How to mitigate Bleed (player vs character emotional response)

[Evilgrayson]

Bleed is a) an absolute bastard, and b) what we play the game for.

If we aren’t trying to evoke an emotional response in ourselves and others, really, what do we spend all this time typing at each other for? Laugh or cry, smile or rage, we do this daft hobby of ours in order to feel - and to fail to acknowledge that is to set ourselves up for insanity.

Emotional bleed, in and of itself, isn’t the problem. It’s the failure to control that bleed that’s the problem. We can be in tears over what just happened, while at the same time relishing those tears. This is normal - for us at least - and this is good as long as we all stay friends, or at the very least cordial. There’s trust involved in giving people license to manipulate you, and if people break that trust it hurts, and that too is normal. Backbiting, whisper campaigns, releasing logs of private scenes on taboo/secret topics - all those are a betrayal of the trust we’ve put in others to allow them to affect us. We extend our trust to those we extend deep IC ties to - whatever that tie may be - and we can only hope that they have a similar understanding of what they’ve been entrusted with.

And if someone’s staffing, especially using NPCs to push story, that’s a position of special trust, because we’re giving them license to mess around with our emotions while they remain insulated. A game’s staff have many more ways to break our trust, which is why the good staffers are trustworthy - and why we react so badly if and when it happens. Trust is a fragile thing, easily destroyed and very difficult to rebuild.

[Faraday]

@Evilgrayson said in How to mitigate Bleed (player vs character emotional response):

If we aren’t trying to evoke an emotional response in ourselves and others, really, what do we spend all this time typing at each other for?

There might be different definitions here.

If I cry while watching Schindler’s List, or cheer in elation at the “on your left” scene in Avengers:Endgame, those are fairly typical emotional responses to moving stories.

But that’s not “bleed” as I’ve always seen it applied to RPGs.

I don’t feel like I -am- Captain America. His triumphs aren’t my triumphs. That kind of interaction does not involve the blurred lines that typically lead to the sort of misbehavior we see in MUs/LARPs where people become entirely too invested in the outcomes of particular characters, as outcomes-by-proxy for themselves.

[shit-piss-love]

This has been an interesting read as I’ve done both LARP and MU* a good bit. The experience of Bleed in both mediums has some overlap but has some great differences as well. MU you get a lot more time of exposure to other people in character and that allows for very deep, long-term bonds and conflicts. LARP isn’t as much time (longest events tend to be a weekend, usually only once or twice a month) but you get all the extra components of face to face human interaction that charges different parts of the mental and physiological system. This is I think a big part of why awareness of Bleed/Alibi are more pronounced in LARP; the consequences of people amped up in a high intensity scene can lead to serious consequences of emotional, physical, and even sexual violence. I’ve dealt with all three to varying degrees running LARPs in an era before these terms started being widely discussed and formalized.

MU definitely could definitely benefit from a more structured conversation about Bleed/Alibi.

[SpaceKhomeini]

One thing I’ve noticed that I do sort of takes a page out of something my SO has said about acting (she’s more or less a pro theater person) and for ages I’ve sort of just gravitated towards people I known for fuckingever and generally like/trust:

It’s easier to go to troublesome and potentially difficult places with people you just know and like. If I come across as a bit of a cliquefreak, that’s why.

[Gashlycrumb]

People who study this sort of thing observe that many forms of play involve practicing emotional regulation. You get worked up and then you calm down.

I suggest that what’s wanted isn’t to control the level of attachment players feel, but to support them in winding down.

One thing that never works is telling them they are too attached, or whatever form a “You are doing your own emotional life wrong,” proclamation may take. They can cool off faster and more easily if you have some respect for the reality of their feelings.

Yeah, it’s kind of inevitable that you’ll run into that player who genuinely objects to anything that leaves their character looking other than ultimate cool. They sulk at a failure, gripe at a botch, can’t think up their own botch-consequence without it being negligible, get mad or try to ignore it when they make an IC mistake or get outmaneuvered. I do not think this is usually attributable to their attachment to the character, though. It’s more likely a failure of imagination — such players readily make new characters with the same level of untenable supercool.

But also. Some of the time the ‘too attached’ accusation is rubbish, a way of dismissing another player’s concerns. Yeah, players do want their characters to win. However, if I’m pissed off ‘cause those involved knew that my PI PC was ICly staking out the Paper Thin Hotel, so they just had their Pervert Party while I’m at work instead of the usual time the group plays, I’m not mad ‘cause I didn’t win, I feel I’ve been cheated out of the chance to even try. If Baby Sharky the street-corner punk tries to blackmail my character into spying on Pablo Escobar and my character chooses not to, it’s not that I’m unwilling to be at a disadvantage with Baby Sharky, maybe it’s that Pablo is a lot scarier than whatever will happen if and when Sharky actually sends videos of my PC masturbating to everyone in City Hall and his mom. That kinda thing happens, some players make a habit of accusing other players of OOC motivations/bleed whenever said other players don’t do what some players want. Because Must Be Ultimate Cool Guy exists, people may take the accusation seriously even when the supposedly too attached and doin’ it wrong player has not displayed a pattern of objecting to sub-coolness and has in fact enthusiastically played out failures and flaws and botches and mistakes.

