Thanks Ant, that was really well thought out. Have a happy new year.
Happy New Year, my shiny-haired friend. A lot of great points raised. Let’s hope that 2015 doesn’t repeat history.
Hey Ants,
I like the way you’ve laid this out, and appreciate you presenting your viewpoint in the way you have. This kind of stuff needs to be discussed clearly and fairly and I think you’re achieving that.
My earlier post states roughly what I believe our issues are, but I did want to address your post more directly. It concerns me that we hear more dissatisfaction out of Wellington than the other centres, and getting my head around what those concerns are and why you have them is something I am legitimately keen to do.
I am more keen to turn “These are the issues” into “These are some decent solutions”. Airing concerns is definitely a great step in the right direction, but change only comes when these concerns are compiled, understood and appropriate change is made.
Like you, I want to figure this out for the health and benefit of everyone who plays this game, so please take everything I say in that spirit. As you say, the internet is often a poor medium.
Please do correct me if I am wrong, but the TLDR from your post seems to boil down to:
“There are many within the Crucible community who would prefer less Crucible in their lives, yet they feel obliged to stay involved in everything simply to ensure their relevance and enjoyment at the weekend games.”
While I don’t understand that completely (As I’ve stated, my first LARP experience was jumping into a campaign half-way and I had a great time regardless). I’d like to break down why I believe the above pressure exists and is felt so strongly in this campaign as opposed to Teonn or Wolfgangs before this.
Firstly, it is a Factional Game. While very little outright PvP has occured so far, it is incredibly apparent that the player factions are in some form of competition with one another. As written, we are meant to disagree and have conflict at least on a social level, and it is reasonable and fair for many characters (and through them, players) to have heavy investment in the fortunes of their respective factions. Trusting someone who is from outside your faction is discouraged, or considered incredibly risky, and the resulting political environment is often very hostile.
This is in stark contrast to Teonn and Wolfgangs which both had a huge drive for co-operative roleplay, with factional disagreements being rare, and most player/player conflict being on a personal level. I don’t think the impact of factions on our community should be underestimated here. If we were all one big, happy, player family, most of the issues you’ve mentioned would disappear. That pressure you’ve described is definitely driven by this aspect of Crucible’s play.
Secondly, the economic, political and military systems which Crucible uses, absolutely ensure perpetuated rivalry and hostility between factions - and furthermore, encourages a ‘play to win’ mentality over a ‘play to play’. The scarcity of resources, the incredibly visual measure of a faction’s progress and power, and the setting of factional objectives are all to blame for this kind of thinking & roleplaying becoming the norm.
If I were to bottom line these points it would be like this: We are not playing 365 days of LARP. We are playing 2 weekends of LARP and a year of mass Wargaming.
If this were just a LARP, there would be no pressure to be part of everything. If this were just a LARP, the background politicking, perceived mechanical advantages in others, access to GMs and feelings of isolation simply wouldn’t be there.
When I look at Jackie’s and Your post, what I really see is two LARPers who don’t alltogether appreciate the Wargamer aspects that Crucible has brought to the community, or perhaps the results of mixing the two. It’s true that when you mix competitive factional PvP with the raw emotions of playing a character… you get a recipe for people getting upset OOC. This kind of game is very new to New Zealand on such a mass scale.
I am going do add here that Crucible’s game-style isn’t inherently bad. Mixing the factional elements in has, for me, driven incredibly engaging roleplay and storytelling. It has given us a lot more to do in a very big game, and I honestly enjoy many aspects of factional downtime actions and how they significantly impact how we roleplay over a weekend. It gives characters events to discuss, hold opinions on, disagree or agree on. The fluidity of the downtime game also drives alliances, betrayals and all manner of dramatically interesting situations.
