Sanderson Elimination: Questions & Answers and Game Meta Discussion

[Elbereth she/her]

The next MR will be up today or in the next few days. 

[Rebecca she/her]

Hey guys! I'm new to Sanderson Elimination, and have no idea how this works. I have played mafia a couple times before, but I have no idea how the sign up works, or how you guys manage to make this work online. It sounds really fun though, and I was hoping I could join in. So, anything you think might be useful for me to know, please tell me. Thanks!

Edited August 11, 2017 by Rebecca

[Seonid he/him]

1 hour ago, King Cole said:

When is the next game? I really wanted to get into the previous QF game but I went on a week long trip with no internet

It's up now! Hope you join us - it will be crazy.

Just now, Rebecca said:

Hey guys! I'm new to Sanderson Elimination, and have no idea how this works. I have played mafia a couple times before, but I have no idea how the sigh up works, or how you guys manage to make this work online. It sounds really fun though, and I was hoping I could join in. So, anything you think might be useful for me to know, please tell me. Thanks!

So, in order to sign up, just go to the signup thread of a new game (like the one I just posted above!) and tell the GM that you want to play. Signups generally last about a week,

Online, day cycles generally last 24-48 hours (depending on format - see the Q&A thread for details), with nights lasting another 24 hours. Long games can take a 6 weeks to 2 months, while mid-range games are generally 3-4 weeks, and quick games going on for just about a week or two. Roles are generally distributed via PMs on the site, and any actions are collected the same way. Voting is done in posts on the thread. Mostly, our adaptation to doing it online is to stretch out the time so that people from widely disparate time zones can all participate in the same game. Also, the Mafia generally get a Google doc to talk to each other in. Sometimes it's a group PM, but mostly a Google doc.

Fair warning, a lot of our games here are non-standard. Which I like a lot - we're often trying something new - but it can sometimes be a little daunting if you're used to simpler setups. We like to have lots of roles flying around, and we can't seem to help but explore weird edge cases of mafia style rules and see just how far we can push the envelope.

But come on in and enjoy the ride! It's great fun, with great people, and we'd love to have you.

[Elenion he/him]

Happy birthday to @Drake Marshall and @Assassin in Burgundy !

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Well thank you. I didn't know we shared a birthday, assassin.

[Lemonelon]

What does WGG mean? I've seen it a few times but googling just brings up a cricketer  

[Amanuensis he/him]

Just now, Lemonelon said:

What does WGG mean? I've seen it a few times but googling just brings up a cricketer  

Wounded Gazelle Gambit. It means when the group of eliminators have the ability to protect one of their own (or manage to get a villager to protect one of them, though that's more rare) and attack them simultaneously to make it look like they're a villager.

[Lemonelon]

Ooh, that's pretty awesome! Thank you  

[Alvron he/him]

We have a SE Lexicon should you wish to learn more.

[Straw he/him]

So, let's talk about cosmetic roles. Cosmetic roles are roles that are known by everyone, chosen by the player, and used for entertainment and roleplaying. Cosmetic roles have no effect on actual gameplay. Every player in a game that includes cosmetic roles will choose a cosmetic role when they sign up for the game. The extent to which a cosmetic role is used is entirely up to the player. For example, one player might only make a few posts that are influenced by their cosmetic role, but another player might build their entire playstyles around their cosmetic role. Cosmetic roles can benefit a game in many ways, including but not limited to: making games more entertaining, lowering inactivity, encouraging roleplaying, and letting players easily try out new ways of playing.

EDIT: To see how cosmetic roles work in a game, check out the third Anniversary Game.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Straw

[Steeldancer he/him]

2 hours ago, Straw said:

So, let's talk about cosmetic roles. Cosmetic roles are roles that are known by everyone, chosen by the player, and used for entertainment and roleplaying. Cosmetic roles have no effect on actual gameplay. Every player in a game that includes cosmetic roles will choose a cosmetic role when they sign up for the game. The extent to which a cosmetic role is used is entirely up to the player. For example, one player might only make a few posts that are influenced by their cosmetic role, but another player might build their entire playstyles around their cosmetic role. Cosmetic roles can benefit a game in many ways, including but not limited to: making games more entertaining, lowering inactivity, encouraging roleplaying, and letting players easily try out new ways of playing.

EDIT: To see how cosmetic roles work in a game, check out the third Anniversary Game.

Like MR26? Or whatever the MLP was? That was so much fun 

[Straw he/him]

Yep, MR22 did indeed have cosmetic roles.

[Young Bard he/him]

As some of you may know, there was a discussion on Discord about a week ago about what several players perceive as problems in SE right now. A number of players have pointed out several things that they've been enjoying less and less about the state of SE as it stands now, mainly to do with how it's both harder and harder for new players to be able to understand the meta of SE and fit in with it's increasingly complicated plot, and, more directly relevant to a lot of the older players, an increasing lack of enjoyment with recent SE games. This was due to a number of factors, but in fair amount due to the reduced amount of camaraderie between players, which is what drew players into SE in the first place. (There are other reasons for this as well, which I intend to discuss below.)

The Metanarrative and New Players

In regards to new players and the increasingly complex meta, a number of suggestions were made about how the metanarrative could be made easier for new players to understand and begin contributing to. One of the ideas that was suggested was some sort of Wiki. This was one of the ideas I used to be a proponent of, going so far as to create the "SEncyclopedia" (which promptly failed due to me being busy and unable to properly work on it), but I've found more and more flaws in that idea as time goes on. The big problem is, new players have no investment yet towards the meta, and yet, in order to fit in, they'd essentially be forced to read a fairly long backlog on Shards, Snakes, Swords (e.g. (S)laughter) and basically everything else under the sun starting with S in order to understand the metanarrative and injokes of the games. As such, I no longer feel that this is the right way to approach how to deal with the metanarrative for new players, because it sets the bar too high for new players to be able to understand and fit in as a group, something which I feel is a steep learning curve already.

