Frequency of Play - will we jump the shark?

[Ants]

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.

Hi Reuben,

Thank you for taking the time to reply and I agree. Airing and compiling is a logical response to trying to remedy any issues that are aired. I hope that this discussion can continue in that vein.

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.”

Yeah. Mostly correct. Perhaps not involved in everything, but more than they would like, and to keep their awareness and enjoyment in the game as a whole. I am wary to say many as I dont have the data to back it up, but it is more than a common trend in those I have spoken with.

[quote=“Damocles”]
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.[/quote]

I agree with the breakdown that these are pressures placed upon participants. And I would suggest that you are right in that the players feel the factional competition that their characters do.

I suggest that in a perfect world we would be completely detached from the emotions and the characters situations as people in RL. I note that further on you do discuss that talking and discussing to clear air and remember people as people would help. I agree. People are a lot more reasonable when seen in person and communication far far easier. We also are free of the trappings of the fantasy world, and that helps reaffirm reality and our real relationships. Many were surprised to see what I looked like without the Blaze makeup, and to some extent the Ulrich hair and trappings

The issue of bleed is an interesting one. One that effects all LARP, not just Crucible, but propose that as you suggest, a PVP factional game can and will bring out more of these negatives into the community as a whole. I suspect that is part of the dissonance we are seeing.

But, I think that point one misses the issue central to the argument. I dont believe clearing the air will not remove most of the problems. We might be more happy with people. but the point still remains. There is too much. It is pervasive, You would need to give participants IMO more room and air to do non crucible things. I have a few suggestions and we can come to that further in the reply

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.

I agree. We all have things we are trying to accomplish, as well as the overall save the world from the Dark we are heading towards (speculation). So the meta of the chronicle would probably need to change. But in the mass wargaming there is the roleplaying as well. The character development that cannot be denied. The social aspect is a consideration, but I propose, as you do, that it may be secondary to the political wheeling and dealing. The factional downtime certainly adds another pressure in that regard. It is another reason that Crucible is always front of mind.

But as it stands now, Crucible is not a LARP only. It is a Multi game. It is a 4x board game, a LARP, and mass political junta. It is many things to many people. Just all at the same time, and maybe that is too much?

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 gamer/wargamer as well as a Larper and was before I larped, so for me it is less of a problem. But we are talking about the community here and both Jackie and I are partially raising these concerns on behalf of the community and others we have talked to.

I suspect this is probably an issue for some, but not the central point. If anything I suggest we perhaps look at the broader thought here? That the game is not what all people want all the time. A wargamer might not like the larp aspects as much, or vice versa. But there are other reasons outside of game style that are causing the trouble IMO.

But I certainly agree that for some, the non LARP elements could have some bearing on participant satisfaction. And as an idea ,without them we may see less overflow into the the LARP elements through online roleplaying, creative storytelling aspects.

So what would the answer be here? If there are elements in a game that the participants are not interested/happy with would it be better to either,

• Do nothing
• Not change, but perhaps get a measure of the quantum of participants
• Change or remove completely the underlying aspect of the game (for eg Downtime actions)
• Lessen the amount of time or impact the underlying aspect touches the participants?

I suggest there is no right answer, but reducing the underlying aspects causing issue is perhaps the most preferable. The game I think is served relatively well with the Island War as an idea (as an example). I have my own thoughts as to whether this is time well spent by the GM’s and participants, but mileage may vary. As such I think keeping it and reducing how many times participants must engage would be beneficial and a possible compromise.

The crucible airwaves are chocka block, and I suggest removing a little bit of traffic would help with the Crucible overload some participants are feeling. It is central to the Crucible 365 premise.

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.

Not much to say from me. I agree for the most part

Others may disagree. I personally would like to see more of this drama happen in the weekend and day games than what I believe is more off screen (online, downtime etc), but I suspect that is personal choice To me it is more epic the larger the audience in the moment, at the main event.

