Feelings of not being wanted...

[Thenomain]

@surreality said:

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.

Yes, but that's true of all games. I am constantly harping on games, players, and myself for not making this transition easier. Explaining this information to newbies is hard, tho, because by the time you understand it yourself you are in the middle of it and have to unravel what they know back to what they wish they knew before they knew it. It's no easy task, but I believe it's critical.

[surreality]

@Thenomain Yup, that's why 'label your intent right up front' is so critical.

[Sovereign]

I don't agree my answer is overly-simplistic. It's exactly as simplistic as it needs to be. People are social creatures, and social exclusion is a common weapon. Especially in hobbies entirely dependent on interacting with others.

[Thenomain]

@Sovereign said:

People are social creatures, and social exclusion is a common weapon. Especially in hobbies entirely dependent on interacting with others.

It is possible as staff to combat cliquish behavior like this. We don't see it often because staff are often afraid to lose known players for unknown newcomers. There are probably ways to split the difference by starting to create a player culture of inclusion, a little at a time.

You can get into a game with cliques just fine, as long as there are not-cliques. Sometimes the best thing to do with a clique is let it stay in its rooms TSing each other all day.

[Sovereign]

@Thenomain

Sure. You can play around cliques. No one has ever said otherwise. The problem comes when the clique is influential enough to be a detriment to your play experience. If they're spreading rumors or setting an example by avoiding you, that easily leads to feelings of exclusion.

The best counter, I've always found, is creating your own clique.

[Apos]

First, @surreality is impressive in being able to bring a thread back to topic.

Now I really like her points about player expectations vs reality and entirely different gamer cultures clashing since I think it's extremely accurate for an awful lot of cases, though I think we can echo the same thing about most staff. I think only a tiny percentage of staff is familiar with all these different subcultures of MU games, and even a smaller percentage of that has probably played most or all of them and enjoys them all for their own merits.

So when like a sandbox player goes to a non-sandbox, it's not just the playerbase that might alienate them. I know I've seen staff treat players that would be prized as exactly those fun, activity-generating types most needed on a sandbox as -problems-. "Omg, this player is crazy and doing things they aren't supposed to be doing! We need to stop their badfun!" And since staff isn't familiar with the other forms, they usually aren't even able to explain why something doesn't fit on their game, they just treat them as a disruptive loon. A lot of players are willing to shrug off other players being dicks to them on that same non-sandbox ('Bob never leaves his bedroom!'), but an authority figure? Nooooo.

[Thenomain]

@Sovereign said:

The problem comes when the clique is influential enough to be a detriment to your play experience.

All people have influence on your play experience; this is kind of the point. If you don't want anyone to influence your play experience, you'll have to find ways to push them out while getting what you want, thereby becoming part of the problem. Or at best, becoming that group of people who hangs out in their rooms while everyone else goes about their role-play lives.

I prefer to join play-groups, people who are interested in play without being exclusionary. As much as people demanded that The Menagerie, a Changeling motley on Haunted Memories, was a clique, we never excluded anyone based on anything but perhaps their in-character actions. At least, not that I knew. That's the kind of protective group that I think is healthy, people you trust and enjoy their company.

--

edit: While thank for the upvote, Ghost, I realize I have one more thing to add: I have played on games where a clique has control of the game itself, or the sphere for that game which is close enough. I have seen @Eerie escape this by playing with a different sphere, but I am not that good with social maneuvering and my options usually end up being "take it" or "leave the game". If this is what @Sovereign is talking about, I get it. This situation is a failing of staff, and I've watched it on games where the clique was staff, or staff refused to address the issue that players were dominating the game in a non-helpful manner. There's almost nothing to do in this situation but, yeah, get out or make your own fortress.

[Warma Sheen]

@Thenomain said:

@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.

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".

There is that line that people sometimes unintentionally cross... player vs character. And the problem of expectation. Do you feel unwelcome as a player on a game if your character isn't included in scene, with the understanding that you are not your character? Do you expect that others find a way for your character to be involved even when they shouldn't be ICly? Do you feel unwelcome if the Sabbat don't let your Cam PC join their super secret meeting? There's no single defining line as to how much the IC has to be skewed in order for someone to feel welcome. One person might think its good to bend over backwards 30 degrees while another feels unwelcome if someone hasn't bent over a full 90. In short, its an impossible task to "fix".

