OOC Discords And The Influence They Hold

[But Will It Blend]

I think Discord is a powerful and helpful tool. I'd never personally advocate for its removal. Part of why I -don't- join larger discords is because I know myself too well. I am the sort of person who kind of 'thrives' in conflict a lot. And honestly it just makes me come off a lot as kind of a Pufferfish. And in these environments with something I'm passionate about or care about, I have a tendency to be too aggressive even if I'm not trying to be hurtful.

Beyond that, I've seen these places become horribly toxic, and I've recognized that many of the groups I was a part of were becoming toxic as well, and it affected me as a part of that. And upon realizing it, I sort of just stopped. Because I want to think of this game positively. Which, despite as much as I may complain on the forums, I do so because I care and want this, like many, to be the best experience possible.

So that's part of why I personally keep out of these. But I don't think everyone always realizes when their actions cross certain thresholds. It's not something intentionally usually. Not at first. It's just hanging out with friends. But then yes. Sometimes when you see something contrary to the friend group, it becomes mass shaming or pushing down or gatekeeping. And again - people aren't often even aware they are doing this. It's why I'm not trying to say "X Y or Z person is shitty". Because I've been there. I've been the person who became a toxic Snuggybear elsewhere without even realizing I'd become somebody sitting in discords conspiring against the 'Enemy' of our friend group at the time. This has happened in -many- games. It's not just Arelith or NWN.

In games where it's PVP focused yeah. I can see how it'd be more hostile. But this is meant to be collaborative storytelling. That kind of hostility between players shouldn't exist. It will because people are passionate and care about outcomes, but we do need to at least try and be better for it.

So, thank you to people who have posted here. I just wanted to try and maybe put up some kind of a reminder and maybe give people a pause to self-reflect because sometimes that's what is needed to realize that maybe you're also part of the problem. I sure was.

[Dachlatte]

Arelith got struck by the Curse of Mainstream.

Something that helps is digital detox, as in deleting the Discord Account.

[Darkstorn42]

I want to emphasize that if we do have official discord settlement channels, we need to remove roles. Roles present to players that this player is a hawk'ins or an admiral or a constable which lends special privilege that bleeds into the in game world.

I brought this up in a suggestion, but the only entity that should have moderating powers in these discords should be the DMs. Equipping entrenched players into moderating roles or roles in general only serves to lend them ooc influence over a specific settlement.

+1 to this. No players should be elevated above the other players in official channels with fancy colored names and the ability to ban whoever they dislike. Only DM's should be trusted with this. Players stand to benefit too much from it even if they have good intentions and are trying not to, they still will since it is human nature to follow the person with the most status, which is conveyed by their colored names and power to exclude folks.

While I agree with this in spirit, I think if you do this it just means these players move to unmoderated servers to run their factions just so they can have pretty names and easier faction organization. I wonder if there is a middle ground idea to this that keeps the players under moderation, but also allows help with faction organization.

[Richrd]

Now, for the main topic. If anyone sees rule-breaking behavior on an officially sanctioned Discord? Report it. Let the teams handle it. Lmao, it's official after all.

You really think the veterans with colored names and staff roles in these discords who have played the game for over a decade are too dumb to make a separate non-moderated channel for all their scheming and rule breaking? You really think they don't just point to the official one any time someone scrutinizes their activity to use as plausible deniability? Come on. Lets stop pretending these bad actors are all that stupid to get caught so easily when they've clearly been getting away with it for so long.

The last time I had a mindset like that I was a toxic shitbag and got rightfully banned from Arelith.

Just saying. Helps to have some good faith.

[Peacewhisper]

The last time I had a mindset like that I was a toxic shitbag and got rightfully banned from Arelith.

Just saying. Helps to have some good faith.

You got rightfully banned but it wasn't just for having any kind of mindset. My hyperbolic response to you was meant to illustrate how absurd it is for you to come in here repeating the tired old mantra of "just report it" when we're trying to have a conversation about a systematic, cultural issue affecting the server.. Some people have mastered skirting the rules of the server to the point they'll never be caught, everyone knows what they are doing and the culture they are creating is harmful but there is no smoking gun anybody can screenshot and banning one person won't fix the problem because it is systemic and ingrained in the culture for every corner of the server at this point. The best solution is obviously to even the playing field for everyone rather than trying to start a witch hunt that will turn into a wild goose chase that will lead nowhere because the goose knows how to cover his tracks and hide his feathers.