The structure may not be inherently bad, but it should come with a warning. The type of play, given the nature of LARP and how much time it is sinking, is something the organisers should be aware of (and probably are). That is why I suggest there should be strategies to deal with them. Lessened workloads, debriefs as people after the game and a bit of welfare time if needed etc. Anything to help lessen the negative aspects associated with PVP, factional gaming etc.

[quote=“Damocles”]

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.[/quote]

It’s true. We don’t have the political style game like OWBN was anymore. I believe the scene has have moved into a different style of game. More collaborative, less win, and more story focused. I see more LARPing in the St Wolfgangs and 33AR mold now. It is just a style I think tickles more peoples fancy down here.

Proximity is a large part I suppose. I like Matt Swains (Viperion) post a couple of pages back. It to me explains why geographical isolation plays a part. I can’t fault his reasoning.

To a large degree we realise the game is mostly in Auckland. There is no way to offset that. Any character building is benefited by access to more people and events. Even if the amount of crucible events were less, the outer regions couldn’t be on par. It is unreasonable to think there could be parity, but there may be ways to mitigate advantage that was fair and reasonable to all.

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.

Yes. For the most part the way the game ends up is in the players hands. No denying that. Any lasting change needs to be driven from the player base.

The tweaks the GMs could employ (which would help a bit I think) would be the following:

1. 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.

It certainly might go some way in limiting the benefit to going to all the things and maximising character development time, and thus relieve some of the pressure on those unable to participate to an elevated level. I would go one further. I suggest that you remove any chance for “Back up” Characters. Back up characters for me pose some real trouble. It has been brought up earlier in the thread, but personally I find interacting with a player, with their alternate character to be confusing, and to some extent immersion breaking. Not to say, somewhat pessimistically, also for IC and OOC knowledge issues. In this factional based game, I think you can see some of the issues that can pop up here, and actually have in the game so far.

Will doing this just drive people to Online RP instead? Will it mean that less events are sanctioned? Well if that were true then I suppose we are no better off. Informal gatherings still pose an issue, and may even be worse for fears of exclusion.

Just some thoughts to ponder…

2. 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).

I would have no trouble with moving some of this to the game. Doing so I think opens up some really nice ideas, and may have the added benefit of streamling the Island War game. Actions are simplified because you have less options to spreadsheet and they can become more thematic. Assign this here, provide X back up points there. Build this, Attack those. Could lessen the workload, I’m not sure for the GM’s, but it could be worth a go.

The Island War would need to be condensed and maybe it is a step to far for the resources of the GM’s. Worth considering.

3. 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.)

I definitely think that there does need to be a little tweak in the comms strategy of the game. Some guidelines of official avenues, what to expect in terms of a response (Service level agreements), and then having it adhered to would be great.

Ancilliary, but no less of an issue is availability of information about the game. Website should hold ALL the information pertinent to player knowledge. I think it will get there but it isnt a perfect resource… yet

I am keen to see a little more separation between GM’s and players when it comes to the game. Even if it is perception, it can be damaging, as we are seeing.

<snip…>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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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 =)

All fine suggestions (bolded for emphasis). Central to good healthy OOC communities . These are in the players hands as you say. However talking is great to reconnect with RL friends, but I feel we need to better at ensuring talks don’t just turn into more crucible talk. It is on the participants themselves to regulate I believe, and those that are present that don’t want to talk crucible, should feel free to say so and not be a pariah, as well as participants being aware and mindful of those about them, and what they prefer.

I would suggest that while making choices that we see as fun for us, we should have a more collaborative view on the subject. I don’t want to see players making decisions that destroy or limit anothers fun by dragging them down or leading them down a path they are not invested in. It doesn’t mean you can’t get down on the character, just ensure that the story told is engaging for both players. I feel poorly personally if I am taking and not giving to those about me in LARP. Perhaps it is why I like the bad guy. Villains make lives more interesting

[musicforwolves]

[quote=“Damocles”]
Well, you say that, but I’d refute that with two points…

1. 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).