There's also the feeling of not being welcome vs. feeling disliked. It is completely possible to not feel welcome without anyone actively doing anything to you, whereas feeling disliked should involve someone actively doing something to cause that. But then we're also talking about feelings... so... yeah. But plenty of people will sit and do nothing, then feel unwelcome because they aren't dragged kicking and screaming into RP or plot.

All you can really do is take the worst of the worst and try to skim that off the top and be content with whatever ambiguity is left behind.

[Arkandel]

@Sovereign said:

The best counter, I've always found, is creating your own clique.

The best counter, I've always found, is creating your own fun.

Don't worry about what other people are doing, you're not able to control or responsible for them, only for your stuff. Play the game (if you want to) or go (if you don't).

If you are fun enough to be around other people will come join in. I don't know if that's a clique in MSB terms any more, that word has been polluted and loaded with preconceptions by now until I can't tell what it's supposed to mean outside of a very specific context.

But I've yet to enjoy myself on a game and not look around to find others in my PC's periphery not being entertained, and if that happens I honestly can't find myself giving half a shit what someone else may be perhaps saying. Which they are usually not (I'm not the centre of their world, they don't spend every waking hour discussing me), it's just an imaginary situation that can poison my time when I could be having fun instead if I start treating it as a reality.

[Thenomain]

One more before work!

@Warma-Sheen sed:

It is completely possible to not feel welcome without anyone actively doing anything to you

Yeah. This requires self-reflection. I envy people who understand themselves. I do.

All you can really do is take the worst of the worst and try to skim that off the top and be content with whatever ambiguity is left behind.

This as the "only thing you can do" is a horrible choice. Don't let yourself be pushed around until it becomes the last option before leaving the game. I'm going to half-agree with @Arkandel here when he says that "all you can do is enjoy yourself"; I still think it's critical that people allow others to enjoy themselves in what is going on.

For instance, it's a very common criticism here on Soapbox against people who don't give people something to reply to in a pose. This is what I'm talking about. I've seen people in a public area say, "I'm sorry but we're in a kind of tight-knit scene right now," and that's responsible and kind of awesome for them to see you and think of you as a fellow player. I'd rather them find a way to include you in their shenanigans or change it up, but if it can't happen then so be it.

Saying "I play for myself" is, again IMO, the wrong way around. It has that flavor of "I won't try". Again, nobody has to twist things out of sensibility, but showing interest at the very least shouldn't be onerous to anyone, at any time, until the situation or player becomes a detriment to your enjoyment of the situation.

[Sovereign]

@Thenomain

All people have influence on your play experience; this is kind of the point.

This is true in the sense a butterfly in Mexico has an influence on Minnesotan weather. You can always find some link, some association of vaguely related events, but for the most part it's not true. I have been at many games over the years where most of the players had no influence on my play experience because of different spheres, different play times, or simply incompatible personalities that led to non-antagonistic but distant relationships.

That is why I specificed "... enough to be a detriment". There's a level of influence that matters and a level that does not.

As for becoming the problem, I don't think cliques are a problem. They're desirable. It's a game, it's my free time.. why wouldn't I want it spent on people I know are quality? I have no problems playing with the same people often, so long as I get along with them. The problem is when cliques take to social combat to diminish your experience.

[Arkandel]

@Thenomain said:

I'm going to half-agree with @Arkandel here when he says that "all you can do is enjoy yourself"; I still think it's critical that people allow others to enjoy themselves in what is going on.

That's only half of it though - maybe it's how I perceive the game, but I only really enjoy it when I'm feeling the chemistry between my PC and others'. My best, favorite scenes just flow, I don't have to sit there staring at the screen trying to set things in motion, they are already moving and all I have to do is flesh out my character's part in them. It does very little for me to pose if there's nothing clicking even if there's nothing wrong with the poses themselves. Good chemistry is what I treasure above all other qualities in RP.

I could be wrong, and there are those here who have played with me to dispel my illusion, but generally speaking I'm fairly confident when I'm having a blast in a scene I'm not the only person there enjoying themselves.

[Sovereign]

@Arkandel

The best counter, I've always found, is creating your own fun.

Sure. And when faced with a hostile and influential clique, the best way to do that is by creating your own. Group influence and social weight trumps an individual.

[Apos]

@Thenomain said:

For instance, it's a very common criticism here on Soapbox against people who don't give people something to reply to in a pose. This is what I'm talking about. I've seen people in a public area say, "I'm sorry but we're in a kind of tight-knit scene right now," and that's responsible and kind of awesome for them to see you and think of you as a fellow player. I'd rather them find a way to include you in their shenanigans or change it up, but if it can't happen then so be it.

