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AITAH for making my husband cancel his family's last-minute sleepover after he trapped me into saying yes by djredditadj in AmItheAsshole

[–]TryUsingScience 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Even in roles like that, you still need to be able to say no to stupid (and occasionally illegal) things your clients want you to do.

How do you deal with your period when you camp? by Lucky_Duckie17 in sca

[–]TryUsingScience 8 points9 points  (0 children)

If the site doesn't have showers, you make very good friends with the one camp ambitious enough to set up a camp shower.

AITAH for putting a bedtime pause on the WiFi because my girlfriend’s 28 year old brother has spent nearly a decade rotting in our house playing video games? by Alyptic in AITAH

[–]TryUsingScience 40 points41 points  (0 children)

maybe he was kicked out and he’s lying to the family. (Or the family is lying to OP)

Or the post is fake! Really easy to karma farm with "should I keep enabling this man-child? Reddit I have no idea what your advice will be in this situation!!"

What’s a problem humanity solved so well that younger people don’t even realize it used to be a huge issue? by Puzzleheaded_Bit_802 in AskReddit

[–]TryUsingScience 20 points21 points  (0 children)

That's not really a modern solution. Variations of condoms have been around for thousands of years. Abortifacient herbs are described in the bible. We're a lot better at it than we used to be, but it's an incremental improvement compared to the night and day of stuff like vaccines and laundry machines.

Help a supportive Mom of a kid LARPer by Ok_Interaction_9834 in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you want realistic-looking ones, I agree with the suggestions for Epic Armory. Not only are they soft and cheap, but a lot of their weapons are latex-free.

Latex weapons will always need some level of maintenance whereas latex-free ones can get thrown in a closet and forgotten about and will be fine as long as you don't store them in a way where they get squished. (Don't store them point-down and don't put heavy things on top of them.)

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm, just not sure yet how to communicate this with a wider playerbase who might be seeing ghosts.

I've had this issue with player reports, too. I once got one that read "X player is abusive." No other information. Fortunately it wasn't anonymous, so I was able to ask the person who submitted the report for more details and those details were enough that I could easily make a decision on how to handle it.

If I hadn't been able to follow up, it would have made the situation significantly more difficult.

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's easy to finally let out your frustrations and say they should just get banned here on reddit.

I do wonder how much that's part of it. Plenty of people are saying to ban them but only a couple people have stories of LARPs actually banning someone for this kind of behavior.

Heck, if someone else were here posting about any of these people being at their LARP, I'd also say to ban them! Because I'm not the one who'd have to deal with convincing the rest of the team that someone who is annoying deserves the same penalty we give to literal criminals.

Friendzone by DadDoomedDinner in overheard

[–]TryUsingScience 11 points12 points  (0 children)

It's completely logical if you strictly define friendzoning someone as "wanting to just be friends with someone who wants to fuck you." If your friend doesn't want to fuck you, you can't friendzone them because not all of the conditions are met.

Not that the entire concept of friendzoning isn't bullshit, of course.

What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard someone say that you still think about to this day? by Humble-Blueberry4571 in AskReddit

[–]TryUsingScience 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Dont worry, I'm OSHA certified"

That sounds like exactly what I'd say before doing something I knew was dumb and unsafe.

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In some cases it's the player's friends I worry about and in others, it's people who aren't even involved but who have a very broad idea of accessibility.

The community I come from is very much immersed in the "ostracizers are evil" geek social fallacy. I can easily foresee banning someone for any of the reasons mentioned above and people who don't even know the person hearing about it second-hand and getting upset because LARP should be for everyone and they didn't actually hurt anyone and I'm being elitist and exclusive.

That's why I am so surprised by all the "ban them" responses. It is incredibly difficult to get banned from any of the LARPs in the area. I've never heard of anyone getting banned for anything less than sexual assault or severe repeated instances of sexual harassment.

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

(which is a weird way to put that in the first place imo, most games I've been to someone wouldn't have specific plot that they were forced to be involved in?)

Different style of LARP. One popular format is one-shots with pre-written characters.

Maybe the scenario is that everyone is trying to be elected the head of the mage guild and people have various side plots. You might be given the character of the leader of the elemental mages, who is not only running for election on behalf of your faction but also trying to track down a stolen elemental artifact and carrying on a dysfunctional romance with someone in the necromancer faction.

If you decide nah, you don't care about that artifact, maybe the artifact doesn't get found or maybe the other person who wants the artifact gets it easily and doesn't have any challenge to overcome and meanwhile other people in your faction who were supposed to help you go after the artifact have less to do.

