In the hopes of diminishing tension.

T

TheJareth

Newbie
Hi everybody!

Brian here, I played the character Jareth this last weekend at the Maelstrom event dated 3/10-3/12 and there was some tension that myself and two of my other friends became involved in. I will try to say what I would like in a way which is objective and without editorializing or making things worse. I will also speak only for myself and not presume the intentions or words of the other two of my friends who were involved.

I think the short version of the story is that we were on a mod, and the three of us refused to follow the orders of the person who was in charge of the fight. We cited having had superseding orders. I think from an out-of-game perspective it is not pertinent to this discussion about the effectiveness of our plan versus the effectiveness of the person in charge of that fight. Suffice to say on that front we had a difference of opinion. I have no choice to admit that I would have been better served to inform the group of this before we had left for the mod and that I made a misstep in assuming that other players were aware of how we typically function in a fight. I also must admit that during the battle my flippant and sarcastic attitude was of no help in trying to ease the tension really for anyone but myself. And that my sewing salt was similarly not useful.

I understand having characters angry with us for our actions, however I am not a robot and the kinds of things which were said about me and my friends still felt like real bullying. I think almost every person involved did come to us later to clarify that their attitude was strictly an in-game issue which, believe me, we truly do appreciate. But I want to reiterate that the mean-spirited things crossed a reasonable line. I think that maybe we all would have made different choices with a second chance so I also do not mean to say that anyone is heartless or that I for-real hate them now forever. What I would like to communicate is that being "in-game" is not always a sufficient reason to act in a way which may come across as being mean spirited. I find myself particularly bothered by the fact that the entire player base turned against us withing minutes of the fight having ended. Only very few players came to talk to us in character to get our side of the story. It seemed as though everyone else was acting on hearsay.

The experience was very isolating and if I am completely honest does not breed a strong sense of motivation to return. If that is how my character is going to be treated then I am not interested in being in character. I hope that sounds reasonable. I do enjoy this game and I feel as though I was able to have fun with many of the players I interacted with prior to the fight on Saturday night. I would like to return but I want it to be clear that I will not tolerate being bullied. And I think it is to the detriment of everyone in the chapter, plot and players for these kinds of things to happen. I don't mean to suggest not playing a character who gets to be a jerk or is hot-headed. Rather I mean to suggest that there are ways of doing that without making the receiving player(s) feel isolated. Again I am not trying to say that anyone here is a saint or that our actions, as members of Ashen Spire, are beyond reproach. I mean to say these things in the interest of preserving the safe space that we all stand for and hopefully to get ahead of something like this happening in the future.

I am also not looking to cause a trash-storm or finger point as I instantly felt like a pariah from the whole player base. So it was truly no one person who created this experience. Again I am also not trying to speak for the other players who were with me and involved in this incident. I do believe, however, that they would agree with most of what has been said in terms of how they experienced things. If, for some reason, anyone does have out-of-game concerns with us I strongly encourage you to talk to myself or one of them about it. If there is in-game stuff as well I would strongly encourage you to come to my character to talk about it. I really don't want to get the stink-eye from everyone forever now even if it is in-game. I feel as though there is a medium we can reach where your characters don't have to like us but we are not actually feeling bullied.

Thanks for reading, everybody! I hope this has been reasonable, concise, and did not create further problems.
 
I was not there for or to witness any of this interaction.

That said, I feel it is important to remind people that the in game world is not a democracy where everyone is created equal. It is a (albeit meritorious) monarchy. If someone recognized as a knight gives you an order, then, as a commoner, you should endeavor to follow that order. If you tell said knight to go take a flying leap, then they actually have the right to take you to task for it. San Francisco, and the west coast in general, are very much more lax about the hierarchy than chapters in the northeast. Many of their players have been known to come out to an event on the left coast and comment about how their character never would have gotten away with such behaviour back home.

It should also be understood that, to those playing within that established framework, coming in and insisting on equality or democracy is, at best, seen as crazy and/or disrespectful in game, and characters may treat you as such.

Whether any of the above is relevant or not, I don't rightly know. However, since it sounds vaguely like something that has also been a problem in the past, I felt it was necessary to interject this bit of knowledge into the conversation.
 
