Fostering an Accountable Community

[Fyra]

Sarinda, your post is well thought out and really hits the nail on the head. While I'm not a psychologist, I am an elementary school teacher and understand the balance between applying consequences and providing rewards to reinforce desired behavior. In my classroom, I aim for a 4 to 1 ratio, at the least. I want to have a minimum of 4 positive reinforcements to every 1 negative consequence. I even employ the same basic philosophy with the parents of my students. My first interaction with the parents of my students is always positive, and I provide parents with way more positive information about their children than I do negative. It builds trust with the parents, and they are always very supportive when I call with some problems.

Players, even hardcore RPers, are not reliably using RPKudos to reward each other. This incentive is inconsistently applied. Furthermore, the rate of awards is very low compared to other ways of accruing "normal" QPs in game. You need 3 RPKudos to earn 1 RP QP (and I'm not even honestly sure if it's flagged as a "normal" QP or an RP QP). For people who know me, I pride myself on being in character almost all the time I am awake in game, and I constantly try to contribute to an immersive RP experience across all of my characters, and I have earned maybe 2 QP total across the lifetime of all my characters using this sytem.
In contrast, small-scale actions have the potential for some characters (e.g., Aes Sedai, *oL, I assume Kin) to have lasting, drastic consequences (e.g., docking Erulisse and Relena over 100 QP for killing Dragonsworn or Children of Light mobs respectively when flipping Baerlon), up to and including declanning or even stilling of a channeler character.

The above does a great job of showing why this is not currently happening in our WOT world. The consequences for messing up, sometimes without intent even, are FAR more heavy handed than the rewards for doing things well.

[Lyla]

I didn't actually know how the rpkudos system worked until I started reading this thread. Original announcement post for anyone who was confused like me. As Kitiara mentioned, the logging and posting is difficult when a small minority of players bear the brunt of reading/grading all of it, or when PK interrupts *cough* enlivens a roleplay session. This seems like a perfect way to reward small in-character interactions. If you RP with me in future, expect to get some of these.

I don't suppose we could add in-game help files? I remember doing this exact series of commands when I made this character and rented for the first time.

Code: Select all

* HP:Healthy SP:Bursting MV:Strong > 

The innkeeper tells you 'Did you have a positive experience with someone? Leave RPkudos or a pay-it
-forward note ingame, or a SHOUTOUT on our Discord!'

* HP:Healthy SP:Bursting MV:Strong > 
help rpkudos
No help available.

* HP:Healthy SP:Bursting MV:Strong > 
help kudos
No help available.

Another quick question. If you get two rpkudos and say pickup, what happens? I did so in clan rent and the roleplay mob told me "beep boop, math is hard..." so I'm guessing I had more than one, but less than three?

(Elysia, enjoy your two rpkudos while I tested syntax)

[Elysia]

Ingame help files are coding, unfortunately.

If you have 2 rpkudos, you can't pick them up. It looks for a tally of 3, then awards 1 rpqp.

Also, don't forget you can award 1 rpkudo twice for a slightly longer short interaction. I have awarded 2 rpkudos for logs that had been posted that were a short IC interaction that didn't merit 1 whole qp.

E.g. this might be 1 rpkudo:

KMG: Good day, Captain QG, I hope Queen Morgase is well? How fares Andor?

QG: *inspects KMG* The Queen is well. Andor will be well as long as a queen reigns.

KMG: The wisdom of Andor's queens is well know, as is its justice. Has there been much unrest lately?

QG: The realm has been quiet. The Seanchan driven from the village of Tarendrelle and the unsavory types who took up residence there are harried day and night.

KMG: Ah, that sounds excellent. Some roads are more dangerous to travel with my merchant train than others, but it is good to hear that Andor stays on top of the situation. Has the Shadow been quiet?

QG: A small amount were seen scouting the south about an hour ago, but they retreated back north.

KMG: Thank you for the information, QG. I will resume my travels.

