STATE OF THE CATS

[kyriakosmods]

And here's that Cat discussion post we promised you! Now that we've had the Cats around for awhile, we want to check in and see how everyone is feeling. Before we begin, please note that everybody in the game is welcome to weigh in on this.

The Cats are intended to be tools used by the system, for the purpose of upholding said system, and this is a concept that the mods will be slowly reintroducing over the coming months. Some IC conflict (internal, external, you name it) will be inevitable. To this end, our first question is this: What are your OOC comfort levels?

What would you like to see the Cats do or be used for? Where would you like to see them go from here? Do you have any concerns or suggestions?

And just as a bonus … tell us about your Cat's (or future Cat's!) morality :3c

Comments

[lifehacker]

I am enjoying the power I'm given BUT I play The Biggest Problem on the team, esp. wrt being in a position of "power." So I am kind of concerned how people feel about... that. I like mediating and such. Just remember kids: this Cat got into a swordfight with another Cat who cut off his arm, and then Jack shoved it down the other one's throat. gg raiden

lel

[lifehacker]

ALSO it is pretty cool that Cats can control how many memories they get and at what rate, and we can get them by doing a bunch of stuff. Like, I miss games or don't win them because I'm shit, but I can still get memories back by like... giving alcohol to minors.

It's pretty cool. Yeah.

[featherduster]

Most of this is probably gonna be a re-hashing on stuff I said in Re's plurk a while back but I'm nothing if not willing to absentmindedly say the same things over and over.

Basically! I am pretty okay with where Cats are right now, so I want to preemptively note that none of this is discontent at all, I just feel like there's room for potential that isn't quite being tapped into yet! Which is why I'm stoked for new stuff going forward.

More specifically, I think people who app as a Cat are apping with the knowledge that the IC and OOC experience will be quite different, and I've noticed many (most?) people tend to consider it a balancing act of pros and cons. Ie, "I could app to a team and get [xyz gameplay perks] or I could app as a Cat and get [xyz perks] but lose [xyz perks]" Having a team structure and memory roulette are among the tradeoffs lost, but for me personally, the potential elements that balanced that out were:

- Being able to choose when and how memories are regained, and YEAH, that is honestly perfect and A+ for me in execution, too
- Being in a position of "power" so to speak so that there are avenues for helping the teams in some way, which is p. essential for some characters to maintain playability - again, this has been aces
- Getting to run conflict resolution in an official capacity. And the thing about this is, there just isn't a lot of PvP conflict in Kyr outside games! So I think the idea of Cats as peacekeepers has become pretty moot, and that tends to tip the scales some in terms of "well why should I app a Cat instead of a team character, then?"
- Being in an uncomfortable position of having to maintain a system that isn't supported or approved of and having their loyalty/morality tested. THIS is the part I'd like to see fleshed out more, as has been SUPER COYLY HINTED ABOUT THANK U MODS.

In general I feel like Cats have settled into this role where all they do is give out quests and fill in for missing teammates in games, but there isn't a lot of super interesting conflict or drive there, if that makes sense? So it raises the question of whether handing out quests & getting shuffled to different teams in games super outweighs the perks that are lost by being on Cat team (having a team and memory roulette and all that). For this character specifically it works out for me, but I feel like in a more general sense, I'd probably end up going "nah, just app a team character"

So basically I'd like to see some conflict become a gameplay element more, because Cats are a tool of this system that's kinda screwing everybody over. OOCly I am pretty comfortable with a lot of things, because I apped expecting these elements to be present. My only stipulation would be that they're introduced gradually enough that it doesn't become an OOC strain trying to maintain ICness and playability, especially since there are a lot of stubbornly moral characters on the team now.

My other point of concern would be that the characters CAN rebel and eat whatever punishment they have to for it, because being legitimately forced to kill someone (or something similarly awful) would not be OOCly enjoyable for me personally. But, on the flip side, playing out giving the Echo in question the middle finger and being punished however necessary would be A-okay.

BASICALLY, TL;DR, SHUT THE HELL UP MEL: I want to see the morality & rebellion question we put down on the app actually tested. I'm not sure what shape we're imagining that coming in, be it orders from Queen or roles they're forced into in games, but my response would probably be "good. both. come at me bro"

Oh and morality is LOVE & PEACE!!!!11

+1

[carptricks]

I was thinking about what I wanted to type out (because I have a Cat in the queue) and to be honest I think Mel hit all of my points so instead of rehashing it I'm just gonna plus one her right here.