Settlement Discords should have no place in RPing in that settlement, or being part of it

This is how it should be. But not currently how it is. I want to talk about ways to make it this way again. This is how we achieve progress, not by implying people are "toxic shitbags" and should be banned.

[Critique]

I think the biggest benefit to having "official" channels is they can't control who joins, which was probably the case when they were all private and still is now with various factions. I do agree that players shouldn't have roles in official settlements, there should be one player mod (ideally not with settlement power) and DM access and that's all. I've seen a few things that were iffy, like booting players whose characters were exiled from the settlement for political reasons (which I can see the justification for, but I think that's bad behavior if no RP is supposed to be happening in the discord) or cleaning up all "unfamiliar" player names on the list-- basically "if I don't know you, you don't belong here"

IMO winning an election doesn't mean you're responsible enough to run the Discord too. In fact it may make you least appropriate and that role should go to the least politically motivated player.

[chocolatelover]

IMO winning an election doesn't mean you're responsible enough to run the Discord too. In fact it may make you least appropriate and that role should go to the least politically motivated player.

This.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Just keeping it real here, because again I like the initial point of the thread, eliminating the bs as much as possible, but there are some mistakes of what things mean.

1) The different color-coded things are just to give a group a private tab. If you have the tag for the cordor navy for an easy example, the navy tab is now visible to you. This can be important because rather than promoting a sail time or agenda out in the open where anyone can read (even pirates if they are in that discord) you got a more discreet and less metagamable way of doing that. While i would agree that not everything needs a thing like that, sailing definitely does, and there's no harm in even something ridiculous like the "Myon halfling league of merchants" or anywhere in between having that either. DMs and moderators still have access to these tags and can easily check to see the logs, even if something is deleted.

2) Settlement leaders are not moderators in the official channels. They just get a unique tab for whatever reason, but just because I personally don't get it doesn't mean it's a bad thing. At the very least, it's a way for someone who never sees the settlement leader in game to reach out and ask when the best time to catch them is.

Neither of these things are the villains they are painted out to be in parts of this thread lol.

[Xerah]

Settlement leaders don’t run discords. There’s a crazy amount of assuming bad intent here.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Discord isn't the problem. In other servers I've played people are much more willing to share spaces and talk about their stories and meme together. Arelith has the problem of allowing too much player agency and control, which makes players paranoid against one another. IMO the settlement system feeds into it a lot, although some areas without settlement mechanics get hit pretty hard by people wanting to control them as well. It's probably one of the things that makes Skal so popular.

As well, Arelith has an attitude of "keep it all IC", to the point where you're discouraged from speaking OOC at all in-game. This means you can't check up on other players and see if they're ok. You can't tell a group thanks for the RP, you can't quickly communicate if something has to be said to the whole group. And it leads into an IC/OOC bleed, because people say "But it's what my character would do" whenever they're trying to destroy another group. Because we're discouraged from thinking about the other player behind the screen. Playing other servers where it's acceptable to use OOC sparingly after having played Arelith for so long opened my eyes to how much this one little thing can improve the player experience.

There isn't a "Discord Problem." Prior to Discord there was Skype, and people had toxic Skype groups. And prior to Skype there were endless other services. Well over a decade ago, another NWN server had someone make a "slander forum" where people would rant about other players. Discord just amplifies an existing, underlying issue Arelith has, where some players vie to control the OOC narrative at all costs.

[Peacewhisper]

If you have the tag for the cordor navy for an easy example, the navy tab is now visible to you. This can be important because rather than promoting a sail time or agenda out in the open where anyone can read (even pirates if they are in that discord) you got a more discreet and less metagamable way of doing that.

As someone who doesn't want to be required to use discord for anything, I have a problem with the fact stuff like sailing is now organized out of game in discord. And I would even classify it as metagaming to have a whole group of players all log in at once and head straight to the docks because of a discord ping. But that's where we are now, this is Arelith culture nowadays. I do appreciate your clarification in this thread and am not blaming you in any way for the state of things that you pointed out, its just how it is.

[Paint]

My only input here is that I do think that OOC discords create unfair coordination vectors, but that we're adults, I have a life, and I'd go insane if someone told me to foig the time of every event.

Additionally, it's easy to act like these backchannels are enabled by discord, but I promise you, they'd be around through any other communication client if they couldn't exist through discord. And while staff could infiltrate these clients and ban people for simply having them, I feel like that'd do more harm than good, and foster a lot of distrust amongst the staff and the players.

In my opinion, if you're going to have a private discord for a faction, it's a courtesy to invite one or some of the DM staff to sit in on it to ensure that everything remains above board and fair.

