@Ganymede said in Stranger Danger?:

I thought I had made friends over my past 25+ years of doing this, but I misjudged how firm many of those friendships were.

That's been a rollercoaster I've ridden too of late. Some friendships were indeed firm, but others were far less than I hoped.

Personally I just RP about the things I want to wrote stories about, and don't RP the things I'm not that into. I rarely play IC relationships with others, unless they're my actual RL partner, since I like to save that side of myself for that person, and it saves on drama.

@Ghost That makes a lot of sense, and yeah, I wandered away a log time ago from WORA because I felt it was just (by that point) a place for nastiness and never ending drama. So, I can understand things going down the way you describe.

Sad to hear about the hobby in general though. I took about 10 years off and recently came back to an old game I knew, only to find it dead, and my attempts to revive it have meant waking up some of its own PHBs (lol I had to think about that for a sec to get the reference).

Is there any hope at all that the level-headed peeps could come back to the hobby, if they found places to play which don't carry the ugliness of the past with them?

@Ghost said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

@Tapewyrm said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

You folks are way too paranoid. I'm literally just asking if you're anti-male douchebags.

Hah well, let me give you another unfiltered response on this.

I don't think anyone here is an "anti-male douchebag". I think Derp and Rei have been focusing more on just getting people to knock it off with the personal attacks. In the last few years "____________ is a misogynist" has been a regular, go-to attack for a number of people to smear a reputation, and you're probably 100% right that there hasn't been enough pushback against the people who use regularly use that tactic as an easily-followed way to get others to dogpile on their target.

That's... a large part of where I'm coming from, yes. It's extraordinarily easy to dismiss arguments and people under this guise, and typically such crowds don't tolerate any criticism in the other (gendered) direction. So for me, I draw a large correlation between the two, and hence me asking right from the get-go.

So for here (MSB), I think it's more about stopping the attack (regardless of the method, without overall gender bias) whereas on the other forum you're welcome to ask them about sexism and if they're "anti-male douchebags" and see how well that goes for ya.

I'm good. If, as you say, that's where the crazy went to live, I'm okay with leaving them to it. I did find a thread or two about active games there, so it wasn't a total loss checking it out.

@Macha I mean, the multiple references to whatever culling or banning of people/boards took place are littered throughout the threads I perused.

Look, I get that Something Happened. I honestly don't care about whatever it was, and yes, if the Hog Pit or whatever was anything like old WORA, then it probably is better to have closed down a sinkhole of unpleasantness.

I really just came looking to find where all the people are these days. That's as far as this rabbit hole goes.

@Ghost That's very disheartening to hear. I was hoping time would have had the opposite effect, and that the hobby at large would have just finally stopped tolerating the PHB behavior. Sounds like the wrong team lost.

@Tapewyrm Well, all I can say is if anyone here enjoys Tolkien and wants to try to RP again, let me know. Thankfully the game I played on is relatively unknown to these boards (or at least back in the day), so there's a high chance that none of the traditional PHBs will find it.

At least, I hope!

@Tapewyrm
For general information to anyone else, we've been meeting up a few times a week lately, and this is the plot we've been doing:

Word comes to a pair of Dunedain of troubles unfolding across the Misty Mountains, in the southern Vales of the Anduin, and they set off to investigate. Arriving in the land of the Beornings, they discover that orcs are abroad, but no ordinary breed of the foul creatures. Something is different about these orcs, so it is said, and the Rangers decide to team up with the folk of the Anduin Village to rid the land of this menace. In this struggle they can count upon the aid of Elves, soldiers of Dale and as always the might of the Beijabar, but will it be enough?

For the orcs, they are none lesser than the Fighting Uruk-hai of Isengard, troops bred and trained by the wizard Saruman, and sent hither to test their prowess against the folk of Grimbeorn. Along the way they find allies of their own among the mountain lairs, and there is the question of two refugees who have shown up in the Village; a pair of women claiming to have survived assault by the orcs. Is there more to these events than is currently known? RP shall reveal all...