A similar, yet slightly different proposal which I’ll quickly address is something more akin to metanarrative inspired stories you see in the SEAcropolis thread as a way of getting new players up to speed. While I think it has the potential to be more fun to read through if we direct new players to a relevant RP on Snakes or the history of Kiireon/Edaan, I think this would merely mitigate the issue, rather than dealing with it completely. A system like this would still mean new players would have an extremely steep learning curve in order to understand the meta of the community. Many of us in the conversation agreed that a system like this wouldn’t resolve a lot of the problems we agreed were there.

A more extreme change that was suggested was a reset of the meta, and a new metanarrative that would be constructed out of the ashes of the old one, with a focus on making it easy for new players to have a low threshold to understanding the metanarrative as it stands at that moment. There are a number of ways this could be achieved, (and I’d love to hear your input on this) but the way I envisage such a system operating is an overarching metanarrative, which has 'arcs' or 'beats' to it. All a new player would need to understand in order to start contributing to the metanarrative is what's happened in the current arc/beat, which on its own is shorter and more free-standing in order to be easier to understand. Then, only if they decide that they're sufficiently invested and want to know more, would they dig into some of the older metanarrative arcs in order to understand the backstory, which is relevant but by no means necessary to understanding the current position of the metanarrative.

I think a system like this could be useful. My main concern is that it arguably places too much structure on a system that I think some players like to be unstructured and freestanding, which is unfortunate, but I think a necessary step if the goal is to have a less steep learning curve for new players entering SE. I think this balance between structured and free-form meta-RP is something we’re going to need to focus on balancing if we go ahead with this plan, and is something I’d also love to hear your thoughts on, or if you have any alternative suggestions to deal with the issues I’ve raised.

Camaraderie and the Desire to Win in SE

There was also a lot of discussion around why a lot of older players were also finding it harder to engage with the more recent SE games. After a fair amount of conversation, this came down to a lot of issues.
        There’s a lot less camaraderie than there used to be, when a lot of the older players enjoyed the game because of the more social aspect of the game, to be able to enjoy finding Eliminators together, trying to read each other, and generally having a good time.
        An increasing focus that’s developed in players over time to focus just on winning, and less on the community of the game.
        Higher and higher levels of inactivity in games.

We were discussing what might have caused these, and generally agreed that it might have come from a couple common issues.

The way in which people play SE now is fundamentally different now to how it used to be played. Two of my earliest docs are also my two favourite docs of all time - the Shard Zero Doc in LG21 and the Venture Docs in LG23. What’s common between them - and what I haven’t seen as much in any of the later games, is the community and social aspect that is a large part of what a lot of the older players enjoyed about the game so much.

Part of this, perhaps, is the Discord Chat. A lot of the social conversations moved from docs and PM’s to Discord round about LG24, when the Discord was created. As a direct result of that, less attention in SE was placed on the community and regular socialising, because we now had the Discord Server for that. Now, arguably, this isn’t a bad thing. It’s possible to say that these things simply develop, and that simply because there is an old way of doing things doesn’t necessarily mean that the new way is any worse, and that SE can still provide a fun setting for many, even if it’s not what a few of the older members originally came into the community for. However, I would argue that some of the ripple effects of this change have caused more, clearly negative changes in how SE is played.

A natural consequence of people socialising less in SE results in people focusing more on winning, on achieving the goal, occasionally at the cost of what is fun, for yourself and others. An environment like that, with an increasingly competitive game, is more likely to lead to a less inviting and friendly community, and more likely to lead to people taking things too seriously, leading to clashes and arguments which might once have been avoided, as well as a higher amount of stress with the game overall, meaning people are less invested to want to play. This last part, especially, might attribute both to the number of older players who are considering not playing SE anymore, and the increasing number of inactives on a game to game basis.

Which leaves the problem of how to resolve (or at least mitigate) these issues. Realistically, I think the Discord is here, and here to stay. Many people, including myself, get something worthwhile out of the community we have there - however, I don’t want that to come at the expense of the community here, and I feel that we can do more to at least mitigate some of the effects mentioned above. On top of that, I don’t think that the Discord chat is the sole source of these issues (as much as some of what I’ve said above might have unintentionally implied that), so much as it has aggravated and revealed some of the issues that I think we would have eventually had to deal with anyway.

Many of the suggestions in the Discord Chat were centered around the ideas of introducing (or rather, reintroducing - some of these ideas existed a while ago, but weren’t carried on) ways to promote a more open, friendly, environment. One idea I think works as a good start is the ‘paper plate awards’, like you’d see in Cross Country Tournaments, or Model UN Debates. These awards essentially are a way to promote open, friendly gameplay, features less dedicated to competitiveness such as roleplay, and whatever else is fun, memorable or fitting for that game. For example, you could have awards for the best RP, and you can also have awards for things such as nearly being lynched the most times. I went digging, because I know I’d seen them on the old site before the great overhaul, and I found some examples that on Alv’s profile, if you’re curious to see the kind of thing that I mean by this.
As I said before, I think this is a good idea, at least as a starting point. I’m worried that on it’s own, it might not do much, as it deals with some of the symptoms, instead of addressing the root of the problem itself, but I believe this definitely works as a starting point in changing the focus of the community away from a purely competitive game to a more social one.

Another idea that was suggested had to do with the revival of Cosmetic Roles. I’m… less certain this will be effective, though I’m interested to see the argument in favour of it. Cosmetic Roles, to me, seemed like a way of prompting people into RP’ing more, if they hadn’t really thought of it as an option. Personally, I feel that if people are going to RP anyway, then Cosmetic Roles will be unnecessary, on account of the player having their own RP ideas, and those who weren’t planning to RP probably wouldn’t anyway. I’m not so sure it’s likely to very many players attitude very much, unfortunately. Perhaps I’m missing the point of this, and if so, I’d love to hear the perspective of other people when it comes to cosmetic roles.

The Role of the GM

The final point I’d like to ask people about is what role the GM has to play in dealing with the issues I’ve mentioned above. So far, I’ve placed a fair amount of focus on what the community as a whole is doing that is potentially causing problems, and what the community could do to fix it. However, that’s only one side of the coin, and I think there are a few things that GM’s have done that have potentially aggravated the problem, and a few tricks the GM’s could use to potentially mitigate or resolve them.

