What exactly is ordinary, or rather, what exactly is normal, for SWG player characters, and how can that be represented best in Star Wars galaxies?
Some may now say "ordinary people, not supersoldiers", and mean low-level characters, but I think that's short-sighted. Heroes also can be – and often are – ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Some players may define normal as anything their characters can beat by the dozen (and often lament the fact that there are not so many of those around to be beaten by their own character). Butt his is not so much about character background, but about looking what is ordinary, average or normal for the game mechanics.
If one takes a look at non-combat professions such as traders and entertainers as an example for ordinary people, then one notices quickly that just about every trader/entertainer is a master, and every master trader/entertainer is cl90. Of course, the first, knee-jerk-reaction for many roleplayers is to scoff at this, state that not every ordinary character is a master at his/her profession, and condemn game mechanics such as CLs as stupid and immersion breaking.
However, let’s skip this bias for a minute, and take a closer look at a „master trader“ or „master entertainer“. Are they really masters?
Anyone who has a bit of experience in game will tell you that it takes a lot more to become a master at crafting than getting the level. It takes good ressources, not insignificant experience in assembling the items and allocating experimentation, both for subcomponents as well as the final product. It takes an eye for business as well, pricing products, advertising, choosing locations for vendors and dealing with competition and re-sellers as well as securing supplies from ressource dealers and hunters – unlesss one does that oneself. In short, getting the „master trader“ title is not much more than the first step to actually master your craft, and in itself, it’s more like finishing your apprenticeship.
For entertainers, it seems more simple: Get master entertainer, and you can do all the fine dances and songs, just as everyone else. Again, while they are not as pronounced as with crafters, there are significant differences between „master entertainers“ too. From securing (IC) jobs to getting a reputation, from joining a band and learning dance routines and scenes to running a cantina, simply mastering doesn’t mean much other than one has all the standard dances and songs.
So, a master trader/master entertainer is actually a very good representation for „Joe/Jane Average“ – a character that has finished their apprenticeship, and learned a profession, but may or may not have (yet) excelled at it.
Now that we have a baseline, where does that put the rest of the characters, mainly the combat characters?
Let’s start with the „ordinary combat trained character“ – your basic cop or security guard. A master entertainer ooc profession represents those very well – unarmed training to subdue people, average fitness (cl90), and carrying enough gear to make a difference (armor, weapons) compared to civilians, but in trouble if dealing with people with better training. If combat-specced entertainer, then those „cops“ can handle just about every trader or entertainer. If geared up and prepared, and with some pvp experience, they can even handle unarmored combat characters.
Now let’s take a look at the combat trained characters – soldiers, criminals, thugs, bounty hunters, smugglers, hunters and so on – in short, the majority of the roleplayer characters in Star Wars Galaxies. We’re leaving the often very exotic in character backgrounds of many characters, such as clones, last jedi master, clones of a jedi master, hybrid and droids out for now, again focussing on mechanics.
Those characters are (usually) better trained for combat than civilians, and a cl90 combat profession represents this well, being stronger than a trader or entertainer. This difference is even bigger when the combat profession uses armor and weapons, and skill and planning. However, the difference is not that big that, if faced with prepared ordinary characters, a combat character can just walk all over a town – like in the classic western, if the townspeople mass for a posse, even gunslingers fare not very well.
Does that mean that every combat character at cl90 is a superduper mando commando? No. A cl90 smuggler with a DL-44 is what today would probably be a former national guard member who goes to the range every month. Or a regular soldier.
But what about the superduper mandocommandohunters and the ubersithjedimasterlords? What if one’s character concept requires the power to lay waste to armies of lesser characters? Well, superheroes would not die out with this system (also known as „game mechanics“). With the right mix of profession expertise, gear and tactics, at least „batman“ level heroes are not too hard to acquire. Of course, getting that right mix takes time and effort – and practise, both to learn the ropes, and to keep in shape. Using game mechanics, one will not be able to have one’s character become and remain such a „Batman Level“ supersoldier without spending a lot of time on combat. Indirectly it leads to characters that are strong in combat not being as strong in other fields since they lack the time for such pursuits.
So, the system in place actually delivers a rather balanced, and immersive mechanic. Surprise, surprise!
Incidentally, accepting cl90 as the baseline turns the game closer to Pre-CU as well, since back then, everyone had the same base HAM, and combat characters were tougher due to specials, weapon certs, and defense mods. Having both traders and combat characters have the same base health again may be a welcome touch of realism and immersion for some players, since there will be far less animals and other PvE enemies that are instadeath for some characters, and cakewalks for others.
Of course, the idea of considering cl90 as average and ordinary is not to everyone’s taste. Those who want to play superheros may not like it at all, preferring much bigger differences between „heroes and zeros“. And those who want to play average or supersoldiers without grinding up to cl90 may not be in favor of this idea either – even or especially if they go on about how winning matters not anyway.
