Dormitories & Dragons
Welcome to October! If you've been reading from the beginning, we've gone from the initial stages of creating a gaming club to the first few meetings of the group. Right now, a routine should be appearing and people should be settling down as you head into the middle of the semester. So we'll be shifting away from tasks that you need to do right now to problems you'll likely encounter. This month, we'll talk about the socially maladjusted gamer.
We're all familiar with the horror stories others have told--on RPG.net, these people tend to get the term “catpissmen,” due to the unique and powerful odors they accumulate. While your chances of running into such people in your gaming club, there is a far greater chance that you'll have someone show up who, for whatever reasons they may have, acts in an alienating or inappropriate manner. Some will treat the event as a cosplay con; others will see it as a party. If you're lucky, they won't do anything that gets you into trouble. Your job, as a leader of the group, is to be able to deal effectively with these people and help them to where they want to be--if they want to meet people and create friendships, help them out; If they want to party and ignore the focus of the group, help them out the door.
A caveat before I begin: the definition of “socially awkward or maladjusted” is very subjective, and correcting such issues might end up being more of an exercise in personal preference than actually helping someone who doesn't fit in. Just because you think people who wear fuzzy cat ears to the meeting are stupid doesn't necessarily mean that they're anti-social. People who wear cat ears and start rubbing themselves against other people in an attempt to emulate a cat-person, however, are crossing a personal boundary line. Make sure you can tell the difference, and if you're in doubt, get the opinion of others before dealing with the situation.
The reason you need to be careful is because of the legal position you're in. As a university-sponsored organization, there are certain rules you have to follow, and one of those is likely an anti-discrimination clause. While you probably need to establish some kind of basic requirements for membership (usually that the person be a student, and they have a minimum GPA), you can't refuse someone membership just because they're weird. If they meet your requirements and they've paid their dues, they can be members in your club. This is a bit at odds with the advice given about problematic gamers at the table because, by and large, those are talking about private groups. If someone is being a jerk at one of your games, you can probably refuse to play with him or her, but you can't kick him or her out of the group just for being annoying.
Social Conditions and Behavioral Disorders
(Note: I am not a clinician. I have no training in diagnosing or treating mental or behavioral conditions.)
Recent research (http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/loeppky/index.htm) has found a link between video game playing and people with conditions such as Asperger's Syndrome, showing that many children who exhibit traits of the disorder tend to play video games and MMOs a lot. The research isn't attempting to blame video games for the rise in diagnosis of such conditions, but it does point out that there are traits that MMOs have that make people with behavioral conditions more comfortable, such as the lack of face-to-face communication and the reliance on avatars. Tabletop RPGs have some of the same concepts as well, and because of this, people with behavioral conditions can be attracted to the gaming table, bringing with them some of the difficulties they have with social situations.
I can't speak in a professional sense, but any larger gaming club is likely to have a not-insignificant percentage of their members possess some kind of mental or behavioral condition, such as Asperger's or ADHD. Because of this, knowing how to handle awkward situations and resolve conflicts due to incorrect perceptions of social situations requires some tact and understanding of the underlying causes.
Recognizing the Problem
While RPG players don't suffer from the same social stigmas as they did early in the hobby, some gamers are still drawn to it because of their own social conditions. Some gamers were considered outcasts in high school, or they went to a small school where gaming wasn't cool. When such gamers arrive at college, they may not realize that no one really cares what they do now, and even if they realize it, it often takes a while to sink in. This leads to two general types of problem gamers.
The first type is the kind that continues to act as though they are being watched. This isn't normally a problem in public, but it can lead to a duality where the person acts one way in public and an entirely different way in the gaming session. This kind of person often uses the gaming session as a way to vent frustrations from the real world, and he or she expects everyone else to accept it and move on.
The second type of person is the kind that thinks that if no one else cares what he or she does, than that person will simply be the geeky person he or she always wanted to be. These people move in the opposite direction from the first type--instead of dividing their lives between “the game” and “everything else,” they declare their love of gaming loudly and start pushing their hobby on other people who don't want to be bothered with it. In some rare cases, the games they love and the real world begin to mix, and they start to view real-life situations through the lens of a game, which can lead to increasing difficulty with social perceptions. Most, however, are usually happy to spend all of their time talking games and ignoring anyone who doesn't agree with them.
