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Meinberg posted:FWIW, I do not think that Podima is a sex pest. I do think that he doesn’t understand the effect that being in a position of power enables him, and this carelessness leads to abuses that while not intentional are still harmful. I don’t think he deserves a perma or whatever, but I agree in stating that I feel uncomfortable with the idea of him as an admin. This sums up my feelings too. I was in the Riven game, and the other games related to it. It'll take me a while to figure out what if anything I feel like saying about it all, since I left that community before Bees' stuff happened. But my takeaway was similar to what Meinberg said here. I considered Pod a good friend who's run some incredible games, and I believe he does have the best of intentions. But he doesn't seem to understand just how unhealthy that RP community was getting. And anyone who's tried to tell him some why either gets not taken seriously, ignored, or...whatever the hell happened in Bees' game. Their format of games just really sucks people in, to unhealthy levels. It's like having an always-on MUD or MMORPG. It used to be based off Mafia with a dayphase and nightphase, so you RP'ed in your area during dayphase then at least had the nightphase downtime while actions got resolved and everything was closed. And even that was already too much, with people having constant FOMO and getting way too much emotional bleed from how much it was consuming their life. I used to try and mention ideas for how that could maybe be scaled back some in future games. But from what I heard, it only got worse, with people able to move to different areas freely so you weren't even limited to your one spot and group during the phase. Now you've got FOMO about everyone. The whole culture of secrecy thing is another huge part of what makes things so harmful. I played along with some very painful things in these games. I squashed down most of my complaints over the course of six real life months, waiting for a postgame debriefing where we could talk through things properly OOC. Only for that to seem impossible, since everyone's emotions were running so high, and my having problems with a villain character being celebrated was getting conflated with making GBS threads on other people's experience. (I didn't even dislike the villain's existence at all! I just hated that people wanted to forget that he tortured my character!) And it was too hard to discuss anything around what happened with some characters in the game, since their players had already left, and it felt like some huge taboo to even mention their names. That taboo feeling is the worst. I would have been completely fine with so much hosed up poo poo, if only I'd felt like I could have properly talked it through with people out of character. I wasn't around for Bees' game, but from what I've heard, a lot of the personal hurt feelings are around that culture of just booting people out and not giving them space to be heard. I left after that game, cause it just hurt too much to see this crowd all patting each other on the back for how great and inclusive and emotionally-switched on they were when I still felt like poo poo. And Pod tried really hard to hear me out personally, I appreciate that he tried. But poo poo was so hosed up that it wasn't enough, and when I started hearing rumours of what went down in Bees' game, I stopped trying to stay in touch cause it looked like Pod and the rest of the group hadn't even learned anything. It's not all entirely on Pod's shoulders. All the main "storyteller" admins besides him seem to enable each other to make things more toxic. I had a lot of great moments in some of these games (and Mafia games) thanks to Podima. I wish him and even the other people I didn't get along with the best. But even me, someone who really appreciates the good stuff he's done and played these RP games with all the good-faith trust in the mods they say they need, I still got pretty hurt by the games too. And I wasn't listened to either, at least no about the stuff that mattered. It's just really sad, and it took me a lot of time and therapy to sort out how hosed up and disappointing it all was.
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Mar 19, 2023 05:10
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 21:28 |
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Jesus loving Christ, took me a while to write that up and in the meantime both Pod and peramene posted?! Hoo boy catch up with y'all in a bit
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Mar 19, 2023 05:26
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Nuns with Guns posted:They wouldn't have listened because Podima was already an IK/mod or do you mean something else? I don't know what anyone else meant, but I only aired my concerns to other RPers. Then gave myself a good dose of learned helplessness, figuring I must just be the problem child or the one who can't handle it, since almost everyone else was trucking along fine and didn't seem to think it was of much concern. I also figured it was more of a problem with that discord community in particular though, than the SA forums.
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Mar 19, 2023 07:21
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Just to be fair to friends who have also been through this crazy poo poo, I feel like I should clear up for the record that there wasn't any rape in the Riven RPG. (Or the other related RPG's I was still present for) There was torture though, as an offscreen backstory thing added to my character, (credit to pera for that, not Pod!) then as a more acted-out thing for someone else's character near the end of the campaign. As for me, I thought I was personally fine with that subject matter existing in-game and like they could throw anything at me and I would just roll with it. But I was really surprised and taken off-guard by how upset I got later, when the villain character who did the torturing was seemingly getting reclaimed or redeemed. After playing that game so long by then and being so immersed, it felt like going through the whole "get abused by someone in power and no one wants to listen" experience, while also beating myself up for making such a big deal over something that hadn't even happened in real life. And having even less people to talk to about it, cause how the gently caress do you explain something like that? That's the main reason I indulged in making a post here. The actual thread issue seems all sorted now, and I believe I'm finally recovered from it all now, but it's so rare to have a chance to talk about this weirdass time of my life.
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Mar 19, 2023 07:39
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Man I just remembered, one of the outlets I tried to talk about this once was the Bojack thread. To stick up for Season 5 as one of my faves, cause that whole introspection on how to responsibly portray a fascinating but harmful character was so uniquely tailored to my interests. So if any of y'all saw that and wondered what the hell kind of RPG stuff I was referring to, this was it lol
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Mar 19, 2023 09:27
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The Lord of Hats posted:The fun didn’t excuse any of the issues. Far from it. It’s what led to us continuing to make dumb mistakes, because we thought it was alright. It was a fuckup. This isn't exactly about Pod anymore, but if everyone's learned better now, and sees that there were in fact any fuckups that needed learning about... why did pera appear with that much sheer vitriol at Bees? And calling it "inane nonsense"? I mean, is it just a really unfortunate coincidence, that some harmful leadership mistakes did take place, but it was right around the same time that some "willfully manipulative" newbie decided to target you all to gently caress poo poo up? I'm genuinely asking, cause I was so far out of the loop when this poo poo went down that I didn't even know the name of the server anymore. And I've actually avoided trying to talk to Bees about it, or directly asking them anything at all, cause people from the old Myst games that I actually knew and did ask about it? They hit me with so much "who are you talking to" paranoia that it freaked me out, like if I dared let Bees' opinions touch my virgin ears, everyone would consider me contaminated or some poo poo. But it's hard for me to imagine what could justify that treatment. If anything it freaks me out wondering how easily that could've been me on the receiving end instead, if I'd decided against the "just squash the feelings down for six months" plan that was great for keeping the game running but awful for my mental health.
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Mar 19, 2023 15:09
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 21:28 |
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I probably only have bad posts left to make
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Mar 19, 2023 16:02
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