THOUGH I would like to emphasize (as someone with a Cat in the queue) that I would also really like to the see the conflict introduced slowly ICly, and that I too would rather play with the consequences and punishment of a Cat refusing an order rather then them being forced into MURDER MURDER when they don't want it! I don't necessarily want to see the relationship between Cats and teams totally broken with no hope of recovery (because Cats helping out teams is one of the perks of apping a Cat). But playing with the conflict of Cats maybe being given unsavory orders that they don't want to do and the consequences of some Cats saying NO or some of the Cats saying YES would be p. interesting, I think! For both Cat players and the teams 8|a

+1

[witchesandscores]

^ I agree with all of this, and it's the sort of thing that would make me consider re-apping my Cat (or apping a new one).

[pawper]

I don’t play a Cat, but I have been thinking about apping one!

One concern I have is how, OOCly, there feels like (and I could be misjudging or just not exposed to different perspectives) an overall lack of willingness to use Cats to break up fights. I've seen PVP (that isn't sparring or IC accidents to drive developments) discussed pretty casually, not always with expressed regard to player/characters outside of those involved in the potential conflict and even more rarely with acknowledgement of Cat duties.

I understand that this isn't the fault or responsibility of Cat players/characters, but perhaps something can be ICly implemented to bring that aspect of Cat duties into greater prominence? A very flawed idea, I know, but I’m not sure what else to suggest.

MY POTENTIAL FUTURE CAT’S MORALITY: he’s very invested in his personal revenge, has a lot to be angry about and will see no problems with using violence to solve a problem, but he still skews towards the good side of the morality spectrum.

[deadrising]

I KNOW FOR ME PERSONALLY I don't ever know if PvP will go through with itself outside of throwing it around on plurk. So until I actually set firm "okay we are doing this on this day and in this mingle" I don't like to involve Cats because...what if it ends up not happening? Then it's just a waste of someone's time and so forth.

I also accept that my characters would likely go to kyr jail because of their actions and I'm totally okay with that, but as you know we've tried to plan PvP stuff several times on plurk for Nightshade and it doesn't really pan out, so it doesn't even need a Cat.

[glorifiedtrash]

Far as PvP goes I would kind of honestly rather have it handled by CR 9/10ths of the time. This is more of a uniquely me situation, but Rats and Zelos's other CR are, for the most part, pretty super equipped to break anything up. Whether that's through skills/physical force or being someone Zelos likes enough to listen to.

If a Cat broke up a fight Zelos got into when he was in his right mind, that creates a pretty high risk that Zelos is going to have a beef with that Cat. Which I don't want to play with. Especially since, in my experience, Cats tend to kind of be not understanding of people getting into fights. Sometimes fights are over stupid stuff. But sometimes it's not so stupid stuff and when I've had Cats players talk to me about it OOCly and when Ruby broke things up when Zelos killed Roxy there seemed this really prevalent IC attitude that team characters who get into fights are uber children who need to be put in their place by the adults. Breaking up a fight like that is pretty much just going to guarantee Zelos is going to make trouble which isn't what I want at all if he gets into a fight.

So, for me at least, involving Cats makes the situation worse and creates a type of conflict I don't want to play with.

[deadrising]

OH OKAY SO I HAVE a few things, as someone who's held off on apping a Cat because I wanted to see what they would turn into.

OOCly I love the idea of Cats!! I am definitely planning on apping one in the next few days or so so yeah haha. But I do think that there's this sort of disconnect between what Cats are supposed to do and what they actually do?

For example: Cats can give quests for items. But every time I've tried to get a quest from a Cat, since we've had such high turnover it always falls through...and what difference is there from going to an Echo? It seems like Cats and Echoes currently serve the same purpose in terms of items you can receive from them, which means I always forget...about Cats...and just go straight to the people who generally have more 'power' to throw around. If there was some way that small things like clothes and alcohol and stuff could go primarily to Cats, I think it may help the Cats feel more a part of the "system", at least to me personally.

Also I feel like Cats supposedly being part of the system but not being at least partially beholden to the other Echoes in terms of what they can be used for is extremely contradictory. It sets the Cats in almost a place above the Echoes (because Echoes have to ask for Cats' permission to use them as middlemen in bad games, they server directly under Queen, etc) but at the same time they're still kind of tossed around by Echoes like all of the teams are. I feel like either Echoes need to be given some sort of increased ability to use Cats (which would make planning for them much more creative than what it is right now! yay!) or Cats should be above Echoes and thus not able to...well I don't want to say 'not play in games' but they should be obviously above being jerked around by Echoes other than Queen and Princess and shouldn't be forced to play with teams in good or uncomfortable games either.

