Harry Staff-er and the Many Colored Retcon

[Styx]

As a preface, let me say that this thread is NOT  meant to antagonize or dehumanize Staff, nor is it meant to cast them in a bad light. Staff are just as human as everyone else, and just as perfectly flawed. This thread is also NO place for a flame war and if you, the reader, are  at all tempted to make caustic on un-constructive comments, I ask that you PLEASE simply move on to other posts.
 
 
So, I'm sure everyone by now  is aware that we have had a recent/semi-recent flood of retcons. Some of them have been relatively small, a conversation here or there that didn't take place after all;
others, such as one I was involved in with Tiberius, retconned the ENTIRE night of roleplay I had.
 
This is not to point a finger at any particular staff, because various Staff have done it, and it's not to point a finger at particular people, because various people have initiated or been the cause of retcons. I've also considered privately taking this to Staff, but it's not just my concern and I believe a public forum to discuss the problems will ultimately be more helpful than lone people trying to solve the issue.
 
So the issue simply is this: retcons are bad, mkay? And the primary reason (in my experience) for a retcon, the one we come back to again and again, is that the information/event/scene being retconned  was miscommunicated or misunderstood.
 
 
I don't have to explain to anyone why that's frustrating, or how damaging it can be to rp, so instead I'm going to ask the question that is the point of this whole post:
what can we do to fix this problem? Staff,  is there something players can do to help  make sure the information in a scene is correct and understood all across the boards? Players,  is there something Staff can do to make certain that the information communicated to other Staff and other players is accurate and reasonable?
 
I'd like to find solutions to this problem, rather than huddle around a table and grumble about it.
 
Thank you all for your constructive comments and your respect for each other.

[BLewis]

Also remember that as players, there are many things that determine a changing difficulty when effecting another PC. Saying "With this difficulty, I get this many successes, what are my results?" is fair to no one. Make your tests, give the ST your die pool, and let them determine what the difficulty is with the PC you're trying to interact with.

Retcons are just as often, if not moreso, at the feet of players as they are staff.

[Shah-Khohr of Ventrue]

+1 to Brad.

I try, as a player, to remind people of that when they ask me thing. But there's a 'good-taste' boundary. I don't want to grill every staffer that asks me what my Willpower is why they want to know. Sure, there is a litany of things I have that affect the difficulty of various effects, but I'd rather trust that a staffer would ask me that then give them 20 questions about WHY they want to know my ________.

[BLewis]

Jan 21, 2014 13:59:04 GMT -8 Shah-Khohr of Ventrue said:

+1 to Brad.

I try, as a player, to remind people of that when they ask me thing. But there's a 'good-taste' boundary. I don't want to grill every staffer that asks me what my Willpower is why they want to know. Sure, there is a litany of things I have that affect the difficulty of various effects, but I'd rather trust that a staffer would ask me that then give them 20 questions about WHY they want to know my ________.

At this stage, I just answer "My willpower is this, but I have X that adds to Telepathy difficulties." Because, really, 95% of the time, its someone trying to use it.

[Ascanio Giovanni]

I completely agree with everything that has been said thus far in this thread. RetCons are not fun for anyone. I personally believe that they are an absolute nuclear strike level option that should only be used when there is absolutely no other way to resolve the situation such as a case of a character dying due to obvious and malicious cheating.

I've also noticed the recent trend toward RetCons becoming more acceptable at this game, both as a staff member and as a player. I'm not really sure what can be done to fix this problem either. I make a point now to try and be as clear as possible and run post-scene recaps with STs I run complex scenes with to ensure that all parties are walking away with the same impression of what happened.

THe other thing I've noticed about the frequency of RetCons is they are becoming more and more frequently invoked to prevent the IC game of Telephone and jumping to conclusions. To this I can only ask why? Telephone games and false conclusions are the life-blood of politics and I would never say something that should be RetConned because one party misunderstood. That is something that should be handled IC. If it's a case of ensuring whether or not one party is correct on a verifiable thing, it is up to the player to check with staff noting their respective Lores. If they don't, oh well, they forgot in a moment of stress and should play that IC.

