Why is Pack closing?
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@Pax said in Why is Pack closing?:
“I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant”
“I know but let me explain why that’s what you meant anyway–”I think this is an unfair characterization. Adora explicitly said in the post you’re replying to that she believes KarmaBum didn’t mean that analogy to be rape apologia. It’s the third sentence in.
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@bear_necessities You and others literally just demanded that I cease.
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@helvetica i have peach crown royal and it tastes like bacchus’ velvety earlobe if you want some
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lmao nevermind stay mad
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@hellfrog said in Why is Pack closing?:
@helvetica i have peach crown royal and it tastes like bacchus’ velvety earlobe if you want some
Do you have anything for teetotalers?
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@Pax
@Adora said in Why is Pack closing?:@bear_necessities You and others literally just demanded that I cease.
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I want to say first how encouraging it is to see everyone come together and collectively speak out against such disgusting behavior, show support for the person faced with the final staff decision and all around prove the mush community is filled with more good than bad.
Second, I hope you’re all able to self care, hydrate and step back from the keyboard as needed to focus on your own emotional well being.This topic is one that affects most, let’s be honest likely all, of us to some capacity. Whether experiencing it directly or knowing someone who has experienced it. Sexual harassment/assault is a terrifying experience whether on a game or in person and understandably has various lasting effects.
I’m sorry first of all to @Cobalt that you had to not only face the experience of addressing this situation but how it affected you directly. You handled everything more tactfully, professionally and swiftly than I’d have been able to. To all others on this board who are obviously invested in this topic and conversation, you have my support and my inbox if you need.
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@dvoraen
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I’ve come across Macha in the wild previously a couple times, though at the time didn’t know much of the history.
I can say the behavior isn’t limited to a scene. Gaslighting, crap-talking, and trying to manipulate opinions is something I’d experienced from her just being on the fringe from her.
For as bad as things were that Cobalt experienced, I have to wonder what’s out there that hasn’t been reported.
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@Cobalt Also I have to add to the pile of thank you’s for sharing a difficult post. While I believe that we can all mature, get better, and there are those that learn from mistakes. Take things to heart. And we learn from making bad decisions. People have to want to change. In life I’ve learned that some can, but some just don’t have that ability.
Looking at people’s behaviors when it’s this glaring, and seeing it’s a pattern. Talking about things openly like this is the only way that anything is going to be done. It’s not often you find something that is so obvious and glaring in a log.
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While I think that being aware of how predatory, creepy, or high-demand people are likely to utilize your game to get off on other people is useful for /every gamrunner/ to think about on /each game/ that is opened, I don’t think that there is any theme that doesn’t attract it.
Lords and Ladies games (I personally would lump Fading Suns into this one) attract it just as much as WoD from what I have seen.
Battlestar games attracted many as well, at least from what I have seen.
Shadowrun definitely did.
Comic based games while I cannot say that I’ve seen it since I don’t play there, but I’ve heard plenty about it from our community over many years.Something I have also observed is that there is considerable overlap on multiple types of games by each predatory person that we know. They go where the people are, and what they’re familiar with. I think for those that are strategic about it they will go for less supervised places, but I think most of them will just go to the places they hear about until they get called out.
I am also relatively certain that we are all on the same page about this, no?
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I dealt with Macha briefly on Infinite Adventures. She was playing Betsy Braddock. As soon as someone made a Warren, she chased him like it was her job, and when she didn’t like the RP that happened with him she threw a tantrum to the headwiz. He sent me a mail warning me that she wanted to “have a talk with me”, before she went on a twelve hour screed to him about what would need to be done to make reparations for behavior that she considered to be untenable. These conditions included forcing Warren into a scene to apologize for his behavior toward her, retcon a scene that she was not even part of that was private because it “made her look bad.” and various other things that were just as wild and crazy.
We honestly should have thrown a party when she was banned.
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I am not sure how to really delve in to how to head these problems off at the pass (I think proactive removal of problem people or first strike policies can help with some specific people, but I think a LOT more of this behavior goes on by people not them.)
I love the newer policies that most games have as well as the less tolerant atmosphere for OOC pressure in RP. But even in a first strike policy, it still means that someone HAS to deal with it first for it to be noticed, and there are times when that first time is horrible. Most of the time it is.
One of the hardest things is that these people use what a lot of people see as a core to their enjoyment of any game (relationships) as part of what they fixate on, use to isolate others, lash out at perceived rivals about. I think a majority of people see building that web as building story with others but nobody OWNS it. I do think on a certain level problem folks tend to view it as currency and and control and so when they have it, they are very controlling about it, and when they don’t have it or the ones they want they go off the rails.
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@mietze You can’t prevent a first time, but you can create a culture that won’t put up with it, which hopefully will reduce first times to begin with.
And will encourage people to REPORT first times, so that first time isn’t actually 5 first times of people who all just endured it instead of reporting it.
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hello, i just dropped into this thread to state that i don’t even RP anymore.
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@Meg that’s good, it’s the first step towards being the voice for the voiceless!
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@mietze i’m just WAITING for the DMs to come rolling in for those people that don’t feel comfortable to talk to you bullies that do RP.
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@Polk I think that many games do have that. Or try their hardest. Unfortunately we also have long memories and many people after getting a bad experience on one game with reporting are very shy about doing it ever again. There’s no easy solution. Just that we’ll all have to keep trying. Calling out that shit when one sees it in public or in a log, even if it’s not targeted at you. Kicking people off for it, without some legalistic X amount of chances first. Making behavioral expectations clear. I think there have been huge improvements towards that culturally in many circles. There are a lot more people I trust to make good decisions now in the community that I would have felt in the past.
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Woah, I took a nap for a couple of hours and the train rolled off the tracks like Charles was chasing them.
A couple of things:
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Thank you again to everyone for the support. I appreciate it. It is nice to know that I wasn’t overreacting or being overly sensitive because of my own personal experiences.
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This hasn’t put me off of running a game. It has, currently, put me off of running shapeshifter-centered games. I do have an idea for a new game that I’m idly workshopping the theme/setting for with friends and peeps in discord. But I’m moving in literally a matter of days, so I’m not really in the space to start actually doing the work to make it be something other than an idea in my head.
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I do not believe anyone was blaming me for creepers being around because I opened a shapeshifter-centric game. I do, however, agree that there is something about shapeshifter-centric games that appeals to creepers. Most likely all the fiction out there where shapeshifters are primal, alpha, dominating creatures. I thought I had done enough to combat this when I wrote my theme files and that those sort of social hierarchies did not exist in my game world, but apparently I did not.
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