Let's talk about your characters

*sigh*

One less problem then. And yeah, Don't be proud to have raised a Red Flag from a player. One day, I will learn to correctly formulate everything that passes between my synapses, without loss.
Thank you for that gurthor.

We have a story to continue, may we have some fun doing it :)

Thank you, indeed. Both of you. I lost 4 years of my life living with a sociopath, I know the signs, and that individual is the main reason I still cannot bring myself to play face-to-face games and actually relax enough to have fun. So I am grateful that.... well... that I'm not alone here.

I work in EMS, so 13+ hour days for me, and I'm in the middle of a 6-day stretch. I will have the time and mental space to answer Thursday, and I look forward to meeting everyone properly :)

I have no idea what happened here. By wanting to avoid doing any meta gaming, I avoided reading other people's post until our characters were in the same area... Feels like I'm going to need to read up on past posts because seems like I missed something HUGE.

Your choice, but don't bother if you don't want to read those posts and spoil you about the story.

We had a player wanting to play nearly alone and on his own, and on his own conditions, he's gone, that's all there is to say i suppose.

I'll have to manage my own feelings there, but that doesn't change the story running. And happily, his character was on his own when he defected, so none of you will be impacted.

Yeah kalajel, nothing really interesting happened. He wanted samurai swordfight, he had this idea of springing an ambush through the village where we were fighting with the possessed peasants, and wouldn't invest in anything else, not even when meeting varian's character would he interact. A mere "right, OK, well toodaloo, I'm off to spring an ambush" and that was that. You could feel all through it that he was frustrated and waiting longer and longer between posts because of it. And then the last post on the 2nd part of the story (that Delio tailored just so he could have his fight and glory) and the back and forth on this post where he was so weird with varian again.
If you want to go back and read it all, you won't find much that is interesting, I promise ^^

Alright,

Now, I want to start by stating that it is not my intent to offend or insult anyone here, I am just stating my opinion here as to how I perceived the whole incident.

Well, I did read eyeofskali's post as some of Varian's when Inara interacted with Itsumi. I got some elements spoiled, but oh well, I really wanted to get at the bottom of this. I'm wondering if this whole mess was not created by a lack of a social contract. Basically, a social contract is a living, mutable document which states which subjects should not be discussed during gameplay. Some people use the X-Card, me, personally, am more partial to the social contract...

I'm simply saying this because Itsumi's sociopathic behavior seems to have triggered some bad memories in Varian, and the whole subject of dehumanizing someone else seems to be a hot button topic for some here (which I find a bit odd given we're playing in Rokugan: a fantasy world with a very rigid caste system which quite literally considers its lower rungs to be non-humans, but hey, maybe Delio's Rokugan is not the same one I'm use to play in...). Quite clearly, there are some subjects which should not be approached here.

There's also the possibility that there are some cultural differences at work here, and that edgelord behavior is viewed quite differently in Europe than it is here in North America... Edgelord behavior is certainly a nuissance and detrimental to everyone's enjoyment of the game, but the reaction to it felt a bit overblown, from my point of view at least...

Which, again, is why I'm suggesting the implementation of a social contract (or lines and veils, if you prefer) to avoid this sort of incident in the future. I certainly do not want one of my posts to potentially and unintentionally offend anyone here, and as such, I feel I need to know what are the boundaries here (not that I intend on being an edgelord, I got this out of my system a long time ago).

I understand your point of view (though I admit to not knowing exactly what edgelord behaviour is, I can infer general meaning from the context). I'll point out though that we largely let him be for the first chapter despite his attitude and, for my part at least, as I can't speak for either Varian or Delio, it was more his attitude towards varian's post that made me react. I thought his post was not good, but that lined up with his trend from chapter one, and didn't particularly shock me.
I've had a controversial post in another game, I myself opened the debate on it as I knew it could be uncomfortable, and I explained the reasoning in character terms behind the post, listened to other people's thoughts and reactions, and made changes appropriately. He just went "nope I won't bow down to tyranny" and felt pleased with himself... That was my red flag.
I don't know if we need a social contract, but I can certainly abide by one if you guys feel like we do need one.