The elephant in the room with this topic is broken games. Sadly, I think that these have been on the rise. Partially, I think this is due to GM’s want to experiment with more outside-the-box games in an attempt to make something new, different, and exciting. (One could make an argument that this is the response to players being more and more focused on the mechanics of games in an attempt to win instead of more socially based games as it used to be. Or, perhaps that’s a stretch too far. I don’t know.) Sadly, in their attempt to achieve the first two of those, they sometimes fail at the third. However, I’m not going to talk about this a great deal right now, because only recently, the GM’s created the Balancing Committee, and I’m optimistic that this will be an effective strategy in reducing the number of broken games. As such, there’s not a lot I’m going to say about this, though if this continues to be an issue I may create a follow up post about this later. That said, if anyone else had something they feel should be added to the conversation about broken games, I’d encourage you to do so, because it certainly forms a piece of the overall problem.

What I am going to refer to is the tangentially related issue of non-standard games that I touched on in the paragraph above. To this day, I love non-standard games, as they’re different, and fresh. However, I love them because they are the exception to the rule, so I wonder if it’s a good thing that they become the rule itself, as, more and more, it seems to be becoming. Is there a responsibility of GM’s to try and make sure that non-standard games are the exception to the rule, not the rule itself? Is that the responsibility of someone else, like the new balancing team, or the mods? Should we let things be, or is that going to aggravate the problem of broken games and place an overly strong focus on mechanics - at the cost of making people view SE as a social game instead of something that’s interesting solely because of its mechanics. I’m divided on this issue - on the one hand, I like the relative degree of freedom that GM’s have in creating games, but I can also see the issues that might arise from it, so I’m hoping to hear everyone else’s thoughts on this before I make my mind up one way or the other.

Finally, I do think that GM’s definitely can and do have some responsibility in this area. The first games that come to mind when I mention this are MR17 and LG30, both of which were run by Aman, and both of which had incentives placed on posting RP. These games were highly successful, and I think struck a perfect balance between incentivising RP and not making it absolutely necessary for those who really weren’t interested in RP to participate. I think something like this is another solution to reducing the focus of winning at all costs in SE, though I’m interested to hear your thoughts.

If you have any other ideas about what role the GM has to play in influencing the focus of games, or any of the other issues I’ve discussed, I’d love to hear them. I’m currently planning for my upcoming QF, and I do intend to take on what was discussed here and in the Discord Chat when planning for my game, and experiment with what works in creating a fun game, and I would be interested in hearing your suggestions as well on what else a GM could do to tackle these issues.

Conclusion

I’ve written up a fair amount by this point, but I’m only one person, and I’m sure there’s a lot I haven’t considered, or might have wrongly dismissed out of hand. If you have anything else you feel needs to be discussed surrounding the SE environment, or have alternative suggestions, I’d encourage you to post your thoughts and opinions - even just your two cents on the ideas presented here if you don’t feel you have anything to add - as it would be help us understand what the major issues SE players are finding with SE, and how they can potentially be resolved. If you have any concerns with the direction SE is heading, now is the time to voice those concerns, so we can hopefully make the SE experience better for all involved going into the future.

[Seonid he/him]

@The Young Bard, you've managed to almost completely reproduce my thoughts on the matter (although I haven't actually been paying attention to the metanarrative issues. I thought that it was largely defunct, though apparently I am wrong here.) If I didn't know better, I'd swear you'd been reading my mind.

I haven't really been on Discord since I moved to my new place - up until recently, I haven't had a computer of my own out of storage (that was annoying - I had to finish the last game I GMed on library computers) - so I haven't been a participant in the conversations there. But I think that you are fundamentally correct with your analyses. I have been highly concerned about the amount of non-standard games coming up through the pipeline - and I think others have as well. But part of the problem is the lack of responsiveness posed by how long our GM lists are. If we start trying to change that from where we are, we don't see a response in the system for months or longer.

There is a way around it - if GMs currently on the list are willing to run more standard games and delay the long and complex ones, then we can see responses in the system much sooner.

I similarly hope that the GM Creation Committee will be sufficient to mitigate these issues, combined with an awareness of it.

With regards to competitiveness and wanting to win at the expense of fun, I don't have a lot of firm, concrete suggestions. I also identify the problem with the growing lack of camaraderie among players. And I have similarly wondered if the Discord chat has had an effect on it. It almost seems like we are playing the games for the sake of the games now, and not because we like the people we are playing with.

I started playing - back at the time of the first Anniversary Game - because it looked interesting to me. I stayed because I fell in love with the community and the friendships I made there. I left a number of times, because I got busy with work and school, but I always came back for the people.

I can honestly say that, if my first game had happened at any point in the last 6 months, I wouldn't have stayed around. There's not enough glue left.

Communities grow and change and evolve. This is an unavoidable fact. But as members of this community, each of us has the opportunity to be involved in shaping how SE changes. If it takes a turn for the worse, that's on us. If we want it to be better, that's on us too.

For me, maybe that means not signing up for a game, even if it looks like a lot of fun, if I don't think I'll realistically have the time to participate. And maybe it means doing a better job of being involved when I do have the time.

Anyone else have thoughts? I think this is an important set of issues to discuss, and I think we ought to a great deal of the discussion here, where everyone can see it.

[Steeldancer he/him]

So as a coGM in the middle of GMing the MR right now, I've been learning a LOT. This has certainly been helping me focus my ideas for future games, of which I have three solid ones, and know what is reasonable and what isn't. 

In fact, I did join back in March, so I'm still relatively new. But perhaps I can provide a different perspective.

Even more than just social, it all is just so... intense. I would like to say I designed my Princess Bride game as a direct counter to that. I designed a mechanic called Fashion- essentially a theme that must be present in one of your posts during that day, with a different theme (or joke) each day. I also made it into a kind of activity filter, where if you don't have enough time to follow the fashion, you go to the Fire swamp. I've also been toying with rewards for following the fashion (the question is more what they'll be, not whether they'll be there.)

