Why is Pack closing?
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@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?
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@Cobalt said in Why is Pack closing?:
@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.
I would play on an invite game only of shifters types. My only real experience with shifter types are on places like Shang or WoD and everything I’ve experienced WoDwise in regards to shifters has been unpleasant so I shied from it. Either because they weren’t inclusive or people would tell me ‘Wolfblooded are just sex objects’.
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@KarmaBum said in Why is Pack closing?:
@GF Yeah, but you’re gonna find hungry people at IHOP.
Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey.
Gotta say, after being told before that the prior analogy was akin to “what were you wearing”, a well known form of rape apologia, by at least two different people, it’s damn disappointing to see it defended with “why were you in that neighborhood”, instead.
This isn’t okay. Creeps are in every genre, on every type of game and the only defense is to have a proactive admin team who players can come to with their problems. (Hats off to Cobalt for being just such an admin, who took quick, decisive action.)
Stop making it about the damn genre or theme, because I got sexually harassed by a 50 year old man when I was 15 on a goddamn G rated Sailor Moon game.
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@Adora said in Why is Pack closing?:
Gotta say, after being told before that the prior analogy was akin to “what were you wearing”, a well known form of rape apologia, by at least two different people, it’s damn disappointing to see it defended with “why were you in that neighborhood”, instead.
This isn’t okay.I agree with you. That’s not okay.
And it’s not what I said.
At no point have I or do I blame anyone for playing there, nor Cobalt for hosting it. I blame the creepers for creeping.
That they tend to use certain themes as cover for their creepiness? Sucks. But -
@Roz said in Why is Pack closing?:
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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@KarmaBum said in Why is Pack closing?:
It’s just the neighborhood.
You may not have said the exact words “why were you in that neighborhood” but I fail to see how what you said is any different.
“It’s just the neighborhood. If you go to that neighborhood bad things will happen.”
Sounds familiar.
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@Adora said in Why is Pack closing?:
Gotta say, after being told before that the prior analogy was akin to “what were you wearing”, a well known form of rape apologia, by at least two different people, it’s damn disappointing to see it defended with “why were you in that neighborhood”, instead.
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@Adora I apologize. That is not what I meant.
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There seems to me to be a concrete difference between:
“This theme attracts predators who use it to mask their behavior, let’s be aware of this; how can we alleviate that”
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“This theme attracts predators so if you get predated while playing this theme it’s the theme’s fault”.
One is an OK thing to say, even constructive! The other isn’t. Conflating one for the other is tiresome, though.
Blaming the theme is pointless and reductive but it also wasn’t what Cobalt (or the people on this thread who agreed with her about it) was doing.
