PBeM Woes

People mystify me.

I simply don’t get how so many people think. Sometimes I’m able to put myself in their shoes and sometimes even when I think I understand why they think or act the way they do, I logically can not figure out why a grown person would actually do so. What I mean is that grown-ups, especially people over thirty should be beyond pettiness and spiteful vengence for preceived minor wrongs.

Recently I was in a PBeM (play-by-e-mail) game where I had several disagreements with the owner of the list. It was obvious to me that she didn’t care about insulting me or being fair as far as a game-moderator should be. She played favorites. She was condescending. She actually told me that instead of “complaining” about something (the one thing I personally had actually complained about in the game), I should be grateful that one of the other players (one of her favorites) was playing with me. I told her that was insulting since the whole point of having a role-playing game was to play.

Anyway, another player and myself left that game because we didn’t agree with the direction of the game and quite frankly we weren’t really getting to play that much anyway and this game owner decided we had humiliated her in a very drama queen way. She is a player in another game we are in and she manipulated the game-owners of that game by insisting that we had humiliated her in her game and that she refused to play with us. She insisted she needed a cooling down period.

Well, originally, the other player and I were going to bring the characters we were using in the game we quit to this other game but we were told we would have to wait until the old game-mod cooled off. Well, once we were told we couldn’t play those characters, she was fine and posting in the game and even playing with the other player who’d supposedly humiliated her.

And I’m feeling a little sore about the whole thing. I can’t change any of it. I don’t particularly want to role-play with her though I would for the game’s sake if I had to — not everyone I role-play with is someone I like. I understand the logic behind the game-owners decisions to cater to the petty “humiliated” player out of fairness before it became evident that she was just trying to keep us from playing those particular players — obviously a way to punish us. I even kind of understand why the petty “humiliated” player doesn’t like me because I told her straight out why I was leaving her game and how she’d insulted me and was an untrustworthy game-moderator.

However, knowing I can’t change anything and understanding why things are the way they are, doesn’t stop the feelings of hurt and confusion — hurt that this person I don’t even really know would go out of her way to try to keep me from enjoying myself, hurt that my friends who are the game-owners on the list I’m still on didn’t come to their senses and confront the petty player once they realized her true intention, hurt that one of my friend game-owners has created a character to fill the slot my transfered character would have gone in and she did so within 24 hours.

And the thing is that it really isn’t all that important in the grand scheme of things. Playing that character will not bring an end to war in the Middle East or feed starving children in Africa. Playing that character won’t get me a raise or a promotion or propel me into stardom. A year from now I might not even be in that game. A year from now, I might not even remember the incident unless I’m skimming my archives.

It just hurts right now and I’m having a problem letting go of the hurt.

And it’s only compounding the real issue which is that of late, my role-playing experience has been quite unsatisfactory. My characters seem to get into scenes where they are waiting on other players to respond but the player disappears for a week or two and the rest of the game speeds by at lightning speed. There’s no fun being in a game that you don’t actually get to participate in. I mean, I put a lot of thought into my characters and it’s just painful to get excited about one only to only get to post a paragraph or two every few weeks. Six weeks ago, I was extremely excited about all the new games I’d joined and now I wonder why I even bother. What am I getting out of it? Am I enjoying this? I used to love PBeMs but that was back when the people I was playing with were posting at least once a day if not more.

And maybe I’m just too old now. People my age are busy with other things. They don’t have time to post.

I don’t know.

But this is depressing the hell out of me. It shouldn’t be that important, but it is.

tags: none

2 comments

1. on November 24, 2005 at 11:27 pm

   Omni said:

   One of the grim realities of online life is that you get alot of no-life people involved in any group, and they’ll treat anything that’s not exactly to their liking as a declaration of war, because it’s all they have to get worked up over. Another grim reality is that people will rarely if ever come to your defense. Another one is that the rotten folks ALWAYS get coddled and catered to, even at the expense of their victims.

   Why not quietly talk to some of the players you like about starting your own game, one with rules about how often you have to participate to keep parts of it from getting bogged down?

2. on November 25, 2005 at 1:50 pm

   n. mallory said:

   Well, the irony is that the game I was “moving” my character to was one that a friend had started with rules about how often you have to participate and all and the problem is that the game owner of the game I like doesn’t want to piss off the other game owner because they each have a character in the others’ game.

   However, I’m happy to report that I had a complete meltdown on Wednesday night to my friend N2 who was involved in the who thing. I mean, I was sobbing crying and working through it all — because I know it wasn’t just that one game and I know it’s not just the games. I’m having trouble with that seasonal affective disorder (which is affecting my depression) and it was time for my Depo shot so I was already emotional. Anyway, I had the meltdown and the next morning, I was fine. I’m working with the game owner of the game I like to find a place in the game for that character that won’t cause our characters to interact so the whiny baby can’t complain about my character.

   And I’ve basically decided I’m only giving people so long to post, even if the moderators of games aren’t keeping track like they should, and if they haven’t posted in 5-7 days, then I’m going to post my character leaving theirs and going on with her storyline.

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