paradisaooc | HOW'S THE GAME?

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HOW'S THE GAME?

HOW'S THE GAME?

It's been awhile! It's time for another round of Game Discussion, also known as "How's The Game?"

Here we come together to discuss the game, its plots, the settings, and just about anything we can think of that we'd like to talk about, expand upon, improve, change, etc.

This is not an HMD for players and their characters; this should be about the game's function as a whole and not the people in it. If there is something you feel is absolutely necessary to address that involves a specific person, please IM a mod first to discuss it. We can be reached at terraqueous orb (Kayla), end title (Fudgey) or a great fanfare (Jenn). (Though Jenn is on hiatus right now because her laptop is broken, so Kayla or Fudgey would be best for right now!)

Anonymous will be left off for this round (see first section).

Here are the sections that we've come up with. Add your own and we'll edit it into the list.

Anonymous: Why is it turned off?
What do the mods/helpers do, anyways?
How is my activity being monitored?
Activity check changes
Applications/turnover rate
→ Test Drive Comm
Abilities on the application
Villains & Heroes
→ Recent Villain Activity
→ Upcoming Villain Activities/Plots
Death
World Plot/Paradisa Lore
→ Concrete Resolutions, etc.
Canon Updates
Mini-plot Planning
Changes since last HTG
Plots in General
Regular Plots?

How's The Game will now be held quarterly, in order to avoid excessively long stretches in which there is no outlet for discussion.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OKAY I'M JUST GOING TO... write this out in bullet points. Because I have a lot of thoughts.

→ There's a number of ways, I think, that we can hold villains more accountable without having to throw them in jail. The first thing that comes to mind would be seeing if the magic users could do something like suppressing their powers or maybe magically tethering them to someone so they can't get more than a few feet away from a parole officer or something. Or maybe they could come up with a shock collar. You do violent things, you get a shock. IDK JUST IDEAS OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD. It's hard to do, though, because it would involve the villain-players being okay with lots being taken away from characters.

→ ALL THAT SAID I have to disagree with the prison thing making it more difficult to play characters. So long as they have their journals with them in the cell, they should be able to interact over it with the rest of the castle, right? It seems to me like being stuck in a jail cell with nothing to do but watch As Paradisa Turns would... actually make people more desperate for interaction/willing to respond to things they normally wouldn't? GIVEN, I HAVE NEVER HAD A CHARACTER THROWN IN JAIL, but it seems to me that so long as there's still communication available, it wouldn't be hard to still play so I don't really get where that idea came from. I know it's been done in the past and it's been done in other games too. :\

→ I think a justice system is probably going to not work out, just because we get people coming and going so often because of RL issues and voices going missing and other such things. If we did get one up and running, I think trying to do things like trials all the time would be really kind of a pain for everyone involved unless they were handwaved all time time/discusses OOCly.

→ Planning is probably the key for everyone being comfortable with schemes and plots. If it's clear at the outset that either a) the villain will be apprehended or b) they won't be, but we've got plans for it to happen later on, people would be a lot more comfortable with villain-y. This doesn't even have to be a big, huge OOC post with all kinds of sections and Q&As and stuff. When the hostage situation with Uru went down a few weeks ago, Rama, Nita, Jenn and I just kind of figured stuff out on AIM, bouncing ideas back and forth until we had something that would work out and then we threaded it, and it was awesome, imho. But so long as there's a clear end-game when the idea is brought up, I think things'll be fine.

→ I.. think it's a little bit of a concern? But I think it's mostly because when there's not plot going down, there's a general feeling in the game of "good vibes = thumbs up; angst, bad moods, negative vibes = thumbs down, go bother someone else." IDK if I'm the only one who's gotten that feeling and I know there's other people here who don't mind the bad vibes and exploring everything that comes with that, but. It's just a general game-feel that I've got. I have no idea how we would change something like that, though, if it does exist outside of my head. 8(

→ I think that the imbalance will sort of work itself out if we can make it seem like villains and their scheming is more than welcome in the game. Honestly, the only thing that's kept me from apping a bad guy is the idea that people aren't going to want to plot with me, even if I have things planned out because there's that feeling of negative CR being something some people don't want. But if we work towards making the villains more accepted, so to speak, I think the balance'll actually be balanced after a while.

