Players, GMs, and "My character"...

[pawsplay]

From what I can tell, some of the folks here, like the Jester and Celebrim, seem to be arguing that the roleplaying purity of the game should take precedence over the emotional boundaries and personal comfort levels of the people playing the game. Which might work for your groups, and fair enough.

But for me, the enjoyment and comfort of the players comes way before the 'roleplaying purity' of the game.

I don't think that is the argument at all. I don't want to speak for them, but the point as I understand it and to some extent am sympathetic to, is that healthy emotional boundaries and personal comfort have very little to do with sensitivity to particular issues. The presumption is that the players are mature enough to handle the characters as presented in the context as presented.

Ex: Players are playing Star Wars game. Player 1 is playing a "space cowboy" in leather pants. Player 2 is playing a snooty arisocrat who spends way too much time on her hair in the middle of a civil war. PC 1 hits on PC 2 with some PG-rated banter. Player 2 says, "ZOMG, this is out of my comfort zone. Cease and desist all flirting immediately." Is Player 2 justified in insisting that Player 1 cool it?

"Blaming the victim" presumes a victim. The implication made above is that Player 2 is some kind of victim, but in fact, they are the social speedbump. In fact, it is Player 1 who is being faced with the charge of being unjustified, bad, and wrong. If the objection is that both PCs are played by males, then in fact Player 1 is likely the victim of homophobia and it is Player 2 who is blaming the victim.

 

[pawsplay]

Celebrim, your idea of "agnostic stance needs some work.

Hussar, I'm going to suggest you are a participant in this discussion who could benefit from considering Celebrim's "agnostic stance."

At this point Player 1 has a choice. Which is more important? Playing his character concept or the enjoyment of everyone at the table?

To me, it's as simple as that. That's the entire issue right there. And for me, and anyone I would prefer to play with, they'll choose the enjoyment of everyone at the table every single time. There are ten billion character concepts out there and limiting off one because it's going to make someone at the table feel very uncomfortable seems a pretty easy choice to me.

Apparently, though, some people feel differently. Apparently, for some people, the enjoyment of other players is secondary to their own enjoyment of the game.

Is is possible, even likely, that I can choose to enjoy the game on my own terms. How feasible is it for me to ensure that another player is enjoying the game? Do I have any real control over whether someone else is happy? Hussar, have you ever met any person that you strongly believe is just not going to be very happy, no matter what others do? How do you deal with people like that?

I consider two possible scenarios:
Scenario One: Five people all sitting around the table playing an RPG. Although they would like to individually enjoy themselves, these five have all decided that every time a conflict of interests arises, they will all defer to the enjoyment of others. In other words, each of the five is trying to guess what everyone else wants and provide it for them.
Scenario Two: Five people all sitting around the table playing an RPG. Although they would like the other group members to enjoy themselves, these five have all decided that every time a conflict of interests arises, they are going to assert their own preference. In other words, each of the give is trying to enjoy themselves as best they can, even if the others are unsuccessful in doing so.

Now, who is more capable of understanding what I enjoy, myself, or you? Which of these two groups do you think is likely to be the capable at enjoying themselves? Although both groups consist of reasonable, well-intentioned people, I think the second scenario is going to be more successful. I think people are better at pleasing themselves than being pleased by others, particularly groups of others with competing interests.

Again, the ideal outcome is for a conflict to be resolved to everyone's satisfaction, if perhaps not in the direction they prefer. In the absence of such an outcome, someone must lose. Player 1 may have to modify their character, or Player 2 may have to decide whether or not to leave. Perhaps a compromise is achievable: a compromise essentially means that both parties lose, to some degree acceptable to each. A compromise should never be presumed, because a compromise is not automatically just.

People have the right to play the character the group has already approved them to play. People have the right to leave a group if they don't like it. In the absence of some compromise, player 1 may play their character as imagined, or not, and player 2 may continue to endure the scenario, or not. Unless some consensus arises that the group may dissociate, as a whole, from player 1 ifthe characterization persists, player 2 may be left to "suck it up." But I don't like that phrasing, because it presumes player 2 has to endure something intolerable, which they do not. They may simply leave.

Unless Player 2 is somehow coerced into remaining the group, they really cannot be a victim of Player 1's actions, provided Player 1 acts in a mostly reasonable fashion.

