How to Escape the OOC Game
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Ben Affleck sucks.
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@Ghost said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
I believe that there is very little actual real damage that happens in this hobby and that cases of cruel behavior, stalking, and cheating at games are the actual offenses.
You know, I'm just gonna put this out here:
I agree with Ghost on this. And I want to take it one step further.
Yes, there are some bad actors out there, but ultimately, in almost every instance, they cannot actually hurt you. It's words, on a screen, on a game. You always have the option to walk away. There are some very rare exceptions to this, such as @Sunny's thing with her ex, I suppose, but the vast majority of the time? The only power these people have over you are the power that you give them.
And so, with that, I think that some of you are invested way too deeply in this shit. Like, to an unhealthy level. Sure, there are bad actors out there that do questionable things, but if you're letting them have so much power over you that they can cause you long-term anxiety issues, this level of paranoia, and anger that lasts for literal years, you maybe need to reevaluate how deep into this particular rabbit hole you've gone.
Someone else said that they think emotional distance is one of the problems with the hobby. I concur with the thought, but not the conclusion. You need emotional distance. You need to not be so invested in this stuff that a setback or a loss is an emotional devastation. If you have anxiety so badly that you are constantly on the lookout for X or Y person, and the very thought of maybe, just maybe running across them causes you actual distress?
You need to step away.
Go make an RL friend. Find an alternate hobby. Take up video games. Something. But for the love of god, realize that this level of investment in and of itself is also a problematic behavior, and a sign of instability.
Just -- detach, people. For everyone's good.
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@Derp I'm going to call some serious bullshit here, despite agreeing with some of what's been said.
Doing as you describe?
Means that the bad actor gets control of the game space, and has driven you our of a place where you have not done wrong, and have every right to be.
That's some bullshit right there.
ETA: When someone does actual, real wrong, no matter where or in what context, you have every right to be angry, upset, hurt, or whatever else.
The wrong people do is not limited to 'got that ewang I wanted' or 'got that fac head role I wanted' or 'said a mean thing about my character to other characters'. Some people cross major lines, in profoundly unacceptable ways, full stop.
Victim-blaming, victim-shaming (which you are absolutely doing here, man, much as I love ya), and forcing the loss on the victim of these behaviors is completely inappropriate.
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What is the line, though, between taking care of yourself (such as leaving a game that has a bad environment / has staff unwilling to take care of a problem) and expecting everyone else to take care of you because you won't take care of yourself?
Because sometimes I see things on these boards that starts to slip into the latter a bit and anyone who backs off and goes 'woah woah I can't be expected to take care of someone else's mental health' starts being accused of victim shaming/blaming and I am very not okay with that.
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@Auspice I think when it gets into actual victim-shaming, ex: 'the only reason you could be upset about anything that happens on a game or in interactions with people you know from a game is because you're mentally unstable' you can officially write someone off as not having the right answer.
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I like and respect you too. Truly. But in this particular instance, I respectfully disagree, on several points.
@Auspice said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
Because sometimes I see things on these boards that starts to slip into the latter a bit and anyone who backs off and goes 'woah woah I can't be expected to take care of someone else's mental health' starts being accused of victim shaming/blaming and I am very not okay with that.
This. Right here. This hobby has what I'm just going to flat-out call Professional Victims. The ones that always seem to get into a situation where someone has wounded them grievously, and those bastards deserve to pay for what they did. But then, they take no steps to take care of themselves. To guard their emotions. To step away from bad situations. To be fucking proactive.
@surreality said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
the only reason you could be upset about anything that happens on a game or in interactions with people you know from a game is because you're mentally unstable.
This isn't remotely what I said. I said that the only power people have over you is the power that you give them, and that if you are constantly living in a state of fear/anxiety/anger or whatever about something that happens on a game that you voluntarily log into, that is a sign of instability. Being angry is fine. Being upset is fine. Living in that state constantly, willingly, is not fine. It is a problem.
Call it victim-blaming if you want. But if people are so invested that they can't see what long-term damage it's doing to them, and are unable to walk away in favor of something healthier? Yeah. That's a problem.
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I just know we see a lot of posts along the lines of 'this thing happened on a game and it really upset me and staff won't do anything'
And my reply 9 times out of 10 is gonna be: leave that place. It ain't worth the struggle.
I don't want to find myself being labeled a victim shamer for that.
I think it takes strength to walk away. To decide no, I'm not going to put up with this. To say fuck you and fuck your cow.