[Pavel]

@Gashlycrumb Honestly, I’d take your point and run it a little further to say that some level of emotional attachment to the highs and lows of your character (and hopefully those around you) is required for good RP. We all know of actors who phone in performances they don’t care about but shine brighter than lime when they’re in a role they’re emotionally invested in.

[GF]

@Arkandel said in How to mitigate Bleed (player vs character emotional response):

I’d consider dividing ‘bleed’ into two separate categories.

One is simply having an emotional response to the character you’re portraying. <snip for brevity> The other kind of bleed though is more malevolent. It’s perpetuated by a specific kind of mindset and type of player who step over the line while leveraging - weaponizing, in a way - their real-life emotions.

I’d argue there’s a third kind, and brace yourselves, because I’m about to go off on one of my hot-button issues again: the unhealthy coping mechanism bleed. I see this so much in straight guys crossplaying as lesbians, who either truly think lesbians scorn verbal discourse and communicate exclusively via snuggling, or else are so desperate for physical affection in their real lives that they invent feminine personae in order to express that hunger in a way they think is socially acceptable in a way that isn’t acceptable for men, but that’s not the only example. It’s just the one most prevalent in my mind right now. I also see it in players who pretend OOCly to be small, cute animals for people to caress.

I don’t know how one solves that kind of bleed, because calling it out would probably increase the feeling of isolation that seems to motivate the behavior in the first place, so my best idea has always been to sigh to myself, limit contact with such people, and hope they figure it out on their own.

And hey, maybe it’s not even a form of bleed exactly, but just toxic masculinity trying to claim total ownership over women’s identities and sexualities by stepping into the role. There’s probably an element of that, but my vibe is it’s mostly bleed, wanting the vicarious emotional support of constant physical intimacy they imagine happens between women.

[Pavel]

@GF said in How to mitigate Bleed (player vs character emotional response):

And hey, maybe it’s not even a form of bleed exactly, but just toxic masculinity trying to claim total ownership over women’s identities and sexualities by stepping into the role. There’s probably an element of that, but my vibe is it’s mostly bleed, wanting the vicarious emotional support of constant physical intimacy they imagine happens between women.

While this is almost certainly true, and you’re far better placed to know it than I am, I want to expand your overall point about unhealthy coping mechanism bleed.

We’re all nerds of some stripe or another, many of us with social or behavioural issues that make real life socialisation difficult. I’d wager that a lot of the negative emotional bleed we see is as intense as it is due to the fact that MUing, for some folks, is more than just a silly little hobby and is a replacement - either in whole or in part - for a key part of their real-life socialisation.

So attacks against characters are more easily perceived as personal attacks because the player has, intentionally or otherwise, replaced part of their real-life identity with that of their character.

ETA:

For further reading on this topic:

Waggoner, Z. (2014). My avatar, my self: Identity in video role-playing games. McFarland.

Waskul, D. (2014). The role-playing game and the game of role-playing. In J. P. Williams, S. Q. Hendricks, & W. K. Winkler (Eds.), Gaming as Culture: Essays on Reality, Identity and Experience in Fantasy Games. McFarland.

[GF]

@Pavel That’s a good expansion on and clarification of my representation of the phenomenon. Thank you for adding it.

[Gashlycrumb]

@Pavel It’s certainly something that I want.

I had no investment in the ultimate outcomes for the character I drew for last week’s table-top one-shot, but I did invest in the game and in trying to portray the character well. I had a great time as the mother bear of Goldilocks’ fame. But I miss the long-term campaign and don’t want to play one-shots all the time. And part of that is totally about the characters and even the thing where a character is a little infinitely detailed mind-sculpture you made and sometimes polish and gloat over at non-game times.

As a GM, I want players to be invested. And to be identifying with the characters. I hate LARPs but will go to lengths for mood at a table-top game, with music and lighting and metronomes and stuff. I want you spooked, I want your heart-rate to be affected, I want you absorbed.

[mangosplitz]

I apologize for dropping off the thread a bit, but I do want to comment that what a few folks said earlier is really the key to the conversation.

Bleed and Alibi are both good parts of role playing. With a lot of things, it’s the excess of one (or the other) that can be an issue, and how we handle them.

To use the example of a movie, if I go and watch Beaches and have myself a good old cry during the movie, and then go on with my life, that’s ok. If I keep crying for three days after, then that’s a problem.

