As the ultimate arbiter of truth in a game, it is pretty common for GMs to set the tone for why a player is booted. It's not like the now-booted player can defend themselves. Let's be honest, if you try calling out the GM in their game you likely will be booted too!

In reply to praguepride (msg # 1755):

Oh no I'm not surprised. And I asked to be removed as well. I was just more laughing about the always a victim.

So certain events transpired that I allowed my temper to flare and frustrations cloud my reason, leading to comments. Things I disagreed with and still do. But how I responded was not correct. There were/are better ways to respond. I tried to apologize for that.

In reply to RanzarthPhx (msg # 1757):

I often have the same problem, RanzarthPhx. It tends to happen when I'm at my lowest and most stressed. I even lost two good friends on here because of it and I still miss them really badly.

I have another friend on here that recommended this book - Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss. I'm about half way through and its a very good read. I'd recommend it to anyone.

I still default to my old way of annoying people during an argument when I'm stressed though :/

In reply to RanzarthPhx (msg # 1754):

So very true. The last few games I quit were because the GM's felt 'persecuted' that I expected them to read my posts and respond to my questions. When asked to stop reminding them, I simply asked to be removed from the game, that is the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM that is expected of a GM in my book, but to demand respect AND the right not to show respect to the players in a deal breaker for me.

Current peeve: GM's who advertise for a high posting game, and players who will be there regularly, then vanish for days (or weeks) on end and doesn't understand why the players are a bit miffed.

In a game now with a GM who posts several times, every day, and it is such a joy!

It's important to be sure to give GMs (and players) the benefit of the doubt sometimes, however. RL hasn't been kind to pretty much everyone the past year or so, and sometimes GMs need to take some time to deal with things other than RPoL.

Just because a game is regularly high-posting doesn't mean it will always be high-posting, and no one should get their knickers in a twist if people need to tend to their lives away from RPoL now and then. Operative words being 'now and then', because of course, if a game is supposed to be high-posting and it's getting maybe one post a month, consistently, for months and months and months on end without explanation...well, that's different.

By the same token, to continue with a side vent of my own: Players that are playing in a game that isn't high-posting, and is in fact slow-posting (and advertised as such) that won't wait more than 48 freakin' hours for another player to respond to a post before they steamroll over them and take away the opportunity for anyone else to do anything - even when they were the ones that had asked the other character/s a question/given them something that needed responding to in the first place.

I can see that your vent would be a problem, part of why I don't join games that are listed as slow posting. In my case however, these are games that someone NEVER become high posting. I understand the occasional lull, but when slow is the norm, I get grumpy, if it was advertised as being otherwise.

It is so strange to me that players will hang on to "playing" a character so log instead of just calling it quits. It's the kind of individuals who log in every couple of days but never post for weeks despite an active game. Why do you do that to the DM? Why do you do that to the players? You can just say you need a break, or lost interest, or don't know what to do.

Think about what made you join the game in the first place. Was it the thrill of adventure and it's moving a little to slow for you? Is it you have a concept but are too busy/nervous/scared to write about them in their own story, possibly because it will shatter the perfect image you cherish so deeply in your imagination, so you would rather use the safety net of others to inspire your creativity? I really can understand that.

But you need to realize that whatever way you thought the roleplay will go as the perfect scenario in your head will rarely - if ever - come true. It's a collaborative means, a game, with levels of variables that despite the world idealized in your mind will be affected by the vision of others. Once you accept that, it'll be alot easier to throw some skin in the game.

Or just let go. Really, just say, "Sorry, too busy" or "I overcommitted to too many games." It's okay to be an adult about it. Works for me.

In reply to Boogs (msg # 1763):

That is frustrating, but to a certain degree I feel it is the DM's responsibility to protect the game, and the players who participate. I'll kill off players like that, and I suspect they usually appreciate it.

In reply to Boogs (msg # 1763):

I am kind of doing that now, but I told the others why I am not posting - truthfully, I been really sick lately and its killing my creativity. So in my case better to not play than do lame post or worse, go agro on all the npcs. That never ends well.

In reply to ShadoPrism (msg # 1765):

Communication is the key. If a player is having those issues in my world, and they tell me, I can usually place them off screen, so to speak, until they feel better.

