Liberation Drama!?

[Pavel]

Avoiding a problem is so much easier than confronting said problem, particularly when you can always justify the avoidance by assuring yourself that there’s so many more important things to do…

It’s even easier-er if that problem walks and talks and insists on itself.

[Gashlycrumb]

@hellfrog Yeah;. What I was getting at with that is that even if a player is annoying and horrible, it’s not good practice to just leave them twisting. That is to say that, even in cases where it’s understandable, it’s crap.

@hellfrog said:

As a staffer, if you knew that turning someone down/telling them they were being too much was likely to get you called abusive and stupid and whatever else…would you be eager to have that conversation? Would you want to put it at the top of your to-do?

Turning someone down, or telling them they’re being too much, or even just telling them to re-read the theme guidelines and not app an elf into an elf-free world is likely to get that response. I did know it when I was staffing. I knew it would happen before it happened, which was practically day one. (It was an elf.) If you are staffing an open game it’s going to happen.

Did I like it? No. Did I worry about it? No. Did I take a few moments to be chill and centered before I told people stuff like that? Yes. Did this mean I didn’t do it instantly? Yes. Did this mean I might even put it off 'til tomorrow? Yes.

Did this mean I’d decide to just not do it at all and hope the player went away? NO. Absolutely fucking not. It is understandable that I might want to, but it’d be mean and harmful to actually do that. If that player is waiting and waiting for a response from me they are experiencing frustration every time they log on and find no answer. It builds up. The player is gonna get cheesed off and it’s likely that they will, understandably, act like they’re cheesed off. The scent of cheese permeates. Pretty soon the vibe is in shambles, and it’d be my fucking fault for consciously and unnecessarily aggravating somebody instead of doing a part of the staffing job that’s not fun.

Grasp the nettle firmly, for fucks’ sake.

[Wyrmsign]

“No.” is a complete sentence.

[Gashlycrumb]

@Wyrmsign said:

“No.” is a complete sentence.

Who said it?

[Pavel]

@Gashlycrumb said:

It builds up. The player is gonna get cheesed off and it’s likely that they will, understandably, act like they’re cheesed off.

While that is true and just as understandable, to me, as the staffer’s inability to deal with confrontation with irritable/irritating players… you as the player are responsible for your actions here just as you’re, rightly, holding the staffer responsible for their actions.

The best approach is to leave, not to cause more problems. Either the staffer is intentionally ignoring you, or their backlog is so bad that it’s negatively impacting you. Either way, you leave and hope for better elsewhere. Then you come here and bitch about it with your moral superiority intact.

[Gashlycrumb]

@Pavel

Yes, and when I learned that it was genuinely intentional (or close enough that Siren would claim that it was) I left.

I am not sure why it’s being taken as a given that I’m still playing there. But then again it’s taken as a given that Siren gave a clear “no” for me to not take as an answer previous to refusing to respond. I’ve said otherwise.

What “more problems” did I cause?

[Pavel]

@Gashlycrumb said:

I am not sure why it’s being taken as a given that I’m still playing there.

It isn’t. You’re taking general suggestions and advice and treating them as immediate instructions.

@Gashlycrumb said:

What “more problems” did I cause?

I don’t know. You, yourself, said:

@Gashlycrumb said:

The player is gonna get cheesed off and it’s likely that they will, understandably, act like they’re cheesed off.

Which is what I’m going off of.

[Gashlycrumb]

@Pavel

It’s immediate instructions that assume I didn’t already do that, and imply later that because I didn’t, my uh, ‘moral superiority’ is broken.

That an ignored player will get cheesed off and the game is likely to feel it is a general truth that staffers should understand.

In this particular instance? I’d been logging in, taking the frustration hit, not bitching about it except to those who opened the bitch-session, reaching out every few months as either a nudge or a new thing, not RPing because it annoys other players if your PC doesn’t do what he says he’ll do ‘cause the +request won’t move. A lot of this had to do with the smooth transition between +jobs not getting done because they needed Sundance and she wasn’t there and +jobs being slow because of the backlog from that and my jobs not getting done when others’ were. This was the second time I had annoyed Siren by responding (no, not on the bb, I put my messages in requests or mail) to bbposts that implied reasonable turn-around times for jobs by pointing out my stale ones and asking what’s wrong, but the previous one was probably nearly a year ago and at least nine months. I just don’t think I was stinking up the place with my cheesed-offness, though it wouldn’t be odd if I had done.

[Pavel]

@Gashlycrumb said:

It’s immediate instructions that assume I didn’t already do that

No. No it isn’t. It’s literally not that at all. I wrote it, I know what it is.

[Gashlycrumb]

@Pavel Okay. It came across that way to me is all, then.

[junipersky]

Clarification is @gashlycrumb the person that was banned from the game in question or did I miss a plot point point?

He is not, plot point was missed!

[Pavel]

@Gashlycrumb said:

@Pavel Okay. It came across that way to me is all, then.

Yes. Then you were told it wasn’t, and you insisted. That is what makes you frustrating to deal with. You don’t accept correction, and you assume everyone is operating with the same knowledge/belief/frame of reference as you.

That doesn’t excuse unprofessional behaviour.

[Gashlycrumb]

@Pavel Seems to me more like you just want to deny that it’s reasonable for me to have understood you the way I did.

I’d like to examine this more closely but I expect it would read to you as exactly what you’re complaining about,. I’ll take a run at it another way.

[Pavel]

@Gashlycrumb said:

Seems to me more like you just want to deny that it’s reasonable for me to have understood you the way I did.

