Reviewing post after adding rolls?

This is a topic that's come up on Twitter a few times, and I think on the site as well, but if you need to make a roll that determines your actions, you end up having to make a post, then hit edit. It's multiple steps, generally intrusive, and breaks immersion a bit. The problem with adding a roll on preview is that someone make a post, see a roll they don't like, and delete it. The point of the rolls not being editable is so rolls are permanent.

My thoughts: when you add a roll to a post, it takes you back to the post edit page, with the roll added (and shown), but the post not showing up, in an invisible state. As long as you're working on the post, it'll stay invisible, but if you leave the post edit page for a period of time (I'm thinking 5 minutes?), the post becomes visible as if you'd submitted it.

This means that people would have a chance to make a post and work on it with rolls, allowing you to make actions based on those rolls, but preventing someone from cycling posts until they get a roll they like.

Thoughts?

I didnt know this was an issue.


The way it is set up now seemed fine to me. After i do a roll I wait for a GM to tell me what happens anyways.


Seriously people are cheating rolls??? I mean really people are deleting a bad roll? That is half of the fun! I love crappy rolls.

I usually just put an "EDITING" or some such note on a post that I'm working on after looking at the rolls. Seems to work out just fine that way although I like your idea of having a ghost post as well until you actually commit it.

Does the GM see that a post has been deleted? Could there be a [deleted - reason] marker in the thread that shows everyone that so-and-so deleted their own post, which also requires them to indicate why they deleted it?

I'm thinking rather than making some complicated formula for editing posts with dice rolls, maybe implement a more-transparent indicator for when someone deletes their post. It may not explicitly solve the problem of people cheating out of their bad rolls, but if I kept seeing [post deleted] after every request for one, it'd look highly suspicious. And then maybe peer pressure would take over.

Well, whether I added in some feature for keeping deleting rolls, or I added in something for invisible posts becoming visible, the workload would be the same. And I don't think it's an ACTIVE issue, but just like no one wants their game being ruined by that ONE player in RL games, I wanna do what I can to avoid it here.

Well i like the thought of the gm getting something of what was posted as soon as it is posted. Then the gm can decide what to do.

Keleth, I like the idea in your original post, but it does present two out of three possible issues:

If you have all messages post after a delay:
1) Post delay. If a message will post automatically after 5 minutes (assuming that's the time you decide to use), players will run into the issue that their posts will need to be deleted anyway, because others will have posted before them and made whatever they were writing irrelevant. This has happened to me several times in multiple games; I've had to delete posts because one or more other players have posted after I started composing my post, and the game situation has changed completely from what I was describing in my post.

or

If you only have messages with rolls post after a delay:
1) Inconsistent site behavior. If only some of the messages post automatically, it will lead to confusion and dismay for the users.

2) Incomplete posts. If you post messages automatically, there will be a preponderance of messages posted that are incomplete. People start to compose a move and then are called away from the keyboard for whatever reason. Posting the message automatically would mean that their message would post however they'd left it, often incomplete. They might return and see that they'd have to edit it, or they might return and not remember that they'd been posting. Either way, you end up with a post that is incomplete, which leads to noise on the game thread. This is particularly likely for players who post on their phones - I'm constantly being interrupted while I'm composing a GP message on the phone by incoming phone calls.

All that said, I don't think the benefit of automatic posting addressing an issue that doesn't happen often (people deleting posts to discard unwanted rolls) outweighs the cost of automatic posting.

As for that problem - potential abuse of the delete post feature to obliterate unwanted rolls - I think peer pressure works sufficiently well, and no change is necessary. I've only seen players delete their posts a few times in all the games I've played these last few months, and each time the omission is obvious and glaring.

You bring up some good ideas spaceseeker, which I think can be addressed:

1) I'm not too concerned about about post order going wonky, as this can happen anyway. If I start working on a post, then you do, but you finish first, my posted actions could then be thrown off. Other forums address this by notifying a user that someone's made a post in the time they were writing (which I intend to add). We can likewise notify users that someone has a ghost post when they submit. The deleting would be handled by the GM anyway, unless they give users delete permissions.
2) If a message is autoposted, we can give it a message or different border or something, indicating it was an autopost that hasn't yet been edited.

This certainly isn't a high priority feature, or even an idea I'm set on adding; it was something brought up on Twitter this morning I wanted to bring up to you guys, as I have concerned it in the past.

Can it be only the GM can delete posts?

Right now, when a game is created, the default permissions only give the GM delete privileges. Players have to be explicitly given delete permissions