OOC power-gaming???

[Weisz Guys]

I have appreciated some of the points you have raise Polar.  I think particularly the imbalance between just basing on regions in the alliance block and the number of players (especially active skilled ones in an established well resourced realm) vs a more sprawling disorganised, new and less well resourced bloc of realms is a very important distinction.  I think others have picked that crucial point out so it was worthwhile from that point of view alone.

The other questionable benefit is it has played a part in provoking a rare bit of input from me.  As will follow.

I think looking for agreement on opinions in forums is generally futile, so if there are a couple of positives/points made you have done alright.

[PolarRaven]

Mate, you need me to point out where they are.

Actually, no I do not need you to point out where they are.

I only add this because we are so concerned about HOW things are written here.

My previous post to Wimpie was an answer to the "concept" that I believed he was trying to share, while this post is an answer to the question he "actually" asked.

I wonder which of my two responses to Wimpie is the more correct response for this forum...

[Weisz Guys]

Hello I play a character in The Shattered Vales.

I should start by saying I do appreciate the effort made by volunteers to dev, operate, mod and titan patrol the game.  (And sorry to Polar if I am perceived by Polar to be sidetracking his thread).

I would like to do 3 things in my post.  Over and above the 3rd point is the only thing that really matters to me.  I would prefer something informed on the questions section as it could serve as answers for people in the future to avoid my unhappy experience.  My other points offer context or at least something of my account, just finding fault with my experience will not interest me or benefit those that follow.

1) Introduction.  I play the Emperor of the Vales.  I think many of the things that have been said and inferred about my realm recently have been unfair and plain wrong in a lot of instances.  In varying degrees quite a few of us feel like second class citizens in the Vales.  I find the titan intervention insulting.  As this is subjective there is little point arguing with me about it.  I am insulted frequently for my (fairly uninteresting job) so I can compartmentalise that fairly well.  It is not what I look for first in an escapism game, but I can handle it.  I will be taking active steps to remove myself from that environment IG.

2) Points already raised.  I am struggling with the point earlier in the thread.

"The fact that you share a common enemy does not make you allies." seems very valid and appropriate to the situation to me.

Walk into a room with 10 strangers and smack each of them in the mouth on your way by.
All of a sudden 10 strangers who don't know each other and have nothing in common (other than the smack in the mouth that you just gave them) have a common goal.

Are ANY of them in the wrong for wanting to return your smack in the mouth?
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It is an OOC restriction for game balance. Attempting to make sense of it by real-world analogy will fail.

It is exactly as real and logical as only being able to move one region per turn (even if it only takes 6 hours to get from region A->B->C), or only being able to recruit troops in the capital (even if the recruitment centers are out in the rural regions).

The examples can be explained at least partially logically so there is no comparison to just ignore diplomacy unless it fits a prescribed box.  We move through regions with a unit, each region is a distinct governed region.  For a small contingent it does not move just as the crow flies or even hare runs.  There is only enough time per turn to navigate the difference between one different region.  Gauging the politics and base provisioning along the way.  Not until the corps. unit system were armies able to move rapidly through areas at only the rate of hours travel alone.  The recruitment centres in the capital is imperfect, but you can argue mobile units of noble guards need recruiting at the royal/imperial capital where the finest troops need to be sworn in by ceremony.  You can recruit local bound troops in the form of militia.  Noble troops come from the capital.  Both examples also benefit from being physical things with physical effects.  You cannot believe your way into another region nor can you have the concept of having 50 cavalry if you don't.  A friendly realm and an ally are concepts along a scale eg acquaintances>mates>friends, different value weighting but similar concepts.  Indeed the Alliance Bloc could sensibly be meant to be seen as the practical extent of what your diplomats can manage in a formal arrangement.  Outside that you suffer the not insignificant consequences of maybe being friendly or having shared enemies without a formal effective structure.  This is the point my many questions arise from because otherwise it makes no sense, was never clearly presented as such and creates loads of problems that have never been addressed any where I can find access.  Just to say "real world analogies will fail" is self evidently weak, a bit like saying you can argue anything with facts - to do away with those pesky facts.