2. 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.[/quote]

Yeah, you’re right in both of those things. In fact, they agree with my points, more or less.

Knowledge trading can happen anywhere - my issue is when it’s advertised as being part of an event that not everybody can get to. It’s like a lesser equivalent of ‘get some XP for attending this optional event’. If tangible rewards are being offered, it doesn’t really feel like an optional event any more. This is why I’d like to see them move online more, so that people whose characters would attend can attend.
Same goes for the second point. We’re talking about characters that would attend these IC events, but can’t, rather than players who don’t go because their characters wouldn’t. There’s more opportunities to shoulder-rub up there, and as a result I’m not surprised that the pressure to attend events isn’t as great. Down here, if I want to shoulder-rub, I’m far more limited in options, and as a result, every IC event feels like a must-attend scenario.

I completely agree that more open communication would solve problems. I agree that many of the arguments about material benefits being unfairly allocated is a question of perception. I believe Aucklanders when they say it doesn’t happen much. I’m just saying that if you’re in a city where not many events happen, feeling like your faction is dropping in the ranks is common, and because it takes so much more time to catch up when you’re not there in person, the amount of time the game takes up swells until it becomes a 365 game. I think the more information that can be put out there, the less time needs to be devoted to catching up. I think moving large-scale, organised information swaps to a more accessible forum would foster inclusiveness. As Ants says above, the Crucible experience will never be the same for Auckland and Wellington. It wouldn’t be bad to find ways of mitigating the more obvious advantages, though.

We’re not so different in our views, you and I.

[Viperion]

[quote=“Ants”]Proximity is a large part I suppose. I like Matt Swains (Viperion) post a couple of pages back. It to me explains why geographical isolation plays a part. I can’t fault his reasoning.[/quote]Thanks for the vote of confidence there Ants, but I haven’t posted in this thread (OK, well I have now ); not sure who you’re thinking of there. I’m not involved in Crucible at all - mostly due to physical distance and the monetary ramifications of it - and plan to stay that way. I am reading this thread though, as even though I am not involved, I have seen multiple people unhappy with various things Crucible and am interested in the reasons why.

[Jared]

My small contribution:

This discussion, particularly those with issues raised are not 2 people. I see the concerns being raised from a crew position and not even a particularly involved one at that. They are there, they are not 2 people moaning. Or even people from one location. However many of them are unlikely to voice such concerns for a variety of reasons ranging from “I don’t care enough” to " I feel bullied or ignored if I do speak up".

I’m not going to delve into the issues, as I am not an eloquent online debater of such things. Ants has certainly raised many good points and naturally we all have differing perspectives on these.

What I am going to suggest is that we have a look at being a little more knowledgeable in how other larps deal with these issues. It is something I spend a little bit too much time doing and there is a huge amount to read, some useful, some not.

Large faction based games are not uncommon overseas, particularly in Europe and the UK, although approach varies in each (I’m sure). Interestingly many don’t rely on crew/NPC’s like we do. To the point where they don’t have an NPC faction or even really have crew at all (they do tend to have more player ref’s in the UK however). Which means (almost) all facets of the game are player based (sometimes). GM’ing in some of these larps essentially becomes a logistics exercise of game creation which once launched has far more minor GM input from that point in (some of these games the GM’s have their own full time characters with little to no need to adjudicate anything).

