Also, if you approach IC conflict in a fully RP MU (so a MUSH or MUX or whatever) as though it’s a round of all slappers in Goldeneye, I would suggest that you’re in the wrong place and would better be served by a PvP MUD.

I promise you I am in the right place lol.

Also - my bros and I never demanded no contact orders from our parents after a round of GoldenEye slappers. So maybe we had it right after all?

@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:

There are players who enjoy playing weird little gremlins or satirical characters they see as totally separate from themselves, where they get to have fun at that character’s expense.

This is me.

@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:

…is basically a service you’re providing other players…

you’re welcome.

So as much as we can look down on people who see their character’s loss as their loss, for having trouble separating IC and OOC, the reality is that this is most people. And even if you are someone who enjoys playing the foil or the weird little gremlin, I’ll wager that at some point you’ve realised that what most people enjoy about your characters is they get to feel Cool in comparison, when they’re putting your character down or beating them up or being morally upstanding in contrast to your character. And you’re OOCly giving them the thumbs up that no feelings are being hurt in the process. That’s why playing what most people consider a “good villain” is basically a service you’re providing other players, because they get to feel Cool rooting for their own character against yours, while you’re always holding back just enough that it never feels humiliating or futile. This is CvC, but you’re serving the needs of P through a C veil, and if you stop doing that, the feelings that arise are PvP.

So staff can call it CvC, but they need to understand that it’s still ultimately a balancing act of managing player egos.

just clearly delineate IC vs OOC.

If someone is having trouble delineating IC vs OOC when bad things happen to their character, I don’t think changing the letters is going to help.

@MisterBoring said in Non-toxic PvP:

For some people PvP bears the distinction that indeed the player of the character wishes to end the fun of other players.

But sometimes they literally do. It’d be nice if we all lived in an ideal world where there was never any OOC bleed and everyone was a perfectly good sports, but that’s just not the case. Many people like PVP over PVE precisely because of the other P in the equation. It really IS about going up against other players and winning. That doesn’t mean it’s malicious, just competitive.

Good sportsmanship is more about playing by the rules and not being an a-hole than it is about making sure the other person/team “has fun”. (Especially when your idea of fun is “I win” and so is theirs.)

PvP doesn’t suggest to me that the players are going to start hitting each other. To me, the difference is that in PvP, the players are trying to one-up one another OOCly as well as ICly. They aren’t cooperating to tell a story, they’re pitting their OOC wits against one another as well as their IC wits (there could even be some situations where there’s OOC competition even though there’s IC cooperation, maybe two characters are working together one a project and are ICly cooperating, but the two players each want to one-up the other and come out looking “best” from the cooperation).

And PvP can be fun as hell, don’t get me wrong. There is indeed a different rush to knowing that you got one over on another real person, not just that your character won the dice rolls.

I don’t think that CvC should suggest that something is more or less messy than PvP, I think that it should suggest that the players are cooperating even though their characters are competing.

I don’t think using the term “PvP” for decades contributes to the problems we’re discussing, and I don’t think changing it to “CvC” solves any of the problems we’re discussing.

I don’t think changing it to CvC is intended to solve problems, just clearly delineate IC vs OOC. For some people PvP bears the distinction that indeed the player of the character wishes to end the fun of other players.

Also, if you approach IC conflict in a fully RP MU (so a MUSH or MUX or whatever) as though it’s a round of all slappers in Goldeneye, I would suggest that you’re in the wrong place and would better be served by a PvP MUD.

My understanding of PvP was already that our characters duke it out IC, not that I’m literally attacking players.

When I used to play GoldenEye 007 with my buddies on the good old Nintendo 64 and we put that shit on PvP mode we didn’t actually start shooting each other up with golden guns. And Nintendo didn’t have to come down and be like, “Nah bros, chill! It’s CvC!!!”

(Though we did talk shit plenty and accuse the other of cheating all the time or having a better controller. But what’s wrong with that?)

I don’t think using the term “PvP” for decades contributes to the problems we’re discussing, and I don’t think changing it to “CvC” solves any of the problems we’re discussing.

Hell - when your team is losing a football game a common refrain is that the referees rigged it. I don’t know what to say. Losing is going to result in salty balls some times. You should see my cousins play Uno.