I have touched on the valuable point Raven made in my earlier brief post.  Yes very much, there should be other things considered when assessing what makes evenly matched sides in a conflict.  I simply do not buy the argument made that Thal entered the war expecting to lose. (If nothing else its ruler was spectacularly unprepared to deal with being anything other than the alpha dog).  By attacking Irondale so soon there was no chance for them to build unity or preparedness.  The political effect of losing one of your merged parties cities (and be unable to retake it) threatened the very real risk that Irondale might not recover from that early shock.  They began cultivating people who shared that hatred for Thal's past and current tyrannies.  In your own "Thunderclap" intervention you state, "While a realm that botches its diplomacy should certainly expect to find itself on the wrong end of a beating.." but you never indicate how, if we were not allowed to oppose them with interests short of formal alliance.  Sitting watching a realm you respect getting turned over for the 2nd time after its predecessors were destroyed or broken up = diplomatic failure and a lack of consequence for ignoring diplomacy if you can keep a core hard hitting momentum going.  No dictator would ever be resisted in that scenario.  IG or RL.  And don't forget we have been witnessing that very occurrence without the slightest intervention til now as it was someone else's fun being ground under the heel.

Any way, that is all too subjective to go anywhere but at least I have voiced an aspect of the counter points that have been raging amongst realm members and other rulers,  And I haven't even touched on the fact everything we thought we knew led us to think Vordul would join Thal making an even contest all in all.  But again the supposed consequence of Thal's lack of any diplomatic consideration meant Vordul had to have the agency to reject the assumption they would just do as bid. 

3) Finally to my questions:

Where on the forum were the interpretations and implications of the Alliance Bloc outlined?  Is there anything on the wiki?  If so, please would you point them out.  If not would this not be a desirable feature before starting to describe supposed players you believe the best of, of being abusive?

What practically happens if you are in an alliance bloc within size limits, but which then outgrows it?

Are treaties and embassies and diplomatic pledges not captured by an alliance all illegal now?

Despite a very complicated background 5 rulers from 3 realms, Vales, Nova and OS (2 realms switched rulers during the drawn out negotiations) worked strenuously to form a treaty to stop a war going to destruction/leaving a beaten realm in-viable.  Ironically Thal bragged about trying to derail this at least twice, the second as Polar alludes to with scrolls, with zero consideration for OS's fun.  Our treaty basically was a mutual protection pact to allow OS to recover.  NOT accepting this responsibility to help OS back on its feet after the conflicted feelings arising from the war would have been OOC unfair IMHO.  We outgrew the alliance bloc limits while OS was recovering and us still negotiating, but adjusted it to mutual defence against an attacker which is not a full alliance.  Any post war settlement relies on some diplomatic support being lent to the defeated or else someone else will just follow up a 1st successful invasion with a 2nd by a different realm.

How exactly are we supposed to make any sense of favourable relations/histories we cannot fit in an alliance bloc based on this new harsh interpretation?  For my realm we owe existence to Nothoi granting us a city, and built strong Daishi ties.  To ignore their plight a second time would piss on that friendship/history but at various stages we were too big to ally.  Similarly  my realm owe a debt to Ar Agyr, if there are no circumstances that is allowed to be repayed through even defensive action how is that anything other than cutting diplomacy out of the game?

If all these scenarios are simply, well you just have to accept it as a price for the supposed interests of fun that seems to lose a whole dimension from the game for a flawed attempt at balance (as already pointed out an elite aggressive realm can dominate damaged/disunited recovering ones.  In this war Thal managed 100% movement at key moments.  This is not normal nor should it have to be, other armies move as more of an oscillating blob.  But these are players too and you seem to be ignoring or placing a lesser worth on their experiences.)  It does pose a fairly obvious solution.  No one has any allies, simply informal friends/favourites and just reacts diplomacy up when trouble or opportunity presents.  You could even see allies roll in and out to keep pressure on while an enemy got no chance to recover.  Are you saying that is acceptable?  It makes more sense despite obvious flaws/exploits.

The final sickening irony is that after being reached out to in semi reasonable terms (rather than harangued and implied to be cheating) we had been bending over backwards to find workable solutions.  This trusting the players was non existent then and has destroyed my interest in the game.  Rather than pass a !@#$ sandwich with just a bite taken out to my successor I would appreciate some considered answers on the questions posed.  I can do without snide or condescending input.  Thanks for your time.

[PolarRaven]

I believe that the following (found in the "Announcements" section of this forum) answers 1 of your questions.

