Non-toxic PvP

[Wizz]

@Faraday said in Non-toxic PvP:

There was a conflict and now there’s some IC bad blood. All seems completely expected to me.

I can imagine this exact scenario played out with me and a buddy and it would all be completely fine if we just kept it IC.

now imagine this person is not your buddy, just some rando who doesn’t intend to plot out a fun and engaging “arch rivalry” or “enemies to friends” or whatever. it’s just someone who comes into every scene until the end of time and makes it about this and will never shut the fuck up about it or move on because their OOC ego was hurt that everyone didn’t choose their solution instead.

I’ve had to deal with people like that and I totally get it, just speaking personally. they are pretty far up there in the Most Annoying Player list.

[Faraday]

@Wizz said in Non-toxic PvP:

it’s just someone who comes into every scene until the end of time and makes it about this and will never shut the fuck up about it or move on because their OOC ego was hurt that everyone didn’t choose their solution instead.

Sure, that sounds annoying. See also: why I don’t think that PVP with rando strangers is a good idea.

My point is simply that you could get that same outcome EVEN IF both PCs pummeled each other in open conflict. It has nothing to do with one of them being a pacifist. That’s why I think a zero-tolerance policy to pacifist characters is kind of silly. But if someone wants to do it on their game, obviously that’s their prerogative.

[bear_necessities]

@Jumpscare said in Non-toxic PvP:

MacGuffin Holder: It’s time for me to bring the MacGuffin to the danger pit.

Problematic Pacifist: That’s a bad idea. You should take it to the safety pit where my faction wants it to be.

MH: I’ve been vocal about my plans to do this for the past week.

PP: And my protests have gone ignored.

I think this is the real issue, and I honestly do not understand why you would ban PP in this situation. You have two characters who are fundamentally opposed about something, MH is hoarding the item and soley determining where it goes, PP offered an alternative and was ignored. It resulted in IC conflict. The fact that PP stood there and took it, and then snarked about it afterward, is IC. Unless there was bleed and MH was being harassed OOC? There shouldn’t have been a banning.

But also, why can’t there be a conflict? Why can’t two people disagree about what to do about a thing? Would this have been better had PP fought MH? Why did this result in an OOC banning, when it was an IC conflict, and story was created? Why did MH run to staff and win after ignoring PP entirely in the first place? Imma be honest, this story paints MH in a worse light than PP.

I think we’ve maybe gotten way too gunshy as a community. I’ve seen far too many games recently where any sort of conflict over the plot, no matter how small, results in immediate shutdown, both ICly and OOCly. Usually the vocal majority wins, and the one or two people who disagree or want to go at the plot another way either a) get ignored AT BEST, or b) don’t want to ‘rock the boat’ so they don’t say anything at all. That isn’t really about PvP - I don’t play on PvP games so my experiences are entirely on PvE - it’s just about how we treat conflict overall.

[Jumpscare]

@bear_necessities said in Non-toxic PvP:

The fact that PP stood there and took it, and then snarked about it afterward, is IC.

And the 3rd and 4th time PP stands in the way and says, “Let’s just get this over with,” and continues with the snark? Snarking over 20 times a week, often in pose after pose.

I think that’s what was missing from my explanation. PP does this with great frequency. It isn’t just a one-time thing. It’s a pattern of PP’s daily activities consisting of standing in the way and snarking. If your character wants to do something that PP opposes, your choices are to either give up and walk away from the conflict, or fight and give PP more snark ammunition.

It wears MH’s player down, as well as a decent portion of the playerbase, to witness that act day after day.

[Juniper]

@bear_necessities said in Non-toxic PvP:

MH is hoarding the item and soley determining where it goes,

PP offered an alternative and was ignored.

Why did MH run to staff and win after ignoring PP entirely in the first place?

This is all very loaded language and not how I read the example as laid out.

