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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3792211" data-attributes="member: 4937">Can we define a difference between 'acting like a jerk', and 'is a jerk'?  Because I think that it is quite possible for someone to act like a jerk in some context or from time to time, without actually being a thoroughly unpleasant person.  I think a sentence like, "My friend whom I normally get along with quite well, acts like a jerk when he DM's because the power goes to his head and he always wants to show off his uber-DM PC and be the center of attention.", is a perfectly valid one.  Or even, "My friend, whom I normally get along with quite well, often acts like a jerk when he plays D&D because he's hyper-competitive and automatically assumes an adversarily role with the DM without even realizing it."  Or even, "My friend, who is an excellent DM and a great roleplayer, is a totally dysfunctional player, because he always creates an NPC with this elaborate background and anti-social motivations, rather than a heroic PC that can get along with everyone else in the party."  Or even, "My friend's girl friend, whom I like alot in other contexts, is a pain to role play with because she's used to being the DM's pet and always getting her way."Real world social sitautions are messy.  Someone earlier said:"It should go without saying that issues exist in and/or stem from the game, not because you have a collection of complete jerks and idiots around the table."I agree entirely.  We get pretty much no where if we assume that any problems someone encounters are entirely because those people that had them are complete jerks and thoroughly unpleasant people, or even merely bad DM's or players.  That doesn't perclude that from being the problem from case to case, but it's not a very good general answer.  Even the above cases of dysfunctional behavior don't imply that the people involved are thoroughly unpleasant people, or even that the dysfunctionality is always so bad that a good time can't normally be had by all.  I believe that you persisted in arguing that if there was a problem it was because there was something mentally/spiritually wrong with the person, even when Reynard tried to assert that game play issues were at least a partial cause of the problem - not necessarily that the players were bad people.  Unless you say what you think the extent of the import I'm attaching to the rules is, I can't tell you whether you understand me or not.  I'm certainly not saying that the rules entirely create the social problems, but I think that they can contribute to them.  For example, in Monopoly you have an explicitly adversarial game which most of the time deadlocks early in play (no one owns a complete set and so no one can obtain enough advantage to bankrupt anyone because the average payout per round of the board is greater than the average total payment).  The only way to break these deadlocks is through negotiation.  The assumption of fair play is that the deadlock will be broken in a way that doesn't explicitly favor one party over another (people will only trade when doing so furthers them to victory), but in practice even if this is possible the game is often thrown when one party on a whim favors losing to one opponent over another one (spouse, favored parent, same gender, etc.)  If the game had a better deadlock resolution mechanic, it would avoid this potential source of friction.  Look, I'm as transparent as mud, as unabrasive as sandpaper, and as pithy as Tolstoy.  I know that I'm hard to read sometimes.  However, between your strong declarations of not understanding the point in one post, and strong declarations of understanding in another, and the fact that you seem to want to simplify complex problems down to breezy dismissals, you are pretty hard to understand as well.  So, I'll comprimise.  If you have the time or inclination, why don't you do me the honor of stopping not saying what you are actually thinking even at the risk of being rude or sarcastic, so at least I'll know what you are thinking, and I'll try to remember this isn't a Mixed Martial Rhetoric ring.</blockquote>

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