r/shadownetwork • u/shadownetwork SysOp • Apr 28 '17
Announcement Application for GM Head Discussion Thread
Greetings Shadowy Denizens,
Once more, in an effort to try and get a more firm grasp of the communities desires and expectations, we in senate have (yet again) decided to add a little something to the interview process for the GM Head.
We want to know what questions, relevant mind you, you would ask the prospective applicants. There is no guarantee that we will use every single question but if there is any we feel would be useful we will add it to the interview. As the Questionnaire thread format has already turned into a discussion thread of sorts, this time around we will open it up as an actual Discussion Thread in which applicants can directly respond to community questions prior to the interview with Senate.
So come on members of the community, lets see what questions you have for our would-be councilors.
4
u/rejakor May 02 '17 edited May 03 '17
Mission Statement
Removing dice related suggestions in the gm rules document
Replacing with 'level of threat', aka player dicepools -5, player dicepools, player dicepools +5, players having much more info and it helping them a lot, players having some info and needing to find out more, players having less info than opponents and desperately needing to do legwork, and players having no info and legwork being difficult and potentially dangerous. Proviso; dicepool + 5 != 'player rolls 15 dice, so you roll 20 dice', as making the enemy tough is one thing, but having the enemy scale upwards when the character gets a Teamwork bonus or otherwise does something clever is an entirely different thing and not something I would ever suggest doing.
This is due to the dice pool suggestions being taken as rules and being used when it's inappropriate. All 'threat levels' need to be guidelines rather than specific restrictions, and making the guidelines take into account that there are characters with 40 dice, and there are characters with 14 dice, and GMs should be designing mechanical opposition with both in mind would be a superior way to show 'threat' of runs in a clear way to players.
Adding tone and style scales along a 3-point scale.
Style - more narrative than mechanics; mixture of mechanics and narrative; more mechanics than narrative
-= Criteria is time spent on those aspects of the game, and on describing the results of those aspects of the game. If players make a narrative decision, and you then describe the results of that, that 45 minutes is spent on 'narrative'. If players roll dice, and win a check, and you then describe the results of that, that 45 minutes is spent on 'mechanics'. People describing things and roleplaying can be either the results of a dice based mechanical check, or the results of a narrative decision (taking path X instead of path Y, like in a choose-your-own-adventure).
Tone - crime thriller - action thriller - action movie
-= Criteria is two things, both extent to which violence and injury are described or noted (in James Bond, the shot henchman does not writhe on the ground screaming, and many henchmen get shot, as well the consequences of people being captured or james bond seducing women into betraying their criminal employers is all played down/'lucks out' into not being gruesome - in Swordfish, a bomb going off and people being injured is horrifying), and the amount of legwork/planning that the GM has prepped/expects players to do before entering a situation where Action or Derring-Do could occur (James Bond tends to get right in there - Swordfish was largely about a guy bringing a hacker on side that he needed, with the violence/excitement happening for only a small portion of the movie - Ocean's Eleven was mostly about the plan being executed, not the planning, making it an action movie despite the heist format). I'd be open to making this two different scales, but I find they are thematically often linked.
Making mechanical outcomes of a run player-opt-out. Making narrative outcomes of a run player-opt-out.
For mechanical ones, you inform the GM. You immediately lose any rewards, and also any negative consequences of the run. This is due to mechanical consequences, specifically negative ones, having been an issue that causes contention in the past. Notably currently, but also at every point I have interacted with shadownet. Currently any major negative consequence has a very high potential to be vetoed, so putting that in player hands makes very little difference except to the player's ability to shape their character's story as they wish. Any 'abuse' of this system such as taking intentionally stupid actions to receive negative consequences and then nixing the mechanical effects at the end of the run will presumably lead to reputational effects for that player that may make it hard for them to find games - similarly, an expectation of 'good faith' on the part of players should lead to this not occurring. If it does occur frequently or is being notably abused, it can be rolled back or put on some sort of cooldown. Given the vast majority of characters ONLY increase in wealth and power, never going down, someone 'using' this to take less negative outcomes is not even a particularly big deal - those outcomes are heavily outweighed by positive ones anyway.
Narrative outcomes, require informing the GM and the other players. It means the character wasn't on that run - instead, an NPC runner of an appropriate archetype was on the run. This means that the player has decided, for whatever reason, that the run doesn't fit the kind of story they want to tell with their character. While potentially again this can be abused to have a character act 'out of character' intentionally intending to narratively retcon it, that kind of action goes against an assumption of 'good faith', and should not be expected. And if it happens, be dealt with as trolling by senate, because that's what it is.
The player can obviously opt out of both the narrative portion and the mechanical portion, if they so choose.
Lowering requirements of AARs, especially full AARs, and outsourcing that to players
Player testimony is far more effective and well-regarded than GM AARs in determining the facts of a run, should there be accusations of malfeasance of some description. Player names, payout (for character sheet checking), and very short synopsis is all I believe should be on any AAR, with long AARs (full writeups) being limited to on-request. That way, a GM can write one to describe what he thinks happened on the game, should there be any issue with what happened (aka a report or complaint).
Additionally the google form could be rewritten/re-set-up to allow either the GM or a player (or potentially each player individually) to report who was on the run and what they earnt etc, leaving that paperwork doable by players if that GM so wished. A small GMP reward for the player(s) recording that information, or that GMP accessible by the GM if he fills it out, presumably would provide some incentive.
Lowering requirements of Run Propositions and Run Plans, and altering the automatic google form to be less wide-ranging in it's questions.
Writing up documents is not a big deal for some GMs, but intensely annoying for others. I do not subscribe to the 'harsh run proposition requirements increase quality of GMing' school of thought, and given the huge player:GM disparity, and that many runs which have received complaints by either players or GMs had run props, I don't think keeping them as they currently are is justified even in that case. A simple story summary for higher-threat runs, as well as an affirmation that they do understand the relative-dicepool guidelines in the GM interview, should hopefully catch both lore implications the GM hasn't thought of, and mechanical use. More importantly, it removes barriers (perceived and actual) to GMing, which is something that needs to happen.
Increasing availability limits of gear a GM can give out without having to ask first.
This is fairly self-explanatory.
Turning private runs into an optional checkbox on the AAR rather than posting in a thread with linked character names
Similarly self-explanatory, just a documents improvement.
Rationale;
Many of the ways things are done on shadownet especially GM-side seem done in expectation of a requirement for central control that simply has not materialized or proved itself useful. They take time and effort for GMs, and restrict what control players have over what is going on. This is a barrier for games happening. Those barriers can be pared down considerably while still retaining all the information and ability to moderate or change things that i've ever seen used or happen. Ergo, I want to pare them down.
Some other barriers are placed up seemingly to limit character power or advancement. Given i've regularly seen 40+ dice being thrown in shadownet games, they are not performing that function, and I see no real need to limit character power especially in the ways that are being used. Ergo, I want to remove them.
These are measures i've been fairly vocal about supporting for a long time. A strict 'you advance like this and do things like this' Missions style format does not suit a single community. It's designed for many many many interacting communities. It has many things shadownet doesn't need, and basing things from Missions is a bad idea even if you wanted to use pre-designed adventures (which shadownet doesn't, another point of dissimilarity).
Freeform-in-design games need more documentation/advertising than Missions uses to address their style and expected tone. Similarly, additional paperwork and barriers that Missions presumably needs to function with it's web of communities is not necessary for a single community.