Do I expect to cry or have tears when I am in an intense scene on a LARP or on a MU? Yes, I do. Should I be crying next week when thinking about that scene? Probably not.

So having a good mechanism for moving past that is part of what I was referencing when we talk about mitigating it. Just like there are workshops at the start of a LARP to talk about how making bad IC decisions lead to fun RP, there are also some afterwards to talk about how to prevent Bleed once you leave. And then there is DROP, which is a whole other issue (but I imagine one that doesn’t come up much with MUing unless a game ends or you quit for some reason.).

[Pavel]

@mangosplitz said in How to mitigate Bleed (player vs character emotional response):

So having a good mechanism for moving past that is part of what I was referencing when we talk about mitigating it

Naturally, I agree. I think, though, that in MUing, that has to come from the player themselves rather than something that could or should be expected from the game runners.

In an ideal world, every game should have guidance on progressing through those challenges… but games are run by people who want to run games and tell stories, not by people who have the experience or expertise to help people overcome those kinds of emotional obstacles.

So, what do we do if we want to be responsible and ethical game runners or players? Do we simply have an international list of resources, like helplines, available?

[Roadspike]

Talking about what Staffs can do, I agree with those who said that it’s super-hard in a MUSH environment where there are players joining and leaving all the time, and there’s no Session Zero to sort out all of these things (and many other important things). I sort of think that the best thing that can be done about it is a page linked in policy (and maybe the base page) that talks about Bleed and Alibi (maybe Distance or something that doesn’t have the ‘excuse’ implications of Alibi).

[Faraday]

@Roadspike said in How to mitigate Bleed (player vs character emotional response):

that talks about Bleed and Alibi (maybe Distance or something that doesn’t have the ‘excuse’ implications of Alibi).

I like Distance FWIW.

Personally? I think this is on the players and don’t feel any obligation to try to teach them about how to maintain a healthy distance between themselves and their characters. I’m here to run a game, not try to teach (generic) you how to be a decent human or be a caretaker for your own mental health. That’s the same reason why my policies end at “don’t be a jerk”. If you need me to tell you how not to be a jerk, my game is not for you.

[mangosplitz]

@Pavel said in How to mitigate Bleed (player vs character emotional response):

Naturally, I agree. I think, though, that in MUing, that has to come from the player themselves rather than something that could or should be expected from the game runners.

Honestly I think just providing info about it and normalizing it as something that happens is probably enough.

I think we saw enough in this thread to basically come to the conclusion of “people have this on a spectrum, but a lot of times people say it is bad”. And so people sometimes think that they are “wrong” or “bad” for feeling it, or that it somehow makes them different.

Speaking from my example, until I was at a LARP and someone actually SAID this to me at the first workshop it was introduced to me at, it never occurred to me that it was a thing at all. But once they said it it all made sense right away. So that would be my best thought - put throw up an article or a brief paragraph somewhere. Maybe along with suggestions like “ICA=ICC” and “Ask for consent before RPing intimacy”, except this guideline is more self-directed than the others.

So it’s not like we need to have staff actually DO anything to help**. But it would be nice to just throw up an article or something that references it. I like how on the Ares games at least there are links to articles that talk about what good RP is, how give and take works, etc. Something like that would be good.

** I mention this because a few people called this out. LARPs actually will frequently have paid mental health professionals on-site to help with any of these things that come up during the game or after. I am NOT saying that’s anywhere close to what is needed here.

[Rinel]

@sao said in How to mitigate Bleed (player vs character emotional response):

@Rinel Your ability to have empathy for positions that you find emphatically morally wrong is a different skill and one you should prize, but it does make avoiding bleed pretty difficult.

Yeah, of my regrets about mistakes I’ve made, failing to adequately contain this is definitely up there.

[shit-piss-love]

Obligatory mention of the Wild Hunt film, that takes the concept of Bleed to a very dark place. Super divided opinions on this in the LARP community but as a GM I dealt with the realistic version of this stuff more regularly than I would have liked. Either way enjoyable flick imo. https://youtu.be/4OImHW5AGGY

[BloodAngel]

@shit-piss-love Never heard of this. Added it to my watch list, thank you!

[Gashlycrumb]

@mangosplitz said in How to mitigate Bleed (player vs character emotional response):

So it’s not like we need to have staff actually DO anything to help

This. When I talk about this issue, there’s often a response as if the suggestion of being supportive means ‘turn the MU into a mental health clinic’ when what I mean is, give your dial a twist towards ‘supportive friend’ and away from ‘cop and judge.’ If somebody at my tt game is near-tears we don’t all start in on how they’re too attached and it’s a flaw in them as a player, we meet them where they’re at. This actually takes no more energy than telling them they’re doin’ it wrong would.