Where I think it is hurting us, is that LARPers who are used to their games being collaborative storytelling - where winning is secondary to telling a powerful and fulfilling narrative, are being forced into the Gamer mentality unwillingly. They feel incapable of stepping back for fear of losing their ability to influence the narrative, and I would say rightly so. The players who thrive off a wargaming approach are usually quick to snap up the big plots and dominate them… because that’s how you gain more advantage and win.
To go one further, I believe that these issues are exacerbated in Wellington, where the community there has less exposure to World of Darkness political games (As you point out Ants, you are rightly gun-shy of them) and have legitimate concerns around being removed from the rest of the playerbase. I will freely admit that I have done more roleplay with non-alteraanian Aucklanders than I have Wellingtonians, and the reason behind it is simple proximity. That means more deals are cut, more secrets are traded, more relationships are forged by Aucklanders. All other concerns aside, being disappointed by that is valid. With the factional play of Crucible being what it is, the above issues become quite important to player’s continued enjoyment.
So the question to be asked is, where do we go from here? What is a decent solution? Nobody will be absolutely satisfied, where-ever Crucible ends up sitting. Some of the above issues however, need to be addressed. The problem I see, is that the best solutions aren’t in the GM hands. They’re in the players.
The tweaks the GMs could employ (which would help a bit I think) would be the following:
- Limiting player attendance at GM Sanctioned events (Sanctioned Socials & Day-Games): Players may attend 1 as a player per downtime phase. The others they must crew.
- Having the existing Downtime system integrated a little more into Live Action by basing Action submissions off a War-Tent at the Weekend Games (Also means Downtime is dealt with a bit more at the games, meaning less out of game time requirements for GMs and Players).
- Communicating exactly how they wish to be contacted, and sticking to that communication plan. (I believe Patrick or Linda already posted ‘Please use the GM email, all other forms of communication will be ignored.’ This should be re-iterated, posted somewhere a bit more permanent, and offending players told specifically about the policy and how to adhere to it. Currently there is a grey area, where the official channel is used mostly, but not always.)
Unfortunately, I feel that the above points are the limit of reasonable actions the GMs can take to improve this situation. I still believe that a lot of ‘auckland advantage’ is nothing more than perception, at least as granted by GMs. The above points, I feel, will serve to illustrate that to the entire community.
The rest of the burden, I think, is on us as players. It’s far more difficult to implement anything here, because it relies on us simply agreeing to abide by things, with no real enforcement or reason beyond common decency. I’ll drop a few points that I believe would help a lot though.
- Talk. To each other, to members of other factions, to people in other cities. Talk about whatever you like, but just talk. Catching up OOC with people you’ve been in conflict with really helps clear the air. I’ve had a number of great conversations with people I never usually talk to, or rarely get the opportunity to, and afterwards, I think both them and I felt better for it. Make peace out of character, we’re not fighting in real life, and winning is far less important than real friendships.
- Factions don’t need to leave the game. Leave Alteraan on Avyrnas please. We were people before we were characters. Get to know people outside the game and you’ll find a great community of wonderful people.
- Factions last as long as we let them. If you’re feeling stressed out by the competition, why not join the Hounds? Or actively seek for Humanity to work together? I know for a fact that there’s a sharp time limit on our factional play, and I am really looking forward to them breaking down. I enjoy the factional play a lot, but I do miss roleplaying with my other friends, and the slow breakdown due to the pressures of the island is a great story and fun to play. Reconciliation? Absolutely. I believe in making roleplay choices that I will enjoy… if factions are stressing you out… get rid of them =)
That’s it from me (I do/don’t apologise for the length of the post. A lot on my mind, thanks for reading!). I have loved this game dearly, despite the dramas and its flaws. It has been a great experience for me, and I really hope we can figure out how to make it a great experience for the people who aren’t currently happy with it, while mantaining the satisfaction Crucible already provides.
Kind Regards,
Reuben.
Thanks Reuben, another positive really well thought out post!
Will reply in more detail later, but on this:
“…what I really see is two LARPers who don’t alltogether appreciate the Wargamer aspects that Crucible has brought to the community.”
