Player Review on: Arelith

[xanrael]

You're right in that no one is going to get along with everyone and going out of your way to read what people may think about you can lead to a bad time. That said, I disagree with this bit:

I'm overall fairly unsympathetic with the OP's messaging of character assassination, etc. If you don't want to get involved, it's really very easy not to to.

Don't go on the forums. Don't go on Discord. Play in -notells. Enjoy the purity of Arelith.

If you're playing with others that listen and choose to believe the gossip you're going to feel the effects of it in how they interact with your PC but simply be ignorant of why you're snubbed or on people's black list. Instead of "this person really hates me and has been spreading rumors" you might instead think "wow my RP must be really shit". Ignorance is only bliss if you're dealing with zero repercussions.

[Wrips]

If people decide to believe on third parties, there's nothing you can do.

There are pricks here, there are good people, there are ex-pricks turned good people and there's ex-good people turned pricks. If someone is going to avoid you based on a narrative made by third parties, that's their choice, as childish as it may be.

People should stop seeking validation on an online game. If you think a certain characteristic of your roleplay is inadequate or anything similar, ask for guidance from someone you trust instead of immediately assuming the worst.

[xanrael]

You can engage the other party (the one originally ticked at you) in honest and open discussion and attempt to work things out. Sincerely apologize for whatever upset them and explain it was unintentional but you understand their side now.

I'm not saying that will always work, but I don't think there are as many sociopaths as we might want to believe there are. Likewise pulling the "I'm sorry you're upset about that" line sidestepping any fault on your part is going to come off as not really caring.

In general though both sides have a bit of a valid point and are just on here to RP and have fun playing with others. You might not be the best friends in the end with them but can reach a basic understanding.

[Lady Astray]

I'm going to be speaking in general, not directing this at any one person, and trying to be as vague as possible so people don't feel like I am "calling them out" or "assassinating their character."

If you are on team good, you need to act like you are on team good. If you are on team evil, you need to act like you are on team evil. If you are on team neutral, you need to be doing neutral things that won't step in anyone else's cornflakes.

If you are on team good, and you decide it's okay to murder your political opponents, while having tea parties with pit fiends, balors, and vampires, people are gonna talk about you. If you are on team evil, and every slave or prisoner that gets sent to you for interrogation gets a gift basket and a free ticket back to the surface, people are gonna talk about you.

Want to play a nuanced morally grey character that steps on everybody's toes, acts like a jerk, and causes conflict for the sake of conflict? Enjoy your controversy.

From what I've seen a lot of the whining about "character assassination" or "rumor mongering" is people attempting to gaslight and bully other players for exposing the shady things they've done IC in the past. I'm sorry, but you don't get to animate the dead and then pretend it didn't happen the next day. Your characters' actions IC have consequences, not just for you but for other players and their characters. Be mindful that if you force unwanted consequences on other players, they might try to do the same to you.

[satan]

Oversensitivity - For clarification, I'm all about the Be Nice rule; OOC. Be civil to your fellow players. Remember that because someone shanked your toon last week doesn't mean they hate your guts and you should verbally castigate them today. However, the idea that something going wrong with your characters is an offense against you by another player is a dominant one here, and there are, at least monthly, people issuing complaints against IC behaviors and all I can think to myself is "would you like us to change your diaper for you, too?"

Hah. I recently discovered this one. Rped an event in the UD with one of the more prominent players in UD in the drow circle that ended up in PVP. I lost.

I messaged him to give a virtual high 5 for the good RP.

Turns out it wasn't RP on his part, and I was met with threats to kill me every 24 hours, how he was friends with everyone and I would be black balled from the server, and a host of other nastiness.

It didn't slow me down any, but I definitely avoid him and the drow cliques like cancer now.

[Huschpfusch]

Oversensitivity - For clarification, I'm all about the Be Nice rule; OOC. Be civil to your fellow players. Remember that because someone shanked your toon last week doesn't mean they hate your guts and you should verbally castigate them today. However, the idea that something going wrong with your characters is an offense against you by another player is a dominant one here, and there are, at least monthly, people issuing complaints against IC behaviors and all I can think to myself is "would you like us to change your diaper for you, too?"

Hah. I recently discovered this one. Rped an event in the UD with one of the more prominent players in UD in the drow circle that ended up in PVP. I lost.

I messaged him to give a virtual high 5 for the good RP.

Turns out it wasn't RP on his part, and I was met with threats to kill me every 24 hours, how he was friends with everyone and I would be black balled from the server, and a host of other nastiness.

It didn't slow me down any, but I definitely avoid him and the drow cliques like cancer now.

