[Mouse]

My honest two cents, and probably something that a lot of you guys are going to disagree with, is pretty simple, I think. The actual issue with the game isn't that antagonists are being smothered or that they're weak, it's not that hexes are too weak and it's not that demons being kill on sight, especially with the Dreadwoods now, makes them impossible to play. I'm going to be straight forwards with you all here when I tell you that, without a shadow of a doubt in my mind, the problem with antagonists is not the antagonists.

It's you, the protagonists. (but thats not to say the antags also aren't at fault at least a little bit)

This game is, primarily, first and foremost, a roleplaying game. You should strive to give somebody a proper death if and only if it's truly memorable and deserving. No, the third random encounter in the woods is not 'memorable' nor 'deserving' even if they've been attacking people. No, walking up to a mimic and telling them "i know ur a mimic" and forcing them into a danger and capping them isn't memorable nor deserving. And likewise, it's the other way around, as well; Antagonists do the same thing, but in my opinion, to a much lesser scale. And the problem, at least to me, is pretty obvious outright. Sometimes people are going to die, and I don't think the above is currently a terrible thing, that sometimes people die for less than fantastic reasons.. But man, I think some of you take it to far.

I honestly think a lot of you don't play the game to roleplay and have fun. A lot of you play this game to win.

So, let me get into the meat of what I'm trying to say. Let me get into the major point that I'm going to make about this. Discord, as a whole, has ruined this game. People were free to make cliques and friend groups before, but (not naming any names), every Discord group that's been a meta friend group that I've been in has absolutely destroyed the sense of wonder and purpose out of this game. Nothing is sacred anymore. Every single reason- Nebula being a witch, what's going on in the world, who's doing what, even mundane things down to just talking about people's locations or fights is shared endlessly and tirelessly through the channels of Discord's massive hivemind network.

What I'm getting at here is that metagaming has ruined antagonists, and a lot of the 'protagonists' are to blame.

It makes doing anything, especially if you're trying to be secret in any manner like witches are, impossible. Look at Nebula, for example; You can all sit there on your hands and pretend all you want that it wasn't metagaming when, out of the ENTIRE CITY OF OSRONA, a finger was pointed at her and Nox. Out of 60+ PCs, when they were not and had not done anything at all witch-related, they are the ones who got the finger pointed at them. That's not luck. That's sketchy. Especially when Cerise and Sycophant were part of that group and had them too but nobody even thought twice about it. Everyone was so caught up in what they KNEW from their OOC discord friends and what had been shared to them that nobody even second guessed it when she came out as a witch. But on that same note, absolutely nobody looked twice at Cerise or Sycophant before the fact, either.

The situation last night, which I'm ENTIRELY sure spurred this thread, however, is another good example; But for the exact other reason. I'm sorry when I say this and I'm sorry if this offends anybody, but to most people in the Discords I've been invited too, it was quite obvious that Nephele was a witch. I'm sorry if I upset the player, as well, when I say this, but they did not keep it secret. At all. There was minor "hehe i'm posting this for this player!" related things but, overall, legitimately everyone in that Discord knew who the player was and knew that they were a witch, especially after the Crowbert stuff.

What happened, then, is pretty obvious. People don't like Dani, especially in that Discord. People like Nephele's player. So in game, that translated to people jumping through hoops and making massive reaches of logic to accuse Nebula of being a witch.. And on the flip side, when Nephele was accused, that lead to a TON of people immediately rushing to their aid and going "no... no that could never be possible... no....."

But let me get to my major point to all of this, using the above as an example. I've mentioned it earlier, but it's honestly and truly what I think is smothering out this game and destroying antagonism, at least for Witches and Mimics. As said before, I think it's pretty clear.

Metagaming... At least, for the 'major' antagonists. Of course, bandits can still run around and do what they want and shit. This still applies to them but to a lesser extent, as people have a bad habit of talking about their fights in the moment and in some cases even streaming them, which essentially accomplishes the same thing.. Outing them to anybody who will listen.

So, what's my point in all of this, then?

It's not hex that's the problem. It's not mimics and demons being squashed out in legitimate scenes, like last night, that is the problem. The problem is that when these people, especially the two 'stealth' antags(witches and mimics) attempt to do anything, the Discord patrol immediately tries to out them and does their best to out these people to the world. Hexes are roleplayed as if there's something wrong with the player and they make it obvious, in some cases even telling people OOCly that they've been hexed.. People camp outside of the witch cave just to see who comes out of it so they can use it as fuel to kill people and try to cap them once they're in favorable terrain..

The problem with the game isn't that these antagonists are coming in too slowly or that they're too weak. It's that, in the face of an insurmountable amount of people OOCly attempting to find them out, there's nothing for them to do. Once people get their fingers in them OOCly, it will inevitably leak to IC and it's, from there, impossible to tell what they know IC and what they don't. There's no truly honestly easy way to fix this outside of severely changing some rules, but even that doesn't fix the issue with these antagonists getting fucked over. It's why I talk so poorly of the community and why I'm often always the first to criticize whenever an issue is brought up.

I don't know how to fix it. I just know that it's a huge fucking issue.

A game where thirty people can point their fingers at Nebula and call her a witch before she even uses her first hex makes everyone go up and arms and believes them, but one person lays out a solid argument against Nephele(who was known OOCly as well!) and those same thirty people immediately come to her aid in a legitimate scene, going as far as to DM Tattles all sorts of rude things after the fact?

That alone should show you there's something really wrong not necessarily with the state of the game, but with the Community.

The true antagonist, the whole time? It's been in front of our eyes. It's been obvious.

Discord clique chats.