IC punishement? OOC sanction?

Rp is about interaction between people.
We are on a RP sim, the ultimate goal is the role play. If someone does not role play at one point, or is excluded from RP we are idoing a mistake.


I would like to touch the point of the isolation and lock.

Isolation and lock is a caracter punishement. It can be apply in my opinion in two ways.

1. Like a role play opportunity
2. Like a player sanction to remember her it pass the limit of logical nehaviors.


1. If it is a role play element it should always be a motor of role play. Letting a player alone in a box does not bring anything. It just punish the player and as well reduce the interaction of others. all players should have an exit with a rp cost.


2 In some extreme case, some players may pass the logical behaviors. Insteed of long OOC speach, the isolation may help a player to understand the limit for his caracter. In my opinion this is positive.

The problem is to make sure everybody understand this balance. When a member of the staff isolate someone, he is just screwing up his fun and game time. It maybe be necessary but use with care.

RP sanction in my opinion must be an engine of rp. I will suggest to think about a range of punishement that is more interactive. and keep isolation as an extreme ressources always remembering the OOC impact of it.

My two cents....


We are players.
We are here for fun.
We are here to play.

Oceanis has a good point here. Indeed a week in BMU or long hours in the hotbox is not just punishing the character but can also be interpreted as a punishment of the player who is taken out of the role-play by isolating her/him. So it may happen that someone feels punished OOC for having performed a good role-play which sadly has taken the character down to BMU.

My two EURO cent on this are:
Punishing a player OOC for bad role-play should not what we aim for. If someone makes mistakes, plays bad or simply is annoying OOC, a GM should step in and help this player to understand what just went wrong by IM. In fact not only GMs should do so, but every player who is affected.



IC punishments. I am into prison role-play long enough to know that there are players who like to be cuffed and thrown into the hotbox. Some do like to be isolated and love interaction between guards and inmates whereas they don’t like inmate-inmate interaction. We aren’t here to judge. One may like it or not, but that simply is a fact of (Second)life. If someone wants to be isolated and therefore being taken away from the general role-play so be it.
We also should not forget that it is mainly the inmate who decides about the IC treatment. IC actions should lead to IC reactions. If a player cannot take time in BMU there is a simple way to avoid it. Just obey the prison rules, or be smart when you break them. If you are going to play the nightmare of the guards, you simply have to expect being dressed in black and white.
Let us be honest. Telling you cannot interact as an L4 inmate is wrong. You cannot access the recreation-room and it is also true that you will miss some conversation, but you are not completely isolated. A week in BMU all alone is hard to stand, but that is what you get for an escape. You know it in advance. Escape may be seen as a wonderful roleplay, but with an escape you also voluntarily leave the stage. So is the month of IC punishment fair or not? You can decide it on your own.

That said there are situations I am not happy with. These mostly have to do with what i would call bad role-play. A guard beating up an inmate for no or little reason, which leaves the inmate defeated on the ground. The guard gains influence by such a victory, but the costs the guard induces to the inmate player are big. Without proper health, inmates are victims on the block. They already lost influence points due to the defeat and am going to leave more. That is not fair and bad role-play. In order to be clear: I am neither referring to Natascha Krokus nor to Carol Shuffle here, but to players who are in need of coaching so that they understand the consequences of their actions.

I tend to agree very much with your comment Karin.
I don't have the experience of prison role play you have and your comments are really interesting, and in some points I find a lot of // with some situation I had in Gor.

I agree that in some cases, hard punishement, can't be avoid. It is clear ! They are part of the game. You are not going to punish an escape cleaning toilet...i guess everyone can understand that. And it is fine, as far as you know wich action you need to avoid.

Being Oceanis, I am extremly prudent in my role play with guard, maybe to be prudent... I try to avoid as much as possible interaction. I realize as well than doing that, I am loosing part of the RP with some guards that prefer "hard core inmate" they can play "hard role play". I does not mean i don't like interaction with guard and hard situation, i hust hate to be isolated, that for me the anti definition of role play.

I remember this phenomena when I was Kajira. Extreme behaviors was poping up as a frequent behavior just because these behaviors where attracting role play. You end up sometimes, having what should be excpectional behaviors, being normal one, because these are the one attractting role play. So I think it is good that IC punishement limit this escalate fenomena.

What would be interesting, will be to know where is the limit. If you put the limit to low you may have too pasive role play. if you put it too high you may encourage no rational and extreme behaviors. I think the limit should may be not a line but we should have a clear idea.

Let me as well stress the fact, that these seems to be very isolated cases. Most of the time, I have seem a lot of respect from the staff. I think it is a question as well of traning people. Letting a new guard will full power of punishing and taking decision is a high risk IC and OOC. Maybe that could be one of the ket point in guard training, the ablity to set punishement.

In case of some isolation procedure, we may want as well have a strict IC procedure. For instance a medical check, make sure the inmate get food and water, acess to toilet on regular base, etc....

