The Characteristics of RPGs: Misbehavior

My notes on this section begin with “the inherently social nature of RPGs” but as I sat down to write, it occurred to me that I haven’t exactly explored the distinction between one type of game and another, in regard to their nature as a social activity. In other words, how exactly is a tabletop role-playing game any more social than a game of chess, Monopoly, football, charades, Mario Party, World of Warcraft, or any of the literally thousands of games mankind has created over the millennia? Is there a meaningful distinction between these games, in these terms?

The answer is clearly “yes” when we take a moment to think about it. The act of playing a board game like chess or Monopoly, for instance, requires a minimal amount of socialization. In this context, I specifically mean “the activity of mixing socially with others.” I can play chess without talking to my opponent, indeed without even looking at them. Monopoly requires a bit more in the way of interaction, particularly if I’m going to use certain strategies like buying and selling properties. In both cases, the required level of social interaction is significantly reduced when the game moves from the physical space to the digital. Playing chess online is functionally no different than playing against the computer. The same applies to Monopoly and a host of other board games that have been brought to the digital realm.

Moving higher up the social ladder, as it were, we find that a number of games require increasingly complex interactions. Most sports can be played as simply as an individual performance, although I would argue that adding a layer of complexity, through the dynamics of social interactions, can make the game more interesting (and thus more engaging and more fun). This is especially the case if you engage with a sport as a spectator; the social interactions among players, coaches, and even fans, are a primary appeal for most spectators. Games like poker, where your ability to win is predicated on your ability to guess your opponents’ hands and to keep your opponents’ from guessing your hand, are almost entirely enmeshed in social interactions. Other competitive games, like Magic: the Gathering and esports, such as first person shooters or fighter competitions, exhibit the same interactive qualities. Some games offer a wider range of social options, particularly those with online multiplayer capabilities, like World of Warcraft, to the point where the individual player decides what degree of interaction they engage with.

By contrast with these examples, TTRPGs seem to function at the highest level of social interaction. Whether you’re sitting around a table in person or gathered together on a digital platform, your every move, every play, every possible action you can take is one that must interact with another person. In most RPGs, the standard is that the GM hears your proposed action, interprets it and delivers a result. Even games that feature no gamemaster still require the presence of at least two players. At a bare minimum, there is no possible way to play a tabletop RPG without a social element.*

This is partly why so many players view the game as being “about telling stories.”

(*And yes, I realize that some RPGs allow for “solo play,” being a form of Choose Your Own Adventure where you make decisions according to a sort of script from a published adventure . . . but these are the exception and not the rule, where the game genre is concerned.)

Thus, the inherently social nature of RPGs invites a great deal of examination and criticism around misbehavior, i.e. “a wide variety of behaviors that may be viewed negatively by other players.” (p.231)

The frequent reader of this blog will, of course, note that I have spoken often about different kinds of misbehavior; and will likely recall my position concerning the practice of “fudging,” among other distasteful behaviors. I want to make it clear that my personal preferences are not the topic of this article. Characteristics of Games presents us with three distinct forms of misbehavior (namely: cheating, sharp play and griefing) and we will explore each in turn, especially as they relate to RPGs; but as the overall purpose of this series is to identify certain characteristics of role-playing games, I will, as before, endeavor to keep the emotional investment to a minimum, so that we might obtain a better understanding of the possible range of classification.

Cheating

Games have rules, and rules restrict players. It is easier to win without those restrictions, so sometimes players cheat: they disobey the rules. (p.231)

One might think there is not that much more to say about cheating, but it turns out cheating is a surprisingly rich metagame area. (p.231)

The meaning here is fairly straight forward yet allows for a great deal of depth and examination.

First, we need to understand that there are (generally) two types of rules, when it comes to enforcement: “hard” and “soft.” Hard rules are something like what we find in video games. A game’s code provides practical limits on the player’s ability to manipulate the game. You cannot walk through this wall. You cannot jump over that pit. When your character is shot, you take damage. If they’re hit in a certain way, they instantly die, and so on and so forth. Video games are the quintessential example of hard game rules because, unless you literally reprogram the game, you cannot get around the rules.

