A place for general chatter about games in progress, games completed, strategy advice, bug reports, or really anything at all that relates in some vague way to RSW.
There was an interesting conversation about RSW/Starweb etiquette in the Schell Games office today. Specifically at issue was whether communicating outside of game (especially with someone that you have not yet met in the game) is bad etiquette, immoral, or even against the rules or not.
I can see how people would take different views on this, and I can find no place in either the official Starweb rules or the RSW manual that explicitly addresses the issue. From reading SEDG articles, it's clear that there's a long history of players communicating outside the game. It's less clear how often alliances are set up outside of the game before players have even met.
I'd be interested to hear others' opinions on this, but I also think there are a couple of things that can be done to help with the issue:
Have a page in the manual that describes basic RSW etiquette and default expectations people should have about communication in the game. Getting everyone on the same page should reduce confusion and make it clear what is and isn't okay under normal circumstances.
Allow the creator of a game to write a note that's displayed to all players when they join and when the game starts, which sets out etiquette or rules that should be followed for that particular game. I think it could be fun to play in a game where everyone is honor-bound to not communicate outside the game and not communicate anything that would give away who they are. There just needs to be a way to communicate those expectations to everyone. Perhaps RSW could some day support "Anonymous Starweb" games, in which players are not allowed to communicate with each other using language at all.
This is an interesting topic. I, too, would like to hear what others have to say on the subject.
For myself, I don't see any problem with communicating outside the game and/or forming alliances ahead of time. Why not? RSW/Starweb is a game between people, and people have all sorts of communication channels available to them.
Some of the traditional Starweb etiquette conventions, especially those regarding initial encounters, have evolved because they were needful, due to the one-turn round-trip time for the first communication with a stranger. In traditional Starweb, there is no way to send an immediate message; all in-game messages are held and delivered with the next turn. So when you meet a player at a new world, you can't immediately negotiate with that player for ownership of the world. Granted, you can put your email address and/or phone number in a "Sign" that is immediately visible to everyone you encounter, but this eliminates any potential anonymity and is rarely done.
In RSW, of course, this is not an issue. People can engage in full bidirectional conversations as soon as they encounter each other.
The so-called Anonymous (really, uncommunicative) games are intriguing. This rule would seem to largely eliminate the diplomacy aspect of the game and make it into a mechanical game of individual tactics. Certainly worth investigating, but it sounds like a completely different game.
Laying out the etiquette and expectations at game creation time is a good idea. I'm not sure how meaningful this would be without some method of enforcement, though; I guess this depends on the size of the population. Most human etiquette rules are enforced by social interaction. Since RSW allows fully anonymous signups, there may be a greater temptation for anonymous (and therefore unaccountable) players to ignore suggested etiquette conventions.
One day I'd like RSW to provide the option to the game creator to select from any number of game variants (which would, of course, be enforced by the game itself). Further allowing the game creator to suggest arbitrary variants in plain language, that may or may not actually be enforced by the game, is an easy way to provide further flexibility and imaginative game rules.
After further reflection, I think I can clarify my thoughts on the specific subject of whether it is inappropriate to communicate outside the game, and form alliances with players you have not yet met in-game.
To the first point, communicating outside the game, this is only an issue because RSW's in-game messaging system is adequate to most communication needs. This is not so of traditional Starweb, so essentially all Starweb communications are made outside of the game. This is why this particular question is never raised about traditional Starweb. I can't think of any good reason to assert this arbitrary restriction in RSW, either.
As to whether it's appropriate to form pre-alliances with players you have not yet met in-game, the only reason I can think to forbid this would be to attempt to make an even playing field for all players, regardless of any external friendships. But this seems like an unrealistic goal; and forbidding such alliances, even if possible, isn't sufficient to satisfy the goal anyway.
To the larger question of establishing formal rules of etiquette beyond what is or is not allowed in the game rules, I think this is a dangerous territory. If we assert that it is inappropriate to do a certain thing, a thing which if done anyway results in a greater chance of victory, then we are just distorting the game (and the scoreboard) in favor of dishonest people.
drwr wrote:To the larger question of establishing formal rules of etiquette beyond what is or is not allowed in the game rules, I think this is a dangerous territory. If we assert that it is inappropriate to do a certain thing, a thing which if done anyway results in a greater chance of victory, then we are just distorting the game (and the scoreboard) in favor of dishonest people.
In the absence of any guidance from the manual, this is pretty much what I assumed going in. Everything's fair game, and people can make their own decisions about what is or is not honorable play, and how much they want to adhere to that standard.
Perhaps even this simple clarification should be in the manual somewhere. The person I was talking to felt that the presence of the in-game communication system implied that communication outside of that system was "against the rules".