But I really, really hate the "he's a bad person but we let him get away with it because x,y,z". I've known too many people like that, that get away with terrible behavior because reasons.
What really bothers me, though, is the "yeah, this guy was being an ***hole to the other guys in the group, and that's bad, yeah, but I still want to play with him...".
I mean, it looks like he was looking for justification to keep playing.
"Yo, i fed your diabetic friend with 1 kilo of sugar, cuz I wouldn't give him exp. He is in hospital now? IDC. Ey, I gave U free food, what's UR problem, brah?"
I hate to do it, because it seems like such a cut-and-dry situation, but I'm going to chime in with... Assume Good Faith, and There's Probably More to the Story. Perhaps when the group formed they SPT'ed and identified immersive RP as their first 4 priorities. Perhaps the GM had no idea what veganism's about and had no idea it'd wreck that person's system. Perhaps.... Probably not, *as described*, but perhaps. We're Only Hearing One Side.
@nitsua60 You could be right, and none of us know the situation, but the "one side" we are hearing is coming from someone who seems to want to be apologetic.
@nitsua60 True, but remember that we're neither the authorities nor involved go-betweens. We're here to give answers to A) the OP, and B) future readers. As such, our answers can't really go too far above and beyond the question given.
I view it as a "Given a GM that behaves thusly, what are my options". Not "given this specific person whose complete behavior you can't fully judge, what are my options".
Except we could be asking "did you all talk about X beforehand," or "have situations like this arisen before" to try to understand the landscape better. Don't get me wrong--I've upvoted all of the "get the hell out of there" answers. This table doesn't strike me a healthy, never mind fun.
@nitsua60 You're right, and I was considering adding a "try to understand his point of view" caveat, but decided that the case, as presented, was a bit too extreme.
Which allow abusive people to keep doing what they do and still be accepted, socially.
The description of GSF1 there refer mostly to people who are annoying or unpleasant, but "abusive" is also common.
This classification is pretty old (2003!), and ignores a lot of current discussions of harassment in geek social circles, and how harassers get positive reinforcements because they suffer little to no social repercussions for it.
Oh, hello rep-cap my old friend. I've come to not-get-any-more-rep-from-you again.
I post a long-ish, clear, and accurate answer to a question. OP comments it's one of the best answers he's ever gotten. Something like 3 upvotes. I re-post a question that came up in comments on another stack; I rep-cap and get a silver badge.
One of my top-repped tags is pathfinder--a system I've never played--because it's often attached to subjects I do have expertise in like gm-techniques.
Rules questions tend to get overlooked if they seem too simple, or too esoteric, but there's a sweet spot for unusual applications of commonly known rules.
@Nzall I'm afraid this shows how "not a real situation" questions amplify that even more, however. On normal questions of that sort ideally the community demands Back It Up! answers and focuses the question more. Here, the question can't be focused because it's not real, and questions about the particulars can't be answered. So while all e.g. gm-techniques questions are liable to this, it's the fake ones that really double down on it.
@WilliamMariager Getting Famous Question here seems to have an easy A/B formula: (A) ask a simple question about an overly-complex system: see "how many arrows can I carry [PF] or "how do I calculate HP [5e]"; (B) ask a question about a "problem" person, preferably titillating: try "my GM only plays drunk" or "how do I get my player to stop taking ears?"
@nitsua60 I swear, the B approach is really annoying. I get that these things happen, but I feel like this site should focus on game, not solving a few angst teenagers that can't man up and talk. /rant
@WilliamMariager it's worse when you know you have a problem, but struggle to frame it and worse yet can't get actionable answers -- (and even worse yet have problems where people don't want to communicate with you OOCly)
@WilliamMariager <rant>One might think we'd be well-served by a hold-reason along the lines of "and you haven't talked to them yet? Report back when you have, please."</rant>
@WilliamMariager at last check, the blasted thing was returning a success response to write attempts to the Flash via the SPI ISP interface, but the data never makes it to floating gates -- I read back and get all 1s
The Geek Social Fallacies extend far beyond teenagers, and RPGs have an unfortunate tendency to legitimise bad behaviour in the name of the game (see the "PC slept with his NPC sister" answers which basically said "It doesn't matter how the players feel if it makes for a great story").
I also suppose part of my problem is that there are (presumably) so few true problem-persons out there that I've never had the occasion to play with one, at least as far as I know. So I probably don't have the proper amount of sympathy/empathy for someone who really is struggling in a crappy situation, enough that they'll come to strangers for help.
Yeah, I've seen it a lot in other groups when I've been a guest player. The teenager part was just ranty. It makes me sad. A good roleplaying group is the most amazing thing ever, but it takes real effort to get this good group formed.
@nitsua60 yeah -- I'm probably the closest thing you've come and my problems generally are limited in their manifestation, and it's also a different experience playing with someone who fits the tag vs. playing with someone who isn't a problem, but suffers from groups that are
My father always gave all the money in his pockets to anyone who ever asked him for money. When I finally wised up enough to ask him why he said "I've never been so desperate as to have to ask a stranger for money. I can't imagine how hard that must be, and want to help them not be that desperate."
@Shalvenay there's no way you're a problem-player.
I guess there's also the issue that roleplaying tend to attract people with subpar social skills. So where I'm the kind of person to just outright tackle the issue, this definitely isn't easy for a shy/introvert.
That's the thing I think I find pretty offensive about both the tags: the person isn't a problem, they're a person, dammit. And you're having problems with that person, which is fine. But the person isn't the problem.
@Shalvenay I've had that happen too. For me it seemed like it was a faulty chip. It would report a successful write, but the validation failed. Very peculiar.
> When answering questions, only make statements you can back up with an appropriate reference, or give personal experiences. Avoid statements based only on your opinion.
@doppelgreener Given that less than 4 hours after it was posted, a new account implying itself to be the asker posted a photo of a physical altercation it claims is the result of the Stack's advice... I'm suspecting "staged" too.
@Moth Hi! You'll need 20+ rep on any SE site to type in chat, and if you're serious about being part of the Stack Exchange you'll probably want to change your user name before it gets flagged and forcibly changed as not nice.
It did not occur to you that being appropriately camouflaged would be advantageous?
