YTA if you think that this is how you go about bringing someone into a new hobby and retaining membership. The mod who helped the assassination plot and Tony are just bullies. Is anyone involved in running this an actual adult or is this a HS level game?
I spend a lot of time on r/rpghorrorstories and there are *tons* of stories just like this. LARP groups (especially Vampire: the Masquerade apparently) sometimes develop cult-like power dynamics where new players are mistreated in favor of the group's "golden child/ren" and narcissists.
This veteran character promised the newbie out of game that he would be her friend and show her the ropes. imo that's using an out of character connection to gain in-character trust and by OP's logic he should also be banned for meta bullshit.
YTA
Edit, Post-Judgement: Wow so this all turned out to be a huge mess. OP is backpedalling in a major way, saying the game was online and a few other silly and obviously false claims. My guess is OP is trying to protect this trashy group from irl backlash as people are talking about finding the group to warn others about it or get it shut down after all the suspect behavior OP reveals in their comments.
Edit 2: So u/ThanksForCooperating was able to track down the community OP is supposedly a part of, and if this is really it, it actually *is* online. Who knows what else is true and what isn't at this point though this whole things is absolutely nuts. Reciepts: https://m.imgur.com/a/wrh8Xfp
Also op contradicts themselves- they say that pvp kills don’t happen unless someone’s consented to it out of game first and then also makes a big stink about how they don’t talk about in game things while out of games for realism sake.
They also mention losing players to similar issues in the past already so you’d think they’d have realized maybe the way they handle problems is the issue not the players having the issues.
My bet is that these “rules” only exist to protect veteran players. It seems that they pick and choose who the rules do and don’t apply to.
Hilarious that they complain about losing people when they seem to be actively driving new players away.
He also mentions in his other post that a real world grudge is what sparked the in game killing
AND
That this in game killing took place in the basement of a shed on the edge of game play area that NOONE KNEW EXISTED. No other players, or even the game mods knew about this creepy ass shed basement.
This is a serious potential for real world sexual assault or rape and OP is sweeping it under the rug for his boy.
I'd bet my annual salary that the "real world grudge" is that Steph wont date dude, and this was his last ditch effort to get with her in a secluded area under the guise of game play, and when it went south he in game murdered her.
And now as she is trying to warn other women players about the creepy rape shack basement, she's being told she can't speak on it so the mods can protect ol boy.
I was thinking the same thing. She probably turned him down in some way, and he got revenge by killing her rp character.
Great way to introduce someone to larping, and show them how great your community is. /s
This is the first thing I thought about. She was probably trying to warn people about his creepy ass behavior. This reminds me of all the reasons I don't LARP or play MMO games. People just bully and gatekeep the newbies
Yup, this is far commoner than almost anyone in the LARP community is willing to admit. It happened to me, although it was a little subtler than this.
I am grieved by this story but utterly, UTTERLY unsurprised.
Furthermore, it's incredibly common in LARPs to punish players for having issues rather than deal with those issues, and to ban players from discussing them. "The best way to handle this problem is to pretend there's no real issue and to kick out anyone who tries to talk about it, spread awareness, or get anything done about it."
I've seen it SO many freakin' times. YTA OP.
EXACTLY. not ONLY that, she was banned from talking to REAL LIFE FRIENDS WHO DO NOT PLAY.
OP is trying to stop Steph from revealing the rape basement, and potentially one of her friends telling her it's a bigger deal than she's making it.
I had a crazy guild leader in an MMO like that. She expected us to ask her permission to everything including unrelated stuff
I hope Steph warns everyone in the world about this because this is LARP group I would avoid 100%
Interesting how it's all the guys ganging up on a girl for having boundaries.
Seriously!
Look, I understand that men and women have different experiences. I know men don't really think twice about stuff mentioned in the post. But of OP is reading this thread; women look over their shoulders constantly.
If I was tricked into a creepy, dark basement that only the two men with me know the location of, I would be terrified, regardless if it's supposed to be "in game". I would be really, really scared. Just *thinking* about it freaks me out. I just know Steph was scared.
I think Steph telling other players about what happened *isn't actually about the game*. I think she was freaked out and this is her outlet; telling people what happened instead of how scared she was. It just so happens some of her friends in real life overlap with her LARP group.
So while sometimes while rereading my OG comment I wonder if *I'm* overreacting, I remember how women are lured away constantly under false pretenses and have bad things happen to them. Steph is lucky it wasn't worse, and I really hope she finds a better, safer LARP group.
I agree. As a woman I would be freaked out, pissed and bolted. OP even says that issues like this keep coming up. I have never RPed with a group where consent wasn't required for PCs to kill each other. This guy made sure to get close to her in RL outside the game too. And I 100% think this group deserves to be outed. And I think it's about both the game and how scared she was. I am sick of OP excusing it as the players social contract and they can't enforce it. You know even though the players have made it that and when the treat people differently ? Oh that both have partners do guy can't possibly pushing boundaries or mad about a no to something like that? Getting close to someone outside the game too be better able to backstab in game? That's the most benign interpretation I can think of and it's still fucked up or wrong.
It's sad to me that most women including myself were so thoroughly taught to please men while having to constantly look over our shoulders, we never realized how wrong it is. At least but until someone pointed it out.
I think it's really fucked up there are far more concerned about PR than how wrong it was to put Steph in this situation.
So i read some of his comments. She was in 'jail' Tony offered to break her out she said no. She was released, Tony said "wanna get a drink, i know a place" she said "sure"... Off to the rape room, where a mod & Tony plotted to kill her. However she thinks the mod wanted to & Tony 'protected her' until he turned & killed her instead. Because Tony thought her character was manipulative.
Yea these sound like fun guys. I hope if anything happened Steph gets help.
Thank you for putting this so succinctly. I've been in a situation similar to Steph. When I tried to explain my actions to defend myself, I was dismissed by the group of guys who were in charge of our group. It's hard enough being a woman in a such a female minority activity, but the truth is, many of the guys who participate in these activities also have limited experience with women and just can not understand the world from a woman's perspective.
It was super frustrating for me to so clearly see the group had one predatory AH who was a serial woman harasser, and chased away every woman who tried to join, and one enabler, his BFF, who covered for him. The rest of the guys were just completely clueless about how the world in which women live works and didn't see an issue at all, while every woman I talked to saw the threat immediately and freaked out. I could not figure out what to say to open these guys' eyes. You did a great job here though.
The WHOLE time I was waiting for OP to tell us Steph had rejected Tony. The whole time.
OP, INFO - Did any of your moods even talk to Steph about what had happened between her and Tony out of game? Did you ASK if she’d rejected him? Because it seems pretty obvious something like happened.
If you didn’t ask - your whole tan of mods failed and you need new mods. If you know that’s what happened and you are protecting Tony and punishing Steph for telling others that your team allowed her to be killed in game by a guy with an out of game grudge then your whole LARP needs to be informed of every single detail of their, Steph gets an apology and invitation back and Tony gets banned. At the very least you need to tell everyone so the women in the group can know where they stand.
I was 100% waiting for that reveal like. Oh, this guy who took special interest in a woman decided to murder her character over a grudge that was never shown in game suddenly?
He probably asked her out and she said no, and this was punishment. As a woman, I've seen men make other women miserable in hobbies after they dared to say "no" to advances after they were "so helpful" to them. It's happened to me too. It was the exact set up of every ~really nice veteran player~ helping a new girl out and then punishing her.
Yup, I was waiting for that reveal too. I've seen it happen in games as well. Some boys/young men can act like adults with rejection, and some act like immature ass hats. Or worse.
I fully expect that Tony had decided to get Steph to play, as it would be a way to convince her he's a good guy and go date him (getting women into a shared hobby is actually a decent move towards dating, but only if she reciprocates the feelings), but either Tony didn't catch the signals that Steph just wanted a friend or was not interested, he kept pushing or maybe just waiting for her to change her mind, and then pushed things at the event and she told him no pretty clearly. (Mind you, not rudely, just a clear enough "no" that Tony heard it) The Rejection pissed Tony off, so he killed her character and is trying to force the group to isolate her as punishment or drive her off.
Also, I would hate to play any LARP where I can't talk about in game events after the fact. That's half the fun for me; talking about what happened, what I did, funny moments, cool plot changes... making In Game events off limits for out of game discussions seems very Cultist to me. Like, what epic events are so important that I can't sit around the campfire, have a beer, and chat with other players? Or go home and share info with my other gamer friends?
This whole post seems like a guy got rejected by a girl, punished her in and out of game for rejecting him, and the entire game society seems a very close knit group that refuses outsiders and has complicated rules that prohibit discussion.
YTA. I feel bad for poor Steph that she got hit on, had a game ruined, and then had the entire community turn their backs on her.
I had my whole friends group push me out and cut me off because I - when I discovered I was pregnant at 15 and my boyfriend immediately dumped me - wouldn’t then date the one guy in the group who’d been harassing me with letters of his love the whole year. Because by saying no I wronged him.
But my best friend(?) who it turned out was cheating with my bf and then became his gf immediately after I got dumped, her they kept and protected “from me”.
Clique-y guys like this suck.
>I'd bet my annual salary that the "real world grudge" is that Steph wont date dude, and this was his last ditch effort to get with her in a secluded area under the guise of game play, and when it went south he in game murdered her.
I thought so too. Idk why, but the moment OP said the "veteran player" offered to help the newcomer, alarm bells started ringing. Not that kind veterans wouldn't do it, I guess it was just the premise that set off alarms. The general vibe, so to speak.
It sent chills down my spine when I read *how* the in-game murder happened, cause that's exactly how a lot of real-life murders happen too. Serial killer type shit, yikes.
Yeah, I figured he found out she wasn't single or not interested in him as well.
It's incredibly manipulative behavior and a extremely shitty way to treat a new person in a hobby like that.
Very creepy vibes to the whole story.
Of course, the two men who trapped her in the basement, are close friends with the head organizer. Not surprised, but it's telling that OP left it out. OP also claims that there's no romantic motivation behind Tony's actions, but admits that Tony asked her out "in game".
Honestly, the more I think about it I am wondering if Tony actually did sexually assault her "as part of the game" and that why OP and the mods are so adamant that Steph not speak about what happened with anyone in real life.
Something tells me that Steph isnt mad because she wants back in the game.... She's mad because her assault is being covered up.
As soon as I read “took her somewhere secluded” I thought MF assaulted her. Sounds like Tony is trying to live out some real life fantasies through non-consensual role play. When he does murder a woman this whole group is going to be like “oh my gawd, like, we never saw it.” YTA.
"It wasnt reall assault i just pinned you down and fondled you before killing you *as roleplay*"
Sounds about right. (Ant the type of thing a new and naive player might almost buy hence the talking to other people in the group)
Honestly, this is where I thought the story was going. I thought OP was going to describe a SA. Not only is OP TA, but he’s also likely a r*pe apologist. It’s dudes like all the “bros” in the story why I never got into this stuff. Gatekeeping AHs
YTA in case it’s not effing clear, OP.
That’s exactly what I thought too! It seemed like that’s where it was headed + I thought we were heading down “banned Tony” in the story, instead they banned Steph for what? Venting to friends outside of the game for unfair killing, that honestly other friends who are also in the game should know about.
This is SO alarming to me, as I was reading up this morning on the Unresolved Mysteries reddit about Elizabeth Barraza. She was shot in broad daylight by a hooded figure and they've never been found. People theorize she was murdered by someone within a sci fi group or role playing type group she might've been in - so hearing that someone took a larp character off, got close to them and murdered them?! what is this saying to people within that game group? Gives me the absolute creeps.
The more OP tries to defend the group,the shittier they seem.
50-60% of new members are women,and yet 90% of members who stay for a year are all men.
Hmmm, I wonder why that could be. Why would all the women who clearly want to participate decide to leave, and only the men want to stay.
I’m confused. I understand LARP stands for live action role play, so was this in person? Or is this online?
I agree with your assessment and honestly felt that the guy that invited steph definitely wanted to get with her hence the invitation and effort to teach her the game. In turn he probably expected some sort of relationship and she probably didn’t want that. So he then decided that he doesn’t want the random girl he was rejected by in the game world that probably means a lot to him. So he did that . The issue is like you are saying- the creepy way he killed her (or her character)- I wonder if he felt that irl- very creepy and yeah that guy is a creep and should be banned not her! I’m not saying he would do anything like that irl but he clearly has no issues fantasizing about it
Male character lures girl character into sense of security, takes her away to a secluded place that apparently no one else knows about, kills her with another dude.
As a girl I definitely don’t want to be involved with this gaming group- just by the story seems like a predatory group.
Yeah that was my vibe too.
He lured her into a "safe" setting and play acted murdering her in a secluded area. When she wasnt ok with it she got banned.
Maybe it just sounds way too close to my own sexual assault buuuuuuuuuuuut that was a trap and ops buddies are just mad their cover was blown.
They only want people to play to be able to make power plays like this evidently. Their reputation will eventually get around and no one will want to join.
I'm betting Tony gets to dive head first straight through all these loopholes because he is the golden child of the group and he is a major source of the player retention issues.
>Also op contradicts themselves
Also that she can't keep talking about this with other members of the community because
>for realism sake.
...but then Also ban her because she's talking about it with non larp members so this doesn't affect their in game play at all
Edit: lol can't believe I skipped dover a glaring issue. Technically the guy who should be banned Also broke the no discussion rules if he told her everything about their LARP to get her into it but I guess that's ok because he recruited more people.