I AM PROBABLY MISSING SOME THINGS but these are my thoughts. Let me show them to you in all their teal deer not-glory. 8|

I.. think it's a little bit of a concern? But I think it's mostly because when there's not plot going down, there's a general feeling in the game of "good vibes = thumbs up; angst, bad moods, negative vibes = thumbs down, go bother someone else."

THIS.

I understood the need for a break. I really did. But Para is already a largely positive game, with lots of slice-of-life and happy funtimes. And that's okay! But there are huge opportunities for character development in negative CR, and I feel like people frown on it so much here.

I don't like trauma for trauma's sake, but let's face it. Conflict is the part of the story that makes it interesting. If we're all sitting around enjoying each other's company, that might be a great life, but it's not a particularly engaging read. You know?

On that note, I'm less worried about the villain's actions and a lot more worried about the heroes. Looking at the stats, they outnumber our baddies pretty well. And a lot of our good guys are very much godmods. But so are our villains. The heroes need to be willing to take hits and not always be the ones who come out on top.

Look at any comic book or action story. Yes, the good guys usually win, but it's never a walk through the park. There are usually significant losses on both sides...and persevering through those losses is exactly why those chars are heroes and not just average joe citizens.

tl;dr... Villains need to be willing to get caught and heroes need to be willing to lose. It's a two way street.

Agreeing with accountability to hard! I've contacted about 90% of the villains over the last few days to get their feelings on the hero/villain accountability thing, and the feedback from them was basically this:

Happy with having their villain caught
Happy with having them fail/be defeated
Happy having them start something and be held 100% accountable!

...Only thing is, they've scarcely been contact for any such thing ): Very few of us have been approached by heroes looking to resolve or start something! Which makes us worry that we might be doing it wrong/being inapproachable.

Thoughts?

I think the issue is one for both sides.

On one hand, I think it can seem overwhelming (from an OOC perspective) to have the heroes have to rush to action every time something bad happens. This is why superheroes generally have no lives, or only superficial ones in canon. They have to be willing to drop everything and go. Which is great in theory, but we as player are not heroes and it can be frustrating to have to commit yourself to investigating things when you'd rather be playing out a day in the season's room or silly times with friends.

That said, if you're playing a hero character, that's part of the bargain. And no one hero has to be involved every time. That's why I think it's great the Peace Patrol is getting more organized and dividing into patrols and units, so we actually have a way of delegating. The Bats won't have to follow up with everything, because Clark might handle one situation, or Kara another, or Booth and Brennan taking on the more mundane investigations. There's no need for one character to shoulder all the burdens.

On the villain side, I think the biggest flaw is communication. Secrecy and surprise are great assets to the bad guys, and they can be fun for people involved as they learn alongside their chars. But in a game this big, secrecy has two big downsides:

1 - no one knows about it. The villains are going to be quiet on purpose, but the muns really need to be talking more on the ooc comm to explain what's going on. If we aren't talking, there aren't any outlets for interaction. Aside from RL stuff that's been hitting everyone, I think the Legato kidnappings are a great example of how this can be done WELL. We were informed people were going missing and had been for awhile. People have been gathering clues (not a lot, but enough that it's getting talked about). Certain people who know Legato have figured out what's happened and he's been forced to adapt to deal with them, while others are still trying to put all the pieces together to form a coherant picture. Eventually, once everyone has more time, I have confidence that the rest will play out. That's how I'd like to see more villain plots go. The secrecy is all IC, rather than OOC.