As a side note, we might counter this argument by pointing out that many video games have errors or loopholes in the code, that players can take advantage of. Whether or not such exploitation is in the “spirit” of the game is immaterial; what matters is that these tricks have no moral value, in-and-of-themselves. If we discover an exploit ~ like jumping at a wall and catching a weird bit of code that lets us “clip” through to the other side ~ we’ve only discovered a thing that exists, that was probably not immediately obvious to the developers (else they would have fixed it before release). As a community of players, we might ascribe a moral value to the use of these exploits, but they are, themselves, morally neutral.

For instance, in the speedrunning community, there’s an ongoing debate concerning what behavior is and is not allowed. The aforementioned “clipping” ~ where your character runs at a wall, jumps and lands at a precise location, then jumps again and slides through the barrier to the other side; a thing that should be physically impossible to do, assuming the game’s code matches the visual information communicated to the player ~ very often, in officially judged speedrun recordings, there’s a rule against clipping. As a player of this game, you’re perfectly capable of clipping through this wall; but if you want your speedrun attempt to be accepted by the community, you’re not allowed to use that technique.

This is an example of a “soft” rule. With a hard rule, there is no way to get past it. It’s not possible to cheat because the mechanics of the game are written in such a way that it’s literally not possible. By contrast, a soft rule is one that can be broken (or bent or ignored, etc.) simply by 1) knowing how to and 2) choosing to do it.

What I find interesting about the distinction between these two types of rules is that, first, hard rules only exist in video games; and second, the enforcement of soft rules always requires an agreement among players to follow the rules.

To the first point, consider any game that isn’t a video game. If I begin a game of chess by moving my pawn three spaces instead of two, there is literally nothing that stops me. There is no barrier. My hand does not suddenly run into an invisible wall. Yet if I play chess on a computer, such a barrier does exist. I click on my pawn and a range of squares light up to indicate where I might move that piece. I’m literally not allowed to move my pawn three spaces because such a move is literally not possible, because of the game’s code.

This is where the second point comes up: when we’re playing anything other than a video game (and often while playing video games, particularly if we’re using a multiplayer mode or we’re engaged in a competition structured around soft rules, like speedrunning), the rules are only enforceable because the players have agreed to enforce them. Yet when we collectively agree to ignore or break the rules, we haven’t avoided the label of “cheaters;” we’ve merely agreed that that label is not important to us.

This is a critical bit that I want to say again, just to reinforce the idea: if we agree to play a game in a manner that does not follow the rules, we haven’t avoided cheating. All we’ve done is agree that our cheating isn’t a big enough deal to stop us from playing this way. We’ve agreed that this particular instance of cheating is an acceptable practice for us and our group.

We should note that this interpretation is not strictly supported by the Characteristics of Games. Elias et al. talk about game customization, devoting a full chapter to it and breaking it down into sub-categories. Within this framework, we should understand house rules to be a form of customization; yet I submit the above perspective as an additional view, one that can coexist on the basis that we are not ascribing a moral judgement to the act. That is to say, yes, cheating is morally abhorrent, for a variety of reasons; but there are circumstances where the behavior is accepted by a group of fully aware and independent adults, capable of making their own decisions in life and accepting the consequences of their actions.

That said . . . there is still one aspect that frustrates this position . . . and I may have to back down on my take because of it. You see, dear reader, the whole definition of cheating is one that assumes a player is breaking the rules for a specific purpose. They are trying to win by gaining an advantage over the other players (or over the game itself, as it’s technically possible to cheat in a single player game, though I cannot fathom how a sane and healthy person could do such a thing). Understanding the intent behind the action, therefore, is critical to assessing a given action as misbehavior.

