Being the Adversary
When it comes to OWBN, sometimes, I feel bit like the organization’s version Lucifer.
Stop laughing. Really! Okay, maybe that was a bit much, but let me explain.
In the eyes of some (influential) OWBN members, I have what can only be described as a superpower to be a force of unambiguous yet undefined ‘badness’ in my hobby organization, no matter what it is I am doing. For example, remember the whole Origins-Swine Flu thing?
Let me refresh your memory for you. I got a more then mild, but not incapacitating case of the sick the week prior to Origins. I went to the doctor, found out I had a middling case of the flu, took some medication, and felt right perfectly fine by the day before I was supposed to leave for the event. Feeling no danger in my attendance, I went to the event (but was properly mindful of my recent illness and did not do anything that might result in my bodily fluids getting somewhere they shouldn’t) , had a good time, and drove home. On the way back, I got a call from my doctor saying the thing I got over was, in fact, H1N1. He told me nothing is wrong, he just had to tell me.
Upon returning, I talked to most of my MD friends and acquaintances, and they all told me the same thing - swine flu is overblown, the odds of me actually having got someone sick was incredibly low since my symptoms were over, and that I had nothing to worry about. Rather than panic everyone, I simply said nothing. Just to be sure, I kept an eye out for any signs anyone might have actually got what I had, but sure enough, no one did. Hooray!
So, about a week and a half later I recounted a more amusing version of the above anecdote to a close group of friends, and for reasons better left unexplained the whole story was shared with the world.
I was immediately made to look like the fucking devil. I saw an insane amount of panicking over it, plenty of condemnation, and even some murmurings on my own Facebook page that some kind of notice should go out about a public health hazard. This was just the stuff said in a relative public setting. I am sure that even more complaints, of a less refined kind, went on in private.
However, let me be clear - I did not actually get anyone sick. Though some panicked people initially claimed that I may have got them sick, they were found to be incorrect. I can’t even count the number of times that some form of badness has got passed around at event games to very little or no complaint, but the fact that I had gone to Origins after having recovered from a mild illness was practically murder on my part. Hell, people that get drunk off their ass at events were more of a public health danger then I had any possibility of being, but that kind of behavior is damn near encouraged. I could accept it all if there had been consistant condemnation of every person who ever presented themselves as a mild risk of a public health hazard -- everyone who ever passed around Con Plague, who got dangerously drunk , or whatever. That never happend though...it was just me. Because I'm the devil.
It isn’t the only example of this strange phenomenon. If I make a joke about something, it won’t be long before it is taken out of context and put on the OWBN gossip network as my sincere desire that someone dies in a car fire or something. My very presence at a game (or even gaming in a particular region) is apparently enough to keep people from even attending OWBN games….because I’m evil? I guess? Even my IC choices as particular characters are dissected by my detractors as clear evidence of my cheaty douchatude when there exists no evidence to show anything of the kind. Sometimes, I think my only crime is that I mange to not entirely suck at the game I am playing, and that nothing less than my complete disappearance from all things One World would be enough to please them.
Scratch that, even my absence does not do it. One of my favored ‘wtf’ moments came during the 2008 Nonclave where I was accused of ‘evading the consequences’ by not having one of my PC’s show up there. Mind you that NVA was not my home game, that I made it clear to everyone OOC more than a month in advance for what was fairly compelling logic, and that I spent 6 weeks telling everyone I possibly could - including a 150 post + rant email thread - that Garrett wasn’t going to Nonclave. Indeed, after the 2007 Demon Gangbang that PC claimed he would never go back. None of that was enough, though. I still had to endure all these stories from my detractors whispering that I was a cheaty little bastard for not tromping down into the woods and properly having my PC die because, gosh darn it, they wanted it to happen.
It really does surprise me, which may sound odd to everyone considering we did the podcast for so long. The strange part is, none of this animosity seems to directly spring from those days (Porch obviously excluded, but his multiple game banishment for cheating was something of a vindication that we were doing the right thing). When I think of the people that are my most constant foes, it’s all people I was, at the very least, friendly with prior to the summer of 2008. Some of them have not even met me in person. It’s strange how quick these kinds of things evolve. I wonder if this is how Mikey felt when the Philly game hated him for years (before he ever even went there).
I take pride in the fact that I don’t pick OOC fights, but it seems to be a fact largely lost on people, perhaps by choice. One of my most notorious OOC LARP drama exploits was when I called a particularly well known and constant foe of mine a ‘troglodyte’. When I was asked about why I did it, I pointed out that the target of my comment had just accused me of being a liar, a cheater, and psychologically unstable (for what was essentially the crime of ‘not letting her win’), which really felt like a much more severe insult then being called a name. However, I don’t think anyone remembers that part -- just me calling her a troglodyte and what a terrible person I was for doing so. Perhaps the best call is to walk away and ignore those kinds of things. In fact, I know that is probably the most ‘adult’ thing to do. However, I know myself, and I am wired with a strong defensive reflex…I am used to the idea that no one will defend you but you. I’m just not the walking away kind of guy, so I get played in these situations when I get goaded into a response and then made to look like the aggressor the entire time.
In any case I don’t even try to explain it anymore; I simply accept it as part of my world. Truth be told, it’s not really that bad. Now that I am outside the Mid Atlantic Echo Chamber of Hate, I find that most people still think I am not Satan, and it’s made me look forward to playing in games again. The fact that the last month and a half of my gaming experience has been drama free has been a (sadly) new feeling. Going to games without having to worry about the OOC politics, or who said what about me where is something I can get used to doing again.
