Our Tendency Towards Absolutes
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@Tinuviel said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
@Coin said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
but like, burn in a hell with a wi-fi connection so we can still rp.
So. Really no change to what we're already doing?
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@Sunny said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
Okay, that makes more sense to me, thank you. I was coming from the perspective of writing off = the shunning thing you're talking about, but 'I will quietly not play with them' is different. Thank you! I feel a little bit better.
Yeah I meant it in the sense of "griping and/or going out of your way to avoid RP with someone", not overtly malicious shenanigans that make hog pit headlines.
Jane is still harboring a grudge against Mary from some game eight years ago / Tom thinks Jane is an idiot and won't RP with them outside of staff-run plot scenes (and then will avoid direct interaction) / Mary thinks Bob is a low-down dirty powergamer who's always trying to make his character shine / Bob turns his nose up at Jane because she only likes relationship RP and doesn't participate in big plots / Harvey is pissed at Tom because Tom's PC said something mean about Harvey's PC / Sam won't RP with Jane because she poses too slow/fast/long/short/pick-a-peeve / ...
I could go on and on and on. These things may not be as directly harmful as some of the harassment/flaming/etc. we hear about, but it's not good either.
Imagine being a GM in a TTRPG where half of your friends can't stand the other half, and everyone is constantly complaining about or avoiding each other. It's just draining.It's not always like that, but it's common enough that I think @Ghost's perspective is entirely justified.
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@faraday said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
Imagine being a GM in a TTRPG where half of your friends can't stand the other half, and everyone is constantly complaining about or avoiding each other. It's just draining.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.
"Imagine."
Oh, if only I needed to imagine it.
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@faraday Jane probably poses in past tense! That <redacted> person!
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Welp, I guess we've come back around for me being the bad guy for not wanting to be around someone who, within the past month, went off on an utterly divorced-from-reality and entirely personal abusive rant at me, and topped it off by mocking the medical circumstances that are totally fucking up my family's lives for the next decade, it being the last decade my elderly folks probably have.
I guess I'm out, then.
Oh fucking well.
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@surreality Well that person seems like a genuine piece of shit and I am sorry.
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@surreality said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
Welp, I guess we've come back around for me being the bad guy for not wanting to be around someone who, within the past month, went off on an utterly divorced-from-reality and entirely personal abusive rant at me, and topped it off by mocking the medical circumstances that are totally fucking up my family's lives for the next decade, it being the last decade my elderly folks probably have.
The Joker is much more interesting than Batman anyway.
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@Wretched They are proud of mocking a legitimate full-family trauma that is ongoing, and severe. They are proud they did it with the full intention of causing real world emotional harm, full stop.
@Ganymede I have no idea what you're talking about, and I'm not even going to try to decipher that.
Oh fucking well.
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Villains are always more interesting than heroes.
Of course you aren’t a villain for protecting yourself, but even if you were neither I nor any reasonable person would find fault with your decision.
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@faraday said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
Jane is still harboring a grudge against Mary from some game eight years ago / Tom thinks Jane is an idiot and won't RP with them outside of staff-run plot scenes (and then will avoid direct interaction) / Mary thinks Bob is a low-down dirty powergamer who's always trying to make his character shine / Bob turns his nose up at Jane because she only likes relationship RP and doesn't participate in big plots / Harvey is pissed at Tom because Tom's PC said something mean about Harvey's PC / Sam won't RP with Jane because she poses too slow/fast/long/short/pick-a-peeve / ...
I could go on and on and on. These things may not be as directly harmful as some of the harassment/flaming/etc. we hear about, but it's not good either.
Imagine being a GM in a TTRPG where half of your friends can't stand the other half, and everyone is constantly complaining about or avoiding each other. It's just draining.
But these behaviors are legitimately irritating and we all log on to have fun. Sometimes a lasting response to a person isn't a grudge, which implies spite, so much as it is having learned that some people are going to pee in your cheerios, and you just aren't going to give them the opportunity anymore. There's a fine line between holding something against someone, and deciding they cross boundaries you find unacceptable, idk.
