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Becoming Staff: Privilege or Punishment?
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As someone who runs a smaller game doing I’d say majority of the theme crafting, player story writing, metaplot running, etc etc, I will say that I’m extremely grateful for the people that stepped up to staff with me. Many of them have their own life priorities and their time to spend on game is limited, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Their insight, opinions, and feedback help keep me honest with what I’m doing.
That said, as staffing is voluntary I don’t know if it’s a punishment. It’s more about knowing what you’re willing to accept as taking to the position. And what how flexible the head staff is when it comes to how much time you can put in.
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You either like being the GM, or you don’t. If you don’t, it’ll be punishing. If you do, it’ll be more fun than playing.
What’s not fun is all of the administrative stuff that owning/running a game entails: dealing with complaints, harassment, tech issues, people having meltdowns, etc.
Unfortunately all of that stuff happens at a larger scale on a MUSH than it ever does tabletop. But it still needs cared for.
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@Polk said in Becoming Staff: Privilege or Punishment?:
You either like being the GM, or you don’t. If you don’t, it’ll be punishing. If you do, it’ll be more fun than playing.
What’s not fun is all of the administrative stuff that owning/running a game entails: dealing with complaints, harassment, tech issues, people having meltdowns, etc.
Unfortunately all of that stuff happens at a larger scale on a MUSH than it ever does tabletop. But it still needs cared for.
Honestly, for me? The inverse is true. Obviously, I’m a weird case, but I prefer the administration and player “handling” to the storytelling. I guess that’s why I was a teacher and am now on the counsellor-to-therapist track.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
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@Faraday said in Becoming Staff: Privilege or Punishment?:
Staffing is a 100% voluntary position, so I have a hard time calling it “punishment”. Punishment is something imposed on you by others.
Oh, that’s not true. Ask any Calvinist.
Seriously, staffing is a fucking punishment.
I’ve staffed on three games. Each time I swore “Never Again!” Apparently, I’m incredibly stupid, since it kept happening. I also took leave of my senses and offered to staff for a game a few years ago as the two staff were going to shut it down because of Real Life and I was desperate to have the place continue. Thankfully, they refused and I am grateful from the bottom of my heart for their kindness and foresight.
I love running things for other people. GMing and Storytelling was awesome. It was absolutely everything else that I hated. I hated all the pointless busywork. I hated all the complaints and requests (no, you can’t have a Browning machine gun with a Wyrm spirit infused in it. STOP. ASKING.) I hated dealing with other staff (Yes, she still wants the damn Wyrm-spirit machine gun. Please tell her to stop asking me. YOU’RE the damn Werewolf staffer!). Eventually… I started hating the players. Just, like, in general. That was when I knew I had to leave staff (and the game).
I occasionally lose my sanity and consider actually opening a game. But then I remember I’d have to be HeadWiz and sanity returns.
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@Pavel I’m okay with doing it. But I’m spoiled at Liberation with Sundance INSISTING she do all of that stuff.
She’s fanatical about making sure her STs don’t burn out, and I’m content to live under her umbrella.
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@STD said in Becoming Staff: Privilege or Punishment?:
no, you can’t have a Browning machine gun with a Wyrm spirit infused in it. STOP. ASKING
Lol
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Definitely both.
I mean, I agree that it’s not really ‘punishment’ since it’s voluntary, but if we’re asking whether it’s a privilege or a burden, it’s 100% both, and IMO it only works when the two are pretty balanced. You HAVE to have a good helping of joy - but you also need to really recognize your responsibilities and commitments.
It’s a privilege because I get to play on the game I want, in a theme I like, with stories I enjoy. I also get the privilege of playing on a game where I trust staff (cause it’s me!) and where people who are gross to me don’t stick around. I get to see people live in a world I built and do really cool things with it, and that’s very gratifying.
There are other benefits staff MAY get, but they’re murkier.
Do you get better plot, are people nicer to your PC, do you get cool stuff? I dunno, maybe sometimes, but if you’re a good staffer you also get worry about whether you’re getting too much plot, what people will think if you get a cool thing, whether enough other people have also gotten cool things, whether you are getting what you want in RP because people feel like they have to give it to you or are hoping to cozy up to admin.
I do think people sometimes discount this aspect of the ‘burden’ side of things, where the very act of being staff can sometimes rob you of the joy of the ‘privilege’ stuff people assume. Sometimes you don’t even GET the privileges people assume, and still get griping about it.