December 2018 Recent Changes
« Reply #1: December 22, 2018, 11:34:19 PM »

    Fix unit highlighting in battle
    Disabled access to food distribution on stable islands (was never intended to be on stable)
    Include duke in recipients when writing 'all nobles of duchy'
    Update dynamic map
    Mark old hunts as inactive every turn
    Send message to realm when property/wealth taxes are updated
    Only allow building harbours and shipyards in 'coast' regions; update Beluaterra's 'lake' regions surrounding Lake Salaman to 'coast' regions
    Limit alliances/federation chains to one-third of human-held regions on an island
    Fix minimap
    Temporarily disable Citizen Militia

There may be a more descriptive answer somewhere else, but this is all that I came up with.

[Gildre]

PolarRaven shared the only "official" page for it that I could find. I don't think there is anything on the Wiki. I don't think it is meant to be anything other than a simple size restriction, so that you can't team up with more than 1/3rd of the continent.

What practically happens if you are in an alliance bloc within size limits, but which then outgrows it?

Anaris mentioned that there would be no GM intervention if an alliance "outgrows" it's bloc unless it becomes huge. So if you are at your alliance bloc limit and you take over another region, I do not believe you need to worry about giving up another region for it. If you get a huge influx of players, however, and your realm triples in size so that your alliance bloc is now half the continent, it might warrant investigation.

I think Anaris said he was going to try to make an appearance here today, so I will let him clarify that point if I am incorrect.

Are treaties and embassies and diplomatic pledges not captured by an alliance all illegal now?

Can you rephrase this question? I am not sure exactly what you are asking.

Are you asking if alliances trump treaties? They already do. If you sign a Mutual Defense Pact with a realm, but you are just a peace with them, you won't be able to do much to defend them anyway. Only one of you would participate in battles anyway, the other would just observe.

It is much more efficient to just keep your diplomacy in line with your treaties.

EDIT: There was also a discussion here that has some good information on the hows and whys of the alliance bloc system: https://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,8753.0.html

[Abstract]

If you sign a Mutual Defense Pact with a realm, but you are just a peace with them, you won't be able to do much to defend them anyway. Only one of you would participate in battles anyway, the other would just observe.

Just to clarify the game mechanics: non-allies can participate on the same side in battle if they are attacking someone they are both at war with. They won't fight together if they would be the defender in the battle.

You can see more information on how sides are determined on the wiki:

https://wiki.battlemaster.org/wiki/Battle/Diplomacy_Effects

[Gildre]

Ah! Thank you Abstract! I didn't actually know that.

[Anaris]

To be clear, I am not a member of Thalmarkin and do not even have a noble on the continent at this time.
I was a former ruler of Caelint but left the continent due to the actions of Thalmarkin and their (then) allies.

PolarRaven,
My apologies; I did only skim your earlier message, and thus ended up with the wrong impression. The point I made was still important, but apparently you were not the right one to address it to!  :-[

The real answer to that question is this:
Thalmarkin has "bullied" most of the continent for quite some time now and it is not hard to believe that many people/most realms have an understandable dislike for the realm. 
This is the first time, in quite a while, that Thalmarkin has been vulnerable so why wouldn't realms with a past grudge not take advantage of that?   

And I fully support realms in banding together to give a bully a good hard knocking. I will repeat to you (paraphrased) what was said in an earlier conversation I had with Vita on this subject, as we were working on hashing out what our positions and official policy should be:

We need to be very careful in our approach to shutting down unfair play, making sure that by doing so we're not also shutting down legitimate IC consequences for realms' actions.

That said, there is a very real ceiling to "IC consequences"â€"that is, a level of consequences above which anything more is meaningless. A realm that is at war with enough other realms that it is guaranteed to lose has found that ceiling.

I would never even try to suggest that a realm that pisses off other realms should be immune to getting beat down for thatâ€"but that beatdown should never be so utterly hopeless that it destroys the interest of the people in the realm getting beat such that they stop having fun, and stop caring about the game.

There was no sympathy or concern for the fun of players in Caelint when Thalmarkin decided to "support their ally Gotland".
Although they were only one realm, they far outmatched Caelint in all aspects, but decided to join and skew what would have been a fairly evenly matched one on one war. 
Even after Caelint's allies joined the fray, Thalmarkin (being only one realm) still outmatched our side in resources and nobles.

Now, I'm going to have to step out onto a limb, because I'm not 100% sure of your intent in saying this, so first let me qualify my words by saying how I'm interpreting yours:
It seems like you're upset that Thalmarkin, as a huge and dangerous realm, is able to throw that weight around and, simply by joining a conflict that's otherwise pretty ordinary, turn it into one that's hopeless and demoralizing.

