The Games That People Play

[Drifterwood]

When is a game a harmless game?

When is it dangerous?

Can you spot the dangerous game players? Are they always in breach of the ToS? Should you say if you think that someone is playing games that endanger other members? What about consent? Different levels of sensibility? etc etc. Why should you be a facsimile of who you are in reality?

People play plenty of games IRL, surely the Internet offers even greater scope.

Whose game is this anyway?

 

[D_alex8]

When is a game a harmless game?
When it is consensual, and hurts none of the parties, either the players or the gamemaster.

When is it dangerous?
When it maliciously causes hurt to others, or causes your leg to fall off.

Can you spot the dangerous game players?
Broadly speaking, there are two kinds: the WYSIWYG kind, who wear their psychosis openly; and the more dangerous kind who put up a front of normality despite being equally psychotic beneath the veneer.

Are they always in breach of the ToS?
Under the current rigid interpretation of the TOS, yes. Although your question was evidently more rhetorical in nature.

Should you say if you think that someone is playing games that endanger other members?
Yes, although the individual case may alter whether you have a quiet word in someone's ear, make a public statement, or inform the moderator team.

What about consent? Different levels of sensibility? etc etc.
We all know whether something is fun or something is hurtful to us, though. We can differentiate between playful games and mindgames.

Why should you be a facsimile of who you are in reality?
Nobody said that you should. It's a question of whether anyone gets hurt in the process, though.

People play plenty of games IRL, surely the Internet offers even greater scope.
And in both cases, there can be repercussions, depending on quite what was done.

Whose game is this anyway?
It's an old game with new clothes.

 

[Drifterwood]

Thanks Alex. I broadly agree with what you say.

Some people like dangerous games and even like getting hurt, to which they consent. They are complmented by those who would abuse them. There are some SPH trolls that we have had like this IMO. They are not the harmless ones, but those who are hurt by the humiliation yet they pretend not to be and who knows where they exact their anger. That is one easy example, others get more complicated.

There are those who think you owe them to take part in their games. I am sure the ladies can elaborate as to some str8 guys and I know some gay guys have also been overly pushy.

Then there is the issue as to what you disclose about yourself. You may disclose ten things and so might I, but they could be completely different things. Are your disclosures more honest than mine? to some maybe, to others maybe not. That depends on their perspective and why they are here. Maybe it could be part of the profile. If you are here to hook up then come out and say it, ditto to cam, chat etc etc.

For the record, I am here to flirt harmlessly, have a laugh (I think I can remember that happening) and enjoy some firendly crack on any subject. It's good to remind ourselves of why we are here perhaps.

 

[Deno]

head games, plenty available at LPSG, and head cases too.

 

[Drifterwood]

head games, plenty available at LPSG, and head cases too.

Patently Deno, though they don't seem to wish to discuss it on this thread.

I have often felt that most people avoid the difficult questions. Easier just to bitch no doubt.

 

[rawbone8]

Internet forums seem to attract hyperbolic behaviour, and often reward it. It's a challenge to stand out in a crowd in real life, and potentially easier to do so in a setting where anonymity is a given. Those who chose to be posers can get away with much, and probably see little harm in it.

The head cases we encounter in real life are usually found out much faster, because there are so many more cues to observe. Text on a screen is limiting in that regard.

Even so, some head cases here can be entertaining for a while. Just don't trust them with much, if you can be injured by that disclosure.

Strangers.

 

[ManlyBanisters]

Some people don't even realise they are playing a game though. Some posters clearly don't get the investment others make in a place like this - some (the same ones? others?) think everyone os playing the game and understand the 'rules' (i.e. that nothing online is as it appears).

Some posters clearly get caught up in the atmosphere and sexual tension of a place like this and get carried away - and before they know it they are knee deep in a fantasy and wading out seems impossible without losing it all, so they just wade on in deeper.

Of course none of this game stuff would matter if everybody started in the same place - but we don't. We all come on here, online generally, with different expectations. I believe I'm just the same here as in person, maybe slightly more caustic here, but I don't expect others to be representing themselves as they would in person. I don't expect to be hearing the truth from from everyone. But that's just me, YMMV.

 

[Penis Aficionado]

Does anyone remember back in the early days of what we then called the "World Wide Web," when people first started going to chat rooms and boards to talk about sex? I do, and it pretty much went without saying back then the main reason a person would do that was so they could pretend to be something they were not in real life.

Funny how times change.

 

[eddyabs]

Sometimes I think that LPSG is very much like a children's playground (game playing a plenty), you have the loners, those who are just here to play and have fun, and then you have the boisterous ones, who like to shock and cause controversy. Then you have the kids with the nasty streak, maybe snide, or sarcastic, the court jesters, who are here to amuse...and there's also the bully.

Personally, I'm very honest about who I am, I behave very much as I do in my normal day to day existence. If I witness bad behaviour I will step up and say something, I can't help it, that need to stand up and defend is wired into my make up, and many times here on LPSG I see people bully and abuse and get away with it. I'll call out on that one again and again.

