One of the biggest subjects amongst players and developers alike seems to be the mentality that most roleplaying games on BYOND are administrated by people who are... not suitable for the position.
In this post I will be discussing what it means to be an administrator in a game that enforces standards of roleplay, and why I think people take the position of an administrator in these games, even if they do not know how to roleplay at all.
First of all, most of these issues come from the anime gaming section of BYOND, and I think that there are subtle but still important differences between people that roleplay on strict roleplaying games and people who "roleplay" on anime based games.
Most importantly, I believe that a lot of people who pursue roleplay in anime games are after some form of wish fulfilment, and not so much trying to create an interesting story or develop a character with other people. I mean, who doesn't want to pretend they're the main character from their favourite show or book?
The problems here are that everyone in the game tend to be under the illusion that they are playing some form of main character, which just isn't possible in a roleplaying game. Sure your character is important to you, but they can't always play front centre stage. This causes a lot of drama, and usually just isn't a very good experience for anyone who isn't an avid fan of the genre the game is pertaining to.
This also ties into people becoming administrators in roleplaying centric games, even when they themselves can't roleplay. A man called John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton once said that "Absolute power corrupts absolutely", and this is true in this case. Most people, when offered a position that places them above everyone else, would grab at the opportunity, even if they aren't suited to the position at all. Why? Well, who doesn't want to feel important? a position of power means that your word is powerful, and you have the ability to decide what is right and what is wrong. This wouldn't be so much a problem if the head developers of the game were able to objectively deduce who would be good at being an administrator, but most of the anime games tend to be rips or barely-adaptations of older works, and as such the developer doesn't have the same kind of connection that a more serious developer would have with something that he built from the ground up, thus the kind of person who runs these kind of anime games tend to do it for the instant gratification and popularity factor, not to build a good community or get good roleplay.
Opinions, BYOND?
ID:114555
 Jun 15 2011, 7:03 am
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Jun 15 2011, 7:47 am
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ShadeCyberPlatinum
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UGH! Every time! I wish this would be cut in daily chapters! I have a small attention span!
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ShadeCyberPlatinum wrote:
UGH! Every time! I wish this would be cut in daily chapters! I have a small attention span! You may want to work on that, bro. The length of these posts is just fine, if not a little short. Let's not play to the lowest denominator of attention here. Administration on roleplay games could be seen as having two pillars, I think. There's a fairly pragmatic pillar, dealing with really obviously wrong actions, keeping the server ticking over physically, providing basic roleplay tools in the case of some pen and paper style games and so on. Fairly stalwart individuals are handy for these roles, but they don't exactly need to be a high-browed roleplay genius. Common sense rules okay, as far as dealing with obviously wrong input from players. The other pillar is more debating, to do with guiding direction and mediating those "main character2 wills you mention. Very much the role of the diplomat, I find. | |
It seems that this post is geared more towards Anime roleplaying than roleplaying on the rest of BYOND. Having developed a roleplaying centered game myself for the past five years, I don't see much of this applying to Hazordhu. The administrators on the server serve two purposes, and two purposes only. To serve as a mediator when someone calls grief, and to deal with bugs when they appear in the game. Other than that, they are free to do as they please, but are expected to follow the same standards as the rest of the playerbase. They don't enjoy the benefits of many games, such as beefed up stats and godmodding, and their activities are monitored by myself and Kai at all times. Hell, we even serve as the dieties which are worshipped as part of the roleplay, which means that even when something does go wrong, if an admin shows up to fix it, it can be rolled along as an appearance of an ael, and fit in with the storyline.
All around, I'm picky about the people who have an administrative position on Hazordhu, and it's remained relatively unchanged for the last few years. Some of those who are no longer admins even still play the game. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that being an admin (in my eyes) is not about being all-powerful. It's about helping to ensure that everyone can enjoy themselves and that any problems that do come up are dealt with objectively and appropriately. | |
I think it really depends on the type of game. When it comes to anime roleplay games like dragon ball z, there can only be one hero, or a few of them. So roleplay games don't work well for that kind of anime. However, it could possibly work for a roleplay game of Fairytail or One Piece. I say this because in these shows there are a plethora of people that are strong. Each person could easily see themselves as the main character because in a sense, they are. However in say DBZ there is always one main villain at a time, and one person to defeat said person.
Or maybe I just see it that way as those series are unfinished. | |
I agree with you, check the comments section of many Role Playing games and you'll see a few people saying, "Pleese help me, I was banned because "They" said I couldn't rp right." I can't stand it when "experienced" rpers suppress the people who are clueless. Their are literally no rp rules for new players to follow, sometimes no obvious rules at all, and admins love swinging around that ban hammer of theirs. Sometimes those "experienced" role players don't know that Role Playing describes what your doing and tells a story, it's not a contest to see who can drag out a simple punch move to span 12 lines or more. *Rod thinks he should punch Kenny and sends the nerves from his head down his body to tell his arms to lift and be ready for their next command.* Um..seriously? I don't care what your very nerves are doing before you sock me in the face and I don't like sitting there waiting 40 minutes for you to punch me, just so I can show my impatience and how annoyed I am, take this..*Kenny dodges*
We should teach the new guys how to Role Play and how it should be done on Your game. I feel for the people trying to play a game they think they like, just to accidentally get on an admin's bad side (Admin's personal affairs with people don't belong in the game and action shouldn't be taken unless rules are deliberately broken.) That's why I thought to have NPCs run most positions and have Story Tellers which are like admins without the powers to mute, boot, or whatever. (You can program guards to do those things automatically.) Story Tellers would be able to play different characters that may help organize people to the heart of the story and multiple Tellers would tie in together the heart of the story with different people. (Example: Star Wars, am Imperial Record Keeper. The major things the group does during their adventures could be written in the HoloRecords for anyone to read. Like a changing story book. You can read the chapters of other peoples adventures, then jump into the book to start your own chapter inside it.) The ideas still need more work, but it roots out the annoying GM problems. Sometimes the developer may be away and may not even know of the admin abuse. One decent admin highers a friend who abuses his powers, then he gets up and gets more hot heads to keep the players tied up under their power pyramid. | |