In either case, the problem tends to stem from an unrecognized difference in social situations; the problem gamer will assume everyone else agrees to what they believe the social norms are. Many of these skewed perceptions are caused by what Michael Suileabhain-Wilson calls the Five Geek Social Fallacies. (http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html) For those who are too tired to click the link, the five fallacies he lists are 1) Ostracizers are Evil, 2) Friends Accept Me As I Am, 3) Friendship Before All, 4) Friendship is Transitive, and 5) Friends Do Everything Together. He explains the consequences of each in his post, and I believe the fallacies cover most of the reasons such gamers tend to act the way they do.
Cleaning Up The Catpiss
If you can't kick someone out of your group, and they refuse to leave, then you need to find a way to solve the problem, which usually means making the offender understand everyone else's point of view. Invite the person to meet with you outside of the regular meeting, preferably in a place where you can talk to him or her without being interrupted; a public place, like the student union, might be a good place if the situation isn't too serious. If you want to have someone along to back you up, that should be fine, but don't make this a group intervention; keep it to one other person at most. If your advisor is active with your group, then the advisor should be the one. Beforehand, take a look at the “Facilitating Group Behavior” and “Counseling” sections from Resources For Leadership, mentioned in the July column.
At the meeting, you want to first disarm any hostility--don't accuse the person of doing something wrong, but do explain that others have become offended by his or her actions, and you want to make sure the situation is dealt with before it escalates. If the person asks for names, don't volunteer them because you're not their on that other person's behalf; your job is to solve the problem in a way that's best for the group, not act as a go-between for the two people.
Once the hostility is dealt with, explain what the reasons are for the problem. It helps here to use a modified version of Rogerian argument; state what you believe the person's position is, ask them to verify or clarify, then state what the other people's position is. Try to get them to understand the reasons between the two, and suggest ways he or she could try and work on the problem. If it's not an issue that can be compromised on, then make sure you discuss why it's not something that can be resolved through compromise, and try to help the person realize why their behavior needs to change.
At some point, larger issues may surface--the person might start admitting to a possible mental illness, or may disclose an abusive history. If the situation escalates to this point, you need to avoid giving advice and end the session. If they need a sympathetic ear, you could perhaps function as that, but encourage the person to get counseling as soon as possible. Many campuses offer free psychological counseling for enrolled students, so emphasize the service and encourage the person to attend. If they seem to be relying on you, tell them politely but firmly that, while you want to be supportive to them, you can't provide the kind of help they need, and that they need to see a professional. Some of you might not want to risk becoming a surrogate to someone in need. If you're one of those types, then don't lead a gaming group, because your job description specifically involves handling these kinds of confrontations.
If the person agrees to make the changes, then your job is mostly done. You should communicate such to the other people in the group discretely if the offender agrees. At this point, your job is hopefully done, but people make mistakes, so you might need to pull the offender aside every so often and correct him or her if the problem rears its head again.
The Self-Diagnosed Asshole
Of course, not everyone has social disorder problems or is interested in fixing them. Some people simply don't care what others think or feel, and they act accordingly. Some people are just jerks. If you've attempted to correct a situation and the person doesn't appear to want to correct the errors he or she made, then it's time to talk to your advisor or the Student Organization office. These resources may be able to give you ways to help deal with a real problem gamer, but since you can't kick someone out just for being a jerk, the only way to deal with it may be to go to the advisor or Student Affairs office and get some mediation. If they can't help, then the best you might be able to do is a cold shoulder--after all, the only stipulation is that they're allowed to join the group, not play in a game. If you don't want said person in your gaming group, you don't need to let them in. Just make sure that what you're doing doesn't carry over to the business part of your meeting; if the offender is a member that meets all the requirements for an office, then you have to let them run for it if they want to. Keep the personal and business parts of your interactions with him or her separate.
Catpissmen Don't Get Old; They Just Ferment
If you're rebuilding a group, this advice doesn't change much, though you may need to take a harder line with older members that continue offensive ways and claim “tradition” as an excuse. More likely, you will need to make sure you have some authority to back up your position. If the “tradition” itself is offense, then you may also be able to appeal to the university's anti-hazing policy; if the action could potentially be considered hazing, then the university will act quickly to end it in order to prevent possible lawsuits.
If you're going to go this route, you need to make sure that the large majority of the group is behind you. If you're fighting three-quarters of the group in order to instigate a change, it will probably be easier to simply report their behavior, leave, and start your own group--rarely is it worth the hassle to reform an entire group without support from its members.
Next month, we'll take a look at a less controversial topic: promotions and spreading the word. We'll talk about the different ways to promote the group, as well as timing your promotions.
October Checklist:
--You've been busy enough with the previous months. Take a little time and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
See you next month!
Alec “Kid Twist” Fleschner
