Modding Best Practices: One Player's View

[gorckat]

There is a surprising amount of variation among mods in the way common, reoccurring actions and events are handled. I've played enough games to see a range of good through bad ways of handling each of the events I'm going to look at.

In each case, I describe what I consider to be the "ideal" method of handling the event/action. Since I've never modded, any criticism is welcomed and encouraged, if only to help me understand why some people do things less than "ideal".

In a few of these cases, I've considered asking a mod how they do things at sign-up and /in-ing or not based on the answer.

1) Vote Counts

Vote counts belong in their own post. It makes reviewing a game's voting trends as easy as selecting the mod's name in the View Posts by Player boxes.

Some mods edit them into the first post of each page. That's nice, if they also exist in a way I can find them when I want them. If I want to see if the same person is 4 voting someone, or who never left a particular wagon or whatever, I don't want to spend time looking at each page and either writing info down, Copy/Pasting vote counts or (as is usual) trying to remember the details and flipping back and forth when I can't.

2) Role/faction/name reveals

In the first post and in death scenes, give all public info together. Most mods do this, but I have seen death scenes that gave a role/name without alignment and vice versa. For clarity, I like both.

3) Confirm when a night action is recieved

This was suggested in a recent MD thread. I've been scum and woken up to no deaths and frantically PM'd the mod wondering if my partner had sent a kill (as we had agreed on). I can imagine all roles wanting to know that there action was received ok.

In the case of role-blocking a cop, or any other role that expects info, something like, "No result obtained" should be sent as well. Some roles won't know if there action worked (either because they don't know what they do, or a "passive" ability like protect or kill) until the next day, and even then it might not be clear (if SK and Mafia kill the same person, did one of the kills fail? Better left unsaid.)

4) Deadline info

A deadline should be issued via its own mod post, not edited in to another post. Editing it in to another player's post is just

mean

. When a deadline is issued, note it in the thread title, if possible. It helps me decide what games to look at if I have limited time. It is also nice to have it in the first post, at least in cases where it doesn't fit in the thread title.

For explicit clarity and prevention of any confusion at all, deadline details, including time and timezone, date and a pointer to/restatement of deadline lynch rules (typically the rules post unless they were amended or stated later), should be in the issuing post.

5) Prods

When player publicly requests a prod, acknowledge it when the prod is sent. Personally, I feel a player picking up the prod is public info and should also be stated when it occurs.

If the player is silent, says he's lurking on purpose, or says he will post- that can remain between mod and player. If he requests to be replaced, then announce that, of course.

Discuss.

[gorckat]

If a player picks up the PM and doesn't respond to it or post, though...within about 24 hours of that happening, the mod really has to make a decision if this constitutes a choice on the part of the player to lurk, or a choice not to play at all (requiring replacement). I'm not convinced that if it's the former, the mod needs to tell the players, as it would be mod confirmation that the player has chosen to lurk as a strategy. That said, I'm not sure how to get around that entirely.

That revives the age old debate of whether lurking is a valid (or acceptable for the health of the metagame) strategy. If a mod will confirm that a prod was sent and when they are looking for replacement players, then it should be deducible when a player is lurking.

If they meet players that far, then let us handle the dirty work or /outing players that don't want to play

I always ask the mod whether I can send a "Just in case" NK choice.

I've done that, but in cases where a roleblocker exists, it may matter who does the kill. I've sent "X is killing Y" when expecting to get blocked and its been accepted.

[gorckat]

To extend a few of your points... what do people think about the mod editting player posts ever, to answer questions in the special mod formatting, or fix obviously mistaken tags?

The one game that comes to mind with the mod editing answers to questions into posts in ABR's Mini 486 (iirc). I recall looking back to see the answer to a question or three that was asked, but couldn't remember who asked it, so I had a bitch of a time finding the answers.

Quoting the question when posting the answer would be the ideal. 1) It puts the info in the mod's "stream" when other players look back and 2) It makes it easier to see quickly who asked it (versus having to go back to the post, scrolling up nad maybe paging back to find the query).

