Is it normal to view unpleasant, controversial or “dumb” in-character behaviour this negatively? If a character causes trouble, is that considered subversive to the community or even rude? Is disruption and conflict not the bread and butter of telling stories together?
I’m seeing why this character might have been a problem to other characters, but I guess I don’t see why that means the OOC actor was a problem. Seems like a lot of bleed.
This is absolutely something I think (or at least hope) that many of these techthusiasts just don’t get. They’re up to their elbows in snizbangs per faloop and productivity metrics per powerpoint presentation that they don’t see reality.
See also: splitting the atom, letting every idiot have a handgun
As per usual, capitalism makes things 1000% worse.
I don’t mind that humanity has unlocked the ability to generate human-like text in response to a prompt, but I DO mind that LLMs are now hooked to millions of bot accounts designed to propagandise the social media landscape.
I don’t mind that we have the ability to sort samples of text into broad categories, but I do mind that it’s being used to screen for abusive content without a human in the loop I can appeal to when blatantly bigoted speech slips through the cracks.
I don’t mind that people have the ability to generate images for personal use, but I do mind the interminable pile of slop other people have generated filling up online spaces I used to visit for real, human-created content.
Sadly because We Live In A Society it’s pretty much impossible to separate the existence of technology from the way it is being used, and there is nothing to do about it but opt out as much as possible and complain loudly that Microsoft ever thought a new AI-lead operating system was a good idea.
I’m here trying to figure out how AI image generation is gonna reduce menial labour for me. What is it gonna do? Make an image of someone doing my laundry???
@RedRocket said in pvp vs pvp:
- Finally, and most importantly, don’t give a fuck about people’s feelings. Don’t punish people for telling dirty jokes or saying things that are offensive on the non-public com channels or in pages.
Yeah… What? What offensive things, specifically, do you think ought to be allowed? 
I think I can guess.
You know, I kinda don’t care if anyone leaves a PvP game without giving it a chance. At least they know what they want out of their RP experience and are mature enough to recognise it. A PvP game absolutely won’t benefit from a population of players who don’t like PvP and hope desperately it’ll never become a factor.
I like competitive gameplay and all, but I wanna be playing with people who also want that. Let’s allow people to curate their own experience and move on if it isn’t their thing.
If anyone actually does end up making the PvP WoD game of their dreams, I’d play. Put me on your mailing list.
I’m also grateful that as a hobby we collectively kicked all the edgy racists and misogynists to the curb. It’s the best.
I think the short answer is that the person making the decisions doesn’t know for sure that they’re a bad actor.
They might have heard rumours. But people lie. And every messy conflict has two sides coming away with two different inaccurate stories even if they don’t -think- they’re lying. Gamerunners aren’t wrong if they want to judge a player by their firsthand experiences with that player rather than an incomplete narrative.
Disclaimer: I’m not on the grapevine so don’t take this as commentary on any specific situation that might be currently unfolding.
@bear_necessities said in World Tone / Feeling:
I’ve always felt that while people say they want consequences in their RP, a vast majority of people don’t really want it. At least not permanent consequences.
You’re definitely right here and I think players could do more introspection about what they actually want before they commit to a less forgiving game.
I think I’m just scarred from previous experiences though because we’ve now said “consequences” so many times that it’s starting to lose its meaning to me.
I take “consequences” to mean “oh no I went adventuring without a light source and ran away from a bear and fell into a ravine and now I’m stuck until someone rescues me”.
But sometimes “consequences” means you pissed off someone with a lot of friends and they’re going to petition the admin to fire you from your IC job because you did not use the correct hand to wave to Ms Pennybottom at the annual fair. Sometimes “consequences” just translates to player infighting and yes people generally hate getting socially punished over made up minutae.
Breaking your ankle though, let’s do that more.
I think a game can have genuine dangers and consequences for losses other than unceremonious death. You can get injured, cursed, trapped, etc. I think you can also sit players down and set expectations that they won’t endlessly throw themselves into unwinnable battles just because they aren’t deleted upon a loss.
I also don’t see it as an issue of conflicting playstyles between mechanically-focused minmaxing and collaborative storytelling. What I’d like is firmly collaborative storytelling. It’s just not collaborative storytelling about tea parties and everybody being friends.
One day I’ll get my gritty survival post-apocalypse game where it really does feel like there’s danger around every corner that’ll get me if I slip up for a moment. And hopefully it won’t immediately devolve into hot tub weed party time, because a shocking number of players who sign up for a horror / struggle bus experience don’t respect that theme even though there are already countless games where you can party all day.
On the other hand, a lot of “harsh survival” games feature permadeath and that’s not my jam. It makes people risk avoidant and boring. I’m okay with my character getting hurt, getting knocked out, getting trapped somewhere. I just don’t want to slip on a banana peel and be unceremoniously deleted without so much as a story beat.
Half of these words are made up, I swear. It must be tough living in such a bizarre self-made delusion.
Good fucking riddance.
Totally normal and well-adjusted behaviour from these knuckle-dragging chuds.
Honestly, could anything else bring the community together this well?
Oh, this shit absolutely happens everywhere. It happens in my game.
I interpreted this thread as a warning about two specific players residing in a specific game.
This kind of mobbing behaviour where a couple of people choose a victim to isolate and corral a bunch of flying monkeys to harrass them (because they “deserve it”) is such a classic move in this hobby that I could name a few players off the top of my head.
I think I’m safe though, because WoD isn’t something I play in.
