Let's Talk: Why Can't We Be Friends?

[Lord Wraith]

L E T ' S T A L K: A C O M M U N I T Y D I S C U S S I O N T H R E A D

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As a community, I think the conversations found in the roleplaying discussion are very important to the Roleplaying Community as a whole particularly when discussing the evolving trends and patterns found both here and on other roleplaying websites and mediums. In my previous thread about Discord, there was one issue that kept coming up again and again;

Toxic behavior is ubiquitous; the difference between having it in a Discord server versus an OOC is the rate at which it happens.

@Hero

The complaint of cliques on discord could have been applied to the guild long before discord was popularized/existed. It just was behind "closed doors." cliques gravitate towards each others rps and its not necessarily a completely bad thing (it is better to rp with people you know you'll mesh well with) But of course there is always the issue of inclusion/exclusion. I don't think it was any harder to "talk shit" about other users/threads with the PM system or on skype or texts or whatever. "talking shit" is going to happen organically whether discord is there or not, imo there are other venues one could reasonably do the same.

I feel discord simply made it more OPEN and obvious.

@Nytem4re

As for clique warfare, it has always been around; it's just easier to link up with others who have the same view and opinion. Venture into Reddit and you'll see toxic people, venture into Twitter and you'll see toxic people, and even on Facebook where your friends have a real life name and description of their life and you will see toxic people. The issue with RPG is that too many people place this toxicity and clique warfare above their roleplaying experience to either spend the time arguing with each other and not RPing at all. This is a limited interest site with only a small selection pool of people, and all you will be doing is harming the growth and potential for players to join your RPs if you involve cliques.

@NuttsnBolts

Negatives wise, cliques are definitely a thing. It's up to the GM/server owner to enforce equal participation and opportunity. People will naturally prefer old friends over new ones, so it's up to the server owner/GM/chatroom staff to make sure that no one is being excluded or left out. You can't just hope for an inclusive environment. You need to make sure one happens. I have also found that fights break out easily on discord between players, so to counteract this I've appointed a chat moderator from one of my trusted RPers and that has been helping keep things civil whenever tensions arise (we're human, tensions will happen).

@Morose

One thing I've seen kill so many fucking Discords and RPs and drive players away is if toxic people are tolerated; there's places on the internet to argue politics all day (let's face it, the only people who want to talk about politics all day are the ones who are so set in their ways are the ones who will never, ever challenge their views or listen respectfully to counterpoints), and I don't see how tolerating racist, homophobic, or sexist bullshit is even a thing. I can't count the number of times I've had people come to me in private and talk about being uncomfortable or feeling unwelcome by someone because of really toxic behaviour, and those people are way better roleplayers than the toxic people almost all of the time.

@Dervish

Discord is where a lot of clique-think meets reality, and the result is a mess. Not a surprise.

Yeah, I can see Discord increasing the level of toxic drama, just as much as it increases convenience and functionality for GMs and RPers. Staff often finds it's a very small percentage of people that participate in the toxic drama and RP regularly. You're usually around for one, or the other, rarely both. Discord exposes people that way.

@Ruby

In all seriousness, these issues have been around forever, and imho have actually decreased a lot, lmao. Toxicity is on the down especially recently (or at least it has been in my experience. I'm sure stuff has happened behind the scenes) compared to the good old days where the Narutards thought everyone that made a Naruto RP was infringing on their copyright and should be KICKED BANNED AND DELETED FROM ORBIT for even thinking about Naruto and the same goes for other vapid and mundane shit like 'uhhhhhhhh my character sheet setup got stolen' which evolved into its own whole ass drama.

If anything the topic of 'toxic' drama has become less vapid and more sincere in my eyes -- most of the things I've seen people argue about has been shit that deserves some form of speaking up about and the fact that discord allows you to directly call someone out for being a moron is pretty great. If doing so is labelled toxic then I'm not sure what isn't toxic.

EDIT: for clarification, I do think labelling everything that makes you upsetti spaghetti bolognesi as 'toxic' just because someone won't take dumb shit and calls you out is pretty immature and disregards the real issue i.e. you might just be a twat and if someone calls you a twat, that's not toxic, that's calling a spade a spade.

