive and RP only within their own small group invariably bottleneck the story,
Consequently, theirs is not a behavior to be encouraged. It creates work for GMs, who must create more story access points, and it frustrates players, who not only have to find the story access points, they need to find the ones that aren’t gatekept against them.
And players who endulge in that behaviour should not hold IC positions where they serve as story access points. If Squad Leader Affair refuses to take the time out from playing with his favourites, PFCs Eye and Parts, to loop in School and Property, he shouldn’t be squad leader.
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@Gashlycrumb I disagree. Players playing in small groups can’t bottleneck story if staff is attentive to how story is seeded. This is not a player problem. If your IC leadership structure has the ability to prevent OOC story access, your game is not functioning correctly.
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@sao said in RPing with Everybody (or not):
@Gashlycrumb I disagree. Players playing in small groups can’t bottleneck story if staff is attentive to how story is seeded. This is not a player problem. If your IC leadership structure has the ability to prevent OOC story access, your game is not functioning correctly.
This exactly. People playing amongst themselves CAN bottleneck story if you let it, but it’s not that hard to design the story in such a way that it doesn’t. If Anne, Bob and Cathy only like to RP amongst themselves, don’t give them the McGuffin that Dave is going to need to propel the story forward. That doesn’t mean that the ABC club can’t make their own stories, or can’t contribute to other stories in their own way.
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The other reason why you need to design plot dispersal around the possibility of things getting stuck is because sometimes players who are usually good about dispersing plot around will disappear, sometimes they’ll get RLed in various ways, sometimes they’ll just burn out or lose interest, etc. It’s not just an issue with insulated players.
And, like, if some players are clearly giving you indication that they’re not good plot vectors, you can stop giving them stuff that’s meant to be spread around. It’s okay to make judgments on which players are engaging with what you give them.
she/her | playlist
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@Roz said in RPing with Everybody (or not):
The other reason why you need to design plot dispersal around the possibility of things getting stuck is because sometimes players who are usually good about dispersing plot around will disappear, sometimes they’ll get RLed in various ways, sometimes they’ll just burn out or lose interest, etc. It’s not just an issue with insulated players.
I think the easiest way to deal with this is to have plot disperse by NPC announcements. Yes have events so the players can be there to hear it ICly in person, but after those events, also post something about it on an IC bboard with a note on which Staff member is running the plot for contact purposes. If a player isn’t able to get a scene with the people who were there at the IC event, the information is still available to them in a way that’s considered IC.
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@MisterBoring One of the tactics I’ve been working on integrating from my pre-MUSH HST time is what I dub ‘plot pages’. They live on the wiki and can be maintained by staff and players, with information that is considered public for that sphere about that plot. Historically I’ve found them really successful for getting new people caught up, making sure plot details are centralized for easy referencing, that plot tidbits are readily available to characters and players and not being lost in the shuffle , or gate kept, and serves as an easy historical reference for past events.
It’s a work in progress, but one I hope finds some success.
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@Faraday said in RPing with Everybody (or not):
This exactly. People playing amongst themselves CAN bottleneck story if you let it, but it’s not that hard to design the story in such a way that it doesn’t. If Anne, Bob and Cathy only like to RP amongst themselves, don’t give them the McGuffin that Dave is going to need to propel the story forward. That doesn’t mean that the ABC club can’t make their own stories, or can’t contribute to other stories in their own way.
Giving them the McGuffin, or the role as Squad Leader (for example) is the ‘encouragement’ I am saying they should not recieve.
If they want to make their own stories or contribute to the other stories in their own way, then they’re not a problem and are quite welcome.
ETA: “Not encourage” is not the same as “discourage” which is not the same as “forbid.”