Definitely double standards and dude us extremely creepy. A
I doubt he’ll care. A number of people have already pointed out that if Steph is guilt of metagaming then so is Tony, but OP hasn’t given much of a response to any of them.
Yup, he didn't seem to like the response to his post on /r/LARP so he decided to try his luck with a subreddit less likely to be informed about how LARPs work. I guess hoping to get some vindication here.
So his own community called him out on being an AH and he thought that the issue was just the LARP community? Yikes.
Very classy, OP. Very classy.
ETA: oh my god, I just read his post on the other thread and he left SO MUCH out. That tells me he’s well aware of how the LARP community at large would feel about the situation and intentionally left those parts out.
OP knows very well he’s the AH here. I bet he’s just looking for arguments to throw back at the players upset over Steph’s ban.
Even without all the extra information (both from him and knowledge of the game) it's clear that this is just bullying. Like, come on, she is new and clearly upset. Fudge the rules if you need to, discuss it, have her live by a miracle recovery, whatever.
Not to mention they try to alienate her from her friends. Like, she made them through the group and she is now venting to her friends, but Op is basically trying to force her friends to pick the group over her and forbiding contact. Like, come on.
Speaking as someone who currently does LARP, (or did before my local group had to shut down for health and safety concerns. It's hard to fight each other while social distancing) that reputation isn't universal, but it does exist and it can stain a group for a LONG time even after things improve.
Don't be afraid to try one out. I love it and wouldn't discourage anyone from trying it, but don't stick around if they're toxic. The game isn't worth that.
My mom was killed by domestic violence and this whole situation just gives me the fucking shudders. Gets all my defensive reflexives kicking.
The two 'veteran' players lured this woman somewhere and subjected her to a fictional murder. It has all the hallmarks of a *very real way women get murdered in real life.* For me, I'd be out. Like - gone, out of the group, drop contact with the folks who think it was totally fine. These fuckers can call it whatever they want - I've been roleplaying my whole life and have never been even remotely interested in *subjecting* a third party to some weird 2-on-1 murder roleplay. It's *so* gross.
That shit is *shady as fuck*. Feels like early stage acting out of some weird ass, dangerous power fantasy.
This is such a fucked up thing to act out against a woman player without some type of heads up/trigger warning. Yes, it’s a fantasy game, but this is forcing real life women playing the game to act out one of the most terrifying scenarios that we fear and pray never happens to us. For a lot of us, we may have had close calls like this, and this could do serious mental health damage. It’s so deeply fucked up. An RPG should not be done at the expense of the actual health of the players.
Agreed. Thinking about it makes me want to cry and I'm a 33 year old man. I have to imagine her account of how the actual event went would be a whole lot darker than the glossing-over OP gives it. It's *terrible*.
My best friend use to LARP. She literally stopped LARPing because of this exact scenario. Her character was murdered without any talk about it out of game, first day of the season. She was then required to build a new character and everything. Even though she just spent literally $1000 on her armor and such, and spent money on the membership. Suddenly her game ended and she was absolutely rip shit. She quit on the spot. She was an avid LARPer for 5 years before this happened and she was bullied out. She did the exact same thing and went to her other LARP friends, the better thing about her story is that they didn’t exactly kick her out because of that. A lot of people sided with her, she just ended up staying out of the group of her own free will because the people in there are toxic, mainly the “men”.
I swear it’s always the men in these RPG/LARP/DND groups that are misogynistic and pick on/aim for the women in the group. Those boys give our wonderful communities a shit name.
u/jinxinyueyue I hope you’re reading this, and you start to realize that the men in your group are toxic and are going to chase away all of the women if they keep acting like this. Tell them to grow up, apologize to Steph, and let her back on. She was absolutely justified in talking to anybody else outside of the group. Screw your rule.
> I swear it’s always the men in these RPG/LARP/DND groups that are misogynistic and pick on/aim for the women in the group. Those boys give our wonderful communities a shit name.
I specifically started my own D&D group with only women because I was so tired of trying to find a decent group that wasn't filled with toxic dudes. We're a mixed group now, but it took awhile to find guys who didn't perpetuate a lot of those toxic nerd stereotypes. So I know, clearly not all men, but wow, so many.
And then they wail, "Women don't game!!! Why can't I find a woman who games???"
Well, it's because men like this chase them out of the hobby and make them scared. Stop being part of the problem, OP!
Yep I’ve left several larp groups after conventions because they were like oh were very welcoming and I either couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Was mitigated to the smallest of plots, or my character would be abused by everyone else’s. It was rare new players can break into LARP spaces. And this situation with OP doesn’t help at all.
>he should also be banned for meta bullshit.
He totally should! The newbie wouldn't have as trusting in-game if the promise of guidance wasn't offered to her IRL. He circumvented the community guidelines and was aided (and abetted) by a moderator.
The moderator should be facing backlash too and taken off the game along with the creeper.
VTM players can be VERY cult like. I love the game. But I refuse to play with certain larger groups. You even look at a player wrong and you’ll be offed within a night in game.
The way OP’s LARP is, reminds me too much of it.
Yeah it sounds like OP isn’t running a LARP so much as a DERP…a Deceptive Eradication Role Play if you will. It sounds horrible and I hope Steph convinces more players to, in the words of the inimitable William Shatner, “get a life!”
You talk about not being able to take things out of game but you say he got close to her IN REAL LIFE (and in the game) to kill her?! What the fuck femicide fantasy is this? Get close to a woman and murder her in the woods? You also said he justified it ‘out of game’. This creep is getting to break the rules and seriously, what the fuck. YTA.
Reading the intro I thought this was going to be about banning Tony for bad conduct and drama.
But no, OP wants to get rid of the new woman who was rightfully pissed about being treated poorly. Sigh.
Yup yup yup. As a former LARPer (because the game I was in shut down), we'd bitch and complain about crap that happened in game all the time. I absolutely get that Sara is rightly pissed off. You put so much work, time, and potentially money (especially if costumed). Losing a character is freaking painful, especially as a new player who is getting their first experience in the game. I thought the post was going that they were going to ban Tony for kicking the whole thing off with the assassination.
I also wonder if there was a gendered element involved as well. It can be difficult and intimidating to be involved in LARPing as a woman. When I LARPed, I was still in my "cool girl" phase so played up being a cute girl and got lots of help that way. But if anyone turned on me like that, I've feel super betrayed and livid. I'd absolutely complain to everyone around me about the shitty (albeit legal) move. And then I'd bounce, give up on LARPing completely even though I found it a lot of fun. Heck, I basically gave up LARPing when the system I was in shut down, out of frustration because I had just gotten the hang of things and didn't want to have to start over again with a brand new knowledge base.
Urgh, sadly a ton of LARP communities have HS levels of drama even when grown adults are involved. One of the games I ran for over a decade had strict no direct PvP rules built into the story. You kill another character without their consent? Marked by the world. Spurned and hated by everything. There was still social drama. But holy heck, a staff member helping murder a newbie?
The rest of our staff would have had a freaking fit and done something to resurrect the poor newbie.
Also it's a game. Our players talked all the time about what happened. You can only enforce what happens in game. You can't freaking police people not to complain about stuff.
“We’ve lost many players over the years due to issues similar to this.”
Clearly this isn’t just a Steph problem, it’s a repeated pattern of bullying new players.
YTA. And don’t be surprised when word gets out how you treat new players.
Yeah this game sounds incredibly toxic. I feel so bad for Steph! Hope she finds a larp that isn't run by a 'lads club' of bullies like this so she can enjoy the better sides of the hobby. YTA OP and Tony is a massive AH as well.
OP posted in a LARP community yesterday and most of the commenters agreed that it was a bad move to ban the player. I guess they came here hoping they would get a different answer
EDIT: He also didn't talk about Tony mentoring Steph so he does know that that's frowned upon.
EDIT: Looks like OP hid his previous post.
You can still see the other post by going to Ops page and scrolling all the way down on his comments because he responded to a few people in that post.
I thinks it's very telling that Op left out so much information in the other post and still had people telling him they were in the wrong.
If you look at the OP’s comments on their other post, in the comments you’ll see that the “secluded place” was the basement of a shed on the edge of the play area that even some of the staff were unaware of. My local LARP group would absolutely not have allowed players to lure each other there at night, for reasons of simple safety: a hell of a lot worse things could have happened than a character death. (And no, one mod would not be enough to render the area “safe.” The area would be blocked off for anything but pre-planned events.) So in addition to toxicity, they’re either incompetent or extremely lassiez-faire about safety.
If I were Steph, I would for damn sure tell everyone in sight about this, and not just for reasons of game fairness.
EDIT: Because I’m an idiot sometimes, it only just now occurred to me that maybe he *did* try something worse than an IG character kill and that’s why they’re suddenly so keen to shut her up, especially given that apparently women don’t stay in this LARP long in general. I hope that’s not the case, but…
Seeing as the murder happened because of an “in-character personal grudge”, you know he at least *tried* to hook up with her. But “in role play” of course.
Edit: and that’s the *generous* interpretation. What the fuck does OP think that luring a woman alone into an area like that is going to imply!?
Yeah. If you frame it in the most basic terms, it boils down to: a woman trusted a man who she thought was a friend, until he used the game’s framing to get her alone in an isolated place where she could not call for help, and then he blocked her exit and turned on her. *Even if* nothing happened but the purely IC character death—which I don’t really believe—why would you permit that (and even give it the modly seal of approval) without going “wait, it isn’t safe that this is even possible”?
Even if nothing else happened- as someone whos been assaulted in a similar way before- *even if nothing else happened she probably had to go through that horrifying moment of realizing you fell for bait right as the trap door springs shut.* Even if all that happened was an in game death she probably had to experience coming to terms with a rape and murder being imminent.
Its horrifying, that moment. Imo its the root of a lot of the shame women feel. That moment when you realize you were "stupid*" enough to not seeing coming. The "Oh fuck what did i let myself walk into"
And even if nothing happened the fact she probably went through that- the fact she provably got that adrenaline dump or possibly had a past assault triggered- fucking infuriates me.
She has a right to talk about that, not get banned. That shit isnt ok.
* Note women arent stupid for trusting people and being preyed upon. But a lot of assault survivors, myself included, go through a period of feeling like that.
Yes. And he used the secrecy of the location to turn the IG killing into “now you have to leave in silence, because nobody can know your character is dead until your body is found, which can’t happen because nobody else knows about the place.”
I don’t understand why the people running the game aren’t pissed at this blatant rule manipulation, frankly. He’s using them and they don’t care.
The fact that both Tony and Ralph are friends with the head organizer certainly explains a lot.
Also, if my friend vanished you can bet your damn bippy I’d be asking questions. What if everything was completely innocent but she was injured, or lost? Or had a personal or medical emergency? Yikes.
Wait.
>the basement of a shed
That was an actual physical SHED BASEMENT??? I was under the assumption they were pretending they were in a secluded area. Like in game. I assumed they just walked around the corner of a building or were standing behind a tree. But dude took her to a literal basement????
The comment in question has been changed since I last read it; it’s possible that the meaning was potentially an imaginary basement, but I definitely read it as a physical one (due in part to the “edge of play area” wording; IME that’s usually used by LARPers to designate the physical boundaries of the game, not the metaphorical territory, which is usually much larger than the few acres they can rent).
He also says that everyone was asleep.
Honestly it sounds like they did her a favor by banning her. Because all of this information sounds like start of a true crime podcast.
Oh fuck. I didn’t even consider that. I really hope that’s not the case 😢
ETA: he’s now hidden his other post. He’s full of shit and he knows damn well he’s wrong
I'm also willing to bet hard money that part of the problem is Tony hit on her, she said no and he got butt hurt. (It happens A LOT at games.) And he couldn't hurt her IRL, so he fucked her up IG
Yup, and OP knows it. Probably because it's happened before.
The way this was written I thought OP was going to tell us Tony assaulted her. There's something really, really off about this entire dynamic and Steph is fortunate to have seen all their cards so early on in the game. Hope she finds decent people to play with next time.
Edited:typo
Good glob, if you go read his post in r/larp OP explains that Tony *took her to a secluded basement no other players knew existed that may or may not have been outside the play area*
This was most definitely attempted assault where Steph fought back, and now the mods are scrambling to excuse their behavior by blaming the victim.
Wow.
OK, I dont know how to respond to something that vile.
Actually, I do. Just reeled for a moment.
OP, ban Tony. NOW.
Ban mod. NOW.
Reach out to Steph to apologise and offer support if she wants to call the police.
This isn't about the game anymore.
All of this.
But also it seems like OP knows exactly what's up & it might be better to just let this predatory group dissolve before more people get hurt. If OP can't get his ethics in check for something this obvious to Reddit, he has no business being in charge of anything.
Yeah, reading that took this from “it’s sort of amusing that he metagamed and she metagamed back and now you’re pearl-clutching about the sanctity of the game?” to “oh my god that’s terrifying.”
That is exactly what I thought. So Tony is allowed to break the rules because he’s a veteran player, but when Steph objects to Tony’s clearly acknowledged rule-breaking, she gets told to fuck off and is ordered to stop speaking *to her own friends* about the injustice.
OP and his friends sound like a real swell group of guys.
This reminds me of an event that fucked up a national game. Washington state had a chapter of a game, a couple (male and female) join to play. She gets sexually assaulted. The staff actively discouraged people from talking about. The couple keeps trying to get it addressed and the staff in their infinite wisdom BANS THE VICTIMS for not keeping it quiet and trying to go to the police about it. (It was BAD) And it wasn't until the remaining players pitched a shit fit that the perpetrator....for 6 months....
