Feelings of not being wanted...
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@Sovereign @Cirno hahahaha I love this forum sometimes.
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@Ghost said:
@Sovereign TBH I think my logical response, at the time, was Jesus what kind of shit did this guy pull?!? It was weird, yeah, and a large part of me wanted to tell them look, I'm an adult, if I said I'm not the guy, I'm not the guy, knock it off, but you know people. Being blunt sometimes quickly turns into OMGURTHEWORST, and I really wanted to RP at the time.
The whole situation came to an end about 3 or so months later when the currentGirl player started to harass me and detail how I was damaging her depression diagnosis because I wasn't doing what she wanted. I then told her, nicely, that I was gonna take a break from rping with her, which she then took to staff about how I was trying to wreck her RP experience.
Guess what? I am probably now either believed to have been lying about being EvilBobRPer, or I am now EvilBob2.
She's the reason for my quote line about ruining your life that one week on a Mu.
I guess I take both solace and the temptation to smoke crack in the notion that we have all ruined it for someone else at some point on a game somewhere.
ETA: Generally, our role in this is often so batshit and convoluted it requires a white board, some markers, and someone from MIT to explain what the fuck you're looking at.
"...and a single tube of glorious MAC Russian Red lipstick because I am a fancy motherfucker." - Muffy Bolding
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The way I handle things online now, vs. online a few years ago, is so drastic that I'm pretty sure I'd need a lot of white boards. Christ, I've mellowed a lot. It's always interesting (read: cringe-worthy) to reflect on your developing mental maturity, and threads like this just point out that kind of stuff for me.
Those moments where you read some gripe and go, in your head, "OMG I'm so glad that's not me anymore!"
...and then you feel a little bad, because, holy shit, that was you at some point.
(General "you")
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@AmishRakeFight said:
@Ghost said:
@Sovereign TBH I think my logical response, at the time, was Jesus what kind of shit did this guy pull?!? It was weird, yeah, and a large part of me wanted to tell them look, I'm an adult, if I said I'm not the guy, I'm not the guy, knock it off, but you know people. Being blunt sometimes quickly turns into OMGURTHEWORST, and I really wanted to RP at the time.
The whole situation came to an end about 3 or so months later when the currentGirl player started to harass me and detail how I was damaging her depression diagnosis because I wasn't doing what she wanted. I then told her, nicely, that I was gonna take a break from rping with her, which she then took to staff about how I was trying to wreck her RP experience.
Guess what? I am probably now either believed to have been lying about being EvilBobRPer, or I am now EvilBob2.
She's the reason for my quote line about ruining your life that one week on a Mu.
I guess I take both solace and the temptation to smoke crack in the notion that we have all ruined it for someone else at some point on a game somewhere.
ETA: Generally, our role in this is often so batshit and convoluted it requires a white board, some markers, and someone from MIT to explain what the fuck you're looking at.
Perhaps I have. With one or two exceptions, I haven't really had problems with games.
I have never actually been removed or penalized on a game. I have been banned by a grand total of one game - The Fifth World. And they closed down soon after, so shrug.
I didn't even get to roll a character. I said "Hey, is this the Fifth Shit?". And the wizzes banned me. Lmfao.
I had already read the thread about it on WORA, after all.
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I think when I really honestly feel unwanted/unwelcome, it's a sure sign that I am very burnt out and spent. This is a fairly new revelation for me. Sometimes it's true that people may not want me around, and not everyone likes me in the best of circumstances anyway--but the reality is that's usually not the case (most people don't give a shit or have positive feelings about my play)--it's just that I am feeling frazzled/overwhelmed/worried because my ability to give and be dynamic is less than usual because I am exhausted from RL or game happenings (current or previous).
I do think there are certain types of people who use statements like that--especially inappropriately publicly--as a weapon, but I think they're a minority. I'm fortunate in that I do have a few friends who are very good at pulling my head out of my ass (in a way that I can hear/accept because I trust them), and a few that are happy to just love on me and provide safe shelter until I've got my energy back, with some overlap between the two.
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@mietze said:
I think when I really honestly feel unwanted/unwelcome, it's a sure sign that I am very burnt out and spent. This is a fairly new revelation for me.
You also need to understand that some of us want you to be around more, and get very sad when you are not.
In the past decade, I can honestly say that I, as a player, have never felt unwanted. Some people do not want my PC around for one reason or another, but that has nothing to do with me as a player.
I think it is important to understand the distinction between avoiding a player and avoiding a PC. I think problems arise when players create a PC that is a fantasy extension of themselves, and then feel as if the rejection of the PC is a rejection of them. That's a fallacy.
Then again, if your fantasy-extension is really fucking annoying, it kind of says a little bit about the player. At least, that's what my judgmental-self would conclude, unless it is somehow obvious that the PC is intended to be comical or satirical.
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Yep, I have played the gamut of PC types. Other PC reactions that are negative don't typically bother me, since most of the time it's in good fun.
