Odyssey - Aurora's Gamemode Revolution

[MattAtlas]

15 hours ago, greenjoe said:

Will there be the possibility of multiple storytellers in one round, working together to help each other out? That may be useful to help spread the workload of managing the tools in that case

Not planned right now

[MattAtlas]

Submit your mission ideas here for a chance to see them implemented for release: https://forms.gle/uEXE3WataiZZ52i56

[TheMaskedReader]

Hi! I really love this idea, and I want to collate my sort of thoughts and critiques, based on the document, here at the moment.

I think, personally, the biggest flaw I see with this system, as others have pointed out, is that the emphasis is placed on the Storyteller to generate the idea and create most of, if not all, customization. However, the other problem I see is that the Actors are given much less freedom - When they are going to be, typically, the much more accessible and on-the-ground improvisational RP role that the players are going to be interacting with. I don't think this is the intent, mind, but I think a lot of clarification and specification on the roles played by Actors OOCly will be an important part of making this work. My ideal vision of this would be, rather than the Storyteller as 'DM', the Storyteller as something of an officialized 'antag head', with the Actors and Storytellers working collaboratively and through existing tools of AOOC to weave a good story as a team, rather than the Actors either thinking they can't do anything without the Storyteller's say so or the Storyteller being domineering over the Actors. It's, again, not something I see as intentional or desired, but I think it's very important to ensure that the Actors and the Storytellers work together as motivators for a story rather than as directives being handed down from on high. Some of the most fun I've had has been brainstorming collective ideas with a Merc team, and eventually landing on this one gimmick that everyone's really excited about and has good ideas for - And I think ensuring that energy is replicated will go a long way towards ensuring that Storytellers don't get burnt out and that people play Actors for the sake of having a good time, rather than it being viewed as similar to what Antag currently is.

Another thing I want to bring up, in this gamemode revolution, as it were, is rethinking or revamping the way in which we treat antagonist OOC communication. Some people have suggested that the Storyteller/Actors should be able to let the ship know OOCly when they're prepped and ready, but I think we should go a step further. AOOC, in Mission Briefing, should become something of a 'backstage' - Obviously, restrictions apply - Don't use it as some sort of team comm to fuck the players and go "CAPTAIN AT MAINTS RUSH RUSH RUSH" or something, but I think that moving away from the idea of IC disclosure via AOOC being 'metagaming' is important for ensuring that Actors and the Storyteller remain on the same page. By utilizing AOOC to handle things such as pacing, timing on twists, and information awareness, not only will it will keep verisimilitude intact by never having to go "why is the Marshal on the same comms channel as the Evil Hostage-Takers and where'd he come from when their ship is the only one that docked" (to use a random, meaningless example), it'll also encourage a more collaborative and honest environment for the Actors to ensure that they're all aimed in the same direction: Making a good story.

Finally, something else I'd like to emphasize as something that should be pushed for heavily during development/testing of this gamemode, is the encouragement of the majority of the crew to come along, to avoid the 'expedition'/'offship' problem of silo-ing/limiting of 'slots'/'why should you come' sort of thing. While obviously, restrictions apply, and the Storyteller can (and should) tailor scenarios for certain departments, I think that pushing OOCly and ICly for all crew to be allowed to come, perhaps by expanding or adding shuttles/ferries of some kind, is important, especially as the server grows - A lot more people play Aurora now than back when I started, and it seems to only be growing (hopefully)! Ensuring that players both mechanically can come along to engage with the round, and won't be punished ICly for doing so, is going to be a key part of "is this fun", in my opinion.

There's definitely more to be said, but that's most of what I've got at the moment - To wrap it up, great idea, I love it, and I hope it works out for the best.

[Rabid Animal]

I had a thought and it might be a hot take.

Would we consider implementing a rule that, outside of extreme circumstance, no more than 1-2 officers can leave the Horizon, and at least 1 officer has to be on the Horizon at all times? This Horizon doesn't exist to crawl into dangerous holes for the fun of it, beyond the idea that if these missions are to be part of the exploration gimmick, the expectation (even if not reality) should be that while these missions might not be the safest thing, they don't need 8 guns following the exploratory / repair / negotiation / what have you teams. Beyond all of that; security exists to protect the ship, abandoning ship does not serve to do that. If this is completely unacceptable; An alternative, to me, would to be allowing ghost spawn pirates to attack the horizon - its no longer a suicide raid if all of the security department is off on an away mission doing whatever.

This is an immediate fix to the security ending rounds early, while also providing incentive to actually play other departments, ideally helping the new mode have better, longer, interactions.