If someone is threatening you like that you should contact Arelith staff

[The GrumpyCat]

Oversensitivity - For clarification, I'm all about the Be Nice rule; OOC. Be civil to your fellow players. Remember that because someone shanked your toon last week doesn't mean they hate your guts and you should verbally castigate them today. However, the idea that something going wrong with your characters is an offense against you by another player is a dominant one here, and there are, at least monthly, people issuing complaints against IC behaviors and all I can think to myself is "would you like us to change your diaper for you, too?"

Hah. I recently discovered this one. Rped an event in the UD with one of the more prominent players in UD in the drow circle that ended up in PVP. I lost.

I messaged him to give a virtual high 5 for the good RP.

Turns out it wasn't RP on his part, and I was met with threats to kill me every 24 hours, how he was friends with everyone and I would be black balled from the server, and a host of other nastiness.

It didn't slow me down any, but I definitely avoid him and the drow cliques like cancer now.

If someone is threatening you like that you should contact Arelith staff

Yeah! If you get a tirade of such nastyness, please screenshot it and send it to us.

[MissEvelyn]

I appreciate your input on my thoughts, but I'd like to engage you in this line of thought, specifically the bit of underlined text.

If what you're saying about another player not involved in the discussion is OOC'ly negative about the person, and you aren't a 'spend time with this person in real life' associate of the person you're talking about, while it may still spread more slowly 1-on-1, it still ends in the same vicious cycling of character assassination- as the one person you talked to talks to one other person about it and so on, until you have the situation I described earlier where someone is in tears because people they've literally never spoken to before are saying nasty things about them.

It isn't that I'm trying to say you aren't entitled to your opinions about people, or feeling negatively about them, or even sharing those feelings. But anything that starts with "I heard" or "I think" and ends with a negative statement about another player should just be left unsaid entirely if you weren't directly involved with the other person's offense as a witness; otherwise you run the risk of spreading Telephone Game rumors.

One person at a time or ten people at a time, this is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about that has driven players I miss away from the server in the past. Why is it more acceptable because it's limited to D(irect)M(essages)'s?

The answer is that it's not- you just can't be policed over them by the staff, so you have to police yourself.

If you're going to say something negative about another Player to a third party, you should first say it to the face of the person you have issue with and give them a chance to respond and defend themselves; otherwise, you're still just being a chain link in the problem fence, and you have absolutely no idea of half of the story you're spreading, no matter how good your intentions may be.

Edit: Please read all instances after the first sentence of "you" as the Royal You, and not you individually.

I definitely see your point and can agree to it. My previous post was written with much leniency and hope that the general player is mature enough to both give and receive a rant to another player in private without letting it affect how they play the game and how they interact with other people, both in and outside of the game.

I understand that not everyone has good intentions and not everyone will be mature about this, which is rather unfortunate.

"How can we help this person better separate IC from OOC?" is a something I've asked a friend in private (in a 1-on-1 conversation using Steam chat) because we were concerned about a player we spent much time with in the game. We both wanted this player to succeed and we have since then seen their Roleplay flourish, and they seem to be able to separate IC from OOC much better than when they first started here.
It was a case like this I had in mind when I mentioned the 1-on-1 conversations.

But slandering of another player and all the gossip should stop and be done with, no matter how big the audience is in the forum you're speaking to. That's on us, the individual player, to ensure such negativity doesn't come out from us. If there is an issue, it should be taken up either with the person themselves or with the DMs in case of rule breaks.

[satan]

Hah. I recently discovered this one. Rped an event in the UD with one of the more prominent players in UD in the drow circle that ended up in PVP. I lost.

I messaged him to give a virtual high 5 for the good RP.

Turns out it wasn't RP on his part, and I was met with threats to kill me every 24 hours, how he was friends with everyone and I would be black balled from the server, and a host of other nastiness.

It didn't slow me down any, but I definitely avoid him and the drow cliques like cancer now.

If someone is threatening you like that you should contact Arelith staff

Yeah! If you get a tirade of such nastyness, please screenshot it and send it to us.

I actually did ss it, and let him know I did. I didn't show anyone though.

[Zavandar]

report it

if people don't report things, they don't have a right to complain

[satan]

report it

if people don't report things, they don't have a right to complain

Aside from the fact I disagree with that completely, which I do(imagine if you applied that same logic to other forms of being sh#tty to each other in day to day life?), I wasn't 'complaining', I was offering an example to support his statement.

[Subutai]

Differently stated, if people don't report these things, they can't get fixed. Just taking a screenshot, or discussing that you don't like how they're acting, or whatever else, is very unlikely to help in these scenarios. There might be a cases when people don't realize they're ruining other players fun, or that they're crossing a line that shouldn't be crossed, but there are also many situations where the player on the other side absolutely knows what they're doing, and don't care. You don't threaten to have someone blackballed constantly, to use your example, and not realize you're ruining their fun. You just don't care, or think you're somehow validated.