BOOM, 1 rpkudo. And something a little more extensive would be worth 2, so just use the command twice. It's existence is especially for those small IC interactions that aren't noteworthy enough to post, while still giving people a way to reward for it.

Iirc it only works when both are online though, Lyla. I also think I added a message that "someone has left an RPkudo for you", alerting people that this happened.

[Chloro]

I can confirm you get a message when a rp kudo is left. I don’t think it’s the fact the people are not using rp kudo's and, Chloro as a character is living proof that if you build the rp, they will come. Rp qps are slow and steady, but what most are missing is inside clan rp. When is the last time Aes Sedai sat down as sisters and chatted about this or that, or queens guard shared a pint of ale and just had inter-action (these are examples). You can only go to Imm's so much complaining, before you need to look at the opportunities that are really there and capitalize on them. You each have your own clan boards and can start secret clan rp on a thread if you want. You have applicants that want to join, great rp their back story instead of just a letter (this has been fun with each of the girls I have inducted). However, this does imply that you get up off your backsides and log in to actually interact with people… That is the basis of rp..

[Sarinda]

I agree on the coding separate RP and normal qps issue, but I heard from Flash that there isn't enough 'slots' on player files to make things like custom master titles happen, so I would assume the same applies to a 'slot' for RP qps. Altqps are the only thing we can potentially use, something that has been discussed by Staff even, but that comes with its own set of challenges... Like excluding darkfriends from earning RP qps. Not that there's a whole lot lost there, they would lose the qps, RP qps and all, on remort, but the potential for outing would be there. "Oh, I didn't get any" because someone using their name in the wrong place, or a bug. Now, someone is suddenly under scrutiny and that someone could be an innocent too. If I could rig a solution to make this work, I absolutely would, but so far I have not found the ideal solution.

Yeah, I figured this was nigh impossible. I know anything with coding should be our last suggestion when it comes to effecting change, but I figured I would share my thoughts on it anyway.

RP log of the month is something I considered, but in the past it just meant that people would post some 'meh' thing if there happened to be a month with very little posted. I actually considered doing a bonus for the best log(s) of the month, but I also notice that many people still get stuck in the day to day that isn't exactly outstanding.

This is tricky, because having the opportunity there could actually result in more people wanting to roleplay to earn a chance at the reward, and this could lead to a good thing too. You could consider creating an "RP Log of the Month", but say that only RP logs that meet a minimum threshold of RPQPs awarded would be nominated for the vote. Another option that I know you've used before is to grant double RPQPs or bonus RPQPs if the scene meets certain requirements, like including people from a certain clan, holding a scene in a certain zone, or talking about a specific topic.

It would also be stupidly skewed towards Tower, because so much roleplay happens in Tower clan rooms, not out in the open, which is something Staff have been trying to troubleshoot on the side. Also, if Roberto says that he didn't get awarded for assisting with that class, that's a whole problem unto itself. *mutters something about Servants of All, not just the Tower*

It's interesting, but when I look at what you're saying...Isn't this a sign that the White Tower is being successful at your goal of being active in roleplay? I'm obviously a little biased because I've given a lot of my MUD time to the clan in some way across alts, but this clan seems to be working hard to reinforce roleplay in so many positive ways. The Tower RP forum is overflowing with logs, people are often in character together, you need RP QPs to advance to rank 7 or 8, and I would guess that a majority of the characters who have earned RP Rank 5+ are in Tower. And because the ranks are informally time-gated, reaching rank 5+ as a newly shawled Aes Sedai is still a really meaningful accomplishment in the game.

Now, if your goal is to make sure that Tower is actually RPing outside of Tar Valon and out in the world: I completely agree, and I think you do that by offering bonus RPQPs for various subjects or in specific areas, and rotate through each month. And then you could also tie in random mob raids, recent master quests, or rotating PK bonuses to those areas (e.g., bonus QPs to logs posted for kills that occured in zones surrounding the same area).

Could you elaborate on the last one? Because options are limited, basically chill and blind (yes, we would like other options, but those have been in the queue for years now), and aside from the result being that smobbing is easier, I'm not seeing the connection here.

