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I need to vent. Some of you (the people on Plurk) have already heard about this.
(ETA added - 8/26)
I've been in a gaming group for a while, playing a CtL game. My boyfriend was in the same group. There had been some rough spots for me - my work schedule on the days we met was unpredictable, I was having trouble creating a character I liked, and the pacing and plot for the first storyline wasn't really to my tastes. But my schedule had finally stabilized. I had a character - two, actually - that I wanted to play. The second storyline interested me, and the third looked good too. I was very much looking forward to it.
As far as I knew, everything was fine. We had just met and were planning for the next session. I had been offering to help create a relationship map, which I knew that people wanted (it would've been a good excuse to try to get used to my new tablet on my big laptop.) And I had just posted a message basically asking if we wanted to get together for lunch, since the ST was going to be out of town on our usual meeting time. No one had given me any indication that there were any issues.
So you can imagine my surprise when I got a message from the ST a couple of days ago saying that he was going to have to ask us both to leave the game, because of a conflict that my boyfriend was having with another player. Apparently someone had given the rest of the group a him-or-me ultimatum. Instead of trying to settle the conflict, he decided that the best course of action would be to tell both of us we had to leave. More politely than that, at least, but the message was there.
I was angry at the group for deciding that we weren't worth the effort of even trying to have a civil, moderated conversation before kicking us out. I was especially angry that I was being booted out despite the fact that I had nothing to do with the argument. I didn't even know about it at the time. And not least of that was the fact that despite my ignorance of the issue, my lack of any major argument or dispute with the rest of the group (which the ST admitted to!) and my repeated stated willingness to be involved and help out with the game, I was getting forced out too. Not because of anything that I had done, but because of who I was dating.
I went ahead and asked why I was being asked to leave as well. Not because I seriously wanted to consider staying in the group at that point - I was already angry enough at the fact that we were being asked to leave without discussion, or without even attempting to hear my SO's side of the story. The response was that they had assumed that the two of us came as a package deal. No one had even considered that I might not be interested in the game on my own until I had to bring it up. I was immediately treated as an extension of my boyfriend.
It was getting very, very hard to stay civil at this point. I basically had to remove all of my connections with everyone involved with the group, because I was so upset and did not want to lose my temper. I was basically angry at being treated as a non-person. I was particularly upset with one of the other players, a woman with whom I had tried to be friends for some time, since even before I'd started dating my boyfriend. The current ST had made it clear in his message that he'd discussed his decision with the rest of the group and that this was all right with everyone. I was upset with her for being complicit in this.
To top it all off, the issue that we were apparently being forced out for was a rules argument that my SO had had with another player. Seems that the other guy had done something that wasn't supposed to be done, and my SO called him on it. Now, on the one hand, I don't think he should have done that - if I had it to do over again I would've advised that we quietly talk to the ST about it, let him know that we suspected that he might've made a mistake at character creation and that he might want to talk to the other guy privately. There might well have been legitimately hurt feelings here that needed to be dealt with. And it's entirely possible that my boyfriend was wrong. Being wrong happens to everyone sometimes!
On the other hand... we were being kicked out because of a misunderstanding about rules. One of the GM's roles in a gaming group is to handle disputes about rules! He could've just said, "Look, this is going to be allowed this time and not again, and that's going to be okay." Or, "I'm sorry, [other player,] but what you've done is against the rules and not fair to other players, please re-spend those ten experience points." I would have been happy either way. I really didn't care that someone had an extra dot in his power stat in a primarily RP-driven game. I just would've liked to have had him deal with it in a way that didn't involve tossing two players out of the game.
I cannot escape the feeling that the argument was an opportunity, and that the real motivation here was to get rid of the two relatively new players and go back to the group that everyone knew and was comfortable with. He and I were relatively new to the group, and even though it's just as likely that the player who had been established with the group was as much in the wrong as my boyfriend was, we were the ones who were pushed out because we were relatively new. (This isn't speculation, by the way. The ST specifically said that in his message - that because the other four players had been in the group for a while, he thought that it was most appropriate to ask the two of us to leave to settle the dispute.)
I'm not saying that it's what happened here, since I don't know what the ST was thinking. But it very much appears that way when looking at it from the outside and very much feels that way from my perspective. It would've been nice if the rest of the group had tried a little harder to make it obvious that it wasn't what it looked like.
The real irony? I was frustrated with this group for a while. But I stuck it out, and part of the reason for that was because I wanted to play a game with people who weren't my usual crowd of people. I wanted to try to branch out. But instead, I get pushed out... in favor of the usual crowd of people. Go figure.
We're trying to get another game started instead, an Exalted game run by another friend of ours. Hopefully that will work out a bit better. It's a shame that I won't ever get to find out what happened in the Changeling game, but I'm not a big fan of spending time with people who can't handle player conflict any better than that, not when I have so little to begin with. Not to mention the whole thing with me being marginalized and treated as an extension of someone else.