Using game mechanics for combat turns the superduper mandocommandos and the forcelords into not so quite supermen - in order to be a supersoldier, one would have to go a bit farther than just writing stuff in one’s bio and quoting obscure EU bits and pieces. At the same time, average soldiers need some effort to level up as well, if one cares about winning a fight, and while reaching level 90 can be - and was – done in 10 days, not everyone is willing to spend so much time on building up a character, not if that time can be used on „pwning“ people in emote fights already or playing one’s master trader/master dancer/master slicer/master mando jedi.
For those that do not think one should start out a master though, and are not adversial to require people to back up what they claim with their characters, defining cl90 as ordinary and using game mechanics may be a way to find a common ground with a number of roleplayers, and something worth looking into – especially if they are sick of having to deal with half a dozen different rulessets and emote combat systems just to handle something – combat – that the game mechanics can handle as well or better, and without the „made this system so I win“ bias.
Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
... Law Enforcement
Law enforcement roleplay in Star Wars Galaxies on the Starsider server has one constant: Whoever, whatever PA tries it sooner or later gives up. At first sight, this seems strange, since whenever a new law enforcement PA gets founded every player with a criminal character jumps up and down with glee, and recites the old mantra of „Great! Without law enforcement there can be no crime, since there is no risk! Welcome, welcome, welcome!“ So, one would assume, if not familiar with the server or how ritual sacrifices were fawned over in past cultures prior to the actual act, that law enforcement was a rewarding role, and filled with joyful experiences.
Of course, that’s not the case. For several reasons.
First, there are tons of criminal characters. And most of them are just waiting for some fresh meat in cop uniform so they can test their latest criminal scheme - especially after the resident stormtrooper PAs got smart and stopped bothering with crimes that are not related to the rebellion, therefore saving themselves a boatload of trouble, and being able to focus on actual military roleplay instead of speeding swoops. That means that at first, any new law enforcement PA is swamped with roleplay options and proposals. After months of going cold turkey, a fresh dose of „cop presence“ stirs just about everyone who roleplays a criminal into action.
And it starts out great. The novelty of seeing cops walking around, writing parking tickets, maybe even making an arrest after a barfight or spice consumption is usually enough for most criminals to let themselves get ordered around a bit, and behave – wouldn’t want to scare the new playmates away, after all, and one needs those cops to feel like a true criminal mastermind for dodging their attempts to bring one to justice. And any roleplay scene that goes sour is soon replaced with a new encounter/plot with new people.
However, sooner or later, the sheer number of criminal characters starts to take their toll – especially if it comes to fights. When more than every second citizen a cop encounters is a criminal, things start to look strange. When just about every victim of a crime is a criminal (who usually will get his/her own revenge if the cops don’t track and kill the perp in 1.5 hours, and may have shot at the cops a week ago), the urge to serve and protect starts to lessen. When one starts to expect odds of three or more criminals to one cop in every fight, one starts to grow weary. When a cop feels not like the protector of a community of law-abiding citizens, defending them against criminals, but the bogeyman/whipping boy of a society composed almost entirely of criminals of all sorts or their faithful fans and friends, immersion starts to suffer.
Which brings us to the second reason law enforcement ends up going bad: Compared to criminals, cops operate with very limited options and a lot of restrictions. Cops need evidence to make an arrest/sentence people. They have regulations to follow, often restrictions for gear, and have to obey the law while upholding it. Criminals on the other hand have not many restrictions, but a lot of options. They do not need to have evidence, but can act on suspicion alone – or on a whim. They can usually plan where, when and who to strike, having the initiative. They can use any weapon or armor they want if they mask their faces or at least write that into their bio. They can bribe, threaten and blackmail people, such as a law enforcement officer’s superiour. They can even use the law enforcement officers themselves, siccing them on rival criminals with some leaked information or evidence, or just the right spin on an incident.
Not to mention that criminals, unlike cops, also can simply take a break and do no crime for a while, working on perfecting their PvP suit for example. A law enforcement character though is usually swamped with work – reports of crimes, small to large grievances from criminals and law-abiding characters alike. If they do take a break, people will berate them for not being there when needed – like we complain about cops being there when we speed, but not when someone breaks into our car. (Of course, in SWG, the complaints often sound more like „You arrested my character last week just because she was carrying enough ordance into the local high-class restaurant to blow up Alderaan twice, now arrest that criminal that leered at my leotard-and-composite-fashion statement! The three officers that my characters sent to the bacta tanks during the aforementioned arrest should be out by now, and back on duty too, so no excuses!“)
So, being a cop 24/7 ends up being work, not fun, especially if one has extensive in character rules and regulations to follow, and reports to write about every crime every roleplayer wants one to investigate while 90% of the other players simply have to type „/duel“ or „/emote mugs the target“.