Anyway, my point is, maybe the games should be a little more lighthearted. One of the best games I played was my very first, MR23 I think, MLP. It being MLP was ridiculous, but it was fun and engaging and really got me into the swing of things. Meanwhile other games have turned into oppressive grunge matches between Village and Elim and neutral, like L35. Those just... aren't as fun. The intensity of the drive to win just kind of takes all the fun out of it. (My princess bride game is designed to be fun whether you win or not). 

Now I don't have all the answers here, and I won't pretend to. But making the games a little more... fun, might help to relieve tension. Perhaps rewards beyond just winning, things that are like a players record of things. Sort of like Hero's RP competition in MR23. Sort of like the paper plate awards you talked about. And maybe all those awards could go in the signature or something, so a player can quickly grasp what they mean without having to read entire games to find out. 

[Elbereth she/her]

Right. I’ve a lot of thoughts (as usual), and will probably give a few notes on what Wilson/Orlok think as well when their opinion differs from mine, since I don’t know if/when they’ll post here. 

(This is primarily structured as a response to Bard, so comments addressed to Seonid/Steeldancer will be addressed in relevant sections.)

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The Metanarrative and New Players

A more extreme change that was suggested was a reset of the meta, and a new metanarrative that would be constructed out of the ashes of the old one, with a focus on making it easy for new players to have a low threshold to understanding the metanarrative as it stands at that moment. There are a number of ways this could be achieved, (and I’d love to hear your input on this) but the way I envisage such a system operating is an overarching metanarrative, which has 'arcs' or 'beats' to it. All a new player would need to understand in order to start contributing to the metanarrative is what's happened in the current arc/beat, which on its own is shorter and more free-standing in order to be easier to understand. Then, only if they decide that they're sufficiently invested and want to know more, would they dig into some of the older metanarrative arcs in order to understand the backstory, which is relevant but by no means necessary to understanding the current position of the metanarrative.

I think a system like this could be useful. My main concern is that it arguably places too much structure on a system that I think some players like to be unstructured and freestanding, which is unfortunate, but I think a necessary step if the goal is to have a less steep learning curve for new players entering SE. I think this balance between structured and free-form meta-RP is something we’re going to need to focus on balancing if we go ahead with this plan, and is something I’d also love to hear your thoughts on, or if you have any alternative suggestions to deal with the issues I’ve raised

Right. Regarding this first, since I do a majority of the metanarrative stuff at moment - 

One. I think the meta is too often seen as a coherent whole. It’s not. There’s Kiireon/Edaan, yes, a story which has reached its conclusion. That’s been the main focus in the Acropolis. But there’s also Joe’s motley of characters and objects. There’s Alv’s set, the Collective + others + lots of objects. There’s Locke and Atiela. There’s (S)laughter. It’s not all a single piece, and it isn’t so hard to add to as people seem to think. I don’t even know all of the metanarrative (I’m particularly fuzzy on Joe’s characters, for instance). (Note: the snakes are not part of the metanarrative, at least not the same one. They don’t really apply here.) The point isn’t to understand it all. The point is just to tell stories together. 

Two. Given that it’s not a coherent whole, the system that seems to be happening currently is individual bits of meta being reset - Joe’s resetting his for his next LG, for instance. Alv is too invested, and I’m too invested currently. 

Three. Since I’ve been so active in the meta, I’m one of the most invested in it, and would be very sad were the meta to be reset in any way. I acknowledge, however, that it may be best for the forum as a whole, and will endeavour to finish up the part I’m most invested in so that I’m willing to move on. 

Orlok’s view, by the way, is that the metanarrative should be completely reset, as that would make it more fun for new players and potentially old players (one thing you didn’t mention, Bard, is that it’s also hard for new players to enter the meta, much more so than learning it), and that it wouldn’t alienate old players enough for them to leave, so on balance would be a good thing. 

Seonid does have a good point.  I honestly don’t really see why the meta is included in this list of issues - it may be one, but I view it as fairly small. Very little happens in the metanarrative, even less where anyone can see it who doesn’t know context (i.e. in PMs between players who do know about it, talking about old stories or whatever). The wedding, yes. It’s been six months between that and the last major event - Edaan’s freedom from Odium. There have been minor things - Orlok started all his sentences with s’s in the modchat to see how long it’d take Alv to notice, and (S)laughter then got traded at least once as a result - but that’s... about it. We could create a new meta without disturbing the old one and honestly I don’t think it’d make any difference to either. 

EDIT: To make this more clear, I could literally invite everyone in the meta to Atiela’s wedding (and easily; the main members (insofar as that term makes sense) wouldn’t even number twenty, plus a few items scattered about) and detonate some sort of ultrapowerful bomb that can kill Shards and Cognitive Spirits and such and the meta would be gone in an instant. Not that I’m saying that’s a good idea, but that is its scale. A small room of characters and objects that mostly haven’t been active in months/years. 

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Camaraderie and the Desire to Win in SE

There was also a lot of discussion around why a lot of older players were also finding it harder to engage with the more recent SE games. After a fair amount of conversation, this came down to a lot of issues.
        There’s a lot less camaraderie than there used to be, when a lot of the older players enjoyed the game because of the more social aspect of the game, to be able to enjoy finding Eliminators together, trying to read each other, and generally having a good time.
        An increasing focus that’s developed in players over time to focus just on winning, and less on the community of the game.
        Higher and higher levels of inactivity in games.

Note regarding the “lot less camraderie” - this is definitely the case, but old players also tend to feel less camraderie because their generations leave over time (usually due to real life things), and so they’re less invested in the game because they’re not playing with their friends anymore. This is sad, but bar making games less time-intensive (which I’m not sure how to do well), there’s not much to be done except give them community places that aren’t games. Which brings us to Discord. 

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Part of this, perhaps, is the Discord Chat. A lot of the social conversations moved from docs and PM’s to Discord round about LG24, when the Discord was created. As a direct result of that, less attention in SE was placed on the community and regular socialising, because we now had the Discord Server for that. Now, arguably, this isn’t a bad thing. It’s possible to say that these things simply develop, and that simply because there is an old way of doing things doesn’t necessarily mean that the new way is any worse, and that SE can still provide a fun setting for many, even if it’s not what a few of the older members originally came into the community for. However, I would argue that some of the ripple effects of this change have caused more, clearly negative changes in how SE is played.