You’re right. I personally don’t like the 365 aspect of the wargaming stuff. My want to start this discussion was around general balance based on the feedback of others, based on how it’s negatively impacting others as well as myself. It’s NOT just about me. I have received some unhelpful comments to this effect and that’s not been nice. I’d hate for Anthony to be tarred with the same brush. Pretty certain he’s voicing the opinion of others as well. 
[quote=“amphigori”]Will reply in more detail later, but on this:
“…what I really see is two LARPers who don’t alltogether appreciate the Wargamer aspects that Crucible has brought to the community.”
You’re right. I personally don’t like the 365 aspect of the wargaming stuff. My want to start this discussion was around general balance based on the feedback of others, based on how it’s negatively impacting others as well as myself. It’s NOT just about me. I have received some unhelpful comments to this effect and that’s not been nice. I’d hate for Anthony to be tarred with the same brush. Pretty certain he’s voicing the opinion of others as well. [/quote]
Sorry if it reads that way. I thought the rest of my post explained quite well how it was a community problem and not just the two of you. You’re not alone Jackie, or this wouldn’t be as big of a deal. I’ve heard a lot of the same stuff as you have, and I’m glad you started this thread.
<3 Yea, it was just that sentence jumping out. All good 
I’m not sure the zeitgeist rise and fall of Vampire the Masquerade on the back of the Goth and Vampire cultural spike of the 90’s is a useful or relevant comparison here.
That was, otherwise, a fairly good summary of the different things being raised.
Though I think Reuben responds well to the core “365 gaming” question.
[quote=“Admiral”]I’m not sure the zeitgeist rise and fall of Vampire the Masquerade on the back of the Goth and Vampire cultural spike of the 90’s is a useful or relevant comparison here.
[/quote]
Thought it was a pretty good example myself. One that I’ve made as well. Back in the Masquerade days (as a player) it was all we talked about at parties, over coffee and online. As a GM, it got much much worse. I know relationships that broke up over it. I nearly lost mine because of it. We had to very deliberately limit the amount of time people could talk about it at a party or gathering, or set aside a room for them and watch half your crowd disappear into the kitchen. Non-masquerade players started avoiding us, or rolling their eyes a lot, asked for it not to be the focus of everything we did. It was pervasive and everywhere. Even during the times, as a GM, that I swore I was taking a break I’d still find myself talking about it as a friend would see me and “while you’re here can I just ask one quick question?”, sort of thing. A LOT.
Add OWBN, the online aspect with 100’s of contacts overseas. People who played once-twice a month began to feel left behind by those playing online. Power comes in many many forms and XP is only one of them. Some GM’s attempted to limit interaction, or gains & relationships acquired during DT. It helped to a degree. How bad did it get on that scale? Well, I saw a guy walk in and declare, legitimately, over 160 Status one night. I saw people loaned powerful items from overseas, or different cities. I saw a scene run by one game with the express purpose of killing a pc in another game (that one still eats at me btw).
In the end though, it was the tight relationships/bonds formed during DT that made huge differences. Powerful coteries were formed, preference (between players ) was given to those they could rp with more vs those who just turned up for the monthly game, those who had best access to a GM gained small things (even if it was only better insight into the game itself) and fairly big divisive cracks began to appear between those who just came for the monthly game (with perhaps the occasional GM DT scene), and those who were at it all the time.
So is there a relevant comparison between OWBN Masquerade (A Game that caused some huge divisions between NZ cities) and Crucible? I’d say there is, certainly.
I can definitely see some of the points on both sides here and appreciate that it seems a hard problem to solve.