I'm trying not to have any hard feelings, but... I'm not going to lie. I was hurt by this. And it's negatively affected my attitude toward the group as a whole and the people who were specifically involved in this. I don't know if I'm going to attempt to contact any of them again (no one there has tried since the evening that I got this message, not that I've seen.) It'll be a while, though. I really don't want to blow up at anyone. Especially not people I had thought were friends.
ETA 1: I did forget to mention one detail, although I don't know how relevant it is - namely that this is a round robin game, and that we're supposed to be taking turns as ST. However, the person who sent us the message had been the ST for longest, so I kind of think of him as the leader of the group. Also, it makes it that much worse because since my schedule had stabilized, I had been thinking of taking a turn running a game. People were bringing up interesting ideas about the Astral Realm (we were doing a few Mage crossovers) and how it might relate to Changelings, and people were apparently open to experimentation. And I had mentioned this to members of the group, and they seemed to be happy about it. I guess they weren't that happy, though.
I'm done ranting. Feeling slightly better now - mostly I just wanted to post my side of the story somewhere, since I was given no opportunity to do so in a meaningful way to the group. There was no indication that hearing my (or our) side would have made any difference. It was presented very much as a thing that had been decided.
I've already had a couple of people tell me that I'm right to be unhappy about this. I'm trying to believe them, although there's always the lingering feeling that I'm overreacting. :/
ETA 2 - Well, a couple of people have apologized for the "package deal" thing. That's something. Still, the fact that we were dismissed outright from the group for this with no other attempts at conflict resolution is enough to make me not want to continue with them.
ETA 3 - I finally managed to compose a more polite message that discussed the most irritating things with some of the group members, including the ST. The response that we got back was essentially that the other player gave an ultimatum with no room for discussion. The ST had to choose between gaming with him and gaming with my SO, and he chose the other guy because he's been gaming with him longer and wants to continue to do so. Which pretty much confirms most of my suspicions and makes me even less inclined to want to continue with this group, or to participate in any events involving this particular ST in any capacity, ever again.
...bah.
(ETA added - 8/26)
I've been in a gaming group for a while, playing a CtL game. My boyfriend was in the same group. There had been some rough spots for me - my work schedule on the days we met was unpredictable, I was having trouble creating a character I liked, and the pacing and plot for the first storyline wasn't really to my tastes. But my schedule had finally stabilized. I had a character - two, actually - that I wanted to play. The second storyline interested me, and the third looked good too. I was very much looking forward to it.
As far as I knew, everything was fine. We had just met and were planning for the next session. I had been offering to help create a relationship map, which I knew that people wanted (it would've been a good excuse to try to get used to my new tablet on my big laptop.) And I had just posted a message basically asking if we wanted to get together for lunch, since the ST was going to be out of town on our usual meeting time. No one had given me any indication that there were any issues.
So you can imagine my surprise when I got a message from the ST a couple of days ago saying that he was going to have to ask us both to leave the game, because of a conflict that my boyfriend was having with another player. Apparently someone had given the rest of the group a him-or-me ultimatum. Instead of trying to settle the conflict, he decided that the best course of action would be to tell both of us we had to leave. More politely than that, at least, but the message was there.
I was angry at the group for deciding that we weren't worth the effort of even trying to have a civil, moderated conversation before kicking us out. I was especially angry that I was being booted out despite the fact that I had nothing to do with the argument. I didn't even know about it at the time. And not least of that was the fact that despite my ignorance of the issue, my lack of any major argument or dispute with the rest of the group (which the ST admitted to!) and my repeated stated willingness to be involved and help out with the game, I was getting forced out too. Not because of anything that I had done, but because of who I was dating.
I went ahead and asked why I was being asked to leave as well. Not because I seriously wanted to consider staying in the group at that point - I was already angry enough at the fact that we were being asked to leave without discussion, or without even attempting to hear my SO's side of the story. The response was that they had assumed that the two of us came as a package deal. No one had even considered that I might not be interested in the game on my own until I had to bring it up. I was immediately treated as an extension of my boyfriend.
It was getting very, very hard to stay civil at this point. I basically had to remove all of my connections with everyone involved with the group, because I was so upset and did not want to lose my temper. I was basically angry at being treated as a non-person. I was particularly upset with one of the other players, a woman with whom I had tried to be friends for some time, since even before I'd started dating my boyfriend. The current ST had made it clear in his message that he'd discussed his decision with the rest of the group and that this was all right with everyone. I was upset with her for being complicit in this.
To top it all off, the issue that we were apparently being forced out for was a rules argument that my SO had had with another player. Seems that the other guy had done something that wasn't supposed to be done, and my SO called him on it. Now, on the one hand, I don't think he should have done that - if I had it to do over again I would've advised that we quietly talk to the ST about it, let him know that we suspected that he might've made a mistake at character creation and that he might want to talk to the other guy privately. There might well have been legitimately hurt feelings here that needed to be dealt with. And it's entirely possible that my boyfriend was wrong. Being wrong happens to everyone sometimes!