[gorckat]

# This is the only one I disagree with. I'll usually acknowledge that I've seen a request for a prod, but it's between me and the player whether or not they're lurking or have disappeared. Even pro-town roles have reasons for doing this at times, so it's not playing favorites to the scum. I don't understand your second paragraph here; if the player doesn't post and I say that they've picked up their prod, then the player is 'outed' as lurking. I generally prod on MY schedule, not the players, so I may be misunderstanding your intention here.

I could probably restate this point as:

Acknowledge a player has been prodded when requested. Announce when a player is being replaced. Everything in-between is for the town to deal with.

[gorckat]

Necro'd for goodness:

Mods that don't have a

Not Voting

column of their VCs make me

crazy

- I can't usually hold all the game's players in my head at once unless it's endgame, so it makes it much more likely that lurkers fall off my radar, and it's a royal pain to follow up on if I have do a Vote Count for them while backup modding.

[gorckat]

Hmm. Old thread that got dragged up. But I'm glad so many people agree on 1! I definitely think that vote counts should be in their own post.

I agree on all counts except maybe 3. That does create extra work. I think the fact that the mod picked up the PM should be proof enough that the mod has read the night action.

I just did #3.

[gorckat]

5 is one of those things I think players need to ask. I will prod players and acknowledge that I prodded the player, but i think saying the player picked up the prod and didn't respond isn't something a mod should state unless asked.

Meatworld:

A) John's in the bathroom...no way he could have responded to your point
B) John hasn't spoken up at all in like 5 minutes, stupid lurker...

vote:John

Online, I enjoy/prefer:

Player: Hey, where's John?
Mod: Prodding John
Mod: (24 hours later) He was in the bathroom and said he's back now/He's not coming out so I'm gonna replace him.

over:

Player: Hey, where's John?
Mod: Prodding John
Player: (72 hours later) hey...whatver happened to John?
Mod: He was in the bathroom and said he's back now/He's not coming out so I'm gonna replace him.


Partly because I favor 2-3 week deadlines, those 48 hours make a difference. Even without rigid deadlines, those 48 hours may have been wasted debating whether lollipops are scummy than jawbreakers when some guy has been lurking in front of everyone while they assumed the mod was on it.

[gorckat]

I think that for deadlines it is a good practice to have a rule stating something to the effect of "Votes and unvotes that accur after the deadline will not be counted." that way if can't be there to lock the thread at the specific deadline time the players will realize that while they can still post since the thread is unlocked, who will be lynched has been determined.

(nods) That's a good idea. The alternate idea is just to state in your rules that the deadline dosn't actually happen until the mod comes into the thread and announces end-of-day, like "Deadline will be at some time after 8:00 PM tommorow, whenever the mod is avalable to lock the thread". The ambiguaty should be eliminated, though; having one or the other, and having everyone know which one, is probably best.

That's similar to my draft rule- deadline hits at X, but until I post the lynch and lock the thread then no one is dead. Votes/unvotes after X will not be counted.

[gorckat]

3)<snip>For example, if the night is not deadlined you can wait until you got their night action.

Few things suck worse as a vanilla townie than checking a thread/watched topics every day not knowing when night will end.

Ergo, nights should be publicly deadlined, after which it follows a simple pressing of "Quote" and typing of

Kill/Investigate/Protect/Roleblock/Spoon: Player

should be done.

In the case of a QT being used, there should still be some sort of agreed upon way of communicating to the mod the info he'll need and a mod confirmation that it was in fact read.

[gorckat]

In a few of these cases, I've considered asking a mod how they do things at sign-up and /in-ing or not based on the answer.

This has come up in other threads, but I now formally add it to my Best Practices (actual editing in to original post to happen later tonight):

Post your ruleset in the signup thread and ask players to read it before "/in" so there are no conflicts once a game starts.