I won’t go into the burdens in detail - I think people probably know well enough that things like dealing with problem players, fixing broken code, trying to maintain your theme in the face of players with a different vision, trying to make everyone happy, and creating enough content can be wearing. Don’t even ask me when the last time I RPed in a plot I didn’t know all the spoilers to was.
A lot of these things, too, are a mixed bag in and of themselves. Writing a plot when I’m full of juice and creativity? Joy! Writing a plot when I’m worn out and work’s been A Lot but I need to get it done because I made a commitment and others are relying on me? Burden.
IDK. I generally find staffing MORE of a joy than a burden, but I think it’s taken a lot of years to find my balance, and it’s absolutely not a balance I can have without both a good staff team AND a good community of players who also treat me like a person and player and not just a story-and-code dispensary.
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You should be very suspicious of anyone who wants to be staff for your game.
The only good staff are those who have a passion to see their vision realized but cannot sucker anyone else into doing the work for them.
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Absolutely not.
There are excellent staff who enjoy the work of building and yes, even administrating. ‘Doesn’t like doing the work’ actually sounds like something that disqualifies good staff.
I’m not saying you NEED a passion for answering requests and handling players, but you DO need to understand that it’s part of the job at be at worst ‘okay’ with it. It’s better if you find some degree of joy in keeping the ships running and the stories churning.
Wanting to be staff and wanting power for malicious reasons are not inherently the same thing.
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@Arkandel said in Becoming Staff: Privilege or Punishment?:
You should be very suspicious of anyone who wants to be staff for your game.
I mean. I think a lot of people genuinely enjoy staffing?
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When I reach out to players to be new staff, the usual response I get from them is “Noooo, why me.”
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@Arkandel I wouldn’t go that far, but yeah, a lot of the people who have the traits you want, are also very good players, and most of them want to keep playing.
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It’s both, for sure. And this leads to the danger: some people will want to be staff because they want to help a game they love, or because they just really get enjoyment out of the hard work when it causes player joy.
Some people will want to be staff because it gives them power over others and opens avenues for them to take personal advantage. Just take a look at the AOA thread for an example of that.
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I think of it more as a different role. There are certainly elements of privilege to it - but I think if you’re internalizing that AS privilege, you’re probably not being a great staffer.
I come out of tabletop, and a GM who views being a GM as a power trip usually isn’t a good one. A GM who views themselves and their interests as /less/ important than the other players isn’t great, either; they tend to burn out fast and giving players everything they want can be just as unsatisfying as players never having a win.
Not everyone makes a good staffer or enjoys it - it’s a distinct skillset that is very different from either “player” or even “storyteller”. The degree to which a given person aligns with the skills needed probably dictates where they fall on the privilege/punishment scale.
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I think that the attitude that anyone wants to be staff is someone who is bad is just…really horrible for the game.
Its like the idea that the only people who want to run for office because they want to govern and are competent to administrate are the people who we shouldn’t elect because only slimebags want to be in politics so let’s elect the gal running as someone who hates government instead.
That really works out for the best.
Doesn’t mean you take anyone who says me me me. I’ve seen as much or more damage done by people who are selected for staff because the headwiz liked how they supported them personally or they “seemed nice” when in fact they were neither capable administrators or storytellers nor really interested in anything other than their relationship with that one person.
I do really like the idea of rotating staff limits. To get a breather. I wonder of this would be most feasible on games where there’s not a lot of pvp or ooc masq. I wish I saw it in play!
When I had the cognitive capacity I loved working the admin tasks (esp the boring ones) and running stories. I volunteered a lot, never really has issues or much burnout except in certain spheres but that was because there wasn’t a task that I had to do repetitively that I didn’t enjoy. All burnout came from dealing with aggressively hostile players. Some of whom had staff friends eager to rescue them.
I think if someone has the skills do to the tasks and is capable of teamwork and the role is open I would rather take someone enthusiastic and took initiative to express interest about it than reluctant and resentful. I look for that in volunteer orgs too. The capable of teamwork is real important and where a lot of mush staffs fall apart (though its a big problem in volunteer groups too!)
And if someone isn’t doing the job or is getting too territorial and not capable of working in a cordial way with their other staff teammates then they should probably be given a break at the very least. Its often the first sign of burnout.
I dont think taking on a staff role is punishment or reward. You can be an awesome majorly contributive player without ever being staff. If you try to take on a staff role that you can’t fulfill then you’re likely to burn all that Goodwill away even thoigh you are the same lovely person. Nobody should stay in a role that leeches their energy and depletes them. They may think they’re doing good but the reality is they’re not really once they get to survival mode. Ask me how I know.