@Odin

I’ll throw in that RP Discord groups can be uncomfortable for people with anxiety or who lean on Internet anonymity because it adds a social pressure to the roleplaying experience that wouldn’t normally be there. It can be tough when you’re expected to assimilate in a chat room with strangers of various backgrounds, experiences, and age ranges.

@Karkinos

Toxic Behavior.

Now I'm not looking to create world peace here, but we're talking about people who all share the same hobby and likely the same interests, or at least overlapping ones if they're applying for the same RP. So why can't we all get along? We do we lash out at one another or create memes to mock another by taking their comments out of context? Why are we so downright horrible to each other when we barely know the person behind the other screen.

Fall outs between players, GMs etc can kill an RP quicker than any other factor. So what exactly is that creates these behaviours and how can they be stifled? What works for you as a GM/player when it comes to avoiding or negating toxicity around an RP or another player and what factors turn you off from joining an RP?

How can cliques be managed? How do we stop mob mentalities from grouping up on other players and how can new players break into the clique of a group established RP?

As always, please weigh in with your thoughts and opinions below. Let's have a civil discussion!

[Sierra]

Human beings are human beings. We're evolved to compete for survival. For as long as humans have interacted with other humans with any physical/cultural differences, they've tried to kill each other. The anonymity of the Internet lowers the power of those behaviors but also effectively negates the risks. Ergo the problem is inherent and systemic to humans. It has existed since the creation of intelligent life and it will last until the heat death of the universe.

[mickilennial]

How can cliques be managed? How do we stop mob mentalities from grouping up on other players and how can new players break into the clique of a group established RP?

@Lord Wraith

Short Answer: They can’t.

I think this is an unfortunate conclusion, but the more I think about it the more I come to this conclusion. People hold grudges, people let their opinions influence others (which can lead to ostracization), and generally it’s kind of a stonewall issue – especially so when people just don’t let things be and move on. Internet interactions don’t often work out like it does in everyone’s day-to-day life. Discord is like High School, but it’s online, and compartmentalized; people are attracted to gossip and it escalates. It would take a large conversation, but even if you got the big shakers talking and dealing with their issues you aren't going to find a way to regulate unregulated private discord servers. Honestly, as much as I'd like a great "reset" it's probably an impossibility.

Unless someone else has a profound theory on this, I think we gotta just deal with it and go about our lives.

[Lord Wraith]

Human beings are human beings. We're evolved to compete for survival. For as long as humans have interacted with other humans with any physical/cultural differences, they've tried to kill each other. The anonymity of the Internet lowers the power of those behaviors but also effectively negates the risks. Ergo the problem is inherent and systemic to humans. It has existed since the creation of intelligent life and it will last until the heat death of the universe.

@Sierra

I would put forth the idea of society as a counter argument. The greatest advances in mankind's history are the accomplishments of the many, not the one. While yes we are a competitive and combatant species, it's only by working together we ever have made progress or progression. Approaching a problem with the above attitude is accepting the issue and a reluctance to work towards fixing it, it's adding to the problem instead of being a solution.

People hold grudges, people let their opinions influence others (which can lead to ostracization), and generally, it’s kind of a stonewall issue – especially so when people just don’t let things be and move on. Internet interactions don’t often work out as it does in everyone’s day-to-day life.

@Inkarnate

The Guild is a large place and while yes, certain groups do seem to have the majority of say over what happens within certain RP genres, I don't think total ostracization is possible. If there's one group of people who have ostracized you, then there's bound to be another that will accept you even if it takes some time to find them. If there's a repeated pattern of ostracization, then the statistics would say you're the common denominator in which case it isn't fair to throw the blame elsewhere when it might be time to re-examine yourself.

Honestly, as much as I'd like a great "reset" it's probably an impossibility.

@Inkarnate

On the internet, a reset is a lot easier than in real life. A new user account, a new aesthetic, etc. Though I guess that's arguably cheating since you're skirting around the underlying issues by pretending to be somebody else. I guess the real challenge here is not how to 'end cliques' or how to break into new ones, but how can we repair bridges and allow ourselves to be seen for who we are instead of who people say we are. Mods talk, GMs talk, players talk. It's impossible to escape a reputation of some kind, so the best step forward would be to put the onus on yourself to be the difference instead of waiting for everyone else to make the change first.