[deadrising]

The morality of my Cat will be "I am the best and don't ask me about my problems" that's it that's a morality

[glorifiedtrash]

Not a Cat player, but my /2cents. I don't really feel there is a system right now. I don't see the Queen or Princess around that much and when I do in a greater capacity outside of Cat posts it seems like it's mainly to snark/tell people they don't have answers. I know some answers have been handed out to characters, but for the most part they kind of come off really disinterested in Kyriakos as a whole to me. Which! I don't mind!

But I feel like if there's going to be a ramping up of conflict to make things Cats vs Teams they need to ICly be more interested in everything going on and less reactive so there's a defined system. When the Queen introduced the Cats it felt like she was too lazy to concern herself with the goings on of Kyriakos and carelessly brought in a bunch of people to make a nanny state for her (which didn't end up happening obvs, but it felt like that was the intent). And that feeling hasn't really changed to me? I don't know how everyone else feels about it. I am sure it is different for Cat players! But as someone with a character only on a team it doesn't really feel like there's a defined system at all and everyone's just kind of left to their own devices re: rules/getting along/etc as long as nobody dies.

Putting that aside I would kind of want to know what you want to see re: ramping up conflict. I've always been given the impression that Kyriakos wasn't a game for PvP and games/events should not be making teams be at eachothers' throats. If the plan is to encourage conflict I'm not really sure what we should be doing with that? I had this with the splinter plot too. I didn't really understand if Zelos was just supposed to go around saying mean sassy things about Cats or make some violence attempts or try to overthrow the establishment, etc. So I ended up just kind of sitting on my hands and not playing with it much.

Um tl;dr I guess I'd like the system to be more defined ICly before there's conflict over it. And what kind of conflict are we supposed to be having?

[secretbooty]

We have some plans, but they will most likely rest with the Echoes rather than the players themselves helping to create that conflict, since the conflict with Cats is meant to be more about their loyalties, rather than conflict in the form of actual violence (unless the Cat is to be punished for disobeying, but even then violence is not necessary and that is more on a case-by-case basis). Kyriakos is not meant to be a PvP-centric game - although it can certainly happen and it's not against the rules! - and we will be clearer on the plans of what we'd like to do with the Cats once we've gathered more information from the playerbase. It'll give us a good idea on the direction we'd like to go and help a lot in solidifying plans to give the Cat role and the system some more shape.

[witchesandscores]

As a runner, I'd like to use cats more often in roles outside my usual pinch-hitting average-outting cat combination, but I feel crippled by the "Cats have the right to ask the Echo for details regarding the game; if they don't approve of what they're asked to do, they are free to decline.. For example, if the orders agreed to were ‘move team a to place b’ and during the game the Echo says, "okay, Cat, now kill them," the Cat does not have to go along with it..." etc etc. bit of the rules.

I would super-duper appreciate some more flexibility in that, so I can make use of the cats better, but that is just my personal opinion.

[featherduster]

Yyyyesss I honestly think this would solve a lot of the dilemma 8|a! Needing the Cats' permission to do anything sort of ties everybody's hands, because lots of the Cats just won't do questionable things, and even if they would, there's no real incentive. Besides potentially a memory, but that's just not gonna cut it for most Cats. And I don't really think "trick the Cats into helping do unsavory things" is a very good alternative, because ICly some of these characters would probably see through that, and it would feel OOC to handwave something that glaring.

So, idk, maybe ICly something that allows the power-play between Echoes and Cats to change? Unsavory Echoes gaining more power and going "ok but i don't really need to ask your permission or cooperation to do shit??" or something? Admittedly I know very little about the metaplot so I don't know how this does or doesn't mesh, but.

[seacat]

I agree with Mel on the idea of starting to have Cats used for the system/not so great aspects of their job with rebelling + punishment as an option! She phrased it much more eloquently than I could.

The one thing I have to add I do think that echoes should be kept from being able to "trick" cats into doing something in their games, as is the current rule - mainly because if they could then my cat at least (since I can't 100% speak for others) would just avoid games altogether in a situation like that. So I guess I'd like to see conflict enforced from the general position side rather than having them forced into playing roles in games or something.

[ground_up]

Well, let's see. As someone playing a cat (even on slowburn), I'm pretty open to what happens with Cats, when it comes down to it. My OOC comfort levels are kind of... I have no idea where my OOC comfort levels are, to be honest.

I must admit though, that a big part of the attraction to Cats for me was the concept of "uphold the system, even if doing so involves something questionable", which for the most part, it... really hasn't? Or at least not doing anything more questionable than your average Kyriakos resident? I think having something like that come up is kind of important, especially since the Cats would be so divided on it.

But yes, as other people said, moderation in general is kind of important: If that happens all the time, there would probably be some burnout all over the place, both for cats and team members.

