Posts made by Kestrel

My character loses a confrontation spectacularly.

But the winner is such an awesome player I'm legit excited to see what happens next.

Play a character who's an expert on xyz.

Research xyz a bit because you want to be able to play your expert character convincingly, and will need to draw on real life facts to do it.

Become a relative expert on xyz IRL throughout the course of playing this character. Learn things. Impress your friends.

RP/Writing has legit taught me so many awesome things about the world.

Addendum, self-reflection:

I have also been on the other side of this coin. I was in an IC leadership position on a very large, populous game (Starmourn, by Iron Realms Entertainment, makers of Achaea) and stepped in against a creep after 10 female players all spoke up in unison about what a POS he was.

The guy was someone I had on Discord, who advertised himself as a woke feminist type, and my character and his character were buddies. I spoke often, ICly and OOCly, in praise of him. I'm ashamed to admit that when the first lady came out of the woodwork to complain about him, my initial gut reaction was disbelief. 'What, that guy? Are you sure? But he's so nice!' And it took her going into some much more grisly detail for me to react with a firmer, 'holy shit', along with other people backing her up on their own experiences with him.

This wasn't exactly a staff position but when you consider the game has 500+ players, and my org had 100+ active, my position as leader of this org was pretty influential, so my friendship with him, looking back, was something that could have been very intimidating to other players if I hadn't made it a point to speak with his other female 'friends' one-on-one afterwards and ask if they'd ever encountered unpleasant behaviour from him (to which the answer was in almost every case an overwhelming 'yes').

A small thing I think staff, and by extension, other players who enjoy some influential status in the games they play can do is don't play favourites. You can have people you like more than others. That's fine. It's natural, it's human. Just don't advertise it. If there's a player on your game who's constantly letting everyone know that they're in good with staff (as the dude I was complaining about in a prior post had a habit of doing — the dude I for this reason never complained about), brush them off, and don't encourage them. Maybe even have a chat with them, if they're really your friend, and let them know the behaviour makes you feel kind of used. As staff on other games I have had to do this in the past, and I'm always wary of making other staffers uncomfortable by doing anything that could be seen as exploiting their position, or our friendship. As a rule, I don't ask for little 'favours' of staff friends, or even ever acknowledge their position as staff on this game when we're talking outside of it on Discord/Skype/Facebook/whatever. When we're on the game, and they're acting as staff, I address them only as staff, through proper channels like +request, and don't make references to us being friends. Separation is best for everyone and makes needing to tell your buddies 'no' a lot less awkward.

Conversely, reach down and out to the lil' people in your game who aren't really that well connected and help make sure they feel comfortable and like they're every bit a part of the gang as everyone else.

I know I, looking back on my stint on Starmourn, greatly regret all the little public head-pats I gave to the game's biggest creeper, and often feel guilty, wondering if I may have made him feel like he was safer behaving the way he did, because he had backing from myself and other leader players. Or worse, if his victims would observe our public schmoozing and as a result feel afraid to come forward, suspecting his influential friendships would mean their complaints would be ignored.

@Wretched said in How To Treat Your Players Right:

@Kestrel said in How To Treat Your Players Right:

He would regularly assume the worst of minor inactions and then go on the aggressive because of it. ('You didn't respond to my page or react to my joke on the channel within 5 minutes, therefore xyz'.)

So a lot of what you wrote resonated with me but this line alone just brought back memories... of myself. Before i was aware of my own issues (anxiety, self esteem, depression, etc) I have totally flipped out on people for... little things, and in a similar way. Especially if it was with someone who's Rp i was invested in for what reason or another. (OMG i wanted to RP with you today but i see you are already in a scenes with someone else... DO YOU HATE ME?! cringe) I dont know if i was ever this bad, but it rang some bells, and I genuinely feel shitty for how unaware/cringy I was. Not to defend this person, but that struck home.

Kudos for the self-awareness.

I get that this stuff comes from a place of insecurity. I mean, I have dated a kind of person who had this kind of behaviour. I'd be asleep, at work, with friends, and would check my phone a few hours later to find a slew of texts from him saying 'hey' 'hey' 'HEY' 'Not going to reply?!' 'So you're still mad about the other day?' 'Alright, I'll leave you alone for good this time, I can take a hint and I guess we're breaking up' 'If you don't reply I'm going to take a bunch of pills'.

The dude I was dating had issues he needed to work on. It was not good for either of us. His pressure exacerbated my anxiety issues, I felt caged and suffocated, and my need to have a life independent from our relationship exacerbated his abandonment issues. He was not a monster. I still love the guy. We went our separate ways because we just weren't a good fit. I still check on him now and then and we ask each other how therapy is going. I think this is a human experience that many people can relate to.

Tangential from this thread, a piece of advice I can give (much easier said than done) is try not to assume the worst of other people's behaviour, or especially their lack of behaviour. (Not responding promptly enough to a message.) In the case of the dude I complained about in my prior post, his demands, his chasing, his unwillingness to respect my boundaries did nothing to inspire me to lower my boundaries, but ended up being the reason I needed to put them up at all. If he had been more patient, I would have responded to him in my own time and we would have stayed cool instead of it resulting in me feeling pursued and consequentially, fleeing. And his constant suspicion that every little thing means I surely hate him ... well, that is precisely the reason I did end up ... strongly disliking him and wanting nothing further to do with him. He sabotaged any possibility of our friendship by jumping the gun.