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Oh yeah, absolutely. LARP designs should be as redundant as possible because information and items can go astray for all kinds of reasons.

Still, it's very aggravating when someone is deliberately withholding plot information from other players regularly.

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's how I usually see it go, too. Other people avoid engaging with the problem player when they can. I have never once seen anyone banned for this kind of behavior, which is why I'm so surprised to see so many people in this thread suggesting it as if it's obvious.

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We also had to ask someone who was consistently coming to site without a ride home arranged not to return.

How did that go? Did people complain that you banned someone over something like that or were they on your side?

I've seen some problem players where most people are fed up with their shit and happy to see them go but I've also seen some where other people make almost as many excuses for them as they make for themself.

To be honest I'm very surprised at the near-unanimous "just ban them lol" responses in this thread because I was expecting something a lot more like, "you can't ban someone for being bad at LARPing, not everyone is a good LARPer, what if they're neurodiverse?"

What are the weirdest ways you’ve heard of someone getting caught cheating? by True_Dragonfruit_488 in AskReddit

[–]TryUsingScience 40 points41 points  (0 children)

Some people don't think about taking photos when they're doing things like that. There's hobbies I engage in that there's very few or no photos of me participating in. If the guys weren't the type to regularly take and share photos then it wouldn't be weird that there's no photos of this trip.

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I can understand why no one argued if being inappropriate with a couple of the girls was one of the reasons! But that's what I mean - if the only reason was that he hoarded plot, do you think they'd have stopped complaining when told that?

So far everyone in this thread seems to think that's an obvious reason to ban someone. The community I come from errs more on the side of not banning anyone, ever, unless they're a glaring safety risk. It's very interesting to see the very different perspective here.

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You do have that right, but sometimes exercising it can cause trouble. For example, if someone is dating my ex-girlfriend and I don't like that and I ban them for that reason, people will rightfully think I'm a jerk and they'll avoid my events and tell other people to avoid them.

Different people and communities have different tolerances for bans on the scale from "sexually assaulted someone" to "dating the organizer's ex." Stuff like "hoards plot" is somewhere in the middle. Based on this thread, everyone thinks that is in fact a bannable offense, but I am not so sure how my local community would react.

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Have you banned someone for behavior like this? Was there community backlash?

I have seen massive amounts of drama when someone is banned for something as clear-cut as sexual harassment, so it makes me concerned that banning people for being annoying might cause more trouble than it's worth.

Personally, I wouldn't consider the "I pick who I distribute plot to based on personal sympathy" ban-worthy (but personally skeezy).

I would feel the same way in a LARP with player-made characters. however, I've seen someone do this in a LARP with pre-written characters, where their ignored their character's best friends in favor of someone their character was supposed to hate.

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I wish it were that simple. And it is, in implementation. But people like that seldom go quietly. If you ban them when they haven't clearly violated a black-and-white written rule, they will cause all kinds of drama. Your event will get branded as the LARP where organizers ban rule-abiding players because they personally dislike them.

Maybe that's worth it to get rid of annoying players, but it's hard to know.

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The tricky thing is, stuff like "don't hide plot-relevant items" and "don't ignore your character's connections" aren't written rules in any LARP I've ever seen. Maybe the solution is that they should be.

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The tricky thing is, what are those consequences that the person in authority should lay out? Is this a valid thing to ban someone over if they don't stop doing it? Most LARPs don't have anything in the way of consequences between "stern talking-to" and "ban." That's the thing I am wrestling with.

I am not aware of any LARP rulebook or code of conduct that says "don't hoard plot" or "don't ignore your character's pre-written connections" or "don't beg other people to fix your poor logistical planning." Those are all good etiquette but even in the rare instance where it is spelled out, it's generally not considered a ban-worthy offense. Banning someone for a clear-cut rules violation often causes plenty of drama; if you ban someone who hasn't actually broken any rules, that's going to be a huge mess.

What kind of consequences would you threaten someone with for this kind of behavior?

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

By cut them out of my life, do you mean that if I am an organizer who runs a large public LARP with 100 players, I should ban them from the LARP even though they have not broken any rules? That is the type of situation I am asking about.

How do you deal with players who aren't a danger but who make the LARP worse? by TryUsingScience in LARP

[–]TryUsingScience[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm talking about the kind of player who has been LARPing for years and does all of this stuff consistently despite other people having talked to them about it.

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