I'd like to open a discussion about the effect of discord on the BM community - gaming events that occur because of discord actions, the role of hyperactive players in pressuring development of the game, and the alienation of those who do not wish to participate in the very heavy activity that discord demands.
It seems like this phenomenon has increased since I got back to BM, although I must say it also seemed to be there in the IRC days. The more things change...
On a couple of occasions, I’ve seen directly this cry-bully behavior, with players coming onto discord to complain about their “fun†being curtailed when their character’s IC actions/scheming was caught out and they started facing IC consequences. In this particular instance, what made the matter worse in my eyes was certain good-hearted players OOC went out of their way to cater to the player’s wants after this complaining, thinking they could contribute to build a better game atmosphere, only to see their characters get almost immediately backstabbed for it. Those particular players ended up leaving/pausing out of the game, and I don’t doubt these sorts of OOC interactions soured the BM experience for them.
As someone who has been playing off and on since ‘07, there was a time when realms born and died easily- secessions were common, betrayals and region flip flops happened all the time, and this kept the game from being static. One of my favorite experiences in BM was the war between Arcachon and Arcaea/Ohnar West, where Arcachon, my one duchy realm was trying to fend off two realms with 9 cities. Sure it was tough, and we lost eventually (thanks to a spy embedded in our realm for IRL years). But no one complained, loss is just part of a board game. Nowadays, anytime a realm is destroyed, or a city taken, actions which bring dynamism and change to the game, I see a growing tendency to take to discord to badmouth the realm concerned and exact an OOC toll. When Perleone pulled out of the North-South war to take on MN and Alara in ‘18, on discord it was “Perl clanâ€. Now with the war with Caligus, it’s the “Perl dogpileâ€, despite Perleone beginning the diplomatic negotiations with SD to convince them to get that war started. Is it any wonder that the game is stagnating, when any actions that bring creative destruction to the game get continually panned on discord for upsetting the status quo?