You are not the dude in question but it's very refreshing that you would read something which may not paint someone with your sensitivities in a good light, and that it would give you pause to reflect rather than aggress. Much respect. We're all working on ourselves all the time and I wish you the best in doing so.

EDIT:

And you are correct, the presence of anti creepoing policy does not stop creepers. I feel that instead the policies should be there as an aid and starting point for those that are creeped upon, rather than strictly to warn people. A 'Here is what you do if someone is harassing you oocly/trying to force you into rp you dont want/etc. Here is how we can help, and here is how you can help us help you.

Does that sound right? Or at least as a start?

I feel like if the game in question had some clear policy on what happens when you report something — something a bit milder maybe than 'we will definitely ban/remove problem elements' — I would have been more comfortable complaining.

I didn't wanna feel like I was ruining the game for anyone else by 'trying to get [this person] banned' so I didn't complain. I didn't want to be accused of drama. Knowing my options, that would have helped. If I thought I could make a much simpler request, like 'we will tell this person not to page you any more, and not to interact with your character' — a sort of restraining order — I would have been more comfortable knowing that I can get the breathing room I wanted without it affecting anyone else or giving anyone reason to suspect I had unfairly caused trouble for someone out of some personal malice. Or ideally, without anyone else even needing to hear/know about it at all. (You know what, I just typed that last sentence and I already half regret it; I don't know if this is the right approach either. I don't have all the answers. Someone else with greater wisdom, do share your insights on how to combat this shit effectively.)

I think it's very important, as a starting point, not to put the majority of onus on anyone who wants to issue a complaint. It sucks that they should have to stick their neck out for the chopping board and be the one at most risk if their attempts to get some resolution fail.

I thought about naming and shaming on this thread — started typing out a response, deleted it — but because I don't think most parties involved in this particular debacle did anything wrong, I don't feel comfortable doing so.

A while ago I joined a game run by some people for whom I have the greatest respect; they're good people. Feminists, caring staffers, people whom I have no doubt are invested in the idea of creating a positive atmosphere on their game. They had a public policy of no tolerance for creepers, and openly invited people to come forward about any incidents that might occur on their game.

An incident did occur, to me, and I did not come forward. Or rather, a series of incidents centred around a specific individual who kept making me very uncomfortable.

When I joined their game, I did so with the sense that I was a guest and a relative nobody. They didn't know me, and I didn't know almost anyone playing on this game either. I got the sense, however, that everyone else was part of a tight-knit community of friends, including people who know each other IRL, and so on. The public channels and OOC lounge were constantly filled with people clamouring for each other's attention, reminiscing on the good times they had playing other games, sharing in-jokes, and so on.

So when someone started harassing me in pages, to the point of inducing severe mental health related discomfort, to the point of driving the one friend I joined this game with out (he did it to her too), to the point of compelling me to avoid his character at all costs, I felt like I was faced with two choices:

• Come forward, tell the staff their close buddy was bothering me, and possibly risk burning all my bridges here if they took his side over mine, or drive out other players who were friends with him if something was done about it.
• Accept that I'm a relative nobody on this game and I'm probably not going to get along with everyone.

I tried ignoring this player, but the behaviour persisted. I politely told him, in private, that I have mental health issues that he's exacerbating, and that for this reason I would prefer to limit contact with him, or else postpone our conversation to a later date, when I'm feeling a bit better and I'm better equipped to handle it. He not only wouldn't accept me putting up boundaries, but became increasingly aggressive in his desire to push them, and then came to MSB to complain about an anonymous someone (I saw his posts and knew he meant me) who was frustrating him through her refusal to communicate with him and resolve certain issues. These issues, to me, seemed to largely revolve around me not giving him enough attention.

In case someone can infer from this story who/where I'm referring to, I do want to say for the record that the harassment was not sexual in nature. I think this guy is an arsehole, but I'm not looking to accuse him of more than he deserves. He did want a romantic relationship with my character, and then became ICly & OOCly passive aggressive towards both me and the dude my character ended up hooking up with when he realised that wasn't happening, but that was it. I do think that he's emotionally abusive, manipulative, paranoid and narcissistic. He would regularly assume the worst of minor inactions and then go on the aggressive because of it. ('You didn't respond to my page or react to my joke on the channel within 5 minutes, therefore xyz'.)

I half regret that I didn't complain about him but at the same time ... I'd like to hear from staffers here. Someone you don't know joins your game and says 'your BFF here is making me extremely uncomfortable and wilfully ignoring the fact I've told him he's exacerbating my mental health issues, along with my polite requests to terminate our communications'. Whom do you believe? I didn't want to be a trouble-maker. I wanted to come to this game where no one really knows me, stay anonymous, have fun, no drama, and not rock the boat.

I upvoted @mietze's post quoted in the OP because holy crap do I know what you're talking about, especially in that first paragraph. So yeah — anyone who thinks creepy stuff only happens on games that don't have anti-creepy stuff policies, you are very wrong.

At a later date, staff from this game approached me via private message on MSB and asked if I would be interested in joining another game of theirs. My initial answer was hell yes, I would, I think you're great. But I stopped to ask, 'Does your friend x still play there?' The answer was yes. So I said 'no thanks, in that case', and left it at that.

I don't know that I have constructive advice on what should be done. The obvious is, 'You should have told staff, Kestrel.' But when there's a tight-knit circle of friends, most of whom are wonderful and one of whom is awful, it can be pretty intimidating to consider the risk of ruining their mojo by letting the others know that one of them isn't real sweet to individuals outside that circle.