Brian,

Thank you very much for your extremely mature and open letter.

It absolutely means a lot and I think this is a brilliant first step towards making sure everyone enjoys game, regardless of in game conflict.

We will absolutely find ways to ensure players feel involved and members of the community, safe in all things; while being able to pursue story in the course of the game.

It is never acceptable for others to make players on an out of game level feel isolated and shunned. We all want to enjoy game and have fun, but lets remember to balance that with making sure others have fun as well and that bleed does not adversely effect others or ourselves.

Thank you again, Brian, for starting this conversation.

There will be more to come, shortly.
-Isaac
 
This is a really important discussion to have and they're really hard to start, thank you Brian.

First of all, let me take a moment to clarify personally that as one of the players whose character that was outspoken and angry in game, (and as someone that has had her share of conflicts with the Ashen Spire on two different characters) that my feelings were purely in charter. I think you guys are a wonderful addition to game and would love to see you continue to attend.

That said, I've been where you are and remember just how demoralizing and awful it is to feel like you are unwelcome in the community when your character takes an action that most of the playerbase's characters find objectionable. The best consolation I can offer comes from my own experience, that this community is invested in making sure people are welcome OOG and that we facilitate a safe environment for people to come have fun. If you guys need a place to vent or anything else feel free to poke at me privately.

The rest of what I'm trying to address requires some loaded vocabulary, so forgive me if I come across as insensitive. I'm additionally using a lot of 'I' and 'Me' statements which is me trying to not speak for anyone else, not trying to centralize myself in the discussion.

Historically the way the community has handled problems with battle cohesion (ninja looting, not taking orders, etc.) has been to simply ICly not take the people considered "problems" into battle with them. The IC reality of that is protecting your assets by not taking people who have been deemed liabilities into combat situations. The OOC reality of that is excluding players from mods. Like Isaac said, making players feel excluded is unacceptable. I firmly believe that we, as a community, can find ways to roleplay our IC frustration at events in ways that do not leave our fellow players feeling bullied and sitting around with nothing to do.

However, roleplay is a give and take. One of the things that frustrated me the most was trying to calmly express disconnects and find solutions to them in game such as "the way you operated in that fight pulled an inordinate amount of healing" or "you were stepping in front of my artillery and inhibiting them from working" and was instantly, unwaveringly met with what comes across as an attitude of "I had orders" or "I know better" with no room for discussion, and no IC avenue of addressing concerns about battlefield communication that lead to accusations of people being liabilities. That can be your characters and their histories or personalities, that is completely valid. But I, as a fellow member of this community, do not know how to address these concerns my character has without crossing into the territory of being an OOG jerk. Without a recourse that is fair you you guys as players, my tactic is to simply ignore the problem because obviously my character's feelings are less important than your player comfort. However, long term that is frustrating and uncomfortable for me as a player. Can we workshop some solutions together?

If anything in this has seemed inflammatory I apologize. Thank you Brian for starting this conversation.
 
Hey Brian! I'm Spencer, I play Terren who was the person 'in charge' for about half of that fight before handing it over to Aziraphale while Terren spirit recall'd back to town to get the evacuation started. Thank you very much for your letter!

I'm sorry I never got a chance to speak to you OOG- I unfortunately came down with a very bad cold on Friday and was focused too much on the IG to notice there was an OOG issue.

If it makes any difference, my character (and by association I) had forgotten about the Ashenspire's "not taking commands from outside entities" tenet until we were actually on the mod. Once you and the other Ashenspire members on the mod mentioned it there was a moment of "Whoops, right, forgot about that." There were also some long, long time (years long) IG conflicts that came to a head during that evening, which you were unfortunately in the middle of (and oh my gosh I am so sorry about that).

I know for me personally I hold no OOG animosity towards you or any of the other Ashenspire members (I also don't know any of you OOG really at all, unfortunately).

On an OOG level I have always respected people who choose to play characters with personalities, flaws, tenets, or oaths which puts them in conflict with the general playerbase (which I feel the Ashenspire tenets count as)- it's an intense and tough choice to make, and while it results in roleplay it results in intense roleplay and I think it's very cool (OOG) that you all decided to do it and that you stick with it.

