Posts made by surreality

@Arkandel It is really not at all rare in my experience. There's no statted game I've played on where at least 2+ players have tried to pull it on just me.

And, yes, there are people in the community who get off on the idea of forcing things they know to be OOCly uncomfortable and unpleasant on other players. (This number seems to grow exponentially the moment 'ftb plz' is uttered, too. Amazing how suddenly 'the natural consequences' of any given scenario escalate dramatically into something crazy the moment somebody isn't going to be getting the RPed jollies out of it... )

@mietze gets it, though: these players are what needs the nerfing. Well. Nerf bats don't inflict enough damage. Aluminum is better.

@Arkandel said in CofD and Professional Training:

I also think seduction/mind control/abuse is a paper tiger in our community. Yes it has happened but it's rare, and there can be plenty of safeguards against these cases.

Not anywhere near as rare as they should be.

Remember, a lot of the type that pulls this is the same type that only approaches female names with the 'so you must be a submissive' bullshit -- which means as a male player, you're going to experience it directly much less unless you're playing female characters relatively often and the other player thinks you're female OOC.

These things are not unconnected, and you can't reasonably speak for a universal objective perspective as a result.

This is, in part, due to a handful of players who push it hard, and pursue a number of targets at any given time, often from a number of alts. The situation would improve considerably if more staff were willing to do something about the problem children.

Re: the agency argument in general: like most things, there are reasonable and unreasonable objections people might make.

There are the shitheads who can't ever imagine they'd be intimidated, but there are also the shitheads who think it's niftyfunkeen to totally rewrite another player's character entirely to suit their whim and into something that other player no longer has any interest in playing with a sketchy interpretation of the rules as their excuse.

I have no sympathy for either sort of shithead and think both need to grow up and learn to play nice with others.

The agency argument typically comes up the most often with seduction for all the reasons, though. The most attempted, and the most objected to.

I don't see how PT factors in especially on this front any more than any other merit that would grant a bonus to social skills, and there are plenty of those from various game editions already, and there's not a general public outcry about every single social merit that grants a bonus, many of which are a lot more broadly applicable than what you'd likely set up for a PT merit.

@Thenomain Best. Diablerie. Ever.

A generic, anonymous upvote/downvote system is not something I would advocate for a MUX.

A means of people being able to submit 'this made me uneasy' about someone to staff, perhaps with a flag of 'just noting this in case there are other issues' or 'please take action about this' of some kind that does not reveal the complainants identity to the complained-about is not, I think, a bad idea.

Something like, say:

+issue <name>=Person did a thing, and it was a little weird. Didn't make me uncomfortable but could see how it might be an issue if it's something they do all the time, and other people might care more than me. Peace out!

and

+issue/helpme <name>=Person did a thing, and I told them to stop. They didn't. Can you drop a house on them? k thx bai

Ideally, this would allow someone to store both kinds of records about <name>, but would give the complaining player the option of saying whether or not they want someone to actually step in and do something about it or not. The sample command names there are crap, but the idea is a clear enough, I would hope.

In my case, which may not be applicable or useful to others in any way, there will be alt registration/tracking objects of a kind anyway. They have other purposes that have nothing to do with punishment (they're mostly for player XP and how I want to set up XP earning/spending) but this is the best place, IMHO, to store such a thing, since it links the behavior to a player rather than to an individual character object. Linking it to an individual character object may not allow the patterns to become apparent as quickly, if staff don't have some other means of tracking alts/alts are public info on the game (and you'd still have to cross-reference even if so) so I'm not sure if something like this would be as useful to anyone else.

As described here, this is something I'm looking at if I continue with the current project stuff, anyway. (Currently on hold, pending... stuff-whatever-something.) Something to add a note that a player thinks is maybe worth noting in case there are other issues vs. 'plz take action on this NOW!' is a useful sort of switch, I think, and may encourage people who have issues that they consider too borderline for action to be taken to report their concerns (which can be helpful, since it can demonstrate a pattern more readily if one exists) even if they don't necessarily want or feel they need staff to intervene/deal with the situation on their behalf.

@Ganymede said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

And there's some guy wearing no pants jerking himself off while purring obscenely at a table of ladies. Which problem do you address first?

Apropos of absolutely nothing, yet still on point: once upon a time, I worked at a Mom & Pop video store with my father. M&P video stores are, yes, the ones with the back room.

One day, a dude high as a fucking kite comes in, and bounces his way to the back room, where he begins to jerk off to the DVD covers. My father is watching this on the video security monitor and laughing his ass off.