So how do they achieve this? Well, that requires quite a lot of reading and research. I don’t think I am fully qualified in answering it. However there are a few points which stand out starkly and relate to larp from Nordic countries (as opposed to Nordic larp which is it’s own topic). Some of these concepts rely on certain expectations, which essentially boil down to: Larp is a collaborative effort in which your experience should not be more important than anyone else. Read here for some insights nordiclarp.org/2014/07/12/we-don … -of-jante/

1. Significant briefing on the game and it’s specific intentions. Much of this seems to revolve around what everyone expects from each other. To the point where people who want to play contentious characters tell the other players this. They outline what to expect from their characters, thereby making other players aware what may in fact happen. An article on cultural precalibration here nordiclarp.org/2014/04/23/cultur … workshops/

2. Little or no XP mechanics. Things like, if you present yourself as a big mean warrior with a giant axe then people react to you like this. If you think you should improve between games then you do. Character improvement is therefore a little bit more organic and probably a lot slower. 33AR (is) was interesting in that while the game abilities (which had inherent mechanics) existed, they don’t have an XP cost. You pick what fits your concept (there is a bit more discussion about not creating a Mary Sue and relies on player maturity). This I would like to see more of.

3. Debriefs. The post game debrief to allow players to unload some of the stuff that came out and developed of game. This can be anywhere from formal debriefs, to taking time to meet up and tell character stories and then socialise firmly OOC. This dovetails with point #1. See article here nordiclarp.org/2014/12/08/debrie … eal-world/

These concepts aren’t overly alien to us, just not in common use here.

Have a read of articles available here nordiclarp.org/ as I feel we should be picking through this kind of documentation to find what we think should work for us. I’ve seen groups overseas take Nordic principles to the extreme in a kind of verbatim doctrine - we should never do this. But we can cherry pick the useful bits.

[Ants]

[quote=“Ants”]Proximity is a large part I suppose. I like Matt Swains (Viperion) post a couple of pages back. It to me explains why geographical isolation plays a part. I can’t fault his reasoning.[/quote]Thanks for the vote of confidence there Ants, but I haven’t posted in this thread (OK, well I have now );

Apologies. Was vespers. On page 5

[joker]

[quote=“Admiral”] So you didn’t know anything about the possibility of downtime, faction or personal, or the idea that there might be player initiated events as well as day games?

Hunh, my impression was that the communication was better than that.
[/quote]
Well, we are talking about the misty depths of time. And Google plus and Facebook are terrible at long term information because of cruft forming very quickly. Diatribe is marginally better, but not by much. There was no website for a long time.

Information about Crucible was released over the course of a few months. I’m pretty sure that there was no mention of how Downtime was going to work early on (and why should there be?). My first realisation of how Downtime Actions were going to work was AFTER the first game.

However, my problem is not with the existence of Downtime Actions per se. I have no real interest in war gaming, and since the information we seem to have available to guide our Downtime Actions is practically non-existent, downtime seems to be an exercise in randomness. There is no indication of how our actions affect the results. This makes me vastly uninterested since I can’t guide my actions to have significance.

There are, thankfully, a fair number of people in our faction who DO enjoy wargaming, and seem to be happy to deal with Downtime Actions. I’m very grateful to them. But for me, Downtime Action is a slot I fill to try to help the faction, not because it has any particular story effect for me.

As for player initiated events, I was un-surprised when they happened. I WAS surprised when they became mini games. There had CERTAINLY been no indication that that would happen.

You understand that we can generally only go by experience, and this was the first time in my experience that player social events had become mini games.

[quote=“Admiral”]

Except that I can trace a fair amount of my problems with the game back to core aspects of rules and information dissemination. (Yes, I have talked to the GMs about it.)

I can also trace problems back to me interpreting the presentation of the game as rather different than it’s turned out to be. [/quote]

I can respect that not everyone likes the design of the rules, I have chosen not to be involved in other games because I didn’t like the design of their rules and AM involved in Crucible because for me these rules are a vast improvement on what has come before. As to information dissemination, we come back around to the early issues with STs pulling out of the team and the failure to find a replacement for each of the key cities involved in the game.

Absolutely that was a big problem. And it’s gotten much better. Also, I will totally take responsibility for not noticing certain aspects of the rules. I am busy and when entirely new rule versions come out, sometimes in 2 or 3 volumes, I tend to skim. Again, if there was a change log, that would be helpful, but I’m aware that’s a reasonable amount of work.

