Echoes of the Past: Problem Players
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Seanan McGuire? Really?
How did I not know this lore? Fuck. I love her books, but the more I think about it, the more her October Daye series feels like stolen MU logs for the first few. The entire tone and scope of the story changes wildly after like book three.
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@InkGolem said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:
Seanan McGuire? Really?
Really, really. Find any old WoD MUer and whisper “Seiche” at them to see their reaction. Though, to be frank, she and much of her cadre have long-since departed MUing and, seemingly, have changed as people.
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@Pavel I’m sure they have. People tend to do that. I’ve never been a WoD person and seem to have totally missed this.
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@Juniper said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:
Oh, this shit absolutely happens everywhere. It happens in my game.
I interpreted this thread as a warning about two specific players residing in a specific game.
It was absolutely started as that, or at least I chimed in as that, because they’re not containing their behavior to one little corner that can easily be avoided by just not being on That Specific Game. I’ve seen it personally across two games, heard about it on a third, and given their appearance on other community hubs, expect it to be expanding into Ares games soon.
But BMD is BMD and will do with a topic as it likes!
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@Aria said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:
But BMD is BMD and will do with a topic as it likes!
I’m just building up to where I can launch my definitive study of behavioural issues sorted by MU genre. I’m thinking ““All the World’s a MUSH”: Genre as Destiny in Collaborative Roleplay Behaviour.”
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I guess I can count myself lucky in that I know I’ve been on games that VASpider and Seanan McGuire were on, but as far as I can remember, I never interacted with them, or never in any significant capacity.
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@Juniper said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:
I interpreted this thread as a warning about two specific players residing in a specific game.
It kind of is - but it’s also a call for people to take a step back and think in general about what’s going on around them.
I have learned of two more sets of people on that first oWoD game who are, by more than one report, employing the same fucking tactics. And there are other games that I’m not on, and shit that I’m not seeing, and things that I don’t know. That call for people to stay safe and look after each other? That was heartfelt. By looking after each other, we reduce the harms of all sorts of things, but this stuff in particular.
Respect your own boundaries, and the boundaries of others. And above all, care.
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@Pavel Looks at the Star Wars Aoa thread Ayup it happens.
Take care of yourself out there folks.
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@Juniper said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:
I interpreted this thread as a warning about two specific players residing in a specific game.
idk that something really be a warning about a specific game or specific players when it doesn’t name the game or players
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ok
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@Roz said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:
@Juniper said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:
I interpreted this thread as a warning about two specific players residing in a specific game.
idk that something really be a warning about a specific game or specific players when it doesn’t name the game or players
I don’t know how to double quote but they said this
“Having watched them kill a game in that fashion and gain more friends and more enablers in so doing, I joined a freshly-opened game and created a Garou there in a brand new sphere. A week or two ago a new pack joined - the only pack - with characters that were rewrites of the werewolf and vampire player’s oWoD wolves in it. I battened down the hatches and waited for the attacks to start, because my character was an obvious target and I expected they knew he was my character. Two nights ago, the attacks began, and over the course of the day after I realised what the whole pattern was and where I’d seen it before.”
So I think it’s a warning of two people specifically AND of problem players in general?
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@Evilgrayson Role players are bonkers. RPG players are bonkers. WoD fans are bonkers. Add the anonymity of nick names and you wind up with an abusers paradise.
Staff are simply blind to too much (the nature of MU*), and can only react, because nobody wants them proactively violating privacy. When there’s a proper shadow society being maintained OOC, more organized and longstanding than a game, good luck.
It took me about 15 years to figure out this mix is bad for me. I’m sorry for your experience, truly. I was gutted my last time MUSHing, and called it quits. The circumstances bore comical similarities to your tale. Hugs for y’all.
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Sorry to hear that someone found your fun bug and stepped on it. That really sucks. Hopefully you find a game that’s chill. Thanks for the heads up.
In the meantime I was just about to app a werewolf into a game… but even if it isnt them I want to stay far the fuck away from that shit. Could you dm me the owod game for peace of mind?