[Morose]

Honestly, I think a lot of it stems from the fact that it's incredibly easy to just not resolve issues. If you don't like someone, you can just avoid them and complain to your friends about them. You'll never really end up in a situation where your actions have consequences, as new GM's put up new RP's every day and you can just make a new account. Grudges are easier to hold and often times when you complain about someone somewhere they can't see, you'll exaggerate and blow things out of proportion because you can.

Yes, societies have evolved and we know that people can get past differences - but there's no real need on RPG to do that. We aren't depending on each other for survival. If we hate each other, we can cuss each other out and act as toxic as we want and worst case scenario, one or both of you leaves RPG. You might make new accounts or you might go somewhere else. The anonymity of a username and the fact that any consequences are just so feeble makes it easy to be assholes to each other.

On a more positive note... I think for integrating new RPers into a group, it's key to make sure to keep them involved. I try to tag new users in my discord general chats, ask them how they're doing, what their hobbies and interests are. You can't force people to become friends, but I think that just actively making sure they're included is the best way to go about things.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

I will preface this with the note that I absolutely disdain the usage of "toxic" as a modern term, as well as the phrase "toxic behavior", and do not ascribe to the belief that such a thing even is real. Let me elaborate as to what I mean so that my stance is crystal clear. It has been in my experience, consistently at that, a pejorative term used to widely label any form of undesirable behavior without ever specifying the actual type of issue that exists; i.e., "What is the issue?" "Well, that person is being toxic.", resulting in a nebulous and ambiguous quasi-understanding that just something done is wrong without ever denoting if it is actually wrong at all. It is intellectually lazy and we should eschew it for the sake of this circumstance at the very least, for the examination of issues posed, and for the better of us all at large, internet colloquialism and modern parlance or not.

With this established, let us define each particular issue as best we can without carving it into so many that it becomes a mess of technicalities, beginning with the problem of asking the various questions of "Why?". Why do people not all get along despite their commonality? The simplest answer, albeit obviously not complete, is that each person will have their own opinion formed from their intellect on down through their experiences. All of their exposure in life, cultural, social, political, familial, and beyond, crystallizes a concept of opinion, which is held to them in their lens as the best possible course of action. This construct may or may not be well defined, refined into a highly functional, multidimensional approach and understanding; typically the only sort of thing built by extensive experience or incredible power of empathy to emulate that of others. Most people realistically lack both and those who tend to be highly intellectual, thus logical, are often calved off by being further divided from that crucial tie that is the aforementioned element of empathy, which is by nature dealing with emotion and thus by nature seldom rational.

Lashing out to strike back is rarely a reasonable response, particularly in a medium as this, because the powers that be often can quell it with nearly no effort. Spitefulness is, by nature, ineffective and only serve to fulfill the wants of the higher mind rather than fulfill its needs, other than a sense of vengeance and what is perceived as "fair play"; the justification of, "If you harm me, I can harm you back." even if the supposed initiator has done nothing wrong. This is amplified by removing the social element of facing consequences, as by famously removing the true interpersonal interactions. At most, without greater interaction, the most personification ever seen by members abroad is an avatar and the content of the words chosen. If one is slothful and puts no effort into the usage of their words or their choice, combined with ambiguity of not having auditory and visual components, it fosters a sense of isolation from that individual and helps regard them to the realm of otherness.

As such, it becomes very, very easy to be emotionally justified and strike out wrong or right. The stakes are low for reprisal, a counterattack and riposte by the opposition will only seem to further justify yet another response, and they lack any real personhood. For all the concerns of the user with inflamed emotions knows or cares, that other individual is not actually a person, and in our age might realistically - not outside the realm of conceivable possibility - not actually be; see the relegation to anyone who says anything contrary to a narrative, no matter what it is, be regarded as a "bot". This is all a natural outcome of not needing to really answer or suffer for wronging others but having a world that is a one-way mirror peering out, rather than reflecting on to them those things they can see in others that reminds them of themselves. Hence the tremendous amount of exaggeration and hyperbole exhibited on the internet that has, again, increasingly by its pervasiveness alone bled into reality, but still exists with a stark line between the two; rare is it to see people who behave online and offline alike.

