Followup From Ideas: WMYSWS?
I figured I could help continue the discussion.

As a brand new player… he's asking a really good question. This is actually how I feel, but I wouldn't be bold enough to point it out.

It's like a confused caricature of anime baddies and an ERP game.

But then someone dies and everyone is absolutely sobbing. In their RP and everything...

The NPCs are highly aggressive and problematic, whether you're trying to join their faction, work for them, work with them. If it's not outright aggression, it's passive aggression, and it seems like you'd do better to have some time under your belt if you won't be spoken to like subhuman trash by the GM playing the character.

Boring players… mean administration. Players acting boring due to administrative mentality, or players being boring in waiting for a reason not to be. Several variations, not to be oversimplified.

Not to mention when the non-bartending introductory careers available all lead to consistent playerbase hazing because of their position as, introductory. Especially true for combat careers. Hide or die.

And, in addition, I feel I should note: The point of the thread is to find the good things. The 'WHY' we stick around. Not to trash down on years old subjects of relative clarity.

It does seem like the prior thread was outright deleted, though, so perhaps it's of no relevance to the topic at hand.

Are Sewer Dragons ten year old story-pieces? It's a rhetorical question, I need no answer.

I think the sewer dragons are a new way to stop people from farming. Simple and easy.

Well, if your character is brand new, and is given a job to do certain shady tasks, it doesn't seem like you have to be a 'successful farmer' to be targeted. Only to go there, and be there. First berg or fiftieth.

while i do think the atmosphere re: character interactions should be somewhat harsher, there's got to be some give to it so you don't just immediately scare off any new players. if everyone in your game is just an uncompromising dickhead nobody's going to want to hang around

I personally like the depressive, dystopic theme. It's why I liked HL2RP, as well. It's not everyone's cup of tea.

Compared to a lot of roleplaying games though, Sindome can feel overwhelmingly confrontative. Which can get extremely hard to deal with. These days I deal with it by trying to care less OOCly when shit goes horribly wrong. It helps to an extent.

Combat still makes my heart beat faster (like, I can feel my heartbeat, that kind of intensity) 'cause I know all I could lose vatting out.

although i will say its a little annoying whenever a new character enters and half the players online immediately make a beeline for the gate to smother them in Roleplay. like, i get it, you wanna make the player feel welcome, but you gotta give them some room and not treat them like you've been best buds for six years or they're gonna get the wrong impression of the game's atmosphere and, in turn, treat any other new players the same way. it's kind of a feedback loop of Being Nice

I find it really, really difficult to classify Sindome as cyberpunk when it lacks pretty much everything that makes the genre fun. It's more like… gloompunk. Grimpunk.

I guess I come at this from a different angle compared to those more used to a MUD style scenario… most of the places I played were RP-heavy and code-lite with very strict rules around what constituted a "plot", the scope of them, and who was allowed to run them.

"Slice of life" was the default interaction. Find people. Make friends. Make allies. Make enemies. Portray your character being themselves in the world and environment they exist in. See how it shapes them. Try things. Succeed. Fail. Rebuild. Go out in a blaze of glory.

Listen to the tales of past actions or hear about current ones happening and realize that in many ways what we as players might do is mostly limited by our imaginations, willingness to risk out characters, and finding the right way to make it happen. Our world can always be more cinematic if that's the sort of thing someone's craving, but generally stuff getting dropped in ones metaphorical lap is usually the result of a lot of trial and error rather than right place right time.

(Though 'off peak time zone' people know that sometimes catching things can be influenced by being on at the 'right' time).

For me, I came here because I love how deep and detailed the code is, it's amazing. Would I say the game is perfect? Nah. No game really can be, and I have a long list of things that if I were in charge I'd do differently, but, I'm not in charge, and I'm not willing to step up and try to GM, and considering what I've seen on a lot of games, I'm grateful that there is a system here wherein anyone can submit a request for GM assistance for whatever they want -and it happens usually within a couple of weeks at most-.

From the sector of the hobby I'm from that in and of itself is more than a little mindblowing and a change that I've found I actually love.

While I agree that there's things that could be way more 'cyberpunky', even the definition of what constitutes cyberpunk can be different from person to person. To some it's Cyberpunk 2077, to others its more Judge Dredd. Still others find the core at things like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Johnny Mnemonic and so many things in between.

If I had infinite time and coding skill I'd personally love to see Red sector redone more Judge Dredd/Johnny Mnemonic style with more than a dash of Kowloon thrown in, more massive buildings, winding alleyways, strange little places to discover and get around, but that would also be likely cruel to people new to the game/genre in terms of navigation and it's massive and difficult enough to navigate sometimes as is!

Anyways, ramble mode off. I love the game for what it is, as well as what I consider it's 'potential', that's why I stay.

This person was not suspended for sharing their opinions, but for the inappropriate way they were doing it, and then doubling and tripling down when warned they would be asked to leave if they didn't stop.

We welcome feedback, but insulting the players and staff of the game, name calling, and baseless accusations to stir the pot, are not feedback and don't have a place here.