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@MisterBoring said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:
… I’ve run into players finding out that certain plots are restricted to certain IC groups that their PC isn’t part of, then immediately using every social engineering thing they can think of both IC and OOC to ingratiate their way into the plot,
I’ve certainly been accused of this. By you, even. But from my point of view, it’s been that there’s plot going on over there, and I would like to play too. So I try to get involved, and later discover that people think I’m trying to gatecrash even before I find out that the opening to participation I think I saw isn’t viable. And presumably it’s taken as malicious social engineering when I react to that by directly OOCly asking for plot-runners to open things up such that I can play. It’s not that I want to be in every plot, or that I’m perversely drawn to try to be involved in things designed for Not Me. I want to be in some plot. And not some bullshit PBEM deal where I get one message every two weeks while spending the rest of the time unable to RP because everybody else is either RPing the plot that’s for Not Me or talking about the secrets thereof.
The toxic in-crowd behavior that @Evilgrayson is talking about almost invariably includes accusing people of trying to worm their way into everything when they’ve been excluded from anything.
"This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
– A. Bertram Chandler -
Which brings us to the horror of problem players – they’re trusted before they make problems, and, in a sense, earn their flying monkeys by being good friends (at least for part of the association, and possibly even long term) to some people even as they’re screwing over others and manipulating their friends to help.
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@Gashlycrumb The worst part of some of the more… famous problem players, especially those with whom I have been the most acquainted, is just how vital they make themselves to be. They provide story like nobody’s business, take over all those little jobs that nobody wants to do but need to get done. It’s like waking up one day to find out the janitor is actually Stalin.
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@Gashlycrumb said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:
So I try to get involved, and later discover that people think I’m trying to gatecrash even before I find out that the opening to participation I think I saw isn’t viable. And presumably it’s taken as malicious social engineering when I react to that by directly OOCly asking for plot-runners to open things up such that I can play.
Gatecrashing can be unintentional if a certain level of transparency isn’t maintained between all players and staff. Dropping in unannounced when a big scene is going on can be unintentional gatecrashing if a player isn’t aware of a planned plot event or whatever going on for a specific faction. It happens, and it’s on both the player doing the dropping in and the staff running that scene to civilly, and transparently, work out that the scene is not open for the PC in question, and why. If a player has a concern regarding a plot not being open to their PC, they should approach staff with a good level of transparency, so that the players of the faction or skill group or whatever that the plot is meant for doesn’t assume someone is trying to grab their turn in the spotlight.
At the same time, intentional toxic gatecrashers do exist, and I’ve seen them in most of the genres of games I’ve played in (be it fantasy, sci-fi, WoD, other horror, post apocalyptic, or whatever). I’ve witnessed players use OOC methodology to circumvent both coded restrictions in the game (such as times I’ve seen players use coded meeting commands to circumvent faction locks on rooms and exits) as well as IC restrictions to accessing plot (in one fantasy game I was part of, some players were allowed to help run the central plots of the game without staff level access, and a player straight up lied about having the ability to fly when it came time to attack a pirate airship in the middle of a wilderness area. The player running the plot didn’t have the ability to confirm that, and when they turned the logs in to staff, there was a whole mess of drama about it that resulted in retcons and the player in question being banned).
I did accuse you of that. If it was inaccurate, I do apologize, but I was basing those accusations on the information available to me to formulate what I believed was the most accurate chain of events. The transparency of the situation, or lack thereof, is the culprit in that specific accusation.
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@Pavel I think it’s part and parcel. The overinvestment is both one of time and emotional connection. You see it in LARP as well – when people choose the imaginary life and identity over their real one, you get the recipe for Chernobyl-caliber meltdowns.
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@InkGolem I think it’s subtly different. You’ve got people who invest so much time and effort and therefore they meltdown horribly, but then you have those people who invest so much time and effort in order to engage in toxic behaviour.
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@Pavel This times 1,000!