 

Also another question; if this role is to be whitelisted, and we run into the same issues of not enough people signing up for the role, whats the plan there? Remove the whitelist? Default to secret when no one is available? 

[DeadLantern]

2 hours ago, Rabid Animal said:

Also another question; if this role is to be whitelisted, and we run into the same issues of not enough people signing up for the role, whats the plan there? Remove the whitelist? Default to secret when no one is available? 

For this question, in the doc, it says that the “Missions” gamemode can still run without a storyteller, with the actors joining in as usual.

[Rabid Animal]

Ah I must have missed that, alright 

Edited April 17 by Rabid Animal

[MattAtlas]

On 17/04/2024 at 15:21, Rabid Animal said:

ould we consider implementing a rule that, outside of extreme circumstance, no more than 1-2 officers can leave the Horizon, and at least 1 officer has to be on the Horizon at all times?

I think this wholly depends on how players will play during the gamemode, not something I would consider without seeing Odyssey work in practice.

[OolongCow]

I'm still working through a lot of this, but I'd like to quickly comment that an idea I don't think has been suggested is implementing a system whereby canon roundtypes can be either canon or noncanon, and if the exact same mission has been canon recently, automatically swaps to noncanon. This way we dodge the "this is the third Golden Deep merchamt we've saved this week" issue without requiring admin intervention/announcements.

[Shadow]

From what I have read and hear about thi, it seems like a great idea in theory. We'll see how it plays it. I wish you the best of luck trying to implement this!

[Estutes]

I rarely post but this deserves one, as I've just come across this post.

This is an absolutely excellent idea. I haven't played in ages due to me getting bored of the lore cycle for reasons that I don't think belong here, and the antag gameplay loop which was rather repetitive and never really liked, but this might see me coming back. This along with the changes I read a while back about off ships are in my opinion good changes (haven't seen them in game so can't comment further).

It's definitely a step on the right direction, HRP means things are canon, and Aurora being HRP, that's what I want from it.

The described issues in the doc are in my opinion well identified which is just half of the whole picture: the solutions proposed being the other half which makes for a neat concept makes me expectant to see implemented as it sounds really really good. I loved seeing the concerns of other players which in many cases are concerns I share, but the "let's try it out and see what sticks and what doesn't" is in my opinion the perfect approach.

From this point on I'm going to make a lot of assumptions and personal of different things that I'm not presenting as fact.

A crucial aspect that has been adressed and I'm excited about is that the gameplay loop and the level design won't be focused on balance for antags: I think the setting in which a game operates under is crucial for it to be believable. I belive that for setting to be believable, things around the player have to be reasonable and with purpose. Even when they are not, reasonable or with purpose, it still needs a believable explanation e.g., mismanagement, mistakes and/or strategic decision-making. But the idea that the setting must be believable prevails.

This leads to my second point: we should be okay with losing while at the same time not afraid of winning (whatever that means) as It's not a matter of winning or losing but a matter of creating an interesting, believable, engaging story. I define winning as "I did what exactly my character would have done in these circumstances in a believable setting" which in my opinion is a win-win scenario for everyone in a HRP enviroment even when this leads to death. We should be okay with characters dying as well as we should be okay with the consequences of such events for the crew and the setting. A problem I had with how the gameplay loop was in the past (from my very personal p.o.v.) is that a lot of the thought process of the level designer went into "how do I keep everyone for destroying everyone every time" while also a lot of the thought process of the player went to "how do I keep things interesting for the other player" which in my opinion led to everyone auto-throttling down their intended actions which in turn created a vicious cycle where other players see you throttling down your actions and go "hm, I should go around this oblivious peaceful character that I would otherwise would have done XYZ to them or do XYZ actions"... By lifting this responsability from players shoulders which was a standarised thought process for everyone and moving them to the game master/mission which may have absolutely wacky or different expectations on what should or shouldn't happen in a certain situation allows for a lot more interesting scenarios as the mission/GM may not have your safety or well being in mind when deploying the scenario but instead may have a more "challenge" approach which in turn may shift this mental frame in players minds from "I gotta play my character while keeping things interesting to the other" to "I gotta play my character while completing the target objectives". And because this is a more of an In Character decision (whether if or not, or how to complete target objectives) this opens up the possibility for people to play in more interesting ways as now the consequences of their actions have plenty of IC consequences other than the OOC "bruh you steamrolled sec" or "did you really bomb med lol" as those things may now be reasonable things that an antag/canon contender may want to do to achieve its goals... Whether or not that is within the boundaries no longer is on the players shoulders.