But at the same time: I'm dealing with my shit. I'm there to support my closest friends. I don't have the capacity for everyone else's, too. So if you (general you) come to me wanting to go on about a bad situation....my advice will generally be: gtfo that situation. Walk away. What's best for your mental health is usually just to leave. And also btw to stop trying to drag me in because it ain't my circus damnit.
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@Auspice said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
But at the same time: I'm dealing with my shit. I'm there to support my closest friends. I don't have the capacity for everyone else's, too. So if you (general you) come to me wanting to go on about a bad situation....my advice will generally be: gtfo that situation. Walk away. What's best for your mental health is usually just to leave. And also btw to stop trying to drag me in because it ain't my circus damnit.
This is good advice. Good to do for yourself, and a good way to handle the general you in that circumstance. To me, it should look like this:
- Identify problem
- Sanity check problem off trusted individual who is willing to tell you you are wrong (just in case you are)
- If trusted individual who can be relied upon to be truthful tells you that it is indeed a problem, take a deep breath and go to staff.
3.b If trusted person tells you it is NOT a problem: Let. It. Go. Do whatever you need to get over it/yourself. That's why you asked them. - If staff deals with the problem, great! /end
4.b If staff does NOT deal with the problem:
i. Escalate if possible (if there is some sort of an appeal system / you were not originally talking to the headstaff)
ii. Leave
That is how I feel that actual, genuine problems should be dealt with from a player perspective, every single time.
ETA: Added 3.b, forgot that step!
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It is possible to listen to someone's tale of woe and not be drawn into the drama. It is also possible to have empathy for the person who has a lot of excuses for bad behavior and still neglect to get drawn into the argument or talked into no consequences. There's a wide spectrum of responses.
It is possible also to be proactive and smart and still get your ass bitten by a bad actor. Or allowing someone to get a rise out of you. It happens.
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@Sunny If I could quintuple upvote a post, I would.
I am super lucky to be on a game where staff keeps an eye on these issues and is ready to take action.
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@Sunny said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
@Auspice said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
But at the same time: I'm dealing with my shit. I'm there to support my closest friends. I don't have the capacity for everyone else's, too. So if you (general you) come to me wanting to go on about a bad situation....my advice will generally be: gtfo that situation. Walk away. What's best for your mental health is usually just to leave. And also btw to stop trying to drag me in because it ain't my circus damnit.
- If trusted individual who can be relied upon to be truthful tells you that it is indeed a problem, take a deep breath and go to staff.
To be perfectly frank, I feel like a lot of people around here may not be receiving the level of honesty they think they are. Especially if everyone around here is as anxious as it appears.
Being honest with someone - truly honest - is terrifying. Because you fear they'll lash out. They'll get angry. They'll resent you. So either you say placating things (aka what you think they want to hear) or you hold your tongue altogether. I have a tendency to fall into the latter with people I don't trust and/or don't know very well.
But if someone really is your friend, they'll handle you telling them you're being an idiot or that you've taken something too far. I think @Tinuviel revels in calling me an idiot, to be honest. Yes, they might sulk over it a bit (after all no one really enjoys being called out), but the key word here is handle.
But if all of your friends always agree with everything you do....chances are they aren't being honest with you. No one is perfect. We pretend to be vampires on the internet for fuck's sake. We are some twisted mother fuckers.
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@Auspice said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
To be perfectly frank, I feel like a lot of people around here may not be receiving the level of honesty they think they are. Especially if everyone around here is as anxious as it appears.
Oh absolutely, I have no doubts about that, and I will say that I resoundingly agree even without the 'especially' note there, and it's based not on folks' behavior but just people being people and human behavior amongst ANY sort of social group.
All you can do is the best you can do to try and do the right thing.
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@Auspice said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
But if all of your friends always agree with everything you do....chances are they aren't being honest with you.
For all that shit ultimately went sideways, this is something I always appreciated about you when we were talking regularly and whatnot, and I always tried to do the same.
It led to some explosions sometimes, which sucked, but it's worth noting? I wish more people were like that. The one person I go to about this stuff lately is very much a 'look at things from a zillion angles' thing.
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@Auspice said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
I think @Tinuviel revels in calling me an idiot, to be honest.
I revel in being right. The fact that these two things have so much in common is just a matter of casual interest.
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@Tinuviel said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
@Auspice said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
I think @Tinuviel revels in calling me an idiot, to be honest.
I revel in being right. The fact that these two things have so much in common is just a matter of casual interest.
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I think the answer lies in the self.
"You determine your own level of involvement in Fight Club"
-Tyler Durden, or is it Cornelius?In a very Taoist way, I think it's important to understand that many of these fears, claims of damage, and issues stem from a sense of outward-facing vigilance that can feed paranoia and anxiety and turn into something else.
