Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?

[AeriaNyx]

For me, the answer is mixed. I mean, overall the answer must be yes, or I wouldn't dedicate so much of my headspace and time to it.

In a lot of ways, I treat mushing as my therapy. I have a profound amount of emotional disconnect in my day to day life. If you ask me how I am, or how I am feeling there is a high probability I wouldn't be able to fully answer. But when I play a character, it almost always provides me insight into where my emotional triggers are. When they are happy, I feel happy. When they are devastated, I am devastated. I get a lot of emotional release out of it. It also helps me quantify what upsets me in a way that remains nebulous and ephemeral in the real world.

The problems I run into are, however, that my insecurities are often heightened and my social paranoia tends to be much more powerful given the lack of contextual information via body language and tone. So people who are naturally more brusque/curt immediately twig my 'I did something wrong, they are mad at me oh no oh no' triggers. So then it becomes a dance of self-awareness of my personal issues and the persistent, nagging belief that there IS something wrong I just have to keep digging until I find it (or create it by said persistent digging).

I am also a people pleaser who seeks outside validation like an addict. So, there are a lot of pay offs in terms of running things for people, or crafting things for people. Until I burn out.

For me the hobby is filled with extremes. Excellent highs, horribad lows. I'm slowly teaching myself how to find the balance. And I think that is one of my favorite things about this hobby. The opportunity it offers me to grow as a person. While at the same time losing myself in neat worlds and cool characters.

[Arkandel]

@AeriaNyx said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

For me the hobby is filled with extremes. Excellent highs, horribad lows. I'm slowly teaching myself how to find the balance. And I think that is one of my favorite things about this hobby. The opportunity it offers me to grow as a person. While at the same time losing myself in neat worlds and cool characters.

Here's the thing: Everyone is working on some shit, no one has it all together nearly as much as we'd like to think - or at least project to others that we do. So although you don't get to control how you feel I can tell you there's nothing wrong with anything you just said.

As far as I'm concerned the only requirement for people (and even that is reserved for folks I don't know that well and we're not already friends) is that even if they're working through their issues using a game as a way to vent, try things out, socialize, whatever it might be... they don't get to use it as an excuse if they do something wrong.

I don't think it's too high an ask of people to own their stuff, whatever it happens to be, and try to ensure it doesn't happen again. If someone can't control their temper and react in a disproportionate or inappropriate way to something... well, it happens. But I'd expect them to come back afterwards, offer some sort of explanation (or apology) as needed, then to try keep it under the lid from that point on.

Everyone fucks up at some point, we can all get overly emotional, be caught at the wrong time and mood or misinterpret something terribly. If it happens once it's no biggie; if it keeps happening then it's a pattern, and that's no longer okay.

[Ghost]

@Arkandel I agree with your view in spirit. I'm all for everyone owning their stuff. Their stuff, not the stuff people diagnose via confirmation bias as being their intent regardless of the person claiming "they didn't mean that".

Nasty habit in this hobby that some people abuse. Perspective matters, but perspective is often subjective and subject to rigidity based on the level of anger in the accuser. I think that's where a lot of these fights come from, and I hope to see more people hashing out their differences rather than quick-snapping to the court of public opinion/whisper network character assassination.

[AeriaNyx]

@Arkandel Oh, I totally agree with that. I mean, that's what I get out of the hobby -- but just because I recognize how I use it, doesn't give me the right to spew my baggage on other people! Oh hell no. I'm an adult human being, and I can't, like you said, always control how I feel, but I can damn well control how I behave. I hope my RP doesn't come across as my slapdash therapy experiments to other people. People who RP with me aren't signing up for that shit. They are signing up for happy fun time and I try to ensure that that is the experience I give. I just then spend a ton of time afterwards self-analyzing and picking things apart when I see something in the pattern of my PC's behavior that strikes me as something important.

Now, there are the rare occurrences in which I find people I just do not gel with. I can think of one such person, who I genuinely like as a person, but if I try to RP with them, my emotional state just flips into entirely irrational. So I avoid them. Not because I don't like them, not because I don't like their character. I just know that I cannot trust my behavior around them. I am more than happy to accept that onus and try to leave it be as much as possible. Because, adult.

[mietze]

I agree. I have no issues with people pushing their own comfort zone in storytelling/writing/whathave you. I think telling stories about things that terrify/sadden/excite you is straight up human nature.

But. When one's issues become used as an excuse for behaviors that negatively impact the game, or one uses them as a method to control others, that's when I draw the line. Though I am fine with game runners choosing their own theme/boundaries and making them clear. Or players who need to nope out of certain themes.

Very few people use their issues to be abusive to people, imo. The ones that do are memorable though. Sometimes they do better sometimes not. But I think anyone regardless of past behavior (beloved or loathed) should not get a pass for destructive behavior on a game.

[Ghost]

@mietze What's your view on how regular people attempt to use issues to control others or influence the game is? Frequently? Not Frequently?

[Arkandel]

@Ghost said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

@Arkandel I agree with your view in spirit. I'm all for everyone owning their stuff. Their stuff, not the stuff people diagnose via confirmation bias as being their intent regardless of the person claiming "they didn't mean that".

Reputation is what it is. It's a very human kind of behavior to match expectations to behaviors which may or not have been in play but that's... expected. Perception matters. It's one of the downsides of having the persistent identities we debated in your other thread - as long as I'm not actively trying to 'hide' who I am, people who know me will see "Arkandel" and that will weigh in on how my actions are interpreted, for better or worse.

@AeriaNyx said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

Now, there are the rare occurrences in which I find people I just do not gel with. I can think of one such person, who I genuinely like as a person, but if I try to RP with them, my emotional state just flips into entirely irrational. So I avoid them. Not because I don't like them, not because I don't like their character. I just know that I cannot trust my behavior around them.

That's a mature way to handle it. I would add this though: You don't have to justify it. If you don't want to play with someone, anyone, you don't need to have 'a good reason' to do it - or rather you already have a pretty damn good one.

My one caveat in all this is people who project their prejudices on others. It's one thing to not like or want to play with someone else or even to have concrete arguments against them you are willing to share with others, and another to make vague negative comments on their behalf to dissuade people they've never met from playing with them either. That's really shitty. And it's actually happened to me, albeit only once, so I speak from experience there.

It's fine to not like me. It's also okay, if I screwed you over in some specific way ("that guy stalked me for three weeks until staff banned him") to say something. But disparaging others when they can't defend themselves about nothing in particular is rather juvenile.

[surreality]

@Wretched said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

My other hobbies rarely allow for this level of creative story outlet and interactivity.

@Ominous said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

You can't evaluate how you spend your time in a vacuum. You have to weigh its pros and cons with the pros and cons of the possible alternatives. I work not because my job is interesting and enjoyable.

Both of these things are very applicable to me also.

[mietze]

I find it is more common for people to feel resentment or discomfort because they are projecting what they think others will think/do. So they go along with what they think others want and then feel grumpy and that leads to a cascade of other things. So like, if a scene is veering into topics they cant be part of, instead of just making a good exit and try to pick up later or just telling people that they are digging the group but things are heading into CoI or whatever they will stay and fret because they think if they leave everyone will hate them (almost never is this true).

I see more problems arise sentiment wise when someone doesnt allow themselves to be able to leave a scene politely/positively and so they stay where they are bored/uncomfortable/irritated. It is definitely a skill to be able to leave a scene well and oocly positively, I think people often feel awkward about it, and there are a lot of bad feels/perceptions of others/fretting as a result. That can feel like control on many ends.