An edgelord is an internet term and does not limit itself to tabletop roleplaying games. Surprisingly enough, the Miriam-Webster dictionary seems to have a definition, or more like an explanation of the term. In a tabletop roleplaying game, the edgelord will often decide to be a lonewolf, play a brooding character with a tragic background oh so tragic that explains his character's worldview and behaviors but he always refuses to talk about it, usually dresses in black, and then of course there are the whole revelling in violence.

I love Seth Shorkowsky's take on it.

OK got it, thanks for the links.
I don't think he was an edgelord then, he was just disgruntled every time Delio steered him in a direction other than that damn ambush, and took more and more time to post each time he wasn't satisfied with the answer. Anyway, edgelord or not, he's gone.

There is one thing you all don't know which informs my position. Eyeofskadi and I had been exchanging PMs periodically, and there have been vaguely racist and sexist comments made in that context. I could care less about "bits of viscera" or whatever... it was the person I saw in private that was beginning to anger and scare me, and it bubbled over when he began expressing that kind of dehumanizing behavior in the game too.

If someone wants to play a violent or sociopathic character, fine. But in real life, more than once, I have had my sociopathic ex-friend and GM use "it's what this character/NPC would do" to justify mind controlling my PCs into sexual situations because he knew about certain... ah... traumas in my past. Things like that. ...I'm sorry if it seems like I overreacted, but this is one of the very first games I have played since that chapter of my life closed, and I can't deal with it again. This game is one of the few places I don't have to think about how many days I spend neck-deep in covid and mourning coworkers and friends who have died... all I want is to feel safe here, without someone ooc attacking my worldview and real-life perspectives and saying I'm wrong for having feelings and memories. I'm not trying to cause trouble, and this is coming at the end of a 14 hr day so I'm sorry if it makes no sense. I just want to play the game and have fun, that's literally all

It's fine. I was not aware of the PM exchanges. Let's just say that this new information puts things into a new perspective...

What do you mean?

I might have been wrong about the whole edgelord thing.

Copy that. Maybe, maybe not. For the most part I tried to ignore and not validate his weird comments, mostly I was just checking on him to be sure he was safe and trying to encourage him to talk to Delio. I could choose how much of that bigotry I saw I would engage with. *shrug* My concern was exactly as I stated, I was worried what would happen when we all had to start interacting - Reiko is a Lion, and I could see all kinds of ways for that interaction to go sideways, and that's not the game I came here to play. So I spoke up. Now he's gone, past is past, and we move forward.

I've given some thought to what you said about the Rokugani caste system. I have a rudimentary understanding of how that part of the society works, but to be honest, this is my first time in this world. I've never played the original game, and honestly, I'm getting by one topic at a time. (The L5R wiki is actually kind of amazing for that kind of focused topical research...) So the point you made is a fair one. There easily could come a time when something happens in game that bothers me for whatever reason because I don't recognize it as being "normal" for the world. If that happens, feel free to let me know. I would rather have the chance to grow a little, and I've seen enough from you, gurthor, and Delio to trust you can do that fairly :)

Time to go for me. I'll see you all tomorrow, unless by some miracle dispatch lets us breathe a bit today. Take care.

Hmm, I'm thinking about this, but having lost some players so far, are we using the two characters per player option now?

I'm seriously thinking about it, yes.

Waiting for mcneils5 to enter the in-game, and i'll post after that.

No worries, Delio :)

Hi all, thanks for your patience and the welcome messages scattered about :) . I've posted in the IC thread now so we'll see how everyone takes to Bayushi Tohi :)

I love Tohi's mask. Reminds me of Mazinger Z. The super robot fan in me approves.