[Eira]

As someone who is a moderator in several settlement discords, I feel it is important to say; settlement leaders are ranked higher than moderators on the role list. Only dungeon masters can moderate them. The settlement leader can do everything a moderator can do.

[The Vandals of Rome]

i don't really think it's good for the community to put up "not naming names but there were crimes done" type posts. we have official announcements for reminders and it feels like an oblique way to take shots at people. i have no idea what is being referred to, i should make clear.

but i don't like to just complain so here is why i want to keep discords:

i run weekly lessons and gatherings every two weeks in the erudite arcanum

they're defined in game but frankly i don't expect people to type out chronus links or for timezone conversions

so i use discord events

we have an optional discord for organisation

i have tried to duplicate the event schedule to andunors general discord but i do not have the rights to set up events

i work a 9 to 5

having tools for organisation is essential for me

i agree that public discords should be democratised and special roles should be removed

all members should have the ability to create events and organise

but until that happens my experience with them is and has been they're home to cliques of a different form

i don't agree that any secrecy is required - metagaming is a disciplinary matter

the arcanum is an old faction and we don't kick people who no longer play nor does it bother me if guests join

in my opinion if you can't comfortably share what's in your faction discord with any player then it shouldn't exist

i trust other players to be responsible

and if they're not? okay. areliths stakes are story by design. it's one of the things i most appreciate about it. no one has to treat it like a competitive game and those that do cheat only themselves. we will have no story and your effect will therefore amount to nothing.

i think bad faith can happen but generally people have good intentions and the bad actors can't really do any lasting harm

[But Will It Blend]

i don't really think it's good for the community to put up "not naming names but there were crimes done" type posts. we have official announcements for reminders and it feels like an oblique way to take shots at people. i have no idea what is being referred to, i should make clear.

but i don't like to just complain so here is why i want to keep discords:

i run weekly lessons and gatherings every two weeks in the erudite arcanum

they're defined in game but frankly i don't expect people to type out chronus links or for timezone conversions

so i use discord events

we have an optional discord for organisation

i have tried to duplicate the event schedule to andunors general discord but i do not have the rights to set up events

i work a 9 to 5

having tools for organisation is essential for me

i agree that public discords should be democratised and special roles should be removed

all members should have the ability to create events and organise

but until that happens my experience with them is and has been they're home to cliques of a different form

i don't agree that any secrecy is required - metagaming is a disciplinary matter

the arcanum is an old faction and we don't kick people who no longer play nor does it bother me if guests join

in my opinion if you can't comfortably share what's in your faction discord with any player then it shouldn't exist

i trust other players to be responsible

and if they're not? okay. areliths stakes are story by design. it's one of the things i most appreciate about it. no one has to treat it like a competitive game and those that do cheat only themselves. we will have no story and your effect will therefore amount to nothing.

i think bad faith can happen but generally people have good intentions and the bad actors can't really do any lasting harm

I 100% think that using discord to be able to properly coordinate events is one of the most helpful aspects to it - even if I may opt out and potentially exclude myself. I am -hardly- going to say that at least for me, that nobody else should use these tools because they improve peoples lives.

I understand the feeling that you miss out by not having them as well. And again, I understand there are announcements and such. I don't think we should have to leave it just to the DM's/Mods/Staff to be able to have a discussion about this. Because announcements aren't a discussion. And they tend to happen -after- punishments are doled out.

And I am not wanting to call people out because frankly, as I said above. I've been in this mindset. I don't want to feel like the only way we should ever do something is to report it and let DM's resolve it because I think we should be able to talk as a community and as adults and have a discussion about thinking a bit more about how the things we're doing might be seen as problematic or be an issue for other players.

I wasn't the one impacted by what was made known to me. I wasn't targeted. I just felt bad. Because I've been on both sides of it. And as I said I'm not doing this to say "THESE ARE BAD PEOPLE" because most people don't even realize it's a problem until it's too far gone because sometimes it does take some event to happen for people to take a step back and review what they might be doing. I think that mindfulness and self awareness is something that can help all people just generally. That's more the point.

And it's also why I shared my own side to it. Because I'm not preaching from up on high thinking I'm better than anyone else here. I know I'm not. It's why I know what helped me realize I was contributing was when I spoke with a player once and they told me "Hey, this felt bad." And I had to stop and realize that "Hey, yeah. I'd have felt really bad too". Granted this was years ago, but it did help open my eyes to what I was doing.