I would use wording stronger than “perhaps”, here. Discord has very definitely been the result of less camraderie and friendships in or caused by games. (Not only Discord, also: Messenger’s contributed significantly, particularly to the distancing of old players who talk to each other there now rather than through games.) Is it wholly bad? No. I particularly enjoy the specialisation of channels so that like-minded people can discuss without said discussion being buried in a mass of general discussion. 

Here are the specific problems I see, though, with having Discord and Messenger rather than spec docs: 
1. There’s less socialisation in docs, particularly evil docs. Such docs used to be an excellent way to get to know people and make friends, because as an elim that was your only point of contact in SE except thread and PMs. But Discord, instead, is open all the time. In addition, and importantly, evil docs contain a random assortment of players. Not just people who tend to frequent Discord, or similar. So you’d be much more likely to make friends with someone you didn’t already know. 

2. There’s less possibility of conversing across timezones, or replying to old conversations that have long since passed. In docs you could hold many-day-long conversations by going back to that thread of conversation later. Discord doesn’t provide this. (Also, multiple threads of discussion.) 

3. Because Discord is distanced from the games, it also becomes distanced from SE. There’s a reason a lot of people on Discord don’t play much or at all, whereas in spec/dead docs it tended to be active people - because it was focused on the current game, and at least in part discussing that. So the community of Discord becomes its own separate entity, and doesn’t function as well as a community for SE. 

(I agree that these issues are either their own thing or only exacerbate the other problems in SE itself, but they’re still worth laying out.) 

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The Role of the GM

The elephant in the room with this topic is broken games. Sadly, I think that these have been on the rise. Partially, I think this is due to GM’s want to experiment with more outside-the-box games in an attempt to make something new, different, and exciting. (One could make an argument that this is the response to players being more and more focused on the mechanics of games in an attempt to win instead of more socially based games as it used to be. Or, perhaps that’s a stretch too far. I don’t know.) Sadly, in their attempt to achieve the first two of those, they sometimes fail at the third. However, I’m not going to talk about this a great deal right now, because only recently, the GM’s created the Balancing Committee, and I’m optimistic that this will be an effective strategy in reducing the number of broken games. As such, there’s not a lot I’m going to say about this, though if this continues to be an issue I may create a follow up post about this later. That said, if anyone else had something they feel should be added to the conversation about broken games, I’d encourage you to do so, because it certainly forms a piece of the overall problem.

So... In part I disagree that broken games have been on the rise. I think we have more games now, and therefore by default more broken games, but I don’t think the proportion has changed. I do think there’s been a change in perception and reaction - players actually notice when a game is broken, now, far more than they did in the past - I remember basically only Wilson talkng about them for a long time. And, also, people enjoyed said games despite the brokenness and essentially didn’t care. That has changed, and I don’t know why. 

(GMs creating new games is almost certainly not a resonse to players focusing more on winning. It’s because mechanics are fun and interesting to play with, and you always want to do something new - like in science. No one gets a Nobel prize for doing things a second time. )

Also, something Steeldancer made me think of - we probably have fewer broken games than we used to. Broken games are heavily correlated to new GMs - a lot of broken games are run by new GMs, and new GMs mostly run broken games, as I recall. And particularly very broken ones. Having more experienced GMs helps with this, as does the committee, as does having experienced co-GMs. Inversely, GMs having coGMed first also helps an awful lot. So those are things that we could encourage, perhaps? 

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What I am going to refer to is the tangentially related issue of non-standard games that I touched on in the paragraph above. To this day, I love non-standard games, as they’re different, and fresh. However, I love them because they are the exception to the rule, so I wonder if it’s a good thing that they become the rule itself, as, more and more, it seems to be becoming. Is there a responsibility of GM’s to try and make sure that non-standard games are the exception to the rule, not the rule itself? Is that the responsibility of someone else, like the new balancing team, or the mods? Should we let things be, or is that going to aggravate the problem of broken games and place an overly strong focus on mechanics - at the cost of making people view SE as a social game instead of something that’s interesting solely because of its mechanics. I’m divided on this issue - on the one hand, I like the relative degree of freedom that GM’s have in creating games, but I can also see the issues that might arise from it, so I’m hoping to hear everyone else’s thoughts on this before I make my mind up one way or the other.

This is something that I’m aware of - I belive Wilson or Orlok mentioned it to me initially. To this I have two responses: one, we’ve seen that this tends to come in waves - a lot of nonstandard and then a bunch of standard. Right now we’re moving into the latter, to an extent. LG39 is standard. The AG will be, and LG41 isn’t hugely different. The next QF is yours, and I presume given what you’re saying that it’ll be relatively regular as well.  Which is a fair balance.

My second response is that the mods/the committee is aware of this, and doing what’s possible to help with it. 

Very much agreed regarding RP incentives helping, so I won’t even quote that. Steeldancer’s point about it is also excellent. Games being fun helps. An awful lot. The more interesting/exciting/fun a game is, the better it’ll be for the community. This is something that can be done as GMs in a number of different ways, I think - things like Stink’s writeups help, for instance, or what Wilson did with MR19 with comics. Things like fun flavour help. Cosmetic roles and RP incentives, as well - anything to get players interested and invested, in a way that’s fun rather than incentivising winning. 

I wonder if there’d be a way to cautiously disincentivise winning in a game, without making that unplayable...? 

Right. Regardless. Those are my initial thoughts. Thank you for bringing this up, Bard. 

 

 

Edited November 8, 2017 by Elbereth

[Sart he/him]

In the end, these issues boil down to one simple fact. We tried too hard. In other words, we got too intense.