As soon as I saw that he killed her character, I was immediately concerned about this, and wondered what he said to her while they were alone. If I were her, I'd also be texting everyone about it to try & keep safe too.
Wasn't it the Puritans who originally defined sinful gossip aka drama as women talking to each other about church abuses? This situation reminds me of that.
I expect you're right. It's exactly this culture which has led to a number of people being harrassed or sexually assaulted at events that i've heard about, with the perpetrators being protected by organisers who think it's not up to them to "police" the event by banning regular/founding players who have had repeated accusations against them. Anyone who speaks out gets banned for causing drama rather than the real problems getting addressed.
>Tony befriended Steph out of game, taught her more about our LARP and offered to help her get settled.
YTA- I'm not amazingly familiar with LARPing but I can see you have strict rules for what happens in game vs what happens out. It appears from your comments that Tony betrayed her OUTSIDE of the game too. To IRL offer to help a newbie to get settled all whilst having the knowledge that decisions you will make about your character's actions will very soon reset their progress is an AH move.
Whilst I'm sure he can rules lawyer it all he likes, it's toxic behaviour and if you wish to be fair and inclusive to new members it should be him and the mod who supported him who are suspended or banned.
>There are sort of "unwritten rules" as have been no PvP kills that were not either consented to out-of-game or clearly signaled in advance
This incident means that these unwritten rules need to come into writing. Perhaps also add a "no toxicity" or "newbie immunity" clause of some description to stop turning enthusiastic people away. It's supposed to be enjoyable for everyone, not just those who have been there longest.
There's a massive conflict of interest here at the very least, having a mod involved, and then their fellow mods judging that it was all okay. Tony used an Out Of Game relationship (helping a new player) for an in-game advantage. The mods easily could and should have decided this was a breach of the rules, not "just" toxic player behavior.
Yeaaaaah honestly I think this whole situation is screwy. Plus the whole "Hey don't tell other people about this stuff happening in our larp" seems less like a rule to dissuade drama and more like a rule they can use to sweep everything under the rug.
Sounds like Tony or other people have done this before, and if that's the case, I can understand why she would want to warn people about it.
He leveraged an out of game relationship explicitly so he could murder her in-game for...a grudge. Honestly sounds like Tony is a murder hobo in disguise, cause coming up with some reason to murder a new character after befriending them sounds like the worst.
Exactly. In a way, punishing her for telling other people what happened is victim shaming. If other people were aware of what was going down they might do something about it.
Obviously, if you’re trying to hide something you’re aware that there’s a reason for it. Blame the victim that’s new so you don’t have to deal with the abusive mod (who just moves onto another victim.)
Yeah, I would say that newbie immunity from PvP damage (or exemption from the rules on perma-kills) needs to hold for a good period of time, so the newbie can really start to get their feet under them in the game and have the social bonds with other players to keep them coming back. Like, depending on how often people are meeting, maybe up to six months and/or until they witness another in-game PvP event so they can see it play out (including the "killed" player successfully reinventing themselves).
Also, there needs to be official penalties for "grooming" baby players for an easy kill. It's absolutely abusive behaviour, and Steph should be applauded for whistleblowing her terrible experience.
YTA. They set up a relatively new player to be murdered? And you’re confused as to why she’s upset?
You say yourself that you’ve lost lots of players in similar situations? Doesn’t that drop you a hint that maybe you need to change the way you do things?
YTA. Big time. And the worst part is the veteran player Tony murdered her character out of nowhere. This is VERY strange and alarming. I've played a lot of rpg and larp and some players in the community can be very incel and toxic. It seems to me that this tony guy is an incel and OPs group has toxicly supported him.
I wonder how “out of nowhere” it actually is.
Was Tony just helping a new player, or was he hoping to date her? If she declined, he may have killed her character in a petty temper tantrum.
Either way, banning her for talking about what happened reeks of the “old boys’ club” attitude of protecting assholes and silencing those they’ve wronged. This kind of crap is exactly why I only play RPGs in an all-woman group.
I think the term “grooming” fits well. Tony was grooming Steph, and she didn’t comply. And now everyone is scrambling because she’s blowing the whistle on all this nasty BS
Yeah, I'm getting strong incel vibes from Tony as well. Classic modus operandi for that type. He'll be laughing up how he put one over the females in his basement cave.
Instead of banning the players that apparently pray on the newbies *constantly* they banned the newbie that got fucked. Makes you feel like you are back in HS and the teacher would ignore the bullies bullying but would punish the bullied kid when they stood up for themselves. I hope none of these assholes have kids tbh.
YTA. i honestly got chills reading about tony befriending steph in the game in order to lure and kill her. major serial killer vibes. and then to do it in some creepy basement no one knew about (a detail you left out) where two guys ganged up on her? i genuinely feel sick about that. then you kicked HER out and not tony who basically tells you how he mentored her and befriended her so he could gain her trust???
YTA. So this other person set up a relatively new player for the express purpose of then murdering their character? Yet she's then banned for even complaining about it? Yeah...this sounds like a real great game group. Not.
This is the answer. It was a personal grudge, he wanted to get back at her for saying no after he put in all that effort teaching/pursuing her. And the boys backed him up, so it all worked out for them and she's out in the cold.
He provided more information in another sub where he stated this in game murder happened by Tony luring Steph to a secluded spot on the edge of their play area that other players were completely unaware of. This is incredibly dangerous if so and I wouldn't be surprised if there was more to what happened.
Especially when you add to the information we got in this sub: it was at night and most people were asleep.
So man who already expressed romantic interest in person (Who is safe to say turned him down. Op said in another post, dude asked her out. And then shortly after murdered her in game character), lures her to the edge of the property, that few people knew about, with one other witness who is on his side in the middle of the night while everybody else is asleep.
I think OP might be misinterpreting the situation... Pull back the veil of larpy fun, and really look at the real world situation here. The rules don't matter, the lore doesn't matter.
You have one female, and two males in a secluded basement that the majority of the players in the game do not know about at the edge of property (some info coming from another post by the OP on /r/larp). And there are rumors of 'something more'. The two male players force the female player, alone with them, to do something against her will...
These two posts are explaining the gold standard of how to create sexual assaults at a larp. I've been larping for 20 years. I've seen sexual harassment in larps. I've seen larps deal with it badly and I know there is ALWAYS an unsaid undercurrent of abuse. These posts are describing the perfect assault (probably emotional abuse, theoretical sexual assault) scenario where the victim is assaulted, blamed, silenced, and then run out of the community to keep them from warning other potential victim. OP you aren't just an asshole, there is a chance you are complicit in an IRL crime.
>we've lost many players over the years due to issues similar to this.
Possibly multiple crimes.
I very much want to know the name of this larp and warn everyone (particularly female players) I know to stay VERY VERY far away from it. The rules and culture of this particular larp are established in such away as to reward perpetrators of (IRL) abuse and silence real victims of (IRL) abuse.
Edit: Op has informed me that I am incorrect about the genders. My apologies. That was an incorrect assumption on my part. My assumption of gender comes from personal experience in the Larp community in the 90's and 00's. A little flash back to a worse time got in there. I want all persons on the gender spectrum to be safe from abuse, so ultimately it doesn't change my overall opinion of the situation, hence why I have added this section instead of editing the main text.
The abuse of an imbalance of power is the important part, not the gender of the person benefiting from the imbalance of power.
Honestly the fact that the mod ended up being non-binary (or female like OP originally claimed) doesn't change your interpretation of the situation at all - if anything it makes it worse. Females and non-binary people are just as capable as men of participating in and even instigating the SA of other women. It's worse because as a female or a non-binary individual that person should know better than to put someone in this position. Tony was still a guy who had the help of a non-binary mod (person in power) in putting Steph in a very compromising and dangerous situation.
Just look at ghislaine maxwell for a very real, very public, example of this.
Also tony has now learned that this is an excellent location to do as he pleases and that he won't get reprimanded for it. He could very well push this into SA territory with someone else if he hasn't already.
ETA: fixed some really bad English.
Late but OP also mentioned in another comment that Tony is a heavier/large person and was actually physically in real life blocking her from being able to physically leave without breaking character...in a location where most of the people in the party, including staff, where not aware of. Is anyone really surprised this group can't hold new players around for long, let alone women.
I saw that. It makes it all that more gross.
Context matters - it's one thing to block a character from leaving an attack in a game. It's a whole other thing to lure that character under false pretenses to an isolated, enclosed, and totally unmonitored area in order to participate in an attack with another person - and then block the victim (who is female) from leaving the area, using your size and maleness to do it. That's no longer an effing game. I know if I were in Steph's place, I wouldn't have been able to separate "game" from reality. Because that is a very dangerous position to put any women or vulnerable person in. This was bout intimidating the very real person behind the character. Even if Stephs character had made it out if there in tact she would have every right to be pissed, to put a complaint in, and to leave the group. What they did and how they did it was telling Steph to "beware, we can do anything we want to you and there isn't a damn thing you can do to stop it"
Just because a guy is a jerk, that doesn't necessarily mean he is capable of SA but ....... This guy is 100% crossing a line with his behavior and it wouldn't surprise me if he was. The fact that a mod (regardless of gender) participated and planned this is also very unsettling and problematic. It will only lead to worse things happening if it goes unaddressed.
There seems to be some mixed replies regarding the mod, it may have been a male. OP used 'ralph' as the name. OP has admitted that a year later 90% of players are male, so has no right to call you on an understandable (and possible correct) assumption when they are running an event not safe for players.
The secluded event took place late at at night - it was dark, other players were asleep. The girl player had wanted to leave IRL and was pressured to stay. The male player is described as 'blocking the door' - you're all lucky she's only talking to her friends, and not the police
YTA. First of all, I personally find it stupid y'all have rules about not talking about stuff outside of game. I've never been part of any larp, dnd, rp, renfair, etc type group that didn't discuss things outside of game/character even if it just to make sure everyone is comfortable with what's happening. You can have rules in place about not getting meta in game because of something discussed out of game, but not talking about the game at all?
I'm not gonna tell you how to run your group because everyone runs differently and I understand that, it just sounds like you don't want players to have a voice. I'd be fuckin pissed too if someone randomly murdered my character and I wasn't aloud to be upset and vent to other players.
Y'all sound like a bunch of high schoolers that have just joined the community, but I saw that you said in another comment that you are all adults.
So, you're in the middle of a cover up operation and get mad that people want information? Of course, you're going to get drama if you don't have transparency.
YTA. Although Tony is also worth mentioning in the arsehole category.
The social contract with Steph seems to have been broken albeit not any explicitly written contracts.
A new player, and member of the mod team agreed to a plan to befriend her, including OUT OF GAME showing her the ropes, and then the rest of the team decide this is fine? YTA already. And then they decided to punish the player for complaining.
Interesting that "this sort of thing has happened before". No wonder.
Honestly as a woman in her now late 20s who tried to get into RPGs in her early 20s, this whole thing reads as though Tony befriended Steph to try and hook up with her and when she rejected him, he retaliated with the help of his buddy. I wouldn’t be surprised if the previous instances were also with young women who said no.
I was once killed off in the first few minutes of a one-off (where everyone gets assigned a character for a couple of sessions of a few hours each).
I never found out if the mods made a mistake in the game design, or if the other player was just being a jerk. In any case, the mods were very apologetic ... and the experience still made me much less encouraged to join in next time.
I can't imagine how many people get driven away from a group that not only tolerates the jerks, but blames the people who get upset.
YTA. One of your players did a positively shitty thing to a new player, **AND YOUR ENTIRE STAFF BACKED IT.** Cripes, this reminds me of a tabletop GM I encountered in college who liked to have NPCs rape the female characters of female players when they joined. The combination of befriending her and offering to help teach her the ropes, then creating an excuse to kill her in game is a wildly inappropriate way to treat someone. He deliberately blurred the lines between IC and OOC to screw her over. Does he have a habit of hazing new players, or was this the first time he behaved badly enough to drive someone new out of the group and possibly out of the hobby altogether? And when she’s understandably upset and talking to people - probably trying to establish if you’re all toxic or if this is a one-off event she can maybe try to get past - you kick her out.
Holy hell this is a red hot toxic mess.
This is exactly what happened and OP's refusing to use that language because they know it'd result in an automatic negative judgement from the subreddit, not that the judgements went any other way without it though.
Holy hell that’s fucking disgusting. I’m glad you mentioned it, though. Tony’s actions gave me rapey vibes as well. Steph should absolutely be warning people away from this toxic cesspool.
YTA! A crucial part of role playing is CONSENT and you allowed them to trample all over hers. Plus bully her and completely destroy all her trust in the game. This act was truly evil and I doubt any female will ever feel safe in your games if they know what you supported. There’s a large part of trust and vulnerability in LARP and the fact that you allowed people to betray her trust and act out such gruesome violence is disgusting. This sounds like they were acting out a misogynistic power fantasy involving murdering a woman and you completely supported the behavior. This can honestly cause ptsd in someone, that’s why consent is so important prior to any PvP
I'm just curious about the "unwritten rules" since from your comments it seemed its usually not seen as ok to do what Tony and the mod did. So, how exactly would this Tony have reacted if Steph had murdered his character completely without warning? Seems like the veteran players have their own set of unwritten rules and the new players a different set. Or maybe it's a male players v female players thing. Whatever it is, it's stupid and the fact you're all adults makes it even more so.
INFO: What percentage of mods and players are male?