However, I think one thing that a lot of people aren’t looking at the right way is GM-sanctioned events. From what I can tell, they aren’t player-run day games. They are player run social events that the GMs have attached the potential to gain XP from (at a max of one per chapter), because they don’t always have the time to run proper day games between each weekend game. The amount of GM and NPC plot at the Dra’zhar game seemed reasonably on par to that given at the Korashuran Ball or Leo’s birthday before sanctioned events were a thing. Sure some NPCs turned up and some stuff happened, but it was possible to go the whole event without dealing with any of it, and none of it was world-shattering. This is a stark contrast to actual day games, which I completely agree should be limited to one per player character, which were GM and crew intensive, followed specific plots and could lead to significant gains or loss for those involved. I think trying to limit social events in general, or GM sanctioned social events in particular, would cause more problems than it would solve.
Firstly, it would only create additional pressure and likely bad feelings for both players and organizers. This game is factional, as people have said, and it doesn’t make sense for every character to attend every event. So if you limited it to one social event being organised per downtime then the either single group running the event would be under undue pressure to make their event accessible and desirable to everyone even when this makes no sense in character, or some characters would have to come along as an NPC instead - and given NPCs have less to do at even sanctioned social events than regular day games and not everyone wants to play NPCs anyway some people would essentially be playing through something they don’t enjoy for XP. Plus the bad feelings - some people get accused of being favourites now? - Try that when X faction’s event is sanctioned and Y’s is not.
If you allow numerous social events, sanctioned or not, but limit player attendance to one, then it would feel like social events were having to compete with one another for player attendance. Sure you can say ‘get over it’ but it’s still likely there’d be bad feelings when someone creates another event and suddenly people are choosing to go to that one instead, or even just hurt feelings on the part of someone who put a lot of effort in but whose event people decide isn’t their priority. You’d be at risk of fostering cliquishness as ‘popular’ players’ events were favoured. I think what we can all agree on is that Crucible is not in need of more negativity.
Secondly, events just wouldn’t be as good if players could only attend one. They’re much richer with a lot of player attendance and a good chance to socialise out of faction. As well as low numbers in social events just not being a good thing in general it may actually make the venues for some events unaffordable with the lower attendance.
Thirdly, as other people have rightly pointed out, the live-action stuff is the part that everyone enjoys. People have their own opinions on online roleplay or wargaming but you can kind of assume that everyone involved in a larp likes the live action events. From my reading anyway a lot of the pressure to engage with the game constantly comes from the online stuff and wargaming, and limiting social events isn’t going to stop any of this - it might even increase online stuff since people can’t meet between games otherwise. So it seems like it’d be doing nothing to help the online pressure but limiting the part everyone actually enjoys. I know I’ve gotten fed up with the online stuff and the wargaming sometimes but I’ve been to every social event bar one (and that only because of distance) and I’ve always felt good, refreshed and positive after, not ‘ohmygod why so many things.’ Live action social events remind those of us who are less into the online stuff why we are doing this, and so long as measures can be taken not to disadvantage those who cannot or don’t want to attend all of them I strongly argue that they’re good for the game.
So, my suggested solutions?
- Realise that GM-sanctioned events are no different than previous social events and were just a way for GMs to give the between game XP they were aiming for. The plot level isn’t the same as a day game and not attending all of them isn’t necessarily a huge disadvantage.
- Personally I agree with the idea just to attach all XP to the weekend games or chapters. I assume no one actually larps solely for XP, but no one wants to get left behind either so it creates a pressure. That’s a gm choice though.
- Perhaps request from the GMs a guideline to sharing secret stuff over downtime. I know when we were chatting in faction about sharing spells we were told that we should keep it all in character, roleplay teaching each other the spell, and not to share if we wouldn’t IC. Perhaps a more public, broader guideline including things like forgotten knowledge could be beneficial for those who are worried about sharing going on during downtime
-As players, just try to stay conscious of fellow larpers with distance or time constraints. Update them on happenings at these events if they want to know, help them create stories around why their character can’t attend and spread those at the event if it makes them feel a bit less left out. People who do enjoy committing more time could make sure people who can’t or don’t want to are still included in weekend events and factional plot, and those who want to step back without being left out could make a note to their faction and contacts that they’d appreciate being updated and included come game time.
