We versus Me Culture

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Dennis
Posts: 218
Joined: Mon Sep 11, 2017 10:46 am

We versus Me Culture

Post by Dennis »

I couldn't think of how to phrase this or which board to go under, as it's a mentality and not a game mechanic. It's not an individual, nor is it a function of policy. It's a culture. This is going to come off as preachy so feel free to disgustedly sigh in my direction.
What kind of place is COGG to you? Do you play in a world that is a WE or a ME environment?

For most of you the answer will be a ME environment. What’s the difference – and why does it matter?

ME or I centered game spaces and work places are very much the norm. They are characterized by cultures that are high on fear and low on trust. People don’t feel or believe they can speak honestly and contribute ideas and opinions freely. There are organizations that preach teams but many team members operate as lone wolves.

In ME based environments, individuals feel they have to protect a perceived turf, and leaders are perceived as ineffectual or autocratic and self-protection is the dominant feeling. Anxiety, frustration and resentment are the common emotions found in ME centered environments.

WE focused environments bring out the best in each other – at every level. WE-centric leaders are characterized by caring, courage and vision and to use the old expression, walk the talk. Environments that foster WE centered behaviors encourage diversity of thought and expression of feeling. They encourage risk-taking and tolerate “failure.” WE cultures support sharing and discourage territoriality. They are dedicated to fairness and the achievement of the full potential within everyone. Confidence, passion and satisfaction are the common emotions found in a WE centered environment.
I bring this up because its surfacing in various places in the scheme and design of individual conflict. I think there's very little supporting overarching 'game culture' in framework, so people are making their own roleplay and plots and putting that personality and roleplay above the enjoyment of everyone at the table.

I get that there's no human resources of Arad and there's no common goal. Conflict is inevitable as we move towards faction play.

I always stress one facet of COGG, however, is that we are cooperative by design. Woodworkers and metalcrafters, metalcrafters and leatherworkers, skinners and leatherworkers, warriors and scholars. Adventurers and warriors. Everything is designed to be better together.

Of course I'm going to pull it all together into one context.

Recently we had a high level combat area released to the public (with very little fanfare) but a lot of excitement. The staff populated it with coal, too! This sparked a massive conflict centered around, you guessed it, ME Culture. Individual high achieving dominating characters were dominating content without involving others, or using it to drive self-protecting and efficating motives. Communication was terrible, and gathering groups just resulted in mistrust and frustration.

Everyone who has participated has been privy, at one level or another, of highly selfish behavior in the game environment derived from this latest launch. I'm not afraid of the coal being taken away or not having steel. I'm afraid of rampant toxicity and feeding into it.

I just want to say, before we are a game, we are a community. We should be, a community, that agreed to get together on one table to play a game for fun. I urge us to move towards a WE community.

-------------------
(This is a joke)
In light of this, I am starting an in game company to boost morale and together-ness in the community regardless of intended faction.
Every weekend I hope that someone will openly invite the community to set aside differences and gather to discuss current events, feelings, to gather around a campfire to sing campfire songs and just remind everyone that we are people first.

Please look for recruitment notices to "Second Chance" to stay in the loop for all your appropriate work culture meetings. Bagels will be brought every Tuesday.
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This post sparked a lot of discussion and I'm really appreciative of everyone who chimed in. I'm sorry for disrespecting your roleplay, and I hope that it came across that I had good intentions. I'm sorry it came across judgy and preachy, I am inherently a judgmental person. I hope that we can remain civil and on good terms. :)
Last edited by Dennis on Tue May 03, 2022 5:17 pm, edited 3 times in total.
"Always remember that we are a community before anything else. Before being a 'game' or a 'world' we are a bunch of folk who get together to have fun."
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Maina
Posts: 172
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2020 12:32 pm
Location: Colorado

Re: We versus Me Culture

Post by Maina »

This feels incredibly out-of-line.

The "dominating" characters were setting up events to take others and calling for others to join them publicly on the networks. I participated due to these invitations on both my active characters. This feels a lot like twisting the facts and attacking other players in order to advertise your new Company on an out-of-character forum rather than in-character. This is how community toxicity festers; these kind of baseless public call-outs.

Furthermore, this is a roleplaying game. If someone steals something, they must expect to face consequences. You must expect people to act as if they were stolen from. You can't expect people to just go 'oh well' and pretend they weren't.
Serity
Posts: 129
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2022 2:59 pm

Re: We versus Me Culture

Post by Serity »

I always stress one facet of COGG, however, is that we are cooperative by design. Woodworkers and metalcrafters, metalcrafters and leatherworkers, skinners and leatherworkers, warriors and scholars. Adventurers and warriors. Everything is designed to be better together.
...
Everyone who has participated has been privy, at one level or another, of highly selfish behavior in the game environment derived from this latest launch. I'm not afraid of the coal being taken away or not having steel. I'm afraid of rampant toxicity and feeding into it.
I want to stress that I do agree in general with what you are saying and that I far prefer it when the community works together. I don't disagree with the post's *intent*, in general.

However, there are three different thief-based classes, disguises and sorcery to hide identity, arcana to eavesdrop, an (unimplemented) ability in order to plant objects on people, echo-less methods of obtaining objects, as well as entire classes that are banned from using their powers in the (current) main city which ends up with the effect of pushing strife and suspicion on those classes. These are elements of the game that *intentionally* (to my understanding) are meant to cause conflict. If everything was meant to be peaceable and cooperative, these things would not exist.

Ostracizing *players* ("what sort of community do we want COGG to be?") because their *characters* are taking advantage of their class features or their character's personality is not the way to go. Settle matters in an IC way, in my opinion.


edit:
I watched as people stripped someone of their bags to search them because a piece of coal went missing.
By the way, the character in question willingly offered to remove their bags to remove distrust from themselves, as they were one of the only possible candidates for having stolen the coal. Nobody demanded or even requested it. By them doing that, we could narrow the suspicion down to a single person.
Last edited by Serity on Tue May 03, 2022 6:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Dennis
Posts: 218
Joined: Mon Sep 11, 2017 10:46 am

Re: We versus Me Culture

Post by Dennis »

Right, and I just want to say that the last bit was a tongue in cheek joke to effuse the situation with levity. As we all know, we can't bring out of character into in character! There is no second chance company and there are no tuesday bagels. Sorry, if anyone was excited for that.

I get that there's thievery and sneakiness by intent. I think there can still be strides taken to be that and still be above the waterline to support the enterprise as a whole.
"Always remember that we are a community before anything else. Before being a 'game' or a 'world' we are a bunch of folk who get together to have fun."
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