Liberation Drama!?
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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.
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.
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.
“This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!”
– A. Bertram Chandler -
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
“This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!”
– A. Bertram Chandler -
I believe that’s a core element of the job
I believe that it’s a core part of the player’s job not to be so fucking irritating that staff would rather run WoD combat than deal with them.
Not on the simplest level. They’re excusing it, though.
Expressing that we understand why someone does something isn’t the same as excusing or agreeing with it.
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The word job was used to describe what staff does and in a way staffing is a job. An unpaid and often thankless job that comes with unending amounts of tasks.
IMO staff does have some obligations towards players like not being a creep, dealing with creeps on the game, not cheating and etc.
I don’t feel that obligation extends to storytelling for every player in a timely manner and giving everyone a turn. That might sound cold, but staff have family, friends, pets, jobs, health issues and etc. A demand that they answer jobs quickly or run a scene might sound reasonable, but demanding staff to be quick and get to everyone is a big ask for someone not being paid and not on the clock. It also can be impossible depending on the size of the game and the number of staff.
Staff has all the same real life issues and demands that non staff has. IMO we don’t want staff burning out or feeling pressured to neglect real life needs for the game.
It is best when everyone gets their turn, but it is easier said than done. Some people are not online very often or have hours that don’t match up well with staff. Some people chill in the background and don’t even want the spotlight in scenes. Tracking whose turn it is quite hard and the judgement of that can be very subjective. There are some players that no matter how much time and attention they get will never feel they had their turn to spotlight or their fair share of staff attention.
To me boundaries are extremely important. I don’t believe that staff should ever have to roleplay with people they are uncomfortable with or have an obligation to engage in role play even as the GM with a player they want distance from.
I don’t think every time a staffer needs a break or some distance from a player it needs to be a ban. Sometimes it does, but sometimes a little space is good enough.
If a player is truly so difficult that the majority of staff want nothing to do with them and dealing with their requests is a big unwanted chore, it probably is best to just ban them. Not every situation is that extreme though.
Also sometimes things become a self fulfilling prophecy. Maybe staff didn’t answer a job yet because real life is crazy and the player stews about how staff probably dislikes them and they start to complain. Well staff might not like the player pressuring them for time consuming things will they are trying to get their dog to the vet or mop up the flood in the kitchen or whatever is keeping them from getting through game tasks.
Or TLDR
Nobody is entitled to scenes, gaming or role play from staff. No unpaid person on a game owes us their time or attention. They owe you not being a creep, following the rules etc.
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@voiceinthevoid I think it can be right to say that staff as a collective entity have a level of responsibility to ensure that jobs are answered and decisions are made (and announced, where necessary). I don’t believe that an individual staffer does. So if you’re annoyed by a player, pass the job to someone else. If there is nobody else, hire someone else or get rid of the problem player.
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You make a good point.
Sometimes games go through periods almost like breaks where almost no jobs are answered.
I think Liberation kind of went through one after Sundance got busy and before new staff got going.
I am not sure if this partly why @gashlycrumb jobs were not answered or not.
If they truly just could not stand him and nobody wanted to deal with him, a ban is probably best. I believe I also said effectively this in my post above.
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I do have a few questions. Is @gashlycrumb banned? Does he want to be banned if not? Does he still play there? Does he believe he should be banned?
I ask these questions because I believe he is saying staff on Liberation dislikes him and won’t answer his jobs and that staff not banning a player who’s jobs they don’t answer out of dislike is unethical?
Also is it possible that staff does like him or at least doesn’t dislike him, but jobs got delayed for other reasons?
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Kestrel said:
@MidnightCreature said:
Kraken mentioned on channel that he intended to use ChatGPT to rewrite or rework the website/wiki.
It looks like he finally went ahead and did that. You can view older versions of the website on WayBackMachine.
So here is the version of the Garou Apps Page before the ChatGPT pass: Archive Link
And here is the new Sloppified Version.
Do I even have to explain why the second is LLM generated?
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I don’t believe he’s been banned, but he did tell me he’d left the game.
I’ve also been watching this exchange, and I don’t think what he was trying to get across was that the staff were specifically mean or targeting him, but that it’s part of a much broader problem.
@gashlycrumb can really only speak to his own experiences on this forum, but he’s not the only person I’ve heard who has had similar experiences to this. Lots of people have remarked to me found it very difficult to get Siren to do anything for them, even if it was a minor sheet correction or a bug fix.
I also assume you’re speaking in good faith here, but…
I’m a bit fatigued by how often the “volunteer” label gets emphasized when talking about game staff. Not just from you but I’ve seen this argument before. Like, yes, you’re taking on a second job that you don’t get paid for, but lots of hobbies are like that. A lot of hobbies take time, effort, and consideration, and they can be frustrating.
There is also a lot that game staff have to do that the average player generally doesn’t.
But I still don’t exactly vibe with leaning so heavily on the volunteer aspect of it. It’s not as if game staff are performing a service in the way that going and working at a food bank or an animal shelter is. It’s more like going to a theater group and offering to work as part of the stage crew to help put together free community performances.
So a person shouldn’t staff on a game unless they’re actually into doing the work of being a GM/Storyteller/Dungeon Master. Like, if you don’t enjoy being a storyteller and interacting with players, then you probably shouldn’t be staffing on a game.
This can explain why people have limited time, why things sometimes take longer than anyone would like, or why a hobby has to come second to real life.
