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Becoming Staff: Privilege or Punishment?
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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.
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In most circumstances when this comes up, I think the more important issue isn’t about privilege or punishment, but about power and perceptions of power.
Something can be hard or unpleasant, but still put you in a position of power or perceived power. In Mu*, it’s both perceived and real - even if staff aren’t getting game perks, they can see player IPs, or sheet secrets, or +where, or ban people, etc.
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I really, desperately, completely want to tell stories. I’m at the stage in my life where I want to tell stories for others, because //I// want to be surprised by the endings also. Being able to do this really is something that ends up smacking hard because those endings sometimes clash into theme. If you’re staff, you’re golden (mostly) and can make decisions on how to move forward with those stories. (Insert a bit here about communicating with fellow staffers, staying in theme, being ‘realistic’ etc.) If you’re not, then at times the story comes to a crashing halt so you can rope in someone else for that permission to go.
I like that side of staff privilage.
Dealing with the OOC side of staffing? I feel like that’s the cost of being able to drive story. It’s sure as fuck not always worth it. I was in the same staff group as @tsar and @KarmaBum and it fucking //sucked//. People were convinced we were attacking them personally over what felt like every little thing. It was exhausting. In that case, the cost way way outweighed the story benefits.
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@junipersky said in Becoming Staff: Privilege or Punishment?:
I really, desperately, completely want to tell stories. I’m at the stage in my life where I want to tell stories for others, because //I// want to be surprised by the endings also. Being able to do this really is something that ends up smacking hard because those endings sometimes clash into theme. If you’re staff, you’re golden (mostly) and can make decisions on how to move forward with those stories. (Insert a bit here about communicating with fellow staffers, staying in theme, being ‘realistic’ etc.) If you’re not, then at times the story comes to a crashing halt so you can rope in someone else for that permission to go.
I like that side of staff privilage.
Dealing with the OOC side of staffing? I feel like that’s the cost of being able to drive story. It’s sure as fuck not always worth it. I was in the same staff group as @tsar and @KarmaBum and it fucking //sucked//. People were convinced we were attacking them personally over what felt like every little thing. It was exhausting. In that case, the cost way way outweighed the story benefits.
THAT’S RIGHT YOU WERE THERE.
Why did I think you were in that nightmare search cycle instead?!
Maybe all the nightmares blended together.
Does this violate search confidentiality 8 years later?!
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Seems to me there’s a lot of viewing it as punishment. When I’ve become staff of a game I get a lot of reactions, but a lot seem to be ‘I’m sorry’ or variations thereof. Even ‘It’s not a happy place to be’.
But it should be fun? There are definitely some parts of it that end up being less fun, but I dunno.
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@Snackness was in the search cycle
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@tsar shudder
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I applied for gold that cycle which led to people going “OMG THIS IS SO RIGGED” and me dropping out before the end.
PRIME EXAMPLE of why being staff sucks.
Retrospect, I wish I hadn’t.
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@junipersky said in Becoming Staff: Privilege or Punishment?:
I applied for gold that cycle which led to people going “OMG THIS IS SO RIGGED” and me dropping out before the end.
PRIME EXAMPLE of why being staff sucks.
Retrospect, I wish I hadn’t.
I think, in hindsight, there was just a lot of very negative and bad behavior happening there at the time in general. Someone got mad at me for scheduling an event for a time that the only person who responded to the scheduling said they could be there. It was A Time.
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@Polk said in Becoming Staff: Privilege or Punishment?:
@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.
Staff who seek to become indispensable and then abuse that are also definitely bad for the game. You know that better than most.
That is just one of the privileges many staff relish. If you can just boot someone out of a sphere, even when you don’t have the authority to do so, then the “punishments” of being staff are obviously worth dealing with (or not dealing with in some cases as we have heard).
Like others have said. It is kind of both. Like most things there are good parts and not so good parts.
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Going to go with privilege though there’s definitely also punishment.
Sometimes people view a staff bit as a reward or as some kind of ‘final level’ to the game. They definitely see it as a privilege (and if they then go on to do absolutely nothing with it, they might be viewed as punishment to the rest of the staff).
There’s no debate, though, that having a staff bit is a very large pool of social credit. A lot of things you do will be perceived as interesting and exciting simply because it’s staff doing them. On the other side of the coin, all of your behaviour across characters and the IC/OOC divide, is also viewed as the actions of staff to a great extent.
But due to the sheer amount of interest simply because of the staff bit, I’m going with privilege.
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@hellfrog said in Becoming Staff: Privilege or Punishment?:
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.
I’d add that there’s a third kind of person: Some people will want to be staff because they see that work needs to be done. So it’s less about a game they love, or power over others, and more just “well someone has to do it.”
I dunno whether that’s a good or bad perspective, though.
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The only game I ever staffed on that I didn’t make myself was an IRE MUD. Originally it was like “oh hey cool I get to have all these powers and AUTHORITAAAHHHH” and it was a privilege and then I had to deal with players and it was definitely, definitely a punishment lol
