The Discourse
This isn’t hard. Learn to listen to people and their lived experiences and consider that you don’t need to walk into every discussion as if you’re the only one with a valid opinion.
Consent in all things… including character death
The communication about your choices as a player versus the consequences issued as a DM is a dialog and, like every dialog, there will be breakdowns in communication if everyone involved doesn’t do their part.
Your ethics should also apply to your games if you stream them
Absolutely no one told you to get on your socials and tell people how much of an ally you were or that you were a cozy content creator or how anti-racist and safe you were, but you did and now you have to live up to those things in the same manner you stated them.
Publicly.
Without a community, we have no future
There is no community when every moment is a moment you could be stabbed by the people alongside you. There’s no future in that. Sure, we win some battles, but that’s as good as it gets and we can have more than that.
DBD Survivor-Killer dynamics are “hostile” by design
For those who are reading this article and haven’t heard of Dead by Daylight, here’s a description of the game straight from their Steam page: Dead by Daylight is a multiplayer (4vs1) horror game where one player takes on the role of the Killer, and the other four players play as Survivors, trying to escape… Read more DBD Survivor-Killer dynamics are “hostile” by design
I am a good player, but I’m probably a bad DM.
Reflection is an important part of playing tabletop games well whether you play them offline or on and the last few days have found me orbiting my thoughts on experiencing me as a player and how that informs the ways I behave as a DM.
Violence
That seeing these boundaries enforced in the real world has you shook to the core because you then have to worry that it might be you one day.
On Followings and Popularity
We don’t have to think too hard about the times that someone says a single negative thing whether openly or behind closed doors and suddenly either opportunities or whole accounts disappear.
The Other Side of Parasocial Relationships
You don’t get to invoke care and empathy to get sales on your books or a bump in your youtube subs or twitter follows, but not when someone shows up on your socials commenting on the bits of your personal life you decided to place out there for public consumption.
This Isn’t Activism
It’s easy to let social media warp our RTs, posts, and such into something much bigger than they are, but if we’re going to call ourselves activists or advocates, that should be a choice we actively make, not something that that gets ascribed to us without our consent because we RT’d something from LilNasX.
Before the Fall
The last time we were here, we didn’t speak openly and honestly until it was too late and people were deeply involved… and deeply hurt. I want to give these words to anyone who reads in an effort to avoid that. Let’s take a close look together on main and get into the mess of this on main and move forward in truth before the next spectacle and subsequent attempts to profit on our pain come around.