MH has the item, they get to choose what happens to the item. That’s not “hoarding”, it is obviously a contest designed by a storyteller and one that MH is currently winning. PP’s choices to influence the outcome are diplomacy or violence.

It looks like MH and PP are both been crystal clear with each other about the outcome they’d prefer. That’s good. But they still disagree. PP failed to persuade MH to abandon MH’s plan and follow PP’s plan. What then?

There has been some chatter that in this example MH didn’t need to fight PP, they chose to. I disagree, and this may be a quirk in the design of Jumpscare’s game specifically. You should assume that PP used conflict mechanics to physically block MH in the room until combat is concluded. MH’s only choices are to attack PP or just stand there. Forever.

At what point do we acknowledge that PP cannot have their cake and eat it too? They want the moral high ground of not using violence (technically. kind of? not really), but can’t accept that relying on diplomacy doesn’t mean guaranteed success in a scenario with multiple participants. Nobody is entitled to get the result they want in a plot, least of all the person whose plan amounts to forcing their opponent to hit them and then crying.

PP could have easily handled the situation in a way that stays true to their character without being a cretin. They could have stood aside and said “You’re making a huge mistake/I wish you could have seen things my way/David would be disappointed to see the person you have become”. They could have begrudgingly come along to protect the MacGuffin from the Murder Imps in the Danger Pit. They could have bribed, manipulated, or blackmailed someone else into doing what needs to be done to acquire the MacGuffin. They could have declared neutrality and come as a medic. Just… anything else.

[DrQuinn]

I’m a little confused by the specific situation and I think it’s not going to be entirely clear to people not on the game but: are we then defining PvP as just physical combat? Is social ‘combat’ not okay?

Because it seems like that’s what PP was doing (snark) and it seemed to all be IC (it was other people OOCly deciding MH was OOCly an asshole and messaging admins? Not entirely clear there). Like it seems from these examples that PP was pretty good at painting MH in a bad light ICly, which to me would be PvP on a social level (gossip, manipulation, just controlling the IC narrative that gets spun, etc.)

If the game is all just about PvP being physical combat (which it seems like so many are) and they don’t want the social aspect of PvP or see that as ‘bad’ why allow pacifist characters at all? And it sounds like PP was using the coded aspects of PvP (blocking the exit) as intended, but is that command only supposed to lead to physical combat where two people fight?

I guess I’m just not seeing where the OOC bleed was from the examples. If the snark was in the OOC communication or PP was saying to all their friends “MH is such an asshole not going with my plan IC” I can absolutely see that as being toxic for a game. But if PP is just being a snarky pacifist jerk IC, but OOCly is like “Oh it’s fine, go ahead and hit me I’m absolutely being a jerk IC” that seems ok?

But if the game is just not okay for pacifist characters and PvP is supposed to only be about punching each other, I think just a flat out ‘we won’t approve these characters’ would be worthwhile since they would appear to be at a real disadvantage.

[Faraday]

Yeah I mean… overall it seems like we’ve gone from a general “there should be a zero-tolerance policy for pacifists who join a high-conflict faction and don’t engage with the conflict” to arguing over THIS ONE SPECIFIC PERSON from this ONE SPECIFIC GAME with these VERY SPECIFIC PVP RULES. Was that person acting like a troll? I dunno, maybe - but I think it largely depends on their OOC actions, and everything that’s been described here has focused on their IC actions.

[bear_necessities]

@Jumpscare Makes sense, thanks. I think you should’ve included that detail in your scenario above to paint a clearer picture of what was happening.

But idk man. At the end of the day, people aren’t assholes for using in-game mechanics to create a story, so if it had ended like Jumpscare initially said it did? I don’t see the issue. The issue is when people take it way too far, cross a line, and act like dicks because they can’t take the L and move the fuck on.

[Jumpscare]

There’s social conflicts, espionage, vandalism, and more on SH. But just because something is IC doesn’t mean it’s automatically fun. Here are three examples of when a PP became too much effort to allow them to continue playing.

