Addison writes beautifully, is deeply intelligent and was a huge part of Liberation for a long time. He knows a massive amount about game theme and has very strong opinions on how things should go. He is a passionate and talented role player.

He also pages people too often ooc, complains too much ooc, can be bossy and controlling ooc towards other players.

Staff probably didn’t enjoy banning him and I don’t envy their position.

While Addison had a lot to offer, he didn’t always know when to back down and chill.

I’m not familiar with the details and events leading up his banning, so my insight is limited. That being said as much as I admire Addison’s writing and passion for the game, I can absolutely believe he crossed a line and deserved the ban.

I feel bad for staff being in this position and despite very much believing he truly earned the ban, I feel a little bad for Addison. The game meant a lot to him. He isn’t a bad person imo. That being said sometimes for good of the community hard choices need to be made and sometimes someone is a bad fit for a community or needs a break from mushing,

I hope he is doing well and finds other outlets for his creative talents.

@MisterBoring

Yeah I agree with you. It is never okay to expose people to SA without enthusiastic consent that comes without pressure and that includes aftermath and fallout role play.

People who get exposed suddenly to role play involving helping a victim are being wrongly treated by those imposing the role play on them.

My personal taste for erotic role play is with consent that isn’t just ooc, but IC as well.

However I am supportive of people privately and consensually exploring SA themes. Any leak including aftermath that exposes any player who doesn’t want to be exposed is unethical and unacceptable.

There is also the danger of consent that is not really consent. There was a creeper vampire player on WOD games who had a history of bringing in SA in situations where it became consent to SA or your getting Pkilled which I didn’t think should count as consent. Staff didn’t agree with me though.

I have no problem with kid npcs in moderation on games. Less is more when it comes to children on games and brief occasional appearances are imo better than frequent drawn out appearances. The brief appearances can make the world feel more immersive and realistic.

I have had a few negative experiences with on screen kids and even fully quit a couple games over how kids on screen were handled.

One game an adult pc never went anywhere without her young daughter. The player was frequently online and joined most plots and gatherings so the child was constantly around even in very dangerous situations. She played her adult pc very minimally and mostly as a quiet background character and focused the bulk of her effort on role playing the child whose beauty and magic specialness was emoted about constantly. The child was pushy for attention and overly cutesy giving everyone pet names and trying to grab in people’s hands and etc She didn’t like it when role play wasn’t focused on her and would get more and more pushy if people lowered their interaction with her.

She especially was fixated on getting attention from my character and I felt like this child showed up wherever I was role playing with a frequency where I started to feel stalked. Then the child started to flirt with my alt. I was grossed out by the flirting and also completely uninterested in daily roleplay with a child npc so I left the game entirely.

This is a decision I do not regret at all.

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.

Re: Numetal/Retromux

I may not have used the right command to reply.?we will see when I post.

I play on retro a little bit, but I am not very active as life is busy. I get along fine with the staff there, but I am not close friends with them.

The game has its problems. There are pros and cons to playing there. It isn’t perfect by any means.

I am Jewish with close connections to Israel. I have been open about such and my character is openly Jewish as well.

My family and myself have been experiencing increasing antisemitism in our lives.

While mush community has some issues I very much appreciate that my interactions with the mush community have been safe from antisemitism, including my interactions with retro and with the staff of retro.

I understand that just because I have not experienced antisemitism doesn’t mean others have not.

That being said, I didn’t like what I understood to be a passive aggressive and bad faith implied allegation of antisemitism in the thread.

First of all it trivializes real antisemitism. Second it is a horrible thing so it better be true or at least have some real evidence imo. It also if believed could scare people away from retro and pokes at the antisemitism free safe place that retro and other games have been. It also doesn’t make the Jewish people look great to say this dishonestly and can actually increase antisemitism. It can also discourage people from reporting when it really happens or believing people when they report.

I understand he claimed the implied allegation was an accident and said he isn’t going to waste his time pondering if his ban and the antisemitic comment were linked, but unless I missed it I didn’t hear an apology to retro staff. I don’t really believe it was accident so much as a passive aggressive poking to see if people will be more on his side or think maybe staff banned him out of racism.