I think the IC scribes during gnosis point will go some way to make the information available to those who cannot attend, and I know when a Wellington player couldn’t afford to get up to an event that they felt was important a bunch of us got together and paid the fare - and there were way more people keen to help than needed. When we’re not having arguments on the internet the larping community is inclusive and wants to help people out -we just need to focus on positive ways to do so. I’m glad we are discussing solutions, I just don’t think limiting social events is one of them.
[quote=“Pippi Longaxe”] Firstly, it would only create additional pressure and likely bad feelings for both players and organizers.
…
You’d be at risk of fostering cliquishness as ‘popular’ players’ events were favoured. I think what we can all agree on is that Crucible is not in need of more negativity.
Secondly, events just wouldn’t be as good if players could only attend one. They’re much richer with a lot of player attendance and a good chance to socialise out of faction.
…
Thirdly, as other people have rightly pointed out, the live-action stuff is the part that everyone enjoys.
…
So, my suggested solutions?
- Realise that GM-sanctioned events are no different than previous social events and were just a way for GMs to give the between game XP they were aiming for. The plot level isn’t the same as a day game and not attending all of them isn’t necessarily a huge disadvantage.
- Personally I agree with the idea just to attach all XP to the weekend games or chapters. I assume no one actually larps solely for XP, but no one wants to get left behind either so it creates a pressure. That’s a gm choice though.
- Perhaps request from the GMs a guideline to sharing secret stuff over downtime. I know when we were chatting in faction about sharing spells we were told that we should keep it all in character, roleplay teaching each other the spell, and not to share if we wouldn’t IC. Perhaps a more public, broader guideline including things like forgotten knowledge could be beneficial for those who are worried about sharing going on during downtime
-As players, just try to stay conscious of fellow larpers with distance or time constraints. Update them on happenings at these events if they want to know, help them create stories around why their character can’t attend and spread those at the event if it makes them feel a bit less left out. People who do enjoy committing more time could make sure people who can’t or don’t want to are still included in weekend events and factional plot, and those who want to step back without being left out could make a note to their faction and contacts that they’d appreciate being updated and included come game time.
I think the IC scribes during gnosis point will go some way to make the information available to those who cannot attend, and I know when a Wellington player couldn’t afford to get up to an event that they felt was important a bunch of us got together and paid the fare - and there were way more people keen to help than needed. When we’re not having arguments on the internet the larping community is inclusive and wants to help people out -we just need to focus on positive ways to do so. I’m glad we are discussing solutions, I just don’t think limiting social events is one of them.[/quote]
Ms Longaxe, you raise good points!
I, for one, had not realised until earlier today that GM-sanctioned events gave you the xp if you couldn’t make it to Day games, which was part of why I was struggling with the concept of what sanctioning an event even meant.
So, Sanctioning allows people to not drop behind the xp curve, which is great.
And the other points I’ve highlighted above are excellent, and thanks for that.
One of the bigger anxieties that I feel a lot of people are worried about, is the feeling of missing out, being left behind, because there’s all this stuff happening, and its hard to know which sessions will be plot-important or mechanics-important, and which ones are just fun. This seems to provide a lot of genuine anxiety.
This may actually just be a problem of perception, but if so, we need to address that perception!
(Why people are anxious about missing out is another issue, which I won’t touch on much here, but see above comments about factional nature, etc.)
And I completely agree that limiting social events is just standing in the way of fun, and is not going to lead to a happy solution.
So here’s my thought, and to be honest, I don’t know if it would work, so I’m curious what others think.
I think the GMs should specifically identify which are the tentpole sessions. By tentpole, I mean, the sessions/day games/sanctioned events that they encourage attendance at, because there’ll be plot-important or mechanics-important stuff there.
That way, people can relax and not feel like they’re missing out. They can go, ok, great, there’s two events happening before the next weekend which are important, I’m busy, so I can try to make sure that those are the ones I attend. The rest is just IC fun, and if I can go, then great.