Feel free to come check things out: https://dale-lands.weebly.com/biting-the-hand.html

@Hella I can quite understand the adulting part, but I also figure that most people are in the same boat now, so we can probably get by with just arranging meetups across a group etc. Would love to see you at the weekend, and I'll try to be on -- look for Lorthrain.

Tolkien is still a love for me too, and Elendor also. I took ten years away from the hobby before getting the itch back, a couple of years ago, after finding an enormous cache of old logs.

Heh, nerd that I am, I've even been compiling a lore site based upon them.

@Hella Same address as always. A few of us are on right now.

Dale is my home +culture. Do you recall a character called Gelbard?

@Hella Hey there!

I'm so sorry it took me so long to realize there was a reply here, or respond to it. Thanks for reaching out.

I think I did know you, if only in passing... were you also Helle in the Dale-lands? I remember you being around when Celly was the +ruler.

Basically, some of us are trying to get some stuff going again, and so I was probing to see if anyone out there still remembers the place and wants to check it out.

Hello. Not sure if this is the right place for this, but, if anyone used to play on Elendor, then please drop me a line.

I'm thinking this includes @BetterJudgment, @Tinuviel and @Arkandel ?

@Ganymede said in Stranger Danger?:

I thought I had made friends over my past 25+ years of doing this, but I misjudged how firm many of those friendships were.

That's been a rollercoaster I've ridden too of late. Some friendships were indeed firm, but others were far less than I hoped.

Personally I just RP about the things I want to wrote stories about, and don't RP the things I'm not that into. I rarely play IC relationships with others, unless they're my actual RL partner, since I like to save that side of myself for that person, and it saves on drama.

@Tapewyrm Well, all I can say is if anyone here enjoys Tolkien and wants to try to RP again, let me know. Thankfully the game I played on is relatively unknown to these boards (or at least back in the day), so there's a high chance that none of the traditional PHBs will find it.

At least, I hope!

@Ghost That's very disheartening to hear. I was hoping time would have had the opposite effect, and that the hobby at large would have just finally stopped tolerating the PHB behavior. Sounds like the wrong team lost.

@Ghost said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

@Tapewyrm said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:

You folks are way too paranoid. I'm literally just asking if you're anti-male douchebags.

Hah well, let me give you another unfiltered response on this.

I don't think anyone here is an "anti-male douchebag". I think Derp and Rei have been focusing more on just getting people to knock it off with the personal attacks. In the last few years "____________ is a misogynist" has been a regular, go-to attack for a number of people to smear a reputation, and you're probably 100% right that there hasn't been enough pushback against the people who use regularly use that tactic as an easily-followed way to get others to dogpile on their target.

That's... a large part of where I'm coming from, yes. It's extraordinarily easy to dismiss arguments and people under this guise, and typically such crowds don't tolerate any criticism in the other (gendered) direction. So for me, I draw a large correlation between the two, and hence me asking right from the get-go.

So for here (MSB), I think it's more about stopping the attack (regardless of the method, without overall gender bias) whereas on the other forum you're welcome to ask them about sexism and if they're "anti-male douchebags" and see how well that goes for ya.

I'm good. If, as you say, that's where the crazy went to live, I'm okay with leaving them to it. I did find a thread or two about active games there, so it wasn't a total loss checking it out.

@Ghost That makes a lot of sense, and yeah, I wandered away a log time ago from WORA because I felt it was just (by that point) a place for nastiness and never ending drama. So, I can understand things going down the way you describe.

Sad to hear about the hobby in general though. I took about 10 years off and recently came back to an old game I knew, only to find it dead, and my attempts to revive it have meant waking up some of its own PHBs (lol I had to think about that for a sec to get the reference).

Is there any hope at all that the level-headed peeps could come back to the hobby, if they found places to play which don't carry the ugliness of the past with them?