Problems Pt. 1

Too many people get into this for the wrong reasons. You shouldn't be starting a game because you're angry at another game, or because you think you can do it better. The only reason to start a game is to provide people with a place to be creative and have fun. Any other reason will just be impetus on a long slide into debacle and corruption.

Sadly, this is a cycle that has been occurring since the idea of running these sorts of games online first cropped up. Granted, I wasn't exactly active in the community then, but I was at least aware of it and have discussed those times at length with people who were there. It seems to me that in the last decade or so of playing in these games, we've really made very little progress on creating a sustainable system of play and play management.

I'm going to list some common issues, later entries will discuss them at length. They are in no particular order.

1. ST/GM/DM Burnout
Inevitably, there are too few people trying to run the game for too many people. Part of this is the idea that for a GM (that's the term I'll be using as I find it the most generic) to be effective they have to sacrifice twenty or thirty hours a week to the game. Another part is that GMs are not properly trained. I have never seen a game that had a training program or period for GMs. In addition to this blog I am in the process of writing a "ST Training and Management Guide" geared toward World of Darkness chat games, although many of the ideas expressed in it would be useful for any system. I'll post portions of it here occasionally.

2. Cynicism
People have been trained by failed game after failed game, by each corrupt ST and each immature player. They have been taught that in this online environment, you can trust no one. They have been taught to approach games with utter caution, lest their hard creative work and desire to have fun be mercilessly mocked. They have been taught that no one can seperate IC from OOC, and we must either band together into flocks of vitriolic hecklers or tread silently through the virtual world, maintaining careful mediocrity to avoid notice. This is a shame.

In addition to retraining our GMs, we must retrain the players into realizing that we are a community. When we encounter a bad player (yes, I believe there are good players and bad players, and you should too), we shouldn't knock them down further. We should offer our aid. It only takes a moment, and its not only beneficial to them, but to you as well. Everything that improves the game you're playing in is beneficial to you, and more quality players means more quality play.

3. Metagaming
Some metagaming is good. For instance, if I and a few other players in a Mage game want to create a cabal together, we're going to have to talk OOC about the goals of that cabal as well as IC. We're going to have to create situations where our characters will meet and bond, which requires OOC manipulation of the game. These are good things, they add to the game.

Some metagaming is bad. Sometimes a bunch of players create a clique in order to maintain control over the game. Sometimes this happens because the GMs and Admins aren't doing their job, sometimes the players are just jerks. Its easy to tell whether metagaming is good or bad. If the metagaming benefits only you personally, its probably bad. If the metagaming benefits the game as a whole, then its good metagaming.

Just as frustrating as people who do metagame are people who don't. People who refuse utterly to consider any IC action from an OOC perspective. While I laud their immersion, I observe that this just really causes hassles. Do we really need to RP out the minutiae of my character calling yours to organize a coffee date? Is staying true to your character worth leaping at that other character's throat and triggering a mass combat that will serve little purpose but to annoy the people who busy doing other things? Is staying true to your character worth causing OOC strife amongst your friends? Sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes no. Its a hard line to discern.



There are many more issues, but these are three big ones in my opinion, and the first I will be writing about at length. I've introduced some basic ideas and solutions above, but will be elaborating on them in future entries.