Some players might be a little too quick to report things that don't need to be reported, but not reporting things should be reported doesn't help matters, either. If a player is treating you like crap, you're probably not the first, and probably won't be the last. Even if one report isn't enough to bring down the hammer on them, if no one ever reports them, they'll get away with it forever.

[Zavandar]

report it

if people don't report things, they don't have a right to complain

Aside from the fact I disagree with that completely, which I do(imagine if you applied that same logic to other forms of being sh#tty to each other in day to day life?), I wasn't 'complaining', I was offering an example to support his statement.

yeah but I'm not talking about applying it to other instances. you have the power to do something about bad behavior. don't squander it. Instead of avoiding drow cliques like "cancer" (you sure you weren't complaining? It's okay to complain, seriously), you can help shape them up to make things more enjoyable for everyone. A community is the sum of its parts. Turning a blind eye to the bad parts makes you partly responsible. Some people are okay with that, and that's their perogative. Doing something about it requires extra effort and can be intimidating, and isn't for everyone. But the time it takes to complain can be spent reporting.

[satan]

report it

if people don't report things, they don't have a right to complain

Aside from the fact I disagree with that completely, which I do(imagine if you applied that same logic to other forms of being sh#tty to each other in day to day life?), I wasn't 'complaining', I was offering an example to support his statement.

yeah but I'm not talking about applying it to other instances. you have the power to do something about bad behavior. don't squander it. Instead of avoiding drow cliques like "cancer" (you sure you weren't complaining? It's okay to complain, seriously), you can help shape them up to make things more enjoyable for everyone. A community is the sum of its parts. Turning a blind eye to the bad parts makes you partly responsible. Some people are okay with that, and that's their perogative. Doing something about it requires extra effort and can be intimidating, and isn't for everyone. But the time it takes to complain can be spent reporting.

Oh so now it's ok to complain. Or is that only in effect after a grievance is reported? You're really sending mixed messages here.

So I am partly responsible for other people's bad behavior? I don't think so. I also don't think reporting it would accomplish anything. A scolding from a dm isn't going to fundamentally change how a player that has trouble separating himself from his rp behaves.

[Subutai]

I also don't think reporting it would accomplish anything. A scolding from a dm isn't going to fundamentally change how a player that has trouble separating himself from his rp behaves.

A scolding from a DM might not do anything, but that's part of the point. Let's go back to the cancer analogy.

People who threaten other players OOC are a cancer on Arelith. How do you handle cancer? You can't just ignore it, because it won't go away on its own, so you go to the people who specialize in handling the cancer. In real life, that's an oncologist. On Arelith, it's the DMs. The oncologist isn't going to immediately try the most severe, dramatic treatment. First, they'll attempt a treatment that's the least invasive and least potentially detrimental possible for the type and severity of the cancer. If that doesn't work, they'll try increasingly more drastic treatments until one works (or until you die, but luckily that's a very unlikely result of bad player behavior on Arelith). But if you never go to the doctor in the first place, the cancer can never be treated.

On Arelith, the DMs might start out by scolding the player, but if it doesn't work, they aren't just going to shrug and say, "Well we tried. Guess there's nothing we can do". There are more drastic steps they can take to handle that player's behavior (including various bans), if they deem it appropriate. But, like going to the doctor to have your cancer handled, a cancerous player can never be handled if the DMs are never aware the player is doing anything inappropriate.

Maybe the player will leave you alone will get better. Maybe not. If they don't, and they threaten you again, you can report them again, and the DMs will know that their scolding didn't work and they need to try something else. If they threaten someone else, instead, and that person reports them, the same thing. But DMs aren't omnipotent. They don't know ever single rule violation that happens all the time. They'll mostly only find out if you report the players violating the rules.

[Lady Astray]

I feel like if we're going to start comparing people to cancer, we might as well bring Hitler into this. Jokes aside, please report any death threats. That is kind of extreme.

[Zavandar]

Aside from the fact I disagree with that completely, which I do(imagine if you applied that same logic to other forms of being sh#tty to each other in day to day life?), I wasn't 'complaining', I was offering an example to support his statement.

yeah but I'm not talking about applying it to other instances. you have the power to do something about bad behavior. don't squander it. Instead of avoiding drow cliques like "cancer" (you sure you weren't complaining? It's okay to complain, seriously), you can help shape them up to make things more enjoyable for everyone. A community is the sum of its parts. Turning a blind eye to the bad parts makes you partly responsible. Some people are okay with that, and that's their perogative. Doing something about it requires extra effort and can be intimidating, and isn't for everyone. But the time it takes to complain can be spent reporting.