On the other hand... we were being kicked out because of a misunderstanding about rules. One of the GM's roles in a gaming group is to handle disputes about rules! He could've just said, "Look, this is going to be allowed this time and not again, and that's going to be okay." Or, "I'm sorry, [other player,] but what you've done is against the rules and not fair to other players, please re-spend those ten experience points." I would have been happy either way. I really didn't care that someone had an extra dot in his power stat in a primarily RP-driven game. I just would've liked to have had him deal with it in a way that didn't involve tossing two players out of the game.
I cannot escape the feeling that the argument was an opportunity, and that the real motivation here was to get rid of the two relatively new players and go back to the group that everyone knew and was comfortable with. He and I were relatively new to the group, and even though it's just as likely that the player who had been established with the group was as much in the wrong as my boyfriend was, we were the ones who were pushed out because we were relatively new. (This isn't speculation, by the way. The ST specifically said that in his message - that because the other four players had been in the group for a while, he thought that it was most appropriate to ask the two of us to leave to settle the dispute.)
I'm not saying that it's what happened here, since I don't know what the ST was thinking. But it very much appears that way when looking at it from the outside and very much feels that way from my perspective. It would've been nice if the rest of the group had tried a little harder to make it obvious that it wasn't what it looked like.
The real irony? I was frustrated with this group for a while. But I stuck it out, and part of the reason for that was because I wanted to play a game with people who weren't my usual crowd of people. I wanted to try to branch out. But instead, I get pushed out... in favor of the usual crowd of people. Go figure.
We're trying to get another game started instead, an Exalted game run by another friend of ours. Hopefully that will work out a bit better. It's a shame that I won't ever get to find out what happened in the Changeling game, but I'm not a big fan of spending time with people who can't handle player conflict any better than that, not when I have so little to begin with. Not to mention the whole thing with me being marginalized and treated as an extension of someone else.
I'm trying not to have any hard feelings, but... I'm not going to lie. I was hurt by this. And it's negatively affected my attitude toward the group as a whole and the people who were specifically involved in this. I don't know if I'm going to attempt to contact any of them again (no one there has tried since the evening that I got this message, not that I've seen.) It'll be a while, though. I really don't want to blow up at anyone. Especially not people I had thought were friends.
ETA 1: I did forget to mention one detail, although I don't know how relevant it is - namely that this is a round robin game, and that we're supposed to be taking turns as ST. However, the person who sent us the message had been the ST for longest, so I kind of think of him as the leader of the group. Also, it makes it that much worse because since my schedule had stabilized, I had been thinking of taking a turn running a game. People were bringing up interesting ideas about the Astral Realm (we were doing a few Mage crossovers) and how it might relate to Changelings, and people were apparently open to experimentation. And I had mentioned this to members of the group, and they seemed to be happy about it. I guess they weren't that happy, though.
I'm done ranting. Feeling slightly better now - mostly I just wanted to post my side of the story somewhere, since I was given no opportunity to do so in a meaningful way to the group. There was no indication that hearing my (or our) side would have made any difference. It was presented very much as a thing that had been decided.
I've already had a couple of people tell me that I'm right to be unhappy about this. I'm trying to believe them, although there's always the lingering feeling that I'm overreacting. :/
ETA 2 - Well, a couple of people have apologized for the "package deal" thing. That's something. Still, the fact that we were dismissed outright from the group for this with no other attempts at conflict resolution is enough to make me not want to continue with them.
ETA 3 - I finally managed to compose a more polite message that discussed the most irritating things with some of the group members, including the ST. The response that we got back was essentially that the other player gave an ultimatum with no room for discussion. The ST had to choose between gaming with him and gaming with my SO, and he chose the other guy because he's been gaming with him longer and wants to continue to do so. Which pretty much confirms most of my suspicions and makes me even less inclined to want to continue with this group, or to participate in any events involving this particular ST in any capacity, ever again.
...bah.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 06:03 am (UTC)From:What you're describing is grade-A douchebagitude and if it happened to me, I would
kill them all and sell their organs on the black marketprobably not care to talk to them unless they approached me with an apology first.Good luck with the new game. I know very little about Exalted, but I've been told it can be fun.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 02:59 pm (UTC)From:I've enjoyed what I've played of Exalted so far, although that game was a bit of a mess thanks to a player who didn't feel like playing nice with the rest of the group. I am probably going to be Social Combat Monster in this particular campaign, which is always fun.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 02:08 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 02:57 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-08-26 10:59 pm (UTC)From:And assuming you're a "package deal" with your boyfriend is just blood pressure-raising.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 04:30 am (UTC)From:There are times when being right is a terrible thing. This is one of them. I did not seriously expect that calling him on what he had done and telling him how it made me feel would actually help, but I must've hoped it more than I was letting myself admit, and it was not to be.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 01:09 pm (UTC)From: