(MUCK) What's a Wizard For?
I've had a couple totally different discussions of late which have caused me to consider just what a MUCK wizard should be for.
Technically, a wizard in MUCK terminology is a character with a wizard bit - a flag that allows a greater level of permissions than your standard user. Exactly what those permissions are depends on the MUCK in question. Usually, wiz bits are given to staff, which is a non-technical (in that in doesn't mean anything in and of itself to the code of the MUCK) posting, in order for them to do whatever they're appointed to do.
On Furryfaire, a lot of characters have wiz bits, and not just the people appointed to staff positions. The bit allows access to the wizard chat channel, it allows access to commands to manually alter sheets (required reasonably often due to the finicky nature of the system), it allows building of rooms (I'm actually unclear on if we have a builder bit in use, but I know it exists elsewhere), and it allows "clean" spoofing. That's one way to implement it. Most wizard/staff characters are people's primary characters, with two or three exceptions that aren't on-grid, active, roleplay characters at this point.
Now one person I talked to favored the wizard system in use on Tapestries. Disclaimer: I have next to zero personal experience with Taps, so I'm going on what I was told here. Apparently, their wizard characters are generically named (WhiteWizard, BlueWizard, etc.) and not used for direct roleplay. This means that the wizard characters themselves are relatively anonymous and only exist for official duties. There's some benefit in that, as it's harder to show favoritism from behind a mask of anonymity.
But to me, that seems more a function of the MUCK itself. To my understanding, Taps is free form and themeless, where any RP done between players with certain theme and rules is agreed upon by the players. In that sort of environment, it makes sense for wizards to serve only as technical staff. They don't have to maintain any consistency in the game because there's no expectation of it, they merely have to make sure everything's running and be around to adjudicate serious inter-player issues.
Most MUCKs I've been on don't work that way. They're smaller, single, persistent worlds. In such a setting, you can't be so completely hands-off, or players will trample all over the theme and continuity, and there won't be any consistency between any of it. In this sort of situation, it seems to me that there has to be some staff (whether wiz-bitted or not) involvement to maintain the setting.
Usually, this is done with the staffers' normal/main characters - they make their first character the one they like the most, and that character tends to get any wiz/staff flags and be used both for RP and for management. I don't think I can name a single MUCK I know that was both fully-themed and used "anonymous" wizard/staff characters.
Now, just because it's common doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. MUCK staff are also almost notoriously prone to bouts of ego, whether before or after their appointment. With power comes responsibility, and the people who care enough to make things happen tend to have strong opinions on things - that's just the way it is.
But would it actually help for wizard/staff duties to be performed in "shell" characters? I don't know. It might take some of the ego out of the equation, but I wouldn't count on it.
But what should wizards really be doing anyway?
Well, my ideal setup involves mechanics that don't require staff intervention for overseeing rolls, or editing sheets (save in "emergency"), or even building rooms (though perhaps oversight of builder bits and quotas). That would render several of Faire's staff positions obsolete right there.
- But I do still feel there's oversight needed as far as theme, setting, and reaching repercussions. I think there should be someone, or a team of someones, in the position to tell players "No, the peace-loving neighbor kingdom was not just subverted entirely by demons and decided to invade last night" or "No, a meteor does not fall from the sky and annihilate the tavern." The problem is deciding where the line is between allowing players to run their own scenes and being sure they get approval before doing anything that will drastically alter the MUCK for everyone. See, the trick is in that "drastically". I'm not sure how to best define it, but were I running a MUCK, I'd certainly have to try.
- I also feel wizards/staff need to be around to resolve conflicts. Not "I swing a sword at Character X" conflicts, the rules should cover that. Rather, "Player Y is being an asshole" conflicts. Get enough people together, and it's bound to be necessary sometime.
- You need a wizard to manage the MUCK's code. At least for setting it up, but it would always be nice to have a coder on-hand to investigate any errors that come up or make any alterations to the systems in place as necessary. (Sadly, the only real coder I know I have troubles getting along with.)
