From a distance, "secrecy" and "mystery" look (and for some people) sound identical. Both can make a world feel larger than what any one character understands.
In practice, however, they create two entirely different types of Player and Staff behavior. It also created a divide between veteran players and new players, particularly behind the smoke screen of 'Find Out IC'. In game secrets, such as 'which rooms lead to a 5 room fall' were common knowledge with veteran players, and new players had to 'find out the hard way'. Other in game secrets were gleaned by Players who became members of Staff and then used that advanced know-how to edge out other Players; they knew how to best game the system, by utilizing secrets and secret knowledge.
We aim to change that in several ways.
- First and foremost, we intend to have more robust transparency with helpfiles, even including pieces of the code and 'how it works' for everyone to see – this is an attempt to level the playing field between veterans and new players.
- As in ArmageddonMUD, in Tales of Zalanthas, active Staff will not have an active PC. If they take a break from Staff, they can then both Build for the game and have an active PC.
- We also do not plan on having sponsored roles like Nobles and Templars. Most 'leadership roles' will be based on merit and personal prowess and political adroitness, not on soft power leant by Staff or virtual clans/holdings.
- We will avoid 'Trickle Down Plot-e-nomics' that was ubiquitous in ArmageddonMUD.
The Flaws of "Trickle-Down Plot-e-nomics"
In many instances, Staff in ArmageddonMUD relied on top-down secrecy to drive political intrigue. Powerful, staff-sponsored roles—like nobles, templars, or faction leaders—were handed exclusive lore, plot hooks, and specialized mechanical knowledge, such as metalcrafting/metal lore in Season 1. The theory was that these elite characters would act as the catalysts for story, filtering the action down to the rest of the player base.
In reality, what often happened is the information was hoarded and wielded like a weapon. Plots would stall or not happen at all. There was sometimes a fear of the power of knowledge being lost to another faction or group, which lead to intense behavior or turning to out of game cliques to protect a clan or group of PCs from harm. Using secrecy as a fulcrum for a plot ended up not working out a majority of the time.
Instead, it created severe bottlenecks and issues:
- The Transparency Paradox: Veteran players frequently complained that the world felt stagnant, that "nothing was happening," or that plots were entirely invisible and inaccessible. In reality, many localized and even global storylines were running—they were just being acted on behind closed doors by a select few PCs or staff members, completely excluding the wider community. Sure, those people thought the plots were cool, but if a tree falls in a forest and no one can hear it...
- The New Player Barrier: This design was a massive deterrent for new players. Fresh faces would log into ArmageddonMUD, eager to find immediate hooks, only to find themselves completely locked out of the action. Without an administrative invite or a connection to a gatekeeping player, newcomers were often left on the periphery.
- The Interactivity Death Spiral: When a plot was trickled down to a sponsored role, the entire storyline became tied to that specific character's lifespan and play schedule. If that player decided to store their character, went inactive, had odd hours, or died unexpectedly, the plot completely stagnated. Re-injecting the narrative into a new replacement role required time-consuming overhead, leading to sluggish delays that made it incredibly difficult to get any momentum off the ground in the first place.
- OOC Fragility: Hidden information rarely stays hidden. Once a secret leaked into out-of-character (OOC) channels, the entire design premise collapsed. Staff were forced to police player meta-knowledge, which in turn lead to negative reinforcement and feedback loops between Staff and Player.
When game progression depends on who is talking to the developers behind closed doors, the visible, in-game world starts to feel secondary. We are consciously and actively moving away from that model.
How Tales of Zalanthas Will Be Different
Saying we are going to be different doesn't mean much, so I felt it was best to list it out here. What will be different and how? The structural shift in our approach can be boiled down to a few key changes in design, pacing, and community culture, specifically designed to dismantle the bottlenecks of the past:
- Organic Leadership Over Sponsored Roles: We aren't eliminating authority figures; we are changing how they earn their power. We are omitting traditional, staff-sponsored positions that require applications and administrative approval. Instead, we want leadership to emerge organically through player skill, political adroitness, and peer support, using the classic T'zai Byn Sergeant as our structural blueprint: when a leader falls, the next person to step up is the one who has proven themselves the most capable on the ground and with the other people around them. By letting leadership rise from active play rather than administrative selection, plots (and those who create them) are dropped directly into the public world.
- Public Plots over Secretive Plots: We aim to shift away from a game where major events are locked away in private channels or the Request Tool (RIP). While a new discovery—like an uncovered ruin east of Luirs—might remain a quiet, localized secret for a brief time while the first PCs stumble across it, the world will naturally catch up. Word will eventually get out through rumors, traveler gossip, or caravan routes. This ensures that major content eventually becomes public knowledge, giving everyone a chance to engage. Most importantly, it reinforces our core philosophy: simply hearing that a dangerous ruin or a powerful artifact exists doesn't mean you have the resources, the allies, or the sheer capability to actually go and claim it.