In more broader terms I think security, antags or canon contenders shouldn't be limited by the perceived effects of their own actions but instead of what is expected from them which in turn creates a more natural, realistic and believable action/reaction and RP. In the same way areas shouldn't be designed with the mental framework of "how would a ling interact in here" but instead "what would be the most realistic and useful approach". This doesn't mean removing the balance factor from the picture but instead shifting the balance factor from "we need to make everyone stay in the loop for as long as possible" to "everyone should play their characters the best they can" which accidentally will increase the ammount of interesting situations that happen.

For security specifically I detect several broad issues related to antags (there may be more):

1.  Never understood why security are expected not to be nosy or not to prevent problems before they become actual real problems or at least that's what I gather from reading many people.

2.  Their actions many times are absolutely out of place which often lands them dead, most rounds being non canon means they face no real consequences while at the same time this is totally expected as they are to directly engage dangers that do engage back.

3.  Just as a physician is expected to treat life-threatening injury or sickness, or an engineer is expected to repair ship integrity inmediately, security should be expected to act on anything that violates corporate regulations or raises reasonable suspicions as... that's their job.

4.  We have shifted from (pre NBT) antags doing what exactly their role entails to their absolute limit and security in response doing the same... to antags exploring more broader areas of action, gimmicks and RP while having a very hard time hiding what's essentially a red strobe light on their head on the eyes of security with anything they do (sometimes even existing), which then stops gimmicks completely. I  have a hard time finding a reason for this phenomenon but a first guess is that most players have exhausted antag gimmicks within the boundaries they are willing to go by, Aurora is HRP and people want canon stuff more than ever.

In my opinion Odydssey has the opportunity to fix these issues or revert them, as for 1. security can now actually be nosy and not mess anyones gimmick, 2. their actions now have consequences, 3. they don't have to auto-throttle and 4. security can go to their limit as well as anyone they encounter can do that too.

One thing that has been adressed by @DeadLantern 

Quote

From MattAtlas's document, it does not seem like canon briefings will be the majority, and I automatically presume canon events will be less intense/less lethal due to it being canon and Storytellers and players subconsciously or consciously playing it more safe. Additionally, I think most players would prefer the second option over the first option. I prefer chaos and conflict roleplay and stories happening over many rounds over... nothing, which is the status quo, from a canonicity perspective. Aurora needs a change, and if the change is too much, that will still be preferred over no change, which has been the state for the entire time I've been playing.

I think this is a wrong approach. We should embrace canon chaos and even possibly lethality as part of the gameplay loop, just as the consequences on the crew (death? morale? strike?) as part of the reality of facing these dangers. People conciously avoiding harm to their characters during canon rounds is unavoidable. If we are comfortable with the fact that anything could happen to our characters as well as the ship, even to the point of becoming a derelict temporarily or even having to swap ships then it will allow for a lot more interesting RP. This does not necessarily mean more deaths but a looming danger of absolute catastrophe shouldn't be seen as bad from a gameplay perspective. New regulations, and ship procedures can be put in place "to manage" what would be these IC issues (deaths, morale, employee complaints, insubordination...) or even events. New ways to deal with what would otherwise be lethal problems the crew may face can be engineered by the players during gameplay to prevent and face dangers that in the past would have resulted in deaths. We should get rid of the auto-throttling down our behaviour that I mentioned earlier and be open to more uncompromising tactics as well as be responded with those if it comes to it. Crazy fast and stupid example to get my point across: a canon ninja whose objective is to steal the captains hat shouldn't be concerned by having to knock out or kill a witness to achieve its objective other than by the characters morality/mission objective/strategy the same way that if it comes to it, the ship may see no problem in engineering a securitron with c4 to blow up the ninja other than concerns of morality/mission objective/strategy/corporate regulations... And even then: inflicting on those morals, mission objectives, strategy or corporate regulations would have consequences on crew morale, budget/equipment/central complaints, failure or even an investigation from internal affairs!

The level of richness that this could add to the RP by being open to these possibilities and that not everything needs to be predetermined is infinite. Being comfortable with the fact that the playerbase under this given leeway may generate a situation that would lead the Horizon to a point that we wouldn't have predicted or even outside of the previously thought boundaries would be absolutely insanely cool. And even if taking this idea to this extreme is undesirable, having this idea as a point of reference I think is a net positive for the overall RP quality.

I had a lot more ideas for this post but they have banished and It's late for me to look for them. Hopefully they come back lol.

What's yet to come looks promising, many people to please and different views and opinions to turn them positive, It'll be hard but worth the effort. Thank you!