If there is anything you want to address or talk to me personally about, my email is tinybeetles@gmail.com and I'll CC the player rep in so we can have that conversation.

Thank you for starting this conversation! I'm super sorry :( I hope having this discussion helps.
 
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Brian,
I'm Luke and I play Valím, the Dwarven Smith. I also had a chance to spar with you guys on Saturday outside and talk a little about cross-gaming.

What I'm most glad about is that I had a chance to talk with you and your friends as you were leaving Sunday. You were a definite asset to the community and I truly hope that you decide to return. From an OOG perspective, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole interaction and the character-to-character conflict that came of it. Not many players are willing to have their characters take a principled stand against the rest of the adventuring community. It felt to me as though any animosity directed your way was IG only and I wholeheartedly apologize for any lines that were crossed.

For the IG portion, Valím has spoken with your Commander briefly and would encourage you to do the same, making himself available to take part in that conversation, if desired. He's also adamant that anyone who wasn't there should have no say in the matter and he's confused about how the rumors have gotten out of hand. If you would like to have a more detailed conversation about this in an IG manner, please feel free to send me an email (jarhead @ gmail) or look me up on FB. I will gladly make time for this issue.

Hope to see you on the field, sometime, whether back here at Alliance or elsewhere.

-Luke Goldsmith
 
Hey Brian,

This is an incredibly classy way of going about addressing this and getting the conversation going - thank you.

I'm Emily, I play Kasuni. I know I was certainly one of the people who said some not-very-nice things in-game, and I apologize that my actions were a part of you having a bad experience out of game. I'm really sorry that I didn't realize sooner than I did that it wasn't fun for you. I did mean every piece of it entirely in game, but I can absolutely understand how it could still be not-fun to roleplay that way.

LARP is a game - the entire point of it is to have fun. If something happens that leads to people not having fun, or worse, having a bad time, it's important to address it. In my opinion, particularly in this specific situation, this is where it's appropriate to do what I call "mindful-metagaming" and figure out a reason to have your character respond to something differently than they ordinarily would. Thank you for the reminder.

I have a lot of respect for how you chose to approach this by posting here. This kind of clarity and openness speaks to your character, and I would love to get the chance to LARP with you again if you decide you're open to giving it a shot. I have some ideas on how to help shift things in-game so you can feel welcome playing your characters again, and I would be happy to have my character help facilitate that so you can feel comfortable coming back and not facing the kind of roleplay you experienced this last weekend. I'll send you a private message on it.

Thanks for making this post.

Emily
 
Thanks for the responses and the support so far. I want to clarify that I do not bear any hard feelings about the players. I understand that we're all trying to have some kind of character-driven experience while at Alliance. I also want to make clear that I also was not sure how else to react besides "We have orders." I do not personally recall saying "We know better" as I try to avoid that elitist attitude. If I did I want to apologize because that is also not a helpful contribution. If it was not explicitly said then perhaps it was implied strongly and I want to apologize for that as well.

It may be a case where the values of our in-game order sometimes look like a real aloofness or disdain for the other players which I similarly understand does not feel good. The point of my posting here is not to necessarily defend my actions as a character but I think throw out the reminder for Mindful Meta-gaming as Emily put it. I would like the chance to mend relationships in game and have us all up our communication so as to set expectations of how our characters may act.

I also want to acknowledge that there may be some culture shock at play with myself as I typically do play the more combat-oriented LARPs in the state and this is a very different experience. I do not expect any character to try to kiss our butts after this and I am similarly not asking for anyone to do that. Again, like Emily said maybe finding ways to not be ostracized but also not necessarily having our characters be total allies who never challenge each other for any reason.
 
To clarify, you (Jareth) were not personally the one I got the "I know better" response from. And perhaps I am being overly harsh with that shortening of the conversation, or took away the wrong emphasis from the exchange. Either way it's not a response I hold OOG animosity for, as it was an IG conversation. Hell, there's not even a great deal of IG animosity over it, it was actually quite civil and I didn't mean anything accusatory by bringing it up.

I hear the request for mindful metagaming. Like I said earlier I think we can all work on ways to direct IG conflict towards fun clearly in game tension and roleplay without making you guys feel boxed out of the environment. I really enjoy the different point of view the Ashen Spire brings to game and think the community would suffer for the loss of it as well as the loss of you and your friends attending.
 
