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Post by ALCATRAZ on Dec 25, 2013 11:32:59 GMT -8
Is that okay? Is it not? Doesn't matter?
I personally think it's both I mean as an admin with a huge canon spot you can help direct the plot in the right direction but at the same time it kinda just seems wrong. I dunno. Thoughts?
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Post by Pool Boy on Dec 25, 2013 11:38:21 GMT -8
If there are a tonnnn of canon spots, theirs nothing wrong with it staff picking up a bunch. If they are more limited, like 15 canon spots or less, I'd think it would be fair for staff to have just one. In the end, it depends on availability of canon. There are some sites where you might be only able to play canon so its hard to limit?
I think if a staff needs a character to direct plot, that character should just be a sort of NPC.
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Post by tsundere shark on Dec 25, 2013 13:45:05 GMT -8
Staff are part of the member-base too (in most cases). I've never seen a problem with it. Really, I think it can sometimes be reasonable for major major canons to be staff-only/npc just bc staff know best which direction the plot needs to be pushed in.
But yeah, if canons are super limited, it's best if staff only take one, otherwise people who don't have the spots could get butthurt and try to say it's favouritism.
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Post by darth vader on Dec 25, 2013 14:05:50 GMT -8
i admit i have a bias against joining sites where staff play majorly plot important characters. imo (and i hold myself to this same opinion when i staff sites, which is why i don't very often lol) staffing often requires sacrifices. you're a member, yeah, and you should be having fun, but at the same time you also aren't just another member.
so unless i know the staff personally i usually will be turned off by sites where staff members play v important characters--and even if i know them personally i'm still gonna be squicked by it. the longest most fun games i've ever been part of have always been staffed by people who played characters they loved with care, but they were not vital to the site or plot as a whole. there's too much chance for bad things to happen when staff chars get overly inflated.
this is probably bc i started on pathfinder and other tabletop games, i admit, where GMs/DMs are very distinct from the people playing, and a DMPC is a hated creature.
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the greatest general under the heavens
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Post by Egao, Egao Everywhere on Dec 25, 2013 17:17:20 GMT -8
I'm almost always turned off when a staff plays an important canon spot like the leader spot. It also gives me the wrong impression when they play a character that's usually picked the first moment they're available (eg. Red in Pokemon). It makes me think that they just made the site so they can have those spots and I guess I feel they're not being creative enough. Staff members are part of the members, but I have a lot more expectations about them.
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Phantom of the Black Parade
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Post by Kuroya on Dec 25, 2013 17:31:06 GMT -8
I can see both sides of this debate.
On one hand, there are some plot events that you need to turn a certain way as an admin, and it's hard to ensure that it turns that way unless you do it yourself. Not to mention that if you give an important canon role to a member who then leaves, you have to regroup and find a way to redistribute that spot, especially if it's an RP with site canons instead of fandom canons, and sometimes in the long run, it's easier to have a staff member take it since, in theory anyway, they're less likely to randomly leave because of their commitment as a staff member.
On the other hand, there is a limit to how much control a staff member should have over a site and its plot. If staff members have all of the important spots, it can be rather discouraging to people who go around and then get bossed around by characters who are only in that position because their RPer is staff. It's not fair to newer members, and it's certainly not fair to older members who aren't able to claim a position they might deserve more than someone who claims a spot but only uses it when it suits their fancy.
It's a catch-22 at the core, which is why usually any canons turn me off, though maybe that's just me with bad experiences with site canons. Just my two cents here.
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Post by Starry Neko on Dec 25, 2013 20:23:36 GMT -8
I think it can be a debate based on what you have. If there are 40+ canons/site canons and you're just starting a site, and you want to make sure people aren't just joining for the high spots right off the bat, they should be NPC's for a short time- and reward them to members that are actually active. I think most canon spots that actually are super plot related should be given the chance to be played as a reward. Sometimes NPC' are great at the start- then you see the dedicated ones and you give them a chance to really start playing them.
For example, if you're running some nation with a President, I think it would be fine to have him as a staff controlled NPC for the site start up, then reward people who are active with the chance to play such a important character.
However if you only have ten canon characters that the site is around- or some small number, limits should be made. Obviously, it's hard for people to feel like they can be important to the site if every single canon is taken somehow by the admin. Though considering some sites have ten and others have over 30- I think it should be a case by case basis.
Then again, I see staff NPC different from apping the character and creating it obviously. There's a general face of plot-like-things- then there's just actively rping the character.
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Post by GARDEN on Dec 25, 2013 20:27:53 GMT -8
the only time i care is when it's a canon the site revolves around, pretty much. if it's an npc, cool, cool. if it's an actual character then no.
nobody really wants to rp on your site that's all about you.
otherwise i see nothing wrong with it. even important positions are okay because sometimes it's easier for staff to take them. at least then you're confident someone isn't going to grab the leader of x and then ditch and you're like what now.
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Post by Zozma on Dec 28, 2013 22:08:27 GMT -8
I think the biggest pull when it comes to fandom sites with playable canons ARE the canons. People won't join because they want a certain character. For me, when I ran my Fire Emblem site, I played only Soren from the Tellius series (a major character but he was my ONLY Tellius canon) and then I played two minor canons from the Elibe series, one (Legault) because he was my favorite and one (Guy) because somebody left but another player wanted to continue plots with Guy, so I picked him up. Through the five years that we were up and running, I did occasionally pick up an extra canon for another player, but none of them were very main characters because I had Soren and I didn't want to pick up too many major/popular canons. Although I have to say, there were many, many times I thought about picking up Ike because ugh. We constantly got people to pick him up, get plots moving, and then they would disappear. I've honestly lost count of how many Ikes we had.