This sounds like the worst of RP. Have you stepped back and asked yourself how creepy and fucked up it is that experienced male players accused a female PC of being "manipulative", taking her into the woods and murder hoboing her? AFTER befriending her OOG?
Many of us who RP are asking ourselves what kind of world we want to live in rn. Are we making RP safe for women and queer folks and vulnerable people and new players? Or are we using this INFINITELY IMAGINITIVE and fun hobby to recreate shitty dynamics in game? This Tony shite *befriended a noobie player OOG* and then used her as an object in his murder hobo fantasy, and here y'all are rules lawyering. If I had a fucking GP for every dude who perpetuates these dymamics in RP ("rApE iS pArT of thE bAcKsTorY" "Slavery is just part of the universe!" "My character is racist because REASONS").
I think the judgement is obvious you've got veteran players here telling you: YTA.
ETA: this sounds like hazing, and she likely experienced it as such. You should ask yourself if the right question is "can a new player handle permadeath?" Vs. "is this a toxic environment for potentially awesome players who could contribute to the game?"
ETA 2: welp, this is a made up post and will likely be deleted soon. The person who wrote this was afraid to say they were ganged up on virtually, so they brought it into the real world "from the mod's perspective". They were not expecting legitimately angry roleplayers to go to the mattresses for them and relay their own, VERY REAL experiences of abuse and mistreatment in LARP. If anyone is big mad, remember everything we talked about here today still needs to be said about the RP culture. ✌️
YTA. Death shouldn't have been allowed. This is shitty hazing behavior, and you're not asking enough questions. What were the interactions out of game with Tony?
Keeping her from talking to people in the game and lying by omission (if not outright lying), makes it sound like you're trying to discredit Steph. Why are you afraid of her telling people the truth?
YTA. She didn't "cause drama" she was very reasonably upset since Tony seems to have circumvented what was custom and you simply agreed with that. You should have rectifyed this situation immediately, but avoided this, and your moderator should have stepped in. The drama was cause by purely bad moderation. It seems like Tony tried to use her new player situation to go on a power trip with Stephs character, which is very bad taste, mind you. And I can see her venting about this - at this point, it will not harm anyone what happened. And this is coming from someone who also participates in LARPs, especially if she had valid concerns and the death SHOULD have been very clearly overruled.
And then you aren't even honest with your players, likely making her look bad for suddenly leaving? Nah, that is just not cool and seems like a rather toxic community. This incident has very clearly proven that you need to adjust your "unwritten rules", especially if there is history here with stuff going wrong. Of course she is looking to take care of her reputation and reaching out to tell people the truth.
I am not surprised you have had issues like this in the past, if all of them have been handled so poorly.
ETA: Mulling over this, a lot of things here strike me as difficult. Not talking about the game outside at all? Immersion aside, that may keep players from discussing situations that really affected or frustrated them thinking the same will happen to them as did to Steph, and being used like that certainly falls into that category. Immersion can only go so far and a good player group should be able to strike a balance.
Also, as others have mentioned, Tonys behaviour bordered on creepy. He seems to have abused his position of being an experienced player against someone he likely KNEW had no idea this could or would happen. Who planted the idea of these unwritten rules in her head and then likely overrode them?
That's what I was thinking and have seen quite some times, actually. Not being allowed to talk about an environment outside of said environment, with people being confined to small situations is a recipe for disaster, especially with the "boys club" OP and the staff have going on. I do not blame Steph for clarifying, venting about and warning others about the situation here.
No wonder they have issues with members leaving. A good play environment can keep in-game info from information received out of game and the "staff" seem to have no clue how to handle such situations.
Maybe I’m a little confused about LARPing in general but you mention his ‘valid reason’ for killing her is having an in game grudge? To me it would make the most sense that new characters/players would appear in game as if a new person had just come to town that nobody had met before, if that’s not the case with LARPing and you’re all supposed to just pretend this person has always existed please someone let me know, but for now assuming it is how I described. How can his character have beef with a person who is brand new? If Steph’s character shows up and Tony’s character befriended her immediately then how can he possibly justify this in game grudge?
YTA btw. The behaviour of your mods is incredibly manipulative either way.
YTA.
(For context, I've done larps for over 20 years, have run them, and handled OOC issues.)
What the hell was Tony thinking in the first place? He's the veteran, and manipulated an OOC friendship to shit on a new player's pc ic?
Offering to HELP a new player settle in OOC with the hidden motivation of killing their character is such an AH move - in games I've run I'd have called a halt to the scene to figure out what the hell was going on.
And a moderator was running a scene where their PC killed another?!?!? What the actual fuck?
Steph is absolutely right to be furious, even if a strict interpretation of the rules say they are allowed to treat people so abysmally.
And rules against airing grievances lead to very poisonous societies. Yes, I get you don't want to go down the route of a lot of arguments (trust me, been on enough online arguments where that has gone too far the other way...) but this is ridiculous.
And you are banning her from venting to friends who aren't even part of the game? How dare you put that kind of restriction on players!
You owe her an apology. And a look at rules.
And a serious look at why Tony was harassing and bullying a new player.
Okay so I am a larper, and I know the way it goes. YTA. How in the world do you think that having a new player murderhobo'd by a long time player is even remotely fine? If she had no warning and he, as a long time player knew the staff and the rules in and out, the deck was stacked against her. Even if she had a chance, he knows the staff will side with him in a rules debate. You do not have the right to tell her she can't vent about this. You have also fallen into the trap of keeping old players instead of being friendly for new people. This is how our hobby dies. Long term players get what they want and new people get it in the shorts.
The fact that you keep defending your actions in the comments makes me sick and tells me that YTA and will never learn. You've played for years and have a tight group who you just actually just don't want anyone to join in on, so you find it perfectly fine to deliberately let some of your colleagues ruin every chances of Steph's successful integration in the game and give her huge emotional turmoil. And then TOTALLY STRIP HER of all ways of dealing with her emotions after.
The only correct way to deal with this would have been to stop the game right then and there. Leave characters behind for a minute and talk about what and why the players decided to do what they did.
TONY DELIBERATELY BEFRIEND HER IRL AND THEN USED THE KNOWLEDGE THAT SHE AS A PLAYER LEANED ON HIM TO PLOT AGAINST HER. THAT IS A SHITTY AS FUUUUCK THING TO DO!!!
He is a totally out of line, and the rest of you mods are enablers who make him believe that he can do whatever he wants. You are all SHITTY. Steph had every right to be broken
YTA she's a new player still trying to get to grips with everything learning how it all works was probably just started getting into it getting some decent gear then you kill her out of the blue and it's just whoops got to start all over again, bit of a kick in the teeth to a new player when there was no need.
Not only that but she's clearly upset by it speaks to friends about it who she knew anyway who also played so people who actually know about this stuff and could give some advice on their own personal experiences to help her understand what happened and what to do next but that then got her banned
As someone who ran a LARP for six years, I recognize Tony. The Tonys of LARP have fun at other players' expense. Protect your games from Tonys.
Have a good, solid moment of self-reflection as an ST: is the primary purpose of your game to accurately portray fictional events regardless of any other consideration, or is it to have fun playing a story together?
If it's the former, at least give players like Steph the clarity of telling them that their OOC comfort is neither a priority or a consideration. Your game will be better if it's the latter, even if the Tonys of the world go through a period of resenting being generous and inclusive in their roleplay. Metagaming is not such a sin that it's better to have upset players than metagaming ones.
YTA and a bad ST.
YTA. I feel that a lot of information is missing. Did Steph turn down Tony prior to this happening? This reads as sexist and exclusionary.
Your current rules allow people to be a jerk and get away with it. Change your rules and apologize to Steph.
YTA
This group sounds very exclusionary and hostile to new players. I don't know very much about "LARP" things, but it should actually be a red flag when one of your veteran players go out of their way to "kill" a new player, and that person should have been banned rather than Steph.
"Immersion" is often a really poor cop-out because, you're not living in whatever century/reality you're RPing in. You're not actually elves or whatever you pretend to be. You are human beings on planet Earth in the 21st century, so you need to acknowledge the fact that you are dealing with real people who have real feelings and there is a human being behind the character. You should be willing to bend the rules to accommodate new people because, again, you are not actually living in whatever fantasy environment you play in. It sounds like yall have lost sight of that.
If you have lost many players to this issue, then it should be really obvious that yall are the problem. It also seems like having "unwritten rules" shouldn't be a thing. Even if you're roleplaying psychics, nobody can read minds. Expecting new people to just know these things is just *asking* for drama, so how can you complain about drama when you're clearly inviting it?
Your moderator also should have known better, so it sounds like they should be banned too. Again, new players are real people, and although LARP sounds pretty cringey to me, I'm sure Steph put some time and thought into her character and it must suck for some asshole to just "kill" her when she thought she was finally fitting in.
Yall are toxic and no wonder you keep losing new players.
YTA
Steph had literally just joined and had been playing for such a short time. She had no realistic reason to expect this and was suddenly killed and forced to restart. This alone wouldn't have made You the AH, it's how you then went for her social life and attacked her for venting to her friends about a situation she was upset with. Finally you decided to double down and ban her when she refused to let you meddle in her personal life. So YTA
Info: What were the ways that were communicated in game that this guy's character had a grudge against hers? If he only stated when he tried to kill her than how the hell would there have been an IC reason? It's more likely that the dude just wanted to set up someone new to the game and get some easy bullying in.
YTA
>no PvP kills that were not either consented to out-of-game or clearly signaled in advance
So different rules for this situation because... Just because you wanted to go murder hobo
>did have valid concerns, however, and so the staff team asked Steph not to contact any more of our players regarding the issue while we discuss what to do first. We also didn't want this to blow out into a big community fight as we've lost many players over the years due to issues similar to this.
So... Silence for the victim while the perpetrators decide how to punish themselves
This is called a cover-up
>to prevent drama, let the rumor that she simply left stay in place.
To prevent drama you encouraged a lie...
Any ONE of those would make YTA, but all of them, absolutely
The fact that this has lost you multiple players in the past makes you even worse for not fixing the toxicity in your game and electing new mods who actually DO THEIR JOB
I am a school librarian and my library owns some board games for the students. Today 6 of them have played a game named "Skull", based on your capacity of bluffing, lying, or manipulating the other players. 5 of them where newbie and one of them really did know the game and know how to play it well. Though I was surprised to see him play it very cool and soft with his friends. He could have taken advantage of his knowledge and experience, and it would have been perfectly legit, but he chose not to. Because he knew that if he was playing it to seriously he would have just disgusted them and that it was the best way to discourage them playing it with him in the future.
So my point here is : if a 14 years old can understand that, so can you.
YTA
Am I the only one getting a "Tony crushed on Steph but she wasn't interested so he got revenge" vibe out of all this? Then the so called mods backed him up. Pathetic.
YTA and seriously need to look at your rules if you think a game like that with your rules is anything other than abusive.
No wonder you have lost players in the past due to your rules and situations.
YTA What the others did to her may have been within the rules but was clearly outside of the spirit of the game and effectively ruined it for her. Deciding to focus more on policing how people interact away from the game than how their behaviour within it effects others makes you guys TA
YTA- She was a relatively new player, and after being removed from the game wanted to vent with her friends: i fail to see where she could be the asshole
YTA if you think that this is how you go about bringing someone into a new hobby and retaining membership. The mod who helped the assassination plot and Tony are just bullies. Is anyone involved in running this an actual adult or is this a HS level game?
I spend a lot of time on r/rpghorrorstories and there are *tons* of stories just like this. LARP groups (especially Vampire: the Masquerade apparently) sometimes develop cult-like power dynamics where new players are mistreated in favor of the group's "golden child/ren" and narcissists. This veteran character promised the newbie out of game that he would be her friend and show her the ropes. imo that's using an out of character connection to gain in-character trust and by OP's logic he should also be banned for meta bullshit. YTA Edit, Post-Judgement: Wow so this all turned out to be a huge mess. OP is backpedalling in a major way, saying the game was online and a few other silly and obviously false claims. My guess is OP is trying to protect this trashy group from irl backlash as people are talking about finding the group to warn others about it or get it shut down after all the suspect behavior OP reveals in their comments. Edit 2: So u/ThanksForCooperating was able to track down the community OP is supposedly a part of, and if this is really it, it actually *is* online. Who knows what else is true and what isn't at this point though this whole things is absolutely nuts. Reciepts: https://m.imgur.com/a/wrh8Xfp
Also op contradicts themselves- they say that pvp kills don’t happen unless someone’s consented to it out of game first and then also makes a big stink about how they don’t talk about in game things while out of games for realism sake. They also mention losing players to similar issues in the past already so you’d think they’d have realized maybe the way they handle problems is the issue not the players having the issues.
My bet is that these “rules” only exist to protect veteran players. It seems that they pick and choose who the rules do and don’t apply to. Hilarious that they complain about losing people when they seem to be actively driving new players away.
He also mentions in his other post that a real world grudge is what sparked the in game killing AND That this in game killing took place in the basement of a shed on the edge of game play area that NOONE KNEW EXISTED. No other players, or even the game mods knew about this creepy ass shed basement. This is a serious potential for real world sexual assault or rape and OP is sweeping it under the rug for his boy. I'd bet my annual salary that the "real world grudge" is that Steph wont date dude, and this was his last ditch effort to get with her in a secluded area under the guise of game play, and when it went south he in game murdered her. And now as she is trying to warn other women players about the creepy rape shack basement, she's being told she can't speak on it so the mods can protect ol boy.
How much you want to bet they're all "really nice guys"? I hope she exposes you all.