Hi Brian, I'm Jason Warlock. I play Aziraphel. I made a point during the night to approach you and your friends and let you know that everything was just in-game for me, but I recognize that by the time I realized I should probably do that a lot of feelings had already been hurt. This is a good reminder that not everyone rps the same way I do. I want people to enjoy the game and keep coming back. I am really not a fan of pvp conflict, I feel plot does more than a good enough job of giving us enemies we should be focusing on. However, things got really intense and its easy sometimes to get caught up in the moment and go full speed ahead. I actually have an idea I want to discuss with Isaac and Jason that may help in the future for times like this.

Thank you for bringing this up here.

-Warlock
 
Hi Im Jess, Hildir' in game.

I just want you to know I had a few players from your site of the fight come and defend you guys.

After that, my character calmed way down. I was actually hoping to have breakfast with you on Sunday, I was sad I didnt get to.

I do hope you come back to game. I would like to resolve the issue.

I also am totally your friend outside of game :)
 
Hey Brian, I'm Alina, I play Kosh. I have been present in that battle and I can share the way my character perceived the situation. Ashen Spire acted in defiance to orders and took the group by surprise, at that point I believe Kosh straight up called you cowards. However, the battle showed that this wasn't the case, you fought in the front line regardless of your orders and defended our backs valiantly, which is what truly counts for her.

I understand there're in game politics and tensions and I know it sucks hearing people talking about you and judging you but in my mind sometimes this is how you find true allies and forge strong connections with each other. I personally wholeheartedly enjoy your characters and the interactions we had. That scouting mission we talked about IG - the offer stands, if you still up for some adventures and shinies.
 
Hi there! I'm Brandon, I play Fenris (was present at the fight) And let me say I have no Out Of Game animosity for you or your friends. In Game however, my character was angry. I think that's understandable. We had a town defend, our own lives to protect, and rather than adhere to a strategy or work with the team, you wanted to operate under your own program with the explanation of "we have orders." This put all of us at jeopardy and implied that Ashen Spire had it's own agenda that was above all of us dying. That with the rising political tensions with Ashen Spire and town leadership, it definitely rubbed Fenris the wrong way. But you fought valiantly enough though we lost the day. My character won't trust you guys, but it'll subside with time. But OUT OF GAME, It was pretty cool the conflict it generated. It's brave to take a stance against everyone else for the sake of staying in character and while you'll have to rebuild our characters trust, it has nothing to do with you out of game. This is all roleplay. My character rarely gets intense, but he takes the lives of his companions very seriously. You characters kept being nonchalant with the "orders" thing and that certainly didn't help the tensions on the battlefield. For real, I don't want to bully you, make you feel bullied, or drive you from the game. I hope I'll see you guys next game to resolve all this and it'll be interesting however it turns out.
 
Hey Brian,

I was the crazy mask wearing Selunari named Resete. Didn't really get to interact with you guys, but from the side of hearing rumors and stories and putting stuff together, I think that you hit the nail on the head when you referred to this as "Culture Shock" compared to other LARP type games.

From the get go, something I noted as different in Alliance was the IG level of emotion and drama that drives the story. When I first created my character and noted the type of personality I wanted to play, it came with a certain understood expectation of how the player base would treat me. There are players who OOG I am super friendly with and have no personal issues but IG....well, let's just say they should hope I never find them in a dark alley. To an individual who is more used to the combat focused LARP's, "consequences" for IG actions tend to be far less egregious. "Oh no, people died, we're angry, we have more combat". In Alliance, however, a faux pas that leads to emotional distress is retaliated against in an emotional manner. It can feel more real because it is more of a reflection of real life. Most of us are method actors and become our characters at game. It can be very emotional and difficult when character feelings are hurt and we tend to lash out as our characters would. I can personally tell you that I have had two emotional crying breakdowns while playing in these campaigns - breakdowns that felt so real I almost couldn't handle them. That level of immersion is what most of us strive for.

