unforum

[MageSteff]

The 4th Wall - not crossing the line

[addlepated]

As a PM, it's your responsibility to maintain boundaries, not the players'. The character can cite technical problems, a real life crisis, anything to get off the hook. PMs have to be on their toes and ready to cope with the unexpected.

[Dionysus]

*raises his hand* I was one of the players mentioned... I'll let you know that we were actually discussing several possibilites besides it beign a character which included: a troll and a nonUF player who had issues UF perhaps.

Now of course we came to realize that it WAS a character, but we resolved not to do much about until we had evidence that could be constituted as 'in-game.' A number of suspecious comments for example intruiged us - for example CP's having been to the Maldives a rather extraordinarily obscure location. Only once our suspecions were restirred over a month later did we begin to try to interrogate this CP and.. then more IG type info was revealed that lead us to accuse her to Seth.

Now I LOVE the illusion of TINAG.. I'm one for blurrign the boundaries and if it wasnt for UF's explicit rules I would say you should have brough the character into #orbital.

As a player I did my best to 'ignore' the OOG evidence of PC not comign into #orbital. I tried to focus on the in game knowledge, of course that was, as they say, fruit of the posionous tree. Did it ruin the game experience for me? No.

In hindsight it is easy to blame easy PMs... to tell them they must plan for such occurances and have better 'excuses' prepared (I'm sorry but the whole browser cant open multiple chats was.. very weak, but understandble given that it was an emergent situation). Certainly, the PMs, as PMs, bear most of the laod, but is it fair to give them ALL of it?

However, I do feel the players bear some responsibility. According to the Tutorial , the 8th Commandment of ARGs is "Thou shalt not seek what lies behind the Curtain." As Players, WE (yes me too) broke that rule when we allowed CP's not comign into #orbital to make us ask "ooo Character maybe?" and then to influence our behavior. This part of the burden is ours and not the PMS

Ironically, it was our desire to bring new players into the fold that caused this whole mess. We assumed at first, as the PMs intended, that CP was a player and wanted to invite her into our world. It was purely meant to help.

SO how do we keep this from happening in the future? I see a few thigns that can be done

1) PMs.. now that we've seen it happen, be ready for it to happen in the future.

2) Players, perhaps instead of shoving an out of game channel at someone who seems to be new, we just toss them the unfiction link ONCE and resolve to LEAVE IT AT THAT. If the player is a player and wishes to join us they can or they may choose not to.. if its a characters, they clearly wont even go to UF.

3) This is a tough idea to sell, but I'll mention it: Maybe all actual puzzle-solving chat should be discussed on in-game channels of some sort(like is often done in Araya) and out of game channels shoudl be exclusively for dicussing META issues- ie who the PMs are, spec that invovles knowledge that its a game. Now many times in puzzle solving discuss, players need to mention other games they've played.. but its easy to discribe as other 'investigations' instead of games. I've done that in the Araya forums. This would allow such characters to blend in easier, while still maintaining a META space for those who like to have a 'safe zone.'

Personally I think 3 would be the best solution overall, but I doubt that it will happen. Would be nice though.

[Ofiuco]

Being one of the players involved, it took us a long time to catch on, so I think the PMs did okay on that one.

It certainly made the game more interesting -- suspecting that we had a spy in our midst. Because we had no in-game confirmation, we couldn't rightfully say it was a character. There were too many ifs.

I think technical explanations are best -- oh, I'm not a computer person, I can't download mIRC because this isn't my computer, my program has a bug in it -- because doesn't that happen to everyone on occasion? It's certainly the easiest excuse to manufacture, and the players can't outright deny it because what do they know about so-and-so's computer?
It might have seemed really obvious to the people on the other side of the curtain that Character A has been pushed to a boundary Character A cannot cross, but to me, in that specific case, it was iffy at best because we couldn't prove anything.

[Glecius]

There are many different scenarios that people could come up with for this, but in dealing with this specific situation my answer is the same as a player and a PM: Why do I owe anyone an explanation if I kindly decline an invite anywhere? Maybe I'm wrong or maybe people dont understand, but if I asked someone to go into an OOG room for certain reasons and they declined it gives me 2 options. 1- Accept it and let it go, or 2- Use that decline as an angle to base my thoughts and gameplay on.

Dionysus brought up Araya, a game I play as well. I went into #araya once, and will never go back. I was involved in another game, using that IRC room for the first week or 2 that Araya was coming together. One day I decided to go and check it out, see what was going on in there (if anything). I arrived to the 'warm welcome' of "What are you doing here? What do you want?". WOW, thanks for the loving entry music. I stayed for about all of 2 minutes in total room silence and left. Regardless of who I was or what I was doing there, why would I want to subject myself to that type of treatment? If asked to return, I too would decline simply due to the nature of the situation. It doesnt make me a character or player. In fact, it doesnt define me at all. Would I have noted the exact reason if asked, probably b/c thats just the type of person i am, but I also understand not many people are like me. A softer spoken person probably would make a different reason up as not to 'make waves', it just isnt me to bite my tongue.