These days, I'm not too fond of canon sites. It was fun while it lasted but in the end, it's just too annoying to keep plots moving when important canons keep disappearing and everybody's allergic to OCs.
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MOTHER OF THE MAGICAL GIRLS
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Post by SIFR on Dec 29, 2013 11:51:31 GMT -8
In a setting like Sailor Moon, which is really the only setting I have experience with where canons were super important, it's almost required for staff to take a canon, whether it's the current incarnation of Sailor Chaos or even a senshi. Those sites are very tight knit and very plot oriented.
So I guess it depends on the situation.
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Post by Zozma on Dec 29, 2013 14:35:51 GMT -8
Another problem with canons is when you have Annie come in and play Main Character, right? She gets something up and running with Bob, who playes Other Main Character. Things are going well. They get through five threads together, they have a decent plot going and loads planned for the future. Then Annie gets busy with life. She shows up less and less with excuses "Exams, holidays, friends, life." She can't even squeeze in thirty minutes a week to get a post up. Then she just vanishes and Bob is left twiddling his thumbs. Annie loses Main Character and then Cookie comes in and picks him up. Bob contacts Cookie about the plots he's already done but Cookie plays Main Character much differently and doesn't like the same pairing, so Cookie is focusing more on plotting with another canon character.
That leaves Bob in an annoying situation where he has to retcon ALL those threads he did previously like they never happened and that freaking SUCKS. Having been in that position more times than I can count? I hate it. And I hate, hate, hate retconning anything. I hate it. So it sucks when somebody like Bob is left in the lurch like that. Now he's growing less attached to his character and now HE'S drifting away and he disappears, leaving Other Main Character to be played by somebody else.
The cycle just continues. Over and over again.
So do I have a problem with admins picking up main canons? Absolutely not. I understand why outsiders might think "Oh gee, it's all about the admin" and sometimes it is, you're not wrong. But you don't know that if you don't know the admin. Maybe they got tired of waiting for somebody to pick up a main character, maybe the plot they came up with needs that character around and in most cases, the admin has the most to lose so they'll usually be the most dedicated to their site (usually, not always).
These are all reasons I've become jaded with canons in sites, though. I used to love playing canon characters but once you get the shaft enough times, it gets real old, real fast. I personally think canon roleplay is better left to a small and dedicated group who splits up the whole cast between them. I had fun running things that way with Fire Emblem and Persona. But for a whole site with a bunch of unknowns? Better to play all OCs in an AU version of the universe.
And I've gone off on a (somewhat) related tangent. But it's something to think about when building sites that feature canons.
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Post by Snorlax on Dec 30, 2013 19:56:55 GMT -8
I don't really think it's a problem because staff is a part of the member base. Also, a lot of you are saying things about how you don't want to be on a site made for the person to play a specific canon or something to that nature, but you also have to keep in mind that not all staff are a part of the site from the get go. Sometimes normal members get picked up as staff because they've been a part of the site for a while.
So, in that case, if you're against staff having canons, would it be wrong for them to keep a canon they've been playing since they joined just because they become a member of the staff? Or would it then be acceptable? At this point, the discussion could go into many different facets, and things would get complex and such. I'm not really a fan of rules that aren't clean cut.
Overall, I think it's silly to restrict someone from playing a certain character just because they have a little more responsibility than the rest of the 'basic' members. As long as they aren't playing all of the canons then I don't see the problem.
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Post by ★SIRIUS on Jan 1, 2014 14:44:03 GMT -8
if i'm staff and there are canons, i usually take one, and i let my co-admin take one if they're interested. i think that's reasonable, since both members and site creators should be able to have fun and participate in the site plot. HOWEVER i don't like when i go to a site and literally all the canons are taken by the whole staff team, and then the ones that aren't are reserved for them. like, ok, have fun rping by yourselves.
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Post by naomi on Jan 1, 2014 17:03:33 GMT -8
I don't really see a problem with it as long as said admin doesn't completely hog the canon characters. Additionally, they have to be able to play the position well, set a good example for their members, and be as active as the canon's position requires them to be. I usually take a canon position when I'm an administrator, but only if it interests me enough for me to meet all the criteria I listed above.
TL;DR- As long as they can do it right and not hog, I've no problem with it.
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Post by Ai on Mar 19, 2014 2:52:53 GMT -8
It really depends on what kind of site you are running.
For fandom sites with 50+ canons, it's obv that staff could take canons they wish but they still undergo the app process. For original sites however it depebds on how many canons there are. The site canons are important for plot progression on original sites, hence it makes sense for staff to take at least one themselves to get things rolling. However, if staff hogs all the canons and isnt clear whether they would pass the torch or not, then there lies the problem.
I generaly avoid sites where canons cannot be apped for, like sure they say they would give chance to members but they would be handpicking it? I think that will cause problems and accusations of bias. As a staff that's playi a canon I think s alright to show the peeps the ropes, however you should also keep in mind to give chances to other people and have a clear process on how they could take a canon. Whether by apping or rping it on board.
Ofc staff playing canons SHOULD make sure they actually know what they're doing. Itd be kinda lame if they rp something they dont even know shit about. I mean if someone has potential then they could let that member play the canon spot. Idk...im tired but that's my two cents on it.
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