At least that's my opinion.

[Bubba Kush]

RetCons may be seen as a "fair" way to undo a mistake, but that is a fallacy.

When the STs funk up, and they need to make it up to a player, instead of retcon I suggest "fixing" the situation in another way. Lost a business because of retcon? Get another one, or access to two smaller ones. Lost status, or NPC/PC allies? Hand the player some plot that can lead then to regaining/replacing what was lost. Just some examples.

When the player funks up, it's a little bit more your fault. Work with the ST, but you must also have the humility to understand that the 50+, 70+ players in Larp cannot be hassled by your one mistake.

This, in essence, has to do with player-ST trust. We must learn to work with each other in all aspects of game the rules don't cover.

[Barnaby Cuthbert]

Some info re: a recent ret-con examples:

Wards on Elysium - Elysium has been warded against pretty much all of the non-vampire character types, such as ghosts, spirits and werewolves.

Recently characters with Garou allies, spirit familiars etc. have been bringing allies/contacts and such into the designated Elysium area for meetings. This can't occur by the rules, and might certainly change RP (hey Mr. Werewolf, come have a meeting with the Prince - oh what's that? You just took 3 lethal and you're full of Gaian Rage? Please don't murderface me!)

But there's actually a lot of assumptions being made here that are incorrect. There's not necessarily any reason to assume:

A. A character bringing a Garou ally to Elysium is allowed to do so (whether wards exist or not).

B. What's a ward? Does the character, Or NPC even have the Lore or Occult rating to know about them? Young Dick Grayson is the ward of Bruce Wayne, right? That's totes a ward. Do they pay attention to Prestation enough to know that the Keeper recently paid boons to X Tremere for that? For all a neonate without much occult knows there's an enemy out there taking pot shots at their spirit friend. Oh noes! Roleplay should ensue.

So what should happen before the fact to avoid these misunderstandings?

First, the player of the character warding the place needs to inform the staff - easy since all rituals go through staff anyway. You literally can't ward something without an ST sign-off.

Second, staff needs to have this awareness (shared among them) and either

1. Have an ST assigned to Elysium to run chops (a good idea anyway, but not always doable) or

2. Make an announcement at game start that Elysium has wards on it and that players need to engage a storyteller if they think their character, NPC, etc. might interact with them.

If that doesn't work, the players who have made the IC effort to secure the space deserve consideration for their proactive efforts and a ret-con is likely called for. A ret-con can be as simple as "The meeting goes the same, but we meet at a haven/business instead". Or as complex as the above-mentioned "WHY IS MY FUR ON FIRE WITH LEECH MAGIC!"

That's up to the ST and the effected player(s) to negotiate. Within that negotiation, it's usually best to try to keep the core of the prior scene and modify just the details. Players or Storytellers that throw up their hands and eject the whole scene on principal are usually doing themselves a disservice. Most if the time there's a way to mod the scene's particulars in a sensible way if folks are willing to consider a few options. Anything as minor as 'we had the meeting elsewhere' to something major 'we shared a nightmare that didn't turn out to be true' is possible.

In terms of staff awareness, the same thing can be said about surveillance, other rituals or any 'hung' effect on an area. In a perfect world, Storytellers should try to be aware of local modifiers and describe scenes accordingly and then give players in real time the appropriate chops to notice the camera in the corner, ward, etc.

It isn't a perfect world though, so the best thing for staff to do is take notes. I don't have an eidetic memory. I don't expect them to, but it's reasonable for players to expect them to have a notepad and a pen, and for players to have the appropriate cards, but also players not rushing into an interaction can help too.

"I need to get this scene done," can usually give way to "I need to get this scene done right"... By giving staff a little time to get all of their facts in order.

.02

[Shah-Khohr of Ventrue]

Jeopardy Style:

Werewolves coming to Elysium.

