Kayfabe Accord

Talk and plan things about the game with other players.

Kayfabe Accord

Postby Doc » Fri Jan 29, 2016 11:46 pm

I would like to propose a global Kayfabe accord. I recently discovered that the word Kayfabe is not found in the entire forum, according to the search bar, and as a forum based Role Playing game, I find that really surprising.

What is Kayfabe? Kayfabe is originated from carny slang for "fake". It is the story which is presented on the show to keep up the illusion that something that everyone knows as fake is actually real. In current usage, Kayfabe is the storylines we see in prowrestling. Of course we will see wrestlers engaging in an onscreen rivalry or feud. And sometimes the feud will be very intense. But behind the scenes, we know that the wrestlers are just acting, the punches are frequently pulled, the two people we see in front of us aren't really enemies, and everything we see is more like a play or a soap opera than a straight up test of athletic prowess.

Since we already have a lot of the conventions of Kayfabe in place, I think it would be a good idea to formally adopt these conventions as a Kayfabe accord. This will make formal the things we do already (such as using OOC when speaking out of character) but also things which aren't widely acknowledged but which form norms of the community (like not stepping on someone's RP by posting a radical redirection, without first agreeing by IM.)

Most important, I think is the prevention of what wrestlers call "shoots": those people who participate in a show as if it were real. The shooter in the RPG will throw the booked kayfabe program all off by playing it as if it were all real, and it can lead to godmodding.

What do you all think of developing a Kayfabe accord for the forums?
Last edited by Doc on Sun Jan 31, 2016 7:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Kayfabe Accord

Postby Aquinas » Sat Jan 30, 2016 12:43 am

We do have section 21 of the rules covering "Role-play principles". There is probably scope for improvement, so I'd be interested to hear if you or anyone else have any suggestions.

21. Role-play principles.

Role-play is most enjoyable and successful when there is good communication and friendly relations between all players involved. The following principles should guide role-play in Particracy:

21.1 "Game mechanics comes first." For example, if a currently-enforced bill sets out one law, then a player cannot claim the government has set out a contradictory law.

21.2 In general, role-play requires the consent of all players. However, a reasonable and realistic sphere is recognised within which a player may role-play without the direct consent of other players. Within the bounds of realism and reasonability, this includes:

21.2.1 The ability to role-play events primarily affecting the player's party and characters.

21.2.2 The ability, on a modest scale, to role-play events within the nation.

21.2.3 The ability to role-play a small rebellion. This is especially so in cases where the government is role-played in a way which seems to make rebellion more plausible, such as by restricting political activity and suppressing dissent.

21.3 Players who consent to a particular role-play by acknowledging it in their own role-play cannot then disown it or withdraw their consent from it. For example, if player A role-plays the assassination of player B's character, and player B then acknowledges the assassination in a news post, but then backtracks and insists the assassination did not happen, then he will be required under the rules to accept the validity of the assassination role-play.

21.3.1 Players also consent to the reasonable and predictable consequences of the role-play they consent to. For example, players who role-play their characters as committing criminal offences should expect those characters to experience the predictable judicial consequences of that.

21.4 Players are expected to behave in a courteous, co-operative manner and make a reasonable effort to act with the consent of all players involved, even where the rules do not make consent strictly necessary. In particular, players have a responsibility to take reasonable care that other players are not misinformed either about the role-play or the Game Rules.
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Re: Kayfabe Accord

Postby Doc » Sat Jan 30, 2016 2:45 am

Well, On the rules

It describes how it goes down, but I think I am thinking of something more than just mechanics- What I am thinking about is a conversation about the expected norms when RPing. Something which expands on this part particularly: " good communication and friendly relations between all players involved."

We have some really good RPers that use the forums. But the one thing which made me think about this today was the events going on in the Battle Unseen thread. Now- if we had a Kayfabe understanding, we would basically establish a norm where major RPs and big twists in them wouldn't happened without pre-arrangement of the event. This is a major provocation. Not equivalent to a player sailing a ship by an island and RPing that the island native waved at my ship. This is two significant twists in the story line that were put on my RP by others without even running it by me. I think if we had Kayfabe norms, all these sorts of major events would be more or less gamed out in advance, and we would have a general idea of interactions and winners and losers before we dropped a major twist on someone else's RP.