 

[MrMyth]

Ex: Players are playing Star Wars game. Player 1 is playing a "space cowboy" in leather pants. Player 2 is playing a snooty arisocrat who spends way too much time on her hair in the middle of a civil war. PC 1 hits on PC 2 with some PG-rated banter. Player 2 says, "ZOMG, this is out of my comfort zone. Cease and desist all flirting immediately." Is Player 2 justified in insisting that Player 1 cool it?

It depends on the game and the people involved, in the end. Let's take the game out of it, and say I'm hanging out with some friends in real life. One of them starts some flirting with another who isn't really comfortable with it. Are they justified to ask them to stop? I'd say yes, as long as they are civil about doing so.

Now, of course, in a game we already have all sorts of stuff happen which we aren't likely to do in real life (like, say, killing and looting our enemies.) So does it become ok to have behavior between characters which wouldn't normally be acceptable by social standards?

I'd still say no - because the line between 'pretend flirting in game' is a lot closer to reality than 'shooting someone with a space gun'. If both people are cool with it, then they can go ahead and have fun with whatever banter they want, even if it might cross normal social boundaries. But if one of them isn't comfortable with it, I think those boundaries should be respected just as much as if the flirting was out-of-character.

Of course, this might not be true in an 'anything goes' sort of game. Or maybe the rest of the group really did just want to show up for a beer and pretzels game, and having to hold back on any raunchy jokes or comments out of fear of offending someone will ruin their own gaming experience. So the solution might be for the offended player to be the one to leave.

On the other hand, if that isn't the case, and the initiator is going to continue their unwanted flirtation despite the obvious discomfort of the other player, I'd say the problem definitely isn't with the person being offended, but with the gamer who doesn't have any respect for their friend's feelings.

 

[billd91]

Ex: Players are playing Star Wars game. Player 1 is playing a "space cowboy" in leather pants. Player 2 is playing a snooty arisocrat who spends way too much time on her hair in the middle of a civil war. PC 1 hits on PC 2 with some PG-rated banter. Player 2 says, "ZOMG, this is out of my comfort zone. Cease and desist all flirting immediately." Is Player 2 justified in insisting that Player 1 cool it?

Yes. Pretty much end of story, really. Player 2 shouldn't get his nose seriously out of joint about it (unless Playser 1 already knew about that particular line, then I think a bit more upset would be justified), but Player 1's responsibility at this point is to back off the subject area with Player 2.

 

[S'mon]

. Player 2 is in some way 'at fault' for being offended or made uncomfortable by Player 1's behavior...

...And I think someone's discomfort over that sort of behavior does take precedence over how someone else wants to play their character.

My feeling is that on the initial situation described*, Player B probably is "at fault" for being weirded out by another PC being in love with their PC. At the same time, this weirded-outness is a relatively minor character failing, the kind we normally learn to tolerate in our friends and associates. And the appropriate mature response to this character failing by Player A is to respect that Player B has issues, and not push it further.

*Or in the real-life situation Hussar described upthread. Likewise there, I think that on the facts Hussar gave, the player of the female short-term PC in love with Hussar's PC could not reasonably be expected to know that Hussar would be weirded out by the short-term PC's affections. It would be reasonable for her to think that Hussar the player had a minor character flaw. Yet she should still have respected his feelings and not pushed the matter.

There's a phrase in English law: "Concession to human frailty." I think it fits well here.

 

[Celebrim]

it looks like some prefer that this sort of thing should always be handled in character.

For me, I think it is great when such a conflict can be handled in character, and it can even offer some really powerful roleplaying opportunities.

But I think there are also times when OOC is not just acceptable, but is even the more appropriate response.

I don't disagree with any of that. I prefer it, because I think dealing with things IC is less harsh and more appropriate to an issue raised by someone else's in character play, but I do agree that there are exceptions where OOC communication are appropriate or even required. I want to highlight however that a person is perfectly right to expect IC responces to IC actions, and if you are the one who has to respond to an IC action in an OOC way the burden is on you to justify it. If I ever have to do that to another player, I'm probably going to start off with an apology and an explanation. I'm also going to prefer to try an IC approach first, and then if I think there is OOC communication to make I'm going to want to wait until a game break to make it, otherwise I'll probably be apologizing to the DM and other players as well for disrupting play.

It's not going to be my default stance that I'm being victimized here and people ought to be chagrined and falling in line with my perceptions and feelings. That's going to be true even if I'm very uncomfortable with the line of play (and if I'm very uncomfortable with the line of play, I'm thinking I may be the outlier in the group in terms of comfort zone and I might need to be the one that needs to get out).