Because this problem is most likely much smaller than we are all worried it is, I suspect this will entail very little to actually change, but will result in a little bit clearer reassurance from the GMs that people are not missing out.
Good points Philippa. I think if the GM’s make strong guidelines that any sanctioned social event cannot, without expressed permission, involve or involve agreements to do at the next game:
- Forging factional allegiances
- Exchanging any knowledge that costs XP or Gnosis points to acquire
- Exchanging items, services (e.g. enchanting, alchemy) or IC money
Where the GM’s sanction an event that allows one of the above things to happen, this will be advertised by them at the time and the organisers will also advertise this. This leaves social events to be social, or at best involve plotting to do something within faction (e.g. overthrow the rulers, etc), but nothing that will provide a mechanical or direct status benefit to those in attendance over those who do not attend.
I personally think all XP should be for weekend events, as I stated above.
I also agree with Fraser that the GM’s should indicate the plot important day games. Perhaps a ranked title (Minor or Major?) is given to the event?
Going back to the OWBN problems that Wellington suffered, it occurs to me that there are several World of Darkness monthly games in Auckland at the moment and from my outside perspective none of these seem to be consuming the community. Perhaps some have in the past (I haven’t played any in a while so I don’t know if this is the case), but there must be something unique about what was happening in Wellington over what these current Auckland games are doing to account for the difference.
One possible suggestion on this account is that by the sounds of it there wasn’t much except the OWBN game in Wellington at the time. Currently there are several options of monthly World of Darkness games, so this might have a diluting effect on out of game obsession over the games - yes, players can get together and rave about them a lot, but which one to pick? And if one game is going mediocre for one player, chances are good another one is working well for them (or World of Darkness games are just not their thing).
From my perspective, Crucible sucked up a huge amount of community resources in terms of time and energy spent game creating when it first started. Few other large games were able to get decent attendance (33AR being a notable exception), and even Chimera seemed to suffer a lack of input and enthusiasm. However, this seems to be changing now, as several new games are popping up, particularly in Auckland, and there seems to be broad enthusiasm for these as well as for Crucible, which is good. My hope is that our community will start to diversify a bit more and spread our energy more evenly between more games, meaning we can focus on the next upcoming event rather than the next upcoming Crucible event.
However, if the LARP calendar ends up being filled with Crucible social events, I suspect that this won’t happen. Instead, there will always be a background hum of Crucible, and with it the negativity and vented frustration that seems to have become pervasive on the facebook (though fortunately not diatribe - I’ve quite enjoyed avoiding the dramas). Players distracted with alternative events benefits everyone - player discussions become more diverse, GM’s on all fronts get times when players aren’t focusing on their game, and the stakes of any one game delivering the quintessential LARPing experience are lower.
As Matt is fond of saying, campaigns are a marathon, not a sprint. Crucible seems to be running far ahead of expectations, and has delivered a fantastic experience as a result, but for this to continue I believe it needs to make sure it does so at a pace it can manage, both on the GM and the player side. Its player base is much larger, but the organizers are proportionally not much more than were required for substantially smaller games. Outsourcing several day games for players to run is a good step, leaving the GM’s free to focus on their big events.
However, I believe that along with this needs to be a limitation on the frequency of social events. My suggestion would be at most one every two months per city, meaning at most three per city per weekend game. This would be on top of one day game per city, but even so it shouldn’t saturate the LARP calendar. I would also suggest prioritizing Friday nights for social events, in order to minimize the impact they might have on other weekend events and the monthly World of Darkness events.
[quote=“Fraser”]
One of the bigger anxieties that I feel a lot of people are worried about, is the feeling of missing out, being left behind, because there’s all this stuff happening, and its hard to know which sessions will be plot-important or mechanics-important, and which ones are just fun. This seems to provide a lot of genuine anxiety.
This may actually just be a problem of perception, but if so, we need to address that perception!
