A healthy game culture

[faraday]

@roz said in A healthy game culture:

No one is talking about using it as an excuse? It is not about shifting blame. It is about being aware of patterns certain structures can encourage in people so that you can be best prepared to respond and deal with them. Which includes, yes, getting rid of people who are being assholes. Or adjusting how a game is being run. The point is that recognizing certain patterns can allow people to more proactively prepare for more likely possibilities.

This. Saying that something "brings out the worst in people" is observational. It doesn't absolve people of the responsibility for their own actions.

[Tinuviel]

@roz said in A healthy game culture:

No one is talking about using it as an excuse?

@faraday said in A healthy game culture:

This. Saying that something "brings out the worst in people" is observational. It doesn't absolve people of the responsibility for their own actions.

"Brings out the worst in people" is an excuse. It is putting all the blame on the game, and not on the people. If that's not what you mean, don't say it like that.

"The game attracts assholes" is fine, and true. "The game enables assholish behaviour under the cover of simple IC action" is fine, and true. "The way the game is usually run lends itself to more overt PVP activity." Also fine, also true. "The game brings out the worst in people" is inaccurate at best and an excuse at worst.

[faraday]

@tinuviel said in A healthy game culture:

"Brings out the worst in people" is an excuse. It is putting all the blame on the game, and not on the people. If that's not what you mean, don't say it like that.

No, it is not putting all the blame on the game. That's just not what that phrase means in common parlance. If you choose to continue to use that narrow interpretation despite numerous attempts to clarify the intent, that's on you.

[il-volpe]

@pyrephox said in A healthy game culture:

I think there's definitely an OOC aspect to a lot of PKs. Sometimes, it's because people are trying to correct an OOC problem through IC means (the 'this guy is ruining the game' issue where the game doesn't have a way to say 'this player is actively making the game unfun for a lot of players, can we uninvite them' but it DOES let you just kill any of their PCs

This. I know there are people who just run about wanting to kill off other player characters for the lols, but I almost never see it. It seems like the majority have been an IC solution to an OOC problem that staff wouldn't take care of. Either some kind of OOC bigotry, or a habit of disrupting scenes when not welcome.

[Kanye Qwest]

@tinuviel said in A healthy game culture:

"The game brings out the worst in people" is inaccurate at best and an excuse at worst.

or it's just truthy. It's not even a statement that invites or allows quantification. You can SAY it's inaccurate, but by what measure? It's an opinion, and your opinion that it's an excuse is an opinion, and at the end of the day sometimes you should just let people talk about things to attempt communication and connection.

or pick apart things according to standards that don't exist, whatever.

[Roz]

@tinuviel said in A healthy game culture:

"Brings out the worst in people" is an excuse. It is putting all the blame on the game, and not on the people. If that's not what you mean, don't say it like that.

"The game attracts assholes" is fine, and true. "The game enables assholish behaviour under the cover of simple IC action" is fine, and true. "The way the game is usually run lends itself to more overt PVP activity." Also fine, also true. "The game brings out the worst in people" is inaccurate at best and an excuse at worst.

Those are not the things I'm talking about, though. I'm talking about the thing that happens where one player can be super chill on one type of game and then super not chill on a different type of game. Yes, the person is still responsible for their behavior. Yes, if they can't play on the game constructively, then you get rid of them. It's not about saying it's the game's fault. It's still that person's fault. And it's not saying that everyone who plays on a competitive game will turn into an over-competitive asshole. It's saying that different types of games can see different patterns of issues, and it can be helpful to keep that in mind when talking about how to cultivate a healthy game culture.

[Tinuviel]

@faraday said in A healthy game culture:

That's just not what that phrase means in common parlance.

In common parlance, it's an excuse for poor behaviour by externalising the blame. "Alcohol brings out the worst in me."

@kanye-qwest said in A healthy game culture:

or pick apart things according to standards that don't exist, whatever.

---

Anyway, this is wildly off-topic and bordering on philosophical. We disagree, and we're not going to change minds. So let's drop it.

[Carma]

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[Kanye Qwest]

@carma player a is convinced player b is shutting them out of a plot because they are mad about some random other squabble player a was involved in.

How does anyone prove a motivation? Player b insists player a just didn't ask before someone else did. Or they missed a message. Or they tell you ACTUALLY it is player a that has it out for THEM

[mietze]

Shittalking people off game (discord, here, whatever other social platforms the kids are using these days).

Purposeful targeted exclusion can be super hard to spot (or prove, or defend oneself from the accusation).

Sometimes ooc commentary too. I mean there is a degree at which yes, most of the time people will feel like a line has been crossed, but there are some times when constant soft negativity or 'I'm not good enough/my sheet sucks/ect' doesn't cross the line overtly but can still be an enthusiasm killer (and honestly, almost everyone has episodes of that at least at some point).

[Coin]

@mietze said in A healthy game culture:

Shittalking people off game (discord, here, whatever other social platforms the kids are using these days).

Purposeful targeted exclusion can be super hard to spot (or prove, or defend oneself from the accusation).

Sometimes ooc commentary too. I mean there is a degree at which yes, most of the time people will feel like a line has been crossed, but there are some times when constant soft negativity or 'I'm not good enough/my sheet sucks/ect' doesn't cross the line overtly but can still be an enthusiasm killer (and honestly, almost everyone has episodes of that at least at some point).

I know I do. I try not to but it slips. Most of the bad/worst stuff I keep on lockdown, though.

[Carma]

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[faraday]

@carma said in A healthy game culture:

Can you give an example of unpoliceable poor sportsmanship? I'm interested in learning.