• We made some crazy awesome stories together, but because they were so awesome, they got more and more complex. Pretty soon, no one could keep up with it all, but we didn't want to break canon. And so, roleplay began to die.
• We wanted to win the games we were playing. We devoted hours to analyzing the thread, wondering who the killers were. We came up with new, more detailed analysis. We started keeping spreadsheets, charts, and writing all sorts of essays out of love for the game. But then, real-life got in the way. Our activity started slipping, but we didn't want to give up our current activity level. Our analysis felt worse and worse, and it quickly became too much effort to do our analysis. If we did post, we would always feel guilty, promising to do more and more analysis that we could never fit into our schedules. The most-repeated lie I've seen on this forum is "I'll do more analysis later." We don't have time to do analysis. The bar was raised way too high, and now even basic analysis has become a chore. And thus, we became more and more passionate, relying more and more on feelings and gut reads. And thus the games started to get personal, and with that came the death of camaraderie.
• We wanted awesome games to play. We started getting more and more creative, adding in new twists as we went along. We added in more secret roles, more complex mechanics, more new exciting ideas. The balls started to get too hard to juggle. Our games were either too complex, or too boring. We started relying more and more on repeats of past games, hoping to rekindle that spark. The games started to blend together. How many games can you have on Roshar and Scadrial without them feeling the same. Even if we tried to be different, and go for a new original work, not all the players would understand the world we were playing in. And thus, games became chaotic.

We wound up making it impossible to live up to our own expectations. It's no wonder a lot of people have burnt out on this game. We've been going for 4 years now. That's a huge accomplishment, but it's difficult to keep going. I don't know if we can actually fix this, but I have some ideas.

• Inactivity filters: We're not using these properly. Currently, we have mandatory filters on quick games, optional filters on mid-range games, and little to no filters on long games. That seems backwards to me. Long games are long, which means there is plenty of time for people to respond to the thread during a day or night. Furthermore, they drag on, which isn't helped when half the living players haven't posted in a week. This creates really boring situations. In contrast, Quick Fixes are over in a week or two. If someone goes inactive in those games, the game will be over before they know it. Because the game moves so quickly, it's easy to get lost, or miss a whole cycle. We can be more lax in quick fixes, but we need strong filters for long games, to prevent games from going a week after they should have already ended. I don't know why the inactivity filter has shifted to quick-fixes, but it is not a change I agree with.
  • In addition, we need to be clear about what kind of activity is acceptable. Just sending in an action is not acceptable, or responding to 1 PM, doesn't qualify as active to me. Counting that rewards lurking, which kills discussion in the thread. In the future, we should ensure that players must post in the thread to avoid dying. If we want to be even more radical, we could force players to vote for a player to avoid the filter. I'm not one-hundred percent on board with that idea, but it's something to consider.
• Player count: We're used to having games with 20 people in them, and a lot of games have been balanced based on that assumption. However, I don't think we have enough people to do that anymore. We've become a close-knit group, which means we're getting less new people than normal. That might change with Oathbringer, but as of right now, games are struggling to meet their quota. Because of this, people who really don't have time for the game sign up because they feel guilty and want to help. That only contributes to our lurking problem. The first Quick Fix game was run with only 12 people in it. I don't think we should put limits on the amount of people who can sign up, but we shouldn't keep asking people to join our games. We need to be flexible with player count, and be more comfortable running games with less people. This kills two birds with one stone. We get smaller games, so hopefully there would be less inactivity, and it would make the games run faster, which would help with our backlog of created games.
• Anonymous Games: I know of the logistical problems from this type of game. We don't want people running multiple accounts, up-voting their own posts, creating bot-nets. However, there's a lot of pressure when you're a well known face around here. If you're an Aman, or a Joe, or a Wilson, you're expected to make Wilson level or Aman level essays. That's just not feasible a lot of the time, and when you do manage to make enough effot, you wind up getting killed. My advice is simple: Play each game likes it your first one. Obviously, learn from your previous mistakes. However, commit to the activity that you can do right now, as if there were no expectations on you, and you were just starting out. Make some roleplay, engage in the thread, but don't get so hyper-competitive that you lose sight of your goals. Don't feel guilty if you're not doing as much as you used to. As long as you're contributing and having fun, then I'm having fun too.

Sorry for the rant, I just had to get that off my chest.

[Alvron he/him]

I'm not one for long winded posts or deep thoughts like those above.  I love them, but I just can't reproduce them as I'm a simple uncomplicated person.   As such, I agree with many of the points above by Bard, Seonid, Steel and El. Edit: and Sart.  I liked what Sart said too.  He just added it when I wasn't looking.  Sneaky, sneaky Sart.  I would quote them and go into more detail but then my first sentence would be moot and we can't have that now can we?   

Instead I'll just say that if you want to join the meta, then it's fairly easy.  Just create a character and play them.  Make up a backstory and see how it plays out over a game.  None of my characters set out to last more than one game but those that did are the ones that I really connected with.  Each one of my living characters embodies a part of me.  For example, Ratel is my scientific side that developed when I was young and Spock was a huge influence in my life.  He also contains my more curious about magic side that formed when I was a teenager and studied dark rituals like demon summoning and raising the dead.  It's an interesting mix.  Alv is my mischievous/pranking side.  I mean he did board up all the latrines and put laxatives in the chouta.   I think we all know which part of me Edaan holds.   Add a part of yourself to your characters and you will be surprised at how they come to life.  Once the game is over, if you liked how they turned out then bring them back, either for another game or even just a cameo in your next characters origin story.  Weave your own meta and it will join the big mess that everyone calls the narrative.  Seriously, it's just a big mess that many see as a whole instead of parts that fell on the floor together and look like something.

If you want a more direct line, then PM someone and work on a story together for a future game.  Heck, if you want, I'm more than happy to provide a list of unplayed Collective members that someone can use for themselves.  Or even help set up a RP meeting between one of my characters and someone elses.  Or even just help flesh out a character or two.

Now then, on to the part of having fun.  The tough part is that there is no correct way to have fun.  Some players love the part where they get to hunt down elims by analyzing posts and patterns.  Other just enjoy RP or being part of a group involved in the hunting.  Some elims enjoy trying to con the other players while others enjoy making plots and plans.  Even others just like to kill folks.  Everyone has their own definition of fun and every single one of them is correct.  The hard part is when they conflict with each other.  Those that like to go over every word looking for hints have a tough time with those that just want to RP.  There is no hard and fast way to correct this.  Instead everyone just needs to remember that there are other people on the other side of that screen you're looking at.  If they want to RP, let them.  Sure it might be a trick to hide their evilness but that's a risk you should take.  Nothing is more important than having fun.