(Why people are anxious about missing out is another issue, which I won’t touch on much here, but see above comments about factional nature, etc.)
…
Because this problem is most likely much smaller than we are all worried it is, I suspect this will entail very little to actually change, but will result in a little bit clearer reassurance from the GMs that people are not missing out.[/quote]
Just to add on to this - I do believe that a lot (although not all, as I have mentioned earlier in this thread) of the perception of missing out is just that - perception.
For instance, the weekend games are huge - there are so many plots running at these games, games designed for over 100 players, that after each game I have heard people talking about more plots I never even saw a glimpse of than I hear people talking about those plots I did see! And from what I can see, people consider this to be a good thing - that there are so many things happening in this game that you can’t see them all. So the perception that plots are running which people are missing out on in the in-between times - even if this is happening to some extent, it is no different from the many, many plots which everyone is ‘missing out’ on in the weekend games themselves. People simply see this as happening because they are not off doing other things at the time. However, it will not hurt you more if the plots you miss out on are plots introduced in between the weekend games than if the plots you miss out on are some of those you inevitably miss on the weekends.
And adding onto that - it is my belief that missing out on plots, even ones that might matter a great deal to your character, is not necessarily a bad thing in itself. For your character, missing something that would have been an important experience for them, can itself be an important experience, something to drive you to find out what you missed and catch up, or to drive you in a different direction than you expected - and some nice, wonderful, tasty angst. Which is after all the fuel larp characters run on… right? This has been my experience with ‘missing out’, anyway.
The problem with this, Walter, is that restricting character action this way won’t work. At best, people, acting in the best of faith, will still get into the conversations that lead to those agreements through natural RP, and then realize ‘oh hey we aren’t supposed to be doing this’ - and meet up early at the next weekend game to quickly formalize the agreement. Which doesn’t actually make a difference, except to make people feel a bit uncomfortable.
Not giving a spell or schematic is easy. Not giving an item is easy. If you are a faction head, keep in mind you aren’t to make any faction allegiances at these events (perhaps the organizers can make a verbal reminder before the event starts). If you aren’t a faction head, you don’t have to worry about this. Those sorts of things shouldn’t be a problem.
Accidentally giving away information from a forgotten knowledge might be a bit harder, depending on the knowledge. Perhaps this could be an exception, given the nature of forgotten knowledge.
Nods
Absolutely. Missing out on plot, and knowing there is so much going on at Crucible is a great element of the game, at the game.
However, missing out on plot, because there’s a lot of events and you can’t come, just makes people sad, and feel like the’re dropping behind in an already info-filled campaign.
Ants was talking about Wellington Masquerade. I was talking about Hamilton and Auckland tbh.
[quote=“Walter Hamer”]Good points Philippa. I think if the GM’s make strong guidelines that any sanctioned social event cannot, without expressed permission, involve or involve agreements to do at the next game:
- Forging factional allegiances
- Exchanging any knowledge that costs XP or Gnosis points to acquire
- Exchanging items, services (e.g. enchanting, alchemy) or IC money
[/quote]
I really disagree with this approach. This is supposed to be a compromise. Restrictions like that will just get annoying. On point too is that online roleplay isn’t location specific, and such things can be exchanged or discussed there.
To my knowledge, not a lot of downtime trading does go on actually, so I suspect this is more perception based than anything, but as an example, if Valeria and Alteraan wanted to hammer out the agreements that were struck at the weekend game, I’d get frustrated with having to wait until another weekend event just to sit down and go through detail. Email is actually -better- for that kind of stuff.
TLDR: Be cautious about restrictions. We’re wanting to create equal opportunity, not policed roleplay.
If you want to forge an alliance, tell the GM’s that’s what your social event is about and get an exception, then go in and roleplay the nutting out of the alliance. That way everyone knows there’s a high level faction command meeting between two factions (if not the details), and can do things like send spies or the like. It also means this sort of thing is less likely to happen ad hoc between friends.