Morality: ...Cheshire operates on video game morality. Which in practice generally translates into "do what people ask you to do, help random people whenever you can, but generally don't think too deeply about things." He would rather be good than evil, but at the same time... he wouldn't actually feel guilt or disgust about doing morally reprehensible things? Video game morality is actually a part of his power-set! (It's what I started him off with, yes.)

[whoslaughingmeow]

As some others have said, I'd like Cats to maybe have less freedom regarding their roles in games, but also the ability to rebel but be punished.

Right now I probably wouldn't app a Cat, cause it's just like..playing a team character, but without shard roulette (which is great) and without a close-knit team to bounce off of.

I'd love if Cats had less flexibility, so they had to make the choice of.. I dunno, cutting off someone's arm during a game, or losing theirs, and of course theirs might not come back when post-game heals go off as punishment, etc. Put some conflict in there, is what I'm saying, I guess?

I guess basically, I think there should be incentive for Cats to go along with some shitty things, and penalties for if they don't?

[whoslaughingmeow]

AS ELABORATION SINCE I FEEL I RAMBLED;

Cats being able to be slotted into roles outside the teams more easily is a good idea. Either in normal games OR trauma games. It distinguishes them from the rest of the teams. I think Cats should be obviously 'above' the teams in terms of authority but below the Echoes, and right now it doesn't feel that way.

And for trauma games, maybe there should be some sort of incentive if they willingly go along with something shitty. If you wanted to build tension between teams and cats (but not hostility, since that'd probably end up being a problem eventually) it could even be stuff like "Okay, if you play along and stab these people willingly, you get a reward" and it could be stuff like...giving someone/a team a post-game heal when there otherwise wouldn't be, or something. Since so many Cats are super moral, play off that.

[carptricks]

PUTTING THIS IN A SEPARATE COMMENT: OOCly I'd be comfortable with playing with any conflict the Cat position brings because I apped into the queue knowing what sort of position the Cats would be in 8|a! I will admit I have reservations about anything that might break the relationship between Cats and Teams entirely, but I certainly don't mind a strained relationship and I don't really think total breakage will happen so I'm not too fussed about it.

As for Morality Phoenix is like. . . usually lawful good except sometimes he swings neutral good depending on the circumstances (FORGED EVIDENCE TO CONVICT KRISTOPH GAVIN ANYONE).

[evenimprobable]

Everyone used their words better than I could ever hope to so I'm just going to say +1 to everything that's been said. Comfort-wise, I'm game for anything that wouldn't break Cat/Team relationships entirely, but some strain is okay! Otherwise, I'm comfortable with everything.

As for morality HAHAHAHA uh. He leans towards lawful good except sometimes he also leans the other way; if he has to break a person or two to get to the truth then THAT IS OKAY WITH HIM oops.

[appleofhiseye]

I can't say I currently have strong feelings on it! I totally apped in with the understanding that there could be conflict and I am fine with playing with that. I am pretty interested in seeing a balance of the Cats role within the system! To me it seems like there is a duality to it--the system is confining people and screwing them over in a lot of ways, but at the same time is restoring a lot of things that were lost, so there are positives and negatives that can be played with. But "the system" as it is seems a bit vague and there isn't necessarily a lot of conflict to play with. But I am also not personally too impatient about something being implemented just to have MORE conflict since I feel like Kyr has a lot of internal conflict as it is without throwing in more issues with the system. I also underestimated the strain it would put on my character having her intro right when everything was going down, so I know I am playing much more of a balancing act than most Cat players in order to keep my character, well, playable and have fun. For the most part I can +1 what Mel said because Mel has good words!! I am also on the side of "I would prefer my character to eat the punishment rather than be forced to enact something they don't want" just because that's more enjoyable for me OOCly. OOCly I probably have a much lower tolerance level than most people, so I like full disclosure for what I would be signing my character up for! If I see something that I don't want to play with then I'll sit out and deal with any ripple effects at my own pace. I am okay with strain between teams and cats, and I think that is already there for certain people. As long as it doesn't get to the point where it's difficult to make CR because there's such a rift, I think it will be okay.

Morality issss like Lawful Good to Chaotic Good depending on what the law is, because sometimes laws are dumb.

[endsintheocean]

Pretty much what everyone else has been saying here! For me, the main attraction of apping a Cat was specifically the possibility of conflict or strained relations with teams? So while I enjoy the current state of things a lot, it has actually been almost a little frustrating OOCly that my Cat has encountered almost nothing but support and friendliness from the teams!

So yeah I would love to see more flexibility with how Echoes can use Cats in trauma games or other such situations. While I wouldn't want to see a complete break in Cat/team relations, I'd definitely be interested to see some situations where Cats are not on the teams' "side" as such?