Stop laughing. Really! Okay, maybe that was a bit much, but let me explain.
In the eyes of some (influential) OWBN members, I have what can only be described as a superpower to be a force of unambiguous yet undefined ‘badness’ in my hobby organization, no matter what it is I am doing. For example, remember the whole Origins-Swine Flu thing?
Let me refresh your memory for you. I got a more then mild, but not incapacitating case of the sick the week prior to Origins. I went to the doctor, found out I had a middling case of the flu, took some medication, and felt right perfectly fine by the day before I was supposed to leave for the event. Feeling no danger in my attendance, I went to the event (but was properly mindful of my recent illness and did not do anything that might result in my bodily fluids getting somewhere they shouldn’t) , had a good time, and drove home. On the way back, I got a call from my doctor saying the thing I got over was, in fact, H1N1. He told me nothing is wrong, he just had to tell me.
Upon returning, I talked to most of my MD friends and acquaintances, and they all told me the same thing - swine flu is overblown, the odds of me actually having got someone sick was incredibly low since my symptoms were over, and that I had nothing to worry about. Rather than panic everyone, I simply said nothing. Just to be sure, I kept an eye out for any signs anyone might have actually got what I had, but sure enough, no one did. Hooray!
So, about a week and a half later I recounted a more amusing version of the above anecdote to a close group of friends, and for reasons better left unexplained the whole story was shared with the world.
I was immediately made to look like the fucking devil. I saw an insane amount of panicking over it, plenty of condemnation, and even some murmurings on my own Facebook page that some kind of notice should go out about a public health hazard. This was just the stuff said in a relative public setting. I am sure that even more complaints, of a less refined kind, went on in private.
However, let me be clear - I did not actually get anyone sick. Though some panicked people initially claimed that I may have got them sick, they were found to be incorrect. I can’t even count the number of times that some form of badness has got passed around at event games to very little or no complaint, but the fact that I had gone to Origins after having recovered from a mild illness was practically murder on my part. Hell, people that get drunk off their ass at events were more of a public health danger then I had any possibility of being, but that kind of behavior is damn near encouraged. I could accept it all if there had been consistant condemnation of every person who ever presented themselves as a mild risk of a public health hazard -- everyone who ever passed around Con Plague, who got dangerously drunk , or whatever. That never happend though...it was just me. Because I'm the devil.
It isn’t the only example of this strange phenomenon. If I make a joke about something, it won’t be long before it is taken out of context and put on the OWBN gossip network as my sincere desire that someone dies in a car fire or something. My very presence at a game (or even gaming in a particular region) is apparently enough to keep people from even attending OWBN games….because I’m evil? I guess? Even my IC choices as particular characters are dissected by my detractors as clear evidence of my cheaty douchatude when there exists no evidence to show anything of the kind. Sometimes, I think my only crime is that I mange to not entirely suck at the game I am playing, and that nothing less than my complete disappearance from all things One World would be enough to please them.
Scratch that, even my absence does not do it. One of my favored ‘wtf’ moments came during the 2008 Nonclave where I was accused of ‘evading the consequences’ by not having one of my PC’s show up there. Mind you that NVA was not my home game, that I made it clear to everyone OOC more than a month in advance for what was fairly compelling logic, and that I spent 6 weeks telling everyone I possibly could - including a 150 post + rant email thread - that Garrett wasn’t going to Nonclave. Indeed, after the 2007 Demon Gangbang that PC claimed he would never go back. None of that was enough, though. I still had to endure all these stories from my detractors whispering that I was a cheaty little bastard for not tromping down into the woods and properly having my PC die because, gosh darn it, they wanted it to happen.
It really does surprise me, which may sound odd to everyone considering we did the podcast for so long. The strange part is, none of this animosity seems to directly spring from those days (Porch obviously excluded, but his multiple game banishment for cheating was something of a vindication that we were doing the right thing). When I think of the people that are my most constant foes, it’s all people I was, at the very least, friendly with prior to the summer of 2008. Some of them have not even met me in person. It’s strange how quick these kinds of things evolve. I wonder if this is how Mikey felt when the Philly game hated him for years (before he ever even went there).
I take pride in the fact that I don’t pick OOC fights, but it seems to be a fact largely lost on people, perhaps by choice. One of my most notorious OOC LARP drama exploits was when I called a particularly well known and constant foe of mine a ‘troglodyte’. When I was asked about why I did it, I pointed out that the target of my comment had just accused me of being a liar, a cheater, and psychologically unstable (for what was essentially the crime of ‘not letting her win’), which really felt like a much more severe insult then being called a name. However, I don’t think anyone remembers that part -- just me calling her a troglodyte and what a terrible person I was for doing so. Perhaps the best call is to walk away and ignore those kinds of things. In fact, I know that is probably the most ‘adult’ thing to do. However, I know myself, and I am wired with a strong defensive reflex…I am used to the idea that no one will defend you but you. I’m just not the walking away kind of guy, so I get played in these situations when I get goaded into a response and then made to look like the aggressor the entire time.
In any case I don’t even try to explain it anymore; I simply accept it as part of my world. Truth be told, it’s not really that bad. Now that I am outside the Mid Atlantic Echo Chamber of Hate, I find that most people still think I am not Satan, and it’s made me look forward to playing in games again. The fact that the last month and a half of my gaming experience has been drama free has been a (sadly) new feeling. Going to games without having to worry about the OOC politics, or who said what about me where is something I can get used to doing again.