Please review this thread about what we will / will not tolerate in our community if you have questions: https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/game-problems/sindome-is-a-privilege-474/

(Edited by Slither at 9:30 am on 12/31/2024)

I had a really bad night one night. I asked to be voided until I could come back and be less upset. I took a few hours off and came back. If you need a break, take one.

These are some fair criticisms of the game, and the things mentioned here are nothing new. There's a great deal of ERP nowadays, and there are some characters that I daresay are mostly here for that sort of relationship IC. I do not have a problem with this way of playing and I do not think that this is substantially different from when I started playing five years ago. However, when I arrived, a lot of the ERP/relationship stuff was actively counterbalanced by small levels of hyperviolence weekly, if not daily, that made the Mix feel a bit dangerous.

Sindome is a very slow game. You'll need to get used to that if you want to keep playing. On the other hand, though, the newbie experience, in my opinion, is the most consistently exciting part of the game. It's likely why I've never really held onto a character past that stage. I've had the most fun as a recent immigrant doing something stupid or dangerous, vatting, and doing something more stupid and dangerous. My advice for any new player who is struggling with the pace of the game is to try something crazy out. Be prepared to lose, both financially and reputationally, but I think you'll find true new potential of the game much more quickly. It's this sort of high that I come back to over and over again, and I believe stops existing (or has for me) once I've reached midbie levels.

In terms of puppeting: I've had extremely negative interactions with NPCs, a couple of which have left me miffed enough to take a break. On the other hand, I've had extremely positive ones. As you play the game more and more, if you decide to keep playing, you'll realize that the negative consequences from some NPCs are both staff enforcing theme and also vouching for your ability, as a player, to handle that sort of stress.

In terms of theme: I do not think this is cyberpunk in the traditional sense, no. I do think that it has the potential to be, but that would require a lot more chyen to be circulating in order for all players to afford the type of enhancements that are themely and make recovery from risks quite a bit easier.

im going to latch onto a very small part of that post and say that sometimes doing shit that you know is detrimental to your character (like, as slither mentioned, flashing chy in front of gangers) because it's something your character, as a person, would do, is very fun and creates interesting roleplay

In response to if the game is getting softer or not:

Yes but it's not limited to Sindome. The playerbase MU*s seem to share in general is less for the violence and the possibility of their character being harmed especially if it isn't some grand event where everything is first planned out OOCly. I've been called a "murderhobo" just for doing the same stuff I've always done in certain places and even when that's proven to not be the case certain segments of the community still hold onto those accusations.

You see it in the lack of extremes that you can take conflict without backlash ICly and that's a critique specifically of Sindome as I see the game right now. Or rather, the bar for what's considered an 'extreme' has gone way down. Mugging people is an offense punishable by being ostracized by large swathes of the playerbase now, when in the Sindome of even 2018 to 2020 there would be a mugger on every other corner paying the gangs off to see what they could get off of people. If people complained about it SIC would tell them to stop bitching. Now if people complain about it we get long conversations about how immoral it is to be one mugger in a city where there are thousands of them operating daily.

You can absolutely still do these things and even be supported by staff but the reception from those who do not actively seek out conflict is remarkably different than it used to be. The feeling I've gotten is that you're looked at as though you're toxic if you perform certain actions, as opposed to past general opinion where it was always just, "conflict is conflict." There are always going to be differing opinions when harm is carried out especially if it looks from the outside to just be the sake of it, but the pushback against perceived, "random violence," has in my opinion gotten a whole lot louder.

Even the upper echelons of the mix don't really cause the same chaos they used to and also in my opinion, it's because at those levels there's now more of a popularity contest. There are fewer players who want to be seen as the villain even when they should be the villain.

I haven't been here for super long, but from my perspective, I'm very certain that there is a group of older players who is perpetuating the ideas of the game being too soft, having too much ERP, etc. and using it as an excuse to bully every player they can.

Yes, I have seen moments where the game is very soft. But I have also seen moments where people are driven out of the city and quit playing because no matter what they do people won't leave them alone. Personally, I am very happy with the state the game is in. My main issues are with the players who are trying to change it into their own little playground.

The "too much ERP" complaint just seems to me like those same people wanting something to point fingers at when they can't find anyone to randomly mess with for no reason.

And yes, it's incredibly obvious who the group of players is that make these complaints over and over, because they bring these complaints into IC things too.

My advice for staff, is keep up the good work, and maybe look into where you're actually hearing these complaints. I get the feeling it's the same few people saying them over and over.

I mean, "too much ERP" can feel very real when you hope to RP with someone but they keep giving excuses of "too busy" and so on, but you know they actually spend that excess time on ERP. It has ic solutions obviously, but still, can feelsbad.

I mean, "too much ERP" can feel very real when you hope to RP with someone but they keep giving excuses of "too busy" and so on, but you know they actually spend that excess time on ERP. It has ic solutions obviously, but still, can feelsbad. - Aida

I've never have experienced this but I can imagine it does. I don't know how I'd handle it if that was going on. At the same time, you can IC have some fun with dealing with that issue!

Immies will be lavished with resources and support and endless coddling while they booth themselves by the bucketful over pretend relationship drama and people still point fingers at the big meanies for putting some theme into their dress-up sim.