In addition he still said not going to waste my time pondering the link, which to me read like was still
Implying there could be a link.

Anyways, I was ready to believe staff was too hard on him and character generation was ridiculous until I read the casually dropped and maybe maybe just maybe but I won’t say it directly or provide any evidence staff is antisemitic.

With all the real dangerous scary antisemitism going on to use it flippantly as a card to pull in petty mush issue about character generation is lame.

I realize this is beating a dead horse, I been stewing on this I read his posts and finally got the nerve to comment.

@Kestrel

I believe that my post was partly emotional and was not worded well. I should have let this rest. I also think Kestral was coming from a good place and made good points and I appreciate Tek’s input in changing the name.

I think it is better to make SA against the rules, but not spy on private scenes.

If people really are keeping it private nobody will know. If they are not keeping it private causing staff, other players and characters to have to deal than it makes it easier to ban since the topic is against the rules.

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.

@Pavel

Yeah I agree. That is a great idea. You are right that people could be coerced into not reporting or even kind of blackmailed like now that you did x if you don’t role play y I’m telling staff you did x.

While that sounds cray people who like to cross boundaries often find a shady way.

The creepy WOD vampire player kind of went down this path according to the gossip anyway. He allegedly would go “your character did xyz wrong. They can be punished with x or with pk. Now that you did x which is against the rules if you go to staff we both go down.”

It is tricky because there are creepers on these games whose kink for being the aggressor in SA extends to enjoying pushing boundaries ooc. Definitely not everyone but they exist.

On the other hand people who are ic victims of SA roleplay and recruit protectors and ic comfort after in a loud hard to avoid way are imo often the ooc aggressor where their unprepared unwarned audience for this is imo the ones being mistreated.

In some SA the player playing the victim suggested and initiated the role play which is imo not only fine but ideal. When the aggressor is ooc pushing for the role play it can be a red flag.

Things can be further yikes when one player has some ooc power in the situation like Ic authority, being staff or friends of staff.

The creepy vampire player sought out ic positions of authority and was at times buddies with staffers.

I believe it was implied above that someone used Addison’s ooc complaints against him rather than listening to him.

I don’t know who complained or the contents of their complaint so I really can’t be sure what happened.

There are a few things I do know though.

Siren is well intentioned, intelligent and has good social understanding. I don’t believe she would ban anyone without a good reason. In addition I don’t think she enjoys giving out punishments and I don’t believe she wanted to ban him. I am not her ooc friend just a player who has witnessed her consistently acting right.

It is of course still possible she made an error in judgement, but I don’t think that is the most likely scenario.

I know that Addison is extremely intelligent, creative, energetic, well educated and forgiving.

I am not really his friend either.

Addison in my understanding has a history of jumping into ooc page conversations pretty quickly. In these conversations he has been known to give a generous amount of unsolicited advice and information on game them. He doesn’t take hints well imo and I don’t think always realized when it was time to stop.

People who are used to Addison often shrug it off and people who know him better will sometimes say he is well intentioned and just trying to help.

A good deal of his complaints are valid imo, but they are not all valid. In addition the theme of WOD is complex and nuanced. It changes from book to book. There isn’t always one definitive answer when it comes to theme and not everyone always agreed with Addison.

Liberation has changed the theme with house interpretations and for the better, but that only further complicates theme.

Not everyone plays the game with the same intensity. Some people are part time occasional players chilling for a few hours after work and spending that time in paged tense ooc conversations may not be ideal.

I think the most probable explanation is that Addison paged some players with complaints, didn’t pick up on the social cues to back off and then argued with staff when approached.

I don’t think anyone complained in malice. If I see receipts that show otherwise I might change my mind.

Sometimes a ban is from a back breaking straw and not the whole haystack.

As to comment about people should Listen to his complaints, I would argue nobody is obligated to listen to ooc paged complaining and the decision to go staff for help is a fair choice if one feels things are crossing the line.

Unless you come with receipts, I’m not buying the nefarious complaining to staff angle.

That being said Addison is a wonderful role player. If he is given a second chance or finds another mush I will be happy for him.