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Why is Pack closing?
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@helvetica this is the funniest fucking thing I’ve read all day
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@helvetica said in Why is Pack closing?:
@Herja this is exactly how you get people trying to fuck a meteor
I feel attacked.
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@helvetica said in Why is Pack closing?:
@Herja this is exactly how you get people trying to fuck a meteor
Hey, don’t you judge.
Also I wonder if certain types of games attract OOC bad actors, or if they attract the ‘right’ type of audience for them to pester.
I used to assume it’d be at least harder to pull that kind of thing off in a smaller game where there aren’t hundreds of players around making it tricky for staff to sift through but I guess that’s not true either. Meh.
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@Arkandel I think it’s probably more accurate that some themes lend permissiveness to/normalize behaviors that can bleed into bad actions.
I don’t really think there are a lot of purposeful bad actors out there. They exist, for sure, but the majority of people have narratives about themselves and their actions that make them right and reasonable. I don’t think many people at all are looking at a game and thinking “There is the perfect place for me to stalk/abuse others”.
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@Arkandel said in Why is Pack closing?:
@helvetica said in Why is Pack closing?:
@Herja this is exactly how you get people trying to fuck a meteor
Hey, don’t you judge.
Also I wonder if certain types of games attract OOC bad actors, or if they attract the ‘right’ type of audience for them to pester.
I used to assume it’d be at least harder to pull that kind of thing off in a smaller game where there aren’t hundreds of players around making it tricky for staff to sift through but I guess that’s not true either. Meh.
I think certain sort of themes are at risk of attracting bad actors. Not because they’re bad or shouldn’t be played, but because they provide plausible deniability for someone to say “Oh, hey, I’m just playing my character/the theme.”
Horror games are, I think, rife for it. Because “bad things happen” and often PCs aren’t archetypal heroic sorts - it’s a lot easier to play a jerk on a horror game and still get RP because hey, jerk protagonists in horror is a thing. Games with set hierarchies where at least IC, superiors are stated or assumed to have power over subordinates’ autonomy in a lot of ways, able to punish them or reward them without necessarily having to justify those actions. Double the risk if those hierarchies can be imposed or reinforced by mechanical powers that ensure subordinate compliance. Games about playing ‘monsters’ or ‘bestial’ or ‘villains’ are also at risk, because there’s a fair amount of violence and sex overlap with villainy (and there is nothing wrong with that, or playing that out with people who are enthusiastic and consenting about inhabiting that space) so you get the one-two punch of the creep being able to say “I’m just playing my character” AND quite a lot of bystanders saying, “Why did you play with that character if you didn’t want X?” which makes it even harder to be able to say, “Yes, I wanted to be thrown against a wall and screwed silly, but I did not want this other stuff that happened and consenting to that first part did NOT mean consent to all the rest.”
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Like a few of the previous posters, I couldn’t finish reading the log. It was disgusting. The use of the Luck point to gaslight a character “because it’s funny” was particularly heinous.
Apart from and beyond the horrific content, I also found the future-imperfect tense (or whatever ‘will’ and ‘would’ and the like are) posing grating.
Sorry, @Cobalt, that you had to deal with that, but also thank you for dealing with it so that it didn’t continue (even if it led to you closing your game down).
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@Pyrephox The thing is, my theme files outright point out there is no alpha/beta/omega/whatever designation in this world. And I had reinforced that whenever anyone brought up theme questions of “but are scary predators more respected than those silly foxes?”.
But I think the idea of Alpha Wolf is too ingrained the zeitgeist to really be combatted. Or I just have too much going on RL to combat it.
It just tells me that if I want to do shapeshifter stuff, I either need to get off of my ass and write my own damned book or just do something small and invite only where people are vetted as they come in, rather than fling the doors open for any and all.
Cobalt@Under the Stars
cob.alt@Discord
Cobalt#[email protected] -
@Cobalt said in Why is Pack closing?:
my theme files outright point out
Welcome to Gray Harbor, a game set in a small town in the Pacific Northwest, where you will be playing a human with low-key psychic powers!
“Can I play a pokemon? let me explain to you why this fits in with your theme and then stomp off and call YOU the bad guy when you disagree”
People just decide what a game is.
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I don’t mean to be harsh, but the idea that certain themes attract creepers comes off very “but what were you wearing?” to me.
Creeps don’t occur because Cobalt or anyone else was injudicious in picking a theme that wouldn’t attract creepy players. Creeps occur because they want victims, and they hunt for victims in places they feel they are likely to find some. The only guilt a game bears for creeps being on it is if staff is unwilling or unable to act when creeps are reported, which doesn’t sound like the case here.
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@Cobalt Yeah. People to some extent play the game in their heads whenever you have any sort of common tropes, too. I’m sorry! You had a good theme!
It’s just that playing whack-a-creep is an ongoing thing, and it’s exhausting.
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@GF
Thank you for putting my gut reaction into words! -
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@Cobalt I think you also could have used another 2 staffers to help you, and help make decisions on bad actors, direction, etc. Taking on that size of a game all alone is kind of daunting. Especially without help, backup, and reinforcement and differing viewpoints and sounding boards.
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I don’t think anyone is blaming @Cobalt or her game at all. I’ve only seen genuine sympathy and disgust on her behalf, and hopefully that’s how she has felt. It can also be true that certain settings attract certain types more than others. That’s not an inappropriate thing to discuss.
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Yes, please understand that I don’t mean to ‘put down’ any theme - there’s nothing wrong with those themes! And abusive folks can be found on any game at all, including fluffy consent games about My Little Ponies.
I do think some themes are at higher risk of attracting people who want to force a particular sort of experience, but that’s not the fault of the theme or the staff. I just think it’s one of those things where staff are going to have to do a higher level of creep-stomping, and that is EXHAUSTING.
Just some of the things I know have ended up in WoD game +jobs or backgrounds are…a lot for staff to have to read, much less engage with.
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Creeps and bad actors will show up everywhere, but there is value in examining what different themes might attract, so that people can be better armed and prepared to know what to keep an eye out for.
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So… this is very interesting to me for a few reasons. Mack had been running a behind the scenes smear campaign on myself and another person I RPed with a lot on the Pack since nearly the begining, having had multiple people message me privately to tell me, the last time was only last week. Totally untrue stuff as well, which I suspect made more than a few people avoid RPing with us.
To find this out about her, makes me realize she was trying to gaslight people into thinking we were horrible people while being one herself, and that’s just sad. I really hope I don’t run into her in another game, but if I do, I’ll be sure just to let her self-destruct, since it sounds like her MO.
Also, I commend Cobalt for how she handled everything on that game, totally understand why she needs to shut it down. No one should have to deal with that crap. The theme was never the problem, it was definitely a problem player.
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@Pink Making up wildly untrue shit to run whisper campaign against people she doesn’t like is definitely her standard operating procedure.
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@Cobalt what the fuck bro. I’m so sorry you had to deal with this.
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@Pink Macha? Being manipulative?
