Slynky's Demise

[AMF]

Yeah, I'm not sure that it is just a matter of "being the kind of person that can separate what happens in the game from what is outside of the game..."

I would say it's more fundamental than that. I really, honestly, would feel bad if I backstabbed someone. Just not something I can do, even in a game. I did it once, in another game, ten years ago and I was good at it - and I used to love the game Diplomacy and was great at that - but to this day I feel bad about what I did. I mean, I would play Diplomacy with my best friends and screw them just to win. That seems, well, wrong. And over time, I have gotten to the point where (forgive what may sound melodramatic) the psychic or ethical cost to acting that way tires me out way too much. As Slynky said, why play a game if you feel bummed out/can't sleep/etc...afterwards?

It is related to what I think of as a fundamental aspect of human perception: I think that, deep down, people expect other people to behave as they behave. I expect that people would help me if they saw me by the side of the road with a flat tire. So, when they go driving on by, then I am, first, very confused. Then angry, etc...It's just hard to understand someone else's motivations, becuase we're all different, eh? (to continue with the driving metaphor, I still cannot, for the life of me, get into the mindset of someone who would own a hummer, but nevermind)...when a person betrays me in a game, I sometimes think I have a hard time not taking it personally. Like it's some personal failing of theirs - when in reality, it is an inevitable result of the nature and structure of the game.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if SE5 has unlimited technologies - as advertised - and if it might have MASSIVE universese - like thousands of stars - then the scope might be so vast that this becomes less of a problem. Things tend to fall down in the endgame - when there is nothing left to do, after you built those ten ringworlds, and every single planet is breathable, then you might as well go to war to see who is burliest. But, given a massive universe, that might take so long to get to that it becomes irrelevant. Maybe.

Thanks for listening to my babbling.

And, I did have a question: how the heck can I get my Posts to stop putting – in them? I know it's from the quotation marks I tend to use too often, but how can I still use quotes but get rid of the resulting –?

Thanks for listening to my babbling...

Alarik

Ps: I still highly reccomend Proportions games for people to RP in...

[geoschmo]

Do you play Poker? Do you tell your opponents what cards you have? Do you bet when you have nothing in the hopes that they will fold? It's called a bluff, but it's a lie.

Do you play chess? Do you announce to your opponent that you plans ahead of time? Do you move your Bishop into a position to take one piece when in fact you are trying to take another? It's called a feint, but it's a lie. If your opponent unknowingly makes a move that puts an valuable piece at risk do you point it out to him? If you don't you are being less then honest. Perhaps you can parse this and say you aren't lying, but it's semantics.

If you are having trouble with your concience when you've done nothing wrong, or getting upset at what other players do to you when they've done nothing wrong, it's because as I said, you cannot separate what happens in the game from what is out of the game.

It's a game.

[Alneyan]

There is one major difference between poker (or chess) and SEIV: in chess, you cannot possibly think of roleplaying being a Bishop (or you truly have nothing better to do with your free time). On the other hand, SEIV offers another dimension besides its strategical side, and this is roleplaying, diplomacy, politics, and so on.

So, while in chess the goal of the game is straightforward (or in KOTH, if you want to keep it to SEIV), a game such as Proportions at PBW does not offer an obvious goal. Instead, your Empire is left to choose something to do, and seek to accomplish that.

I would say you may be annoyed by something if it goes against how you play the game yourself. I guess players that play SEIV only for strategical reasons are also bothered (or at least don't give it any thought) by the political side of the game. The same argument could probably be raised about economical development, but since I am not fond of that part of the game, I will leave it to someone who loves Empire building (Ruatha?).

Alarikf, I have been contemplating lowering the efficiency of your whole Empire as you grow bigger and bigger (as in Europa Universalis for example); it would lower the focus on expansion, either through colonisation or through war. Would you think it could lessen that endgame feeling, where there is just nothing more to do except fight it out? It would obviously be an option and not a standard setting, as along with the changes you would like, it would change the whole scope of the game.

If you don't feel like deciphering my whole babbling: in short, I would say it depends on what exactly you expect from the game, or the reason why you play SEIV.

[AMF]

Well, yes, no, and yes.