Roleplaying, by its nature of taking on other identities, theoretically furthers this. The falling out between persons and the conflict between one another means nothing when another face can be taken and yet another conceptual mask adopted. To ask how they can be stifled is to really ask the impossible functionally because there really is nothing preventing people - other than themselves thus nothing truly at all unless they are of strong character and caliber which most are not - from feeding into this cycle. To stanch such bleeding would require making it more personal and more connected, two elements that have been classically and rightfully advocated against in the internet world. The anonymity and the troubles that come with it are judged superior to being shackled to the retribution of regular expectations.

There is little doubt in mind that any would prefer the alternative, again particularly in an environment about becoming other people and other things in other places and other times, that being divorced from this freedom is positive. Thus, with the beast, its nature so too follows. The good comes with its bad and in the end, the only real metric one can peer into is the quality of person in question. That, fundamentally, determines what creates these behaviors. In another way, what matters is, is the makeup of the individual accessing the internet and how much they may temper themselves.

Of course this begs the question, of what relief is this to those looking into "avoiding or negating toxicity around an RP or another player"? Which I return with this; vet everyone carefully and adeptly. The issue with the so-called toxicity of collectives and persons is that the issues themselves are never addressed, at least not in this day and age. In days gone by, the purpose of blacklisting and banning players who were issues to the community was not only common place, it was expected. There was a rightfully hefty price leveled against those who were frequent and or notorious offenders that seldom had any amount of mercy to them and this was what kept most at bay. "Toxicity" as people call it today is a natural consequence of accepting and allowing everything, hand-waving it on, and allowing it to pool, in place of absolutely abolishing individuals who specifically caused trouble. I might even add before "toxic behavior" became the utterance of choice "drama" was the frequent go-to, so perhaps the matter is more clear now.

In something as a topic's thread and a roleplay, simply be rid of such people and bar them. It should be made clear that they are an ill fit and that because of their behavior, which was not becoming of the expectation, they should move on. It must be formal, indifferent, and most of all, just. Unless a player is specifically a known nexus of instability and misbehavior, no one should be closed off to the topic unless the topic is expressly for a listed party of names. It should not matter who they are in any other circumstance, ever. Any personal matters or issues should be left behind.

So this leads into how these matters can be managed. The first is that, cliques need not always be managed. There never was and should not ever be a mandate that new players should be granted special access to any group for the sake of inclusiveness. Outsiders are just that, outsiders, and need establish a reputation for themselves and find where they belong. This innately takes time, any amount of investiture into a hierarchy does from plants to animals, and that individual is the only one who has any obligation to do so. The community however, should be welcoming of those who do integrate into it, because its long term sustainment requires new lifeblood in the form of outsiders becoming integrated. Pushing prospective newcomers away is an issue of the individuals present but should be self-correcting innately, unless the party in question is woefully incompetent, once they decipher where that individual gravitates to and belongs. However, rejection is a reality of life and not all attempts at integration will succeed. To pretend it is possible is absolute fantasy, as if it were so easy there would never be the "new work place" or "first day of school" experience that nearly all persons have.

Continued, how does one prevent the naturally formed groups from attacking one another? They do not, they moderate them. Some amount of competition and animosity between factions - those that can be as easily demonstrated as assigning entirely random groups into arbitrary colors, where cultures then form and perceptions of others are created as seen in a number of psychological studies - is innate and inherent. In fact, it is desirable, as competition creates innovation and advancement, and the lack thereof is stagnation and death, at least on the grander scale. As this is such a sweeping phenomena it pervades every element of life, even those so small as say, forum roleplaying. The only effort that should be taken is to invent a code of conduct, an expectation of members socially, a cultural ideal, and a set of rules with good judges on what must be controlled - what must be moderated. Offenders should be punished accordingly and then, by virtue of the cultural ideal, suffer socially as well; this leads back to the idea that in the past, gaining the ire of a community was typically the finality for that individual's stint there, meaning effort would be taken to avoid that and instead appropriately adapt.