When I play Monopoly with my kids and we use the “Free Parking” rule, we’re not cheating because we’ve agreed to adopt a house rule (a form of game customization). When I play golf and I give myself a handicap, because my boss is a much better golfer than I am, I’m not cheating because we’ve agreed that this is a fair means to compare our scores in a semi-competitive environment. And when a gamemaster in an RPG “fudges” dice rolls . . . so long as all the players at the table are aware that this is a thing they are likely to do and they’ve agreed that it’s an acceptable practice . . . then the GM is not “cheating” or “misbehaving.”

(much as I’m loathed to admit it . . .)

When we think “cheating” (i.e. rule breaking for the purpose of gaining an advantage that helps us win the game) and how rules are enforced (i.e. hard or soft enforcement), we need to consider two core elements: player awareness and penalties for cheating.

The former depends on the amount of hidden information within the game. In many board games, where the pieces are laid out on the table in full view of the players, there is no hidden information (or very little), making it very difficult to get away with cheating. I cannot make an illegal move in chess without my opponent seeing it. A game like poker, however, being all about its hidden information, makes cheating much more possible (if not more likely). We can extend this to certain video games, particularly if a player has skill with coding and has manipulated the game to give themselves an unfair advantage. If said player’s opponents are unaware of these changes, it becomes very difficult to call them out for cheating.

The latter comes up in games where cheating is technically allowed, in the sense that the penalty for cheating isn’t always comparable to the gains made by cheating. We see this in many sports games, where the violation of a rule involves a penalty against a player or their team, but where that penalty does not invalidate the illegal play. In football, one player may engage in unnecessary roughness with another, grabbing at their mask or pads and dragging them to the ground. This is an illegal move and, when caught by the referee, results in a penalty (a loss of yards on the field). If your team was able to advance the ball by a distance greater than the penalty . . . well, maybe it’s worth it, just this one time, isn’t it? There is a risk, of course, that a player who engages in roughness too often will be disqualified from the game by the ref; and this aspect of the rule helps to keep players in line; but it doesn’t prevent players from taking the risk, especially when their team is in a close situation.

This is what Elias et al. means when they say that cheating “is a surprisingly rich metagame area:” just because there’s a penalty to breaking the rules, doesn’t mean there’s no incentive to ever break the rules. After all, “some of the most exciting metagames have a moderate amount of cheating, at least of the “perceived as okay” rule violations . . .” (p.233)

. . . and at this point, I’m not convinced there’s much more to say about RPGs, with regard to cheating. We’ve already covered the matter of GMs cheating, through the topic of fudging rolls; and when we consider that GMs aren’t even playing the same game as the players (assuming they’re playing a game at all), it seems there’s little more to add. Given that RPGs are mostly cooperative, it doesn’t make much sense for players to cheat. Sure, yes, they can cheat, that much is obvious; but if we were to ask ourselves, honestly, “Why? What do the players get out of cheating?” we’re likely to find our examination turning back to a prior assumption: that there is no point in cheating in a single player game.

This is where I must bring the conversation around to moral issues: why do people cheat? We know it’s for the purpose of gaining an advantage in order to win the game . . . but what value does that serve? I think the answer is both obvious and complex: a cheating player seeks to obtain the emotional thrill associated with winning without putting in the effort (or the time, energy, investment, etc.). Perhaps cheating happens in a gambling game, where money is on the line, and the player wants to win in order to take home the cash. Perhaps there’s a social status to be obtained through winning and the desire to have that status is worth the risk of ostracization (if the cheater is caught). In this manner, it’s clear that a “winning” player in an RPG primarily obtains a form of social or emotional credit. Yes, in many RPGs, there’s a mechanical award for winning a fight, completing an adventure, controlling a scene, getting NPCs to do what you want, and so on; but if we dig deeper, we find that these things only matter because the players at the table have agreed that they matter. Their value is defined by collective agreement among the players, thus their value to the cheating player is defined by the worth placed upon them by the table as a whole.