I mean, I admit, that what I am saying is symptomatic of not being able to totally separate gaming from reality. And, yes, that is a bad thing, I would say.

But it isn't monolithic nor is it universal. For example, as to the former, in SE4, when at war, I regularly "murder" billions of digitized aliens when I glass worlds - something that I would never do in real life, even if I had the ability and the justification. So, there is a point at which my personality/ethics/whatnot do not apply and points in which they do. And I think that they apply when I am dealing with other people and I have a choice. Theoretically, I could draw a utility curve which would plot my reluctance to backstab against the cost of doing so and clearly at some point it would behoove me to backstab if the cost were too great to not do so. But, this is just a game, and so it is highly unlikely the cost will ever reach that point. If, however, we were talking about real life then it might be reached much earlier.

As to the second point, my "game ethics" are not universal - as Alneyan pointed out, when I play Poker (and I do, and I've got a pretty good poker face) there is no space at all for anything other than straight up gaming. the AH game Diplomacy is the same way - the very structure of the game makes it zero-sum and betrayal inevitable - in fact, necessary. SE4 is also, *pretty much* the same way due to the limited space, the bounded tech, and the general Malthusian construct it is based on. However, I *think* my point (and I am no longer entirely sure here) is that Se4 does *not* necessarily have to be that way.

Hence my greater enjoyment of the RPG style SE4 games than the "standard" conquer the universe ones. Really, I beleive that it is true that if one plays with a style that is geared only to the latter, then you'll eventually come to a point where the game really is just a very complex giant spreadsheet with random factors.

That's how it got to be with me before I discovered PBW. I played against the AI to such an extent that I got bored. Now, I enjoyed it for years but after a while I was just playing a giant spreadsheet.

With humans, it doesn't have to be that way. Humans engage in *politics* and role-playing, both of which I find quite enjoyable.

It's always a bLast for me to test my basic political outlook (something akin to neo-liberal institutionalism with hard-core waltzian neo-realism and neo-classical realism thrown together) against other political "styles" - when one mode of political thought meets another mode, what happens? Do they change each other? Will the realist always win out? I think it's fascinating. And then, throw in the role-playing aspects and unpredictability of humans into it, and it gets to be a downright stunning exercise in politics. I love it.

Alarik

geoschmo said:
Do you play Poker? Do you tell your opponents what cards you have? Do you bet when you have nothing in the hopes that they will fold? It's called a bluff, but it's a lie.

Do you play chess? Do you announce to your opponent that you plans ahead of time? Do you move your Bishop into a position to take one piece when in fact you are trying to take another? It's called a feint, but it's a lie. If your opponent unknowingly makes a move that puts an valuable piece at risk do you point it out to him? If you don't you are being less then honest. Perhaps you can parse this and say you aren't lying, but it's semantics.

If you are having trouble with your concience when you've done nothing wrong, or getting upset at what other players do to you when they've done nothing wrong, it's because as I said, you cannot separate what happens in the game from what is out of the game.

It's a game.

[geoschmo]

I totally agree that the politics and player to player interaction are what makes this game great. Without it SE4 would have been an interesting game, for about a month. About the time I spent playing SE3. But for me deceiving, and being decieved are a crucial part of that interaction.

I don't like team victory games of SE4. So by definition that means any allies I make along the way are going to end up being enemies before it's over. Even while working together to beat our common enemies I am always plotting the eventual demise of my allies. And I assume that my allies are doing the same for me. I try to be a good ally, as long as it suits my purposes. I work hard to make our "team" strong, but on the other hand I don't want my teammates stronger then me. I want them to be strong enough to help me, strong enough so that I don't seem a great threat to them, but not so strong they feel they don't need me any longer.

The question is which of us will reach the point of being ready to cast off the alliance first. Too late and your ally gets the drop on you. Too early and the distraction caused by the new war make sit impossible to completly dispatch the common enemy. And your ally turned enemy could turn and make allies with the former common enemy.

It's a great way to play. Unfortunatly I have found that few people get the same satisfaction from this style of play that I do. So I find that people don't want to be allies with me to begin with because of what they have heard abotu me form other players, or comments I've made in the forum. Or they take it personally when I turn on them, making what should be just a game issue into something that affects our friendship.