One PP was secretly exploiting code to stalk other players in order to show up immediately where the RP was happening in order to get in the way. I’ve since patched those exploits.

Another PP had been given a no-contact request from a number of characters who were tired of their shenanigans. (A no-contact request is a last resort when two people’s RP styles are untenable with each other. It means no direct RP, no plotting against each other, and to keep interactions minimal in public events.) The PP then sent their friends to get in on the scenes on the PP’s behalf, then report back so the PP could influence things nearby (e.g. vandalism) in an “I’m not touching you” plausible deniability manner, giving the people on the no-contact list zero recourse to react.

A third PP was asked to tone down the snark. When the snark was not toned down, we said to stop the snark entirely. This resulted in the PP repeatedly saying IC something along the lines of, “I have no opinion I can voice on this matter,” as a way of getting around the snark ban.

In all three examples, their goal isn’t to provide fun conflict, it’s to wear down the other players by getting in the way as often as possible, while also denying any satisfying resolution. They typically don’t care about the win or the loss in the plot, because they score a win simply by disrupting the scene and forcing everyone to deal with their antics.

[bear_necessities]

@Jumpscare That has nothing to do with these people playing pacifists. It sounds like you have some jerk players. But there are jerk pacifists and there are jerk combatants and there are jerk everythings. It’s not a pacifist thing.

[Kestrel]

@bear_necessities said in Non-toxic PvP:

@Jumpscare That has nothing to do with these people playing pacifists. It sounds like you have some jerk players. But there are jerk pacifists and there are jerk combatants and there are jerk everythings. It’s not a pacifist thing.

In a thread about non-toxic PvP it seems pretty on-topic to bring up the issues caused by both jerk combatants and jerk pacifists? And I notice that people often discuss the former but rarely acknowledge the issues with the latter. No one is saying you can’t play a pacifist, pacifists ruin PvP games, any more than anyone is saying that all combat characters are domineering murderhobos. But problematic pacifists exist, as do problematic combatants. There are specific issues with each that healthy community management needs to account for.

[Faraday]

@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:

No one is saying you can’t play a pacifist, pacifists ruin PvP games

That was literally the statement that kicked off this entire tangent. A proposed zero-tolerance policy towards pacifist characters in high-conflict factions.

[Roadspike]

@Faraday said in Non-toxic PvP:

That was literally the statement that kicked off this entire tangent. A proposed zero-tolerance policy towards pacifist characters in high-conflict factions.

Looking back to @Jumpscare’s original post about zero tolerance for this type of player, I want to know that they are describing an archetype that they’re calling “the pacifist,” not players playing pacifist characters at all.

Here’s the actual description.

@Jumpscare said in Non-toxic PvP:

The pacifist is a player archetype who will join a moderate or high conflict group, then do as much as they can for their faction without engaging in the central conflict. Then, when they get backed into a position where they’re called upon to resolve a conflict by fighting it out, they’ll agree to the fight but refuse to fight back, letting the opposing side win, in order to give the other players the most unsatisfying resolution possible.

@Juniper then clarified with:

Pacifists don’t just sit out, they tend to belittle everyone participating and take a revisionist approach to the faction’s raison d’être.

Again, referencing the character archetype, not anyone who wanted to play a character with pacifist beliefs.

@Kestrel kept up with the idea that this was about a character archetype who uses their character’s pacifism as a bludgeon to wrongfun people playing characters who fit with the purpose/vibe of the faction.

I admit that I lost the thread a little bit with the specific example mentioned later, since it refers to some situations and mechanics specific to a game that I don’t play, but I don’t believe that there was ever an intention to ban people from playing pacifist characters, just characters who fit the archetype of a character who is (irony intended) a militant pacifist who uses their beliefs to demean and socially bludgeon characters who engage in violent IC actions within the designed theme and setting of the game.