Recent content by Thomas Shey

There's two problems that come up here, and they interrelate: 1. Problems between two players don't stay there in many cases. Over time they're pretty likely to splash off on the group as a whole. 2. Not only are some people very confrontation-averse (they'll just sit and put up with...

I haven't run enough games set modern or near-future for it to usually be an issue, and the majority of those I have have been superhero games where its somewhat moot.

As I said, I've also seen people who read the stressors that will already be there for having to have that sort of exchange going on at all as more strongly accusative than they are (or perhaps they genuinely are, and the other person is trying--unsuccessfully--to keep it tamped down) and...

We were really late (by our standards) and only got them done last weekend. We usually do get it done in late February once all the forms are available. It doesn't hurt that we both file digitally and don't bother with much in the way of itemization.

Yeah, I sometimes think the "this is easily handled" responses show more that some people have been fortunate, either in not hitting it much in their gaming time, or in being able to be sufficiently fussy about who they game with that they could rarely having to deal with it, and not accepting...

Yeah, but the flip side of this is some people will say anything to avoid confrontation in person, or simply to satisfy their interlocator, while being willing to be a bit more honest and open at a distance. And the people causing problems in-game are the most likely to avoid any personal...

The difference is that here we're largely interacting with strangers. As such we have little or no contectual basis for the exchange in the first place. All being in person when a problem is being discussed is for people to read the body language involved in a negative way. Text is a cooler...

It goes beyond respect. It requires trust in other people's reactions and how that will play out, and bluntly, a lot of people don't have that with many other people, whether they're strangers, friends or coworkers. Heck people don't consistently have that with their significant others.

And to be fair, its one of those things that can vary from person to person. I just think the automatic assumption it'll work better FTF when there are already stressors does not stand up to my experience.

I'm not sure I always have the required skills, and most things suggest I'm better than the majority in this regard. If I only played with people who had the necessary personalities to be able to reliably have such discussions productively, I doubt I'd ever have got into the hobby at all.

I'm not sold this is actually a good suggestion; I've not infrequently found text a better way to do it, because its a cooler medium.

The general question is hard to answer without more context of the people involved. The answer to the last question is, in my experience (and this applies to any number of things beyond gaming) "It doesn't happen. Things continue on until they reach an intolerable level."

Heck, sometimes it applies even when the lead vocalist doesn't want it to. The visibility of that position is hard to get around.

It might move around who would have a problem with it, but it wouldn't change the fact its a pacing thing a fair number of people are going to be manifestly uninterested in.

There was a somewhat well-known San Diego RPG fan who used to call his APA zine focused on superhero gaming "Gods in Four Colors".