In reply to ShadoPrism (msg # 1765):

I actually have to say that's not what you're doing at all. Like Piestar said, communication is key. That fact that you're saying something at least lets not just the DM but the players know what's going on.

And Piestar, I agree that a part of the DM's responsibility is to protect their baby, but being that it is also collaborative by design, I'm finding that most DMs I've had the opportunity to write/game with really do try to be accommodating, and they can only work with so much.

I wouldn't expect anyone to constantly post a FB style update, and I'm not even talking about players ghosting (that is much more reasonable). I mean specifically those players that keep logging in with no info to the DM, then can't be bothered to respond to PMs or rMail (though in that feature's defense I've missed it even with the notification on the bottom.)

Oh that's a banning right there though. Logging in, but ignoring attempts to communicate? That's not acceptable.

That said, it is important to realize that if I post in that characters name (which I do, though I put in the post it is from me) that RPoL does show that the character has posted.

To be fair to the theoretical player in-question, there are some mobile browsers that reload tabs regularly, even if you're not viewing them, which could lead to false positives. I know I've shown up as having logged in while on a hiatus before.

Hiya

My peeve is that you have a slow to moderate paced game because we all have real lives,  but a player makes a post then the game is hung up until they post again and so as the PGM I check if they have looked in, I have an away and returning thread, I have in my rules to keep in touch, do not look in without saying something and after several of the looking ins and not verbal contact I delete them from the game.  We all have real lives, much happens with family, health, work, etc and I get that but a word as to why not posting is expected.  Yet it is the inevitable some just ghost the game, some are just gone.  I always try PMs and Rmail to reach players before deleting, but Ghosting is just not on and it is a bye-bye as my rules even say.  Sheesh some people could learn some posting playing manners/etiquette but some never will, some do not care.

I'm going to time how long it takes me to type the following:


Nine seconds.  And I'm not a very fast typer.

Not one person on RPoL is too busy to type that.  Literally zero.  There may in theory be humans on planet Earth who are too busy to spare nine seconds from their day, but neither you nor anyone in any of your games nor anyone you've ever met in person are one of them.

Nine seconds that requires a computer and an Internet connection, things that may or may not be available to a particular player at a particular time.

For instance, back on a previous ISP, we would have Internet outages for a week at a time. Or, perhaps, a player's only computer crashes, and it takes them a while to repair it. They're both busy, and incapable of posting. Nine seconds or not.

In reply to NowhereMan (msg # 1772):

You have to take in to account though that the peeve in question refers to people who have the time and resources to peek at the game, without the wherewithal to spend that nine seconds.

"Not one person on RPoL is too busy to type that.  Literally zero." was the line I was responding to. That includes your original people, and everyone else.

In reply to NowhereMan (msg # 1774):

Not gonna fight, just explaining the position.

"Too busy" refers only to people who claim to have been "too busy."  Not to people who claim to have had connection problems or medical complications or nervous breakdowns or anything else.

How about this take:

Sometimes it isn't about having the time or the connectivity or other resources. Sometimes it's about not having the mental health to be able to face the fact that you ghosted, disappointing people who were counting on you. Knowing that you might be facing harsh criticisms like "how hard would it have been to just take nine seconds let us know you weren't going to be around for a while?"

Real fruiting hard sometimes.

And sometimes you're hoping that the problems you're having will only last a day, or a week, and the next thing you realize as you come up out of your funk six very real months have passed without a word from you to the people in your game. And trying to explain can be more embarrassing than you can deal with, especially if you hardly know the people in the game. Even worse, you might get someone who thinks mental illness isn't real and lashes out at you for your "lame excuse". So you don't try.

You don't know what's going on in other people's lives. Some people are jerks and bail for no reason and never explain themselves, yeah, but some people have a harder time of it than that. Unless you know for sure, please try not to judge too harshly.

I am so sick of ppl who cheat or mess with others in MMO's. Modders and hackers who randomly change the rules for thier own entertainment really peeve me off. GTAO is really bad about that sort of Troll like persons and nothing the company does gets them to leave. Even law suits don't work (I keep up with the news feeds and know they are actively suing several modding companies, not that it does any good.)

In reply to ShadoPrism (msg # 1778):

Gad yes, those kind of people have no class. Where is the pride in success, if you have to cheat to get there. People like that ruin a game...