When players get salty over conflict not going their way, they will rarely actually say that. Instead they’ll say stuff like “I’m upset that this other player cheated/used an exploit/is being unthematic/is unpleasant OOCly/is hogging scenes/can’t write for shit/has a super generic character/only cares about the mechanical win” etc. even when whatever complaint they’re making is provably untrue.

@Jumpscare said in Non-toxic PvP:

But you cropped out half the definition. It doesn’t make sense without the second half:

No, I read the second half. I consider “agreeing to fight but then refusing to fight back” to be in line with “being part of a high-conflict group and avoiding conflict”.

Of course it’s better when players can cooperate and find a mutually-agreeable solution. But when it comes to PVP (or even CVC) that’s just not always the case. Sometimes people want opposite things and there really is no reasonable compromise.

As long as the person is OOCly handling it well, I don’t really consider it to be “poor sportsmanship” (as someone else cited) if their character has sour grapes. Some characters are annoying ICly. Avoiding them has always worked well for me.

OK, but… why are you constantly having that argument? Why aren’t you like “pfft whatever” to that guy? Why isn’t he being ostracized by the other pirates? For that matter, why is the captain even keeping him on board the ship?

I don’t fundamentally have any objection to a PC going around saying that pirating is bad actually. But it seems to me that there are a million ways to deal with this issue ICly.

It’s incredibly challenging to play a ‘bad guy’ that not only provides more depth in a story but also ensures that everyone is having fun in the process instead of being antagonized. Playing a pacifist in the examples provided is just like that, it needs to be done in a way that can enrich the story, provide different perspectives IC, while also doing in a way that it’s not just to troll other players. ICA = ICC definitely comes into play, if a pacifist’s actions becomes a detriment to the group’s success or survival, they can be removed in an IC manner, whether it’s exile or whatever else. Just like if a pirate continues to proclaim and protest the pillaging of goods, they are forced to walk the plank.

If it crosses into the OOC boundary and the player is just there to give everyone a hard time, that is when staff has to step in. As I mentioned in an earlier post, whether it is a PvP or CvC game, staff needs to be fair but also direct in its decisions. This includes asking problem players to leave as soon as they become a problem and do not change. If a pacifist is doing it to troll others, they should be shown the door.

@Roadspike said in Non-toxic PvP:

The pacifist is a player archetype who will join a moderate or high conflict group, then do as much as they can for their faction without engaging in the central conflict.

This is what I’m reacting to.

But you cropped out half the definition. It doesn’t make sense without the second half:

Then, when they get backed into a position where they’re called upon to resolve a conflict by fighting it out, they’ll agree to the fight but refuse to fight back, letting the opposing side win, in order to give the other players the most unsatisfying resolution possible.

There have been plenty of pacifists in SH that don’t act as the proverbial rock in the shoe. They don’t stand in the way of scenes, they don’t unnecessarily prolong assured victories, and they don’t make the resolutions agonizing.

By removing the second half of the definition, you’re missing the core problem of the player archetype I was describing.

I’ll digress, though. We’ve discussed this example thoroughly.

if I’m in the Pirate faction being a menace on the seven seas, I don’t want to be constantly having arguments with another pirate who believes a REAL pirate never takes another person’s property without permission, and I’m making life hard for pirates by giving them a bad name.

OK, but… why are you constantly having that argument? Why aren’t you like “pfft whatever” to that guy? Why isn’t he being ostracized by the other pirates? For that matter, why is the captain even keeping him on board the ship?

I don’t fundamentally have any objection to a PC going around saying that pirating is bad actually. But it seems to me that there are a million ways to deal with this issue ICly.

@Kestrel said in Non-toxic PvP:

With that said, and with the explicit caveat that I don’t see outliers as inherently problematic, it can and often does become a problem when the outlier ethos gets normalised in the setting it’s supposed to be pushing back against.

For sure, outliers taken to extreme CAN skew theme. I also recall being on The 100, and being a bit peeved because my PC (who was trying to stick to the established theme) was constantly being undermined by the outliers.

In such a circumstance, staff has two choices: limit/control the outliers, or allow theme to drift organically from what was originally established. Neither is right or wrong, but the stance should be made clear so all players are on the same page.

Basically, if I’m in the Pirate faction being a menace on the seven seas, I don’t want to be constantly having arguments with another pirate who believes a REAL pirate never takes another person’s property without permission, and I’m making life hard for pirates by giving them a bad name.

