Non-toxic PvP
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@Juniper You’d hate Luffy.
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Oh, I do.
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@Juniper said in Non-toxic PvP:
if I’m in the Pirate faction being a menace on the seven seas, I don’t want to be constantly having arguments with another pirate who believes a REAL pirate never takes another person’s property without permission, and I’m making life hard for pirates by giving them a bad name.
OK, but… why are you constantly having that argument? Why aren’t you like “pfft whatever” to that guy? Why isn’t he being ostracized by the other pirates? For that matter, why is the captain even keeping him on board the ship?
I don’t fundamentally have any objection to a PC going around saying that pirating is bad actually. But it seems to me that there are a million ways to deal with this issue ICly.
@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:
With that said, and with the explicit caveat that I don’t see outliers as inherently problematic, it can and often does become a problem when the outlier ethos gets normalised in the setting it’s supposed to be pushing back against.
For sure, outliers taken to extreme CAN skew theme. I also recall being on The 100, and being a bit peeved because my PC (who was trying to stick to the established theme) was constantly being undermined by the outliers.
In such a circumstance, staff has two choices: limit/control the outliers, or allow theme to drift organically from what was originally established. Neither is right or wrong, but the stance should be made clear so all players are on the same page.
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@Faraday said in Non-toxic PvP:
@Roadspike 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.
This is what I’m reacting to.
But you cropped out half the definition. It doesn’t make sense without the second half:
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.
There have been plenty of pacifists in SH that don’t act as the proverbial rock in the shoe. They don’t stand in the way of scenes, they don’t unnecessarily prolong assured victories, and they don’t make the resolutions agonizing.
By removing the second half of the definition, you’re missing the core problem of the player archetype I was describing.
I’ll digress, though. We’ve discussed this example thoroughly.
Game-runner of Silent Heaven, a small-town horror MU.
https://silentheaven.org -
I agree with the sentiment that instead of removing a character archetype completely as an valid option, there needs to be a clear separation and understanding of IC and OOC intent. One must also acknowledge that playing this type of character is similar to playing a ‘bad guy’ in a cooperative PvE game.
It’s incredibly challenging to play a ‘bad guy’ that not only provides more depth in a story but also ensures that everyone is having fun in the process instead of being antagonized. Playing a pacifist in the examples provided is just like that, it needs to be done in a way that can enrich the story, provide different perspectives IC, while also doing in a way that it’s not just to troll other players. ICA = ICC definitely comes into play, if a pacifist’s actions becomes a detriment to the group’s success or survival, they can be removed in an IC manner, whether it’s exile or whatever else. Just like if a pirate continues to proclaim and protest the pillaging of goods, they are forced to walk the plank.
If it crosses into the OOC boundary and the player is just there to give everyone a hard time, that is when staff has to step in. As I mentioned in an earlier post, whether it is a PvP or CvC game, staff needs to be fair but also direct in its decisions. This includes asking problem players to leave as soon as they become a problem and do not change. If a pacifist is doing it to troll others, they should be shown the door.
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@Faraday said in Non-toxic PvP
OK, but… why are you constantly having that argument? Why aren’t you like “pfft whatever” to that guy? Why isn’t he being ostracized by the other pirates? For that matter, why is the captain even keeping him on board the ship?
I don’t fundamentally have any objection to a PC going around saying that pirating is bad actually. But it seems to me that there are a million ways to deal with this issue ICly.
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@Juniper I do not understand the meaning of your cat.
@Jumpscare said in Non-toxic PvP:
But you cropped out half the definition. It doesn’t make sense without the second half:
No, I read the second half. I consider “agreeing to fight but then refusing to fight back” to be in line with “being part of a high-conflict group and avoiding conflict”.
Of course it’s better when players can cooperate and find a mutually-agreeable solution. But when it comes to PVP (or even CVC) that’s just not always the case. Sometimes people want opposite things and there really is no reasonable compromise.
As long as the person is OOCly handling it well, I don’t really consider it to be “poor sportsmanship” (as someone else cited) if their character has sour grapes. Some characters are annoying ICly. Avoiding them has always worked well for me.
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On a total tangent, I have mixed feelings about the term CvC and I don’t generally use it. Whilst I totally agree that conflict should be between characters and not players, I think that in reality it’s often messy in ways that aren’t necessarily obvious, provable, or fixable, and I’m not convinced that asserting there’s a distinction does anything to ameliorate these issues.
When players get salty over conflict not going their way, they will rarely actually say that. Instead they’ll say stuff like “I’m upset that this other player cheated/used an exploit/is being unthematic/is unpleasant OOCly/is hogging scenes/can’t write for shit/has a super generic character/only cares about the mechanical win” etc. even when whatever complaint they’re making is provably untrue.
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Yeah I agree. “CvC” just comes across to me as spin.
My understanding of PvP was already that our characters duke it out IC, not that I’m literally attacking players.
When I used to play GoldenEye 007 with my buddies on the good old Nintendo 64 and we put that shit on PvP mode we didn’t actually start shooting each other up with golden guns. And Nintendo didn’t have to come down and be like, “Nah bros, chill! It’s CvC!!!”
(Though we did talk shit plenty and accuse the other of cheating all the time or having a better controller. But what’s wrong with that?)
I don’t think using the term “PvP” for decades contributes to the problems we’re discussing, and I don’t think changing it to “CvC” solves any of the problems we’re discussing.
Hell - when your team is losing a football game a common refrain is that the referees rigged it. I don’t know what to say. Losing is going to result in salty balls some times. You should see my cousins play Uno.
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@howyadoin said in Non-toxic PvP:
I don’t think using the term “PvP” for decades contributes to the problems we’re discussing, and I don’t think changing it to “CvC” solves any of the problems we’re discussing.
I don’t think changing it to CvC is intended to solve problems, just clearly delineate IC vs OOC. For some people PvP bears the distinction that indeed the player of the character wishes to end the fun of other players.
Also, if you approach IC conflict in a fully RP MU (so a MUSH or MUX or whatever) as though it’s a round of all slappers in Goldeneye, I would suggest that you’re in the wrong place and would better be served by a PvP MUD.