But what happens if a law enforcement character actually manages to do everything right, dot all the is and cross all the ts, and gets the evidence for an arrest and trial? We get to see the third reason law enforcement roleplayers tend to burn out: They simply can’t win. With the rare exception of NPC-Alts or permadead characters, criminals, even killers, will return. The hitman one busted one’s back to arrest will be frolicking around with the rest of the criminal population one week later, with a more or less believable ic explanation ranging from having served their sentence fully (after all, if SWG-pregnancies can go from conception to birth in two days, and kids from toddler to teenager in a few days more, a week is enough to serve a life sentence) to getting a deal with the Empire – if they don’t just wreck the trial, or break the accused out of jail.
Not that this is a bad thing, actually, since spending time in prison IC is only fun in the rarest cases, and we play this game for fun – at least the smarter ones among us do. But it has the consequence that the law enforcement officer ends up meeting every crook he or she busted back on the streets the very next day – something that is not good for morale.
Wait wait, you say: Actions have consequences, so criminals should suffer more! They should not return to the very streets they were arrested in!
Yeah, sure. As pointed out, a large part of the characters of the average roleplay town are criminals. Drive them out, and you end up with a ghost town. And no one wants that. So, law enforcement really cannot win against crime, not without defeating themselves.
Which is actually a good thing, for criminals rarely can allow themselves to lose. I pointed out in another entry why roleplayers generally have to win, so this is no news, but it too can influence the law enforcement game experience negatively. If we’re dealing with players who are big into ic consequences that last, like permadeath or perma-exile, then we’re faced with out of character motivations that differ a lot between cops and criminals. If the cop loses and doesn’t get an arrest or sentence for a criminal, nothing changes for the player, things continue as usual. If the cop wins – one less criminal, which means one less citizen in the town.
If the consequences-criminal loses and gets arrested, tried and sentenced, we’re talking permadeath or perma-exile, given the average crime committed by the average criminal in SWG. If the criminal wins and avoids justice, well, nothing changes, things go on. That’s a rather big incentive for the criminal’s player to do his/her best to avoid a loss – and given the amount of options criminals have (from bribes and violence to out-there stuff like mindwipes of witnesses), odds are they will win if trying seriously.
And to quote a forum post: If one side loses all the time, it’s no fun. And if something is no fun, people tend to stop doing it.
Now, let’s assume some player of a law enforcement character suffers through all the stuff mentioned above, yet does not give up. What happens then, other than getting a job offer for a less stressful task, like mediating peace in the middle east? We often see law enforcement characters start to get corrupt. The temptation to fight fire with fire grows with each defeat at the hands of criminals. Why should one stick to all those pesky regulations when it would be so easy to teach those criminals a lesson by bending the law just a little?
And so corruption steps in, little by little. Some officers may simply look away when two criminals or gangs fight each other. Others may actively instigate such conflicts by various means. Some may even work with criminals to defeat „the bigger evil“, becoming little more than tools of the local gang. Others yet might break the law, fake evidence, or torture confessions out of accuseds. Or start to enforce the law selectively, giving criminals who supported them in the past more leeway than others. Or simply pay bounty hunters and hitmen for acting out vigilante justice. And sooner or later, we’re not talking about law enforcement anymore, but enforcers of a gang in uniform. And that means, they get treated, ic and ooc, as just another gang.
But let’s assume, hypothetically, that a player weathers all of this, and keeps the character on the right side of the law. Doesn’t associate with criminals, doesn’t make deals, remains impartial, and protects their reputation by not sharing drinks or body fluids with the local mafia. Does that save them?
If the prozac bills don’t make them unable to pay for SWG’s subscription, out of character stuff usually does them in anyway. The emote/duel disputes alone can drive players away. Canon fanatics and fanboys arguing about why this or that NPC organisation should reign supreme „since it states so right in the EU!!!!“, usually followed with „your character therefore would not do this!“ mop up the survivors from the emote/duel wars.
„Just /addignore them“ you say? Well... contrary to most other character concepts, addignoring characters does not work that well for law enforcement. If after the latest „my Sith-Mandalorian-Black Hutt-hybrid syndicate should be untouchable by ouny cops like you“ ooc flame war said organisation gets addignored, people not familiar with the incident and reaction might perceive this as corrupt cops turning a blind eye.
This problem is compounded when players try to solve ooc issues with ic means. It is really tempting to simply recruit/hire/deptutize criminals so that no matter what a particular crime PA one is facing off against demands to settle the outcome of a fight - emotes, duels, sheer numbers, canon-quotes about manpower – one can match them and beat them. However, in the long run, it only leads to more trouble, since people react to seeing cops and criminals fight side by side. And having to explain after each battle „please, do not consider this too ic, the criminals on this side were just helping us out for ooc reasons“ gets tiring too.
So, what exactly can one do to avoid all this trouble when playing law enforcement characters?
Honestly, I don’t know for sure. Players could play more law-abiding citizens, or at least characters that are not hard-boiled criminals with a rap sheet longer than the casualty list of the Death Star. Characters that shun criminals, and provide the cops with a society to protect, where criminals are outsiders. However, that’s illusiory. People want to interact with criminals, for various reasons, and people want to play criminals more than joe averages, if only for the freedom it offers.