Forgive me, it was getting late by the time I finished writing that post, so I am forgetting some of the ideas I had in mind. But you could make certain shops only let certain "lords and ladies" through who had earned a certain RP rank, akin to the special shops where you need treaties or 20 gold to enter like in Caemlyn. If mobol can require specific character names or clans, you could even have various rooms in different parts of the world where only a handful of people can enter (e.g., Aes Sedai but need to be RP Rank 5+, or Queen's Guard only but need RP Rank 3). And then you could have discounted items there, or you could plant a rare item somewhere on a smob in the world but the person with RP Ranks could enter this room and get a hint to where it is for insider knowledge. I feel like you could use this kind of system to flesh out a semblance of Daes Dae'mar more. Just some random thoughts I had.

[Alison]

This is by far one of those posts where i read each and everyone. My head hurts.

Note: Sarinda is super smart. << That post . Wow.

Anyways. For Rpkudos. cant imm create a char named RPkudos and you can do this in the middle of your day.

Eg Tell rpkudos,' Sarinda is super smart, she helped me realize that red is a stronger color than white."

Let that then create a save log file of everything that the char rpkudos receive and let rpkudos reward all the names in the list before the mud reboots. This way it doesnt require extra coding and helps with admin for rpkudos. I also agree 1 :1 ration is better than the 3 :1 ration discussed.

Another wild idea is to train LLM on all of the mud history. Everything up to this point. Even all the logs on the forum and then grant said llm ai access to monitor the mud 24 seven.
Log on as imm. "Greetings, Ai. Give me a quick summary of the last day or so in the mud"
"Certainly. Alison chased down a squirrel for looking at her weirdly, Draz confesed to the mud that he can do stuff"

Wild idea, but LLm are here to stay and the technology is relatively easy to set up.

As for Draz. Cant we finally agree he's the muds version of figuring out sheet and not punish him for everything that he does. If the dude figures out a bug, let him run it. But not get qps for it? Allow him to be the Black sheep of the mud and exploit dung so that it gets the attention it deserves.

Finally. all the points brought up in this thread has some merit and deserves conversations. Lets foster communication as this will help the growth of this world.

[Sarinda]

Ingame help files are coding, unfortunately.

If you have 2 rpkudos, you can't pick them up. It looks for a tally of 3, then awards 1 rpqp.

Also, don't forget you can award 1 rpkudo twice for a slightly longer short interaction. I have awarded 2 rpkudos for logs that had been posted that were a short IC interaction that didn't merit 1 whole qp.

E.g. this might be 1 rpkudo:

KMG: Good day, Captain QG, I hope Queen Morgase is well? How fares Andor?

QG: *inspects KMG* The Queen is well. Andor will be well as long as a queen reigns.

KMG: The wisdom of Andor's queens is well know, as is its justice. Has there been much unrest lately?

QG: The realm has been quiet. The Seanchan driven from the village of Tarendrelle and the unsavory types who took up residence there are harried day and night.

KMG: Ah, that sounds excellent. Some roads are more dangerous to travel with my merchant train than others, but it is good to hear that Andor stays on top of the situation. Has the Shadow been quiet?

QG: A small amount were seen scouting the south about an hour ago, but they retreated back north.

KMG: Thank you for the information, QG. I will resume my travels.

BOOM, 1 rpkudo. And something a little more extensive would be worth 2, so just use the command twice. It's existence is especially for those small IC interactions that aren't noteworthy enough to post, while still giving people a way to reward for it.

Iirc it only works when both are online though, Lyla. I also think I added a message that "someone has left an RPkudo for you", alerting people that this happened.

Just FYI, Ely, you actually did make it so you can award RPkudos for offline characters. I think this was mostly for all the Tower folks who needed to grade RP logs. You posted about it here: viewtopic.php?t=14187

[Elysia]

Just FYI, Ely, you actually did make it so you can award RPkudos for offline characters. I think this was mostly for all the Tower folks who needed to grade RP logs. You posted about it here: viewtopic.php?t=14187

Wow, I'm better than I thought.