So at times I've had to modify my style of play, keeping alliances beyond the point at which they are actually useful to me in the game. Because I don't want to "hurt their feelings". That to me is as distateful as decieving allies is to some of you.

In real life I am a nice guy. I guess all the pressure of being nice and following the accepted norms of society manifest themselves subliminally in the way I play this game. Turns me into a bit of a jerk.

[AMF]

You know, this gets to an issue that has always begged for resolution in PBW and PBeM games: player anonymity. WE've all been playing these games for years probably, and we build up an understanding of how certain players play. I make good use of this, I think, in that I "hype" my trustworthiness in the beleif that people will treat my empires differently than they would if I were not me. And, I admit, I trust some players more than others based on similar criteria.

BUT, if we're talking about a simulation game, wherein we all represent the guiding forces of fantasy space empires, then none of that should come into play.

In one series of games I have played for nigh on fifteen years now, we contemplated setting up a dedicated server to allocate email addresses based upon position, rather than a player's ID. It was a historical simulation wherein each player was a medieval empire. So, the email addresses would be "France@..." "Japan@..."

In this way each player could play however they wanted, without fear of out-of-game effects or tarnishing their reps.

Of course such a situation is not really enforceable, since a player could choose to "spill the beans" for tactical advantage.

However, perhaps a deedicated group of SE4 players could make a good go of it. It would require a dedicated set of email addresses and stock empires ("Abbidon@...", "AmonKrie@...") or that players ALWAYS engage in IC Messages, OR only send Messages in-game and IC. Furthermore, the game host might have to be ready to enforce it, but I'm not sure how that would happen unless they were ready to kick out any player that broke the rules.

I would play such a game - and I could backstab without feeling too crappy about it.

It might be tough to pull off, though...thoughts?

Alarik

EDIT: actually, rather than email addresses, if we could set up a website wherein we could send Messages to the other players but their identities and email addresses were hidden, then it would go a long way towards a better system like this. Players could still choose to tell others their email/IDs on their own for tactical advantage, but it gets harder that way, a bit at least...

[Gandalf Parker]

The Dominions crowd have had similar discussions. I worked it into the threads of creating a web-based PbEM games handler site. One way to go would be to create user logins and tie all of their games to them. I would be "Gandalf Parker" and my reputation would follow me from game to game, and would be important to me to maintain.

Another way to go would be to offer anonymous games. Such as actually creating a mail account for each player in each game. Not as big a deal as it sounds if you own the server. That way I could play a game as KissMyAsteroids. If efforts were made to provide enough communication channels then there would be no temptation to break the anonymity

The mechanics, and pros/cons, of different arrangments are usually tied into whether or not you build the site as a webmaster from the top down, or as a system admin from the bottom up.

Anyway, I digress. There are definate advantages to both the known logins, and the unknown ones. It would be nice to have both supported.

[geoschmo]

Anonymous games is one of the fetures on the PBW to do list. As I understood it, it would have been a simple options to be checkemarked by the game owner which would simply not display the player names on the game info page. Probably wouldn't be that complicated even. Admiral intended to, but never got around to coding it in.

[tesco samoa]

why not get a new hotmail account and create a new id on pbw... there you go... no one knows...

[Lord Chane]

geoschmo said:
I totally agree that the politics and player to player interaction are what makes this game great. Without it SE4 would have been an interesting game, for about a month. About the time I spent playing SE3. But for me deceiving, and being decieved are a crucial part of that interaction.

I don't like team victory games of SE4. So by definition that means any allies I make along the way are going to end up being enemies before it's over. Even while working together to beat our common enemies I am always plotting the eventual demise of my allies. And I assume that my allies are doing the same for me. I try to be a good ally, as long as it suits my purposes. I work hard to make our "team" strong, but on the other hand I don't want my teammates stronger then me. I want them to be strong enough to help me, strong enough so that I don't seem a great threat to them, but not so strong they feel they don't need me any longer.

The question is which of us will reach the point of being ready to cast off the alliance first. Too late and your ally gets the drop on you. Too early and the distraction caused by the new war make sit impossible to completly dispatch the common enemy. And your ally turned enemy could turn and make allies with the former common enemy.