There is, of course, one additional aspect of cheating that’s worth discussing: losing sucks. When we’re playing a game, it’s natural to want to win. Most players are able to keep a clear head about the issue. When they lose, they know that this is just one game among many; that the outcome of a game isn’t a life altering event; that there will be another chance to win later; and a host of other healthy responses, built through a lifetime of personal experiences and lessons. Most players accept the loss for what it is and move on. Some, however, aren’t mature enough to know how to absorb the loss. Some are obsessed with chasing the win, willing to do anything necessary to catch it. Some are narcissists or sore losers or some other explanation which helps us to understand why they engage in antisocial behavior like cheating. For these players, cheating is necessary to ensure they get what they want: the recognition and thrill of a win, even if it’s been robbed of all substance by the very act of cheating.

Ultimately, therefore, the TTRPG cheater is one who seeks the status associated with “winning,” whatever that might mean for them.

Sharp Play

Sometimes certain in-game practices are acknowledged as being within the rules, but still somehow "disreputable" ~ as taking advantage somehow. In older books about games, these practices were often described as "sharp." p.234 

Examples provided in CoG include:

• checking during an opening bid in poker when you have a strong hand.
• counting cards in blackjack.
• some political behaviors, such as kingmaking.
• rushing in an RTS.
• playing an especially powerful or aggressive strategy in a casual environment.

Any of these behaviors are technically “legal” in the sense that they are not against the game’s rules, yet they’re often viewed as being against the “spirit” of a game. An excellent example of this, in sports, comes from the story of Vivek Ranadive (as told by Malcolm Gladwell in his book, David and Goliath). Ranadive volunteered to coach the girls basketball team, through the school his children attended, because they needed a coach and no one more qualified (or interested) was available. Ranadive hadn’t grown up playing the game ~ he was learning it just barely ahead of coaching the kids ~ and his newcomer status allowed him to look at the game’s rules from a different perspective. One thing he found, was that there was nothing in the rules against the full court press.

Typically, in basketball, when a team scores a basket, the ball passes to the opponent and they’re given a moment to advance the ball along the length of the court. One team scores; points are added to the board; ref passes the ball to the opposing team; there’s a brief pause in the action before the possessing team starts moving down the court, and by the time the two teams physically engage with each other ~ with each player trying to guard another or take possession of the ball ~ they’re already on the opposite side of the court. The full court press is a strategy wherein, as soon as possession passes, the opposing team rushes to engage with the possessor. This is generally seen as unsportsmanlike. The standard, among professional players, is to give the other team a moment to bring the ball to your end of the court and to play the game out from that position. What Ranadive realized, in learning about the game before starting as a coach, was that the full court press is only a standard. It’s a convention. It’s not a rule that a team must allow the opponent the opportunity to advance the ball in between baskets.

And so Ranadive taught his team to use the full court press during every single game. He did this, in part, because his team was comprised of less-skilled players. They didn’t have the advantages that other teams possessed and they usually lost their games as a result. But since those other teams were being taught that the full court press wasn’t a “proper” way to play the game, they weren’t prepared for an opponent that did it.

From this example, we can see that sharp play is a sort of metagame, where a player identifies a particular strategy or technique that their opponent isn’t prepared to deal with.

Usually, as with this example and those listed above, sharp play is viewed as a form of misbehavior because the community collectively agrees that it’s something to discourage. These strategies and techniques are “disreputable” . . . although the reasons why aren’t always easy to understand.