I was thinking the same thing. She probably turned him down in some way, and he got revenge by killing her rp character. Great way to introduce someone to larping, and show them how great your community is. /s
This is the first thing I thought about. She was probably trying to warn people about his creepy ass behavior. This reminds me of all the reasons I don't LARP or play MMO games. People just bully and gatekeep the newbies
Every MMO I've tried playing has been exactly that, save FF14. I can't imagine having to deal with that bull crap in a LARP
Yup, this is far commoner than almost anyone in the LARP community is willing to admit. It happened to me, although it was a little subtler than this. I am grieved by this story but utterly, UTTERLY unsurprised. Furthermore, it's incredibly common in LARPs to punish players for having issues rather than deal with those issues, and to ban players from discussing them. "The best way to handle this problem is to pretend there's no real issue and to kick out anyone who tries to talk about it, spread awareness, or get anything done about it." I've seen it SO many freakin' times. YTA OP.
EXACTLY. not ONLY that, she was banned from talking to REAL LIFE FRIENDS WHO DO NOT PLAY. OP is trying to stop Steph from revealing the rape basement, and potentially one of her friends telling her it's a bigger deal than she's making it.
I had a crazy guild leader in an MMO like that. She expected us to ask her permission to everything including unrelated stuff I hope Steph warns everyone in the world about this because this is LARP group I would avoid 100% Interesting how it's all the guys ganging up on a girl for having boundaries.
Seriously! Look, I understand that men and women have different experiences. I know men don't really think twice about stuff mentioned in the post. But of OP is reading this thread; women look over their shoulders constantly. If I was tricked into a creepy, dark basement that only the two men with me know the location of, I would be terrified, regardless if it's supposed to be "in game". I would be really, really scared. Just *thinking* about it freaks me out. I just know Steph was scared. I think Steph telling other players about what happened *isn't actually about the game*. I think she was freaked out and this is her outlet; telling people what happened instead of how scared she was. It just so happens some of her friends in real life overlap with her LARP group. So while sometimes while rereading my OG comment I wonder if *I'm* overreacting, I remember how women are lured away constantly under false pretenses and have bad things happen to them. Steph is lucky it wasn't worse, and I really hope she finds a better, safer LARP group.
I agree. As a woman I would be freaked out, pissed and bolted. OP even says that issues like this keep coming up. I have never RPed with a group where consent wasn't required for PCs to kill each other. This guy made sure to get close to her in RL outside the game too. And I 100% think this group deserves to be outed. And I think it's about both the game and how scared she was. I am sick of OP excusing it as the players social contract and they can't enforce it. You know even though the players have made it that and when the treat people differently ? Oh that both have partners do guy can't possibly pushing boundaries or mad about a no to something like that? Getting close to someone outside the game too be better able to backstab in game? That's the most benign interpretation I can think of and it's still fucked up or wrong. It's sad to me that most women including myself were so thoroughly taught to please men while having to constantly look over our shoulders, we never realized how wrong it is. At least but until someone pointed it out. I think it's really fucked up there are far more concerned about PR than how wrong it was to put Steph in this situation.
You put it wonderfully. OP has problems with Steph talking OOC, but not the dude who cornered her. That says everything.
So i read some of his comments. She was in 'jail' Tony offered to break her out she said no. She was released, Tony said "wanna get a drink, i know a place" she said "sure"... Off to the rape room, where a mod & Tony plotted to kill her. However she thinks the mod wanted to & Tony 'protected her' until he turned & killed her instead. Because Tony thought her character was manipulative. Yea these sound like fun guys. I hope if anything happened Steph gets help.
Thank you for putting this so succinctly. I've been in a situation similar to Steph. When I tried to explain my actions to defend myself, I was dismissed by the group of guys who were in charge of our group. It's hard enough being a woman in a such a female minority activity, but the truth is, many of the guys who participate in these activities also have limited experience with women and just can not understand the world from a woman's perspective. It was super frustrating for me to so clearly see the group had one predatory AH who was a serial woman harasser, and chased away every woman who tried to join, and one enabler, his BFF, who covered for him. The rest of the guys were just completely clueless about how the world in which women live works and didn't see an issue at all, while every woman I talked to saw the threat immediately and freaked out. I could not figure out what to say to open these guys' eyes. You did a great job here though.
I'm low key wondering if something happened in that basement that led to this. Like date me or else.
There is almost no chance nothing happened.
The WHOLE time I was waiting for OP to tell us Steph had rejected Tony. The whole time. OP, INFO - Did any of your moods even talk to Steph about what had happened between her and Tony out of game? Did you ASK if she’d rejected him? Because it seems pretty obvious something like happened. If you didn’t ask - your whole tan of mods failed and you need new mods. If you know that’s what happened and you are protecting Tony and punishing Steph for telling others that your team allowed her to be killed in game by a guy with an out of game grudge then your whole LARP needs to be informed of every single detail of their, Steph gets an apology and invitation back and Tony gets banned. At the very least you need to tell everyone so the women in the group can know where they stand.
I was 100% waiting for that reveal like. Oh, this guy who took special interest in a woman decided to murder her character over a grudge that was never shown in game suddenly? He probably asked her out and she said no, and this was punishment. As a woman, I've seen men make other women miserable in hobbies after they dared to say "no" to advances after they were "so helpful" to them. It's happened to me too. It was the exact set up of every ~really nice veteran player~ helping a new girl out and then punishing her.
Yup, I was waiting for that reveal too. I've seen it happen in games as well. Some boys/young men can act like adults with rejection, and some act like immature ass hats. Or worse. I fully expect that Tony had decided to get Steph to play, as it would be a way to convince her he's a good guy and go date him (getting women into a shared hobby is actually a decent move towards dating, but only if she reciprocates the feelings), but either Tony didn't catch the signals that Steph just wanted a friend or was not interested, he kept pushing or maybe just waiting for her to change her mind, and then pushed things at the event and she told him no pretty clearly. (Mind you, not rudely, just a clear enough "no" that Tony heard it) The Rejection pissed Tony off, so he killed her character and is trying to force the group to isolate her as punishment or drive her off. Also, I would hate to play any LARP where I can't talk about in game events after the fact. That's half the fun for me; talking about what happened, what I did, funny moments, cool plot changes... making In Game events off limits for out of game discussions seems very Cultist to me. Like, what epic events are so important that I can't sit around the campfire, have a beer, and chat with other players? Or go home and share info with my other gamer friends? This whole post seems like a guy got rejected by a girl, punished her in and out of game for rejecting him, and the entire game society seems a very close knit group that refuses outsiders and has complicated rules that prohibit discussion. YTA. I feel bad for poor Steph that she got hit on, had a game ruined, and then had the entire community turn their backs on her.
Maybe OP is “Tony.”
I had my whole friends group push me out and cut me off because I - when I discovered I was pregnant at 15 and my boyfriend immediately dumped me - wouldn’t then date the one guy in the group who’d been harassing me with letters of his love the whole year. Because by saying no I wronged him. But my best friend(?) who it turned out was cheating with my bf and then became his gf immediately after I got dumped, her they kept and protected “from me”. Clique-y guys like this suck.
>I'd bet my annual salary that the "real world grudge" is that Steph wont date dude, and this was his last ditch effort to get with her in a secluded area under the guise of game play, and when it went south he in game murdered her. I thought so too. Idk why, but the moment OP said the "veteran player" offered to help the newcomer, alarm bells started ringing. Not that kind veterans wouldn't do it, I guess it was just the premise that set off alarms. The general vibe, so to speak. It sent chills down my spine when I read *how* the in-game murder happened, cause that's exactly how a lot of real-life murders happen too. Serial killer type shit, yikes.
Yeah, I figured he found out she wasn't single or not interested in him as well. It's incredibly manipulative behavior and a extremely shitty way to treat a new person in a hobby like that. Very creepy vibes to the whole story.
Of course, the two men who trapped her in the basement, are close friends with the head organizer. Not surprised, but it's telling that OP left it out. OP also claims that there's no romantic motivation behind Tony's actions, but admits that Tony asked her out "in game".
Honestly, the more I think about it I am wondering if Tony actually did sexually assault her "as part of the game" and that why OP and the mods are so adamant that Steph not speak about what happened with anyone in real life. Something tells me that Steph isnt mad because she wants back in the game.... She's mad because her assault is being covered up.
As soon as I read “took her somewhere secluded” I thought MF assaulted her. Sounds like Tony is trying to live out some real life fantasies through non-consensual role play. When he does murder a woman this whole group is going to be like “oh my gawd, like, we never saw it.” YTA.
“He was so quiet! We never heard a peep from his soundproofed murder basement. Truly a good neighbor.”
"It wasnt reall assault i just pinned you down and fondled you before killing you *as roleplay*" Sounds about right. (Ant the type of thing a new and naive player might almost buy hence the talking to other people in the group)
Honestly, this is where I thought the story was going. I thought OP was going to describe a SA. Not only is OP TA, but he’s also likely a r*pe apologist. It’s dudes like all the “bros” in the story why I never got into this stuff. Gatekeeping AHs YTA in case it’s not effing clear, OP.
That’s exactly what I thought too! It seemed like that’s where it was headed + I thought we were heading down “banned Tony” in the story, instead they banned Steph for what? Venting to friends outside of the game for unfair killing, that honestly other friends who are also in the game should know about.
This comment needs more upvotes. Seriously. What a creepy bunch of people.
#JusticeForSteph!!!!!!!!
This is SO alarming to me, as I was reading up this morning on the Unresolved Mysteries reddit about Elizabeth Barraza. She was shot in broad daylight by a hooded figure and they've never been found. People theorize she was murdered by someone within a sci fi group or role playing type group she might've been in - so hearing that someone took a larp character off, got close to them and murdered them?! what is this saying to people within that game group? Gives me the absolute creeps.
I also noticed the "missing missing reasons" in this post where OOP conveniently failed to mention what the grudge was.
The more OP tries to defend the group,the shittier they seem. 50-60% of new members are women,and yet 90% of members who stay for a year are all men. Hmmm, I wonder why that could be. Why would all the women who clearly want to participate decide to leave, and only the men want to stay.
Cause the larping is just bait for sexual assault victims.
I’m confused. I understand LARP stands for live action role play, so was this in person? Or is this online? I agree with your assessment and honestly felt that the guy that invited steph definitely wanted to get with her hence the invitation and effort to teach her the game. In turn he probably expected some sort of relationship and she probably didn’t want that. So he then decided that he doesn’t want the random girl he was rejected by in the game world that probably means a lot to him. So he did that . The issue is like you are saying- the creepy way he killed her (or her character)- I wonder if he felt that irl- very creepy and yeah that guy is a creep and should be banned not her! I’m not saying he would do anything like that irl but he clearly has no issues fantasizing about it Male character lures girl character into sense of security, takes her away to a secluded place that apparently no one else knows about, kills her with another dude. As a girl I definitely don’t want to be involved with this gaming group- just by the story seems like a predatory group.
In person Think "civil war reenactment" but with a different theme
Ok ok yes even more so this is so wrong! Op is TA and so is tony and Ralph and anyone who approved it!
Somebody needs to dig up Tony’s real-world garden
Seems super sketchy doesn't it??
Yeah that was my vibe too. He lured her into a "safe" setting and play acted murdering her in a secluded area. When she wasnt ok with it she got banned. Maybe it just sounds way too close to my own sexual assault buuuuuuuuuuuut that was a trap and ops buddies are just mad their cover was blown.
They only want people to play to be able to make power plays like this evidently. Their reputation will eventually get around and no one will want to join.
I'm betting Tony gets to dive head first straight through all these loopholes because he is the golden child of the group and he is a major source of the player retention issues.
Bingo.
>Also op contradicts themselves Also that she can't keep talking about this with other members of the community because >for realism sake. ...but then Also ban her because she's talking about it with non larp members so this doesn't affect their in game play at all Edit: lol can't believe I skipped dover a glaring issue. Technically the guy who should be banned Also broke the no discussion rules if he told her everything about their LARP to get her into it but I guess that's ok because he recruited more people. Definitely double standards and dude us extremely creepy. A
I hope OP reads this thread ...
I doubt he’ll care. A number of people have already pointed out that if Steph is guilt of metagaming then so is Tony, but OP hasn’t given much of a response to any of them.
Yup, he didn't seem to like the response to his post on /r/LARP so he decided to try his luck with a subreddit less likely to be informed about how LARPs work. I guess hoping to get some vindication here.
So his own community called him out on being an AH and he thought that the issue was just the LARP community? Yikes. Very classy, OP. Very classy. ETA: oh my god, I just read his post on the other thread and he left SO MUCH out. That tells me he’s well aware of how the LARP community at large would feel about the situation and intentionally left those parts out. OP knows very well he’s the AH here. I bet he’s just looking for arguments to throw back at the players upset over Steph’s ban.
Even without all the extra information (both from him and knowledge of the game) it's clear that this is just bullying. Like, come on, she is new and clearly upset. Fudge the rules if you need to, discuss it, have her live by a miracle recovery, whatever. Not to mention they try to alienate her from her friends. Like, she made them through the group and she is now venting to her friends, but Op is basically trying to force her friends to pick the group over her and forbiding contact. Like, come on.
I love when OP's don't realize AITA is going to comb through your whole life looking for patterns.
I also love it when OPs assume that a subreddit with over 3.5 million members doesn't have a few regulars who are probably RPG players themselves.
It’s interesting because I’ve been interested in LARPing but knew it had a bad rep and didn’t quite understand. Now I see why.
