Why can't everybody be the adult?
It is just the way of things. Only if....
Our roleplay group is pretty static but we've had people's friends join before and at university (many many years ago now) I was part of the uni RPG club. I've never experienced anyone being hostile, violent, or disruptive in the ways you describe.
Well, if you have a fairly tight group that has no new members or you don't play with new people, I can see this happening. There are all sorts of bad people out there....
Controversial Point.
If railroading is not based on dm intent or player feeling then all mechanics are railroading.
Hummmm.....
It really isn't. And most of the people in this conversation seem to agree that it isn't.
Well, guess it depends. If you have a group of mature good friends that agree on nearly everything, then that is great. Of course, if you have anything less then that....
Again, it really well and truly is not. Your experience is so radically divergent from what even I--who have a lot of difficulties with social stuff--have ever faced, it genuinely borders on "this person is making this up, it's parody, it couldn't possibly be real". I know that you are serious, but there's a good reason more than one person has told me to stop taking your colorful anecdotes seriously. You describe what sounds like an absolutely horrendous, dystopian nightmare of viciousness, callousness, idiocy, and aggression, a dog-eat-dog world where everyone is arrogant, cruel, and contumacious to the point of preferring self-sabotage over ever allowing any structure or pattern to stand. This is so overwhelmingly extreme, so over-the-top, it is genuinely difficult to believe that you actually have this experience.
I really don't get how my saying like 20% of gamers are just bad people is such an amazing thing. It is no everyone, but it is more then enough. And really you meet this type of person often enough really anywhere.
This, above anything else, is why I have to wonder exactly how you have found such a
virulently hateful and hurtful social group, and why
@pemerton asked what methods you use to find new players. Because your experience, if it is in fact exactly as you've described it (e.g., if you aren't misinterpreting things, or in some way unintentionally bringing about this result), is just so
egregious, it sounds made-up.
To be clear, I have like five good groups of people I have made out of good players. I also have three, well, not so good groups.
Most of my 'new' (to me, not the game) players come either from introductions or just cold add posts. Two of my good groups like to have new people join, so we do that often. Though many players don't work out.
It's also why I have asked--more than once--if you have considered the possibility that your own behavior could be contributing to producing this experience. Your open contempt for developing positive regard between player and GM, for example, is not likely to help you retain players who have a friendly attitude, but very likely to ensure that players who backtalk, who delight in breaking your creations, who find perverse joy in being a jerk at your tables, will stick around--because GMs that fold over easily aren't nearly as interesting as GMs who try to restrain them and fail.
I don't think that my having standards creates bad players. Players show up to my game on time, or they don't play. It is a simple rule. I do not put up with players that are always late or always have "something happen" right before the game. If your the type of jerk that show up two hours after the game has started, I'll just send you away.
Players that are there just to disrupt my game don't last long. I require a LOT from players to play the game. So, much that it is hard to fake. So it is a lot of effort to 'fake' everything just to disrupt my game....
As said above, I know you have nothing but contempt for the idea of trying to relate to and understand your players...but would you consider giving it a shot? Your "Buddy GM" concept is a ridiculous caricature, and I wish you would stop pretending that it is in any way actually a thing, so....just note that I'm not asking you to be the thing you call a "Buddy GM". Instead, I'm suggesting that you actually try to be friendly and positive with/toward your players, in order to build up an understanding, rather than immediately presuming that every person is hostile and thus you have to strike first so they don't strike you.
Because that very attitude--"we MUST pre-emptively strike in order to prevent their first strike"--is precisely what creates the hostility you have described.
I'm not sure why I would try to "relate and understand" my players. I don't really see any reason to change my ways.
I'm not so hostile or full of contempt, and do start off as 'neutral' to a new player to my game. Though I do roughly give zero chances. And I'm not going to compromise my standards. If players just play the game and don't whine or complain, the game works out great!
How can I be "more friendly" without changing who I am?
I'm never going to accept players that lie, cheat, steal, bully, harass, torment, bother, hit on or do violence. Ever.
In my game players can not ask questions during the game. This works out GREAT! All my good players love it. I'm never going to stop the game play to answer one players dumb twenty questions.
I also don't allow 'joking around' during the game. You pull out your cell phone and start to say "wow, look at this cool Sora video!" I will tell you to go home and watch all the videos you want. But I'm more then fair here, as I will offer to this type of player "hey, why not make a time for all of us to come over your place OUTSIDE OF THE GAME and we can watch your videos ". Amazing people don't want to do that.