Law enforcement could avoid some pitfalls, stick to player cities and the rules there, augment their forces with storyteller tools, or stick to specific crimes (playing a sort of FBI), picking and choosing their ic antagonists and avoiding getting rushed/dragged into every crime scene as well as avoiding close association with various crime gangs. And, of course, not to try too much at once.
Criminals could use alts for plots, to allow permadead criminals, or use alts in law enforcement PAs. Alternatively, or in addition to this, criminals could try to depend less on law enforcement for their roleplay. One can roleplay a criminal in places like Lok or Tatooine, with corrupt cops (if any), and get the risk of failure not by competing with the four law enforcement officers still active on the server, but by matching wits and forces with the dozens of other crime gangs. Criminals could behave when interacting with cops, and – novel idea! – try to avoid committing crimes in the jurisdiction of said four cops.
And maybe once we do not feel anymore like we need law enforcement so desperately, law enforcement, freed of the pressures and demands from all players of criminal characters, can actually become a lasting part of the Starsider roleplay scenes, not just a prop for crime plots.
Maybe it’ll even be fun for all involved.
Of course, that’s not the case. For several reasons.
First, there are tons of criminal characters. And most of them are just waiting for some fresh meat in cop uniform so they can test their latest criminal scheme - especially after the resident stormtrooper PAs got smart and stopped bothering with crimes that are not related to the rebellion, therefore saving themselves a boatload of trouble, and being able to focus on actual military roleplay instead of speeding swoops. That means that at first, any new law enforcement PA is swamped with roleplay options and proposals. After months of going cold turkey, a fresh dose of „cop presence“ stirs just about everyone who roleplays a criminal into action.
And it starts out great. The novelty of seeing cops walking around, writing parking tickets, maybe even making an arrest after a barfight or spice consumption is usually enough for most criminals to let themselves get ordered around a bit, and behave – wouldn’t want to scare the new playmates away, after all, and one needs those cops to feel like a true criminal mastermind for dodging their attempts to bring one to justice. And any roleplay scene that goes sour is soon replaced with a new encounter/plot with new people.
However, sooner or later, the sheer number of criminal characters starts to take their toll – especially if it comes to fights. When more than every second citizen a cop encounters is a criminal, things start to look strange. When just about every victim of a crime is a criminal (who usually will get his/her own revenge if the cops don’t track and kill the perp in 1.5 hours, and may have shot at the cops a week ago), the urge to serve and protect starts to lessen. When one starts to expect odds of three or more criminals to one cop in every fight, one starts to grow weary. When a cop feels not like the protector of a community of law-abiding citizens, defending them against criminals, but the bogeyman/whipping boy of a society composed almost entirely of criminals of all sorts or their faithful fans and friends, immersion starts to suffer.
Which brings us to the second reason law enforcement ends up going bad: Compared to criminals, cops operate with very limited options and a lot of restrictions. Cops need evidence to make an arrest/sentence people. They have regulations to follow, often restrictions for gear, and have to obey the law while upholding it. Criminals on the other hand have not many restrictions, but a lot of options. They do not need to have evidence, but can act on suspicion alone – or on a whim. They can usually plan where, when and who to strike, having the initiative. They can use any weapon or armor they want if they mask their faces or at least write that into their bio. They can bribe, threaten and blackmail people, such as a law enforcement officer’s superiour. They can even use the law enforcement officers themselves, siccing them on rival criminals with some leaked information or evidence, or just the right spin on an incident.
Not to mention that criminals, unlike cops, also can simply take a break and do no crime for a while, working on perfecting their PvP suit for example. A law enforcement character though is usually swamped with work – reports of crimes, small to large grievances from criminals and law-abiding characters alike. If they do take a break, people will berate them for not being there when needed – like we complain about cops being there when we speed, but not when someone breaks into our car. (Of course, in SWG, the complaints often sound more like „You arrested my character last week just because she was carrying enough ordance into the local high-class restaurant to blow up Alderaan twice, now arrest that criminal that leered at my leotard-and-composite-fashion statement! The three officers that my characters sent to the bacta tanks during the aforementioned arrest should be out by now, and back on duty too, so no excuses!“)
So, being a cop 24/7 ends up being work, not fun, especially if one has extensive in character rules and regulations to follow, and reports to write about every crime every roleplayer wants one to investigate while 90% of the other players simply have to type „/duel“ or „/emote mugs the target“.
But what happens if a law enforcement character actually manages to do everything right, dot all the is and cross all the ts, and gets the evidence for an arrest and trial? We get to see the third reason law enforcement roleplayers tend to burn out: They simply can’t win. With the rare exception of NPC-Alts or permadead characters, criminals, even killers, will return. The hitman one busted one’s back to arrest will be frolicking around with the rest of the criminal population one week later, with a more or less believable ic explanation ranging from having served their sentence fully (after all, if SWG-pregnancies can go from conception to birth in two days, and kids from toddler to teenager in a few days more, a week is enough to serve a life sentence) to getting a deal with the Empire – if they don’t just wreck the trial, or break the accused out of jail.