Let’s got back to the topic of speedrunning. There are websites dedicated to logging speedruns for just about any video game you can imagine. If you want to see who played Super Mario Bros. the fastest, you can probably find a copy of their speedrun through this site. However, as discussed above, there are certain aspects to video games that can frustrate or confuse the question of “Who is the fastest player?” Super Mario is a great example because, much like so many older games, there are a ton of secrets within its code that allows for a player to gain significant time advantages. The “run and jump at a wall” clip is a thing that shows up in every single Mario Bros. game, for instance; and if we acknowledge that that’s not exactly cheating, so much as an exploit found in the game’s code, then it’s certainly a form of sharp play; that is, it’s technically legal because the game’s code allows for it, but it’s not exactly in the spirit of the game . . . because the spirit, in this case, deals with the player’s ability to complete the game in the shortest time possible, and how can we accept clipping when that’s obviously not the designer’s original intent?

We can go back and forth about questions of “intent” all day long, but the real point in this example is that the online community of speedrunners have found a solution to their problem: they’ve created different categories of speedruns. The category of “glitchless,” for instance, requires that a player complete the run without using a clip or glitch, i.e. “holes” or exploits in the game’s code. By clearly defining the parameters for their competition, speedrunners are able to more accurately gauge their skill relative to the community. More prominent speedrunners (i.e. those with the reputation and popularity to be widely known in the community) might have several high scoring entries across multiple categories; or they might focus their attention on a few categories, excelling in them to the point where their lead is secure for a long time.

(Of course, a side effect of this approach ~ collectively making new categories with very clear rules and requirements ~ is that there’s a proliferation of categories, to the point where a handful are very popular, a few are practically unheard of, and the rest are just . . . there, like, hanging out. This isn’t necessarily bad for the speedrunning community; indeed, over time, we can track the ebb and flow of popularity among these categories, particularly as it relates to the introduction of new games to the market.)

In a sport like basketball, a coach can use sharp play to gain a significant edge over their opposition. Among speedrunners, sharp play was identified as an opportunity to subdivide the community, allowing for greater levels of distinction. This is not to say that the two can’t overlap. If we look to professional sports, we can find dozens of increasingly precise rules that exist primarily because, in their absence, they were an opportunity for players to engage in sharp play and gain an advantage. Eventually, the community decided that that advantage was unfair and it needed to be corralled.

What, then, does sharp play look like in TTRPGs?

Well, before we can answer that, we need to go back to a distinction we’ve been making this whole series: TTRPGs don’t share the standard “win condition” found in most games. Certain instances are clearly framed with an endgame in mind. If you’re playing through a single adventure, there’s usually a state or condition that qualifies as “winning.” Beat the Big Evil Bag Guy, recover the Lost Treasure, rescue the Princess, etc. If the game is run through a Public or Club venue, you’re more likely to experience this sort of thing. Home games can work this way as well, though there’s much more flexibility in terms of how many adventures are occurring alongside each other and what the effects (and rewards) of winning actually are. This includes the possibility of simply abandoning a given adventure, leaving its events to carry on without your direct involvement. As we allow for more and more diverse forms of RPG play (in practice), we find that it’s harder and harder to nail down a specific endstate that allows for a proper application of sharp play.

I think we can still approach the topic by generalizing the endstate as “player defined goals.” So long as the players at the table have decided their goals, we can confidently assess certain behaviors as sharp play (or not) in terms of furthering progress toward those goals. So again, what does sharp play in TTRPGs look like?

One example comes direct from CoG: rules lawyering, i.e. “using the rules of complex games to one’s advantage, perhaps by bringing up certain little-known rules only when it helps one’s position.” (p.235) Normally, I wouldn’t consider rules lawyering to be negative behavior. I realize a stigma exists within certain TTRPG circles and I can appreciate why people feel that way; but it primarily comes down to the context of the act, rather than the act itself. See, “using the rules . . . to one’s advantage” is a perfectly normal thing to do. Even in a game with a nebulous endstate, the players are usually working toward some goal of some kind. If a game rule gives the players an advantage, they’d be fools to not make use of it. Everyone knows that trolls are vulnerable to fire and if you’re playing a fantasy TTRPG that relies heavily on genre tropes, then it’s not unreasonable to pack a few extra torches or bottles of alchemist’s fire. Using the rules of the game to your advantage is, in-and-of-itself, not an example of sharp play; which is why Elias et al. provide the qualifier: “bringing up . . . little-known rules only when it helps one’s position.” This is the essence of sharp play in TTRPGs, where the rules lawyer only remembers a given rule when it’s specifically advantageous to their current situation.

