System RP Detractors

[Spoops]

Re: Rumors-

So, let's maybe talk about what might save the rumor system. Obviously in its current state, more people would rather junk it than keep it.

I think the moderation is a good idea. Expand on quashes, so you can quash specific responses. There's several rumors that are fine in themselves, until people start some unthematic discussion in the responses that has nothing to do with the rumor in the first place.

Secondly, maybe rumors should be limited weekly? Monthly, even. Something like 5 rumors per circle. You'd probably have to reduce the amount of time rumors stay around without being quashed, but it would likely reduce the amount of trash. Or all of it would be trash, and there'd be no room for good rumors.

Also, I generally think the IP incentive is just bad. It's a negative incentive that just urges people to respond or start rumors about anything and everything. Maybe change it, so the potential IP reward comes from the length of time it survives? If it goes on a week without being quashed or reported, that's probably more worthy of IP than just shitposting a bunch of them.

The last problem is there is no punishment. You can say literally whatever you want, and your character will likely never be caught because it's being spread through NPCs and vNPCs. There's a reason people don't shitpost emotes on a whim to people they don't like, because there's the risk of getting beat up, arrested if they're a Reeve, reviewed if they're Order, and so on.

Re: Metrics

I mean, it works. It adds something, maybe. But I agree with wimple on this one. It's easy to get support, I feel, but it just feels awkward. I don't like the RP of it. I'd rather gain support through acting how I'd normally act, but people do forget, so it creates a situation where you almost have to ask, but I hardly think either side enjoys the RP, they're just trading a command swap. I still don't think metrics really add anything in its current state. It affects things on grid mostly through off-grid actions. You have one meeting where no RP really happens, somebody pitches some ideas about off-grid solutions, then people either support it or they don't. A lot of plots are like that. You start with RP, it progresses, once you can't feasibly progress, it gets handled with a plot or IC event. With metrics, it seems like it just jumps the gun, there's little progression to the RP.

[kipperialovskii]

But you cannot expect people to simply honed to KNOW when to support someone. This only occurs when you make a show of needing help, through IC_Events and play, rather than having a chat between friends with no political motive. I just think that the mentality surrounding it needs to be somewhat... Calmed. Without IP/Support, the political side of things become extremely flawed. A single tell, or just coloring your text (most non-cyans will understand), is all it takes. It's not begging, or pleading.

If you approach someone for IC support, you need to have a rhetoric. Being who you normally act... Won't always win the public. People just take it as a conversation. But even friends ask friend for favors.

As for the meetings-- The Council, by the nature of their status to the city, are defined (Both as GLs and as Nobles) as having the most reasonable affect on the city. Meetings, intended, are supposed to exist for the Seneschal to manage votes, and get everyone to act in the best interest of the City. A balancing act. And exist for political RP'ers, or people with high-responsibility roles. (RP also continues outside of such meetings. Just this last meeting two separate meetings happened in private to nudge for the change on-grid. And the last few have been quite... 'Lit', so it's not always sitting around doing nothing.)

In the subject of council actions/offgrid actions, I don't really know what's expected to be different with this. It's like saying investigations are awkward because they can be handled off grid. Removing that ability makes political RP less worthwhile as a whole. It's to fill in the gaps to where, reasonably, you should be able to act. Which... Does, require a little bit of moderation.

A solution to this, instead, would be holding a speech, or doing your actions on-grid, and putting up a plot to see their effects. Hold a speech for the masses, and make it into how you wanna change the city. Your political clout will then work its magicks.

[kipperialovskii]

Metrics exist as zero-sum, and vote-based, to stop everything from being in too fast of a flux to RP, and for there always being a need to balance things out. Your city votes, and your plots (I imagine in most cases, you can use the results of the plot to back up RP. Like getting the results before you run the autopsy, but let the Reeve watch you actively do it, for the sake of it being fully on-grid.), are up to you to RP out. As are your requests for support or influence.

But rumors? There definitely, I feel, need to be something going on there to limit misuse. From having to put your name on particularly damning ones, or overall being vulnerable when exposing non-public information.

[Rabek]

You can't just flat-out say that more people would want it gone than to keep it. There's no way to really know that.

The people who visit the forums are a fraction of the pbase, and the people who post a fraction of that.

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not the solution.

Holding people accountable for breaking theme is.

[kipperialovskii]

Agreed. An outright removal may not be the best of choices, because of how ingrained things are...

So far, it seems that quite a few people are suggesting that the Troubadours assist in moderation. However, this seems pretty open to abuse. How would it differ from the report command?

[Zeita]

Perhaps this thread could be broken out into individual topics for some of the major systems of concern that have been identified?

It is a little difficult to follow a thread when people are getting into the details of different systems.

[kipperialovskii]

Sorry. Didn't realize my post was problematic. I'll refrain in this thread.

[Voxumo]

Clears Throat
Just want to drop my two cents real quick and say I agree with most everything that's been said about the rumor system thus far, not the downright need to remove it, but that it needs changes. I'll try to address the majority of points brought up regarding it individually.