It's a smallish community, and it's probably inevitable. TTRPG groups fall apart for reasons of interpersonal drama all the time, lol. Some of it is apparently spectacular (link included for funsies: https://twitter.com/clownstench/status/1124132789656346624?s=19).
I'm definitely not saying it doesn't create problems, but sometimes those problems are preferable to the ones that would evolve if people didn't hold bad actors at arms' length.
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@juke Yeah, none of @faraday's examples really seem... bad to me. Except the OOC angst at IC things, that annoys me. But if someone annoys me, or I don't like their posing style, or I just don't like them... I'm not going to RP with them. And that is not a problem, that is a solution to the problem.
He/Him
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@Tinuviel @juke I'm not saying that any of the people in any of those examples is doing anything objectively wrong.
What I'm saying is that when you take that (fairly typical) assemblage of "people who don't want to play together most of the time" and try to make a cohesive game out of it, it doesn't work all that great.
Yes, TTRPG groups disintegrate due to OOC drama. But the difference is that the players recognize this and move on. They don't (generally? hopefully?) continue to show up to session after session demanding that the GM somehow figure out how to entertain them despite the fact that they can't stand most of the other players at the table.
Yet that's basically what MU players ask for.
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@faraday Except that a MU* is larger, generally, than a tabletop group. One can find people to roleplay with that don't annoy them far more easily than at a table. So there's no reason to move on.
He/Him
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@Tinuviel if that’s your experience, great. More power to you. The MUs I play on aren’t that big, and I think the tendency to look for reasons NOT to play with somebody instead of reasons TO give somebody the benefit of the doubt are not healthy for the game as a whole.
Do I think that makes the players terrible people for prioritizing their own fun above “the health of the game”? Not at all. It is, after all, a game. But I do think there’s a consequence to it.
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@faraday said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
They don't (generally? hopefully?) continue to show up to session after session demanding that the GM somehow figure out how to entertain them despite the fact that they can't stand most of the other players at the table.
Yet that's basically what MU players ask for.
In the 'maybe someday you'll rp' (whatever the title was) thread, I said that I think part of the reason things have changed is that people are less time-rich or whatever else, and they pick and choose how to spend their time -- and that a lot of us have developed boundaries for behaviors we used to tolerate. I think this is part of it, and also part of why players who are willing to go out and stir up the RP they want do well, while people less driven to make up the scenarios, chat people, schedule stuff, etc., wind up having trouble getting the RP they want.
On the other far extreme, though, you get people who are so picky they don't get RP, either, and I'd like to think that eventually both groups are self-solving issues because they'll drift off from lack of interest or activity eventually.
...I am still waiting for the evidence of that hypothesis to arrive, but, y'know. lol.
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@juke said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
On the other far extreme, though, you get people who are so picky they don't get RP, either, and I'd like to think that eventually both groups are self-solving issues because they'll drift off from lack of interest or activity eventually.
I don't disagree with that point, but I think you're looking at it from the player perspective. Which is fine, but I'm looking at it from the staff perspective. Making things that will generate RP when many of your players just don't want to play with each other often feels at best like threading a needle, and at worst like an exercise in futility. This is demoralizing as a staff member. Personally I think it's bad to have demoralized staff members if you want a healthy game, but I guess YMMV.
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Yeah. I've been running into this problem recently. It just seems like people don't want to do things, and no matter how many carrots I out out there, this doesn't change.
Sometimes I wonder if sticks would be the better answer, but everyone gets up in arms about that. Negative consequences for failures to act should be a thing too.
Racism isn't Tinkerbell. It doesn't need you to believe in it for it to exist.
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@Derp said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:
Negative consequences for failures to act should be a thing too.
I'll never play a game ever again that does this. Ever. This turns playing into a chore. Nope!
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@Sunny Except.. okay, example. You and your group are standing there as the shambling hoard of zombies edges closer and closer to you. Shambleshamble.
Your friends get the f*ck outta Dodge.
You stand there. You fail to act. You get your brains nommed by shambly zombies.
Sometimes failure to act should reasonably result in consequences.