You note that its ok for a group to discuss and determine what is acceptable before a campaign, but that once it starts, that isn't acceptable.

I didn't say it was unacceptable. I said it belonged to a different class of problems. And in particular, I've contended that no one person's opinion and feelings about what is acceptable ought to over rule anyone else's opinions. I am asserting only that you don't automatically get a say over how any one else plays their character.

It just doesn't seem reasonable to say that because a player didn't specifically mention they don't want other characters romantically pursuing them, they have to accept it and try to compromise with the player initiating such an uncomfortable situation.

Why are 'accept it' and 'try to compromise' treated as synonyms here? 'Trying to comprimise' means you don't accept it. It means you try to effect change to something you could accept. Why is that unreasonable? Why is it reasonable to suggest that you don't have to comprimise and that everyone else must respect and accept your feelings on every matter? Why indeed is does requirement to be accepting and tolerant only go in one direction.

If a situation comes up in game which crosses their boundaries, they should have the opportunity to speak out and ask that it stops.

I didn't say that they didn't. I just said that they can't expect that their feelings of discomfort are a unilateral and absolute veto on play.

Now, from there you say that Player 1 shouldn't have to curtail their roleplaying experience in order to satisfy the needs of Player 2, and thus both sides should be equally willing to compromise. I'm not sure that is true, either - as some have mentioned, that seems awfully close to victim blaming. Player 2 is in some way 'at fault' for being offended or made uncomfortable by Player 1's behavior. Player 1's roleplaying experience has equal weight as the personal comfort of Player 2.

This is the real heart of the disagreement. I don't think player #2 can claim to be a victim necessarily, nor do I agree that even if they can claim to be a victim that it gives them absolute moral authority of some higher order than anyone else at the table. Let's back up a second. Player #2's claim to victimhood status is based on what exactly? That they were made to feel uncomfortable by some imaginary situation occuring in a game? Why should we treat that as being a victim? So some other player had thier pretend persona flirt with your pretend persona, and all the sudden you are claiming to be a victim? Who granted you the right to get outraged, angry, or uncomfortable in that situation and why should I grant that because you feel outraged, angry, or uncomfortable that you have some right to justice and recompense?

Set aside flirting a second. Look at the general case here. In this thread we've had claims to victimhood based on the following examples: two other players were arguing in character, another player was adopting a youthful ward, another player playing a 'little person', having to kill an imaginary animal, and others. And we can imagine many many more things that might make someone uncomfortable but where its hard to see where the harm was done to the person who is complaining. Don't you see any of these cases as spurious claims of victimhood? Don't you think that even in the case of one player having his character romantically attracted to another player's character the claim of victimhood can be spurious?

In fact, the claim that you have been made a victim can be itself a form of passive aggression. What you are really saying is, "The other player is doing me injury, and we should condemn his actions as being in the wrong." When you claim to be a victim, you are claiming someone else is abusive. This is an attack on a person's character and a direct attack on that person's freedom, and it can well be spurious and unmerited regardless of the attacker's feelings. So can we really say who is being victimized here? Player #1 may be innocently pursuing a line of play, only to have player #2 in his face claiming he's abusive. Unless you have really been victimized, this is slander.

No one gets a blank check to claim to be a victim.

On the other hand, Celebrim seems, to me, to be setting the boundary line waaaay past what I think is appropriate: "it requires a lot more unconsensual and extreme case than anything that has been outlined here. An example would be essentially character rape, where one player dominated another player and forced them to engage in sexual acts or other perversions against their will".

Sure, but what constitutes appropriate play is an opinion. No one should expect there own opinion to trump anyone elses. When a conflict over where the boundaries should be occurs, you shouldn't immediately expect that the boundary is going to be drawn exactly where you want it. Instead you should expect that you might want it here, and another player might want it there and you are going to have to work out where to put it that everyone is going to be happy with or else stop playing together.

I think there are plenty of reasons for someone to be uncomfortable with the game content way before it gets to anything this extreme.

Absolutely. But the question is, do those necessarily require you to treat going OOC and being confrontation as a first recourse of dealing with your discomfort? Maybe, but not to me clearly so.

From what I can tell, some of the folks here, like the Jester and Celebrim, seem to be arguing that the roleplaying purity of the game should take precedence over the emotional boundaries and personal comfort levels of the people playing the game.