[Darkstorn42]

in my opinion if you can't comfortably share what's in your faction discord with any player then it shouldn't exist

Echoing and amplifying. This should be the bottom floor of standard for any Arelith discord.

[Xerah]

i think bad faith can happen but generally people have good intentions and the bad actors can't really do any lasting harm

This 100%.

I assume good intent in people. If you’re not doing this, everything about playing here is much less fun and a lot harder.

Does that mean nothing wrong ever happens? No, but it’s not fair to the Chill Carls to assume they’re gonna act the same as Griefer Garys.

[PowerWord Rage]

The faction that i used to be part of has probably encountered similar or close enough issue about bad intentions OOC which I certainly am not privileged enough to know the actual reason but there's probably something that I'll just speak objectively here.

Arelith is certainly fun otherwise, All of us will not be here. And just like during our daily life, things do not always happen to our advantage and shit may just appear out of nowhere. When i was younger, I was less gracious about misgiving and probably bad intention.
Though now at my current age, I've come to realize that you actually feel stronger, react stronger and remember clearer on bad things rather than good things. But as strong as the feeling may come, it fades just as quickly after a couple of days and it's usually just our mind refusing to let go than actually feeling anymore upset about it. Ain't a psychiatrist here but I just want fellow players to be more gracious and accept good things, think of the good things more than clinging onto the bad stuff.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

As someone who is a moderator in several settlement discords, I feel it is important to say; settlement leaders are ranked higher than moderators on the role list. Only dungeon masters can moderate them. The settlement leader can do everything a moderator can do.

Hmm. My initial reaction was this is dumb, but as I thought about it, moderators are players too. These tabs are designed to give groups a private area to coordinate that could lead to metagaming if it were public, and if I were a moderator that also happened to be playing a pirate, I personally wouldn't want to be in the navy tab to stick to the original example. The server leaders don't need to be moderators, it's true, but as someone who seems to have a biweekly ritual of being told to shut up at least once in that period on discord I can firmly say I have never felt over moderated in these discords by any settlement leader since the switch to official discords.

And no, I'm not a discord troll, I just tend to say things from time to time that challenge conventional wisdom about this or that aspect of arelith, and that can get some hackles up from time to time.

As someone who doesn't want to be required to use discord for anything, I have a problem with the fact stuff like sailing is now organized out of game in discord. And I would even classify it as metagaming to have a whole group of players all log in at once and head straight to the docks because of a discord ping. But that's where we are now, this is Arelith culture nowadays. I do appreciate your clarification in this thread and am not blaming you in any way for the state of things that you pointed out, its just how it is.

I appreciate your purity, but being a ship captain is a lot of responsibility, perhaps even more than a settlement leader. You need to actively sail, you need a set number of people with sail ranks to operate the ship at full capacity, and big sails can take 5 + hours. Folks can and do have set times to sail with their ship, but without discord that means any random sails inspired by a simple line like "Anyone up for a sail in an hour?" are out of the question, which can be devastating for any member of the crew who is working when you regularly sail.

But even beyond sailing, I think without discord Arelith would be impossible for me to play. I'm old school, and would prefer to hunt people down in game if possible, but there have been plenty of times where I just keep missing someone in game and discord helps with that. The best way to view it in my opinion is like a tool, say a shovel. If you are using it to dig holes than great, you are using it right. If you are using it to beat someone to death with it, then you are doing it wrong, but that's not reason to ban shovels. It's an individual issue.

[Kushion]

"arelith culture nowadays" as if people weren't using all manners of third party communication apps (as Party mentioned) beforehand and from the very start of this server. this isnt a new problem, for arelith or any other roleplay medium ever.

i don't particularly think isolating yourself away from that manner of socializing with other players is some form of being a better player, or vice versa. if you prefer that, its cool, if you dont, its also cool. making long-lasting friends from these servers we spend so many hours on is very rewarding for me, personally, and without official settlement discords, i wouldn't have met a couple of them as easily.

i've seen several players easily gain IC influence and rise to Settlement Leadership positions without being in the Settlement Discord beforehand, very recently, so it's probably not EVIL DISCORD that's possibly holding one back.

i don't sail, but from what i understand most of the navies tend to leave some sort of sign out that they're at sea, so even if you aren't there at the start, i imagine you could still take part? regardless, as Babylon said, considering the ooc/ic expectations around sailing, it'd probably be quite hard to have the boats going at an expected pace without that organisation help.

