|| Hello! ||

Hello!

I've been keeping abreast of the phenomenal reddit posts for quite a while and I'm very excited to begin roleplaying with you all in the world of Avaria. 

I've been playing MOOs and Mushes since I first discovered they existed around 2014, when I read a certain essay. I've been quite obsessed with them ever since.

Beyond M*, I'm also a passionate player of table top RPGs, in particular Burning Wheel. In fact I intend to bring along my long-suffering Burning Wheel DM to play here. We've been exploring conflict & story-driven RP in medieval fantasy worlds together since high school. 

I'm really looking forward to exploring this world, but most especially the systems for collaborative storytelling you've built into it!

Hello, it's good to have you!

That's a very interesting essay. I came across this a long time ago when I was in college and it didn't stand out to me as much, but I re-read it a couple years ago when I was just starting to think about how to formulate rules and policies for online communities. I re-read it again when you linked it because it's always good to think about these sorts of philosophical issues. This was written over thirty years ago and we still haven't developed concrete answers to many of its questions, as a society.

Anyway, for here, we haven't formalized any rules yet, though we've got a couple drafts. We're hoping to sort those out through alpha phase (with, hopefully, the help of interested and experienced players). And when account creation is set up for public entry, there's going to be a quick agreement regarding basic common decency stuff. I'll be posting that on the forums too, so early-access players will be able to get a look at what they've implicitly agreed to by continuing to connect. 

The questions in the essay are especially interesting (and relevant to your experience) because they deal with the mental reality of virtual architectures, and it makes me also consider the differences in culture between tabletop games and MMOs (including MUDs) -- one is more of a social construct, whereas the other is more of a persistent virtual architecture. The persistence of the world that virtually 'exists' and level of hardcoded 'reality' means that in a MUD, the interplay between roleplay and mechanics tends to be more formalized than in TTRPG settings -- at least, this is true from my limited experience. I'm curious if you've noticed these kinds of differences in your experience, and what you think about it!

Looking forward to potentially catching you in-game -- before alpha starts, I'd like to get a headstart on fixing up anything extra that needs to be done for applications. I'd love to pick your brain a bit about potential ball games, and quickly code one that could be fun and playable, and discuss anything else that would streamline the entrance of your character into the 'real' virtual reality beyond the Faded Zone.  I'll be available all weekend so let me know if you want to schedule that at any specific time.

I have many friends to whom the idea of roleplay and fantasy are not appealing. They just can't get into that headspace, the childlike ability to believe in and explore other worlds of the mind, other aesthetics and conflicts and questions. I believe that Magic Circle is what connects not only M* and TTRPGs but even the humble capacity to speculate creatively about our own lives, from work to love to art. I think by virtue of being here we're all pretty passionate about that!

There is, of course, a considerable difference between each of those spaces of roleplay and imagination. If rules are broken and trust is betrayed at the table, in-person, social, and interpersonal consequences and navigation is instantaneous. Generally I play TTRPGs with close personal friends, it is a small fraction of the time I spend with these people so nobody's dying on a TTRPG hill. 

With dedicated roleplaying spaces, or persistent virtual architecture, we enjoy relationships that are entirely in character and held within that virtual space. Transgressions there break immersion just as much as strangeness across the table, but at the table we're snapped back to reality and it floods in. When immersion is broken in a virtual space...something is damaged.

This is all to say that I have experience with M* that run rampant with abuse and rulebreaking and each of those communities had voluminous rules on how to behave and operate for players and for staff. There will always be bad actors, but they cling to footholds in the systems that allow them to exist. Just like Mr. Bungle exploited the LAMBDA staffs inability to ban bad actors, or other power-players use systems to abuse new players.

I believe that the best way to prevent misbehavior and abuse is within the game's systems itself. Systems too bent on economics force players to prioritize the collection of money or goods while being unwilling to risk their possessions. Systems too obsessed with hard-line combat all but demand min-maxing to compete and generate what little story exists. Communities too dedicated to slice-of-life stifle story and mitigate risk to the point of stagnation.

"Balance isn't something you catch and hold."

Avoiding pitfalls is an endless back and forth. 

We were speaking in person when you said Song of Avaria was "not combat oriented." When I asked you how it was, you answered: "Story."

I think that is the best possible answer. It's simple, but it's to the point. Economics, combat, slice of life, these are all -tools- for telling stories. Too much of any one ingredient overpowers, but by keeping that north star of "telling stories together" I think we can build systems of not just code, but of community that put it above any one facet of this architecture. 

Focusing on systems balancing against one another already put you in a "competitive" mindset, which, if story is your goal, is already way off the mark. The trick is to get people to care just enough for the emotion to ride high, without tying that caring to some abstract notion of "success."

This is an ongoing conversation, and continuing it is, to me, a keystone of keeping that north star in our sights. So I deeply appreciate your having brought it up!

I thought a little bit about a good reply to this, but honestly all I can say is that I really love everything you said here (particularly that point you hit on about the true north of "stories" and why the mechanics of the game world exist). Focusing on community out-of-character is so important, especially at this starting stage, and I'm happy to have likeminded folks on board.