They are doing this. They will not do this. They have harmed me.
In comes the Tao. Realistically, not one single musher has true control over their mushing experience, and I think it's important to acknowledge that. Each person in this hobby needs to constantly revisit their level of enjoyment, their level of drama, their level of safety, and not ask "how do I get people to do this right?" or "Who is ruining this for me?" but instead "is this healthy for me?"
It's a practice that can apply to anything (job, marriage, underwater hockey league which just this year I found out is an actual thing), and I think it's important to revisit this line of thinking whenever you hit a point where the frustration is enough to make you flee. When you say "Fuck this" and turn off your game client, that's your body, mind, and soul's way of telling you that this thing is not making you feel good.
But it's not everyone else's job to upkeep that for you.
It's not "if I quit then the bad actors win". It doesn't need to be that difficult. I suggest this approach:
- If someone is being truly abusive. Log it.
- If they will not stop after a warning, send it to staff.
- If staff refuses to do anything or if the result does not meet your expectations....
...Quit the game.
YOU (as in general you) control your level of commitment, obsession, and pain that you are willing to endure on these games. YOU are not entitled to anything from strangers on the internet whom you have no legal or contractual agreements with. You. Cannot. Control. These. People.
Until it becomes about you, it will always be about them. Who They are will always change. There will always be someone upsetting you. There will always be some person fucking around. There will always be people you do not see eye to eye with or who will do things your way.
If staff are unwilling to deal with truly abusive online behavior or if other players are regularly being mean to you, then there's no the bad actors win. The bad actors have won. Reassess your level of emotional investment, and if you're not happy to proceed do something else.
I promise you that it is the only answer with a high success rate, because it's about you taking care of you; which is a thing that none of these fuckin mushers can take away from you. Nor should you allow them.
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@Ghost said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
If staff are unwilling to deal with truly abusive online behavior or if other players are regularly being mean to you, then there's no the bad actors win. The bad actors have won.
This is accurate.
Thing is, you should be bringing this to staff. Not walking away at the first sign of an issue.
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@Derp said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
Call it victim-blaming if you want. But if people are so invested that they can't see what long-term damage it's doing to them, and are unable to walk away in favor of something healthier? Yeah. That's a problem.
Sure.
You know what, though? It doesn't cost me much to listen to people.
I make a lot of friends that way on games. It's not that I actually care more than what might be in the moment, or as a human might be concerned about another human's suffering. It's part of the empathy chip that I had installed in me not too long ago, and have since brought under my control.
In my 20+ years of playing, staffing, and being in this hobby far more than I ever wanted to be, I have found it easy to separate the chronic problem-makers from the genuine problem-sufferers. Even so, I have found that the chronic problem-makers aren't bad people either; some of them just want someone to talk to. If one were to argue that there are actual very few reprehensible people in our hobby, then I would counter that by saying that there are very few people that actually practice the profession of victimhood. Some players are simply more sensitive or more anxious or more paranoid than others.
My concern as a lawyercatbot and a Scion of All Wisdom is that the very few reprehensible people can do considerably more damage to one or many people than professional victims. In my experience, professional victims sow discord and chaos, but do not stalk or threaten others. Comparing them to the people Surreality and Sunny have had to deal with? I'd gladly take 100 professional victims over 1 creepy stalker.
Professional victims grate the shit out of me, but I will gladly step on the necks of any stalkers that know another player's RL identity and are following them. That bullshit is fucking wrong and disturbing, and we need to stamp that shit out. Accusations of the same must also be taken very seriously: a false accusation can ruin someone's reputation in our hobby, and should be dealt with swiftly and unmercifully.
In my Mod Voice, loudly: if you feel threatened or stalked on this board, please bring it to our (Arkandel and I) attention immediately. Arkandel and I agree on few things, but we absolutely will not tolerate stalking. We may request that you help us understand what's going on, but we promise you -- I promise you -- we will take that shit very, very seriously.
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@Ganymede said in How to Escape the OOC Game:
In my Mod Voice, loudly: if you feel threatened or stalked on this board, please bring it to our (Arkandel and I) attention immediately. Arkandel and I agree on few things, but we absolutely will not tolerate stalking. We may request that you help us understand what's going on, but we promise you -- I promise you -- we will take that shit very, very seriously.
Thank you.
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@Ganymede Y'all have done great with the situation I brought to your lap, baffling as fuck as it is. Thank you.
Can confirm, they are not fucking around with this stuff.