...until the guy comes swanning back out, arms extended at either side, to smear fluids along every spine of every DVD on the shelves in the main room on his way out.

My answer: You thought it was so fucking funny and wouldn't tell him to leave, Chuckles, YOU clean it up.

And my ass went outside for a smoke break.

@kitteh said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

(ie, a clique going around spreading nasty rumors is somewhat obvious, a clique coordinating mass downvotes is not).

This actually happened here, believe it or not. One of the reasons they're gone, I believe.

@Arkandel "Because that's how we used to do it" is the 'tradition' argument. Valid in some contexts, but even then only barely so much of the time.

Sounds more like spite in the case of that mother.

@Three-Eyed-Crow My father still mourns the loss of his Betamax.

<clinks glass> Cheers. You will be issued a rocking chair on the porch and can claim your shotgun full of rock salt from the creepy shed out back, we have coffee, tea, and lemonade here on the porch, with or without booze.

@Arkandel I'd be interested in seeing what people have to say about it; please don't stop talking about it. Just maybe it deserves its own thread, with a more 'complaint and issue tracking ideas' focus? It's certainly something that every game has to deal with, and if people have good ideas or know of things that have (or absolutely have not) worked, I know I would like to hear about them and how they were implemented and managed.

This is -- I think -- similar to the way Shangrila's +complaint system works.

I have been looking at some means of doing something similar, but I am pondering appropriate implementation (and how to handle it code-side).

I have a concern that it could potentially get exploited by cliques to oust someone they dislike -- rallying a bunch of people to submit a number of minor complaints all at once from a team of 'allies' -- but that's a reality that has always existed for any sort of complaint setup.

This may warrant its own thread. Complaint tracking/issue reporting is its own animal in many respects, and it could warrant its own space for discussion of those options.

@mietze Very much this. My default state is moderate as per the description there (the full range, depending on the day, and on a super lucky day I get down to a 3) since a car accident I was in when I was in college.

I try not to think about the things I've read that mention how living in a constant state of pain -- of almost any grade -- actively degrades the brain based on how much it has to constantly compensate, especially in combination with the whole 'the brain just rewrites things over time as new pathways form and develop' thing. Lots of just not wanting to look there often.

@Ghost I haven't seen anyone make the claim that poor behavior should be excused, regardless of the reason for that poor behavior. (Outside of the people you seem to have been thinking of before who are shrieking every time they don't get the shiny they want and claiming it's a trigger and thus you can't say boo to them, which is bullshit that no one should be tolerating. These people are also not participating in this conversation to be addressing directly.)

The answer, to me, is between #1 and #2. It's closer to #1 because #1 reflects the larger reality: there are folks with a lot of various issues (this and others) that come to the game environment. If there are steps we can take to improve their experience or make it less inconvenient, yes, I think it's reasonable to do.

I spent ages, for instance, tinkering up a color-coding setup mentioned in another thread to let players who prefer light to dark backgrounds in their MUX clients, or players with colorblindness concerns, set up their own highlight colors to remain consistent throughout the game. That's another real, basic human issue, and another example of how a few simple steps and some consideration shown can tangibly improve the quality of that player's experience on the game. Nothing about it impinges on anybody else's rights.

The way I see it, nothing about this does, either.

• Players are encouraged to share information that can be used in a positive way to make connections amongst themselves, to spot some potential problem areas they can then avoid accidentally tripping over. (Even if this will never avoid them all, being able to avoid some is an improvement over the status quo.)
• GMs and staff get a good idea of what the currently active players are looking for. GMs and staff have a tool to use to say 'warning, contains: X, Y, Z' that enables players that have sensitivities to X, Y, or Z to not show up to that event.

It explicitly does not give players permission to show up, and then stomp their feet until the event or plot is refashioned to their personal liking. If someone knows they have a sensitivity to rape plots and show up at something clearly labeled 'this is a rape plot!' they have no one to blame but themselves if it causes an issue for them; they were clearly warned, they were given the information to make a decision, and they apparently <OldTemplarKnight>choose poorly</OldTemplarKnight>. That is not the GMs fault, staff's fault, or the fault of the other players in the scene at that point.

Most folk with genuine PTSD-related concerns are aware of the broader subject matter to avoid. Some are still surprised once in a while, but most people know 'I should probably avoid things that will directly remind me of that horrible thing that happened that time', and will self-police if given the ability to effectively do so.