Not that this is a bad thing, actually, since spending time in prison IC is only fun in the rarest cases, and we play this game for fun – at least the smarter ones among us do. But it has the consequence that the law enforcement officer ends up meeting every crook he or she busted back on the streets the very next day – something that is not good for morale.
Wait wait, you say: Actions have consequences, so criminals should suffer more! They should not return to the very streets they were arrested in!
Yeah, sure. As pointed out, a large part of the characters of the average roleplay town are criminals. Drive them out, and you end up with a ghost town. And no one wants that. So, law enforcement really cannot win against crime, not without defeating themselves.
Which is actually a good thing, for criminals rarely can allow themselves to lose. I pointed out in another entry why roleplayers generally have to win, so this is no news, but it too can influence the law enforcement game experience negatively. If we’re dealing with players who are big into ic consequences that last, like permadeath or perma-exile, then we’re faced with out of character motivations that differ a lot between cops and criminals. If the cop loses and doesn’t get an arrest or sentence for a criminal, nothing changes for the player, things continue as usual. If the cop wins – one less criminal, which means one less citizen in the town.
If the consequences-criminal loses and gets arrested, tried and sentenced, we’re talking permadeath or perma-exile, given the average crime committed by the average criminal in SWG. If the criminal wins and avoids justice, well, nothing changes, things go on. That’s a rather big incentive for the criminal’s player to do his/her best to avoid a loss – and given the amount of options criminals have (from bribes and violence to out-there stuff like mindwipes of witnesses), odds are they will win if trying seriously.
And to quote a forum post: If one side loses all the time, it’s no fun. And if something is no fun, people tend to stop doing it.
Now, let’s assume some player of a law enforcement character suffers through all the stuff mentioned above, yet does not give up. What happens then, other than getting a job offer for a less stressful task, like mediating peace in the middle east? We often see law enforcement characters start to get corrupt. The temptation to fight fire with fire grows with each defeat at the hands of criminals. Why should one stick to all those pesky regulations when it would be so easy to teach those criminals a lesson by bending the law just a little?
And so corruption steps in, little by little. Some officers may simply look away when two criminals or gangs fight each other. Others may actively instigate such conflicts by various means. Some may even work with criminals to defeat „the bigger evil“, becoming little more than tools of the local gang. Others yet might break the law, fake evidence, or torture confessions out of accuseds. Or start to enforce the law selectively, giving criminals who supported them in the past more leeway than others. Or simply pay bounty hunters and hitmen for acting out vigilante justice. And sooner or later, we’re not talking about law enforcement anymore, but enforcers of a gang in uniform. And that means, they get treated, ic and ooc, as just another gang.
But let’s assume, hypothetically, that a player weathers all of this, and keeps the character on the right side of the law. Doesn’t associate with criminals, doesn’t make deals, remains impartial, and protects their reputation by not sharing drinks or body fluids with the local mafia. Does that save them?
If the prozac bills don’t make them unable to pay for SWG’s subscription, out of character stuff usually does them in anyway. The emote/duel disputes alone can drive players away. Canon fanatics and fanboys arguing about why this or that NPC organisation should reign supreme „since it states so right in the EU!!!!“, usually followed with „your character therefore would not do this!“ mop up the survivors from the emote/duel wars.
„Just /addignore them“ you say? Well... contrary to most other character concepts, addignoring characters does not work that well for law enforcement. If after the latest „my Sith-Mandalorian-Black Hutt-hybrid syndicate should be untouchable by ouny cops like you“ ooc flame war said organisation gets addignored, people not familiar with the incident and reaction might perceive this as corrupt cops turning a blind eye.
This problem is compounded when players try to solve ooc issues with ic means. It is really tempting to simply recruit/hire/deptutize criminals so that no matter what a particular crime PA one is facing off against demands to settle the outcome of a fight - emotes, duels, sheer numbers, canon-quotes about manpower – one can match them and beat them. However, in the long run, it only leads to more trouble, since people react to seeing cops and criminals fight side by side. And having to explain after each battle „please, do not consider this too ic, the criminals on this side were just helping us out for ooc reasons“ gets tiring too.
So, what exactly can one do to avoid all this trouble when playing law enforcement characters?
Honestly, I don’t know for sure. Players could play more law-abiding citizens, or at least characters that are not hard-boiled criminals with a rap sheet longer than the casualty list of the Death Star. Characters that shun criminals, and provide the cops with a society to protect, where criminals are outsiders. However, that’s illusiory. People want to interact with criminals, for various reasons, and people want to play criminals more than joe averages, if only for the freedom it offers.
Law enforcement could avoid some pitfalls, stick to player cities and the rules there, augment their forces with storyteller tools, or stick to specific crimes (playing a sort of FBI), picking and choosing their ic antagonists and avoiding getting rushed/dragged into every crime scene as well as avoiding close association with various crime gangs. And, of course, not to try too much at once.