All in all, I think PMs do need to think of things for these types of situations, however I dont think they need to figure iron clad ways to tackle each and every possibility. Its an impossible task for anyone to attempt. Players have to take responsibility for themselves as people, not just players. If you ask someone to go out with you and they say no, do you continue to hound them until they have thought of every possible conceived idea of how to say no? If you do, get help!!! Seriously, it seems to be common sense to me not to harass people, but again, maybe I'm just wrong.


Footnote: Dionysus' name in the paragraph regarding Araya doesnt imply he said it, nor that he was even there. I honestly dont remember who said it or who else was in the room, never worried about it. I simply used his name b/c he had mentioned the game previously.

[Dionysus]

I dont know much abotu #araya, I'm rarely there and was even less so in the begning (the ingame chat is run via its own client off the Araya webpage) but I am shocked and appalled that people talked to you like that.

As for the silence, thats cause we're all at the IN-game chat


As far as realistic solutions ot the problem at hand, I think Glecius is right about Player responsibility fo rtheir actions.

I jsut like my number 3....

[Ehsan]

In general, IRC breaks the illusion of TINAG for me.

I can't seem to convince myself that any characters are using IRC. I can't imagine that they are on some different futuristic communication system and we just happen to see their communication. The fact that they chose chat-solutions from the hundreds of servers out there also doesn't work very well.

So I'm with addie on this one, why do you have a character in a chat room in the first place.

[rowan]

Being one of the people who saw this original dicussion...

Maybe it's just because I'm pessimistic, but unless I can get an ingame confirmation of someone who claims in-game knowledge, I tend to suspect trolls. I've seen way too many people come in claiming to be something they're not, and I don't like giving them any sort of attention if I can help it. I guess I should have realized something was up after a few days when there wasn't a smackdown by the PMs (they had previously smacked down another trolling attempt), but by that time I wasn't going into the chatroom in question due to lack of time, so I ended up forgetting mostly about it.

I can understand people liking the idea that TINAG line is very fuzzy when it comes to characters like these, but as someone who has worn the moderator/op hat on many occasions, I don't like the idea of allowing trolls to have free rein over channels or boards for any length of time. It can take time to confirm the identity of the person (either as a character or a troll), and even 10 minutes can be enough time for a troll to create a lot of havoc in a room, or just get his jollies enough to continue his harrasment in another form.

Granted since CP only came into an IG room (I would have booted without question from the OOG one), all I did was urge the players to take what she said with a grain of salt, since there was no way to prove or disprove her story when this all came up. If the same thing happened in another game, I probably would issue the same advice. Just because people claim IG knowledge doesn't make them IG. When in doubt, play your cards very close to your chest until you can get some sort of confirmation from The Powers That Be. I don't see how it could hurt if you politely ignored an IG character for a few days while you worked out their standing in the game, but a lot of damage can occur in a short time if a troll is allowed to contaminate a game.

[MageSteff]

[Dionysus]

OC occured in my fantasy of Now, you mean.

*sighs wistfully* A rejuvinate program of space exploration....

We'd have Orbital Colonies by now if the public had maintained their Apollo/Mercury level of interest in NASA and the US Govt. had continued to fund them as they did back then.

*grumbles*

[Ofiuco]

If a character reacted the way Glecius might -- with justifiable indignation -- would this seem duly realistic, or would it just earn a boot from an op? As a writer, it makes sense to me for someone to have a sort of 'mind your own business' reaction, but being completely unfamiliar with IRC except #orbital and #unfiction, would it actually work?

[MageSteff]

[Phaedra]

[addlepated]

Just to clarify, I'm not totally opposed to characters showing up for chats. I just said that it's the PM's responsibility to maintain the boundaries between IG and OOG chats.

[imbri]

I also agree with the above questions regarding the believability/plausibility of IRC. However, I don't think that is really the issue here.

Steff posted an inquiry on the nature of the 4th wall and, while IRC was mentioned, there are many other areas in ARGs that deal with the 4th wall or the magic circle or the curtain or whatever other terms you want to wrap that in. Frankly, the issue is not with the players as some seem to pose. The issue is in control over the situation and maintaining the 4th wall, no matter how transparent or solid the PM team would like that wall to be.

As a PM you are asking players to trust you to provide an experience. That trust is not something that you should take lightly. As such, when designing an experience, you have to assume the worst will happen and prepare yourselves for that. That does not mean that you need exit plans for every possible scenario. But, if you take the story and the players to a point precariously situated on that 4th wall (such as chat in IRC or a live event), you have to assume that the players will attempt to push at the wall to see where it goes and it is your responsibility to be prepared for when that happens.

It's not because the players want to look behind the curtain, though they may. It's because it is human nature to test boundaries. It's how we learn to interact with our surroundings. It's ingrained in us from early childhood - just look at any toddler if you need proof of that. We're no longer toddlers, in our world. But we are still learning to interact with the world presented in the ARG.

It is not the responsibility of the players to hold back on their instincts or to play in a certain undefined manner, though they probably will play within a certain "code of ARG ethics." It is the responsibility of the PMs to protect that 4th wall and maintain control over the situation. That is part of the deal that you make with the players when they hand over their trust.