If that is what you mean here, then I completely agree, and that's why I have, for over a decade now, advocated for restrictions on realms being able to get so much larger than other realms that they distort continental politics.

And now they cry fowl and threaten to leave the game because everyone else has decided to pick on them for "no reason".

Yep. And that kind of behaviour, frankly, pisses me off. It means that they're not even interested in considering the possibility that being in a situation where you lose something IC could still be fun OOCâ€"or, to turn that around, that they've gotten so used to being the "big dog" IC that they think they can only have fun when they're able to dictate the terms of everything that happens around them.

The unsportsmanlike conduct here was (in MY opinion) when the former ruler of Thalmarkin publicly accused basically every player on the continent of POWER GAMING and then quit the game. 

Apart from one word ("The unsportsmanlike conduct"â€"because I saw people on both sides being unsportsmanlike in the Ruler/Admin channel), I agree.

I think Zatirri overreacted seriously to this, and I hope that he'll come back after he cools down and be open to being shown another side of what happened. I would much rather have someone who's frustrated with IC situations and wants to see them change come to the players with an open mind, looking for solutions, rather than angrily, just looking for people to blame. I don't want to sound like a self-help book, but the concept of being "above the line"â€"open, curious, willing to put one's own ego aside for the sake of finding a solutionâ€"versus "below the line"â€"closed, stubborn, seeking to prove that one is rightâ€"has been one that I've really come to see as having a lot of use in cases like this. If you're at all interested, I would urge you to listen to this podcast: https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/jim-dethmer/

That single event has ruined this particular war and discouraged many players from wanting to be involved. 
It has also ensured that Thalmarkin will survive, likely with little damage done to it, to avoid further accusations of "power-gaming".

From what everyone was saying, I'm pretty sure Thalmarkin was going to survive either wayâ€"that was, in fact, one of the ways in which Zatirri seriously overreacted, assuming that Thalmarkin was going to be destroyed. I understand why he felt that way, but assuming that that's the case and ignoring people telling him OOC that it was not is counterproductive.

I hope that this has clarified where I stand on this subject, and shows that I bear you no ill will.

[Anaris]

Any way, that is all too subjective to go anywhere but at least I have voiced an aspect of the counter points that have been raging amongst realm members and other rulers,  And I haven't even touched on the fact everything we thought we knew led us to think Vordul would join Thal making an even contest all in all.  But again the supposed consequence of Thal's lack of any diplomatic consideration meant Vordul had to have the agency to reject the assumption they would just do as bid. 

And I want to be clear in this that I do not hold the rulers of the realms of Beluaterra responsible for what happenedâ€"if I had thought that anyone had engaged in conduct that was worthy of punishment, I would have either put forward a case to the Titans, or leveled that punishment myself.

The standards I have articulated are things that I had hoped people would adhere to previously, but which were not in any way explicitly articulated, and the only ones to blame for that are me and Vita. Now they are stated openly, and I will be doing my best to help guide and teach peopleâ€"and, if necessary, update the wording and clarify or even adjust the expectations if I find that what I have said thus far is too ambiguous, doesn't edge cases, or is even unrealistic in places.

3) Finally to my questions:

Where on the forum were the interpretations and implications of the Alliance Bloc outlined?  Is there anything on the wiki?  If so, please would you point them out.  If not would this not be a desirable feature before starting to describe supposed players you believe the best of, of being abusive?

What practically happens if you are in an alliance bloc within size limits, but which then outgrows it?

I believe Gildre answered these two well.

Are treaties and embassies and diplomatic pledges not captured by an alliance all illegal now?

No, they are not illegal. However, if Realm A has a treaty with Realm B saying "We will ally if either of us is attacked," and Realm B gets themselves into an alliance bloc that reaches the limit and is then attacked, they will not be able to ally with Realm A. (And I realize that that was a bit confusingly stated, so if it doesn't make sense, let me know.)

How exactly are we supposed to make any sense of favourable relations/histories we cannot fit in an alliance bloc based on this new harsh interpretation?  For my realm we owe existence to Nothoi granting us a city, and built strong Daishi ties.  To ignore their plight a second time would piss on that friendship/history but at various stages we were too big to ally.  Similarly  my realm owe a debt to Ar Agyr, if there are no circumstances that is allowed to be repayed through even defensive action how is that anything other than cutting diplomacy out of the game?