Lots of players have a rough time adapting to a game that includes a lot of direct player conflict as part of its core design, but that's not unfortunate it's necessary because it selects for players best able to engage with the game and the theme in a productive way in the long term.

Immies will be lavished with resources and support and endless coddling while they booth themselves by the bucketful over pretend relationship drama and people still point fingers at the big meanies for putting some theme into their dress-up sim.

^

There is an effort to push this idea that introducing conflict to players will drive them off from the game, but there is no actual data to support that argument. This closely mirrors a long-running theme in EVE Online where high-security players claimed for years and years that PvP players were driving potential players off the game, something that CCP Games largely were swayed by so they continually tried to cater to high-sec miners and low conflict players until 2015 when they did a large scale study and discovered the opposite was true. That player originated conflict actually increased retention versus PvE activities which had a much lower level of engagement long term.

That early SD borrows a lot of DNA and mentality from EVE is I think relevant to this comparison, and agrees in my opinion with historical trends that high conflict periods overlap with high population periods. Players claim a lot of things and are often just as much in ignorance or denial about what they really want, but it remains consistent that players like engagement and activity and stuff happening and will play when provided those things.

I just roleplay according to my character and my character's morals/policies. I don't tend to play goody two shoes so usually if my character jumps in for someone it's because it's personal.

If you think Eve is not about tearing down other players, you didn't play eve. I say that as since-beta eve vet.

There are a bunch of things you can do on SD and some of them don't even involve you come into conflict with other players, unless of course they choose to mess with you which is always a possibility. Sindome has the best artistry and performance system I have seen on any of these text games, the badlands have been worked on and what's there is impressive. On SD the focus isn't on the mechanics, all the mechanics added have to complement the theme somehow so it doesn't just turn into another arcadey hack and slash.

0x's comparison to EVE is specifically regarding the PvP side of things where conflict actually drives player retention and numbers as opposed to driving those numbers down. It's more to do with the issue of believing players who complain about conflict, instead of those who want that conflict. Where I stand on that is the players who don't want conflict often want to get rid of the ones who do, or at least very loudly look down on them. I am a conflict oriented player and have no ill will toward slice of lifers beyond them hating on me for playing to theme.

We are playing a very different game if you think that's all there is to it?

Can there be improvements, maybe. But what are you doing to be part of that solution?

I've been her for a year. My character is absolutely fucking useless as I built her wrong as I had to learn how to even use the system.

That being said, NONE of it mattered. Everything that's happened to her has been RP based. You can do so much without worrying about UE at all.

"I am a conflict oriented player and have no ill will toward slice of lifers beyond them hating on me for playing to theme. "

Sorry to snag this quote, but as I was the one that mentioned 'slice of life', I want to clarify that slice of life -does- include conflict as far as I'm concerned. It's not just about the 'safe' or the 'soft'. It's about playing to character history and stats.

It's about breathing life into the character, just as 'conflict' isn't just going out and using the code to target other pcs with minimal to no RP at all.

Since ganging up on undisguised criminals was mentioned, I will offer this tangential comment: I believe the game has always had a bit of a problem with ganging up on bold lowbies, because they are both easy targets and socially acceptable to antagonize.

The best thing you can do as a midbie or endbie for conflict-oriented player retention is to not get involved when these sorts of immies are making chaos, or if they force your hand, give them a slap on the wrist and send them on their way. Even if you are a non-combat character, vocally dogpiling can do worse things to the morale of new players than beating them senseless and stealing their wallet.

It's that easy. Let them deal with the enemies they are making, you don't need to join in just because it's an easy opportunity to make your character seem cool. That's not coddling, that's just themely. Why do you care?

It's less about choosing your level of conflict, which is also important, but also not choosing to dogpile people despite not having a dog in any relevant races. Immies can and will step on the wrong toes sometimes and attract attention beyond their means, but if the attention beyond their means is just from someone jumping on a SIC band wagon because so-and-so is a meanie and robbed someone you met at a bar once, that is a problem beyond simply punching down.

If you play Sindome everyday just to get UE points, you're going to have a miserable experience.

Play for telling your character story and RP. UE might be needed to a ton of things, but they aren't the end of all things.

Take breaks. There are a lot of opportunities for those who try it, even deckers can have a lot of stuff to do if they invest into it. Sure, not easy and coded, but it's there.

Characters always up to changing depending as their narrative changes and so does the city also moves on.

You're a slice of life player? You're going to get dragged into conflict too, no avoiding it, just expect it.

You're a villain? You're going to step up on the wrong toes someday and get a bad experience from it.

The joy of Sindome is getting back up despite all the kicking you down. Also, living with "boredom" is another facet of life, find stuff to do (You don't ton of UE and money too).

There is @plots for little plots suggestion that might just involve yourself and no one else.

"Some people have a very real talent for making being a victim an enjoyable experience." is what I meant to say.

I'm in 100% agreeance with Emily's comment about a certain subgroup of the community OOCly pushing for more violence because they want to justify bullying because they have their full Xo5 and nobody to use it on.