Then again, it's the internet, this is an online forum....we'll more likely never know who's straight up (as recent events have once again highlighted) or who is the faker. I often wonder if we managed to meet all those whom we have befriended, those whom with we have 'bad blood' here on this forum, and those with whom we have good banter...how that would turn out.

 

[B_cigarbabe]

I think I will just say that I mostly agree with DW,and eddyabs and Alex8.
I am the same here as I am in real life. I don't have the time nor the inclination to make up some ridiculous psychotic persona as others are wont to do here.
I also like eddyabs do stand up to the bullies regardless of how much I may be chastised for it. There is no defending picking on those you perceive as weak or inferior to you. Unfortunately hiding behind a keyboard gives many the leeway to act impossibly snide,cruel and malicious whereas in real life they would most likely not say a word to anyone for fear of being beat up and rightly so perhaps.
I'm not advocating beating on anyone but if act out in your real life you may have had your ass whooped.
Of course that would explain the nastiness no?
C.B.:saevil:

 

[D_alex8]

head games, plenty available at LPSG, and head cases too.

Patently Deno, though they don't seem to wish to discuss it on this thread.

Nah, I stepped up and answered right away.

Being given the opportunity for anonymity has of course long caused people to act in a way that they mightn't in real life. There are enough tales from the late 19th-Century of female telephonists having all kinds of lewd remarks made to them over the wires by men taking advantage of the facelessness of the new medium.

In essence, we might say that the anonymity of this virtual realm has the potential to turn any of us into one of those poison-pen letter writers of old, only with the added 'thrill' of doing our writing out in front of an (adoring) audience, all likewise nestled behind the safe façade of their usernames.

HOWEVER, I also think there are people who experience something akin to 'road rage' the second they're logged in to the Internet.

I belong to an online forum for professionals in a certain niche, and we're a sufficiently specialized group that we all pretty much know one another offline anyway. So most of the membership (myself included) post there under their real-life names.

And y'know what? We see many of the identical lowpoints of online behaviour which have been witnessed at LPSG often enough. People who have been esteemed as the gently spoken crème de la crème of our professional niche for decades, posting under their real names while trolling and bating others. One guy who has been incredibly well-respected as a kind of libertarian-minded leader in our field since the 1980s, openly belittling others on account of their ethnicity or sexuality, and doing so under his real name. And even a big ole fake death drama within the past six months, by a well-known figure, again using his real name.

Those experiences really lead me to suspect that anonymity is merely part of what's at play here.

 

[Deno]

Sometimes I think that LPSG is very much like a children's playground (game playing a plenty), you have the loners, those who are just here to play and have fun, and then you have the boisterous ones, who like to shock and cause controversy. Then you have the kids with the nasty streak, maybe snide, or sarcastic, the court jesters, who are here to amuse...and there's also the bully.

Personally, I'm very honest about who I am, I behave very much as I do in my normal day to day existence. If I witness bad behaviour I will step up and say something, I can't help it, that need to stand up and defend is wired into my make up, and many times here on LPSG I see people bully and abuse and get away with it. I'll call out on that one again and again.

Then again, it's the internet, this is an online forum....we'll more likely never know who's straight up (as recent events have once again highlighted) or who is the faker. I often wonder if we managed to meet all those whom we have befriended, those whom with we have 'bad blood' here on this forum, and those with whom we have good banter...how that would turn out.

I sort of agree with you, but I feel its more like a dog park then a playground. It seems more people are here to claim and mark territory. Quickly to bite and snap at anyone who makes even the most nonaggression move. Passes on there flees without caring how they make other peoples skin crawl. They also insist on sticking there nose where it does not belong. It also seems like some think they are a pure breed where others are simply mutts.

 

[HazelGod]

Does anyone remember back in the early days of what we then called the "World Wide Web," when people first started going to chat rooms and boards to talk about sex? I do, and it pretty much went without saying back then the main reason a person would do that was so they could pretend to be something they were not in real life.

Funny how times change.

Indeed it is.

I'll go back a step farther, before the advent of the idiot-crutch that we all know and love as the browser...online interaction like this existed (and probably still does for the die-hards) on UseNet newsgroups. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that the participants were pioneers in the geek sense and tended toward higher intelligence, but duplicity and trollishness were the odd exception...for the most part, the posters in newsgroups (Elf Sternberg @ alt.sex, anyone?) were forthright about themselves and their topics of discussion. Posing and posturing were practically unheard-of.

It's only been since the WWW and GUI operating systems and browsers made message boards available to the point-and-click crowd that such lunacy has become the norm.

 

[Not_Punny]

Personally, I'm rather fond of Scrabble, but monogamy... I mean monopoly... meh.

Oh! You weren't talking about THOSE kinds of games.

My bad.

 

[Gillette]

When is a game a harmless game?

When is it dangerous?

Ask these.