Players 'distressed' by gang-rape role-playing game

lowkey13 · Jun 11, 2019

*Deleted by user*

Bedrockgames · Jun 11, 2019

lowkey13 said:
So yeah, I blame a very vocal portion of the hobby. Is it the same vocal portion that you are blaming?

I think the hobby is extremely polarized and personally I am not much of a fan of either extreme. I think it is becoming harder and harder for people to have honest disputes and disagreements without folks loading a large quantity of assumptions upon you for simple disagreement. Here you are essentially saying anyone who disagrees with you is toxic or terrible in some other way, and that is the reason they disagree. That isn't how normal humans operate in my view. I assume you are taking the position you currently take on this issue because you genuinely think it is right. I happen to think it is misguided, but I don't think you are doing it from some kind of bad intent.

Bedrockgames · Jun 11, 2019

Gradine said:
You've yet to make a convincing argument for why we ought to consider that a bad thing.

I think I have. My view of it is we are giving into our worse nature online when we publicly shame or go after people like this, or when we recklessly pursue a moral program of some kind in the wake of such an event. I think there is a lot of cruelty being expressed in this thread and people don't see it, because they think they are so correct. Personally I am not a big fan of cruelty.

MarkB · Jun 11, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
I think I have. My view of it is we are giving into our worse nature online when we publicly shame or go after people like this, or when we recklessly pursue a moral program of some kind in the wake of such an event. I think there is a lot of cruelty being expressed in this thread and people don't see it, because they think they are so correct. Personally I am not a big fan of cruelty.

So, when you have clear evidence of somebody behaving cruelly towards others, how would you proceed in resolving that situation?

macd21 · Jun 11, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
Obviously I disagree. I think we are seeing the whole hobby focus on this one individual over one incident and many are calling for him to be banned from other cobs, for him to be pushed out of the hobby, and for reforms like all cons using X cards as a result of all this. I think it is fair to question whether this is moving in a good direction, whether this response is appropriate and whether it is going to cause undo hardship on the GM in question. Everyone is so confident in the moral judgment of the community and of the ability of this kind of online reaction to produce good results. I am not. Again I think there is good reason to be cautious here. Personally I am pretty uncomfortable with the reaction. And like I said, I have been pretty uncomfortable with how the hobby has become more moblike online.

Is this indicative of the hobby moving in a good direction? Let’s see: GM used rape to try and squick his players. The result was that the incident was investigated, and the GM was banned from the con in question, and probably other cons. Seems appropriate, and not undue hardship to the GM in question. So all positives there. Encouraging use of X cards is another positive.

As for ‘the moral judgement of the community’ and ‘the ability of this kind of online reaction to produce good results,’ again you are twisting what happened into something it’s not. The GM was not banned because of the online reaction, he was banned because the con organizers investigated the situation and reacted appropriately. This has nothing to do with an online mob denigrating his name. The difference social media made in this case is that A) it brought the incident to the con’s attention, and B) it fostered a climate in which people feel more confident about bringing complaints, and organizations are more inclined to take them seriously.

Dannyalcatraz · Jun 11, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
I think I have. My view of it is we are giving into our worse nature online when we publicly shame or go after people like this, or when we recklessly pursue a moral program of some kind in the wake of such an event. I think there is a lot of cruelty being expressed in this thread and people don't see it, because they think they are so correct. Personally I am not a big fan of cruelty.

Foreseeable repercussions for actions =/= cruelty.

What happened to this (AFAICT) rightfully blackballed GM is not appreciably different than getting banned for being a jerk in ENWorld, save for the publicity that means he may face bans from more than one convention.

And even then, people get subjected to heightened scrutiny across boards like this, especially if they use the same usernames on multiple sites.

See also football hooliganism and travel restrictions related thereto.

Bedrockgames · Jun 11, 2019

MarkB said:
So, when you have clear evidence of somebody behaving cruelly towards others, how would you proceed in resolving that situation?

I would not publicly shame them or try to push them out if the hobby. I would probably something in the moment. Again it isn’t so black and white.

MarkB · Jun 11, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
I would not publicly shame them or try to push them out if the hobby. I would probably something in the moment. Again it isn’t so black and white.

Wouldn't it bother you that your "in the moment" solution would leave them free to be just as cruel again, when you're not looking?

lowkey13 · Jun 11, 2019

*Deleted by user*

Umbran · Jun 11, 2019

Bedrockgames said:
It is a subjective sense of course

Okay. But do you not recognize that means the strength of your argument comes only from your personal credibility?

Do you even want that? Do you really want anyone to change their behavior based on what you admit is merely a subjective sense? I mean, apply that to basically *any other real problem people face* - do you want people acting on subjective senses, or real, solid information?

Be the change you seek - if you don't want people to take subjective senses at face value on other important things, don't look for it here.

but this topic is getting a lot of discussion on social media among gamers (including this rather long thread).

This thread is less than five percent of the EN World posts for the period since it started.

Any time this sort of thing occurs it tends to become a big topic of discussion.

For some value of "big"...

But... you should ask yourself how much of that is the public shaming of the person in question, and how much of it is arguments like this, where we are spending posts and posts trying to deal with reactions like yours? How much are *you* driving the topic?

I don’t think ‘all gamers’ care about it.

"I think we are seeing the whole hobby focus on this one individual..." Those were your words, a mere two hours ago.

So, now what are we to think about your position? See earlier in the post, when I noted you'd positioned yourself to be based on credibility?