In the end, do allow this following proposal to close out if nothing else was clear. The idea of "toxicity" is naive and foolish and goes about removing punishable objective failures by individuals. Instead, all individuals should be weighed and judged accordingly for their failings, both formally and informally. Troublesome sorts, who inflict measurably more harm within the code of conduct and the rules of the community, are the problem and not any one group of persons. Where this spreads and creates a climate issue is when those persons are not removed and they rally together to form bands of similar minds. Each instance of this metaphorical bad blood is contagious, as humans are highly social creatures and maladies of emotion can and do spread from one to another through this mechanism. This subsequently creates closed groups with, typically, unspoken but mutually agreed on general aims and experiences; like breed like. These can often be outright hostile and filled with persecution against their enemies to passive-aggressive out of fear that one step will have them axed. They are suspicious and wary of outsiders even if met on amicable terms. These collective pools of actors will act largely as one entity beyond the scope of any one individual, the usual rallying and bandwagoning seen by friends.

The crux of this issue lies back in the fact that the initial problem individual was never adequately addressed. Whatever they sincerely suffered, if even at all, was insufficient to strike them from their behavioral stupor. In some cases it never will be sufficient by doings of the internet, it is very difficult to influence people through force rather than manipulation that way and the latter is certainly morally dubious and questionably ethical at the least. Thus the only real answer is to strike it down before it begins and create an ethos that operates by example.

If the community wishes "toxic" behavior to be gone, then it must stop playing into it and let the emotional investiture and energy go. Holding on to it at any amount and allowing it to persist will repeat this problem. So it goes, @Lord Wraith, the best answer is to not allow it to happen or remain in the first place and ensure malefactors are acted against within the standards of the community.

[GingerBoi123]

@The Harbinger of FerocityYour whole unnecessary dissertation on a simple forum question makes me feel toxic.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

To label it as some sort of simple question is an error in itself, @GingerBoi123. Even in the described attributes and conversation I outlined, I in no way cornered the entire matter of misbehaving persons in any way. At most I specified some key fundamentals of it and what can be done about them. There existed far more I considered but left out for the time being. Do not worry, more might be yet to follow, and there is no need to feel "toxic" unless one feels as though some errors described might apply to them.

[GingerBoi123]

@The Harbinger of FerocityNo, I just get bored reading your wall of text which vaguely dances around the topic without outlying any actual points. I literally lose interest in your opinion after three sentences because you can't be upfront with how you feel about the topic, but instead try to write lots to seem knowledgeable instead of writing substance.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

I can well see how one would go about resorting to calling it "vaguely dancing" and failing to outline any actual content then if they totally neglected to read it because it was deemed too large and wordy. An opinion to note but to be perfectly fair, @GingerBoi123, I was never quite so concerned with anyone else's. I might add, as an addendum, that I wholly look forward to whatever contributions you intend with the discussion.

[GingerBoi123]

@The Harbinger of FerocityYeah, because it's boring to read. You are perfectly in your right to express your opinion on the topic. I in turn am allowed to express my opinion on how you put it. You are also in your right to think I'm a bit of a dick for it. That's cool. That's how opinions work.

[SleepingSilence]

Now I'm not looking to create world peace here, but we're talking about people who all share the same hobby and likely the same interests, or at least overlapping ones if they're applying for the same RP. So why can't we all get along? We do we lash out at one another or create memes to mock another by taking their comments out of context? Why are we so downright horrible to each other when we barely know the person behind the other screen.

Fall outs between players, GMs etc can kill an RP quicker than any other factor. So what exactly is that creates these behaviours and how can they be stifled? What works for you as a GM/player when it comes to avoiding or negating toxicity around an RP or another player and what factors turn you off from joining an RP?

How can cliques be managed? How do we stop mob mentalities from grouping up on other players and how can new players break into the clique of a group established RP?

As always, please weigh in with your thoughts and opinions below. Let's have a civil discussion!

@Lord Wraith

I've probably gone into greater lengths about subjects like this one before. But I'll try my best to keep it brief, as someone quite used to cliquish/bandwagon behavior. Having been apart of it here for a good while, plus multiple separate forums and various other settings in life. (And several other various instances that friends have experienced themselves.)

I can pretend it's multi-layered and complicated. Or that it's even about potentially complicated matters that are easy to get confused and messy, such as how most online hate mobs usually all come from disagreements or presumed disagreements in politics. But no, I can potentially sum up almost every hate mob and clique fight in existence in online and real life circumstances.