BASICALLY I'm bad at words but what I'm saying is I'm OOCly fine with pretty much anything! I would personally enjoy some more extreme situations and moral dilemmas and all that, but I know people have different comfort levels and wouldn't want playing a Cat to stop being fun for anyone else.

Armin's morality is uh. Special. He is quite moral in theory and cares a lot about people and doesn't enjoy hurting anyone? Buuuut he is perfectly willing to throw all morals out the window if he thinks it's necessary. The ends justify the means, no matter how nasty the means might be!

[fangirlitis]

I want there to be a way make the cats kiss people and help get other people to kiss without worrying that they'll tell everyone that my next game is going to involve infinity kisses.

Make this happen or I shall drown all of Kyriakos in shipper hormones. You know I will.

[naturen]

Turn down, Rotten.

[featherduster]

oh lord ALSO BECAUSE AIKO REMINDED ME:

The Cats' power pendants! I... almost never ever see them come up ICly, because I think everyone tends to OOCly forget all about them, too. I know I do. Case and point, I haven't seen them mentioned at all in this post so far.

A lot of that is probably the lack of conflict resolution, so there's not much point to using them, or Cats just fall back on their own abilities. But maybe something should be done to either bring those abilities to the fore or else replace it with something more ICly relevant?? idk

[lifehacker]

I've used mine a few times ICly and it bums me out we kitkats don't really get to use our fancy special powers, so +1 this.

[paintwithallthecolors]

I don't go here, but having read through some of this, what if Echoes had contact posts in their journals privated to Cats for future game discussions?

[witchesandscores]

I'm not sure that would work too well mechanically, if I understand your question! A lot of cats also own characters in teams, and some games can't be done with two characters at once. Cry wolf and other secrecy games require you to only be aware of one role: Your own. Which means you'd constantly have to be making new posts, or shuffling the information on your old post, and ten thousand access filters to keep up with all the journals and drops. Plus, there are games where revealing information before they've signed up might ruin it.

At that point, it seems much easier to just do a normal sign-up post and then use the contact information.

[knighttolast]

i'm +1ing everything everyone's said esp on the point of OOCly i'm totally ok with my cat being screwed over bc of the choices he makes and ICly him being on the side of WILL REBEL AGAINST QUESTIONABLE THINGS. i understand that the cats' general current morality alignment thing huge words is leaning to lawful good/high morality, which, with IC consent, is a headache to work into games.

i would like to contribute to this conversation with an idea. re: cats having more power than teams, but having less power than echoes, as well as unsavory roles, i feel at the current time it would be easier to work in "cats are protectors of teams" than "cats are enforcers of teams" into games. certainly, for trauma games specifically, i think it would be interesting to give cats the role of alleviating the trauma - how is a matter of tailoring the role to the game, and off the top of my head i don't think it would work for certain games (like traumaprom for example) and it isn't a perfect option either, but i do think it would help if we (echo players, game runners) could successfully implement it. i do intend to do this myself with my possiblytrauma game! i think it would be easier to rope cats into unique roles in trauma games that way (again not 100% but maybe 30-60% than 0% like it is now)

i think full disclosure OOCly to cats is something that should still happen - on a general level. personally, i'm ok with whatever, but at least for cats OOCly there should be an idea of what's going on so that they can be prepped for it, but i don't think it's necessary ICly. on that note, i think cats ICly and OOCly being helpers to game runners - more of the bank heist game, in other words - would be fun for cats/easier on the game runners! again, not 100%, but i think it would be great, especially for echo players. but i'm also biased. i would like help running my possiblytrauma game. please help me

i think it's on the echo players to make cats' role interesting because we run games, which is where the majority of change/agency/etc happens because kyriakos is a teamnesia game that runs on games. i think the game running thing is greatly appealing to echo players and i think we can work on that more if the role of cats is more flexible - consentwise.

on a separate but related note, i have to ask, why is it that cats cannot individually play with teams while other cats run games? i've never understood this rule and i'm personally really put off by it because i would like to help with games! but maybe other cats don't want to? and because of my sole decision every other cat either has to help the echo ICly to OOCly play the game, or else not play at all. which is not really a huge hindrance in terms of memory regaining because there are quests! but also playing in games and also helping run games?? :C

[clocksandroses]

Regarding your question! I'm pretty sure it's because of the rule against hurting/playing against your own team. :|a This isn't as much as much of a concern with Cats (especially right now) because they're wwway more independent than basically any other team out their by design and by nature, but I still kinda worry that changing that rule would just drive Cats even further apart.