Kafabe RPs would be seen as legitimate, while unplanned out twists like this would be considered shoots. If a player gains a reputation as a shooter, people really wouldn't want to RP with that person, while if someone gained the reputation for really sticking to the Kayfabe and basically negotiating basic outlines of interactions with other players, then that person would be seen as a good partner. Keeping that Kayfabe would be the most important: the shooters could be reminded by others to keep Kayfabe and that would eventually become a norm...

Then we could include official rules...

I'd just like a discussion about whether or not there is any interest in a Kayfabe norm in play, and what we do if there is a breech in it...
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Re: Kayfabe Accord

Postby Reddy » Sat Jan 30, 2016 3:08 pm

[ This will make formal the things we do already (such as using OOC when speaking out of character) but also things which aren't widely acknowledged but which form norms of the community (like not stepping on someone's RP by posting a radical redirection, without first agreeing by IM


I think you are basically talking about god-modding, no? I find this is less of a problem when you RP with people you can trust. The thing with RP in my view is that there are certain points where some limited god-modding is necessary, for example kicking out a foreign Ambassador as a logical consequence of something the other country's done eg funding terrorists. This clearly is easier when you are doing with players you can trust, you outline the grand outline, the details are left to the discretion of the players. The problem is when you do RP with grandiose or very inexperienced persons, there you will have to approve everything step by step and I advise to urge them to study the old wars and identify the kind of behaviour which can lead to an RP meltdown.
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Re: Kayfabe Accord

Postby Farsun » Sat Jan 30, 2016 4:02 pm

I'm kind of confused to what this is about really.
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Re: Kayfabe Accord

Postby Doc » Sat Jan 30, 2016 5:59 pm

Well, let me take a step back-

I think this came off as kind of complain-y. That isn't how I intended it.

What I meant to say was that I think a wrestling Kayfabe booking is a good way of thinking of forum based RPing. I am not actually complaining about how stuff goes down on the forums, but basically, trying to look at it through the lens of the norms of pro-wrestling.

So, for example: to use the jargon of the Kayfabe- The episodes are booked (agreed upon) in advance, with the goal being to advance a angle (the storyline). The wrestling angles all have faces (heroes) and heels (villains) in them. A lot of the time, the faces may not act well, but as long as it is in the service of the overarching goal, which is getting heat (fan appreciation) for the character, it's alright. And the heels are often the kind of "love to hate them" sort of villain. They don't do bad things, they do bad things that make people say "Man, that was COLD!" in a mark of appreciation. The goal, then would be to build fame for the heel as well. If you have an interesting storyline, it build "pop" (or fan loyalty) and gives the viewers an investment in the outcome of the story. But that only happens with a well crafted angle, which has a generally overarching narrative, each player plays his part well, and draws pop. The people who have the most interesting angles are the ones who get positioned for a title, but there is a whole card (show) to fill out with correspondingly less interesting angles and rivalries, and also places in the card for new and upcoming stars to gain attention and to build a fan base.

There is also the role of the "jobber" or the guy who puts people over (makes other people look good by losing catastrophically) for the purpose of the story. The jobber is probably just as vital to the booking as the biggest names in the business, because without them, the fans wouldn't buy into the show. What would Triple H be without occasionally being able to defeat a somewhat menacing jobber every now and then? That way he still gets heat and builds pop without always having to be in a rivalry and without always running an angle. But the jobbers always lose- they may win for a while, but they eventually lose, and lose catastrophically. And that way their opponents look better, and it helps them on their way to title shot.

Its all business, of course- the reason the promotion wants you to be invested is because you will keep watching their shows and buying their stuff. But for the lifelong wrestling fans, they don't particularly care- they feel a real passion for the ups and downs of their favorite wrestling superstar's career. And nowadays that Kayfabe has been officially broken, everyone looks not only at the booked Kayfabe shows, but also they pay attention to the non-Kayfabe stuff just as closely, with as much interest. How the shows are booked is to some way more interesting than the shows themselves.