There is also no suggestion that somebody be given a pass on unacceptable behavior for this reason -- or any other reason. We are responsible for our own behavior on a game, full stop, even if there are reasons for it outside of our direct control. Unacceptable behavior is unacceptable behavior. It's not suddenly OK if it's your best friend doing it, or if it's because the person is drunk, or if it's because they're having a panic attack, or if it's because they had a shitty day at work, or if it's because <this list could go on to infinity>.

There's no free pass granted here, and no special rights; there is simply a warning sign to allow people to more effectively self-police in order to avoid problems for themselves or others from arising due to certain content that's commonly considered to be controversial or problematic.

@Ghost said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

On a long enough timeline, if the expectation is that we are pre-approving already pre-approved roleplay behavior with the OOC personalities who control the characters, then aren't we technically creating an environment where extreme levels of OOC emotional attachment can fester?

For a very simple reason.

When someone hits a trigger in the course of RP, it isn't that they suddenly think they are their character, and what is happening to the character is happening to them as a player. That would, yes, indicate an attachment problem.

The reality is almost entirely the opposite. Events in a scene hit a real life traumatic memory, and forcibly jar the player completely out of the character and the scene, and in the case of flashbacks, entirely out of the actual reality they are experiencing at that moment, and into the traumatic memory.

At that point, the person really could not give a damn about the game, the character, other characters, etc. and will probably become completely incommunicative at least for a time until they can withdraw (sometimes with an explanation, though some people I've seen just log out and explain at a later time) to deal with the RL issue. Some folks in the midst of a panic attack may wig out on game, but I haven't seen a lot of that; usually typing is a bit beyond the capabilities at that point. Folks having a flashback? Generally speaking, they're really just not there right now, leave a message at the beep, so it's unlikely they're going to communicate much if at all.

There's nothing about attachment -- inappropriate or otherwise -- going on here, and it's not about being too emotionally invested in a character at all, or even necessarily in what is happening to the character you're playing. Look back at @Ganymede's RL example for a good reference point on this.

These people are really not the melodramatic, entitled drama queens that throw around 'triggerzzzzz!' every five seconds when they don't get everything they want while stomping their feet like petty tyrants. Those people? Have hijacked a real issue to use as a manipulative tool and sacred absolution from any consequence for their behavior, have muddied the waters considerably, and to say my opinion of them is unkind would be an understatement.

What you have been consistently describing, I would agree, absolutely applies to these people. I can't say it applies to the people described above who are actually experiencing a panic attack or a flashback, because odds are pretty high they're not going to be communicating with you very much -- to yell, explain anything, stomp their feet, apologize, or anything else, because at that point, reality has taken precedence to the game to such an extent that the game is just not all that important, and that's pretty much the polar opposite of attachment.

@mietze That actually brings up a good point. The way I'm looking at implementing the flags is through a web form that will generate the event data, and it'd just be checkboxes for 'contains this sort of content' that would be right along side things like a 'for <sphere>/<faction>/all/etc.' dropdown and so on to fill in the usual sort of info. (Then a temporary event object people can sign on to can be generated on the MUX itself, and when the event is complete, a few clicks can preload the event log page on the wiki with the event data that was entered before.)

It'd be possible to scale some of these things, and it's relevant, too. Not just 'includes the content', but something like a none - mild - moderate - severe selection could help narrow things down.

For instance, a subject could have examples of each level for extremity.

Taking the archetypal rape example, mild might be 'encounter a group of people who have been assaulted at a previous time and are fleeing an area where they had been confined, investigate a serial rapist in an interview with a victim with no graphic details', moderate might be 'encounter a very recent victim, hear an account including more graphic detail, free a group of people trapped in sexual slavery from a cell where they're being held', with anything beyond that 'severe'.

It's definitely an option just as easy to implement, really, just means more examples to write down. I don't know if that would lead to more or less confusion or more or less rules lawyering, but it may help clarify some of those things.

Taking a less dread-inspiring example, something like 'sexual content' could be something like 'mild - speed dating/school dance', 'moderate - scene takes place at a strip club or on lover's lane where the hook man hangs out/college party with hookups', 'severe - BDSM orgy a-go-go'.

@mietze I tend -- tend -- to stick the instructions in one spot, and the explainer/rationale behind an expand tag/etc. for most things. So it's there if people are curious about the why, and they can find it easily, but it isn't typically all in one giant textblort. Usually. There are some exceptions, but they tend to be on the rare side. The whole preference writeup page I linked a ways back, for instance, is the 'if you're curious about why we're doing this, here's the big explainer'. The actual instructions for using them are just a couple of basic lines on the chargen and character page form.

