An update:
The Council has greenlighted testing Discord for use as the successor service to QuickTopic in M71.
Unfortunately, as I am playing in M71, my ability to help troubleshoot issues for users is limited. However, Chaqa has volunteered to co-GM the game, and can help with technical issues.
We have not made a final decision on which service to use yet, and we will appreciate feedback from M71 players once the game has concluded. I want to get that out of the way upfront, because I’m going to spend a lot of time discussing our system for using Discord, and I don’t want to create the impression that it’s a done deal. Full disclosure, I do expect that the M71 player base will find Discord to be relatively low-stress and a worthy successor. But we don’t want to assume that without hearing from you. So we’re going to run M71 with Discord, and we want to hear how you felt about the experience after the game
For those curious about how we’ve set it up, keep reading.
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Discord has a server template feature, which allows you to create an arbitrarily large number of new servers (albeit one at a time) with identical roles and permissions. We’ve set up a server template for mafia games which will be played on webDiplomacy’s forum and need private communications.
When an individual player receives a role assignment which has private chat access (e.g., mafia), that individual user is assigned permissions to see their respective private chats. These permissions do not use Discord’s roles, so the general user base of the server cannot see who has which roles.
The hierarchy of permissions is as follows:
1. GMs - role given only to the GMs and non-participating Council members on an as-needed basis. Has administrator permissions and the ability to see a GM-only text channel to discuss in-game issues (e.g. mechanical breaks, discipline issues). Can see every other private channel in the server.
2. Dead/Spectator - role given only to dead players and spectators. Can see all in-game private channels and a special “god chat” visible only to their role and the GM role. Can only post in the god chat.
3. Individuals with private channel in-game roles - these individuals’ permissions are handled privately in Discord and not through a publicly-viewable role. Can see only the private channels corresponding to their in-game role. Can only post in private channels corresponding to their in-game role. Upon death, these permissions are removed, and the Dead/Spectator role is granted.
4. Individuals with no private channel in-game roles (default permissions upon joining) - these individuals cannot see any private chats (and thus cannot post in them). Upon death, granted the Dead/Spectator role.
This system provides a few advantages…
1. The server template system makes replicating servers very easy. Now that the essential infrastructure is set up, creating new servers for each game is as simple as clicking a link. From testing the service out and from having used QuickTopic many times in the past for this, I can say that both services should be reasonably easy to use as a GM, though Discord might require some more learning upfront.
2. Absent user error, the system is highly secure. The current permissions create the necessary privacy for each channel and greatly limit the ability of a user to accidentally see content they aren’t supposed to see. Creating individual servers for each game further prevents any accidental leaking of private game content by keeping server ownership clear - this was one of the main challenges in simply using the existing Discord server for the community. The system is not invincible; malicious actors theoretically could break into a user’s account and see private information, in the same way one might be able to break into a user’s webDiplomacy account and see their role PM. But barring user error, there isn’t a way to accidentally see the content of private channels. In fact, on this front Discord is arguably more secure than its predecessor QuickTopic, as it’s harder to accidentally add someone to a channel they aren’t supposed to see than it is to accidentally post a QT link.
3. Individual servers make bookkeeping pretty easy. We will maintain a pinned post with links to all finished mafia games’ Discord servers as a sort of archive. This was something we could have done with QuickTopic, the importance of which we didn’t really appreciate until it suddenly shut down
But is now something we can easily stay on top of, going away.
It does require the GMs to be somewhat acquainted with Discord’s user permissions, which is a drawback. GMs who aren’t comfortable with Discord, but find themselves using it anyway, will appreciate a co-GM who is familiar with the service. You also obviously have to join more servers this way… but it’s only one additional click on the player side, and once the game is over you can leave the server to reduce clutter on your end if that’s something that you need.
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Apologies for how long this turned out to be, but I thought that a thorough explanation of how the system works would be useful.