This reminds me of those statuses teenage girls post on Facebook with some cryptic message about trust and betrayal that masquerades as a general comment about life but is very obviously directed at one specific person.
So, I'll bite. Who and what the !@#$ are you talking about.
Easy there, killer. At the moment I'm annoyed by the folks who are dancing on Caergoth's grave and yes, they do know that. But it's interesting that people from CE or Arcaea feel the need to get defensive about it. Obviously I'm not the first person to rant about this kind of thing.
I submit that gloating and rationalizations are all a part of the game as well, as long as it is kept strictly IC.
I don't always buy that. BattleMaster is a game first and foremost and we already accept that this puts limits on IC actions. Treating other player characters like army recruits is not acceptable. IC expressions of misogyny or racism aren't acceptable. Those limits have pretty wide agreement.
Before anyone freaks out, no, I'm not saying that gloating is the same thing. But gloating is poor sportsmanship whether it's done IC or OOC. It's not a lightning-bolt offense, but there is a line that people can and do cross where it's no longer enough to brush it off by saying, "It's all IC so you can't blame the player." IC doesn't stand for "Immune from Criticism".
Speaking of Arcaea, I'm actually kind of impressed by how quickly they're putting the brakes on the war with Arcachon just because one character fell on his sword. It's more grace than I was expecting from a realm with so much obvious antipathy toward it's enemy. Now that might change if Arcaea tries to make Arcachon sign a really humiliating treaty. There's not much point to peace if it's a peace that would make WWI Germany shake their heads and say, "Wow, and I thought WE got a raw deal."