There's also a notable XP incentive in CG for filling out the very basic ones -- general prefs, timezone/availability, GMing prefs -- and a smaller one for any of the general subject ones. It is work to write those things down, even if I think it's in someone's own best interest to do it even without the carrot. But it's also beneficial to the game in that you get a general idea of what the currently active crop of players is looking for -- amongst themselves, in storylines from staff, in PrPs from GMs -- and that's genuinely helpful reference for the game on the whole, and contributing to that information pool in that way, with the effort it requires, is worth a carrot or two in thanks for helping to contribute to that shared resource, IMHO.

@Thenomain said in Emotional separation from fictional content:

And yet, if you think someone saying that means that they get to say what you can and can't do, then I honestly think that it's time to take a break. At least, this is what I've said to people who have thought this.

I have been for a while. I haven't played anywhere in a few months, actually, precisely because I do know 'there is unhealthy crap going on in the brain and I'm not going to subject anyone to that'. It's something I've been pretty clear about with folks for a while. Which, in part, is why it's so offensive to hear the characterizations I'm hearing about the default setting for anyone who may potentially have an issue with a specific type of content, and would like a heads-up if it's going to be included in something, so I can properly avoid that thing.

A clearer example, perhaps, on the broader point, would be something like this: instead of a restaurant, picture you're that person with the food allergy again.

Now imagine that it isn't a standard for the ingredients you buy at the grocery store to be listed on the packaging, which is all sold in uniformly sized white boxes, so you don't even actually know what you're getting.

A notice on the front of the store that says it sells every kind of food and basic home good a grocery store usually sells with only the most minor variances is not going to help you any, especially if quite literally every store extant today functions this same way.

You can pick up the box and shake it. You can squeeze it and see if it feels like it's solid or squishy. You can smell it. It's still sealed and opaque, and you can't tell if it's milk or rat poison.

You know you're in a store. It has items that can keep you alive (because you have to eat), and things that can kill you (even if you don't have a food allergy that could kill you for buying the wrong food). You have some methods that may help you guess at the contents of the opaque white box, but at best, you're guessing. Yes, you can ask the person at the counter every single time an event is posted if the contents of this box contain gluten or rat poison or peanuts or shellfish, and they'll probably tell you if you can catch them, and maybe they'll be nice enough to, like @mietze, ask you if you know there's rat poison in that box, not the milk you might have been intending to buy, and help you find the (equally unlabeled) milk if that's what you were looking for.

It would, still, just be far simpler to put some kind of basic labels on the boxes, if not a little window somewhere, to make them less than completely opaque.

@Thenomain I don't think it's insulting until someone tells me 'if you even think this is a good idea, get the fuck out of my hobby because you're making us all suffer with your exorbitantly demanding entitlement just because you clearly are unable to do things the way I think they should be done at all times the moment you have a glimmer of a sad; you are explicitly not welcome here, GTFO'.

Which is kinda an issue, and there's reason to be offended by that kind of attitude and characterization.

@Ganymede Honestly, I really just don't know at this point. The characterizations of people who really just want a heads-up on things they would prefer to avoid (so that they can do that most effectively) goes beyond 'a bit much' for me and into areas of entitlement and ugliness and bigotry that I'd really just rather not engage with, and has a lot of 'playing the victim' undercurrents that are straining my irony tolerance harder than normal.

I wouldn't fault any other place for not doing what seems like common sense to me, especially if it's something nobody's done before.

I will explain why it seems like common sense to me -- which is, in part, why all of my files are ninety miles long. When people see a new what, generally, they're going to want to know why. And that's fair. I would want to know what the rationale was for something new or different that I hadn't encountered before.

@Ganymede It's not actually that I don't think there should be any risks in MUing -- mostly because that's impossible, pie-in-the-sky idealism. The RL scenario you describe demonstrates why.

I think that if there are reasonable, simple steps we can take to minimize the risks that exist, they are worth exploring.

Asking that people do the equivalent of putting a notice on a menu item to say: this contains <common allergen> does not seem like crazytown entitlement to me.

This is not so someone with that allergen can storm in like a giant tool and demand some allergen-free version is produced special just for them, and make the whole world jump through hoops to accommodate their want, which is how people with a sensitivity are depicted (as apparently the default for how we all are, I guess -- sure those people exist, but that being the default characterization is pretty galling. You don't notice the others because they're either not going to that restaurant or not ordering that thing and making demands).

It's so they know to avoid that thing, because it represents a risk to them.

Seriously, though, that's it for me -- I'm way beyond disgusted with the characterizations in this thread and need to step out.