I don't think you even get what I'm saying yet.

But for me, the enjoyment and comfort of the players comes way before the 'roleplaying purity' of the game.

Has it not occurred to you that the enjoyment and comfort of the player may well be linked to the 'roleplaying purity' of the game? That is to say, not only may many of the players enjoy the game more when there is 'roleplaying purity', but they may become deeply uncomfortable and feel boundaries are being cross when there isn't. That is to say, from their perspective, they might find it deeply uncomfortable when someone breaks character, starts dumping their real life problems on them, and starts harranguing them about protecting their feelings.

To make a ludicrously extreme example, how would you feel in a game of Monopoly if when you asked for rent from another player, they launched into a tirade about the oppression of the capitalist system, how they'd once lost their house to an unscrupplous bank, how big money'd interests served to keep people oppressed and dependent on large landowners, and then accused you perpetuating an oppressive system founded on slavery? Wouldn't you want to reply, "Look, it's just a game. My actions in the game aren't necessarily reflective of my real world feelings about anything, much less my real feelings about you as a person. Can't we just play the game?"

 

[MrMyth]

This is the real heart of the disagreement. I don't think player #2 can claim to be a victim necessarily, nor do I agree that even if they can claim to be a victim that it gives them absolute moral authority of some higher order than anyone else at the table. Let's back up a second. Player #2's claim to victimhood status is based on what exactly? That they were made to feel uncomfortable by some imaginary situation occuring in a game? Why should we treat that as being a victim? So some other player had thier pretend persona flirt with your pretend persona, and all the sudden you are claiming to be a victim? Who granted you the right to get outraged, angry, or uncomfortable in that situation and why should I grant that because you feel outraged, angry, or uncomfortable that you have some right to justice and recompense?

Yeah, I think this really is at the heart of the matter. And it is a tricky question, again, where to draw that line - especially since it will likely be in a different place for different people.

But... we are starting to get into the sort of victim-blaming mentality, aren't we? It's not a far reach from the line of thinking you propose to similar lines of thinking to justify actual harassment. "Oh, just because the guy made some inappropriate sexual comments about you, you don't get to claim to be a victim?"

No one needs to be granted the 'right' to be made uncomfortable by someone else, or the opportunity to speak up when that occurs. And no one is asking for 'justice and recompense' - they are asking another player to stop the behavior that makes them uncomfortable. There are any number of reasons why one might bring up such concerns, and there are any number of ways to potentially resolve them.

But in this case, one player engaged in behavior that directly involved another character and caused immediate discomfort to them. I'd say the burden is on that first player to try and respect his friend's boundaries - at least, based on the example we started from.

You bring up some other examples:

two other players were arguing in character, another player was adopting a youthful ward, another player playing a 'little person', having to kill an imaginary animal, and others. And we can imagine many many more things that might make someone uncomfortable but where its hard to see where the harm was done to the person who is complaining.

As I think several people have mentioned, the main point when the line was crossed was when involving another player/character. Like I said, I don't think it would be reasonable for someone to demand that no one can play halflings because they were sensitive about their height. But I do think it would be reasonable for them to ask another player not to constantly hurl height-based insults at them directly if it bothered them in real life.

In fact, the claim that you have been made a victim can be itself a form of passive aggression. What you are really saying is, "The other player is doing me injury, and we should condemn his actions as being in the wrong." When you claim to be a victim, you are claiming someone else is abusive. This is an attack on a person's character and a direct attack on that person's freedom, and it can well be spurious and unmerited regardless of the attacker's feelings. So can we really say who is being victimized here? Player #1 may be innocently pursuing a line of play, only to have player #2 in his face claiming he's abusive. Unless you have really been victimized, this is slander.

I'm going to say that I am not a fan of this line of thinking. Yes, there are degrees of behavior here, but I think it saying, "This behavior of yours is creeping me out, please stop" is very different from saying, "You are abusing and victimizing me, and need to be condemned."

Asking someone to stop disruptive behavior is not "a direct attack on that person's freedom". If Player 2 has been made uncomfortable, they can bring this up without 'slandering' Player 1. Where things go from there... that's a trickier question. But sharing your honest feelings and concerns about a situation? The second you condemn that as a problem is the second you are encouraging actual harasshment and discouraging people speaking out against it.