One comment of Nat was very interesting during the meeting. SOme like, some others not, we need to know inmate. I think this is the key. Maybe at the registration a ooc quick form could be fill to understand OOC pleasure or limit of each player. It does not mean that these will be respect all the time, since it is clear that sometimes if you push to far your caracter, you will end up with punishement you may not like, but that could be a good base to know each other.

And again, and this is very important. This is not a blaim to the staff, theyr ealy do a hard job. Just isolated cases.

Oceanis

I want to talk about two points Oceanis and Karin did mention in their comments:

1. The idea of a "character registration" is great! We all have some soft and some hard limits and all the players should be able to know about them and most important: should be able to have easy access to this informations. For me it is not always easy to look into the profiles and understand what someone likes or dislikes.

2. Punishments - Oceanis mentioned an important disadvantage of most of the punishments: isolation and not being able to take part in any interaction. The problem is that spending hours or even days in the BMU is extremely boring to me and it is not the perfect way for me to have fun. Problem is: what could be an alternative? I have to say that at the moment I have no better idea but I guess we all should think about it and if someone has a good idea we should discuss it with the GM´s.

3. The most important point: TI is great! Thank you Emme, Torie, Claudia, Karin and all the other poeple who did all the hard work to create this place!

Miranda

(sorry for my sometimes poor "austrian" english :-))

Mirandasecond wrote:

I want to talk about two points Oceanis and Karin did mention in their comments:


2. Punishments - Oceanis mentioned an important disadvantage of most of the punishments: isolation and not being able to take part in any interaction. The problem is that spending hours or even days in the BMU is extremely boring to me and it is not the perfect way for me to have fun. Problem is: what could be an alternative? I have to say that at the moment I have no better idea but I guess we all should think about it and if someone has a good idea we should discuss it with the GM´s.

:-))

I am not predenting to have th solution, not sure solution exists, however from all our posts maybe some guidlines for staff and inmate.

1. Always open an logical exit door: So at one point where the situation is block, inmate should be ready to backup and let s say "loose", obviously staff should be able to see that sign and react accordingly and always let s the chance to play it. The punishement can be then reduce. As an example, i will say the only time that my caracter has been sent to the hotbox she has been crying, asking to go out etc...that s obviously a door that the player open to reverse the situation. Ball that Bobbie kindly took. My caracter actualy "lost".

2. If isolation arrive make it productive. Even in a cell you have basic needs. They can be play. Don t deco leting someone alone for x days....

3. Know the people you are playing with.

ok this is an intresting topic and i would like to just throw out a few thoughts on it. I too also hate isolation and yes i am a pain in the arse what it comes to guards and so i expect to get locked up and isolated but it can be played out it doesnt have to be all that boring we all know when people are close enought to hear you and to be honest i dont look at isolation as punishment anymore but more of a challege on how quickly i can get someone to feel sorry enough for me to let me out and take me back to general pop, but there again it is all in knowing the people your playing with some guards will just pass by others will interact and help you out. ok enough of me yacking

This topic is or was one which has been discussed often.
Karin made the point already. Guards don't have much power. We can lock you down or seperate you.
I remember having placed Miranda into BMU because she refused the shot of vacccine. This wasn't even meant IC as a punishment but as a measure of precaution IC. Of course it is boring when one player is left alone down there and so it easily is an OOC sanction. But imagine some other players would have refused too. BMU would have been inhabitated on boredom would have not occurred so easily.

However. A day at TI lasts 2 online hours. This time can be used for writing a blog, reorganising the Inventory or to communicate with friends in- and outside TI. Nobody does need to feak out, I dare say.
If it would not have been Emme who took Mir out of BMU it would have been me or another long term guard.
OOC we are no heartless bitches and do react on requests.

That said Karin is right. If you don't want to be put in L4 or BMU, you have to act accordingly. TI is about control and discipline. Not exactly what Claudia demands IC, but that is just because of my character.

It is extremely difficult to make our TI inmates happy OOC sometimes. We have had inmates who absolutely loved being chained up an thrown into a dark and hot box. We have inmates who love the confrontation with Natascha, who want more tension and fights on the block and we also have inmates who cannot stand violence and feel bad about members of their peer group harrassing each other. One could even say that Claudia could cater for all those needs, if she already knows what inmate 12345 wants, but the truth is that she cannot.
Claudia has to be her. If you push the right buttons she will react really upset, but in her everyday mood it is very unlikely she throws an inmate into the hotbox. This is true for all the guards. Believe it or not, but even guards do have a storyline. ~smiles~

Yes.
As far as we have exit door to step back, i think we are all happy.

Solution apply to Jade seems as well a good compromise. Even being l4 she is not removed from roleplay.

That s always good.



Since the day I posted, I had some discussions with some staff. I find out that sometimes they really missed the comflict aspect, particulary in the US time line when we are almost all "blue". Conflicts are at the end part of the any good story.

I guess, I will have to think about that when I am interacting with staff. It is an exchange and we all need to have fun !