GMs and Players

[3543thrh67]

Somethings I've seen involving abusive/manipulative/stalker/whatever types. Add as you will.

1. Their actions are often subtle that it is not easy to catch too late. Someone who has experienced that with them multiple times, as many have said, can usually see it but can't prove it.
2. They tend to use IC means more than OOC actions to be a dick so they can use the 'but it is IC' excuse.
3. Will gradually try turning peoples friends against them. Well placed words that may or may not be the truth. Rarely in an obvious way. More like 'Haha. X did this thing. Did you know that?' It doesn't SEEM like they are being the devil.
4. They skirt the boundaries people set. Not often going over them but pushing it.
5. They typically present as a 'good person', following the rules, not being obvious about their bad actions. By the time a lot of people who don't realize the person is not a good guy until they have made them seem like the better player to staff.

It is not easy to catch unpleasant people without expressing from another player the stuff they do.

[Meg]

@saosmash I am coding an invite-only game.

[bear_necessities]

@derp said in GMs and Players:

Honestly, I think it's also about what kinds of players do you want to attract. Do you want the ones that care about rules, and process, and transparency, even if it takes time? Or do you want the ones that prefer immediate gut-check judgment calls based on personal beliefs and social opinions? Those are two different kinds of player, and while neither of them is neccessarily inherently wrong -- they both have some positives and negatives -- they're not really compatible viewpoints.

I think when you break it down like that, you are grossly misrepresenting me and what we are all trying to say here and it's very condescending. I want to attract players who: want to have fun, are not distasteful, and are not going to create a negative environment. That is it.

[krmbm]

@icanbeyourmuse I would add that they isolate their victims - bring conversations off-game or out of the designated safe space (Discord being the most common, but also other games where logs "don't count").

[Derp]

@bear_necessities said in GMs and Players:

I think when you break it down like that, you are grossly misrepresenting me and what we are all trying to say here and it's very condescending

I'm not trying to be condescending. I'm telling you how this reads to me. Because that's how this reads to me. You, in the same breath, say that you shouldn't just take people at face value and ban people right before you say that you'd take someone at face value and ban a person because that's the lesser of your perceived two evils.

It's a contradiction. And the problem with contradictions, from a logic standpoint, is that you can use them to justify literally anything in an argument whether it logically tracks or not, and it all seems nice and solid, even when it's flawed.

I don't hold this same belief. This is something that you value, and something that I don't. I don't know how else to explain it. If your priority is the process, then it's a problem. If your priority is just teh general gut-check feeling then it's not.

[Pyrephox]

Whatever else one feels about rules and whatever?

The correct answer as staff to, "Someone is stalking me, I'm pretty sure they're on the game, and I'm afraid."

Is never, "Your out of game interpersonal relationships aren't my problem."

Not as someone running a game, and not as just a decent human being who cares about other people. Is it difficult to navigate the line of how much OOG info a staff member needs or wants to have? Absolutely. No one sane wants to put staff in the position of arbitrating whether people are being nice to one another on Discord, or trying to make sure that players only ever interact with players they like. In some cases, you just have to suck up that you might be playing with people you don't personally like. That is a qualitatively different situation from allowing someone to stay on a game who is abusing or harassing another player, even if that abuse or harassment is happening outside the game.

Is it a sticky question? Absolutely. Are there reasons why a player can be legitimately uncomfortable existing on the same game as another player that do not warrant removing the latter player? Yep. Is it a pain in the ass to navigate where that line is as a GM? Absolutely. Will GMs get it wrong? Most of them will at least once. It's hard.

Because it's something that requires sensitivity, judgment, and discretion. And as a player, I want to see that GMs have all of that, and aren't going to fall back on mindless, "But we have a RULE," like a 'code is law' cryptobro.

[mietze]

I think that a conversation about steps/ways to verbalize how one handles each stages of problematic behavior or warnings of past problematic behavior is within bounds. That is something that many runners need to wrestle with (and the practical applications can also be different from what they might champion in general too especially when it comes to longstanding current player without issues vs new unknown player).

But I think it would be good to pull back on the insults, please.

[Devrex]

@krmbm Well I didn't say don't tell people that, I said don't malign folks over it. And yes. To reiterate. My argument, and @derp 's has exactly been: we are only qualified to patrol the game and no other outside venue, we require evidence that someone has actually wronged someone before we bounce them for wronging someone. That's exactly right. That is exactly what I'm saying. Most of the time people leave themselves enough rope to hang themselves with. Or to boot themselves with, as the case may be.

You think it's harmful. I, @derp, @reimesu, have told you of examples where great harm has been caused by being too reactive, too.

So far this philosophy of mine has been equated to being cold and unsympathetic about it and showing no empathy, to never having been abused or stalked (making vast assumptions about what people have been through or not), to just letting abusers run amok like crazy, whatever else. @roz has just told me that people's personal opinions of Derp are coloring the argument, which...really says that a lot of this isn't about the substance of the argument at all, then.

This idea that one can care about creating an evidence-based, process-based space but must automatically swing the pendulum clear over to not caring or not acting or not being empathetic or just letting abusers be abusive then is a false equivalency.

What if the person I threw off my game on someone else's word was you? And it was "I know you can't see anything in this stack of logs" or "I know I haven't provided you with anything to look at at all, but @krmbm is awful and hurtful, please believe me!" What if that person just clashed with you a little bit, and you're not really in emotional or physical danger at all? Would you really feel happy if I just said "You're gone, you said stuff about this other player I like better than you, I'm concerned about their emotional health here so you're gone and I'm also going to label you an abuser when the inevitable questions arise about why you were banned?" You'd really feel that was fair and just and right and how you wanted to be treated?