- One or more wizards are necessary to manage other privileges. If there are quotas or builder bits in use, someone has to decide who gets those and make sure they're properly used. The appointment of other wizards/staff members has to be handled by someone.
- You'll want staff to be able to answer questions. I'd hope for a rule system that's not too arcane, but questions will come up especially among new players. In many places, this is the lowest tier (in terms of access/privileges) of staff, known as helpstaff, and doesn't require wiz bits.
And... and... I don't know. I can't think, off-hand, of anything else you'd need people to be doing if things were otherwise working. And most of the stuff I mentioned doesn't (or shouldn't) even technically require a wiz bit, just the official authority to do their jobs.
Am I really missing anything?
Technically, a wizard in MUCK terminology is a character with a wizard bit - a flag that allows a greater level of permissions than your standard user. Exactly what those permissions are depends on the MUCK in question. Usually, wiz bits are given to staff, which is a non-technical (in that in doesn't mean anything in and of itself to the code of the MUCK) posting, in order for them to do whatever they're appointed to do.
On Furryfaire, a lot of characters have wiz bits, and not just the people appointed to staff positions. The bit allows access to the wizard chat channel, it allows access to commands to manually alter sheets (required reasonably often due to the finicky nature of the system), it allows building of rooms (I'm actually unclear on if we have a builder bit in use, but I know it exists elsewhere), and it allows "clean" spoofing. That's one way to implement it. Most wizard/staff characters are people's primary characters, with two or three exceptions that aren't on-grid, active, roleplay characters at this point.
Now one person I talked to favored the wizard system in use on Tapestries. Disclaimer: I have next to zero personal experience with Taps, so I'm going on what I was told here. Apparently, their wizard characters are generically named (WhiteWizard, BlueWizard, etc.) and not used for direct roleplay. This means that the wizard characters themselves are relatively anonymous and only exist for official duties. There's some benefit in that, as it's harder to show favoritism from behind a mask of anonymity.
But to me, that seems more a function of the MUCK itself. To my understanding, Taps is free form and themeless, where any RP done between players with certain theme and rules is agreed upon by the players. In that sort of environment, it makes sense for wizards to serve only as technical staff. They don't have to maintain any consistency in the game because there's no expectation of it, they merely have to make sure everything's running and be around to adjudicate serious inter-player issues.
Most MUCKs I've been on don't work that way. They're smaller, single, persistent worlds. In such a setting, you can't be so completely hands-off, or players will trample all over the theme and continuity, and there won't be any consistency between any of it. In this sort of situation, it seems to me that there has to be some staff (whether wiz-bitted or not) involvement to maintain the setting.
Usually, this is done with the staffers' normal/main characters - they make their first character the one they like the most, and that character tends to get any wiz/staff flags and be used both for RP and for management. I don't think I can name a single MUCK I know that was both fully-themed and used "anonymous" wizard/staff characters.
Now, just because it's common doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. MUCK staff are also almost notoriously prone to bouts of ego, whether before or after their appointment. With power comes responsibility, and the people who care enough to make things happen tend to have strong opinions on things - that's just the way it is.
But would it actually help for wizard/staff duties to be performed in "shell" characters? I don't know. It might take some of the ego out of the equation, but I wouldn't count on it.
But what should wizards really be doing anyway?
Well, my ideal setup involves mechanics that don't require staff intervention for overseeing rolls, or editing sheets (save in "emergency"), or even building rooms (though perhaps oversight of builder bits and quotas). That would render several of Faire's staff positions obsolete right there.
- But I do still feel there's oversight needed as far as theme, setting, and reaching repercussions. I think there should be someone, or a team of someones, in the position to tell players "No, the peace-loving neighbor kingdom was not just subverted entirely by demons and decided to invade last night" or "No, a meteor does not fall from the sky and annihilate the tavern." The problem is deciding where the line is between allowing players to run their own scenes and being sure they get approval before doing anything that will drastically alter the MUCK for everyone. See, the trick is in that "drastically". I'm not sure how to best define it, but were I running a MUCK, I'd certainly have to try.