That being said, I am sorry that anyone made you feel uncomfortable OOG. I don't know what can truly be done to remedy what has happened, other than as some people have suggested - mindful-meta. What I would recommend to you, however, is to come back and react as your character would. Would you be angry at the community as a whole for their reaction or sympathetic? Would you hold a grudge against your commanding officer for not better preparing you for such a combat or proper field protocol? Would you attempt to make amends for perceived transgressions or defend your position vehemently? My suggestion, if you will have it, is to use this experience to help shape your character. To better understand our world and use it as a springboard to add depth to your characters experiences.

I'll be honest, most first time players do not get the level of attention and notoriety you did. While I'm not saying it was a positive experience, the benefit is - everyone now knows who you are and remembers you. ;)

I'm sure I speak for everyone in our community when I say we earnestly want you to return and keep playing with us. This is your sandbox too, and we want you to have a good time. Looking forward to crossing blades with you in the future!
 
Hey all, this Gareth Oliver/Bruce here,

Brian did an excellent job of generally summarizing my opinion on the events, and my thanks to the community as a whole responding really positively. You have done a wonderfull job turning an experience which would have made me conclude that true LARPs are not for me to one where I wish to learn more about the community and be more of a part of it!

For me personally, it came down to us operating on different OOG logic of how the world was working and what we were communicating. I felt we were saying, in a stubborn way "This is the tactics our commander told us to employ, and we intend to use them because we trust the commander and believe they will work." with a world state view that this was a reasonable stance to take and something we had done in the past, but what was being heard was "We are treasonous cowards, who are gonna disobey our direct chain of command to keep ourselves safe at the expense of others", taken from the world state view that we were soldiers under direct command and should not be questioning orders. Things kind of snowballed from there to people putting large amounts of in game pressure to force us to toe the line (which I could see in retrospect makes sense from that world state view, but seemed insane from ours). End result for me was a complete shattering of suspension of disbelief which just leaves me on a mountain at 2am with very little sleep being yelled at by a bunch of strangers. My apologies at only managing a grim nod to all those who came up to check in after, by that point I was completely emotionally drained and not able to really string words together.

I personally intended to try and learn more about how the world operates, I had kinda relied on following Tavis's lead while getting my feet under me but doubtlessly would benefit from a much better OOG understanding of IG fundementals, as without that it is basically impossible to make reasonable decisions on how to react to circumstances. As someone who is super new to the RP part of a LARP (This is my second alliance weekend, 3rd time as a PC, and forth time overall) I would certainly appreciate the suggested 'mindful-metagaming' as I am almost assurdly not *deliberately* attempting to commit treason against the ruling cast or major players, until I at least know who they are!

@Kosh - OOG that would be awesome and IG, well you didn't try to have us executed and really that is the best definition of a friend!

@MarisaSilverrose - I am certainly more than happy to sit down (either OOG or IG if we are doing from a position of equals) and discuss strategy and tactics. While me/ephraim/jareth have an inordinate amount of foam weapon fighting experience, we definitely don't know how it interacts with the whole that is this game. We could doubtlessly learn a lot about what does and doesn't work from each other (and why certainly things that are effective for one of us may not work for the other) and both as a person and IC I would find that interesting. As long as you are happy to come to the table with an open mind and entertain the possibility that there are things that we know that you don't, I am more than happy to take the same position!

Cheers,
Gareth
 
I want to thank everyone again for the level of support you guys have shown in response to my post. I see that there were several things on both sides that were misunderstood and we all could have had clearer expectations. I know that we were all relatively unknown in terms of our characters and what drives them so I just want to say that I think we're all more willing to come back given the responses you guys have shown us. For some of us we can work on IG reasons to work through what happened that night and for some of us it might make more sense to be wary of one another. I look forward to our characters coming to know one another in the future. @MarisaSilverrose I suppose I forgot to answer your question. I would be interested in having our characters work together to increase communication and understanding in the future. Preferably all of these IG conversations can happen at times other than the dead of night during finale-type battles.

Thanks again everybody,

Brian/Jareth Cloudborne
 
Gobberlerra said:
I personally intended to try and learn more about how the world operates, I had kinda relied on following Tavis's lead while getting my feet under me but doubtlessly would benefit from a much better OOG understanding of IG fundementals, as without that it is basically impossible to make reasonable decisions on how to react to circumstances. As someone who is super new to the RP part of a LARP (This is my second alliance weekend, 3rd time as a PC, and forth time overall) I would certainly appreciate the suggested 'mindful-metagaming' as I am almost assurdly not *deliberately* attempting to commit treason against the ruling cast or major players, until I at least know who they are!
Click to expand...