I admire the people who can step back before that point and the headtaff who keep an eye out and make a safe environment for staffing changes onboarding and offboarding. Those too are important skills that I wish we celebrated more.
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@mietze I agree, but I also know that some people have been burned by a particular kind of player.
The players who seek to become indispensable and then abuse that, are definitely bad for the game.
But most people who want to help, aren’t that.
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@Polk this is why I said capable of teamwork is essential. Not just a relationship with the headscarf.
The bad actors I can think of aren’t usually team players for very long though a few can fake it for a time. And again when a staffer gets extremely territorial or narrows more and more who they are willing to work with on the team or able to treat with respect that’s often a sign of a bad actor or big burnout (or a shitty org). All time to step away.
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As always… it depends.
When I staffed on Shadowrun: Denver for like a year, or on TR and Fallcoast for like a month… my focus was on busy work. On Denver specifically, I pulled 2-3 times the queue/request work that the rest of staff did COMBINED (I know this because not only was there a system to track this, there was also a leader board, so doing staff work was like a mini game that I HAD TO WIN).
It was all Karma spends (has it been X days since the last time you raised this? Alright, cool, you can raise it again after Y days) or equipment purchases (+create voucher, +voucher/edit… add stuff… set up automated delivery date based on successes on the gear acquisition roll… job done).
Oh look, my RP partner posed while I was working on that job, let me tab over and pose back… cool, what’s the next +request I can handle quickly?
This is why I was shit at it on WoD games. XP spends… let me check with the sphere person to make sure it’s legit. Equipment… is this cool, I don’t want to be the one who gives someone something they should not/cannot have. This is also why:
I was shit at running plots. I would give people ideas, and let them run with things. Or I would park myself in a room while people did their plots and then hand out the rewards at the end of it without it needing to be +requested. But actually tracking the NPCs and running all of the combat and whatnot? Let someone else do that.
(And they were all available to run their own plots, because I made sure every +request that did not involve one of my alts, or @builds, or code bugs, or was sent in while I was asleep… all of them were taken care of.)
I actually did not burn out of this position! I was fired for calling a policy dumb, because a new staff hire who was brought on despite complaints (weird how that keeps happening) then strong-armed a thing into policy and I was like ‘this is dumb’ and despite being told I could totally bitch about dumb decisions when hired, this was now a fireable offence, so shrug
Uh… the lesson is… hire staff that are good at specific things, who make sure things are done so other staff, who are good at different specific things, don’t have to waste time on a thing they are not good at… instead, letting each focus on their own thing. And maybe have a generalist or two if you don’t want people handling their own XP spends or the like.
Weird lesson to learn from Shadowrun and other games, where characters have a team role to specialize int-OH WAIT.
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This might sound like hedging, but it really depends on the game.
Some games actually have ‘rewards’ built in. For instance, on a certain Star Wars game I used to play on… players started out with nothing but could apply to have a Force User after a certain number of votes. But staff had no obligation to approve an application.
So I saw certain players rush to get 200 noms, only to be told ‘No, sorry, no Jedi for you.’ While literally every staff member had a Jedi or Sith.
So no, STAFFING isn’t a promotion. But it definitely puts you at the front of the line for things, whenever you want to apply for them. You stop getting told no, almost entirely.
I’ve staffed a few places, and the main ‘perk’ that I got was that I basically got the plots I wanted to run ‘rubber stamped’ by another staffer, rather than having things scrutinized like ‘Why would Spider-Man decide to convert to Pastafarianism? Does he even like spaghetti? Which comic did you read that in?’
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I agree with many here that staffing can be rewarding and draining.
I think it’s naive to believe that staffers don’t get treated differently by other players (not every player, but many of them), that they don’t have a little more weight put onto their words and the opinions of their characters because they’re played by a staffer. As others mentioned, it’s also easier to get things approved by other staffers because you’ve created a relationship with them and have banked social capital.
There are benefits even if you’re a good staffer who isn’t trying to take advantage of your position – even if you’re trying NOT to take advantage of your position.
But there are also downsides – if you’re a good staffer: your characters can’t rise to the very top of any pyramid of power, you spend your time spotlighting others rather than yourself (I believe players should do this anyhow, but I would argue that staff must do this, acknowledging that I have not been good at it in the past), and you worry about player perception of whether you’ve been advantaged or not and don’t take some opportunities you otherwise would because of it.
But there is definitely privilege to being a staffer, whether being a staffer is a privilege or a punishment.