What's the single best reason not to go to Seattle's Elysium?

[Bubba Kush]

Jan 21, 2014 16:38:54 GMT -8 Shah-Khohr of Ventrue said:

Jeopardy Style:

Werewolves coming to Elysium.

What's the single best reason not to go to Seattle's Elysium?

+1 Rob.

Maybe we should see more Keepers' heads rolling.

[Webmonkey]

Keepers heads stay right on their shoulders when STs remember to enforce the warded Elysium, thanks for making my point more soundly!

Now remind me to get the rules call on mortals/ghouls possessed by the *spirit* of a vampire again...

[Shah-Khohr of Ventrue]

Jeopardy Style Two:

Using Powers to enforce a non-powers area.

What are some contradictions that keep Elysium from being cannon and overly abused?

[Styx]

No offense guys, but this is getting off the intended topic of the thread

[Shah-Khohr of Ventrue]

Fair.

When we were talking about the possibility of a retcon with the whole assamite murder squad thing, I battled against the idea. I'd rather have a 'well, we thought this, but the evidence doesn't hold up anymore, so we exchange some boons and move on' resolution to 'this never happened, forget all the awesome RP that happened as a result'.

Personally, I like the idea of minor f-ups being carried over IC as long as they don't have character ending consequences.

[Ascanio Giovanni]

+1 Rob. I prefer apology cookies to retcons 99% of the time. Retcons are a blunt hammer that should only be used when absolutely nothing else will work.

[Barnaby Cuthbert]

+1 Rob - bad choices make good role play!

[Styx]

(my phone doesn't give me the option to sign into the site for some damn reason).
So, I have a possible solution to ending retcons that result from staff or player miscommunication, in this example specifically regarding secretive actions that a player's character takes against another player character: write that shit down.
to use a current example, two Assamites attack a target in someone's domain; they explain to staff what they are doing, and mention any abilities they have to mask what they are doing from others. The ST should also ask, in case the player forgets.
The ST should then take into account what other people may be seeing, if the domain has security cameras in that area, or if someone uses an ability that lets them see what occurred. The ST should fill out a card that details what the assassins did, what was used to obscure their actions, and any other details such as success totals etc.

Then, should someone come to an ST later on and say "hey I <whatevered> the scene, what did I see?" The ST can refer to that card and give everyone who asks the same account of what happened.
I think this will prevent someone being told four different accounts of what actually happened and being in danger of having to retcon large portions of Rp over something they maybe wouldn't have known otherwise, and it will prevent people from losing characters due to knowledge that shouldn't have actually been revealed. I realize this will require a little more work on the part of the staff, but t could make things run so much more smoothly in the future.

Any thoughts from staff, or players?

[Shah-Khohr of Ventrue]

Seems reasonable. But I take fastidious notes. When I was on staff for werewolf I went through like six of my little pocket notepads. I took notes on every scene I witnessed, even if I wasn't running. And, point of fact, required my staffers to keep such notepads on them as well to reference during our meeting.

In this particular case, I'm not sure if it's a case of bad communication, bad memory, or multiple staffers being engaged for the same information and the telephone game just tearing it up.

[Styx]

Now that I've had more time think about it, since every staff member has access to one of the tablets, why not use a google Doc or something that all the staff can access from their tablet, that way they don't need to go to the other ST, they can see what happened right there. I've mentioned this to Joh earlier, but i think it would be a really handy idea .

[Just Evan]

Realistically, typing scenes down on touch tablets is a huge time sink. In a scene with more than 2 players, folks would get annoyed at the staffer saying "hold up... hold up...." as he or she touch types the rolls and results in.

Now, if those tablets have decent text-to-speech, recording the scene for posterity would be a pretty awesome and useful tool....

[Styx]

It could, yes, but I'd be willing to wait whatever time was necessary in order to avoid the recons from ever happening again. At this point I'm frustrated so much that i honestly don't think i can take another retcon. So I'm hoping to find legitimate solutions