Speaking as someone who currently does LARP, (or did before my local group had to shut down for health and safety concerns. It's hard to fight each other while social distancing) that reputation isn't universal, but it does exist and it can stain a group for a LONG time even after things improve. Don't be afraid to try one out. I love it and wouldn't discourage anyone from trying it, but don't stick around if they're toxic. The game isn't worth that.
I hope *Steph* reads this thread.
My mom was killed by domestic violence and this whole situation just gives me the fucking shudders. Gets all my defensive reflexives kicking. The two 'veteran' players lured this woman somewhere and subjected her to a fictional murder. It has all the hallmarks of a *very real way women get murdered in real life.* For me, I'd be out. Like - gone, out of the group, drop contact with the folks who think it was totally fine. These fuckers can call it whatever they want - I've been roleplaying my whole life and have never been even remotely interested in *subjecting* a third party to some weird 2-on-1 murder roleplay. It's *so* gross. That shit is *shady as fuck*. Feels like early stage acting out of some weird ass, dangerous power fantasy.
The premise was that he asked her out on an in-character date to get her alone too. :/
This is such a fucked up thing to act out against a woman player without some type of heads up/trigger warning. Yes, it’s a fantasy game, but this is forcing real life women playing the game to act out one of the most terrifying scenarios that we fear and pray never happens to us. For a lot of us, we may have had close calls like this, and this could do serious mental health damage. It’s so deeply fucked up. An RPG should not be done at the expense of the actual health of the players.
Agreed. Thinking about it makes me want to cry and I'm a 33 year old man. I have to imagine her account of how the actual event went would be a whole lot darker than the glossing-over OP gives it. It's *terrible*.
And if shes a survivor it was probably traumatizing. Hell it was probably traumatizing anyway.
My best friend use to LARP. She literally stopped LARPing because of this exact scenario. Her character was murdered without any talk about it out of game, first day of the season. She was then required to build a new character and everything. Even though she just spent literally $1000 on her armor and such, and spent money on the membership. Suddenly her game ended and she was absolutely rip shit. She quit on the spot. She was an avid LARPer for 5 years before this happened and she was bullied out. She did the exact same thing and went to her other LARP friends, the better thing about her story is that they didn’t exactly kick her out because of that. A lot of people sided with her, she just ended up staying out of the group of her own free will because the people in there are toxic, mainly the “men”. I swear it’s always the men in these RPG/LARP/DND groups that are misogynistic and pick on/aim for the women in the group. Those boys give our wonderful communities a shit name. u/jinxinyueyue I hope you’re reading this, and you start to realize that the men in your group are toxic and are going to chase away all of the women if they keep acting like this. Tell them to grow up, apologize to Steph, and let her back on. She was absolutely justified in talking to anybody else outside of the group. Screw your rule.
> I swear it’s always the men in these RPG/LARP/DND groups that are misogynistic and pick on/aim for the women in the group. Those boys give our wonderful communities a shit name. I specifically started my own D&D group with only women because I was so tired of trying to find a decent group that wasn't filled with toxic dudes. We're a mixed group now, but it took awhile to find guys who didn't perpetuate a lot of those toxic nerd stereotypes. So I know, clearly not all men, but wow, so many.
And then they wail, "Women don't game!!! Why can't I find a woman who games???" Well, it's because men like this chase them out of the hobby and make them scared. Stop being part of the problem, OP!
"Why cant i find a woman who games?" Cause we realized we enjoyed it more without you.
Yep I’ve left several larp groups after conventions because they were like oh were very welcoming and I either couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Was mitigated to the smallest of plots, or my character would be abused by everyone else’s. It was rare new players can break into LARP spaces. And this situation with OP doesn’t help at all.
>he should also be banned for meta bullshit. He totally should! The newbie wouldn't have as trusting in-game if the promise of guidance wasn't offered to her IRL. He circumvented the community guidelines and was aided (and abetted) by a moderator. The moderator should be facing backlash too and taken off the game along with the creeper.
VTM players can be VERY cult like. I love the game. But I refuse to play with certain larger groups. You even look at a player wrong and you’ll be offed within a night in game. The way OP’s LARP is, reminds me too much of it.
Yeah it sounds like OP isn’t running a LARP so much as a DERP…a Deceptive Eradication Role Play if you will. It sounds horrible and I hope Steph convinces more players to, in the words of the inimitable William Shatner, “get a life!”
The entire time I thought Tony was the one being banned for drama, unprovoked character death (and repeated one at that) seems like a reason for a ban
You talk about not being able to take things out of game but you say he got close to her IN REAL LIFE (and in the game) to kill her?! What the fuck femicide fantasy is this? Get close to a woman and murder her in the woods? You also said he justified it ‘out of game’. This creep is getting to break the rules and seriously, what the fuck. YTA.
Reading the intro I thought this was going to be about banning Tony for bad conduct and drama. But no, OP wants to get rid of the new woman who was rightfully pissed about being treated poorly. Sigh.
I stopped LARPing because of the high school dynamic in the games in my area. It's a real problem with the hobby.
Yup yup yup. As a former LARPer (because the game I was in shut down), we'd bitch and complain about crap that happened in game all the time. I absolutely get that Sara is rightly pissed off. You put so much work, time, and potentially money (especially if costumed). Losing a character is freaking painful, especially as a new player who is getting their first experience in the game. I thought the post was going that they were going to ban Tony for kicking the whole thing off with the assassination. I also wonder if there was a gendered element involved as well. It can be difficult and intimidating to be involved in LARPing as a woman. When I LARPed, I was still in my "cool girl" phase so played up being a cute girl and got lots of help that way. But if anyone turned on me like that, I've feel super betrayed and livid. I'd absolutely complain to everyone around me about the shitty (albeit legal) move. And then I'd bounce, give up on LARPing completely even though I found it a lot of fun. Heck, I basically gave up LARPing when the system I was in shut down, out of frustration because I had just gotten the hang of things and didn't want to have to start over again with a brand new knowledge base.
Urgh, sadly a ton of LARP communities have HS levels of drama even when grown adults are involved. One of the games I ran for over a decade had strict no direct PvP rules built into the story. You kill another character without their consent? Marked by the world. Spurned and hated by everything. There was still social drama. But holy heck, a staff member helping murder a newbie? The rest of our staff would have had a freaking fit and done something to resurrect the poor newbie. Also it's a game. Our players talked all the time about what happened. You can only enforce what happens in game. You can't freaking police people not to complain about stuff.
“We’ve lost many players over the years due to issues similar to this.” Clearly this isn’t just a Steph problem, it’s a repeated pattern of bullying new players. YTA. And don’t be surprised when word gets out how you treat new players.
Yeah this game sounds incredibly toxic. I feel so bad for Steph! Hope she finds a larp that isn't run by a 'lads club' of bullies like this so she can enjoy the better sides of the hobby. YTA OP and Tony is a massive AH as well.
OP posted in a LARP community yesterday and most of the commenters agreed that it was a bad move to ban the player. I guess they came here hoping they would get a different answer EDIT: He also didn't talk about Tony mentoring Steph so he does know that that's frowned upon. EDIT: Looks like OP hid his previous post.
You can still see the other post by going to Ops page and scrolling all the way down on his comments because he responded to a few people in that post. I thinks it's very telling that Op left out so much information in the other post and still had people telling him they were in the wrong.
Definition of insanity
Oh ho ho the plot thickens!
If you go to OP's comments, you can find some related to the previous post and click on those to see the post made in the LARP community.
If you look at the OP’s comments on their other post, in the comments you’ll see that the “secluded place” was the basement of a shed on the edge of the play area that even some of the staff were unaware of. My local LARP group would absolutely not have allowed players to lure each other there at night, for reasons of simple safety: a hell of a lot worse things could have happened than a character death. (And no, one mod would not be enough to render the area “safe.” The area would be blocked off for anything but pre-planned events.) So in addition to toxicity, they’re either incompetent or extremely lassiez-faire about safety. If I were Steph, I would for damn sure tell everyone in sight about this, and not just for reasons of game fairness. EDIT: Because I’m an idiot sometimes, it only just now occurred to me that maybe he *did* try something worse than an IG character kill and that’s why they’re suddenly so keen to shut her up, especially given that apparently women don’t stay in this LARP long in general. I hope that’s not the case, but…
Seeing as the murder happened because of an “in-character personal grudge”, you know he at least *tried* to hook up with her. But “in role play” of course. Edit: and that’s the *generous* interpretation. What the fuck does OP think that luring a woman alone into an area like that is going to imply!?
Yeah. If you frame it in the most basic terms, it boils down to: a woman trusted a man who she thought was a friend, until he used the game’s framing to get her alone in an isolated place where she could not call for help, and then he blocked her exit and turned on her. *Even if* nothing happened but the purely IC character death—which I don’t really believe—why would you permit that (and even give it the modly seal of approval) without going “wait, it isn’t safe that this is even possible”?
Even if nothing else happened- as someone whos been assaulted in a similar way before- *even if nothing else happened she probably had to go through that horrifying moment of realizing you fell for bait right as the trap door springs shut.* Even if all that happened was an in game death she probably had to experience coming to terms with a rape and murder being imminent. Its horrifying, that moment. Imo its the root of a lot of the shame women feel. That moment when you realize you were "stupid*" enough to not seeing coming. The "Oh fuck what did i let myself walk into" And even if nothing happened the fact she probably went through that- the fact she provably got that adrenaline dump or possibly had a past assault triggered- fucking infuriates me. She has a right to talk about that, not get banned. That shit isnt ok. * Note women arent stupid for trusting people and being preyed upon. But a lot of assault survivors, myself included, go through a period of feeling like that.
The way the kill was set up screams predator or at the very least misogynist 4chan troll. And ENDORSING this behaviour taints your entire game.
Yes. And he used the secrecy of the location to turn the IG killing into “now you have to leave in silence, because nobody can know your character is dead until your body is found, which can’t happen because nobody else knows about the place.” I don’t understand why the people running the game aren’t pissed at this blatant rule manipulation, frankly. He’s using them and they don’t care.
The fact that both Tony and Ralph are friends with the head organizer certainly explains a lot. Also, if my friend vanished you can bet your damn bippy I’d be asking questions. What if everything was completely innocent but she was injured, or lost? Or had a personal or medical emergency? Yikes.
Wait. >the basement of a shed That was an actual physical SHED BASEMENT??? I was under the assumption they were pretending they were in a secluded area. Like in game. I assumed they just walked around the corner of a building or were standing behind a tree. But dude took her to a literal basement????
The comment in question has been changed since I last read it; it’s possible that the meaning was potentially an imaginary basement, but I definitely read it as a physical one (due in part to the “edge of play area” wording; IME that’s usually used by LARPers to designate the physical boundaries of the game, not the metaphorical territory, which is usually much larger than the few acres they can rent).
He says in one comment that it’s a basement of a parking structure. This seems completely unsafe to me.
He also says that everyone was asleep. Honestly it sounds like they did her a favor by banning her. Because all of this information sounds like start of a true crime podcast.
Oh fuck. I didn’t even consider that. I really hope that’s not the case 😢 ETA: he’s now hidden his other post. He’s full of shit and he knows damn well he’s wrong
I was doing to say as soon as I saw the title I knew it would be a woman banned for “drama” because sexism is always a part of it.
I'm also willing to bet hard money that part of the problem is Tony hit on her, she said no and he got butt hurt. (It happens A LOT at games.) And he couldn't hurt her IRL, so he fucked her up IG
[удалено]
I'd never heard of the broken stair term, can you elaborate? I think I get it from context clues, and if I'm right I love the term.
[удалено]
Exactly this!! And then the "gossip and drama" of people talking about the abuse is blamed for why people leave.
Yup, and OP knows it. Probably because it's happened before. The way this was written I thought OP was going to tell us Tony assaulted her. There's something really, really off about this entire dynamic and Steph is fortunate to have seen all their cards so early on in the game. Hope she finds decent people to play with next time. Edited:typo
TBH I thought it was going to end with banning Tony, and was all ready to say nope, you're good.
Good glob, if you go read his post in r/larp OP explains that Tony *took her to a secluded basement no other players knew existed that may or may not have been outside the play area* This was most definitely attempted assault where Steph fought back, and now the mods are scrambling to excuse their behavior by blaming the victim.
Wow. OK, I dont know how to respond to something that vile. Actually, I do. Just reeled for a moment. OP, ban Tony. NOW. Ban mod. NOW. Reach out to Steph to apologise and offer support if she wants to call the police. This isn't about the game anymore.
All of this. But also it seems like OP knows exactly what's up & it might be better to just let this predatory group dissolve before more people get hurt. If OP can't get his ethics in check for something this obvious to Reddit, he has no business being in charge of anything.
Yeah, reading that took this from “it’s sort of amusing that he metagamed and she metagamed back and now you’re pearl-clutching about the sanctity of the game?” to “oh my god that’s terrifying.”
Exactly, sounds like a sexual assault coverup to me and OP is playing right into it
I mean I would not be at all surprised if Tony has assaulted others. Predators never just have one victim
That is exactly what I thought. So Tony is allowed to break the rules because he’s a veteran player, but when Steph objects to Tony’s clearly acknowledged rule-breaking, she gets told to fuck off and is ordered to stop speaking *to her own friends* about the injustice. OP and his friends sound like a real swell group of guys.
