Posting pics of physical grims *instead* of online ones is cringe

[mystic imp]

There are quite a few ST's now that run their games on physical grims or on pieces of paper alongside the online grim. There is no problem with this, every ST how they want to and if you want to practise with a real grim do that. But it's super annoying when referring back to games, say if you need to flag an event that happened and want to know who was in the game etc. Idk if this is in the rules already, but can we crack down making sure that if people post physical/paper grims they also post an online one (even if it's blank and just ahs the players)?

[stiff rock]

I'm actually surprised people do this (isn't it less convenient?). Personally I've always thought of this grim-posting convention as just a convenient way for players to be clear on the game state at the end, rather than as required for potential ticketing (though of course it is useful for that), so I never really saw this as rules abuse that needed to be "cracked down" on. Curious whether the mods have had a frequent problem tracking folks down, enough that it's really worth imposing this as an affirmative duty on STs.

[vast kraken]

As long as a physical grim is legible, it should not be a problem?

[halcyon burrow]

Having no grim at all is rather inconvenient if a game happens to be ticketed, but if it is a paper grim or a physical grim, I can read it just fine as long as there is some way to associate each character with each player. Paper grims do have player names typically, real grims don't as often

[hollow crag]

Is posting a grim pic even a requirement?

@mystic imp I’m usually with you on stuff but WTF is this 😅

[trim geyser]

I think some storytellers run games from their phone, and taking a grim pic on the phone looks awful so paper grims are better sometimes

as long as there is a grim with the players names and roles

what does it matter

[waxen veldt]

This seems like a case of one individual being used as an example for public discussion when a private way (aka ticket) would have been enough

[hollow crag]

Posting grim pics is a courtesy because the unofficial tool doesn’t reveal true roles at the end of the game, and it’s easy to miss things during the reveal. I think specifying that it’s a requirement and needs to be in a specific format for the convenience of the subset of players who track their games would be a dangerous ruling.

[mystic imp]

Posting of grim pics is not a courtesy for revealing roles. It is an important tool for dealing with incidents that arise during games. If a mod needs to investigate a game that occurred and there is only a picture of a physical grim, they can’t message other players from the game

This is purely to do with reporting and investigating games, not about personal recordings or player experience

[turbid smelt]

Thank you for the worry, but we've worked with all sorts of grims and a physical grim really isn't a problem if the names & roles are legible. We can always recreate a grim in the tool if it's an issue.

[shrewd saffron]

Gave +1 Thanks to @mystic imp (current: #29 - 562)

[mystic imp]

It’s not just for mods… I use it too and so do many people who report their games

[turbid smelt]

You can use a physical grim to report issues

[hollow crag]

Can you not take a screenshot of the online grim or the town square?

[turbid smelt]

We will do our jobs lol

[mystic imp]

All I was suggesting was lowering the barrier for anyone wanting to refer to an incident. Mods are an easy example but I was mainly suggesting it for other players

Honestly I didn’t think it would be a controversial statement to ask people to screenshot a page they already have open

I have already personally found it has got in the way and is a simple problem and was just trying to nip it in the bud

[mystic imp]

I’m not saying you won’t. I’m saying it will take longer and be more annoying. I don’t think anyone would suggest the mods don’t have better things to do…

[mystic imp]

All I’m suggesting is that! Just someone take a screenshot of who is actually in the game!!!

[halcyon burrow]

Something that can substitute well enough is a simple list of who was playing, the storyteller, the datetime, the script, which town square it was in

[turbid smelt]

If you're a player in the game and the ST didn't post a proper screenshot, feel free to take one yourself & post

I don't really want to make a server rule out of this

[halcyon burrow]

that’s the info we need to know, you can present it however you want

[turbid smelt]

In theory, grabbing a list of players & the ST could be added as a functionality to shadowbot

[halcyon burrow]

It could be

Or any other bot whose dev is willing to code that functionality

but it’s most similar to what shadow does

[turbid smelt]

Yeah, not shadow actually

Whichever bot handles the queue, the one Ivy manages

Because you can integrate it into the .next command

[stiff rock]

aside: as a software developer there's bits like this that I could contribute to if any of the authorized bots were actually open source, but unfortunately they're all kinda isolated little single-owner projects

[halcyon burrow]

Carat is open source! @civic fossil manages that project

[stiff rock]

and last time I asked about this the pushback from the mods was that they didn't want to allow anyone else to contribute to bots because they have permissions

yeah, you're right, Carat is

forgot about that one

I guess I should amend to none of the bots typically used by live players

is it weird to roll live stuff into carat?