However I feel like it's actually a lot of saber rattling. This is evidenced by the much redacted conversation involving whether the high UE characters were actually doing their jobs. Then suddenly overt violence was being used as a threat as to why we should be happy that the high UE characters weren't actually doing their jobs. Every venue gatherings would be firebombed. Chain vattings a-go-go. Those characters would lace up their jackboots and stomp up and down Fuller making everyone's life hell. You don't want that.

I wasn't the only one to point out that there is actually a middle ground between being completely non-visible and mass extermination of immies, but there were some who would make you think there wasn't. Odd how suddenly violence was suddenly something that we didn't want.

Unfortunately Sindome is a game that rewards authoritarian roleplay, which in turn attracts people familiar with authoritarian rhetoric and tactics to control and manipulate conversations. Already I'm seeing language used to gaslight and slowly turn it back on Emily, so she must've touched a nerve somewhere.

And no, this doesn't apply to the majority of players who enjoy or play adversarial roles. A lot of the combat people I have really cool IC interactions with because of roleplaying. I've also been vatted with literally zero closure or even knowledge of who did it or why to this day, which absolutely totally sucked. Everyone's mileage may vary, but like I said somewhere else, knowing when to take the pressure off is the difference between an intense and intimate scene and a snuff film. Many of you are roleplaying being dicks. Some of you are dicks and calling it roleplay. Know the difference.

The irony of the situation is that undoing the protections in place in regards to PVP would actually endanger the high UE characters more than the immies. For example, I'm in favor of allowing apartment doors to be cracked and or kicked down. I know that many of you would cry out for protection for the lowbies and how it wouldn't be fair power wise… but the question is who is the current coding protecting? The lowbie in a single room apartment with 5K worth of stuff, or the solo in their large pad with 500K of high end goods that will never see the open market?

If you want another example, we'll even use EVE as a comparison. The number one rule of EVE is "don't fly what you can't afford to lose". But when the conversation about fucking up vehicles arose, people actually said that they would quit the game if their vehicles were allowed to be fucked with or heaven forbid hotwired and stolen. Does this mean that we are coddling the upper UE characters that can afford the high end cars? What other ways can we ensure car owners never risk anything?

Funny how everyone is all about Sindome being harsher until the rich are suddenly mildly inconvenienced. I guess it is like EVE with protecting a small portion of gameplay to the detriment of the game.

So just remember that everytime you hear people warning you of intense violence, they really don't want that happening, because removing the safeties that are preventing the midbies from actually swinging up is the last thing they want.

Batko, I actually wasn't talking about you, but if the shoe fits lace it up and take a hike.



Risikio, considering your attitude towards supposedly 'authoritarian' players who use tactics and rhetoric, every post I recall you making is laced with venom for, as you put it, certain subgroups of the community, painting a picture that there's a community shadow government controlling the game via combat, mind control, and staff favoritism, really pulling strings behind the scenes.



Well, wow. Coming out swinging with the ad hominems full blast? Shit, just like Emily, I must've really touched a nerve.

But yeah, "authoritarian" tactics like speaking down about someone while mocking them? Maybe even using "air quotes" like Steve Martin did in his standup? There's no way people could be using the playbook of painting people discussing systemic problems as having an "agenda" or is somehow crazed. Also I have not a fucking clue what this combat mind control is that you're saying I believe in so please take that gaslighting attempt and shove it up your ass.



I don't understand your point about how there's simultaneously this shadowy group that is asking for more violence because they have gear with nobody to use it on, but also shaking in their boots at the prospect of violence. It doesn't really seem to make sense. Maybe there are two different shadow governments you're melding into one. Secretive and obscure as these groups are, we can never tell. I applaud you—you're onto them.



Oh here, let me clear it up for you. I don't believe that this is a shadowy group that is somehow pulling the strings. It's a couple of keyboard commandos who think way too much of themselves and are exponentially louder than the others. This is a sliver of the Sindome community. I would put the active player count of people who pop in and out on the regular as about 60 people. I'm talking about maybe three to four people. I would say four to five but on April 28th, 2023 a player was banned.



Regarding the elephant in the room, I will say that the absence is felt. Whether this is a positive or a negative to the community is left to the interpreter. Personally in terms of wanting to go back to the old ways, seems like the group lost their bite with the ban. So now it's just a lot of bark.



So, we've flipped like two or three times by now, but if I am reading this right, you think that all the people asking for more violence don't actually want violence? And therefore, there should be… wait, did I get it backwards? Shadowy subgroups, therefore less violence? Not following.

I am of the belief that Sindome should be more dangerous, but not necessarily violent. More violent just means more violence. More dangerous means more capacity for violence, as well as variety. And more variety means more ways to not only swing back but also up. And if it's one thing that Sindome gets wrong about cyberpunk it's that the "-punk" means allowing players to be able to swing up.

But yes. More dangerous possibilities.

-I believe that firearms are desperately in need of some sort of rework to be made viable, and that more proliferation of firearms through the gangers would ultimately be a good thing. But this would require an entire system overhaul and judging from the Lord of War thread being locked, isn't going to happen anytime soon.