Typecasting, heh, type, get it?  Eh, you got no sense of humour.   Typecasting is a problem.  Some players are known for their long analyzing posts but when they try to do something different like RP or just have a different kind of fun or just not post as often, even when they say so before the game starts in the sign ups, players tend to think that means they are evil and try and lynch them.  Or the elims themselves try and use it as an excuse for their votes.  That ruins the fun for that person.  I admit that even I am guilty for doing that both as a villager and an elim.  Even if it's a player known to be erratic, any time they try and become more serious and help the village, they tend to be ignored.  We had a player long ago Lightsworn Panda, who played the same character in every game.  Jain and his stuffed Panda.  He was by his own admission erratic like someone on crack.  He was great fun to play with and his RP was fantastic but he never really did any serious analyzing.  Until LG8, where he really stepped up and had the elims pegged.  Sadly though, he was completely ignored by the village which let the Kandra win.  We didn't even kill him until the last round as even with tagging us, he was no threat because no one took him seriously and joined his votes.  It's hard but the best each of us can do is treat each player as if they are new.  No preconceived notions or expectations.  No added weight to their words just because they've played a pile of games or found all the elims by themselves once long ago.  A clean slate for all players each game.

And finally, comradery.  Docs are a great place to talk to each other and really, really, should be used as such.  Over the years I have seen a sad decline of Doc use.  Spec and Dead docs used to be full of stories from both the game itself and about players lives.  Sadly these days the Docs are less lively than a graveyard during a thunderstorm.  Two games are running at moment and both Spec docs only really have the GMs and Mod talking in them.  There is the occasional part from a newly dead but it doesn't last long until they are sucked away to the Beyond.  Discord is part of the problem but it started before then as many became friends and started talking elsewhere either in PMs or over social media sites.  Sadly that lead to a big decline to Doc use and those that come in later find that after death, there is nothing.  If we really want to be welcoming to new players, we need to use the resources we have already.  I'm not suggesting getting rid of your PMs or anything, just be more active in the Docs.  Check in at least once a day and make a comment about the game.  It's not that hard is it?

Well shoot.  I only really wanted to comment on a couple of things but I seem to have rambled a bit.  That's alright though.  I'm sure no one is going to call me out on it and how it completely contradicts my first sentence.  Right?

[Elbereth she/her]

Alv, that was fantastic.  And probably the most I’ve ever seen you talk at once. 

I agree close to entirely with Sart, except for the first two bits:

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• We made some crazy awesome stories together, but because they were so awesome, they got more and more complex. Pretty soon, no one could keep up with it all, but we didn't want to break canon. And so, roleplay began to die.
• We wanted to win the games we were playing. We devoted hours to analyzing the thread, wondering who the killers were. We came up with new, more detailed analysis. We started keeping spreadsheets, charts, and writing all sorts of essays out of love for the game. But then, real-life got in the way. Our activity started slipping, but we didn't want to give up our current activity level. Our analysis felt worse and worse, and it quickly became too much effort to do our analysis. If we did post, we would always feel guilty, promising to do more and more analysis that we could never fit into our schedules. The most-repeated lie I've seen on this forum is "I'll do more analysis later." We don't have time to do analysis. The bar was raised way too high, and now even basic analysis has become a chore. And thus, we became more and more passionate, relying more and more on feelings and gut reads. And thus the games started to get personal, and with that came the death of camaraderie.

I personally don’t get the impression that RP stopped because the meta got too complicated. As far as I know, the last big spurt of it was LG14 before I came - and then LG15b was set on a spaceship, and while people could’ve played with a different setting, they instead weren’t sure what the rules were anymore and didn’t RP much. LG17 was similar, as I recall. Part of it, I think, is that the RPers left over time (Kas, Wyrm, Quiver, for instance) and not enough new ones came in to fill it up, or RPers lost time and couldn’t anymore (me >>) (though this is still backing up your point of “tried too hard” - people had the impression that it had to be something amazing, and that’s very wrong), or analysis became the focus and RP got discouraged. 

I don’t particularly see gut reads/feelings being a source of conflict. It makes logical discussion more difficult, yes, but it shouldn’t inherently be more problematic. I see it as a lack of friendship caused by other factors, not this one in particular. It’s a new idea, though, and one I’ll consider further. 

 

I am entirely in agreement about what Alv said about the meta, and “parts that fell on the floor together and look like something” is the best description of it I’ve ever heard. A few more suggestions if anyone’s interested: recurring characters, preferably ones that don’t tie to other universes/don’t exist outside the Cosmere - it’d be doable, but take longer to incorporate someone like Yoda than a character you build yourself, because people will think of that as a visitor rather than someone inherently in the Cosmere. Join a Shard game - those tend to have lots of opportunities for gaining magic Whatevers. Talk to me, Alv, Joe, Wilson, Orlok, or Rae (who are I think the main people but even then there are probably several others that would work equally well). Have someone react with someone else’s ongoing character (Locke, for instance, recurs in each game, and could easily (if arrogantly) interact over multiple games with another recurring character). Make your character fun, or interesting, and invest yourself in them so that you care about them. RP partners are wonderful for this. The meta is whatever people make it. 

I could not agree more with the rest of Alv’s post, and I’ll leave it there because I have nothing more to add to his points, except that I’ve considered in the past stopping Discord usage while in a spec/dead/evil doc, which is a possibility but not necessarily the right choice. 

TL;DR Alv is amazing; I don’t know why RP stopped; I’m not sure about gut reads causing conflict; and the meta is what you make it.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

All of these points are great, personally I find that the involvement of the GM in the game itself fosters activity, familiarity, inclusion and comfort. 

Kind of like what Joe and Aonar did during their whatsitcalled...Gunnerkrigg court game. I kind of can't wait to GM, you all are going to be crapped on pretty badly by yours truly.

I'd write an essay but I have tendonitis.

Edited November 8, 2017 by Darkness_

[Alvron he/him]

3 hours ago, Elbereth said:

Alv, that was fantastic.  And probably the most I’ve ever seen you talk at once. 