2 - Even if the players know something is coming, they don't know what is coming, and that makes it really hard to plan. Are there days they should be setting aside? Are there things they should be getting involved in early? Are there things they shouldn't be doing early so that they don't upset the plot?

I know people have been upset in the past about the "Please don't catch them now, because-" clauses...but I don't think they need to have such a stigma. If things are already in motion for Hero A to take down the villain, it makes sense that the mun of Hero B would come up with excuses for why they don't intervene too early. Like Jenn having Clark sleep through some events so others could have a chance to shine.

I think the communications issues with the villains will improve if we can get the ooc notices up and running. Like the peace patrol arrangements, I think our biggest weakness is making sure we're talking to each other, rather than just plotting individually. I really don't think this rivalry needs to exist, OOCly.

To agree with #1. We need to stress having more OOC posts when people are doing something that might cause a ruckus. Not just with villains but our heroes are not picture perfect as well. Damian and Mindy rewired the elevator not too long ago and they made an OOC post about it -- so I don't know why it was glossed over. Is it because they're children? I've noticed a lot of things happen in game where people can be generally aggressive toward each other and no one notices (because of the lack of OOC posts?) or they choose to not get involved, which also baffles me.

REGARDING LEGATO

This is completely my fault so everyone is free to throw rocks at me. I dropped the ball here and am picking it up again on Monday, if I can. (It's just a pain to initiate anything on the weekend for me sob.) I originally planned this with Red to be something anyone can jump into (but I couldn't ignore IC stuff like Karen keeping this away from bad people in game) but I failed there and then certain things happened ICly there was no way to keep it as a slow investigation. She actually commented in Yuan's post too and I was hoping others would notice it.

I SWEAR I'll make a proper post about it. This was due to me not feeling my own muse and being... generally sucky about it.

Edited 2011-05-15 00:08 (UTC)

Pfffff.....

Red's been sick, and I haven't been able to do anything with what Jilly knows either, since I've been on hiatus, and I'm sure plenty of other people are swamped by RL stuff. I'm pretty sure a slow investigation suits all of us right now.

And I really meant that to be an example of how everyone is doing it right! Sure, it's slow, but we're all communicating. :)

Edited 2011-05-15 00:13 (UTC)

This too. :( I've been hesitant to approach her because I'd rather her be in bed and resting. (RED, I'M LOOKING AT YOU RIGHT NOW...)

But yes, I just wanted to mention that the Legato event is my fault strictly, in case people were frustrated by it. :(

Ahh, I'm glad I wasn't just imagining the vibes thing.

And re: tl;dr → AUGH YES, THIS. I knew I was forgetting something. I know I, personally, am more than fine with my heroes getting tossed around and hurt and all that, but IDK if I'm in the majority for that. :\

xD I almost put Kara in as an example of how to do this RIGHT. You're fine, bb.

I fully agree that villains need to be willing to be caught and heroes need to be willing to lose. Though I feel like that's a conclusion cycle we reach every time that we discuss it. People will say that villains need to be willing to be caught more then people retort with that heroes need to be okay to lose more. And then after that nothing gets done.

Truth is...from my own viewpoint the heroes do lose a lot. To use my own character for an example, Allen has had all this stuff result from mun run villains (aka not world plot) just in the year 2011:

- Broken Arm/Burned (Lois/Isis loss)
- Dealt with 5-10 people sacrificed/killed (Lois/Isis loss - I am unsure about the number please help?)
- Severely burned (result of Eris's villain plot even if Jr was the one who did it)
- 82 townspeople disappearance/murders (Riful, Athas and Legato)
- Robin disappeared/killed (Riful and Arthas)
- Uru kidnapped (Two Face)

Meanwhile the wins he's had (even if he was not directly involved):

- Helped defeat Isis
- Saved 1 person with Lancelot (CLU and Rinzler attacking Quorra)
- Uru saved by Batman and Robin! (Two Face)
- ...Got a free fruit pot pie (Colette)

Sadly, this is from a hero that is active and probably has a higher success rate than most due to his godmod powers. Not only that but I'm someone who is very cautious about what my character is thrown into. I don't throw him at every psycho and I try to make it so he doesn't get hit by too much angst since I don't want to risk muse-death. On the other hand, I also have him take backseat a lot for villian plots to avoid being a glory hound.