Criminals could use alts for plots, to allow permadead criminals, or use alts in law enforcement PAs. Alternatively, or in addition to this, criminals could try to depend less on law enforcement for their roleplay. One can roleplay a criminal in places like Lok or Tatooine, with corrupt cops (if any), and get the risk of failure not by competing with the four law enforcement officers still active on the server, but by matching wits and forces with the dozens of other crime gangs. Criminals could behave when interacting with cops, and – novel idea! – try to avoid committing crimes in the jurisdiction of said four cops.
And maybe once we do not feel anymore like we need law enforcement so desperately, law enforcement, freed of the pressures and demands from all players of criminal characters, can actually become a lasting part of the Starsider roleplay scenes, not just a prop for crime plots.
Maybe it’ll even be fun for all involved.
Monday, September 3, 2007
... Forums
Forums. Refuge for roleplayers stuck at work, shining pillar of hope for roleplayers lost in the dark of the question whether a DL-44 weighs 1.3 or 1.4 kg. Battleground for epic conflicts between the fearless warriors of all things duel and the fanatic zealots of the holy emote. Generating enough heat from flames that, if it could be harnessed, it might almost make up for the amount of work hours lost on them by less than diligent office workers. In short, part of the core of our roleplay experience - in many cases even coming before the game itself.
That said, I am always surprised by the differences between roleplaying forums. On one side, we have SWG/Starsider roleplaying forums – often full of flames, smoldering hatred, and burning crusades (no, not of the WoW style, of the „anyone who does not play like I do is having bad wrong fun and should quit!!!“ variety). On the other hand, we have forums like EN World, about, hm... 10 to 100 times as big (at least) as the usual SWG server roleplay forums (while I am writing this, SSG has 9 people online, EN World has 1300 people online), and having about, uh... 1% of the flames and hostility.
Why is that? If I knew for sure, I’d probably be able to solve the middle east conflict as well, and get the nobel prize, if I could bottle the secret and sell it to parents of teenagers and disfunctional families I’d be a billionaire. But I can at least try to guess the reasons why a forum with so many more people has much less drama than say Starsider’s roleplaying forums.
First, the similarities. Both SWG and EN World deal with roleplaying. Both have a mixture of nostalgics and new players, SWG just has fewer editions to be nostalgic about – they got Pre-CU, which grows bigger and better every year seen through the rose-colored glasses of the veterans (who conveniently forget the flames and drama on the forums back then, and all the complaining). The CU (less fans, but less drama), and the current game version, the NGE (also known as „Biggest blunder of SOE“ in some circles, and „pretty decent“ in other circles, but mostly known as „the thing that makes me roleplay, since there’s nothing else to do“ – according to roleplay forums, that is. Someone forgot to tell the players in game that they have nothing to do, so the poor ignorant players are stuck doing nothing, and can’t even complain since they do not know they have nothing to do. Any good samaritan should talk to them, and fill them in what they are doing wrong, having fun and all, so they too can join the league of dispossessed pre-cu fans).
That sounds pretty complex, all in all, but EN World has SWG beat by a wide margin. Where people that started to play SWG 4 years ago are considered veterans (and therefore often think they have the „right“ to look down upon NGE „Noobs“), EN World dealing with a game that is over 30 years old, has grognards that started playing in the 1970s, when the first edition came out (and still play it!). 1e is actually a misnomer, there’s OD&D, red box, some may even count chainmail. Then there’s AD&D 1E, AD&D 2E, Skills & Power 2E, and then there’s 3E, 3.5E, and the recently announced 4E. Add d20, various other system based upon d20, among them the Star Wars d20 and the Star Wars Saga Edition (Hey! It has Star Wars too!), and off-shots of those and you end up with more game systems than SWG has had patches. And just about every system mentioned has fervent adherants who consider it the one true way of D&D/Roleplaying.
So, any SWG roleplayer with a smidgen of forum experience has already taken cover in a nuclear shelter, expecting EN World to explode with flames that rival a supernova daily, able to burn posters to ashes through flatscreens and fiberoptic cables - yet it doesn’t.
Why is that? Are EN World posters more mature? Can’t be! Everyone on SWG knows that SWG roleplayers are the most mature roleplayers of all!
Do EN World posters have less of an ego? Not at all, as anyone listening to the tales of character death and DM stupidity can attest to, the ego of some posters is just as big as anyone else’s. In some cases, like industry professionals, it may even be justified.
Aha! As many of our gods of roleplay can affirm, it must bet hat the posters of EN World are simply more lovable, and won’t be as nasty as disagreeing with a poster, or asking for references for cited rules, since everyone knows, discussions are flames, and disagreements will ruin roleplay!
Uh... sorry to say, but people disagree a lot on EN World. They also discuss a lot. They even use the dreaded „Quote“ function to not just quote whole posts (and spam pictures!), but to quote point after point of a post, with tailored refutes or questions in between. Yet it rarely if ever degenerates into flames. Why is that so?