Moderation: I actually didn't know that Troubadours didn't have the level of control over rumors they used to. I definitely would be in favor of that, though I don't think it should be their job to moderate theme, as theme often times comes down to interpretation. Instead I do think they should be able to powerfully quash rumors, and downright remove replies. My reasoning for this is, well on Vicannia there were many times I sought out troubadours to affect certain rumors or get to the bottom of certain rumors, unaware of their lack of influence over it. Heck Troubadours was one of the Guilds Vicannia tried to always keep on her side. As such if a bard is called upon to quash a rumor in it's early stages, that may mean the downright removal of the rumor, versus if they tried to do so in it's later stages. Far easier to kill something when it's brand new than when everyone has heard it. Though removing individual replies seems far more reasonable to do regardless of time, though such removals should be done on the basis of "Bard A doesn't like or approve of that reply, and removes it" or "Noble J pays Bard X to remove a reply." Removals should be based in rp versus placing the burden of theme moderation on the troubadours. And of course such removals should have a fee associated with them, like the bounty system.

Themeleness: I don't have much to say on this other than I frankly like how it's being done already. I've had several replies to rumors removed by staff after being reported because such replies didn't align with metrics. Example being replying with Order-hate when piety is High, can't do that, which makes sense. So instead of placing the burden of theme moderation on a sole group, I think we all could just do a bit more reporting of replies that don't align with current metrics. Though of course this opens up the issue of rumors that persist over metric turnovers. Not sure how to really account for that.

Accountability: I've brought this up in the past, and I honestly feel accountability should be based upon the type of rumor or reply you make. If you make a passing reply that Joe stinks, eh accountability should be low, but you make a passing reply that joe murdered your family and touched your dangly bits, accountability should be on the character at that point if such a reply is investigated. I say this as someone who's had a character jailed for around a ooc month while the order investigated a reply to a rumor that my character murdered someone, and come to find out it was just some "Drunk VNPC" versus someone with a clear motive/agenda against said character. I've also had a character called a pedophile in a reply, and after spending 20 qp, and several silver on various decoctions, found out it was some random npc who I'd never met or heard of before, but yet somehow he knew of the finer details of court matters. Needless to say I regret spending qp on such a useless venture that lead to nothing, unless of course I wanted to spend another 10 qp to have the npc lashed.

These are examples of replies that should not be able to be placed on some npc, as they hold very real weight in the IC game.

IP Gain: I have mixed feelings about this. While I think it's a fine system, it does seem to get abused easily. Again referencing Vicannia, during the Seneschal race between her and Sauvaige, the rumor mill was flooded with rumors about her, typically 5 or 6 right after the other, all contributing next to nothing the original didn't already say, or would have worked as a reply. Do I know it was abuse of the system... No, but it was just a bit ridiculous in my opinion. It felt like people not wanting to pay the 3 ip for another reply, and instead making up whole new rumors to say what they wanted to say, especially with how valuable ip is during seneschal periods. Just from my point of view of it at least.

Randomness: Shrugs I'll be honest, I'm guilty of it. Occasionally there is a rumor that pops up, that just leaves enough information vague that while the replies may detract somewhat from the original rumor, they are humorous. An example of this would be a rumor about a troubadour looking to audition males for roles in some play. I don't know who the first person was to reply, but they took some vagueness in it and started a thread of replies about the dangers of certain regional sex moves. Sure those replies might not have added anything meaningful to the main rumor, but in a field of rumors that are typically hate-filled, it was nice to just have a bit of laughter sprinkled in, it certainly brought a smile to my face.


Though with everything above, if the rumor system were not to change at all, I likely wouldn't be upset, nor allow it to drive me away from the game. It's a key part of it. That's not to say I wouldn't want changes to it, just that I wouldn't be up in arms if it didn't change.

EDIT: Forgot about this one

Circles: I love the idea of "Rumor Spreading" npcs on grid to be tied to circles, so that can only speak rumors of that circle. Sure the issue someone pointed out of rumor replies being out of circle exists, but compared to what we have now, that would be a small bit of immersion breaking versus the larger possibility of it now. Lesser of two evils.

[Kinaed]

As far as I know, Troubs retain as much control over the rumor system as ever.

This post has gotten completely off-topic. I asked what systems detract from RP and some people have hijacked it into a tirade about rumors. Next time, please start your own thread instead of making everyone troll through five pages of pet issue bashing to get the information actually requested.

Please return to the topic at hand, and start a separate thread about rumors if you want to continue to discuss that system. In the context of what this thread is about, we get the idea some people don't like the rumor system. It's done to death, please don't post more about it here anymore. I'm trying to use this thread to create a catalogue of things to review, and this is impeding that purpose.

Thank you.

[Rothgar]

As far as I know, Troubs retain as much control over the rumor system as ever.

This post has gotten completely off-topic. I asked what systems detract from RP and some people have hijacked it into a tirade about rumors. Next time, please start your own thread instead of making everyone troll through five pages of pet issue bashing to get the information actually requested.

Please return to the topic at hand, and start a separate thread about rumors if you want to continue to discuss that system. In the context of what this thread is about, we get the idea some people don't like the rumor system. It's done to death, please don't post more about it here anymore. I'm trying to use this thread to create a catalogue of things to review, and this is impeding that purpose.

Thank you.

With that said, could we get an example of what might be an RP detractor? I guess I'm uncertain of what that would be.