unforum

[SpaceBass]

Silent: Does this method help you answer your question?

[Silent|away]

Authorship: Yes
Ruleset: Yes. (Ruleset being, basically, "can the playerbase interfere or interact with the direction of the story". Hm.)
Coherence: Yes.
Presisent History: Yes.

So, this seems to fit with Eldritch Errors, and Mystery Dinner Theatre that you Videotaped and Posted on YouTube. Method #1 defines this game as an ARG.

TINAG is heavily inside this, so by Method #2, this game is an ARG, but I'm not so sure TINAG would...er...be a uncontested method.

If the guidelines are generally accepted, SpaceBass, then, yes, this does help my question. If they aren't though, well...

[Dominic1978]

Dear all,
I have not yet had the time to read through the entire topic.
But, something is bothering me from my own experience.

I am the PM for a current running game.

I stick to the rules as far as not posting in the topics that the players have created for my game. I do however observe.

During my observations I noticed something that nearly wrecked all my hard work.

A player had decided that it would be funny if he named himself similar to one of my charaters. This specific character has a specific type of speech.
The player copied that type of speech and thought it would be a "nice entry" for him. (Which obviously it was not).

What bothered me most was that there were players who (at least for a moment) thought that this person was actually the PM and therefore the PMs were not respecting the players (something like this was said by a day-one player).

The thing that bothered me the most is that while I am following the rules you put up for PM's, one player was able to nearly ruin my game, just by thinking it was funny to act and behave as one of the characters.

The player quickly stated that he has nothing to do with the game, but I wonder whether the damage might have been done already.

As for UN, I am wondering what I and other PMs could do to prevent something like this from ever happening again.

Should we contact moderators (who possibly play our game) and tell them "hey, this player here is causing confusion, can you do something about it?"

I was just wondering if this has happened before to anybody else.
I was quite pissed off by all of this and felt pretty helpless as I felt I had no way to counter this person's idea of a joke. Remember, your rules state that a PM can not enter the discussion, but this leaves us very vulnerable to players who either try to be funny, or don't know the rules, or simply trying to game jack.

as said, this might have been discussed, but I have not yet read through all the pages, I was just wondering if somebody had similar experiences and how they dealt with it. Cause after this person stirred up the controversy I can't help but notice that some day-one players seem to no longer play my game.

How to prevent something like this happening in the future and what could I have done (as I plan on doing a whole lot of future ARGs )


Sincerely,
Dominic

[ndemeter]

Gamejacking is nothing new unfortunately. Most of the time the offender is quickly exposed either by the creativity of the PM to work around them or even simply expose them through a meta site.

Your alternative is also acceptable which is PM'ing one of the mods or admins in the appropriate area (I am a mod for N&R for example) and we can make a meta post on your behalf informing players of what is going on.

Is it annoying? Extremely. Having someone piggybanking on your creativity is no better than having someone move in to your house because they like the area. But in the end I am sure you will find that if you overcome those obsticles your ARG will be fondly remembered for the awesome moments and not the feeble attempts at a gamejack.

[imbri]

As you state, there were players who thought that it might be the character - "at least for a moment". One of the great things about the collective intelligence is that it's quite good at figuring out the truth behind something. So, for a moment, a few people might have been taken in by the fraud but it was only for a moment until people were able to step back and think about it label it for what it was.

This is a skill that people need to use every day (there are even websites devoted to it), but which ARG players have honed quite well. Trust in that.

Now, as a PM, you should have control of key parts of your universe (websites, social networking places for your characters, etc) and, if the problem started to spiral, you have those resources to use to counter the misinformation through a variety of tactics.

These forums provide a space for players to have a similar control. They can gather and post their thoughts and information in an environment free from manipulation by characters and puppetmasters.

Now, I've got to commend you for following the rules and not jumping in the game thread and making a little stink into a big one. But, the next time something like this happens - let us know! We can help! It is against the rules for people to register multiple accounts. If someone registered a name close to one of your characters than they violated the terms of service. We can deal with that quickly, easily, and directly. Other problems and issues that come to our attention aren't quite so clear cut, but after all these years, we've gotten pretty good at dealing with the more common problems that come up.

[krystyn]

[Dominic1978]

Hi Nedmeter, Krystyn, Imrbi,

Thank you very much for your imput.
I am well aware that indeed through the game, the person would have been exposed (if he would have kept up his image), I was just dissapointed by the fact that players honestly believed that all through the game I remained professional and then all of a sudden I would pull a stunt like that.

On the other hand, I am a new PM, this is my first game, so I can not blame players for not knowing me or not knowing I would never do something like that.

Luckily, as was pointed out, the collective intelligence is amazing and I was very happy when I saw people stand up for me (not even knowing me) stating things like "The PMs have been professional all along, I do not believe they would blow it like this" (something along those lines).

Also, luckily for me, this specific person only meant it as a joke and fairly quickly stated that he is in no way involved in the game.

It was just that at that moment, it showed how vulnerable a game can be and how something that was meant as a joke could actually turn away people from a game I have been investing a lot of time in for a couple of months.

If it would ever happen again in this game or another game, I will contact a Mod immediately.

Thank you again!




As to add to this discussing about the sandbox model, without beating a dead horse (well, I think it has been stated multiple times, so sorry dead horse):

I can see why a PM would love to have believable characters that would seem to post here and then (shock effect) turn out to be characters in the game. I can see from a game makers view what would be cool about it.

BUT.... I say that the rules Spacebass provided are GOOD.
And why? Simply because if it was allowed to have PMs post as characters, then will a player ever know who to trust? Anybody suggesting a solution to a puzzle could then be an ingame character.
You would never know who can be "trusted" as far as discussions about the game itself. Also, for PMs the MAJOR downside would be that gamejacking would become very easy and likely.

So, as has been stated before, I consider Unforums a place out of the universe, a place where players at all time know that the info that is in the forums comes from other players and not from PM's trying to manipulate things.

So, from a PM point of view I can see why it would be cool to be allowed to post as ingame characters and have them so convincingly and then turn out to be characters (after all TINAG, right?), BUT I am realistic enough to know that after that there is no telling anymore about what is going on and who is ingame and who is a sincere player.

So, to the PMs who brought up this question/suggestion, coming from a newby PM: my advice would be to launch your own forum for your game, that way you can at least there post as ingame characters and cause a shock to the players when it turns out that that pretty girl who you sent naughty private messages to, gets abducted by aliens/murdered/turn out to be from atlantis/etc. etc.

I can relate to your idea, but I also see that it would be too short sighted to ever apply this to unforums. The great thing about Unforums is that it's a place for players to gather and play a game knowing that they will not receive manipulated info from within the forum (and if they do then it's coming from a fellow player and not from a PM).

So, all in all, I can see the requesters point of view, but it's way too short sighted and in the long term it would be devistating to UF.


Thank you very much for your support, in the short while in which I have been looking in from a distance I have felt very welcome. This is a great, positive community and I will never ever regret the time I have spent on my game for such a great audience!

Dominic

[Rogi Ocnorb]