- Swords & Sorcery Pacing: While the background may feature slow-burning, world-spanning overarching plots, our aim for active gameplay will focus on snappier, bite-sized adventures – ruin delving, unearthing mysterious magical artifacts, confronting ancient horrors, and more 'monster of the week' and treasure hunting sorts of adventures. Crucially, these plots are anchored to environmental locations and public factions, not individual characters or their activity. If a specific PC goes inactive, dies, or shelves their character, the plot does not stall—the ruin is still there, the threat remains active, and the next crew can step right up.
- Over-the-Table Collaboration (Neutralizing OOC Cliques): Like a modern tabletop RPG, our Discord will feature open collaboration and RP discussion channels. We are realistic: some players will always try to "game the game" or form insular out-of-character groups. However, by removing exclusive secretive lore and gated plot access from the equation, we hope to drastically reduce the power and effectiveness of those cliques. When information is transparent, helpfiles are accessible and explain everything to everyone, and plots are driven by open, environmental factors, the effectiveness of an OOC clique lessens. We aim to encourage mature, public coordination to get your character concepts and crews into the action faster.
- Strict Community Boundaries: Out-of-game spaces are for celebrating your own concepts, organizing groups, and reflecting on your craft with peer consent. They won't be spaces for gossiping, metagaming, or discussing other players' characters. By shifting from a culture of administrative policing to clear, mature guidelines, we aim to reduce the negative feedback loops between Staff and Players.
- Mechanical Danger Over Bureaucracy (Curing the Transparency Paradox): Information is protected by the game world, and major hooks will be broadcast via public vectors (rumor boards, visible world events, discord announcements, etc). If a tree falls in our forest, everyone will hear it. Knowing a dangerous ruin or artifact exists is public; the real mystery is whether you can gather the resources, allies, and have the skill to actually survive it.
- Collecting KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): We plan to have more active feedback from the community, particularly new players, as to what is working and what isn't. We want to hear from and survey players—if you haven't logged in over a month, we want to hear why and how we can try and fix it. This addresses the historical issue of missing community pain points until it was too late.
Phased Rollouts: Temporary Mystery for Lasting Gameplay
To keep the world feeling dynamic and alive, we plan to introduce new mechanics, magic paths, and geographical areas through a phased rollout system (whenever possible) through in character means. This approach creates an initial window of genuine, community-wide discovery, which eventually transitions into permanent, publicized transparency.
For example, if we introduce a new magick class like Fire Magick, its skill trees, spell lists, and mechanical specifics will not be published immediately. For the first few months, the exact capabilities of this class will only be known to the pioneering players who explore it. The rest of the community gets to experience the magic organically—witnessing it in play, hearing rumors, and reacting to it as an active mystery in the world.
Once the feature has settled into the game world and players have become familiar with its presence, we will pull back the curtain and officially publicize all the underlying documentation, helpfiles, and mechanical data.
This ensures that while new content always brings a thrilling wave of temporary mystery and active discovery, it never permanently hardens into an exclusive, gatekept secret.
Player Knowledge vs. Character Knowledge
Because we are fostering an open and transparent community, you as a player will inevitably know a lot about the game—its underlying mechanics, upcoming public hooks, and ongoing world-spanning narratives. To make this level of transparency work, it is critical that everyone understands and respects the line between what you know at the keyboard and what your character knows.
- Player Knowledge is your high-level overview of the game, the rules, and the collaborative OOC discussions happening in Discord. This is akin to being a player at a D&D table and having all the books at your disposal.
- Character Knowledge is strictly limited to what your specific PC has experienced, witnessed, or learned directly through in-character play. This is akin to being a player at a D&D table, having access to all the books, but deciding your Barbarian character may not know anything at all about magical spells or what Tasha's Hideous Laughter is.
Our goal is to treat our player base like a mature tabletop group. Having a shared understanding of the board out-of-character actually allows us to tell better, more dramatic stories in-character. However, keeping the game fun means ensuring Player Knowledge does not creep into your Character Knowledge.
To help maintain this balance, Staff will occasionally step in to remind the community of these boundaries or clarify when a specific piece of information should be treated strictly as Player Knowledge. Embracing this distinction ensures that when your character does uncover an ancient text or face an unknown horror, the in-game discovery feels entirely authentic.
The Bottom Line
Ultimately, we are trying to build a game where the world itself is the challenge, not the bureaucracy or request tool outside of it. By trading out top-down secrecy for environmental mystery, and replacing information gatekeeping with open, mature collaboration, we want to clear away the bottlenecks that stall momentum. We want to give you the tools to find your crew, over the table and in the game, so you can dive straight into the action. We also want to trust you, the player, to know the distinction between player knowledge and character knowledge, and make some believable, flawed, dangerous, witty, daring, scary, fun characters.
The mysteries of Tales of Zalanthas are waiting out in the open, driven by high stakes, dangerous obstacles and consequences, fun rewards for the brave, and death (or worse) for the brazen or foolhardy. We can’t wait to see how you survive Zalanthas – or succumb to the sands of time...
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