Gareth, while the in game worlds may differ some in implementation, the rulebook does provide a pretty decent basis of understanding for the kind of worlds Alliance games are built in.

Not noted in the book is that we seem to have adopted red belts for squires and white belts for knights... but you can see how they make easily recognized symbols for other characters.

Heck, there are several nuances that many players even don't realize in that section about rank and respect... I feel like a lot of players in general tend to gloss over that section in favor of the the more meat and potatoes sections.

FWIW, I'm certainly happy to discuss any of that stuff *at* game, too... it's not like I'm terribly hard to find. Just check the kitchen. :P
 
I am the third person in the rebellious group, and I echo the sentiments of my friends. I apologize if the things I said damaged immersion or hurt anyone's feelings out of game and I hope to have better experiences in the future.
 
For what it's worth, none of my OOG feelings (all 1.35 of them!) are hurt. I personally had a really, really great time OOG with the IG conflict even if my character didn't. I thought (and still think) the dynamic is really interesting and intense. I can cry, scream, love, and hate IG and at the end of the game shed all that and go back to normal (with occasional check ins and communication)- and that's part of why I play and why I enjoy roleplaying.

That being said, that's not what everyone likes, and even beyond that it sounds like you all did not come in expecting, knowing about, or necessarily wanting that intensity- and that's not fair to you guys.

A suggestion to staff- maybe an OOG party/hangout night may be a good idea. No game stuff, just a chance for us all to spend time with each other and get to know each other as the people we are OOG.
 
So I had read it before, and basically concluded 'medieval-fantasy feudal system' was most of what it had to say. Re-reading it, I would say that conclusion is a fair summary, though I had missed that lord from a different tenant branch could give orders to a lower person in another. That wasn't my understanding of how feudal systems worked (they would obviously always have gotten deference but being able to give orders is more than that.) Obviously some conventions have also been made that deviate from a standard feudal society for the sake of gameplay (I think one I've seen in action would be loot splitting).

Nothing in there is particularly helpful for defining the relationship of a group like Ashen Spire to the feudal structure. From a historical sense they seem to match up closely to a professional mercenary group (following in the veins of something like the condottieri). Such a group (especially in a world where a large source of income is from fighting against third parties, rather than picking sides in wars) though would doubtlessly still give deference to the nobles out of respect and because they will have to work with them?

For me at least, the devil is also very much in the details of the implementation. If you are trying to play, say, a slightly disrespectful merc who is mostly in it for a good fight (about as tropey a character as you can get) knowing where the lines are from a metagame perspective is clearly important, as any action (at least in my mind) that results in 'the characters all IG want to have you killed' is equivalent to saying that this is an action you shouldn't take. I'm sure it is all super clear to vets, but definitely less so to a newbie like me. Similarly there is a lot of in-game characters and background that I would personally like to be familiar with (like who is the emperor? Is he also the emperor of enneret? Is there more than one kingdom, and how do they interact? And how does the whole nobility laws apply between them? On a more fine detail level stuff like when is it appropriate to offer tactical advice, or advise people of our capabilities? Or is there none? Are line commanders a position of actual authority or a metagame concept created to make combats work? Or both? Can I put my hand up for it, or is it implicitly only for IG characters who have already earned the IG right for it? I can hazard guesses for some of these, but my intuition can definitely be wrong. I definitely appreciate the offer to come find you on site :).

The belt thing is very helpful to know, thanks! For me, any vet with awesome garb is pretty indistinguishable so nice to have a signal.

@Spencer I can certainly see the enjoyment from that and definitely a part of the game I would love to work my way into participating in, as you said it was a matter of not having that expectation. I view myself as a guest in your game, want to learn to participate within it and do not want you to change or curtail your experience to accommodate me but there definitely will be a ramp up time! I would certainly be up for an OOG meetup, it would be nice to actually know you guys, and would personally help put me at ease (and help provide a baseline for distinguishing in and out of game personality.)
 
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