-I believe robotics needs to actually have robo-dogs and aerial combat drones. Just as you don't fuck with a ganger standing next to an allied ganger memento, a robodog in guard mode at the side of a non-com presents a problem for a would be assassin. It also allows someone maybe not so skilled in combat stats to bring pressure with an army of cyberdogs to take down one solo. So it obviously is not going to happen anytime soon.

-I believe car combat should be embraced and implemented by the gangers and yes heavy weapon car combat should be a semi-regular occurrence in the Mix. Why the various Kings haven't demanded their own tricked out war wagons is beyond me. Maybe a contest like Deathrace 2110 up to Green and back, Judges are 20K points. Unfortunately none of this can come to fruition due to the stagnation of the firearms market to extra triple include heavy weapons. So it obviously is not going to happen anytime soon.

-I want apartment to be able to be breached, as well as the ability to snap the necks of sleepers. Like legitimately the only safe place to sleep in the city would be the immie coffins. Is this extreme? Absolutely. But as it stands apartment doors are an impenetrable wall that someone can just hide behind. This only protects the ultra high UE combat characters from actually having a vulnerability that can be exploited. So as I pointed out, actually implementing this would endanger a solo's wealth more than an immie's, so it is obviously not going to happen anytime soon.

-I want doors to be able to be verified open with severed body parts. As it stands I feel the macguffins failed because there was no way to actually intercept them. No way to actually steal one when it spends its entire existence behind a locked door that nobody else can open. Actually adds some dynamics when a janitor can be jumped for their eyes so some gangers can access the corporate weapons locker.

Are all of these ideas extremely violent? Yes. But if you notice I'm suggesting them with thought out game design theory behind it, and how it the ideas would actually benefit the game. Can all of these ideas be abused to bring the hammer down on the low characters? Absolutely. But it also allows for the pendulum to swing the other way and the little guy to actually win in new and interesting ways.

This is completely different from bemoaning the game turning into a hug fest and saying people just need to start acting more dickish and Sindome will be made great again.

But like I said, implementing these changes would cause the high UE characters to be weakened far more than immies would be, so it's obvious it's not going to happen anytime soon.

Anyways, I'm exiting this conversation. Feel free to interpret how you see fit and declare yourself the victor. I don't really care. I don't have the emotional energy to deal with any of this. I agreed with Emily that a group of players were perpetuating the idea of the game being too soft as an excuse to justify being complete dicks to other characters and calling it roleplay. I pointed out that in response people were attacking Emily, toxic projecting, and gaslighting her. In response I am met with immediate attacks against my person, toxic projection, and attempts to gaslight me into looking crazed and having an agenda. Like I said, I don't have the energy for any of the bullshit.

Good luck and all with… whatever you were seeking to accomplish tearing down other players like that. I'm sure you somehow feel better about yourself and all.

(Edited by Mench at 9:52 pm on 1/4/2025)

"The irony of the situation is that undoing the protections in place in regards to PVP would actually endanger the high UE characters more than the immies. For example, I'm in favor of allowing apartment doors to be cracked and or kicked down. I know that many of you would cry out for protection for the lowbies and how it wouldn't be fair power wise… but the question is who is the current coding protecting? The lowbie in a single room apartment with 5K worth of stuff, or the solo in their large pad with 500K of high end goods that will never see the open market?"

Okay this is maybe a little bit nitpicky but, I think it's important to point out that solos are not the ones hoarding gear. They're usually the players actively going out and risking it. Yes there is seemingly an issue with gear hoarding going on but throwing blame at the wrong party is no bueno. I promise you most of them don't live in large pads subsisting on a diet of caviar and champagne either. On that note, B&E of corporate buildings is probably more in-line with providing solutions to the issues you outlined there as well as the lack of violence!

Also, 0x1mm, please stop trying to remotely assassinate me with funnies. Thanks.

I can tell you from experience in niche RP communities, many of the new players, or even midbies don't know the old sindome.

By introducing the 'fuck your shit and everything you own' you would alienate half of the playerbase. People would leave, nowhere is safe. Great, then safest thing is not to play.

You can't just take away everything, nobody wants that, most people don't want that.

Especially not in a game, where things take -weeks-, MONTHS, to get just to have it swiped in 5 minutes.

I get where you are coming from, but it is a PvP game, not a hardcore milsim RP deathdream. Nor is it a hugfest, it comes and goes. Constant war wouldn't be good for anyone either. It's a delicate balance.

I disagree with the majority of Risikio's takes on this thread and I think they might have even been directing some of their criticism at me after I responded to Emily, though I'm not sure about that.

Make guns even better? Bad idea.

Breaking into apartments? Worse idea.

Necksnapping sleepers? Horrible idea.

I also disagree with the way they're choosing to say these things which is hostile and inflammatory but I do agree with their sentiment to some degree.

The upper echelon of the game as it stands are largely untouchable because the culture of the game has shifted immensely from what it used to be. The most powerful mixers especially don't do as much to hurt each other as those who occupied those roles would in the past. Instead there's more of a 'profit side by side' mentality as long as a group isn't out to get you or your assets.

Hypothetical situation:

You have been wronged by a max UE character who is in a powerful mix role.