Back to Particracy- I can look at wrestling is a tight ship, but I see some obvious parallels to the booking world in Particracy. What I am thinking is that if we brought some of the Kayfabe conventions into Particracy and started using them regularly, we would have great storylines, clear sides, and no surprises. And all who are not in the angle would have an investment in our stories as well. I think the Particracy World War thread is a good example of a booking session for an angle (I wish that would have went off as it was originally planned, but anyhow...) And then I could fully embrace Kalistan's role as a jobber in world affairs. :) The foil that always punches above his class and ends up catastrophically failing anyhow but earns respect for losing well. :)

It just seems like the one thing lends itself to the other, and if there is interest, we could begin formalizing some conventions.
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Re: Kayfabe Accord

Postby Zanz » Sat Jan 30, 2016 6:56 pm

Well, if nothing else,I learned some neat facts about pro wrestling :)

I think, Doc, most of these elements exist in good RP we've seen on PT in the past. Certainly if you want to write something up as a "guide to a great story" I'd be happy to be involved. In terms of an accord - I don't know. An accord on PT generally is used to regulate what must be done in order to meet the rules (e.g. Rildanor Accords). While recommending and explaining the importance of a jobber to a good story is a great idea, I don't think all RPs need jobbers - and so I'm not really sure what sort of actionable regulation could come out of an accord like this, other than the "don't be a dick" (or shooter, whatever you prefer) thing being codified - but to codify that is a bit silly, in my mind... It's hard to classify a shooter specifically enough to make it enforceable (but we all know a shooter when we see one). People who are good RPers already avoid shooters (the player Iori comes to mind as an example from the past).

I think, really, what you're suggesting is a guide, as I said. Something someone new to RP could be directed toward and which would explain to them the elements of good collaborative story writing (NationStates used to have guides written that explained good RP, and linked to examples), explain to them how to handle shooters/dicks, explain to them generally how not to be a shooter/dick themselves, etc.
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Re: Kayfabe Accord

Postby Doc » Sat Jan 30, 2016 7:23 pm

Zanz wrote:Well, if nothing else,I learned some neat facts about pro wrestling :)

I think, Doc, most of these elements exist in good RP we've seen on PT in the past. Certainly if you want to write something up as a "guide to a great story" I'd be happy to be involved. In terms of an accord - I don't know. An accord on PT generally is used to regulate what must be done in order to meet the rules (e.g. Rildanor Accords).


Right... Point taken... And naturally, nobody will be required to follow it. But a Guide is probably more what I am going for... I used the word "accord" to suggest more community standards, something we are all basically alright with, and some best practices.



Zanz wrote: While recommending and explaining the importance of a jobber to a good story is a great idea, I don't think all RPs need jobbers - and so I'm not really sure what sort of actionable regulation could come out of an accord like this, other than the "don't be a dick" (or shooter, whatever you prefer) thing being codified - but to codify that is a bit silly, in my mind... It's hard to classify a shooter specifically enough to make it enforceable (but we all know a shooter when we see one). People who are good RPers already avoid shooters (the player Iori comes to mind as an example from the past).


Yeah- not all wrestling angles have jobbers, certainly. A Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker angle has exactly zero jobbers. But if we think about this in terms of guidance for RP, rather than hard and enforceable rules, pointing out these roles makes some sense.

Additionally, I was thinking more about this as the establishment and formalization of a norm, rather than the writing of new rules. People interested in RPing well in Particaracy can get get some tips, and when people become "dickish" they can be "brought back in" by reference to the norms, rather than charged with the violation of some rule. We have a lot of people who do this kind of stuff already in the forums- I am more suggesting the "suggestions for good clean RP" than "New Rule 12.2..." type of thing.

More importantly, I am also interested in a discussion among the veteran RPers here about what makes a good RP episode/storyline/rivalry so we can see some commonality in the community. I am interested in how players are crafting their stories and their battles, not only for my benefit, but also for new players who are interested in RPing, but don't have a lot of experience in it. When they join our community, they can see what others do and attempt to do that. Then we can separate those people who don't have a lot of experience from the true "shooters", and nurture the prior and dealing with the latter according to community standards...

Zanz wrote:I think, really, what you're suggesting is a guide, as I said. Something someone new to RP could be directed toward and which would explain to them the elements of good collaborative story writing (NationStates used to have guides written that explained good RP, and linked to examples), explain to them how to handle shooters/dicks, explain to them generally how not to be a shooter/dick themselves, etc.


This is precisely it. You have summed it up well.
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