I'm not whining and saying that omg I want Allen to do more (I'm fine with him taking hits, it's 100% IC for him to lose sometimes) but...I feel there should be more regulation or communication between hero and villain muns about villain plots. Because with a track record like this? It's no surprise at all a lot of hero muns are discouraged from even trying to plot things out. I have had many cases where people either want their villain to get away with things or not have to deal with consequences. And...playing the angst of always losing can get rather old and tedious and I'm speaking from experience.

Edited 2011-05-14 23:43 (UTC)

I completely agree.

What I really meant with the above post is that we need to talk more. In general.

We have amazing players on both sides, but there seems to be a lot of resentment between them about who should win at any given point. And I think, a lot of times, newer heroes or villains get slammed because of plots that have gone before them.

Ie: Villain A does a terrible deed and gets away with it. Villain B does a terrible deed and gets away. Villain C comes in with a plot and is willing to let their villain get caught, but people are frustrated and assume they will just let them slide because that's what happened with Villains A and B.

And the example can easily get switched around, with the Heroes thwarting multiple bad guy attempts to the point where the villain muns feel like they can't accomplish anything significant.

It's all tied in to the other, big problems that are showing up throughout the game... and that's communication. It's tricky in a game this big, but we've got a whole cast of amazing players. I really think we can improve this.

Haha yeah I completely get what you mean. In a lot of ways, the feeling I get from the hero and villain mun dynamic is that the hero muns are those girls who ended up dating a bunch of deadbeats that never did anything for them but mooched and cheated on them. By the time you meet guy #5, you just want to throw your drink in his face before he even introduces himself.

Because of that...I would love to see more clarity when it comes to the proposing of villain plot or schemes because we have been scorned so much. I want villain muns to right out say if they want their character to get caught or taken down a notch AND when so OOCLy the hero muns can better plan for that.

Does this ruin a bit of the surprise? A little but...at this point I think it's a bit necessary. I mean some muns are totally okay with being involved of a villain plot that will never get solved, but some aren't. Some muns are fine with waiting months or even a year before a big bad gets taken down - some are understandably not so kosher with that.

And if anything, it doesn't have to be THAT spoilery since you don't have to go into that great of detail. Just...how long will the plot last, if you want to get caught and a vague estimate of how much evilness is gonna get down on maybe some 1-10 scale (cause nothing sucks more than when you agree to simple tense run-and-hide thing with your hero and next thing you know schoolkids are getting gunned down over the journal to lure them out - I wish I could say i was exaggerating on that happening )

I feel like...if there was a bit more clarity on whether or not a villain mun plans to get caught and when at the beginning of things, hero muns can more wisely pick and choose which plots to involve themselves in. That might cut down on resentment so villian muns who don't want to get caught aren't paired up with hero muns who MUST ALWAYS WIIIN and such. And with the resentment cut down, maybe more heroes will be willing to play along with the villains as long as they are more comforted that they at least have SOME promise things won't end how they didn't want it to end.

DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?

Edited 2011-05-15 00:24 (UTC)

So it seems like the issue is that deciding who should win or lose is the prickly part of organizing a plot?

How about we open up the option of holding a vote for the community to decide close ties or when both muns can't quite agree whose character should win in a fight?

I hope that it wouldn't be seen as a bad thing not to be able to agree, because comparing characters across canons is always hard, so it's not from any fault of the muns at all. I also hope that doing a poll will help push the tension away from the muns and make it more of a neutral thing--since, you know, it will be about the numbers and not about which mun is more persuasive in chats to make sure their character wins... or something.