However, if I start to feel like I am unwelcome when there's really no intellectual reason other than "gut feeling" for that to be the case, I know it's because I am just fried. Maybe because of things that have happened on game (frustrating staff, not having a direction to go/needing to shift gears, bored of limited opportunities or conversely tired from running a ton of stuff of coordinating and maybe doing too much with little personal RP) or RL stressors. But in any case for me I'm realizing it's a cue that I need to take a breather, so that I don't damage relationships with other players by being too needy (though I am super lucky and have quite a few people who I can tap for play in a safe ooc environment even if the rp itself is tense/down and dirty). And that it will pass if I give myself some time away from stewing/worrying about it--since it's an internal thing that others are not responsible for.
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@Cirno Actually, you were never banned from The Fifth World. We found your arrival and commentary amusing. And the interaction upon your arrival was a good deal longer than that--in fact, I believe that I jokingly suggested you play a pretty-pretty-space-princess, since you had commented about something to that fact on WORA.
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@Cirno said:
I didn't even get to roll a character. I said "Hey, is this the Fifth Shit?". And the wizzes banned me.
So clearly this place had some redeeming qualities.
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I can feel unwelcome when my attempts to find RP themselves are met with silence. After the fifth time, I'm at a complete loss.
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@Seraphim73 said:
@Cirno Actually, you were never banned from The Fifth World. We found your arrival and commentary amusing. And the interaction upon your arrival was a good deal longer than that--in fact, I believe that I jokingly suggested you play a pretty-pretty-space-princess, since you had commented about something to that fact on WORA.
Well, then, I have the strange honor of not being banned from a game ever.
Too bad you guys closed down. It was a very funny game, in spite of the wackadoo crazy stuff that happened.
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@Cirno I don't think there's any high honor in not being banned from a game. That's what is supposed to happen.
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@Warma-Sheen said:
@Cirno I don't think there's any high honor in not being banned from a game. That's what is supposed to happen.
Ah, ah! The honor is having never felt the lash of a game's staff. Even the irrepressible Thenomain has felt their lash at least once.
Kinda runs counter to the whole "Cirno is literally Hitler!" narrative y'all got going here though, eh?
I am delighted to hear that the staff even thought I was funny! Too bad I was kinda burnt out on Lords and Ladies games at the time.
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We observe the humble brag in its natural habitat.
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There's a lot that ultimately goes into this -- on the primary thread subject, that is. (I would diagram this to make it easier to follow but this ain't wiki, so we're probably all fucked if my usual communication fail is in play. Sorry, y'all. Seriously, this is some flowchart-requiring shit.)
First: is it reality, or perception?
Frankly, much as we may not want to admit it, sometimes it is the reality. If it's the reality, why?
People can be cliquish in the bad way; sometimes they realize it and sometimes they don't. People can be exclusionary or distrustful or might simply be jerks. They might just be there to hang out with a handful of close friends that are the only thing keeping them in the hobby at all these days and not have time in their RL schedule for more, which, while it isn't deliberately exclusionary or any value judgment on the outside party, ultimately has the same end result.
More complicated is this: sometimes it isn't the other people. Sometimes it's us. Sometimes what we want out of the game is not what the game is designed to be, or is out of step with the game's culture. Sometimes games will adapt or players will play along or find these new avenues interesting, but that's a case of fighting inertia, which realistically is not often going to be a very successful prospect. It doesn't mean we're doing something wrong, or that what we want is somehow bad or wrong, it's just not what the game culture has evolved to be or include. The people who go there generally go there because they like what it is and what it currently offers. (Though plenty of us play on games despite what they are, and everyone sucks something up to a greater or lesser degree about any given game, the good has to outweigh the bad for anybody remotely sane to stick around.)
'Fish out of water' can be a fun character type to play, but it happens on the player level, too. Sometimes people shy away from players like this because they just don't get what that player is trying to do, or feel they're out of sync with what drew them to the game in the first place. Again, what I'm talking about isn't something bad about the game itself or about the player who feels excluded, but of the player having different expectations of the game and/or its culture in a way that hasn't been addressed directly in the thread before (as it was with the 'level of welcome/invitation to things'). Examples:
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A highly PvP-focused player arrives on a game with a long-standing exclusively PvE culture and proceeds to play as they always have elsewhere.
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A player accustomed to highly specific code for many details of their existence, such as an RPI might have, arrives on a game with minimal code, and asks where the commands to make sure they've eaten that day are, then requests staff add these things because 'it's just not a game without them'.
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A player seeking an elaborate and in-depth metaplot and major staff storyteller presence guiding the course of events arrives on a sandbox game, where staff primarily alter the world to reflect what they players have impacted the setting if the players run plots and events that create these changes on their own initiative.
...none of these wants, play styles, etc. are bad or wrong. They're simply a better or worse fit for any given game. No game is going to be all things to all people, and it's a mistake to try. (It's a recipe for failure.)
These things can contribute to making a player unwelcome in reality in two important ways: other players may feel they're unwelcome or not want to interact with them, or, more subtly -- but I think a lot more commonly -- the player feels they don't fit.