Anything you say about them bounces off or gets you killed, things they do are generally shrugged off by law enforcement. They reputation is going to be fine unless they themselves choose to go on some kind of spiral.

There is no soft power way to take on one of these characters.

Logically from there you decide to try to just hurt them physically instead. Okay, but there's nobody willing to go after them since all the other max UE characters see that conflict as a waste of time. They'd rather scratch at the armor of their opposition doing things that will also largely not result in any harm.

They have a bunch of gear, they are max UE, they have been sitting at the top for years. Their reputation is unharmed and you can't get them killed.

You can try to do it yourself but that's unlikely to work out in your favor. What you then have to do is spend years playing catch up.

This is why conflict at the top is stale right now, those characters who used to be willing to take on the burden of going after these high powered endbies no longer exist.

It's the old issue of not being able to hurt a corporate citizen who lives between their tower and their apartment but brought to the mix. Should the most powerful roles in the mix lead to you dying constantly? No but they shouldn't shield you to the degree that they do. For instance, if you do things that are blatantly against the mix you should be called out for it by the world. Which is how it used to be.

My point there got garbled a bit in the edit. To clarify: I meant that in terms of syndicate characters (or max UE characters in proximate syndicate roles or max UE characters fighting shadow wars), where out of a sense of fairness or sunk cost or supportiveness they just seem to become seemingly impossible to ever remove from the board unless the player themselves runs out of gas and stops playing (or gets banned).

The thing about syndicate players is that for the most part, they are already removed from the board. Syndicate positions come with a slew of restrictions and restraints on characters in return for a budget and protection. If you go against the will of your boss, you can be quickly removed, and guidance is frequently given to prevent abuse of the position. You essentially resign yourself to a questgiver role with some special occasions where you can personally handle things. If you are going directly after a syndicate character without being in one yourself, you are, in my opinion, just setting yourself up for failure.

Not every conflict can be resolved by hitting everyone else on the head with a rock. If you kill a corporate citizen, you draw the ire of their corporation, and it would be unreasonable to think that you could get them fired by just killing them repeatedly, and if they do a good job, it would be difficult to think of any way at all to get them fired. 'Unseating' other characters isn't really an option for many positions in the game, and if you could just decide to 'unseat' anyone you wanted, nobody would strive to the more difficult positions that are available. That is already the case with syndicate positions.

If you have an issue with a syndicate character, you can throw in with their rivals to help undermine them quietly, or even attempt to join them to become a foil on a level playing field. But it is unreasonable to think that unaffiliated groups or individuals can ever be a counterbalance or a loud enemy to syndicate characters, just as it is unreasonable to think unaffiliated groups or individuals can stand toe to toe with corporate security teams and not get drowned by the pull of their corporation.

As for more specific complaints like people not being willing to physically attack syndicate characters, this is mostly psychosomatic. If you are attacking them as an individual, you should expect to lose the ensuing conflict for the aforementioned reasons. If you are attacking them on behalf of another organization, the resulting conflict doesn't really fall on your shoulders as a single person. These kinds of nuances have been lost over the years.

The long and short of what I am saying is that you should not be expecting to 'win' against a syndicate, just as with a corporation. You can elevate yourself to be on a level playing field with them, even then, you can't 'win', you can just be in first place until you get tired and check out.

I've never seen the syndicates untouchable in the same vein as corporations or even topside characters should be. Syndicates have always been the 'peak' of Mix gameplay, where they're meant to player GM mainly for the Mix by encouraging conflict and promoting the gritty, dog eat dog aspect of the Mix theme.

Is there some IC lore behind syndicates being incorporated and all? Absolutely. But the mix-up in my view happens when people mix up what it means for a syndicate to be incorporated and sit on the Council versus a megacorporation. They're not the same thing, they never will be the same thing, and they're not at the same level at all.

A good analogy I've used throughout the years is fantasy: a kingdom's royal family are the megacorporations with all their knights and standing army and everything. The syndicates in this concept would be the thieves' guild that the nobility has to deal with begrudgingly even though they hate how 'dirty' they are and look down on them because they don't want to get their hands dirty - at least not publicly.

None of this means that a syndicate should be untouchable. Especially not in the Mix where again they're meant to be the greatest example of Mix conflict. I agree with 0x1mm that theme is counterproductive because then you have PCs that antagonize people in the Mix freely, without much consequence and oversight from other factions in the game, and then get away with it because they have a get out of jail free card for being syndicate members and 'being too powerful'.

Not even higher end corporate PCs and Judge PCs have that kind of immunity. While they do have their own protections, regulations and restrictions you have keep in mind the divide prevents a lot of these PCs from taking direct action against someone antagonizing them, whereas syndicates primarily operate and live in the Mix. Syndicates tend to get a lot more NPC support and posturing when there's an unaffiliated attack on a faction member as well.

There was some form of balance in this that the syndicates were more heavily regulated by other IC factions that'd come to blows with them directly and indirectly depending on the situation, such as the WJF, or megacorporations so that they had to be more careful with what they did. It seems that isn't the case anymore and instead the primary source of conflict for syndicates is versus other syndicates with the occasional punching down. This practically limits players to waiting around until they have the UE to get into a syndicate to finally get back at syndicate PCs that wronged them, or for another max UE PC to do so they can join up with them. Those two factors aren't controllable by players though and once again, stifles conflict, and leads to frustration on the players' part because their hands are practically tied.

