I.

As many of you have noticed, it feels as though the game is more vitriolic than ever. Some of this is surely societal; COVID related, and the like, but largely I think it stems from a disconnect between the players and the game or—I should say—the ideology of the game. People argue with each other in discord, toxicity rises, and more and more often (as we’ve seen in other xpowers) declaims and in game actions are threats for meta arguments. This is one fault of the current state of the game, and something that nearly all players can work on. Too often people argue either with each other or a mod decision in discord general chat, and more and more unrelated people get involved, and then threats are levied and then more threats are levied and the situation gets worse and worse and worse—the players/mods involved ger demoralized and those who aren’t involved but have to watch the conflict become disinterested. This is fatal for xpowers games.

II.

The second major issue with the state of the game is one that we have also observed and noted in /r/GlobalPowers right now. Fundamentally, people are approaching the game in an incorrect way. That is to say, people are (wittingly or not) attempting to shift the core tenets of xPowers to be something they are not. At their core, xPowers are a form of role-playing game. They share traits with forum-based role playing games as well as table top role playing games. The core system of all xPowers is collaborative storytelling. It is meant to be satisfying for all involved, to build character (or nation) through interactions with other characters, and the moderators serve the role of gamemaster, ensuring that players adhere to the ideas of collaborative storytelling and also providing NPC interaction and working with the players to craft the storylines in a regulated way. People are increasingly failing to interact with this system in good faith if they interact with the collaborative-storytelling elements at all.

First and foremost, people are approaching the game as having “win-states” and “fail-states” – neither of these are the case. People are approaching the game with a binary, competitive mindset. In some cases, this is part of the Cold War packaging of it and may be in character. But at the same time, players should understand that the key is storytelling, not winning, and it is more fulfilling to tell a good story than it is to win. Players will one up each other and argue ad nauseum so their side can “win” in either meta debates or an in-game confrontation, escalating everything into the verge of the third world war, threatening nuclear annihilation and expressing a willingness to end the story so long as they come out on top.

Second, and this applies to mods as well as players, is a lack of a concept of failing forward. This relates to the previous point and isn’t as bad in CWP as it is in other xpowers, but it’s still a blight here. Any sort of setback is either met with complaints, argument, or outright departure from the game (often temporary). At times, mods will take any mistake on the players’ part and punish it severely. This is not to say that mod decisions are infallible or that mods sit on the throne of St. Peter. There is an avenue for complaints about mod decisions (see point III), but its rather about the concept of setbacks. Too often, people will try to win the binary and ensure the best outcome for their nation, rather than continue to roleplay and worldbuild with the setback taken into account. In fact, set backs are some of the best opportunities for interesting roleplay and worldbuilding, but the diarchy of binary win-lose scenarios and the debate bro culture of the discord leads to almost every setback being minmaxed in arguments with the mods to eke out as much of an advantage as possible or simply handwaved away and unaddressed.

III.

The third, and what will likely be the most controversial point, is a lack of respect of moderator time and moderator decision. Before you close the tab and insult me in discord, let me assure you that point IV deals with mod behavior so don’t worry. In short, there’s an issue in the game’s culture where mods are viewed (often times) as other players, and players that take umbrage with mod decisions will rush to argue and insult said mods decision, in an ad hoc rushed way in discord general chats, sometimes not even preparing their thoughts in advance. Yes mods make mistakes, and mod decisions should be reneged if they are in error, but at the same time mods are trying our hardest to make the game 1. Fun and 2. Function. Without entering a feedback loop with my point on failing upwards, sometimes mod decisions will “punish” players, or will favor one player over another. Players have, in the past, put pressure on mods to get resolutions, blops, NPCs, etc out as soon as possible and have lacked any sort of charity towards both the time it takes to get a resolution out and the actual content of the revolution. I’d like to urge players to refrain from screeching in discord if they don’t like a modpost, and instead use the ticket system or, at the very least, compose a single coherent message that outlines the complaints. At the same time, I encourage players not involved in a dispute to remain not involved.

IV.

Mods are overworked and underpaid (I pay them absolutely nothing). We are, like players, prone to frustration and prone to complaint. This section, addressed to my fellow mods, deals with how we interact with our frustration and the players. We get frustrated, I know it. We get harassed by players to do resolutions and then get just as much vitriol when the resolution is finally out. But there’s a few things that we need to keep in mind. Like I’ve said before, this is collaborative storytelling, and our job is to facilitate the gameplay and the roleplaying. Our role as mods should be to keep the game going forward (which is why we invalidate the over the top escalation to nuclear war we often see) and to keep the game fun and engaging for the players. We have had a history of arrogance; railroading players, dismissing critiques, or persuing our own view of a narrative and forcing players to adhere to a plotline we don’t tell them about. All three of these are still present, although I argue that we’ve done a better job at all of the above. That being said, we can do a better job. I urge my fellow mods to take a deep breath when we’re frustrated, and stress the idea of being gamemasters –don’t just shut down a players path, provide them opportunities to continue which brings me to my final point…

V.

Greece.

Oh Hellas.

:pain:

Much of this rant has been inspired by this conflict and the events surrounding it in discord. Mods and players alike have dropped the ball, and done most of what I’ve described above in this approach to it. I don’t have much to say about this conflict, other than urging you all to keep in mind what I’ve said thus far. However, I will say that the food situation has not been approached well by any side involved. When I broached the subject of famine in modchat, I intended it as another interesting obstacle to add more chaos to both Greek players roleplaying, an opportunity to try to figure the issue out and fix it and even do some good RP in the course of it. This clearly failed, as neither mod nor player approached it as I saw it. Perhaps that was arrogance, perhaps it was a consequence of how hands off I was, but what ended up happening was combat mods using the famine to attempt to shut down the Greek Civil War entirely, while players engaged in countless toxic arguments one upping each other to minimize the affects by flooding their claims with foreign aid, in both cases for the service of war rather than collaborative storytelling. Alas. Where we go from now is up to you, though the only change I’ll be making is that the coming famine isn’t going to stop the Civil War. The players wish to continue it and they can. But I dunno further than that…

so that’s just my rant idk yeah respect each other more, roleplay more, stop treating everything as a “win-lose” competition.