Remove Hygiene Motive from RP

[mintyphresh]

And the "making fun of" part has so far, also from my experience, created RP rather than disrupted it. The one person that is too involved in their project being called out very often can be pulled in a conversation that way. Being called stinky does get people, and its a very easy way to hook them onto a conversation (after they took a shower).

My gripe with people getting made fun of for this isn't about disrupting RP, it's that people getting made fun of isn't really... nice. Do other people really need to see and experience with their noses that John McTider didn't shower? I can see the value of having a motive whose consequences are so in-your-face (thanks Solenoid for the good post!), but threat of public shaming for neglecting any motive really shouldn't be the reason why people take care of it.

Stink lines are like the game sticking an embarrassing sign on your back-- People can be nice about it, sure, but having that on your back makes people judge you regardless of circumstance.

I'm all for making the other two more obvious to the player (you ever tried to stand up when you're malnourished and go blind for a few seconds?), or even to other players, and I haven't seen people take the social consequences of stinkyness too far over here, but I think having people become Marked For Shame from sitting in a chair all day is something the game would be better without.

This raises an important question, though: if hygiene continues to exist without decay, then what's the point of having it? Without decay, it wouldn't serve the same purpose as the other two motives, of encouraging people to leave their department... And the "punishment mechanic" concept that I posted earlier doesn't really hold water, either. As Joeled mentioned, we already have staining mechanics for things like blood.

Maybe it is time to rework hygiene's consequences, or remove it entirely-- All three motives encourage players to leave their department and socialize, but hygiene is the worst of the three because:
1) low hygiene is unpleasurable for characters in the same room as the stinker, forcing them to either ignore it (which takes you out of the character somewhat) or cut off RP early (which takes you out of the conversation);
2) the act of showering itself isolates a person from RP and doesn't interact with any department's work (You still have to walk to the cafeteria for food and drink, just as you would a shower, but inviting someone to chat in the shower with you probably shouldn't happen here);
3) low hygiene motivates the player by threatening them with embarrassment (can't really put into words why I think shaming people as a game mechanic is bad)

---

What if we had additional options for slowing the decay, but made things take longer to get back to your department? Freshly laundered clothing could provide a hygene buff, potentially eliminating the decay for 2-4 minutes or longer. And while you're waiting for your clothes to wash, you chat up with someone who's next in line! More opportunities to proactively fight hygene issues rather than only reactively.

Love the idea of giving washing machines some mechanical use... I like this a lot