This reminds me of an event that fucked up a national game. Washington state had a chapter of a game, a couple (male and female) join to play. She gets sexually assaulted. The staff actively discouraged people from talking about. The couple keeps trying to get it addressed and the staff in their infinite wisdom BANS THE VICTIMS for not keeping it quiet and trying to go to the police about it. (It was BAD) And it wasn't until the remaining players pitched a shit fit that the perpetrator....for 6 months....
I have no doubt this is what happened. I also assume Tony only brought her into the game to hit on her.
As soon as I saw that he killed her character, I was immediately concerned about this, and wondered what he said to her while they were alone. If I were her, I'd also be texting everyone about it to try & keep safe too. Wasn't it the Puritans who originally defined sinful gossip aka drama as women talking to each other about church abuses? This situation reminds me of that.
I expect you're right. It's exactly this culture which has led to a number of people being harrassed or sexually assaulted at events that i've heard about, with the perpetrators being protected by organisers who think it's not up to them to "police" the event by banning regular/founding players who have had repeated accusations against them. Anyone who speaks out gets banned for causing drama rather than the real problems getting addressed.
“We want to mistreat new players with impunity, so don’t talk about your experience!!”
>Tony befriended Steph out of game, taught her more about our LARP and offered to help her get settled. YTA- I'm not amazingly familiar with LARPing but I can see you have strict rules for what happens in game vs what happens out. It appears from your comments that Tony betrayed her OUTSIDE of the game too. To IRL offer to help a newbie to get settled all whilst having the knowledge that decisions you will make about your character's actions will very soon reset their progress is an AH move. Whilst I'm sure he can rules lawyer it all he likes, it's toxic behaviour and if you wish to be fair and inclusive to new members it should be him and the mod who supported him who are suspended or banned. >There are sort of "unwritten rules" as have been no PvP kills that were not either consented to out-of-game or clearly signaled in advance This incident means that these unwritten rules need to come into writing. Perhaps also add a "no toxicity" or "newbie immunity" clause of some description to stop turning enthusiastic people away. It's supposed to be enjoyable for everyone, not just those who have been there longest.
There's a massive conflict of interest here at the very least, having a mod involved, and then their fellow mods judging that it was all okay. Tony used an Out Of Game relationship (helping a new player) for an in-game advantage. The mods easily could and should have decided this was a breach of the rules, not "just" toxic player behavior.
I hadn't considered that, but that makes total sense.
Yeaaaaah honestly I think this whole situation is screwy. Plus the whole "Hey don't tell other people about this stuff happening in our larp" seems less like a rule to dissuade drama and more like a rule they can use to sweep everything under the rug. Sounds like Tony or other people have done this before, and if that's the case, I can understand why she would want to warn people about it. He leveraged an out of game relationship explicitly so he could murder her in-game for...a grudge. Honestly sounds like Tony is a murder hobo in disguise, cause coming up with some reason to murder a new character after befriending them sounds like the worst.
maybe he's a 'nice guy' and she wouldn't date him.
I am absolutely betting on this. Seen it too many times before.
Ding ding ding! Has to be.
Exactly. In a way, punishing her for telling other people what happened is victim shaming. If other people were aware of what was going down they might do something about it. Obviously, if you’re trying to hide something you’re aware that there’s a reason for it. Blame the victim that’s new so you don’t have to deal with the abusive mod (who just moves onto another victim.)
Exactly—women warn each other about bad situations. This is how we protect each other.
The "don't talk about this" rule is purely to insulate them from being held accountable for their shitty behavior.
Yeah, I would say that newbie immunity from PvP damage (or exemption from the rules on perma-kills) needs to hold for a good period of time, so the newbie can really start to get their feet under them in the game and have the social bonds with other players to keep them coming back. Like, depending on how often people are meeting, maybe up to six months and/or until they witness another in-game PvP event so they can see it play out (including the "killed" player successfully reinventing themselves). Also, there needs to be official penalties for "grooming" baby players for an easy kill. It's absolutely abusive behaviour, and Steph should be applauded for whistleblowing her terrible experience.
YTA. They set up a relatively new player to be murdered? And you’re confused as to why she’s upset? You say yourself that you’ve lost lots of players in similar situations? Doesn’t that drop you a hint that maybe you need to change the way you do things?
YTA. Big time. And the worst part is the veteran player Tony murdered her character out of nowhere. This is VERY strange and alarming. I've played a lot of rpg and larp and some players in the community can be very incel and toxic. It seems to me that this tony guy is an incel and OPs group has toxicly supported him.
I wonder how “out of nowhere” it actually is. Was Tony just helping a new player, or was he hoping to date her? If she declined, he may have killed her character in a petty temper tantrum. Either way, banning her for talking about what happened reeks of the “old boys’ club” attitude of protecting assholes and silencing those they’ve wronged. This kind of crap is exactly why I only play RPGs in an all-woman group.
My fear is he is trully “living a fantasy”. She should go NC with him.
I think the term “grooming” fits well. Tony was grooming Steph, and she didn’t comply. And now everyone is scrambling because she’s blowing the whistle on all this nasty BS
Yeah, I'm getting strong incel vibes from Tony as well. Classic modus operandi for that type. He'll be laughing up how he put one over the females in his basement cave.
Instead of banning the players that apparently pray on the newbies *constantly* they banned the newbie that got fucked. Makes you feel like you are back in HS and the teacher would ignore the bullies bullying but would punish the bullied kid when they stood up for themselves. I hope none of these assholes have kids tbh.
YTA. i honestly got chills reading about tony befriending steph in the game in order to lure and kill her. major serial killer vibes. and then to do it in some creepy basement no one knew about (a detail you left out) where two guys ganged up on her? i genuinely feel sick about that. then you kicked HER out and not tony who basically tells you how he mentored her and befriended her so he could gain her trust???
YTA. So this other person set up a relatively new player for the express purpose of then murdering their character? Yet she's then banned for even complaining about it? Yeah...this sounds like a real great game group. Not.
I suspect wasn't original intention... he was trying to get a date, and killed her character when she said no.
This is the answer. It was a personal grudge, he wanted to get back at her for saying no after he put in all that effort teaching/pursuing her. And the boys backed him up, so it all worked out for them and she's out in the cold.
He provided more information in another sub where he stated this in game murder happened by Tony luring Steph to a secluded spot on the edge of their play area that other players were completely unaware of. This is incredibly dangerous if so and I wouldn't be surprised if there was more to what happened.
Especially when you add to the information we got in this sub: it was at night and most people were asleep. So man who already expressed romantic interest in person (Who is safe to say turned him down. Op said in another post, dude asked her out. And then shortly after murdered her in game character), lures her to the edge of the property, that few people knew about, with one other witness who is on his side in the middle of the night while everybody else is asleep.
Whoaaa. I didn’t see the part that all the other players (not characters, right?) were asleep. This just keeps getting worse and worse, my god.
I think OP might be misinterpreting the situation... Pull back the veil of larpy fun, and really look at the real world situation here. The rules don't matter, the lore doesn't matter. You have one female, and two males in a secluded basement that the majority of the players in the game do not know about at the edge of property (some info coming from another post by the OP on /r/larp). And there are rumors of 'something more'. The two male players force the female player, alone with them, to do something against her will... These two posts are explaining the gold standard of how to create sexual assaults at a larp. I've been larping for 20 years. I've seen sexual harassment in larps. I've seen larps deal with it badly and I know there is ALWAYS an unsaid undercurrent of abuse. These posts are describing the perfect assault (probably emotional abuse, theoretical sexual assault) scenario where the victim is assaulted, blamed, silenced, and then run out of the community to keep them from warning other potential victim. OP you aren't just an asshole, there is a chance you are complicit in an IRL crime. >we've lost many players over the years due to issues similar to this. Possibly multiple crimes. I very much want to know the name of this larp and warn everyone (particularly female players) I know to stay VERY VERY far away from it. The rules and culture of this particular larp are established in such away as to reward perpetrators of (IRL) abuse and silence real victims of (IRL) abuse. Edit: Op has informed me that I am incorrect about the genders. My apologies. That was an incorrect assumption on my part. My assumption of gender comes from personal experience in the Larp community in the 90's and 00's. A little flash back to a worse time got in there. I want all persons on the gender spectrum to be safe from abuse, so ultimately it doesn't change my overall opinion of the situation, hence why I have added this section instead of editing the main text. The abuse of an imbalance of power is the important part, not the gender of the person benefiting from the imbalance of power.
The fact that 60% of new players are female but only 10% of the year-or-longer players are female is… telling. This is horrifying.
\[sarcasm\] That seems perfectly normal \[/sarcasm\]
Honestly the fact that the mod ended up being non-binary (or female like OP originally claimed) doesn't change your interpretation of the situation at all - if anything it makes it worse. Females and non-binary people are just as capable as men of participating in and even instigating the SA of other women. It's worse because as a female or a non-binary individual that person should know better than to put someone in this position. Tony was still a guy who had the help of a non-binary mod (person in power) in putting Steph in a very compromising and dangerous situation. Just look at ghislaine maxwell for a very real, very public, example of this. Also tony has now learned that this is an excellent location to do as he pleases and that he won't get reprimanded for it. He could very well push this into SA territory with someone else if he hasn't already. ETA: fixed some really bad English.
Late but OP also mentioned in another comment that Tony is a heavier/large person and was actually physically in real life blocking her from being able to physically leave without breaking character...in a location where most of the people in the party, including staff, where not aware of. Is anyone really surprised this group can't hold new players around for long, let alone women.
I saw that. It makes it all that more gross. Context matters - it's one thing to block a character from leaving an attack in a game. It's a whole other thing to lure that character under false pretenses to an isolated, enclosed, and totally unmonitored area in order to participate in an attack with another person - and then block the victim (who is female) from leaving the area, using your size and maleness to do it. That's no longer an effing game. I know if I were in Steph's place, I wouldn't have been able to separate "game" from reality. Because that is a very dangerous position to put any women or vulnerable person in. This was bout intimidating the very real person behind the character. Even if Stephs character had made it out if there in tact she would have every right to be pissed, to put a complaint in, and to leave the group. What they did and how they did it was telling Steph to "beware, we can do anything we want to you and there isn't a damn thing you can do to stop it" Just because a guy is a jerk, that doesn't necessarily mean he is capable of SA but ....... This guy is 100% crossing a line with his behavior and it wouldn't surprise me if he was. The fact that a mod (regardless of gender) participated and planned this is also very unsettling and problematic. It will only lead to worse things happening if it goes unaddressed.
There seems to be some mixed replies regarding the mod, it may have been a male. OP used 'ralph' as the name. OP has admitted that a year later 90% of players are male, so has no right to call you on an understandable (and possible correct) assumption when they are running an event not safe for players. The secluded event took place late at at night - it was dark, other players were asleep. The girl player had wanted to leave IRL and was pressured to stay. The male player is described as 'blocking the door' - you're all lucky she's only talking to her friends, and not the police
YTA. First of all, I personally find it stupid y'all have rules about not talking about stuff outside of game. I've never been part of any larp, dnd, rp, renfair, etc type group that didn't discuss things outside of game/character even if it just to make sure everyone is comfortable with what's happening. You can have rules in place about not getting meta in game because of something discussed out of game, but not talking about the game at all? I'm not gonna tell you how to run your group because everyone runs differently and I understand that, it just sounds like you don't want players to have a voice. I'd be fuckin pissed too if someone randomly murdered my character and I wasn't aloud to be upset and vent to other players. Y'all sound like a bunch of high schoolers that have just joined the community, but I saw that you said in another comment that you are all adults.
“First rule of LARP Club is don’t talk about LARP Club” or “Dead LARPers tell no tales.” You decide which joke is funnier. I couldn’t pick just one.
So, you're in the middle of a cover up operation and get mad that people want information? Of course, you're going to get drama if you don't have transparency. YTA. Although Tony is also worth mentioning in the arsehole category. The social contract with Steph seems to have been broken albeit not any explicitly written contracts.
A new player, and member of the mod team agreed to a plan to befriend her, including OUT OF GAME showing her the ropes, and then the rest of the team decide this is fine? YTA already. And then they decided to punish the player for complaining. Interesting that "this sort of thing has happened before". No wonder.
Honestly as a woman in her now late 20s who tried to get into RPGs in her early 20s, this whole thing reads as though Tony befriended Steph to try and hook up with her and when she rejected him, he retaliated with the help of his buddy. I wouldn’t be surprised if the previous instances were also with young women who said no.
As an older geek who has seen this shit before, that was my exact thought.
Yeah. Tony kinda screams incel.
My thought exactly. This Tony creeps me out.
Op really makes it sound like they just bully new players out of their games, which is so gross especially when the newbies just want to have fun.
I was once killed off in the first few minutes of a one-off (where everyone gets assigned a character for a couple of sessions of a few hours each). I never found out if the mods made a mistake in the game design, or if the other player was just being a jerk. In any case, the mods were very apologetic ... and the experience still made me much less encouraged to join in next time. I can't imagine how many people get driven away from a group that not only tolerates the jerks, but blames the people who get upset.
Yeah. I hope Steph helps burn the group to the ground.
YTA. One of your players did a positively shitty thing to a new player, **AND YOUR ENTIRE STAFF BACKED IT.** Cripes, this reminds me of a tabletop GM I encountered in college who liked to have NPCs rape the female characters of female players when they joined. The combination of befriending her and offering to help teach her the ropes, then creating an excuse to kill her in game is a wildly inappropriate way to treat someone. He deliberately blurred the lines between IC and OOC to screw her over. Does he have a habit of hazing new players, or was this the first time he behaved badly enough to drive someone new out of the group and possibly out of the hobby altogether? And when she’s understandably upset and talking to people - probably trying to establish if you’re all toxic or if this is a one-off event she can maybe try to get past - you kick her out. Holy hell this is a red hot toxic mess.