- I also feel wizards/staff need to be around to resolve conflicts. Not "I swing a sword at Character X" conflicts, the rules should cover that. Rather, "Player Y is being an asshole" conflicts. Get enough people together, and it's bound to be necessary sometime.
- You need a wizard to manage the MUCK's code. At least for setting it up, but it would always be nice to have a coder on-hand to investigate any errors that come up or make any alterations to the systems in place as necessary. (Sadly, the only real coder I know I have troubles getting along with.)
- One or more wizards are necessary to manage other privileges. If there are quotas or builder bits in use, someone has to decide who gets those and make sure they're properly used. The appointment of other wizards/staff members has to be handled by someone.
- You'll want staff to be able to answer questions. I'd hope for a rule system that's not too arcane, but questions will come up especially among new players. In many places, this is the lowest tier (in terms of access/privileges) of staff, known as helpstaff, and doesn't require wiz bits.
And... and... I don't know. I can't think, off-hand, of anything else you'd need people to be doing if things were otherwise working. And most of the stuff I mentioned doesn't (or shouldn't) even technically require a wiz bit, just the official authority to do their jobs.
Am I really missing anything?
I, for one, am not sure why for purposes of maintaining internal consistency it has to be a player's personal W-bit character instead of a shell (as you put it)? Why not have "JudgeWiz" the W-bit character designed solely to handle interpersonal OOC disputes? "CodeWiz" only there to build and create code for the mechanics and there to solve bugs and make patches? As for building, restricting builder bits is a good way to keep size down and maintain consistency in exit depiction "(W)est" right next to "up" for example looks bad, and a builder Wiz can fix that on the fly without the neccessity of the original builder's permissions. Also, if a player gets recycled but their rooms were important to the consitency of the muck (say they built a tavern that remained popular and in use long after they had last logged in) a Builder Wiz can take posession (or even pass it off to the God Object Wizard.)
ReplyDeleteWell, on the first point I have two comments. One, I don't think duties of judging consistency or disputes even requires a wiz bit to begin with. You only really need that if things escalate to banning a player or something, and that care be transferred to a higher authority in such cases. Two, I'm not convinced of the benefit of anonymous shell characters with a smaller, more focused player base. I'm not strictly against it, either, but on Faire (for example), the player base is small enough that a lot of alts are known, and would be even if wiz characters weren't personally named. I don't think it would do much to assuage allegations of favoritism were I using "GearWiz" instead of "Mika" to do my staff duties. The idea seems to make you feel better, but I don't really see why. You do have a point as far as building and ownership of rooms. I suppose you can't let players have fully free rein in that area unless you're willing to lose areas if they decide to leave. I'd still shoot from something in the middle, though. There would have to be some oversight and management, but I would ideally like to encourage players to make their characters' shop or temple or whatever without requiring handholding by staff every step of the way.
ReplyDeleteBuilder bits can be granted as long as it takes to make the project and then removed later, keeps excess building down, but does call for a Wiz in the first place to be pestered for the granting of permission and if someone new wants to make someone else's place their home (In the case of a player making an alt to be a brother who just moved in) then usually a builder bit is required to make the home linkable. As for the shell name, you're forgetting the part of it I liked, anonymity. Mika would be your RP char, without a W bit. GearWiz is your W bit responsibility, but no one would know that you are the player of GearWiz except the person who appointed you, (which should be God Object) and should you wish, GearWiz can be passed off to someone else should there be an issue, either with some form of abuse or just not wanting the responsibility any longer. (And naturally, with the passing off of "GearWiz" there'd be a password change and maybe even a run down of ownership to check for malicious code that can transfer ownership of MUCK objects to your non-W char)
ReplyDeleteI'm not forgetting, I'm just not... placing much value in it, I guess. Some people would know and/or guess who played the wiz character, especially if I were to participate in staff discussions via the wiz character. And in my vision, there should be staff discussions, whereas that's not really necessary on Taps.
ReplyDelete