But I don’t think it should be used as a blanket response to criticism about someone consistently not doing the basic things attached to a role they voluntarily chose to take on or when they break their own rules with the regularity of the tides. If someone wants the authority and control that come with staffing a game, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for players to expect them to actually perform the functions of that role.
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It turns out that for some reason I can’t access the game’s website. No idea why, no real care to investigate either. But it’s like Saint Carlo Acutis himself is looking out for me.
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@MidnightCreature said:
But I still don’t exactly vibe with leaning so heavily on the volunteer aspect of it. It’s not as if game staff are performing a service in the way that going and working at a food bank or an animal shelter is. It’s more like going to a theater group and offering to work as part of the stage crew to help put together free community performances.all of those things are volunteer work tho. when people bring up the “volunteer” aspect, it’s not (in my experience) to try and call to mind some specific form of volunteering that involves feeding the hungry or something. it’s literally just to say that you can’t expect performance consistency at the level of a paid job.
volunteering for a theatre is just as much volunteering as for a food bank. the point is someone not being paid and only working in a limited capacity, not making a moral point about the work being done.
So a person shouldn’t staff on a game unless they’re actually into doing the work of being a GM/Storyteller/Dungeon Master. Like, if you don’t enjoy being a storyteller and interacting with players, then you probably shouldn’t be staffing on a game.
most people do, though. most staffers IME do so because they enjoy some aspect of staffing. the problem is that no amount of enjoying helping players or running plots can survive having to do so for players who make the work miserable to do.
But I don’t think it should be used as a blanket response to criticism about someone consistently not doing the basic things attached to a role they voluntarily chose to take on or when they break their own rules with the regularity of the tides. If someone wants the authority and control that come with staffing a game, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for players to expect them to actually perform the functions of that role.
to me, i feel like the comments are often more about perspective, particularly because these issues often get brought up as big moral failings. which — no. it’s a hobby frustration. someone dragging their feet on jobs is an annoyance, not a moral calamity.
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I don’t believe it’s ‘most ideal’ for GMs to talk to players, I believe that’s a core element of the job.
other people have said this more politely but this is not a fucking job. it’s something someone is choosing to do, completely on their own time, for free, take it or leave it. they don’t OWE you anything more than they are offering, period.
I understand that’s a point of disagreement you are going to begrudge but honestly I really don’t care, players who come into someone’s game with that level of entitlement need to log off and go get some perspective or they will always find themselves on the outside looking in.
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I do have a few questions. Is @gashlycrumb banned? Does he want to be banned if not? Does he still play there? Does he believe he should be banned?
I’m not banned. No, I don’t play there, I left. I don’t want to be banned. I don’t think I should be or deserve to be banned. I don’t care if I’m banned since I won’t return anyway.
You don’t actually have to ban a person to tell them that you refuse to interact with them. That’s what should have been done, six months ago or whenever Siren made that decision. I dunno about ‘unethical’ as @Roz has a point that it’s not a moral calamity, it’s just crappy.
Yes, there have been a lot of periods when almost no jobs were answered on Lib, and the major such time has a tragic cause. I didn’t resent it or bug anybody about it. Siren has posted a couple times on the bb that everything is caught up and jobs are being done normally, with the implication of a less than two-week turn around. I didn’t even think she disliked me until I asked the cause of these delays for me in the context of the posts and she told me so. I thought it was an organisational issue.
@midnightcreature I don’t like framing it as volunteer work either.
Say, folks. Y’know, museum and library volunteers sometimes:
Refuse to do the parts of the job they don’t like.
Skip their shifts on a whim.
Reserve for their friends tickets/swag/prizes that they are meant to give out first-come-first-serve.
Demand frequent praise.
Become furious at any attempt to guide them.This is why many institutions find that they cannot afford volunteers. You need a full-time professional to wrangle them. It’s not uncommon for volunteer programs to run at a financial loss and the institution to continue them purely for community goodwill.
Please don’t have this attitude towards volunteer jobs. You may harm the organisation you’re trying to help. (And if you are just doing it for your ego, well, pssst: the professionals are likely to call you “the staff infection,” when you’re not there if you do that stuff.)
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Tossing my two cents…
If the main staff dislike/hate/etc. they should just say it instead of ignoring said person in hopes they go away.
“Hi so&so, thank you for your interest but you and this game/staff/etc don’t vibe. We hope you find your game in the future. Here’s the door. Bye.”
That literally took 5 seconds to write.
I agree staffing isn’t a job. I’ve always seen it more like having an open house of sorts. If there was someone in your open house that clashed with you for whatever reason, you wouldn’t just ignore them, you’d ask them to leave and if they refused you’d show them the door (banning).
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I believe you stated you don’t believe you should be banned and also said that staff told you the delay was related to being uncomfortable dealing with you?
What are the options then?
Staff deals with you despite discomfort?
New staff is hired and told to handle your jobs?
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It doesn’t really matter whether staff thinks you’re great or shit or anything in between.
A simple request solved with one command - two if you have to manually close out the job - should not take six months.
A request for a steer on a long-term project should not take six months, especially when the staffer in charge of the sphere is the only one for that sphere.
There’s accepting that people are volunteering, and there’s ye gods WTF?
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All staff should hire The Other Dude. Whenever a player becomes so irritating, so poorly behaved, or so… arduous to deal with, you just send their stuff to The Other Dude and they will be responsible for “gently offboarding” the player in question.
That shall be their only job.
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