I think there's a lot more self-awareness on this latter front than there once was; I know I see a lot more 'the place is fine, it's just not for me/it's not my style/it wasn't what I'm looking for' than I did years back. The sad truth is, not everybody has that self-awareness. They just see people shying away, and may not understand why, or how their expectations are impacting the situation. Without that awareness, they're just left with the sting, uncertainty, and feeling more and more unwelcome. (Which sucks.)
Even the generally more with-it folks I know, I've often seen say things like, "That game is just dumb because <reason that boils down to it not being exactly the opposite of everything it says it actually is>!" No, the game isn't stupid. You just want something out of it that it isn't designed or intended to provide for you. (Another reason that labeling intent and focus is important.) It doesn't make you stupid, either, but it's still something of a self-awareness fail. I do not go to Taco Bell and order Chinese food, after all -- so why would I go to a game labeled 'sandbox' and expect to be fed endless metaplot and staff-led PrPs? Why would I go to a game with heavy code and expect to just be able to ignore it all because I personally find it no fun to interact with extensive code?
All of that can contribute to a wholly internal sense of 'what I want isn't what I'm getting here', which, unless somebody's really paying attention to the fine points, can feel a hell of a lot like 'I'm not wanted here' after a while. It's understandable from both sides: you're looking for something the game doesn't really provide, and you're asking for something the game's culture has not evolved to give you. While there are rare exceptions, generally, this is going to lead to someone being progressively less involved with others on the game. You're not getting what it is you're really looking for, so you invest less. You're asking people for something that isn't what they're interested in, so they take you up on your offers less or invite you around less.
Both of these reactions are entirely normal and they are not indicative of 'bad' or 'wrong' or anything of the kind. They're pretty much the standard evolution of this rather typical reality. That process of weighing the good and the bad of a place to determine whether you're going to stay or not? As this progresses, 'leave' tends to get more appealing, even if the player trying to balance those scales isn't entirely aware of why.
It's a lot more subtle than being outright ignored in a scene, or having no one respond to offers of RP, but I have a strong suspicion it is a lot more common than either of those things are or ever will be.
...as to the perception thing, that's kinda been covered already.
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That's all very thoughtful. But I don't think it's right in the majority of cases. These are games where you pretend to be an elf or a vampire or in spaaaace, they're really not complicated in terms of what's being offered. I'm going to blame people, here, not expectations- if you feel unwelcome, it's because you are unwelcome, usually due to the chilling effect of offending one clique or another.
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While I concur that people often feel wanted due to their own actions or those of other people, it is under-whelmingly simplistic to not include cultural or societal expectations into an evaluation of fixing what might be a problem.
If you're going to run a Vampire: the Requiem game, for instance, paranoia and power-mongering are essential to the theme and setting, and, very often, players have to bend over backwards to find a reason to be inclusive.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
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@Ganymede said:
While I concur that people often feel wanted due to their own actions or those of other people, it is under-whelmingly simplistic to not include cultural or societal expectations into an evaluation of fixing what might be a problem.
If you're going to run a Vampire: the Requiem game, for instance, paranoia and power-mongering are essential to the theme and setting, and, very often, players have to bend over backwards to find a reason to be inclusive.
And I'm usually someone who is fine with bending over backwards to include someone despite theme stating that I would be perfectly within its scope to knock'em into a Sarlacc pit at the first chance I get. And then people push their luck. (Sometimes I push my luck. I think pushing your luck and taking big risks is the best way to have a great experience, but that's my opinion.)
I agree that @Sovereign's view is overly simplistic.
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@Ganymede said:
If you're going to run a Vampire: the Requiem game, for instance, paranoia and power-mongering are essential to the theme and setting, and, very often, players have to bend over backwards to find a reason to be inclusive.
This is a problem of Vampire being forced into an online social game without fixing this issue. In a tabletop, it is usually assumed that the coterie is going to work together against or in spite of the political machinations going on around them. Online, the player-characters often are the political machinations.
That these games or players on these games don't think of ways to be inclusive to players (not necessarily the characters) is I think a major part of a larger issue, but I boil it down to "how these games are presented to be played need to be fundamentally changed to really work on-line".
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain said:
That these games or players on these games don't think of ways to be inclusive to players (not necessarily the characters) is I think a major part of a larger issue, but I boil it down to "how these games are presented to be played need to be fundamentally changed to really work on-line".
This is kinda what I'm getting at.
One game's interpretation may be to remove that theme from the game and turn it into sunshine land. Some players will be drawn to that, enjoy playing it that way, and have a good time.
Another game's interpretation may be to insist that players adhere to the source material explicitly and instate OOC policies to enforce acceptance of the consequences of those thematic conflicts in certain ways. Some players will be drawn to that, enjoy playing that way, and have a good time.
Drop a player from GameA onto GameB, they're either going to have to learn to have fun under the different rules and within the culture of GameB, or they're shit out of luck. If they continue to behave as though they're on GameA, they're likely to piss people around them off pretty quickly. Even if you 'anger a clique', generally speaking, you actually did something that didn't fit the expected norms of that game. Sometimes people are just assholes, but rarely are people assholes with absolutely no cause.
Oh fucking well.