Can you clarify this for me? It sounds like you're saying that SV was unable to make an alliance with just Nothoiâ€"with neither realm having any other alliances activeâ€"due to the restrictions.

If that's the caseâ€"that there are multiple realms on BT that can't (or can barely) form any alliancesâ€"then we may indeed need to re-examine the specific limits involved with the alliance bloc limits.

However, if I'm misunderstanding, and what you're saying is that one or more of these realms had other alliances, and adding an alliance with another realm would have pushed you over the limit...then what I would strongly advocate for is a shift in how Alliance is seen (which might be what you're saying in your next paragraph? I'm afraid I'm a bit unclear on your intent there, too). And I recognize that this is asking a lot, but it is something that we've been quietly pushing for for years, due to exactly the kinds of shenanigans that led to the alliance bloc restrictions in the first place (and, earlier, led to the sinking of Atamara):

"Friends" and "allies" don't have to mean the same thing. "Friends" is more of a cultural tie, something that might imply you would ally with them, but more importantly speaks to a deeper bond with another realm. "Allies" means something very specific and 100% military: "If my realm and my ally's realm have troops in a region, and one of us takes the battlefield as the defender, the other will join in."

And I would be more than happy to start a discussion as to whether there should be a completely-non-military set of "cultural relations" between realms that the game keeps track of, so that you could retain that information and make it easily available for new players and people across the continentâ€"or even across the gameâ€"without having it be bound up in specific military terminology and mechanical benefits and detriments.

I hope that this answers your questions, and shows you something of my position on the issues raised.

[PolarRaven]

PolarRaven,
My apologies; I did only skim your earlier message, and thus ended up with the wrong impression. The point I made was still important, but apparently you were not the right one to address it to!  :-[

Thank you.  And again I am sorry for any confusion that I may have caused.

[Weisz Guys]

Thank you Gildre for your answers and then thanks to Anaris for the answers and both constructive and informative over all reply.  I appreciate the constructive engagement and tone at a time you have been handling a mechanical game change at the same time.

My sincere thanks for the considerable efforts that must go into this, and for picking out the more constructive elements of what must have seemed in parts a rambling expression of my concerns built up over a period of time.

The answers given already have shifted my understanding on most of the points you had asked for clarity on but I will revisit them tomorrow when I have a bit more time to see if I have useful questions remaining.  My doubts about everything diplomatic had been shaken by some of the harsher criticisms that had been directed at me by others previously.  All the best.

[Matthew Runyon]

I think one of the big concerns I have with this whole situation is this:

The "Coalition" on Beluaterra had to plan for the possibility of Vordul Sanguinius and, potentially, Ar Agyr joining Thalmarkin.  And our characters did that.  The fact that neither of those realms joined was an unexpected diplomatic victory, at least from Saoirse's perspective.  So at what point does gathering five geographically dispersed and in two cases fairly weakened realms against three geographically tight realms, including the strongest realm on the continent, become unfair enough to warrant an intervention?  When one of those realms badly screws up their IC diplomacy, in ways that none of our characters predicted?  And particularly given that so much of this was related to one character's screwups, when do we decide that those two realms might not hop back in the war with a conciliatory Ruler in Thalmarkin?  I'm not trying to make this a slippery slope argument, I'm literally asking, in this specific situation, where the line is?  Because I'm not sure I see it, and when I can't see it on a specific situation that just happened, that concerns me, because I don't know how I'm going to see it next time.

When does it become an improper circumvention of the alliance bloc mechanics, when there were at least two, I would argue three, distinct sets of reasons the realms involved were fighting, that had some overlap but not a ton?  There were those who wanted Thalmarkin's size reduced so they would be less of a threat.  There were those that wanted the Cult of Mordok destroyed.  And there was Vordul Sanguinius, playing a Lawful Evil Tyranny of a realm, who had their territory violated and their Ruler blatantly insulted.  Any of those three reasons could have been dealt with, and at least one realm would have immediately dropped out of the war.  Obia'Syela certainly doesn't care about Nothoi's territorial concerns, much less Vordul Sanguinius's pique at being insulted.  Irondale was not overly concerned about the Cult of Mordok, and if Thalmarkin had backed off on the territory they almost certainly would have dropped fighting.  So where's the line on the alliance bloc circumvention?  Again, how are we going to know where that line is?