Like… what?

People seem to be largely ignoring the brunt of the argument (that is, "there is a specific brand of OOC troll that weaponizes pacifism in a game designed and built around conflict and violence), so that they can instead fixate on an argument that isn’t being made by anyone as far as I can tell (that “pacifist PCs shouldn’t be allowed in PvP games”).

Because I didn’t see that as the core of the argument. I’m sorry if there was a misunderstanding, but it genuinely seemed that it was about these outlier characters (as @Kestrel alludes to) rather than a specific brand of OOC trolling. Especially when every post about the specific example just kept talking about IC Behavior. Like people keep saying “oh they were weaponizing their pacifism” and whatnot. Maybe they were - I don’t know them from Adam - but I just don’t see that from the facts presented here.

It is someone whose very existence is predicated on being part of a moderate to high-conflict group and then avoiding conflict.

I think we have to clarify whether we’re talking about someone playing an IC pacifist and the narrative of such a character. The character should strive to avoid conflict, sure, but at the same time, in order to create amazing story out of that, that pacifism should be tested by them being backed into a situation where they either maintain their pacifism and have to escape harm, or their personal ethics break and they evolve as a character.

On the other hand, you could have someone who’s character isn’t a pacifist, but they as a player choose to avoid CvC whenever possible, and also wish to stop the rest of their group from participating in such narratives with their PCs, regardless of their players intentions.

I think we need to really separate the IC pacifism vs OOC pacifism in this context, because I can totally see amazing narratives coming out of someone playing an IC pacifist in a CvC heavy faction, but can also see how OOC pacifism can lead to other OOC pitfalls.

@Faraday said in Non-toxic PvP:

That was literally the statement that kicked off this entire tangent. A proposed zero-tolerance policy towards pacifist characters in high-conflict factions.

Looking back to @Jumpscare’s original post about zero tolerance for this type of player, I want to know that they are describing an archetype that they’re calling “the pacifist,” not players playing pacifist characters at all.

Here’s the actual description.

@Jumpscare said in Non-toxic PvP:

The pacifist is a player archetype who will join a moderate or high conflict group, then do as much as they can for their faction without engaging in the central conflict. Then, when they get backed into a position where they’re called upon to resolve a conflict by fighting it out, they’ll agree to the fight but refuse to fight back, letting the opposing side win, in order to give the other players the most unsatisfying resolution possible.

@Juniper then clarified with:

Pacifists don’t just sit out, they tend to belittle everyone participating and take a revisionist approach to the faction’s raison d’être.

Again, referencing the character archetype, not anyone who wanted to play a character with pacifist beliefs.

@Kestrel kept up with the idea that this was about a character archetype who uses their character’s pacifism as a bludgeon to wrongfun people playing characters who fit with the purpose/vibe of the faction.

I admit that I lost the thread a little bit with the specific example mentioned later, since it refers to some situations and mechanics specific to a game that I don’t play, but I don’t believe that there was ever an intention to ban people from playing pacifist characters, just characters who fit the archetype of a character who is (irony intended) a militant pacifist who uses their beliefs to demean and socially bludgeon characters who engage in violent IC actions within the designed theme and setting of the game.

People seem to be largely ignoring the brunt of the argument (that is, "there is a specific brand of OOC troll that weaponizes pacifism in a game designed and built around conflict and violence), so that they can instead fixate on an argument that isn’t being made by anyone as far as I can tell (that “pacifist PCs shouldn’t be allowed in PvP games”).

Deeply frustrating, and frankly doesn’t seem like the folks doing this are arguing in good faith, but are instead letting their own anti-PVP biases or whatever get in the way of an actual discussion. Goalposts, at no point, have been moved. Multiple people have gone to great lengths to point out they’re talking about broad archetypes, and then citing specific incidents.

With that said, and with the explicit caveat that I don’t see outliers as inherently problematic, it can and often does become a problem when the outlier ethos gets normalised in the setting it’s supposed to be pushing back against. So if the theme is space war between humans and aliens, it can be cool to have one or even two guys on the ship going, “Have we even tried talking to them? There has to be a better way than killing each other!” And they can play at being morally upstanding rebels defying the majority consensus. But once one of two things happen:
a) The majority of characters aboard the ship are now Team Peace With Aliens
b) Players start to get very caught up OOCly in wanting to ensure their IC ideology wins, and get frustrated when the aliens still want to kill them or the staff-run space-guard can’t be persuaded against war

Then you will no longer be having a good time playing the Space War game. IIRC this kind of happened on The 100 MUSH, for instance.