[quote=“Admiral”]
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen any material relating to Crucible which described it as a Weekend+Day game structure alone. Perhaps you could point me to the presentation which created this impression for you?[/quote]

Right at the very beginning when it was being released in bits and pieces, that’s the impression I got. Again, as new stuff came out, I must have missed it, sometimes because it came out on Google plus or Facebook, then got buried.

Please understand that I am not trying to retcon any of this. I’m not complaining about downtime. I know that there are aspects I have no interest in because it’s not roleplaying or LARPing. Other people enjoy that which is wonderful.

However, I KNOW that due to things that happened in private roleplaying, or at player events, a number of plots that were set up at the second chapter game have been jettisoned. I DON’T know if this is actually a significant problem But it does indicate that things are moving rather faster outside the main games than is expected.

Having said that, the vast enthusiasm in the community seems to indicate something that has fired the imagination. Just the existence of Crucible Fan Fiction points to something that is firing people up in some way. This comes out in good ways, and bad ways, as we have seen.

But it actually feels like the GMs have lost control of the game more than is healthy. However, that is up to them to evaluate.

Crucible is an experiment, to a certain extent. I applaud the massive effort on the part of the GMs.

But it is feeling like a toxic business environment. The managers are sometimes silent on things that people need to know to feel part of the company. The staff are divided into cliques. There is fear of failure and fear of being vulnerable. A fair number of people do NOT feel safe to voice an opinion because they will be denigrated for voicing an opinion that some people do not agree with.

All the above are demonstrable. It’s up to the Board of Directors to address these, and be open about past failures, and what is being done to help them.

So moving away from that particular simile…

One of the things that I saw come out of Teonn was a few times, when things went wrong, the GMs owned up and said sorry. And they went ahead and made changes. I appreciated that there was a certain amount of openness there.

Because you know what? At the end of the day, the GMs are playing the game with all of us as well. It’s all of us playing together. GMs, Crew, Players, Vendors, you name it.

So I have to ask, what’s the spirit of Crucible? Are we all cooperating to create a great game and story that our characters roam around in? Or are we competing against each other to win the LARP?

So even though I stumble and have to feel my way around, I know which spirit I’m trying for. I hope I succeed.

[Helikaon]

[quote=“joker”]
So I have to ask, what’s the spirit of Crucible? Are we all cooperating to create a great game and story that our characters roam around in? Or are we competing against each other to win the LARP?

So even though I stumble and have to feel my way around, I know which spirit I’m trying for. I hope I succeed.[/quote]

Every decision I make, and everything I do, is - and has always been - done from the perspective of my character, which is an important third option here I think you left out.

To me Crucible is the setting for us to play these characters. I made a military commander. Will I do what I need do to win whatever it is I’m trying to win? Yes. Will it be done IC based on IC knowledge? Yes.

Are my decisions creating a great game and story? Idunno, ask the Lions Den, of which my character was supposed to be the military commander leading the defense.

My point here is, I choose option three: A badass setting in which you roleplay a character.

I think Crucible has achieved this.

[Vespers]

Making every decision with no considerations other that ‘what would the character do’ is all very well and good - it is my personal goal for RP as well, although when there is a raft of potential options that I believe my character might easily choose from, I do allow ‘what’s fun’ and ‘what’s stupidest’ to also affect my judgement (doing stupid things is good for LARP).

However, in the spirit of not being a dick, I believe that if you intend to play a game in this fashion, you must also take into account Joker’s option number 1 - “Are we all cooperating to create a great game and story that our characters roam around in?”. You don’t have to let this consideration affect your character’s decisions on the spot - I know you, and others including myself don’t like that much. But you should, or even must let it affect your decisions in character creation - if you are to make a character who you intend to portray faithfully, the ‘don’t be a dick’ principle requires you to make sure that you consider what decisions that character might make and how they would affect other people’s fun. So this is not really a separate option - you can play a character faithfully and be playing in either of the two ways Joker mentions.