The reason I suspect avoiding trading items and spells is easy is because I agree, it doesn’t really happen much, but being upfront about limiting this might help limit downtime power grabs between friends.
[quote=“Damocles”]
To my knowledge, not a lot of downtime trading does go on actually, so I suspect this is more perception based than anything, but as an example, if Valeria and Alteraan wanted to hammer out the agreements that were struck at the weekend game, I’d get frustrated with having to wait until another weekend event just to sit down and go through detail. Email is actually -better- for that kind of stuff.
TLDR: Be cautious about restrictions. We’re wanting to create equal opportunity, not policed roleplay.[/quote]
That’s true. I’d rather boost some opportunities for roleplay so that they’re more evenly-distributed, but that may involve some tweaking of where and how some events are run. My concern about missing events is more to do with the instances where they advertise downtime trading (like you say, pretty rare, but that just makes the events where it does happen more prestigious). I don’t mind missing Gnosis Point, for example, much as I’d love to be there. I do have some qualms about Gnosis Point offering a situation where information can be bartered (the swapmeet) because I think it fosters information trading only among those people that are there, rather than among everyone that wants to be involved. There’s a lot of information that I’ve been given that I’d like to inject into the game more widely than just among my faction, but the event’s inability to allow more people to be involved with the swapmeet sort of rubs me the wrong way.
I say ‘inability’ because they definitely have the desire to involve everyone that wants to go, but the location of the event prohibits remote involvement. So I can’t Skype in and play my character verbally. This sort of thing makes me think that swapmeets are better-handled at weekend games and online, where there are fewer obstacles to involvement.
[quote=“musicforwolves”][quote=“Damocles”]
To my knowledge, not a lot of downtime trading does go on actually, so I suspect this is more perception based than anything, but as an example, if Valeria and Alteraan wanted to hammer out the agreements that were struck at the weekend game, I’d get frustrated with having to wait until another weekend event just to sit down and go through detail. Email is actually -better- for that kind of stuff.
TLDR: Be cautious about restrictions. We’re wanting to create equal opportunity, not policed roleplay.[/quote]
That’s true. I’d rather boost some opportunities for roleplay so that they’re more evenly-distributed, but that may involve some tweaking of where and how some events are run. My concern about missing events is more to do with the instances where they advertise downtime trading (like you say, pretty rare, but that just makes the events where it does happen more prestigious). I don’t mind missing Gnosis Point, for example, much as I’d love to be there. I do have some qualms about Gnosis Point offering a situation where information can be bartered (the swapmeet) because I think it fosters information trading only among those people that are there, rather than among everyone that wants to be involved. There’s a lot of information that I’ve been given that I’d like to inject into the game more widely than just among my faction, but the event’s inability to allow more people to be involved with the swapmeet sort of rubs me the wrong way.
I say ‘inability’ because they definitely have the desire to involve everyone that wants to go, but the location of the event prohibits remote involvement. So I can’t Skype in and play my character verbally. This sort of thing makes me think that swapmeets are better-handled at weekend games and online, where there are fewer obstacles to involvement.[/quote]
Well, you say that, but I’d refute that with two points…
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Downtime knowledge/spell trading can actually happen at any event or in online roleplay. It doesn’t need sanctioning or anything. This is just the first event where it’s advertised (as it works with the event’s overall theme).
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There were actually more Sachsens at the last Sanctioned Event than there were Alteraanians. Even though the event was local to us, most of my faction didn’t go because they wouldn’t go as their character, or because it clashed with other things they wished to attend. This is common truck amongst our faction… quite often we are under-represented at everything except the events we host ourselves. This is one of the things that fuels my belief that a lot of the problem is perception… and the key to people being happy is just better communication. Sure there’s a bit more shoulder-rubbing up here, but the pressure to attend everything definitely isn’t felt by Team Red as badly - our biggest political players often show up to the least events.