Whoa, I'm going to have to pick on Theno here since it relates back to my previous post about even very experienced players/staff not being familiar with some cultures on MUs. That would be terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE advice on some games. I've played on MUs where any public grid RP is used as a specific invitation for anyone to join in as long as they can someone justify their character being there. Making it exclusionary would contrast dramatically with the culture of the game and be an incredible insult to pretty much the entire player base and be seen as directly incompatible with the non-sandbox environment they are trying to foster. I would absolutely not permit it ever on mine. There could only ever be IC reasons to not have someone enter a scene, never, ever OOC.

So again, that's a 100% okay thing to do on a sandbox and many games, and very very not okay to do it on others.

[Arkandel]

@Apos said:

That would be terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE advice on some games. I've played on MUs where any public grid RP is used as a specific invitation for anyone to join in as long as they can someone justify their character being there. Making it exclusionary would contrast dramatically with the culture of the game and be an incredible insult to pretty much the entire player base and be seen as directly incompatible with the non-sandbox environment they are trying to foster. I would absolutely not permit it ever on mine. There could only ever be IC reasons to not have someone enter a scene, never, ever OOC.

But it is. I mean it's still considerate to ask before joining but if you're in an actual public place - I'm not talking the back room of a bookstore but a busy restaurant or something - then being annoyed if someone walks in is unreasonable.

A while ago I was staff overseeing the gripe of someone who was in exactly that setting, and he had a gun out when a cop PC entered the room. He was butthurt because 'his' scene was disrupted - no. If someone wants it to be just their scene set in a public room without the possibility of being interrupted then they can use a RP room for it.

[Apos]

@Arkandel In some non-sandboxes any ooc communication can be seen as immersion breaking and players are fully expected to rely upon only IC means. There absolutely should not be any kind of asking if it's okay OOC to jump into a scene, especially not strangers. It would be seen as rude and destroying the mood of the RP. Asking IC, sure, absolutely but not ooc. There can be a huge difference between the way things are done in sandboxes vs non-sandboxes. In the same non-sandbox scenario, someone with a gun out would be -expected- to be arrested by any cop player that's on the grid, tried later, and possibly imprisoned and have the character taken away, whether any cop character was in the scene or not, because their actions would have consequences outside of the immediate scene no matter how trivial feeling for mood it seemed to the player.

[Ghost]

@Arkandel I tend to get a lot of OOC pages about moving the scene away from the current venue the moment a police character arrives. Webb, was it? There was a character who was a cop/hunter with a large dog. I'd be in scenes with changelings, werewolves, and shifters, and Webb would walk into the coffee house or whatever with his dog to BUY COFFEE AND DONUTS and the players would freak the fuck out in pages like he was the fun police. Me? I roleplayed with the guy, because even though my character knew he was an IC cop, was doing nothing illegal and it's okay to be sociable with cops.

"Hey what's up? Have a safe night, officer..."

But in pages I got a lot of meta-gamey nonsense from players wanting to scram because they knew OOCly he was a hunter and a cop, and were theorizing that he cherrypicked and joined the scene specifically to find supernatural characters to hunt.

Duh. He's a cop/hunter. His whole CONCEPT is to do this, not that YOUR characters know this...

But, topically, this kind of stuff also tends to make players feel unwanted, especially when they have no clue that behind the scenes, players are adapting their roleplay based on the super-type information gleamed through +finger or wikipage.

[Sovereign]

@Ghost

This is one of many reasons you should never have a game where splats hostile to one another intrinsically play together. Hunters do not belong on any sort of supernatural game, and supernaturals have no place on a game of hunters.

[Ghost]

@Sovereign

I know some really great Hunter roleplayers. The one I have in mind treated Changelings, ICly, like he would treat rape/sexual assault victims who could theoretically live in symbiosis with mortals without causing undue damage to their lives. He treated Lings like smaller potatoes compared to vampires because the Lings aren't really the issue, the Gentry are, and to work with these poor, victimized humans to better protect mortals from the horrors of the Gentry is far more productive than killing them simply for being different.

But itse that kind of thinking that makes for a good character, IMO. It's not the what, but the delivery, that makes the spheres mesh well together.

[Sovereign]

@Ghost

I'm not saying Hunters are bad roleplayers. I am saying that splats designed for antagonistic relationships by default are poor for MUs which, due to their nature, have to be overwhelmingly cooperative- even the most PvP oriented of MUs is more PlayerWithPlayer than PlayerVersusPlayer.