And I know this isn't germane to the larger discussion, but I also think it's, frankly, fairly offensive to say that the southern realms were sitting on their reasons and engaged opportunistically when there had been active work toward that fight before the northern war broke out.  Saoirse and others were working, IC, before Thalmarkin declared their surprise war, to arrange a Crusade.  This is after Ruler turnover in all three of the southern realms, which produced an entirely new diplomatic alignment, flipping Obia'Syela from seeking an alliance with Thalmarkin under Marcus to wanting to attack them under Saoirse.  The situation was complex, and predated the northern war.  Indeed, one of Saoirse's letters to Tiberius talking about the possibility of moving to Keffa specifically mentioned the idea of having Obia'Syela as a buffer between Irondale and Thalmarkin in case of this sort of attack.  I'm more than a little tired of the idea that just because people were being cautious and quiet about planning a war against the most powerful realm on the continent, that somehow means there was OOC or even IC opportunism at play.

I'm willing to see how this plays out, and maybe I will be able to see the lines on these things soon, but I'm concerned.

[Constantine]

This change is not specifically in regards to what happened on Beluaterra

Sure looks like it. Not even a bad thing, it had to be done in some manner so better now than never.

So? A landslide victory is boring and no fun for anyone involved.

Where were you when Thalmarkin declared war on Grehkia, which was five times smaller?
I know that you were in Thalmarkin. But you get what I mean.

So why do it? Because it happened to you? Grow up.

Yes, everyone who asks for fair treatment is a baby. Well done, Gildre.
Will you also go and call certain Thal players babies because they were perfectly fine inflicting something on others but are now crying foul when it happened to them?
From a titan spokesperson, I'd expect more impartial and civil discourse.

Yep. And that kind of behaviour, frankly, pisses me off. It means that they're not even interested in considering the possibility that being in a situation where you lose something IC could still be fun OOCâ€"or, to turn that around, that they've gotten so used to being the "big dog" IC that they think they can only have fun when they're able to dictate the terms of everything that happens around them.

My thoughts exactly. At least something good came out of it - we did need a more nuanced system for war declarations and setting war goals. It can be improved but at least we have a framework for improvements now.

What worries me, is having a human third party in the equation. Titans can now decide which war declaration is excessive, thus potentially saving certain realms from a resounding defeat. Even if we can absolutely trust our anonimous titans, there's no reason to give this outstanding power to people who also play the game.

[Anaris]

I'm willing to see how this plays out, and maybe I will be able to see the lines on these things soon, but I'm concerned.

I think the key in a complex situation like this is communication. OOC communication.

Yes, you assumed that other realms would join in on Thalmarkin's side, which would have made it a more even conflict. Zatirri assumed that when he declared war on Irondale, he'd get Irondale and maybe one or two other realms involved in a war, and probably VS on his side.

What I would like to ask of "you" (in quotes because it's not "you, Matt" or even "you, the realms arrayed against Thalmarkin now", but "any rulers who are in the situation in the future of preparing to be one of several realms declaring war on one realm") in the future is that you first talk to the realm about to get its butt kicked, preferably on the Ruler/Admin OOC channel so that we can be present to help mediate, and make sure there's a good enough understanding on both sides of what you're all getting into that the players involved aren't faced with nasty surprises.

And to be clear, if you're concerned about such OOC communications being taken IC and ruining the situation, I still expect there to be some communication, even if it's private with the ruler in question, or even just with the Titans or Admins so that we can try to work on it from our end. (Which, I would have to say, would usually involve communicating with the ruler anyway, but at least that way it comes a bit more anonymously, and can potentially be done in such a way as to obscure the details of who might declare war when.)

In general, the cultural change I'm trying to advocate for (well, one of them) is for players, especially the players of ruler characters, to stop treating the continent as being full of "nobles who are my friend" and "nobles who are my enemy", and start treating it as being full of "players who are my friend, who might be playing alongside me or against me, but whose fun matters to me either way."

[Anaris]

So why do it? Because it happened to you? Grow up.

Yes, everyone who asks for fair treatment is a baby. Well done, Gildre.

Having talked to Gildre separately, I know that this was not what he meant by this.

The line you quote is expressing a frustration with the attitude, "Well, we had a terrible thing happen to us, so if the same (or a similar) terrible thing happens to you, that's just fine! Maybe you even deserve it!"

That kind of attitude perpetuates cycles of abuse. The attitude we want to cultivate is, "We had a terrible thing happen to us. How do we make sure it never happens to anyone else?"