That said . . . I struggle with seeing this specific behavior as inappropriate or undesirable. Ultimately, we’re talking about forms of misbehavior in games, and while the above is definitionally an example of sharp play, I can’t help but observe that it’s perfectly normal and good to play this way, primarily because TTRPGs are very often played as team games. When you’re working together as a team, it seems unreasonable for one player to be genuinely upset at the idea that their teammate is “gaming” the system by citing rules to the team’s overall advantage. For that to be a valid critique, the offended player(s) would have to possess a core concept of the game that is in direct conflict with the other player(s). For instance, a player who is accustomed to team oriented RPGs might not be prepared to set aside their rules lawyering when joining a table that allows PvP.

Another example of sharp play, taken from CoG, is “playing an especially powerful strategy in a casual environment.” (p.235) In TTRPGs, we call this “munchkinism.” Like with rules lawyering, I find that this technique is a negative one only when the group as a whole considers it to be so. Remember, the key element is that we find the behavior “disreputable.” The social nature of RPGs, however, allows for many otherwise disreputable behaviors to be acceptable, if the players at your table have collectively agreed to view it that way. (The same concept applies to PvP behavior and indeed, we could make a solid argument that PvP is a form of sharp play, especially if the target player isn’t expecting it.)

Griefing

Sometimes players engage in gameplay behavior that does not benefit their own position in the game, but instead merely makes another player miserable. In online games, especially when done out of pure vindictiveness, such behavior is referred to as "griefing." Although meanness has always existed, in games as in life generally, the anonymity of online gaming has made griefing much more common . . . In a way, griefing can be thought of as kingmaking's evil twin: it is political in the sense that it is gameplay behavior not intended to help the perpetrator win. It's done to make someone else lose rather than to make someone else win. p.236

Elias et al. don’t really have much to say on this topic, devoting less than a page to its discussion. I include it here for the sake of completeness, though it is interesting to consider that CoG doesn’t offer anything in the way of dealing with the griefing player, except to say it “often requires metagame solutions.” (p.237) This might be the case for many games but where RPGs are concerned, I feel that we should take a harsher stance: if any player engages in griefing while playing a TTRPG, they should be stomped into the ground immediately.

This runs counter to my attempt at keeping this discussion morally neutral, I realize, but in this specific instance of misbehavior, it’s important that we understand why a player would engage in griefing. To that end, let’s consider the example of social media platforms. (Really, this will make sense in a moment.)

Each online platform has different features which encourage engagement in specific ways. Facebook allows for a fairly wide range of responses, from “love” to “like” to “laughing” to “angry,” and so on. It also lets you share a user’s post or comment on it, and the platform has no character or length limitation when posting or replying. You can also share images, links, videos, etc. Comments are nested under the first post with a secondary “responding to” function, where follow up comments are directly responding to a primary comment. Reddit, by contrast, has only three options to respond to a post: upvote (like), downvote (dislike) and comment. (Technically, there’s a fourth option, which is to award a post or comment with a special badge, most of which require Reddit coins, a platform specific currency that can be acquired by giving Reddit real world money.) Comments are a direct response to a post or a prior comment, which means that only the person you’re responding to is notified of the response. Both platforms, as well as Twitter, allow for a user to tag another user by referencing their username in a post/comment, which increases overall engagement. And if we consider Twitter, we find that it’s features are slightly different again. It allows for short form posts which limits the full range of conversations but also allows for people to respond to specific portions of a longer (i.e. threaded) post. It also lets you share posts but it keeps track of how many shares each tweet earns, as well as how many times it’s been “quote-tweeted,” adding to the conversation and engagement. Twitter doesn’t allow for negative responses (like downvoting or an “angry” face) but its users have found ways around that (basically by directly commenting to tell the original poster why they’re wrong/bad/stupid/etc.).