This gives the playerbase the wrong impression. I think regardless of if you're a player GM in a high-end position, be it syndicate, WJF, corporate manager or RLF other players should always have the opportunity to return fire without having NPCs on their case - especially because they simply don't have the UE you do to get in a faction, don't have the faction membership you do yet, or because maybe your rival factions just don't exist at that point in time due to a lack of eligible players, and so on.

It should still definitely be harder and not the smartest choice to fuck with a syndicate, but there are already various mechanics in place for that in the form of reimbursements, chy, the UE gaps, the equipment differences and so on that the PCs should be able to handle it on their own and defend their place at the top against some poor shmuck by sheer force rather than rely on the faction membership they possess as well as faction NPCs joining in. If anything, that show of force would be very themely and making an example of someone that wronged you is a great plot hook and entertainment for the playerbase at large.

It also ensures that syndicates are subject to the same standards and have to still navigate the game and think on what they do, and consider the long-term consequences of X action rather than just worry about a rival syndicate in what these days seems to be more of an OOC forced conflict for the sake of that 'syndicates compete with each other' theme rather than the syndicates wanting to be involved in conflict themselves.

I wasn't really touching on NPCs joining in. That only happens in extreme circumstances, syndicates are largely left to figure things out on their own using their budget and resources. A budget alone is what I was discussing with corporate and syndicate characters outweighing unaffiliated players. They will almost always come out on top of conflicts due to their access to money reserves to pay players to be on their team.

Receiving special treatment (not receiving failures). I can write in my head, but not with my fingers.

I'd like to clarify that in my post, I was talking about direct, open conflict. You can't do that as an individual and hope to succeed,, just as you can't do that against a corporation and hope to succeed. Council seats and whatnot side, my point is that these players have more resources than individuals can hope to amass, and they can and will just drown you with reimbursed warfare.

You can undermine syndicates, and some have been quite successful doing so. My point is that you can't beat your chest and tell the megacorp they should be scared of you, because they won't be, you need to navigate things carefully.

I'm gonna be honest and say sometimes it's tiring how many old characters stick around for decades, never rerolling or changing the board.

That's a fair statement, Veleth. As someone who has hit max UE many times over two decades - it starts to become a pointless exercise. You run up against the same conflict oriented players repeatedly and things rarely just beyond the surface.

It can be a lot of fun reinventing the wheel and adding meaningful to the game with minimal investment as a new PC, but you'll hit brick walls or be reviled for it at the time. At best, months or years later people will reflect on your actions and praise you for them. Personally, what I did with the Bokken Boys was villainized ICly and OOCly to all hell. The payout on stolen packages was changed and the amount of scruitny I received sucked. Despite having it be immortalized in room descs and other PC efforts years later - it is not an experience I am eager to repeat.

If there is ever a dramatic rework of the game, I think it should be seriously considered to put every player in the Mix and have no official roles of authority anywhere, for anyone except what they can make for themselves. While it would mean every other character couldn't be a leader or a celebrity, everyone on the same playing field and with the same set of rules would be, I think, a lot more energetic and active overall.

We'll just have to agree to disagree about Syndicates having more power and protection than ever and relationships between specific factions.

All relationships have nuance and that includes between factions. You can have a friendly front face while looking to undermine and dismantle them behind the scenes. You can be a pushover. Or seem like a pushover. You can be an actual asshole. Or pretend to be an asshole. You can try to brute force it or try to have the screws slowly loosened so stuff starts to fall apart without expecting it or knowing it's coming.

I think it's always important to spend time reflecting on the truth of the situations and interactions. Does X happen because it's happening to everyone? Or because of my approach and me specifically? Can I change my approach? Would I see different results? What makes that other character tick and gets the best response, if i'm looking for the best response? Is the person on the other side being stubborn and isn't interested in cooperative gameplay? Or is it their character reacting specifically to my character?

While i'm not personally a big fan of the current state of Red or conflict in general, and tihnk we can all improve, I don't think there's a lot of bad actors left in the game. Maybe ones who are feeling the fatigue. Sometimes we don't know our competition as well as we hope or know all that's going on as much we would like, as tired and cliche as it sounds.

Honestly, I don't see the protection that is being discussed here. The amount of protection they get hasn't changed over the course I have been playing. As I stated before, the biggest advantage that syndicate characters get is a budget that they can use to both defend themselves and pursue their goals. In the right hands, that is assured victory against unaffiliated players.

That is not necessarily protection, that is just a combination of resources and player ability. It has been a long time since a syndicate NPC has come around to personally put an end to conflict or strong-arm PCs into submission, as far as I am aware. There are some protections that syndicates do receive, as I mentioned in my post, but I think it is wildly overstated in this thread.

And on the topic of 'nothing happening' or whatnot, I'd like to say that it's not the sole fault of a few players who are in positions of power that this is the case. While those players are charged with making plot, expecting a select few people to deliver world-shaking plots all on their own constantly is just not realistic.