[Kanye Qwest]

@devrex said in GMs and Players:

@saosmash That is not what @derp has been saying at all. He said "use the in-game tools which are almost impossible to forge," and "we will patrol this place by this standard" and no more. Not leaping all over someone just because someone said so is not championing the abuser.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. Derp has a demonstrated history of pointing out victims often make false reports, and sung this 'logs are so easily forged' tune. Not going to go looking but I'm pretty sure he's also claimed reports of sexual harassment are overblown because he doesn't see it happening much.

[krmbm]

@devrex said in GMs and Players:

I, @derp, @reimesu, have told you of examples where great harm has been caused by being too reactive, too.

Which examples?

I have frequently referenced a concrete example where I made a mistake (used the philosophy you espouse) and it caused lasting damage.

There have been suggestions that people have been falsely accused in the past, but no concrete examples. Where are the logs?

@devrex said in GMs and Players:

What if the person I threw off my game on someone else's word was you?

Then I probably wouldn't have enjoyed being there. I can think of one or two people who probably dislike me enough to say I've done some bunk shit over the years, and honestly? I've been an asshole more than once.

If one of those people is one of your friends? Dude, play with them, not me. Chances are, you'll like them better than me, and I'll find somewhere else to play.

[Devrex]

@krmbm VA Spider was referenced multiple times, and I believe that example is more than famous. But yes, at this point, you and I have a 180 staffing philosophy difference. I'm fine with agreeing to disagree about it...and agreeing that we would not enjoy being on one another's games.

[3543thrh67]

@reimesu @Derp @Devrex If it does anything to help rephrase things in your files and such (I haven't looked at them closely):

As you guys are presenting it. To me, it comes off as very much like you guys are deciding that the possible abuser is the victim, all the time, not the person bringing their concerns.

The majority of what you guys have said doesn't imply that is your intentions. It is how it keeps coming off to me, though.

I'm aware it is hard to find a 'middle ground' to keeping what you want while also assuring people believe you are well intended.

[Kanye Qwest]

@devrex said in GMs and Players:

What if the person I threw off my game on someone else's word was you?

I'd find a different game to play. There's this weird equivalence people sometimes slip into where they think being booted from a rp game is as bad a situation as letting a creep chase people off a game or, heavens forfend, actually menace people.

No one has ever been legitimately harmed because they aren't able to play a rp game.

[reimesu]

@icanbeyourmuse I can honestly say that I literally have NO idea where you got that from. I'm not sure you're reading what I'm typing.

[Devrex]

@icanbeyourmuse The files urge people to report, even if they aren't sure. The files urge people to tell people in no uncertain terms to stop behaviors that are bothering them and if they do not stop, then they are out of there. We have already addressed one stalking situation and have made it clear that say, moving to our game from another game, when we can prove it, to try to pursue a person who has already told you to get lost is a bannable offense, and the person who did it is no longer on our game.

If saying "hey this is the Internet and it's a bit rough out here" is bad then yeah, I guess so? But I see it as saying, "Hey this is a part of town where there is some crime, keep your purse close and don't flash cash." We don't blame you if you get mugged, and we'll certainly go after the mugger, but we would like you to be safe, and here is a way you can be safer.

They also say hey we're going to need you to use all the oodles and oodles of tools Ares gives you to bump that stuff up to us so we can see it too before we act on it. It's spelled out. I hope that it is spelled out in a way that is friendly and empathetic, but who the heck knows?

[krmbm]

@devrex Please know - I have nothing but respect for you as a player. We have a lot of cross-over friends(-of-friends), and they all say nothing but great things about you as an ST.

Just. What @icanbeyourmuse said. If so many people are misreading what's written, maybe try to reread it through a different lens. I don't expect anyone to change their policies based on MSB (lol who would even do that :D), but if I was getting this much negative feedback about wording...

I dunno. I'd at least take a glance at it.

At one point, @Derp said something about "not meaning to BE condescending" and I come back to something I have to tell my twelve-year-old: He needs to TRY to sound other than condescending.

(I need to TRY to sound other than argumentative. It's hard.)

Edit: Fixed the misquote.

[Derp]

@krmbm said in GMs and Players:

He needs to TRY to sound other than condescending.

I don't sound like anything over the internet where there is no sound. What people read into what I write is what they read into it. Not necessarily what I wrote.

Maybe they should try to stick to the substance of the actual argument instead of trying to, what was the phrase used earlier? Tone police?

[3543thrh67]

The people who keep returning to places they are not wanted confuse me. I suppose it is a 'you can't stop me and let me prove it to you' situation. But, if someone kicks me off their game on the word of someone else I'll be a little hurt and angry but I am likely to forget that I feel that way and about the game because it 'doesn't want me.'

[krmbm]

@derp said in GMs and Players:

I don't sound like anything over the internet where there is no sound.

You're so right. Thanks.

[3543thrh67]

@derp said in GMs and Players:

@krmbm said in GMs and Players:

He needs to TRY to sound other than condescending.

I don't sound like anything over the internet where there is no sound. What people read into what I write is what they read into it. Not necessarily what I wrote.

Maybe they should try to stick to the substance of the actual argument instead of trying to, what was the phrase used earlier? Tone police?

You phrase a lot in that style. It reads very condescending and dismissive. You might not mean it one way but how you phrase it it comes off the way you don't mean too.