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Old 10-14-2012, 10:08 PM   #21
Guardian
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Re: How to Prevent IC info being shared OOC'ly


The staff's job is to interfere. On SD title of "game master" isn't a vestigial term like on MMORPGs and the like - a game master is expected to take control of NPCs, create NPCs and areas, run events and plots. That's what we're there for, like on pen and paper games although (obviously) to a lesser degree. It's high maintenance but it's also fun as hell.
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Old 10-15-2012, 02:04 AM   #22
Orion
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Re: How to Prevent IC info being shared OOC'ly

I'd prefer to take a backseat and allow players the freedom to take their plots where they like, whether they're suspected of metagaming or not. If they're proven to be metagaming, I'd stop them, but interfering in plots can lead people to not be bothered roleplaying.

I'll give an example:

A character was trying to take control of a village. He already has some support from PC's, but the staff decided to make the NPC population of the village form a mob and drive him out of town, allowing another PC who they preferred to be in power to take control.

Up until the point where the character was driven out, my character was assisting him, and the RP was getting really interesting.

I can think of numerous examples like this, where staff have appeared to favour one player over another, and staff can come up with literally anything as a means to support one character while leaving another high and dry.

The player who had their character driven out was obviously quite angry after this, and any attempt by my character to get us to form any other plans were met with apathy on the part of his character - because his player couldn't be bothered anymore. I can't say I blamed him.

I might be straying into a different topic. My view is though, whether a player is suspected of metagaming or not, I'd rather not go there.

Where a plot or event is staff run, and wasn't brought about by the players, it makes sense for the staff to have an active role in shaping what goes on. That at least gives players the chance to have their own independent plots running, and also to play along with the staff's ideas - so it gives them a bit of both.

If they feel powerless to go against what the staff intend all the time then they're merely playing along all the time, and that will lead to a dependency on the staff to create and maintain plots due to player apathy.

Last edited by Orion : 10-15-2012 at 02:16 AM.
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Old 10-15-2012, 10:25 AM   #23
SnowTroll
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Re: How to Prevent IC info being shared OOC'ly

I think it's artfiicial to draw this line between "player rp" and "staff run rp." It's the staff's job in a roleplaying mud to play the part of the mud world, which means every mob, every invisible person behind the scenes, every culture, every town, every leader that's not a player. It's completely unrealistic that players can get together in their sandbox, organize a major plot, and try to change the world, and the world doesn't react because the world is being nice and doesn't want to stifle the rp of a few of the people who live in it, becuase those few people are special and have a big glowing "PC" stamp on their forehead.

That's always a very subjective line, and hard to pinpoint. If I get together with friends, rp something, plan something, get something really awesome together, then after months of planning and getting ready, we execute the plan, I'm only going to be able to see things from my perspective. I spent months preparing this awesome takeover, or whatever else I was preparing. I'm going to think that as soon as the mud staff saw me, they stepped in and God-handed the situation to stop me, then helped out a player they like better. I'm then going to think the game is rigged and either quit or never try anything that requries effort any more.

But it's just as likely that the mud staff had been carefully watching this guy and his group of friends, deciding how best the mud world would react to that situation, and due to the longstanding culture in a certain town they decided that the populace wouldn't react well to the situation. So in their eyes they created a reaction of the mud world that maybe closed the door but opened a few windows, and the player involved just got all whiny becuase he didn't win immediately and easily and the whole game didn't bow to him. If there's really a complete ooc-ic separation going on, as far as anybody knows, that other player who ended up in charge might have had a hand in finding out what was going on, warning people, and steering the direction of the reaction the mud staff created.
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Old 10-17-2012, 02:17 AM   #24
Orion
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Re: How to Prevent IC info being shared OOC'ly

I agree that it's probably hard to draw a line between player-run and staff-run roleplay, and that staff may need to make the world react to a player's roleplay, particularly in larger settings, but I still think there should be certain rules that determine how the world reacts. For example, if most of the players living in a town support a certain character, shouldn't most of the NPC's do so as well?

There was actually (supposed to be) a rule of thumb on that MUD, where something like 1 PC's opinions represented 10 NPC's opinions.

Anyway, it later became apparent, as the character the staff picked was automatically handed yet another settlement to control, that they were placing the character in that position based on OOC preference, rather than roleplay on her part. The player also told me that they were directing her actions too much, which is why she eventually decided not to play the game anymore.
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