Of course, there are features I’m leaving out of this discussion, but this is enough to drive home the point: each social media platform allows for and encourages certain types of interaction that can be viewed as griefing. The platform feeds information to the user through a complex algorithm (unique to each platform) which takes into account things like the sort of content the user likes; content the user’s followers like (or content favored by the folk the user follows); posts that get a lot of engagement (comments and responses); and much more which I’m not directly familiar with. The thing is, while I am personally not intimately aware of how these platforms flow information to their users, there are many people out there who have taken the time to figure it out. They have learned how to game the system, as it were, and one of the things they can do with this knowledge is “grief” other users.

(I’m less familiar with Tumblr, Instagram and other platforms, but the same concept applies: each has its own range of features that allow for interaction between users, which encourages certain types of behavior and misbehavior, like griefing.)

If we think of a social media platform user as a player, we can see how certain sorts of responses are framed as causing grief to certain users. Dozens of Twitter accounts responding to one user’s post with negative replies can generate a sense of isolation, loss, fear, sadness, and other negative emotions; which in turn easily leads to the user dropping out from the “conversation.” Granted, social media platforms are a poor point of comparison because they’re not games. They don’t have players, they have users. They don’t have rules and their standards are inconsistently enforced (for a variety of reasons), and they rely heavily on the social mores of their userbase. There is no purpose behind them except for how the individual decides to use them (not accounting for advertising, of course). With this understanding, then, we’re forced to ask: why, exactly, would a given user decide to harass others?

Because some people are assholes. And that’s the point where it comes to griefing in games: some people are mean spirited and spiteful, full of self-loathing, or just plain miserable creatures incapable of experiencing the most basic forms of empathy. They are so disconnected from others that they can barely function in normal society; or they’re capable of putting on the mask but they let it slip to the ground the moment they get away from in-person interactions.

This is how I understand griefing in games: where one player literally gets off on seeing another player suffer. And it is this sort of behavior that I am willing to stand against, in all instances, where TTRPGs are concerned. Do not allow players at your table to be assholes like this. Whether you respond to this sort of misbehavior as a fellow player or as a GM, it’s vitally important that you keep this fact in mind: it is not acceptable, under any circumstances, to allow a minority (the one player) to hold the majority hostage, simply to satisfy some sadistic need to dominate, control, humiliate or cause misery to others.

Restrictions on Misbehavior

The important question . . . is whether the behavior is actually making the game less enjoyable for most players. p.237

This is the piece I personally struggle with, where TTRPGs are concerned. When I sit down to play a game, I want to play a game. Yes, I enjoy the company of my friends. Yes, I want to look back on the game with fondness and joy, to tell stories about our adventures. Yes, the socialization that comes with the game is part of its appeal, as is any social activity. Ultimately, though, my time is precious. I do not want to waste it . . . this past year notwithstanding but you know what? much as I chose to handle 2020 as I did, I can honestly say that I regret my choices, that I wish I had found a better means of coping with the stress and trauma of the world around me. But as that’s beside the point, let us view this as an affirmation: I do not wish to waste my time. If I’m going to play a game, especially a game as complex as an RPG, I’m going to put some effort into it. And if the other players aren’t going to treat it at least as seriously as I do, then I’m wasting my time and theirs, and we should not continue in that endeavor.

All this is to say: I agree with this point. If the misbehavior in question is making the game less enjoyable for most players at the table, it should be discouraged and stopped. And if it turns out that such misbehavior is, in fact, not negatively affecting the players’ enjoyment of the game . . . then all the more power to them.

(. . . the question of whether these players are truly enjoying the game, even while their peers fuck around and ignore the rules, is beyond the scope of this article.)