TL;DR Alv is amazing;

Really, not even half an hour before you called me out?  So mean. But I forgive you because you called me amazing.  While true, it's still nice to hear.   

Added to what I said about creating a character, don't box them in.  Once you have the basic outline of your character done, let them decide what happens next.  You are not them after all.  You can give them an object to overcome but it is up to them as to how it is done.

As for awards, make them up if you want one.  I have a nice collection of them and all but one were self given.  If you think you did something amazing then give yourself an award for it.  Or if you died in a really horrible, funny or unusual way, award yourself.

It only takes a couple of people to start something and before you know it, everyone wants to join in.  So if you have a fun idea, run with it..  Go on, be a trend setter.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

12 minutes ago, Alvron said:

Added to what I said about creating a character, don't box them in.  Once you have the basic outline of your character done, let them decide what happens next.  You are not them after all.  You can give them an object to overcome but it is up to them as to how it is done.

Oh yes, I'm all for discovery writing RP characters. (Always do that).

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Well, here I am, a week late to the party.

I agree with nearly everything that has already been said. Particularly with what Alvron said.

But, being a talkative sort (particularly late at night), I have more to say. Here is my $0.02 on several of the issues raised.

Metanarrative

I speak as somebody who has been here for around a year, and still hasn't the slightest clue what the collective is.

I will first say that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with having an extensive backstory. Often, a backstory helps unite people through shared experience. It isn't exclusive, because newcomers can start making their mark on the backstory once they arrive.

I think the issue here is more about community, and specifically collaboration. It doesn't really matter if you attempt to reset the metanarrative... Or if you start writing new RP that builds off the existing metanarrative... Or if you do something completely different. What matters is how you do it.

Again, I speak as somebody who fundamentally doesn't know what they are talking about.

But it strikes me that what you want to recapture is most nearly the sense of community. And, in the context of RP, I'm pretty sure that means collaboration. RPing on your own can be heaps of fun, but collaborating is even more fun... And much more memorable because it's a shared experience.

So, in conclusion... What can I do about it? I think I'd like to find a way to collaborate for some RP in the upcoming LG (if anyone wants to do anything please PM me ).

Also, I want to look into some methods to encourage collaborated RP in the LG I am currently designing.

Discord

I'm not sure about this.

Personally, I've had quite a lot of fun in docs before (my favorite was probably the informant doc with Alvron in the last reckoner's MR... That doc was probably my favorite part of the game).

On the other hand, it's probably true that the presence of discord detracts from other media. Activity in spec docs is definitely pretty low.

On the (third?) hand, it's not necessarily a bad thing that communications move from other locations into discord.

Again, I'm basically undecided on this.

GM Action

There are a few possible approaches:

1. Make in-game rewards to encourage certain behavior, like incentivizing RP as seen in LG30 and LG33. I have a lot of other ideas about this. I aim to test quite a few of them in the LG that I have in queue. Such an approach works particularly effectively in the more complicated games (such as aforementioned LG33).

2. Remember to run some games that are simple (and perhaps lower player requirements). While I love making new things, there are also some key advantages to keeping a healthy number of basic games in the mix. First, it doesn't require as much time. Different players have different levels of time commitment, and we should have games that are suited to a variety of time commitments. Second, it draws attention away from the newest innovative game mechanic, and back towards the players. Every now and then that can be helpful. Again, I'm not saying I don't like complicated games (because I seriously do)... But we need a good mix. I would suggest that QFs in particular should be much more barebones then they are right now.

3. Acknowledging players for doing things other than winning. I don't really know the history of the "paper plate" thing but it sounds like a reasonable idea.

In Conclusion

At the end of the day, this game is what we make of it. If you truly aren't enjoying the game anymore... You can either decide to stop playing, or decide to make it fun.

Play the game in a way that is fun to you, within the bounds of respecting other people. Shoutout to @Steeldancer for being particularly good at this.

And finally, always think the best of other people. That might sound naive, but I'm dead serious. If you are angry about something, you've probably misunderstood something.

 

...and it's getting quite late now, and I have an 8am class tomorrow. Goodnight. Hopefully I haven't said anything too dumb while I've been sleep deprived.

[Steeldancer he/him]

@Drake Marshall I would say I'm good at it because I messed up. I wasn't exactly respectful in LG34 and I decided since then to be better. So, thanks

[Alvron he/him]

11 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

Well, here I am, a week late to the party.

Metanarrative

I speak as somebody who has been here for around a year, and still hasn't the slightest clue what the collective is.

GM Action

Make in-game rewards to encourage certain behavior, like incentivizing RP as seen in LG30 and LG33. I have a lot of other ideas about this. I aim to test quite a few of them in the LG that I have in queue. Such an approach works particularly effectively in the more complicated games (such as aforementioned LG33).

Better late than never.  

The Collective is simply a group of my characters that have banded together with the goal of killing OW (Original Wilson) and/or take over the Cosmere and remaking it in their image.  I do intend to one day add a full breakdown on the Collective and it's members to the SEA but they are surprisingly difficult to pin down for questioning.

I personally disagree with this.  Incentivizing one type of play over another is not something that should be done by anyone.  Yes there is a sad lack of RP in games but catering a game or giving rewards that affect gameplay for one type of playing over another can and does lead to unbalanced games.  I'm not saying it breaks games but giving an advantage to one set of players over another is not an easy thing to balance.  It can also lead to the problems we already have, just on the opposite side.  At moment the players tend not to RP or they break from it when they are getting lynched/attention.  In a game that rewards RP, those that don't like to RP might decide not to play the game and if that happens to be the first game they look at playing, then we might lose a player that could be the next powerhouse.

Should there be more RP in games?  Yes!  Storms yes!  I love reading everyones RP.  Should players be rewarded for one type of playstyle over another?  No.  If you want to RP, great.  If you don't, then you shouldn't be punished gameplay wise for choosing not to.

The GMs job is not to decide how we play the game but rather to provide the setting and boundaries for us to play and explore within.  It is up to the players themselves as to how they play the game.