Sure, but what constitutes appropriate play is an opinion. No one should expect there own opinion to trump anyone elses. When a conflict over where the boundaries should be occurs, you shouldn't immediately expect that the boundary is going to be drawn exactly where you want it. Instead you should expect that you might want it here, and another player might want it there and you are going to have to work out where to put it that everyone is going to be happy with or else stop playing together.

Like I said - the general code I've been suggesting here is that if another player is initiating uncomfortable behavior that directly involves your character, the burden is on them to step back from that behavior. That won't always be true, and there are groups where it will outright not be the case.

But saying that someone should always be open to compromise... I just don't agree. If Player 2 is upset because Player 1 is constantly insulting him, it isn't an acceptable compromise to say that Player 1 will only insult him half as often. That doesn't actually solve the problem.

Absolutely. But the question is, do those necessarily require you to treat going OOC and being confrontation as a first recourse of dealing with your discomfort? Maybe, but not to me clearly so.

I think you're reading more into 'being confrontational' than any of us are suggesting. Going OOC, to me, means first trying to resolve things as peacefully as possible - telling someone why the behavior bothers you and asking them to stop. If you instead resort to in-character retribution, that strikes me as far more confrontational - and far more dangerous in the long run.

Has it not occurred to you that the enjoyment and comfort of the player may well be linked to the 'roleplaying purity' of the game? That is to say, not only may many of the players enjoy the game more when there is 'roleplaying purity', but they may become deeply uncomfortable and feel boundaries are being cross when there isn't. That is to say, from their perspective, they might find it deeply uncomfortable when someone breaks character, starts dumping their real life problems on them, and starts harranguing them about protecting their feelings.

Yes. That's exactly what I just said. You feel that someone's enjoyment of being immersed in the pure roleplaying of the game should be weighted equally with another player's personal comfort zone of acceptable behavior. And if that is how your group feels, that is fine.

For me, that isn't the case. With the groups I'm in, it is generally friends first, gamers second.

To make a ludicrously extreme example, how would you feel in a game of Monopoly if when you asked for rent from another player, they launched into a tirade about the oppression of the capitalist system, how they'd once lost their house to an unscrupplous bank, how big money'd interests served to keep people oppressed and dependent on large landowners, and then accused you perpetuating an oppressive system founded on slavery? Wouldn't you want to reply, "Look, it's just a game. My actions in the game aren't necessarily reflective of my real world feelings about anything, much less my real feelings about you as a person. Can't we just play the game?"

Not a good example - someone going into a Monopoly game should expect that rent is part of the game, after all. And, as I've said several times - if one player's issue with a campaign is an irreconcilable one, the burden will likely be on them to leave the game. If a game is up-front designed for an evil party to do terrible things, and will deal with mature themes and content, then someone who will be disturbed by that behavior shouldn't be playing the game.

But in most games, that isn't the expectation.

Like I said, the line can fall in various places. Each group needs to find out for themselves where it lies. And when conflict comes up between two different players, there is no guarantee of who will be in the right. But when they activity is initiated by one player, and involves another player against their will or desire, I'd say the burden is on the first player to back down.

That won't always be the case, but it certainly is on the topics that started out this discussion, with behavior that can easily trigger real world comfort zones about relationships, harasshment and unwanted attention.

 

[Hussar]

Is is possible, even likely, that I can choose to enjoy the game on my own terms. How feasible is it for me to ensure that another player is enjoying the game? Do I have any real control over whether someone else is happy? Hussar, have you ever met any person that you strongly believe is just not going to be very happy, no matter what others do? How do you deal with people like that?

Well, when someone else specifically tells me that what I'm doing is making them unhappy, it's pretty easy to know that what I'm doing is not contributing to everyone having fun at the table.

Now, as far as someone never being happy, well, I don't play with people like that. Obviously.

But, that's moving the goalposts. No one is claiming that you should bow down to someone who is being totally unreasonable. What is being claimed is that someone who takes the extraordinary step of actually complaining about someone's behavior to their face in a social situation probably isn't doing it just to squash someone else's fun.

People keep trying to make this apply in all cases, coming up with scenario after scenario where it might not be true and pointing, "See! It's unreasonable to listen to Player 2 here, so, we should never listen to Player 2."

No. If a player at the table has honestly drawn the line at some behavior, you have two choices and only two choices.

You can choose to ignore their concerns or you can respect their concerns.