[civic fossil]

A software dev who wants to work on Bots 👀
Where can I sign you up?

[halcyon burrow]

Carat has a lot to do already and gets ratelimited sometimes but when Broome and I are done with finals at the end of the month, we may be making a new bot mainly to assist with moderation, where Broome leads the development and I host it. With that, there’d be no security problem with you contributing code because Broome would review the pull request anyway

[civic fossil]

There have been rough rumours about more bots being made open-source, so it's not a "never", I'd love to make more of them open source for exactly this reason.
The issue you might face is that pull-requests for features will not only need to work but be what's wanted by whoever is in charge of the server at the time

[mystic imp]

This is the first useful suggestion

[civic fossil]

#community-tools message
Shadowbot did ask for some help a while ago, not sure if this is something you want to help with

[halcyon burrow]

Beam’s Dash custom commands listen to .next to do rerack timers, so it doesn’t have to be the same bot. I just don’t think Dash can pull from who’s in vc like a custom bot like shadow can

[turbid smelt]

It should be able to, pulling users from a vc is quite simple

[halcyon burrow]

Could be something to try then!

We are going off topic tho

With talking bout bot stuff

[turbid smelt]

The problem is moreso people running off before the .next command is used

Or splits

[stiff rock]

I did talk to Lieutenant at the time and he was really reluctant to accept any active contributions aside from reading code

[hollow crag]

Huff

Buddy

If you’re sat in a game thinking “I’m gonna raise a ticket”

I think it’s reasonable for you to take the damn screenshot yourself

[civic fossil]

Save names 20 mins After the .next command to save that game?

[turbid smelt]

Yeah, I like that

[civic fossil]

Is there a period where the queue is ever empty?

[turbid smelt]

Yeah, it sometimes happens

[stiff rock]

my temptation is to write something that joins the actual websocket server and watches the grim to write an audit log

[civic fossil]

^That won't save all the games

[stiff rock]

but the hardest part is getting permissions to actually read the channels to know what grim links exist

[turbid smelt]

There are definitely instances where it wouldn't record anything

When the queue has ST's but there aren't enough players, so the server is in a hold pattern for a few hours

[civic fossil]

Is this something you'd be serious about?

[stiff rock]

If it'd be useful. (I also have to double-check that whatever license/etc it would be under complies with my employment agreement.)

[turbid smelt]

Your employment agreement can stop you from making things for non-commercial use?

[stiff rock]

yes

[hollow crag]

Yeah this is a thing

[turbid smelt]

How is that even legal lol

[stiff rock]

freedom to contract I guess?

[hollow crag]

“We own anything you create” is a semi common thing

[halcyon burrow]

jaybro what country are you in?

[stiff rock]

Canada (but same contract terms is common in USA & elsewhere afaik)

[halcyon burrow]

That’d explain why Dela isn’t familiar

[turbid smelt]

I mean we have NDA's & laws here that make it so you can't work for direct competitors immediately after employment at certain companies

But right to everything you code sounds borderline insane & not legally enforceable at all

At least not here 😂

[civic fossil]

I've added you as a BotDev

[celest belfry]

Out of curiosity (haven’t played too much live in a while): even if the ST doesn’t post the grim in online tool, can not some player in the game (particularly those concerned) post screenshots of their grim post-game end?

I get it doesn’t necessarily have all of the true roles/info, but to the extent it’s remembering who was in the game, etc, every player in the game has it and because STs are human and even if there’s a policy may forget, it doesn’t hurt to have others post it too

[halcyon burrow]

Players often do this!

It’s very quick to do, and it can be fun to see what someone’s world was or what they did for notes

[regal knot]

I for one appreciate this return to title form.