It's a great way to play. Unfortunatly I have found that few people get the same satisfaction from this style of play that I do. So I find that people don't want to be allies with me to begin with because of what they have heard abotu me form other players, or comments I've made in the forum. Or they take it personally when I turn on them, making what should be just a game issue into something that affects our friendship.

So at times I've had to modify my style of play, keeping alliances beyond the point at which they are actually useful to me in the game. Because I don't want to "hurt their feelings". That to me is as distateful as decieving allies is to some of you.

In real life I am a nice guy. I guess all the pressure of being nice and following the accepted norms of society manifest themselves subliminally in the way I play this game. Turns me into a bit of a jerk.

I don't participate in the forum very much but this is one of those times when I just can't resist. While I respect Geo and his opinion, I don't agree with it. I'm one of the players he refers to who would not ally with him if I knew that he viewed alliances as transient and was planning my demise and trying to get the upper-hand the entire time. I do take things like that personally. In fact another player and I exchanged a few angry Messages here on the forum after he stabbed me in the back in the Proportions game. Apparently some folks are driven to win in ways I can't comprehend. It makes me wonder what they're like at work. Would they screw over a coworker to improve their standing in the office? Would they get themselves assigned to a project team with the intent of sabotaging another team member? Would they pretend to be your friend all the while trying to get your wife in bed? No, of course not. Because that's reality and this is just a game. Then I guess it'd be okay if the coach of one team sent a scrub into the game with orders to break the other team's star player's leg. After all, it's just a game and he wants his team to win. And hey, if I can sucker punch the other guy while the ref isn't looking, then that's okay too. I need to win. Playing a board game with a friend? Get him to look away and move a piece or change a die roll. After all, winning is what it's all about. Yes, yes, I know I'm going overboard. The things I've mentioned here are all cheats, and betraying an ally in SEIV isn't prohibited by the rules. It's a completely legal move. That's certainly true, but I view it as a cheap way to win. Basically, the back stabbing player has un unfair advantage. They know that they're going to betray the other player, they know when to betray them, and basically there's little the betrayed player can do. Now, if it's a role-playing game, then I agree that stabbing an ally is a legitimate tactic. In a B5 game who would expect the Shadows to behave honorably? And who would trust the Romulans in a Star Trek game? But most SEIV games aren't billed as role-playing, so I take a player's behavior to be a reflection of that person's personality. How can I ever trust a player once that player has betrayed me in a game? Every future interaction with them, in or out of the game, will leave me wondering whether I'm being duped, used, merely a means to an end. How do I separate the player from the game character? How can I tell that the player was just indulging in game deception and isn't like that in real life? Let's say an ally and I agree to gift each other something and the gift from him doesn't come through. I contact the other player and they swear that they issued the order and say that the game must have screwed up knowing full well that they never issued the order at all. So now it isn't just a matter of game deception, the player is actively lying to me. Now, I'm in another game with that same player and he wants to do a deal. By what means can I tell that this time he's going to play me straight and not stick a knife in my back? I like knowing that my allies are trustworthy, not trying to line things up to give themselves an advantage and screw me over. And once screwed over I will never trust that player again. So, is stabbing an ally in the back a part of the game? Absolutely. Is it a fair tactic? I guess that depends on each player's feelings on the subject. I say no, other's say yes. But some of us take issue with having that done to us, so don't be surprised or shocked if in a future game we refuse to do business with you. Maybe some of us take the issue too seriously. If so, then I'm certainly one of those players who does. We may be allies in some games and enemies in others, but if we're allies in a game, then you've nothing to fear from me. As to the questions drawing a parallel between behavior in SEIV and Poker or Chess, they're apples and oranges. In Poker I hope that everyone at the table knows that they're my opponent. They know up front not to trust me so I'm not lying to them if I bluff. I haven't promissed them anything, we haven't entered into any sort of agreement, so I can't possibly take advantage of them like a player can in SEIV when they screw over an ally. In Chess the other player knows I'm the enemy. How can I possibly deceive them? It's not like I can tell them it's okay to leave their king uncovered and then pull a Pearl Harbor style attack and win the game. Nor can I make a treaty to slip past their pawns and then drop said treaty and launch a surprise attack.