It might have been reasonable the first time. But when I literally said

Pavel said:

You’re taking general suggestions and advice and treating them as immediate instructions.

That should have indicated to you that I was not giving you immediate instructions for a situation you are in, but instead giving advice and suggestions for a generalised genre of situations.

Multiple interpretations are frequently possible; I’m not the clearest of writers much of the time. But when I specifically correct your initial assumption, and your immediate reaction is to repeat it, that’s incredibly frustrating to deal with.

[Kestrel]

I don’t know Siren. But if I were in Siren’s shoes, reading this thread, I would likely conclude I was in the right not to engage with @gashlycrumb. Not based on any moral judgement, but just based on this seeming likely to result in more emotional energy than most people want to expend OOC.

I think it’s best to focus on outcomes over intentions. Specifically:

@Pavel said:
The best approach is to leave, not to cause more problems. Either the staffer is intentionally ignoring you, or their backlog is so bad that it’s negatively impacting you. Either way, you leave and hope for better elsewhere.

Ultimately does it really matter if the motive was malicious, abusive, absent-mindedness, laziness, apathy, exhaustion, avoidance, or anything else?

I recently left a game because I didn’t want to keep waiting around for staff to follow up on stuff. Genuinely no idea if they were busy, forgetful, distracted, or actually didn’t like me. I just didn’t want to be in that dynamic of feeling like a dog waiting at the dinner table for scraps, because it makes me feel like crap.

Forget about what staff was thinking, decide what you want/expect, and pick where to spend your energy accordingly.

[Gashlycrumb]

@Pavel said:

You’re taking general suggestions and advice and treating them as immediate instructions.

Huh. This is totally my bad because I misread this sentence. Not just misunderstanding what you meant, but what it actually says. I apologise.

@Kestrel

I can see why you’d see it that way and hope you mean based on just this thread and just from Siren’s shoes. The thing is that deciding not to engage with someone when you are their only GM in a GM-required game is bad practice even if they’re a problem player or even a bad person. Pre-emptively refusing to engage and thinking you dodged a bullet 'cause they snarl doesn’t seem right.

@Kestrel said:

Forget about what staff was thinking, decide what you want/expect, and pick where to spend your energy accordingly.

Good advice. Easily muddled if there are announcements made about how what you expect is what staff wants to give and will be forthcoming, please be patient etc. I am often naive that way.

[MidnightCreature]

@junipersky said:

Clarification is @gashlycrumb the person that was banned from the game in question or did I miss a plot point somewhere?

No. That would be me.

[Wizz]

@Gashlycrumb said:

The thing is that deciding not to engage with someone when you are their only GM in a GM-required game is bad practice even if they’re a problem player or even a bad person. Pre-emptively refusing to engage and thinking you dodged a bullet 'cause they snarl doesn’t seem right.

it kinda seems like you’re willing to beat this horse to death, but no one is arguing with you.

yes, it’s preferable that staff confront you directly if they don’t want you around.

are they going to? most, probably not. you’re going to have to learn to accept that.

[voiceinthevoid]

It is most ideal for staff to tell one directly and quickly if they don’t want a player around.

It is not usually how it happens.

Most ideal doesn’t mean they are bad if they don’t.

Disclaimer: I’m not referring to this situation in particular but thinking more generally.

Staff are unpaid volunteers, fellow players and not paid professionally trained Human Resources or therapists. Staff should still be ethical. But is not telling someone difficult with them to take a hike where I draw my line and say they are unethical staff? Absolutely not.

They might intend to get to that player but keep procrastinating on the unpleasant task. They might be waiting until they have more spoons to deal with the difficult jobs. They might be avoiding drama and conflict. They might think the conversation will get ugly and involve them being verbally mistreated and hope the person just leaves on their own. They might be intimidated by said player or their friend group. They might sincerely hope the player chills and things get better with time. They might not want to ban so that player can still enjoy the aspects of the game that one doesn’t need a gm for.

They also might have no big problem with said player and could have forgot to answer the job, are buried in tasks and jobs and etc.

I also had jobs sit for an extremely long time on Liberation. I didn’t and don’t think it had anything to do with staff disliking me. There was a long stretch when the game was pretty inactive and barely staffed. It seems to be resolving now and getting more active. I don’t think there was anything personal about staff being slow in the slow period. I also think there was basically one staff only doing the entire game and every sphere alone until recently.

What might seem like malice to someone waiting could be a lot of other things.

I also don’t think anyone even staff should be obligated to participate in role play they don’t desire to participate in which includes imo an obligation to run scenes and GM scenes for others.

Staff creates a framework for our roleplay but isn’t under an obligation to entertain us all. The game is what we make of it.

Sometimes staff will hold off on full bans for someone who annoys them but is not being a terrible creep because maybe a storyteller will come along who isn’t annoyed by them or maybe some other players really enjoy them.

I agree with Kestel though that if one isn’t getting what they want from a game (it doesn’t really matter why) than just leave. I’m content to wait a long time and expect it on WOD but that is not for everyone.

Walk with your feet. Find or make the community that is right for you.

[Gashlycrumb]

@Wizz said:

but no one is arguing with you.

Not on the simplest level. They’re excusing it, though.

I do not believe that there’s a player who is so terrible that it excuses staff from talking to them yet doesn’t require that staff remove them.

I don’t believe that it’s ‘most ideal’ for everybody to get a turn and ‘not bad’ if they don’t. Turns are so core to social play that baby rats with one cubic centimetre of brain matter do it. I don’t believe it’s ‘most ideal’ for GMs to talk to players, I believe that’s a core element of the job. A bike without wheels isn’t less than ideal, it’s fundamentally broken.