[D4wN]

You really think the veterans with colored names and staff roles in these discords who have played the game for over a decade are too dumb to make a separate non-moderated channel for all their scheming and rule breaking? You really think they don't just point to the official one any time someone scrutinizes their activity to use as plausible deniability? Come on. Lets stop pretending these bad actors are all that stupid to get caught so easily when they've clearly been getting away with it for so long.

DMs have access to every single channel in the settlement Discords. So this simply doesn't happen. What does however happen is toxic environments being created in private Discords where people hop on voice with each other for PVP coordination and communication, private Discords like 5.0 where people discuss other people's characters and make wild claims that bleed ICly (this has happened to every character I've ever played) or where you, as a player, get accused of heinous things that leave you heartbroken. What happens is people privately DMings each other to gossip and bitch about fellow players or do it in a private Discord server. What happens is that people enjoy laughing about other players who are not as skillful at English or PVP etc. and make fun of them.

I genuinely, and unfortunately, don't think this will ever stop. You can't tell people not to create or join private Discord servers or do any of the things I mentioned above. People just like to get way too invested in this game and tearing their fellow players down to lift themselves up. The only thing you can do, and I highly recommend it, is to simply leave every toxic Discord server you're exposed to and create reports with evidence of said toxicity so that it can be addressed. Be the change you want to see in the world basically.

[Ruzuke]

A lot of this Discord toxicity and IC behavior is the artificial desire to make certain positions winner take all. In theory the settlement leaders work for a higher power, but reality they rule the cities. Then they have session plans which sprang up to keep themselves in power.

Sailing is the same way. If certain people like you are involved if they don’t you are not. They may not be able to exile you for any reason as settlement leaders, they can just say you are not allowed on my boat. The rental boat with the bell is always rented out by the same person.

Now that you have people who can block your fun (I just want to sail, be a shopkeeper, be a person who just serves drinks at the tavern) there needs to be new groups. That way we can challenge the status quo and fight back. Of course, the new groups will end up doing the same thing as the old groups. When in the end all both groups want to do is play fictional characters using fictional powers, to battle fictional threats, with fictional monsters.

The idea of more settlements (and ships) I think is a nice one. Who cares about being the mayor of Brog, Bendir, Cordor, Guld, or anywhere else if me and my friends can have our own fun RP where we want? Can we be elves of the Misty Valley? Dwarves of the Jungle Caves, and so forth? Spreading out the RP so there are organic hubs (people play with who they want) creates diverse RP, but also would incentivize groups to draw people in. It is my theory if that shifts happens, perhaps discord chat will be more: What can we do to create fun.

Alterative idea: We can use sentiment analysis on all discord (and run through all logs) to catch the intent behind what everyone says. Then the team can investigate problem players.
Sentiment analysis is a common tool on social media to detect if someone is radicalized by words used.

[Peacewhisper]

I appreciate your purity, but being a ship captain is a lot of responsibility, perhaps even more than a settlement leader. You need to actively sail, you need a set number of people with sail ranks to operate the ship at full capacity, and big sails can take 5 + hours. Folks can and do have set times to sail with their ship, but without discord that means any random sails inspired by a simple line like "Anyone up for a sail in an hour?" are out of the question, which can be devastating for any member of the crew who is working when you regularly sail.

But even beyond sailing, I think without discord Arelith would be impossible for me to play. I'm old school, and would prefer to hunt people down in game if possible, but there have been plenty of times where I just keep missing someone in game and discord helps with that. The best way to view it in my opinion is like a tool, say a shovel. If you are using it to dig holes than great, you are using it right. If you are using it to beat someone to death with it, then you are doing it wrong, but that's not reason to ban shovels. It's an individual issue.

I solo'd all the sailing content, earned over a million gold, and rolled my pirate character for a major reward over the course of 2 months. My main character sailed a ship to Skal with 0 sail skill. The idea that sailing HAS to be organized on discord and that you can only invite min-maxed sailing characters if you want to be successful is just flat out wrong.

If you also have sail times posted in the barracks or on the ship, and you actually ask around IC if people want to join, that's fine. But if you are ONLY posting sail times in discord and refusing to ever let anyone outside your discord group on your ship ever, I'd say that's some pretty blatant metagaming just so you can always try to be on the winning side.

And again, not even blaming you specifically for the state of things. I understand the big fancy flagships have much higher, stricter requirements for their crew than the rented ships I used, and that every other sailing group on the server is probably metagaming in this way so you feel pressured to do it also to be competitive. But please try to understand how it makes players like Irongron or myself feel when we roll up with sailmaxxed characters ready to adventure with y'all only to get snubbed because we are not in the discord and don't want to be.

