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Games, in theory, are a collection of rules and norms that include the rules and norms of social scenes (including explicit and implicit norms along with unspoken norms and hegemonic norms and tensions). A lot of what we think of as âcommon senseâ is contingent social norms
The fact that hegemonic common sense is ugly and biased and unfair can be glimpsed by looking at Twitter or Facebook where people repeat just so stories or say âwhat people are really thinkingâ or otherwise engaged in casual bigotryâubiquity is not an excuse but an explanation
So here is some unpopular 
https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="đ" title="DVD" aria-label="Emoji: DVD">https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="đ" title="Horse" aria-label="Emoji: Horse">: we donât all share norms and what we think of as common sense varies an awful lot. I try to balance practicing good consent in games with running games where players have constrained agencyârailroads and quantum ogres are examples of non-agency...
Because your choices are irrelevant, yet no one runs perfectly free games other than maybe a private game in your head called âimaginationâ constrained only by what you know. I can save or die in B/X and die at a narratively irritating point for everyone involvedâthatâs chance
I can also run a game where we agree that John Waters is the inspiration and therefore playing people who arenât a certain sort of scummy clashes with the gameâthatâs making a free choice but one which fucks up everyone elseâs agency. That player also has constrained agency...
Because their ideal character is tonally inappropriate for the gameâthe same way that importing a 5e Paladin with no adjustment to OSE is a character just magnitudes more powerful and clashes with assumptions about power and damage and what rules cover and what rulings cover
The question is what do you do when constrained agency rather than guidelines keeping people on the same page (I donât have reliable Vancian magic because Iâm playing WFRP1e, my character may wind up maimed because we use wound tables) acts as coercion: violating something...
More sacrosanct than âI wanted to play a CG Drow and my DM said they donât exist in the settingâ or âhey, Iâm sorry the enemy rolls a natural 20 and rolled max damage youâre deadâ or âyouâve hit sanity 0 in CoC surrender your character sheetâ because these are normative cases
Including some things like âhey yâall never ran down this thread so yeah the town you like got taken over by rat people because you didnât investigate that noble cultâ which can feel unfair because it wasnât telegraphed well (which is a conversation about what is obvious) and...
A DM engaging in consent violating behavior: dictating your actions, bringing in (potentially triggering) material you didnât sign on for, no saving throw untelegraphed death, telling you you canât do something âreasonable,â etc. which vary greatly in distress and violation
The best safety nets we have are each other, explicit social norms (a social contract of being in some scene), safety tools (provided appropriate use since Iâve had some harrowing experiences of people abusing the language of social justice and non violent communication) and...
The ability to have conversations around moral failure that are not simply an attempt to exile and extricate responsibility but are attempts to compassionately and realistically address what moral failure looks like because SPOILER ALERT: we have all morally failed at times...
And lack of profile, young age, non ubiquity of social media, personal growth, abandonment of a social scene and other contingent factors generally keep that out of the spotlight. There are people Iâve verbally lashed out at with every valid reason to hate me
I have difficulty gauging appropriateness of content because Iâm generally used to a social scene where that isnât part of the conversationâI donât think Iâm well equipped to play or run a streamed game given a host of psychological reasons. I donât envy choices around it but...
What is maybe most important is a recurring pattern of failed alarm systems, non apologies, broken promises, institutional short memory and scene migration mitigating peopleâs ability to not have missing stairs in their social scene which is a related problem
NOTE ON LANGUAGE: a missing stair is a person that it is well known within a social scene that they present a certain sort of danger and it becomes a norm to avoid certain situationsâlike how if your staircase has a broken stair *you* know to skip it and have to warn guests
Moral accountability isnât fucking fun, itâs labor where you take an inventory of your behaviors, enumerate who you hurt and attempt to perform repair which is contingent on:
⢠willingness to admit you were wrong
⢠concrete goals for transformed behavior
⢠genuine remorse
⢠willingness to admit you were wrong
⢠concrete goals for transformed behavior
⢠genuine remorse
NOTE: forgiveness is absent this list, no one harmed by a person has any obligation to forgive them and weaponizing reconciliation to force people to forgive those that hurt them for social peace is abuse and coercive and fucking depressingly commonâand financially incentivized
So if we look at some high profile cases I think there is a pattern:
⢠they often command influence with a press or âthe industryâ and often allege to have the ability to financially ruin someone
⢠they weaponize marginalized identity to claim criticism is bias motivated
⢠they often command influence with a press or âthe industryâ and often allege to have the ability to financially ruin someone
⢠they weaponize marginalized identity to claim criticism is bias motivated
⢠they do not take time to work on personal failings but rush into providing a counter claim that abdicates their responsibility
⢠many people feel like criticism is tilting windmills and getting brigaded
⢠many people dismiss principled argument as disrupting social peace
⢠many people feel like criticism is tilting windmills and getting brigaded
⢠many people dismiss principled argument as disrupting social peace
ON THAT LAST BULLET: this includes tone policing to say that negative emotions, criticism and disagreement are unwelcome/hostile behavior and because itâs *easier* people keep fucking this up because itâs easy to call things âdramaâ rather than address them head on
⢠they use influence to advance marginalized people who bear the brunt of defending them and often the fallout
⢠an us vs them mentality enables justifying behavior that would otherwise be considered extremely troubling
⢠a belief that hurt people cannot perpetuate harm
⢠an us vs them mentality enables justifying behavior that would otherwise be considered extremely troubling
⢠a belief that hurt people cannot perpetuate harm
⢠a belief that being ârightâ is a zero sum game and disbelief that degrees of guilt and truth and contradictory information can exist
⢠an unwillingness to engage in early intervention because of social cost and fear of stigma creating situations of continued harm
⢠an unwillingness to engage in early intervention because of social cost and fear of stigma creating situations of continued harm
⢠a belief that a victim must be sympathetic
⢠a belief an aggressor must be villainous
⢠a metric of popularity/follower count as a metric of correctness
And fuck this goes on forever Iâll stop belaboring the point
⢠a belief an aggressor must be villainous
⢠a metric of popularity/follower count as a metric of correctness
And fuck this goes on forever Iâll stop belaboring the point
Hereâs the thing, celebrating the downfall of someone as their feet of clay are revealed is not helpful to victims, to the perpetrator, to a larger social scene or to a better conversation, itâs bitter vindictiveness disguised as self righteousness
We donât have enough conversations that are meant as conversations rather than proclamations, affirming your own rightness is not a tactic for increasing social safety itâs a tactic for feeling better about yourself and ego masturbation is fine & healthy but it isnât praxis
Concretely:
⢠pushback on dogpiling even by people you agree with against people you think are loathsome. Itâs a precedent that overwhelming someone is the same as having a conversation.
⢠there should be a greater emphasis on principles self criticism/reflection
⢠pushback on dogpiling even by people you agree with against people you think are loathsome. Itâs a precedent that overwhelming someone is the same as having a conversation.
⢠there should be a greater emphasis on principles self criticism/reflection
⢠less knee jerk defensiveness for people
⢠distrust of people who set themselves up as figureheads and arbiters of what is right and good
⢠distrust of scene politics
⢠avoiding participation without context & providing neutral assement
⢠avoiding cheapshots
⢠distrust of people who set themselves up as figureheads and arbiters of what is right and good
⢠distrust of scene politics
⢠avoiding participation without context & providing neutral assement
⢠avoiding cheapshots