Again, I don't play with people who would willingly put their own fun ahead of anyone else at the table.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
*Or in the real-life situation Hussar described upthread. Likewise there, I think that on the facts Hussar gave, the player of the female short-term PC in love with Hussar's PC could not reasonably be expected to know that Hussar would be weirded out by the short-term PC's affections. It would be reasonable for her to think that Hussar the player had a minor character flaw. Yet she should still have respected his feelings and not pushed the matter.

There's a phrase in English law: "Concession to human frailty." I think it fits well here.

Oh, totally. I hope I didn't give the impression that I thought she had done anything wrong. She hadn't. I didn't let it be known that this line of play was making me uncomfortable. I tried to play through it. But, I spent about six, seven sessions, being very, very uncomfortable all the time as this was coming up just about every scene.

In the end, I tried to solve the issue "in character" and it led to rather hurt feelings as I way over reacted.

This is why I feel it should have immedietely been taken OOC. If I had made it known up front that I wasn't having fun, I know she would have backed off and respected that.

My bad for not being up front in the first place.

 

[Celebrim]

Yeah, I think this really is at the heart of the matter. And it is a tricky question, again, where to draw that line - especially since it will likely be in a different place for different people.

Yes. Now we are at almost full agreement.

But... we are starting to get into the sort of victim-blaming mentality, aren't we? It's not a far reach from the line of thinking you propose to similar lines of thinking to justify actual harassment. "Oh, just because the guy made some inappropriate sexual comments about you, you don't get to claim to be a victim?"

This is going to get political if we don't watch it, but I hold to a strict definition of blaming the victim. Sometimes "blaming the victim" is brought up as a defense by people who adopt spurious passive aggresive stances and then are called on it. This is unfortunate, because it makes it harder for actual victims to defend themselves.

Actually "blaming the victim" is something like: "If you didn't want to recieve cat calls, you should have dressed more modestly." or "You shouldn't go to clubs dressed like that, you were just asking for it." Now, there may be some truth to those statements, however they are not in any way excuses for the behavior of the attackers. However, suggesting that someone had no real grounds for taking offense, is not blaming the victim. For example, if I have two colleagues at work who in a private conversation good naturedly rib each other about their personal appearance, or even touchy things like race or gender, if I overhear that, what real grounds do I have for taking offense at comments not directed at me and which the parties in the conversation thought amusing. I'm asserting a right to be offended that I don't actually have. No real harm came to me. The people I observed were clearly tolerant of each other, what grounds do I have for injecting my intolerance? Granted, this is not a clear cut bright line sort of thing, but that is exactly my point.

Out in the real world, friends tease each other all the time. It is a means of testing whether or not you are the sort of person that goes all to peices over little and makes big emotional scenes, and sometimes its a means of finding out where your boundaries are. "So and so has issues with X, so let's avoid bringing that up when they are around."

No one needs to be granted the 'right' to be made uncomfortable by someone else...

I'm not even going to argue this one because I don't know how to go there within the rules and now I'm having to skirt the line already.

And no one is asking for 'justice and recompense' - they are asking another player to stop the behavior that makes them uncomfortable.

Yes, just like I said. In the real world, you go to court to bring injunctions against people. They are very much asking for 'justice' when they bring this up, and failing justice I think it's very clear that people in this thread have been quick to assert their right to retribution.

But in this case, one player engaged in behavior that directly involved another character and caused immediate discomfort to them. I'd say the burden is on that first player to try and respect his friend's boundaries - at least, based on the example we started from.

I would agree that the first person has a burden on them to recognize that they have made the other player uncomfortable and to find a way to back off. I don't agree that there is some absolute standard that says, "Ok, now you have been wronged, so sound you hue and cry of 'Justice' as loud as you like." We are after all supposed to be among friends. Nor do I agree that your right to play your character gives you the absolute right to determine when and how anything else in the game world, and most especially the other PC's, interacts with you.

But I do think it would be reasonable for them to ask another player not to constantly hurl height-based insults at them directly if it bothered them in real life.

Sure, that would be reasonable.

Yes, there are degrees of behavior here, but I think it saying, "This behavior of yours is creeping me out, please stop" is very different from saying, "You are abusing and victimizing me, and need to be condemned."

Can you explain how? And in particular, can you explain how in a way that justifies the assertion that it is fully incombant on player #1 to change and not at all on player #2?

Asking someone to stop disruptive behavior is not "a direct attack on that person's freedom".

