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Old 10-13-2012, 03:25 PM   #17
Guardian
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Join Date: Aug 2012
Home MUD: moo.sindome.org:5555
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Re: How to Prevent IC info being shared OOC'ly

At SD we've had problems with this on and off.

The solution isn't simple, it's a multi-layered approach. The first is to inform players. We did this by adding this to the rules cheating section of the rules (it should have been there ages ago, but as a newer admin I consider it my role to fix glaring gaps no one has looked into)"


The next is to issue warnings. This is easy because Sindome is a cyberpunk-themed game, so people are often talking over networks, cell phones etc. which admins can see as part of the scroll and we monitor rooms when people are gathered together, we need to know a lot of this stuff for plot planning anyway - so we know what people are telling each other, who's lying to who and who's planning to screw over who. So sometimes, if something feels off, we will page the player and ask them how they knew about X or Y or whatever and remind them to read the rules. For most players who are actually interested in roleplay and excitement this is more than enough.

After that we get to disciplinary measures. These can be IC or OOC. If it's blatant metagaming with no way of explaining WTF the player just did with IC events and actions, we dump someone in a cell and have a talk, on a first offense. Next offense they get banned for two days. Then two weeks. Then two months. Then permanently.

If it's just skirting the line - i.e. it's obvious metagaming but there is a very flimsy, thin reasoning possible as to why they know this or that or do this or that, we'll do something ICly. This one is very situational, but it's never something like outright killing the character. It's more along the lines of muddling or casting doubt on what they think they know.

For instance, say someone described as a masked average guy is killing their friend and the player starts to 'home in' on the location despite having no IC communication, we might have an NPC who is also a masked average guy walk right by them in the opposite direction. If they aren't using OOC info, the no harm done. If they are they'll likely hesitate while they talk on MSN or AIM about it. Combat can be pretty quick.

It takes work if you wanna be sure to only punish actual metagamers and not mess with innocent, rule-abiding players, but that's the nature of the beast.
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