@meg said in Spirit Lake: An Original Modern Fantasy Game:
like enough that they implemented it as a rule
That's no indicator of popularity or desire.
@meg said in Spirit Lake: An Original Modern Fantasy Game:
Maybe someone should start a constructive criticism thread to get it changed.
Thanks for volunteering.
He/Him
@meg I'm familiar with the history of the policy, because my stance has always been against Advertisement being a propaganda zone. It's been contentious every time it comes up, and it will be contentious again.
(Also, there's no evidence of what portion of 'people' wanted it, only the mod trifecta decided on it).
I would personally suggest making a separate thread. There have been a fair amount of ad threads that were derailed by bitching and trolling and griping that could have been better put elsewhere, when you can just make a topic about the game in the very same forum as long as it's not too slaggy.
This is a fair and measured assessment. I will own this as many times as it takes for people to think, "Hmm, that Thenomain, he seems to be owning this," but your summary is perhaps the most fair, certainly the one that gives space for discussion. I appreciate your skill.
My response to staff's private lecture was that I understand and would try, but I didn't appreciate them giving me the same lecture twice. I think that if you're asking for consideration and understanding that you also be able to give it. I will be far from the last person they have to deal with who freaks out, though I'd be surprised if they have to deal with someone who does so as much.
Also note that as some people were telling me to take a breather, others were dogpiling. I'm still owning that I should have the ability to chill the fuck out, but it goes both ways. It's too late now, but it ties strongly back into what's wrong with discussions on Soapbox in general, and gives a more even view of what was going on the channel.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
@thenomain No. See, I have a different take on this. When I am in the midst of a complete panic flail (which anyone who knows me I do suffer, more often than I'd care to but less often I used to), it only goes both ways to a point. If and when I am cognizant of reacting in ways that are contributing to making an attempt at communication worse, or impossible, it falls to me-- the owner of said reaction-- to go away until I can communicate in a more productive manner because I know, when I am in that place, I am incapable of processing what I am being told in a clear and unbiased fashion. It is coming in through a twisted filter.
I was there and watched you during that conversation. Yes, you acknowledged you were having this issue... but you took no steps to handle or adjust or improve that for the people who were being faced with a full on anxiety meltdown. You did not meet them in the middle. You said you were having this issue... and then expected them to make all of the concessions, while you put your head down and bulled towards what you wanted the outcome to be.
You owned your issues by saying out loud that you have them, to the extend that that is acknowledging they exist, but you didn't move to the necessary second step of handling them, in spite of being urged numerous times to do so. You were requiring them to not only be staff and app staff, but also to play counselor and psychologist for your issues.
Unfair, Theno.
Sooooooo
Can y'all take this private?
And this has nothing to do with my complaint. There's only so many times I can say that you're right, in a method we call "aggressively agreeing".
But staff blew smoke up my ass in spite of my having calmed down. It was because they didn't want to deal with it even though it wasn't happening.
Putting this on me was unfair. If we're calling out spades, here's a spade.
I may have seen one of your meltdowns. I think. To be frank, my protocols have problems detecting anxiety.
What I have found, as a cat masquerading as a robot attorney, is that striving for the maxim of prevailing, cooler heads requires less of a paychotherapist’s touch and more of a loving spouse’s.
When my partner starts to break down, I just wait for things to settle. I sit, and sit, and sit, and sit, and while we cannot always be a gumby cat, we can, as cool heads do, wait for the storm to pass before we decide what clothes to put on.
Call it an unfair expectation if you want, but it has worked for me. A touch of empathy and oh what a difference a little indifference makes.
And I assume the expectation is that your partner will be there for you the next time you need someone to treat you wit patience and some indifference? Because they are your partner?
in no way is this relevant to the relationship between a roleplay game staffer and a prospective player.
I may have figured out why I generally have few problems online with others.
No, I don’t think it’s irrelevant, and I think it is a reasonable approach to take. It’s no different than how I’ve treated others online, like Caryatid, when they may have been having a rough go of it.
@kanye-qwest I think it's more - sometimes doing nothing is the right call. I don't think its about the partner so much as intuiting when hard lines being drawn in the sand or not even just that but trying to communicate specific ideas in that moment only causes the whole thing to spin out a lot more.
I think we've all seen those meltdowns generally in games where someone is upset, people are trying to get to the root of the problem, and doing so - the person who is upset doesn't feel like they're getting the situation untangled, they start to further unravel because now there's a spotlight on the problem which means there's a spotlight on the person having the problem.
It's anxiety logic which isn't logical.
Having experienced this myself, wanting to help and literally making it 100x worse for trying in that moment - sometimes all you can do productively is to stop moving and let it pass before any further decisions get made.
@gangofdolls Sure, that's true.
But no one running a game is under any sort of obligation to do that. That's my only ?? here, is the assumption that it is either "Staff is patient and understanding of a person's issues and self-sacrificing in their continued willingness to work through that and any further occurrences" or "staff is a bunch of hypocrtical, malevolent weasels".
These are the two positions presented in this thread, and I just kind of think they are bullshit. It doens't make anyone evil if a person goes off and goes over a line and frustrates people with flailing and they just decide they'd rather not deal with that in the future. No one has to be super happy about it, but it isn't EXPECTED that people who owe you nothing and get nothing from you should sacrifice their fun and intentions for your drama.
Is it nice if it happens? Sure, for at least one of those parties. Is that a reasonable expectation? No, no it is not.
@kanye-qwest said in Spirit Lake: An Original Modern Fantasy Game:
and they just decide they'd rather not deal with that in the future.
I think it depends entirely on how they express such "nope, I'm out."
Oh, yeah - I don't know that it was anyone's obligation to have take that on as a staff member. It's up to the individual on the receiving end of a player spiraling out to extend themselves like that or not.
I will say though that the character generation process is fraught for a lot of people for various reasons. Having staffed, I've been on the receiving end of some quality flip outs and obnoxious behavior- anxiety fueled or not. I guess from my cheap seats point of view, you do come to expect a certain amount of character generation/concept generation lack of road smoothness. How the staffer or game endeavors to deal with that is up to them.
It reads to me that things go very dug in on both sides of this situation after a certain point. I'm not sure there was a lot of hope of deescalation after that.
I think some people are luckier than others in how that behavior is tolerated, and that can vary from game to game.
This thread has become a great ad for self-care. Can we split off all the unnecessary MU stuff to another thread?
maximum craveability
@theonceler Yes.
Is there an opportunity for a signup list to be considered for future players? Asking for a friend.
Warning: snappy turtle is snappy.
Creating the world of Aesca.
@bananerz said in Spirit Lake - Discussion:
Is there an opportunity for a signup list to be considered for future players? Asking for a friend.
Not at present, sorry.
@meg said in Spirit Lake: An Original Modern Fantasy Game:
like enough that they implemented it as a rule
That's no indicator of popularity or desire.
@meg said in Spirit Lake: An Original Modern Fantasy Game:
Maybe someone should start a constructive criticism thread to get it changed.
Thanks for volunteering.