Maybe EN world, dealing mostly with pen and paper roleplaying, is less anonymous, and all the thousands of posters know and respect each other, unlike on SWG, where the internet makes them scoff common courtesy? Again, wrong. Most of the posters may not have seen each other even once, ,much less played together. Compared to SWG, where many players encounter each other in game and therefore may be more courteous, that sounds like a recipe for disaster.
But hold! you say. That must be it – in SWG, posters usually know each other, therefore they are more prone to flame each other! That might be true, even i fit completely ruins the whole „we need to mingle and get to know each other oocly so we can play together“ idea many players cite as the reason for spamming their in-jokes all over the forums.
But is it true? Upon closer examination, it may play a part. When browsing EN World, one hardly if ever encounters the oh so funny „look at what stupid spam I found“ posts, the „original“ inside jokes, the emote spam chain quotes or the lovable „thread hijacking to keep it funny and flame free“ antics of vigilante wanna-be mods. The whole EN World forum feels less cliquish too. That may be the size alone, but I doubt it. It’s simply the absence of inside jokes and „special exceptions“ and „meant as a joke“ posts that require people to spend half a week just reading posts until they know who is serious when talking to whom and who is not.
I do think, after reflecting upon it, that it comes down to two reasons.
First, EN World, contrary to almost every SWG forum I saw, is first and foremost seen as a forum to exchange and discuss ideas and information about roleplaying, not a stage to draw attention to oneself, or hang out and spam each other. They also draw a sharp line between opinions and people.
Second, EN World has a team of moderators who actually moderate. They don’t cut anyone slack. They don’t let people act as vigilante moderators, they don’t let others define what goes and what goes not. They don’t evade decisions, they go and draw the line between personal attacks and rebuttals of opinions.
They are dedicated to preserve the forums as a place to exchange ideas, discuss opinions, and to get advice and help for roleplaying.
Together, EN World comes off as a place where new players feel much more accepted than any SWG Forum I ever saw, and where the signal to noise ratio is much much better as well.
Is it as handy to hang out, joke, and generally chat with your buddies and best friends? Of course not. But, it seems EN World posters usually do that at the gaming table, not in forums meant to help roleplay.
Of course, since SWG players lack that table, we’re stuck with having to turn our central rp forums into spam hubs that rival Mos Eisley Starport on dev vacation days – I mean, it’s not as if we could joke with our guildies on our private forums, in chat rooms, or in special threads in a special forum, we have to spam all over the place, right? I mean, that would be intolerable! An outrage! Free Speech violated! We do have to let everyone read how cool and chummy we are, the better to show them they are not part of our clique!
And we could not complain about those very forums going down the pits due to flames and spam. But it’s not our fault, no sir! It’s uh... the fault of those who don’t laugh at our jokes, who don’t ask for permission to discuss stuff, who actually come to a forum to discuss roleplay, not read about panda spam. Don’t those outsiders know that just because we joke and spam that it does not mean they are allowed to „break the rules“ and post stuff we do not agree with?
Who let them on the forums anyway? What? Us, cliquish? Who said that? We are friendly, mature and welcoming, helpful, paragons of humanity! Anyone who disagrees is a troublemaker! Ban that heathen!
That said, I am always surprised by the differences between roleplaying forums. On one side, we have SWG/Starsider roleplaying forums – often full of flames, smoldering hatred, and burning crusades (no, not of the WoW style, of the „anyone who does not play like I do is having bad wrong fun and should quit!!!“ variety). On the other hand, we have forums like EN World, about, hm... 10 to 100 times as big (at least) as the usual SWG server roleplay forums (while I am writing this, SSG has 9 people online, EN World has 1300 people online), and having about, uh... 1% of the flames and hostility.
Why is that? If I knew for sure, I’d probably be able to solve the middle east conflict as well, and get the nobel prize, if I could bottle the secret and sell it to parents of teenagers and disfunctional families I’d be a billionaire. But I can at least try to guess the reasons why a forum with so many more people has much less drama than say Starsider’s roleplaying forums.
First, the similarities. Both SWG and EN World deal with roleplaying. Both have a mixture of nostalgics and new players, SWG just has fewer editions to be nostalgic about – they got Pre-CU, which grows bigger and better every year seen through the rose-colored glasses of the veterans (who conveniently forget the flames and drama on the forums back then, and all the complaining). The CU (less fans, but less drama), and the current game version, the NGE (also known as „Biggest blunder of SOE“ in some circles, and „pretty decent“ in other circles, but mostly known as „the thing that makes me roleplay, since there’s nothing else to do“ – according to roleplay forums, that is. Someone forgot to tell the players in game that they have nothing to do, so the poor ignorant players are stuck doing nothing, and can’t even complain since they do not know they have nothing to do. Any good samaritan should talk to them, and fill them in what they are doing wrong, having fun and all, so they too can join the league of dispossessed pre-cu fans).
