Echoes of the Past: Problem Players

Pavel

@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.

MisterBoring

@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.

InkGolem

@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.

Pavel

@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.

Muscle Car

@Pavel This times 1,000!

Gashlycrumb

@Pavel Funny thing, but my experience of Spider was characterised by them being nice and quite pleasant to chat with and a lot of fun for casual RP, but sharply warning me off for this very gatecrashing of which we speak when I tried to be involved in the story they provided. Happened over at least three games.

@MisterBoring One of the peculiar things about that very peculiar incident was that some of my crimes were easily disprovable using MU-features. I imagine you didn’t investigate. And why would you? You believed someone you liked and trusted. Which is the same reason I was there at all, and why I failed to leave when the shit started.

I think most of us are familiar with that situation. Right now I’ve got two RP-buddies I consider friends whom other friends have described as manipulative and toxic hurtful fun-crushers. One by a friend I trust more, but I don’t see it myself so, well, that’s a puzzler and an unhappy situation. The other by people whom I am quite sure were flying-monkey-ing/bandwagoning/dogpiling over a mildly annoying behaviour that others on that game have turned up to eyeball-searingly infuriating without consequences.

@Pavel said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:

@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.

There’s also that trip where a manipulative abuser type purposefully propels somebody into a meltdown in order to make that somebody appear unstable and toxic thus proving that the somebody deserves the harsh treatment that prompted them to, uh. Meltdown and prove that they deserve harsh treatment.

catzilla

@Evilgrayson Wait, wait. Are you saying that the player(s) on this game in question are VASpider and crew? I thought you were just using VASpider as an example of what this player and crew are doing.

If you are saying it is Spider, please report it to the staff of the game. I already had one game I loved ruined by her, I don’t want another.

MisterBoring

@Gashlycrumb said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:

One of the peculiar things about that very peculiar incident was that some of my crimes were easily disprovable using MU-features. I imagine you didn’t investigate.

What game in specific was this, and what feature access do you think I possessed?

Gashlycrumb

@MisterBoring MN. So far as I know, you haven’t accused me of that twice. And the features all the players there had, the channels-to-discord and the activity-logger thing. Though maybe you weren’t even playing there, I dunno. It’s not significant anyway.

MisterBoring

@Gashlycrumb The only person I know of getting removed from MN was Polk, and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a case of toxic intentional gatecrashing.

elmo from sesame street standing in front of a wall

Gashlycrumb

@MisterBoring I don’t think he was ever there.

MisterBoring

@Gashlycrumb Yeah, I just checked old posts here, someone mentioned he got banned at MN, check the thread on Liberation from around October 12, 2023. So if he wasn’t there, I’m not the only person who believes he got banned there.

Gashlycrumb

@MisterBoring No doubt I just forgot. There were a handful of people who got banned there pretty shortly after joining, I can only remember who one of 'em was.

Evilgrayson

@catzilla said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:

@Evilgrayson Wait, wait. Are you saying that the player(s) on this game in question are VASpider and crew? I thought you were just using VASpider as an example of what this player and crew are doing.

If you are saying it is Spider, please report it to the staff of the game. I already had one game I loved ruined by her, I don’t want another.

It’s not Spider, no - just someone using the same tactics - and it’s been reported to staff on both extant games. What staff choose to do with that information is up to them.

Chiron

@Pavel or Cadhla.

Pavel

@Chiron I wouldn’t even begin to know how to pronounce that one.

insomniac

@Pavel said in Echoes of the Past: Problem Players:

@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.

(that, basically, being how Stalin took power)