Of course, it'd be lovely if the players in charge could learn to thrive on hatred and loathing as well, and if the other players were to unspokenly accept that this is the case and put all of their best hatred and loathing into their IC interactions rather than spewing it on an OOC thread where it makes a terrible mess. Then we'd be on track for a healthy player dynamic!
I've said it before, I can very much live with chars hating Miya's guts and, say, plotting against him or whatever. As long as everything stays IC, I'm fine with it! Becoming more ruthless and cold over time is part of his character arc, after all. But then people start insulting me in OOC or a pm, and that's rather annoying. I don't let it get to me, it's just a forum game after all, but I'm also not trying to make the game unplayable for anyone, and try to be reasonable and open for discussion. Still, a lot of us really have problems separating OOC from IC, because even when I send the IC in a pm to prevent anyone barging in and taking off to OOC, it
still flows over into OOC.
Also, just to say it again, but the way the game is played really did change when going from HMRC to ARM. We used to be loony suicide squad who could do whatever, now we're a serious (para)military force responsible with fighting an important war. This is nicely reflected in our stance of civilians casualties: before, almost completely irrelevant, we could merrily shoot them. Now we have an image to uphold and have to work to reduce civ death to a minimum:
That didn't quite work out now did it? Listen. From this point on we're gonna have the eyes of the galaxy on us and we can't afford to act like murderous psychopaths; at least towards civilians. Murder UWM soldiers all you want, but try to restrain yourself around the civies. Otherwise I'm gonna start deducting From your pay. And then I'm gonna have milno start deducting limbs. And not giving you replacements.
So, chars in-charge IC have to work to keep order and discipline
somewhat to prevent another serial killer incident or a new Dam incident, because the gm avatar literally told them so IC. You can't really run an army tasked with saving the galaxy or whatever on a complete lassez-faire attitude, and I think we have evidence by now that more control often (though not necessarily) translates to better IC results. And when every dang mission is touted as very important and no room for failure, you can probably see why those who gotta run the circus prefer to go with what works. And it's not like this is all some delusion from a couple players/chars, the gm himself confirmed it to an extend:
First, you're keeping that implant in your skull. Which isn't the problem in the long run, is it? You don't mind having the implant, you just don't want shock happy players to be able to kill every action they don't agree with. Which I can accept. So, in lieu of removing that implant I'm going to instead set down a specific set of criteria for how and to what degree a player may be shocked. And while steve won't be bound to this because he's steve and he might feel like making everyone do the seizure dance for his own amusement some day, it will prevent would be middle managers from middle managing your brain out your eye sockets at their whim. The shock button should be used ONLY when the player poses a clear and present in character threat of badly fucking over the mission or killing his own teammates for no adequate reason. The Finger of God is not for use on petty quibbles like a character not being productive in the right way. If someone isn't behaving, just threaten to dock their pay or shank them later or something.
And everyone else should remember that we're a damn organization here. We've got people in power whose rules and instructions you're gonna be expected to follow unless you want there to be in character consequences later. If you don't like it, then I suggest you wait for us to land on an inhabited planet and kindly retire there. You'll have all the freedom you want.
And If I see any more people arguing about this in anything but the most pleasant of tones I'm gonna yank their characters from where ever they currently are and throw them into a basement knife fight from which only one of them may leave alive.
Note, he did say '
in-character consequences'. Of course people should be allowed to play the most incompetent insubordinate fool they want, but then they also gotta face the music IC. For example, ask Miya about the artic mission, and he'd say he'd wish he could clone Stacy and Xan just so he could vigorously strangle them a couple times for that mission. But ooc, I'd say that was a hilarious read, terrific failure. But this time, when Miya gave an IC slap on the wrist to the chars basically saying 'now now kids, gotta act more efficiently, or you might not survive next time' people say it's excessive (even though no actual IC bad stuff happened. No pay dock, no blacklisting, no nothing). Perhaps another part of the problem is people taking insults or criticism to their char as insults to themselves. You can call Miya he's despicable trash IC all you want, and I'll have a hearty laugh over it, but when people literally say I'm acting like scum in a pm over IC actions, yeah, that kinda ruins the fun.
Now, of course we can't drive the IC logic too far, cause then we'd almost have no game. But on the slider scale of serious IC paramilitary with little player agency to silly spaceclowns with lots of player agency, we aren't nearly as far to the left as we could be. Seriously, if I were to really play Miya straight, as he
should act given the IC situation, thing's be a lot different. Small example: brutal VR training courses where only the most competent and loyal troopers pass.
They can go on missions, the rest are discharged from ARM or used as cannon fodder or cleaning personnel. That would be bad for player fun, so of course that won't happen, but it shows we aren't nearly as authoritarian as we should be to play the game straight given the situation. As long as people can be rational and reasonable about things, we should be able to work things out I hope.
So, we have to balance playing thins straight IC and allowing enough fun/agency OOC. And that's a reasonable discussion, as long as people can stay calm about it and it doesn't become a shouting match.
So, for example, I think most people agree it makes IC sense for Green Storm to exist, and for it to have been usd at that time. But, is it a good game mechanic from an OOC perspective? Is saving a player's character, one he or she might have become attached to and put effort in, more or less important than taking temporary control away from said char?
In the end however, if the gm wants it to exist, we can discuss it and show him different pro's and cons, but he'll have to be the one to decide if it should stay or go. He gets to decide the tone of the game and amount of player agency, after all (not every game has to be freeroam with full char control, see eg. suggestion games with a very linear path). Though, if he gives the option/permission to a player A to take control away from player B in a way that makes IC sense, it is still a question whether player A 'should' do it, even if he has the option and gm backing for it. But that's also a bit of a slippery slope, and I kinda think in the end that if the gm allows it, it should remain an option (without OOC complaining every time it's used). And like when he decided to take away spine shocking after it got out of hand IC, things can still change after a trial period.
Perhaps we could ask pw to include a less super-important and serious mission (eg eater of cold or arctic exploration vs. diplo mission or Heabi assault) more often so people who don't like the tighter control still have an option.
The issue I see however, is that it isn't entirely clear what the requirements and cost of this are. How fucked does one need to be to be eligible? What are the drawbacks to it's usage beyond the lack of control over its results? Is it possible to get a warning ahead of time that if the situation deteriorates further, it will be activated, therefore giving everyone a chance to position themselves and thus for players to indirectly influence the results?
One reason Miya ordered to keep green storm silent was so he could have the Hep boys analyze the field data (see Hep action) and we can find out better how it works and what it does.
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Topic: Einsteinian Roulette: OOC and NEW PLAYER INFO (Read 2494807 times)