[Jeia]

On my bimonthly(ish)(sortanotreally) check of forums I had a read through of this.

Preface: In my short stint back early this year I was determined to do the Tower process. 'I can do it!' I told myself. I couldn't. Tower RP is an acquired taste that's for sure.

The Tower is very RP focused but I don't believe it's a good benchmark to use. There's an abundance of RP logs and whatnot because you have to have those logs to progress through the system. 95% of it is RP for a purpose, not RP for the sake of RP. It's a great system for fostering new players to a certain point, but it's mostly a drag in my experience.

In all the clans in all my time, CoL in their heyday were the best examples of that organic 'all the time in-character' RP. Somewhat one dimensional for sure but being in that clan was it's own ecosystem with regards to how you had to play while remaining inside the box the clans RP put you in.

Someone touched on it earlier, a strong clan identity with good buy in from the player(s) is what generated that natural RP. Alongside CoL think Eagles, QG, tear vs illian. That sort of thing.

What's eroded it over the years in my view is the blurring of the character identity with the players identity, since most everyone knows everyone and all their alts in the diminished world base.

It makes it exceedingly difficult to buy into the fantasy of the mysterious Aes Sedai/drunk Red Eagle/whatever when you've spent the previous half hour talking about xyz in discord main lounge with the player behind the character.

Its an unpopular opinion I guess because it equals work for the imms, but the only times in recent history I've really seen people buy into RP is during imm run events/quests etc. just as Feneon indicated.

The game is like a party without a host in a storyline sense, everyone milling around not exactly sure what they're supposed to be doing. Guess go look for PK again?

Not at all saying it's the imms fault but there's a good wedge of clans with literally nothing to do that's specific to the clan they're in and it's RP.

The world state is so static that for most it no doubt already feels pretty played out. When there's no tangible outcomes for anything roleplay wise it robs the player of the exact 'agency' you're referring to, especially within their own clans let alone anyone else's clan.

So, with all of that mind and to speak to Feneons conclusion. There needs to be a jumpstart that encourages players to want to buy into the clan, and I think treasurer's were/are great for that. Let players spend resources to upgrade their clans in whatever format that would look like. Tangible investment fosters pride in the product.

Think RP rewards but for clans themselves and not the individual player

[Elysia]

It's interesting, but when I look at what you're saying...Isn't this a sign that the White Tower is being successful at your goal of being active in roleplay? I'm obviously a little biased because I've given a lot of my MUD time to the clan in some way across alts, but this clan seems to be working hard to reinforce roleplay in so many positive ways. The Tower RP forum is overflowing with logs, people are often in character together, you need RP QPs to advance to rank 7 or 8, and I would guess that a majority of the characters who have earned RP Rank 5+ are in Tower. And because the ranks are informally time-gated, reaching rank 5+ as a newly shawled Aes Sedai is still a really meaningful accomplishment in the game.

Now, if your goal is to make sure that Tower is actually RPing outside of Tar Valon and out in the world: I completely agree, and I think you do that by offering bonus RPQPs for various subjects or in specific areas, and rotate through each month. And then you could also tie in random mob raids, recent master quests, or rotating PK bonuses to those areas (e.g., bonus QPs to logs posted for kills that occured in zones surrounding the same area).

There may be RP going on, but it is not very inclusive, because it's taking place out of the way. It's not solely the subject matter that excludes others either. In the past I have had interactions on non-Tower alts about stuff likt he Ten Nations, or White related things, Daes Dae'mar, male channelers. So many Tower subjects pertain to things that happen(ed) out in the world. A Red Eagle coming across a conversation of history or diplomacy may have some things to say, which would spice things up tremendously, which would make the interaction so much more interesting for all involved, while also being more inclusive. I think the Tower could improve vastly there. I don't want to take the step of downing Ajah rooms, but yeah... Maybe sticking one of those call-mob mobs like CCS has in TVCS might help.