This is also the Drizzt problem. One Drizzt is OK and shows drows can be different. But if every drow is Drizzt, then thematically what are drow even? What’s he rebelling against?

I have no skin in the game for whatever happened on SH, and I apologise if it seems I’m moving the goalposts; I realise this isn’t the point that was previously being made, I’m just broadening the discussion.

Although it definitely does bring up memories of the time when we invited a new player to our post-apocalyptic Shadowrun game and when we didn’t go along with what his character wanted, he suicided that character, then made a new character who was an “avowed pacifist” and ruined our attempt to ambush some targets because “he wanted to stop the violence”.

We uninvited him, obviously. Sometimes a person just doesn’t fit with a group or isn’t capable of playing nicely with others. I suspect it’s less about it being PvP and more about just some people don’t get that it’s obnoxious to set out to ruin other people’s experience because things didn’t go as you wanted.

The pacifist is a player archetype who will join a moderate or high conflict group, then do as much as they can for their faction without engaging in the central conflict.

This is what I’m reacting to. It’s not just someone who is OOCly trolling, which is an entirely different matter. It is someone whose very existence is predicated on being part of a moderate to high-conflict group and then avoiding conflict. Some of the previous examples cited bore this out (like the person in the Murderer’s Guild who was only there reluctantly or whatever).

The discussion took this broad, general archetype and then kept moving the goalposts to talk about a highly specific situation on one particular game, which may or may not have been out of theme.

I fundamentally don’t have a problem with somebody bad-mouthing the Murderer’s Guild for doing murder. Yes, it might be annoying to some of the murderers. So? That’s the IC consequences for the faction you chose and the actions you took. Being annoying ICly is different from trolling OOCly, though there can be overlap between the two.

Again, I’m not judging any specific game from putting rules in place that suit them, I’m responding to painting things with an overbroad brush.

To use BSG as an example, it’s completely valid to say:

“I want this game to be about fighting cylons, so I don’t want to deal with the headaches of non-combatant characters.”

Fine, cool, you do you.

But that’s very different than:

“There should be a zero-tolerance policy against non-combatant characters on all combat games ever.” Especially if it seems predicated on an assumption that all such players will engage in OOC trolling. That’s just… not the case.

That was literally the statement that kicked off this entire tangent. A proposed zero-tolerance policy towards pacifist characters in high-conflict factions.

Looking back to @Jumpscare’s original post about zero tolerance for this type of player, I want to know that they are describing an archetype that they’re calling “the pacifist,” not players playing pacifist characters at all.

Here’s the actual description.

@Jumpscare said in Non-toxic PvP:

The pacifist is a player archetype who will join a moderate or high conflict group, then do as much as they can for their faction without engaging in the central conflict. Then, when they get backed into a position where they’re called upon to resolve a conflict by fighting it out, they’ll agree to the fight but refuse to fight back, letting the opposing side win, in order to give the other players the most unsatisfying resolution possible.

@Juniper then clarified with:

Pacifists don’t just sit out, they tend to belittle everyone participating and take a revisionist approach to the faction’s raison d’être.

Again, referencing the character archetype, not anyone who wanted to play a character with pacifist beliefs.

@Kestrel kept up with the idea that this was about a character archetype who uses their character’s pacifism as a bludgeon to wrongfun people playing characters who fit with the purpose/vibe of the faction.

I admit that I lost the thread a little bit with the specific example mentioned later, since it refers to some situations and mechanics specific to a game that I don’t play, but I don’t believe that there was ever an intention to ban people from playing pacifist characters, just characters who fit the archetype of a character who is (irony intended) a militant pacifist who uses their beliefs to demean and socially bludgeon characters who engage in violent IC actions within the designed theme and setting of the game.

No one is saying you can’t play a pacifist, pacifists ruin PvP games

That was literally the statement that kicked off this entire tangent. A proposed zero-tolerance policy towards pacifist characters in high-conflict factions.