Oh so now it's ok to complain. Or is that only in effect after a grievance is reported? You're really sending mixed messages here.

So I am partly responsible for other people's bad behavior? I don't think so. I also don't think reporting it would accomplish anything. A scolding from a dm isn't going to fundamentally change how a player that has trouble separating himself from his rp behaves.

you're right, that is a mixed message. i'd meant that it's okay to complain if you're also doing something about it.

idk why you're here on this server if you have so little faith in the DM team. how do you think cases for problem players are made? from thin air?

this isn't a difficult concept to grasp and i get that you're probably being defensive because you don't feel like reporting, but we're on the same side here. we want the server to be a better place.

[Wrips]

Hah. I recently discovered this one. Rped an event in the UD with one of the more prominent players in UD in the drow circle that ended up in PVP. I lost.

I messaged him to give a virtual high 5 for the good RP.

Turns out it wasn't RP on his part, and I was met with threats to kill me every 24 hours, how he was friends with everyone and I would be black balled from the server, and a host of other nastiness.

It didn't slow me down any, but I definitely avoid him and the drow cliques like cancer now.

Report them and don't go out of your way to avoid these kind of people. The more they expose themselves on their childish behavior, the more the DMs can gather solid proof to act.

[Sea Shanties]

Cliques exist but the thing about insular groups like that is they usually have a few strong personalities who set the tone and enable and reinforce negative behavior in everyone else. If there's a particular drow clique (for example, could be any group) that causes problems that doesn't mean every member is hopeless, maybe the meanest "Mean Girl" just needs to be removed to set them straight.

That's one reason reporting is important. You're not just helping yourself, you may be helping decent players who are in the offender's orbit.

[DM Atropos]

If you are on team good, you need to act like you are on team good. If you are on team evil, you need to act like you are on team evil. If you are on team neutral, you need to be doing neutral things that won't step in anyone else's cornflakes.

I'm not touching the rest of this post with a ten foot pole, and someone else holding it, however, I am going to call this out.

There is no "acting like you are on team good/team evil etc". Your character is good, or is not, but there doesn't need to be a team to it. You can be a good guy who has a super crap personality and thinks all the other guys are braindead morons. That's perfectly okay. You can be an evil murderous mastermind who also happens to have impeccable manners and a shining personality who people ADORE, because they don't see you skinning babies. You can be a neutral guy who's a pants-pooping coward and that's why he's neutral. Maybe if he had a spine he'd be a paladin, or an evil knight, but he's just Barney the Shoemaker who hides and cries when Banites or Tormites come through.

But you also should not tell people how they should RP. Nine times out of ten, what you think is "how someone should act" is good for YOU, but probably not for them.

Now, if you see paladins kicking puppies, or slaughtering innocents, by all means, send it our way. Drow having tea parties with angels? Sure. Let us know. But if you're looking it as "well I don't think they're doing it right so I'm not going to bother with them, they're bad" you're so far on the wrong track you might just be going backward.

[Lady Astray]

I'm not touching the rest of this post with a ten foot pole, and someone else holding it, however, I am going to call this out.

Then I'm not going to touch yours either.

[Ork]

this is going well!

[Nevrus]

This thread is more about the playerbase than the actual server, so....

Good job server staff! Keep up the fine work!

[DM Atropos]

Cliques exist but the thing about insular groups like that is they usually have a few strong personalities who set the tone and enable and reinforce negative behavior in everyone else. If there's a particular drow clique (for example, could be any group) that causes problems that doesn't mean every member is hopeless, maybe the meanest "Mean Girl" just needs to be removed to set them straight.

That's one reason reporting is important. You're not just helping yourself, you may be helping decent players who are in the offender's orbit.

Also I wanted to re-reply for this, because it's so dead-on accurate. When you report, you may not see immediate results, but you may be helping us look at things from different views, connect different lines of thought, and come to different conclusions than we might otherwise. Excellent call.

Also fetch is still not a thing.

[Gobbo Champion Inc]

As a concept I have never liked "Team Good" or "Team Evil" because it threatens to reduces characters to their alignment, and eliminate moral complexity, that is found in both good and evil. People are complicated, and nuanced. And if you are roleplaying a character, you ideally want them to deeper and more nuanced then just a cardboard cut out, of their class and alignment. Contradictions, so long as they dont compromise the fundamental core of their alignment, is not only acceptable, but in alot of cases desirable, as it makes the character feel more real, and adds depth to roleplay. And thats a good thing.