[AddledPunster]

When I first joined Arelith, I rather liked the discord. It helped me orient myself to align with the server community and expectations. I also find it an immensely useful tool for event organization, particularly as someone with ADHD.

Thank god for timers.

But I have seen the ugly side of discord as well. Heck, I think I have been a participant in such ugliness in the past, to my shame. I agree with the sentiment, and have removed myself from most Arelith related discords. The closest I have to that now are some discords with good friends I made on Arelith, but they get used for cat pictures so I can bug people about playing Valheim, or showing off my latest Dwarf Fortress.

That being said, I don’t know what the easy solution to this is. I’ve been around gaming communities on the internet for decades; you simply cannot stop people from setting up private communications for a particular group if that’s what they want to do. I also don’t blame people for struggling to think of a way to organize things without a tool like Discord on hand to help navigate IRL scheduling conflicts, either. It’s HARD to work that out and be inclusive to everyone you want to include, even WITH discord. Or maybe that’s just my ADHD.

Are the official discords bad? I mean, having one certainly isn’t. I’m not sure we need one for each settlement, myself.

[chocolatelover]

The only thing you can do, and I highly recommend it, is to simply leave every toxic Discord server you're exposed to and create reports with evidence of said toxicity so that it can be addressed. Be the change you want to see in the world basically.

I think this post really hits the nail on the head.
Kudos for everyone who admitted falling into a bit of ooc toxicness. I have as well, so I cannot judge you. It's a very human thing to want to "win" and if you've ever been in a situation where you felt like you were being metagamed, with or without evidence, it's almost instinct to do it back.

"I don't want to feel like the only way we should ever do something is to report it and let DM's resolve it because I think we should be able to talk as a community and as adults and have a discussion about thinking a bit more about how the things we're doing might be seen as problematic or be an issue for other players."

I agree with this. We SHOULD try to talk to each other... Be able to say "Hey, this is getting a bit meta... let's change the topic" and I am sure people DO, but occasionally, you HAVE to turn it in. And we'll have to trust that the DMs will have a talk with said people and get them to tone it down. Because as several have pointed out, we're all human and it's very easy to get wrapped up in the story. That doesn't mean they should get banned. Hopefully it will turn into a Coaching Session and help players work on this cooperative story.

"DMs have access to every single channel in the settlement Discords. So this simply doesn't happen. "

I disagree with this. I think the OP here pointed out that what they were seeing was in one of those closed off #channels for Government Leaders/Guards. And Yes, DMs DO have access, but let's face it... who has time to look at every single Discord Post AND monitor the game AND handle reports? That has to be tough for even the Moderators. So again, gently mention things are getting to IC for this OOC environment and report if necessary.

"As well, Arelith has an attitude of "keep it all IC", to the point where you're discouraged from speaking OOC at all in-game. This means you can't check up on other players and see if they're ok. You can't tell a group thanks for the RP, you can't quickly communicate if something has to be said to the whole group. And it leads into an IC/OOC bleed, because people say "But it's what my character would do" whenever they're trying to destroy another group. Because we're discouraged from thinking about the other player behind the screen. Playing other servers where it's acceptable to use OOC sparingly after having played Arelith for so long opened my eyes to how much this one little thing can improve the player experience."

I understand where this comes from. When I first started playing, I DID receive tells from other players during tense situations/kidnappings/etc. And I really appreciated them. Players have sent me thanks for RP as well as... "Just playing my character! Thanks!" and it made everything much nicer.

But if feels like there has been a shift recently. Having been in the MOST INTENSE plot (for my PC) for the last three months has been extremely stressful. I TRIED to send DMs and TELLS with "Thanks for the RP!" to let the other player know I wasn't taking this personally, but was completely IGNORED by most multiple times. And as I am only human, this has bled over into feeling like this was all OOC. But is it?

I recently heard that the group I am involved with has been accused over the private Discords of OOC harassment. Is that true that the rumor is being spread? I've no idea how far that has gone, but it has tainted my feelings toward the community, and I find that makes me sad. I have met SO MANY wonderful players and I really, truly hope this is all just a misunderstanding. Perhaps both sides are under the impression this is all OOC when it's just all in-game shenanigans.

I do like the suggestion that private discords should have DMs invited to oversee (Poor DMs! As if they didn't have enough to do!) I think even though they probably cannot be hovering every moment, it does help remind each of us to think...should I be typing/sharing this?

And that is a good thing.