The way I see it happening is that the muns will put up a post on paradisaooc listing the abilities and weaknesses of those characters and letting the community decide which they think should be the one to win in a fight.

Thoughts?

Part of that is going to be helped a lot by the census. It lists powers and abilities, so that'll help give us something to compare.

I'd be a bit wary of a community vote just because not everyone always knows what's going on with the plot, if it isn't wide-scale. And we'd want IC reasons why someone would or wouldn't succeed on either side, not just the popularity of the end result.

Really, I think most people in Para are very reasonable individuals and, once we get talking, we can work just about anything out. And if anyone is feeling forced, they should talk to a mod because that's just not cool

But I do think we need more transparency in our OOC dealings. Villains need to be willing to explain what's happening, when they know, and heroes need to be open to options. It takes more time and can be a bit of a headache in the planning stages, but it would make things go more smoothly over all.

Edited 2011-05-15 00:49 (UTC)

You're right--votes will be a slippery slope toward a popularity contest.

On more transparency, I think that it's something that we the players can do more than anything the mods can impose, so... promoting negative CR as perfectly legitimate and even enjoyable CR--to take away the... for lack of a better word, stigma of playing a villain would help?

I very much agree. And ooc transparency just takes care of a lot of silly disagreements that can spring up.

How about we open up the option of holding a vote for the community to decide close ties or when both muns can't quite agree whose character should win in a fight

I would have to disagree with this solely because OOC factors might play into it. People might like a character more and it could be one-sided, rather than looking at it objectively and debating about what could come out of an event where the hero loses/the villain loses.

It also isn't always about who's the strongest person in the ring; villains tend to be more powerful at times which is A-okay in my books so heroes have to use their brains more when fighting them. Some people have genius-level intellect and are excellent strategists while having no actual fighting power. Obviously like... Arthas vs. Uru would end terribly but Arthas vs. Batman would go in a completely different direction because Batman is always prepared with a strategy and a million back-up ones.

I don't mind heroes losing, character development is awesome but like Yuff said, it does grow tiresome when your characters always lose and it's draining at times to keep playing out the same scenario.

Yeah, I agree on it turning into a popularity contest more than anything.

About heroes losing... I don't think it would be productive or even possible to allocate fair amounts of victory and defeat to villains and heroes. Like you said, it all comes down to who the characters are and what the scenario is.

So long as they have their journals with them in the cell, they should be able to interact over it with the rest of the castle, right? It seems to me like being stuck in a jail cell with nothing to do but watch As Paradisa Turns would... actually make people more desperate for interaction/willing to respond to things they normally wouldn't?

I feel I should play the devil's advocate here and disagree to a degree.

Journals in the cell don't necessarily make it easier to interact. There's still the problem of some characters not being very invested in the journal, or perhaps not long winded enough to say anything from the cell other than "I hate you people for putting me in here" or "I'll get out and kill you all" (to which most people would likely respond "/yawn" and move on).

What ends up happening is that a character is restricted to using only the journal and most face to face interaction is cut down severely, especially if they're in prison by themselves. It makes it a rather undesirable option for many villain players imho.

That...and the other possible punishments mentioned sound about x10 more interesting.

You know...I'm not countering, because I thought the same thing... but something just occurred to me.

In actual prisons, it would be considered cruel and unusual to lock a prisoner up and NEVER let them out.

They're given jobs. They get yard time. They have access to library materials.

If someone has to be imprisoned (like Meta was), maybe there should be IC interactions set up for bringing them food and books. Or having to watch them during exercise times.

I can see chars having IC arguments over who gets stuck having to babysit the baddie while he's out of his cell.

But yes...the other options sound like they leave more to work with.

If this was the reality of it, I would totally be all for it. But just locking a villain up in a cell SEVERELY limits a lot of character types.

I would highly enjoy watching heroes bicker about night-shifts dealing with the baddies. B)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

HOW'S THE GAME?

Re: Villains/Heroes

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really long, but....

quickly jumping in here

Regarding Legato

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