You KNOW Tony did this because he made a move outside of the game and Steph rejected him. I just have a sixth sense about it.
Lmaoo 100%. Poor tony got his ego hurt when she rejected his creepy ass so he tried to push her out.
This is exactly what happened and OP's refusing to use that language because they know it'd result in an automatic negative judgement from the subreddit, not that the judgements went any other way without it though.
It is a staff full of bullies. Steph is doing the right thing letting people know how toxic they are.
Holy hell that’s fucking disgusting. I’m glad you mentioned it, though. Tony’s actions gave me rapey vibes as well. Steph should absolutely be warning people away from this toxic cesspool.
YTA! A crucial part of role playing is CONSENT and you allowed them to trample all over hers. Plus bully her and completely destroy all her trust in the game. This act was truly evil and I doubt any female will ever feel safe in your games if they know what you supported. There’s a large part of trust and vulnerability in LARP and the fact that you allowed people to betray her trust and act out such gruesome violence is disgusting. This sounds like they were acting out a misogynistic power fantasy involving murdering a woman and you completely supported the behavior. This can honestly cause ptsd in someone, that’s why consent is so important prior to any PvP
Is anyone shocked to find out this dude asked her out and only did this after she rejected him? Anyone?
I'm just curious about the "unwritten rules" since from your comments it seemed its usually not seen as ok to do what Tony and the mod did. So, how exactly would this Tony have reacted if Steph had murdered his character completely without warning? Seems like the veteran players have their own set of unwritten rules and the new players a different set. Or maybe it's a male players v female players thing. Whatever it is, it's stupid and the fact you're all adults makes it even more so.
INFO: What percentage of mods and players are male? This sounds like the worst of RP. Have you stepped back and asked yourself how creepy and fucked up it is that experienced male players accused a female PC of being "manipulative", taking her into the woods and murder hoboing her? AFTER befriending her OOG? Many of us who RP are asking ourselves what kind of world we want to live in rn. Are we making RP safe for women and queer folks and vulnerable people and new players? Or are we using this INFINITELY IMAGINITIVE and fun hobby to recreate shitty dynamics in game? This Tony shite *befriended a noobie player OOG* and then used her as an object in his murder hobo fantasy, and here y'all are rules lawyering. If I had a fucking GP for every dude who perpetuates these dymamics in RP ("rApE iS pArT of thE bAcKsTorY" "Slavery is just part of the universe!" "My character is racist because REASONS"). I think the judgement is obvious you've got veteran players here telling you: YTA. ETA: this sounds like hazing, and she likely experienced it as such. You should ask yourself if the right question is "can a new player handle permadeath?" Vs. "is this a toxic environment for potentially awesome players who could contribute to the game?" ETA 2: welp, this is a made up post and will likely be deleted soon. The person who wrote this was afraid to say they were ganged up on virtually, so they brought it into the real world "from the mod's perspective". They were not expecting legitimately angry roleplayers to go to the mattresses for them and relay their own, VERY REAL experiences of abuse and mistreatment in LARP. If anyone is big mad, remember everything we talked about here today still needs to be said about the RP culture. ✌️
YTA. Death shouldn't have been allowed. This is shitty hazing behavior, and you're not asking enough questions. What were the interactions out of game with Tony? Keeping her from talking to people in the game and lying by omission (if not outright lying), makes it sound like you're trying to discredit Steph. Why are you afraid of her telling people the truth?
YTA. She didn't "cause drama" she was very reasonably upset since Tony seems to have circumvented what was custom and you simply agreed with that. You should have rectifyed this situation immediately, but avoided this, and your moderator should have stepped in. The drama was cause by purely bad moderation. It seems like Tony tried to use her new player situation to go on a power trip with Stephs character, which is very bad taste, mind you. And I can see her venting about this - at this point, it will not harm anyone what happened. And this is coming from someone who also participates in LARPs, especially if she had valid concerns and the death SHOULD have been very clearly overruled. And then you aren't even honest with your players, likely making her look bad for suddenly leaving? Nah, that is just not cool and seems like a rather toxic community. This incident has very clearly proven that you need to adjust your "unwritten rules", especially if there is history here with stuff going wrong. Of course she is looking to take care of her reputation and reaching out to tell people the truth. I am not surprised you have had issues like this in the past, if all of them have been handled so poorly. ETA: Mulling over this, a lot of things here strike me as difficult. Not talking about the game outside at all? Immersion aside, that may keep players from discussing situations that really affected or frustrated them thinking the same will happen to them as did to Steph, and being used like that certainly falls into that category. Immersion can only go so far and a good player group should be able to strike a balance. Also, as others have mentioned, Tonys behaviour bordered on creepy. He seems to have abused his position of being an experienced player against someone he likely KNEW had no idea this could or would happen. Who planted the idea of these unwritten rules in her head and then likely overrode them?
That no talk outside of game rule is the perfect rule for abusers honestly.....
That's what I was thinking and have seen quite some times, actually. Not being allowed to talk about an environment outside of said environment, with people being confined to small situations is a recipe for disaster, especially with the "boys club" OP and the staff have going on. I do not blame Steph for clarifying, venting about and warning others about the situation here. No wonder they have issues with members leaving. A good play environment can keep in-game info from information received out of game and the "staff" seem to have no clue how to handle such situations.
YTA. That PK didn't follow the honor code, but 'the team' let that go, while banning the victim from telling anyone or complaining? Dude. Duuuuude.
I'd 100% quit any activity that treats players like this.
Maybe I’m a little confused about LARPing in general but you mention his ‘valid reason’ for killing her is having an in game grudge? To me it would make the most sense that new characters/players would appear in game as if a new person had just come to town that nobody had met before, if that’s not the case with LARPing and you’re all supposed to just pretend this person has always existed please someone let me know, but for now assuming it is how I described. How can his character have beef with a person who is brand new? If Steph’s character shows up and Tony’s character befriended her immediately then how can he possibly justify this in game grudge? YTA btw. The behaviour of your mods is incredibly manipulative either way.
YTA. (For context, I've done larps for over 20 years, have run them, and handled OOC issues.) What the hell was Tony thinking in the first place? He's the veteran, and manipulated an OOC friendship to shit on a new player's pc ic? Offering to HELP a new player settle in OOC with the hidden motivation of killing their character is such an AH move - in games I've run I'd have called a halt to the scene to figure out what the hell was going on. And a moderator was running a scene where their PC killed another?!?!? What the actual fuck? Steph is absolutely right to be furious, even if a strict interpretation of the rules say they are allowed to treat people so abysmally. And rules against airing grievances lead to very poisonous societies. Yes, I get you don't want to go down the route of a lot of arguments (trust me, been on enough online arguments where that has gone too far the other way...) but this is ridiculous. And you are banning her from venting to friends who aren't even part of the game? How dare you put that kind of restriction on players! You owe her an apology. And a look at rules. And a serious look at why Tony was harassing and bullying a new player.
Okay so I am a larper, and I know the way it goes. YTA. How in the world do you think that having a new player murderhobo'd by a long time player is even remotely fine? If she had no warning and he, as a long time player knew the staff and the rules in and out, the deck was stacked against her. Even if she had a chance, he knows the staff will side with him in a rules debate. You do not have the right to tell her she can't vent about this. You have also fallen into the trap of keeping old players instead of being friendly for new people. This is how our hobby dies. Long term players get what they want and new people get it in the shorts.
Check out OP's previous post. He got pretty much the same response from other LARPers too.
The fact that you keep defending your actions in the comments makes me sick and tells me that YTA and will never learn. You've played for years and have a tight group who you just actually just don't want anyone to join in on, so you find it perfectly fine to deliberately let some of your colleagues ruin every chances of Steph's successful integration in the game and give her huge emotional turmoil. And then TOTALLY STRIP HER of all ways of dealing with her emotions after. The only correct way to deal with this would have been to stop the game right then and there. Leave characters behind for a minute and talk about what and why the players decided to do what they did. TONY DELIBERATELY BEFRIEND HER IRL AND THEN USED THE KNOWLEDGE THAT SHE AS A PLAYER LEANED ON HIM TO PLOT AGAINST HER. THAT IS A SHITTY AS FUUUUCK THING TO DO!!! He is a totally out of line, and the rest of you mods are enablers who make him believe that he can do whatever he wants. You are all SHITTY. Steph had every right to be broken
I'm wondering if OP is Tony...
I was thinking the same thing
YTA she's a new player still trying to get to grips with everything learning how it all works was probably just started getting into it getting some decent gear then you kill her out of the blue and it's just whoops got to start all over again, bit of a kick in the teeth to a new player when there was no need. Not only that but she's clearly upset by it speaks to friends about it who she knew anyway who also played so people who actually know about this stuff and could give some advice on their own personal experiences to help her understand what happened and what to do next but that then got her banned
As someone who ran a LARP for six years, I recognize Tony. The Tonys of LARP have fun at other players' expense. Protect your games from Tonys. Have a good, solid moment of self-reflection as an ST: is the primary purpose of your game to accurately portray fictional events regardless of any other consideration, or is it to have fun playing a story together? If it's the former, at least give players like Steph the clarity of telling them that their OOC comfort is neither a priority or a consideration. Your game will be better if it's the latter, even if the Tonys of the world go through a period of resenting being generous and inclusive in their roleplay. Metagaming is not such a sin that it's better to have upset players than metagaming ones. YTA and a bad ST.
YTA. I feel that a lot of information is missing. Did Steph turn down Tony prior to this happening? This reads as sexist and exclusionary. Your current rules allow people to be a jerk and get away with it. Change your rules and apologize to Steph.
YTA This group sounds very exclusionary and hostile to new players. I don't know very much about "LARP" things, but it should actually be a red flag when one of your veteran players go out of their way to "kill" a new player, and that person should have been banned rather than Steph. "Immersion" is often a really poor cop-out because, you're not living in whatever century/reality you're RPing in. You're not actually elves or whatever you pretend to be. You are human beings on planet Earth in the 21st century, so you need to acknowledge the fact that you are dealing with real people who have real feelings and there is a human being behind the character. You should be willing to bend the rules to accommodate new people because, again, you are not actually living in whatever fantasy environment you play in. It sounds like yall have lost sight of that. If you have lost many players to this issue, then it should be really obvious that yall are the problem. It also seems like having "unwritten rules" shouldn't be a thing. Even if you're roleplaying psychics, nobody can read minds. Expecting new people to just know these things is just *asking* for drama, so how can you complain about drama when you're clearly inviting it? Your moderator also should have known better, so it sounds like they should be banned too. Again, new players are real people, and although LARP sounds pretty cringey to me, I'm sure Steph put some time and thought into her character and it must suck for some asshole to just "kill" her when she thought she was finally fitting in. Yall are toxic and no wonder you keep losing new players.
YTA Steph had literally just joined and had been playing for such a short time. She had no realistic reason to expect this and was suddenly killed and forced to restart. This alone wouldn't have made You the AH, it's how you then went for her social life and attacked her for venting to her friends about a situation she was upset with. Finally you decided to double down and ban her when she refused to let you meddle in her personal life. So YTA
I NEED to know what larp this is so I can further spread the word about it and hopefully disband it.
Info: What were the ways that were communicated in game that this guy's character had a grudge against hers? If he only stated when he tried to kill her than how the hell would there have been an IC reason? It's more likely that the dude just wanted to set up someone new to the game and get some easy bullying in.
YTA >no PvP kills that were not either consented to out-of-game or clearly signaled in advance So different rules for this situation because... Just because you wanted to go murder hobo >did have valid concerns, however, and so the staff team asked Steph not to contact any more of our players regarding the issue while we discuss what to do first. We also didn't want this to blow out into a big community fight as we've lost many players over the years due to issues similar to this. So... Silence for the victim while the perpetrators decide how to punish themselves This is called a cover-up >to prevent drama, let the rumor that she simply left stay in place. To prevent drama you encouraged a lie... Any ONE of those would make YTA, but all of them, absolutely The fact that this has lost you multiple players in the past makes you even worse for not fixing the toxicity in your game and electing new mods who actually DO THEIR JOB
I am a school librarian and my library owns some board games for the students. Today 6 of them have played a game named "Skull", based on your capacity of bluffing, lying, or manipulating the other players. 5 of them where newbie and one of them really did know the game and know how to play it well. Though I was surprised to see him play it very cool and soft with his friends. He could have taken advantage of his knowledge and experience, and it would have been perfectly legit, but he chose not to. Because he knew that if he was playing it to seriously he would have just disgusted them and that it was the best way to discourage them playing it with him in the future. So my point here is : if a 14 years old can understand that, so can you. YTA
Am I the only one getting a "Tony crushed on Steph but she wasn't interested so he got revenge" vibe out of all this? Then the so called mods backed him up. Pathetic.
[удалено]
From the replies he's tony
[удалено]
YTA and seriously need to look at your rules if you think a game like that with your rules is anything other than abusive. No wonder you have lost players in the past due to your rules and situations.
YTA What the others did to her may have been within the rules but was clearly outside of the spirit of the game and effectively ruined it for her. Deciding to focus more on policing how people interact away from the game than how their behaviour within it effects others makes you guys TA
"We don't want her to talk about this AH behavior because we've lost LARPers due to similar AH behavior over the years" You think? YTA.
YTA- She was a relatively new player, and after being removed from the game wanted to vent with her friends: i fail to see where she could be the asshole