Lots of things have changed between now and the goiden days every waxes poetic about, but there's one that hasn't been touched on nearly enough. Players in the lower echelons nowadays expect things to be spoon-fed to them, from plot, to money, to chances at moving up in the world. People need to practically beg on public SIC to get basic plots done, and I mean BEG. Nobody wants to put their foot forward to involve themselves in plots, everyone needs to be beaten over the head with a shoe until they begrudgingly involve themselves.

Syndicates used to get at eachother with greater frequency because the assets they had were hungry for their next paycheck, and they'd double-cross and lie and betray eachother to set up other assets, syndicate characters, or whoever could get them a paycheck from the other guy.

Speaking from experience, the majority of people now may occasionally come with their hat in their hand asking for work, but it has been years since I have been approached by someone who knows the value of their own connections and information and talks shop about how they can get paid for it.

While there has been a lot of consideration about automated income from the top down, syndicates and corporations don't rely on their own hunger for plot to move, they rely on a bunch of hungry peasants willing to rip eachother apart for their infinite supply of wealth. That is the most notable thing that has been missing in recent years, in my opinion, and until people are willing to actually participate on the same levels they were before, I can't help but roll my eyes when I see more threads complaining about a supposed lack of activity.

I phrased that very specifically. Syndicates are more protected than they used to be. The WJF used to openly fine syndicate members and things that those members are able to get away with today they definitely would not have been able to get away with back then. The pressure that used to be applied is absolutely not there. I played syndicate and was routinely harassed by at least three different Hall PCs for just about every minor thing I did.

When I mentioned that the relationship was nearly adversarial it was like that physically too. Syndicate members would go after corporate citizens and that also happened the other way around. There was conflict not just between the syndicates but also between topside and the syndicates. These things may still happen from time to time but the same level of friction just is not there.

A consequence of the divide being softened from what I can tell is that syndicate members more than ever are basically corporate citizens in the mix. There's not really any hatred of wariness about them from either side of the divide anymore and this allows them to operate, at times with impunity, on at least two sectors without fear of ever really suffering a hit to even their reputation.

The syndicates also gained numerous benefits over what they could achieve in the past but I'd have to get far too specific to even begin to get into those.

Alright, so where are the negatives? Power of a megacorp but the freedom of being in the mix. I am definitely biased though, I liked the syndicates more when they were indisputably the villain who went around victimizing everybody in interesting ways. They could almost be mistaken as being a positive force for their communities now.

@0x

Things have been that way for as long as I've been here, and possibly much longer. Sudden and unexpected 'exits' of prominent endgame characters can make things really messy and cause imbalances if there's nobody to fill in the gap. Those characters also likely have the resources at their disposal to make any attempts unlikely to succeed in the first place.

I think staff direction on the syndicates should be to arm both sides and see what happens but I don't think that's ever gonna happen. I also think that whoever has been around longer will tend to have the advantage in gear, chy and numbers but there are ways around that. Power vacuums and the sudden dispersal of a dead character's gear around the game can also be a source of conflict if it ever does come to that.

This approach just reminds me a lot of Cerberus being mystified that no one wanted to challenge his incredibly entrenched and powerful characters, and that players should feel a drive to come at the king so to speak. But personally, my feeling is that if someone is saying to me, you should try to go after so-and-so but also feel no expectation of victory, then I'm not a player at that point, I'm content for someone else.

If that is meant to be the main driver of conflict in the Mix then I think something is off, maybe it's what were previously roles for Admin alts becoming normalized for GM alts then becoming normalized for players but to me it just seems like enormous power creep where some positions are so far from the general street experience as to be essentially different games. I'm increasingly of the mind now that there should be no human person behind syndicate roles, behind senior corporate roles, behind senior WJF roles (or player WJF at all for that matter).

Whatever the ideal about factions interplay keeping one another in check has been thoroughly demonstrated to not be true in practice in my opinion, and that any advantage of resources one player has over another will just grow and grow and grow and grow and the only real role churn will be players getting bored and moving on. If there is no real reason to fight wars (and I agree there isn't, the mechanics of group conflict are horrible to deal with) then roles shouldn't be funded and supplied as though those wars are being fought.

I agree that corporate-syndicate conflict can maybe be explored more, having participated in some of that in the past, but the prevailing attitude around corporate conflict seems to be that combat engagements between two corporations, and to a lesser extent between a corporation and a syndicate, is considered to be something of a failure state for both sides of the conflict, regardless of who comes out on top of the bloodbath.

Involving topside factions with anything in the Mix is like the everlasting plot-stopper. That part of the game is so incredibly set in its ways by the majority of corporate players that it is best just to leave them to enjoy doing their own thing in my experience.

I will say that everything I've said in this thread is majorly influenced by my feeling and experience that player-to-player direct plots are the most fun and successful I've done and that getting factions involved is what gums up the works more often than not, so those are my biases.

Like the most fun is just grabbing someone and going on an adventure, as soon as it becomes let me ask my boss is where things get office politics.

I'm just going to start posting in these threads to get pep talks from Necro, they're very encouraging!

Don't worry I will use my encouragement purely for evil.