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zdashamberSome months back I was checking out the RPG.net thread "Lousy Players & Lousy GMs: Conclusions" wherein Greg Stolze lays out by name and frequency various complaints collected about Lousy Gamers in a previous thread. I was reading along, and I'm like, "Wait, where's the section for 'GM comes up with crazy hybrid system and then refuses to tell you what various levels of the stats mean'?"
Hah! I've played with GMs so uniquely shitty that not even the RPGnet people have seen their like!
I was reminded of it precisely today when I read Badger's story about a onetime boyfriend and a broken moped, and how the boyfriend refused to explain what he had done to fix the moped. Though in my case, the question "Why do you not want me to know?" got an answer: "We don't want you to minmax. Why won't you just focus on character?" "How can I know who my character is unless I know what she can do?"
People who hang their self-image on forcing others to rely on them... Badger draws the connection to sexism. I found it in an entirely different milieu, and drew different conclusions.
The basic problem is sociopathy; that is, failure to recognize that other humans have as much value as you do. I think about the Milgram experiment on how much hurt people would deal out to others under the auspices of authority: Milgram found that the number of people willing to give out killing shocks was inversely proportional to the amount of personal contact those people had with the victims. Victims who are nothing more to you than a line of type on a screen, as in the case of the game I mentioned? I figure it's a moral man indeed who will forgo "holding power" for "helping people who don't think like you."
There are people who've never had to do friendly negotiations with equals; I've met several rich only children of that description. They don't grasp the concept of trust built up between compatriots based on demonstrated commonality of purpose; they know only the unilateral trust required of a subordinate based on power. Any deviation from the way things are in their head is taken as a power struggle. They are both the authority and the man with the shock buttons.
In Badger's case, though she was standing right there, her ex could have used the auspices of authority to support his failure of empathy. After all, everyone knows women don't understand engines. He forcefully created the image of trust by refusing to answer her questions, and in the process he emphasized his own alignment with authority.
Hah! I've played with GMs so uniquely shitty that not even the RPGnet people have seen their like!
I was reminded of it precisely today when I read Badger's story about a onetime boyfriend and a broken moped, and how the boyfriend refused to explain what he had done to fix the moped. Though in my case, the question "Why do you not want me to know?" got an answer: "We don't want you to minmax. Why won't you just focus on character?" "How can I know who my character is unless I know what she can do?"
People who hang their self-image on forcing others to rely on them... Badger draws the connection to sexism. I found it in an entirely different milieu, and drew different conclusions.
A man like that has got a great big hole, right in the middle of himself. And he can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.Thank you, Doc. Not quite applicable, but amusing.
"What does he want?"
Revenge.
"For what?"
Bein' born...
The basic problem is sociopathy; that is, failure to recognize that other humans have as much value as you do. I think about the Milgram experiment on how much hurt people would deal out to others under the auspices of authority: Milgram found that the number of people willing to give out killing shocks was inversely proportional to the amount of personal contact those people had with the victims. Victims who are nothing more to you than a line of type on a screen, as in the case of the game I mentioned? I figure it's a moral man indeed who will forgo "holding power" for "helping people who don't think like you."
There are people who've never had to do friendly negotiations with equals; I've met several rich only children of that description. They don't grasp the concept of trust built up between compatriots based on demonstrated commonality of purpose; they know only the unilateral trust required of a subordinate based on power. Any deviation from the way things are in their head is taken as a power struggle. They are both the authority and the man with the shock buttons.
In Badger's case, though she was standing right there, her ex could have used the auspices of authority to support his failure of empathy. After all, everyone knows women don't understand engines. He forcefully created the image of trust by refusing to answer her questions, and in the process he emphasized his own alignment with authority.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-22 06:09 pm (UTC)I'm your huckleberry
Date: 2005-06-22 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 08:26 pm (UTC)