That sounds pretty complex, all in all, but EN World has SWG beat by a wide margin. Where people that started to play SWG 4 years ago are considered veterans (and therefore often think they have the „right“ to look down upon NGE „Noobs“), EN World dealing with a game that is over 30 years old, has grognards that started playing in the 1970s, when the first edition came out (and still play it!). 1e is actually a misnomer, there’s OD&D, red box, some may even count chainmail. Then there’s AD&D 1E, AD&D 2E, Skills & Power 2E, and then there’s 3E, 3.5E, and the recently announced 4E. Add d20, various other system based upon d20, among them the Star Wars d20 and the Star Wars Saga Edition (Hey! It has Star Wars too!), and off-shots of those and you end up with more game systems than SWG has had patches. And just about every system mentioned has fervent adherants who consider it the one true way of D&D/Roleplaying.
So, any SWG roleplayer with a smidgen of forum experience has already taken cover in a nuclear shelter, expecting EN World to explode with flames that rival a supernova daily, able to burn posters to ashes through flatscreens and fiberoptic cables - yet it doesn’t.
Why is that? Are EN World posters more mature? Can’t be! Everyone on SWG knows that SWG roleplayers are the most mature roleplayers of all!
Do EN World posters have less of an ego? Not at all, as anyone listening to the tales of character death and DM stupidity can attest to, the ego of some posters is just as big as anyone else’s. In some cases, like industry professionals, it may even be justified.
Aha! As many of our gods of roleplay can affirm, it must bet hat the posters of EN World are simply more lovable, and won’t be as nasty as disagreeing with a poster, or asking for references for cited rules, since everyone knows, discussions are flames, and disagreements will ruin roleplay!
Uh... sorry to say, but people disagree a lot on EN World. They also discuss a lot. They even use the dreaded „Quote“ function to not just quote whole posts (and spam pictures!), but to quote point after point of a post, with tailored refutes or questions in between. Yet it rarely if ever degenerates into flames. Why is that so?
Maybe EN world, dealing mostly with pen and paper roleplaying, is less anonymous, and all the thousands of posters know and respect each other, unlike on SWG, where the internet makes them scoff common courtesy? Again, wrong. Most of the posters may not have seen each other even once, ,much less played together. Compared to SWG, where many players encounter each other in game and therefore may be more courteous, that sounds like a recipe for disaster.
But hold! you say. That must be it – in SWG, posters usually know each other, therefore they are more prone to flame each other! That might be true, even i fit completely ruins the whole „we need to mingle and get to know each other oocly so we can play together“ idea many players cite as the reason for spamming their in-jokes all over the forums.
But is it true? Upon closer examination, it may play a part. When browsing EN World, one hardly if ever encounters the oh so funny „look at what stupid spam I found“ posts, the „original“ inside jokes, the emote spam chain quotes or the lovable „thread hijacking to keep it funny and flame free“ antics of vigilante wanna-be mods. The whole EN World forum feels less cliquish too. That may be the size alone, but I doubt it. It’s simply the absence of inside jokes and „special exceptions“ and „meant as a joke“ posts that require people to spend half a week just reading posts until they know who is serious when talking to whom and who is not.
I do think, after reflecting upon it, that it comes down to two reasons.
First, EN World, contrary to almost every SWG forum I saw, is first and foremost seen as a forum to exchange and discuss ideas and information about roleplaying, not a stage to draw attention to oneself, or hang out and spam each other. They also draw a sharp line between opinions and people.
Second, EN World has a team of moderators who actually moderate. They don’t cut anyone slack. They don’t let people act as vigilante moderators, they don’t let others define what goes and what goes not. They don’t evade decisions, they go and draw the line between personal attacks and rebuttals of opinions.
They are dedicated to preserve the forums as a place to exchange ideas, discuss opinions, and to get advice and help for roleplaying.
Together, EN World comes off as a place where new players feel much more accepted than any SWG Forum I ever saw, and where the signal to noise ratio is much much better as well.
Is it as handy to hang out, joke, and generally chat with your buddies and best friends? Of course not. But, it seems EN World posters usually do that at the gaming table, not in forums meant to help roleplay.
Of course, since SWG players lack that table, we’re stuck with having to turn our central rp forums into spam hubs that rival Mos Eisley Starport on dev vacation days – I mean, it’s not as if we could joke with our guildies on our private forums, in chat rooms, or in special threads in a special forum, we have to spam all over the place, right? I mean, that would be intolerable! An outrage! Free Speech violated! We do have to let everyone read how cool and chummy we are, the better to show them they are not part of our clique!
And we could not complain about those very forums going down the pits due to flames and spam. But it’s not our fault, no sir! It’s uh... the fault of those who don’t laugh at our jokes, who don’t ask for permission to discuss stuff, who actually come to a forum to discuss roleplay, not read about panda spam. Don’t those outsiders know that just because we joke and spam that it does not mean they are allowed to „break the rules“ and post stuff we do not agree with?
Who let them on the forums anyway? What? Us, cliquish? Who said that? We are friendly, mature and welcoming, helpful, paragons of humanity! Anyone who disagrees is a troublemaker! Ban that heathen!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)