What @Kanye-Qwest and @mietze said are good examples.

You say that patterns will emerge, but in practice they often don't.

• Jane avoids Bob because she just doesn't find his RP particularly interesting.
• Jane avoids Bob because she's being a poor sport and holding a grudge over something that happened four scenes ago.
• Jane avoids Bob because he's a sleazy stalker type who oversteps boundaries enough to make her uncomfortable, but not overtly enough to actually report him.

In one example, Jane is at fault, in another Bob is, and in the third it's just clashing RP styles and not actually a problem.

The trouble is - as a game-runner, these all look the same from the outside: Jane isn't RPing with Bob. Unless somebody complains, you'll never even be aware that there's an issue. And even if they do complain, it can be difficult, sometimes impossible, to get to the bottom of what really happened.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

One of the big game culture hurdles is plot hogging -- how to get into ongoing plot, how to get included, how to make people not feel left out in spite of the fact that no one person doing this for a hobby can cater to players 24/7. That's one thing to look closer at and examining because frankly? Bored players are where drama breeds.

I find that a healthy game culture lets people do their own thing. Step A is allowing it -- acknowledging that you as staff won't know everything that happens on your game, nor will it get run past you. It's ok. Other people's ideas can be good too.

Step B is opening your setting to step A. Create a game world where people can tell their own stories and those stories can have just as much impact as the 'official'. Otherwise, those other stories are always going to be perceived as 'second rate'.

And step C is to make no one story the official, sanctioned one. Weave your web so that Bob's story of those supermarket ghosts is just as much part of the official canon as Judy the staffer's tale of the strawberry pickers on the farm.

The only way to include everyone is to continuously work at removing the barrier between 'the officially recognised stuff' and the rest.

[il-volpe]

@faraday I had this sort of policy that every so often I'd give the public channel the Brain Cooties talk, which pretty much went, a lotta MUers have the brain cooties, on our game we all pretend we're friends and we make concessions for our friends, but friends respect boundaries and I'm not here to choose for you where you put yours but as host will help enforce them, and everybody's brain cooties are ultimately their own. But as an interactive conversation. I like to think I got a lot of mileage from it, but who could tell?

[Testament]

@il-volpe said in A healthy game culture:

@pyrephox said in A healthy game culture:

I think there's definitely an OOC aspect to a lot of PKs. Sometimes, it's because people are trying to correct an OOC problem through IC means (the 'this guy is ruining the game' issue where the game doesn't have a way to say 'this player is actively making the game unfun for a lot of players, can we uninvite them' but it DOES let you just kill any of their PCs

This. I know there are people who just run about wanting to kill off other player characters for the lols, but I almost never see it. It seems like the majority have been an IC solution to an OOC problem that staff wouldn't take care of. Either some kind of OOC bigotry, or a habit of disrupting scenes when not welcome.

In my experience, this is a lot more notorious on MUDs than they ever have been on on mushers. And that's mostly in part due to the fact that MUDs are designed in such a way to facilitate that kind of PVP. SInce mushes don't really have that kind of automated system built into them, they require far more staff arbitration.

Hell, there were rules against spawn camping on some MUDs, because some players would grief others like that. If it's a shitty thing to do in CoD, where thr standards of play are already low, it'll definitely happen on MUD. So I can see where the stigma comes from.

Not saying this doesn't or can't happen on a mush, but I don't think it's nearly as frequent.

[Carma]

This post is deleted!

[Kanye Qwest]

@carma said in A healthy game culture:

Surely a pattern would surface, yes?

If you think so, I salute you. Having tried to untangle those types of conflicts several times, I can say from my experience it is not easy. It's not even doable, sometimes.

Or my favorite, someone is upset they can't get included in something, and you find out the people who could include them just don't really want to play with them. Do you think you can/should force people to interact with other people? If so, how do you think you can accomplish that in a way that doesn't cause a lot of resentment?

[faraday]

@carma said in A healthy game culture:

I understand the nuances of the problem now.

Cool. Also as far as what is driving the "poor sportsmanship" - it's usually about "losing" in some form, real or imagined. In PVP games it's more overt, but PVE games aren't immune either.

Jane stole my kill in the last battle scene. Bob made me look bad. Harry got promoted and I didn't. Mary's always getting the spotlight. Jake got a medal and I didn't.

I'm using the first-person pronouns there deliberately because that's the real root of the issue IMHO. Bob didn't make them look bad, he made their character look bad, and there's a difference. But most players can't step back enough to internalize the distinction. Or to realize that Bob's player isn't necessarily out to get them. Or to realize that this kind of conflict, kept IC, can make for some of the best stories.

I don't think that makes them all a-holes, just fallible humans prone to being over-invested in their characters. (And frankly if you are going to ban people over this sort of thing, you're not gonna have any players left.)

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@kanye-qwest said in A healthy game culture:

Or my favorite, someone is upset they can't get included in something, and you find out the people who could include them just don't really want to play with them. Do you think you can/should force people to interact with other people?

Nope. No one should ever have to play with someone they do not enjoy playing with, and they should never have to justify it, either. It sucks to be left out but there is always the other option: Make your own thing happen and play it with the people who like you.

I know it's not realistic on all games, but I do think that sometimes, people sit back too much and expect to get a ticket to the season's entertainment. That's an attitude that sort of implies that there are people hired to create entertainment for you, and unless you're on a pay to play game, that's a mindset I'm wary of.

Which is obviously not to say that there aren't games and cliques on games that can be next to impossible to crack. But then the same kind of applies: Go somewhere else, do something else.