praguepride:
Serious question though: I understand taking pride in what you wrote but honestly what does it matter? If you're out of the game what does it matter how any of that is going to be used? If you're leaving on such bad terms anyway...so what? Let them puppet your character however they want, you're done with them so why put in any effort to sabotage the game?
Again, we'll have to agree to disagree on whether or not taking a character description is sabotage, prague. I understand you think it is, I don't, so let's leave that part of the argument behind.
What does it matter?
It matters because - and again I reiterate that we are talking about extreme cases here, not just 'I'm not having fun/clicking with this game so I'm going to leave it' - malicious people can and do pretend to be other people sometimes on RPoL. Sometimes it's not done maliciously, in the case of a player that left a game and the GM just keeps puppeting it along as if nothing happened...but if you are leaving a game under extremely bad circumstances, I think it is prudent to expect and prep against the possibility that a GM who has become an enemy might have the inclination to continue to make posts "as you" with your character, within the confines of the game, in an effort to drive the other players away from you - and a lot of us play with people that we know by RPoL username (or at least think we
might), so that sort of thing can potentially follow a person if it happens. Especially if that person tries to get into a game later using the same character, which a lot of us do because we have characters that we love and love to play.
It's not about them using the character. It's not about them using the writing. This isn't about possession or a case of 'that's mine, you can't have it!'
(although more on that below) It's about taking the only steps available to prevent someone from pretending to be you. Not your character.
You. I realize, it's a minor step, and it's one that GMs that back things up (like BBR says he does, which is very smart) can prevent entirely - but it's still something, and often times the only thing, unless you want to go make a scene in the OOC by telling everyone you're leaving...and I personally feel that is far more destructive to the game since things like that tend to start arguments, but YMMV.
...as for ownership of items, and this is a legitimate question unrelated to the discussion: What about hosted images?
If a player has hosted up an image on their own hosting service, and placed that into a description, and is then removed from the game - does the GM have the right to continue using that image that is no longer hosted by them, or any other player in the game? Not taking the image and hosting it up somewhere else, obviously, but using the hosting service of the player that is no longer there.
(I understand that people can remove the images from being hosted, but I'm asking specifically about the legality - I can lock my doors at night, but even if I don't, you can't just walk into my house and take stuff.)
Which cycles back around to this, I guess:
praguepride:
They are the boss, you are the employee. If you quit your job, you don't get to go through the computers or inventory and rip out everything that you have done, even if it ends badly.
You're right, which is why posts can't be deleted (or can, but GMs can undelete them), and character sheets can be locked by the GM. That's the work. Descriptions, those are the window dressing, the personal items on your desk, the photos of your family and your pencil holder - your boss doesn't get to keep those unless you leave them behind willingly.
This message was last edited by the user at 13:37, Thu 27 Aug 2020.