Yes it is. Freedom doesn't mean anything if it isn't freedom to occasionally cause offense. It's precisely offensive speach that is protected by the first ammendment. It's precisely the things that other people might object to that define whether we have any freedom at all.

If Player 2 has been made uncomfortable, they can bring this up without 'slandering' Player 1.

I can think of only one way how.

But saying that someone should always be open to compromise... I just don't agree. If Player 2 is upset because Player 1 is constantly insulting him, it isn't an acceptable compromise to say that Player 1 will only insult him half as often. That doesn't actually solve the problem.

This is probably just a momentary lapse by you, but I really want to hammer on it anyway. If Player 2 is upset because Player 1 is constantly insulting him, we have a totally different class of problem than what we've been discussing. If Player 2 is upset because Player's #1's character is constantly insulting player #2's character, then we first have to make sure that both player #1 and player #2 haven't forgotten that they are not their character. And if player #2 is playing a role-playing game for crying out loud, then that there are things that might make them uncomfortable is I think taken with about as much given as that there will be rents and payments in monopoly. The proper course of action is for player #2 to work out the situation in a way that is fun for everyone involved.

That said, as a DM, I'm not going to give prior approval to a character concept that involves being a jerk to the other player character's unless I really know and trust the player and have reason to believe that the how the party conflict will be handled has been worked out in advance and that all the players at the table are mature and secure enough in themselves to handle it. And if we have a player who spontaneously starts having his character act like a jerk, I'm going to pay very close attention to emotional spillover from OOC into the IC game just like I watch out for IC spilling over into the OOC game.

I think you're reading more into 'being confrontational' than any of us are suggesting. Going OOC, to me, means first trying to resolve things as peacefully as possible - telling someone why the behavior bothers you and asking them to stop.

Sadly this is not usually true. In my experience, players that have been made to feel uncomfortable tend to have all the beliefs about that that you and others here have outlined - namely, that they have been wronged, that the person who has wronged them has no recourse but to apologize/retcon/back off/etc., that they have a right to be angry and upset, and that if an apology is not forth coming that the person should be thrown out of the group. People holding to these convictions do not actually in fact try to resolve things peacefully when they go OOC. They don't feel that they have a responcibility to do so. They feel instead entitled to something, and so they don't confess this as a small character flaw, they don't apologize, they don't try to empathize with the other players position, or anything of the sort. "Why should they have to do so?" as so many people in this thread have immediately forcefully proclaimed. "My feelings were hurt." "You did something to me." "You made me uncomfortable." None of these things are the basis of a peaceful resolution.

In point of fact, switching to OOC publicly and in front of the group is an immediate escalation of the situation. Even the most mature player who is jolted out of an IC state where he's holding on to the thought, "These actions don't reflect my assessment of my friends, or my friends assessment of me", is going to be immediately thrown on the defensive and probably made quite angry by someone taking the in game events as personal attacks. And this is particularly true because by making the appeal in front of the group, you are putting the other person on trial in front of the rest of his friends - who themselves are very likely to unconsciously or even openly begin playing the roles of judge and jury.

If I see this, and I'm DMing, I'm going to try to immediately shut it down because there is just about no good that can come out of people snipping at each other IC and 9 times in 10 if I can get peoples heads back in the game we can move on with no more hard feelings and people will cool off.

Besides all the other reasons I've outlined, I think I can justify my position on this grounds alone - if you believe as I have suggested, you are more likely to make a diplomatic and tactful appeal to another player to resolve a conflict peacefully than if you think you have no responcibility at all to comprimise with that player.

If you instead resort to in-character retribution, that strikes me as far more confrontational - and far more dangerous in the long run.

Only if the player is severely confused about the difference between IC and OOC. In my experience, there isn't any OOC conflict that can't be worked out ICly by the same sort of methods (and then some) by which people work out conflict in the real world. And if it can't be worked out IC neatly, then it certainly isn't going to get worked out OOC neatly. Personally, as DM, I find brawls between the player characters are alot easier to deal with than brawls between the players themselves. YMMV, but I find IC arguments tend to be alot less tense than OOC ones, even when some element of that IC argument reflects OOC tensions.

For me, that isn't the case. With the groups I'm in, it is generally friends first, gamers second.

Mine too. Which I why I've got the standards I do, so that conflicts in the game can be left in the game, and disappear when we get up from the table. I've tried it the other way, and it just makes for a painful real life soap opera, rather than an amusing in hindsight now you can laugh about it in game one.