Evil assumes evil. Projection. People have selfish/self-centered desires. They'll never go away and very rarely are used for others benefit. People can and will hate people for absolutely no reason, because it's beneficial to how they feel exclusively. It's a sociological fact that people need allies, but more importantly, need enemies too. Even if they have to create them out of thin air. And in the world's most prosperous and peaceful times that's basically begging for that to be the case. Just read a few books on psychology and suddenly hate mobs almost seem par for the course.

You can be one of four people and choose what person you are and who your enemy is/how to defeat them. And it's pretty self explanatory and it's almost always locked on point that these people will stay this way. Every single one of these achieve the goal of gaining potential allies and enemies.

• 1. Judge everyone else constantly.
• 2. Judge those who have wronged you constantly.
• 3. Judge whoever is being judged or judge the people you've deemed lesser than you for hopes you'll rise in status of those who judge you.
• 4. Judge yourself and constantly, to focus on worrying on how you can be better.

The other question revolves around how GM's or leaders (admins/moderators) of social media platforms, threads, forums, etc. Tend to be the ones that ruin the campaign/whatever is being run through their own laziness, incompetence or abuse of their authority to unleash the ban hammers. And that is true. But that is also almost always the simple outcome of, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Most people in the world (and that includes those that hold these positions) have never held actual powerful positions in life. Which makes them almost guaranteed to fail as leaders, because it's really easy to spot the pretenders in that regard. It's very cheap and fleeting satisfaction to use and abuse any shred of power you have over others. But nobody genuinely respects these kind of people, you just get most of them to stay silent about it. Though that just makes finding the good and responsible leaders, who have the self awareness to respect their position, all the more endearing to me.

There's my two cents on the matter.

[Hero]

Here I was, preparing a response, and what happens? A bonafide example of why we all can't get along. Bravo, gentleman, bravo.

[Mao Mao]

Here I was, preparing a response, and what happens? A bonafide example of why we all can't get along. Bravo, gentleman, bravo.

@Hero

I mean, did you expect everyone to get along? Especially on a topic about getting along?

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

I could swear I addressed this exact element in it, but more importantly let me clarify that I do not think it to be, as said "a bit of a dick for it", rather I find that behavior terribly out of lane. If one is going to bother making a criticism, I would propose it begins with actually analyzing and critiquing it rather than stating what amounts to, "Too long, didn't read. Couldn't bother to because it's 'boring'." as some sort of profound proclamation, @GingerBoi123.

[Hero]

<Snipped quote by Hero>
I mean, did you expect everyone to get along? Especially on a topic about getting along?

@Star Lord

In all fairness, I wasn't expecting it this quickly.

[GingerBoi123]

@The Harbinger of FerocityAlright here's my analysis.

Your point is that we're disassociated with real life because of the nature of the internet and toxicity breeds because it is allowed too. Yourself being a discord mod and friends with a lot of guild mods I find it funny that you say blacklisting and banning used to be common place. It still fucking should be but you guys don't do it anyways, so the onus of toxicity is on yourself from your own definition.

So what I'm gathering is it's the mods fault for not policing it, and you're a mod sooo xD

[SleepingSilence]

Am I allowed to enjoy the pure irony of how correct I am in basically answering "No." to the question of "Why are people such dickheads online? Is there some underline complicated reasoning for it? And how can it be stopped?"

Here's one thing I'll amend to my point/post. Here's how you can reduce the gratification of dickheads being dickheads. By not ignoring it. You don't silently gawk at it and assume it will be dealt with. You call it out when you see it.

@The Harbinger of FerocityYeah, because it's boring to read. You are perfectly in your right to express your opinion on the topic. I in turn am allowed to express my opinion on how you put it. You are also in your right to think I'm a bit of a dick for it. That's cool. That's how opinions work.

@GingerBoi123

Yet you were engaged enough to bitch about it...

[GingerBoi123]

@SleepingSilenceAs I explained, I only read a bit of it, because it's this kind of pretentious behaviour that can also be a spawning point of toxicity

[Lord Wraith]

I regret everything

@NuttsnBolts or @POOHEAD189, can we shut this thing down?